Hearing it, Anna snapped out of her reverie. For the first time, the look she gave Liss was more than cursory. Her eyes narrowed, as if she didn’t like what she saw. “What do you really want to know? And why?”
“I simply like to know something about a person I might employ. I’m looking for a cleaning lady.” The lie came effortlessly. Liss added an encouraging smile. “So, tell me about yourself, Anna. Are you from around here?”
“No.”
Liss put Anna’s age at no more than twenty-five. Subtracting “three glorious years” took her back to twenty-one or twenty-two. Those were impressionable ages . . . and just about when one usually graduated from college.
“Were you a student at Fallstown?”
That seemed like a reasonable assumption. The University of Maine system had a branch there, less than a half hour’s drive from Moosetookalook. When Liss spotted the merest flicker of response from Anna—the nervous twitch of the muscle just under her right eye—she felt certain she’d hit on the truth.
Anna did not confirm it aloud. She said only, “I sought answers in all the wrong ways until Mr. Spinner saved me.”
“Drugs?” Liss stopped herself just short of adding “Sex, and rock and roll.” Impatient as she was for answers, she didn’t want to put words into the other woman’s mouth. To judge by the responses Anna had given so far, that young woman was adept at parroting back other people’s opinions.
“I was tempted from the righteous path.”
“Are you on the righteous path now?”
A serene smile accompanied Anna’s answer. “I am.”
“And is marriage to a member of the New Age Pilgrims part of your redemption?”
The smile abruptly disappeared. “A woman needs a man to guide her. Mr. Spinner gave me Mr. Knapp.”
“Is that what you call your husband? Doesn’t he have a first name?”
Liss was beginning to lose patience. How could any normal young woman in this day and age be so complaisant about an arranged marriage and the loss of her individuality? She recalled Joe saying that the Pills advocated “the old ways,” but this was going too far.
“Charles,” Anna said. “His name is Charles Knapp.”
“Is he the man who put a hand on your arm to restrain you when my husband and the chief of police came out to the farm?”
Anna frowned but did not answer.
Liss leaned forward until they were almost touching and waited for the other woman to meet her eyes before she asked her next question. “What was your maiden name?”
“What I was called before no longer matters.”
“Are you sure about that?”
The bright blue eyes bored into her with laser intensity. “You took your husband’s name.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my own, or that I don’t continue to use it in my business. It’s MacCrimmon. I take great pride in my Scottish heritage.”
Anna’s eyes widened slightly. “You own the shop in town.”
“I do.”
Liss was surprised Anna hadn’t already made the connection, given the New Age Pilgrims’ campaign to ruin her business and the fact that she clearly knew Liss was married to a Ruskin. She studied the other woman, trying to make sense of her story.
“So,” she began again, “you married a stranger. Did Hadley Spinner perform the wedding ceremony?”
Anna nodded.
“The usual one?” Liss asked. “Love, honor, and obey and all that?”
Another nod.
“How about ‘be fruitful and multiply’ or did that not apply?”
Anna’s face flamed. “We do not engage in physical congress.”
Why the hell not? Liss wanted to ask. What was the point in arranging marriages for his flock if they were going to live apart? She frowned as another contradiction struck her. If nobody at Pilgrim Farm had sex, where had that little girl come from?
With more pressing matters to ask about, Liss didn’t delve into details about the child’s history. She took a moment to regroup, and then got to the point. “You were in the town square on Saturday. How is it that you were allowed to join the men?”
Anna’s head shot up. For once, her face revealed more than she intended. Liss recognized shock and then saw a flash of fear before Anna was able to control her reaction.
“There is no point in denying it,” Liss said when Anna once more presented her with a bland countenance. “You were seen.”
“That is impossible. I was not there.”
“Who was, then? One of you went into town. The style and color of your clothes are unmistakable.” After a short silence, she switched gears. “If you wanted to come into Moosetookalook, how would you get here? Are there cars available at Pilgrim Farm? Horses? Bikes?”
At the mention of a bicycle as a means of transportation, a muscle in Anna’s jaw twitched. Liss tried to imagine it. She’d have had a long, tiring ride, especially when hampered by an ankle-length skirt. Only someone in good physical condition would have attempted it. Even then, she’d have to have had a good reason to make the effort. Had Anna, or whoever had come into town, been obeying Hadley Spinner’s orders? Or had she acted in spite of them?
“You dropped a bobby pin near where Jasper was murdered,” Liss said.
This accusation startled Anna and briefly brought a stricken look into her eyes, but she kept her lips lightly pressed together, refusing to incriminate herself or anyone else.
“I’m not sure how that could have happened,” Liss mused aloud. “Considering that you were wearing a scarf over your hair and all.”
At this point in a poorly scripted television cop show, Anna would have conveniently fallen into the conversational trap Liss had set, protesting that it was a sunbonnet, not a scarf. Or maybe she’d have pointed out that she wore braids and had required no bobby pins. Instead, Anna continued to sit on the couch, looking like the statue of “speak no evil” as she waited for Liss to try another gambit.
“Fine. You weren’t there. The woman in lavender was seen some time before the murder anyway. She isn’t a suspect. But maybe something she did or said had a bearing on what happened later. It could be important, Anna. Surely you don’t want an innocent person to be arrested for Jasper’s murder.”
Bolting to her feet, Anna reached for the vacuum cleaner. “I must finish my work.”
“According to Ms. Greenwood, you usually clean in pairs. Where’s your partner?”
“Mistress Spinner is indisposed.”
“Which Mistress Spinner? Miranda or Chloe?” Liss left her chair and managed to close the distance between them in time to observe Anna’s start of surprise. She hadn’t expected Liss to know their first names.
“Chloe,” she blurted out. “She just lost her husband. She is in mourning.”
“She . . . loved him?”
Anna shrugged. “She owed him her respect. I must get back to work.” She turned on the Hoover, counting on the roar to drown out any further questions.
Liss reached around her and shut it off again. This close to Anna, she realized that lavender wasn’t just the color of her clothing. She wore the scent as well.
“Anna, listen to me. If you want to leave Pilgrim Farm you have only to say so. You can’t be forced to stay there against your will.”
The Pilgrim woman’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Please, I must finish my work. Mr. Knapp will return for me soon and I have a great deal left to do.”
Although Liss heard the desperation in her voice, she couldn’t tell if it was caused by fear of the other Pilgrims, or a sense of misguided loyalty, or a reaction to her own dogged perseverance. With a sinking heart, she accepted that, no matter which it was, nothing she could say now would convince Anna to change her mind.
As soon as Liss stepped away from her, Anna resumed her vacuuming. She did not so much as glance her way again.
Frustrated by her inability to talk sense into the other woman, Liss barely refrained from slamming the door beh
ind her as she left the house. If she’d encountered Charles Knapp waiting outside, she’d have been sorely tempted to punch him right in the nose. As it was, it took her the entire walk back to the Emporium to calm down.
When she reached the shop, she went straight into her father’s arms. “I’ve been so lucky,” she whispered when he returned her hug. “You and Mother raised me to be my own person and taught me to be choosy enough not to marry a man unless he could love me just the way I am.”
“That’s the way it should be in a marriage,” Mac MacCrimmon said. “You love the other person, warts and all.”
* * *
Later that day, when her father had gone home and Liss was behind the sales counter checking the computer for new orders, her mother swept into the Emporium.
“We need to break into the Pilgrims’ compound,” she announced.
Liss stared at her. Then her gaze shifted to the window and her view of the solitary picket who was marching up and down in the town square with his sign.
“Liss, did you hear what I said?”
Still distracted, she said, “It’s more like a commune than a compound. As far as I could see, it’s a working farm.”
Vi huffed out an exasperated breath. “Are the Pilgrims armed?”
The question focused Liss’s attention on her mother once more, and on the innocuous-looking tote bag she carried slung over one arm. Did it still contain that ridiculous but deadly pink gun?
Liss cleared her throat. “I didn’t see any weapons when I was out there with Sherri and Dan. I didn’t see anything to indicate that they’re an anti-government or pro-militia group either. They aren’t living completely off the grid. They’re just . . . weird.”
“Too bad,” Vi said. “If they were breaking the law, they could be arrested and questioned and who knows what would come out.”
She scooped up the dust rag and the can of lemon-scented furniture polish Liss had abandoned on a nearby shelf and went to work shining a wooden plaque, one of a series Liss had purchased because of the Scottish-themed slogans painted on them.
“Something to shift suspicion away from Margaret would be nice,” Liss agreed, but her mother’s industrious cleaning brought a frown to her face. The plaques hadn’t been that dusty.
“Are the lavender ladies allowed to keep the money they earn cleaning houses?” Vi moved on to a higher shelf laden with glassware. “If not, that’s slave labor, or enforced servitude, or something like that.”
Liss almost cracked a smile. It appeared that her mother’s grasp of legal matters was even more tenuous than her own. “You’ll have to ask Sherri. Or better yet, ask Dolores Mayfield to research the topic, but I suspect the Pills see it as volunteering, and that’s something people ordinarily applaud.”
“Volunteering,” Vi scoffed. Then she froze, dust rag raised, as if struck by a thought. “Volunteering,” she repeated, more slowly this time.
“Mom?”
Bright-eyed behind her glasses, Vi abandoned her cleaning to approach the sales counter. “Margaret belongs to all sorts of organizations here in Carrabassett County. At least one of them must be raising money for something. I could go out to Pilgrim Farm—it has to be me because they know who you are—to solicit a contribution. Or maybe I could tell them I was looking for volunteers for, well, whatever community event is coming up next.”
Liss hated to douse her mother’s enthusiasm, but the last thing she wanted was for Vi to go into that nest of vipers on her own.
“Since the town discontinued its Twelve Days of Christmas Shopping events, there’s nothing going on in Moosetookalook until the annual March Madness Mud Season Sale, unless you count Joe’s Thanksgiving special at The Spruces. Somehow, I don’t think soliciting help with that would be well received at Pilgrim Farm.”
“There is no need for your sass, missy. Perhaps it would be best if I made something up.”
“Mom, any variation of this plan of yours is a bad idea. And it could be dangerous.”
“Hah! If they didn’t already know what you look like, you’d be raring to act on this idea yourself. You’re just put out because I get to do it.”
“Do what, exactly?” Liss planted her elbows on the counter and leaned across until she and her mother were nearly nose to nose. “Suppose you do drive out there and tell them some cock-and-bull story about a fictitious event—what then? You won’t get any takers. They’ll send you packing and you’ll be none the wiser for having wasted your afternoon.”
“You can’t be sure about that. Besides, I’ve been thinking about it and I’m pretty sure I’m already acquainted with Miranda Spinner. That’s not a common first name, you know.”
“When did you meet Miranda?”
“I’m not sure I did. Can you describe her for me?”
Liss called up the image in her mind, discounted the costume, and frowned a little as she tried to remember details. “I’d say she’s somewhere in her early fifties, or else she’s younger than that but looks older. She’s got that beaten-down-by-life look, but she’s sturdily built. She wears old-fashioned rimless glasses, round in shape, and she has a snub nose.” She shook her head. “Sorry. That’s all I can recall.”
“The snub nose clinches it. She was Miranda Harrison before she married, a local girl from Lower Mooseside. In fact, if Pilgrim Farm is where I think it is, her father must have been the one who sold that property to Hadley Spinner. My goodness. I can’t imagine why I didn’t realize that sooner.”
“How did you come to know Miranda?” Liss asked. “She’s a lot younger than you are.”
“That’s exactly how I came in contact with her way back when. I was her seventh grade teacher. I can’t claim to remember every student I ever taught, but I always tried to help the ones with low self-esteem think better of themselves. I truly believe that I guided a few of them to a more positive outlook on life.” She sighed. “Some were so desperate for attention that it nearly broke my heart.”
“And Miranda was one of those?”
“I’m afraid so. At thirteen, she was a great lump of a girl, and her looks were not improved by the addition of glasses and braces. She was teased unmercifully by the other children. She hated school—with good reason, I suppose. She had no interest in history, which was my passion. Try as I might to engage her attention, she spent most of her time in my class doodling on her notebook cover. Little hearts with initials in them, as I recall. But that’s not the most significant thing I know about Miranda. She had a younger sister. I had her in my class a few years later.”
“Why is that significant?” But even as Liss asked the question, she caught her mother’s drift. “You don’t mean—?”
“Oh, but I do. Miranda Harrison’s younger sister was named Susan.”
Chapter Twelve
As soon as Liss closed up the Emporium for the day, she and Vi went upstairs to talk to Margaret. It was with a certain reluctance that Liss rapped on the apartment door. If Vi was right about Susan and Miranda being sisters, then there was no way that Margaret hadn’t known of their relationship. She must also have known that Susan was Hadley Spinner’s sister-in-law. Why hadn’t she mentioned that, if not to the police, then to her family?
The usual barking preceded the sound of locks clicking open. Margaret peered out through a crack but she kept the chain on. “Oh, Liss. Vi. I was just going to lie down and take a little nap. If you could come back later, that—”
“Not a chance,” Vi said. “We’ve figured out a few things and now you’re going to fill in the missing pieces.”
Without making further objections, Margaret closed the door, took the chain off, and opened it again to let them in. “I’ll just make some—”
“No tea!” Liss was all too familiar with this delaying tactic. She caught her aunt’s arm and steered her firmly toward the living room sofa. “Let’s just sit down and get this over with.”
The two Scotties danced around her ankles, threatening to trip her up at any moment, but
Liss managed to get both her aunt and her mother settled before slipping out of the room to fetch one of the lined legal pads Margaret always kept in a kitchen drawer. Margaret was a list maker, just as Liss was. Armed with the tablet and a felt-tip pen, she returned to the living room and perched on the ottoman facing the sofa Vi and Margaret now shared. From the expression on Margaret’s face, Vi had already read her the riot act for her failure to share everything she knew about Susan.
“I can’t imagine why everyone thinks that’s so important after all this time,” Margaret said as Liss took the cap off the pen. “Susan’s been gone for a dozen years. Nothing to do with her can possibly have any bearing on the present day.”
“Except that Susan left family behind,” Vi argued. “Her husband, now dead. And her sister. Or had you forgotten about Miranda?”
“I haven’t forgotten, but I don’t see how she’s relevant.”
“She’s married to the head honcho.”
“Which makes me feel very sorry for her, but it still doesn’t explain why—”
“Margaret,” Liss interrupted, “let’s go about this in a sensible fashion. Any little detail could turn out to be important, so if we start at the beginning and fill all of them in, we should be able to tell what’s significant and what isn’t.”
Margaret eyed the pen and paper. “What do you have in mind?”
“A time line.” She wrote down a date, the year she’d left Moosetookalook for college and her parents had moved to Arizona. Twenty years ago. That hardly seemed possible.
“You need to start earlier,” Margaret said. “A lot earlier. Go back another . . . twenty-four years, more or less.”
“What happened then?” Vi looked as puzzled as Liss felt.
“That’s when Stu moved to Moosetookalook and opened up the ski shop.”
“Oh, I remember that.” Vi chuckled. “Not only was he from away, but he made quite a splash by buying one of the white clapboard Victorian houses on the square and painting the shutters purple. Then he put that sign with the life-sized skier on the roof of the front porch.”
For Liss, Stu and the ski shop had always been part of the everyday scene in Moosetookalook, but she could imagine the uproar his arrival must have caused. Back then, most of the businesses that now housed shops and apartments had still been single-family homes.
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