As we finished the coffee and cakes, we moved onto more pleasant conversation topics. He, like Birk, was interested in my farm life in Kansas. I told him about milking cows, feeding chickens, and all the laborious hours it took to run a farm. As I talked, the tension from his visit with the police dissipated almost completely.
“I suppose we should get back tae Rosie,” Hamlet said with a glance at the time on his phone as the waitress picked up our plates. “She’ll be worried.”
It wasn’t raining when we left, but almost drizzling as we continued back up the Royal Mile and then down the curved hill to Grassmarket and The Cracked Spine, where only Rosie remained to greet us and question Hamlet probably more thoroughly than the police had. It was cool and wet outside, but pleasant and I didn’t mind the frizz my hair took on.
I didn’t doubt all that Hamlet had told me. Exactly. I didn’t think Edwin and Jenny were a sibling team of thieves. In fact, I didn’t really think Edwin was a thief in the strictest definition of the word.
But there were a lot of secrets in the air. I felt like I’d only been able to grab on to the tails of a couple of them. No one owed me their full stories, but something told me that Jenny’s killer lurked amid all those secrets.
At around four o’clock and as Rosie called an early end to the workday, she, Hamlet, and I went our separate ways, and I realized I’d just have to keep looking.
SIXTEEN
By myself, I took a bus to McEwan Hall on the University of Edinburgh campus. The university was the other direction from my new cottage and not too far from the bookshop. Though I still wasn’t on a UK phone plan, I thought it was worth paying a little extra to do some quick research. Easily I pulled up maps and bus routes on my phone as I sat on a bench in the Grassmarket square. I didn’t want to bother Elias and I thought I could handle the short trip on my own, particularly if I found a friendly bus driver. It had drizzled again, but the sky was now clear, and the sun wasn’t setting yet. It was cool but comfortable if I kept my jacket on.
Not only was the bus driver friendly, so were the three university students I sat next to on the bus. I explained where I was going and they directed me, even pointing to the correct door I should use to reach the building’s reception hall.
“Is nothing in Edinburgh ugly?” I said as I peered out the bus window at the domed building, done Italian Renaissance style with brown stone blocks, decorative pillars, and oversized dark wood doors.
“Aye,” one of them said. “Have ye seen the parliament building? An eyesore, for sure.”
“I’ll have to check it out,” I said, remembering Elias’s similar opinion.
I thanked them and then found my way inside and up a ramped marble hallway. I needed to turn left to get to the reception hall, but the main hall was to my right. The access doors were wide open, and I couldn’t miss the chance to peek inside.
One of the students had told me that McEwan was the graduating hall for the university, and it was nothing like any graduating hall I’d ever seen in person. It was old world and churchlike, vast with murals and a giant pipe organ. Reverent and oozing with the smarts of the people it had accommodated with a diploma. I didn’t see anyone around but I didn’t have time to linger. I was already a few minutes late to Genevieve’s lecture.
Regretfully, I turned back and made my way to the reception hall. I put my ear to another oversized wooden door and heard a voice inside. Gently I pulled the door open.
It was a conference room, longer than wide with wood-paneled walls similar to what I’d seen at Craig House and a giant rug mostly embroidered with red. I’d come in the doors at the back of the crowded room. Genevieve was behind a podium at the front, and rows of wooden, straight-backed chairs were filled with interested onlookers as was the leftover standing room. I was able to wedge my way in between and to the side of a couple of tall men without disturbing anyone’s view. Genevieve didn’t seem to notice me.
Her expertise was in Ming vases. I loved old things, but I had no idea there could be a crowded room full of people interested in what she—anyone—had to say about them, but everyone listened with rapt attention. She was personable, humorous (even though I didn’t quite catch all the words that brought on the laugher), and beautiful in a white suit with a long jacket, black trim, and black buttons.
I wasn’t sure why I was there. I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t know what I wanted to ask, specifically. I thought I’d just play it by ear. I decided that approaching her after the lecture was a much better plan than simply calling her or arriving at her house unannounced.
As I watched and shifted my weight back and forth between my feet, I scanned the room. Fortunately, not everyone was dressed to the nines or I would have stood out for something other than my coloring. However, most people were precisely groomed and carried with them an air of affluence. I suddenly felt self-conscious about the frizz I’d been okay with earlier and I smoothed my hair with my hand.
My eyes landed on a shoulder in the back row, not far from where I stood, but on the other side of the room. I couldn’t see anything but the shoulder, but there was something about the way it slanted away from the person next to it that seemed familiar. I leaned forward, sticking my head out from between the tall men, and recognized the slanted man, who was wearing sunglasses.
Monroe Ross.
Him being here would be like crossing off two items on my to-do list. That is, if I could get over to him, and if he would talk to me.
I quietly excuse-me’d my way through the people. There wasn’t much room in the space between Monroe’s chair and the wall, but I squeezed my way into it and crouched.
“Hi,” I said, keeping my voice low.
He looked at me and even though he wore sunglasses, I could tell he was aghast at both my maneuver to invade his space and my impolite interjection of friendly conversation.
“Miss Nichols, hello,” he said with a quick nod.
“She’s amazing isn’t she?” I said with my own nod toward Genevieve.
“Very much so.” He put his finger to his lips to shush me.
“Oh, sure. It’s good to see you,” I said.
He nodded again and turned his full attention back to Genevieve. I stood and remained in the space next to him. It wasn’t my intention to irritate Monroe Ross. I knew it wasn’t necessarily polite to start a conversation with someone when a lecture was going on. But I’d known introverts like Monroe before, and I knew that if I didn’t stick close to him—but far enough away that his space wasn’t invaded—he would dart away without me having the chance to talk to him. He would dart away from everyone, not just me, but probably particularly me at this point. I’d have to try to mend our friendship later, when I knew for sure he had nothing to do with Jenny’s murder.
The lecture flew by. Learning about Ming vases was just the kind of thing a girl who used to work in a museum and now works in a place with a room full of secret treasures enjoys. Had I not been so distracted by my imprecise plans, I might have taken notes.
Genevieve received a standing ovation, and true to my prediction Monroe tried to step past me and leave just as the ovation started. I grabbed the sleeve of his coat, too forcefully, and asked if he had a minute.
“Aye, I suppose,” he said after a long moment’s contemplation.
“Let’s go to the hallway,” I requested.
Genevieve would be busy with one-on-one questions for a few minutes at least.
The hallway was wide and I led us away from the main doors, giving us room and little chance to be bumped or interrupted. I let go of his sleeve and kept an extra distance between us. He relaxed a little bit.
“What can I do for you, Miss Nichols?” he asked.
“First, please call me Delaney. Second, I’m worried about Edwin. It’s no surprise that he’s taking his sister’s murder very hard. Who wouldn’t? He has little trust in the police, and I’m just trying to understand his sister better. Maybe I can help him get through the grieving,
or maybe something I find out could jar a memory loose for him so that he can give the police a direction to look for her killer.” It wasn’t a complete lie, and it didn’t make complete sense, but if Monroe didn’t think too much he might not see the holes. Mostly, I counted on Birk’s comments about him and others being worried about Edwin. I could pretend to be reporting in.
“I don’t know how I can help, Delaney,” he said.
“Do you have a description of his sister as you knew her? What can you tell me about her?” I asked.
“Oh, well, it was a long time ago that I truly knew her. She was kind, funny, a handsome woman who you would think was pretty when you got tae know her.”
“That’s a beautiful way to be described,” I said.
He shrugged, and the light from a ceiling fixture blinked over the lenses of his sunglasses.
“When was the very last time you talked to her? A week or so ago, maybe a week and a half, right? You two argued in her flat?” I said.
Monroe Ross froze. It had been a complete guess, a stab in the dark. I didn’t have one clue as to the identity of the man who’d argued with Jenny a week or two ago, or if Jenny’s American neighbor had been telling the truth about hearing an argument that included a male voice. I was just going to ask the same question to every man I thought it could have been. I’d come up with the question as I’d sat on the bench waiting for the bus. I’d started to dial Birk to ask him, but the bus had arrived before I could hit the Call button.
Had I been that lucky to have found the right person on my first ask?
“We didn’t argue,” he said, thawing slightly. “Not really.”
“Oh, okay. But you were there a week and a half ago, right?”
He pinched his mouth.
“What did you talk about?”
“It’s not relevant,” he said.
“Right, I’m sure, but maybe there’s a clue about Jenny’s personality in there. Was she sober?”
“Aye.”
“Why did you go over to her flat?”
“She called me,” he said, stopping short.
“Why? Was it out of the blue? Had you not spoken in some time?”
“It’s not relevant, Delaney, not in the least.”
“Was that the last time you saw her, the last time you spoke to her?”
“Aye,” he lied. Maybe.
I tried to figure out how to ask another question he would answer. He was ready now, though, and wasn’t going to let his body language give him away again. Out of the corner of my eye, toward the doors where the lecture attendees were exiting, I saw a brown flash amid the crowd. I jerked my attention in that direction. Had I seen what my subconscious thought I’d seen?
A young man’s figure dressed in a Shakespearean costume and topped off with a brown ponytail.
“Was Hamlet at the lecture?” I asked.
“Not that I saw,” Monroe said.
The crowd was just big enough that I could no longer spot what I thought I’d seen.
“Wait here a second,” I said. “Please.”
Monroe made a noncommittal sound.
I hurried toward the crowd and moved with it down the hallway and then out the same doors I’d originally come through. Once outside, the group dispersed in a few different directions.
I didn’t see him though. I wasn’t sure why I’d felt the need to chase after him, but it had seemed important at the moment. I wished I hadn’t made the effort. I turned and hurried back toward the reception hall.
To no surprise, Monroe hadn’t waited. And Genevieve was gone too, the reception hall empty except for a gentleman rearranging chairs.
“Help ye?” he said.
“I was looking for the woman who gave the lecture,” I said.
“Gone. Left a wee moment ago.”
“I must have missed her. I was even by the door,” I said.
“She might have gone oot the other way, through the main hall. She left with her expensive vase and a gentleman in sunglasses. A security guard escorted them. Odd, someone wearing sunglasses when they’re inside. Sairy.”
“Yeah, odd,” I said. “Thank you.”
Once again I left the room and then the building. I hopped on a bus and pulled out my phone to make sure I was going in the right direction.
I made it home just fine, though my mind was preoccupied with the day’s activities and potential discoveries, making the ride nowhere nearly as satisfying as the one I’d taken that morning.
SEVENTEEN
Since it was the middle of summer in Edinburgh, my cottage had great natural light all the way up until about 9:30 at night if it wasn’t too cloudy. It wasn’t quite 8:00 when I took a lamp from one of the bedside tables and set it on the kitchen table, plugging it into an outlet low enough on the wall that the cord stretched straight. I had put enough money in my power machine to keep me going for a few days.
I spread out the pieces of purple paper. I’d brought a pair of tweezers with me from home and I grabbed them out of my bag and used them to arrange and rearrange the pieces, hoping I’d be able to come up with something quickly.
At first there was no making sense of the shapes and the ink lines and curves over them, but then I had a thought. I rounded up a paper towel and tore it down to the approximate size I thought the purple pieces had been when they were all together. Of course, I had no way of knowing yet if I was missing any pieces: big, small, whatever, but I guessed the best I could.
I tore the newly sized paper towel in half, and then continued the same maneuver until the napkin’s smaller pieces closely matched the purple smaller pieces.
And I came to no good conclusion about anything at all. I wasn’t even sure what I’d intended, except maybe to just get a feel for the tearing of the paper. I got no feel, no sense of anything. Just about the time my eyes got tired of looking at all the nonsense, a voice that wasn’t from a book sounded in my head.
Borders first. There’s simply no other way, Delaney. Let this be your first puzzle lesson, and remember to let it apply to life too. You just can’t know what you’ve got until you know where to begin.
It was my father’s voice and though I’d first heard the words when I was about five, I was pretty sure the memory was spot-on. My stomach ached briefly when I realized how much I suddenly missed my parents. I needed to get a new phone and call them soon.
“Borders. Maybe that will work. Thanks, Dad,” I said aloud.
With the tweezers I extracted what I thought were the border pieces and placed them a good foot away from the others. And then with a patience even I didn’t know I had, I somehow placed the pieces side by side to make something that resembled a border, at least a border with one corner and one middle piece missing.
I still couldn’t make out anything at all. Except I was satisfied to have created a good beginning. There was no draft through the cottage, but I didn’t want to risk it. I grabbed a glass bowl from one of the kitchen shelves and turned it over on the border to keep it from being disturbed, and then I got to work trying to find some inner pieces, picking up the bowl only to test whether or not something fit.
My patience ran clear out after I’d only come up with what I thought might be two of the top inner pieces. I was perhaps seeing the beginnings of an O or a Y.
I was glad for the knock on my back door so I had an excuse to give up, at least for a little while.
“Hello, dear girl, Aggie wants tae ken if ye’d like tae join us for a late supper. We’re just getting ’round tae it ourselves, and neither of us have shown ye where the local stores are. We’d love your company.”
“I accept,” I said. “But only if you let me make you some meals when I get my feet under me better.”
“Would be our distinct pleasure and honor.”
I hesitated. “Elias, are you or Aggie any good at puzzles?”
“Gracious, lass, I’m not good at much of anything, but Aggie’s my counter and is good at just about everything, puzzles included
. Why?”
“After supper, I have something I want to show her. Maybe she can help.”
“She’d be tickled, I’m sure.”
Supper was a surprise with my first real taste of haggis (I did not hate it, but I did not love it either), tatties and neeps, which were basically potatoes and turnips. I really liked them, even though I didn’t think I liked turnips. Aggie had put what I guessed was nutmeg on the neeps, which gave them an appealing flavor. Both Elias and Aggie laughed when I managed only half the haggis, and said they’d get me converted eventually.
After we cleaned up, they joined me in my cottage. I hadn’t had much of a chance to personalize it beyond making my own sort of mess by opening the two suitcases and rifling through them enough to make a couple of piles of clothes and other things. My new landlords didn’t seem to notice the mess as we all sat around the kitchen table.
“Well, ye’ve got some of the border,” Aggie said as she peered through her reading glasses at the pieces of paper. “Gracious, it’s a little more difficult when all the pieces have such unusual shapes and sizes. And something tells me there are pieces missing.”
“The writing on them might help,” I said doubtfully.
“Hmm. Mebbe,” Aggie said, but then she moved her face a bit closer. “Ye might have something.”
Using the tweezers, Aggie picked up a piece of paper and placed it in the top right corner, under a border piece. She grabbed another piece and placed it next to the first.
“That might be the letters ‘r-r-y,’” she said.
“I think that’s more than possible,” Elias said as he stood over her shoulder.
“That’s amazing, Aggie,” I said. “I didn’t see that at all.”
A moment later Aggie’s shoulder twitched. Elias looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Shall we perhaps catch a television show?”
“I have a better idea,” I said. “If you’re up for it, that is.”
“Awright,” he said doubtfully.
I smiled. “There’re a couple of areas of town I’d like to drive through. Are you available to take a drive?”
The Cracked Spine Page 15
