Pete worked as a patrol deputy for the Carrabassett County Sheriff’s Department. He was supposed to be off duty but she wasn’t surprised that he’d heard the call on the police-band scanner he left on 24–7. That he’d come running both pleased and annoyed her. She was a big girl now. She didn’t need a protector. She had her own gun and everything.
“You okay?” Pete slung one arm around Sherri’s shoulders and hauled her up against his side.
He had eight inches of height and a good seventy-five pounds on her, but she managed to squirm out of the embrace by elbowing him in the ribs. At a distance of a few feet, she glared at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
His dark brows lifted into a hairline of the same deep brown shade. “Defensive much?”
“Sorry. Long night.”
Pete let it go, but she knew she’d be hearing about her testiness again later. The engagement ring he’d given her the previous February weighed heavily on her finger. This murder had happened on her watch. She wanted in on solving it. The last thing she needed was her fiancé hovering like a mama bird watching a fledgling take its first flight.
Pete backed off when Gordon Tandy showed up. As the local state police detective, he was in charge of the case. That meant he decided who stayed in the loop and who got booted out. First off, he wanted to talk to the witnesses—Margaret, the “innocent bystander,” and Sherri.
While Jeff and Pete secured the scene, making sure no one except the medical examiner and the officers Gordon had called in from the state crime lab entered The Toy Box, Gordon questioned and dismissed Mark Patton. Then he turned to Sherri.
“Officer Willett.”
“Detective Tandy.” She met his steady stare with one of her own.
He had eyes of such a dark brown, except for a few lighter flecks, that they almost looked black. Now that he was in his early forties, the fact that he looked younger than he was no longer created problems for him. Liss found those “boyish good looks” sexy, but Gordon was a bit intense for Sherri’s liking.
“Want to fill me in?” he asked.
Standing a little over six feet tall, Gordon Tandy looked every inch a cop. It didn’t matter that his job allowed him to wear a suit instead of a uniform. He had the walk, the attitude—he even kept his thick, reddish brown hair trimmed military short.
“The first thing you should know,” Sherri said, “is that this is the second shooting this week at The Toy Box.”
“You don’t need to stick around, Dan,” Liss said when she heard the clock in the cozy corner of the Emporium strike nine. “Gordon said you could go.”
He caught her arm as she started for the stairs behind the sales counter. “And he told you to stay put in the shop while he questions your aunt.”
“It’s pretty horrible to find a body.” Liss knew that firsthand. “She’s upset. Having me with her might—”
“You can go up after Tandy’s done with her. Stay out of it, Liss.”
She rounded on him, slapping his hand away. “It isn’t as if I want to have anything to do with investigating Thorne’s murder.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way. The less you know, the better.”
“I really hate high-handed men,” she muttered.
Part of her agreed with him, but another part was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to stay out of it. It had been her bright idea to force bear collectors to come to Moosetookalook and she had the feeling that, somehow, the shooting was tied to the Tiny Teddies.
“Did you see anything on your way home?” she asked him.
He rolled his eyes. “I give up. If I tell you what I told Tandy, will you give it a rest?”
“If I can.”
“Come and sit down, then. You’re as nervous as that kitten.”
“Poor little thing.” Liss let Dan lead her to the cozy corner and settle her into one of the comfortable chairs. Sherri had been halfway out the door after Margaret’s announcement before she’d remembered she was still holding the black kitten. She’d all but thrown it at Liss, who had promptly passed the cat off to Dan so she could look after her aunt. “Sorry about the scratches.”
“At least it doesn’t bite ankles.”
“Maybe Lumpkin will teach it that trick, if he ever stops hissing long enough.” Rather than talk about murder, she found herself filling Dan in on Lumpkin’s opinion of his new housemate. “I had to bring the kitten to work with me. I was afraid to leave it at the house.”
“Sounds like you plan on keeping it.”
“Oh, no. I mean…well…I don’t know what I mean.” She ran one hand over her face. “I’m babbling. I hate it when I babble, but I just can’t seem to take this in.”
“Do you really want to know what I told Tandy?”
Did she? Dan was right. It was none of her business.
He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I came home at dawn, following the plow. Margaret’s light was on. Your place was dark. The town square looked like a picture postcard. I didn’t notice if there were lights on at Thorne’s place, or anywhere else for that matter. I didn’t see anyone out and about except one stray snowmobiler. End of statement.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I wish I had seen something. I didn’t care much for Gavin Thorne, but no one deserves to be murdered.”
“I doubt his ex would agree with you.”
“Well, there you go. She killed him.”
“That would be good.” Liss gave a nervous little laugh. “Well, not good, exactly. Better than the killer being someone, well…local.” She shook her head. “I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”
“You’re entitled. Are you going to open the shop today?”
“Not unless Aunt Margaret wants to.” She sent a fulminating glare at the ceiling. “I’ll ask as soon as I’m allowed in.”
“The Emporium is your shop,” Dan reminded her.
“Only half of it. The other half belongs to my aunt.”
He frowned, hearing more than she’d intended in her tone of voice. “Are you worried about that now that she’s back?”
Liss shrugged. “A little. You saw how she’s changed, Dan. I don’t know what to expect next.”
“Change can be good. And if she wants the Emporium back, there are other things you can do.” His smile was gentle. “I might have an idea or two to suggest for your future.”
Liss scarcely heard him. Her thoughts were still on the shop. She’d poured all her energy into making it a success online. She didn’t want to give that up.
“Think positive,” Dan said.
“You’re right. Maybe I’m making too much of the gray hair and the ‘call me Margaret’ and it will all work out just fine.”
Too restless to sit still any longer, she left the cozy corner and returned to her post by the window. The mobile crime lab van had arrived. So had several other official-looking vehicles. Drawn by the yellow crime-scene tape, a crowd of gawkers had gathered in the town square. Liss recognized Lovey FitzPatrick at once.
“See that woman in the bright blue coat?” she asked Dan, who had joined her at the window. “Is she staying at the hotel?”
“Oh, yeah. Ms. FitzPatrick. Quite a character.” Abruptly, his voice hardened. “And here comes the news van. Damn.”
“And to think we wanted them here for the pageant…. Oh, my God! The pageant! What am I going to do about tonight’s ceremony? We already had to postpone last night’s event and for tonight I’ve got eight girls set to dress up as milkmaids. If we’re going to have to cancel, I need to call them.”
“Wait a bit longer. Maybe—”
“No.” Liss’s heart sank as she considered all the ramifications. “The Toy Box and the town square are just too close together. There’s no way we can pretend not to see the crime scene tape, and no way that the news media will let us get away with ignoring it. Besides, what’s the point now? The only Tiny Teddies were in Thorne’s shop. They’re evidence, right? No one will be able to do anything with them until the inv
estigation is finished.”
The hard grip of Dan’s hands on her shoulders brought her head up with a snap.
“Are you listening to yourself?” he demanded. “You didn’t get into this for Gavin Thorne’s benefit and there’s no reason why his death, tragic as it is, should bring everything to a grinding halt. Move the ceremony to the hotel. Hell, bring stock from the all shops in town and sell it in the lobby. We have snow, Liss. It’s eight days till Christmas. Do you honestly think Thorne would have closed his place if some other Moosetookalook businessperson had been murdered?”
“Crass commercial—”
“Common sense. It’s called making a living. No one expects you or me or anyone else to go out of business just because Thorne got himself killed.”
That he was right didn’t make Liss feel any better about the situation. She couldn’t quite shake the conviction that she’d been responsible for putting the events in motion that had led to Thorne’s murder.
Chapter Eight
The sound of footsteps on the stairs heralded Gordon Tandy’s return to the Emporium. He scowled when he saw Dan.
“Thought you’d have been on your way by now, Ruskin. Didn’t you say you were headed to work when you almost ran over Mrs. Boyd?”
Ignoring the other man, Dan turned to Liss. “I can stay if you want me to.”
“That’s okay. Gordon has to interview me, and you do have a job to go to. Will you make the arrangements at the hotel for tonight’s ceremony?”
“No problem.”
As soon as Dan had left—with flattering reluctance—and driven away, Gordon greeted Liss in a slightly more personal fashion with a peck on the cheek. “What ceremony?”
“Where have you been hiding? Surely you’ve heard about the Twelve Shopping Days of Christmas?”
“Oh, that. Yes, I did. Thought it was a stroke of genius, if you want to know the truth.”
She acknowledged the compliment with a little mock curtsey and a “Thank you kindly, sir.”
“Sorry I haven’t called lately, Liss, but you know how it is at this time of year. Everybody’s supposed to be happy. Hey, it’s Christmas! The added pressure is just too much for some people. They get drunk and crash their cars. Domestic violence calls increase. And the really screwed-up cases shoot, stab, poison, or otherwise do harm to their nearest and dearest.”
“Lovely job you have. Is that what you think happened here? The ex wife flipped out?”
He shrugged. “It’s too early to say and I couldn’t share any theories with you even if I had one. I need to examine the crime scene.”
“You didn’t do that first?”
He shook his head. “I collect what facts there are before I go in.” He steered her back to the cozy corner and pulled out his notebook. “Did you hear anything unusual last night?”
“No shots fired, if that’s what you mean. The snowplow went by at least once, but I don’t know when.”
He took her through the morning’s events, but since Liss hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary except a man in a gray coat banging on the door to The Toy Box, the interview quickly came to an end.
“I’ve been wanting to call and ask you out to dinner,” Gordon said when he’d closed his notebook and returned it to a pocket. “The job’s been in the way. Now this murder is really going to interfere with my personal life.”
“Look at the bright side. If you’re spending time in Moosetookalook, we’ll be able to talk to each other now and again. You can come by for coffee.”
“True. Maybe even lunch.” He leaned forward, taking her hands in his. “It’s damned frustrating, Liss. I spend more time than I should thinking about you, and have less time than ever to spend with you.”
“I’d like to see more of you, too, although I’d really prefer it didn’t take a crime scene to bring us together.”
His grip tightened. “Stay out of this investigation, okay?”
“Trust me, I have no plans to get involved. I’ve got too much else on my plate as it is.” She tried for a lighter tone. “It would be a really good thing if you could solve this case quickly. Moosetookalook doesn’t need the bad publicity.”
“My plan exactly, after which I have another plan, a remedy for that other problem…the one where I don’t see enough of you.”
This time the kiss was much more than a peck on the cheek. Liss was still reeling from the impact when the jangle of sleigh bells told her Gordon had left the building. She touched her fingers to her lips. The man did know how to kiss.
Then again, so did Dan.
Just after noon, Sherri knocked on Liss MacCrimmon’s kitchen door.
The first words out of Liss’s mouth were, “Please tell me there’s been an arrest.”
“Sorry, but no. I’m just here to bum lunch.”
“You’ll have to settle for peanut butter and jelly.”
“I can live with that. Heck, I can live on that. So, did your two gentlemen friends come to blows?”
“Oh, please.”
“Hey, I caught sight of Dan’s face when he left the Emporium. He was not a happy camper.”
They exchanged idle chitchat while Liss made a sandwich for each of them. Sherri bit into hers and chewed thoughtfully, her eyes on Liss’s face.
“What? Do I have peanut butter on my nose?”
Sherri chuckled. “I was just wondering what kind of Christmas presents they have in mind for you.”
Liss’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”
“Christmas is a very romantic time of year.”
“Oh, no. Nobody’s getting serious here.”
“You sure? I mean, you ought to give it some thought. Could be there’s a diamond ring in your future.”
“Just because you and Pete are getting hitched, doesn’t mean everyone else wants to tie the knot.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
“Damn!” Liss exploded. “Now I can’t get the idea out of my head. Dan did say something this morning about having a few suggestions for my future. And Gordon—Gordon said he thought he might have come up with a way to see more of me. Damn!”
“Hah! Told you so.” Sherri polished off the PB&J and reached for the soda beside her plate.
“It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Two attractive, personable men, both interested in being more than friends. I wasn’t able to choose between them, so I decided to go out with both of them. It was supposed to be oh-so-civilized and, eventually, I was sure I’d be able to pick one over the other.” Liss fingered the nubbly pattern on the tablecloth, a grim expression on her face.
“Didn’t work, huh?”
Liss shrugged. “I’ve gotten to know both Dan and Gordon much better over the last nine months, and if I’d been aiming to be lifelong friends with them both, I’d be completely satisfied.”
Satisfaction, Sherri thought, in line with the old Rolling Stones song, was probably the one thing Liss was not getting.
“After all this time, shouldn’t I know it if I’m in love? And if I’m not, doesn’t it seem unlikely I ever will be?”
“Can you see yourself having sex with one or the other of them?” Sherri asked.
“Sure. They both get the old juices flowing. But that isn’t the same thing, and I’m not about to sleep with two men at the same time.”
“You haven’t actually seen much of either one of them for the last few weeks,” Sherri reminded her.
Liss sighed. “Maybe that says it all. Proposal of marriage or not, I’m going to have to choose one of them soon…or dump them both. A fine heck of a note,” she added in a mutter. “Here I am, only a couple of years short of thirty, and I’m still doing a dog paddle in the dating pool!”
Sherri polished off lunch without further comment. She sympathized, but only to a point, and was glad she had only one ornery man to worry about. “How’s Margaret doing?”
Liss chuckled. “After Gordon left, I went up to her apartment. I found her lying on the so
fa, one arm over her eyes. She moved it just far enough to squint at me and tell me to go away because she was having an attack of the vapors.”
Sherri laughed out loud. “Margaret Boyd never had the vapors in her entire life.”
“Well, she’s decided she wants to have them now. She said she thought those Victorian ladies had a good thing going. Slightest little setback and they’d take to their fainting couches.” Liss made a derisive sound. “They had to, I told her. They were stuffed into corsets laced so tightly they couldn’t breathe.”
“And here I thought you were a fan of Gothic novels.”
“Only some of them. If one of them has a TSTL heroine, it makes me want to throw the book across the room.”
“TSTL?”
“Too stupid to live. You know the type. They hear a loud noise in the basement—or the attic, or the crypt—and they charge right in, unarmed and without backup, to find out what it is.”
“Usually wearing a flowing white nightie, right?”
“Only in the cover art.”
Since Liss had finished clearing the table, Sherri stood. “Are you going to open the shop this afternoon?”
“No. Margaret needs time to collect herself and she won’t have any peace if she can hear customers coming and going downstairs. It was a shock finding a dead man.”
“Of course it was.”
“Margaret’s also upset because she didn’t think she was much help to Gordon. She was up early, you see, but the only sounds she can remember hearing were normal. You know—engines revving, the snowplow doing its thing.”
Liss took a bag of kibble out of a cupboard and refilled the cat feeder. As if by magic, Lumpkin appeared, closely followed by the black kitten.
“What about you, sport,” Sherri asked the cat. “Did you see or hear anything suspicious?”
“I don’t think you want to hear Lumpkin’s thoughts today. He’s not happy about his little buddy there.” The kitten insinuated itself between Lumpkin and the food, but for a miracle Lumpkin allowed the incursion.
A Wee Christmas Homicide Page 9