Kilt Dead (29 page)

-he Student Center at the Fallstown branch of the University of Maine had a large function room available
for gatherings such as class reunions. School banners had
been hung on the walls and bunches of balloons in team
colors formed centerpieces at the tables, but otherwise
the decor was not particularly festive. Neither was Dan
Ruskin’s mood.

Liss eyed her escort warily, wondering what he wasn’t
telling her. His sister was indeed on the road to recovery.
Liss had talked to Mary on the phone herself. That left
local gossip to worry about … and Karen Cloutier.

“Liss! Over here!” Gina Snowe’s voice carried easily
across the room as she gestured for them to join her at the
table where she was holding court. There was no other
word for it, Liss thought with a smile as they made their
way over. No fewer than five of their male classmates
were gathered around the ex-beauty queen in the bright
red dress, vying for her attention.

Unfortunately, only two chairs remained empty. “Sorry,
Gina. There are four of us “” Liss indicated Sherri and
Pete.

For a moment, Gina looked startled. “Hello, Sherri”

“Gina” Sherri gave the other woman such a cool nod
that Liss found herself scrambling to remember what their
relationship had been like ten years earlier. She couldn’t think of anything to explain the sudden chill in the air.
Then again, as a high school student, she’d been pretty
oblivious to everything outside her own interests.

They found a table with four places free toward the
back of the room, claimed the chairs with the programs
handed out at the door and their evening bags, and put on
their name tags, ready to mingle. Dan looked as if he was
on his way to an execution and Sherri’s attitude wasn’t
much better.

“Drinks for everyone?” Pete suggested.

Forty minutes later, Liss was bracing herself for the
next “do you remember when?” encounter when she recognized Karen Cloutier’s voice behind her and a little to
the left. “I heard she not only sleeps around, she does it
for money.”

The malicious words fell into a momentary lull in
other conversations.

Liss closed her eyes and prayed for fortitude. It isn’t
worth confronting her over, she lectured herself. Karen
had clearly been imbibing heavily and she’d never been
particularly discreet. Liss had already heard that Karen
had been spreading the word that Liss was a suspect in
Mrs. Norris’s murder. Let her say whatever she wants
about me. Sticks and stones and all that.

But the voice that answered Karen belonged to Gina.
“Maybe years ago, but surely not now.”

Liss choked back an outraged cry of protest at this betrayal by her “best friend.” Liss hadn’t even had a serious
boyfriend in high school and Gina knew it.

“What, you think she got law-abiding just because she
put on a uniform?”

Not me. Sherri.

Liss was ashamed of the relief she felt. Had Sherri
overheard? The noise of dozens of people all chattering at
the same time should have covered the exchange between Karen and Gina. But Dan had heard. His grip on Liss’s
arm tightened. He tried to tug her out of earshot, but it
was too late.

Liss heard Gina chuckle. “You’re probably right. I
wouldn’t put it past her. I ran into her once before she
came back to Maine to live, and let me tell you, she wasn’t
exactly law-abiding then”

“Ooooh details!”

Karen’s delighted trill of laughter grated on Liss’s
nerves. Without taking the time to consider consequences,
she pushed her way through the classmates separating her
from the two gossiping women and confronted them.
Outrage made her voice louder than she intended. “This
isn’t high school anymore, ladies. And trashing someone’s reputation isn’t a joke”

Karen gave her a cat-after-cream smile. “Trashy is as
trashy does. My mother saw her. Last summer. Flashy
car. Flashy man. Cheap motel room”

Suddenly aware they had an avidly listening audience,
Liss felt herself flush with anger and embarrassment. She
looked around for an escape route only to have her gaze
collide with Sherri’s.

Time seemed to stop. It was all there to read in the
horrified expression in Sherri’s eyes. She knew Karen and
Gina had been talking about her. Worse, at least some of
what they’d said was true.

Liss swung back to Karen, fists clenched at her sides.
“Drunk or sober, you haven’t changed a bit in ten years.
You’re still a petty, small-minded troublemaker.”

It occurred to Liss that several of her own long-forgotten
high school humiliations could probably be laid at Karen’s
door. Naive as she’d been then, she’d never made the connection.

She leaned in close, so that only Karen could hear.
“Dan always liked me best”

It was a childish remark but damn, it felt good to have
something with which to pay Karen back. Then her old
nemesis ruined the moment by bursting into tears.

“Oh, hell. I didn’t mean to make her cry.”

“Why not?” Sherri asked as she and Pete came up beside Liss and Dan. “I can’t think of anyone who deserves
a few minutes of misery more. Don’t worry, it won’t last.
She’ll be back to normal by the end of the evening.”

“And inventing new lies.” Dan had been silent till
then. “I don’t know about you three, but I’ve had enough
of Old Home Week. How about we skip the banquet and
go out for pizza?”

“No way,” Sherri objected. “Who knows what stories
she’ll invent if she thinks her lies drove us away.”

The brave front crumbled as soon as Dan and Pete left
them in a secluded corner to fetch refills of their drinks.
Sherri looked as if she, too, was about to turn on the
waterworks.

“I just made things worse,” Liss lamented. “I didn’t
mean to draw attention to Karen’s comments”

Sherri blinked back the incipient tears and squared her
shoulders. “Not your fault. And, sadly, neither Gina nor
Karen was lying. Gina and I crossed paths when I was at
a pretty low point in my life. And what Karen’s mother
saw? I’m afraid that was true, too. I guess I should be
grateful she didn’t know who I was with that night.”
Color flamed into Sherri’s face and she shifted her gaze to
a spot on the floor. “It was LaVerdiere, Liss. I was fool
enough to sleep with Craig LaVerdiere.”

Struggling to hide her shock, Liss put her hand on
Sherri’s forearm and squeezed. “He … ah … well, he is
kind of good-looking. Till he opens his mouth”

Sherri managed a chuckle. “It was back when he first
got to the area. I was lonely. He was sexy. We met at the
annual law enforcement picnic and there was chemistry. I
figured, what the heck? This could work out. We have the job in common. But afterward he made it clear he hadn’t
been interested in anything more than a one-night stand.
Made me feel cheap. Worse, made me feel like an idiot.”
“I’ve had a stupid moment or two myself.”

“I’ve had more than one”

“And I’ll bet you Karen has had dozens”

“There is that” Sherri caught sight of Pete and Dan returning and spoke quickly. “Time to change the subject.
Do you have Mrs. Norris’s looseleaf?”

“Not yet. Dan’s giving it back to me in the morning.”

“Can I come over around noon tomorrow and take a
look at it? I heard something earlier tonight that sounded
an awful lot like one of the entries.”

Liss hastily agreed. She wondered why Sherri didn’t
want Dan and Pete to overhear her request, but she didn’t
ask questions. She figured she’d find out soon enough. If
they survived the rest of the evening.

Liss slept in on Sunday and woke up to find a note
from Dan pushed under the stockroom door. She was not
expecting anything romantic. He hadn’t even hinted that
he’d like to sleep anywhere but in his own house the previous night. He’d checked the apartment for intruders before having her let him out the front door of the Emporium,
but he’d contented himself with an almost chaste kiss.
Liss didn’t know what to make of the way he was pulling
back from her.

The note simply said that he’d gone out to The Spruces
and that she’d find the looseleaf at his place if she wanted
it before he returned. She’d asked about it again during
the drive home from reunion.

Liss duly retrieved it-she’d not yet returned the spare
key Dan had given her when she was staying with himafter she’d stopped at Mrs. Norris’s house to refill Lumpkin’s food and water dishes.

She was making a hearty brunch when Sherri arrived.
She had sausages keeping warm, waffle batter ready to
go, and a second pot of coffee perking.

“What, no scones?”

“They’re harder to make than I expected. My first try
would have made a rock seem light and flaky in comparison.”

“Waffles will do,” Sherri decided. “Oh, good. You got
the looseleaf.” It didn’t take her long to find the section
she’d read when they’d divided up the pages. She skimmed
through it again while Liss poured coffee. “Ah, here it is!
She’s using fictional character names again, I assume. Joe
Morelli?”

Liss couldn’t help grinning as she poured batter into
the waffle iron. “Sexy cop in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie
Plum novels.”

“Well, sexy or not, here he’s defrauding people out of
their homes so he can tear them down and build high-rise
condos”

A reference to construction work? Liss’s concentration slipped and she brushed too close to the hot waffle
iron with her hand. Jerking away from the heat, she stared
at Sherri. “What did you hear last night that made you remember that entry?”

“That Jason Graye bid on The Spruces. He drove up
the price, then dropped out leaving Joe Ruskin as high
bidder. Word is that Graye planned to tear down the hotel.”
She held up a hand to forestall Liss’s protest. “I know. It’s
a stretch, but Graye and defraud just seemed to go together.
I’ll bet he uses substandard construction, too” She sighed.
“Do you think I’m trying too hard to find suspects?” She
sounded discouraged.

“I don’t know. I do know that I hate being so suspicious of everyone all the time.”

But Liss was also relieved that Sherri hadn’t thought
“Joe Morelli” might be Joe Ruskin. Sherri had assumed Mrs. Norris meant Jason Graye. She might even be right,
but that didn’t mean Graye was a murderer. Did it?

“Pete said there had been some complaints about Graye,”
Liss added in a thoughtful voice.

Sherri’s expression brightened. “That’s right. And it
was Gracie Lomax I talked to last night. She works at one
of the banks in Fallstown. She’s a solid source”

Liss moved the looseleaf aside to serve brunch. They
talked of other things while they ate. Not all the memories of the previous night’s gathering were bad ones. It
wasn’t until they were clearing the table that she noticed a
tiny bit of paper clinging to one of the rings of the blue
binder. It looked as if someone had ripped out a page.

Dan? Or Pete or Sherri before Dan took the looseleaf
home with him? Or someone else? Was this what her intruder had been looking for? And had he gone on to
search Dan’s house after leaving here? Dan had mentioned leaving his front door unlocked.

Liss didn’t like any of those possibilities, but they
forced her to reconsider why Mrs. Norris had been making her odd notes in the first place. “Everybody has secrets,” she murmured.

Sherri paused in the act of putting the maple syrup
away to give Liss a curious look. “You already know
mine. Feel free to share yours”

Liss told her.

“In theory, both of those incidents should be in this looseleaf, with the names changed to protect the not-so-innocent.”

“I didn’t spot anything last time.”

“You only read a quarter of the entries.” Liss divided
the pages in half and started reading. “It’s not in here,”
she announced a short time later.

“Yours or mine?”

“Neither.”

“Nothing here either,” Sherri said after another few
minutes. She sounded relieved. “Not on you. Not on me. And nothing I can connect to Dan or Pete or your family,
unless Margaret is Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and
Ned is Miss Marple’s nephew.”

Liss glanced at the entry Sherri indicated. It suggested
that the nephew had hatched a “nefarious plot” to augment
his income. “Well, that could be Ned, I suppose, but it’s
hardly a secret worth killing over.”

“He didn’t come to the memorial service.”

“No, he didn’t, but I doubt that means anything. It’s
not as if he was close to Mrs. Norris. He told me the other
day that he hadn’t been inside her house in years”

She pondered another entry, this one involving an unlikely combination of fictional characters-Joan Hess’s
Claire Malloy, an Arkansas bookseller, and Aaron Elkin’s
“skeleton detective,” Gideon Oliver-and a plan to smuggle prescription drugs into the U.S. from Canada. “I wonder .. “

“What?”

“Your father said there were some `shady characters’
hanging around the Emporium. Do you have any idea who
he might have meant?” She ran water to wash the few
dishes they’d used and Sherri automatically reached for a
dishtowel.