The Blue Hackle (41 page)

Again her eyes closed. “Ken. Where’d you come
from?”

“Home,” he said. “Got a last-minute ticket,
cheap. I could have used the money to fix the harvester.”

Jean winced at that. But then, most men had
moments of tone-deafness at their significant other’s melody.

“I knew it was you.” Tina looked up. “That
Finlay woman said she’d seen you. She couldn’t leave me alone. Kept
on asking questions like a cop. Why was Greg killed, was I scared
the guy would get me too.”

Neither the two cops to one side of the door,
nor the ex-cop and his caboose on the other, said anything,
although Jean knew she wasn’t alone in scheduling another
conversation with Nancy. Curiosity attracted the attention of the
authorities—no one knew that better than she did.

“How could you think I’d hurt you?” His voice
rising, Ken leaned forward, pulling at Tina’s blanket. “How could
you think I’d hurt Greg? It’s your own guilt. And shame.”

“Guilt. Shame. Yeah, that’s you, Ken, always
passing judgment, always angry. I could never say a word that
didn’t offend you.”

“I don’t understand you, Teen. I’ve never
understood you.” Ken fell back into the chair.

Okay, so they weren’t going to witness a
scene of tender reconciliation. The wounds ran too deep, and Greg’s
ghost grinned at the bedside.

Gilnockie’s stance contained such a depth of
quietude that beside him Alasdair looked fidgety. Jean regretted
her vampire simile—Gilnockie’s supernatural calm ran the other way,
toward the angels.

He stepped forward. Some detectives would
have berated Tina for her earlier lies, or at least for her
unhelpful answers, no doubt intended to muddy the true nature of
her relationship with Greg. Gilnockie merely asked again, “Mrs.
MacLeod, was Greg saying anything about meeting someone at
Dunasheen just after your arrival?”

She blinked up at him. “Have we met?”

“Begging your pardon, madam. Patrick
Gilnockie, Detective Chief Inspector, Northern Constabulary.
Detective Sergeant Les—”

“Oh, Lesley’s been a big help to me,
explaining about Dunasheen and Skye.”

Every eye glanced toward Young. She shrugged,
shoulders jerking up and down. “She’s after asking the same thing
over and over again. Concussion, they’re saying. We’ve been sorting
it.”

“Well done, Sergeant,” said Gilnockie.

“Greg,” Tina said. Every eye turned back to
her. “He hardly ever talked about his investments and stuff. It was
all boring anyway. Not like the time he went to a party with movie
stars. I could have looked at those pix on his mobile over and over
again.”

“What sort of investments?” asked Alasdair,
unimpressed by movie stars. “Art and artifacts, such as the
inscription he sold to the Bible History Research Society?”

“Overpriced junk,” Ken muttered.

Tina said, “If someone’s willing to pay, then
they’re not overpriced, that’s what Greg said. Like those units
along the river, the ones he went in for with the developer. Over
the top prices and people queuing up to pay.”

“Spoilt the view,” said Ken. “People don’t
need half-million-dollar units. Or any more developments, let alone
all the resorts Greg put money in. Yeppoon, Cairns—the man didn’t
recognize his own home, not anymore.”

“Who cares what people need? Greg never
forced anyone to pay for a unit or a bit of artwork. He built
resorts because he was mad about golf, reckoned he was going to
play St. Andrews—classic course, he said, using up rough
beachfront. He went on about golf and resorts the way he went on
about the flipping family tree and tracking down old Tormod.”

“He knew Tormod wasn’t a convict,” Alasdair
said.

“Yeah, he was a soldier, they reckon. Didn’t
matter to me one way or the other. Same with Greg and Ken’s dad. He
was water under the bridge even when Ken and I got married, but
Greg couldn’t let it alone.”

“Dad never had much use for us,” muttered
Ken. “Wanted to see the world. Greg’s like him, even though I got
the name.”

“Did Greg know Fergus MacDonald had your
father’s regimental dirk?” Gilnockie asked.

Ken shook his head. Tina said, “He was
meeting up with—that’s what you asked, isn’t it? Who Greg was
meeting?”

“Aye, that’s what I was asking,” said
Gilnockie.

“He said Dunasheen’s manager offered him the
dirk for a good price. He said he meant to do a bigger deal than
that, but because the dirk belonged to the family . . .” Tina
frowned as though chasing a memory. “Maybe he went to talk to the
manager. I don’t know. I was in the loo and he shouted through the
door that he was off, he’d be seeing me for drinks and dinner. But
when I saw him again, he was—dead.” Her face collapsed on itself,
shattering the illusion of youth. Her free hand, its nail polish
chipped, clenched on the blanket.

Kenneth took it between his own, cradling it
like a naked chick just out of the egg. “I’m here, Teen.”

Gilnockie looked at Alasdair. Alasdair looked
at Jean. Jean tilted her head in bewilderment. Greg was meeting
Pritchard? Well yes, Pritchard had admitted planting Greg’s card
noting the appointment in Diana’s raincoat, but Pritchard himself
hadn’t been at Dunasheen at the time of Greg’s arrival, let alone
his murder. Unless he’d set up an alibi the way a movie director
would set up a scene.

Unless, Jean thought again, just as Thomson
stepped aside, admitting two more constables, one male and one
female. Portree, collectively.

“We’ll be taking statements from the both of
them,” Gilnockie said to the newcomers. And, lowering his voice to
a dry whisper, “Don’t go telling them more than that we’re not
releasing Greg’s body just yet. The boffins have finished with it,
but ’til Kenneth’s been cleared, well . . .”

Kenneth and Tina were bent together, saying
nothing. Probably with no need to say anything, when so much had
already been said.

Leaving Young to deal with the MacLeods and
Portree, Gilnockie mobilized his forces, led them out of the room
and down the corridor, and stopped just inside the main door. “The
crime scene reports have just arrived. Soon as we’ve taken the
statements, we’re away to the police station for a detailed look.
Suffice it to be saying now, nothing’s showing bloodstains.”

“It was going on for a mizzly day,” said
Alasdair. “Everyone was wearing a raincoat.”

“We weren’t. But then—” Jean visualized the
coats, umbrellas and other protective gear hanging in the cloak
room and the kitchen. “We’re not locals outside every day,
expecting a mizzle and dressing accordingly.”

Gilnockie continued, “With the beach being
shingle, not sand, there were only a few prints.”

“Someone stood about at the top of the path
leading down from the church,” said Alasdair.

“Aye. Now that the boffins have photos of
Kenneth’s boots, they’re thinking they’ve got a match.”

Thomson nodded. “So he was saying last
night.”

“There were other prints overlying those,
though,” Gilnockie added, “all jumbled, someone running, most
likely, and the path right slippy.”

“Kenneth was saying he saw Colin walking
toward the beach. If he came back running . . .” Leaving the
implication lying on the polished linoleum floor like a body on a
morgue tray, Alasdair went on, “Greg was asking Krum about the
terrain round Dunasheen, the state of the castle and the
collections, the personalities of the MacDonalds. Your aunt,
Thomson, she mentioned the sale of the castle near Inverness, how
it’s gone for a golf course and luxury time-shares.”

“I’m hearing luxury hotel,” said Gilnockie,
“but that’s as may be. You’re wondering if Greg was after investing
in the estate as a whole, not just buying an artifact or two.”

“Aye. I’m thinking Greg was using his
knowledge of Tormod to be getting his foot in Dunasheen’s door. To
be looking it over as a potential investment.”

“He wouldn’t have a problem selling the
Crusader Coffer to the BHRS,” said Jean. “But re-developing the
entire area or even buying Dunasheen outright? We overheard Fergie
and Diana talking, they’re in bad shape financially, grasping at
straws . . .”
And how
, she added to herself. “But they never
once mentioned the possibility of selling the place.”

“Maybe Greg hadn’t yet offered to buy it.
First the dirk, then the Coffer, perhaps, then after he’d taken
Fergie’s measure, and inspected the house and the landscape, then
he’d move in.” Alasdair’s eyes lifted to the scene beyond the glass
doors, at the light bleached of color like a faded photograph.

“But someone killed him first,” said
Gilnockie. “Why? To stop him from making an offer? If Mr. MacDonald
was not wanting to sell up, he had only to refuse.”

No one said anything about Greg making an
offer Fergie couldn’t refuse, Jean thought, but then, what kind of
offer could that have been?

“With respect to Greg having an appointment
with Pritchard,” Gilnockie went on, “We’ll be double-checking the
statements of the folk in the pub.”

Jean raised her hand. “But what if the
manager Greg was going to see . . .”

“. . . was not Pritchard?” Alasdair finished
for her.

Yeah, he’d be, if not ahead of her, at least
with her. “What if someone else got onto Fergie’s computer, checked
out Greg, and e-mailed him?”

“Anyone, Colin, Rab, Nancy, Diana, could have
set up an appointment either using Pritchard’s name or claiming to
be the manager.”

“Quite right,” said Gilnockie.

“The problem is, it wasn’t ’til Jean and I
took the photo down from the wall anyone knew the significance of
the dirk. Or so we’ve been thinking,” Alasdair amended. “Much
easier for someone in the household, including Pritchard, to have
sussed it out.”

“Not Colin, then,” Thomson murmured beneath
his breath. “Though Diana, now . . .”

Every face puckered in thought. Finally,
Gilnockie said, “We’re getting a good ways ahead of ourselves.
Colin needs finding and interviewing. And Scott Krum as well. I’m
not happy with the Finlays’ role in all this. Nor with Diana’s and
Fergus’s.”

“The MacDonalds are not concealing evidence,”
Alasdair said, adding quickly. “In my professional opinion.”

“I’ve got a deal of respect for your
professional opinion,” Gilnockie told him. “Off you go, back to
Dunasheen, continue with your researches.”

“Right,” Alasdair said on a breath that just
might have been a sigh, while Jean, thinking a hysterical laugh
would disturb the peace of the hospital, confined her reply to a
nod.

“P.C. Thomson, soon as I’ve looked over the
crime scene reports and taken the MacLeods’ statements, you can go
carrying copies back to Kinlochroy with you. Then you, McCrummin,
and Nicolson, begin another sweep of the area. If nothing breaks by
sunset, I’ll be calling out the crime scene team again tomorrow.
They likely missed something at the scene or in the house.”

Jean saw that the clock on the wall behind
Gilnockie’s back showed noon-forty-five. Less than three hours
until sunset. And then tomorrow, and the day after that . . .

Gilnockie turned back toward Tina’s room.
“Well then. We’ll be joining you at Dunasheen presently, Alasdair,
Jean. P.C. Thomson, if you’d be so good as to wait outside Tina’s
room.”

“Aye, sir.” Thomson marched off down the
hall.

“Later, Patrick.” Alasdair opened the door
for Jean and she stepped out into the chill. A couple of snowflakes
drifted down onto her glasses, leaving tiny wet dots. No
problem—she wasn’t seeing too clearly anyway.

Once back in the car, she again hunkered down
into her coat. Her brain hunkered, too, not cold but sore as though
it had been used as a punching bag. She didn’t want any of these
people to be the murderer. But one of them was.

Wordlessly, Alasdair drove around Portree’s
main square. A few people were out and about, despite the late
night and the cold day. One older couple laid a single red rose at
the base of the war memorial, a chunky base with a slender shaft
not nearly as well proportioned as the monument in Kinlochroy. But
the plaques holding the names of the dead were what it was all
about, Jean told herself. They should include the names of men like
Colin.

There was St. Columba’s Church, where she and
Alasdair had stopped on their way to Dunasheen on Tuesday, or last
year, whenever it had been, to finalize wedding plans with Reverend
Elphinstone. Then she’d been almost giggling with delight at the
reverend’s name, Scottish standard though it was, and all the way
to Dunasheen had batted jokes and literary references toward
Alasdair. He’d batted them back, a few “yes, dear” smiles
notwithstanding.

Today his profile against the frosty mist
revealed no humor, no accommodation, just a grim
expressionlessness. No need to share her thoughts with him now. No
need for him to eke out a few for her. They were of as like a mind
today as they ever had been, or were ever likely to be.

Their entire relationship had been rocky. No
surprise their wedding, too, was traveling a rough road. It wasn’t
a matter of getting to the church on time. It was a matter of
getting there at all. And even if they did get there, if the
proper, time-honored words were actually said, like an incantation,
then . . . what? Would that exorcize the malice that had been
shadowing them?

Her breath casting thin sheets of fog on her
window, she wondered whether the Krums’ holiday was serving its
purpose. Could that marriage be saved? Probably not, no more than
her and Alasdair’s first marriages could have been saved. And what
about the MacLeods’ marriage?

What didn’t kill you either made you
stronger, or it left you disgusted with the whole thing and ready
to bail.

The miles passed, a flurry of snowflakes blew
across the windshield, and once again they were in Dunvegan,
passing another Celtic-cross war memorial. Here, too, people were
out and about and a shop or two had opened for business regardless
of the holiday. Light glowed in the conservatory windows of a small
hotel, revealing people seated at tables, utensils flashing.
Lunch
, Jean thought. Hunger trumped unease every time.