Did You Declare the Corpse? (20 page)
Read Did You Declare the Corpse? Online
Authors: Patricia Sprinkle
“Thanks, but not today.” Dorothy threw Marcia an apologetic look, shoved back her chair, and fled.
Eileen stopped in the middle of offering to call a neighbor who might be driving to the next village, to ask if Sherry could have a ride. “Did you upset her?” she asked Roddy.
“Not me,” he assured her, reaching for the jam. “It’s Alex. Makin’ up to her like mad, he is.” He caught my eye and gave me a saucy wink.
“Did he not tell her about Shana in Aberdeen?” Eileen demanded.
“Not likely.” He shoved back his chair and stomped out.
Eileen sighed and confided to all of us, “Och, and she’s an awfu’ lassie, jealous as they come. Always on to Alex about moving to the city where he can make more money, while poor Alex is fixin’ up rooms above his wee shop, thinkin’ Shana’ll come round and move in with him when he’s got it lookin’ nice.” She sighed again, then remembered why she’d come into the dining room. “But I was taking a count for dinner. Will the rest of you be here?”
“I’m going to walk up the brae and across the moor this morning,” Laura told her, “but I’ll be back by dinnertime. I’ll leave at nine-thirty, if anybody cares to join me. Mac?”
“No, I walked up that way yesterday afternoon, just before tea.” I watched Jim, who was sitting with Brandi at a table for two in the corner, but he didn’t miss a chew. “I want to explore the village a bit this morning,” I added, “see if I can find some MacLarens.”
That got Jim’s attention, for some reason. “Try the cemetery,” he suggested, adding to Eileen, “I’ve got an appointment and don’t know how long it will take. I’ll get a bite somewhere.” When Brandi looked from him to Sherry with speculation in her eye, he asked, “Why don’t you go shopping with Sherry?”
“I’d rather go walking with Laura.”
“Suit yourself.” He seemed far more interested in his eggs.
Kenny leaned toward their table. “How was dinner in the exalted circle, Jim?”
It was Brandi who answered. “We had the best time. The laird’s wife, Kitty, turned out to be an old friend of Jimmy’s from Albany!” She looked around to make sure we were all duly impressed. “It was such fun for him to see her again. And her brother, Norwood, was a scream.”
Sherry looked up, her eyes wary. I was reminded of a snake waiting to strike. “Not Norwood Hardin, the one whose company ruined all those people?”
“That was his name,” Brandi agreed, “but I’m sure he never ruined anybody. He was charming. He told us all about your little play, Joyce. He’s the star,” she added for the rest of us.
Sherry ignored Brandi. “Did you know Norwood back in Albany, Jim?”
“Slightly.” He gave no indication he was in cahoots with the man. No wonder Donald Trump could make it as a television star. Acting must be a way of life for tycoons.
Brandi widened those beautiful eyes. “But I don’t think Norwood would ruin anybody. He was the cutest thing in the world!”
Sherry gave a disgusted snort. “Cute nothing. He and his partner, William Gray, owned an investment company that stole millions from their clients, including my aunt Rose. Gray was the one who got convicted, and he went to jail and died there—claiming he was innocent, of course. Cute little Norwood testified at Gray’s trial that he was appalled at what his partner had done, and he’d had no idea what Gray was up to. But afterwards, did he care what happened to the people who were ruined, or give up a penny of his own fortune to help them? Ha! Aunt Rose lost every penny she had invested for retirement. She planned to live in a Palm Beach condo. Instead, she’s in a mobile-home park near Brooksville on what we paid her for the restaurant. That’s all she has left.” Sherry buttered a piece of toast like she was slathering Norwood in hot tar. Jim chewed his eggs like Sherry was speaking a foreign language he did not understand.
Brandi gave a bored sigh. “Well, I thought Norwood was delightful. He acted out a couple of scenes from the play, Joyce, and they were hilarious. He kept us in stitches. I can’t wait to see it, can you, Jimmy?”
Joyce, across from me, choked on her tea. While Laura was pounding her on the back, Kenny mused, “So Aunt Rose’s former broker is now the laird’s brother-in-law?” He sounded like he was trying to figure out how to parlay that into a dinner invitation of their own.
Joyce shuddered and pressed her hands to her temples. Poor thing, nobody wants to be told your historical drama is hysterical and the lead actor used it to keep folks in stitches. But when she stood, she told Eileen, “I think I’m starting a migraine, and the actors are driving out from Aberdeen for rehearsal at three, so I’m going back to bed. I won’t want any dinner.”
“Shall I bring you up a wee tray at half past twelve?”
“Please don’t. The only thing that helps is to take a pill and lie perfectly still for hours. Can you all get along without me?”
We assured her we could and she hurried out the door. “I was afraid that woman was gonna break sometime,” I murmured to Laura. “I hope she’s okay in time for her play.”
Eileen went to phone her neighbor and returned to inform Sherry she could have a ride to the next village between ten and eleven. Sherry left. Jim and Brandi got up and Brandi and Laura arranged to meet in the downstairs hall at nine-thirty. When they’d gone, I felt like a third wheel, so I left Kenny and Laura sitting at different tables, obviously waiting to be alone.
I wrote a few postcards before setting out for the village around nine-fifteen. As I started down the stairs, I heard Kenny shouting, but couldn’t distinguish his words. When I rounded the landing, he came storming out the dining room door and hurried past me up the stairs, his face puce and his eyes pink with tears.
“Kenny!” Laura stood in the dining-room door holding the frame, her face pale. Her eyes, too, were pink and wet. When she saw me looking at her, she glared. “Don’t ask, Mac. It’s none of your business.” She, too, strode up the stairs and I heard our door slam.
I headed for the village greatly disturbed. Laura hadn’t been rude to me since she was fourteen. Not until I was well down the brae did I realize that Kenny hadn’t said a word at breakfast about how he planned to spend the day.
The woman at the post-office counter was the woman Dorothy had thought looked like Jim. There was a slight resemblance: white hair, bushy eyebrows, and a certain look around the eyes, but if you travel at all, you know there are a finite number of faces in the world. I’m forever running into people who look like somebody I know. And as Jim had pointed out, it was their noses that looked the most alike.
She waited on me with courtesy but little warmth. As she handed me stamps and change, I saw that her hands and wrists were twisted with arthritis, and she wore no wedding ring on her poor swollen fingers. I hoped she could soon retire in a modicum of comfort.
“I met a little girl on the bridge today who said she feeds your hens and pets,” I told her.
Her stark face brightened. “Wee Morag. Aye, she loves animals, but her mother cannae have them in the hotel, so she comes up and takes care of mine. She’s a right wee dear, that one.” Which differed slightly from the “wee terror” Eileen had described. “Are ye over from America, then?” She thawed enough to lean on her counter.
“Yes, hoping to find some trace of my ancestors in Auchnagar. I thought I might look in the cemetery, for a beginning.”
“Aren’t ye wi’ Watty’s tour? Ask Joyce, then. She stayed a week last spring readin’ kirk records and gatherin’ information. I’d think she knows what there is to know.”
“She was researching a play,” I told her. “She had accidentally run into the laird’s wife—I think it was in your very doorway—and the laird’s wife said if Joyce would write a play, perhaps she would put it on in the community center. It’s going to be Saturday night.” I stopped when I remembered the post office had a notice for the play in its window.
Her lips twisted in what I suppose was a smile of sorts. “Is that how Joyce tells the story?”
“How would you tell it?”
“That she researched the village, found out Mrs. MacGorrie comes in here every morning at ten, and hung around to bump into her. She had to come twice—the laird’s wifey was out of town the first day.” Her chuckle was deep and infectious.
I chuckled, too. “I guess writers get desperate at times.” I picked up my stamps and turned to go. “Until I can talk to Joyce, maybe I’ll try the cemetery. Is it next to one of the churches?”
“Och, no. Cross the burn, turn right, and go three-quarters of a mile. Ye cannae miss it.”
As I passed through the village, I saw Sherry in a pricey-looking wool shop, fingering a plaid cape like the one she had on. She rubbed the material between her fingers, then nodded and handed the clerk her charge card. If she didn’t stop buying, we were going to have to tie a storage container to the back of our plane on the way home.
Barbara Geddys had failed to mention that there was only a narrow verge between the road and a barbed-wire fence, or to remind me to walk on the right to face oncoming traffic. Having nearly been struck by a car whizzing up from behind, I crossed the road and walked close to the fence, wondering how many cemetery occupants had arrived there after taking that very stroll.
The burial ground was marked by a tall monolith rising above a high stone wall that framed a square of land cut from surrounding fields. A small parking area sat in front of the cemetery and a simple wrought-iron gate was set in the center of the wall. Inside, the cemetery seemed small to hold all the people who had died for centuries, and the earliest grave I found was from 1845. This cemetery, then, must have been started during the dismal preoccupation with funerals of Victoria’s reign. Where had villagers been buried before that?
The only MacLarens were a small family that had died out in 1935 with an apparently single woman named Margaret. Disappointed—and annoyed that Joyce hadn’t supplied me with information she might have about MacLarens, since I’d said on my questionnaire I wanted to know about them in Auchnagar—I copied down the names and dates and wished my family had done its research in time to meet the last MacLaren.
I was bent over an adjoining plot, peering down at the flat stones in the grass and trying to make out the name, when I heard a whoosh behind me and something large and furry landed on my back. I sprawled across the grass with a yell, and felt hot breath on the back of my neck.
“Godfrey! No! Down!” Feet came running. I struggled to get out from under the heavy animal, which was now licking me like a favorite toy. I was making little headway when I suddenly felt myself freed in one strong jerk. I looked up to see a man in a kilt standing above me, holding what looked like a brown and tan rug by the collar. The rug lurched back at me, long tongue lolling, ready for another lick. “Godfrey! No! Down!”
It collapsed at his feet into a large English sheepdog, watching me hopefully.
I did not see what that Scotsman wore under his kilt. I was too flustered getting to my feet.
“I do beg your pardon!” Godfrey, encouraged by the man’s friendly tone, started up, but his master shoved his haunches. “Down!” The dog fell to a crouch and stayed, his tongue lolling, ready to play at the slightest signal. “Did he frighten you? He has no manners whatsoever.” The man’s face was full of distress. “I’d have come sooner if I’d realized you were here.” His accent was different from Watty’s or those of the villagers, precise and easy to understand. “You were behind the monument, you see.” He pointed.
I turned, and did see. The base of the monolith was between me and the gate.
“But, of course, he isn’t supposed to be inside.” The man cast an anxious look toward the road and rubbed an ear in embarrassment. “We share the cemetery with the Catholics, you see, and Father Ewan is very strict about this being consecrated ground. Not that we Presbyterians don’t respect graves,” he muddled on with an expression that said he knew he was digging his own grave deeper the longer he talked, but felt compelled to try and make me understand, “but they take these things so much more seriously than we do. I mean, not more seriously, but they won’t let dogs—” He came to a full stop.
“I’m a Presbyterian,” I said, in case that might help.
It must have, for he brightened. “Godfrey, on the other hand, is a bundle of original sin. He sees any forbidden place as a challenge. As soon as I opened the door and he spied the open gate, he leaped out.” He frowned down at the dog but when Godfrey sat up and gave him a happy smile, his owner’s frown turned into a reluctant grin. “You old rogue.” He bent and rubbed the big dog’s head. “Just like a child spying an open biscuit tin.”
“It’s okay. I have a beagle back home.” I held out a hand to let Godfrey sniff me. He rewarded me with a lick, and I scratched him behind one ear.
“I do beg your pardon,” the man said. “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Gavin MacGorrie.” He stuck out one hand and looked down at his other in bewilderment. “I had some flowers here somewhere.”
“I think you dropped them near the gate.” A clump of red lay beyond the monolith.
“Thank you. Stay, Godfrey!” he commanded, and went to retrieve his bouquet. The dog whined, but remained beside my feet.
So this was the Laird of Auchnagar. He looked nothing like I would have expected. I had pictured a man of commanding height and bearing, more like Jim Gordon, who would stride down the village street while everybody watched with pride. This man, who couldn’t be more than forty, had thinning dark hair lightly touched with gray at the sideburns and eyes as brown as Godfrey’s. He was of insignificant height and build, with a diffident air and a scholar’s stoop. And his kilt looked as worn and comfortable as Joe Riddley’s favorite pair of corduroys.
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