Swan Song Read online

  Swan Song

  by Jo A. Hiestand

  Published by L&L Dreamspell

  London, Texas

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

  Copyright 2011 by Jo A. Hiestand

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in a review.

  This is a work of fiction, and is produced from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real people is a coincidence. Places and things mentioned in this novel are used in a fictional manner.

  ISBN- 978-1-60318-309-3

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  Published by L & L Dreamspell

  Produced in the United States of America

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

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  ACCOLADES FOR SWAN SONG

  “Swan Song is another victory for Jo Hiestand. Well constructed, this murder mystery has all the twists and turns of a really good novel whilst managing to catch the very essence of Tutbury Castle and the area. Jo even manages to capture the competitive edge that can exist between Curators sometimes!”

  - Lesley Smith, Curator, Tutbury Castle

  “With Swan Song, Jo Hiestand once again moves closer to the front of the class in the British mystery field. Her Michael McLaren seems to occupy an area between the glens of M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth and the labyrinth plots rippling through Louise Penny’s Three Pines Village. McLaren’s stubborn but relentless nature, coupled with the twisting and turning human landscape, create exactly what this genre calls for when mixed with a charming English setting. Then add multiple motivations to some well drawn suspects and wrap them around fun subjectsmusic, castles and fairsto create the perfect anglophile confection.” - Ed King, owner of Big Sleep Books, St. Louis MO

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Accolades to Leslie Smith, Curator of Tutbury Castle, for supplying information and inspiration, and for enthusiastically answering my endless questions about the castle’s layout, history and events. Also to Charlotte Pietrzak, Tutbury Castle, for supplying visual help and answers. Thanks to Dr. Gareth Williams, of the British Museum, for help in hunting down Tutbury Castle maps. A doff of my hat to Dr. Ruth Anker for aiding me in dispatching our victim. My deepest gratitude and friendship, as always, to Detective-Sergeant Robert Church, Derbyshire Constabulary, and Detective-Superintendent David Doxey, Derbyshire Constabulary (ret.), for unlimited, untiring expert help in detection, proper procedure and forensics. And accolades to Paul Hornung, St. Louis-area police officer, who returned the new and improved manuscript amid arresting a bad guy. This book could not have been written without any of these professionals’ help, to whom I most sincerely thank in a most inadequate manner.

  To Paul Davenport for his musical help. Thanks. Thanks also to Lisa and Linda of L&L Dreamspell, who believed in McLaren and gave him another appearance. And to Cindy Davis, editor extraordinaire.

  I apologize for any mistakes that may have crept into the story, but they are solely mine.

  Jo A. Hiestand

  St Louis, MO.

  March 2011

  DEDICATION

  To Paul, in gratitude for keeping Dena’s ordeal real and McLaren’s reactions believable.

  To David, in thankfulness for your comment about McLaren’s personality, and for prompting me to steer him back to his old self. I still don’t know how he wandered.

  To Chris, in appreciation for helping me think through the pages of mess and finding a way out of the morass.

  Author’s Note: Tutbury Castle is real, of course, and is home to many activities throughout the year, thanks to castle curator Leslie Smith’s hard work. Since ‘story,’ as well as murder, is all about conflict, I set up conflict between two grand structures and their curators. Rawlton Hall does not exist except in my mind. I have patterned it after many such places I’ve visited.

  “The Swans’ Courtships” is my creation. I wrote the lyrics based on traditional verses from “The Bird Song,” a folk song contained in the classic collection of Child Ballads. Paul Davenport tweaked the lyrics into the proper style for the period. He also added the chorus and found the tune “The Turpin Hero,” which fits the lyrics quite well. Paul and his wife, Liz, have recorded “The Swans’ Courtships” on a CD, just for this novel.

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  Characters

  Kent Harrison: music teacher and folk singer

  Sheri Harrison: Kent’s ex-wife, tour guide at Tutbury Castle

  Fay Larkin: Kent’s girl friend, receptionist in doctor’s office

  Beatrice “Blossom” Armitage: Herbalist/natural foods seller

  Clark MacKay: Curator at Tutbury Castle

  Ellen Fairfield: Curator at Rawlton Hall

  Adrian Galloway: President of local Kent Harrison fan club

  Aaron Unsworth: Kent’s neighbor, chef at restaurant

  Fraser Unsworth: Aaron’s teenaged son

  Dave Morley: Kent’s singing partner, clerk in a music store

  Hart Pennell: Kent’s colleague, a history teacher

  Ron Brennan: Kent’s neighbor, a history teacher

  Lorene Guard: Kent’s student at school

  Booth Wragg: Lorene’s boyfriend

  Michael McLaren: former police detective, Staffordshire Constabulary

  Jamie Kydd: friend and police constable, Derbyshire Constabulary

  Dena Ellison: McLaren’s girlfriend

  Gwen Hulme: McLaren’s sister

  Jerry Hulme: Gwen’s husband

  Cheryl Kerrigan: Home Office forensic pathologist

  Dr. Cody Raymond: entomologist, Manchester University

  ONE

  The mist had lifted slightly, bringing a defining shape to the blur of dark forms deeper within the damp grayness. Clumps of grass—wavy hair-grass and toad rush—poked out of the haze, waist high and sun bleached to a deathly paleness, the rigid stems and fuzzy seed heads dotted with dew and rustling softly in the morning breeze. A birch eased out of the obscurity as McLaren stepped into the wood. The mist lay thicker here, as though caged or entangled in tree branches and grasses, and McLaren fell against the birch trunk as he tripped over a tree root. He pushed himself upright, cursing his clumsiness and the early hour, and walked deeper into the wood. Seconds later he saw the boulder. And the depression where the body had lain.

  McLaren stood in front of the stone, taking in the landscape, imagining the scene as it might have been one year ago. Snippets of television news items flashed in his mind’s eye—white male, 45 years old, local music teacher, last seen wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, last seen at the Minstrels Court, last seen carrying a guitar case, last seen carrying a cello case, last seen carrying a dark rucksack, last seen in a late model Land Rover, last seen in a used Range Rover, last seen talking to the castle’s curator, last seen talking to a young female fan, last seen talking to his fiancée. Last seen…last seen…

  Last seen in the wood near Kirkfield. Dead.

  Crouched over and walking carefully, he examined the ground as though he were once more a police constable carrying out a scene of crime search, his fingertips probing among the leaf litter, vegetation and fallen twigs covering the forest floor. Minutes slid away as he pulled up grass and tossed aside branches. At the base of the boulder he shone his torch. Even in the early light of dawn its bright beam threw dense, dark shadows across the ground, stretching the blackness until it blended with the gloom beyond the stone. Again he prodded the grass to yield something significant, but nothing surrendered to his persistence. Eventually, he stood up, his back and hands sore. He stretc
hed and flexed his fingers, snapped off the torch, then wandered a few steps from the boulder. He stood there, viewing the scene from a different angle.

  The car track, hardly more than two ruts of bare soil, barely visible in the enthusiastic short grass of the verge, widened on its eastward journey as it approached the village, angling uphill before disappearing among the cliff faces and trees. But here, at the western end of Kirkfield, it had dwindled into a single-lane footpath nearly choked with Queen Anne’s lace and thistles. It merged with the forest floor on the far side of the boulder. As though the rock were a popular destination.

  But why had the body been here? Why hundreds of yards from his house? Had he met someone at the boulder? Perhaps, but unlikely. The medical report had stated the victim had been moved and placed here. So again the question: why here?

  How long McLaren stood there, he couldn’t have said later. He found himself at times both an onlooker and participant in the processing of the scene, a stranger viewing the scene as from treetop level and as police detective. Lights flashed—police work lamps, camera strobes, torch beams, car headlights, ambulance lights. Sounds familiar and mesmerizing echoed in his ears—police sirens, car doors slamming, twigs snapping, spoken orders, irreverent jokes. The sights and sounds pulled him into the scene with the intensity of a police investigation. He felt nothing, saw and heard nothing but the shimmering scene before him. Was that his partner’s voice or Harvester’s?

  A woodpecker tattooed its presence from a dead tree and the percussion jerked McLaren from the trance. He lifted his trembling hand to his forehead, suddenly aware of the sweat and his racing heart. As the police lights faded under the sunlight cresting an oak bough, the body sank back into the shadows, the white work suits receded into the mist. McLaren shook off the siren’s wail and walked back to his car.

  TWO

  The last contestant picked up his long bow, his hand caressing the polished wood as though feeling something foreign. Or recalling something from his past. Some other time, when he had raised his bow and released an arrow. Perhaps in fear. Perhaps he had, if one believed in past lives. Perhaps he had inherited his ancestor’s genes, his ancestor—one of the English archers who had routed the French at the battle of Agincourt. 1415. Nearly six hundred years ago. How many lifetimes was that? Had his ancestor taken down many of the enemy, part of King Henry V’s 7,000 English against 36,000 French, or been slain himself? How good a marksman had he been? He squinted at the target, its colors vibrant in the unmasked sun and tugged at the neckline of his shirt, already damp from summer heat and perspiration. How good a marksman am I? Good enough for this? Good enough to kill, as at Agincourt, if I have to?

  A wave of heat rose from the flattened grass underfoot, smelling of dry grass and parched earth. A smell common to every part of Tutbury Castle today. The contestant squinted at the target, a near mirage in the desiccated air. Slowly drawing his sleeve across his forehead, he wondered if the discomfort was worth it.

  He slid his hand carefully over the bow’s upper limb before he notched the arrow. As though invoking his ancestor’s help he briefly closed his eyes before his left thumb stroked the cock feather, smoothing away any slight ruffle in the otherwise smooth surface. Slowly he turned the bow and brought it upright, vertical to the ground. Drawing the string back, he sighted along the arrow’s shaft at his target, one hundred yards distant, and paused. A drop of sweat collected in the corner of his eye before meandering down his neck to soak into his heavy doublet. He tried to ignore the morning sun and the flies and the crowd’s noise, tried to see the target, tried to concentrate.

  “What’s the matter? Why’s he taking so long?” Questions circled the castle’s assemblage and floated upwind to crest the castle towers. Several in the crowd grew restless at the lull in the action and drifted away to view the more energetic, faster action of sword, mace and axe combat. Others glanced at their watches or consulted their booklets to see if they’d miss the jousting tournament held in the upper car park. Some ambled off to quench their summer thirst at one of the fair booths selling cool refreshment. Still others hazarded answers from “he’s not got the strength to shoot again” to “the target’s too far away for such a small man.”

  One man in the group of onlookers, though, wasn’t concerned or concentrating on the archery contest. He glanced at the north tower, standing sentinel-like beyond the castle’s entry gate, ignoring the cheer of the crowd as the archer’s arrow hit the gold of the target. “So, where was the body found? Actually here at the castle?” He could believe it. The place held that sort of feeling, at least for him. Stone ruins, turrets, legends of ghosts. Who knew how many murders and deaths had occurred within Tutbury Castle’s stone walls? Hundreds, considering the place’s long life. He bent down and plucked a piece of grass and wrapped it around his index finger. It felt solid enough; the main hall and towers were solid enough, but what images presented themselves on moonlit nights?

  He vaguely remembered the tale of Mary, Queen of Scots, housed here for part of her long imprisonment. It had been nothing more than schoolbook history when he’d first heard it as a lad; then it took on soul-shaking reality when they’d heard the stories that morning in the castle’s courtyard. Of course, all castles seemed to have their own White Ladies or Keepers or Phantom Drummer Boys, but there was something about this place, especially at dusk, that you couldn’t laugh off as mere tourist clap.

  His eyes shifted again to the jagged edge of the tower and he squinted at the dark slit higher up the tower’s length. What horrors had Mary suffered when she’d found one of her priests hanging outside that window, swaying like a chunk of meat in the wind? He closed his eyes but the image stayed in his mind.

  The man’s sister stared at the fragment of tower to their left, a remnant of the castle’s glory days. “I don’t know where he was found, Jerry. You’ll have to ask Dena. All this was her idea.” The speaker, Gwen Hulme, looked at her husband and shrugged. She picked up the hem of the cotton blouse she wore, already damp from her perspiration, and waved it slightly. Even if it was warm, the breath of air felt good on her clammy midriff. “Speaking of which…where is Dena? I thought she was with us.”

  Jerry glanced at the tower, uncertain if the swinging man was really there or his imagination had rigged up the sight. “I think she left us—or we lost her—at that herbal booth. I didn’t know Dena went in for natural health stuff.”

  “I think she was just talking to the attendant.”

  “Oh.” He left unsaid his feelings on the subject. Trying to get his brother-in-law interested in another cold murder case would probably produce more animosity than enthusiasm. Jerry’s head turned toward the archers as the crowd cheered the awarding of the trophies. Still, he thought, letting the piece of grass drift to the ground, that cold case last month had pried Mike out of his protective shell, started him back on the path to becoming human again.

  “Call off the bloodhounds, Jerry. Here she is.” Gwen released her blouse to grab his arm as she waved to the woman approaching them through the dispersing crowd. While most everyone else, including Gwen, felt as wilted and blistered as they looked, the newcomer kept the just-showered air of early morning. Her short skirt and scoop-necked blouse appeared crisp and breezy.

  “Where? Are you sure?” His gaze lighted on every brown-haired woman walking toward him. Finally discerning Dena’s coppery brunette hair, he muttered, “Smashing. We don’t have to get lost trying to find her.”

  “Quiet.” She gave Jerry a light punch in the arm, then quickly scratched her head, hoping the movement looked natural. “Dena. We were about to start a search of the grounds, but Jerry wanted to give you another hour.” She smiled, hoping she had camouflaged Jerry’s irritation.

  “Sorry. I was longer than I thought I’d be. You ready to go?” Dena looked inquisitively at Gwen, noticing the quick, silent exchange she gave Jerry. Have I interrupted a family squabble, or did I burst in upon some dark secret?

  �
�I guess so. Unless you want to see the jousting, Jerry.”

  “Not particularly,” Jerry said. “Unless you’d like a beer or early lunch or something.” Perhaps the July heat was getting to him; why wasn’t anyone concerned about the man hanging from the tower?

  “I’m fine,” Gwen said, getting back to the subject. “We were wondering where that man died last year, Dena. Jerry asked if it was here at the castle, but I couldn’t recall. Do you, Dena?”

  “Yes.” Her tone slid from her earlier determination to pain as she recalled the incident. Unjust in its choice of victim, unjust how he died. Dena sought Gwen’s eye, needing to read a tacit bond of understanding. Her voice quavered slightly as she said, “Which is why I want Michael to investigate. The man died in my village. I knew him.”

  THREE

  Michael McLaren never knew a day that had warmed so quickly. The drive back from Kirkfield had been a pleasant break in the drenching heat, the wind rushing through the car’s open window and fanning his sweaty face. But now, back home, the heat returned with a vengeance. A lazy breeze wandered through the front room’s open window, managed to stir the edge of the curtain as it passed, but did little to eliminate the stuffiness of the room. He raked his fingers through his hair, pulling the damp locks upward so the breeze could cool his scalp. Nothing he did made much difference—he was still hot. Surrendering to the heat, he took a sip of coffee as he replayed the message left on his answering machine. Dena’s voice was enthusiastic. Underscored with a bit of pleading. Nice touch. Just so it didn’t turn to flattery.

  A shaft of sunlight fell upon him, angling across his back, shoulder and lap to the area rug at his feet. The floral pattern in brown, tan and blue had faded over the years, sitting exposed to the eastern light. His parents had bought the rug as their anniversary gift—seventh, for wool. Jokingly referred to as the gift that would outlive them. On buying and moving into his parents’ home, McLaren had considered replacing the worn rug, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not so soon after reclaiming the family farm. He noted the browns, blues, and greens of the upholstery and curtains, how each piece and color flattered each other, and remembered the lengthy family discussions when considering each purchase. But in the end it had been his mother who chose everything. Her artist’s eye never failed. And now, sitting in the sunlit room, McLaren felt the warmth of the memories and the nearness of his parents.