Page 62 of Death at a Highland Wedding
“The deer was killed with a bow, which we know they use. The footprintsindicate it was your daughter—the pattern of her gait is distinctive. It took place close to where we found Mr. Sinclair.”
Genuine fear touches her eyes even as they narrow. “My children were in bed—”
“We think they might have seen the killer. Or heard something. They left the stag half butchered, as if something made them beat a hasty retreat before finishing.”
She gives a soft exhale, as if of relief, though her face stays stony. I’m not accusing her children of killing Sinclair. I’m enlisting them as witnesses.
I meet her gaze. “Mr. Cranston will not care about them hunting a deer if their testimony sets him free. Neither will Dr. Gray nor Detective McCreadie care about the stag. It seems silly to keep all the game for one man who does not even live here.”
“I will speak to them,” she says. “I know nothing about any deer, and I am sure there is some mistake.”
“Perhaps they were only walking and came upon the stag already dead,” I say. “That seems reasonable.”
“It does,” she says firmly. “Whatever the situation, they will not withhold any information that would see Mr. Cranston set free.”
I hesitate, then I meet her gaze. “Not even when he is responsible for taking their father’s job and turning them out of their home?”
“That was not Mr. Cranston,” she says sharply. “He was misled, and the situation would have been rectified.”
“Misled?”
She sweeps her skirts past me as she heads for the door. “I will speak to Detective McCreadie when he is ready for me.”
After Mrs. Hall is gone, I consider everything she’s said. Then I return to the shillelaghs. An examination of the two knobby ones doesn’t reveal any obvious damage or trace evidence, but we’ll conduct a proper examination.
McCreadie and Gray are still in the large sitting room conducting their interviews. I pause outside the door long enough to hear them asking Fiona where she’d been last night. In bed, she says, which I’m going to guess will be everyone’s answer.
One of the women was out there. I think back to last night, the figure I’d spotted, and I curse myself for not taking a closer look.
Could that figure have been carrying a shillelagh? Could a woman have clocked Sinclair hard enough to snap his neck and dent his skull? It depends, I think, on how angry she’d been.
If any of the women had a motive to kill Ezra Sinclair, I haven’t seen it. They all treated him as a good-natured and kindhearted fellow, innocuous in every way. Especially innocuous compared to Cranston, the guy who had almost certainly been the real target.
Fiona was bristling with outrage and indignation at Cranston’s arrest. Could that be a cover to disguise the fact that she was secretly relieved? That she’d failed to rid herself of a brutish bridegroom last night, but had ironically managed it despite killing the wrong person.
Mrs. Hall said she didn’t blame Cranston for her family’s situation, but I find that hard to believe. What would happen if he died?
What about Edith? She’d been upset with Cranston over the investment, and they did have a romantic past.
The only one I can’t find a motive for is Violet, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have one.
But just because a woman was out last night doesn’t make her a killer. I’d been out, too.
Could Sinclair have been having an affair with one of the women? Maybe Fiona? Sinclair had gone out of his way to be kind to her, as one might to the young bride of his best friend. He’d been solicitous and quick to include her in conversations, which is too risky if they were hiding an affair.
For Fiona’s part, there were no shy or flirty glances. She was friendly and relaxed around Sinclair, just as she was around Gray. Friends of her older brother and her fiancé, nothing more.
If someone had been meeting Sinclair for romance, I’d say it was Violet. They’re both single, attractive, quietly decent and intelligent people, who’ve known each other for decades. On paper, they’d make a good match, but that can be awkward if the guy is your brother’s best friend. Just look at Isla and McCreadie’s excruciatingly slow dance.
I think back to how Violet and Sinclair have behaved around each other. Sinclair has been friendly, but Violet never initiated conversation with him.In fact, when I think about it, she’d seemed to distance herself from him, walking with others, sitting near others. Far from being proof of disinterest, a careful distance between the two could mean they were having a secret affair.
These thoughts preoccupy me as I head outside for the stable. I need time alone with my detective brain, and I’ll use that opportunity to visit guests who won’t interrupt my thoughts—the wildcat kittens.
They’re being tended in the barn. When Fiona asked to keep them there, Cranston had only hesitated, as if thinking it through. Fiona hadn’t seemed the least concerned that he’d say no, but Sinclair had leapt in to her “defense.” I got the feeling that had irritated Cranston, as if he’d expected his best friend to know—as Fiona seemed to—that he was thinking it through, rather than preparing to refuse. In the end, Cranston had not only allowed it but given her a prime spot: a tiny storage room in the half-empty hayloft.
I climb the ladder to the loft and discover Alice coaxing the injured kitten to eat.
Seeing me, she rises, smoothing her skirt. “Does Mrs. Ballantyne need me?”
