Murder Takes the High Road

by Josh Lanyon

  “Of Vanessa’s books.”

  “Oh.” His smile was dry. “That would be mother. I don’t much care for fiction.”

  “Then it was especially nice of you to make this trip with her.”

  “I wouldn’t leave her to do this alone,” he said grimly.

  “Well, she seems to be enjoying herself.” I couldn’t have said whether Yvonne was enjoying herself or not. I kind of suspected she was the type of person who took pleasure in not enjoying herself. I also couldn’t have said why I felt obliged to make inane social comments.

  Maybe Ben agreed because he didn’t bother to answer. After a moment he said, “Are you and John...?”

  “Are me and John what?” I realized what he meant. “No. I met him the other night for the first time. I’m still trying to figure him out.”

  “I see.” Ben was watching me steadily. “I got the feeling there might be something between you.”

  “Between me and John? No.” The suggestion brought warmth to my face. To change the subject, I said, “Trevor and I knew each other from before.”

  “I know,” Ben said. “They talk about you a lot.”

  I winced. “I bet.”

  Ben offered a faint smile. “Mostly Vance talks about you. Trevor spends a lot of time apologizing.”

  “Apologizing for what?”

  “Knowing you before he knew Vance.” He was sharing the joke, but I didn’t find it all that amusing.

  “That’s about what I’d expect.” Although, in truth, I had no expectations for what went on between Vance and Trevor. I still couldn’t understand what Trevor saw in him. Okay, not true. Trevor had explained to me what he saw in Vance. Vance was sexier than me, more romantic than me, more interesting than me, more adventurous than me, more playful than me, more fun than me... It had been quite a list.

  And the delivery had an element of blunt instrument about it. Like Professor Plum in the Library, I hadn’t seen it coming. Nor was it a list of things you could really argue with. Even if you were so inclined.

  I wasn’t.

  “I think you had a lot of guts coming on this trip,” Ben said.

  “I’m not sure guts is the word for it, but thank you.”

  He placed his hand on my shoulder and kissed me.

  Yeah, pretty much as described. Not the most graceful of kisses. For one thing, I was still in motion, and for another, I was not expecting it at all, and my reaction was an instinctive duck at the large approaching object in my peripheral vision. Ben’s lips landed in what was mostly a glancing blow, and I had a brief impression of mouthwash and urgency.

  “Uh...oh...hi,” I said. I kissed him back, equally clumsy, and mostly out of politeness. The topic of Trevor and Vance had not put me in an amorous mood. Anything but.

  Ben didn’t seem to notice the awkwardness.

  “When this is all over, I’d like to get to know you better,” he said. “If it’s all right with you.”

  “Well, sure,” I said. “But don’t you live in Seattle?”

  “Yes. I’m planning on making some changes though, after this trip.”

  It sounded a bit stern, the way he said it, and I made a noncommittal noise. I’m all for change and growth in one’s life, but in my experience, it’s not easy to jettison the past. Besides, I had a feeling Yvonne would not be thrilled about Ben moving away. I wouldn’t have been completely surprised to learn they lived together, but no. I had verified that from the group bios after dinner the first night. They both lived in Seattle but on different sides of the city.

  I wasn’t sure that different sides of the country would be far enough from Yvonne, though maybe that was unfair. Traveling can be stressful and not everyone was at their best in the role of tourist.

  “Should we head back?” Ben asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He held my hand part of the way down the path back toward the car park, and I let him although I wasn’t really comfortable. It wasn’t that I minded holding hands, but kiss or no kiss, I barely knew Ben and I didn’t feel like the needle had really moved on our relationship. In fact, “relationship” was putting it too strongly, in my opinion. I guess there was nothing like an ugly breakup to make you gun-shy about new possibilities.

  “Do you really go along with this crazy theory that there’s something suspicious about Rose’s death?” he asked as we were having lunch at the Wee Swally Victorian Tea Room after we’d hiked back to the village. His dark eyes were bright with amusement.

  “No. Not really.” I popped the last bite of Scottish rarebit—cheddar and egg on rounds of toast—into my mouth and then had to stop to chew. “I mean, I will grant that it’s a coincidence Rose was going around babbling about mysterious death and then ends up suddenly dying.”

  Ben wrinkled his nose in distaste. “It’s not so great a coincidence. The first time I saw her, I wondered what a woman that old was doing traveling on her own.”

  A little bit sexist, a little bit ageist, but as things turned out, he had a point.

  I said, “If this was a mystery novel, Rose’s death would definitely be tied in to something much larger and more sinister.”

  “That’s why I don’t like fiction. Now, if either Sally or Daya drops dead, then I might consider the possibility that there’s something sinister going on.”

  “Daya?”

  “She’s another conspiracy theorist. She told mother a friend of hers was on that previous trip—the one Rose kept talking about—and that, according to this friend, someone did die suddenly. I don’t know if it was mysterious or not.”

  “Are you serious?” I put down the bone china teacup and stared at him. “How did they die? Who was this person? I couldn’t find anything about it when I was searching the internet this morning.”

  He looked startled. “You searched the internet?”

  Was it that weird? John hadn’t seemed to find it strange. Then again, consider the source. I said, “I’m a librarian. Research is what I do.”

  “I don’t know any details. Some woman drowned in her bath.” He threw it out dismissively, but a sense of foreboding crawled down my spine.

  “Was this friend of Daya’s a credible witness?”

  “Who knows? Mother told Daya the whole thing was ridiculous, and Daya shut up about it. At least to Mother. I saw her whispering away with Rose last night—and then this morning at breakfast she was talking to the Poe girls and anyone else who would listen. That’s probably what set your friend Sally off.”

  “Maybe.” I almost told him Sally’s suggestion that I search Rose’s room, but the fewer people who knew about that, the better.

  At least until I decided whether I was going to do it or not...

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was no sign of John when I returned to the hotel after lunch, pleasantly tired and, amazingly, slightly sunburned.

  And, not counting Rose, John was the only one of our tour group who didn’t turn up for the really delicious dinner of three cheese tart followed by cold roast fillet of beef with crème fraiche, horseradish and mushroom sauce. Since the Scherfs and Rices were back, it seemed John’s absence had nothing to do with them.

  At this rate I would have to turn in my junior detective decoder ring. To comfort myself—and fortify my nerve for the evening ahead—I had a third whisky with my dessert of spiced bramble fudge crumble.

  By “evening ahead,” I don’t mean the planned ghost walk, although that was certainly what the rest of the group had in mind. From the moment Ben had inadvertently confirmed Rose’s story of a mysterious death on the previous trip, I’d been unable to get the idea of that missing journal out of my mind.

  I still believed what I’d told Sally that morning: not finding the journal proved nothing one way or the other. Rose could have mislaid the journal or the journal could have been packed up, unnot
iced, with the rest of her things. But if Rose had hidden it, and if it did contain something...well, maybe not damaging, but at least enlightening, that would certainly be of interest.

  To put it mildly.

  So, yes, I had not only caught the amateur sleuth bug, I was in full fever. I was as bad as all the rest of them. Maybe worse, given that I knew better. All the same, the whole time we were at dinner I was considering how and when I could most safely get inside Rose’s former room.

  I figured my best bet would be during the ghost walk, which was set to take place at nine o’clock. If I lost my nerve or the tour turned out to be really fascinating, I could always scrub my plans for B&E and just stick with hunting ghosts. There ought to be enough of them. In addition to the usual White Lady and Crying Child specters that no decent British manor house would be without, the building had been commandeered as a hospital for wounded soldiers during the First World War. After the war, it had been largely abandoned—the original family had died out, by then—but by World War Two, the building had again seen action, this time as a prison for captured enemy officers.

  In other words, lots of opportunity for tormented spirits in every generation. What all these spirits had to say to each other when they passed in the night was anyone’s guess.

  John was still not back when I locked our room and started downstairs to join the tour in the bar. I ran into Trevor coming out of one of the guest toilets on the second floor. His face tightened at the sight of me.

  “Why have you been ignoring me?” he demanded.

  I stopped walking. “Huh? I’m not ignoring you.”

  “What do you call this morning? I told you we needed to talk.”

  Not exactly news that Trevor was self-absorbed, but this seemed a bit much even for him. “There was a lot happening this morning, plus I just don’t see what there’s left to talk about.” Uneasily, I glanced around for Vance. I didn’t want to tempt him into shoving me down the staircase.

  “What ‘a lot was happening’ are you talking about?” Trevor’s stormy eyes grew even darker with suspicion and distrust. What the hell did he think I meant? What did he think was going on?

  “You phoned right after we learned about Rose—”

  “We?” he barked out, like Sherlock Holmes when poor old Doctor Watson was being particularly dense.

  “Me and John. Er, John and I.”

  Trevor jumped on my words, like this was the opening he’d been waiting for. “What the hell is going on between you and that guy? Supposedly you only just met. Isn’t that the story?”

  The story?

  Okay. Now I got it. And it was almost—almost—funny. Except not really. Not given our own history. I drew myself to my full height, which okay, is average, and straightened my shoulders—if I’d been any more strictly aligned, I could have swallowed a sword without damage.

  “The story?” I repeated. “Yeah, that’s the story. And it’s also the truth. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “The hell it isn’t my business! You’ve been watching me with those big, sad eyes, pretending to be the wounded party this whole time, and the truth is, you had something going with Knight all along. All those trips to San Diego. My God, how could I be so stupid!”

  “All those...” My face went hot. My pulse sped up. That was not guilt. It was outrage. I thought about the American Library Association conference I’d attended the weekend before Trevor informed me he had met the “love of his life.” Apparently, that single trip to San Diego was what he was referring to.

  Also, the “big, sad eyes” comment really pissed me off. I’ve got normal-sized green eyes, and there’s nothing sad about them. The opposite, in fact. Trevor was the one who used to say I had “smiling eyes.”

  Yeah, no. It wasn’t funny, it was infuriating. Even so, I knew it was idiotic to engage. Knew it, but couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t help myself loudly.

  “I don’t have to explain or defend myself to you! For the record, I met John two nights ago—the very same minute you met him, as a matter of fact—and there is nothing between us!”

  “But you wish there was,” Trevor said, and there was that expression again. His normally boyish features twisted with suspicion and distrust.

  I made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but didn’t quite come off. Didn’t come off because, infuriatingly, Trevor had accidentally hit a nerve. I liked John. A lot. Yes, I’d only known him for two days—well, really, you couldn’t even count the current day—and whatever I was feeling was probably some strain of rebound, but I did uncomfortably, unwillingly wish...something. It wasn’t even defined enough to put into words.

  I found other words though. Words to hit back where I knew Trevor was vulnerable. “You know what, Trevor. You sound jealous. You’re acting jealous.”

  He recoiled. Even seemed shocked at the idea. “Of you? I’m not jealous. You’re the one who followed me on this trip.”

  The key had changed, but the song remained the same.

  Sanity returned. “Whatever. I’m not following you now—” I happened to glance over his shoulder and spotted Vance hovering a few feet away. When had he arrived? How had I not seen or heard him? Had he tiptoed down the damned stairs?

  Disgust gave way to unease as I took in the expression on his face. Absolute, utter hatred.

  I was pretty sure in that moment that Vance had not accidentally brushed against me when we’d been walking along the road in Tyndrum.

  “He’s all yours,” I said. My voice sounded thick to my ears. Did Vance know that I knew? Did he care?

  “That’s right,” Vance said in a hard, flat voice.

  I turned away, continuing downstairs.

  * * *

  “Blar Nan Ceann, or Battlefield of the Heads, lies at the western end of what is now the village of Strathpeffer.” Our tour guide for the evening was a Mrs. Jamieson on loan from the local historical society. She was an elderly lady dressed in Edwardian garb. The high-throated black dress and laced boots did not look like a costume; they looked original, which gives an idea of how very elderly—and tiny—Mrs. Jamieson was.

  “Very little is known of this battle—not even its actual date,” she added.

  “That’s convenient,” someone said. I thought it might be Roddy Bittywiddy. The comment sounded jovial rather than snarky. I’d noticed he’d had quite a bit to drink at dinner.

  Mrs. Jamieson was not deterred. “All we know is that the MacKenzies of Seaforth defeated the MacDonells of Glengarry and some grisly incident we can only guess at took place at a well near the battlefield. This well is called Tobar a’ Chinn. Well of the Head. You will not be surprised to hear that this part of the country has more than its share of legends surrounding headless ghosts.” She paused for dramatic effect. “But are they legends?”

  There were a few pleased chuckles from the group as we moved away from the moonlit window and shuffled along the dark, drafty hall to our next stop on the ghost tour.

  “Our bloody and dramatic history does not end there. In 1486, the MacKenzies, under their chief Kenneth MacKenzie, defeated a large invading force of MacDonalds at Blar Na Pairce or Battle of the Park. That site lies a short distance from here, on the banks of Loch Kinellan. It is said that on midsummer evenings, guests with rooms facing in the southwest direction can still hear the moans and cries of the dying MacDonalds.”

  “Are there any more recent ghostly goings-on?” Yvonne inquired.

  I heard a couple of sighs, but Mrs. Jamieson’s bloodthirsty enthusiasm was unchecked. “I’m glad you asked,” she said. “I would like to introduce you to Mr. Robert Strathallan, the house’s original owner.”

  We had paused in front of a somber, life-size portrait of a disapproving-looking gentleman in brown Victorian garb. He had thinning sandy hair, fishy eyes and a mustache like an industrial push broom.

 
“Robert Strathallan was a bit of a scallywag, I’m afraid. A god-fearing church-going gentleman to all appearances, but three of his four wives died mysteriously and suddenly.”

  “Do the wives haunt the hotel?” Nedda asked.

  “It seems not. But...” Mrs. Jamieson paused for dramatic effect.

  “But?” prompted Yvonne.

  “What happened to the fourth wife?” That was Nedda again.

  “Ah,” Mrs. Jamieson said approvingly. She held up her artificial candlestick. It cast flickering light over the ring of watchful faces. “The fourth Mrs. Strathallan outlived her husband, who took a fatal tumble down the main staircase one summer’s eve. It is Strathallan’s ghost who is said to walk these halls.”

  “Good for her!” Daya said. Roddy cleared his throat uneasily.

  Mrs. Jamieson was on the move again, chirping cheerfully about death and destruction. The group trailed along behind her. I began to drop farther and farther behind. In the near total darkness, and absorbed by Mrs. Jamieson’s storytelling, no one paid any attention to me.

  Eventually the ghost hunters turned a corner and I turned and sprinted quietly back the way we had come.

  I have to admit I got lost a couple of times. All those austere portraits and faded brocade-papered halls looked alike, and there were a disconcerting number of stairs that seemingly led nowhere, or at least nowhere I wanted to go, but eventually I traced my steps back to the main dining room. I got a few strange looks from the row of gentlemen seated at the bar, so I must have looked somewhat desperate by then, but from there it was easy enough to find my room.

  I unlocked the door and let myself in.

  The room was dark, so John was not back, but there was still a hint of his aftershave in the gloom.

  I felt for the light switch and snapped it on. A thin radiance illumined the worn carpet and battered old furniture. John’s belongings were spread out exactly as he’d left them. He hadn’t come and gone.

  Had he said anything about staying away overnight? I didn’t think so, and we were leaving early the next morning. I hoped he hadn’t decided to bail on the tour. That was kind of funny, given how unenthusiastic I’d been at the start at the idea of a roommate.