1 Off Kilter

by Hannah Reed

  “Meaning?” I asked, since Vicki continued to just sit there.

  “Meaning that Ms. MacBride would be allowed to keep the land and buildings, but would have to divide up the more liquid assets, such as equities and cash positions. She would also be required to partner with her half siblings in regards to the business end of the estate.”

  That certainly carried some relief for Vicki if the suit against her bore fruit. Even if the other side won, Vicki couldn’t be forced out of the house. She’d still own the shop building and a portion of any cash accounts. This didn’t sound like the worst that could happen. More like the fair distribution I’d envisioned from the beginning.

  So why were Kirstine and John so worked up? It appeared they were in a no-fail situation. So why all the subterfuge, all the plotting that I’d overheard in Sheepish Expressions? Why mastermind a serious injury in the barn?

  There was only one logical explanation: One third of the estate wasn’t enough for the couple. They wanted it all.

  A glance Vicki’s way told me she didn’t seem upset with the possible outcome. Or maybe she didn’t understand it. Even now, Vicki didn’t ask any questions or express her opinion. No wonder she’d insisted that I attend this meeting! I had to be her voice. So I kept going. “Do you have experience contesting bequests? Litigation is a very specialized area of the law, at least it is in the States.”

  Turner addressed Vicki. “Ms. MacBride, really! Your friend has all the tact of”—here he glared at me—“an ugly American.”

  Vicki looked stricken.

  “Vicki requested that I attend this meeting,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m here as her representative, isn’t that right, Vicki?”

  She still couldn’t speak, but at least she managed to nod in agreement.

  I pressed on, “Do you have the proper experience to handle this case?”

  Paul Turner’s mustache twitched again, but he answered. “I’ve been the family’s solicitor for more years than you’ve been alive. Do you think I haven’t handled contentious issues before?”

  I wasn’t familiar with the court system in Scotland, and if it were anything like the law enforcement system I’d encountered, I didn’t know what to expect. “And has the judge handled cases like this in the past?” I went on to ask.

  “Of course,” he said rather condescendingly. Then he stood up and addressed Vicki dismissively. “If you have any questions, Ms. MacBride, please feel free to contact me again.”

  Outside after the meeting, walking back to the pub, where we’d left our cars, I expressed my growing concern. “I don’t believe Paul Turner has your best interests at heart.”

  I couldn’t help feeling that he had something up his sleeve that he wasn’t sharing with his client. What, I didn’t know. When Vicki didn’t reply, I studied her. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s just . . . lawyers and courts make me so nervous. I’m not used to handling conflict, and all I want to do is run away. And to think how far they’ll go to get their own way!”

  “At least they can’t take your new home away from you.”

  “Why should I even want it? To have to get up every morning and be faced with nothing but hatred?”

  She did have a point.

  “Perhaps you can work out some sort of compromise with Kirstine and Alec without going into court,” I suggested. “You know, sit down and extend an olive branch.”

  “Kirstine and her husband scare me.”

  They scared me, too, but I didn’t want to make things worse, so I said, “At least think about it.”

  “All right, I will.” Then she brightened. “Leith Cameron rang to check on you. I think you may be giving his girl some competition.”

  I laughed. “Matchmaking, Vicki? Two can play that game. Let’s see. How about fixing you up with Sean Stevens?”

  She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Too excitable for my taste.”

  “Inspector Jamieson?”

  “Not excitable enough.”

  “Paul Turner?”

  “Too old, hairy, and married. And he scares me speechless!”

  “Speaking of ‘married,’ have you ever been?”

  “Twice before,” Vicki replied. “I’m about as good at marriage as my da was, and that’s all I have to say about the subject.”

  “You simply haven’t found the right man yet.”

  Vicki snorted.

  “Let’s see. There must be someone suited for you,” I teased.

  “Don’t go suggesting that boozer of an innkeeper.”

  “So you know about his permanent address at the local watering hole??”

  “I saw him at the pub during the funeral, and he hasn’t changed one bit. The Morris family has owned that inn since the beginning of time, and every single one of them liked their liquor. I remember Bill from my summers here, and even then he was pished more than he was sober. Bill’s a harmless old goat though.”

  I laughed along with her, agreeing that he was an old goat but not as sure of the harmless part.

  CHAPTER 23

  I tried to keep up with Vicki on the drive back to the farm, but like all the others drivers I’d encountered in Scotland, she drove as though the road were a racetrack. She quickly left me in her dust.

  When I arrived at the farm, I saw Leith Cameron’s Land Rover parked by the farmhouse and his dog Kelly trotting along the fence across the lane. Kelly watched the sheep with that intense border collie stare and visibly quivered with anticipation. The sheep watched her right back but without the calm they had exhibited while observing me. They stared in unison, seeming skittish, nervous—and no wonder. The sheep were expecting to be herded any moment.

  Vicki and Leith had been chatting when I pulled up, but as soon as I exited the Peugeot, Vicki hurried away toward the house. “I have a few things to do inside,” she claimed, but not before she gave me a conspiratorial wink behind Leith’s back.

  I did an internal head shake. The woman was absolutely tenacious when she set her mind to something.

  “Eden Elliott, I heard ye took a fall. How are ye feeling?” He seemed genuinely concerned.

  “Pretty much back to normal,” I told him.

  “That’s good tae hear.”

  At Leith’s call, the obedient border collie left the fence and trotted behind us as we entered the barn and approached the stairs leading to the loft. Meanwhile I explained about John Derry on his tractor, the bales of hay, and how he’d left us to haul them to the loft.

  “Ye broke the step, ye did,” Leith said.

  “It turns out that someone tampered with it,” I told him, explaining what had caused my fall and how Sean Stevens had found the sawed stair piece. “It’s hard not to think that Vicki was the most likely target. And I believe it has something to do with the litigation started by her half siblings.”

  By Leith’s darkening expression I knew he was becoming increasingly upset and angry as I shared what had happened. “Ye must be right about it being a MacBride up tae no good,” he said. “Nobody else would have a reason tae do such a thing. But the inspector will have a tough time proving it.”

  He looked around for Kelly. “She was a fine herder in her day,” Leith said proudly. “Not every dog o’ her breed is born with the ability to herd sheep. Either they have it as pups, or they never have it. Herding isn’t something that can be taught. Some o’ the working dogs here at the MacBride farm are from one or another of her litters.”

  “How old is she?” I asked, surprised to learn that Kelly wasn’t a youngster, and that she’d been a mom multiple times.

  “Goin’ on twelve,” Leith told me. “She has a bit o’ arthritis in her legs and the beginning of cataracts. Her herding days are behind her. Time tae turn the task over tae another generation, but as ye can see, she’s still got plenty o’ spunk even in retirem
ent.”

  “You’ll have to find another job for her to do,” I suggested.

  “She has a good nose. Maybe she can sniff out truffles and help me dig them up. She’d give those trained pigs a run fer their money. Come over here, Kelly. What are ye up tae over there?”

  I followed his line of sight over to the far side of the barn, on the other side of a tractor, where the canine’s head was in view. She was digging away. Small stones and pieces of hay flew in the air, pinging against the tractor body.

  “Quit that!” Leith called out. Kelly stopped and gazed at her owner, head cocked as though trying to understand what the fuss was all about. “Don’t know what’s gotten intae her,” Leith said to me. “She isn’t usually a digger.”

  Vicki came into the barn then, and with a wily smile said, “I just got off the phone with Alec.”

  “You don’t seem upset,” I said, studying my friend, who appeared unusually calm. “Did he suggest a peaceful resolution?”

  “Nothing like that. No business at all. He was actually polite. And he asked after you.”

  Really? Although, he had suggested a golf outing. But I’d thought he was just being polite.

  “He offered to take you golfing tomorrow morning and I accepted for you. I told him you’d be ready at nine o’clock sharp,” Vicki told me.

  “But I don’t know how to golf!” I cried.

  “If anyone is qualified tae teach ye it’s Alec,” Leith said, apparently not fazed in the least by this announcement. So much for Vicki’s matchmaking efforts. “It’s easy tae learn,” he went on. “And Scotland is the best place tae try it out. The sport was invented here, after all.”

  “You should be the one to teach her,” Vicki said, not giving up.

  Before Leith had a chance to respond, he glanced sharply in the direction of the tractor, where the border collie was digging again. “Kelly!” he called out loudly. This time she ignored him completely, too intent on her task to notice. Leith walked toward her, giving Vicki an opportunity to whisper to me, “A little competition will do our neighbor some good. He’ll take another look at you now that some other man is showing interest.”

  “He’s with someone, Vicki,” I hissed back, “and I’m not going to try to steal him.”

  “It can’t be anything serious,” she answered. “He’ll come round. Failing means you’re playing!” At my confused expression, she translated for me, “That means at least you’re trying.”

  Just then Leith called out, “Vicki, you’d better take a look at this.”

  Kelly had found a new job all right, and it was somewhat on the lines of sniffing out truffles.

  Only she hadn’t found buried delicacies.

  She’d unearthed something hidden under a layer of hay that had been roughly scattered to conceal what was beneath.

  Some had soaked into the straw.

  Some had seeped down into the crushed-stone flooring.

  And even though it wasn’t fresh—not bright, but rather rusty in color—it couldn’t have been mistaken for anything else.

  “Blood,” I said.

  “And lots of it,” Leith added.

  As for Vicki, true to character, she started screaming.

  CHAPTER 24

  Inspector Jamieson arrived first. Next came Sean Stevens, and within the hour a whole contingency of forensic specialists were combing the barn for evidence.

  Sheepish Expressions hadn’t yet closed for the day, so there were still customers coming and going from the parking lot, where they couldn’t help noticing the commotion up the lane. Some of them had formed a group on the perimeter, where a police officer kept spectators out of the way.

  “I don’t need tae wait for lab reports tae know whose blood is all over inside this barn,” I overheard the inspector say to Sean. “It’s Gavin Mitchell’s, I’ll bet you, and it’s safe tae say we’ve found the scene o’ the crime.” Then he gave Sean strict orders, “Ye stay out o’ the barn and don’t touch anythin’. Keep track o’ the witnesses and make sure they dinnae wander off. Do ye think you can handle that? Keeping tabs on them?”

  Sean nodded and scurried off right past me, one of those witnesses in his charge. So much for keeping tabs.

  Kelly, who had discovered one of the most important missing pieces in the investigation, had been confined to Leith’s Land Rover. Inspector Jamieson wasn’t taking any chances with the crime scene. The border collie didn’t care in the least that she’d been banished, thanks to the rawhide bone Leith had presented to her for a job well done. The treat kept her busy for a while, then she took a nap, perfectly content to be out of the loop.

  Vicki, conversely, was inconsolable. And I didn’t blame her. Since her arrival in Glenkillen, she’d been on the receiving end of plenty of hostility and suspicion. Not only had she taken possession of a local family’s inheritance, but then she’d found a popular resident’s dead body in his cottage. Now the community was about to learn that he’d been killed in her own barn. And they’d learn this latest fact sooner rather than later, with shop customers hanging around eagerly waiting for the latest gossip.

  Any hopes I’d had that the sheep shearer’s murder had been the result of an interrupted burglary and that the perpetrator had been passing through Glenkillen flew out the proverbial window with Kelly’s big discovery. I really hadn’t had much to base that theory on anyway, other than a box moved from the top of the television and flung down beside the body.

  A MacBride or someone close to the family must have murdered Gavin Mitchell. John and Kirstine? Derry’s name came to the forefront every time something new came to the surface. And his wife had to be an accomplice. But somehow Vicki was in the hot seat.

  “John Derry had nothing tae do with tamperin’ with the stairs,” the inspector told me when I inquired during a lull in the action, after Leith, Vicki, and I had written out our statements and while the forensic team was still going about their business. “He had plenty o’ witnesses who saw him in town, from the time he left ye with the hay until well after ye were taken to hospital by ambulance.”

  Well, wasn’t that convenient? He would have had to leave the tractor and instantly drive to Glenkillen. “How can these witnesses be so specific as to the time?” I argued. “Surely he could have squeezed in a little sawing.”

  Inspector Jamieson was grim but certain. “He was attending a local business association meeting. That bunch is always hatching up one scheme or the other tae bring more visitors intae the village. I compared the times ye gave me, and no way could John Derry have rigged those stairs unless he did it right before ye started hauling bales up, and . . .”

  I interrupted and finished the sentence for him. “And since I had made multiple trips up and down before going into the house for a break, he didn’t have the opportunity.”

  “Ye took the words right out o’ my mouth. It’s becoming a habit with ye.”

  Either John’s business buddies had covered for him, or his wife had been involved.

  “What about Kirstine?” I asked. “Where was she at the time?”

  “Ye need tae let me do my job the way I see fit,” the inspector said. Then he turned to Vicki. “I suppose ye don’t have anybody tae vouch for yer whereaboots?”

  “And what specific period of time should I be concerned with?” she asked him, her voice strong, but I could tell she was rattled by his line of questioning. I know I’d have been.

  “Ye can write out a detailed time line fer me later, including your travel schedules back and forth between here and London with a list of those who can vouch for ye. Right now I’d like a brief accounting o’ yer movements from the time ye learned o’ yer father’s death until ye discovered Gavin Mitchell’s body.”

  “I need to account for several days? Every second?” She paled. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  At least I could h
elp a little. “We were at the cemetery and then the pub and together until we went to the cottage and found the body. And we were on the same flight from London. We sat next to each other.”

  “How about we just worry right now aboot the day of and the day before ye met with Paul Turner regarding the will,” the inspector said. “I’m well aware that Gavin was the one who phoned ye with the news of James MacBride’s death. What else did he say?”

  “That I should come immediately,” Vicki said.

  “Did he tell ye why?”

  “No, I had no idea. I tried to get more information, but all he would say was that I needed to get to Glenkillen as soon as possible. So I caught a flight and arrived that same evening. I stayed at the inn.”

  “And that’s the last ye heard from him?”

  Still pale, she nodded, well aware that the investigation had taken a turn in her direction. “He was friendly on the phone, said he remembered me fondly from my childhood and imagined I’d grown into a fine woman.” With that, Vicki broke down and wept.

  I’d had limited experience with murder, and knew of only a handful of motives: fear, love, revenge, greed.

  Fear seemed unlikely—I couldn’t image anyone being so afraid of the sheep shearer that they’d felt they had to eliminate him to preserve their own skin. From all his acquaintances’ comments, everybody had liked Gavin. As for love, people were known to do crazy things for it, but no one had mentioned any romantic interests in Gavin’s life. If there had been one, that person would be high on the inspector’s list of suspects, yet I hadn’t heard any gossip of that sort. And based on the mess in the dead man’s cottage, he didn’t have anyone helping him with upkeep or anyone he was looking to impress. It looked every inch a confirmed bachelor’s pad.

  Revenge maybe? Although, the only person I knew of with a motive was Samuel Kerr, the jailbird who had been released from his cage, had been following the twelve steps, and had apologized for what he’d done. Not only that, but according to the inspector, Kerr had an ironclad alibi.