My Very Best Friend (59 page)

“So there he is,” Toran said, his face flushing, fists clenched. “If he wasn’t already a corpse, I would kill him.”

“Me after you.” This man had not been a priest, he’d been the devil incarnate. I bent down and saw something. “Toran, look.”

Toran leaned over me. “Can’t have that being found.” He pulled it out and we took it home. We would return it to its owner later.

Chief Constable Ben Harris came first after we called, followed by other constables and men and women in suits, rain slickers, and rain boots, from other agencies.

“As I suspected, and hoped,” Ben muttered quietly to Toran and me. “Murdered and gone for years. I’ll bet at least fifteen years, right after he disappeared, based on the remains.”

“That’s fortunate,” Toran said. “Other girls were safe, then, from his crimes.”

“I wonder who did it,” Ben said. “The body’s disintegrated. We’ll get nothing off of it. Dental records to identify him only. That’s about what we’re down to.”

“Perfect,” I said. “No one to prosecute.”

“A shame no one will go to jail for killing a serial rapist,” Toran drawled.

“It could have been anyone,” Ben said. “Many possibilities.”

“We’ll never know,” I said.

“If we find out, we should give them a reward.” Toran rocked back on his heels. “I’ll fund it.”

“You’re so handsome,” I said to him.

“You mean when I’m talking about giving reward money to the man, or woman, who killed Father Cruickshank?”

“Yeah, baby, handsome as hell.”

Ben laughed when I kissed Toran. He winked at me. “You’re more like your mother than I think you realize, Charlotte. She used to kiss your dad all the time, too.” He nodded at us when he was called over to the scene by another constable, then walked back toward us and bent his head, so that only the two of us could hear. “There is a peculiar . . . hole . . . in Father Toran’s black robe, hardly noticeable. If you did know anything about that, it would be best to let . . . uh . . . the person know so she doesn’t have to worry about an impending arrest. That’s the type of thing that can keep you up at night, all night. Since I don’t have any evidence, there is nothing I can do further here in this regard. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Oh, yes, we sure did.

The archer froze at her kitchen table when she heard the news about Father Angus Cruickshank. Was her arrest imminent? Probably. The clue was there. It wouldn’t take long.

She brought the peppermint tea to her lips. She remembered that night more clearly than any other night of her life.

“You have five seconds to start running,” she had told the priest, then sighed, hating clichés, hating dramatics, in speech or in literature. Still, the instructions had to be clear. The plan was laid. It could not be changed. She brought the bow up and aimed the arrow at his chest.

Father Angus’s face drained of color, as if it were being sucked out of him by a tube. She’d found that morbidly amusing. He put a hand on his kitchen table to steady himself. “No, don’t do this. We can talk.”

“Hell, no. I’m done talking.” The archer sighed
again,
feeling impatient. Now that line sounded straight out of a movie. Was it a cliché, too? Probably. How frustrating. Never mind. She pulled the arrow back farther. “Five . . . four—”

The priest whipped around and stumbled out the back door, toward the shadowy woods. This was exactly what she knew would happen. Organization and attention to perfection are important skills in life. She picked up a few things to set the scene correctly, as planned, and set off.

The priest was in poor shape and scared witless. It was dark as black velvet, with a misty rain blowing down from the Scottish highlands and a handful of fog, but she knew the hills, every rock and tree, the towering cliffs, and the rumbling ocean below it. When the priest tootled off, panting like a rabid pig that needed to be put down, the chase began.

She had paced the priest, enjoying it, delighting in the man’s insidious fear. The priest had made others feel the same way, for years. Now he deserved to feel the same desperate, hopeless terror. It was only fair. Fairness and justice were important, too.

The priest tripped over a mossy log, the moon’s white light peeking through the spindly branches of the trees. He had begged her to stop. “Spare me. Have mercy on me. Forgive me, for I have sinned.”

“Yes, you have, and now you will be punished.” She raised the bow again, and again, as the priest kept scrambling to escape, to hide. She shot three arrows off, deliberately missing, to keep him scared. The thought of what the priest had done inflamed her. The priest was now the prey instead of the predator. That’s why this chase had to happen.

“I will pray for your soul,” the priest shouted, gasping, tripping. When that didn’t work, he tried scripture, then he started swearing at her, that foul man, calling out the most disgusting names, threatening violence, then back to his useless pleading.

“God does not listen to the prayers of the Devil,” she told him, then thought,
Excellent.
That statement was not a cliché. “I will show you the mercy you showed others.”

“No, no, don’t!” the priest begged, slowing down, unable to carry his corpulent self any further. “Show more, I am a man of God.”

“That is incorrect, biblically speaking,” she corrected him proudly. She had been taught the Bible. “You are no man of God. You attacked the innocent. I can’t have that happen again.”

“I won’t do it again!”

“Yes, you will. You will stop only when you’re in a grave.”

When the priest was exactly where she wanted him, where she thought his body would never be found, the archer took aim at his sweating, panting, panicked face.

“You will go to jail for this!” the priest yelled.

“Once again, that is incorrect. No one will ever know. You, however, are going to hell.”

The arrow shot through the black velvet night, the misty rain blowing down from the Scottish highlands, and a handful of fog.

She never missed.

No mistakes.

That was the most important.

Unfortunately, the archer thought, taking another sip of peppermint tea, she had made a mistake in the burial. She didn’t think that monster would ever be found. He had been buried as deep as they could get him. She had taken his keys, wallet, and eyeglasses so that people would think that the bastard had run off and not look for him. You would take those items if you were running.

But now his decaying corpse and his personal items had popped up. What to do?

The archer knew she could leave the village. Hide. But where would she go?

She studied her garden. It was dull now, but Bridget, sweet Bridget, had made her such a pretty plan and she would hate not to see it to fulfillment.

Plus, would a jury convict her?

She put her shoulders back, though she had started to shake. She had done what she had to do. If Angus Cruickshank had not been shot through with her arrow, more girls would have been raped.

She was defending their innocence and taking revenge at the same time, God help her. It was an eye for an eye. She was a proud Scotswoman. She believed in her fellow Scots. They would not convict her.

She would take her chances.

The archer smiled to herself. She had won awards as a girl, and as a young woman, for archery. It had not taken much practice before she was fully up to speed again. Her aim had been true. Everyone would now know of her prowess. She could not help being a wee proud.

The newspapers had a field day. Carston Chit outdid himself.

Body of missing priest found, Part Four . . . it’s almost the sixteen-year anniversary and here’s the body! Murdered priest accused of molesting many girls buried in a deep grave in the hills . . . Murderer of the Catholic priest unknown . . . Who killed Father Cruickshank? Would a jury convict the murderer, even if he was found?

The village was all aflutter, especially at that last question. The consensus was that, no, a jury would not convict the murderer for getting rid of a child rapist.

Chief Constable Ben Harris kept our names out of the paper, so we were identified as the “man and woman who found the body after the storms when a hill gave way.”

I thought of Bridget. She would be glad to know that Father Cruickshank had not been roaming the earth searching for other victims whose lives he could wreck. As he was in hell and she was in heaven, they would not cross paths.

I knocked on the door to Lorna’s house.

“Charlotte, how lovely to see you. Please come in!”

We sat and chatted. She brought out chocolate croissants and served peppermint tea. She was nervous, though, her hands shaking, her breath coming in short gasps.

We settled into her kitchen nook facing the garden. “I’m going to make my garden exactly like Bridget’s drawings.”

I’d noticed that Lorna had had the drawings matted and framed, as I had. “My husband and I are saving for a proper fountain.”

We chatted about gardening, but she was distracted, stressed. “Lorna, you know that Father Cruickshank’s body was found.”

Her lips tightened. “Yes. He was the Devil.” She took a sip of tea. Her hands shook so hard she had to put the cup down.

“You know that Toran and I found the body?”

“I figured as much. It was on Toran’s land.”

“I thought you would want this back.” I took the arrow out of my bag. “Toran and I removed it before the authorities arrived. We wanted you to know that they didn’t find it. We thought you might be worried.”

She paled.

“Are you going to faint?” I asked.

“I might.”

“I want you to know that I’ll catch you, Lorna. Would you like to lie down?”

“I hated Father Cruickshank, Charlotte.”

I knew why. “Because of what he did to Malvina.”

“Yes. My poor Malvina, that monster!”

“Does Malvina know that you killed him?”

“Yes. I told her. I had to. She used to be a cheerful, social, athletic girl, a wonder at archery—I taught her myself—and after the rapes, when she finally told me—he had threatened to kill me if she told—she pulled into herself.

“My Malvina changed, almost overnight. She wouldn’t talk to me, and she cried all the time. I finally forced her to tell me, when she tried to kill herself two years later. I became so incensed! I knew what had to be done. I knew he couldn’t live on God’s earth for one more day. I had to let Malvina know that Father Cruickshank could never, ever come after her again, or threaten my life.”

“So you shot him with your bow and arrow.”

“I did. I delighted in it.” She sat straight up. “I enjoyed seeing him frightened, begging, running. It was a fair, and just, punishment. I showed no mercy, as he had not shown any. I had it all planned out.” She set down her tea, and for the first time she smiled. “I like things organized. It’s important.”

“Did you know that Angus Cruickshank had attacked Bridget, too?”

“I didn’t. After reading Carston Chit’s article, I think he started attacking Malvina about a year after he attacked Bridget. I had heard, at the time, from her mother and others, when Bridget left school, that she was training to be a nun. Given her father’s fanaticism, that was not surprising to me. I later on heard vague rumors of a pregnancy but didn’t believe them. Then I heard that Bridget was off at university. But during that time I was also dealing with Malvina and her abrupt change in personality, her deep depression, so Bridget wasn’t uppermost in my mind, my daughter’s precarious mental state was. I should have put it together, but I didn’t.

“When Carston Chit’s article came out about Bridget . . . Charlotte, I felt so guilty. Horrendous. I am a terrible woman. Terrible.” She actually covered her head with her arms. “Terrible. I am terrible.”

“You have been, but I’m liking you more knowing you stuck an arrow through Angus. Toran and I will never tell a soul, I promise you, but I do have one more question, if I may ask it.”

“Please.” She spoke through her arms, then put them down, her face pale.

“You buried the body . . . by yourself?”

“Laddy helped me. She is a loyal, loving sister and she was furious about what Father Cruickshank had done to our Malvina. We knew that he had to die immediately, to be judged by God. We could not allow him to rape another girl. It was our Christian duty to eliminate him and protect the innocent.”

Lorna, of the imperious bottom. Laddy, grumpy lady.

“I chased him into the woods. I didn’t always used to be this fat. I was quite trim then. I took aim and followed him, guiding him. I shot him rather close to our ultimate grave destination. Who knew the hill would ever give way? Curse it. Other than that, there were no mistakes. That’s important, too.”

I cleared my throat. “Well. I’m incredibly impressed by your aim, Lorna. A bow and arrow is difficult to shoot.”

She smiled, suddenly pleased with herself. “I used to win prizes for archery.”

“Something to be proud of.” We drank our tea in silence. “You eliminated the devil from the planet Earth. For that, you deserve another prize.”

“Thank you. I would like to be your friend, Charlotte.”

“I think we could do that.”

“You do?” Her voice pitched in hope.

“Yes. Let’s take a peek at Bridget’s garden plans again, shall we?”

It was Rowena who made up the rhymes and songs about Father Angus Cruickshank. “He attacked my friend’s younger sister, Joycie, and no one did anything about it.”

Olive came over one day. She handed me an article a friend had sent her. It was written by Kitty Rosemary. “Are you Georgia Chandler?”

Shoot. I didn’t want anyone to know. “Yes.”

“I have all your books. I love them. If only you had more animals in them, specifically pigs and chickens. . . .” She winked at me and swore not to tell a soul.

P
EPPERMINT
T
EA
,
A
S
OUL
M
ATE
,
AND
THE
S
COTTISH
L
EAP