Chapter Twelve
There was a discreet knock on the door. Mildred entered the room, pushing a wooden trolley cart holding our tea. She set out delicate china cups and saucers on a low table between our chairs. A plate of wafer-thin vanilla cookies followed. The tea pot was large and looked heavy. It was made of Edwardian silver and there were teaspoons to match.
“I’ll pour,” Aunt Peg offered as Josephine dismissed the maid.
Mildred withdrew and we addressed ourselves to the food. The tea was Earl Grey, Aunt Peg’s favorite. I preferred coffee, but I was willing to make do, especially since the vanilla cookies were divine.
After a minute had passed, Josephine looked up from her tea. “I’m waiting,” she said pointedly.
“I was just gathering my thoughts,” Aunt Peg said. She set down her teacup. “We’ve come today because a member of my extended family was acquainted with your tenant, Lila Moran. Claire had the misfortune to be the one who discovered her body and called the police. That chain of events led to Melanie’s subsequent involvement in the investigation.”
“Oh?” Josephine lifted a brow delicately. She turned in my direction. “I wasn’t aware that you were a policewoman.”
I swallowed a gulp of very hot tea. “I’m not. But Claire called me that morning. She asked me to come to your gatehouse for moral support.”
“And yet your involvement lingers?”
“Melanie has a talent for solving mysteries,” Aunt Peg told her.
Josephine’s lips pursed. She did not look impressed. “What an unusual gift.”
“I like asking questions,” I said. “And taking bits of information—clues, you might call them—and weaving them together to form a pattern that tells a story.”
“Whether or not you are talented at what you do remains to be seen,” Josephine replied. “Ask your questions, and we will see if I choose to answer them.”
All righty then. She’d gotten straight to the point. I would do the same.
“The woman who was living in your gatehouse was not who she said she was. There is no information about Lila Moran’s past life that goes back more than five years. Before that, she appeared not to exist.”
I watched the older woman’s face as I spoke. Her composure never wavered. I’d expected the news to surprise her. Instead, Josephine Mannerly surprised me.
“You already knew that,” I said.
“Of course I did,” she replied calmly. “I knew everything about Lila. Otherwise she never would have been allowed on my property.”
Aunt Peg and I shared a startled look.
“How did Lila come to be living in your gatehouse?” she asked.
“That’s a long story. Much of it is old history now.”
“I like old history,” I said.
“I lived old history,” Aunt Peg added drily.
“So you wish me to continue?”
Aunt Peg and I both nodded.
“Many years ago, when I was young, I had a suitor. This was before your time, Melanie, but Margaret will understand what I’m saying. In those days, very few women thought about having a career. We were expected to find a husband and start a family. That was what my parents wanted for me. It was what girls of my set aspired to.”
Thank goodness times had changed, I thought.
“I met a man named William Schiff. He was five years older than me, very handsome, and terribly sophisticated.” Josephine paused for a private smile. “Those things mattered to me. What mattered to my mother was that he came from a good family, had an Ivy League education, and was well employed in his father’s business. All the pieces seemed to fit together perfectly. I thought we were a match made in heaven.”
“It sounds as though things didn’t turn out that way,” I said.
“No, they did not. What I didn’t know was that Billy was being pressured by his parents to court me. They wanted the prestige—and, of course, the money—that would come from having their son marry Joshua Mannerly’s daughter.”
“That could have been a problem with many of your suitors,” Aunt Peg mentioned.
“Yes, although usually I was able to ferret out such ulterior motives. But with Billy, it was different. I fell head over heels in love.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Once we were engaged, Billy became moody and distant. I still had stars in my eyes, however. I thought everything would be fine once we were married. That was what I’d been brought up to believe.”
“But you didn’t get married, did you?” said Aunt Peg.
“No. A week before the wedding, Billy broke off our engagement. One day I thought we were blissfully happy. The next, everything I’d imagined we had together was gone. Billy asked for the ring back. It had been in his family for generations. For some reason, at the time that seemed like the worst blow of all.”
“I remember there was a broken engagement.” Aunt Peg thought back. “But I thought you were the one who ended it?”
“That was the story we told everyone. My mother insisted upon it. She sat Billy’s father down and told him how things were going to be, and Mr. Schiff didn’t dare say no.”
Josephine hadn’t been kidding when she said it was a long story. It seemed to me that we were still several decades away from Lila Moran and the mysterious gaps in her life. On the other hand, the vanilla wafers were superb. I helped myself to another and settled back in my chair.
“I was very young, and very naive, in those days,” Josephine said.
“We all were,” Aunt Peg agreed.
“I pictured myself as the spurned heroine in one of the romance novels I loved to read. Billy had been my knight in shining armor—or so I thought. I waited for him to come riding back to me on a white horse.”
Good luck with that, I thought.
“A year later, Billy married someone else. A girl who had neither the class nor the connections that I possessed. By that time, my mother had died and I was on my own. I had come into my inheritance, but my family was gone. I was all alone. Up until that point, I had led rather a sheltered life. I wasn’t accustomed to making my own decisions. And there was no one left who might have provided me with proper guidance.”
“There hadn’t been any other suitors?” Aunt Peg asked.
“Of course there were.” The older woman waved a hand dismissively. “There were plenty of men who professed to be interested in me. But I’d grown cynical, and I never gave them a chance. I didn’t have to, you see. By then I’d realized that I didn’t need a man to take care of me.”
“What does this have to do with Lila Moran?” I asked.
Aunt Peg shot me an annoyed look as Josephine frowned.
“I told you this was going to be a long story,” she said. “You must let me tell it my way. Either that or you can finish your tea and go home.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied meekly. It looked as though we were going to be here awhile.
“Looking back now it seems foolish, but even after Billy married I kept tabs on what he was doing. I knew about his life with his new wife and their young daughter. I knew when his father died, and how Billy stepped up to take over the family business in his stead.”
Josephine abruptly stopped speaking. She sipped her tea, then picked up a cookie and absently broke it into small pieces before setting it aside. This time I knew better than to try to hurry her along.
“Mind you, I’m not proud of what happened next,” she said when she finally spoke. “In my own defense, I can only plead the arrogance of youth. Just when Billy thought he had everything—a successful career, a lovely child, and a wife who was wearing a ring that I thought belonged on my finger—I set about quite methodically to ruin him.”
I sucked in a breath and slowly let it out. For a moment, the silence in the room was so complete that I could hear the ticking of a grandfather clock by the window.
“I assume you mean financially,” Aunt Peg said.
“Of course that’s what I mean,” Josephine snapped. In her case, confession didn’t appear to be good for the soul. “That was the instrument I had at my disposal. I put my father’s money to use in aid of my own selfish cause. What I did was wrong, but I’m not going to apologize for it. I was headstrong and foolish, and I lashed out. It was a poor decision, but it was one I made years ago.”
“Let me guess,” Aunt Peg ventured. “Was Lila Moran Billy Schiff’s daughter?”
“You’re quite smart, aren’t you?” Josephine regarded her with admiration. “Yes, that’s exactly it.”
“I still don’t get it,” I said. “How did Lila end up here?”
“I suspect that all these years later, Josephine set out to make amends,” Aunt Peg told me.
The older woman nodded, then continued her story. “After Billy lost his company, he began to drink. After alcohol, he turned to drugs. Things spiraled downward from there. Billy and his wife were divorced, so he lost his family too. My revenge was complete and I expected to feel satisfaction—but instead my intemperate actions led only to a crushing sense of remorse.”
“I should hope so,” I muttered. Aunt Peg kicked me under the table.
I jumped slightly in my seat as Josephine trained a beady gaze on me. “Have you never made a mistake?” she demanded.
“I’ve made many,” I admitted. “Although not one of that magnitude.”
“Then you’re lucky,” she shot back. “But you’re still young. It may yet happen.”
I hoped not. I couldn’t imagine wanting to manipulate someone else’s life like that.
“Billy’s wife married two more times,” Josephine said. “Lila had a difficult upbringing. She was arrested for the first time when she was still in high school. Shoplifting became petty theft, then grand theft. She seemed to have a hard time keeping her hands off of other people’s possessions. Eventually she served a year in jail. When she got out, her past missteps had made her virtually unemployable.”
“That would have been five years ago,” I guessed.
“Precisely. At that point I decided to step in and see if I could use my considerable resources to turn things around for her. Lila had already built herself a new identity by the time I contacted her. That sort of subterfuge certainly wouldn’t have been my idea, though it did smooth things along. After that, I made sure that Lila always had a decent job and a place to live. It hasn’t been easy. There have been several setbacks along the way, but I’ve done my best to keep nudging her in the right direction.”
“So eventually you found her a job nearby and moved her into your gatehouse.”
“I’m not as young as I used to be,” Josephine pointed out unnecessarily. “Nor as healthy. After Lila had been let go from her previous place of employment, I decided it made sense to put her somewhere close, where I could keep an eye on her. I thought it would be easier to keep her out of trouble that way.”
“And yet this is where she ended up dead,” Aunt Peg pointed out.
Josephine nodded but didn’t reply.
“Do you have any thoughts about that?” I prompted.
“I most certainly do not,” she said sharply. “Peebles, the man who looks after the estate, has been in contact with the local police. He assures me they are doing everything they can to solve this horrible crime.”
“But you haven’t spoken to them?”
“No, of course not. Why would I do that? Peebles is handling everything. That’s his job.”
“Mr. Peebles was also supposed to be taking care of Lila’s cottage,” I mentioned.
“Yes. What of it?”
“When was the last time you saw the place?” Aunt Peg asked. “It looks as though it was falling down around her ears.”
“That can’t be right.” Josephine stared at the two of us.
“I’m afraid it is,” I told her. “A friend of Lila’s told me she was afraid of your caretaker.”
“Afraid? That’s preposterous. Peebles wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I also heard that he wanted something from Lila,” I said. “Do you have any idea what that might have been?”
“None whatsoever,” Josephine stated firmly. “Peebles has been with me a long time. He thinks he knows what’s best for me. Perhaps that leads him to be a bit overprotective when it comes to looking out for my interests.”
“Territorial sounds more like it,” Aunt Peg muttered.
“The gatehouse had been empty for years. After all, it’s not as though I have many visitors. But Peebles assured me that he’d fixed the place up properly before Lila moved in. I don’t know how it could be in such a state of disrepair.”
It sounded as though Peebles was often quick to assure the older woman that all was well. I wondered how often Josephine had checked to see whether or not he was telling her the truth. When I asked her that, she stiffened in her seat. Intrusive as our earlier questions had been, this time I’d gone too far.
“Peebles isn’t just an employee. He’s also a relative. Distant, to be sure, but one of the very few that I have left,” she said in a tight voice. “I am quite certain he wouldn’t do anything to undermine my wishes.”
Even with the fire blazing beside us, the atmosphere in the room had suddenly cooled. Aunt Peg took that as her cue. She rose to her feet.
“Thank you for allowing us to visit this afternoon. We’ve taken up enough of your time,” she said, taking the woman’s hand in both of hers. “It’s been lovely to see you. I hope we’ll have another opportunity to get together soon.”
“I’d like that,” Josephine replied, her good manners as ingrained as Aunt Peg’s.
“If there’s ever anything you need . . . ,” Aunt Peg offered.
Josephine shook her head. “No, there wouldn’t be. I’m aware that those in the outside world who remember me are puzzled by my lifestyle. But I’m not a prisoner in this house. I live this way by choice. Why would I ever need to leave when everything I want is right here?”
Mildred showed us out. Aunt Peg and I waited until we were back in her minivan before speaking again.
“Imagine ruining someone’s life out of spite,” I said.
“To have that much money and choose to use it in such a destructive way.” Aunt Peg sounded shaken as she turned the key and put the van into gear. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever understand that. But at least we solved the mystery of Lila’s past.”
“But unfortunately that doesn’t lead us any closer to knowing who killed her,” I said. “Or why.”