Scotched

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “Bite your tongue!”

  If Liss could forgive the cat, Dan could do no less. “At least he didn’t break the skin,” he murmured as he kissed it better. Then, slinging one arm around Liss’s shoulders, he steered her into the kitchen. He’d found a bottle of her favorite white wine in the refrigerator and had already poured her a glass.

  “This will knock me out,” she warned, but she accepted the offering and sipped.

  “You could use a good night’s sleep.” Dan opened the beer he’d extracted for himself and took a long pull from the bottle. For a few minutes, they enjoyed a companionable silence. Then Dan gestured toward the answering machine attached to the kitchen phone. “You’ve got a message waiting.”

  “I know. I checked the caller I.D. when I first came home from the hotel. The message is from my mother. I’m ignoring it.”

  Dan frowned. “Are you sure you want to do that? What if your folks have some kind of emergency?”

  “If that were the case, there would be more than one message waiting. And Mom would have called Aunt Margaret and the hotel as well as here. Trust me, whatever she wants, it can wait.”

  In Dan’s world, you didn’t ignore family. He regarded her with a steady, uncompromising stare until she relented.

  “Okay, okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She depressed the Play button, and her mother’s cheerful voice emerged from the speaker as clearly as if she was in the room with them.

  “Hi, sweetie,” Violet MacCrimmon said. “I just had the most brilliant idea for your wedding. But first—what did Dan say when you told him you wanted to get married at the Western Maine Highland Games?”

  Dan choked on a swallow of beer. What?

  “It will make things so much easier to have the ceremony there,” Violet went on, “since the wedding and the games are scheduled for the same weekend. And it will be more fun for everyone, too.”

  “When were you going to mention that little detail?” Dan asked.

  Liss shushed him, but she had a guilty look on her face.

  The message played on.

  “Anyway, here’s my idea,” Violet said. “I’ve just found out that a medieval Scottish reenactment group is signed up to attend the games this year.” She paused to let that nugget of information sink in.

  Dan set his beer on the counter. His mind reeled. Get married at the area’s annual Scottish festival? That was a far cry from his naïve assumption that they’d tie the knot in a small, quiet ceremony at the little nondenominational church located just two blocks away on Lowe Street.

  Liss’s mother’s voice grew increasingly chipper as the message continued. “I’ve mailed you a copy of Renaissance Magazine’s bridal issue. It’s full of the most gorgeous gowns. Any one of them would look wonderful on you, especially since all the men in the wedding party will be wearing traditional dress. Oh, I just can’t wait! Call me when you get a chance. Love you. Bye.”

  The click of the disconnect sounded abnormally loud in the quiet kitchen.

  Dan cleared his throat. “I thought we were getting married in a church.”

  “Mom had a better idea.”

  “It’s our wedding.”

  “Well, yes, but it’s important to my mother, too. As she keeps pointing out, I’m her only child. And the parents of the bride traditionally pay for the wedding.”

  “We can afford the cost of our own damn wedding!”

  “Not unless we elope. You have no idea how expensive—”

  “I’m not a pauper!” But money was always tight and he’d been brought up to be frugal. “Elope?” He hoped he didn’t sound too eager.

  Liss ran her fingers lightly over his cheek. “I know. I’m tempted, too. But Mom and Dad really want to do this for us. The MacCrimmons are big on tradition. It would break their hearts if we deprived them of the opportunity to go all out for the occasion.”

  “Tradition, huh?” Funny how that word kept cropping up. His eyes narrowed. “Would that be Scottish tradition?”

  Liss flashed him a grin. “Bagpipes sound much better outdoors. Inside a church, they’re really much too loud.”

  Dan groaned. “I hate bagpipe music.”

  “But you love me. And it doesn’t make all that much sense for us to get married in a church anyway. Neither one of us attends services regularly.”

  “Is it okay if I wear earplugs?”

  She laughed, as if she thought—or hoped—that he was joking. “Not a good idea. You might not be able to hear the vows. You could agree to anything.”

  Beneath the teasing words, Dan heard her anxiety. He could give her this, he told himself. If bagpipe music and getting married at the Scottish festival were that important to her and her folks, how could he deny her?

  He caught her hand in his, turning it so he could plant what he hoped she’d see as a romantic kiss on the backs of her knuckles. “It doesn’t matter to me where we get married, as long as it’s legal.”

  “Oh, it will be.”

  “Anything else I should know about?” he asked.

  “Let me get my list.”

  Of course there was a list, he thought. Liss was a habitual list maker. He followed her back into the living room and watched while she fished this one out of the drawer in the end table. When they were settled on the sofa together, she handed over a 5x8 yellow lined tablet. At the top of the first page she’d written “Three Months Before.”

  “Complete guest list,” he read aloud. “Order wedding rings. Done and done.” The next few items were equally nonthreatening, ranging from ordering the wedding cake to booking rooms for out-of-town guests at The Spruces. Then he hit number thirteen and he felt a sinking sensation in his gut. “Select Scottish formalwear for groom and ushers? Okay. I’ll bite. What exactly does Scottish formalwear consist of?”

  Liss took a last sip of her wine and set the glass on the end table. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  “It means a kilt, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Traditional Scottish wedding,” she reminded him.

  “Liss, I don’t—”

  “It’s no big deal. I know for a fact that you’re not bowlegged or knock-kneed and I doubt your brother Sam is, either. And I’ve already seen how good Pete Campbell looks in a kilt.” Sherri’s husband regularly competed in athletic contests at the highland games.

  Dan chose his words carefully. “I guess I’m okay with getting married at the Western Maine Highland Games, and I promise I won’t wear earplugs to block out the screeching—”

  “Skirling,” she corrected him. “Bagpipes skirl.”

  “I won’t wear earplugs,” he repeated, “but you’ll have to be the one to compromise on what I wear.” He took both her hands in his. “I love you, Liss MacCrimmon, but there is no way in hell that you are getting me into a skirt.”

  Liss sighed. “I knew I didn’t want to listen to Mom’s phone message tonight.”

  Dan saw an out and grabbed it like a lifeline. “We’re both too tired to get into all this now. Let’s leave any discussion about the wedding until after the weekend, okay?”

  Dan figured time was on his side. Although Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium sold kilts off the rack, Liss undoubtedly wanted something custom-made for him to wear at their wedding. A kilt she’d expect him to wear to other Scottish events. He repressed a shudder. If he could just stall her long enough to make ordering such a kilt impossible, maybe he’d have a shot at convincing her that a tux was the better option.

  “You’re right,” Liss agreed. “I’ve got too many other things on my mind just now. We’ll let the wedding ride for the next couple of days.”

  “Show me your list of other things. Maybe there’s something I can help with there.”

  She tapped her forehead. “That one is all up here. I haven’t had time to write anything down.”

  “First item?”

  “Stop blog.”

  “Moving right along... .”

  His grimace coa
xed a chuckle out of her. “Let’s see. Oh—talk to Doug about his son.” She described what she’d witnessed that morning.

  “You can’t do that tonight,” Dan said. “Next?”

  “Open mail and look at bridal gowns.” She gestured toward the hall table where she’d tossed bills, letters, and a bulky mailer that was clearly the magazine her mother had mentioned.

  “Nope. That’s wedding related. It’s on hold until after the weekend.”

  “Then that leaves just three items: work in the dealers’ room; attend conference events; and find a good home for Lenny Peet’s dog.”

  Dan shook his head over the number and variety of her tasks, but he couldn’t help but smile at the last item. “I guess I was right,” he said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before he left the sofa and headed for the door. “You definitely need a good night’s sleep.”

  “You’re going home?”

  Her obvious disappointment pleased Dan no end. He had a hard time keeping his feet moving away from her. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day for me, too.” He came back long enough to claim one last kiss, but then stuck to his resolve to leave. “If I stay here any longer,” he muttered on his way out the door, “neither one of us will get any rest.”

  Sherri was in the office early. It was barely six in the morning when she started the coffeepot and settled in at her desk in the P.D. She’d left her son Adam sound asleep, but neither of them had gotten a lot of shut-eye the previous night. The break in his arm was a clean one, but Adam’s cast seemed huge to her. And for the next little while, he was going to need someone with him 24/7, if only to distract and pamper him.

  Pete could stay in the apartment until two o’clock. Then he had to go to work. The town authorized paid time off for parents to nurse their sick kids, but Sherri didn’t feel right just abandoning her post and leaving the department shorthanded. She figured that she had until two to find someone to cover for her. With luck, one of the part-timers who filled in from time to time would be available to work her day shifts during the weekend.

  She reached for the phone, knowing that her most likely prospect was an early riser. Her hand stilled when a red light went on. It indicated an incoming call to the fire department. Sherri was on her feet and running toward the front of the municipal building before the overhead door of the garage that held the fire truck had time to open all the way.

  “What’ve you got?” she shouted to Greg Holstein, the volunteer fireman who was just climbing into the cab. No alarms were sounding. That meant it wasn’t a fire.

  “Accident out at Lover’s Leap,” he yelled back. “Someone spotted a body at the bottom.”

  “Teenager?” The spot was prime make-out territory.

  “No idea!”

  He took off in the truck in the direction of Spruce Avenue. Sherri raced to the police cruiser parked in the lot behind the municipal building and in a matter of minutes had caught up with him. Loaded with search and rescue equipment and medical supplies, as well as the wherewithal to put out house and car fires, the town’s fire truck did triple duty for their small community. A car driven by a local woman who had been trained as an emergency medical technician fell into line behind Sherri’s vehicle.

  There was no ambulance in Moosetookalook. One had to be dispatched from the hospital in Fallstown, a twenty-minute drive at legal speeds. Sherri wondered if she should start it on its way. Greg had said there was a body, but there was always a chance that the victim wasn’t dead yet. Check first, she decided. With the added complication that Lover’s Leap was a good half-mile walk from the nearest point where any vehicle but an ATV or snowmobile could go, it might make more sense to request a LifeFlight helicopter.

  Two more members of the volunteer fire and rescue squad reached the parking lot at the hotel at the same time as the fire truck, Sherri’s cruiser, and the EMT’s car. Joe Ruskin was waiting for them there.

  They set out together toward the spot at the edge of the woods that marked the start of the cliff path. “An early-morning jogger spotted the body,” Joe reported. “He damn near killed himself scrambling down the goat track, and there wasn’t a thing he could do when he got to the bottom. Close up, it was pretty obvious she’d broken her neck.”

  Joe was puffing slightly from the brisk pace Sherri and the others set.

  “Any I.D.?” she asked.

  “The kid who spotted her body is named Kline. Davy Kline. He says she’s another guest, that he saw her at the reception last night. She must have gone out jogging as soon as the sun came up. Kline says that’s what she’s dressed for.”

  “Did you go out there yourself?”

  Joe shook his head. “I figured I’d better wait for you. Kline is in my office if you want to talk to him. He’s pretty shook up.”

  They’d reached the break in the trees. “Tell him he can return to his room if he wants to,” Sherri said. She felt sorry for the poor guy. Finding a corpse was not a good way to start the day.

  Relieved that he didn’t have to go look at the body, Joe headed back to the hotel. Sherri and the rescue team, armed with ropes and other equipment, followed the path into the woods. It seemed this was going to be a recovery rather than a rescue. With a little luck, the victim would have I.D. on her. If not, Joe or one of his employees might be able to supply a name once they’d brought up the body.

  Lover’s Leap was on town property, part of a small park adjacent to The Spruces. A sturdy rail fence stood between the jogging path and the drop-off. The cliff was of substantial height for this part of the world, rising about fifty feet above rocky terrain. That was small potatoes, Sherri supposed, compared to cliffs and escarpments found in the Rockies or in Europe, but it was high enough to be dangerous. . . and to provide a terrific view. From this “scenic outlook,” she could see tree-covered mountains rising in the distance, dark green against a cloudless blue sky. The tallest of them still had a fringe of snow at its peak.

  Too bad she wasn’t there to sightsee.

  The rescue team had already begun its descent. What Joe had called the goat track wasn’t really a trail, just a natural route, narrow and overgrown, off to the side of the height of land. Someone had to want to reach the base of Lover’s Leap very badly to scramble down that way.

  A shout, quickly followed by a curse, told Sherri that the EMT had slipped and covered the last few yards on her backside. Last night’s scattered rain showers had left the goat track muddy.

  Gingerly, Sherri climbed over the fence to stand on the dew-laden grass at the edge of the cliff. At the bottom she saw what the jogger, Kline, had—a body, dressed in a jogging suit, lay sprawled facedown, the neck bent at an unnatural angle. Even from this distance, Sherri had no doubt but that she was staring at a corpse.

  At the EMT’s signal verifying that conclusion, Sherri punched a number into her cell phone. This was an unattended death. That meant they needed permission from a medical examiner before they could move the body.

  “Looks like some poor silly woman was trying to get a better look at the view and lost her balance,” Sherri said into the phone. It was tragic, but things like that happened all too often when people got careless.

  Assured by George Henderson, the local M.E., that he’d be there directly, Sherri climbed back over to the safe side of the fence. This was pretty clearly an accident, but it was her job to consider the other possibilities.

  She made a careful visual survey of the area in the clearing. She saw no scuff marks that might indicate a struggle. Neither was there a suicide note held in place by a rock. The only thing in the immediate vicinity of the scenic outlook that wasn’t there compliments of Mother Nature was a plastic name badge holder. Sherri squatted down for a closer look but did not touch it. It had been lying by the side of the path long enough to be thoroughly soaked by the rain, and it no longer contained a name badge.

  It could have been dropped by the victim or by an attendee at some other conference days earlier. The Spruces had hosted one
small gathering after another for the last couple of months. Margaret Boyd had turned out to be very good at the job of attracting business to the hotel.

  With nothing better to do, Sherri followed the cliff path a little way into the trees at the other side of the clearing. She knew that the trail made several large loops through a thickly wooded area and covered the best part of another mile before it came out on Spruce Avenue, just short of the entrance to the hotel’s long, winding driveway. Within the first hundred feet, she found litter enough to fill a small trash bag, but only of the sort she’d expected—used condoms, tissues, empty beer cans, and a couple of gum wrappers. Leaving the items where they were, she returned to Lover’s Leap to wait for the M.E.

  Dr. Henderson and Jeff Thibodeau, Moosetookalook’s chief of police and Sherri’s boss, arrived together. The two men were about the same age but otherwise provided a study in contrasts. Jeff, portly enough to play Santa Claus every Christmas and nearly bald, was puffing like a steam engine as he loped into the clearing. George Henderson, thin as a whippet, had not only retained all of his hair but had it in abundance—a shock of dark brown atop his head and eyebrows so bushy they would have dominated his face had it not been for the handlebar mustache that was his pride and joy.

  “What are you doing out here?” Jeff demanded when he’d caught his breath. “Go on home to your kid.”

  “I haven’t found anyone to work for me yet.”

  “I’ll call someone in. Go on. Get a move on. That little tyke needs his mom.”

  Sherri’s sense of responsibility to her job warred with the knowledge that Jeff was right. Adam and Pete got along just fine, but Pete was still new at the stepfather gig. She’d have called her mother in to babysit, but Ida Willett had gone on a bus tour to Graceland with some of her cronies. Sherri’s father, Ernie, was likewise unavailable. He worked twelve-hour days to keep his combination gas station and convenience store open.

  “You still here?” Jeff asked. Below them, George, who had to be fifty if he was a day, had just reached the bottom of the cliff. Sherri hoped she’d still be that spry at his age.

  “What about that book signing at Angie’s tomorrow?” Sherri asked. “There might be crowds. If you need extra manpower—”