“He must have gotten caught in the storm and fallen off the dock or a boat into the sea. It happens to the most seaworthy men, and I wouldn’t say that the minister had much in the way of sea legs,” the chatty EMT said.
I hadn’t lived near Bellewick long, but I couldn’t remember the minister making any reference to boats at all. That might not mean much, though; I had done my best to avoid him at every turn. I would have to ask Presha about the minister’s relationship with the sea, if there even was one.
“It’s a clear drowning,” the coroner said. “You can tell by the way his face is bloated.”
My stomach turned at that comment, because even though I couldn’t see the minister’s face, it didn’t take much to envision what he described.
Craig stood up, and as he moved, his knees cracked. “We’ve done all we can do here. My men will keep searching the coast for evidence, but you can take the body back to your lab in Aberdeen now.”
The coroner nodded. “Will do, Chief Inspector.”
“What do you want me to do?” Kipling asked.
I hadn’t even known that Kipling was still on the scene until he spoke. He stood off to the side and held a white handkerchief to the corner of his mouth. He was as green as the kelp that had washed up on the rocks and was doing his best not to look at the body. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I wasn’t looking either.
“You’ve done well, Kipling,” Craig said, giving the other man rare praise. “I’m sure I’ll want to speak to you again before this is all over, but until then, go home and get some rest. You’ve earned it.”
The coroner spoke softly to two crime scene techs, and the two brawny men rolled the minister into a body bag and began to zip it closed. The zipper stopped about halfway, which was just enough time for me to lose my resolve and take a peek. The swollen face of Minister Quaid MacCullen stared blankly back at me. I knew he hadn’t liked me from the moment he’d laid eyes on me, but I didn’t want to see him like this. For all his criticism of the MacCallisters and of me, he didn’t deserve this. No one did.
Finally, the crime scene techs were able to yank the zipper loose from its snag and zip the bag up the rest of the way.
Craig placed a hand on my shoulder and gently turned me away from the body bag. My gaze had been so fixed on the minister, I hadn’t even known that the chief inspector was standing next to me. “It’s better if you don’t look.”
My stomach rolled over. “Too late.”
He pursed his lips, and they disappeared into his full dark beard. “What are you doing down here, Fiona? I thought I told you to stay at the flower shop.”
“You did, but after you left and the shop closed, I had to see for myself if it really was him.” I frowned and felt tears gather in the back of my eyes. “It’s so hard to believe that such an outspoken, strong personality could be ended like this. He shouldn’t have died like this.”
He nodded. “No one should.”
I blinked away the tears. I didn’t know if I felt weepy over the minister’s death for his sake or selfishly for mine. I didn’t want to be the focus of a murder investigation again so soon. Maybe my sister was right; maybe I was worried about his death because of how it would affect me. I didn’t want to be so cold. “Presha said he did a lot of good for his congregation.”
“He did,” Craig said. “He was strict, but no one could question his dedication to his flock.” He squeezed my shoulder once and then let go. “Go home, Fiona. You’re tired, and you shouldn’t be here.”
“I do have business here,” I corrected him. “You know why—it’s in your pocket.”
“The note, you mean.”
I glanced around to make sure no one had overheard him. “Yes,” I lowered my voice. “You had no right to take the note from my shop. I didn’t give you permission to take it, and you didn’t have a warrant when you did.”
“When did he give it to you?”
I frowned. “It was tucked into the front door of the Climbing Rose this morning when Isla and I arrived at the shop a little before eight.” I held out my hand. “I think you should return it.”
He stared at my outstretched hand. “I’m not giving you the note back. It may have been the very last message Minister MacCullen ever wrote. If I know when he placed it on your door, I might be able to follow his trail until the moment he was murdered.”
I sucked in a breath. “Are you sure it was murder?”
He stared down at me with his dark-blue eyes. Again, I marveled at how tall he was. I wasn’t a short woman by any measure, but next to the chief inspector, I felt almost dainty. I was much more used to looking down at others and being in control over my own physical space. I couldn’t seem to accomplish that when Craig was near, and it felt like a disadvantage.
“I’m sure,” he said.
I scanned the beach and was happy to see that none of the people on the scene—the EMTs, crime scene techs, the coroner, or even Kipling—were paying us the least bit of attention. I was surprised to see Kipling still there—I would have thought he’d have bolted back to the village the moment Craig released him to spread the news of his great discovery and how he had single-handedly secured the scene and dragged Minister MacCullen’s body ashore or some such long tale. Instead, the volunteer officer was looking at the stony beach and kicking at the smaller rocks with the toe of his boot.
“How can you be sure?” I asked. “He could have just been out on a boat and been caught in the storm. He could have caught his foot in a line or hit his head and fallen overboard. He could have been wandering the dock, tripped over a seagull, and fallen into the sea.”
His thick eyebrows came together. “Tripped over a seagull?”
“I’m just saying there are many possible scenarios that could explain how Minister MacCullen came to drown in the North Sea, and not one of them has to do with murder.”
He scrubbed the side of his face. “That’s true, but it wouldn’t explain the hand marks on the back of his neck.” He touched the back of his neck. “They were right here.”
I blinked at the chief inspector, surprised he was so forthcoming with this vital bit of information.
“The bruises,” he went on to say, “are clear indications that someone was holding him in place. My guess is that someone was holding his head under water until he drowned.”
I shivered and couldn’t help but wonder why Craig was telling me all this. I wasn’t a police officer. I wasn’t even sure if we were really friends. At the same time, I didn’t stop him. I wanted to know. “At sea in that storm we had that seems crazy.”
“Usually the sanest murderer makes the decision to kill in a moment of crazy. Very few murders are planned in detail for weeks and months. Most violent deaths happen in an instant, when the killer is too angry or distraught to think clearly. Without clear thinking, murder can seem like a viable option to remove a problem.”
I shivered.
Craig put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it again. “Go home, Fiona. There is nothing more you can do here.”
I looked around and realized he was right. I was just in the way of his team trying to gather what little evidence hadn’t been washed away in the storm. I nodded. “All right.”
His straight white teeth appeared out from behind his dark beard. “I knew it would happen someday. I’m pleased to see it did sooner rather than later.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“That you would finally agree with me on something. You finally said I was right. I knew we couldn’t be at odds forever.” Another flash of white came out from behind the thick beard.
Before I could think of a smart comeback, he said, “Go. You need to rest. The minister’s death isn’t going to go away overnight. You will need strength for what’s coming.”
I was too worn out to ask him what he meant by that riddle. After saying good-bye to the chief inspector, I made my way to the wooden boardwalk, which was connected to the dock. I was eager to return to my flower shop
and clean up from the party. Cleaning would distract me.
I hurried past the dock, but a voice stopped me before I could head back to town. “You’ve only been here a short while and there’s another dead body popping up. If I believed in the magic ye are supposed to have, I would say that it was all yer fault.”
I turned my head to see that the voice belonged to the old fisherman sitting on an oil barrel at the mouth of the dock. Two other retired salty seamen were at his side, snickering at his comments.
I kept walking.
“You can’t run away from the mess you made,” the old fisherman called after me.
I didn’t slow down in my retreat, but the words dug into my heart all the same.
Chapter Nine
Rather than going straight to the flower shop after leaving the docks, I texted my friend Cally Beckleberry and asked if she was available to meet. She was, and I made a beeline for the Beckleberry law office. I knew Isla would be frustrated over how long I had been gone, especially since the Astra’s keys were in my pocket, which meant she was stuck in the village until I got back to the flower shop, but that couldn’t be helped.
Cally’s practice was on Queen Street in a townhouse that dated back to the time of Jane Austen. After a rocky start, wherein I thought Cally was a murderess and she thought I was as well, Cally and I had become friends. We were both unmarried career women in our thirties and outsiders to the village. I was from Nashville, but Cally was from London, and to some of the townsfolk in the tiny Scottish village, London was just as foreign as Music City, USA.
I stepped through the outer door of her building that was always unlocked. I trudged up the stairs, and every step felt like my foot was weighed down with a pound of lead.
I knocked on the inner door to the law office.
“Coming!” Cally’s refined English voice called out.
A moment later, she threw open the door. She was wearing a black skirt, a bright-yellow blouse that had puffed sleeves, and no shoes. The blouse was half untucked from her skirt, and the shorter side of her asymmetrically cut hair stood on end. Behind her I could see her black pumps lying on their side by the couch. Even slightly disheveled, she was beautiful. Had I worn the same outfit, I would have looked like an overgrown bumblebee that had recently been electrocuted, but on Cally it worked.
She ran her hands through her hair. “I just got back from Aberdeen from a meeting with a new client. I’m so sorry I missed your flower shop opening today. You do know I wanted to be there. I just have to take all the business I can get right now to establish myself.” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “I have a lot of clients whom I need to impress, so I will be placing a big flower order soon to make up for missing the party. Sending them flowers will be just the right level of sucking up.”
I smiled. I also had to take all the business I could get. “I’ll happily take your orders, but you don’t have to make up for missing the party. You told me weeks ago you had to work.”
She nodded. “Ever since Alastair died, I have to work even harder to keep the law office afloat.” She dropped her gaze and turned around. “He did a lot around here. I didn’t agree with everything he did, but he was very good at business.”
Alastair Croft had been Cally’s law partner and my godfather’s attorney, the one I’d found dead in Uncle Ian’s garden. Cally and I had bonded during the investigation into Alastair’s death, as we both had been prime but ultimately innocent suspects in his murder.
I closed the door behind me and gave her a minute to compose herself. Cally was still dealing with the unexpected death of her law partner. To make matters worse, she had been in love with him.
She picked up her shoes and set them upright neatly in front of the end table at the far end of the couch. “What brings you here? I thought you’d still be at the shop working all hours. You have really been throwing everything into that place.”
“I have to. If I’m going to stay in Aberdeenshire permanently, I need my shop to succeed. My godfather’s money won’t sustain me forever.”
She nodded. Cally knew the financial situation I was in because she had been the executor of my godfather’s estate after Alastair’s death. I was comfortable for the moment, maybe more than comfortable by most standards, but I still had to make a living, and the best way I knew how to do that was with flowers. “And the opening went well. I might have gotten a wedding gig out of it.”
She grinned. “That’s great. And you were worried that the opening wouldn’t be a success.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, just as Craig had when he’d told me about the hand marks on the minister’s body. I immediately dropped my hand. “I don’t know that I would call it a success.”
She raised one eyebrow at me. “Uh-oh. Will I need a drink to listen to this?”
I fell into the armchair across from the sofa. “I feel like you need a drink to listen to most stories I tell, so yes.”
She grimaced. “Scotch it is. And one for you, too. I can tell you need it. I haven’t seen you this worn out since you came to talk to me about Alastair’s death.”
I looked away from her. It was best to wait to tell her about the murder until after she had a Scotch in her hand. “Oh, no, I’m fine. No Scotch for me, thanks.”
“I won’t let you make me drink alone, Fiona.”
“Fine. Just water it down a lot. My throat is still recovering from the last time you served me Scotch.”
“You know, you should be able to handle it. You’re the one with Scottish blood running through your veins. I’m pure English. I should be sipping tea and occasionally taking a nip of brandy for medicinal reasons.”
“Tea sounds a lot more appealing to me, even with the brandy.”
She shook her head. “Tea isn’t going to cut it after the meetings I had today.”
I sighed, resigned to my fate. I would have to start carrying antacids in my shoulder bag for the times I unexpectedly decided to drop in on Cally and she offered me a drink. Nothing I had ever drunk back in Nashville had been nearly as strong as what my barrister friend served.
Cally padded over to the bar cart on the far wall in her bare feet. She wasn’t a conventional, buttoned-up attorney, and I was learning that more and more as our friendship grew. I thought that might be why I wanted her to be my friend so much. Most of my friends back in Nashville had been of the society set with perfect French manicures and 2.5 children, husbands, and dogs, usually Labs.
I had never quite felt like I fit in with them. I was the business-owner half of a couple in a long-term engagement that ended on horrible terms. My toad of a fiancé left me for our wedding cake decorator. None of my old friends would ever have allowed that to happen to them. One even told me that if I had paid more attention to my ex instead of my failing flower shop, his eyes would not have strayed. I didn’t count her among my friends any longer.
Cally had her own sob stories when it came to love lost, and we could both drink to starting over on our own. We were two single ladies with no prospects for men in our lives and felt just fine about that. As soon as the thought struck me, an image of a certain large, bearded chief inspector came to my mind. I pushed the image away.
Cally handed me a tumbler half full of Scotch. I guessed she hadn’t added more than a splash of water on top. “I can’t stay too long. Isla is back at the shop, and I’m sure she is wondering what’s become of me.” I knew I would barely touch the drink. I had to drive back to Duncreigan, after all, but I held it in my hands for Cally’s sake to make like I was at least considering taking a sip.
She held up her tumbler. “Then go ahead with your story.”
“Minister MacCullen is dead. Looks like he was murdered.” My announcement came out in an unpremeditated rush.
Cally was midsip when I spoke and choked on her drink. She grabbed a tissue from the box on the side table and wiped her mouth.
I grimaced. “I should work on my delivery.”
She sputtered. “For the
sake of my esophagus, yes, I’d say you need to work on it. Now, tell me that again from the beginning.”
“It was near the end of the opening party for the shop. Kipling stormed in saying he discovered a body on the beach. Craig jumped right into action and followed him out of the shop.”
She held up her hand. “Wait, Neil was at your flower shop opening?”
“He was.” I tried to answer disinterestedly.
She examined me, and I felt like a witness on the stand under her crisp interrogation. It wasn’t a comfortable spot. “And don’t you think it means something that the chief inspector was there?” she asked. “I’m sure that he had a million tasks he could have been doing on a Monday afternoon, especially after that terrible storm Sunday night, but he came to your flower shop opening.”
“It might mean he’s interested in flowers. I think more men should be. Some of the best gardeners I have known are men. It’s not just a woman’s job. I believe equal opportunity should go both ways.”
She snorted. “It means that he’s interested in flower shop owners, I think.”
I frowned. “Do you want to hear about the minister or not? I tell you a man is dead, and you are more interested that the chief inspector popped into my flower shop opening than the poor man who lost his life.”
She sipped her Scotch. “I don’t think anyone has ever called the minister a poor man, but yes, please do go on. My apologies. How do you know it was the minister?”
“Kipling said the body belonged to Minister MacCullen, and I—I saw him. Dead, I mean.”
“How?”
I told her about my field trip to the rocky beach.
She ran her cold tumbler back and forth over her forehead. “As your legal counsel, I would advise against going to crime scenes in the future. It’s poor form, Fi.” Before I could respond, she asked, “Had there been an accident? That was a nasty storm last night. Did he fall off the dock and drown?”
Death and Daisies Page 6