Did You Declare the Corpse? (22 page)
Read Did You Declare the Corpse? Online
Authors: Patricia Sprinkle
“Of course.” If this had not been a natural death—and I suspected it was not—I’d have to tell what I knew eventually. Might as well get it over with. But what did I know? I needed to think carefully before I said anything rash. I sure didn’t want to have to call Joe Riddley to say, “Sorry, hon, but I’ll be late coming home. I’m a witness in a murder case.”
It was too cold to be standing around outside. Especially since, as we’d left in haste and I’d thought we’d be inside most of the time, I had come away without my coat. The breeze that teased my hair had an edge to it, and the sunlight was as pale as skim milk and about as satisfying. I leaned up against one of the doors, which was sun-warmed at my back and out of the wind, and concentrated on keeping my teeth still. I noticed that the police station was just up the hill and across the street. Father Ewan could have run over in less time than it took to turn on his phone and dial the number. I suspected he had stayed out of kindness and concern for me.
“Constable Roy will be right down,” he said, and meant it literally. A young police officer was already running from the station, putting on his cap as he ran. He slung one leg over his bike and coasted downhill to the chapel.
He looked more like a truant from middle school than a proper policeman. Straw-blond hair poked untidily from under his cap and his rosy face looked like his mother had given it a good scrub before he left home. His expression as he dismounted was so wary that I knew immediately he wasn’t accustomed to dealing with sudden death. “Fit’s gan’ on?” he greeted Father Ewan. Thanks to Morag, I could translate easily. He’d asked, “What’s going on?”
Father Ewan didn’t waste time on introductions, but launched right into our noonday events, including a regretful footnote about the gooseberries covered with custard.
“And fit’s she deein’ here?” the bobby demanded.
I wasn’t offended. I’d been asking myself the same thing ever since I saw Jim.
Father Ewan gave a careless flick of one hand. “Och, she was up at Lamont’s and came down wi’ me to tour the chapel.”
The bobby’s skeptical look said what he thought about people so dedicated to tourism, they accompanied a priest on his way to look at coffins.
“The trouble is inside, Neil,” the priest reminded him gently.
The bobby steadied his bike on its kickstand and mounted the steps two at a time. “I’ll chust have a wee look, then, shall I?”
We heard Roddy start up a complaint as soon as the church door opened. “Ye took yer sweet time gettin’ here. I cannae stand aboot all the bloody afternoon. I’ve got a bus to catch. There’s a bike rally I want to attend, to see about buying myself that new bike, and if I’m no there, the bloke’ll be selling it to somebody else. I have to catch the three o’clock bus.”
The door closed before we heard the bobby’s reply.
“They were boys at school together,” the priest murmured, “and twa of a kind. Always in some scrape or another, usually trying to get out of work. I’d never have believed Neil Roy would become a constable.”
The unlikely constable came back out looking rather more worried than he had gone in. “I dinnae ken that bloke. Do you?”
“No, but she does.” Father Ewan flapped one hand toward me, then stepped back and left the floor—or, in this case, the gravel path—to me. “He’s in her group.”
“Och, a tourist.” From the relief in the bobby’s voice, you’d have thought tourists could be expected to come to Auchnagar for the express purpose of dying.
I thought he’d ask me a few questions and take the answers down, but all he asked was, “Are ye with Gilroy’s?” When I nodded, he said, “We’ll need to talk to Watty, then. But first, I’d better gie the sergeant a ring. He’ll take it from here.” He made the call and spoke urgently, then hung up looking relieved and told the priest, “Sergeant Murray was chust finishin’ his dinner. He’ll be right doon. He’ll call the doctor, as weel, although he cannae do much for yon body.” He turned to me. “The sergeant told me to ask ye a few questions, then ye can go.”
I felt suddenly dizzy. Maybe it was hearing somebody I’d eaten breakfast with a few hours ago referred to so casually as “yon body.” I sat down on the top step and laid my head on my knees. “Give me a minute for my head to stop swimming.”
“Nae bother.” He settled himself comfortably beside me on the steps and lit a cigarette. “We’ll just save the questions until the sergeant arrives.” I got the feeling that fairly well summed up his whole approach to life. He looked like he could sit and smoke forever.
That gave me time to think what I wanted to say. I should tell the sergeant what I had overheard the afternoon before, but I hated to do that without finding out first how Norwood Hardin had spent his morning. Words have power. Accusations stick. If Norwood were innocent, he’d still be remembered in Auchnagar as having once been a suspect in a murder case. And Jim had certainly riled several others on this trip.
I found myself thinking desperately, “Please let this be death from natural causes.” That’s the kind of prayer our souls groan out when we aren’t thinking straight. Whatever was done was done. No amount of prayer would ever change that.
The young bobby must have been worrying about the trouble murder could cause him, too, for he asked, “Do ye think death could have been caused by a weak heart or something?”
“I doubt it.” I shifted on my step, trying to ignore the achy cold seeping into my bones. “Can you think of a single reason why somebody with a weak heart would come to this church and lie down in an empty coffin to die?”
The look he and the priest exchanged said clearly that they could imagine American tourists doing practically anything, but they were too courteous to say so aloud. I think we were all relieved to see a police vehicle draw up in front of the church, followed by a black Ford. The bobby stood up. “Here’s the sergeant and the doctor noo.”
The police sergeant had straight dark hair, red cheeks, and a strong, square chin, and looked far better in his navy uniform than the stout man who climbed out of the Ford in a baggy three-piece suit and reached into the back seat for his medical bag. As they turned our way, though, I saw that the doctor sported a magnificent red-gold mustache that bristled above well-shaped lips.
They nodded at Father Ewan, looked curiously at me, and headed up the steps, followed by Constable Roy. In a few minutes the sergeant came out to ask me, “You knew the victim?”
“Yes. He and his wife are—were on my tour. We’re staying up at Heather Glen.”
He opened the door and called back into the narthex, “Ye’ll need to fetch his wife, Neil. Just say there’s been an accident. Dinnae let on that her husband has died.”
“And where will I find her, then?”
“Check at Heather Glen. If she’s no there, check the shops.”
Constable Roy came out, picked up his bike, and tooled away.
“What about me?” Roddy called through the open door. “I’ll have to scarf me dinner whole to make me bus. I’ve got a bike rally to attend.”
“Nivver mind your bike rally, lad,” the sergeant called back. “I’ll need you to stay wi’ the body until somebody comes to fetch it.”
Is there any point in noting that Roddy did not take that news with grace?
The doctor came out and jingled his keys, ready to leave. “Ian’s hanging paper in our spare bedroom. Shall I send him down to make a statement?”
“Och, dinnae bother. We know where to find him when we need him. I’ll chust be taking her statement first.” The bobby nodded toward me.
Given that they were both looking my way, I might as well ask: “Do you know the cause of death?”
“Aye.” The doctor nodded, strode up the walk, climbed in his Ford, and drove away.
“Let’s awa’ up to the station, shall we?” the sergeant invited.
Father Ewan suggested that there was no point in taking the Land Rover that short trip up the hill, so the two of us walked. I was more than ready for a hot cup of coffee when we got there, but the pot behind the sergeant’s desk had been made so long before, it was black and tarry. The only thing it had to recommend it was steam.
While Father Ewan and I clutched our mugs and inhaled the fumes, Sergeant Murray called for reinforcements. Police in every country do pretty much the same thing when there is a suspicious death, but it takes longer in small towns. In a city, experts would have begun to congregate at once. Sergeant Murray’s reinforcements had to come from the nearest large town and were presently out on another incident. “It’ll take them the best part of two hours to get here,” he told Father Ewan in disgust. “Meanwhile, tell me what you know about this man.”
Father Ewan deferred to me. “His name is Jim Gordon,” I began. “He owns a distillery in America that makes Scotch whisky, but he says he’s of German extraction. He is traveling with his wife, who was planning to climb the brae above Heather Glen this morning, but changed her mind at the last minute and didn’t go.”
“She did, did she?” He made a note.
“Jim has apparently known the laird’s wife, Mrs. MacGorrie, for some years, and the Gordons ate with the Mac-Gorries last evening. I think she’ll be able to tell you more than I can.”
All that time I was still mentally debating whether to tell him what I had overheard between Jim and Norwood. I am a sworn officer of the law, but not of the Scottish law. If I told what I’d heard, I’d have to admit I had been eavesdropping and might cause trouble for an innocent man. On the other hand, if Norwood had killed Jim—
I still hadn’t reached a decision when we heard the squeal of tires outside the station.
A vehicle door slammed and the station shook as the door was flung against the wall. “Fa’s dat I hear aboot a body in one of my coffins?” a man demanded truculently. “I dinnae ken what someone’s trying to pull, but they were empty when I delivered them.”
This had to be Ian Geddys, the joiner. Tall and muscular, with wispy hair of faded red and a pink, indignant face, he was somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-five and carried not a chip on his shoulder but a whole tree, grown over decades from who knew what roots of bitterness.
“Why did you deliver them?” Sergeant Murray asked mildly.
“I had an order.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a crumpled letter.
Sergeant Murray donned the same kind of half-glasses I wear for reading and held the letter by one corner. When he’d perused it, he whistled. “That’s odd.” He laid it on the desk and motioned for me to come look at it. “Do you recognize this signature? Dinnae touch!”
I thought about telling him I was a judge and knew the drill, but decided not to complicate matters. I found myself suffering from an acute—and, Joe Riddley would say, unusual—case of “I don’t want to get involved any more than I have to.”
The letter bore no letterhead. It requested that two wooden coffins be built and delivered to “the chapel” on the morning of that day by noon. It stated they were for a theatrical production, and could be removed after the production “and disposed of as you will.” It was signed in a heavy black scrawl:
James Gordon.
James Gordon.
I looked up in astonishment. “But—why on earth—?” I came to a halt.
Murray’s eyebrows arched above his glasses. “Do you recognize the signature?”
“I’ve had no reason to see Jim’s signature, but I can’t think why he would have ordered coffins for the play. Joyce Underwood, who’s in charge of the tour, wrote it and Mrs. MacGorrie is producing it. One of them would be more likely—”
“That old wifey, her finger in every pie in town,” Ian muttered under his breath. He raised his voice. “But she dinnae order the coffins—or pay for them, either.”
“Are they paid for, then?” the constable asked in surprise.
“Ye dinnae think I’d make them wi’out bein’ paid?” His indignation swept the room. “And it was dollars he sent, enough dollars to make it worth my while.”
“How many?” asked the sergeant.
“Nivver you mind how many. It was enough.”
Father Ewan scratched one side of his nose. “Then maybe, for once in his life, Roddy was right. He guessed that whoever ordered them thought that ‘the chapel’ meant St. Catherine’s where the play is to be performed, and you took them to the wrong place.”
Ian’s hot blue eyes glared at the priest, then turned on me like I was personally responsible for the error. “If the bloke meant St. Catherine’s, why did he no say so?”
“You’ll have to talk with our tour leader about that,” I said firmly.
“And who’s the bloke in the chapel noo?” he demanded of the sergeant.
The sergeant gave him a wry smile. “The bloke who ordered the coffins.”
I could tell that the volcano of Ian’s temper was likely to erupt again, so I said quickly, “I’ve told you what I know. May I leave now?”
Sergeant Murray considered, then nodded. “Aye. You run along and leave us to sort this out. But dinnae be leavin’ the village for the time being. I may have more questions for you.”
“I have one for you. How did Jim die?”
“A hard blow to the back of the head, looks like. We’ll have to do an autopsy, of course.”
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