Scotched (9 page)

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Authors: Kaitlyn Dunnett

BOOK: Scotched
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Two more members of the volunteer fire and rescue squad reached the parking lot at the hotel at the same time as the fire truck, Sherri's cruiser, and the EMT's car. Joe Ruskin was waiting for them there.
They set out together toward the spot at the edge of the woods that marked the start of the cliff path. “An early-morning jogger spotted the body,” Joe reported. “He damn near killed himself scrambling down the goat track, and there wasn't a thing he could do when he got to the bottom. Close up, it was pretty obvious she'd broken her neck.”
Joe was puffing slightly from the brisk pace Sherri and the others set.
“Any I.D.?” she asked.
“The kid who spotted her body is named Kline. Davy Kline. He says she's another guest, that he saw her at the reception last night. She must have gone out jogging as soon as the sun came up. Kline says that's what she's dressed for.”
“Did you go out there yourself?”
Joe shook his head. “I figured I'd better wait for you. Kline is in my office if you want to talk to him. He's pretty shook up.”
They'd reached the break in the trees. “Tell him he can return to his room if he wants to,” Sherri said. She felt sorry for the poor guy. Finding a corpse was not a good way to start the day.
Relieved that he didn't have to go look at the body, Joe headed back to the hotel. Sherri and the rescue team, armed with ropes and other equipment, followed the path into the woods. It seemed this was going to be a recovery rather than a rescue. With a little luck, the victim would have I.D. on her. If not, Joe or one of his employees might be able to supply a name once they'd brought up the body.
Lover's Leap was on town property, part of a small park adjacent to The Spruces. A sturdy rail fence stood between the jogging path and the drop-off. The cliff was of substantial height for this part of the world, rising about fifty feet above rocky terrain. That was small potatoes, Sherri supposed, compared to cliffs and escarpments found in the Rockies or in Europe, but it was high enough to be dangerous. . . and to provide a terrific view. From this “scenic outlook,” she could see tree-covered mountains rising in the distance, dark green against a cloudless blue sky. The tallest of them still had a fringe of snow at its peak.
Too bad she wasn't there to sightsee.
The rescue team had already begun its descent. What Joe had called the goat track wasn't really a trail, just a natural route, narrow and overgrown, off to the side of the height of land. Someone had to want to reach the base of Lover's Leap very badly to scramble down that way.
A shout, quickly followed by a curse, told Sherri that the EMT had slipped and covered the last few yards on her backside. Last night's scattered rain showers had left the goat track muddy.
Gingerly, Sherri climbed over the fence to stand on the dew-laden grass at the edge of the cliff. At the bottom she saw what the jogger, Kline, had—a body, dressed in a jogging suit, lay sprawled facedown, the neck bent at an unnatural angle. Even from this distance, Sherri had no doubt but that she was staring at a corpse.
At the EMT's signal verifying that conclusion, Sherri punched a number into her cell phone. This was an unattended death. That meant they needed permission from a medical examiner before they could move the body.
“Looks like some poor silly woman was trying to get a better look at the view and lost her balance,” Sherri said into the phone. It was tragic, but things like that happened all too often when people got careless.
Assured by George Henderson, the local M.E., that he'd be there directly, Sherri climbed back over to the safe side of the fence. This was pretty clearly an accident, but it was her job to consider the other possibilities.
She made a careful visual survey of the area in the clearing. She saw no scuff marks that might indicate a struggle. Neither was there a suicide note held in place by a rock. The only thing in the immediate vicinity of the scenic outlook that wasn't there compliments of Mother Nature was a plastic name badge holder. Sherri squatted down for a closer look but did not touch it. It had been lying by the side of the path long enough to be thoroughly soaked by the rain, and it no longer contained a name badge.
It could have been dropped by the victim or by an attendee at some other conference days earlier. The Spruces had hosted one small gathering after another for the last couple of months. Margaret Boyd had turned out to be very good at the job of attracting business to the hotel.
With nothing better to do, Sherri followed the cliff path a little way into the trees at the other side of the clearing. She knew that the trail made several large loops through a thickly wooded area and covered the best part of another mile before it came out on Spruce Avenue, just short of the entrance to the hotel's long, winding driveway. Within the first hundred feet, she found litter enough to fill a small trash bag, but only of the sort she'd expected—used condoms, tissues, empty beer cans, and a couple of gum wrappers. Leaving the items where they were, she returned to Lover's Leap to wait for the M.E.
Dr. Henderson and Jeff Thibodeau, Moosetookalook's chief of police and Sherri's boss, arrived together. The two men were about the same age but otherwise provided a study in contrasts. Jeff, portly enough to play Santa Claus every Christmas and nearly bald, was puffing like a steam engine as he loped into the clearing. George Henderson, thin as a whippet, had not only retained all of his hair but had it in abundance—a shock of dark brown atop his head and eyebrows so bushy they would have dominated his face had it not been for the handlebar mustache that was his pride and joy.
“What are you doing out here?” Jeff demanded when he'd caught his breath. “Go on home to your kid.”
“I haven't found anyone to work for me yet.”
“I'll call someone in. Go on. Get a move on. That little tyke needs his mom.”
Sherri's sense of responsibility to her job warred with the knowledge that Jeff was right. Adam and Pete got along just fine, but Pete was still new at the stepfather gig. She'd have called her mother in to babysit, but Ida Willett had gone on a bus tour to Graceland with some of her cronies. Sherri's father, Ernie, was likewise unavailable. He worked twelve-hour days to keep his combination gas station and convenience store open.
“You still here?” Jeff asked. Below them, George, who had to be fifty if he was a day, had just reached the bottom of the cliff. Sherri hoped she'd still be that spry at his age.
“What about that book signing at Angie's tomorrow?” Sherri asked. “There might be crowds. If you need extra manpower—”
“If I do—and that's a big if—I'll call in the sheriff's deputies.” He chuckled. “It'll give Pete something to do for a change. Now shoo!”
George's brusque voice drifted up to them, faint but clear. “Injuries consistent with a fall from this height. Just another damn fool accident.”
“
Now
will you go home?” Jeff asked.
Sherri rolled her eyes, but she went.
She returned to her apartment less than two hours after she'd left to get an early start on her day. It wasn't even eight o'clock yet, and Adam and Pete were both still asleep. She smoothed a hand over her son's forehead to make sure he wasn't running a fever, then changed from her uniform to jeans and a loose top. Both of her men would appreciate a hearty breakfast when they woke up. She could stand to eat something substantial herself. French toast, she decided. And sausage.
She didn't give the unfortunate jogger or her fatal fall another thought.
 
When Liss's alarm clock went off at eight, Lumpkin had her legs pinned at the bottom of the bed. The kitten, Glenora, had draped herself over the top of Liss's head like a pair of furry black earmuffs.
“Off,” she ordered, but she was not surprised when neither cat moved.
With an effort, she extricated herself, made a quick stop in the bathroom, and stumbled downstairs to start the coffee brewing. Lumpkin nearly tripped her as he dashed past, determined to be the first one to reach the kitchen and his food bowl. Glenora gamboled after him, fetching up by the water dish and nearly upsetting it.
When Liss began to run water into a large glass measuring cup, Glenora was right there, batting at the stream coming out of the faucet. Liss pushed her off the counter. Three times. The little cat was back by the time Liss stuck the container in the microwave. At that point, Liss gave up. She left the water running in a thin trickle so that Glenora could play with it.
Still half-asleep, she measured scoops of coffee into her French press, popped two slices of bread into the toaster, fed the cats, turned the faucet off, poured hot water over the grounds, and set the timer for four minutes of brewing time. Her plan was to drink one cup in the kitchen and a second upstairs while she dressed, and put the remainder in a thermos to take with her to The Spruces. She had nib-blies ready to go into a small cooler, too, just in case business was so brisk in the dealers' room that she couldn't get away for lunch.
Halfway through the first reviving sip of caffeine, the phone rang. Since the caller I.D. told her it was Patsy from the coffee shop, she picked up.
“I'm just back from delivering pastries to the hotel for the author breakfast,” Patsy said. “Good news. Our little problem has resolved itself.”
“What problem?” Still groggy, Liss struggled to recall if there had been a crisis over the baked goods. She couldn't remember one.
“This morning one of the hotel guests went out for an early-morning jog along the cliff path,” Patsy continued.
Liss's hand clenched on the phone. With a sick certainty, she knew she wasn't going to like what she heard next.
“We don't have to worry about the evil blogger anymore,” Patsy announced. “Jane Nedlinger took a header off Lover's Leap. Broke her danged fool neck in the fall.”
Chapter Six
T
he dealers' room opened promptly at nine. It had been arranged so that a large open area in the middle was surrounded by long tables. They had been set up about two feet out from the wall, so that the dealers had room to move around behind them. As the only bookseller at a conference for readers, Angie had the most prominent spot, to the right as people came through the door. She was also the only one who had three tables. Today she was working them alone, but her ten-year-old daughter, Beth, would help out on Saturday and Sunday.
Liss stood behind the two tables to Angie's right. She had a variety of items from Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium displayed in front of her. To her right was an empty space, room for the lines they hoped would form at the signing tables. These took up the entire wall opposite the entrance.
There was only one other dealer at the Cozy Con. A T-shirt vendor displayed a variety of brightly colored offerings on two tables set up just across from Liss. Most bore book-related slogans and graphics. Next to him were two tables holding the items to be auctioned off at the charity auction that evening. A third, where attending authors were encouraged to put out promotional material for their newest titles, was rapidly filling up with postcards, flyers, bookmarks, newsletters, pens, pencils, key rings, bowls of candy, and refrigerator magnets.
From her vantage point, Liss had a good view of the entire room. The first panel didn't start until 9:30, so they had attracted a good number of people, including several of the guest authors. Yvonne Quinlan was at the center of a small group of adoring fans.
Solo and in groups of two and three, attendees wandered from table to table, examining the merchandise and chattering excitedly among themselves. The mood was upbeat, even though word of an accidental death near the hotel had clearly gotten around. “That's the young man who found the body,” someone whispered.
Liss followed her gaze to a young man pushing an older woman in a wheelchair, but she barely had time to think that he looked to be no more than twenty years old when she was distracted by a loud “Well, really!” from Angie's direction.
The woman who had been trying to get Dorothy Cannell's autograph the previous evening tossed the book she'd been examining back onto Angie's table and turned away, looking affronted. The book, a hardcover, grazed a nearby stack of paperbacks with enough force to send the entire pile topping. Angie only just managed to catch them before they tumbled to the floor.
“What was the matter with it?” the woman's friend asked as they walked past Liss's tables. Neither seemed aware that they'd very nearly left a mini-disaster in their wake.
“It was written in that god-awful present tense. I can't stand reading books written that way.”
The second woman shrugged. “Oh, that doesn't bother me if the writing is good enough. But I hate it when an author head-hops. That constant switching back and forth will drive you crazy. Do you remember that one book where the author even included the point of view of the detective's dog?”
When the two moved out of earshot, Liss and Angie exchanged exasperated looks. “At least they read,” Angie muttered.
Liss caught other bits and pieces of other conversations as she watched over her stock.
One woman said, laughing, “And she shoved the book right up under the bathroom stall! Can you imagine? And she actually expected the author to sign it while she was—”
A deeper voice obscured the first: “When does the first panel start?”
A woman wearing a purple T-shirt dashed up to another sporting a bright red tunic and trim black slacks. The second woman had on one of the green name tags, identifying her as a panelist. “You're Kathy, aren't you?” the first woman gushed. “Oh, I'm so excited to meet you. I just love your historical mysteries. I'm writing one myself. Do you think you could introduce me to your agent? I'm sure—”
Liss had to smile. Good luck with that one, she thought.
Just before nine-thirty, Nola came in, clipboard in hand. She was hotly pursued by a pale-haired young woman in an identical outfit—conference T-shirt and jeans.
“You haven't told me yet who next year's guest of honor is going to be,” the blonde whined. “How am I supposed to talk up the second Cozy Con if I don't know that?”
“Keep your voice down, Phoebe,” Nola snapped. “Nothing's settled yet.”
“The conference committee voted a week ago,” the younger woman persisted. “You must know by now who won and if they've agreed to do it.”
“Phoebe, this is not the time or the place for this discussion. Go back to the registration table where you belong.”
Phoebe turned sulky. “I'm going to be stuck there all day. It's not fair. I'll miss all the panels.”
“Someone has to remain on duty, Phoebe.” Nola sounded exasperated.
“Why?”
“Because there are a few registrants who haven't checked in yet. And there will be other attendees who have questions. About next year's conference, as you suggested. You can assure them there will be one and give them the dates, even if you can't yet reveal the next guest of honor's name. Besides, what if someone got an extra-large conference T-shirt in their goodie bag and wants to know if it comes in a smaller size?”
“But it doesn't,” Phoebe objected.
“Exactly. That's why a representative of the Cozy Con needs to be at the registration desk all the time. To tell people that.”
“But why does it have to be me? Susie could do it.”
Nola looked as if she wanted to hit Phoebe upside the head with her clipboard. “You're my second in command. It's your responsibility,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Second in command, my ass,” Phoebe muttered as she stomped past Liss on her way to the door. “Slave labor is more like it!”
Soon after that, the room began to clear out. It was almost time for the first two panels to begin. According to the program, they'd run from 9:30 to 10:30 and be followed by a signing session for the participating panelists from 10:30 to 11:30.
“I wish you'd stop talking about it, Davy,” the woman in the wheelchair said as she and the young man pushing her passed Liss's tables. “I get palpitations every time I think about you climbing down that cliff to check that poor woman's pulse. You could have fallen to your death yourself, and then where would I be?”
“I was perfectly safe, Mother,” the young man said, and shoved her chair out into the corridor with just a little more force than seemed absolutely necessary. Liss had a feeling it wasn't the first time he'd been obliged to reassure her.
With the first rush of business over, Angie began to tidy the piles of books on the tables in front of her. Dozens of people had picked up titles and read back cover copy and even the first page, but from what Liss had seen, few had actually bought anything.
“What on earth was that woman doing out at Lover's Leap in the first place?” Angie asked as she worked.
“Apparently, she was out jogging,” Liss said. Her stock, too, had been pawed through. She refolded a tartan scarf and straightened a stack of boxes that contained pins in the shape of bagpipes. “That's what Joe Ruskin told me when I got here.”
Angie's brows shot up. “Jane Nedlinger didn't sound to me like the type for early-morning exercise, but I guess you never know.”
“You can't judge a book by its cover,” Liss quipped, then winced at her own misplaced sense of humor. A woman was dead. That was nothing to joke about. Or to be glad of, either, even if it did mean that she, along with the hotel and the town, were now unlikely to be written up in
The Nedlinger Report
.
Liss hadn't had much time to gather information. She'd already been running late by the time she'd arrived at The Spruces. “All he said was that one of the guests—apparently that young man, Davy—found Jane Nedlinger dead at the foot of the cliff this morning. He said it looks as if she went out there, jogging, at the crack of dawn, got too close to the edge while admiring the view, and took a fatal fall.”
“Still strikes me as some peculiar,” Angie said.
“Be glad it's so cut and dried. The last thing we need around here is another murder.”
The sound of a throat clearing made Liss look up. Yvonne Quinlan stood on the other side of the display table. Liss and Angie had been so intent on their conversation that neither of them had heard her approach. The only other person left in the dealers' room, besides the three vendors, was Nola Ventress. She was on the opposite side of the room, fussing with the display of auction items.
“Perhaps,” Yvonne suggested with a faint smile, “Ms. Nedlinger was lured into the woods by a vampire. It's well known that vampires have the power to compel obedience from mere mortals.”
“Uh-huh,” Liss said. Looking past Yvonne, she saw Nola start to walk toward them.
“I'm sorry,” Yvonne said with a rueful little chuckle. “I meant no disrespect for the dead. You know writers. We just can't resist spinning stories. I'm always startling the people around me by saying things like, ‘Oh, look! Wouldn't that be a great place to hide a body?'”
The twinkle in Yvonne Quinlan's eyes was difficult to resist. Liss found herself responding to it, but she couldn't help but notice that Nola didn't appear to be at all pleased by what she'd overheard. She looked, in fact, as if she'd just bitten into something extremely sour.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Liss said to the author, “but the vampire explanation won't work. Apparently the fall took place after the sun came up.”
Yvonne's smile widened into a grin. “What a pity! And I guess that means it really was an accident. After all, few humans would have the brute strength to toss someone as hefty as Jane Nedlinger off a cliff. I suppose there was a fence to haul her over first, yes?”
Liss had to think about it. She hadn't been up to Lover's Leap in years, not since she was a teenager. It had been considered a daring make-out spot when she was in high school.
“Lover's Leap is on town land and the selectmen are cautious people, so I'm sure there's a barrier of some kind.” There had been a dozen years ago—a sturdy structure with log rails.
“You don't seem real upset over her death,” Angie said to Yvonne. “Knew her well, did you?”
“Hardly at all.” The actress examined one of the thistle pins Liss had for sale, the thistle being the symbol of Scotland. “I talked to her a few times at events like this one. That's about it. Put this aside for me, will you?” She passed Liss the pin. “I'll send Bill by to pick it up and pay you for it later.”
When Yvonne had left, Liss closed the box the pin came in and stashed it in one of the empty cartons she'd stored beneath her table. While she was down there, she thought about fishing out a notebook and a pen. The temptation was strong to start making lists of suspects, motives, and alibis.
She resisted, telling herself that she mustn't let her imagination run away with her. Jane's death had been a terrible accident, nothing more. It was only the influence of all the murder mysteries stacked on Angie's tables that was making her remember just how many people would benefit from Jane Nedlinger's sudden demise.
You're here as a dealer, not a detective
, she told herself firmly,
and there has been no crime
.
Some two hours later, Bill Stoltz wandered in. “Yvonne tells me you're holding something for her,” he said.
Liss produced the box with the pin in it and an invoice. “Terrible about Jane Nedlinger, isn't it?” she asked as she swathed the little box containing the thistle pin in tissue paper and placed it in a small Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium bag, then added one of her business cards.
“Who?” Bill handed over a credit card—his, not Yvonne's.
“The woman who fell off the cliff.”
“Oh, yes. I did hear something about that. Didn't catch the name. As you say, a terrible thing.”
“What were you two talking about last evening?”
“I didn't talk to her. I didn't know her.”
His denial set off alarm bells. “Perhaps you didn't catch her name then, either,” Liss said smoothly as she passed him the gift bag. “As I recall, she wasn't wearing a name badge. Jane Nedlinger was the woman who cornered you at the opening reception, at right about the time Nola Ventress was introducing Yvonne.”
Bill blinked a few times, then apparently decided that Liss wasn't going to be put off by repeated denials. “Oh,
that
woman,” he said. “I suppose I've been trying to repress the memory.”
“So? What did she say to you?” Liss wasn't sure why she persisted, except that Bill had lied to her. He had to have known all along who Jane was. He'd been right there with them last night when Yvonne had been telling them about her own encounter with the blogger. Since they'd been discussing Jane Nedlinger's negative review of Yvonne's latest book, Liss was certain Bill had been paying attention. After all, he
was
Yvonne's manager.

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