A View to a Kilt

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “No.” For once, Mac refused to cater to his wife’s wishes. “You’re not.”

  Taken aback by this curt rebuff, she subsided.

  A heavy silence fell over the room. When the front door closed behind them, it was so quiet that Liss could hear the clump of their boots as they crossed the porch and descended the steps to the sidewalk. A moment later, the engine of the police car roared to life. She crossed the room to the window in time to watch the vehicle pull away.

  Coming up behind her, her mother sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s much doubt it’s Charlie. You did say you had a bad moment when that officer made you look at the body. That there was something about him that reminded you of your father.”

  Liss turned to find Sherri fixing her with an accusing glare and Dan’s face set in a puzzled frown. She held up both hands in surrender. “I didn’t mention that to either of you because it was such a little thing, just the way a lock of hair fell over his forehead. It’s not as if I’d recognize an uncle I never met.”

  “Charlie and Mac didn’t look all that much alike,” Vi mused, “except for the hair and the eyes.”

  “I didn’t see the color of his eyes.” For that small favor Liss was profoundly grateful. Having to look at the dead man’s pale, lifeless face had been bad enough.

  She returned to the sofa and sat down next to her husband, pressing close to him for support. Glenora appeared out of nowhere to settle on Liss’s lap, offering added comfort. She needed it. Finding a murder victim in their backyard had been unnerving enough. To have the corpse turn out to be her father’s long-lost brother made the situation downright surreal.

  “You obviously knew Charles MacCrimmon, Vi,” Sherri said. “What can you tell us about him?”

  Liss’s mother frowned. “It’s been a very long time since I last saw him, and I’m five years younger than Mac, so I was six years younger than Charlie. I was only a sixth grader when he was a senior in high school, and, as I recall, he enlisted in the army right after graduation. Well, it was the sixties. Since he was in good health and didn’t plan on going to college, he’d have been drafted if he hadn’t. Young men didn’t have a lot of choice in those days.”

  “Come on, Mom. You must remember more than that.” Liss continued to stroke Glenora’s soft black fur, already soothed to the point where she was ready to hear more about mysterious Uncle Charlie.

  “Well, he was the oldest child—so, naturally, Mac and Margaret idolized him. I gather he was popular with his classmates, too.”

  Liss considered this. “Even after fifty years there must be a few people here in Moosetookalook who remember him. Right off the bat I can think of one or two.”

  “My father,” Dan said. “He was in the same class as Margaret.”

  “So was mine,” Sherri put in. “Dolores Mayfield too.”

  “And Moose is a little older than Dolores. That would put him in Charlie’s class or Dad’s. Either way he must have known my uncle.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he did,” Vi agreed, “but now that I think about it, I seem to remember that Charlie ran with a fast crowd from down to Fallstown. He definitely had a wild side.”

  “Were you bussed to school in Fallstown back then?” Dan asked.

  Vi nodded. “Same as you were. We attended the first eight grades here in Moosetookalook, then went to the consolidated school for grades nine through twelve.”

  “What was Charlie into?” Sherri asked. “Underage drinking? Drugs?”

  “Do you really need to ask? It was the sixties. At the least I’m sure he smoked pot. Moosetookalook may be in the middle of nowhere, but we weren’t entirely cut off from what was going on in the rest of the country.”

  Liss preferred not to know what her parents might have experimented with back in the day. “Did Charlie have girlfriends?” she asked instead.

  “I’m sure he broke a lot of hearts as a teenager, but a six-year gap is huge at that age. I don’t remember hearing any names.”

  “What happened after he joined the army?” Dan asked. “Was he sent straight to Vietnam?”

  Vi’s forehead creased as she searched her memory. “As I recall, he was stationed somewhere down south for a while first. I do remember that when word came that he was MIA, Mac was in college and Margaret was about to graduate from high school.” Her frown deepened. “His enlistment must have been almost up by then. Four years. How ironic. If he’d let himself be drafted, he’d have been home again in just two years. He’d have lived a long, full life right here in Maine.”

  Not necessarily, Liss thought.

  “MIA,” Dan mused. “He was listed as missing in action, not dead. A lot of MIAs ended up as prisoners of war and were eventually released. I wonder if that’s what happened to Charlie?”

  “More of them stayed missing and were eventually declared dead,” Vi shot back. “It was a terrible time. So much loss of life. There were a lot of things that were unjust back then.”

  In her younger days Vi had been passionate about the fight for equal rights for women. Liss appreciated what her mother’s generation had accomplished, but she’d heard it all before. Now was not the time for a rehash.

  “There must be more you can tell us about Charlie. Weren’t you and Daddy dating by the time he disappeared?” Liss asked.

  “Well, yes, your father and I did start going out together when I was still in high school. My mother didn’t approve. Mac was in college by then.” She gave a self-conscious little laugh. “What can I say? I never did care for boys my own age. Anyway, as you know, we split up when I started college myself, and we didn’t get together again until after I graduated and took my first teaching job.”

  “And Charlie?”

  She shrugged. “Once he enlisted, he didn’t come home for visits. Mac didn’t talk much about him, not even after he went missing. And before you ask, it was Charlie’s father who handled the legalities of having him declared dead, not his brother.”

  “I knew I once had an uncle Charlie,” Liss mused, “but I don’t remember either you or Daddy ever talking about him, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a picture of him.”

  “Why would we want to dwell on such a painful subject? You weren’t born until, let me see”—Vi closed her eyes to do the mental calculations—“eleven years after Charlie disappeared.”

  “Didn’t Grampa keep any photos of his eldest son? Most parents of fallen soldiers are proud to put their pictures on display.”

  “I’m sure your grandfather mourned Charlie’s loss, but he hated that war. Returning soldiers . . . well, let’s just say Vietnam vets were never honored the same way as other veterans of foreign wars.”

  “Do you think Grampa knew Charlie survived?”

  “Of course not! How could he? He believed his son was dead. We all did.” Violet’s patience abruptly ran out. “I don’t know why you can’t just accept that it makes people sad to be reminded of their loss. That’s why we didn’t speak of it.”

  Resting her head on Dan’s shoulder, Liss thought about her grandfather. Duncan MacCrimmon had died when she was twelve years old. He was the one who founded Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium. Before her parents moved into it, he lived in this house, the one she and Dan now owned. It had been built around 1910 by Duncan’s father, Angus MacCrimmon. And that, she realized, was the sum total of everything she knew about recent MacCrimmon history, despite Margaret’s repeated efforts to interest her in climbing the family tree.

  “Margaret!” Liss sat up so quickly that she dislodged Glenora. The cat leapt from her lap and stalked away in a huff, but she barely noticed. “Someone has to tell Margaret that her brother has been murdered.”

  “There’s no rush,” Vi said. “Why spoil her trip until we know more?”

  “We know he’s dead!”

  “She’s already aware of that. She just thinks it happened five decades ago.”

  “Unless she’s been in contact with him,” Dan said.

  Everyone turned to look a
t him.

  “It’s possible.” He shrugged. “She’s been researching the MacCrimmons, hasn’t she? Maybe she stumbled across some reference to Charlie and followed up on it.”

  “She’d have told us.” But even as Liss said the words, doubt began to creep in.

  Finding out that her oldest brother was alive, and that he’d kept his survival a secret from his family, would have been a painful discovery. Based on what Liss knew about Margaret, she’d have been reluctant to share the hurt.

  “What we need to focus on,” Vi said, “is doing all we can to help the police find Charlie’s killer.”

  On the receiving end of her mother’s pointed look, Liss squirmed. “There isn’t a heck of a lot we can contribute to the investigation. We have no idea where he’s been all these years or why he chose this moment to come back to Moosetookalook.”

  “That he returned here just in time for someone to kill him can’t be a coincidence.” Vi shifted her gaze to Sherri. “Didn’t you just say he was a private investigator in Florida?”

  “Yes. In a place called Garden Park. It’s near Miami.”

  “Well, that’s suggestive, don’t you think?”

  Liss followed her mother’s drift, or thought she did. For reasons her daughter had never understood, Vi had been a big fan of the old television series Miami Vice. Liss had no idea whether or not drug running and murder were really rampant in that area of Florida. Charlie’s profession, though, could easily have put him in conflict with the sort of people who wouldn’t think twice about killing him to eliminate a threat.

  “Do not interfere in state police business, Vi,” Sherri said. “Let Cussler do her job.” She cut her eyes in Liss’s direction. “All of you need to do your best to stay out of her way.”

  “She’s right,” Liss agreed. “We could be walking into a hornet’s nest if we try to snoop on our own.”

  “I don’t see why we can’t look into a few family matters,” Vi objected. “Besides, you have to admit that Liss and I make a good team when it comes to ferreting out people’s secrets.”

  The reference to being “a good team” made Liss wince. A few months earlier, she’d used those three little words to pay an offhand compliment to her mother. Ever since, that phrase had been coming back to haunt her.

  Sherri glared first at Vi, then at Liss. “You are not to interfere in an ongoing homicide investigation.”

  “Not a problem.” If that wasn’t quite a hand-on-the-Bible vow, it was as close as Liss could come.

  “I won’t meddle, either.”

  Vi’s sulky, grudging promise wasn’t much more convincing, but Sherri knew better than to push for more.

  “It would be a mistake to butt heads with the state police,” she warned them on her way out.

  Liss agreed on that score. On the other hand, she could scarcely be faulted for trying to learn a little more about long-lost Uncle Charlie. To keep her mother in line, she might have to ask a few questions about his past, but she would make them low-key and unobtrusive. The last thing she wanted was to tick off Detective Cussler.

  * * *

  Several hours later, Mac phoned to tell his wife to go on home. When she started to ask questions, he abruptly ended the call.

  “He says a state trooper will drive him back from Augusta and bring him out to Ledge Lake.” Vi’s lips trembled slightly when she passed on this information.

  “How did he sound?” Liss asked.

  “Lost.”

  Vi’s glasses prevented Liss from getting a good look at her mother’s eyes, but she thought they had a suspiciously moist sheen to them. That was not good. Vi had never been one to show strong emotion. Liss couldn’t think of the last time she’d seen her cry. Had she ever?

  “Dan and I will follow you out. There’s no point in you sitting there alone, waiting and worrying until he shows up.” If her father was just now leaving the state capitol at Augusta, it would be a good two hours before he arrived.

  Her mother’s lips twitched. “You mean you don’t want to wait any longer than you have to before you find out what else Mac learned from that policewoman.”

  “State police detective. And I’m more interested in what he told her.”

  In agreement they caravanned out to Ledge Lake, and as much to keep busy as because anyone was hungry, Vi set about making supper for four. Having learned in childhood to keep out of her mother’s way in the kitchen, Liss paid a return visit to the guest room. She’d taken away the boxes containing the youthful possessions she thought she might want to keep, although at the moment they were still stacked in a corner of her attic library. She had no interest in the cartons she’d left behind . . . except for the one containing old photographs from the MacCrimmon side of the family.

  Dan followed her into the room. He fished out a pocketknife and cut the strapping tape her mother had applied with a liberal hand. Inside the box were hundreds of loose photos. Some were studio portraits from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, mounted on stiff cardboard backing, but most were uniformly square snapshots taken by amateur photographers. Only a few were labeled on the back, but the dates they’d been developed were plainly marked on each print.

  Liss shuffled through handful after handful. The colors had faded badly in some of them. Even so, she had no difficulty spotting much younger versions of faces she knew well: her grandparents, Aunt Margaret when her hair was still a vivid red, and her father. Many of these had been taken in the early 1960s, so where was Uncle Charlie?

  She scooped up another batch and this time recognized a new face in one of the snapshots. It wasn’t Charlie, but rather a younger, thinner, healthier Moose Mayfield. With fishing rods in hand, he and another boy stood with arms flung around each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera. On closer inspection, although Moose’s companion looked a lot like Mac MacCrimmon, he was not Liss’s father.

  Easing up off her knees, Liss went to stand next to the lamp on the bedside table. The bright bulb gave her a much better look at her uncle’s features.

  “Find one?” Dan asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  She traced a fingertip over teenaged Charlie’s cocky grin. It was hard to tell in an image so small, but his eyes appeared to be the same changeable blue-green color she and her father shared, and that could almost be the same twinkle she saw so frequently when her father grinned at her . . . except that it wasn’t. She couldn’t explain the difference, not even to herself.

  The sound of someone opening the front door had her abandoning her search for more pictures of Charlie MacCrimmon. Still carrying the one likeness she’d managed to find, she hurried out of the guest room and went downstairs to greet her father.

  “Are you okay?”

  It was a stupid question. Liss could tell just by looking at him that he wasn’t himself. Having a brother come back from the dead had to have been a shock, never mind that Charlie had returned only to be declared dead all over again.

  Mac removed his coat and hung it neatly in the closet. “There was no need for you two to come out here. You shouldn’t have bothered making the trip.”

  “We didn’t want Mom to be alone,” Liss said.

  “Oh. Oh, all right, then.” He scrubbed at his eyes with both hands. “Well, now that I’m back, you can head home.”

  “Not a chance.” She grabbed hold of his sleeve and tugged him toward his favorite chair, a worn, rump-sprung recliner he refused to let Vi get rid of.

  In the process he noticed the photograph she still grasped in her free hand. “What have you got there?”

  “It’s a picture of Moose and Charlie. I found it just now.”

  She held out the snapshot, thinking that the sight of his brother in happier days might prompt her father to reminisce. Instead, Mac snatched it out of her hand and glared at the likenesses of the two boys. With an abrupt movement, he ripped the square in half, then tore those two pieces in two and repeated the process until nothing remained but tiny shreds. B
y the time he let the scraps fall to the floor, his face was flushed and his hands were shaking.

  Eyes wide, Vi rushed to pick them up. “What’s got into you, Mac? Why did you do that?”

  “He wanted to erase all trace of himself. Why should we keep mementoes?”

  “What are you talking about, Daddy?”

  “My thrice-damned brother!” The words exploded out of him. “He deliberately cut himself off from us. He let us think he was dead. What kind of man does that?”

  “Is that what Detective Cussler told you?” Liss asked.

  He gave a derisive snort. “Some detective! She thinks I’m lying when I say I didn’t know Charlie was still alive. I don’t know what he was up to, but I’m not surprised he didn’t stick around to clean up his mess.”

  Liss had never heard her father sound so bitter. Once he’d seen for himself that the body found in their backyard was that of his brother, she’d expected him to feel grief. Instead, he seemed angrier at Charlie than at the person who’d killed him.

  Vi cut to the chase. “Are you telling us that you’re a suspect in his murder?”

  “Of course I am. She thinks I knew all along where he was. She even went so far as to suggest that I might have met his plane when he flew into Portland last Tuesday and then drove him back here.”

  “Do you mean to say he’d been in town for a couple of days before he was killed?” Vi sounded nearly as infuriated as her husband. “I don’t blame you for being angry that he didn’t contact you.”

  “That cop does. She thinks that we quarreled over his deception, and I got so mad that I bashed him in the back of the head.”

  “Not in a million years!” Liss was outraged by the very thought.

  “Never mind that you’d never leave his body in our only child’s backyard,” Vi said.

  “Did Cussler tell you anything else?” Dan’s voice was the only calm one in the room.

  Mac took a couple of deep breaths. Liss perched on the arm of his chair and took his hand in hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

  Vi turned away, fussing with the insulated drapes currently hiding their view of the lake. When she spoke again, there was a hitch in her voice. “She’s a fool if she thinks you’d hurt a fly.”