X Marks the Scot

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  A few minutes later, settled in cushioned Adirondack chairs and supplied with cold drinks, Liss asked him what he was working on. Widdowson’s answer confirmed Liss’s guess. He wrote science fiction under a pseudonym, and was fairly successful at it too.

  “I don’t even know why I answered the phone when you called,” he admitted. “I usually let it go to the answering machine and I was in the middle of a particularly thorny scene at the time.”

  “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be interrupted, especially by snoopy questions from a perfect stranger.” Liss tried to sound sympathetic, but it struck her that it would have been much more convenient for both of them if he’d simply set a time for her to call him back.

  Dan sipped his soda and said nothing, but he kept a wary eye on their host.

  “You said this is about my father?” Widdowson asked.

  “Your father and the property he owned for a few years in Moosetookalook. Do you know why he bought it?”

  “He didn’t need a reason. The old man was batshit crazy.”

  Liss blinked at him in surprise. “I beg your pardon.”

  “My father was a research scientist who worked for a drug company until they fired him. Among other things, he’d been using himself as a guinea pig for some of the wonder drugs he was working on.”

  Having no idea how to react to that information, Liss simply nodded for Widdowson to continue.

  “There’s not much else to tell. We weren’t close. He and my mother divorced when I was just a kid. By the time I found out what he was up to, he was on his deathbed and making even less sense than usual.”

  Widdowson watched a lobster boat slowly chug past on the water, but Liss had a feeling his thoughts had drifted far away from the peaceful scene before his eyes. She hesitated to pry into private memories, especially painful ones, but that was why they’d come.

  “Did he ever mention a portrait?”

  Widdowson gave a start and turned to stare at her. “Do you mean a painting, framed and all?”

  “Yes.” She leaned toward him. “It was in the house in Moosetookalook, left there by the former owners.”

  “Well, well.”

  Liss waited.

  “It wasn’t anything specific. Sorry to disappoint you. Just the incoherent, unconnected ramblings of a dying man who wasn’t entirely sane to begin with.”

  “But he mentioned a portrait?”

  “Not exactly. A couple of times he mumbled the word frame. Just that one word, out of context. Maybe you can explain what he meant?”

  Although Liss was disappointed that Widdowson had no more to offer, that tidbit did seem to connect his father to the map. She produced the copy she’d brought with her.

  “What the hell?”

  Briefly, she told him how she’d come to discover the map hidden behind the portrait and that they’d determined it showed a portion of the Chadwick property in Moosetookalook. “We found the spot marked by the X. There was a hollow space behind some bricks in a falling-down wall, but it was empty.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Looks like the old boy was a crook.” He returned the map.

  “You want to explain that?” Dan’s thundercloud expression was back. Liss could almost hear him asking himself if this was a case of “like father, like son.”

  “After my father died, the company he used to work for contacted me. They claim he walked off with the formulas for several drugs he’d been working on. Not to put too fine a point on it, they accused him of industrial espionage. I was certain the claim was bogus, or else they were as crazy as he was, and that’s what I told them. Then I let my lawyer handle it. I haven’t heard from them since.”

  “Did you tell them about your father’s mention of the word frame?”

  Widdowson ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “Yeah, I did, but I wasn’t thinking picture frame. At the time, given the accusations they were making against him, I figured the old man must have been trying to tell me he’d been framed—that he’d been fired by the company and then framed for something he didn’t do.” He shrugged. “That interpretation was the only one I could come up with.”

  “How did they react when you told them that?”

  “Hard to tell. There were two guys who came to talk to me. One of them never said a word. The other acted like he was convinced I was trying to hide something. He was a long way from satisfied that I’d told him all I knew.”

  “The quiet one—was he tall? Dark-haired?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  “Depends. Did you get a name?”

  Widdowson closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he said, “Lucas. Arnold . . . no, Aaron Lucas.” He shrugged. “I collect names. I never know when I might want to use one for a character. The other guy, the one who did all the talking, was Kelsey. Maurice Kelsey.”

  “How long ago was it that you talked to them?” Liss asked.

  “It was right after my father died, so that makes it almost a year ago. I haven’t heard from them since, but that’s probably because my lawyers warned them I’d sue for harassment if they showed up here again.”

  “When did your father leave Cornwall Pharmaceuticals?”

  “I’m not sure. Like I said, we weren’t close. But it couldn’t have been more than a few months before his death.”

  “He already owned the Chadwick mansion by then,” Liss murmured, “but why did he buy the place to begin with?”

  Widdowson gave a snort and polished off his drink before he ventured an answer. “I can’t say for sure, but I can make a guess. He was always obsessed with his research, and paranoid about other scientists beating him to a discovery. This house—it’s off the beaten path, right?”

  “Secluded,” Liss conceded.

  “Then my money is on him planning to set up his own lab there.”

  “It’s not all that remote,” Liss objected. “It’s part of the village.”

  Dan spoke for the first time since settling into his chair. “Our permanent population is around a thousand people, but we have a thriving tourist industry. If not for all the trees surrounding it, the Chadwick mansion would have a clear view right down to the town square.”

  “Let me guess—picturesque and rustic as all get-out? You’re lucky my father didn’t go through with his plans. If this guy Kelsey is to be believed, then at least one of the formulas he was working on turned out to be highly explosive. If he’d blown himself up while conducting one of his experiments, it’s likely he’d have taken half the village with him.”

  Chapter Ten

  Although it was getting late and the children would already be in bed, Liss insisted upon stopping at Sherri and Pete’s house on their way home. Pete was working, since he was a patrol deputy for the county sheriff’s department and changed shifts every week or so, but Sherri was home. In short order, Liss and Dan were settled on the sofa in the living room and Liss was telling their tale.

  “Interesting,” Sherri said when Liss had repeated everything Sean Widdowson had told them.

  “I’d call it downright scary,” Liss said.

  “Relax.” Dan grinned at her. “If anything was going to explode, it would have blown up when Jardine demolished the house.”

  Liss repressed a shudder. “Just thinking about what could have happened gives me the willies.”

  “Widdowson thinks that if his father hid something in that wall, it would have been a formula, not an explosive,” Dan reminded her.

  “But if Lucas found it—” Liss broke off when Sherri abruptly stood.

  “You’ve established another link to Aaron Lucas. That’s the good news.” She retrieved a laptop from among the coloring books, alphabet blocks, and a grubby ball cap with the name of the local Little League team emblazoned on the front—the usual clutter on top of the small desk tucked into one corner. “I’ve been doing a little snooping of my own, semi-officially, since I came home.”

  Squeezing in on the sofa be
tween Liss and Dan, she booted it up and opened a file. A photograph filled the screen.

  “That was taken at the auction,” Liss said in surprise.

  “I remembered that there was a photographer there and tracked her down. She’s doing a feature story for one of the antiques magazines down on the coast. She mostly took pictures of the items up for sale, but she e-mailed me all the ones that showed bidders.” She tapped a finger on the screen. “That’s Lucas, right?”

  “That’s him.”

  It was a nice, clear shot, showing him with his hand raised to bid on an item. The focused, determined look on his face might be mistaken for some as that of an avid collector, but Liss had a feeling it was more than that. To her, it looked as if he was going in for the kill.

  She shook off the too-vivid impression when Sherri pushed slide show and asked who else she recognized.

  “You look good,” she said with a laugh when a picture of the two of them came up on the screen.

  Sherri squinted at the screen. “My eyes are closed and my mouth is open.”

  “So are mine. Can we delete that one?”

  “Pay attention. I need you to identify the other person bidding on the portrait of the piper.”

  Two more photographs faded in and faded out before Liss spotted her. “There. The older woman in the short-sleeved blue shirt.”

  “Oh, good,” Sherri exclaimed. “We can eliminate her. That’s Claire Mortimer. She has a small farm near where my mother and I were living when I first came back to Moosetookalook.”

  That was roughly halfway between the village and the county seat at Fallstown and provided at least a partial explanation of why Liss hadn’t recognized her. “What was her interest, I wonder? If she’s into Scottish heritage, I’m surprised I never ran into her before.”

  “She makes a pretty good living as a picker. She finds odds and ends locally and resells them at one of those auction sites online. I expect she thought the portrait was unusual enough to attract buyers.”

  “And she dropped out when the bids got too high.” Satisfied, Liss returned her attention to the screen.

  She identified Benny Beamer, easily recognizable by her corkscrew curls, and picked out several local people she knew. Sherri and Dan spotted others. There was a second picture of Aaron Lucas that showed him walking away from the camera. Liss couldn’t decide if he looked furtive or if that was just her active imagination once more coming into play.

  * * *

  Bright and early Tuesday morning, before it was time to open Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium for the day, Liss took a slight detour and entered the municipal building. She waved to the town clerk as she passed the town office. Farther along the hallway but short of the door into the police department, a steep flight of stairs led to the second floor, where the Moosetookalook Public Library was located. Tucked under one arm, she carried the file of clippings on the Chadwick family, the one Margaret had checked out for her.

  From the street, Liss had seen light coming from inside the library, but she was unsurprised to find the door locked. Dolores Mayfield was particular about adhering to posted hours. According to the schedule etched in the glass section of the door, the facility would not be open until noon.

  Liss rapped impatiently on the heavy wooden door frame. “I know you’re in there, Dolores,” she called. “It’s Liss Ruskin and I need to speak with you.”

  From the other side, she heard a sharp intake of breath. Yes, Dolores was there, all right. If Liss knew the other woman at all—and she thought she had a pretty good handle on her, having known her all her life—the librarian was in a quandary. It was second nature for her to get on her high horse, offended and affronted at Liss’s audacity, and refuse to break the rules. On the other hand, Dolores Mayfield lived for gossip. She must have guessed by now, since she had a clear view of both Liss’s house and the Emporium from the library windows, that something was up. Sherri was a friend and often visited both places, but two of the most recent visits had been official.

  That Margaret had borrowed the Chadwick file would have told Dolores that whatever Liss was involved in had to do with the old Chadwick mansion, a place rife with secrets and skullduggery. Would she stick to her petty regulations and end up dying of curiosity? Liss was betting that she would bend the rules, just this once, for the chance to get an insider’s scoop on the latest developments at the most notorious location in the village.

  A loud click, the sound of the door being unlocked, had Liss fighting the urge to pump her fist in the air. She managed to assume a bland expression by the time Dolores stuck her head out. The librarian looked both ways, to make certain there were no witnesses to this breach of the rules, before she grabbed Liss’s arm, hauled her inside, and locked up again.

  “This better be important.” Dolores’s scowl was impressive.

  Without giving Liss time to answer, she stalked away from her, heading for the enormous check-in desk situated in front of a bank of tall windows that overlooked the town square. From behind this highly polished barrier, Dolores ruled her library with an iron hand.

  No one ever questioned her right to do so. She was, in her own way, a treasure. Although the facility was only open twenty hours a week, Dolores spent at least another twenty making certain that the two large rooms contained the best offerings the town budget would allow.

  These days, the library provided far more than books and magazines. For some residents, it was the only place they could go to access a computer. For them that meant they had a way to look for jobs. Others, like Sherri’s friend Claire, sold items at auction sites on the Internet. A few came to the library to receive and send e-mail, their way of keeping in touch with loved ones, especially those serving in the military. Students, who were bused to Fallstown to attend the consolidated school, also relied on the local library, not only to do research for term papers but for a quiet place to study when there were another half dozen kids at home. On the one evening a week the library was open, the place was packed.

  “You’re looking well, Dolores.” Liss placed the file folder full of clippings on the desk.

  Dolores’s small, rimless glasses had slid partway down her long, thin nose. She gave them a poke to return them to their proper place and regarded Liss through eyes of the same steely gray as the roots of her improbably dark hair.

  “You didn’t check this out,” she said. “Margaret did.”

  Liss wasn’t surprised that Dolores remembered that detail. She and Margaret went way back. They’d graduated from high school in the same year, along with Dan’s father and Sherri Campbell’s dad. If age was starting to slow any of them down, Liss saw no sign of it.

  Liss was struck by that observation. Most of the senior citizens in Moosetookalook seemed to be in remarkably good shape for their age. Maybe her folks were onto something, after all. She did not, however, have time to ponder that idea any further.

  Dolores spoke again, demanding her attention. “What was so important that you couldn’t wait until the library was open?”

  Liss nodded toward the bulging folder. “Chadwick business.”

  “There aren’t any Chadwicks left.” But she leaned closer, her gaze avid.

  Twenty minutes later, Liss had given the librarian a capsule account of the auction, the search for the location marked by X on the mysterious map, and the discoveries she had made in both Nova Scotia and, more recently, in Harpswell. She did not mention the murder of Orson Bailey, but she did share her suspicion that the break-in at the motel in Antigonish and the intrusions into her shop and her home might be connected to the map.

  For a long moment, Dolores said nothing. While she mulled over Liss’s story, Liss considered how best to pry information out of the librarian if she did not volunteer it. That Dolores knew something that would be helpful went without saying. Sooner or later, Dolores knew everything about anything that happened in their little town.

  “Lester Widdowson was in here right before he bought the Chadw
ick mansion,” Dolores announced.

  “Here? At the library?”

  “He wanted to know the history of the property, so of course I told him all the about rumors—the smuggling during Prohibition and the wild tales about Blackie O’Hare’s buried treasure. By then, of course, we knew there wasn’t any treasure, but Mr. Widdowson wanted to hear all the theories anyway.”

  “Did he say why?”

  Dolores’s smile was smug. “Looking back on it in light of what you’ve just told me, I’d say he was after information on potential hiding places on the property. Industrial espionage! Who would have thought it of such an ordinary-looking man? He was just a little squirt of a fellow with big glasses and one of those pocket protectors only the brainy kids used to wear when I was a girl.” She shook her head. “I thought to myself at the time that he was a caricature of a scientist.”

  Liss let that observation slide, taking it with a whole handful of salt. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty. “He told you he was a scientist?”

  “Not in so many words, but I looked him up after he left and found out that he worked for a drug company in Connecticut.”

  If the faraway look in Dolores’s eyes was anything to go by, she was imagining Widdowson as the hero of some cloak-and-dagger spy thriller—an undernourished, bespectacled James Bond, cleverly arranging drop sites for his confederates.

  “I don’t suppose you were able to tell him where those hiding places were?” To the best of Liss’s knowledge, Dolores had never been inside the Chadwick house.