Death in a Family Way Read online

  By the time the darkness made way for the day, Margaret, now showered, dressed and with a cup of coffee in hand, allowed herself to think about the impending visit to the police station. Even though she was a law-abiding citizen, the prospect of the forthcoming interrogation was appalling to her, perhaps all the more so because of the lack of familiarity. And to make matters worse, it was another rainy day!

  Her boss was waiting for her outside the precinct, and she followed him up a flight of stairs and along a dusty corridor to Mark Farthing’s office. “Chin up, this is going to be rough,” he said as he knocked and then opened the door.

  “Ah, Southby. On time, I see. And you too, Mrs. Spencer.” He reached across his very tidy desk and shook her hand. “Sit down and I’ll call the steno in.” He reached for the phone. After the steno arrived, Farthing led them bit by bit through the events of the two previous days. “And you still maintain you know nothing of what he wanted?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Nat Southby answered.

  “Why did you wait until yesterday before you tried to call him?” Farthing persisted.

  “I didn’t pick up the weekend’s messages until yesterday morning.”

  Farthing turned to Maggie. “You met Bradshaw. Did you think he had something serious on his mind when he came to your office?”

  “Other than finding his cat, no.”

  “How long have you been working for Mr. Southby?”

  “I started last week.”

  “And you feel you could make that assumption on such a short acquaintance?”

  “Yes, I feel I could make that assumption, Sergeant Farthing. He was a very self-centred and bad-tempered old man. All he was interested in was his cat.”

  “Given that he was a bad-tempered man,” he said, turning to Nat, “what made you two run over there so promptly?”

  “For God’s sake, Mark!” Nat exploded. “What makes anyone of us do such things? Call it a hunch, if you like.” He stood up and glared down at Farthing. “How the hell were we to know he’d been murdered?”

  “My name’s Sergeant Farthing, if you don’t mind,” he said, glaring back. “Now cool down. You two have got yourself into this mess and you’ll answer any damn questions I please to ask.” He turned curtly to the steno, who was sitting with his mouth open. “You can type up those statements and have them ready for their signatures. And after you two have signed them, you’re free to go.”

  “Have you any idea who did it?” Maggie asked as she stood up to leave.

  “At this minute—no,” Farthing replied. “But we’ll be the ones finding out. Is that clear?” He reached for the telephone. “I take it you know where the duty office is?”

  “Jackass!” Nat Southby said under his breath as they walked down the dark corridor.

  “He certainly seems to have it in for you,” Maggie answered quietly.

  “Yeah! I can’t quite figure out why, though. After all, he stepped into a damn good job when I left. Think he’d be pleased.”

  • • •

  PHILLIP COLLINS WAS WAITING for them when they arrived back at the office. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”

  Nat led the way inside. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve decided to call off your investigation.”

  “You’ve found your boat?”

  “No, but my wife feels that Larry will turn up soon. Like he always does.”

  “Well, it’s up to you, Collins. But the boat’s been missing now for nearly ten days. That’s a helluva spree, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll pay you for your time so far.”

  “What did you say your boat’s worth? Twenty grand? And you’re suddenly not worried about it?”

  “That’s none of your business,” Collins answered. “I said I want to drop the case.” He arose from his chair and took out his cheque book and a gold pen. “How much do I owe you?” Nat named his figure, Collins wrote out a cheque and was gone a few moments later.

  From the window they watched him get into his car.

  “Of course!” she cried suddenly. “That’s what’s been bothering me.”

  “What?”

  “The car. Collins’ car. I’ve seen it before.”

  “Of course you have. It’s the same one he was driving last week.”

  “I know that. But it was also at Violet Larkfield’s. You know, last Friday when I went to her house. That car was in the driveway.”

  “There have to be a dozen Jaguars in this town.”

  “Not silver-grey ones. I’m sure that’s the same car I saw leaving Violet Larkfield’s driveway.”

  “Are you sure? Listen, Maggie, you’ve been through a rough few days,” he said in a placating tone that only infuriated her. “You could be a mite overwrought and getting things a bit mixed up.”

  “Mister Southby,” Maggie said witheringly, “I saw that car at Violet Larkfield’s, and, by the way, I also saw the cat basket that Ernie had returned.” She turned, sat down at her typewriter and began pounding furiously.

  • • •

  THAT EVENING MARGARET WAITED until she’d finished washing the supper dishes and she and Harry were seated by the living room fire, having coffee, before she told him about her job.

  “But I don’t understand, Margaret. Why?”

  “There has to be something more to life than this, Harry.”

  “I’ve tried to give you everything you wanted, haven’t I?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “I’ve spent the last twenty-five years trying to make you happy.” Harry slowly stirred his coffee and raised the cup to his trembling lips, and then put it down again. “Look at all the gadgets I’ve bought you for the kitchen. Even a car of your own.”

  “Listen, Harry, please just listen to me, for God’s sake. I need more than gadgets. I need to use my brain.”

  “What about volunteer work? The Girl Guides are always short of leaders.” He picked up his cup and raised it to his lips again. “Look at Fuller’s wife; she rolls bandages or something for the cancer people and helps part-time mending books in the library. Sometimes, according to Fuller, they even have her reading to the little ones. You could make yourself useful like that, couldn’t you?”

  “I like what I’m doing. I get paid, too.” She couldn’t help slipping that in, but regretted it a moment later as Harry’s face went a mottled red. It’s funny how fair-skinned men show their emotions so easily, she thought.

  “Are you trying to tell me I don’t provide for you adequately?”

  Margaret looked at him sitting in his chair, complete bewilderment on his face. He really couldn’t see what was wrong with their life. My God, we are so polite with each other. We can’t even have a real mud-slinging, loud row. Even our sex life has become polite. For a brief moment she felt sorry for him, but that was snuffed when he said, “What will they say at the firm? And they’re bound to find out that my wife . . . of all people, my wife,” he spluttered, “is working in a sleazy rundown detective agency.”

  “Actually, Harry,” she said, as she scooped up the cups from the coffee table, “I don’t give a damn! And neither should you!” And she marched out the door. In the kitchen, she took a few deep breaths before she began putting the dishes away on the shelves, banging a few cupboard doors for good measure. And I’m sure as hell not going to give up my job!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sixteen-year-old Sally Fielding desperately wanted her mother. But even more than that, she wanted the awful pain to stop. She buried her face in the pillow to muffle her cries as the next wave of pain wracked her body, but the stern-faced nurse appeared at her bedside anyway.

  “Enough of that,” she said as she leaned over Sally to prod her swollen abdomen with icy fingers. “You’re going to need all your strength soon. Are you timing your pains like I told you to?”

  “Yes. Every two minutes,” Sally answered miserably. “When is it going to be over?”

  “Soon, I hope,” the nurse said over her
shoulder as she walked toward the door, then added for good measure, “Why do I always get the difficult cases?”

  But it was several more hours before Sally looked down at her little dark-haired daughter lying across her stomach. She was still attached to her by the umbilical cord, and Sally put out a tentative hand to touch the damp little head. “She’s . . . she’s beautiful.”

  “You did well,” the doctor said kindly. “Lie still for a little while and we’ll soon have you cleaned up.”

  She watched the delivery room nurse clean the baby’s eyes, fasten a bracelet around the little ankle and then wrap her in a pink blanket. And she knew then what was meant by a broken heart, as she listened to the cries of her newborn baby getting fainter and fainter as they carried her away. “I can’t give her up . . . I can’t.” But they had made it quite clear that if they helped her solve her problem, there would be no turning back.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Harry hid behind his newspaper and gave a grudging thank you when Margaret placed his cereal and coffee before him. He folded the paper precisely to the stock exchange section and reached around it for the cup.

  As Margaret gathered up her dishes to take to the sink, Harry finished reading, carefully refolded the paper into its original lines and placed it squarely on the table. “My grey pinstripe suit will be ready at the cleaners,” he said, putting the stub on the table, “if you think you can spare the time to pick it up.”

  “I’ll get it tomorrow, Harry,” she answered, “when I do my Saturday shopping.”

  “I take it you intend to go on with this nonsense.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind.”

  He stood up and brushed non-existent crumbs from his jacket. “If you embarrass me in any way, Margaret, I’ll . . .”

  “How the hell can my having a job embarrass you?”

  “What the girls will say, I can’t imagine. And . . .” Another awful thought had come into his head, “what if Mother finds out?”

  “Barbara told me just the other day that it was time I found something useful to do. As for your mother . . .”

  “Don’t you dare say anything about my mother,” he said, picking up his briefcase, “after all she’s done for us.” Margaret thought for an awful moment that he was going to cry, but he continued, “You’ve changed, Margaret. You’ve changed.” He stalked out of the room and she heard the door slam.

  It was well into the morning before her depression lifted and she could concentrate on the job of filing. “Mr. Southby, what are we going to do with all these notes on Collins?” she asked. “Do you want me to throw them out?”

  “Don’t you think it’s about time you called me Nat, Maggie? And regarding the files, I’ve a hunch that we haven’t heard the last of him,” he answered. “No, we’ll keep them just in case.”

  “These files are a disgrace,” Maggie said, slamming another pile onto her desk to be sorted and reorganized. “How you ever manage to find anything beats me.”

  “Why do you think I hired you?” he said with a laugh.

  Margaret found herself grinning as she reached to answer the telephone. “Southby’s Investigations.”

  “John Cuthbertson here. Would Nat be around?”

  “A Mr. John Cuthbertson?” she said as she handed the phone to her boss.

  “Hi, Cubby. You’ve got some news for me?”

  “I may have seen that missing boat you were asking about.”

  “Where? In the marina?”

  “I think it passed me last night when I was coming in from fishing. It was being towed in by the Coast Guard.”

  “You think it was the Seagull?”

  “It was getting dark, but it was blue and white and I caught part of the name Sea-something. It seemed to be in bad shape.”

  “You may be onto something, Cubby. Where can I get a look at it?”

  “Um . . . ,” Cubby answered. “Aw, what the heck, it’s Friday. Can you make it to the marina by two?”

  “Sure can. Thanks, Cubby.”

  “Don’t bury that Collins file too deep,” he said, turning to Maggie. “My friend Cubby thinks he saw the Seagull being towed in last night. He’s taking me to see it.”

  “Did he say whether Collins’ brother-in-law was on it?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t sound like it. He said the boat was badly smashed up. Want to come along?”

  “I’d love to, but . . .”

  “Got something more exciting to do?”

  Maggie thought about the previous night. “No, not really.”

  “Then come on. We won’t be back late.”

  “But,” Maggie said sweetly, “I thought you were off the case.”

  He winked at her. “I am, officially. So you’re coming?”

  Maggie thought for a minute. “Yes.”

  “Great!” he exclaimed. “Let’s go. I’m starved. I’ll buy you a hamburger on the way.”

  • • •

  CUBBY’S BOAT, SLEEK AND FAST, didn’t offer Maggie, sitting on the long seat in the stern, much protection from the cold wind that was blowing down Howe Sound and churning up white-caps. Cubby had offered her the protection of the cabin, but she had declined, opting instead for fresh air and being able to see where they were going. But although it was a sunny day, she had to snuggle down inside her coat and hope to God she wouldn’t lose the lunch that her boss had treated her to. He, on the other hand, sitting next to Cubby in the console, was protected by the windscreen.

  “Be there in half a minute,” Cubby yelled back to her over the noise of the powerful engines. “Just beyond that point. See?”

  Maggie stood up and poked her head, turtle-fashion, out of her collar to peer between the two men through the spray-speckled windshield. She could see that they had rounded a spit and were entering a sheltered bay.

  “Coast Guard’s over there,” Cubby shouted, pointing to a long, low building with the flags of Canada and British Columbia flapping on the foreshore.

  “Can we get up close?” Nat Southby shouted.

  “I’ll try.” Cubby nosed the craft right up beside the battered hulk and cut the engine. The detective reached over and grabbed Seagull’s gunwale. “Jesus Murphy! What a mess!”

  Cubby nodded. “It looks as if it was either rammed or smashed up onto some hefty rocks.”

  “Probably the rocks,” Nat said. “There was one helluva storm the night she went missing.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone surviving that,” Maggie shuddered. “Are we trespassing, Nat?” she added, unconsciously using his first name.

  “Why?’

  “There’s a man waving his arms at us.”

  “Let’s go, Cubby. I’ve seen enough.” Nat pushed them away from Seagull, and Cubby revved the engine.

  “Should we see what he wants?” Maggie asked. “He doesn’t look very happy.”

  “I don’t think we’ll hang around to find out,” Nat grinned at her. “Full steam ahead, Cubby.”

  Nat was the first out of the boat when they arrived back at the marina. Immediately, he put his hand out to help the shivering Maggie over the side. “This coat wasn’t meant for the open sea,” she said, taking his hand.

  “Come on, you two,” Cubby said, jumping off the yacht behind them. “I’ll treat you both to a hot toddy. Follow me.”

  Once inside the marina’s dining room, her cold hands wrapped around a steaming mug, Maggie began to take an interest in her surroundings. The floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the marina gave a clear view across the strait to Vancouver Island. The cheerful room, warmed by a log fire in a huge stone fireplace, the snatches of conversations going on around her about boats, trips, where the fish were biting or not biting and, of course, the weather, made her realize what a wonderful, different life these people seemed to be enjoying compared to—up to now—her own.

  “I see you’re back.”

  Maggie looked up to see a man, stained briar pipe clenched between yellowed teeth, black curly hair escaping f
rom under a greasy, peaked cap, and with the most startlingly green eyes she had ever seen.

  “McNab! Here, take a seat,” Nat answered, pulling out a chair.

  McNab settled in the chair, signalled to the waiter, and then looked pointedly over at Maggie.

  “Oh, Maggie, I’d like you to meet Mr. McNab. He’s the caretaker of the marina here.”

  McNab bounced up again and solemnly shook hands with her. “You heard the Collins boat has turned up?” he said, turning to Nat.

  “Yes,” Nat answered. “Heard it was towed in.”

  McNab took the glass of Scotch from the waiter. “Here’s to ye, laddie,” he said, taking a good swig. “That chappie from the Coast Guard came in again this morning, too.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Asking more stupid questions. About you, matter of fact.”

  “Me? What kind of questions?”

  “Wanted to know if I knew ye and why the interest in the Seagull.” He tossed the remaining Scotch down his throat. “I kinda upset the chappie, told him to get in touch with ye hisself.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Nat said with a grin.

  • • •

  THAT EVENING, MARGARET WAS putting the last touches to the salad when she heard Harry’s key in the lock. Determined to be as pleasant as possible, she called out, “Hi, how did your day go?”

  “Okay, I suppose.” He picked up the evening paper and carried it into the living room.

  Margaret, feeling invigorated by her own day’s activities, picked up the tray containing Harry’s usual Scotch and soda and a sherry for herself, and followed him into the warmth of the living room, where the fire cast flickering shadows on the wall.

  Harry took an appreciative swallow of his Scotch. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Curried chicken. It won’t be ready for awhile, so relax and enjoy your drink.”