Death of a Highland Heavyweight Read online

  “Of course.”

  “Afterwards, Carrie, if you could have a look around the house, tell me if anything’s out of place.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Just need to make sure we don’t miss anything.”

  Carrie dropped her chin into her hands. “Sure, whatever.”

  I went back to making tea.

  There was a fair bit of commotion as the emergency personnel removed Claude. I stayed with Carrie, like Andrew asked, and fed her tea and toast. She didn’t eat more than a bite, but the fussing gave me something to do. Carrie and I weren’t particularly close, and I didn’t want to impose on her grief. I didn’t want her to start screaming again, either, so I maintained a quiet presence, hoping it would be more conducive to calm than an overly sympathetic one.

  The grandfather clock beside the dish dresser slowly ticked off the minutes.

  In time, Andrew reappeared in the kitchen doorway and asked Carrie to join him. “I know this is hard,” he said. “But if you could stroll through the house and the shop, see if there’s anything disturbed or missing.”

  “You think Claude caught a burglar in the act?”

  “Anything’s possible,” he said. “Just want you to tell me what you see.”

  I followed Carrie and Andrew on their tour through the old house. I was curious. Hunter Hall always reminded me of a mausoleum. Probably because of the tombstones arrayed in the front parlor, the showroom of Hunter Monuments. As I surveyed the house, however, with its dark paneled walls, heavy brocade drapes, and blackened Jacobean antiques, I gained a new appreciation for the word creepy. Carrie’s whimsical folk art collection did nothing to lighten the ambiance. In fact, I thought it made it worse.

  The back hallway seemed enormous without Claude, and the carpeted stairs were so steep I could barely make out the top.

  “What do you see?” Andrew asked Carrie. “Anything unusual?”

  She squeezed her face between her hands and looked around. “The carpet?”

  “What about the carpet?”

  “That step near the top. The runner looks loose.”

  I saw nothing significant, but Andrew climbed the stairs to check. Second from the top he stooped and picked up a slim, brass rod. “Hmm.”

  “What is it?” Carrie asked.

  “Carpet rod’s just lying here. Runner’s not clamped down.”

  Now that Claude had been transferred to the ambulance and taken away, Geoff reappeared. He draped his arm over my shoulders, and I leaned into him, hoping his body heat would stop my shivers. “You think Claude slipped on the loose rug?”

  “We’ll wait and see what the medical examiner says.” Andrew carried the slim brass rod down the stairs. “In the meantime, Carrie, I’ll have an officer come by and take some pictures. OK? What else?”

  She glanced around. “Nothing really.”

  Geoff said, “That candlestick on the hall table was at the top of the stairs when I was here last night.”

  I studied the item in question, part of Carrie’s folk-art collection. It looked kind of like a totem pole made up completely of frogs, and it stood almost half a meter high. What was it with people and their frogs?

  Carrie picked up the candlestick, a smile almost lifting the corners of her mouth. “Claude always says you stop seeing things around you when they’re always the same. So we play this game where he’s forever moving my frogs.” She set it down, her fingers lingering over the candlestick’s colorful surface. “He’s right, you know. I usually keep the pair on the table at the top of the stairs.”

  “They were up top when I used the bathroom last night,” said Geoff. “Where’s the second one?”

  Carrie spun in a slow circle. “It has to be here somewhere. I just have to look until I find it.”

  Andrew examined the one candlestick without touching it. “We’ll bag this, check it for prints.”

  She did the face squeeze thing again. “I’m sure mine and Claude’s will be all over it.”

  Andrew waved away her concern with a flip of his notepad. “I’m interested in other prints. We’ll take yours for elimination purposes, though.”

  “Do you see anything else out of place?” I asked.

  She wandered into her living room/great room. One entire end of the room was fireplace. You could have held a dance in it. There were twin horsehair sofas, four winged-back chairs, a pair of squat, black side-tables, and a museum’s worth of folk art frogs. Frogs on the tables. Frogs on the mantle. Frogs on the walls. They came in every color, size, and style. If only Ash could have seen them.

  Carrie scanned the room, and I heard her counting under her breath. I guessed she was counting frogs. She reached one hundred and seven and stopped. Her lips pursed, she started again while we watched in fascination.

  The second time Carrie reached a hundred and seven, she grabbed Andrew’s arm for support. “I’ve been robbed!” She started shrieking all over again.

  5

  “I bet it’s the frog thief,” I said. “Even her kitchen frog is missing.”

  We were back in Carrie Hunter’s picture-perfect kitchen. Despite the summer heat outside, I found Hunter Hall chilly. Andrew and I huddled around the kitchen table, sipping tea from frog-faced mugs, while a second police officer inspected the house, snapping photos. A box of bagged whatevers sat on the counter, awaiting Andrew’s departure.

  Geoff stepped into the room.

  “How is she?” Andrew asked.

  Geoff poured tea from the bullfrog teapot into another froggy mug. “She’s in shock, poor thing. I gave her a sedative, and she’s fallen asleep. Hopefully, she’ll be a little calmer when she wakes up.” He pulled up a chair and joined us at the table.

  “I wish I knew who to call,” I said. “She really shouldn’t be left here alone, even if she is asleep.”

  Geoff studied me over the rim of his mug. “Does that mean you’re volunteering?”

  How could I not? Carrie was an only child. Her father, Fraser Hunter, had passed way several years before, and her mom, Phyllis, lived in a retirement home. As far as I knew, Carrie had no other relatives in Nova Scotia.

  “The clinic schedule’s pretty quiet today. I think your boss can manage without you for one day,” Geoff said.

  “And our appointment with the jeweler about your wedding ring?”

  His dimples deepened. “We can rebook.” We’d done it before.

  “About the frog thief.” I turned to Andrew. “You should probably talk to Ash about that.”

  My brother pushed back his chair. “There’s no frog thief, Gai.”

  “Yes, there is. Mom and I were talking about it just the other day. Someone’s been slipping into people’s houses and stealing their kitchen frogs.”

  “Kitchen frogs?” repeated Geoff.

  “Those little ceramic things you keep your pot scrubbing pads in.”

  “Why would anyone take kitchen frogs?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. Until I saw Carrie’s collection, I though Ash was the only person on earth with a frog fetish. Who knows, maybe frogs are the latest thing in home decor.”

  Andrew gave me his most dubious stare.

  “I’m serious. People collect pigs, cows, roosters. Why not frogs?”

  “Has anyone lifted your frog?”

  “As a matter of fact.”

  Geoff set his frog mug next to Andrew’s and massaged the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m not making this up. And if they’re somehow involved in Claude’s death, that means they’ve graduated from petty criminals into felons.”

  “We don’t have felons in Canada, Gai.”

  “Then what are they?”

  “Murderers.”

  Andrew’s pronouncement helped Geoff regain his composure. “You really think Claude was murdered?”

  “If the house was burgled last night, I have to take the possibility seriously. I’ve notified RCMP’s Serious Crime Task Force, and they’ll oversee the investigation, on pap
er at least. I’ll do the local leg work.”

  I felt called upon to point out, “Which you’ll enjoy.”

  “Yeah, but murder’s never a good thing, no matter how intriguing the puzzle.”

  “Where do you go from here?” asked Geoff.

  “We’ve checked the scene, taken our pictures, and bagged any evidence, for what it’s worth. Now I establish the time line.”

  “Don’t you already know it? I mean, Carrie told you when she last saw Claude.”

  Andrew patted the little notebook in his shirt pocket. “And once I confirm her statement, I start investigating suspects.”

  “You should talk to Ash,” I said, again. “She’ll know something, I’m sure of it.”

  Andrew brushed off my advice. “If I need to speak with Ashleigh at some point, I will. But right now I have more important things to do.”

  An unsettling shiver slid down my spine as, anticipating their departure, I glanced around the expansive kitchen. “You’re both going to leave me here, alone?”

  “Gai, if you’re right, and this is a crime scene, I don’t need half of Hum Harbour parading through this house.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I thought Carrie was your friend.”

  I looked from Geoff to Andrew to Caber, who’d parked himself on my left foot. “I really don’t know her that well. I mean, I know we’ve been working together on the Hum Harbour Daze stuff, but Carrie’s well, you know.”

  Andrew quirked his brow, a talent I’ve tried desperately to mimic. “No, I don’t know.”

  I tugged at my ponytail. “She’s polite and all, but she makes it pretty clear I’m not a Hunter Hall kind of girl, if you know what I mean?”

  Geoff’s eyes narrowed. “She insults you?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just a feeling I get. She’s pretty choosy about who she lets beyond the front shop. If she hadn’t been in such a panic, I doubt she would have let me in the house even today.”

  Andrew stood. “Well, she has now, so you may as well make the most of the opportunity. If Carrie Hunter’s as exclusive as you think, she’ll send you packing the moment she wakes up.”

  That was probably true. I suspected even in grief Carrie Hunter’d prefer privacy. But I would stay until she insisted I leave, because no one should be alone at a time like this. I just wished Hunter Hall was more inviting. There was something unnerving about a zillion folk art frogs watching your every move.

  Geoff understood. “You don’t like it here, do you?”

  I kissed him. “I’ll be OK. Are you sure you won’t need me at the clinic?”

  “I need you, truly. But for this one day I think I can manage the place without you.” He squeezed my hand. “Granted, it won’t be the same, nothing is ever the same when you’re not there, but I will survive. Somehow.”

  Such hogwash. I kissed him again.

  While we were occupied, Andrew grabbed his box of evidence and left.

  Geoff followed soon after.

  I pulled down the blinds in the front rooms, and secured the CLOSED sign on the Hall’s front door. News travels at warp speed in Hum Harbour, but I didn’t want to chance that someone missed the newsflash and wandered in, searching for marble monuments or German toys.

  The front half of the main floor of Hunter Hall houses the Hunter’s family business, Hunter Monuments and Toys. For years, it had just been Hunter Monuments but when Carrie came onboard she added the Toy Room. Fortunately, you don’t have to pass through the monument showroom to access her inventory of imported toys. Once you step through the Hall’s arched double doorway you turn right for toys or left for tombstones.

  I locked the door, marched right past both “shops,” and mounted the steep back stairs. I’d check Carrie. And maybe, while I was at it, I’d look around the oldest building in Hum Harbour. Andrew was right, of course. This was too good an opportunity to pass up.

  6

  Carrie was asleep in the room closest to the top of the stairs. I peered in cautiously, not wanting to invade her privacy. But I could hardly keep a watchful eye if I didn’t know where she was.

  Stretched almost the length of her king-size bed, with her hair fanned across the pillow, she reminded me of a sleeping princess. It didn’t seem right for Carrie to look so peaceful. Surely it was Geoff’s sedative that relaxed her elegant features and gave her that carefree look.

  Ignoring Caber, who was virtually stuck like glue to my heel, I crept into the room, lifted the ivory afghan from a winged chair in the corner—almost knocking over the small, chair-side table in the process—and spread the cover over her. I gave the room a quick survey before I left. Good thing, too, because I spotted Carrie’s necklace on the floor beneath the little table. An emerald surrounded by diamonds that trailed away in cuts of decreasing size, kind of like a comet’s tail—Carrie’s necklace was legendary in these parts.

  You see, Carrie Hunter came from a long line of Hunters. The original ones arrived on the HMS Humphrey, the ship that brought the first Scottish settlers to our harbor. That fact means nothing to anyone except the Hunters. But when Carrie met and fell in love with Claude Oui, the oldest of nine kids from a poor Cape Breton family, her parents were less than thrilled. They had standards, after all. And Claude simply didn’t measure up. To prove his worthiness, he bought Carrie a stunning emerald and diamond necklace. I guess it was his way of demonstrating how he would provide for their daughter. It must have worked, because the Hunters gave their blessing to the marriage. Claude and Carrie ended up living in the same house with them for years.

  The necklace must have fallen from the table when I bumped it. I set it back on top and slipped out of the room before I caused more damage.

  With all the doors along the corridor closed, the hallway was cave dark. I felt my way along the passage, checking each room to make sure there was no one else home besides Carrie, Caber, and me.

  The first room, I assumed, had been her parents’ bedroom, with its giant curtained bed, massive dressers, and carved oak mantle. The next two rooms were guest rooms with bookshelves and antique coverlet-draped beds, and finally, I discovered two home offices.

  The first office was Carrie’s. No one else could tolerate the gilt-framed frog portrait that dominated the room. It was done in an art-deco style, all golden light and cerulean sky. Might have been nice, except for the frogs in Grecian gowns. The furniture was a hodgepodge of eras; a roll top desk, a fiberboard computer station, and the kind of shelves that rest on metal, wall-mounted brackets. They held an assortment of product catalogues for the various toy lines Carrie sold. There were also monument catalogues, which I curiously flipped through.

  The desk phone rang.

  I debated whether to answer. What should I say? How would I field the obvious questions from whoever was on the other end? At the third ring the machine kicked in, and I didn’t have to decide.

  Claude’s office/workout room opened off an adjoining door. Exercise equipment filled most of the space. A giant fan filled the window—which might have explained why the room didn’t smell like a sweat shop. A heart rate vs. weight chart hung on the wall. There were also framed pictures of Claude in his kilt balancing a caber, chucking a hammer, and several of him accepting trophies. A framed collection of trading cards showed how his body had matured over the years. In the corner sat a leather recliner chair, and a small bookshelf. I recognized some of the dog-eared volumes Geoff’d brought back from Somalia, among the shelf’s newer titles. And there was also a journal. I sank into Claude’s chair, considering whether to read it. Maybe, between his reflections on his wife and his life, I’d discover a few comments about my Geoff—not that I was prying.

  The phone rang again. Like a shout from my conscience, it had me stuffing Claude’s journal back onto the shelf between Mary Slessor of Calabar and A Guide to West Africa. The machine took over after the third ring, and Carrie, bless her heart, slept on.

  A bulletin board with a map of Africa
rested against Claude’s shelf. A big red circle surrounded Ghana.

  I’ve never yearned to travel, even though most people who grow up in small towns can’t wait to leave. Like Geoff, who headed for Africa as soon as he graduated medical school, they can’t wait to see new places. I traced the red circle with my fingertip and tried to imagine what Ghana would be like.

  It wasn’t much more than a year since Claude Oui had given his heart to the Lord. He’d caused quite a stir in the local churches. I mean, it wasn’t often that an international athlete of Claude’s caliber made an open, life-changing profession of faith. Everyone knew. Everyone talked about it. Everyone scrutinized Claude’s movements, trying to judge for themselves whether his new-found faith was for real.

  Claude’s conversion coincided with Geoff’s return after five years on a medical mission in Somalia. Claude was fascinated by Geoff’s experiences, convicted by the stories of infinite need, and challenged to use his own life to make a difference. I suspect that’s why he planned the trip to Ghana.

  Claude had been excited when he told Geoff of his decision to trade competitive athletics for the mission field. Carrie, he insisted, would back him one-hundred percent, once she got over the shock. It had been several months since Claude announced his intentions. Presumably, Carrie’d come to terms with his vision.

  Not that it mattered now.

  Geoff said mission work wasn’t for everyone. He said people in Hum Harbour needed God’s love every bit as much as people in Africa or Asia. I knew he meant well when he told me that. He didn’t want me thinking I was a second-class Christian just because I didn’t want to leave Canada.

  Deep inside I wondered, though; was I committed to Canada because I cared about my neighbors, or because I was afraid to try something different? Because the very thought of dipping my toes in change terrified me as much as the idea of dipping my toes into the sea. And believe me, after almost drowning twice, I would not—for any reason—dip my toes in the ocean. Ever again.

  Speaking of toes, Caber pawed impatiently at mine. I took him out into the backyard where he investigated the lawn for unidentified odors, and I investigated Carrie’s garden.