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Murder at the Lake
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Murder at the LakeA serialised murder mystery byJack Benjamin(a Sr. Constable Thompson mystery)
Part 2
In episode one of Murder at the Lake, Sr. Constable Nick Thompson was called to the scene of a fatality. Ed Hargreave, a man in his mid to late fifties, the owner of a large cottage property on Bobs Lake, dropped dead of an apparent heart attack in the middle of a raucous Canada Day party at his cottage. As episode 2 begins, Nick Thompson is interviewing Hargreave’s sudden widow, Elaine.
“Mrs. Hargreave.”
“It’s Elaine, officer, Elaine Parkinson.”
“But you are, uh, were married to Mr. Hargreave?”
“Yes, I was, well actually, we’ve been separated for almost a year.”
“I see. But you were at the party.”
“I just arrived, about half an hour before he, you know, died.”
“Has he been ill, or, do you know if he’s been ill?”
“I really wouldn’t know officer. We haven’t crossed paths too often in the past six months. I just came to the party because he called me last week and asked me to come, to ‘see the old gang’ he said.”
“The old gang,” Thompson asked, a bit taken aback by how calm Elaine Parkinson was. She could even have been in shock, or drugged in some other way, he couldn’t quite tell.
“Yes, we used to entertain a lot here at the lake, and on Canada Day weekend a bunch of Ed’s friends from business and some of this buddies from back here would always get together for a big drinking party. Which was funny, because Ed didn’t drink.”
“Not at all?”
“Not since I’ve known him, although I’ve heard he drank enough for two lifetimes when he was younger,” Elaine Parkinson, said, maintaining her monotone expression.
“And how long ago was that?” Thompson asked.
“Since I’ve known him or since he stopped drinking?”
“Both.”
“I guess I’ve known Ed for almost ten years now. We met in Toronto, through work. We’re both in the real estate business. I think he stopped drinking a few years before I met him.”
“The real estate business is a good business in Toronto,” Thompson said, glancing over at Hargreave’s Bobs Lake estate.
“It was for Ed, that’s for sure,” Elaine said.
“Did you ever know him to have a heart condition, or other health problems?”
“I’ve never known Ed to be sick, not even with a cold. But his mother would know more about his health. She’s been living with him,” Elaine said, pointing over to the elder Mrs. Hargreave, who was still kneeling over her son’s body, weeping?
“What did you see tonight?” Thompson asked.
“I just arrived about a half an hour before he died. Brian and I put our stuff in our little cottage. We were just getting some drinks; I was fortifying myself before seeing Ed, if you must know. I was walking over to talk to him when he slumped down. I ran over. He looked up to me and said, “Is that you?” And that was the last thing he said. Someone came over and tried to revive him. Then his mother arrived, with his girlfriend, and they both began screaming and crying, and I backed off.”
“When I got here it was you and Mrs. Hargreave who were with him.”
“Yes. Peggy, that was his young friend, went off somewhere a few minutes before you came. I think the paramedic was talking to her. He might know where she went.”
“And your friend, Brian?”
“Brian’s my son. I don’t know where he is.”
“Is he Ed Hargreave’s son as well?”
“No, he’s 17.”
“I won’t trouble you any more tonight, Mrs. Parkinson. You’ve had quite a shock,” Thompson said.
Elaine Parkinson stared back at him, sipping her vodka.
“I suppose I have had a shock,” she said.
Thompson could see his partner, Cindy Pupillo, talking to Phil Bonder, the paramedic. Hargreave’s body had just been placed in the ambulance. Bonder and Pupillo were looking at the ground where the body had been.
Bonder was squatting over something as Pupillo shined her flashlight down.
“Look at this,” Pupillo said to Thompson, “It’s blood.”
“Where did that come from?” Thompson asked Bonder.
“Hargreave, I guess,” Bonder said.
“From where on his body?”
“I don’t know.”
Over at the ambulance, they pulled the sheet off Hargreave’s body.
“Nothing around the head,” Bonder said, “let’s see, there are little cuts on his hands and feet, as if he was climbing on rocks. Maybe he was involved with those smashed up boats over there. Here, there’s a wound in his upper leg, that’s here that blood came from.”
“What kind of a wound?” asked Thompson.
“Could be a stab wound.”
“A stab wound?”
“Could have been a sharp rock, I guess, but I’m no expert. It didn’t hit a vein, though, that’s why we never saw blood before moving him. A wound like that wouldn’t kill someone, on it’s own,” said Bonder.
“Has either of you seen the girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend?” Bonder and Pupillo said, almost in unison.
“According to his wife, who was soon to be his ex-wife, his mother and young girlfriend were around him just after he collapsed. Who phoned in the emergency call?”
“I don’t know,” said Pupillo. “Do you want to talk to his two sons and their mother?”
“His first wife is here as well?” Thompson said in astonishment. “Look, let’s get the body to the hospital so someone can determine what killed him. I don’t know what’s going on here.”
“Do you think it was murder?” Pupillo asked.
“I don’t know, but I know Hargreave had money and at least two ex-wives and a girlfriend. He was dressed for a beach barbeque but he’s cut up like he fell off a mountain, and he may have been stabbed. And he had never been sick a day in his life, and now he’s stone cold dead.” (end of part 2)
