Scotched (24 page)

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Authors: Kaitlyn Dunnett

BOOK: Scotched
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“Stu what?”
“Stu came in late. He was out of breath. You don't suppose. . . ?”
“No, I don't. First of all, Stu is often late. That he was on time for the MSBA meeting on Friday was the exception to the rule. Second, if he'd killed her, he'd have confessed to it when he was arrested, instead of just rambling on about suicide. Who else did you see at the auction before you went to look for Nola?”
“Margaret. She was the one who asked me to find Nola. And—oh, you'll like this—Dolores and Moose.”
He cracked the ghost of a smile.
“But I keep coming back to Yvonne and Bill, who weren't there. And when you add in the gum wrappers—”
“Which are pretty darned common. You can't build a case based on litter. Besides, if they were acting together, don't you think one of them would have been smart enough to make sure they didn't leave any evidence behind?”
Liss mulled over what he'd said, but she had a clear picture in her mind of the two of them ganging up on Jane and pushing her over. “She was a big woman,” Liss mused. “It would have taken considerable strength to shove her hard enough so she'd fall and break her neck.”
Dan hid a yawn behind his hand. “Pushing someone off a cliff seems like a pretty dumb way to commit murder. People can survive falls like that.”
“That's what Gordon said, too. I suppose they hoped it would look like an accident. And it did, at first.”
“Me, I think I would have broken her neck
before
she went over the side, just to make sure she died.”
Liss stared at him, suddenly reminded of a scrap of conversation in the dealers' room, a careless comment that hadn't made any real impression on her at the time. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “She wouldn't have needed help, after all.”
“Who wouldn't?”
“Yvonne Quinlan. She was a stuntwoman before she was an actress. She all but came right out and told me that she knows exactly how to break someone's neck.”
Chapter Fourteen
O
n Sunday morning, Liss awoke slowly. She was reluctant to get out of bed. She had so many things to do in the next few hours that she was tempted not to do any of them. She had not slept well. She didn't remember much about her dreams, but they'd definitely included an enraged Yvonne Quinlan, showing fang and gleefully snapping necks. Far-fetched? Only the vampire part.
She forced herself to sit up. The first order of business was to ask Dan to drive to Fallstown and bring Stu back to Moosetookalook. He could leave right after Lenny Peet's funeral, which was scheduled for nine that morning. It was an odd time for such a thing—right before Sunday church services—but that was apparently what Lenny had requested. Liss told herself she should be grateful. She'd only be an hour late getting to the dealers' room.
The smell of coffee drifting up from the kitchen told her that Dan had been up for a while and explained why the cats weren't still in bed with her. She decided she could get used to having someone make coffee for her in the morning. Maybe Dan would agree to do it every day after they were married. On that cheerful thought, she dragged herself out of bed and into the shower.
Brain and spirits both revived under the influence of hot water, soap, and shampoo, but that meant Liss remembered more things she had to do. There was the matter of Lenny Peet's dog, for one. Skippy was still incarcerated at the animal shelter. She had to find him a new home. She wondered if Stu could be persuaded to adopt a pet.
She needed to talk to Doug, too. Not about Skippy. And not about Nola, either. There was no point in dredging up what must be painful memories for him. But she'd promised herself that she would take the funeral director to task over his son's cavalier treatment of Lenny's remains. She couldn't let that go undone much longer. Who knew how many other bodies the boy, unchecked, might treat with similar disrespect?
Once she got back to the hotel, she intended to pursue yet another matter. Minutes after coming to her stunning conclusion about Yvonne Quinlan the previous night, she'd recognized the need for a reality check. Yvonne's Caroline Sweet character, the vampire, might be able to break necks with her bare hands, but that might be just another example of the fallacies perpetuated by television and movies—the sort of thing Nola had regularly poked fun at in the books she'd written under Yvonne's name.
Someone at the conference should know. A specific someone. According to the program, one of the panels had featured a speaker who was an expert on martial arts. Liss hoped he'd be able to answer her question. And, with any luck, he'd drop by the dealers' room for the group signing after the morning panels or attend the closing tea so she could ask him.
By the time Liss had downed her second cup of coffee and eaten two slices of buttered toast, she'd completed a new list: Things To Do Today.
Dan read silently over her shoulder. He made no comment, but Liss suspected he planned to stick close to her until the conference was over. She was surprised to discover that she didn't mind a bit. Looking back, she realized that the change had come about shortly after their confrontation with Gordon Tandy the previous night. Dan was no longer acting like a bodyguard. He'd become her partner.
At a few minutes before nine, they left the house and crossed the square to the funeral home. Liss wore a simple dark blue pantsuit that was equally appropriate for a memorial service and a tea. Aunt Margaret showed up in one of her tartan skirts and a white blouse with a jabot.
“Lenny was always upbeat,” she explained. “If he's looking down on us, I think this outfit will make him smile.”
The service had a good turnout. It was simple but moving. The preacher spoke a few words and then invited Lenny's friends to share their memories. When Liss took her turn, she ended her remarks with a pitch for adopting Lenny's dog. “As most of you know, his name is Skippy,” she told the crowd. “He's a two-year-old fox terrier, and it would make Lenny very happy to know that he had a good home.”
Afterward, when the mourners were still milling about before leaving, she heard Dan's brother, Sam, talking to Pete's mother. “Dogs are great,” he said. “My daughter would be lost without Papelbon.”
“What kind of name is that for a dog?” Mrs. Campbell asked. “Papelbon is a baseball player, the closer for the Red Sox.”
“And your point is? If I remember right, Lenny called the last dog he owned Tatupu.” When she looked blank, he added, “Football player, for the Patriots, back when Lenny was younger. It's a fine old tradition to name pets after sports figures.”
As Liss looked around for Doug, she wondered who Skippy had been named after.
“I was hoping to speak to your husband,” Liss told Lorelei, who was resplendent in a black silk dress that clung just a little too tightly to her lush figure.
“If it's about adopting that dog, we're not interested.”
“It's not.” Liss debated mentioning Frank Preston's disrespectful attitude to his mother but decided it wouldn't do any good. Better to wait and talk to Doug. Lorelei indulged her only child. When he'd gotten in trouble the previous winter, she'd taken his side against her husband. Instead of being grounded for a month and losing his cell phone and MP3 player for that same length of time, as Doug had proposed, Frank had been deprived of those privileges for only a week.
“I wouldn't mind taking the dog,” Betsy Twining said. “Is Skippy in the animal shelter down to Fallstown?”
While Liss was distracted, Lorelei disappeared into Doug's office. She reappeared a few minutes later, looking disgruntled. Liss didn't bother talking to her again, but she stuck her own head into the office on her way out, expecting to find Doug there. As funeral director, he usually stuck around until all the mourners had left the building. To her surprise, the room was empty.
A glance at her watch warned Liss that she didn't have time to hunt for him. If he was down in the embalming room, she wasn't sure she wanted to find him anyway. Telling him his son was a lout would have to wait. She needed to get out to The Spruces.
Dan drove her to the hotel and escorted her to the dealer's room, then headed for Fallstown to pick up Stu. As promised, someone had phoned Liss before she left for the funeral to let her know that Stu had been able to post bail and was free to return home.
“It's been a dismal morning so far,” Angie lamented when Liss slipped behind the Emporium's tables. “It looks to me as if everyone who wanted to buy a book has already done so. Or else they brought books with them to be autographed. Books they probably ordered online at a discount I can't afford to match.”
“Cheer up,” Liss said. “The group signing starts at eleven. People will come in then. While they're waiting in line, maybe they'll make a few impulse buys.”
“Optimist!”
Dan returned while the last panel was still in session.
“How's Stu?” Liss asked.
“He's feeling very, very sorry for himself. And he's ticked off that he wrecked his car.”
“He should be grateful he's out of jail.”
“Oh, he is, and he seems to have gotten past the idea that he was responsible for Nola's death.”
“Gordon probably told him
she's
the murderer,” Liss muttered.
“If so, Stu didn't share. When I dropped him off, the only thing he was interested in was crawling into bed and sleeping for a week. He was still pretty hungover.”
“Poor Stu.” She shook her head. “And to think, for about a half hour last night, I actually believed he might have done it.”
“And that's why we leave the detecting to the professionals,” Dan said with a grin.
Liss made a face at him. “Did you find out who was working at the front desk on Thursday night?”
“I did. It was Tricia Lynd. I talked to her on the phone a few minutes ago. She worked Thursday night into early Friday morning.”
“And?”
“She saw Nola return from the MSBA meeting.”
“And?”
“Nola met Jane in the lobby.”
“
Nola
did?”
Dan nodded. “Tricia said it looked like they were arguing over something, but she wasn't close enough to overhear what they said.”
“Did they leave the hotel together?”
“Tricia says not. Nola took the elevator. Jane stayed in the lobby a bit longer—she'd been sitting in one of the wing chairs, reading a magazine until Nola got back—then she left in the direction of the stairs. Tricia assumed Nola and Jane had gone up to their respective rooms. She didn't see either of them again.”
“What was she wearing?” Liss asked. “Jane. Did Tricia say?”
“Is it important?”
“I don't know.”
Dan pulled out his cell phone and hit redial. “Tricia. Sorry to bother you again, but Nancy Drew here has another question for you.” He handed the phone to Liss.
Tricia, who was the hotel's only intern, a Jill-of-all-trades with an eye for detail, had exactly the information Liss wanted. She was smiling when she hung up. “Jane was wearing jogging clothes when she talked to Nola.”
“So, she didn't change before she went out to the Leap. Maybe she never did go back to her room. But that doesn't really tell us anything we didn't know. In fact, the meeting in the lobby lends credence to Tandy's theory that Nola and Jane met at the Leap and Nola pushed Jane over.”
“No. I don't buy it. There's still the problem of relative size.
Nola
never trained as a stuntwoman.”
An influx of people signaled the end of the last panels and the start of the group signing. Additional tables had been brought in so that all the attending authors could be accommodated. The dealers' room was packed, but few bought books and no one showed any interest in the items Liss had for sale.
Liss did manage to spot her martial arts expert and lure him over to her table for a quick question. Unfortunately, he wasn't much help. Necks could apparently be broken more easily than she'd thought, but what she'd been thinking of as the “vampire snap” was, if not a Hollywood invention, then at least a skill usually reserved for Green Berets or Navy Seals or other muscular military types.
“But if someone were
trained
,” Liss persisted. “Is brute strength a requirement?”
“Well, no,” the expert allowed, “but you have to know what you're doing. Why are you so interested in this, anyway?”
Liss shrugged off the question. “Oh, you know—you see that sort of thing on television all the time. Take
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, for example. The actress who plays Buffy isn't all that big or muscular.”
The expert's expression brightened. “I love that show,” he admitted. “But I'm pretty sure all the neck breaking is done by vampires. Angel. And sometimes The Master. Buffy pretty much sticks with her trusty wooden stake.”
Liss was still mulling over this new information when she spotted Davy Kline and his mother in the line to have author Lea Wait sign books. She turned to Angie. “You want stock signed?” she asked.
“I was hoping the authors would stop by on their way out.”
“Why don't I take the books to them?” She was already gathering up copies of Lea's children's books, all of which were set in Maine. When she started to add the volumes in her Shadows mystery series, about a woman who sold antique prints and therefore had reason to travel to antiques fairs and other potential venues for murder, Angie separated out the mass market paperbacks. “Hardbacks and trade paperbacks only.”
In short order, Liss was standing behind Davy Kline. When he eased his mother's wheelchair up to the signing table and stepped back, she seized her chance. “You're the one who found the first accident victim, aren't you?”
He slanted her a wary look. “Yeah. But I don't really want to talk about that anymore.”
“I understand how you feel. I was the one who found Nola Ventress's body. And what made it worse was that I knew her a little. Had you ever met the woman you found?”
Davy shook his head. “I just saw her around, y'know? I never talked to her.”
“At the reception, I suppose?”
“Then, and again later that night.”
Liss's interest quickened. She glanced toward Davy's mother and was relieved to see that she and Lea Wait were engrossed in a conversation about the books she'd brought to be signed. “Was this in the hotel?” she asked.
“Sort of.”
“Meaning what?”
Davy looked uncomfortable. “When I saw her again, it was around midnight. I couldn't sleep, so I was standing at the window, looking out. They keep the floodlights on all night. Not real bright, but enough to see a little, and my room looks out across a roof. Over a porch, maybe. Anyway, she came out. I'm pretty sure it was her. She was kind of big and dumpy, you know? Easy to recognize. And she was wearing this jogging suit, which just made her look bigger. Anyway, she walked straight across the grass and disappeared into the woods. I thought that was kind of strange, because it was so late and all.”

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