The Midnight Lullaby by Cheryl Low

Author:Cheryl Low [Low, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grinning Skull Press
Published: 2020-07-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Benedict stood in the doorway of the dining room, staring in but unable to step through. The bodies were gone, and the floor cleaned. Two deputies were outside, taking photos of a shattered window, the body on the ground near the driveway, and the other laying in the grass.

"You should have called us immediately," Sheriff Martin berated Hazel on the other side of the room. Her deputy, a man in his early twenties who Benedict had never met before, sat at the dining table, taking notes.

Elysium had gone through the story of what happened. And it was a story at this point, no longer the truth. Their mother had taught them what parts of the truth to use and what parts to put away when talking to the public. According to Elysium, half the house had woken to the sound of an argument. He and Hazel, not Lucy now that she was hiding away in her bedroom, had rushed downstairs and out the front door to find the maid, Amelia Jane, with a kitchen knife. Elysium said the woman had been in tears, screaming and flailing the knife about, and that she had attacked the footman, John Moreau. When he and Hazel tried to help Mr. Moreau, Miss Jane ran away, back into the house and upstairs.

Hazel took over the story at that point, claiming to have run up the stairs after the maid, horrified to find her in the study, stabbing herself with the kitchen knife. When Hazel tried to stop her, she jumped out the window.

Benedict listened to them repeat the story four times, never missing a step—never forgetting a detail no matter how the sheriff turned her questions. He wondered how long it had taken them to move the bodies, to come up with their story, and clean the rest of the house. Which one of them had created a blood trail up the stairs? Which one had thrown Amelia Jane's already broken body out the window?

And whose idea had it been to talk in the dining room, where the murders had actually occurred? Was it a coincidence? Had the sheriff chosen the spot? Or had Hazel and Elysium been that cocky?

"We were in shock," Hazel said, batting eyelashes that only barely held back her tears.

Sheriff Martin glared at her, rolling her jaw from side to side thoughtfully. She wasn't buying Hazel's act. Sheriff Martin had been a deputy when Benedict left home, and he wasn't the least bit surprised to see her in charge now.

"My mother passed away recently. We just came home for the funeral," Elysium explained. "This was a lot to take in, and we didn't want my uncle to wake up to police in his home and dead bodies outside. His health hasn't been well. We thought maybe we could wait a few hours to gentle the blow. We did put sheets over the bodies and closed off the upstairs study."

Sheriff Martin appeared monumentally unimpressed. "I've met Vernon Lyon," she said, deadpan. "I doubt all the sirens in the world would phase him.

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