Plaid and Plagiarism

by Molly Macrae

  At the best of times her handwriting wasn’t dainty. Now she was running out of legible margin space, and the last three one-word questions were engraved in the paper. The bell on the door jingled, saving her from the embarrassment of adding one last question mark and drilling a hole through the paper.

  The woman who came in smiled pleasantly—perhaps more pleasantly than an ordinary customer. Janet returned the smile. Without hesitation, the woman came straight for her. Aha, Janet thought, selling something. She folded the notes and stuck them back in her pocket, and prepared to be buttered up to within an inch of her bank account.

  “Welcome to Inversgail,” the woman said in fluting voice. She held out her hand. Janet took it and was surprised when the woman added her left hand to the clasp. “May I say how wonderful it is to have you here. New blood is an immeasurable joy.”

  The woman completely engulfing her right hand sounded as though she might have been fresh blood in Inversgail at some point, too. Her accent was more Lowland than Highland, but Janet’s ear for regional accents was rusty. “Thank you. I’m Janet Marsh.”

  “Sharon Davis. Fellow librarian.”

  Janet reclaimed her hand, wondering if she’d misjudged the woman. Maybe she wasn’t selling anything; maybe she was just starved for the company of librarians. She looked safe enough—somewhere around fifty; hair going naturally from blond to gray in a stylishly short cut; comfortably padded rather than spare; about her own height; carrying a canvas bag from the Scottish Library and Information Council over her shoulder. Most reassuring, Janet didn’t detect the jittery eyes or the sweaty palms she’d learned to recognize during interactions with some of her more “unsettling” library patrons.

  “Between the Internet and the talk one hears in the shops, there aren’t many secrets left in the world, are there?” Sharon turned when the bell at the door jingled. “Nice to see you out and about, James,” she said. “A shame about—”

  James, in crooked tie and trousers bagging at the knees, nodded once and limped over to the display of new arrivals.

  “James is a fiddler,” Sharon said. “Quite good, only he took a tumble off the stage at a ceilidh last week.”

  “Carried away by the music in my soul,” James said, limping over to the desk. He gave Janet a nod that was neither unpleasant nor pleasant and paid for the latest Ann Cleeves crime novel. “Norman Hobbs says you don’t know anything more about the murder than what’s in the reports.” James had the eyes of an overworked, or possibly hungover, sheepdog.

  “Constable Hobbs is right,” Janet said.

  “He often is. Stick to that, then. My advice, for what it’s worth.” He nodded again, took his book, and limped out. Janet stared after him.

  “He’ll be hurting over Una Graham,” Sharon said.

  “Ah.” Did that explain the odd conversation? Janet wasn’t sure.

  “Of course, you know she’s the one who . . . in your house?”

  “The shed, not the house,” Janet said. “Were she and James close?”

  Sharon shook her head. “Not in that way. She wrote for the Guardian. James Haviland is the editor.”

  “Oh. Oh.” Janet’s second “oh” trailed off into a note several registers lower, and questions, like a cloud of biting midges, swarmed her head. Had he come in on purpose to look at her? To see what kind of person owned a garden shed where prized employees could be murdered? Of course he had. So was he going to write a scathing article for the Guardian, filled with flights of baloney because she couldn’t give him facts? Even worse, what if the Guardian’s story was picked up? Was she going to be hounded by a full onslaught of the British press? Great day in the morning, as her father used to say. Was her idyllic Scottish retirement about to descend into a nightmarish hell?

  “Oh,” she said, again, when a different thought flew at her. Have I just missed a great chance to pry information about Una from James Haviland? She was about to bat that last thought away as opportunistic and unfeeling, when another “Oh” escaped her. She hadn’t expected to see the brightness of unshed tears in Sharon Davis’s eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she rushed to say. “I didn’t even think about how Una’s death might have affected you.”

  Sharon touched two fingers to the bridge of her nose, head slightly bowed. The strains of “Loch Lomond” descended from the speakers near the ceiling, as though drifting down from the high road. Janet took that as an omen and ventured another consoling remark.

  “I didn’t know Una well myself, but I’m sure there are many people in the community saddened by her death.” She hoped that sounded suitable and appropriate—it was certainly better than another “Oh.” She also couldn’t help thinking that sentiment might prompt Sharon to tell her who in Inversgail was saddened by Una’s death. Not that she was after gossip. Information was the more accurate term. And who better to get information from than an information specialist—a fellow librarian? But her fellow wasn’t following through. She tried one more nudge. “It was such a senseless act of violence.”

  Sharon’s shoulders rose and fell with the breath she took, her head still bowed, and her fingers still on the bridge of her nose. “We were friendly more than we were friends, if you know what I mean. But all the same, it’s hard.”

  “I know, I know.” Janet located the box of tissues again and moved it closer. Sharon shook her head and looked up.

  “Thank you. I really am all right. But I should tell you why I’m here, and then not keep you from your business any longer.”

  Asking for something rather than selling? Janet prepared herself to be firm if she needed to be. “What can I do to help?” she asked. Not the kind of firm I meant, she thought.

  “Have you heard of the Inversgail Literary Festival? A silly question, really, because of course you will have. You’re in the book business.”

  “I’ve been hearing and reading about it for years,” Janet said. “I’m looking forward to finally being here for it. Pamela and Kenneth told us that books for the author signings were ordered weeks ago. They passed the paperwork along to us, and we expect them”—Janet quickly leafed through notes next to the cash register—“Friday, possibly Monday, and that should still give us time to make changes. Are there any?”

  “Not as far as I know, but I’ll get back to you on that. No, the reason I popped round to see you is that we need a judge for the writing contest. Short notice, I know, but I rather hoped I might prevail upon you, as someone who knows books and who takes a keen interest in good literature, to join our small committee.”

  “Oh.” Dratted word. “That’s . . . quite an honor.” And you must be scraping the barrel, if you’re asking a virtual stranger, Janet thought.

  “We’re the ones who’d be honored by your participation. I know you’ve got your hands full with the shop and settling in, but there isn’t much involved. It’s simply a matter of reading and scoring the entries, and then choosing and awarding the winners. I always look on it as a labor of love.”

  “You don’t think someone with more longevity in the community, or familiarity with it, might be a better choice?”

  “No.”

  Janet raised her eyebrows at the strength and alacrity of Sharon’s answer.

  Sharon darted a few surreptitious looks over each shoulder, then leaned closer and asked, “Are there customers browsing?”

  “Not at the moment.” Janet didn’t think that Pamela consoling herself with kittens and fairies in picture books counted as a browsing customer.

  “Close to home hasn’t always worked,” Sharon said. “For various reasons.” Her eyebrows drew together, hinting at the seriousness of those reasons.

  Janet would have loved to hear what the reasons were, for reasons of her own, but the bell over the door jingled again. A trio of hikers tramped in and asked if they could shed their rucksacks somewhere. That wasn’t a topic Pamela or Kenneth had touched on, though Janet imagined it might be a frequent request. It was certainly a reasonable one. She didn’t like
the idea of damp or wet gear dripping on or near the books. Then she had a brainstorm. She excused herself to Sharon Davis and went to unlock the door to the tearoom space. She let them know the tearoom would be open for business in another two weeks. They thanked her and said they’d make a point of stopping in when they came back to Inversgail for the festival.

  On her return trip to the desk, Janet passed Pamela looking comfortable in one of the overstuffed chairs near the picture books. She appeared to be nodding over a copy of The Tobermory Cat. At the desk, Sharon was deep in conversation with another customer—Maida Fairlie, mother-in-law to Janet’s son, Allen.

  “Maida! It’s been too long. It’s so good to see you.” Janet sounded overly effusive, but she didn’t care. She hoped her gush would make up for not being in touch before now. Though they’d never been great friends—friendly more than friends, as Sharon had put it—Maida was one of the first people Janet had met in Inversgail all those years ago. Janet often came away from conversations with Maida feeling as though she’d been tested. Not by Maida, so much. Maida seemed to enjoy hearing about life in central Illinois, and Maida and her husband had given Allen their blessings to marry Nicola, their only child. But it was always clear to Janet that looking over Maida’s shoulders was a long line of sober, solemn, and Sabbath-keeping ancestors, clucking their tongues, even though they’d been buried in the kirkyard for centuries.

  “I’ll have a look round the shop,” Sharon said, “and leave you two to chat. I’ll catch you again before I’m away, Janet.” Sharon squeezed past one of the hikers engrossed in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Tartan and disappeared into the aisle with the gardening books.

  “The grandboys send their love,” Janet said to Maida. “We flew into Edinburgh and stayed with them for a few days before coming here.”

  “Nicola told me.”

  “I can’t believe how much they’ve grown in the few months since we came to sign our lives away into this book business. Freddy started calling me Nana Jana, and Wally immediately changed it to Banana Jana, and they laughed until they had the hiccups. I loved every minute of their silliness. But look at you, Maida; you haven’t changed a bit in five years.”

  “Away with you,” Maida said. “It’s just that I’m wearing my same old coat.” She looked down at the dark gray cloth, darker because of the rain, and flapped the hem. “And it’s more like five and a half years.”

  “Where do the years go? And the time—I’m sorry I didn’t call you when we were here signing the papers. We were in and out like a boomerang. But oh, I’ve been so jealous of you.”

  “Jealous of me?” Maida took a step back. “Whatever for?”

  “Living a whole ocean closer to those boys. Do you know what I did the morning after Freddy was born? I sat at my kitchen table there in Illinois, and I started thinking about how many more times in my life I might be lucky enough to see my grandchildren. How many more times I would hold my grandchildren. I did the math, Maida. If I was lucky enough that I could make the trip to Edinburgh once or twice a year, and if I could keep that up until I was in my eighties—”

  “Or they might fly to see you.”

  “True. But it’s more expensive for four to fly and more difficult with children. But suppose they made the trip every other year, even then I might see them only twenty more times. Thirty times, tops. That’s if I was lucky. And that wasn’t going to be enough and it wasn’t acceptable.”

  “And if your daughter goes back to America? Surely she’ll have a lovely big wedding someday. What if you have other grandchildren there? What will happen then? How does she feel about all this?”

  “She’s the one who found the ‘for sale’ notice,” Janet said. “As for the big wedding—she’s been there and done that, as the saying goes, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Poor wee thing.”

  “Tallie?” Janet almost laughed; then she peered at Maida, sure the solemn, sober ancestors must be jockeying for position in the gloaming she seemed to be carrying with her this morning. “Sometimes these things work out for the best. Tallie’s very happy. Frankly, so is her ex.”

  “Well, that’s all right, then.”

  Janet was tempted to dig beneath Maida’s response for a less agreeable meaning, but decided to take it at face value. Why project her penchant for sarcasm onto what might be an innocent comment? Because Maida was right; it had been five and a half years since they’d seen each other. Five and a half years since the occasion of Allen and Nicola’s almost wedding. What a surprise that had been. In the midst of all the grand wedding plans and transatlantic excitement, the two had snuck off and eloped. Utterly romantic, Tallie had said, and so much less stressful. It had happened around the time Janet had been blindsided by Curtis. He’d snuck off, too. But his defection was absolutely not romantic. The rat.

  Janet relaxed her grip on the pen she’d picked up and glanced quickly for nearby customers. “Of course you’ve heard about Una Graham?”

  “Wickedness, pure and simple,” Maida said. “But Inversgail’s not the wee, quiet town you remember. There’s all kind of people stopping through, these days. Some are staying, and more every year. And this festival brings that many more, and so many odd ones, you’d think it was part of the festival fringe from Edinburgh.”

  Janet immediately pictured a phalanx of unicycles ridden down the High Street by poets with multicolored mohawks and multi-pierced body parts, some spouting Burns and McGonagall, others blowing flames out of bagpipes. She hadn’t heard about that aspect of the literary festival. “Really?” she asked Maida.

  “Well, perhaps not quite that bad.” A dimple in Maida’s cheek betrayed the unsmiling ancestors. “Or not yet.”

  Janet laughed, but judging from Maida’s flustered reaction, maybe the last word had come from the ancestors and hadn’t been Maida’s comic timing. To smooth the awkward moment, Janet spread her arms wide. “How do I look, Maida? Like a bookseller?”

  “I’m sure you do. I shouldn’t be taking up any more of your time. I just came by to see that you’re settling in and to ask if you’d like a cat for the rats.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The rats.”

  “What rats, Maida?”

  “Did Jess not tell you?”

  Janet looked at the pen she was still holding; she was wringing its neck. “No. She didn’t. What rats, where?”

  “Och, well. The renters had a terrible time with them, or so I heard. The rats in your house.”

  8

  There was no point in jumping up onto the sales desk. If the rats were in her house, they weren’t going to bite her ankles here at the bookshop. Janet did wish that Maida’s voice hadn’t risen each time she’d said “rats,” though. Now one of the hikers looked nervous.

  Janet wanted, very badly, to call Jess Baillie—to ask her about the rats, to find out what else might be wrong in the house, and to find out what Jess was going to do about all of it. But there was no time. The three hikers were ready to make their purchases and reclaim their backpacks. Janet thanked Maida for the offer of a cat and said she’d think about it. Actually, the idea of asking a cat to face a horde of rats within the confines of her house gave her the willies. Maida waved and left, looking somewhat less ancestrally haunted. Janet allowed herself the sour thought that a plague of rats suited their sensibilities.

  The nervous hiker cast uneasy glances as he paid for a collection of short stories by Janice Galloway and a Loch Ness coloring book. “Rats?” he asked with a squeak he tried to cover with a cough.

  “A rumor of rats, elsewhere,” Janet said. “Not here.”

  “Told you,” one of the other hikers said. “And my nose told you. There’s no stink of rats here.”

  “Thank you,” Janet said.

  “We’ll stop back for tea in a fortnight,” the hiker with the nose said. “Unless we’re savaged by wild haggis in the hills.”

  The third hiker made a noise between a cow’s moo and an elk’s bugle in the
nervous hiker’s ear. The three left laughing, and Sharon Davis came back to the sales desk.

  “I’ve always loved the fireplace in this old building. It’s a cozy touch. I wish they’d made room for one or that we could add one at the library.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting so long,” Janet said.

  Sharon put the back of her hand to her forehead. “Spending time in a bookshop, oh, the trials I endure. Don’t worry. I’ll count it as work time. I found several new books we don’t have in the collection.” She tipped her head. “Will you be offering a discount to the library for the occasional purchase?”

  “Has the shop offered one in the past?” Another point the Lawries hadn’t covered and Janet hadn’t thought to ask about.

  Sharon started to nod, but stopped, and a slight flush crept up her cheeks. “No.”

  “I would have thought, as a courtesy—”

  “Suffice to say I won’t be the only one in Inversgail welcoming new owners and new policies to Yon Bonnie Books.” Sharon spoke softly, but even so, she made Janet uneasy. Surely she’d seen Pamela sitting by the picture books? But Pamela had been nodding; maybe she’d fallen sound asleep with the book over her face? Surely not.

  “Back to my reason for coming, though,” Sharon said, “and then I’ll leave you in peace. The bookshop has been a beloved part of Inversgail since Colonel Farquhar first put books on the shelves and opened the doors in 1918. Your professional background and your standing in the community as the new owner of Yon Bonnie Books make you the perfect person to join the committee of judges.”

  Janet didn’t think she merited a place on the same pedestal as, or even one next to, Colonel Farquhar. She’d caught a glimpse of him, at a celebration of his hundredth birthday, during one of their first summers in Inversgail. Even tucked into an old-fashioned bath chair with a plaid blanket over his knees, he gave the impression of standing at attention. Not to mention she wouldn’t like a pedestal; she didn’t like standing at the edge of any high place. But she understood the wisdom of choosing an impartial outsider and moved on to her next question. “How many entries are we talking about?”