A Wee Christmas Homicide (6 page)

And this year, the merchandise had included bears. Until she’d run out. They were
all
sold out of Tiny Teddies, or all but. Some fool would undoubtedly pay Thorne’s asking price for the last one. The trouble was, today was only the fifteenth of December.

People who arrived in Moosetookalook expecting to find Tiny Teddies for sale would be sorely disappointed. The Spruces was fully booked, but those guests wouldn’t stay if their reason for coming to the area was gone. Word would spread. There would be cancellations. Too many of those would be an unmitigated disaster. Joe Ruskin had gone to considerable expense to bring in extra food and supplies and hire more staff. He couldn’t afford a hit of this magnitude.

Groaning, Liss let her head fall forward until it hit the hard wooden surface with a thump. She conquered the urge to bang it a few more times in frustration. She wasn’t into self-inflicted pain, physical or mental. Still, this
was
all her fault. She’d counted on an influx of happy shoppers that would continue through the entire week and into next weekend. The sale of the last bear was supposed to coincide with the twelfth day of the pageant on Sunday afternoon.

“Idiot!” she muttered as she straightened. She should have allowed for this, should have seen it coming. She’d known how eager people were to buy this particular toy.

She should have charged more, if only to make her Tiny Teddies last longer. Well, that ship had sailed. Her only recourse now was to contact Eric Moss. She’d told him the truth. She couldn’t afford to pay fifty dollars a bear and she didn’t trust the provenance of the toys he’d offered her. But she wasn’t the only business in town.

Her expression grim, Liss reached for the phone. Marcia owned a
consignment
shop. Maybe she and Moss could work something out.

Sherri had just started her shift at midnight when a call came in from Gavin Thorne. She could barely make out what he was saying.

“Slow down,” she told him. “Are you hurt?” She listened a moment, shaking her head in disbelief as the story tumbled out. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

She kept her hand on her holster as she trotted across the town square. Lights blazed inside The Toy Box. She wished she’d told him to turn them off. Then again, she didn’t suppose Thorne himself was a target.

As she took the porch steps in one bound, she got a good look at the damage to the display window. The glass hadn’t shattered. There was just a neat, round hole surrounded by a spiderweb of cracks to show where the bullet had gone through. Thorne would still have to replace the glass, but at least there wasn’t a huge mess for him to clean up.

Inside she found the remains of the victim. Tufts of stuffing clung to every nearby surface. Sherri couldn’t believe there had been so much cotton—or whatever it was—inside such a small bear.

“Thorne?”

She located him behind the high sales counter, slumped in his expensive office chair, his head in his hands and a hand gun dangling from his fingers. Sherri did a double take at the sight of the weapon.

“Whoa! Is that thing loaded?”

Thorne looked up, a dazed and stricken expression on his paste-colored face. It took him a moment to process her question. Then he nodded. “I thought the villain might still be in the store, but I was too late.”

“Why don’t you put that away, then, and tell me what happened?” She wanted to yell at him for being an idiot, but instead kept her voice as low and soothing as she could. It was the same tone she used to calm her son Adam when he was out of sorts.

His movements erratic, Thorne complied. Once the gun was out of sight in a drawer, Sherri breathed easier. Civilians and firearms were a bad mix, especially when the civilians didn’t show proper respect for a deadly weapon.

“I take it you didn’t shoot out your own window?”

“Don’t be absurd!”

That was better. Nothing like a little righteous indignation to snap someone out of a pity party. Now maybe she could get some straight answers. “Any idea who did?”

“No. An intruder, I thought. But I didn’t see any sign of one.” He shook himself like a dog shedding water and managed a glum smile. “Lucky for him, whoever he was.”

“Sit tight,” Sherri advised. “Let me take a quick look around. Then we’ll talk.”

It didn’t take long to confirm that no one else was in the shop. The back door was still secure. The lock on the front door didn’t look as if it had been tampered with. “Was this open?” she called to Thorne.

“No. I unlocked it right after I called you.”

A closer inspection of the bullet hole in the window convinced Sherri that the shot had been fired from outside. Whoever had been responsible for the damage was long gone, and since no one had come out of any of the nearby houses or called her to report anything out of the ordinary, it was a good bet there had been no witnesses.

She paused to study what was left of the Tiny Teddy, then eyed the window again. The bullet had passed right through the toy. After a short search, she found what she was looking for embedded in the back wall of the shop. Very carefully, she pried the bullet loose and popped it directly into a small ziplock bag. Only then did she take a closer look at it.

The police academy didn’t spend a lot of time on forensics, so Sherri wasn’t an expert on firearms. For major crimes, officers called in the state police. Sherri could see that the bullet had been only slightly squashed by its impact with the wall. It was a small caliber, but she couldn’t be certain if it had been fired by a handgun or a rifle.

Frowning, Sherri tucked the bag into the inner pocket of her uniform coat and focused her full attention on Gavin Thorne. He was not a pretty sight—bed hair, no shirt, sagging sweatpants that undoubtedly revealed a butt crack when seen from the back, and bare feet. He had a painful-looking bunion on one of them.

“I take it you were upstairs asleep when this happened?”

He nodded. “Something woke me. I didn’t realize it was a shot until I came down here and saw the bear.”

“What made you think you should check on things?”

“I don’t know. Just an uneasy feeling, I guess. I came down, saw the bear, got my gun out, and checked the shop. Then I called you.”

“Ever think keeping a loaded firearm in a toy store might not be such a great idea?” She had nightmares about her own son, Adam, finding her gun and thinking it was something to play with, and she kept hers unloaded, secured with a trigger guard, and well hidden when she was off duty.

“Man’s got a right to protect his property,” Thorne insisted.

“You’re missing the point. What if one of your customers got hold of it. We have gun locks available at the police station if—”

“What the hell does me owning a gun have to do with a vandal shooting my bear?” Agitated, he rose from his chair to tower over her. “It wasn’t this gun he used!”

Sherri didn’t back up, but she did drop the gun safety lecture…for the moment. “Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“Hear anything else suspicious?”

“No. Well, maybe a car.”

Sherri continued to question him, making him repeat everything twice, until she was satisfied he had nothing left to tell her. Then she gave the chief of police a call. It would be up to Jeff to decide how to proceed.

He heard her out in thick silence broken only by the occasional yawn. “Question the neighbors,” he instructed when she wound down.

“Now?”

He chuckled. “Not unless you want people calling the town office to complain about police brutality. Start making the rounds once it’s reasonable to expect folks to be awake.”

S
herri waited until seven. She didn’t bother with the buildings on either side of The Toy Box. Preston’s Mortuary had no occupants at the moment and was not yet open for the day. The structure that housed the post office in the front and the Clip and Curl in the back had an apartment upstairs, but it had been vacant since September.

The nearest inhabited residences were Angie’s Books—the Hogencamp apartment was above the store—and Liss MacCrimmon’s house adjacent to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium. Sherri decided to leave Angie in peace until after she’d sent her kids off to school.

“Have you taken a look at The Toy Box’s window this morning?” she asked as she breezed into Liss’s kitchen.

“What’s the price up to today?” Liss looked a bit bleary-eyed, peering over the rim of a mug of coffee. The heavenly aroma of a freshly brewed pot of the stuff filled the room.

Sherri helped herself to a muffin and slathered it with the cholesterol-improving spread Liss had recently started using. “No price. No value.” She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed.

“Sherri, you’ll have to spell it out for me. I’m too tired to think straight until I’ve had at least two more cups of coffee.”

“It’s dead,” Sherri said. “Shot through the heart.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“During the night someone took a potshot through Thorne’s window and nailed the Tiny Teddy.” The grin she’d been trying to contain slipped free. “Sad, sad case. Stuffing everywhere. Poor wee bear never had a chance.”

“Right through the heart?” Liss stared at Sherri, incredulous.

“Bull’s-eye.” Sherri mimed firing a pistol. “Bang.”

In spite of Liss’s best efforts, a giggle escaped her. “It’s not funny.”

“Vandalism of the worst kind.” Sherri gave up trying to stifle her own laughter. “Thorne was almost incoherent when he called the P.D. and requested an officer.”

“Angry?”

“Upset. And at one point I thought he might burst into tears. He really expected someone to pay $750 for that bear.”

Liss got control of herself first. “It’s
not
funny. The thought of someone shooting out store windows…
my
store window, for example—who on earth would do such a thing?”

Sherri had spent the last few hours trying to make sense of the crime. There
was
no rhyme or reason to it, which was probably why she felt so punchy.
Get a grip,
she told herself. She wasn’t here for the baked goods. Well, not
only
for that. “Did you hear anything strange last night around midnight?”

“A car backfiring?” Liss threw out the cliché, then abruptly sobered. “You know,
something
must have awakened me in the wee hours. I don’t remember hearing anything specific, but once I was awake, I wasn’t able to get back to sleep for ages.”

“I don’t suppose you looked at a clock?”

“Sorry. I just tossed and turned a lot and finally put the pillow over my head. I know I fell asleep at some point, but only because I jumped a foot when my alarm clock went off.”

“I’m surprised the hammering didn’t wake you.”

“What hammering?”

“Thorne nailed plywood over what’s left of his window.”

Liss inhaled the rest of the coffee in her mug and got up to refill it. “So, you’ve got no idea at all who did it?”

“Nope. Any suggestions? I’d dearly like to solve this one. It’s my first real case since coming on the job.” The scene, however, had been sadly lacking in clues.

“I suppose it could have been someone ticked off at the prices Thorne was charging.” Unasked, Liss brought Sherri a cup of coffee, already doctored just the way she liked it.

“Maybe, but if it was a collector, why not break the window and steal the bear?”

“Nothing else was damaged?”

“Nope. Just one shot by someone with a pretty good aim.” Sherri sipped cautiously at the hot liquid and decided it was cool enough to drink without scalding her tongue.

“Could it have been personal? Vindictiveness toward Thorne himself? Get back at him by destroying the most valuable item in his store?”

“Who’d hate him that much?”

“His ex?”

“Too obvious.” Sherri would check it out, of course, and very often the simple answer was the right one, but it didn’t
feel
right to her. “I’m still inclined toward random violence as the answer.”

“I don’t much care for that explanation.” Liss shivered.

“Most likely it was just a prank.” She put more reassurance than she felt into her voice. She suspected she’d be doing a lot of that today as she talked to other neighbors. “A
stupid
prank, but then most pranks are pretty dumb.”

“Teenagers?”

“Could be. Jeff wants me to ask around to find out if anyone heard or saw anything out of the ordinary last night.”

“Man I wish I’d decided to get up and look out the window.” Liss shook her head. “What woke me probably
was
your gunshot.”

Sherri nodded and took another sip of coffee. “Don’t feel bad. Thorne’s bedroom is upstairs over his shop. Granted, it’s at the back, but after he heard the noise, he still waited several minutes before he decided to go check on things.”

“Why on earth didn’t he take the bear out of the window when he closed for the night? Put it in a safe or something?”

“What? Miss catching a potential customer’s eye? He had a light shining on the darned thing.” A thought occurred to her. “I wonder…is it possible Thorne could have shot out his own window? He has insurance on the stuff he sells, right?”

Liss’s laugh was short and humorless.

“What?” Sherri
liked
Thorne for the villain.

“He’ll get his window replaced, but no insurance company is going to pay him his asking price for that bear. At best, he’ll be reimbursed what he paid for it—less than five bucks wholesale. No wonder he’s upset!”

Damn,
Sherri thought.
I knew that. I must be more tired than I thought.

She’d worked part-time at the Emporium for years. She’d even had her name on the store’s checking account for a while. Margaret MacCrimmon Boyd, Liss’s aunt and business partner, formerly the sole proprietor, had made sure Sherri was familiar with everything about the store, from order forms to their insurance policy.

“Someone
shot
it.” Liss shook her head. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Steal
it, maybe. But destroy it?”

“One for the books, that’s for sure. I wonder if the news crew will come back.”

“Oh, that’s all we need! The idea was to get
good
publicity for the town.”

Sherri polished off a second muffin, one of Patsy’s, she assumed, since the breads and pastries Liss baked tended to have the consistency of rocks. “Isn’t there some old saw about any publicity being good publicity?”

“A vicious lie.” Liss buttered a second muffin for herself. “Is Jeff calling anyone in to help investigate?”

“I doubt it. Vandalism isn’t that serious a crime. There was no threatening note tossed through the window or anything. Jeff will probably let Sheriff Lassiter know what happened, but there’s no reason to bring in the state police.” She sent Liss a sudden impish grin. “Why? Were you hoping to see Gordon again?”

“I don’t know
what
you mean.” Liss tried to feign innocence, but after a moment she smiled, a dreamy look in her eyes. As Sherri well knew, Gordon Tandy, the state police detective assigned to Carrabassett County, was the
other
man in Liss MacCrimmon’s life.

After Sherri left, Liss opened the Emporium, took delivery of seven swans, and for the next five hours waited on a steady stream of customers, all complaining about the lack of Tiny Teddies. Some of them, however, bought things.

At two in the afternoon, she heard a cheer go up outside. It didn’t take long for word to spread. Gavin Thorne had a new supply of Tiny Teddies. The Emporium promptly emptied out.

Liss stepped onto her porch to have a look. The plywood Thorne had used to board up his display window was now plastered with flyers. She couldn’t read them at this distance, but it was pretty obvious what they were advertising. She spared a glance for Marcia’s consignment shop, wondering if the other woman had ever contacted Eric Moss. Liss had left a message on Marcia’s machine about Moss’s Tiny Teddies, but maybe Marcia, too, had thought fifty dollars a bear too steep a price.

A car horn sounded, jerking her attention back to the crowd mobbing the toy store. She spotted Lovey FitzPatrick among them, and a few other faces that looked vaguely familiar.

Thorne had probably struck a deal with Moss, Liss decided. She told herself that if the toys were counterfeits or had been brought into the country illegally, she didn’t want to know. As long as she wasn’t selling them, it was no business of hers. The only real question was how high the toy shop owner would jack up his prices this time around. She expected that someone would stop by the Emporium sooner or later and tell her.

In the meantime, the chill in the air made her shiver. On the way out the door, she’d wrapped a shawl in the predominantly yellow MacMillan tartan around her shoulders, but it wasn’t sufficient protection from the cold, not even when worn over a knit sweater imported from Scotland and a pair of slacks in the Black Watch pattern. She ducked back inside, grateful for the warmth of the shop.

The deserted store, however, had a depressing effect on Liss. It was quiet. Too quiet. Normally, neither solitude nor silence bothered her, not for brief stretches anyway. Sometimes she played Celtic music in the background when the Emporium was open. At others she opted for the local radio station or for no noise at all. She was about to reach under the sales counter for a CD of one of her favorite bagpipe bands when she heard an odd little squeak at floor level.

Something slithered across her shoe.

Liss froze.

There are no poisonous snakes in the state of Maine.

Almost as soon as the thought slashed through her mind, she knew she was being foolish. It was too cold for snakes, even if that explanation for what she’d just felt made sense. It didn’t. Neither did thinking the shop had rats.

At worst, they had mice. Or one of the chickens had gotten loose. Liss braced herself and looked down.

A small, furry black face stared back at her with big, green eyes. The creature clambered onto the toe of her shoe once more, opened its mouth, and meowed.

“Oh, for Heaven’s—!” Liss scooped up the tiny kitten, cuddling it against her chest for a moment before she set it down on the sales counter. “Aren’t you the cutest thing!”

It was only a few months old, barely weaned. Its head seemed too big for the rest of its body. On closer examination, Liss discovered a few specks of white in the long, black fur, but not enough to make much difference.

“Where did you come from?” She didn’t expect an answer. Besides, she could make an educated guess.

At this time of year, the end of the semester at the Fallstown branch of the University of Maine, the number of abandoned pets in the area always underwent a dramatic increase. Departing students didn’t usually dump cats and dogs this far north, but for all Liss knew, one of them could have been in town looking for a Christmas present for dear old mom and dad.

That the kitten could have strayed from a litter and have a family that loved it and was even now frantically searching for it seemed much less likely. Just in case, Liss made a sign and stuck it in her window:
FOUND—BLACK KITTEN, INQUIRE WITHIN.
She also phoned the local animal shelter, located in Fallstown, in case someone went looking there for the little feline.

After a dash next door to her house, Liss returned toting a spare litter box, a box of clumping cat litter, a can of cat food, and two bowls, all of which she set up in the tiny bathroom next to the stockroom. Putting a cat among the pigeons and the other poultry did not strike Liss as a good idea.

The kitten was already chowing down on tuna treat by the time Liss filled the second bowl with water from the tap. She watched, enjoying the little animal’s antics, until she heard the jangle of sleigh bells.

“Okay, Junior. I’m going to have to leave you here. Try to be good.” She stepped out into the shop, then turned and pulled one of the soft, fluffy towels off the rack, folded it, and placed it on the floor. “Take a nap,” she suggested, and closed the door. She left the light on.

Lovey FitzPatrick and another woman stood by the sales counter talking together in low tones. It took Liss a moment to recognize the second customer as Felicity Thorne.

“Good afternoon, ladies. How may I help you?”

“Do you have more Tiny Teddies, too?” Thorne’s ex wife asked.

“No. Sorry. I—”

They didn’t wait to hear her explanation. Both women were out the door and heading for Marcia’s place before Liss could finish her sentence.

“Nice chatting with you, too,” she called after them.

Paying customers trickled in for the rest of the day. In between, Liss rearranged stock and checked on the kitten. Each time she found it sound asleep on the towel.

The nearer it got to closing time at five, the harder Liss had to fight not to yawn. Her restless night was catching up with her. She handed a Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium bag to a woman in a suede coat, wished her happy holidays, and shifted her attention to the next person in line.

The woman, a small-boned, rather thin creature in a herringbone wool coat, had her head down, digging for something in her purse. All Liss could see at first, beneath a matching herringbone wool hat, was gray-blond hair and a bit of darkly suntanned skin. The latter was an unusual sight, especially in Maine in winter, but in the last few days customers from all over the place had been in town. It didn’t surprise Liss that one of the snowbirds—northerners who spent the cold months in southern states—had come to Moosetookalook to shop.

Then the woman looked up and Liss realized she wasn’t just any snowbird.

“Hello, Liss. You’re looking well.”