The Case of the Forsaken Child by Grace Dagnall & Alison Golden

Author:Grace Dagnall & Alison Golden [Dagnall, Grace & Golden, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Traditional, Cozy, Crime, Fiction, Humour, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9780988795587
Google: CscLzgEACAAJ
Amazon: 0988795582
Publisher: Mesa Verde Publishing
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

THE OLD FARMSTEAD had been parceled off just a few years before into several lots—the original farmhouse on one, and a converted barn on another. The remainder had been left as pasture after the owners—the Naismiths—retired from farming, their potential laying in their suitability for development. Mrs. Morgenstern, widowed these last six years, lived quietly on the western plot occupying a tasteful, converted stone barn of which Graham had occasionally found himself envious. A battered 1980s Land Rover sat outside the barn on the driveway. It had recently been driven. Graham and Roach could hear its engine clicking as it cooled.

“I thought that was you, Jimmy Roach!” Mrs. Morgenstern said as she came out to greet them. The elderly woman had lived in Gorey all her life. “It’s not time to check my burglar alarms again, is it? The other bobby came just the other day.” She invited them in and made Graham’s hour by offering tea. “Rumor has it,” she told them, “that the Detective Inspector can barely function without a cuppa.”

“I’d say ‘barely’ constitutes the best-case scenario,” Graham responded, smiling.

“I heard about what’s been happening this weekend. Just awful,” Mrs. Morgenstern said. She was one of Freddie Solomon’s most enthusiastic informants. She contemplated the two men from behind tiny reading glasses perched precariously on the end of her nose. “Are Gorey’s CCTV cameras really as useless as they say?”

“Not quite,” Roach jumped in, tactfully, “but we’re hoping for an upgrade soon.”

“Here’s hoping, though that doesn’t help much in these two cases. Instead,” Graham told Mrs. Morgenstern, who was quietly relishing this unexpected attention from two good-looking police officers, “we’re going to be relying on the public’s recollections. That’s where you come in.”

Mrs. Morgenstern greeted this with a self-effacing simper. “I can hardly recall what I had for breakfast!” she said. “I hope you’re not depending on me to help put anyone away. I’d be like a deer in headlights.”

“Nothing nearly as stressful as that, Mrs. Morgenstern,” Graham assured her. “We just want to ask you a few questions. Do you know how long before your neighbors, the Naismiths are home?”

Mrs. Morgenstern blinked. “Sheila and Crispin? They’re in Italy for another week, aren’t they?” She rose to check a Grand Canyon wall calendar. “Yes, back in… five, six, seven days. Two weeks they’re gone in all.”

“Italy, Mrs. Morgenstern?” Roach asked, beginning to type on his tablet.

“Fortieth wedding anniversary. Or is it their forty-fifth?” She laid out cups and a teapot on the kitchen table. “Sugar?”

When both men declined, Mrs. Morgenstern reached into the fridge, pulling out milk for their tea. “There’s an old Roman villa, up in the hills above Sorrento. Sheila had a watercolor of the place on their living room wall, said she’d always wanted to see it with her own eyes. Those marvelous tile mosaics, you know. Just beautiful.” Then, with a glint in her eye, she added, “They enjoy their wine too. Some good vintages from that part of the world, I shouldn’t wonder.”

As Roach typed fluently, Graham pressed on.

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