The Murder Hole

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  Close by, the water glistened a dark steely blue, in the distance it flashed and writhed with mirages like imperfections in an antique mirror. A looking glass, Jean thought, the better to see yourself in.

  A few of her fellow passengers were pointing out the black reflection of the opposite bank, or the ruined walls of Urquhart Castle, or the tower and trees of Pitclachie House. But the majority of the attendees had gathered in the lounge, waiting for the show. So was Jean, if for a slightly different sort of show.

  She stepped over the metal threshold into the long low room. Large windows looked out on the passing scene. In the back, against a Starr Beverages banner, Hugh and the lads were tuning their instruments and checking out a few small amplifiers, “unplugged” being relative. A bar to one side glistened with bottles and glasses. Two young women poured and served, and two young men passed through the gathering throng, offering trays of food. To the other side, a display of posters and photos were propped on easels and covered with tartan cloth, ready for the Great Revelation.

  Roger stood nearby, clean but hardly sober—the empty glass in his hand was replaced by a waiter even as Jean watched. His tuxedo hung on his wiry body as though it was still hanging in a closet. It was Peter Kettering, however, who was the sight that made eyes sore.

  As he had threatened, he was dressed in the full wretched excess of Hollywood-Highland garb, high-laced shoes, tartan socks and kilt, fur sporran, tartan plaid draped over a gold-buttoned double-breasted jacket. The spill of lace at his throat made him look as though he’d forgotten to remove his napkin after a messy lunch. His teeth, exposed in a maniacal grin, resembled a solid sheet of porcelain. His gaze bounced around the room, his ear tilted toward Roger. Between the squeaks and trills of the band, Jean caught the words “Tobermory” and “gold.” So much for Roger promising to retire.

  A choking noise came from the riser that was the bandstand. Hugh? His T-shirted and suspender-framed belly was quivering, and his cheeks had gone beyond pink to crimson. He was trying not to laugh at Kettering—no biting the Starr hand that fed him—but his glee kept escaping like puffs of steam from a boiling pot.

  Jean sidled toward him. “He looks like the bastard child of Queen Victoria and Walter Scott.”

  That set Hugh off again, until at last he wiped his face with a handkerchief the size of a pillowcase and said, “Thank goodness Dempsey’s wearing an ordinary monkey suit. Two of them and my head would explode.”

  “You said you saw Kettering at the ceilidh Saturday night. I don’t guess you saw Roger there.”

  “Ah, no, the place was heaving. I only saw the people just beside the stage. Or passed out beneath it.”

  In the corner Billy’s bagpipes honked and squealed. He adjusted his drones, tried again with the first few notes of “Bad Moon Rising,” and then played a measure of “The Rights of Man,” his fingers dancing on the chanter.

  “That’s the pipes for you,” said Hugh, “like squeezing a pig under one arm and knitting at the same time.”

  Jean grinned. “I love it when y’all play off-the-wall pieces. You’ll have to do ‘In-a-Gadda-da-Vida’ tonight, like you did Saturday.”

  “That was Sunday,” Hugh amended. “And it was our Billy’s doing, a punter bet him twenty pound he couldn’t play it. Man was away with the fairies, most likely, our Billy can play anything.”

  Jean stiffened like a bird dog spotting a grouse. “So you haven’t added ‘In-a-Gadda-da-Vida’ to that medley of pop and trad? You only did it on Sunday?”

  “Oh aye. Bit of a stunt really, but then . . .”

  But then, Roger had lied. Jean grabbed Hugh’s arm, exclaimed, “Thank you!” and whirled toward the door.

  She was just in time to see Brendan and Kirsty walk into the room, and behind them Alasdair. Yes, yes, yes! His dark jacket with its epaulettes, his heather-colored tie and white socks, his red and green kilt swinging provocatively above those braw Cameron calves—there was a class act. As for his less than gigantic stature, well, tall was as tall did, and right now he needed to do.

  He was scanning the room. His gaze landed on Jean and brightened like headlights going from low-beam to high. He started toward her as she started toward him. The crowd swirled and thickened from individual bodies to a barricade as Kettering stepped forward. “Ladies and gentlemen!”

  Roger set down his glass and stood poised, his dogs groomed, his ponies curried, and his water monsters bedecked with tartan bow ties. Maybe he was swaying because of the drinks, maybe because of the slow rise and fall of the boat. Maybe he was swaying because he stood at the top of a precipice and was ready to jump.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Kettering proclaimed. “I present to you Roger Dempsey, the discoverer of the Loch Ness monster!”

  Roger whisked away the cloth covering the easels. With various gasps and exclamations, everyone pressed forward, kilts sweeping, bosoms heaving, cameras whirring. Even the waiters and barmaids and musicians leaned toward the exhibit.

  Jean stopped working her way around the back of the crowd and gaped. Poster-sized photos of the bones from the tomb, artfully arranged, were accompanied by drawings of various concepts of Nessie, some more zoologically possible than others. Another poster showed the Pitclachie stone, with 8x10s of the newly-revealed upper half pinned to its edge. Roger pulled a marking pen from an inside pocket and sketched in the gripping beast, just to make sure everyone appreciated it for what it was. Kettering babbled about museums, openings, sponsorships, advertising campaigns.

  Alasdair ranged up beside Jean, seized her arm with his strong right hand, and pulled her into the back corner. “Gunn’s saying you’ve knocked a bittie chip out of Roger’s alibi.”

  “Yeah, and Hugh just blew it to pieces—one of the tunes Roger said he heard the band play on Saturday they only played on Sunday, and it was a one-off then.”

  “Well then. No surprise the trace evidence . . .”

  “Rubbish!” shouted a deep but unmistakably female voice. Jean’s and Alasdair’s and every other face in the room swung toward the door.

  Iris Mackintosh stood there, tall, straight, and regal. Her high-collared jacket and loose trousers shimmered silkily, her iron-gray hair swept back from her forehead. She cut a path through the onlookers like Moses through the Red Sea.

  Roger stood his ground, beard out-thrust belligerently. Kettering smiled, gracious to a fault. “Miss Mackintosh! So glad you can join us for this wonderful moment, the vindication of your father’s writings . . .”

  “Rubbish,” she said again. “If Dr. Dempsey had bothered to consult a proper scientist, he’d have discovered right smartly that what he has discovered are the calcified remains of a basking shark.”

  “A what?” asked Kettering.

  The color drained from Roger’s face. Iris grabbed the pen from his limp hand and began drawing on the largest poster. “Here is the shark’s tail, and here its head, and here its mouth . . .” she sketched in a huge, gaping maw, drooping down from the skull like a debutante’s crinoline skirt. “They feed on zooplankton. Once the flesh and less-calcified bits of cartilage rot away, and the other perishable parts of the animal are no longer extant, you are left with the spine and skull. What you’ve interpreted as flippers are no doubt bones of some other creature. You’re not the first person to jump to the wrong conclusions, Roger, but you’re by far the biggest fool amongst them.”

  The room was so quiet that Jean could hear the swish of water around the bows of the boat, an undertone to the thrum of the engines. From just outside the door came Elvis’s, “I want to see the pictures, Mummy,” and Noreen’s, “Not just now.”

  Jean leaned toward Alasdair as he leaned toward her. “It was never Nessie,” he whispered.

  “Basking sharks have unusually well-calcified skeletons,” Iris went on. “Plus, this specimen was quite large and probably very old, which is why its remains are heavy and dense as bones. It’s remarkably well-preserved, even so. Perhaps the shark was originally foun
d on the shores of the sea and brought here by the Picts as a totem, to protect their borderland. Perhaps it had somehow found its way into the loch. In any event, it was buried long ago, and forgotten until my father Ambrose discovered it, and from it constructed his myth. I will not apologize for that. Each of us is free to believe anything we wish, but that does not mean that believing something makes it true.” She handed the pen to Kettering, who stared at it as though it were a grenade.

  “Iris,” Roger said, his usual rumble strained and thin.

  “Roger,” said Kettering, in a slightly stronger voice.

  Bedlam broke out in the room, people chattering to each other and shouting questions at Kettering and Roger and Iris and calling for more alcohol to wash down the headline news.

  Smiling like a cherub on steroids, Hugh put his fiddle to his shoulder and started to play “MacPherson’s Rant,” supposedly composed by the titular MacPherson just before he was hanged. If Hugh had realized the full implications of the moment, he’d never have chosen that piece. Did anyone else recognize it? Her hand over her mouth, holding in something between hysterical laughter and a scream, Jean turned to Alasdair.

  “The forensics reports,” he said, his breath tickling her ear. “The trace evidence. The clothes Roger was wearing the night Tracy was killed. Bits of dust and pollen match those in the tower room. So do microscopic bits of wool, from Iris’s knitting, most likely. A scrap of plastic from the floor of the tower, just below the window, is a bandage from a paramedic’s kit. I’ll be asking the medicos to examine Roger for a scratch or stab wound from the knitting needle.”

  Jean, chilled, could see it all. Roger and Tracy, already at odds, in over their heads, their ship sinking. They thought the hit-and-run meant their enemies were closing in. They doubled their efforts to find the complete book—a treasure would rectify everything. But they also doubled their resentments. One word from a tense, edgy person to another. Shouts. The shove . . . It had truly been a crime of passion. “We might have looked right at that wound. He had bandages and scratches on his arms anyway.”

  “Oh aye.” Alasdair’s gaze transferred itself to Roger.

  Above the beard Roger’s tanned skin was pale as beeswax, sagging like a candle burned too long. He lurched back against the wall. Jean thought he was going to slide down it and melt into a puddle on the deck. But no. Suddenly his body solidified. He thrust Iris against Kettering, sending them both against one of the easels, which in turn fell over with a clatter.

  Roger shoved his way through the crowd, batting away microphones, ignoring grins, and strode out onto the forward deck. Hugh segued into a jig. The other instruments joined in.

  Alasdair’s mouth set itself in a grim line. “Let’s finish it, shall we?” He started toward the door, not waiting to see if Jean was with him. That had been a rhetorical question.

  But she wasn’t going to shrink away now. Now that she’d done everything she could to bring down Roger’s castle in the air, including feeling pity for the man.

  Alasdair burst out of the door, sweeping away a cameraman in his path, Jean right behind him. She saw Gunn standing by the railing next to Noreen and Elvis. She saw Roger come to a halt in the middle of the deck, arms crossed, half-crouched as though in pain. She saw high on the green bank of the loch, above a huge metal boat-house so incongruous it seemed alien, the row of white houses that was Foyers. She couldn’t see Crowley’s Boleskine House. It lurked in the trees, wrapped in darkness and despair.

  Alasdair jerked his head at Gunn and with a gesture summoned the constables. He took Roger’s shoulder and turned him around, not roughly but firmly. He met Roger’s shocked, furious, desperate stare with a flinty stare of his own. “Roger Dempsey, I arrest you in connection with the murder of Tracy Dempsey. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down and may be given in . . .”

  “Roger!” Brendan, Kirsty at his side, popped out onto the deck. “Roger, I’m sorry, I thought those bones might be a whale of some kind, but the head wasn’t right—vertebrates aren’t my field—I didn’t think there’d be any harm . . .”

  “Mummy,” said Elvis, “it isn’t Nessie, is it? The man lied.”

  In one convulsive movement Roger wrenched away from Alasdair, pushed Gunn sprawling onto the deck, evaded a constable’s tackle, and sprinted for the side of the boat. He grabbed the little boy and set him up on the railing so that his feet dangled over the water. “You’re going to get this boat turned around, Cameron. You’re going to turn it around and get me back to shore.”

  Noreen’s scream was anything but short. It was Edith’s cry, it was Tracy’s—disbelief and rage mingled. She lunged for Roger. Alasdair diverted her towards Jean. Jean handed her off to Kirsty. Jean was vaguely aware of Gunn clambering to his feet, of people spilling out of the lounge and down the stairway, of the music ending abruptly, of cameras clicking. All she could see was Elvis in Roger’s hands, suspended above the cold water of the loch.

  “Mummy?” he asked, not yet frightened but wondering why his mother had screamed. He wriggled. In another minute his bottom would slip off the railing and only the strength in Roger’s arms would keep him from falling. And Roger was trembling, his pallor taking on a shade of green. Great, Jean told herself, he was going to faint and drop the child anyway.

  “Sit still, lad,” Alasdair said, and taking a step closer to Roger, “Don’t be stupid. You’re adding charges on top of charges, and this time you’ve got witnesses aplenty.”

  “It’s all over,” Roger mumbled. “I gave it my best shot. Tracy, she meant well.”

  “You’ve done remarkable work. Omnium’s a going concern. You found the upper half of the Stone. That’s quite genuine.” Alasdair took another step.

  Behind Jean’s back, she heard Gunn whispering, “Put the inflatable into the water, now.” Footsteps slowly retreated, then broke into a run. The sound of the engines changed timbre, throttling back.

  Elvis sat still, staring out at the expanse of water between the boat and the shore. Maybe he thought this was some sort of thrill ride. Maybe he was just stunned. Noreen was sobbing in Kirsty’s arms. Brendan was flanking Alasdair, and two uniformed constables were standing ready—to do what? They couldn’t shoot Roger. They could try lassoing him, Jean supposed.

  She felt utterly helpless, utterly useless, cursing Roger, cursing herself—all she’d done was challenge Roger’s assumptions and ask questions, it wasn’t her fault that his suspicions of her had fueled his and Tracy’s plots . . .

  Roger inhaled, shuddering. For just a second his head fell forward and his grip on Elvis’ torso loosened. In that second Alasdair leaped. He seized Elvis’s small shoulders and yanked him free of Roger’s grasp, then pirouetted and threw the child into the arms of the constable who had followed his leap.

  “No!” Roger snapped erect and scrambled up onto the railing, first rung, second, and teetered at the top. In a flurry of tartan, Alasdair leaped up beside him and wrapped his right arm around Roger’s chest. They struggled, Roger straining toward the water, Alasdair pulling him back, tilting further and further. And were gone.

  Brendan and the second constable lunged into the railing and leaned over it, grabbing at air. A deep-throated splash resounded from the water.

  Alasdair! Jean didn’t go for the railing. She didn’t even go for conscious thought. Kicking off her shoes, she dashed for the doughnut-shaped life preserver hanging on the bulkhead—red and white, it wouldn’t clash with Alasdair’s tartan. The life preserver seemed to bound off its hook and into her hands. Spinning around, she clambered up onto the railing—trajectories, the speed of the boat, the hump of its wake moving across the water surface, the patch of roil and froth there, limbs splashing like dark snakes, going under. She jumped.

  Somewhere about half way down, and it was a long way down, her brain kicked back in. What the hell was she doing, protecting her investment in a certain policeman? Refusing to go on without him? She hit the surface
of the water. It was hard, breaking beneath her weight, sending a shock wave through her body. The dark water closed over her head. Her breath shattered into pellets of hail, so cold they burned her throat and chest.

  Fight! Fight! Hooking her left arm around the life ring, she didn’t only let it pull her to the surface, she pushed it upward. Her skirt wrapped her legs and she kicked and flailed. Something touched her thigh, a trailing bit of weed or a tentacle or a bit of fabric. Blindly she grabbed and came up with a handful of stiff cloth—a collar, she realized, connected to a heavy body. Please, please, let it be Alasdair.

  Like breaching a membrane, she broke the surface of the water. Prisms danced in her eyes—her glasses, they were gone, like she cared. The black wall of the boat rose out of the black water several yards away. Clinging desperately to the buoyant ring, she pulled the collar upwards with every micron of strength she had and some she didn’t know she had, and Alasdair’s head popped into the air beside her, streaming water.

  He gasped, gulped, and coughed, and started to sink back. The wet wool of the kilt was dragging him down. A tremendous splash doused her face with ice water and Brendan was swimming toward them, arms stroking powerfully. He pulled Alasdair back up and toward the life ring. And here came the inflatable, bouncing over the swells toward them, a sailor and a constable already leaning over the sides.

  Jean’s hand was frozen onto Alasdair’s collar. Even when he wrapped an arm around the life preserver and looked up with wide eyes reflecting the multicolored light, still she hung onto him. She couldn’t feel her feet. Shivers were wracking her body.

  His icy fingers fumbled for hers, and closed around them, and held on.