Death and Daisies

by Amanda Flower

  “That’s what I thought, but Craig said no, it was definitely murder.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I squirmed, unsure if I could say anything more. Craig had trusted me with this information, and I had immediately run to Cally and repeated it. However, Cally wasn’t only my friend; she was also my lawyer, and if I was in some sort of trouble, she needed to know about it so she could help me get out of it.

  Cally arched her brow. “Are you holding information back from me, Fiona?”

  I took a breath. “There were finger marks on the back of the minister’s neck where he had been held under water.”

  “Neil told you that?” The skeptical look was back her in eyes.

  I nodded.

  “It just seems odd to me that Neil would tell you something so critical to a homicide case. He really shouldn’t be sharing that information with a civilian.”

  “I thought the same thing,” I admitted. “But I think he shared it with me because he knew I had a reason to be concerned.” I went on to tell her about the threatening note I’d discovered that morning, the one that was still in the chief inspector’s possession. I knew I didn’t have any hope of getting that note back. I was kicking myself for leaving it out on my work table; had I just hidden it or burned it, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I also told her about the minister’s visit to the shop the night before. “I’m sure someone must have seen him leave in a huff. It won’t be long before Craig learns about that too.”

  Cally shook her head. “Verbal and written threats? This is not good, Fi. The minister hates you, he’s murdered, you are the prime suspect for the murder.”

  I nodded. “That’s the gist of it. There’s something else, too.”

  She pressed her Scotch tumbler to her forehead. “What is it?”

  I told her about the incident outside St. Thomas’s the week before.

  She leaned back in her seat. “Did anyone else see this?”

  “Half of the church, I would guess, and I would be willing to bet the other half heard about it by now. Emer Boyd said that the church elders instructed the minister to apologize to me.”

  “Do you think that was the reason he came to your shop the other night?” she asked.

  “If it was, he really needs to work on his apologies.”

  Cally pressed her lips together for a moment. “In any case, this isn’t good news for you. It’s more proof that you and the minister were in a dispute and that you would have reason enough to dislike him.”

  “Dislike him, sure,” I said. “But kill him? That’s a stretch.”

  She shook her head. “Add in the minister’s threats, and one could argue that you killed him out of fear.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You and I both know that, but people will talk. Also, I still don’t think it was professional of Neil to tell you how the minister died.” She frowned. “He must have had a reason for doing that, but I don’t have any idea what it might be.”

  I frowned. “Neither do I.”

  “In any case, Fi, if you need an attorney, I’ll be at your side.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I would really rather it not come to that. I’ll do whatever it takes so it won’t.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re planning to play detective again just like you did when Alastair died, aren’t you?”

  “I wasn’t playing. I had to get involved.”

  Cally pursed her lips again, as if she wasn’t sure about that. “All right, fine. Your best defense is a good alibi. What do you have?”

  “It depends when he died. Yes, I was at the cottage last night with Isla, but most of the night, I was at the Climbing Rose getting ready for today. I wanted everything to be perfect. I didn’t leave the shop until close to eight, and the storm hit about nine and lasted the rest of the night. Isla was with me most of the time. She’s my alibi, but I’m afraid the police will think she’s lying because she’s my sister.”

  She shook her head. “Neil won’t say that. Was she with you every moment?”

  “She wandered off in the late afternoon, close to four. She said she needed to go for a walk. She was gone a couple hours, but she was there when the minister stormed into the shop, and we left together.”

  “Where did she go for a walk?”

  I swallowed, remembering that Isla had disappeared in the middle of the opening too and hadn’t said where she’d gone. I didn’t think Cally needed to know—it was most likely nothing, and she had just gone for a walk. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “It might. I think the more the two of you corroborate your stories, the better. Did you ask her where she went?” Cally stared at her empty tumbler with a slightly disappointed expression on her lovely face.

  “No, she showed up at the flower shop, and the weather was starting to turn bad. We were in a hurry to finish what we could before the storm broke. You and everyone else in the area know what happened after that.”

  She nodded. “It was quite a storm. One of the worst since I moved up here. I wouldn’t have wanted to be by the shore during that. There were reports that some of the waves were twenty feet high.”

  I shivered. “But Minister MacCullen was out in that. The question is, when did he die? And what was he doing near the docks during such a terrible storm?”

  “Not that I’m condoning your sleuthing, but if you can answer that first question, I think you could rest a little bit easier. Did you notice the note on your door when you closed up the shop for the night?”

  I shook my head. “But I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty that it wasn’t there. We were in such a rush to return to Duncreigan before the storm hit. I wanted to make sure the garden and the cottage were secure.”

  “Did you see anyone as you were leaving the flower shop? Was anyone standing around?”

  I thought back to the night before. My hands had been full of files and items that I wanted to take back from the shop. Isla hadn’t been carrying a thing, and I’d been mildly annoyed with her over it. But I hadn’t pressed her because she had seemed preoccupied. I knew she was fearful of the oncoming storm. My younger sister had been afraid of storms ever since she was a little girl. She had always climbed up on and hidden in my bed during foul weather. When she was given the choice, she always ran to me, her big sister, and not our parents. It had been no surprise that she opted to come live with me in Scotland when her other choice had been to move back home to the farm after college graduation.

  I tried to remember if there had been anyone else on the street as we were leaving. It had been mostly empty. By that hour, everyone had holed up in their homes.

  But one face came to mind. “I saw Seth MacGregor.”

  She cocked her head. “Hamish’s nephew?”

  “The very one,” I said.

  Chapter Ten

  Just before I left Cally’s office, she advised me, as my attorney, to tell Craig about seeing Seth the night of the storm and then to butt out of the investigation. I didn’t plan to do either. At least, I wasn’t going to tell Craig about Seth until I had a chance to talk to Hamish about it. Hamish had a right to know his great-nephew was back in the village when he should be attending medical school in Aberdeen.

  As I walked back to the Climbing Rose, I wondered why I’d been so upset over Seth being there. As far as I knew, he’d had a great reason for being in the village the night of the storm. Seth, a native of Bellewick, lived in Aberdeen, where he was studying to be a doctor. There was no reason for him not to be in the village; Aberdeen was a thirty-minute drive away. Still, it was the first time I’d seen him since the land deal over the cliffs was settled.

  Seth had been one of the ardent environmentalists who protested the development of the cliffs. Raj had been too, and with the help of Cally, they had been able to save the cliffs.

  Since Raj had been the ringleader of the protest group, my guess was that he was the most likely person to know why Seth was back in Bellewick. Oth
er than Hamish, of course.

  I decided I would ask Raj about it the next time I visited the Twisted Fox. With my mind made up, I pushed open the door to the Climbing Rose to find my sister leaning against the counter and tapping on her phone’s screen with an irritated expression.

  “You know, it’s going to cost you a fortune to text, since you have an American phone,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m using the shop’s Wi-Fi. Sometimes you still treat me like a child, Fi.”

  I grimaced because I knew this was true. To my surprise, as I scanned the shop, I found everything was neat and tidy. I’d half expected to come back to a mess, which was usually the case when I left my sister with cleaning to be done. “This place looks amazing. Did you clean up after the party?” I was ashamed to hear a little wonder in my voice.

  Isla must have caught it too, because she asked, “What else was I going to do after you left me here alone? There really isn’t much to do in the village.”

  “Thank you for doing it,” I said. “I didn’t expect it, but I’m glad to see it. I’m tired to the bone, as Mom would say, and I wasn’t ready to face cleaning up this mess. It looks to me like everything is in order and we can lock up for the night.”

  She paused. “And Presha helped. She popped back in about an hour after you left.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “I’m starving,” my sister complained. “Where have you been? I would have headed back to the cottage, but you have the car keys.”

  I winced. I hadn’t even thought of the keys being in my pocket when I’d raced out of the shop earlier that evening. “Sorry about that. I didn’t know I was going to be gone that long.”

  She frowned. “I couldn’t lock up, because you haven’t given me a key to this place either.”

  “I’m sorry, Isla,” I said. “Today didn’t go as planned for any of us.”

  “Especially not for the dead guy,” Isla replied. “Are you going to be arrested over the note?”

  I could a feel a headache developing behind my eyes. “No,” I said, even though I wasn’t positive that was true. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Thanks for watching the shop while I was gone. Can I make it up to you by buying you dinner at the Twisted Fox?”

  Her face cleared. “I guess you can do that. It will make up for it some, but I’m going to need a drink.”

  “I expected as much.” My sister was twenty-two, and being able to walk into a bar and order a drink was still new to her. However, she became majorly offended if the server or bartender had the audacity to ask for her ID. I was waiting for the day that she would be flattered to be asked, not that there was any risk of that happening at the Twisted Fox. The drinking age in the United Kingdom was eighteen, so it was unlikely she would be carded at any pub in the country.

  Isla and I left my flower shop, and I locked the door behind me. As I turned, I paused as my eyes fell on the spot where I had seen Seth standing across the street from my shop.

  I knew he had been in that very spot, but had I been right in thinking he was walking across Duncreigan that morning? If he had, what connection did that have with the minister’s death, if any? Typically, I wouldn’t think there was any connection at all, but seeing Seth twice after he had been away for so long this close to the minister’s death had me questioning his presence. I hoped Hamish could clear it up for me when I had a chance to ask him.

  “Are you coming?” Isla asked. “What are you looking at?”

  I blinked. “Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “I have a lot on my mind, too,” she said. “At least you have a job and a place to live. I’m in limbo.” With that, she marched toward the Twisted Fox.

  I sighed and trailed after her. I didn’t want to break it to her, but no one had their life figured out at twenty-two. I didn’t have it figured out at thirty, and I wasn’t expecting fifty to be much better.

  Isla threw open the heavy wooden door to the pub and flounced inside. Not waiting for me to enter, she made a beeline for the bar. The door thudded closed behind me, and it sounded like the lid being lowered on a coffin. I shook away that morbid thought. Clearly, the minister’s death had affected me more than I’d realized.

  My eyes adjusted to the pub’s dim light and the coolness of the room. The Twisted Fox was in a well-insulated stone building that had been sitting in the same spot for over four hundred years. It was built like a fortified castle, and there was no chance a storm like the one from the night before could penetrate its thick wall.

  Raj Kapoor had purchased the pub after the last owner had had to leave unexpectedly under very uncomfortable circumstances. Raj, who’d made his money through the laundromat, had told me he’d decided to buy the pub not for the liquor but for the history the building held. He was a historian by trade, and planned to write a history of the pub in between serving his personal mix of traditional Scottish pub fare and Indian cuisine. He had already discovered through his research that the building had once been a clan garrison.

  “There you are, Fiona!” Raj called from his spot at the bar. “I am so glad you are here. You will not believe the good news I have!” Raj was a lean Indian man in his early sixties. In the last several weeks, Raj had been growing a mustache, so he looked less like his twin sister than ever before.

  I made my way through the busy pub. It was close to eight, and the late dinner crowd was filing in. Laughter and voices filled the place as Indian spices permeated the air. I couldn’t decipher one spice from another. I had been raised on my mother’s southern cooking, which ranged from fried chicken to biscuits the size of my head. There hadn’t been that many spices growing up on the farm. Even so, it all smelled lovely to me, and it wasn’t until I inhaled the intoxicating scents that I realized how hungry I was.

  Isla was already at the bar with a pint of Indian beer. Her goal was to try all Raj’s beers, both British and Indian, before she returned to the United States.

  “Wow! That’s different. It’s like drinking a chai with alcohol!” she exclaimed.

  Raj grinned behind his black mustache and set a glass of water on the bar in front of me. “A little spicier than you are accustomed to, I would guess.”

  She took a smaller sip. “It is. I can’t decide if I like it or not.”

  Raj threw back his head and laughed. “You American girls aren’t afraid to say exactly what you think.”

  I sipped my water. “I don’t think it’s all American girls, but Isla certainly speaks her mind.”

  “You do too, Fiona. That was something I noticed about you the moment you entered the village. It was something Minister MacCullen recognized too. Maybe that’s why he took such a dislike to you.” He shook his head. “It is a shame the minister’s death had to ruin your opening, Fiona. If I didn’t know better, I would have said he planned it that way. Everyone in the village knew he had a strong dislike for you and Duncreigan.”

  My appetite vanished. “I am sorry the minister died. Any small impact that it might have had on my shop opening is minor in comparison to that.”

  Raj nodded and leaned over the counter to me. “’Course, there will be talk. I have already heard murmurs and the sun hasn’t set yet.”

  My stomach twisted. “What kind of murmurs?”

  Raj rocked away from me and made an apologetic face. “That you might have had something to do with his death. Everyone in the village knows that he singled you out as a troublemaker.”

  “I can’t be the only one Minister MacCullen didn’t get along with.”

  “Goodness no. The minister had been in the parish for over twenty years. I’m sure he butted heads with all sorts of people over the years, but I can’t think of anyone who would want to kill him. He was a fixture here—Bellewick just isn’t the same with him gone.” He paused. “If you want to know more about the minister, you should ask Malcolm Wilson. If anyone knows anything about the minister’s life, it’s him. I’m guessing you want to find out more about the minister�
�s life?”

  “You guessed right,” I said.

  “Who’s Malcolm Wilson?” Isla asked.

  “He’s the church sexton,” Raj said. “He knows everything you need to know about the minister and the parish. He lives in a little cottage on the church grounds. Malcolm has been the sexton at the parish church for at least as long as I have lived in Bellewick, so that would be over forty years.”

  “If I had to put money on it, I would say that Malcolm was the one who did MacCullen in,” said an elderly man, a regular at the Twisted Fox, who now stood at the end of the bar holding his empty pint out to Raj. The man had a perpetual squint and always seemed to have a pipe in his hand, so I’d nicknamed him Popeye when I first arrived in Bellewick. I didn’t know his real name. I had never asked what it was, and now, after all this time, it seemed rude to ask for it. “No one could have worked for that man so long without finally snapping,” he continued.

  Raj took the empty glass from the old fisherman. “I don’t see it. Malcolm is a gentle giant. I don’t think he even bothers the mice that live in the church basement.”

  Popeye snorted.

  Whether Raj was right or Popeye was, I knew that Malcolm Wilson was someone I would have to talk to. “Maybe I will stop by the church tonight to see him.”

  Raj refilled Popeye’s pint and handed it back to him. “This would not be a good night.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Because of the murder?”

  “Nay, because of the ghosts,” Popeye said, before shuffling back to his friends around the fireplace.

  “Ghosts?” I asked.

  Raj rolled his eyes. “Pay him no mind. There aren’t any ghosts around the old church. But wait until the daytime to pay Malcolm a visit. He’s had a shock with the minister’s death. He might not look kindly on an evening visit from a stranger.”

  I wondered why Raj called Malcolm a gentle giant but then advised me to talk to him only during the day.

  Raj shook his head. “I don’t attend St. Thomas’s, so I don’t really know what the congregation might think of him. That’s why you should talk to Malcolm. He will know. I do know drowning is a horrible way for anyone to die. The poor man is in my prayers.”