A Merry Little Death Read online

  “Everyone has a friend,” Robert said, reaching out for one of the ginger biscuits. “Even Joseph.”

  “It’s no time for jokes, Rob,” Joseph sighed. “Talking to the widow—it was ugly.”

  “Talking to the grandmother,” Robert agreed, wincing. “Or standing there while the girls did. It was bad. I don’t know how you do this work. The worst thing I do is write letters to aspiring authors, who I never meet face-to-face, and decline to purchase their manuscript.”

  Joseph stood and paced. “Rogers is cousins with Davis’s wife and all he knew for certain was that Davis hated peas. He knew unimportant asides and that was it.”

  “All joking aside,” Charles said, “I’d sooner tell Georgette than anyone if something was truly bothering me.”

  “Mrs. Mangan did say that her husband hated working for Rudy Cooke, but he didn’t go into specifics. Only that the work wasn’t what he’d thought. It was all she had to give me.”

  “That does sound ominous,” Robert said. He stole a piece of paper and sketched out a story idea as Joseph cursed.

  “Lots of people hate their jobs and aren’t murdered,” Joseph said, returning to Marian’s side, needing to be near her. He lifted Marian’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it before continuing. “But it is surprising that he was leaving the company he worked for since before his marriage for a new position. He looked for months before he found something new, so it wasn’t a sudden decision.”

  Robert looked up at that. “Odd.”

  “He took less pay,” Joseph said. “The wife said they were already struggling.”

  “It seemed like it from the house,” Robert agreed. “And he took a new position for less money? That doesn’t make sense.”

  Joseph grunted. “The company that he currently works for, however, seems fine. My instincts point me that way after talking to the wife, but nothing turned up. I don’t have any other evidence to follow. No one is talking. The manager, Cooke, had an answer for every question. If the wife didn’t poison him—”

  “I don’t think she did,” Georgette said quietly.

  “Neither do I.” Joseph pulled Marian closer for comfort. “But how to prove that someone did? We need to find the foxglove in his hand. We need to have a witness who saw him poison the man’s lunch or his tea. We need something concrete. The business or whoever killed Mangan—damn it. They already got away with it if we don’t find concrete evidence.”

  JANEY THORPE

  Janey curled tighter into a ball behind the desk. She had guessed they’d all sit near the fire, and she’d been right. For a moment, she thought she’d been caught when Eunice set the tea tray on the table, but she’d held her breath and Eunice had muttered about fools who didn’t appreciate sleep.

  Joseph said they needed concrete evidence. Why didn’t they just look for it? If Mr. Mangan had been poisoned over several days and died laughing, maybe the person who had poisoned him hadn’t known that the last dose would kill him. If they hadn’t known that, they might still have the poison. What did foxglove look like?

  Janey frowned. Sammy Mangan and his brothers and sisters might end up in an orphanage because of whoever killed their father. Janey’s fists screwed up. Someone just needed to look. Why didn’t they look?

  If she were going to keep poison, she wouldn’t keep it in her house. Maybe the cat would get into the poison. Or maybe, if he had children, they might and he wouldn’t want that, would he?

  Mr. Cooke was who Mr. Mangan had worked for. Janey knew where the office was. It wasn’t that far from the doctor’s office. She knew what needed to happen. Someone just had to be brave. They had to be brave like Georgette. Janey thought she could do it.

  First, she had to get out of the room. Thankfully, Eunice had left the door open. The path from the desk to the door wasn’t very long, and Janey crawled forward quickly, head down, waiting for someone to call her name, but no one did. She hurried from the room and then down to the hall where her coat was. Putting it on, she tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen for a torch.

  She let herself out the back door and snuck to the Mustly house. Mr. Mustly kept his bicycle in the back garden shed. She closed her eyes tightly and then opened the shed, praying it wouldn’t squeak, and her luck held. Janey pushed the bicycle to the street and rode her way to the village.

  Cooke Construction had a little office building down from Dr. West. It was directly next door to the shop where she’d bought sweets earlier that day. It was after 10:00 p.m. and no one was around. She tried the door, but it was locked. Janey frowned deeply and then walked around the building until she found a loose brick.

  She screwed up her courage, threw the brick through the window in the door, then reached in, careful of the glass, and unlocked the door before hurrying into the office. She switched on the torch and looked around. There was only a desk, a filing cabinet and several chairs. It wouldn’t take long to search at all.

  She crossed to the desk and tried to open the drawer. She jerked on the handle, but it didn’t open. No! Janey thought, no!

  Then she realized that it was locked to hide something. For anyone else the locked door would have been enough, but this person had wanted a second lock. That meant something, didn’t it?

  When Lucy and Janey had visited Dr. West, he’d told them the story of this intrepid girl who could pick locks. She used a hairpin. Janey reached up to her hair and pulled out a pin that held her stray hairs back. She wasn’t sure she could do it, but she could try.

  She bit down on her bottom lip and tried to unlock the drawer. She tried and tried and tried and failed. Janey dropped down onto the floor. It wasn’t working. She wouldn’t be able to get into the desk and the person who had done this would know someone had broken in because she’d broken the door.

  She had ruined everything! She couldn’t save her parents, she couldn’t save Mr. Mangan, and she couldn’t even help find the killer. She had wanted so badly to…to make the person pay. Georgette would know what Janey had done, and maybe because she’d ruined everything Georgette and Charles wouldn’t save Janey from the orphanage anymore.

  Janey wiped away an angry tear and got up. Maybe if she got out and hid. Janey clicked off the torch and rushed to the door, tripping at the entrance and hitting the ground hard. She knocked her chin and mouth, and blood burst into her mouth. Slowly, Janey turned over and glared at the office door, catching the shadow of the brick.

  She wiped the blood from her mouth and chin and knew that it hadn’t stopped the bleeding. She kicked the brick, hurting her toes, and then pushed to her feet and reached for the brick. As soon as her fingers closed around it, she felt powerful. She didn’t have a key, and the hairpin hadn’t worked, but she did have a brick.

  Janey clicked on the torch and walked back to the desk, and then slammed the brick down onto the drawer handle. It took at least a half dozen strikes for her to get it right, but the handle broke off, and the lock fell out, and she was able to pull the drawer open.

  There was a bit of money. She scowled at it. She was no thief. Beneath it were papers. She flipped through pages, leaving her blood on the paperwork. She didn’t care. She didn’t care in the least that it would be obvious who had done this. Under the papers, she found a key and stared at it.

  She tried it in the side drawers, and they opened for her. She found a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. She found a pair of spectacles, and she found a small white envelope. Janey opened it and stared inside. It looked like tea leaves. She would have sniffed it, but she didn’t want to die. So she tucked it into the pocket in her dress, clicked off the torch, stared around her. Something was wrong. She could sense it.

  Following her instincts, Janey dropped to her knees.

  “What the devil?” There was a string of curses and Janey bit down on her bleeding lip, barely held back a squeak, and then prayed as the man repeated, “What the devil?”

  Someone flipped on the lights and Janey curled into a tighter ball under the
desk. The sound of footsteps rounded the desk and Janey slid under the opening between the bottom of the desk and the floor. She crawled quietly away as the drawer slammed open and the cursing increased.

  Janey put her feet under her and darted forward.

  “Hey you!”

  Janey flew out the door and down the street. She could hear the pounding of steps behind her, but the streetlights only created pools of light, and Janey dodged the light, running on her toes to dash from shadow to shadow.

  “Child! Child, I will find you!”

  Janey was not stupid enough to answer.

  “No one will help you, and I’ll wring your scrawny neck.”

  She wanted to shout at him. Murder me? Murder me like you did Mr. Mangan? Georgette would have been disgusted with her if she did, so she ground her teeth and dove beneath an auto. She was little. He was big. She just needed to outwait him.

  Chapter 8

  JANEY THORPE

  “Child!”

  Janey pressed her face into the street and held her breath. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t make a sound. Just like hide and seek.

  “I’ll find you.”

  “What’s all this?”

  Janey’s eyes widened as she heard Dr. West.

  “A kid broke into my office. I caught them running off. Trying to find the blighter, so they can pay for the damage.”

  Dr. West paused and then asked, “It’s Cooke, isn’t it?”

  “Have you seen the kid?”

  “I don’t see anyone out here. Perhaps you should call the constables.”

  Mr. Cooke growled and cursed. “For what?”

  “To catch the child who broke into your office.”

  “Go home, West.”

  “I live above my office,” West said. “This is my home. And you’re disturbing the peace. There’s no child about, Cooke. You should go home.”

  Janey crossed her fingers of one hand, using the other to hold her bleeding chin and teeth. She just had to wait. Please stay, she wanted to beg Dr. West. Please, please stay. Please don’t leave me. A tear slipped down her cheek and she wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball, but she didn’t dare to even breathe.

  Finally, there was the sound of footsteps, but Janey had no idea whose they were. Did she dare to peek out? She shook her head, crying as the pain of her mouth hit her. She wanted to sniffle. She wanted Lucy, but she was going to be brave like Georgette.

  She heard footsteps again and saw the shadow of them as someone knelt next to the auto. She prepared to roll away, escaping on the other side of the auto. If she was fast enough, maybe?

  “I saw you go under the auto, Janey,” Dr. West said kindly, and she gasped. “In fact, I saw you enter Cooke’s office and called for Joseph.”

  Janey whimpered then.

  “He’s on his way.” Dr. West reached a hand in and Janey dared to take it. “I’ve got you, little one.”

  Janey sidled towards him, shuddering as she did. “I…I…I—”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

  When she was close enough, he lifted her into his arms.

  “Oh dear,” Dr. West said as the light from his office illuminated her face. “Shall we take care of that?”

  He carried her into his office, locking the door behind him. “That Cooke is alarming, isn’t he? Quite a big brute.”

  “He…he killed Mr. Mangan,” Janey said, and she held out the envelope she’d taken.

  Dr. West’s brows lifted and he slowly took the envelope from Janey. “You were very brave.”

  Janey started to cry as she said, “I don’t feel very brave.”

  The door to the office banged and Janey gasped. Dr. West rubbed her hair and said, “I’ll protect you now, Janey.”

  She sniffled and nodded as Dr. West crossed to the door of the office. He called a moment later. “It’s Joseph.”

  Janey gasped and leapt off the bed where he’d set her and hurried past him, as Joseph came inside.

  “Janey?” Joseph demanded. “My heavens, Janey! You’re covered in blood.”

  “Janey has been on quite an adventure,” Dr. West told Joseph. “And if I’m not mistaken, she’s found the murder weapon.”

  Joseph’s jaw dropped and Dr. West closed the door behind him. “Perhaps you should call for Mr. and Mrs. Aaron while I clean up her chin. I’m afraid she might need stitches.”

  Joseph crossed to the telephone while Dr. West tugged Janey back into the examination room once again. By the time he was ready to sew up her chin, Georgette had arrived to hold Janey’s hand. The moment the last stitch was set, Janey was questioned within an inch of her life.

  “Did you say Cooke chased you out of his office?” Charles demanded.

  “He said he was going to wring my neck.” Janey shuddered. “I thought he was going to catch me and kill me.”

  “Oh my heavens,” Georgette said, dreadfully pale.

  “I tried to be brave and smart like Georgette,” Janey told them. “I couldn’t let Mr. Cooke get away with murdering a father—”

  Joseph cursed, glancing at the others in the room, but Janey fisted her hands. She’d done what she had to. If that meant she spent time confined to her room, she did what was right.

  “This is what comes of being an independent and smart woman,” Joseph told Georgette. “When you go saving yourself, suddenly the other girls think that they don’t need knights in white armor. They think they’ll just go ahead and save themselves and right all the wrongs on their own.”

  Georgette met Joseph’s gaze until he looked away, and Janey felt that even though she knew she was in trouble, she was also going to be just fine.

  JOSEPH AARON

  Rudy Cooke was not surprised when Joseph and Constable Rogers knocked on the door just as the sun rose on Christmas Eve. Cooke met the gazes of the two men and then sighed. “I had hoped it was a random robbery.”

  “No such luck,” Joseph replied. “We’ll need to be taking you into the station.”

  “Since when does the Yard have children do their dirty work?”

  Joseph knew it was supposed to be an insult, but he didn’t find it so. “You offended the sensibilities and honor of a little girl. She decided you must be caught, and she didn’t understand that we were already on the case.”

  Cooke gaped. “A girl?”

  “An intrepid and quite brilliant girl.”

  “Why did she care?” Cooke demanded. “Why wasn’t she baking cakes and playing with dolls?”

  “Because she understands the difference between being good and kind and being a piece of garbage in human form,” Joseph said as Rogers took Cooke and pulled him to the auto. Rogers wasn’t all that gentle and Joseph didn’t take note.

  ROBERT AARON

  “Mrs. Mangan? Mrs. Rogers?” Robert nodded to the two women. “Where shall I put this?”

  “What is that?” Mrs. Rogers asked.

  “Christmas dinner. A few things for the children. I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time?”

  He unloaded the box and explained his plan. The two woman eyed each other and then said, “We can’t accept charity.”

  “You can,” Robert countered. “You will. For those children of yours. And for the children you’ll be helping when you pay us back.”

  Mrs. Mangan started to weep as Robert reiterated his plan. A donation to get them started. To be paid back as help to the next family. Reported to Eunice, so there would be accountability and someone to turn to for help.

  “Not charity?” Mrs. Rogers repeated.

  “An investment.” Robert looked between them. “I imagine it’s hard to accept help. But you have three small people who need you to trust yourself and stand up.”

  “Stand up?” Mrs. Rogers repeated.

  “Stand up and stand tall,” Robert said. “It’s not your fault that your husband discovered Cooke was skimping on his jobs. If your husband hadn’t been determined to do what was right, you’d h
ave him with you. Davis put taking care of you and your children first. He found another job and was trying to report Cooke. What would Davis want for the children?”

  Cynthia Mangan looked down at her hands. She took in a deep breath and said, “I never wanted to be the person who accepted charity.”

  Robert tried another tack. “Are you going to let Cooke win?”

  Mrs. Mangan’s lip quivered as she stared at Robert. “Cooke poisoned the food I made Davis. He almost ruined my life. If not for Andy and you and little Janey, I could have been hanged for what that man did. Putting foxglove in the tea I sent for Davis while he worked. Ruining my family. It’s—”

  “He’s going to pay for what he did, but I can’t stand by and watch you and your children suffer. Especially when it was the result of your husband risking everything to do what was right. Let me help you, keep your children.”

  “We’ll do it,” Mrs. Mangan said suddenly. “We’ll do whatever it takes to keep the children. It’s what’s right for them and us.”

  “Wonderful,” Robert said. “Happy Christmas.”

  Mrs. Mangan was crying too hard to answer, but Robert took the tears as the acceptance and agreement they were, and he left her to their now hope-filled holiday.

  CHARLES AARON

  “I blame you,” Charles whispered as Janey gaped at the pile of presents. “She’s becoming as she is because of you. Before we had her, she was probably a normal little girl.”

  Georgette placed her hand over his mouth as Janey slowly opened the box that had been placed in front of her. The china doll stared up at Janey with big brown eyes that matched Janey’s. The lashes were painted on perfectly, and the rouge on the pale cheeks emphasized the pink of the doll’s lips.

  Janey gasped as she stared down in shock at the finest doll she had ever held. Janey was, perhaps, too old for such a present, but Georgette said she wanted the child to hang onto the last scraps of her childhood with all the ferocity she could muster.