1 Off Kilter (21 page)

My attempt to circumvent the hospital floor guards didn’t go as well as the first time. I stepped off the elevator hiding behind a basket of lavender Peruvian lilies and pink mini carnations I’d purchased in the hospital’s gift shop.

I heard a deep questioning male voice and was pretty sure it was addressing me, since I’d been alone on the ride up in the elevator. I peeked over the top of the basket.

“Are ye lost?” a sturdy, no-nonsense man asked again from his position at the desk. He had muscles the size of watermelons and a serious expression on his face, like a guard dog’s: alert and ready.

Did I look lost?

This is exactly what happens when I fail to appear confident and directed while infiltrating a closed hospital ward. Confusion and nervousness had snuck in and sunk me. Or maybe it was the basket of flowers that had sent up red flags. It had been the very last one in the gift shop. Unfortunately, it contained an
It’s a Girl!
balloon, which I hadn’t been able to remove without ruining the entire bouquet. “Is this maternity?” I squeaked.

“One floor down,” he said.

I whipped around to the elevator and punched the down button, glancing back at him from the corner of my eye. He stayed where he was at the front desk, guarding the hall passage, watching me to make sure I followed through.

Now what?

The truth and nothing but the truth was all I had left to try, so I spun back around and marched over to the desk. “Actually, I’m here to visit with Vicki MacBride.”

“I thought as much. Ye were trying to sneak in. Ye had that air about ye. Did that inspector bloke send ye? Or that volunteer cop? He’s been a real nuisance.”

Astute on his part, but I wasn’t admitting to anything. “Vicki doesn’t have any family,” I said instead, “and I’m her best friend—her only friend—in Glenkillen.” There, that had the ring of truth to it, because it
was
true.

“Vicki MacBride has plenty o’ family hereaboot.” Now he had his bulgy arms crossed.

“I meant, any family that would visit. No one from the family has been up, have they?”

Mr. Nurse Ratched consulted a file, keeping one shrewd eye on me. “Not yet,” he admitted. “Just that pesky cop and his superior, hovering like vultures.”

I wasn’t about to give up easily. Not for Inspector Jamieson’s sake but for Vicki’s. She really did need me. “You sent the police away, which was a wise decision,” I said, surprised by the amount of passion in my voice. “But none of the other MacBrides have visited, nor will they. If you’re from this village, then you’ve heard the gossip about the family feud. Right now, I’m all she has.”

Had a flash of compassion flickered in his eyes?

I wrapped it up with: “You seem like a kind and caring man, someone concerned about your patient’s best interest, someone who isn’t hung up on visitation rules without taking circumstances into account.”

I met his gaze and held it. “I only want to look in on her, cheer her up a bit. What harm would that do?”

He looked away first, glanced at the flowers, then back at me. I made a sad, pleading face.

“Five minutes,” he warned. “And they begin right now.”

I was already heading down the hallway.

“She’s heavily medicated, so don’t be surprised if she’s a bit loopy.” Then: “Don’t ye need her room number?”

I waved my free hand before turning into Vicki’s room.

Vicki was alert and looked slightly better than she had the last time I’d visited, though she was still connected to a tangle of wires and monitors that beeped and whose displays waved along.

I placed the flower basket on her nightstand where she could see them and bent down to give her cheek a kiss, hunting for a spot that wasn’t banged up and bruised, and found a tiny one. Then I rose and said, “You look much better.”

“Liar!” Vicki retorted, but she smiled with glazed eyes.

“How are you doing?”

“Great, now that you’re here. How are my babies?”

“Spoiled.”

“And Jasper?”

“Still ruling the roost.”

“I’m moving to a regular room later today.”

“That’s great news!” And it was. Though the eternally optimistic side of me had wanted to hear that she was going home today. Tomorrow was the court hearing. In spite of my promise to Paul Turner to relate details of the hearing to Vicki, telling her right now would only upset her, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Besides, she wasn’t in a position to do anything about it.

“I wish you’d’ve brought Pepper and Coco for a visit.”

“I had enough trouble getting in myself.”

“Sit,” Vicki said, patting a spot next to her on the bed.

I sat, and after relating a few Westie stories and assuring her that they were being well looked after, I ventured into the recent past. But first I told her outright, “Inspector Jamieson is anxious to question you, but he’s been ordered to stay away from you for the time being.”

Vicki smiled. “Then I’ll stay here in this ward indefinitely.”

I was having a hard time getting to the part where I admitted to her that the inspector had asked me to gather information. I just couldn’t. Vicki would think I was visiting for that sole reason, and might feel I was misusing our friendship. So I decided I’d ask questions, get answers, and
then
suggest passing that information on to the proper authorities.

“Do you remember anything about the accident?” I asked.

Vicki dashed my hopes and dreams of a magical answer to all her problems by shaking her head. “Not a thing. It’s like the slate has been wiped clean. I keep trying, but the doc says the moments leading up to the accident may never come back to me.”

What a disappointment. But had I really expected it to be that easy? That Vicki would say that not only had she been forced off the road but she was also able to identify her attacker?

“Do you remember where you were going?” I tried next.

Vicki frowned in concentration. “I’ve been dreaming a lot since I’ve been here. So I’m having some trouble keeping everything straight. Let’s see . . . I might have been on the way to Paul Turner’s office,” she said slowly, concentrating. “Yes, that’s it. His secretary called to remind me of an appointment I was supposed to be at right then. I hadn’t remembered making one, but she said he still had time if I hurried and that it was important.”

That seemed odd. Paul Turner hadn’t mentioned a missed meeting when we spoke. Although the man was far from friendly or forthcoming with me.

“Was this a female secretary?” I asked, remembering back to the meeting with the solicitor. Not only did he not have a secretary that day, there hadn’t even been a workstation for one.

“Probably,” Vicki answered.

“You couldn’t tell?” Why was my heart pounding and my blood racing? Why was I so certain something was off-kilter? For all I knew, my friend was mistaking medically induced hallucinations for reality. Vicki said, “Okay, yes. A woman. Her voice was hoarse; she mentioned something about a sore throat.”

“So it definitely was a she?”

Vicki shrugged, not caring. “Do you know what Turner wanted? What was so important that I missed?”

“Not a clue,” I replied. If Paul Turner and Vicki had really had an appointment scheduled, I had no idea what it would have been about. It couldn’t have been about the court hearing because Vicki hadn’t been injured yet. The other MacBrides hadn’t had a case at that time. Not yet anyway.

I’d been carefully watching my friend for any signs of tension or stress, but she remained calm.

I decided to ask. “Tell me about your meeting with Gavin Mitchell.”

Vicki’s outward calm vanished instantly and one of her monitors sped up. “I’m so sorry I lied.”

“We can talk about that another time,” I suggested. “It can wait.”

“No, really. I wanted to tell you, but I was scared you wouldn’t believe me and would start suspecting I’d had something to do with his death. And I knew for a fact the inspector would.”

I could have responded that that might have been true, but covering it up had made it far worse. Instead, I said, “Tell me about it.”

“Gavin phoned me the day my father died; that was true. He gave me the bad news that my father had just passed and urged me to come immediately. In fact, Gavin insisted that I hurry. So I caught the next flight from London, and checked into the Whistling Inn. I’d barely brought a thing with me except what I had on, a change of clothes, and a black dress.”

“You hadn’t expected to stay long,” I said.

“Exactly. A note from Gavin was waiting for me along with keys to the farmhouse and a request to meet him first near the beach. I thought it odd that he suggested meeting that evening instead of waiting for morning, but I figured it must be really important.”

“And what did he want?” I asked, when she paused.

“When we met up, he said he hadn’t sent me any note! In fact, he said he’d received a note that was supposedly from me, requesting the same meeting—same time, same place. And he hadn’t sent over the keys to the farmhouse either. We were both angry, thinking somebody was playing tricks. Who would do a thing like that? Except maybe Kirstine, now that I see how resentful she is toward me. But at the time, neither of us could take a guess.”

“That explains why you both seemed angry,” I muttered out loud, remembering Sean’s comment after watching the video. “So when you and I found him murdered, you were afraid.”

“I couldn’t have been more frightened. Here I’d been with the poor man, maybe the last to see him alive, for all I know.”

“What did you do after meeting Gavin?”

“He told me to be at the solicitor’s office first thing Tuesday morning, but he wouldn’t say anything further. After that, I hurried back to the inn. I was not about to go to the farmhouse in the middle of the night if somebody was playing tricks. I wasn’t even sure the key would work.”

“Did he show you the note he said you wrote?”

“No, he hadn’t brought it with him.”

Vicki’s account of the meeting with Gavin Mitchell was solid. She hadn’t displayed any confusion about the details, and she’d answered each of my questions without hesitation. “Do you still have the note that was supposedly from Gavin?” I asked.

Vicki shook her head. “I gave it to Gavin. He said he’d try to find out who’d do such a thing.”

“And I’m guessing that neither of those notes has been found. Otherwise, Inspector Jamieson would have been around asking questions and demanding answers. And he’d have learned that your handwriting didn’t match the one on the note to Gavin.”

Didn’t she realize that she’d been set up? Of course she did, or she would have been honest about the meeting.

“So you went back to the inn.”

“Yes, and Tuesday morning at the solicitor’s, I found out that I owned everything, that my da gave it all to me. I was stunned speechless, as you can imagine. Paul Turner told me he’d inform the rest of the family, which couldn’t have gone well. Wednesday, Jeannie, bless her heart, gave me a ride to the farm. I took my father’s car and drove it to the airport to go home to London to get my pets and pack for a longer stay.”

“The next day we met on the plane on the way to your father’s funeral.” Everything made sense. The dots connected. Or so I thought. The inspector’s opinion was a different matter.

“Do you mind if I share this information with the inspector?” I asked.

“Might as well. It can’t hurt.” Vicki peered at the basket on the nightstand, then her gaze rose to the balloon. “Why the baby balloon?”

“It’s a rebirth for you. A new beginning,” I joked.

One could only hope.

Back at the farm, the Westies were again as excited to see me as if I’d been away for a month. I made a sandwich from slim pickings in the kitchen—a tin of tuna, a few wilted lettuce leaves, and two slices of bread. Then I called Paul Turner from the landline. A canned message informed me that the solicitor was unavailable and that I should leave a message. The recorded voice on the other end was definitely Turner’s. If he had a personal secretary, one I hadn’t met when Vicki and I visited his office, she didn’t pick up, either. I left a brief message requesting that he call me back.

Next, I called Sean, and asked, “Were Vicki MacBride and Gavin Mitchell studying a piece of paper on that video?”

“The camera mighta been too grainy fer that. We identified them properly though, no question aboot identity.”

“But you mentioned that they looked angry.”

“Aye.”

“Were they holding anything?”

“Didn’t see anything like that.”

“Can’t you make the images clearer? You know, digitally?”

“This isn’t one o’ yer American movies, ye know. Jason Bourne might be able tae manage that, but the rest o’ us have tae make do.”

As soon as we disconnected, the phone rang. It was Paul Turner.

“You need a secretary,” I suggested. “Someone to field calls for you and take proper messages.”

“I can handle my own business,” he said, with a dose of the condescension I’d learned to expect from him. “But thank you for the suggestion.”

Aha! He didn’t have a secretary. So who had really called Vicki about the fake meeting? “Did Vicki MacBride miss an appointment with you the day of her accident?”

“Are you suddenly her personal representative? Because the last time I checked, that role was mine.”

“Please, just answer this one question. It’s important. I won’t ask any more after this.”

“Very well. . . .” I heard papers rustling. “No,” he said shortly after. “She did not have one, therefore she did not miss one.”

I paused for a moment or two to give him time to ask me why I felt his answer was important. That would have been a perfectly normal response. But he didn’t.

Instead, he said, “I’ll call after court tomorrow. It’s first thing in the morning.”

An observer might think that gesture was very generous of him, a step in the right direction. But I knew it for what it really was. The man wanted to be the one to inform me of my eviction from the farmhouse.

I wished I could have seen the expression on his face when I said, “That won’t be necessary. I intend to be in court.”

Silence. Then: “That’s preposterous. You have no stake here. No business in the courtroom.”

“Vicki’s best interests are my stake in the outcome.”

“Are you
suggesting . . .”

I interrupted him. “No,” I said, “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m convinced of it. You’ve already informed me that Kirstine and John have a solid argument for taking over management of the farm and are certain to win. You’ve either given up without even trying, or . . .” I let that hang as loosely as my temper. It felt good to let off a little bottled-up steam, and Turner was the perfect target. He, and Kirstine and John Derry.

After the solicitor hung up on me in a fit of pique, I stewed at the kitchen table over a cup of tea and the last of the almond biscuits.

It was looking more and more as if someone really had lured Vicki out onto the road—and then shoved her off it!

A call to the farmhouse from a fictitious secretary confirming a nonexistent appointment would have set Vicki on the collision course. And if the attack had gone as planned, the plot never would have been discovered. Because the only one who knew about the nonexistent appointment—other than the plotter—would have died in the crash. Except Vicki hadn’t died.

But . . . if Turner was behind her accident, would he have volunteered information so freely now? Although it would be a simple matter to prove he didn’t have office assistance, and a quick peek at his appointment calendar might show another client’s name in that day’s slot.

I marched down the lane to Sheepish Expressions for another confrontation since I was on such a roll, only to discover that Kirstine wasn’t at the shop.

“She’s not expected today,” said an unfamiliar woman behind the counter. “Can I say who called?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

I stood on the edge of the parking lot, hands on hips and breathing heavily, as though I’d just run a mile or two against a strong northern gale.

I wanted to strike out, to pulverize Paul Turner until the truth flew out of his mouth. Some days it’s tough being a woman. Men settle their differences on equal terms.

Speaking of men
 . . .

Leith Cameron’s white Land Rover pulled into the parking lot and stopped to the right of me. The passenger window slid down, and Kelly greeted me with a wagging tail and a glob of happy drool.

“You look like yer going tae kick something,” Leith called out.

My anger zinged away into space at the sound of his voice.

“I’m going scouting fer a hot fishing spot on the River Spey,” he continued. “Kelly’s coming along fer a bit o’ swimming. You should join us. I have plenty o’ fishing gear.”

The timing couldn’t have been worse. I could trudge around with a major chip on my shoulder interviewing unpleasant locals. Or I could go fishing for the very first time in my life in a pristine outdoor setting with a great-looking and fun guy. Which to choose? “I’d love to, but right now I can’t.”

“And why is that?”

Where to even begin?

Because Vicki was in the hospital and couldn’t defend herself.

Because I had to prepare for court tomorrow, when I would attempt to ride herd on a wily Paul Turner. Not to mention I might be out on the street with nowhere to go if our side lost.

Because I’d just found out someone might have lured Vicki onto the road so they could run her off a cliff and eliminate her permanently.

And because that somebody had to be Gavin Mitchell’s murderer, and this was way more important than a fishing trip.

I had a whole lot of valid reasons.

Although . . . why couldn’t I turn to Inspector Jamieson, dump the latest information in his lap, and be rid of it?

“I just changed my mind,” I said to Leith. “Yes, I’d like to join you, very much. Just let me make a phone call first.”

I called the inspector from the house while Leith and the border collie played fetch outside. Jamieson didn’t answer, so I left a message explaining about the night Vicki met Gavin, about the fake notes that had brought them together, and the real reason she’d been on the road at the time of the accident—along with my conversation with the solicitor, which contradicted everything the pretend secretary had relayed.

I was aware, as I related our bedside conversation on the inspector’s voice messaging, that the inspector was certain to doubt her claim. That was his job. He would require proof to back up her story. Without the notes, where the handwriting wouldn’t have matched Vicki’s or the sheep shearer’s, the inspector wouldn’t have proof that would allow him to ease off on Vicki as a suspect. Those notes also could explain why Gavin Mitchell’s cottage had been searched and why Gavin’s box of papers had been on the floor near the body. The killer had to find and destroy those incriminating notes. With a heavy heart, I had to acknowledge that he or she probably already had.

I wondered if Inspector Jamieson might be able to substantiate the origin of the phone call that had sent Vicki out onto the road right before her accident. What were the chances that a caller who wanted to remain anonymous had used an untraceable phone number? Probably pretty high; they were easy to get these days.

Which left it as Vicki’s word against . . . well . . . against other proof that made her look guilty as sin.

I hung up and went off with a promise to myself to enjoy the rest of the day and leave the investigation to the police. And as for my writing, I justified that, too. Had I had one single carefree day since arriving in Scotland? No, I had not. I deserved one.

Little did I realize that Leith hadn’t been talking about a lazy afternoon of casting from the shoreline. No watching bobbers gently tip with a warm summer breeze before disappearing beneath the surface, then pulling out tiny panfish on the end of the lines to be promptly released back into their habitats.

I’d fully expected Leith to do most of the work for me, the baiting and unhooking. Instead . . .

“You want me to wear this rubber suit?” I held the outfit, attached boots and all, up against my body.

“Unless ye want tae get wet as a trout.”

“You mean I’m going
in
there?”

The river was something right out of
A River Runs Through It.
Bold, beautiful, unspoiled, and probably deep and dangerous.

“Can ye swim?” he asked.

“Yes, but why does that matter?” Was I going to end up trying to swim while wearing this? I’d sink for sure.

“Just checking. If ye cannae swim, I’d understand yer fear o’ goin’ in. But since ye can . . .”

“I’m not afraid,” I said unconvincingly, watching the river bubble and boil along, clashing with boulders, flowing over and around them.

“The boots’ soles have good grips,” he assured me, while he wiggled into waders that matched the ones he’d handed to me. Kelly was already at the river’s edge, lapping up the cool water. “Ye shouldn’t have any trouble if ye stay close tae me. So put that thing on and let’s see what’s biting today.”

I kicked off my shoes and wormed my way into the waders, adjusting the shoulder straps, then reluctantly following Leith into the rushing water. I had to brace myself with each step, feeling the force of the current, as powerful as the ocean’s incoming tide. Or so I imagined.

I spent the rest of the afternoon learning to cast—fly- fishing, if you could call it that—catching and releasing a few trout while Kelly lounged on the riverbank.

As it turned out, I was more of a fisherwoman than a golfer. And not once did I think about murder and mayhem.

It was a wonderful afternoon, and it wasn’t until much later, when I was back at the house preparing my defense for tomorrow’s hearing, lying in bed with the windows and doors locked and Coco and Pepper cuddling at my feet, that I remembered an important detail about Leith Cameron.

He already had a girlfriend!