“She was counting on the locked door to the art gallery to make him think only the classroom wing was in play. Did Detective Franklin even know that Palsgrave used that shortcut before I told him about it?”
“I don’t think so. Someone screwed up,” Gordon added. “The entire building should have been searched and cordoned off to keep people out, locked door or no.” Then he sighed and ran a hand across the top of his short-cropped hair. “Damn budget cuts,” he muttered. “We need more manpower. And better lab facilities. And just about everything else.”
“So,” Penny said, picking up the story, “Caroline Halladay, in fresh clothing similar enough to what she had been wearing earlier that no one noticed the difference, returns to her office through the trapdoor and emerges from said office after the appropriate length of time for one of her regular half hour meditation sessions.”
“Right. And that’s just in time to send Willa Somener to look for Dr. Palsgrave,” Liss agreed. “Then, once Caroline was certain that the police weren’t watching the theater end of the building, she retrieved the sword and her clothes and headed for Moosetookalook. She could have put the sword into the trunk of my father’s car at any time that night. He never remembers to lock it. I suppose she’s long since destroyed the clothes.”
“Even if Mac had locked his car, Caroline Halladay strikes me as the type who’d know how to jimmy open someone’s trunk.”
Liss sent Gordon a narrow-eyed look. “What am I missing?”
“Franklin had a feeling about her. Until now, though, we didn’t have a clue how she might have managed to get out of her office to kill Palsgrave.”
“Time to give Stan a call,” Penny said, setting down her pen.
Franklin, Liss realized, had talked to Gordon, and Gordon had shared with Penny. Too bad no one had bothered to let her in on their thinking. She might have figured out what had really happened a whole lot sooner.
“What made Franklin suspicious?” she asked.
“The last call Leon Palsgrave received on his cell phone was from Caroline Halladay. She said she just contacted him to give him a heads-up that Mac was on his way to the classroom, but that made Franklin wonder why she thought such a warning was necessary.”
Liss shook her head in wonderment. “If that’s true, then it actually supports my father’s story that no one was in the classroom when he arrived.”
“A slip on her part. And, more importantly, it fills in a gap in the chain of events. I’ll pass on this information to Stanley Franklin. He’ll take it from here.” Gordon swiveled around on the bench to give Liss a stern look. “And you, Liss MacCrimmon, about to be Liss Ruskin, are out of it. Go and get married.”
“I had no intention of doing anything else!”
“Good.”
He stood and Liss and Penny followed suit. They walked back toward the tents together.
Liss couldn’t help glancing toward the blacksmith’s shop. She gave a guilty start when she realized that Caroline Halladay was staring back at her. The other woman’s eyes narrowed, then went wide.
“Oh, damn,” Liss whispered.
Caroline flung the tongs she’d been using into the fire. Shoving her young apprentice aside, she fled the forge.
At Liss’s side, Gordon stopped and stared. “We’ve been made. How?”
Penny looked up from stuffing the notes she’d taken into her fanny pack. “Shoot! She must have recognized me. Back when the games were going to be held at the fairgrounds, she met with me to talk about security for the conclave.”
Neither Gordon nor Penny were in uniform, but that hadn’t mattered. Caroline’s guilty conscience had apparently been enough to make her jump to conclusions when she saw them with Liss. In this case, she’d been right to panic. They were on to her.
Gordon set off in pursuit. Penny followed a moment later. Liss stayed where she was. She’d done her part. She’d only be in the way if she tried to help.
A glance at her watch told her she’d better get a move on if she didn’t want to be late for her own wedding. She sighted on the side entrance of the hotel and took the most direct route to get there . . . straight through the middle of the Medieval Scottish Conclave.
She could hear the glove maker’s spiel as she passed the first tent. “Learn the mystery of a glover and whittawer,” he urged a small audience gathered to watch him work. “We use softer white skins in contrast to tanners. Sheepskins, lambskins, and calfskins. We make gloves, purses, and other wares. Neat’s leather is for shoes. Sheep’s leather is for bridles. Horsehair makes bowstrings and we use calve’s guts for fiddle strings. I make leather aprons, jerkins, and bottles. Cheveril or kid skin—that’s from a goat, not a child—is soft and flexible and used for fine gloves.”
Liss kept going, fixing her mind on the wedding gown waiting for her inside the hotel. She’d lost sight of Gordon and Penny. Caroline had long since disappeared. If she had a car parked nearby, she was already long gone.
They’d find her, Liss told herself. She’d be arrested and Detective Franklin would find proof she’d killed Lee Palsgrave. None of it was Liss’s concern any longer.
The distinctive sounds of a sword fight in progress momentarily diverted her attention. She stopped to watch Kirby Redmond demonstrate the art of wielding a claymore. He held the huge bladed weapon generations of Scots had used in battle with an ease that belied its weight.
Liss was about to continue on when Caroline Halladay suddenly appeared. She popped out from behind a nearby tent and seized the claymore out of Kirby’s hands.
Frozen to the spot, Liss watched the drama unfold before her. Gordon, unarmed, approached Caroline from her right. Penny, equally defenseless against the sword, came toward her from the opposite side.
Unaware of what was happening only a few feet away, the shoemaker began to lecture, increasing the unreality of the scene. “Black shoes are made of waxed calf. White shoes are made of tawed leather, prepared by soaking the raw skin in alum salts. Cream-colored or buff leather is made by tanning with fish oils. Red leather is from goat skin. It was called cordwain, and cordwainer was another name for a shoemaker.”
“Back off,” Caroline shouted.
Gordon and Penny kept coming.
Spectators were slow to realize the danger. Caroline was in medieval garb. At first glance, the standoff appeared to be part of a demonstration. Kirby, who did know that something was wrong, picked up a broadsword, but Caroline took no notice of him. Her head swiveled from side to side as she sought an escape route. Inevitably, her gaze fell on Liss.
“You!” she bellowed. “This is all your fault!”
Caroline Halladay charged toward Liss, the claymore raised to strike. Gordon’s words flashed through her mind: Palsgrave was hacked to death.
Liss turned and ran.
Years of dance training gave Liss an advantage. She leapt over tent lines, swerved around a stack of handmade baskets, and sprinted toward the gazebo where her wedding was scheduled to be held in less than an hour. No guests had arrived yet. The only person in sight was Jake Murch.
Liss glanced over her shoulder. Caroline was hot on her heels, the heavy sword swinging wildly as she pounded after her quarry. Behind her came Gordon and Penny, but they were too far back for Gordon to attempt a flying tackle. Nothing less seemed likely to bring Caroline down.
Liss took the three steps that led up into the gazebo in a single bound. Inside, she found exactly what she’d hoped to—proof that her mother had ignored her insistence that she did not want to add a handfasting ceremony to her wedding. All the necessary elements had been assembled: the broom, the anvil, the cords for tying her hands to Dan’s . . . and the sword.
With a lunge, Liss grabbed the hilt of the weapon. It was a very nice reproduction broadsword, not unlike the one that had killed Professor Palsgrave. Her hands trembled, but she managed to lift the heavy weapon. She turned, praying she could hold Caroline off until Gordon caught up with them. He’d subdue Caroline, she to
ld herself. He’d make an arrest. He would not allow his old friend Liss MacCrimmon to be stabbed, impaled, or hacked to death.
Sword awkwardly raised, she prepared to defend herself. She did not intend to die on her wedding day.
Caroline skidded to a halt at the foot of the stairs. She held her weapon in a menacing manner, as if she knew exactly how to use it. There was something not quite sane about the look in her eyes.
Liss did not dare take her gaze off Caroline to look for Gordon, but she listened hard, hoping for the sounds of imminent rescue. Instead, she heard Jake Murch’s voice ring out, clear and cold: “Hold it right there, toots!”
Caroline whirled in his direction, claymore ready to strike down the newcomer. Murch, PI, stood a few feet away from her. The flap of the sporran he wore with his kilt was askew and he was holding the gun he had plainly been carrying inside. It was aimed straight at her heart.
Not Magnum, Liss thought, suddenly giddy with relief. Not Columbo. And not James Bond, either. Today, Murch was channeling Indiana Jones.
“I will shoot you,” he said. “Without a qualm.”
Liss believed him. So did Caroline. Slowly, she lowered the sword and placed it on the ground. All the fight seemed to have gone out of her by the time Gordon slapped handcuffs onto her wrists. Head bowed, shoulders slumped, she accompanied him toward the parking lot. In a low voice, he recited the Miranda warning as they went.
Murch and Penny followed them. Liss started to tag along . . . until she glanced at her watch and realized that she’d have to thank Jake Murch later.
Liss wore an assortment of summer flowers in her hair and carried multicolored orchids in a basket. Her gown fit like a dream. The skirt billowed out behind her—just a little—as she walked toward the friends and family standing in a circle around the gazebo. Her hand rested lightly on her father’s arm.
Mac wore full Scottish dress. He was comfortable in it, which was more than could be said for the groom and his brother, waiting with the minister for the bride to arrive.
Liss had not told her parents everything that had happened earlier, but she had shared with them the news that there had been an arrest and that Mac was now completely cleared of suspicion in the murder of A. Leon Palsgrave. She’d had the pleasure of seeing her father’s first genuine smile in weeks as he visibly relaxed.
While Liss had hurriedly dressed and combed the tangles out of her hair, her mother had taken hastily written messages to Reverend Browne and to Dan and, a few minutes later, had brought back word that everyone would cooperate.
To Zara and Sherri, while they’d been dressing in the hotel room, Liss had given a whispered summary of the clues that had led to Caroline Halladay’s downfall. She’d left out her own part in the final chase but gave Jake Murch full credit as the hero of the hour. Someday, after she returned from her honeymoon, she might tell them the whole story. Or not.
Right now all her attention was focused on Dan, waiting for her at the . . . anvil.
Parson Browne looked more resigned than disapproving. Liss concluded that he knew what had happened at the gazebo less than an hour earlier. Dan lifted quizzical eyebrows as she approached, then slanted his eyes toward the accoutrements of handfasting. She knew her note must have taken him by surprise, given how often she’d railed against the ancient ceremony, but the expression on his beloved face told her without words that he was willing to go along with whatever she wanted. When she joined him, he mouthed, “For you, anything.”
They exchanged vows and rings just as they’d rehearsed, but afterward they shared a drink from the quaich, the traditional Scottish drinking cup. Then Vi came forward and loosely tied their hands together with silken cords. When she was done, the minister struck the anvil with a hammer to complete the handfasting. Only then did he go on to finish the regular wedding ceremony, pronouncing them man and wife and saying, “You may now kiss the bride.”
Dan did so with enthusiasm, but he also took the opportunity to whisper in her ear, “Any more surprises?”
“Only one,” she whispered back.
“I call for the an sguab,” Vi said in a loud, clear voice as they turned, prepared to walk back to the hotel for the reception, “so that you may jump it and begin your life together.”
Dan eyed the broom Vi held with some wariness. It was decorated with ribbons and flowers. He was even more taken aback when his new mother-in-law industriously began to sweep the steps of the gazebo and the ground in front of them. When she had completed this task to her satisfaction, she placed the broom on the grass.
In a more traditional handfasting, it would have been one of Liss’s “handmaidens” wielding the broom, but somehow having her mother do the honors had seemed more appropriate. In some ceremonies, a groomsman placed a sword diagonally on top of the broom. Liss had remained adamant about omitting that part. She’d had quite enough of swords for one day. Besides, it was the broom that mattered most.
“You two are now one,” Vi intoned in a solemn voice, although her face was wreathed in smiles, “for life and a day. Go forth together on your way. Jump the broom—the world’s not so wide—hand in hand, and side by side.”
“Uh, Liss—”
She lifted their bound hands until she could touch one finger to Dan’s lips. “Too late, husband. The knot has been tied. You have no choice but to jump with me.”
And so, he did.
Epilogue
“Well,” Mac said, settling in on the sofa next to his wife. “That went well.”
“It did. Our daughter made a beautiful bride.”
Vi used the clicker to turn on the TV. Her husband took it away from her to channel surf. They’d already missed the eleven o’clock local news with its report on the capture of Caroline Halladay. Mac would have sailed right past the twenty-four-hour news channels had the words “body in baggage claim at Glasgow Airport” in the crawl not caught his attention. His expression grim, he backtracked, leaning forward to catch what few details were available.
“Oh, Lord! Is that where they’re landing?” Vi was vibrating with tension.
“In Glasgow, yes, but not at Prestwick.” He patted her hand reassuringly. “Liss and Dan are flying into Glasgow International.”
Vi chuckled. “That’s a relief. Although I don’t know what I was worried about. Even if it had been the same airport, our newlyweds are still somewhere over the Atlantic. They couldn’t possibly have found a way to get involved in another murder.”
A Note from the Author
There really was a Henry Sinclair and he probably did explore the coast of Nova Scotia and New England about a hundred years before Columbus’s famous 1492 “discovery” of America. For those who want to read more about it, I recommend The Westford Knight and Henry Sinclair: Evidence of a 14th Century Scottish Voyage to North America, by David Goudsward. Most of the theories Liss hears about concerning Sinclair and his reasons for coming to the New World are discussed in this book. Two—the story of a battle between Scots and Indians and the legend of a colony on an island off the coast of Maine—are figments of my imagination. All the characters and organizations Liss encounters are likewise my own inventions and do not represent any real persons or groups.
For readers who may wonder how July 25 managed to fall on a Saturday for Liss’s wedding, the answer is simple. In Liss’s world, time advances much more slowly than in real life. Her marriage takes place just two years after her return to Moosetookalook in Kilt Dead.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2012 by Kathy Lynn Emerson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2012936437
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bsp; ISBN: 978-0-7582-7956-9
Bagpipes, Brides and Homicides (Liss Maccrimmon Scottish Mysteries) Page 24