The Girl with the Phony Name

by Charles Mathes

  “Cannot come right away?” said Wing, tapping the counter with his finger. “We have important things to do, please.”

  “We’ll be happy to wait,” said Lucy, leading Wing away by the arm.

  “So much to do, yes?” said Wing. “Not very efficient place.”

  “They just do things a little differently, that’s all. Now here are some tourist brochures we can read and I’m sure the car will be here in no time.”

  “Okay,” said Wing. “You read. Wing explore grounds.”

  “Don’t go too far.” Lucy sighed, watching the little man dart away. Wing had a metabolism like popcorn. He never sat still. If this took longer than a week, she reflected sadly, she might have to kill him, too.

  Lucy went back to her room and threw herself onto the bed, still feeling sluggish from the long trip, still nervous about what she would find in this strange place. She opened a brochure entitled “The Glorious Past” and found herself reading about the three ruling families of Lis: the MacDonalds, the MacKinnons, and Lucy’s jaw dropped open—the Fingons. If she were indeed a Fingon, Lucy realized, then she was descended from Scottish nobility!

  Her excitement waned, however, as she read further.

  The history of the Fingons was sickeningly bloody. Down through the centuries, Fingons had slaughtered their dinner guests, tortured their enemies, and massacred one another. And more than once—she read with horror—a Fingon father had murdered his own children, and vice versa! Not that such deeds were unusual for the nobility of Lis. The MacDonalds and the MacKinnons had equally grisly exploits to their credit.

  The phone rang. Lucy jumped practically a foot.

  “Your car is here, miss,” said the desk clerk.

  “Thanks,” she replied. Sobered, Lucy proceeded down the staircase into the lobby, happy to leave the bloodshed of the past behind. The only history she should be concerned about, she told herself, was the events of thirty years ago.

  Through the hotel’s open door she could see a large, black sedan in the driveway, but no sign of Wing. Lucy wandered through the two small sitting rooms and then ventured out back. Still no Wing.

  “Have you seen my friend?” she asked the desk clerk.

  “No, Miss Snicowski,” replied the man. For a moment Lucy didn’t know who he was talking to, then remembered she was still supposed to be Tina.

  Resolving to drop the disguise at the first suitable moment, Lucy ventured back into the dining room, where a few stragglers were still eating. Traveling with Wing was like traveling with a naughty child.

  “Have you seen the Oriental gentleman that I was with this morning?” she asked a waitress.

  “I believe he’s in the kitchen, ma’am,” the girl replied, gesturing toward a door. Lucy rolled her eyes and walked into the hotel’s kitchen.

  Wing was sitting on a chair in the corner of the ancient scullery, arms folded, watching a large, heavy woman dressed in white stir a gigantic pot of something.

  “Excuse me?” said Lucy tentatively.

  Wing looked up. The woman kept stirring.

  “Our car’s here, Mr. Wing.”

  Wing stood and bowed to the fat woman, who didn’t look up.

  “Thank you very much.” He bowed again, turned on his heel, and headed for the lobby. Lucy followed.

  “What was she making?” asked Lucy.

  “Pickled herring. Wing get good idea for Neat ‘n’ Tidy.”

  “I don’t want to hear,” said Lucy, leading him out of the kitchen.

  “Not for corpses!” protested Wing, reading her mind. “For Aunt Sally.”

  “You’d pickle Aunt Sally?”

  “No, no, no. For Aunt Sally to cook.”

  They were now in the driveway and approaching the car.

  “Hello, I’m Tina Snicowski,” said Lucy, getting into the large, black sedan, “and this is Mr. Wing, who is not going to go wandering off by himself anymore.”

  “Ranald Wharrie,” said the driver, not looking up from his magazine. He was a large, red-faced man with bushy eyebrows and a battered cap.

  “I drive. Okay, Mr. Wharrie?” said Wing, trying to open the door to the front seat.

  “I am the driver or you nae ha’ the use of my motor,” replied Wharrie languidly, pressing down the door lock.

  “I think we should respect the man’s wishes,” said Lucy, relieved. Wing shrugged and got into the backseat next to her.

  “A hundred pounds per day,” said Wharrie to Lucy, holding out his hand. “In advance. Ye also pay for my gas.”

  “That’s outrageous!” exclaimed Lucy.

  “Pay it or find another driver,” said Wharrie.

  “It’s okay,” said Wing, reaching for his wallet. Lucy grabbed his hand.

  “Look, Mr. Wing. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I’m not some charity case.”

  “Sure, Ruc … Tina,” whispered Wing, eyeing the back of Wharrie’s head. “Wing just want to help.”

  “I know. But this is my problem and I can pay my own way. You’re just along for the ride, remember?”

  Wing sat back silently in his seat and looked inscrutable. Lucy fished in her pocket for the money. A hundred pounds was practically a fortune at current exchange rates, but she wasn’t in any position to argue right now. They could find a more agreeable (and cheaper) driver tomorrow. And she could always have Billy Rosenberg wire cash if, God forbid, she needed more than Wing had advanced. The important thing was to let Wing know who was in charge of this little expedition.

  “Do you know where Dumlagchtat is?” Lucy said, leaning forward.

  “Aye,” said Wharrie.

  “That’s where we want to go.”

  Wharrie started the engine. Chills swept down Lucy’s spine. For the first time the significance of their destination had sunk in. The answers to all her questions might be only a few miles away.

  NINETEEN

  Wharrie took the same road the Pembles had driven back from the airstrip yesterday, but in the opposite direction.

  They climbed higher and higher into the mountains. Wharrie didn’t speak and Wing was uncharacteristically silent, giving Lucy a chance to appreciate the strange scenery. She could see primroses and new bracken, and hear the call of cuckoos. The countryside stretched endlessly before them, an untroubled blanket of green, save for an occasional white cottage or farmhouse, a stark stand of trees, a naked boulder.

  “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed as they rounded a curve and a spectacular open vista stretched out beneath them. Wharrie snorted contemptuously in the front seat.

  “You don’t think it’s beautiful, Mr. Wharrie?” she asked, surprised.

  “I’ll chust drive, if ye doon’t mind, lady,” he said.

  After a while, Wharrie pulled into a tiny town nestled in a glen under a huge mountain. It was no more than a few rows of houses facing each other across a cobbled street. The big Scot stopped the car in front of the largest house.

  “This is Dumlagchtat. D’ye want me ta wait?”

  “Of course you wait,” said Wing, showing his annoyance. “We hire you for day.”

  “The lady hired me, and I’ll hear only from her, if ye dinna mind, wee man.”

  Wing stared at Wharrie, his expression impossible to read.

  “Please wait, Mr. Wharrie,” said Lucy quickly, and she got out of the car, determined not to let the man get to her. “Is there someone around here who might be able to tell me about local history?”

  Wharrie shrugged. “I dinna ken.”

  “Well, is there a city hall or something?”

  “Nae.”

  Wing scampered out of the car behind Lucy, glancing back at Wharrie, who had already buried his face in a magazine. Lucy was beginning to wonder if the Pembles had been right about the natives. Wharrie was about as friendly as acne.

  They walked up one side of the short street and down the other, staring in silence at the small, chalk-colored houses with slate roofs. All the doors were closed. A few p
eople were doing chores in the backyards, but no one gave them a second glance.

  “I ask questions now?” said Wing brightly.

  “Why don’t I?” said Lucy.

  “Okay. You boss.”

  “Excuse me,” Lucy said, breaking off from Wing and approaching a woman in a plaid shawl who was hanging laundry. The woman did not look up.

  “Excuse me,” said Lucy again when she was only a few feet away. “I wonder if I might ask you a question.”

  The woman stopped what she was doing and stared as if Lucy were a pet dog who had just asked for a piece of pie.

  “Aye?”

  It must be her earrings, Lucy decided. Then Lucy noticed the woman’s gaze had shifted. She was staring at Tak Wing, who was some thirty feet away inspecting a stone fence. Wing seemed to notice the woman’s attention, for he touched his fingers to his top hat and smiled. The woman spat on the ground.

  “I’m looking for some information,” said Lucy brightly, hoping a good attitude would overcome the woman’s obvious reluctance to talk to strangers. She looked again to Lucy but said nothing.

  “Was there ever anyone named MacAlpin living around here?”

  “I dinna ken,” she said finally.

  “Anyone named Trelaine?”

  “Nae.”

  “People named Fingon?”

  The woman squinted. “The Fingon all be dead.”

  “Is there someone who knows anything about them?”

  The woman just stared at Lucy and didn’t speak.

  “Do you think one of your neighbors might remember the Fingons?”

  “No one in Dumlagchtat remembers the Fingons.”

  “But didn’t the Fingons live around here?” said Lucy awkwardly. “Weren’t they important?”

  The woman pointed toward the mountains looming up behind them.

  “There they lived. A curse upon them.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Lucy, a little frightened. “Have a nice day.” The woman said nothing more and still hadn’t moved when Lucy walked over and collected Wing.

  “She says the Fingons are all dead but they lived up there,” Lucy said, pointing at the mountains.

  “We go there?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Good, good,” said Wing eagerly. “You make great progress already, Rucy, see?”

  Lucy nodded and walked back toward the car, Wing bringing up the rear. As a homecoming, her visit to Dumlagchtat hadn’t been very encouraging.

  “Do you know a house up there in the mountains where people named Fingon used to live?” Lucy said to Wharrie after she and Wing had settled themselves again in the backseat.

  “Aye,” said Wharrie, not looking up from his magazine.

  “Will you take us there, please?”

  He shrugged and started his engine. Wing fidgeted in his seat, craning around so that he wouldn’t miss any detail of the little village. In a few minutes they were on a road on the side of the peak, heading toward a stone structure built into the rock.

  “Is castle!” said Wing breathlessly as they approached.

  Lucy stared at the far-off structure, not knowing what to say. It was a castle. Not a huge castle, but large enough to astonish her. Its back was protected by the red peak, its walls commanded a perfect view of the entire valley. It was only when they were upon it that Lucy saw it was deserted and gone to ruin. The windows were broken out. The roof had holes in places.

  They drove on in silence, through a crumbling gate, past an ancient graveyard, and stopped in front of the boarded-up door of the castle.

  “Did the Fingons live here?” asked Lucy incredulously. There was an oppressiveness in the air, almost a physical presence of evil. The wind blew audibly against the cliffs.

  “Aye,” muttered Wharrie.

  “What happened to them?”

  “I’m a driver, not a guidebiuk,” said the man.

  Wing started to say something, but Lucy simply got out of the car. There was no point in getting into a fight with Wharrie. The man obviously had some kind of chip on his shoulder and wasn’t going to take it off just because they found it annoying.

  Lucy stared at the ruined castle looming so cold before her. What was she supposed to do now? Who were these people, these Fingons, who had lived in such an evil place? What did they have to do with her? Finally she stopped chasing her thoughts around in circles and got back into the car.

  “Let’s see some more of the island, please, Mr. Wharrie,” Lucy said with as much dignity as she could muster.

  They drove for the rest of the day, stopping occasionally to admire a waterfall or a cliff or a tourist attraction. Lucy found the unspoiled landscapes and the bare glens where it seemed man had never trod beautiful and eerily familiar. Wing enjoyed himself everywhere they went, despite the stares he received, but a New York cabby had more enthusiasm for scenery than Wharrie seemed to.

  Lucy was finally able to learn something about the Fingons when they went through the island’s major historic attraction. MacKinnon House was maintained by the Scottish Historical Trust and open to the public. The MacKinnon family had bankrupted itself in the 1930s.

  “Yes,” said the tour guide in answer to Lucy’s query, “the Fingons were a powerful family on Lis for many years. They owned all the western coastlands and a fair portion of the rest of the island. Only the MacDonalds were more prominent.”

  “Are there any Fingons still living on the island?” Lucy asked hopefully.

  “Nae. The last laird, Geoffrey Fingon, died many years ago,” said the woman, a thin, hawk-faced biddy with gray hair.

  “There weren’t any children?”

  “I dinna ken.”

  “Do you know if there’s anyone who might remember the Fingons?”

  “No one that I would ken,” said the woman and resumed her historical commentary.

  “I’d like to reserve a car again for tomorrow,” Lucy told the desk clerk as they entered the Manor Lodge shortly after six that evening.

  “Very well, Miss Snicowski,” said the young woman at the desk.

  “Other driver beside Mr. Wharrie, please,” added Wing, after glancing respectfully at Lucy.

  “I’m afraid Mr. Wharrie has the only available vehicle at present.”

  “He’ll be fine,” said Lucy, patting Wing on the arm. “Please ask him to be here at nine-thirty.”

  “More fun riding in hearse,” muttered Wing.

  They went upstairs to their rooms for an hour, then met for dinner at the hotel dining-room.

  “What look good to you?” said Wing suspiciously, reading the menu. Lucy shook her head, not surprised that there were no shrimp cocktails, just sorry.

  “What is jugged hare?” Wing asked.

  “I think it’s a rabbit in a bottle,” said Lucy.

  “Interesting concept.” Wing nodded professionally. Lucy shuddered.

  They settled on smoked salmon. Lucy had a glass of wine, which tasted sour and smokey. There was no club soda, so Wing settled for orange juice, which, to Lucy’s astonishment, was blood red. Despite Wing’s protests that oranges were red in Great Britain, she couldn’t help feeling it was a bad omen.

  “No, no, no,” said Wing insistently. “Everything going fine.”

  “Sure,” Lucy said.

  “Cannot expect to find everything first day.”

  “I suppose. At least we know there were Fingons here once.”

  “Fingons rich people,” said Wing proddingly. “Maybe other rich people remember Fingons. Rich people all know one another. What you think?”

  “The MacDonalds!”

  “Who, who, who?”

  “The MacDonalds are the only ones left of the three ruling families of Lis. Mr. Wing, you’re a genius. Of course the MacDonalds would have known the Fingons. I’ll call them in the morning.”

  Wing smiled broadly, clearly pleased with himself

  Lucy said the name over in her head. The Fingons. Her family?

  TWENTYr />
  Lucy had an early breakfast the next morning and took a long walk down the grassy paths along the cliff, through the empty fields, and back again. Now she was bathed, changed, and sitting at the telephone in her room. Wing was due to meet her downstairs in fifteen minutes. The number for Fitzroy MacDonald, Sixth Earl of Mantach, was dialed and ringing.

  “The Castle,” answered a curt male voice.

  “Yes, hello,” said Lucy, launching into her cover story, trying to contain her excitement. “My name is … Tina Snicowski. I’m over here on vacation—I’m staying at the Manor Lodge hotel—and I promised a friend I’d look into her genealogy. She may be a Fingon, you see, and …”

  “Excuse me, Miss … whatever you said your name was,” interrupted the voice, “but why are you calling here?” The accent was British. The tone of voice was mildly incredulous.

  “Well,” said Lucy, trying to sound charming, “that’s the thing. My friend wants to know about the last Lord Fingon and I thought one of the MacDonalds might remember something about … .”

  “I hardly think that his lordship would wish to involve himself in such a matter. Good day.”

  The phone went dead. Lucy stared at the receiver. It had never occurred to her that the MacDonalds wouldn’t cooperate. Humiliated, she stomped downstairs and out into the driveway. Wharrie was reading a magazine in his ugly black sedan. Wing was already in the car.

  “A hundred pounds in advance,” Wharrie announced when she got in, holding out his hand.

  “So what they say?” said Wing excitedly. “They remember? You find out everything?”

  “Actually, they hardly knew the Fingons at all,” Lucy lied. “They couldn’t tell me a thing.”

  “You sure?” said Wing, looking surprised.

  “Of course, I’m sure,” Lucy snapped. There was no point in subjecting herself to further embarrassment.

  “So sorry,” said Wing, hanging his head.

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  “You will find someone else. Not to worry, please.”

  “Sure,” said Lucy, feeling even worse. “How much did you say that was, Mr. Wharrie?”