Swan Song Read online

  He kicked off his shoes and brought his legs up, resting his calves on the coffee table. The sun beckoned him to lay back and nap, forget his tired body for a while. But the mantle clock struck the half hour and prodded him to get on with his day. Swinging his legs down, he pushed up the sleeves on his blue T-shirt. Napping was no way to earn a living—either as a mender of dry stonewalls or as a private investigator.

  He encompassed the mug in his large hands, not needing the warmth, exactly, but the heat penetrated his stiff muscles. Work on the top course of a stone wall in Bamford had strained his hands and back. Strained his patience, too. A restlessness like he hadn’t known for months settled on him with the weight of a boulder. Had dry stonewall work ceased to absorb him? Did the lure of police work, even as remote as turning private investigator, now beckon him?

  He drained the last of his coffee and put down the mug as he punched the PLAY button again and listened to the message a third time. Perhaps it had been best that he had been out early in Kirkfield. If he had taken the call when she phoned he might have snapped at her, alienating her just as they were getting back together. Replaying the message like this…well, it had given him time to think it over.

  The sound of talking, laughter and music came up first, then Dena’s excited words pushed the noise into the background. Her tone wobbled a bit as her mobile phone cut out briefly; then her voice rushed to him, enthusiastic and strong.

  “Michael, I’m here at Tutbury Castle, in Staffordshire, with your sister and Jerry. We’re taking in the Minstrels Court festivity…”

  He paused the playback, letting his mind catch up to the rush of words. The Minstrels Court. An eight-day event styled in the medieval mode, featuring all the fun and frolic of 15th century living. Heavy on the music. Tutbury Castle added the authentic and dramatic backdrop. He hit the PLAY button on the machine again and Dena’s voice sang to him. “…if you remember the death of that singer last year—I know you weren’t in the job then, but I thought… Well, I thought you’d be intrigued by the case, being as it’s a musician and an unsolved death.”

  Despite his reservations, McLaren leaned forward and concentrated on Dena’s words. The background noise swelled and he frowned, exasperated that some of her words were obliterated. After several seconds her voice came through again.

  “…last July. I guess I feel close to this—well, upset, actually—because he lived in Kirkfield, too. I’ll ask a few people here if they remember anything about his last appearance here and talk to you later about this. Love.”

  The message clicked off with an annoying beep, rousing McLaren from his mental image of Dena taking notes from an armor-clad jouster on horseback. He raked his fingers through his short-cropped blond hair, sat back in his chair and sighed. Of course he had quit the police by then, but he still recalled the case. From the newspaper accounts and the regional TV news, from what few facts he could glean from the sensational speculation coloring the account. From Jamie Kydd, his mate in and out of the police force. Of course he remembered the case. But he wasn’t getting involved in another investigation. He was off the job.

  He grabbed the mug, wandered into the kitchen, poured himself another cup of coffee, and walked over to the window looking into the back garden. The mist had lifted hours ago, the film of moisture on the dry stone wall marking the boundary of his land had evaporated in the suffocating heat. It would only worsen, McLaren thought as he gazed heavenward, for the sun had already cleared the top of the willow and consumed the sky with its brilliance. The cloudless expanse of blue would offer no relief from the summer temperature, nor would there be much respite in the shade if the thermometer climbed much more.

  A breath of wind, hot and dry from its wandering across the parched fields, nudged the stalks of foxglove planted along the front of the stone wall. A ripple of purple, lilac, and pink. Foxglove. Fairy Cap. Fairy Bells. Fairy Thimbles. Numerous whimsical names for a beautiful, deadly plant. Hadn’t that man, the one whom Dena is urging me to investigate, died from a plant poisoning? Had it been foxglove?

  So what if it had been, he reminded himself, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. I’m not a ruddy copper anymore. What do I care? What do I think I can accomplish when the lads from CID tried and failed?

  The flowers waved at him, as if beckoning him. Did they know about the man’s death? Did they know about poison? It would be so easy with that plant, McLaren thought, for all parts of it are toxic. Easy to think the flowers would look nice in a fresh salad. He stared at the mass of color, bent at an angle and revealing the wall. For some reason, he was putting off his work. And he had plenty to do. Finish the Bamford job, a patch this side of Castleton, trailing up the steep Winnats mountain pass, a repair of the top course outside Elton, a new section to construct at a farm near Hartington.

  But stonework could not satisfy him today. He was impatient, unable to concentrate, though he didn’t know why. Normally he loved the solitude of dry stonewall work, sweating out his thoughts and problems with the backbreaking labor. He had grown used to hour after hour under the sun, rain and wind, sweating or chilled as the day dictated; his skin shone with the tan of the outdoors laborer, his hazel eyes threw back the golden glints of the sun. He had the physique for the work, too—tall and slim-hipped, with shoulders as hard and developed as some of the rocks he shifted. But he had no wish to apply his muscle to the stones today. He exhaled sharply, his gaze still on the wall in his garden. Was it due to Dena’s message? Was that why he’d been in the wood early this morning looking at the site where the body had been found, instead of on the wind-swept hill in Castleton?

  He set down his coffee, wandered into the front room, and grabbed his guitar, a Martin 12-string. He sat down, pulled the flat pick from its resting spot—interlaced between the sixth and fifth course of strings—and clamped the pick between his teeth. The strings vibrated from the disturbance and set up sympathetic echoes from their neighbors. Angling the curved side of the guitar across his right thigh, he slowly thumped each string as he tuned. High E’s tuned in unison to the low E’s, octave Ds second fretted to the high E, Bs third fretted to the D. The steel string squawked as McLaren turned the polished chrome tuning peg, tightening the string as he lowered his head over the sound hole to hear the faint overtones dancing in the air. Halfway through he stopped, his finger resting on the B string as a phrase stirred in his mind. “Kent Harrison might have ingested some poisonous plant and, given time, might have died of it, but he died of strangulation.”

  McLaren’s right hand slid onto his lap. If Kent Harrison was being poisoned, why strangle him? Because the killer couldn’t wait for the poison to take effect? Because some event happened or was about to happen that required Harrison to die sooner? Or were two people wanting Kent Harrison’s demise?

  FOUR

  “You knew Kent Harrison, Dena?” Gwen’s question squeaked into the air.

  Jerry snapped his fingers as the name pulled some recognition from his memory. “Kent Harrison. Sure! That minstrel fellow. The folk singer. You know,” he snorted when Gwen’s face registered nothing but confusion. “The folkies dubbed him Cygnus and some other names due to that song he sang. Oh, you know,” he snapped, clearly exasperated by now. “That Swan Song. A take-off on The Bird Song.” He sighed as Gwen suddenly nodded. “The swan song that has those back and forth verses from the male and female swans.”

  “Cob and pen,” Gwen corrected, liking correct terminology in nouns.

  “Male and female…cob and pen. The song was a huge hit. The bloke was famous.”

  “Too bad such a talent died,” Gwen agreed. “And you knew him.” She turned again to Dena.

  “Not well,” Dena said. “Not as a friend. Just knew of him, saw him around the village. You know.” She gave a half smile, conveying the nodding acquaintance she had.

  “Even so…” Gwen grimaced.

  “Bad enough,” Jerry agreed. He eyed the beer in a passer-by’s hand and ran the tip of his tongue over
his dry lips. “Is that why you want Mike to investigate? He knew the bloke also?”

  “I don’t think he knew Kent. At least…” Dena screwed up her mouth, trying to associate the two men together. “They both like music, so I’m not completely sure.”

  “Kent also had a folk signing group?” Gwen said. “They could have met at a festival or at a pub, you’re thinking?” She had been to enough folk festivals and open mike nights at pubs to know the music world was small—at least the world of traditional folk. Even if group members didn’t flow from one band to another, they knew each other. Knew of each other: voice range, instrument played, musicianship, temperament. Qualities important in determining employment in a band. Qualities that placed you in ‘backup’ or ‘lead.’

  “I honestly don’t know, but I thought that shared love might draw Michael into the case.” She said it partly in exasperation, partly in hope, silently praying this case would set him firmly and finally among his friends again.

  They had left the archery field and its blast of heat. The field had been set up in front of the South Range, a section that housed the great hall and the former royal apartments when John of Gaunt had poured his wealth into the castle in the mid 1300s. Now, on the other side of the great hall’s doorway, they strolled through the avenue of booths, striped fabric tents housing all manner of medieval wares. Scents of spices, dried herbs and fried meat pies, and cries of vendors hawking their wares, crowded the air. And music. A snatch of “When Morning is Breaking”—the old Welsh air “Pan Gyryd Yr Heulwen.” The field flowers drooping, as fast fades the light, give warning foreboding, the sadness of night. The song jarred something in Dena’s mind.

  “The police think Kent was killed that night, when he returned from the Minstrel’s Court.” She stopped, the music, the castle’s festival and the date suddenly shaking her confidence. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to blow the dust off this case, to entice Michael into abandoning his stonework for another jaunt into cold case investigation. He was no longer a cop, he repeatedly reminded her. His police detective commendations were packed away, as was his ambition. Great, empty places on the walls of his back room mutely stated that fact if Michael forgot to mention it. Why did she want to yank him out of his contentment and open up a case that neither Kent’s family nor friends were anxious to re-examine? Because it was her belief that Michael wasn’t content mending dry stone walls, that despite his pasted-on smile he was drawn to the siren song of police work and ached with his whole being to be back in the job? She gazed at the row of colorful tents and said, “At least the castle’s curator and a few people at the performance stage recall Kent packing up his guitar and walking to his car that night. No one in my village recalls him arriving home, though. Of course, it could easily be an instance of familiarity. You know…you always see and hear the car so you don’t notice it unless it’s out of the ordinary.”

  “And that’s where Mike comes into the picture,” Jerry added. “You think he’ll be able to solve this where the police failed.” He sniffed as though the suggestion itself stank. Or was too ludicrous to dignify words. “First you’ve got to tear him away from his stones and tools. Then you’ve got to make him listen to you. Seriously listen, I mean. Third, you’ve got to interest him. I don’t know which is the hardest. Any part of this is nearly impossible.” He batted at a fly buzzing around his head. Probably how he’ll view this whole thing, Jerry thought. Dena as a buzzing, insistent fly.

  “That other woman did it last month,” Gwen reminded him. “What was her name—Linnet?” She sighed, exasperated with her faulty memory. “You know…the woman who was the victim’s friend—”

  “Yeah, she was. She talked to him and got him to investigate. And look what happened.”

  “He solved the case!”

  “He nearly died,” Jerry countered, looking around for the beer vendor. My face must be as red as Gwen’s blouse, he thought, and pulled at the limp neckline of his tee shirt. “Or is your memory selective and you’ve forgotten the attack?”

  “I remember,” Gwen sniffed. “But I also remember how Mike changed once he got back into investigating that cold case, how he became a thinking, feeling human being again, not some near-hermit who grunted at most people. When he deemed to answer you at all.” She grabbed Dena’s hand, squeezing it as though the pressure underscored her words. “Go ahead, Dena. Mention the case to Mike. Bring in the music aspect, if that will lure him into investigating it. I’ll do anything I can to help, short of telling him I urged you to do it. And you,” she added as Jerry reached into his jeans pocket, “don’t you dare ring him up and warn him.”

  “Me!” The high pitch of his voice implied his astonishment. “I hadn’t the foggiest. But since you mention it…”

  “You were reaching for your mobile phone, weren’t you?” She grabbed his wrist while Jerry withdrew his hand from his pocket. His car key dangled from his fingers. “I apologize.”

  “Not guilty. As always.”

  “Yeah, well—” She broke off as they came to the section of food booths. Each booth was dramatically decorated in vivid colors, long pendants and brightly painted signs. Vendors in a variety of medieval dress—tunics, doublets, tights, bell-sleeved gowns, feathered caps mimicking the hues of peacock feathers and sunsets—called out their wares to everyone and no one in particular. Gwen hesitated at an herbalist booth while Jerry dawdled at the jewelry booth opposite.

  “Earth Child Herbs. Blossom Armitage, Herbalist,” Gwen murmured, slowly reading the sign. Large and metallic, the lavender, pale blue and yellow rectangle caught the late morning sun’s rays and threw them back onto the south tower’s rock face. Bouquets of wild flowers were tied to the tent’s corners, the satin ribbons flapping in the breeze. “Did you talk to everyone you wanted to?” Gwen said, her eyes still on the sign. “You had said something about preliminary questioning so you could tell Mike…” She eyed Dena, still confused about why they were all there and why Dena was playing at detective.

  “So I can tell Michael,” she said, finishing Gwen’s statement, “some basic facts of the case, what some of the more involved people have to say about it. Then, when I talk to Michael, I can dangle these bits before him and he’ll take the case!” She smiled, confident of her technique and of McLaren’s response.

  “And you want him to investigate this because?”

  “Because despite last month’s successful reappearance among us and society, Michael is still on the Danger list. He isn’t one hundred percent cured of his depression, and I don’t want him slipping back into that hopelessness and never coming out, never being that warm, funny, caring man we love.” She finished her statement and pressed her lips together, as though it were the definitive argument and couldn’t be challenged. Staring at Gwen, she silently looked for agreement.

  “So, by learning a few things from some people,” Gwen said hesitantly, “you believe that will intrigue Mike enough to take the case and continue taking cases as they spring up.”

  “Bringing him back to us and keeping him well.”

  Gwen made a funny movement with her eyebrows and mouth, as if saying “I guess we’ll see.” Then, thinking she should encourage Dena’s effort, added, “It would be wonderful if it works. I’m worried about Mike’s depression.”

  “So am I. Which is why I’m talking to a few people. Oh, nothing major. Not like a real investigation. But if I could just learn a few things that would interest him…” She paused, suddenly looking doubtful if she could do it.

  “Well, all I can say is good luck. God knows we all want Mike back with us—mentally, physically and emotionally. Are we finished here, then?”

  “I think I got to the vendors who were here last year,” Dena said. “A bunch of people are new to the Minstrels Court this year, so they wouldn’t know anything. No, I’ve done all I can do, I guess.”

  “You spoke to the woman in this booth, I assume.”

  “One of the… Oh, no.” She glanced at the woma
n standing behind the display table. “Someone else was here when I came by. Carpe diem, I guess.” Dena walked up to the woman, who seemed to be a confusion of long scarves and silver jewelry, and introduced herself. “This may seem like a strange question,” she began as the woman’s smile faltered in her confusion. “But I was wondering if you were here last year, at the Minstrels Court.”

  “I come every year.” The speaker’s voice, melodious and smooth, matched her flawless complexion and silky dark hair. “Did you purchase something last year that you don’t see displayed? Can I help you find something? Lavender sachet, lemon pomander, or perhaps mint vinegar? I use only natural ingredients in all my products.” She picked up a brochure and held it so that Dena could read it. The cover sported a large illuminated initial and watercolors of various flowers. “I claim no medical cures. In fact, I discourage the use of my products for anything more serious than first aid. But in cooking or massage therapy, my herbs and spices…”

  “No, I’m sorry. Nothing like that. It’s about someone you might have known. Or at least seen.”

  “Someone who was here last year?” The woman slowly returned the brochure to the stack on the table. “Another vendor here?”