Did You Declare the Corpse?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “Isn’t he a wee dear?” Morag crooned, running to meet me and holding a tiny calico kitten up to her chin. The mother cat followed close underfoot. Morag bent to give her a pat, then dropped the kitten into the mother’s path. We watched as the mother picked it up by the scruff of the neck and carried it back to its siblings in a basket on the single step leading into the house.

  “Aren’t they dear wee things? Barbara would give me one, but Mum says no.” Morag’s lower lip jutted out in the universal symbol of children’s disapproval of adult decrees. “Granda says I could keep him in our rooms, but Mum says he’d be sure to get out. He wouldn’t, really he wouldn’t. And I’d do all the work.”

  I couldn’t tell if I was a practice audience for a later performance or being coached as a fellow supplicant on the kitten’s behalf. “You and your mother will have to work that out,” I told her. “Are you down feeding the animals today?”

  “Och, no, just visitin’. Barbara’s arthur-itis is bad.” Morag made it sound like a disease that sat at a round table. “I rubbed her poor swollen wrists with ointment and made the tea, so she wouldnae have to lift the kettle.”

  “I’m sure she’s glad to have you around.”

  “Would you like to come in and see her? I know she’d like some company. It’s lonesome so far from the village.”

  Had Barbara gotten so lonesome she’d decided to sell their land and move closer into town? That was a possibility. “Maybe I’ll just come in for a little while,” I agreed.

  As we got to the step I peered into the basket. “How many kittens are there?”

  “Four—no, three.” She peered up at me with an anxious expression. “Don’t talk to Barbara about how many there are, okay?”

  “Okay.” I nodded, wondering what had happened to the fourth kitten to make Morag so reluctant to have it discussed.

  Morag scooped up the calico kitten again, then led me into a chilly hall stretching from front to back of the house, with two closed doors on either side. But when she threw open a door on the left, the room inside was surprisingly warm and welcoming. A cheerful linoleum patterned in red, yellow, and brown lay on the floor while creamy walls rose above it to a border of scarlet poppies. A fat brown couch and two matching chairs sported bright quilts where dogs and cats could exercise their claws without damaging the suite, and a bright fire burned in the grate.

  Barbara sat in the chair nearest the fire with a West Highland white terrier on her lap. “Here’s somebody come to see you,” Morag chirruped. The dog gave a slight grrr, but made no effort to jump down.

  “I’ve been into the post office a couple of times,” I reminded my startled hostess. “And just now I was passing by and Morag invited me in. My name is MacLaren Yarbrough, and I’m staying up at Heather Glen.”

  “Aye.” By my second sentence she had already set down the dog, which curled nearer the fire, risen painfully to her feet, and hobbled toward the table, on which sat a metal teapot, two mugs picturing the Queen and Princess Anne, and a plate of store-bought cookies and two cold pancakes. “Will ye have a cup of tea and a biscuit?” she asked.

  Oh, these Scots with their overflowing teapots and endless biscuits and pancakes. I would be round as a pancake myself by the time I got back to Georgia.

  “Put the kitten back wi’ his mum and come help me,” Barbara instructed Morag, but with far less brusqueness than she used to address the rest of the world.

  As Morag complied, Barbara peered out at me from under her bushy brows and muttered, “The less said about those kittens today, the better. Have a seat, will ye?”

  I took a seat in one corner of the couch and put my hat and gloves beside me on a plump cushion as Morag came running back in and fetched a third mug—Prince Philip, this time. Barbara fixed all the cups alike: a dollop of milk, three small spoonfuls of sugar (the Scots routinely use what I think of as demitasse spoons in their sugar bowls), and a cupful of hot, strong tea. Morag passed them out, walking carefully and using both hands, then passed me the plate of cookies. When I took a chocolate one, she carried the plate back to the table.

  “Fetch the serviettes.” Barbara nodded toward a large kitchen dresser at the end of the room. Morag went with the uncertain look of somebody obeying a new order. She opened the drawer Barbara indicated by another nod, and brought out three small linen squares of tartan with a questioning look. “Aye, that’s right,” Barbara confirmed. “Pass them around, then.”

  Morag brought me one like a little priestess delivering a votive offering. The pattern looked familiar, but so many of the tartans are blue and green with only minor differences, I wondered if even Scots can tell them apart.

  While Barbara and Morag chose their own delicacies from the plate, I took the time to consider the house more closely, since it was the only Scottish home I was likely to visit.

  It was not unlike the big old farmhouse I’d grown up in—two rooms on each side up and down, with a long hall running from front to back between them and a single-story kitchen at the back. I wondered what influence Scottish architecture had in the design of what Southerners called “plantation plain” houses in the nineteenth century.

  This room stretched the entire depth of the house, its two doors into the hall indicating that it had once been two smaller rooms. Since Ian Geddys was a joiner, he presumably also knew how to un-join, if he desired. One unexpected touch was that the staircase went up at the back. Perhaps Ian had moved it when they’d installed central heating. That morning, however, as far as I could tell, the only heat came from the fire.

  In past years, how cold would that house have been on bitter mornings for whoever rose to make the fire? No wonder Barbara looked so old. I could not imagine a child of nine managing to clean and cook for a father and two brothers under those conditions.

  We chatted of this and that while we ate and drank. Mostly they asked me what it was like where I lived. I told them about my children and grandchildren and my dog and Joe Riddley’s scarlet macaw—Morag’s chief interest. Gradually I brought the conversation around to the land we owned and farmed.

  “I understand that a good bit of the land around here is yours,” I mentioned to Barbara.

  “Aye, but we’ve neither the inclination nor the equipment to go in for farmin’ on a grand scale. I put in a wee kitchen garden each spring, but my brother is a joiner, and I’ve worked at the post office nigh on forty years. I guess we never took to the idea of farming.”

  “We don’t farm our land either. We’ve put some of it into pine trees and our older son grows corn—what you call maize—and cotton on the rest. Just in the summer, though. He’s a schoolteacher in the wintertime, and his wife is a nurse.”

  “Did ye used to work, as well?” Morag took a dainty bite from her cookie, clearly enjoying her equal status in this grown-up tea party.

  “I still work,” I informed her. “I have two jobs. For one, I am a magistrate.”

  “Ye’re a judge?” I could tell I’d risen a notch in both of their books.

  “Yes, and my husband and I have a plant nursery that also sells seed and animal feed—not dog food, mind, but food for cows and horses.”

  “—And sheep,” Morag completed my list.

  “Actually, we don’t raise sheep where I live.”

  “No sheep in America?” She and Barbara both were clearly scandalized.

  Hoping to recover some national status, I assured them, “Oh, yes, some people raise sheep, but not where I live. We mostly raise cows, horses, and chickens.”

  “Probably too hot to need much wool,” Barbara told Morag softly. Morag nodded, but I couldn’t help feeling that they both pitied me a bit.

  “The biggest problem we have right now is people buying up farmland to either put houses on it, or things like resorts and golf courses,” I prattled on. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of perfectly good farmland that is no longer growing food.”

  “And what will ye eat when the farms are all gone?” Morag demanded,
a worried furrow on her brow beneath the fiery wisps of bangs. I’d wondered the very same thing.

  “They’ve no shortage of land,” Barbara echoed the developers. “It’s a very big country.”

  “I hear you’ve got a lot of land, too,” I said casually. “That must be unusual. The laird seems to own most of the land around the village.”

  “This was my granda’s farm, and his granda’s before him. But och, the laird’s a good neighbor, and he rents our fields for pasture.” She waved toward the window, and the sheep I could see grazing just beyond the drystone wall.

  I hadn’t found out a dadgum thing of any use, and it was getting to be time to leave, but I had a distressing problem. “Could I possibly use your toilet before I go back up the road?”

  Barbara didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. “Och aye. Morag, show her where.”

  The toilet was exactly that—a throne with a very cold seat, placed in a tiny unheated closet just off the kitchen, with no bathtub or place to wash your hands. I wondered how Barbara and Ian bathed. Could they possibly still use a tub in front of the fire?

  I returned to find Ian Geddys sitting sideways on a chair at the table, munching a cookie and swilling tea. He had not been given a dainty serviette.

  “And fa’s dat?” He jerked his head toward me, but spoke to Barbara.

  I managed to translate that into “who’s that?” while Barbara replied, “She’s one of the Americans stayin’ up at Heather Glen. She was oot for a wee walk and stopped in for a chat.”

  “She owns a store that sells animal feed and plants for houses,” Morag furthered his education. “And she’s a judge!”

  His eyes narrowed. “Ye were up wi’ the bobby yesterday, were ye no? After that mannie was found in the coffin he’d ordered?”

  I nodded.

  “And ye’re a judge?”

  I nodded again. “In America.”

  His features rearranged themselves into a ferocious frown. “Oot!” he ordered, pointing to the door. “Oot o’ this house. We dinna need ye pokin’ and pryin’ around here. Gie oot, noo. Oot! And tak that brat of a bairn wi’ ye!”

  Morag didn’t give me time to discuss the matter. She grabbed my hand and shrieked, “Run, or he’ll kill us! Run!”

  27

  Spurred by Morag’s terror, I pelted after her down the steps and along the walk to the road. She pulled me through the gate and along the drystone wall, both of us gasping for air. When we reached the place where the barbed wire began, I clutched a catch in my side and dragged her to a halt. “I’m too old to run like that,” I said crossly. “We didn’t have to run because he ordered me out of his house. It’s his sister’s house, too, and I didn’t even tell her goodbye. And I left my cap and gloves.”

  Tears poured down her cheeks and she grabbed my hand again. “He disnae like Americans. He knocks them down so hard they cannae get up. And they die.”

  “You’re having nightmares,” I told her.

  “No, I’m not. I saw him. I swear it. I saw him!” She was crying almost too hard for me to make out the words.

  I looked at her sharply. “When?”

  “Yesterday morning. I saw him! I did!”

  I was about to say “pshaw” or its equivalent when I saw Ian run out the front door. He scanned the road in both directions, and, when he saw us, loped toward the truck that stood just beyond the wall.

  Morag saw him, too. “He’s comin’ after us. Run!” She grabbed my hand and jerked.

  “We can’t outrun a truck. Quick, climb through to the pasture.”

  “He’ll catch us. He’ll catch us,” Morag screamed. “He can run faster than us both.”

  Her fear was contagious. I looked around for a weapon— I once attacked a wild man with a dead pine bough4—but there were no sticks or stones in that pasture large enough to hurt a grown man. “Dear God,” I moaned, wishing the child and I were both safe at home.

  Suddenly I heard a roar and saw the single headlight of a motorcycle coming up the road. “Help!” I called, stepping into its path and waving both arms.

  It fishtailed to a stop. “Are ye daft?” Roddy Lamont screamed. “I coulda killt ye!”

  “Take us to the police station,” I commanded. “And hurry. Ian Geddys may be after us.”

  “He wants to kill us.” Morag jumped up and down in panic.

  Roddy turned and looked over his shoulder to where Ian was backing his truck. I don’t know if it was our terror or the pure thrill of the chase, but he yelled, “Hop on, then, and hold tight. Here we go!”

  I jumped up behind him and dragged Morag up between us. I wrapped my arms around Roddy’s chest and pressed against the child. He kicked off, and we hurtled down the road.

  I had never ridden a motorcycle before, even with a helmet. The noise was deafening. I regretted leaving my hat and gloves at Barbara’s, for my hair would surely blow off my head and my fingers were growing numb with cold. My eyes would also probably be plastered to the back of my skull for life. I pressed my lips together, lest I swallow a bug, and after one look at the pavement hurtling past beneath our feet, couldn’t bear to look down again. I settled for closing my eyes, resting my cheek on Morag’s little head, and sending up wordless prayers.

  And yet, there was something wonderful and elemental about the ride. Nothing between us and the air rushing past, the sense of leaning into each curve and dip. For one crazy moment, I wanted to ride on forever.

  Then Roddy looked over his shoulder, shouted something I could not understand, and picked up his pace. Even without turning around, I felt Ian Geddys’s truck looming behind us. Now all I wanted was to reach safety alive. And I had to open my eyes. I did not want to die unaware.

  As we made the turn before the bridge, the bike leaned so far to the left that I expected us to slide into town on our shoulders. Instead, Roddy righted us and barreled past the post office as Ian’s truck squealed on the turn. When we passed Gilroy’s, I caught a glimpse of Watty’s startled face at the door.

  Beneath my chest, I felt Morag’s tense little body. I clutched Roddy tighter, to make sure she stayed on, and felt her squirm. Down through the village we roared, and up the brae. As we slid to a stop in front of the station, I saw Sergeant Murray and Constable Roy standing in their doorway, gaping like fish.

  “Are ye daft?” Sergeant Murray barked at Roddy as he straddled the bike and took off his helmet.

  I myself was so attached to that bike, I feared it would take a hydraulic jack to separate us. My legs refused to move. Then I turned and saw Ian’s truck so close it would surely hit us. In one galvanized leap I got myself and Morag both onto the sidewalk.

  “Help!” I said weakly as my knees collapsed.

  Ian screeched to a stop and slammed his truck door with enough force to shake the street. As he pounded toward the station, Sergeant Murray swept me up. “Get the child, Neil,” he ordered, and carried me in. By the time Constable Roy arrived with Morag, I was already deposited in the chair behind the desk and the sergeant was standing between me and the door.

  Morag crept to me and held me tight. I pulled her onto my lap and felt her trembling—or was that me? “Hush, hush,” I said softly. “We’re all right now.”

  Or were we?

  Ian strode into the station yelling oaths. “Fit’s the bairn tellin’ ye? It’s lies. All lies! Dinnae heed a word she says. She lies like a r-r-rug!”

  “Hold on,” Sergeant Murray said, lifting both his palms and pressing the air gently. “Nobody’s told us anything. They’ve just arrived.”

  Ian peered past the bobby and spied Morag and me behind the desk. “Ye’ll keep yer mouth shut, if ye know fit’s good for ye,” he yelled at Morag. “If ye tell lies aboot me, I’ll see tae it that ye—”

  “Hold on!” Sergeant Murray said again. This time his voice was stern. “I’ll nae have ye threatenin’ a bairn in my station or anywhere else. Do ye understand me?”

  Ian reached out to shove past him. “I’ll nae ha
ve her tellin’ tales on me, the wee sneak!”

  Next thing we knew, Roddy and Constable Roy had thrown themselves at him as one unit, had knocked him to the floor, and were sitting on him. “Scrum!” cried Roddy gleefully.

  “Cuff him,” the sergeant said. “Nae mair oot o’ ye, Ian, until I hear what these two have to say. And Roddy?” he added as Constable Roy clicked cuffs on Ian’s wrists.

  Roddy gave him a bland smile. “Aye?”