Kilt Dead (23 page)

“Let me see what I can come up with,” Pete offered.

Dan had picked up Liss’s list of suspects. “What about
Ned Boyd? He was around here earlier that afternoon and
I don’t know where he went after he left me”

“He went home,” Liss said. “I stopped by his apartment when I got back from Fallstown. I was going to
leave him a note but he was there. Took a vacation day.”

Sherri cleared her throat. “Uh, Liss? He isn’t on vacation. He got fired from his job at the call center in Fallstown a couple of months ago”

“Huh,” Dan said. “Interesting. Just last week, Margaret was bragging that he’d been promoted to shift supervisor. To hear her tell it, he was all but running the
place.”

“Margaret doesn’t know. Ned’s been keeping it from
her. The only reason I found out is that one of my neighbors works there. She told me all about it when it happened. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think it was
my place to rat him out to his family.”

Liss plopped down on the arm of Dan’s chair, her gaze
fixed on Sherri. “Why was Ned let go?”

“Bad attitude. He pissed off the boss. That’s what my
neighbor said, anyway.”

“I’ll bet that’s why he’s so stirred up about the hotel
deal,” Dan said. “Margaret invested money that Ned could
have used himself.”

“Can’t see how that would lead to him killing
Mrs. Norris,” Pete said.

Liss sent him a grateful smile. “Good point. If she’d
seen Ned go into the building, she wouldn’t have bothered to investigate. It’s his mother’s place, after all.”

“And round and round we go” Sherri stood and
stretched. “Sorry to break this up, but I need to go home,
kiss my son goodnight, and get ready for work”

Pete went with her, leaving Liss alone with Dan.

“I don’t like you staying here by yourself,” he said.

Liss hadn’t felt nervous before, but the worried look
on his face had her wondering if it wouldn’t be better to
go next door to Mrs. Norris’s house. “Nonsense,” she
said, as much to herself as to him. “I’ll be fine. All the
locks are deadbolts.”

Before he could offer to stay with her for protection,
Liss sent him a bright smile. Keep it light, she reminded
herself. “I’ve got an idea. Go get Lumpkin. He’s an excellent watch cat goes straight for the ankles.”

Sherri had barely settled in on her shift when Larry
Granby shuffled into the dispatch center from intake.
“Sheriff wants to talk to you, Sherri. What’d you do? Lassiter hardly ever stays this late.”

“No idea,” Sherri lied. By the time she walked the
short distance to the administrative offices, she’d broken
out in a cold sweat, convinced she was about to be fired.

“Come in, Sherri,” the sheriff said in a low, throaty
voice. “Haul up a chair.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Penelope Lassiter was second-generation law enforcement. Her father had been sheriff of Carrabassett County
in his day and she had won the office in the most recent
election. She was not much bigger than Sherri, standing a
little under five-foot-five in stocking feet, and she had a
small, uptilted nose, a pointy little chin, and almond-shaped
eyes that put you in mind of a pixie … until you spent a
few minutes in her company. She made up for being
“cute” with a forceful personality, formidable scores in every area of police training, and a dogged determination
to make herself and her department the best in the state.

“I’ve been hearing things about you,” she began.

Sherri started to speak, then thought better of it.

“You seem to be doing some investigating on your
own initiative. You realize that’s not part of your job description?”

“Yes, ma’am”

“Do you think you could unbend for a second?”

“Ma’am?”

“For God’s sake, Sherri. You make me want to tear my
hair out” She gave a yank at one short, straight, mudbrown strand. “I’m only a dozen or so years older than
you are. See? No gray yet. Ten years ago, I was working
your job. At least in private, will you please relax and call
me Penny!”

“Yes, ma’-I–thank you, Penny.”

“Better. Now, about your extracurricular activities. I
can’t say I think you’re wise to pursue them, but as long
as you don’t break any laws I’m prepared to overlook your
interest in Amanda Norris’s murder” She tipped back in
the desk chair, propping shoeless feet on the blotter. “I take
it you don’t think much of the way Detective LaVerdiere
is handling the case?”

“He’s on the wrong track. Liss MacCrimmon never
killed anybody.”

“Got any theories who did?”

“Well … no. Not really.”

“I’d like to get rid of him, you know.”

“LaVerdiere?”

She nodded, watching Sherri through half-closed but
alert dark brown eyes. “God only knows if the next one
will be any better, but this one’s a dead loss. You didn’t
hear it from me, but LaVerdiere was transferred here because he screwed up his last assignment. They wanted to give him another chance. I don’t know why, but Carrabassett County seems to be the dumping ground for incompetent officers. You should have seen the last one.
Geoff Tooley. God, what a loser. Thought he was hot stuff,
too. Even made a pass at me once”

Sherri felt warmth creep up her neck and into her
cheeks and hoped Penny Lassiter wouldn’t notice. The
sheriff seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. Her gaze
drifted to the ceiling as she rambled on.

“Bad apples. That’s what they are. But instead of tossing them out, they send them here. I expect that’s why
he’s so fixated on your friend. He needs a high-profile arrest to save his career.”

Bad apples, Sherri thought. That about summed it up.
She knew that all law enforcement agencies tried to
screen applicants, but some misfits always managed to slip
through. More often it was the overly aggressive type,
bullies drawn to the power of the badge. They didn’t last
long. They overreached their authority and got canned for
it. Poor interview skills and pigheadedness, on the other
hand, were harder to use as grounds for dismissal.

The sheriff lowered her feet to the floor and sat studying Sherri’s face. “I don’t want to hear any more complaints about your interference and I don’t want to hear
that you’re leaking information. I don’t want to hear
about it. You understand? And if you need to miss work,
you take vacation time, not sick days”

“Yes, ma-Penny.”

“Good. I’m glad we had this little chat. Get back to
work”

Liss did not sleep well. Lumpkin was restless. Every
time he jumped up onto her bed, Liss jerked awake. When
the phone rang at a little past seven, she embarrassed herself by squeaking in alarm. One hand over her rapidly beating heart, she picked up before the instrument could
shrill again, expecting Sherri to be on the other end of the
line.

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” Aunt Margaret chirped,
“but the day’s half gone over here” It was a good connection. She sounded as if she were standing in the next
room.

“I was just about to dress and go down to the shop,” Liss
told her. “You’ll be glad to hear we can reopen tomorrow.”

Today was earmarked for a trip to Fallstown to talk to
Jason Graye. It might be foolish to think she could succeed where the police could not, but she didn’t see any
way around trying. Otherwise she might yet end up in
jail.

Liss’s announcement was greeted by a long pause on
the other end of the line. “Excuse me?”

“You, ah, didn’t know we were closed yesterday?”

“Amaryllis MacCrimmon, what is going on there?”

Standing in the kitchen doorway with the phone, Liss
took a moment to turn and bump her forehead, none too
gently, against the wall. She should have expected this.
The minute she heard Ned had lied about his job, she
should have realized he’d also lied about calling his
mother.

“Aunt Margaret, you’d better sit down. I’ve got a lot to
tell you”

Liss left out as much as she put into her account. She
didn’t want her aunt to worry. She had no need to hear that
her niece was Detective LaVerdiere’s prime suspect, or
that her son had chickened out and put off calling her
with the news of Mrs. Norris’s murder. For the moment Liss
also held back the story of her unexpected inheritance, although she had to admit that Lumpkin was in residence.
Aunt Margaret heard him yowling in the background.

By the time Liss wound down, she felt as exhausted as
if she’d lived through the last few days all over again. It took another ten minutes to convince her aunt to stay put
in Scotland.

“There’s no point in rushing back home,” she repeated. “There’s nothing you can do here”

“It’s my store that was broken into.”

“Do you have any idea why? I discovered a wall safe
in the stockroom but I didn’t have the combination. I
don’t know if anything was taken from it.”

“The safe?” Aunt Margaret sounded surprised but not
alarmed. “Mostly I use it to store documents, since it’s
fireproof. My passport, when I’m not using it. My birth
and marriage certificates. My social security card. That
sort of thing. Oh, and my diamond ring may be in there,
the one your uncle gave me when we got engaged. It got
too tight, so I stopped wearing it a few years back. Or did
I leave that in my jewelry box? I don’t remember. Do you
have a pencil and paper? I’ll give you the combination.”

Liss wrote down the series of numbers Margaret gave
her, then listened as her aunt rambled on. Should she mention stumbling upon Margaret’s past relationship with
Ernie Willett? It no longer seemed relevant. Willett might
have an irrational streak when it came to his wife, his
daughter, and his old girlfriend, but he also had an alibi.

“My God. Amanda Norris murdered. I just can’t take
it in. Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t think so, Aunt Margaret. Everything’s under
control here now. And we had two very good days at the
Highland Games. Oh, and you may have a customer for a
custom-made kilt. A woman named Barbara Zathros?”

“I remember her. Works for Jason Graye, doesn’t she?
What does she want with a kilt? Zathros isn’t exactly a
Scottish surname”

“Don’t be such a snob,” Liss teased. “She wants the
Flower of Scotland tartan”

Too late, Liss realized she’d opened up a can of worms.
She hadn’t planned on mentioning the damage to the stock, but there was no way to avoid it now. “I’m going to
have to order more cloth. The fingerprint powder made a
terrible mess. I don’t think it will clean out of the bolts of
fabric.” That the Flower of Scotland was unavailable because the police had taken it was something Liss chose
not to share with her aunt.

In hindsight, it was easy to see that bolts of cloth
should have been stored in their protective wrappings,
but who could have imagined that the ordinarily spotless
workspace where Aunt Margaret processed mail orders
and unpacked newly arrived merchandise from her suppliers would turn into a crime scene?

“Hold off on that,” Aunt Margaret instructed.

“But the kilt “

“She’ll have to wait.” She spoke sharply, cutting off Liss’s
protests, but with the next sentence had moderated her
tone. “Now that I think about it, you’d better tell Ms. Zathros
to go elsewhere for her kilt, or choose one off the rack. I’ve
got a busy schedule when I get back. I won’t have time for
sewing.”

Liss hated to lose the sale, but she didn’t argue. After
further assurances that both she and the shop could survive on their own until her aunt’s scheduled return, Liss
ended the call.

Five minutes later, Liss was in the stockroom, the slip
of paper with the combination to the safe clutched in her
hand. At least one mystery would be solved today.

Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. One by one,
Liss took out the envelopes her aunt had stored there,
checking the contents against the notations on the outside. Birth certificate. Marriage certificate. Uncle Noah’s
death certificate. Ned’s birth certificate. Certificate of Deposit from the Carrabassett County Savings Bank-closed
out two months ago. Liss frowned. When she checked the
other envelopes with the bank’s name on them she found
similar evidence of recent withdrawals. Aunt Margaret’s savings account was down to three hundred dollars. She
had even turned in her life insurance for the cash.

The last two envelopes in the safe held the explanation. One contained the agreement Margaret Boyd had
signed with Joe Ruskin for a share in The Spruces. The
other held documents relating to the bank’s claim on the
Emporium. Aunt Margaret had taken out a second mortgage to help finance her plans.

Considerably perturbed, Liss returned everything to
the safe and locked it up again. It looked as if Ned had
been right. His mother had risked more than she could afford on the renovation project. If the hotel failed and the
shop had even the slightest setback, Aunt Margaret faced
bankruptcy.

iss spent the drive from Moosetookalook to Fallstown
_ itrying to think of ways to improve her aunt’s bottom
line. A slick mail-order catalog. Online sales. Liss was
certain that if she put her mind to it they could generate
more income. Even though she’d never before had occasion to use it, Liss did have a degree in business.