Dust to Dust

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  Mackenzie considered the pile of crumbs and wiped his hands on the dishtowel. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Thank you for the help,” Rebecca returned, with only a trace of sarcasm, and went with him to the front door.

  Tony and Jerry walked past, heading toward the footbridge. Tony carried a camera, Jerry his trowels. Rebecca anticipated a struggle for seniority—as director of the museum, Graham outranked Jerry.

  Jerry saw Rebecca standing familiarly with Mackenzie on the step of the cottage. His supercilious glance was the equivalent of a mocking, “Teacher’s Pet!” Tony trudged stolidly on, eyes averted in distaste.

  A scuffle of gravel announced Devlin. He stopped in front of the cottage and offered Rebecca a cardboard portfolio. “Here you go. Forensics have done all they can.”

  “I’d like a report on the contents when you get a chance,” Mackenzie added, and walked toward the excavation, where Jerry was shaking hands with Graham with every appearance of amiability.

  Clutching the portfolio to her breast, Rebecca carried it into the dining room. Yes, the trial records and the warrant both lay wrapped in conservator’s tissue inside.

  The tissue rustled loudly in the silent house. The cooker in the kitchen gurgled. A beam creaked overhead. Rebecca ignored the slow crawl between her shoulder blades—she reminded herself that the cottage wasn’t haunted—and laid the thick pieces of parchment on the table.

  The seals ranged along the bottom of the warrant were dried and cracked. There was Hertford’s, smack in the center. And there was the one she remembered, stuck to the edge like an afterthought. Not the diagonal bar of the Elliots, but the winged heart of the Douglases.

  Rebecca frowned. A James Douglas had been commendator of Melrose in 1590, when the last monk died, but was he even alive in 1545, let alone collaborating? She stroked the wax, visualizing a signet ring pressing it. This other Douglas, whoever he was, had barely made an impression, so light was the pressure of the seal on the wax. And the device was off center, a crescent of untouched wax bulging along its edge. Interesting.

  She needed to get out to the dig, but her knees folded, and she fell into a chair. She smoothed the sheets of the trial records, detecting a faint resonance like that of a plucked harp string.

  Some nameless scribe had labored long over those pages. The spidery handwriting danced just ahead of Rebecca’s eye, and she squinted, willing it to be still. “Thomas Elliot, commendator. Anne Douglas, prioress. Grievous crimes against God.” That was medieval legalese for “one size fits all”. It could mean anything. Defending the priory. Refusing to hand over its treasure. Much good it had done them, Anne and Thomas, to stand on principle.

  Rebecca shook herself. The house was silent, focused around her and the table. An elusive odor of incense and mold tickled her nostrils.

  The words “summoning spirits” pirouetted on the paper, drawing her forward. The back of her neck twinged, and absently she rubbed at it. In her mind’s eye, she saw the darkened cloister, will o’ the wisps thronging the as-yet unbroken archways. Anne’s white shape walked alone, head down, hands folded. But she kept glancing up, from the corners of her eyes, at the gibbous forms that danced in the shadowy corners.

  Except one shape wasn’t pale. It was dark, blending into the night. A man in a doublet laced with gold points, an ivory-handled rondel at his belt. Bearded, probably. Frowning in concern… .

  Wait a minute. Goose bumps rose on her arms. Thomas had been charged along with Anne—she knew that. There must have been another warrant, although it would be a miracle if it had survived, too. But there, right there, the crabbed letters said that Thomas was being tried in absentia.

  Hands soothed the back of Rebecca’s neck. She released the document and its images evaporated. She cuddled into the massage. “Why thank you, love,” she said.

  “You’re welcome, but the name’s Mark.” Rebecca spun around. Mark stepped back, hands raised in surrender. He’d even washed them without her hearing. Anyone could have crept up on her. “Sorry. I saw you rubbing your neck. I thought you knew it was me.”

  “No problem.” Her skin tingled, from the documents or the touch or from fear, she couldn’t tell. It had been a long time since Michael had massaged her. It was his fault she had the crick in her neck to begin with. Sort of. Showed how far gone she was, that she hadn’t realized those hands weren’t his. And it was lunch time already, a whole morning’s work gone—no, reading the records was her work… .

  She stood up so abruptly that the chair almost fell. Mark saved it, set it down, and headed bemusedly for the kitchen. Adele appeared in Rebecca’s peripheral vision. “Are those the accounts of Anne Douglas’s trial?”

  “Yes.” Rebecca wrapped them in tissue and slipped them back into the portfolio.

  “Poor Anne,” said Adele. “Her love for God, for her country, for a man, all betrayed.”

  “Love for a man? She was a nun.”

  “She was sent to the convent as a child.”

  “True. You’re not thinking she and Elliot had something going?”

  Adele’s face was somewhat scrunched, as if she was trying to remember the words to a long-forgotten song. “Could be.”

  “And how was she betrayed?” continued Rebecca.

  All Adele replied was, “I don’t think the trial was a fair one.”

  “Now that wouldn’t surprise me.” Rebecca tied the string around the portfolio.

  “Artifacts can be haunted like places,” Adele went on, her expression now one of certainty. “And for the same reason: lingering emotions, vibrations in the life force. Like we inherit genes from our ancestors, some artifacts have a genetic code… . Here, Mark, let me slice those potatoes.”

  Rebecca looked after Adele’s retreating figure. She had wondered if she’d grown immune to the power of old objects after living with the haunted artifacts of Dun Iain, but the documents in the portfolio showed every promise of supernatural twinges. How did Adele know? She’d never touched those documents. Unless she’d stolen and hidden the warrant, or Sheila had showed her the trial records. Or unless she’d heard it all already, from Anne… . The woman had a good imagination, Rebecca told herself, as well as the ability to tell a compelling tale. And she didn’t hesitate to jump to conclusions.

  Rebecca patted the portfolio. If the priory was haunted by Anne’s ghost today, then which spirit was haunting it when Anne was still alive, one that she could be accused of summoning? Marjory? Now there was a thought. They were probably even relatives. Very tidy.

  Too tidy. Shaking her head—imagination is helpful, but jumping to conclusions wasn’t her job any more than it was Mackenzie’s—Rebecca stowed the portfolio in her bedroom and went to help with lunch.

  Adele’s superb French fries and Mark’s crusty, peppery hamburgers—he’d found at least one thing he could cook—left Rebecca nicely warm and content. Later Michael walked beside her over the footbridge, gazing truculently up into the overcast sky. As though responding to his silent threat, it stopped raining. “Dr. Graham was askin’ aboot you, lass.”

  “Sorry. I got hung up on the trial records. There’s something, well, none too couthy about them.”

  “Eh?” he returned, with a wary sideways gleam. “Do you mean to say they’ve those damned mental mine-fields planted aboot them, or that the accounts dinna match what we already know?”

  “The former, mostly. I need to go over them much more thoroughly before drawing any conclusions about the latter. But I can tell you one thing. Thomas Elliot’s seal is on Anne’s warrant. Then he’s charged along with her. But he wasn’t here for his trial.”

  “Scarpered, most likely. Unless that’s him, there, in the crate.”

  “Adele seems to think it is. But you know Adele.”

  Michael’s brows commented on Adele by lifting at the outward corners, wing-like, tempted to fly away for the duration.

  They arrived at the side of the trench in time to see Graham’s crew wrapping cords arou
nd the block of mud in which the skeleton was embedded. Jerry made flapping motions with his hands, directing traffic, but seemed otherwise content to let Graham murmur the orders. He was like the class bully busily polishing apples whenever the teacher walked in the door.

  Graham stood beside Mackenzie, hands folded behind his back, his white moustache combed tidily. His eyes gleamed from beneath the brim of his tweed hat. “Ah, that’s lovely,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Impressive,” agreed Mackenzie.

  A murmur swept through the watchers, the Bairds, the Johnston clan, the police, and assorted reporters allowed across the demilitarized zone for the occasion. Even the cats sat gravely on the porch of the church, paws neatly together, heads cocked to the side at the manifest strangeness of humans. They would not be found playing in the mud.

  “So he was murdered, too?” asked Jenkins brightly.

  “Hard to say,” replied Graham. “We’ll finish removing the bones from their matrix in Edinburgh—they’re so soft, they’ll need conservation work.”

  “Sixteenth century?” Jenkins persevered.

  “If the clothes are any indication, yes.” Graham glanced around and saw Rebecca standing beside Michael. “Ah, there you are, my dear. I hear you’re Dr. Reid the now. Well done!” He took her hand and bowed over it like Bonnie Prince Charlie greeting Flora Macdonald.

  So Michael had told him. Rebecca smiled. “Thank you.”

  Graham said, “Dr. Nelson sent me a copy of your dissertation and told me the good news. Since we have the Forbes exhibition opening soon, your comments on the artifacts belonging to Queen Mary were most interesting.”

  Somehow Rebecca had imagined a genuine Scottish scholar would laugh at her conclusions about Mary’s role in sixteenth century politics. During their brief meeting in Edinburgh two weeks ago, though, Graham had never been anything but scrupulously polite. She stammered her thanks.

  Michael inspected his boots. He hadn’t told Graham about her degree. He was feeling guilty. He should.

  “Have a care!” shouted one of the workmen. In a wave the audience stepped back, Mark colliding with Hilary, Tony with Dennis. Elaine inched even further away from Jerry, but he paid no attention to her.

  Before long the skeleton and its cocoon of mud landed with a thunk in the back of a small truck. One of Graham’s minions released the tackle, and another drove carefully across the lawns to the car park. The trench yawned, empty, the huge gouge in its side looking like a bomb crater. Shards of pottery and a row of stones peeked above the coffee-colored water in its bottom. “Thirteenth century level?” Jerry queried, of no one in particular. He seized a trowel and climbed down, Mark hot on his heels. Hilary picked up her drawing board.

  Tony followed the truck, taking pictures. Laurence inspected the ruts left in the lawn. Elaine, without formal dismissal, walked toward the hotel, leaving the computer with Dennis. Adele vanished.

  Graham looked at his watch. “If we leave the now, we’ll reach Dalkeith at the rush hour. Of course, the rush hour lasts all afternoon on Friday.”

  “Must be a universal occurrence,” said Rebecca. “I bet in Mongolia they have camel jams on Friday.”

  “Not necessarily,” Michael returned. “The concept of Friday night depends on the dominant religion of a given area… .”

  “Thank you,” Rebecca said, and bit her tongue before she followed with “Dr. Campbell”, even jokingly.

  “I’d recommend waiting until the morn,” Graham went on, “to move the artifact to the museum. I’ll arrange for a—er, if you’ll pardon the expression, skeleton crew to come in on Saturday. Michael?”

  “I’ll drive the lorry to the museum, if you’ll appeal to the Chief Inspector there to let me off my lead.”

  Mackenzie, on cue, turned from the assortment of constables he was instructing. “Oh aye, Dr. Campbell, you’re free to go.”

  “Decided I didna do it, then?”

  “Sergeant Devlin will go with you. Dr. Reid will have to stay here.”

  “As hostage?” she asked. Mackenzie gave her his best we-are-not-amused look.

  Jerry called, “Dr. Campbell, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand with these stones—might be a conduit—would you like to look, Dr. Graham?”

  Shaking her head at Jerry, Rebecca went into the church, found Adele scrubbing pottery shards, and settled down to help.

  Graham and his crew left an hour or so later, after working out a roster of bobbies to guard the truck and its tarpaulin-covered burden. Jerry’s conduit seemed all-absorbing; Tony collected his video camera and recorded a disquisition on medieval plumbing. One moment Mackenzie and Devlin were conferring with Bridget outside the Craft Centre, the next they were gone. Even policemen deserved the odd afternoon off, Rebecca supposed.

  The clouds clotted into gray and white billows. Between them shone splayed rays of sun. More than once Rebecca caught Adele gazing off into the sky as though seeing angels descending on those beams of light. Adele, she thought, was a sweet lady, but she sure gave her the creeps.

  After the heavy lunch, Rebecca fed her flock a light supper of vegetarian lasagna and salad. Dennis made garlic bread of positively lethal potency; Mark lapped it up, but Michael went cross-eyed. Later the group strolled up to the pub still smelling faintly of garlic. Dennis stayed behind, tapping happily on the computer, and Adele sat on the porch of the priory much as the cats had sat there earlier.

  In the bar, Jerry was deep in conversation with Laurence. Or at Laurence, rather; the hotelkeeper looked like a sterling example of the taxidermist’s art, his eyes focused glassily on Jerry’s moving mouth. The cats occupied two bar stools, sound asleep.

  “You know,” Jerry was saying, “kind of like a double agent. Keeping an eye on her. She was up to something—she called that reporter without checking with me first.”

  From his perch at the end of the bar Jenkins didn’t even glance around. If Laurence looked stuffed, Jenkins looked pickled.

  Michael held a chair for Rebecca, his expression carefully noncommittal. Mark seated Hilary, equally neutral. Rebecca whispered, “Does Jerry know just how much Sheila knew?”

  “No one knows how much she knew. Even him.” Hilary nodded toward the corner booth, where Elaine and Tony sat poring over a pile of photos.

  “I’d no be so sure of that,” said Michael. “Wine, Hilary? Whiskey? Lager?” He headed toward the bar. With a start Laurence awoke and reached for the McEwan’s tap.

  “Just giving her enough rope to hang herself, right?” asked Jerry of Laurence’s back. “Entrapment, like Abscam.”

  Elaine laughed, and Jerry stiffened. She stood, head cocked to the side coquettishly, while Tony gathered his photographs. His expression was no less taciturn than it usually was, except for something sharp in the glance he sent toward Jerry.

  With an elaborate yawn Jerry called across the room, “Elaine, you left a pair of your pantyhose on the back of the bathroom door. But I see you won’t be needing them.”

  An abrupt silence fell on the room. Elaine’s look was one Medusa would envy, but Jerry didn’t turn to stone. He held out his pint mug to Laurence, smiling affably, unconcerned. Laurence, rolling his eyes heavenward in silent appeal, refilled it. Lancelot stretched and fell off the bar stool. Embarrassed, he glanced belligerently around and sauntered away.

  Tony and Elaine left. The conversational buzz sparked by their exit rolled down the passageway behind them. Rebecca accepted her glass of whiskey from Michael and tried not to guffaw. “A creative solution to no room at the inn, I must say.”

  Mark made a manful effort to hide his grin in his pint of beer.

  “Ah well, that’s one up for us Brits,” Michael said, and toasted the departing couple.

  “Poor Jerry,” said Hilary. “You almost have to feel sorry for him, with all his plans unraveling. Assuming they are,” she added darkly.

  Jerry slumped over the bar, nursing his beer.

  Rebecca sipped. The whiskey tickled her m
outh and its aroma wafted up her sinuses. Sheila was still lying, alone, in the Galashiels morgue. Not that her relationship with Tony had been anything but business—or Elaine’s relationship with Jerry, for that matter. Both Tony and Elaine were accustomed to paying for services rendered, so why not throw in their lots together?

  She caught Michael’s jaundiced look. Sure, Tony and Elaine could have been working together all this time. Why not? The more complicated the merrier.

  Michael shrugged, lifted his mug to his lips, and choked as running feet thudded down the passageway. Winnie Johnston burst into the room. “Here, come see what’s on in the car park. Grant came loupin’ into the shop as if the deil was after him.”

  So now the priory harbored devils. Okay. Rebecca and her cohorts joined the rush out of the hotel, down the street, and across the bridge.

  Twilight gilded the landscape, the sky above a thin, ethereal blue gray. The priory sat innocently on its green lawns. In the car park the truck waited just where it had been left, the tarpaulin tied around the ominous crate. Supported by a couple of other bobbies, Grant stood shamefacedly at the opening in the wall and traced patterns in the gravel with his toe.

  “Are you all right?” Laurence demanded.

  Grant attempted a smile. His face cracked. “Oh aye. Sorry aboot all the haverin’. I—I… .”

  “You asked me to bring them, and I did,” said Winnie sternly. “Noo, what happened tae you?”

  “I went checkin’ the bindin’s o’ the tarpaulin—a’ shipshape, mind you—and I walked around the corner o’ the lorry into a ghost. The ghost. The air went awful cold, fair froze my bones.”

  Grant accepted the existence of the priory ghost much as his children accepted the existence of Mickey Mouse. And there was a lingering chill in the air, as if a refrigerator door had briefly opened. Rebecca crossed her arms. Hilary shrank against Mark and with a delighted double-take he put his arm around her.