Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) by Diana Xarissa

can’t rule anything
out at this point, of course.”
    “If it isn’t
Adam, it may be connected to his disappearance somehow,” Bessie said.
    “The, um,
skeleton was dressed,” John said.   “And he was lying on some old newspapers.   Most of them had suffered badly with
water damage, but we were able to get a date off of one of them.”
    “Which was?”
Doona demanded.
    “22 nd September, 1967.”
    “Adam’s
birthday was in early September,” Bessie told him.   “I remember him complaining once, when
he was quite small, about having to go back to school on his birthday one
year.   And he disappeared right
around his birthday.   I remember
that as well.”
    “When we’re
done here, I’m going to drive down to Port Erin to talk to Sarah Combe , Nancy’s daughter.   I’m hoping she might be able to identify
the clothes and the suitcases that we found.   If she does think they might have
belonged to her brother, we’ll do DNA testing.”
    Bessie
sighed.   “Poor Sarah.   This is going to hit her hard.”
    “I wish I
could take you with me,” John said.   “But there are procedures to follow in a case like this.”
    Bessie
nodded.   “If it is Adam, she’ll be
devastated.   And whoever it is, it
will be a huge shock that her parents were hiding a body all these years.”
    “At the
moment, we don’t know anything for certain,” John reminded Bessie.
    “We know
someone hid the body there,” Bessie replied.   “I can’t imagine that Nancy and Frederick
didn’t notice.”
    “There are
hundreds of possible scenarios,” John said.   “And in at least some of them the Kings
are innocent bystanders.   Those may
all be highly unlikely scenarios, but at this point we have to consider every
imaginable possibility.”
    Bessie nodded
though she was unconvinced.   “What
was in the suitcases?” she asked.
    “Clothes,”
John replied, grabbing a slice of garlic bread.   “Both suitcases were full of
clothes.   There was a small bag of
toiletries as well in one of the cases.”
    “I assume you
don’t want us repeating any of what you’ve told us,” Doona remarked.
    John sighed
deeply.   “While I was working with
the crime scene team, Mr. Collins took it upon himself to ring the Isle of Man Times and give them the full
story.   Dan Ross, their intrepid
reporter, was waiting for me when I left the house and I had to give him a statement.”
    “Oh, dear,”
Bessie said.   “I knew I didn’t like
that man.”
    “Alan Collins
or Dan Ross?” John asked.
    “Both,” Bessie
replied.
    “The only
reason our friend Mr. Collins isn’t in trouble with the constabulary is that,
because the crime seems to have taken place such a long time ago, the Chief
Constable had already suggested that we release everything to the papers.   We’re hoping some witnesses might step
forward.”
    “Witnesses to
the murder?” Doona asked.
    “Witnesses to
the construction, at least,” John told her.   “We’d like to pin the date down
firmly.   And at
this point, we aren’t certain it was murder , remember .   The victim could have met with a tragic
accident.   Concealing the body is
illegal as well, of course, but it’s not murder.”
    “Why conceal
the body if it wasn’t murder?” Doona argued.  
    “A very good
question,” John said.   He finished
off the last of his soup and then grabbed the last piece of garlic bread.   “I’ll take this with me, if I may,” he
told the women as he stood up.   “I
have breath mints in the car so that I don’t offend Mrs. Combe .”
    Bessie and
Doona walked to the door with the man.   In the doorway, he turned back to Bessie.
    “I am sorry
about lunch,” he said.   “I’ll make
it up to you one day soon.”
    Before Bessie
could reply, he was off down the pavement towards his car.  
    “I’m going to
hold you to that,” Bessie said pointlessly to his back.
    Bessie helped
Doona clear up the lunch dishes.   After they were finished,