by Connie Berry
Devlin snatched the paper and glanced at it. “Gotta go. But before I do, there’s something you need to know, Mr. Holden.” He shoved an arm into the jacket. “I took your wife’s statement this morning, and I’ve read yours. One of you is lying.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sunday, October 30
I woke, bleary-eyed and stiff.
Frank and I had remained at the Mallaig Police Station until the police surgeon arrived. Shortly after that, Bo was transported to the Munroe Clinic in Glenfinnan, halfway between Mallaig and Fort William. By the time I returned to Applegarth, it was four AM. I’d fallen into bed, exhausted but unable to turn off my brain. I must have slept some, though, because I’d had another bad dream.
Pulling the Case Western sweatshirt over my pajamas, I went to the kitchen to start the coffee. As it dripped into the pot, I peered out the window. The air had cleared, leaving a pale-gray sky with a scrim of haze. Was Bo awake? I pictured him, alone and afraid. If I could just talk to him, get him to calm down, he might remember what actually happened that night. Maybe he saw the killer and decided taking the blame was safer than telling. Whatever the truth, he needed to tell his story in his own time and his own way. He needed someone to listen, someone who loved him. Like me. I hugged Bill’s old sweatshirt around my body. How could I not love the man who had risked his life trying to save my husband?
My thoughts slid back to the day my world ended. I was there again, smelling the sea, feeling the trickle of sweat down my back. With Bill’s sailboat bobbing aimlessly, I’d dashed toward the jetty where Bo was scrubbing down an old wooden fishing boat. “It’s Bill,” I screamed and pointed at the sailboat. “He needs help.”
Instantly, Bo started up the small outboard motor and wrenched the boat around, almost swamping it. I could see him in my mind’s eye, straining forward, his hand on the tiller. His cap blew off, and the long strands of his hair unfurled in the wind.
I raced to the end of the jetty, planning to dive in fully clothed, but hands stretched out to prevent me. “Nothing you can do, lass,” said a woman in a floppy hat. “You’ll only make it worse.” She was right. The wind had picked up again, churning the waves.
Bo arrived at the sailboat and cut the motor. I saw him lean out of the fishing boat, his long arms reaching for something.
No. Oh, God, no. A crowd was gathering on the jetty. “Call the medics,” I pleaded.
When I looked again, Bo was in the water. He held Bill’s head in the crook of one arm and reached for the side of the boat. Once, twice. The boat rocked dangerously and slid out of reach. For one heart-stopping moment Bo hesitated, his head thrashing from side to side like a trapped animal. Then he began to swim, scooping with his free arm, jerking forward with every kick.
Voices around me yelled, “Who has a boat? Doesn’t anyone have another boat?”
“Call the Harborview,” someone cried.
“No. Call 999.”
“He’s not wearing a life jacket. He’ll never make it.”
Several men dove in to help, but the sea was too rough and they were forced to turn back. One guy tried to row out on a paddleboard, but he quickly lost his balance and fell. How he made it back to shore, I never knew.
All the while Bo kept swimming. At times the waves covered them completely, and I feared they’d both gone under. I fought with him. Stroke for stroke. Breath for breath. It took forever. Twenty minutes, someone said. As Bo neared shore, others jumped in. They dragged Bill into the shallows and up onto the shingle.
Bo staggered forward, coughing and gasping for air. His lips were blue.
Bill lay on his back. His face was slack. His hair streamed water. The sun caught a flash of gold—his wedding band. Someone blew air into his lungs again and again until the paramedics arrived. Furious activity surrounded the inert body.
Then they stopped.
A massive heart attack, the doctor said later. Bill never had a chance.
I lay next to his body, my arm over his chest. Bo knelt beside me, sobbing like a child. When the stretcher came, a woman made me stand. She wrapped a beach towel around my shoulders.
Someone must have called Elenor, because she arrived as Bill’s body was being transferred from the collapsible stretcher to the emergency vehicle.
“No!” she screamed. She bent over him, her fair hair falling across his face. The doors shut and she turned to me, her lovely face contorted with rage. “Those cruel things you said. You broke his heart. I’ll never forgive you.” And she hadn’t. Until that phone call.
The problem was, I hadn’t forgiven myself.
The coffee finished dripping with a fizz of steam. I poured a large mugful and swallowed.
The Fort William phone directory had a listing for the Munroe Clinic. A recorded message told me that visiting hours on Sunday were one to four PM. Then I listened to the sounds of a string ensemble—Haydn, I thought—as I waited for someone to pick up. A vase filled with orange-berried branches sat on the red-and-cream-checked tablecloth. I stared out the window, watching the wind bend the trees.
“The Munroe,” came a voice at last. “Sorry for the wait. How can I help?”
“My name is Kate Hamilton. The police brought a friend of mine in last night—actually early this morning. His name is Bo Duff. I’d like to visit him later today.”
“No visitors during the initial evaluation process, I’m afraid.”
“Can you at least tell me how he is?”
“Resting quietly. That’s all I’m allowed to say.”
I moved the phone to my other ear. “But you have a waiting room, don’t you? I could drive over this afternoon and wait until the evaluation is finished.”
“We do and you could, but there’s not much point. You won’t be able to see him. All visitors must be cleared by the police. I believe the policy is family only.”
To my horror, I began to cry. “I’m sorry. Bo was my husband’s best friend. I’m not going to abandon him.”
“Of course you’re not.” The woman must have taken pity on me. “Look, I’m not supposed to do this, but Mr. Duff’s sister is on her way from Perth. If you leave your name and phone number, I’ll let her know you’re concerned.”
I gave the woman my information. “Tell her I’ll do anything to help. Anything at all.”
I replaced the receiver and sat for a moment, drumming the table with my fingernail. People like Bo are capable of anger. I remembered Matt’s face turning red as he upended a train set when the tracks wouldn’t stay together. But Elenor’s murder hadn’t been a flash of anger. Elenor’s killer had come armed with a bow and arrow. That meant calculation, and that was the point. Bo was capable of anger, but not the level of calculation required to plan and execute a murder. I knew that. Frank knew it. Getting DI Devlin to know it was another matter.
Now I had an even more compelling reason to find Elenor’s killer. I had to clear Bo Duff.
That thought occupied my mind as I dressed. Someone had killed Elenor, face-to-face, in cold blood. A person who could do that wouldn’t hesitate to let an innocent man take the blame. I sat on the edge of the bed, replaying Elenor’s phone message in my mind for the umpteenth time. She hadn’t known she was about to die. Her last conscious thought concerned something she wanted me to keep for her. Keep, not know. That meant an object. And then there was that cryptic notation in Guthrie’s novel: HS6uprtgrnlft51bluedn3rd. Whatever that meant, it was important. Something Elenor wanted to remember.
I thought of a new question. Was Bo Duff even capable of shooting a bow and arrow? I’d never heard him talk about archery.
I picked up Bill’s photograph. “I will protect him,” I said aloud. “And I will find out who killed your sister.”
Was it a trick of the light, or was it disapproval I saw in Bill’s eyes?
* * *
“You had another call.” Becca Wallace sat at her desk in the reception hall. “Elenor’s solicitor from Inverness, Andrew Ross. He wants you to
phone him first thing Monday morning.”
“Thanks.” I tucked the pink message slip in my pocket. “Detective Inspector Devlin said I could get into Elenor’s flat today. May I borrow a key?”
“Sure.” Becca handed me a set of keys from her desk drawer. A small brass key bore the initial E printed on a strip of white tape. Like no one could figure out what that meant. Not the cleverest security measure I’d ever seen.
Becca closed the computer window she’d been using, and the hotel’s blue-tartan home screen popped up. “Toss the keys in the drawer when you’re finished. You’ll find me in the kitchen. Or the library.”
Her heels clicked on the polished marble floor.
I watched her go. Becca was bright, competent, polished. Why would she choose to live and work on an island that was, for much of the year, practically deserted? A similar job in Inverness—even Fort William—would pay higher wages, and she’d be closer to her boyfriend, Geoff. Maybe she had family on the island. Or was there another reason she’d chosen such isolation?
The computer pinged. The envelope flap on the email icon opened.
I slipped into Becca’s chair and eyed that open email flap.
I tried not to click on it. I really did.
Call it research.
An email list appeared. I read the subject lines: BOOKING FOR SCOTT PARTY, CANCEL BOOKING, CHRISTMAS?, GENEALOGY SEMINAR. I scrolled down, finding more of the same.
Switching to SENT ITEMS, I typed into the search bar the name of the old newspaper: THE HEBRIDEAN CHRONICLE. The computer responded unhelpfully, NO MATCHES FOUND. Deleting that search, I tried another: FLORA ARNOTT. This time there were seven matches. I opened each one, finding enthusiastic references to Dr. Guthrie’s book. One potential guest wondered if she could book the exact room where the ghost appeared.
Still in SENT ITEMS, I began scrolling backward in time. I was about to give up when, in the emails for a year ago August, I found something that caught my attention. The address was Adoption.co.uk, and the subject line read BIRTH PARENTS.
I sat back. Had Elenor sent the email, trying to find a baby she’d given up for adoption?
You can’t open other people’s mail carped the voice of conscience.
Oops. Too late. I’d already opened it—just long enough to read the name at the bottom. The sender had been Becca Wallace.
“Knock, knock. Anybody home?” Dora MacDonald peered around the hotel’s front door.
I closed the screen and coughed to restart my heart.
“Kate. Just the person we came to see.” Under his navy jacket, Jackie was dressed in dark trousers and a coral V-neck sweater. Dora wore slacks and a matching wool jacket in asparagus green. Not a flattering hue.
“We weren’t sure we should come,” Dora said, “but we thought you ought to know. In case the police didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“That I was the one who found Elenor’s body,” Jackie said.
“You found her? You’re the person who called Mallaig?”
Jackie nodded. “Lovely woman. So sad, so sad.”
“Jackie was on his way to Flora’s Café,” Dora said, taking his arm. “He goes first thing every Saturday for Claire’s yum yums.”
“Yum yums?”
“Claire’s specialty,” Dora said. “A glorified doughnut, twisted into a plait and drenched with icing.”
Jackie ignored this. “I saw a mound of snow near the Historical Society and—” He spread his hands and shrugged.
“You knew it was Elenor?”
“Not at first. I thought it was an animal caught in the storm. A sheep, maybe, or a big dog. I thought I’d check to see if the poor thing was still alive, but when I began clearing the snow … well.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if blotting out the image. “My first instinct was to pull out the arrow, but it wouldn’t have helped.”
“How many people on the island could have done it?” I asked, figuring he would know.
“Lots. For many of us, archery is a lifelong hobby.”
“Jackie’s a triple champion.” If Dora realized she’d just implicated her husband, she showed no sign of it.
“We’ll take our leave.” Jackie steered Dora toward the door. “Let you get back to whatever you were doing.”
What I’d been doing was probably a felony.
The entrance door closed with a thud, sending dry leaves scuttering across the marble floor. Hadn’t I read somewhere that killers sometimes report their own crimes for the thrill of taking part in the investigation? Grabbing the keys, I headed for Elenor’s flat. If Jackie owned a pair of Mucky Ducks, they were a heck of a lot bigger than size ten. I pictured Dora’s long, narrow feet, wondering if the size tens could have been a woman’s size rather than a man’s.
Light from the door at the end of the east-wing hallway shone on the oak paneling. As I turned the key to Elenor’s flat, something shifted behind me, momentarily blocking the light.
I spun around.
No one was there.
Chapter Eighteen
Light shifts with the ever-changing cloud cover in the Hebrides. I knew that. Yet I’d had the eerie sense of a presence behind me in the hallway.
I didn’t like where my thoughts were taking me.
I switched on the lamps in Elenor’s flat and instantly forgot about disappearing shadows. The police had left the place a mess. The cushions on the sofa and love seat were skewed. In the bedroom, her once-made bed was a jumble of linens. A dresser drawer stood partially open, revealing the edge of a violet-blue scarf.
Had they found anything significant, and would they tell me if they had?
In the bathroom, the fluffy white rug bore the imprint of large male feet, but the embellished casket was still there. I took measurements with my retractable tape and, using my cell phone, snapped a few close-ups of the marquetry designs before stepping back to take front, back, and side shots. I attached them to a text: MOM, CAN YOU IDENTIFY? 18TH C? MAKER? I included the dimensions and pushed send. No one could touch my mother when it came to research. If references to similar caskets existed, she would find them.
I sat on the edge of the huge claw-foot tub as Devlin had the day before. The casket could be unique, a one-off, but I didn’t think so. The maker of this small jewel in wood had been a master craftsman, an artist of the first rank. And just as painters can be identified by their style and technique, so can cabinetmakers.
A shaft of sunlight pierced the wavy old window glass, pinning the casket in a luminous circle. I blinked at the tiny mythical creatures. On Friday they’d seemed to be frolicking in a field of vines, berries, roses—paradise. Today the creatures appeared to be fleeing from an unknown predator, and the vines looked more like brambles reaching out to ensnare their tiny hooves. I fumbled for my cell phone, hoping to capture what I saw, but the light vanished as suddenly as if someone had flipped a switch.
I realized I’d been holding my breath. The ends of my fingers tingled. My face flushed and my mouth went dry. My hand went to the casket. There were no words this time, but what I felt was fear, razor-edged and raw. Fear for the animals or for myself? I pulled my hand away, willing the creatures back to paradise.
An unformed thought floated away, out of reach. Something I needed to know was buried deep in my brain.
This is where everything began. I’ll tell you the whole story after the ball.
I locked the door to Elenor’s flat and slipped the keys back in Becca’s desk. The reception hall was empty. The computer screen was dark, timed out. The only sound was the ticking of the long-case clock.
Images flipped through my brain. The casket. The code written in Guthrie’s novel. Footsteps and shadows.
If Elenor had been right about footsteps in the night—and I could hardly doubt her after my recent experience—how was the intruder gaining access? The big front entrance door had a modern locking system and a dead bolt, turned either mechanically from inside or by a key from outside. The re
ar door to the kitchen had the same mechanical dead bolt, and both doors were lit on the outside by dusk-to-dawn security lighting.
I chewed the side of my lip. If I wanted to get in unseen, I’d find a seldom-used door, a side door maybe. Bill and I had taken a tour of the newly renovated hotel ten years ago. In addition to the wide French doors along the back wall of the dining room (also flooded with security lighting), I remembered a rear door leading to what were called “the old larders,” now two large guest suites at the back of the house. And then there were the exterior doors at the ends of the east- and west-wing hallways. The door closest to Elenor’s flat was worth a second look.
I returned to the east wing. Forty feet or so beyond the entrance to Elenor’s flat, an exterior door led to a covered porch on the edge of the woods. I tried the knob. Locked.
Someone behind me yelped.
I spun around—again. This time, thankfully, someone was there.
Penny Arnott stood with her hand on Elenor’s doorknob. She snatched it back and glared at me. “Scared me half to death, you did.”
“Can I help you?” I walked toward her.
“Dead,” she said pleasantly, nodding her head in the direction of Elenor’s flat. “Heard this morning. Can I have a peep?”
“You want to get into Elenor’s flat?”
“Stuff in there from the Historical Society.” She rapped the door with a bony knuckle. “Shouldn’t go to those Dutch people.”
“They’re Swiss, actually, but that’s something the solicitors will have to—” My words faded as I saw Penny’s face crumple. The last thing I needed was Penny Arnott in tears. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for. I’ll check.”
“Come for tea sometime,” Penny said, apropos of nothing. She smiled, baring yellow teeth. “Across from the Historical Society. We’re always there, except when we’re here.”
With a flap of her voluminous raincoat, she was gone.
* * *
I found Becca in the library, balanced on a rolling ladder.
“I just had the strangest conversation with Penny Arnott,” I said, deciding to wait for an opening on the adoption thing. I can play it cool when I have to.