Kilt Dead (Liss Maccrimmon Mystery)

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “Zathros. She rents from Mrs. Biggs over on Maple.”

  “Also an easy walk.” She wrote down Barbara’s name. “Who else was around that afternoon?”

  “Ned,” Dan said.

  “Yes. Earlier. But why suspect him? Aside from the fact that you don’t like him.”

  “I thought you said we should suspect everybody? Anyway, I don’t know where he went when he left my workshop. I don’t think I saw his car, but then again, like everyone else on the list, he doesn’t live all that far away. Let’s keep open the possibility that he went into his mother’s shop that afternoon”

  “He could have, but why would Mrs. Norris go in after him? If she recognized my cousin, she’d assume he had a perfect right to be there. He would have a perfect right to be there”

  “Write him down,” Dan said. “Hey, if you can include Graye just because he’s obnoxious and was in the area, I can add Ned to the list.”

  She complied, then listed all the neighbors: John Farley, Patsy, Angie, Douglas Preston, Warren Alden, Betsy Twining, Julie Simpson, Stu Burroughs, and Marcia Katz.

  “Don’t forget Lenny Peet and his dog,” Dan said.

  Liss tossed the pad aside. “This is hopeless!”

  Dan picked it up and added Peet.

  Sherri glanced at her watch. “I really have to head home. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know what I find out at work tonight.”

  Liss walked her to her truck, warning her once again not to risk her job trying to get access to privileged information.

  “And don’t you get too trusting with Dan,” Sherri whispered. “I notice he didn’t put his own name on that list.”

  “Sherri, Dan’s been nothing but helpful. And he was as upset as I was when we found Mrs. Norris’s body.”

  “Suspect everybody, remember? Why did he really go into Mrs. Norris’s house before the police searched it? Was it just to get Lumpkin, or did he have another purpose in mind? Maybe he saw that page in the looseleaf because he was looking for whatever Mrs. Norris had on him. Maybe he removed a page or two before he left.”

  Liss shook her head. “If he did that, why would he even mention the looseleaf? Go home, Sherri. Try to get some more sleep before you have to go to work. I think you need it.”

  “You two aren’t lovers, are you?”

  “No.” Not yet.

  “Good. Sex screws up common sense” And with that parting shot, Sherri drove away.

  Equally disturbed by Sherri’s suspicions of Dan Ruskin and her own confused feelings toward him, Liss hurried back into the house. She didn’t realize Dan was waiting for her just inside the front door until she slammed into him.

  He grunted and caught her arms to keep them both upright. “Geez, Liss. Have a heart. You’ve already proved you can knock me on my keister. You don’t have to make a habit of it.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect—”

  Instead of letting go, he cradled her in his arms. “Do you know how often I’ve thought about you today? How often I’ve imagined holding you like this?”

  “Dan!” She smacked him on the shoulder. “Your timing still stinks.”

  He was getting serious way too fast. Trouble was, she kind of liked the idea. She seized on the first excuse she could think of to distract them both. “The answering machine light is blinking.”

  It sat on a pie-shaped table just inside the living room. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d come through earlier with Sherri.

  “Let it blink.”

  “Jeff Thibodeau said he’d call if I could move back to Aunt Margaret’s.” Before Dan could stop her, she’d freed herself and pressed the play button.

  The first three messages were from reporters. Liss deleted each one as soon as she’d listened to it. The next one was from Dan’s sister, Mary.

  “Call me. I’m hearing strange stories about you.”

  Liss sent a questioning look in Dan’s direction.

  He shrugged. “Just erase them all. Then we’ll discon nect the phone and the answering machine and not leave the house again till Christmas.”

  She ignored the suggestion, frowning as the next caller identified himself as Edmund Carrier III. He left a phone number and address, then stated that he was Amanda Norris’s attorney. “I am calling for Ms. Amaryllis Rosalie MacCrimmon,” the message continued. “I am reliably informed that she can be reached at this number. I do not think it wise to go into details of my business with her over the telephone, but it is to her advantage to meet with me. Shall we say at my office in Fallstown at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  ChapteR Eleven

  herri racked her brain for a way to get information _I that would put Liss’s mind at rest. She was coming up empty. It wasn’t as if the state cops regularly stopped by to gossip with corrections officers. Most of the time, they didn’t want anything to do with local law enforcement. They operated out of a van at the crime scene initially and, as soon as humanly possible, high-tailed it back to Augusta, the state capital, where the crime lab was located. For such activities as questioning the neighbors, they commuted. Only LaVerdiere actually lived in Carrabassett County.

  The rumor mill was up to speed, but it didn’t have access to the M.E.’s office or any other forensic information. The only thing she could find out was that a trooper named Bud Murdoch was going to be conducting interviews in Moosetookalook the next day.

  “Murdoch from around here?” she asked Larry Granby, who’d left intake during a lull to refill his coffee cup.

  “Damariscotta,” Granby told her, naming a town on the coast that was a good two-hour drive from Moosetookalook. “I tipped him off about the donuts at Patsy’s, though”

  “That was nice of you” And convenient.

  Sherri drove right past her trailer park the next morning after work and at twenty past seven was in line at Patsy’s for a donut of her own. That and a large orange juice in hand, she sauntered over to the obvious cop in the room.

  “Murdoch, right?” She sat down at his table without waiting for an invitation. Her brown deputy sheriff’s uniform was enough to break through the first barrier.

  “No coffee?” he asked.

  “I’m coming off shift. Sleep is on the agenda, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. So how’s the case going?”

  He shrugged.

  Sherri leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Thing is, I have a vested interest. If Margaret Boyd did it, I’m out of my part-time job”

  “Thought she was out of the country.”

  “She’s supposed to be, but who knows. Suspect everybody, right?”

  Softened up by Patsy’s “wicked good” donuts and excellent coffee, and perhaps by Sherri’s gentle flirting, Murdoch wasn’t as circumspect as he should have been. Unfortunately, most of what he knew about the murder was negative. The only clear fingerprints they’d gotten from the scene had belonged to people who had innocent reasons to be in the stockroom: Liss, Margaret, Ned, and Sherri herself.

  “Thought I’d heard of you somewhere before,” Murdoch said with a nod at the name badge she wore above her shirt pocket.

  The autopsy report had verified that Mrs. Norris died from a blow to the head and they’d matched the wound to the edge of one of the projecting brackets on the shelving. No question but that she’d been pushed hard, but it had been a fluke that she’d struck that piece of metal at just the right angle to kill her. The murder wasn’t likely premeditated. It might even have been classed as manslaughter, if the person who’d pushed her had come forward at once and confessed.

  “What about timing?” Sherri asked. “Liss MacCrim- men says she was only home a few minutes before she found the body. How long had Mrs. Norris been dead?”

  “Hard to say. The M.E. gave us a four-hour window. The MacCrimmon woman could have done it, but it would have been at the upper end of the time frame and only if she was there more than the few minutes she claims. If she’s telling the truth, then the victim could have been dead
for anything from four-and-a-half hours to a half-hour before Ms. MacCrimmon got there”

  Nothing new, Sherri thought. Liss had figured out that much on her own.

  “LaVerdiere’s convinced she did it,” Murdoch volunteered. “Can’t prove it, though”

  “I heard he thinks Mrs. Norris was blackmailing Liss,” Sherri admitted, “but I just can’t believe that Mrs. Norris was an extortionist. She was such a sweet woman.” She gave a little laugh and indicated Murdoch’s now-empty plate. “Always baking treats for people she liked.”

  “Oh, that blackmail stuff turned out to be bogus” Murdoch sent her a conspiratorial smile. “LaVerdiere screwed up. He thought the Norris woman was collecting information to extort money from her neighbors, but when the forensics guys went into her computer it turned out there weren’t any real names in the files LaVerdiere thought were for blackmail. Looks like she was just making notes to herself about characters in books”

  “Gee, what a concept-LaVerdiere looking like a fool.” Computer? Sherri wondered if she should risk mentioning the looseleaf.

  “Yeah. He found a sheaf of printouts and jumped to conclusions about what they meant. I don’t know any details, but whatever was in the actual files shot his theory all to hell.”

  “So he’s got to look for another suspect?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I heard something before I headed up here this morning about him having found another motive for Ms. MacCrimmon to have rubbed out the old lady.”

  “Are you even looking at anyone else? I mean, anyone could have gotten into the stockroom with the key over the back door.”

  Murdoch looked startled by her display of temper and Sherri could almost see the barriers go up. “We know how to do our jobs”

  “I’m sure you do ” Oh, what the hell, she thought. He already knows I’m after information. “What about that back door key? Did you find it?”

  “And just why,” asked Craig LaVerdiere from behind her, “do you want to know?”

  Liss stole a glance at Dan as she dug into scrambled eggs and ham. He’d made breakfast while she was on the phone with Sherri. Definitely a handy man to have around the house.

  For once, Liss refused to consider the damage eating like this could do to waistline, hips, and cholesterol levels. She needed fuel this morning. Real food, not just a breakfast bar or a vitamin drink. And she was heartily sick of yogurt. She wondered what would happen if she simply forgot about counting calories and found a good recipe for scones. Would Dan still be interested in her after she passed the two-hundred-pound mark?

  He’d been a perfect gentleman all evening. He’d made no further reference to his feelings for her, and if he’d heard gossip about their relationship, he was ignoring it. She hadn’t gone near that subject either. Instead, they’d reminisced. He’d brought her up to date on what various classmates were doing these days, and she’d told him a few stories about life on the road with Strathspey. She’d called it a night first, going up to bed, alone, at a little past eleven. The faint sounds of a late-night local news show, issuing from the television in the living room, had lulled her to sleep.

  “So what did Sherri find out?” he asked as he took the chair opposite her and inhaled his second mug of coffee.

  Liss filled him in on what Sherri had just told her, including the fact that she’d discovered most of it within the last half-hour and less than a block away from where they were sitting. “She called from her cell phone. Didn’t dare come over here with LaVerdiere watching. Besides, she said she needed to get home and get some sleep. She sounded exhausted”

  “So you’re not off the hook, but she doesn’t know why.”

  “They clammed up about that part. I hope she knows what she’s doing. I’d never forgive myself if she lost her job over this.”

  The lawyer’s office in Fallstown was a throwback, something out of the late nineteenth century. Big leather chairs furnished the waiting room, together with ornately carved, marble-topped tables and a curio cabinet filled with knick-knacks. Edmund Carrier III had apparently declined to change anything from the days of the first Edmund. Inhaling, Liss smelled only furniture polish, but she could almost imagine the days when the aroma of pipe tobacco and the tang of brandy lingered in the air. Here Carrabassett County’s elite-all men, of course might once have met to discuss the future of their community.

  Carrier himself was less formal than his surroundings, though he did wear a suit and tie. Ruddy-cheeked, bigbellied, and smiling, he was somewhere in his mid-fifties. If he’d had white hair and a long white beard, he’d have been a ringer for Santa Claus.

  “Thank you for coming, Ms. MacCrimmon. I wasn’t sure you’d get my message” He waved her into the chair across from his desk.

  Liss sank down onto butter-soft leather, but no matter how comfortable the furniture, she couldn’t relax. “Your office was closed for the evening by the time I listened to the answering machine, so I just came along as requested. What’s this about, Mr. Carrier?”

  “I thought you might already know, since you talked to Mr. Preston about a memorial service.” “

  He didn’t sound quite so stiff in person as he had on the phone. In fact, if Liss hadn’t known better, she’d have said he was uncertain what to make of her. He took a document from one of the folders scattered across the top of his enormous mahogany desk-a will. Liss’s eyes widened.

  I am Mrs. Norris’s executor, Ms. MacCrimmon. She didn’t want a funeral, and burial will have to be postponed until the police, er, finish doing their job, but I saw no reason to put off probate”

  “I don’t understand what that has to do with me ” But she was beginning to have an inkling.

  “Everything, Ms. MacCrimmon. You are her only heir.”

  “I’m her-? Her only-? That’s crazy!”

  “Not really. You see, Amanda Norris, having no relatives by blood or marriage, liked to keep track of former students. From time to time, when one of them had a run of bad luck, she’d change her will so that this person would benefit should she die. Over the years, she made at least a dozen wills. The most recent was drawn up about two months ago, shortly after she heard about your injury.”

  Fingers clenched so tightly on the arms of her chair that she left little pockmarks in the leather, Liss struggled to take in what the lawyer was saying. The sum of money he mentioned had her jaw sagging in disbelief.

  “That’s in various certificates of deposit and moneymarket accounts. Then there is the house, free and clear. No mortgage. The contents are included, along with whatever animals are currently in residence. She stipulated that they be cared for, although she did not make it a condition of inheritance.”

  A bubble of hysterical laughter surfaced. “I get Lumpkin! Oh, joy!”

  Carrier gave her a hard look, put down the document he’d been reading from, and went to the sideboard. A pitcher of ice water and some glasses were already set out. He poured and brought the glass over to Liss. “Here. Drink this.”

  She obediently sipped the water, wishing it were something stronger. Her earlier flight of fancy came back to her and she managed a faint smile. “You really ought to keep brandy on hand to revive fainting damsels.”

  With a dry laugh he opened a cabinet to reveal a fully stocked bar. “Name your poison.”

  “Thanks, but no. I think I’d better keep a level head. Will you start over, please? I think I can take it in now.”

  “In simple terms, it’s all yours. You really had no suspicion? When I heard you wanted to arrange a memorial

  “No, I really didn’t. That was just something Dan Ruskin and I thought of because, well, because a lot of people in town would like to pay their respects” She repeated the cover story with a twinge of conscience. It was true, but it hadn’t been the primary reason they’d talked to the neighbors.

  “Then by all means go ahead with your plans. You understand, though, that she left her own instructions. Mr. Preston is to see she’s cremated”

&n
bsp; “And the ashes? I don’t inherit them, do I?” Appalled, she clapped both hands over her mouth. “I wasn’t being flippant. I just-“

  She shook her head. She couldn’t believe she’d come right out and asked such a thing. At the same time, she waited nervously for his answer. The idea that she might be expected to keep Mrs. Norris on the mantlepiece gave her the willies.

  “I have orders to scatter her ashes along a particular cross-country trail at one of our better known winter resorts. Apparently she was quite an avid skier in her younger days”

  The emotional roller-coaster ride continued. Liss had a sudden mental picture of the dignified lawyer creeping through the snow-covered landscape, urn in hand, determined to fulfill the promise he’d made to his client. It would have to be by stealth. Liss didn’t kid herself that any of the ski areas would grant permission to scatter human remains on their property. If the story got out, they might lose business over it. They’d never take the chance that they might lose a single tourist dollar.

  Mr. Carrier folded the will and returned it to its file. “Do you have any questions?”

  Only about a million of them! Liss thought for a moment before she replied. She was both pleased and humbled that Mrs. Norris had thought so well of her, but she could scarcely take in the extent of her changed circumstances.

  Good luck? Certainly not for Mrs. Norris. She hadn’t expected to die when she did. If she’d lived, Liss would never have known about the will. Mrs. Norris would have changed it again once she saw for herself that Liss’s injury hadn’t crippled her. “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  “The ones who were beneficiaries of earlier wills. Are they all right now? Did they ever know they were her heirs?” And did any of them still need financial help?

  “Both Mrs. Norris and I agreed that information should be kept confidential, but I can assure you that she never changed her will unless she was convinced that the new heir needed her estate more than the previous one did.”