A Wee Murder in My Shop (A ScotShop Mystery) by Fran Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

looking for a Farquharson tartan.” Macbeth—I hated that name—made a slight harrumph, but didn’t say anything.
    “Like your own shawl, ye mean? That’s a fine one. May I touch it?”
    “Of course you may.” I extended one corner of it. “Isn’t it soft?”
    “Aye,” she said. “Soft indeed.” She ran her hand along the white stripe. “Here’s the weaver’s mark.” She must have seen my confusion. “Many of us put one unexpected line in our favorite pieces. It’s like a signature.” She bent almost as if to smell it, but instead she placed her cheek against the smooth wool. “An old shawl, is it? It feels like it has the years behind it.”
    I knew what she meant. While I nodded, she turned and lifted a particular scarf from a stack on a nearby shelf. She held it beside my shawl. “See? This Farquharson is bright and springy and new.” I nodded again. “While yours”—and she smoothed the flat of her hand along the curve of my arm, tracing the pattern of green overlapping stripes—“yours has more weight to it, like someone has cried over it.” She stopped self-consciously. “Laughter, too. That’s in it as weel.”
    “Ask her clan,” the ghost urged.
    “May I ask what your name is?”
    Her smile was sweet, like an early spring dawn. “It’s Leslie Gordon.”
    “Gordon,” he sputtered. “She couldna be—not with a chin like that.” I ignored him and smiled encouragingly at Leslie.
    “My husband’s a Gordon, but I”—and she held the blue and green tartan under her chin—“was born a Farquharson.”
    He gave a grunt, somewhere between satisfaction and vindication.
    “That’s lovely,” I said, and a ripple of something—amazement? delight?—ran up my back. I extended my hand. “I’m Peggy Winn,” I said.
    Behind me, Macbeth said, “Wynne? I didna know ye were Welsh.” I ignored him. Again.
    “Wynne,” Leslie said. “That’s a Welsh name, isn’t it?”
    I couldn’t win. I cringed at the unintended pun. “We spell it W-i-n-n. My dad’s family is Welsh,” I explained, “but my mother’s family left here in the seventeen hundreds.”
    “Ah, yes,” she said. “The forty-five.”
    “What would be a forty-five?”
    This was no time for a history lesson. “No,” I said. “They emigrated well before Culloden. Our town was founded in seventeen twenty.”
    “What would ye be meaning by
before Culloden
?”
    I had no intention of telling him about the slaughter of the clans at Culloden in April of 1746. That was one part of history he did not need to know.
    By the time I left the shop, I’d bought five scarves—hopefully with nobody attached to them—and arranged to ship a large quantity of her shawls and scarves to Vermont. By being able to order directly from her, I could keep the price fairly reasonable for my customers, and she’d make more money than if she had sold her scarves through a catalog company. We were both delighted.
    A few minutes later I detoured off the Atholl Road to revisit the shop where I’d found my shawl—Peigi’s shawl. I walked past several stone buildings, each behind a low stone wall, looking for the arbor and the dark peach-colored flowers with the cinnamon scent.
    When I finally found it, the flowers didn’t smell the way I’d remembered. I walked in and found, to my dismay, a brightly lit showroom of standard tourist fare. Not an ancient plaid anywhere, and no trio of old women, either. This time, the ripple down my spine was definitely not delight.
    *   *   *
    That night before bed, I made up my mind. “I have to take the shawl back with me,” I told the ghost, “but I’m going to release you.”
    “Release me?” The moon shining in through the window shimmered just behind, and partly through, his head when he cocked it to one side. I never used the Sinclair’s electricity if I could help it. Candles gave such a gentle light, and now it shimmered on the folds of his kilt.
    “Yes. Leave you behind. There has