He looked at the bars again. Not a bad cell, really. It was clean, anyway. He hadn’t seen any insects.
Walter tried to think about Heather again through the cloud of pride with which he normally saw her, but the comforting haze would not be summoned. There wasn’t much aristocracy about their wedding. Justice of the peace in the courthouse soon after his divorce became final. He’d been nattered that she hadn’t wanted to wait. But he should have insisted on having her people come over. He’d wanted to take her to Scotland on the honeymoon, of course, but it was winter, and Heather had insisted on Barbados. They had been married eight months now, and he had yet to meet any of her family. He wondered if she was ashamed of him; he winced at the thought. He wasn’t young, that was true. At first he’d been pleased when people commented on them as a couple, even amused when she was mistaken for his daughter; just lately he’d begun to suspect that they were laughing at him.
He wished Heather were more affectionate. Perhaps Scots weren’t a very affectionate people. He’d often heard them called dour. She seemed at times to tolerate him-nothing more. But he couldn’t imagine what it was she wanted. A sardonic voice in the back of his mind told him what he wanted, though: Marge. He wanted Marge.
Lightfoot MacDonald, who had been conferring with the state police, opened the door to the cell area to check on the prisoner. The doctor didn’t seem like the sort of fellow to hang himself, but they took the shoelaces and all anyway, because you never knew for sure. He was sitting on his bunk now, looking two notches past sorrowful. Lightfoot liked that in a perpetrator. Remorse was something he didn’t see a lot of in his business.
“How are you doing, doc?” he called out in a bracing voice. He let them save the hostility for the courtroom. His job was to catch folks and hold on to ’em, not reprimand ’em.
“Fine,” said Walter, trying to smile back.
Lightfoot had exchanged his Confederate officer’s uniform for a dark brown sheriff’s outfit. He looked considerably more official in consequence. He pulled up a wooden kitchen chair just outside the cell and sat down with a sigh. “Been a long day,” he remarked. “I get up at six when I’m taking Sorrel out with the militia… My horse,” he explained.
Walter nodded. “After Stonewall Jackson’s mount.”
Lightfoot beamed. “Imagine anybody knowing that! I wish we could have had a chat under better circumstances, Dr. Hutcheson, but as it is I need to talk about this situation out at the festival. That is, if you’re ready to make a statement.”
Walter considered it. Sanderson would be seething if he didn’t wait for legal counsel. Might even refuse the case. Anyway, there wasn’t much he could say past, “I didn’t do it.” He thought he knew who did, but that wasn’t something he was prepared to discuss. It didn’t make any sense, anyway. He considered letting them convict him without a struggle, and going off to a quiet prison. Marge would write to him; he was sure of that.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff. I mustn’t discuss anything until my lawyer arrives.”
Lightfoot nodded. “Everybody watches television these days. Okee-fine. But I don’t mind telling you that this case is downright peculiar. Fingerprints, no alibi, good obvious motive. That’s great for the beer-joint stabbings I have to contend with, but if M.D.s don’t have any more sense than that…”
Walter felt the same way. Not only was it a frame, it was an insult to his intelligence. It was so obvious that they might even make a jury see it. He didn’t much care, though. He was tired.
Lightfoot had pulled out a notepad and was about to launch into further arguments when the door to the outer office opened and Merle Fentress peeked around it. “Call for you, Sheriff,” he said in meaningful tones.
“Who?”
“Festival people again.”
“Now what?” asked Lightfoot, pushing back his chair.
“Another murder, they reckon.”
Lightfoot glanced at the prisoner, and then edged past the deputy into the office. “Damnit!” he muttered. “Never mind the battle reenactment. This case may outlast the war!”
Lightfoot eased the patrol car off the state highway and turned up the road to Glencoe Park. He felt a spasm of irritation as he drove past the posters announcing the Highland games, and then the Civil War reenactment. Damnit, there ought not to be more bodies the week before the battle than there were during it. He wondered if Dr. Hutcheson had disposed of this one about the same time as the first murder, or whether there was another killer at large. The coroner ought to be able to help with that one. Maybe his hunch was right, and the doctor had been framed: that was easier to swallow than the mass-murderer theory.
Lightfoot narrowed his eyes. What in blazes was wrong with that sports car up ahead of him? Other than its driving on the wrong side of the road. Oh, hellfire, thought Lightfoot, the drunks are getting in on the act. He flipped on his flasher and eased up toward the offending vehicle with catlike smoothness.
After a few seconds in which the two occupants seemed to confer, the car pulled over on the grass. Lightfoot slid his Dodge in behind them and made notes of the description and license plate. Having thus given the offenders time to stew about their predicament, he slid out of the patrol car and strolled toward the blue MG.
“Well, it has the bloody steering wheel on the correct side,” the driver was saying to his companion. “It was a perfectly natural-what did you say? Well, I’d like to see your performance under similar circumstances!”
“Step out of the car, please, sir,” purred Lightfoot in his official voice. His eyes widened when he recognized the driver of the sports car. “Well, hello, Scotty! Is this a spy car with cannons mounted on the fender?”
Cameron Dawson was annoyed. “Save it, Sheriff! I have spent a good hour nursemaiding this… this…”
Lightfoot peered in at the passenger. “Pretty far gone, isn’t he?”
“Yes, and he wanted to drive.”
The sheriff shook his head. “You reckon he could’a done much worse?”
“As I was trying to tell him: it was a perfectly natural mistake. In Britain we drive on the left side of the road, and this is a British car, so-”
“Yeah, but it’s an American road, doncha know,” Lightfoot drawled. “Can I see your license, please, Scotty?”
With a sigh of martyrdom, Cameron reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a clear plastic case. “British driving license,” he said in answer to the sheriff’s puzzled look.
Lightfoot took the document with a frown of suspicion. He pulled the work paper out of the plastic case, looked down the length of it and read a few lines, his lips moving. “Expires in… 2025! Do they mean the year?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s crazy. And there’s no picture of you on here, either. And most critical, it is not a Virginia driver’s license.”
“It’s good for thirty days in this country,” Cameron informed him.
“Yeah, I’d like to give you thirty days for it,” Lightfoot grunted. “And another sixty for reckless driving; but as it happens I have another murder to contend with, so I do not have time to deal with you. Why don’t I just follow you along into the park so you can’t do any more English things on the way? Then you can stick around while I investigate.”
“Sheriff, I’ve tried to explain to you that I am not-”
“Or I could write you up, and radio for someone to come and get you.”
Cameron’s lips tightened. “Right, Sheriff. I’ll meet you at the car park.”
The county rescue squad, already on duty for the festival, had cordoned off the area and were standing watch over the body when Lightfoot MacDonald and his British colleague arrived. They had covered Lachlan Forsyth’s body in a sheet, but the scene otherwise was just as they had found it.