Kilt Dead (18 page)

“Me? Why am I a suspect?”

“Least likely to have done it? If this were a mystery
novel, you’d be a shoo-in.”

“Yeah. Right. Okay, I’ll go along. I leave you at the fairgrounds, drive up here and let myself in with my own
key, by the way-and I’m helping myself to … what? Not
much to steal. The cash was all with you” She shrugged.
“Whatever. Mrs. Norris is spying on the neighborhood, as
per usual, and spots somebody moving around in there and
goes to investigate.” Sherri frowned. “At seven o’clock or
so, wouldn’t she just assume it was you?”

“You’d think. That suggests she was murdered earlier
in the afternoon. It makes more sense that she’d have
gone over to investigate if she’d seen someone then.”

“The results of the autopsy ought to be available by
the time I go on shift tonight. I’ll see if I can find out what
the M.E. put down for time of death. It will only be a ballpark figure. You know that, right?”

“I know. Anything will help. Maybe it will turn out
that I got home too late in the day to have killed her.”

“So, have we ruled me out yet?”

“You’re in the clear … unless Mrs. Norris knew some
deep, dark secret that you didn’t want her to reveal.”

Liss meant the comment as a joke. She expected Sherri
to laugh, or else confess to some minor, humorous-inhindsight sin similar to Liss’s own teenage venture into
crime.

Sherri looked stricken.

The slam of a vehicle door sounded loud in the awkward silence.

Liss cleared her throat. “Dan’s home”

“You’re right,” Sherri blurted. “Everyone has secrets.
You should suspect everyone, even me, but I’ve got an
alibi. I was with you until I left the fairgrounds. I drove
straight home. My mother and my son can verify that I
fell into bed and slept from about five minutes after I ar rived until I had to get up to go to work” She moved
closer to Liss and lowered her voice. “You’re right to suspect everybody,” she said again. “Dan Ruskin, too”

“Sherri, I don’t think “

“Look at the facts, Liss. He was on the spot awfully
quickly. He was around all day. I know you like him, but
good-looking men usually turn out to be rats. Trust me on
this … and watch your back”

That she spoke from her own experience was so obvious that Liss took the warning with a grain of salt. She
squeezed Sherri’s hand and promised to be careful. By
then, Dan was coming through the kitchen door.

“Hey-two beautiful women waiting for me. What
more could a man ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Liss drawled. “A hot meal on the
table? You’ll notice that neither one of us is waiting with
your slippers and your newspaper.”

He chuckled. “That’s okay. I’m a twenty-first century
kind of guy. I’ll settle for a welcome home kiss.” Hauling
Liss into his arms, he planted a big wet one on her.

Sputtering, she pounded on his chest-lightly, because
she hadn’t really minded. He ignored the ineffectual protest
and zeroed in on her lips for a second try. This time he did
it right. Way too right. It wasn’t until she heard Sherri
loudly clearing her throat that she surfaced and pulled
away.

Their eyes held a moment longer, his full of promises,
hers full of questions.

“Hot meal on the table, huh?” Sherri asked, sotto voce.

“Okay. That did it. Dash of cold water.” Liss felt her
face flame as she fumbled for the chair she’d been sitting
in earlier and sank gratefully into it before her knees gave
way. “Stop kidding around, Dan. We’ve got serious stuff
to talk about here”

Sherri had taken the lemonade pitcher out of the refrigerator, retrieved their glasses from the sink and added a third from the cupboard, and poured generous portions
into each while Liss and Dan had been preoccupied with
each other. Now the two women brought him up to speed.

“So we’re back to that damned looseleaf.” Dan didn’t
look happy.

Sherri stared into her lemonade glass as if fascinated
by the movement of the ice cubes. “Obviously there was
more that you didn’t see. We need to know what else was
in it. I’m pretty sure I can find out what LaVerdiere took
away from her house. They’ll have made a list.”

“Sherri, your job-“

“I’m not letting that jerk railroad you! I can help, Liss.
Let me help.”

“Only if you promise to be careful.”

“I still think there has to be some explanation other
than blackmail,” Dan insisted. “If Mrs. Norris had been
hitting people up for money, it would have gotten out.
And any secrets she knew about, you can bet other people
did too. Maybe … maybe she was writing a novel.”

“Wouldn’t she have made up her own names for characters?”

“Maybe she hadn’t gotten around to it. Maybe it was a
what-do-you-call-it? Like Peyton Place. You know real
place and people but disguised so she couldn’t be sued”

“Roman a clef;” Liss supplied. “Possible, I guess. Unless she also wrote down her reasons for leaving a record,
we may never know for certain. In the meantime, I guess
it’s time for me to do some writing.”

Dan leaned back in his chair until he could reach a
nearby drawer and extracted a notepad and pencil. “Suspect list?”

“Suspect list. We’ve pretty much eliminated Ernie Willett, and Aunt Margaret was on a plane over the Atlantic,
so that lets her out of the running. Dan and I talked to the
neighbors this morning, Sherri. No one saw anything suspicious, but one woman did describe a couple who wanted to know if she had a key to the Emporium. It sounded like
Jason Graye and his lady friend. What if he helped himself to the spare above the door?”

Sherri frowned. `And he’d kill Mrs. Norris because … ?”

“She caught him someplace he shouldn’t be?”

“Why wouldn’t he just tell her to mind her own business and leave?” Dan asked.

“It was the bolt of tartan cloth he was interested in that
fell on top of Mrs. Norris’s body,” Liss reminded him.

“Coincidence”

“Maybe”

“He hasn’t lived here all that long. He probably doesn’t
know that most people keep spare keys hidden near their
back doors” Dan frowned. “We don’t know if Margaret’s
key is missing or not. LaVerdiere didn’t say.”

“Maybe I can find out” Sherri grinned. “I need to start
a list of my own”

Dan tore the memo pad in half. While he fished for another pencil in the drawer behind him, Liss grabbed the
one he’d been using and wrote down Graye’s name. She
tapped the eraser end against her chin. “Graye lives on
Lowe Street. That’s not too far away. He could have walked
back later. Sherri, do you know Barbara’s last name?”

“Zathros. She rents from Mrs. Biggs over on Maple.”

“Also an easy walk.” She wrote down Barbara’s name.
“Who else was around that afternoon?”

“Ned,” Dan said.

“Yes. Earlier. But why suspect him? Aside from the
fact that you don’t like him.”

“I thought you said we should suspect everybody?
Anyway, I don’t know where he went when he left my workshop. I don’t think I saw his car, but then again, like everyone else on the list, he doesn’t live all that far away. Let’s
keep open the possibility that he went into his mother’s
shop that afternoon”

“He could have, but why would Mrs. Norris go in after him? If she recognized my cousin, she’d assume he had a
perfect right to be there. He would have a perfect right to
be there”

“Write him down,” Dan said. “Hey, if you can include
Graye just because he’s obnoxious and was in the area, I
can add Ned to the list.”

She complied, then listed all the neighbors: John Farley, Patsy, Angie, Douglas Preston, Warren Alden, Betsy
Twining, Julie Simpson, Stu Burroughs, and Marcia Katz.

“Don’t forget Lenny Peet and his dog,” Dan said.

Liss tossed the pad aside. “This is hopeless!”

Dan picked it up and added Peet.

Sherri glanced at her watch. “I really have to head
home. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know what
I find out at work tonight.”

Liss walked her to her truck, warning her once again
not to risk her job trying to get access to privileged information.

“And don’t you get too trusting with Dan,” Sherri
whispered. “I notice he didn’t put his own name on that
list.”

“Sherri, Dan’s been nothing but helpful. And he was
as upset as I was when we found Mrs. Norris’s body.”

“Suspect everybody, remember? Why did he really go
into Mrs. Norris’s house before the police searched it?
Was it just to get Lumpkin, or did he have another purpose in mind? Maybe he saw that page in the looseleaf
because he was looking for whatever Mrs. Norris had on
him. Maybe he removed a page or two before he left.”

Liss shook her head. “If he did that, why would he
even mention the looseleaf? Go home, Sherri. Try to get
some more sleep before you have to go to work. I think
you need it.”

“You two aren’t lovers, are you?”

“No.” Not yet.

“Good. Sex screws up common sense” And with that
parting shot, Sherri drove away.

Equally disturbed by Sherri’s suspicions of Dan Ruskin
and her own confused feelings toward him, Liss hurried
back into the house. She didn’t realize Dan was waiting
for her just inside the front door until she slammed into
him.

He grunted and caught her arms to keep them both upright. “Geez, Liss. Have a heart. You’ve already proved
you can knock me on my keister. You don’t have to make
a habit of it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect—”

Instead of letting go, he cradled her in his arms. “Do
you know how often I’ve thought about you today? How
often I’ve imagined holding you like this?”

“Dan!” She smacked him on the shoulder. “Your timing still stinks.”

He was getting serious way too fast. Trouble was, she
kind of liked the idea. She seized on the first excuse she
could think of to distract them both. “The answering machine light is blinking.”

It sat on a pie-shaped table just inside the living room.
She hadn’t noticed it when she’d come through earlier
with Sherri.

“Let it blink.”

“Jeff Thibodeau said he’d call if I could move back to
Aunt Margaret’s.” Before Dan could stop her, she’d freed
herself and pressed the play button.

The first three messages were from reporters. Liss
deleted each one as soon as she’d listened to it. The next
one was from Dan’s sister, Mary.

“Call me. I’m hearing strange stories about you.”

Liss sent a questioning look in Dan’s direction.

He shrugged. “Just erase them all. Then we’ll discon nect the phone and the answering machine and not leave
the house again till Christmas.”

She ignored the suggestion, frowning as the next
caller identified himself as Edmund Carrier III. He left a
phone number and address, then stated that he was
Amanda Norris’s attorney. “I am calling for Ms. Amaryllis Rosalie MacCrimmon,” the message continued. “I am
reliably informed that she can be reached at this number.
I do not think it wise to go into details of my business
with her over the telephone, but it is to her advantage to
meet with me. Shall we say at my office in Fallstown at
ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

herri racked her brain for a way to get information
_I that would put Liss’s mind at rest. She was coming up
empty. It wasn’t as if the state cops regularly stopped by
to gossip with corrections officers. Most of the time, they
didn’t want anything to do with local law enforcement.
They operated out of a van at the crime scene initially and,
as soon as humanly possible, high-tailed it back to Augusta,
the state capital, where the crime lab was located. For such
activities as questioning the neighbors, they commuted.
Only LaVerdiere actually lived in Carrabassett County.

The rumor mill was up to speed, but it didn’t have access to the M.E.’s office or any other forensic information. The only thing she could find out was that a trooper
named Bud Murdoch was going to be conducting interviews in Moosetookalook the next day.

“Murdoch from around here?” she asked Larry Granby,
who’d left intake during a lull to refill his coffee cup.