Death of a Lovable Geek

by Maria Hudgins

  I felt almost sick as I pushed my chair back and stood up.

  Christine pulled open the swinging door to the kitchen for me. “They dinnae ask for ye by yer surname. It’s a woman and she said, ‘May I speak to Dotsy?’ ”

  “How strange,” I said, but now it sounded more like someone from the dig. Most of them probably didn’t know my last name, but I wouldn’t allow myself a sigh of relief until I knew for sure who it was. I found the phone on the wall beside the fridge, its receiver clicking against the stone floor as it dangled by its cord.

  “Hello, Dotsy? I’m terribly sorry but I don’t know your surname, so I had to ask for Dotsy. This is Brenda Quale, Dylan’s mother.”

  Again, my heart thumped. I had to think quickly. Does she know he’s dead? Yes, of course. John met with them and the police today. “Oh, Mrs. Quale, I’m so very sorry. If there’s anything I can do …” My words were so inadequate they sounded stupid. “I was very fond of Dylan.”

  “Yes, and he was fond of you.”

  What a surprise that was. I would not have guessed he’d even mentioned me to his parents.

  “Dylan told me about you, only a day before … well, a few days ago. He told me that you were the person he liked best at the didaug. He said you and he had talked about his work and that you’d shown a keen interest in what he did.”

  “Dylan was a brilliant young man,” I said. The words tasted like bile in my mouth.

  “Isn’t that strange? He told me you were brilliant. That’s the exact word he used. He said, ‘Mother, this woman, Dotsy, she caught on to everything I told her and I could tell she understood it, too.’ He said, ‘She really likes hearing about spores and pollen. She’s not just pretending.’ ”

  “Of course I wasn’t pretending. It was fascinating.”

  “I told him I was glad he’d found someone here that he could talk to. A mother hates to think of her child being lonely.”

  “How well I know. I have five of my own.”

  I expected her to make the usual noises about the number of my progeny, but she didn’t. Instead, there was silence for a moment, and then she said, “Could I come to the castle and talk to you? I need to talk to someone.”

  Brenda didn’t seem to care for the idea of being met at the door by any of the Sinclairs so we set a time when I promised I’d be waiting for her out front, and I returned to my table.

  Over his plate of roast lamb, Tony Marsh called out, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Who has that Super Bowl ticket?”

  “I have it,” said William.

  “Have you found who it belongs to?”

  “Nae, but I’m glad you mentioned it. I’m thinkin’ the police might want to know about it.” William caught Maisie’s eye and pointed to Fallon’s empty water glass. Maisie signaled to Christine, who responded with a pitcher of water.

  “Oh, I should think they would,” Brian Lipscomb said. “When did Dotsy find it?” He leaned sideways and peeked around Amelia at me.

  “Night before last,” I said, “about five o’clock.” That would have been about the time of the murder, I thought, and I suspected everyone else was thinking the same thing. “Oh, William, I hate to mention it while we’re eating, but I keep forgetting to tell you. The light in the stairwell of the round tower is burned out.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” William said.

  * * * * *

  From a window in the great hall, I watched Brenda Quale dash from her car to the front door, getting soaked in the process. As night descended, the storm had swept in with a vengeance, the rain now pummeling her bare head and thin jacket. I opened the door and pulled her in. “It didn’t occur to me to pack rain gear,” she said, shaking herself off.

  Brenda was a spare little woman with short, thin hair that had gone mostly gray. The first thing I noticed about her was the deep lines between her eyebrows and running diagonally down from the corners of her mouth and nose. I wondered whether those lines had been there two days ago, or, if they had, how much deeper they had become at the news of her son’s murder.

  She didn’t like my suggestion that we go to the library to talk. She wanted to talk to me privately so I took her to my room. On the way up the stairs, she said, “My husband would have liked to come, too. He wants to meet you, but he’s( not ready to face coming here, you know? I left him at our hotel.”

  The window in my room looked out on the pasture where Froggy’s body was found. I wished I had suggested we go somewhere else, but it was too late now. And after all, it was fully dark so there was no reason either of us should look out. Once inside my room, I hung Brenda’s jacket on a doorknob, motioned her to the wing chair, and turned the little seat at my vanity table to face her.

  Too late, I saw that Froggy’s photo of the heart-shaped fern gametophyte lay conspicuously on the foot of my bed. Brenda must have recognized the handwriting, because she picked it up and whispered, “To Dotsy. Love, Dylan.”

  “Oh!” She dropped the photo and dissolved, pitifully, into the wing chair. Her hands fluttered against its upholstered arms like moths against a hot light bulb.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize I’d left that out, but as you can imagine, I’ve been mourning the loss of your son, too. I’ve pulled that photo out and looked at it a dozen times in the last two days.”

  “Dylan told me he liked you better than any of the young people at the dig.” She reached down, as if for a pocket that wasn’t there.

  I remembered that I had taken her jacket, so I handed her a tissue from the vanity table behind me.

  “He was different, you know, from most people his age,” she said. “He was serious. Studious. He didn’t have many close friends at college, or at home.”

  “Do you have any other children?”

  “We have two girls; both are a good bit older than Dylan. In fact, one of them has a son who’s nearly as old as Dylan.” She fell silent and rubbed the back of one hand with the thumb of the other, as if there were something on it that rubbing would remove.

  I waited.

  “You know the people at the dig, Dotsy. Who killed him?” Her eyes pleaded for help.

  “I have no idea, Brenda.”

  “The police aren’t going to solve this murder. I know they aren’t! They started out talking to us like it was some random act of violence or something ridiculous like that. Then they asked us about his roommate, Van Something.”

  “Van Nguyen.”

  “Right. This detective, Chief Inspector Coates, thinks he did it. Now, why would he think that?”

  “I understand that Dylan and Van had had an argument shortly before … and that Dylan was wearing Van’s shirt when he was found.” It was painful for me to bring these things up and I could imagine how much more painful it was for Brenda to hear them. I was careful to call him Dylan because, so far, Brenda hadn’t referred to him as Froggy, and there was a chance she didn’t like that nickname.

  “That was nothing more than a normal spat between roommates. You know how boys are. Dylan told me about a couple of spats they had. Nothing more than the usual pick-up-your-own-clothes type thing.”

  “Did Dylan ever mention a girl named Tracee Wagg?”

  Brenda flinched a little. “Was she the girl he was supposed to have gone to the ball with last spring?”

  “I believe so.”

  “He hasn’t mentioned her since last spring. How do you know about her?”

  “She’s here at the dig.”

  “Dylan never mentioned it. He did tell me that a young man named Proctor—I don’t know if that’s his Christian name or his surname—was here. Dylan had to turn Proctor in to the department for cheating. Plagiarism, it was.”

  “Yes, he’s here. His name is Proctor Galigher. What did Dylan tell you about him?”

  “That they avoided each other. Dylan didn’t know what to say to him, and Proctor is still angry.”

  “Angry enough to take revenge?”

  “Oh, I wouldn
’t be able to say anything about that. I’ve never met the boy. But that’s why I’m here, Dotsy. You’re in a position to see what’s going on. The police will probably end up arresting Van because they want to arrest someone and get the case off their desks. Do you think he did it?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t either, but that’s what’s going to happen, mark my words.” Brenda Quale sat back, dug her elbows into the arms of the chair, and said, “Find out who did it, Dotsy! You’re clever. You listen. You can hear things. My husband and I will not survive long, if we have to do it not knowing who killed our son!”

  When she put it that way, I had no choice but to promise her I’d do my best.

  * * * * *

  Before I turned in, I stood at the window in my room and watched the rain. The last of the light had faded, leaving the pasture and moors in near-total darkness, but I could hear, more than see, the rain as the wind threw it against the glass panes. In this far northern latitude, evening twilight seemed to linger half the night, leaving only a few hours before morning light crept in.

  One thing about Brenda Quale’s visit made no sense: Why hadn’t she asked to see Amelia Lipscomb? According to Amelia they were friends, and yet Brenda hadn’t even mentioned her. And Amelia, as a television reporter, would know more than I would about how to investigate a murder. Perhaps Brenda didn’t know Amelia was here. Oh yes, she did. Amelia told me Froggy’s mother had asked her to keep an eye on him.

  And why had Brenda not wanted to see anyone else? Why had she insisted that I meet her at the front door? That could have been because she simply didn’t feel up to meeting a bunch of new people.

  I turned at the sound of a tiny rap on the door.

  “I’m returning your nail polish,” Lettie said, handing me the bottle. She was already dressed for bed, green goo and all.

  “Lettie, could you do me a favor tomorrow? If you’re going back to the library in Inverness, I need a copy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.”

  “I can’t check books out,” she said. “I’m an alien, they told me. And you have to be a citizen to get what they call a reader’s ticket.”

  “Of course. I didn’t think. Could you buy me a copy? I’ll pay you back.”

  “Okey-doke.”

  * * * * *

  I awoke an hour or so later with my digestive system in crisis. It felt as if I had gremlins wringing my stomach like a wet towel. I lay in my bed through two waves of nausea and calculated that the next one would be the one that did it. I grabbed my bathrobe and dashed down the hall to the bathroom, only to find it locked.

  Through the door, I heard the unmistakable sounds of miserable retching. My face and neck now covered in cold sweat, I flew down the stairwell to the first floor where there was a half bath with no tub or shower, but it was only the toilet I needed at the moment. I knocked frantically and twisted the knob, but this door was locked, too. From within, came a low moan and more sounds of gastric distress. And I was out of time.

  I dashed through the side door and held it open with one foot while I bent over and tossed my mushroom soup, my lamb with mint and crabapple sauce, and my butterscotch pie into the grass. Then, because I didn’t know whether the door would lock if I let it close and I didn’t feel like checking, I slithered to the ground, my back holding the door open, and let the heaven-sent rain bathe my fevered face.

  I don’t know how long I sat there. More waves of nausea brought up the last bits of food, and I began to shake. This wasn’t the best way for a diabetic to spend the night since an empty stomach brings with it the risk of hypoglycemia, but as I sat there, too weak to rise, I heard more noises, sounds of pain and anguish, from within the castle. Amelia Lipscomb careened down the hall and saw me, but she was in no condition to help me. She looked as sick as I felt.

  “What’s happening, Dotsy? Everyone’s ill. Was it something we ate?”

  “Don’t know.” I didn’t feel like talking. I sat there with my back against the door and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Amelia was gone.

  I crawled and stumbled back up to my room and knocked on Lettie’s door. No answer. Alf Downes veered past me, his nearly hairless head swathed in a nightcap. A nightcap? Even in my pathetic state, I had to chuckle. I leaned against the wall and knocked again. At length, Lettie’s door opened.

  “What the hell? Dotsy! You look awful!”

  Lettie dragged me inside and bathed my face with a warm, soapy cloth. She was perfectly fine, but she spent the rest of the night playing Florence Nightingale to the entire west wing.

  * * * * *

  “Obviously it was the mushroom soup,” Lettie said when I dragged into her room the next morning.

  “You might be right,” I said. “Who was at breakfast?”

  “Absolutely nobody but Tony and me and Christine,” Lettie said, smearing Crest on her toothbrush. Each of our rooms had a basin so we didn’t have to go down the hall for wash-ups, pill-taking, or tooth-brushing. “Even poor Maisie couldn’t eat. She got things started in the kitchen and then left it to Christine.” Lettie bent over her basin and commenced energetic brushing.

  I unwrapped the scone Lettie had brought me from the dining room. She had also tucked in some butter and marmalade, twisted into little bits of plastic wrap. My stomach told me there was a fifty-fifty chance it would accept a scone, so I decided to give it a try. I ripped the scone in two and used a ballpoint pen to spread it with butter.

  “Tony’s feeling okay?” I asked.

  “Yes. See, that’s why it had to be the mushroom soup. Who didn’t eat it? Me. Who else didn’t eat it? I noticed that Tony only had a few spoonfuls because he was talking the whole time. When Christine picked up his soup cup, it was still half full.”

  “You actually noticed that?” Lettie never ceases to amaze me.

  “He apparently did eat a bit of it, but Tony is a very physically fit man, isn’t he?”

  I nodded, remembering Fallon’s admiring perusal of Tony’s backside in the library the other night.

  “Well, if any of us could handle a bit of bad food without too much trouble, I think it would be Tony who could do it.”

  That made sense to me. “So you’re fine, Tony’s okay even though he ate a few spoonfuls, and Christine is fine. Did you ask her if she ate any of the dinner?”

  “Yes, but I waited until Maisie had gone back upstairs before I asked. I didn’t want Maisie to feel like we were—” Lettie put the back of her hand up to her mouth “—insulting her cooking.” She tapped her toothbrush on the side of the basin and deposited it behind her soap dish. “Christine said she had pizza with some friends of hers before she came to work last evening. She admitted to having a bit of the butterscotch pie, though.”

  “Thanks for the scone, Lettie.” I got up to return to my own room. “Are you going to Inverness?”

  “I’m going around to all the rooms and see who needs help. Poor Maisie can’t do much because she’s taking care of William and plus, she’s sick, too. She said William had a really rough night.”

  “You needn’t worry about me anymore. I’m over the worst.” I wrapped the second half of my scone in a napkin and shuffled toward the door. “If you do go to Inverness today, would you also get me a book on mushrooms? One of those field guide things?”

  “Inspector Lamb is on the trail again,” Lettie said.

  “I believe the expression is, ‘Come, Watson, the game is afoot.’ ”

  Chapter Ten

  I figured there was no need to notify Tony or John that I wouldn’t be at the dig for a while. John wouldn’t be there, either, and Tony already knew everyone’s plight. I made sure my door was unlocked lest, in a crisis, someone might need to come in and I might not be able to get to the door. I kicked off my slippers, set a wastebasket lined with a plastic bag beside my bed in case my scone decided to make another appearance, and stretched out on my unmade bed. My sheets felt clammy.

  With the rain and wind of the previous night, I worried about t
he cordoned-off area where I had found the gold coin. I hoped someone at the dig had covered it with a tarp. I had left early, but Graham Jones normally did a walkabout at the end of the day, picking up stray trowels, ordering important spots covered, all wheelbarrows and shovels stowed. Dark clouds had been threatening before I left the site. So I told myself not to worry, that Graham would certainly have made sure that spot was covered, but I was still edgy.

  The mushroom soup. I rehashed what little I could remember about it. Boots had knocked at the kitchen door, calling out, “I got chan-ta-rellies, I got penny buns, I got …” I couldnuns, I gid.t remember what he’d said. I had never heard of penny buns, but chan-ta-rellies, I assumed, were chanterelles, supposedly a delicacy. Boots was an old hand at hunting and gathering. John had told me that Boots had worked there since he, John, was a boy, and William had mentioned that Boots lived in a cottage at the MacBane farm. So Boots should be thoroughly familiar with the types of mushrooms one found in these woods and fields.

  Still, mushrooms are notoriously difficult to identify with certainty. I wouldn’t trust myself to eat any mushrooms I found in the woods, but then I didn’t have Boots’s experience. It would be quite possible, I mused, for a new type of mushroom to pop up where it hadn’t been seen before, wouldn’t it? That was another reason I wanted Lettie to buy me a mushroom book.

  Maisie had said, “I added some of the chanterelles and penny buns Boots brought me,” which indicated that she already had the soup prepared when Boots came in. She’d probably chopped or pureed some of Boots’s largesse and tossed it into the pot on top of the mushrooms and other ingredients that might have been simmering all day.

  Blue something. Boots had said, “I got chan-ta-rellies, I got blue somethings, I got penny buns.” Ah well, I’d have to ask him or Maisie. Maisie and Boots must both feel absolutely awful about what’s happened, I thought.