Murder in the Family

By Janine L. Bourdo

Englishwoman Vera Murray is sad to see the citizens of Columbus, Ohio march off to WW1. She was a nurse in the war and knows that war involves more suffering than these patriotic new warriors can imagine.
As she waits for her wounded husband to return, a family friend comes to her to ask for help in finding a missing sister. The sister disappeared about the same time their mother was murdered. Meanwhile, their father has been accused of the murder. Vera becomes involved, but then her husband returns. He's wounded not only in body, but in mind and spirit as well. Can she help him?
Can she help her family friend find her sister and solve a mystery?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janine L. Bourdo
• Release date: Apr 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310121890

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MURDER IN THE FAMILY

Janine L. Bourdo

Smashwords Edition 2014

Copyright 2014 Janine L. Bourdo

Cover Art by Joleene Naylor

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

About the Author

August 1917

Prologue

Gustav Schmidt had never felt happier. It had been two days since his wife had thrown her fox stole over her shoulders, slammed the front door, and stalked away. For two whole days he hadn’t had to watch every single word he spoke or worry that any small thing might cause her to launch into a screaming, throwing fit. The house felt as if a long storm had finally rained itself out and blown away. Even Freya, always the one to stick up for her mother, seemed relieved. Tonight she had hummed as she rubbed his sore shoulder. Before going off for the musical evening at her friend’s house, she kissed him on the cheek and wished him a sweet, almost teary farewell. He had decided to celebrate his unaccustomed evening of freedom by going out to have a drink or two with friends.

Gus lurched into a dark alley, unbuttoned his trousers, and relieved himself against the brick wall. By the time he buttoned back up, an ache was already refilling his bladder. That was the trouble with beer. It always seemed to want to leak out in greater quantity than he had ever taken in.

Stepping back into the flickering wash of light shed by the electric street lamp, he took out a handkerchief, and wiped his brow. How could it still be so hot this late at night? Across the way, the cupola of the Ohio State Capitol Building floated above the spear-like ends of the iron fence and tangled mass of trees on the grounds in front of the building. During the day, flying squirrels soared from tree to tree. He wondered if they were sleeping now. The warm gold of his pocket watch stuck to his hand as he took it from his vest pocket. 1:30, already tomorrow morning. Mein Gott, when would it ever get cooler?

His shadow stretched long over the sidewalk as he made his way along High Street. Couldn’t his wife have saved them a little bit of money and gone to the Neil House Hotel which his friend Karl managed? The pharmacy had only started to recover when President Wilson declared war. Now all German businesses in the city were suffering. Did Gretchen care what was going on or how he had to struggle to pay the bills? No! No, she always had to have the best for herself, shinier jewelry, and more expensive clothing than the rest of their friends and neighbors. Then she complained nobody liked her, that all the women in the Deutscher Verein talked behind her back. Well, they did it because she always tried to show them up. Now she’d left a perfectly good house to stay in the Deshler Hotel, a modern wonder, real gold knives and forks in the restaurant, and a bathroom in nearly every room, mein Gott. Didn’t she have a good enough bathroom in her own home? They’d put in a fancy new sink only last year.

Gus crossed the empty street and approached the terra cotta façade of the new hotel. Even though it was so late, the bottom windows and a number of the windows of rooms upstairs glowed with light. A doorman in a smart uniform with gold epaulettes at the shoulders stepped out and tipped his hat. Good night, Mr.. Schmidt.

Gus didn’t recognize him. Since he’d spoken in ‘13 for the folks ruined by the big flood, it wasn’t entirely unusual for strangers to greet him by name and he’d always been proud when it happened, until now. He realized it could be damned inconvenient to be famous at times. Gus tried to put on a dignified face, and nodded back. It wouldn’t be good for the doorman to know how befuddled a certain prominent pharmacist was. Why did he feel so strange? He hadn’t drunk that much, had he?

Gus tried to think back to earlier in the evening and count the beers he’d drank. With the mess of the last few days, it had been good to be among old friends. He remembered the first beer so clearly, the bittersweet liquid, the creamy foam on his lip. The laughter started when Claus asked him when Gretchen was going to come home. She must have gotten with the women of the club already and made her complaints. These things traveled fast. All Germans, and a few other folks besides, in Columbus would know their troubles by now.

As Gus had ordered another, Rolf waved his hand and said, Oh Gretchen is the one who’ll decide when to come home. She’s the boss in that family. Poor Gustav is the one who wears the dress.

Bernard grabbed on to that one. Henpecked, that’s what this man is. He poked his sharp nose at Gus as if he were the hen himself.

Claus laughed hard at that, his big belly shaking between his suspenders. Gus pretended to enjoy the joke, but took another deep draw from his beer.

Oh, leave him alone. Karl, ever the loyal friend, puffed on his pipe. He’s a good husband. It can’t be easy with that woman.

Having gotten one good laugh already, Bernard wasn’t ready to let go. He stood, put his hands on his ribs, flapped his bony arms, and poked his nose at Gus again. Men from further down the counter looked up and snickered. Even Karl pressed his lips down in a firm line and sucked in his cheeks to keep from laughing.

After that, the night dissolved into a kind of mush, lager spilling on the floor, dirty jokes, wet lace around the large bosoms of a pretty bar maid. They must have made their way to another place. The bar maid wouldn’t have been at the verein. It was hard to separate out, to count all of the drinks.

Well, he’d show all of them. Gretchen was going to pack herself up and come home this very night. He remembered telling that to Bernard in no uncertain terms. Gustav Schmidt was the boss of his own family.

The lobby dazzled his eyes with its new, glittering electric chandeliers and golden paint. All this splendor for nothing, nobody. The place was empty. His mother back home on the dairy farm in Germany would be horrified with the waste. His feet banged down on white marble floors that seemed to pitch back and forth toward him like the deck of a ship.

At the front desk, he held on to the shiny wooden counter to steady himself, and reached up to bang on the bell. It rang furiously. A man popped out of a side door like one of those figures on the old cuckoo clock in the town square back home.

He was a sallow, skinny man with a huge Adam’s apple. The clerk wiped his hands across rumpled trousers and smoothed his oiled hair. May I help you, Sir?

I wanna talk to my wife, Gus said.

Are you staying in our establishment, Sir?

My wife is staying here, Mrs. Gustav Schmidt. Gus lost his grip on the counter and reeled forward.

The desk clerk wrinkled his nose and backed away. Perhaps in the morning . . .

Gus reached out and grabbed the man on each side of his suit jacket, then dragged him over the counter so as to be eye to eye with him. I vill talk to my wife now. It is time for her to do as I say. Vich room is she in?

The Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. 110, but . . .

Gus dropped the man and turned to the wide, elegant fan of stairs that opened into the lobby. His chest filled with a surge of determination and he ran to them.

No, no! Don’t . . . The clerk picked up a telephone.

Gus bounded up the steps, followed the arrow listed with the numbers to his wife’s room. Once there, he banged on the door. Let me in!

She didn’t answer.

He banged harder. The door shook with his blows. It was flimsy. Woman, you will open and speak to me!

Two rooms down, a bald headed man in a dressing gown came out into the hall and screamed, Shut up you drunken fool. Go sleep it off somewhere else!

Gretchen’s silence infuriated Gus. They’d been married thirty years and she thought she was too good to speak to him? Aaargh! Gus roared at the man in the hall. The man disappeared.

Gus lowered his shoulder, tucked his chin to his chest, and rammed the door. It broke immediately. His first thought was, ‘Such a modern and expensive hotel, ha!’

But it was bewildering to be standing in the room so suddenly. Something smelled odd, like an iron skillet burning up on a stove. His head cleared. His vision settled and he felt perfectly sober as he cast his gaze around. He saw a white bureau edged in gold, a familiar clutter of expensive perfumes and silver brushes on top of it, the door to a small bathroom standing ajar, a still, heavy figure draped over the side of the bed.

Gus walked to the figure. It was Gretchen. He recognized her by the lovely blue nightgown he had seen her wear a few times before, but her face . . . It wasn’t his wife’s face at all. It was more like some horrible Fasching mask, so huge and purple, a tongue pushing out from chalk-like teeth, and blood pooling on the froth of lace on her chest.

Gus reached out, touched her face. It was warm under his fingers, but felt rubbery and artificial. He realized the reason Gretchen seemed so still. She wasn’t breathing. Something around her neck was stopping her from breathing. He moved to loosen it, a cloth of some sort, partly stiffened and darkened with blood.

Now here ,Sir. Just what is this all about? a deep voice came from behind him.

Gus turned his head. Two men stood among the splinters of wood in the doorway. One was a burly man in a policeman’s uniform. The other was also quite large, but not as muscular.

Someone gasped. The flabbier man fell to his knees, and then face down on the floor in a faint. Gus took his hand away from Gretchen’s neck. It occurred to him that, after all these years of his secret and guilty wish that his wife would die, she finally had.

Chapter 1

My mother-in-law, Dortha Murray, raised her paper fan and swished at the air between her book and her face. It was hotter than any day I’d ever experienced back home in England. Little Frankie stirred and whimpered in his bassinet. I leaned over to look at him. His eyes were squinched shut and his cheeks were rosy, too rosy. I put my hand on his forehead. He felt feverish to me, but was he really warmer than the room? I couldn’t tell.

Mother Murray fanned herself once more, lowered her book and yawned. He’s not awake again, is he? She had kindly taken the last session with him the night before, walking up and down in the upstairs hall and shushing him. She had to be as exhausted as I was.

No, not yet. I leaned back into the chair cushion, aware that if I let myself shut my eyes I’d likely be asleep within seconds, but I’m worried about him. It’s not like him to be fretful for so long.

Oh Vera, he’s just hot and teething. They all go through it. She laid her book on the side table and took off her reading glasses. When he wakes up, we’ll spread a little Peruna on his gums. That will make him feel better.

I read the spine of the book she had set down. Today was a Sense and Sensibility day. I, for one, felt that the sensibility was being baked out of my very bones. Sweat from the inside of my knees trickled down the back of my calves. What time is it?

Dortha turned her head and glanced at the newly purchased clock on the bookcase. It’s nearly half past ten. The first mail should have come by now.

Neither one of us needed to say it. We were becoming more worried with each day that passed without word from my husband Frank. He was a doctor and had been wounded while serving with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France. We’d gotten a letter in May saying that he expected to be allowed to leave the hospital in London and make the crossing from England in late June. We hadn’t heard from him again since then and it was August.

I suppressed a sigh. Even with the daily joy of watching little Frankie grow and develop, and with the anxieties of waiting for the postman, life was becoming too routine. After my time as a nurse in the hospital tents on the French coast, I had come to live with my mother-in-law in Columbus. Almost immediately, Dortha was accused of murdering Florence, our former neighbor. I had learned about my new country and met many people while working to prove her innocence. Our present life of cooking and washing up was not offering the movement and mental challenge I had gotten used to. Today, it was too hot and tiresome to even go on knitting, but I picked up the web of khaki colored yarn in my lap, and started loading stitches onto the fifth double-pointed needle. I knew better than any other woman in this country could, that men in wet and muddy trenches had an endless need for clean, dry socks. Considering all the things they suffered, knitting in the heat was the least I could do.

Someone banged on the front door. Then it swung open. Mary O’Dell, the woman who helped Dortha and me with our heavy housework, rushed in, her red-grey hair flying wildly. Missus Murray! Missus Murray!

Dortha stood and straightened her housedress around her ample hips. Mary, whatever is wrong?

The Irish woman’s thin, wiry form rocked back and forth with the effort of gathering in her next breath. A bunch of people is gathering around the drugstore. She slapped her hand over her chest and wheezed.

Mary, you’d better sit down before you have a heart attack. I rose and led her by the hand to the settee.

Gus’s store? What’s going on there? Dortha’s voice was sharp.

Mary took a deep breath as she settled into the cushions, brushed strands of hair from her eyes and straightened her hat. Yes, Mr.. Schmidt’s place. By the time I left, they were picking up rocks.

Dortha’s eyes widened in horror. Why would they do such a thing?

Mary tilted her head to frown at Dortha. The owner’s a Kraut, ain’t he?

Dortha winced. Baby Frankie woke from his nap and wailed. I jumped over Dortha’s feet to get him and jiggle him in my arms. By this point, the penny had dropped for me. Mary was describing a possible riot at Gus Schmidt’s chemist shop. Dortha had worked there once, until Mr.. Schmidt’s wife found out that employee and employer had fallen in love.

Yes, of course he is German, but he’s done a lot around here, Dortha said, indignant. Like giving medicine to folks who can’t afford it.

Mary pressed her lips into a line of disapproval. They might have liked him before, but now he’s murdered his poor wife . . .

Dortha’s mouth fell open. We exchanged horrified glances of disbelief over little Frankie’s bouncing head.

You didn’t hear?’ Mary asked. She leaned closer to Dortha. He strangled her right in a fancy bed in that new hotel downtown. Her blood was all over him when the hotel people found him."

That’s not true, Dortha snapped. Gus is as gentle as a lamb. Wherever did you hear such a lie?

Mary drew herself up to fill every bit of the 5'1 she had a right to. It’s in all the papers, ain’t it?"

No, Dortha said and went to the kitchen, then came back into the front room with the folded newspaper in her hand. She laid it out on the entrance table. You see, there’s no such thing here.

I looked down. I’d forgotten the headline story, one about three men who were going to be tried for treason. They’d been passing out anti-war literature at a recruitment rally. If found guilty, they could be put to death. I wanted the U. S. to come in and help my birth country in the war, but I thought that the regular person on the street corner might not be so quick to judge the protestors if they only knew what war was truly like. I’d seen the whole thing happen in England three years ago. Young boys threw their hats into the air with excitement of drum beats and patriotic songs. They returned only months later as old men with missing limbs and blind eyes.

Mary rose and pushed the newspaper onto the floor. This is the early edition. I’m telling you, it’s all over the streets now. He strangled his wife, and the crowd is breaking into the store. They’ll strip it clean and break anything they can’t carry away.

Oh no they won’t! Dortha said. She straightened the skirt of her sweat-stained housedress again. I wish I had the time to change, but I guess I don’t. Vera, get me my purse from the pantry.

I frowned. Mother Murray, you’re not thinking of trying to stop the people at the store, are you?

Not thinking, just doing. I’m on my way to the pharmacy. From the closet under the stairs, she jammed a little blue hat with a net veil on her head. It did not match her yellow dress. She stuck hairpins in her mouth and raised her hands to pin the hat down. Stop gawking at me, the two of you. Vera, please get me my purse.

At that moment, Frankie opened his mouth as wide as it would go and screamed, as if he knew the danger his grandmother was planning to take on. I jiggled him faster, and reluctantly went to the pantry in the kitchen, grabbed the purse, and came back with it. You know you can’t manage a whole angry crowd by yourself.

Dortha slid the purse off my arm, gave the still-wailing Frankie a pat on his head and me