Four-thirty in the afternoon found me plopped on my hotel room bed, telephone in hand, coffee cup on the bedside table. My raincoat was hanging in the bathroom to dry, my boots were doing the same on the mat by the door, and the coffee kindly provided by the front desk was chasing away any lingering chill. The steamy stuff plus my note pad and a pen were all within reach.
Mr. John Beeson answered and listened to my introduction. He told me his wife would be home by five, could she return my call? I said yes and she did, but in the end my interview with Margaret Beeson came to naught. In spite of my best efforts she was stiff and brusk. She was also hard of hearing and told me to please speak up, which I did, but that didn’t help. I never knew if the lady didn’t believe me, didn’t like Amelia, or just didn’t feel like contributing, but there it was. What little she was willing to share I knew already, and it was clear a personal interview would not be welcome. I thought George would be disappointed in me. The Beesons were a washout.
Readjusting the pillows behind my back, it seemed to me the east coast portion of my investigation had come to a dead end. Leonard Marsh had died over ten years earlier at the age of eighty. Five years later his wife sold their home, broke all connections, and moved to the mid-west to be closer to her long time friend, June Fisk. Most of the people they had known were gone, dead or moved away. I had managed to contact two ladies who had known her fairly well, but neither one had been privy to her most private knowledge or thoughts. It was likely no one had been. Amelia had probably carried many of her secrets to her grave, and maybe the name of the person who had killed her, too.
But still, I had learned a few things and confirmed some previous information.
After talking to Margaret Beeson it was late enough to start the calls to update my friends and family in Indiana.
I gave my son an itinerary of where I could be reached until leaving for London, and the name of my hotel on the night of my arrival there as well, waiting patiently while he wrote everything down. When he asked if I had anything more to tell, I told him not really, but that I had high hopes for England, which was not entirely true, but I was being optimistic.
“Gram'ma called here last night, looking for you,” my son volunteered. “She wasn’t too happy when she found out you were on a trip without telling her you were going.”
“Oh, oh. Did you smooth the troubled waters?” Drat. My mother usually didn’t call all that often, but she thought it was her right to be kept up to date on the affairs of her children.
“As best I could,” he said wryly, “but I would say you are in deep doo-doo.”
I told him I would handle that when I got home, not inclined to add my mother to the list of evening phone conversations.
My next call was to Anne Carey. She got an almost verbatim report on my visit with Grace Wheddle. Anne thought Amelia had mentioned the Wheddles once or twice, and putting a name to Amelia’s sister interested her.
“Do you have any ideas on other lines of enquiry out here?” I asked her advice.
“Maybe Leonard Marsh wasn’t so closed mouthed about his professional life after he retired,” she mused. “Could any of his friends still be living?”
That thought had occurred to me also. “But where would I start; with the government again or maybe the nursing homes? It would take time, and seems like an overwhelming project.”
She admitted there were problems. She also said she wished she could come with me to England so I wouldn’t have to go alone. “Next time”, I told her with a smile, “when the weather is better and you can enjoy it. Had she heard anymore from George?”
As a matter of fact she had, just the night before, and he left a message I was to call him before leaving the country. Anne did not know why, but thought she would find out after I did. George seemed to think I should be the first to know, whatever it was.
On that encouraging note I said goodbye to dear Anne and dialed George’s number. No answer. I got up to get a cold glass of water, took a peek out the window—dark, but by the outside lights, no longer raining—and tried the number again. I was successful this time.
“Tell me what you have, George,” I said without preamble. “I’m getting hungry.”
“Shoot, you’re lucky to get up with me at all,” he pointed out grumpily. “I’m only home because of the weather.”
“Oh? Nobody mentioned the weather.”
“Well, it’s rainy, windy, and cold.”
“Sounds delightful. Here it’s only cold. The rainy windy part seems to be over.”
“From what I hear about the British Isles weather this time of year, you’ll get plenty of all three. You are still going?”
“I am. I bought an umbrella today. I just finished talking to Anne and she says you wanted to tell me something?”
“Yup, and it’s pretty good. It may be worth bringing me back some of those genuine English scones.”
“Really? If it’s good you can count on the scones, name your flavor.”
It was good. After my basically disappointing day it was an energy booster. It had been weeks since I had asked George to try and find a line from Amelia Marsh’s maiden name and the county where she had lived growing up. His efforts finally paid off.
“The whole process has been like a pass the torch footrace,” George explained. “I’ve had to wait for one person to contact another, and for the third or forth person to find the time to explore the local records. Very interesting, though.”
“You have been on your own treasure hunt again,” I commented, feeling very magnanimous.
“What I got was confirmation of where Mrs. Marsh was born. Her birth was recorded at the time of her baptism in the records of a church in Stafford, Church of England. Once I had that, I asked if there were any other Tuckers also listed. You were right; there were two older brothers, born to the same father, but a different mother. She died in childbirth, and three years later Mr. Garrison Tucker married Caroline Hinson, and there are two recorded births from their marriage. Three plus years before your friend, there was another girl born, Mary Louise.”
As George read his report I copied down everything he told me.
“This is good,” I complimented. Not to be ungrateful, but I was hoping for even more information. There was more.
“Now what I really thought you would like to know,” he went on, “is I think the sister is still alive. She will be eighty-four next month. Her marriage took place in that same church, in 1933. There is a place in the registry for deaths, and both of the brothers are deceased, and the parents, too, of course. The sister is no longer a local resident, but my English contact says if she’s gone her death should be noted. Apparently there are locals who like to keep up with that sort of thing.”
George kept reading. “Mary Tucker married a man named Stephen Whitaker, and they had two children baptized in the same church before moving their membership to Coventry, after the war. The Coventry church has record of two more Whitaker baby baptisms, and the death of Stephen Whitaker in 1988.”
“But no record of the death of Mary,” I finished for him.
“Exactly. I can’t tell you where she lives, although maybe with more time I could find out if she still lives in that county. Sorry, there’s nothing else in the records from either church about either one of the Marsh sisters.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Too bad Amelia and Leonard’s marriage isn’t recorded in one of the church records. It wouldn’t be unusual for her marriage to miss the local registry would it? They were married in London. Were the marriages of her brothers listed?”
They had been, although one of them got married in Scotland. George had been told by his English contacts the records of births, marriages, and deaths were more up to date before the war, when the majority of people lived their lives where they were born, and if they did leave, they had family who remained to keep the information current. I asked George if he had the dates of the deaths of Amelia’s parents. He did so I copied that information also.
Now I had the married name of Amelia’s older sister. There was a good chance Mary still lived, and perhaps other more distant family members and old neighbors, as well. When you put it all together, I had learned several facts since boarding that airplane in Indiana. I thanked George sincerely and promised he would have an abundance of scones.
“I didn’t even know you liked them,” I commented.
“Don’t know if I do. I never had one.”
The next day, Friday, I had a number of small details to attend to before leaving the country. The flight was all arranged in Virginia, and I made certain my passport was in order before leaving home. I still needed to call the airline to make sure there had been no changes in flight times, confirm my reservations at the hotel I would stay in near the airport, plan my itinerary to give myself plenty of time to turn in my rental car, etcetera. There was also the matter of several days of dirty laundry.
It was almost eight-thirty and I was thinking about breakfast when the phone next to the bed rang. That was a surprise. Surprise turned to astonishment when I picked up the receiver.
“Is this Mrs. Nimitz?” asked a throaty voice on the other end of the line. I admitted the same.
“Mrs. Nimitz, we hope you’ll forgive us for bothering you like this, but we, that is my husband Ed, my sister and myself, heard you were here and inquiring about Amelia and Leonard Marsh.”
“That would be correct,” I acknowledged politely. “How did you know?”
“Well, John, that is John Beeson, called Ed yesterday and told him about your call to their house. He and Ed both played cards with Leonard sometimes, years ago. I was in the garden club for a number of years myself, although I haven’t been now for awhile.” She paused and then added suddenly, “Do forgive me! I haven’t even told you my name. I am Ellen Thayer, Mrs. Edwin Thayer. My sister, Dolly, knew the Marshes, too. She lives with us now.”
This could be interesting.
“Mrs. Thayer, you actually went through the trouble of finding out where I am staying to talk to me about the Marshes?”
She reminded me I had given my whereabouts to the Beesons, both address and phone number at the inn. I told her frankly but nicely that the Beesons were not interested in talking to me.
“Oh don’t mind them, dear,” she soothed me. “Margaret is getting old and a little grouchy; forgetful sometimes, too. John just goes along with what she wants, less trouble that way, you know.”
‘I would love to take you, your husband, and your sister to lunch,” I ventured, “if you would care to chat with me about old times with the Marshes.”
Mrs. Thayer cooed in delight, but had to consult with the other two, both of them close at hand. It was unanimous. Then it took a few moments to decide on where we should rendezvous and to give me directions on how to get there.
I was spending a lot of time with the geriatric set, something new for me. The experience was mostly positive so far.
My assumption had been we would lunch together at the dining room of a historic hotel or perhaps a local diner with an established reputation for good food. I was surprised to follow my directions to a new plaza still partially under construction. The large restaurant was cafeteria style. The Thayers and Dolly flagged me down as I entered, one of the ladies waving her hankie from her wheelchair.
We analyzed each other. What I saw were three people over seventy, and it was a good guess the married couple would never see eighty again. All peered at me through glasses, and Ed held out a hand for me to shake. After doing so I leaned over to give a gentle squeeze to a hand in the wheelchair, who identified herself as Ellen. Dolly, the most reserved of the trio, gave me a small smile with a nod. No one said specifically why she lived with her sister. In the course of our dialogue there were references to children, most of who lived out of state, but it was never clear how the offspring lined up. Thinking about them afterward I suspected Dolly assisted with housekeeping and Ellen’s care. Ellen’s limbs bore the unmistakable signs of advancing rheumatoid arthritis.
As it turned out I gave them more information than they gave me. But I enjoyed myself. For an hour and a half we chatted over fairly good food and drink. The surroundings were pleasant, with a contemporary mural of the seacoast covering one of the walls, and the rest of the décor done in restful blues, beige, and greens. They had come early and gotten a table in the corner, assuring us of a fair amount of privacy.
Ed, Ellen, and Dolly, as they insisted I call them, were curious. When they found out someone had come to town that had known their old friend, they wanted to know why. They wanted to know what happened to her. All had stories to tell of how and when they had known both the Marshes. The stories lined up with everything I knew about them myself. I learned a bit of trivia that was new, such as Leonard enjoyed baseball and followed the New York Giants. For years he was part of a monthly poker game, small stakes of course. Amelia had often hosted the club meetings of the organizations she belonged to, serving delicious lunches or afternoon coffees. She did not become reclusive after the death of her husband, but was not as active or social as she had been. Dolly and Ellen, I thought, were among those friends Amelia had enjoyed but never revealed much of herself to. Like she had with many other people through the course of her life, she walked away from them without strings, and, apparently without regret. It would not be surprising if Anne had never heard of them. I would ask her.
Dolly had counted June Fisk as a friend and asked me about her. She smiled sadly when informed June was also gone. At this time of life death was no stranger to these people but that didn’t mean it was easy.
I was in a mental quandary about whether it was a good idea to tell these elderly people their old friend had met a violent end. I mulled over it as they chatted on in their memories. Ed was finishing his beef stew and a recollection of Leonard’s funeral when Ellen asked me point blank.
“So what is it that brought you back here, Sally? What happened?”
When backed into a corner, go with your instincts. First I explained my next-door neighbor’s status, and told them about my two p.m. appointment on that fateful Wednesday. Carefully moving on, they heard the unedited version, albeit not every specific detail. They were stunned, dismayed, and nonetheless very interested. More questions were asked, all of which I answered to the best of my ability.
“But surely you didn’t come back east thinking you could find Amelia’s murderer here?” Dolly asked that.
I didn’t admit I had hoped so, only saying as I had before, I wanted to know more about Amelia and Leonard, who seemed to have led such fascinating lives, and I decided to take some vacation time and do so.
“What a wonderful gesture, dear,” beamed Ellen. “They were like that. Something about them rather mysterious, although I couldn’t put my finger on it, exactly.”
I had omitted from my story the facts we now knew about Leonard’s occupation. That, I decided, would have been too much and would serve no useful purpose.
In another half an hour we parted amicably. Ed asked me what my plans were now. I told them I was going on to England, which met with unanimous approval. Ellen dug a pen and piece of paper out of her purse and gave it to Ed. He wrote down their address and phone number, urging me to contact them again when I returned.
“We haven’t been much help, have we?” Ed said regretfully. “Seems like you know someone, then you realize you really don’t”
That pretty well summed up Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Marsh.