Chapter 38: Something Rich and Strange
Tuesday Midday
Martin indicated the magazine photo he had taped to Penhale's gallery of suspects.
"Jago Powell. Age, er, about 35 or so. He apparently has homes in London and Los Angeles but he lived in Portwenn for a time as a teenager. He was here last year just before Rachel Wenn's disappearance, scouting the house as a location for his film. I understand he was the person with whom she was having the affair."
"And how do you know that, Doc?"
Martin was reluctant to reveal that his source was his aunt's gossip. "Er, I can't say, but I think it's worth you asking him about. He could well have had the opportunity, although the means and motive are still obscure."
"Substance abuse problems, Doc. He says he's done with that, but there was that incident where he was stopped for reckless driving last year. And then there's always jealousy. The green-eyed monster. It can make people do crazy things they regret later, everybody knows that. It's not exactly brain science, is it."
"It is, er… brain science actually. In any case, jealousy could be a possible motive for Mr. Wenn as well, causing him to act out in anger against his wife. Unfortunately, the only known witness to Rachel Wenn taking her boat out that day, the harbourmaster, said she was apparently alone when she boarded and sailed out of the harbour."
"Someone could have put the poison in her canteen ahead of time."
"Was there a canteen, or a thermos or water bottle found on board?"
"Don't think so," Penhale replied.
"And even if there were, why leave the amber glass bottle that contained the poison on board?"
"What if…" Penhale paused to think of new possibilities. "Someone could have been hiding on the boat and tricked her into drinking the poison."
"Possibly, but how would that person have gotten away to land afterward?"
"Another boat was waiting?"
"Again, possibly," Martin conceded. "Did the birdwatchers who spotted her sailboat from the top of the cliffs see any other boat?"
"P.C. Mylow's report said they didn't." Penhale thought for a moment. "What if the perp swam to shore?"
"It's all cliffs along where the boat was spotted by the birdwatchers and the place it was later found. I suppose theoretically a strong swimmer could have made it to the rocks and then climbed to the headland, but it would have been extremely dangerous, even without a storm moving in." Martin suppressed a shudder at the memory of his own recent experience climbing the sea cliffs.
Penhale tried another line of thought. "Rachel Wenn was dressed to go scuba diving. She might have been meeting someone to go diving with. Or if someone was hiding on the boat they could have tricked her into thinking they were going diving, or they could have dressed the body to make it look like she was going diving. Hmmm, don't know why they would do that. There was lots of diving gear in the cabin with the body though."
"The fact that she was dressed for diving does seem significant," Martin said. "Do you have that inventory of items found in the sailboat cabin? The amber bottle proved a crucial piece of evidence but have you examined all the items from the cabin?"
"No, hardly had time to go through it all. We have to store everything in plastic evidence bags to preserve fingerprints, hairs, bloodstains, and so on, not that there's likely to be anything after a year underwater but we have to follow protocol. It's taking forever for everything to dry out to go over it. I've got the inventory here though."
He pulled out some papers stapled together. Martin studied the list, not entirely sure what he was looking for, scanning through each item until one caught his eye. "Here." He pointed to it. "Can you show me this?"
"Aqua Scuba Note Pad. Sure, Doc. You think it means something?"
"Not certain. It may be nothing, but I'd like to see it".
Penhale unlocked the evidence closet and pulled out some boxes. He found a clear plastic bag marked with a serial number and started to unseal it.
"Wait!" Martin commanded. He took a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and handed them to the constable, then took out a pair for himself and put them on.
"Thanks Doc, almost forgot about not contaminating the evidence. Lucky you always come prepared."
Penhale opened the bag and took out a small notebook with a yellow cover and a pencil attached on a string. Martin opened it and began leafing through the pages, which were still damp and smelt of seawater. There were some hastily scrawled notes about fish and a couple of sketches of what appeared to be shipwrecks. Then, the very last page that had been written on, in bold, unhurried writing, he found what he was expecting.
To whoever finds this,
I, Rachel Angela Brading Wenn, declare my intention to end my life. I received the diagnosis of ovarian cancer today from the local GP and do not intend to follow any advice to seek a second diagnosis or subject myself to chemotherapy. I saw my mother go through that nonsense so many years ago, her beauty and glorious wild spirit destroyed by the poison which in the end didn't save her from death after all. So I will go out in the manner of my own choosing, in the deep ocean world where I have always felt more at home than on dry land.
To my husband Michael, no apologies for the disappointments of our marriage. I didn't supply enough of the fortune you were hoping for to maintain the family manor in the manner to which you were accustomed and you didn't supply enough of the passion I'd hoped for in our marriage. I would hate to have had to rely on you to care for an ailing wife as the cancer took its toll. Oh I'm sure you'll miss me for a moment or two, but I'm equally sure you will have moved on to someone else before the fishes have finished with my remains. I'm reminded of something Alfred Hitchcock once said: 'There is nothing quite so good as burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.'
So I turned to Mrs. Daniels for assistance in making my exit. She supplied me with a bottle suitably inscribed with skull and crossbones and assured me that once I downed the contents I would have 30 minutes to write this note and slip into the water for my final dive. I didn't inquire as to how the crazy old witch knows so much about poison.
So now, to paraphrase Shakespeare, let my epitaph be:
Full fathom five thy lady lies;
Of her bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were her eyes:
Nothing of her that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
And here the writing suddenly became smaller and progressively unsteady.
Into something rich and stran
The last word trailed off unfinished.
To be continued…