I didn’t tell the kids my other intention but after they hung up I placed a call in to David White, in the hopes his day had not yet ended. I had to leave a message and had no expectation of hearing from him until the next day, but while I was fixing myself an omelet he called back.
After the formalities and each of us apologizing for bothering the other, I asked him if the police had checked the local motels for interesting guests on the night before Mrs. Marsh’s death. He was obviously stunned.
“Sally, what on earth are you getting at?”
“Look, I don’t know what your investigation has uncovered, and certainly have no right to, but you have encouraged me to keep in touch with you and this is what I see, from what I know.” He got my hypothesis about Mrs. Marsh’s visitor being someone she knew before she moved to Hanley. “And if that’s true, did anyone with a British accent stay nearby the night before she died. Surely the local hotel clerks would remember the accent.”
There was a moment of contemplation on his part. “Rather than discuss this any further over the phone, why don’t you stop by the station to see me personally?”
”Then you’re still working on this case, aren’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Alright. I am free most of tomorrow. Will that do?”
It would. He would see me right after lunch. My search through the books from my neighbor’s house might give me something more to present to the detective by then.
For over three hours I looked through the volumes Mrs. Marsh had brought with her from New Jersey. About an hour into it, Anne Carey called. Like myself she hadn’t gotten into a closer look at Amelia’s personal property until this day, preoccupied with other commitments. After reading a few personal letters she called me. We decided to meet at her house the following evening to compare notes. She invited me to come early enough to share a meal with her first and I accepted.
There was a lot to be learned from my Thursday interview with Detective White, and later from my visit with Anne Carey. It would be a little while before I realized just how much.
Showing up at the police station at twelve forty-five, and shown immediately into the same office I was now visiting for the third time, I sat back into the same chair and had the odd sensation of beginning to feel familiar with the place. Was this good or bad?
I accepted the cup of coffee I was offered. Of course it was in a paper cup, but it was surprisingly good.
“Times have changed,” grinned David White when I complimented him on it. ”Nowadays everyone wants drinkable coffee. We even keep hot water and tea bags.”
I laughed, but we dispensed with further small talk and got to the issue.
“In answer to your question of last night,” the officer leaned forward over his desk, “the answer is yes. We did check the guest registers at all of the motels here in town and off the highway for anyone who might interest us in this investigation. So far that hasn’t turned up anything.” I opened my mouth but before I could ask he added, “did we ask the night clerks if any of their check-ins for the Monday and Tuesday nights before the murder had British accents? No, we didn’t.”
“But almost anyone around here, especially this time of year, would have remembered that,” I pointed out.
“I can’t argue with that. And, I have put a man on it today. He will go back and re-interview those clerks.”
“Is there anything else?” he asked politely as I sipped my coffee.
“In fact there is. Last night I went through those boxes of books you and Mr. Harmon brought over. There was a Bible in one of the boxes, but it was hardly used.”
The officer looked at me without expression.
“So,” I went on, “Mrs. Marsh was an active member of her church. She attended services and Sunday school regularly. She must have had another Bible, one she used. Where is it?”
He leaned back in his chair and took a deep sigh, eyeing me as I did my children when they have asked me a question I can’t answer, and wish they hadn’t asked.
“Have you asked Miss Carey about that?”
“Not yet, but I intend to. She’s invited me over tonight for dinner.” I didn’t tell him what else we had planned for the evening.
“Well if she has the answer, and for sure if she doesn’t, please let me know.”
“Are these meetings going to be a weekly thing?” I asked him impishly. Sometimes one cannot help it. “If so, maybe I should bring the brownies.”
“Oh, feel free,” he said, a tad dryly, “as long as there is a murderer to be caught in the case of Amelia Marsh and you keep having these revelations, we’ll have conferences.”
“If Miss Carey has anything new maybe I should invite her, too,” I quipped again, but then relented. “Seriously, I do not want to take any of your time unless it seems important. I don’t mean to be trite. This is very important to me.”
“It is very important, period,” David White agreed, “and much as I hate to be shown up by an amateur, you have given me some things to think about. Ah, is there anything else?”
“Not yet.”
He gave me a look I could not decipher and personally saw me to the door.
I had never been in Miss Carey’s home before. She was right. It was cluttered. There was too much furniture, too many plants, and every bit of wall space was covered with photographs, pictures, two mirrors, and shelves of collectibles. I looked with interest at the Hummel figurines and miniature bears, sipping a cup of raspberry tea while my hostess finished her preparations for our dinner. When she called me to the table I carefully stepped around a large footstool and around Yippy, who had decided to be a friendly companion. She kept her furry little body within a couple of inches of my ankles at all times.
The little canine was scolded gently as we sat down. She moved back about six more inches and parked herself on the floor under the table, giving me room enough to cross my legs.
The dining room table, big enough to seat six, had been used for research before the meal. My hostess didn’t think it was necessary to remove all the paperwork so we could eat. She simply moved it all to one side, making room for our place settings and the food. Between us on a thick potholder sat a small, steamy casserole. The aroma drifting from it was delicious.
“Scallops and cheddar,” my hostess announced rather proudly, and then added in sudden revelation, “oh! I didn’t think to ask. You do like seafood? I should have asked you first. And some people have seafood allergies, too.”
“No, no,” I laughed and reassured her, “no allergies here, and I love scallops. It smells wonderful.”
She also had a fruit salad and rolls. It was a good thing I would be up for awhile to digest all of this.
“I don’t usually eat so much for the last meal of the day,” she added, as if able to read my mind, “but it is a pleasure to have someone to cook for tonight.”
While dishing up, Miss Carey asked me if I had become a celebrity at the hospital, living next door to a murder scene and discovering the body.
“Only a couple of people mentioned it,” I replied, buttering my roll. “We were so busy the one night I’ve been there since last Wednesday, there wasn’t much time to talk about it. And to tell you the truth, in spite of the publicity all last week, the chances are only a few people even know. Some of my co-workers don’t live around here, and for sure some of them don’t bother to read the newspaper.”
Miss Carey seems surprised by this. “But surely they listen to the radio,” she protested, “and it was on the local news on television, too.”
I shrugged. “It does not hurt my feelings. Working nights has many advantages as far as I am concerned.”
Shifting gears I asked her, “What was that business all about with the pastor of your church? When did he suddenly ask you to take his place settling Amelia’s personal effects?”
“Why, at the fellowship hall, of course, following the funeral. He apologized for the sudden request, but told me he had not remembered until Saturday, Marie, that’s Mrs. Southby, could not be there, and he did not feel comfortable with overseeing the affairs of a lady of the church without his wife involved. He said both he and Marie had decided it would be more appropriate for me to take charge. They both approached me but he did the talking.”
I happily dug into the delicious entrée and listened without making a comment. Miss Carey took a few bites of her own, and added without prompting, “On the chance of you thinking me an old gossip, Sally, I’ll tell you the truth. The Southbys have a daughter in college in Terre Haute. The girl was very upset they had a funeral on Sunday afternoon. She had arranged a special supper with her boyfriend and his family. Marie promised her they would both make it come hell—oops; excuse the choice of words—or high water. The Reverend thought he could make it in time for dessert and some socialization, but his girls weren’t having it. The man was desperate!”
We both laughed shamelessly. “Miss Carey, I will not ask you where you got your information, but I don’t doubt it for a minute. Why do you suppose he didn’t just tell you the truth?”
“You will never get my sources,” Miss Carey said righteously, suppressing a grin. “And he did tell the truth, in a way, because Marie would not put her precious girl off for settling an elderly parishioner’s affairs, so she would never have been there. It really is better the way it turned out, since I had you there to help me.”
“It worked out fine.” It also proved once again, I thought, that clergy were just as human as everyone else.
Miss Carey told me it was time I called her Anne. I enjoyed every morsel of her meal. We spent another half an hour eating and chatting about a variety of subjects. Having lived in the Hanley area most of her life, Anne Carey was a wealth of information about the town and its people. As with almost any modern community, this one had undergone many changes. It was her opinion Hanley had come through better than many, still remaining a small town, albeit one now flanked on two sides by larger ones. She had taught two generations of Hanleyites at the high school before going full time into administration, retiring after eight more years of service. Upon my query she said, yes, she had done some traveling. As it turned out we had both visited Hong Kong in the eighties. It was fun to compare notes.
While another pot of tea was brewing, we set up for business. Yippy watched curiously but successfully avoided our feet while we cleared away the dishes.
Anne pushed the papers back to the center of the table. I pulled my own notes out of my purse and faced her across the table, prepared to compare our research and conclusions.
“You first,” I urged. “What did you find useful and interesting in the photo album and that box of personal effects?”
“There were many things that were interesting that may not be particularly useful,” Miss Carey began, putting on a professional tone. She flipped open the cover to her own note pad to reveal numerical statements and questions, all arranged in orderly rows in a small neat script. My handwriting would place a poor second place.
“Since they have Amelia’s birth certificate and passport, we could have asked her lawyers where she was actually born,” Anne Carey began, “but that isn’t necessary now. I already knew her birthday, of course, which was the twentieth of March, but the personal effects told me she was born in Stafford, and her maiden name was Tucker.
“It seems to me,” she continued, “Amelia deliberately condensed her memories, photo wise, into this one album. She must have had many more pictures at one time.” She pulled the album out of the paper pile. It was large, black, and plain.
“It’s out of character for her, this album,” I remarked. “I would have expected a needlepoint cover or something else with a feminine touch.”
Anne agreed with me. Together we looked through the album. The first four had photos of her early years, and included one of Amelia as a pretty young woman posing for a portrait. We both thought she was about eighteen. I was fascinated by her beautiful dress, a creamy lacy affair at the height of the fashion of its day. It suited her small frame, as did the soft hairdo waving over her brow. Her large light colored eyes looked innocent but expectant.
On a fresh sheet of paper I copied information that could be important for our research. First, there was Mrs. Marsh’s birth into a well to do farming family in Staffordshire in 1915. She had at least one sibling, an older sister. At some point during the Second World War she had moved to London where she met Leonard Marsh. She married him in April 1946, and left England with him shortly after. My cohort had gleaned this information from labels on the back of some of the pictures, and from her search through the box of mementos. Oddly, there were no wedding photographs.
“I remember she told me her mother died when she was nineteen. She must have talked about her father once or twice, because I want to say he was fond of horses. Also, I want to say she had more siblings, but cannot put any specific names to them. Look at these two pictures.” She pointed to the photos on the second page. One was of two tall, rugged looking adolescent boys in riding attire, facing the camera, their handsome steeds loosely held on reins at their sides. The other picture was more of a family shot taken out on the lawn. There were nine individuals in this one, ranging from one very elderly lady to two young girls, four male and five female in all.
“These two could be Amelia’s parents,” Anne’s long thin finger pointed out a handsome, sober, woman, perhaps in her thirties, sitting primly in front of an imposing gentleman some years older, his hand on her shoulder. “The two young men over here could be these same two with the horses, don’t you think? That picture was taken earlier. I suppose the others are various relatives, and the youngest girl certainly looks to be Amelia.”
I scrutinized both photos and could agree with Miss Carey’s guesses, but like her was not positive of her conclusions. “Have you compared this group picture with the one Mrs. Marsh had in her sitting room?” I asked helpfully. “If this is her mother, she should not look too different a few years later. I’m inclined to think this is her.”
“I didn’t pick it up off of the table,” my companion admitted regretfully, “but I am hoping Mr. Harmon took it with him. I intend to find out.” We turned the pages and she went on, “There is a big gap of time between this portrait style picture taken in the late twenties and the casual snapshots taken during the war.”
I gazed at the pictures. The one at the top of the page was of four young people. Amelia and Leonard with June Fisk and her husband, Anne said. There was Amelia, as attractive as ever and even more so here because she was in love. The way she and Leonard looked at each other left no doubt as to the nature of affection between them. June was tall for a girl, especially of the forties, and full figured. She had been more handsome than pretty, with a heavy mane of dark hair. Her companion was in uniform. Leonard was wearing a suit.
“I see what you mean. There is a time span missing here of, say, twelve years or so.” I paused and perused the photos silently. “You don’t think Mr. Marsh was active duty in the military?”
“One has to wonder. In those days the young men wore their uniforms most of the time. But there were civilian Americans in London during the war in other capacities. I don’t remember her saying what he did professionally. Odd, really, when you think about it. What I do remember is where they met. She said they met in a pub. She was with a group of girls, and he asked her to dance.”
I drummed my fingers on her table. “We seem to be coming up with more questions than answers here. What else do you have?”
She consulted her notes. “Let’s stay in London for a moment. Amelia kept two letters from another young woman named Meg. They were roommates at one time, and workmates, too. They are lengthy, and eliminating the personal gossip, refer to a decision Amelia made. The decision is never spelled out, but there are also a few letters Leonard wrote to her when he was away from London, and three times he also mentions this decision without referring to it specifically.”
Abruptly my hostess got up and fetched the teapot from the stove. She put the teabags into the pot of boiling water to steep, placed the pot and cups on the table by rearranging the paperwork again, and continued. “Isn’t it odd no one ever says what it is Amelia has to decide? It must have been extremely important, and very delicate. You must understand in those days people were not so blunt about things as they are now.” She smiled, “Even the love letters from Leonard are more discreet than what you can hear now on television.”
“What you can hear on modern television isn’t very discreet at all,” I commented, “but I get your point. From everything you’ve read and looked at, do you have any idea what this big secret was?”
“Well, one always has ideas,” she admitted, putting a dab of cream in her teacup.
I sat back in the dining room chair and waited for her to come clean. Anne methodically removed the tea bags from the pot and remarked how Mrs. Marsh had taught her to make a much better cup of tea. She poured us both a cup and gave me a small smile.
“Amelia grew up in a very traditional proper English household. During the middle of the war, in her late twenties, she came to London to work. I don’t think her family approved, and I don’t think they approved of Leonard Marsh, either. My guess is, she chose marrying him over the wishes of her family.”
After a long pause and a few sips of tea I replied, “That seems far fetched to me, because I know so many English girls did marry Americans during the war. But I would not understand the thinking of the kind of family she may have come from. Would that explain why there’s no indication there was any more contact with her family after she married?” I thought again and added, “But it still doesn’t seem right. Breaking from her family may have been hard, but what was so ‘delicate’ about it, as you say. And usually people get over their hurts after a while and make up.”
Miss Carey admitted she did not know the answer to that. But there was something else odd about Mrs. Marsh’s life. The twenty years following her marriage were also sparsely documented. A few pages of photographs and a few letters from the Fisks and others, revealed Leonard and Amelia had traveled extensively and lived abroad. They had spent time in France, Germany, India, and Hong Kong, at the very least, before settling on the eastern seaboard of the United States.
My own digging supported this. There were cookbooks, atlases, and travel logs among the books from all of those countries among the books I looked through. Although neither one of us had been aware of it, from the notes and grease spots in the pages of some of the cookbooks, Mrs. Marsh had enjoyed Chinese cooking at one time in her life.
“But no Chinese artwork or furnishings,” I mused, puzzled. “How could someone spend that much time living abroad and not accumulate more to show for it?”
“The hutch had some linens that came from Hong Kong,” Anne mused, “and a few of the teapots were from the east, too, although of course they can be purchased in the United States as well, or in England.”
“My friend George thinks Mrs. Marsh just got tired of having so many material things. That would be the simplest explanation why she left so much behind when she left New Jersey,” I shared with my friend. “I can relate to that, to a point. Six months after my husband died, I woke up one morning and decided I had to start life over, for myself. I put the house we had lived in together on the market. It sold quickly. When I left and moved here I never looked back. I chose a few things that had special memories for me, and what furniture I needed to furnish my new home. The rest I gave away or sold. But if I disappeared tomorrow, any stranger going through the closets would find three times as much evidence to show what my life was like than what we have found out about Mrs. Marsh, and she had thirty plus more years of living than I do. It seems so odd. And for crying out loud, what did her husband do for a living? It’s like a huge secret!”
“One is tempted to think he was in some kind of secret service or something,” Miss Carey said seriously, but with the humorous glint in her eye I was coming to recognize.
“If you were Jane Marple and I was your nephew, Raymond, he would be,” I quipped back. Miss Carey chortled to that.
“But somebody had to do those clandestine things,” I added, “and it is possible. There must be a way for us to find out.”
“I have got one piece to our puzzle I can put into place,” Anne said brightly, “and this piece may lead to others.” She paused briefly for dramatic effect, and I looked at her with the expectation she wanted.
“I found out the married name of June and Eric Fisk’s daughter, Elaine!” After I clapped and gave a “bravo,” she added, “It is Barclay. And how do you think I got it?”
“With you,” I said with a grin, “the field is wide open.”
“From Betty, the hairdresser!” she said triumphantly. “I remembered that when Elaine visited the summer before last, she had her hair cut at Amelia’s hair dresser. I thought perhaps Betty kept a card on it, you know they usually do, and sure enough.”
“Brilliant! Did Betty happen to have anything to add?”
“Well, she wanted to know why I was asking, that was obvious. A nice young woman, Betty, and always so good to Amelia, but was always very curious. Amelia used to find it amusing and didn’t mind. I told her we wanted to inform Elaine of Amelia’s death, and she found that natural enough. She even volunteered the name of the town in Texas she thought she still lived in. Wasn’t that nice of her?”
“Very,” I said devoutly, “that would save us a lot of time.”
Anne peered down at her notes to assure herself she remembered correctly. “Athens. Betty remembered because she has a sister who lives in Athens, New York. How very sad.”
“Sad? Why?” I did not follow.
“It would be nice if Athens was remembered because of Greece, don’t you think?”
It was hard not to smile. “You have a point. Now I wish Betty knew the name of Elaine’s husband. I wonder how many Barclays there are in Athens, Texas.”
“I don’t mind calling telephone information tomorrow and find out,” my hostess said generously. She lifted her teacup to her lips and added in a more pensive mode, “This would not be necessary if we had Amelia’s appointment book. She had her addresses in the back.”
I lifted my own teacup and looked directly into Miss Carey’s eyes over the top of it and said casually, “That reminds me. You wouldn’t know what became of Mrs. Marsh’s Bible, would you?”