Highland Laddie Gone (15 page)

As they walked along the path encircling the festival field, Walter spotted a familiar face and stopped in his tracks. “Marge!” he cried. “The most dreadful thing has happened! Colin has got himself murdered with a
skian dubh
that looks like mine, and I may actually be hauled off by the police. We have to straighten this out.”

Marge looked at him gravely. “I’m sorry, Walter.”

“Well, of course you are. It’s unthinkable, isn’t it? Now, I want you to call Sanderson and tell him to drive down here, because I may need a lawyer. Just as a precaution. And … let’s see … maybe you ought to get hold of Dr. Fahrner in case I’m not back by Monday …”

Instead of springing into brisk efficiency as Marge usually did, and adding to the list of things to be done, she was just standing there, expressionless. What’s the matter with her? Walter wondered. “Now, let’s see … Sanderson, Fahrner … is there anyone—”

“Don’t you think your wife should be doing this?” asked Marge quietly.

“What?”

“I said: don’t you think your
wife
should be doing all this?”

Walter felt like a dog who had reached the end of his
chain at a dead run. Heather. He had forgotten all about her. “Yes, of course,” he murmured. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am—”

“I know,” said Marge.

   L
ACHLAN
F
ORSYTH
, three-deep in babbling tourists, wondered for the fourth time where Jimmy had got to. When the lad’s parents had insisted on taking him to lunch—reeking guilt, he thought smugly—he had assumed they were going to haul him off for a nosh at the refreshment tent; but apparently their relief at having disposed of him was so great that only The Thistle Inn and a couple of London broils could deaden it. He didn’t know whom he felt the most sorry for—those two yuppie simpletons who wanted a Cabbage Patch doll that breathed, or little lizard-hearted Jimmy who was meant to be an Artful Dodger. No use giving either party advice, though. Might as well try to tell chalk how to be cheese.

The McGowans had tried to seem pleased at how hard their Jimmy was working at the festival, but behind the smiles they were wondering what the trick was to managing him—and feeling the reproach that they couldn’t do it themselves. None of his business, Lachlan told himself. Just be glad for a bit of help at the festival, when you had so much unexpected bother to see about.

“Do you have any books about Clan Graham?” asked an elderly woman in a ridiculous-looking tam.

“No, but they’ll be in that big book along with the rest of them.”

“But I’m only interested in Grahams.”

“Leave your name, then, and I’ll see if I can special order for you. Who was next, please?”

The stall work was so routine, and the questions so repetitious, that it hardly took any concentration. Lachlan wrapped packages and juggled credit cards while he considered the murder. It was almost funny that someone had killed Campbell, but for the inconvenience of it in terms of his own plans. He really couldn’t afford to have police officers nosing around the games. As it was, he was dreading the inevitable interrogation scene. He supposed that sooner or later they would get around to questioning him. In a fish-bowl like this, he had to assume that someone had overheard his quarrel with Colin Campbell.

Well, he had planned for that contingency. He would thicken his burr to the consistency of creamed cheese, and vow that he had nae idea whatsoever what these bloodthirsty Americans could be getting up to in the name of clan rivalry. He considered claiming kinship with the Campbells on his mother’s side, but that might leak out, and it would be bad for business.

Lachlan picked up his half-full can of shandy—it was closer to the woolens than he was used to putting it. This murder business was making him absentminded, he thought. Waving time-out to his customers, Lachlan took a swig of his drink, making his usual silent toast, the Cultoquhey litany:
From the greed of the Campbells, From the ire of the Drummonds, From the pride of the Grahams, From the wind of the Murrays, Good Lord, deliver us.

James Stuart McGowan turned up a few minutes later,
looking less bored than usual. He elbowed his way past the browsers. “Sorry I’m late!” he called to Lachlan. “Something interesting happened!”

“Oh, aye? Got your dad to give you power of attorney, did ye?”

Jimmy grinned. “Nah! Nothing interesting ever happens with
them.
I did shake them up a bit when I ordered a shandy with lunch. I would have gotten away with it if the waiter hadn’t asked, ‘I suppose you want it without the beer, young man.’ ”

Lachlan shook his head. “They’ll no be pleased, Jimmy.”

“When we were coming back into the festival, though, guess what we saw? The sheriff arresting somebody!”

Lachlan looked wary. “Oh, aye?”

“Yep. He didn’t have on handcuffs, but they put him in the backseat of the squad car, where there aren’t any door handles. He had changed back into regular clothes to go to jail, but my dad recognized him anyway.”

“Arrested? For the murder, do you mean?”

“Of course. You wouldn’t do drug busts on an affluent crowd like this,” said Jimmy smugly. “Don’t you want to know who the collar was? Take a guess—I mean, with your ESP.”

“For killing a Campbell?” Lachlan took a deep breath. “Would it by any chance be the president of the MacDonald clan?”

Jimmy grinned. “You got it! Walter Hutcheson. What do you think of that?”

“It grieves me,” said Lachlan Forsyth. “I was hoping to stay out of it.”

“Of course, he’s a well-known surgeon, so he probably
has a competent attorney on retainer, don’t you think? He’ll probably make bail on his standing in the community and be out of the slammer by six o’clock.”

“What did you say, laddie?” murmured Lachlan. “I was thinking about something else.”

In hushed and well-bred tones, the word spread quickly around the festival that Walter Hutcheson had been taken in for questioning in connection with Colin’s murder. Elizabeth, on duty at the Chattan tent, heard it from Betty Carson, who maintained that Walter had been acting strangely for some time now, and she wondered if he might be taking narcotics.

“I wonder how Marge is taking this,” Elizabeth said to Cameron.

“Is that his former wife?”

“Yes. Oh, I see what you mean. But Cameron, they were married for ages, and Marge isn’t the sort of person who holds grudges. Why, I’ll bet she’ll even be speaking to Geoffrey again in a year or two. I think I should go and see how she’s doing. Will you watch Cluny for me?”

“I’m not even in Highland dress,” Cameron protested. “Why should I have to mind him?”

Elizabeth smiled. “Because you have a Ph.D. in biology, sir—I’ll be back soon!”

She hurried down the path toward the practice meadow, and Cameron scratched Cluny’s ears and watched her go. “I only do seals and porpoises,” he said with a sigh of resignation.

Somerled, the border collie, was on his chain in front of Marge’s tent, so Elizabeth knew that she had come to
the right place. Marge was there. She wasn’t sure exactly what tone to adopt about this recent development, but perhaps she could take her cue from Marge’s behavior. If nothing else, Elizabeth could run errands or offer to look after Somerled.

“Hello,” she said softly, peering into the tent. “What a reek of smoke!” she added, leaning back and coughing. “If you’re going to chain-smoke, you ought to do it out in the open where there’s oxygen to compensate.”

Marge did not look up. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

Elizabeth ventured in, fanning the air in front of her. “About Walter, you mean?”

“Yes. It’s all so complicated.”

“What does he want you to do?”

In a halting voice, Marge told her about their encounter just before the arrest, and Walter’s list of instructions. “He had forgotten all about her,” said Marge. “Anyone could see that. And I don’t know what to do.”

“I think you should do what’s best for Walter,” said Elizabeth, who felt that that was both a comforting and a neutral thing to say.

Marge nodded and reached for the pack of cigarettes. “Yes. Perhaps I should.” After a few moments silence, she remarked, “Walter didn’t kill Colin, you know.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know anything about it. I’d heard they had a fight.”

“Yes, but I have known Walter for most of his life, and I assure you that he is not a murderer.”

“Well, I suppose they might let you testify as a character witness,” said Elizabeth kindly. She felt that such
testimonials would be ridiculous as well as useless, but she meant to be soothing until Marge could get a grip on herself.

“He did not do it.”

“Then I’m sure that the sheriff’s investigations will turn up something in his favor, and everything will be all right.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” said Marge grimly. “They have that stupid real estate argument as motive, and they asked me about Walter’s
skian dubh,
so presumably that was the murder weapon. And I know they fingerprinted a bunch of us. The fact that they took Walter away must mean that they found his prints on it.”

“That’s a pretty strong case,” Elizabeth admitted. “Maybe Walter has changed. I mean, he has been doing some strange things in the past few years, hasn’t he?”

“You mean Heather?”

“Well … maybe he’s going through some mid-life crisis, and—”

“Walter’s beyond mid-life crisis,” snorted Marge. “He now qualifies as an old fool. But I don’t think he could change enough to start stabbing people.”

Elizabeth was beginning to feel restless. There’s no reasoning with her, she thought. Women in love have one-track minds. I wonder what Cameron is doing?

“What the sheriff needs is some new evidence. He won’t be looking for any more himself. He thinks he’s solved the case.” Marge sighed. “Of course, no one would believe me. I’m not objective. I doubt if anyone would tell me anything anyway.”

Elizabeth’s heart sank. “I suppose that I could sort of ask around and see if I can come up with anything in Walter’s favor.”

“Colin must have quarreled with lots of people at the festival,” Marge mused.

“He had run-ins with Cameron and me, but we didn’t do it.”

“Yes, but besides that.”

Elizabeth thought about it. People had been discussing the case around her all afternoon, and occasional remarks had filtered through her thoughts about Cameron. She tried to remember what some of them were. “Betty Carson said something about Dr. Campbell wanting to call a committee meeting this morning.”

“Oh? That could be important! Colin would only do that if he intended to launch a large-scale donnybrook. I wonder what he was up to?”

“Something about embezzlement, I thought.”

“Money? Nonsense. The committee has accountants coming out of their ears, and half of them are lawyers anyway. Are you sure she said embezzlement? It doesn’t matter. It was probably third hand anyway. Who would Betty have heard all this from?”

“Dr. Carson, I imagine. He’s on the committee.”

“Good. Talk to him.”

Elizabeth sighed. “I wish I could talk to Colin.”

“Yes, that would solve everything, wouldn’t it?”

“Not about the murder. I was just thinking. Betty said that Dr. Campbell seemed to know a lot about Heather’s background. They were talking about a new baby in the family.”

“Heather’s background?”

Elizabeth nodded miserably. “I think she and Cameron knew each other back in Scotland. I’ll bet Dr. Campbell could have told me what was going on.”

“I’ll bet he would’ve, too,” said Marge grimly. “That’s the trait that killed him.”

Walter Hutcheson’s present wife was sitting alone in the camper, trying to decide what to do. Walter had shouted a lot of instructions at her as they were leading him away, something about telephoning a lot of people. But he hadn’t left her any phone numbers, and the address book was back at the house. She supposed she could leave the festival and drive home. She’d never driven the camper, though, and it would be like maneuvering a great bloody aircraft carrier on the two-lane roads. She might get herself killed.

Heather had not been crying, but she was tense and afraid. What if things didn’t turn out all right? Sod the stupid police anyway for arresting Walter. She looked at the half-empty bottle of Glenlivet in front of her. Better not have another—not that she was too keen on the taste of the stuff anyway. This was not a time to be losing control. The police would be back along asking questions of her, she was sure. When did you last see your husband’s
skian dubh?
What time did he leave the camper? Was there any blood about him?

Heather twisted a strand of hair and tried to decide if she ought to
do
anything. Walter would call his own lawyer from the police station, wouldn’t he? And like as not, they’d arrange the bail, and then he could come and drive her home. She didn’t like to ask anyone for help just now; she wanted to be alone. It would all work out, she
thought. It had to. Cameron Dawson reminded her of why she had left Scotland, and why she didn’t want to go back. Americans—and Walter in particular—were a bit simple, but she was enjoying herself, and she wasn’t going to see it spoiled. Cameron Dawson … In spite of her worries, Heather giggled remembering the look on the little brunette’s face when they’d talked about him.… Silly git.

She wondered what Walter’s former wife was doing. She was the Maggie Thatcher type, all right. If it had been her here as the defendant’s wife, she’d have already called the President and organized a league of Friends of Walter Hutcheson. A geriatric Girl Guide was Marge.

She started at the sound of the knock on the camper door. Not the bloody cops already! Heather opened the door cautiously, ready to slam it if she caught sight of a camera. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you, Jimmy. If you don’t give me any of that Your Ladyship rubbish, you can come in.”

Questioning people at the Highland games wasn’t going to be as easy as Marge seemed to think. Elizabeth knew that elderly Virginians were the last people in the world to take a young girl seriously—and if they did, they would resent her. She had wasted a good bit of her social life having to be wide-eyed and respectful while pompous old bores held forth on their pet subjects. The liberal-arts types were the worst. They always managed to steer the conversation to the inch-wide sea of whatever their specialty was and to dismiss anything else as not worth knowing. That’s why I fall for scientists, Elizabeth thought: I give them credit for being brilliant because they can do things that I
can’t—and they’re not given to talking about it over dinner.