Of Books and Bagpipes

by Paige Shelton

  “How’s Grizel?” I asked.

  “Ms. Sheehy is fine. You saved her life too. When she asked him about the tattoo, Liam thought Billy had told her something that might give away Liam’s manipulations. I’m sure he intended tae kill her.”

  I shivered. “That’s horrifying.”

  “But all’s weel with her, lass,” Elias said.

  “What did Billy do for a living?” Rosie asked. “Did he have a job?”

  “Nothing full time. His mother gave him most of his money. He was a handyman of sorts. He had troubles, mental health issues too. It was a difficult road for both of the Williams, but one became worse than the other.”

  “Billy and Liam,” I said. “William Wallace. I should have figured that out. Oor Wullie. The name William was important to them all.”

  The front door burst open.

  “Delaney!” Tom said. “What happened?”

  “I might have called him,” Rosie said.

  “I’m glad you did,” I said as I looked at his concerned cobalt eyes and Hector barked a greeting in his direction.

  I was very glad Rosie had called him.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “SURPRISE!” we all exclaimed as they came through the door.

  “Oh!” Aggie’s eyes opened wide and her hand went up to her mouth. “Oh my!”

  “Aye,” Elias said. “Happy birthday, mo gradh.”

  I didn’t need Hamlet to translate that one. I’d heard Elias say it many times by now. My love.

  “Oh, Elias!” She searched the crowd. “Delaney, were you in on this too?”

  “Elias planned it all. The rest of us just showed up,” I said.

  “This is unbelievable.”

  “Come in and let us sing tae you. Elias got a cake from next door and he says it’s your favorite,” Edwin said.

  It was Edwin’s bookshop, but tonight it was open in Aggie’s honor, to celebrate her birthday. We hadn’t locked the doors. Customers were welcome inside, and to have a piece of the other cake, the enormous one that Edwin had ordered just in case we didn’t have enough of the first one. He had called Elias that morning and said he hoped to host the party that had almost been forgotten.

  It had come together nicely and Aggie was totally surprised.

  Regg poured and distributed cups of punch as we sang. Rosie and Hector sat next to Hamlet, who had been the one to see to the details like plates, forks, and napkins.

  Aggie blew out candles and Edwin, seemingly happier than I’d seen him in a long time, distributed pieces of cake all around.

  We were still missing pieces to the mystery, but only Edwin and Gordon could supply the answers to most of them. I wasn’t sure if Edwin would ever tell the whole truth about what happened many years ago, and we still didn’t know if Gordon would wake up. None of us knew how much Billy had truly known about his parentage. I thought that someday Edwin would have a good long talk with Fiona about many things, but maybe not. I didn’t know how Fiona had reacted to all the news she’d received over the last few days, but I knew Edwin would take care of her, whatever that turned out to mean.

  Tom thought that if perhaps Gordon hadn’t faked his death, none of the subsequent tragedies would have occurred.

  He’d said: If Clarissa hadn’t thought both Leith and Gordon, the man she’d given her son to, had died, maybe those things that reminded her of long-ago times might never have caused her such pain, and she might not have said the things she said to Liam.

  I wasn’t sure I agreed, because I’d seen firsthand how disturbed Liam was. Something was probably going to break him at some point. However, it was impossible to know for sure.

  Physically, I knew I would rebound. The swelling was gone from around my still-black eye. My arm hurt so much that it was almost unusable, but I tried to pretend it didn’t hurt. I’d been sore before. Now, my sore was sore.

  Clarissa and Liza Marie would both be fine, at least physically. Who knew what turmoil and emotional torture was ahead for Clarissa. I hoped she’d seek some help. It was going to be rough.

  After greeting Aggie, I took a seat at the back table. I needed a small break from pretending I wasn’t in pain. It was a good vantage point to observe my friends and Scottish family.

  But the person who had been on my mind the most ever since that horrible few but impossibly long minutes in Clarissa’s basement was Edwin. Before we knew who the killer was and in the middle of the panic, concern, and horror, I hadn’t seen how some things still didn’t add up. As life had calmed and some answers had become clear, other things seemed to me to still be unanswered, or maybe just a wee bit murky.

  After he was certain everyone had cake, Edwin must have felt me watching him. He looked at me and smiled a little sadly. Then he joined me at the table.

  “Delaney, how are you?” he said.

  “Fine. You mad at me for … everything?”

  Edwin laughed. “Not at all. You might get a raise. You probably saved Clarissa.”

  “Is there a future for the two of you?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. But there was a past that gives me good memories. I’m grateful that she’s going tae be okay. A long time ago she was…”

  The party was going well. Rosie and Regg were now dancing as Hector sat on the desk and watched them. Hamlet and Aggie were deep in conversation, and Elias and Tom were looking at some books on a shelf.

  “She was what?” I said.

  “She was important tae me,” Edwin said.

  “Edwin, do you have a SPEC tattoo?”

  “No, lass, I never did get one. Not my thing, I suppose.”

  “Tell me what happened on the boat,” I said quietly.

  Hector, having gotten a lift off the desk from Rosie, trotted toward the back table. I thought he might be coming to see me. He’d been giving me extra attention, probably because of my injuries, but he stopped at Edwin’s feet and looked up at him expectantly. Edwin gathered him and put him on his lap.

  “Aye,” Edwin said as he scratched Hector’s neck. “I know you’ve been trying tae understand, lass. I’ll tell you. I feel like I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me, but I’d like to know.”

  “Aye.” He paused. “It was planned, lass. It was a plan.”

  “Okay.”

  “We went out that night with one plan, tae kill the lad, Moray Persley.”

  “Oh. Maybe you shouldn’t tell me,” I said.

  “No,” he lifted one hand from Hector and put it over mine on the table, “I want tae tell you. You deserve tae know the truth.”

  I nodded once.

  “We loved her, we all loved her,” he said as he went back to petting Hector. “She was not only beautiful, but she was clever and kind. So talented. She told us she loved us all, but it’s not what I led you tae believe, Delaney, or what she led you tae believe in the hospital. This was part of the pact we made all those years ago, that no matter who, no matter what, we would stick tae our story, Clarissa would gladly sacrifice her reputation. We would not tell anyone what really happened. It was just Leith, Gordon, Clarissa, and me in on it, but we fooled the other lads. We fooled everyone, for a long time.” He smiled at me. “I slipped once with Rosie, but I caught myself before I told her everything. Still, I told her too much. But you weren’t fooled, were you. You know, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know anything except some things just … don’t fit. You weren’t Billy’s biological father? That was just part of the story, the pact?”

  “Aye, correct, but have you figured out the rest?”

  “I’m not sure. Moray Persley was Billy’s biological father?”

  Edwin smiled again. “That’s right.”

  “And that made the rest of you angry, jealous? You, Leith, and Gordon?”

  “No, that’s the part you don’t know. We were angry, but not why you think.” He paused again, and I saw pain at the corner of his eyes. Decades old pain, still fresh and deep. “Moray Persley raped Clarissa. She hadn’t had any sort
of relationship with any of us that could have made one of us the boy’s father. Moray Persley raped our girl, and we couldn’t stand by and let him go on without being punished. We thought we were special enough to make those sorts of determinations.”

  “Oh, Edwin. I’m so sorry.” In fact, that scenario hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “I am too.”

  We sat in silence a moment, the jovial party all around us. It was impossible not to feel sorrow for what Clarissa, and the men to some extent, had gone through. It was a different time, and the world had reacted differently to those sorts of horrors. The group of friends had done what they thought they needed to do, though it sounded like some of their choices had been misguided.

  “I have more questions,” I said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “You could have said it was an accidental stabbing, but it ended up in the police report as only a drowning. Why wasn’t the dirk in the police report, because there was a dirk, a stabbing, right?”

  Edwin looked at me. Hector looked at me too and whined.

  “Your family paid off the police, didn’t they?”

  “Aye. We all thought it a worthwhile blackmail though. Even the police, after my father told them the whole story.”

  “I see. Who killed Moray? Who stabbed him?”

  “It could have been any of the four of us, Delaney, but that’s the part I won’t tell you because I think the answer would be a burden for you. I will not confirm which one of us it was. I’ve come tae know something about you. You have an intuition that sometimes tells you things, am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen tae it, tae those voices, and I bet you’ll figure it out.”

  I thought long and hard, listened for someone from any book to tell me something, but I heard nothing. “I have no idea who the killer was, Edwin.”

  “Of course you do,” he said. “Or you will soon enough.”

  “Why did you all fake a passport with Moray’s name on it?”

  “How did you come to see that?”

  “Artair found some things. He’ll be here later. I’m sure he’ll show them to you if you want.”

  “Interesting. The passport.” He smiled sadly at Hector, who smiled supportively up at him. “Let’s just say that Gordon’s faked death wasn’t the first time some of us in the group had considered doing such a thing, perhaps running away because the circumstances of a single pregnant woman were even more frightening than a rape had been. Besides, using Moray’s name would have been a good cover and would have kept the police guessing—just in case, you know, something eventually happened to him. Fortunately, the police were … cooperative, and no one had to leave, except for Clarissa, but that was her choice. I’d like to see that passport.”

  “Your Oor Millie is with it too.”

  “I think Clarissa would like to see that. Well, maybe not, but we’ll ask her.”

  “There’s a handwritten note on the cover of the book. It’s about naming the baby.”

  “Aye? I truly have no memory of that, Delaney. I’d like to look at it.”

  “You don’t know who wrote the note? The signature on the passport and the note seem to be the same handwriting.”

  “Interesting. Maybe that should tell us something. I’m not sure.”

  “Did you go to Glasgow to look for Liam?” I asked when he didn’t say more.

  “No, lass, I didn’t think of Clarissa’s other son that day. I went for work, something tae do tae keep my mind off of what was happening. It really was for work.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Your clothes. They were dry after the incident on the boat.”

  “Aye.”

  “That means that either you weren’t there for whatever happened on the boat or you didn’t try to save the man who went over the side.” I paused again. “But Leith and Gordon, and all the others did.”

  Edwin looked at me as I stopped speculating aloud. He remained silent as he probably saw that my mind and my intuition, without the bookish voices, were working through the rest of it.

  Or his dry clothes meant something else. Two things suddenly stood out in my mind; Edwin’s continued refusal to talk to the police after Billy’s murder, and Rosie’s continued insistence that the police needed to be told about Gordon being alive.

  If Edwin had killed Moray, he would not have cared about protecting himself if justice would be served if the truth came out. Rosie knew about the dirk and, possibly, the whole story. If Edwin had been the killer, she never would have kept insisting that someone needed to tell the police about Gordon, giving the police a chance to dredge up the past and jeopardize Edwin’s freedom. She would have protected Edwin, no matter what.

  And Edwin would have protected the woman he loved. No matter what.

  Clarissa had been the killer. In fact, I thought maybe no one else on the boat had known her plan, or maybe Edwin had. When she’d stabbed Moray and he’d gone over, they’d—even Clarissa—had all gone over the side to try to save him. All but Edwin. He’d kept his focus on saving Clarissa.

  “Clarissa was devastated she was pregnant?” I asked.

  “She was hurt deeply from being violated, and devastated about being pregnant.”

  “Perhaps suicidal?”

  He didn’t say anything, but I could guess. Clarissa had planned on killing herself too. While everyone else was trying to save Moray, Edwin’s only focus was Clarissa. She probably did go into the water when they were close to shore, but until then I imagined that Edwin kept her close to him.

  “The pact came later? It was to keep secrets?”

  “Aye. Blood oaths and all,” he said sadly. “We were young, Delaney, young and scared. I was lucky because I had access tae money. Can you understand?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “That’s good tae hear.”

  “Who did you think killed Billy?” I said.

  “I hoped it wasn’t Gordon, but that’s what I thought at first. I thought that perhaps because he was ill and had been living a lie for a couple of years that he couldn’t bear for Billy tae know the truth, and all the lies, and somehow everything was coming tae light.”

  “Were you going to kill Gordon yourself?”

  “No. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but as you were doing, I was seeking the truth too. You were just better at it than I was.”

  “The dirk made each of you think each other was the killer.”

  “I thought—I imagine Gordon did too—that the dirk was gone. We didn’t know that it wasn’t in the sea. We made assumptions when you showed it tae us, but clearly they weren’t correct.”

  “Do you think someone really tried to break into your house?”

  “I found the cigarettes. Now, I assume they were Liam’s, but I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”

  My boss had many secrets. I liked that he was letting me in on them, little by little, even the horrible ones. I wasn’t sure he could trust me to keep all his secrets, and this unspoken one was brutal, but time would tell, I supposed.

  At least things made more sense now, and maybe that’s all I needed, to have some mysteries solved.

  “Oh, look,” Edwin said as he pointed to the front where Elias was giving Aggie her birthday gift.

  Aggie tore open the wrapping paper Elias had so carefully folded and taped. She cradled the unwrapped book over one arm and then traced an outline around the edge of it with her finger. Finally, she lifted the cover and looked inside.

  “Oh, Elias, it’s wonderful. Perfect,” Aggie said.

  Elias looked back at me and winked.

  “You were right, Delaney, that was wonderful tae see,” Edwin said.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “Books, they’re most definitely the stuff of magic, don’t you think?” Edwin said.

  “Yes, Edwin, I do. I definitely do.”

  Edwin smiled and then deposited Hector on my lap. He stood and went to hug Aggie. I
didn’t think I’d ever seen her so happy before.

  And despite everything—the pain in my arm, the recent terror, the revelations, and the almost revelations—I let my eyes lock on to some cobalt blue ones, and realized I knew exactly how she felt.

  ALSO BY PAIGE SHELTON

  SCOTTISH BOOKSHOP MYSTERY SERIES

  The Cracked Spine

  A Christmas Tartan (A Scottish Bookshop Mini-Mystery)

  COUNTRY COOKING SCHOOL MYSTERY SERIES

  If Fried Chicken Could Fly

  If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance

  If Bread Could Rise to the Occasion

  If Catfish Had Nine Lives

  If Onions Could Spring Leeks

  FARMERS MARKET MYSTERY SERIES

  Farm Fresh Murder

  Fruit of All Evil

  Crops and Robbers

  Red Hot Deadly Peppers

  A Killer Maize

  Merry Market Murder

  Bushel Full of Murder

  DANGEROUS TYPE MYSTERY SERIES

  To Helvetica and Back

  Bookman Dead Style

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PAIGE SHELTON had a nomadic childhood, as her father’s job as a football coach took the family to seven different towns before she was even twelve years old. After college at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, she moved to Salt Lake City, where she thought she’d only stay a few years, but she fell in love with the mountains and a great guy who became her husband. After many decades in Utah, she and her family recently moved to Arizona. You can sign up for email updates here.

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