Kilt at the Highland Games (18 page)

“You and Janice have both referred to him as an older gentleman. How old is he?”

“At a guess, in his seventies.”

“Then he's not likely to be the person you saw running away from Graye's house.”

“That person wasn't exactly moving at warp speed. And what about Underhill? Sherri says that's not even his real name!”

“Liss—people check into hotels under assumed names all the time.”

“He wasn't here to have an illicit affair—unless you think he and Eldridge were lovers. You're just being pigheaded about this.” She didn't doubt that Gordon would try to locate and question both Eliot Underhill and Martin Eldridge, but every moment's delay gave them more time to escape.

His eyebrows lifted nearly to his hairline. “
I'm
being stubborn?”

“Don't you dare laugh at me, Gordon Tandy! I demand to be taken seriously.”

He ran one hand through his short, reddish brown hair. “I do listen, Liss, and I take your ideas into account, even the ones that sound completely bonkers. You're going to have to trust me when I tell you that we're pursuing
every
lead. There is no need—and I can't emphasize this enough—
no need
for you to involve yourself further in this investigation.”

“I won't fire Murch.”

“So long as all he's doing is looking for Angie and her children, that's fine.”

Liss thought better of reminding him that she thought Angie's disappearance was directly responsible for everything else that had happened.

She hadn't been lying when she'd said, repeatedly, that she did not want to get involved in police matters. But what else could she do if Gordon didn't see the urgency in following up the lead she'd given him?

Aloud, she said only, “May I go home now?”

“With my blessing.”

More than ready to leave, Liss hefted her tote bag. The clink of coins from the cash box she'd stuffed inside it reminded her that she had one more question to ask Gordon. “When can I pack up my booth?”

“You can do it now if you like. The booths were searched at the same time we were questioning people. Once they gave statements, they were free to collect their stock.”

“Did you find a weapon?”

“No.”

“Was it the same kind of knife that was used to kill Jason Graye?”

“Liss, you know I can't tell you that.” He held a hand up, palm out, to stop her automatic protest. “Literally, I can't. The medical examiner will have to determine if they were the same. It's possible,” he conceded. “Looked to me like a long, thin blade of some kind was used in both instances.”

Knowing that he shouldn't have confided that much, Liss didn't badger Gordon for more information, but she was still in an unhappy frame of mind when she left the ballroom. She cheered up, if only slightly, when she discovered that the police had allowed Dan through their barrier. He was waiting for her in the lobby.

* * *

As Dan drove his wife home, he kept stealing glances at her, alarmed by her pallor and wary of the way she kept clenching and unclenching her fists.

The first thing she did when she walked into the house was scoop up Glenora and cuddle the little black cat in her arms. Glenora, having no idea what had been going on at the Highland Games, objected to being rudely awakened from a nap on the back of Dan's recliner, her favorite spot in the living room. She made her feelings known with a set of claws that were in dire need of clipping.

Liss yelped and released her. With a flash of bushy tail, Glenora disappeared into the dining room.

“Let me see that.” Dan reached for her forearm, where a thin line of blood was welling up, stretching nearly all the way from wrist to elbow.

“I'm okay.” She jerked away from him and reached for a tissue to dab ineffectively at the injury.

Dan wanted to steer her toward the bathroom medicine cabinet and doctor her arm, but he knew his wife well enough to realize that he'd do better to wait a bit. If she didn't take care of the scratch herself, he'd use brute force to sit her down and slap disinfectant on it.

Lumpkin poked his head around the corner of the pocket doors that separated living room from dining room. When he realized Liss was looking at him, he sent her a superior glare. She grabbed a pillow from the sofa and hurled it at him.

“You're never appreciated in your own home,” Dan quipped.

His offhand remark, intended to break the tension, instead pushed Liss over the edge of reason. She whirled on him, fist raised, and thumped him on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince.

In the next instant, her eyes widened, aghast at what she'd done. She tried to back away, but Dan caught her by the shoulders. He could feel his own temper rising. An answering spark of anger flashed in her eyes.

Was she
trying
to taunt him into fighting back?

Dan Ruskin had never hit a woman in his life, and he wasn't about to start with his own wife. With an effort, he dialed back his emotions until he had control of himself. “What the hell was that for?”

Well, maybe not 100 percent in control, Dan thought as he heard the outrage underlying the question.

“The devil made me do it!”

Dan blinked at her. Now she was trying to diffuse the situation with humor. Her quip was only partly successful. He pulled in a deep breath and stooped until his forehead rested against hers.

“What are we doing, Liss?”

“I don't know about you, but I am seriously losing it. You know it's not you I'm mad at. I'm just frustrated by this whole situation—the fire, then finding Graye's body, and now this . . . this . . .”

He eased his grip on her shoulders, sliding his hands down her arms until he could catch hold of her hands. “We both need to chill. And you need to accept that you can't solve all the problems of the universe. Not even close.”

“I know.” Her voice sounded choked, as if tears threatened. “I can't even figure out where Angie is.”

“Maybe, just maybe, since she's made it so hard to find her, she needs to
stay
hidden, even from her friends.”

“But—”

Dan released her right hand and lifted his fingers to her lips to stop her protest. “No buts. I know it's not possible to forget everything that's happened over the last week, but you have to stop driving yourself nuts over it. Things will sort themselves out eventually. You'll see.”

He'd been terrified when he'd found out, thanks to a summons on the brand-new pager he'd been issued—only that morning—as a Moosetookalook volunteer fireman, that there was a stabbing victim at the Highland Games. His first thought was that Liss had gotten too close to finding Jason Graye's murderer and paid the ultimate price.

He didn't know what he'd do if he lost her. She could be exasperating, but she was the other half of himself. They were supposed to be a
team,
damn it!

“I need you to promise me something,” he whispered as Liss—finally!—collapsed against his chest and let him wrap his arms around her.

“I—”

“Shhh. I won't ask the impossible. Just try to keep me in the loop, okay? No running off on your own. No risking your neck on a hunch.”

Her hunches were just too damned accurate.

“Okay,” Liss whispered back. “Next time I have a brilliant idea, you'll be the first to know.”

* * *

Unable to sleep, Liss tossed and turned for hours and finally gave up, got up, and went downstairs to the kitchen. A cup of hot chocolate beside her, she reached for her iPad. She had a name—Martin Eldridge. She had the city in Virginia he supposedly lived in. It was probably a futile effort to type both into a search engine, but doing something felt better than doing nothing.

She tried various combinations, with quotation marks and without. Nothing seemed relevant until she switched to a search for images. She was clicking through them, growing more and more discouraged, when something caught her eye.

The photograph showed an accident scene. There were police cars and an ambulance. Gawkers stood around rubbernecking. But off to the side was a figure that seemed vaguely familiar—a woman. A very pregnant woman.

A few keystrokes enlarged the image. They also blurred the woman's features, but not enough to keep Liss from recognizing Angie Hogencamp's dark wavy hair and the way she held herself.

There was a story to go with the photo. A young woman named Marianna Eldridge had dashed in front of a car and been killed. The pregnant woman wasn't identified, but the accident had happened in the Virginia city Martin Eldridge called home. The clincher was the caption—a date just over twelve years earlier.

The source of the photo was a blog entry posted only five years back. The author was writing about ambulance chasers, having apparently been one for some time. He'd taken the picture but provided no additional details about what had happened.

To Liss's immense frustration, no related articles showed up, no matter what combination of words she used to search. Because of the early hour, she e-mailed Murch rather than phoning him and passed on what little she had found. Then she sent the same information to Gordon and to Sherri.

By the time the sun rose, Liss felt the need for a hard physical workout. Fortunately, the best place in town to get one was right next door at Dance Central.

Zara Kalishnakof was already in the studio, warming up with a series of pliés at the barre. She glanced at Liss and did a double take. “You look like hell.”

“Just what a girl wants to hear!”

Slipping off the shoes she'd put on for the short walk across her driveway and Zara's side yard, Liss plunked herself down on the floor to begin her regular stretching routine. She avoided looking into the mirror that covered all of one wall by turning her back to it. Instead, she faced Zara and the barre. Her friend lifted one leg onto the wooden rail and bent over it, touching her forehead to her knee. Zara's long red hair was scooped back into a neat ballerina's bun.

For a short time, neither woman spoke. Then Zara, inevitably, raised the subject of the missing family.

“I'm worried about Beth.” She switched legs. “She lost interest in taking dance lessons once she was in high school and had so many more exciting extracurricular activities to choose from, but she used to stop by every once in a while just to talk.”

Liss paused with one arm curved over her head and her body stretched sideways until her fingertips touched the floor. “No one seems to have a clue where her mother could have taken them.”

“Have you talked to Beth's friends? Did any of them have a suggestion as to where she might be?”

“Boxer says not, and he'd know. He gave Sherri a list, and I'm pretty sure she talked to everyone on it. If she'd gotten a lead, she'd have told me.”

Thinking of Beth's friends took Liss's thoughts straight to the attack on Kent Humphrey. The latest report from the hospital, passed on from Kent's mother to Amie, Amie to Boxer, Boxer to Margaret, and Margaret to Liss by e-mail, had the boy holding his own but still listed in critical condition.

“Angie always struck me as having lots of friends.”

Liss sat up and stayed upright to stare at the other woman. Zara might look like a flake, with her bright, carrot-colored hair and her penchant for dressing in short skirts and high boots long after both went out of fashion, but she had a good head on her shoulders.

“Who would you say Angie was closest to?”

Zara slung a towel around her neck and came over to squat beside Liss on the floor. Her expression was thoughtful. “She's an outgoing person, the kind who makes you feel like you're a personal friend when, in fact, you're only an acquaintance. Off the top of my head, I'd say you, Margaret, and Patsy. Was she really close to any of you? She was busy running her bookstore and raising her kids. Maybe she didn't have a lot of time for friendships.”

“You're right about that, but maybe keeping herself to herself was deliberate, too. I certainly don't have a clue where she could have gone, and both Margaret and Patsy have said they don't know, either. ”

Zara stood. “Speaking of Patsy, did she catch up with you the other day?” Without waiting for an answer, she started a series of pirouettes that took her to the far side of the dance studio.

“I didn't know she was looking for me.”

“She must have been.” Running leaps brought Zara back to where Liss sat, exercises forgotten. “I saw her circle around your house, heading toward the door to the kitchen.”

Liss frowned. It wasn't at all odd for a neighbor to visit by way of a back or side entrance. Some Mainers never used their front doors at all and left them covered with insulating plastic all year round. But Patsy wasn't a regular visitor to Liss and Dan's house. As far as Liss could remember, the only time she'd come over had been to attend a meeting of the MSBA.

“When was this?” she asked.

“Let me think.” Zara stopped to stand flat-footed with her hands on her hips. “I'm pretty sure it was Wednesday afternoon. Yes. I'd just put the kids down for a nap, and Sandy was finishing up that break-dancing class he teaches. Yes, I'm sure that's right. My session with the group learning to belly dance hadn't started yet.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Liss had been at the Emporium. Why would Patsy have expected to find her at home? Had she stopped by to talk to Dan? That seemed unlikely. She'd have picked up the phone and called him or waited until the next time he stopped by for coffee. Besides, it wasn't like Patsy to leave the café unattended.