16

Dog on a Throne

Thursday morning, oblivious of even the sunshine on my face, I overslept. Shorty finally succeeded where the sun had failed by patting my cheek softly three times and meowing at me. I pulled myself out of bed, aware of every muscle. I shouldn’t have been surprised. This happened every winter. I’d go skiing for the first time of the season, and pay for it with four or five days of aches and pains. It wasn’t like that twenty years ago when I was ten years old. Nothing ever ached back then.

I took a long hot shower—best medicine ever for sore muscles—and pulled on my dark blue silk long john top and bottom, a floor-length heavy green and blue plaid wool skirt, and my old winter standby, a deep green fisherman’s knit sweater. The cowl-like neck of my navy silk long john top draped becomingly—if I did say so myself—over the thick wool of the sweater. I ignored my face in the mirror. I’d taken one quick look and hadn’t liked what I’d seen. My hair hadn’t yet recovered from where part of it had been shaved where I had to have stitches last summer. I’d cut it fairly short, but it was still in that in-between stage that made me look like a stale, warmed-over pancake on one side and a dandelion head on the other. Thank goodness I was used to wearing a Scottish kerchief. It covered a multitude of hair disasters. I’d left mine downstairs. There was no way I’d forget it, though. I had my priorities straight.

The shop opened at nine. I’d planned to get some paperwork done, and now I wouldn’t have time. I absolutely refused to miss breakfast. Gilda would have to open without me. I tromped downstairs. What was Dirk doing in my favorite chair? Before I could say anything, he scanned me up and down. “Will ye be working at the wee shop today?”

“Yeah, and I have to hurry. I’m running late.” I slipped into my boots so I could get the newspaper without freezing my toes off.

“Ye need more clothing. Ye will freeze in this cold. Why can ye no wear breeches on a day such as this one?”

Dirk had quickly grown accustomed to short skirts on women in the summer and long, leggy jeans in the autumn. Despite his initial fourteenth-century shock at seeing women’s legs, he’d gotten over it real fast.

I stuck one booted foot forward toward him and raised my skirt a few inches above the boot top. “I’m wearing long johns.”

“Long jahns? Would long jahns be those blue stockings?”

“They’re not socks. They go all the way up, and they provide insulation so I don’t get cold.”

“All the way up where?” He sounded scandalized. And interested.

“They’re like jeans, only softer, and they . . .” I gestured up the length of my leg to my waist. Not that it was any business of his. I bypassed my kerchief and pulled on a knit cap to keep my ears from freezing. “Anyway, I like wearing long skirts to work. If customers see me wearing them, they’re more likely to buy some for themselves.”

“Ye have six of those skirts that I have seen so far.”

He was counting?

“Why need ye so many skirts?”

I refused to be sidetracked by how cute all those r’s sounded when he said “skir-r-r-rts.” “I happen to have ten of them. Not that it’s any business of yours.”

“Ye needna whinge so.”

He sounded so . . . so superior . . . I wanted to deck him. But with shoulders as broad as his were and biceps as massive, I doubted I’d make much of a dent. I brushed past his chair—my chair—grabbing the shawl off the back as I went. He stood to follow me, but I closed the door in his face.

It was too cold to linger outside. I waved to my next-door neighbor, grabbed the newspaper, and scooted back into the warmth of my living room. Dirk had retreated to the woodstove, although I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how he could possibly need the warmth of it. I ducked into the kitchen rather than argue over woodstove proximity. A hot cup of java would warm me just as well, and I could wrap my cold fingers around it.

Humming despite my irritation with Dirk, I started a big pot of oatmeal and, coffee in hand, I spread open the Hamelin Piper. The headline blared the news that our police chief had been “MISSING SINCE SUNDAY.” Good grief. I set down my coffee mug and reached for the phone.

Dirk sidled into the kitchen and looked at the paper. “I told ye we should ha’ looked in the wee cabin.”

“Oh, hush up. You didn’t think it was all that important or you would have insisted.” The trouble was, I knew he was right and he had tried to insist that we check on Mac; but I wasn’t going to admit that to him. “Anyway, everything was just fine when we were there.”

“How can ye be sure of that?”

“He was cussing so loud.”

Dirk obviously missed the reference, but he must have gathered the gist of what I said, because he quirked an eyebrow at me. “Are ye saying he swore?”

“Yes. So he couldn’t have been hurt.”

“Mayhap he swore because he was hurt, as I seem to recall I mentioned to ye at the time. Did ye not even consider that possibility?”

I slapped the phone back down on the counter. “Why are you grilling me like this?”

“What would be this grillink?”

“Grilling. Interrogating. Bothering.”

“I am asking questions that need to be asked.”

“You’re bugging me. It’s not my fault Mac hasn’t come home for four days.”

“Ye needna shout at me.”

“I am not shouting,” I shouted. “I’m being assertive.”

“Ye are being stubborn because ye think ye were wrong to leave him.”

I jammed both my fists onto my hips. “You . . . you . . . you can’t say that to me.”

“Aye. That I can.” He crossed his arms, and I saw the muscles bunch under his billowy white sleeves.

I’d been with this man, this ghost, every day for the past five months and he’d been correcting me for three quarters of them. “Go away!” This time I really was shouting. “Leave me alone!”

He looked at me like I’d hit him. “I canna leave, as ye verra weel know.” His brogue got thicker with each word.

“Oh, yes, you can!” I grabbed the shawl from around my shoulders and bundled it up as tight as a Tootsie Roll. He. Was. Gone. I strode into the living room and tossed him—tossed it—onto the couch. Good. Riddance.

I picked up the phone, got hold of Murphy, and explained what had happened up on the Perth.

“When you say, We were skiing, just who else are you referring to?” Police sergeant Murphy sounded quite reasonable when he asked this most unreasonable question. Unreasonable because I didn’t want to answer it.

I was referring to my ghost—the one I’m not talking to. “Uh, it’s the royal we. Like Queen Elizabeth?” A pregnant pause filled the phone line. “I, uh, like to imagine I’m with someone when I’m skiing,” I said, scrambling to fill the silence without mentioning Dirk. I wasn’t even going to think about him anyway. Damn Scot.

“Oh?” Murphy sounded skeptical. I couldn’t blame him. “Like who?”

Harper. Cancel that thought. “I talk to the birds and squirrels while I’m skiing,” I told Murphy. And my resident ghost whom I just banished. “It’s sort of like having company.”

“So you’re telling me you didn’t go into the cabin but you’re sure Chief Campbell was there?” Murphy’s Irish brogue got stronger with each syllable.

“That’s right.” I shoveled in another mouthful of oatmeal and chewed fast, hoping I was chewing quietly enough that he wouldn’t hear me.

“And how would you—and your squirrel friends,” he added in a tone I thought was unnecessarily mocking, “know it was the chief if you didn’t see him?”

I swallowed. “Well, I already told you. His skis were parked beside the door.”

“You recognized his skis?”

“Well, no, but we knew—I mean, I knew he was there.”

“You and the squirrels knew he was there?”

“We . . . I heard him swearing at the firewood.”

A few seconds of silence during which I heard muffled choking. Or maybe it was laughter. “I’ll get right on it, Ms. Winn.” He must have believed the swearing part. “We’ll send somebody up there to look for him.”

It’s about time. “Thank you,” I said. Maybe Mac had strapped on his skis and gone farther up the mountain after he got his fire started. Maybe they’d never find him.

I left for the ScotShop in a dire mood, but when I got there, my mood changed instantly. I found a crowd of people oohing in front of one of my display windows. Yesterday it had contained four kilted mannequins, several artful stacks of Fair Isle sweaters, and a selection of books, bookends, and other items. Now, nestled between two of the mannequins, was an ottoman covered in a tartan shawl that I recognized as one of Gilda’s. Scamp sprawled in Scottie splendor on the ottoman, basking in the admiration, his head resting on a soft fat Loch Ness Monster pillow.

“Come on in,” I told the crowd. “Feel free to browse.”

“I want to buy the dog,” one woman said. “Is he for sale?”

“No, but you can buy one of those sweaters next to the dog’s throne.”

I sold four sweaters, two Monster pillows, and five boxes of shortbread, thanks to Scamp. He was hired.