How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)

by Kristen Perrin

Frances suddenly feels as if they’re all fairy-tale characters. And in fairy tales, when a witch tells you your fate, you listen.

Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the queen in the palm of one hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And from that, there’s no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point toward your murder.

But if anything is unlucky for them, it’s the number three. Because in a year’s time, they won’t be three friends any longer. One of the girls will disappear, and it won’t be Frances Adams.

Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the queen in the palm of one hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And from that, there’s no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point toward your murder.”

“Frances may be nutty, but she’s very calculating. And she likes to play games.”

“She lives her life by that fortune, and for years I was her sole benefactor because of that line—but daughters are the key to justice. I’m the only daughter in her family; my father was Frances’s older brother.” “The second part of the line,” I muse. “Find the right one and keep her close.” Mum nods. “It looks like Frances has decided that I’m not the right daughter anymore.”

Because someone’s been threatening me even before we saw the fortune-teller. I found a piece of paper in my skirt pocket that read “I’ll put your bones in a box.” That threat gives me shivers when I think about it, but I have to keep it close in case there’s something I can learn from it. Some clue that might help me stop whatever ill fate is already in motion. And then there was my fortune—“Your future contains dry bones.” Two mentions of bones—it can’t be a coincidence. And then Emily, vanishing a few weeks ago, almost exactly a year after that fortune was told.

I decided then and there to take matters into my own hands. Because the last people I want knowing about this past year are the police.

Mr. Gordon frantically rushes around the desk, but the rest of us stay back as he kneels in front of Great Aunt Frances. She’s crumpled like a marionette that’s had its strings cut, and her eyes are open and staring.

Other than the blood on her hand—on both her hands, I notice—she doesn’t appear to have been injured. But her hands are a mess. They aren’t cut, but punctured. Small blood-filled holes dot her palms like sinister constellations.

“Oh my God,” Elva breathes. “Someone’s actually done it. Someone’s actually murdered her. After all these years, she was right about her fortune.”

I let out a low whistle under my breath, because Great Aunt Frances even has her very own murder board. It stretches from floor to ceiling, with her name and picture at the center. Colored string reaches out toward old photos that are pinned all over the wall, and Post-its, notebook paper, and newspaper clippings fill nearly all the gaps in between. “Well, this is taking it a bit far,” Elva mutters, looking at the murder board.

I love murder mysteries. But standing here in this room, facing my great aunt’s obsession with her own murder after only just finding her dead body…I feel with full force that this isn’t just a story, and murder isn’t just a puzzle. It’s a selfish, final, complex act.

“Something’s wrong with the roses,” I say. “What do you mean?” He reaches over to pluck out a rose. “Stop!” I lean forward and grab his wrist before he can touch it. “What?”

“The roses…there are…are those needles?” I say, my voice not sounding like my own. “There’s something metal coming out of the thorns. All of them.” Mr. Gordon’s breath comes out in a steady stream as he leans in, curses mingling in the rush of air. He’s looking at the arrangement as if it’s suddenly sprouted tentacles. “I…yes. They are. I don’t know how it’s possible, but those are needles.” He runs a hand though his few remaining wisps of hair. I pick up one long stem very carefully. When I hold it up to the light I can see how carefully the tiny sharp metal pieces have been inserted through each thorn so that they come out at the ends in perfect alignment. I swallow hard. We definitely need a detective now.

“My Great Aunt Frances is dead,” I shout, “found clutching roses full of needles, which I’ve somehow also touched! Why is no one calling an ambulance right now?” “Because I recognize a plant in that bouquet and the rash you’ve got,” Crane says evenly. “Yes, I think we all recognize roses and cow parsley,”

The word hemlock echoes again before everything goes dark.

“No,” I said. “I don’t like riddles. Outside of myth, they’re just an excuse for people to broadcast false cleverness.”

“You shouldn’t spy on people,” I said eventually, as Saxon and I walked across the lawn. “And whatever you saw, it wasn’t something that children—” “Oh, I know all about the birds and the bees,” he said. “But I did you a favor. I know you think I’m a creep, but your boyfriend’s worse.” “Excuse me?” I sputtered. “He probably told you that you aren’t safe coming to the house with me. But really he just doesn’t want you talking to me.”

But if there’s one thing I have learned about my great aunt in my brief time in Castle Knoll, it’s that she’d be outraged at being murdered.

“I can see you’re worried about those flowers,” she says. “But please, you can trust Rowan and me to handle this. I had an agreement with Frances that when she died, I’d be the one to perform her autopsy,

and that it would be done as soon as possible after her death was declared.” “That sounds like a strange arrangement,” I say slowly. “But from what you’ve told me, she trusted you, when she didn’t trust many people.” “I know it sounds strange,” the doctor admits. “But…” she trails off, not wanting to say more. “She was making significant changes to her will when this happened. And I think there’s been foul play,”

“Well, all I’ll say is that Frances said it was imperative that her body not be sent to the coroner. A conflict of interest, she said. And I found that I agreed with her on that.”

Because I know of four people who saw Great Aunt Frances shortly before she died: Oliver, who was at her estate to go over some property issues, as confirmed by Archie Foyle; Archie, who Mr. Gordon said delivers fresh flowers from the gardens for Great Aunt Frances to arrange every morning; and now Magda and Dr. Owusu, provided Great Aunt Frances actually made it to this appointment.

“The only reason someone that good at making their own flower arrangements would keep something so hideous is if the person who gifted it meant something to them. If she knew there was a chance they might stop by and notice its absence.”

I’ve never been very good at games.

I took a deep breath, feeling more in control. But looking back, that was the moment my world began to change. A piece of my fortune, locking into place.

“My favorite chess saying is very simple: You can play without a plan, but you’ll probably lose.”

“But they’ll find out,” she says quietly. “I have faith in Frances. She spent sixty years preparing for this. The police will find out who did this, won’t they?” She looks from Beth to me and then back to Beth again. “Frances valued justice—we can’t have her murderer going unpunished!”

“Frances was right. Someone killed her.”

I felt like I couldn’t beat this fortune on my own. I wanted someone to help me. I felt so very, horribly lonely right then. And then I thought, Ford. Ford knows how to plan. He knows how to play games and win. After that, I couldn’t stop thinking of him.

“Your friend Emily’s got a whopping big secret.” He emphasized his point by miming a rounded belly on his front. “A secret she got from your boyfriend, right here in these woods.”

A glint of gold catches my eye. It’s nestled into the black wool that’s sticking out from the trunk, and I don’t have time to register the wave of shock that hits me when I see the leaping stag pattern on the button. I suddenly have to know what’s inside. I turn my attention to the lid, and my hands shake as I flip the metal latches up and lift it off. I see the rest of the gold buttons first, the leaping stags on them sending spikes of alarm through me as they march down the black wool coat, before my eyes land on the skeletal hand that rests on the folds of fabric.

And that’s the thing with lies: They’re much easier to believe when it’s an idea you like.

I was silly enough to believe that hearts can work that way. I didn’t know yet how much stronger gravity gets when you see the messy pieces of a person and breathe them in, make them yours.

Whoever killed Great Aunt Frances won’t hesitate to kill again to protect their secrets.

Because I knew, deeper than I’ve ever known anything, that our fates were intertwined—Emily’s and mine. I couldn’t shake the belief that underneath everything, I was really just Emily in disguise. So I’d find out what happened to her, even if it killed me. And I accepted that, given my fortune, it probably would.

“I found out I was Laura’s real father because Ford paid for a paternity test right after she was born. It was a relatively new science back then, but he wanted to know for sure. It was Frances who told me, and I was glad she did. Frances and I met weekly for coffee. We did that for years, actually, and she kept me updated on Laura, and on you. We went to the Castle House Hotel, sort of a tradition.”

Changing her will had been an act of desperation, a superstitious move to try to fend off a death she thought was imminent. Cutting Mum out when she did nothing wrong would seem like a cruel move to anyone but Frances, and I can picture Walt trying to talk her out of it while Beth hid books with queen in the title, teacups made from bone china, and even forks that didn’t look right, all to protect Frances from her own paranoia. And when Walt couldn’t talk her out of changing her will, he decided to find a way to keep supporting Mum. Mum, who didn’t even know Walt that well. Those last few payments would have gotten her through her final paintings and bought the supplies that made her show possible.

I’m counting on the fact that gossip fuels this town. I’m also counting on Magda’s business being an open secret, especially among people she spends a lot of time with. If I’ve overestimated either of those things, I’m going to be in some serious trouble.

As my eyes snap toward him, it occurs to me that I did actually get my timing all wrong. Because Joe is not wasting a second. He’s already got a syringe in his hand when he says, “Unfortunately you’re in for a drug overdose tonight.”

“Don’t worry, Annie, I’ll make some feeble attempts to resuscitate you,” Joe says. “But as an inexperienced drug user, you just took too much too quickly. Poor thing. If only we’d known and had gotten to you sooner.”

I exhale slowly as the realization hits me that I am, in fact, the right daughter. I’ve brought justice for Great Aunt Frances. And for Emily, my real grandmother. That gives me a peaceful sense of satisfaction, even if I’ve now also inherited the pinch of Emily Sparrow’s loss, along with the outrage of how her life was cut so short.