Dance With the Dead by H.P. Mallory

Chapter Four

The Bull

There were precedents for writers of detective and mystery fiction getting involved in real-life crimes, both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie had done so with varying degrees of success.

Whether or not either of those genre-defining luminaries had been aided by an ability to see the dead, I wasn’t in a position to say. Presumably not, so it reasoned that I’d be better at it than they were.

“Do you think involving the overlarge smithy on whom you have a crush is such a good idea?” asked Petra, as we walked through town. Well, I walked and she floated.

With Leo there, I couldn’t answer her, and she well knew it, but I shot a glance at her, all the same. It did nothing to silence her, as usual.

“As long as you’re trying to solve this crime,” she continued. “And you seem dead set on that even though I’m not sure that’s the smartest move either—then you should probably be aware that your Mr. Blacksmith should still be considered a suspect.”

She was probably right on both accounts. I felt a moral duty to look into Victoria’s murder on the basis that no one else had or presumably would (because everyone else deemed it an accident). And I felt a personal duty to get to know Leo better because I was fairly sure that opportunities like him didn’t walk into the life of a forty-two-year-old woman every day. But Petra was correct in assuming that Leo could still be a suspect—after all, it was his filings I’d found in Victoria’s kitchen.

“What’s her name—the woman we’re going to visit?” I asked Leo, as we passed into the outskirts of the little town, buildings becoming more spaced out and fields starting to dominate.

“Joanne,” Leo replied. “Joanne Packer. She was Victoria’s closest friend that I’m aware of. Both single women, of about my age, give or take five or so years,” (how polite not to say ‘our age’). “They used to meet for a drink most Friday nights and had coffee and cake most Tuesday mornings.”

I looked over at him. “And how in the world do you know that?”

He shrugged. “Victoria told me.”

“She told you such... boring details?”

He chuckled at that. “You certainly have no problem stating things as you see them.”

I blushed. “Well, I guess you could say that’s the New Yorker in me.”

He gave me an arched eyebrow in response, but then nodded. “Victoria was a friendly woman—lots of friends—but I’d guess Joanne knew her best.”

“And she lives out this way?”

“Runs a dairy farm up Birchill,” confirmed Leo. “You can see it up there, just past the ridge.” He pointed in the direction of the dairy farm, presumably. “Bit of a walk, I’m afraid.”

I squinted up at the distant farmhouse, rolling pasture spilling away from it on all sides, dotted with cows. ‘Bit of a walk’ was an understatement.

“Why don’t we cut across the fields?” I wasn’t a country girl by any stretch, but it seemed to me that hopping the fence and taking the straight route would cut miles out of our journey and I was all for cutting miles out of our journey.

Leo frowned, sucked at his teeth, and pointed to a sign. “That’s why.”

The sign proclaimed in big red letters, ‘BEWARE OF THE BULL!’

I walked over to the fence and climbed up onto the second bar to get a vantage of the whole immense field. “I don’t see any bulls.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s not there. Might be asleep under a tree.”

“In which case, we’d still be safe.”

“Unless he wakes up.”

I shook my head. “Imagine; a big guy like you scared of a little, silly bull.”

Leo raised his eyebrows. “He’s not exactly little or silly and, besides, have you ever been chased by a bull?”

“No. We don’t get so many in Manhattan.” I hadn’t actually lived in Manhattan, but it was a place he’d have heard of, so I went with it.

“It’s not something you want to experience.”

I kept climbing, swinging a leg over the fence. “Well, I’m fairly sure the bull and I won’t be introduced this morning. You coming?”

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Petra asked, glaring at me. “You heard the man—there’s a bull!”

I didn’t say anything in response, as Leo was right there, but I frowned at her, all the same.

“Need I remind you that I’m dead enough for the both of us?” Petra continued, frowning at me in that mother-hen way of hers. I just looked over at her and smiled.

Leo sighed and followed me over the fence. “If the bull charges, I’m going to leave you behind and save myself.”

I grinned. “We both know you wouldn’t do that.”

Another sigh. “You’re right. Irritatingly, I wouldn’t. I’d distract the bull so you could get away. Which seems very unfair when I think about it.”

“Really? I can see an upside.”

We both laughed at that. How much of a threat the bull posed, I couldn’t say, but I was very grateful for it because it gave us something to joke about and talk about an adventure! I figured I might be able to use this exact scenario in one of my stories. Not to mention the fact that Leo and I now felt less like comparative strangers who’d met less than twenty-four hours ago, and more like two people out to break the law. And speaking of the law, yes, I still had to remind myself that Leo was a suspect in all of this, but somehow I didn’t believe he’d actually done it. There was just something about him that was soft, something shy, and something kind. I didn’t imagine murderers could possess such qualities but then, what did I really know about murderers? In short? Not much.

“Where’s this big, bad bull then?” I asked, once I hopped down onto the verdant pasture and faced Leo, who was busily scanning the perimeter for said bull.

“I didn’t say it would attack, I said it could.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Strangely, I am.”

“And why is that?”

He shrugged. “This is lose-lose for me. If the bull doesn’t attack, I look a fool and if it does, I get gored.”

I laughed. “That really is lose-lose.”

“On balance, this is the best result, but I feel embarrassed.”

“You’ve got nothing to feel embarrassed about,” I smiled.

“At least if the bull attacked, I’d be able to save you, which would make me look good.”

“And I would most definitely visit you in the hospital.”

“Unless I’m dead.”

I cocked my head to the side. “In which case, I would visit you in the morgue.”

“Delightful,” he grunted.

We continued up the hill, across the fields, over another fence, and through another field occupied by largely docile cattle, and reached the farmhouse beyond the ridge. The barns around the house were modern structures of breeze block and corrugated metal, but the house itself looked as if it had been there for centuries, patched here and extended there but with the same ramshackle house at its center, defying time and the elements. As we approached, a black and white collie dog with an expression of manic excitement ran towards us and sprang up at Leo.

“Hello, Mickey!”

Since Leo didn’t appear to have anything edible on him, Mickey tried his luck with me instead, bouncing up, his paws leaving muddy prints on my jeans.

“Friendliest dog in the world,” commented Leo.

“Leo?” From the house, a woman had emerged. She had thick russet hair and looked exactly as I’d expect a dairy farmer to look. She had a milk sort of look with her white skin and light eyes. There were lines around those eyes and her mouth which spoke to the years she’d survived thus far. If I’d had to guess, I would have put her around fifty or thereabouts.

“Morning, Joanne!” Leo called back. “Sorry to come by unannounced. Have you got a few minutes?”

She had, and not long after, we were all sitting in her big farmhouse kitchen, while Mickey ran rings around the table, scanning for any treats that might be coming his way, either offered or dropped.

Joanne exhaled and wrapped her hands around the mug of hot tea in front of her.

“Everything I know about Victoria? That’s a big question with a small answer.” She leveled a stare at me. “Why?”

“I just had some questions,” I replied.

“Well, we’ve established that,” said Joanne dismissively. “I think the question is: why have you got some questions?”

“Well…” I wondered if telling a different lie to her than the one I’d already told Leo would hurt me with him. “Living in the house of someone… I mean, I suppose any place you move—any place old—you’re moving into the home of someone dead.”

“True enough,” Joanne answered.

“But it was so recent. And so much of Victoria is still left behind in all her things and in the house, itself. I suppose I just... well, I wanted to know her better. And Leo said you knew her best.”

“He’s looking at you funny,” said Petra. One of the great advantages of Petra was that she could read people’s faces while I was looking at someone else. Back when I was starting out as a writer, I remember her keeping an eye on my first agent while I was talking to a possible publisher. Petra’s observations let me know that I might be needing a new agent shortly.

“Knew her best?” Joanne shrugged. “Maybe.” Then she sighed. “Still, I feel I barely knew her at all.” She shook her head. “It’s Tuesdays that do it. And Fridays.”

“Tuesdays and Fridays?” I asked, confused.

She nodded. “For years we met up—not religiously, but usually. Now we don’t and I miss it. It’s on those days that I realize she’s not here anymore.”

As a writer, it’s so easy to kill people, and you don’t have to deal with the emotional collateral if you don’t wish to. Investigators don’t have that luxury. Not that I was really an investigator, per se, but I supposed in this one instance, I was investigating and that made me an investigator. Still, the title felt bulky and awkward.

“But did I really know her?” Joanne continued as she shook her head again, sipped her tea, and fed a biscuit to the waiting Mickey. “I don’t know. Vic had lots of friends. She was easy-going and personable, a kind word for everyone. She’d walk through Morley and everyone’d stop to say hello and exchange a few pleasantries with her. But I don’t know of anyone who knew more about her than her name and address. Me included, to a point. She was one of those people you’d spend a few hours talking to and realize that, although the talking was fifty-fifty, you’d bared your soul and she’d revealed nothing. So much of her life was a closed book.”

“Oh,” I said and didn’t mean to sound disappointed, but there it was.

“I don’t know why that was,” Joanne continued, a wistful expression on her face. “Just how she was, I guess. I always…” she paused, sipped her tea again, and gave another treat to the eager dog. “I always thought I’d learn more about her in time. I guess that’ll never happen now.”

It felt wrong to push her. In fact, it was starting to feel wrong to be here at all. But I was here for Victoria, I reminded myself. I was here to try to get to the bottom of what had happened to her and, hopefully, to rule Leo out. Because I really, really wanted to rule Leo out. I couldn’t say why exactly—as I’d only just met him, so it was silly to say I had a crush on him or something (even though Petra might disagree). I just—liked him. I liked his soft manner, his boyish smile, and the way he smiled shyly at me.

“Where was Victoria from originally?” I asked, reminding myself that this outing wasn’t about the reasons I liked Leo.

“Good case in point,” said Joanne with a nod. “You’d think I’d know that. Or at least know more than I do know. ‘Up north,’ she’d said. Twenty years and I never knew more than that. She never talked about her life before Morley. I must have asked, I suppose, and I don’t recall her ever refusing to answer necessarily.” She furrowed her brows. “She just talked her way around things like that. She was good at not answering a question in a way that you didn’t realize she hadn’t answered it. Her personal life was the same. She must have had one, but she kept it very much to herself. She never told me anything.”

Something about the way Joanne phrased her last comment made me ask, “She never told you anything?”

“No.” Joanne looked back down.

“But maybe there was something she didn’t tell you? Something you suspected?” I didn’t mean to sound so nosy, but the words came out, anyway.

Joanne looked up again, instantly suspicious. “And this is all just ‘cause you want to better understand the dead woman whose house you moved into?”

“I just... yes, I suppose you could say that’s exactly it,” I suggested.

Joanne’s eyes flicked from me to Leo and back again. “Leo trusts you—I can tell—and that’s the only reason I’ll tell you this, because I don’t like to gossip about people, living or dead.” She paused, making up her mind. “I wondered if maybe Vic had started... seeing someone.”

Interesting. I had a feeling this information was central to Victoria’s fate. Or maybe it was the only real information I’d gotten about her so far, so I was narrowing in on it. “Was there something specific that made you think that?” I asked.

“Who?” asked Leo, at the same time.

“I don’t know who.” Joanne shook her head and sighed. “All I saw was a man’s silhouette in her living room one evening when I was walking by. A late afternoon visitor.”

“How often did you see this man?” I asked.

“Just that one time,” said Joanne. “But… there were evenings when Vic wasn’t available and wouldn’t say why. When she’d hurry back home after one of our get-togethers. I remember seeing her diary once—when I was over for tea. And in the diary, there were a few instances where I noticed a cross drawn in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.”

“Hmm,” I said as I made a mental note to myself to search for this diary as soon as I got home.

Joanne nodded. “Vic was very organized with paperwork (she used to be a bookkeeper of some sort—that’s one thing I do know about her past). Her diary was laid out immaculately and very clearly. She used shorthand, but nothing as oblique as a cross. If something was in the bottom left-hand corner, then it meant something.”

“And maybe it was something she didn’t want other people to see?” suggested Petra.

“And maybe it was something she didn’t want other people to see?” I repeated.

“Maybe.”

“Told you,” nodded Petra.

“There aren’t many secret relationships in Morley,” mused Leo.

“That’s the truth,” nodded Joanne with a little laugh. “Look at that kid from the hall; Bastian. What he wouldn’t give for a little privacy, but it’s practically common knowledge how many different beds he’s stopping in a week. It’s only when it’s a married woman (and there’s been a few of those) that there’s any sort of secrecy and even then, it’s usually gossip and it’s usually right.”

“You met him last night,” Leo commented as he looked over at me and gave me that sweet, shy smile. “He’s a solid chap.”

“I remember.” Maybe I spoke a little too sharply.

Joanne smiled. “A new, pretty woman in town. I bet he put the moves on you.”

“Um, I guess you could say that’s basically what happened,” I answered on a smile.

Joanne nodded. “Randy little sod’s like that with anything in a skirt. He’d be a decent kid if he didn’t keep his brains between his legs, but there you go. And, apparently, he’s a generous and discreet friend to a bored housewife.” She paused. “Of course, I wouldn’t know.”

“Of course not,” I echoed.

While it had been flattering when Bastian came on to me, it wasn’t anything more than that. I wasn’t interested in him and, while he was very attractive in his boyish way, he wasn’t my type—way too forward. But then learning he was the town’s resident philanderer, and no woman was safe from his advances, no marriage sacred, I felt a stone of irritable disappointment in the pit of my stomach.

Of course, a man his age had a right to be sexually overactive, and one who looked like Bastian and had the money to match could probably have his pick. It was actually very egalitarian the way he hadn’t confined himself to women his own age but could see the attractions of the more mature woman, as well—all very laudable. In a way. But maybe it took the shine off his interest in me.

And maybe I’d been thinking one crazy night of passionate and meaningless sex would be fun, but now I wasn’t quite sure if my one crazy night was Bastian’s regular Saturday night.

“We seem to have got off-track,” said Leo.

“My point was,” Joanne went on, “if Vic had a secret boyfriend, then she must have tried hard to keep it secret, because it’s not easy to have secrets around here.”