08 - The Highland Fling Murders (23 page)

Like what happened in London at the Tower of London, my next move was involuntary. I stepped in front of George, held up my hands, and said in as loud a voice as I could muster, “You are all mistaken. There is no evil at Sutherland Castle. No ghosts. No witchcraft.”

“It’s Sutherland’s bloody lassie,” a man said. “Pay no heed to her.”

“Listen to me,” I said, straining my vocal cords. “If you’ll put out your torches, and put down your weapons, I can prove it to you.” I turned and asked George, “Can I invite them in?”

“Invite them in? I think that would be—”

“Please, George. At least let me try.”

“All right.”

“Put down your weapons and extinguish your torches,” I said. “Then come inside. I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”

There was a lot of muttering as they decided whether to accept my invitation. I looked directly at Constable McKay, who seemed especially confused. I said to him, “Take charge, Constable. Tell them to do what I said.”

George reinforced my message: “Listen to her, Horace. If you don’t, you’ll have bloodshed on your hands.”

McKay looked to the others, held up his hands, and said, “Nothing to be lost hearing what she has to say,” he shouted. To me: “Just a few minutes, Mrs. Fletcher. No more. You can say your piece.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

They followed us into the castle and to the living room, where the others had congregated. Even in the large space, the crowd spilled into the hallway. I was pleased to see that Brock Peterman had already set up a video screen in one comer.

“Where’s Malcolm?” I asked Forbes, who stood ready to serve refreshments should George ask him to do that. But drinks weren’t on anyone’s mind at the moment.

“In the kitchen with Mrs. Gower,” he replied in his low, measured, flat voice.

“Please get him and Mrs. Gower for me,” I said.

Forbes looked to George. “Go on,” George said. “Do what Mrs. Fletcher has asked.”

While waiting for them, I went to where Peterman stood next to his video equipment. “All set?” I asked.

“Yup. I took a look while you were outside. Pretty clear, considering the lack of light. The lens I used is a monster. Picks up images in damn near-total darkness.”

“Good,” I said.

Malcolm came into the room, followed by the glowering Mrs. Gower. He came to me. “Mrs. Fletcher,” he said, “I can’t be staying. My mum’s come down sick and—”

“It will only take a moment, Malcolm. I promise you that. Just a minute.”

“Sorry, ma’am, but—”

“You stay put,” George said to him, placing his large hand on the young man’s shoulder.

I turned to Ken Sassi. “Ken, would you please get me that chair?”

He pulled over a sturdy, broad wooden chair with a flat seat and held my hand as I stepped up onto it I raised my hands; the conversations slowly dwindled, leaving me with the floor, as it were.

“May I have your attention?” I said to the few people still talking. They fell silent. “Thank you. And thank you for allowing me these few minutes to explain what’s been going on here at Sutherland Castle, and in your lovely village of Wick.”

I paused to gain a sense of how they were receiving me. So far, so good. I had their attention.

I continued: “You’ve come here tonight because you’re afraid.”

“I not be afraid,” a man said. “I fear nothing and no one.”

“I’m sure you’re very brave,” I said. “You all are. You’ve proved that over many years of strife and hard times. But you have wives and children. You want the best for them, just as you want the best for your beloved Wick.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” another man asked.

“No. And that is exactly my point. The strange things that have been occurring here, and in the village, have set everyone on edge, which is perfectly understandable. The problem is that none of it is the result of some evil force being cast upon you by this castle or its owner, George Sutherland.”

“Young Daisy Wemyss was killed like she was a witch,” her uncle, the shopkeeper, said. “A dear and loving niece, she was. Killed with the pitchfork through her heart, and a cross carved on her young throat. What do you say to that?”

“I say her murder was a terrible tragedy, one that never should have happened. But it was not witchcraft or evil spirits that killed Daisy Wemyss. It was not Sutherland Castle. It was not some bizarre link to the past, to the way Evelyn Gowdie was killed twenty years ago, or Isabell Gowdie more than three hundred years before that. Daisy Wemyss was killed because—”

I saw Malcolm edging away from the crowd in the direction of a door. “Malcolm,” I said loudly. “Don’t leave.”

“What’s he got to do with any of this?” someone asked.

“I’ll show you,” I said. “Mr. Peterman, would you do the honors.”

“Somebody lower the lights,” Peterman said. George obliged him.

“Go ahead,” I said to Peterman.

He started the videotape. A series of patterns filled the screen, multicolored stripes, a series of numbers, and then a murky, shadowy scene.

“Watch closely,” I said.

Everyone squeezed close together in order to see the screen. Some couldn’t; “What’s it say?” they asked others who had a dear view.

The scene taking shape on the screen was of the upstairs hallway, videotaped from the secluded vantage point of the room across from the door that I surmised led to the low-ceilinged, empty room up the stairs from my room—the room in which I’d discovered the battery-powered tape recorder.

The room was deathly still.

The tape rolled on.

And my voice came through the speakers.

George’s voice:
“How do you intend to summon her?”

I replied,
“I have no idea. Maybe I’ll just ask her to appear. Lady in White. Are you there?”

“See her?”
Mort asked.

“Quiet.”
It was Dr. Symington’s voice.

“Hello?”
I said, louder this time.
“It’s
me,
Jessica Fletcher. We met a few evenings ago.”

Mort Metzger:
“Maybe you should offer her food. Like leavin’ somethin’ for Santa Claus.”

Dr. Symington:
“Please, be quiet.”

Mort Metzger:
“Hey, don’t tell me to shut up.”

Seth Hazlitt:
“Seems to me this is all a—”

I interrupted him.
“I’m your friend, Lady in White. I just want to say hello.”

Susan Shevlin’s whisper could be heard:
“Try again, Jess.”

I did.
“Lady in White. If you can hear me, I’d really like to—”

Faint sounds from outside the castle intruded on the sound track.

I said,
“Lady in White, if you can hear me, I
—”

Dr. Symington:
“Can you see her
^?
”

“Yes!”
I shouted.
“I
see
her. Hello. Thank you for coming.”

Now the chants from outside could be heard:
“Close the castle! Sutherland must go! Close the castle! Sutherland must go!”
The visual included faint orange flickering from their torches.

“What is she wearing?”
Dr. Symington asked.

“What?”
I said.
“Would you repeat that?”

“What’s goin’ on out there?”
Seth asked, referring to the noise from outside.

Mort Metzger.
“Let’s go see.”

“No, wait,”
I said.

“For what?”
Jim Shevlin asked.

“For Mr. Peterman to confirm he got it all,”
I said.

Seth Hazlitt:
“What are you talking about?”

I replied,
“Mr. Peterman, come out. Did you get it?”

“Sure did,”
Peterman said.
“Got it all.”

Dr. Symington:
“You put the lady in white on film?”

“No,”
I replied.
“But he has on film who’s behind what’s been going on here.”

Mort Metzger:
“Wait a minute. I don’t get it. What are you saying, Mrs. F.?”

 

 

Peterman stopped the VCR; George turned up the lights.

“What’s this all mean?” Constable McKay asked, hands on hips, chin in a defiant set.

“Did you
really
see the lady in white?” Charlene Sassi asked.

“I’ll get to that in a moment,” I said. “In the meantime, there’s some more video to watch.”

George dimmed the lights again, and Peterman rolled the video from where he’d left off.

We’d all left the upstairs landing and gone downstairs to see what the ruckus outside the castle was about. Now a second camera was trained on the door in the hallway from its hidden vantage point. We waited for something to happen. It took less than a minute. The door to the hallway opened, and Malcolm James was seen. He poked his head out, looked left and right, stepped from the doorway, closed the door behind him, locked it, and moved quickly out of frame.

“Don’t let Malcolm James leave,” I said directly to Constable McKay. McKay seemed unsure of what to do. But when Malcolm made another attempt to depart, the constable restrained him.

“You’ve got your nerve,” Malcolm said to McKay.

“And you shut up,” McKay replied, twisting Malcolm’s arm behind him.

“I still don’t get it, Jess,” Mort Metzger said. “So we saw him coming through a door. What’s that mean?”

“It means this,” I said. I’d dispatched Jim Shevlin to my room once we’d come downstairs, and had him go up the mural stair to the cramped room in which I’d discovered the recorder. Now Jim handed the recorder to me. I rewound the tape, asked for everyone’s attention, and pushed “PLAY.”

George looked at me. “What the lady in white said to you,” he said.

“Yes. And what Malcolm said one day. Remember?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Listen again,” I said.

“Anyone recognize that voice?” I asked.

Puzzled expressions all around—except for Mrs. Gower. The stout, stern cook said, “That would be Fiona.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Gower,” I said. “It’s Fiona’s voice, recorded by—”

I looked directly at Malcolm, still in Constable McKay’s grasp. “Recorded by
you,
Malcolm.”

He said nothing in response, but his face and eyes shouted what he was thinking: He wanted to run, to hide, to evaporate.

Ken Sassi helped me down from the chair. I went to Malcolm, raised my eyebrows into question marks, and verbally asked, “Where is Fiona?”

“What are you talking about?” he managed weakly.

“She isn’t dead, is she? And you know where she is because you arranged for her to go there.”

“Mrs. Fletcher, I swear—”

“I think we’ve heard enough,” the constable said. “I’ll take him to the
nick.”

“The what?” Mort Metzger said.

“Jail,” George translated.

McKay started to push Malcolm through the crowd, but I stopped him with, “I think you’d better answer a few questions, Constable McKay, before you haul him away.”

The constable slowly turned and fixed me in a hard, hateful glare.

“Why did you lie about the blood found on the bridge, and on Fiona’s shoes?”

“You’re calling me a liar, are you?” he said.

“Yes. I called Dr. Lord, the veterinarian, who tested the blood on both. You said it was human blood. But Dr. Lord told me it was animal blood. Why, Constable McKay, did you deliberately misrepresent his findings?”

I answered for him. “Because you wanted to perpetuate fear in the hearts of Wick’s citizens.”

McKay again started to push through the crowd. This time, George stepped in his way. “I think you ought to hear Mrs. Fletcher out,” he said. “In fact, as a ranking law enforcement officer, I insist that you do.”

Mort Metzger joined George, saying, “And I’m here to assist as duly elected sheriff of Cabot Cove, Maine, U.S.A.”

“Stand aside,” McKay said. “Don’t be breaking
my
law.”

“Your
law,” I said. “That’s exactly it. You took the law into your own hands to serve the interests of others. How much did the London investors promise to pay you, Constable McKay? How much money bought your cooperation in creating an atmosphere of fear in order to force Inspector Sutherland to sell his family’s homestead?”

McKay stood tall and mute. I turned to Malcolm.

“Was having your novel published that important to you, Malcolm, that you went along with this scheme?”

“They told me that—”

“Shut up,” McKay said.

“You go right ahead and keep talking, Malcolm,” I said. “If you don’t explain yourself, you’ll end up spending the rest of your life behind bars for the murder of Daisy Wemyss.”

His voice came from high in his throat. He fought back tears as he said, “Oh, no, Mrs. Fletcher. I had nothing to do with that. Not with poor Daisy. All I did was—”

McKay’s hand went to Malcolm’s throat, but George’s move was fast and sure. He shoved McKay against a wall, his own hand at the constable’s throat. Mort jumped in, helping to keep McKay in place.

Malcolm was now free. But instead of running, he started babbling: “I did nothing to harm anyone,” he said, his voice still high and shaky. “They told me if I’d set up the recorder and scare guests at the castle, they’d have my book published.”

“By Flemming House, a subsidy publisher,” I said. “They paid that publisher to publish your novel. I happen to know something about Flemming House because my publisher in London bought the company. They’ll publish anyone’s book, Malcolm, good or bad, for enough money.”