Chapter 17
Paislee left Cashmere Crush in her grandfather’s hands—it was better than not having anybody there at all.
She had a bad feeling about Isla, Billy, and Tabitha. And Roderick. What a mess affairs of the heart were. She’d thought she’d been in love once, but what did anybody know at seventeen?
As she drove, she didn’t bother with the radio like last time she’d made the picturesque journey through cliffs and green fields—instead, she used the twenty minutes to imagine scenarios that ended with Isla sprawled on the floor like a lass’s broken doll.
She slowed twice on the open rangeland for sheep ambling across the road.
Billy had to know something about why Isla had returned to Nairn. If the detective was too busy making a name for himself to dig deeper, then it was up to Paislee to bring the truth to the detective.
Flies and honey, she reminded herself as she made the right-hand turn into Lowe Farm. Don’t jump to conclusions.
She followed the dirt road past the stream, until she reached the barn. Like yesterday, the shorn sheep herded together as if chilled without their coats, spindly legs and tummies bare, while the others waiting to be clipped meandered in the pens. Poor things—in one door heavy with ivory matted wool and out skinny and needing sweaters of their own.
How many sheep did Farmer Lowe have? There must have been at least a thousand, if not more, of the blackface variety.
She recalled from a school trip that each sheep, depending on size and breed, could produce two to thirty pounds of wool a year. Unlike the Scottish cashmere goats, famous for the softest cashmere that only molted in the spring, when the down from the underbelly could be combed or shorn. Sheep made more financial sense on a farm, though Paislee adored the sheer luxuriousness of cashmere.
Paislee parked in the dirt driveway by the barn, next to a couple of pickups. Gerald had said that Billy had driven a beat-up old truck.
She eyed them, hoping he was here and that she could catch him off guard. She noticed a very beat-up silver pickup with a rusting back end that hadn’t been there yesterday. She would have remembered seeing it because of the Belle and Sebastian sticker on the back window. They were one of her favorite bands.
Tabitha must’ve warned Billy of her arrival yesterday, and it smacked of guilt to her. Otherwise, why hadn’t he called her back? Left just before she’d arrived?
Farmer Lowe saw her and lifted his hand, then shouted into the barn, where he was overseeing the shearing process. She heard the sheep baaing over the whir of electric clippers.
A few minutes later, a young man she assumed was Billy hoofed out, his expression somewhat menacing, and Paislee stepped back. His hair was shaggy blond and dirty, his physique lean and wiry. He was thin, yes, but strong. Sheering sheep was very physical labor.
Could he have hurt Isla—maybe fired up at her about Tabitha and decided to . . . do what? Choke her? Hit her? Naw, Amelia said that Isla died of an overdose.
A breeze reached Paislee from the stream, carrying with it the scent of shorn wool and farm muck—pungent, aye, but not as odorous as Billy. He charged to a stop an arm’s length from her and pulled a towel from his back denim pocket, wiping sheep oil from his hands. He didn’t offer to shake hers. “Who are you?”
“Paislee Shaw.” She was more than a little glad to be meeting him where there were witnesses. She hadn’t expected to be afraid of him. “I was Isla’s boss.”
“She talked about ye,” he said, somewhat begrudgingly.
This was for Isla. “I’m sairy for your loss.”
At that, he gave a surprised laugh, quickly glancing back to Farmer Lowe, who watched from the open door of the barn, his straw hat tipped forward.
“Loss?” His tone suggested that she was way off the mark.
“You loved her, at one point,” Paislee said. “Or at least, she loved you. She told me so.”
Billy grimaced and stuffed the towel in his pocket. “Don’t matter. Why are ye here?”
“I hope you have her mother’s phone number. The police are trying tae contact her about Isla.” But that wasn’t the whole truth—she wanted to know why he’d broken Isla’s heart.
“I dinnae—talked tae the police already.” He peered back and then to her. “I gotta go. Can’t lose this job.”
Paislee brought her hand to her thumping heart—this was so unfair. He had cheated and now acted like nothing was wrong.What if Isla had been so overwrought by his callousness that she’d actually taken those pills on her own? Paislee couldn’t accept that.
“Don’t you care at all? Isla followed you here tae get a job and be with you.”
Billy scrubbed his palm through his greasy hair. “You have it all wrong. Isla didnae love me; she didnae love anybody but herself.”
Paislee wasn’t buying it. “Weren’t you messing around with Tabitha in Nairn?”
His upper lip curled. “I was with Tabitha before Isla came along. Isla blinded me with her great legs, but Tabs is the real deal.”
Nobody cared about Isla. Maybe it was Tabitha who had shown up with shortbread cookies, tempting Isla with—what? How could Tabitha have forced Isla to swallow a dangerous amount of pills? Billy would know that Isla took heart medication, and Tabitha, her supposed best friend, would, too.
Filled with righteous anger on Isla’s behalf, Paislee locked eyes with the young man. “Where were you the night she died?”
He scoffed. “Getting drinks with a pub full of witnesses. Me and Tabs were together, and I can prove it a dozen times over.”
She couldn’t let him just leave! Paislee needed answers. She pressed harder. “You cheated. Why? Did you do worse tae her?”
“Our relationship was complicated, but I wouldnae hurt Isla, no matter how mad she made me. Now go, will ye?” Billy half-turned toward the barn.
Paislee caught his arm. “One more thing, please. Did you know that she was blackmailing her ex-boss?”
Billy scuffed the grass with his boot heel. “Not just her boss,” he admitted with a sly smile. “Isla wanted my help tae find the dirt on the locals in Nairn. Promised me a percentage of the blackmail money. Me doing the dirty work, but her keeping her nose clean. I’m not that daft,” Billy sneered.
“Billy!” Farmer Lowe shouted. “I’ll dock yer pay!”
“Isla was not who you thought she was!” Billy yelled over his shoulder as he ran back toward the barn to shear sheep. “Why don’t ye ask her boss?”
Stunned, Paislee slowly climbed into her Juke, and stared at the dashboard.
What did all this mean? How could she have been so deceived? She had to discover who was lying, and who was telling the truth.
Detective Inspector Zeffer had talked to Gerald, and now Billy. Neither man was in jail for the crime. Was he flaunting his authority or proving his ineptness? Paislee didn’t know for sure.
What about Tabitha? Why did Tabitha have Isla’s scarf, the one that Paislee had made?
She thought about getting out of the car to ask—who else would help if she didn’t? But when she looked out, she saw Farmer Lowe in front of the barn, his arms crossed, scowling at her. There was no way that she could ask Billy any more questions today.
As if her friend could read her mind, a text from Lydia dinged through saying that Billy Connal didn’t have a landline or a listed number and the last known address was in Edinburgh, when she knew for a fact that he’d been in Inverness. Farmer Lowe had said he was moving—but why was that?
“Stuck,” she muttered aloud. Now what?
If Billy wasn’t lying about his and Tabitha’s whereabouts the night Isla had died—who else could want Isla dead?
Her mind twisted like knotted thread when she was in a rush. It required patience to tug each strand, one at a time, until the knot was free. She breathed in, then exhaled.
Who?
Maybe someone who didn’t want to pay Isla blackmail money anymore. Her pulse hummed.
Someone with a guilty conscience and a bonny family waiting for him at home while he stepped out with a pretty girl.
Paislee clapped her hands together. “Roderick Vierra.”
Vierra’s Merino Wool Distributor was only five minutes away. Maybe she could ask Roderick point-blank about his being blackmailed by Isla regarding their affair. She’d probably be able to read the truth on his face. If she had to, she could insinuate going to his wife with the information.
The idea made her feel dirty.
But who else would get to the bottom of this? Regardless of who Isla truly was, no one had a right to kill her.