The Loch Ness Papers

by Paige Shelton

  “No, sir. I need tae get tae his flat.”

  Elias and I looked at each other again. Norval was clearly afraid of something, but I wondered if his fear was unreasonable, maybe some sort of night terror. It was no longer nighttime, I thought, as I squinted toward the edge of the brightening sky.

  “Would you mind just driving us over?” I asked Elias. “We can talk on the way.”

  He nodded. “Aye.”

  Norval sat in the back seat as I sat in the front passenger seat.

  “Okay, Norval, we’re going over to Gavin’s, but can we take a second and calm down a little, take a couple of breaths?” I said.

  Norval looked at me as he did what I suggested. He took a deep breath, and then another. With clearer words and eyes, Norval gave Elias directions to Gavin’s flat.

  “I have my cell phone. Do you want me to try to call Gavin as we go?” I said, wishing I’d kept Gavin’s card with me or taken the time to run inside the shop first. I left the card on my desk, I thought.

  “I’ve tried all morning! We talk in the early mornings. It’s how we start the day. He’s up at three-thirty every single day. He works with money and money is worldwide, he always says. I ken something’s wrong.”

  “Did you call the police?” Elias asked Norval as he sent me furrowed eyebrows.

  “No, they … they dinnae like me keeping so many papers. They dinnae think fondly of me. I just need tae see for myself.”

  Chances were pretty good that nothing was wrong with Gavin MacLeod, but Norval’s panic was contagious. The unease I’d felt in the bookshop the day before had disappeared, but it was sneaking back under my skin. Something was off.

  I looked at my cell phone, thinking about texting Inspector Winters, a police inspector I’d come to know, but I didn’t. Surely, this was about Norval’s eccentricities more than something truly being wrong with Gavin. I needed to keep him calm and keep myself calm. Maybe I could distract him.

  I turned and looked backward. “Norval, what happened the next night with your father, the night you were supposed to meet Nessie?”

  He only blinked once before he remembered the conversation and its abrupt interruption.

  “Och, lass, the next night my da wasnae there. He was gone. He wasnae anywhere after that. He disappeared. Into the loch with the beast.”

  “Oh, Norval, I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “No, I dinnae want yer pity, lass, I just want ye, someone, tae do my work. Keep up the search for the monster and whatever might remain of my da. There, that building,” he pointed, “that’s where Gavin lives.”

  With the speedy skill of someone who’d driven a cab for decades, Elias maneuvered his into a narrow space on the street not far from the building.

  We were out in a flash, Elias moving fast enough that he led the way inside. He sent me a look that said, This man with us isn’t in his right mind, and I’m going to make sure no one gets hurt. I adored Elias, but that thing that had been niggling at my intuition made me want him on alert as he forged the way. I sent him back some eyes that said, You be careful. He got it.

  Even in our rush up the stairs of the old two-story building, I noticed it was in worse shape than I might have predicted. Though I’d only met Gavin the day before, the impression he’d made was one of affluence. Expensive clothes and a business card that mentioned a finance company. Dingy floors and stairs with a chipped paint railing hadn’t come to mind.

  “Which flat?” Elias asked backward over his shoulder.

  “It’s 2B, just the door up and on the left,” Norval said.

  Elias pounded on the door. “Gavin, man, we’ve got your uncle here.”

  There was no answer.

  “Do you have a key?” I asked.

  “Oh! Aye.” Norval reached into his back pocket and pulled out a ring with only two keys. There was no fob, just the ring. “I hate to intrude though.”

  If the man holding the keys hadn’t been so old, feeble, and a little confused or whatever was going on, I thought Elias might have spoken his impatience loudly. Instead, Elias just sent Norval a withering look, took the keys, and inserted one into the lock. He’d chosen the correct one and when the door swung in, he leaned with it and said, “Gavin, your uncle’s here tae see you.”

  Silence. The kind that makes it clear all is not well.

  “Should we go in?” Elias looked at me.

  I looked at Norval.

  “Aye, here, let me.” He pushed around Elias.

  The door opened all the way, and Elias and I followed Norval. The front room of the flat was small, but extraordinarily tidy, with perfectly placed and smoothed brown leather couch cushions and a few stacks of books that climbed in straight biggest-to-smallest upward towers in front of a packed but equally organized bookshelf.

  To the left of the front room was a small kitchen nook with a stark, skinny-legged white table and two chairs tucked tight underneath. There was nothing on the table, even, as far as I could tell, a crumb.

  But beyond this front space and at right angles from it were two facing doors. One was shut tight, but one was open. It’s what was on the wooden floor by the open doorway that changed everything. It looked like a pool of blood. We gasped in unison.

  Elias held Norval and me back as we both tried to move toward it.

  “Let me look first!” he commanded, using his arms as barriers.

  It must have taken him only a few seconds to convince us to stay still, but as I looked at the blood, it felt like time slowed to a muddy beat, and an eternity passed.

  I grabbed Norval’s arm and we waited while Elias looked inside the room.

  Peering in, he deflated. “Call the police, right away.”

  “Elias? What is it?” I asked.

  “Call the police, lass,” Elias said.

  Norval was silent as he blinked and looked back and forth between Elias and me.

  “Should we try to help?” I asked. “I mean…”

  “No, there’s no help for the lad. Call the police,” Elias said. “I am sure.”

  Norval swooned and Elias and I both reached to grab him. It was an awkward save, but we managed it.

  And then, before I investigated the room where I assumed Gavin’s dead body lay, I did exactly as Elias said, I called the police.

  NINE

  Norval came to only moments later, and as he and I sat on the brown couch and the sound of approaching sirens became louder, he startled and his eyes opened wide.

  I put my hand on his arm. “Hey, Norval, it’s okay. We called the police. They’ll be here shortly.”

  “Aye, I understand. He’s dead then?” Norval asked as he worked the zipper on the jacket he wore.

  “I believe so. I’m so sorry.”

  Norval looked toward the door where Elias stood as the siren sounds continued to become louder.

  He didn’t seem overly bothered by Gavin’s death, but he did seem frantic. I watched him closely for signs of something I might be able to understand and offer some sort of comfort for, but mostly he was busy trying to wrangle the zipper. Finally, when he got it to move, he freed a file folder he’d had underneath and extended it toward me.

  “Take this, Delaney. When Gavin didnae answer this morning, I ken something happened tae him, I just ken. The police are going tae blame me, but I would never have hurt that boy. I’ll need someone, Delaney, someone tae continue my work. You’ll do it won’t ye?”

  “Norval,” I said in shock, as I reflexively took the folder.

  “Hide it now! Hide it under your sweater. There are things in there you’ll need tae see, if you’re tae take over my work, if you’re tae help me.”

  I shook my head, but the sirens suddenly stopped wailing and even from the second floor apartment, I could hear car doors opening and closing and approaching footsteps.

  “Hide it in your sweater, lass,” Elias said. “Sort it out later.”

  I stuck the folder underneath my sweater just before Inspector Winters led a gro
up of officers inside.

  * * *

  The police didn’t arrest Norval. They didn’t arrest any of us, though they did seem plenty suspicious.

  They separated us at first and questioned us, or more precisely, just asked for a sequence of events. I assumed two things—that all three of our stories were consistent and that all three of us left out the part where Norval gave me a folder he’d hidden under his jacket and was now under my sweater. Once that was completed, we all moved outside and Inspector Winters told Elias and me that Gavin’s death was officially being ruled a homicide, that he’d been stabbed.

  “He was killed?” I asked stupidly.

  “Aye,” Inspector Winters said.

  “A knife? Stabbed?” I asked.

  Again, that’s what Inspector Winters had just told us, but he must have been used to people needing to repeat the horrible truths they’d just heard because he remained patient with me.

  “Aye,” Inspector Winters said again.

  In the last year, I’d become so acquainted with the police inspector that he even knew my friends, and I had wondered if perhaps I should introduce him to my parents and Wyatt when they got into town. Maybe I should have invited him to the wedding.

  Tom had recently joked that the inspector was probably bothered that Tom and I were getting married, only because now I wouldn’t be under any sort of time crunch to have to leave Scotland. We’d laughed at the thought that Inspector Winters might be tiring of my input on local crimes, but sobered quickly. Maybe Tom had been correct.

  “This is horrible,” I said. My stomach had been swirling since we’d come upon Norval in front of the bookshop. I’d known something wasn’t right. I wished my intuition had been incorrect, but in a way it had been. I’d thought something was “off.” Murder was much worse than that. We’d come upon a murder victim, a man I’d met just the day before and who seemed to be in a rough relationship with his great-uncle, a man who’d sought me out and then whose priority, after learning his nephew was dead, was to sneak me a folder. I looked over at Norval, who was still with another officer sitting inside one of the police vehicles. “Any ideas? Any clues?”

  “Not really. Not yet.” Inspector Winters looked where I was looking. “Mr. Fraser is … isn’t sharing his story as clearly as we would like. We’re concerned and suspicious. At this point.”

  “Inspector Winters, I think … well, I don’t know if Norval is well. I don’t know much about mental health, but there’s a chance … anyway, please keep that in mind. Maybe be gentle with him.”

  Inspector Winters looked at me and nodded, but didn’t say anything. I was under the impression that he heard well what I’d said. I hoped so.

  Elias cleared his throat and Inspector Winters and I looked at him.

  “Excuse me,” Elias said. “Are we free tae go?”

  Inspector Winters turned his attention toward two other officers standing about half a block away. One held a phone to his ear and the other one stood with his arms crossed in front of himself.

  “Not quite yet,” Inspector Winters said as he looked at me again. “Tell me again about the circumstances of meeting Misters Fraser and MacLeod yesterday.”

  He was obviously stalling, but I was willing to go over the story again. And this time I learned a little more too.

  “We know all about Norval Fraser’s obsession,” Inspector Winters said when I finished retelling the part with Gavin outside Norval’s apartment. “His apartment is a fire hazard, but he’s not breaking any codes yet. We can’t force him to clean things up, but I think we’d like to, for his safety as well as others’.”

  “Is he a troublemaker?” Elias asked.

  “I wouldn’t say troublemaker. He’s disappeared a time or two. I’ve never been a part of those searches but some of the other officers mentioned that he can get himself … lost easily, which might be an indication that your concerns about his mental health are valid, Delaney.”

  “Gavin mentioned that whenever Norval went missing, they could usually find him in his apartment with his papers or up at Loch Ness.”

  Inspector Winters looked at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just remembered that part.”

  “Aye. I don’t know where they’ve found Norval, but he has gone missing a time or two. Anything else you might’ve forgotten from yesterday?”

  I thought as I looked toward the police car again. “I think one of Norval’s sisters is still alive. Millie. Gavin’s mother is gone.”

  “Millie.” Inspector Winters jotted down a note. “Norval couldn’t seem to remember her name, but we would have found it eventually.”

  “Do you think he really couldn’t remember or pretended not to?” I asked.

  Inspector Winters shrugged. “I don’t know, but he’s certainly upset.”

  “To be expected,” Elias said.

  “Aye.”

  A whistle sounded from one of the officers down the block and Inspector Winters looked over there again. I watched as the officer who had been on the phone gave a thumbs-up.

  “Well, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” Inspector Winters said to us. We looked at him expectantly. “They got prints from the knife. I’ll need your prints. It won’t take long and we can do it here. If you’d rather come down to the station, you may.”

  Elias and I gave our prints to Inspector Winters on an iPad, using an app. I’d never seen anything like it. I assumed that Norval gave his prints on another iPad inside the vehicle he sat in.

  “We’ll analyze everything, but you’re good tae go for now,” Inspector Winters said when we were done. “Don’t leave the country or anything.”

  “We won’t,” I said. “Can we take Norval home?”

  “No, we’ll take care of him,” Inspector Winters said before he turned and made his way back to the patrol car.

  Elias and I watched as he got in and seemed to give instructions to the officer in the driver’s seat. The patrol car turned and drove away. As it did, Norval looked out the back window at me, his eyes filled with a mixture of hope and fear. My heart went out to him.

  I hoped he wasn’t in some way responsible for Gavin’s murder. I hoped the police would take good care of him.

  “Ye say anything about the file?” Elias asked me when we were inside his cab.

  “Not a word. You?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good.” And then after a long pause, “I hope he’s not a killer.”

  “Aye. Someone is, though.”

  I nodded. “Let’s get somewhere where we can look through this file.”

  “Right away.”

  TEN

  I picked up the handwritten note on the top of the papers in the file and read aloud:

  “Delaney, if something bad happened to my nephew, somewhere in my things is something that will prove I’m innocent. I would never hurt Gavin, but the police probably think I’m capable of such behavior. The police don’t like me. They don’t like my papers. Please, if they take me away, see if you can find the truth, and please take my papers. Do what you will with them. Yours in friendship, Norval.”

  “What could he be talking about? What’s in his flat that would clear him?” Elias asked. “How did he think to write such a dire message only after wee Gavin didnae answer the phone?”

  “I don’t know, Elias. It seems very … scripted, but maybe not. There’s so much in his apartment, it would be difficult to know where to begin. The police did take him away, but they are making sure he’s okay. They didn’t arrest him.”

  “Yet, I suppose.”

  “Okay, yet.”

  “His trust for you came easily,” Elias said.

  We’d hurried inside the still empty bookshop and stopped at Rosie’s front desk, both of us too anxious to open the folder to go any farther.

  I thought about that. “I think I was just top of his mind, the person he’d most recently met. He knows Edwin and that might also have helped him trust me. Perhaps pe
ople are wary of him. I wasn’t wary in the least. He can recognize someone who loves a good story and a good mystery when he sees one.”

  “Maybe,” Elias said doubtfully as he peered at the file.

  “What I don’t understand is why he immediately thought that something might be wrong with Gavin. That’s a quick rush to judgment. He didn’t talk to him this one morning, and he’s certain something must have happened to his nephew. He prepares a folder for me, stops by the bookshop. He was very upset.”

  Elias rubbed his chin. “Makes ye wonder if he was the killer. Or…”

  “What?”

  “What if he’d already been by Gavin’s flat earlier this morning? He might have seen his nephew dead. Maybe he didn’t kill Gavin, but he was paranoid that the police would think he killed him, so he created this elaborate setup. These are purposeful actions, Delaney.”

  “I might agree, except … one thing contradicts another. He’s purposeful but he’s disappeared before and the police and his family have had to look for him. He can’t keep a job. Is he … ‘with it’ or not?”

  “I dinnae ken, lass. Ye said he had foil over his window. He’s a paranoid one, for sure. Paranoid folks can also be obsessed. Maybe Nessie and his papers are his singular focus, and you got in the middle of his focus at the wrong time and whether you like it or not. If he cannae reach his nephew, maybe his mind automatically goes to protecting his papers. I would say he’s daft, but I cannae know anything for sure.”

  “It’s all possible, I guess,” I said.

  “Things don’t add up, that’s certain.”

  “You think he’s trying to set me up for something?” I asked.

  Elias bit his bottom lip. “No, not really. Using you maybe, but not setting you up as a killer, though I could be wrong. Ye dinnae know the wee man. Proceed with caution.”

  “Of course.”

  The file didn’t contain much, but the five pieces of paper inside it were interesting. It took us a few minutes to get a grip on the particulars of the contents, but ultimately we figured out that there were two copies of handwritten accounts of Nessie sightings, and three copies of photographs.