Deadly Editions Page 14

  I was still rattled, but I thought I was hiding it well. I clasped my hands together to conceal any leftover shaking. There was no indication that Tom might be distracted or bothered. He was good at this.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Tricia.

  “That’s why I’m here, to ask you. After that night at the pub, I haven’t been able to figure out anything, and I was in the area, knew you guys owned the pub. I know I said I wanted to work alone, but I’m wondering if you’ve gotten any farther on the hunt.”

  I thought the person Tom and I had seen in the coat probably hadn’t been Tricia, probably not even female, but I was still wary. The timing might be uncanny—or it might not be.

  I shrugged noncommittally. “It’s been difficult.” I took a drink of the Coke that Tom put in front of me. “I feel like I’m onto something and then I’m not. I don’t think I have any real answers. What about Jacques?”

  “What about him?”

  “You made sure he got back to his room. Is he okay? Did you two decide to work together?”

  “I dropped him off outside is all. We aren’t working together,” she said almost defensively. “I don’t think Jacques cares about the books. I think he just wants one of us to find the treasure so he can get the money from Shelagh and go back home.” Tricia paused. “I mean, if Shelagh is ever able to pay out. I guess she’ll have to be found first.”

  “I guess. Would you mind sharing what Shelagh said to you during your tour of the library? My time with her was cut short.”

  “Oh. Sure.” She took a drink too. “She told me how important her library was to her, how important that story of Jekyll and Hyde is to her.”

  “What did she say as to why she loves the story so much?”

  “I don’t think we talked about that part.”

  I nodded, thinking it very well could have just been because I always like to know the reasons people love their favorite books that Shelagh and I’d had that discussion.

  “I asked her about her staff, about that man named Louis and the driver, Findlay something,” Tricia said.

  “Yeah?” I said, sitting up a little more.“Why?”

  “Don’t really know, except they both set off alarm bells with me. She said that she trusts them both completely. I asked about any other people who work for her. I was just curious, you know. It’s such a big house, and I wondered how she kept it all going.”

  “And?”

  “She said she has a housekeeping service, her cook is a woman who comes in every other day and makes the most delicious food. They barely see each other.” Tricia paused. “She did, however, mention that she was bothered a little about the guy who tends the horses. Winston, I think. She wouldn’t go into detail, but when she went missing, I told the police what she’d said.”

  I remembered Shelagh’s being bothered by what she said she thought had been Winston’s night of drinking.

  “Good. What else did she say about him?” I asked.

  “Nothing that I remember.”

  “Did the police tell you anything else that day?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Did Shelagh talk about anyone else?”

  “No, did she to you?”

  “No, but our time was cut short,” I repeated.

  “Because the police came and got her?”

  “Yes, but she was released.”

  “Oh, I know. Personally, I don’t think Shelagh has done anything wrong. I think her past life is being used as an excuse for someone to misbehave in the worst ways possible. I knew that it would happen, though, or something like it. It’s just too good of a story for someone not to remake it. You know, copycats?”

  Was it possible I could like Tricia? “I do know.”

  “So you haven’t figured out anything else?”

  “I’m sorry, I haven’t.” Well, I only might like her.

  “Okay. I haven’t either.” She shrugged.

  Companionable silence isn’t too difficult in a pub, but it wasn’t easy to achieve with Tricia. She seemed uncomfortable and anxious, and not really interested in conversation. I suspected she wasn’t one to visit many pubs.

  Finally, she looked at Tom. “May I use the loo?”

  “Aye. Just down the hall.”

  When she returned, she finished off her Coke and told us she needed to head home. Tom and I watched her weave her way through the pub and then out the door.

  “Maybe that’s her way of trying to be friends?” Tom said when she was out of sight.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Do you suppose she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t get around to it?”

  “Lass, I have no idea.”

  I nodded. “All right, let’s go over what we saw out there again. Do you mind?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “Ye’re going back there today?” Aggie asked as she spooned some scrambled eggs onto my plate.

  “Yes. Birk is picking me up. We’ll go together.”

  “Do ye think Elias should go?”

  Elias, sitting next to me at the table, looked up. “Happy tae drive anytime, ye ken.”

  “I think I’m okay.” I took a bite of the eggs and looked at Aggie. I was going to miss having them around. “Elias has plans.”

  “Och, he doesnae need tae help the electricians. They can figure oot their jobs themselves,” Aggie said as she looked at her husband. He pretended not to notice.

  He would happily go with me, but he really did like supervising the people working on his properties. Tom had already left so he could get a jump on some deep cleaning at the pub, but Aggie had made sure he’d eaten first.

  I smiled to myself and then looked at Aggie. “Birk and I will be all right.”

  “Whatever ye think.” Aggie sat and finally started eating her breakfast.

  “Aggie, do you remember anything else about Shelagh O’Conner? What about the victim back then, Oliver McCabe? I can’t find anything at all about him.”

  Aggie fell into thought as she chewed. “I have been thinking, lass, and I do remember more, but mostly about her. Shelagh was funny, delightful, except when she wasn’t, I suppose. She could change in an instant.”

  “Moody?”

  “Aye.” Doubt lined the word.

  “What?”

  “A wee bit more than moody. Extreme sometimes. Large mood swings, even for seventeen.”

  “Oh?” I put the fork down. “Do you think she had some sort of illness, something like bipolar disorder?”

  “I couldnae tell ye, but when she was younger, her moods were most definitely extreme, and her imagination was so … big.”

  Maybe another small piece of this big puzzle had just fallen into place. Was Shelagh afflicted with a mental illness? Did the swings in her mood somehow help her relate to the story she loved so much? It was all pure speculation on my part, but I could see the connection.

  I decided early in graduate school that I needed to do something about my moods. It quickly came down to a choice between seeing a psychiatrist or buying a horse.

  The bookish voice came from a memoir I’d read. It didn’t really do credit to the full thought the author was trying to convey, but the voice in my head only wanted me to have that part of it. An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison. Yes, this was all somehow connected—Shelagh’s past, what was happening now, even her horses. Even if I wasn’t certain of it, my subconscious was. The problem: I still didn’t understand the connections.

  “Lass?” Elias said.

  “Sorry.” I came back to the moment and grabbed my fork. “What else, Aggie, anything?”

  “Shelagh and her parents, more particularly her father, had issues. He was a strict man. They were a successful family, and they were in the news aftwhiles—often. Of course, back when Shelagh dressed up and pretended tae be a copy of Hyde, her father spoke out and said how disappointed he was in her, after the fact.” Aggie tapped her fingers on her mouth. “It was embarrassing for Shelagh
, I’m sure, but I don’t remember ever talking to her aboot it.”

  “I’m sorry she had to go through that.”

  “She did bring it on herself some, though I wish her father had shown her more understanding publicly. Maybe he did in private.”

  “How did her parents die?”

  “I think they were just old and passed in their sleep, both of them. I think I remember reading their obituaries. I’m not sure though. It’s been a long time. I also remembered a little something about the man who was kil’t, Ollie. He was kil’t at the museum. He worked there, and that’s where they found his body—on the museum steps, I think.”

  “What? At Joshua’s museum?” I asked.

  “Aye, I believe so.”

  “That’s great news! I mean … well, that sounded terrible. It’s just that I’m sure Joshua knows the story, then.” I reached for my phone to call my brilliant young friend who, thankfully, still worked at the National Museum of Scotland. “Wait. Why couldn’t I find that in the research that I did? I didn’t find out much about him at all.”

  Aggie shrugged. “Dinnae ken, but the story back then, even with the murder, was more about Shelagh than the dead man. I think I remember learning that he wasn’t the kindest of men, but that was later, and, lass, I’m afraid that Ollie got forgotten. Shelagh was much more interesting.”

  I started a text but was diverted by a knock on the front door—Birk. I decided to grab him and have us go see Joshua together before we went to Shelagh’s house. I stood from the table and grabbed my plate.

  “I’ll get the dishes, lass,” Aggie said.

  I kissed them both on their cheeks and then put my plate in the sink. I was definitely going to miss them.

  * * *

  Somehow I managed to talk Birk into a detour to the museum. He’d had a detour of his own in mind, but when I greeted him with the request, he decided to save his surprise for later. He did smile and tell me I’d like where we were going next. After I’d texted Joshua, he replied saying that he was going to be at the museum for only another couple hours or so because of meetings he was required to attend off-site but that he’d love to see us and tell us what he knew about Oliver McCabe.

  Joshua had come to the University of Edinburgh to work on one of his many PhDs a few years earlier; a job at the museum had kept him in town, though now other prestigious institutions were calling him, wanting him to leave Edinburgh and go to work for them. I didn’t want him to go.

  He’d become like a little brother, one who enjoyed museums as much as I did. We toured them the same way: slowly and with singular focus. He and Rosie had grown close too; she’d become the grandmother he’d never really had, and sometimes I wondered if it was her or perhaps her cookies that kept him in town even more than his job.

  Birk parked in front of the wide brown building, and we climbed the stairs to one of the front doors. The museum wasn’t open yet, but I knew to knock on a specific door. We’d done this a time or two—there were simply things Joshua thought I needed to see without the rest of the museum crowd around to get in our way; secret viewings were the only recourse.

  In fact, he’d been working on something I’d recently found in the bottom of the priceless desk in the warehouse. Joshua was still in the process of authenticating and transcribing the treasure. He’d assured me I’d get an early look, but he wasn’t finished yet, and he wouldn’t show me anything before his work was perfect.

  The museum door opened a moment later. Joshua smiled. “Come in, come in.”

  We hugged quickly, and he and Birk shook hands. Joshua closed the door behind us and made sure it locked again before he turned and told us to follow him to his office.

  “Gracious, do I have a story to tell you,” he said as his long legs moved quickly over the wax-shined floor.

  He’d once had an office inside an old closet but had recently been upgraded, and he now had a real office down a hallway full of them. His was a large, beautiful room with windows, but I missed the cramped space. He and I both pretended we liked the new office better than the old one; it seemed like the right thing to do.

  We didn’t see anyone else as we made our way past the skeleton rendition of an old Viking ship. The museum was hosting a Viking display I still needed to see. I wouldn’t ask for a tour today, but someday soon.

  Joshua closed his office door once we were inside. “Make yourselves comfortable. The coffee hasn’t been started yet, but I can grab us some cups in a bit if you’re interested.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said.

  “I’m fine too, but thank you, lad.”

  “When you sent the text, I almost squealed with delight,” Joshua said as we all found chairs. “The story I have for you is incredible. I’ve thought about telling you a few times, but we’ve been doing other things and it kept slipping my mind. I’m glad it’s time to finally share.”

  “Wow, you have our attention,” I said from across the desk. His silver blinds were shut, so I had no view of the close and the building behind him. His desk was, as was typical, cleared off except for the computer monitor, a keyboard, and a yellow notepad, which was turned facedown.

  Joshua opened a drawer and pulled out three matching brochures. They were trifolded pieces of paper, yellow and wilted from age.

  “I found this when I first started working here. I asked about it but was told it was something we just didn’t talk about any longer.” Joshua gave Birk and me each one of the brochures. “But I kept a stack of them nonetheless. The story was just too good to ignore.”

  Holding it with care, I looked at the front of the brochure. The title said, Come Experience a Real Laboratory Made for a Monster.

  “What in the world?” I said.

  “Aye?” Birk said. “Was this a display at the museum? I don’t remember it.”

  “It was supposed to be.” Joshua sat up and put his arms on his desk. “Back in the day, Oliver McCabe worked here. Oh, wait.” Joshua opened the drawer and reached inside, pulling out a small black-and-white picture, sliding it toward us. “Here he is.”

  The photo showed a handsome young man—clearly not quite thirty—with dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a strong chin. He wasn’t smiling, but there was a sense of playfulness in his eyes that made me think it was that—not his handsomeness—that might have attracted Shelagh O’Conner.

  Birk and I nodded after we looked at the picture, and Joshua drew it back toward him.

  “Anyway,” Joshua continued, “Ollie did many things around here, one of them being designing some of the displays. He had lots of wonderful ideas, including one to create attractions about some of Scotland’s more famous authors. Here, unlike other museum exhibits devoted to our literary geniuses, Ollie decided to take books and create tableaus taken directly from some of the stories. Of course, he couldn’t possibly pass up creating something with the good Dr. Jekyll and the bad Mr. Hyde. It was to be his first author tableau. Then, as he was bringing everything together, he met Shelagh O’Conner, though I’m not exactly sure how or where. They became friendly, I guess. I’ve been following the story of her disappearance, the New and Old Monsters, et cetera. I spoke to one of the museum directors who was here back then too, Angela, and she told me that Ollie’s plans were extraordinary, but then he was killed—on the front steps of the museum, no less.”

  “I need to understand the timing better.” I looked at Birk. “When did you and Shelagh date?”

  Joshua’s eyes widened as if he were anxious to hear the answer too.

  “Shelagh joined a group I was a part of in 1993. She was just over thirty. I was forty,” he said. I knew he was talking about Fleshmarket. “She left the group just six or so months later. Our relationship had been established and then cooled just in those few months.”

  “The Old Monster roamed the streets in 1968,” Joshua said. “Angela thinks Ollie and Shelagh met when she heard about his tableau plans—if he knew she was the Old Monster, she could have been the inspiratio
n for his work. However, I think it’s important to note here that chances are that he didn’t know, that she didn’t tell him. Angela thinks Ollie would have said something if that had been the case. Angela and Ollie were friends.”

  “Did Shelagh give you any details?” I asked Birk. “Did she tell you if Ollie knew?”

  “Lass, she wouldn’t speak of that time or of Ollie. I understood.”

  I nodded and looked back at Joshua.

  He continued, “The Old Monster, aka Shelagh, wasn’t causing trouble back then, just mystery. There were no burglaries, just odd sightings. Apparently even doing good deeds.”

  “That’s correct,” Birk said. “She helped people living on the streets, not harmed them.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Joshua said. “And before Ollie was killed, he and Shelagh became friends, maybe dated secretly from what I’ve heard. He consulted her regarding the laboratory display—Dr. Jekyll’s ‘cabinet.’ The picture of Shelagh near Ollie’s body was developed a couple months after the murder, so that’s all the police had at the time. Any other possible evidence was long gone. But Ollie knew how young she was, and Angela thinks he probably came to his senses and put the brakes on anything more romantic developing.”

  I thought about what Aggie had just told me. “Was Ollie a nice man?”

  “I asked Angela that. She said Ollie wasn’t a bad man, but he wasn’t exactly the friendliest either. He was … what was the word Angela used? Obsessive.”

  “About his work?”

  “About everything, or so she said.”

  “Do you—or does Angela—think Shelagh actually killed Ollie?” I said.

  Joshua shrugged. “There’s only speculation, but no conclusive evidence. When he was killed, the directors postponed the opening of the display, and then two months later, when the picture was made public, the directors just scrapped the whole idea.”

  “Other than the circumstantial picture, why would anyone think Shelagh killed him?” Birk asked.

  “They argued,” Joshua said. “Presumably about Ollie ending the relationship.”

  “Possibly a good enough motive for murder, but I still don’t think she’s capable of such a thing,” Birk said.