Deadly Dram

by Melinda Mullet

  I sighed. “Of course I am. I can’t help myself. Old habits die hard.”

  “Or not at all,” Patrick said.

  “From what I could see last night, there were plenty of folks who didn’t agree with Richard. Mark Findley, Gordon Craig, Jude MacNamara. I would think any one of them might be happy to see Richard ill and confined to quarters for the next few days.”

  “Can’t say you’re wrong there,” Patrick agreed.

  “Any idea where Walter Jackson got to last night?”

  “Thought I saw him on the list for the cellar tour, but I’m not sure. Why?”

  “Heard he wasn’t lovin’ what Richard had to say. What about Findley and Craig?”

  “I know they went on the group tour. They were talking about it this morning. A lot of tasting going on, it seems.”

  “And Jude MacNamara. Did he leave the Aerie Bar before you and Richard did?”

  “No, he was still there with Hugh Ashworth-Jones when we left. I think they were looking forward to finally being able to get a word in edgewise.”

  “Or maybe they were plotting something underhanded,” I speculated.

  Patrick poured himself another drink from the bottle on the table. “Wouldn’t put it past either of them to try something a bit dodgy, but they’d have to have done it before Richard headed back to his room.”

  I reached for the bottle and poured myself a further medicinal helping of whisky. “True, but I was thinking of something different. I didn’t realize when we came how much was at stake for the distilleries that win, and I certainly didn’t realize how split the industry was over the foreign-versus-domestic issue. If someone would poison a judge to shut him up, it makes you wonder what else they might try to ensure that the domestic industry stays on top.”

  “Like what?”

  I reached for a handful of nuts and popped them into my mouth one by one. “Like rigging a contest to ensure that the foreign entrants didn’t walk away with the coveted awards.”

  Patrick pursed his lips and regarded me seriously. “Now that you mention it, I had a strange conversation with Jude MacNamara this morning as he was getting me set up to be a judge,” Patrick said. “He kept waffling on about the great Scottish traditions and the importance of not being the odd one out amongst the judges.”

  “The ‘odd one out’? Those were his exact words?”

  “Yea, exactly. It was like he was spouting some strange cipher and I hadn’t been given the key.”

  “Do you think he meant you should be voting along with the other judges?”

  Patrick shrugged. “Could be, but it wasn’t exactly crystal clear.”

  I stopped and reflected on that concept for a minute, before leaning forward and addressing Patrick softly. “Could there be a group of judges working together to rig the outcome of the contest? In theory it would only take three of the five, right?”

  Patrick gave this idea some thought, his forehead wrinkling. “Anything’s possible, I suppose, but it wouldn’t be easy. That kind of scheme would take coordination at a higher level.”

  “You and Archie fall into the globalist camp,” I said, counting on my fingers. “Findley and Craig lean nationalist. Hugh thingummy-Jones would be the swing vote. He didn’t say much last night, but I’m guessing he favors MacNamara’s views. They were pretty much attached at the hip in the bar. That would be three versus two.”

  “Hugh and MacNamara were looking pretty chummy last night,” Patrick agreed. “Do you think they could be in this together?”

  “Crossed my mind. And what if Richard found out something fishy was going on and threatened to blow the whistle. I don’t know him well, but it seems like the kind of thing he might do.”

  Patrick looked deflated. “It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do.”

  I sighed heavily. “The problem is that making him ill wouldn’t be enough to shut him up. There’d only be one way to do that.”

  Patrick looked at me wide-eyed. “I thought you said it wasn’t murder.”

  “I don’t know. I’m just thinking aloud, but I’m going to find out.” I took another sip of the whisky in my hand and held it up to the light, studying the color. “Tell me something honestly. If you were tasting a group of whiskies, could you tell one from another? For example, could you pick out an Abbey Glen in a blind tasting?”

  “Not one hundred percent of the time,” Patrick admitted, “but yes, I’d say pretty reliably, although I’m particularly familiar with your whiskies by now.”

  “So a blind tasting isn’t foolproof by any means. A judge could know what they were voting for or against.”

  Patrick placed his fingers on his temples and began to rub in slow circles. A sure sign of a creeping headache. “In the abstract I suppose it’s possible, but everyone’s votes are tallied together in the end. Highest score wins. As you say, you’d have to have at least three judges out of the five all skewing their scores in favor of certain whiskies and against others to have an impact.”

  “Okay. Practically speaking, then, if you were rigging the contest, how would you go about it?” I asked.

  Patrick was silent for a time. “I suppose you could get willing judges to repeatedly taste the same whisky over and over to memorize the profile, though it would be easy to get confused when faced with seven or eight other similar whiskies on a panel.” He considered the matter some more, spinning the empty nut bowl on the table. “I guess the only foolproof way would be to rig the bottle numbers in some way. Then tip the participating judges off in advance. Letting them know which number should be the winner, but that would take a lot of cooperation.”

  That it would, but one thing I knew for sure, the whisky fraternity could close ranks against a common enemy when it needed to.

  * * *

  —

  Trevor returned from the loo and I left him with Patrick while I went back to the room to check on Liam. He was still out running with his mates. He was getting to enjoy the facilities more than I was.

  I’d downloaded the photos of Richard’s room onto my computer first thing this morning and forwarded them on to Michaelson. I pulled them up again and studied them carefully, one by one, but still saw nothing unusual beyond the presence of a dead man. Not sure what good they’d do the police, but I had to admit it had been an interesting assignment. One I felt more equipped to tackle than representing the Glen at this contest. All these men steeped in the whisky traditions, and me the ingénue. At least I was the lone female. I didn’t even have that to make me unique anymore. Brenna Quinn was back in town. Beautiful and brilliant and setting her sights on Grant again. Even the voice inside my head sounded petulant. She’d had him and walked away, and now she wanted to waltz back into his life on her own terms. It was just plain callous.

  A light knock on the door made me nearly jump out of my skin. I went to answer it and found Sophie standing in the hall with an armload of towels.

  “Sorry to disturb you, miss, but Mr. Cooke requested some extra towels and shampoo.”

  I stepped aside and gestured her in.

  “How’re you doing?” I asked. “Thought they might have given you a bit of time off today after…after this morning.”

  “Aye, they would’ve, but I need to keep busy.”

  I noticed her modulated tone was slipping slightly under the strain of the day. Her gaze fell on my open computer. The color drained from her cheeks and she began to sway on her feet.

  Damn. “I’m so sorry,” I said hastily, diminishing the image. I took the towels from her arms and placed them on the table. “Please sit for a moment. It’s not what it looks like.”

  Sophie looked skeptical, but her knees gave way and she perched gingerly on the edge of the settee, looking ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

  “I’m a photographer by profession,” I explained, “and Inspec
tor Michaelson is a, well, a friend.” I settled on friend for want of a better word. “He asked me to take those photos for the police.”

  Sophie nodded. “Do the police suspect it wasnae a natural death?”

  I gave Sophie a searching look. “What makes you think that?”

  “They had all the gift bottles taken out of the rooms,” she said. “I figure they must be lookin’ for something.”

  Sophie was definitely sharper than the average bear. “I think they’re looking at every option to be on the safe side,” I conceded.

  “It’s all so horrible.” Sophie’s voice cracked and I could tell she was struggling to keep it together. “Things like this just don’t happen here. And, well, I watch those detective shows on the TV. I was the last one in his room. That makes me a suspect, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, a valuable witness at least. But I’m sure you can account for where you were last night. Can’t you?” I prodded.

  “I worked till ten thirty, then went home to bed. I had to be back here by five this morning.”

  Not exactly a watertight alibi, I thought. Sir Richard had passed between midnight and seven in the morning when Sophie came to bring him coffee, but the poison would have to have been placed in the bottle after he and his guests left for dinner and before he returned from the bar with Patrick at midnight. Plenty of time before ten thirty.

  “What makes you think you were the last one in his room?” I asked.

  “I was worried, so I checked the key log at the front desk. All the key cards are coded with unique numbers. Hotel security can tell you who went in and out of each room and what time. I was the only person who went in between dinner and when Sir Richard came back to the room at midnight.”

  That certainly made things more complicated, I thought. “Is there CCTV in the hallways?”

  “Not inside the hotel. Outside, but not in.” Sophie was clearly following my rationale. “The management seems to think security problems come from outside, but in this case they may be wrong,” Sophie said sadly.

  Without cameras the card record was only marginally helpful. Security could tell what time the room was accessed, but without a visual they couldn’t tell who used the key.

  “Did you see anyone you didn’t recognize in the hallways last night?”

  Sophie thought for a moment before saying, “No. No one I didn’t recognize.”

  “But then again, I don’t suppose you know all of the guests, do you?”

  “I know them by sight, and I know all the names of the guests on my three floors. We’re required to.”

  “How do you manage that?”

  “We have a guest book that’s updated daily. Names and faces of all the guests and profiles of repeat guests, their preferences and dislikes and such. We’re required to study it each day before our shift starts.”

  “So that’s why the staff always greets guests by name.” I’d found it intriguing and a little creepy.

  Sophie dug a tissue from out of her pocket and blew her nose loudly. “It’s the personal touch. Mr. Larson insists and Mrs. Easton makes sure there’s no slipups.”

  “Would you do me a favor and take a look at some of these pictures?”

  Sophie recoiled.

  “Not the ones of Mr. Simpson, just the pictures of the room.”

  Sophie nodded slowly.

  I brought my laptop over and showed her the photos I’d taken. “Look very carefully. I know you were in a number of rooms last night, but try to remember how this room looked when you came in to tidy up. Has anything been moved?”

  Sophie dutifully studied the photos, a small crease decorating the space between her eyebrows as she enlarged certain areas of the photos. “The bottle’s gone,” she remarked, “and the glasses.”

  “Which bottle?”

  “The bottle that was on the coffee table,” she said, pointing to the tray on the polished oak table in front of the settee.

  “This one?” I pulled up the photo of the bedside table, shielding the part of the image that showed Simpson’s body.

  “Aye, that’s the one. And there’s one glass,” she said thoughtfully. She paged back through the photos of the sitting area. “There were five glasses on the coffee table when I cleaned up. I washed all five and put them back on the tray with the bottle.”

  “How many glasses are usually in a guest room?”

  “In a single room we stock two glasses on top of the mini-fridge and one in the bathroom. Mr. Simpson called down for some extra glass for his guests at around five o’clock. I was busy with Mrs. Curruthers, so Mrs. Easton brought the extra two glasses up. I washed them all when I came in to do the turndown service at eight and put them back on the table. You can ask Mrs. Easton. She came in and did a quick inspection while I was cleaning.”

  “Does she usually do that?”

  “She spot-checks all of us randomly during the evening. Keeps us on our toes.”

  “And you’re sure you left five glasses in the room?”

  Sophie nodded. “I remember wondering if I should take the extras away, but then I decided to leave them all on the table next to the bottle in case Sir Richard’s guests came back for a nightcap.”

  I flipped back to a close-up of the bedside table. “But there’s only one glass here.”

  “Right.”

  “What happened to the other four?” I mused.

  “They were there when I left.”

  It sounded as if someone was in the room after Sophie tidied up and before Richard arrived home, but the key log said no. I wondered if Patrick would remember if the glasses were there when he stepped in at the end of the evening.

  “Would any of the other housekeeping staff come in after you?”

  “No, we all have our own rooms that we are responsible for. And like I said, there was no other key entry.”

  “Right. Is there any other way into the room?”

  Sophie shook her head. “Not unless Sir Richard let someone in himself,” she said as she rose from the couch. “I’m really sorry, Ms. Logan, but I have to get back to work.”

  “Thanks for your help. By the way, where’s Liam?”

  “Down at the kennels with the gundogs. I can have someone bring him back if you like.”

  “No, thanks. I fancy a walk.”

  “Right. Just ask any of the outdoor staff and they’ll point you in the right direction. The master of the hounds is named Joey. He’ll know where Liam is.”

  Sophie was spot-on. Sir Richard could have let his killer into the room and it wouldn’t register on the key log. If he did let someone in at that hour of the night, odds were good it was someone he knew. A fellow judge—Ashworth-Jones perhaps? But could he make him share a drink, and why would that person remove four extra glasses?

  Sophie finished restocking our towels and departed. I absentmindedly retrieved my heavy coat and gloves. Pulling the door shut, I started down the hallway and jumped as Grant’s door opened and he appeared.

  “Where’re you off to?” he asked.

  “Walking down to the gundog school to get Liam. He’s having a playdate.”

  “Mind some company?”

  “No, not at all,” I said instinctively, and I didn’t, not really.

  Grant returned quickly in a heavy Aran sweater and a down vest, and we headed out the back door and into the brisk winter air. It was only four o’clock, but the sun was already dipping down in the sky, giving the landscape a pastel blue and pink glow, and the lights from the hotel gleamed like jewels in an elaborate necklace strewn out along the snowy ground. We asked one of the groundskeepers, and he pointed us toward a trail heading up a small hill into a wooded area by a man-made lake.

  We fell in step in an easy rhythm. It was nice to be out alone with Grant. Louisa would be thrilled. But we were friends, I remind
ed myself, only friends. I asked Grant about his lunch with Archie MacInnes to keep my mind on business.

  “I know everyone tries to ingratiate themselves with the judges, and no doubt Archie expects it, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. It’s a blind tasting, after all. What good can it do?”

  My earlier conversation with Patrick about how the judging could be rigged was still rolling around in my head looking for validation. “It makes you wonder about the blind tastings, doesn’t it? Participants must feel that the judges have some idea what they’re voting for if they keep on wining and dining them.”

  Grant picked up a long, thin stick and began knocking a stray golf ball down the path in front of him. “Possibly, or maybe they’re just paving the way for next year’s nominations,” Grant speculated.

  “Hm. Could be. What did Archie MacInnes have to say about Richard?” I asked.

  “He tried to stick to discussing the whiskies, but I could tell he was upset. Hardly tasting what he drank, and that’s not like him at all. Brenna eventually managed to get him to talk about Richard.”

  I stopped walking and turned on Grant. “You didn’t tell Brenna what I told you about Michaelson’s suspicions, did you?”

  “Of course not.” Grant scowled. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I didn’t say that, it’s just that you and Brenna have a history and I thought maybe—”

  “Maybe nothing.” Grant turned the full force of his gaze on me. “You told me not to, and I didn’t. My history with Brenna is just that, history, but Brenna happens to be a very caring person. People confide in her easily, and I was lucky that today she was taking an interest in making Archie feel better.”

  We walked on in silence for a few minutes. I felt bad. I shouldn’t have questioned Grant. I knew better than to think he’d abuse my confidence. I could tell he was working to rein in his temper. Finally he said, “Brenna encouraged Archie to reminisce about his friendship with Richard. He ended up reflecting on their days at Oxford. They were roommates, and quite the lads about town, according to Archie, but then again, these stories usually get embellished over time and whisky.”