Of Books and Bagpipes

by Paige Shelton

  None of us told her that Elias and I had been the ones to find her son’s body. I was relieved; she might have other questions that I didn’t feel adequate to answer at the moment.

  Rosie patted Fiona’s hand and nodded sympathetically. “I wish I could say something that would help.”

  “Fiona,” I said, “I’m sorry to even ask, but have the police told you if there was foul play involved?”

  She nodded. “Yes, he was murdered. Their words were ‘cause of death was a blunt instrument to the head.’ They’re investigating. But that’s why I’m here. I mean, well, I guess I mean what I already said. I just need to talk to Edwin. I wonder about Gordon and Leith too. Were their deaths really an accident or is there something the police missed? I just need to talk to Edwin.”

  “What information would he have that might help you?” I asked.

  “It’s too difficult to explain, so much history, but Edwin will understand.”

  “Did you tell that to the police?” I asked.

  She blinked. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to talk to Edwin first.” She lifted a tissue to her nose and dotted its corners.

  Fiona fell into her thoughts for a moment, but then her eyes locked onto the books on the shelf across the room. Her sad, somewhat bewildered expression hardened.

  “Books,” Fiona said with a huff. “They were such a big part of our lives. Oh, I suppose that’s a stupid thing to say. There’s not a life that isn’t somehow touched by books, is there?” She stood.

  Rosie, Hamlet, and I looked at each other before we stood too. The space wasn’t big, so even if we hadn’t wanted to we all stayed close to her as she faced the books and ran her finger across a middle row.

  She turned and faced us. “They were all writers back then. Did you know that?”

  We shook our heads.

  “No, Edwin never mentioned that he held any interest in writing,” Rosie said, her tone full of genuine surprise.

  “What did they write?” I asked.

  “Everything. They met when they were part of the university newspaper.”

  “Edwin, a reporter?” I said. More perplexing was that Gordon had been a reporter, but that was unfair and judgmental.

  “Aye,” she said with a smile. “They wrote news stories, short fiction stories, other silly things too. I believe they tried a novel once. They were very talented.” Her smile faded. “When they worked together. They weren’t as talented when they worked apart. It was sad actually, how they couldn’t function as well as individuals as in a group.”

  “Was it … fun?” I said.

  “It was … perfection. Until it wasn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Not really,” she said. She smiled sadly at me. “We all knew Edwin had money, and we all knew he’d open a bookshop someday. It was a good day for him when this became real. This is my first time in the shop. It’s lovely.”

  She was a contradiction. She spoke kindly of Edwin, but she hadn’t seen him for years. She wanted to see him for reasons she wouldn’t tell us. Whatever fallout had occurred, she’d either forgiven him or now needed some answers and was willing to overlook any remaining bad feelings. Or Hamlet’s intuition was correct and there was reason to be suspicious of this elegant woman who’d just lost her son.

  I listened for the bookish voices.

  I heard something, but the words I heard were garbled, as if more than one voice was speaking at a time. Confusion. Even my subconscious was getting mixed signals.

  “What did Edwin do before he had the shop?” I asked before anyone had a chance to notice I’d checked out for an instant. “What did your husband do? Their friend, Leith?”

  “Edwin traveled the world for a while. Gordon became an accountant, and Leith opened a pub.”

  “Aye, Edwin traveled,” Rosie added.

  “And then opened the shop?” I asked.

  “I believe so,” Rosie said.

  Hector had been following close at my heel. He whined and I picked him up.

  The front door opened and we all turned toward it.

  “Goodness, it’s cold out there,” Edwin said after he made sure the door had shut behind him.

  He stood a moment and gave a cautious glance to the back corner of the shop. If he’d worn a hat, he’d have held it in front of himself, like an unsure suitor. This was the first time I’d witnessed a look of youthful uncertainty on his face.

  A moment later, though, his air of confidence and caring returned and he said, “Fiona, I’m so sorry about Billy, so very sorry.”

  They closed the space between them and Edwin pulled her close as she began to cry quietly into his shoulder.

  I listened for my bookish voices again, and got only silence this time. I looked at Hamlet but couldn’t read what he was thinking.

  “Come along. Please come with me tae my office. We’ll talk there,” Edwin said.

  The rest of us watched Edwin guide Fiona up the stairs and over to the dark side.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way to eavesdrop?” I said when the far door clicked shut behind them.

  Hamlet smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “I wish,” Rosie said. “I’m sairy for the lass, but I’d like tae hear what she has tae say tae Edwin. I dinnae trust her as far as I could throw her, and I really do think we need tae talk tae Edwin aboot letting the police know about Gordon.”

  “I agree,” Hamlet said.

  “Let’s talk to Edwin later,” I said.

  “Aye,” they said together.

  I retrieved my bag from behind the front desk. It seemed heavier, but that was probably my imagination. I also grabbed the pauchie with the newly acquired books.

  “Let us know if you hear anything,” Hamlet said as he stepped toward the back table and his current project.

  “Aye,” Rosie added.

  “I will,” I said. “What are you thinking, Rosie?”

  “I dinnae ken, so many things, I suppose,” Rosie said. “But something’s agley.”

  “Awry.” Hamlet added the translation from the back corner.

  I nodded before I made my way up the stairs. After I went through the door, I stopped briefly on the landing to see if I could hear anything from Edwin’s office. I didn’t even hear muffled sounds. His door was shut tight.

  I knew I wouldn’t hear anything from the warehouse as I went through its red door and locked it behind me, but I’d sure make an effort to listen extra hard.

  EIGHT

  Once I was locked behind my own red door and had confirmed that I wouldn’t be able to hear anything from Edwin’s office, I lost myself in my own world. It was easy to do, and the way I worked best.

  I knew I needed to give attention to real work tasks first so I placed the books on the desk. It didn’t take long to confirm they were all in extraordinary condition, and unquestionably first editions. I also confirmed that they were all fairly valuable, but that the MacDiarmids were the most valuable, and would probably garner a few thousand dollars each. I was curious about both of the authors, their lives and adventures, but I decided to research them at a later time.

  Before I told Hamlet to spread the word that they were available, I would check with Edwin about whether he wanted to put them for sale in the shop, sell them in a Fleshmarket Batch auction, or perhaps donate them to a library. He donated more books than he sold, but that was one of the secrets he’d asked me to keep. One of the good secrets.

  The Fleshmarket auctions were gatherings with a secret group that Edwin had been a part of for years, and the items put up for auction were usually extremely valuable. Some books were bought and sold by the group, but I doubted the ones currently on my desk would go that way; they weren’t worth quite enough. Edwin had told me I could make the decisions as to whether to donate or sell, but I still wanted to consult with him first, particularly if he was in the shop.

  After I made sure the books were safely stored in
a bottom drawer of the desk, I pulled out my phone, scrolled to the pictures of the dirk, woke up my computer, and Googled.

  Dirks became the weapon of choice for Scottish Highlanders sometime in the 1600s. William Wallace had definitely used a broadsword, but I couldn’t let go of the idea that the dirk had something to do with Billy Armstrong.

  Dirks wouldn’t have been used in Wallace’s time in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and Billy’s clothes, the leggings, and the tunic-like shirt were authentic representations of the time period, at least from what I knew and what Edwin had told me. Billy wouldn’t have been allowed to carry a broadsword to Castle Doune. Had he thought he needed a weapon, something less conspicuous? He might have dropped the dirk before he could use it, or the killer had snuck up on him.

  I knew of tests that could be done on both the wooden handle and the metal blade to determine its age, but I didn’t have the equipment. I didn’t know what the police could do to determine its history but I had taken many close-up pictures of the handle and the blade.

  Maybe there was another way.

  Another few keystrokes later, I found “The National Museum of Scotland.” It wasn’t far from Grassmarket and I’d already made a friend there who worked Saturdays. I clicked through to confirm the museum hours and made a plan for tomorrow.

  I didn’t work Saturdays, unless I wanted to. I usually wanted to, but maybe it would be okay to take at least part of this Saturday off. Maybe Elias’s cab would be available.

  I remembered that he was dropping by late this afternoon, and I promised I’d have a book ready for him to give to Aggie for her birthday. I wondered briefly if he’d be available today too as I returned to Google.

  I started with “Fiona Armstrong, Scotland.” I found two immediately; one a teacher in a local primary school academy, the other a member of a punk rock band that had a gig tonight in Glasgow. I found a few others as I went through the first available pages, but I didn’t find anyone matching the Fiona Armstrong I’d met earlier today.

  Per the business card that we’d found with the dirk, I then searched for “Grizel Sheehy, Bagpipes, Scotland” and got a hit immediately. A link to her shop came up first thing and I clicked through.

  A picture of the front of the small shop with Grizel next to the window filled the home page. Probably in her late thirties, she wore her hair big and bleached and her lipstick bright red.

  “Not the look I think of when bagpipes come to mind,” I said to myself. “But Grizel does it well.”

  As I read quickly through the site, I learned that bagpipes had been a part of Grizel’s family’s life for a long time. Since the late eighteenth century, her ancestors had made, sold, and/or played bagpipes. I decided she was particularly talented when, after clicking on a video of her playing “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond,” I teared up.

  I concluded that she seemed fun, like someone who would be the life of the party but mature enough to make sure everyone got home okay. If he had the time I was sure Elias would drive me by the shop.

  I glanced at my watch. It was already after four. As usual, while inside the warehouse I’d lost track of the passing hours. I powered down the computer and gave the big room my habitual all-over inspection as I stood at the door. I switched off the light and made sure the door was locked before I headed back over to the other side to talk to Rosie and Hamlet, and hopefully Edwin.

  I climbed the stairs and hesitated on the top landing. I still couldn’t hear anything from Edwin’s office. Though I doubted they were still there, I tiptoed down the hallway just to see.

  The office door was wide open, and there was no one inside. The light had been switched off, but I couldn’t resist switching it back on.

  I stood in the doorway and peered into the small room. Edwin had often commented that his office was always open to us.

  To be fair, he didn’t keep much inside it. The warehouse used to be his office. When he gave me the space, he took only a container full of pencils and a couple notebooks with him, and still spent plenty of time with me and all his things inside the secret room.

  I would never rummage around in the drawers of someone else’s desk, but as I glanced inside I hoped to see some remnant of the conversation he’d had with Fiona. There was nothing of course, but I couldn’t help a quick, closer check for some clues. I stepped inside.

  The ever-present container of pencils was on the corner of the desk, but there was also something I hadn’t noticed before: a diploma on the floor against the wall. Hadn’t he been leaning in that direction when I’d followed him to his office the day before? Had he been looking at it? Where had it been before then?

  Half of the frame was hidden behind a low file cabinet. I stepped closer and crouched.

  I pulled out the dusty frame and held it so I could read the details. It looked as if Edwin had earned a bachelor of science in biology. I smiled as I thumbed off a dusty corner of the glass. I should have known he’d chosen to become educated in something he wouldn’t need in order to own and run a bookshop. Maybe he’d planned on doing something scientific, but I didn’t think so. He probably just wanted to get the degree.

  If I’d just looked over the diploma as it sat on the floor I might never have noticed the small sticker at the bottom right corner on the glass. I had to angle the glass and hold it closer to read the raised embroidered letters on the sticker. “SP” on one line, “EC” below it. That was all there was. Red letters over a gold background. It was off-kilter, giving me the impression that it was unofficial and didn’t have anything to do with the diploma itself. It struck me as something he’d put there because he had the sticker and just wanted to stick it onto something.

  But the letters must have some meaning.

  “Hmm.” I pulled out my phone and snapped some pictures of the diploma and sticker. I knew a few people I could ask, including Edwin if he were still around. He wouldn’t care that I’d looked at the diploma. I didn’t think so, at least.

  I replaced the frame just as my phone buzzed.

  “Elias,” I answered. “I’m on my way back around.”

  “Aye. ’Tis cauld oot here.”

  I didn’t disconnect as I hurried toward and down the shop side’s stairs. Was the front door locked? Most of the lights in the shop were off, but a lamp had been left on at the back table. The sun had only recently set.

  “Hamlet? Rosie? Edwin?” I said as I held the phone away from my mouth. No response. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d closed up the shop and gone home while I was working in the warehouse, and they had gotten there early today.

  As I passed by the front desk, I grabbed a piece of folded paper that had my name written on it.

  “Come in,” I said as I opened the door. The wind had stopped but it was definitely still “cauld.”

  I kept the sign turned to “Closed” as I relocked the door and opened the note.

  “Ta, lass. Where’s everybody?” Elias asked.

  “Uh, they closed the shop,” I said as I skimmed the note. “Didn’t want to bother me in the back. Hamlet might be back later, but they decided the weather would keep most customers away this evening.”

  The note also said that Edwin left before Hamlet or Rosie could talk to him. He mentioned that he’d be in tomorrow. In Rosie’s scribbled handwriting, she ended with Talk to the police about Gordon?

  I still wouldn’t do that until I talked to Edwin. I didn’t think either of them would either.

  “Aye? Weel, makes sense to me.” Elias rubbed his arms.

  “Let’s find that book for Aggie,” I said, warding off the chills that crept up my arms. Was I cold or had the empty shop put me out of sorts? Most likely both.

  Aggie and Elias owned and rented out two guesthouses. They lived in one of their small cottages behind the guesthouses and I rented the other one from them. I hadn’t seen the insides of the guesthouses until about a month after I’d been in Edinburgh. I’d been surprised by their fancy, eleg
ant furnishings, and shocked by how spotless they were. Aggie was a fine housekeeper in her own home, but she was tireless when it came to the guesthouses. There wasn’t a speck of dust or a wrinkled piece of fabric in them. The weekly rent they charged visitors was three times what I paid monthly, but it was well worth it. Aggie would clean every day if visitors requested it—on the guests’ schedule. When the houses were unoccupied, she still cleaned them.

  She would also cook for guests on occasion. I’d helped with a few meals, and Aggie’s attention to detail and Scottish authenticity were unrivaled. Cooking in a kitchen with Aggie as head chef was a stressful but exhilarating experience. Perfection was required.

  But when it came to books, she would fall quickly in love with almost anything. I’d watched her take a book, hold it in both hands, and then cradle it over one arm. She always traced an outline around the edge of the cover with her finger before lifting it to look inside. I never saw her open a book without awe overtaking her features. I’d told Edwin about the ritual and he’d asked to be included sometime when she was given a book.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said to Elias.

  “Guid. I need some ideas.”

  I walked to the desk and opened the top drawer. I’d put a book aside a few days earlier.

  “It’s not expensive. It’s an old copy, but certainly not a first edition. It’s in good shape.” I handed it to Elias.

  Edwin had told me to give the book to Elias if he wanted it, but I knew there would have to be some money exchanged for Elias to feel like it was a proper birthday gift for his wife.

  Elias grabbed a pair of reading glasses from the inside pocket of his jacket. “The History of David Grieve by Mrs. Humphry Ward,” he read aloud. “Mrs. with her husband’s name?”

  “I know. It might set Aggie off a bit but she loves seeing progression and where things once were. Mrs. Ward is Mary Ward, and I think Aggie would find the novel interesting. Well, in a dated way of course, but I think it would introduce her to an author she might not have read yet. I’m pretty sure this would be new to her.”