Did You Declare the Corpse? (30 page)

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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

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“She’s named for his wife,” I explained to Laura and Dorothy.
He nodded. “Aye. We were togither a long time.”
“Did Joyce say how she planned to guarantee the twenty-five?” Laura asked.
“I asked her that. She said, ‘That’s our problem.’ She sent me the deposit the very day we spoke, and the rest arrived four weeks before you did.”
“Was there a travel agency name on the check?” Laura thought to ask.
“No. It was a wire transfer from Bank of America.”
“The brochure just mentions Gilroy’s Highland Tours,” Dorothy pointed out.
Watty looked from one of us to the other. “What brochure?”
I happened to have mine in my pocketbook, so I fished it out and showed him. “It was on the Web site for us to download and print ourselves. And now that I think of it, I don’t remember a travel agency name and address, either. We did everything by e-mail,” I added for Watty’s benefit. He was too busy admiring the brochure I had printed out to hear me.
“Will ye look at that?” he murmured, turning it over and over. “Looks like the real McCoy—or the real Gilroy, as may be—except ours are printed on glossy paper. We never printed these. It would be too dear for such a small run. You say you downloaded and printed them yourselves?”
I nodded and repeated, “We never got a thing about the tour that didn’t come via e-mail or as an attachment.”
“Is that right?” He tapped one finger on the table in admiration. “That could save enormous amounts in printing. I’ll have to speak wi’ Joyce about how she did it. I’ll admit, though, I was fair surprised to see how few of you actually showed up.”
Laura’s forehead creased in thought. “Do you reckon Joyce could have paid for the whole tour just to get her play produced?”
“I’d be more inclined to suspect that Jim underwrote the tour,” I answered. “Joyce deferred to him several times. I thought it was because of all his money. But now—”
“Another part of his plot to sneak into Auchnagar?” Laura suggested. “Why don’t you tell Watty about that. He may know something about the people on this end.”
I related what I had heard between Norwood and Jim and between Kitty and Norwood, what Brandi had told me while we were walking through the gardens, and what the laird had said in the cemetery. Watty was scandalized. “They’re plannin’ on puttin’ in a hotel?”
Megan, who had brought some supplies to the bartender again, came and stood behind Watty’s chair to listen. I had forgotten I was describing competition for their own hotel.
“With a golf course,” I added.
“But he dinnae say where?” Watty demanded.
I tried to remember. “No, just ‘down the road’ beyond the cemetery. Is that where the ski lift is? He said skiing was to be the main winter attraction.”
“Aye, the lift’s doon that way, and the laird owns most of the land between it and the village, but the ground is very steep, which is why he’s reforested most of it and given the rest over to sheep.” He turned and spoke to Megan rather than to us. “I cannae mind where they could put a golf course, can you? There’s nae much land that’s flat enough, would ye be thinking?”
She shook her head. “Just the Geddys farm. They’d run into a frontage problem, too. Barbara and Ian have all the land along the road, there. The laird’s land lies behind.”
Watty gave his daughter the same look he must have given her when she brought home good grades. “That’s right enough. And I cannae see Barbara and Ian selling out, can you?”
Megan shook her head again. “Especially not to support skiing and golf. Barbara’s dead set against the skiing. Says it clutters up the village all winter when we need to catch our breath from the summer season. And you know Ian. He never parts with anything that’s his.”
“Maybe
you
could ask the laird,” I suggested to Watty. “Approach him saying you heard there were possible plans for a hotel with Jim Gordon, and wondering if he’d be interested in discussing the same proposition with you. You don’t have to build the dang thing,” I added when I saw the flash in his eye.
“Och, I was just thinking how much we think alike, you and me.”
“I never dress up and pretend to be somebody I’m not.”
“Och, ye dress up like a harmless auld wifey when all the time ye’re a judge and right handy in solving murders. Ye’re not the only one uses the Internet, ye know. I had a most interesting wee read last night.”
I was about to tell him what I thought about people who invaded my privacy on the Internet when a woman announced to the room as a whole, “Then you can stay here and rot! I’m not movin’ to the back of beyond so you can sit around hoping to sell a picture or two. You used to be an artist. Now you’re—you’re a nothing!” The blonde at Alex Carmichael’s table jumped up and snatched her purse from beside her.
Standing precariously on heels that looked like they’d been fashioned from toothpicks, she swung the purse to her shoulder and glared down at him. “You will never amount to a thing, Alex Carmichael. You’re a worm, not a man!” She pivoted on one heel and stomped out. Alex threw some notes on the table and followed her. Dorothy watched him with concern written all over her face.
“Good riddance, if he has the sense to know it,” Watty muttered to the rest of us. “He’s a fine lad, Alex is. Deserves better than that one.” He gave Dorothy a little wink, then turned to Laura. “So let’s get clear on this, noo. Jim Gordon may have asked Joyce to get together a trip of people to come to Scotland and muddle about for a week or so, then come to Auchnagar and stay long enough so he and the laird could transact their business with nobody the wiser. And if she couldnae find twenty-five, she should get as many as she could, and he’d make up the rest?”
Laura nodded. “Which is why Auchnagar was so important to the itinerary.”
“But why the secrecy?” he challenged her. “Except for me, who’s likely to care if they build a new hotel near the village? Most folks would be standing on the roadside cheering.”
“We don’t know,” I admitted. “That’s the big question. Another big question is, what happens to our group now—and to Joyce? Are all the bills already paid?”
“Aye, you’re covered back to Prestwick Airport, but I wonder about Joyce.”
“Are you paying her?” Laura asked.
Watty tired of his little roll of paper and put it back in the ashtray. “We nivver pay guides from other countries. We’ll provide a guide if the group wants one, but Joyce said that wasn’t necessary. I expected her to come more prepared, mind—”
“—And instead, she’s left it up to you,” Laura finished for him.
He reverted back to his bus-driver persona. “Och, I chust told ye what I alriddy knew.”
“Excuse me,” Megan murmured. “I see the ten o’clock bus just pulled up outside. I’m expecting a parcel to come off it.” She hurried to the front door.
She hadn’t been gone a minute when we heard a familiar voice.
“Hey, you all! I am so glad to find you here.” With her usual wide, friendly smile, Brandi Gordon strode into the bar and straight for our table.
 
I thought of Julia Roberts striding back into the hotel after her successful makeover in
Pretty Woman
. Brandi could have been a movie star paying us a surprise visit. Her suede boots exactly matched her short camel’s-hair coat. The scarf at her neck brought out her eyes and reflected mahogany highlights in her hair. If possible, her hair looked bouncier and had more sheen than usual. Her skin looked fresh and moist—not like it had spent over a week touring the mountains. Even her makeup was fresh. And both her arms were full of parcels. Some of them looked pretty heavy.
She dumped them on the next table with a sigh of relief. “I’ve been trying to call Jimmy for hours to ask him to meet the bus, but his phone must not be on. I came in here to call our landlady, to ask if she’d send her son down to help me carry all this up the hill. The bus only comes this far. Could you all help me, instead? But first, I simply must have a drink.” She turned toward the bar and called, “A long, tall gin and tonic, please, with lots of ice.”
She dropped into our vacant chair and confided, “I have just had the most marvelous day. But I tell you the truth, I am almost dead.”
None of the rest of us knew where to look. Watty excused himself. Laura and I took a silent vote and decided to let Brandi get a couple of swallows of drink inside her before we told her about Jim. “Where have you been?” I inquired.
“All the way to Aberdeen. I looked in the mirror this morning and saw that my roots needed a touch-up in the worst old way, so I thought I could pop into town to get them done and be back for lunch. It doesn’t look far on the map, but the first part is all up and down. And nobody told me there wouldn’t be cabs for hire in this place, or that after the six-thirty bus in the morning, there’s none until eleven. By the time I arrived in town and got a hair appointment, I could only make the last bus back, which leaves at seven. But I had me a good old day in a real city. I got my hair done”—she paused to fluff it on her shoulders—“and my nails”—she held them out for our inspection—“and a terrific facial”—she brushed her cheek with her fingertips—“and still had time to shop a little.” She held up several bags. “You all should have come. But I sure am bushed.”
She wasn’t going to be particularly energized by what we had to say.
I told her as gently as we knew how that as a trophy wife, she’d been put on the shelf. Actually, I just said that Jim had been killed that morning, and found in an empty coffin in the Catholic church.
Her response was to fling back her head with a peal of laughter. “Jimmy wouldn’t be caught dead in a Catholic church! And why would they have an extra coffin?”
“Jim ordered them for the play,” I explained, “but he sent them to the wrong church.”
“Jimmy didn’t order anything for that play. He thinks it’s going to be a dead bore, and we’re already planning how we’re going to skip out at the intermission and come up here.” She took a long swallow of her drink and looked at us speculatively. “Did Jimmy put you up to this? Did he tell you all to come down here to wait for me and try to scare me to death because I ran off without telling him? If so, you should have come up with a better story. Coffins in a church? I ask you!” She laughed again.
We all assured her we had not been waiting for her, since nobody had any idea where she was or when she’d be back. (I didn’t add that some of us had wondered
if
she’d be back.) Then I repeated that Jim had the world’s best reason for not putting anybody up to anything.
She went from amused to belligerent in one second flat. “Now why would you make up something hateful like that? Neither Jimmy nor I either one ever did a thing to hurt you.”
I was searching for words to convince her when Sergeant Murray loomed up behind me. I hadn’t noticed him until he said, “Mrs. Gordon? I would like to ask you to come with me, please. I have some questions I want to ask you about your late husband.”
As a convincer, that was a doozy.
Brandi’s eyes widened and she pressed against the back of her chair. “You mean he really is dead? I thought they were joking. He was all right when I left this morning.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed so hard, I wondered if we’d have to amputate. “Tell me this is a joke,” she ordered.
I could see why some people respond well to torture. I’d have told her almost anything to get my circulation back. But the policeman was saying again, “I need you to come with me, please. It’s not far—just a few steps down the road.”
She flung down my hand and slapped her palms onto the tabletop. “I’m not going without my friends.” Her nails were now such a deep red they looked almost black. Laura threw me a slight smile. Sounded like we’d bounced back into Brandi’s friendship circle. “And I need to finish my drink before I go anywhere.” Brandi held it aloft.
“I’ll wait for you in the lobby, then.” He bowed stiffly and departed.
Brandi dawdled, but it’s hard to make one drink, even a tall one, last forever. As she sipped, she peppered us with questions: “How did Jimmy die?” “Was it an accident?” “Did he have a heart attack?” Her eyes were worried, and she kept drumming the table with her nails.
To every question I replied, as was proper and true, “You’ll have to ask the police.” Finally I said in exasperation, “You’ll have to talk to the police about everything, Brandi. We really don’t have any official information.”
Her eyes widened. “Why are the police involved? They don’t think he was murdered, do they?” When I didn’t answer, she cried, “He
was
murdered! And they think I did it.”
Several people were looking at us curiously. “I told you—” I began.
She slid back her chair and stood abruptly. “You haven’t told me one blessed thing. I guess I’ll have to go with the policeman, just to get some answers. But if those two cats think they can pin this on me, they have a another think coming.” She strode away toward the lobby, leaving us to pay her bill and carry her parcels up the hill.
25
I woke Saturday hoping Friday had been a nightmare. Then I opened one eye and saw Laura looking at me with an expression that mirrored how I felt.

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