Death in Castle Dark, page 23
“Tyler was there on the night Garrett died, right?”
“Just briefly. He dropped off my jacket.”
I had seen him; he had peeked into the room where I was rehearsing.
“Does he have a quick temper? You said once he didn’t know his own strength.”
She stared at me, then put her hands on her hips in one of her dramatic poses. “Are you accusing my husband of murder?”
I was still trying to fit pieces together. Why would Tyler kill Garrett? “Tim went to the school where Garrett taught. He said that there was a kid named Tyler in his drama department. You told us Tyler loves acting. Tim said that this long-ago Tyler was a joke because he couldn’t act. That he wanted to get into Juilliard but couldn’t get a recommendation from Garrett.”
Bethany’s eyes widened; she seemed to realize something. “It— He did have something like that in his past: a teacher who refused to help him. It ruined his dreams.”
“What if he ran into Garrett the night he brought your jacket? What if he realized for the first time that his old drama teacher was working at the castle? Perhaps they got into an argument. Maybe Tyler lost his temper. Is that possible?”
She shivered. “I— No, it’s not possible. You didn’t tell this to the police, did you? I don’t want him to be in trouble.” Her face, frightened and vulnerable, was closer to mine now. She was on the verge of tears.
“Bethany, if he’s guilty of murder, he has to face the consequences. And you could be in danger. I don’t think you should go near him until this is resolved.”
She seemed to crumple a bit then. “Okay. I’ll stay here for a few minutes. But I know you’re wrong. Tyler would never do something like that.”
I turned and unlocked the front entrance with my key. “If that’s the case, I’ll be the first to apologize.” I peered into the darkness. “What is taking them so long? I wonder if Derek talked Tim out of going inside.”
“Maybe we should go back out there,” she said, her voice hopeful.
I turned to look at her. On the shadowy steps she looked as ingenuous as Connie always did. She reminded me of someone else, too, but I couldn’t place it. I was starting to have second thoughts; the Tyler theory seemed nebulous now that Bethany stood before me looking like a regular person who wouldn’t have a homicidal spouse. “Well, there’s no point waiting out here. It’s actually getting a little chilly.” I swung open the door and we entered the dark foyer. Blindly, I patted the west wall, looking for a light switch.
Bethany started digging in her purse. “I’m going to text him. I’m sure he has an explanation for everything.”
“I don’t think you should, not until Detective Dashiell talks to him.” I still hadn’t found the light. I turned back to Bethany. “I guess we’ll just have to make do with our flash—,” I began, but I faltered and stopped.
Even in the dark, I could see that Bethany held a gun, and it was pointed at me.
19
Castle Walls
I stood, stunned, horrified not so much by the gun as by the look on Bethany’s face. Her pale skin made it easier to see her mocking expression, even in the gloom; her head seemed independent from her body, floating there in the darkness and laughing.
“What— I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want you sharing your theories with the police. They’re wrong, anyway. Tyler didn’t do anything, except tell me who Garrett was. He saw him in the hall that night, and then he found me and told me—that was the man who ruined his life.”
“No one can blame his life trajectory on one person,” I said. Distantly I knew I was afraid; I heard my own voice talking as though it came from someone else.
“No. But I’m as protective of my husband as he is of me. And Garrett refused, simply refused to write him a letter of recommendation when he was young. It broke Tyler’s heart. So that night I found Garrett in the hall, while the Inspectors were chatting after dinner, and I told him who my husband was. I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you write it?’ Do you know, he almost laughed. He said, ‘Because I didn’t want to lie.’ ”
“So he was honest,” I said. “How does that lead you to grab his knife and plunge it into him?”
She shook her head. “I had to make it up to Tyler. He didn’t deserve—” Her expression was profoundly guilty, but seemingly not about Garrett’s murder.
Her eyes were wide, her full lips pouting. Suddenly I realized why she looked familiar. “Oh, God,” I said. “You’re Hyde. From Garrett’s drawing.”
“What drawing?” Her voice was blank. Of course, I thought, he didn’t show it to her.
“So you had to make it up to Tyler. But that sounds like it’s about something you did, not something ten years in the past. . . .”
My mind was teeming with images. Sora saying that Garrett had slept with a woman in town. Bethany saying that she and her husband were utterly devoted to each other, the night we introduced ourselves. She had smiled right at Garrett—defiantly, I realized now. And there was the cartoon of Jekyll and Hyde. Hyde’s expression had resembled the slightly unfocused one Bethany wore right now. . . .
“You had an affair with him,” I said with sudden certainty. “With Garrett.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It was before I knew who he was to Tyler.”
“But after you were married.”
Her lips pushed outward in a pout. “I thought Garrett got me. He said I had acting skill, and he gave me tips. We were lovers in Derek’s script, and we had to practice together. Then we started meeting in his room. I thought we had something special, something I could have on the side, just for me. It was kind of glamorous, having a young husband and an older lover. But he ended it. Can you believe that? An old man like Garrett telling a young, pretty woman that it’s over?”
She was still angry about it. No wonder Jade had said that Garrett looked hunted when she saw him in town. Perhaps he was afraid that unstable Bethany would confront him and his girlfriend. “Put the gun down,” I said.
“No. You know things the rest of them don’t. So we’re going to take a walk up the main staircase. You go first.”
She cocked the gun in the darkness, an obscene and terrifying sound, and I screamed.
“Go.”
I moved on leaden feet to the staircase and then up the stairs one at a time, my mind racing. Where were the others? Would I have time to run when we reached the top? Why did we have to go upstairs for her to shoot me? Would I be able to find a way to text for help? My phone was with the pamphlets in my little shoulder purse.
I thought of all the castle hiding places. Could I find one of the fake walls in the dark? But Bethany knew about them all, didn’t she?
Stalling for time, I said, “So it was you in the costume. The monk.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I had hidden Garrett’s knife in that wall by the costume room. I had to get it out, but you managed to ruin things. I scared you away and then had to go retrieve it with no costume on. That was scary, but nobody appeared. Just Elspeth’s ugly cat, staring at me with his moon eyes.”
“Why did you go in Connie’s room?”
She shrugged. “I thought that after I retrieved the knife I might plant it in there. I wanted to see if I could get in. But after you saw me, I knew no one would think she was guilty.” Her voice sounded bored. Why would she have wanted to frame Connie? Everyone liked Connie.
Thoughts kept tumbling through my mind. I remembered Connie telling us that Garrett had asked, Do you trust him? He must have been looking at Tyler; perhaps on some level he had recognized the young man, and it had made him distrustful.
I remembered Garrett’s room on the night of his murder.
“Why did you ransack Garrett’s room?”
“I had to make sure he didn’t have anything in there that linked him to me. No diary or something. I know old people keep things like that. Keep moving, Nora.” She shoved my back and I almost fell.
“Why did you bring the knife to the store?” I asked. I wanted to get as many answers as I could. Then I would try to get away and tell them all to Dashiell. But she was so close to me, and she had a gun. . . .
“Because they would have found it out in the woods. They have equipment. But who would look in a store? I thought it was the perfect hiding place. Stop stalling.”
“If you do this, it will be bad for you. You’ll have killed two people, Bethany. You’ll go to jail forever.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll tell them you pulled the gun on me, and I pushed you down the stairs. I’ll say you killed Garrett because he attacked you or something.”
She was truly unhinged; she sounded almost cheerful. I wondered what sort of weird scene she must have made with Garrett to make him view her as Hyde.
“They won’t believe that. Where would I have gotten a gun?” I reached the top stair and walked swiftly to the middle of the landing so Bethany couldn’t easily send me tumbling to my death. “Besides, Detective Dashiell is looking for your husband. He’ll find him, and he’ll learn that Tyler was there the night Garrett died. That he told you Garrett was his teacher.”
“So? That’s not a motive.”
“No,” I whispered, “but shame and regret can be overwhelming.” I understood it then in the dark of the castle, where I was about to meet my death: the motive had been her realization, in one terrible instant, that she had betrayed her husband with the very person he felt had already ruined his life. And her guilt and dismay in that moment had made her plunge a knife into Garrett’s chest.
Bethany edged closer; the castle walls seemed to be closing in on me, and I thought I might faint. Something moved in the darkness behind Bethany, and I could hear my brothers saying something in my ear, something they had taught me long ago and for which I had yelled at them. . . .
“Go to the top stair, Nora. I’ll shoot you if I have to, but I’d rather go with my first plan.”
I bent over at the waist. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Bethany said in the ultimate irony, and I lunged forward and pushed her backward into the large, solid body of Hamlet. She lost her balance and fell over the dog. Her gun fired somewhere toward the ceiling, and her head hit the floor with a thunk.
I ran; soon Hamlet was running beside me, and we sailed up another flight of stairs and straight to my room. I fumbled with my key, which I had worn on a little wrist bungee so that I wouldn’t lose it. Soon I had unlocked my door and secured the dog and myself within my chamber. I grabbed my phone and dialed John Dashiell.
“Nora. Where are you?”
“I’m in the castle with Bethany; she has a gun, and she’s hunting me. She killed Garrett.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m locked in my room. I’m afraid she’ll come up here.”
“We’re on the way. Stay there.”
I hung up and hugged Hamlet with trembling hands. He licked my hair. Foggily I realized that my brothers had inadvertently saved me once again. They had demonstrated “table topping” to me, a supposedly funny gag in which a person knelt behind an unsuspected dupe and another person pushed that victim from the front, making them fall over the body behind them and potentially hurting themselves. Luke and Jay had laughed, calling it hilarious, and I had shouted at them, telling them I never wanted to hear that they had done that to anyone. “Someone could get really hurt!” I insisted.
I wondered now if Bethany had been hurt. Might she be unconscious? Or was she even now creeping closer to me, ready to shoot my lock open and corner me in my own bedroom?
My room was dark and terrifying, but I didn’t dare turn on a light. Perhaps she wouldn’t know that I had chosen this haven. Maybe she was checking the exits. . . .
A tiny kitten climbed up my leg. I held it up and saw that it was Emily. I set her down and petted her; soon the other two joined her and created a purring mass in my lap. Their presence calmed me down, and I tried to breathe through my anxiety. In, out. In, out. The police were coming. My friends were coming. I just had to stay put.
And then I heard it—a light knocking at my door, so light it was barely there. “Nora?” said a whispering voice. “Nora, open the door. I want to apologize.”
I shivered in the dark and reached for Hamlet. There was no way she could know I was in here. She was guessing. I simply had to wait. . . . But if she somehow got the door open, I was a sitting duck.
As silently as I could, I stood up, clasping all three kittens against my chest. I moved toward the window and the Brontës’ favorite hiding place—my long red curtains. If she got in somehow, perhaps she would think that she was wrong and that I wasn’t in my room at all. Then she could wander the castle and peer into its many hiding places until they found her there, gun in hand. . . .
I tucked behind the curtains, setting the kittens on the wide windowsill. Then I beckoned to Hamlet, who came to my hand, and pulled the curtains together, cringing in place, peering through the small space between the panels and waiting for the sound of a bullet piercing my door. Instead, I heard voices. Renata’s voice and Elspeth’s, chatting happily. Oh, God—somehow they were coming back from their ticket table without knowing what was going on.
“Hey, Bethany,” Elspeth said. I could see beams from their flashlights under my door. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing” came Bethany’s voice. It sounded odd, dull. “I’m looking for Tyler.”
“Elspeth, come here.” It was Renata’s voice. She knew something was wrong. “Come into my room. I want to show you something. Bethany, we’ll talk to you later.” There was a slight scuffling sound, and then voices farther down the hall.
Elspeth was saying, “Renata, what the heck?” and then the sound of a door opening and closing. Thank God. Renata must have seen the gun or simply seen that Bethany wasn’t right. Not much got past Renata. It sounded as if she had literally dragged Elspeth out of harm’s way. Might she have guessed that I was in here? That Bethany was chasing me?
The light knocking began again. “Nora?” she whispered. “I think they’re coming. You have to let me in. You have to protect me, Nora.”
Hamlet nosed past the curtain, and suddenly his tail began to wag. He wanted to welcome whoever was at the door. I reached out and patted his head. I whispered, “No.” He seemed to understand; he lay down quietly in front of our hiding place.
Suddenly a bright light shone under the crack in the door. “Drop it,” said John Dashiell’s voice.
“I didn’t do anything,” said Bethany in an odd whining tone.
“Drop the gun, or I’ll shoot.”
A pregnant moment. I didn’t breathe.
Then the sound of a shot. I moaned softly. What if she had shot Dashiell? What if she was going to shoot her way into my room?
A high-pitched screaming filled the hallway. Scream after scream, and then Bethany’s voice crying, “You’ve killed me!”
Dashiell’s voice, closer now, saying, “It’s a flesh wound. Stop being melodramatic.”
* * *
* * *
I didn’t come out of my room. I did emerge from behind the curtains and flip on my lamp; I set the kittens on the floor and plopped down next to Hamlet, slipping a hand beneath his collar so that he would stay by my side. I waited until I heard Derek’s voice, and Paul’s and Connie’s, and then those of the ambulance attendants. I heard them carry the moaning Bethany away, and only then did I unclench my hand from around Hamlet’s collar. He and I walked to the door. “Is it safe?” I asked.
John Dashiell’s voice said, “You’re safe, Nora. Let me in.”
My hand trembled as I fumbled with the lock and turned the knob, and then Dash walked into my room and I plastered myself against his chest, clinging to his reassuring form for the second time in my life.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We were pursuing Tyler. It took a while before I realized he had no involvement in Garrett’s death. And then I got your call.”
“She’s insane. She had an affair with Garrett just for fun, but then Tyler told her Garrett was the man who supposedly ruined his acting career. The man who hurt him deeply when he was young. She killed Garrett because she felt her betrayal of Tyler was too much to forgive. She was trying to kill her own indiscretion.”
John Dashiell’s hands rested on my shoulders: warm, comforting hands. They moved to my back, and he gave me a reassuring hug.
Derek peeked into the room. “Nora, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
I turned my face slightly toward him and said, “If it weren’t for Hamlet, I’d be dead. I love that dog.”
Derek beamed at the thought of his heroic Labrador, then frowned. “I can’t believe Bethany did this. I can’t believe it was one of our actors.”
Connie appeared and tucked herself under his arm. “We’ll recover from this,” she said. “We’ll be fine.”
I sighed. “Weirdly, it turns out that Bethany was a really good actress, because she was hiding the fact that she was unstable. Garrett knew; he drew a picture of Jekyll and Hyde. Bethany must have been one scary affair.”
“What? He had an affair with her?” Connie said.
“We can talk about this later,” Dashiell said. “I need to get a statement from Nora, so if you can all wait somewhere . . .”
Connie and Derek murmured about informing the others, and they went back into the hall. Paul appeared in my doorway, looking chagrined. He moved toward me holding two cups. One held tea, and the other held M&M’s. “Food is comfort. Isn’t that what Zana said?”
I thanked him and smiled. Despite my fear and horror, despite my still trembling limbs, I felt happy in that moment. I had so many friends in the castle—friends I now knew that I could trust.
