Free The Avalon Chanter by Lillian Stewart Carl Page A

chapel, he grudgingly
pivoted aside, like a rusty turnstile. There was Crawford—no, Jean
corrected herself, the male shape a head taller than Grinsell wore
a suit beneath his reflective coat, not a uniform. Whoever he was,
Grinsell favored him with an even slower pivot and a dismissive
gesture as well.
    A scrape of footsteps made her jerk around.
Niamh hurried along the road toward Gow House. The front door
opened and Maggie stepped out onto the porch. Onto the stage. She
stood motionless as the younger woman brushed by her and vanished
into the house. If either of them spoke, Maggie asking Tara’s
whereabouts, for example, Jean didn’t hear.
    “ Poor Maggie, getting reacquainted with
police procedure,” she told Alasdair.
    “ It’s no crime finding a body. You and
me, we’d be banged up good and proper if it were so. Concealing the
discovery, now, for how long and why . . .”
    “ That’s the issue,” Jean finished for
him.
    Steps on her other side almost gave her
whiplash. But the rounded male figure, light shimmering on his bald
head, was Hugh Munro, now accompanied by a stocky, black-haired man
wearing a kilt. Where had she seen . . . Oh, yes. He was the piper
who’d been conducting a class on the doorstep of the music
school.
    “ There you are.” Hugh paused to catch
his breath. “I’ve just come across Hector here, setting out for the
hostel and amazed to find the polis have landed.”
    “ Almost missed the whole thing,” said
Hector’s mild voice from the darkness. “I thought Farnaby was going
to be the boondocks, you know, quiet as the grave. I guess
not.”
    Jean choked back a gurgle—quiet as the grave,
yeah, right—and introduced herself and Alasdair, adding, “It sounds
like you’re from the same part of the world I am.”
    “ Santa Fe, New Mexico,” he said.
“Hector Cruz, piper.”
    “ He’s the school’s other
artist-in-residence the week,” Hugh added. “A McCrimmon on his
mother’s side. The Scots, they got around.”
    “ ‘ The Rovin’ Dies Hard.’ ” Hector
offered the name of Hugh’s classic song with its chorus about
Fortune dealing the Scots the wildest of cards.
    Jean connected with the extended hand of
Hugh’s “Spanish influence,” as he’d joked in the pub when she
misheard Niamh’s name. Then she passed his hand over to Alasdair,
who shook politely, even as he craned past Hector’s broad shoulder
toward the chapel. He’d never gotten the hang of being a gawper, a
looky-loo, rather than an investigating officer.
    The wind had stilled, and an almost
transparent mist veiled the priory—the accumulated breaths of the
spectators, Jean assumed, although the air seemed to be thickening
behind her as well as before her. If it weren’t for the flaring and
retreating beams of light, the bare ruined choir would be
invisible.
    She stepped closer to Alasdair. Her arm
brushed the cold, damp metal of the Land Rover and a chill rippled
up her spine—whoa—that chill was paranormal as well as natural . .
. No. The ghost, the spirit was no more than a hint, and quickly
gone.
    An inhabited body pushed its way through the
watchers, accompanied by a reflective jacket. A nasal, acid voice
announced, “I’m in charge here. I’m wanting a car. No good going
about shanks’s mare and falling into every pothole—typical
villagers, lazy sods can’t be bothered maintaining the roads.”
    An indignant murmur percolated through the
gathered islanders.
    “ We’re wanting an incident room as
well,” the voice went on.
    “ There’s an empty shop along the main
street,” replied a familiar, much warmer voice. “I’ll fetch the
key.”
    The beam of a flashlight targeted James’s
rotund figure and held him fast. “Who are you?”
    “ James Fleming. I own the
pub.”
    “ Nice work, that. Spend loads of time
straining beer through that moustache. Fetch the key then, give it
to my sergeant here, there’s a good chap.”
    The flashlight waved right, waved left,