Kilt Dead

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  The sound of running footsteps behind him made him glance over his shoulder. He couldn’t see who it was, but there was enough moonlight to show him that the figure was coming from the direction of the police station and was in uniform.

  “I’ll go around back,” Dan shouted. “You take the front.”

  He didn’t wait for agreement. Nor did he check his headlong pace until he realized that the rear entrance was wide open. His stomach in knots, Dan forced himself to go slow, shining the flashlight ahead of him, even though what he really wanted to do was run straight through and head up the stairs to Liss.

  There was no one in the stockroom this time, dead or otherwise, but the door to the shop, ordinarily kept shut, was only halfway closed. He hauled it the rest of the way open and plunged through. Still no one. He headed for the front door, but as soon as he unlocked it, he made a beeline for the sales counter and the stairs behind it.

  He took them two at a time, calling Liss’s name as he burst into the apartment. He almost collapsed with relief when he heard her answering shout. The beam of his flashlight caught her as she emerged from the kitchen wearing some kind of filmy negligée that had his eyes popping. He had only time enough to flick on the overhead light before she flung herself straight into his arms.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered. “I heard him go.”

  “You’re trembling.” He wrapped his arms more tightly around her but it didn’t help. Not when he was shaking, too.

  Heavy footsteps and the sound of labored breathing announced the arrival of Jeff Thibodeau. He had his gun out when he came through the door, but he quickly holstered it when he recognized them.

  “She says he’s gone.”

  “Better make sure.” He headed for the bedrooms.

  “I’ve got to find Lumpkin.” Liss freed herself from Dan’s embrace and got down on hands and knees beside the sofa to peer underneath it. “There you are, my brave boy. My hero.”

  A low growl greeted this overture.

  “Liss, why were you in the kitchen?” It had taken him a moment to realize she hadn’t stayed safely locked in the guest room but had come out into the apartment, possibly while the intruder was still on the premises.

  “I was looking for Lumpkin.”

  “Christ, Liss! That cat isn’t worth—” He broke off when he saw the look on her face. He wanted to shake some sense into her. He wanted to lock her away somewhere she’d be safe. He wanted . . . too damn much. He settled for offering her a hand to help her to her feet.

  Thibodeau returned to the living room. “All clear. You want to take a look around, Liss? See if anything is missing?”

  A short time later, Liss had checked all the rooms in the apartment. Her face wore a puzzled expression. “The only thing I’m sure is gone is a looseleaf with a blue cover. I can’t find it any—”

  “I’ve got it,” Dan cut in. “I, uh, took it home with me the other night to have another look at it.”

  After a considering glance in Thibodeau’s direction, Liss let the subject drop. “Then it doesn’t appear that the thief took anything, but someone was definitely here and he did go through my purse.”

  As she told them about her foray into the living room to fetch her cell phone, Dan’s heart almost stopped all over again. He understood why she’d taken the risk, but he wasn’t happy about it.

  “And I’d left my laptop closed,” Liss added. The three of them congregated around the kitchen counter on which the notebook computer rested. “It’s open now.”

  “You protect your files with a password?” Thibodeau asked.

  “It never seemed worth the bother. Mostly I use it to surf the Web and send email.”

  There was a pad of paper and a pencil next to the laptop. Dan moved closer. She’d made several notations. It was easy enough to see what she’d been researching. She’d found the website of a hotel over in New Hampshire. Like The Spruces, it had been closed for a while before someone bought it and fixed it up. It had reopened as a resort and spa in 2002 in a town no bigger than Moosetookalook. From everything Dan had heard, the place was doing okay. But the figure Liss had written down and underlined twice was $20,000,000—the total cost of the renovations.

  “Could you tell if the intruder was a man or a woman?” Thibodeau asked.

  “No, but you might try looking for someone with a bite on the ankle.” She gave a shaky laugh and pointed to a tuft of fur on the kitchen floor. “That’s why Lumpkin let out such an ungodly howl. Whoever was in here stepped on his tail.”

  “And you came charging out to rescue him. Geez, Liss, where’s your common sense?”

  She lifted an eyebrow, her gaze moving from Dan’s bare chest to his bare feet. Then she ignored him to take a can of tuna out of the cupboard and open it. The sound of the can opener combined with the smell of fish was enough to lure Lumpkin out from beneath the sofa.

  “I’d better check downstairs,” Liss said when she’d finished making much of the damned cat.

  Both men went with her while she walked through the displays and inspected the stockroom.

  “No sign the lock on this door has been tampered with,” Thibodeau said.

  “Did the state police find Margaret’s back-door key? The one she used to leave over the door?” Sherri had said she couldn’t find out if they had it or not, that the troopers had clammed up on her when she asked.

  “No idea,” Jeff said.

  “Damn. If the person who killed Mrs. Norris used that key to get in and took it with him—”

  “Then tonight’s intruder may have been her killer.” Liss’s face lost color with alarming speed. She turned wide, frightened eyes to Dan.

  All he could think of to do was take one of her small, soft hands in his own big, work-hardened paw and give it a reassuring squeeze.

  “Get the locks changed first thing in the morning,” Thibodeau advised.

  “And tonight?” Her voice shook.

  “I doubt he’ll show up again tonight. For one thing, there’s not that much night left.”

  “But why did he come back at all? That makes no sense.”

  “Call in the state police,” Dan said. “Let them figure it out.”

  “No!”

  “Liss, be reasonable. They—”

  “They’ll send LaVerdiere. I don’t want to have to deal with him again.”

  “Jeff, talk to her.”

  Jeff cleared his throat. “I’m gonna leave this up to Liss. Gotta say there’s no evidence to connect this to the murder. And nothing was taken.”

  “The back door was wide open when I got here,” Dan reminded him.

  “If you want, I can do the whole fingerprint-powder thing—”

  “Oh, no! Not again.”

  Jeff talked right over Liss’s interruption. “—but it probably wouldn’t help. If there was someone in here, he was most likely smart enough to wear gloves. Everybody watches crime shows these days. And even if there are unidentified prints, that’s just what they’ll be—unidentified.”

  “So you’re saying you aren’t going to do anything?” Dan felt his temper spark.

  “I’m saying it’s up to Liss.”

  “Let it go, Dan. I’m scheduled to reopen the shop in less than six hours. Aunt Margaret can’t afford another delay.”

  She couldn’t be swayed in her decision, but after Thibodeau left, Dan pushed a heavy worktable in front of the back door. Then he followed Liss back up to the apartment.

  “I’m sticking around till dawn.”

  “Fine. Coffee or bed?”

  “Is that a variant on ‘coffee, tea, or me?’”

  She made a face at him. “Your timing continues to stink, Ruskin.”

  “Yeah, I know.” But when he tugged her into his arms, she didn’t resist, and there followed a pleasant interlude that he knew he would treasure for the rest of his life.

  Just after sunrise, Dan went home. It wasn’t until he opened his front door that he remembered he’d left the place un
locked when he went haring off to rescue Liss.

  The first thing he saw when he walked into his living room was the looseleaf binder Liss had taken from Mrs. Norris’s house. If he hadn’t borrowed it, it would have been in the apartment. Was the looseleaf what the intruder had been looking for?

  Picking it up, Dan flipped through the pages. He couldn’t tell if any had been removed. The sheets weren’t numbered. It didn’t look as if anyone had come into this house while he’d been gone, but if someone had, they’d have found the blue binder in plain sight. If only one page went missing, Dan thought, no one would ever know the difference.

  For the first hour after Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium was open, not a single customer came through the door. Liss found herself wishing some of the “ghouls” Jeff Thibodeau had predicted would show up. At least a few of them might have bought something.

  The locksmith did put in an appearance. In short order Liss had brand new locks and a shockingly large bill to pay.

  The quiet after he left soon had her yawning. Between the excitement of the break-in and the shamelessly romantic interlude with Dan Ruskin that had followed, she had not gotten much sleep the previous night.

  “Don’t go there,” she muttered, unsure herself which part of her early-morning adventures she meant.

  She attempted to distract herself by rearranging stock, but after she’d twice tried out new ways to display kilt hose, flashes, and buckles and ended up going back to the original arrangement, she abandoned the effort and returned to the sales counter.

  Everything was in order there as well, from the packages of McVitie’s Rich Tea Biscuits and jars of Scottish Blossom Honey to a stack of the mail-order flyers Aunt Margaret sent out twice a year.

  Liss frowned as she studied one of the latter. It was nothing more than a list of items and prices. No pictures of the merchandise. No Web address for easy ordering. There was an email listed, but only for questions. She really had to bring Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium into the twenty-first century. Aunt Margaret didn’t use her computer for more than a fraction of the things it could do in connection with the store.

  Liss’s associate’s degree in business hadn’t gotten much use in the eight years since she earned it, but she hadn’t forgotten a thing she’d learned about promotion. And while she’d been with Strathspey, she’d helped design and maintain the company’s website. She flexed her fingers, literally itching to get started, but at that moment the bell over the shop door jingled to announce, at last, the arrival of a customer.

  “They told me I’d find you here,” a familiar voice caroled.

  “Gina?” Liss was off her stool and across the shop in a flash. After an exchange of hugs they just grinned at each other. “What are you doing in town?” Her best friend from high school had gone on to get a degree in law and had joined a prestigious firm based in Chicago.

  “Taking a few days off so I could attend our reunion, what else?” Gina had the slick and sophisticated look that went with big-city success. She wore her dark hair in a short, sleek cap that made her eyes seem enormous.

  “Ohmigod! It completely slipped my mind.”

  “You? Forget something? Amazing!” Gina stepped back to take a quick survey of the shop. “Does anything ever change in here? I swear it’s exactly the same as when you used to work here as a teenager. God, even you look the same, right down to the Scottish outfit!”

  Liss had dressed in store merchandise—a hostess skirt and sash in the Royal Stewart tartan and a long-sleeved white-blouse with a jabot. “Hey, I could have worn a Billie skirt and boots.” Her aunt listed Billie skirts as “fashion minis” and they certainly were short!

  “Oh, I’ve missed you. You and your Scottish stuff. And you ended up going pro with your dancing. All those competitions really paid off for you, huh?”

  “I could say the same to you.”

  That they’d been such fast friends during high school could only be explained by the fact that they had both been involved in odd extra-curricular activities. While Liss had competed in dance at Scottish festivals, Gina had entered beauty pageants. She’d used her not-inconsiderable earnings from winning so many of them to pay for college and law school.

  “Did you really forget about our tenth reunion? It’s only two days away.”

  “Saturday,” Liss murmured. Had it only been five days ago that she and Sherri had talked about brazening it out? She hadn’t given reunion a thought since, not even when she’d agreed to hold Mrs. Norris’s memorial service on the same day.

  “I gather you’ve had a few distractions lately,” Gina said.

  Now blessing the lack of customers, Liss steered Gina to what her aunt called her cozy corner, a section of the shop that displayed Scottish-themed books—everything from cookbooks to mystery novels set in Scotland—and boasted two reasonably comfortable chairs. “Sit. Tell me everything you’ve heard.”

  After kicking off her shoes and curling her legs beneath her, Gina ticked each item off on her fingers. “Your aunt is in Scotland. Her next-door neighbor was murdered. The police don’t have a clue who did it.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve heard?”

  “What else is there? I only know what I’ve read in the newspaper. My folks live in Fallstown, remember? They’re not on the Moosetookalook grapevine.” She peered more closely at Liss’s face. “How much worse is it?”

  “I found the body.” She was surprised Gina’s parents hadn’t heard that tidbit, even way off in Fallstown. According to Dan, details of her discovery had reached the scone lady in Waycross Springs by the morning after the murder.

  “Oh, Liss. I’m so sorry. It must have been horrible for you.” A wave of sympathy flowed toward Liss, warming her.

  “The worst part is not knowing who did it. And Gina . . . because I found her, the police suspect me.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “Well, yes.” Her friend’s immediate certainty had an even more heartening effect. It wasn’t as if they’d stayed in close touch over the last few years. As far as Gina knew, Liss could have turned into a drug-crazed mass murderer in the interim. “But the suspicion will be there, hanging over me, until someone else is arrested.”

  She gave Gina the basics of the situation—the motive LaVerdiere thought she had and her certainty that he wasn’t looking at any other suspects.

  Gina tapped beautifully manicured nails on the arm of her chair. “I bet you’re thinking of staying home Saturday night, aren’t you? Don’t deny it. I know you. Well, you can’t. You’ve got to attend and you’ve got to make sure everyone there ends up knowing you were just an innocent bystander. Then they’ll tell their friends and families and popular opinion will be on your side no matter what happens next. Simple.”

  “Simple,” Liss echoed. But not easy. The idea of repeating even part of the story over and over again for the benefit of curious classmates made her stomach churn.

  “Can you recommend a good criminal lawyer, just in case?” Liss meant the question in jest, but sobered fast when her old friend took it seriously. By the time Gina left the shop, Liss had three names and phone numbers and the sinking feeling that her old friend thought she was going to need them.

  A short time later, Liss picked up the phone, but the number she punched was that of Dan’s cell. “Are you going to reunion?” she asked when he answered.

  “Liss, this isn’t a good time.” His voice sounded strained and she could hear traffic noise in the background.

  “Okay. I know it’s not safe to drive and talk. Call me back when you have a minute.”

  Her phone rang an interminable quarter of an hour later.

  “I can’t talk long,” Dan said, barely giving her time to say hello. “My sister is in labor. I’m at the hospital in Fallstown. No cell phones allowed inside.”

  “Mary’s having her baby? That’s great!”

  “Not really. It’s too early. Look, I can’t talk now. Did the locksmith come?”

 
“Yes. I’m all set. But—”

  “Good. I’ll be by when I can but it’s looking like a long haul. Watch your back.”

  He disconnected abruptly. Liss cradled the phone, letting her fingers rest lightly on the hard, smooth plastic of the receiver.

  All of a sudden the shop seemed too quiet and empty. She’d never minded solitude before. In fact, she’d relished what little privacy she’d been able to find when she was on tour. Now she was aware only of being alone. Abandoned.

  “Oh, stop the pity party,” she muttered.

  But she jumped when the bell over the door sounded.

  “How’s it goin’?” Jeff Thibodeau asked. “Thought you’d like to know we’re going to keep an extra-close eye on this place tonight. Just in case.”

  By closing time, Liss had heard from Dan again, but the news was not good. Mary and her two-months-premature son were both in critical condition. Everyone in the Ruskin clan was staying put at the hospital.

  “Will you be okay?” he asked.

  “Oh, sure. The entire Moosetookalook Police Department is keeping an eye on me.”

  They both knew how little coverage that really was. Moosetookalook had been a much larger town in the hotel’s heyday and it was then that the municipal building and police station had been built. Now the force was down to three full-time men, one for each shift, and one patrol car. Some of the more frugal townspeople were reportedly lobbying to do away with the department entirely and let the county handle law enforcement.

  With a long evening stretching ahead of her, Liss considered calling Gina. She decided against it. When she stopped and thought about it, she and Gina didn’t have much in common anymore. They’d lost touch over the ten years since high school. It was all well and good to meet again and renew old acquaintances, but Liss didn’t expect to generate a lasting friendship with any of her former classmates.

  Not even Dan.