Murder in a Scottish Shire

by Traci Hall

  Which fired her temper. They were in this parking lot because somebody had killed Isla. “Tabitha and Isla were roommates and she knew about the digoxin she was taking because of her heart condition.”

  “I’ll read over Tabitha’s interview, but from what I recall, she had an alibi—she was at work.”

  “If Isla died in the morning, maybe Tabitha did it before heading tae work at the flower shop? Ritchie said she’d been a mess, crying.”

  “Ritchie?”

  “Her manager at the florist.”

  He leaned back, crossing his arms, shutting her out.

  Paislee pressed her point. “What if Billy and Isla had hooked up again, and Tabitha, emotional about her ex and her ex best friend, lost her mind?”

  “I understand yer reason for wanting tae find Isla’s killer—you have tae let me do my job, ye ken?” He searched her face in the twilight. “I dinnae want the person who drove you off the road tae take it tae the next step.”

  “Are you saying that you believe me now?”

  His mouth thinned.

  “It wouldnae look good in the Nairn police books?” Her attempt at levity fell flat.

  “I’d never forgive myself if something happened tae you. This is my town now and I take my duties very seriously.” He took his keys from his pocket. “I thought it had to be a gag from the police department when you and yer grandfather were the ones tae report Isla’s death. It wasnae funny when I got there, but odd, seeing ye both again, you must admit.”

  “It’s been a strange week.” She rubbed her hands as the cold dusk pitched into evening. “I should go.”

  He watched her with a hooded gaze that felt like admonishment.

  “I’ll go straight home tae eat fish and chips,” she said defensively. “Drop Brody off at school in the morning and be at Cashmere Crush at nine thirty.” She lifted her hand toward the detective and with the other grabbed her keys. “I will open at ten, and pick Brody up from school at three thirty. Dull as dishwater, I tell you.”

  Detective Inspector Zeffer finally broke down and smiled. “So why is it that I’m worried aboot you?”

  Chapter 31

  Monday morning, Paislee could move her right shoulder without it being sore.

  “Up and at ’em!” she called to Brody, in a cheery mood after the first good night’s sleep she’d had in a week.

  Brody groaned but Wallace woofed, so she knew dog and boy would soon be up for breakfast.

  Paislee paired her newest jeans with a fitted turquoise flannel that showed she had a waist, something that Lydia constantly accused her of hiding, and flats, and added a turquoise tie to her braid.

  Dare she apply shadow to her eyes?

  With a light step, she skipped downstairs where Grandpa had tea ready. He whistled appreciatively.

  “And good mornin’ tae ye,” he said.

  She patted her warm cheeks. “Amazing what a full night’s rest can do for a lass. I didnae have a single bad dream.”

  “Weel, Isla’s been settled, now.” Grandpa sat at the table.

  “Almost. There’s still a killer on the loose.”

  He arched a silver brow and didn’t argue. What could he say to that?

  She took her mug of Brodies Scottish Breakfast to the table and sat, pouring Weetabix into a bowl and adding berries. “What’s your plan for the day, Grandpa?”

  “Ye dinnae need me at the shop? Tae help drive?”

  “Well, I’m fine for today.” She wasn’t used to having assistance. “But I’ll make sure tae add you tae the pickup list at Fordythe, in case of emergencies.”

  “Ye should take advantage of me help while I’m here,” he said somewhat defensively. “Once we find Craigh . . .”

  “I know. You’ll be gone.” Her shoulders hiked. What was his rush? Maybe he wanted more hours at the shop? “Come in at noon, if ye want.”

  “I’m just tryin’ tae help.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  He glared at her, and she glared back. They each looked away when Brody joined them at the table.

  “What?” Brody said, his gaze traveling from her to his great-grandfather.

  “Nothing,” they said in unison.

  Paislee offered Brody the cereal. “Let’s make sure we keep our good standing this week with the headmaster, aye?”

  Wallace stayed home with Grandpa, and she and Brody made it out the front door at quarter till nine. They were at Fordythe with seven minutes to spare.

  “Thanks, Mum!” Brody slid out of the car, his backpack over his shoulder, and ran inside the building with the wave of other schoolchildren. She recognized the blond shag of Edwyn as he greeted Brody and then the two disappeared.

  No sign of Hamish McCall—not that she was looking.

  She deep-sighed and headed toward work. Being early would allow her to get further on her fisherman’s sweater and have it in the mail by the end of next week.

  Paislee, humming under her breath, parked the rental in the back of Cashmere Crush, and entered her cozy shop. The shop she loved. And had to leave. How had she forgotten that she was supposed to look at three new places this afternoon with Lydia?

  Her good mood evaporated. She tucked her purse beneath the register and stocked the till with money from her safe. Then she logged onto her store laptop to check for orders. Two sweaters had come in! Two hundred pounds. She would gladly take it.

  She turned the radio on for background noise and worked on the sweater for an hour. By eleven she was getting a crick in her neck, so she put the knitting down and stretched, discovering to her dismay that the yarn from Flora that Grandpa had priced hadn’t been stocked on the shelves.

  This was the sage that she always sold out of, and she knew she could have sold it on Saturday in the shop.

  The front door opened, and Mary Beth entered with her customary smile, her hand to her ample chest.

  “How was the christening party?” Paislee asked.

  “The blanket and booties were a hit. This little girl will be a princess.” Mary Beth sank down in one of the larger chairs, her blue eyes sparkling, her dark brown hair in waves around her face. “As she should be.”

  In for a chat, then. Paislee placed the box of sage yarn out of sight to put on the shelf later.

  “It was so kind of you and Arran tae help Flora and Donnan at the festival. Not that it’s any of my business, but I didnae realize you were such good friends.”

  Mary Beth pulled a square of yellow she’d started from her bag at her feet. “We used tae have dinner together a few times a year. The girls love Flora—it’s a shame her and Donnan never had children.”

  Paislee brought out the Oxford Blue yarn, so she could knit while they chatted. The sweater wouldn’t finish itself.

  Mary Beth leaned close to Paislee. “Donnan never wanted them, and we both know he ruled their roost. My heart goes out tae Flora, shouldering everything now.”

  “She said she wished she had some extra hands, and joked that she’d take Grandpa for me.”

  “She did more than her share of the work before,” Mary Beth said ominously. “We both know it.”

  That was as close as they would get to discussing how Donnan, after a few drinks, used to treat Flora.

  “Aye.” Paislee finished a row.

  “He and Arran would play eighteen holes of golf, and stay for the nineteenth until the bar closed.” Mary Beth looped yellow over her finger, her tone deepening. “I dinnae mind picking them up so they don’t drive, but men will be men, and think they can manage.” Her pretty brows furrowed and rosy color speckled her chest.

  What was she saying?

  Did this have anything to do with what she’d said Friday night about drinking and driving statistics being up in Nairn? And why she hadn’t been drinking that night?

  Paislee’s first thought was that perhaps Mary Beth had gotten a DUI.

  Not Mary Beth. She couldn’t see it—even when she did drink on Thursday nights it was
only one or two.

  Arran, then.

  Paislee knit the next row of Oxford Blue, her mind searching for what her friend might mean. Finally, she just asked. “Mary Beth, what happened? You know you can tell me and I willnae say a word tae a soul.”

  Mary Beth burst into tears and dropped the yellow square. “I know yer going tae hear aboot it—Arran’s arrest will be in the paper. It’s awful—I’m so embarrassed. He might lose his job.”

  “Oh no! I’m so sairy.” She laid the partially completed sweater aside and knelt down beside Mary Beth to give her a hug.

  “That’s not all.”

  Paislee settled back on her heels. What could be worse? She briefly closed her eyes as she realized that Arran might have been one of the “fish” Isla’d had on the line. Arran made an excellent living, and he would be keen to protect his reputation at the law firm. An arrest for driving intoxicated would cost him his position in the community.

  A perfect mark for a girl digging up secrets in Nairn. “Blackmail?”

  Mary Beth’s expression darkened with disgust. “Isla contacted me. . . . I couldnae believe her nerve—you see, Arran was trying tae hide it from me. It happened last week, and he paid off someone tae keep it quiet, but somehow Isla found out.” She shook her head and met Paislee’s gaze.

  The heartache in her blue eyes hurt Paislee to see.

  “I didnae know. Me own husband! I thought he’d bought me the new van because he was being generous, not because he was covering for totaling his car.”

  “Totaled?”

  Mary Beth sniffed. “Aye.”

  Paislee patted Mary Beth’s arm, feeling sick. “Was anyone else hurt?”

  “No, thank God in heaven,” Mary Beth prayed fervently.

  Paislee got to her feet. “When did Isla call you?”

  “Not a phone call,” Mary Beth corrected. “She sent a letter saying she wanted five thousand pounds or she would release the news that this wasn’t Arran’s first DUI.” Mary Beth leaned forward, gripping her knees hard, her breaths quick in succession. “Somehow she found out about one from college, and she wrote that if I didnae pay, she would send the information tae his partners at the firm.”

  Oh. How awful.

  Paislee darted a look at Mary Beth’s bag. Mary Beth always had shortbread cookies—she claimed they were her weakness. And she loved her tea as well as the next Scotswoman. Her stomach clenched. Five thousand pounds? That was a lot more than a hundred pounds. “Och, Mary Beth, what did you do?”

  “I collected the money tae pay her. I told Arran, and we agreed it needed tae be kept quiet. But she died before I heard from her again,” Mary Beth wailed, tears falling on the backs of her hands. “Do ye think I should tell the detective?”

  Detective Inspector Zeffer was desperate to find Isla’s killer. How could she send her friend to the wolf? Isla’s cause of death wasn’t public knowledge. “You swear you didnae contact her?”

  “I was going tae pay. I have the money in me bag.” She glanced down at her purse.

  Paislee straightened. “Aye, I think you should tell him that Isla was trying tae blackmail you. Make it clear that you were planning tae pay her.”

  “What if he thinks I had something tae do with her death?” Mary Beth cried harder. “Or Arran? I didnae see her once she moved away.”

  “Do you want me tae go tae the station with you?”

  Mary Beth sniffed and swiped her cheeks with her palms. “Naw. I’ll do it. I have the letter she sent with me, too.”

  “He has Isla’s laptop, so if there’s anything that might incriminate Arran or you, you should be forthright.”

  “We are just trying tae protect Arran’s job.” Mary Beth’s tears slowed to a trickle. “This has been a nightmare. Isla was bold as brass in her demand. She dropped the letter in the mailbox tae hide her tracks—no stamp. She was working with someone in Nairn, she had tae be, tae find out these things.”

  Billy had said that Isla wanted him to dig up secrets, but he wasn’t going to do it. What if he’d lied to Paislee and he was mining for dirt on the folks in Nairn? The detective had also mentioned a leak.

  “Are you sure you dinnae want me tae go with you? Do you have an alibi for Monday morning?”

  “Alibi?” Mary Beth’s voice rose and her brow crinkled. “We had breakfast together with the girls, and then I dropped them at school. Arran was with me because he didnae have a car. Tae be sure, we exchanged pleasantries with the headmaster.”

  “Maybe start with that.”

  Mary Beth stood, her chin quivering. “I’m so sairy tae dump all of this on you.”

  “That’s what friends are for.” She gave her one last hug and then helped stuff her yarn back in her knitting bag.

  Mary Beth not drinking Friday night made more sense now. Also, she had a new minivan . . . in silver. It made Paislee feel terrible, but she forced herself to think back to what the van had looked like behind her that day in the car queue at Fordythe.

  The van would have been taller than she remembered the vehicle behind her being. Och, this was Mary Beth!

  “Thanks again, Paislee.” Mary Beth left, ambling down the cracked sidewalk to the police station as if hobbling to the hangman.

  Paislee paced the front of her shop and phoned the detective. The call went to voicemail, so she left a message for him to call her back.

  Next, she called Amelia.

  “Nairn Police Station,” Amelia said.

  “It’s Paislee—is the detective in? I’d like tae talk tae him.”

  “Paislee—no, he’s at a crime scene on Dartmouth. Billy Connal, Isla’s ex?” Amelia’s voice lowered. “Dead.”

  Paislee gasped and clutched her stomach. She’d known it— hadn’t she? That something was wrong. “What about Tabitha Drake?”

  “She’s in custody,” Amelia said.

  “Thank heaven. Please have the detective call me right away, Amelia.”

  “I will. Oh, Mary Beth’s here.”

  “She needs a friend,” Paislee said, and ended the call.

  Chapter 32

  Paislee peered out her front window of Cashmere Crush, the view blurred by the frosted glass, though she could make out the red from her geraniums, and the dark yellow of her marigolds in the flower boxes.

  Maybe her vision was blurred due to tears of sadness combined with relief. Billy Connal dead, Tabitha behind bars, and Isla to be at rest.

  Drawing in a deep breath and exhaling it, she released all of the pent-up energy she’d been carrying for the past week.

  With a lighter step, she returned to her counter by the register and perched on a stool, streaming music on her laptop. Knitting the fisherman’s sweater, she sang along with Calvin Harris, letting her fingers fly. For the first time since she’d started this project, she connected with it—the clack of her wooden needles, the smooth texture of the wool, the rib stitch pattern, all came together.

  “Hey!”

  Paislee’s head swung up from her knitting, completely startled when her grandfather arrived via the back door. She smacked her hand to her chest in surprise. “Hiya!”

  Grandpa spread his arms out to his sides. “Did ye forget I was comin’?”

  “I was lost in this sweater,” she admitted.

  He’d rolled up the sleeves on a flannel shirt that he’d put over a plain gray T-shirt and his usual khakis, and didn’t appear at all fatigued from the mile walk. Could it be he really was in better shape than her? She saw some changes in her future.

  “Busy morning?” He ambled around the counter.

  She shoved the project beneath the register on a shelf.

  “Billy’s dead,” she said. She stood and stretched her back, then reached for the box of sage merino wool to stock the shelves.

  “Dead?” Grandpa said loudly, then shook his head as if he’d heard wrong.

  “Aye.” She picked up two skeins, making sure they were priced, and filled the empty space. “I have a call in to the detectiv
e, but he’s busy.”

  “How?” Grandpa shuffled toward her, his boot heels clomping on the polished cement of her floor.

  “I dinnae ken—I talked to Amelia a couple hours ago.” The only time the detective chatted her up was when he wanted something. “Tabitha’s in jail.”

  “Tabitha?” Grandpa sank down on a hard-backed chair with a confused expression. “Can you be more specific, lass? A detail or two tae jog the memory?”

  Right. She hadn’t told Grandpa about her suspicions that Tabitha had murdered Isla, so she explained, ending with, “And Saturday after the festival, Lydia and I went tae Tabitha’s flat—I’d called the detective and he wasnae concerned about Billy being drunk. Before we picked up our Chinese food?”

  He scratched his silver beard.

  Tears filled her eyes as it hit her that Billy had actually died and she swiped them away. She’d been right to worry for Billy despite being wrong about Gerald. “We shouldnae have left, but Tabitha showed up with a bag from the pharmacy, and Billy told me he’d had bad fish. And I’d been wrong about Gerald, so . . .” she sniffed.

  Grandpa gave her arm an awkward pat. “Dinnae cry, now. You did what ye could. More than most, tae be sure.”

  “Aye.” She wondered what had happened, and if her warning about Tabitha could have saved Billy, or if she’d already been too late. Paislee chose two more skeins from the box, checked for price tags, then slid them on the shelf.

  “What’s that?” Grandpa asked. “On yer hand?”

  Thinking it might be a spider or something, she flapped her hand back and forth. “What?” She stopped but saw a fleck of sage green on her finger. How odd!

  Picking up another skein, she brought it to the counter for a closer view. She flicked the yarn and a smudge came loose under her thumbnail.

  What was going on?

  “Is it s’posed tae do that?” Grandpa asked, off the stool to peer over her shoulders. His black glasses slid down his nose.

  “Naw.” Paislee lifted the entire box of yarn to the counter and dug through the twenty other skeins. They all flaked. “I cannae believe it.” It wasn’t like Flora at all to have poor quality. “This yarn hasnae been fixed.”