A Wee Murder in My Shop (A ScotShop Mystery) Read online

  I gathered my skirt out of the way, picked up my boots, stuffed the socks in them, and stood in a huff. “You just come with me, sir,” I said, “and you can see for yourself.” Without waiting, I marched up the small rise and started across the grass toward the ancient tree. Mrs. Sinclair had apparently woken up. Or maybe she hadn’t slept at all. She held a small paperback book. When she saw me, she waved merrily.

  “See?” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “There they are and there’s the tree. And,” I added with some spite, “no goats anywhere.”

  I turned to look at him as he walked up beside me. The shock on his face stopped me in my tracks. “Where did yon tree come from? It wasna there yester morn.”

  I shifted my boots to my other hand and headed toward Mrs. Sinclair, who seemed to be rummaging in her knapsack. Her husband lay inert. “Peggy,” she called when she saw me, “come have a wee sit before we head back down the trail.” She patted the ground beside her, the way she had a little while ago, and held up a red tin. “I’ve biscuits for us to share. All three of us,” she added, and prodded her husband, “if the mister will deign to wake up.”

  Three of us? I looked sideways at the man standing right beside me. “I’ll be there in a moment, Mrs. Sinclair,” I called. “I . . . I left my socks by the stream.” I turned and fled, and the man came along with me.

  At the side of the stream I whirled around. “She couldn’t see you.” My stage whisper was indignant, unbelieving, and, I must admit, a trifle terrified.

  “And do ye think,” he practically spat at me, “do ye think I am enjoying this?” He paced a few feet uphill, turned around and paced down. “I woke up . . . I didna know I had been sleeping, but it seemed I awoke . . . thinking my Peigi had somehow been transported from her sickbed, restored to health, and brought here to my lands.” He spread his arms to encompass the hillside. “Instead, I find a brazen woman striding around with . . . with her ankles showing.” He shuddered, but I noticed his eyes drift down the length of me. I missed his next few words. “. . . a tree where no tree stood ever since my grandda’s father cleared this land for our crops and the goats.” His hand strayed to his dirk again. “And these strange clothes ye wear. Where did ye come from? Are ye . . . a spirit?”

  A bird flew across the meadow, and I saw the wings flap as it passed behind him. He seemed so much a part of this place, but his clothes, his attitudes were—Oh dear, this can’t be happening—from a very long time ago.

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’m the one who’s the spirit here.” He looked incredulous. “I think you’re . . .” I took another breath. “I think you’re a ghost.”

  “That canna be. I dinna believe in them, despite what the aulde grannies say.”

  “But I can see through you—sort of.”

  He held a hand up in front of his eyes. I could see a shimmer of light through it. He swallowed convulsively; his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “And I can see ye, too, like. Through my—” He sat down abruptly. “I’m deid?”

  I sank down onto the grass beside him. “It sure looks like it.”

  “Why am I here, then?”

  “I don’t know.” I gripped the shawl more tightly.

  He reached out and fingered the edge of it. “This is her shawl, ye know,” he said. “See this wee line of white that disrupts the pattern along this one edge?”

  I doubt I would have noticed it if he hadn’t pointed it out. A thin white line was clearly visible, even though the felting had blended the colors and made the pattern soft and indistinct. I checked the other edges, but no white line was there.

  “It was her love message to me,” he said.

  He had a bad case of five o’clock shadow, about two days’ worth. I almost wanted to reach over and run my fingers along his jaw to see what it would feel like. I restrained myself.

  “She told me that her love for me would last as long as this white line was visible. And that when I was awae from her, she would keep me by her side.” The shawl dropped from his fingers. “Forever,” he added.

  I looked around the hillside, half expecting to see a long-skirted, long-haired, long-dead woman walking our way. “When . . .” I didn’t know how else to ask it. “When are you from?”

  He looked puzzled for a moment until understanding sank in. “This is the year of our Lord 1359.”

  “Thirteen!” I yelped. “Thirteen-fifty-nine? How the heck did you get to the twenty-first century?”

  He gulped again. “Twenty-first, ye say?” His wavering cheeks went a bit pale. He cupped his face in his hands and leaned his elbows on his knees—and very fine knees they were, I had to admit. His kilt was hiked halfway up his thigh. But I didn’t need to be thinking about that. We sat in silence for a minute, maybe two.

  What on earth would my great-grandma have done in a situation like this? Was I going absolutely nuts? “Do you have a name, or do I just call you ghost?”

  He bowed in a surprisingly courtly manner. “I have the privilege of carrying the name of Macbeath Donlevy Freusach Finlay Macearachar Macpheidiran of Clan Farquharson. My family call me Macbeath.”

  “Mock-beh-ath? Macbeth? Like Shakespeare?”

  “Shake spear? What is shake spear?”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding. Everybody knows Shakespeare.”

  “I assure you I do not.”

  “Oh, yeah; he was the sixteen hundreds.” I watched a small spider in the grass while I thought.

  He raised his head and looked down the hill toward the loch. “What brought me here?” He laid his hand gently on my shawl, where the corner of it touched the grass. The spider had begun spinning a web beside his soft-booted foot. I was glad he hadn’t stepped on her. I like spiders. “’Twas the shawl brought me here, I am sure of it.”

  I looked away from the spider into his disturbingly alive-looking eyes. “So you’re really a ghost?” The idea was beginning to sink in.

  He nodded slowly. “’Twould appear so, but I’ve not known it till now.”

  “And you’re here because of the shawl.” I fished my socks out of my boots and pulled them on while he thought.

  He shook his head. “No. Not just that. I think I came when Peigi called.”

  “But—but,” I sputtered, “she’s been dead for”—I did a quick calculation—“almost seven hundred years.”

  He heaved a heart-wrenching sigh. “So, it would appear, have I.”

  Without another word, he followed me uphill. When we were almost within sight of the Sinclairs, just before we reached the top of the rise, I turned to him. “Don’t say anything, anything at all, while we’re with the Sinclairs.” I spread my hands in the age-old gesture of helplessness. “They wouldn’t understand.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Nor do I.”

  He trailed disconsolately behind me. I couldn’t make up my mind what to say. I have a ghost named Macbeth. No. My shawl is haunted. Nope. You won’t believe what just happened to me. They certainly wouldn’t.

  He circled behind me and approached the tree. I took a deep breath. “I hope you had a good nap, Mr. Sinclair.” I sat gingerly on Mrs. Sinclair’s left and accepted a cookie. Biscuit. I had to remember to call it a biscuit. If I could remember a bracing cup of tea—one of which I could definitely use right about now—I could certainly remember biscuit. “The clouds are lovely today, aren’t they?”

  Mrs. Sinclair looked at me as if she thought I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.

  I looked over my right shoulder. The ghost had his hands up, pressing them against the tree’s crenellated bark. He looked up at the lowest branches, which were a good eight feet above his head. I wondered if he could feel the bark or if his hands would pass through it. He looked up, as if he were trying to gauge the larch’s height, and light glinted off the handle of his dirk.

  “Yes, they are lovely, but what are ye looking
at, lassie?” Mr. Sinclair’s voice broke into my reverie. “It is no the clouds,” he added.

  “The, uh, the tree?”

  Mrs. Sinclair chuckled. “Is it us ye’re asking, dearie?” She swiveled her neck around to her left, surprisingly flexible, I thought, for a woman her age, and looked up at the larch. She studied the tree longer than I would have expected, and when she turned back to me, her gaze felt laserlike, but all she said was, “The tree, was it?”

  “I wonder how old it is?” I stole a quick look at the ghost. He had turned his head to look at Mrs. Sinclair and then at me. I could feel his gaze, and I shivered.

  “Pull your shawl more tightly round your shoulders, dearie. Ye look like ye’re catching a chill.” She handed me the little tin of cookies. Biscuits. She smiled. “To tell the truth, ye’re acting like ye’ve seen a wee ghostie.”

  Mr. Sinclair laughed. “Not so wee, from the look on her face.”

  The wee ghostie under discussion circled around to my left and knelt in front of me. The light of the setting sun poured through his hair, turning the black to liquid charcoal.

  “Can she see me?” he whispered. “I canna tell.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Don’t know what, lassie?”

  Damn. I couldn’t talk to him when other people were around. They’d think I was crazy. I put on a bright smile. “I don’t know . . . uh, but I just felt a little faint. I’m fine now, though.”

  Mrs. Sinclair looked at Mr. Sinclair, and they both turned back to me. “Are ye now?” They spoke at the same time, echoing each other.

  I looked at my watch, remembered I wasn’t wearing one, and took the last cookie. Biscuit.

  Mr. Sinclair stood and helped his wife to her feet. We packed our few belongings in the rucksacks and headed back to the trail. I turned to look at the peaceful meadow one more time.

  “It was here we—my Peigi and I—were together for the last time.” The ghost stood close to my right shoulder but did not touch me.

  “When was that?” I asked.

  Mr. Sinclair turned around. “When was what, lassie?”

  This was going to be harder than I thought. “Just muttering to myself,” I said. And to the resident ghost. I waited until the Sinclairs walked farther downhill. “I guess this is good-bye,” I said. What was I supposed to do? Shake hands? Nuh-uh.

  He inclined his head.

  I walked a few yards and tuned back to wave. He was right behind me. “Go away! I don’t want you following me.”

  “I believe I must. My Peigi’s shawl . . . I canna seem to . . . ” His words drifted away into a silence almost as confused as the look on his face.

  Whatever was I going to tell Karaline?

  At the bottom of the trail, I veered off toward the porta potty.

  “We’ll wait for you . . .”

  “. . . in the car,” the Sinclairs said.

  I opened the blue door. “Inside, you,” I whispered with my teeth clenched.

  We were fairly cramped. These things were designed for one person at a time. His head brushed the top. Damn, he was tall. I thought people had been short in the fourteenth century. As close as we were standing, I had to tilt my head back. I got an unexpectedly good look at his upper incisors. They were big, strong, and very white. This would be a great place for him to turn into a vampire. Stop it, Peggy.

  “What is this place?” He sounded a bit awed. Maybe that was why his mouth had been hanging open.

  “It’s a porta potty.” When he looked blank, I added, “A loo.” Still blank. “A privy.”

  Understanding dawned. “A necessary?”

  I nodded.

  “Why did ye bring me in here? I dinna have to pass water.”

  “We’re here because it’s the only place I can speak to you in private. Now, you listen. We’re about to get into a car—”

  “A what?”

  “Hush. A car. It’s like a little house on wheels.”

  “Why would we get into—?”

  “No, wait, it’s more like a wagon that’s all closed up.”

  “And how d’ye open it?”

  “That’s not the point!” It’s hard to shout when you’re whispering. “The point I’m trying to make is that you have to be absolutely quiet. You cannot ask a single question while we’re in the car. Do you understand?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I won’t be able to answer you. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair are already looking at me funny. I don’t want them to think I’ve gone barmy.”

  “What is barmy?”

  “Mad. Crazy.” I threw up my hands. “Now, will you keep your mouth closed until we’re alone again.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Ye tell me I have been deid for more than six hundred years. In all that time I have not said a word, and now ye want me to keep my mouth closed?”

  “Yes. That’s right.” I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  A small spider dangled down between us, slowly spinning out her silk as she passed in front of his face. I backed out and held the door open. This was ridiculous. How was I going to . . .

  It was worse than I could have imagined. I slipped into the backseat behind Mr. Sinclair, motioning surreptitiously for the ghost to follow me in. But of course I had to slide to the other side to make room for him. And the door was still open. “You stay here,” I said to him, hoping the Sinclairs would think I was talking to them. “The door seems to have stuck.” I got out, walked around the car, checked to be sure his dirk was out of the way, closed the door, walked back to the passenger’s side, and got in.

  Mr. Sinclair adjusted the rearview mirror so he could peer at me. Mrs. Sinclair had swiveled around in her seat.

  “The picnic lunch was a lovely idea, Mrs. Sinclair. I enjoyed it thoroughly.”

  She made a sound, low in her throat, and turned around to face forward. “Drive us home, Mr. Sinclair. I think our lassie could use a wee lie-down before bed.”

  I heard a whispered comment at my side. “Where are the horses?”

  4

  A Wee Pub of My Own

  I conducted an extremely sketchy history lesson in a whisper while the Sinclairs thought I was napping. Finally, I asked, “Did you ever meet Chaucer?”

  “Chaucer?”

  “You would have loved the Wife of Bath.”

  “The wife—”

  “Never mind. That’s an English major joke.”

  “A joke? Ye’ve stolen my Peigi’s shawl, I am apparently dead, and ye jest?” Each syllable sounded like a dirge tone. “Ye are most unladylike.”

  I expelled a heavy breath. “You think so? It’s a good thing you aren’t coming with me to America. You’d be appalled.”

  He looked faintly puzzled. “And where would that be? I know of no town by that name. Is this where your Mr. Shakespeare lives?”

  I was supposed to teach a comprehensive history lesson to someone who’d never heard of the Declaration of Independence? Who last took a breath around the time of Chaucer? “And just to set the record straight, I did not steal this shawl. I paid for it.”

  “My Peigi would never sell that shawl.”

  “I didn’t say I bought it from her. What are you doing wearing a belted plaid, anyway? They weren’t in common use until the end of the fifteenth century.”

  “My plaid?” He patted the fabric draped across his chest. “I wear it all the time.”

  “Tell that to the historians.”

  “Ye make no sense, woman.”

  “Come on, I’m hungry. There’s a pub down the road where I usually eat my evening meal.”

  He trailed along beside me. When we got close, he sighed. “At last,” he said, “some place I recognize.”

  “You know this pub?”

  “Weel, not this precise building
. I dinna ken your word pub.” He looked at the surrounding hills as if to orient himself. “There was an inn here—built of wood it was, not fine stone like this. It was here when I was . . . when I used to . . .” His voice faded away. “More than six hundred years? How can that be?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Aye. Me, too. But I suppose it would take more than six hundred years to design a way to put a hundred tiny horses underneath a carriage.”

  He obviously hadn’t understood the internal combustion engine. “Too bad I don’t have my college history book here. You could read up on what’s been happening in the world for all this time.” Thanks to my dad, I had a hefty interest in a lot of subjects, history included. Not that I always remembered the details.

  “Read? Aye. I can read. But—ye own a book?”

  “A book? Of course. I’ve got dozens of them.”

  He stopped walking. “I didna ken ye were wealthy.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  “Books. Ye said ye had dozens of them.” He sounded a bit exasperated. “How is that possible if ye are not wealthy?”

  Six or seven hundred years ago, the only books were in churches and monasteries, and possibly the homes of the nobility. No wonder he thought I was rich. Even one book would have been a priceless treasure.

  I put my hands over my face and shook my head. “There was this guy named Gutenberg, about two hundred years after you.” I gave up for the moment and opened the pub door. “Let’s eat.”

  “I wish I could,” he said as the light streamed onto the pavement. He didn’t cast a shadow.

  I ordered at the counter, chose a relatively quiet corner, and pulled a chair out for him before I sat down.

  He hesitated and sat carefully. “I didna ken if I would be able to sit on anything except the earth,” he said with such a simple yearning in his voice, my heart went out to him.

  “Looks like you made it,” I said, careful to keep my voice low. “Congratulations. But you sat in the car, remember?”

  “Och, aye. I’d forgotten that. I was so worrit about where the horses were, I didna stop to think about sitting.”