Kilt Dead (13 page)

Reluctantly, she pushed the necessary button on her
console to buzz him in through the first of two security
doors. During the slight delay while he removed his gun
and left it in the weapons locker, Sherri resumed her seat
and braced herself for what was sure to be an unpleasant
encounter. Not only had Craig LaVerdiere never called
her again, he’d taken to looking down his nose at her
every time their paths crossed. He seemed to think he’d
lowered himself to sleep with her. She’d been the one
slumming, Sherri decided, but that conviction didn’t
make it any easier to deal with LaVerdiere’s haughty attitude and snide remarks.

Once through the second heavy, reinforced steel door,
LaVerdiere ignored Sherri and ambled over to the coffee
pot.

“Hello to you, too,” she muttered.

“You say something, princess?”

“Obviously not” She glared at his back.

To her surprise, he glanced over his shoulder. “I need
to talk to you” LaVerdiere stirred his coffee, took a tentative sip, grimaced, and added more sugar. “About Liss
MacCrimmon.”

“What about her?”

He straddled one of several straight-back chairs scattered around the dispatch center and took a small, spiralbound notebook out of a pocket. “You were with her most
of the day on Saturday, right?”

So this was a formal interview. About time somebody
got around to it. “That’s right. All day”

“Till when?”

“Around six-fifteen, maybe six-thirty. I left first. I don’t know how long she stayed. We didn’t know Liss
would need an alibi at the time,” she added with a touch of
asperity.

“Okay. Now go back a few hours. The victim paid a
visit to your booth at the fair.”

“Highland Games. Yes”

“You talk to her?”

“No” Sherri realized she’d been swiveling the chair,
using her toes to move it back and forth. With exaggerated care, she dropped both heels to the floor and willed
herself to stillness. No need to signal her nervousness to
the enemy.

“You overhear what Amanda Norris and Ms. MacCrimmon said to each other?” LaVerdiere asked.

“No, but I can tell you one thing. Liss MacCrimmon
wouldn’t hurt a fly”

“You’ve known her, what? About two days? You don’t
have a clue what she’s capable of.”

Seething, Sherri glared at him. “And you do?”

“I go by the evidence. I’ll have this case all wrapped
up in a couple of days. Your buddy Liss will be behind
bars. Convenient, huh? You can visit her in jail every time
you come to work”

“Bull. You just latched on to the first likely candidate
and you’re too lazy to look for others. Sloppy police
work, don’t you think?”

To her chagrin, he laughed. “Watch it, princess. You’ll
hurt my feelings.”

“You don’t have ” What would have been a childish
retort was mercifully cut short by the phone. Sherri grabbed
it on the second ring. “Carrabassett County Sheriff’s Department, Officer Willett speaking.”

By the time she finished dealing with old Mr. Higginbotham, who thought alien beings were stealing his
goats, Craig LaVerdiere had left the building.

Liss and Dan met the next morning at breakfast. Liss
was up at six, refreshed by a surprisingly good night’s
rest. She’d fed the cat and made a pot of coffee by the
time Dan stumbled into the kitchen.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said.

“Please. Coffee first.”

She took a seat at the kitchen table and waited, sipping
from a delicate china cup, while Dan poured some of the
dark, fragrant brew into an oversized ceramic mug with
“Ruskin Construction” emblazoned on the outside. He was
dressed, but had not yet shaved or combed his hair. The
look of him, tousled and sleepy-eyed, reminded Liss of
the dream she’d had about him during the night. Aware he
was watching her as he downed half the contents of his
mug, she suppressed a grin.

“Okay. Go ahead. The brain is now marginally functional.”

“I’ve been thinking that unless there is some forensic
evidence the lab can trace to a single suspect, Detective
LaVerdiere is never going to find out anything.”

“So much for hoping you’d give up playing girl detective.”

“I thought you agreed to help me”

“I did. I just-I did.” He drained the mug and turned
away to refill it.

“I admit I was torqued last night. Well, babbling, actually. Okay-acting like an over-stimulated twelve-yearold.” She winced when she remembered flipping Dan
onto the sofa, her one and only self-defense move. “But I
haven’t changed my mind about taking a hand in the investigation.”

If she didn’t prove herself innocent, who would? She
couldn’t see waiting around, hoping LaVerdiere would
come to his senses.

“So, this morning we talk to the neighbors.” Dan did
not sound enthusiastic. “Okay if I finish waking up first?”

“Go for it. In the meantime, I want to run another idea
past you. I can’t imagine Mrs. Norris as a blackmailer,
but I have been thinking about the records LaVerdiere
said he found in her house. `Evidence,’ he said. She had
`compromising information about a number of people.’
Do you think he meant diaries or journals of some sort?
There could be a perfectly innocent reason for her to
write things down”

Dan brought his coffee to the table and sat down opposite her. “There was a looseleaf in her library. Lumpkin
knocked it down when Pete and I were chasing him. It fell
open and some pages scattered” A pucker appeared in his
brow. “I just glanced at them, but I thought I recognized a
couple of names. The thing is, I’m not sure why they seemed
familiar. They weren’t townspeople.” He shrugged. “Maybe
Mrs. Norris was into recording celebrity gossip.”

“That can’t be what LaVerdiere was talking about. If
they were famous names, surely one of the officers would
have recognized them. Besides, he implied she had dirt on
the locals.” She considered that for a moment. LaVerdiere
wasn’t local. “Maybe he didn’t recognize any of the
names either. Can you remember the ones you saw?”

Dan closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
He looked tired, Liss thought, as if his night had been full
of bad dreams.

“One was Pitt,” he said at last. “And not Brad Pitt.
Thomas Pitt. Do I know him? I’m pretty sure there’s no
one in Moosetookalook with that name”

“Thomas … Pitt? I know who he is, but that makes no
sense. Can you remember anyone else?”

“There was a woman’s name”

“Charlotte?” Liss guessed.

“No, it was … Emily?”

“Well, yes, I suppose. Charlotte and Emily are-“

“No. Not Emily. Amelia. And the last name was Peabody. A good New England name, and I thought it sounded
familiar, but I can’t think where I know her from” He hesitated, giving Liss a wary look. Her own face was likely a
study in confusion. “The page I saw said the two of them
were planning a clandestine meeting, that Amelia wanted
to keep her association with Pitt secret from her husband”

Liss checked her jaw to make sure it hadn’t dropped.
“Whew! Talk about not making any sense!”

“You know who they are?”

“Sort of.” She stared at the dregs of her coffee and
wondered what on earth Mrs. Norris had been up to.

Dan reached across the table and waved a hand in
front of her face. “Earth to Liss.”

“Sorry. This is my befuddled look.”

“Clue me in here, Liss. Who is Thomas Pitt?”

“He’s the detective in a series of books by Anne Perry.
A fictional character. He does his sleuthing in Victorian
London”

“And Amelia Peabody?”

“Also fictional. She’s the protagonist in a series of historical mysteries written by Elizabeth Peters. Same time
period, more or less.”
“

Liss read a lot, often mysteries Mrs. Norris had recommended. There hadn’t been much else to do, except
sleep or play cards, while traveling from one gig to the
next in the company bus.

I don’t get it,” Dan said. “What were the names of fictional characters doing in that looseleaf?”

“I don’t suppose you remember any other names from
the page you saw?”

“Sorry, no. I just got a glimpse, and the impression
that the notes meant that the two of them were having an
affair. I assumed they were real people and I figured what
they got up to was none of my business.”

Liss felt the coffee she’d just consumed turn to acid in
her stomach. “What if they are? Maybe she used fictional
names to hide their real identities.” At Dan’s snort, she
felt compelled to defend the theory. “What? It makes
sense. Sort of.”

“Only if LaVerdiere is right, and no way in hell was
Amanda Norris a blackmailer!”

he sudden flash of anger in Dan’s dark eyes surprised
Liss. His hands curled into fists on the tabletop, and
he glared at her.

“I’d like to keep thinking Mrs. Norris was just a nice
old lady, too, but it’s me LaVerdiere wants to arrest. I
can’t afford to overlook any possibility.”

After a moment of heavy silence, Dan’s jaw unclenched.
Liss watched in fascination as, muscle by muscle, he
seemed to will himself back into calmness. She admired
his self-mastery. At the same time, seeing it in action
made her a little uneasy. Did he ever lose control completely? She didn’t think she wanted to be around to see it
if he did.

“She was a good woman”

“Yes, she was, and I’m sorry she’s dead, sorry she’s
being slandered, but none of that changes the facts.
Here’s the sad truth: what we want and what is aren’t always the same thing. I want to be dancing in Chicago with
Strathspey. We have a three-day gig at a real theater there.
Guaranteed publicity. Enthusiastic audiences. But I’m
here and you’re here and if we’re going to find out who
really killed Mrs. Norris and why, we need to keep our
minds open … about everything.”

Gesturing with both hands, Liss nearly sent her coffee cup flying. Dan reached out to steady it. He didn’t look
happy, but he nodded.

“You’re right. We can’t rule anything out. And it
makes sense to talk to the neighbors. How much do you
want to tell them?”

“Probably not a good plan to say the police suspect me
of murder,” Liss quipped. She rinsed her cup and Dan’s
mug and put them in the dishwasher.

“You’ve got that right. You’ve been gone ten years.
Most of them don’t know you”

She turned, resting her backside against the kitchen
counter, and was surprised to find he was only a foot
away from her. “What do you suggest?”

“A variation on the old welcome wagon. You’re back.
You’d like to reconnect with people here”

“And then we just segue into the fact that I found Mrs.
Norris’s body? I don’t think so. What if we go door-todoor to solicit ideas on how to honor her life? She had no
kin. Maybe the neighborhood could hold a memorial service.”

“That’s a good idea. And it doesn’t have to be a ploy.
We should do … something.”

“I agree. She was a big part of our lives.” Feeling suddenly restless, Liss shoved away from the counter, brushing past Dan as she went to stand at the kitchen window
and stare out at the backyard.