Of Books and Bagpipes

by Paige Shelton

  Billy Armstrong was there, but Carl wasn’t. Carl had said he hadn’t been a part of the group for more than a year or so, and Gilroy’s death took place three years ago. All of the reenactors were bigger men; at least they weren’t small. But the part of them that gave me pause all of a sudden was their hair.

  “Do lots of men around here have naturally long hair?” I said as I looked up at Artair and Elias.

  They both looked perplexed at my question. I doubted either of them paid much attention to current fashion trends or the length of Edinburgh men’s hair.

  “I dinnae ken, lass,” Elias said.

  “Me either,” Artair said.

  “Do you have a magnifying glass?” I asked Artair.

  “Of course.” He grabbed the large, long-handled magnifying glass from his worktable and brought it to me.

  I held it over the picture and looked at the faces of the reenactors.

  “I think…” I said. “No, it can’t be.”

  “What?” Artair and Elias said.

  I sat in the chair because my knees went weak with the revelation. I looked at my two Watsons.

  “In answer to your earlier question, actually no, I don’t think what happened on that boat all those years ago had one thing to do with Billy Armstrong’s murder. I also don’t think Gordon killed his son, or anyone, for that matter. I can’t understand why I’m seeing what I’m seeing, but it’s just too much of a coincidence,” I said.

  “What?” they said again, more exasperated this time.

  “I’m sorry. Thank you, Artair. I’ll tell you everything this afternoon. Right now … Elias, can you take me to the fish market?” I said.

  “Aye?”

  “Aye. Right away,” I said.

  * * *

  I knew this type of warm; the warm before the storm. I’d often felt it in Kansas. Sometimes, when there’s a snowstorm on the way, the clouds come low and keep the air cocooned and at a temperature higher than when the sky is clear.

  “It feels like snow,” I said as Elias steered the cab toward the fish market.

  “We dinnae get much of that. Are ye sure?”

  “No.” I smiled.

  A small wave of homesickness rolled in my belly. For the moment I had to push it away, but I filed a mental note to call my parents soon.

  “Lass, why are we going to the fish market?” Elias asked.

  “I think one of Gordon’s coworkers is also a William Wallace reenactor.”

  I watched Elias’s profile. His eyebrows first came together and then together even more. He frowned and scratched behind his ear.

  “And ye think that he might be the killer?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then, perhaps, lass, we should call the police.”

  “We will. There’s a chance the police are already talking to him. I just want to see. I was also hoping to talk to the man who came into the bookshop looking for me.

  Elias gave me a quick look. “When are we going tae call the police?”

  “As soon as I confirm.”

  “Lass?”

  “It’s a public place, Elias. If I’m wrong, let’s not bother the police. You won’t believe this, but it’s all in the hair, which is really making me wonder if my idea isn’t a little harebrained.”

  “Explain, please.”

  “My subconscious has been trying to tell me something about hair, specifically the length of hair. I think I finally understand. In the picture of the William Wallace actors that we were looking at, there’s a man who looks like someone at the fish market, but the man at the market has short hair. Of course, a wig would make his hair long.

  “I’d like to get another look at him to confirm. His name is Liam. I’m not going to approach him, just take a look if he’s there. I think I’ll know with a quick glance.”

  “How would that also make him a killer?” Elias asked.

  “Good question. That’s another reason we’re not calling the police yet. I still don’t know enough to connect all the dots.”

  “Liam? Another William name.” Elias shook his head.

  I looked at him. “Liam is short for William?”

  “Weel, I believe it can be.”

  “I had no idea,” I said, but I suspected that fact only solidified my idea.

  “Awright, I’ll stick tae ye side like glue.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  There was much more to this than the length of his hair or the use of a wig. Things had been happening in my periphery, things I might not have completely noticed but a part of me had and that part had been processing those things, perhaps waiting for the right moment to bring everything together.

  I didn’t tell Elias about the night that Tom and I had gone back to the castle, when Tom had been jostled by a big guy coming out of his pub. I didn’t bring up the shot glasses either, because there was nothing to indicate they’d been left outside the bookshop by Liam, except I thought that one night as I was leaving the shop late, I noticed a big guy in a coat watching me from the Grassmarket Square as he took a drink from what could have been a shot glass. When my eyes scanned a second time, I couldn’t find him.

  I hadn’t seen the front of the man in the red sweater as he talked to Oliver at the King’s Wark, but I’d seen the back of his shoulders, his build, his short hair.

  When I saw Artair’s new picture, it was as if all those moments, seeing bits and pieces and different angles, came together and my gut told me that Liam had been the man I’d kept sort of seeing.

  Even Kurt Vonnegut’s bookish words about pretending to be what you weren’t were about Liam, I was sure now. They weren’t about Gordon like I originally thought.

  There was a good chance that I was so desperate for an answer that I was misinterpreting it all, but I didn’t think so.

  When I’d met Liam at the market, he’d seemed so taken with me. It was too much, really, overboard. I’d blushed and laughed away the moment, but now, from this vantage point, his behavior could easily be interpreted as overacting.

  Truly, how the dots connected was beyond anything I could firmly grasp, but I couldn’t help but sense that they did connect. If Liam was at the market, and if I could get a good look at him, I thought I’d know if he was one of the reenactors I’d seen in the picture.

  It was still pre-storm warm when Elias parked in front of the fish market. There were cars parked in improvised spaces around the building. Elias pulled the cab as close to the building as he could and parked next to the stairs.

  “Expecting a quick getaway?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Ye never know.”

  The market was much busier than it had been before. Shoppers strolled up and down the two wide aisles, looking at the fish and other food from the sea that had been placed on ice. There was no obvious police presence but I wondered if there were any undercover officers looking for or waiting around for Gordon. Maybe his faked death wasn’t as important to them as I thought it might be.

  “I don’t see Liam. He’ll be in a white coat and a hairnet like the others, but he’s a big guy. If he really is a reenactor too, he might be in Stirling or the police might have contacted him already.”

  “Let’s walk up and down once,” Elias said.

  It was crowded, but not enough to slow us down too much. I still didn’t spot Liam among the many guys in white coats and hairnets.

  I stopped at the back and peeked around toward the office I’d been in with Gordon, but the door was closed and no one was in sight. For a brief instant I thought about going into the office, but it seemed far too off-limits.

  “Let’s ask someone when Liam works next,” I finally said.

  “Awright. I’ll do the asking,” Elias said.

  As we approached a young man who was finishing up with a customer, the man I thought had come into the shop looking for me and had purchased Old Man and the Sea walked through the front door. He stood inside with his hands on his hips and frowned as he surveyed the market. It took h
im only an instant to spot me. He held up a hand asking me to wait and then took fast steps in our direction.

  “Someone’s coming over to talk to us,” I said as I grabbed Elias’s sleeve.

  Elias positioned himself in front of me, but I tried to angle myself so we didn’t seem overly threatening.

  “Name’s Delaney, right?” the man said as he eyed Elias and then looked at me. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted so heavily around him that there was no question as to what he’d been doing.

  “Aye, what can we do for ye?” Elias said.

  “Did you get my note?”

  “I didn’t know it was from you.”

  “Aye. I didn’t think you’d know who I was, so I didn’t sign it. I thought maybe you’d think it was your friend and you’d actually come meet him.”

  “No,” I looked at Elias, “I gave you the wrong impression. Barclay isn’t my friend.”

  “Well, knowing that would have saved us all a bundle of trouble. That’s good tae hear, lass. I’m Osgar, I run this place,” he said with a rough cigarette voice that reminded me of Gordon’s.

  “Osgar, you came into the shop and bought a book too, right?”

  “Aye. The Old Man and the Sea.”

  I nodded. “I would have called you back, but you didn’t leave a name or a number and the fish market phone is just a message tree.”

  Osgar frowned at Elias and then turned to me again. “I didn’t even think about that. I’m sorry.”

  “What did you want to talk about?” I asked.

  “That Barclay fellow. I wanted tae tell you tae steer clear of him. I was also concerned about the other lad, Liam. Your life is none of my business, lass, but if you were my daughter, I wouldn’t want you around either of those two, and I got a feeling maybe you were … friends or becoming friends or something.”

  “Why should I stay away from them?”

  “Barclay’s been odd since he started working here, secretive. And there’s something about Liam. I’ve seen anger. And, that night I ran into you at the pub, I had been following him. I just had a feeling that he was up tae no good. He left the pub just before you got there. After I saw you and then I left the pub, I tried to find him. I thought I saw him down by that bookshop, but then I lost him,” Osgar said. “I just sensed he was following you. It didn’t feel right.”

  “I see. Did Barclay tell you that I worked at the bookshop?”

  “Aye, when he was trying tae explain why he needed a private meeting with ye. He mumbled on about a book he was buying and I asked him where ye worked. When I followed Liam and figured he was following you I tried tae get in touch with ye. I should have just called, I suppose.”

  “You said that Barclay is odd. Is that why you want me to stay away from him?”

  Osgar shrugged. “Those two are always talking. I have a bad feeling about them both, and the police left me a message aboot both of them too. The police want me tae call them. Stay away from those men, lass. They’re no good.”

  “I will. Thank you, but do you think they’re friends?”

  Osgar breathed once in and out of his nose. “No, not friends, just always talking.”

  Elias and I looked at each other.

  “Do you know what Barclay and Liam were always talking about?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t, but it seems as though you were suspicious enough. Maybe I didn’t need tae track you down. I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Did you know if Liam volunteered to act as William Wallace at the Stirling monument?”

  “Oh, aye, he would go on and on about it.”

  “Did you mention that to the police?”

  “No, I need to call them back. Why?”

  “Is the Wallace gig something he and Gordon talked about?” I asked.

  “I don’t have any idea what they talked about; they were always just talking when they should have been working.”

  Elias cleared his throat. “Ye should call the police and tell them all of this.”

  “You think so?” Osgar asked.

  “Seems odd, aye,” Elias said.

  “I’ll call them right away,” Osgar said.

  “Thank you for trying to warn me,” I said as he turned and started down the aisle. “Wait!”

  I closed the distance between us and Osgar as Elias stayed next to me.

  “Did Liam have a tattoo on the inside of his wrist? SPEC, or something?”

  “Aye, so did Barclay. Neither would tell me what it meant. Maybe that’s why they talked tae each other so much.”

  “But you said they weren’t friends?”

  Osgar shrugged again. “I guess it’s hard tae explain, but no, they didn’t seem like friends. I don’t think they liked each other, but they talked way too much, seemed tae be conspiring maybe. That’s the best I can tell you.”

  “What’s Liam’s last name, his address?” I asked.

  “McIntyre. Liam McIntyre. He’s been living with his mother,” Osgar said and then he listed the street both Elias and I had once visited.

  Elias and I looked at each other with wide eyes.

  “Ye need tae call the police, this number,” Elias pulled one of Inspector Winters’s cards from his pocket, “tell him the lad’s last name and address and aboot the tattoo, meebe about the strange relationship between him and Barclay. Right away.”

  Osgar looked at the card and then at Elias. “All right. I’ll make the call.”

  “Guid. Let’s go, Delaney,” Elias said as he motioned me to go ahead of him.

  “Thank you again,” I said to Osgar as we hurried away.

  But he was already moving to the back of the market, his footsteps quick and his focus on the business card.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Once we were back in the cab I called Inspector Winters’s cell phone. He didn’t answer, but I left a message with as many details as possible, including the fact that I had also heard that Clarissa’s son lived in Glasgow. I couldn’t know for sure that Liam was her son, but that’s what it seemed like at the moment. I told him I knew the police had been searching for Clarissa and that Elias and I were going to drive by her house, mostly to check on her cousin.

  “Can we drive by Clarissa’s? If Clarissa isn’t home yet, Liza Marie might be there, and I’d like to make sure she’s okay,” I told Elias after he’d already heard me leave the message.

  “I’ll drive by, but I’d like ye to call the police station too. I’m sure Winters will get yer message, but let’s cover all our bases.”

  “Makes sense.”

  I made another call to the station, speaking first to a young officer on duty, and then to someone who was familiar with the case. She said she’d make sure Inspector Winters and the other police officers now involved got the information.

  “What do ye think is going on, Delaney?” Elias asked after I disconnected again.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “No, that’s not true. I do have an idea. It seems like Gordon and Liam are in on something together. I don’t want to admit out loud that they might have conspired together to kill Billy. I can’t understand why.”

  “The money from Gordon’s insurance? Did Billy have a healthy bank account?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It seems that Billy didn’t have a real job. But how would Gordon and Liam have access to that money after Billy died?”

  “Guid question.”

  I blinked as a splat hit the windshield. “Snow.”

  “Looks that way.” Elias flipped on the windshield wipers.

  We were at the beginning of what might turn into a real storm. Big, wet flakes seemed to make everything wet quickly and accumulate along the edges of curbs and perimeters of grass patches. The closer we got to Clarissa’s house, the heavier it got and the more it reminded me of Kansas, and fireplaces and hot chocolate.

  As Elias turned the corner onto Clarissa’s street we hit a slick patch sending the cab sliding sideways so that when Elias got it under control we were stopped directly in front of
Clarissa’s garden gate. The cab stalled with the maneuver and fell as silent as the snow that now began to build rapidly on the windshield.

  “Hang on, lass,” Elias said as he turned the key. The engine remained silent. “Stay in the cab.”

  He put the hood up, and for a few moments I heard tinkering and pounding, but when it became quiet again I expected him to come back into the cab. He didn’t. I craned my neck to try to see around the hood, but couldn’t see past it.

  I opened my door. “Elias?”

  No answer.

  I got out of the cab, my feet slipping on the slushy road as I came around. There was no Elias.

  “Elias?” I said. “How did you just disappear?” I moved to the front of the cab and bent over to look under it. He wasn’t there either. “Elias?”

  “Over here, lass,” he said, from somewhere.

  I looked in all directions but couldn’t immediately spot him. I realized that the only place he could have gone without me seeing was through the garden gate. It slowly swung back and forth.

  As quickly as I could over the slick ground, I made my way through the gate and finally found him.

  “Lass, call the police. Ask for an ambulance. Quickly,” he said as he pointed to what I hoped was not a dead body. “I think she fell and maybe hit her head or something.”

  Instead of doing as he asked, I rushed to them.

  “Liza Marie?” I said.

  “Aye. I saw her feet from oot there, just like at the castle, but she’s alive, still breathing, though barely. Call nine-nine-nine, and get an ambulance here. She’s soaked tae the bone. It might be a risk tae move her, but I’ve got tae get her inside and warmed up.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Aye,” he said. It was clear that helping Liza Marie was now a much higher priority than staying out of the house.

  We lifted her, and I pulled open the unlocked front door. After we put her on a couch, I found my cell phone, but it didn’t work.

  “Elias, I don’t have service. The snow maybe.”

  All at the same time he pulled his phone from his pocket, handed it to me, and grabbed a quilt from the back of a chair.

  “Your phone isn’t working either,” I said.