by Hannah Reed
I was going to take Kirstine down single-handedly.
CHAPTER 15
When I arrived at the farm, Vicki was in what she refers to as her yarning room, a small bedroom that she’d converted for her own use. There she had created her Poppy Red yarn skeins, dying and spinning them from the farm’s wool. Ordinarily, her presence in this room would be an encouraging sign. She could usually be found there wearing an apron and a pair of yellow gloves, surrounded by sponges, and brushes, and all the other tools of her trade. Today, she sat at her painting table, apronless, with her two Westies sleeping at her feet and her hands clasped together on the table as she stared listlessly into space.
Coco and Pepper perked up at my arrival and ran over, discovering plentiful odors on my pant legs to indulge their canine senses. Vicki glanced up, did a double take, and said, “What happened to you?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said, heading for the kitchen where I washed my hands at the sink while making a mental list of future investigation supplies to purchase. Disposable gloves were at the top of the list. Vicki followed me at a distance, but the Westies were right on my heels, loving the new me. “I need a shower and a change of clothes,” I told her unnecessarily.
Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she said, “I’ll agree with that.” Then she slunk back to her yarn room, shoulders hunched, dragging her feet.
I trailed behind, drying my hands on a towel. Coco and Pepper were right with me.
Vicki plunked down and said, “I’ve decided to end the skein-of-the-month club. After what happened to Isla, I can’t continue it.”
My eyes traveled over her worktables, taking in the batches of wool in varying stages of completion. Vicki had a knack for turning wool into beautiful fiber, and I enjoyed watching the process, from sorting and washing to carding (which she told me means combing the wool to straighten the strands), then dying the fleece before spinning it into yarn.
“You can’t give up,” I told her.
“I have.”
“And look how that decision has affected you. You’ve thrown in the towel.” In my frustration, I literally threw the kitchen towel down on the table. “How does that make you feel? Pretty awful, right?”
Vicki stared at me with wide eyes, before sputtering, “It’s too late anyway. I couldn’t possibly be ready by October first.”
“So, you regroup. Notify your members. Shoot for November.”
Vicki shook her head. “I can’t.”
But I wasn’t about to give up yet. “I have an idea! This month’s kits will be released for distribution at some point, after the murder is solved. We’ll send them once that happens, or not at all if you think that’s best. And we’ll notify the members that the club will resume in November. Or even December. That gives you time to make enough skeins for all the knitters on your waiting list, too.”
“I don’t know.”
Well, at least that wasn’t a no.
“How about mittens? Holiday mittens. And . . .”
“No red yarn!” Vicki was listening.
“No red,” I agreed. “Blue? Green? Silver? All three?”
I could see the beginning of renewed interest in her eyes. They weren’t dull anymore.
“Apple green, lime, and a sunshine yellow,” she said. “That would be a great combination.”
“Perfect.”
“And I’ll call them Merry Mittens!”
“That’s the spirit.”
“I need to get to work.”
Vicki had her groove back.
“I made some calls,” she said as she draped plastic over her painting table, already inspired to begin. It took me a few seconds to realize we were back on the subject of this month’s yarn kits. “No one has received them yet.” She paused and frowned in thought. “It seems odd. They should have arrived by now.”
“They’ll turn up,” I assured her. Now that I’d put a smile back on her face, I wasn’t going to turn around and wipe it off. Besides, Vicki would find out soon enough that Kirstine hadn’t mailed the kits. Knowing Vicki and her tumultuous relationship with her half sister, I didn’t want her to blow her stack and interfere with my own takedown of Kirstine.
I left my friend to begin her new project, showered at my cottage (much to the chagrin of Coco and Pepper, who’d insisted on accompanying me to my tiny home), and then I walked down the lane toward the shop.
Why Kirstine had done what she’d done—or rather, not done—was easy to figure out. She’d obviously wanted to sabotage Vicki’s efforts to get the yarn club off the ground. Kirstine didn’t want her half sister to succeed. Her actions had been vindictive and petty and she was about to pay for being so mean-spirited.
Where would she have stashed those packages? I’d bet anything they were still in the back of the shop or in the trunk of her car. In the boot, as the Scots call it. What foreign words the people of this country use, or at least they’re strange to an American like me—boot instead of trunk, bonnet instead of hood, petrol instead of gas, and that’s only the car terms.
Anyway, I’d have to get into the back room of the shop, because I was positive I wasn’t going to get that search warrant, in spite of my wishful thinking. If the unmailed kits weren’t there, then I’d have to figure out how to search her trunk.
For a fleeting moment, I considered stepping aside and handing this over to the inspector. That would be the most practical choice. But the conflict with Kirstine had turned personal for me. Kirstine had been nasty to my friend. I wanted to see justice served in my own way. So, I headed toward Sheepish Expressions for a showdown.
I saw volunteers out in the fields, dismantling the large refreshment tent, disassembling gates and pens, and picking up litter. If the event had gone off as planned, without the tragedy of murder, I would’ve been out there with them. But things had gone more than a little awry. Instead, I was about to have a confrontation over the willful withholding of information pertinent to the investigation.
Life takes strange turns sometimes.
A compact car pulled up next to me on the side of the lane, and Lily Young climbed out of the driver’s seat of an aqua blue Mazda, while Oliver Wallace unfolded from the passenger side. He was wearing the same gray Wellies with yellow soles that he’d worn for the trials, but he had a deflated air about him today, far from the self-assurance he’d displayed Saturday morning.
I wasn’t exactly pleased to see them. After all, I was on a personal vendetta mission, and they were about to slow me down.
“Oliver’s been whining about helping today,” Lily informed me, and I couldn’t help noticing that she was glowing, in spite of her lack of any sort of makeup. Her nose was in the process of peeling, but the glow radiating from her didn’t have anything to do with too many rays. I’d seen the same shine on Sean recently. Interesting.
The sun above wasn’t nearly as bright as the light from this woman, despite her less-than-sunny words. “Oliver is coming up with all kinds o’ reasons tae avoid manual labor,” she continued with a flirt in her voice, “but I told him the only people with valid excuses are Bryan and Andrea, who has her hands full caring fer her brother. She’s always been there fer him, more like a mum than a sister. And she’s putting her nursing skills tae good use these days, having takin’ time off from her duties at the hospice.”
“It’s not helping out that has me bothered,” Oliver told her. “It’s having tae sit in the passenger seat o’ yer cracker box. I’ve never been good at shrinkin’ back down tae the size o’ a peanut, or ant, or some such thing.”
Lily giggled. “Yes, I noticed. And ye’re a horrible backseat driver.”
“When will the police release your van?” I asked Oliver, noting that his sunburn had already faded away completely and been replaced by the kind of tan that Leith had, an outdoorsy one. Lucky Oliver. Most Scots just burned and peeled, and never real
ly tanned.
“If the coppers know when they’ll part with my van, they aren’t informing me,” he replied. “Until then I’m at the mercy o’ this mad driver.”
Lily beamed. Did she have something for Oliver? If so, how had I missed that during the fund-raiser? Probably because I had been more interested in ditching the welcoming committee than being part of it, I admitted. But if Lily did have romantic feelings for Oliver, I wasn’t sure he’d noticed. My initial frustration with Lily and Oliver disappeared. Kirstine wasn’t going any place until the shop closed and that was hours away. I had time for these two.
“I’m thinking I will have tae trade in the van after what happened,” he said to me. “I get a sick sensation in the pit o’ my stomach every time I think o’ you opening the side door and Isla . . .”
He couldn’t go on at that point, pausing to compose himself. Lily placed a hand on his shoulder. Oliver reached up and put a hand over hers and said, “You’re a good hen, Lily.” Then he moved away a few steps, straightened his back, and said to me, “Have ye seen Harry Taggart?”
I glanced out into the field. “He could be in the field with the others. I haven’t been out there yet myself.”
“He should be around here someplace.” Lily scanned the field. “That looks like his truck on the far side.” She pointed to a vehicle I recognized. I’d seen Harry driving it around the village. Then she went on, “Harry isn’t too pleased with our fund-raising efforts. He’s disheartened by the returns.”
“But everything sold out!” I said, stunned. “Programs, food, drinks, the raffles were successful, we had more spectators than we originally anticipated. I thought it was a huge success.”
“I agree,” she said. “It appeared tae be the best fund-raiser o’ the lot; I don’t know what more he expected.”
“I believe Harry was speaking about prior events,” Oliver said. “He couldn’t possibly have a financial report on this one so soon.”
Lilly scowled. “Well, instead o’ complaining, he should count himself lucky fer his hospice that Isla’s body dinnae turn up until late in the event,” she said, “or he’d’ve been unhappier still.”
Oliver’s face registered shock. “Lily! What a thing tae say!”
“Well, it’s true. If we’d found her in the morning, our fund-raising efforts woulda ended before they even began.”
Oliver looked concerned. “Well, ye shouldn’t say things like that out loud, fer goodness’ sake. The inspector will turn his sights on ye and ye’ll have some answering tae do. Or Eden here will get the wrong idea. She’s workin’ with the inspector, ye know.”
“I never made it a secret that I couldn’t stand her.” Lily sniffed.
“But ye don’t have tae announce it tae the world, either.”
Lily looked as though she may have gone too far. “I only meant . . .” She didn’t finish.
“Why didn’t you like her?” I asked.
“You knew her. Did you like her?”
Good point.
“We simply had a clash o’ personality,” Lily explained. “Ever since we were wee children. Surely, ye can understand that, Oliver.”
As a new law enforcement recruit, it was fascinating to watch the interplay between Lily and Oliver. Working from a professional point of view was turning out to be enlightening. Common sense dictated that I shouldn’t indulge in idle gossip. However, I had free rein to encourage locals to inform on one another, and I wasn’t beyond instigating conflict amongst them. I considered this as Oliver gave Lily a conciliatory hug. She practically dove into his arms. He remained expressionless.
Hoping to dredge up more of that lively conflict and possibly learn something of value, I addressed Oliver. “Who do you think murdered Isla?” I asked him.
“The husband,” Oliver said without any hesitation. He’d already decided. “Bryan Lindsey.”
Poor Bryan was the default suspect. I was curious if there was a particular reason for Oliver’s certainty. “And why do you think that?” I asked.
“Isla and himself were at the Kilt & Thistle Friday night,” Oliver said. “Havin’ quite the row in one of the back corners. They weren’t lovey-dovey and smiling at each other, that’s fer sure.”
That was the same thing Charlotte had mentioned this morning as having made the gossip rounds.
“Isla Lindsey never smiled once in her whole life,” Lily pointed out. “Looking angry was standard fer her.”
“You actually saw them together at the pub?” I asked Oliver. An actual witness to the scene rather than a secondhand informant would be helpful. “Or did you hear about it from somebody else?”
“I saw them with my very own twenty-twenty-vision eyes. I couldn’t hear what they were speaking about, but if looks could kill . . . Bryan woulda done her in right there on the spot. I’ve never seen him look so angry.”
“Have you shared this with the inspector?” I asked, thinking I needed to follow up with Dale and Marg, the pub owners. One of them might be able to give me more detailed information.
“Course I told him. Right after we found Isla, when the inspector was questioning the lot o’ us. You’d already gone up the lane, Eden, so ye weren’t privy tae that.”
Ah, yes, after I’d been dismissed. What else had I missed? “How about you, Lily? Do you think Bryan killed his wife?”
“Not a bit.” She shook her head, adamant that Isla’s husband wasn’t an option. I had to give her credit. Even if she’d set her sights on Oliver, it wasn’t preventing her from speaking her mind and disagreeing with him. “Bryan never woulda done such a thing. He is kind and gentle with his sister, and goes tae visit his mum in the nursing home every Sunday, and a man like that, well, he cannae be the same man who killed Isla.”
“You’re assuming the murder was committed by a man?” I asked, wondering if the news about the sleeping pill had gotten out yet.
Oliver answered for her. “Aye. A woman doesn’t have that kind o’ strength.”
I studied Lily and Oliver while they discussed the merits of his belief that only a man could have strangled Isla. So far it seemed the inspector had been successful in withholding certain details from the general public. The cupcake sprinkled with crushed sleeping pills was still a secret known only to a few of us investigating the case. And, of course, to the killer.
My thoughts turned to the sort of person who felt the need to offer the victim that cupcake as a prelude to murder. That act, more than anything, made me suspect a female killer now that more information was available. It just didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would occur to a man. Men are so much stronger than women, especially in their upper bodies; a man probably wouldn’t have worried about Isla Lindsey putting up a fight. Plus, sexist though it might seem, between the cupcakes, frosting sprinkles, and the Poppy Red yarn, this murder seemed to have a woman’s touch. At least I thought it did.
Let go of preconceived ideas, Eden, I chastised myself. Men didn’t always choose violence, shooting or stabbing their adversaries through the heart, or slicing open throats. And women didn’t always avoid bloodshed by concocting poisons or pressing pillows over faces.
“We’d best get some work done,” Lily said, “before it’s all over.” She grinned at Oliver. “Come along now.”
“As long as I don’t have tae get back in that vehicle,” Oliver quipped. “I’ll agree tae anything.”
After leaving Lily and Oliver, I was just about to finally storm Sheepish Expressions, when my cell phone rang.
It was Sean. “I thought we should coordinate our efforts,” he said. “What are ye up tae?”
“Interviewing some people,” I said, intentionally keeping my movements vague, as I realized I was behaving exactly like the inspector would. “What are you doing?”
“I’m startin’ tae drive the countryside gatherin’ yarn kits that had been posted.�
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“Hold off a bit,” I told him, planning to save him wasted time and petrol. “I’ll get back to you shortly. Very shortly.”
“Wha’ are you? Me new boss?”
“Fine. Have at it.” And I disconnected.
At least it would keep him out of my way for a while.
CHAPTER 16
Monday tends to be the slowest day of the week at Sheepish Expressions. Saturdays and Sundays are busiest, with tour buses arriving one after the other; then comes a lull during the first days of the week with a slow buildup again as the week progresses. With summer winding down, business had fallen off substantially.
So it wasn’t surprising to find the parking lot practically empty.
Before entering the shop, I tested the doors of Kirstine’s car. Alas, they were locked, as I’d expected. Peering through the windows didn’t produce anything of interest, either.
I considered my options. There weren’t many. So I took a deep breath, reminded myself to stay cool, calm, and collected, opened the door to Sheepish Expressions, and ventured inside to do a little snooping.
“Not you again!” Kirstine said when she looked up from a pile of knitting needles she was organizing by size. Her dismissive attitude almost sent me into a fit of anger before I’d even begun.
I forced a smile. “Thought I’d pick out some yarn,” I said, heading for the opposite side of the room where barrels, baskets, and nooks and crannies were brimming with soft, colorful skeins of yarn. Several customers were browsing at a table filled with folded scarves. Another was sifting through a stack of tartan skirts.
“Since when do you knit?” Kirstine asked.
“Since . . . um . . . Vicki offered to teach me.”
Just like that, Kirstine lost interest and went back to what she’d been doing with the knitting supplies when I walked in. A fly, or as the Scots called the most annoying insects, a wee midgie, would have gotten more attention than she was paying to me.