Bed And Breakfast Murder Mystery
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The next day, as I stepped out of the shower and pulled on a pair of shorts, I heard the telephone ringing. As I dried myself off with a towel, I walked across my bedroom to grab the phone off my bedside table. My heart was racing like it never had before.
The last time that happened had been when I’d found out about the death of someone dear to me. A moment later, I answered. It was an unidentified number. “Hello?”
“This is Detective Rafferty from the New York Police Department,” said a male voice through the receiver. It took all of my willpower not to jump up and down in glee. “I’m calling to tell you I’ve solved your case.”
A smile spread over my face as quickly as if lightning had struck me at once.
“Congratulations,” he continued. “Your killer has been apprehended – but only after killing again, this time his own wife. We caught him yesterday night when he arrived back at the scene where we’d found the murder weapon in his car.” There was silence for a second or two, and then: “Is that everything?”
“Yes!” I cried out excitedly. Then something occurred to me. “Wait! Is this one of those situations where they don’t want everyone to know the truth yet?”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the detective. He sounded puzzled, so I explained what I meant. The man must have thought I was crazy for wanting to keep it quiet because he laughed and said, “Oh yes. That’s standard practice. You see, there are a few people who may find it inconvenient if their names were to be revealed right now.”
“Who might that be?” I asked, confused.
“People like your boss.”
My mind went blank for a second. Then my eyes widened and I gasped. “Oh! No! They’ll fire me, won’t they? For wasting their time, and probably for taking too long to solve the crime…”
“It doesn’t sound quite the same, does it? Anyway, as far as I know, your employer is still convinced that your investigation into the murder of his girlfriend has come to naught.” The man chuckled and added: “And even if he isn’t, we can deal with any fallout later. Let me tell you some more. Your murderer will confess to both murders and be sentenced within hours.”
That sounded pretty good. But there was just one small thing…
“How did you manage to catch the guy?”
“As soon as he came to town, I put out the word that the police were aware of the killings, and told him he needed to talk to us.”
“Did he?” I asked, curious.
“He did. And the evidence against him was pretty strong.”
So why hadn’t I known anything until now? I looked at the time on my mobile phone. It was late afternoon. “You’ve got time enough to tell me everything,” I said.
“Very well,” replied Rafferty. “There was nothing much else we could do at the time apart from a watch and wait for him to commit another murder.”
“What happened?”
“His wife turned up dead early this morning, having been stabbed to death. She was the only woman he was married to – the rest had all been lovers. After the discovery of her body, he confessed his crimes to his brother-in-law, telling him he was going to confess to the authorities anyway – and that he wanted his brother-in-law to take care of his children.
This brother-in-law was already in the process of hiring lawyers to get custody of the kids.”
Something clicked inside my head as Rafferty spoke. He wasn’t talking about one murderer; he was referring to three. I suddenly recalled how he’d made no mention of the victim being his lover, despite knowing who she was, and I realized I had stumbled onto something important here.
“But why would he choose his sister-in-law’s husband to help him?” I asked. “I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to ask a friend of his instead?”
Rafferty chuckled and shook his head. “That’s the funny part,” he said. “The victim was married to his own sister.”
***
Bed And Breakfast Murder Mystery
When my phone rang a few minutes later, I grabbed it eagerly and punched the answer button.
“Good evening, Mr. Dennison,” said a woman’s voice through the speaker. “Mr. Smith here – we’ve got good news for you.”
“Great!” I cried out. “Have you arrested him?”
“No, not yet,” replied Smith. “But we’ve managed to convince him to come in voluntarily. He’s at home waiting for you to arrive.”
“Thanks!” I said enthusiastically. “Can you send him round to the bed and breakfast? I’ll pick him up on the way.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Dennison. We’re sending someone to collect him.”
“Who is it?” asked the voice.
“Detective Rafferty.”
I hung up, and immediately called the front desk. A moment later, my doorbell rang. I ran downstairs, opened the door and found myself looking at Detective Inspector Rafferty.
He was holding a manila envelope under one arm and an ID card in the other hand. There was also something under his other arm – a big brown box.
“Hello, Mr. Dennison,” he said cheerfully as he entered the hall. “Sorry to bother you but I’ve brought your present.”
“A present?” I asked. “Is it for Christmas or what?”
“Not exactly,” answered the detective. “We need to talk somewhere private before we go anywhere. Come on; let’s have a coffee in our room.”
“Our room?” I exclaimed, surprised. I’d planned to stay at the B&B overnight so as to make sure I was there when Mr. Smith arrived with the prisoner, then drive back to London as quickly as possible. “Why are you staying here, if it’s such a bad idea?”
“Because your friend Mrs. Wainwright offered me her spare room,” replied Rafferty, smiling. “She seemed rather anxious for me to stay here tonight, which I thought was very thoughtful of her. Besides, I’m used to sleeping on hotel beds, and besides, you might want to talk to me about something else…”
I nodded slowly and followed Rafferty upstairs. As I climbed the stairs after him, thoughts swirled through my mind. What did he mean by “something else”? The first thing that struck me was that he didn’t seem to care that I was going to be spending the night at the bed and breakfast – which meant he probably wanted to talk about that other thing I’d mentioned just before I went away.
My next thought was that, as soon as we were alone together, we could ask Mrs. Wainwright to call in and bring my suitcase up from the basement storage locker where it was stored. But then I remembered what Rafferty had said about Mrs. Wainwright’s offer – that he needed to stay at the bed and breakfast because she wanted him to – and wondered again what kind of friend she really was…
As we approached the second floor, I saw an older woman standing in the corridor. She smiled brightly as she spotted us coming down the stairs and walked swiftly toward me.
“Hello, John!” she said. “I heard there’s been a murder here, but I haven’t seen the story on the TV. How horrible! Did you see the killer?”
I looked into her smiling face as she came closer and realized I knew her well enough to know it wasn’t her who Rafferty was talking to. Then I noticed that the name tag pinned to her uniform read ‘Mrs. Smith’. It took me a few moments to put all the pieces together.
“Mrs. Smith!” I gasped aloud. “You work here at the B&B?”
“Of course, Mr. Dennison,” replied Mrs. Smith. “How did you guess? I’m Mrs. Smith.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked as Rafferty held open the door. “This isn’t a crime scene.”
“I’m Mrs. Smith,” the woman answered with another smile. “And this is the murder scene.”
Rafferty guided me into the room and closed the door behind us. He sat down and placed the box on the table beside the door. It was big enough to fit a laptop inside.
I joined him at the table and stared at the gift as he flipped open the lid. Inside lay a small silver key, attached by a chain to an engraved silver keyring.
“I think this is yours,” explained Rafferty. “Your mother gave me these keys as a present years ago after your father disappeared.”
I looked into the box, and felt my throat constrict. All my life, since I was four or five years old, I’d always known there was a set of keys that only my mother could use. They’d belonged to my dad. And now they were mine.
“Yes,” I whispered. “These are mine…”
“That’s why we need to talk in private,” continued Rafferty. “The last time we spoke, you mentioned someone named Mr. Smith.”
“Mr. Smith is the name of my stepfather,” I explained as I lifted out the key ring from the box. It contained eight keys in two different sizes – two large, like this one, and six smaller ones in the shape of the letter A. “And you said Mr. Smith might have killed my real father…”
It had happened thirty-seven years earlier, on a cold winter day when I was nine. Dad had come home early from his office job with a new pair of gloves for me and some other presents – but then he started acting strange.
He didn’t look happy when he opened a large parcel that Mrs. Wainwright sent to the house from Australia. Instead, he frowned and turned away as he handed over the gifts for Mum to put under the tree. When she unwrapped them later, I saw how pale my mum looked. She’d never shown signs of illness, though she was sixty-nine years old at the time and lived alone after Dad had died.
But the worst thing was that, instead of saying thank you, my mother got very angry. She told him not to waste money sending things like that to her, and then left the room. That same evening, as soon as the lights were dimmed, she packed some bags and called in a taxi, claiming to have a family to visit who wouldn’t let her return home until Christmas Eve.
She even bought a plane ticket before she left, and the airline delivered it to their front door just before she departed.
Mum was gone for five days. Five long days without any word from her. We searched everywhere for her, ringing all the hospitals and asking about her at the local police station and at the airport. There was no sign of her at either place.
The following Saturday, Mum showed up unexpectedly at our house. She claimed to be ill and needed somewhere warm to stay while she recovered. But I suspected something else, so I stayed close by her side during those days she spent sleeping downstairs in the guestroom. I kept the spare key in case I ever needed to go up there if the alarm went off.
And then, on the fourth night after her arrival, the phone rang just before midnight. My brother, Tim, answered and asked who it was.
“Is this the B&B?” said a deep male voice on the line.
“No,” Tim answered. “Who’s calling?”
“I’m not sure…but maybe you can help me.”
Tim listened intently, and then asked what he wanted.
“Someone came to me yesterday afternoon, asking where my wife was living. I think your wife knows this guy. Can you tell me who this man is? Or can I speak to Mr. Smith himself?”
My mum had arrived at the house in the middle of the afternoon, looking exhausted, and announced to my brother: “I don’t want you to worry, Tim. I just need some rest, that’s all.”
Then she’d asked if she could borrow the car. Tim had reluctantly given it to her and then watched as she drove off with its headlights on full blast through town.
When they returned to the house ten minutes later, my mother seemed calmer and happier than when she’d left. She thanked everyone for their concern and assured us that everything would be fine, but that she had business elsewhere to attend to before Christmas.
Two weeks passed. On the morning of December 21, 1984, Mum left the house at 9:30 a.m. for work and didn’t return until 6 p.m.
She was upset, obviously confused, and frightened. As well as her bag and handbag, she brought home an extra suitcase. When they took her out of the trunk of her car, she was naked and bruised, and barely conscious. Her face was swollen, her arms and legs were covered in bruises, and her hair and nails were ragged.
“Where’s the bastard who did this to me?” she cried as they laid her on the sofa in the hall. “He’s dead! Dead!” Then she fell into a coma.
For three more days, she slept in her bedroom downstairs, while we waited for news about her recovery or funeral arrangements. Finally, one evening at 8 p.m., after Mum woke up briefly and talked to someone who was clearly not Tim or me, she suddenly collapsed again and stopped breathing.
She never regained consciousness. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital and she remained there until she passed away on Christmas Eve, aged sixty-one.
The End