Murder at Longbourn

any superior moral fiber on my part; I just didn’t have the stomach for it. The mere idea of breaking into someone’s house had rendered me sweaty and queasy. If I actually got in, there was a very good chance that I’d throw up and then pass out. Still, I kept searching for a way in, holding on to the hope that I’d find a spare key outside. My weak stomach aside, I couldn’t let Lauren hang for Gerald’s and Jackie’s murders. Finally, luck smiled on me. Hanging from a nail near some plants was a gray house key. I was no gardener, but I would bet money that these were the foxglove plants from which the murderer had prepared the poison. I grabbed the key and ran around front. With shaking fingers, I slid the key into the lock and pushed open the door.

The stillness inside amplified the pounding of my heart. I darted up the stairs and into Linnet’s bedroom. A quick search provided what I was looking for. I lifted the lid of the jewelry box and enjoyed a moment of triumph as my hand closed around the glittering earrings. I had been right!

I thought of Gerald, who was hated by nearly everyone he knew, a man who most likely caused his first wife’s death. I thought of Jackie and her ridiculous floppy hats and insatiable thirst for gossip. In spite of her silliness, she had been likable. She hadn’t had an easy life. Her dreams of moving to Hollywood were ruined by a friend who opted for marriage instead. What had Linnet said? “Jackie, on the other hand, has always had a real talent for mimicry—more of a gift, really, than a talent. She was amazing.”

Another memory slid into focus—the night of Gerald’s murder. I had been in Aunt Winnie’s office, hearing the front door open. Two voices floated in. One was Linnet’s. “This is a horrible night to be out. Really, Jackie, I don’t know why I let you talk me into coming to this. I hate these things.”

Next came Jackie’s voice, all breathy and excited. “Oh, don’t be that way, Linney. It’ll be lots of fun. You’ll see.”

But that wasn’t what Linnet had told the police. She told Detective Stewart that going to Aunt Winnie’s had been her idea. And with Gerald’s death a chain of events had been set in motion that would end with Jackie’s death. Gerald, a man who was universally hated, a man who no one was surprised to hear had been murdered. In quick succession, other facts fell into their correct place: a sudden weight loss and a smooth, unpierced ear beneath a floppy blue hat.

I was so caught up in my reverie that I didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs. Too late, the hair on my neck stood up, telling me that I was no longer alone.

I spun around.

“Hello, Jackie,” I said, once I got my voice back.

CHAPTER 27

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side

which he never shows to anybody.

—MARK TWAIN

STILL DRESSED IN Linnet’s clothes and wearing her wig, Jackie tilted her head to one side and peered up at me. With a flourish, she pulled off the wig with one hand, revealing a head of fluffy white hair. She looked like somebody’s sweet old grandmother. The only jarring note was the unwavering gun in her other hand. It was a Derringer just like the one that had killed Gerald. “They released me from the hospital early. I took a cab home,” she said conversationally. “But when I saw your car outside, I had a bad feeling.” She shook her head from side to side, clucking her tongue disapprovingly as if at an errant child who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She saw me glance at the gun and nodded. “My father collected them. I grew up practicing with them. If I do say so myself, I’m an excellent shot. They were the only things of value that he left me.” She turned the small gun in her hand so that the light caught the shiny white pearl handle. “Seemed a silly inheritance at the time, but they actually have come in handy.”

I was ice cold. My mind screamed at me to say something, to keep her talking until I could figure a way out of this, but I couldn’t move, let alone talk. Fear ate at me, leaving nothing but a quivering shell. Finally, I managed to get out, “You loved Martin.”

She looked up at me again with that birdlike tilt of her head. “He was my world,” she said simply. “And then Linnet saw him.” She spit out Linnet’s name as if it were an insult. “She wanted him like a child wants a piece of candy. Martin loved me, but … but when Linnet came around, I disappeared, the way the moon eclipses the sun. Once Linnet set her sights on Martin, he didn’t have a chance. She never loved him; she just loved his money. All this,” she said, with a wide sweep of the gun, “came from Martin’s money. And Martin belonged to me. The way I look at it, this is how it should always have been—me living in this house with the things that his money bought. I’ve only righted the wrong Linnet created.”

“So you killed her and assumed her identity,” I said carefully, trying to keep my voice neutral, as I thought one should when dealing with crazy people. I warily contemplated her and the gun. I looked around for something to use as a weapon but could see nothing. I was certainly bigger and could probably tackle her, had she not had the gun. A tiny part of my brain registered that it was, in reality, a small gun, but a gun is a gun, and when you’re staring down the barrel of one, size doesn’t matter. To my shattered nerves, she might as well have been holding an AK-47. My only hope was to keep her talking while I tried to maneuver my way toward the door to the hallway. I remembered what Detective Stewart had told me: Derringers have only one shot, two at the most. If I could take her by surprise, I might be able to make a run for it.

“It was easy, really.” Jackie became eerily conversational. I began to feel an unreal sensation creep over me. This couldn’t be happening. “When I read of Martin’s death, I wrote Linnet a letter of condolence and, amazingly, she invited me to visit. Seeing her preen around her grand house, touching her grand things, all the while spitting on poor Martin’s memory made me hate her as I never had before. That’s when I first thought of killing her. But how could I do it without getting caught? While I contemplated a murder plan, Linnet decided to sell her house and move to the Cape, and she asked me to come live with her. Of course I agreed. Neither of us had any living relatives or knew anyone on the Cape. How easy would it be for me to become her? After all, we were cousins and we resembled each other. I was always good at imitating people. Linnet wore a lot of makeup and a wig and—”

“And you always wore big floppy hats to hide your face. You wanted everyone to think they were meant to cover thinning hair, but it was Linnet who had the thinning hair, Linnet who wanted to hide it. That’s why she wore a wig.”

She smiled at me like a proud parent. I remembered Linnet’s battered body lying in the snow that day and how I’d seen the sparse hair and assumed it was Jackie. And Linnet’s sudden need for her tinted glasses—hadn’t she insinuated that Jackie was to blame for the loss of her contacts? At the time, I’d thought Linnet was being unfair, but no doubt Jackie had hidden the contacts, forcing Linnet to use her glasses. It was just a prearranged prop for Jackie to obfuscate differences between her and Linnet. As I slowly edged toward the door, I asked, “So you killed Gerald for nothing? Just to divert attention from your real crime.”

“Exactly. I couldn’t have asked for a better target. Why, I hadn’t been here three days before I realized that everyone in this town hated Gerald Ramsey. And really, it’s not as if anyone minded his dying. In fact, I think I did several people a service. With so many suspects, the police were far too busy checking motives to worry about anything else.”

“And then you showed up pretending to know something about his death.”

“Yes.” She laughed. Her laugh had a strange edge to it. Unstable was one way to describe it. Scary as hell was another. “You should have seen your face,” she went on. “It took all of my self-control not to burst out laughing. From there on it was simple. I just became Linnet. I’d studied her closely.” She shifted her posture slightly, rearranged her facial expression, and suddenly she was the proud and haughty Linnet Westin. Then her face crumpled and the illusion was gone. Her mouth twisted. “Killing Linnet gave me a great deal of satisfaction, but later, when it was over … well, she was the only one who remembered the past. She may have sneered at Martin, but at least she remembered the sound of his voice. Now no one does, only me.” She trailed off, staring at something unseen in front of her. Cautiously, I took a few steps toward the door again. “But what’s done is done,” she said, snapping back to the present. I stopped my slow inching. “It’s for the best,” she added firmly. “Linnet deserved to die. She stole Martin from me. It would have been different had she really loved him. She made his life a living nightmare and she drove him to drink. He barely touched alcohol when I knew him. Linnet killed him just as she killed my dreams.”