Death of a Lovable Geek

by Maria Hudgins

  John had been sick that Wednesday and hadn’t gone to H the dig that day. But how in the world could this have been worked out beforehand? Who could have done this, and how was it done?

  I grabbed a couple of things and stuck them into a plastic bag so that Robbie, if he was still here, would see me leaving with something, supposedly something Van sorely needed. My trek from the MacBane house back to the castle was both too long and not long enough. Not long enough to settle in my mind all this new information: Becky’s picture, the scribbles on Froggy’s hand, the seemingly impossible theft of the contents of the box, the timing of an intricate and evil scheme. Too long, because I had to get to Fallon’s room before she left, and it was already close to nine.

  * * * * *

  Fallon opened her door when I was almost ready to stop knocking and break the door down. A half dozen loud raps separated by decently long intervals, long enough to have allowed her to slip on a robe and creep to the door at a snail’s pace, finally paid off. She looked terrible. Fallon had that sort of thin, baby-fine hair that had to be washed and fluffed every day or it would go limp and stick to her head. Add to that her high forehead that almost qualified as a receding hairline, and Fallon, an attractive woman in normal circumstances, had the potential for looking like a baby orangutan.

  Today, she resembled nothing so much as a Mexican hairless. Her eyes were swollen, her nose was red, and her face, blotchy and wan, received no cover from the thin sprigs of hair that hung dully around her ears. I swallowed my first impulse, which was to gasp, “Ohmigod! What happened to you?” and said, “I was concerned because you didn’t come to breakfast this morning. Is there anything you need?”

  “No, I … come on in, Dotsy. Find yourself a chair.” Fallon’s voice sounded as defeated as her hair looked. She wrapped her robe more tightly around her, gave the tie belt a tightening tug, and crawled onto her bed, covering her bare feet with the sheet.

  “I can’t say I know what you’re going through,” I whispered, unsure whether to sit down or not. “They say there’s no life crisis as traumatic as the death of a husband or wife.”

  “Huh?” Fallon reached toward the box on her nightstand for a tissue. “That’s right. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” she mumbled. “It’s as if everything I normally do serves no purpose now. It’s all perfectly meaningless.”

  I stood silently, wondering how long I had to wait before I could ask about the box.

  “Was Tony at breakfast this morning?” Fallon asked.

  “Yes.”

  She’s not grieving for her husband, she’s upset about Tony! I recalled Tony’s red, puffy eyes at breakfast and made a simple deduction. Tony must have talked with Hannah when he drove her back to camp last night. Maybe he wants a second chance with her. If so, maybe he promised to break it off with Fallon, immediately. Maybe he’s already done it.

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Not much. I reminded him, and everyone else of course, that we’re having a memorial service for John and for Froggy Quale this morning. In the tent.”

  “Why wasn’t I told about it?”

  “I’m so sorry, Fallon. I should have told you yesterdayhe , but I’m afraid I … well, I didn’t see you after noon yesterday, did I? Anyway, we’re having this service, especially for the kids who won’t be able to go to either John’s or Froggy’s funerals. We’d love for you to be there, but don’t feel obligated. If you’re not up to it, don’t go.”

  Fallon swung her feet onto the floor and wobbled over to the mirrored dresser. “I don’t know if I could possibly get myself in decent shape by … what time is it? The service?”

  “At eleven.”

  “Oh, dear, that’s not long from now.”

  “Fallon, where’s that box? The one that got emptied right under our noses yesterday?”

  Fallon looked confused. “It’s around here somewhere. Didn’t you say John kept it in the big suitcase?”

  “We took it out of the big suitcase. Did you put it back in?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Either Fallon hadn’t given a second thought to yesterday’s grand theft, or she was stalling for time.

  “May I look around for it?”

  “Help yourself.”

  I checked the closet, glanced around the sitting room, and opened the dresser drawers, feeling like a horrible snoop, but I found the box lying on its side under the bed, where Fallon had apparently kicked it. Dragging it out, I set it on the bed and looked at the back, where that hidden lever was. The one John had had so much trouble with, he’d had to work on it with a screwdriver. The screwdriver had slipped and gouged the wood rather badly, I remembered, but there was no scar there now. The wood around the hinge was as smooth as the day it was lacquered.

  “Fallon, this isn’t John’s box,” I said.

  “But of course it is.” She sat up and blew her nose into yet another tissue.

  We both heard a definite thump that came from the wall behind and to the right of her bed. Fallon’s head jerked around toward the noise. She turned back to me, wide-eyed.

  “Someone’s in the laird’s lug,” I said, as I dashed to the wall where I knew the little secret door had to be, based on the view I’d had of this room on the evening I’d been hiding behind it myself, and also based on where I thought the thump had come from.

  “How do you open it?” I said. The wall from this side was just a flat, paneled wall.

  “The laird’s lug? I knew there was one, but I didn’t know it was here. Oh, no! People could have been listening to everything we … for years!”

  “So you don’t know how to open it, I guess.” I ran my hand around the edges of the panel. A section of the paneling, about two feet square, was set off by a knife-thin gap all around but there was no handle, no visible hinge, no finger hole against which one could pull. I tried a firm push on both sides of the square, but my only reward was a momentary and ever-so-slight budge. I put my ear to the panel, but the source of the thump had slipped off down those narrow stairs or was lying low until we left.

  “Fallon, hide this box before you leave,” I whispered. “Not back in the same suitcase. Find a new hiding place.”

  &n3;

  Chapter Thirty

  On my way out through the great hall, I ran into the weird sisters and Scarborough, the ferret. They were taking Scarborough’s soy milk to the kitchen to be refrigerated, which reminded me of the mental note I’d stuck in my head on the way back from Robbie MacBane’s house. A note to check on the sort of cutlery they used here. Robbie had mentioned bone-handle knives being kept at the shooting hut, and I recalled Boots using an old, wooden-handle knife on the one occasion that I’d been in his cottage. Of course, that didn’t mean that all his knives were of the same sort, but kitchens often do have sets of knives.

  Three women I didn’t know were busy at the sink, counter and stove when we came in, and I used the distraction caused by the entry of a ferret in a red harness as a chance to sneak open a couple of drawers. In one, I found several of those nice resin-handle knives that last a lifetime and I spotted two more of the same type lying in the sink.

  Now I needed to take inventory of the knives at the shooting hut.

  Hiking across the field toward the woods, I took a northerly route, sticking close to the fence that gradually rose to the cliff from which Becky Sinclair had plunged to her death. I had no particular reason to feel I had to sneak around to the woods rather than simply walk boldly across, but I didn’t relish having to explain, to anyone, where I was going or why. I followed the fence to its northeast corner and looked across. I could still see the bare spot that my body had cleared off the rocks the day I’d slipped and William had caught me in the nick of time. Moving along the fence, I found a low spot in the wire mesh and climbed over.

  The leaves and pine needles crunched under my shoes and stirred up enough dust and pollen to launch me on a sneezing jag. Between sneezes, I thought I heard a rustle, like a single
footstep, but when I looked around, I saw a squirrel skittering up a tree trunk. It lost its footing and fell kerplop into the leaves below, making the same sort of rustling sound. In a wood like this, there are all kinds of sounds. I paused for a minute and listened.

  At the shooting hut, I first checked the fish-cleaning bench attached to the outside of the hut. This was where William had picked up a knife and taken it inside. I couldn’t recall what sort of handle it had. There were plenty of dried fish scales in the cracks between the planks, and a fish hook, still attached to a length of line, had been jammed into the wood. But no knives.

  I found a rock large enough to allow me to reach the key they kept over the door, rolled it into position, and climbed onto it. The door opened easily. I left the key in the lock and walked inside; it didn’t look as if anyone had been here since my last visit. Diffused light from the grimy windows cast pale rectangles on the wood floor, and bare pillows still sat atop the navy bedspreads.

  I walked to the sink. A knife lay on the drain board. Almost certainly the same knife that William had placed there. It had a black resin handle, like the ones in the castle kitchen. Of course, I thought, this doesn’t prove anything. Knives have a way of getting moved from place to place. I opened each of the drawers under the drain board and on the other side of the sink. There was a set of stainless steel tableware, including knives with stainless steel handles, and several more serious knives, all with bone handles. But only the one with a handle of black rd oesin.

  I looked at that knife again. Would it have been large enough to have done the job on Froggy? Undoubtedly it would have. Whose fingerprints would be on it? William’s of course, but perhaps other, earlier prints as well. I remembered that William had swiped the blade clean, but not the handle.

  “It’s a mite chilly in here, dinnae ye ken?”

  I jumped.

  William stood inside the door. Silhouetted against the sunlight, he looked huge.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” My voice seemed to catch in my throat. “I was just exploring around the woods and I—”

  “Thought you might find the treasure box here? The box with the coin?”

  “You have a box like John’s, too, don’t you? John told me an uncle had given each of you one for Christmas when you were boys.” My voice rang hollow in my own ears. Why had William asked that? I was afraid I knew.

  “Aye. I still have it.”

  “Did you know the police are questioning Boots about a knife he was seen with about the same time Froggy was killed?”

  “No, I hadnae heard that.” He walked around me to the sink and picked up the knife. “Is that why you were studyin’ this one when I came in?”

  I couldn’t answer him.

  “Did you know that Becky, my stepmother, was found at the bottom of that cliff you and I nearly went over, ourselves, the other day?” He leaned back against the sink, but he still held the knife in his hand. “Of course you did. You know a lot about Becky and my father and that whole time of trouble, don’t you? You know the earring that woman found in the pasture was Becky’s, don’t you? And you know the box in Fallon’s room right noo isn’t the one John showed you, so bein’ the clever woman you are, you’ve probably figured out whose box it really is.”

  I felt, very strongly, that it was time for me to leave. I began edging sideways toward the door, but meanwhile I had to say something.

  “Was Froggy killed in the kitchen of the castle?”

  A veil of incredible sadness fell across William’s face. “Aye, I fear so.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to ask the obvious question: Did you kill him? I watched him, silently, afraid to make any sudden movements.

  “Becky didn’t kill herself, did she?” That, too, was a dangerous question, but this was no time for small talk. “Did John kill her? I’m told they never got along.”

  William began pacing. From the fireplace to the window on the opposite wall and back again, but (was it my imagination?) always staying closer than I was to the door. He carried the knife casually in his right hand, swiping the blade across his thigh from time to time.

  “Nae. Our father did it.”

  He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, I almost missed it. He was telling me that his very own father, old Radge Roger, had killed the beautiful Lady Rebecca, their stepmother. Why was he telling me this? Because, I feared, he didn’t expect me to live long enough to tell anyone else.

  I took a couple of small steps toward the door, but William paced across in FF {Kt of me, uncomfortably close. I retreated. He was breathing hard and fast. Working himself up to say something more, I imagined.

  “I have both those amethyst earrings, noo,” he wheezed, his nostrils flaring. “I’ve had one since the day they found it on the body. The dead, rotten body that lay at the bottom of yon cliff for more than a week before they found her! I wanted so badly to tell them where she was. The searchers. They must have had fifty people oot lookin’ for her, but me father was deliberately confusin’ them. It wasnae right, him lettin’ her lie there for ten days, covered with leaves, gettin’ eaten up by rats and maggots. But he wouldnae let me say anythin’ to them.

  “He killed her, throttled her, at the castle and then he couldnae figure oot how ta’ get rid of the body, so he called on me, big strappin’ lad I was, at the time. Carryin’ dead weight is bad business, ye ken? I threw her over my shoulder and carried her across the field to the cliff. The one earring must have fallen off on the way.

  “I dinnae want to have anythin’ to do with it, but what could I say to me own father? Pardon me while I call the police?”

  William stopped and looked at me intently, his gaze darting left and right, as if searching all parts of my face for clues to what I was thinking.

  “Did John have anything to do with it?”

  “Nae, but unfortunately he saw me traipsin’ across the field with the body. He never let me forget aboot it. My whole life.” William’s face was inches from my own. “Every bleedin’ time I’d get a bit ahead on money, John’d be there with his hand oot. ‘I need money for this, I need money for that,’ he’d say, and I’d say, ‘John, the castle needs repairs. Maisie and I haven’t been oot ta’ dinner in a year,’ and he’d remind me that I was an accessory to murder and, if he wanted to, he could ruin the Sinclair family name. Crazy as my father was, I dinnae want him remembered as a murderer!”

  Somehow, I had managed to back my way around to the door. I slipped my hand behind my back and turned the knob. The door was locked.

  William saw what I’d done, and a dark shadow passed over his face. “I locked the door when I came in,” he said. “But, Dotsy, I willnae hurt ye if ye’ll only listen and understand that I havnae done anythin’ I dinnae have to do.”

  “Tell me about Froggy.”

  I’m certain that what I saw on William’s face was genuine sorrow. His shoulders drooped and his head fell forward. “The puir lad was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw the mushrooms I was choppin’ up for John’s omelet, that day. Maisie was gone to town. It was just John and me there at noon.

  “The lad would have ta be the one person in this part of Scotland who was an expert in spores and mushrooms and such. After we’d eaten and John had gone back to the dig, this lad comes back. Comes in through the kitchen door screamin’ scientific stuff and screamin’ murder.”

  “So you grabbed a knife and killed him, used one of the blue tarps that was already lying in the parking area, wrapped him up and dragged him across the back lawn. Dumped him on the other side of the wall.”

  “I dinnae do anythin’ I dinnae have to do.”

  Did William honestly expect me to agree with him? That cruel fate had made him kill two people and conspire in the cover-up oe wr a third murder? What rotten luck! I stood, dumbstruck, staring at him with both my arms hanging awkwardly at my sides. In the distance I thought I heard a call. A few seconds later I heard, “Scarborough!”

  The weird sisters! Th
ey were in the woods and not far away from the sound of it. How could I let them know I was here? That I needed help? I was afraid to yell.

  “Scarborough!” This call sounded farther away.

  Damn. They’ve gone past the hut. They’re leaving.

  William looked at me, rather pathetically. “I’m thinkin’, Dotsy, that in a few days ye’ll be goin’ back to America. Ye won’t have to worry aboot that lad, Van Nguyen, the one they’ve put in jail, because I’ll make it straight with the police. I can give him an alibi; maybe point them in another direction.”

  “What other direction? Toward Boots, maybe? If you think I’m going to let you spring Van by implicating Boots or anyone else, you’re nuts!”

  William lurched toward me, grabbing me around the waist so quickly I had only enough time to glimpse his transformed face. After the sorrow and regret I’d seen and heard an instant ago, I now saw rage. Unreasoning, primal rage. The knife whipped up to my throat.

  “And if you think I’d let you leave here and run your mouth off to all and sundry, you’re nuts!” His hot breath poured down on the top of my head.

  A thump and then a series of bumps and scratches emanated from the general region of the fireplace. William’s left arm, around my waist, jerked me forward. I felt cold steel against my collar bone.

  From outside the door, I heard, “Scarborough?”

  Perched on the hearth, his tiny paws raised to his chin, was Scarborough, ferret extraordinaire, covered in cobwebs and soot. He looked at us with his little black peppercorn eyes as if to say, “Am I interrupting something?”

  Thank God, Winifred and Wanda had seen him fall down the chimney, so there was no way they’d leave before gaining entry to the hut by whatever means necessary. When they rattled the door, William tossed the knife under a bed and drew the key from his pocket.

  I helped them chase Scarborough around the room, under the bed, across the sink, and behind the pillows and it was wonderful! To be free to chase a ferret with no knife at my throat! I could have happily chased him for hours. When Winifred (or maybe Wanda) at last snaked out from under a bed with Scarborough tucked firmly to her breast, Wanda (or maybe Winifred) said, “Where’s William? Wasn’t he here?”