Bonnie of Evidence (21 page)

“Nope. I couldn’t get near the checkout counter ’cuz the Dicks are hoggin’ the calculator, tryin’ to help the clerk figure out volume discounts.”

“So, you want to stroll down High Street with me until the dust clears in there?”

“You bet.”

“Do you need to tell George and Tilly where you are?”

“Nope.” She dug out her phone. “When the signal comes back on, I’ll text ’em.”

I regarded her oddly, noting a distinct improvement in her posture. “How come you’re not lopsided anymore?”

She steepled a finger against her lips and threw a conspiratorial look right and left. “Don’t tell your mother, but I lightened my load.”

Crossing to the opposite side of the street, we followed the sidewalk toward a neatly paved pedestrian mall flanked by buildings that evoked images of what the world would look like if its entire population suddenly disappeared. There was no line at the Lloyds Bank cash machine. No moms buying children’s clothes at M & Co. No customers fighting over free vouchers for cell phones at Woolworths. There
was
a certain charm to the place in an abandoned kind of way—the chimney pots crowded atop chimneys, the dunce-capped turret on the Crown Bar, the Victorian streetlights interspersed between wooden benches and baskets of summer flowers.

Nana looped her arm through mine as my stack-heeled slides
clacked
on the pavers, echoing through the emptiness. “You s’pose this is where them fellas at the History Channel filmed that series, ‘Life After People’?”

No customers at the news agents. No patrons seated around the outside dining tables at the freehouse.

“I’ve never seen that show.”

“If you got a notion that the planet’s in bad shape now, you oughta see what happens when no one’s around to screw it up no more.”

We peeked through the windows of an establishment called Morag’s, which seemed to play a dual role as a gift shop, selling boxed jewelry and animal figurines, and a restaurant, serving food other than Indian, Chinese, or takeaway. Their
We’re Open
sign hung inside the front door, but I assumed it was too early yet for the dinner crowd, because the place was empty.

“Morag’s,” Nana mused as we passed by. “I was readin’ about a Morag last night.”

“In the Hamish Maccoull book?”

“Yup. She was kin. The daughter of one of Hamish’s brothers, and she didn’t want nuthin’ to do with no marriage her folks was gonna arrange, so she threw a tantrum.”

“Did she have a crush on someone else?”

“Nope. She was just bein’ what you’d call a teenager.”

“So how did parents deal with difficult teenagers three hundred years ago when they couldn’t threaten them with loss of car or cell phone privileges?”

“They sent her off to fend for herself in the middle of winter with nuthin’ but the clothes on her back.”

“
Ew
. Harsh, much?”

“Yup. They found her body after the snow melted. Looked like she’d starved to death on account of she couldn’t find nuthin’ to eat.”

“Oh, my God.” We sauntered past an abandoned bakery shop and a real estate office, whose available listings were prominently displayed in the window. “That’s”—I shivered—“unconscionable.”

“You haven’t heard nuthin’ yet. You wanna know what Hamish done to a fella what he caught poachin’ on his land?”

I bolstered myself with a calming breath. “Does the story involve blood, violence, or keenly honed weaponry?”

“Don’t know. Depends on how sharp his broadsword was when he lopped the fella’s arm off.”

“Nana!” As we strolled beyond the real estate office, I passed a glance down the narrow lane that veered off to our left—which is when I saw the legs poking out from behind a black metal trash barrel. “Ohmigod.”

I rushed over to the body and dropped to my knees. “Oh, God. It’s Dolly.”

She was curled in a fetal position on the pavement, eyes wide and fixed, mouth gaping open, fists still clutched against her stomach. I tried to find a pulse on her neck, her wrist.

Nothing.

I shot a look at Nana. “Do you have a signal on your phone yet?”

She checked the screen. “Still out.”

“Try Morag’s. They must have a landline. Nine-nine-nine. And tell them to hurry.”

“Check her pocketbook, dear,” she said as she turned back toward the restaurant. “Maybe she’s got meds that can help.”

Help bring her back from the dead
?

I stared at the steamer trunk of a handbag lying beside her.

And yet …

I grabbed it off the ground and tore open the zipper. Wallet. Passport. Baby aspirin. Breath mints. Mini bottle of water. Cosmetic bag.

I riffled through the contents, hoping to find at least one bottle of pills. What I found instead, hiding at the very bottom of the pile, wrapped in a plush terry washcloth, was Hamish Maccoull’s missing dirk.

FOURTEEN

H
E INTRODUCED HIMSELF AS
Detective Constable Nigel Bean, and the hotel was kind enough to offer him the use of the manager’s office so he could question me in private, away from the rain that had started to fall.

“So when I couldn’t find a pulse, I sent my grandmother to Morag’s to call an ambulance. I guess you know the rest.”

Officer Bean made a final notation in his notebook before looking across the manager’s desk at me. He was middle-aged and stocky, with abnormally large ears, a space between his front teeth, and a voice that started at his toes and rumbled all the way up his body. I figured he was an import from another locale, not because he looked any different than the hotel staff, but because when he spoke, I could actually understand what he was saying.

“I’d like ta thank ye fer yer actions, Mrs. Miceli. I just wish it could hae made a difference.” He drummed his finger on the medical form Wally had supplied him. “I’m a bit baffled. According ta her own account, Ms. Pinker was fit as they come, other than a bruise I noticed on her arm.”

“She received that yesterday in a boat mishap.” Her prediction echoed in my head. “Is it possible she died from a blood clot that formed because of the bruise?”

“It was justa wee bruise.” He shrugged. “So whit would cause an otherwise healthy female ta suddenly collapse and die?”

“Our tour director told me the only drug she was taking was a daily baby aspirin.”

Bean grinned. “I’ve heard that people can be less than truthful on these forms, which is why I’ve sent an officer ta search her room fer prescription bottles.” He rechecked his notes. “I don’t know if we’ve checked her handbag yet.”

“I, uh, I already went through her pocketbook. My grandmother thought she might be carrying something that might help us revive her, but all I found was the baby aspirin.” I slid my hand into my shoulder bag. “And this.” I placed the dirk on the desk.

He raised a bushy eyebrow, his gaze lingering on the dagger for a long moment before he leaned back in his chair and said in an almost too calm voice, “If there’s a good reason why Ms. Pinker’s personal effects are in yer handbag and not her own, I’d like ta hear it.”

I winced. “It’s kind of a long story.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m listening.”

I opted for the abridged version, explaining about the geocaching element of our tour, Isobel Kronk’s part in the dagger’s appearance, my inheritance of the thing after her sudden death, its mysterious disappearance yesterday, and its unexpected reappearance in the washcloth at the bottom of Dolly’s pocketbook. “I should have known better than to remove it from her bag. I mean, my husband is a former police inspector. He’d be appalled if he knew what I did. But I was afraid if I left it where it was, it might get lost in bureaucratic red tape, and I’d lose track of it completely. Obviously, not one of my better decisions.”

“This is the second death you’ve suffered on yer tour?”

I nodded.

“And ye’ve been in the country fer how many days?”

I lowered my voice to a self-conscious whisper. “Three.”

He scribbled a notation. “Do ye know the cause of Ms. Kronk’s death?”

“The medical examiner hasn’t been able to draw any conclusions yet. He needed to farm out some tests to a lab with higher tech equipment, but his initial analysis apparently indicated that Isobel’s stomach kind of … exploded.”

He fixed me with a look that caused his eyes to shrink to the size of pebbles. “Exploded?”

I nodded again. “He told my husband that it was a pretty unusual case. I guess exploding stomachs are a rarity in Inverness.”

“I believe they’re a rarity anywhere. Whereabouts in Inverness were ye? I grew up just outside the city, on the banks of the River Ness.”

“
That’s
why I can understand you.”

“Beg pardon?”

I leaned closer in and lowered my voice to a hushed tone. “We didn’t have any trouble understanding the people in Inverness, but we’re all having trouble understanding the hotel staff here. Their burr is a little … challenging.”

He smiled in agreement. “It indeed takes some getting used ta. My wife is from Wick, and I still don’t know whit she’s saying half the time.” He pondered that for a half-second. “Which isn’t always a bad thing. Please, go on with whit ye were saying.”

“
Uh
—we were staying at the Crannach Arms Inn on Loch Ness when Isobel died.”

“Is that a fact? And did ye meet the proprietress whilst ye were there?”

“Mrs. Dalrymple? I certainly did. Do you know her?”

“She’s my aunt.”

“No kidding? Well, it was your aunt who insisted I take the dirk.”

“Why was that?”

“Because, according to her, it has a rather checkered history, and she didn’t want it lying around her hotel, contaminating the air with bad karma.”

He grinned. “Aunt Morna was always one ta get yer blood pumping with her talk of spells and incantations. When I was a lad, I spent many happy days digging through the picture books in her library, scaring the bejeebers out of myself.” He leaned forward in his chair and dragged the dagger toward him. “So let’s have a look at this dirk.”

“Your aunt had a book that documented its entire provenance.”

He held it beneath the banker’s lamp on the desk, angling it right and left as he examined the scrawl beneath the hilt. “Hamish Maccoull?” His voice cracked like that of a fourteen-year-old entering puberty. “Are ye telling me this is the dirk that belonged ta
the
Hamish Maccoull?”

“That was your aunt’s opinion.”

“It’s been missing fer centuries!”

I shrugged. “Isobel Kronk found it in a hollow tree in Braemar.”

“This is incredible. The inscription is still perfectly legible.” He trailed a fingertip across the string of ancient words as he squinted to see them more clearly.

“You speak Gaelic?”

“I don’t speak it, but I can read it. Aunt Morna made sure of that.” He hesitated as he translated the words, his complexion losing some of its color. “Well.” He quickly set the dagger back on the desk, regarding it as if it had suddenly sprouted fangs and a rattler.

“I’m apparently descended from a long line of Maccoulls on my mother’s side, so Hamish’s dirk has some historical significance for our family.”

He inched the dagger across the desk with the tip of his forefinger. “So Isobel Kronk removed the dirk from its hiding place, and you later found her dead.”

“Yup.”

“And Dolly Pinker stole the dirk from another hiding place, and ye later found
her
dead.”

I sighed glumly. “Yup.”

“All right then.” He wrote something in his notebook before flipping it shut and slipping it into his shirt pocket. “Thank ye fer yer cooperation, Mrs. Miceli. I’ve no other questions at the moment, but I’d like ta speak with yer grandmother.”

“She’s out in the lobby.” I eyed him skeptically. “So … I can just leave?”

“Aye.”

“You’re not going to throw the book at me for absconding with possible evidence?”

“Not at all. In fact, it’s yers fer the taking.” He slid the dagger the rest of the way toward me.

“No kidding?”

“Departmental rule: a weapon not used in the commission of a crime is not evidence. Besides, I’m thinking that Ms. Pinker had no right ta take it from the outset, so I’m giving it back ta ye. But I’d suggest ye keep it away from the rest of the group this time.”

He circled the desk and swept his hand toward the door. “I’ll follow ye out, Mrs. Miceli.”

I stowed the dirk in my shoulder bag, gathered my belongings, and extended my hand to him as I stood up. “I appreciate your being so reasonable about the dirk, Officer Bean. Thank you again.”

He pumped my hand. “No worries.”

“I was really afraid you were going to lock it up in your evidence room at the police station.”