by Molly Macrae
“I assume the police were able to contact her kin,” he said, “but as far as I know, there’s no one left locally to really mourn her. Quite frankly, after all the years she wrote her column, I’m ashamed to know so little.”
“She made our business her business,” a woman at the next table said, “but she didn’t share much of her own.”
“She kept her personal and professional lives separate,” the man with her said, “and nothing wrong with that.”
Uncomfortable murmurs rose and fell around them; then a woman said she would miss Una’s column. Others agreed, and then there was laughter over the old stories of Una writing the letters as well as the answers.
“The column isn’t going away, though,” James said. He introduced Summer, and there was some interest, and perhaps skepticism, in hearing that she was going to take Una’s place.
Janet wondered again if being known as the “new Una” was such a good thing. She typed that question into the cloud, and then looked up when the door opened. Being lookout required little of her; she didn’t recognize most of the people who came and went. But this time she did. Kenneth Lawrie walked in, gap-toothed smile absent, returning no greetings.
Janet texted Tallie, across the table from her.
meet me at the bar? talk to k?
“We’ll keep it short and sweet,” Janet said when Tallie joined her. “Thank him for the whisky and tartan.”
“Ask him for haggis and an unfair game of darts?”
“Wheesht.”
Kenneth sat at the bar with his glass, apparently more interested in staring into it than drinking. Janet and Tallie ignored the barricade presented by his hunched shoulders.
“Nice to see you, Kenneth,” Janet said. “Is Pamela with you?”
“Packing.”
“How’s that going?” Tallie asked.
“Endless organizing. Escaping for the time being.”
“That’s smart,” Janet said. “Big changes take an awful lot of energy. You need to build downtime into all that organizing, just to stay sane.”
The door opened again, and from Kenneth’s quick look toward it, Janet wondered if now he wanted to escape from them. The man who came in had a smooth collie with him. The man greeted Danny and took a seat farther down the bar. His dog sat beside him gazing at the occupied tables, giving the impression of being knowing but aloof.
“We won’t keep you, Kenneth,” Janet said. “We thanked Pamela, but we wanted to thank you, too, for the time you gave us.”
“And for what you left in the filing drawer,” Tallie said. “That’s a great shop-warming gift. Warming in more ways than one.”
“Have you opened it yet?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“When you do, raise a glass, and wish us all luck.” He looked down the bar toward the man laughing with Danny. “I think we’ll need it.”
James Haviland hadn’t moved from where they’d left him. He’d put his bad ankle up on an adjoining chair. His hands, fingers knitted, rested on his stomach, and his glasses had slid down his nose. He looked like someone’s uncle, comfortable after a holiday meal.
“Do you know who that is at the bar?” Janet asked him. “Down at the end, talking to Danny.”
James looked over his shoulder. “One of the specialists in for the investigation,” he said. “Reddick.”
“Huh.” Coincidence? Janet wondered. Or is he keeping an eye on Kenneth?
While she pondered, Paul McCartney started into “The Long and Winding Road.”
“And there’s my cue,” James said. “It’s been a long and winding day, as so many of them seem to be lately.” He swallowed the last of his drink and stood to go. “Friday afternoon?” he said to Summer.
“I’ll be there.”
“Good night, all.”
“Mind you don’t fall off the curb,” someone called, and someone else called, “Good night, Scotty.”
James turned in the doorway and waved.
22
Leaving Nev’s took some effort and the last smile of patience Janet had. But she didn’t want to leave Christine on her own to get Helen and David to the car park. They were tottery at the best of times, and after a convivial evening, they were more dangerous. And Helen had become unhappy with “that bossy woman who’s been following us.” Tallie finally convinced Christine to bring the car to Nev’s door while the rest of them got Helen and David safely moving.
“She might even give you a tip,” Tallie said, “if she thinks you’re a valet.”
“How will you manage when you get them home?” Janet asked.
“One foot forward and one old dear into the house at a time,” Christine said. “And a nightcap for the valet.”
After they’d driven off, Christine with a wave that made Elizabeth II look hounded but resolute, Janet uncorked and let herself flow.
“Reddick!” she said. “It must mean something that he’s in there. Otherwise, how did he even find the place? He came in very soon after Kenneth, and Kenneth gave him a look. A look like he knew something was up. Like he’s being watched and knows it. But James! He must be the Scotty in the letters. And his attitude did a one-eighty when he saw Reddick. Comfortable one second, up and out the door the next. Reddick didn’t follow, though, so my bet’s that he’s watching Kenneth, who said something very interesting and dark about needing luck. Oh. But I wonder if Reddick does plan to follow James. But it’s too late. He’s nowhere in sight. If we go back in, I wonder if we can get him to tell us anything.”
“Who?” Tallie asked
“Reddick. Who did you think I was talking about?”
“Several people. Let’s walk while we talk.”
“But—”
“Less likely to attract attention,” Summer said.
Janet put a hand over her mouth, then took it away and said, “Attention of the wrong kind.” She put her hand back on her mouth and started walking, going the long way around the block, past Smith Funerals rather than past the Inversgail Guardian building. None of them spoke again until they’d turned the corner. “I have a lot to learn about investigations,” Janet said then.
“For someone who wanted me to text my whereabouts while I was in the next room,” Tallie said, “yes, that was a curious lapse of judgment back there.”
“I warned you about what happens when I get excited.”
“No apparent harm done,” Summer said.
“Reddick, though,” Janet said. “I’m sure it means something, and that James bolted when he showed up.”
“Hardly bolted,” Summer said. “Or the same could be said of us. He arrived. We left.”
“You do think James should be considered a suspect, though, don’t you?”
“I’m just saying that not everything is cause and effect. Besides, do you really think he could’ve killed Una with a . . . in that way? Wouldn’t his ankle make it hard for him to sneak up behind her or overpower her?”
“Maybe that’s why he’s limping,” Janet said.
“He fell off a stage.”
“So he says. Maybe he twisted his ankle fleeing the scene.”
“I think there were enough witnesses at the ceilidh to prove it,” Summer said.
“Sometimes it takes a day or two for an ankle to get really sore. Maybe he knows that from experience and he’s using it.”
“But how would he benefit from killing Una?” Summer asked. “Her column was hugely popular.”
Tallie had stayed out of the argument, instead acting as guide for the two bickering behind her. But their voices rose as they approached the High Street, and she put up a hand, like a traffic warden, to stop them.
“We won’t exactly be buffeted by crowds when we turn the corner,” she said, “but if I might make a suggestion? Either keep your voices down, or pretend as though you’re discussing a book you’ve read so you don’t alarm or libel anyone. Throw in words like protagonist and villain and we should be good. Agreed?”
“That mi
ght be a technique to use in the shop,” Janet said. “I wonder if that could work, or will people want to know the title so they can buy it?”
“Maybe we should try writing it,” Summer said.
“Come on, you two.”
Janet tried out the book discussion scheme immediately. “On the surface of it—of the story—James, as the villain, didn’t benefit. But that raises the question of why any of the characters had it in for the victim. Who did benefit? Was she killed because of advice she gave?”
“No, sorry,” Summer said. “This won’t work for me.”
“She’s right,” Janet said. “Besides, who’s the protagonist?”
“Beats me,” Tallie said, “but it got you to stop arguing. Do you want a tot of something when we get back?”
“I’ll pass,” Janet said. “I want to read the letters more carefully. We had a Kenny and a Scotty at Nev’s tonight. I’m going to keep looking for answers.”
“Summer?” Tallie asked.
“It’s an invasion of privacy.”
“I meant do you want a tot.”
“It isn’t an invasion of privacy,” Janet said, “because the expectation of privacy was lost when the letters were left in the recipe box.”
“But we don’t know if the person who wrote them is the person who left them,” Summer said. “If they aren’t one and the same, then the person who wrote them deserves to have his or her privacy protected until which time the letters can be returned.”
“In which case we should read them so that we can make a good-faith effort to get them back to whoever did write them,” Janet said.
“I think I deserve two tots for putting up with both of you,” Tallie said.
Along with so many other new things in Janet’s life, since the move to Inversgail she had a new morning routine. Back in Illinois, she’d read the paper or scanned online news, cup of coffee in one hand, breakfast utensil in the other—if she’d had time to eat. She’d checked the weather on several sites, read the front page, scanned the obits, hurried through the op-ed, slowed down for the few book reviews she ran across. What she absorbed from print or screen before rushing out the door to join the stream of other drivers running late often set the tenor for the rest of the day. A day spent hemmed in by the books she loved, but with very little interaction with the sky.
By contrast, Janet’s morning routine in Inversgail consisted of getting out of bed and looking out the window.
The morning after their visit to Nev’s, after gazing her fill at her new world, Janet felt a centering balance in her life. Her view of sea and sky refreshed her enough that she only barely begrudged firing up her laptop, rehashing the questions of the night before, and adding new ones. Maybe another look and a refreshed perspective would give her a balanced view of their suspects. She wasn’t sure that thinking of suspects on a balance board was the best way to look at them, but for now, with no clear evidence against any of them, it seemed to make sense. It was like balancing pros and cons before making a major decision.
Weighing down one end of the balance board were Ian Atkinson, Jess Baillie, and Lauren Pollard—each with a reason to be angry, if not violently furious with Una. Ian’s efforts to start a distillery had been thwarted by her. Jess felt personally bedeviled by her and thought she posed a threat to her real estate business. Lauren blamed her for ruining her marriage. Janet had seen clear signs that Jess was teetering on the edge, and it was easy to believe she might snap. But Jess’s reaction when she suddenly realized the murderer could have been in the house with her seemed completely genuine. They had a letter written to an Ian, but it didn’t contain enough details for Janet to be sure it was written to Ian Atkinson. They hadn’t found letters to Jess or Lauren. But what if there had been and they’d been removed? How could they know? And the garbage—either Jess or Lauren could have dumped it.
Balanced in the middle were Kenneth Lawrie and James Haviland. At first glance, Kenneth was likeable. But he had a temper and he threatened people. At Nev’s it looked as though he might have attracted Reddick’s interest. The letter written to Kenny included a list of inconsequential, almost laughable sins, but also the lines “The one time I asked you to be there for me, you suddenly had better things to do. Taking a day trip to Aviemore isn’t better than helping a friend in crisis (especially as your trip wasn’t with your wife).” The Kenny of the letter might not be Kenneth Lawrie, but Pamela had called him Kenny on at least one occasion. James also came across as a pleasant fellow. But he’d worked with Una for close to twenty years yet didn’t know the names or whereabouts of her children. What did that say about him, her, or their working relationship? The letter to Scotty, which now seemed likely to have been written to James, talked of bitterness at being passed over for promotions and mentioned his “fear of crossing lines, including lines in the sand,” and “being a grass when it counted most to be loyal.”
Opposite the heavy end of the balance board were Sharon Davis, Rosie Crozier, and Lauren Pollard’s unfaithful husband, Neil. But they were such featherweights on their end of the board that in the bright light of day, Janet wondered why she didn’t remove them and let the board tip . . . Except this was information, and in her experience, information helped light the way toward answers.
Sharon shed tears for Una one day and spoke contemptuously of her the next. The letter to Sharon complained that she’d purposely given the wrong amount of baking powder in a recipe for lemon butter biscuits, and several people in Nev’s had remarked on the quality of the lemon biscuits Sharon Davis served at library functions. Janet didn’t think for a minute that being chastised for a purposely inaccurate recipe would incite anyone named Sharon to murder, but the detail confirmed for her that the letter was addressed to Sharon Davis. As for Rosie, unless she’d put the letters in the tearoom herself, didn’t finding them there point to her innocence? Because if the letters shed any kind of light on the murder, then why would the murderer want them found? And except for the knowledge that Neil Pollard worked for the ferry and was susceptible to older women, he was an unknown quantity.
All of this pointed only to the fact that they were woefully short on motives. Before closing her laptop, Janet typed four more questions into the cloud. Was Una killed because she was in the shed? Because of advice she gave (and/or the way she gave it)? Because of something in one of the letters? Who had opportunity?
There was one question bothering her that she didn’t add to the cloud—could their infant partnership withstand the stress of looking for a murderer? She knew Tallie and Christine and was sure of them. But after arguing with Summer on the way home from Nev’s, she felt less sure of her. Were the arguments a sign of the tension Una had asked about? How much tension could they take? The arguments hadn’t been terrible. But any cracks appearing in the foundation of their partnership should be cause for concern, and tended to. There was too much at stake for all of them, financially and emotionally, to do otherwise.
Janet listened for any sound of Tallie or Summer stirring in their rooms. Hearing none, she went back to the window to reboot her morning.
“It’s about time you came down,” Tallie said. “We’ve been up and doing for more than an hour. Summer made scones.”
Telling her about the scones hadn’t been necessary. Janet had knocked on their doors, thinking she was waking them from a sound sleep, and then smelled the scones as soon as she’d hit the stairs. She’d followed the heavenly scent to the freshly painted tearoom, where she’d found Tallie and Summer and a table set for three with the scones and a pot of tea. Summer smiled as she poured Janet a cup.
“I’m glad to see your smile this morning,” Janet said, “and overjoyed to see the scones.” She took an appreciative sniff of the pastry Tallie put on her plate.
“Test-driving the kitchen might as well start today,” Summer said. “Plus, it occurred to me that we should’ve searched it after Rosie found the envelopes. We came down to do that.”
Janet looked toward
the kitchen.
“We didn’t find anything,” Tallie said. “So we walked to Paudel’s and bought ingredients.”
“When we told Basant we were making scones, he printed off three recipes.” Summer pushed them across the table. “I started with the classic. I’ll branch out from there.”
“How did the kitchen test-drive?” Janet asked.
“I need to spend more time in it,” Summer said. “Do some production baking. Get Christine in there, too, so we get used to moving around each other, but I think it’s going to work. We should be ready in time for an inspection and then a soft opening before the lit fest. But I’d like to hire out for a deep cleaning.”
“That makes sense.”
“I thought so,” Tallie said. “So I called Cosy Cleaners.”
“Oh, very good,” Janet said. “And you asked about Jess’s cancellation?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know why I thought we’d get a different answer than Jess did. As far as they’re concerned, Jess called and cancelled. They’re coming to clean the tearoom; otherwise, it’s a dead end.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say dead end, dear.”
Ian Atkinson, in a tweed jacket complete with suede elbow patches, graced Yon Bonnie Books with a visit that morning. His presence didn’t cause a minor stir with the browsing customers. Whether he’d hoped it would, Janet couldn’t tell. It didn’t cause a stir among the staff, either. Janet was the only one who saw him come in. Christine and Summer were working in the tearoom, door closed so no one thought they were open for business. Tallie had just come from the tearoom and was offering tea and scones to Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. Janet had wanted to watch the old woman’s reaction, but instead she greeted Ian. For another customer, she might have come out from behind the sales desk, but after her experience the day before, she decided she liked the desk as a bulwark between them.
“Good to see you, Ian.”
“You’re kind to say so. I’ve come to apologize for my abominable behavior yesterday.” He stopped short of the desk by five or six feet and cast a few glances over his shoulders. No one had come to gawk.