Highland Laddie Gone

“Dr. Carson, I imagine. He’s on the committee.”

“Good. Talk to him.”

Elizabeth sighed. “I wish I could talk to Colin.”

“Yes, that would solve everything, wouldn’t it?”

“Not about the murder. I was just thinking. Betty said that Dr. Campbell seemed to know a lot about Heather’s background. They were talking about a new baby in the family.”

“Heather’s background?”

Elizabeth nodded miserably. “I think she and Cameron knew each other back in Scotland. I’ll bet Dr. Campbell could have told me what was going on.”

“I’ll bet he would’ve, too,” said Marge grimly. “That’s the trait that killed him.”

Walter Hutcheson’s present wife was sitting alone in the camper, trying to decide what to do. Walter had shouted a lot of instructions at her as they were leading him away, something about telephoning a lot of people. But he hadn’t left her any phone numbers, and the address book was back at the house. She supposed she could leave the festival and drive home. She’d never driven the camper, though, and it would be like maneuvering a great bloody aircraft carrier on the two-lane roads. She might get herself killed.

Heather had not been crying, but she was tense and afraid. What if things didn’t turn out all right? Sod the stupid police anyway for arresting Walter. She looked at the half-empty bottle of Glenlivet in front of her. Better not have another-not that she was too keen on the taste of the stuff anyway. This was not a time to be losing control. The police would be back along asking questions of her, she was sure. When did you last see your husband’s skian dubh? What time did he leave the camper? Was there any blood about him?

Heather twisted a strand of hair and tried to decide if she ought to do anything. Walter would call his own lawyer from the police station, wouldn’t he? And like as not, they’d arrange the bail, and then he could come and drive her home. She didn’t like to ask anyone for help just now; she wanted to be alone. It would all work out, she thought. It had to. Cameron Dawson reminded her of why she had left Scotland, and why she didn’t want to go back. Americans-and Walter in particular-were a bit simple, but she was enjoying herself, and she wasn’t going to see it spoiled. Cameron Dawson… In spite of her worries, Heather giggled remembering the look on the little brunette’s face when they’d talked about him… Silly git.

She wondered what Walter’s former wife was doing. She was the Maggie Thatcher type, all right. If it had been her here as the defendant’s wife, she’d have already called the President and organized a league of Friends of Walter Hutcheson. A geriatric Girl Guide was Marge.

She started at the sound of the knock on the camper door. Not the bloody cops already! Heather opened the door cautiously, ready to slam it if she caught sight of a camera. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you, Jimmy. If you don’t give me any of that Your Ladyship rubbish, you can come in.”

Questioning people at the Highland games wasn’t going to be as easy as Marge seemed to think. Elizabeth knew that elderly Virginians were the last people in the world to take a young girl seriously-and if they did, they would resent her. She had wasted a good bit of her social life having to be wide-eyed and respectful while pompous old bores held forth on their pet subjects. The liberal-arts types were the worst. They always managed to steer the conversation to the inch-wide sea of whatever their specialty was and to dismiss anything else as not worth knowing. That’s why I fall for scientists, Elizabeth thought: I give them credit for being brilliant because they can do things that I can’t-and they’re not given to talking about it over dinner.

She had been unable to find Andy Carson to ask him about Dr. Campbell’s proposed committee meeting, but another member of the group, Hughie MacDuffie, was all too evident. Elizabeth hesitated. Was she really desperate enough to commit herself to a conversation with MacDuffie? Conversation was hardly the word for it, though: a few utterances of “Oh, really?” were the most that Hughie would permit in the way of participation in his monologue. He taught ancient history at a military academy, and was given to telling jokes with the punch line in Latin.

I might as well get it over with, thought Elizabeth, gritting her teeth. “Hello, Dr. MacDuffie, how nice to see you!” she said aloud.

Hughie MacDuffie’s victim, who had been subjected to a lecture on Tacitus’s opinion of the Scots, took advantage of the momentary distraction and fled. The professor looked over his black-rimmed glasses at Elizabeth, either trying to place her or mentally flipping through his list of conversational harangues.

“MacPherson, isn’t it?” he said, eyeing her sash.

“Yes, sir. Maid of the Cat this year.” I may as well volunteer it, she thought; we’re not going to get anywhere until I do. “My parents are Douglas and Margaret MacPherson, and my older brother Bill is a law student.”

“Any kin to David MacPherson of the Upperville Hunt Club?”

“No. My mother is one of the North Georgia Chandlers. Timber.”

“Ah! Splendid weather we’re having for the festival, isn’t it?”

Elizabeth sighed. It was a science, after all, communicating with this bunch. Seals and porpoises couldn’t be any trickier. She spent another few minutes making the correct noises before launching her chosen topic of conversation.

“Isn’t it shocking about poor Dr. Campbell?”

“Abiit ad plures,” said Hughie solemnly.

“I’m sure he’ll be greatly missed. Such a busy man! You were on the committee with him, weren’t you?”

“I like to think that, like the second Triumvirate…”

Elizabeth ignored the gambit. If I let him get started on Rome, we’ll be here for days, she thought. “Had you talked to Dr. Campbell lately?” she asked.

Hughie MacDuffie cocked his head, trying to recall the faces of his conversational victims. “Colin Campbell… yes… because I remember saying to him: tantum religio potuit…” “What was he talking about?”

“Campbell? He wanted to get the committee together this morning. He didn’t though. Never turned up.”

“He was dead,” Elizabeth reminded him. “Now, did he say what the meeting was about?”

“Fraud. I remember, because I said-”

“Fraud? You’re sure it wasn’t embezzlement.”

“No, my dear. The two things can be very different. For example, when the fire department of Rome was run by-”

“Did he say who the fraud concerned?”

“Oh, someone here at the games, I believe. Something about… what did he tell me?… I’m afraid I wasn’t listening as attentively as I might-Colin was such an old bore. Of course, had I known that he would be killed, I would certainly have paid attention. I think a dentist was asking him about tartan patterns. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? Unless it’s like the Oracle of Delphi. Have you heard the story about the fellow who went to the Oracle… Let’s see, it was…”

There was no formal registration for the Highland games. People paid their admission at the gate without signing anything. New members could, if they wished, put themselves on a mailing list at one of the clan tents, but even then occupation was not listed on the form. Anyway, with more than fifty clan tents, it would take days to track down the information, with very little chance of finding the right one. How do you find a dentist in a haystack, Elizabeth wondered. The only solution that occurred to her was more drastic than she cared to undertake. Clearly, it was a job for Geoffrey.

She found him in the Keith tent, sharing a bottle of Dewars and the plot of Brigadoon with two of the clan officers.

“And then he goes back to New York, right? So…”

“Geoffrey!”

“Hello, Elizabeth. How odd to find you Scot-free. As I was saying-”

“Geoffrey, I have a part for you in a small drama.”

Geoffrey, noting her serious expression, set down his plastic cup with a sigh of regret. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends…”

When she had steered him out of earshot of the Keith contingent, she said, “I suppose you want to know what this is all about.”

“I’ll tell you what it had better not be about,” said Geoffrey menacingly. “If you have had some kind of altercation with your Highland laddie and are expecting me to play Friar Laurence in any way