Late morning, Sunday, October 8, 1950
The Rutherford house
Detective Jacobs paced about the dining room where Mr. Rutherford, Miss Banning, Skip, Henry, and Miss Grant were seated around the table. He glanced at his notebook and then over at Mr. Rutherford. “So, the deceased was your mother?”
“That’s correct, Gabria Isabella Peacock Rutherford. I’m her only living child.”
The detective made a note of that. “And who’s this?”
“This is my lady friend, Marjorie Banning. She stopped by this morning, not much more than an hour ago. She should be free to leave.”
The detective stared at Miss Banning, taking her in appreciatively. “Well, she’s not.”
“I don’t mind,” she purred.
“Glad to hear it.” He pointed his pencil at Henry next. “And you are?”
“Henry Finch. And this is my friend, Horace Valentine. We’re visiting from Chicago. We arrived Friday afternoon and are leaving today.”
“Not just yet you aren’t,” the detective said. “What about you?” He looked now at Jane, who didn’t appear at all well.
“I’m Miss Jane Grant, the housekeeper,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.
“Worked here long?”
“Over sixteen years, long enough,” she said.
“Right. Is that everyone, then? Everyone here who was in the house last night and this morning?”
“Well,” Mr. Rutherford said, “there is Sister Barnabas, my mother’s nurse. She seems to be missing.”
“Missing?”
“Yes, I’m not sure where she is. I checked her room just before you arrived, but she wasn’t there. She might have gone to church, but she said she’d check with me before leaving, and she was going to look in on my mother first, too. The last time I saw her was right here.”
“Great, so a dead old lady and a missing nun,” he said, jotting down something else into his notebook as a policeman stood nearby the hall door, observing. “Anybody else?”
“Jake, Miss Grant’s nephew. He helps out around here, doing odd jobs and whatnot,” Mr. Rutherford said. “He always had a red bandana in his pocket or around his neck, just like the one used to strangle my mother.”
Miss Grant stifled a cry, and Detective Jacobs raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Now, isn’t that an interesting little detail? So, where is he now?”
“I haven’t seen him yet today,” Mr. Rutherford said.
“I can tell you,” Miss Grant said. She looked sicker than Mr. Rutherford did. “Or rather I can tell you where he isn’t. He’s missing, too. He ran away, taking Mrs. Rutherford’s dog with him.”
“Mrs. Rutherford’s dog?” Detective Jacobs said.
“That’s right. A little white terrier named Gipper,” Miss Grant said.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Rutherford said.
“Jake told me he was afraid someone was going to harm the dog. I imagine he meant Mrs. Rutherford. He took him and told everyone Gipper ran away.”
The detective made another entry in his notebook and looked at Ambrose. “I see. He thought the dog was in danger from your mother?”
“I wasn’t aware of that. I honestly thought it had run away,” Mr. Rutherford said.
“Right. So, one dead lady, two missing persons, and a dog that supposedly ran away a while ago but didn’t and is now also missing.”
Another policeman appeared at the hall door and poked his head in. “Bates and I finished checking the interior doors and windows of the house as well as the perimeter, sir. There’s no sign of forced entry, but there is a broken window in one of the front bedrooms, next to the one where the body is. The window was smashed from the inside, though. There’s broken glass on the lawn below, along with what appears to be some kind of heavy brass object.”
The detective jotted that down, too. “That’s strange.”
“My mother broke it last night, Detective. She threw a bookend through it. She wasn’t well, mentally. We were going to transfer her to a nursing home tomorrow morning.”
“I see. Which explains why this Jake thought she might harm her dog, I suppose.” Jacobs looked over at the officer. “Any chance someone could have climbed in that window after it was broken, Crawley?”
“I considered that, but it’s doubtful without cutting themselves on the jagged glass, sir. And they would have needed a tall ladder to get up there. There’s no ladder imprints in the ground outside, and the area around the window inside is clean. No footprints, blood, or scuffs beneath the sill that would indicate someone entered that way.”
“Okay, thanks. Go outside and wait for the lab crew to arrive. I want photos of the crime scene, and everything dusted for fingerprints once they get here, along with the fingerprints of everyone present. And keep the damned press out of my hair.”
Officer Crawley touched the brim of his cap. “Yes sir.”
“Oh,” Mr. Rutherford said. “There is one other person who was here last night, but I took her back to her hotel, and I saw my mother alive after I returned, so clearly she had nothing to do with any of this.”
Detective Jacobs turned to him. “What’s this lady’s name?”
“Lillian Waters. She’s my aunt, my mother’s older sister.”
“We’ll need to talk to her, too, I suppose. Where is she staying?”
“The Allenel Hotel,” Mr. Rutherford said. “But she’s eighty-seven, and as I said, my mother was still alive when I took her back.”
“Doesn’t mean she couldn’t have returned,” the detective said.
“I highly doubt that.”
“I don’t. I’ve seen too many strange things over the years. So, your mother was strangled in her sleep, you said.”
“Apparently, yes. I left Mr. Valentine with her around eleven thirty, and I went to bed. I was exhausted.”
“Why was he with her?”
“She was upset. She liked him and seemed to quiet down in his presence. He agreed to stay with her for a while.”
“And what time did you leave her, Mr. Valentine?”
“At eleven forty-five, fifteen minutes to midnight. She wasn’t quite asleep, but I knew she would be soon. I went straight to my room and was asleep myself before the hall clock struck twelve.”
The detective jotted furiously in his notebook. “So, you were the last person to see the old lady alive.”
“No, whoever killed her was the last person to see her alive. And that wasn’t me. I barely knew her.”
“And you, Miss Grant, found the body just after nine this morning?”
“That’s right. I went in to give her the breakfast tray in Mr. Rutherford’s room. At first, I thought she was still asleep, but as I got closer, I could tell she was dead, and I screamed.”
“So, she would have been killed sometime between midnight and nine,” the detective said. “Why was she sleeping in your room, Mr. Rutherford?”
“Because of the broken window in her room. It was too cold to leave her there, so I put her in my bed, and I slept on the sofa in the yellow drawing room.”
“Who knew she was sleeping in your room?” the detective asked, chewing on the end of his pencil.
“Just myself and Mr. Valentine until this morning. Everyone else was asleep. Why?”
“Hmm. Because it’s possible you were the intended victim, not your mother,” the detective said.
Mr. Rutherford’s eyes grew large. “You mean they thought they were strangling me? If that’s true, those accidents the last two days weren’t accidents at all.”
“Ambrose, from what you’ve told me this morning, they definitely were not accidents,” Marjorie said, her voice tender and soft.
“What accidents are you referring to?” The detective said.
“The hall chandelier fell on me Friday night, and then I tripped over something on the stairs the next morning. I thought they were accidents, but perhaps not.”
“They did seem suspicious,” Henry said. “Skip, I mean Horace, even found a screw and a piece of fishing line on the stairs afterward.”
“Interesting. Anyone have a grudge against you, Mr. Rutherford?” Jacobs said.
“Just Jake, the missing fellow with the bandana. He seems to blame me for his mother’s death many years ago, though I had nothing to do with it. She died in a doctor’s care.”
Miss Grant’s head shot up, and she stared at Mr. Rutherford. “Jake would never! He’d never try to kill you or anyone. I know that was his bandana, but there has to be some other explanation.”
“Please, ma’am,” the detective said, “no one can say what someone else may or may not do.”
“He did leave a cryptic note,” Henry said. “Something about being sorry for everything and that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. We found it in the attic, where he sleeps.”
“What were you doing in the attic?” Mr. Rutherford said. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
The detective glanced about at everyone. “Interesting. Given that piece of information, it sounds like an open-and-shut case.”
“It does?” Skip said, surprised.
“With no signs of forced entry,” the detective said, “it leads me to believe it was someone in this house or someone who was in the house last night. And it sounds like this Jake is our number one suspect. That note, the bandana, and the fact that he’s missing are as good as a confession.”
“He’s an angry, mentally unstable man,” Mr. Rutherford said, “but I just can’t believe he’d want to kill me.”
“Your mother was in your bed, the room was dark, and he slipped in and strangled her, thinking he was strangling you. When he realized his mistake, he fled the house in a panic, leaving the note and the red bandana you said he was never without still wound tightly about her neck.”
“Good God,” Mr. Rutherford said, his face white. “That makes sense, I must admit.”
“Where was he last seen?” the detective asked.
“He was with Sister Barnabas in the kitchen. They were going to go down to the basement for a pair of pliers or a wrench or something to fix the sister’s cross,” Jane said, still looking as though she might vomit, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Did you see them come up again?”
“No, but I was busy starting to get the breakfast things washed and put away.”
Detective Jacobs raised his eyebrows. “The two missing persons were last seen together.” He nodded to the officer in the doorway. “Adams, did Crawley and Bates check the cellar?”
“Er, no, I don’t believe so, just the first and second floors.”
“Idiots. Go check the basement, pronto.” He looked back at Jane. “The stairs are off the kitchen, I assume?”
“Just before the kitchen,” Miss Grant said. “Through the door under the landing, past the side door to the yard.”
“I’ll check it out, Detective,” Adams said, heading into the hall and through the door under the second landing.
“Anyone have a current picture of this Jake? And what’s his last name?” he said, looking at the group still seated at the table.
“Bartlett. Jake Bartlett. He was my sister Annabelle’s child. I can’t believe he’d hurt anyone, I just can’t,” Miss Grant said, the tears now streaming down her face. Henry handed her his handkerchief, which she took gratefully.
“Do you have a photo of him, miss?”
“Yes, Joe Bitters took one of him and me not long ago.”
“Who’s Joe Bitters?” the detective said, flipping over to a new page.
“He was the handyman here,” Mr. Rutherford said. “He was killed in the garage fire a couple of months ago.”
“Right, I remember that fire. So, he took a photo of you and this Jake?” Detective Jacobs said to Miss Grant.
“His hobby was photography, among other things,” she said, her voice a whisper that everyone had to strain to hear.
“Okay, well, would you be so kind as to get that photograph, Miss Grant?”
She stared at him a moment before answering as she got slowly to her feet. “All right, it’s in my room. Excuse me, please.” She went into the pantry, still clutching Henry’s handkerchief, as Adams came in from the hall, looking grim.
“Find anything, Adams?” the detective said, looking over at him.
“As a matter of fact, sir, I did. You may want to have a look.”
“What is it?”
“Rather who is it, sir. I think it may be the missing nun. There’s a woman’s body down there in the workshop, strangled to death with a thick gold chain that has a cross hanging from it. And she’s naked, her face beaten badly. A pair of eyeglasses and a habit were next to her in a heap, along with another red bandana.”
Gasps were heard throughout the room, even from the hardened detective, who shoved the notebook and pencil back into his pocket. “As soon as Miss Grant gets back with that photograph, get an APB out for Jake Bartlett’s arrest. He may possibly be with a small white dog. Be sure copies of the picture are circulated everywhere. He should be considered dangerous.”
“APB?” Mr. Rutherford said.
“All points bulletin. We’ll check the bus depot, train station, and major roads out of town, as well as areas in town. We’ll search the property here, too, top to bottom. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”