Vampires, Bones and Treacle Scones

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

Liss jumped at the sound of footsteps on the stairs behind her.

  Sherri gave a low whistle when she spotted the new excavation and the abandoned shovel lying beside it. “So much for thinking we’d kept people out.”

  They looked toward the boarded-up tunnel entrance. The two-by-fours Dan had nailed across it had been ripped free.

  Curiosity driving her, Liss left the stairwell to examine the new hole. She didn’t expect to see anything out of the ordinary, but when she peered down into it, an empty eye socket stared back at her. She took an involuntary step back from the edge of the pit.

  “Well hell,” Sherri said, coming up beside her.

  They stood there a moment longer. Liss averted her gaze from the partially exposed skeleton and found herself staring at the discarded shovel. It made her wonder if the person who’d been digging had tossed it aside in panic when he saw what he’d uncovered.

  Sherri punched a single number into the cell phone she’d fished out of a pocket. When a faint voice answered—her boss, Moosetookalook Chief of Police Jeff Thibodeau—she identified herself and gave her location. “Better send for the state police,” she told him. “Looks like our would-be treasure hunters have gone and dug up human remains.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Not him, then,” Sherri was saying into the phone when Liss stopped by the PD a few days later. “And not this Lowell Danby character, either? Okay. Thanks.”

  “Who’s Lowell Danby?” Liss asked, gingerly lowering herself into the uncomfortable red plastic visitor’s chair.

  Sherri waggled the paper she was about to stuff into a manila folder. “Guy on probation with Chase Forster who skipped out on him last year. I told you about him before, didn’t I? Chase issued a warrant for his arrest, so all the local departments were alerted. I thought he might be our mysterious skeleton.”

  “I take it he isn’t?”

  “Nope. We don’t have an ID yet on the bones we found, but it looks as if they are a lot older than that. Like maybe Blackie O’Hare really did plant him there.”

  “You sure it’s a him? Not Blackie’s wife? According to the stories I’ve heard—” Liss broke off, grinning when Sherri snarled at her. “Been getting a few calls, have you?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe! Everybody and his brother seems to have an opinion on this one. I will be so glad when forensics identifies this guy. And yes, it is a guy. Maybe once we have an ID, things will settle down.” As if to prove her point, the phone rang. Sherri answered, grimaced, and said, “No, Mrs. Westfall. It’s not your husband we found in the Chadwick house, but thank you for calling.”

  Liss couldn’t help smiling. Gerald Westfall had died of natural causes three years earlier. Despite the fact that she’d given him one of the biggest funerals Moosetookalook had ever seen, his wife had afterward convinced herself that he was still alive. Her theories varied. Sometimes, she insisted that he was a bigamist with a second family down to Three Cities. At others, she claimed he’d been abducted by aliens. The theory Liss liked best was the one where Gerald was a secret operative for the CIA. Fortunately, Mrs. Westfall lived with her son and daughter-in-law. Most of the time they managed to keep her away from the telephone.

  Liss left the PD while Sherri was still on the phone. Her route to the front of the municipal building took her down the hall and past the town office.

  “Hey Liss,” Francine Noyes called out when she passed by.

  It was only polite to stop in to say hello and stay to sample a bite of the coffee cake Francine had brought to work with her. She was trying out a new recipe. “Great,” Liss told her, and meant it.

  “Are you going to need the keys to the Chadwick mansion again?” Francine asked when they’d exchanged news of various family members and friends.

  Liss barely repressed a shudder. “If I never go near that property again, it will be too soon.”

  Her comment got a laugh from the town clerk, but Liss wasn’t joking. Still, the question made her curious.

  “Does that offer mean the state police are through out there?” They’d been called in again to deal with the bones.

  “I sure hope so. We’ve actually had a nibble from someone interested in buying the place.”

  “Jason Graye?”

  “Other than him.”

  Liss tried to tell herself she wasn’t interested, but she’d never been any good at self-deception. “Who, then?”

  “Some woman named Greeley phoned. Wanted to know what the asking price was.”

  “Do you know who she is?” The surname sounded vaguely familiar, but Liss couldn’t remember where she’d heard it before.

  “No idea.” Francine looked miffed about that. The petite brunette had been town clerk for as long as Liss could remember. She prided herself on knowing everybody in Moosetookalook.

  It was a mild and spring-like March Sunday when Liss, Dan, Sherri, and Pete set off in Pete’s car to catch a matinee performance at the movie theater in Fallstown. On the way out of town, they passed the gas station/convenience store owned by Sherri’s father, Ernie Willett. There was only one car pulled up to the pump.

  “You don’t see too many of those old Novas around anymore,” Pete remarked, nodding his head in that direction.

  Liss looked, then looked again. Hilary Snipes sat in the driver’s seat, and although Liss caught only a quick glimpse of her through the car window, she did a double take at what Hilary was wearing. It was a lightweight, pale blue jacket, just like Liss’s that had gone missing from the Chadwick mansion back in October.

  Coincidence, Liss told herself. Her coat hadn’t exactly been a designer original. If she remembered right, she’d bought it at the Renys in Fallstown. “Chez René” as the locals called it, was a department store that specialized in bargains and usually offered multiples of the same item in different sizes.

  Still, it did seem peculiar. . . .

  “Is the Nova a Chevy?” she asked.

  Dan and Sherri turned startled stares her way. Pete kept his eyes on the road, but glanced at Liss in the rearview mirror.

  “That car at the gas station,” she reminded them. “You said it was a Nova, Pete.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah. Chevy Nova. Why?”

  “Did you notice who was driving?”

  “That’s Hilary Snipes’s car,” Sherri said, “so it was probably Hilary. Boxer isn’t old enough to have a license.” At Liss’s unspoken question, she added, “I’ve given her a few tickets over the years. Bad muffler. Headlight burned out. That sort of thing.”

  “What is it, Liss?” Dan asked. “Why are you so interested in Hilary Snipes’s car?”

  “Hilary was wearing a jacket just like that one of mine that disappeared from the Chadwick mansion last fall. The one Ned could have taken. I think Hilary could be the woman who made that last deposit to Ned’s bank account.” She’d told all three of them about her interview with Ms. Jacobson right after it took place. “The bank manager said the car was an old Chevy, first with Ned driving and then with a woman. If it was Hilary’s car on the surveillance footage, then that means she knows something about how Ned spent his last days. Maybe she even knows where all that money came from.”

  “Turn the car around,” Sherri told her husband.

  “Hon, it’s not your case.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “So do I,” Liss said.

  “It’s police business.” Three voices spoke in unison, making Liss wince.

  “It’s my jacket! That is, maybe it is. We won’t know unless I take a closer look at it.” She could identify it easily enough. She’d caught one pocket on a nail and mended the torn seam with thread that didn’t quite match the blue of the original.

  Sherri already had her cell phone out and was punching in another of her speed-dial numbers.

  “Are you calling Jeff or Gordon?”

  “Gordon. If you’re right, he’s the one who should handle this.” The admission was grudging.

  “Can’t
you hold off on contacting the state police until after we’ve talked to Hilary?”

  “No.”

  Sherri’s terse answer alone might not have discouraged Liss’s attempts to persuade her to change her mind, but before she could say more, Gordon answered his phone. While Liss fumed, Sherri filled the state police officer in on their suspicions. She broke the connection a few minutes later.

  “He’ll check into it.”

  “Will he?”

  Sherri shrugged. “He said he would.” A wry smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “He also gave me a message for you, Liss. He said to enjoy the movie.”

  Although Liss tried to follow Gordon’s advice, she found it impossible to concentrate on the plot of the futuristic thriller Dan and Pete had picked for the afternoon’s entertainment. Her thoughts kept straying back to Hilary, trying to work out scenarios that involved her with Ned.

  The connection existed, but it was tenuous at best. Hilary was about the same age as Ned. That meant they’d known each other in school. Just about everybody in Moosetookalook knew just about everyone else, so that came as no surprise. The total population of the town was only slightly over a thousand.

  More telling was the fact that, for a couple of years before he went to jail, Ned had rented an apartment above the High Street Market, the grocery store where Hilary worked. Still, try as she might, Liss could not remember a single instance when she’d seen Hilary and Ned together. She’d never heard any gossip about the two of them, either.

  Maybe she’d been wrong about the jacket. And Hilary’s Nova was certainly not the only old Chevy still on the road in Maine. Had she’d leapt to a foolish conclusion? By the time they returned to Moosetookalook, Liss was wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. She’d jumped the gun. She should have asked a few subtle questions first. She was sure someone in town would have been able to tell her if Ned and Hilary had ever been an item.

  But, no. She’d had to share her suspicions. And then Sherri had gotten Gordon Tandy involved. Liss did not look forward to the inevitable phone call from the state trooper. He’d undoubtedly take her to task for meddling . . . again.

  But when Gordon called her at home the next afternoon, it was not to complain. It was to thank her for the tip.

  “You’ll probably see it on the local news broadcasts tonight,” he said. “We just arrested Hilary Snipes for your cousin’s murder.”

  “What evidence do they have?” Margaret Boyd demanded. They were in her office at the hotel. After Gordon’s phone call, Liss had driven straight to The Spruces to share his startling announcement with her aunt.

  “He wouldn’t say. Fingerprints at the scene, maybe? They probably didn’t have hers to compare until they took her in for questioning.”

  Margaret busied herself at the coffee pot, pouring each of them a cup, then sat behind her desk. “I suppose they quarreled because she helped herself to some of the money he gave her to deposit for him.”

  “Two hundred dollars?”

  “People have been killed for far less.”

  Liss picked up the coffee cup Margaret had placed in front of her and sipped but she barely tasted the dark, rich brew. Even though she’d suspected Hilary of being in cahoots with Ned, she was having difficulty picturing her as his murderer. Belatedly, another thought struck her.

  “I wonder if Boxer knew who Ned was.”

  Margaret went very still. “Boxer,” she repeated. “What will happen to the boy now?”

  “I suppose one of his relatives will take him in. Rhonda and Cracker have an extra bedroom. They sometimes rent it out.”

  Margaret drummed her fingers on the desk top. “That is not a home environment I’d wish on any youngster, let alone one whose mother is in serious trouble with the law.”

  “I don’t see that he has any other option, unless the state puts him in foster care.”

  A pensive look came over Margaret’s face. She stood staring at nothing for a few minutes, then glanced at her watch. “Shouldn’t the school bus be dropping kids off about now?”

  Liss consulted the wall clock. “It stops at the town square in ten minutes or so.”

  “You have just enough time. Go meet it. Take Boxer off. I have a spare room, too. He’ll stay at my apartment until this business with his mother is sorted out.”

  Liss nearly spilled her coffee into her lap. “Margaret, you can’t be serious!”

  “I’m entirely serious. Hurry up. You don’t want to miss him.”

  “It won’t work. The authorities won’t allow him to stay with a friend. It has to be family or foster—”

  “But that’s just it,” Margaret interrupted. “Boxer is family.”

  Liss gaped at her. “He’s . . . family?”

  Margaret nodded. “I’ve had my suspicions for some time and you told me that his mother calls him Teddy. What’s that short for?”

  “Theodore?” Something in Margaret’s tone of voice warned Liss she’d been on the wrong track with that one.

  “Teddy and Ted are nicknames for Theodore,” Margaret allowed, “but they are also diminutives of Edward, just like Ed, Eddie . . . and Ned. There is a very good chance that my Ned was Boxer’s father and if that boy is my grandson, then I intend to look out for him.”

  The school bus had been and gone by the time Liss reached the center of town. She drove out to Owl Road on autopilot, still trying to absorb the enormity of Margaret’s bombshell. Boxer Snipes was Ned’s son and Margaret’s grandchild? The mind boggled.

  It was possible, of course. More than possible. Now that Margaret had pointed out the obvious, Liss realized there had been something familiar about the kid from the first. Had she recognized Ned’s features in Boxer’s plain square face and his scowl? Was Boxer’s reddish-brown hair a pale reflection of the fiery locks Margaret had been blessed with when she was younger?

  Once she turned off onto the narrow secondary road, Liss kept her eyes peeled for what Sherri had described as a “beat-up old trailer.” It wasn’t hard to spot, although it was set well back from the road in a stand of trees. A state police cruiser was just pulling out of the unpaved driveway.

  Liss didn’t recognize the officer who was driving, but she followed him for a mile before using a convenient driveway, this one blacktopped, to turn around. Boxer wasn’t in the police car, and if the trooper had spotted her in his rearview mirror, he’d never connect her with Hilary’s place or feel obliged to turn back to check on her. He continued on his way in blissful ignorance while she backtracked.

  At Hilary’s trailer, Liss detected no sign of life. She tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. “Boxer?” she called out. “It’s just me. Liss. We need to talk.”

  She stepped inside, uncertain what to expect after the run-down appearance of the exterior. The first thing she noticed was how cold it was. Hilary apparently left the heat off when no one was at home, a frugal measure Liss approved of, at least in theory.

  The furnishings were pitifully few and very old—except for the flat screen TV—but everything was clean and neat. Almost painfully so.

  “Boxer?” Liss called again, encouraged when she spotted a backpack bulging with school books. It had been carelessly tossed onto the sagging sofa.

  When she got no answer, she conducted a quick search to make sure he wasn’t hiding on the premises. What was clearly the boy’s room was far messier than the rest of the trailer, but still scrupulously clean. Returning to the kitchen area, Liss snooped in the cupboards and found them well stocked with nutritious food. Hilary might look undernourished, but that did not appear to be due to her diet. That she worked so many hours to support herself and her son was a more likely reason.

  Liss sat down at the small kitchen table, brooding and staring out the small window at the trees surrounding the trailer. A flicker of movement behind a pine caught her eye. Bird? Deer? More likely Boxer, she decided, waiting her out. She leaned across the table so she could turn the crank to open the window. It screech
ed in protest and stuck an inch from the sill, but that was enough.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Boxer,” she called, projecting her voice as she’d been taught during her theatrical career. “You may as well come in and talk to me.” She waited a beat and added, “Better me than the police!”

  Boxer stayed out of sight long enough to make her wonder if what she’d seen really had been a bird or a deer. He appeared without warning in the open doorway, startling Liss into sucking in her breath. He seemed pleased by her reaction, but made no effort to come the rest of the way inside.

  “There’s no one here but me.”

  “I knew that.” He managed a bit of a swagger as he entered the trailer, as if to say, “You’re on my turf now.”

  Liss studied him in the light of Margaret’s revelation. There was something in the shape of the face and the hint of red in his hair. But the honest truth was that he more closely resembled his mother than he did Ned or Margaret.

  Instead of taking the other chair when Liss resumed her seat at the table, Boxer propped one shoulder against the wall by the door. His arms were crossed in front of his narrow chest. His expression was rife with suspicion. “I know why the cops were here. Why are you?”

  “How—? That is, why do you think they were looking for you?”

  “They arrested my mother. But if they think they’re going to stick me in foster care, they’ve got another think coming.”

  “You’ve been through this before?”

  “Not me. My cousins.”

  “Which cousins? I know Rodney and Norman—”

  “Not them.” He attempted an evil leer, but it didn’t quite come off. “I mean the two who are down to South Portland doing time.”

  “The same two who used the Chadwick house as a place to smoke and drink?”

  “Yeah. Bobby and Woody. Back a while, Uncle George and Aunt Eloise got busted for growing pot and the boys got sent to this group home while their parents served their sentences. I’m not letting that happen to me. I’d rather live in the woods.”