He looked up from the pad. “I can’t get a made-to-order kilt from Scotland in time for the Ligonier Highland Games in two weeks. I figure I’m paying for speed as much as anything. You’re not backing out on me, are you?”
“Not at all. This will be a fabulous challenge for me. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with the cost.”
He waved his hand dismissively, scattering more flecks of haggis. “Cost, schmost. With a little more practice and a proper kilt, I can start playing the funeral circuit. Half a dozen renditions of ‘Amazing Grace’ and I’ve paid for the whole thing.”
“Okay.” I held a pen out to him. “I just need you to sign here, and I’ll need half for the deposit. I’ll order the fabric right away.” I wiped the pen on the hem of his apron after he signed, and then I scrolled through the fabric website on my phone. “This is the tartan fabric I’m ordering. I’m choosing the heavyweight wool and making you an eight-yard kilt, so it will turn out to be a lot nicer than the one you’ve got now.”
“Practically a first down,” Corgi said with a chuckle.
It took me a minute to realize he was making a football reference. I was just glad he wasn’t freaked out by the cost in the sober light of day. “I’ll also need to take your measurements before I can get started sewing.”
He held out both arms, as if I were going to break out the measuring tape in the middle of the kitchen.
“I can wait until you get the haggis into the oven, then take your measurements.” I edged out of the kitchen before he could object.
“Hey, Daria!” Corgi called after me. “What’s the story with Aileen?”
I turned back around. “The police are holding her on suspicion of murder. Pete says she refused to tell them about her history with Ladd Foster, so they think she might be guilty. Or else they’re just making her sweat—as if that would work with Aileen. I haven’t heard anything from her yet today. Pete and I are going to stop by the jail later this afternoon.”
He nodded. “Our gig was a disaster last night. Aileen’s the only one in the band who sings, so we couldn’t do any songs with vocals. Then we forgot about her guitar solo in ‘Rage the Stage,’ so there was a huge hole in the middle of that tune. We’re supposed to play at the ceilidh tonight. I sure hope she gets out by then.”
“Me too.”
Corgi’s fellow chef rejoined him at this point, so I slipped out of the kitchen. I wandered into the sanctuary and slid into a back pew so I could go ahead and place my fabric order while waiting to take Corgi’s measurements.
My quiet moment didn’t last long. Breanna and her Scottish dancers trooped into the sanctuary to practice. The dozen or so girls chattered as they took off their sneakers and changed into their dance shoes while Breanna cued up the music on her boom box. Gillian slumped on a front pew, sulking. I didn’t envy Breanna her job of motivating Gillian.
Breanna called the girls together at the front of the sanctuary and brought out the swords for the sword dance. This was my favorite dance. Each girl drew a sword out of its sheath and laid them on the floor in the shape of a cross. The point was to dance in each of the four quadrants formed by the crossed blades without touching sheath or sword. Breanna had told me that the dance originated as a battle celebration, when the victor would dance over the swords of his fallen enemies. Hardly a dance for sweet young girls, but it was a crowd-pleaser nonetheless. As the girls danced faster and faster, their feet falling ever closer to the center of the cross, the audience invariably cheered. I felt like cheering now as I watched them practice.
I lingered in the back pew, scrolling through online fabric vendors until I found the one I wanted. I placed the order for four yards of heavyweight wool in the Ancient Guthrie tartan. The blue and green plaid on a field of black with the reddish orange stripes looked just like Corgi’s lightweight kilt. I hoped my creation would be an improvement for him.
Gillian stumbled against her sword, kicking the blade out of alignment. She yelped in pain. “I stubbed my toe, Breanna. I’m going to sit down for a few minutes.”
Ignoring Breanna’s frown, she limped to the back of the church and flung herself down in the pew in front of me. She leaned back until her head lolled on the back and looked upside down at me. “Why are you spying on me? Quit following me around!”
“I’m not following you. I’m waiting for my client, who happens to be making haggis in the kitchen right now.”
She popped upright and turned around to stare at me. “Your client? What are you, some kind of private eye or something? You can’t make me tell you anything. Show me your badge!”
I held out my measuring tape. “I’m a seamstress. You bought a couple of my bow ties yesterday, remember?” I usually didn’t go into details of my clients’ needs in their absence, but I didn’t feel like it was a breach of confidentiality for me to say, “Do you know Corgi? He needs a new kilt for some more Highland competitions this summer.”
Gillian continued to stare at me without saying a word, so I pressed her. “What can you tell me about Ladd Foster’s death that I don’t already know?”
She flinched at his name. “If you know so much, you don’t need me.”
I turned back to my phone, feigning indifference. “Okay. But maybe you’d like to hear what I know.”
“What do you know?” It slipped out before she could stop herself. For all her tough-gal persona, I could tell Gillian was worrying about Ladd’s death.
“I know Ladd did die from poison in his flask. It was torch oil, for the big torches they lighted in the evening.” I watched her closely.
Her face flushed. “I told you, it wasn’t me! Anyone could have put poison in that flask. It had nothing to do with me. Just because I put the flask down on that table doesn’t mean it’s my fault it got poisoned. You can’t put the blame on me!” Tears filled her eyes, threatening her heavy mascara. She blinked them away angrily.
I took a deep breath, calling to mind the intensity of emotions that had blindsided me at the age of fifteen. At that age, the world was black and white, with no room for any shades of gray. Love, hate, passion, fear, sense of responsibility—they all jostled for prominence in the brain of a teenager. In Gillian’s case, it looked like guilt was winning out.
“Gillian, you know it’s not your fault Ladd was poisoned. You didn’t do it, and you didn’t cause anyone else to either.”
The tears spilled down her cheeks. “He asked me to hold his flask. If I had just held it, this whole thing would never have happened. He’d still be alive and the police wouldn’t have anything to do with me or my dad. I should’ve just held on to his stupid flask!” She hid her face in her hands.
I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, but I knew she would pull away. I settled for leaning in close. “Gillian. Somebody wanted to kill Ladd. If they didn’t get their hands on his flask, they would have found another way to do it. They could have stabbed him or shot him or strangled him or hit him over the head with the caber, assuming they could lift it.” She looked up at me, unsure whether to sob or chuckle. I looked her in the eye. “You putting his flask down did not lead to his death. It is not your fault.”
“What if somebody killed him because of me?” she whispered. All her bluster was gone. “What if they wanted to keep him away from me permanently?”
It was my turn to stare. Luckily, she didn’t notice because her eyes were averted. I took another deep breath and said softly, “Your dad? You’re afraid your dad killed Ladd Foster?”
Her nod was imperceptible. She fiddled with the ragged ends of the friendship bracelet encircling her wrist. She wasn’t offering any bit of this without a supreme effort on my part. I knew I had to go slowly or she would clam up completely.
I glanced up at Breanna, who was still immersed in instruction for the sword dance. We probably didn’t have much time before she would be expecting Gillian to join the danc
ers again.
“I saw how upset your dad was to see you with Ladd. You think he was mad enough to kill him?”
“I don’t know.” It came out in a whisper. “I guess you saw him punch Ladd in the face. He usually only gets one good punch because he’s so puny that the other guy will clobber him. But Dad’s got a really bad temper, and he hates it when I go out with anyone.” Her voice trailed off as she concentrated on untying her bracelet.
“Does he ever hit you?” I said it quietly, but I could have shouted it from the rooftops by her reaction. She flounced away from me and huddled at the end of her pew, unwilling either to talk to me or go back to her dancing rehearsal.
I took another deep breath, thinking I should adopt a spiritual breathing practice or something. Then I scooted along my pew until I was close behind her. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. It has nothing to do with Ladd.” When she didn’t move, I racked my brain to try to figure out what to say next. “Has he fought with other guys you’ve been interested in?”
She kept her face hidden from me. “Yeah, sure. All of them. He broke this one guy’s nose when we got home late from a party. Another time he pushed a guy down the porch steps when he was in the middle of kissing me goodnight.” She raised her eyes for an instant. “I don’t get very many second dates, if you can believe it.”
“I can imagine.” My own father was pretty controlling throughout my childhood and teen years. I didn’t give him as much trouble as Gillian gave her dad, but I still remembered the dictatorial rules he imposed on any chance I had for boyfriends. I’d often wondered if my strained relationship with my father set the stage for my own disastrous choices in men, which left me abandoned by a faithless fiancé who ran off with our joint bank account while I naively sewed my wedding dress.
I pushed aside the bitter memories. It didn’t feel like the right time to share my own experiences with Gillian. Instead, I said, “But he’s never killed anyone, right?”
I assumed the answer would be no, so I was surprised by Gillian’s reaction. She hunched over her bent knees, hiding her head in her arms. She pressed her hands over her ears, whether to block out my questions, the Scottish music, or the entire world, I didn’t know.
“Leave me alone,” she snarled. “You ask too many questions for a dumb seamstress!” She flounced out of her seat and stormed back to the line of dancers, leaving me staring in astonishment.
I barely had time to wipe the shock off my face before Corgi dropped into the pew beside me. He leaned back and flung his arms across the back of the pew, dripping bits of meat and oats onto the seat cushions. “It’s a hundred degrees in that kitchen.”
I shook my head to clear it of the tension of my conversation with Gillian and reached for my measuring tape. “Did you get the haggis into the oven, then?”
He nodded with a grimace. “After shoveling that disgusting mixture into those foul stomachs, I’ve got no desire to eat any of it.” He flashed me a sheepish grin. “Hey, don’t listen to me. You should try it for yourself. You’re coming tonight, right?” He stood up and stretched out his arms.
“Let’s find a private spot to do this.” I led Corgi to an empty Sunday school room, where he stretched out his arms for the third time. I passed the tape around his waist and hips, trying to avoid the splotches of haggis staining his apron. I noted down the measurements in the small notebook I always carried in my shoulder bag. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I asked him to kneel and measured the distance from his waist to the floor. “Your kilt should break right across the kneecap.” I folded up the tape measure. “Great. I can get started as soon as the fabric arrives.”
“Cool. I’d better get back to the kitchen. We’re making the Atholl Brose next.”
I stowed my notebook and tape measure back in my shoulder bag. “What’s Atholl Brose?”
“It’s a traditional Scottish drink made by soaking oats in water and then squeezing the liquid out through cheesecloth and mixing in honey and whiskey. We’ll use it to toast the haggis.” He started to wander off and then turned back around to face me. “Say hi to Aileen for me when you go to the jail. Tell her we need her at the ceilidh tonight.”
“Okay,” I said to his retreating back. I wasn’t sure what good it would do telling Aileen that she needed to show up at the ceilidh when she was being held by the police. But I could pass along the message.
I returned to the sanctuary and stood watching the Highland dancers for a couple more minutes while I tried to sort out my thoughts. I saw no reason to suspect Gillian of putting poison into Ladd’s flask, even though she did have the opportunity because he’d entrusted it to her. She was rebellious and hard to reach, but her powerful emotions rode close to the surface for an astute observer to see. She felt guilty that she had provided the opportunity for a murderer to act. Further, she feared that murderer could be her father.
I made my way out of the sanctuary and into the afternoon sunshine. It was too bad McCarthy had to hustle off to that museum exhibit. I would have liked to walk and talk things over with him, just to get it all straight in my mind. I strolled along the cracked downtown sidewalk, enjoying the sight of children playing in their front yards like I’d seen so many times before. The peace of the moment enveloped me. I couldn’t believe I had to think about who might have committed a murder.
Although I didn’t consider Gillian to be a suspect, it looked like I should take a closer look at her dad. He had punched Ladd to keep him away from his daughter. I couldn’t blame him for that—I would have punched Ladd too if Gillian was my child. But Gillian’s tale of his violence toward her dates gave me pause. If he’d break the nose of a teenager—I was assuming her dates were her own age, which might not be true, come to think of it—how much more might he react to a middle-aged man who had no business cavorting with a teenager? It didn’t stretch the imagination too much to picture Ryan as a righteous vigilante, ridding the world of this threat to his daughter’s virtue. In other words, a murderer.
I shook off the thought with a shudder. I shouldn’t let my imagination run away with me. I focused on the work ahead of me, making a Scottish kilt. Maybe it was time for me to do some more research. And I knew just where to start.
Chapter 7
I sent a quick text to McCarthy, to see if he was still at the museum. He had already moved on to the firefighters’ picnic. I caught the bus to the Tremington Museum, which was located on the hill in the Highlands, adjacent to Oliphant University. It was housed in the eighteenth-century mansion of Judge Walter Tremington, one of the founders of our town. He and his wife, Margaret Oliphant Tremington, had owned the entire hilltop before they gifted the land for what would become Oliphant University. I remember learning about the Judge and his young wife in elementary school, when the class focused on local and state history. I always liked the part about Margaret Oliphant emigrating from Scotland as a teenager and falling in love with the judge in the wilds of eastern Pennsylvania. By the time of the Revolutionary War, they’d established a solid little township and broken ground for the university that would bear her name.
The Tremington Museum contained a wealth of articles from the Judge and Margaret’s household, both in the upstairs local history exhibit that had been there since I was a child and in the gloriously chaotic basement that held random historical artifacts in a vast series of shelves and display areas organized with no rhyme or reason whatsoever. Visitors could wander through the partitions, taking in a wooden churn from 1855 and a pair of Victorian opera gloves sitting next to a letter from the Apollo 11 astronauts to the mayor of Laurel Springs. This lackadaisical approach to historical preservation irked some of the city assembly members, but I loved it. I could visit the basement every day for a month and make a new discovery each time. Today, I hoped to see something I’d seen before: a vintage Scottish kilt that had come to America with Margaret Oliphant. I didn’t really think it would help me much i
n terms of crafting Corgi’s kilt, but I wanted to ground myself in the history of such a unique, traditional garment.
I couldn’t remember if I’d seen the kilt upstairs or in the basement. There was only one way to find out. I headed straight for the permanent exhibit upstairs, where the local history was laid out methodically in a series of chronological displays. It took only a matter of minutes to determine that the kilt wasn’t among the items of clothing on display upstairs. I resisted the impulse to linger over Margaret’s ball gowns and silk nightgowns and made my way down to the basement.
The basement was quiet, with only a few visitors roaming through the rows of artifacts. I felt like I was on a mission, only interested in one particular item, but it still took me almost forty minutes to find it. I kept pausing to look at something else along the way. I remembered my mother talking about looking up words in the dictionary in much the same way. She would turn the pages to find her word, but her eyes would be distracted by all the other fascinating words on the pages, and it would take her ten minutes to land on the word she was looking for. I’d never had that experience; the online dictionary takes you directly to the word you want. Sometimes I wished for the slower, more circuitous olden days. Finding something in the Tremington basement was certainly circuitous!
Finally, I stumbled upon the kilt I was looking for. It was hanging on a wire skirt hanger in the midst of a jumble of items, including a tattered Bible opened to the first chapter of Exodus, an ornate silver ring with a big red stone, and a sword with a long, fringed tassel on the hilt and a chip out of the blade. The kilt was made in the Oliphant tartan, which looked identical to the fabric I had used for my bow ties for the Highland Games. It was flat in the front and presumably pleated across the back, although I couldn’t examine that part because of the way it was hanging. I longed to lift up the hanger so I could see the back of the kilt, but one didn’t do such things in a museum, even one as informal as the Tremington. I settled for taking a series of photographs of the kilt from as many angles as I could. I even leaned in close to smell it. It smelled like musty wool, with overtones of mothballs. Not a bad smell.
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