When the bell over the door rang again just a few minutes later, she smiled to herself and called out, “What did you forget?” The last two times Margaret had gone to the library, she’d been back just that quickly to grab one thing or another she’d meant to take with her.
“I never forget anything,” said a voice Liss did not at first recognize.
Startled, her gaze flew from the customer e-mail she’d been answering to the small woman standing just inside the entrance. “Benny!”
“In the flesh.”
Her response drew Liss’s attention to Benny’s size and general appearance, and what she saw gave her pause. When she stopped and thought about it, Benny seemed an unlikely candidate to spend an entire night digging for treasure. The role of Canadian cat burglar didn’t fit either. And why would she murder someone she didn’t even know? That was the most preposterous idea of all.
On the other hand, according to every classic mystery novel Liss had ever read, the least likely suspect usually was the guilty party. Better to err on the side of caution, she decided. She pasted on her “shopkeeper” smile. “Welcome back to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium.”
Benny giggled again. “Say that three times fast.”
“Funny.”
“I thought so.”
“So, what brings you into my humble shop today?” Liss came around the counter, still smiling, but not before she surreptitiously checked to make sure her cell phone was in the pocket of her slacks.
“I heard you were looking for me.”
Bold as brass, Liss thought. Was that a sign of innocence or of cunning?
“I thought I saw you when I was at the hotel this morning, but you disappeared before I could speak to you.”
Benny drifted from shelf to shelf, running idle fingers over the merchandise. She picked up a stuffed Loch Ness Monster toy to examine more closely, then put it back. “That must have been when I went for a walk. The hotel grounds are lovely at this time of year.”
“They’re lovely all year round.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I’ll have to come back in the winter for the skiing.” She met Liss’s gaze with big, wide, innocent-looking hazel eyes.
That look, combined with the turned-up nose, fair skin, pale hair, and small frame gave her the appearance of an elf maiden. Elves, Liss reminded herself, were sometimes portrayed as benign, even helpful creatures . . . but not always. Sometimes they were tricksters. And sometimes they were warriors. She could not afford to trust Benny farther than she could throw her. Given Benny’s size, Liss imagined that she could throw her a considerable distance.
Darker suspicions surged to the surface once more when Liss remembered the way Benny had reacted to seeing Sherri. On the other hand, by this time Sherri had surely done a background check on Benny and obviously hadn’t turned up a criminal record. To be fair, the only thing that had made her suspect Benny of being deceitful was the dirt she’d seen under her fingernails. Time to bite the bullet.
“I have a question for you,” she said as she followed Benny toward the cozy corner.
The grin on Benny’s face vanished, but she sounded game. “Well, sure. What do you want to know?”
“The other day you had dirt under your fingernails. How did it get there?”
Benny looked stricken.
Liss waited.
“Promise you won’t set the law on me?” Benny asked.
“No promises.” One hand slid into the pocket containing her cell phone.
“I dug up a yellow lady’s slipper.”
Liss stared at the other woman with a blank expression on her face as Benny plopped down into one of the two comfortable chairs in the cozy corner and curled her legs beneath her.
“It’s a rare plant, one of the orchid family. You’re not supposed to collect them. No picking them. Definitely no digging them up.”
Sinking into the other chair, Liss sat stiffly, both feet flat on the floor and hands clasped in her lap. “And you dug one up?”
Benny nodded, an earnest look on her face. “It was just so pretty that I couldn’t resist. I mean, there it was, blooming in the wild like there was no tomorrow. I was on my way to talk to you when I saw it and gave in to temptation. That’s why there was still dirt under my fingernails. I didn’t even notice it until I got back to the hotel.”
“I see.” And she did. The story was just bizarre enough to be true.
“I’ve been keeping it in my room at The Spruces,” Benny continued. “I’m taking good care of it. As soon as I get back home, I’ll plant it in my own garden. If it flourishes, well then I’ll actually have helped preserve the species, right?”
Liss hesitated, still uncertain what to believe.
“So why do you ask?” Bright-eyed, Benny waited for an answer.
“You remember that map I found?”
“Oh, yes.” Benny’s expression became even more avid, reminding Liss of the faces of little kids as they waited for story time to begin.
The image had her unbending enough to lean toward the other woman. “The spot marked by X turned out to be a brick wall with a loose section that had a cavity behind it.”
Benny nodded. “You told me that the other day. Oh—I see. You think because the treasure wasn’t in the wall that maybe it’s somewhere else? Buried next to it, do you suppose?”
“Someone apparently had that bright idea. They dug a series of holes on both sides of the wall, but if they found anything, they took it away with them.”
“So that’s why you wanted to know about the dirt under my fingernails? You thought I was the one who’d been digging?” Benny gave a snort of laughter. “Can you really see me doing manual labor? Believe me, transplanting a flower is as physical as I get!”
With a sheepish smile, Liss acknowledged her point. Hadn’t she already worked that out for herself? She offered to make amends with coffee and some of the chocolate chip cookies she’d been unable to resist buying after lunch at Patsy’s.
Benny glanced at her watch and shook her head. “I have too much research to do to stay longer. That article I’m working on won’t write itself.”
“Is it for a magazine?” Liss asked.
“Scholarly journal. Or so I hope. I’ve been trying to get a full-time job teaching at the college level for ages, but all I ever land is temporary adjunct instructor positions.” She grimaced. “Poor pay, no benefits, and no hope of tenure. The only way out of that spiral is to publish. That impresses the people who do the hiring.”
“That sounds like a tough way to make a living.” And it went a long way toward explaining why Benny took on house-sitting assignments.
“No kidding. And it makes it harder for me to get to source materials, too. If you aren’t already affiliated with an institution of higher learning, the major research libraries don’t want to let you in. I can call myself an independent scholar, but sometimes that isn’t enough.”
“Well, I hope those ledgers give you all the information you need for a killer article,” Liss said.
“Thanks.” Benny bounced up out of the chair and headed toward the door.
When she’d gone, Liss returned to her computer. A quick search for lady’s slippers informed her that several kinds grew in Maine and most were still flowering in July. The yellow ones were rarer than the pink, but none was listed as endangered. It turned out that Benny was half right—digging one up was discouraged, but it wasn’t illegal. Had she really thought that “the law” was after her that morning, at the hotel? Did that explain why she’d taken off at the sight of Sherri’s uniform? Looked at closely, that excuse didn’t stand up very well.
Maybe it was your imagination that took off, Liss warned herself. If she’d added up a couple of random facts and jumped to a foolish conclusion, it wouldn’t be the first time, but she had the strongest feeling that there was something she’d missed. Something Benny had told her didn’t jibe with the rest of her story, but try as she might, that vague something eluded her.
Chapter Fourteen
When Margaret hadn’t returned by closing, Liss tracked her down at the library. Dolores Mayfield was just locking up for the day. Grudgingly, she let Liss in.
“I suppose you’ve got a right,” she said, “since you’re the one who started this.”
“You’ve found something?” Liss could feel her eyes light up at the thought.
“Come and see,” Margaret called from beside one of the library’s long wooden tables. She’d spread out the chart she was making. It took up nearly the entire surface. “The older Chadwicks were easy enough to track using census records and I filled in a lot of the blanks with the help of the newspaper articles we got when we were in Nova Scotia. The obituaries were particularly helpful.”
Dolores Mayfield made a derisive sound. “Obituaries are full of lies.”
“Don’t start, Dolores,” Margaret warned the librarian. Shifting her attention back to Liss, she added, “It’s only natural that surviving relatives would try to make the deceased sound as good as possible. Speak no ill of the dead and all that.”
Dolores had never been easily silenced. Figuratively buttonholing Liss, she launched into a lecture. “More people than you’d think make up connections to famous people when they’re eulogizing Dad or Mum. Got the same last name? Go ahead and claim direct descent from Ralph Waldo Emerson or George Washington, never mind that in reality there aren’t any descendants.”
“Well, that’s not the case here,” Margaret interrupted. “Come and take a look.”
Detaching herself from Dolores, Liss studied the Chadwick family tree. “You still have a lot of blank spaces,” she observed.
“Not as many as there were when I started.” The way Margaret snapped out the words made Liss realize she’d touched a tender spot.
“That’s why she needed my help.” Dolores sounded smug. “The library has access to resources Margaret lacked. She’d already tapped into the major genealogy sites online, but they don’t cover everything, especially if no Chadwick family member ever joined up and provided information.”
The longer Liss studied the chart, the clearer it became. The research Margaret had done still only went back to one Eli Chadwick, born in 1750, but now she’d added that his place of birth had been Boston, Massachusetts.
“Why did he leave there for Canada?” she asked.
“My best guess is that he backed the losing side in the Revolutionary War. Lots of Loyalists moved to Nova Scotia afterward. Their neighbors made it rather uncomfortable for them to stay where they were. Eli was lucky. He did well for himself in Nova Scotia. You already know that he was one of the founders of the new settlement that was later named after him.”
“Chadwick,” Liss murmured. Using one finger to trace the descent, she went from Eli to his son Jedediah and Jedediah’s two sons, Lawrence (1797–1875) and Jeremiah (1799–1866).
“Jeremiah is the one who returned to this country, settled in Moosetookalook, and built the Chadwick house around 1859,” Margaret said, “but Lawrence’s descendants are the ones who interested me. And look at this. Lawrence had a daughter named Maud and her husband’s brother married the sister of the wife of an early MacCrimmon.”
“So we’re related to the Chadwicks?”
“Well, no, but there’s a connection.”
Underwhelmed, Liss shifted her attention to the section of the chart where she’d thought Margaret might find a link to Benny Beamer. Lawrence’s son Chester was the one who’d had a son named Norman, the one who’d married Hazel Benedict.
Margaret tapped Norman’s name on the chart with her index finger. “This is the line I’ve been following with Dolores’s help. As you already know, Norman had three children. Daisy, the eldest, never married. Albert, the older son, had a wife but no children. That left us with the youngest child, Harold, born in 1910. He’s the one who left home as a young man and was never heard from again.”
“Can you speed this up?” Dolores nodded toward the clock over her desk, reminding them that it was now well after closing time.
Margaret ignored the hint.
“When Hazel Benedict Chadwick died in 1950, no one knew where her son Harold was. If he had a daughter, whether he named her Benedicta Chadwick or something else, whoever wrote Hazel’s obituary—probably her son Albert—didn’t know about her. However, that doesn’t mean there was no daughter. The difficulty lay in pinning down a location for our search. Birth, marriage, and death certificates are available, but it helps to know in what state, or better yet in what county, those events occurred. Otherwise, you’re left with a general search that will turn up every name in the U.S. and Canada that even remotely resembles the one you’re looking for.”
Liss appreciated the problem. Wading through dozens of wrong entries must be frustrating, mind-numbing work, but she couldn’t help wishing that her aunt would get to the point. Had she and Dolores made a significant discovery or not?
“It’s rather like going on a treasure hunt.” Margaret said.
By now Dolores was tapping her foot, accurately reflecting Liss’s growing impatience. The librarian interrupted before Margaret could draw things out any further. “For goodness’ sake, tell the girl what I found.”
“You found?” Liss asked in surprise.
“Which one of us is the trained researcher here? Of course, I’m the one who found the probate record for the estate of Harold Chadwick. He died in Kansas, of all places.”
“You’re sure he’s the right Harold Chadwick?” Liss’s enthusiasm for the project returned in a rush.
“Oh, yes,” Margaret said. “Born in Canada in 1910. When he died, in 1990, his heir was his daughter, Hazel B. Beamer. It stands to reason that the B. in Hazel B. stands for Benedict or Benedicta and she named a daughter after herself—”
“Then that’s our link.” Liss could hardly believe it. Her wild theory about Benny had turned out to be true.
“Once we knew to look in Kansas, there was a lot more information to be found.”
Liss barely listened as Margaret detailed all the evidence she and Dolores had accumulated to prove that Benedicta Beamer was the granddaughter of Harold Chadwick. Her mind was busy working out the significance of their discovery. She felt certain of only one thing—Benny herself could hardly fail to be aware of the connection.
“Does she think she has a claim on the property?” she asked aloud. “The relationship is pretty distant.”
“Fourth cousin once removed, I believe,” Dolores said.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Not a bit of family resemblance that I could see,” the librarian added.
“You’ve met Benny Beamer?” Liss asked.
“Why so surprised? She came in looking for material on Moosetookalook in the nineteen twenties. Spent most of her time at one of the microfilm readers looking at old newspapers and taking notes. Very dedicated researcher from what I could see. I bet it’s hard for her to be taken seriously, looking the way she does.” Dolores shoved at the glasses slipping down her nose. “Nothing she can do about being short, but if I were her, I’d change my hairstyle.”
“I don’t suppose she said anything to you about the Chadwicks?” Liss asked.
“She barely said anything at all. A stuck-up little miss, I thought.”
Liss was surprised Benny hadn’t played the frail-and-helpless-female card, but she supposed that wouldn’t have worked very well with someone like Dolores Mayfield.
* * *
As soon as Liss and Margaret arrived back at Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium, Margaret scurried up the stairs to her apartment to collect the dogs. “Come on, kids!” she called out as she entered her tiny foyer. “Walkies!”
Dandy and Dondi came barreling through the living room to greet her. They danced with excitement when she took their leashes out of the coat closet.
“Poor babies,” Margaret cooed, snapping leashes onto collars. “You haven’t been outside all afternoon, have y
ou? Want to visit the town square?”
“They were out in the dog run for an hour before closing.” Liss entered the apartment just behind her aunt, shaking her head at the performance the two Scotties were putting on. To look at them, one would think they never got a bit of attention from anyone but their owner.
People could be just as deceptive.
“It isn’t just exercise they need. They crave company, just like humans do.”
As she spoke, she reached for the scoop and the plastic bag she’d need to clean up after her charges. Liss wrinkled her nose, hoping the fact that she had let the dogs out earlier in the afternoon would mean Margaret didn’t have to deal with that unpleasant task. Cats were much simpler to care for . . . most of the time.
The Scotties were little but strong, dragging Margaret after them as they raced back downstairs. “Slow down, you little demons! Do you want me to break my neck?”
“Question,” Liss said when she’d locked the front door behind them. “When you were at my house with the dogs the day I found the map, do you remember that they started barking?”
“I can’t say that I do.”
“It turns out that there was someone sneaking around outside the house. I think they must have heard him.”
As they crossed the street and entered the town square, Liss filled her aunt in on what she and Sherri had learned from Aaron Lucas. By the time she was done, Margaret was shaking her head. “We were concentrating on that mysterious map. I probably just told Dandy and Dondi to hush up and they did.”
“It’s too bad they didn’t kick up more of a fuss. If they’d kept barking, we might have investigated.”
“I’ve been trying to train them not to bark at every strange sound. When I first brought them home, the bell on the shop door used to set them off every time a customer came in. They finally adjusted to that, thank goodness, and to hearing the other normal comings and goings in the Emporium.”
“That explains why they didn’t sound the alarm when someone, probably Aaron Lucas, came into the shop during the night.” At Margaret’s crestfallen expression, she added, “It’s okay. I never expected your Scottish terriers to do double duty as guard dogs.”
X Marks the Scot Page 18
