Death of a Lovable Geek

by Maria Hudgins

  “Lettie, wait here while I dash up to my room for a flashlight.”

  “Oh, no.”

  When I returned with my minilight, Lettie agreed to stay right there with the door open while I explored. If I got into trouble, she could quickly run out for help. The bottom flight of stairs was pretty easy because I had some light from the library below, but each step was high and there was no handrail. At the landing, my beam found another flight of stairs like the first, but ascending to the right.

  This flight was scary. No light made it around the corner so now I had only my flashlight to go by. A spider’s web of magnificent proportions partially blocked my way, forcing me sit on a step, remove a shoe, and swipe away enough of it to get by. I resumed climbing, as much with my hands as with my feet, past a scattering of tiny bones, past more sticky cobwebs, and finally to another landing. Which led to another flight of stairs. And another landing.

  At that point I would have quit and turned back, but my light now showed me the end of the climb; the fourth flight was the last. I leaned against the stone wall and flicked off my light. There isn’t enough oxygen in here, I thought. Or maybe I’m just breathing hard because I’m frightened. A thin vertical sliver of light peeped out at the very top. I switched my light back on and finished the climb.

  The top step was barely wide enough for me to sit on if I rested my feet on the next step down. I turned my light off again. I heard voices.

  I heard Fallon Sinclair say, “Is this close enough? Can you reach it?”

  Someone else said something I didn’t catch.

  I put my left eye in the crack through which the light poured. I was apparently sitting behind a door similar to the one in the library, except this one didn’t seem to have a finger hole for opening it. By shifting my head left and right, I could scan a part of the room beyond, a foot or two at a time. It was John and Fallon’s bedroom. I recognized the closet door behind which John kept the suitcase with my coin in it. I saw a red brocade counterpane and one post of their four-poster bed. Fallon stood on the right side of the bed.

  “You must try, John. At least take a little of the tea. You’re in danger of becoming dehydrated.”

  More undecipherable mumbles and grumbles. I figured John was in the bed, facing away from me, and that was why I couldn’t make out what he said.

  “I’ll make a bed for myself on the settee in the next room, John. That way I can hear you when you need me.”

  Yet more murmurs from the bed.

  “No, I will not bring you a Scotch and soda.”

  At that point John turned over in the bed and I could hear him clearly. “We drink a toast to Tony, and to Hannah … and to you, ha, onha. We drink a toast to those we love the best, our noble selves, God love us! There’s none better and many a damn sight worse!”

  John Sinclair was delirious.

  I fumbled for the switch on my flashlight but it slipped out of my hand. I heard it clatter down steps, and that left me with the frightening prospect of descending those stairs in pitch darkness. I sat for a minute, felt around the step below me to get my bearings as well as I could, took a deep breath, and began lowering myself on my butt, one step at a time.

  From beyond the door, I heard John’s voice one more time. “Here’s to Becky’s eyes and Becky’s ears and Becky’s … whatever. Vengeance is mine!”

  I touched the barrel of my flashlight on the last step before the landing, just in time to avoid going mad myself. In the dark, the cold mustiness of these ancient stones seemed multiplied a hundred times. I continued scooting on my butt down the last three flights because I felt too shaky to risk standing.

  With her fists jammed together in front of her face, Lettie was waiting for me. “Well?” was all she said.

  “It leads up two floors to John and Fallon’s bedroom. I didn’t go in.”

  “Did they know you were there?”

  “I doubt it. Lettie, John Sinclair has gone stark raving mad.”

  • * * * *

  •

  Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,

  She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

  Exit Servant

  Is this a dagger which I see before me,

  The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

  I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

  Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

  To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

  A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

  Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

  Macbeth, Act Two, Scene One

  Reading myself to sleep with Shakespeare is not my normal thing, but on this night, curled up in bed with my new copy of the play, I sped through Act One. Throughout the past year as I researched King Macbeth, I had consciously not allowed myself to consult the Bard’s version for fear that it would influence my concept of the man, but now I saw no need to continue the abstinence. These lines reminded me of poor John Sinclair. How could John, una Hble to keep down weak tea, possibly ask his wife for a Scotch and soda? The very thought turned my stomach.

  Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? Maybe it was as simple as that. John had a high fever. He was babbling nonsense. Why else would he link Tony, Hannah and Fallon in an imaginary toast? Hannah who? The only Hannah I could think of was Hannah Dunbar from the dig, and other than a common interest in archaeology, I knew of no connection.

  I must have fallen asleep at that point, because I woke up later with the little paperback booklet on my face, my nose marking the first page of Act Two. Nature called, so I got up, ran my feet under the bed for my pink slippers, and shuffled off down the hall. In contrast to its popularity of the previous night, the bathroom was empty.

  As I clutched the doorknob, Fallon Sinclair slipped out from the stairwell at the south end of the hall. She wore a soft yellow robe and matching slippers. Her hair and makeup showed no hint of having touched a pillow.

  “Dotsy, are you okay?” she asked as she passed.

  “I’m fine. How’s John?”

  “He can’t sleep, so he’s sent me down to get this season’s diary from Tony. I guess he figures he might as well put his insomnia to good use.”

  Alone in the bathroom, I took a moment to figure out what was wrong with that picture. Hair not messy, makeup in place. If John’s rantings had kept her up until now, those things might make sense. My watch said it was two-thirty a.m.

  Got it. In Fallon’s wake, I had sniffed freshly applied cologne. That’s what was wrong with that picture.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It’s a laird’s lug,” Maisie told me.

  Maisie and I lingered over our tea that morning after everyone else went on their way. Everyone, that is, except John Sinclair, who, according to Fallon, was no better. Maisie gave Fallon the home number of her own doctor and suggested she call soon because, it being a Saturday, the doctor would likely be “off fishing before long.”

  “What’s a laird’s lug?” I had told Maisie about opening the little door and finding the staircase, but I stopped short of admitting that I had actually climbed them to the top.

  “Lug. That’s a Scots word for ear, so a laird’s lug would be a laird’s, that is, a lord’s ear. It’s for eavesdropping, dinnae ye ken? But it’d be good if ye dinnae mention it to the other guests, because William likes to make a sort of game of it. When we have a houseful he’ll offer a prize to the first one who can find the laird’s lug. It’s fun. Ye’ll see folks snoopin’ around lookin’ for God knows what.”

  I chuckled. “William loves this house, doesn’t he?”

  “Oh, aye. Well, it’s where he belongs, inn’t it?” Maisie went to the kitchen door and gave Christine some clean-up instructions. When she returned to our table, she said, “It’s hard to keep a place like this going, nowadays, what with taxes and everythin’ bein’ so high. But I knew that when I married him, din’t I? I knew it’d be farmin’ and cleanin’ and work, work, work.

&
nbsp; “It’s been clo the wiKfew times. Times I was sure we’d be losin’ the place, but William’s always managed to come up with enough to get us by. His family, ye ken, they’ve lived here nearly two centuries.”

  “Did you know William’s parents?”

  “I recall his father. William and I began seein’ each other when we were mere bairns. In our teens. But old Roger, he scared me. Reminded me of a great bear. Always grumblin’. I wonder sometimes if he’d approve of me and William marryin’. Even noo, when I walk by that big portrait of him, ye ken, I give him a wide berth.”

  “You feel like he’s going to reach out and slap you?” I asked, grinning.

  “Somethin’ like that.”

  “What were William and John like when they were young?”

  “Ahh.” Maisie looked toward the ceiling. “As different as ye see them today! William was the athlete, the outdoorsman, a Highlander through and through. Never much of a scholar, but he made a real name for himself in the Highland games. The hammer throw, tossing the caber.

  “But noo John, he was aye the bookish one. Thought the Highland folk were backward, ye ken? He’s softened up a good bit as he’s gotten older, but when he was a lad, most folk around here thought he was a snob.”

  “How old were they when their father died?” I tried to remember if William had told me.

  “When William was aboot twenty-one, I guess. John was away for his first year at Oxford.”

  “What did he die of?”

  “Oh, he killed himself, I fear.” Maisie lowered her gaze to the table, and I felt sorry I had asked so bluntly.

  “Roger married another woman after William and John’s mother died, didn’t he? They had a stepmother for a while.”

  “Becky. Aye. Becky was a high-class woman from London. A society dame, dinnae ye ken?” Maisie slapped her hand behind her head in imitation of a high-class woman. “She tried to turn this old castle into Buckingham Palace, North. Cars in and oot all the time, parties that went on for days, but at least there was no unemployment aboot because all the locals were on staff here!”

  “Did she and Roger get along?”

  “Like oil and water!”

  “What about the boys? Did they get along with their stepmother?”

  Maisie didn’t actually answer, but she shrugged in a sort of so-so way.

  “And what did she die of?”

  “Ohh, she killed herself, din’t she?”

  * * * * *

  Robbie MacBane was hand-feeding his coos as I tramped up to his house. Coo is the Scottish pronunciation of cow, and the adorable shaggy-haired Highland cows are locally referred to as “Heelan coos.” If there is anything cuter than a Heelan coo, it’s a Heelan calf. I ripped up a clump of grass and strolled over to join them at the fence.

  “May I feed them, too?” I asked.

  Robbie’s head jerked around at the sound of my voice, but he merely grunted.

  “Can the little one eat grass ye Ht?” I betrayed my ignorance of cows with that question.

  “He can eat whatever he likes.”

  Robbie wore denim overalls and heavy work boots this morning; quite a change from his tuxedo. The adult cow, the calf’s mother, I assumed, nuzzled Robbie’s hand with her big, soft nose. Through the mop of hair cascading over her horns, brown eyes twinkled. Robbie grabbed another fistful of grass from our side of the fence.

  “Are Highland cows hard to raise?” I asked.

  “Nae.”

  “They look hardy. I guess they’re well-adapted to your harsh winters.”

  No answer.

  “How old is this little one?”

  “Four months.”

  I ran my hand through the mother’s mop of hair. I hadn’t realized before, how short the Highland cows are. Short legs, stocky body. The mother cow was only as high as my shoulder.

  “Is Van in his room this morning, or has he gone to the dig?”

  “He’s in his room,” Robbie said and bent over for more grass. “I’m sorry, Mrs. …”

  “Lamb. Dotsy Lamb.”

  “Right. Sorry I’m bein’ rude. I’m in a bad mood today.” Robbie rolled his words out as if he had a mouthful of marbles.

  “It’s perfectly okay. I’m sorry I intruded.”

  “Here’s why.” Robbie jerked a single sheet of paper, tri-folded like a letter, from his back pocket and handed it to me.

  It was on nice letterhead stationery, headed “Bobble, Bangle and Bede, Solicitors.”

  Dear Mr. MacBane,

  Our office has looked at the contract concerning rental of the property (here followed a technical description of a plot which I assumed was the same as the MacBane farmland) and, in light of the time that has passed since the original signing of the contract, we recommend that it be reviewed. A number of laws and ordinances which may or may not affect the validity of this contract have been enacted since the original was drawn up.

  Please contact us for an appointment at your earliest convenience.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t understand more than a few words of this. I flunked business law in college.” Which was a cop-out. I didn’t want to admit that William had already told me about the MacBane/Sinclair hundred-year-hundred pound-per-month contract. I handed the letter back to Robbie.

  “It means I may lose my let.”

  “Do you think it would be all right if I went up and spoke to Van?”

  “Aye, but give him a shout first. When a lady calls, he likes to put on clothes before he opens his door.”

  I stepped around to Van’s window and called up to him, then climbed the stairs to his room. The room looked much as it had on my last visit, except, I soon noticed, the mushrooms under inverted drinking glasses, which had been beside the binocular microscope on Froggy’s desk, were now gone.

  “What happened to the mushrooms?” I asked.

  “Police took them.”

  “Have you talked to them since yesterday?”

  “No, but I’m sure they’ll be in touch,” Van said with a note of heavy sarcasm.

  “Van, if I’m being too nosy, tell me so, but there’s this woman staying at the castle who keeps asking me about the finances of the dig. Of course, I know absolutely nothing about how the dig is financed, but she seems awfully curious about how much Dr. Sinclair is paying you and how much he was paying Froggy.”

  “What woman?”

  “Amelia Lipscomb.”

  “Never heard of her,” Van said, flopping back on his bed, his hands behind his neck.

  “She’s a TV reporter,” I explained. “You might have seen her on the news. She works for a Brighton station, I think.”

  “I’ve never been to Brighton.”

  “I forgot. You’re from Cambridge, aren’t you? Well, anyway, she questions how John Sinclair manages to pay you two enough for all this equipment.” I waved my hand around Van’s side of the room where electronics were stacked nearly to the ceiling. “All this and a room just to keep a record of the season’s work?”

  “Much more than that, Dotsy. Dr. Sinclair is giving me five thousand pounds plus this room and this equipment. The equipment is his, not mine. But he’s hired me to do more than a video record of the season. I’m putting together a very sophisticated presentation that includes topographic maps of the area, demographics, local tourist facilities, roads, and the dig site. He wants the history of the area so that it ties in with the Neolithic, the medieval, and the fifteenth-century stuff they’re finding. I’m putting in 3-D graphics, music, voice-over, the works. This is a big deal.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “I get the idea he wants something to present to, I don’t know, businessmen or something.”

  * * * * *

  As I left the MacBane house, Tony Marsh stopped his car and picked me up. The dig site lay ahead no more than a hundred yards, but I accepted the ride anyway. He pitched a stack of papers into the back so I could hollow out a nest to sit in amid the jackets, socks and CD cas
es remaining on the seat.

  “Have you seen John this morning?” I asked.

  “I dropped by his room to give him some papers, but Fallon said he didn’t feel like talking.”

  “He’s having a much worse time of it than the rest of us had.”

  “I’m not surprised. Food poisoning has to be fought off by one’s liver, and John’s liver is bound to be in terrible shape.”

  “He does drink a bit,” I said.

  “He’s an alcoholic. At least, he’s what I would call an alcoholic.”

  “So he wouldn’t be able to get rid of the poison as readily as the rest of us did.” Tony’s reasoning made sense to me.

  theNny turned off the road and stopped, his wheels straddling a mud puddle beside the big tent. He yanked the hand brake up. “Fallon told me that John …”

  At that moment, Hannah Dunbar and Graham Jones emerged from the tent. Hannah glanced toward the hood of our car, and then quickly turned, following Graham toward the toolshed.

  I looked at Tony. His expression had changed to one of—what was it? Pain? Regret? Yes, both of those, I thought. Neither Hannah nor Graham had looked straight at us, but it was as if Tony had been briefly transfixed.

  “Fallon told you what?” I prompted him.

  Tony snatched his keys from the ignition. “I lost my train of thought. Let’s check the bulletin board and see what brave deeds Graham has assigned you today.”

  The bulletin board said I was to work on the Neolithic campfire area. Tony and I walked toward the toolshed together, but he stopped short of going in. I wondered if it was because Graham and Hannah were in there. I, however, needed to go in and grab a trowel and bucket.