by Connie Berry
“Did the airline call?” I asked. “My suitcase didn’t make it.”
“I’m afraid not.” Becca’s brows drew together. “Do you have something to wear tonight?”
“Makeup and shoes.”
Her mouth twitched. “I have a black dress you could borrow.”
I glanced at her tiny figure. “Kind, but I don’t think I’d fit.”
Becca examined me. “Let’s see what Nancy can do.” She picked up the desk phone and pushed a few buttons. “Nancy, Kate Hamilton is here. They’ve lost her suitcase. Any ideas for tonight in case it doesn’t arrive in the next couple of hours?”
In moments, a solidly built woman in a white chef’s apron bustled through the door from the rear of the house. Early sixties was my guess. Her hair was threaded with silver and held back with tortoiseshell combs from which a few unruly tendrils had escaped. “Welcome to Glenroth, dearie.” The smile was sunny, the accent pure Highlands. “I’m Nancy Holden, the chef.” She untied her apron and pulled the loop over her head. “I’ll take you to your cottage, shall I? Then we’ll sort you out something to wear tonight. Just in case.”
“I can’t put you out like that. You’re getting ready for the ball.”
“Nae, lass. No trouble a’tall.”
A cold draft swept through the room. Detective Inspector Tom Mallory shut the entrance door behind him and wiped his shoes on the brown coir mat. He’d changed his ruined trousers for jeans. He stared at me. “I thought you were staying with family.”
“I am,” I said, surprised to see him too but enjoying his confusion.
“You’ve met, have you?” Nancy asked.
“Not officially.” Tom ran a hand through his damp hair. “We, ah, ran into each other.”
“Kate, this is Tom Mallory,” Becca said, “our only guest at the moment. Besides you, of course. Mr. Mallory, this is Kate Hamilton, Mrs. Spurgeon’s sister-in-law.”
“Ah, yes, I see.” He flashed me that charming half smile. “You’ve come for the ball. I’ll see you tonight then.” He laid an envelope on Becca’s desk. “Promised my mother I’d write.”
“Friend of Elenor’s?” I asked when he’d gone.
“I don’t think so.” Becca slipped the envelope into a wire organizer. “She invited him to the ball, though, since he’s staying at the hotel. We explained it’s a local Chamber of Commerce event, but he seemed pleased to have been asked.”
And Elenor would be pleased to have an attractive man to flirt with, even one a good decade younger. Not that I was one to quibble about age. Bill had been eleven years my senior, a fact that had caused my mother some initial angst. “Mr. Mallory and I are the only guests? I thought Elenor gave special rates to partygoers who wanted to spend the night.”
Nancy and Becca exchanged glances.
“No more special rates.” Becca flicked another look at Nancy. “And the locals aren’t keen to pay full price.”
I knew all about the prices Elenor charged, even for family. That’s why Bill and I had stayed at the Harborview that last summer. “Is Elenor here?”
“Oh, aye,” Nancy said, “but she’ll no’ be for long. Getting her hair done up.”
“I should say hello.”
“Of course, dearie.” Nancy patted my arm. “Fetch me when you’re ready. You’ll find me in the kitchen.”
Elenor’s living quarters occupied most of the ground floor of the east wing. I faced the glossy white door and bit my lip. Three years of estrangement loomed between us, broken only the previous week when Elenor had telephoned in a panic. “I’m in trouble, Kate, and I don’t have anyone else in the whole world.” She hadn’t actually said now that Bill’s gone, thanks to you, but she didn’t need to. I knew that’s what she meant. Elenor was always great at guilt.
I knocked and the door opened in a cloud of flowery scent.
“Darling, how marvelous of you to come.”
I gaped at her. Was this the same woman who’d told me I’d ruined her life and she’d never speak to me again?
Elenor was in the process of getting dressed. She wore a slim tweed skirt and a silky camisole. Her blonde hair was caught in a ponytail that made her look more thirty-something than fifty-three. She took my hand and pulled me into the flat. “Too bad about the weather. We haven’t had snow like this since I was a girl.”
“I’ve been worried about you,” I said.
“You have?”
“You said you were in trouble. You said you needed help.”
“Oh, I do. Only I have to be at the salon at four. But come look at something—while I finish dressing.” She took my hand again.
I hated to be suspicious.
She led me through a pale blue-and-white living room and bedroom to a bathroom tiled in finely veined white marble. A table draped with a white bath towel held a small footed chest, a casket it would have been called in past centuries. The case appeared to be constructed of satinwood, but it was difficult to tell because the entire surface, top and four sides, was inlaid with designs in what looked to me like rosewood, mahogany, ebony, and a lighter, fine-grained wood. Boxwood, perhaps, or holly.
The first sign was a tingling in my fingertips. I felt blood rush to my cheeks. My mouth went dry and my heart raced. I knew the symptoms. I’d had them from childhood in the presence of an object of great age and beauty. My father, who’d taught me about antiques, had called me a divvy, an antique whisperer, drawn to the single treasure in a houseful of junk, able to spot a fake at fifty paces. An exaggeration, of course.
“What do you think?” Elenor was buttoning up a soft cashmere sweater. She looked as pleased with herself as a tabby presenting her human with a fat, furry mouse corpse.
“It’s extraordinary.” I moistened my lips and bent for a closer look. I’d seen some fabulous examples of marquetry in my time, but nothing like this. Tiny, fantastic creatures frolicked in a field of vines, berries, curling leaves, and stylized roses, all bordered with a fine checkered banding. The effect was magical, as if the work had been done by elves.
“The form says eighteenth century,” I said, “but it’s certainly not typical. The designs are curious. Almost oriental. Where did you find it?”
“That’s the secret.” Elenor tapped the casket lightly. “This is where it all began. I’ll tell you the whole story after the ball. You can give it a proper going over then.”
My stomach clenched. Is that why Elenor had insisted I come—not because she needed my help, not to heal old wounds as I’d hoped, but to do an appraisal? Never mind that I had an antique shop to run in Ohio. Never mind that I was in the middle of preparations for the prestigious Western Reserve Antique Show. Never mind that returning to Glenroth would rake up emotions I’d worked so hard to bury.
“You want a valuation.” I fought to keep my tone neutral.
Elenor fastened a gold chain around her neck. “No. Well, yes, I wouldn’t mind that actually. But there’s something else. I want you to see it and tell me what you think.”
Someone knocked. “Oh, for pity’s sake.” Elenor tsked and rushed off.
I heard the door open and Elenor say, “What is it now?”
“Do you want two or three servers pouring champagne tonight? The caterers want to know.” I knew that voice. Agnes MacLeod, Elenor’s old friend and the hotel manager.
“Were three included in the proposal?”
“I don’t know.”
“I pay you to know these things, Agnes. How many did we have last year?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Elenor mocked the words in a high-pitched singsong. “Well, I suggest you find out, because if they charge extra, it’s coming out of your salary.”
The door slammed and Elenor reappeared, finger-ironing her forehead with small, swirly circles. “Stress causes wrinkles. Did you know that? Sometimes I wonder why I put up with that woman.”
Put up with that woman? Agnes MacLeod had been Elenor’s loyal f
riend for more than twenty years. She’d given up her teaching career to help Elenor run the hotel.
“I’ll get my coat.” Elenor stopped and turned back. Her eyes glistened. “I am glad you’re here, Kate. We haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I do need you. Something’s going on and it’s scaring me.”
“Scaring you? Have you called the police?”
“I can’t do that.” Her eyelashes brushed her cheek. “I found something, and—oh, it’s a long story, and there’s no time now.” She made a helpless gesture and turned toward the bedroom, calling back over her shoulder, “I left something for you in your cottage. A package. Promise me you’ll open it straightaway. It’s important.”
“Of course.” I turned back to the casket. The old wood seemed to glow against the white backdrop. I ran my fingers over the smooth-as-silk joins.
Who made you? What stories could you tell?
“Come on, come on.” Elenor slid her arms into the sleeves of a white mohair coat. “I’m going to be late.”
I drew back my fingers in confusion. A word had formed in my head. Or the shadow of a word.
Murder.
Chapter Three
A steady rain dripped from the turrets and sheeted off the old window glass. Nancy Holden raised a green golf umbrella as we hurried down the front steps of the house and along the path to the sea. My mind was stuck on that curiously embellished casket. And murder.
I don’t want to give the wrong impression. I’m not a psychic. I have no paranormal powers. I don’t actually believe in such things. Nevertheless, I admit to having experienced something similar before. Nothing as definite as a word, mind you—just an impression, of joy or sadness or longing, as if the emotional atmosphere in which an object existed had seeped into the joints and crevices along with the dust and grime. The first time it happened I was a child, holding a crude wooden doll in my parents’ antique shop. “Dolly was made a long time ago,” my mother had said, “in a faraway place with no toy stores.” I was wondering why the doll’s owner had been so careless as to lose her when I felt a powerful surge of loneliness. Had the doll really been lost, or had she been discarded, unloved?
I’d never told a soul. Not my parents, not even Bill. Dismissing thoughts of ESP or second sight, I’d written these experiences off as the products of my overactive imagination, filing them away under the category of Unexplained Things like déjà vu and why men can never find anything in a refrigerator.
But murder—where had that word come from? Elenor’s fear must have triggered it.
Nancy took my arm under the umbrella. “Where did you and your husband meet?”
“Cleveland. Case Western University. I was a graduate student. Bill was a law professor. Almost the first thing he told me about was this island. And the history of the house.”
“Did he find it strange when Elenor turned their family home into a hotel?”
“He never said so, but then we were only here twice after the hotel opened, once for the grand opening and then three years ago when he—”
“Aye. I know, dearie.” Nancy squeezed my arm.
I loved her for that.
Nearing the sea, the gravel path split in two. “Frank and I live there.” Nancy pointed to a small stone cottage with an attached carport. “I’m sure I can find you something bonnie to wear.”
“Thank you.” I hoped I sounded gracious. If Becca’s clothes were too small, Nancy’s would be several sizes too big. I pictured myself arriving at the ball in a matronly knit two-piece. And I’d be obligated to wear it, now that Nancy was taking so much trouble.
“Follow the path to Applegarth,” Nancy said. “If you give me your car keys, I’ll have my husband drive your car around.”
I stopped walking. “Elenor put me in Applegarth?” The name conjured images. A chill breeze off the water. The smell of a turf fire at night and strong coffee percolating in the morning. The feel of Bill’s flannel shirt against my skin. The narrow, creaky bed.
“Is something wrong?” Nancy looked alarmed.
“Bill and I spent our honeymoon in Applegarth twenty-four years ago. Before the hotel was a hotel.”
Her face relaxed. “Lovely.” She rushed off, leaving me with my memories.
I stood on the path. No one would blame me if I asked for another cottage, or even one of the guest rooms in the main house. Coward’s way out. I continued up the flagstone path.
The sound was what I remembered most about Glenroth—the steady pulse of the sea, the rush of the wind. Applegarth stood on a low rise overlooking Cuillin Sound. Unlike the estate’s original stone outbuildings, the ex-caretaker’s cottage was a relatively modern structure, timber clad, painted white with dark-green shutters. Framed by pines, the cottage matched the picture in my mind, and yet there was a subtle difference—like a long-lost photograph, the image both familiar and utterly alien.
A wreath of twisted bittersweet hung on the door. I opened the door and looked around in amazement. The simple kitchen I remembered was now a sleek modern space with granite countertops and a small cast-iron Aga. A king-size mahogany four-poster stood in place of the old iron bedstead, barely wide enough for two. Almost nothing remained of the cottage I remembered. Even the simple fireplace had been refaced with local stone. I dropped my carry-on, pulled out my cell phone, and punched the numbers.
“Hello,” came a cheerful voice at the other end. “This is Linnea Larsen.”
I smiled. Mom always answered her calls that way. “Well, I made it,” I said, tucking the phone between my cheek and shoulder and beginning to unpack the welcome basket on the kitchen table. “Everything all right at the shop?”
“Splendid. I sold a Georgian teapot, a pair of gilt metal sconces, and that early Qing dynasty celadon vase.”
I could hear the satisfaction in her voice. She was in her element. “You’re the best in the business, Mom.”
“How was the trip?”
“Long.” I told her about the lost suitcase and the dense fog, deleting the near accident and the English detective.
“I’m surprised you went,” she said. “You never liked Elenor.”
I considered protesting, but what was the use? Mom could spot a fib faster than a certified appraiser could spot a flea-market forgery. “She’s not making it easy. First she calls and tells me she’s in trouble but can’t explain because it’s too complicated to go into over the phone. Now I’ve come all the way to Scotland, and she can’t explain because she’s late for a hair appointment. I feel manipulated.”
“So why are you there?”
Ouch. My mother always puts her finger on the sore spot. “Elenor is Bill’s sister,” I said virtuously, tucking a bag of fresh-roasted coffee beans next to the fancy coffeemaker.
“And that obligates you to do whatever she asks forever?”
“Of course not, but I’m curious. Elenor’s up to something. I want to know what it is.”
“Up to something?” I heard the spark of interest in my mother’s voice. She never could resist a mystery.
“She showed me a casket. Eighteenth century, I think, but it’s something special, unusual. When I asked where she got it, she went all mysterious and said she’d tell me after the ball.”
“Could you email me a photo?”
“First chance I get.” I’d known Mom’s curiosity would be piqued. Both my parents had loved the antique business, but it had been my mother who’d done the research, applying near-Sherlockian principles of observation and deduction to prize out the interesting details the customers loved.
“I ran into Bo Duff. I’m taking him out for a meal.” I opened the refrigerator and found a dozen plump brown eggs, a block of farmhouse cheese, and a packet of locally made sausages.
“Give him my love.”
“Mom. You’ve never met him.”
“That doesn’t matter. Give him my love anyway.”
A series of beeps reminded me that I’d stupidly packed the charger cord in the outside pocket
of my suitcase. My lost suitcase. “I think I’m losing you. I’ll—” The call dropped.
I slipped the phone into my handbag. Mom wouldn’t fret if I didn’t call her back right away.
I’d inherited a lot from my mother—her passion for history, her natural curiosity (bordering on nosiness, some have thought), her dark mahogany hair and blue eyes. Blue as the waters of the fjords, my father used to say. What I had not inherited was her unflappable conviction that things generally turn out all right.
Because they don’t.
I transferred my carry-on from the kitchen floor to the bench at the foot of the bed. Unzipping the top, I pulled out a pair of flannel pajamas, my quart-size plastic bag of toiletries, and a small silver frame, which I placed on the bedside table. The frame held a photograph of Bill in faded jeans and an old plaid shirt—his fishing uniform.
A wrapped package lay on the quilted counterpane. I untied the ribbon and peeled back layers of tissue. Inside was a book, a novel, The Diary of Flora Arnott, Volume One, by Dr. Hugh Parker Guthrie. The dust jacket pictured a raven-haired girl in a white Regency-style gown, a tartan shawl around her shoulders. The name Guthrie was familiar. I’d met a woman named Guthrie at the grand opening ten years ago, a pompous widow from one of the island’s oldest families. She had a son, if I remembered correctly, off teaching history at some university near Aberdeen. I turned the book over. The author stared back at me through wire-rimmed glasses. A real-life unsolved murder mystery, declared the blurb. Beginning in the Scottish Lowlands and ending on the Isle of Glenroth, we follow the short but remarkable life of Flora Arnott, who sacrificed everything for the sake of the man she loved.
I thumbed through the book, finding an inscription on the title page: For Kate, who knows the story. I did know the story. Everyone connected with Glenroth knew it.
Bill and Elenor’s childhood home had been the seat of the Glenroth MacDonalds since the fourteenth century. After the defeat of the clans at Culloden, the estate was forfeited to the British Crown and granted to a Loyalist from Dumfries who planned to raise sheep on the island. Finding Highland life too rigorous, he sold the house and land to Abraham Arnott, a fellow Lowlander. Abraham never lived on the island, but in 1809 his son James brought his bride, Flora, to Glenroth. Their happiness ended less than a year later when Flora was murdered.