Let Slip the Dogs of War: A Bard's Bed & Breakfast Mystery #1 (5 page)

“Son of a bitch!” Before I knew it, I was
flat on my fanny. I rubbed my head where the immobilized stiff
kicked me on her way down. I knew it wasn’t the girl’s fault her
wayward feet struck a blow. It was that big lout on the other end
of the rope who caused the problem. “You bastard!”

Chapter Five --

“Sorry,” Ben smiled sheepishly. “Malfunction
up here.”

“I’ll malfunction your....” I was now
completely entangled with the dead girl, her body twirling around
as Ben held the rope above. As I struggled to rise, I found myself
trying to push the deceased out of my path.

“Put her in the wheelbarrow!” he hissed from
above. “Hurry up, Bea!”

“‘Put her in the wheelbarrow!’” I mimicked my
fearless leader. “‘Hurry up, Bea!’ Bite my ass, you crazy....”

Whoosh! I heard that sound a millisecond
before the thick, plaited rope smacked my head. Stunned by the
unexpected blow and the sudden dead weight in my arms, down I went.
Jane Doe landed on top of me with a thud, sending me sprawling
across the ground beside the yellow wheelbarrow. When we packed up
the young girl in her mattress pad shroud, we created an unwieldy
worm of a cadaver, and now the worm had sent me to ground There
were no arms to pull on, no legs to drag. It would not fold in the
middle nor yield to the firmest hand. The stiff was really stiff,
and there’s the rub, as Shakespeare said in
Hamlet
:

“
For in that sleep of death what dreams
may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal
coil,

Must give us pause....”

At the moment, I was paused on my arse,
unable to free myself from the weight of my mission. When my
husband got himself down from that ivory tower of his, I was going
to lay him out in lavender, but good, measure for measure. I was
going to Shakespeare his ass from here to Kingdom Come.

“Mrs. Gillman!” I heard Ben call out in a
very theatrical stage whisper. “What might I do for the lady
fair?”

“Crap!” I moaned. I managed to get myself to
my knees. From that position, I rolled Jane Doe onto her back and
off of mine. Three attempts to place her in the wheelbarrow met
with disappointment, especially since it tipped over each time.
Finally, fed up with the frustration, I moved it against the side
of the stone house, dragged the body over, and with my knees
holding the wheelbarrow in place, I lifted the awkward cadaver in.
Bound legs out one end, head out the other, I carefully pushed the
cart across the bumpy lawn, desperately trying to keep my own head
down and out of sight on my way to the garage, while my wayward
husband no doubt tried to charm the granny pants off a little old
lady with a penchant for showing up at the most inopportune
times.

Which begged the question of what would have
happened if she had not been sitting in that kitchen at that
ungodly hour, when the young girl knocked at the door. A terrible
thought occurred to me as I bumped along. Did the girl tell
Philippe that Mrs. Gillman let her into the house? What if Philippe
decided to eliminate Mrs. Gillman as a witness to his crime?

I punched in the code for the automatic door,
rolled the wheelbarrow into the garage, and shut it again. I opened
the back door of the silver Subaru and folded down the bench seat
before turning my attention to the rear compartment. Lifting the
hatchback door, I considered the effort it would take to put the
dead body inside. First things first, I told myself, and I set
about to find a tarp to spread out over the floor of wagon. I found
one tucked behind the shelf where Ben kept all of his tools. I had
just finished tucking it neatly in place when he arrived.

“What’s to stop Philippe from killing Mrs.
Gillman?” I demanded.

“Where did
that
come from?” my husband
wanted to know.

“She let the girl into the house. She talked
to her. She’s a witness to his crime.”

“Be that as it may, Philippe will not want to
draw attention to himself.” Ben hoisted the well-wrapped dead
weight and gently placed Jane Doe in the rear compartment. The legs
had stiffened enough to make closing the door a challenge, but Ben
rose to the occasion, carefully easing the limbs into the space.
“You’re forgetting some important elements, Sherlock. Philippe
doesn’t know yet that we know he killed the girl. He doesn’t know
that we have the body or that we know about the tattoos. Nor does
he know that Langley has been called. He thinks he’s gotten away
with murder. Besides, he’s the kind of thug who’s likely to claim
that it was part of his mission, and he no doubt expects that by
the time anyone questions that conclusion, he’ll be far, far away,
in some hidey hole, waiting for the blowback to fade away.”

“For Mrs. Gillman’s sake, I hope you’re
right!” I retorted. The thought of that low-life, no-good creep
harming an innocent little old lady sent shivers down my spine.

“Of course, I’m right,” he replied with great
confidence. “Now, let’s hit the road.”

“I need my pocketbook,” I informed him. “And
I have to use the bathroom. And I don’t have any makeup on. Not to
mention....”

“Then don’t,” he cut me off in mid-sentence.
“Go get your purse and go to the bathroom. You can put on your
makeup in the car.”

His cell phone trilled and Ben took it out of
his pocket, clicking on a button before putting it to his ear.

“Talk to me,” he said to the voice at the
other end. He followed me out of the garage and headed to the shade
of a sugar maple by the house, out of the hot noonday sun.

It took me ten minutes to slip on a pair of
deck shoes, replacing my ratty old sneakers, always reserved for
the housework that comes with being an innkeeper. I managed to tuck
my hair up on top of my head in a casual pile of shiny curls. It
was necessary after the run-in with the wayward corpse and the
head-banging rope. After relieving myself and washing my hands, I
decided another minute and a half would not cause my husband to
faint dead away, so I added some mascara, eyeliner, and shadow to
highlight my brown eyes. A couple of quick swipes of blush lifted
my cheekbones and gave them a rosy glow. I dabbed my lips with a
cheerful pink gloss. Satisfied, I left the powder room on the first
floor, went through the kitchen, grabbing a couple of peaches for
my purse, and went out the back door, where I found Ben was still
in conversation under the tree. With a smug smile, I opened the
side garage door, pleased that I would be able to say I did not
dilly dally. I planned to settle myself in the Subaru driver’s seat
and wait for him. I even anticipated his reaction to my being
behind the steering wheel, which left me smiling in anticipation of
the fireworks. But what I saw when I entered the garage stopped me
cold in my tracks. “What the hell....”

The hatchback door was raised high and the
rear compartment was empty. No dead body. No nothing. Not even the
tarp that I had placed there remained. Like it never happened.

“Shall I assume you are finally ready?” Ben
sneered as he came through the side door. He looked at the
hatchback door trying to kiss the rafters and looked at me.

“What did you do with Jane Doe?” he
demanded.

“Not a thing.”

“Then where the hell is she?”

“You were the one hanging around outside,” I
reminded him. “If anyone had a bird’s eye view of the garage, it
was you. I was in the house, getting ready.”

“Where’s the tarp?” was his next
question.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” A moment
later, I found it behind the garage.

“Whoever took her couldn’t have taken her
far, not without a vehicle. Damn.”

“Call Philippe. Call that stinking piece
of....”

Ben was already dialing his phone and he
turned away as he spoke.

“And tell him he’s not welcome here any
more!” I insisted. My husband’s hand waved through the air as if he
had been swarmed by a thousand mosquitoes. I’m fairly certain
something was pestering him up close and personal, because he knows
better than to try to silence me in that manner. As I waited for
him, I happened to glance out the window of the garage. And there,
bouncing merrily along the meadow was a tall man in a baseball cap,
red shirt, and dark pants, a white bundle slung over his
shoulder.

“Ben!” I hailed my husband’s attention to no
avail. “Ben!”

There it was again, that waving away of the
swarm of pesky mosquitoes. This time I didn’t take no for an
answer. I marched up to the man I married, twirled him around, and
said his name once more emphatically. He covered the phone with his
hand and snarled at me with great irritation.

“What, for God’s sake?”

“Philippe is making off with our Jane
Doe!”

“He can’t be.”

“Of course he can!” I insisted, pointing to
the window. “I just saw him!”

“No, you saw a man,” Ben retorted. “And for
your information, it cannot be Philippe Grapon. He’s in custody as
we speak.”

“Custody?”

“He just got busted for having a broken tail
light and an unregistered motor vehicle. I’m supposed to go pick
him up.”

“Then who is that?” I pointed at the still
visible thief at a good distance. It looked like he was headed to
the shoreline.

When Ben took off, I expected him to run in a
straight line, towards the man carrying the corpse, but that was
not what he chose to do. Instead, Ben got into the car.

“Are you coming or what?”

“But....”

“I can leave you behind, if you prefer!”

I climbed in beside my husband and had barely
shut the car door when he opened the garage door, threw the car
into reverse, and headed down the narrow track of our private dirt
road that led down to Lake Champlain.

“Shouldn’t we follow him?” I asked. The man
was a good distance from the road.

“No, we should not. I don’t want him to know
we are following him. And if he has an accomplice, I want to get a
good look at the pair of them before I move in. It’s not like we’re
going to save Jane Doe, is it?”

“Sarcasm is not attractive,” I pointed out to
my spouse. He gave me a scornful snort and braked going down the
steep curve of the road.

“What, pray tell, is attractive at this
moment?”

“Alas, I regret to announce the death of
chivalry,” I sighed. “Disappointing.”

“‘Et tu, Brutus? Then fall, Caesar!’”

“Cute. Very cute. Are you going to catch up
with that bastard or talk Shakespeare all day long?”

“Well, if I must....” Ben accelerated and the
car suddenly lurched over a tree root with a big screech and thump
that jarred my teeth. He glanced over at me as we continued on.
“You did ask me to speed it up.”

I let that one pass because I was too busy
trying to spot that figure in the distance. The dirt road wound
around the hilly shore for about a quarter mile, so I lost sight of
it, and when Ben steered around the curve and the car came to the
thick overgrown brush that lined the track on either side, I could
hear the branches scraping against the side of the car.

“Maybe we should walk from here,” I
suggested, suddenly all too aware that he was driving my car, not
his own.

“Not to worry. Those little scratches will
buff right out, Bea. Ah, there he is!”

He was heading down to the banks of Lake
Champlain, the body still carried, fireman-style, on his shoulder,
but it was obvious the dead weight was slowing him down. Several
times he stopped, as if to catch his breath. We traveled another
fifty yards before he dropped out of sight below the ridge.

“What are we going to do?”

“Go after him.” Ben tucked the silver Subaru
behind a large witch hazel shrub, turned off the engine, and opened
his door. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

“Embossed will do.”

We scrambled to cover the distance down to
the formal path to the tiny beach of the Bard’s Bed &
Breakfast. Uncle Edward had originally had a handful of Adirondack
chairs on the narrow strip of sand, but since Ben and I arrived,
there was also a long dock, a power boat-lift, and a little
changing cabana with a composting toilet. At that very moment, the
door to the cabana was open, and we could see the man arranging
Mummy Girl on the bench.

“What in God’s name is he doing?” I asked as
we found cover behind a crop of wild blueberry bushes.

“Not a clue,” my husband replied. He pulled
out the pair of mini binoculars he usually carried with him for
bird watching and maintaining security for the property.

“It’s bizarre.”

“You should be used to that by now, babe.
There isn’t much that makes sense in the intelligence game.”

“Tell me about it!” I said with disgust. “Why
does he have those newspapers? Is that a match he’s lighting?”

“Son of a bitch!” Ben growled. “He’s trying
to burn it down!”

Chapter Six --

“Why?” We watched as he threw liquid onto the
burning paper, jumping back as it flared. I could see that poor
girl, now naked, her shroud no longer protecting her from what was
becoming a raging fire. Then he exited the tiny building, took out
his cell phone, and dialed. A moment later, he disappeared.

“To get rid of the evidence, that’s why. Or
to set someone up. Probably us.”

“That’s stupid. Why would he....”

The sound of a motor cut through our chatter.
A tour boat with a crowd came into view just as we stood up,
intending to head down to the beach and snuff out the fire that was
now smoking enough to attract attention.

“Wait.” Ben put a hand out to pull me back
down. “Watch what happens.”

“We’re going to let the cabana burn with the
girl inside?”

“Look at Johnny-on-the-Scene,” he said
grimly. I gasped as I saw Philippe pointing to the fiery cabana.
There must have been thirty people on that floating party boat.