Call of the Clan

by Patti Wiggington

  "D'you know what I like the most about Mack Piper, missus?” she mused.

  I frowned, unsure where this was going. “Um, no. What do you like the most about Mack Piper?"

  "He's very spontaneous,” Much smiled. “Sometimes, like out o’ the blue, he'll show up with a wee handful of wildflowers for me. Or he'll sneak me a peck on the cheek when he thinks no one's watching. He's a passionate man, Mack is."

  I closed my eyes tightly, trying my best not to picture old Mack Piper and Mrs. Much in the throes of lust. I shuddered a little. “Passionate? Mack?"

  "Oh, aye,” she nodded. “Now my late husband, may God rest ‘is soul, wasn't like that at all. He was a good, dependable man, like young Muncaster.” Mrs. Much sighed. “But so help me, he was the most boring lover a girl ever had."

  I leapt to my feet and excused myself in a hurry.

  I had no problem with the idea that Mrs. Much, although in her late fifties, might still be entertaining the notion of a love life. But I didn't want the details, not details involving her dead husband, and definitely not details about the sexual prowess of old Mack Piper.

  Sunday was the final day of the Gathering, and all things considered, it went magnificently. Evan was well enough to come downstairs and join the rest of us in the celebration, and I decided to be extra nice to him. After all, he had helped Mrs. Much with my mattress before I even got out of bed. I was still a little worried about his mysterious illness of the day before, and I felt a bit contrite about the way I treated him lately.

  I spent the day eating, socializing, and eating some more. That night, Caitriona and her band took the stage for the ceilidh, which ran well into the wee hours of the morning. By the time I slithered downstairs the next day at noon, the fields were once again clear, the tents and campers packed up and gone. Kilgraeme was back to normal, or so it seemed on the outside. Council was scheduled again on Friday, Mrs. Much was busily puttering around and supervising the cleaning of the grounds, and the tenants were preparing their homes for the winter. I was amazed to learn that one of the Kerr boys actually made thatch roofs, and apparently I was paying him handsomely to work on some of the outbuildings.

  I still had no idea who had destroyed my room, and planned to call Michael Kerr and file a police report. Although I wanted to talk to Cayden about it, he had virtually disappeared once again. I planned to track him down soon though; something he'd said Saturday night had been gnawing at my mind.

  I wanted to see my father's grave.

  Trish cornered me Monday evening as I sat in the library, where I dug through the jumble of family records.

  "Mind if I come in?” she asked, leaning against the door frame.

  I glanced up. “Do I get a choice?"

  She frowned. “Come on, Brynne. I've come to make amends."

  "Why?” I asked bluntly. “Let's be honest. You don't like me, for whatever reasons, and I'm pretty sure I don't like you much either."

  Her blue eyes widened. “God, you're brutal. I didn't think you were capable of being quite so straightforward.” She smiled in appreciation. “Well, now that we've got it out in the open, you're right. I don't like you much."

  I waited. I was sure there was more.

  "On the other hand, I think you can help me, and I'm sure I can help you. So, as I said, I'm here to make amends so we can put our petty differences behind us."

  I stared at her. I didn't trust Trish, not as far as I could throw her, but my curiosity was piqued. “What exactly do you want?"

  Trish watched me speculatively. “Like I said, I need your help.” She paused for a moment, then made herself comfortable in one of the large leather chairs. She looked around the library. “You've cleaned up a lot in here. It's always been a mess."

  "Yes, well, I thought you'd been the one working in here in the past,” I pointed out.

  "Ah. Well, yeah,” she admitted. “Here's the thing, though. I don't give a happy shit about the Murrays or about Kilgraeme. I'm really not connected to them, except by marriage."

  I frowned, racking my brain for a nugget of family history. “Maggie Murray, right? She was a MacGregor before she married Colin Murray."

  "Good memory. She was a cousin of Rob Roy's."

  My knowledge of Scottish historical figures was rudimentary at best. “Okay, tell me about him. Wasn't he an outlaw of some sort?"

  She laughed. “Kind of, depending on your perspective. During the first Jacobite Rising, in 1715, there were a lot of different opinions on who ought to be king. I won't bore you with the details, but the MacGregors were one of several clans who supported James Edward as the rightful leader, instead of George of Hanover. Needless to say, by the time the rising was over, it was pretty apparent to everyone that the Jacobites were on the losing side. George got to keep the throne."

  I listened, fascinated. As much as I disliked Trish, she obviously knew a whole lot more than I did about history.

  "So while the rebellion was going on, Robert Ruaidh conducted a little personal war of his own. He was basically a landowner who kept himself busy harassing the Duke of Montrose, or the Duke of Argyll, sometimes both at the same time. He extorted protection money from the Duke's tenants, offering not to steal their cows in exchange for a payoff,” she grinned. “They kept having him arrested, but later on he claimed that he had actually been working for Argyll gathering intelligence. No one knows if that part is true or not, but it certainly could be. By 1722, Robert Ruaidh was about to be transported to the West Indies for his crimes, but somehow managed to get himself pardoned. He lived out the rest of his days peacefully, farming a patch of dirt in Balquiddher,” she finished.

  I blinked. “And?"

  "And what?” Trish asked innocently.

  "There must be more, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. You said you needed my help with something."

  She smiled her Cheshire-cat grin. “Treasure."

  I dropped the pencil I had been nibbling on. “Treasure?” What was it Caitriona had said about my father looking for buried loot?

  "Yep. I have every reason to believe that Rob Roy, aided by Colin Murray and his buddy Tom Spalding, stole a small fortune from the Duke of Montrose,” she said. “I want to find it."

  "What makes you think no one has unearthed it yet?” I asked. It seemed unlikely that a box of plundered gold could simply sit, unnoticed, for nearly three hundred years. This certainly explained why Trish spent so much time wandering about the moors alone.

  She shook her head. “We'd have heard about it, believe me. Look, Brynne,” she sighed, “I know you probably think I'm nuts. But Jamie thought there was treasure too. The two of us wandered all over Kilgraeme, looking for it. When he saw that torque in the Museum From Hell, the one old Ranald stumbled on, he was sure of it. He thought maybe Montrose had accumulated a variety of valuable stuff, gold and antiquities and whatnot, and that's what Colin Murray and Robert MacGregor had lifted."

  I nodded. “So what do you want from me?"

  She gestured around to the stacks of papers and books. “I need to figure out if anyone ever mentioned anything about it in the Murray family archives. Maybe a journal entry, or an innocent slip of the tongue...."

  "Or maybe a map, with a big red X marking the spot,” I said helpfully. Although common sense and past history told me she was probably full of shit, I had to admit I was intrigued.

  "There's no map, I already checked,” she said shortly. “I thought if we could go through all this rubble together, it would save me some time. And I can help you out as well."

  "How?"

  "I can help you piece together the Murray family history."

  I snorted. “I thought Evan had already paid you to do that."

  "Only your direct line of ancestry, back to Colin. I just thought you might be curious about the rest of them, that's all,” she shrugged.

  Something occurred to me then, and I began rummaging through the stacks. I had placed some of them in manila folders, according to the type
of documentation they were. I retrieved the family Bible from its place under some birth records.

  "Actually, you can help me with something, now that we're on speaking terms again,” I admitted, and handed her the book. “Look at these two entries here.” I pointed.

  "Lachlan, born June 20, 1727. Dugald, born June 21, 1727,” she read. Her eyes widened, and I saw that she had immediately reached the same conclusion that Cayden and I had when we saw it. “Something's not right,” she frowned. “It's common knowledge that they were twins, so once I found Dugald's birth date, I just assumed that Lachlan's was the same, and that Dugald must have been the older of the two. Shit. This kind of puts the whole thing into a new perspective, doesn't it?"

  "And so?” I prodded. It seemed to me that she must not be as thorough a genealogist as she claimed to be, if she couldn't even be bothered to check her facts.

  "How did Dugald inherit Kilgraeme?” she finished.

  "You tell me,” I suggested. I showed her the deed of sasine, signing rights to Kilgraeme over to S. Ludlow, and explained how Lachlan seemed to have disappeared from the records around 1758 or so.

  "There'd be a record of his death,” she mused. “He was the eldest son, and stood to inherit from Colin. There would have to be a record of his death before Dugald could become the Murray."

  "I would have thought so too. His sister Catharine died in 1758. Do you think maybe there was an outbreak of ... I don't know, typhoid or something and it killed both of them?” I suggested. “A fire, or maybe a carriage accident or something?"

  Trish squinted down at the Bible. “I'm not sure. I still think someone would have written down that Lachlan was dead. Well,” she brightened, “that gives us two puzzles to solve while we rummage through all this. Deal?"

  I sighed, momentarily wondering if I was signing away my soul to the Devil incarnate. Trish wasn't Satan, though. She was just sneaky. Knowing that I had to watch my back, maybe I could work with her after all. And so, as my brother Gil had predicted, I forged yet one more link in my Karmic Chain.

  "Deal,” I said.

  * * * *

  On Thursday morning, Evan and I were sitting in the office, trying to go over a number of things before Council was held the next day. Apparently it was the time of year when lots of things needed to be done, and we discussed the thatching of Kilgraeme's formidable roof.

  "Wouldn't it make more sense,” I asked, “if the thatching was done in the summer, before the rainy season starts?"

  Evan laughed. “There is no rainy season, Brynne. It's raining here all year long, except for about a fortnight in July."

  "All right, I'll give you that. What's next on your list?"

  He peered down at his notebook. “Christmas."

  I froze. “I assume you do celebrate it here?"

  "Aye, we do. And it's long been tradition for the Murray to go out to all the tenants’ homes and present them with a wee gift on Christmas afternoon."

  "How quaint. How many tenants are there?” I could never remember.

  "Thirty households, all told. About eighty adults and probably a hundred children."

  I closed my eyes. “Wait a minute. The math doesn't add up. How can there be eighty adults but only thirty households?"

  Evan smiled at me. “Because at Kilgraeme, they don't shuffle the old ones off to a nursing home like you do in the States,” he said gently.

  "Yikes, that stings,” I said, startled. “I'm pleased to say I personally have never shuffled an old person off anywhere, thank you very much."

  "Not you personally, I'm sure."

  "Okay, anyway. I have to give presents to almost two hundred people?” I was astonished. I could count the number of people I normally exchanged gifts with on two fingers. “How do I shop for two hundred people?"

  His eyes twinkled. Obviously he was enjoying this tremendously. “Well,” he said, “Ranald and Jamie used to have Mrs. Much go out and do it."

  I scowled. “Like she doesn't have enough to do. And what sort of gifts did everyone end up with?"

  He laughed. “Ties or mufflers for the men, lace hankies for the ladies, and all the children get a box of toffee."

  I groaned. “Every year? The same thing?"

  "Aye. I gather you've something else in mind, then?"

  "Mm.” I doodled on the desk calendar. I think I drew a Loch Ness monster, but it was impossible to tell. Gil says I'm artistically challenged. “Why not get everyone an individual gift?"

  Evan snorted. “How do you mean to do that for a hundred and eighty odd people?"

  "Well,” I said slowly, “it can't be that hard. I mean, I can't believe that Emily Much would really want a lace hankie. She'd probably want a CD, or makeup or something. And what about old Mack Piper? After ten years of ties and mufflers, he's got more than enough."

  He smiled. “You mean to do this, then?"

  I nodded, a little unsure of what I was getting myself into. “Yes,” I said firmly. “Get me a list of all the tenants, with their ages on it, and we'll see what we can come up with. Then we can go out shopping."

  "We?” Evan looked alarmed.

  "Oh, yeah,” I said with a grin. “I'll need your help for the guys. I mean, I have no idea what the Fleming boys or one of the Kerrs would want. What does a thirty-seven-year old man really need?"

  He laughed. “A thirty-three-year-old woman?"

  I paused. “Evan, I want to officially apologize for being a heartless bitch."

  He waved his hand dismissively. “No need. We've all been under a lot of stress lately. Say no more about it.” He reached out, took my hand, and kissed it gently. “Brynne, you mean a lot to me. And some day, if you'll have me, I'll ask you again to marry me."

  He still hadn't said it. Those three little words ... maybe he was just one of those people who couldn't. I myself had trouble saying it. In fact, the only person I had ever said it to, other than my parents, was Gil, and he was my brother. I pushed the negative thoughts from my mind, and looked down at Evan from my perch on the desk. “You're a hell of a nice guy, you know,” I said with a smile.

  He squeezed my fingers. “Thank you.” His eyes suddenly widened. “Not that I'm trying to change the subject, but I forgot to tell you. I got a call from Michael Kerr this morning.” Evan's voice was abruptly formal.

  "Michael Kerr? The policeman who was investigating Sandie's death?"

  "Aye, that he is. The DNA tests came back,” he said.

  "And?” The suspense was killing me.

  "It would appear,” he said slowly, “that Danny Beaton was not the one who was intimate with Sandie in the twenty-four hours before her death. Pair that up with Emily's alibi for him, and he's officially off the hook."

  "Oh!” I gasped. I thought about this for a minute. “Does that mean Danny's coming home?"

  Evan nodded. “Michael's processing his paperwork today, and he'll bring him back to Kilgraeme this evening. He's a free man. He'll be here in time for Council."

  I wondered if I should make a point of welcoming Danny back at Council, or if I should just keep silent and ignore the whole situation. Evan must have read my mind.

  "It might be nice,” he suggested, “if you, er, said something to sort of...."

  "Ease everyone's troubled minds so they don't think there's a psycho killer in their midst?” I finished.

  "Well, yes, to put it bluntly."

  Unfortunately, I didn't really know if Danny was innocent or not. All I knew was that Emily, who was pregnant with his child, was prepared to provide an alibi for him. I wondered if she might be willing to lie in order to keep her baby's father from going to prison.

  Kilgraeme was turning into its own afternoon talk show.

  "Do you believe Emily?” I asked cautiously. “About Danny being with her the night Sandie was killed?"

  He shrugged. “I suppose so. Both she and Danny are saying they were together, but of course there's no one to corroborate that, is there?"

  "No,” I admitted.
The lack of corroboration was why Danny sat in jail so long. “But Emily doesn't seem the type to protect a man who had murdered her best friend."

  "Well, remember that Sandie had a prior relationship with Danny, aye?” he pointed out.

  I groaned. This was all too complicated. I wished things were back to normal. I almost, not quite, but almost, wished I was back in Charleston with Gil.

  "All right,” I sighed. “Let's get to work on that Christmas list."

  Chapter Eighteen

  A few minutes before Council was due to begin, I prowled the halls of Kilgraeme looking for Cayden Spalding. As I expected, he was in the kitchen, scarfing down a large plate of eggs and bacon, as Mary Much hovered over him solicitously, offering him more biscuits and tea.

  "Where have you been lately?” I asked.

  He glanced up and brushed a stray red tangle from his eyes. “I'm fine, thanks, good of you to ask,” he growled, spearing a stray bannock with his fork.

  "Sorry. How are you?” I replied obediently.

  "Mmrph. Well enough. Are you ready for Council, then? Danny Beaton's back, did you know?"

  "So I heard. That's one of the things I wanted to ask you about. What do I say to him?"

  He snorted. “I wouldn't ask him where he's been lately, aye?"

  I swiped a piece of golden toast from the tray and covered it liberally in fresh butter. The butter was made here at Kilgraeme, by the Fleming boys and their cows. It was heavenly.

  "Mmmhmmm,” I moaned.

  Cayden raised an eyebrow. “Enjoying yourself?"

  "Oh, be quiet,” I snapped, licking butter daintily from my fingers. “What do I say about Danny? How would my father have handled it? I don't suppose there's really a precedent for how to welcome a man back after being accused of murder."

  A shadow flickered across his face. “Mmrph. Not in so many words, no."

  "There's not a whole lot you can say, is there?” put in Mrs. Much. “Other than how nice it is to see the lad back at Kilgraeme again, aye?"