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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 4
Previously, Ed Hargreave collapsed and died at a Canada Day party at his cottage. His first and second wives were on the scene, as were his two sons, his mother and many other people. His current girlfriend, Lily, was with him, but she has not been seen since. As episode 4 begins, an autopsy report has just been sent to Nick Thompson.
Thompson was sitting in his cruiser, alone, reading intently, when his partner, Pupillo, saw him.
“You’ve got the report?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“And?”
“Over all the findings are inconclusive. He died of a heart attack, it says, but his blood chemistry was ‘abnormal’. He had extremely elevated sodium levels. His arteries were clear, but he had a weak heart. I’ve put in a call to his doctor. I want to know what kind of shape he was in,” Thompson said. “Get in, let’s go have a look at his medicine cabinet.”
“Aren’t you going to tell Silcox what’s going on?”
“Later.”
They waited a long time at the door of Hargreave’s cottage. Finally, a teenage girl came out of a cabin. She was helping Ed Hargreave’s mother Celia, walk over to Thompson and Pupillo.
“There’s no one in there,” she said.
“Can we get in? We’d like to look at a few things.”
“Why do you need to bother us now? I’m burying my son tomorrow,” said Celia Hargreave.
Celia Hargreave was not crying, as she had been, every other time Thompson had seen her since her son’s death. Her voice was weak, but there was a trace of the harshness Thompson remembered from when she had been his grade one teacher.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hargreave, we just have a few details to confirm about your son’s medical condition.”
“He’s dead.”
“I mean, his condition before he died.”
By now Celia Hargreave, on the arm of her granddaughter, had reached them. She stared coldly at Thompson.
“Where are you from?” she asked him.
“Around here, you actually taught me in grade one.”
“I taught lots of boys, but you look familiar. Are you a friend of Ed’s?” she asked.
“No, but I’ve been here investigating”
“Let them in,” she said to her granddaughter, turning away from Thompson, losing interest in him completely, “I need to lie down.”
Up in the bedroom, nothing had been touched since the morning after Hargreave died.
“I guess Lily hasn’t been back,” said Cindy Pupillo.
“No one’s seen her,” said Thompson. “I’m putting in a missing person’s report as soon as I get back to the office.”
“You won’t need to,” a woman’s voice said from behind Pupillo and Thompson.”
They turned around. There, standing casually at the door, was a thin woman, who looked to be in her late 40’s or early 50’s. She had short, black hair, was well dressed, and wearing impeccable makeup.
“Lily?” said Thompson and Pupillo incredulously.
“Pardon me officers, but I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Lily Boutillier,” she said in a clipped voice, with just a hint of a Quebecois accent.
Thompson mumbled a hello. This was not the woman he expected. From what he had heard about Lily, he was expecting a woman in her 20’s or 30’s. This woman looked like she could to be a sophisticated viper, but not a harlot, as old Mrs. Hargreave had described her.
“Can I have my purse, please?” Lily continued. Thompson was holding her purse, getting ready to look inside to find some identification.
“Here it is, I was just …, we didn’t know where you were. It’s been four days since..”
“Since I ran off after Ed Hargreave died. Is that what you want to say, officer uh ….”
“Thompson, Mrs. Boutillier”
“Miss Boutillier, I’ve never married. So you will want to know where I went and where I’ve been, no?”
“Yes, we will. But we don’t need to talk in here. We were actually going to look in the medicine cabinet first.”
“Are you looking for the bandages? You won’t find any, we used them all,” said Lily.
“Bandages, no, we weren’t looking for bandages,” Thompson said, wondering what Lily Boutillier was talking about. “We were looking for medicine, Mr. Hargeave’s medicine. Do you know what medications he took?”
“Medications? I have no idea, but he took quite a few, for arthritis, for high blood pressure, and he took some homeopathic drops as well. He was always worried about health, his own health, you know.”
Pupillo had gone into the bathroom, and she was just about to open the medicine cabinet, when Thompson reached her and pulled her arm back.
“Let’s treat this as a crime scene,” he whispered in her ear. Get some bags from the car, and be careful not to touch anything when you open the medicine cabinet. We may want to dust it for prints.” Pupillo nodded, turned, and left the room. Thompson came out of the bathroom after her. Lily was sitting on the bed, straightening out her purse.
“Let’s go downstairs and you can ask me your questions, Officer Thompson,” she said.
“Yes, let’s do that,” Thompson replied.
They sat at the dining room table.
“It’s a pretty nice cottage, more like a summer home,” Thompson said, looking around at the spacious kitchen area which was a mass of chrome and black appliances, including two ovens, a deep double sink, fridge and upright freezer, and those were only the things Thompson could see. There were 10 seats around the oak table they were sitting at, several couches strewn about a modern, three-sided fireplace, and expensive-looking art on the walls.
“Ed liked to put on a nice show,” Lily Boutillier said, “he even fooled me with it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Thompson said.
“When someone has a nice house - Ed had three - fancy cars, good clothes, all that, it could mean one of two things. He is either rich, or he has a long line of credit.”
“And you’re saying Ed Hargreave had a long line of credit?” Thompson asked.
“That’s what I found out, when I opened some of his mail by mistake,” Lily replied.
“When did that happen?”
“Let me see, it was about ten days ago, in Toronto.”
“And that changed the way you felt about him?” Thompson asked.
“How bold of you, Officer Thompson. But under the circumstances I’ll be honest with you. Yes, it changed everything for me. I’ve known Ed for about six months. I knew him to have a kind of rugged charm, and he was very dynamic. And part of his dynamism was his wealth. I fell in love with him for a time, you see. I didn’t fall in love with his money, no, but I did fall in love with a rich man, if you understand what I am saying.”
“Not exactly, but you were saying, everything changed when you found out he didn’t have money. What do you mean by that?” Thompson asked.
“By the time I found that out, I no longer loved Ed, by then I was only tolerating him. It turned out he was more rugged and less charming than he had first appeared.”
“But you didn’t leave him.”
“I had invested quite a bit of my time and my heart into Ed Hargreave. I didn’t know what to do, you know. But then when he pulled that number at his stupid Canada Day party, I was ready to .…. I was so mad I wanted to kill him. And that’s why I stabbed him that morning.”
(Next week: Who killed Ed Hargreave?)
