“Which hotel would that be?”

“Oh, sorry. The Royal Thistle, we’re all staying there for the book fair.”

He wrote it down in his notebook. “And ‘we’ would be the antiquarian book fair people.”

I nodded and he continued to write, then asked, “Did Mr. McVee tell you why he thought someone was trying to kill him?”

“Yes, he did.” And he’d been right. Someone had been after him and they’d succeeded. My mind flashed back to a picture of Kyle in the pub, laughing and teasing, then flipped to see him curled up on the hearth in that awful, dark room. My stomach clenched in pain and I shook my head to get rid of that dreadful image.

“And…?” MacLeod coaxed. “I know it’s difficult, but please go on.”

“Yes, it is difficult. Sorry.” I gulped in air. I couldn’t lose it now. Not in front of the police. No, I’d have to wait until later to have a nice little psychotic break. “Kyle thought someone was trying to stop him from showcasing a…” I hesitated, asking myself how much I was willing to reveal about the Burns book. Would anyone believe it? Did that matter? I owed it to Kyle to tell the whole truth. I inhaled, exhaled, focused, became one with the Bodhisattva warrior within, as my upbringing on the commune had taught me to do, and said, “Kyle had a special book he was going to present at the fair. There was some history behind it, and some dispute over-”

Somebody knocked on the door and blew my whole inner-warrior pretense to hell.

“Enter,” MacLeod called.

One of the police investigators opened the door. He was dressed in a white jumpsuit with disposable white cloth booties over his shoes. In his hand he held a large manila envelope. “Sir, we believe we’ve found the murder weapon.”

MacLeod gave his subordinate a severe frown as he jumped out of his chair. “Outside, McGill.” To me, he said politely, “Pardon me, won’t you, Ms. Wainwright? I shouldn’t be long.”

“No problemo.”

The door closed and I muttered, “Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here and envision my life in a Scottish brig.”

Would they force-feed me haggis? I wondered. Would there be portions of rum for the condemned? Oh, God. Rum always gave me a headache.

With my elbows resting on my knees, I rubbed my face. I was frustrated and scared, and really wished I’d brought the bag of chocolate with me. How had I gotten myself involved in another murder investigation? In a foreign country, no less? Should I have called the American embassy before spilling the beans to the chief cop?

And Kyle, my darling Kyle, was dead. My eyes burned as I realized his worst suspicions had come to pass. And as far as I knew, the only person who had as much knowledge of Kyle’s book as I did was Perry McDougall.

Had Perry killed Kyle? It wouldn’t surprise me. Kyle had claimed that Perry threatened him.

Kyle had also said that two other people besides Perry knew about the Robert Burns book, but he’d never told me who. If he and Helen were as close as she insisted they were, he might’ve told her about the book and the story behind it. But I didn’t think Kyle was the type to upset Helen with talk of death threats.

Helen’s reaction to Kyle’s death had been so painful and over-the-top, it convinced me that she really had thought Kyle would marry her. Call me cynical, but I couldn’t believe he would’ve gone through with it. He was an incorrigible player and cute as could be, but dangerous to a woman’s heart. Poor Helen. I knew I shouldn’t talk, but the woman had seriously atrocious taste in men. First she’d married that jerk Martin, and now she thought she’d be marrying bad boy Kyle? Not too smart.

Again, I didn’t have a whole lot of room to criticize, especially since I’d been led on by Kyle, too. But I never would’ve fallen for Martin, so as far as I was concerned, that made me a genius compared to my friend.

I shifted in my chair, wondering where MacLeod had run off to. Was Helen being interrogated somewhere nearby? If so, was she telling the cops that she and Kyle were to have been married? And had she honestly bought into the fantasy that they would live happily ever after? Apparently, yes.

I rubbed my eyes, feeling more tired than ever. Who was I to judge Helen, just because Kyle had never promised me anything more than a good time? Why wouldn’t he propose marriage to Helen? She was sweet and smart and very pretty. And very rich. Couldn’t forget that. But Kyle was rich in his own right, so I didn’t think money would be much of a motivator for him.

Of course, Martin had money, too, so that probably hadn’t been a consideration when he asked Helen to marry him. I’d always thought Helen appealed to Martin because he’d mistaken her easygoing nature for subservience.

Now I wondered if maybe it was Helen on the other end of the phone call Kyle had received. He’d certainly run out of the pub in a hurry, and maybe that was a sign that he really did have warm feelings for her. I hoped so. I’d like to think that Helen had been happy with Kyle after putting up with Martin for as long as she did.

I would have to remember to tell MacLeod about that phone call Kyle received. The police would be able to check Kyle’s cell phone. Sadly, they probably wouldn’t let me in on who’d called.

The door opened and MacLeod came back in.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, his expression falling somewhere between disapproval and condemnation. He laid that same manila envelope on the desk, then reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a rubber glove and snapped it onto his left hand.

“Can you identify this, please?” he asked as he pulled a blood-splotched hammer out of the envelope and dangled it carefully between two fingers. The look he gave me turned my toes to ice.

“It appears to be a hammer,” I said cautiously, then took a slow breath. “Is that the murder weapon?”

“Why don’t you look at it a little more closely?” he suggested, and moved the hammer so I could see it from several different angles. Icy tendrils slithered from my toes up to my spine and into my neck so quickly, I thought I might freeze and shatter into a thousand pieces.

The hammer was a familiar style. Too familiar. Unlike a typical hammer, this one was lightweight, with a shorter handle, a longer claw with a blunt end, and a smaller, dome-shaped nose.

A bookbinder’s hammer.

There were initials engraved at the base. I didn’t have to look any closer to recognize them.

The initials were BW.

The hammer was mine.

Chapter 4

I coughed to clear my suddenly dry throat. “It’s a… a bookbinder’s hammer.”

He looked at it more closely. “Odd sort of shape.”

“Yes.” I took another breath. “Its shorter length and lighter weight allow for more accuracy and efficiency when pounding and rounding the spine of a book.”

Did my words sound as dully rote to him as they did to me?

“Thank you for the information.” He peered at the object, then pointed to something he saw near the edge. “There seems to be a design here on the end. Or are those initials? BW? Ach.”

Now he was just showing off. He knew they were mine. Spots began to circle and fade in and out of my field of vision. I took a huge gulp of air and let it go. I refused to further disgrace myself by fainting.

“Ms. Wainwright, have you ever seen this hammer before?”

“Yes, of course. It’s mine. It was a gift from my teacher. Part of a set.”

He nodded sagely. “I see.”

“What do you see?” I shook my head, still not believing any of it. “What are you saying? That Kyle was killed with my hammer? Who would do that? I wouldn’t do that! What am I, stupid? Do you think I had anything to do with it?”

“We’re still determining that,” he said calmly, and slipped the bloody hammer carefully back into the envelope.

Great, they were still determining how stupid I was. Watch me burst with pride.