Read Did You Declare the Corpse? Online
Authors: Patricia Sprinkle
Did You Declare the Corpse? (25 page)
When the scene was over, I applauded heartily. The lines weren’t great, but the actors clothed them in a poignancy that made me wonder how Andrew had made his own decision, and whom he’d had to leave behind. It is not names, deeds, and civil records that interest me about my ancestors. It is stories I can never know.
Speaking of stories I didn’t know, where was Norwood? He was neither sitting with Joyce nor onstage with the other actors.
Hearing me clap, Joyce turned in surprise. “Hey, MacLaren. What do you think?” Her face was flushed with pride, pleasure, or both, and her hair was tousled—probably by the wind. She looked more like the wild woman I’d seen in the night than our mousy guide.
“Sounds real good, honey,” I said hesitantly, not knowing whether she had forgotten that Jim was dead or had decided to ignore it for the duration of this rehearsal. I understand that writers can sometimes be self-centered, but this seemed to be carrying it a bit far.
While the actors talked among themselves onstage, apparently making revisions in what they’d just done, I left my place and went to join her.
As I took my seat, I steadied myself on the chair in front, which held her blue parka. “Careful,” she warned. “It’s sopping wet. I brought coffee for everybody, and managed to spill mine. I rinsed it out, but it’s still stained.”
“Aren’t you freezing without it?”
“I’m too excited to finally be seeing the play to be cold.” She was glowing with happiness and more relaxed, less tense than I’d ever seen her before except that night in Glasgow, eating with Laura. But the way her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered, I hoped she
was
simply worked up over the play, not coming down with something. She added in a low voice, “You probably think I’m cruel, making them go through this for nothing, but I had to see it, Mac. I just had to, before it all—dies, too.” She clasped her hands between her knees and bowed her head as if in prayer, or pain.
was
simply worked up over the play, not coming down with something. She added in a low voice, “You probably think I’m cruel, making them go through this for nothing, but I had to see it, Mac. I just had to, before it all—dies, too.” She clasped her hands between her knees and bowed her head as if in prayer, or pain.
“Have you heard there’s been a second body found?” I asked softly.
She stiffened. “Another member of our group?”
“I don’t know. They haven’t released the name yet. But the body was found in the second coffin that was ordered for the play.”
“Oh, my God.” The way she moaned it, I knew it was a prayer, whether she did or not. She looked at me with a wild expression. “We didn’t need coffins. I didn’t order coffins. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, honey. Maybe we’ll hear something in a little while. But from what folks are saying in the post office, nobody saw a thing. You didn’t meet anybody coming through the village, did you? Or see anybody around the Catholic church?”
“I met one old woman with a bicycle, but that’s all I remember. I wasn’t paying much attention, to tell the truth.”
“Too bad. But I take it your headache is better and you got your props here on time?” Her tote bag sat beside her on the floor, collapsed and apparently empty.
She heaved a huge sigh, like she was trying to exhale the news I’d just brought. Then she nodded. “Yes to both. The books up on the table are actual histories written in that period. I found them in an old bookshop and thought they’d be a nice touch. Not that anybody will ever see them now.”
“But they do add an authentic touch,” I assured her.
She glanced up toward the stage, where the actors were beginning to block out new moves for the previous scene. “That last scene was good, wasn’t it? Tell me honestly, the play does work, doesn’t it?”
If we were talking real honestly, the play was a fantasy in her head at that point. It wasn’t likely to reach Broadway, given the subject, and I doubted that the laird’s wife would ever restage it after Joyce left town. Still, I didn’t like to burst Joyce’s balloon, so I said, “Sounded real good to me.” I added, “Did you talk to the police yet about Jim?”
She chewed her lower lip and blinked away tears that had filled her eyes. “Not yet. First I wanted to walk a while, trying to get used to the idea that he’s gone and to figure out what I ought to do about the group now.” She rubbed one cheek with her palm. “But I never did.”
“Which?”
“Either. I still can’t believe Jim is gone, and I don’t have a clue what to do.”
“Call the agency back home,” I suggested. “This can’t be the first time they’ve had a death on a tour.”
She gave me a strange, worried look. “Yeah, that’s what I ought to do, I guess.” She glanced up at the stage, and I suspected one reason she was focusing so hard on the play was not simply to see it performed at least once, but to postpone talking with her bosses and explaining the mess her first tour group was in.
“I think the police are likely to expect us to stay at least until they have interviewed all of us,” I continued. “I asked Eileen if that would put her out, but she says she doesn’t have any other guests coming for a couple of weeks.”
Joyce’s eyes widened. “A couple of weeks? We can’t stay here that long. Who’d pay?”
I had no answer for that, so maybe it was time to bite the bullet and do what I came for. “Do you know where I could find Norwood Hardin? I heard he was going to be here.”
I expected her to ask why I needed him, but she just screwed up her mouth like she’d eaten an unripe persimmon. “He’s supposed to be. If you find him, tell him he is very late.”
She had spoken into a gap in the conversation onstage. The short actor called down, “Are you talking about Norwood?”
“The one and only,” Joyce said shortly.
“If we don’t rehearse the sword scene, somebody is likely to get killed.” The actor picked up a sword lying on the stage and swished it through the air. “The most likely candidate is me.”
It occurred to me that they might not have heard of the coffins in the chapel yet, if they’d driven straight from Aberdeen to rehearsal. “Speaking of killed,” I called, loud enough to be heard on stage, “have you heard that two men have died or been killed in the village this afternoon, and put in coffins over at the Catholic chapel—coffins the joiner says were ordered for this play and delivered there by mistake? And do any of you happen to know anything about the coffins?”
“I didn’t order them,” Joyce added quickly.
The three actors came to the edge of the stage to stare down at us. They shook their heads in unison, then exchanged puzzled looks. “We don’t need coffins,” the woman pointed out.
The shorter man demanded, “For real? Two men have been killed in Auchnagar? This afternoon?”
I couldn’t tell which he found more unbelievable—that murder had been done twice that afternoon, or that murder had been done in Auchnagar.
“They appeared this afternoon.” I corrected the story. “I haven’t heard when they were killed, or even what happened to the second one. The first one was hit on the head.”
“A friend of Mrs. MacGorrie’s,” Joyce added.
The shorter one swore. “We might as well pack up and go back to Aberdeen, then. There’s no way this play is going on now.”
The taller one demanded, “Did you know all this, Joyce, and let us go on rehearsing as if nothing had happened?”
Joyce didn’t speak.
It was inexcusable, but I decided she didn’t need another load on her shoulders right then. “I just came to tell her,” I told them.
The woman shrugged. “We might as well pack up and head back.” They started collecting scripts and jackets. “What’s to be done with the props?” she called down to Joyce.
“Just leave them,” Joyce said wearily. “I’ll talk to Mrs. MacGorrie later.”
I still needed to find Norwood Hardin, or to tell Sergeant Murray what I had overheard between him and Jim. The time was past for worrying about ruining his reputation—which was dubious, in any case. At least two people had been murdered, and I could well be giving Norwood the time he needed to skip the country.
I stopped by the chapel and worked my way through a crowd that seemed twice as large as before. “Hey, Constable Roy,” I greeted him again. Again he looked over my shoulder with that expression I suspected he’d seen on some television show, so I spoke to his chin. “I need to speak to Sergeant Murray on a matter of importance.”
He shook his head. “He’s interviewing somebody else just noo. If ye’d care to wait—”
The wind was rising again, and the day winding down. I’d rather wait in my warm room. So I fished in my pocketbook for a card and jotted down a note. “Remembered something. Will be at Heather Glen.” I hoped Sergeant Murray wouldn’t be inclined to ask how it happened to slip my mind that Norwood had threatened Jim.
Back at the guesthouse, Eileen put her head out the kitchen door as soon as the back-door bell jangled and the dog barked. “I thought you might be Roddy.”
“He’s not back yet?”
“No, and I cannae for the life of me think why they’re keeping him so long. Do you ken who it was that died?” Worry had made her lapse into broad Scots.
“They haven’t said yet.” I could think of several reasons Roddy might be kept, but none of them was likely to comfort her. “Maybe Roddy saw or heard something.”
“Och, he never pays attention to fit’s gan on around him. He’s aye got earphones in his ears and music playin’.” She turned back to the kitchen, then thought to ask, “Are you wanting a cup of tea? Marcia and I’ve moved our base of operations to the kitchen, and she’s just made her first oat bannock. They can be a comfort when you’re anxious.”
I followed her inside, where Marcia stood over a griddle, turning something with an uneasy expression. “Is it done?”
Eileen peered at it, but I had the feeling her attention was still on the back door. “Och aye, it’s well enough. Slide it onto the plate, now.” Marcia brought it to the table looking as proud as if she’d prepared a four-course dinner. “Now we’ll cut it and have a wee taste,” Eileen told us. “MacLaren, would you pour us out some tea?”
Pleased to be treated like family, I brought down cups and saucers from the cupboard and poured from the metal pot that seemed perpetually full. We were each given a quarter of the oatcake and pronounced it a success. We were sharing Marcia’s second oatcake when the doorbell jangled and the dog bayed again.
Dorothy poked her head in, her cheeks pink, her eyes full of tears and her lashes spiky with them. “Have you heard what’s happened in the village?” Without waiting for us to answer, she spilled it all. “Jim Gordon is dead and another man, as well. They found their bodies over in the Catholic chapel this afternoon. Can you believe it?” She stumbled toward one of Eileen’s kitchen chairs, collapsed into it, laid her head on her arms, and burst into tears. Through her sobs, she cried, “And Jim made such beautiful music.”
As an epitaph, it wasn’t bad.
21
“You didn’t happen to hear who the other man was, did you?” I asked when she’d quieted down a bit.
Dorothy nodded, and gulped like a child. “The laird’s brother-in-law, the one Brandi said was so funny. Stabbed, they say.” She wept again.
I felt a chill sweep up inside my clothes. The whole time I’d been looking for Norwood, he’d been dead in the second coffin?
Roddy stormed home a few minutes later, incensed. “They blistered me for leavin’ the chapel long enough to get some smokes,” he raged. “They cannae expect a man to stand watch over a corpse a whole afternoon without a single reek. How was I to know somebody would choose chust that very time to bring in another body? And now they say I cannae leave the village while they’re investigating. I’ve got to call my mate and tell him I’m not comin’ to the bloody rally.” He glared at his mother, daring her to object to his choice of words.
She simply said, absently, “Aye, you’ll have to do that,” then asked the question that worried her. “They don’t think you had anything to do with this, do they?”
“They havenae said it, but I wouldnae put it past them.” He went to call. Eileen’s hands trembled while she fetched two more cups and spoons and added water to the teapot.
Marcia turned to Dorothy with a sharp look. “What were you doing all day?”
“Working.” Dorothy pulled off her coat and gloves and headed for the Aga, where she stood with her back to us while she held her hands over the stove top to warm them. “The gallery in the village needed someone to frame pictures, and I know how to do that, so I volunteered.”
“You mean Alex Carmichael’s place?” Eileen turned from pouring Roddy’s tea and gave Marcia a worried frown.
A wave of pink rose up Dorothy’s neck beneath her braid. “Yes. He’s not paying me,” she added, turning to give me a quick, anxious look. “He just gave me a canvas and let me paint on his deck this afternoon.”
“I hope ye know that Alex has a steady girl over in Aberdeen,” Roddy told her, returning from his call. “Crazy about her, he is.” I hoped Roddy would never come live in the American West. He’d never be at home on the range—he was much too fond of the discouraging word.
Dorothy, however, just pulled her braid to hang over one shoulder and announced with dignity, “I’m not marrying the man, I’m working for him.” She tugged the braid for emphasis as she spoke—and looked mighty attractive, I might add. Roddy seemed to think so, but I could tell his mother wanted to talk with him privately.
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