“Motives for murder,” Jane mused. “Greed? That seems to be out. Revenge? Who would have a motive for revenge against the reverend and Mrs. Avery?”
“Jealousy,” Logan put in.
“Love,” Jane said.
They all looked at her.
“Unrequited love?” she said.
“But who loved whom and wasn’t loved in return?” Kelsey asked.
“Let’s see what they’ve gotten us from the home office,” Logan suggested.
He sat at Sloan’s laptop, found his mail, and ran through everything that had been returned. “I sent them copies of Jane’s sketches from last night along with names and everything else, and so far no one has a criminal record. Mr. Green has been here all his life. Our host, Emil, had some trouble with drinking and being rowdy in college, but that doesn’t suggest he’d become homicidal. The maids? Lila Adkins is taking college courses by night. She hasn’t even had a parking ticket. Sonia Anderson is halfway through a community college now. She wants to be a nurse. Phoebe Martin took the job here years ago when she was divorced. She took it because she could live at the castle, according to the records. Chef? He had offers all over the place but Emil Roth really liked him—they met at a restaurant in Boston—and offered him a husky salary. The two cooks? Devon Richard has applied to the police academy—with good scores. He’ll probably be hired on when they have a position. And Harry Taubolt plans on staying to study with Chef. He wants a food career.” He looked up at the others again. “Are we certain that Lila and Sonia left the castle last night?”
“Their cars were gone,” Sloan said.
“I think we can rule them out. But how do we narrow down the others?” Kelsey asked.
“We’re looking at Emil Roth, Scully Adair, Chef, Harry Taubolt, Devon Richard, Phoebe Martin, and Mr. Green,” Logan said.
“Except that we know Emil Roth and Scully Adair were in Emil’s room when whoever we saw on the stairs was sneaking around the house last night,” Sloan said.
“So Chef, Harry, Devon, Phoebe, or Mr. Green,” Jane said.
“And Mr. Green was in the caretaker’s cottage when we went there. But he had time to slip in. The main thing is that whoever had been in the house just disappeared, as if into thin air. We need to find out where he or she got in and out of the house,” Sloan said.
“We could start a search—” Kelsey said.
“Or just ask,” Sloan suggested.
“Emil Roth,” Jane said.
Jane wasn’t sure why but she felt the need to be in the room alone. Not that Logan, Sloan, and Kelsey weren’t as good as she was when it came to communicating with the dead, but, in her experience, the dead sometimes chose who they would and wouldn’t communicate with.
This time, she was certain, it was her.
Kelsey went down to the kitchen to talk to the cooks and maids. Sloan and Logan went down the hall to speak with Emil Roth about the architecture of the castle.
She sat quietly in the bedroom and said, “Elizabeth, I know that you’re here. Please, speak with me. Tell me if you’ve seen anything, if you know anything that might help us.”
The air didn’t stir, and yet she felt that someone had heard her.
“I saw John McCawley last night,” she said. “He wanted me to tell you that he loves you. That he’ll never leave you. He watches you at the window. But you know that. That’s why you go to the window. So that you can see him.”
Slowly, Elizabeth appeared before her and walked to where Jane sat on the bed.
“I didn’t kill myself,” she said. “They said that I took the laudanum on purpose. My poor father believed that I did it myself. But, I did not.”
That wasn’t what Jane had expected to hear. “I’m so sorry. But who would have given you the overdose?”
“It was in the tea, I think,” she said. “I believe it was my father’s maid. She knew that father had no faith in John. Father was so mistaken. I hated his money. John hated his money. Everyone believes that if you have money, that’s all that anyone wants. But I loved John. Maybe she believed that if John and I were both gone, and with mother gone, just my brother left… but she underestimated my father. He had loved my mother. There was no affair between them. And still, I’m certain that she tried her best. She had her brother kill John in the woods and make it look as if he’d been killed by my brother or my father! And then, of course, it was easy for her to make it look as if I were a suicide.”
“What was the maid’s name?” Jane asked her.
“Molly,” Elizabeth said.
“What became of her?”
“My father fired her. She became uppity and thought she ruled the place. But he took care of her. He fired her and banned her from the property.”
“And what did she do?” Jane asked.
“She left the house, cursing us all!”
“Did you know Molly’s last name?” Jane asked.
Elizabeth shook her head.
Jane jumped up. “I have to get into your family’s records.”
“They’re in the office. There’s a display case there with the records from the 19th century.”