Of Books and Bagpipes

by Paige Shelton

  I nodded. “Why were you hiding from Fiona? She said you called her,” I said.

  “I did. I was going tae tell her about Gordon still being alive, but that was before last night. Now, I don’t want tae tell her yet. It might put her in danger.”

  “Last night?”

  “I heard noises. I have a security system, but you know I never turn it on. I heard noises outside the back window of my study. When I went to investigate, I saw footprints and … a pack of cigarettes, the same kind Gordon brought in with him that day.”

  “One of your groundskeepers?” I said.

  “I don’t think so. The pack was dry, the only wet part was a corner. If it had been there on the ground for much more than a few minutes it would have been soaked.”

  “Edwin, we have to call the police.”

  “Not yet, lass. Please.”

  “Why? You could pay the money back for Fiona.”

  “Of course I could. It’s never been about the money.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  “It’s about a girl, Delaney, and my love for her. And a tragic situation a long time ago. More than one tragedy, actually.”

  I swallowed, even more certain now that Edwin had done something he was afraid for the police to know about. I was torn between curiosity and not wanting to know. “But that couldn’t have anything to do with Billy Armstrong’s death. I believe you said it yourself, that was a whole other lifetime ago. Why does that need to even be part of what we tell the police?”

  Edwin sighed. “Because now I believe it has everything tae do with Billy’s murder. I might not have it figured out exactly, but I will. I think there’s no need tae hurt someone that made such a long-ago mistake, someone otherwise innocent and good. I can’t tell you more than that, but I have a plan.” He looked at me a long moment. “I need your help though. Can you trust me enough tae do me a wee small favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Send me the pictures of that dirk, and do not say a word more tae anyone yet?”

  A long moment later, I nodded, and texted him the pictures.

  TWENTY-THREE

  My energy was drained after meeting with Edwin, but I still needed to see Artair. On another day, in another setting perhaps, Edwin’s furtive moves of searching out the window and then looking both ways before leaving the bookshop might have been comical. Today, they just made Rosie’s eyebrows come together, Hector whine, and Hamlet, who’d arrived late, ask what he’d missed since being so busy with school lately.

  I told both Hamlet and Rosie that I’d fill them in after my morning meeting at the university. They watched me leave with almost the same curiosity we’d all watched Edwin.

  Not only had the buses and I become comfortable with each other, I had also become familiar with a couple of the bus drivers.

  Finn had come to Edinburgh from Germany. He’d become smitten with Gretchen, a “pretty Scottish lass” who’d taken a holiday trip to Berlin about ten years ago. They’d met in front of a museum as she took pictures of the building, and his heart couldn’t let her go. He’d followed her to Scotland only a week after she’d returned. They now lived close to the university and had three wee ’uns, which was always interesting to hear being said with a German accent.

  “Delaney, the fraulein from America. How are you today?” Finn asked as I took the seat directly behind him.

  “Fine,” I said, but he must not have believed me. I saw his raised eyebrows as he glanced at me in the wide rearview mirror.

  I laughed. “It’s been an interesting few days, and I need some answers.”

  “Can I be of any assistance?”

  “You get me where I need to go. That always helps.”

  The eyebrows were still together. “Going to the university today?”

  “Yes, the library.”

  “Research?”

  “Yes, a few things: William Wallace, dirks, and some old stories.”

  “I see. Libraries are the best places for old stories. Gretchen is from Paisley, that’s about all I know about William Wallace.”

  “Paisley?”

  “That’s where William Wallace was born.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “He was a hero, died a martyr for the cause,” he said, pride lining his words. Scottish history was seeping into his blood too. I supposed it was inevitable.

  I looked out the window as the meeting with Edwin played again in my mind. I believed most of what he had told me. In fact, I thought that he’d said everything in the complete spirit of being honest even if dishonesty still shadowed his words, but I wasn’t ready to agree with him that Gordon Armstrong was a killer. Not yet. I didn’t like the man and trusted him even less, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea that he could kill his child.

  I’d told Edwin about the possible conspiracy against the William Wallace reenactors, but he wasn’t impressed by the idea. That might have been my fault though. As I’d said “William Wallace reenactor conspiracy” out loud I’d felt silly. There’d been no conviction to my words. I hoped Artair had found something to give them some conviction. I would rather the killer be a conspirator than someone from the half-century-old boating tragedy that Edwin and Billy’s father had somehow been involved in.

  William Wallace had died a martyr. Maybe so had Billy Armstrong. Maybe there was some strange similarity there because of their names and the role that Billy had played. On the surface that idea seemed even sillier than a conspiracy, but it might be worth more thought.

  “Thanks, Finn,” I said. “You might have realigned my perspective a little.”

  The eyebrows relaxed. “Always glad to be of service.”

  Once off the bus, I hurried through the cold and into the library, today not worrying about my noisy footfalls or looking at the honorary busts. I’d left a message on his phone, but like Edwin, Artair wasn’t all that in tune with his mobile. I found him in the art book room again, this time holding a magnifying glass over a document as the arm attached to the table was bent out of the way.

  “I’m sorry I’m a little later than I thought I would be,” I said breathlessly.

  He put down the magnifier and came around the table. “I knew ye’d be here when ye could. Not tae worry, lass, I’ve always got something tae occupy my time. However, I’m verra glad tae see ye. I found a few things that might be of interest. Over here,” he said excitedly.

  It wasn’t a large room, but he’d placed two folding chairs and a card table in a corner.

  “Have a seat,” he said as he pulled out a chair for me.

  As he sat down he smiled slyly. “I found some interesting things, lass. Here, right here. Let’s start with this.” He placed an open book in front of me.

  “What is this?” I said.

  “It’s a copy of a comic book, though I dinnae think that’s what folks these days call them. It’s an early version of a comic book. I dinnae want ye tae see the cover yet. First, leuk inside. It’s not completely professional, though the sketches are quite good and the story is silly enough tae bring a smile.”

  There were only a few pages beyond the cover, each of them with their own eight-panel story about Millie, a character much like Wullie, full of attitude while meeting challenges of her everyday extra-challenging life. The sketches were good and I wondered which of the group of friends was the artist. On the last page, I saw a quickly written “Bellows” at the bottom of the panels, answering my question.

  “They parodied Oor Wullie?” I said. “Wasn’t Oor Wullie already kind of a parody?”

  The stories the strips told, though delightful and charming, did not give me anything I would consider a clue.

  “Awright, now leuk at the cover.” He closed the book.

  The cover was also done in pencil. The authors were listed in this order: Clarissa Bellows, Edwin MacAlister, Leith Stanton, and Gordon Armstrong. They’d titled it Oor Millie, but underneath the block-lettered type, someone had hurriedly writ
ten “working title.” The only illustration on the cover was a young girl with freckles and two dark pigtails that curled perfectly. She was cute and reminded me of Pippi Longstocking.

  “Here, I think this is an important part,” Artair said as he pointed.

  Someone had written a short note on the bottom corner of the cover. “Love—Wullie for a boy, Millie for a girl?”

  It very well could have been Edwin’s handwriting, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t have Gordon’s or Leith’s to compare it to. Even if Edwin had written the note I didn’t think it told me much, but it might lead to something at some point.

  “Where did you find this?” I said. “This was in the library? I can’t understand why.”

  “Aye. There’s more.”

  Artair looked toward the door. He hurried over to it and closed it before he retrieved a small box from under his worktable. With a glance toward the closed door, he finally placed the box onto the table.

  “I dinnae ken why these were in the library, lass, but like I said before, someone wanted them hidden but not destroyed. I couldnae begin tae guess who. It’s that box I found long ago and buried deep away, part of some stacks of boxes that have never been inventoried or catalogued. After I left Tom’s it took some time, but I finally remembered exactly where I’d seen it. I came into the library early this morning and with the help of a security lad and his keys, I found it in the same place I’d found it all those years ago. The exact same place.”

  He pulled out the items from the box.

  “I dinnae ken if there are important things, but I want tae be careful just in case,” he said as he handed me a piece of paper.

  I immediately recognized this handwriting as belonging to the same person who’d written “Bellows” under the comic strip.

  “I, Clarissa Brennan Bellows, being of sound mind and body do bequeath my entire fortune, which consists of the contents in my room and about thirty pounds, to Mr. Edwin MacAlister.” A space was left in the middle of the page and more writing followed: “Forgive me for my sins.”

  I looked at Artair.

  “Taken out of context, this is strange. Maybe taken in context, it’s nothing but more silly college fun,” I said.

  “Aye, but I wanted ye tae see the heart she drew by yer boss’s name. I think that’s more important than whatever she was going on aboot. Meebe.”

  I hadn’t noticed the heart, but I did now.

  “Right, considering everything, this isn’t too big a surprise, but I don’t see anything suspicious,” I said.

  “This,” Artair said as he handed me the next item, “is a wee bit more intriguing, and the item I find the most important.”

  “A passport?”

  “Aye.”

  “Moray Persley?” I said. “I don’t know that name. Is it Scottish?”

  “Aye. He was the man who died on the boat, either drowned or killed.”

  “He was unnamed in the articles you showed me.”

  “Exactly. He was unnamed in all the articles. I had to dig through some death notice records tae piece together who the victim was once I had the passport. I wasnae too surprised tae find a match. And this,” he handed me another piece of paper that was a copy of another article, “is dated the day after the first small article we found in The Scotsman. It wasnae with the others. Look at the picture.”

  Not only was the victim unnamed, so were the other people in the picture above the article. They were a frightened, forlorn, and wet group. Except …

  “I recognize Edwin,” I said. “His clothes are dry.”

  “Aye.” Artair smiled again. “Ye have a good eye, Delaney. I noticed that too. He’s dressed more nicely than the rest of them too.”

  “He wasn’t with them on the boat?” I said.

  “Or he was and he was dressed up and didnae go into the water like the rest of them seemed tae do.”

  There was no doubt in my mind that Edwin would have gone into the water if it had meant trying to save someone, no matter what he was wearing.

  “That wouldn’t jibe with his personality,” I said.

  “I agree, something’s amiss,” Artair said.

  I looked at the picture again, remembered how he’d insisted to me that the drowning had been an accident, and noticed now how he stood separate from his other wet friends, none of them looking toward him.

  “I guess it’s a possibility,” I said quietly as I glanced toward the door. There was no reason to think anyone could put together the pieces as Artair and I might have just done, but like Artair, I’d become paranoid and protective of whatever this information we were finding might turn out to prove. “Why is the passport the most interesting to you?”

  “Right. Here.” He opened the passport to the signature page. “Leuk.”

  “I see. It’s his signature.”

  “Now, leuk, here.”

  Artair scooted the comic book in front of me again and pointed at the note on the cover. There was no doubt at all that the handwriting on both of these belonged to the same person.

  “Who in the world was Moray Persley?” Or had Edwin written both the note as well as forged the passport signature?

  “I have no idea, lass. I havenae found him anywhere but in one small police report about the identification of the dead body and a city death record. Nowhere else.”

  My heart sank as I came to a shaky point. Maybe Edwin hadn’t told me any truths, ghostly or not. Maybe he’d told me more lies, and maybe they were meant to cover all the other lies.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “I cannae tell ye how many times seemingly insignificant facts have ended up being the answer tae some mystery I was trying tae uncover. Ye need tae remember everything,” Artair said as he handed me a cup of coffee.

  After we went through the items in the box, he gathered a short stack of papers from a shelf. The papers were copies of notes or other articles that highlighted notably deadly endings for the William Wallace reenactors.

  Artair’s conclusion was that there probably wasn’t a conspiracy against William Wallace reenactors, but there might be a curse.

  In the last ten years, seven Stirling monument reenactors had died. Billy Armstrong’s death seemed to be the only murder, but the others were unexpected. Two car accidents, both found not to have included foul play, one food poisoning, one slip off “a craggy mountainside,” and two heart attacks. They’d all been investigated. For a brief time, authorities suspected more was behind the mountainside accident, but ultimately no foul play was found to have occurred.

  I made a list of the reenactors and their causes of death just in case, but there didn’t seem to be anything there to point out to the police.

  After our coffee break, I helped Artair clean up, but we were both a little slower today, getting lost in our thoughts more than we normally would. I hugged and thanked him before I left the library and, because it wasn’t too cold, took the mostly downhill trek back to the bookshop.

  My thoughts turned over and moved in so many directions that I couldn’t wrangle any of them in long enough for a longer contemplation. The time and journey passed quickly, and before I registered where I was I’d come upon Grassmarket, and as I looked up toward the bookshop I thought I saw someone familiar.

  It looked like Gordon’s boss, the big older man from the fish market who had a permanent frown on his face, the man I’d run into at Tom’s pub, was leaving the bookshop. He was at the other end of the square; it was too far to yell or try to flag him down. I was curious enough about the reason behind his visit to set off in a run.

  There were other pedestrians and lots of other traffic in my way, but I dodged well. The man turned the corner, the one in the shadow of the castle. There weren’t storefronts around that corner, but it was an often-used thoroughfare, either to move farther west into downtown or up a winding hill to the castle at the top of the Royal Mile. He could be going in either direction, but I’d have to set a record pace to see which way he chose.

&n
bsp; By the time I made it to the corner, I was breathing heavily, and he’d disappeared from sight. I had a 50 percent chance of guessing the path he’d taken, which meant I had a 50 percent chance of being wrong. The fish market wasn’t nearby, so I couldn’t even make an educated guess.

  After a moment’s contemplation with my hands plopped on my hips and my breathing returning to normal, I made my way back to the bookshop. Suddenly, I remembered the note that Hamlet had told me about, the one from Gordon that had asked me to meet him at the fish market tonight. I had completely forgotten about it, forgotten to even tell anyone else about it. How had it so completely slipped my mind? The only quick conclusion that I could come to was that the request had been so ridiculous that I’d put it out of my mind. Did the man I’d seen leave the shop know about the request for a meeting? Had he come to see if I was going to show up?

  “Delaney, ye just missed a caller,” Rosie said as I went through the front door.

  “I think I saw him. Big guy, older? Did he give his name, leave a message?”

  “That’s the one, but no, he didnae give his name. He said he has some information for ye, but he wouldnae tell me what it was. He shopped and bought a book while he waited for ye and told me he’d find ye later. He was anxious tae talk tae ye, but not enough tae leave a message. Did ye recognize him?”

  “I think he works at the same fish market that Gordon Armstrong works at.”

  “Do ye think he has something tae tell ye aboot Gordon?”

  “I don’t know. As far as I can tell he doesn’t know Gordon is Gordon. He thinks he’s Barclay.”

  “Interesting. Anything ye want tae share with me? I’m available tae listen.”

  “I don’t know anything really. Or, the more I learn the more I think I don’t know. Things keep getting worse and more confusing. I can’t imagine why that man came to the bookshop, or how he knew to find me here.”

  “Weel, ye ken what I say?”

  “No.”

  “Pulling on a string of bad news can only unravel a whole ball of it. Be careful with yerself. Tell me what ye can tell me when ye feel like ye can. I’m here.”