“We took statements from the barman at a pub,” Devlin said, “and from the cashier at the petrol station where she bought cigarettes. She returned here just after nine o’clock.”
“The stains on his trousers were what color?” asked Mackenzie.
“Green and brown, not red.” Elaine sighed. Regret? Rebecca wondered waspishly. Or relief?
“Bloodstains do turn brown,” Mackenzie pointed out.
Jerry snorted. “Not that fast.”
“Do you know, then, Dr. Kleinfelter, when Miss Fitzgerald was killed?”
Rebecca carefully pulled the curved piece of pottery from its matrix of mud. Beneath it were several dark specks. Some kind of grain, probably. A storage jar. She needed to put some in a plastic bag for analysis, but the conservation supplies were in the church. Obviously Mackenzie didn’t realize how well the building’s acoustics were broadcasting his interview.
“You were here at the priory with Miss Fitzgerald,” Mackenzie insisted. “You were seen.”
“All right, all right,” Jerry exclaimed. “I was with Sheila in the ruins. She’d asked me to meet her, said she had information about some relics. That’s when she told me she’d found those records misfiled at the museum. She knew there was something about the heart of Robert the Bruce, she could read that much. When she looked old Bobby up and saw the Douglas connection, she figured she was on to something.”
“And you didn’t urge her to return the records she’d stolen?”
“Not stolen, really—I mean, we needed them for the dig. They’ll get back to the museum. Assuming you let them go.”
“Last Monday night was the first time you’d heard about those records?”
“Yeah, well, I’d heard rumors in London last spring.”
Aha, said Rebecca to herself. Michael, we twigged it.
“When you were hiring Miss Fitzgerald to make the film?”
Elaine said parenthetically, “That’s not all he was doing with her.”
Jerry didn’t speak. The smoke wafting from the doorway thickened, as though a small angry dragon lurked inside, watching for passing princesses.
Rebecca’s trowel clinked against metal. She probed and scraped. A horseshoe. Interesting—kitchen debris shouldn’t include a horseshoe. The priory didn’t even have a stable. She put a measuring stick across the horseshoe. Hilary drew it onto her plan.
Adele set down the last of the trowels, scooped the pile of dirt beside the trench into her bucket, and carried it out through the slype. Dennis picked up an earthworm from the bottom of the second trench and set it aside. “Jaw ahoy,” said Mark. Michael responded, “Well done. Have a care for the teeth.” Tony walked around the inside of the cloister, stopping every few paces for a shot of the entire field.
“Why didn’t you tell us of your bargain with Miss Fitzgerald,” Mackenzie prodded, “you to discover the artifact, she to publicize it?”
Feigned ignorance was hardly Jerry’s style. “The same person who was spying on us was eavesdropping, I see.”
“Why didn’t you…” Mackenzie began to repeat.
“In the process of scientific investigation,” Jerry interrupted, “we scientists have to keep our cards close to our chests. Just like detectives. You aren’t telling everybody what clues you have, are you? You have to keep the hoi polloi from stepping all over the evidence.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about the possible existence of the relic?”
“It wasn’t any of your business, that’s why.”
But Mackenzie did share clues, Rebecca thought. His game was more complex than Jerry reckoned. Rebecca visualized Devlin shooting a sharp glance at the back of Jerry’s head and Mackenzie leaning back with the slow smile of a leopard perched on a branch above a waterhole. “You had another reason for meeting Miss Fitzgerald that night.”
“Nothing like a woman scorned, right, Elaine?” Jerry’s voice was as taut as a tight-walker’s rope. “Sheila was insatiable. She liked getting it on in all sorts of strange places.”
There was a moment’s silence, but he didn’t elucidate. Tony stopped outside the transept door, not even pretending not to listen. His placid expression soured, indicating that no one knew Sheila’s tastes better than he. God, Rebecca thought, there really were other ways to make friends and influence people. “Jerry thinks Elaine turned him in,” she said to Hilary.
The girl replied, “She can deal with him better than I can.”
“Was Miss Fitzgerald wearing her nun’s robes?” asked Mackenzie.
“Sure,” Jerry said. “That’s how she got her jollies.”
“Did you enjoy…” Mackenzie paused, weighing his words. “… meeting her in unusual places?”
“Inspector, none of this is even remotely relevant to the murder.”
“Or was it expected of you, part of your bargain?”
Jerry didn’t answer.
“Was she pleased with your efforts that evening?”
“They didn’t half have a row,” offered Elaine. “His nibs here wasn’t best pleased when he came back to the hotel. Not at all that airy-fairy look men usually get afterwards.”
Devlin cleared his throat, as if smothering a laugh. “So then you had a row with him yourself?”
“Right.”
“And you, Dr. Kleinfelter,” Mackenzie stated, “went into the bar and started talking to Miss Chase.”
Hilary’s pencil slashed at the paper, completing the horseshoe. Tony walked away from the door, his face creased with disgust. Adele returned to the cloister and starting scooping up Rebecca’s loose dirt. Rebecca’s trowel scraped against another piece of pottery, the rim of a plate, perhaps.
“When did P.C. Johnston see Miss Fitzgerald in the call box, Sergeant?”
“Seven-fifteen,” Devlin answered.
“So you met her when, Dr. Kleinfelter?”
“Right after seven-fifteen. She was waiting outside the phone booth. We walked into the ruins.”
“When did you return to the hotel?”
“Hell if I know.”
“It was seven-forty-five,” said Elaine. “I left straightaway.”
About eight, Rebecca said to herself. She’d seen Elaine drive off. And Laurence crossing the street, and Winnie looking out her window.
“So,” Mackenzie said, neither questioning nor stating, “we know Miss Fitzgerald was alive at seven-forty-five.”
“She was alive and kicking when I left her,” asserted Jerry.
“And Mrs. Baird,” Devlin added, “saw you come into the bar at eight-fifteen.”
Silence. Rebecca could work the equation for herself. If Jerry killed Sheila, it had been between seven-fifteen and seven-forty-five. If Jerry was telling the truth, she hadn’t died until later. Elaine and Jerry confirmed each other’s alibis, to a certain extent, unless they were conspiring together. That matchbook with the phone number written on it indicated a smoker. But then, someone could have used it as a notepad; none of the matches was missing.
Rebecca levered up the piece of pottery, telling herself it was entirely likely that plots were lurking beneath. But nothing was there but a thick bone. Ox, maybe. Kitchen remains, jumbled together with a horseshoe. And that malicious spoon and flesh hook in the other trench.
Her fingers stroked the slimy piece of ceramic. The gray green of the afternoon swam before her eyes. 1545. English troops sacked the priory. They threw away bones and pottery as worthless and rode their horses through the cloister, hooves tossing dirt and grass. Women screamed, robes fluttering, as mail-clad soldiers… .
Her mind sputtered faintly and she shook herself. Never mind what the soldiers might or might not have been doing. Hertford, their commander, had a decent streak.
The edge in Elaine’s voice was blunted. “I’m leaving. I’m going back to London. I’m tired of this argy-bargy. It’s not bloody worth it.”
“Go on,” Jerry retorted. “The nerd can do the hacking. There’s plenty of what you have to offer available elsewhe
re.”
A chair clattered. Feet scuffled. Devlin exclaimed, “Here now, that’s not on. Stop it.”
“Let me go,” spat Elaine. The sounds of struggle subsided, but not before every face in the cloister had swiveled toward the church. Michael went so far as to climb out of his trench and amble toward Rebecca’s, head cocked to the side like a bird dog spotting a grouse.
Mackenzie said sternly, “Miss Vavra, whether or not you continue to work for the expedition is your decision. But you aren’t leaving Rudesburn. Dr. Kleinfelter, you’re coming to Galashiels to help us with our enquiries.”
“I have a dig to run!” Jerry shouted. “God only knows what those students will do without proper supervision! Archeological evidence is irreplaceable—if anything is damaged, Inspector, I’ll hold you personally responsible. The dig is behind time anyway due to all this, this nonsense… .”
“I wouldn’t call a woman’s death nonsense,” said Mackenzie. Steps rang down the nave. Jerry, flanked by Devlin and Mackenzie, stalked off across the lawns toward the road. Perfunctorily the reporters raised their cameras.
Michael called, “Do try the police station’s coffee, Jerry!” To Rebecca he said, “Has he been caught oot at last?”
“In some minor fiddling with the evidence, both archeological and criminal, yes.” She quickly summed up the conspiracy to find the Bruce’s heart, concluding, “But I can’t see Jerry killing anyone. He’s the type that’s more bark than bite.”
“And what type is it that kills?” Michael asked. “Bluidy hell. I actually wish we’d been wrong aboot the man.”
“Yeah.” Rebecca scuffed the dirt with her toe.
Adele headed purposefully toward the church, from which issued the sounds of desperate sobbing as Elaine either reached the extremity of her anger or already regretted burning her bridges with such vengeance. She’d made quite an investment in Jerry. But then… . Rebecca thought with a glance at Michael.
Tony raised his video camera and focused on the skeleton. “Women,” he muttered. “Always cutting up rough. Bonkers, the lot of them.”
The angle of Michael’s brows indicated wry agreement.
Hilary went on drawing, her pencil making abrupt jerks on the paper. “At least they didn’t take me away. I guess that’s a point in my favor.”
“I think it is,” Rebecca replied, “although I sure wouldn’t make any assumptions. I’m surprised they didn’t take Elaine, too.”
“She wasn’t here when Sheila was killed,” Hilary said, and bent over a difficult part of the sketch.
Mark leaned on the edge of the trench and wiped his hand across his forehead, his clear gray eyes contrasting oddly with his dirty skin. Dennis watched Jerry and his keepers drive away. The young man’s face reflected the grim determination of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon out to get his man. Not that Jerry hadn’t been extremely rude to him, Rebecca thought, but Dennis was over-reacting just a bit. The tension was contagious.
Rebecca chose one topic, quelling the rest, and showed Michael the scatter of pottery and the horseshoe. When she sketched out her conclusion, that this was the 1545 destruction level, she earned a smile and a “Well done.”
“I need narration,” said Tony, camera poised.
“After you, Alphonse.” Mark bowed to Michael.
Michael brushed back his hair, straightened his jacket, and assumed his impeccable BBC accent. “The skull of the skeleton is now almost exposed. The mandible is slightly dislodged, perhaps because the mouth was hanging open as dirt was shoveled in upon it. The teeth show remarkably little wear; he was probably a young man of no more than thirty.”
So Michael admitted he was a man, Rebecca thought, not just an artifact. But they all knew academic-speak; like Mackenzie and his incessant use of the honorific, it was a way to distance oneself from emotion. The sleekly gleaming arch of the cranium didn’t look that different from the pieces of pottery. She was glad the face of the body was still turned into the mud, a neophyte actor leery of his moment on stage. Dirt filling his mouth as he screamed… . Was he dead when he was buried? She did an about-face and saw Nora beckoning from the footbridge.
Rebecca tiptoed away from Tony’s microphone. “You’re wanted on the telephone,” said Nora. “Kevin Reid. Your father?”
“My brother.” With a smile that expressed both fondness and annoyance, Rebecca hurried toward the hotel. The telephone receiver was lying amid a jumble of bills and letters on Laurence’s desk. “Hello? Kevin?”
“Hey, Squirt!” His voice was as warm and unaffected as a ball park hot dog. “What time is it over there? I was afraid if I waited until the rates went down, I’d get you in the middle of the night.”
“It’s five in the afternoon. I was working. No problem.”
“There was a paragraph in the paper about a bizarre ritual murder at a place named Rudesburn. I looked, and sure enough that’s where you are. I know better than to ask you to bail out and come home, but, well, it’s not any of those Satanists, is it?”
“There was a murder here, yes, but the bizarre aspects are just someone’s sick sense of humor. I was hoping Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear about it.” The door of Laurence’s safe was slightly ajar. She pushed it shut, but wasn’t sure how to lock it.
“Mom and Dad won’t unless Johnny Carson or Vanna White mentions it. I won’t tell them, just as long as you’re all right.”
“I’m tired and more than a little scared. But all right.”
“And your boyfriend—is he okay?”
“Michael’s fine, thanks.”
“I’m glad you have someone to take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself… .” How quickly she fell back into the habitual cadences. She concluded lamely, “Don’t worry about me.”
“Will you be back for Mom and Dad’s fortieth anniversary in September?”
“I don’t know. If I’m not, I’ll send a present. Some Strathearn glass or something nice. “ Like I usually do, she thought, but Kevin didn’t offer any rebukes. “I heard from the university. I got my Ph.D. I’m Dr. Reid, now.”
“You really wanted that, didn’t you? That’s great! Good for you!”
“Better not tell Mom and Dad just yet. They’ll want to know why you were spending money calling me. I’ll write.”
“You’ll have to convince them you’re not the kind of doctor who can treat sprains and bunions, but they’ll be proud of you. Really, they will.”
Rebecca winced. Sometimes her parents called her a smart-alec college girl. “Thanks for calling. Nice to know you’re thinking about me.”
“Take care, Squirt. I’m here if you need anything.”
“Thank you.” She stood with her hand on the receiver, wondering just how Kevin had survived all these years when he insisted on calling her by such an appalling nickname. Probably because he’d always been so refreshingly banal. Once, when she was four and Kevin fourteen, he’d found her crying over a puddle of melted popsicle. With some of the money he’d earned mowing lawns he’d bought her a new treat and laughed at her sugar-smeared smile. She wished he could fix the murky puddle she was in now as easily. He would if he could. He meant well. They all meant well. She hurried through the lobby, feeling like something an entomologist would find under an overturned rock.
The reporters, having had their amusement for the day, were flocking back into the hotel. The various constables stood cross-eyed with boredom, probably dreaming of tea and scones. With sympathetic clucks Adele escorted a red-eyed Elaine across the street. Tony tagged behind, swathed with cameras, and said, “Cheer up, luv,” to Rebecca as he passed.
She forced a smile. “Do you have siblings, Tony?”
He stopped, equipment swinging, startled. “I don’t know. My mum was on the game—haven’t a clue who my dad was, let alone any siblings.”
“Oh.” Blushing furiously, she hurried away. Tony looked quizzically after her, then shrugged and went into the hotel, less perturbed about his mother having been
a prostitute than Rebecca was.
Her cheeks were still flaming by the time she returned to the site and found Hilary collecting the day’s site recording sheets and Michael and Mark covering the skeleton with plastic. “I’ll ring Dr. Graham the morn,” Michael was saying. “He’ll be bringin’ a team from Edinburgh to take the puir chap oot all of a piece and do a proper analysis in the lab.” He saw Rebecca and asked, “Did someone ring us?”
“The call was for me. My brother Kevin.”
“Ah.” Dennis hurried the computer into the cottage, evading a shower of rain that spilled suddenly from the still cloudy sky. The evening would close in early. Already a damp, muffling silence hung over Rudesburn. “Kevin heard aboot the murder?” Michael continued, escorting Rebecca across the bridge.
“Yes. I managed to calm him down. And I told him my news.”
Michael glanced around at Mark and said, in perfectly moderated nonchalance, “Rebecca just heard. She got her Ph.D.”
“Great!” exclaimed Mark. “Congratulations! Let’s have a ceilidh to celebrate—I can strum a few bars of ‘Pomp and Circumstance’.”
Rebecca laughed. “Thanks.”
“Will your family be pleased, then?” Michael held open the door.
“Pleased, I guess, if not particularly impressed. I’m the only one of them to even have a bachelor’s degree.”
“You’ve come a long way, baby,” muttered Mark.
Hilary asked, “What would you have to do to impress them?”
“Get married and have children,” Rebecca replied automatically.
Michael went toward the bathroom, Mark and Hilary up the stairs. Rebecca could read Michael’s thought: “A fine thrawn lass you are, deliberately refusin’ to do what your folks want you to do.” She went into the bedroom and flopped down at the dressing table.
In her pocket she found Colin’s notepad with “Rudesburn Toys and Fancies” embossed on the cover. Meticulous handwriting filled the tiny pages. “5:30. Mark and Rebecca see Sheila running out of church. 7:30. Adele meditating under yew tree.” But Jerry hadn’t volunteered the information that he and Sheila were holding wrestling matches behind the chapter house at 7:30. She wondered what other facts were missing—no blame to Colin.
Dust to Dust Page 25
