“Hello,” she said softly, peering into the tent. “What a reek of smoke!” she added, leaning back and coughing. “If you’re going to chain-smoke, you ought to do it out in the open where there’s oxygen to compensate.”
Marge did not look up. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.
Elizabeth ventured in, fanning the air in front of her. “About Walter, you mean?”
“Yes. It’s all so complicated.”
“What does he want you to do?”
In a halting voice, Marge told her about their encounter just before the arrest, and Walter’s list of instructions. “He had forgotten all about her,” said Marge. “Anyone could see that. And I don’t know what to do.”
“I think you should do what’s best for Walter,” said Elizabeth, who felt that that was both a comforting and a neutral thing to say.
Marge nodded and reached for the pack of cigarettes. “Yes. Perhaps I should.” After a few moments silence, she remarked, “Walter didn’t kill Colin, you know.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know anything about it. I’d heard they had a fight.”
“Yes, but I have known Walter for most of his life, and I assure you that he is not a murderer.”
“Well, I suppose they might let you testify as a character witness,” said Elizabeth kindly. She felt that such testimonials would be ridiculous as well as useless, but she meant to be soothing until Marge could get a grip on herself.
“He did not do it.”
“Then I’m sure that the sheriff’s investigations will turn up something in his favor, and everything will be all right.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” said Marge grimly. “They have that stupid real estate argument as motive, and they asked me about Walter’s skian dubh, so presumably that was the murder weapon. And I know they fingerprinted a bunch of us. The fact that they took Walter away must mean that they found his prints on it.”
“That’s a pretty strong case,” Elizabeth admitted. “Maybe Walter has changed. I mean, he has been doing some strange things in the past few years, hasn’t he?”
“You mean Heather?”
“Well… maybe he’s going through some mid-life crisis, and-”
“Walter’s beyond mid-life crisis,” snorted Marge. “He now qualifies as an old fool. But I don’t think he could change enough to start stabbing people.”
Elizabeth was beginning to feel restless. There’s no reasoning with her, she thought. Women in love have one-track minds. I wonder what Cameron is doing?
“What the sheriff needs is some new evidence. He won’t be looking for any more himself. He thinks he’s solved the case.” Marge sighed. “Of course, no one would believe me. I’m not objective. I doubt if anyone would tell me anything anyway.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. “I suppose that I could sort of ask around and see if I can come up with anything in Walter’s favor.”
“Colin must have quarreled with lots of people at the festival,” Marge mused.
“He had run-ins with Cameron and me, but we didn’t do it.”
“Yes, but besides that.”
Elizabeth thought about it. People had been discussing the case around her all afternoon, and occasional remarks had filtered through her thoughts about Cameron. She tried to remember what some of them were. “Betty Carson said something about Dr. Campbell wanting to call a committee meeting this morning.”
“Oh? That could be important! Colin would only do that if he intended to launch a large-scale donnybrook. I wonder what he was up to?”
“Something about embezzlement, I thought.”
“Money? Nonsense. The committee has accountants coming out of their ears, and half of them are lawyers anyway. Are you sure she said embezzlement? It doesn’t matter. It was probably third hand anyway. Who would Betty have heard all this from?”
“Dr. Carson, I imagine. He’s on the committee.”
“Good. Talk to him.”
Elizabeth sighed. “I wish I could talk to Colin.”
“Yes, that would solve everything, wouldn’t it?”
“Not about the murder. I was just thinking. Betty said that Dr. Campbell seemed to know a lot about Heather’s background. They were talking about a new baby in the family.”
“Heather’s background?”
Elizabeth nodded miserably. “I think she and Cameron knew each other back in Scotland. I’ll bet Dr. Campbell could have told me what was going on.”
“I’ll bet he would’ve, too,” said Marge grimly. “That’s the trait that killed him.”
Walter Hutcheson’s present wife was sitting alone in the camper, trying to decide what to do. Walter had shouted a lot of instructions at her as they were leading him away, something about telephoning a lot of people. But he hadn’t left her any phone numbers, and the address book was back at the house. She supposed she could leave the festival and drive home. She’d never driven the camper, though, and it would be like maneuvering a great bloody aircraft carrier on the two-lane roads. She might get herself killed.
Heather had not been crying, but she was tense and afraid. What if things didn’t turn out all right? Sod the stupid police anyway for arresting Walter. She looked at the half-empty bottle of Glenlivet in front of her. Better not have another-not that she was too keen on the taste of the stuff anyway. This was not a time to be losing control. The police would be back along asking questions of her, she was sure. When did you last see your husband’s skian dubh? What time did he leave the camper? Was there any blood about him?
Heather twisted a strand of hair and tried to decide if she ought to do anything. Walter would call his own lawyer from the police station, wouldn’t he? And like as not, they’d arrange the bail, and then he could come and drive her home. She didn’t like to ask anyone for help just now; she wanted to be alone. It would all work out, she thought. It had to. Cameron Dawson reminded her of why she had left Scotland, and why she didn’t want to go back. Americans-and Walter in particular-were a bit simple, but she was enjoying herself, and she wasn’t going to see it spoiled. Cameron Dawson… In spite of her worries, Heather giggled remembering the look on the little brunette’s face when they’d talked about him… Silly git.
She wondered what Walter’s former wife was doing. She was the Maggie Thatcher type, all right. If it had been her here as the defendant’s wife, she’d have already called the President and organized a league of Friends of Walter Hutcheson. A geriatric Girl Guide was Marge.
She started at the sound of the knock on the camper door. Not the bloody cops already! Heather opened the door cautiously, ready to slam it if she caught sight of a camera. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you, Jimmy. If you don’t give me any of that Your Ladyship rubbish, you can come in.”
Questioning people at the Highland games wasn’t going to be as easy as Marge seemed to think. Elizabeth knew that elderly Virginians were the last people in the world to take a young girl seriously-and if they did, they would resent her. She had wasted a good bit of her social life having to be wide-eyed and respectful while pompous old bores held forth on their pet subjects. The liberal-arts types were the worst. They always managed to steer the conversation to the inch-wide sea of whatever their specialty was and to dismiss anything else as not worth knowing. That’s why I fall for scientists, Elizabeth thought: I give them credit for being brilliant because they can do things that I can’t-and they’re not given to talking about it over dinner.
She had been unable to find Andy Carson to ask him about Dr. Campbell’s proposed committee meeting, but another member of the group, Hughie MacDuffie, was all too evident. Elizabeth hesitated. Was she really desperate enough to commit herself to a conversation with MacDuffie? Conversation was hardly the word for it, though: a few utterances of “Oh, really?” were the most that Hughie would permit in the way of participation in his monologue. He taught ancient history at a military academy, and was given to telling jokes with the punch line in Latin.