Dressed to Kilt (6 page)

“Me, of course. I'm the obvious choice. After the mess I made.”

The inspector shook his head. “No, not yerself. It's our Sean I'm thinking o'. He'll make a bonnie companion. And tae fire him up tae the task, I'll alert him tae the old girl as one o' our suspects. Ye never know. She might turn out tae be our killer.”

The darkness hid my relief. Actually I was pleased with the arrangement. It would satisfy all three of us. I could continue to work on apprehending the killer. The inspector would be free of Sean and had a valid reason to postpone the routine training he dreaded. And Sean would consider his role of the utmost importance.

“You don't really believe Bridie could have murdered Henrietta!” I said, as we got out of the car and walked toward the tasting room to finish up for the night.

“Not fer a single second. Bridie can barely lift her walking stick. How would she manage tae hold down a woman
such as her companion fer even a moment let alone long enough fer her tae drown?”

“My analysis exactly.”

“Let's finish and get some shut-eye. Tomorrow we have our work cut out fer us. And look who is still here, waiting tae take ye home.”

Leith was heading our way, his usually light manner gone, a solemn set to his jaw and concern in his eyes.

We didn't say much on the ride back to the farm. It was late; midnight had come and gone several hours past. Both of us were exhausted and lost in our own thoughts. But I did remember to ask Leith if he'd overheard or seen anything that might have to do with Henrietta's death.

“Not a thing,” he replied. “Everybody seemed tae be enjoying the evening. I know I was. But if I think o' anything, you'll be the first tae know.”

Using a flashlight to guide us, he walked me to the cottage and followed me inside, where he wrapped his arms around me. I buried my face in his winter coat, finding it comforting. Being so close to him on such a harsh and brutal winter night was comforting.

We stood that way for a long time.

After I'd moved into the cottage, I'd rearranged things a little differently to make better use of the space and had even found two matching kitchen chairs in the barn to add to the original two. Which was a good thing, since they were needed this Sunday morning.

Vicki was at the counter, dishing up one of her baked wonders onto small plates. Charlotte Penn and I were prepared to sample whatever she was about to put before us. If the aroma wafting from the baking dish she'd arrived with was any indication, we were in for a treat.

Until recently, Charlotte was the MacBride farm's sheep shearer as well as the shearer for most of the surrounding area while she worked her way through college and vet school. Now that she's completed her coursework, she still tends to the MacBride sheep although she's had to delegate out most of the shearing, because she's a full-fledged veterinarian. Earlier this morning, Charlotte had paid a visit to the farm to attend to a new litter of border collies. She'd appeared
at my door after she'd examined the pups and declared them fit and sound.

The vet is in her midtwenties, wears her hair in a thick braid down her back, and usually smells faintly of hay. Today was no exception. I decided I liked her “perfume.” It mixed nicely with Vicki's roses and jasmine, and I wondered if we could create a new scent, perhaps call it L'Hay Les Roses.

“You two need to get out from underfoot,” Vicki said to Pepper and Coco, who liked nothing better than to keep the kitchen floor clean.

“What is it called?” I asked as she placed the delicacy before me.

“Clootie dumplings,” she said. “It's a pudding. With dried fruit, ginger, and cinnamon, among other things. Clootie is the fabric the dessert is cooked in.”

“Dessert?” I said. “For breakfast?

“And why can't we eat it for breakfast?” Charlotte said. “It's usually served for Christmas, but Vicki wanted you to taste it before . . .”

She broke off, not wanting to spoil the morning by bringing up my departure.

“What's that you're pouring on it?” I asked Charlotte, happy to avoid that subject.

“Clotted cream.” She poured some on mine.

“Go ahead,” Vicki said, taking a seat. “What do you think?”

“Delicious,” Charlotte and I exclaimed simultaneously after our first bites.

“In the evening, I serve it with a dram of whisky,” Vicki added, which brought the subject around to the poor
woman who'd drowned in a vat of the Scottish alcoholic beverage.

“Henrietta McCloud was one o' those unlucky individuals who always suffered one setback after another,” Charlotte said. “Ye know the sort that seems tae attract bad luck, havin' one tragic turn after another.”

“Unlucky how?” I asked, anxious to hear what Charlotte had to say. The vet practiced up and down the hills of Glenkillen, so she had to have a wealth of information on the locals.

“I'll only consider telling ye because o' yer position, Eden,” Charlotte said, “and Vicki, I can trust ye tae keep this tae yerself?” Charlotte obviously was having doubts about whether she should continue. She disliked gossip and as I've discovered since my appointment as special constable, there is a fine line that has to be walked. As a doctor of veterinary medicine, my friend also has to maintain a certain professional standard.

“I appreciate anything you can share about Henrietta,” I assured her. “We will have to look into her current situation as well as her past. Anything that you offer will be a great help.”

“And you know you can trust me to keep quiet,” Vicki added, which was true. She loved to discuss the locals with me, but I couldn't recall a single instance when she'd spread anything that she shouldn't have. Vicki was trustworthy.

“The first thing was that Henrietta was unlucky in love,” Charlotte told us, having decided to continue. “There was a bloke in her hometown who jilted her when she was nineteen and thinking they'd be wed. She carried that pain fer
life. She never did marry, resignin' herself tae bein' a servant fer the rest o' her days.”

“Sounds like plain old life's knocks to me,” I said, thinking the dead woman wasn't the only one who was unlucky in love. “We've all suffered disappointments.” That certainly was true in my case. But that didn't mean I planned to sequester myself away for life, bitter and lonely. Most of us get back up eventually, dust ourselves off, and continue the journey.

“But Bridie treated her well,” Vicki said.

“Aye, like family, but it isn't the same as havin' yer own husband and children.”

“But she had a sister,” I pointed out. “I wonder why she didn't move to Edinburgh to be closer to Patricia.”

“I never could figure that out.” Charlotte took another bite of the clootie dumpling and hummed. I did the same while I thought about luck. Personally, I think we have quite a bit of control over the quality of our lives. Henrietta had choices after that man ended their relationship. She could have moved on with her life, let go of her pain, and found love again. Instead she isolated herself within a self-imposed prison of her own making. She'd held on to a bitter past for a lot of years. If Henrietta had been nineteen at the time and was in her midsixties when she was killed, that added up to forty-some years of service to Bridie, instead of making a family of her own. Hardly my idea of random bad luck.

I really do believe we make our own luck.

“The second stroke o' bad luck,” Charlotte said. “The poor thing developed a disease that woulda killed her soon enough anyhoo. The third, as ye know, was that somebody
murdered her. A black cat or two musta crossed Henrietta McCloud's path, that's fer sure.”

“What disease?” Vicki asked, on high alert now that she was about to learn something about the dead woman that she hadn't known.

“Yes, what disease?” I seconded, just as interested. Purely from the viewpoint of law enforcement, I told myself. But the truth is, at times, despite my best efforts to resist that particular temptation, I enjoy gossip just as much as the next person.

“Lung cancer,” Charlotte announced. “But it was hush-hush. Not public knowledge. She wanted to keep it private among those closest tae her. Henrietta was havin' a hard time accepting her lot. It was as though she thought if she refused to acknowledge her illness it would go away.”

The news of her cancer didn't surprise me as much as I thought it would. It explained Henrietta's cough, the hoarseness of her voice, and her extreme thinness. And it also explained Patricia's statement regarding her sister's poor health and her opinion that Bridie wasn't sensitive to Henrietta's needs. But from my observation, Bridie was kind and considerate. Perhaps Henrietta was the one who wouldn't slow down and face her prognosis.

“Her medical condition most likely will come out,” I said, carefully. “And I don't mean from Vicki or me. Things like this have a way of getting out during an investigation as serious as this.”

“I understand,” Charlotte said. “She was a tickin' time bomb, she was. Musta felt awful fer a long time before the diagnosis, which came about due tae a respiratory infection that forced her tae see the doc. She always was a stubborn
woman, not one tae run fer medical care unless she had tae, and so it was in the advanced stage by the time it was discovered. In her bones already, and the doc said it would get tae her brain next and that'd be the end of her. She refused tae go through any procedures, which is just like her, but it was probably too late by then regardless o' any efforts.”

“When was Henrietta diagnosed?” I asked.

“About two months ago. The doc gave her six months tae live. At the most.”

I studied Charlotte for a moment before asking, “How do you know so much about Henrietta McCloud? From what I'm learning, she was almost reclusive. Surely she didn't share all this with you.”

“I was out at Bridie's house a few weeks ago fer a routine exam o' Henrietta's cat, Snookie, when Henrietta had a moment o' weakness. I had tae help her tae her room. That's when Bridie confided in me. She said Henrietta was trying tae carry on as always. She insisted and Bridie couldn't stop her. After a while Bridie resigned herself tae the fact that her companion was going tae take care o' her tae the bitter end. But she was trying tae make it easier on her whenever she could.”

On that sad note, a moment of silence ensured. Then Charlotte stood up and said, “Well, I best be on my way. Vicki, that was the best clootie dumpling I've ever had the good fortune tae devour.”

After she left, Vicki and I gathered our dishes and silverware and placed them in the sink.

“How's Kirstine doing?” I asked Vicki. “Is she back to the shop?”

“She's got some bug that's going around. The doc says
she should rest another few days before coming back to Sheepish Expressions. Which is fine with me. She doesn't need to spread around her germs.”

“Do you need help?” I asked, wondering how I'd manage if she did.

Lucky for me, Vicki shook her head, looking a bit down. “I'm doing just fine.”

“Let me know if you change your mind. Is something bothering you?”

“No, it's just that I have plenty of time on my hands, since the inspector needs Sean round the clock on this case. I still haven't seen him!”

I felt a pang of guilt over the joy I'd felt when Jamieson had assigned Sean to watch over Bridie. I'd thought that it benefited all of us, but I'd forgotten about Vicki and the hole it would leave in her personal life.
It's only temporary
, I reminded myself. And Vicki's happiness was another reason to solve this quickly.

Vicki bundled up and left with the dogs racing ahead of her. I cleaned up the kitchen, reflecting on the murdered woman's life. I didn't know much about her. Most of what I'd discovered had been this morning at my kitchen table. Henrietta had made a decision long ago to remain alone for life. Her choice. She'd ignored her health, resulting in a fatal diagnosis. But she hadn't deserved what happened to her in the end.

Lost love, terminal illness, and murder.

Had her killer known about her death sentence?

If so, why go to such extreme measures to shorten it? Six months to live. That had been determined two months previous. She'd be gone in a few months, so why take the
risk? Unless there was some immediate threat, one that I couldn't imagine at the moment.

Either that or the killer wasn't aware that Henrietta was dying, which was a more realistic analysis based on the victim's private nature. What, then, had driven someone to drown her in a vat of whisky?

She had wanted to speak with me after the tasting. Bridie claimed she didn't know why. If that was so, and I had no reason to doubt her, the only way I might eventually learn the answer to that question was if it pertained to her murder and became obvious at some point. What would she have said to me?

While I gazed out the window, deep in thought, a familiar red Renault pulled up near the main house. I watched Sean get out and saw Vicki come running from inside her home. They met midway and embraced, then walked together out of view. The inspector's police vehicle arrived directly after that, and I couldn't help chuckling. Usually it was the other way around, with the inspector racing away to outrun Sean.

Jamieson walked along the path leading to my door, unaware that I was observing him. As usual, he was solemn and carried himself with an air of sadness. Inspector Jamieson never spoke of the loss of his wife several years ago, but I was certain he hadn't recovered from her passing. Instead, he threw himself into his work.

“Yer phone line appears tae be out o' order,” he said with a bit of snarl when I invited him in. From personal experience, I've learned that he isn't an early-morning person, and I try to avoid contact with him until later. “So I had tae drive all the way over here tae speak with ye.”

“Vicki knows about the outage,” I responded. “She says it's not that unusual to lose phone service during a snowstorm.”

“But ye could have had yer mobile phone handy.”

“Duly noted,” I answered, a little terse myself. I didn't mention that my cell phone had drained and I'd forgotten to charge it.

The inspector grunted. “Are ye ready tae do a bit o' police work?”

“Yes. I see Sean is taking a break.”

“Chasing after Vicki MacBride like a schoolboy.”

I smiled. “He wouldn't be here if you hadn't approved it.”

I didn't get a return smile. “When Bridie isn't with her son, which she is this morning, he's tae stay out there, keeping her company and nosin' around. But that isn't yer concern.”

“Oh, and what is my concern?” I asked, feeling even more bristly. The inspector sensed it, too, and wisely backed off.

“If I seem out o' sorts,” he said, more gently, “it's because I've had a long night without results. News o' the murder is all over the village, and I'm under pressure tae solve the case quickly.”