Liss had been hoping he’d turn out to be one of the regular fixtures of the place, like Alex Permutter. Then she could have asked to join him and left the remaining booth free for the next customer. Instead, she headed for the empty booth, the one between the other two.
The first sticky bun went down easy. The second turned to cardboard when the woman in the adjoining booth spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone in the café to overhear.
“Such a shame the bookstore burned down,” she said. “Now I suppose I’ll have to drive all the way to Fallstown just to buy a birthday card for Aunt Prunella.”
A tear dripped into Liss’s breakfast blend. She swiped at her eyes, but it was too late. She couldn’t stem the flow no matter how hard she tried. It was all she could do not to sob out loud. She was fumbling in her pocket for a tissue when an oversized napkin appeared in front of her nose.
Liss grabbed it and dabbed at her damp cheeks. Her vision blurry, she looked up into Patsy’s sympathetic face.
Without asking if she wanted more, the coffee shop owner refilled Liss’s mug. Then she slid onto the bench seat opposite Liss, set the carafe on the table, and reached across the wooden surface to squeeze her friend’s forearm. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s stupid. Such a little thing.”
“Sometimes that’s all it takes.”
“I was thinking about Angie.”
“Figured that. Go on. What set off the waterworks?”
Liss lowered her voice. “The woman in the next booth.” She gestured toward the one behind Patsy. “She said she used to buy cards from Angie’s Books. Angie stocked the best cards.”
Patsy’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s what made you cry?”
“Not exactly.” Liss managed a watery smile. “It was that Angie always sends us anniversary cards. Every year. Silly ones that make you laugh out loud. Except for Aunt Margaret, she’s the only one who always remembers the date we got married. Even my parents forget, and you know how involved my mother was in planning the wedding.”
“Violet did get a bit carried away.” Patsy chuckled, remembering. “But whose fault was that? You were the one who agreed to tie the knot at that year’s Western Maine Highland Games.”
“You’d think that would make the date easier to remember, wouldn’t you?” Maybe it would, this time around. Just as it had then, the date would fall on the Saturday of the games.
“Which anniversary is it?” Patsy asked. “Seems like just yesterday that you came back home to Moosetookalook.”
“It’s our sixth.” And Liss had suffered a career-ending knee injury just over eight years ago. She’d returned to Maine to recuperate, never intending to stay longer than a few months.
Funny how life worked out.
“Sixth. Let me see.” Patsy’s brow creased in thought. “That would be the candy anniversary. That’s the traditional gift, anyway. I’m not in favor of that new list someone or other came up with.”
“Why? What does the updated version say people should give on the sixth anniversary?”
“Wood.” Patsy made a face. “Boring.”
Liss had to agree, although given that she was married to a professional custom woodworker, she wouldn’t mind if Dan was even now making her a new bookcase or a magazine rack or even a set of TV tables.
“Feeling better?” Patsy asked.
“Yes, thank you. Although I still wish I knew where Angie and her children are.”
Patsy’s voice sounded a tad too hearty when she replied. “Maybe you’ll hear from her this year, too. Nothing to stop her from putting a card in the mail, is there? Wherever she is, there’s got to be a post office.”
Liss brightened a bit at the thought. “You’re right. Why, I might have a card from her as early as today or tomorrow. She always sends them well ahead of time. I kidded her about that once—told her it must be because she didn’t really remember the exact date. She said she knew what it was, all right. She figured she was doing me a favor by sending her card early, as a reminder so that Dan wouldn’t forget.”
“That sounds like her.” Patsy chuckled.
“I wonder . . . do you think Angie’s husband used to forget their anniversary?”
“No idea, hon. She’s never talked about him, has she?”
“Not to you, either?”
“Never, although I’ve got to say she does have strong opinions on what makes a marriage work.” Patsy shook her head. “Wasted on me, of course, since I never saw the sense in being saddled with a husband in the first place.”
Now that Liss thought about it, she realized that Angie had always been after her to make more time for herself and Dan, even when that meant neglecting their businesses for a day or two. What kind of marriage had Angie had?
Liss swallowed hard to rid herself of a new lump in her throat.
“I thought Angie and I were friends,” she whispered. “I don’t understand how she could just take off like that, or how she can stay away when she must know we’re all worried about her and the kids.”
“I’m sure she has her reasons.” Patsy administered a brisk pat to Liss’s shoulder as she rose to tend to a new customer waiting at the counter. “And I’ll bet good money she sends you that anniversary card. Likely it’s already in the mail.”
“Thanks, Patsy.”
Patsy shrugged her bony shoulders. “She’s my friend, too.”
Chapter Six
Tuesday started out as an ordinary day. Liss left the Emporium at ten to walk the short distance along Pine Street to the post office on the corner of Pine and Ash. There was no door-to-door delivery in Moosetookalook. Collecting the mail from her post office box was a daily ritual six mornings a week.
Her mind on other things, Liss tugged on the post office door. When it wouldn’t open, she was momentarily stymied. Only belatedly did she notice the handwritten sign taped to the other side of the glass.
CLOSED TODAY. BROKEN WINDOW. SORRY.
“Broken—?” Her gaze darted to the expanse of glass to the right of the door, but it appeared to be intact. It had even been washed in the not-too-distant past.
Puzzled, Liss circled to her left. She found the explanation along the side of the post office, where a second large window faced the section of Pine Street that ran west from the town square. It had been blocked off with a large sheet of plywood, but Liss could imagine the mess shattered glass must have made inside. If the window had been broken with any amount of force, shards of glass would have sprayed directly into dozens of post office boxes. They had little doors that unlocked by keys at the front, but in back they were open so that Julie Simpson, Moosetookalook’s postmaster, could fill them with letters, postcards, advertising flyers, and package slips.
Liss was about to turn away and return to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium when Betsy Twining stepped out of Clip and Curl. While the post office, at the front of the building, opened onto Ash Street and the town square, the entrance to Betsy’s business was on Pine.
“Awful, isn’t it?” Betsy asked. “What some people get up to!”
“Did they catch whoever did it?” Liss asked.
“Not so far.” She made a face. “I don’t think much of that new part-timer Sherri’s got working nights. He’s supposed to patrol. Do door checks. He never even noticed the broken window.”
“It’s pretty dark on this side, away from the lights in the town square.” Liss knew and liked Mike Jennings, but to Betsy he still carried the taint of being “from away.”
“Be that as it may, it was left to Julie to spot the damage when she came in this morning. By the time I got here for my first appointment, a couple of men were already putting up that hunk of plywood.”
Julie Simpson was not only Moosetookalook’s postmaster, she was the only United States Postal Service employee to work at Moosetookalook’s tiny post office. Most days she came in at half past six and had the mail sorted and slotted by eight, at which point she opened the lobby to customers
.
“Is Julie still in there?” Liss asked.
“Went home a half hour ago, and not in the best of moods, either.” Betsy chuckled. “It wasn’t just the vandalism that had her riled. It was the attitude of the higher-ups in the postal service. I don’t know who she reports to, but she phoned him right after she called the cops. I think she was hoping he’d come give her a hand, or at least send someone to help out, but he just told her to close the facility. Facility! Then he told her to make sure none of her customers got cut on broken glass because it was embedded in their mail.”
Not a pretty picture, Liss thought.
“Poor Julie had to pull everything out of every box to make sure nothing had glass stuck to it. Then she had to vacuum the boxes before she could put the mail back in. And that’s not all. She had to clean everything—the floor, the sorting tables, even the bins.”
Liss could sympathize. Glass had a tendency to fly in all directions and end up in the most unlikely locations.
“Then, on top of all that,” Betsy continued, clearly relishing the chance to regale someone with the details, “Julie still had to put out the new mail that came in this morning.”
“Who put up the plywood?” Liss asked.
“Well, that’s another story. It was the glass company. You’d think they’d just come out and replace the glass, wouldn’t you? But no. Seems that high-mucky-muck post office guy called that outfit down to Fallstown and instead of just ordering a new window, he insisted that this one be replaced with safety glass.”
“And this created a problem?” Liss didn’t try to hurry Betsy along. She was in no rush to get back to the Emporium, and she was curious to hear all the details.
“Well, yes,” Betsy said, as if that should have been obvious. “That made it a special order, and that meant the glass people couldn’t replace it right away because they don’t keep that kind of glass in stock. Not the size needed to replace that window, anyway.”
Liss wasn’t surprised. Fallstown might be considerably larger than Moosetookalook, but it was far from being a big city. No sensible business kept an expensive product in stock when there wasn’t much call for it.
“Lot of nonsense, if you ask me,” Betsy went on. “What’s wrong with plain old window glass?”
“It shatters,” Liss said.
“Well, yes. But how often do you think anyone’s going to throw a rock through the post office window?”
Betsy might have continued in this vein indefinitely, had it not been for the arrival of her next customer. Liss returned to the Emporium in a thoughtful frame of mind. First the fire. Now this. What was happening to their peaceful little village?
She hesitated all of five minutes before picking up the phone and calling the police department.
* * *
On her way to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium, Sherri Campbell stopped in at Patsy’s Coffee House to pick up four sticky buns, knowing full well that they were Liss’s favorite treat. The topping was even gooier by the time she crossed the town square. The day was going to be a scorcher. It was already getting hot, and far more humid that any native Mainer liked.
Fifteen minutes after she answered Liss’s phone call, Sherri was ensconced in one of the chairs in the cozy corner, nibbling on a bun. Liss joined her, for once bringing ice water instead of coffee.
“Anything new on the fire?” she asked.
Sherri shook her head. “And before you ask, no sign yet of Angie, Beth, or Bradley, either.” She was beginning to wonder if they’d ever turn up.
“And now we have a vandal on the loose.”
Sherri could understand why she was concerned. If someone was into breaking windows, that nice big plate-glass one up front was a natural target. “Looks that way.”
“Kids, do you think?”
“Probably, but it’s hard to say for sure. The thing is, whoever broke the window at the post office went in through it. Once inside, he, she, or they tossed the mail around and in general made a mess of the whole place.”
“Did they take anything?” Liss polished off her first sticky bun and reached for a second.
“Julie says nothing seems to be missing, but I don’t know how she can be sure. There were hundreds of pieces of mail, both sorted and unsorted. No way can she remember each and every one of them.”
“Betsy Twining didn’t pass along that tidbit.”
Sherri grinned, but it faded fast. “I’m pretty sure Julie didn’t tell her. Think of the uproar if even a fraction of the townspeople thought their mail might have been stolen.”
There was one sticky bun left in the bakery box. Sherri eyed it, sorely tempted, and kept both hands wrapped around her glass to prevent herself from reaching for it. It would go straight to her hips, and she didn’t need any more padding.
“Maybe someone had a grudge against the post office,” Liss suggested. “I suppose they call it ‘going postal’ for a reason.”
“I hate crimes like this—the ones with no apparent rhyme or reason. We dusted for fingerprints, but I doubt it will do much good. These days, even kids know to wear gloves when they’re committing a crime.”
“So when does the FBI show up?” Liss asked. “Or do you actually have to have proof that someone has stolen mail for the crime to qualify as a federal offense?”
Sherri hated to shatter illusions, especially one she’d believed in herself until a few hours earlier. “I don’t know how to break this to you, Liss, but that’s yet another myth perpetrated by television crime dramas. In real life, even though stealing the mail is a federal crime, it doesn’t rate much of a response.”
“Seriously?” In her astonishment, Liss picked up the remaining sticky bun and chowed down on it.
“No lie. And when I told Pete that, he just laughed and said it figured. Seems back when he first started out as a patrol deputy for the sheriff’s department, he arrested a guy who got drunk, stole a mail truck full of mail, and crashed it into a tree. He was sure the drunk would end up in Leavenworth. You know what happened instead? Two postal inspectors showed up. All they were interested in was reclaiming the mail truck. They left prosecution to the Carrabassett County DA. Then the drunk got himself a good lawyer, and aside from the few hours he spent in the county jail before he made bail, he didn’t serve any time at all. He ended up with what amounted to a slap on the wrist—a hundred hours of community service.”
“That’s . . . words fail me.” Having devoured the third sticky bun, Liss polished off the last of the ice water in her glass and lifted it by way of asking if Sherri wanted a refill.
“I’m good.” She took a long swallow and sighed.
“So, asking as a local business owner, what are you going to do to protect the shops around the square?”
“There isn’t all that much we can do except keep a close eye on the storefronts for the next little while.”
“Better check the sides, too.”
Sherri acknowledged the jibe with a roll of her eyes. “You know how small my department is. No way can we be everywhere at once. To tell you the truth, I’m hoping the post office break-in was just kids on a spree. I’d hate to think someone has it in for downtown Moosetookalook.”
* * *
Sherri’s words stuck with Liss the rest of the day. The thought of someone holding a grudge against their little town was sobering. She couldn’t completely discount it, but neither could she think of anyone who’d be out to get all of the town square merchants. And why target the post office? That made no sense at all.
An even less palatable theory sprang to mind as she packed items for the coming weekend at the Highland Games. What if there weren’t two separate villains, an arsonist and a vandal, but only one? The very thought made her shudder, and she quickly talked herself out of the notion. She had an active imagination, but even she had trouble believing in the existence of an unknown madman intent on random destruction.
It was late in the afternoon when two men entered Moosetookalook Scottish
Emporium. One was Angus Grant, the hotel guest who had taken her to task for selling kilts to women. His companion was the other stranger Liss had noticed on the night of the fire.
Close up, the second man’s snowy white hair and short, precisely trimmed beard looked as if they’d never dare look mussed. At a guess, he was in his seventies. He carried a silver-headed cane but didn’t seem to need it. She saw no hint of a limp as he crossed the sales floor to where she stood behind the counter.
“Good afternoon, miss,” he said in a cultured voice.
“Good afternoon. How may I help you?”
“You can explain to me why your post office is closed. I walked into town specifically to purchase stamps, and now I find I cannot do so.” Although he didn’t look angry, there was something in his voice that made Liss think he was more than a little annoyed.
“There was an incident earlier today. Vandals broke a window. For the moment, the post office is a crime scene, and no one is allowed in, not even the postmaster.”
Liss had made up that last part. Only now did it occur to her to wonder why Julie hadn’t been ordered to open the post office as soon as she’d cleaned up the mess. Could it be that the postal service really was going to send someone to investigate?
“Is there somewhere else I can buy stamps?” the man asked.
“Are you staying at The Spruces, Mister . . . ?”
“Eldridge. Martin Eldridge. Yes, I am.”
“Then I think you’ll find that the hotel concierge has stamps.”
Eldridge’s lips lifted in a pleasant enough smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course. I should have thought of the concierge myself. Are you ready to go back, Grant, or shall I return without you?”
Having made a circuit of the Emporium, Angus Grant was now glowering at one of Liss’s locked display cases, the one that contained an assortment of the small knives men in Scottish dress wore tucked into the top of their hose. The blades were all similar, and not sharp enough to do much damage, but the hilts were uniquely decorated. Some sported clan crests. Others were ornately carved. A small, hand-lettered sign inside the case identified them as skean dhus.
Kilt at the Highland Games Page 8