CHAPTER 26

I’m not sure when it occurred to me or the exact moment when I began to suspect that my father’s life and Henrietta’s were connected. Maybe I’d had an inkling for days, simply because the two subjects—an Elliott disappearance and a McCloud murder—had become intertwined in my mind, and I’d been unable to separate them. But as I drove back to Glenkillen several hours later after poring over Henrietta’s past with Katie, that inkling had found a basis in fact and had mushroomed into full-fledged North Star–quality illumination. Just like the smile I’d worn while following the budding historian to her room.

It hadn’t taken long for that twinkle of delight to fade away under the harshness of reality.

Katie’s notes had confirmed much of what Bridie had shared with me about Henrietta. Neighbors of the McCloud family had been willing to talk to Katie, since the family had moved away and therefore so had any threat of retribution from an alcoholic father who was quick to anger and raise his fists.

“Instead of neglecting his family as many drunks do,” Katie had said, “he was a strict authoritarian, with rigid expectations. The girls couldn’t possibly be perfect enough tae escape his wrath.”

With a mother too frightened of consequences to even attempt to intervene, the abuse had gone on throughout their formative years. Eventually, a relative stepped in on Patricia’s behalf. Patricia was five years older than Henrietta. This relative arranged for her to attend university, and she was sent off to Edinburgh, where she met and married Connor Martin. The rest of her story had been public knowledge as Connor climbed the political ladder.

“So what are those points of interest you mentioned?” I’d asked Katie, thinking of Henrietta and wondering how she’d fared once her sister escaped.

“Little gems,” she’d replied. “But are they real? Or are they fake?”

“Tell me.”

Rumors about the McCloud family weren’t hard to come by. Neighbors were quick to supply them. The father had ended up in prison somewhere in Glasgow. The mother had died, battered by her husband. The older sister, Patricia, had given birth to a child out of wedlock, the father of her child unknown.

“Patricia had been away for several years before she had Gordon,” Katie said. “She married Connor shortly after, and he claimed the boy as his own.”

So Gordon Martin had been a love child. Interesting but hardly of concern to the case. Or if it was, I hadn’t found a connection yet.

“Speaking of love, Henrietta had her own richly described affair of the heart with a local young man,” Katie continued. “He was going to be her way out, her escape from a rotten home life, according to the neighbors. They’d watched her sneak out at night, witnessed a few of the trysts between the two. It was how she managed to cope, they said. He gave her hope.

“Then one day he was gone. Henrietta moped around, waiting for him to come and rescue her. For months no one saw her leave the house. She’d become a recluse, pining away, wasting away. Until the day that Bridie Dougal agreed to have her as an employee. That’s the last the neighbors saw of her.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“At one time I’d intended to pursue more documentation, try to substantiate some of those details,” Katie said. “But it would have involved speaking directly to Henrietta and it slipped out o’ my mind. Not that she probably woulda cooperated. That’s the problem with this kind o’ research.

“And the lad who jilted her? I suppose ye need tae know.” Katie said with a serious expression.

“Yes, who was he?”

And I was thinking maybe he was the key to this whole case. I wasn’t sure how, not this early, not yet, but it was one more place to look.

And that was when I found out.

The young man who stole Henrietta McCloud’s heart had been my father.

*   *   *

At first I’d been stunned. Blindsided. Not believing it. Truths, half truths, lies. What was the case this time? Truth gets twisted in the telling, especially over time, Katie had said at the beginning, and she repeated it when she saw my expression.

But the more I thought about it on that slow drive back to Glenkillen along the snowy narrow roadway, the more I accepted their past relationship as truth.

Henrietta had been sneaking peeks at me that morning when we’d met. No wonder she’d been interested in me. She must have seen the resemblance, would have known my grandfather. My presence there must have dredged up more than a few memories. Hopefully some of them had been good ones.

Was that why she’d wanted to meet with me?

Of course. She’d been ready to tell me her story. Maybe she thought I knew where my father was. She would have been hoping for news of him. She would have been horribly disappointed to find out that I didn’t know anything about him, hadn’t heard from him for thirty-some years. We could have exchanged sad stories, commiserated together, because as it turned out, Dennis Elliott had horribly disappointed both of us.

Thinking of the cad who had been my dad, who had broken a young woman’s heart (no matter that he’d left her for my mother), brought a fresh sense of loss, a new pain shooting through my own heart.

I reminded myself that it might not have been what it seemed. Just because a woman falls in love doesn’t mean her feelings are reciprocated. It could have been one-sided. Not that it mattered. My father wasn’t around to tell his side of the story.

Did Bridie know about them?

I didn’t think so. She wouldn’t have been able to contain herself this long. Bridie wasn’t one to exhibit restraint. No. My guess was that Henrietta hadn’t shared that part of her past with her employer.

Halfway to Glenkillen, my mind turned dark, which I’m learning to recognize as a curse of an overactive imagination. What if my father had murdered Henrietta? What if he had been lurking about? He obviously had a gift for disappearing at will. Why not appear at will just as easily?

I forced that thought away mainly because I couldn’t come up with a workable motive. He hadn’t snuck in and drowned her because she might tell me about their romantic interludes. And, carrying that farfetched premise to its end, he’d have had to be the one who attacked me. Even my resentful, bitter mind couldn’t imagine that.

So I shelved those gruesome thoughts. I didn’t have a high regard for Dennis Elliott, and I didn’t want him to fall further than he already had. If that was possible.

Maybe his disappearance and Henrietta’s death were related.

Or maybe they weren’t.

In the world of the investigator, I would need to prove those two knew each other, then confirm without a shadow of a doubt that they’d been romantically involved.

Did I want to? In the end, would it matter?

I drove into Glenkillen with an hour to spare before taking tea with Bridie, so I drove to the inn and parked. Everything was snow covered and decorated for Christmas, which was only two weeks away. I paused outside the Whistling Inn to imagine the lackluster Christmas awaiting me back in Chicago. Then I opened the door and entered the inn.

“Janet Dougal is back,” Jeannie said from the reception desk. “And playin’ the part o’ royalty in me best suite at this very moment.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’d wonder if ye hadn’t. It’s all aboot town.”

What would Jeannie have to say if she knew that she’d supplied at least one of Janet’s alibis, the one proving that Janet hadn’t attacked me at the hospital, the one leading to the inspector’s own moment of doubt and her release?

“Is Patricia Martin here?” I wasn’t sure exactly how I would go about confirming the rumors that had been uncovered, but asking her was the logical first step. I’d have to do it gingerly, dredge up more tact than I usually practiced, or she’d react as Florence had the day I’d quizzed her. This would have to be done delicately.

I was almost relieved when Jeannie said Patricia wasn’t in. “Stormed out o’ here like she’d been launched from a cannon when she found out aboot that other one being let loose. I almost went with her tae voice me own complaint. Tae think I have to put up with the likes o’ her again!”

Back in my car with time to spare before tea, I called Vicki.

“How are you feeling?”

“About the same, but I’m going crazy lying around. The Internet is back up and running, so I did some research from the sofa.”

I heard Sean in the background. “Against me orders, I might add.”

“Ignore him. He’s trying to do what’s best for me without understanding exactly what is best. Anyhow . . .”

After a split second of fumbling around, Sean’s voice came on loud and clear. “Yer car is missing and ye aren’t in yer cottage as ye promised. Ye haff no business givin’ me the slip. It isn’t safe and I took ye at yer word, not that that did me a bit o’ good . . .”

Vicki had seized control again. “You’re being careful, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ve done some digging. Dennis Elliott was on a passenger list, that much is certain. But he wasn’t on that flight.”

“That’s strange.”

“I’m still digging. If he was on a later one, I’ll find him. Good thing this happened so many years ago when lives weren’t as private. In today’s world, I wouldn’t have this kind of access. There’s a lot online to sort through.”

Vicki sounded excited in spite of her illness. She’d discovered she had a knack for historical research.

“Thanks, Vicki, I appreciate it,” I said, truthfully, although when she was better, we were going to have to have a serious discussion about some of her recent deceptions. She wouldn’t see them as such, but I did. I’d lost some trust in her. Which was one of the reasons I chose not to confide in her regarding the visit to Katie in Inverness.

If I shared with her, she’d tell Sean, and then Jamieson would find out in record time. The inspector would chastise me for interfering in his investigation, and he might well put someone more capable than Sean on my tail.

For now, I was going it alone.

If and when I had anything concrete, I’d turn all that I’d learned over to the inspector.

I drove over to the estate of the Dougal chieftain for a little tête-à-tête.

Except instead of a private audience with Bridie, she was holding court. Again.

Archie met me at the door. I hadn’t seen him since the tasting, had only spoken to him on the phone once, but he greeted me with the warmth and charm of an old, dear friend. I was immediately suspicious, remembering well that this man had a good motive for murder.

“You’re expected,” he said with a smile, leading me down the hall. My heart sank as I heard all the voices ahead. A private chat with Bridie about my family would have to wait.

And, yes, I recognized the irony. I’d been doing my best to avoid the subject, not that my best had been good enough. But I’d put a lot of effort into it. Now I desperately wanted to learn as much as I could.

Go figure.