Trick or Deceit

by Shelley Freydont

  “Then they must still be out there in the grass and your men somehow overlooked them,” Barry said. “When can we get back in to continue our search?”

  “Do you have to have those exact shoes? Can’t you replace them with something else?”

  “No, they’re crafted to look authentic. Cost me a load of money.”

  Bill scratched his head. “Meese, take a couple of these folks out to the lot and let them search. But watch them and stop them if anything interesting turns up.”

  “Yes, sir.” Meese motioned to two of the younger men and herded them out of the house. He’d obviously had enough of body part duty.

  “Hold up,” Bill said. “Barry, what exactly are they looking for?”

  “They’re brown leather, small heels, buttons up the side.”

  Bill turned to Meese. “Got it?”

  Meese nodded. “Yes, sir, but sir . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Meese nodded to the sheriff and they stepped away from the others.

  Liv watched Bill’s expression turn from question to disbelief. He rubbed his hand across his face. Got out his phone and made a call. Hung up. He and Meese stood looking at the floor between them until Bill’s phone pinged.

  Bill swiped his finger across the screen, tapped it, and turned it for Meese to see.

  Meese nodded and hung his head.

  Bill came back. “Are these your missing shoes?” He turned the phone’s screen so that Barry could see.

  Liv and Ted looked, too.

  “Yes, by gad, you took Lizzie’s shoes as evidence?”

  “You’re positive? They were found with Lucille’s body. We assumed they were hers.”

  “Of course I’m sure. They’re eighteenth-century costume shoes.”

  Liv and Ted exchanged looks. And Liv knew they were both thinking the same thing.

  If the police had Lizzie Borden’s shoes, where were Lucille Foster’s?

  Chapter Six

  Bill returned his phone to his belt clip. “They’ll send Lizzie’s shoes back as soon as they’ve been dusted for prints and released. It might take a day or two, so, Barry, you’ll just have be patient.” He turned to Liv. “Do you think you could recognize Lucille’s shoes among those piles of shoes?”

  Christian Louboutins? “Oh, I think so,” Liv said. “I’ll be glad to look.”

  “Barry, can you show her where the extra shoes are?”

  Barry mumbled something and led her down the hall. “I don’t know why the police took Lizzie’s shoes in the first place,” he groused.

  “They must have been lying near Lucille and the police assumed they belonged to her.” Though frankly, Liv didn’t understand how they could mistake Lizzie Borden’s brown button-ups for Lucille’s spike-heeled, red-soled Louboutins.

  “The shoes are in there,” Barry said, and went off down the hall.

  Liv stepped into a room that must have been a porch at one time. A double row of shoes and boots were lined up along one wall. There were more than forty completed pairs and another ten or so still waiting for their mates. Liv could tell at a glance that none of them were Lucille Foster’s.

  She went back to the exhibition rooms and searched each half-assembled scene. She pulled up skirts, looked in corners and under chairs on the outside chance someone had unthinkingly tossed them out of the way. She found work boots and patent leather evening shoes, thirties pumps, shoes with spats, straps, pointed toes, metal toes, button-up, lace-up, slip-ons. She even found one bedroom slipper and a pair of cowboy boots, which turned out to belong to one of the actors who’d taken them off because they were scuffing the staging area.

  But no designer heels.

  She called the workers together and made a general announcement. No one had seen any four-inch Christian Louboutin heels. She got a few blank looks and several sounds of appreciation. One young man asked if there was a reward.

  “No,” Bill said. “But you won’t go to jail if you turn them over.”

  The man made an over-the-top Pulcinella sigh and went down on one knee in front of Marla Jean. “And I was going to give them to you.”

  She jumped and slapped his outstretched hand.

  Henry quelled them with an ahem.

  Liv thanked them and they went back to work.

  “Actors,” Bill said. “You can never get a straight answer out of them.”

  “I think they would come forward if they’d seen the shoes though. Their fifteen seconds of fame,” Liv said. “Which means the shoes must still be out in the vacant lot.”

  Bill rubbed his back.

  Liv thought, Please, don’t come down with sciatica now.

  He saw her looking at him and dropped his hand. “I’m fine, but would you mind going with Meese to take another look around? I don’t think these guys would know the difference between those Lamber—whatever those shoes were—and a pair of mocs. I know I wouldn’t.”

  “I’ll be glad to.” What else could she say? Though she was tempted to send the smart-aleck actor in her stead.

  Officer Meese took Liv out to the edge of the parking lot. The other patrolman pushed away from the cruiser he’d been leaning against. Liv went right to the piles that were accumulating on the tarmac. A cursory look revealed no shoes.

  Suddenly, the unmowed lot appeared to stretch for miles instead of to the next street over. And Liv said a few choice words about what she thought of the landscaping service that was supposed to have cleared out the lot several days ago.

  Well, as soon as the area was released, she was going to get them over here, if she had to drag them herself. She couldn’t have any more bodies popping up during the Halloween entertainments.

  At least she was dressed for mucking about in overgrown grass. After the morning’s exploits some inner sense must have guided her to black jeans and her fleece jacket.

  She explained what they were looking for. Meese and two others nodded solemnly. Meese handed her a stick with a point on it that looked a little like a harpoon. She’d seen prisoners picking up garbage along the highway with the same instrument

  “So you don’t have to use your hands,” Meese explained.

  Liv nodded. She had no intention of picking up anything with her hands.

  They all went in the opening and spread out. Liv went straight through, headed for the far side. She didn’t expect to find much. This morning it had seemed like whoever had stolen the mannequins had dumped most of them near the parking lot or only as far as he could throw them.

  Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep looking.

  They expanded the search to include the house, the grassy areas surrounding the parking lot, even the street.

  They finally gave up when the sun began setting. They’d found a few more objects belonging to the haunted house display, but no shoes. And a lot of garbage. Not only was the lot neglected, it was clearly being used as a dumping ground.

  Bill was sitting with Henry when Liv and Meese came back inside. The place was eerily quiet.

  The sheriff eased himself out of the chair.

  “No luck?”

  “None. Where is everybody?”

  “Breaking for dinner and enlisting other members of the cast, friends, and relatives to come to our aid,” Henry said.

  “Miriam Krause is coming over to see if there is work she and her quilting club can help with,” Bill added.

  “Bless her,” Henry said.

  Liv agreed. Miriam had helped them out before in a pinch. The town should send her a nice thank-you. She got out her phone and made a note to bring that up in the next board meeting. There was sure to be one in the near future—once the mayor found out about the death of Lucille Foster.

  She shut off her phone. “Henry, is this going to interfere with your play rehearsals?”

  “Not at all. We were worki
ng with a partial cast this morning. And our next rehearsal isn’t until Wednesday night. I hope by then we will have a whole regiment of worker bees.”

  “Where’s Barry?”

  “We sent him home. The man was headed for a breakdown. The sheriff promised him the police would keep an extra vigil on the house until he can have a security system installed.”

  The sheriff nodded. “We always patrol the streets at night. No one reported anything last night. Ted already left. I told him I’d drive you home.”

  “Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to walking.”

  They said good night to Henry, who was staying to organize the night shift of players. Bill drove her home and stopped at the curb.

  “Thanks, Bill. I’ll just jump out before the sisters see you and invite you in for a sherry.”

  “Thanks. I want to see if any news has come in from the coroner or the crime scene people. I doubt it has. Even if it does, it will consist mainly of the crime scene boys complaining about how we didn’t secure the area.”

  “We stopped cleaning up as soon as we found the body. I don’t see what they have to complain about.”

  “Me neither, but I’ve seen them come down on EMTs for wrecking a scene, when they were just trying to save a life. This is a heavy, burnout, frustrating business sometimes.”

  “Well, we appreciate you all for doing it. Get some rest.”

  “You, too.”

  Liv made it as far as the driveway, when the Zimmermans’ front door opened and Ida came out on the porch. “Liv, Whiskey is here with us. We saved you some dinner. It’s warming in the oven. Bill?” She motioned him to lower the window. “Have you eaten? There’s plenty.”

  “Thank you, Miss Ida, but I have to get back to the station.” He smiled and waved and drove away.

  Liv didn’t need any urging to climb the steps to the porch of the Victorian house. She was tired and hungry.

  Miss Ida opened the door for her. “You poor thing. You come right in and sit down.”

  After saying hello to Edna and making a fuss over her “poor neglected dog” (who was holding a new chew toy between his teeth), Liv excused herself to clean off the worst of her afternoon scavenger hunt, then rejoined the sisters and her dog in the kitchen.

  “Does Bill have any leads?” Edna asked, pouring white wine into a cut-glass goblet and handing it to Liv. She held up the bottle to her sister.

  “No, thank you, I have my tea.” Ida brought a mug over to the table and sat down.

  “I don’t know,” Liv said. “I don’t think so. I heard they took Ernie Bolton in for questioning. He is the most obvious suspect. But Bill didn’t say anything, so I guess it didn’t pan out.”

  “Besides, Ernie wouldn’t kill Lucille,” Ida said. “They’ve been friends for years.”

  Edna poured herself a small glass of wine and sat down on the other side of Liv. “But you spent the day with him, didn’t you?”

  “Let Liv eat, Edna. She must be starving.”

  Liv cut a piece of chicken and chewed slowly. “This is delicious.”

  “Rosemary chicken. Edna got the recipe off the Internet.”

  Liv gave her a thumbs-up because her mouth was full.

  While she chewed, she wondered how much she was at liberty to tell the sisters, who had probably learned as much from the police band, in the comfort of their sitting room, as Liv had after spending all day mucking about the crime scene.

  “Besides,” Ida continued, disregarding the rosemary chicken detour. “I don’t believe for a minute that Ernie Bolton would kill anybody.”

  “Nor do I,” Edna said. “But vandalize Barry’s exhibit? He might, in a moment of—of temporary insanity.”

  “What does Bill think?” Ida asked.

  “He hasn’t said, at least not to me.”

  Both sisters leaned a little forward.

  “What do you think?” Edna asked.

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Well, what do you know?” Ida asked, encouragingly.

  Liv put down her fork. “That’s just it. Not a lot. And I don’t think the police know much more than I do. It’s more a question of what we don’t know.”

  “It always is, at the beginning of an investigation,” said Ida. “Or at least I would assume so.”

  “So what don’t you know?” Edna asked.

  “Wait a minute, Edna.” Miss Ida pushed away from the table and went of to the counter where she opened a drawer and took out a tablet and a pencil. She carried them back to the table.

  “Since you don’t seem to have your computer with you.”

  Liv scraped the last of the mashed potatoes off her plate and put down her fork.

  “Would you like more, dear?”

  “No, thank you, that was delicious.”

  “And from the Internet of all places,” said Ida and whisked her plate away. She was back in a matter of seconds, Liv’s plate squeaky clean and turned upside down on a drying rack, and Ida’s attention focused on Liv.

  “This is what we—I—know so far. You can fill me in on anything you learned over the airways.” Liv really just wanted to go home to her little carriage house, take a long, hot shower, and curl up with the television remote. Instead, she opened the tablet of paper and drew a grid with headers at the top: Events, Time, People, Evidence.

  “So this morning around eight thirty, I was out running with Whiskey.”

  At the mention of his name, Whiskey’s head appeared from under the table, where he’d no doubt been in hiding, waiting to hijack a dropped morsel of food.

  “I slowed down at the Museum of Yankee Horrors when I noticed that the vacant lot next to it had not been mowed.” Liv explained to them about the landscape company and how she’d stopped to take a photo to remind them of their contract. While she was talking she wrote down, 8:30, Liv /Whiskey@ HM, for Horror Museum, in the grid boxes.

  “I let the leash out so Whiskey could explore a little bit and he came out with an arm in his mouth.”

  “The mannequin’s,” Edna said.

  “Yes, but it did give me start.”

  She told them about seeing other parts of mannequins in the tall grasses, and about calling Barry. As she wrote she filled in more squares of the grid. When she got to the end of the day, she turned the paper around to show them.

  “It looks like a lot but it doesn’t tell us much. Just a lot of useless stuff.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised.” Ida frowned at the page, then handed it to Edna, who nodded slowly.

  “What?” Liv asked.

  “To begin with, you left out last night.”

  “But I . . . oh.” The sisters were absolutely right. Everyone had been so distracted by finding the body and getting the museum restored that no one had tried to trace Lucille’s movements of the night before. Though she was sure Bill would get there eventually.

  Liv took the tablet back. “At the award ceremony last night—”

  “Now I’m sorry we didn’t just bundle up and go,” Miss Ida said.

  “You’re the one who said it was too cold.”

  “Besides, we didn’t want to leave Whiskey by himself, sweet thing.”

  Liv heard a couple of tail thumps from under the table. She wondered when he was going to give up waiting for crumbs and come out.

  “Ida, stick to the point.”

  Ida pursed her lips.

  “Amanda Marlton-Crosby came into town to present her donation. A check for ten thousand dollars.”

  “So we heard,” Edna said. “As well she should.”

  “You don’t like her?” Liv asked.

  “Don’t know her.”

  “Knew her father though,” Ida said. “Old money.”

  “They’re from Celebration Bay?” Liv asked.

  “No, n
o,” Ida said.

  “From everywhere but here,” Edna added. “The family built that old manse back around the turn of the twentieth century. Fancied themselves part of the Gilded Age. Only summered here. And only occasionally, until Amanda’s grandfather got the fishing bug, and passed it onto his son, Amanda’s father.”

  “Which is why they keep the fish camp?”

  “Yes. Amanda was her father’s pet, and now that he’s not in good health and can’t come up, she keeps the old place open to humor him.”

  “Sort of a homage,” Ida added.

  “They’ve opened it to the public and have someone manage it in the summer,” Edna said. “And someone to keep an eye on it off season. But not a close enough eye, if you ask me, because—”

  “Edna!”

  “Oh, don’t be an old prude, Ida. Liv isn’t a babe in the woods. Everybody knows fishermen aren’t the only ones who stay overnight in those cabins.”

  “And sometimes not even overnight,” Ida added, forgetting her prudishness.

  “I see.”

  “Since Amanda’s marriage,” Edna continued, “she and her husband have been spending more time here. They used to leave right after they closed up the camp for winter and fly south with the snowbirds. I guess they decided to stay longer this year. So anyway, Amanda gave a check? Very generous, I must say.”

  “Yes,” Liv agreed. “And everyone made a fuss over Barry, and Ernie was very upset. He even stopped by the judges to complain about the contest being fixed. Which is ridiculous. Then he stormed off, almost knocking Lucille off her high heels.”

  Liv stopped, wondering whether she should tell the sisters about not finding Lucille’s shoes.

  “What, Liv? Did you think of something?”

  “Not really, but doing this really helps put things into perspective.” Bill hadn’t said to keep the news secret. And knowing that bunch of amateur actors, everyone in town would be out on a shoe hunt.

  And what about Lucille’s car? No one had mentioned it. “Did you hear anything over the radio about anyone finding Lucille’s car?”