Page 4 of Death at a Scottish Halloween

“I’ve booted up. What do you have so far?” Tonight, he was dressed in a cable knit sweater and dark jeans. He looked much more the Laird of the Manor, which he was, than a police officer.

He pulled out his notebook and proceeded to ask us several questions. We did our best to answer him.

“One thing you need to know,” I said. “Um. So, the knife in his chest belongs to us. I took it out of my kitchen. It’s going to have my fingerprints on it because I stuck it in the fake body in our room before we went downstairs.”

“Do you have any idea who may have stolen it?”

I shook my head. “We were so busy tonight, we didn’t notice it was missing when we came back from eating dinner downstairs.”

“So, the room was empty for how long?”

“Maybe a half hour,” Abigail said. “After we ate, we were in the ladies putting on more makeup. Then we rushed up here.”

“What she said,” I agreed. “We did have a chance to talk with Duncan, his sister, and their friend. They seemed to be lovely people. They were close and very passionate about their art.”

“Their art?”

I explained.

“Right. I forgot about that.”

“Do you know them?” I asked.

“I’ve run into Duncan and his friend Baird a few times at the pub. They are, I mean were, fair musicians as well. Sometimes played there on Friday nights if they were home from the rigs. I’d forgotten he was a carver, and I think Baird still sculpts and is a potter.”

“Right,” I said. “They’ve been gone for several months, Duncan told us. They were staying here for all our events, and they had booths for the fête over the weekend.”

“And there weren’t any arguments between them?”

“No. I can’t imagine the sister or friend hurting him. They all seemed to be having a great time.”

“Time of death?”

“It hasn’t been long,” I said. “The body was still warm. Core temperature was near normal, and the blood pool wasn’t that large.”

“Did you notice anything strange? Maybe someone who was in here past closing time?”

“No,” I said. “Well, we can’t be certain that there wasn’t anyone in here. We were moving a few things to make them more visible to the crowd as they walked through. We’d been working for about a half hour when Mara called up and asked to make certain everyone had cleared out. That’s when we found him.

“I’m curious if his sister or Baird saw something. I mean, why was he up here by himself?”

“They talked about going to the pub after,” Abigail said. “They asked if I wanted to go, but I told them I couldn’t. They asked the doc, too.”

“I’d forgotten about that. I bet that’s where they are. Though why did they leave him behind?”

“I’d like to know that as well.” He pulled his cell from his pocket. “I’d send a team, but I’d like to deliver the news myself. I want to gauge their responses. I suppose you’d like to go with me.”

Abigail hid her smile quickly with her clipboard.

“You suppose correctly. Any chance your team wants to help us gather evidence?”

“Yes.”

We set about doing exactly that. While I continued to examine the body and get him ready for transport, they gathered items from the scene. While it was upsetting, the cause of death was easily identified, though I’d do thorough testing during the autopsy.

The large knife had hit dead center on the heart. He most likely died immediately.

But why would someone chance killing him here? There were always people around.