A Wee Murder in My Shop (A ScotShop Mystery)

by Fran Stewart

  “. . . could take you home.”

  “Huh?”

  Harper narrowed his eyes, but the corners of his mouth curved up. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

  I screwed up my mouth. “Guess not. I was thinking. Did you say you’d take me home?”

  He nodded. “Amy told me I needed to feed your dog for you.”

  “I don’t have a dog.”

  “I know. You look more like a cat person. So, I’ll feed your cat. She said you weren’t supposed to bend over until your head had a chance to heal.”

  “Get me my chemise,” I said. “Is the arisaidh dry?”

  “How are you planning to get dressed with that needle in the back of your hand?”

  Crud. I’d forgotten that. “Well, we can at least get everything ready.”

  “We can, can we?”

  “I have to get home right away.”

  He lifted the chemise and shook his head. “What’s the big hurry anyway? Don’t you enjoy”—he gestured around the room—“the ambiance?”

  “Poop,” I said, and Harper grinned. Where was Dirk when I needed him to keep my mouth civilized? He was stuck in my house, frantic with worry, that’s where he was. “I’d rather go home,” I said, and took the chemise from his outstretched hand.

  He reached for the arisaidh, but Dr. Carrin walked in, followed closely by Amy. He looked so goshdarn familiar, but I still couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. He looked at my clothes spread out on the bed. “A bit premature, aren’t we?”

  “Anxious,” I said. “I’m getting prepared, just in case.”

  He flitted his fingers at Harper, a completely inappropriate gesture if there ever was one. Harper raised one eyebrow but turned to leave. He paused at the door. “I’ll be in the hall.”

  Dr. Carrin held out his hand, and Amy handed him my chart. He spent a few long moments looking it over. I inspected the ropey muscles of his forearm. He took the stethoscope from around his neck. “Let’s take a listen.” Amy pulled the privacy curtain. I leaned forward, gasped when that cold circle hit the skin of my back, and breathed deeply when instructed.

  “Can I leave now?”

  He ignored me, scribbled something on the chart, and handed it to Amy. When he turned back toward me, something in the way he moved reminded me of Mr. Pitcairn, my neighbor. They held their shoulders the same way. The doctor was more pit bull than basset hound, though—straighter, younger, and stronger than Mr. P. Maybe they were related. At least that would solve the problem of why he looked so familiar to me.

  “. . . as soon as the paperwork is completed.”

  “I can leave?”

  “That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” He sounded a bit peeved. Harper had seemed amused when I wasn’t listening. I decided Doc Carrin was a grump. Despite what I thought, though, he seemed to relent. “You need to be more careful in that car of yours. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to the lovely owner of the ScotShop.”

  Lovely? What kind of sexist remark was that? But then I looked at his concerned-looking face and decided he was just a little bit old-fashioned. I wondered how he knew about the ScotShop. Did they put things like that on hospital charts?

  After he left, Amy fussed around a bit, removing the IV, tapping away at the computer keyboard, and giving me instructions about the care of my bandaged head. “Your roommate will have to inspect the bandage once each day.”

  I nodded, more intent on finding my underpants than anything else. Karaline could look at it. If she wasn’t fooling around with Shoe. I had to find out what was going on.

  “. . . see you back here in a week.”

  “Um, right. A week.”

  “I’ve written it all down.” She handed me a clipboard. “Sign here.” She gave me the pink duplicate. “Do you need help getting dressed?”

  “No. I can manage. Thanks, though.”

  “Push the call button when you’re ready.” She opened the door. “Not yet, Harper,” I heard her say. “She’s not even . . .” I lost the rest as the door closed.

  19

  Archives and Arachnids

  As it turned out, I still had to deal with my parents, but Harper ran interference—isn’t that what the football people say?—and assured Mom that he was required to take my statement about the accident. “I’ll just do it on the way as I drive her home,” he said, and I couldn’t believe my mother accepted that. Dad gave me a quizzical look, but whenever Mom was around, he hardly ever said a thing. Even when I’d sat with him in his wood shop, doing my homework as he drilled and cut and sanded the wood he loved so much, we’d never spoken. If he hadn’t taken Drew and me on fishing trips together when we were kids, I’m sure I would have grown up believing our dad was mute.

  Mom insisted on walking beside me as I was wheeled out to Harper’s car. Dad carried the plastic bags with my wet kerchief and my bodice. I couldn’t have possibly managed to get that thing laced in my current condition.

  “Harper is a nice man,” Mom told me, her shoes tapping out a high-heeled rhythm as pointed as her words. “This is leap year.”

  The apparent non sequitur confused me. “What does leap year have to do with anything?” Beyond her right shoulder I could see my dad rolling his eyes.

  “You know,” she said.

  “No, I don’t know.”

  Dad leaned forward and spoke from the other side of Mom. “Your mother proposed to me thirty-two years ago, honey. It was a leap year.”

  “Dad! You’re kidding.”

  “No, he’s not.” Mom sounded miffed. “You can do it, Margaret.”

  The aide pushing the wheelchair snickered. I ignored her. “Mother!” Good grief, I sounded like a fifteen-year-old. “Despite your antediluvian attitude about proper protocol, leap year or not, I have no intention of marrying the guy. I only met him a week ago.”

  “That’s okay dear; I see the way he looks at you.”

  “You do not.”

  She pursed her lips.

  Harper pulled up as we exited the building. Thank goodness the rain had stopped. He hopped out of his car and headed around the back of it.

  “If you say a single word to him,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth, “I’m divorcing you.”

  She laughed that giggle of hers that I’d always hated—she was the one who sounded like a fifteen-year-old.

  “Mrs. Winn. Mr. Winn.” Harper sounded like a kid picking up his date on prom night. Why did I have teenagers on the brain all of a sudden? “Are you ready, Peggy?”

  I thanked the aide who’d wheeled me this far. I couldn’t get out of that wheelchair fast enough. Pointedly ignoring my mother’s arm, I reached for Harper’s hand. Warm. Comforting. Safe.

  He reached across me to fasten my seatbelt. I clasped my hands on the strap of my purse and whispered, “Can we peel out of here? Fast?”

  “You got it.” He straightened, said a quick and extremely polite farewell to my parents in which he promised to take good care of me, and moved around to the driver’s side. Mom stepped forward and tried to open my door. Harper had locked it. I was ever so grateful. I waved at her, smiled one of those smiles that didn’t reach my eyes as she bellowed instructions, and sank back against the seat. That didn’t work. The neck brace I wore wouldn’t bend.

  Harper didn’t say a thing. I could have kissed him. No. I mean, I was very thankful. I turned the upper part of my body as inconspicuously as possible so I could inspect him as he drove. There had to be something wrong with him if my mother liked him that much. Or maybe she was just desperate to get me married.

  He smiled. “I must have missed quite a conversation.”

  “Don’t ask. Don’t even think about asking.”

  “Your dad’s a nice guy. I talked with him for a while in the waiting room.”

  “Mom let
him get a word in?”

  “Well,” he admitted, “she was at the nurse’s station.”

  “Poor Amy.”

  “Don’t worry about Amy. She can hold her own.” He eased into a left turn. “Once, when we were kids, my brother and I had been beleaguering her about something, I forget just what, and she pushed both of us off the dock. Got us in awful trouble.”

  “What’s wrong with pushing somebody in a lake?”

  “We were on the way to school at the time. And it was November.”

  “Brrr!”

  “Yeah.” His mouth twisted sideways in a grin. “She lured us down onto that dock, pointing at a really big fish with huge teeth.”

  “Let me guess. No fish? No teeth?”

  “You got it. She ran like crazy, and we were too cold to chase her, so we had to go home and change. We were late, but that was okay. We got her back.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I held her down while my brother cut off one of her pigtails.”

  “You rat fink!”

  “Nah. Her mom just cut the rest of her hair. It was kinda cute. She looked like a poodle.”

  “Did she ever get you back?”

  He chuckled for a few seconds. “Oh, did she ever. She stayed home from school one day the next week. Said she was sick. Painted our bicycles pink. I think her mother was in on it.”

  “Cool mom.” I didn’t say anything about my own mom. I was beginning to be a little bit less angry with her, but the comparison between Amy’s mom and my own hung in the air before my eyes. What would my mom have done under the same circumstances? She would have blamed me for it. Probably would have said I’d brought it on myself by playing with boys. And she would have left my hair lopsided to teach me a lesson. No. That wasn’t fair. She would have cut my hair to one length so she wouldn’t be embarrassed by how I looked.

  I felt Harper’s hand on my arm. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Just a little sore. Tell me more.”

  “Take your mind off your hurts?”

  “Something like that.

  He told me more stories of the indomitable Amy, enough to fill the entire ride home. “My brother ended up marrying her.” He turned onto Hickory Lane. “So now she’s my sislaw.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what we call each other now that we’re in-laws: sislaw and brolaw.”

  That explained her comment in the hospital. She knew her “brolaw” was going to give me a ride.

  “Here you are. Home sweet home.”

  I looked up and saw Dirk at the front window. If Harper took me inside—as he showed every intention of doing: unfastening my seatbelt, picking up my purse, and helping me out of the car—Dirk would want an explanation, and I was in no mood to juggle two conversations at once. All I wanted to do was lie down.

  I leaned on Harper’s arm a bit harder than I would have thought was necessary.

  “Do you have the key?”

  “It’s unlocked.”

  His eyes widened. I half expected a lecture, but he simply opened the door, which was suddenly filled with an irate Scotsman, waving his dagger and scared out of his wits.

  “I thought ye might be deid!”

  “Harper,” I said, “I’m exhausted. The ride home from the hospital was harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Could ye no have sent a message?”

  How on earth would I send a message to a ghost nobody else can see?

  “I’ll get you tucked in bed and call you later to check on you.” He ushered me through the door and stopped. All the books I’d left lying open for Dirk’s perusal covered the living room floor. It looked like a library had exploded. The afternoon sun slanted through the windows, illuminating various spiderwebs that cloaked the books in silvery glory.

  “I couldna even stop the wee spinners.”

  “That’s okay. Spiders eat bugs.” I tried to shrug, but the movement hurt my neck. “An experiment,” I said to Harper.

  “About spiders?”

  It was easier just to say yes.

  “What do spiders have to do with books?”

  I took a good look at my living room. Tornado damage. That’s what it looked like. “Uh, it was just an idea, but it’s not working very well.”

  “’Twas working verra well until ye were carried off in the carriage with the horrible red flashing lights.”

  “You couldn’t have been bored. You must have read something while I was at the hospital.”

  “Aye.”

  Harper’s eyebrows went up. “No, I was working. I don’t usually read on the job.”

  This was a ridiculous conversation. As lopsided as I felt.

  “Let me lie down on the couch. Oh God! Would you call Gilda and let her know I’m home, so she doesn’t drive to the hospital after she closes the ScotShop?”

  “I already contacted her. Karaline, too.”

  “Good. Karaline will bring dinner over later.” I wouldn’t even have to ask her. I knew she’d be here as soon as the Logg Cabin was closed for the day. She should be along any minute.

  “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  “No. I’m doing okay. I want to take a nap.”

  “Ye should take him up on his offer. Ye look as if ye could use a drop of tea, mayhap with a dollop o’ whiskey in it.”

  I screwed up my face at the thought of it.

  Harper reacted instantly. “What hurts?”

  “Uh, nothing. Just a twinge in my neck.” And the thought of whiskey in my tea. “I’ll be okay once I sleep for a while.”

  He set my purse and the plastic bag on the table behind the front door. “You need a path to get to the couch. Do you mind if I pick up some of these books, or will that mess up your, uh, experiment?”

  “Go ahead. I was on page one for all of them.” As if that had anything to do with spiders.

  He took the ones closest to the couch and removed the assorted utensils that held them propped open. He held out a handful of forks and spoons. “What do you want me to do with these?”

  I studied him to see if he was being sarcastic, but all I saw was polite inquiry. “You can put them in the sink. Thank you,” I added as he moved that direction.

  I heard him whistling “Tea for Two.” Damn him. Why was I just standing here, helpless? I took a brief inventory. Oh. That was why. I felt like if I moved, I’d collapse.

  Harper came back and piled the utensil-free books at the far end of the couch. Four more of the standing books, complete with spiderwebs, graced the middle of the room. One, I noticed, was the English history book Dirk had been reading when I’d left this morning. I raised my hand to my mouth and rubbed my upper lip. As quietly as possible, under cover of my hand I whispered, “Did the spiders spin webs on every book you read?”

  “What did you say?” Harper picked up the books in a path between the couch and me.

  “Nothing, just muttering to myself.” And to my wee ghostie.

  “Aye. I couldna bend down to see a book before there was a wee spinner there.”

  “Creepy,” I breathed. It was a good thing I liked spiders. It looked like I’d be living with quite a few of them from now on.

  Harper lifted the webbed books carefully and moved them one at a time to the little table beside the bay window. “Your bed awaits, madam. Would you like to change first?”

  “No. Karaline will be by later. She can help me. For now, I just want to get prone.” I held out my hand, and he supported me gently along the path he’d created. I sat carefully. He lifted my legs and helped me ease down onto a pillow he’d plumped into place.

  Without my asking, he took the afghan from the back of the couch and spread it over me. Shorty jumped up and settled in beside me. “Are you sure you’ll be all right? Where’s your cell phone?”

&
nbsp; “In my purse.”

  “May I get it out for you?”

  That was nice of him to ask. “Yes.” I considered asking him to hang up my kerchief and bodice so they could dry, but decided not to. Karaline could take care of that.

  He touched the side of my head gently, right beside the bandage. “This new haircut is going to look good.” He paused a heartbeat and grinned. “Almost like Amy’s poodle cut.”

  I winced. At least I didn’t groan.

  He brought me some water, which entailed moving a spider-bedecked book from one of the end tables and setting the glass within my reach. We argued briefly about locking the front door. I refused. I thanked him profusely for everything he’d done, and he finally left but with so many admonitions he sounded like my mother.

  Dirk had been uncharacteristically silent. Now he stepped forward and knelt beside the couch. “Would ye tell me what happened?”

  “The garbage truck hit me,” I said.

  “What would be a garbage truck? I saw it from the window when I heard the great noise, but didna ken what it was.”

  That’s the way it went for the next half hour or so, as I not-so-patiently explained landfills and hospitals and X-rays and white-coated medical staff. After that, I fell asleep, and Dirk had to fend for himself again.

  When I woke, the shawl lay spread across the afghan, tucked gently under my chin.

  Karaline breezed in soon after that, thank goodness, and helped me into the downstairs bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror, leaning on the counter, and unbelted the arisaidh. It fell in a wooly heap around my feet as I untied the chemise. I stretched out the gathers and let it fall. My bruises were getting more spectacular by the hour. They’d gone from a light reddish purple in the hospital to a medium purple with a hint of lavender around the edges. It was a good thing yoga class was still on hold. I couldn’t have crossed my legs if my life depended on it. I wondered how soon after a birth a yoga instructor could return to work. I supposed she’d call us and let us know.

  “Just drop what you’re wearing on the floor and I’ll take care of it all.” Karaline handed in my sleep shirt, my fuzzy slippers, and my terry cloth bathrobe.