Kaitlyn Dunnett - The Corpse Wore Tartan (Liss Maccrimmon Scottish Mysteries)

S ure are a lot of kilts in town, Sadie LeBlanc said to her two companions.

Her housekeeping cart rolled silently ahead of her along the second-floor hallway of The Spruces. Six months earlier, the stately, historic hotel in rural Moosetookalook, Maine, had reopened its newly renovated doors to the public, providing employment for a good many of the tiny villages residents.

Long as they got money to spend in them sporran things, I dont care how silly their clothes are. Rhonda Snipes pushed her own well-maintained cart over thick carpeting that still had a trace of new-rug smell to it. She was short and squat, with no bosom to speak of.

Sporran? You mean that leather pouch that looks like a purse? Sadie sniggered. In contrast to Rhonda, Sadie was a beanpole, one of those painfully thin women who always look as if theyd blow away in a good wind.

It is a purse, Rhonda said. Though why theyd want the thing banging against them at crotch level is beyond me.

Like Sadie, Rhonda had been hired to clean guest rooms and, on special occasions, to help out the small waitstaff. Neither job paid all that well, but sometimes there were tips. She rubbed the back of her neck as she headed for the service elevator. It was the end of the shift, but all three of them would be back in only a couple of hours to help serve drinks and canaps at the cocktail party that preceded the Burns Night Supper.

Disgraceful, I call it. Dilys Marcottes voice was rife with disapproval. I hear some of them dont wear a blessed thing under their kilts. Take a peek and youd see bare skin all the way up.

Who told you such foolishness? Sadie demanded. Stands to reason its too cold in January not to wear something underneath.

Two bright flags of color stained Dilyss plump cheeks. Never you mind. I know what I know. She appeared to be a little older than the other two and was of middling stature.

The elevator doors slid open with a quiet whoosh and the three women hauled their housekeeping carts inside for the ride down to the basement. The carts would be stored there overnight and restocked with towels and other supplies in the morning.

Liss MacCrimmon, a tall, slender brunette in her late twenties, waited another minute to be certain the coast was clear before she stepped out from behind a potted palm. Her face wore a broad grin. Shed had to struggle not to laugh out loud during the conversation shed just overheard.

Eavesdropping on members of the housekeeping staff had been accidental, but once shed realized what they were talking about, she hadnt wanted to embarrass them by revealing her presence. After all, she was the one whod asked the three local women to put in overtime that evening.

Dilys had it wrong, of course. Would she be disappointed, Liss wondered, to know that most men preserved their modesty by wearing cutoffs or swim trunks under their kilts? The more daring made do with regular underwear. That modern Scotsmen wore nothing at all under their kilts was just another of those ridiculous things that everyone knew was true. In other wordsnonsense.

Liss was confident she was right. Even though shed only visited Scotland once, as a teenager with her parents, she was very familiar with the Scottish-American community. Shed grown up competing in Scottish dance competitions at Scottish Festivals and Highland Games. Then shed performed for nearly eight years with a Scottish dance troupe, until her knee gave out and ended that career. Now she was half owner and sole employee of Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium, a small shop in the village that sold Scottish imports and other items with a Scottish theme. She was in the process of buying out her aunt, Margaret MacCrimmon Boyd, just as Aunt Margaret had bought out Lisss father when he retired and went to live in Arizona.

These days, the Emporium relied heavily on online and mail-order sales to stay in the black, but the brick-and-mortar store was in no danger of closing. Furthermore, Lisss aunt would continue to be her landlady even after she sold Liss her share of the business.

With a glance at her watch, Liss headed for the service stairs leading to the mezzanine. It was already four. Shed be late if she didnt hustle.

Ever since Christmas, Liss had spent almost as much time at the hotel as she had in the shop. Aunt Margaret had a new jobevents coordinator at The Spruces. As such, she had a lot on her plate. Liss had agreed to help out by acting as a liaison to the Scottish Heritage Appreciation Society.

SHAS was a small group. Most of the members came from the Portland, Maine, area, with a few from as far away as Portsmouth, New Hampshire. All were proud of their Scottish roots. Because of that, they gathered every twenty-fifth of January to celebrate the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns. One quirk of the organization was that the Burns Night Supper was never held in the same location twice. The Sinclair House in Waycross Springs had been its venue the previous year. When The Spruces had been chosen as the next site, everyone had been thrilled. The booking was for two dozen of the hotels most expensive rooms plus a private dining room. That was no big deal by city standards, but it was a lifesaver for a small-town business that was hanging on by a thread.

Three people waited for Liss in that dining room. Eunice MacMillan was a rawboned woman in her mid-fifties who stood only an inch or two shorter than Lisss five-foot-nine. She had sharp features and an intense gaze that Liss found disconcerting. During the weeks of preparation for the Burns Night Supper, Liss had spent considerable time with Eunice. She couldnt say shed come to know the woman particularly welljust enough to dislike her.

Looking for all the world like a pair of bookends, Phil and Phineas MacMillan stood on either side of Eunice, who was Phils wife. Liss could not tell one twin from the other. Their graying hair was styled exactly the same way and their featuressquare jaw, beak of a nose, and close-set dark brown eyeswere identical. So were their outfits. Although they were not yet in formal Scottish attire, they were wearing kilts in the MacMillan tartan, a pattern of bright yellow and orange.

Ah, Ms. MacCrimmon, so good of you to join us, one bookend said. Hed been using his skean dhua small knifeto clean under his fingernails while he waited. Without looking, he put it away in a sheath tucked into the top of his right kilt hose.

I swear, Eunice muttered, one of these days youre going to slice your leg open doing that. You should be sensible, like your brother, and let the blade go dull.

No point in sharpening it, the brother in question chimed in. I dont plan to shave with it.

No, you use yours as a letter opener. He turned on Eunice. For Gods sake, woman, dont fuss at me. Its not as if Im going to slip and cut my own throat with it.

Har. Har, his brother said, imbuing the mock laugh with enough sarcasm to sink an ocean liner.

There was no need for any of them to expand on the reference, Liss thought. They all knew that famous bit of Scottish history. The story went that when the Scots had at last been soundly defeated by the English, all weapons had been forbidden to them. The only exception had been the skean dhu, which was declared to be only big enough for a Scotsman to slit his own throat withan outcome to which the English apparently had not had any objections!