He was about to sip the tea cooling in the mug on the table in front of him, but then the thought of the rat poison in the unfortunate woman’s coffee made him stop.
—Ragnar Jonasson, Rupture
My phone rang as I reached Vera’s home; it was a FaceTime call from Connie. I quickly stashed my cheese in the fridge and rested the flowers in the sink, and then accepted the call and sat at the kitchen table. As the screen came into focus, I could see that Lorenzo, Connie, and my mother were all on Miss Gloria’s deck, sipping cups of something steaming. The cats were there too; T-Bone, Miss G’s orange kitten, had splayed across Lorenzo’s lap, and the other two snuggled against his legs.
“Hi everyone,” I said, realizing there was only the barest hint of light in the sky beyond our boat and that I couldn’t see their faces clearly. “Isn’t it the middle of the night in Key West?”
Ziggy woofed as soon as he heard my voice, looking around frantically for the person that went with the words. Mom scooped him up and stroked him, trying to calm him down.
“It’s early, but we all miss you so much that we decided to meet for a breakfast call,” Connie said, gesturing at the others. “I hope you don’t mind that we helped ourselves to tea and some scones I found in the freezer. We wish we were there with you. We figured that eating scones in Key West might help us pretend to be in Scotland.”
“I don’t mind a bit, and I’m sure Miss Gloria won’t either. We are eating our body weight in scones here anyway.”
“How are you enjoying Scotland?” my mother asked. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“It’s lovely, beautiful. This morning I went to the farmers market with the chef of one of Vera’s friends. I tasted the most amazing cheeses. And sausages, oh my gosh. Sam would be in heaven. In a little while, Nathan and William tee off in their tournament, and the rest of us are going to visit some kind of local site. We’re still a little bit off-kilter because of the time change.”
“Of course,” said my mother, “don’t they say it takes a day to adjust to each hour of change?”
“I hope not,” I said. “That would mean we won’t feel right until the day we’re coming home.” Then I noticed Connie’s face, which looked pinched and gloomy. “How are things there? Did anything get resolved with Ray?”
She shook her head sadly. “I did talk with him, just as you suggested. I pleaded with him to tell me what’s going on. And then I told him about Eric and how people think they have to protect secrets and that often makes things worse.”
“So true,” said Lorenzo, “people are funny that way. I offered to read some cards for him.”
“But Ray being Ray, he of course wants nothing to do with that,” said Connie.
“Mercury is in retrograde,” Lorenzo said, shaking his head. “Not always the best time to have relationship-altering discussions. And it’s a full moon. We’re going to get a whopper King tide here in town, and that makes everyone even more crazy than they already are. Not only because of the moon, but because people panic when they see the water on the streets. As well they should.” He frowned and patted Connie’s arm. “That’s not to say your husband is crazy—more that people in general are crazy. Because the world we know has gone mad.”
“So true, dat,” said Miss Gloria, who had come up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. “I am so happy to see your familiar faces. Though I admit it makes me a little bit homesick to see you all sitting on my deck,” she added, her voice wistful. “Even though it’s beautiful here and we have some wonderful things planned. Did you tell them about the dinner party last night?” she asked me.
“Not yet,” I said. “We were talking Ray and scones.”
Vera came into the kitchen, her face looking grim. She pasted on a smile. “I guess I should always look for you two in the kitchen.”
I introduced her to my mother and my friends on the screen. “Can you imagine, this is Nathan’s sister?”
“I could pick her out of a lineup in a New York minute,” said my mother. “Except, don’t tell Nathan I said this, but you’re much prettier.” We all laughed. “What happened at dinner?”
“Someone from the party last night got sick—she had terrible stomach cramps, and I gather she’s trying to pin this on the chef,” said Miss Gloria. “The cops came around this morning, asking questions. Nathan pressed them until they admitted they’d discovered traces of digitalis in her stomach contents.”
“Digitalis? Does she have a heart arrhythmia?” I asked, looking at Vera.
At the same time my mother said, “Isn’t that used for congestive heart failure? Does your friend have a heart problem?”
Vera shook her head no, then turned to me. “I came to let you know the men are leaving, and we should be in the car shortly after so we don’t keep the others waiting.” Miss Gloria saluted, and Vera smiled and left the room.
My mother whispered, “She seems wound up.”
I nodded glumly. “A lot of pressure on her project. Before we go, tell me quickly about Ray,” I said.
Connie sighed. “In a nutshell, Ray won’t tell me anything about what’s bothering him. I did exactly what you suggested and went down to Duval Street to the gallery to talk with the owner and Ray’s friend Jag. Jag is an artist too, and he’s known Ray for years. He said he’s never seen him so jumpy.”
Connie fell silent and my mother took her hand and stroked it gently, with the same motion she’d used to comfort Nathan’s dog.
“Can you say more about what Jag noticed?” I asked. “What exactly did he mean by ‘jumpy’?”
“Jumpy, hypercritical. When they were hanging the show, if Jag said a painting should be hung here, Ray said it should go somewhere else. And not in a nice way apparently either, but like he was going nuts.
“Jag even wondered if Ray had started taking something.”
Now we were all quiet, waiting for the rest of what Connie had to say.
“Is that possible do you think?” my mother finally asked.
With her lips clenched tightly, Connie shook her head. “I would know that—a wife would know.” She sighed. “And somehow Ray found out I’d been at the gallery, and he asked me to stay out of his business. So that’s the end of that.”
I wasn’t at all sure it would have ended there for me, but she was the one married to Ray, so I had to respect her choices.
As we signed off, Nathan and his brother-in-law, William, came into the kitchen from the backyard. They wore pressed khaki pants and matching green polo shirts that brought out the mossy color of Nathan’s eyes.
“You two are adorable,” Miss Gloria said. “Are all the teams required to dress as twins?”
I giggled as Nathan mugged a scowl.
“We tee off in half an hour,” William said with a cheerful slap to Nathan’s back. “Wish us luck.”
“We’ll need it,” Nathan added, grinning at his brother-in-law. “And god forbid I should hit a ball into one of those steep sand bunkers. Even the pro golfers have trouble getting out of those. We might not make it home before dark.”
I couldn’t remember hearing my husband as excited about anything as he seemed this morning about playing golf on the Old Course. And I couldn’t help noticing the expression on his mother’s face—bemused, bordering on astonished.
“Do you mind if we come down and watch you hit your first shot?” I asked.
“It would be ugly,” he said, grinning. “You’d be disappointed. I never did play well with a gallery in attendance.”
“We won’t linger,” Vera said, glancing at her watch. “We’re due to meet the others, and it’s an hour and a half drive. Could we watch from a distance?”
“Better still, come tomorrow when I’ve sanded some of the rust off,” Nathan suggested. “If that’s okay?”
“Sure. Miss Gloria said the cops were here?” I asked him. “Any new leads? Miss Gloria said something about digitalis?”
“In Glenda’s stomach contents,” he said, his cheerful smile falling away. “Which could mean everything or nothing at all. Apparently she does not take this medication routinely, so its appearance is suspicious. They’ve promised to keep me in the loop as a matter of professional courtesy. And that means my family and friends can stay away from trouble. Please.”
“Of course,” I said, wondering to myself whether Grace, the chef, had gotten this news. She would be distraught.
“Gotta go, partner,” William said, patting Nathan’s back.
I kissed him goodbye, and then we piled in Vera’s car to drive to the local sites. Next to me in the back seat, Miss Gloria drifted off to sleep almost instantly.
“I never thought I’d see him play golf again,” Helen said as we pulled out of town. “I can still remember the day he quit. He came home announcing that he’d chucked his clubs into the dumpster at the local supermarket. He was desperate to separate himself psychologically from his father, and hurt him if possible—and he did both by informing him that golf was an elitist game for rich men without enough athletic talent to play any other sport. He sounded so bitter. And that made his father so angry. And sad, though he never would have admitted to that.” She had a pained look on her face, remembering what must have been a painful day.
“You know what his father asked?” Of course, the rest of us had no idea. “He said, ‘Don’t tell me you threw out your grandfather’s putter too?’ Nathan stung him hard with that move. The passing of that precious putter from grandfather to son to grandson had been a rite of passage. It meant everything about love and pride and hope that those silly men could not articulate any other way.”
“Your husband was angry about everything in those days,” Vera said, not even claiming her father as a relative. Her hands gripped the steering wheel hard, and she stared straight ahead. “You all were.”
“We were mostly scared,” said Helen softly. “We almost lost you. You know this family—when we’re sad or scared, we don’t know how to handle it. We’re terrible at putting our feelings into words. The best we managed in those days was to act angry. And your father was trying to control the only thing within his grasp—our family.” She glanced at her daughter, her expression full of regret. “I’m sorry.”
Vera snapped on the radio and turned up the volume on the Celtic music so that further conversation became impossible. I must have dozed off, and I woke an hour later, hungry and droopy and needing a bathroom stop. “Is it possible we’ll be near a restroom soon?”
“We’re meeting Gavin and the others at the Falkirk Wheel, but first I’ll drive you by the Kelpies. Gavin insisted on including these in our book. There’s a restroom at the plaza and a little snack bar.” With a tight voice, she added, “There isn’t a whisker of a thin place for miles around. But I will have to leave that argument to the editors. Or the readers who trash the book because the authors persisted in including commercial sites with no real spiritual value.”
“What are kelpies? What exactly are we seeing?” Miss Gloria piped up from the backseat next to me.
“They are a couple of giant horse heads made out of metal,” said Vera grimly.
“Horseheads made of metal?” her mother asked.
“It’s hard to describe them in any other way. A kelpie is a supernatural water horse that’s supposed to haunt Scottish lakes and rivers. Legend has them appearing as horses but able to adopt the human form. Some of the local folks are quite proud of them, as they are meant to commemorate the role of horses in Scotland. They were designed by a well-known artist, and fans see them as powerful guardians of the gateway to the Forth and Clyde Canal.” I could see her roll her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Obviously I’m not one of the fans. As metal horse heads, they are impressive. As a sacred site, not at all.”
We visited the bathrooms and bought candy bars and cardboard cups of coffee and then stood outside with Vera, our necks craned up at the sculptures. “They’re thirty meters high and built of steel,” she said. “Honestly, they are marvelous creations, but they absolutely don’t belong in a book of mythical places in Scottish history.”
“Can’t you put your foot down?” Miss Gloria asked. “Aren’t you the lead author?”
“The tides have shifted on that. Gavin may be a major pain in the butt,” she said, “but in addition to the fact that he’s a brilliant photographer, our publisher adores him. He’s desperately afraid that he paid too much for our book and can’t possibly sell enough copies to get the money back, so he flails around, looking for new ideas to buff up the concept. Gavin is always happy to generate new ideas, no matter how ridiculous they sound to the rest of us.”
Helen looked worried, as if she wanted to dispense advice or hugs or some kind of motherly comfort. But Vera’s fierce and closed expression made it clear that none of that would be welcome.
“If we’ve seen enough of the metal horse heads, we’re due to meet the others at the Falkirk Wheel,” Vera said. We followed her to the car and got back in, and she resumed her travelogue. “You are about to experience a boatlift that connects the Forth and Clyde and the Union canals. There used to be a staircase involving eleven locks that took boats an entire day to transit. Now it happens in less than an hour, and tourists flock here for the chance to experience the ride in a glassed-in boat.” She sighed. “The wheel was opened for business by the queen in 2002, which was a very big deal.”
“This also sounds very different from the other sites you’ve mentioned,” I said.
“You think?” She turned around to glance at me. “I suppose it is a modern feat of engineering, so I don’t argue that point. And it’s clever and brilliant as a solution to connecting the canals. But I can’t believe anyone will ever have a spiritual moment while packed into a glassed-in boat and rotating around a wheel.” She sighed again, more deeply. “You’ll see.”