Hooked on Ewe by Hannah Reed

was a family member, or an acquaintance of a member who just happened to pick up someone else’s red yarn and thread it around her hands and pull it taut.
    “I wouldn’t want Inspector Jamieson’s job for all the gold in the world,” Leith said, and I had to agree. I was beginning to think I should consider myself lucky that the inspector had dismissed me instead of calling on me as his special constable.
    Besides, Sean was still in Glenkillen, acting as special constable, and willing and able to assist. Knowing Sean, nothing would stand in the way of his role in the investigation. At least until he had to leave for training.
    When Leith had walked in Vicki’s door, he’d claimed he couldn’t stay long, but he didn’t seem in any particular hurry now. So I went on to pick his brain, since he was as local as they come and was sure to have heard all the rumors circulating. “Do you have any idea who might have killed Isla?”
    “Could be anyone. She managed to put off everyone she met. But most o’ us are betting on her husband. Sure, he’s playing the grieving widower, but from all accounts, she wasn’t an easy one tae live with.”
    “That’s always the first person an investigator suspects—the surviving spouse. Do you think, is it possible that Bryan could’ve been fooling around on the side?”
    “Ye’ve been watching the telly again,” he teased, then grew more serious. “I’d leave that fer the inspector tae decide.”
    “Isla had her husband solidly under her thumb, didn’t she?” I asked. She had everyone else. Why not Bryan?
    Leith shrugged. “That’s the impression she gave, but though it might look like she wore the trousers in the family, Bryan isn’t what I’d call a pushover. At least when it comes tae sheepherding. He’s a good organizer and a hard worker. As tae their marriage, who knows?” Leith spoke slowly, measuring his words. “Sometimes a person acts out in ways the rest of us cannae comprehend. Bryan Lindsey appears on the surface to be as dull as ditchwater, but he might have had a sea o’ resentment building inside of him and the dam finally burst yesterday afternoon.”
    I added a few more notches to that personal-assessment book of mine and put Leith’s name a little higher up. Not only was he good-looking, but he seemed to study theworld and the people in it. Not self-absorbed or petty or hung up on himself.
    “So are ye coming fishing with us?”
    “Another time?”
    “Aye, on a sunnier day, and soon.”
    “I look forward to it.” I smiled. Yes, I would look forward to spending time on the North Sea with Leith.
    “Well,” he said, pushing up to his feet, “I best be collecting Kelly and heading out.”
    “I hope you catch a boatload of fish,” I told him as I rose, too, and gathered up the teacups and teapot.
    “Aye, I hope so as well. And I hope you take extra care of yerself, Eden.”
    “Why do you say that?” I asked, surprised.
    “Ye have a way o’ finding trouble,” he pointed out. “Or rather it finds you.”
    Which was certainly true. My unfortunate knack for stumbling across crime scenes could be the reason the inspector had thought of me when he needed a new volunteer police officer. Was that his reasoning? Since he had to deal with me at the scenes anyway, he might as well have me on the side of the law, however bogus the part was that I played?
    Even so, I assured Leith, “I plan on staying far away from trouble in the future.”
    “See that ye do.”
    After Leith called Kelly and they drove off, I finished cleaning and putting away the breakfast dishes, grabbed my laptop and an all-weather jacket, and settled into the driver’s seat of the old Peugeot that Vicki had given me to drive during my stay in the Highlands. She’d recentlybought herself a brand-new Volvo station wagon with an automatic transmission, which I lusted after. In Chicago I’d been able to take that feature for granted; here, manual transmissions were the norm.