19

O, this is the poison of deep grief.

ACT 4, SCENE 5

Saturday morning, Moira knew she’d be late for work, for the first time ever, but she hoped Mary Beth wouldn’t mind staying a little longer than usual. She didn’t really care, though. Not even with a murder to solve. It seemed like she’d practically lived at the station for, what?—twenty-two years? Had it really been that long? Was she getting burned out? Was that what this attitude—or lack of one—was called? All she wanted to do was stay home today with Russ. She wasn’t even tempted to walk down to the meadow to see any of the exhibits or events.

She had this little one-bedroom house, tucked into a corner lot where Hickory intersected with Maple. Her fridge was ten cubic feet. Her stove had only two burners. Her bathroom was minuscule. She loved it. She really did. And she’d always thought if she ever retired, she’d like spending time here. But now she kind of wondered if maybe she should have bought a bigger place. A house with a guest room.

Yesterday, Russell had insisted he’d get a hotel room, but once he’d made the rounds and found every place booked solid, he’d called her and admitted as how her living room couch sounded mighty fine. When he’d knocked on her front door, he carried a grocery bag full of food. She liked the idea of a man who could cook his own breakfast—and one for her at the same time. He’d make some woman a great husband someday. Maybe they’d settle down right here in Hamelin.

“So, did you sleep okay, Russ? That couch isn’t nearly long enough.”

He plopped some scrambled eggs onto her plate. “Grab yourself some bacon. The couch was fine. Once the Games are over, I’ll get a hotel room and get out of your hair.”

Moira surveyed her full plate, picked up her fork, and said, “You can stay in my hair as long as you want to, sonny, and as long as you can stand that couch. I ain’t complaining.”

He laughed and joined her at the tiny table. “Too bad you have to work. I’ll walk you to the station and then check out the town.”

She scoffed. “Walk me to the station? Ha! You just want a chance to get in on the investigation. Am I right?”

He sure looked cute when he was shamefaced. Just like when he was a little kid.

*   *   *

The early-morning sunlight poured through my bedroom window. I was already dressed and ready to go, but Silla hadn’t moved. Not even when Shorty investigated her soon after dawn, sniffing almost every hair, one at a time, poking at her tail (what she could see of it) and her ears, and finally placing one gray kitty paw on top of Silla’s head as if to say, I the conquering hero-cat, you the subservient dog. I had a feeling that once Silla got to feeling better, that dynamic might change. If she ever got to feeling better. Maybe she was sick. “Do you think I should take Silla to the vet, Dirk?”

“What would be the vet?”

“You know, a doctor for animals.”

When he didn’t respond, I stopped patting the unresponsive Silla and looked up at my ghost. “What?”

“A doctor? For animals?”

I couldn’t see why the concept should be so alien to him. “Didn’t you have doctors—healers—who helped animals when you were alive?”

“I spent many a sleepless night wi’ the does when ’twas time for kidding.”

Kidding—that meant the birthing of the baby goats. And a doe was a mama goat. I’d learned that much at least over the past year, but there was still a boatload of goat lore I had no clue about.

“Although,” he added, “to be perfectly honest, our family’s goats didna have many the problems.”

“But it sounds like you worried about them.”

“Nae. No so much about the goats as about the wildies who would come around when the sounds o’ the new kids attracted them. Only on occasion did I ha’ to pull on a wee one.”

“Well, I don’t have those sorts of skills, and I’ve never to the best of my knowledge even seen a wildie,” I said, “but I do know when somebody’s drooping.” Before he could question the word, I asked, “Don’t you think Silla should get a checkup?”

“Ye ha’ told me she was naught but a tiny pup when Large William found her in the puppy grinder.”

“Puppy mill,” I said automatically.

“Aye, is that not what I said?”

“Not quite. But never mind that. What was your point?”

“She is a grown dog the now, is she no?”

“Aye. Yes.”

“So-o-o”—he drew the word out until it was several heartbeats long—“he is the only master she has known for the most o’ her life—is that nae true?”

“Uh-huh.” I thought I could see where this was headed.

“When a woman loses a child, does she no grieve? When a man loses his wife or a wife her husband, do they no mourn?”

I nodded. Dirk was getting downright poetic in his old age—not that he’d ever be anything other than thirty years old, but he seemed to have learned a lot in the past 654 years.

“Why can ye no bear to let the wee doggie grieve in her own way?”

When he put it like that, I had to agree. I gathered up Silla’s red leash, snapped it onto her collar, and picked her up. She hung limp in my arms, and I tucked the end of my arisaidh around her. Maybe she’d get a little comfort from the warmth of it.

I looked back at Dirk. When I was seventy years old, he’d still be thirty. The thought unnerved me, and I hugged Silla a little bit closer.

*   *   *

Gilda was once again at the ScotShop ahead of me. We seemed to be starting a new trend.

“Are you ready for our extra-long day?”

She nodded. “I slept pretty well last night, so I think I’m up to it.”

Sam knocked on the glass. I could see Shoe right behind him. I let Gilda open the door for them. My arms were still full of Silla. I halfway wished I’d brought her dog bed.

“Shoe,” I said, “will you count on spending most of the day at the tie booth?”

He shrugged. “Sure. I could take my pipes and lure people into the tent that way.”

“You can leave your bagpipe behind,” I said pointedly, “and help with matching people to their clan ties. Understood?”

“Grump,” he said, but his voice was quiet enough that I could pretend not to have heard him. I couldn’t risk his alienating people with the squawks and wheezings of his inexpert playing.

“Where is your bagpipe, by the way?”

He looked hopeful, but only for a moment. Then his eyes strayed back toward the storeroom.

“You didn’t,” I said. “That room is for ScotShop’s excess merchandise—”

“And for the coffeepot,” Gilda added helpfully as she headed that way, presumably to get said pot a-brewing.

I ignored the interruption, other than to say, “Bring the cash box for the tent while you’re back there.” I turned back to Shoe. “It’s not your own private storage unit.”

“They don’t take up much room.”

It took me a second to register what he’d said. “They? They, as in plural? You have two bagpipes now?” Bagpipes was one of those strange words that was sort of singular and sort of not. It was one bagpipe or one set of bagpipes. People referred to their bagpipes if they’d collected fifty of them. But sometimes they used the same word if they had only one of the blasted things.

He wrinkled his forehead and looked down at his feet, as if they’d suddenly become the most interesting objects in the room. “I . . . uh . . . bought another one. This one’s more portable than my big one. It doesn’t take up as much room. The drones aren’t as long, and it comes with its own carrying case.” He held his hands out to indicate something about the size of a boot box.

“I don’t care,” I said. “You are not to leave them—no matter how many—in the storeroom.”

Gilda handed him the cash drawer, tucked into a box with SCARVES & TIES written on the side. She let him out the front door and locked it behind him. So far we didn’t have a line outside, but I knew from past experience that would soon change.

I looked around the store. What to do with Silla. Dirk must have read my mind. “Why d’ye no put her beneath the rack where she and the wee Scamp like to stay? Will she not be more at peace there than any the where otherwise?”

Why did Middle English use so many words? His language—translated somehow into twenty-first-century American English—must have lost something, or gained something, during the translation. And how could I possibly know how Chaucer had really spoken? Poetry was one thing; everyday speech was another.

“Under the sweaters,” I said. “Right.”

*   *   *

I spent a good deal of the morning and half the afternoon trying not to think about Big Willie’s body as I’d last seen it, but events conspired against me to keep the image fresh in my mind. A pipe band marched up Main Street, preceded by Mr. Stone and his drummers. The sound brought to mind a funeral dirge. Several people with Scotties came into the store, reminding me of my little Silla. No, not mine. And I didn’t know if she ever would be. Scamp emerged to investigate each one of the visiting dogs, but quickly returned to Silla after each foray out from under the Fair Isle rack. The weather was warm enough that not many people even looked at the sweaters, so the dogs remained relatively undisturbed all day.

Around four my cell phone vibrated, and I excused myself to answer it. “We have a problem,” Shoe said without an introduction. “Josh cut his hand. It’s pretty bad. We’re at the first aid tent and they say he needs stitches.”

I judged the relative merits of what was open to me. Should I send Shoe to the hospital with Josh, or take him myself, leaving Shoe to supervise the newer temp in the tie booth and Gilda to oversee the store? Neither option was particularly inviting, but the second seemed easier to deal with. “Can he walk, or is he in danger of passing out?”

“He made it here to the first aid tent just fine.”

“Okay. You two head back to the booth and sit him down somewhere at the back of it. Be sure he drinks some water. He didn’t bleed on any of the ties or scarves, did he?” Without giving him time to answer, I added, “Give me ten minutes to get my car. I’ll call you when I get close to the arch and you can walk with him. From then on, it’ll just be you and—” I couldn’t remember her name. “Uh, just you and her on your own. Can you handle it?”

“Does a bear . . .”

“Shoe, do not finish that sentence,” I interrupted, “especially if there’s anyone within earshot. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

Gilda rolled her eyes yet again when I told her what was going on, but she stepped up to the challenge. “I’ll get back as quickly as I possibly can,” I promised.

“Drive safely,” she said. “I can’t handle any more labor shortages.”

On the way to the front door I asked Dirk to stay behind and watch after Silla. He’d heard me explain the problem to Gilda, so I didn’t need to fill him in.

“Of course I will,” he said, the r in course sounding like five of them strung together.

*   *   *

Amy Harper took a quick break to use the restroom. She stopped a moment to call her husband. “It’s crazy around this place . . . Oh, you know, the usual: a knifing, a drug overdose, an underweight baby born in the car on the way here. As I left to take a break, some guy came in who’d slammed his hand in a cash register drawer and split it wide open . . . No, he wasn’t trying to steal anything; he worked there. Just careless, I guess . . . Yeah, love you bunches. Speaking of love you”—she let her voice drop to what she hoped was a sultry tone—“I’ll see you tonight.”

With a smile in her heart, she passed the double doors that opened from the waiting room. They swung apart and she glanced out. She recognized a woman sitting there and took a brief detour. “Ms. Winn? I don’t know if you remember me—”

“Sure, I do,” Peggy Winn said. “You were my nurse when I had that car accident last year.” Amy was intrigued to see Peggy blush. What was that about? “You’re Amy, Harper’s sister-in-law.” Her voice caught when she said Harper.

Oh, so that’s what the blush was about. Amy wondered how she could encourage Harper to do something about this. Speaking of her brother-in-law, he still hadn’t called her back about the surprise party. Maybe she could suggest he bring Peggy along.

Speaking of Peggy, Amy couldn’t see any outward sign of injury. “Has someone helped you yet?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I brought in one of my temps. He needed stitches.”

“The cash register guy?”

Peggy nodded with a woeful grimace.

Two nurse’s aides wearing blue scrubs walked past, one of them chattering nonstop. “Did you hear about the dog bite that came in Thursday night?”

Amy excused herself and pulled the two to one side of the public area. “You don’t ever, ever say a single word about any patient when you’re in a public place.” Her tone was quiet, but forceful. “Do you understand? You have no idea who might be sitting in that waiting room or how they might use—or twist—that information.”

The aide blanched. “I didn’t mean anything by it, and anyway nobody was listening.”

“I wasn’t listening, but I heard you loud and clear. Don’t let it happen again.” She sent them on their way, hoping there wouldn’t be a lawsuit of some sort from someone else who might have heard. She loved her work, except for hassles like this.

“Sorry about that,” she said when she returned to Peggy. “I can’t stay long. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Peggy seemed distracted. “I’m all healed up. Doing well, I guess.”

She guessed? Didn’t she know? “How are the Games going?”

“I haven’t seen many of the events. In fact, I haven’t seen any of them. I’ve been . . . uh . . .” She lowered her voice. “Did you know there was a murder?”

Amy nodded. “It was on the news this morning, but here at the hospital we find out things early. I’d already heard about it yesterday.”

“I . . . uh . . . I’m the one who found the body.”

Amy reached out and touched Peggy’s arm. “Oh, I’m so sorry. That must have been awful for you.”

Peggy nodded. “I’m just wondering. That nurse said something about a dog bite?”

Oh crap, Amy thought. “They weren’t nurses, and they had no business talking about patients like that in a waiting room.”

“But there was a dog bite?”

“I really can’t talk about it, Ms. Winn. Hospital policy. Privacy issues. I’m sure you understand.”

Peggy nodded, but she said, “Thursday night,” as if she was planning to use the information.