1 Off Kilter (20 page)

The sun rose in a big ball of glory on Thursday morning. Sheep grazed on the hills outside and birds flittered about singing happy songs. A pair of bullfinches called to each other in a thin, piping whistle. And, best of all, the electricity was back on.

Last night had been like a bad dream. Had it really happened? Had someone really been trying to spook me, or had I left the window open without realizing it?

I stood in the open doorway enjoying the scenery when a rugged but muddy Jeep four-by-four pulled up, and a tall young woman wearing jeans, a thick braid down her back, and strange footwear jumped out.

“Charlotte Penn,” she said, walking up, and extending a hand. “I’m Gavin Mitchell’s apprentice sheep shearer. Or . . . rather . . . was his apprentice. Ye must be Vicki.”

I took her offered hand and found that she had a firm grip. “I’m Vicki’s friend, Eden Elliott.”

Charlotte looked past me into the house. “Is Vicki home?”

“I’m sorry, no. She’s in the hospital.”

My visitor looked surprised. “I ran intae Alec MacBride in Inverness on Tuesday,” Charlotte said. “He told me that she had inherited his father’s farmhouse and was living here, but he didn’t mention any medical issues.”

“Would you like to come inside and have some tea while I explain what happened?” I asked, wondering whether to go into specifics of all the drama surrounding Vicki or simply skim the surface. Skimming sounded best. Perhaps she already knew some of it anyway. “Or there’s coffee, if you prefer?”

She shook her head. “Nothing fer me, thanks. I really just stopped by tae introduce myself. I’ve been all over the countryside in the last few days since Gavin’s death, breaking the bad news tae the outlying farmers and shearing their sheep.”

So she hadn’t heard about Vicki. If her Jeep’s condition was any indication she really had been all over the Highlands.

“Hey, Jasper!” Charlotte had turned toward the barn and, sure enough, Jasper was venturing out farther than I’d ever seen him. He was heading right for her. She met him halfway and scooped the big tomcat into her arms.

“You’re a natural with animals,” I told her, smiling and walking over to join them. “Jasper isn’t the friendliest cat I’ve ever met, but he sure likes you, I can tell.”

“Jasper and I are good friends.”

“He was wild at some point, right?”

The big guy started purring as she worked her hands over his fur. “Jasper wasnae a heather cat,” she said. “If that’s what ye thought. This guy gets his wary nature because he was mistreated in his first home. James MacBride rescued him from a life o’ torment.”

So that explained Jasper’s cautious behavior.

I was studying Charlotte’s footwear, which seemed to be some sort of moccasins. When I looked up, she smiled.

I explained my curiosity. “You’re the first person in Scotland I’ve seen wearing moccasins.”

“They’re made o’ felt. I always wear them when I’m shearing so I don’t slip, which is easy tae do with all that oily wool underfoot. Moccasins make moving around much safer. I made several pairs o’ them myself, including these.”

Which I could sort of tell. “They look comfortable.”

“Aye. I wear them most o’ the time.”

Charlotte flipped Jasper onto his back, cradled him like a baby, and stroked his chest. The big feline could have been a rag doll cat; he was that easygoing and mellow with her.

“How long have you been helping Gavin shear sheep?” I asked.

“I’ve been his assistant for several summers . . . or had been . . .” Charlotte teared up. “There aren’t many taking up sheep shearing these days, so I’m the only one around fer now. Gavin does . . . did . . . about sixty farms, and I’m not sure I can keep up by myself. We’d worked our way through many o’ the farms fer this year, but next is going to be difficult.”

Sixty farms! And if each of them had as many sheep as this one! For the first time, I considered the scope of the shearing business. “How many sheep would you say are in the Highlands?”

She put the big cat down and swiped at her eyes with her fingertips. “Counting all the lambs, yearlings, rams, and ewes,” she sniffed, “I’d say several million at least.”

“Amazing!” It really was.

“Nobody knows fer sure,” she said, with a weak smile. “Whenever we get tae counting, we fall asleep.”

We both laughed, and I realized I wanted to get to know this woman better, so I extended an invitation one more time. “Are you sure you don’t want tea?”

“Okay, sure. That would be nice.”

Inside, I put the kettle on, and while the water heated I put out all the trimmings—milk, sugar, and a plate of almond biscuits. While that was going on, I asked Charlotte more about her work, and she went on to explain how important the shearing was for the sheep’s health. “Besides finding the wool useful, a good, close trim keeps flies and maggots away from them.”

“And keeps them cooler in the hot summers?”

“If ye can call our summers hot.” Charlotte grinned.

“You should be in Chicago about now,” I told her, vividly remembering July in the city. “The sidewalks practically sizzle. So count yourself lucky. Especially since you work outdoors.”

As we stirred our tea, I also told Charlotte a little bit about Vicki’s accident, that she must have lost control and gone off the road, and had suffered injuries, but that she would heal with time.

Charlotte would hear the other details of the sordid mess soon enough, I was sure, since the accident was recent local news. “She’s pretty beat-up and both her legs are broken,” I finished, then to stay optimistic, added, “It could have been worse.”

“That’s awful! The poor woman! But there is a very nice rehab facility inside the hospital. She’ll have the best care.”

Somehow, until that moment, I hadn’t realized what difficulties the immediate future held for Vicki. She had a long road to recovery ahead of her, months and months. And how did a person manage with two broken legs? By wheelchair, of course. And she’d need someone to assist her with daily routines until she could walk again. I could help temporarily, but then I’d be returning to the States.

So much for my commitment to avoid caregiving in the future. But Vicki’s situation was completely different than the nursemaid role I’d played in the past. My friend would recover.

“Does the hospital provide in-home care as well?” I asked, suddenly concerned that Vicki wouldn’t be able to return to the farm for quite a while. What would that do to the claim she had staked at the farm? Would the other MacBrides manage to strip away all her rights to her inheritance, with Paul Turner firmly on their side? Or at the very least, would they manage to take away her control? They certainly were making a bold play for more power.

Charlotte sipped her tea before replying. “I assume the hospital will provide her with whatever she needs. Maybe they’ll want tae keep her in the in-patient rehab program as long as possible.”

A moment of silence stretched across the table before I asked, “Are you going to shear the sheep on this farm soon?” Although the sheep on the hills surrounding the farmhouse weren’t at all shaggy, like some I’d seen coming and going from Glenkillen.

“No, they’ve had their haircuts,” she said. “But I’ve got a few other farms in the area tae finish up.”

“What do you do when you’re not shearing sheep?”

“I’ve finished up my last year o’ veterinary medicine studies in Glasgow,” she told me. “And decided tae leave the care o’ household pets fer others and go intae treating large domestic animals—sheep, cattle, horses. Working with Gavin has helped pay my expenses, as well as keeping me active in the countryside, where I practice with the local vet, who is thinking o’ retiring soon. I never thought I’d take over fer Gavin, but fer now, until someone else can be found, I’ll do it.”

“Things will work out,” I reassured her. “You have a sound plan in place.” Then I turned the conversation to the conflicted family of MacBrides, hoping for some additional insight into the family. “You know the MacBrides well, then?”

“James and his son-in-law, John, mostly, since Gavin and me, we worked with the sheep, and those two liked tae stay involved, especially John.”

“John does much better with animals than with people,” I couldn’t help pointing out.

“Some people are like that,” Charlotte said. “You should meet some o’ the more rural farmers. No social skills tae speak of at all.”

“How about Kirstine?”

“I don’t know her well. She’s most interested in the shop—buying clothing and yarns and overseeing the wool products as well as keeping a presence on the shop’s floor. So our paths don’t usually cross.”

I could have shared my own impressions of Kirstine Derry nee MacBride, but I restrained myself.

“What about Alec MacBride?” I asked next. “You said you ran into him in Inverness?”

Charlotte shrugged. “I only know him by sight. His mum lives in Inverness, and he was visiting her.”

His mum? Oh right, that would be James MacBride’s second wife. I hadn’t given her a passing thought before now. She and James MacBride had divorced long ago. So, she was living close by in Inverness.

“I’m so sorry about Gavin,” I told her. “I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing him, but everyone says he was well loved throughout the countryside.” Never mind that I had found the poor man dead in his cottage. I just wasn’t up to telling that whole story. Let Charlotte find out from the locals.

“Gavin didn’t have an enemy in the world that I knew o’,” she said. “The night that James MacBride passed on, I went off looking for Gavin. I wasn’t surprised tae find him at the pub, even as late as it was, drowning his sorrows. I tried tae convince him tae go home, but he hardly heard me. He was downing shots o’ whisky, getting mighty drunk, and beside himself with grief over his good friend’s death.”

I almost said, “So you saw him right before he was killed,” but caught myself in time. The pain in her eyes was intense enough as it was.

“Then I learned that Gavin was murdered sometime right after he left the pub. I should have stayed with him, but it was after midnight and I was exhausted.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened. You did everything you could.”

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, at least he isn’t driving.’ I made sure. All he had tae do was walk home. He couldn’t get intae any trouble on that count. I remember thinking just that. And all along, someone must have been lying in wait.

“Three days it took tae finally find him!”

This was where I should probably have admitted that I had been there when he was found, but I just couldn’t. Instead, I said, “I’m surprised no one missed him before then.”

“His job took him out of Glenkillen fer days on end, and he dinnae bother tae tell a soul, always sayin’ it was his business and nobody else’s.”

I couldn’t think of a thing more to say to comfort her, so we sat a few minutes in awkward silence before she rose, and said, “Thank ye for the tea. I’ll come by again once Vicki MacBride is out o’ hospital. I’m working close to Glenkillen fer a few weeks, and I’ll hear when it happens from the town folks, along with every detail I missed till now, ye can count on that.”

I walked outside with her, watching her drive off in her Jeep, thinking about our conversation.

Gavin had been in the pub the same night he’d met with Vicki. After they’d compared notes under a surveillance camera.

And sometime in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Gavin had been stabbed to death.

The MacBride farm was a popular destination Thursday morning in more ways than one.

Aside from the normal activity of tour buses and shoppers arriving at Sheepish Expressions, the kettle on the stove hadn’t even completely cooled from Charlotte Penn’s visit before Inspector Jamieson presented himself at the door.

At my invitation, he sat down at the table while I prepared more tea, something I was becoming quite accomplished at. Practice, it turns out, really does make perfect.

He watched me fuss over the tea, placing the settings on the table, pouring, and finally sitting down across from him. “We Scots take our tea making extremely seriously,” the inspector said when I’d placed it before him. “Best served in a small cup with a saucer, as ye’ve done.”

“Forgetting the saucer is considered a serious breach of etiquette,” I recited as I presented him with an assortment of extras. “Milk, never cream. White sugar. And here are a few more of Vicki’s almond biscuits.”

The inspector rewarded me with a smile. “Well done,” he said.

He took a sip of tea from his cup and replaced it on the saucer with proper precision. “I’ve been banned from our patient’s hospital room,” he said. “Not that it came as much o’ a surprise. And Sean was asked tae depart the premises as well. I’m not sure which is worse—being unable tae question the patient or having that bungler on the loose.”

I smiled inwardly. The inspector would have to find other wild-goose chases for his volunteer assistant. “Why were you banished?” I asked.

“In the best interest o’ the patient. Apparently, I make her nervous.”

“She’s more alert, then?”

“Alert enough for a wee bit o’ questioning, I’m convinced.”

I gave him a hard look, and said, “I tend to agree with the hospital’s stance. You’ll have plenty of time to interrogate her once she’s released.”

“Ye sound just like that snotty nurse. Yer tea, by the way, is getting better.”

Implying it hadn’t started out that way? “Thank you,” I said, graciously. “To what do I owe this particular visit? Not that I’m complaining. I enjoy your company, but I’m also aware that you are in the middle of a murder investigation and this could hardly be a social visit.”

“I know better than tae try tae fool ye, since yer always ontae me. So then I’d best not pretend it’s strictly fer yer tea.” He paused. “I’m fully aware that Vicki MacBride has been through a traumatic experience. But I need tae get tae the bottom o’ this as quickly as possible. She hasnae even been allowed tae talk tae me about the accident. How it happened, why it happened, where she was going—not a single word.”

The inspector was agitated. He was certainly not used to being told what he could and could not do.

“She wasn’t lucid until now, anyway,” I said, then remembered I shouldn’t know anything about her current medical condition, so I quickly went on. “I don’t see how I can be of any help.”

“Ah, but you can,” he answered. Was that smugness? As though I’d walked right into the lion’s den? “Sean says yer a pro at slipping intae places where ye don’t belong.”

Wait just one minute. Sean! The snitch must have been more alert than I’d realized when I’d gone up to Vicki’s room. “I can’t imagine what he meant by that,” I stammered.

The inspector went on as though I hadn’t just denied it. “I was thinkin’ we should put that talent tae good use,” he suggested. “Ye could slip right up tae her room and give her some friendly comfort.”

Oh, sure, like he cared about that. “You expect
me
to be the one to grill her?” Did he actually want me to spy on my own friend? What kind of person did he think I was?

“No need tae go off yer head,” he said quickly, sensing that I wasn’t happy with him. Or maybe it was the dagger eyes I threw at him. “I don’t mean tae make ye angry.”

“What makes you think I’m angry?”

“’Cuz yer head is steaming more than the kettle on the stovetop.”

“I don’t spy on my friends,” I told him, making myself clear.

“And I’m not asking ye tae.”

“Then what
are
you asking of me?”

“Simply that ye offer her yer support and counseling. Ask how the accident happened. That’s harmless enough, isn’t it? Besides, I’m guessing ye want tae find that out as much as I do.”

“That’s all you want from her? An accounting of the accident?” I regarded him through suspicious eyes. Was it possible that he was considering options other than just assuming she’d been running away? Could I even hope?

“I’m willing tae keep an open mind. Do ye still think Vicki MacBride was forced over the edge o’ the road?”

I did an internal hop and skip, but on the exterior I stayed cool. “Is that what you think happened, too? You found evidence?”

He sighed. “Have ye noticed that ye answer every single one o’ my questions with a question o’ your own? We’re never going tae get a thing accomplished at this rate.”

I pressed my lips together and waited for him to reply to my question, ignoring the fact that he was absolutely right about my question-for-a-question responses. Although I hadn’t realized it until he’d pointed it out.

“We don’t have any proof that our patient was helped over the edge with a nudge or two,” he admitted. “Her car was crumpled like an accordion, with enough dents tae qualify it fer the top o’ the scrap heap and not a speck o’ other colored paint tae prove anything. Nor any sign of tampering with the brakes. But, in spite o’ all that, I have doubts.”

“What made you change your mind?” I wanted to know.

“I haven’t done anything o’ the sort. But I have my concerns.”

“And they are?”

“It wasn’t dark, she hadn’t been drinking, she knew these roads from her days in the Highlands, and I agree with ye that she wouldn’t have left her dogs at the farm unless she intended tae return. Finally, all the tires on the vehicle were operational. We can’t look tae a blowout fer the answer.”

The inspector was a unique blend of keen external observation and quiet introspection. And many of us trust our instincts. I know I do.

“Intuition has saved me plenty,” he replied to my questioning look, “and at the moment, I’d like tae hear what Vicki MacBride has tae say.”

So did I. More than anything. And a good part of me was really thrilled that the police inspector was asking for my assistance in his investigation, even if he was only using me to get in through a back door to which he had been denied the access code. Jamieson wasn’t all-powerful at the moment, now, was he? Rather helpless, I’d have even ventured to say.

“The only way I’ll cooperate,” I told him, feeling the power, “is if Vicki knows up front that any information she offers will go directly to you. I won’t play double spy.”

“Aye,” the inspector said.

I didn’t mention that he also wouldn’t hear any part of her story that I felt would incriminate her more than she already was.

“And there’s one more line of questioning I’d like you tae—” the inspector started to say, but I cut him off.

“The accident is all for now. Her health is my main concern, and I’m not risking a setback by upsetting her. If I see that happening, I’m backing off.”

“How did ye know what I was aboot to ask o’ ye?”

“I have your number, Inspector.”

And I did.

He also wanted me to find out about Vicki’s clandestine meeting with Gavin. Why she’d lied. What they had discussed. He wanted it all.

So did I.