Competition Can Be Murder Page 2

  “Actually, I just phoned to see if you and your husband might be free this afternoon for tea? Say around four?”

  Tea with the gentry? I wondered if she extended this invitation to every renter on the castle grounds? “Four would be lovely,” I said, picking up on the few manners I’d once possessed. “I’m not sure what time to expect Drake in, though . . .”

  “Well, then, you come—with or without him. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”

  I replaced the receiver softly and caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the microwave oven’s small door. Shoulder length hair hanging in damp strands, bangs pasted to my forehead, no makeup. And my dripping socks had now made sizeable puddles on the tile floor. Yes—I’m going to tea at the castle. I couldn’t help it, I broke up laughing.

  I peeled off the socks and squeezed them out over the kitchen sink. Thirty minutes later I’d changed clothes and dried my hair, toasted an English muffin, and switched on the electric fire in the fireplace. It glowed orangely through its fake logs and emitted a surprising amount of warmth. Stretched out in a hugely padded armchair with feet on a matching ottoman, I nibbled my muffin and contemplated my plans for the day. Buying an umbrella or two should definitely be part of the plan, I decided. I’d known, leaving New Mexico, that we would need them but since we didn’t own any, the purchase had been put off.

  The keys to our rented Vector hung on a hook by the door. Drake had been driving Brian’s company vehicle and I’d been watching the way he handled the right-hand drive and getting a feel for the art of driving on the “wrong” side of the road. I thought I could handle it, at least for the short ride into the nearby village where I’d spotted a tiny general store, one gas pump, and the offices of the Royal Mail. Tackling the bigger town of Inverness, where they had traffic lights and everything, would have to wait.

  The rain abated during the time I’d eaten my breakfast and tidied the kitchen so I donned boots and pulled a light jacket from the hall closet. The air felt cool and pleasantly damp as I walked the short distance down the cottage’s flagstone path to the grassy area beside a stone wall where we’d been directed to park the cars. From habit I walked to the left side of the car and almost sat in the passenger seat before I caught myself and circled back to slip in behind the wheel. Luckily, no one had seen me; I felt like such a tourist.

  I took a few minutes to familiarize myself with the controls—gearshift on the left, pedals the same way I was used to, locating the wiper switch and turn signals. Finally, I felt ready to tackle the driveway.

  The three miles into the village went uneventfully and I began to get the feel for thinking in drive-on-the-left mode. I pulled into a small dirt parking area beside the one all-purpose building. Inside, the small store was a combination gift shop and general store. Touristy items like mugs, scarves, and ceramic models of Nessie filled the gift shop portion, while the rest of the store clearly catered to locals. Bins of staple food items like potatoes, onions, and other vegetables stood along the wall near the cash register. Three short aisles carried a surprisingly complete selection of groceries, while high shelves along the walls were filled with household items ranging from extension cords to toasters to lamp shades. A portly woodstove in the center of the room told me that this was a year-round operation, frequented by local residents, and not merely a seasonal tourist shop.

  I browsed the shelves, getting a feel for the stock, and tried hard to resist the smell of the freshly baked bread being set out on the counter by a plump lady in tweed slacks and heather-gray sweater.

  The door creaked open while I was involved with deciding between chicken noodle or tomato soup for lunch, the sound of male boots clumping against the wooden floor and the door swinging shut with a solid thump.

  “ . . . believe the price we’re given?” one of the male voices muttered.

  “Makes ye ill, doesn’t it?” the other said.

  “I’m goin’ broke, I’ll tell ye. We don’t get wool prices back up, there’s no point in doin’ this.”

  The two sets of boots made their way to the counter, where the clerk apparently pulled bakery goods as they pointed. I heard the rustle of paper and the clink of coins. When I stepped to the end of the aisle and looked that direction, I noticed both men held some kind of puffy pastry in a slip of bakery tissue. The tall, dark haired one dropped a few more coins onto the counter and the woman passed across two paper cups of coffee. The man took a large bite of his pastry and picked up the coffee in his other hand. The shorter man was Ian Brodie, the farmer with the collies I’d met this morning. I took one step back so he wouldn’t see me.

  “Aye, this bein’ dictated to by the government—” The dark haired man mumbled an expletive as he stuffed more pastry into his mouth. They had nearly reached the door again.

  “Well, I for one ain’t standin’ for it,” Ian agreed. “Somethin’ bad’s gonna—”

  His words were cut off as the door thumped shut behind him. I stepped to the window in time to the see the two men approach a dark green Range Rover with a crooked front bumper. Ian brushed powdered sugar from his fingers onto his pant leg before he reached for the door handle. His face was contorted in anger as he said something to the other man, who had climbed into the driver’s seat. The vehicle backed sharply out of its parking spot and turned left onto the road. I glanced toward the woman at the counter, but she seemed busy stacking boxes of shortbread and didn’t indicate that she’d paid the men any attention.

  I’d gathered a small basket of grocery items—some cans of soup, fresh fruit and salad makings—and took them to the counter.

  “Umbrellas?” I asked.

  “Oh, in the gift shop,” the woman told me. “Just pick one up. You can pay for it in here with your other things.”

  I spotted a display spinner and pulled two umbrellas from it.

  “Guess we didn’t come very well prepared,” I commented to her.

  “Staying long?”

  “A couple of months. I’m sure I’ll become a regular in here over the next few weeks.”

  “Aye, well you’ll need these, then.” She finished totaling my groceries and told me what I owed.

  As I was struggling to remember the denominations of the strange-looking coins, she spoke again. “You the couple who’s renting out at Dunworthy? Those pilots?”

  Beauty of a small town. You never have to introduce yourself. I grinned at her. “Yes, we’re the ones.”

  “Amanda Douglas,” she said. “Think you got some mail here.”

  “Mail?” I couldn’t imagine what we’d be receiving so soon.

  Amanda stepped through a doorway that led to the third section of the small building, the post office.

  “Yeah, here you go,” she announced, bringing a small parcel with her. “Looks like it’s from New Mexico, USA.”

  I looked at the return address. The box was from Elsa Higgins, my surrogate grandmother and neighbor who was watching Rusty for us during our stay in Scotland. What on earth could she be sending? Probably some little item I’d forgotten, something she thought I couldn’t live without.

  Amanda was watching me with frank curiosity.

  “Let’s see what she sent,” I suggested.

  A pair of scissors appeared like magic from below the counter and Amanda watched as I opened them and used one blade to slit the tape on the package. Beneath a cushion of crumpled newspaper sat six small cans of Hatch green chile. I couldn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled out of me.

  “Whatever . . .?” Amanda was examining one of the cans, her face screwed up in puzzlement.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I chuckled. “Guess she knew Drake and I wouldn’t last long without a chile fix.”

  She set the can back into the box with the others.

  “It’s a Southwestern thing, I guess. Kind of like, if you went to live in the U.S. for awhile and couldn’t find haggis.”

  “Ah . . ..” She nodded in complete agreement. “Like that.”

/>   Chapter 4

  The sky had lightened considerably now that I owned two umbrellas, and by the time I got back to the cottage there were patches of blue showing. I puttered around, organizing our few belongings and rearranging a couple of pieces of furniture in the living room until it was more to my liking. I spent the afternoon exploring the tiny garden that surrounded our little home and getting some exercise walking through the forest.

  After a quick shower, I donned a pair of slacks and cashmere sweater, hoping the outfit would be casual enough for afternoon tea and dressy enough for my first visit to a real castle. I envisioned the lady of the manor wearing a Chanel suit and pearls, tasteful black pumps and little button earrings.

  I arrived promptly at four, guiding my rented Vector down a storybook lane flanked by rows of trees whose trunks were close to four feet in diameter and whose branches had become so entwined with time that the overhead canopy was nearly solid. I emerged into an open area and spotted two other vehicles—a brand new Land Rover and a fifty-year-old Bentley—sitting to the side of a circular drive. I pulled to the side, staying a respectful distance from the Land Rover.

  The castle itself towered five stories above me, a tasteful gray stone edifice with turrets pasted to its sides in seemingly random fashion. Wings extended from either side of the central structure, and archways led to unseen courtyards and other mysterious places. Turning my attention the other direction, I noticed that I had, in fact, crossed an old moat, which was now a grassy swale with precision-manicured lawns extending at least fifteen or twenty acres before thick forest took over. An English-style box hedge formed a maze to my left and led the eye upward to a rock garden with plantings of brilliant flowers. A rose garden, easily fifty feet in length, grew along the side of the castle itself, with bushes that reached the lower edges of the first floor windows. I was just noticing how small all the windows were, narrow slits in some cases, when a commotion behind me caught my attention.

  “Ruffie! Ruffie, get over here!” a woman’s voice shouted.

  Bounding toward me came a small furball, some kind of terrier, with white hair that dragged the ground and a high-pitched bark that sounded like a midget with the croup. Behind Ruffie, a blond woman trotted with a dangling leash in her hand. She wore a baggy pair of tweed slacks with a large mud stain on one knee and a brown sweater whose cowl collar lay askew over one shoulder. One sleeve was pushed up nearly to her elbow while the other flopped down around her wrist. She tugged at it while vainly trying to catch up with the dog.

  “She won’t bite,” the woman called. “She’s just a bit exuberant.”

  I knelt down, keeping my knees off the wet lawn and extended a hand to Ruffie. As soon as I reached out, she came to a halt, planting her tiny feet and staring suspiciously at my hand. The nose wriggled, but at least the barking had stopped.

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman said, breathless from her dash across the lawn. “I’d just reached down to attach her leash when your car pulled up. Once she saw you there was no stopping her.”

  “It’s okay. I love dogs.” I didn’t mention that yipping little ones weren’t usually my favorites. We’d see how Ruffie decided to treat me before making that judgment. For the moment the dog was keeping her distance, so I stood up.

  “You must be Charlie,” the woman said. “I’m Sarah Dunbar.”

  She tugged her flapping sleeve up and righted the cowl collar with one gracious flip before extending her hand to me.

  “I’m dreadfully sorry to greet you this way, Charlie. I’d meant to be done with the gardening and walking the dog, and planned to have put on something a bit more decent before you got here.”

  “Would another time be . . .” I began.

  The picture of the pink Chanel suit blipped out of my mind instantly. This woman was completely down-to-earth with her mud-smeared knee and the blond hair tossed out of place. I guessed her age to be somewhere in her sixties, although her slightly thickened torso and a few spots on her hands were the only things that gave it away. Her complexion was smooth, with the texture of a baby peach and none of the sun damage so common in our part of the world.

  “Oh, not a bit. Let’s just go on in.” She ushered me toward a massive wooden door. I noticed the family crest carved in stone above the lintel, a shield shape with some kind of animal entwined with something else. My quick glance didn’t reveal much.

  We stepped into a narrow vestibule that opened immediately into a larger hall. Sarah draped the dog leash over a wooden peg on the wall where coats and hats had been deposited. She knelt and caught Ruffie by the collar.

  “Molly!” she called out. “Molly, can you bring a towel for Ruffie?”

  A plump girl in a housedress and apron appeared with a small towel and she set to wiping the dog’s tiny paws and blotting the dampness from the fur that had trailed in the grass.

  “Pesky bit,” Sarah commented, fluffing her own hair in front of a hall mirror. “I don’t know why we don’t just shave her down so we aren’t constantly minding that thick fur.”

  I stood aside, unsure what to say to that.

  “You can set your bag here, if you don’t want to carry it.” Sarah indicated an empty peg, and I deposited my shoulder bag there. “Now let’s see about that tea.”

  She bustled through the hall, past a set of double doors, and into a huge, modern kitchen, cautioning me to “mind the step” as the uneven floor dipped downward.

  “There we go now,” she said, after filling a kettle with water and setting it over the gas flame on the stove. She took a deep breath and surveyed the spacious kitchen. “Heavens, Charlie, take a seat—just there—while I find something to go along with this.”

  I perched myself on a stool at the long counter that edged one side of a center island made of butcher block.

  “This kitchen is probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen,” I told her.

  “Humph—can be a damn nuisance, when you’re hiking from one end to the other just cooking for two,” she snorted. “But it’s nice when we entertain and I guess it came in handy in the old days.”

  “So, are there only two of you here now?”

  “Usually just Robert and me for dinner anymore. The children—well, they’re in their forties—hardly children. They’ve gone to the bigger cities. One in London, one in Edinburgh. Grandchildren scattered all over. The nearest one’s Richie, going to school just outside Inverness. He’s still on summer holiday and he pops in. He and two chums are here now. You’ll probably see them all, hanging about, while you’re here.”

  “But doesn’t it take a huge staff to keep a place this size?”

  Sarah bustled around the big kitchen, pulling a cake under a glass dome from a pantry, a box of chocolate cookies from a cupboard. She cut several narrow slices of the cake and arranged them, along with some of the cookies, on a crystal plate.

  “Oh, goodness, yes. We’re lucky that the farm still supports us all. So many of our friends have resorted to opening their homes to tourists just to cover their taxes. It’s a burden, that’s sure.”

  The water boiled just then and I watched Sarah expertly pour from kettle to teapot, steep the leaves, warm the cups and set everything on a silver tray.

  “Let’s do have a civilized tea in the drawing room,” she said, lifting the large tray. “Get that smaller tray with the cake, would you?”

  I picked up the second tray and followed as she butted a swinging door open at the far side of the room. It opened into a narrow hall, which led directly to a lovely room furnished in celery green and persimmon. Soft, upholstered chairs flanked a fireplace that had been freshly stoked so that a warm glow lit the room. We set the trays on a huge ottoman that stood between the chairs and Sarah poured tea while I eyed the cake.

  “There now, that’s better,” she said after sinking into one of the deep chairs and taking her first sip of tea.

  “This land has been in your family forever, I’d imagine.” I pressed my fork into the raspberry f
illing between the delicate layers of white cake.

  “Since the eleventh century,” Sarah answered. “Scotland has such a rich history, you could study for years and not get it all. I’m foggy on many of the details myself and I’ve had this fed to me from the cradle.” She chuckled at the memory of early school years. “I guess my interests always lie with the gardens and the animals. Didn’t care much which clan killed which, or which king held power at what time.”

  She set her cup back on the tray. “Have you any Scottish kin, Charlie?”

  “I’m not sure,” I confessed. “I guess I haven’t taken the time to study much of our family history either.”

  She patted my knee. “Well, I can’t hold that against you,” she said. “But if you’re interested, I have a book. What’s your family name?”

  “Well, Parker on my father’s side. My mother’s maiden name was Davidson.”

  “Ah, Davidson!” Her face lit up. “Now that one’s an old Scottish name. Want to take a look?”

  I set my cup down and she led the way through two more connecting rooms to a library. Shelves filled two sides of the room, floor to ceiling, and most of the books were bound in leather and appeared very old. Sarah opened one of the glass doors on the front of a section and pulled out two books, one a small paperback modern book titled Scots Kith & Kin, and a thick, leather-bound edition of another.

  “This little one’s available at all the tourist shops. Just gives an overview, but it’s a handy little thing,” she said, handing it to me. “Now, this thing—this one’ll tell you all about your clan. If it doesn’t give you a hernia first.”

  I offered to take the big book from her, but she’d already hugged it securely to her chest.

  “Let’s take these back in the drawing room,” she suggested. “We don’t run the central heat in the summer months, and no one’s set the fire in here. Feels chilly to me.”