by Fran Stewart
Robert, his bearskin hat askew, bounded off the stage. Silla leapt to intercept him, snarling and wrenching the leash from my hand. I charged after her and threw myself onto her as Mr. Stone raised his mace for a vicious downward swing. “You stupid dog!” he yelled. “You gave me away, didn’t you?”
Dirk flew off the stage at Stone and seemed to connect with his legs. The next thing I knew, the mace clattered to the ground next to me, and Mr. Stone was on his back, writhing on the grass. His tall hat had fallen off. Nearby I heard someone say, “Did you see that? Most amazing thing. One minute he was running hell-bent for leather, and the next his legs just went out from under him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“No,” another voice replied. “He was standing still when he fell. Ready to hit that woman with the business end of that stick of his, and it was like somebody tackled him.”
I gathered Silla into my arms and smiled at Dirk, who was adjusting his plaid. “That was a masterful tackle,” I said. In all the confusion, I don’t think anyone else heard me. Silla added a deep-throated woof.
“I didna like the feeling, but ’twas important that he no could hit ye wi’ the wee stick.”
That wee stick was metal-tipped and longer than I was tall.
Fairing ended up being the one who snapped the handcuffs on the drum major. Murphy helped Harper to his feet. Harper limped back onto the stage and—I heard him because I’d edged close to him, wondering why he was so unsteady on his feet—he arrested Windsor Stone. Good. It looked like that man wasn’t going to get away with stealing my necklace. Shay’s necklace, darn it. Within moments Harper had motioned to one of the other police officers to lead Windsor Stone away, while Murphy had the long-haired wife in handcuffs and was herding her out of the meadow, following in the wake of the other two prisoners.
24
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world
Of . . . purposes mistook.
ACT 5, SCENE 2
I can’t say I’d ever wish to see Shay absolutely speechless, but I have to admit to a minor gloat when I saw that she was. Two men in handcuffs, one for murder, one for theft. It did seem like the curse of the Hamelin Highland Festival had landed on Shay’s Games once more.
But Robert? The drum major? Why? How?
“Dirk,” I said, careful to keep my voice quiet and my mouth relatively still as I edged closer to the stage, “I thought you said Windsor did it.”
“Nae. That I didna say. I said his wee wife said she thought he had, but he did deny it.” He fingered the shawl, lifting one edge of it and rubbing the fabric between thumb and forefinger. “I didna believe him, howsoever. He sounded too . . . sincere. I thought ’twas Master Windsor who had done the killing.”
“So did I,” I said. “So did I.”
“I did believe him, howsoever, whan that he did say he was glad to be shut o’ the competition from Large William.”
“Shut? Oh, you mean to be ‘rid of.’”
“‘Shut’ is a much better word, would ye no say?”
But I couldn’t get drawn into a discussion about the relative merits of his language versus my language. I didn’t want anyone to see me talking to a ghost. Not here. Not now. Not when a few people around us were still discussing how the drum major’s feet could have been swept out from under him like that. And anyway, I was even more concerned about Harper. The police officer at the bottom of the stage steps wouldn’t let me through, but I called to Harper as he reached the top of them.
“Are you okay? Why are you limping?”
He stopped in front of me. “Nothing too serious. Just a couple of broken ribs, I think.”
“You think? Did somebody call the paramedics?” I was already pulling out my cell phone.
He put a hand across mine. “I have to get to the station. I’ll have somebody there take a look.”
I doubted that would do much good. “They’ll need to be taped.”
“No, don’t worry. Really. This isn’t anything a good steak dinner won’t cure.”
“What on earth—”
“Or maybe a birthday party.”
“I thought he hit you in the ribs, not in the head.”
He laughed, quickly cut short—I should think so, what with his broken ribs—and headed toward the police station. Silla and I returned to Karaline and Drew’s blanket.
After a quick consultation with her committee, Shay announced in a tight voice that the trophy for the Highland athletic competitions would go to the second-place contender. Once Senator Calais had shaken hands with the winner, Shay cleared her throat. “The People’s Choice trophy”—she gripped the microphone in a white-knuckled fist—“will not be awarded this year, since both the first and second-place honorees are . . .” She shot a quick glance in the direction of the arch through which the police had ushered Robert and Windsor. “Since they are both unable to accept at this time.” I did wonder which one of them had won first place. I supposed I’d never know, as I doubted Shay Stone Burns had any intention of telling me anything.
She switched the microphone from her right hand to her left, and her ring glinted. “And now, in the time-honored tradition of the Hamelin Highland Games, each clan here may send one representative to the starting point of our March of the Clans.” She pointed toward the tall sentinel trees that overshadowed the opening to the Perth Trail, and a number of men—and a few women—began to make their way through the crowded throng. A few ragged cheers erupted, which gradually built into a general round of applause, but it was nowhere near the normal level that usually greeted such announcements.
“While we’re waiting, lads and lassies, you’re welcome to rearrange your chairs to face the stack of wood. Just don’t sit too close to it.” I think this was the first time I’d ever felt sorry for Shay. She was trying so hard, but I could hear the catch of the almost-tears in her throat. Or maybe it was rage at not having gotten her precious necklace back.
Stone was a fairly common last name. If it hadn’t been for Dirk, I never would have made the connection of her being Windsor’s sister. I doubt anybody had. I know she never mentioned it. The only reason I could see what strain she was under was that I knew. I wondered if she’d ever admit to it now.
I noticed, too, that Mrs. Stone was gone. She must have followed her husband to the police station. Andrea still sat in the fancy folding chair, with her bottle of Pepsi in the side holder. She sat as if turned to—oh dear, was I really thinking this?—as if turned to Stone.
Karaline jostled my elbow. “You’re standing there like a statue. Would you like to join the three of us”—she gestured to Dirk and Drew—“while we find a place to watch the bonfire?”
I nodded, but my heart wasn’t in it.
I guess it helps to have two dogs, a six-foot-tall woman, and a man with a wheelchair. Karaline and Drew found an ideal place for us, right in the front ring of the crowd. Karaline and I left plenty of room for Dirk. Silla sat beside my stretched-out feet.
When the procession of the clans finally began, I joined in the collective sigh as we recognized the shape of a coffin being carried by the men who’d competed in the caber toss. It was second in line after Porter Macnaughton, the lone piper, and was followed by a single drummer and the long line of clan leaders. They paced across the field and circled the bonfire. When they finally came to a stop, someone spread out a Clan Farquharson plaid, and the athletes set the coffin on it. Right in front of our blanket.
Someone had set up a portable microphone, and Shay gave a speech about William Bowman, the longtime competitor in the Hamelin Highland Games who had tragically lost his wife four years ago and had not competed since then. Never once did she mention her family connection with the dead man.
She then introduced a man I’d never seen before, the leader of Clan Graham, which had the largest number of attendees at this year’s Hamelin Highland Game
s. “As many of you know,” he said, “Big Willie’s wife was a Graham.” There were cheers from a fairly large contingent of voices. “When he lost his own life so recently, all the Highland Games lost a dear friend, and we choose tonight to honor him by dedicating this closing bonfire to the memory of Big Willie Bowman of Clan Farquharson.”
The crowd was tired of sadness. The cheers started and kept going, particularly after Silla walked almost to the end of her retractable leash and jumped on top of Big Willie’s coffin. Dirk stood and placed himself, like an honor guard, at the foot of his kinsman’s coffin. Silla sat, unmoving, facing the stack of wood that would soon be ablaze. She waited until the cheering died down. After a few moments of utter stillness in which Dirk raised his dagger high above his head in an invisible salute, she raised her head and let out one long howl. Ar-rooooooo. When the echoes died away, she bent her head, licked the coffin once, and jumped down.
There wasn’t a dry eye anywhere. I had never before seen such showmanship.
And then she returned to me.
After all of that, who even needed the fireworks?
* * *
Harper wasn’t surprised when Shay Stone Burns answered his request with alacrity. This was a far cry from the way she’d come grumping into the station at his insistence the last time. A week ago, he wouldn’t have believed that the smiling woman who sat across from him at the small table could possibly have been the same as the grasping woman who had backhanded her sister-in-law so viciously.
He knew, of course, as any police officer knew, that someone could—how had Shakespeare put it?—could smile, and smile, and be a villain, but it was hard to believe that Shay Burns fit into that category. And was she a villain? Certainly not in the same category as Robert, but maybe, most definitely, in the same category as conniving Windsor and Dolores. The trouble was, the necklace would have been in her possession all this time if Robert hadn’t stolen it to begin with ten years before. And, he thought wryly, Robert would have had all the silverware at his disposal. Legally.
Harper couldn’t, of course, tell Fairing or Murphy what had happened in that hotel room. He couldn’t admit he knew anything about that side of the story. He wasn’t even quite sure he believed it himself.
He could, however, make Shay squirm a bit before he told her the truth. And then watch her squirm even more.
He glanced at Fairing, who sat, notebook in hand, in a straight-backed chair against the wall, slightly behind Shay’s line of sight, as if Shay Burns were a suspect here. It almost looked like Fairing didn’t trust this woman.
Fairing had good instincts.
He cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming in when I asked you. This time.” The pause had been minuscule, but Burns heard it. She narrowed one eye, and Harper was reminded again of a pirate in an old cartoon.
“I want my necklace,” she said.
“Thank you for bringing that up. I wanted to talk to you about the disposition of the necklace.”
“It’s mine. You can’t keep it.”
“The necklace that was stolen from the ScotShop’s owner is currently in our custody.”
Shay crossed her arms over her chest. “It was stolen from me. I have a copy of my parents’ wills.”
“Yes, so you say.”
“If that upstart little shopkeeper thinks she can keep my necklace, she has another think coming. I’ll sue her for all she’s worth.”
Harper let the empty threat hang there unanswered. “Sergeant Fairing,” he finally said, “would you please join us here at the table?”
“Yes, sir.”
Shay Burns moved her chair back a few inches when Fairing sat down, as if to distance herself from—what?—contamination?
“Sergeant Fairing, would you explain to Ms. Burns the results of the investigation I asked you to pursue?”
“Yes, sir.” She set down her notebook and pulled a sheaf of papers from a nondescript black briefcase. “Pursuant to your orders . . .”
She was enjoying this, Harper could tell.
“After consulting with a noted museum expert, I instituted a thorough Internet search for Ming dynasty silver-and-ivory jewelry.”
Shay’s leg began to twitch against the table leg. Harper could feel the table jouncing. “Internet? Museum?” Shay said. “What’s this all about?”
Harper raised an index finger. “This will take only a few moments, Ms. Burns. Please continue, Sergeant Fairing.”
“The necklace in question appears to be the only known example of this type of necklace in existence. Its provenance has been traced through hundreds of years—would you like the exact number?”
“That’s not necessary, Sergeant.”
“What’s necessary”—Shay practically spit out the words—“is that you tell me exactly when I’m going to get my necklace.”
“Exactly?” Harper kept his voice even, although he felt like cheering. This was going so well.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Fairing, would you care to answer that question?”
“Yes, sir.” She turned to face Shay Stone Burns and uttered one word. “Never.”
Shay’s face turned an ugly shade of red that migrated into an even uglier shade of purple. Well, mauve maybe. Harper liked that word, mauve. But he did hope Shay Stone Burns wouldn’t have a stroke while he and Fairing were here watching her.
“Never? What do you mean, never? It’s my necklace, you . . . you pipsqueak! It’s mine—do you hear me?”
“I think probably everyone in the station hears you, Ms. Burns, but my answer remains the same.”
“You’re stealing my necklace!”
“Oh, you certainly would be welcome to have it,” Fairing said, “if you are willing to purchase it from the rightful owner, the Chinese Art Museum, from which the necklace was stolen in 1957. The most recent appraisal of its value is slightly over seven point two million dollars. I’m sure they’d be happy to accommodate your request to open negotiations.”
“You’re crazy—do you hear me? My father bought that necklace in 1970. I remember the day he brought it home. And I inherited it.”
Harper thought it best for him to intervene. “Your father bought a stolen necklace, Ms. Burns, and it will be returned to the rightful owner. We do not at this time know whether your father was aware it was stolen, although I can’t see how he could have missed that detail. Nor do we know whether your father was a party to the original theft and simply kept the necklace hidden until 1970. But we have turned over the information we’ve gathered to the FBI and an international art authority. They will pursue the investigation from here on.”
“You can’t do this! That necklace is mine.” She lashed out across the corner of the table at Fairing, but Harper was ready for her. He blocked her arm just inches before the diamond made contact with Fairing’s face, just as Fairing’s forearm collided with his hand. She’d been ready as well.
He’d been wrong. Fairing’s instincts weren’t good. They were great.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He’d always wanted to use those three little syllables. This seemed like the perfect time. “Assaulting an officer? You wouldn’t want us to handcuff you, would you?”
“And, Ms. Burns?” Fairing said in a sweet voice. “I’ll be looking into the provenance of that diamond as well.”
Shay sputtered.
“And the ruby. And the tea service.”
“The tea service,” Shay growled, “was stolen.”
“Ah, but we recovered it,” Harper said.
“Where was it?”
Harper inclined his head in an easterly direction. “In Arkane. In a five-by-ten self-storage unit, the kind your brother—how did you put it?—isn’t able to find his way out of.”
Fairing gave him a funny look. Shay’s look was priceless. Let her wonder for the rest of her life how he knew what
she’d said about her brother. Of course, she’d probably just think Dolores had told him. What a shame to have a ghost and not be able to brag about him.
When Harper was fairly certain Shay wouldn’t lash out again, he let go of her arm and asked if she had any questions.
“Yes,” she hissed. “How did that . . . Peggy Winn get it?”
“Someone stole it from the museum in 1957; your father bought—or stole—it from that person either in or before 1970; Robert stole it and all those other valuable items from your father. He took the necklace one day to deliver it to a, shall we say, private collector, but he was waylaid by a couple of street thugs before he reached his destination and was robbed at gunpoint. Needless to say, Robert never received payment for it and naturally, he chose not to report the theft.”
He waited a moment in case Shay wanted to make a comment.
She didn’t.
“That thief obviously didn’t know what he had,” Harper continued. “He may have pawned it, but it’s more likely he simply sold it on the street, since a pawn shop owner would know about the laws regulating ivory and probably wouldn’t touch a piece without proof of its provenance. From there we’re not sure, but we do know that Ms. Winn bought it at a flea market in Montpelier for . . .” He smiled. This really was priceless. “Three dollars.”
25
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this . . . shows much amiss.
ACT 5, SCENE 2
I always closed the ScotShop on Mondays, and I had kind of hoped we could have a meeting that first day after the arrests, all of us who were involved in the final resolution, to discuss what the heck had happened. I know I still had a jillion questions. But it simply didn’t happen.
Despite what Dirk said, I took Silla to the vet early Monday morning. I didn’t like the way she’d sounded so hoarse on Saturday. He said he could feel a badly swollen place, about the size of her rabies tag, on her throat. Neither one of us could think of what might have caused it, unless maybe her collar had gotten caught somehow as she was wriggling her way through the wall. I spent pretty much the rest of the day around the house, talking things over with Dirk and comforting Silla. I texted Harper a couple of times. Told him about taking Silla to the vet. Mentioned that I didn’t want to bother him, but I did have some questions.