Scotched (16 page)

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Authors: Kaitlyn Dunnett

BOOK: Scotched
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Liss had been inside Preston's Mortuary before, more times than she liked to remember. Moosetookalook had held funerals in these rooms for decades. The main parlor lay dead ahead, always redolent of lilies and lemon furniture polish. There were viewing rooms on each side, but only one of them was currently occupied. She felt a moment's guilt as she remembered Lenny Peet. She hadn't done anything yet about finding a home for his dog. Or about Frank Preston.
Doug's office was to their right off the vestibule, before they reached the parlor, but Doug wasn't there. It was Lorelei Preston who sat behind the big oak desk. She rose when they walked in.
Lorelei was a striking woman, years younger than Doug but possessed of an austere beauty that would last until she was as old as he was. She glanced pointedly at her watch. “If you're here for the viewing, you're too early,” she said in clipped tones.
“I was hoping to talk to Doug for a moment,” Liss said.
“About a funeral? Well, it's never to early for pre-planning.”
“About Nola Ventress.”
Lorelei's hands clenched involuntarily on the edge of the desk. “I don't believe he cares to discuss that subject.”
“So you know who she was.”
“Was?” Lorelei sat down abruptly. “What do you mean
was
? Did something happen to her?”
“She's dead,” Liss said bluntly. “She died ... unexpectedly. . . last night.”
Lorelei's eyes narrowed. “Find a different funeral home. My Dugie wanted nothing to do with her while she was alive and he'll have nothing to do with her now that she's dead. It's been years since he last heard from her. He doesn't need her coming back into his life, not even as a client.”
“He saw Nola Thursday night at the MSBA meeting,” Dan said. “He drove her back to the hotel afterward.”
“That's impossible!” Lorelei looked stricken. “He'd have told me.”
Apparently not, Liss thought. “Look, we didn't come here to cause trouble, but I think Doug would want to know about Nola's death. No matter how badly their marriage ended, he shouldn't have to hear that kind of news on the
Six O'Clock Report
.”
“I ... I'll tell him.” Again Lorelei stood and this time remained on her feet, clearly expecting them to leave.
Liss saw no point in sticking around. Besides, it was already nine. She was officially running late. Once outside, she headed straight for her car, then stopped short. It was in her driveway and, now that she thought about it, she realized that it shouldn't have been. After her uncomfortable interview with Gordon Tandy, Dan had driven her home.
“My brother Sam ran it into town for you,” Dan said, catching up with her. He took her elbow again and steered her toward his house instead of hers. “There's no point in taking two vehicles when we're both going to the hotel. I'll drive.”
She might have argued, but she didn't want to take the time.
 
An hour after the dealers' room opened, the hairs on the back of Liss's neck prickled. Someone was watching her. Slowly, she shifted her gaze toward the entrance. The man standing in the doorway, staring at her with chilling intensity, was State Police Detective Gordon Tandy.
He sauntered over to her display tables. On the surface, he was just another conference-goer. He did not wear a uniform and neither his badge nor his gun was obviously displayed. But he did have that distinctive quasi-military bearing and an air of authority. Somehow, even in civvies, he was easy to spot as a cop.
“Liss,” he said in the deceptively pleasant voice she knew so well.
She forced herself to smile. “Gordon.”
“A word with you? Somewhere private would be good.”
“Of course. Beth, can you mind the store?”
Angie's ten-year-old daughter was thrilled to be asked. Helping in the bookstore was a frequent occurrence, but being responsible for the many and varied gift items sold at Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium was a treat for her.
“Isn't that kid a little young to hold a job?” Gordon asked as they left the dealers' room. Liss could hear laughter coming out of one of the larger meeting rooms where a session was in progress. The sign outside the door said it was a panel of Maine writers—Dorothy Cannell, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Susan Vaughan, and Lea Wait.
“Didn't you ever help out in your father's store when you were a kid?” Like the Emporium, Tandy's Gifts and Music was a family business, handed down to Gordon's brother, Russ, by their father.
“There's a fine line between that and child labor.”
“Trust me, there won't be much labor involved. Scottish-themed items do not appear to be big sellers at this conference, except for the few that also feature cats. I sold out of T-shirts picturing bagpipe-playing felines.”
“No market for kilt pins? What's the world coming to?” They entered the elevator to go down to the lobby level.
Liss stared at him. Was he actually trying to joke with her? She doubted it. He was probably just trying to soften her up before he hit her with the tough questions and gave her another lecture on the dangers of meddling in a murder investigation. To get a little of her own back, she made her voice as casual as possible and said, “My other big sellers are skean dhus.”
Gordon looked puzzled. He knew what they were, of course, being a piper himself. They were the little knives kilt-wearing Scots wore tucked into the top of their hose. But he appeared to be unaware that a skean dhu had been the murder weapon the last time there was a murder in Moosetookalook. Although he'd been away then, Liss was surprised he hadn't been filled in on all the details as soon as he got back to Maine. After all, his brother had been one of those present at the hotel that weekend.
That had been the same weekend Dan proposed to her.
“They make good souvenirs,” she blurted, then winced at her own inane comment.
Just shut up, Liss,
she ordered herself.
Gordon opened the door to the hotel library and waved her in ahead of him. The room was furnished with shelves full of books that hotel guests were welcome to borrow and also housed jigsaw puzzles and board games for their amusement. An audio recorder, notebook, and several pens had been set out on a small table. A uniformed officer sat behind it, apparently waiting to take notes.
“So, what's on the agenda?” Liss asked, knowing she sounded much too cheerful. “More questions about Nola?”
“First I have a few questions about Jane Nedlinger,” Gordon said, and indicated that she should take a chair.
Liss perched on the edge of her seat, hands folded primly in her lap. “What about her?”
Gordon grabbed a straight chair, turned it around, and straddled it. He gave her a hard stare. “You tell me. You said that you met her for the first time on Thursday evening.”
“That's right. At the opening reception. With about a hundred other people around.”
“And then you rushed right out to call an emergency meeting with all the other businesspeople in town.”
“Not
all
of them.”
“Jane Nedlinger left behind notes she'd made for a blog post she was writing.”
Liss waited.
“Those were the only notes I found when I searched her room. It looks to me as if you were the only person at this entire conference who interested her.”
Liss frowned. That couldn't be right.
“Liss?”
“She asked to interview me, but later she told Dan that she was going to write the story without my input.”
In painstaking detail, Gordon took her through the events of Thursday evening. Liss tried to confine her answers to a simple recitation of the facts. After all, she hadn't known Nola's history at the time of the meeting. There was no point in dwelling on the antagonism between Stu and Doug. She was certain that it hadn't had any bearing on
Jane's
death, and she doubted there was a connection to Nola's, either. Besides, as Gordon kept telling her, it wasn't her place to teach the police their business.
“What did you do after the MSBA meeting broke up?” he asked.
“I had a glass of wine to relax me and went to bed. Trust me, I did not come out here to the hotel, lure Jane Nedlinger out to Lover's Leap, and push her off the cliff.”
Her denial didn't get the reaction she'd expected. Gordon should have found her sarcasm mildly amusing. Instead, he kept his cop face on.
The silence stretched until she almost burst into random speech just to fill it. Just as she was about to give in to the urge, he asked another question.
“Can Ruskin give you an alibi?”
Liss wished she could attribute the coldness in his voice to resentment over the fact that she'd chosen Dan instead of him. But this conversation wasn't personal. He was all business, and his business was murder.
“No, he can't,” Liss said. She realized she was twisting her engagement ring around and around on her finger and forced herself to stop.
It was Gordon's job to suspect everyone, she reminded herself. But surely he couldn't believe she was capable of murder! He knew her better than that.
Gordon hesitated, then rephrased his question. “He didn't spend the night?” His tone of voice had changed, ever so slightly.
She blinked, then narrowed her eyes to stare at him. Was she wrong about his ability to separate the personal from the professional? She didn't suppose it mattered. Neither the man nor the cop would like her answer.
“Dan and I are engaged to be married,” she said in a voice as bland and matter-of-fact as she could make it. “Sometimes he stays over, but we're not living together. The only ones who slept with me on Thursday night were Lumpkin and Glenora.”
“Glenora?”
“The black kitten who adopted me last Christmas.”
He nodded, remembering, and almost smiled.
“I was planning on talking to Jane Nedlinger yesterday, Gordon, but the only time I actually saw her or spoke to her before she died was at that reception. I didn't care much for what she had to say, but I certainly didn't kill her to stop her from writing about me.”
“And yet you admit she threatened you. That makes you a logical suspect in her death.”
“Yeah, I had that figured out.”
“A pity cats can't testify in court.”
“Was that an attempt at humor?”
“Only if you found it funny.”
Liss rolled her eyes. “At least tell me that
you
don't believe I killed anyone.”
Gordon stood up, swinging the chair around to return it to the exact place he'd taken it from. His expression was as unreadable as ever. “I don't think you're a killer, but I can't play favorites. I'll go where the investigation takes me. Right now it's forcing me to take a very close look at you.”
“Okay.” She didn't like what he was saying, but she understood where he was coming from.
“I'll have more questions for you later, about Nola Ventress's death, but that's it for now.”
He signaled to his associate to turn off the recorder and stop taking notes. Liss had all but forgotten the other officer was there, he'd effaced himself so completely from the interview. She felt her cheeks heat. She hadn't been all that comfortable talking to Gordon about Dan. The knowledge that a complete stranger had heard what she'd said—and recorded every word, too—left her feeling even more flustered.
“You can do yourself a big favor,” Gordon said, “by going back to the dealers' room and staying there. Let me do my job and clear you of suspicion. Do not try to help.”
“Fine. I get the message.” Fuming, both embarrassed and annoyed, Liss headed for the door. “The last thing I want,” she flung over her shoulder, “is to become involved in another murder investigation!”
Chapter Ten
S
herri arrived at The Spruces just in time to see a flatbed truck leaving with what looked like an entire tree aboard. She grimaced. That wasn't the kind of evidence anyone collected for an accident or a suicide. Nope. They were looking for clues in a homicide. And that meant she'd blown it, big time, over Jane Nedlinger's death.
A crime lab mobile unit was parked in the hotel's back lot. Sherri ignored it and headed for the path into the woods. It was the crime scene she needed to see again. With any luck, she'd find someone there who'd be willing to talk to her. After all, she was in uniform, even if it wasn't the right shade of blue.
At least she was officially on duty. She hadn't intended to work, but Jeff hadn't been able to find anyone to take her place. He'd been all set to put in a double shift himself when she'd called in to get his okay to make contact with the state police at the hotel in a semi-official capacity. Since Pete had taken a sick day to help her look after Adam, she was determined not to feel guilty about insisting to Jeff that she work her own shift. There was no need for her to stay at her injured son's side every moment of the day. Besides, no one would mind if she made a few stops at the apartment during the next eight hours, just to make sure Adam was okay.
Although Liss had found Nola's body nearly sixteen hours earlier, the site was still swarming with people. Sherri knew the routine. Last night, Gordon would have done a walk-through to get an overview of the situation and Sherri's friend George, as M.E., would have come back out to view yet another body in situ at the foot of the cliff. Then they'd have taken photographs. Lots of photographs. It wasn't uncommon to take a hundred, even two hundred shots of a crime scene. They'd have made a video of the scene, too.
These days the state police did their “chalk outline” with florescent orange tongue depressors stuck in at the head, crotch, arms, and legs. Sherri was glad the body had long since been taken away, safely wrapped in a clean white sheet the state police had brought to the scene themselves. They'd have put brown paper bags over the hands and feet, since plastic destroyed evidence, before they put the remains in a body bag.
Gordon Tandy had been designated the primary for the case. It was his area, after all. That meant he and other officers would talk to everyone and then re-interview many of them two or three more times to verify every detail, tease out anything that might have been overlooked the first time around, and cross-check all the facts. He wouldn't necessarily be looking for a motive. One wasn't required for arrest or prosecution. But he couldn't be happy about Liss's involvement in the case. He'd have to suspect her in both murders. She'd clashed with Jane and she'd been the one to find Nola, both damning circumstances. Sherri felt sorry for both Gordon and Liss, especially if Gordon was still carrying a torch for her.
The first person she saw when she came out into the clearing at the top of the cliff was Gordon Tandy. She steeled herself to face his disapproval and kept going, ignoring the scowl he sent her way when he caught sight of her. His team was still in the process of going over the terrain, inch by inch, picking up and recording the location of everything they found. There was no way to tell at this stage what might turn out to be important
“Is there a reason you're here?” Gordon demanded. If she hadn't known him so well, she might have been intimidated by his brusque manner.
She felt warmth creep into her cheeks, but she answered him with the truth. “I wanted to be sure the forensics team found everything I saw here Friday morning—condoms, tissues, and especially gum wrappers. Those might be important. Bill Stotz is a compulsive gum chewer. He's one of the people Jane Nedlinger talked to at the reception. There was a name-badge holder, too.”
Even as she spoke, she saw one of the officers drop the badge holder into an evidence bag.
“We've got it covered,” Gordon said.
“The way I hear it, everyone at the MSBA meeting was pretty het up over the threat of bad publicity for the town.”
That caught Gordon's interest. “You weren't there?”
“I was home with my kid.” When he looked blank, she filled him in on Adam's broken arm.
He softened a fraction. “I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe you should get back to him.”
“Pete's there. Look, Gordon, Jane Nedlinger annoyed a lot of people. Me, for instance.”
“You talked to the victim?” She had his full attention at last, and wished she didn't.
Feeling like a pinned butterfly, Sherri gave him a succinct report on Jane Nedlinger's visit to the P.D. “I didn't much like her, but I had no idea how much trouble she meant to cause.”
“You were the first officer on the scene when she was found. Didn't you recognize her?”
“Well, that's the thing. I never saw her face, just a body dressed in jogging clothes. I know this sounds like I'm making excuses, but I only went into the office yesterday morning to find a replacement so I could stay home with Adam. As soon as Jeff arrived on the scene, he sent me home. That was after the M.E. said the injuries were consistent with a fall but before anyone identified her.”
Gordon gave her a searching look. “You feeling guilty?”
“Well, yeah. I should have—”
“Get over it. Yes, the call was a bad one, but you weren't the one who screwed things up. Jeff relieved you before the body was brought up. You had no reason to think anything but what you did. George and the rescue team saw things the same way. If anyone blew it, it was George, for not noticing the discrepancy in the time of death sooner than he did.”
“So it's not Jeff's fault, either?”
“Trust me, no one's going to blame Jeff.”
Sherri started to say more, then thought better of it. She doubted that Gordon had a very high opinion of Moosetookalook's home-grown chief of police. Jeff had been given the job because he was willing to accept the ridiculously low salary that was all the town selectmen would authorize for the job.
She started to leave, then turned back. “Gordon? Did Jane Nedlinger contact anyone in your outfit about her story? I told her the state police had a public relations office.”
“She didn't get hold of them,” Gordon said.
But something in his tone made Sherri wonder if Jane had talked to
him
.
 
At the check-in desk in the lobby, Joe Ruskin was once again on duty.
“Did you get any rest last night?” Dan asked him. “You look done in.” Dan sometimes wondered if his father ever slept.
“I'm okay, but I wouldn't mind it if you spelled me here for an hour or two.”
Backed into a corner, Dan assured his father that he'd be glad to take over at the front desk. He wasn't happy at the prospect of being trapped there. He'd planned to spend time with Liss, on and off, throughout the day. With everything that was going on, he felt uneasy about leaving her to her own devices. He knew her too well.
Once Dan was ensconced behind the check-in desk, Joe didn't immediately take off. “Something on your mind, Dad?”
“It's hell getting old, son.”
“Old!” Dan scoffed. “You're not even sixty yet.”
“Yeah, that's me. A real spring chicken.” But his expression remained solemn. “Nola will never make it to sixty.”
“So, you knew her well?” Dan was still trying to wrap his head around the Doug-Nola-Stu triangle. It was hard for him to imagine either of those men as young and in love, let alone part of a sex scandal.
Joe shrugged. “You know this town. It was even smaller back then. Everybody knew everybody, or thought they did. Besides, I saw Nola once after she divorced Doug and left Maine.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dan wasn't sure he wanted to hear this.
“You know I went into the navy right after high school.” Joe snorted. “Smart-ass kid that I was, I called myself a draft dodger. There was still a draft back then, you see, and I was afraid I'd end up in Vietnam if I waited for the army to grab me. Anyway, I was young and carefree and I liked the life pretty well. I did two tours of duty as an aviation electrician's mate, mostly stationed on aircraft carriers. That's how I learned I could work with my hands. When I wasn't at sea, a friend of mine got me helping to build sets for a local little theater. That got me thinking I might be pretty good at putting houses together, too.”
Dan leaned his elbows on the counter, fascinated by this glimpse of his father as a young man. Joe wasn't much given to reminiscing. As if he'd just realized that himself, he shrugged and looked self-conscious, but he continued his story.
“I was stationed stateside when one day, out of the blue, I got this phone call from Nola. She was in town, attending a writer's conference, and she'd decided to look me up. I already knew what had happened back home.” His lips twisted into an ironic smile. “Your grandmother was still alive back then and she kept me in the loop. Anyway, I agreed to meet Nola for a drink. By that time, your mother and I were planning to get married. I wasn't going to re-up when my tour of duty was over. I was ready to come home, settle down, and start a family. That was why, at first, I was too dumb to catch on to what Nola wanted.”
Dan couldn't help grinning. “She tried to put the moves on you?”
“That she did, son.” He shook his head. “And all the while she was telling me about the big plans she had now that she'd shaken the dust of Moosetookalook off her feet.”
“Plans other than scoring with you?” Dan couldn't resist ribbing his father.
“Oh, yeah. She was more of a dreamer than I am. She was going to be a famous writer. Make a fortune at it. Hit all the bestseller lists.” Sadness replaced the twinkle in his eyes as he made a gesture that encompassed the entire hotel. “I was lucky. Some dreams do come true. Others don't. Poor Nola. Seems to me that organizing this conference and inviting all her favorite authors to attend was the closest she ever got.”
Liss passed the registration table on her way back to the dealers' room after a bathroom break. Nola's second in command, Phoebe, sent a brilliant smile her way and waved a flyer at her. “Want to sign up now for next year? Special early-bird registration fee,” she called out. “And our guest of honor has just confirmed.”
“That's great,” Liss called back, but she didn't take the time to stop and find out who that person might be.
She did wonder if she should suspect Phoebe of murdering Nola. The woman certainly seemed to have come into her own since she'd taken charge of the conference. She might have pondered the possibility further if she'd had time at first to think about anything but business, but for once she had customers waiting. In rapid succession, she sold two more skean dhus.
“This is just like the one used in that murder, right?” her second customer asked.
“Close enough.” She told herself that a small business owner could not afford to be squeamish and took his money, but the reminder that her hometown might really become infamous as the “murder capital of Maine” had her stomach twisted into knots.
After the next set of panels got under way, Liss once more had too much time to think. She replayed her session with Gordon in her mind. Had there really been no notes in Jane's room except those relating to Moosetookalook? Surely she'd been working on more than one story. She'd blogged daily, and her piece on Liss hadn't been scheduled to run until after the weekend.
Liss could think of several people at the conference who might have wanted to stop Jane from writing bad things about them. She'd already given Gordon their names. Surely it wouldn't be interfering in his investigation if she just jotted down a few questions. They might even trigger an idea that would help him. She burrowed in her tote for a notepad and a felt-tip pen and began to write.
Who was Jane Nedlinger?
Where did she come from?
Why did she hate mystery novels?
Did she come to Moosetookalook only because
of the previous murders?

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