“Any chance your name could be forged?”
“Who in the name of the queen herself would do that?”
Who indeed?
Mikey Wooster, I thought.
Now that there might be more to go on, Inspector Buchanan could be more forceful in requesting a copy of Dwayne Stover’s records, but that wasn’t a huge priority.
Once all the information was shared, the police inspectors quit caring about the bookshop. They wanted to catch a killer, and they were trying to figure out if there was any evidence that Mikey had killed Henry. Did the murder have something to do with the coins? Were the coins as valuable as Edwin had thought? He assured the police they were. He told them he would gather them if they wanted. He wanted me to see them too. I wasn’t prepared to figure out their value, but a look wouldn’t hurt. However, the police weren’t ready to see the coins, wanted them to stay safe for the time being.
When Edwin had rejoined us, he’d had a mischievous sparkle to his eyes, but he wouldn’t tell us what he’d been up to. He assured the police his activities in no way interfered with the police’s murder investigation.
At around two in the morning, I spied a van pulling up to a newspaper machine halfway up Grassmarket. I knew it was Brigid’s paper being delivered; that was the machine where I’d picked up other copies of her articles, though never so soon after they’d been delivered.
The rain had stopped, and I excused myself to go get a paper. Tom came with me.
“Brigid said she was going to write an article. She didn’t have any of the new information we’ve discovered tonight. I need to see what she wrote,” I said.
“Aye?”
I laughed once. It was the middle of the night and the air smelled like rain. For the first time ever, I didn’t see any other people in Grassmarket. Of all the magic I’d felt over the last year, this moment with Tom, the relief I felt over the answers we seemed to have, the concern over the continuing questions, might have been one of the most magical. I was either under Edinburgh’s or Tom’s spell. Maybe both. Even the doubt I heard in his tone couldn’t ruin the sensations I felt, the electric giddiness.
“I think it will be a good article,” I said.
“I hope so.”
It was.
It was also on the front page, headlined with: “The Fate of a Beloved Bookshop Hangs in the Balance. Vote Today.”
Brigid turned the facts as she knew them into a favorable article for the bookshop. She used the space to further condemn the council and some of their secretive ways. But I only skimmed that part, glad that, bottom line, she made it clear that it seemed the bookshop had been wrongly put on a potential chopping block, and the council should consider taking a step back until the facts were given another look.
The other interesting part was about Henry Stewart and his murder. A killer was still on the loose, but it seemed obvious to “this reporter” that Mr. Stewart was killed because of something nefarious he’d been involved in via his councilor capacity. It only made sense, after all. Get to work, police.
“Oh dear,” Edwin said when we all finished the article.
“What?” I said. “It’s great.”
“It is, but I might have put something in motion that will prove to be an overkill, in the grandest of ways.”
“To save the bookshop? I’m all about overkill until the vote is over, killed,” I said with a weary smile.
“Aye,” he said doubtfully.
Inspectors Buchanan and Winters discussed the best way to approach Mikey Wooster. Buchanan wanted to knock on his door right then and ask him a few questions. Winters suggested that she wait until the vote, not because Mikey’s vote was important, but because all the councilors would be together for the vote. Maybe there was a way to gather some strong evidence against Mikey. Or not, if he was innocent.
No one thought he was innocent though. But it would take evidence for an arrest.
With only a few hours of night left, we all went home, with the plan to meet again at the vote. None of us were going to miss it.
* * *
I looked at myself in the mirror and sighed. Oh, boy, did I look tired, but today just had to go well.
“You look perfect,” Tom said. “Beautiful, aye, but also fierce, like you won’t put up with any crap anyone wants to try to give you.”
I’d pulled my hair back, though there were some frizzy flyaways. I wore a white shirt and a black skirt and black pumps. It wasn’t a fancy outfit, but it was fancier than I usually sported. In fact, other than our wedding day, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d given much thought to my clothes. I hadn’t worn heels even that day.
“Thank you, sir, and you look … well, Tom, if you don’t know what I think about how you look then I need to work on my communication skills. Also, keep an eye out for me falling down. I’m not sure I’ve retained any muscle memory regarding how to wear these shoes.”
He laughed and pulled me in for a hug. It would have been wonderful to stay that way for the rest of the day, but we had a vote to attend.
The City Chambers building of Edinburgh looked just like a building one would expect in this beautiful old city. A cobblestoned courtyard decorated with flowerpots and the statue of a man and a horse greeted us as we walked under a stone arch. The U-shaped building extended up three floors. The old brown stones of the building were blackened around the edges. The only splashes of color came from flags and some circular crests attached to the turrets right outside the courtyard. I scanned the crests, looking for the one I’d recently become acquainted with: Elizabeth I’s, but it wasn’t there. Of course, it wasn’t. This was Scotland, not England. I shook my head at myself and wished I’d looked up Mary, Queen of Scots’ crest.
I’d walked past the chambers many times, but I’d never seen such a crowd as was gathering today. And, I’d never seen so many kilts.
“Is this normal?” I asked Tom about the crowd.
“I don’t know. Maybe Brigid’s article got some attention.”
“Lass,” a voice said behind me.
“Rosie! We would have come to get you,” I said as I saw her walking toward us. When we’d left her last night, she wasn’t going to attend, but sleep in.
“Look what I found!” She waved some papers.
“The construction approvals?” I said.
“Aye.” She smiled. “Guess where they were?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’d slipped them inside a book. The first book that Edwin gave me, poems by Robert Burns. Last night, just as I was aboot tae fall asleep, I remembered putting them in the book. Edwin had told me how important they were, how he was so excited about receiving approval. I slipped them in the book I cherished, the first book he gave me. I should have remembered sooner.”
“That’s perfect,” I said as I pulled her into a hug.
“I dinnae even think we’ll need them, but I’m ready if we do.”
“Aye,” Tom said with a smile.
“Hamlet will be here too. I called him an hour ago. I saw Inspector Winters already. He’s over by the front of the courtyard.”
“That’s good news,” I said. “What about Edwin?”
“I dinnae ken, lass. He’s not answering his mobile. But he’ll be here.”
“He’s not answering?”
“No, I’ve been trying tae ring him all morning.”
“He’ll be here,” Tom said. “Come on, let’s go find some seats.”
“Rosie!”
We turned to see Jack hurrying toward us. “Good morning, everyone.” Once he made it to us, he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and continued, “Has anyone talked to Edwin? I’ve been trying to reach him since last night.”
A thread of concern tightened my stomach. Had something happened to him? What had he been up to the night before that might lead to overkill in the grandest of ways? Why wasn’t he answering his phone?
“Should I run by his house?” I asked.
“No, no
. He’s up tae something is all. He’ll be here,” Rosie said unsurely.
I blinked at her.
“Edwin is always up tae something. Come on,” she said.
We walked toward the building, toward a door decorated with a sign above that said: City Chambers.
“Here we go,” I muttered as we went inside.
There were sixty-three councilors, the council having added six to the count during the 2017 election. Each councilor represented a different part of the city designated as a ward. Council members worked together but they were also broken out into committees to work on specific issues.
The Council Chamber hall oozed history. Historical king and queen scenes were painted on the wood paneled walls. Diffused light set a respectful tone as it came through the domed stained-glass ceiling. The roomed buzzed and hummed with the growing crowd. As we found some seats along the perimeter, I realized that though many of the people in the room were councilors, many weren’t. And many observers held Brigid’s newspaper. She had hit a nerve.
Just as I sat down in a cushioned chair, I noticed Mary. She walked in, her arm looped through Lyle Mercado’s. I locked gazes with them both. Mary sent me a weak smile and wave as Lyle frowned and nodded. Oh dear, he wasn’t playing the part of the third husband, was he? I shook my head. No, enough of that. They were friends, and maybe Mary just wanted someone there with her.
Hamlet slid into an empty seat behind me and touched my shoulder. “Where’s Edwin?”
“Hello! No one knows,” I said quietly.
“Okay.”
“All right,” Jack said. “Technically we must get permission to speak a week or so before the meeting, but I managed to get ahold of someone last night who said we could have the floor for a few minutes. But I really, really hope Edwin joins us. It will all mean so much more coming from him. And, from what I’m seeing, the public is going to want to have their say too. Your friend’s article might have done some good.”
Tom and I shared a knowing smile. Brigid wasn’t necessarily a friend, but maybe she would be.
“We all hope Edwin shows up,” I said.
“Did you see the bust?” Hamlet asked me.
“What?” I turned to look at him.
He pointed. I would have known her even if there hadn’t been a small metal tag on the base. Mary, Queen of Scots.
“Wow,” Hamlet said. “You do look like her.”
I did. Or at least I sort of looked like the bust. It was made of white porcelain, so the hair wasn’t red, but there was a similarity to our chins and our cheekbones as well as the set of our eyes. The red hair might have sealed the deal. A morbid thought regarding Mary’s beheading crossed my mind.
I still hadn’t taken the time to do any extra research, but I knew that one of the biggest surprises the queen had sprung on the people who witnessed her execution was the fact that she wore a wig. Yes, she’d had red hair, but at some point, probably during the time of her last castle imprisonment, it thinned, fell out probably. She’d only been forty-four when she’d been beheaded, but her final imprisonment had been more seriously imposed than the others. She’d been confined inside. A woman who’d loved to ride horses, she’d been trim and healthy most of her life, able to exercise even during other imprisonments. But being stuck inside with no exercise, no fresh air, had taken its toll. She’d gained weight, her legs becoming so puffy that she struggled to walk to her own execution.
I had no thought that I’d lived a past life, the queen’s included, but my heart suddenly went out to her. For whatever reason, I suddenly sensed that on some strange level, I finally understood her. She’d only wanted what she deemed best. She was a kind ruler, at least from everything I knew. She’d had her beliefs and she’d been born into circumstances that she wasn’t able to become victorious over. She’d become a victim of her circumstances.
“I do look like her. Sort of,” I said.
But I wasn’t her. Never had been, I was sure.
As I turned to face front again, my eyes landed on Dina Wooster. She was walking purposefully toward someone. I craned my neck to watch as she handed a piece of paper to someone. Mikey. If Inspector Buchanan had visited Mikey in the middle of the night, no arrest had occurred. He looked at the note his wife had given him and then directly at me. Dina seemed irritated that he’d been so obvious, but after she rolled her eyes at him, she turned and made her way back to another chair on the perimeter. She wasn’t sitting close to Mary and Lyle. She didn’t smile at me. In fact, there was nothing friendly in her glance.
Hadn’t she said she was bothered by what the council had done regarding the bookshop? Hadn’t she said she was going to talk to Mikey? I saw no reason for her to be bothered to see me.
Maybe I hadn’t read her expression correctly. Or, maybe she’d known what her husband was up to all along.
Something about that idea niggled at me. What had Dina known? Had she even tried to do anything about it?
“The gang’s all here,” Hamlet said quietly, pulling me out of my thoughts about Dina.
“Everyone but Edwin,” Tom said just as quietly.
“And Inspector Buchanan, but we just might not be able to see her,” I said.
“Aye,” Tom agreed.
Someone pounded a gavel somewhere but just as I tried to figure out where it was coming from, sirens interrupted the proceedings. The buzz of noise in the room ramped up as we all noticed the siren noises coming closer.
“What’s happening?” Rosie asked.
“I don’t know.”
More noises came from outside the chambers. We were all looking toward the door we’d come through as a slew of men paraded in. Dressed in black suits, they moved purposefully and then seemed to make some sort of planned formation.
“MI6?” Tom said.
“Really?” I said. I craned my neck even more.
“Ladies and gentlemen, excuse me,” a voice said through the sound system. “Please, may I have your attention.”
The room fell into a hushed silence and I saw the podium where the voice had come from. Grace Graham stood at the microphone. Brigid was behind her a bit. Brigid’s eyes caught mine and she smiled and nodded. Then she winked.
What the hell did that mean?
“Thank you,” Grace said. “Thank you. Well, it seems we have a very special guest today. It’s a surprise and a wee bit unreal, but I assure you, it’s very real. We are breaking protocol, but I think you’ll all understand why. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please may I present Her Royal Highness, Her Majesty, the Queen of England.”
Gasps and murmurs filled the chamber as we looked toward the door again. A moment later, along with none other than Edwin MacAlister following behind her, the Queen of England walked into the chamber. Everyone stood then and bows and curtsies moved like a wave as the Queen made her way to the podium.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said as I laughed. I didn’t realize I was crying too until Tom wiped a tear from my cheek.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said.
“That’s the freaking Queen of England,” I said, almost too loudly.
“Aye,” Tom said with a crooked smile.
She was adorable, just like she was on TV. She wore a yellow suit and carried a piece of paper and an off-white purse. I wondered for a moment if, perhaps, she was an actress playing the part. But she wasn’t; she was the real Queen.
With Edwin still in tow, she made her way to the podium and tapped on the microphone.
“Hello,” she said with a smile. “Thank you for giving me a few moments. I’ll be brief. The Cracked Spine is one of Scotland’s, of Britain’s beloved bookshops, and Britains don’t take any bookshop lightly. We cherish them, one and all. But this one might be a little more special than some. This is a place I have visited myself, a place where I met Rosie, a lovely woman who knew exactly what book would be fit for a queen.”
I smiled at Rosie as she wiped a tear away as well. She’d never told m
e she helped the Queen shop for a book.
“If there are any sort of safety concerns regarding the buildings the bookshop is housed in, Mr. Edwin MacAlister will take care of the problems.” She waved the piece of paper she’d brought with her. “In case it is necessary, I have The Cracked Spine’s Burgess Ticket here with me. It seems Mr. MacAlister still holds every right afforded him by this ticket, which includes operating the business of selling books. Surely, the council sees that today is not a good day to vote to close the shop. Perhaps more inspections need to take place before such drastic measures are taken. Please consider the circumstances. Thank you all for your time.”
By the end of the lovely speech, even Jack McGinnis had to sniff and wipe away a stray tear.
“That did not just happen,” I said.
“Aye, it did,” Tom said. “Only Edwin.”
“Where did he find the Burgess Ticket?” Rosie asked me.
“Somewhere on the dark side last night, I suppose,” I said.
Where would it have been?
Without further ado, the MI6 men led the Queen out of the building. Once she was gone and after a stunned silence filled the air for a few minutes, cheers broke out and soon cries of “Vote! Vote! Vote!” rang through the hall.
THIRTY-FOUR
“Ladies and gentlemen,” another voice came from the podium. I didn’t know the woman speaking and pounding the gavel. “I’m going to call for the vote. Item number 425, regarding The Cracked Spine. Shall the failed building inspection be considered appropriate to invalidate the business license? Those in favor, say aye.”
Not one “aye.” Not even from Mikey Wooster. I craned my neck again to try to watch him, but I couldn’t see him. Nevertheless, not one “aye” broke the silence.
“Those against, nay,” the woman on the podium said.
“Nay!” rang through the chamber.
And then more cheers.
“The nays have it!”
“It’s over,” Rosie said. “It’s over.”
I felt the same relief as I hugged her, but it wasn’t over, not for Mary. A killer still needed to be found.
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