A Wee Christmas Homicide

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “Or Felicity,” Liss agreed. “Don’t worry. She wasn’t on my list in the first place.”

  A little silence fell. “You’re determined to take a look at that piece of land?” Margaret asked hesitantly.

  Liss sighed. “It’s probably a waste of time, but it’s a loose end.” She shrugged. How could she expect Aunt Margaret to understand the compulsion she felt. She didn’t understand it herself.

  “And the only way to get there is by snowmobile?”

  Liss nodded. “That’s why I made arrangements to borrow Stu’s machine. Gordon and I will drive up there this afternoon.”

  “Gordon Tandy,” Margaret mused. “Isn’t he more than ten years older than you are?”

  “We have a lot in common,” Liss protested. She wasn’t certain if she meant their interest in crime or their interest in things Scottish but she didn’t suppose it mattered.

  The sound of sleigh bells jangling as the door opened brought both Liss and Margaret to their feet. Liss automatically put on her professional shopkeeper smile for the first customer of the day. It faded when she recognized Ernie Willett.

  He went straight to Margaret and gave her a peck on the cheek. They made an incongruous couple. At her new weight, Margaret wore business casual with a professional woman’s flair. Ernie sported a quilted, blaze-orange vest all year round. With his deeply lined face, gnarled fingers, and perpetual slouch, he’d always reminded Liss of a particularly sour-tempered gnome.

  “Hello, Missy,” he greeted her. He rarely used her name.

  “Mr. Willett. What brings you to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium?”

  “I came by to talk to Margaret about our plans for Christmas Day.” He sidled closer to Liss’s aunt and an expression of delight came over his grizzled features. “Hey, you smell good today. Keep this one. Those other perfumes were too danged strong for a delicate flower like you.”

  Liss smothered a laugh.

  Her aunt fixed her with a stern look as she gathered up her coat and the briefcase she’d brought downstairs with her. “Good timing,” she said to Ernie. “You can drive me to work and we can talk on the way. I do have one suggestion for you, Liss,” she threw over her shoulder when Ernie had opened the door for her and set the bells ringing again.

  “What’s that?” Liss hoped she wasn’t about to receive auntly advice on juggling men friends, especially not while Sherri’s father could overhear.

  Apparently unaware of her niece’s train of thought, Margaret rolled her eyes upward toward the top of the door frame. “Replace those annoying sleigh bells with something that sounds a little more pleasant.”

  Gordon pulled off the two-lane country road when Liss told him to, but he looked at her askance. “Are you sure this is where you want to start? We could have picked up the same trail five miles back, near an actual parking lot.”

  He didn’t bother to point out that they could also have found a similar trail much closer to Moosetookalook. To reach this point they’d had to drive nearly an hour along the road that ran north through Carrabassett County and into Quebec.

  “I just want to take a little test run and I came across a site online that showed all the trails and where they cross streets and highways.” That was true enough. The maps she’d found there had told her where to turn off the trail groomed by a local snowmobile club to get to the site marked in Eric Moss’s Maine atlas.

  “You’re the boss.”

  Gordon had Stu’s machine off its trailer in short order. Liss got aboard and started the engine, on the first try, while he locked his truck and made a final check of their gear. Although Liss had seen his wistful glance at the controls, he climbed on behind her without a word of protest, content to let her drive.

  Liss passed back the map she’d printed out and marked. “We’re looking for the spot with the big red X,” she said over her shoulder. “Don’t let me drive past it.”

  His visor was open, giving her a clear view of his skeptical expression. Before it could turn into suspicion, she flipped her own face mask into place and put the snowmobile in motion.

  She started off slowly. Stu had been right about the condition of the snow. Even on a well-maintained trail it was rough going. They bumped along, the noise of the engine discouraging conversation. She felt as if every inch of her body had gone numb from the cold and the constant vibration of the snowmobile by the time Gordon shouted into her ear.

  “There! That’s the place you marked.”

  Glad she’d read the owner’s manual and knew how to stop, Liss brought the snowmobile to a satisfactory if jerky halt and let it idle as she scanned the frozen landscape. It was also a good thing she’d brought Gordon along, she decided. She wouldn’t have recognized any landmarks in this sea of white.

  “You’re sure?”

  “The area you want to look at is through there.” He pointed to a stand of birch trees. “Looks like someone else has been this way recently.”

  Liss’s spirits lifted. That would make things easier. It might also mean she’d been right about smugglers using this route.

  Navigating carefully, she eased the snowmobile onto an even icier and more deeply rutted surface, the track left by one machine breaking its own trail. It was impossible to tell how often it had been used or when, but that it existed at all seemed to confirm her theory.

  Behind her, Liss could sense Gordon’s increased wariness. He must have guessed by now that she was up to something. She was surprised he didn’t simply reach around her and hit the “kill switch.”

  She refused to feel guilty about her ruse. He’d agreed to come with her. If he’d needed the break she offered and had been looking forward to getting away from the case for a few hours, well they’d had a relaxing drive to get this far. She did owe him an apology, along with an explanation. He’d get both, but not until they reached their destination.

  The trail suddenly became much rougher and the day seemed colder, too. Liss shivered in spite of her warm clothing. She wished she’d opted for mittens rather than gloves.

  Gradually, the trees through which they’d been traveling began to thin out. A few minutes later, she pulled into a clearing. At the center was a small shake-shingle house—the “rustic cabin” Jason Graye had described.

  Rustic was right. Not only were no phone or power lines in sight, but off to one side was a phone-booth-sized structure that could only be an outhouse. The quarter moon cut into the door confirmed Liss’s guess.

  She stopped the snowmobile, dismounted, and removed her helmet. Then she took a quick peek at the compass attached to the zipper of one of the many pockets on the outside of her hot pink snowmobile suit and turned so she faced due north.

  The border with Canada was plainly distinguishable from the surrounding countryside—no fence or signs, but the trees had been clear-cut in a wide swath on both sides. She also saw evidence that the rough snowmobile trail they’d been following continued on across the gap in the pines and spruces, straight into the country next door.

  Gordon’s gaze followed hers. His face hardened. His voice was deceptively mellow. “Something you’d like to share, Liss?”

  “It was a hunch. You’ve heard my theory about smuggling Tiny Teddies.”

  “All too often.” He removed his helmet and ran his hand over his short-cropped hair. “You know I don’t have jurisdiction over smuggling cases, right? There are channels I have to go through, rules to follow. Officers from the border patrol and customs are the ones who—”

  Liss put her gloved fingers to his lips to stop the lecture. “We’re here now, Gordon. You can see for yourself that someone’s been using this route to get into Canada. Shouldn’t we at least look around?”

  “Stay here.” He headed for the cabin.

  “No way.” She caught up with him as he started to circle it.

  There were no footprints showing in the snow except their own. Liss took that as a good sign. Scanning the ground, she almost ran into Gordon when he stopped abruptly r
ight in front of her.

  “Well, well,” he said.

  A shed was attached to the back of the cabin, little more than a lean-to to keep the weather off what was stored there.

  “An ATV,” Liss breathed, delighted at their discovery. She punched Gordon in the shoulder. “Maybe my theory wasn’t so far-fetched, after all.”

  “Who owns this land?”

  “Someone from out of state now, but he bought it from Jason Graye, and Gray got it from Felicity and Gavin—”

  “Thorne!”

  She winced at the sharp edge to his voice. Gordon was not happy.

  “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  “I asked.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, well, that’s kind of a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  She stared at her boots. “I, uh, went to check on Eric Moss. I mean, no one had seen him for days. He might have been lying there in his house, injured, right?”

  “Go on.” Stone-faced, he waited.

  Wrapping her arms about herself, Liss stamped her feet, glad she’d taken Stu’s advice and worn mukluks. “Well, like most folks around here, Moss left his spare key over the door, so I went in,” she ignored the sound of teeth grinding together, “and I checked around for him. He wasn’t there, but he’d left behind a road atlas with this property circled in red. That made me curious.”

  Deciding he didn’t need to know about the other visitor to Moss’s house that night, Liss sent Gordon a sunny smile and shut up.

  “So much for you staying out of police business.”

  “But Moss wasn’t police business. You weren’t interested in him. In fact, it’s all your fault, really, that I went to his place. I never would have if you hadn’t dismissed my suggestion out of hand.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “Damn it, Liss! You withheld information germane to a murder investigation.”

  “I did not! You’ve been telling me for days there’s no connection between Thorne’s death and Moss’s disappearance.”

  Gordon looked as if he wanted to throttle her. “Give me a minute,” he growled. “Don’t move a muscle.”

  While he stalked off around the cabin, Liss stared at the wooded landscape that surrounded it. It was quiet in the clearing. Too quiet. Liss was a small town girl, but that didn’t mean she liked total solitude. She’d be terrified if she was stranded out here alone.

  Nervously, she glanced in the direction Gordon had gone. He wouldn’t go off and leave her here. He couldn’t be that ticked off.

  Just to be on the safe side, she retraced her steps to the snowmobile, casting wary glances at the line of trees as she went. Bears hibernated. She didn’t have to worry about running into one of them. And moose were big and stupid but usually not a threat unless they were protecting their young.

  The only danger she was in came from the man walking toward her. She knew at once that he was no longer Gordon. This was Detective Tandy. She expected him to produce his little spiral-bound notebook at any moment.

  “All right, Liss. Let’s hear your theory.”

  “There’s a link between the Tiny Teddies and Thorne’s death.” She’d thought so all along but he hadn’t wanted to listen. Well, he’d have to listen now. “Look at that!” She gestured toward the snowmobile trail. “That proves it. Someone has been crossing the border illegally.”

  “That doesn’t mean they were smuggling, let alone bringing in contraband toys.”

  “It doesn’t mean they weren’t, either!” She pointed to the trail beneath her feet. “Can’t you tell anything from looking at this?”

  “Such as?”

  “Whether or not the snowmobile was dragging a sled. How many times this trail has been used and in which direction. I don’t know! Something.”

  “I’m a state trooper, not a Maine guide. When we get back to town, I’ll inform the game wardens and the border patrol and customs and anyone else this might concern and they’ll take over.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

  He gestured at the pristine…and empty…landscape. “Do you see anyone I can arrest?”

  “This was Thorne’s land.”

  “And if Gavin Thorne was the one who was smuggling, I can hardly arrest him, can I?”

  She took a deep breath. “My theory, since you did ask, is that Thorne was in cahoots with Eric Moss. Moss knew about this property. That proves he was involved somehow. And he’s the one who sold those bears to Marcia after Thorne’s murder.”

  “Why are you so fixated on Eric Moss?”

  “Because he disappeared!” Gordon could be so thick sometimes.

  “Does Moss own a snowmobile?”

  “I…don’t know.” Best to keep Sherri out of trouble. “He could. And it wouldn’t necessarily have to be registered, either.”

  Gordon wasn’t buying it.

  Gritting her teeth, she shifted tactics. If he thought Felicity Thorne had murdered her husband, so be it. The important thing was that smuggling had to have played a role in Thorne’s death. This clue—that trail leading into Canada—was important!

  “Say it wasn’t Moss. Felicity could be the smuggler, and the murderer. She owns two snowmobiles and Cabot Katz has another.”

  “And how is it that you know that?” His voice was dangerously quiet.

  Liss was still groping for an answer when she heard the distant hum of an engine. She froze. Gordon frowned.

  There was no doubt about it. The sound was that of another snowmobile and it was approaching at a good clip from the opposite side of the border.

  There was no time to mount up and ride off. It was too late to go hide in the trees or inside the cabin.

  “Stay behind me,” Gordon ordered.

  “No problem.” For once, Liss had no objection to being protected. She couldn’t be certain they were about to come fact to face with a killer, but it was a distinct possibility.

  The other machine appeared in the distance. At any moment, the driver would spot them standing beside Stu’s snowmobile. Out in the open. Exposed. Sitting ducks. Nervously, Liss edged a little closer to Gordon.

  “I don’t suppose you brought your gun with you.”

  “I was expecting a pleasant afternoon outing with a lady friend, remember?”

  Gordon’s sarcasm stung, but Liss could hardly blame him for being a little peeved at her. She’d brought him here under false pretenses. It was all her fault if she’d put them both in the path of danger.

  Liss shaded her eyes and squinted at the approaching vehicle. As it crossed into Carrabassett County from Canada she saw that there were two people aboard. She couldn’t tell much about either one of them, except that they were both heavily bundled up in snowmobile suits, one dark green and one navy blue. Helmets with full face masks further hid their identities, but it was easy to tell when the driver spotted them. Slushy snow slewed up in an arc as the approaching snowmobile skidded to a stop. The engine sputtered and died.

  Since Stu’s machine was blocking the newcomer’s way to the groomed trail, Liss tried to convince herself that they’d had to stop. They’d have run right into it otherwise. Surely there was no reason to think there was anything sinister in the fact that the two riders were just sitting there, staring at them.

  Gordon lifted a hand in a friendly wave. He ambled toward the other sled, a smile on his face. “Hey, there. Can you help us? We seem to be lost.”

  Neither the driver nor the passenger answered.

  Gordon had told Liss to stay behind him, but she wasn’t sure if that meant she should follow him or remain with the snowmobile. Keeping a wary eye on the two snowmobilers, Liss stuck close to Gordon.

  If one of the riders was Felicity Thorne, she’d already have recognized both of them. Liss had removed her helmet, just as Gordon had, freeing her hair and exposing her face. If it was Eric Moss, he might not know Gordon on sight, but he’d surely have heard that Liss was keeping company with a state trooper. Re
sidents of small towns like Moosetookalook thrived on gossip about the love lives of their neighbors. Odds were good that no one was buying the “we seem to be lost” ploy.

  Gordon stopped a few feet away from the other sled. Liss still couldn’t identify either the driver or the passenger, but she saw Gordon tense as the driver reached into one of those many convenient outside zipper pockets.

  “Get down!” he shouted, throwing himself to one side and taking Liss with him.

  They dodged just as an explosion of sound shattered the December stillness. The last thing Liss saw before she landed facedown in a snowbank was the barrel of a gun pointed right at her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Close to two hundred pounds of solid male crushed Liss deeper into the cold, wet ground just as a second bullet whizzed by. It came so close to hitting her that she felt a breeze as it passed.

  Stunned and terrified, she made no attempt to move even though jagged shards of icy snow bit into her arm, her stomach, and her thigh. This was not the soft, fluffy variety. In spite of the layers of insulated padding she wore, she could feel every irregularity in the hard, uneven crust beneath her.

  Her right hand had landed in a puddle. A trickle of frigid, half-melted sludge crept slowly under the cuff of her glove. In the catalogue of discomfort Liss was mentally compiling, that scarcely made the list. At the top was the fact that the entire left side of her face stung like the devil. It had struck a patch of snow that had refrozen solid as rock.

  An engine roared to life. Stu’s machine? The killer’s? The sled sounded as if it were coming straight at them. Liss threw both arms over her head and squeezed her eyes shut, but at the last moment the oncoming vehicle veered aside.

  Gordon’s weight pinned Liss’s legs, preventing her from rolling over. Her ears rang from the close-range gunshots. Her heart raced so fast she was convinced it was about to leap out of her chest. Still, she managed to lift her face out of the snow an inch or two, far enough to see that the other machine was breaking a new trail to circle around Stu’s sled.