Kilt Dead (21 page)

“No” She gave Ned a sharp look, wondering what rumors he’d heard. “He suspects me”

Her cousin’s eyes popped open. “No way.”

“Way.” She sighed. “He’s got a dilly of a motive now,
too” Certain he’d hear about it soon anyway, Liss filled
him in on Mrs. Norris’s will. By the time she’d finished
explaining, she stood in front of the big bay window that
overlooked the street and Ned had left his chair to wander
into the kitchen and get himself another beer.

“Well, I’ll be damned” He toasted her with the can before he took the first gulp. “Here’s to you, cuz. May you
spend your fortune well, preferably on generous gifts to
members of your immediate family.”

His attitude irritated her. “Maybe I’ll invest in The
Spruces,” she said in saccharine tones.

He choked on the second swallow. Glaring at her, he
reached for a tissue and dabbed at his chin. “What is it
about that place? Or is it the Ruskins?” He gave a short
bark of laughter. “Must be pheromones or something. Mom
falls under old Joe’s spell; you’re hot to trot with Dan”

“Hey. 11

“Just saying-“

“Well, don’t. Dan’s a friend, that’s all. And I was kidding about The Spruces” Probably. She’d have to look
into the idea now that she’d thought of it. “Besides, I’ve
still got to prove I didn’t kill Mrs. Norris. Can’t inherit if
I’m the one who murdered her.”

“Bummer”

“You could help me out, Ned. You stopped by Dan’s
workshop that afternoon. Did you see anyone hanging
around the Emporium?”

“I came straight home”

“No need to sound defensive. No one saw anything.
It’s very discouraging.”

“Ah, Liss, Liss. Have a little faith. If you’re innocent,
eventually you’ll be cleared.”

“In this decade? Sorry, but I’m too impatient to wait
for the police to get their act together. I’ve got to at least
try to find out who really killed Mrs. Norris on my own”

He considered that for a moment, contemplating the
ceiling above his recliner. When he glanced at Liss again,
he looked both sober and concerned. “You know, Liss,
you go poking around, asking questions and acting suspicious, you might as well paint a big old target on your
forehead. Whoever did kill her isn’t going to want to be
caught”

“I’ll be careful.”

“I hope so. You know what they say-it’s always easier
to kill the second time.”

With her cousin’s dire warning still fresh in her mind,
Liss returned to Dan’s house. There were messages on his
answering machine. This time she didn’t hesitate to play
them.

Two were for her. Mr. Preston had set Mrs. Norris’s
memorial service for Saturday morning at ten. He promised to notify the newspapers and the radio station. And
Liss’s parents had called. They still had friends in Moosetookalook.

“Are you all right?” her father demanded. “What’s going
on there?”

On the extension, her mother’s voice was more soothing. “Give us a call, darling, when you have a moment.
We worry about you”

Liss stared at the phone. If they knew to call here, it
was a good bet they’d heard an earful already about her
“relationship” with Dan Ruskin. She reached for the
phone.

It had a long cord. Liss stood at Dan’s living-room
window as she listened to the distant ringing. Looking
out across the corner of the town square, she had a clear
view of the two houses to which she now had keys.

Her mother answered and called for her father to pick
up in his den. Liss cut short their anxious questions and
gave them a garbled version of events. She didn’t want
them to know she was a suspect in a murder case.

“Are you shacked up with that Ruskin boy?” her father
demanded.

“That’s none of our business,” Liss’s mother chimed
in. But Liss could tell from her tone of voice that she wanted
to know what was going on every bit as much as Liss’s father did.

On her second attempt, Liss managed to give a more
lucid account, event by event, ending with the news of
her unexpected inheritance.

“So it’s just platonic between you and Dan?” Her
mother sounded a trifle disappointed.

“What? I don’t have enough complications in my life
right now?”

“Leave the girl alone,” her father said. “Do they have
any idea who did it?”

“No. The only trouble Aunt Margaret’s ever had in the
shop before this was an incident with Ernie Willett a couple of years ago. Dad? Did you know they used to date?”

A long silence answered her.

“Dad?” Liss realized she was twisting the phone cord
and forced herself to let go.

Violet MacCrimmon was the one who finally spoke.
“They were engaged to be married once. I never heard
exactly what happened, but there was a bitter quarrel and
they didn’t speak to each other for years afterward”

“I know what happened.” Liss heard the reluctance in her father’s voice. “But it’s Margaret’s place to tell the
story, not mine.”

“Dad, it could be important.” She was relieved when he
didn’t ask why. She didn’t know the answer. She just had
a feeling it might be.

After a bit more hesitation and a heavy sigh, he told
her what he knew. “My sister was twenty-three. She’d been
away to college but she came home after she graduated
because our mother was ill. After Mama died, Margaret
wanted to have a career of her own before she settled
down and got married. Our father said she could take over
the Emporium but she wanted to try something else, something away from Moosetookalook. Ernie didn’t want to
budge and he didn’t want to wait. They quarreled something fierce over it.”

“That’s it? That’s all there was to it?”

“It was a big deal to them. If you want to know anything else, you’ll have to ask your aunt. Are you moving
back into her apartment today?”

“As soon as I hang up” After a few more minutes of
repeated reassurances, she said goodbye and broke the
connection, but she continued to stand at the window,
staring at the two houses, until Lumpkin appeared, twining himself around her ankles.

“Do you want to go home?” she asked him.

He gave her what her mother always referred to as “the
hairy eyeball” and said nothing.

Mrs. Norris’s house belongs to me now. The idea
took some getting used to. Liss realized she could move
in today if she liked, and take Lumpkin with her. Carried in
her arms rather than confined to his carrier, she thought,
remembering Dan’s rueful account of Lumpkin’s lastjour-
ney.

“I’d better check on things first,” she told the cat. “Who
knows what kind of mess the police left behind.”

She went upstairs to pack the few belongings she’d
brought with her on Saturday. She’d be staying elsewhere
tonight, so she might as well take her things. That would
just leave Lumpkin for the next trip.

Mrs. Norris’s front door opened easily with the key
Mr. Carrier had given her, but she felt like an intruder when
she stepped into the foyer. She was a teenager the last
time she’d been in this house, lured by the promise of tart
apple pie and spicy novels. Not only had Mrs. Norris offered a better selection of mystery novels than the library
had in its collection, she’d also shared her favorite romances.

Walking quietly, beset by the sense she might disturb
someone if she made too much noise, Liss stopped first in
the living room. The furniture was overstuffed and comfortable, and largely catproofed. Up on high shelves were the
breakables-a Royal Doulton figurine of a nineteenthcentury lady, a crystal vase containing a silk rose, and a
small collection of bisque animals.

The infamous window alcove contained a Canadian
rocker, a knitting bag beside it. Liss didn’t sit down, but
she did observe the view. Lenny Peet was walking his dog
in the park. Children played on the merry-go-round. Marcia Katz was out on her front porch, talking to Stu Burroughs.

“Better than television,” Liss murmured, “but it looks
G-rated to me “”

In Mrs. Norris’s library, old friends awaited her. She
smiled a little as she recognized familiar titles and authors. This room showed signs of having been searched,
but the disorder was not too bad. She could see where the
computer had been-Mrs. Norris had always put dusting
low on her list of priorities-and noted the absence of the
stack of computer printouts Dan had mentioned. Remembering what he had said about the looseleaf notebook, she looked more closely at the bookcase nearest the desk. A
blue binder lay on its side on the top shelf, its importance
apparently dismissed by the police. Liss took it down and
flipped through the neatly typed pages-no more than a
couple of dozen in all.

Just as Dan had said, they contained a series of brief
notes. Every entry she stopped to read contained the
names of fictional characters from mystery novels. Liss
set the binder on the desk and began to skim the shelves.
Yes, there were Anne Perry’s books and what looked to be
the complete works of Elizabeth Peters right next to
them. The novels were arranged alphabetically by author.

Mrs. Norris’s collection of mysteries and romances had
grown considerably in the ten years since Liss had last
looked through it. To her surprise and secret amusement,
a separate, smaller bookcase was now entirely devoted to
something a little different. Liss pulled out a few of the titles and read the blurbs to confirm her first impression.
She’d been right. The new section contained nothing but
vampire novels. Vampire romances. Vampire mysteries.
Vampire chick lit. Mrs. Norris had been a woman of eclectic taste. Liss browsed a bit more, then added Dead Until
Dark to the duffle bag holding her clothes and toiletriesmight as well expand her horizons! Tucking the looseleaf
under her arm, she went next door to the Emporium.

The main room was in disarray, as if a great many very
clumsy people had been in and out. Displays had been
handled, and some moved around, and the sales counter
and window frames looked dingy where fingerprint powder had been applied. Some of it had spilled onto the carpet in front of the door to the stockroom.

For the moment, Liss ignored the mess and went straight
upstairs to the apartment. To her relief, the police appeared to have contented themselves with a simple search
of the premises. She unpacked and changed into her old est pair of jeans and a t-shirt before going back down to
the shop.

A closer look confirmed that fingerprint powder, some
gray, some black, coated a number of surfaces but had not
been applied to Aunt Margaret’s stock. Liss was grateful
for small favors. She doubted she could have successfully
removed it from the bag of a bagpipe or a stuffed toy.

Tentatively, she rubbed at the powder with one fingertip. That seemed to make matters worse. She toyed with
the idea of going back up to the apartment and using the
computer to Google “fingerprint powder.” Surely the
Internet would offer suggestions for cleaning it off. Then
she remembered Dolores Mayfield.

The librarian was delighted to be of assistance. “Vacuum first,” she instructed, “but be careful not to spread the
powder around. Keep vacuuming even after you can’t see
any dust. Then use a little soapy water on one small section at a time. Very gently. Then wet a clean, white towel
with lukewarm water and use that to blot the area before
the soapy water can dry. Then use another clean white
towel to pat the area dry.”

“And that will take it out?”

“It should. Unless it’s on antique furniture, of course”
Her cheerful voice grated on Liss’s nerves. “The varnish
on antiques is porous. Absorbs the powder and ruins the
piece.”

Dan noticed the absence of the crime-scene tape on
his way home and wasn’t surprised to find Liss’s note on
the refrigerator, held in place by the magnet his mother
had given him when he bought the house. Shaped like a
sampler, it read: “You too can enjoy the great outdoors
just miss a few mortgage payments”

“I’m at the shop,” Liss had written, “getting ready to
reopen”

Lumpkin, standing by his food dish, made a rude remark but for once didn’t attack Dan’s ankles.

“Yeah. You got that right.” He fed the cat and went upstairs.

The guest room closet was empty and Liss had changed
the linens on the bed. Fifteen minutes later, hair still wet
from a quick shower, Dan loped across the town square
and into Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium.

Liss had left the front door unlocked. Dan didn’t feel
much sympathy for her when the jangle of the entry bell
had her jumping up, eyes wild, to wave a stained white
towel at him as if she thought she could somehow use it
to defend herself.

Hastily lowering her arm, she gave a shaky laugh.
“Hello. I guess I lost track of time.”

“And common sense”

“That thing about criminals always returning to the
scene is nonsense. Anyway, I left it open for you. I figured
you’d come over when you got home. I’ve got a lot to tell
YOU.

“Save it for a bit. Pete came by the work site today. He
and Sherri are bringing Chinese, if that’s okay with you.
Sherri doesn’t go to work until eleven. Pete’s on his day
off.”

“Pete and Sherri together? Oh. Well, that’s good, I
guess. And so is the idea of eating in.” She looked down at
herself and grimaced. Her t-shirt had almost as many dirty
streaks as the white towel.

“So, you’re not going to be staying with me any longer?”
Dan tried to sound casual. There was no real reason for
him to feel disappointed that she wouldn’t be sleeping in
his spare room. He ought to be happy for her. If she’d
been allowed back into her aunt’s place, that probably meant the police were moving forward with their investigation.

“I really appreciate your putting me up, but it doesn’t
make sense to stay any longer now that I’ve got other options.” She grinned suddenly. “Boy, do I have options, but
I may as well wait until I can tell all three of you at once”

“Something good happen? LaVerdiere find another
suspect?”