“Now, throw in the fact,” Warwick continued, “that Jessie is still very much around Aberdeen, and has yet to be spotted pushing a pram down Queen Street. If she kidnapped her own son, why stick around to be found out? Why not hot foot it to some Mediterranean beach to enjoy the company of her son in seclusion?”
“Maybe she’s trying to throw suspicion off of her,” Chisholm offered. “Maybe the child’s with a relative, back on Skye.”
“Or maybe she’s innocent,” Warwick countered. “Either way, it’s a ‘maybe’ and you don’t go arresting someone on a ‘maybe.’”
Chisholm leaned back hard in her chair and let out a long, low sigh. She ran both hands through her long black curls and twisted them back into a loose, haphazard pony tail. “Wow,” she half laughed the word.
Warwick waited for more but none was forthcoming. “Wow what?” she asked.
Chisholm exhaled again, then released the pony twist from her shoulder and leaned forward. “I just—” she began. “I just really thought you’d agree with me on this. I mean, sure, I’d expected you the challenge it, examine it critically, but agree with me in the end. I mean, it’s all just so obvious. She’s so obviously guilty. I thought for sure you’d see it too. Then we’d get Cameron on board, get the arrest warrant, and go pick her up. We find the duplicate key at her flat. And when we confront her with how her alibi didn’t check out, she crumbles and confesses—or else feeds us some new alibi that she can’t confirm. Either way, we’ve got the key and either a confession or another lie. Then we close the case with an arrest and hand it over to the prosecutors.”
“The only problem being,” Warwick observed, “I don’t agree with you.”
“Well, yes, that,” Chisholm laughed nervously, “and the fact that I skipped a step in there.”
Warwick raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Which one?”
Chisholm smiled sheepishly and began playing with her hair again. “The one where I convince you before going to Cameron.”
Warwick’s eyes flared. “You’ve already gone to Cameron?” She fairly shouted the question.
The answer came not from Chisholm, but from the knock on Warwick’s doorframe. It was Cameron.
“Evening, you two.” He stepped in, brandishing a several page report in his hand and a relieved smile on his face. “No doubt discussing the MacLeod case?”
“Quite right,” Warwick confirmed through gritted teeth.
He waved the report gently toward the visiting detective. “Good work, Alison. Damn good work. And you really think she’ll confess when we get her into custody?”
“I expect so.” Chisholm turned to look up at Cameron but kept the corner of her eye trained on Warwick. “Or else she’ll come up with another cock-and-bull story we can debunk—and one she won’t have had time to prepare. One’s as good as another really. If she lies, we’ll destroy that alibi too, and we’ll know she’s a liar. If she confesses, then we’ve got her.”
“Good, good, good.” Cameron nodded, half to himself. It took another couple of moments before he noticed Warwick’s sour demeanor. “What do you think, Elizabeth?”
“I think it’s premature.”
“Premature?” Cameron was taken aback. “No, no. It’s not premature, I can tell you that. Overdue, if anything. I’ve spent half my day on the telephone with this superior or that. MacLeod’s been calling every one of his friends and contacts—and that’s quite a few, I can tell you—spouting off about how we’re all a bunch of incompetent boobs. Not more than an hour ago the Superintendent gave me ‘til the end of the week to find the MacLeod baby or he’ll be handing the case over to the Yard.” He clenched his jaw. “I hate the bloody Yard. Think they’re so much better than us…”
Warwick and Chisholm sat silently, uncertain whether he’d finished.
“Sorry.” Cameron caught himself again. “But why do you say it’s premature, Elizabeth? I thought you and Chisholm had come to this conclusion together?”
“We were still discussing it,” Warwick replied with a low glare at Chisholm.
“It’s a very strong case against her,” Chisholm felt compelled to assure. “Motive, means, opportunity. She’s guilty all right.”
“Hm.” Cameron glanced down at the report again, a pensive scowl scarring his countenance. Without looking up he asked, “Motive’s there all right. And the key to the townhouse?”
“I’m sure it’s at her residence,” Chisholm was ready with the reply. “I—I can guarantee we’ll find it when we pick her up.”
Cameron nodded to himself. “And her alibi?”
“We’ve verified it was a lie,” Chisholm assured. “My guess is she’ll feed us a new alibi, but she’ll have no corroboration. None. Then we’ll have her telling two different stories. That’s almost better than a confession because it shows she’s being deceptive. It shows consciousness of guilt. The jury will hate her.”
Warwick crossed her arms and waited silently. She knew it was too late to affect his decision. He’d already made it; he was just double-checking his facts.
“She’s guilty,” Chisholm repeated. “And I’ll get you the evidence to prove it.”
Cameron chewed on his cheek as he continued to glare down at Chisholm’s report. There was no way around it now, he had to make the call. “All right. Do it. Pick her up tonight, at her residence. I want to be able to search her flat. Find that key. And then get the confession.” Then almost as an afterthought, he added, “And the child. Find out where the child is. I need the MacLeod boy in his father’s arms by the end of business tomorrow.”
“Will do,” Chisholm replied eagerly as she jumped to her feet. “Will do. I’ll grab a few of the boys. We’ll case the flat, wait for her to get home. Then we’ll nab her just as she’s opening the door.” She looked at her watch: five-thirty; they all knew Jessie MacLeod was likely on her way to some nightclub even now. “I’ll have the key and her new alibi on your desk by morning.”
She knew better than to look at Warwick, so instead headed directly out the door, an observable spring in her step.
Cameron waited for a few moments, rubbing the white-fuzzed crown of his head as he pretended to read the report in his hand. Finally, he took in a deep breath and tore his gaze from the paper. When he looked at Warwick he looked tired.
“Sorry, Elizabeth. I’ve got to take a chance on this one.” When she didn’t reply, he went on, “Motive, means and opportunity. It’s all there. The scientific method.”
She smiled weakly and nodded, but didn’t reply. Cameron nodded again and walked silently from the office, his continued perusal of Chisholm’s report evidence of his misgivings at the course of action he’d just authorized.
Warwick watched him leave, then sat silently at her desk for a very long time. Ten, fifteen, maybe even thirty minutes passed, as she sat alone in her office and contemplated her remaining options. When finally she stood up, she walked straight to her map of Aberdeen. She extracted the upper right push-pin from the map and pulled the corner up ever so slightly before reinserting the thumb-tack about half a centimeter higher than its previous position. She stepped several steps back and admired the map. It finally looked straight.
She snatched the MacLeod file off her desk and stormed out the door.
41. MacLeod’s Townhouse
“Dumb, Devereaux.” Maggie made sure to whisper in the quiet of the cool, dark evening. “Stupid. And dangerous.”
She’d had to wait for nightfall. A rather late proposition at the 57th Parallel the last week of July; it was well after eleven o’clock before she felt it had been dark enough long enough to venture out on her fool’s errand.
In a way, though, the late sunset was a good thing. It had also given her enough time to confirm the complete lack of any reasonable alternative to her proposed course of action. It may be a dumb idea, but it was the only one she could come up with which would get her the information she needed in the time she needed it. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder whether Brea
king and Entering was a felony in Scotland.
Technically, she wouldn’t actually be breaking anything, not if it worked out properly, but she was most definitely going to be entering. Perhaps simple Trespassing was just a misdemeanor. She absently wondered whether they deported for misdemeanors before shaking her head to clear it and stepping up to the cool stone wall of David MacLeod’s townhouse.
She had not been idle as she waited for the sun to set. She had used the day’s remaining light to case the townhouse. She got the address from the newspaper article she’d saved and then she made her way casually toward the crime scene, strolling past, casually, appearing to anyone, she hoped, like any other interested—but not too interested—Aberdeenian. If there were cops around, then the whole thing was off. She might be planning on ‘breaking’ and/or ‘entering,’ but she sure as hell wasn’t planning on ‘getting arrested.’
The blue and white police tape still cordoned off the premises from the street. ‘Crime Scene - Do Not Cross’ But there were no police officers hanging about; the place was deserted. Maggie supposed the city probably didn’t want to pay even just one police officer to stand around guarding a crime scene which undoubtedly had been thoroughly investigated, probably multiple times, since the kidnapping. If there was any evidence the police were going to find, they’d found it. The only question that remained—and the hope that brought Maggie out into the dark night—was whether there wasn’t some small piece of evidence which the police hadn’t been able to find, but which Maggie might.
She looked around the small backyard garden of the townhouse. No one around. Good. She had strolled along the sidewalk in front of the rows of townhomes on Stuart Street. Just before the MacLeod house, she’d ducked into the back yard of the neighboring townhouse. It was late enough that she didn’t expect to encounter anyone. And if she did, then she could plausibly deny any interest in their home; she’d just gotten mixed up, taken a wrong turn, silly American. But no one was about and she quickly hopped the short iron fence into the garden behind MacLeod’s residence.
She had ignored the undoubtedly locked back door and stepped over to stand directly beneath the nursery window. The newspaper had also included a photo of that, if only to reinforce the obvious point that no one could possibly have entered the child’s third floor nursery from the garden. But then, Maggie supposed, no one else could do this.
“
It was a simple spell. The levitation spell. She had it pretty much mastered. She’d levitated books, pens, even pot pourri. Just never herself. But as she awaited that evening’s twilight she supposed there was no reason that shouldn’t work too. And she knew there was no time like the present to try.
Her ascent was shaky at first, but she concentrated and repeated the spell, whispering the Old Gaelic word for ‘me’ where she’d always said ‘this object.’ She’d expected to feel like she was being lifted, as if on an invisible forklift. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was like she was falling—only in reverse. Like slipping away from something, being dragged away in a current. And she had to fight back a rather strong wave of panic as she imagined herself flying uncontrollably and irreversibly upward, toward the asphyxiating vacuum of outer space.
The window was fast approaching while her fingertips grasped frantically at the passing wall. As she reached the ledge outside the nursery window, she grabbed a hold of the window frame and thought as hard as she could to break off the levitation spell. She’d found that an unintentional break in her concentration could abort a spell, and similarly that a deliberate release of the spell in her mind would cease the effects of it. That’s how she usually lowered the books, etc., that she levitated. She just hoped it would work this time too.
It did. She consciously shoved the spell away and let the certainty of gravity root her to the narrow stone ledge. She closed her eyes and let pass both the panic, and her motion sickness. When she opened her eyes again she realized, to her uncontrollable horror, that she was some twenty feet off the ground. She clutched to the stone frame of the window for all she was worth, an ironic fear of falling seizing her despite the mode of travel she’d used to arrive at her current location. Not wanting the think any more about it, she noted with relief that no one had bothered to lock the third-story window, threw open the sash and scampered inside Douglas MacLeod’s nursery.
It was quiet as a tomb, and almost as dark. Unsettling thoughts considering the missing child who’d inhabited the small space, and the bloody fate that might await him at the end of a nearly forgotten Welsh prophecy. Maggie pushed the unpleasant thought aside, pulled a flashlight from her backpack and surveyed the chamber.
The word ‘rannsachadh’ came squarely to mind. The word was Gaelic and meant roughly ‘to search,’ but it had been borrowed from the Gaelic and brought into English as ‘ransack.’ There were no curtains, sheets, blankets or carpets to speak of in the small nursery. Nothing on the walls. What wood furniture as had been left by the police was scattered about the room as if tossed there by a giant at play. Scuff marks sliced at every angle across the fine hardwood floor, created a sickening crosshatch of despair in the stark glow of her flashlight. Only the crib appeared to be in its original position, standing silent vigil beneath the dried, brown, stained words from the newspaper photograph.
‘I AM RETURNED TO FULFILL THE PROPHECY’
Whatever, Maggie thought and she hurried to the half-faded phrase which had stained the floor next to the crib. This was where the real action is.
‘A THÁINMHNE NA DOHRGHATAS, SLÁINAICH AN LÁINABH A’SIO’
Or what was left of it; the thirsty floorboards had absorbed several of the more important letters. Not stopping to worry about it though, she knelt down next to the stains and swung her heavy backpack off her back. There was a divining spell in the Dark Book, and although she’d used the spell before to gather information about an event from physical samples left behind, it had been some time since she’d wielded it. She’d need to review it before proceeding.
The creak in the hallway decided otherwise.
Every house, even a townhouse, creaks sometimes, as walls and floors settle in rhythm with the continuous shifting of the earth beneath the structure; but those are the sounds of stress on vertical supports, the slight twist of a beam here or there. It was different, surprisingly different, Maggie noted, from the sound of someone shifting their weight on a squeaky floorboard just outside the nursery of a supposedly empty townhouse.
As quietly as she could, she set the backpack down on the floor, away from the Old Gaelic blood stain. Then she stood up and crossed over to the wall which held the door to the hall. She tiptoed lightly on the seam running between two lengths of boards, thus eliminating any squeaking she herself might cause. She’d trained the beam of the flashlight away from where anyone in the hallway might be able to see. She didn’t turn it off completely—that would be a tip off that she’d heard something—but instead swung it to the opposite wall, its general glow still illuminating the room, but its exact location unclear.
Reaching the wall, Maggie paused for several short, shallow breaths. The smart thing, the sane thing, to do would have been to bolt right out the window and ‘Bhaitit inh chaoimraighanh’ herself down to the ground. But wielding the magic always gave her an evil sort of rush and made her a little reckless, even itchy for confrontation. She knew all this, but still she couldn’t quite stop herself. Bracing herself for what lay around the corner, and ready to cast a defensive levitation spell against the same, she dropped the flashlight and jumped around the corner.
“Ahhhhh!” she screamed.
“Hello, Maggie,” replied Sergeant Elizabeth Warwick.
Maggie had been terror-stricken by the face she’d found waiting around the corner, eerily illuminated by the police officer’s small penlight. Monsters and goblins and MacLeods she could handle. But there was no way Sgt. War
wick was going to buy any story Maggie could think to feed her. Maggie knew. She was going to jail. Still, she had to say something.
“Ho-Holy crap,” she gasped. “You scared me to death.” Not very professional, but it was honest.
Warwick grinned, the expression fully disconcerting in the weak glow of the penlight. “Now what’s a nice girl like you doing disturbing a nasty crime scene like this?”
Yup. I’m going to jail.
“Er,” Maggie started, but then stopped. She had nothing. Nothing credible anyway. She could hardly claim to have gotten lost on her way home from school. ‘Oh, I always cut through the third floor of the MacLeod townhouse on my way home from my eleven o’clock lecture. I heard a rumor there was a kidnapping here a while back. That isn’t true, is it?’
She sighed, the adrenaline-induced tingle in her fingertips beginning to subside, and wondered whether they served haggis in Scottish jails. Still nothing to be done now, and no story to be spun. “I— I thought I could help.” That was true enough, she supposed.
Warwick’s sardonic grin quavered for a moment then broadened into a genuine smile, one held also by her eyes. She reached over to the wall and flipped on the light switch, finally illuminating the hallway in overhead light. “That’s good of you, Maggie,” she said to the American’s considerable surprise. “It’s what I expected you to say. But,” she paused and pursed her lips, “it may not be needed. An arrest is being made tonight.”
Several dozen thoughts raced helter-skelter through Maggie’s head, all vying for primacy in her now thoroughly confused mind.
“An arrest?” In her confusion, she’d forgotten to notice they weren’t talking about what she was doing there. “Who?”
Warwick hesitated. She knew better. She really knew better. But then she shrugged. What the hell, she thought. It’ll be front page news tomorrow anyway. “Jessie MacLeod. The baby’s mother. And David MacLeod’s soon to be ex-wife. She was about to lose the custody battle.”
Warwick didn’t find the explanation any more convincing from her own mouth than it had been from Chisholm’s. She wondered if her doubt infected her tone. If it had, Maggie didn’t seem to notice.
Blood Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 2) Page 25
