The Blue Hackle

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  Odd notions, yes, and Alasdair was justified in questioning Fergie’s taste for them, but then, like all odd notions, they were thought-provoking, horizon-expanding, and downright entertaining.

  Atta girl, Jean thought at Dakota, and, at the same time, Watch out, you’ll end up like me. Although there were a lot worse places to end up.

  “So,” Scott said to Jean, just a bit too loudly, “What about the guy—it’s a guy, right?—who fell down at the old castle? Is he okay?”

  “I told you,” said Heather, “we didn’t hear any sirens, so he must be all right.”

  Jean was intended to be counselor as well as jester, then. Thanks, Diana. “Ah, um.” She looked down at her feet planted solidly on the faded rug. “I’m afraid there was no need for sirens. No rush. He, ah, didn’t make it.”

  “You mean he died?” Heather’s nostrils flared as though someone had just handed her a bucket of muck.

  “That’s what ‘didn’t make it’ usually means,” Scott informed her.

  Dakota looked around, smooth features crumpled.

  “The police are here,” Jean said quickly, “and they’re taking care of everything, and the local doctor’s with his wife. Greg’s wife, that is. The man who—didn’t make it.”

  “Good,” said Heather. “I mean, bad. I mean, I’m sorry.”

  Dakota turned one way and Scott the other. He stared up at the painting over the mantelpiece. This one depicted Calanais stone circle on the island of Lewis. The glow of a small fire at the base of the tallest, square-shouldered, megalith diffused upward and met a similar glow in the lowering sky, probably the rising moon. Over the fire crouched a figure that would have been human except for wings catching both light and dark in subtle grades of color, like a pigeon’s breast.

  Beneath it, on the mantel, stood an olivewood nativity scene, presented straight up. At least, Fergie had tucked the E.T. action figure behind one corner of the stable, not substituted it for baby Jesus in the manger.

  Scott made no remarks—or photographs, either, never mind his expedition to retrieve the family camera. Heather inspected a fingernail the same color as the painted sky. Dakota looked at the bookcase, but Jean could see her expressionless face in the glass, while the peppy features of the teen idol on her sweatshirt floated ghostlike below.

  She considered injecting the sudden silence with something artificially cheery, such as the suggestion they could all consider the unfortunate event as a real-life mystery weekend. But over and beyond having to expand “he died” into “he was murdered,” this was no game.

  A musical rattle from the corridor, like glass wind chimes, fell joyfully on her ears. “The drinks are here!” she announced, probably giving the Krums the impression she was an alcoholic needing a fix.

  The door opened, admitting Fergie. He now wore a beautifully cut dark suit over a tartan waistcoat—somewhere a Savile Row tailor was weeping—and pushed a serving cart laden with bottles, glasses, and steaming punch bowl. Not, Jean thought, that the red liquid splashing behind the cut glass had to be particularly hot to steam. Beyond the fire’s aura, the room was cold. The two dogs looked up but didn’t get to their feet.

  “Good evening, how are we getting on?” Fergie said with a grin. If St. Patrick had had such an affable grin, he could have charmed the snakes out of Ireland instead of ordering them to go.

  Scott essayed a smile. Heather did not. Dakota stared.

  “I’m Fergus MacDonald, the poor chap responsible for this castle. And you’re the Krums, from the U.S, like Jean here. Scott, Heather, Dakota. Welcome, welcome.” He was working uphill, but, trouper that he was, went gamely on, “Are the dogs all right for you? No allergies?”

  “We’re fine, thanks,” said Scott. “Heather’s got a poodle at home.”

  “The lab is Bruce,” Fergie said, “and the terrier is Somerled. Good lads, aren’t you?”

  The dogs fluttered their tails against the tile of the hearth and with grunts of satisfaction let their heads fall back down.

  “We have several fine single malts, a continental aperitif or two, or—’tis the season and all—we have wassail. My special recipe. And lemon squash for the lass.”

  Dakota crept forward. “Squashed lemon?”

  “It’s kind of like Seven-Up or Sprite with lemon,” Jean explained. And to Fergie, with a deep inhalation of cinnamon and nutmeg, “I’d love a cup of wassail. Do you make yours with cider?”

  “Oh yes, and with wine, fruit, and spices. The latter two used to be quite special, mind you, in these northern climates.” Delicately Fergie pushed aside several clove-studded lemon and orange slices and ladled out a cupful. “Here you are. And you, Mrs. Krum?”

  “I guess you don’t do cosmopolitans,” Heather said.

  “If that’s what you’d prefer,” began Fergie, “I’m sure I can . . .”

  “Let it go, Heather.” Scott extended both hands. “We’ll take wassail, thanks.”

  “Very good.” Fergie placed two more cups in his hands, the small, smooth hands of someone who’d only worked with his mind, then gave Dakota a tall glass adorned with mint and a cherry.

  Scott drank deeply. After a tentative sip over her protruding lower lip, Heather allowed, “It’s good,” and retracted the pout.

  Reminding herself that the drink was full of alcohol and her stomach was full of air, Jean let one swallow of insidious sweetness slide down her throat. Then she cradled the warm cup between her cool hands and pushed aside any comparison of the crimson drink to crimson blood. Nor did she ask if Thomson or Portree had taken Fergie up on his offer of sandwiches in the staff sitting room . . . no, wait, was that a door opening far down the hall and a couple of male voices?

  “What’s that burning in the fireplace?” asked Dakota.

  “Peat,” Fergie answered, and launched a soliloquy about peat bogs, and wood as a precious resource, and the Yule log in the Great Hall among other observances planned for tomorrow night—his smile was that of a child anticipating Santa Claus—and how the Log represented the Yule bonfire, which was a major observance along the outer rim of Scotland and its islands, the areas heavily influenced by the Norse, as evidenced by the fire festival Up-Helly-Aa in the Shetlands every January.

  None of the Krums blinked. Jean edged closer to the door. Yes, her internal sonar detected Alasdair’s voice.

  “This is the time of year,” Fergie went on, “when trows or trolls come out from the underworld and carry mortals away. Not to worry, though, we’re protected here at Dunasheen by our Green Lady.”

  Not necessarily, Jean thought.

  “The Green Lady’s our resident ghost or fairy, a glaistig, green being the fairy color. The story goes that you can hear her singing, in a fashion, when something either bad or good is going to happen. Or you can see her gliding silently toward the house . . .”

  The glass wobbled in Dakota’s hand and her eyes expanded to fill half her face. Heather reached out a protective hand, but her slice of a gaze turned toward Fergie. “You’re scaring the kid, Mr. MacDonald.”

  “Fergus, please,” he replied, and, “Oh. I’m sorry. Mind you, it’s just a story.”

  That wasn’t what he said a little while ago, but Jean had learned with her nieces and nephews to soften the edges a bit. Storyteller discretion advised.

  Fergie added, “I’ve never seen or heard a thing.”

  Oh. With slightest of prickles between her shoulder blades, like invisible fingertips tracing her spine, Jean realized that she had heard a thing. That low murmuring wail in the drawing room hadn’t been Tina’s voice carried over the moor. The Green Lady had been announcing Greg’s death.

  “I’m not scared,” Dakota said. “I saw a ghost while we were driving up to the house, a ghost closing the gate in that tall wall.”

  “Did you now? In the garden, was she?” Fergie caught himself. “Erm, likely you saw our manager making a round of the premises.”

  Jean doubted that. Pritchard hadn’t been on the premi
ses.

  “Dakota,” said Scott, “what did we tell you about saying things like that?”

  “I don’t know whether it was a man or a woman,” she insisted. “But it was a ghost. I saw it in the light of the headlights.”

  Jean had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting questions. Did the child see someone in a yellow raincoat or even a reflective coat like those worn by the police? Had she seen the man in mottled black, whose jacket had had some sort of shiny, water-repellant coating? Or was the poor child, like Jean and Alasdair, allergic to ghosts? She’d have been better off allergic to the dogs. Her parents would have sympathized with that.

  Standing up, Heather seized the girl’s arm and pulled her toward a corner of the room, Scott following. “Dakota, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. This is your grade school graduation trip, remember?” Her sotto voce hiss wasn’t sotto enough, and carried over the jazzed-up, dumbed-down version of “Silent Night” that jangled from the speakers.

  Dakota’s lower lip, shining with pale pink lip gloss, trembled. “The counselor told you to take a trip together to make up for Dad having to travel so much on business. You brought me along to kill two birds with one stone, you said.”

  “We could have gone to Cozumel by ourselves,” Scott told her. “But you wanted ghosts and castles, so we came to Scotland.” And, to Heather, “No wonder she’s seeing things.”

  “We bought you a book to read while we had our happy hour at the pub,” Heather said, and to Scott, “She was looking at the ghost stories there at the bookshop. There was a rack of them by the front desk, below the Dunasheen guidebooks.”

  One of Jean’s ears twitched backward, dropping an eave or two. An intriguing café-and-bookshop stood across the street from the pub, the Flora MacDonald, in Kinlochroy. The Krums had stopped there, then, to wait until check-in time—a formality that the MacLeods had skipped.

  “Dakota, you said if we went on this trip you’d show a better attitude.” Now Heather played the guilt card.

  “Never mind,” said Dakota. “Just forget it.”

  “We’ll overlook it this time,” Scott told her. “But if this trip is going to work, you need to straighten up and fly right.”

  No fair, Jean thought. It wasn’t the girl’s responsibility to see that the trip went well, any more than it was her responsibility to fix her parents’ marriage.

  And she thought, so the Krums had been on the premises, more or less, at the time of Greg’s death.

  Fergie stirred the punch, pretending he wasn’t hearing the Krums’ mutters, but his crestfallen gaze crossed Jean’s. She sent him an encouraging smile. It’s not your fault. They’ve got issues. We’ve all got issues.

  Her other ear twitched forward, hearing soft-soled shoes padding along the corridor from one direction and heels clicking along from the other. With a jingle of tags, the dogs got to their paws and stretched.

  The heels arrived first, and turned out to be Diana’s virtuous pumps. Above them she now wore wide-legged white pants and a basic black top set off by a stunning Egyptian collar necklace of lapis lazuli and turquoise beads, the shades of the sea around Skye. An aura not just of class but of perfume hung around her, something fresh, woodsy, and understated. With her own polished version of the MacDonald smile, she announced. “Dinner will be served in ten minutes. I’ve set out place cards and menus.”

  And had probably calligraphed each one personally, Jean thought with more humor than envy. Still, she couldn’t help a second look at the white, raw silk pants. She’d never owned a pair of even denim white pants, not with all the hazards of tomato sauce, blueberries, and plain old dirt.

  Scott turned toward Diana with a slightly snockered grin. “That’s a great necklace. Have you ever had it appraised?”

  “It’s a family heirloom,” Diana told him, which didn’t answer his question.

  Heather bristled but said nothing. Dakota looked from parental expression to parental expression and rolled her eyes. After a brief pause, the room filled with classically trained voices singing, “Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus, ex Maria virgine . . .”

  A man appeared in the door behind Diana and Heather deflated into a snockered smile of her own. Even Jean stared. Skin like milk and honey, large, rich, brown eyes, black hair in thick waves, smoothly rounded cheeks and solid jaw topping a tall, slender body . . . oh. He was wearing a uniform and carried a peaked cap beneath his arm. P.C. Sanjay Thomson, revealed in all his glory.

  “Hullo, Di, Fergus,” he said, white teeth shining in a crescent of a smile that showed not the least trace of self-consciousness. But then, he’d probably been causing hearts to flutter all his life. He aimed the smile at the Krums and said, “Hullo again. Saw you at the pub, didn’t I?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Heather.

  Stepping up beside Thomson, if not exactly basking in reflected glory, Alasdair offered a polite nod to all and sundry. Jean was the sundry, she supposed, since the nod warmed to a half-smile by the time it reached her.

  She ran a quick assessment of Alasdair’s face, its pallor beneath the weather-burnished scarlet and the set of each wrinkle, like crevasses in a glacier. His posture was neither more or less erect than usual. If the investigation had made any headway—finding the murder weapon, for example—she saw no evidence of it in his stern expression. He’d been able to do no more than set Portree to work securing the scene and checking out the vicinity.

  The dogs tail-wagged their way to Sanjay’s black-clad legs. He squatted down, perhaps warming his hands in their fur as much as petting them. “Hullo there, Somerled, Bruce. Good lads, aren’t you now?”

  “P.C. Thomson,” said Diana, with a slight shooing gesture. “We’ve laid on sandwiches and tea in the staff sitting room.”

  “Righty-ho, Di. Come along, lads.” The young man and his furry friends headed off toward the kitchen.

  Alasdair eyed Diana, head tilted, waiting to see if she designated him fish or fowl.

  “Dinner in ten minutes, Mr. Cameron,” she said, and wafted away.

  Fergus rubbed his hands together, only the slightest of edges to his smile. “Dinner! Steak pie!”

  “Say what?” asked Heather.

  “Look at it as a kind of beef Wellington,” Jean said. “Bits of meat beneath a crust.”

  “Yes, yes,” Fergie said. “Nancy’s food is to die for, as you Americans would say. Let’s get on down the hall, shall we? Hospitality being a fine Highland tradition and all.”

  Yeah, Jean thought with a glance at Alasdair, hospitality, and treachery and betrayal.

  A spark in his return glance showed that he was thinking the same thing.

  Chapter Eight

  Jean finally felt warm again. Nothing like a good meal cooked and then served by Nancy Finlay to reset the internal thermostat.

  She folded her napkin and smoothed it down next to her dessert plate, empty except for a strawberry stem. Maybe it was a sign of desensitization, but murder or no grisly murder, child or no put-upon child, she’d consumed the delicious soup, fish, meat and veg, trifle and fruit, with good appetite and moderate sips of a less than sophisticated but good-natured Burgundy.

  So had Alasdair, no doubt needing fuel after his outdoor vigil. Now he, too, lingered at the table, toying not with his napkin but his watch. Surely it was eight-thirty by now. Waiting for Gilnockie was like waiting for Godot.

  Diana’s elegantly lettered cards had placed Fergie at the head of the table—if you defined “head” as the seat closest to the door—and Diana at the foot, with Jean next to Scott, Alasdair next to Heather, and Dakota between, close enough to her mother that Heather could indicate the proper fork and insist on the child eating at least one Brussels sprout.

  Each patch of dining territory was generous enough to make Jean acutely aware two places were missing, one for Tina, one for Greg. But even their chairs had been whisked away, out of sight.

  Alasdair had greeted the Krums with his usual grave courtesy, answered
some of Scott’s questions about security issues, and held up his end of mostly Fergie’s conversation about history, language, myth, and culture. In the spirit of soldiering on, Jean had contributed anecdotes along the lines of the past being another country, one that you probably wouldn’t want to visit. But mostly she watched her thoughts playing billiards, clacking from who, to where, to when, to why. Even Fergie’s genial expression occasionally grew vacant and his face turned to the windows, blank sheets of black ice facing the coastline and the man lying cold if not neglected below the even blanker windows of the old castle.

  Now Diana rose from her chair, initiating a general movement upward. “We have a library of films available in the drawing room, and satellite television as well. I’ll be serving coffee or cocoa.”

  “Is the single-malt still on tap?” asked Scott.

  “Yes, it is,” Diana said.

  Heather said, “Scotch isn’t on tap. Beer, that’s on tap.”

  “It’s just an expression,” Scott retorted, adding in an audible mutter, “Jeez.”

  As Diana eased the Krums toward the hall door, the door of the butler’s pantry and back passage to the kitchen swung open. Inside stood a youngish man with a wiry frame who had to be Lionel Pritchard, Dunasheen’s manager. His small head, eyes like buttons, sleek brown hair edging a receding hairline, and sleek brown moustache edging an almost lipless mouth reminded Jean—unjustly, she informed herself—of a snake.

  His beckoning finger drew Fergie from the table to the doorway, where he said in a rasp of a whisper Jean could barely overhear, “The phone’s going again and again, reporters asking questions.”

  Shaking his head, Fergie replied in a hoarse whisper of his own, “Tell them we don’t know anything and refer them to the police.”

  In the front of the room, Scott asked Diana, “Does the satellite feed include football? Not your soccer, American football. It’s that time of year, the college bowls, the pro play-offs . . .”