by Molly Macrae
“Because I remember Christine and how she is. She wasn’t going to give up until she had her chance to blether at me. She was aye stubborn. Sometimes the quickest way is through.”
Whatever that means. Janet looked around. Her earlier impression of the library in disarray was only slightly exaggerated. “Have you been reorganizing?”
“I told you, I’ve never liked this room.”
Her way of giving answers and information was as disorganized as the room. But Janet realized that Florence’s whole life had suddenly been turned upside down. I’d be a mess, too.
“We really would like to help, if you’d like it,” Janet said gently. “What’s happened? You had a fire going in here last night. It was lovely and cozy.”
“I needed the fire. It kept the cold from creeping in. Kept it from seeping into the rest of the house.” Florence rubbed her hands, perhaps at the memory of that cold, then tucked them in her armpits. She looked like an odd mirror image of Tallie.
“Cold creeping from where?” Tallie asked.
“The window.” Florence took a hand from her armpit and pointed, and then tucked the hand back. “Malcolm opened it. Opened it and left it open. That’s how I know he came back, because I’d shut it when he left the first time. Then he came back, after riding all over who knows where, and he opened it again.
“I told you all this yesterday. You and Christine. I heard him come in. I called hello, and he did just the way he always did—said nothing. He rarely said anything when I spoke to him. He wasn’t sociable that way. If you ask me, his mind was beginning to go. I’m not surprised he went off the road like that. I told him he wasn’t safe.” A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Florence—”
“I was not my brother’s keeper. He didn’t listen. He never listened to me. He opened the window again and left it open and went out. Again. And I didn’t know until after Norman Hobbs came and told me he was gone, and I didn’t believe him.” She wiped angrily at more tears with the back of her hand. “Left with the window still open so it stayed open all night and let the cold in. He’d no thought for anyone but himself and the dog and not as much for the dog as most would think.”
“Will you keep the dog?” Tallie asked.
“I’ve no immediate plans. No plans for distributing dogs or books about the town. I’ve been keeping house for Malcolm, and that’s all. Not his books. You’ve wasted your time coming here to ask about boxes and books that I know nothing about and care about even less. Do you know what I’d like to do with his books? Throw them out his bloody window.”
Anger seemed to be doing Florence some good. Or maybe it was the tears.
“We don’t feel it was a waste of our time coming here this evening. Do we, Tallie?”
“Not at all. We helped you find the dog, if nothing else.”
“And you’re right, Florence,” Janet said. “I could have called you to ask you about the books, but I was glad to see you again.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Florence dabbed at her nose with her sleeve.
“We’ve bothered you enough,” Janet said. “I feel like we’ve been nosy, and I don’t want to intrude even more, but I do want to ask if anyone is helping you with the funeral arrangements.”
“No.”
“Is there anyone who can? What about Gerald?”
“Gerald? He was worse than Malcolm. Malcolm was just antisocial. Gerald was obsessed. I’ve not seen or spoken to him in years.”
“Not even now? Since Malcolm’s death?”
“Why would that make any difference to him? Bloody great gi—” Florence bit the last word in two. “That’s enough about him. No doubt you’ve other places you’d rather be. Don’t let me keep you.”
She turned and left, and Janet half expected to let themselves out, but Florence walked ahead of them to the door.
“We left the lights on in the library,” Tallie said. “I can run back and turn them off, if you’d like.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll get them. Or not. It wouldn’t be the first time they’re left on all night.”
Janet decided to try one more offer of help, this time in the form of a suggestion. “Florence, do you know Maida Fairlie?” Maida and Janet were in-laws—Maida’s daughter and Janet’s son being married and living in Edinburgh with their two wee boys. “Maida’s a great one to phone for sorting, cleaning, packing things away, anything like that. She organizes that kind of work for a cleaning firm. She’s reliable, no-nonsense, and discreet. I can give you her number, if you’d like.”
“Hurry, before he gets out.” Florence opened the door and gave no sign she’d heard Janet. Nor did she acknowledge their good nights. As she closed the door, they heard her say, “He was aye strange.”
“He who?” Janet asked. But Florence shut the door with a solid thud and turned the lock. Janet looked at Tallie. “She did it again. She left us hanging like that when Christine and I were here last night, and she just did it again. Again. I really don’t like that word.”
“Fair enough,” Tallie said. “But let’s get in the car and go on home.”
Janet slammed her car door and started the engine. Then she shut it off. “Look at me, Tallie. Look at me and promise me this. If I ever open a metaphorical door like ‘he’s always been strange,’ and then slam it shut in your face by not explaining myself, tell me to cut it out. And don’t you ever do it, either. No one should be allowed to toss an indefinite pronoun like a grenade and run away.”
“Okeydoke.”
Janet looked up at the Murray house and howled, “He who?” Then, remembering the white-knuckle ride with Christine the night before, she took an immense breath and held it to the point of exploding. Then she relaxed her shoulders, let the air out slowly, started the car, and drove sedately home.
Smirr and Butter met them at the door and escorted Janet to the living room for a session of ear rubbing and chin stroking. Tallie poured two glasses of sherry and joined the others in their tidy, cozy, well-lit and warm living room.
“I’ve figured it out and I propose a toast,” Janet said, raising her glass. “To the collective ‘he’—Malcolm, Gerald, and the dog—all three are strange, and possibly always have been.”
“Here’s a variation,” Tallie offered. “To the collective ‘they’—all the Murrays—because you know we have to consider that Florence has always been strange, too. But we really shouldn’t take it out on the poor dog.”
11
A wind from the west arrived in the night, tossing itself around the harbor and shuffling discarded chocolate wrappers along the High Street. It left some of these at the feet of the Robert Louis Stevenson statue. He ignored them. Silent, stony, Stevenson forever kept his eyes on the Inversgail lighthouse and the seas beyond. Another wind blew in behind the first, bringing buckets of rain.
Janet woke to her alarm, rain on the roof, and two winking cats sitting on the extra pillow, staring at her. “You look optimistic about someone hopping out of bed immediately to give you breakfast,” she said to them.
The cats didn’t wait to see if she’d agreed to their request, so optimistic were they. Janet took her cue from them and, despite the rain, pulled on her yoga leggings and a navy blue jersey and went down to the kitchen. She fed the cats and then stood at the kitchen window with a cup of coffee. But after the buckets of rain, and after breakfast, lashing rain and then more buckets convinced her that no one in her right mind would be out riding a bike.
“Phooey,” she said, and looked around for commiseration from Smirr and Butter. They’d already abandoned her for the living room and morning naps.
“Dithery,” Janet said at Yon Bonnie Books that morning. “That’s a better description of Florence than doddery.”
The four women were having their meeting in the doorway between the bookshop and the tearoom. Summer had brought samples of the scone of the day—apricot and blue cheese—and she’d reported encouraging darts progress. Christine’s mum had spent a better nig
ht and so had Christine. Janet and Tallie told them that Florence hadn’t left the box of books on their doorstep, and then described their evening.
“She isn’t feeble physically,” Janet said. “I don’t think she’s feeble-minded, either, but she’s scattered, and she’s definitely stressed.”
“As only makes sense under the circumstances,” Christine said. “And stress can wreak untold havoc on a person’s health, mental and physical.”
“Her anger was interesting,” Tallie said. “It seemed to focus her thoughts.”
“It did,” Janet said. “When she ranted, we weren’t so much in danger of whiplash.”
“No kidding.” Tallie rubbed the back of her neck. “She reminded me of a student we had in the mock trial program. I worried, when he entered, because he stuttered. But he knew what he was doing, and when he presented cases the stutter almost disappeared. Florence was like that. When she really got going, her sentences were more coherent, less disjointed.”
“But you’re saying she was angry and possibly unbalanced?” Summer asked.
“Angry, yes. Unbalanced?” Janet tipped her hand back and forth.
“Okay, but not a good combination,” Summer said. “You were going up and down stairs, along corridors to you knew not where, in an unfamiliar house, following this angry, unpredictable person. And you”—Summer gestured at Tallie with the scone plate—“you were off looking for a dog you didn’t know who might have been just as unpredictable and angry.”
Tallie helped herself to another scone from Summer’s plate. “Point taken, but he turned out to be as sweet as these.”
“The real point is that we have rules about getting into dangerous situations.” Summer pointed the scone plate at Janet. “You came up with the rules.”
“And you didn’t like them at the beginning,” Janet reminded her. “But I’ve given the wrong impression of the situation last night. We’ve used the rules for murder investigations. For dangerous situations within dangerous situations. This was nothing like that. It was just sad.”
“You can call it sad, or say that she’s dithery or doddery or suffering the untold havoc of stress, but how angry was she?” Summer asked.
And how angry are you? Janet wondered. And for Heaven’s sake, what’s brought this on? She took another scone, too, hoping that would soothe the agitated baker.
“You’re right to bring up the rules, Summer, and I appreciate your concern. I don’t think it was that kind of anger, though, where we were the target or in any kind of danger. There were a few tears, too. She didn’t fall apart and boo-hoo, but there were tears running down her cheeks. I think they made her angry, too. Taken together, the anger and tears, I hope they were cathartic. I hope she went up to bed and had a really good cry after we left.”
“That’s a very Janet thing to hope,” Christine said. “You tend to look on the bright side of people.”
“Except when I’m accusing them of murder.”
“That’s why I said ‘tend.’ But the librarians of my experience are natural-born helpers. On the other hand, Boudicca and I see the damage in people and we keep our eyes on the more worrisome aspects.”
“Don’t be silly,” Janet said. “You spent your entire professional life helping people.”
“Yes, but a librarian is the golden retriever of helpers, all bounce and bonhomie. As social workers and newspaperwomen, we’re the border collies—suspicious, alert.” Christine demonstrated her impression of a border collie on the job.
Janet scoffed. “You can’t be a border collie. You’re afraid of sheep.”
“The best border collies never trust the sheep in their fold,” Christine said. “That describes me to a T.”
“Where does that leave me?” Tallie asked. “If you all get to be dogs, I want to be one.”
Christine studied her. “A cairn terrier, like Ranger. A good lawyer is smart and full of surprises. So what’s your assessment of the situation with Florence?”
“I agree with Mom. Florence wasn’t angry at us. She’s angry at her brothers—antisocial Malcolm and obsessive Gerald.”
“She called them that?” Christine asked. “Another jarring description compared to ‘the good doctor’ of local lore and legend. I wonder what she thinks Gerald obsesses about. That’s an interesting take on the boys and one I’ve not heard before.”
“And that’s why I wouldn’t completely discount her actually being dithery or doddery,” Janet said. “Her opinions of her brothers might all be in her head. Or they might come from grownup sibling rivalry. Though I did think of another possibility, given the whisky box and her general lack of focus.”
“Drink? That truly would be sad,” Christine said. “Drink can wreak untold havoc, too. Had she been drinking?”
“It’s possible, but we should be careful about drawing that conclusion,” Janet said. “I didn’t smell anything on her breath, and alcohol might not have occurred to me, except that we have the whisky box.”
“But now we know she didn’t drop it off here,” Tallie said. “And while I was looking for the dog, I didn’t see anything that would lead me to believe that anyone in the house has or had a problem. Although, unless the signs were obvious, I might not see anything.”
“I did an article on Al-Anon a few years back,” Summer said. “According to the families I interviewed, some of their drinkers were so good at hiding their problems they could win Tony Awards for acting and set design.”
“Then I think it’s best if we go with dithery for now,” Janet said, “and leave the other D—drinking—out for lack of evidence.”
“Evidence,” Christine said with a Tony-worthy shiver of her shoulders. “I love it when you talk detective to us. And now it’s time, lassies. Open the doors and to our posts.”
Rain continued in periodic blatters throughout the morning, chasing tourists back into the shops along the High Street every time they chanced to pop out, and giving Janet a workout after all. During a lull in blatters, and a corresponding lull in business, she and Tallie caught their breath together behind the sales counter.
“What did you think of our doorway meeting this morning?” she asked Tallie.
“Not that I have anything against Ranger, or cairn terriers in general, but I was kind of hoping for corgi.”
“At least you weren’t labeled ‘bouncy.’ But I want to know why Summer sounded angry.”
“Especially after hitting a bull’s-eye with those scones.”
“She certainly did. But you agree that she sounded angry?”
“I agree that you think she sounded angry. I think she sounded like she was arguing a point as a concerned friend, and that our time with flustery Florence over-sensitized you to strong emotions.”
“There now,” Janet said. “I’m sure that’s the kind of cogent thought that goes through Ranger’s mind all the time. Can you imagine the royal corgis being even half so erudite? But if Summer was arguing a point, then I want to know why. Were we arguing with her?”
Tallie pulled her glasses halfway down her nose, looked at her mother, and said nothing.
“As you told Sandra and Fergus,” Janet said, “I like to know the why of things.”
Tallie nodded. “I’ll talk to her later and see if anything’s up.”
“I could text Christine and ask her to follow up.”
“Let’s say no to that.”
“Hmph.” Janet put her phone away.
“But to make up for not getting Christine all worked up over something that’s probably nothing, here are two other things for you to think about.” Tallie pushed her glasses back up her nose. “First thing—what if, when Summer and Christine have enough recipes, we put them together in a sort of chapbook cookbook and sell them?”
“That’s a fantastic idea! I wonder if they have enough already? Would it make it too expensive if we use color pictures throughout?”
“The reaction of a true golden retriever. Let’s see what Summer and Christine think.”
“They’ll love it. Shall I bounce right in there and ask them, or do you want to tell me your second thing?”
“The second thing, before it rains again and customers come back. This one might be fantastic, too, but only in the fantastical sense of the word, because it might be havers.”
“I won’t laugh.”
“It woke me up a few times last night. It came from something you said to Florence—you told her we didn’t want to intrude even more.”
“I think I said I didn’t want to. I was speaking for myself, but I thought you would agree. Did you want to intrude more than we did?”
“No, no. You were right. But what if someone else intruded? I mean, literally intruded. What if someone got in and searched the library? You said it looked like a drunk tried to re-shelve.”
“It reminded me of the quiet Saturday morning at the library when one of the staff, a secret tippler it turned out, reorganized the self-help section for us. He did it according to Dewar’s instead of Dewey. I pictured Florence doing something like that—getting maudlin, having a few too many, and nostalgically careening through Malcolm’s books. But an intruder—it’s a stretch, don’t you think? The stuff of waking in the wee hours?”
“I’m willing to believe that. And the flaw, if there’s any sense at all in my worries, is that I’m suggesting someone got in between your visits Monday and Tuesday, not the night Florence says the window was open. Kind of a big flaw.”
Janet sat down on the tall stool. She put her feet on the top rung, propped her elbows on her knees, rested her chin on knitted fingers, and studied her daughter’s face. Tallie, the excellent lawyer and law professor, who hadn’t just agreed to transplant her life to a West Highland bookshop on a romantic notion or whim. Who didn’t immediately run with the idea that the Road Police must be looking at a finding beyond accidental death. Tallie gathered information, organized it precisely, digested it thoroughly, and drew conclusions carefully.
“After talking to Florence, we know she doesn’t like the library,” Janet said, “so she might not treat the books the way we would. That could account for the higgledy-piggledy state of things.”
