Read Online The Murder Hole by Lillian Stewart Carl - Free Book Online Page A

so that they looked like a string of
tawny diamonds. Was Iris up there, watching over her domain? She
was hardly boiling up oil—or less evocatively but more probably,
water—to repel invaders. These murder holes, like the spires and
arcades and ginger breaded gables, were all for show, part of the
nostalgia game. At least, thought Jean, one of the re-enactors
taking tea at Culloden was stained with the red of blood.
    A rolling cart was parked just outside the
French doors of what Jean assumed was the dining room, its array of
bottles and glasses twinkling with all the glamour of a jeweler’s
window. A small, neatly-printed sign read, “Please help yourself.”
Not one to turn down a formal invitation, Jean poured herself a wee
dram of the wine of the country and took the most comfortable
chair.
    Her dinner of venison casserole redolent with
herbs had scoured her mouth of the taste of bilge, while the crème
brulée and unleaded coffee had cleared out the flavor of diesel
exhaust, leaving her palate available for further stimulation . . .
Ah, yes. The malt whiskey conjured the tea-colored water of the
River Spey and its surrounding hills with their fields of
sun-ripened grain.
    Rolling the stinging fragrance around her
mouth, she tried to situate herself in the present, to be there
now. But a relaxed and meditative state was about as easy for her
to attain as sainthood. She realized she was tapping her foot,
stopped herself, and a moment later was tapping again. No, she
wasn’t nervous. She was just very, very alert.
    On the surface of the bay below, the
different boats rose and fell. The windows of the Water Horse barge
were fitfully illuminated, as though by a firefly. Were the
intermittent lights reflections, or was someone was still on board,
one of Roger’s assistants detailed to burn the midnight oil in the
never-ending quest for truth, justice, and the technological way—or
however those sentiments had been expressed in the Omnium
brochure.
    Jean had nothing against technology, within
reason. But she couldn’t help but think that while Roger’s
technology might extend the ordinary five senses, it was useless
when it came to the odd—very odd—unquantifiable, unrepeatable,
sixth sense, like her own ability to perceive the emotional
emanations called ghosts.
    Maybe Nessie was a ghost. Maybe that’s why
some people sensed her but couldn’t get photos of her. Jean could
imagine Miranda’s reaction to her starting her series of articles
with that sentiment. Better a straightforward, “Two great mysteries
meet at Loch Ness. The Picts are the greatest puzzle of Scottish
archaeology, like Nessie is the greatest puzzle of Scottish . . .”
What? Biology? Psychology?
    The sound of a door opening and shutting
derailed her train of thought. Two people came walking down the
terrace. This couple did look alike, round of cheek and hip,
considerably more comfortable with middle age than Jean was. But
then, they’d had more time to get used to it. They wore
plastic-rimmed glasses, jeans, loose shirts, and thick-soled, white
athletic shoes that proclaimed them to be Jean’s fellow Americans.
The massive shoes seemed to be the only things keeping them from
floating away like helium balloons.
    “Hi!” said the woman. “We saw you from our
window when you checked in.”
    Yes, Jean informed herself, windows were
two-way. “Hello. I’m Jean Fairbairn.”
    “Dave and Patti Duckett,” said the man, “from
Moline, Illinois. I work for John Deere and Patti runs a day care
center. This is our first time across the pond. Where are you
from?”
    “Originally Dallas, but I live in Edinburgh
now. I work for Great Scot Magazine. History and travel and
. . .” she insisted, “. . . innocuous stuff like that. I’m here to
interview Iris Mackintosh and Roger Dempsey. Not at the same time,
though.”
    Patti glanced at Dave, then back at Jean. “We
saw that TV show last night. No love lost between those two, is
there? Although