Despite the bothersome events of the day, I was able to find calm inside the beautiful blue house by the sea where Tom and I lived. This previously landlocked Kansas girl never thought she’d live by the ocean.
Though it was small, the two-story house had the bedrooms upstairs and the living and dining room and kitchen on the bottom floor. The appliances were old, “from the best era of appliances” according to my good friend and former landlord, Aggie McKenna. Elias, her husband, a taxi driver I’d met on my first day in Scotland, just liked the way the table and chairs inside the dining area were surrounded by windows that looked out over a back garden.
The view from the living room displayed the ocean and all its many different personalities. I could watch it for hours, see it transform from beautiful to menacing, cheery to foaming at the mouth and hungry. It was hypnotic.
When Tom and I returned from our honeymoon, we had to stay in the cottage behind the McKennas’ cottage and guesthouses because there’d been a problem with the blue house’s old electrical system. That was the story Tom had told me, but I’d found out a little later that there was a different reason we couldn’t move right in.
Tom had been building a library. My very own personal library. If I hadn’t been head over heels for him before, I would have fallen hard when he brought me into the house and directed me upstairs, where he pulled on a rope attached to a door in the second-floor ceiling. Stairs unfolded as the door opened, and we climbed into the attic—he had transformed the place by furnishing it with bookshelves, new floors, good lights, and comfy chairs. He’d made sure the space could be heated in the cold winters and had even picked out cute curtains for the alcove windows.
Fortunately, Tom liked to read too, and he’d put enough comfortable seating in my library that we could invite guests if we were so inclined.
Our current houseguests weren’t much for climbing the attic ladder, but they knew they were always welcome.
Elias and Aggie were spending a couple of weeks with us because their cottages were, in fact, being rewired for modern electrical and their guesthouses had been booked out for months.
Ours wasn’t a big place, but it wasn’t tiny either. We might have been cramped if we didn’t all like each other so much and if Elias and Aggie weren’t such thoughtful guests. They’d cleaned everything to spotless, and when we didn’t have dinner out somewhere, Aggie always had something ready to warm up quickly.
Whenever we came home tired from the day, they gave us hot chocolate and cookies. We’d entertained the idea of sabotaging the workers fixing their electrical.
“Your new husband is going to be fat,” Tom said as he leaned over toward me.
“Your new wife will be right there with you.”
“That works.” Tom smiled and then bit into a chocolate chip cookie that was better than any cookie I’d ever eaten, except for all the other cookies Aggie had made for us during the week they’d been in the blue house.
Tonight we sat on the couch enjoying our evening snacks. Elias and Aggie were cleaning up the kitchen and would join us shortly. Tom and I had offered to at least clean, but they’d scooted us out of there without a real chance to argue. I told them we had an interesting story to share, and they were intrigued, but Aggie simply couldn’t sit still if the kitchen wasn’t tidy first.
Tom and I had tried to tell them they shouldn’t do so much—they were constantly cleaning, cooking, looking for something to repair—but our efforts were in vain. They couldn’t be stopped, so we decided just to enjoy them and hope we could return the favors one day.
“We’re ready, lass,” Elias said as he and Aggie finally hurried into the living room with their own mugs.
They sat in two chairs that faced the couch; a coffee table perched in the middle of everything. I noticed a new quilt on the back of Aggie’s chair and wondered if she’d just stitched it up today. I’d ask later.
“Tell us aboot yer day, lass,” Aggie said with a smile as she sat and leaned into the quilt.
I wanted to tell her it looked too nice to be leaned into, but that seemed somehow rude.
In between bites of another cookie, I told them about the day’s turn of events. They listened with the same rapt attention as Tom had, but they weren’t as concerned as he had been. Though I mentioned Findlay, I downplayed his anger with Tom from all those years ago.
“I ken Ms. O’Conner,” Aggie said when I was done. “Och, weel, I used tae. I’ve ken all aboot the lass all these years.”
“You knew her personally?” I asked.
“Aye, she and I were actively involved in the children’s hospital fund-raising many years ago. She was always lovely, but a wee bit strange too.”
“How?” Tom asked.
“A very vivid imagination,” Aggie said.
“That’s still obvious. I actually wondered if she knew the difference between reality and her imagination. She’s a daydreamer, I bet. But she seems smart, savvy,” I added.
“Aggie and she were freends when Shelagh was in all that tribble,” Elias said.
“Tribble is trouble?” I said.
“Aye,” Elias responded.
I looked at Aggie. “Did you think she committed murder?”
Aggie shook her head. “First of all, we wernae close friends, but more than acquaintances, I would say. I wasnae so sure back then if she was a killer. I ken she was up tae something. I caught her in the middle of one of her transformations.”
I sat forward on the couch, cradling the warm mug with both hands. “Really?”
Aggie shrugged. “I walked into the loo, and she was putting on the auld clothes. A brown coat, riddled with holes, a men’s fancy but moth-eaten hat, and some charcoal rubbed over her cheeks. She was in full costume and knew she was caught.” Aggie lowered her voice. “I promised I wouldnae say anything tae anyone, and I didnae, even after she was suspected of murder. I felt bad about that until she was cleared, but I still wonder.”
“You wonder if she was a killer?” Tom asked.
“Mostly I just thought she was up tae something she shouldnae been. I didnae expose her then, but it’s been bothersome for me over the years, even after everyone ken what she’d done.”
“The dress-up, the act?” I said.
“Aye, it was strange, but what I couldnae let go of was that though she took the idea from the book, she wasnae a violent lass, not a t’all. Hyde was more than a simple beggar, he was a killer. I just couldnae make her into that, no matter how I tried tae think aboot it. She was so young. We all do stupid things when we’re young. I’m a wee bit older than Shelagh and I just saw a lass with too much energy and too much imagination, who needed tae grow up some.”
Elias put his hand over his wife’s arm. “Love, ye did right. Ye promised her, and ye kept yer promise.”
A person’s word would be one of the most important things to Elias McKenna. He was cut from the same cloth that many of the older men in my life were, and keeping one’s word would be important no matter what else was involved—probably even murder.
“Weel,” Aggie continued, “anyway, I didnae tell anyone. She was always kind to me, but again, that was many years ago. I dinnae ken what kind of person she really is now, but her library and books have been popular topics of conversation for many.”
“I guess I’ll have a front-row view tomorrow.”
“Why do ye think she made a hunt?” Elias asked.
I shrugged. “She’s a bit over the top and probably likes to have fun. I wouldn’t be surprised to find bigger challenges along the way. The book collection is quite valuable. It won’t be a simple hunt.”
“I dinnae like Findlay Sweet’s involvement,” Elias added.
“Me either,” Tom said.
“I’ll be careful.”
Truth be told, I didn’t like it either, but I still didn’t think it was any big deal. For now I was willing to think that his working for Shelagh and then stopping by Tom’s pub was just … well, not coincidence as much as simply convenient. I’d tried to talk to Birk at the end of the meeting to ask if he’d had a message delivered by a messenger too, but he’d left quickly, and I hadn’t had time to give him a call.
“Ye should have Tom go with ye,” Elias said.
Aggie tsked. “She’s a modern woman, Elias. She’ll be fine.”
“I don’t think I’d be invited,” Tom said with a wry smile my direction.
“You’d be invited,” I said to him. I didn’t add, But not to save me. Instead I looked at Elias. “I really will be fine, though.”
“Weel…” Elias took an authoritative sip of his hot chocolate.
Tom sent me a furtive wink.
We finished our drinks and chatted a little longer. Elias and Aggie went to bed early, even earlier than their normal hour. It was clear they thought Tom and I should have plenty of time alone. We’d told them that we enjoyed having them there, but they still bade us goodnight and retired to their room early in the evenings.
Tom had changed his schedule since we’d gotten married. He used to work most nights, but now he worked only a few, leaving the evenings to Rodger and some part-time employees.
The pub had been running fine, but I knew if things started to change or too many of the regulars missed Tom, he’d go back to working nights. I’d known his schedule when we married, but I was pleasantly surprised by the change. If he returned to the old ways, I’d hide my disappointment.
For now, though, I’d enjoy our evenings watching television or reading in my new garret library. Tonight, after a few minutes of looking at the foam on the dark ocean, we decided we were tired enough for bed too.
As we were making our way to our room, though, Elias came out of his.
“We’ve been watching the telly,” he said, a concerned look on his face. “Have you?”
“No,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“Come in.”
We followed him into the bedroom, where Aggie was bundled up under the covers. She even wore a nightcap.
“Look,” she said as she nodded toward the small television set on the old dresser.
A newscaster was speaking.
“It seems the burglar was caught on CCTV. Please take a look at this video. If you have any information regarding who this person might be, please call the police immediately.”
My mouth fell open as we watched the grainy video that had been captured by a camera across the street from the house that had been robbed. The burglar was dressed similarly to the person Tom and I had seen hiding in the shadows by his car.
“Tom, do you think that’s who we saw?” I asked.
“I have no idea, but it sure looks like them. I think,” Tom said.
“I’m not sure either.”
“Wait,” Aggie said as she used the remote to turn off the television. “We wanted ye tae see this because we were talking about Shelagh earlier, and the person on the telly looks to be dressed as Shelagh dressed back then. What are ye two talking about?”
We hadn’t shared our encounter in the parking lot with our houseguests. It hadn’t even occurred to me. And even if it had, I still wouldn’t have brought it up to them. They were worried enough about me touring an eccentric woman’s library in broad daylight. They’d be mightily concerned about someone potentially lurking in a dark car park.
However, we told them now. And then I called Inspector Winters.