Aunt Dimity and the Widow's Curse Read online

  “Indeed, they do,” Mrs. Craven agreed.

  “Well, I think ‘Annabelle Beatrice’ is lovely,” I said.

  “Thank you.” She sewed in silence for a moment, then said, “You didn’t take your husband’s surname when you married.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said. “My husband is Bill Willis and our children are wee Willises, but I was and always will be Lori Shepherd.” I would have explained the reasoning behind my choice, but Mrs. Craven didn’t require an explanation.

  “Very sensible,” she said. “I started life as Annabelle Greeley. I became Annabelle Trotter after I married my first husband, then Annabelle Craven after my second marriage. It was terribly inconvenient. With every name change, I had to replace all sorts of documents.”

  My inner busybody quivered with excitement, but I carried on as though my elderly neighbor hadn’t provided me with the most riveting revelation I’d heard in months.

  “I didn’t know you were married twice,” I said in a rigorously conversational tone of voice.

  “Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Craven. “My first husband was a man named Zachariah Trotter, though no one but his parents ever called him Zachariah. In the village, he was known as Zach.”

  “I’ve always liked the name Zachariah,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t have liked Zach,” she told me. “No one liked Zach.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “He was a horrid man,” Mrs. Craven replied dispassionately. “He was a drunk, a bully, a liar, and a cheat.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, gazing at her with concern.

  “Not as sorry as I was,” she retorted. “But I wasn’t sorry for long. We were married for less than a year.”

  “Did you divorce him?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” she said, with a grim little smile. “I murdered him.”

  I laughed and looked around the room to see if anyone else had heard Mrs. Craven’s outlandish joke, but Bree had taken Bess outside for a breath of fresh air and the others were too busy critiquing Christine Peacock’s sausage rolls to eavesdrop on our conversation.

  “I’m glad you’re amused,” said Mrs. Craven. “It was rather dreadful at the time, but I got over it much more quickly than I thought I would.”

  “Annabelle,” I said, with the ghost of a smile still hovering on my lips, “you don’t expect me to believe that you, of all people—”

  “No one believed that I could be a cold-blooded killer,” she interrupted. “Why would they? I didn’t look like a hardened criminal and I certainly didn’t behave like one. I was a tiny little thing, as pretty as a picture and as demure as a doe.” She gave a satisfied nod. “My disguise was flawless.”

  I sat frozen with my needle in the air while Mrs. Craven continued to sew stitch after perfect stitch, seemingly unaware of the gravity of her confession. I studied her wrinkled hands and her white hair and thought sadly that her razor-sharp mind had finally lost its edge.

  “Are you telling me a . . . a story?” I asked gently. “Something you read in a book or saw on television?”

  “I am telling you a story,” she acknowledged, “but it’s a true story.”

  Stymied, I tried again.

  “Annabelle,” I said carefully, “are you taking any medications?”

  “I’m not gaga, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” she said, her gray eyes twinkling. “Doctor Finisterre will confirm that I’m in full possession of my faculties. I only wish I’d been as clearheaded when I was seventeen. If I’d refused Zach’s proposal in the first place, I could have avoided the whole messy business.”

  “M-messy business?” I faltered, as visions of chain saws danced in my head.

  “My marriage was the messy business,” she clarified. “The murder was really quite tidy.”

  “Was it?” I said faintly.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Zach was drunk, you see. One little push was enough to send him tumbling down the stairs in our cottage. I’m almost certain that the fall broke his neck. His head was bent at such an odd angle.”

  I was vaguely aware of Bree reentering the schoolhouse with Bess in her arms, but I didn’t look up or smile at them. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Mrs. Craven, who’d tilted her head to one side, as if to illustrate her husband’s fatal injury.

  “To be absolutely certain, I gave Zach a tap on the head with the poker,” she went on. “Luckily, he didn’t bleed. Bloodstains would have complicated matters considerably.” She frowned thoughtfully. “They’re very difficult to remove from floorboards.”

  “Are they?” I asked weakly.

  “Yes, indeed,” she answered. “I’d practiced with chickens.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “I learned the true meaning of deadweight that night,” she went on. “But where there’s a will, there’s a way! I rolled Zach onto a rug, dragged him into the garden, and buried him in the trench I’d dug for my rosebushes. I planted the roses early the next morning and that was that.” She paused to snip her thread, then smiled broadly. “I must say that Zach’s decaying corpse did wonders for my roses. I thought a dead body would enrich the soil and I was right.”

  I winced and turned away from her as my scrambled brain struggled to reconcile the woman who fed my sons shortbread cookies with the woman who’d fed her husband to the worms.

  “Was . . . was Zach cruel to you?” I asked. “Did you kill him in self-defense?”

  “Zach never raised a hand to me,” she said. “I was embarrassed by him rather than terrified of him. In the end, I simply wanted to be rid of him.”

  “You could have divorced him,” I pointed out with some asperity.

  “I couldn’t afford the legal fees,” she said. “As you can imagine, Zach wasn’t a reliable breadwinner. We could scarcely afford to pay our bills.” She smiled serenely. “Take it from me, Lori: Divorces are expensive. Murder is cheap.”

  “Annabelle!” I cried, horrified. When several heads swiveled in my direction, I bent over the quilt and lowered my voice. “Didn’t anyone notice that Zach was missing?”

  “Everyone noticed,” she said, “including the nice young constable who came to call on me a few days later. I told him tearfully that Zach had abandoned me. I had no trouble convincing him. Zach was so very unlikable, you see, and I was the personification of injured innocence. The constable very kindly helped me to file a missing person report. Seven years later, Zach was declared dead and I was free to marry again. Needless to say, I was more selective the second time around.”

  “Did you tell your second husband what you’d done?” I asked.

  “Certainly not,” she said, gazing at me incredulously. “I don’t think he’d have married me if he’d known that I’d killed my first husband, do you?”

  “If you didn’t tell him,” I said in an urgent whisper, “why are you telling me?”

  “Oh, I just thought you might find it interesting,” she said. She took my needle from my unresisting hand, completed my stitch, and sat back in her chair. “There. It’s finished. Come and see, everyone! Lori and I have finished the quilt!”

  While the others gathered around to congratulate Mrs. Craven—and themselves—on a job well done, I rose from my chair, backed away from the quilt frame, and turned to lift Bess from the baby jail.

  “We’re free!” Bree shouted, flinging her arms wide. “Thanks, Bess. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in prison.”

  “Good to hear,” I said distractedly. “Tell Mr. Barlow he can have the rest of the butterscotch brownies.”

  I crossed to the cloakroom, feeling as though someone had tapped me on the head with a poker. I donned my jacket and helped Bess into hers, then carried her to the Range Rover, secured her in her safety seat, and drove home without pausing to savor any views. I was desperate to confide in someone who would help me to make sense of something
that made no sense at all.

  I needed to speak with Aunt Dimity.

  Five

  No more than a scant handful of people knew about my friendship with Aunt Dimity. I wasn’t ashamed of her. Indeed, I loved her with all my heart. She was simply very difficult to explain.

  Dimity Westwood, an Englishwoman, had been my late mother’s closest friend. The two women had met in London while serving their respective countries during the Second World War. The experiences they shared during those dark and dangerous times created a bond between them that was never broken.

  When the war in Europe ended and my mother sailed back to the States, she and Dimity continued to share their everyday lives by sending hundreds of letters back and forth across the Atlantic. After my father’s sudden death, those letters became my mother’s refuge, a peaceful retreat from the daily grind of working full time as a schoolteacher while raising a rambunctious daughter on her own.

  My mother was extremely protective of her refuge. She told no one about it, not even me. As a child, I knew Dimity Westwood only as Aunt Dimity, the redoubtable heroine of a series of bedtime stories that sprang from my mother’s fertile imagination—or so I thought. I didn’t learn until much later that her stories were inspired by her dear friend’s letters. I knew nothing about the real Dimity Westwood until after both she and my mother had died.

  It was then that Dimity Westwood bequeathed to me a comfortable fortune, the honey-colored cottage in which she’d spent her childhood, her precious postwar correspondence with my mother, and a curious blue leather–bound book filled with blank pages. It was through the blue journal that I first met my benefactress.

  Whenever I opened the blue journal, Aunt Dimity’s handwriting would appear, an old-fashioned copperplate taught in the village school at a time when home births were the rule, not the exception. I thought I’d lost my mind the first time it happened, but a second line of graceful script, followed by a third, finally convinced me that Aunt Dimity wasn’t a bizarre hallucination. She was a kindly soul whose intentions were wholly benevolent.

  I couldn’t explain how Aunt Dimity managed to bridge the gap between life and afterlife—and she wasn’t too clear about it, either—but I didn’t much care. The important thing, the only thing that mattered, was that Aunt Dimity was as good a friend to me as she’d been to my mother. The rest was mere mechanics.

  Bess’s eyelids began to droop as we crossed the humpbacked bridge. By the time I pulled into our graveled drive, she was sound asleep. Instead of waking her, I carried her into the cottage and straight upstairs to the nursery. My daughter was a distressingly fearless ball of energy, but a full day of nonstop socializing was a lot to expect from any toddler. I knew that an early night would do her more good than harm.

  Bess grumbled vaguely while I got her ready for bed, but she dropped off as soon as I lowered her into the crib. I switched on the baby monitor, clipped the mobile receiver to a belt loop on my jeans, and made my way back downstairs, where I was waylaid by Stanley, who made it abundantly clear that he was ready for his dinner. I apologized for the delay and followed him into the kitchen to fill his food bowl, freshen his water bowl, and assure him that Bill—his favorite human—would be home before he knew it. Only then was I free to do what I’d longed to do ever since I’d backed away from the quilt frame.

  I let myself into the study.

  The study, unlike the schoolhouse, was still and silent. A brisk breeze ruffled the strands of ivy that covered the diamond-paned windows above the old oak desk, but the chill that gripped me had nothing to do with the crisp evening air. I lit the mantel lamps and knelt to light a fire in the hearth, then stood to make a shocking announcement to my oldest friend in the world.

  “Reginald,” I said. “I think I may have spent the day sewing with a psychopath.”

  Reginald was a small powder-pink flannel rabbit. He’d entered my life on the day I’d entered it and he’d been by my side ever since. A sensible woman would have put him away when she put away childish things, but I wasn’t a sensible woman. Instead of wrapping my bunny in tissue and sticking him in a drawer, I kept him in a special niche in the study’s floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, where I could commune with him whenever the need arose.

  “I’m not kidding,” I added somberly.

  I wasn’t completely crazy. I knew that my pink flannel bunny couldn’t speak. But I could tell by the gleam in his black button eyes that I’d captured his attention. I nodded portentously, took the blue journal from its shelf, and sat with it in one of the tall leather armchairs that faced the hearth.

  “Dimity?” I said as I opened the journal. “I just had the strangest conversation with old Mrs. Craven.”

  Good evening, Lori. I presume your conversation took place at the quilting bee. Was the bee a success?

  “We finished quilting the quilt,” I said, “and everyone seemed to have a good time, but right at the end of it, when Mrs. Craven and I were alone at the quilt frame, she”—I hesitated, then plunged on regardless—“she told me that she murdered her first husband.”

  I beg your pardon?

  “I know,” I said, nodding vigorously. “It’s nuts, isn’t it?”

  Did you believe her?

  “Not at first,” I replied. “At first I thought she was telling a weird joke. When I realized that she meant what she said, I told myself that old age had finally caught up with her. Delusions seem to go hand in hand with dementia.”

  Did she seem demented?

  “No,” I said. “She didn’t cackle maniacally or behave like a zombie. As far as I could tell, she was her usual self.”

  I wouldn’t expect someone like Mrs. Craven to harbor violent delusions, even if her mind was slipping. Did she describe the murder?

  “She gave me every gory detail,” I said. “She told me how she killed him, what she did with his body, and how she fooled a nice young constable into believing her cover story.”

  Can you tell me exactly what she said?

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “It’s not the sort of thing I’ll forget in a hurry.” I leaned back in my chair, kicked off my shoes, propped my stockinged feet on the ottoman, and repeated Mrs. Craven’s account of the murder and its aftermath. When I finished, I shook my head again. “She didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, Dimity. She wasn’t melodramatic or sinister. She just nattered on matter-of-factly, as if we were discussing a bag of buttons she’d bought in Upper Deeping.”

  And she expressed no guilt or remorse?

  “None,” I said. “If anything, she was proud of herself for being so clever. The whole thing was completely absurd, and yet . . .” My voice trailed off as I raised a helpless hand, then let it fall.

  And yet you believed her.

  “I sort of did,” I admitted. “That’s the problem. If she really did kill her husband, won’t I have to turn her in to the police? I mean, it’s the sort of thing an upright citizen is supposed to do, isn’t it?” I lifted my gaze and stared bleakly into the fire. “Can you imagine me ratting out Mrs. Craven? The police would think I’m nuts, and the villagers would write me off as a heartless monster, especially if she isn’t quite as compos mentis as we’d all like to believe she is.” I sighed miserably and looked down at the journal. “I’d have to be very sure of my facts before I took such a drastic step.”

  Have you told Bill about Mrs. Craven’s confession?

  “Not yet,” I said. “I haven’t spoken with him since last night, and even then I couldn’t hear half of what he said. His campsite seems to be in a cell phone dead spot.”

  In that case, it would be foolish to relay Mrs. Craven’s disturbing story to him. The chances for misunderstanding are too great. He might rush home, expecting to find Mrs. Craven standing over your lifeless body with a bloody poker.

  “The connection is pretty lousy,” I acknowledged. “I wouldn’t want to frighten him.�
�

  Even if you could make yourself understood, I’d advise against it.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Your husband is an officer of the court, Lori. If he has knowledge of a crime, he’s required by law to report it to the authorities. It would be unkind to disrupt his camping trip with an unconfirmed suspicion.

  “I’d hate to spoil his holiday,” I said slowly, “especially when he and the boys are having so much fun.” I thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. “Point taken, Dimity. I’ll keep my unconfirmed suspicion to myself until Bill and the boys come home.”

  You could, of course, become sure of your facts before Bill and the boys come home.

  “How?” I asked.

  For pity’s sake, Lori, the answer is staring you in the face!

  “Please don’t ask me to think,” I begged. “I’ve had an awfully long day.”

  Go to Old Cowerton, my dear. Spend some time there.

  “And do what?” I asked.

  You’re a Finch-trained snoop, Lori. Use your incomparable investigative skills to verify or to debunk Mrs. Craven’s story. Visit the scene of the alleged crime. Chat with the locals. If you’re lucky, you’ll find someone who knew Mrs. Craven when she was Mrs. Trotter—a neighbor, a friend, a schoolmate. Old Cowerton may be larger than Finch, but it’s still a village. I’m sure that someone there knows what really happened to Zachariah Trotter.

  “I’d have to bring Bess with me,” I said doubtfully.

  Forgive me, my dear, but you’re stating the obvious. Bess may be advanced for her age, but she’s not sufficiently advanced to change her own nappies.

  “What I mean is, I can’t leave her with William and Amelia,” I said. “She already misses her daddy and her brothers. She’d be very upset if I went away as well.”

  I’m not asking you to abandon your child, Lori.

  “I know, but it’s not easy to travel with a toddler,” I said. “You have no conception of how many things I’d have to pack. I might as well hook the cottage to the back of the Rover and drag it along with me.”