The Blue Hackle by Lillian Stewart Carl Page B

didn’t
have to add, like I did . Jean had been there at the slow
fizzle and sudden flare of the embers.
    She murmured, “He wasn’t as likely to be
committed as you. You know, institutionalized?”
    Doing her the courtesy of ignoring the bad
joke, Alasdair peered out into the gloom.
    “The murder had to have been premeditated,”
she told his back. “It wasn’t suicide—knives don’t get up and walk
away. It wasn’t an accident—oops, I didn’t mean to kill him, I was
just cleaning my knife and it went off. And I don’t see how twenty
minutes could be long enough to generate a crime of passion, you
know, the argument, the shoving match, the weapon drawn.”
    His reflected expression was both bemused and
amused. “You’re making bricks without straw, Jean. Mind you, I’m
agreeing with you, for the most part. Greg meant to meet someone at
the church. Whether that someone is the murderer, or knows who the
murderer is, we’ll be seeing. It’s possible he killed himself and
the someone took away the knife, but without further evidence, I’m
thinking there’s no need to go complicating matters any further
than they already are. As for an argument, well, some arguments
fester for centuries.”
    Putting rings on each other’s fingers and
daggers in each other’s hearts . Yeah, she’d had to say that,
hadn’t she? But free association was her specialty. So was color
commentary. “There aren’t too many arguments festering on this side
of the Irish Sea, not fatal ones, anyway, not any more.”
    “When we know the why,” said Alasdair, “then
we’ll know the who.”
    She smiled at him saying “when” rather than
“if.” “And when we know the who, then we’ll know the why.”
    “Oh aye.” He looked around and up. At first
Jean thought he was again considering Fergie’s painting, an
interpretation of the legend of St. Michael and the dragon.
Archangel and beast were entwined in mortal and gaudy combat,
silver lance against green scales, both splashed with crimson.
Michael’s helmeted face might look like a canned potato and his
lance like a ray gun, but Fergie’s figures had a blocky integrity,
and his design was quite nice, dragon and man resembling a knotwork
figure from the Book of Kells.
    But Alasdair hadn’t turned art critic; he was
looking at the small, ornate clock. “It’s going on for five.
Portree should be arriving soon. Gilnockie, though, he’s got a long
road.”
    “Only a Brit would think that less than a
hundred-and-fifty miles was a long road.” Jean visualized the route
south along Loch Ness, then west past Eilean Donan Castle of a
million postcards and calendars, over the Skye Bridge and across
almost the entire island. “The roads are all two-lane, no
single-tracks until you’re past Dunvegan, and the odds of getting
behind a caravan/camper trailer or tour bus are next to nothing
this time of year.”
    “In daylight and fine weather,” he replied,
“you could be driving the route in maybe three, three and a half
hours. In the dark and wet, well, he’ll likely be here by nine,
depending on how long he’s spent assembling his team.”
    As though summoned by his words, another set
of headlights flashed beyond the window. Alasdair spun around like
a cat spotting a canary and Jean trotted to his side. Two vehicles
materialized in the glow of lights from the house and stopped
beside the Krums’ SUV that still sat in the middle of the gravel
parking area.
    A patrol car and a small panel van disgorged
assorted human figures, which donned reflective canary-colored
jackets and fired up flashlights. The cavalry might be arriving,
but from here it looked more like the circus.
    The clock on the mantel emitted a tinny,
tinkly version of the Westminster chimes and struck five times.
From somewhere in the house a deeper version of the same was
followed by the two sonorous notes of a doorbell. “Now it’s decided
to start working again,” Jean said.
    “You’re not in the hall