The Blue Hackle (36 page)

“What was I saying about the hospitality
business and strange bedfellows?” Jean asked as she and Alasdair
proceeded to the dining room.

He opened the door, releasing a warm gust of
air and multiple luscious smells, and said nothing about Rab. He
said nothing about anything, even as he seated Jean at the table
and took his own seat beside Dakota. Tina’s chair had once again
vanished.

Fergie and Diana began batting the
conversational shuttlecock up and down the table. Rab reappeared to
wield the corkscrew and fill the wine goblets, heavy glasses etched
with age as well as designs. Nancy trekked back and forth between
table and kitchen, carrying plates and bowls in dishtowel-protected
hands. Tonight her ruffled apron covered black silk pants and a
silver lamé tunic that complemented her rhinestone earrings and her
gray hair, which was adorned by a sprig of holly.

Jean didn’t know whether it was Diana’s
vegetable-carving abilities or Nancy’s culinary talents, but even
the usually humble neep bree, or turnip soup, was delicious.
Probably each bowl contained the equivalent of a stick of butter,
but what the heck, it was New Year’s Eve. The end of another year.
The end of the most remarkable year of her life.

Fergie said, “Hogmanay stems from ancient
rituals and customs determined by the working of the land and the
passing of the seasons.”

“Such pagan customs lingered here in the
western isles,” said Diana.

Heather sucked in her soup. “This is turnip?
You’re kidding.”

Nancy swept in with the next course, haggis
rounds on diced potato. “What?” asked Dakota.

“Boiled guts,” Scott told her, and excavated
his potato from beneath the brownish, browned patty without
touching it.

Considering the tarted-up stunt-cooked
haggis—haggis pakora, haggis wonton—Jean had recently encountered,
Nancy’s no-frills version of the national dish was tasty indeed.
And not because Rab kept cruising by topping off every glass except
Dakota’s and, Jean noted, Diana’s.

The child looked from Jean to Alasdair and
back as though assessing the prospect of such elderly people
holding a wedding. Or maybe her thoughtful looks indicated a
siblinghood of the ghost-allergic, one with its own passwords and
secret handshakes. Maybe she was simply bemused by the stately home
lifestyle, since her gaze rested on Rab and Nancy as long as they
were in the room.

Fergie began recounting the legend of Rory
MacLeod, his lady love, the vengeful sword, the leap from the tower
into death and a local, at least, fame.

“Mom,” Dakota said, making the one-syllable
word into two, “we haven’t been to the old castle yet.”

“And we’re not going,” Heather returned.
“It’s dangerous.”

“We’ll walk down the path toward it,”
suggested Scott. “You know, far enough to take a photo.”

With a heavy sigh, Dakota’s gaze fell to her
boiled guts.

Jean offered Scott a narrow-eyed look. He and
Heather did not have proper alibis for the time of Greg’s murder.
What they had was a motive of sorts, competition for the artifacts
needed to support a high-maintenance lifestyle. He’d parked the car
near the place Pritchard had found the card. When he’d brought in
the luggage, his muddy boots left prints on the tile floor of the
entrance hall . . . Well, Gilnockie and Young were teleconferencing
over the preliminary crime scene reports right this minute. Maybe
they’d match tread and mud.

At Fergie’s signal, Rab stepped up to the
sideboard and sacrificed yet another bottle of wine on the altar of
conviviality. Jean turned her studious gaze to him.

Pritchard’s alibi might depend on the
testimony of his female friend, but he also had the backup accounts
of other pubgoers. Rab and Nancy, though . . . Well, Jean reminded
herself, first Thomson had seen Rab in the pub, then Fergie had
seen both him and Nancy in the kitchen, cooking dinner.

The heritage industry wasn’t Rab’s thing, any
more than incomers were his thing, but how did that translate into
a motive for murder? Diana was right—why would she, or Nancy or
Rab, or even Colin, the collateral suspect, murder their golden
goose? Fergie could still auction off the Coffer, but most buyers
would ask questions. Even the BHRS needed their pump primed by
Greg’s archaeological dirt, and they were more credulous than
curious.

Rab whisked away her empty plate and Jean
tuned back in to hear Alasdair making a few remarks about his own
childhood holidays in Fort William. Fergie contributed an account
of a London Christmas. Jean offered several snack-sized tidbits of
historical gossip. Dakota asked about the progress of the murder
investigation, and was quelled right smartly by her parents.

Nancy delivered salmon in pastry, lamb
bundles and vegetables and sauces, and eventually a dessert of
Tipsy Laird, layers of cake and custard laced with sherry and
topped with cream. Dakota took one bite and made a face.

Jean was not a fan of sherry, either,
although it was palatable when spiked with sugar and cream.
Nibbling, she wondered whether Nancy could cook anything that
didn’t include some variety of full-fat milk product.

Heather scarfed the lot, laughing merrily,
while Scott egged her on with double-entendres. Fergie smiled on
them all, benignly if a bit out of focus, embodying the laird who
was tipsy.

Although, Jean thought when she followed
Diana’s example and stood up, she should speak for herself. This
time the walls shimmied, so that the faces of all the warriors
seemed to nod and wink.

Alasdair glided around the table to take her
arm. “You’ve got no head for drink, have you now,” he murmured.

“I know, I’m a disgrace to my Celtic
ancestry,” she replied, and stepped gingerly into the corridor.

W.P.C. McCrummin and an unidentified male
colleague stood outside the old kitchen, sipping from mugs. Playing
the role of tenants, Jean supposed, although their roles wouldn’t
be reversed—laird, lady, tenant, servant, or local hermit, a
murderer was a murderer was a . . .

No more alcohol
, she informed herself,
and let Alasdair’s firm grasp guide her back down the corridor to
where Fergie had thrown open the doors of the Great Hall.

This was Jean’s favorite room of the house,
from the intricate plaster whorls of the high ceiling, one pendant
dangling an iron lantern, past the silky wood railing of the
musician’s gallery and an array of banners that Fergie had bought
from a movie prop company, to the somewhat threadbare Hunting
MacDonald tartan carpet that matched the backs and seats of several
chairs. Here was where the wedding reception would be held. Was
scheduled to be held.

Tonight a massive Yule log burned in an even
more massive fireplace, beneath a plaster MacDonald crest, the
galley sailing a sea that looked like soot-stained billows of
whipped cream. The pungent odor of juniper overwhelmed that of
smoke and furniture polish—burning juniper on New Year’s Eve being
another good luck custom, not a slap at the MacLeods.

“Whoa,” said Dakota. “Cool! It’s like a
princess’s palace!”

Heather leaned against Scott with a grope, a
giggle, and a
nyahh!
glance toward Diana, who ignored them.
Thank goodness the Krums turned goofy, not even more combative,
when they’d been drinking. Jean even forgave Heather for asking
Alasdair, “So what do you have on beneath your kilt, huh?”

Smiling thinly, he replied, “And what are you
wearing beneath your dress, Mrs. Krum?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she replied with
another giggle.

“Liqueur?” Fergie made his approach to the
trolley, intent on observing a very genuine and much-honored
Scottish tradition, that of sliding well lubricated into the new
year.

Jean took a glass of fizzy water with a slice
of lemon. So did Alasdair, designating himself the resident
adult—as though Diana wasn’t already playing that part. Fergie
tuned a radio to dance music, accordions pumping and fiddles
flying, and organized word games and charades. Soon he no longer
looked as though he was blowing air into a balloon with a hole in
it. Even Diana acted as mistress of the revels with more than good
grace, with actual laughter.

Rab drifted in, collected empty glasses,
drifted out again, the roll in his step indicating he was observing
liquid tradition himself. Nancy placed platters of digestive
biscuits and cheeses on the refectory table and guessed at a few
riddles. A throbbing soprano on the radio sang Burns’ “Ca the Yowes
to the Knowes,” leading to Fergie’s exposition on Scots dialect.
Scott and Heather tried a few impromptu dance steps and Dakota
inspected the cinematic banners—the raven of Odin, Cernunnos with
his horns, the White Horse of Rohan and the White Tree of Gondor
from
The Lord of the Rings
. “Cool,” she said again, and
grabbed a chocolate cookie.

Every now and then, Jean noticed, Alasdair
retired into his own thoughts, no doubt trying to wrestle a
solution not only to murder but to Fergie’s dilemma by sheer will
and brain power. Every now and then she faded out, too, as though
the signal on her mental radio station momentarily weakened.

It wasn’t that she was exerting brain power.
She’d done that. Now she was tired and her stomach slightly queasy,
not only from the rich food and drink but also from digesting
Fergie’s pie in the sky. The gaiety began to seem forced, as though
everyone was waiting for something—for Gilnockie to appear and call
them all together with his solution to the case, for Alasdair to
leap forward and finger the culprit . . . Well, duh, they were
waiting for midnight. The witching hour.

She caught a movement in the musician’s
gallery and looked sharply up. But no, her thumbs weren’t pricking
and nothing wicked stood there, not even Seonaid. Colin leaned on
the railing, smiling wistfully down at Diana—until he realized Jean
had seen him and faded back into the shadows.

Neither of them had alibis for the time of
Greg’s murder, either. That they’d admitted to having no alibis was
surely a point in their favor. On the other hand, Colin had said he
was at the lighthouse and Diana had said he wasn’t, so who was
telling the truth? And never mind Young’s overzealous persecution,
she had a point—what if Colin had for some reason flipped out, just
as he had in the pub—he’d have to have taken the regimental dirk,
though . . .

Alasdair considered the polyester zebra skin
draped over a chair, a fabric carrot glued in its mouth. Jean
couldn’t speak for him, but she was reminded of Tina and her
leopard skin coat and her dead husband, the symbolic ghost at the
feast.

Fergie checked his pocket watch—Jean expected
him to launch into “I’m late, I’m late,” but no, his ears weren’t
long enough—and began to explain the custom of first-footing. A
dark-haired man arriving first in the new year was good luck, a
fair-haired one was bad luck, and how this custom came about was
anyone’s guess, except it was an old one perhaps dating back to the
Viking raids—Vikings, blond, right? And not to worry, P.C. Thomson,
the darkest-haired man in the area, would be doing the honors in
just seven, six, five . . .

From the house came a cacophony of chimes.
From the radio came a peal of bells. “Happy New Year!” exclaimed
Fergie, positively glowing with bonhomie and booze, and launched
into a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne.”

His surprisingly strong, mellifluous voice
was interrupted by the ring of the doorbell in the far reaches of
the house. In the further reaches of the house, the dogs began to
bark.

“Come along now, step lively!” Fergie led the
procession into the entrance hall and paused dramatically, his hand
on the door handle. Diana guarded the rear. Rab, Nancy, Colin, and
the two constables gathered in the hall.

The doorbell rang again. The door rattled
beneath several strong blows. And suddenly Jean felt a qualm.
“Don’t open the door,” she wanted to call, but no, that was silly,
it was only Sanjay Thomson bearing gifts.

Fergie threw the door open. A gust of icy air
fluttered Heather’s dress and Scott’s tie, and they shrank
together, Dakota caught between.

The man who stood on the doorstep had a
square, blunt, deeply furrowed face, tanned into leather by years
of sunburn. Uneven strands of blond hair streaked with gray shifted
uneasily above a wide forehead and bloodshot gray eyes. He huddled
into his quilted coat, one hand grasping the handle of a small
suitcase.

Even Diana stared. The color drained from
Fergie’s face with an almost audible gurgle.

The stranger’s lips parted over crowded teeth
and the light caught silvery whisker-stubble on his block of a jaw.
“Sorry. It’s a bad time, I know, but I’ve just arrived in the U.K.
I’m Kenneth MacLeod.”

Jean felt her own jaw drop down to her chest
and static explode in her brain. Kenneth MacLeod. Not Allan and
Fergie Mor’s old colleague . . . Alasdair pushed his way to the
front of the pack, his severe expression good as a warrant card for
claiming precedence. “You’re Greg’s brother.”

“Yeah, I’m Greg’s brother. Tina rang me, told
me what happened. Now she’s gone down as well.”

“I’m afraid so. Your sister-in-law is in
hospital . . .”

“Sister-in-law?” Kenneth repeated, with a
guffaw that came close to being a sob. “No, mate, she’s my wife.
And I’ve come to take her home.”

After a long moment tingling with chill,
Fergie choked out, “You’d best come in, then. I’m Fergus
MacDonald.”

Everyone took two or three paces back as
Kenneth stepped over the threshold.

Before Fergie could shut the door, Sanjay
Thomson came loping out of the—what had happened to the clear
night? The murk had returned, veiling the stars and casting the
grounds into impenetrable shadow. “He stopped in at the police
house. I’ve brought him up to date. Sorry, I meant to arrive first,
but he got ahead of me on the drive.”