A Wee Christmas Homicide (3 page)

Sherri started to cross the square, then paused to look back over her shoulder. “By the way—thanks, Liss.”

“For?”

“Salvaging my morning. I was bored to tears.” She grinned. “And if this plan of yours actually works, it will also be thanks for all the overtime I’m going to earn working crowd control.”

L
iss’s mouth kept moving but Dan Ruskin couldn’t hear a single word she said. So much for squeezing in an hour or two of woodworking between helping out at The Spruces, the hotel his father owned, and his regular job with Ruskin Construction. Resigned, he turned off the scroll saw and removed his safety glasses and ear protectors.

“Say again,” he instructed.

As the story tumbled out, Dan collected the blanks he’d just cut in various shapes and sizes and carried them to his worktable. Everything was a “blank” until it was finished. With a little work these would become small boxes, each one unique. They sold reasonably well at Angie’s Books, as did his small battery operated clocks. Like the boxes, no two were exactly the same. Sometimes he also supplied Angie Hogencamp with cherrywood walking sticks and wooden back-scratchers to sell in her shop.

He didn’t usually have so much trouble finding time to turn out these small projects. He used scrap lumber, so they didn’t cost him anything to make. If he figured by the time involved—a couple of hours for each box—he wasn’t making much profit, but every little bit helped. Besides, it all went to building his reputation as a custom woodworker. One day, with luck before he was too old and gray to appreciate it, he’d be able to strike out on his own and make things from wood full time.

Liss was still talking. As some of what she had already said sank in, Dan sent an incredulous look in her direction. That single glance was enough to tell him she was completely serious.

He went back to loosening the clamps on a box he’d glued together the day before. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what
to
say. Liss appeared to have everything worked out already. As usual. He wondered when he’d started to resent that quality.

“They call them the Daft Days in Scotland,” Liss concluded, “instead of the twelve days of Christmas, but I think we’d better stick with what most Americans will find familiar.”

“Whatever works,” he mumbled, and crossed back to the scroll saw. His workshop was almost the way he wanted it. He’d acquired a table saw, a miter saw, and a band saw. Next time he had a little extra saved, it was going for a drill press. “Liss, I’m sorry to give you the bum’s rush, but I need to finish cutting these before my lunch break is over.”

He flipped a switch. Immediately, the workshop was filled with a loud hum that drowned out every other sound. He’d just dropped his ear protectors back into place when Liss jabbed him in the ribs. She kept her fingernails cut short but put enough force behind the poke to make it hurt like blazes.

“Not while I’m cutting!” he yelled.

“You’re not cutting yet!” she shouted back. “Turn off the saw! This is important!”

Swallowing his irritation, he obeyed. “Okay. You’ve got my attention.” He turned to her with arms folded across his chest and a look of annoyance on his face. He’d give her five more minutes.

“Did you hear a single word I said?” He heard frustration in her voice, but what he saw in her expressive blue-green eyes was disappointment.

Dan suddenly felt ashamed of himself. So they hadn’t progressed to the point he’d thought they would in their personal relationship. They were still friends. They had been since they were kids. It was a given that if Liss needed him, he would be there for her.

With a sigh, he raked his fingers through his hair. Sending her a sheepish, apologetic look, he asked her to explain the situation to him again.

The second time around it still didn’t make a lot of sense, but Dan was willing to take Liss’s word for it that a rare opportunity had just fallen into their laps. She had a better head for business than he did.

“So, can we tap into funds from the Moosetookalook Small Business Association for this?” she asked.

“Not without calling an MSBA meeting and taking a vote, but I think they’ll go for it.”

His father was certainly desperate enough.

Five months earlier, on Fourth of July weekend, Moosetookalook’s venerable old grand hotel, The Spruces, had reopened. Joe Ruskin had poured heart, soul, and every penny he had to spare—and some he didn’t—into renovating the place. He was convinced getting the hotel up and running was the key to putting Moosetookalook back on the map.

Dan had to admit that things had started off well. Most of the rooms had been full during the summer and the hotel had held its own during leaf-peeper season. But ever since the trees went bare, they’d struggled to fill even half the rooms, and heating the place cost a small fortune. With no snow on the ground to support winter sports, they’d started to accumulate canceled reservations. With each passing day, the hotel sank deeper into debt.

“That it?” Dan asked when they’d settled on a time for the members of the MSBA to gather at Liss’s house.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d attend the selectmen’s meeting with me tonight,” Liss said. “Lend support to the cause. It starts at seven.”

“No problem, but I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”

“You know the selectmen better than I do. They may take some persuading to support us, especially since it involves spending money.” She gave a small, humorless laugh. “I expect the whole scheme will sound crazy to them at first.”

“No more than some of your Scottish heritage stuff.” Dan quickly threw both arms up to shield his face as Liss raised her fists. “Kidding, Liss. Just kidding!”

A wicked grin overspread her face. “You’d better be.” Eyes sparkling with mischief, she added: “Daft Days’ is also the title of a poem by Robert Fergusson.”

“Who?”

“He was a Scot born in 1750. He inspired Robert Burns to become a poet.”

The snicker that escaped her warned Dan she was up to no good. Besides, he recognized Burns’s name as the guy who wrote “Auld Lang Syne.” “I assume you’re using the word ‘poet’ in its broadest sense?”

Liss struck a pose more in keeping with a nineteenth-century actor declaiming Shakespeare than a twenty-first century businesswoman.
“Now mirk December’s dowie face/ Glowrs owre the rigs wi’ sour grimace,”
she recited in a faux-Scots accent.

When she made “grimace” rhyme with “face,” Dan rolled his eyes. The rest of the poem was just so much gobbledygook as far as he was concerned. Still, he didn’t say a word until she was finished and even then refused to be goaded into making any more snide remarks.

“Let’s go inside,” he suggested instead. “I haven’t had lunch yet.” His workshop was a converted carriage house only a dozen yards from his back porch.

“I’ll make sandwiches,” Liss offered.

She knew where everything was. This was the house she’d grown up in. Dan had bought it after Liss’s parents moved to Arizona. Back then, she’d been long gone, earning her living performing with a professional Scottish dance troupe. He’d never expected to see her again.

While Liss foraged in his refrigerator, Dan pondered the best way to help her with the board of selectmen. “You do know one of them,” he said when she handed him a can of soda. “Jason Graye.”

She made a face before proceeding to slather mayonnaise on white bread and slap lettuce, bologna, and cheese together between the slices. When she had three sandwiches ready—two for him and one for herself—she unearthed a bag of sour cream-and-onion-flavored potato chips to go with them.

“Graye doesn’t like me.” She bit into her sandwich with enough force to remind him that she didn’t much like Jason Graye, either.

A local real estate agent and self-proclaimed entrepreneur, Graye had walked precariously close to the boundary between ethical and unethical business practices in the not-so-distant past. That he seemed to be making an attempt to clean up his act, mostly because people were on to him, did not inspire either Liss or Dan to trust him.

“Who else is on the board?” Liss asked.

“Doug Preston and Thea Campbell.” Doug was the local mortician and somewhat staid. All the selectmen were frugal.

“Pete’s mother?” Liss brightened when she recognized the second name. “There’s a piece of luck.”

“Not necessarily. She’s pretty conservative in her views and she’s gotten more so since her husband died.”

“But she’ll go for the Scottish angle.”

“I know Pete competes in athletic events at Scottish festivals, but—”

“The whole clan used to be very active. I can’t imagine she’s completely lost interest.”

“She might have, if it was Pete’s father who was the fan of all things Scottish. If I’m remembering right, and I’m pretty sure I am, Thea Campbell was born a Briscetti.”

“Then I’ll just have to get Pete to work on her. Or rather, I’ll get Sherri to work on Pete to work on his mother.”

He wasn’t quick enough to hide his reaction.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Dan.”

Shaking his head, rolling his eyes heavenward, he gave in. “I just don’t think you should put any additional pressure on Pete and Sherri right now.”

“What are you talking about? They’re engaged to be married. They—”

“They don’t exactly see eye to eye about Sherri’s current career path.”

Liss blinked at him in surprise. He swore he could hear the gears whirring as she ran that concept through her mental computer. Apparently she’d been clueless about the conflict between their two friends.

“Sherri said she’d had a difference of opinion with Pete,” Liss said slowly, “but she dismissed it as a minor problem. Said he’d come around.”

“Well, he hasn’t.”

“I knew he was unhappy when she went to the police academy. Sixteen weeks is a long time to be separated, even if she did come home on weekends.”

“Most of those she spent with her son, not her fiancé. But that wasn’t the real problem. Pete’s worried about Sherri’s safety.”

“Dan, she’s working for the Moosetookalook Police Department. How much safer could she be?”

“She could be back in the sheriff’s office, working dispatch.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Will you listen to yourself? It’s okay for Pete to be a patrol deputy, out there all alone with a whole county full of bad guys, but it’s too much of a risk for Sherri to walk around the square and check the locks on the shops?”

“That’s just it. He’s seen firsthand the kind of nasty situations a cop can get into. Domestic disputes, for one thing. Not to mention the—”

“Of all the male chauvinist pig mentality! Pete’s a Neanderthal.”

“Probably, but—”

“I’ll just have to convince Mrs. Campbell to support us without her son’s help. So, we’ll make our appeal, and then, as soon as there’s money to pay for them, we launch the ads.” Liss glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to call Rich Smalley. See if he’s got a partridge. Do you have any idea where I could find a pear tree?”

Liss breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t know what she’d been so worried about. The board of selectmen had given their approval with barely a moment’s hesitation. Even Jason Graye had supported her proposal. Doug Preston, whose mortuary was hardly likely to profit from the festivities, thought her plan was a stroke of genius. Thea Campbell had been slightly less enthusiastic, but she’d gone along with the wishes of her two colleagues.

The amount of money they’d been able to free up for the campaign was disappointing, but Liss still had hopes that the MSBA would make up the difference. Heck, she’d max out her own credit cards if she had to. This was too good an opportunity to miss.

Everyone agreed that whatever was to be done needed to be done fast, to take advantage of their windfall. Having dealt with all old and scheduled business—whether or not to grant a building permit to add a storage room at the grocery store; whether or not to close a little-used road, so the town wouldn’t have to plow it if and when they finally got snow; whether or not to repair the municipal parking lot now or wait until spring—the selectmen adjourned their meeting.

“We’ll take a break,” Graye declared, “then talk informally with you folks.” He indicated Liss, Gavin, and Marcia before he drifted off, cell phone in hand, in search of privacy and a signal.

“If you don’t need me anymore,” Dan said, “I should head over to The Spruces.” In spite of the scarcity of guests, they were always shorthanded. The renovations, even with the help of historic preservation grants and other funding, had taken a huge bite out of available funds. Dan’s father intended to hire trained professionals to handle management-level positions eventually, but just now he couldn’t afford expert help. He was making do with family.

Liss wanted to ask him to stay, but she bit back the request. Was it her imagination, or did Dan seem unenthusiastic about the Tiny Teddies? She told herself he was just exhausted. Who wouldn’t be, working what amounted to three jobs? Still, she hated the way they’d drifted apart since the previous spring.

“Walk me out?” he asked, and stepped into the hallway.

Liss followed. Directly across from the entrance to the town office was the door leading to the fire department. The main entrance to the municipal building was to their left. To the right, just beyond the doors to the staff kitchen, public restrooms, police department, and the stairs that led up to the public library, was a drinking fountain that boasted the coldest, best-tasting water in the world. Automatically, they headed straight for it.

In long swallows, chilled liquid ambrosia slid down Liss’s parched throat. “Still number one.”

She backed off to give Dan a turn, absently tucking a strand of wet hair behind one ear. She’d substituted a jaunty little black beret for her scarf and changed into a sleek black velour pantsuit for her presentation. A hand-painted pendant broke the unrelieved expanse between turtleneck and hem. On it, the artist had depicted a mythical creature that was half cat, half dragon.

“Wicked good.” Dan wiped a drop of water off his chin as he lifted his head from the fountain.

Some things never change, Liss thought. On impulse, she grabbed his hand and pulled him with her to the stairs. How many times had they sat on the third step when they were kids? Sometimes they’d been with friends and sometimes it had just been the two of them, talking about nothing and everything.

“I’ve missed you lately,” she whispered as she settled on the hard wooden surface with its bumpy rubber matting. The stairs dipped slightly in the middle, worn down by generations of feet tromping up and down.