Deep water . . . Jean Fairbairn is off to write a story about the haunted waters of Loch Ness. She has an appointment with American scientist Roger Dempsey, who is using his latest gadgets to try and prove that the legend of the monster, Nessie, is true. Jean's business is checking out legends. Some hold water, some don't, and some are about much more than H2O. But the troubled water she finds at Loch Ness is colder than its snow-melt and darker than its peat-stained depths. Sonar and other remote-sensing tools might find Nessie, but what scientific instrument can plumb the mysteries of death? Troubled, too, are the waters that run between Jean and Detective Inspector Alasdair Cameron. Will another encounter bridge the depths that lie between them? Or will their story end at the hands of a murderer, in the icy water of a loch that never gives up its dead?< P>Lillian Stewart Carl has lived for many years in North Texas, in a book-lined cloister cleverly disguised as a tract house. She is a member of the Author's Guild, Novelists Inc., Science Fiction Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.