Vampires, Bones and Treacle Scones

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  Sherri gave a shrug that was eerily like Boxer’s. “Could be. It’s equally possible there’s another explanation that has nothing to do with either Ned or Danby.”

  “And for all we know, Danby may have fled to Canada or Mexico or Timbuktu months ago.”

  “Yup.”

  They drank more coffee.

  “So, what’s gone missing?” Liss asked after a short silence.

  Sherri pulled a list out of her pocket and handed it over. Liss skimmed the items, stopping when she came to brown oil lamp from bedroom two.

  “Oil or owl?” she asked, showing Sherri the item.

  “No idea. We were checking against the inventory descriptions. Do you remember seeing an owl in one of the bedrooms? Don’t tell me it was another of those creepy stuffed birds!”

  “If it’s what I’m thinking of, it’s an owl-shaped brown glass chimney on a small electric lamp. From the early twentieth century, I think. I assumed it was supposed to be used as a nightlight. The important thing is that it was still there in late September when Dan and I paid our first visit to the mansion.”

  “That will help.” Sherri downed the last slug of her coffee and got to her feet. “I’ll tell Jeff. He’s sending descriptions of all the missing items out to other PDs and to local auctioneers and pawn shop owners. If we get lucky, one of them will recognize one or more of them and contact us.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

  “That’s about all we can do.” Sherri looked as serious as Liss had ever seen her. “Tell me something—are you absolutely certain that Boxer isn’t the one who took those things from the house? Because if the seller can be identified and he leads us to that boy, Boxer Snipes is headed straight to the youth center.”

  “He’s a good kid, Sherri.” But he was keeping something back. Liss wished she could be certain it wasn’t the disappearance of small, valuable items from the mansion.

  “Well, we’ll keep investigating, although it’s not high priority. My dear mother-in-law-the-selectman has changed her tune. She’s lobbying to auction off the mansion’s contents and sell the house for whatever the town can get.”

  “Even to Jason Graye?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Three more days passed. Business picked up as spring advanced, but Liss still had plenty of time to wonder and worry. Hilary’s trial date was creeping up on them.

  On her way to work, Liss stopped at Patsy’s, struck by a sudden craving for a sticky bun. Sherri was already there, sitting in one of the high-backed booths with the morning paper, a mug of coffee, and a muffin. Once Liss paid for her order, she joined her friend.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she said as she slid in across the red vinyl seat.

  “And I’ve got to stop drinking so much coffee,” Sherri mumbled. “Especially since it doesn’t seem to do a thing to wake me up.”

  “Rough night?”

  “Adam’s got a spring cold. He kept all of us awake with his coughing.”

  Liss made sympathetic noises before asking if there was any news on the stolen antiques.

  “Some. We’ve got a really vague description of someone who sold a vase that appears to have come from the mansion.”

  If Sherri had been more alert, she might not have been so forthcoming. Liss took ruthless advantage. “How vague?”

  “The owner of the pawn shop—old guy—said the seller had a nose like Bob Hope’s.”

  It took Liss a moment to place the name. “The comedian?”

  At Sherri’s nod, she tried to remember what he’d looked like. He’d been dead for years, but he’d made a lot of movies, starting way back in the days when films were black and white. Her mother, Liss recalled, had owned the entire “Road to” series on video cassettes. Bob Hope had made five or six of those buddy pictures with Bing Crosby, the guy whose rendition of “White Christmas” was still played endlessly during the holidays.

  But what had Bob Hope’s nose looked like?

  Liss munched on her sticky bun, dimly aware of other customers in the coffee shop. People called out greetings to one another. Liss waved back at Gloria, who was on her way out the door carrying a bulging bakery bag. Someone rocked the back of Liss’s bench seat in the process of getting settled in the adjacent booth. The scent of cinnamon filled the air, driving every other thought away, as Patsy emerged from the kitchen with a fresh tray of hot-out-of-the-oven sticky buns.

  “A nose like Bob Hope’s,” Sherri repeated, shaking her head. “When I asked him what he meant, he said I should picture a ski jump.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Ski jump. You know, the thing that—”

  “I know what a ski jump is.”

  Images flashed through Liss’s mind in rapid succession—Bob Hope’s trademark appendage; the face of the man in the blurry image online; and Homer Crane, standing in full sunlight in front of the post office.

  “Oh, my God! Sherri, I know who he is! Or, at least, I know who he’s pretending to be. He hasn’t been using the name Lowell Danby since he’s been in Moosetookalook. He calls himself Homer Crane. He’s the guy who moved into the funeral home late last summer.”

  Sherri’s eyes narrowed over the rim of her mug. “Are you sure?”

  “You’ve never met him?”

  She shook her head.

  “The nose fits, Sherri. Lionel Danby has been right under our noses all along.” Another thought struck her. “Good grief. Dolores was right. Homer Crane was using a pseudonym.” No wonder he’d reacted so strongly to her words the day she’d gone to his house.

  Sherri leaned forward across the table, lowering her voice as she caught Liss’s forearm and squeezed. “Let’s keep this to ourselves for the time being, okay? Let me see what I can find out about this Homer Crane before you go off half cocked and do something foolish like confront the man yourself.”

  “That’s the last thing I’d do.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Once again, the person in the booth behind Liss bumped against the back of the high seat, this time in the process of leaving. Liss didn’t even look to see who it was. All her attention was fixed on Sherri. “You’ve got to check into this as soon as possible. You can’t leave a murderer running around loose.”

  “All we have on him at this point is the vague suspicion that he’s a thief.”

  “He’s dangerous or you wouldn’t be warning me off. And we wouldn’t be whispering. You’ve got to get moving on this.”

  “Agreed, but—”

  “Bye, Dolores,” Patsy sang out.

  Liss met Sherri’s eyes across the table, sharing the same alarming thought. Had it been Dolores Mayfield in the adjacent booth? And if it had been, how much had she overheard?

  Sherri’s head swiveled toward the door seconds after it closed behind the departing librarian. Liss craned her neck until she caught sight of Dolores through the café window. Her heart sank when she realized that Dolores was not heading toward the library. She passed the municipal building without stopping and continued on, her long, determined strides carrying her past Angie’s Books in the direction of—

  “Oh, damn. Come on. Dolores is going to the funeral home.”

  Sherri was already on her feet, but by the time they got outside the coffee shop, they were already too late. Across the width of the town square, Dolores mounted the steps of what had once been Preston’s Mortuary and rapped on the door. A moment later, it opened and Dolores went inside.

  “She must have heard us talking,” Liss said as she and Sherri followed swiftly in Dolores’s footsteps.

  “She can’t have overheard everything. Only the first part. After that we lowered our voices.”

  “What she heard was just enough to confirm her own wacky theory. Dolores has been convinced for months that Crane is a famous novelist writing under a pseudonym. She didn’t know what that pseudonym might be, but I’ve got a feeling that now, thanks to my big mouth, she thinks she does.”
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  “Lowell Danby?” They’d reached the corner in front of Angie’s Books. “That’s crazy. There’s no famous author named Lowell Danby.”

  “Since when has common sense made a dent in Dolores’s thinking? We’ve got to get her out of there, Sherri. You’ve got that warrant for him. Go in there and arrest him.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. The best I can do is knock on the door. You stay here.”

  Sherri started to cross Main Street but before she could take more than a few steps, Dolores emerged, unscathed, from their suspect’s lair. She did a double take at seeing Sherri and Liss gaping at her, but then continued on her way. A smug little smile played around her mouth.

  “A word with you, Dolores?” Sherri said, intercepting her. Liss fell into step on the librarian’s other side.

  “About what? I have to get to work.”

  “About someone named Lowell Danby.”

  When Dolores looked at Liss, her smile turned into a smirk. “I was right all along, wasn’t I? He’s written books under a pseudonym. And I bet he uses more than one nom de plume. All the best authors do, you know.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him I was soliciting new library patrons. I just wanted to get a good look at him. What’s the big deal?”

  “You didn’t mention the name Danby, did you?” Liss asked.

  They reached the entrance to the municipal building and stopped. Dolores glanced back at the funeral home as if, belatedly, she sensed that something had been off key about her meeting with the “famous author.”

  “Did you?” Sherri asked, following the direction of Dolores’s gaze.

  Liss looked, too. The curtain at an upstairs window twitched. Danby was watching them. Suddenly uneasy, she remembered that he knew that Ned had been her cousin. And Sherri was in uniform. “Uh, ladies—maybe we should take this inside?”

  Dolores flounced ahead, heading up the stairs to the library and leaving Liss and Sherri to follow. “I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about. It’s good for the town to have a real live celebrity living here, even if he is a bit of a recluse.”

  “Tell me you didn’t come right out and ask him if he was Lowell Danby,” Sherri said.

  Dolores hoisted a pile of recently returned novels and headed for the fiction section to reshelve them. Liss and Sherri were only a few steps behind her.

  “How else was I supposed to establish his identity?” Dolores grumbled.

  “How did he respond?” Sherri asked through clenched teeth.

  Dolores preened a little. “He was astonished that I’d figured it out.”

  “He didn’t try to deny it?” Astonishment pretty well described Liss’s feelings, too.

  “Oh, no. He just wanted to know how I’d tumbled to his real name. So I told him.”

  “You . . . told him you overheard a member of the local police department talking about the fact that Lowell Danby and Homer Crane were the same person?” Sherri looked a trifle shell-shocked.

  “That’s right. He didn’t know who you were, but he said he’d met Liss.” Dolores sent her a sour look. “If you’ll recall, you went over there and introduced yourself to him last fall . . . at my suggestion.”

  “I’ve run into him a couple of times since then, too,” Liss admitted. “At the post office. But, Dolores—he’s not a writer. He’s a crook. Maybe worse.”

  “At the very least,” Sherri put in, “he’s wanted on a probation violation.”

  “He’s a felon?” Appalled, Dolores abandoned the remainder of her armload of books on a convenient shelf and trotted over to the nearest window that had a view of the funeral home. “Then why aren’t you down there arresting him?”

  “I’m working on it. In fact, I’m going down to the PD right now and check on a couple things, after which I’ll talk to our suspect. In the meantime, will you two please stay away from him?”

  “Naturally. I would never interfere in police business.” Dolores’s gaze remained glued to Danby’s corner of the town square. She didn’t even look away from the window when Liss and Sherri left the library.

  A few minutes later, back at the PD, Liss read the description on the papers Sherri had produced from a desk drawer. At the same time, she listened to her friend’s side of a phone conversation with Chase Forster. After Sherri hung up, Liss handed back Chase’s warrant.

  “Five-foot-ten. Balding. Blue eyes. All that’s right, but this left out his most distinctive feature, that ski-jump nose. How long was Danby in prison here in Maine?”

  “Nearly ten years. He’s not a nice man, Liss. I want you to go home and stay out of this. If he is Lowell Danby, and it’s looking more and more like he is, then he’s dangerous.”

  “You aren’t going to talk to him alone, are you?” If Liss wasn’t to take any chances, Sherri shouldn’t put herself at risk either.

  “No, I’m not. I’ve notified his probation officer and I’ve asked for backup from the sheriff’s department. They’ll probably send Pete. When he gets here, we’ll go over to the funeral home. If Homer Crane is Lowell Danby, then we’ll arrest him and he’ll go back to jail. Once he’s safely behind bars, we can pursue his connection to the Chadwick mansion and to Ned.”

  Liss returned to the Emporium as ordered, but she couldn’t settle. She paced, stopping in front of her display window at regular intervals to watch for the arrival of reinforcements. Belatedly, it occurred to her that they’d come in the back way, so that Danby wouldn’t see them.

  That thought led to another. The Moosetookalook Police Department wasn’t the only place that had a back entrance. Liss abruptly left her window for the phone on the sales counter and punched in the number for Angie’s Books.

  “Can you do me a favor?” she asked when Angie answered. “Can you keep watch on the funeral home garage from your side window and tell me if you see anyone leave?”

  Over the open connection Liss heard Angie’s footfalls as she carried her phone across the shop.

  “Huh,” Angie said after a moment. “The garage door is open. That’s unusual.”

  “Is his car gone?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  Liss thanked her, hung up, and punched in another number, glad she’d had occasion to memorize it during the time the Halloween committee had been working on their plans. Ye Olde Hobbie Shoppe had an even better view of the north side of the funeral home.

  Gloria sounded annoyed at the interruption, but dutifully went to her window and looked out. “The garage is empty,” she reported, “which makes sense, since I saw Mr. Crane take off in that black Toyota of his about fifteen minutes ago. Anything else I can do for you, because I—”

  Liss disconnected and hit the speed dial.

  “Pete just got here,” Sherri said, having obviously read the caller ID before she picked up. “I can’t talk now.” She disconnected before Liss could explain why she was calling.

  On the bright side, Liss thought, with Danby already gone, Sherri and Pete were in no danger. If what Dolores had told him hadn’t been enough to sound an alarm, Danby had then seen a uniformed police officer talking to her and to Ned’s cousin. It wouldn’t have been too difficult for him to put two and two together. Danby had to know that he could be arrested for failing to report to his probation officer. Even if they couldn’t make any other charges stick, he’d go back to prison to serve out the rest of his original sentence behind bars. Was it any surprise that he’d flown the coop?

  Liss caught up with Sherri and Pete inside the funeral home garage just in time to hear Sherri state the obvious. “The back door is wide open,” she told Pete. “I’m going inside to look for him.”

  “If his car’s not here,” Pete objected, “it’s likely he’s long gone, too.”

  Liss started to confirm that fact, then held her tongue. She wasn’t sure what the law on searching a house was, but perhaps it would be better if Sherri didn’t know for certain that Lowell Danby was no longer inside.

>   “Mr. Crane?” Sherri called in a loud voice. “This is Officer Campbell from the Moosetookalook Police Department. I need to speak with you. I’m coming in.”

  Liss drew in a startled breath when Sherri drew her gun and Pete followed suit. When they entered the house, Liss stayed where she was. She doubted either Sherri or Pete would shoot her by mistake, but she had sense enough not to take any chances. That they’d gone in armed brought home to her just how dangerous they believed Lowell Danby to be.

  From inside the house, Liss heard Sherri shout again. “Mr. Crane? We mean you no harm. Come out and we’ll talk this over.”

  Liss waited a beat, took a few more steps toward the still open back door, and stopped. Although she caught herself shifting her weight from foot to foot like a nervous teenager, she managed to resist temptation.

  After ten long minutes, Sherri and Pete emerged, guns holstered. Spotting Liss, Sherri looked resigned. “I suppose you want an update?”

  “Danby wasn’t there.” Liss relayed what Gloria had told her. “Did you find any evidence against him in the house?”

  “We couldn’t search for it. We don’t have a search warrant. All we could do under the law is walk through to make sure Mr. Crane wasn’t there. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave anything suspicious lying around in plain sight. Even if he had, we wouldn’t have been able to seize it. All that would allow us to do is back off the moment we spotted it.”

  “But then you’d have had grounds to get a search warrant, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And since you don’t?”

  “The best we can do for now is keep an eye on the place, in case Mr. Crane returns.”

  “Mr. Danby,” Liss corrected her.

  “Maybe. We don’t even have proof of that.”

  “Couldn’t you dust the house for fingerprints?”

  Pete had come up to stand beside them after checking the perimeter of the building. “Do the words invasion of privacy mean anything to you, Liss?”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. Having been on the receiving end of a search warrant, she wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone who was innocent. But Lowell Danby was another kettle of fish.