Andy Carson mopped his forehead and ventured a smile at the glowering crowd in front of him. “I apologize for the delay,” he said again. “But it shouldn’t be much…” His voice trailed away into an open-mouthed stare.
Coming toward him from a break in the pines was a Confederate army officer on a large brown horse. The apparition, complete with sword and canteen, trotted across the field, skirting clumps of clansmen, and stopped beside the speakers’ platform.
“I’m Sheriff Lightfoot MacDonald,” said the soldier. “I’m here in response to a call you people put in for assistance.”
“Yes. Mrs. McLeod can show you where he-the-it is. Can I go on with the ceremony?” The natives looked not only restive but, in some cases, a few over the limit, as well.
Lightfoot shrugged. “Sure. As long as nobody gets in my way. You might ask anyone with information to come forward.” He leaned back on his horse to wait for the announcement.
Dr. Carson wandered back to the podium. “Fellow Scots,” he began. He wondered who had snickered when he said that. “It is my sad duty to announce to you that the presentation of the clans has been delayed because of the untimely passing of the chief of Clan Campbell, and we have reason to suspect foul play.”
Lightfoot MacDonald looked up sharply at this; but before he could interrupt, a wobbly fellow in a blue kilt shouted, “This is Glencoe! It’s the MacDonalds who got murdered, isn’t it?”
“We’re paying them back!” shouted a wag from the MacDonald ranks, waving his hip flash. “Return to Glencoe!” “Hell, you didn’t do it!” roared a Murray, not to be outdone in the joke. “The Murrays owe the bastards for Culloden!”
“Up the Stewarts! Up the Stewarts!” chanted a red-kilted bunch in center field.
Someone eise countered with, “Down with Campbells?”
Andy Carson looked helplessly at the grim-faced sheriff.
“What’s going on here?” hissed the sheriff.
Carson sighed. “They think it’s a joke, I’m afraid. Because he’s a Campbell.”
Lightfoot shook his head. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, turning his horse. “I’d like to see the body now.”
“Of course I didn’t touch anything,” said Margaret McLeod in her calm, efficient voice. “I could see that he was dead. I used to be a nurse.”
Lightfoot grunted. “We’ll go over the place when my deputy gets here. Did you notice the cause of death at the time?”
Margaret nodded. “I could see the blade sticking out of his chest, and of course I recognized it.” Seeing his look of surprise, she hastened to add, “I don’t mean that I know who it belongs to. I mean that I knew what it was.”
“A dagger.”
“No. A skian dubh. Well, I guess it is a dagger, but it’s the one that men wear in their kilt hose when they’re in Highland dress.”
The sheriff thought back to the crowd assembled in front of the speakers’ platform. “You mean all those jokers were armed?”
“Most of them,” Margaret admitted, though she wouldn’t have thought of it that way herself. She looked pointedly at Lightfoot’s cavalry sword.
“Now, just what had this man done to make all those people hate him so much?”
Margaret McLeod hesitated. “You mean personally or… otherwise?”
The sheriff blinked. “There’s an otherwise?”
“Oh, yes. He was a Campbell, you see.”
“So who would want to kill a Campbell?”
“Why, everybody.”
Half an hour later, the site examination was well in hand, and the sheriff was able to turn things over to the deputy and the coroner, and to proceed with the questioning of witnesses. He had taken over the hospitality tent as a makeshift headquarters-with Sorrel tied to one of the support posts.
“Now, let me get this straight,” he said to the still-fidgeting Andy Carson. “You people are all mad at this fellow over something that happened in 1746?”
Andy searched for common ground. “Well, Sheriff,” he said brightly, “it was their Civil War.”
“Uh-huh,” said Lightfoot. “But we’re not still stabbing people.”
“We’re not, either, that I know of,” said Dr. Carson mildly. “But I did announce your request for information, and there are a few people who came forward and asked to speak with you.”
Lightfoot relaxed. This case might not be such a blister, after all. With a good six hours of daylight left, he might make it back to the war. He enjoyed an occasional outing with the local militia-it gave him a sense of history and a form of recreation that seemed less dandified than golf. Also, it met his need for an element of drama. Most people might assume that sheriffing would supply all the theatrics one might require in life, but that was an outsider’s view of the job.
To Lightfoot’s mind, being a peace officer was a lot like fishing: ninety per cent psychology and patience, and only ten per cent confrontation. Most of the drama associated with the office of sheriff lay in public appearances: cutting an imposing figure at the county fair, making the occasional speech to a civic group, and generally personifying the law, with a pearl-handled pistol and a shiny brass badge. Lightfoot was good at it. He had the foxlike Cherokee-Scots bone structure to look the part, but he couldn’t call the work exciting, this case included. Likely as not, some drunk would turn out to have done it without meaning to, and the whole sorry mess could be dumped in some lawyer’s lap by morning.
He looked at his notes on the case. The deceased had been an M.D., aged sixty-three; that he had been in fine health was the only good word anybody had to say about him so far. In Lightfoot’s experience, cantankerous old men got themselves avoided, not murdered; he wondered what the wrinkle was in this case.
“Who’s first?” he asked Andy Carson.
Jerry Buchanan, still colorful in his clan tartan, came forward. “I am, sir.” He gave his name, being careful to add that he was a dentist, because the very dullness of his profession added to his credibility.
“And what information do you have about the deceased?” asked Lightfoot politely.
“It was a political killing!” hissed Jerry. “He was assassinated by the S.R.A.!”
Lightfoot looked up. “Spell that.”
“It’s like the I.R.A.,” Jerry explained. “The Scottish Republican Army. They’re planning to pull out of Great Britain, just as America did in 1776.”
“And Dr. Campbell was a member?”
“No, of course not.” Jerry Buchanan began to look uncomfortable. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to appear too knowledgeable about terrorist activities. He certainly hadn’t bargained for domestic killings when he’d joined the Cause. Car bombings in Edinburgh were ail very well, but dammit, this was Virginia! “Look, Sheriff,” he said in an undertone, “I think the person you should really be discussing this with is the British secret agent here at the games. He’s probably conducting an investigation of his own.”
“How do you know there’s an agent at the games?” asked Lightfoot reasonably. He didn’t have to deal with too many crackpots in Clay County, but he’d heard that big-city police were ankle-deep in them.
“He’s MI5,” Jerry muttered. “I heard one of the terrorists mention him. And I just saw him a few minutes ago on the practice field.” He gave a brief, but very accurate, description of Cameron Dawson.
“The sheriff wants to see me?” asked Cameron, glancing at Elizabeth. “What about?”
Andy Carson sighed. “About the murder investigation, I presume.” He wanted to ask Cameron about his alibi for last night, but he thought it best not to get involved. “Would you like me to phone the British embassy?”
“I think I can manage this one on my own, thanks,” said Cameron. He looked at Elizabeth. “Do you suppose they’d let you come along?”