“I can see lights!” I cried. On the horizon, bright orbs arrested my vision, throwing up the dark shapes of buildings.
As we walked closer, the lights resolved themselves as windows and lanterns, casting shadows on stone walls and steep gables. A row of stone workers’ cottages stood on the edge of the meadow, backing onto the open fields beyond. A copse of trees bent over them, the branches scraping against the crumbling stone and broken tiles as the wind twisted through them. Smoke billowed from ancient chimneys, and overgrown gardens spilled over low stone walls.
“Oh, I’ve never seen these houses before,” I breathed. A puff of mist rose from my mouth, catching the light and floating into elegant curlicues. “They’re beautiful.”
“They’re practically falling over.” Heathcliff pointed to the house on the end of the row, where part of the roof had caved in. It was patched over with corrugated iron. “Isn’t that one of your Banned Book Club biddies?”
I squinted where he pointed. In front of the cottage, an expensive-looking red sports car idled in the driveway, the headlights illuminating two white circles on the side of the house. A car door slammed, and a figure jogged through the headlight to the front door of the cottage. No matter how much I strained my eyes, I couldn’t see the figure. “What does she look like? I can’t see.”
“Dark frizzy hair, tie-dyed dress under a vomit-colored trench coat—”
“Oh, that’s Sylvia Blume. What’s she doing?”
“She’s got a key, and she’s opening the front door. There’s another person in the car, she’s getting out…” Another door slammed. Heathcliff leaned forward. “This one is a snotty-looking woman wearing a king’s ransom in diamonds. She’s heavily pregnant. They’re arguing.”
Ginny Button!
What are they arguing about?Something in my gut told me this was important. Whispered words rushed past my ears, too quiet and too far away to be heard. Frustration welled inside me. How could I find out what was going on?
“What’s happening now?” I hissed at Heathcliff.
“The pregnant one just leaned in real close, like she was threatening Frizzy-Hair. Now she’s going back to her car, and—”
“You may think you’re untouchable, Ginny Button!” Sylvia Blume’s shouted words stabbed through the night. Her voice had risen an octave, the pitch betraying her fear. “But I know what you did. You’re rotten, and you won’t get away with it!”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Sylvia!” Ginny spat back, her posh voice thick with venom. The car door slammed again.
“Is something the matter?” A man’s voice – deep, with a thick German accent – called out.
“Oh, look, it wouldn’t be England without a nosy neighbor poking his head in,” Heathcliff whispered.
Wheels spun and the red car backed into the shared driveway, then blew off up the gravel road, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake that obscured my vision even worse.
“It’s fine, Helmut,” Sylvia Blume called back, her voice wavering. “I just had a little argument with a friend, is all. I’m sorry for waking you.”
“I understand. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” I strained to hear a door creaking open and shut again. A couple of the cottage lights popped off.
My heart pounding, I turned to Heathcliff. “What do you suppose that was about?”
“Pregnant Bitch took Frizzy-Hair for a drive to intimidate her,” Heathcliff said matter-of-factly. “Then she brought her home and threatened her, but Frizzy Hair knows more than she’s letting on.”
“They were talking about Mrs. Scarlett’s murder!”
“We don’t know that for sure. Are these cottages part of the King’s Copse development?” Heathcliff asked.
“I don’t know, but I bet Morrie can find out. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking if you lived in a tiny stone cottage in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn’t want a huge modern development going up next door.”
“That’s true. I read in one of the newspaper articles that there were some nearby residents whose houses would need to be bulldozed.”
“It seems likely they’re referring to these cottages. I’m also thinking that if you owned said cottage and you were annoyed at certain developers sniffing around, you might be feeding a certain neighborhood busybody information about any untoward earthworks or bad behavior, and that might make you a target.”
“Are you suggesting that Mrs. Blume could be in danger, too?”
“If someone is desperate enough for this development to go ahead that they’d poison an old lady,” Heathcliff said darkly, drawing me close to him and wrapping his arms tight around me, “then they’ll do anything.”
