Chapter 15
2041 Words
Chapter 15
I locked the door again behind me then looked up at Brianna. She gave a little wave for me to follow her back down the hall to where Sophie was standing at the top of the stairs. Brianna motioned for Sophie to start dancing up another wind, then summoned a spray of obsidian-like sand from the end of her wand. Sophie sent it flying down the hall to the two guards still snoring away in the chairs.
They both woke with a loud snort, and we quickly raced down the stairs, all of the way back to the darkened corridor behind the ballroom.
"What did he say?" Brianna asked me, but there were a group of men talking together just a few feet away in the corridor, and I shook my head.
"Not here," I said. We continued down the corridor to the bright lights of the ballroom. A crowd of angry partygoers was gathered at the far set of doors, demanding that the police let them leave the house.
"Oh dear," a woman near us said. "I do hope there isn't a fight."
I slowly turned as I looked around the room for any sign of Otto or Coco or Charlotte, but they were nowhere to be seen.
"It's too crowded to talk here either," I said. Even as I said it, something bumped me hard enough to send me staggering back half a step until Brianna caught me.
"Parlor," Sophie said, and we followed her to find that room fortunately empty, although someone had left out a tea service on one of the tables. Brianna tapped the pot with her wand to warm it up then poured out cups for each of us.
Once we were sitting in front of the fireplace, our chairs drawn as closely together as we could move them, I told them everything that had passed between Edward and me.
Well, mostly everything.
"So he doesn't think Thomas is guilty either," Sophie said, stirring her tea over and over with a little spoon. "That complicates things."
"We aren't looking to blame Thomas, though," Brianna said. "We're looking for the real culprit. Aren't we?"
"Yes," Sophie sighed, setting her spoon aside but not touching her tea. "I'm just saying, if Thomas were guilty, it would be easier to prove than it will be for us now to find this mysterious extra person up on the balcony that no one got a good look at."
"Maybe Mr. or Mrs. McTavet saw something?" Brianna asked hopefully.
"If they had, I'm sure the police would know it already," I said. "They'd be looking for someone who isn't Thomas or Edward. But they haven't. They are only building the case against Edward, not searching for a different suspect."
"Maybe if we went back up to the third floor and tried that spell again?" Brianna said.
"I don't think it will help," Sophie said.
"Besides, everything we've done so far we've gotten away with, but the police are getting suspicious. The guards outside Edward's room know something happened. They'll be more alert now. And they might hear us on the balcony now that they'll be more vigilant," I said.
"So what do we do?" Sophie asked.
"Talk to Thomas," I said. "There is nothing else."
"But Edward doesn't think he did it," Brianna said.
"Edward is kind to a fault," I said. "To a fault. He doesn't want to believe that Thomas might do it."
"I wish we had known Thomas before," Brianna said. "We have no real sense of his character."
"He had means and opportunity," I said. "He had knocked Ivy back into the railing once before."
"By mistake," Brianna said.
"And he was still the one closest to her when she fell," I went on.
"And as to motive?" Sophie asked.
"Maybe it was an accident," Brianna said.
"No," I said. "Well, maybe. But consider this. We already know he trains as a boxer. His reflexes are faster than his thinking, right?"
"Can we assume that?" Sophie asked, but I ignored her.
"He overreacted to Edward trying to speak to Ivy," I said. "Then he overreacted even more to Ivy getting bumped against the railing. It's very doubtful she was even hurt then, and besides that, it would've been more Thomas' fault than Edward's."
"So?" Sophie asked.
"I'm establishing a pattern of behavior," I said. "Clearly Thomas Weingarten is a man not in control of his own temper. We know there was this extreme, unprovoked escalation in a very short period of time. Is taking it one step further so inconceivable?"
"Yes!" someone cried from the doorway, and we all jumped to realize that at some point on our conversation we had neglected to keep our voices down.
"Mary!" Brianna said, for indeed that was who had overheard us.
She looked a mess, eyes red and blotchy, a coffee stain on the skirt of her gown. But I quickly realized that her body shook not with grief but with anger.
"How dare you?" she demanded, looking straight at me.
"What have I done?" I asked.
"Accuse Thomas. What proof do you have of what you say?" she asked, hands curling into fists.
Sophie leaped to her feet and pulled Mary into the room to sit in the chair she had just vacated. She made little murmuring sounds and comforting gestures, but Mary would not take the hint to be quieter.
"I wasn't accusing him," I said. "We were just discussing theories."
"You sounded like you were sure," Mary said. "You sounded like you were ready to hang him."
"I'm not sure of anything," I said. "I haven't even had a chance to speak with him."
"Why would you speak with him?" Mary asked. "You sound like you think you're the one investigating Ivy's murder and not the police."
"The police have sealed themselves off in the library to question all the wrong people," I said, crossing my arms. "Someone has to actually investigate."
"You're not trying to solve her murder, you're trying to absolve your friend," Mary said. "At the expense of my own."
"We're not," Sophie said, the only one of the three of us still capable of keeping her voice down, save Brianna who had fallen silent the moment the angry talking had started.
I took a deep breath, then three more. I forced my arms to unfold, although they felt like dead weights now hanging at my sides. "Edward didn't do it. And he told me he didn't believe Thomas did either," I said.
"When did you speak to Edward?" she asked.
"A moment ago," I said.
"How?"
"The usual way," I said, then plowed on before she could ask another probing question. "Coco also said there was a stranger up on the balcony with you all. Are you sure you didn't see anything more? Anything that would clear all this up?"
"No," Mary said, her voice thick. "I wished I had. I wished I could clear all this up. But you must believe me that Thomas would never do this. He isn't capable of it."
"Physically, he is," I said.
"Physically, any of us are," Sophie said, and I had to admit that was true. Ivy had been petite. Coco at thirteen was already taller than her sister and with quite a bit more heft.
"I was referring to his moral character," Mary said.
"Well, I don't know him," I admitted.
"I know you don't. If you did, you'd never be able to suggest the things you were suggesting. His father is a lawyer renowned across the Midwest for his high ethical standards. Thomas is cut from the same cloth. He's had the most refined of upbringings, has always been the model his peers were meant to emulate. He simply could not do this."
"Lucky for you the police agree," I said darkly. "Which is why Edward has to be their scapegoat. Edward who has no prominent family name, no renowned father or refined upbringing. The fact that he, also, could never do this is never going to enter anyone's mind."
"I wasn't saying that," Mary said.
"Weren't you?" I shot back.
"Amanda, you know she wasn't," Sophie said. "Please, take a moment to center yourself. You're not thinking clearly."
"Neither is she," I said. Although I was pretty aware that I sounded like a sullen, moody preteen in that moment.
"No, I am not," Mary admitted. "I can't. Not when it comes to… this."
"Thomas," I said. "You can't think clearly when it comes to Thomas."
Mary looked down at the mangled mess of a handkerchief clutched in her hand.
"You were upset before any of this happened," I said. "The engagement announcement was a shock to you. You ran away. No, not away. You ran upstairs. To demand answers."
"I wasn't going to demand anything," she said, but her hand around the handkerchief was forming a fist again.
"Surely someone owed you an explanation," I said. "Your best friend changes her mind so drastically, so dramatically, and she doesn't even tell you ahead of time. She must have had opportunity. Was she just being cruel?"
"Amanda, what are you talking about?" Brianna asked.
"Charlotte and I arrived later than we intended," Mary said. "Ivy and Mrs. McTavet were both glowing with happiness, but servants were constantly interrupting to ask questions about the food or the band or a thousand other things. I guess she didn't have the time."
"Didn't she?" I asked.
Mary tried to sniff back a fresh wave of tears.
"She could've made the time," I said. "She should have."
"Yes," Mary said, crying in earnest now. "She should have. She was my best friend. I was here for her, but she didn't even think of me."
"Did she know?" I asked. "How you felt about Thomas?"
"I never said it explicitly," Mary said, her voice barely audible. Sophie slid an arm around her, and Mary rested her head gratefully on Sophie's shoulder.
"She was your best friend," I said. "She knew."
"Yes," Mary said. "I think she did."
"Hold on," Brianna said, fingers fluttering as if she were adding up all the little clues. "Oh! Mary was in love with Thomas."
"Not was," Mary said miserably. "Am. Always have been, and heaven help me always will be."
"He's not worthy of you," I said.
"No, he never played me false," Mary insisted. "I always knew how he felt about Ivy. He's loved her since we were kids. But she didn't want him. But he liked me well enough. And I knew that as soon as Ivy was settled with another, then his heart would finally be free."
"I'm still not liking him," I said. "Charlotte doesn't either, does she?"
"Charlotte," Mary said, then seemed to swallow back her first attempt at completely that thought. She took a breath and spoke with more calm. "Charlotte is difficult. She always has been even as a baby. There's no accounting for her moods. And if she takes a disliking to someone, nothing will ever change that."
"Did Thomas do something to her years ago then?"
"If he had, it was some trifling little thing that she'll never let go of," Mary said. "Please, just speak with Thomas as you spoke with Edward and then speak to me as to his character. Please."
"That's reasonable," Sophie said, looking up at me.
"Quite," I said. "And what we were going to do next anyway."
"Oh, thank goodness," Brianna said. "For a minute there I thought you were going to argue that Mary was the murderer."
"She had motive," I said.
"Amanda!" Sophie chided.
"But not opportunity," I went on. "She was too far away. Every witness agrees on that."
Sophie was still staring daggers at me, but Mary took no offense.
"You'll think better of Thomas after you speak with him," Mary said. "But please, don't mention me. I don't really enter into things."
"You never told him how you felt either?" Sophie asked.
"Heavens, no!" Mary gasped.
"If you had entered into things more, perhaps this whole day would have ended very differently," I said.
"Amanda! You can't possibly put that blame on Mary!" Sophie said.
"No, I wasn't blaming Mary," I said. "It's just I'm finding it all a bit ironic. We're working so hard to catch her killer, and yet with every fresh detail I learn about Ivy, I like her less."
"We aren't doing this for her," Brianna said.
"No, we're not," I agreed. Then I pushed myself up from my chair and tipped my head back, trying to judge from what I remembered from our spell before where Thomas would be now in relation to where we were. Almost directly overhead, I decided.
And I immediately knew how right I was when I saw him fall headfirst past the window.
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