Three Degrees of Death: A Colby Tate Mystery (The Colby Tate Mysteries Book 3)

by Allen Kent

  “He’s here!” one shouted back through the opening.

  Grace hoisted the girl into the blanketed arms of a waiting policewoman and dashed into the thatched shed. Moments later she emerged, her arm clasped tightly around the unsteady shoulders of her brother. A dark van rolled into the clearing and stopped beside them. She waited with Danny while Miriam’s limp, blanket-wrapped body was laid on the center seat, then eased the boy into the seat behind. She turned toward me before climbing in after him, her face soaked with tears.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed with a relieved, grateful smile and disappeared into the back of the vehicle.

  The three white rentals carrying all of the clansmen but Claire and Jamie swayed back along the dirt track toward the paved road, driven by MacKay’s officers. Another police van looped around to where I stood beside the detective inspector and the cult leaders, flanked by a pair of constables.

  As the head clansmen were loaded into a rear, screened-off compartment, the inspector turned and extended a hand. “We owe you a great debt, Sheriff Tate. Not only for learning about the cult and its plan for the night, but for delaying the assault until we reached you and noticing what I didn’t. That there were false sides on the altar.”

  “I certainly couldn’t have done this alone,” I admitted, giving his hand a firm shake. “And your comment about climbing under the stone altar as a kid may have saved the girl.”

  He chuckled. “How could I have missed that? And by the way, I’m Detective Inspector Conall Mackay.”

  “I’ve been told about you. Thank you for allowing Grace to be involved in your investigation.”

  He looked me over with a wry smile. “It has been our pleasure. And I have certainly heard a great deal about you, Sheriff. Do you have other clothing?”

  I nodded in the direction of the retreating vans. “In one of those, I suspect. A shirt, jacket, socks, and shoes.”

  He chuckled. “Ride in with us. You can pick them up at the station. We need a statement from you anyway.” He turned as the van carrying Grace and the two teens eased onto the uneven track through the heather.

  “They’ll be taking the two young people directly to hospital,” he said. “The boy appears to be fine, and the girl has a good pulse. I think she’s just been heavily drugged.” He followed the van with his gaze and murmured, “I’m so relieved you found them. Grace has been so distraught. And that’s quite a woman you’ve got there.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, trying to read the distant look in his eyes. “She really is pretty special.”

  35

  It took the better part of two hours to write out a statement, fill in details they wanted more information about, and use my ID and passwords to take them into the Gleidhidh Doras site on the dark web. By then, Jamie, Claire, and their two heavies were doing their best to talk their way out of kidnapping, attempted rape, and intent to commit murder charges.

  MacKay walked me to an observation room that looked in on Claire’s interrogation. With her partner uncovered and Danny found in the hut, her defiance had dissolved into something closer to desperate pleading.

  “From what we’ve been able to learn from Claire and Jamie,” MacKay said, “After they convinced Danny and Miriam to go to the castle with them, they stopped in the rear of the castle’s parking area, diverted the kids’ attention by asking if they recognized some random passerby, and injected a sedative into both of their necks. They’ve been holding them in an Airbnb rental not too far from that park where you gathered tonight. The kids were moved to the shed earlier this evening. That’s why we didn’t discover them when we scoured the moors. I’m certain that hut had been checked at least once by our officers.”

  “Before the ceremony began, Jamie had the back pulled away from the altar where it couldn’t be seen from below. He rolled with the girl off the back, dragged her underneath, then pulled the fake slab into place. The whole thing was remarkably well planned. Torches of rolled Nomex so they would keep burning. Styrofoam stonework so professionally done that our people looked at it side-by-side with the real slabs and couldn’t tell the difference.”

  “How did they manage the texts from Danny?” I asked.

  “Apparently Claire wrote them out, then had one of those two bodyguards take them to Aberdeen and Dundee to send them. Other than that, the phones were completely off the rest of the time. One of the men tossed the girl’s when he went to Aberdeen, just to support the text message that the kids were traveling toward England.”

  MacKay frowned through the one-way glass at Claire. “The initial plan was to have Grace’s brother have sex with the girl. ‘Initiate her’ were the words Claire used. But the boy wouldn’t do it. He said he knew how that was viewed in Miriam’s culture and that she wouldn’t be able to live with the shame. Apparently, even under threat of being killed, he still refused. They were going to get the kids engaged in sex on the altar with Claire and Jamie beside them, distract everyone else with their own little drugged-up orgy, then roll the two off the back and underneath the rocks until the night wrapped up and everyone was gone.”

  “Then what were they going to do with them?”

  Inspector MacKay gave a wry chuckle.

  “That’s where things really become bizarre—or maybe I should say ‘more bizarre.’ Claire claims they were going to turn the kids loose. But the two brutes she had as her bodyguards—and they did work for her—are telling a different story.”

  He turned with his back to the glass as if the woman being interrogated might overhear him.

  “According to them, Claire had had enough of Jamie. The whole Gleidhidh Doras thing was her brainchild, and she had pulled him in because she needed a partner. But he was starting to enjoy the role and challenge her authority. According to the big man with the beard, once the plan changed to have Jamie initiate the girl, Claire decided his miraculous journey back to Midhope Castle was going to be permanent. The bodyguards were given orders to stay at the ceremony site after the others left, get Jamie and the girl out of their hiding place, and dispose of them both.”

  A tremor ran down my back where Claire’s finger had traced along my spine. I again heard her whisper against my cheek, “I may have bigger things in store for you.” Was she thinking of taking a new partner?

  MacKay noticed the shiver and gave me an understanding pat on the shoulder. “An evil woman,” he said. “We suspect her men would have killed Danny at the same time. There hadn’t been any effort to disguise who had taken the kids and, if freed, Danny and Miriam could easily have identified their captors. We don’t believe they planned to let any of the three live.”

  He turned again to look through the window. “Claire saw it as the perfect way to convince her gullible followers that Jamie and the girl had gone off to never-neverland. The clansmen didn’t even know about Danny, so the boy wouldn’t have been missed.”

  “So it helped her plan to have Jamie step in when Danny refused.”

  “Yes. Now mind you, Jamie’s saying he didn’t actually intend to have sex with the girl. Just appear to. But I suspect he’s just trying to avoid the attempted rape charge.”

  “No question about that,” I said. “The man’s a snake.”

  MacKay sniffed cynically. “He claims that when everyone was feeling pretty relaxed and wrapped up in each other, he was simply going to take the girl under the altar and wait until Claire gave him the all-clear. Then he’d stay in hiding, remain off their website for a month or two, then somehow reappear at a later ceremony as a returning hero.”

  “He had no clue she was planning to have him killed?”

  MacKay tilted his head uncertainly. “Hard to say. When we told him Claire’s henchmen confessed that they had been ordered to get rid of him along with the kids, he looked shocked for about two seconds. Then he turned on her with a vengeance. Said the whole clan thing was entirely her idea.”

  “From what I saw and heard, I’d believe the bodyguards,” I muttered.

  MacKay n
odded into the glass pane. “Our thinking as well.”

  “What were they using to loosen up the clan? The stuff in the mead they passed around?”

  “She says it was ketamine. A light dose. They wanted you all relaxed and a little disoriented.”

  “Good thing I managed to spill mine,” I said with a chuckle. “If you’d been any later, I’m not sure what Jamie might have done to Miriam—or what Claire’s thugs would have done to me.”

  “Your shout got us moving,” Mackay admitted. “And you showed remarkable courage, facing down those two brutes.”

  “I showed desperation,” I corrected, feeling again the shiver. “Any word on the kids’ conditions?”

  “They will both be fine. The girl is pretty hungover. She got a much larger dose.” He turned back toward me. “Let’s go see if we have a more recent report.”

  Grace had not returned to the station by the time they finished with me. MacKay was certain they would want testimony when a court appearance rolled around but thought one could be arranged using Skype. One of their night constables dropped me at the hotel. It was 4:00 a.m.

  I took a heavy dose of ibuprofen, wrapped my leg while I showered, and sent a lengthy message to Julia Blair loosely describing the evening. I suggested she check in with the Inverness police for copies of the video and my statement. Then I pulled the curtains as tightly as I could get them and tumbled into bed. My phone woke me at 8:00 a.m. I grabbed it to punch it off, then saw it was Grace.

  “How are the kids?” I asked before she could say anything, propping myself on an elbow.

  “Doing great. Miriam’s awake and has a headache. But otherwise the doctors are pretty sure they will both be fine.”

  “Have you been to the station?”

  “No. I’m still here at the hospital waiting for Erin to come back from breakfast. I called Mom and the Haddads to let them know Miriam and Danny are safe. They just went crazy over the phone. They’re really grateful to you, Tate.”

  “Hmm. You were a big part of that too. I couldn’t have connected with the Scottish police without you having earned their trust and vouching for me. And Danny is something of a hero himself. The cult leaders—Jamie and Claire—wanted him to introduce Miriam to the joys of sex, so to speak. He refused, Grace, knowing what it would mean to her and her reputation. Even after they threatened him, he refused.”

  She was silent for a moment. “He hasn’t said anything about that. But I can believe it about him. He’s a brave kid. And he did say he thought they were going to be killed and buried out on the moor. He overheard them talking about what they would do with the bodies.”

  “He needs to tell that to the police. They’re both pretty brave kids. I’m really proud of them.”

  There was another long pause, then she said again, “We need to talk, Tate. They’ll be sending the kids home—probably day after tomorrow—and I want to talk to you while we’re still here. Can I come over?”

  I twisted up onto the edge of the bed. “Yeah. Do you know where I am?”

  “Lachardil House Hotel.”

  “And how did you know that?”

  “When the police traced your phone yesterday.”

  “Well, you caught me sleeping in. I can be ready in fifteen minutes. How far away are you?”

  “About that long. I’ll meet you in the reception area.”

  She came in dressed as she had been when I’d last seen her, eyes tired and face much more solemn than I was hoping to see. She gave me a long but tentative hug, her face buried against my shoulder.

  “Is there somewhere private we can talk?” she asked, glancing uneasily at the steady flow of people through the lobby.

  “There’s a garden out past the restaurant. Or we could go to my room.”

  “I’d rather walk,” she said.

  I led her through to the lawn where the couples had played croquet. A path wound into a small circle of neatly-trimmed hedge. She took my hand, guided me into its center, and turned me toward her.

  “I told you when we talked on the phone before you came that Conall has asked me to apply for a position here,” she began without a pause. “This is a big, modern department, and he thinks there would be good opportunity for me.” She hesitated, then added, “and he would really like me to stay.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling my jaw tighten. “You don’t need my permission,” I said awkwardly.

  She shook her head in frustration. “I’m not asking for your permission, Tate. But I wanted to talk to you face-to-face—and see what you think.”

  “What I think about what?” My face flushed like I’d had too much red wine. “About you staying here? About Conall MacKay? I’m not sure what you want.”

  Her beautiful dark eyes looked straight into mine with a sadness I’d never seen in them—deeper than her hardest stare when we had butted heads across my desk in the fishbowl. “I want to know what you want, Tate. What do you want?”

  The swell in my chest was more than I could hold down and I felt it surge into my face and flood my eyes.

  “I want you, Grace,” I heard myself say. “More than anything else in the world, I want you.”

  The tension in her face disappeared as her eyes closed and chin lifted. “Oh,” she murmured. “That is sooo what I wanted to hear,” and she pulled me into a smothering kiss.

  I kept her pressed tightly until she eased me away with a nervous laugh. “I’m so tired I’m giddy,” she said. “Do you think we could go to your room now? Just to sleep?”

  With a hand lock I was afraid to release, I guided her back into the hotel to my room, eased her onto the unmade bed, and stretched out beside her.

  “We can’t work together, Grace,” I whispered, nuzzling against her cheek.

  “I know that, Tate,” she murmured. “I resign.” Then she giggled softly. “And I really loved your outfit last night. You need to wear it for me when we get home.” She pressed her hair into my neck, sighed deeply, and was asleep.

  36

  We sat in a row of black vinyl chairs in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, waiting for an overnight flight to Atlanta. Miriam and Danny leaned together, clutching hands and whispering softly. Young love, I wondered? Or two kids still bonded by nights of terror locked in a rented room, then in a thatched hut on the Scottish moors, fearing they may never take this flight back to family and friends? For one reason or the other, they didn’t seem to be able to get close enough, pressed against the arm divider and touching foreheads as they whispered.

  I understood the feeling. When Grace decided she needed something to eat before the flight and went looking for a McDonalds, I trusted our bags to Erin Graham and followed along. Though I knew it was completely irrational, I couldn’t shake the thought that she might suddenly decide she had made a mistake and bolt for a flight back to Edinburgh.

  I had selfishly tried to talk her into staying in England for another week. Send the kids home with Erin and work our way down through the Lake District into the Cotswolds, traveling by train and staying in B&Bs that we booked on a whim. But she rightly reminded me that she had been sent to Inverness to bring the kids home, and that was what she was going to do.

  “Mother tells me the town has a big welcome planned,” she chided. “And my family and the Haddads are throwing a gigantic Mexican-Syrian dinner, if you can picture what that will be like. Enchiladas and kabab. Everyone in town’s invited. You, Danny, Miriam and I are guests of honor. Especially you, Tate. It would be selfish of us to rob them of part of that celebration.

  She leaned across and touched her own forehead to mine. “We can come back here another time,” she whispered. “When we can take all the time we want. But we can only take the kids home this once.”

  She was right, of course. And it was part of why I loved her.

  The cell buzzed in my pocket and I eased away, fished it out, and showed her the incoming ID—Able Pendergraft. She furrowed her forehead.

  “Mr. Pendergraft! Good news, I hope?” I
said in answering.

  He laughed his quiet Atticus Finch laugh. “Great news. The judge has publicly issued the summary judgment in our favor. The case is closed. I called Allyson Penn. Officer Joseph has apparently been relocated. But the judgment covered her as well.”

  Grace could hear him through the phone and leaned over to kiss my cheek.

  “Terrific news,” I said. “And things here have gone about as well as we could have hoped.”

  “So I hear. You two are local heroes. I think you could even ask for walls in that excuse of an office of yours, and they’d find a way to give them to you.”

  “Well, while we’re on the subject, I’d actually like something bigger, Able. And you can help me with it.”

  He chuckled into the phone. “What are you after, Tate? A new building?”

  “And give up the Blockhouse? Not a chance. But you know the mayor and council members as well as anyone in town—and have a lot of influence with them.” I paused and smiled at Grace, getting in return a suspicious tilt of the head.

  “You know Ken Prater is retiring in a few months,” I reminded the lawyer. “The city has started a search for a new chief. I think they shouldn’t look beyond what they have in town.”

  “You want that job?” Able’s voice was incredulous.

  “Not me, Able. Grace Torres. She’s much better trained for the job than I am. And she’ll be leaving the department.”

  There was a long silence at the other end. Grace’s face had reddened into an embarrassed blush.

  Then we could hear Able’s soft laughter. “I don’t know what you two have been up to over there, but it’s about time. And I like that suggestion much better than making you chief or messing with the fishbowl. I’ll drop a few hints.”

  This time Grace turned my face to her, wrapped it with both hands, and planted a long, delicious kiss.

  “Be safe coming home,” Able was saying in my ear. “This is the biggest thing to happen in Crayton since—well, since as long as this old dog can remember.”