A Wee Murder in My Shop (A ScotShop Mystery)

by Fran Stewart

  “What would be a—”

  “Never mind, I’m sure you didn’t. I just don’t understand why your teeth are so healthy. Didn’t everybody back then have teeth that rotted out of their heads?”

  His face went through a series of contortions. I couldn’t tell whether he was getting ready to laugh or growl. “Nae. Not everybody.” I must have looked unconvinced. “My grandmam taught us all to use wee twigs of willow trees to clean our teeth.”

  “Twigs? How could that help?”

  “We mashed the ends until they were soft-like.” He made a motion so like an actor in a Crest commercial I laughed.

  * * *

  “Let’s go,” I called to Dirk a few minutes later. Shorty lay snoozing on the couch. I stroked his back and he fluttered one eye halfway open. “Guard the house,” I told him, as I always did, although why I bothered I had no idea. Shutting the door behind us, I stepped toward the head of the ramp and stopped short. Another dozen deep red roses stood in a floral delivery vase. Prepaid. Crap. I pushed the vase aside with the toe of my shoe. More food for the compost pile this afternoon.

  “Yon flowers dinna look like any rose I ever saw.”

  “They’re not, I’m sure. These are grown in a greenhouse, and they’ve been bred for size and color, but they don’t smell nearly as nice as the heirloom roses—the kind you must have known when you . . . back then.”

  “When I was alive.”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking how very alive he looked right now, with his ebony hair spilling onto his shoulders, catching the morning light. Stop it, Peggy. He’s a ghost.

  He stepped back a pace and studied the blooms. “They are the color of spilled blood before it darkens.”

  I shivered, although I’ve never been particularly superstitious. “Let’s go. I want to get my shop open. Two tour buses are on the schedule today.” I headed down the front walk. “When people come into the store, don’t say a word.”

  Dirk stepped in front of me, and I had to stop so I wouldn’t run into him. I didn’t even want to think what would happen if I passed right through him. Yuck.

  “Ye dinna have to keep telling me that. I am not simpleminded.”

  “Sorry. I just don’t want to look like an—” I stopped myself. Why did I worry what he thought about my language? Dirk was a ghost for heaven’s sake. Still, he was more effective than my mother at keeping my mouth clean.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m talking to the wind.”

  “I dinna think that is what ye planned to say.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Am I right, now?” When I didn’t reply, he added, “I will try to stay quiet in your wee store.”

  Mr. Pitcairn’s slightly adenoidal voice drifted into my consciousness. I’d been so intent on Dirk, I hadn’t thought about my next-door neighbor. “Are you starting to talk to yourself?” He chuckled and wagged his finger at me from his front porch.

  I didn’t have time to talk, so I just waved and kept walking. Mr. P reminded me of nothing so much as an aging basset hound with his stumpy legs, massive chest, and slightly bowed arms. He had brown hair and baggy eyes. The only things missing were a tail and droopy ears.

  His wife, before she died, had been chatty, round, the stereotypical sweet little woman. He’d always been a basset, though. Even when she was alive, he’d harbored an underlying sadness. Two months after her funeral, he’d resumed the monthly dinner invitations, although he never included Karaline anymore. I felt too sorry for him to decline, even though he wasn’t much of a cook.

  I wondered occasionally if he thought I was a slob. His yard was meticulously maintained, unlike my rather junglelike assortment of native shrubs under carefully positioned trees. Fat bees bumbled through the clover and dandelions. My weedy yard was sunny in the winter and shady in the summer, and I loved it that way. Mr. P’s yard, on the other hand, was golf course quality. Mow, mow, mow. Every couple of days, he religiously deadheaded the impatiens at the foot of his mailbox. Any errant grass blades that dared to come up in his flowerbed were yanked immediately. Heaven forefend that there should be a dandelion in his lawn. I’d seen him wield a hedge trimmer with a vengeance whenever the hedge on the far side of his yard grew any delinquent shoots.

  I glanced back over my shoulder. My foxgloves were getting a bit scroungy. I’d have to take a closer look. Later.

  Dirk muttered something under his breath.

  “What did you say?” I whispered it, trying not to move my lips, still aware of Mr. P watching me from his front porch.

  “I asked if ye were a healer.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  He pointed his nose toward the masses of flowers. “Ye have foxglove for the hearts that skip, garlic for ears that pain, elderberry for the flux, and”—here he pointed to where the weeping willow in my backyard towered above the house—“and willow bark for heads that pound. I dinna know any of the others. My Peigi taught me those four.”

  “I didn’t know you could use garlic for earaches.”

  “And ye call yourself a healer?”

  “No, I don’t, but what’s the garlic for?”

  “My Peigi put garlic in the ears of children who wept for the pain, and they stopped their weeping eventually.”

  Maybe garlic counteracted bacterial infection. I didn’t ask Dirk about it, though. Bacteria would have sounded like monsters to him if I’d tried to explain them.

  “I’d be happy to mow your lawn for you,” Mr. P called out to me. “I have plenty of time.”

  “Thanks, Mr. P, but I like it on the long side.” He’d probably mow down all my native wildflowers if given half a chance, and there wouldn’t be any more clover for the bees, either.

  His mouth turned down as he compressed his lips. Poor Mr. P, having to put up with me as a neighbor. I know it was rude, and I hated to hurt his feelings—he really was a nice man—but I just ushered Dirk into the car and left with a wave.

  “I’ll see you for dinner tonight,” he called after me.

  Rats. I’d forgotten that.

  10

  Mannequin Down

  My favorite mannequin lay sideways on the floor near the back of the shop. I could just barely see it around the vertical blinds on the front door. Why were the blinds and curtains closed? Gilda should have left them open. There was too much reflection of the early morning sun on the glass to see clearly, but that bright splotch of red on the floor had to be the MacKillop tartan kilt we’d buckled onto Percy last week.

  Percy was my full-sized one-of-a-kind mannequin, complete with jointed and lockable arms, legs, and neck. He usually posed in the display window, looking out across Hamelin’s main shopping street toward Sweeties, the candy store up the way, almost as if he were longing for a handful of their trademark jelly beans. Just last week, though, Gilda and I had moved him to the back, where he seemed to be pointing to the merchandise in the big bookcase. So, who’d lain him down? And why? Probably my crazy cousin, up to another one of his practical jokes. Practical? What a misnomer. There was nothing practical about moving my mannequin.

  “Ye seem worrit again,” Dirk said.

  “Somebody fell over in my shop.”

  He looked vaguely alarmed. “Should we no go to help?”

  I laughed. “It’s one of my mannequins.” I waved vaguely toward the fake people in the display window. I should have known that wouldn’t be enough of an explanation. With one part of my mind I paid attention to Dirk’s fashion-industry lesson; with the other half, I looked again. It had to be Percy. We’d sold out of all our other bright red kilts and skirts over the past few weeks, and my latest shipment had been back-ordered. I sent dire mental warnings to that wholesaler. They’d better come today, or I’d be less than happy indeed.

  Why did all the purchases come in lumps? One month everyone wanted green tartans, the next month the
blues would predominate, and lately it had been red, red, and more red. As red as the dozen roses on my front porch. When Mason first started sending me roses after each of our arguments, I’d persuaded Ruth, the florist, to stop wiring the stems. One less thing to throw away. I now had the most expensive compost pile in the state if not in the entire northeast, and the flower shop was thriving. How much would those dozens of long-stemmed roses have added up to? Mason and I had sure had a lot of fights.

  I was dimly aware of Dirk’s commentary beside me but didn’t register it. I pushed away from the window and smoothed out my tartan skirt. Even I recognized that as nothing more than a nervous gesture. Whatever made me remember Mason and his stupid red roses anyway? I had more important things to think about, like the red plaid on the floor of my shop and the fact that I didn’t have any extra red kilts to sell. I’d gone through the storeroom in back twice last week hoping to find one. I rooted around in my purse, looking for my keys.

  If a MacKillop walked in today wanting a kilt of his clan, I’d have to undress Percy. I knew, from past experience, that I’d have to take Percy into the back room before disrobing him. Even though he wasn’t completely anatomically correct, the clothing change could be disconcerting to my customers. I could dress him in one of the heathery hunting plaids. Maybe the muted Sinclair tartan, I thought, and smiled, thinking of Mr. Sinclair in his kilt. I wished I could have stayed longer this time, but I’d had to get back here for the surprise birthday party Karaline was throwing on Saturday, the one I wasn’t supposed to know about.

  Without Mason in my life, I’d have plenty of time on my hands. Of course, I had a ghost to fill . . .

  “. . . not a word I have said, did ye?”

  “Sorry, Dirk. I’ve had a lot on my mind, and I guess I was just thinking of . . . of other things.”

  “’Tis as weel. I havena been too sure about many of the things I see around me. This town is bigger than Pitlochry, is it no?”

  “Well, it’s America—that’s the name of this country—and we do a lot of things differently here.”

  “Och, aye? What things?”

  I didn’t answer him. Instead, I had one of those scary-movie feelings when the alien or the shark is about to attack. Should have been some creepy music in the background. Get a grip, Winn.

  I shifted my purse higher on my shoulder and scrabbled again for my keys. This was not a good start to the workday. Percy’s legs were amazingly sturdy; Gilda must not have locked the joints well enough. I should have double-checked. She was a dependable assistant, but occasionally she would come in dragging her tail and be virtually useless for half the day. She said it was migraines. Still, no excuse.

  Business had been thriving recently, but there wasn’t any sense in letting perfectly good display items get damaged. The surprisingly aristocratic-looking Percy was my nicest mannequin. I’d bought him at a fire sale in Brattleboro six years ago when ScotShop had been just a baby. My baby.

  I ignored my keys for a moment and stepped back a pace to look up at 1915, cut into the stone over the door with a tiny American flag etched on either side of the number. I pointed to the hand-carved sign above the number. ScotShop—A Piece of Old Scotland. “My dad’s a woodworker. He created custom signs for most of the businesses along Main Street.”

  “Och, aye? ’Tis verra fine workmanship.”

  I pointed across the street to the Sweeties sign, visible beneath the green of the tall spreading maples that lined the street. Jelly beans of every color imaginable spilled from an astonishingly realistic candy jar and bounced off the bottom rim of the sign. Dad had really outdone himself on that one. Next door to Sweeties, the Hamelin Hotel sign—“best rest this side of Scotland”—sported a set of bagpipes beside a bed. I’d never thought that looked very restful, but Dad said the owner had insisted.

  “There’s another one. That’s Karaline’s restaurant—she serves breakfast and lunch.”

  “The Logg Cabin,” Dirk read. “Logg?”

  “That’s her last name.” I looked again at the sign—a jaunty off-center cabin, pleasantly relaxed against a background of dark green fir trees. The Logg Cabin sat back from the corner of the square, where Hickory Lane dead-ended into Main Street, with a small, beautifully landscaped sunken courtyard between it and the ScotShop. Comfortable wooden benches sat ready for the waiting customers. This arrangement left me with an angled front door and two window walls—one that looked out onto Main Street and one with this gorgeous view of the courtyard. The light that flooded my store was a danger to the fabrics—hence the blinds for extra sunny days—but a delight in saving electricity.

  “’Tis a verra long queue of people,” Dirk said.

  “That’s called the breakfast rush. Right after it’s over they’ll have the lunch rush. The Cabin’s very popular with locals and tourists alike.” The smell of good cooking wafted across the courtyard and down the street, enough to lure people in for Karaline’s maple pecan pancakes. The line snaked around the corner of the courtyard, almost all the way to my front door. A few not-so-patient folk looked at watches, fiddled with cell phones, and generally put out an aura of gloom. What good was a vacation if you brought along your city schedule? The early morning air was still chilly enough for them to need jackets, but many of the coats were open. Just the thought of Karaline’s meltingly good food warmed their bodies as well as their hearts. She knew more about good Vermont home cooking than anybody’s grandmother.

  I was willing to bet she’d be over to chat after the Logg Cabin closed at three. And me with a ghost to talk around. I waved to a few folks I knew, smiled at the others—never knew when one of them might wander in to look for Scottish mementos.

  The shop was a natural in Hamelin, Vermont, a town founded by Scots in the early 1700s, where most of the men wore kilts on an everyday basis. The rent for my third of the building was steep but well worth it, considering the tourist trade that came through here. Known to the locals as the Pitcairn Building, the stone-faced structure was named after a fellow who was some sort of town big shot a hundred or so years ago. This end of the building used to house a now-defunct clothing store, insurance office, hardware store—the tenants kept changing. I’d transformed it into a small patch of Scotland.

  The ScotShop was quite a bit of work but worth all the effort. I thoroughly enjoyed my buying trips to Pitlochry and a half dozen other lovely towns scattered around Scotland. I could import catalog items, of course, and so I did, but I needed to go there at least once a year to see the tartans in their natural setting, to see the lamps and statues and intricate souvenirs in the so-to-speak flesh. You just couldn’t tell from a catalog picture. A case in point was the brooch on the shoulder of that fallen mannequin’s plaid, a running stag that had looked chintzy in the wholesale catalog but was quite simply stunning pinned to a tartan. And occasionally I found a local crafter, like Leslie Farquharson Gordon, whose work wasn’t in the catalogs yet.

  I squinted against the light and looked again. Between the bright glare of sunlight and the fingerprints on the outside of the glass, I could hardly see anything, just that splotch of red, but something else looked wrong. Something was missing, but I couldn’t place what it was.

  The dead bolt lock stuck—again—and I swore softly. The ghost of my diminutive, loudmouthed, and very much alive mother always seemed to hang around right over my shoulder, shaking a finger at my epithets, mild as they tended to be. “Margaret,” I could hear my mother saying—she never called me Peggy—“do watch your language.” I did try to hold my tongue usually, especially now with Dirk in tow, but Percy was down, and who knew what Percy, heavy as he was, had knocked over. The cranky front door plus the fallen mannequin added up to more than I could take.

  Mother faded into the background, though, as the lock cooperated and the bell over the door jingled. I looked around for Dirk. He stood a few feet behind me, eyeing the people in line at the Cabin.
I cleared my throat and motioned to him when he turned around. Several of the people in line had turned, too. “Come on in after you finish breakfast,” I said, to explain my arm-waving. “I’ll be open by then.” I ushered Dirk inside, locked the door behind me, and automatically pulled open the blinds to my left.

  My six-foot-wide antique hard rock maple bookcase lay facedown on the showroom floor with Percy right beside it. Well, crudbuckets. I dropped my keys and purse onto one of the rocking chairs and scampered across the room. I thought fleetingly that I should be grateful Gilda and I had done some rearranging, so the round table with all the castle lamps on it hadn’t been in the line of fall.

  “Damn! What happened to you?” As if the bookcase could tell me. It was my pride and joy. I occasionally wished the bookcase had removable shelves, so I could adjust the height of them, but it worked pretty well. Gilda and I were both good at picking the right-sized merchandise to fit in the right places.

  “This isna supposed to be lying down, is it? Is it a sideboard?”

  “It’s a bookcase.”

  “A case for books?”

  “Yeah,” I said, but my mind wasn’t on Dirk. I hated to think about the fragile figurines, the bookends, and the mugs lying smashed now beneath the heavy wood, to say nothing of Percy’s leg where the bookcase had fallen on it. I tried to lift the bookcase, but the darn thing was way too heavy. “Damn.” I didn’t know if I was indignant, disgusted, angry, or a little bit of all three. Would insurance cover this?

  Sam and Shoe. I’d have to get them to help me. Cousins came in handy at a time like this. I felt real pity for people who moved away from family—until I thought about my mother. There was something to be said for a mobile life. Maybe I could move to Scotland. The winters there couldn’t be any colder than the ones here in Vermont, could they? Dirk would enjoy going back. But what would I do there? How could I support myself?