A Wee Christmas Homicide (21 page)

Sherri had a peculiar look on her face. She toyed with a loose yellow curl and said nothing.

“What?”

“I repeat. You weren’t alone on that sled.”

“Gordon
tried
to stop me. I realize that now. It wasn’t his fault that the engine noise was so loud that I couldn’t hear him tell me to slow down.”

Sherri gave a derisive snort. “I don’t know a lot about snowmobiles, but I do know he could have put an end to the chase at any time by reaching around you and hitting the kill switch. Or he could have employed the even simpler means of letting go and falling off the sled. You know you wouldn’t have left him there.”

Liss opened her mouth to deny Sherri’s logic but it was irrefutable.

“I’ll bet that’s why he’s in such a testy mood,” Sherri continued. “He’s beating himself up because he let you keep going. From his point of view, he put
you
at risk.”

“If that’s true, then he has all the more reason to reexamine our personal relationship. Why would he want to be involved with someone who not only deceives him but brings out the worst in him?”

Sherri rolled her eyes. “I give up. Believe what you like. I still think you’re going to get at least one marriage proposal tomorrow, all wrapped up in Santa Claus paper. So, did you open your present from me yet?”

Liss blinked, tried to change gears to keep up with Sherri, and ended up blurting, “But it’s not Christmas yet.”

“Close enough. Besides, it’s a gag gift—sort of—and you look like you need a grin.” Dragging Liss into the living room, Sherri located the package she’d brought over earlier and hauled it out from underneath the tree. She pushed it into Liss’s unresisting grasp. “Open it!”

Lumpkin and Nameless appeared at the first rustle of paper. Liss tossed them the ribbon and worked the tape loose at one end of the wrapping. It was pretty paper, silver snowflakes on a blue background, and only when she’d salvaged it did she look at the logo on the box.

Sherri’s grin widened, as did Liss’s eyes when she recognized the design. It belonged to a shop in Fallstown that handled a very special type of intimate apparel.

“You didn’t!”

Sherri smirked.

Liss opened the box and peeked cautiously inside. Nestled in bordello-red tissue paper was a scrap of black silk.

“I couldn’t resist,” Sherri confessed. “I bought you your very own tiny teddy.”

On Christmas morning, Liss came blearily awake to the familiar sound of bagpipes.

Very loud bagpipes.

Bagpipes being played directly underneath her bedroom window.

She stumbled out of bed and across the room. The window stuck, half frozen in place, but finally yielded to her efforts. She jerked on the tabs that held the screen in place, removed it, and stuck her head out into the crisp December air.

Gordon Tandy stood below in full piper’s regalia. He didn’t stop playing when he saw her. He went on to complete the tune, one she didn’t recognize. That might have been because she wasn’t familiar with it…or because Gordon was playing so badly. It didn’t matter. She understood the gesture.

Grinning ear to ear, Liss gave him a thumbs up. She couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present. The bagpipe serenade beneath her window meant he’d forgiven her for tricking him into that snowmobile trip. It also meant he’d resolved to find time to practice the hobby he’d neglected for so long, just as she’d told him she hoped he would.

“Be right down,” she called when he lowered his pipes.

Her words were nearly drowned out by Stu Burroughs’s irate bellow. “Stop that racket!” he yelled. “People are trying to sleep!”

Liss laughed aloud. Families with children, like the Hogencamps, had probably been up for hours. And Aunt Margaret, her nearest neighbor, would be the last person in the world to complain about bagpipe music, even badly played.

Of its own volition, her gaze darted across the corner of the town square to Dan’s house. There was no sign of activity there. If he had heard the early morning concert, he was ignoring it.

“Later,” he’d said yesterday. But he hadn’t come back, nor had he called.

Liss delayed only long enough to run a brush through her hair and slip into underwear and the wool slacks and off-white cashmere sweater—imported from Scotland—that she’d laid out the night before. A bright green scarf with holly and ivy embroidered along the edges dressed up the square neckline.

She was halfway down the stairs before it struck her that Gordon might have meant the musical performance to be a romantic gesture. He’d come out at the crack of dawn after working nonstop to wrap up a murder case, and after he’d been wounded, too. He still wore a bandage on his forehead.

The smile on her face felt a trifle forced as she unlocked her front door and invited Gordon in.

“Thanks. My knees were about to turn to ice.”

She glanced at the knees in question. Very nice knees. The back view wasn’t bad either as he preceded her into the living room. The swaying tartan fabric of the kilt had a mesmerizing effect.

Or maybe she just needed coffee.

“Do you actually have Christmas Day off?” she blurted, unable to think of anything more clever to say.

“All day. Knock wood.” He rapped on the oak table by the sofa as he passed it.

“I’ll put the coffee on.”

She bolted. She’d gotten a kick out of being awakened by a bagpipe serenade, but she had no idea what to expect next. The only thing she knew for certain was that it was definitely Gordon in her living room, not Officer Tandy.

“What an inventive Christmas present,” she said when she returned a short time later carrying two steaming mugs.

She’d intended to sit next to him but both cats were already on the sofa, Lumpkin on the back and the kitten beside Gordon. He was absently stroking her thick, black fur, eliciting a purr of sheer delight. Liss took the chair opposite.

“I’m glad you liked it. I’m still pretty rusty.”

Liss hid her smile. “You’ll get better with more practice.” He’d won piping competitions years ago. She was certain it wouldn’t take him long to regain his former skill.

Liss set her coffee aside and went to the Christmas tree. “I have a gift for you, too.”

She’d selected an Aran sweater from the Emporium’s stock. Gordon seemed pleased with her choice, even a little relieved. So much for Sherri’s theory that he planned to propose marriage!

They finished their coffee in companionable silence. Gordon put down his empty mug and glanced at his watch. “I’d better get a move on. It’s a long drive back to Waycross Springs.”

Liss rose when he did, a little surprised he was leaving so soon. She walked him to the door. “Drive safe. The weather forecast is for more snow.”

He turned to her in the foyer. She expected him to kiss her. When he didn’t, she frowned.

“Is something…bothering you, Gordon?”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “Looks like I’ve got to leave the area for a while. I’ve been selected for special training out of state. I just found out yesterday. I’ll be on my way next week and be gone for three months.”

Liss had no idea what to say to that. “Congratulations?”

He gave a snort of laughter and the tension broke. “Yeah. Well. I guess we’ll see what we’ll see when I get back. Take care of yourself in the meantime.”

“If you say ‘stay out of trouble,’ I’ll have to hurt you.”

“Then I won’t.” He didn’t kiss her good-bye, either. He just gave her a long, steady look, as if he were memorizing her features, and walked out her door.

Liss wandered back into the living room, wondering why she didn’t feel more bereft. Instead she was in a mellow mood. She turned the tree lights on and began to hum “White Christmas.” She was way off-key, but the cats didn’t care.

Gordon wasn’t angry with her. That was what she’d focus on. She suspected now that they’d never been destined for romance, at least not on her end, but she was glad they were friends again.

No more than forty-five minutes after Gordon left, someone knocked at Liss’s front door. She’d had time to scramble eggs and make toast and consume them together with more coffee and a large glass of orange juice. Thus fortified, she let Dan Ruskin in.

“Merry Christmas.” He pulled her directly into his arms for a smoldering kiss.

“Well! Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“I’m here to drive you to the hotel for Christmas dinner.”

“Okay.” She and Margaret had been invited to The Spruces as Joe Ruskin’s guests.

“And to give you your present.”

Belatedly, she realized that he’d left a large, gaily wrapped parcel sitting on the porch. A
very
large parcel. Definitely
not
an engagement ring. Not unless he was doing one of those little boxes inside larger boxes tricks, and that didn’t strike her as something Dan would do.

She passed him his present—a sweater similar to the one she’d selected for Gordon—and set to work on the tape holding the paper over the oddly shaped gift. When the wrapping was off, she still wasn’t sure what it was.

“It’s a back-of-the-door bookcase. You said the other day that you didn’t have enough space for all your books, so I built this for you.”

Imagine him remembering that! “It’s wonderful. Thank you.”

The kitten clambered up the shelves to perch on top. Lumpkin eyed Dan’s ankle. Liss scooped him up before he could bite.

“I have something to ask you,” Dan said as he finished unwrapping his sweater. “Hey, this is nice. Thanks.”

Liss felt her breath back up in her throat. She held Lumpkin tighter, turning him into a shield. Had Sherri been right, after all?

“Seems the local Scottish heritage society’s Burns Night Supper in January is going to be held at The Spruces,” Dan said.

Liss blinked at him, confused. That didn’t sound like the opening line of a marriage proposal.

“Margaret has her hands full with all the other new things she’s planning for the hotel, so we were wondering, Dad and I, if you’d be willing to do us a favor and help with some of the preparations. You can bring all that Scottish stuff from the Emporium out to the hotel to sell to the dinner guests.”

“Burns Night? The annual celebration to honor poet Robert Burns? The night when all Scots pretend they actually like the taste of haggis?”

“That’s the one.”

Relief had her chuckling to herself. “Well, sure. Glad to. Why not?”

Dan gave her an odd look, making her wonder what he’d heard in her voice. “Great. Thanks.”

He got her coat out of the closet and helped her into it, his fingers lingering on her neck as he lifted her hair out of the way.

Burns night, Liss thought, leaning against him for just a moment and savoring the closeness.
That
she had no problem saying yes to. As to anything else? Only time would tell.

(A Note from Kaitlyn Dunnett)

I
’ve always loved the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Mixing the entertainments based on each day’s gifts with some of the holiday traditions drawn from Liss MacCrimmon’s Scottish heritage seemed to me a good way to give
A Wee Christmas Homicide
more holiday flavor.

Among the other titles I considered for this book were
Homicide at Hogmanay
and
Death in the Daft Days,
but there were two difficulties with both. One was that most people wouldn’t know what Hogmanay or the Daft Days are. The other was that neither Hogmanay nor the Daft Days are celebrated on Christmas.

The Daft Days are the entire period from Christmas to Twelfth Night—the twelve days of Christmas—and were once (before the Reformation) a time of revelry celebrated with festivities similar to those in England.

Hogmanay refers to New Year’s Eve. No one knows for certain where the name came from, but from the time of John Knox until the 1950s, nearly 400 years, celebrating Christmas was illegal in Scotland, banned by order of the Reformed Church. Instead, gifts were exchanged to celebrate the beginning of the new year. In today’s Edinburgh and Glasgow, huge street parties are held on Hogmanay.

Other Scottish traditions, too, have long associations with the date. December 31st was the day to clean house and settle debts—before midnight. After midnight, homeowners still hope that the first person to set foot in the house will be a dark-haired man, as that brings good luck for the coming year. This “first footer” traditionally brings gifts—coal, shortbread, salt, black bun, and whiskey. In some areas of Scotland, ceilidhs (dances) and torchlight processions are held. Among more recent traditions is the singing of “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight. The song was made famous by poet Robert Burns in 1788 but had been around in earlier versions for at least eighty years before that. “Auld lang syne” means “times gone by.”

Black bun, one of the gifts brought by first footers, is also associated with Twelfth Night (January 6, the end of the Yuletide season). Most Americans would call this a fruitcake. Shortbread and venison stew are also traditional Hogmanay foods.

For all that Liss MacCrimmon’s family originally came from Scotland, however, Liss is not Scottish. She’s a Scottish-American woman living in Maine who has no qualms about combining New England Christmas customs with those of Hogmanay and the Daft Days. Her Christmas includes a tree in the parlor, stockings filled with treats for each of the cats, turkey on the table, with perhaps a choice of ham or roast beef, and mashed potatoes, fresh-baked dinner rolls, and an assortment of vegetables. There are pies for dessert, both apple and pumpkin, and Christmas cookies shaped like stars, snowflakes, snowmen, Christmas trees, and Santa Claus. Since Liss is a native Mainer, there is likely to be one other treat, as well—homemade whoopie pies.