“Leave her be,” Vi said. “You’ve upset her.”
“She was in a sorry state long before I came along. I just wish I knew what to make of her.”
“Connie suffered long-term psychological abuse. No one can recover from that overnight.”
Was that it? Or was Connie conning them? Liss honestly couldn’t decide, although if her mother was right, that poor woman deserved sympathy and support, not suspicion.
“Can you persuade her to get professional help?”
“Let’s wait a bit longer before calling in a shrink,” Vi said. “She’s making progress.”
Liss didn’t argue, but she knew she wouldn’t rest easily until she knew what had pushed Connie into leaving Pilgrim Farm . . . and whether or not it was connected to the murder of Jasper Spinner.
* * *
Between the end of leaf-peeper season and the uptick in pre-Christmas shopping right after Thanksgiving, Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium was open on Sundays “by chance or appointment.” That being the case, Liss didn’t rush to get to work the next day. It was after nine before she set out, taking the time to appreciate the cloudless blue sky and the warmth of the sun on her face as she strolled at a leisurely pace toward the shop. At the corner, when she paused before crossing the street, the sound of raised voices broke the peaceful quiet of the morning. They were coming from Stu’s Ski Shop.
She intended to walk on past without even looking in through Stu’s front window. It was none of her business if he chose to quarrel with someone on such a beautiful day. She changed her mind when she recognized the vehicle parked at the curb. It was Gordon Tandy’s unmarked car and right behind it was a state police cruiser. The uniformed trooper sitting inside gave her a hard stare before redirecting his attention to Stu’s front door.
Liss followed the direction of his gaze just as it was flung open. Stu was still inside, but he was yelling loudly enough to be heard on the far side of the town square. Liss was only a few feet away and couldn’t miss hearing even if she wanted to.
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’d do such a thing!” Stu bellowed. “I’ve known Margaret Boyd since you were still pooping in your diapers.”
Gordon’s broad back filled the opening. He wasn’t exactly in retreat, but he wasn’t throwing Stu down and cuffing him either.
“I’m not saying that I think you would do that, but you were seen at the front of the shop and then going around to the side. You’ve got to admit the timing’s suspicious.”
“I was trying to get Liss’s attention, not her aunt’s. I’ve already told you that I banged on her door. It was locked. When no one answered, I went around back to see if she was in the stockroom.”
“Why?” Gordon asked.
Liss took a few steps closer. She wanted to hear that answer, too.
Stu’s voice dropped to a mumble. He hated having to confess to a weakness. “I’d had a few drinks. I get maudlin when I drink. Sometimes it helps to talk to someone. Liss is a good listener.”
“Oh, Stu,” Liss murmured. She’d never thought twice about providing him with a shoulder to cry on. That’s what old friends did. She covered the distance to the porch of the ski shop in a rush.
Gordon heard her coming and turned. He looked annoyed until he recognized her. “Can you verify that?”
“What? Someone pounding on the door of the shop? Yes, but I ignored it and I have no idea what time it was.”
“And? You told me you were in the stockroom. Did Stu talk to you?” He sounded disapproving, as if he thought she’d deliberately neglected to mention the encounter.
“I had earbuds in and was busy packing orders. “If anyone came to the back door, I wasn’t aware of it.”
She sent an apologetic glance Stu’s way, but he was preoccupied with glaring at Gordon. The expression “hopping mad” took on new meaning as she watched him bounce on the balls of his feet, his face turning redder and redder as his hands curled into fists.
“What’s going on?” Liss asked. “Why are you giving Stu a hard time?”
Gordon didn’t answer her. No surprise there. Instead he addressed Stu. “Anything else you want to tell me? Anything you might have seen? Because if no one went up there while she was gone, then Margaret Boyd is in deep trouble.”
“Either arrest me or get out of my shop,” Stu shouted. “I’ve got nothing more to say to you.”
When Gordon left, Stu slammed the door behind him but he didn’t lock it and the OPEN sign remained in place. Left standing on the porch, Liss watched Gordon speak with the uniformed officer and then get into his own car. Only after they’d both driven away did she let herself into the ski shop.
“So?”
“Give me a minute.” Stu’s voice was low and gravelly, as close to a growl as Liss had ever heard it. “I’m still pissed.”
“As in drunk or as in angry?”
The question, as she’d intended, made Stu laugh in spite of himself. “Come on back,” he invited her. “We’ll talk.”
His office was a cubbyhole with barely enough room for the standard pieces of furniture. Stu settled into the swivel chair behind his desk while Liss perched on one corner of that sturdy wooden object.
“I repeat . . . so? Obviously, you’ve moved up a notch or two on Gordon’s suspect list. Why?”
“He’s got some cockamamie idea that I saw Margaret leave with the dogs and decided that it was a perfect opportunity to sneak into her place, steal a knife, and use it to stab Spinner.”
“That’s crazy.”
“That’s what I said, but he claims someone saw me knock on the door of the Emporium and then sneak around to the back.”
Liss wondered who had come forward. Certainly no one she or Vi had questioned had admitted to seeing anyone on her porch. Still, she was glad to finally know who it had been.
“I heard the knocking, but you couldn’t have tried very hard to get my attention at the back door. I was right there. I’d have heard you if you’d made a racket.”
“I was going to bang on that door, but when I looked inside, I saw that you were wearing earbuds. It was obvious you didn’t want to be interrupted, so I left. I didn’t go back the way I’d come. I just cut across the driveway and into my place through the back door. I had a couple more beers and then I fell asleep. I never set foot in the town square again after my quarrel with Hadley, and I certainly didn’t kill Jasper Spinner.”
“They think he was mistaken for Hadley.”
“I wouldn’t have killed him, either. I wouldn’t have minded beating the crap out of him, but stab him in the back? No way.”
“I believe you,” Liss said. She was certain he’d told her the truth, too, but she could understand why the police had their doubts. Gordon must know Stu had gone off the rails once before and ended up in jail. Drunk driving was a serious offense, but he’d cleaned up his act since then and he’d never been accused of anything worse.
A little while later, when Liss crossed the short distance between Stu’s office and her stockroom, she tried to envision what the police thought had happened on the day of the murder. Even if Stu had seen Margaret leave with the dogs, why would he try to get into the building by way of the Emporium’s front door? That made no sense. Neither did a scenario where he’d creep into her unlocked apartment to steal a knife to use to kill Spinner. The pieces didn’t fit. Even if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, he had decided to kill Hadley Spinner, he’d never have tried to frame Margaret. Those two had been neighbors for decades and had always gotten along.
Liss tried to tell herself that she was glad that Gordon now appeared to be open to the possibility that Margaret had been set up. Unfortunately, pegging Stu as his main suspect was almost as bad. The police needed to consider other alternatives . . . and so did she.
Instead of turning the CLOSED sign to OPEN when she entered the Emporium, she called in reinforcements.
* * *
Sunday was not one of the days that the l
ibrary was open. At first, Dolores Mayfield was adamant that she could not invite Liss in on a Sunday morning.
“Sure you can,” Liss insisted over the phone. “You’re queen of your domain. You can do anything you want.”
She braced herself for an argument, but the intrepid Moosetookalook librarian surprised her.
“I was planning to contact you later today. I suppose there’s no reason we can’t meet at the library. Can you be there at eleven?”
Liss readily agreed. Instead of opening the Emporium, she spent the time until then making more notes to herself about what she already knew and what she suspected.
At five minutes past eleven, Liss and Dolores were seated opposite one another at one of the long library tables. Dolores’s smirk suggested that she was well pleased with herself even before she handed over the printouts she’d made. They were copies of newspaper articles, vital records, and other documents. There was so much material that Liss couldn’t immediately take all of it in.
“Can you give me the abridged version?”
“Certainly.” Puffed up with her own self-importance, the librarian started by delivering a little lecture. “I want you to understand that all of this comes from perfectly legitimate, perfectly legal sources.”
“Of course.” Dolores had always boasted that she had better contacts than most branches of law enforcement. Liss had never seen any reason to doubt it.
“First of all, it looks like Hadley Spinner really is a preacher. He has a diploma from one of those online colleges.”
“So he’s authorized to perform marriages. That’s too bad. It would have saved . . . well, never mind.”
“You mean that Mistress Gerard, the one Spinner was carrying on about on Friday, would have an easier time of it if she wasn’t really married? I agree, but she can always divorce her husband.”
Liss had forgotten that Dolores would have enjoyed a bird’s-eye view of Hadley’s arrest. She’d obviously overheard whose name he’d been shouting, too. While Liss felt certain that the librarian couldn’t know that Vi and Mac were hiding Connie, and preferred to keep it that way, she had no qualms about sharing her suspicions about the runaway Pilgrim.
“Divorce may be a moot point if Connie Gerard is the one who killed Jasper Spinner.”
When Dolores’s eyebrows arched in a display of skepticism, Liss outlined her reasoning. Explained aloud, her logic sounded lame even to her own ears. By the time she finished laying out her case against Connie, Dolores was shaking her head.
“I didn’t find anything in her past to make me think she’d turn violent. You can never know for certain, naturally. Anyone can kill, given the right circumstances.”
“Did anyone else strike you as a viable suspect?”
“In the murder? No. But I found plenty of evidence that the Pilgrims weren’t averse to committing lesser crimes. Hadley and Jasper Spinner first met George Gerard and Charles Knapp when all four of them were in jail.”
Liss stared at the librarian for a long moment before shaking her head to clear it. “I don’t know why that should surprise me. Hadley Spinner has con man written all over him.”
“Oh, that’s not why he was arrested. He was picked up for being drunk and disorderly. Jasper, too.”
“And the others?”
“The cops got George for picking pockets and Charles was charged with furnishing liquor to a minor. They all went to court the same day and they all got off with slaps on the wrist.”
Dolores riffled through the printouts until she found the one of the applicable newspaper account. Liss had to squint to read the tiny print. It was a long article, since the four men she was interested in hadn’t been the only ones in court that day.
“When did this take place?” she asked. “The date is too smudged for me to read it.”
“Almost two decades ago. By the time the four of them arrived here, they’d known each other for several years.”
“But why did they come here? That’s been bothering me. They bought a farm that was barely sustaining itself. If you’re going to live off the land, shouldn’t you pick a place with more potential for producing good crops?”
“Miranda must have been part of the deal. The ink was barely dry on the deed and her father hadn’t been dead a week before she married Hadley.” Dolores shrugged. “Don’t look at me for a better explanation. All I know is that those four men came here, bought a worthless piece of land, and invented a religion that put the male of the species at the top of the food chain. Need someone to take care of the house? Find a wife and convince her she’s subservient to you for life. Need more farm laborers? Go recruit some with the claim that they’ll be saved if only they buckle down and work hard.”
“Don’t forget that the other men were also rewarded with wives.” Liss relayed how Connie, Chloe, and Anna had come to join the New Age Pilgrims. She didn’t mention Dan’s sister. By some miracle, that incident appeared to have been one of the very few that never became grist for the Moosetookalook rumor mill.
“I’ve heard of worse behavior against women, but I sure wouldn’t turn my back on him,” Dolores said. “He’s only a few steps away from turning into one of those cult leaders who orders his followers to kill people, or kill themselves. I’m glad he’s locked up.”
United in their distaste for Hadley Spinner and what he had created, Liss shared a rare moment of complete accord with the older woman before she focused her attention on the pages in front of her. The text she skimmed confirmed her earlier conclusion about the Pilgrims—they’d all been at low points in their lives when they met Hadley Spinner.
“A lot of these folks seem to have ended up substituting one kind of dependency for another,” she observed.
“People with low self-esteem make easy targets,” Dolores agreed.
“So they do. But wouldn’t you think at least one of them would have smartened up after spending a little time at Pilgrim Farm?”
“One did. She ended up dead.”
“Susan.” Liss frowned. “Since it was her home before Hadley came, she probably had more reasons to stay than most. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that she’d be the one to rebel?”
“Not really. She just had that much longer to get fed up with Jasper’s high-handedness. I’ll tell you one thing. If Roger ever tried to send me out to clean houses, it would be his clock that got cleaned.”
Liss had to smile at that. Roger “Moose” Mayfield, for all his faults, was devoted to his prickly wife. He’d never dream of trying to make her do anything she didn’t want to do.
Although Liss continued to go through the printouts, a new train of thought kept distracting her from what she was reading. If Susan had reached the point where she wanted to leave the only home she’d ever known, maybe other longtime Pilgrims had gotten sick of Hadley’s lording it over them, too. What if one of the three men who’d started out with Hadley Spinner had come to resent his leadership? She remembered the way Jasper had looked when Sherri stood up to Hadley. It was as if he was glad to see his cousin get his comeuppance. What if George and Charles had felt the same way?
“They met in jail,” she murmured. “Dolores, did any of them have criminal records before that?”
“Nothing major. Petty theft. Bar fights. OUI and driving after a license was suspended. Why? What are you thinking?”
“Jasper looked . . . pleased when Sherri talked back to Hadley.”
“That would be on the day Dan lit into him?”
Liss felt her face grow warm. Of course Dolores would have heard about that incident. The whole town had.
“That’s neither here nor there. What I’m wondering is if there was a rebellion in the works. Maybe George or Charles meant to kill Hadley and murdered Jasper by mistake.”
“Any of the Pilgrims should have been able to tell the two men apart.”
Liss was heartily sick of hearing that line of reasoning. “It was getting dark by the time Jasper was killed and he was stabbed in the back.”
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“They were all in the town square that day,” Dolores conceded. “I guess any one of them could have done it, but why try to frame Margaret? Let’s face it, Liss. The killer had no reason to go into her place to look for a weapon unless implicating her was part of the plan.”
Too restless to sit still any longer, Liss pushed away from the table. “There must be some way to find out more. I hesitate to go out to Pilgrim Farm again, but maybe one-on-one—”
She broke off as an idea occurred to her. She had Joe Ruskin on speed dial and he answered on the first ring.
“Is anyone picketing the hotel today?” she asked. No one had shown up in the town square since Hadley’s arrest, but the hotel had been the original target of the protest, not the downtown businesses.
“There was,” Joe said, “but he left about an hour ago. Why?”
Darn, Liss thought. There went her best chance to lob a few questions at another Pilgrim. “Do you know which one it was? Was it the same man who picketed you on Friday?”
“I don’t know the guy’s name, but I’ve got his picture on one of my security cameras.” There was a pause. “Liss? None of the Pills were out here on Friday.”
“Interesting.” More than interesting. “Thanks, Joe.”
After she hung up, Liss relayed what she’d learned to Dolores.
“I can see from your expression that you think something’s not right about that. What’s bothering you?”
“George Gerard was supposed to have been picketing the hotel all day Friday while Hadley Spinner did his thing in the town square. Why wasn’t he there? Where was he?”
Dolores grinned. “Goofing off? When the cat’s away . . .”
Liss shook her head. “I think there’s more to it than that, and good old George just went to the top of my suspect list.”
“Why?”
“Because it was his wife who decamped on Friday, and as far as I can tell, he hasn’t tried to find her.”
“Maybe he doesn’t care that she’s gone. Or, consider this: the New Age Pilgrims may be in total disarray. For the first time in fifteen years, they don’t have someone there to tell them what to do.” Dolores fixed Liss with a stern look. “You could take advantage of the situation. Get yourself out there and question the Pills.”
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