A Circle of Crows

by Kelsey Kingsley

  “About what?”

  “Oh, it’s only protocol, miss. Nothin’ to worry about.”

  “Then, why do I need to specifically speak to you? Why can’t any other Constable do that?”

  I had never once assumed the woman would be at all daft, but I also hadn’t expected her to ask so many questions. Of course, I did understand why she would be suspicious, we were, after all, dealing with the death of her sister. But Christ, I was hoping this would be easier.

  “It’s just my position, miss. Nothin’ more than that.”

  “Sure, fine,” she muttered. “I’ll be there at some point tomorrow.”

  “All right, miss. Have a safe flight.”

  “Thank you,” she replied shortly, and then, she hung up, leaving me to sit at my desk and wonder what I was about to get myself into.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ROSIE

  “Ya don’t have to go,” Patrick, one of River Canyon’s finest and my neighbor’s son, said, eyeing me with gentle concern.

  “I’m fine,” I said, hoping I would soon believe it. “I made Gracie go over there alone. I won’t let her take the flight home by herself now, too.”

  Patrick narrowed his soft, blue eyes with sympathy and concern. “Rose, ya didn’t make her do anything, ya do know that, right? This wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, nodding as I stood from his desk. “I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I come back.”

  “Ya better,” he replied, curling his lips into a sad, little smile.

  As I headed out of the River Canyon Police Department, to get in my car and drive my son and me to the airport, I couldn’t help but scold myself for the lie I had told him.

  This had been my fault. My sister would have never gotten on that plane if she had done things her way, but I had convinced her. I had talked her into going against her own intuition, and for what? So I could live vicariously through her, while I was tied down in small town America, fighting endlessly with a teenager. That was entirely on me, and therefore, so was her death.

  And then, there was my son and the zombie-like persona he had adopted since finding out about his Aunt GiGi’s passing.

  It was expected that’d he’d be upset and heartbroken. He and his aunt had been thick as thieves since the day he was born. She adored him, always spoiling him more than I would have liked, and in his eyes, even as a moody teenager, she could do no wrong. I knew his heart had to be shattered beyond all recognition, I knew it happened the moment I got that call from my father, but it was how catatonic he was now that had me especially concerned.

  “You hungry?” I asked him, as I glanced across the car. “Do you want to grab something on the way?”

  “No,” he grumbled, not even bothering to lift his head from the car window.

  “Are you sure? I’d be willing to eat anything,” I tried to bribe him. “Even that nasty hot dog place you like.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he insisted.

  “Come on, kiddo,” I said, reaching across the car to gently stroke the top of his hooded head. “You’ve hardly eaten in the past couple of days.”

  “What the hell do you care?” he fired at me, turning to stare at me with vile disgust.

  “TJ,” I gasped, taken aback, “why would you say that? Of course, I—”

  “You killed her!” he shouted at me, his face contorting with rage. “She didn’t even want to go, and you made her do it. It didn’t even matter to you that she didn’t want to fucking go. You forced her to do it, and now, it’s because of you that she’s dead! You did this!”

  Struggling to hold myself together, I shook my head profusely, reaching out for him with shaking hands. “N-no, TJ. Honey, please—”

  “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  I nodded and quickly pulled my hands away, as I stammered, “O-okay. But honey, I-I-I had nothing to do—”

  “Just shut the fuck up,” he muttered, his voice suddenly void of all emotion, as he swatted angrily at the tears staining his cheeks.

  “Okay,” I replied, nodding, as the guilt ate quietly away at my soul. “But, but can I ask you a question?”

  I took his silence as permission, and asked, “Would you prefer to not go with me? D-don’t feel like you have to. You can stay with your dad, if this is too much for you. You—”

  “I’m going,” he seemed to growl.

  Licking my lips, I nodded. “O-okay. I just don’t want you to feel—”

  “I want to come and bring her ashes home,” he replied in a stern, flat town. “Now, please, just please, shut the fuck up.” Then, with a quivering lip, he dismissed me, turning to stare out the window.

  So, with an ache in my heart that was big enough to consume my ability to speak, I did just that and drove us to the airport in silence.

  ***

  The seven-hour flight over the ocean was already destined to be long and tiresome, but my son’s willful lack of attention made it that much more awful. Every attempt I made to have a conversation with him was thwarted by his headphones or an irritating demand to let him sleep, even though he wouldn’t sleep at all, and in some ways, that hurt more than the reason why we were actually on the plane. Because there was nothing I could do now about my sister being dead, but TJ was still here. No matter how desperately I wanted him to not hate me, he did, and for once, I couldn’t say I blamed him for that.

  But by the time the plane landed, my patience with his attitude was on its last legs. Seven hours of teenaged hormones, while I was still so new to the shock of my sister being dead, was too much to take. When we finally got to our hotel room, I stared incredulously at my angry, bitter son, as he threw himself onto one of the two full-sized beds.

  “We have to get to the police department,” I told him, still in my jacket while he kicked off his shoes.

  “Okay. Have fun with that,” he muttered, pulling out his phone.

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  TJ bounced his bottom on the mattress, then shook his head. “This bed sucks.”

  “TJ, please—”

  “Make sure you put the hang-y thing on the doorknob. The, uh, the Do Not Disturb thing,” he muttered, keeping his eyes on the phone in his hands. “I don’t want a maid walking in here when I’m sleeping.”

  Realizing I was fighting another losing battle with him, I grabbed my purse and stomped my way out the door, not forgetting to hang the Do Not Disturb tag. I figured, if nothing else, his attitude would only get in the way of the business I needed to take care of, and he was probably better off staying back, anyway. So, I headed outside to face Fort Crow, Scotland for the first time alone, much like my little sister had just weeks ago.

  It was raining when I left the hotel. My lips spread in a small, sad smile, remembering the complaints Gracie had after she had been in the country for a few days.

  “It’s so depressing how often it rains here,” she had said, groaning about her sudden disinterest in heading to Inverness and seeing the Culloden Battlefield.

  “Oh, just go,” I had urged her. “When are you going to get another chance to see the Fraser Clan stone?”

  She had gone, despite her further complaints about not having the appropriate shoes to go trekking through a muddy field. I remembered the pictures she had sent me of the grave markers, the selfies she had taken in her soaked sweatshirt, and then, the phone call that night of her telling me about the eerie serenity she had experienced on the battlefield.

  “I thought I’d be excited to see the stone, but really, I just felt sad, you know?” she had said. “It was peaceful, though, and … I don’t know. I’m just so glad I went, but God, Rosie, I wish you had been there. I wish you were here now.”

  Coming back from the past my memories offered, I allowed a moment of sadness to pierce through my heart. The thought of not having her there ever again, to read and watch the Outlander series with, hit harder than maybe it should have. It was such a trivial thing, in the grander scheme of things. But
it had been such an integral part of our sisterly relationship, and I doubted I’d ever be able to swoon over Jamie Fraser again without mourning her memory.

  I called a taxi to take me to the Fort Crow Police Station. After the car arrived, I spent the fifteen-minute trip watching the scenery go by, and wondered how many of these sights had also been seen by my sister. During those minutes, I was engulfed with the feeling of being closer to her than I was, and in a morbid sort of way, I couldn’t wait to collect her remains. Just to be with her again.

  ***

  The Fort Crow Police Station was a rundown structure in a remote area of the town. I knew that it was a small town and something of a hidden gem but given the gorgeous architecture throughout the rest of what I had seen, it was unexpected to pull up to an old, dingy building.

  I paid the driver, told him not to wait, and headed inside. Immediately, I was met by a short, round man wearing a badge.

  “Can I help ye, miss?”

  I took a quick glance around the small, open room. There were a handful of desks, a few doors leading to rooms unknown, and a lone water cooler and coffee maker in a corner. I wondered just how many cops there were and how much crime a department this tiny really saw. I also wondered if they would even recognize a murder if it was knocking at their door.

  “Miss?”

  Looking back to him, I found my voice and said, “Um, I’m here about my sister—”

  “Ah, right. The poor American lass.” He noted my immediate look of startled suspicion and smiled apologetically. “Yer accent. I took a guess.”

  “Oh,” I replied, feeling unreasonably stupid.

  “I’ll just take ye to Chief Inspector Frasier, if ye’d just follow me this way.”

  So, I did. Following him through the room, I noted the various nameplates on the desks. Abernathy, McDougal, Sharp, Rankin, Colven … There weren’t many, maybe twelve in all, until I read the name Brodie. It struck a chord, awakening the memory of a phone call from a couple days before. I stopped at the desk and pointed at the nameplate.

  “Um, I spoke with Inspector Brodie earlier in the week, and he said to—”

  “Inspector Brodie won’t be in the office until later,” the cop said with a sigh, already bored with me. “Ye could come back, or—”

  “No,” I replied with a shake of my head. “It’s okay. I really just want to get my sister and go home.”

  A sympathetic look in his eyes dared me to hug the man, as he told me he understood and continued to lead me to a door that read Chief Inspector Frasier.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ALEC

  Rolling out of bed an hour after the alarm had gone off, I threw on a wrinkled shirt, crumpled tie, and a pair of trousers in desperate need of laundering. I raced from my room and down the hall to the kitchen, hoping to Christ and every one of his apostles that there was coffee in the pot, when I spotted the thermos on the counter.

  “Made ye a cup,” Rick muttered from the table, without looking up from his phone.

  “Ah, lad, I'd kiss ye if I wasnae runnin' so fuckin' late,” I said hurriedly, grabbing the steaming steel canteen and quickly walking to the door.

  “Have a good day, darlin',” he called.

  “Ye better have supper waitin' fer me by the time I get back!” I shouted into the house, then chuckled to myself as I hurried down the steps and to my car.

  It was another grey day in the wee town I'd grown up in, and as I sipped my coffee and traveled to the office, a raindrop softly landed on the windshield, taking me back to that day in the woods. The woman's body, laying haphazardly against the smooth, white stone. Her left leg, ending abruptly where her foot had once been, while her right leg wore a shoe too inappropriate for a walk in the woods. I hadn't been able to chase the scene from my head since I'd been in that clearing in the middle of Coille Feannag, and all the questions that accompanied it were affecting my sleep.

  How had she gotten there? Who had she been with? Was it at all possible she had, in fact, gone for a wee stroll and simply tumbled from the cliff? Could it be that I had stupidly overlooked something? Was I truly that desperate for something exciting to happen in this fuckin’ shite town?

  With all of those questions, and all of that thinking, I nearly missed the station. The tires squealed with fury as I took a sharp turn into the car park and pulled into a spot. The lot was unsurprisingly empty, with only a few cars occupying the stalls, and I sighed with the melancholic memory of once upon a time being much more useful than I felt now.

  But you can make it right with this woman, I thought, as I headed into the office with the thermos of coffee in hand.

  “Good mornin’, Brodie,” Constable Sharp said with a dash of snarky sarcasm.

  “Don’t start with me, Sharp,” I muttered, walking past him and through the musty room to my desk.

  “What happened this time? Ye slept past the alarm again?”

  “Aye,” I said, nodding. “Yer mother kept me up too late last night.”

  “Ah, ye’re a funny one, Brodie. No wonder ye’re so popular around here.”

  “Ah, just what I’ve always wanted. To be popular.”

  Sharp sighed, shaking his head. “Whatever, mate.”

  I watched as he walked away, reminding me of an overweight penguin. He was the type of bloke whose legs were short, and his bottom was wide, and I wondered if I pushed him over, whether he’d fall flat on his arse without any hope of getting up, or if he’d just wobble about a wee bit before settling back on his feet.

  The Chief Inspector’s door opened at the moment my thermos and satchel hit my desk, and out walked Frasier with a woman at his side. She was tall, with legs any sensible man would love to find themselves tangled in. Her hair was the color of molasses, all piled on the top of her head in the rattiest looking nest I’d ever seen. Christ, she was bonnie, and staring at her now reminded me of how long it had been since I’d received any affection from the fairer sex.

  “So, we’ll just send her body to the crematorium,” Chief Inspector Frasier said, leading her to the front door. “Constable Sharp will give ye a ride over there, if ye dinnae have a car with ye.”

  She nodded as she walked, looking shaken and abundantly sad. “Okay, that would be, um … that would be great,” she said quietly. “Thank you … for everything.”

  My ears perked up at the sound of her voice. Husky, smoky, and just sensual enough to intrigue. And, most importantly, American.

  I watched her and the Chief Inspector, as they walked to the front entrance. “I wish there was somethin' more I could do for ye, lass,” he said, offering a textbook spiel. “Breaks my heart what happened to yer sister.”

  It irked me to the bone how impersonal he was behaving. I knew her name was Rosalynn, and if she were speaking to me instead, I'd be treating her with the respect she deserved in this dark moment of her life. Hell, she should have been speaking to me in the first place. It's what I had asked of her just the day before, but of course, I had stumbled in here too late to intercept before she'd been dragged in to see Frasier. That was my fault. I couldn't blame her—or him, for that matter. But Christ, I couldn't control the aggravation twisting and coiling through my veins, as he laid a stiff hand against her shoulder.

  Then, he said, “I'm sorry yer first trip to Fort Crow couldnae been under happier circumstances.”

  She offered a small smile that clearly took more strength than she believed she had. “Me, too. Thank you for everything.”

  Then, she walked through the door with Constable Sharp, and I was leaving my desk to stop Frasier before he could retreat to his office.

  “Was that the American's sister? Rosalynn Allan?” I asked in a demanding tone I had no business using in regard to my superior.

  He addressed me with a hard glare and a firm mouth. “Aye. What about her?”

  “Where is she goin'?”

  “The crematorium,” he replied brusquely, before moving on toward his door.

  “What? W
hy?” I asked, staying close behind him.

  “Well, Brodie, usually folks go to the crematorium to collect the ashes of their deceased loved ones. Not sure what the fancy inspectors from Edinburgh do there, though,” he muttered, his voice thick with sarcasm, as he entered the office and plonked himself down behind the desk.

  “Ashes? They're crematin' her? But what about the investigation? What about the—”

  “Brodie! Christ, man! Enough about the investigation!” he shouted, smacking a heavy palm to the surface of his desk. A picture of his three children wobbled and fell over, landing on its glass face. “The daft woman tripped over a rock and tumbled to her fuckin' death. That's what happened to her. And I am not gonna waste the time of my Constables, to figure somethin' out that's already been decided! Now, get the fuck out of my office and get to fuckin' work!”

  A deep, unsettling sensation overtook my stomach and churned the coffee in my gut, as I backed out of his office and headed straight to my desk, to ring William, the department's medical examiner. After a few moments, he finally answered in a grumbled monotone.

  “Hello?”

  “William, it’s Inspector Brodie, from the Fort Crow—”

  “Aye. What can I do for ye, Brodie?”

  “I wanted to ask about the autopsy for Grace Allan,” I demanded.

  William said, “Oh, did her family come?”

  “Yes. Her sister is here and askin' to see the report,” I lied, and obediently, William asked for me to give him a moment while he found the file. Why it wasn't there at the ready, I don't know, and why it hadn't been shown to her sister already, I could only begin to wonder.

  “Here we go,” he said. “Did ye want me to bring it to the station, or—”

  “No,” I interrupted him hastily. “I’ll be right there.”

  ***

  “Y’know, it wouldnae been any problem to bring it over,” William said, standing from his desk with the file in hand.