“Since when is hunger the criterion for choosing a meal anyway?” Miss Gloria asked, grinning, her lips shiny with grease.
“What’s our plan of attack on this ferry ride?” asked Helen.
“I think we have to play it by ear, depending on who we can find alone,” I said. “No one’s going to tell any secrets if the others are around.” I explained to Miss Gloria what we learned about Joseph Booth from his family and from Nathan. And then I told both of them about the phone call from Bettina this morning, including Joseph’s notes in the margins of the article about the book, and my suspicions about Gavin’s involvement.
“You were certain you didn’t see anything right before he fell from the wheel?” Helen asked Miss Gloria.
“Nothing,” she said. “And yesterday, after that stunt with the goggles, I was preoccupied. I haven’t been paying attention to the interactions in this group the way you two have.”
“Obviously,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We would never expect that. Do you mind telling us about the glasses again? How did you happen to be trying them on?”
“Take your time and tell us as many details about what you remember as you can,” Helen added. “Even if they seem silly. Where were you standing and where were they?
“I was standing right beside the mossy stone wall that was part of a MacDonald clan home. It was such a strange sensation because I felt as though I had a foot in each world. The lady who used to live in that house was welcoming me at the same time the others were squabbling about …” Her words dropped off.
We waited a few minutes, and then I nudged her gently. “Squabbling about?” I left the question open, hoping she could fill in the blanks.
“Wait, I remember overhearing something said between Glenda and Gavin right before they offered to let me try the goggles on. I wasn’t listening because I was so wrapped up in my sensations. And then those goggles derailed me completely.”
“Of course,” said Helen. “And you don’t have to tell us if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I had the sense that Glenda wanted him to cut the other two loose. But he was balking, insisting that Martin, the publisher, loved Vera’s writing. And then he said that without Ainsley the project would disintegrate from lack of organization. And aside from all that, it was way too late in the publication process to make major changes. And Glenda got annoyed. More than annoyed—outraged. And she asked if there was something between him and Ainsley again that he hadn’t bothered to mention. That’s when he noticed me and asked if I wanted to try the goggles.”
“Was Ainsley with them?” Helen asked.
“Honestly, I did not see Ainsley all morning. Not that I was trying to keep track of her, so I wouldn’t go to the bank with that memory,” Miss Gloria said. “And the rest was history. Ugly brutal history.” She dabbed her face with a napkin and carried her empty box to a nearby trash can.
The alarm on my phone went off, reminding us to return to the ferry. “I’m going to try very hard to talk with Ainsley on the ride over. It shouldn’t be so difficult, because she seems to be putting a little distance between herself and the others.”
Helen said, “Fine, I’ll keep working on my daughter, though heaven knows that is unlikely to produce anything useful.” She lowered her voice as we approached the line for the ferry. “Do not go off alone with Ainsley, because I don’t like the way things are adding up. Or at the very least, pointing in her direction. Last thing we need is someone else getting thrown overboard.”
I thought she must be mostly joking, but the warning struck me hard. I couldn’t wait to rejoin the guys and share the load of worry with Nathan. We managed to score a bench seat on the top deck at the front of the ferryboat, from which we’d be able to see a grand panorama of the scenery. I went to the snack bar to get cups of tea for all three of us. As I carried the cardboard carton back, I spotted Ainsley sitting by herself in the far corner.
I was about to approach her, when the captain’s voice sounded over the loudspeaker, instructing passengers to take their seats as the waters were expected to be slightly choppy. I returned to my group with the drinks. We pulled out of the harbor, enjoying the wide vista of gray-blue seas and passing clouds. Once we had settled into the rhythm of the slap of waves against the boat, the captain spoke again, explaining that the ride would take approximately forty-six minutes and that the snack bar would remain open until the final ten minutes of the trip.
Having finished my tea, I got up to use the ladies’ room and try for a chat with Ainsley. She was absorbed in reading something on her iPad, with headphones on. Her message was pretty clear: do not disturb. I slid into the seat next to her anyway.
She looked up, annoyance flitting across her face, and then she mustered a smile.
“Are you enjoying the trip so far?” she asked.
“Other than the kerfuffle with Miss Gloria and the headphones, it’s been absolutely lovely. Spectacular. You live in the most stunning country.”
“We think so as well,” she said. “I’m very sorry about Gloria. I wish I could have been close by to head that off. Is she all right this morning?”
“She’ll bounce back,” I said. “She’s a sensitive soul.” It was difficult to decide what and how to ask her next. So many bits and pieces of the project were going off the rails. How could I possibly get her to confide in me?
“I hope you don’t mind me saying that you seem tense. If there’s any way I can help smooth things over, I’d be happy to.” Now I was simply yammering about whatever came to mind, hoping something would catch her attention. Why in the world would she ever think I could help with her colleagues? I plowed onward.
“I hate meeting Vera for the first time and seeing her so worried as well. And your dinner was utterly amazing—it was criminal to have that ruined.”
She pressed her lips together, gazed at her lap. “It’s been very hard,” she said finally. “I suppose one never quite knows what it will be like to work with someone when one starts out as casual friends. And I certainly did not realize how rivalrous Glenda was.”
“Rivalrous?” I repeated, trying to sound interested but not nosy.
“She sees competition for Gavin everywhere she looks. Has she looked at him lately? He’s let himself go and get fat.” She snickered. “Though with men it’s different, isn’t it? Sex appeal comes from success and power, which is not true of our fair sex. We must remain willowy or risk being cast aside. Anyway, that fat comment was a rude thing to say, and I retract it.”
“Do you suppose she’s worried about him as a man or him as the writer, photographer, and leader of the pack?”
Ainsley laughed again. “I suppose I haven’t actually spoken with her about that question to be able to tell you accurately, but from the way she sticks so close to him, I’m going to say all of the above. But to be fair, this is a stressful time for all of us. We are down so close to the wire with the due date, and there is so much undecided.”
“In a nutshell, Vera wants to cut out the virtual reality part of the project? And Gavin and Glenda want to beef it up? Is that fair to say? Where do you stand?” I asked.
She straightened her shoulders and sat up taller. “Vera is a very dear friend, but I’m trying very hard not to take sides. I am not on the artistic end of the project. I am focused on logistics.”
“Logistics?”
“Organizing, editing, designing the layout—like that.” She tapped the iPad that she had been studying before I sat down.
And I took that to mean she needed to get back to work. Fair enough.
“One last thing: you mentioned Glenda being rivalrous. I’m curious about what Glenda dreamed of becoming while she was in college? I have a good image of you as an artist and Vera the writer, but I haven’t figured Glenda out.”
Ainsley looked surprised. And uncomfortable. “To tell you the truth, we weren’t close in the last couple years of college, so I can’t answer that. She came from family money, and
I don’t think that helped her focus. Then she hitched her star to Gavin, and she seems quite content with that choice. We only got back in touch because of this project.”
“If I could ask you one last, quick question, did you know the man who fell to his death? Mr. Joseph Booth?” I thought a look of pain passed over her face. But she hid it just as quickly.
“We all knew him at least a little bit back at University.”
Which was not what Vera had said.
Ainsley continued, “I don’t think he had what it took to become a professor, and it was difficult for him to realize that. So he left—or was asked to leave. I couldn’t say which. End of story as far as I knew it.”
I simply didn’t believe she was telling the truth. But on the other hand, I had poked and prodded and gotten not much in return. Time to retreat and maybe try again from another angle later.
“I really hope that our presence has not made the project harder. We will do our best to stay out of your way over the next couple days.”
“Oh no,” she said. “Vera is thrilled that all of you are here. And honestly, I think it shores her up to have friends and family around. She probably hasn’t told you, but this is around the anniversary of the attack and abduction. She always falls apart a bit at this time of year. And unfortunately, that makes her judgment suspect too.”
“Judgment?”
She shrugged. “I’ve said enough.”
I thanked her again for talking with me and pulled open the heavy side door so I could step outside to get a breath of fresh diesel-scented air. The engine was loud, and I let the noise wash over me as I watched the water rush by and the spit of land approach in the distance. This gave me a few moments to absorb both what Ainsley had said and how she’d said it. Someone was flat-out lying, either Grace or Ainsley. Either Joseph Booth had come to Ainsley’s home, and then she’d spent the evening alone sobbing, as Grace had told me last night. Or he hadn’t and she didn’t. As for Vera, now I had to wonder why she’d lied about not knowing Joseph Booth. And I also wondered why she was willing to talk to Ainsley about her traumatic abduction years ago, and yet say nothing to her family.
By the time I returned to our seats in the front of the ferry, my mind was pretty much made up. Ainsley was lying. If Joseph Booth had really visited her home as Grace described, then she had to have known him in a more personal way than merely as a washed-up teaching assistant. Maybe Nathan could have a heart-to-heart talk with her once we got to the town of Tobermory. He was a real detective, after all, and had his clever and sometimes scary ways of squeezing information out of people that I did not.
Miss Gloria and Helen waited for me at our spot, and my friend was vibrating with excitement.
“I had such a good chat with Glenda on the way back from the ladies’ room,” she said. “I didn’t plan on it, because I know you wouldn’t have approved, but we met up at the sinks at the same time. She was so solicitous about how I was doing and also quite interested in what my experience had been like. She said that Gavin felt dreadful about how distressed I was and that they both would love to hear more about exactly what happened to me so they could make a proper decision about the project. She said the last thing they wanted was to be reckless.” She paused to look at me. “Bet you never expected something like that from her, did you?”
“No, I did not. I thought they would have control of what a person experiences using their goggles, but it doesn’t sound like it worked that way for you,” I said.
“So true. I told her it’s like their instrument set off a time travel experience for me, which was completely unexpected and quite traumatic. Then she wanted me to explain this to Gavin, I suppose so he can fix it. So we walked back to where Gavin was sitting with their stuff, and I ended up telling them everything about the Campbells and the MacDonalds. They were fascinated about my special connection to Scotland. Even though they’ve known for over a year, and maybe more, that they’re writing a book about thin places, it’s like in some strange way they didn’t really understand what that meant. Can you imagine?”
“No, I cannot,” Helen and I said in unison.
Something seemed fishy with this conversation, but we’d have the whole afternoon to sort that out. The captain announced that we’d be docking shortly. All walk-on passengers should gather their luggage and be prepared to disembark and meet their vehicles and drivers on the road. I offered to take Miss Gloria’s bag, but she insisted she could handle it. We started toward the exit and filed down the stairway, our rolling suitcases thunking behind us on the metal steps.
“And Gavin told me about a big and bloody battle involving John MacDonald and his son Angus that happened near the harbor where we’re headed, so I shouldn’t be surprised if I feel some twinges there as well,” added Miss Gloria once we’d reached the bottom of the stairs. “And as I was leaving, I said I appreciated their concern, and maybe it would be the right thing to pause the development of the goggles in order to conduct a scientific test to somehow make sure people aren’t damaged by the experience.”
A smart idea, but I very much doubted they would go for it. Not from what I’d been observing. In my mind, Gavin and Glenda were a pair of steamrollers flattening every objection on their path.
“Meanwhile, what were you up to?” Miss Gloria asked.
Luckily, we were distracted by our arrival at the gangplank before I started to answer, because then I noticed that Ainsley was right behind us. It would have been a horrible faux pas and a total bush league move to talk about her while she was in earshot. Particularly if she had in fact been involved with Mr. Booth’s murder—if it was a murder. That would be dumb, rude, and downright dangerous.
“See you in Tobermory,” she called cheerfully when we exited the gangplank. “You are going to adore the Tobermory Hotel. We’ll meet you in the bar after six.”
We waved her off, then trotted to Vera’s car, parked further up the road. The sky had turned gray again, and gusts of wind blew needles of rain into our faces. As we loaded into the car, Miss Gloria and me in back and Helen up front with her daughter, I wondered whether we should discuss my questions about the murder on the way to Tobermory. I wanted to talk more with Helen and Miss Gloria; the question was whether to mention anything in front of Vera. As Nathan had warned me before we left for the trip, she seemed fragile. Which did make sense considering Ainsley’s comment about the anniversary of her abduction. And to be quite honest, I was a tiny bit afraid of her, same as I still was of Nathan’s mom. Even though I was growing to admire and possibly even love my mother-in-law at the same time, the whole family was a tiny bit intimidating.
They were clearly cut from the same cloth as my Nathan, with their careful Southern coolness masked by a veneer of friendliness. Although something had gone awry in this family with that Southern trait; they behaved more like New Englanders than anything else. Like my father’s parents, whom we’d visited twice a year in Boston. Once you broke through the thick layer of coolness, the love and the fire and protectiveness underneath were powerful. But breaking through? Not so easy.
Looking back over our short history, I had to wonder what had led me to choose Nathan. He was not an easy match for me. Though to be honest again, who was? Big loser Chad Lutz who invited me to move in with him and six weeks later booted me to the curb with my stuff and my cat? Or how about slightly milquetoast Wally, who couldn’t decide whether he was in or out, while I was foolish enough to stick around to watch him waffle? Miss Gloria had helped me out of that mess. And now that she might be in a mess, I needed to return the favor for sure.
I felt the weight of her head drop onto my shoulder and then heard a faint snore. That answered the question—we could discuss what I’d learned from Ainsley later.
Chapter Twenty-Two
One time I asked him if he was one of those people who’d take a pill instead of eating, and he looked at me like I had two heads. Of course, he told me.
—Belle Boggs, The Gulf
Miss Gloria woke up when we were about five miles outside of Tobermory.
“Wait, are we here already? What did I miss?” she asked, eyes blinking furiously as she looked right and then left. The hair above her forehead stood up in a little white cowlick, and I thought for a moment that I couldn’t have loved her more.
“Not much. Sheep and a couple of those Highland cows aka Heilan Koos,” said Helen. “But Vera says we’ll see them all again in spades tomorrow. You’ve seen one big hairy brown beast with horns, you’ve seen all of them.”
We all laughed. From what I’d seen of her so far, Helen was missing the pet gene, with no urge to fuss over animals the way Miss Gloria and I did.
By the time we arrived at the town, the weather had changed again. The sun was out and the bay running along the main street was mirror still. And that allowed the multicolored attached houses and stores to be reflected perfectly in the sea—red, then pink, followed by yellow, occasionally broken up by a stone façade. It was take-your-breath-away stunning.
“This may be the most beautiful place yet,” said Miss Gloria. “Maybe even the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. Vera, we can’t thank you enough for showing us your favorite Scottish haunts.”
A smile lit up Vera’s face, which I hadn’t seen much in the past few days.
“It’s my pleasure, of course. I wish it wasn’t so hectic and stressful.” She pulled her car alongside the curb. “If we grab our hand luggage from the boot, the folks in the hotel will help with the rest. The plan is to meet in the bar at six, and then we will have dinner together at seven,” she added, muttering, “a lot of togetherness, I know.”
We lined up at the tiny check-in counter and received our metal room keys. “Knock on my door when you’re ready and we’ll walk through town?” I suggested to Miss Gloria.
The bedroom that I would share with Nathan was on the second floor, overlooking the main street and the water. The wall behind the bed was covered with a beautiful inlaid wood façade. The bed covering looked like an actual animal skin, furry with white and brown stripes. I would try not to think about where it really came from. The bureau was made of metal, with leather handles that reminded me of an old-fashioned trunk. And red plaid curtains hung in front of the windows, draping a white wooden bench seat that looked like it would be perfect retreat for reading. If I ever had a spare moment. A text came in from Nathan at the same time someone tapped on my door.
A Scone of Contention Page 19