Last of all, she shared the to-do list she’d made the previous day. Dan had reservations about her plans for the day, but he didn’t try to talk her out of them.
“I’ll look after the Scotties,” he offered. “I expected to be doing that anyway.”
For the moment the two dogs were happily playing tug-of-war with a knotted-up towel. Glenora had gone to ground in the master bedroom. Liss spared a thought for her good bedspread, a Christmas present to herself, and hoped it was as easy to clean as the label had promised.
Dan got up and started to clear the table. “Do you really think Charlie left evidence about Merveilleuse International’s skullduggery in Margaret’s apartment?”
“If he did, it’s not there now, so my first step is to find out if the police have it. If they do, they obviously don’t understand why it’s significant. Otherwise, they would never have considered my father a suspect.”
“So you mean to try to tell Detective Cussler how to do her job? Good luck with that.”
“I know. It doesn’t seem likely she’ll tell me anything, but she might be willing to talk to someone else in law enforcement.”
Dan looked doubtful. “Sherri says she’s out of the loop.”
“It’s a place to start.”
Liss ran water into the sink to wash the dishes, using the action to hide her expression from her husband. She’d said it, not she, but it was probably best if she didn’t specify who it was she meant to ask for help. Dan had never much cared for Gordon Tandy.
Thirty minutes later, Liss left the house and walked to the Moosetookalook police station. Although it was Sunday, the chief of police was in her office, attempting to catch up on paperwork. She looked relieved when Liss walked in and gave her an excuse to abandon it.
After checking to make sure no one occupied the closet-sized holding cell, Liss closed the door that separated the office from the reception area and took a seat in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair facing Sherri’s desk. “I need your help.”
“Here to protect and serve,” Sherri quipped.
As she had for Dan, Liss quickly outlined what she and Vi had discovered in Florida. She handed over Charlie’s page of notes. Sherri frowned as she read, but she was shaking her head by the time she returned it.
“If he’s right, this is not good for Moosetookalook, but he doesn’t say where the information came from. These notes are just vague enough to be alarming, without being specific enough to act on.”
“There has to be more. The man was a private detective. He’d have found proof, and that proof has to be why he came here. He was going to warn us. He still cared about his old hometown.”
“Then why didn’t he go straight to one of the selectmen?”
“Maybe he did.” Liss had been giving that question a lot of thought. “Maybe one of them is hand-in-glove with Merveilleuse International and out to make a profit at the town’s expense.”
“Whoa! That’s a pretty serious charge.”
Liss shrugged. “I don’t like to think that one of them is corrupt, or that one of them had a hand in killing Charlie, but someone is, and someone did. Were any of the high mucky-mucks from Merveilleuse International in town the night my uncle was killed?”
“I don’t know, but Thea probably does.”
“She’s on my list.”
“Of suspects?” The idea seemed to amuse Sherri.
“She is on the board of selectmen, right along with John Farley and that guy from Little Moose.”
“Wilmot Ranger.”
“That’s the one. But all I meant about Thea is that she’s on my list of people to talk to today. First, though, I need to find out if Charlie left his files on the investigation at Margaret’s place. Detective Cussler included papers in the list of things she took away. Can you get her to tell you what they were? All I saw was Charlie’s flight information.”
“I doubt it.”
“Okay, then.” Liss blew out a breath. “I’ll have to go over her head. Or, at least, sideways. What, exactly, is Gordon’s new job in Augusta?”
“I think he’s heading up some sort of task force. He’s not Cussler’s boss and he won’t appreciate being dragged into this. Cussler already—”
Liss sent Sherri a questioning look when her friend broke off in midsentence. “Cussler already what?”
Sherri drummed her fingers on the desktop. After a moment she said, “She’s got a chip on her shoulder.”
“That, I noticed.”
“Word is that she thinks Gordon went too easy on the local yokels because he was friends with so many of us. She also knows that his family and yours go way back.”
Liss shot her an incredulous look. “Gordon and his brother play the bagpipes and so does my dad. Big deal.”
“It’s a little more complex than that, especially when you add your relationship with Gordon to the mix. I’ve got a good memory, Liss, and so do a lot of other people, some of whom will have shared what they recall with Cussler. You and Gordon dated. There was a time when you thought he might ask you to marry him.”
“Well, he didn’t, and now he’s happily married to someone else and so am I. So, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is called ‘conflict of interest.’ Cussler will pounce on that big-time if Gordon tries to interfere in her investigation.”
“Then how am I supposed to convince her that I need this information? The list of things the troopers took just said ‘miscellaneous papers’ and gives no details. I need to know what papers.”
Liss wished she’d been more thorough and had gone through all of Charlie’s things before she called the cops. But no. She’d been a good, law-abiding citizen and done the right thing, and this was the thanks she got.
Sherri was watching her with eagle-eyed intensity and clearly did not like what she saw. “You’re going to go off half-cocked, aren’t you?”
“I can’t just sit on my hands and do nothing. If what’s in Charlie’s memo is accurate, the whole town is at risk, and if he meant to blow the whistle on this scam, then that’s probably what got him killed.”
“Cussler will want to hear about the scam part, even if she has to hear it from a civilian. She may not be the most personable officer around, but she has a reputation for being thorough. Just don’t expect her to share any information in return.” Sherri reached for her phone.
Liss fidgeted as she listened to her friend’s side of the conversation. From the faces Sherri made, Cussler was being her usual uncooperative self. It probably didn’t help matters that she was only now hearing that Liss had gone to Florida to do some sleuthing of her own.
“Well?” Liss demanded as soon as Sherri ended the call.
“She does not like you, Liss MacCrimmon Ruskin. Not at all.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“The papers taken from Margaret’s apartment make no mention of Merveilleuse International, water rights, aquifers, or anything else remotely connected to the question that will be taken up at the public hearing tomorrow evening.”
Liss felt her face fall. “What did they relate to?”
“She wasn’t about to tell me that, let alone give me permission to share that information with you. Be glad she told me as much as she did. I’m sorry, Liss, but if your uncle had evidence to back up his suspicions about Merveilleuse International, the state police didn’t find it.”
“Then someone took the proof and most likely destroyed it.” In spite of her disappointment, Liss was quick to zero in on the one positive aspect of Sherri’s news. “Don’t you get it? If Charlie’s murder had nothing to do with the water deal, then the evidence he collected should have been there for the police to find. Since it wasn’t, it must have been someone connected with Merveilleuse International who killed him, and that same person must have walked off with the paperwork.”
“If that’s the case, I’m sure Detective Cussler will—”
Liss stood up in a rush. “Charlie’s murder as
ide, I’ve got to talk to Thea. There isn’t much time left to convince her and the other selectmen not to sign away rights to our water supply.”
Chapter Nine
Although they lived in the same small town, Liss’s contact with Thea Campbell was limited. She was accustomed to thinking of the older woman in only two contexts: a longtime, no-nonsense member of the town’s board of selectmen and as the grandmother of Pete and Sherri’s children. She much preferred the latter incarnation, and was relieved when Sherri, albeit reluctantly, offered her the option of a meeting on neutral ground. Thea would be babysitting at Sherri’s house all afternoon.
“Christina will be down for her nap by two,” Sherri said, “and if Amber is absorbed in a coloring book, you could drive a steam engine through our living room and she wouldn’t notice. You don’t need to worry about little pitchers with big ears.”
“If you’re sure.” Christina was three and Amber was seven. Sherri’s teenaged son, Adam, who usually looked after them when both their parents had to work, was spending the weekend in Fallstown with a friend from school.
“Trust me. This is your best chance to make your case. Pete’s mother is never so mellow as when she’s spending time with her granddaughters.”
With a viable plan in place, Liss went home to have lunch and check on Glenora. The little cat refused to come out from underneath the living-room sofa.
“I’m not going to shove something nasty down your throat,” Liss told her. “I just want a cuddle.”
Glenora didn’t believe her. Although Liss was still worried about her pet, she let her be. There was no point in traumatizing either of them.
At two on the dot, Liss knocked at the side door of the fixer-upper Pete and Sherri had moved into a few years earlier.
“It’s unlocked.” Thea’s voice sounded uncharacteristically cheerful. “Let yourself in.”
Pete’s mother kept her back to Liss while she’d popped a coffee pod into place and pressed the brew button. Only then, did she glance over her shoulder. She did a double take when she recognized Liss.
“Oh. It’s you.” Thea looked disappointed.
“Who were you expecting?” Liss was genuinely curious.
Thea ignored the question. “Coffee?”
Liss shook her head. “I’m trying to cut back.”
She did, however, accept the offer of two of the chocolate-chip cookies cooling on a rack next to the stove. Since Sherri’s young daughters had made them, they were oddly shaped, but smelled and tasted delicious.
“Where are the girls?”
“Both of them are napping.” Thea grinned. “I managed to wear them out. Not bad for an old broad, eh?”
Liss took a second bite of her cookie and studied her hostess. There was something different about the town selectwoman today, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. She supposed it might just be what Sherri had said: Thea was more relaxed and approachable when she was around her granddaughters. Even so, it didn’t take Thea long to get around to asking what it was Liss wanted.
“I need to show you something, Thea.” She produced the page of notes she and her mother had found in Florida and passed it across the kitchen table.
Brow furrowing as she skimmed the contents, Thea didn’t look up until she’d finished reading and had placed the paper on the table between them. With one fingertip, as if she thought it might be contaminated, she shoved it a bit farther in Liss’s direction. “Explain.”
Liss pushed the page back toward her. “Charlie MacCrimmon made these notes. I don’t know why he started investigating Merveilleuse International, but he appears to have uncovered some pretty shady dealings. I believe he came to Moosetookalook to warn the townspeople about this company’s bad faith and was killed to stop him from telling us what he knew.”
“Liss, my dear,” said Thea at her most condescending. “You have jumped to a completely illogical conclusion based on the random, rambling scribblings of a senile old man.”
Liss reeled back as if she’d been struck. She didn’t know which charge to try to refute first. Before she could do more than open her mouth, Thea struck again.
“Charlie MacCrimmon was never reliable or trustworthy, and I have no reason to think he changed as he grew older. The fact that he let his family think he was dead for some fifty years certainly doesn’t say much for either his character or his mental stability.”
“He was respected by local law enforcement in Florida,” Liss managed. “He worked there as a private detective for a decade.”
Thea’s disdainful sniff told Liss what she thought of that endorsement.
“He was a trained investigator, Thea. That’s how he got the goods on Merveilleuse International. If even one of the charges in this memo is true, that’s a whopping good motive to get rid of him.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Thea’s glare would have given a basilisk a run for its money. “I thoroughly vet every company this town considers doing business with and I can assure you that I have shown due diligence in this case. In fact, I’ve bent over backward to make sure everything was done properly.”
In a rush Thea rose from the table, taking her coffee mug with her. She dumped the contents down the sink and then stood still, staring blindly out the window at the house next door.
What on earth is going on here? Liss had never seen Thea so riled up. She sorted through the statements Pete’s mother had just made and zeroed in on one: “Charlie MacCrimmon was never reliable or trustworthy. ” Was Thea really so sure the water company was dealing honestly with her, or was it some old prejudice against Charlie that had her digging in her heels?
“You knew my uncle back in high school, didn’t you?”
“Everybody knew Charlie.” Thea’s voice was bitter. “My late husband hung out with him and his crowd. Up to no good, every one of them, and Charlie was the ringleader. Mothers breathed a sigh of relief when he left the area for good.”
“Mothers?”
“Fathers too.” Exasperation laced her words as she deigned to explain the comment. “With Charlie gone, they no longer had to lock up their daughters.”
“Oh, please. He couldn’t have been that bad.”
Thea, still standing with her back to Liss, merely shrugged. After a moment she rinsed out her coffee mug and placed it in the drying rack.
“Are you telling me that if Charlie MacCrimmon had come to you with absolute proof that Merveilleuse International was trying to cheat the town, maybe even endanger the environment, you’d have called him a liar and sent him away with a flea in his ear?”
“Did he have proof? Do you?”
“Charlie did. I’m sure of it. And if he could find it, then I can, too.” She took a deep breath. “Here’s the thing, Thea. The last public hearing on this issue is tomorrow. If you could just postpone—”
“I’ll do no such thing! Come to the hearing and share your ridiculous theory, if you must, but if the town is to derive the maximum benefit from this arrangement, we must commit to it without further delay. Merveilleuse International can still choose to go elsewhere.”
“Well, of course they can. Water is water, but—”
Thea made a sound of disgust. “Do you know nothing about your own town’s history? I’d think, with your connections to The Spruces, that you’d at least be aware of the fact that the first incarnation of the hotel came about because it could offer tourists pure springwater, along with the fresh mountain air.”
Liss had known, although she’d forgotten until Thea reminded her. She also knew that The Spruces hadn’t been unique. Other resorts, like the Sinclair House in Waycross Springs, had done much more to promote the healthful qualities of that particular natural resource.
“Doesn’t that make it all the more important not to rush into anything? If what my uncle wrote in his memo is true, then the entire aquifer is at risk. If the water table drops, then the spring, all the local wells, and the town’s water source could dry
up. Then where would we be?”
In her head she saw clips from a myriad of news stories about natural disasters. Water had to be trucked in and doled out to residents. Hundreds more had to abandon homes that were no longer fit for habitation. Since Moosetookalook’s population barely topped one thousand souls, the dream of becoming a tourist mecca would die if such a dire fate came to pass. The village would become a ghost town.
“This is fearmongering at its worst,” Thea snapped. “The same paranoid arguments come up every time any new bottling plant is proposed anywhere in this state. It’s all nonsense. Last year Merveilleuse International’s competition here in Maine bottled around nine hundred million gallons of water from various locations. Do you know what percentage of our total groundwater that was? Less than one percent.”
“Thea, you have to listen to me. That company deals honorably with towns. This one doesn’t.”
“What I have to do is what’s best for Moosetookalook. Merveilleuse International has made an excellent and completely legitimate offer, one we cannot afford to turn down. We will be paid twelve thousand dollars a month in return for leasing the rights to tap into our water source. It’s an incredible deal for us.”
“And maybe that deal is too good to be true!” Liss shot back.
They were facing off in the middle of Sherri’s kitchen, standing almost nose-to-nose as they argued, when a small voice spoke from the doorway.
“Grandma? Why are you shouting at Aunty Liss?”
Amber Campbell’s eyes were as wide as the proverbial saucers. Her thumb crept toward her mouth, even though it had been ages since she’d been broken of the habit of sucking on it.
Thea sent one last scathing look Liss’s way before her expression softened. Hurrying to Amber’s side, she knelt beside the little girl and gathered her into a hug.
“No one’s shouting, precious. No one’s angry. Sometimes people just get overexcited and speak a little more loudly than they should. Isn’t that right, Liss?”
A View to a Kilt Page 13
