Ashes to Ashes (37 page)

“I wasn’t going to let all those burnt, frizzled ends fall into the cranberry sauce,” Jan told him.

Rebecca placed the teakettle on the burner and mopped at her own brow. The Thanksgiving haircut had started her and Michael talking to each other again after forty-eight hours of stiff silence. His pleas of “No so short” in response to Peter’s teasing threats had made them all laugh and had led Rebecca into the daredevil plunge of asking Jan to cut her hair as well. Symbolically cutting off Ray and her old life, probably. Now it was so much easier to care for, waving around her face instead of down her back.

Heather declined Rebecca’s offer of tea, murmuring something about a homework assignment, and Michael escorted her out. “Glad to see his hands are healed,” Jan said. “I felt so sorry for him, eating his turkey with those horrible blisters.”

A shame to see such fine instruments as Michael’s hands damaged, Rebecca had to admit. “The first time he picked up the pipes after the bandages came off, his fingers were so stiff he botched every tune. He stood there swearing and trying to do better until he was white from the pain. I was afraid he was going to faint. ‘A fine thrawn lad like yourself,’ I told him, and took the pipes away. Then he got huffy with me.”

“Of course he did. You threatened his manhood.”

Rebecca shot a sharp glance at her friend but Jan was discreetly folding a grocery sack. By the time the kettle whistled Michael had reappeared to make the tea. “How’d things go this afternoon?” Rebecca inquired.

“Found a mouse that had snuffed it beneath the dresser. Elspeth’s lavender was no bad after that.” He meticulously opened the new box of shortbread. “Thank you for the biscuits.”

Michael’s and Rebecca’s eyes met like swords raised in salute before a duel. One of his brows quirked upward and his mouth crimped into a speculative grimace. She tilted her head questioningly, and he looked away. “You’re welcome,” she said, picked up the teapot, and poured.

“You two have more nerve than I do,” said Jan, “working with ghosts.”

“The ghosts are no dangerous,” Michael asserted as he doctored his tea and turned to go. “The work has to be done.”

“It’s people who’ve caused all the trouble around here,” said Rebecca, but he was already out the door. “Case in point,” she added under her breath.

Jan opened her mouth, apparently decided not to comment, and ate a cookie instead. “Did Warren believe you when you said you’d seen that gas can full and capped a couple of hours before the fire?”

“It’d be a lot easier on him if the fire had been an accident. Awkward, isn’t it, that I happen to know it wasn’t?”

“So who do you think poured the gas out of the can? I assume it wasn’t Dorothy choosing a drastic way to prune Steve’s hair.”

“Dorothy smokes,” replied Rebecca. “She could’ve been the victim just as well, except she would’ve been less likely to go in the shed. You think I’m twitchy, she’s halfway round the bend. She knows more than she’s letting on.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Dorothy could’ve poured the gas,” Rebecca continued. “Or Michael. Or Phil himself, not planning to trap his own son. Or it could be Eric. Although I can’t see him sloshing gasoline around in those Italian shoes.”

Jan contemplated and ate another cookie. “Or the fire might have been set by one of Steve’s friends. Maybe Steve didn’t pay him for his last joint or something.”

“So person A covers up for person B, and person C helps person D, and here is person X that we don’t know anything about.” Rebecca glanced uneasily at the door. It was empty.

“Maybe the dog and cat are masterminding the whole scam,” said Jan. “Whatever the scam is.”

Rebecca laughed, but there was an edge in her laughter. “You know what it is. Money— the artifacts and the treasure. Someone’s willing to go to drastic lengths to keep the state and the museum from getting them.” She replenished her cup and stared into it without drinking. The castle was even quieter than usual, the gloomy afternoon pressed like foam packing against the walls and muffling the clink of the dishes.

Rebecca jerked herself to her feet. “Come on upstairs and I’ll show you that letter James wrote to Katherine Gemmell.”

“Ah yes. Dorothy as scam mistress.”

From the upper stories emanated a faint strain of music; Michael, after asking very politely, had this morning borrowed Rebecca’s tape player and was now playing a Silly Wizard album. “Pretty song,” said Jan as they crossed the landing into the Hall. “I like the line about ‘kiss the tears away’.”

“Very romantic,” Rebecca told her, “even though it’s a cheerful ditty about a young couple drowning in a shipwreck.”

With the chandelier and the drop light both shining, the Hall wasn’t too dim. The brass implements on the fireplace were a bit tarnished. Not that it mattered, they’d belong to someone else soon.

Jan pulled a chair up to the row of boxes while Rebecca knelt on the floor and opened the closest one. “I looked at the letter again several days ago, wondering whether the issue was worth pursuing. I did try to get Dorothy talking about her family, but all she wanted to tell me was how her grandkids played chipmunks in a church pageant.”

“I asked Margie about Dorothy’s maiden name,” said Jan.

Rebecca looked up. “Not Brown, or you would’ve called me.”

“Sorry. It was Norton.”

“Rats.” Rebecca moved to another box and continued to dig through the diaries. “So much for that bright idea.”

“But if Dorothy isn’t Katie Gemmell’s daughter,” asked Jan, “why did she shy away like that when you showed her the picture?”

“Galvanic reaction?” Rebecca sat up, peeling bits of black paper from her palms. “Darn it, I know I put it in here somewhere.”

“Maybe Mr. Brown was Katherine’s second husband,” Jan suggested. “Dorothy’s father was her first husband, somebody Norton. I know I’m constantly getting hung up over some of Peter’s cousins who have yours, mine and ours families.”

“There’s a thought. Do you suppose Louise would know?”

“No harm in asking her. Or we could go down to the Bureau of Records in Columbus and look up Dorothy’s birth certificate.”

“Yes!” Rebecca brightened, then dimmed again. “But it might be a wild goose chase, and I have so much work left to do.”

“I can’t decide that for you.” Jan glanced at her watch. “You’ll have to show me the letter some other time. I have to get back to being a mother before they throw the munchkins into the dumpster behind the church.”

“But it’s right here,” insisted Rebecca, peering at the label on the box. The tea gurgled in her throat and she sat back on her haunches. “Jan, it’s gone. Someone’s taken it, and the photograph, too.”

“Maybe someone just put it back in the wrong place. Here, let me help.” Jan went down on her knees and opened another box.

“No one knew they were here but Dorothy and me, and I’m not even sure she saw the letter. I never told Eric or Michael or Warren or anyone about that letter— I didn’t know whether it was important, or who I could trust.”

Jan’s mouth tightened. “Rebecca, calm down.”

Rebecca forced a deep breath into her chest and started methodically working her way through the boxes. Fifteen minutes later she said, “Okay. That’s it. The letter and the photo are gone.”

“They sure are. I’d say that answers your question.”

“It’s important enough for someone to steal. So I guess we have a date with Louise, right?”

“How about tomorrow afternoon? My shift at Golden Age starts at one.”

Rebecca pulled herself up, helped Jan to her feet, and scooted the chair back under the table. “I can’t go off and leave Michael alone again. It’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to the state to give him free rein.”

“Bring him along. We’ll sic Mrs. West on him again. Or you could even tell him about it and put those tartan brain cells to work.”

“But he’s a… ” Rebecca began, and then shook herself, trying to seize some kind of logical thought. “Of all the suspects he has the least reason to have taken that letter. Everyone else has been in this area for years. Even the sheriff. Unless Michael’s got such a heck of an elaborate scam going… . “Logic, she reminded herself.

“Yes?” Jan prodded.

“All right! Part of my job is to protect the house and the artifacts. This is the only lead I’ve got. I’ll see you tomorrow, with or without the shady customer upstairs.”

“Okay then.” Jan grinned encouragement. “See you tomorrow.”

Rebecca saw Jan to the door and then went through the boxes one more time. The letter and the photograph hadn’t magically reappeared. Hell, she said to herself. This is ridiculous. I’m just an innocent little drudge of an academic, all I wanted out of this was some self-respect.

She started piling the diaries back into the boxes. In the silence the taped melody playing on the fifth floor was faint but clear, coiling down the staircases like translucent smoke. She recognized this one, too—”Fhear a Bhata”, “The Boatman.” Michael’s voice, singing along with the tape, lifted and then died away, leaving one phrase hanging in the air: “You call me faker, you call me false one.”

He’s doing that on purpose, Rebecca thought with an aggravated snort. She, too, began to sing, first under her breath and then more loudly, almost defiantly, blanking out his voice.

Which, she realized suddenly, had stopped. She spun around and saw Michael standing in the doorway, a taut smile about to break his face. He held one of two inventories toward her. “You worked on this one, did you?”

From her crouch halfway across the expanse of the floor Rebecca squinted at the label. “Dressing room, fifth floor. Yes, I did.”

“Were all the little jeweled things there?”

“No. There’re some missing. Eric said some things were sold that James refused to mark off.” She put the last book in its box, closed the lid, and stood up.

Michael’s jaw jutted belligerently. “He’s been sayin’ that all along. Wi’ no receipts, no notes about where things were sold, naething at all. Can’t you own that’s a bit dicey?”

Rebecca set her hands on her hips and raised her own chin. “Sure it’s questionable. I never said I liked it.”

“And this one.” He held out the other book, the thick inventory of the main bedroom. “Elspeth’s necklace, the one in the portrait, is listed as present and accounted for. But it’s no there.”

“Eric told me ages ago that was long gone.” One corner of Rebecca’s mouth twitched and tensed. Go ahead, she ordered herself. Say it. “Besides, if anyone knows about that you do. The letter John wrote to the museum, about making a reliquary out of his wife’s jewels for the treasure. Remember that?”

“Half a minute.” Michael’s expression, already crisp, petrified. “John said it’d been used to make a reliquary, but Eric said it’d been sold?”

Darn, Michael slipped aside from that jab as adroitly as Eric himself. “The choker wasn’t here when Eric came on the scene,” Rebecca rationalized. “And John never said those were the jewels he was talking about.”

“Aye, he was a canny one, old Johnnie was.” They looked at each other, frustrated glare glancing off frustrated glare. “James must’ve known there was a treasure,” Michael said at last. “Do yon diaries tell where it is?”

“I don’t have time to read all the diaries. Neither do you.”

“If it’s a Scottish treasure, then I’m entitled to it.”

“You’re entitled to it? Or Scotland is?”

“As far as you’re concerned,” he snapped, “we’re one and the same.”

Rebecca strode to within a foot of Michael, her head and shoulders tilted back to erase the six inches of difference in height. “The same? Not sodding likely.”

He smiled again, crescent lines cut in his cheeks as though the smile were in parenthesis. “Sorry tae have interrupted your work. If you happen tae step on a wee jeweled casket for rose petals, do tell me.”

“A jeweled casket for rose petals? That was there three weeks ago. I marked it off.”

“Aye. Sae I see. But it’s no there the noo.”

Sparks swirled across her vision. “
You’re
checking up on
me
!”

“It’s only fair.” The sparks were reflected in his eyes.

She doubled her fists. She and Michael were acting like bloody-minded fools. If they were anything, they weren’t fools. “It’s too late,” she hissed, “for you to be playing the offended innocent.”

“It is, rather. And it’s nae good your playin’ judge and jury.”

“True enough.” Rebecca released her fist and shook out her hand. The marks of her nails made a neat row of gouges across her palm. “But you lied to me. You’ve been lying all this time.”

“No a’ the time, lass.” His voice dropped abruptly into such a low register she hardly heard it.

She stared at him. His teeth were clenched so tightly his cheeks were corded. His brows crumpled over eyes glinting with pride, pain and resentment, more at himself, she thought, than at her. For once he wasn’t trying to hide.

Rebecca’s rage sizzled like a drop of water on a hot iron and evaporated into a thin, dry weariness. “Have you been trying to scare me away? Have you taken any artifacts, or a letter from those boxes of diaries?”

“No.”

“Are you some kind of terrorist?”

“No.”

“What’re you up to, then?”

“Naething that concerns you.” He didn’t flinch. His eyes didn’t leave hers. He didn’t insult her by saying winsomely, “Trust me.”

No quarter, she reminded herself. “Why won’t you come clean with me?”

“I already had a bath the day, thank you just the same.”

Laughter swelled in Rebecca’s chest and she couldn’t hold it in. “Damn you, Michael!” she exclaimed, and she punched halfheartedly at him. “This is ludicrous!”

Michael dodged the punch. His expression cracked and softened and he, too, started laughing. “It’s a proper cock-up, and nae mistake.”

“I want to believe you.”

“Then feel free tae have a go at it.”

His wry humor was infectious. “So don’t trust anyone,” she told him with an expansive gesture. “You’re safer that way. Come on. I’ll help you search for that box.” Michael rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in an unmistakable expression of relief.

A casket for rose petals, Rebecca thought as she led the way up the stairs. A showy little thing that would sell quickly. Anyone could have taken that. But not Michael. If he had, he wouldn’t have pointed out its disappearance. Maybe Dun Iain was generating multiple interlocking conspiracies, but she simply couldn’t see how Michael Campbell, the last suspect on the scene, was their prime mover.