Murder Takes the High Road Page 5

  The news was mostly greeted with clapping. Alison did not exactly glare at Rose, but she did cast her a couple of side looks. Was that what their disagreement had been about? The lunch break?

  One of the Poe sisters reminded us the first body in Death of a Green Man had been discovered by the roadside in Tyndrum, so that seemed to settle it. Once more we piled out of the bus.

  Several people opted to eat at the Green Welly restaurant. The rest of us decided to hike up the road to the small café that had featured in Vanessa’s book. One of the things I liked about Vanessa’s work was that her protagonists came from all walks of life. In Death of a Green Man, Anna is a waitress. She teams up with photographer James Carmichael to solve a series of gruesome slayings.

  I walked along the road with the Matsukados, the Kramers, Ben and Yvonne. The rain had stopped again, but the tall grass remained wet and the ground was squishy. The highway beside us was surprisingly busy. Tires hissed as cars zoomed past, suddenly appearing and then disappearing into the mist.

  John strode ahead, trailing Sally, the Scherfs and the Rices.

  Trevor, Vance and the Poes were somewhere behind the rest of us. Or at least I thought so, but all at once, Trevor stalked past me.

  I looked at him in surprise. He threw me a hostile look and sped up. I glanced around, and there, sure enough, was Vance. He met my eyes, also lengthening his stride, and brushed against me. Hard.

  The next thing I knew, I was falling into the road in front of an oncoming car.

  Chapter Five

  It happened so fast—and was so unbelievable—that I really didn’t feel more than a momentary flash of What the—? OH SHIT!

  The car—a navy-and-white Mini Cooper swerved sharply, honking—even as a dozen clutching hands fastened on my jacket, my hair, my arms—and my fellow travelers whisked me out of harm’s way.

  The Mini buzzed away, expressing outrage in an extended beeeeeep!

  Regaining my balance, I gazed at the circle of red and white faces surrounding me—reading those shocked and frightened gazes, I realized how close I had been to becoming road kill.

  My knees felt kind of...crumbly. I’ve never fainted in my life, but for a second or two I felt definitely...odd. Light-headed. My friends—and they did seem like friends now—seemed equally shaken.

  “Th-th-these country drivers are worse than the Germans!” stuttered Nedda.

  Yvonne said, “It’s not the driver’s fault. It was Mr. Stafford. He walked right into Mr. Matheson.”

  “I saw that!” Laurel Matsukado looked flushed and indignant. “He practically pushed Carter into the road.”

  The Poe sisters had joined us by then. They said in unison, “We saw it too!”

  “Now, now, ladies,” objected Wally Kramer. “I know we all love a good juicy murder, but even in jest those kinds of accusations—”

  Murder.

  My stomach lurched, and it was all I could do to maintain my already not-so-stoic façade.

  It couldn’t be true. Vance couldn’t have really intended to push me into the road. And Trevor certainly couldn’t have been aware of what was happening. Regardless of the situation between us now, he wouldn’t want me dead.

  Neither of them would want me dead.

  I mean, I didn’t want them dead, so why would they want me dead?

  “He’s going to faint!” Laurel and Nedda cried in unison.

  I waved them off. “No, no. I’m okay. I’m fine.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did faint,” Nedda said. “If you’d only seen how close those tires came to crushing your head.”

  I swallowed the very bad taste in my mouth.

  “He needs a drink,” Laurel said. “We could all use a drink.”

  We gazed wistfully at the Tudor-style inn a few yards beyond the café. I could make out cheery red awnings over the tops of the tall hedges.

  “We don’t want to go there,” one of the Poes objected. “That’s where they went.”

  In the end, we opted to continue to the café and have lunch as planned, although the way my stomach was roiling I couldn’t imagine eating anything other than Xanax.

  The long tables and wooden chairs of the dining room appeared to be packed with locals and hikers. We appropriated the few remaining tables, shrugging out of our coats and hats and scarves.

  John had arrived a minute or two before us, and Bertie and Edie Poe invited themselves to share the corner he inhabited with the Scherfs and Rices. He did not look thrilled. An organized tour was not the best choice for the non-socially inclined, and observing John’s pained smile as the Poes squeezed in with him, I suspected that John fell in that category.

  The Poes proceeded to relate the story of my near brush with death. Or I assumed that was what the whispers and fingers pointing at the now empty stretch of road meant. John, the Scherfs and the Rices all looked politely shocked, no doubt thinking the sisters exaggerated.

  I tended to think the sisters exaggerated too, now that the initial flood of adrenaline had drained away. The car couldn’t have been as close as it seemed. Vance couldn’t have knocked into me as forcefully as it had felt.

  My hands tingled. I glanced down and studied the scrapes on my palms. My knees felt sore too.

  “You would have been dead if Ben hadn’t been there,” Yvonne said suddenly, as though reading my thoughts. I glanced at her, noticing she still wore her name tag. It was firmly stuck to her green quilted sweater. “He single-handedly snatched you from beneath the tires of that madman.”

  Across the table, Ben met my eyes and cleared his throat.

  “Thank you,” I said. I meant it.

  “Single-handedly?” objected Nedda Kramer. “We all saved Carter.”

  I smiled, noting that I had become “Carter” after nearly becoming a travel statistic. Vance and Trevor and John were still mostly being referred to by their surnames.

  “And I appreciate it,” I said. “A lot. That’s not the way I want to find out more about the NHS.”

  There were a few uneasy chuckles.

  “It might not be the first time one of these trips has ended in tragedy,” Rose piped up. Her expression was meaningful. The Kramers exchanged uncomfortable looks.

  Fortunately, the waitress appeared and further speculation on my close call was postponed while we gave our orders. Having defied death once already that day, I decided to gamble my entire circulatory system and order the steak pie and chips—with a half pint of Watneys to wash it down. Most of the others ordered burgers, fries and cokes, which I thought was a little unadventurous, but maybe they were feeling their way toward total cultural immersion.

  I excused myself to wash my hands and examine the damage to my knees in the lavatory. Scrapes and scratches. Nothing serious. When I got back to the table, the talk had circled back to Vanessa and her works, in particular Pressure Cooker. There was some debate as to whether it lived up to her first standalone, Blink, and then more debate as to whether any of the standalones were as good as the MacKinnon series. Nothing that I hadn’t discussed with fellow readers before, but there was something sort of, well, comforting about being able to talk books and stories with people every bit as obsessive as me.

  When our meals came, that bee in Rose’s bonnet began to buzz again.

  “You know,” she said, wagging a French fry for emphasis, “they made everyone on the last trip sign a nondisclosure.”

  There were a few polite murmurs, but Laurel said, “I don’t think that means anything. We had to sign a nondisclosure when we booked the tour.”

  “But doesn’t that seem suspicious?”

  “No,” said Wally. “It probably has to do with protecting Vanessa. Her intellectual properties, that is. She’s going to talk about writing and maybe what she’s working on now. It makes sense she wouldn’t want all of us to go blabbing all he
r secrets on social media when we get home.”

  “True,” his wife said.

  Rose looked unconvinced.

  I studied her. “Do you really think someone was murdered on the last tour?”

  Her eyes widened. “I didn’t say that.”

  Not in so many words, no. But she seemed to be hinting at it. Or maybe she was just a natural-born gossip girl, and when her love of speculating about other people intersected with her love of mysteries, she wound up seeing crime everywhere. She was probably the talk of her Neighborhood Watch—or the commander.

  “If there had been a murder, we’d have certainly heard about it,” Wally said. “It would have been all over the news.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Ben eyed me curiously. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe there was a murder?”

  “No. Well, who knows? But I do think it’s possible that if something had happened, it could have successfully been hushed up. That’s all. It would make sense to hush it up. Anything else would be terrible for business.”

  Or you would think. Certainly, with the normal tourist, it would be bad for business.

  “Murder will out,” he said.

  I raised my mug in a half salute. “Probably.”

  * * *

  Our allocated ninety minutes for lunch passed very quickly—and pleasantly. A lot more pleasantly than being the victim of a hit-and-run would have been, for sure. Before long we were marching back to the bus.

  When we boarded, I couldn’t help looking to see if Trevor and Vance were already back. There was no sign of either of them, but John dropped into the seat beside me.

  “Hey.”

  I nodded politely.

  His eyes were an unusual shade of brown. Almost pecan in color. I hadn’t noticed before. His nose was straight and his jaw purposeful, his mouth firm and nicely shaped. Yep, he was definitely attractive, and although I’d been thinking I was past any interest in that kind of thing, I couldn’t help feeling an unexpected jolt of awareness.

  “Did Stafford really push you into the path of a speeding car?” John sounded more interested than concerned.

  I groaned softly. “Oh. God.” That explained all the curious looks I was getting from those who hadn’t been in the café with us earlier.

  John was still watching me, waiting for an answer. Maybe, being my roommate, he was worried about the possibility of getting caught in crossfire.

  I began, “They brush—”

  He interrupted, “They? They who?”

  “Trevor and Vance were walking behind the rest of us, and I guess we weren’t moving fast enough because they sort of pushed through, and Vance knocked me into the road.”

  “In front of an oncoming car?”

  I winced. “It wasn’t... I don’t think it was deliberate, if that’s what people are saying. I think I was in the way, and they’re—”

  “They again,” John said.

  I scowled, but he had a point. “Trevor and Vance are already annoyed with me. That’s all. I don’t think it was something they—he—planned. I was just...”

  “In the way,” John finished for me. “Nice. I deduct you and Temple used to be together.”

  “Deduce,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You deduce.” I massaged my forehead. “Sorry. That was rude.”

  “I’d already deduced you and Temple used to be together.” He repeated it matter-of-factly, so at least it was reassuring to know I was not sharing a room with an undeclared homophobe. You never could tell. Prejudice lurked in some unexpected hearts.

  “For about three years. We’ve been split up ten months.”

  He looked taken aback. “You booked this trip after you split up?”

  “God no. Are you kidding? I booked this trip nearly two years ago when there was still a waiting list. I didn’t, er, foresee the future.”

  He thought this over. “I think in your place, I’d have cancelled. You must really love Vanessa Rayburn.”

  “I do. But if I’d had any idea what this was going to be like... Anyway, I really hope people don’t try to turn this into some Big Thing, because it wasn’t like that. Vance bumped against me. It was a split second and it could have been any one of us.” I could hear the earnestness in my tone and I knew I was overexplaining.

  John knew it too because he laughed.

  “I don’t see the humor.”

  “You’re embarrassed at the idea someone tried to kill you. I think that’s funny. Most people would be mad. Or scared. You find it socially awkward.”

  I was exasperated—maybe because there was a little bit of truth to his words. “I’m embarrassed at all the attention this is getting because it was really nothing. He didn’t try to kill me.”

  John looked more polite than convinced. He nodded farewell and shifted seats, settling a couple of rows back, which I found vaguely disappointing. But there were plenty of other people to chat with if I was feeling so sociable.

  Trevor and Vance jogged up a minute or so later. Vance never glanced at me, but Trevor threw me the usual hostile look before flinging himself in the seat next to Vance. Right. I was the one at fault for getting in Vance’s way? Was that his interpretation of events?

  The bus doors closed with a whoosh, and we were off. I stared out the window, but for once the breathtaking scenery left me unmoved. I didn’t see it. Instead, I saw the cavernous treads in those enormous seeming tires headed straight at me...

  I closed my eyes. Willed the image away. No. However it had looked, Vance and Trevor had not tried to get rid of me. Had not tried to murder me. The idea was preposterous. The sole reason the idea had occurred to anyone was because we were mystery aficionados. We were conditioned to see criminality in sheer coincidence. In mystery fiction there are no coincidences.

  Bags of crisps and boxes of biscuits began to travel up and down the aisles. Alison pulled a bottle of whisky from a cupboard in the back of the bus, and strolled up and down, dispensing tiny plastic cups and booze.

  Hamish finally took pity on us and switched out the pipes and drums for traditional country dance music. My heart lightened. In my twenties, I’d taken a few classes in Scottish country dancing—in my twenties, I’d taken a few classes in just about every social enterprise known to man—and the sad truth is hot single guys do not congregate at SCD meetings, despite the allure of kilts and Prince Charlie jackets. Still, listening to the reels, polkas and strathspeys of accordion legend Jimmy Shand did give me some nostalgic moments.

  By the time we made the convenience stop in Carrbridge, the rain was thundering down and the countryside had melted into a watercolor blur of greens. “Forty Shades of Green,” in fact, though that particular song is about Ireland, not Scotland. The bus windows fogged up, and Hamish leaned over the steering wheel as though trying to peer over the engine block to see the road.

  Between the booze and jet lag, people began to nod off for the second time. It was tempting to shut my eyes and put my head back, but once again I fought off the desire to nap, not wanting to miss anything.

  Not that there was much going on.

  Ben and Yvonne had switched places. He stared out the window, his profile impassive. On the aisle seat, Yvonne’s head tipped down as she slept.

  Did they ever split up or were they strictly a package deal? I found Ben sort of interesting, but Yvonne’s constant presence was a definite deterrent to getting to know him better.

  I automatically glanced back at John. He met my eyes, nodded cordially and I nodded back. John was interesting too, but what was his story? I was sure he had one. Insomnia was one thing. I couldn’t help noticing that every time the conversation turned to Vanessa and her work—which was pretty much every time someone opened their mouth—he hadn’t a single word to say.

  The rain continued to beat down a
s we lumbered across the Kessock Bridge onto the Black Isle.

  * * *

  Sooty, purple-smudged evening had fallen when we pulled into the quaint Victorian spa town of Strathpeffer with its pretty cottages and grand manor houses. Many of the cottages were now B&Bs and most of the manor houses were hotels. The village, a scant four miles west of Dingwall, was nestled in rolling green hills and surrounded by dense forest turning autumn gold.

  Alison manned the mic once again, waking some of the heavier sleepers from their dreams.

  “Because of its proximity to Ben Wyvis, Strathpeffer is a well-known and popular destination for mountain climbers. However the town’s real claim to fame is its history as a once-renowned European health resort. Sulfurous springs were discovered in the early-eighteenth century and ailing visitors from all over the continent would travel here to drink mineral from the famous Pump Room.”

  “I’ll stick with my white wine,” Nedda called.

  Everyone laughed. Even after a single day on a bus, we had developed a certain camaraderie. People were taking on character roles. Nedda was the wisecracking New Yorker, Laurel the peacemaker from San Francisco. Yvonne could be counted on to find fault with the arrangements, whatever they were. Rose was our conspiracy theorist.

  Alison smiled too, but she was a woman on a mission. “We’ll be staying at the Ben Wyvis Manor House Hotel for two nights. Dinner is at seven sharp.” She added, in what was clearly a preemptive strike, “Please recall that you made your meal selections earlier this afternoon.

  “Immediately following tonight’s meal, we’ll be treated to an old-fashioned ceilidh, a dance party with entertainment provided by local musicians and storytellers.”

  This was met with a few claps of approval.

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll be touring the village of Strathpeffer, which has a newly renovated grand pavilion and arts performance center. As I’m sure you all recall, the body of folk singer Joan Kent, the first victim in Natural Remedy, was discovered in the pavilion during a Celtic music festival. What you might not know is Vanessa previously used this locale in one of the very early MacKinnon books. The village of Hichwhich in The Cure for Wellness is based on the town of Strathpeffer.”