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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 3
Previously in Murder at the Lake, Constable Thompson was called to the scene of a presumed heart attack at the cottage compound of Ed Hargreave. Hargreave was dead, and on the scene were his estranged 2nd wife and his mother, and Thompson then learned that Hargreave’s first wife and two sons were there as well, and his current girlfriend, who had run off. As his body was moved, paramedics found a non-lethal wound on the back of his right leg and cuts to his feet and hands. As episode 3 begins, Thompson is reporting to his boss the next day. Sergeant Silcox was two years from retirement, and had taken on the management of the detachment as a nice place to put in the last of his pensionable time. He hoped the strange circumstances surrounding Ed Hargreave’s death were just that. Murders lead to paperwork.
“So, what do you think about Hargreave, Thompson?” Silcox asked?
“There’s going to be an autopsy, that should tell us something. In the meantime, I went back to the scene today and talked to his first wife, his sons, and his mother. I don’t really have a clue what actually happened. Maybe he dropped dead on his own, or maybe he was murdered.”
“You went there on your own time?” Silcox asked.
“Ya, I know, I wanted to see who would still be there, and what the place looked like before it was completely cleaned up,” said Thompson.
“What?” Silcox asked.
“Everything had already been cleared away. I arrived at the Hargreave place just before 10 in the morning, after leaving at about 4:30 in the morning. All of the bottles, the food, even the boats that had been smashed up on the shore were all gone. There was no sign of the events of the previous night. A crew of six people were just finishing up clearing everything away. The crew chief was named Cheryl Hanrah. She said she gets hired every year to clean up after the Hargreave Canada Day bash. They arrive at 7 and work away until everything is done. She said the mess this year was mild compared to other years, when there were usually people still up partying or sleeping on the beach. She didn’t even know Hargreave was dead. No one was around to tell her. And the boats were stashed away in the boathouse.”
Silcox interrupted Thompson at this point.
“Are you telling me that this might have been a murder, and if it is, there is nothing left of the crime scene.”
“Well, it’s not a murder investigation exactly, a guy just dropped dead at a party, is all,” Thompson said, a bit defensively.
“But you were suspicious enough to go and snoop around on your own time?”
“Yes”
“And did you talk to anyone who knew something? Silcox asked.
“I talked to Hargreave’s two sons, who came out of the main cottage as I was talking to Cheryl Hanrah. They were Ed Jr. and Bob. Ed was somewhere in his 40’s and Bob a few years younger. I didn’t think they were particularly broken up over their father’s death I asked them what they remembered. Bob laughed and told me he was so drunk that he didn’t know what was going on. Ed seemed disgusted with Bob; I don’t know if it was because he was such a drunk or if it was because he was laughing about not remembering his father’s death. Ed told me what had happened with the boats. Bob had been in the rowboat, which he smashed up against some rocks about 20 feet out in the bay, sending him into the water. The kayak was also in the water, and Ed didn’t know who was in it, but they tried to save Bob, who didn’t seem to have surfaced. The Kayak tipped over and it ended up hitting the rocks as well. Everyone started calling out ‘Where’s Bob’, ‘Bob’s under water’, that sort of stuff, and then Bob started laughing, he’d been lying on the rocks the whole time. By the time they realized that Bob was safe, they heard screams back at the shore. It was Lily, Ed Hargreave’s girlfriend, standing over Ed, who was lying on the dock, dead.”
Silcox was shaking his head.
“And this Lily,” he asked
“No one’s seems to know where she is,” Thompson answered.
“And you never met her last night?”
“No. I told them to leave everything where it is at the Hargreave place after talking to the sons this morning,” Thompson began saying, but Silcox interrupted him,
“So you’re trying to lock that barn door once the cows had all got out.”
At that moment Thompson realized how much he disliked Silcox. Silcox wasn’t satisfied to sit quietly on his duff and wait for retirement, he had to put everyone down who was still trying to earn their paycheck.
“We don’t exactly have a murder investigation. So far all we have is a rich guy with a weird family who died at a party,” he said to Silcox, walking away.
“So what about his first wife, what was she doing there?” Silcox asked.
“She has a cottage next door, a consolation prize from when Hargreave left her, she said. She heard all the commotion as they were looking for Bob, so she came to see about her son. She found out that Bob was ok, and then heard Lily scream just like the rest of them. She said she had always thought Hargreave would outlive her, but she was wrong about that and everything else. She didn’t look like she had shed any tears over him last night.” Thompson said, conquering his urge to tell Silcox what he thought about him.
“And the mother,” Silcox said.
“She was the only one who was messed up about it, just like last night. Between sobs, she said she had been sitting on a chair next to Lily, who she called a harlot, if you can imagine that. Hargreave was standing on the dock, looking over to the rocks where all the commotion was. Just before they found Bob sitting out there, Lily got up to stand with him. And a bunch of other people crowded around as well. Bob began laughing and right after that Ed dropped to the ground, that’s how she put it.”
“And your friend Lily?” Silcox asked with a smirk.
“By the time the dust settled she was gone. I asked where she had been staying while at the property, and found that her clothes, her bag, her wallet, everything was still in he master bedroom, but no one’s seen her since the time Hargreave died,” Thompson said, trying to ignore Silcox’s sarcasm.
“I guess you’d better find her then. She’s either a missing person or a murderer on the loose, don’t you think?” Silcox said.
“I don’t know who or what she is,” Thompson answered, heading towards the door as if he was in a hurry to find Lily, while he was actually trying to get away before smacking Silcox on his shiny, bald head.
“If it turns out Hargreave was murdered, whoever comes in to investigate will want to know where Lily is,” Silcox called out as Thiompson was leaving his office.
“Not if I figure this thing out before you get a chance to go over my head, you…” Thompson muttered to himself. (Next week: Episode 4, the trouble with Lily)
