A Wee Dose of Death (6 page)

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M
ac Campbell wasn't ready to die—not from a broken leg, not from starvation, and not from freezing to death—but he gave serious thought to how small a chance he would have of staving off a murderous attacker in his present shape. He could never be accused of having too active an imagination, but the danger he saw himself in stoked the imaginative flames way more than he found comfortable. He massaged his fingers. Get a fire started. That was what he needed to do. There was kindling, some of it sticking out from underneath the body, but enough off to one side. A convenient stack of woodstove-sized logs filled a corner of the room.

For some time, Mac didn't worry about the body. He worried about how to drag himself around it so he could reach the woodpile. Why hadn't they put the woodpile next to the door? That would have made more sense. Then he worried about how to coax a log off the pile without collapsing the whole shebang onto himself. Luckily, he'd dragged one of his ski poles along
with him. He heaved himself back to the door where he'd left the pole, cursing under his breath—it took too much energy to swear out loud. Eventually he just threw the pole ahead of him and floundered back to his objective. He had to get a fire started. Had to. He couldn't feel his toes. The only thing he could feel for sure was that he had to relieve himself. He had no idea how to handle that problem.

Why'd they stack this woodpile so high? The basket webbing around the point of the ski pole finally caught on a small branch stub. He'd have a fire going in no time. All he needed was one stupid log to set atop the kindling. He'd worry about log number two later. He yanked hard, and the left-hand end of the stack seemed to come apart. One log glanced off his shoulder; one landed on his outstretched fingers. Mac didn't care if a murderer was close enough to hear him; he swore with a vengeance, all the pent-up anger, pain, and fear of the last several hours pouring out in a tsunami of invective.

*   *   *

The serene winter
silence shattered as a round of oaths blasted from the cabin across the clearing, not a hundred feet away. I backed up a step—hard to do on cross-country skis—and almost fell. I recognized that gravelly smoker's voice. For some reason our illustrious police chief, Mac Campbell, was hell-bent on cussing out the firewood.

Even with that cabin door shut tight, I could hear Mac easily. The cabin—nothing more than a shack, really—had no insulation. The walls were one plank thick, and the windows had been put in there before double-glazing was ever invented. Nothing fancy about the place at all.

Dirk started forward, but I motioned him back. I needn't have bothered. For one thing, he couldn't see my gesture since he was in front of me. And for another thing, when he got about
three yards in front of me he pulled up short, as if a big bungee cord had reached the end of its limit and hauled him back toward me. “Don't go any farther,” I said unnecessarily.

“I canna, lest ye go as weel.”

“I'm not going to. That's Mac Campbell in there, swearing like a sailor. I don't want to meet up with him if he's in this kind of mood.”

“Mayhap he is hurt.”

“Mac? Not a chance. If he has enough energy to cuss that loudly, he doesn't need us around.”

There was no smoke from the chimney, but I heard a distinct clang as Mac—or somebody—banged the woodstove closed. There's no other sound in the world like the clunk of a woodstove door.

I inspected the scene, noting details about the cabin and its environs. “He's alone.”

“How would ye know that?”

I motioned toward the dark brown wall beside the closed front door. “There's only one pair of skis there.” All the more reason to avoid him. He'd have only me to vent on.

It looked like an army had been here, though; the track of the tarpaulin—or whatever they'd used—was still faintly visible in a wide path even under the heavy new flakes. Still, there had been only Mac's and one other person's tracks up the trail.

Dirk must have been thinking along the same lines. “Where is the ither person, the one who made the second set o' skee tracks?”

“Either the other guy's out collecting kindling or he and Mac weren't together in the first place. The other skier might have just skirted the cabin and gone on ahead. There's a path around back of the cabin he might have taken. It's pretty steep, so you have to be a good skier to manage it. It goes farther up the mountain and then a branch veers off back toward town.”

“If 'tis difficult to skee that part of the trail, then would ye not say a skeeing person would have to be well accomplished to go there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone who falls on the path”—he gestured down the slope behind us—“wouldna be likely to approach a challenging trail, aye?”

“So, you're saying that if Mac's in the cabin, he must be the one who fell back there?” Dirk nodded, but I wasn't convinced. “Mac's too good a skier for that. He wouldn't have fallen.”

“Then where would be the ither man who made the second set of wee tracks?”

“I don't know. There are some sharp drop-offs up there, and in this much snow, it wouldn't be wise for anyone to take that part of the trail, especially not somebody who's no good on skis.” I waved my hand vaguely to indicate the hillside behind the outhouse. “He probably took the trail back to town.”

The sounds emanating from the cabin had died to a low rumble.

Dirk spread his right arm in the direction of the cabin. “Do ye not agree 'twould be courteous for us to—”

“No. Absolutely not.” I lowered my voice, just on the offhand chance that Mac might hear me and come out to investigate. “I'm not going anywhere near that man if I can avoid it. I don't intend him any harm, but I'm certainly not going to let him ruin my trek with his sarcasm.” I raised my feet up onto my tiptoes—or as close as I could get to it—several times to keep the circulation going. It
was
getting distinctly colder.

“Look.” Dirk pointed to a faint trickle of smoke rising from the old fieldstone chimney. “Now he has a wee fire lit, he will be less likely to swear at ye. Let us go inside. I can see ye shivering like a newborn kid.”

In answer, I raised my right leg and ski as high as I could,
straight out before me until the square back edge of the ski rested on the ground in front of me. I twisted my leg and the ski clockwise, leaving the back in contact with the ground, and set my foot down, facing back behind me, leaving my legs in a ballet-like position, the right one pointing vaguely west, back toward the way we'd come, and the other heading sort of east. It was quite a trick, but it was also the only way to turn around quickly on cross-country skis. Then I shifted my weight to my right leg, leaned slightly on my right ski pole to get my balance, and lifted my left foot straight up so I could cross the front of my left ski over the back of the right one and bring it around so they both faced back toward Hamelin. It was a complicated maneuver, and I couldn't tell you how many times I'd fallen trying to perfect it when I was a kid. Now it was like second nature. “I'm outta here. He's got a fire going. Mac's a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

“We havena been verra neighborly.”

“Mac is not a neighbor. Mac is a . . .”

Dirk cleared his ghostly throat, and I didn't finish my sentence.

On the way back down the mountain I collected pink yarn markers as I went. It's wonderful the way you generate heat when you're skiing cross-country. And when you're arguing with a stubborn ghost.

*   *   *

Even a good
night's sleep—mine, not his; ghosts don't sleep—didn't stop him. Monday morning he kept at it. “Ye shouldna ha' left Master Campbell when he was swearing like a sail man.”

“First of all, it's a sailor, not a sail man. Secondly, don't call him a master. He's not a master of anything except his ego. And thirdly, I had no intention of going in there.”

“He may ha' been hurt.”

“He wasn't hurt. Not if he had enough energy to cuss out a pile of firewood.”

“Ye dinna ken that for certes.”

“Dirk! Quit telling me what to do.”

“My name isna Dirk. Why d'ye insist on calling me that when my name is Macbeath Donlevy Freusach Finlay—”

I cut him off before the last two names. “I know darn well what your name is. Macbeth? Nobody uses that name nowadays. And I can't say all those others fast enough. Anyway, I get them mixed up.”

“Ye wouldna if ye paid attention.”

“Oh, go sit down and wait for me to get ready.”

“And ye say I tell ye what to do. Now who is giving instructions?” With every indication of affronted dignity, he walked over to my wingback chair.

“That's
my
chair. Why do you always have to sit in it?”

Without missing a beat, Dirk—or whatever his name was—strode to the woodstove and wouldna—I mean would not—turn around to face me.

Good. Now I could finish getting ready. I reached for my boots but got sidetracked straightening all the shoes piled beside my front door. How could anyone have so many shoes? The shawl kept hanging down in my way, so I crumpled it up, set it on the little table there in my entryway, and brought order to the chaos in a few minutes of concentrated effort.

When I finished, I slipped on the right pair of boots and turned around.

No ghost.

I looked at the shawl crumpled on the table. I thought you had to
fold
it for him to go away.

A tiny spider balanced on the edge of it. It shook one of its
little front legs at me, like a minister in a pulpit saying,
Shame on you.

*   *   *

Emily answered on
the first ring.

“Em? This is Sandra. I'm sorry to call you so early, but I have bad news.”

Emily recoiled from the phone. Bad news? She didn't like bad news.

“Are you there? Emily?”

“Yes. I'm here.”

“Somebody broke into your house.”

“Broke in? What do you mean?”

“Your kitchen is okay, but the living room—the couch cushions are all askew. And in Mark's office off the den? It looks like the books on the bookcase have been moved around, and I know Mark's laptop was right in the middle of his desk yesterday afternoon when I came in to water the plants the way you asked me to. And it's not there now. I looked around and I can't find it anywhere. Do you want me to call the police now or do you want to come home first?”

“No!” Emily looked at the clock. Was it really only 8:20? She felt like she'd been up for half a day. “No, don't call them. The kitchen is a mess. I didn't straighten up before I left.”

“Emily Wantstring, that's ridiculous.”

“Just wait. Once Mark gets home from his little ski trip, we'll drive up there together.”

“There's a whole pane of glass broken on the back door. It's freezing cold in here.”

“Oh, dear. Can you tape a hand towel over it?”

Sandra chuckled. “No, Emily, I can't. I'll clean up the broken glass and get Ron to put up a piece of plywood. That should
hold it, but you really need to come up and be sure nothing else is gone.”

Emily moved the notepad she kept next to the phone over about an inch and lined it up with the edge of the table. “All right. I'll drive up there tomorrow.”

“Today, Emmy. You have to come today, before more snow hits tomorrow. Driving will be safer.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks. All right.”

They said their good-byes. Emily hoped against hope that Mark would get back. She didn't like driving alone. But she knew he wouldn't. He'd told her three days at least. She ran her hands up and down her arms, trying to make the cold go away. Hot chocolate would cure a lot of this, she thought. She'd whip some up and put it in a thermos to take with her.

SRM20

T
he ScotShop was closed on Mondays, but Gilda and I had decided to spend a few hours stocking the shelves, taking advantage of a day without customers. We were making good progress, when Karaline pounded on the door. I could tell something important was going on by the look on her face, and I unlocked the door as fast as I could.

She rushed in. Well, considering that she'd had a ruptured appendix two months ago, she was moving as fast as she could. “My second Univex died!”

“I'm sorry to hear that, K. What the heck is a Univex? Do we need to hold a funeral?”

She stuck out her tongue at me, so I knew it couldn't have been too much of a disaster.

“It's a big commercial mixer. Made by Univex. The Tuesday morning breakfast crowd tomorrow is going to expect buckets of rolls, and they always go through dozens of loaves of fresh
bread. There's no way I can handle that much volume with only one Univex.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“You and I are driving to Kittredge. That's the food service supply store where I get all my equipment. It's in Burlington. Well, it's in Winooski, but that's next door to Burlington, just across the river.”

“What makes you think I can take the time to go that far?”

She looked pointedly around at the closed store. “There's supposed to be a heavy snow moving in overnight, so we need to go now.”

Heavy snow was great for the ski slopes, but sometimes didn't work well for tourist towns. Thank goodness it wasn't usually like this in October.

“I called the store. The woman I spoke with said they had only one SRM20 in stock. They've ordered more, but with another storm in the forecast, there's no telling when they'll get here. That means we need to leave now. Now!”

“All right, don't get your britches twisted.” I'd borrowed that phrase from Moira, our Southern-born police dispatcher. I thought it expressed the thought very succinctly. “You weren't planning on driving, were you?”

“Of course. We have to take my SUV.”

“You've been out of the hospital how long?”

“Six weeks. That's long enough. I feel great.”

I stared at her.

“Okay, okay. I feel fairly good.”

“I still don't think you should drive.”

“Okay. You can drive for me.”

She was right. I could. Karaline and I had keys to each other's cars. And houses. “Why don't you stay here?”

“No way.”

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “All right, but I have to go home first. I left my purse there. Why don't we take my car?”

“You've obviously never seen a Univex SRM20. We'll take my SUV, and we'll just barely be able to cram the box in the back. The woman told me exactly how big the box was, and I measured my car to be sure it would fit. Let's just go.”

“I want my purse. I can't drive without my license.”

“Okay. Jump in my car and we'll swing by your place on the way out of town.”

I neglected to remind her that my house was in one direction and the road to Burlington was in the opposite direction. Karaline was too upset for logic. “Go ahead and lock up, Gilda. We can finish the shelves tomorrow morning while it's still slow.”

“That's okay. I'm on a roll. I'll keep going for a couple of hours.”

A few more hours I'd have to pay her for. At overtime rates. Oh well, the store was thriving. I followed Karaline out of the ScotShop.

*   *   *

Shorty sat just
inside the front door. It looked like he'd been lying on the shawl—it was kind of squashed—but I tried to keep my eyes averted. Maybe Karaline wouldn't notice it. He wove around my ankles meowing. I pulled off my gloves and bent to stroke his silky back. Karaline walked past the two of us and looked around. “Where's Dirk? He's usually waiting.”

I tried desperately not to look at the table where I'd put the shawl, but Karaline must have seen my eyes veer that way. That, and the fact that Shorty jumped back up on the table, settling onto the blue and green plaid.

“You didn't! What did you do this time?”

“What do you mean, what did
I
do? How about what he did?” And then I remembered that he hadn't done anything. I'd crumpled up the shawl by mistake. Still, if I hadn't, he would have been telling me what to do and how to do it or what not to do and how to avoid doing it. It was just as well he was off wherever he went. “Let's leave him in there. We haven't had any girl talk in a long time, and he's too bossy.”

She nodded, but took her sweet time doing it. “I have to use the facilities.”

I pointed toward the powder room on the main floor. “You know where it is. I'll use the one upstairs.” We'd both learned over the years never to head out onto snowy roads without emptying our bladders. No telling how long you might be stuck behind a wreck or slowed down by a tourist who didn't know how to drive on snow. “I ought to feed Shorty, too, just in case it takes longer than we planned.”

She hung her parka on a hook behind the door and headed for the bathroom. “Well, hurry. This won't take me a minute.”

I threw my coat across the wingback chair, picked up Shorty, and headed upstairs. I intended to put on a heavier sweater whether Karaline was in a hurry or not. She could jolly well wait.

*   *   *

Emily was not
a fast driver even in the summer, but in the winter, she felt compelled to crawl as slowly as possible. The road wound through the mountains. Whoever had plotted the trail originally must have been planning for bicycles—or, more likely, for horses—not for cars. When Mark drove it, she enjoyed watching the scenery unfold, but now, driving it herself, she wished she'd hired someone to come along with her.

If she were honest with herself—and she was trying to
be—she had to admit that she didn't have any friends close enough to chat with: nobody who would be willing to make this trip with her, either as driver or passenger. Sandra might, but she was on the wrong end of the road. And even Sandra didn't like to linger too long over a cup of coffee. Emily's sister might have, if her sister hadn't moved to Washington D.C.

What's wrong with me?
Emily wondered. Deep down, she knew the answer.

She crept around the next few hairpin turns, her thoughts tunneling deeper with each change of direction.

My sister loves me
, she thought.
Mark loves me.
She was sure of that. But something more than her voice had died when the cancer hit. Emily loved Mark, but afterward . . . after she . . . It was like nothing existed for her. She was in a cold place. And she had pushed Mark away, not let him comfort her. Instead, she had chattered, chattered all day long. No wonder Josie moved away. And poor Mark. What a good man. Maybe she could change somehow. Maybe she could make it up to him.

There had been times she should have been able to relax a bit, like that party they'd had when they first bought the house in Hamelin. The easy conversation in the kitchen felt forced to her; the laughter-filled hike up the mountain trail, except she wasn't laughing with the others; the campfire in the clearing. She grimaced. She hadn't even enjoyed the s'mores.

The back end of the car slipped a little on an icy patch and Emily's stomach turned. Even though she recovered quickly, she felt shaken. Icy roads were a fact of life in Vermont, something she'd learned to deal with years ago. Why had this one little fishtail bothered her so much? At the next scenic overview she pulled off the road and turned off the engine. She clasped her gloved hands at the top of the steering wheel, bent
her head onto her hands, and thought, long and hard, about her way of dealing with life. The scenery may have been spectacular, but Emily Wantstring never noticed it.

*   *   *

I took a
quick glance sideways at Karaline. Her parka looked bulkier than usual. Maybe that was what was making her hunch up so much. Or maybe it was her appendectomy scar. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I'm fine. Keep driving.”

I sure hoped her heater would kick in soon. We'd been driving—and talking—for at least half an hour. Of course, most of the heat was probably gathering back there in her capacious back bay.

Karaline smiled.

“What are you grinning about?”

She pushed a wayward hair off her face, not an easy feat when you were wearing heavy mittens. “I was just thinking about Halloween.”

“Why? Are you doing something special this year? You'd better hurry; it's already the fifteenth. Are you planning to turn the Logg Cabin into a haunted house? If so, I want to be in on it.”

“Not hardly. No, I was thinking about an old college prof of mine. He had these crazy Halloween socks.”

I downshifted as we began a steep descent. Once the car was well under control, I expected her to explain, but she just kept grinning to herself, so I prompted her. “Socks?”

“They were heavy, like what you'd wear hiking or skiing, but they were bright, almost neon. Orange and red stripes, with some yellow thrown in here and there.”

“Like from variegated yarn? Were they hand knit?”

“I dunno. They just looked like Halloween.”

“Were there little goblins or skeletons knitted into the pattern?”

“No, just the stripes.”

“Not even a ghost?” As soon as I said it, I snapped my mouth shut. Maybe she wouldn't notice.

No such luck.

I gripped the steering wheel as I straightened out of one of the hairpin turns.

“Speaking of ghosts, you really shouldn't have rolled up Dirk like that, you know. It's not fair to him.”

“I couldn't help it. It was a mistake.”

She wouldn't turn to look at me, but I could see her mittened hands flex in her lap. “How do you wrap up a ghost by mistake?”

“My shoes were all messed up, and I was trying . . . Oh, never mind! It's not going to hurt him. He'll still be perfectly fine when I unwrap him this evening. Or tomorrow.” I hoped I sounded as indignant as I felt. I hoped I didn't sound as defensive as I thought I might. It
had
been a mistake after all.

“Can you pull in and stop up there?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I have a cramp. Have to stand up for a bit.”

I turned left into a scenic overview and parked next to a tour bus. Dozens of tourists snapped pictures of the sweeping panorama. I had to admit the valley stretching out below the mountains was stunning. But I wasn't in the mood for scenery. Why weren't all those potential customers at my ScotShop buying lots of goodies to take home with them? Maybe I should get out and pass around some store brochures. The fact that the store was closed on Mondays was irrelevant.

Karaline stepped out of the car. “This parka's too hot.” She took it off, opened the zippered compartment that held a rainproof hood, and pulled out—

“Karaline, you didn't!”

“Yes, I did. You can't stay mad at him forever.” She put her parka back on. “You have to admit, it's kind of fun having a ghost around.”

“You're not the one who has to live with him twenty-four/seven. You'd get tired of having him tell you how much better it was in the fourteenth century all the time.”

“So, just give me the shawl for good. I'd be happy to have him.”

My mouth must have dropped open or something, because she laughed at me. “Admit it! You'd miss him if he were gone permanently.” She opened my shawl—
my
shawl—and placed it around her shoulders. Dirk appeared right next to the SUV, glorious—I had to admit—in his Farquharson kilt. He was so tall I could see only his broad chest and a few inches of his black hair drifting over his wide shoulders. His hair shifted gently in an otherworldly breeze. A breeze from the fourteenth century. I turned my face resolutely forward.

He bent to look in Karaline's open door. “Ye could wish me well-come if ye would.”

Karaline opened the back door and he slipped in. “I thank ye, Mistress Karaline.”

“My pleasure.”

I could swear she smirked as she took her seat.

“So,” I said, “how was never-never land?”

“How long—”

“It was—” I started, but he kept talking, leaning between the seats, his head turned toward her, away from me.

“—have I been gone, Mistress Karaline?”

I wanted to glare at both of them, but there were tourists swarming all over the parking lot, so I didn't dare look away in case I backed into one.

“She wrapped you up this morning.”

“It was an accident. Sit back,” I told him. “Your seat belt isn't fastened.”

Karaline guffawed so loudly I couldn't hear Dirk's next few comments. That was probably just as well.

As we pulled beyond the tour bus, I saw a familiar car. “I don't believe this.”

“What?”