Highland Laddie Gone

CHAPTER TWELVE

HE was cold. Odd that when he took a breath, the air didn’t chill his nostrils and throat, but he knew it was bloody cold because his hands were numb. Where were his gloves? Wexford wouldn’t half create if he caught one of his gunners without ’em. He began to feel around the dark, enclosed space for his gloves. It felt wrong somehow. He wished he could see; pitch-black it was.

“I’ll just keep staring straight in front of me,” he told himself, “and in a wee while the lighthouse at Buchan Ness will appear below, and that’ll be the Moray Firth.” If Wexford could hold the crate in the air for another quarter of an hour, they’d reach Kinloss with naught to worry about but coming down like a bloody Christmas sparkler on the runway. They could reach Kinloss, couldn’t they? If not, they could always put down at Lossiemouth. Anywhere but the damned sea.

Wexford hadn’t been hit, had he? He didn’t like the stink crowding him out of the turret. Somebody must have brought it. Shit was the worst part of dying, as far as he could tell; poor buggers couldn’t help it, of course. The numbness was more insistent now. He must have taken a hit himself, he thought.

Bagpipes? Sounds like “MacPherson’s Lament.” That would be a good one to tell them at the Culbin Arms in Forres tomorrow night. “The engine of my Lancaster bomber plays ‘MacPherson’s Lament’!” His mates were always on him about his keenness for Scottish history, but he passed it off by saying that an auctioneer has to know his stuff. He liked history well enough, and it was true that the buyers were apt to spend more for the goods if you tossed in a bit of a tale about it. A little learning might make him a bit of lucre one of these days.

Where was the bloody lighthouse? Oh, the blackout. Sod that! They weren’t going to put down in the sea, were they? If he could have stood water, he’d have joined the Navy.

Flying Officer Forsyth closed his eyes. Bagpipes again. Engine trouble? As he pitched forward and fell into darkness, his last thought was that Wexford was going to ditch her in the bloody sea, and he’d never see light again.

The problem with portable toilets, thought Edwin Davis, was that there was no place to wash your hands after using the facilities. Edwin Davis was always most particular about that sort of thing. Six cakes of soap a month he went through, he’d tell his guests: a rather splendid tribute of cleanliness for one who lived alone. He shouldn’t have tried that soft drink at the refreshment tent. If it hadn’t been for that, he could have waited until he left the festival. As it was, he had spent a good many minutes trying to find a Port-A-John in an uncrowded area. Really, if he didn’t have complete privacy, he couldn’t go at all. He supposed silence was too much to ask; the bagpipe music permeated the entire mountainside.

Edwin Davis frowned at the battered blue stall set up at a precarious angle beneath a pine tree. He didn’t quite like the tilt of it. He refused to consider the possibility of being trapped in a falling Port-A-John. There was no one in sight, and he was distinctly uncomfortable, so he decided to risk it. He made a mental note to reconsider attending any more outdoor festivals. Mother had always insisted that a direct descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie ought to be present at such gatherings, but if this first experience of one was any indication of the norm, he thought they could just scrape by without him. He had found the Stewart tent easily enough, but there was something he didn’t quite like in their smiling reception to his announcement of royal ancestry. Edwin could see restrained amusement beneath their politeness. They might as well accuse Mother of lying, he thought hotly.

Edwin peered closely at the handle of the portable toilet. A small lever registered “occupied” or “unoccupied,” and it was now resting in the latter position. He hoped that the chemical additive was sufficiently strong to block the smell. Smells could give him the most violent headaches. Mother’s powder used to, though of course he’d never mentioned it.

Taking one last deep breath of mountain air, Edwin yanked the handle of the Port-A-John and prepared to enter, but his way was blocked by the body that fell forward and landed with a soft thump on his feet. Edwin stared down at the old man in the green and blue kilt, with a detachment that was almost serene. He wasn’t very heavy, really, for a corpse. Still quite distinguished-looking, in fact. The deceased didn’t seem in the least embarrassed to be discovered in so undignified a place as a portable toilet. He might have died a war hero, for the noble expression he wore. After a few seconds’ more contemplation beneath the glaze of shock, Edwin Davis wondered idly whether he ought to go and get someone to see about the poor old fellow. Report the death. He might as well. Upon reflection, he realized that he didn’t have to go the bathroom anymore.

Walter Hutcheson had called his lawyer on the telephone in the sheriff’s office. Sanderson, hauled off the golf course by his beeper, would be driving down, presumably after he’d changed into a more professional outfit. Walter was in no hurry to see him. It was quite peaceful, really, to be able to survey one’s own life with the detachment that iron bars provided.

He found himself thinking about Marge for the first time in months. Really considering her, he corrected himself. She had usually flitted near the surface of his thoughts, but the accompanying reproach had kept him from focusing on her clearly. This afternoon’s incident had left him shaken. Walter Hutcheson was not a man who pondered things very much-philosophy struck him as a waste of time-but even he had to see the implications of his earlier confrontation with Marge. He had forgotten about Heather completely. She had simply gone out of his head; and when the emergency overwhelmed him, he turned to Marge as naturally as a child might call on a parent. It made him very uneasy.

He had to admit that Heather would not have been very much help in a crisis. She wasn’t good at independent thinking, and she seemed to have an amazing capacity for doing nothing at all-but in a very lovely way, of course. He supposed he had been a bit silly, but after all, it isn’t every day one can marry into the British aristocracy. And such a beautiful girl, besides.

He looked at the bars again. Not a bad cell, really. It was clean, anyway. He hadn’t seen any insects.

Walter tried to think about Heather again through the cloud of pride with which he normally saw her, but the comforting haze would not be summoned. There wasn’t much aristocracy about their wedding. Justice of the peace in the courthouse soon after his divorce became final. He’d been nattered that she hadn’t wanted to wait. But he should have insisted on having her people come over. He’d wanted to take her to Scotland on the honeymoon, of course, but it was winter, and Heather had insisted on Barbados. They had been married eight months now, and he had yet to meet any of her family. He wondered if she was ashamed of him; he winced at the thought. He wasn’t young, that was true. At first he’d been pleased when people commented on them as a couple, even amused when she was mistaken for his daughter; just lately he’d begun to suspect that they were laughing at him.

He wished Heather were more affectionate. Perhaps Scots weren’t a very affectionate people. He’d often heard them called dour. She seemed at times to tolerate him-nothing more. But he couldn’t imagine what it was she wanted. A sardonic voice in the back of his mind told him what he wanted, though: Marge. He wanted Marge.

Lightfoot MacDonald, who had been conferring with the state police, opened the door to the cell area to check on the prisoner. The doctor didn’t seem like the sort of fellow to hang himself, but they took the shoelaces and all anyway, because you never knew for sure. He was sitting on his bunk now, looking two notches past sorrowful. Lightfoot liked that in a perpetrator. Remorse was something he didn’t see a lot of in his business.

“How are you doing, doc?” he called out in a bracing voice. He let them save the hostility for the courtroom. His job was to catch folks and hold on to ’em, not reprimand ’em.

“Fine,” said Walter, trying to smile back.

Lightfoot had exchanged his Confederate officer’s uniform for a dark brown sheriff’s outfit. He looked considerably more official in consequence. He pulled up a wooden kitchen chair just outside the cell and sat down with a sigh. “Been a long day,” he remarked. “I get up at six when I’m taking Sorrel out with the militia… My horse,” he explained.

Walter nodded. “After Stonewall Jackson’s mount.”

Lightfoot beamed. “Imagine anybody knowing that! I wish we could have had a chat under better circumstances, Dr. Hutcheson, but as it is I need to talk about this situation out at the festival. That is, if you’re ready to make a statement.”

Walter considered it. Sanderson would be seething if he didn’t wait for legal counsel. Might even refuse the case. Anyway, there wasn’t much he could say past, “I didn’t do it.” He thought he knew who did, but that wasn’t something he was prepared to discuss. It didn’t make any sense, anyway. He considered letting them convict him without a struggle, and going off to a quiet prison. Marge would write to him; he was sure of that.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff. I mustn’t discuss anything until my lawyer arrives.”

Lightfoot nodded. “Everybody watches television these days. Okee-fine. But I don’t mind telling you that this case is downright peculiar. Fingerprints, no alibi, good obvious motive. That’s great for the beer-joint stabbings I have to contend with, but if M.D.s don’t have any more sense than that…”

Walter felt the same way. Not only was it a frame, it was an insult to his intelligence. It was so obvious that they might even make a jury see it. He didn’t much care, though. He was tired.

Lightfoot had pulled out a notepad and was about to launch into further arguments when the door to the outer office opened and Merle Fentress peeked around it. “Call for you, Sheriff,” he said in meaningful tones.

“Who?”

“Festival people again.”

“Now what?” asked Lightfoot, pushing back his chair.

“Another murder, they reckon.”

Lightfoot glanced at the prisoner, and then edged past the deputy into the office. “Damnit!” he muttered. “Never mind the battle reenactment. This case may outlast the war!”

Lightfoot eased the patrol car off the state highway and turned up the road to Glencoe Park. He felt a spasm of irritation as he drove past the posters announcing the Highland games, and then the Civil War reenactment. Damnit, there ought not to be more bodies the week before the battle than there were during it. He wondered if Dr. Hutcheson had disposed of this one about the same time as the first murder, or whether there was another killer at large. The coroner ought to be able to help with that one. Maybe his hunch was right, and the doctor had been framed: that was easier to swallow than the mass-murderer theory.

Lightfoot narrowed his eyes. What in blazes was wrong with that sports car up ahead of him? Other than its driving on the wrong side of the road. Oh, hellfire, thought Lightfoot, the drunks are getting in on the act. He flipped on his flasher and eased up toward the offending vehicle with catlike smoothness.

After a few seconds in which the two occupants seemed to confer, the car pulled over on the grass. Lightfoot slid his Dodge in behind them and made notes of the description and license plate. Having thus given the offenders time to stew about their predicament, he slid out of the patrol car and strolled toward the blue MG.

“Well, it has the bloody steering wheel on the correct side,” the driver was saying to his companion. “It was a perfectly natural-what did you say? Well, I’d like to see your performance under similar circumstances!”

“Step out of the car, please, sir,” purred Lightfoot in his official voice. His eyes widened when he recognized the driver of the sports car. “Well, hello, Scotty! Is this a spy car with cannons mounted on the fender?”

Cameron Dawson was annoyed. “Save it, Sheriff! I have spent a good hour nursemaiding this… this…”

Lightfoot peered in at the passenger. “Pretty far gone, isn’t he?”

“Yes, and he wanted to drive.”

The sheriff shook his head. “You reckon he could’a done much worse?”

“As I was trying to tell him: it was a perfectly natural mistake. In Britain we drive on the left side of the road, and this is a British car, so-”

“Yeah, but it’s an American road, doncha know,” Lightfoot drawled. “Can I see your license, please, Scotty?”

With a sigh of martyrdom, Cameron reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a clear plastic case. “British driving license,” he said in answer to the sheriff’s puzzled look.

Lightfoot took the document with a frown of suspicion. He pulled the work paper out of the plastic case, looked down the length of it and read a few lines, his lips moving. “Expires in… 2025! Do they mean the year?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s crazy. And there’s no picture of you on here, either. And most critical, it is not a Virginia driver’s license.”

“It’s good for thirty days in this country,” Cameron informed him.

“Yeah, I’d like to give you thirty days for it,” Lightfoot grunted. “And another sixty for reckless driving; but as it happens I have another murder to contend with, so I do not have time to deal with you. Why don’t I just follow you along into the park so you can’t do any more English things on the way? Then you can stick around while I investigate.”

“Sheriff, I’ve tried to explain to you that I am not-”

“Or I could write you up, and radio for someone to come and get you.”

Cameron’s lips tightened. “Right, Sheriff. I’ll meet you at the car park.”

The county rescue squad, already on duty for the festival, had cordoned off the area and were standing watch over the body when Lightfoot MacDonald and his British colleague arrived. They had covered Lachlan Forsyth’s body in a sheet, but the scene otherwise was just as they had found it.

Lightfoot squinted in the late-afternoon sun. The military practice should be breaking up by now. He had half a mind to give Blevins a call on the mobile phone, but he resisted the impulse. Twentieth-century business came first. The coroner should be on his way back, and wouldn’t he be a ray of sunshine after being hauled out twice in a day?

The sheriff knelt down and gently lifted the sheet. “Another stabbing,” he grunted. “Anybody know who this one belonged to?”

The rescue-squad leader, squatting on his heels near the Port-A-John, said, “That festival chairman seemed to think it was his.”

“His?”

“Sorry. Belonged to the deceased himself, I aimed to say.”

Lightfoot looked up at Cameron Dawson. “You know anything about this?”

“Just the identity. That was Lachlan Forsyth. He was a Scot,” said Cameron quietly.

“Damn! Not your spies again?”

“He was the organizer of the-the fraud, I guess you’d call it. I don’t see why anyone would have killed him for it. Unless they were annoyed at having been taken in. He got a lot of money out of them, I suppose.”

Lightfoot slid the sheet back into place. He had been a distinguished-looking old fellow; that kind makes the best con man, he thought sardonically. He didn’t like the idea of a murder unrelated to the first one-because this was an unlikely convention spot for killers-but life didn’t always follow the rules of good taste or common sense, so Lightfoot was keeping an open mind. He turned back to the rescue-squad leader. “My people will be along directly to take over. Meanwhile, keep everybody away from here. I’m going to talk to folks, starting with the lucky so-and-so who found the body. Have somebody notify me when the coroner arrives.”

James Stuart McGowan had been assigning tartans and dispensing plaid woolens with the authority of the Lord Lyon of Scodand. It was very easy, once you got the hang of it. He had already made enough money to buy two skian dubhs, if you counted the markup he was pocketing; he thought about slipping that money back into the till. If Lachlan found out how solvent he was, it would either cause awkward questions, or he would sell him the dagger and cancel the apprenticeship. If he took the money with him, and Babs and Stewie found it, things could get even stickier. They would assume that he was dealing drugs and ship him off to a shrink with an earth-tone office.

He supposed that he had earned the money, really. He had spent half the time running the stall alone. Lachlan was taking some break this time. It must have been three hours, and Jimmy-who hadn’t eaten since lunch-was beginning to miss him. He helped himself to another Penguin bar from the food section. He wondered if he could find an elderly lady both sympathetic and dumb enough to bring him a shandy from the refreshment tent.

The Maid of the Cat was approaching the stall. He smiled thinking of the way he had conned her into buying a scarf. It ought not to be too hard to get a shandy out of her, he decided. But what was she looking so grim about?

“Hello,” he said, tossing the foil candy wrapper into the trash bag. “What can I sell you this time?”

Elizabeth didn’t smile back. “What’s your name?” she asked gently.

“Jimmy,” he said warily, not liking her tone.

“And was Mr. Forsyth your grandfather, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. My grandmother doesn’t confide in me.”

Her sympathetic look turned to exasperation, which Jimmy found much easier to abide. “Now what’s this all about?”

She hesitated. “Are your parents around, dear?”

He shrugged. “Someplace. They don’t count, though. You’d better talk to me. What is it about Lachlan? Something about those clowns he was always whispering with?”

Elizabeth sighed. Even under the pressure of a double murder, she thought someone more official than she should have been delegated to tell the little boy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s been killed. They found him a little while ago.”

Jimmy stared at her. She was watching him anxiously as if she expected him to start howling. People never seemed to know much about kids; something must happen to your memory when you passed thirteen. He’d often wondered about it. Now, what was it that he was avoiding thinking about that made him consider all that? Oh, yes. Lachlan was dead.

“How?” he asked, in the tones of one seeking information.

“Just like the first victim, I’m afraid.”

“Stabbed with a skian dubh.”

“Yes. Oh, but you mustn’t think about it. I’m sure your parents-”

Jimmy looked in the glass case. He’d been too busy all morning to notice. The skian dubh was gone. The old man must have taken it with him. For protection, of course. He’d never have it now, which absolved him from asking himself if he could possibly want it.

The girl was still droning on. Something about locating his “Mommy and Daddy.” As Jimmy pushed past her out of the stall, heading at a dead run for the woods, he yelled back at her, “Just sod off!”

That phrase-his only legacy from Lachlan Forsyth.

From the outside table in the refreshment tent, Elizabeth could keep an eye on the path to the parking lot. Cameron should be coming back anytime now. She hoped she hadn’t missed him when she went to talk to the little boy; but when she realized that everyone had overlooked him, she didn’t feel that she had any choice. She leaned down and offered the rest of her sausage roll to Cluny, who took it with the air of performing a favor. Really, she had to stop eating this British pastry before she started receiving offers to play lineman for Green Bay.

“Hello,” said Marge Hutcheson, edging her way through the crowd with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Mind if I join you?”

“Hello, Marge,” said Elizabeth. “I was thinking about coming to look for you. I guess you’ve heard what happened.”

“To Lachlan Forsyth? Yes. Too bad, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose it clears Walter?”

“I expect so. Depends on when he was killed, don’t you think? So you never got to question him.”

Elizabeth sighed. “No. I probably wouldn’t have been able to come up with the right questions anyway.”

Marge patted her hand. “Don’t sell yourself short,” she said kindly. “The murderer will probably turn out to be someone we’ve never even heard of. Somebody crazy, perhaps. Why don’t you forget all about the case, and get things straight with that sexy Scot of yours?”

Sexy! It’s amazing how my brain is turning to mush, Elizabeth thought. Instead of wanting to reconsider the murder case, the first thing I think of is whether I would quibble with that adjective. The sexiest thing about Cameron is that he doesn’t seem aware of it at all. I practically had to drag him…

She interrupted this pleasant reverie when she noticed someone looming over the table. “Hello, Geoffrey. What do you want?”

Geoffrey sighed. “Oddly enough, I want the damned cat. I was just walking around in the woods, turning over a few ideas for set design in my head, when I hear the damnedest noise from some rocks. Rather like a hiccoughing ferret.”

“Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth, who had learned to ignore Geoffrey’s powers of description. “Was it a little boy?”

“Yes. An odious child who has been manning a souvenir stall. But he seems quite distressed. I gather he’s grieving for one of the murder victims, which is a refreshing novelty.”

Elizabeth winced. “Yes. His name is Jimmy. But why do you want the bobcat?”

“Because I want to take his mind off his troubles. It will do him good to have another soulless creature under his charge, and you don’t want the cat anymore, surely, since you have other prey to stalk. Correct?”

Elizabeth handed over the leash. “Make sure he takes good care of Cluny!” she warned. “Bobcats can be dangerous animals.”

“So can ten-year-old boys,” Geoffrey assured her.

As they watched him move away, gingerly leading the Chattan mascot, Marge remarked, “You know, sometimes I think that cousin of yours is almost human.”

“Almost,” Elizabeth agreed.