“What are you going to do?” June asked. “If you ask the boy straight out and he denies it, how will you be able to tell if he’s lying or not?”
That was the question, Liss thought, that had plagued parents for generations. She’d done her own fair share of fibbing when she’d been caught doing things she shouldn’t. Probably every kid ever born had lied about something to his or her parents. The old instinct for self-preservation kicked in and you said the first words that came to mind. It wasn’t me. It must have been somebody who looked like me. The dog ate my homework.
“I was thinking along the lines of a traditional mystery ploy—gathering all the suspects together and dazzling them with my brilliant deductions.” She shrugged. “We’re not dealing with sophisticated criminals here, even if one of them may have broken into the mansion. They’re kids. And they’re probably completely innocent. All of them. This is just a way to make sure of it.”
Liss chose her new attic home office/library as the venue. Neutral territory.
“Are you sure you want to do it this way?” Dan asked her as they waited for Boxer, Beth, and Samantha to arrive. Adam had not been invited.
“Do you have any better ideas? If I just try to be friendly Auntie Liss and they do have something to hide, they’re not going to confide in me. This way, I’ll look like their best hope of getting off the hook.”
They’d been over this ground before. Liss fervently hoped no one would confess, but she wanted the truth. She needed to solve at least one of the mysteries surrounding the old Chadwick house.
When Dan left to answer the doorbell, Liss realized she was nervous. Doubts swamped her. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. She started to go downstairs and call the whole thing off, but the sound of footsteps coming up stopped her. What could it hurt to talk to them?
A moment later, Boxer, Samantha, and Beth trooped in.
Liss sent a bright smile their way. “Sit down. Please.” She gestured toward assorted seating options, but remained on her feet. “This won’t take long. We just have a few loose ends to clear up—leftovers from Halloween.”
“Candy?” Boxer flashed his trademark smirk and slouched over to her reading chair. It was already occupied by a large Maine Coon cat. “Shove over, Fatty,” Boxer told him.
Lumpkin opened one baleful eye.
“Careful,” Samantha warned. “He bites.”
“Oh, he does not,” Liss said, and rushed in to scoop up the cat before he could make a liar of her. He was no lightweight. She had to get both forearms under his bulk before she could carry him across the room to the door. “Be somewhere else,” she whispered when she set him down again.”
Lumpkin stalked off in a huff . . . but not before he sank his sharp little teeth into her ankle.
Liss bit back a yelp and sent a guilty look in Boxer’s direction, but he wasn’t looking her way. Neither were Beth or Samantha. They were too busy checking out her bookshelves.
“If we could get started?” She suspected that her carefully laid plans had already gone awry.
Boxer wandered back to the well-upholstered reading chair next to the floor lamp. He sprawled rather than sitting. Samantha selected a straight-back wooden chair, one of a pair that Liss had chosen more for appearance than for comfort. Beth perched on one corner of Liss’s desk.
“If it’s not candy you want to talk about, it must be dead bodies,” Boxer said. “Did you find a new one?”
Liss took a deep, calming breath. Trust the boy to try and rattle her. “No, there are no new bodies. But there has been more trouble out at the Chadwick mansion. I’ve called you together in the hope of getting to the bottom of things. Let’s start with what’s been going on in the cellar of our haunted house. If you remember, the basement was supposed to be off limits.”
“Not for you. You found a secret entrance down there.” Beth made it sound like an accusation.
“How did you know that?”
“Well, not because you told us.”
“Seriously, Beth. Who—?”
Her thin shoulders lifted and fell. “I don’t know. Everybody heard about it at school.”
Liss glanced at Boxer. “Do you have any idea how people found out about the tunnel?”
Boxer grinned at her. “Maybe the ghosts spread the word.”
“Oh, ha-ha. Here’s the thing. Someone went inside the mansion after Halloween. They’ve been digging in the basement.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“Really?” Beth sounded thrilled. She glanced at Boxer.
Boxer pretended to be fascinated by a loose thread on the hem of his gray hoodie.
“The thinking is that they were looking for Blackie O’Hare’s buried loot.”
No one said anything.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Slowly, Boxer lifted his head and met Liss’s eyes. For just a moment, he looked very young and vulnerable. Then his face hardened. His lips curled into a sneer. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No, I’m not. But others might. If they do, I’d like to help you prove your innocence.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong!” Beth was on her feet, eyes blazing, hands fisted on her nonexistent hips.
Boxer rounded on the girl. “I don’t need you to stand up for me!”
“Stand up for yourself, then,” Liss challenged him. “Have you been out to the mansion since Halloween?”
“No.”
“See,” Beth said.
“Liss doesn’t believe me.” The boy sounded so forlorn that Liss wanted to pull him into her arms and hug him. The impulse didn’t last long. Neither did Boxer’s neediness. “I might as well be guilty. That’s what everybody thinks anyway.”
“Why?” Liss asked.
“Why?” He sent her an incredulous look. “I’m a Snipes.”
“But have you ever actually done anything to merit being lumped with the rest of your family? Are you responsible for something other than digging in the basement? Something that dates back to the beginning of your work on the Halloween committee?”
She was looking for a confession that Boxer had taken her jacket, or borrowed the apple dookin tub and one of the manikins and then returned both. Those were the three items Ned would have had no use for and Boxer made a viable suspect. If he confessed to those “crimes,” or to breaking in to dig for Blackie O’Hare’s loot, she would make sure he didn’t get into any trouble with the law, but once he had admitted to something, then she’d not only have solved one of the minor mysteries that had been plaguing her, but she’d also have an opening to ask him what else he’d seen while he was roaming around the mansion.
The sullen look on the boy’s face did not bode well.
Liss waited, hoping silence might loosen his tongue, but he had no intention of spilling the beans. A minute passed. Two. Three. Even Liss was starting to get edgy. Another minute and she’d be confessing to digging those holes.
“I did it!” Samantha blurted out.
Liss stared at her niece in confusion. “What?”
“I did it. I broke it. Don’t blame Boxer. He wasn’t even here yet. And it wasn’t Papelbon’s fault, either.” She sat in the straight-back chair, arms held stiffly at her sides. Her face worked, making Liss fear she would burst into tears at any moment.
Three long strides brought Liss to Samantha’s side, everyone else in the room forgotten. She knelt next to the girl and seized her hands. They were ice cold and clenched into fists.
“Samantha? Sweetie, talk to me. What did you break?”
On a sob, she said, “The figurine.”
“The fig—?” Liss struggled to understand what Samantha was talking about. She had a vague recollection of her niece looking at some of the knickknacks in the living room on the day of their first committee meeting, but that had been months ago.
“I knew you’d miss it, but I hid it anyway. Papelbon didn’t mean to jump on me. I didn’
t mean to drop it. And then it broke and it was in three big pieces and I didn’t want you to see it, so I stuffed them into my backpack.” She erupted into noisy sobs. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she buried her head in her hands.
Boxer came up beside them. “What’s she talking about?”
“One of my—oh!” She gave Samantha’s shoulders a little shake. “Honey? Was it a nineteenth-century lady in a long dress?”
Crying harder than before, Samantha managed a single nod.
Liss could visualize the scene with vivid clarity. Samantha examining the Royal Doulton figurine. Papelbon escaping from Sam and Dan, then bounding downstairs and into the living room, heading straight at his young mistress. “It was an accident, Samantha. No one blames you. Or the dog.”
“But I stole the pieces. I took them home. I tried to stick them back together with super glue, but the lines all showed and it looked awful.”
“Do you still have the figurine?”
Samantha shook her head and looked even more miserable. “I threw it away in the Dumpster at school. I didn’t want anybody to find out.”
“Samantha, it’s okay. Really. I’m not mad. Accidents happen.” Samantha’s behavior afterward, all those times when Liss had thought she looked guilty, finally had an explanation.
It took Liss a long time to convince Samantha she was forgiven, but finally the sobbing petered out and the tears dried. Beth and Boxer were long gone by then. And Liss, although she now knew what had happened to her missing figurine, was no closer to solving any of the mysteries that surrounded the old Chadwick mansion.
Chapter Ten
By the time February turned into March, Liss had begun to think that discovering the secret Samantha had been keeping would be the only “crime” she succeeded in solving. Then, halfway through the month, Gordon Tandy paid an unexpected visit to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium.
“I have an appointment with your aunt,” he said. “It might be a good idea if you joined us.”
More bad news, Liss thought, and promptly hung out the CLOSED sign.
“How’s she doing?” Gordon asked as they walked together toward the staircase that led up to Margaret’s apartment.
Liss shrugged. “Better some days than others. She can go for a week, full tilt, accomplishing wonders in her job at the hotel. Then it’s like she’s hit a wall. She’ll barely talk to people. Doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. Calls in sick—when she remembers to—and then just holes up and sleeps.”
The look of concern on Gordon’s face softened Liss toward him. He really did care about Margaret. It wasn’t his fault that there hadn’t been a break in the case.
“Has she seen a doctor?” he asked.
“She did back in November. He gave her medication for depression, but I don’t think she’s been taking it. And she hasn’t gone back for a follow up.”
If Gordon was thinking as Liss was, that Margaret might require an intervention, he kept his opinion to himself. Both knew the fastest way to restore her to her old self was to solve her son’s murder.
“When are you going to release the contents of Ned’s duffle bag?” Liss asked when they reached the top of the stairwell and paused in front of the apartment door.
“I’m not. It’s evidence. But I have brought Margaret a list of what was in it. And an account number.” He knocked.
“Account number?” Taken aback, Liss frowned. “You mean for a bank account?”
The door opened to reveal Margaret MacCrimmon Boyd, still in her nightgown and bathrobe at one in the afternoon. “Oh, hello,” she said and turned away, leaving the door ajar to allow them to enter.
“Margaret, we need to talk,” Gordon said.
“I suppose.” Listlessly, she waved them into the living room. She made no offer of food or drink, an oversight that alarmed Liss as much as anything she’d seen to date. Margaret was nothing if not hospitable. The state of the apartment and Margaret’s person gave her more cause for concern. Both had begun to smell a little ripe.
Gordon waited until Margaret sat down, then took the chair opposite her. He removed his hat and set it on the arm of the chair, but only unzipped his coat as if he didn’t intend to stay long. Leaning forward, he took her hands in his. “Margaret, look at me.”
Slowly, Margaret’s head lifted. Her eyes met Gordon’s. From her perch on the nearby sofa, Liss saw the moment when her aunt dared allow herself to hope that the news he had for her would bring closure. It faded as soon as he began to speak.
“Ned opened a bank account right after he was released . He didn’t leave a will so, as his nearest relative, you inherit what was in it.”
“I don’t want—”
“Margaret, it’s almost twenty thousand dollars.”
Her expression stayed blank. Liss was quicker to catch on. “That’s a lot of money for someone who just got out of prison.”
“Yes, it is.” Gordon shifted his steady regard to Liss.
“How do you suppose he came by it?”
“I don’t think I want to speculate.” But her active imagination had already taken flight. “Did he open the account with that much?”
“No. There were three deposits.”
“Almost as if someone was paying him off?”
Margaret’s gasp jerked their attention back to her. She no longer sat slumped in the chair. Her back was straight and her shoulders squared. Her wide-eyed stare was fixed on Gordon’s face. “You can’t think Ned was blackmailing someone!”
“I’m afraid it looks that way.”
“Who?” Liss asked.
“We’re working on that. In the meantime, I’ve brought Margaret the account number. You can go ahead and claim the money, Margaret.” He removed a slip of paper from his breast pocket and offered it to her.
She refused to take it. “If it’s tainted money, I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“Donate it to charity, then.” Gordon placed the paper on the end table.
“Why aren’t you confiscating the money?” Liss asked.
“There’s no proof that it was obtained illegally and no reason to keep it tied up indefinitely.”
“Don’t you need to keep the account intact as evidence? Assuming you ever catch Ned’s killer, that is.” Liss let just a hint of sarcasm creep into her voice.
Something—irritation?—flashed briefly in Gordon’s dark brown eyes. “We have the bank records. That’s enough. Unless either of you can tell me something more about this money?”
Abruptly, Liss’s control snapped. Frustration had been building for months, side by side with worry about her aunt’s mental health. “Is that why you came here? To badger us for information we don’t have?” As she stood, her stance combative, Liss felt her temper rise, too.
Gordon could see how angry she was. He got hastily to his feet and reached for his hat. “We’re continuing to work the case. That’s all you need to know.” His retreat was dignified, but he didn’t waste any time moving closer to the door.
“Have you made any progress at all?” Liss demanded, stalking him. “Do you have a single suspect in mind?”
“I can’t talk about that with you, Liss. You know that.”
“Just move your head then. Up and down for yes. Side to side for no. Do you have a suspect?”
The fulminating look Gordon sent her way should have turned her to stone, but she had too much of a mad on to notice. She waited. He glared. Then he spun on his heel and stomped out of the apartment. No nod. No shake of the head.
“Damn! I was sure he’d give me a hint.”
Behind her, Aunt Margaret spoke in a querulous voice. “What am I still doing in my robe? I’ve got to get dressed and go to work.” She put a hand to her hair, which hung limply around her face. “Oh.”
Struggling for self-control, Liss hurried back to her aunt’s side. Her voice gentled. “You haven’t been yourself lately. Why don’t you take a shower while I make you something to eat and then tomorrow
you can start fresh.”
“What day is it?”
Liss told her.
Margaret frowned. “Do I still have a job?”
“I’m sure you do. You just needed to take a break. You used up some of your sick days.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “Stop treating me like I’m three years old! I’m smart enough to know I haven’t been entirely rational since Ned was murdered.”
Liss straightened, offended and relieved at the same time. “You seem rational enough now! So do us both a favor and take that shower.”
As soon as her aunt disappeared into the bathroom, Liss dug out the air freshener and started collecting unwashed dishes and dirty discarded clothing.
Thirty minutes later, bathed and dressed in slacks and a sweater, Margaret sat at a freshly scrubbed kitchen counter devouring a bowl of chunky soup. Liss wasn’t sure the improvement would last, but she was grateful for the respite.
“It’s obvious the state police are stymied,” Margaret said after she set the empty bowl aside. “What about you, Liss? Any ideas?”
“Nothing. I had one suspect for some of the pranks played at the Chadwick mansion, but he denied it. Even if he’d confessed, I know he wasn’t the one who murdered Ned.”
Margaret’s brow furrowed. “Who are you talking about?”
“You met him. That boy—Boxer Snipes. He’s twelve years old. I know that’s not too young to get into serious trouble, but his actions are fully accounted for on Halloween. He was taking tickets at the corn maze.”
“Boxer,” Margaret repeated as she carried her bowl to the sink and rinsed it out. “A nickname, I presume.”
“His mother calls him Teddy.” The clatter of a ceramic soup bowl as it slipped out of her aunt’s hands had Liss on her feet again. “Are you okay?”
“Just clumsy. And I think I may be developing a touch of arthritis in my hands. Did Gordon leave that account number?”
“It’s on the coffee table.” Liss fetched it from the living room. She tried to hand it to Margaret, but her aunt waved it away.
Vampires, Bones and Treacle Scones Page 13
