Page 56 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
Mr. Bridgers remained unflustered. “Someone deliberately wedged it between the doorframe and my door so that when I opened it, I would see it.”
Detective Poll drew in such a deep breath, Perliett was afraid his diaphragm would balloon out further than his ribs would allow. He released it before he suffered any rib cracking, and she tapped the desk with her fingernail.
“Consider, Detective, the dead bird that was left for me last night. Now this poetic atrocity for Mr. Bridgers? Perhaps Eunice’s killer continues to seek attention? He did write to the paper.”
“Perliett—I mean, Miss Van Hilton,” Detective Poll began.
“Perliett is quite all right,” she nodded.
“Fine then,” he agreed. “I am not clueless. Your observations are common sense. The only problem I have is that you’re involved at all.”
“I stopped chasing down clues, sir.”
Detective Poll issued Perliett a stern look.
“Well, I did, until I was gifted with a dead robin! You mustadmit, this is all quite difficult for me to simply sit back and ignore since the churchyard scene with Mrs. Withers.”
“Churchyard scene?” Mr. Bridgers interjected.
Perliett waved him aside. “I’ll explain later.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Detective Poll commanded. “Your involvement in this matter must be treated carefully. Don’t you see, Perliett, someone brutalized a robin and left it on your doorstep? There is a message there, and I don’t like its implications. As for you, Mr. Bridgers, receiving this—thisnotemakes my head spin trying to figure out how you could be involved.”
“Aside from the evening with Mrs. Van Hilton and the Withers when we attempted to connect with Miss Withers’s spirit, I’ve nothing to do with it at all,” Mr. Bridgers responded placidly. “I’ve made no mystery about who I am.” A sideways glance at Perliett told her he assumed she understood that as well as the detective. “Have I?”
Detective Poll cleared his throat. “Well, we’ve only just become acquainted, so for all sakes and purposes—”
“Yes, yes. I see.” Mr. Bridgers nodded, his deep voice rumbling in his chest with understanding. “I understand why one may assume me to be circumstantially curious if not questionable.”
Perliett studied him for a moment. He was hatless and also missing his jacket. The fact that he was in white shirtsleeves was bordering on disrespectful for a proper call, even if it was to the local police. But she had to admit that it was wickedly attractive as well. He had rolled the cuffs of his sleeves so that she could make out the cords on his forearms. His bare arms that on a farmer in a field while plowing would barely raise an eyebrow, but here, with a gentleman...
She blushed, and she knew it.
Mr. Bridgers knew it too, and the corner of his mouth tilted up in a smile that tempted.
“Doyou know the Withers family?” Detective Poll’s questionbroke into the brief unspoken moment of heady tension between them.
Mr. Bridgers lazily shifted his focus onto the detective. “I don’t. Not really. Rather, I became acquainted with Eunice’s brother-in-law, Errol, the one who accompanied Miss Withers’s sister and father to the meeting. Errol invited me to come with them, so I did.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Mr. Bridgers countered.
“Why attend with them? What interest do you have in Eunice Withers?” Detective Poll was not giving up, and Perliett admired him for it, while at the same time she wished he’d interrogate the dead bird just as hard and determine why it was onherporch, and what interest the killer might have inher.
“I have little interest in Eunice Withers,” Mr. Bridgers replied. “My interest is in Maribeth Van Hilton.”
Perliett drew back, half appalled by the casual nature in which the man spoke her mother’s name, and half intrigued as to why he was so interested in her mother.
“Mrs. Van Hilton?” Detective Poll responded.
“Mm-hmm.” Mr. Bridgers nodded, not avoiding the detective’s forthright stare. “I find the spiritualist movement quite interesting. Even Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes himself, has found it to be of great intrigue. To decipher the beyond is to take part in an extended universe. Wouldn’t you wish to be included in that, if you could, Detective?”
Detective Poll coughed, cleared his throat, and then sniffed. “No. No, I’d rather leave additional universes to God. There’s enough to deal with here.”
“But if those who have passed can assist those here, and us them? Why should we discount it?” Mr. Bridgers asked.
Perliett looked between the two men. Mr. Bridgers, progressive and creative, and Detective Poll, traditional and ... boring?
