1 Off Kilter Read online

  I took another sip of my ale before responding. “Aye,” I said, trying out a Scottish lilt of my own. “That I’m not, sir.” We grinned at each other.

  Was I really flirting with a Scottish man? And was he flirting with me?

  It felt good. A bit silly, but good.

  We would have continued our banter, except right then we heard loud, angry voices rising above the din.

  And suddenly, the music died.

  CHAPTER 4

  Just like in a scene out of a movie, every single thing in the immediate vicinity of the action seemed to grind to a halt. Everybody stopped what they were doing to watch. I know I did—it was the first fight I’d ever personally witnessed that didn’t involve popcorn and a big screen TV or a surround sound movie theater.

  It was almost as though we all experienced collective paralysis. Maybe it was the element of surprise. We were supposed to be celebrating a life and mourning a loss, not brawling. If the musicians hadn’t stopped playing, those closest to the outbreak might have been the only ones to notice, and that would have been the end of any further public displays of rowdiness. But the room quieted to a hush.

  “You’re a bloody liar!” we all heard a woman’s voice exclaim.

  “Get your hands off me, you heathen!” Was that Vicki MacBride’s voice?

  An immediate circle of spectators formed. Leith made several attempts to push through the crowd, but he couldn’t penetrate the mass of bodies. I stood on my barstool to see what the brouhaha was about, and saw Alec MacBride, the kilted son of the deceased, working his way through from the opposite side of the room. Unlike for Leith, the crowd gave way to Alec.

  “You don’t belong here,” I heard Kirstine spit at Vicki, giving her a shove. “You reek of bad news. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you killed my father just for his money. That’s the only reason you’re here. To collect what isn’t rightfully yours.”

  For a moment, I thought I was acclimating to the Scottish lilt, because every word Kirstine said came through loud and clear. But then I realized her Scottish accent was much less pronounced than the others I’d heard since arriving. Not so her husband, John Derry, who shouted something unintelligible to my untrained ears. But from the anger and excitement that twisted his face, he clearly wasn’t trying to defuse the situation. Rather he was instigating more aggression.

  “Stop it right now.” Alec finally got between the two women and grabbed each by an arm. His accent sounded just like his sister’s. “Making a scene at a family funeral? I can hardly believe the indecency.” This he directed at Vicki rather than at Kirstine. The hostility between the three was palpable. He swung around to the musicians. “Play!” he ordered, and they instantly struck up a lively tune.

  Vicki shook free of Alec’s grip and headed for the door. Leith rejoined me, but I said, “I’m going to make sure she’s all right.” I didn’t wait for a response. Instead, I jumped down from the stool and rushed after her.

  “Wait, Vicki!” I called as she hurried away.

  She stopped and turned, giving me time to catch up. “No one saw, did they?” she asked, wiping her face with her fingers.

  “Saw what, the fight?” Uh, everyone saw that, I thought but didn’t say.

  “No, me crying. I cannae let anyone know I’m this upset.” Vicki’s accent thickened as she struggled with her emotions and brushed away evidence of her tears. “The whole village is against me, and if they see any weakness, it will only make matters worse. It was a mistake coming here. I should’ve stayed in London, where I belong.”

  By now, we were walking abreast in what I guessed to be the direction of the sea. My shorter legs had to hustle to keep up with her angry strides. We turned right onto a street called Saltmark, and right before the end of the street, Vicki made an abrupt turn onto a beach. The briny, fishy smell of the seashore filled the air. Powerful waves crashed against the shoreline nearby. She kicked off her shoes and walked barefoot through the cool white sand until her knees folded and she sat down, stopping just short of the incoming tide.

  “I’m sorry for what happened,” I said, sinking onto the sand beside her. “This can’t be easy.”

  She turned a tear-streaked face to me. “Why? I keep asking myself. Why did he do this, make it all mine? His other children hate me for it, and I don’t blame them a bit.”

  “Maybe your father simply forgot to update his will,” I suggested.

  “That’s what Kirstine believes. She’s fighting the will, claiming that since he didn’t specifically disinherit her and Alec, his intentions must’ve been to distribute the estate more equitably. In the meantime, the farm continues to operate as before. And me alone in my father’s house with what seems like the whole world against me. They’ve turned the villagers their way, too, I’m sure of it. I see the looks they give me.”

  For a few minutes I stared at the waves, then I looked back at her. “Is his estate really that large?” I asked. Not that it was any of my business.

  Vicki nodded. “It’s involved, that’s for sure. I couldn’t possibly run it by myself even if I wanted to. For now, Kirstine and her husband are handling the operation, mainly because they don’t want me to run the estate into the ground before they get it back.”

  She composed herself a little and changed the subject. “How do you like your accommodations at the inn?”

  “It’s really nice,” I answered. “I’m looking forward to sampling a full Scottish breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  “You’ll have to try haggis soon,” Vicki said, clearly trying to make light conversation even though her stress was apparent. “It’s not part of the traditional Scottish breakfast, so you’ll have to seek it out.”

  I can eat almost anything. Or at least try most things; I draw the line at insects and reptiles. And possibly at haggis. I knew it was the traditional dish of Scotland, but I wasn’t too sure about sheep liver and lung cooked in stomach lining. “I’m not ready for that quite yet,” I admitted.

  “Either you like it or you don’t.”

  I laughed. “That’s exactly what Leith Cameron said about Irn-Bru. That there’s no in-between.”

  “Did you try Irn-Bru, then?”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “It isn’t my favorite.”

  “Well, you’re going to love haggis.”

  Vicki and I sat quietly until the waves crawled up and kissed our toes. I noticed that the sun was just starting to set, even though it was past nine thirty. I vaguely remembered reading that summer days in Scotland were longer than those at home, and today had certainly felt incredibly long to me, filled with travel frustrations. But I’d also met two new, friendly people, making my first day in Scotland a good one.

  “I almost forgot why I came down this way,” Vicki said, getting up and brushing sand from her clothing. “I wanted to pop in on Gavin Mitchell.”

  “Gavin Mitchell?” I rose with her and we walked away from the water’s edge.

  “He’s the local sheep shearer, and a longtime family friend. I remember him well from my summer visits. He used to let me help him with the animals.”

  Sheep shearing? Not a lot of call for that back in Chicago. But of course, this was sheep country.

  “I didn’t see him at the funeral, though,” Vicki continued, “which surprises me, since he’s the one who called to tell me about Da’s passing in the first place.” At the edge of the beach, we brushed sand off our feet and slipped back into our shoes. “He lives on this street here. If we’d kept going instead of turning toward the beach, we’d have ended up at his cottage.”

  In spite of the lingering sunlight, I could see that all the other cottages along the row were lit up because of a canopy of thick, heavily leafed trees that cast deep shadows. But not a single light shone from any of the windows of the cottage at the very end of Saltmark.
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br />   “That’s Gavin’s place,” Vicki said.

  “He must be away,” I said, stopping and studying the cottage.

  “We should make sure, since we’re already here.”

  “It really doesn’t look like he’s home,” I said, again noting the darkness of the place. “Maybe he’s gone to the pub.” But Vicki started up the narrow walkway leading to the front door, so I followed.

  “You might be right,” she said. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  We were at the door. Vicki called out, “Gavin Mitchell, are you in there?”

  We listened for a response. Nothing.

  We looked at each other. She called again, louder this time. “Gavin Mitchell!”

  Still no answer. Vicki tried the door. It was locked. She stared at me. “Come on. Let’s try in back.”

  We crept around to the side and peered through a window. Total darkness. The two of us stayed close to each other. We rounded to the far side of the cottage to a back entryway. The door gaped wide open.

  My heart skipped a beat, and I heard Vicki suck in her breath. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “He might need immediate help. What if he’s had a heart attack or something like that?”

  I thought about suggesting we call 999, like Leith had told me, but she had a point. Gavin might need us, and every second could count.

  Vicki didn’t move, so I gathered my wits and courage and took the lead. My exploring fingers found a light switch on the wall right inside the entryway. I paused, hesitating, fearing what I might see, then I flipped it. A dim overhead light came on.

  We were in a kitchen. And what a mess! Dirty dishes, a smelly trash can that needed emptying, evidence that the occupant hadn’t bothered using the cupboards. Clearly, Gavin Mitchell was a longtime bachelor who had developed bad habits and didn’t have the benefit of an outside cleaning service.

  But no sign of anything amiss.

  The kitchen light cast its weak rays into the front room of the tiny cottage, where I made out a television, one of those old cabinet styles, directly ahead beneath a window. I moved farther in and switched on a lamp that was sitting on a table within arm’s reach. I noted an indentation in the dust on top of the television and papers scattered at my feet.

  Right behind me, Vicki gasped. “Oh no!”

  The lamplight illuminated a man lying on his back on the floor between the couch and an armchair that had seen better days, a large file box beside him. I made a safe assumption that this was the missing sheep shearer. And as much as I had wished his absence from James MacBride’s funeral to have had an innocent explanation, it was not to be.

  First, because of the vast amount of blood pooled around his body.

  And second, the weird-looking metal handle protruding from his chest.

  Vicki gave up gasping and started screaming.

  CHAPTER 5

  The walls of the sheep shearer’s tiny cluttered cottage closed in around me. My throat constricted as though a taut piano wire was tightening around my neck. I couldn’t swallow or breathe or think. Moments ago, when we’d first entered his home, my head had been screwed on straight. But now my mind seemed to be flapping senselessly about with no direction at all.

  Surrealism at its most unreal. This can’t possibly be happening.

  If not for Vicki’s earth-shattering, ear-piercing shrieks, I might have thought I was in the grip of a harrowing nightmare and would wake up soon. But there was so much blood! Even my vivid imagination couldn’t have produced this much.

  Thanks to Vicki’s powerful set of lungs, neighbors came pouring into the tiny cottage.

  “What the . . . ? Oh my God!” I heard.

  After they saw what had caused all the screaming, Vicki and I were led outside and watched over, whether out of a sense of compassion or to make sure we stayed where we were, I didn’t know or care. Vicki clung to my arm while we waited for what seemed like an eternity.

  The police finally arrived.

  “Don’ any of ye be leavin’ yet,” a plainclothes cop flashing official identification warned us. Not that my legs were going to carry me far anyway. I could barely stand. The combination of jet lag and finding a murdered man had taken a huge physical toll on me. Not to mention the emotional impact.

  The dead man’s neighbors huddled together on the edge of the porch, at arm’s length from Vicki and me, whispering and casting furtive glances our way. In spite of my overall numbness, I could read their body language only too well. A growing suspicion was welling up amongst them. If they’d turned cold shoulders to Vicki before, they were absolutely frigid to her now.

  Not only were Vicki and I outsiders, and therefore suspect to begin with, but by virtue of being the ones to find Gavin Mitchell’s body, we were also the bearers of really awful news. The continued glances shooting my way spoke volumes; this bunch wasn’t about to greet me with the same warm welcome that Vicki had met me with earlier tonight.

  Talk about making a bad first impression on a small community.

  I began to work on my “story,” even as I wondered why I felt I needed a story. I had no intention of making stuff up, but I wanted my account to be rational and linear. And most of all, believable. I knew we were innocent of any wrongdoing—at least, I was—but somehow I’d been made to feel guilty anyway. Dagger glares and collective whispers just out of earshot will do that to a person. I felt like a target. And the neighbors had ample arrows.

  Had Scots been the first ones to shoot the messenger? I remembered that the phrase originated with the English, or at least from one of Shakespeare’s plays. Antony and Cleopatra. England was close enough geographically to fuel a real concern.

  Vicki and I were split up and questioned, as were the neighbors. Eventually, they were all released to return home, until it was only Vicki and me. We were the best saved for last. The original cop approached me and waved Vicki over from her position alongside another police officer.

  “Inspector Kevin Jamieson,” the police officer said by way of introduction, then quickly commanded, “Yer names, if ye don’t mind.”

  As though we had a choice. The inspector mentioned that he already knew of Vicki from what he called local “blether,” which I interpreted to mean gossip, but as a complete unknown, I had to give him all my personal background information. I was prepared for those questions—How long have you been here? What’s the purpose of your visit? How long do you intend to stay? Standard airport customs questions—but still found myself fumbling.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, responding to his question about the length of my stay.

  He gave me a piercing look.

  “A few weeks,” I muttered. “I only arrived today.”

  Had I really only been in Scotland for one day? It was the longest one of my life! And as to how long I planned to stay—at this rate, I’d get a plane home tomorrow if I could.

  “I’m doing a little local research for a book I’m writing,” I concluded, “and was hoping to see the sights.” These weren’t exactly the sights I’d had in mind. A dark glimpse into a murdered man’s life.

  “So yer basically on holiday?” Detective Inspector Jamieson said, writing everything down in a little notebook. He was left-handed, with that exaggerated hovering-above-the-paper curled wrist most lefties adopt to avoid smearing drying ink. I always noticed a lefty, since I’m one myself.

  I guessed him to be somewhere in his late fifties, based on the frown lines etched across his forehead, although those could be the effect of responsibilities he carried. He had dark hair, not a bit of red, but he did have those classic Scotsman’s piercing blue eyes, which were even more intimidating when flashed by an officer of the law.

  He also wore a wedding ring that had been on his finger for a long time, and I could tell he wasn’t in the habit of taking it off, because his knuckle had expanded over time. Chances were,
it would have to be cut off, or left where it was. This was a man truly devoted to his wife. Something I had little experience with.

  “I need the circumstances, step-by-step,” Inspector Jamieson demanded, his eyes riveted to Vicki rather than me.

  Vicki, having finally calmed down, related to him her growing concern for the sheep shearer after he hadn’t attended the funeral, the graveside gathering, or the reception at the pub. “I’d spoken to him on the phone before I came to Glenkillen, and”—at this point, Vicki came close to breaking down again. Her eyes welled with tears and her voice shook—“I decided to check on him, and Eden happened to accompany me.”

  “So ye hadna ever met with him face-to-face while he was alive?” the inspector asked.

  “What? . . . N-no . . . not recently. I hadn’t seen him for years. Why would you think that?”

  “It’s a line of inquiry only,” he said, glancing up sharply from his notes.

  Vicki shook her head emphatically, and said, “No, we only spoke on the phone when he rang to inform me of my father’s death. I did know him, though, from my childhood days at the farm. He was a nice man. And I was looking forward to seeing him again. But not like this.”

  Vicki burst into tears, and it took some time to help her get herself under control.

  Fortunately for both of us, after that we could back each other up on the rest of the details.

  “He’d been stabbed in the chest,” I finished, “but with what? What was that thing?”

  Even in my state of shock, I recalled the unusual image of the murder weapon only too well. Its metal handle had ended in what appeared to be the shape of a heart, and the thought that it had been used to stab a beating heart made me shudder.

  The constable glanced up from his notepad. “Gavin Mitchell was clipped with his own sheep shears, that’s what,” he informed us.

  Vicki gasped. I covered my face with my hands, rubbing them up and down in hopes of erasing the image inside the cottage. It didn’t help.