Murder at Longbourn by Tracy Kiely Page A

other guests had repeated Gerald’s exact words.
    Detective Stewart thumbed through his notebook, apparently in search of something. Finding it, he tapped his blunt forefinger against the page and said, “I have here that Mr. Ramsey was usinghis influence with the zoning board to put your aunt out of business and threatened your aunt regarding the inn.”
    Shit. I had little doubt who would have repeated that bit of information to the police and I silently cursed Jackie. “Threatened?” I said, with what I hoped was an authentic tone of disbelief. “Mr. Ramsey was, I suppose, confident in his skills as a persuader, but he clearly didn’t know my aunt. She loves this place.”
    Even before he continued, I knew I had phrased that badly, but still, the starkness of his next words took me by surprise. “Enough to kill for it?”
    “No!” I said, scrambling to undo the damage. “You’ve got it all wrong.” My mouth went dry and my heart hammered in my chest. The police couldn’t suspect Aunt Winnie. It was absurd! “My aunt is the sweetest woman I know! As a kid, she wouldn’t even let me kill spiders in her house. Yes, she loves this inn, but she’s not insane. And besides, she’s not the kind of woman to let herself be pushed around by someone like Mr. Ramsey. She can take care of herself.” I realized I was shouting and struggled to compose myself.
    Detective Stewart said nothing but raised his left eyebrow again, a trick I found increasingly irritating. “So, by your account,” he said slowly, “your aunt, who was being bullied by the deceased, could have had nothing to do with this, despite the fact that the murder took place in her home after she turned out the lights? In short—according to you—she is a harmless woman, incapable of violence.”
    “Yes,” I said emphatically, even as some far-flung memory swam to the surface of my consciousness. Hadn’t there been a terrible altercation between Aunt Winnie and a friend’s husband long ago? As the details came back to me, I inwardly blanched. But surely the police here couldn’t know about that, could they? And besides, that had been a completely different situation. In that case, Aunt Winnie’sactions had been justified—almost noble, in fact. But to someone of limited imagination—I sized up Detective Stewart and sighed—it could look damning. I resolved to say nothing of the incident.
    “Besides,” I continued in a calmer voice, “how do you even know that Gerald was the intended victim? I mean, it was pitch-dark in the room. Any one of us could have been shot.”
    “We considered that possibility, Ms. Parker. However, there is no question that Mr. Ramsey was the intended victim. We found a piece of reflective tape, the kind that glows in the dark, on Mr. Ramsey’s suit coat. That was probably the green flash you saw. It is our theory that the murderer put the tape on Mr. Ramsey to ensure that he, or she, wouldn’t have any trouble hitting the target once the lights went out. Derringers generally hold only one or two shots. Our killer couldn’t risk wasting bullets.”
    “Then you believe that one of the guests did this? There’s a door to the outside in the dining room. Someone could have opened the door, shot Gerald, and then run off.”
    “Yes. Funny enough, but we actually came up with that possibility on our own, Ms. Parker. However, unless you are suggesting our murderer can fly, I don’t think that theory works. While there are footprints in the snow just outside the door, there are no tracks leading away from the house. Furthermore, the footprints outside the door were not fresh. A significant amount of snow had fallen on top of them. So much so that it seems unlikely that an intruder made them at the time in question. Did you happen to see anyone go outside during the evening?” he asked.
    “Yes, actually. Joan Anderson and Polly Ramsey went outside.”
    “Do you know about what time that might have been?”
    I tried