The Blue Hackle (17 page)

A triptych of photos—Emma in her wedding
gown, Emma holding infant Diana, child Diana mounted on a pony—was
half-obscured by the papers drifting across a Victorian slab of a
desk. The red tape was getting ahead of Fergie, it seemed.

The desk was stationed in front of tall
windows draped with lush but frayed brocade. Jean looked through
the wavery glass to see a part-flagstone, part-gravel yard below.
To one side sat a cement-block building, no doubt storehouse and
garage, its brutal lines accented by the empty flower pots, plastic
bins, and broken sculptures piled against it.

On the far side of the yard, though, rose the
lovely lichen-encrusted stones of the garden wall, breached by a
wooden gate and topped by bare tree limbs. A sign beside the gate
might read, “To Old Dunasheen Church”—it was small and weathered
and Jean couldn’t quite make it out. Yesterday she and Alasdair had
made their way to new and old churches alike via the main garden
gate, past the trees and dormant flowerbeds. This looked like an
alternate route.

A spark floated across her memory and winked
out the moment she tried to grab it. Someone, somewhere, had said
something about walking to the church. But then, who hadn’t said
something about walking to the church? She was on the way there
herself.

“Don’t you dare cloud up,” she told the sky,
a dome of radiant Celtic blue—the Scottish flag, the sea around the
Highlands and Islands, Alasdair’s eyes, ever changing, always
profound.

She eyed the desk and a filing cabinet, and
her palms itched. This was her chance to snoop. But Fergie wasn’t a
suspect. Over and beyond his non-heavy breathing, she found it hard
to believe his transparent face could hide any plot deeper than the
next day’s menu.

As for who was a suspect, well, it was a
matter of who had an opportunity—or seemed to, right now. Diana.
Nancy. Rab. Lionel Pritchard. Colin Urquhart. Any or all of them
might prove to have an alibi, something that Tina herself lacked.
Scott and Heather were long shots. They were in the area when Greg
was killed, but how could one of them have gotten the dirk from the
front hall before they’d ever set foot in it?

Or the deed could have been done by someone
from the village or elsewhere on Skye, or even by some sort of
Australian mafia hit man working not under the sign of the Black
Hand but of the Red Kangaroo.

Since Alasdair wasn’t there to snort at that
one, Jean snorted at herself and sat down at the plywood computer
desk in the corner. When she started to type “Greg MacLeod” into
the blank box of the search engine, she barely got as far as “Greg
MacL” before a second box appeared, holding the complete name plus
the word “Townsville.”
Whoa.
That meant, didn’t it, that
Fergie had already done the same search?

Yes. Of the list of hits, laboriously
summoned over Dunasheen’s phone line, several were tinted a
been-there, done-that purple.

Maybe Fergie checked out all his potential
guests. Why? Out of curiosity? Caution? Cupidity, with those
balance sheets not adding up? Maybe it was Diana who’d checked. But
then, her office was at the other end of the house, near the
postern gate cloak room. Yesterday Fergie had made a joke about how
they e-mailed each other.

Jean skimmed the hits, finding a few words
about the MacLeod Art and Artifact Gallery, which was, as yet, an
empty storefront near Townsville’s famous aquarium. She found a few
more words about St. Columba’s Museum of Religious Life and Art,
ditto. Greg had intended the two places to share the same roof,
then. He’d evoked a saint beloved by his ancestors, Columba, known
as Columcille in the holy man’s own Celtic language, rather than
choosing an internationally known one like St. Andrew.

Jean clicked on the “images” button and
drummed her fingers while the molasses-like connection delivered
photos of Greg’s broad, blunt face and rectangular smile. In one
shot, he had his tuxedoed arm around an elegantly dressed woman who
was not Tina. Not that there was anything wrong with that—the photo
was linked to an article about the opening of a posh resort in
Cairns.

Still, Jean couldn’t help but wonder if, like
the Krums’ holiday, the MacLeods’ was intended to repair a
faltering relationship. If so, well, jealousy was a time-honored
motive for murder. Although if Jean had wanted to murder her
spouse—and she’d had her moments with both prior and anticipated
spouses—she wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble and expense of
doing so on the other side of the world. The fact that Tina had
effectively trapped herself at the scene implied her innocence.

Jean moved on to the same factoids Miranda
had already turned up, the Waltzing Matilda sale and the donation
to the Bible History Research Society. That name made another bony
rattle in the overstuffed cupboard of her brain. So, since she had
a world of reminders at her fingertips . . .

Well, look at that.
The Bible History
Research Society was also already in the search queue. Its website
trumpeted its support of archaeological digs exploring not just the
historical roots of the Bible, but intending to prove its literal
reality. And good luck to them, Jean thought. Stories didn’t have
to be literally real to be profoundly true.

That was where she’d heard of the BHRS, at an
academic conference she’d attended in her former, pre-
Great
Scot
, pre-Alasdair life. One speaker, an archaeologist, had
been incensed by the rise of the BHRS and similar organizations, no
matter whether they were earnest amateurs or predatory con men.
Their rejection of rigorous scientific method detracted from
genuine archaeological studies of the Holy Land and encouraged the
trade in illegally dug, to say nothing of faked, antiquities.

Just as the human mind always wanted to
believe, Jean thought with a polite nod toward Ganesh, the human
mind always came up with ways of exploiting belief.

Stealing a piece of paper and a pencil from
Fergie’s desk, Jean jotted down the URLs and several notes about
gallery, museum, and BHRS. Police minions would turn up the same
evidence. Whether Alasdair and his pro-MacDonald sensibilities
heard it from her or from them didn’t matter. Facts were facts,
especially when they pointed to Greg’s interests coinciding with
Fergie’s. And then there was Scott Krum and his auction house.

She ran a quick search on “Scott Krum +
auction + Maryland” and established not only that he was who he
said he was, but also that Fergie had looked him up as well.

Surely Fergie wasn’t planning to sell the
Fairy Flagon. Things couldn’t be that bad, financially . . . wait.
He was going to show her and Alasdair something else, something
special for her article. Scott was right, valuable collectibles
could be tucked away in the corners of an old house like Dunasheen.
Was Fergie sitting on something so valuable it would overwrite the
red on those balance sheets with black?

Jean slumped down in the chair. Yes, she
believed in synchronicity, the way coincidences happened with what
seemed like intention aforethought. But when it came to murder,
when did coincidence become enemy action? While she sure didn’t
want to think of Fergie as the enemy, maybe he
was
capable
of hiding dark schemes and devious plots. Or maybe it just hadn’t
occurred to him that whatever he was up to was dark and
devious—not, at least, until Greg died.

Fergie’s e-mail program probably wasn’t
password-protected, but she wasn’t going to snoop or sneak or slink
around any further than she already had. Let the pros do that. Even
so, maybe, just maybe, she’d finally grasped the end of a
thread—threads, plural—leading to that elusive motive.

She set the computer to standby, folded the
paper into her pocket, stood up—and noticed the portrait hanging
beside the door. In three steps she was across the room and looking
up at it.

The plaque on the frame read, “Seonaid, Lady
Dunasheen, 1799–1822. Beloved wife of Norman MacDonald.” And yes,
oh yes, the painted face was that of the Green Lady. Except in
life, roses bloomed in Seonaid’s cheeks, the light of a summer’s
afternoon shone in her smile, and the fabric of her gown glowed a
rich emerald green. This painting wasn’t one of Fergie’s. The touch
was both more precise and more spirited, the colors subdued, the
drape of the gown and the shawl expertly rendered, and the shadows
subtly realistic. It had been painted from life, by a
professional.

Odd to find an aristocratic woman in that
time period with a Gaelic name. Jean sounded out the word beneath
her breath. Sho-NADE, the Scottish version of Irish Sinead. Janet,
in other words. Almost her own name.

She was not surprised to see that Seonaid had
died, relatively youthfully, the same year the church was completed
and Tormod was transported for murdering the laird’s wife. For
murdering Seonaid MacDonald. No wonder her spirit lingered, if not
actively seeking revenge, then at least not finished with this
plane of existence. And yet, as Alasdair had pointed out—twice, now
that she thought about it—there was something irregular about
Tormod’s fate. Perhaps his trial had ended in that peculiar Scots
verdict of “Not Proven,” the sort of ambiguity that had shaped much
of Scotland’s turbulent history. The sort of ambiguity that shaped
real life.

“Thank you,” Jean said to the image, “you
know, for the stairs.” She heard a distant voice or three, but none
of them issued from Seonaid’s painted lips.

Onwards.

Jean didn’t always learn from experience, but
last night’s encounter had taught her where the tripping stane was
located. She breezed on past it and into the Charlie suite, where
she found Dougie hiding beneath a chair looking like a pincushion
with eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked, with a tremble of her own
hackles.

The bedroom door was shut. She’d probably
left it open. That was something she was still learning, to shut
doors. After all, she’d lived most of her life in a climate where
air movement was something to be encouraged, not stopped.

One step, two, three . . . she threw open the
bedroom door.

Oh. The bed had been made, fresh towels laid
out in the bathroom, and the wastebaskets emptied—not to mention
Dougie’s litter box. Now that was service. “Nancy or Rab, Diana or
Fergie, somebody made you get off the bed, is that it? Poor little
guy.”

Petting and crooning eased the serrated edge
of Dougie’s backbone and produced a rumbling purr. That was no
doubt soothing to the moggie, but did little for Jean’s own nerves.
They felt like telegraph wires humming with a torrent of dots and
dashes, signals hiding a message she didn’t know how to read. Or
had Morse code been supplanted with emoticons and text-speak?

Like, she thought, CU.
See you
.

It wasn’t only young people who texted.
Anyone could have used that abbreviation. Just because the
handwriting on the card looked like a man’s didn’t mean it was
Colin’s. There was another question for Gilnockie to grind through
his mill.

Still sitting on the floor, Jean checked the
phone. There was no message from Miranda, not that she expected
one. No need to rattle her gilded cage. Jean punched Michael and
Rebecca’s number, and the man of the house answered almost before
the phone had rung.

“Hey, it’s me,” said Jean. “Would you believe
the sun is shining on Skye?”

“I’m having it on good authority that it does
from time to time,” Michael replied. “I’m also having it on good
authority—as in the morning
Scotsman
—that you’ve had a
murder at Dunasheen.”

The Scotsman
had probably not indulged
in “stately homicide,” but you never knew. “Yes, I’m afraid so. And
as these things go, the skies may be clear but the case is murky.
Heck, even the cops are a bit murky.” She gave him the abstract but
omitted her conclusions, such as they were so far. “And Fergie says
Linda’s welcome to the MacDonald family cradle.”

“Ta for that, then. Rebecca’s saying
something about buying a baby pen, as we’ll be needing one in any
event, but just now she’s had to go in to work.”

“Another meeting about a fake collar? What’s
all that about?”

“Holyrood Palace was by way of paying a small
fortune for a collar, one of those elaborate neck ruffs, supposedly
worn by Mary, Queen of Scots. Then one final test showed that it’s
a genuine sixteenth-century piece, but Mary’s monogram was sewn
onto it recently.”

“Didn’t they check what the thread was made
of?”

“Oh aye, no fools they. But the villain’s
worn down the thread and the needle holes, then smeared the lot
with dust from a medieval dig or artifact. He’d have his money if
Rebecca hadn’t questioned the style of the monogram. That’s when
they sent the piece to us, we set it beneath a high-resolution
microscope, and abracadabra, there’s polyester molecules beneath
the dirt, likely picked up when the faker’s thread was stored next
to the polyester sort.”

“Well done!” Jean said. “You see that a lot
these days, a perfectly respectable artifact tarted up with an
inscription or something linking it to a famous person or event,
whatever.”

“Tarting up the price,” said Michael.

“Speaking of museums and artifacts, our
murder victim, Greg MacLeod, was starting up a museum of religion
and an art and antiquities gallery in Townsville, Australia. Have
you heard of him?”

“No, not a word, though I can ask about if
you like.”

“Yes, please. I bet you’re familiar with the
Bible History Research Society, though.”

“Oh, aye. Well-intentioned folk, unlike some
in the business, but you’re minding what that road to hell is paved
with . . . There’s the baby waking from her nap. We’ll be seeing
you for the wedding, Jean, unless you and Alasdair go losing your
nerve and elope. Or are put off by the murder.”