Kilt Dead (22 page)

Her face fell. “Not that good” Her gaze shifted toward
the door to the stockroom and just as quickly away.

Dan wanted to push, to hear her “options,” but her words
were a forceful reminder that she still had him filed in the
“old friends” category. No sense beating his head against
a wall. “Things bad in there?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t dare look.”

“No time like the present” He grinned and spoke in a
poor imitation of John Wayne. “I’ll protect you, little lady”

Liss stepped in front of him to take the lead. When she
opened the door, Dan felt his jaw drop. The police had removed half the contents of the room. What remained was
liberally coated with splotches of fingerprint powder.

“Oh, no,” Liss wailed, heading straight for several bolts
of fabric carelessly tossed onto the table Margaret used
for packing and unpacking merchandise. “That horrible
black powder is all along the edges. I’ll never be able to
wash it out. These are ruined.”

The contents of boxes and bins appeared to be undamaged, although they had obviously been gone through, but
there was more fingerprint powder on what remained of
the shelving. One entire section, the one against which
Mrs. Norris had struck her head, had been taken away,
along with the tartan cloth that had fallen on top of her
body.

“What a disaster area.” Liss circled the room, careful
to avoid stepping in the spill of powder on the wood floor.
She shoved a box back into place, righted a wastepaper basket, and had started to straighten the oversized bulletin board her aunt used to keep track of orders due to arrive when she suddenly froze.

Dan was at her side in an instant. He saw at once what
had startled her into stillness. “Well, I’ll be damned.
There’s a wall safe behind there”

(^Iver containers of cashew chicken, beef lo mein, and
fried rice, sitting on stools around Margaret Boyd’s kitchen island, Liss gave Dan, Sherri, and Pete a quick summary of her day.

Sherri stopped chewing to gape at her. “Wow. I don’t
know which part amazes me more, the news of your inheritance, that LaVerdiere overlooked the looseleaf binder
when he searched Mrs. Norris’s house, or your discovery
that Margaret was actually engaged to my father.”

“Margaret Boyd and Ernie Willett.” Pete shook his head.
“Still waters run deep”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sherri sent Pete a
wary look.

“Only that I remember my dad talking about Ernie in
his younger days. He was quite a hell-raiser. He and Moose
Mayfield used to get into all kinds of scrapes. And Margaret-well, she’s always struck me as … I dunno …
sophisticated, I guess”

Liss thought of her aunt-dyed red hair, decked out in
the traditional Scottish clothing she sold in the shop, a little overweight but comfortable with it. Sophisticated?
Hardly.

On the other hand, Liss had just as much difficulty
imagining her with Ernie Willett as Pete did. Only if the old saw about opposites attracting was true could they
possibly have made a go of it.

“Whatever we think about it, that old relationship could
be the reason behind Ernie’s actions three years ago. Now?
Who knows?”

Sherri held up one hand. “Okay. Before this goes any
further, I think you should know that my father doesn’t
have anyone working for him right now. If he left the
store long enough to come here, kill Mrs. Norris, and return, someone would have noticed. They’d have seen the
CLOSED sign or gone in to pay for gas and realized no one
was there to take their money. We’d have heard about it by
now. When he did close up on Sunday when he came to
the fairgrounds at least a dozen people noticed, because
all of them made sure my mother heard about it.”

“Go, small-town gossip,” Liss murmured. “I’d already
figured that out for myself,” she reminded Sherri.

“Say what you will about the local grapevine; it comes
in handy sometimes.”

“What’s the population of Moosetookalook? A thousand people in all? Only that many minus the four of us
and Ernie Willett left to exonerate” Liss cleared the
empty containers away, depositing them in the trash, and
steered the others into the living room.

“Sure you want to rule the three of us out?” Dan asked.

“Better not,” Sherri chimed in. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Better to let the police handle things.” Pete settled
himself next to Sherri on the sofa as they moved into the
living room.

“I can’t.” Liss spoke more sharply than she’d intended,
but she was getting a little tired of receiving this particular bit of advice. “As long as the murder goes unsolved,
the shadow of suspicion hangs over me and my aunt”

Sherri slanted a look at Pete. “Are you sure you should
be here? Technically, you’re on LaVerdiere’s side.”

“Bite your tongue. And the same goes for you”

“I don’t like the way he’s doing things. He’s not even
looking at anyone but Liss.”

“You don’t know that”

“Do you know he is?”

Pete glowered at her. Sherri glared back.

Liss fought a smile at the sparks flying between the
two of them. She had a feeling Sherri’s qualms about getting involved with another deputy weren’t going to be
enough to stop nature from taking its course.

“There’s no reason I can’t help out an old friend,” Pete
said through gritted teeth.

“We’ll both help.”

“Fine”

“Good”

“Ah, could we move on to the actually helping part?”
Dan asked. “There’s one thing Liss left out of her story.
We found something in the stockroom”

“Did you know there was a wall safe behind that heavy
corkboard?” Liss asked Sherri.

“Get out of here! Really?”

“Really. And from your reaction, you don’t have any
idea what the combination is, either.” Liss had fiddled with
the dial, trying various numbers, but Aunt Margaret’s
birthday hadn’t worked, nor had Ned’s, nor had Liss’s father’s. All she’d gotten for her trouble was fingerprint
powder all over her hands.

“I didn’t even know there was a safe there,” Sherri
said, “and I’m pretty sure I would have if your aunt used
it regularly.”

“It’s probably completely irrelevant. Speaking of
which .. .” She brought out the looseleaf she’d brought
from Mrs. Norris’s house.

“That’s the binder I saw,” Dan said. “The police didn’t
take it?”

“Apparently not” Liss divided the pages among the
four of them. “See what you think. Even though LaVerdiere has ruled out blackmail, we need to keep open minds
about this. Ignore the names. See if anything rings a bell.
We’re looking for scandal in Moosetookalook.”

Dan started to protest, then thought better of it. For the
next few minutes the only sounds to break the silence
were an occasional snort or giggle, the turning of pages,
and the steady hum of the air conditioner. Finally Liss
looked up. She’d recognized lots of names-all of them
fictional characters in mystery novels-but she’d been
unable to match the “dirt” with anything she knew about
real people.

“This one reference might be to Moose Mayfield,”
Pete said, “but there just isn’t enough to go on to be sure.
I can’t begin to guess at any of the others”

Sherri agreed. “Nothing leaps out at me, and I probably hear most of the local gossip. People repeat it to my
mother and she tells me. Half the time it goes in one ear
and out the other, but I think I’d remember the really
scandalous stuff. She-” Sherri abruptly dropped her
gaze. “Well, anyway, she doesn’t miss much”

“I take it I’m the subject of gossip these days,” Liss
said, trying to pretend it didn’t hurt. “So what’s the betting? Did I do Mrs. Norris in for her money, or was I trying to rob my aunt’s store when she caught me?”

“That’s not what they’re talking about” Sherri looked
no less ill at ease, but at least she met Liss’s eyes. “The
old biddies in town, the ones who’ve forgotten that most
of them were young in the sixties and seventies when
things were considerably wilder than they are these days,
are all stirred up because you moved in with Dan”

“Appalling lack of morals that MacCrimmon girl
has!” Dan winked at her to take the sting out of his words.

Liss didn’t like the idea that her personal life was gossip fodder, and liked it even less that the gossip was inaccurate, but if she had to be the subject of gossip, she’d
much prefer the focus be on sex rather than murder.

“Okay, enough about me. Since we can’t connect up
anything in the looseleaf, let’s go back to the suspect list.
What more do we know about Jason Graye? All we came
up with yesterday morning was that he lives within walking distance of the Emporium.”

Pete perked up, recognizing the name. “He’s had a
couple of shady dealings in his real estate business.”

“What kind?”

“Not enough to give cause for arrest, or even bad publicity. Houses that weren’t all he’d claimed they were, except that none of it was in writing. It came down to him
saying he told the buyer everything and the buyer insisting he left out a few details.”

“I never asked if you’d met him before, Dan. Have you
had dealings with him?”

“Only in passing. He didn’t handle the sale of your
house. I bought it directly from the guy your parents sold
it to ten years ago”

“What about his girlfriend? Who is Barbara Zathros?”

“I think she’s his secretary,” Pete said.

“More than that if he’s buying her expensive presents,”
Sherri put in. “Kilts don’t come cheap”

“I need to contact her about that,” Liss murmured.
“The fabric was taken as evidence. I don’t want to order
more unless she’s sure she still wants the kilt.”

“Contact him, you mean,” said Sherri.

“Contact them both”

“Hold on,” Dan protested. “If you really think one of
them killed Mrs. Norris, you don’t want to do anything to
arouse their suspicions.”

“I have a perfectly legitimate reason to get in touch.
And a perfect opportunity to fish for more information.
I’ll just tell Jason Graye I want to sell Mrs. Norris’s house.
Then he-“

The appalled look on Sherri’s face stopped her. Dan’s expression was almost as disconcerting-he looked disappointed.

“Do you know how bad that will look?” Sherri asked.

“I’m not really going to put it up for sale. At least not
right away.”

Selling the house made sense, but in her heart Liss
knew she was far from ready to put it on the market.
Foolish of her. It wasn’t as if she could stay in Moosetookalook and live there. She might prove she never murdered anyone, but she’d still be the shameless hussy
who’d moved in on Dan Ruskin. Small-town life, smalltown gossip-that wasn’t her style. She’d go back to a city,
once she decided what she wanted to do with the rest of
her life. Wouldn’t she?

Shaking off the melancholy mood that threatened to
overwhelm her, she tapped her list. “This Barbara. Aside
from her poor taste in men, she’s hardly a likely suspect,
but if she and Graye were here that afternoon, she may
have seen something. Oh, and I need to talk to Lenny
Peet, too. He was out in the square that afternoon, walking his dog”

“Well, there’s your murderer,” Sherri said with a sly
grin. “Weren’t you the one who told me that the least
likely suspect is always the person who dunit?”

“Most crimes are pretty straightforward,” Pete said. “If
we put our minds to it, we should be able to figure out
who’d profit most from Mrs. Norris’s death”

“Besides me, you mean” Liss sighed. “I wish I knew
who her previous heir was. Maybe he or she didn’t know
Mrs. Norris had changed her will.”

“Long shot,” Dan said.

“You’re sure the police didn’t find any fingerprints but
ours?” Liss asked Sherri.

“I imagine they found lots of them, but they have to be
able to match prints with those already on file to identify
them”

“Can you find out-?”

“Not for a bit.” Sherri held up a hand, palm out, to stop
her question. “LaVerdiere turned up when I was … chatting with another state cop. I don’t think he bought the
story that I was just being friendly.”