Page 14 of Death at a Highland Wedding (Rip Through Time #4)

FOURTEEN

Two hours later, McCreadie and I are in the smallest of the castle sitting rooms, nearly passed out on the sofas. I have abandoned all propriety to slouch as best I can. When the doorknob turns, I sit up quickly, before anyone sees me in this even faintly unladylike pose. Seeing it’s Isla, I relax again. She closes the door behind her.

“Duncan has not returned?” she says.

“I fear we abandoned him to Constable Ross,” McCreadie says. “We are terrible friends.”

“He’s kidding,” I say. “Kind of. Ross really didn’t like having Hugh around, and it was clear things would be better for everyone if he left the scene. As for me? I’m just a terrible friend.”

“Also untrue,” McCreadie says. “Whenever poor Mallory moves or speaks, our young constable stares as if an angel has descended from on high. I would suggest she keep him entranced, like a cobra, while I investigate, but that seemed wrong.” He leans his head back to look at me. “Yes?”

I throw a small embroidered pillow at him.

“I fear you are not sufficiently devoted to the cause,” McCreadie says.

“Yeah, yeah. I’d do it if it would work. Ross only stares until he remembers he’s in charge of the case. Then he’s right back to being a—” I decide not to finish that, but the face I make has McCreadie laughing.

Isla walks to the globe, opens it, and takes out whisky. Then she pours us each a glass.

“What exactly seems to be the problem with Constable Ross?” she asks.

“Everything.” I pause. “Okay, that’s not fair. He’s just young. Very young and determined to take his responsibilities seriously even if he has zero experience and, apparently, zero support. Hugh offered to help. Help, not take over. Ross will have none of it.”

“But you are a criminal officer,” Isla says to McCreadie. “That makes you his superior.”

McCreadie and I both shake our heads. McCreadie answers for us, “If he were an Edinburgh constable, I could indeed take the case from him. But it is not like the military, where one holds a superior rank in the organization at large. It is like being a doctor and realizing the local physician lacks experience. You cannot simply take over his patient.”

“It is not like that at all, though,” Isla says. “A patient can choose who he retains as a physician, much the same as one could choose a new grocer. They are customers. And the law is the law, whether here or in Edinburgh.”

“The law is a uniform entity,” I say. “The police are not.”

“But does Constable Ross know that?” Isla says, looking crafty. “If he is so isolated and inexperienced, might you not simply tell him to step aside?”

McCreadie hesitates and then exhales. “I could not sustain such a deceit. I would break down under the weight of it. We have inveigled Duncan into the case, and I will do what I can through that connection. I will not let Ross bungle the investigation completely.”

“Maybe he won’t bungle it,” I say. “Maybe he’s just got a Columbo routine going.” At their looks, I say, “Columbo is a fictional police detective who acts like he’s bumbling along to get people to confess to him. They think he’s hopeless, so they discount him.”

“I know a criminal officer like that,” McCreadie says. “He insists that he behaves that way to disarm the criminals into believing him incompetent. The only problem is…”

“He’s actually incompetent?”

McCreadie sighs. “I fear so.”

Isla sips her whisky. “While I applaud Mallory’s optimism, what are the chances that such a young man is, in fact, a genius detective?”

“Hey, look at me.” I spread my arms. “Twenty years old, and a damn fine investigator, according to Hugh here. Plus I’m a woman, which makes my competence truly shocking.”

McCreadie points his glass at me. “I did not say that last part.”

“Also, you are not actually twenty,” Isla says.

“Prove it.”

She turns to face me. “Prove you are. Show me your certificate of birth.”

I don’t answer that. Catriona has no ID. That’s shocking to me, coming from a world where you don’t leave the house without something to prove that you are who you say you are. But here, with no driver’s licenses, health cards, credit cards, or even library cards, it’s entirely possible that Catriona’s lack of ID isn’t even suspicious… though personally, I think it is.

“We will deal with Ross,” McCreadie says. “I am only frustrated that ‘dealing’ with him is indeed what we shall need to do. I would happily have consigned the investigation to an experienced officer.”

Both Isla and I give him a look.

“Fine,” he says. “I would not have been happy about it, but I would have accepted it.”

We keep looking at him.

He throws up his hands. “I would have been disappointed. Is that what you wish me to say? I would have reluctantly—but willingly—consigned the investigation to a more experienced officer while still politely noting my own experience and offering my assistance. I would have even more happily tutored Ross, and I struggle to understand why a young officer would not want that. I offered tutelage without the expectation of payment or credit.”

“Not everyone jumps at the chance to learn from experts,” I say.

“Unfathomable, really.”

“Agreed, but we can hope Ross will realize he’s in over his head—”

I stop short as the door opens. I sit up and straighten as Gray comes in, closes the door, and turns to me.

“Traitor,” he says.

I open my mouth.

“You abandoned me,” he says, stalking forward. “Left me in my hour of need to come in here, relax, and, apparently, sip whisky.”

My cheeks heat, as I start to rise. “I’m sorry. I—”

He waves me down. “I am teasing, Mallory.” He pauses. “Mostly. Seventy-five percent. Perhaps eighty.”

I exhale as I drop back to the couch. “You need to work on your poker face. It’s too good.”

His brows rise.

I continue, “I do feel bad about abandoning you, but every time Ross opened his mouth, I had to bite my tongue so hard that I started to worry about permanent damage. If you needed me, though, I’d have stayed. Seriously. You are my boss, Duncan. You can say no when I ask to leave.”

He waves that off and takes my whisky, downing the rest in a gulp before pouring another… which he also drinks.

“That bad, huh?” I say.

“You were right to go,” he says. “I know how much his cavalier attitude upset you, and your tension fed mine. It might have been easier if I did not know the victim. Know and like him, and…”

He shakes his head and reaches for the decanter, only to stop himself. Then he stands there a moment before clearing his throat. “And that is enough of that.”

Isla rises. “Hugh? You ought to see what Constable Ross is doing, yes? Even if you cannot intercede, you will want to know how he is conducting himself. Perhaps nudge him gently in the right direction? You are very good at being subtle.”

Yep, McCreadie is good at being subtle, far more so than Isla, as she hustles him out of the room. Once they’re gone, Gray lowers himself beside me on the settee, still holding his empty glass.

“You were saying?” I prompt, while bracing myself for him to dismiss it and move on. That’s what he would have done a year ago, even six months ago, but now, there is a soft exhale, as if in relief before he speaks.

Am I far too pleased with myself for being the person he feels comfortable confessing to? Hell, yes. I can rationalize it and tell myself it’s not about me, per se, but more that I’m an outsider and therefore a safe confessor. I don’t have any expectations for how a Victorian gentleman is supposed to act. True, but I hope it’s also about me—that Gray feels comfortable discussing his feelings with me, knowing I’d never see weakness in them.

“I know people think I am a ghoul,” he says. “For what I do, examining and dissecting the dead. Particularly when it is someone I knew. How can I cut open a friend? But as a surgeon, I would never hesitate to operate on someone I knew. To me, cutting them open after death is still helping. I am either finding their killer or I am seeking knowledge to find future killers. I did not look down on my brother-in-law’s body and see Gordon Leslie. The man I knew was gone. What remained was only a shell that could help find his killer.”

He fingers the empty glass. “That was a bit of a lecture, wasn’t it?”

I smile. “As long as the lecture isn’t about something I did wrong, you know I appreciate them. You’re right. While I’ve never conducted a postmortem on someone I know, I’ve seen most of my loved ones after death. That’s what happens after embalming begins. We pay them one final visit.”

One brow lifts. “You visit their embalmed corpse?”

“Yep, it’s actually called a visitation. But I never see the person I knew lying there. They’re gone. What I see is a representation of them that gives me a chance to reflect on our relationship. Also a chance to grumble that they never wore their hair that way, always hated that dress, and so on.”

He chuckles softly.

I continue, “My point is that I get it.”

“Thank you. And my point, as the long way of getting to it, is that I do not see that body as Ezra Sinclair, my childhood friend. I see it as evidence to catch his killer, and I will have no compunction about cutting into it. But standing out there, watching that young man poke at it and flip it over as if it were cordwood… I was offended.”

“Because that’s disrespect, and you never disrespect the dead.”

He sets the glass aside. “I understand this is not our investigation. Not Hugh’s and therefore not ours. Yet I cannot abandon Ezra to that fate. Perhaps that is foolish. He will never know whether his killer is caught, and he has no family to care.”

“He has friends who care,” I say softly. “But even if it’s not about avenging the dead or stopping a killer, can we trust Ross not to arrest the wrong man? Can we trust the local judiciary not to execute the wrong man?”

Gray shudders, and I almost regret mentioning it.

“I had not thought of that,” he says. “I recall Isla talking about several cases where the person accused of a village murder was an itinerant man or woman, an easy scapegoat. It is spring, meaning there are migratory workers.”

Gray looks across the room, his gaze settling on a portrait of Cranston, and at first, it’s just where his eye happens to fall, but then he blinks. “You mentioned stopping the killer. We have reason to believe they might strike again.”

“Because they killed the wrong person.”

“We need to warn Archie,” Gray says.

“He already realizes he was likely the intended target, but yes, he may not have extrapolated that to mean he is still in danger. I hate to dump that warning on Hugh, but he’s best suited for it. You need to focus on the autopsy.”

Gray slumps, and I search my words for what I said wrong.

“Is there a problem?” I say.

“Only everything,” he says. “I have my medical bag, but I barely had the tools to operate on that kitten. I do not travel with the equipment for proper surgery much less an autopsy. I was quick to offer my services, but I can hardly open up poor Ezra on the kitchen table with a garden saw.”

“There’s a local doctor, right? Rendall? You suggested Ross make sure Dr. Rendall is okay with you performing the autopsy, and I know that was mostly protecting yourself, but maybe we should pay this doctor a visit. With the body. So you can ask to use his facilities.”

When Gray doesn’t answer, I say, “I know that risks Dr. Rendall insisting on doing it himself, but which is better? You only assisting in the autopsy? Or you conducting it yourself on that table behind the stables, with a garden saw?”

He sighs and then rises. “Let me summon Simon, and we will convey the body to the local physician.”