The Murder Hole (46 page)

She looked out through the open doorway of
the Lodge to see Mandrake poised on the terrace wall. Was he
watching Eileen’s ghost? No, the hair wasn’t standing up on his
back. And even when Jean herself stepped to the door, she sensed
nothing except the warm humid air, like Alasdair’s breath on her
cheek teasing her with possibilities.

A bird erupted from the shrubbery and the cat
sat back with a shrug.
Just sightseeing. Nothing
serious.

Would there in time be another ghost walking
at Pitclachie? Jean wondered. She went to her kitchen, got a paring
knife, then cut a bouquet of red roses from the garden. Mandrake
watched curiously as she laid them on the flagstone carved with the
symbol of the water horse.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this
blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The
multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red
. But
if Tracy had ever felt Lady Macbeth’s remorse, Jean had no way of
knowing. What she did know was that Tracy’s killer was coming close
to getting away with murder.

Jean had brought along the appropriate garb
to uphold
Great Scot
’s—and Miranda’s—image, a bugle-beaded
top and flowing rayon skirt in a teal blue that flattered her fair
skin, brown hair and browner eyes. It would clash with Alasdair’s
red and green tartan kilt, but then, she hadn’t known she’d be
color-coordinating.

Now she strolled away from Pitclachie, down
the length of the drive, and, with a spurt of speed across the main
road, further down to the pier. Strolling being advisable not only
because of the heat but of her shoes, beaded sandals with low heels
that looked good but in practical terms could only be said to leave
her less handicapped than stilettos.

Dark water lapped languidly at the dirt and
gravel shore. Reporters with mini-cams and other equipment drifted
hither and thither, their garb not upholding any images. Just above
the water line, a pair of beady-eyed constables stood guard over a
pile of debris demarcated by police tape. The remains of Roger’s
boat, no doubt, including a man-sized cylinder that had to be the
body of the submersible.

Jean joined the sequined and tartaned throng
waiting at the gangplank. She contributed a knowing smile to the
murmur of anticipation—a cabaret and a crime scene, what better way
to spend a warm summer evening?—and was duly admitted to the boat.
She walked past the wooden benches lining the back deck and paused
beside a life preserver hanging on a bulkhead to catch her breath
and settle her nerves, not that either was going to cooperate.

What had Tracy intended to wear tonight? If
Roger had come across the no doubt stylish garment back at the
hotel while he was dressing, had he felt any qualms? More
importantly, was Alasdair going to succeed either at breaking
Roger’s alibi or finding another suspect? If neither, the case
would trail off into inconsequence, taking Alasdair’s reputation
with it. And how would that affect their nascent relationship,
inconsequential as that might be in the greater scheme of life, the
universe, and everything?

Jean lifted up her eyes to the hills, whence
the shadows of evening were flowing down to the loch. An
upside-down image of the castle was reflected in the bay, an image
that wavered as the ripples from a passing inflatable creased the
surface tension but didn’t break it. The skreel of bagpipes echoed
thinly across the water. The piper was probably making a
fortune—tourists were jammed atop the tower like commuters at rush
hour.

Lowering her eyes, but not her expectations,
she worked her way around the main deck. Two uniformed constables
stood in the bow of the boat like twin figureheads.

Elvis was clinging to a railing, his solemn
gaze fixed on the water. His hair was slicked back and his short
pants ironed to cellophane crispness. Beside him stood Noreen,
almost lost in the flowered fabric of her peasant skirt and loose
blouse. Her hair was tacked up on her head in an imitation of
Kirsty’s swirl, so that all the ends stuck out like antennae.
Noreen was a work in progress, more power to her, Jean thought, and
returned her shy smile with a grin.

Aha! Gunn was standing by the stairway
leading to an upper observation deck, his kilt just a bit too long
and his calves spindly in their tall white socks. But his stance
was suitably official and his face mimicked Alasdair’s
expressionlessness. Jean returned his greeting with a question.
“Where’s D.C.I. Cameron?”

“Reading reports, Miss Fairbairn.”

“You’ve both had a busy day.”

“Oh aye. We’ve processed Mr. and Mrs. Duckett
and released them—nothing to charge them with, the boss is
saying.”

Good for the boss. “And Martin Hall?”

“In a cell in Inverness just now, but like as
not he’ll be released the morn.”

Jean glanced at Elvis and Noreen, their heads
close together as the boy pointed out a couple of diving birds.
“What about the Bouchards?”

“They’re our guests for the night as well,
and perhaps a bit longer. They’ve finally admitted they hit you and
Dr. Dempsey, but are saying it was on accident, Charles having
taken a bit too much to drink.”

“And they drove all the way from Invergarry
without lights? Yeah, right.” Jean snorted. “I guess they’re also
saying they didn’t stop because they were afraid they’d be
deported, and they wanted to keep on working with Roger. Otherwise
known as searching for a complete copy of the book and picking over
his archaeological leavings.”

“Right.” Gunn’s thin smile would have copied
Alasdair’s except for a slight softness at the corners.

“Did they see Roger at the ceilidh?”

“They’re not so certain of that, said the
room was crowded, and they’d taken more drink, and perhaps he was
there, perhaps not.”

“But Sawyer saw Roger there when Tracy was
killed.”

“Oh aye. That he did.”

“But,” Jean asked, grasping at every possible
straw, “was Sawyer in the dining room, at the ceilidh, himself? Or
did he just go there, looking for Roger, after he got the call? And
how long between the time the constable at Pitclachie radioed for
help, and everyone in the chain of command was notified?”

“The boss asked the exact same ques . . .”
Gunn’s mouth stopped in mid-word.

A pair of long bare legs came down the steps,
followed by a short beaded dress, followed by Kirsty’s long hair
flowing around her face and shoulders. She moved like a spring
coiled with tension, ready to fly up like a jack-in-the-box. Jean
sympathized with that.

Just behind her walked her squire. Brendan
was wearing a simple suit and tie and a hunted look that only
intensified when Jean pounced. “You were at the bar in the hotel
when Tracy was killed, weren’t you? Was Roger there, too?”

Darting a glance at Gunn—was this an official
query?—Brendan replied, “Yes and no, in that order.”

“Who else was there?”

“Half the population of Scotland. And the
other half was up the hall in the dining room.”

“The barmaid was chatting you up,” Kirsty
said stiffly, “and there’s me, doing the accounts back at
Pitclachie.”

“Hey, I told you about that. It was funny.
Your guy, Sawyer—” Gunn did not correct Brendan’s misapprehension.
“—he was hitting on the barmaid and she was hitting on me. Sort of
a chain reaction.”

“So Sawyer was in the bar,” Jean repeated.
“When did he leave?”

“He got a phone call and puffed up like an
old bullfrog, and he said to me, ‘come along lad, there’s been a
right turn-up, your boss’s wife’s been killed.’ I was horrified,
duh, and went with him upstairs to Roger’s room.”

“But he wasn’t there.”

“No. So then Sawyer says, let’s have a look
at the ceilidh.”

Gunn picked up on that. “And there’s when you
saw Dr. Dempsey?”

“Yeah, he was standing in a corner jiggling
up and down, out of breath. He’s not much of a dancer. He was
wiping his face off, like everyone was, but I took his arm when
Sawyer told him the bad news and he wasn’t hot at all, just really
chilly. The shock, I guess. He was white as a ghost.”

Well, well, Jean thought, and met Gunn’s
questioning gaze evenly. In other words, Roger could have run
through the cool, damp night and reached the hotel moments before
Sawyer came looking for him. Even with the sergeant seeing events
from his own Sawyer-centric universe, he wasn’t fudging a thing.
But just because Roger could have killed Tracy after all didn’t
mean that he had.

“They’re casting off the lines. We’re away,”
said Kirsty, and led Brendan to the railing.

Jean looked pointedly at Gunn. Where was
Alasdair? He couldn’t miss the boat, on either a physical or a
metaphorical level.

Gunn, another great mind at work, pulled out
his phone and bounded up the stairway.

From far below, the engines coughed and then
thrummed. The flags strung from stem to stern trembled. The deck
reverberated beneath Jean’s feet. She seized a handy pole. Temple
Pier and the land slipped backward, and a fresh cool breeze
dissipated the scent of diesel. Breathe, she told herself. Just
keep breathing.

In moments the boat was out of the bay and
onto the main body of the loch, rolling gently to a slow swell. The
heat haze brushed the sky with an opalescent shimmer. The mountains
lining the loch marched away down the Great Glen, each rank
becoming an ever more tenuous shade of blue-gray, until on the
southern horizon they opened out like the hands of earth cupped
pleadingly to heaven.

Close by, the water glistened a dark steely
blue, in the distance it flashed and writhed with mirages like
imperfections in an antique mirror. A looking glass, Jean thought,
the better to see yourself in.

A few of her fellow passengers were pointing
out the black reflection of the opposite bank, or the ruined walls
of Urquhart Castle, or the tower and trees of Pitclachie House. But
the majority of the attendees had gathered in the lounge, waiting
for the show. So was Jean, if for a slightly different sort of
show.

She stepped over the metal threshold into the
long low room. Large windows looked out on the passing scene. In
the back, against a Starr Beverages banner, Hugh and the lads were
tuning their instruments and checking out a few small amplifiers,
“unplugged” being relative. A bar to one side glistened with
bottles and glasses. Two young women poured and served, and two
young men passed through the gathering throng, offering trays of
food. To the other side, a display of posters and photos were
propped on easels and covered with tartan cloth, ready for the
Great Revelation.

Roger stood nearby, clean but hardly
sober—the empty glass in his hand was replaced by a waiter even as
Jean watched. His tuxedo hung on his wiry body as though it was
still hanging in a closet. It was Peter Kettering, however, who was
the sight that made eyes sore.

As he had threatened, he was dressed in the
full wretched excess of Hollywood-Highland garb, high-laced shoes,
tartan socks and kilt, fur sporran, tartan plaid draped over a
gold-buttoned double-breasted jacket. The spill of lace at his
throat made him look as though he’d forgotten to remove his napkin
after a messy lunch. His teeth, exposed in a maniacal grin,
resembled a solid sheet of porcelain. His gaze bounced around the
room, his ear tilted toward Roger. Between the squeaks and trills
of the band, Jean caught the words “Tobermory” and “gold.” So much
for Roger promising to retire.

A choking noise came from the riser that was
the bandstand. Hugh? His T-shirted and suspender-framed belly was
quivering, and his cheeks had gone beyond pink to crimson. He was
trying not to laugh at Kettering—no biting the Starr hand that fed
him—but his glee kept escaping like puffs of steam from a boiling
pot.

Jean sidled toward him. “He looks like the
bastard child of Queen Victoria and Walter Scott.”

That set Hugh off again, until at last he
wiped his face with a handkerchief the size of a pillowcase and
said, “Thank goodness Dempsey’s wearing an ordinary monkey suit.
Two of them and my head would explode.”

“You said you saw Kettering at the ceilidh
Saturday night. I don’t guess you saw Roger there.”

“Ah, no, the place was heaving. I only saw
the people just beside the stage. Or passed out beneath it.”

In the corner Billy’s bagpipes honked and
squealed. He adjusted his drones, tried again with the first few
notes of “Bad Moon Rising,” and then played a measure of “The
Rights of Man,” his fingers dancing on the chanter.

“That’s the pipes for you,” said Hugh, “like
squeezing a pig under one arm and knitting at the same time.”

Jean grinned. “I love it when y’all play
off-the-wall pieces. You’ll have to do ‘In-a-Gadda-da-Vida’
tonight, like you did Saturday.”

“That was Sunday,” Hugh amended. “And it was
our Billy’s doing, a punter bet him twenty pound he couldn’t play
it. Man was away with the fairies, most likely, our Billy can play
anything.”

Jean stiffened like a bird dog spotting a
grouse. “So you haven’t added ‘In-a-Gadda-da-Vida’ to that medley
of pop and trad? You only did it on Sunday?”

“Oh aye. Bit of a stunt really, but then . .
.”

But then, Roger had lied. Jean grabbed Hugh’s
arm, exclaimed, “Thank you!” and whirled toward the door.

She was just in time to see Brendan and
Kirsty walk into the room, and behind them Alasdair.
Yes, yes,
yes!
His dark jacket with its epaulettes, his heather-colored
tie and white socks, his red and green kilt swinging provocatively
above those braw Cameron calves—there was a class act. As for his
less than gigantic stature, well, tall was as tall did, and right
now he needed to do.