Death in an English Garden

Book 6: Murder on Location

by Sara Rosett

Genres: Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths; Amateur Sleuth; International Crime & Mystery; Traditional Mysteries; Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

A common, garden variety murder . . .

Location scout Kate Sharp is enjoying the gorgeous Springtime in her favorite idyllic English village while coordinating locations for a Jane Austen documentary, but when she's assigned to manage a difficult star who has received threats, Kate discovers that danger and death aren't always on screen. After a tragic accident in the star's beautiful English garden, Kate suspects murder. With a sly and secretive murderer intent on putting suspicion on Kate, she must find the culprit before she's led down the garden path.

Death in an English Garden is the sixth entry in the popular Murder on Location series, which is perfect for cozy mystery listeners who want to indulge their inner Anglophile.

Release date: December 23, 2016

Print pages: 250

Sample

CHAPTER 1

 

 

“BODYGUARD?”  ELISE’S HEAD SNAPPED UP so quickly that her bun of grayish brown hair, which was pinned haphazardly at the nape of her neck, slipped down to the collar of her black shirt. Her tone caused everyone in the room to pause.

 

Sharp outbursts from the producer of the Jane Austen docu‐ mentary weren’t unusual. You’d think that after working with Elise for almost a year, I would have gotten used to her rather forceful personality, but I still tensed when she used that caustic tone. I was glad that—for once—she wasn’t unhappy with me.

 

Paul, the Assistant Director and focus of her attention, looked unperturbed. He removed the pencil that he kept tucked behind his ear and tapped his clipboard. “Actually, bodyguards. Plural.”

 

“That’s absurd.” Elise shook her head. The bun traveled down another inch. “Impossible.”

 

“That’s not all.” Paul shifted the clipboard and consulted his computer tablet. He spent his days juggling the clipboard, tablet, and Elise’s bad moods. “The reserved accommodations for Ms. Emsley are no longer suitable,” he read. “She needs space for the two security personnel as well as her assistant. She needs the new location to be secluded and secure.” Paul hesitated for a second then added, “And arranged as soon as possible. She wants to arrive early.”

 

I turned back to study the image on my phone. Troubleshooting issues related to the location were part of my job; issues related to the talent weren’t my responsibility. “A little to the left,” I said.

 

Freya, the production’s general gofer, moved a lacquer screen a few inches closer to the canopied bed. She was a sturdy girl with a round face and unflagging energy, an invaluable quality on the set.

 

Freya and I were returning a bedroom in the stately home of Parkview Hall to the exact arrangement we’d found it in before we began filming. Earlier in the day, we’d filmed a scene from Emma in the Oriental room, named for the imported Chinese wallpaper that inspired the decorating theme.

 

I checked my phone, comparing the room to the pictures I’d taken before we began filming. “That’s good. Okay, now let’s do the chest of drawers.” I moved on to my next set of photos. “We need the Chinese vase and the matching lamps with gold bases.”

 

I tucked my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and moved across the room to the carefully packed boxes where we had placed the items that had to be removed before filming began. We often had to move furniture and decor, sometimes even strip a room completely and change everything, so I always took hundreds of pictures—wide shots, close-ups, and everything in between before we began—so I knew exactly where to replace each item.

 

Elise’s voice carried over the loud crackle of unfolding paper as Freya and I removed the items from their protective nests. “Absolutely not. Everything was arranged months ago. Her people signed off. We can’t change anything at this point. What could she possibly need one bodyguard for, let alone two?”

 

“Probably for that vicious ex of hers,” Freya said so quietly that only I could hear her.

 

I raised my eyebrows. Arabella Emsley was the new “it” girl for historical drama. The Red Poppy, a drama set during World War I had been her breakout role a few years ago. She’d landed several other historical roles after that, including the role of Emma in a new feature film adaption of Austen’s novel. Arabel‐ la’s appearance in our little documentary was connected to publicity for the Emma movie. She would be interviewed for one of the Jane in the Modern World segments and tell viewers how it felt to bring an Austen character to life in the movie.

 

In addition to the interview, we had two days scheduled for her to dress in period costume and be filmed in several locations both indoors and out around Parkview Hall. If everything went according to plan, the documentary was set to air a week before the release of the new Emma movie. It was a nice symbiotic promotional scheme, but it meant that we would have a genuine star on our hands. We typically used local actors for the depic‐ tions of Jane Austen’s life and incidents from her books. Those scenes were used with voice-overs from our interviews with experts discussing specific topics. The reenactments illustrated points from interviews and kept the documentary visually interesting.

 

Freya wrinkled her upturned nose. “Bit of a sod, that one. Her ex, I mean. I read all about it in the paper last week. He’d been spotted with another woman for weeks, but Arabella defended him and said everything was fine. Then the day before her new movie released, he announced he was engaged to some waitress. She sounded a bit of a twit—the waitress. She couldn’t even put a sentence together when they interviewed her. She just giggled and flashed a pink diamond the size of a Cadbury egg.”

 

I carefully positioned the Chinese vase in the middle of the dresser. “The new version of Emma? That’s out? I thought it came out later.”

 

“No, you’re right. The new Emma comes out in the fall. This was last week when The Right People released. You must have heard about it—a family saga set in the 1920s.”

 

“I do remember seeing something about it.” I’d seen a tabloid with the bold headline The Wronged Woman over a picture of Arabella, her expression somber and her dark eyes appearing even more enormous than usual against her fair skin. “That is horrible, for her husband to behave that way.” Elise and Paul were still in the room, discussing what to do about Arabella’s request. I lowered my voice as I added, “I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Elise, but I don’t see how something like that means Arabella needs a bodyguard.”

 

“Not her husband,” Freya said. “Ex-boyfriend. They were together ages and ages. You know, like you and Alex. At least for a year or two.”

 

“I see.” I plugged in one of the lamps, suddenly feeling quite a bit older than Freya, even though there couldn’t be more than five, maybe six, years between us. Alex and I had been dating for almost a year, but I always shied away from counting our time together. I didn’t want to jinx anything.

 

Freya paused, a lampshade in her hand. “Where is Alex? I haven’t seen him all day.”

 

“He’s on his way to Chawton.” We had finished filming on location in several areas around Bath a few days ago. He’d stayed behind to wrap up there. Now he was traveling with a small crew to the village where Jane Austen had lived when she revised her earlier novels and wrote her last three novels. The cottage was now a museum, and we had permission to film in and around the cottage and had interviews scheduled with several of the museum trustees.

 

“Do you miss him?” Freya asked with a grin.

 

“Like crazy.” Without intending to let things get serious, Alex had somehow filtered into my day-to-day routine, and now I was amazed at how many gaps there were in my life when we were apart. I’d wanted to go with him to see Austen’s house, but we were in the final press to finish filming and our little production couldn’t afford to pack up and take the whole crew to Chawton.

 

My visit there would have to wait until we had some time off, which wouldn’t be that long from now. In a few short weeks, the bulk of the location work would be done, and my calendar would be wide open after that. It was an unsettling thought. I had immersed myself in my work on the Austen documentary series. But I would have to surface from it soon and figure out what I was doing next.

 

I removed the next bundle of wrapping paper and pushed the thought of the future away. Something always came up, and I had plenty to do right now. As helpful and nice as she was, I didn’t want to discuss my love life with Freya so I said, “Still, it doesn’t sound like Arabella would need extra security.”

 

Freya crumpled a wad of packing paper noisily then stuffed it back into the box. “But he’s Stevie Lund.” Seeing that the name didn’t register with me, she added, “His uncle is Porter Lund,” as if that fact alone clenched her argument.

 

I compared the replaced items on the chest of drawers to the pictures I’d taken and gave a nod of my head, indicating it looked perfect, before her words registered. “You mean the guy involved in those drug raids? That Porter Lund? The one who got off because the police didn’t get the right authorization in the beginning?”

 

His name had been all over the news when I moved to Nether Woodsmoor last spring and again recently when the case against him and several other people had fallen apart. I didn’t remember all the details, and since I was a temporarily transplanted Ameri‐ can, I didn’t have a great knowledge of the UK legal system, but I did remember the case had been thrown out because the attorney general hadn’t approved it at the right time. It had caught my attention because of the words “attorney general.” Since there were so many tiny differences between British English and American English, I’d been surprised that the same term was used in both countries.

 

Freya picked up the empty box. “That’s the one. Stevie is his nephew, and he’s dodgy. You can tell just by looking at him. Slimy, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t want to be in Arabella’s shoes, especially after she threatened to sue him.”

 

“What for?” I asked, realizing that I was getting swept up in the tabloid tale, but it was hard not to. That’s why the tabloids sold so well, I guessed.

 

“The property. They bought a flat in London together.”

 

“That could be worth suing someone for.” If the flat were located in one of the swanky parts of London, it would be worth millions.

 

“Oh, it is,” Freya said. “Arabella said they had been secretly engaged for something like six months. Since they bought the flat together, she said they should sell it and split the money.”

 

“Hmm. Six months. That is an eternity in the movie industry. Sounds very Jane Austen,” I said with a smile. “The secret engage‐ ment part,” I added, but her blank look didn’t clear. “Lots of secret engagements in Austen’s books—Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, Lucy Steele and Edward Ferrars. And everyone assumed Marianne and Willoughby were engaged. Interesting how Austen used actual secret engagements and false assumptions about engagements in her plots.”

 

“Ah—yeah. Do you want me to get the next box?”

 

“No, I can get that. Why don’t you find Melissa and tell her we’re ready for the dressmaker dummy and the undergarments.” Tours came through these rooms regularly and one of the most popular features was a dressmaker’s dummy outfitted in the undergarments the ladies wore in the early 1800s. My friend Melissa worked in Costume and had taken charge of the corset, chemise, and whatever else was on the dummy when we had to move it out of the room.

 

“That sounds rather tarty,” Freya said. “You didn’t see it earlier?”

 

“No, I was down in the drawing room, helping with the lights.”

 

“There’s nothing risqué about it,” I said. “In fact, once all the underwear is on it that dummy will be more covered up than I am when I wear a sleeveless summer dress.”

 

“Okay, one not scantily clad dressmaker’s  dummy  coming right up.”

 

I went to work putting a delicate writing desk back in place. I positioned an antique inkwell desk set and a hand-painted papier-mâché box inlaid with mother-of-pearl on the surface. Behind me, Paul and Elise’s voices continued, but I tuned them out. I added the modern lamp, the last touch to the desk, then stepped back and bumped into someone.

 

“Sorry, Freya—oh, Mr. Takagi, I didn’t realize you were behind me.” This wasn’t the first time I’d turned around and been surprised to find our new director had silently entered the vicinity.

 

“Kate,” he said in a mock-scolding tone, “you simply must call me Ren. In the first place, the word mister makes me feel quite elderly. And, second, if you keep calling me Mr. Takagi, I could get an inflated sense of my own importance.” His features were Asian, but his accent was as crisply upper class as Elise’s accent. His publicity bio stated he was forty-two, but he looked a decade younger. Rento Takagi was his full name, but he asked everyone to call him Ren.

 

“I don’t think there is any danger of that, but I will try…Ren,” I said, finding it hard to use his first name because he was so courteous and had such a dignified manner. It made me want to speak to him more formally, even though he was standing there holding the dressmaker’s dummy by the torso. He’d probably met Freya on the way up the stairs and offered to carry it for her. He was always pitching in, getting things done no matter how small the task. “Here let me take that from you.”

 

“It’s fine,” he said. “Where do you want it?” “Over there, by the window.”

 

We crossed Elise’s line of sight, and she bore down on us. “Ren,” she snapped, clearly not feeling the reserve I did toward the director. “We have an issue. Arabella Emsley.” A shade of satisfaction edged her words. Elise had never been fond of the features that were included in the documentary that discussed the modern pop culture enthusiasm for Austen and her work. If Elise had her way, the documentary would be a pure academic dissection of Austen’s works. “She’s demanding new accommodations.”

 

Paul cleared his throat. “That’s not all. If we don’t change Ms. Emsley’s reservations, she’s canceling.”

 

Elise looked at the ornate molding around the ceiling. “This is why I do documentaries, so I don’t have to deal with spoilt movie stars.” She looked at Ren. “What do you say to this? It was your idea to bring on the starlet.”

 

As always, Ren waited a beat before he spoke. “The idea came from above me, if you’ll remember.” He sent Elise a quick smile, and her triumphant look faded.

 

It always amazed me that Ren’s calm manner seemed to over‐ come Elise’s rages. Elise and our last director had not had a good working relationship—to put it mildly—and we were all a little worried about how Ren and Elise would “get on” as my friend Louise said.

 

But Ren had arrived, and in his reserved way, set about getting the work done, something that Elise appreciated. When points of contention came up, he let her vent. He listened, his face impassive, and then in the end, he did exactly what he wanted. And somehow, it worked.

 

“Many people will be unhappy if Mrs. Emsley refuses to come,” Ren said.

 

“Then it’s on her,” Elise said quickly. “It’s not our fault if she throws a tantrum.”

 

“But then we’d have several gaps to fill,” Ren said, and Elise’s mouth pinched. I could tell that she didn’t like it, but he made a good point.

 

“Is there anywhere else in the area that would meet the criteria?” Ren’s expectant gaze shifted to me.

 

I was the location scout, after all. I had to find locations for filming as well as accommodations for the talent and crew. I opened my mouth to reply that there was nothing, but paused. “There is Tate House,” I said slowly. “It would be rather unusual. I don’t know if it’s even available.”

 

Tate House stood on the wooded hill above the village with only its gables visible above the treetops.

 

“It certainly is secluded enough,” Elise said. “But wasn’t  it sold?”

 

“Yes. The buyer did some renovations and put it right back on the market. Louise said it was also available for a holiday rental. I haven’t seen anyone at the house, so maybe it’s available to rent for a few days.”

 

I lived on a lane of cottages on the lower portion of the hill. For a few weeks, the shrill whine of electric saws and the dull thud of hammering had filtered down through the trees. But once the workmen had packed  up  and  departed,  it  had  been quiet.

 

Of course I wouldn’t have known if someone had moved in because the road to reach the house was actually around the other side of the hill. Anyone living there would usually arrive and depart that way. But a footpath ran behind the cottages and curved up the hill where it divided. One branch of the path climbed through the trees to Tate House while the other branch continued around the hill. It dropped down to meet the road that took ramblers to one of the old stone bridges that crossed over the river.

 

The previous owner of Tate House had often used the foot‐ path to get to the village instead of driving down, so I thought if someone had moved in, I would have at least caught a glimpse of a newcomer. But so far this spring I’d only seen visiting ramblers and cyclists on the footpath. “It’s been sitting there, empty, for months,” I said. “No one’s even come for a weekend. Or, at least that’s what Louise says.”

 

“She would know if anything had changed,” Ren said. “She knew who I was before I even checked into the inn.” As the owner of the White Duck pub, Louise picked up all sorts of local news and heard quite a bit of gossip, too, but she only passed on the news and kept the gossip to herself. I was sure that was why people confided in her.

 

“I suggest we attempt to fulfill some of the requests.” Ren said, his casual tone further deflating Elise’s indignation. “Then we can negotiate from there. Let’s not escalate the situation. Give them a bit, and not go into the arena of ultimatums. Nothing beneficial ever happens when ultimatums are thrown out.”

 

Elise let out a long breath through her nose. She looked as though she were about to force herself to eat a food she particu‐ larly disliked. “I’d rather not give privileges, but I suppose in this case, we must at least appear to try, the schedule being what it is. Kate, get on this right away.”

 

“I better finish here. I can call the estate agent—”

 

“Go on,” Elise said, cutting me off. “I’m sure…er…that thickset girl can wrap up things in here. After all, it’s only putting it back the way it was before. Nothing spectacularly difficult.”

 

Freya came in the room, and I hoped she hadn’t heard Elise’s comment on her build. Deciding that arguing with Elise about Freya’s body type wouldn’t help things, I tightened my jaw muscles as I said, “I’ll take care of it,” trying to channel some of Ren’s soft-spoken manner.

 

Paul tapped on his tablet. “I’ll forward you the contact infor‐ mation for Ms. Emsley’s assistant, Torrie Mayes, since she wants you to handle everything.”

 

“You should probably call her back, if you’ve been working with her,” I said.

 

“But Ms. Emsley’s last requirement is that her assistant work exclusively with you.”

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

 

“ME? ARE YOU SURE?” I asked. Paul nodded. “Requested you by name. Her assistant said Ms. Emsley is set on you.”

 

“But…that makes no sense. Why me? That’s not even my job.” I looked around the half-finished room from the dress‐ maker’s dummy to the bare wall on the far side of the room where several pieces of furniture and decor still needed to be replaced.

 

Paul finished tapping on his tablet then shrugged. “I don’t know why, but she asked for you specifically.” He twisted his tablet around and pointed to my name in the email.

 

“You’re famous.” Freya put down the base of the dressmaker’s dummy beside the torso. “I bet it’s because of what happened in Bath. You were in the news.”

 

I thought I heard Elise murmur something that sounded a lot like infamous, but when I looked at her, she smiled in her mechanical way and said, “Excellent. That will work out well, won’t it? Give—um—your assistant instructions about finishing here.” She shifted her attention back to Ren. “Now, about the gardens, let’s go down and take a look. I want it set up exactly as I…” Her voice faded as she strode away with Ren at her side and Paul trailing behind them.

 

“YOU LIVE in the cottages in the lane down below, don’t you?” Claire Montrose asked as she unlocked the front door of Tate House an hour later.

 

“Yes, Cottage Lane.” I pulled my camera clear of the lapels of my raincoat and looked through the viewfinder at the front of the house. The day was mild and sunny with a predicted high of about seventeen degrees Celsius, which meant temperatures in the sixties—no matter how hard I tried to adjust to European measurements, I still thought in Fahrenheit—but I couldn’t quite shake my Southern California roots. To my mind, sixty degrees qualified as cool. The weather was variable here, to say the least. I knew the flat, silvery-edged clouds in the distance could multiply, sweep in, and cast a gray tinge over the village. I wanted to get some photos while the light was clear. With the surrounding trees casting deep shadows, the area around Tate House was already dark enough.

 

Unlike the cottages in the lane with their carefully tended gardens and bursts of flowers, the front of Tate House had no flowers, no garden, and no lawn, just a sweep of a tarmac drive that rose from a pair of impressive gates that had swung back when Claire clicked a remote control. The drive curved through a dense grove of gnarled oaks whose canopy cast a deep shadow over the undergrowth. Drifts of fallen leaves carpeted the ground between the trees. “That brick wall on either side of the gate, how far does it go?” I asked.

 

“Around the whole property. It transitions to a dry-stone wall after several meters.”

 

“Good to know.” While I was sure that a determined person could scale it, the five-foot wall would keep casual ramblers from trespassing.

 

“The wall encloses the top of the hill, but most of the area is wooded and not easily accessible. Of course, the house and back garden are so stunning that I doubt your client will want to leave it…except for filming, I assume?”

 

“Perhaps.” When we spoke on the phone, Claire had tried to pry as many details out of me as she could about why I was looking at the property, but I wasn’t giving away anything that I didn’t have to. She knew it was related to the documentary, and had been so eager to show me the inside of the house that she’d nearly rear-ended me when she zoomed up the hill and rounded the drive’s blind turn to find me sitting in my borrowed car, waiting in front of the closed gate. While Alex was out of town, I was using his vintage MG Midget to get around, and I was so glad she’d braked in time. I did not want to have to call Alex and tell him his car was in for repairs.

 

I didn’t drive much, but I had conquered my knee-weakening nerves about driving on the opposite side of the road, and now I could actually navigate without breaking out in a cold sweat. I’d even considered getting a car of my own, but I couldn’t justify the expense, especially with Alex living only a few cottages down the lane and offering me a lift to work every day. He also let me use his car whenever I needed to run to Upper Benning or points farther away, which wasn’t often. I just had to ignore the sticky notes that dotted the dash. Instead of an app on his phone or a paper calendar, Alex used sticky notes to keep track of appoint‐ ments and contacts. I didn’t understand it, but I’d come to realize that it was a system and—somehow—it worked for him.

 

I focused the camera lens on the exterior of the house and took several photos. Thick pelts of ivy crisscrossed the façade, nearly obscuring the mellow golden stone, typical of so many of the buildings in the area.