He was right, drat him!
“You could start off in the town square and march everyone—well everyone who can march—up here for the final performances. A parade.”
“In winter?”
“Why not? Farmington just held their annual Chester Greenwood Day parade a week or two ago.” Chester Greenwood, Liss recalled, was the native Mainer famous for inventing earmuffs.
The change in venue wasn’t a bad suggestion, but she hated to have to alter her original plan. Again. “I’ll think about it.”
Pointedly ignoring Dan, she once more looked around for Gordon, but he’d done a disappearing act. So had Marcia and Stu.
Marcia? Should she have put the other woman on her list of suspects, after all? Could the consignment shop owner have lied about how she’d acquired her current batch of Tiny Teddies? If she’d stolen them from Thorne’s inventory instead of buying them from Eric Moss…wait a minute!
Inventory!
Liss gave herself a mental slap upside the head. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Thorne must have made a list of the Tiny Teddies he had in stock. Maybe he’d even indicated where they’d come from—Eric Moss or some other source. If Sherri could get a look at it….
“I don’t like that look in your eye,” Dan muttered.
“I was thinking, that’s all.”
“Thinking about Gordon Tandy?”
“I want to tell him to talk to her.” Liss gestured toward the table where Lovey had taken refuge, but Lovey FitzPatrick was no longer sitting there. Only her plate remained, still overflowing with food from the buffet. “Well, pooh!”
“You were going to stay out of this investigation,” Dan reminded her.
Liss sighed. “I don’t want to be involved. Really. But if I have an idea that I think might help, then there’s nothing wrong with sharing it with the authorities.” It was frustrating not knowing what was going on, but she didn’t confide that feeling to Dan. He was overprotective enough as it was.
“I’d think you’d have too much on your plate to have time to worry about solving Tandy’s case for him, what with the two remaining ceremonies and the pageant and all. And I still think—” He broke off when Liss slanted him a quelling look. He sent her a sheepish grin. “Can’t blame me for trying. I’m supposed to look out for the hotel. Bring in new business and all that.”
Liss considered for a moment longer and felt a slow smile creep over her face. She stuck out a hand to grasp his and shake it. “Congratulations. You talked me into it. We’ll move everything here for tomorrow evening and Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.”
Because he knew her so well, suspicion tinged Dan’s response. “Great, but…?”
“Oh, didn’t you realize? You’ll have to take charge of the…participants. I’ll see to it that the crates of poultry are delivered to The Spruces first thing in the morning.”
“So I was thinking,” Sherri said, “that if you boot up the computer you took from The Toy Box and take a gander at Gavin Thorne’s inventory, you might find a description of the Tiny Teddies Thorne acquired to replace the first lot.”
“And this would help how?” Gordon Tandy wore his skeptical face.
“Well, then you’d know for sure if any were taken from the crime scene.”
God! This had sounded so simple when Liss suggested it. Take a peek at the inventory. Discover if the bears that were missing had been wearing the same outfits as those now in Marcia’s consignment shop. Liss had even given her a flyer with some of Marcia’s bears pictured.
Gordon, however, wasn’t making things easy. He’d been working at his laptop when she rapped on the door of the P.D. Her own office had been commandeered for temporary use by the state police. Gordon hadn’t stopped tapping on keys once since she started her spiel.
At last he looked up at her. His expression was not encouraging, so his words surprised her. “It’s not a bad idea.”
Silence.
Sherri rolled her eyes. “But?”
“We’ve been working on the theory that Thorne surprised a thief who was after the money in his cash register. Why do you think the bears were the target?”
“Because they’re missing.” She restrained the impulse to add a “duh!” to the end of that sentence. It would be a really bad idea to tick off the man in charge.
“Or they were sold.”
“Or they were sold,” she conceded.
Gordon drummed his fingertips on the desktop. “The cash register was empty. The gun Thorne usually kept nearby was gone. Those facts we know. Anything concerning stolen Tiny Teddies is pure speculation.”
“That doesn’t make theft any less possible,” Sherri argued.
His lips twitched. “And I assume you’re about to suggest that I assign you to take a look at the records, right?”
“Why not? I used to work at the Emporium. I know how inventories are set up.” At his skeptical expression, her back stiffened and her chin came up defiantly. “Look, Gordon, you’re the one who wanted me for local intel. This is part of the package. Furthermore, I could be a lot more effective if you’d share all the information you have. Right now, half the time, I feel like I’m playing blindman’s buff!”
“This isn’t a game, Sherri.”
“I know that. And I’m not an amateur. I’ve had police training. Okay, I don’t have as much experience as you do, but I know I can help find Thorne’s killer.”
Oh, Lord! She was whining. That wasn’t going to help her case.
She had the uneasy suspicion that Gordon Tandy was laughing at her, but at least he tried to hide it. Her knees went weak with relief when he turned the screen of his laptop toward her. She sank into the visitor’s chair she’d been too agitated to take before and scanned the file in front of her.
It didn’t show an inventory page, but rather a ledger sheet on which Thorne had recorded the purchase of the new batch of bears. Under Tuesday’s date he had entered an expenditure of “two thousand dollars (cash)” for “forty Tiny Teddies (assorted).”
“That’s it? No descriptions? No source?”
“Dead end,” Gordon affirmed, leaning back in Jeff Thibodeau’s rump-sprung chair.
“How many sold? Could he have run out?”
“There Thorne’s bookkeeping stops being helpful. He didn’t enter the bears into his inventory program. They don’t show up all nicely itemized on his cash register receipts. In fact, my guess is that he sold them off the record, hoping to avoid the hassle of income and sales tax. It’s possible he unloaded all forty, but there’s no way to tell.”
Sherri bounced to her feet again and began to pace the confines of the small room. “No. No, he’d want to keep a few back, just the way Marcia has. He’d know he could get even higher prices for them. There must have been at least one or two in the shop, or in his apartment, when he died.”
Gordon’s intense dark eyes bored into her. “You really think the killer was after the bears?”
“I know it sounds absurd, but yes. And suddenly, after Thorne’s death, Marcia Milliken has more bears.”
“That’s Marcia Katz, right? From the consignment shop?” Gordon scribbled a note to himself but Sherri could not decipher his handwriting.
“Did you know Marcia and her husband when they lived in Waycross Springs?” Sherri was aware that Gordon had been born and bred and still lived there. Waycross Springs and Moosetookalook weren’t far apart as the crow flew but it took almost an hour to drive between them along the winding, roller-coaster roads of rural Carrabassett County.
“Slightly.” He shrugged. Residents of small towns tended to know all their neighbors, at least to nod to.
“Anyway,” Sherri continued, “I know Marcia bought her Tiny Teddies from Eric Moss, but—”
Gordon’s chair hit the floor with a resounding thump. “Back up. What’s this about Marcia and Moss?”
Genuinely surprised, Sherri blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “But I thought you questioned M
arcia last night. Liss saw—”
“Liss MacCrimmon! I should have known. I thought I warned you about talking to her.”
“She just mentioned that she saw you—”
“She didn’t see me talking to Marcia because I didn’t talk to Marcia.” Gordon glared at Sherri, which put her back up.
“Small town, remember? Liss saw you. She saw Marcia. She jumped to a conclusion.”
Gordon rubbed his temples, as if the entire subject of Liss MacCrimmon gave him a headache. “Sorry. Overreacted. I don’t want her involved.”
“I know.”
He was worried Liss would get herself into trouble…again.
Wearily, Gordon waved Sherri back into the visitor’s chair. “You are not to repeat one word of anything you hear in this office to Liss MacCrimmon, is that clear? She almost got herself killed the last time she meddled in a murder investigation. I’m not taking any risks with her safety this time around.”
“No problem.” Sherri perched on the front edge of the seat. “But you should know that it was Liss who made me think that what the bears were wearing might help. It was a good thought. They’re limited editions. If Marcia’s bears are wearing the same outfits as some of the ones Thorne had…well, that would make her supplier—Eric Moss—a suspect, right?”
“My officers interviewed every Toy Box customer they could locate. Some of them gave descriptions of the Tiny Teddies they saw. Others showed off the bears they bought on Tuesday. None of the descriptions matched those we identified as being in the consignment shop. Someone did check, even on the Tiny Teddies Marcia is keeping back for the auction on Sunday.”
“Thorne didn’t have a new supply of bears until Tuesday afternoon,” Sherri mused aloud. “The storm was already pretty bad by five and he closed up around six. It seems to me that he must have had a few bears left.”
“Did you see the size of the mob that descended on The Toy Box?”
Remembering, Sherri had to admit that Thorne could have sold them all. “Dead end?”
“Dead end.”
Sherri hesitated, then blurted out a question. “Why were you at the hotel?”
“I went to The Spruces last night to track down Eddie Bruce, the snowplow driver.”
“Did he see anything the night of the murder?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Lots of snow. A few cars and trucks, including Ruskin’s. One idiot was out on a snowmobile before the sun even came up.”
“A snowmobile? Maybe that’s how the killer fled the scene of the crime.”
Gordon cracked a smile. “Don’t think so. It was Doug Preston’s boy, Frank. He snuck out of the house and took off on one of the family machines to go see his girlfriend. He’s fourteen.”
“I don’t suppose he saw anything suspicious?”
“A lot of snow, especially after he got hung up in a thicket. Had to use his cell phone to call his father for a rescue. He’s been grounded till after Christmas.”
Sherri heaved a resigned sigh. “Dead end?”
“Dead end.”
Liss first noticed unusual activity at The Toy Box when the crime scene tape came down. Surprised, since it had been only a bit more than forty-eight hours since the discovery of the body, she cast an occasional glance that way as the afternoon wore on.
A truck from a local glass replacement company pulled up in front of the shop at two and in short order the delivery men had installed a new display window. Next to arrive was the crew from a cleaning company that specialized in putting things to rights after blood or other bodily fluids had been spilled. Sherri had mentioned them to Liss once. They did regular cleaning, too, but the police often recommended their services to victims of violent crimes.
By the time Margaret returned from The Spruces at four o’clock, smelling strongly of gardenias, Liss could no longer contain her curiosity. She left her aunt in charge of the Emporium and headed for the scene of the crime.
Inside The Toy Box, Liss found Felicity Thorne supervising the cleaning and repair efforts. Well turned out in a dark green pantsuit, her hair coiled into an elaborate twist at her nape, Felicity looked every inch the business owner. Her temperament, however, showed no improvement over their previous encounter. She scowled at Liss and sounded as irritated at the interruption as she looked. “What do you want?”
“I’m just being neighborly.” Liss surveyed the shop, noting that the cleanup was nearly complete. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can do to help?”
“Try minding your own business.”
“Your late husband—”
“Ex husband.”
“Your late ex husband was a member of the Moosetookalook Small Business Association. He was a big part of our Twelve Days of Christmas promotion. I don’t think it’s out of line for me to ask if you plan to reopen the toy store. This is a small, friendly community, Ms. Thorne. We’ve found that pulling together makes the sleigh go faster.”
Felicity’s gimlet-eyed stare lasted a moment longer. Then she blinked twice. When she had Liss in focus again she sent a hard, assessing look her way before a slow smile curved her lips. For just a moment, Liss thought she seemed approachable, but the impression was only an illusion.
“Sleigh, huh? What century do you live in?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a little old-fashioned.” Liss’s muscles had tensed to the point where it was physically painful to hold her ground, but she hadn’t finished with Felicity Thorne. “Is there to be any sort of funeral or memorial service? I assume you’re in charge of that, as well.”
“He didn’t like funerals,” Felicity snapped. “Neither do I.”
Liss couldn’t say she cared much for displays of public mourning either, but she found the other woman’s attitude offensive. Without another word, she turned on her heel and headed back toward the door.
“Wait. There’s something you can do for me, after all.”
One hand on the doorknob, Liss glanced warily over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Spread the word that I’ll be having a going-out-of-business sale. Then I’m putting this building on the market and getting the hell out of Dodge. If I never set foot in this one-horse town again, it will be too soon.”
“And you have a good day, too,” Liss muttered as made her escape. It took considerable will power not to slam the door behind her.
Late Friday evening, after the ceremony at The Spruces—the ten ladies dancing—Liss and Sherri found a quiet spot in the lobby, shielded by a large pillar, and settled into two deep plush chairs angled toward each other to make private conversation easier.
“What’s happening with the investigation?” Liss asked.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you about the case.” In contrast to the prim-sounding words, Sherri dug into a pocket and handed over several pieces of yellow-lined paper, folded in eighths.
Liss hesitated. “I don’t want you to get into any trouble.”
“A good detective, according to the textbooks, uses any and all resources to help solve a crime. The state police have made me their local expert. I’m soliciting your input for the same reason.”
“Thanks.” Liss glanced around to make certain they weren’t being observed, then quickly read through Sherri’s notes. “Not Marcia or Stu,” she murmured, coming to the part about Gordon’s reason for being at the hotel the night before. “The plow driver.” Sherri’s summary of what the driver had told him was a succinct “nothing relevant” with no details.
Most disappointing to Liss was the lack of detailed inventory records for Thorne’s stock. “Maybe he didn’t have time to list the new acquisitions properly.”
“Gordon thinks he didn’t intend to record them, that he was trying to save paying sales tax. You know—cheat the government while turning a profit.”
“No indication of who supplied the bears?”
“Nope. Just the price. He paid fifty bucks apiece for forty bears.”
“Then I expect he got them from E
ric Moss, just as Marcia did. That’s the price Moss quoted to me.”
“No sign of Eric Moss yet,” Sherri volunteered, “but Gordon seems to regard his absence as a minor and unimportant mystery.” She grimaced, apparently remembering she wasn’t supposed to “talk” to Liss about the case. “I can’t tell you where his focus is, but it’s not on Moss and that’s all I’m saying.” She mimed zipping her lips.
“There isn’t much mystery in where this new supply of Tiny Teddies came from. The only logical source is the other side of the border. They entered this country illegally from Canada.”
Sherri’s nod encouraged her to go on.
“Moss, or one of his contacts, must be smuggling them in.”
“Let’s say you’re right. Your hypothetical smuggler has no reason to kill Thorne. As long as Thorne was profiting from the arrangement, which he must have been, he wasn’t likely to go to the cops.”
“A falling out among crooks? Whatever happened, there has to be a connection between Thorne’s murder and the Tiny Teddies.”
“Why?”
Liss just looked at her.
“Think about it. Really, the idea is pretty far-fetched, especially when—” She broke off, waving away any questions about what she’d almost said.
Liss didn’t push. Sherri was conflicted enough as it was, forced to choose between her friendship with Liss and her career prospects. But whatever lead Gordon Tandy was pursuing, Liss was convinced it was the wrong one.
“It’s the timing,” she murmured, thinking aloud. “And the fact that the Tiny Teddy, the one in the chef’s outfit, was also shot through the heart.”
“A warning?”
“Maybe.”
Sherri sighed. “I wish we knew for certain if there were Tiny Teddies in The Toy Box when Thorne was killed.”
“I wonder if The Toy Box’s going-out-of-business sale will include any little bears? I spoke with the not-so-grieving widow this afternoon. She’s out for a quick buck.”
A Wee Christmas Homicide Page 12