Chapter Thirty-Two
Inspector William Dobson of the local police had taken off his greatcoat and the snow and ice had melted in his beard, leaving
him slightly damp and highly disheveled as he sat in front of the library’s roaring fire. His pants legs were wet and covered
in muck, and he’d propped his bad leg on an ottoman and pulled off one boot to reveal an ankle that was purple and blue and
approximately twice its rightful size.
He was, in short, a man who was having a very bad day, and there was no doubt it had just gotten worse as he sat there, staring
at Maggie and Ethan.
“Why do you think someone was shooting at you?”
That was it. No introductions or chitchat or easing in. It was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over Maggie, and
she glanced at Ethan, like the last twenty-four hours might have been a dream.
“Ms. Chase?” Inspector Dobson prompted.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “Do you mean why was someone shooting or why was someone shooting at me ?” The man stayed quiet and Maggie rambled on. “Because I don’t know about the first part but the second is pretty obvious?
I think?”
She hated the uptick at the end of that sentence, the uncertainty in her voice. Maggie was an adult. Maggie was a professional.
But, more than anything, Maggie was scared. And she needed someone to tell her it was real and not in her head and—
“It’s incredibly obvious.” Ethan’s deep voice cut through the silence.
Dobson didn’t like that one bit; Maggie could tell by the way he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his belly.
He looked like the kind of man who would have retired five years ago if he wasn’t afraid someone would make him get a hobby.
“Humor me.”
“It’s just... I was wearing Eleanor’s hat and coat,” Maggie told him. “Snow was falling. Visibility wasn’t great. From
a distance, I would have looked like Eleanor.” She glanced at Ethan, almost wishing he would talk about Remington rifles and
being the guy who takes the bullet again, but Ethan never took his eyes off Dobson. “Someone shot at me because they’re trying
to kill Eleanor.”
Dobson shifted his bad leg and tried to hide his discomfort. Stubborn , Maggie thought. He’d probably never stopped and asked for directions in his life. “At this point, Eleanor’s just missing.
What makes you think someone’s trying to kill her?”
“Because Sir Jasper didn’t poison himself?” Maggie felt like that much should have been obvious, but Inspector Dobson simply
turned to the tray on the side table and began examining a container of tea like he was at a fancy restaurant—like a man’s
heart hadn’t nearly stopped this afternoon with a tray almost exactly like that spread around him.
“What makes you think Sir Jasper was poisoned?” Dobson sounded almost distracted.
“Oh, just a...” Maggie watched Dobson add leaves to the pot of hot water and wait for it to steep. “Are you sure you want
to drink that?”
“You say Eleanor was conducting some kind of...” Dobson flipped through an old-fashioned notebook. “Test.”
Maggie had to look down at her hands. “I was wrong.”
“What makes you say that?” Dobson turned his attention to the cookies but Maggie felt like the water in that pot—full of steam
but not quite boiling.
“A test wouldn’t leave Sir Jasper unconscious upstairs. A test wouldn’t fire shots at me in the garden.” That time her words
didn’t sound like a question. They were facts. Not opinions or theories or crazy, wild-eyed schemes. “Eleanor is missing,
Inspector. And every minute we sit here is a minute we’re not looking for Eleanor. Or for whoever is trying to kill Eleanor.”
Dobson picked up the pot and poured. “Not whoever tried to kill Sir Jasper?”
“It’s the same person,” Maggie said with exaggerated patience. “No one has a motive to hurt Eleanor and kill Sir Jasper. That tea tray was in her office—”
“Why do you think the poison was on the tea tray?”
Maggie wanted to throw her hands up and scream.
“Maybe it wasn’t,” she agreed. “Maybe Sir Jasper just happened to be close enough to knock it over when he collapsed...
Maybe he was poisoned some other place or time. Or maybe he wasn’t poisoned at all? We won’t know until we can get out of
here and run a whole lot of tests. But, until then, I think we should work under the assumption that, maybe—just maybe—a deadly
poison was delivered to the woman who is currently missing and who someone has already tried to kill .”
But Dobson was smiling at her over the top of his cup. He almost laughed when he said, “Funny.”
“Is it?” Maggie’s foot was starting to bounce, a tap-tap-tap on the hardwood floor. Her jeans were still wet from the snow, and the damp denim felt like a straitjacket on her calves.
She wanted to change. To run. To vibrate right out of her own skin. And she might have done exactly that if a big, muscular
leg hadn’t started pressing against hers; she felt herself go still.
“You say it was a deadly poison, but Sir Jasper isn’t dead at all.” Dobson flashed a toothy grin, the human personification
of gotcha . “What do you say to that, young lady?”
“I say the Latin name of foxglove is digitalis, did you know that, Inspector? It’s digitalis . Have you heard of that? It’s heart medicine. Sweet clover is a blood thinner. Henbane has been used to treat Parkinson’s.”
“I’m just a simple country copper, Ms. Chase. You’ll have to—”
“The difference between a poison and a medicine is the size of the dose,” Maggie finished, harder now. “I know that because
when I was fourteen years old I read it. In that one.” She pointed to a copy of The Black Thumb Murders high on Eleanor’s shelf.
It should have been obvious, but Maggie said it anyway. “Sir Jasper is a giant, and, no, it didn’t kill him , but...” Maggie was so cold—so cold and tired of carrying the weight of everything. All the time. She’d been carrying
it since she was eighteen years old, and she wanted to put it down. She would. Just as soon as she made the inspector understand—
“It would have killed Eleanor ,” said the deep voice beside her.
Maggie jerked a little—surprised—by the voice and the calm resolve and the realization that at some point in the past ten
minutes—or maybe the past two days—she had started leaning on Ethan Wyatt. Literally. Metaphorically. He had one arm draped
across the back of the couch, not touching her—not exactly. But it made her feel shielded and safe and not alone.
She would need to unpack that later, maybe cry for a few hours or days, but now wasn’t the time or place, not with Eleanor
missing and Sir Jasper fighting for his life upstairs and Inspector Dobson sitting across from them, staring daggers.
Gone was the folksy gentleman warming himself by the fire as he said, “Oh, but I can think of two people who would benefit from the demise of both Eleanor Ashley and Sir Jasper Rhodes. And I’m looking right at them.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Maggie said at the exact same moment Ethan uttered—
“Yeah, I can see that.”
She spun, but Ethan just pressed his leg firmer against Maggie’s.
Dobson cradled the tiny teacup in his big hands. “Taking over Eleanor’s ongoing series... what would that be worth?”
“That’s hardly the—” Maggie started just as Ethan said, “Millions.”
Maggie wanted to kick him in the shin, but Dobson didn’t notice. Didn’t care. He was too busy sipping his tea and trying to
decide whether or not to have another cookie. It was like this was a social call—a polite occasion. He wasn’t even looking
at them when he said, “Eleanor bought this house forty years ago—did you know that? Just a few months after I joined the force.”
He looked around the room—at the towering shelves and roaring fire, the world’s most beautiful Christmas tree and frosty windows—as
if there was no place on Earth he’d rather spend Christmas.
“We don’t get a lot of serious crime out here, thank goodness, but a young woman had gone missing. My father was the chief
inspector at the time and he didn’t think I could crack it, you see. But I wanted to show him, so one of the lads and I decided
to pay a visit to our new author. Figured the great Eleanor Ashley had seen more crimes than the pair of us combined, even
if hers were fictional. So we came out one day to ask Eleanor’s advice.”
He chuckled at the memory. “I can’t imagine how we must have looked, the two of us still wet behind the ears. But Eleanor
was a lady and she was kind, and she sat us down and helped us think through the case. We never did solve that one, but every
so often she’d have us out for tea, and we’d talk about cases. Hers. Ours.”
Then he put down his cup and leaned closer, and it was like the windows had all shattered, the room got so cold so quickly.
“Eleanor Ashley is a friend of mine.”
“So are you going to look for her or arrest us?” Maggie asked.
It took a moment for his face to change—for his lips to curve into something that wasn’t quite a grin—it was a challenge.
“Who’s to say I won’t do both?”
And then Maggie snapped. She was too tired and too cold and too worried. There were so many emotions running through her that
she thought she might collapse before she reached the finish line.
“I’m telling you, we—”
“Are you finished with us?” Ethan asked.
“Actually—”
“You’re finished with us.” And then Ethan stood and pulled Maggie out of the room.