Drop Dead Cold

by Karin Kaufman

“Do you know if they stole anything?” Laurence asked, taking a seat next to Emily on the couch.

  “Some moss from my kitchen table.”

  He titled his head as if to ask, Did I hear you right?

  “I picked up some moss on my birdwatching trip this morning.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “But Laurence, I know Comeau did this. I feel it.”

  “The Richard Comeau guy Emily called about? How do you know it was him?”

  “No one else would take the moss, for one thing.”

  “Is he a moss enthusiast?”

  “And my teacups were moved.”

  Talk about institutionalization. I was blathering about moss and teacups. Laurence looked about ready to commit me.

  “Listen,” I said, “I know how this sounds, but you have to trust me on this. No one else would break into my house and do the things he did in my kitchen. He didn’t even try to hide that he’d been in my house. And—oh no!” I threw my head back and groaned in horror. “My bedroom! I didn’t look up there! He went upstairs, the creep. I know he did.”

  “The police will be here any second,” Laurence said in his calmly authoritative voice.

  “But not Rancourt,” I said. “I’ll get Bouchard.”

  “He’s not that bad,” Emily said. “He means well, anyway.”

  “He’s okay when Rancourt is there to lead him, but left to his own devices, he’s lazy. I’ll bet you he doesn’t even look for Comeau. That would mean driving to Lewiston and not clocking out at five for his Italian sandwich at Angelo’s.”

  Okay, so I wasn’t hyperventilating anymore, but boy, was I riled up. Afraid and furious and offended as all get-out. How dare Comeau break into my house and paw through my things?

  “I hear someone,” Laurence said, going for the front door.

  “Could you tell how Comeau got in?” Emily asked.

  “The door lock wasn’t broken, but I didn’t exactly hang around to check the front door or windows.” I pulled my pocket wide and peered down at Minette. “You have to stay hidden until I say otherwise. Even when we go back to my house. The police are here.”

  She nodded. “Can I have a pickle?”

  “Mrs. Brewer.”

  I let go of my pocket and jumped to my feet. Officer Bouchard—lucky me—was heading my way, Laurence behind him. Bouchard looked tuckered out, and little wonder. His boss was in the hospital after a nasty accident or criminal attack, and Bouchard and a handful of equally hapless officers were left to solve the murder of a birdwatcher on their own.

  “Officer Bouchard. I guess you want to see my house.”

  “I’ve got two officers inside now,” he said. “You left your door open.”

  I smiled weakly. “I made a quick exit.”

  “Don’t apologize. Good thing you did.”

  When Emily and Laurence made a move to go with me, Bouchard told them to stay until the scene—by which he meant my home—had been processed. So off I went with Bouchard, dreading what I might find outside of my kitchen. Where else had Comeau gone in my house? Would I have to disinfect the whole place? Had he set a trap for Minette? My thoughts sped to very unpleasant places.

  Back in my kitchen, Bouchard asked me to point out anything that looked as though it had been disturbed or damaged and to tell him if anything had been stolen.

  “He moved all my teacups,” I said.

  Bouchard gave me the same look Laurence had, and when he got close to the hutch, he paid particular attention to the cotton balls. Suddenly, I wished I had thrown them out. “Were these left after the break-in?”

  “No, those are mine. For astringent, that sort of thing. They’re very useful.”

  “And you’re sure he moved the teacups?”

  “I told you Comeau is weird. He was examining them earlier today.”

  “Richard Comeau?”

  “Of course. I’m sure he’s the one who broke in.”

  “What else? Anything taken?”

  “The tea kettle was moved, and so were all the chairs.” I figured I wouldn’t mention the confiscated moss. Bouchard was confused enough already. “I haven’t seen the living room or the upstairs.”

  In the short time the officers had been in my home, the February darkness had fallen. Bouchard went ahead of me into the living room, turning on lamps with his gloved hands. “There are no obvious signs of vandalism, Mrs. Brewer.”

  Surveying the room, I had to agree with the officer. There was nothing missing, not that I could tell on first look, and nothing that was obviously out of place.

  And then I saw the fireplace poker.

  “Officer.” I pointed. “No way did I leave that poker on the arm of that chair.”

  “Don’t touch it.”

  Bouchard took the poker in his gloved hand and handed it to another officer. “Bag it.”

  Drawing closer to the fireplace, I examined the mantel and hearth.

  “Anything else?” Bouchard asked.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  And then I saw Minette’s sooty footprints on top the armchair’s seat back—perfect replicas in miniature of human feet. I gasped and threw my hand on the chair, covering them.

  Bouchard whipped around. “You see something?”

  “No, no.” Oh Lord, no. Comeau saw Minette’s footprints. “I’m just sickened by the thought he was here.”

  “It could have been anyone.” When Bouchard turned again and the officer holding the now-bagged poker exited the living room, I rubbed the prints into indistinct smudges with the palm of my hand.

  Had Comeau left the poker on the chair so I’d realize he’d seen the prints? I didn’t know a whole lot about the man, but it seemed his style. He was an arrogant bully who took pleasure in intimidating people. And if he couldn’t intimidate them, as he hadn’t me, he took matters a step further.

  I could hope that the vile, arrogant man who had invaded my home hadn’t seen the prints and didn’t know about Minette, but that was folly. As I stood by the chair, I wasn’t sure what I would do to fight him off, but I knew I would do something. I would protect Minette at all costs.

  CHAPTER 9

  While Bouchard and two officers followed me about, I diligently searched upstairs for signs of Comeau, Bouchard admonishing me to look beyond Comeau because someone else might have broken in. There was no way I could tell him why I suspected Comeau, other than to remind him that the creep had come to my house right after Nadine Sullivan’s murder. That was weird enough, wasn’t it? But to say more—to convince him my theory was correct—would entail revealing Minette’s existence, and that I couldn’t do.

  If Comeau had been on my second floor, he hadn’t left a trace of himself. As far as I could tell, nothing had been touched in the bedrooms or baths. For the longest time I stood in my bedroom, scanning it methodically, but it looked as it always did. And knowing Comeau, if he had been in my bedroom, he would have delighted in leaving me a sign.

  I opened a dresser drawer, and pretending to look for missing clothes, I checked to see that Minette’s old pink shorts—the ones she’d exchanged for my hand-sewn winter pants—were still hidden under my sweaters. They were, thank goodness.

  “I don’t think he was upstairs,” I said.

  Satisfied, Bouchard and his officers trotted down the steps and walked back to the kitchen. Before Bouchard left, he gave me his card—as if we’d never met—and told me to phone if I discovered anything new. “And think of who else could have broken in,” he said. “Give it some thought. Don’t focus only on Richard Comeau or you might miss pertinent information.”

  “Will you at least find out where he was while I was out of the house?”

  “Of course.”

  I waited until I saw the red tail lights of the squad cars leave my driveway for Birch Street before I released poor, overheated Minette from my pocket. She rocketed to the hutch and landed next to her teacup, letting her legs dangle over the shelf. Her cheeks f
lushed a rosy pink, her brow damp with sweat, she gripped the edge of the shelf and leaned backward, breathing in the cool air of my house. “Kate, it’s too hot in there. I don’t like it hot.”

  “So I see. We’ll have to find a better way for you to get around.”

  When she saw the cotton balls piled on the other side of her teacup, her wings went rigid and rose behind her, and though she didn’t flap them once, that mere action lifted her body until she stood ramrod straight. “Did the Comeau man touch the inside of my bed?”

  “Yes, but I have more cotton, and you needed a change anyway.” I snatched up the cotton balls, tossed them in the kitchen trash bin, and set her cup on the lowest shelf to remind me to clean it.

  “But he was inside my bed, with his Comeau fingers.”

  “He touched a lot of things on this floor. I’ll use a sanitizer.”

  Seemingly unconvinced that even industrial-strength sanitizer could do the job, her wings stayed rigid and she remained standing.

  I moved closer, until I was only a foot from her and looking directly into her porcelain-flawless, childlike face. “Minette, I’ve been thinking. It’s not safe for you here.”

  “In my teacup?”

  “In my house.”

  “No, I’m safe.”

  “Not with Comeau out there. He’ll break in again, and he’ll find you.”

  “I’m too fast to find.”

  “He’ll try to trap you. And if he can’t do that, he’ll take photographs and others will see you and know you’re here.”

  “No, he won’t, I promise.” Her tone grew frantic. “He won’t, Kate. I won’t let him.”

  “You need to move back to the forest. Just for now.”

  “No, I must not.” Her emerald eyes began to glisten with tears.

  “Just until I find a way to stop Comeau. I promise you can come back then.”

  “The forest is not my home.”

  “You can sleep in your old tree. I’ll bring cotton balls. Michael’s handkerchiefs, too. They’re just your size. You’ll be warm and safe. Comeau won’t be able to trap you there. Your old home is so high in the trees. Remember when you showed me before Christmas? He won’t be able to see you.” I felt tears filling my own eyes, and I willed myself not to cry so as not to frighten her. I wasn’t a crybaby, not normally, but the thought of banishing Minette from my house for even a few days saddened me beyond words. “Please understand. I want to keep you safe.”

  “Yes, Kate.” She brushed away her tears before they fell.

  “This is only for a little while.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can stay here tonight. I don’t think Comeau will be back so soon after the police were here. But first thing tomorrow, we—”

  “Yes, Kate.” Minette pulled herself into her teacup, curled to a ball at the bottom, and stared straight ahead, her small lips quivering. She’d forgotten all about Comeau’s fingers and how they’d soiled her special cup.

  “I’ll find out for sure if Comeau did this, and I’ll find out if he killed Nadine Sullivan, and when I do—and I will—you can come back.”

  She turned her head to me. “You’re angry again, Kate. I hear it in your voice.”

  “Yes, I’m angry. You bet I am.” I was choosing to be angry. My possibly irrational anger at Comeau—irrational because I had no proof that he’d broken into my house or killed Nadine—would propel me forward. It would fuel me and enable Minette return home sooner. I had two mysteries to solve now: to discover Nadine’s killer and to find out why Comeau was after Minette.

  The question was, how had he learned about her? I had a terrible feeling that Ray had let her existence slip, either directly to Comeau or to someone close to him. I knew Ray had told another one of his friends, Irene Carrick, about fairies, but Irene had thought such talk was proof that, at age eighty-one, Ray’s mind was slipping. Perhaps Irene had gossiped about what Ray had said. Sometimes, sharing a secret with one person meant sharing a secret with a hundred.

  The phone jolted me from my thoughts. It was Emily on the other end, telling me that Laurence had some information I’d be interested in. Knowing the MacKenzies, they simply wanted to check on me after the break-in, but for that I was grateful. So though I doubted the value of Laurence’s information, I told them come over.

  “Can you hide upstairs, Minette?”

  She raised her head. “Yes, Kate.”

  “I’m sorry to make you go upstairs, but Laurence is coming over.”

  Minette stirred herself, extending her wings and stretching out her limbs. “Yes, Kate.”

  “Please don’t be angry.”

  “I’m not angry. I don’t get angry like you do.”

  She took off, and a minute later, Emily and Laurence were at my door.

  “Did the creep steal anything?” Emily asked, marching into my living room.

  Laurence chuckled. “Slow down, honey.”

  Emily slung her coat over the back of the couch and plopped down. “It looks normal to me. Is it normal? And I’m not in the mood to slow down, Laurence. That cretin—a cretin who might be a murderer—broke into Kate’s house.”

  “I’m aware that someone broke in.” He sat down next to his wife and fished a folded sheet of paper from his coat pocket.

  “You do have information,” I said.

  I settled into an armchair, my attention fixed on Laurence.

  “So first, I dug up some information on Nadine Sullivan,” he said, unfolding the paper. “Age forty-fix, born in Machias, divorced, one grown child in Boston. She lives in Skowhegan and travels central Maine as an independent insurance fraud investigator. An intriguing profession when you think about the fires and the flood.”

  “I told him what Sophie said about the other birdwatchers,” Emily said.

  “And then we have Joel Perry. Age fifty-two, also divorced, born in California, living in Dexter. He’s been a tour bus driver for three years, but before that he was unemployed for a while, and before that he was a truck driver for thirteen years, but the trucking company he worked for—out of Bangor—folded. Bankruptcy. You could say he worked his way back to driving for a living.”

  “Do any of them have a police record?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “So it’s doubtful Joel burned down his own house.”

  “Not a hint of arson. Same for Tom Roche and his bakery flooding. The police never suspected he caused the flooding himself, though he’s still fighting with his insurance company, trying to get more money out of them.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not yet, but sometimes when a payout is less than expected, the insurance company thinks the insured didn’t take full and proper precautions.”

  “I’d like to know if Nadine investigated Tom’s flooding or Joel’s house fire.”

  “I’m working on that. I do know that Tom, Joel, and the Dearborns all had different insurers, but like I said, Nadine’s an independent contractor. She might have worked for every insurer in the state.” Laurence went back to reading his notes. “Anyway, Tom Roche is only twenty-seven. Kind of young to own a business, but I’ll get to that in a minute. He was born in Indiana, moved to Maine in his teens, played hockey for the Black Bears when he attended the University of Maine. He was a big deal, but he never went on to a professional career. He lives in Glenburn.”

  “Hockey may explain the scars on his face,” I said, “especially the big one through the middle of one eyebrow.”

  “He’s getting a divorce, which seems to be a recurring theme among your birdwatchers. And he’s not living with his soon-to-be-ex, Carrie.”

  “He likes pretending he is,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s having a really hard time dealing with it,” Emily said.

  “As for how Tom financed and opened a business in his twenties,” Laurence went on, “Carrie Roche is the answer. It was her money all the way.”

  “Tom owns an expensive-looking spotting scope for birdwatching,”
I said. “He told me it was a Christmas present from his wife.”

  “I’m sure it was—but not this past Christmas. They separated in early November.”

  I was amazed at Laurence’s ability to sniff out the personal details of people he’d not only never met, but never heard of. “How did you find out?”

  “I have my sources.” Laurence smiled and plunged ahead. “So loss of the bakery was a double blow. Tom can’t afford to supplement his insurance payout and reopen the bakery or start another business.”

  “Comeau?” I asked.

  “Richard Comeau, age fifty-eight, lives in Lewiston.” He paused. “That’s all I can find out about him.”

  I frowned. “Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”

  “Not yet, but I’ll let you know. Now we get to Gavin and Sierra Dearborn.”

  “I’m seeing them in”—I glanced at my wristwatch—“half an hour. They invited me for drinks, whatever that means. You know they moved into Ray Landry’s old house?”

  “Ten days ago,” Laurence said. “Gavin is forty-one, born in Maine, used to live in Dover-Foxcroft. He works as an accountant, but I don’t think that’s his passion. He’s a member of the Central Maine Trail Club, and he’s considered a specialist in alpine plants. Sierra is thirty-nine and a substitute teacher for area schools. Born in Pennsylvania, moved to Maine in her twenties. She met Gavin when he was a guide and she was an accountant in Dover-Foxcroft who liked to hike the Appalachian Trail.”

  “You mean they’re not divorced or divorcing?” Emily asked wryly.

  “Their house in Dover-Foxcroft burned, but again, there was no hint of arson.” Laurence handed me his notes. “That’s it, but I’m still looking. It’s not much on the Dearborns, so I don’t need to tell you to be careful tonight, do I?”

  “I won’t be staying long. Job one is to find out why Gavin said Ray’s writings live on.” I made a face. “What does that mean?”

  Laurence’s shoulders rose in a shrug. “It sounds like he found something Ray wrote and he was trying to connect with you, neighbor to neighbor. It could be as innocent as that.”

  But I knew the sorts of things Ray liked to write about. Unsolved Smithwell crimes, fairies, and the enchanted woods across Birch Street. By ordinary standards, none of it was innocent.