Did You Declare the Corpse? (35 page)

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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

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“One of our group noticed his resemblance to Barbara as we came through the village.”
“They were very like, now that you mention it.”
“And Jim sat in the front of the bus the day we drove here, looking at the scenery like a man coming home,” I remembered. “He’d never cared about scenery before. He told Watty that he’d seen the Five Sisters of Kintail in a geography book, too. It must have been a Scottish geography. They aren’t in American geographies.”
“They were in mine.” He nodded again, as if that were all the effort he was capable of at the moment.
“And when I said I was looking forward to coming to Auchnagar—” I broke off. I didn’t need to repeat what Jim had said I’d find there. He had sounded as if he had known, though.
“More important,” I went on, “Alasdair Geddys is said to have made extremely good whisky in these hills, and Eileen said some suspected Hamish worked with his father.”
“Aye. I’ve heard that.”
“Jim developed a recipe for an outstanding scotch in America, and used it to establish Scotsman Distillery in the north Georgia mountains.”
That finally energized the sergeant. “I’ve had a bottle of Scotsman! An American policeman passing through boasted it was as good as any in Scotland. He sent me a wee bottle.”
“Which cost him a wee penny,” I said drily. “But would a father leave his whole farm to one son instead of dividing it among his children? And how could Barbara and Ian have lived here all these years without proving their father’s will or showing anybody the deed?”
He thought that over. “There’s no cause to show a deed so long as taxes are paid. Ye’d only need the deed if ye were sellin’ your land. And while the Scots rule of intestacy would divide the land equally among the three children—which we’ve all presumed happened when Alasdair died—he could have written a will, right enough, leaving everything to Hamish. Alasdair had a bad sickness several years before he drooned, where they feared for his life. That maybe gave him a wee taste of mortality and frightened him enough to write a will.”
Seeing my expression, he chuckled. “I’m too young to remember, mind, but Alasdair is a legend around these parts, both for his whisky and his music. My dad loved to tell how Alasdair caught a chill, developed pneumonia, and was put in hospital in Aberdeen. The doctor fair gave him up, but Alasdair sent young Hamish home for a bottle of his own whisky and his fiddle. After drinkin’ one dram and playin’ one tune, so the story goes, he got out of his bed and went home cured. If he wrote a will soon after that, he maybe left everything to Hamish because he was almost grown, while Ian was still young. Alasdair would never have left a thing to a daughter, although nearly half his land came to him from his wife. It was the MacLaren farm that adjoined his, and she was the last of the MacLarens after her sister, Margaret, died.”
I felt like he’d poured ice water over me. “Ian and Barbara are half MacLarens?”
“Aye, their mother was a MacLaren.”
“That was my mother’s maiden name, and it’s my given name, as well.” I couldn’t recall if I’d mentioned the name when I asked Barbara directions to the cemetery. She probably hadn’t been listening when I introduced myself that morning.
He chuckled. “Maybe ye’ll be puttin’ in your own claim to the farm.”
I shook my head. “No, but I came looking for relatives.” I nodded my head toward the back room. “Seems like I may have found them.” I sighed. So many things were clear now. The conversation Dorothy and I had overheard in the fog, when Jim had assured somebody (Norwood?) not to worry about his parcel, he had title to it. And the incentive Laura had been looking for—why he had been willing to invest in Auchnagar.
“The laird’s wife can probably give you the name and address of Jim’s first wife,” I told the bobby. “They must have met not long after he got to America, for they have a daughter who’s around thirty-five. She went to kindergarten with our tour-group leader.”
He made a couple of notes.
“Do you reckon Ian killed Norwood, too, since he was in on the land deal?”
Sergeant Murray stood. “We’ll look into that.” His voice was courteous, but I was being dismissed. “Thank you for your assistance. You go on up the brae, noo, and maybe have a wee rest, after all the excitement.”
I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t support me. Sergeant Murray called through to the back, “Neil, come run Mrs. Yarbrough up to Heather Glen.”
Roddy came to the door. “Shall I run ye up on my bike, then?” He grinned.
When I saw the Land Rover and how high I’d have to climb to get in, I almost requested the bike. What I really wanted was to be pulled up the hill in a little red wagon.
As the sergeant helped me into the Land Rover, he said in parting, “I’ll ask Barbara to have a look around for that will and the deed to the land. Ian will not have destroyed them. He’s too canny for that. But ask Mrs. Gordon to look through her husband’s papers, too. It’s possible he took copies to show Ian.”
When Neil pulled up close to Eileen’s back door, he asked solicitously, “Do ye want me to help you in?”
I assured him I could make it on my own, but as I staggered into the house and hauled myself up the stairs, I muttered, “If I make it to my room, I may never leave it again.”
 
When I reached the upstairs hall, however, I remembered the sergeant’s request. Feeling the way I did, I might not live long enough to talk to Brandi if I didn’t do it right away, so I dragged myself over to her door and knocked.
She answered in a long turquoise fleece caftan that could have come from the
Vogue
lying on her bed, but her eyes were pink and her nose red and swollen. “Yes?” she asked in a voice clogged with tears. When she saw who it was, she got a strange expression in her eyes.
“I have a message for you from the police.”
“Oh! Do they know who killed Jimmy?” Her voice lit with hope, but she was still staring at me with that odd look on her face.
“They haven’t arrested anybody yet.” I may be sworn to speak the truth in matters of law, but I don’t have to tell all I know. “But the bobby asks you to look among Jim’s papers for the will of Alasdair Geddys and the deed to his farm here in Auchnagar.”
She drew her fine brows together. “The lawyers will deal with Jim’s papers.”
This woman was not as dumb as she pretended, so I answered with some testiness. “They think now that Jim may have been murdered because he either had or claimed to have those papers. It’s possible he had them on him and the killer took them. But it’s also possible he took copies with him and left the originals among his things.” I slowed to what my sons refer to as “Mama’s Summing-Up Voice.” “If the originals
are
here, you could be in danger, too.”
Her eyes widened and flickered. “Where would they be? And what are they, again?”
“A will,” I repeated deliberately. “Written by Alasdair Geddys, leaving the property to his son, Hamish Geddys. And the deed to the Geddys farm in Auchnagar.”
“I don’t know Alasdair or Hamish Geddys.”
“That doesn’t matter. Look for the papers. And if you find them, take them to the police station at once.”
“All right. But they’d probably be in here.” She picked up Jim’s briefcase. “It’s locked.”
“Force the locks,” I said fiercely. “Jim is not going to care.”
My urgency penetrated the clouds in which she so carefully concealed her brain. “I’ll ask Eileen for a screwdriver.” She gave me one more strange look, then clattered downstairs in frivolous turquoise mules.
I headed to my room reflecting that it ought to be as easy to buy beautiful clothes as sensible ones. Maybe I could remember that next time I went shopping.
 
Thank heavens, Laura was out. I didn’t want to talk to another soul.
I did, however, want to lock myself in. Ian had shattered the myth that I was safe in Auchnagar. I could feel his fury sending long tentacles all the way up the brae. I wondered if Morag felt them, too.
My bed was calling my name loud and clear, so I staggered in that direction. But as I passed the dresser, I happened to glance toward the mirror. I saw a woman who looked like she’d been vacationing in a wind tunnel. My hair stood out all over my head, and I didn’t have on a speck of makeup. No wonder Brandi kept staring like she’d never seen me before.
“This gives new meaning to ‘the windswept look,’ ” I muttered, grabbing a brush to try and restore the style to anything I didn’t mind wearing in public. If there was a salon in Auchnagar, I hadn’t seen it. And Saturday was sure to be their busiest day.
I did not achieve notable success.
“Oh, well,” I quoted Mama as I tottered toward my bed, “not everybody can be beautiful, but anybody can be special.”
Before my head hit the pillow, Eileen rang the gong for dinner.
29
I considered skipping the meal, but my stomach sent up such a protest that I revived and managed to get downstairs. The strong greasy smell of fish and chips wafted from the kitchen, and bowls of Scotch broth were already on the table when I entered the dining room. The first person I saw was Kenny, sitting with Sherry at the small table for two by the wall, already shoveling down his soup. He ignored my greeting.
I joined Laura, who sat with Joyce and Dorothy at the table by the bay window. Dorothy was shyly talking about the pictures she’d framed that morning and her plans for painting that afternoon. Neither of the other two seemed to be paying much attention.
From what I could hear from the Boyd table, Kenny was both truculent and boastful about having been inside a Scottish jail. Sherry treated him with a wary compassion that made me think she hadn’t had a chance yet to ask privately what he had told the police. Laura she treated with icy contempt.
Kenny wasn’t keen on Laura, either, turning around to glower at her from time to time to let her know the entire mess had been her fault.
Laura herself was distracted. It took her five minutes to even notice what I was wearing. Finally she asked, “What’s with the head scarf, Mac? You find some gypsy cousins?”
“No, but I had to do something. I got kind of windblown this morning.”
“I saw you riding Roddy’s motorcycle.” Dorothy’s eyes were wide. “You were going really fast, eh? Weren’t you terrified?”
That put me in the bull’s-eye of the conversation.
“It had its moments,” I admitted, then shrugged, like it hadn’t been important. “Morag, Watty’s granddaughter, wanted a ride, so I went along.”
“On a
motorcycle
?” Now Laura was looking at me like I’d just escaped from an asylum.
Her expression didn’t improve when Dorothy asked, “Why was that man chasing you to the police station?”
Before I could think up an answer to that one, Joyce added, “Yes, what were you doing with the police?” Her voice was sharp, and in her eyes I read a repeat of that morning’s warning. “I saw you coming out as I was returning from the theater.”
Laura narrowed her eyes. “Have you been detecting again, Mac? You know what Joe Riddley told you last time.”
Kenny whirled around, and Sherry bored into me with eyes like black nails.
They were all going to find out eventually, so I might as well tell them. “No, I just went for a walk. But I sort of stumbled into the fact that Ian Geddys, the joiner, killed Jim.”
Eileen—carrying in heaped plates of fish and chips—dropped mine with a clatter on the table before me. “Ian? He never!”
“He’s confessed,” I told her. “He didn’t mean to kill Jim, but it turns out that Jim was actually Hamish Geddys—”
“Hamish Geddys!” Eileen and Joyce exclaimed in unison.
I nodded. “He was coming home to claim the family farm, which his father left him years ago. Ian got angry and knocked him down and Jim’s head hit the curb of their hearth. Morag, from the hotel, saw it happen.”
“Wee Morag?” That was all Eileen could take. She sank into a chair at an empty table, patting her heart like she was having palpitations. Marcia—who had brought in the rest of the plates—sat beside her with a worried frown.
I told the story as best I could. The whole time I kept one eye on Joyce, wondering if she’d finally admit that Jim had instigated our tour. She paid me the same intense attention the others did, but no more. I doubt that her play, though, if it had been performed, would have gotten a better reception than my tale. When I was done, the silence was so profound, I felt like standing to take a bow.
“I thought there was something fishy about Jim the first time I saw him.” Kenny poured ketchup lavishly on his plate and speared up a forkful of chips that looked like they were dripping blood. I shuddered and looked away. “And about that German name he claimed to have? Ha. Anybody could tell he was a Scot. ‘Hamish’ is the same as ‘Jim,’ you know, and Geddys is a sept of the Gordon clan.” How quickly he had forgotten his earlier complaint that Jim was messing up genealogists.
“But how dreadful!” Dorothy said indignantly. “To take the farm from his own sister and brother after they’d taken care of it all these years—how could he?”

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