A Wee Christmas Homicide (19 page)

Gravel and rocks tossed up by the sled ahead dinged off the front of Stu’s snowmobile. From beneath the treads, Liss heard a grinding noise. Much more of that and the chase would be over.

They were on a hilly road full of twists and turns as well as ruts and soft shoulders. Liss slowed a little more, common sense asserting itself even as every other instinct she possessed urged her to continue her pursuit. Gaining more of a lead, the fleeing sled careened around a hairpin curve at breakneck speed.

Momentarily on higher ground, Liss could see what was obscured from the other driver’s view by the blind corner. There was a stand of trees dead ahead.

Liss let up on the throttle. Her snowmobile skidded sideways and came a bone-jarring halt. The engine sputtered and stalled.

The crash of metal against timber was terrifyingly loud in the sudden quiet.

Liss’s insides twisted and she squeezed her eyes shut.

It wasn’t until she felt Gordon release her and slide off the sled that she could force herself to look.

As he ran toward the scene, she dismounted on trembling legs. With clumsy fingers she fished the first-aid kit out of its storage space and stumbled after him.

Both riders had been thrown. Gordon had already reached the driver, who had landed in the road. Glancing back at Liss, he gestured for her to go to the passenger. The figure in navy blue lay supine on the snow a few yards away.

Kneeling beside the fallen body, her heart in her throat, Liss opened the face mask. The features she revealed did not belong to anyone she’d ever seen before. A stranger stared up at Liss with a dazed look in her eyes.

Definitely a woman. Definitely alive. The snow had been deep enough and soft enough to cushion her fall.

“Can you speak?” Liss asked. “Don’t move yet. You might have broken something.”

“Just…winded…I…think.”

“Good. That’s good.” Liss looked for blood. She didn’t see any.

The woman wiggled her hands and feet experimentally. She winced when she tried to move her right leg, but didn’t seem to be in severe pain. “What…what happened?”

“You hit a tree.”

Liss turned her head to look at the driver of the crashed sled. All she could see were feet.

They weren’t moving. Gordon had climbed the bank on the opposite side of the dirt road and had his cell phone to his ear.

It was cold out in the open. Bitterly cold. Blowing snow stung Liss’s cheeks when she removed her helmet. She started to shake, but not from the chill in the air. Now that the chase was over, she realized just how close they had all come to disaster.

“Will you be okay alone for a minute?” Liss’s voice wasn’t steady, either.

“I’m not going anywhere. I think I did something to my knee.” The woman managed a wry smile, but it cost her.

“Knees can be fixed,” Liss said. How well she knew it! Promising she’d be right back, she went straight to Gordon, reaching his side just as he finished his phone call.

Dark eyes filled with sorrow, he turned to her. “She’s dead, Liss.” His voice sounded strained. “She was thrown into the same tree her snowmobile hit. The impact broke her neck.”

“She? So, it’s not Eric Moss?”

“No. And not Felicity Thorne, either.”

She blinked at him in confusion. She’d been so certain they were chasing one or the other. “The passenger is a stranger,” she whispered. “The driver, too?”

But Gordon shook his head. “The dead woman is someone we know, all right. It’s Marcia Milliken Katz.”

“G
ood thing Jim Uxbridge likes to check on his camp in winter,” Pete Campbell muttered as they jounced over the ruts in the narrow dirt road. “If he hadn’t plowed out after the storm, we’d never be able to get through.”

“There they are!” Sherri tightened her grip on the Crown Vic’s dashboard as Pete hit the brakes.

They were the first responders at the accident scene. Sherri was out of her jurisdiction and off duty besides, but she’d been riding with Pete when the call came in over the police radio. Knowing Liss’s plans for the afternoon, she expected to find her friend with Gordon Tandy. What she couldn’t predict was whether or not Liss was the one requiring medical attention.

She spotted the bandage on Gordon’s forehead first. Then she caught sight of the body, half concealed by two trees with ugly slashes across their bark. Her heart stuttered and for a moment she forgot how to breathe.

Then Pete said, “There’s Liss, sitting on that log.”

“Thank God!” Sherri fumbled with her seat belt and scrambled out of the sheriff’s department cruiser.

Taking the most direct route, Sherri cut across unbroken snow. Liss looked relatively undamaged, but her face was paler than the icy ground beneath Sherri’s feet and she had a spectacular bruise coming up on one cheek. The silver space blanket wrapped around her shimmered in the setting sun every time Liss shivered.

A woman sat next to her, a middle-aged blonde cocooned in a second blanket, this one blaze orange. Sherri had never seen her before.

“There’s an ambulance en route.” Sherri’s voice came out as a squeak. She had to clear her throat before she could go on. “You okay?”

“I’ll survive. Did you know these space emergency blankets only weigh three ounces and will fit into a first aid kit? Stu had two of them. Isn’t that lucky?” The hand that held the blanket closed trembled violently. “Why can’t I get warm?”

A bitter wind soughed through the trees. Even bundled up, Sherri felt the cold slice through her. She could only imagine how much more strongly it would affect someone who’d just been in an accident. Neither woman looked as if she was about to go into shock, but they both needed shelter from the elements.

“Come on.” Sherri helped the stranger, who she now saw had an Ace bandage wrapped around one knee, get to her feet. “We can sit in the cruiser and run the heater. That’ll help.”

It was a slow trek to the car. Sherri assisted the blonde. Liss managed on her own, but she was wobbly on her pins, and she insisted on carrying the backpack that had been sitting in the snow beside the log.

As she walked, Sherri listened for a siren, but there was no sign yet of the ambulance. It had to come all the way from Fallstown, much farther than Pete had traveled.

After Sherri installed Liss in the front seat and turned the heat on full blast, she helped the blonde settle into the back seat. Pete always carried a thermos of coffee. Sherri poured a few ounces of the hot liquid into one of the disposable cups he kept in the trunk. For the moment, she ignored the six-pack of bottled water and other assorted emergency gear.

Strictly speaking, she supposed she shouldn’t give the woman anything to drink before the EMTs saw her, but there was no way of telling when they’d show up. In the meantime, the cold was a known danger. It was beginning to get dark, too. If the wreck had occurred any farther out in the wilderness, problems with hypothermia would have been inevitable.

“Here.” She thrust the cup toward the stranger.

“Thanks.” The woman’s voice was low and throaty. “But I don’t think I can hold that, even half full, without spilling it.” Like Liss, she was shivering, shaking so hard that she was having difficulty keeping the blanket in place around her shoulders.

Sherri slid into the backseat beside the blonde and closed the door. She helped her to drink the coffee. After the first few sips, the tremors subsided to a manageable level. Before long, the stranger snaked one hand out from beneath the orange blanket and took the cup for herself. Only then did Sherri have the opportunity to sneak a peek at Liss.

On the other side of the clear, shatterproof barrier, she sat slumped and unresponsive, still huddled in her silver blanket. She was staring through the windshield at Gordon, who stood talking to Pete. Her view also encompassed the scarred trees, the wreck of the snowmobile, and the body.

Sherri swallowed convulsively. She’d been trying not to think too much about that motionless form. Gordon hadn’t identified the victim over the radio, but whoever it was, that person would never be warm again.

She turned back to the stranger. “You got a name?” The question came out too sharply, but she didn’t apologize.

“Donna. Donna Conroy.”

“Okay, Donna. Try to sip a little more of this. We need to warm you up.” Sherri poured another half cup of coffee and watched the other woman polish it off. The hot drink seemed to revive her. She had a little color in her cheeks and the shakes seemed to be a thing of the past.

Sherri was about to get out of the car and take the remaining coffee up front to Liss when the ambulance, sirens silent, pulled in behind the cruiser. Sherri helped transfer Donna to the care of the two EMTs before sliding in behind the wheel.

Instantly, hot air engulfed her. With the heater going full blast the car was way too warm, but Sherri didn’t touch the controls. She pulled off her hat and gloves and unzipped her coat as she gave Liss a hard stare. Like Donna, Liss had stopped shivering, but she was still pale as a ghost and hollow-eyed with it. Her gaze never left the crash site.

Between the fogged windshield and the gathering dusk, there wasn’t much left to see. Gordon appeared as a vague outline. The body was no longer visible.

“Do you need to be checked out for injuries?”

“No.”

“Are you warmed up yet?”

“I’m too numb to tell.”

“Frostbite?” Sherri poured coffee into a second disposable cup and handed it over.

“Brain dead.” Liss automatically drank the dark brew but she continued to track Gordon’s movements with her eyes. “We were chasing them, and then everything happened so fast.” Her voice hitched.

Sherri could fill in some of the blanks for herself. Liss and Gordon must have encountered the other snowmobile at that cabin the Thornes had once owned. It had crashed while they were in pursuit and the driver had been killed. Being Liss, she probably felt responsible for the death. Add a dollop of guilt to the shock of witnessing a violent accident and sudden death and it was no wonder she was having trouble dealing.

“Would it help to talk about it?”

Liss shrugged.

“It would help
me.”

That got a faint smile out of her.

“Call it morbid curiosity, but I’d like to know what went down here.”

Liss and Gordon wouldn’t have been chasing just anybody. They’d made this trip by snowmobile specifically to check out a potential border crossing. At least Liss had.

Sherri sent a doubtful glance in Gordon’s direction. Was it her imagination, or did he look even more stiff and unapproachable than usual?

Liss drank more coffee. Sherri surreptitiously lowered the driver’s side window an inch. Her friend might still be freezing, but for anyone who hadn’t just had a shock, the Crown Vic was an oven.

Liss’s haunted expression kept Sherri silent when what she really wanted to do was pepper her with questions. Liss needed time…but not too much.

Sherri was torn. Was she just rationalizing when she told herself Liss mustn’t be allowed to brood? That telling her story would help her cope? Sherri had questions—so many questions—but she held back. Liss would talk when she was ready. Hopefully
before
Sherri burst from trying to contain her curiosity.

“I had all the pieces,” Liss said at last. Tears welled up in her eyes. “But I put them together in the wrong order.”

“Someone
was
smuggling, then?”

Liss nodded.

“Who?” She expected to hear Eric Moss’s name. Or maybe Felicity Thorne’s. She was not at all prepared for what Liss actually said.

“Marcia.”

“Mar—? No!”

That made no sense at all. Sherri peered through the windshield at the body. One of the EMTs had gone to have a look at it. By the illumination from his flashlight she could see him shake his head. There was nothing anyone could do for her.

“That’s
Marcia?”

Again, Liss nodded.

Sherri felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her stomach. Marcia hadn’t been a close friend, but she’d known the woman in a casual way for years. She’d never suspected…

“You and Gordon actually caught Marcia crossing the border?”

Liss nodded. “We didn’t know it was Marcia, but she recognized us. She shot at us. She tried to kill us. She probably would have succeeded if Donna hadn’t knocked the gun out of her hand.”

She’d had a gun? Marcia? Sherri tried to picture it. Sure Marcia had a temper, but…“Ohmigod! She killed Gavin Thorne!”

“I think so, yes.”

“Where’s the gun now?”

“Gordon has it. God, Sherri, I’m just sick. If only I’d been quicker on the uptake. Aunt Margaret told me, just this morning after you left, that Marcia and her husband were friends with the Thornes. They used to go on snowmobile trips together. Marcia knew all about the land they owned along the border. She knew how easy it was to cross into Canada. I don’t think she bought those Tiny Teddies from Eric Moss. I think she went to Quebec and picked them up herself. Look!”

Liss hauled out the backpack she’d brought with her into the cruiser. As soon as she unzipped the top, Tiny Teddies spilled out over her lap. It was jammed full of the little bears.

“Whoa!”

“And if that gun was Thorne’s, that means she killed him in cold blood, just as she meant to kill us.”

“That’s not what happened.”

Sherri and Liss turned to stare at Donna. She had acquired a pair of crutches and been able to hobble from the ambulance to the side of the cruiser without Sherri noticing. She’d obviously overheard at least part of their conversation through that inch of window Sherri had opened.

“Do you know what did happen?” Sherri asked.

“I think so.”

Sherri held up a hand to forestall a confession. “I’m Officer Sherri Willett with the Moosetookalook Police Department.” She got out of the cruiser.

“You mean I should be careful what I say to you?” Donna managed a faint smile. She looked terrified but determined. “That’s okay, Officer Willett. Go ahead and read me my rights. I knew I was breaking the law. I knew I was taking the risk of getting caught.”

Sherri obligingly recited the Miranda Warning, then gestured for Donna to resume her earlier place in the cruiser. Liss left the front seat to slide in beside her in the back.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Liss asked.

“Eventually. They want to x-ray my knee. But I’m okay for now.”

Sherri looked around for Gordon before she climbed in on Donna’s other side. One of the EMTs was checking out the gash on the detective’s forehead while Pete kept watch on Marcia’s body. It would have to stay where it was until the medical examiner had a look at the accident scene. Sherri figured he’d be showing up any minute now, along with the rest of the state team.

“Okay, Donna. Tell us what you think happened.” Sherri left the door half open so she could monitor events outside the cruiser.

“I don’t suppose Marcia would have said anything to me if I hadn’t seen the gun when we were loading up the sled. It gave me a turn. I asked her what she thought she needed a weapon for, and I told her I didn’t want to ride with her if she was armed. She said it was just a souvenir, that she’d taken it from someone who’d used it to try to make a citizen’s arrest. She laughed when she said it, and then she told me he thought he’d be a hero, but it didn’t work out that way for him. That he suffered a tragic accident when his own gun went off. That it was poetic justice.”

Donna’s stricken expression convinced Sherri that she wasn’t lying about what Marcia had said. She just wasn’t certain that Marcia had told Donna the truth.

“Thorne must have found out she was smuggling Tiny Teddies,” Liss said.

But Donna shook her head. “That was a new wrinkle. I think he must have caught on to her other…activities.” She stared at the hands clasped tightly in her lap and blurted out the rest in a rush. “Marcia has been transporting illegal aliens into this country from Canada for a couple of years now. I’m just her latest cargo.”

Sherri had heard the expression “you could have knocked me over with a feather,” all her life, but she’d never experienced that level of astonishment…till now.

“I’m a Canadian citizen married to an American,” Donna continued. “Fourteen months ago, we paid a visit to my parents in Quebec. Afterward, my husband and children were allowed back into the U.S., but I was told I couldn’t cross the border with them. I still don’t know why, but the bureaucratic nonsense and red tape have kept me out of this country ever since. Then I heard about Marcia.”

“You heard what about Marcia?” Sherri asked.

Liss had an odd look on her face, as if she had an inkling of what was to come, but Sherri was clueless. She’d assumed Donna was involved in nothing more serious than smuggling Tiny Teddies. This was a whole new ball game.

“Marcia helps…helped other people like me get home.”

“By snowmobile?”

“There’s an ATV at the cabin,” Liss murmured.

“What do you know about this?” Sherri’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as she leaned in front of Donna to focus on Liss.

“Only that Marcia had a friend in the same situation who got fed up with waiting and came back to the U.S. illegally.” Liss’s voice was flat and toneless, but her face worked as if she fought to hold back tears. “Marcia didn’t tell me she was the one who helped her. Maybe she wasn’t. But she was quite…passionate about how unfair it was to keep people like Donna separated from their families.”

“So she ferried them over the border out of the goodness of her heart?” Sherri didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.

“Hardly.” Donna looked chagrined. “Maybe it started out as helping a friend, but I had to pay her twenty-five thousand dollars for the ride.”