Before Judith could answer, a woman’s shrill voice split the swirling mist. “Why? Why? Why? I’m your friend, your neighbor! You know me! I’m innocent!”
A chorus of damning denial erupted from the crowd. “Moira,” Judith said in Renie’s ear.
“It doesn’t sound like her,” Renie said.
“She’s distraught, wringing her hands, pulling at her hair.” Compassion welled up inside Judith’s breast. “She’s…unhinged.”
Renie shook her head in disgust. “As my father would say, that’s ungood. It won’t help her with this bunch.”
Moira was trying to speak again, but the angry mob wouldn’t shut up. A new chant was emerging, though Judith couldn’t make it out. It sounded to her like “Caravan,” which made no sense. On the balcony, Moira bowed her head and gripped the rail. The cries of the crowd swiftly changed to “Jump, whore, jump!”
“Horrible!” Judith exclaimed. “Where are the police?”
“Looking for their car?” Renie suggested.
“Shut up.” More guilt overcame Judith. “What are they yelling besides ‘Jump’? ‘Caravan’? ‘Caveman’?”
“Cameron,” Renie said. “Now they’re shouting ‘Butcher!’ They must think Moira and Patrick conspired to kill Harry Gibbs.”
“I can’t hear you!” Judith cried as the noise grew to a fever pitch and the crowd pressed forward. “Let’s go before we get trampled!”
“How?” Renie yelled. “We’re stuck! Where are Barry and Alison?”
Judith couldn’t see them. She was being pushed closer to the gate, as if the mob intended to crush the iron bars with sheer force. Meanwhile, the driveway was becoming clogged with trespassers who had gone over the walls.
Judith’s view of the house had been blocked for the last couple of minutes, but while struggling to keep her balance, she got a glimpse of Moira. The anguished widow looked as if she was weeping, her head in her hands, her hair streaming around her hunched shoulders.
Suddenly the sound of sirens was heard over the crowd’s relentless roar. “Cops?” Judith mouthed to Renie, who listened and nodded.
It occurred to Judith that the police might use tear gas or some other unpleasant means to disperse the mob. Somehow, she realized, there had to be a way to escape the crush of irate people. “Can you crawl?” she whispered to Renie, augmenting the question with hand motions.
“Uh…” Renie peered down at the ground. “Maybe. But you can’t.”
“If you move enough people, I can stay upright and follow you.”
“Oh…” Renie looked aghast. But the sirens were very close. “Okay, here goes,” she said, digging into her purse and taking out a pair of small but very pointed nail scissors. “Stay close.” She squatted down, got to her knees, and began to crawl toward the road.
As the shouts and jeers became punctured with sharp squeals of pain and hopping feet, Judith was able to squeeze between Renie’s victims, who had been caught off guard by the unexpected jabs with the nail scissors. Mouthing apologies and stumbling awkwardly through the throng, Judith had broken into a sweat by the time she got to the road. Fortunately, the crowd was thinning out as two police vans came toward the entrance to Hollywood House.
“I can’t get up!” Renie cried, sounding miserable. “About a hundred people stepped on me! I’m a wreck!”
Judith gave her cousin a hand and helped her get to her feet. “You do look pretty ghastly,” she said, taking in Renie’s disheveled hair, which sported a couple of candy wrappers, a cigarette butt, and an unopened condom. “Let’s see if we can move our stolen police car.”
The sedan was right where they’d left it, but it wasn’t empty. Judith spotted two figures in the front seat.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Someone else is trying to steal it!”
“No!” Renie gasped. “What’s this world coming to?”
Wiping perspiration from her forehead, Judith moved purposefully through the gaggle of onlookers, some of whom had lost their steam as the police vans came to a stop nearby. Reaching the car, she looked inside and saw Alpin MacRae in the passenger seat. Recognizing Judith, he rolled down the window.
“I can explain…” Judith began, starting to sweat again.
“Of course,” MacRae said with a grim smile. “But not now. Thank God you were able to get here. We had to borrow bicycles from the village after we lost track of James Blackwell and heard about this mob. Would you like to get in?”
“Oh yes!” Judith was confused by MacRae’s reaction but needed sanctuary, not explanations. She opened the back door and practically fell into the seat. Renie scrambled in next to her.
“Are you all right?” MacRae asked after swiftly surveying the cousins.
“Yes, yes,” Judith replied.
“Speak for yourself,” Renie muttered, raking the detritus from her hair. “I’ve scraped my hands and knees. I’ll have bruises all over…”
Her words were drowned out by a loudspeaker ordering the crowd to disperse.
“Inverness sent a riot squad,” MacRae said. “This is an amazing turn of events, like a rock concert or a football game on a smaller scale.”
“I never saw the like,” Ogilvie asserted, “except at a Dundee United match against Heart of Midlothian. Hearts is bloody vicious.”
