“She deliberately hid the connection,” Liss went on. “In fact, she’s been very careful to stay in the background, unlike Rhonda and Sadie. I think she was trying to avoid being recognized.”
Slowly, Sherri nodded, remembering how flustered Dilys had been when she’d encountered Phineas MacMillan in the vestibule. She ducked her head and scurried away. And just before that, she’d told Sherri that she’d never met Phil. Clearly, that had been a lie.
“Why didn’t any of the other SHAS members spot her?” Sherri asked. “Looks like she must have known several of them. The old-timers, anyway.”
“That’s not so surprising,” Liss said. “Not only did she keep a low profile, but Dilys has changed a good deal since this picture was taken. Besides, as a housekeeper, and even as a waitress at the cocktail party, she’d have been almost invisible. Guests in hotels pay as little attention to staff as they do to the furniture. Unless they have a reason to complain about them, of course. Dilys could easily have gone unrecognized, particularly if she was trying to be inconspicuous.”
“It could be just a coincidence that Dilys Marcotte and Phineas MacMillan crossed paths again at The Spruces.” Sherri was willing to give Dilys the benefit of the doubt, since she had a better suspect in mind for Phil’s murder. “And wouldn’t most women who run into a former fiancé years later, when they’re older and heavier and working in a menial job, prefer not to be recognized?”
“Read the clipping.”
Sherri skimmed it. “So?”
“I found that in Dilys’s room at the Snipes house.”
Sherri winced. “You searched Dilys’s belongings?”
“I didn’t mess up any evidence.”
Sherri waved the clipping. “Hello? What do you call this? You removed it from Dilys’s room. Now we have only your word that it was ever there.”
“Oh.” Liss’s face fell. “Sorry.”
“It’s a little late to worry about it now.” Resigned to explaining yet another breach in protocol to the state police, Sherri slipped the clipping and the printout into a fresh file folder and labeled it with Dilys’s name. “We’ll just have to hope this doesn’t turn out to be critical to building a case. Tell me what you think it means.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Dilys’s engagement ended badly and she wanted revenge. She was a woman scorned. She meant to kill Phineas but mistook one twin for the other. Cracker Snipes told me that Dilys has only been in Moosetookalook for a couple of weeks. She moved here after she read that news item about the Burns Night Supper. She took a job at the hotel specifically so that she would be here at the same time as Phineas.”
“Well,” Sherri allowed, “her actions certainly seem suspicious, but wouldn’t she be able to tell the twins apart? It was Phil who died, don’t forget, and I’ve got a pretty good reason to suspect—” She broke off before she named Eunice. She’d said way too much already.
Liss glared at her. “What’s the big deal about sharing information?” she demanded. “I’ve helped the police out before.”
Sherri waffled. Her friend had a point. Liss’s insights, flawed though they often were, had been useful in the past. Besides, she could tell Liss what she’d found out about the brooch if she wanted to. That was her case. Sherri absently rubbed her temples, where a headache continued to throb. If she was honest with herself, she’d admit that she’d been dying to share everything she’d found out with an appreciative audience.
Quickly and concisely, Sherri brought Liss up to date on what she’d discovered about Phil’s sale of the piece of jewelry he’d claimed was stolen. “Eunice did answer a few questions before she lawyered up,” Sherri added. “Very reluctantly.”
“She admitted that Phil was trying to defraud the insurance company?” Liss asked.
Sherri nodded. “When Phil realized that someone had been in their suite while they were out, he decided to take advantage of the situation. Eunice didn’t approve. That’s why she continued picking up after the intruder.”
“But she still claims someone was in their room? They didn’t make up that part, too?”
“She says not. I don’t know if I believe her.”
Liss pondered this for a few minutes while she fixed herself a cup of coffee. “So, you think she killed her husband because…?”
“It’s the simple, logical explanation. As a widow, she doesn’t stand to profit all that much from his life insurance policies, but she does shed a husband who was screwing up her life. He’d lost all their money on bad investments. They were facing bankruptcy. His attempt at fraud could well have put them both in jail.”
“Only if he were found out. How could she know that you’d be so good at your job?” Liss sat opposite Sherri at the conference table. She let Sherri bask in her praise for about a minute and a half before she burst the bubble. “You’re jumping to one heck of a conclusion.”
“My theory makes as much sense as your scenario,” Sherri objected. “Dilys as a crazed killer out for vengeance? Give me a break.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to question Dilys about Phineas. Maybe talk to Phineas about her. He’d be the one who’d know if she had reason to want him dead.” She took a sip of coffee, made a face at the bitter taste, and set it aside. “If you don’t want to do it, I’ll be happy to.”
“Okay. Okay.” Sherri held up both hands in surrender. “I’ll follow up on your lead. But you have to promise me you’ll let me handle it. No interfering in police business, Liss. I mean it.”
Liss mimed crossing her heart and zipping her lips.
Sherri glanced at her watch. “It’s already lunchtime. Let’s head for the restaurant. Both Dilys and Phineas will probably be there. One thing is sure—everyone in this crowd likes to eat.”
A hard left as they exited the passage that led to the offices and conference room took them into a plush vestibule. On its far side was the restaurant. Sherri and Liss paused at the entrance, scanning the lunch crowd for Phineas or Dilys. Richardson Bruce shoved rudely past them, but since there were a couple dozen guests ahead of him in the buffet line, he was forced to stop short only a few feet inside the door.
“I don’t see either Phineas MacMillan or Dilys Marcotte,” Sherri said just as her cell phone rang. She glanced at the readout. “It’s the state police. I’ve got to take this.”
“I’ll stay here and keep an eye out for Dilys,” Liss volunteered.
“Do not question her on your own,” Sherri warned before she headed back to the privacy of the conference room. “Or Phineas, either. I hate to keep repeating myself, but this is police business.”
By the time Sherri finished her conversation with the state police officer who would be taking over Phil MacMillan’s homicide, nearly three-quarters of an hour had passed. She returned to the restaurant to find that Liss had been joined by Dan and Pete, and that they, and almost everyone trapped in the hotel, had already finished lunch. Only a few people remained, chatting over coffee. Only one, Rhonda Snipes, came in after Sherri did.
“Did Dilys or Phineas show up?” Sherri asked as she joined her fiancé and her friends.
“No sign of either of them,” Dan answered. “Maybe they ate earlier. Or maybe Phineas had something sent up. Dad insisted we offer room service today, although he’s hoping no one will want to eat in an unheated bedroom.”
Tricia Lynd, who had been bussing the next table, stopped at Sherri’s elbow on her way back to the kitchen. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Are you looking for Phineas MacMillan?”
“Do you know where he is?” Sherri asked.
“No, but I saw him just a little bit ago. He was in the vestibule. He was heading this way, but he ran into Mr. Bruce, who was on his way out of the restaurant. They talked for a minute or two and then they both walked away. I guess Mr. MacMillan changed his mind about having lunch.”
“Did they go somewhere together?” Sherri asked.
Tricia shook her head. “Mr. Bruce went toward the lobby, but Mr. MacMillan veered
off near the service elevator.” She frowned. “Of course, the elevators aren’t working with the power out, so I guess he must have been headed for the stairs. Or maybe the offices.”
“He might have been coming to see you, Sherri,” Liss suggested. “I bet Richardson Bruce overheard us say we were looking for Phineas. Remember? Bruce went into the restaurant just before you took that call.”
“If Phineas was trying to find me, he didn’t look very hard.” Sherri abandoned her salad and stood. She wasn’t very hungry anyway. “I think I’d better have a word with Richardson Bruce.”
Her quarry was still in the lobby, seated in one of the wingback chairs near the fire. Sherri thought about telling Liss to make herself scarce, but decided it hardly mattered at this late date.
“Mr. Bruce,” Sherri said in a no-nonsense voice that usually got results, “would you mind telling me what you said to Mr. MacMillan in the vestibule near the dining room a little while ago?”
Bruce had the grace to look embarrassed. “I, uh, told him you were looking for him. And for someone named Dilys Marcotte. I, uh, overheard you say so. Just before your phone rang.”
Liss had certainly pegged that correctly. How much more, Sherri wondered, had she got right? “And why, exactly, would you go out of your way to warn him?”
“If you must know, I was trying to annoy him. Don’t you think he deserves some payback for his insinuations about my honesty? I saw a chance to needle him—give him a hard time because the police were after him. It’s not often anyone can rattle Phineas MacMillan, least of all me.”
“So he was…alarmed by what you told him?”
“He was some startled,” Richardson said, relishing the memory. “And then he just took off. Are you going to arrest him for something? That would really make my day.”
“At the moment, I’m not going to arrest anyone, Mr. Bruce. Except, possibly, you yourself, for interfering in an investigation.”
Bruce sniffed. “I was just trying to get a rise out of Phineas. No harm in that.”
“I don’t suppose he said where he was going?”
Bruce shook his head.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Liss asked when she and Sherri were back in the conference room.
Sherri dry-swallowed two aspirin but doubted they’d do anything to relieve the constant pounding in her head. “I haven’t a clue what you’re thinking,” she admitted. But the proof was piling up that she was not cut out to handle a murder investigation on her own.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Liss asked. “What sent Phineas running off without his lunch wasn’t hearing that you wanted to talk to him as much as it was the mention of Dilys’s name. He didn’t know she was here. What do you want to bet he went looking for her?”
Sherri reached for her walkie-talkie. “That’s not good. If you’re right and Dilys killed Phil, thinking he was Phineas, then the last thing Phineas should do is confront her. We need to find them both before he gives her the opportunity to correct her mistake.”
Sherri alerted Margaret, Sam, and Joe to be on the lookout for Dilys and Phineas and then dispatched Pete to look for them in the two areas where most of the hotel’s guests had been congregating, the lobby and the restaurant. “Check the gift shop, too,” she said into the walkie-talkie. Joe Ruskin had arranged for Tricia to work there all afternoon, freeing Liss from the responsibility.
“I have an excuse to go up to the guest room Dan assigned to Dilys,” she reminded Sherri. “I brought a change of clothes back from town for her.” She retrieved the two plastic bags she’d left in the corner of the conference room when they’d gone to lunch.
“Okay. Yes—good idea. But take Dan with you. He can use his passkey to get into her room. She might be in there and not answer a knock.”
For once, Liss didn’t even think of objecting to having a big, strong man along to protect her. But as they headed upstairs, it suddenly dawned on her that Sherri didn’t really believe that Dilys had killed once and might kill again. More than that, Sherri expected Dilys’s hotel room to be the last place she’d be. Sherri was humoring her! Still, she went through the motions and, as she’d anticipated, there was no one in the room Dilys had slept in for the last two nights. Liss came away from there still carrying her two plastic bags.
“Does Dilys have a locker?” she asked Dan on their way back downstairs. “Someplace to store her purse when she’s working?”
“All the employees do. I can open it, but I think we’d better leave that to Sherri, don’t you?”
Liss jiggled the plastic bags. “I just want to leave Dilys’s clothes there.”
“Sure you do.” But he led the way to the locker room and opened the one that had Dilys’s name taped to the front.
Like the hotel room, it was empty. Disappointed, Liss deposited Dilys’s possessions inside. Then, while Dan went to report their lack of success to Sherri, Liss took the other bag to Rhonda. The matriarch of the Snipes family had been in the dining room when they left it to go in search of Richardson Bruce. She was still there, sitting in a corner by herself, hunched over a cup of tea.
“Have you seen Dilys?” Liss asked when she’d given Rhonda the change of clothing and received a surprised “thank you” in return.
“Not since before lunch. Was everyone okay in town? My family?”
“Uh, sure. The place was nice and warm from the woodstove.”
Rhonda stared hard at Liss’s face, then sighed. “Let me guess—guzzling beer and playing cards, all three of them?”
“Uh—”
“Never mind.” She started to get up.
“Wait, Rhonda. Sit, please. Can I ask you about Dilys?”
“What about her?” Reluctantly, Rhonda resumed her seat.
“She’s your cousin, right?”
“Distant.”
“Did you see much of her before she moved into your spare room?”
“Once in a while. Not often.”
“Did she ever say why she wanted to move to Moosetookalook?”
“Said she had a fancy to work at a grand hotel.” Rhonda shrugged and took a sip of her tea. “Lot of nonsense, that was. A job’s a job, and cleaning up strangers’ messes is the same no matter how ritzy the surroundings are.”
“What about the group staying here, the Scottish Heritage Appreciation Society? Did she ever mention them to you?”
Rhonda shook her head, but she eyed Liss with increased wariness.
“Did Dilys have a purse with her?”
“A purse? What kind of question is that?”
“Her locker is empty. We just wondered if—”
At that, Rhonda gave a screech and sat up straight. “What were you doing snooping in her locker? Those are supposed to be private.”
“Now, Rhonda, you know management reserves the right to open employee lockers. I assume that’s why Sadie hid her cigarettes elsewhere.”
But Liss’s words had no effect. Instead of calming down, Rhonda became more agitated. She shoved her chair away from the table and came to her feet in a rush. Her teacup overturned, spilling the dregs onto the snowy white tablecloth. “What’s going on here? Why are our civil rights being violated?”
Liss gaped at her. Civil rights? Where had that come from? “We’re trying to discover who killed Phil MacMillan, Rhonda. That’s all.”
“MacMillan?” A stricken look on her face, Rhonda abruptly plopped back down in her chair. “That’s who was killed? MacMillan? I didn’t know. No one ever said a name.”
“You know, then, that Dilys was once engaged?”
Face pale, hands trembling as she automatically righted her empty teacup, Rhonda nodded. “Dilys was going to marry some guy named MacMillan, but he called it off at the last minute. She was bitter about that. Who wouldn’t be? Is he the one Sadie found?”
“No. Dilys was engaged to Phineas MacMillan. It was his brother, Phil, who was killed.”
“Phil. That’s right. I remember now. Dilys blamed the brother�
�Phil—for breaking them up. He faked some pictures. Made it look like Dilys was running around on her fiancé. She told anybody who’d listen that she’d like to kill that sonofabitch.”
Realizing too late what she’d just said, Rhonda’s eyes went wide, but she could not call back the damning words.
So, Liss thought, maybe the murderer didn’t make a mistake, after all. Maybe it was Phil Dilys had intended to kill all along.
Chapter Sixteen
Sherri had mixed feelings about bringing civilians into the search for Dilys and Phineas, but she didn’t see that she had much choice, especially after Liss repeated her conversation with Rhonda. If she didn’t look for the woman, Liss would go hunting for Dilys on her own. On the other hand, two officers of the law simply couldn’t canvass the entire hotel by themselves. That being the case, Sherri felt justified in gathering her troops together in the conference room—herself and Pete, Liss, Dan, and Joe, and Sam and Margaret, who had come back from town at the same time as Liss and Dan.
“I’m trying to locate Dilys Marcotte,” Sherri announced. “It looks as if Phineas MacMillan, upon discovering that Dilys, to whom he was once engaged, was in the hotel, went looking for her. Now they’re both missing.”
“Phineas could be dead,” Liss said.
Sherri scowled at her, but she supposed they all had a right to know the rest. “It’s possible Dilys is the one who killed Phil. Possible. So be careful.”
“Maybe she didn’t kill anyone. Perhaps Phineas realized he made a terrible mistake by breaking up with her and you can’t find them because they’re off somewhere having spectacular make-up sex.”
Everyone turned to stare at Margaret Boyd, showing an interesting variety of facial expressions.
“What? It could happen.”
Sherri cleared her throat. For all she knew, Margaret was right. “Whatever the reason for their disappearance, I want them both found, especially Dilys, and the sooner the better. If that means knocking on every door, so be it.”
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