“Word got around pretty quickly that it was Phil who was dead,” Dan observed. He remembered that Sherri had been careful not to mention his name when she’d made her public announcement that morning. “And there must be some people here who don’t have any idea who was murdered or why. The skiers. The staff.”
“I expect just about everyone is in the loop by now,” Liss said. “You know how gossip works.”
“I guess we should be glad the rumors haven’t sparked wholesale panic.”
“No, but you notice people are sticking together. Groups of two or three. Safety in numbers, you know?”
A sheaf of hotel stationery and two pens embossed with THE SPRUCES arrived along with refills on their coffee. Liss surrendered her empty plate, shoved aside the condiments, and started to write. She quickly made two lists. The one labeled “Phil” listed Eunice first, then Phineas.
“Why would Phineas kill his own brother?” Dan asked, reading upside down.
“Same reason as Eunice might—nearest and dearest are always suspects.”
“So you don’t have any specific reason to think either one of them did Phil in?”
“Other than their obvious lack of grief? No.”
“Was Phil better liked than his twin?”
“He was less sarcastic, but I wouldn’t willingly have spent time with either of them. Or with Eunice, for that matter. I think…I think maybe they fed off each other’s unpleasant natures.”
“Charming.” Dan watched while she completed the second list, the one for Phineas MacMillan. This one was longer: Will MacHenry, Richardson Bruce, Russ Tandy, Tory Tandy, Harvey MacHenry, Lara Brown, and then a question mark.
“The people he insulted at the Burns Night Supper,” Liss explained when she saw his puzzled expression.
“Shouldn’t Phineas’s nearest and dearest be on that list?” Dan asked. “Phil, I mean.”
Liss frowned. “I guess he should, although I’m not sure what his motive would be. And I don’t think Phineas has ever been married,” she added, brow furrowing as she tried to remember that detail. “I guess that rules out a wife with a yen to be a widow.”
“Maybe Phineas has been secretly lusting after Eunice all these years and finally snapped,” Dan suggested with a straight face.
Liss gave him an incredulous look before she realized he was joking. Then she added both Phil and Eunice to Phineas’s list. “Anything’s possible,” she conceded, “and Harvey MacHenry did hint that Phineas had his heart broken by a former sweetheart. Still, I think he said it happened seven or eight years ago, and I’m pretty sure Phil and Eunice were married longer than that.”
After lunch, when Dan left to see about clearing the driveway, Liss headed back to the gift shop. She had to pass through the lobby to get there. Her steps slowed as she recognized Richardson Bruce.
He sat slumped in one of a pair of wingback chairs drawn up to the hearth. From the expression on his face, he’d just lost his best friend. This impression was so strong, and so at odds with the Richardson Bruce Liss had last seen storming out of the restaurant, that she stopped and stared.
What did she know about him? Liss searched her memory. She had done a fair amount of research on SHAS and its leading lights when she’d first agreed to act as liaison. The Internet was a gold mine of information, although how much was accurate was always open to question. Richardson Bruce was around forty and by profession a college professor who lived in South Portland. She thought back to her earliest conversations with the man. She’d gathered that he was unmarried, but hadn’t he mentioned a dog?
She slid into the empty chair by his side, nodding politely to him before she stretched her fingers out toward the fire. If he’d talk to her, she might learn something that would be useful to the police. After a few minutes of silence she drew back hands that were now toasty warm and settled herself deeper into the chair.
“How are you doing, Mr. Bruce?”
“Well enough, Ms. MacCrimmon.” There was a suspicious look in his heavy-lidded hazel eyes.
“Is there anything you need? We’re all in an unfortunate situation—being stuck here by the storm, I mean—but the management of The Spruces wants everyone to be as comfortable as possible.”
His mouth quirked. “Yes. I’ve noticed. There’s a group playing charades in the library. What next? Simon Says?”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Mr. Bruce. I just wish we hadn’t lost phone service. I’m concerned about my two cats, and a quick call to my next door neighbor right now would be a blessing.” When he didn’t rise to the bait, she gave up on subtlety. “Are you worried about your dog?”
“I left Great Harry with a friend. He’s fine.”
Great Harry? What kind of name was that for a dog? “What breed is he?”
“Bulldog.”
Liss tried to picture one of the barrel-chested, perpetually slobbering canines trotting alongside the slightly built Richardson Bruce with his ruddy complexion, receding hairline, and impeccable wardrobe. Even dressed down, as he was now, everything he wore was starched and pressed, not just the Oxford cloth shirt, but the blue jeans, as well.
They sat in silence, basking in the warmth from the fire, as Liss racked her brain for a new topic of conversation. She was a washout at this Mata Hari stuff. Probably just as well. The last thing she wanted was for Bruce to think she was flirting with him.
“We have a Bruce family in Moosetookalook,” she said at length. “Eddie Bruce, the snowplow driver. Any relation?”
“Not that I know of. Are you on duty, Ms. MacCrimmon?”
“Liss, please.”
“My friends call me Rich. Frankly, though, I’m not sure you qualify as a friend.” He took off his glasses, produced a pristine white handkerchief, and made a production of cleaning the lenses. When he was satisfied they were spotless, he replaced the glasses on his nose and the handkerchief in his pocket, then leaned back in the chair and steepled his fingers on his chest. He peered at her with an inquisitive look in his eyes. “So, are you representing the hotel right now, or are you assisting the police?”
Liss forced a laugh. “Officially, neither. But I was the liaison for your group. I feel responsible for making sure you folks have everything you need, however long the duration of your stay.”
She didn’t think “Rich” knew she and Sherri were close friends, but he’d probably seen them talking together. Whatever Sherri had asked him, her questions had not gone over well.
Bruce shifted his attention away from Liss to stare at the fire. The low murmur of voices and the crackle of the flames, along with the welcome warmth, created a soothing atmosphere. He didn’t seem so agitated now. Nor did he any longer look morose. But neither did he appear to be jubilant because he thought he’d gotten away with something…like murder. In fact, at the moment, he seemed suspiciously calm for an individual Liss knew to be habitually short-tempered.
“May I ask you something?” she ventured.
“Depends on what it is.”
“Nothing major. I just wondered why you were so set on having the haggis made from a traditional recipe.”
He regarded her solemnly, as if weighing whether or not he wished to be bothered to answer, but after a few more moments of silence, he relented. “I teach history. My specialty is medieval Scotland. My seminar students are required to prepare a fourteenth-century feast. They rarely get everything right, but that doesn’t stop me from pushing for accuracy. As for this supper…” His voice trailed off and he shrugged. “It doesn’t seem so important now, but I came here with high hopes for the menu. It would have taken very little effort to achieve perfection.”
Liss considered that. She couldn’t see that the exact ingredients in the haggis mattered that much, but everyone had their little quirks. “Was this year’s Burns Night different from those in past years?” she asked.
He laughed. “It certainly was!”
“I don’t mean because Phil was murdered. I was talking about the
insinuations in Phineas’s speech. Have the speeches and toasts always been so mean-spirited?”
Bruce’s good humor vanished. “Not at all. That damn Phineas—” He broke off, scowling. “I don’t wish to discuss this further.”
Drat, Liss thought. She’d provoked him and now he clammed up completely. He stared fixedly at the fire, ignoring her. She might have been a piece of furniture for all the attention he paid her. She gave up and went back to the gift shop.
Tricia was waiting on Glenora Huggons, but there were no other customers. There was, however, an overflowing wastepaper basket. Liss hefted the large plastic container and headed for the basement. Pete was on duty again in front of the storage room door. He had his chair tipped back against the wall and was reading a magazine by flashlight.
Liss juggled the lantern she was carrying so that she could give him a finger wave and proceeded on down the hallway to the alcove that held a Dumpster and several industrial-size recycling bins. She set the lantern on the floor, lifted the lid of the one marked “mixed paper,” and emptied her contribution into it. She’d just picked up the lantern and was about to head back upstairs when a bit of tartan fabric sticking out from beneath the lid of the Dumpster caught her eye. Curious, she held her lantern higher and used her free hand to hoist the heavy metal cover.
The fabric was part of the cover on the bag of the bagpipe Grant and Erskine had been fighting over. Liss had forgotten that Dan’s sister planned to toss it in the trash on her way to her car. That afternoon—had it only been yesterday afternoon?—seemed eons ago.
Liss was about close the lid again when something suddenly struck her as odd about the discarded instrument. She took another look. The bass drone, the longest of the three, was broken in two. The larger of the sections lay across the bag, pointing entirely the wrong way, and the ferrule—the knob through which sound emerged—appeared to be cracked.
Really good bagpipes had drones made of very hard wood, difficult to break. This was a cheap model, but it had been intact when Liss had last seen it, and she doubted that Mary had done anything to damage it. Then she noticed the dark specks on the ferrule. Liss swallowed convulsively. That looked like blood. She peered at it more closely. And hair. Gray hair. The same color as Phil MacMillan’s. Very carefully, Liss closed the lid of the Dumpster.
“Pete?” She had to clear her throat and try again when his name came out as only the faintest whisper. “Pete! Could you come here, please?”
Something of her anxiety must have been in her voice. She heard Pete’s chair crash back down onto all four legs. Two seconds later he was standing at her side. She lifted the lid again and played her light over the bag and drones.
Pete gave a low whistle when he spotted the same things she had. Then he used his walkie-talkie to call Sherri.
When she’d taken a half dozen pictures of the bagpipe, Sherri placed it carefully inside a large paper bag and gave it to Pete to put in one of the lockers reserved for hotel staff. She stripped off the disposable gloves she’d used to handle it and reached for her audio recorder. Then she handed it to Liss. “Talk to the machine. Give me the scoop on this bagpipe.”
Liss obliged, finishing up her account of the conflict between Erskine and Grant where it had ended for her, with Mary Ruskin Winchester’s promise to toss the bagpipe in the trash on her way home.
“So, she’d have put it in this Dumpster?”
“I imagine so. The staff parking lot is just outside the door at the end of this hallway.”
“Okay.” Sherri took the recorder back and clicked it off. “Thanks. You can go back to the gift shop now.”
“But I don’t understand,” Liss said. “I thought you said Phil MacMillan was killed with a skean dhu.”
“Liss, you need to go. This is police business.” It could hardly be “by the book” under these conditions, but Sherri was determined to keep as close to the rules as she could.
Liss looked like she wanted to argue, but what could she say? She knew Sherri was right.
When she’d gone, Sherri turned back to the Dumpster. She supposed she should declare it off-limits, too, and cover it with crime scene tape, but that seemed a little absurd. It had already been contaminated. Besides, it wasn’t the Dumpster that was important.
She wasn’t going to go back into the storage room to look for a small wound on the back of Phil MacMillan’s head, either, but she could visualize all too well what must have happened. She’d wondered how a man of his size could be taken by surprise. His throat had been slit from behind and there had been no indication that he’d put up a fight. Now she knew why. He’d been hit over the head first, with enough force to break that drone. He’d been unconscious, or close enough to it to make no difference.
They’d been here in the basement, Sherri thought, victim and killer. Had it been mere chance that the killer had found the discarded bagpipe and seen its potential as a weapon? Maybe. In any case, Phil had been hit on the head. Then he’d been dragged into the storage room. Or helped to stagger in on his own and then shoved so that he landed on his face. Either way, all the killer had to do then was close the door, pull the skean dhu out of its sheath, drop down onto Phil’s back, and slit his throat. He probably hadn’t even gotten blood on his clothes or skin.
The killer could just as easily have been a woman, Sherri reminded herself. It wouldn’t have taken as much strength or size to kill an unconscious or dazed man as it would one who was fully alert.
Then what? Put the bagpipe back in the Dumpster. Then rejoin the festivities in the lobby, behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Cold-blooded, Sherri thought. Or a sociopath.
An involuntary shudder ran through her.
Liss sat in the lobby feeling miffed. She had no idea what Sherri was thinking. Did she suspect Grant or Erskine, who’d done battle with that bagpipe? Maybe one of them had been the victim of the bad nose job Phineas referred to in his speech. A little embarrassment didn’t seem like much of a motive for murder, but she’d heard of stranger things.
Maybe, Liss thought, she should ask around and find out just who it had been that Phineas meant. Richardson Bruce had left the lobby, but there were plenty of other people around. Two of the skiers were engaged in a lively debate over the best wax to use. Harvey MacHenry and his son were playing bridge with Elspeth and Maeve, two of the women who’d stopped in at the gift shop before the Burns Night Supper. Maeve had come back a second time to buy the floor-length tartan skirt she was currently wearing, one made of warm, thick wool.
In another of the pools of privacy created by pillars and high-backed chairs, Russ Tandy and his wife were talking quietly together as they sipped coffee. Or possibly hot cocoa. Angeline Cloutier had provided a continuous supply of both beverages since early morning. Russ could probably answer her question, Liss decided, but before she could join the Tandys and ask, a cry of alarm jerked her attention back to the bridge game.
Will MacHenry was on his feet, a look of anguish on his long, thin face. His father, Harvey, lay sprawled across the card table. Elspeth had her fingers pressed to his neck, feeling for a pulse. Unable to find one, she leaned closer, checking for signs of life.
“It’s his heart,” Will said in a choked voice.
“He’s not breathing,” Elspeth whispered.
Joe Ruskin came out from behind the check-in desk in a rush. He tossed a walkie-talkie to Liss as he ran toward the fallen man. “You. Call Dan. Tell him to bring the defibrillator.”
As Joe started CPR, Liss fiddled with the unfamiliar gadget, thinking that it was a good thing all she had to do was press TALK.
Dan had been outside. He still wore one of the light brown, one-piece snowsuits that were so ubiquitous in Maine at this time of year as he put the life-saving equipment to work. The hotel was prepared for medical emergencies, but no one had expected they’d need to deal with one for more than the fifteen or twenty minutes it normally took an ambulance to arrive. Everything was different now. Th
ey had no way to transport a patient to the hospital in Fallstown.
A few minutes after Joe and Dan managed to get Harvey breathing again, Sherri appeared. She took in the situation at a glance and reached for the portable police radio attached to her utility belt. When she turned it on it squawked, but after that there was nothing but static.
“Still dead,” she muttered, glaring at the offending handheld. “If I could raise somebody, I could call for a helicopter to take Harvey to the hospital.”
The tower had been damaged by the storm, Liss remembered. But surely fixing it was top priority. The repair crew must be having trouble getting through.
“He’s holding his own,” Dan reported, “but he needs to be seen by a doctor.”
There were more than fifty people in the hotel, but not one of them was an M.D. or a nurse. They didn’t even have a dentist or an chiropractor in the mix. Liss stared anxiously at the couch where Harvey now lay. He was breathing again, but he didn’t look good. His son’s face was a mask of agonized concern.
“Moosetookalook Family Practice is only a few miles from here,” she said. “Dr. Sharon lives right next door to the clinic.”
“It might as well be in the next county,” Dan said. “We can’t use any of the cars. We’ve barely made a start on digging out, and the trees blocking the drive will take hours to clear away. I don’t even want to make a guess at how bad things are on the other side.”
“The clinic is less than a mile away as the crow flies.” Liss visualized the route, working the details out in her mind. “We could cut through the woods.”
“Do you have a snowmobile?” Sherri asked.
Dan shook his head.
“There’s another way,” Liss said.
“On foot?” Sherri gave her an incredulous look. “That’s crazy. We—”
Liss talked right over her friend’s objections. “We have snowshoes. Remember? And it’s warmed up some in the last couple of hours. The surface isn’t glare ice anymore. Traveling that way won’t be fast, but someone from here should be able to reach the clinic before dark. And Dr. Sharon does have a snowmobile. Once he knows what the situation is, he can ride his machine straight back to the hotel.”
The Corpse Wore Tartan Page 14
