Chapter 6

Ginny turned, then lifted her head. Her gaze locked with the inspector’s and she read the confusion in his eyes. She knew he had to have heard it. The voice had been loud and clear. Yet his bewildered expression told her he hadn’t heard anything.

“Did you hear her?”

He stared at her for several long moments, then slowly shook his head.

Gnarled fingers of terror clamped around her heart and threatened to stop it from beating. A keening sound echoed in the graveyard and Ginny realized the agonizing sound had come from her. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stop the scream from continuing but she only managed to muffle the cry, not hide it.

The inspector’s hands reached out to her but she spun to the side. She couldn’t allow him to touch her. She didn’t want him to pretend that he understood when she knew he didn’t. He couldn’t. All he was capable of understanding was that she heard voices that no one else heard. How could he think anything other than that she had gone mad?

Ginny turned to run down the path. She needed to get away from him. She needed to go where she could be by herself. Where she wouldn’t have to look at him and see the doubt in his eyes, the pity on his face.

“Ginny, stop.”

She ignored his words and continued at a faster pace.

“Ginny, stop,” he repeated louder.

A moment later she heard his footsteps close behind her. She knew in a few seconds he would be even with her and he would try to stop her from escaping.

“Don’t,” she said when he reached her. “Let me go.”

“Don’t run from me. Tell me what you heard.”

Ginny stopped and spun to face him. "Why? So you can laugh at the ramblings of a crazy woman?”

“I don’t believe you’re crazy.”

“Of course you do. How can you not? I hear voices no one else hears.”

Ginny threw her arms out as if battling him. “People talk to me from beyond the grave. How many sane people do you know who can speak to the dead?”

When he didn’t answer, she spun away from him, then ran down the path to escape him. She hadn’t yet reached the gate when he caught up with her. His hands clamped on her upper arms and he pulled her to a halt. Then, he turned her in his arms and brought her close to him.

Ginny struggled to force him to release her, but the inspector only tightened his hold.

“Don’t fight me, love. I don’t think you’re mad. I don’t.”

His words found their way to her consciousness and she ceased her struggles. The strength she’d used to fight him left her body, and her legs gave out from beneath her. The inspector led her to a secluded bench and sat beside her.

Every nerve in her body trembled as if she no longer had the power to control them. Tears of heartache and sadness streamed down her cheeks like rivers of sorrow. He held her close, as if she were a fragile doll that needed comfort. Which was exactly what she felt like.

Ginny wasn’t sure how long she stayed in his arms, but when she was finally able to face him, dusk had chased away the sunshine and the sky was growing dark.

“Are you alright?” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead.

“How can I be?” She was embarrassed by her lack of control. Mortified by her tears. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need. You’ve been under a great deal of pressure.”

“Why is this happening?” she said as she lifted her gaze to look at him.

The inspector shook his head. “I don’t know.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and let her lean against him. “What did the voice say to you this time?”

“She repeated the same words as before. She begged me to please, find her killer. Then you heard me ask her where I should look to find him. And she said…”

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She told me to look on bended knees.”

. . .

Will sat behind his desk and wrote down every word the voice had told Ginny. Starting with the last revelation.

What had the voice meant by telling them to look on bended knees? Was the inspector to search on bended knees? Was the killer one who would be seen on bended knees? That certainly didn’t narrow things down. In the area where Elizabeth had been killed there had been brick masons building a low wall. On bended knees.

Gardeners could be seen at all hours of the day tending the rose gardens in front of Elizabeth’s pretty row house. On bended knees.

The cobblestone walk through the park where Elizabeth was killed had been finished just that spring. By men on bended knees.

And in every church there were clergy. On bended knees.

There were a thousand possibilities.

Will shoved at the paper he’d been writing on. Leaping to conclusions would be of no help. But following every lead no matter how bizarre would hopefully reveal more evidence, more clues. The clue that eluded him at the moment, though, was the reason for his reaction to Ginny Wattersfield.  

He’d kissed her. And she’d returned his kiss with more passion than he’d had any right to expect. He’d held her in his arms and she felt as if she belonged there. As if having her there was the most natural thing in the world.

Will shoved his chair back from his desk and rose to his feet. It had been two days since he’d gone to the cemetery with Ginny. Two days since Lizzy had spoken to her. He wanted to take Ginny back to Lizzy’s grave to see if she could gather more information about Lizzy’s killer, but when he remembered how painful it was for Ginny to go through such an experience, he knew he couldn’t put her though such terror again. Not yet.

He stood with his arms braced against the window frame and looked out onto the courtyard below. His thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the door. Brian Randolph entered the room when Will answered.

“Miss Wattersfield is here to see you, sir.”

Will’s heart sped in his chest. “Show her in, Randolph.”

Randolph stepped to the side and Ginny entered the room. Will took a step toward her after Randolph backed from the room and closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Ginny,” he said, taking her hand in his and showing her to one of the chairs before his desk.

“Hello, Inspector.”

“No need for formality, Ginny. Call me Will.”

She nodded, then lowered her gaze. Her cheeks turned a warm shade of rose.

Will sat behind his desk and focused his attention on her. She was dressed in a lovely peach walking suit and wore matching gloves and a jaunty plume in her fashionable hat. Will doubted he’d been in the presence of anyone more beguiling in his life, and the way his body reacted told him as much.

 “Are you all right?” he asked. Although there was high color to her face, there was a telling depth in her eyes that warned him that something was wrong.

“She’s stopped talking to me,” Ginny said. “I just came from the cemetery. I tried to find out more information but she didn’t answer me when I spoke to her.”

Will rose from his chair and walked around the desk. He sat in the chair next to her and reached for her hands. “I wish you hadn’t gone there. Especially alone. It’s too hard on you.”

Ginny shook her head. “What if she won’t speak to me again? How are we going to discover who killed her?”

“We’ll simply have to figure out what she meant with the information she’s already given us.”

“But it could be anyone. Have you determined what she meant when she said we’d find her killer on bended knees?”

“Not as yet,” Will answered.

Ginny was silent for several moments and Will saw her mind working. “What are you thinking?”

“I just wondered…” She turned in her chair until she faced him. “Do you have a list of suspects you investigated after Lizzy’s murder?”

“Yes. But all of them either had alibis for the time Lizzy was murdered, or we couldn’t find proof that they might have anything to do with her death. Our consensus at the time was that Lizzy’s killer must have been a stranger, but that no longer seems the case. Her words suggest that the killer was someone she knew.”

“Or does it? Why be cryptic if she knows the man’s name?”

“If it is a man.”

Silence settled about them as they each contemplated the other’s comments.

“Alright, then. Who did you suspect?”

Will looked at her with growing unease. She was asking too many questions. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’m only interested in what path your investigation took you. Perhaps if I knew who you considered, something Lizzy said to me might shed some light on one of the suspects.”

Will studied her, wondering if she knew the insult she had just lobbed his way. He had studied every clue from every angle and every character flaw among his list of suspects. Still, he couldn’t argue with Ginny’s line of thinking. Perhaps it would help to have a fresh pair of eyes look at Lizzy’s murder. “As you know, Lizzy had been seeing Wesley Fletcher. I briefly considered him a suspect, but there was no proof that he had anything to do with her death.”

Ginny nodded her agreement. “I can see where you would consider him. He had been courting Lizzy and if he thought her attentions were focused on someone else, he may have become angry enough to kill her in a fit of jealous rage.”

“And if he proposed marriage, it would have been…”

“On bended knee.”

She followed his line of thinking so perfectly that she might as well have been reading from Will’s old notes. He rested his elbows on his knees and watched her clever mind work through various scenarios.

“Who else did you consider?”

“We considered Lizzy’s neighbor, Rodney Baker. He took an uncommon interest in our investigation. It made me think that he wanted to make sure we weren’t getting too close to discovering that he might have had something to do with Lizzy’s death.”

“Why did you dismiss him from your list of suspects?”

“It isn’t that I dismissed him, as much as that I was unable to find any proof to convict him, no tangible evidence that he had in any way planned or carried out the horrid deed. And, one of Elizabeth’s sisters admitted to pressing Baker to get information for her.”

“Explaining his ‘uncommon interest’. Anyone else?”

Will shook his head. “There’s always the possibility that the killer was a stranger.”

Ginny remained silent as if considering that possibility, then she shook her head. “I don’t think the killer was a stranger.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Lizzy said the killer wasn’t what he seemed. To me, that means she must have known him and thought he was someone she could trust. But he wasn’t.”

“Not necessarily. You see a rag lady in the market and assume she’s been poor all her life. But she might just be the Duchess of Penwick merely fallen on hard times. She wasn’t what she seemed.”

Will smiled at her look of surprise, and appreciated her admiring glance.

“Still, we cannot rule out the possibility that she knew the man,” Will said. He was impressed by the way Ginny’s mind worked and did not want to put a damper on her willingness to help him sort through it all. “Which means I’ll have to review my list of suspects again and see if anyone stands out.”

“May I ask one more question?”

“Of course.”

“Where was Lizzy killed?”

Will hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted Ginny to realize how vulnerable Lizzy had been. Or how close his cousin had been to making it home safely. In the end though, he found no reason to keep that fact from her.

“Not far from her house. She’d gone with her sisters to a concert in the neighborhood park earlier in the evening. When they were ready to leave, Lizzy wasn’t about. They assumed she must have gone home ahead of them. But she wasn’t there when they arrived home. When she didn’t return later, they sent for me and we searched the area. But her body wasn’t found until the next day. She’d been strangled and left beneath some bushes.”

“Oh,” Ginny said on a smothered squeak. There was a pained expression on her face.

“I shouldn’t have told you the details like I did.”

“I’m glad you did. The fact that she was killed close to home may indicate that she did indeed know her killer. And that she felt comfortable being with him.”

Will looked at her studious expression and felt again his awe. He was distracted just being so near to her, but she seemed unaffected and was wholly engaged in exploring the case. “I thought the same thing,” he said.

“You mentioned that she became separated from her sisters. Did they happen to see her talking to anyone? Perhaps she walked home with whoever she’d been talking to.”

Will shook his head. “I asked that question at the time of Lizzy’s murder. None of her sisters remembered her speaking to anyone.”

“Then I believe our next move should be to retrace the places your cousin was known to visit.”

Will gathered her hands in his. “There can be no our in this investigation, Ginny. If anyone does anything, it will be me. Do you understand that?”

A sheepish expression covered Miss Wattersfield’s face and although she looked contrite, Will doubted that contrition went beyond what he could see on her face.

“Of course, Will. I was only offering suggestions.”

“I don’t want you involved in this, Ginny. We’re looking for a killer, not a penny candy thief. Just because we only know of one death that he’s committed, doesn’t mean there aren’t more. Or that he won’t kill again if he feels threatened.”

“You’re right, Will,” she said, lowering her eyes. “I’ll leave the investigating to you.” With that, Ginny rose to her feet. “And I’ll return to my work at the emporium. I’ve left the work to Della and Lucy too often lately.”

Will walked Ginny across the room, but before he opened the door, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Remember what I said. Leave the investigating to me.”

“I will,” she answered, lifting her gaze to meet his.

But as he escorted her from the office, he was plagued by the suspicion that she had no intention of following his advice. And she could be in as much danger as Lizzy had been.