Page 30 of Death at a Scottish Halloween

“No,” I said at the same time. “He wasn’t drinking.”

She frowned. “I was thinking the worst. I feel so guilty. None of this feels real. We’re just shop owners. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happens to us. I was telling the officer that on the way here. We are boring people.”

“You’re in shock,” I said. “The police are just being thorough. They have to be,” I said. “We all do. I promise, we are all working hard to find the answers you need.”

She cleared her throat. “Thank you. Can I—can I just sit with him for a few minutes? Is that allowed?”

“Of course,” I said. “We’ll be right outside. Oh, do you need a cup of tea or anything?”

“No. I just want to sit with him.”

I closed the door softly, as we waited for her.

“We don’t have anything,” Ewan whispered. “Other than he shares a name with the other victim. We haven’t been able to follow his movements since he left home. He told his wife he went to estate sales, and he bought a booth space for the fête. That checks out, the booth that is. He’d planned to sell a few things before returning home. But that’s it.

“You didn’t find a phone, right?” he asked. “It wasn’t in the evidence. We want to track his GPS.”

“No. He didn’t have anything. No identification or a phone. Just his clothes and the cheap costume mask and cape. Can’t you track it with his phone records?”

“We’ve asked for them, but it takes time. We haven’t found his vehicle or where he’d been staying.”

“In America, most estate sales are on the weekend.”

“It’s the same here,” Henry said. “My mom hits them all.”

“So what was he doing earlier in the week? She said he’d been gone since Monday.”

“If we can find his phone,” Henry said, “we could check his GPS and contacts.”

“That’s what we were just saying,” Ewan said.

“Do we think it’s a matter of mistaken identity?” I asked.

“Hard not to,” Henry said. “But which one was the target? Do you have cause of death?”

“We are still working on that,” I said.

“Do you have any ideas about what may have happened?” Ewan questioned. “I know you would tell me if you did. I’m open to all ideas.”

“I told you. He had an enlarged heart and too much adrenaline in his body.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Henry said.

“Could he have been scared to death?” Ewan asked. “I read about a case like that in London during a concert, but the victims had taken drugs.”

“We’re still testing stomach contents, along with everything else. I promise as soon as I have some inkling, I’ll let you know.”

But he wasn’t far off. What I couldn’t figure out was what might have scared him so much that he died.

The door behind me creaked open. “I want to go home,” Flora said. “I mean, back to the B&B. I need my daughter.”

“I’ll take you,” Henry said. He put her arm through the crook of his. He was an incredibly kind man. There was a reason he was so good for Abigail and Tommy.

“Wait, I have two questions,” I said.

She turned to face me. “I—OK.”

“It will only take a minute. Did you know he had diabetes.”