“Well, of course I am. First that man came to my home. Then he showed up at the library to badger me with the same ridiculous questions. And when I said I didn’t have time to waste on such nonsense, he said I could talk to him there or at the county jail. I ask you, is that any way to behave toward a respected member of this community?”
“I can’t prevent the state police from talking to you, Dolores. You are a person of interest in Jason Graye’s murder. You did quarrel with him. You did threaten him. You were not only mounting a campaign to keep the library open, you started a petition to have him impeached.”
“I never threatened to kill him!” Dolores’s glare would have turned a weak person to stone.
“That’s not the way I heard it.”
Dolores said a word Sherri had never expected to hear coming out of the older woman’s mouth before she added, enunciating each word with care, “It . . . was . . . a . . . joke.”
“Okay. Fine.” Even if Dolores’s words had been meant in all seriousness, she wouldn’t be the first person to say something in the heat of the moment that came back to haunt her. In an effort not to rile the librarian further, Sherri adopted a soothing tone of voice. “The detective has to talk to you, Dolores. That’s how he rules you out as a suspect. The more you cooperate, the sooner he’ll move on to someone else.”
“That’s just it. He’s not moving on. Roger just phoned me to tell me he came back with a search warrant and confiscated every weapon in the house.”
Sherri almost asked who Roger was, before she remembered that Roger was Moose Mayfield’s given name. “I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about, Dolores. You’ll get everything back as soon as the police run some tests.”
Dolores did not look reassured.
Was she worried that her husband might have killed Graye? Sherri tried to imagine big, awkward, boozy Moose Mayfield planning and executing a murder. It didn’t compute. Besides, the form Liss had seen running away from the scene couldn’t have been Moose. His silhouette was distinctive, and so was his lumbering gait. More to the point, he’d have no reason to flee toward the town square when his house was in another direction entirely.
Dolores heaved a deep sigh. “I suppose you’ve heard the whole story by now—about what happened the other night?”
“Several times over and in various versions.” One of Sherri’s sources had Moose Mayfield foaming at the mouth as he emptied his pistol into the wall. She felt certain the account Liss had given her was much closer to the truth. “Fortunately for you, no one made a formal complaint. If they had, I’d have been obliged to charge your husband with discharging a firearm in a populated area.” After a moment, curiosity made her add a question. “Was that your gun or your husband’s?”
“Roger and I both belong to the Moosetookalook Rod and Gun Club. We shoot at targets. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“You mean there’s a second handgun in the house?”
“Roger keeps . . . kept his in the garage. Your state trooper friend took that one, too.”
“I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. The state crime lab will test them both. If they don’t find a match to any bullets they found at the scene, then they’ll know neither gun was used in the crime.”
Dolores seemed a little calmer, but that only meant she was thinking more clearly. She added up what she knew and reached a conclusion that did not compute. “Why did they confiscate my collection of bladed weapons? There was no need to do that if Graye was shot.”
“They’re just being thorough,” Sherri said.
She wasn’t prepared to share the truth with Dolores. According to Gordon, Graye appeared to have surprised an intruder. Armed with a gun, he’d likely confronted that person and fired one shot before he himself was fatally stabbed. It was hard to say for certain. A license wasn’t required to own a gun in Maine, so they couldn’t tell if Graye had kept one in the house. Since neither weapon had been found at the scene, it had to be assumed that the killer had walked off with both.
Dolores’s eyes narrowed. “Thorough my left foot! What aren’t you telling me, Sherri Campbell?”
Sherri stood up. “I’m not telling you anything, except that if you and your husband are innocent, you have nothing to worry about.”
Leaning forward, Dolores pounded her fist on Sherri’s desk for emphasis. “Roger did not kill Jason Graye, and neither did I.”
“Then go home, Dolores. Let the police do their job.”
“Hah! What if they try to frame one of us?”
“Why on earth would they?” Sherri’s astonishment was genuine. She had complete faith in Gordon Tandy’s integrity.
“Everyone expects the police to solve crimes quickly. Nobody cares if they arrest the wrong person.”
“Now, Dolores, you know that’s not true.”
When Dolores stood up in a rush, Sherri quickly circled the desk. The other woman’s increased agitation made her nervous. Once again, Dolores’s color was high, and her breathing had become erratic.
“Settle down, Dolores. You’re going to work yourself into a heart attack if you keep this up.”
“Well! Aren’t you the one for plain speaking!” Dolores pressed her fingertips to the pulse in her neck. After a moment, she closed her eyes and took a series of long, deep breaths.
Sherri watched her, both concerned and suspicious. It wasn’t like the town librarian to be so irrational. She went off on tangents, yes, but there was usually a modicum of common sense behind them.
Was it possible she had killed Jason Graye? Liss’s description of the shadowy figure she’d seen had ruled out Moose Mayfield, but it might fit a tall, sturdily built woman. Dolores was in good physical condition, and she seemed more upset than was reasonable about the police confiscation of her bladed weapons.
Dolores’s eyes popped open again.
“Better?” Sherri asked.
“No thanks to you. If you’re not going to do anything to stop that detective from hounding me, then I may as well go home.”
“There’s nothing I can do. If you truly feel threatened by the investigation, then I suggest you hire a lawyer.”
“Have you lost your mind? I can’t afford some fancy lawyer’s fees.”
Sherri fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Then go home and do whatever it is you usually do to calm frazzled nerves. Tea? Meditation?”
“Vigorous exercise.” Dolores snapped out the words. “I’ll have you know I work out on both a treadmill and a stationary bicycle.”
The mental image of Dolores training for an ironman competition left Sherri at a loss for words. She was saved from having to say anything by the ringing of her phone. By the time she pressed the receiver to her ear, Dolores had gone, slamming the door to the waiting room behind her.
“Moosetookalook Police Department,” Sherri answered. “How may I help you?”
Thirty seconds later, she was on her way to The Spruces.
There had been another stabbing.
* * *
Mike Jennings met Sherri at the scene. He’d already secured it and called for the state police. “The victim is unconscious but still alive, although he may not be for much longer. The local EMTs are with him. The ambulance is on its way from Fallstown.”
“ID?” she asked as Mike lifted the police tape so she could enter a wooded area to the side of the field used for athletic competitions.
“Kent Humphrey.”
Sherri stopped short as she felt herself blanch. “Oh, damn,” she whispered.
“You know him?”
“He’s the kid I was going to talk to, to ask if he’d seen anything last night after Graye was killed.”
Sherri knew it was foolish to feel responsible for what had happened to Kent. It wasn’t a sure thing that he could identify Graye’s murderer. Even if he had been able to provide her with useful information, there was nothing to say he wouldn’t have stayed on at the games afterward and ended up exactly the same way.
“Who found him?” she asked Mike.
“A couple of spectators.” With a jerk of his head, he indicated a man and woman waiting a little apart. The man had his back braced against a tree. The woman sat on the ground, her face ashen.
Sherri glanced toward the athletic field, where competitions had resumed. There was a lot of noise—crowd chatter, cheering. “Was there something going on at the time?”
“The tug-of-war,” Mike said.
“Then how—”
“Call of nature. Guy was too lazy to walk over to the port-a-potties. He told his lady friend to stand guard while he ducked in among these trees to take a leak. She thought she heard something while he was watering the grass, so she went to take a look.”
“Fools rush in,” Sherri murmured, “and thank God for it. Did she see anyone else around?”
Mike shook his head.
Since there was nothing she could do for Kent Humphrey, Sherri went to talk to the woman who had, hopefully, saved a young man’s life. As she approached the couple, she read herself a lecture. She was a professional. The near-paralyzing mixture of emotions she was feeling had to go on the back burner while she did her job.
Ten minutes after the ambulance showed up, Kent was on his way to Fallstown General Hospital. Sherri sent Mike along with him with orders not to let anyone near him who wasn’t family. It stood to reason that Kent must have seen Graye’s killer and that the killer had seen Kent. Coming across him at the Highland Games, that same person had then stabbed Kent, just as he’d stabbed Jason Graye, intending to silence him forever. If he realized Kent was still alive, he’d try again.
Five minutes later, Gordon Tandy arrived on the scene. Sherri gave him a clear, concise report, including the fact that Kent Humphrey, age seventeen, was a friend of Liss’s cousin Boxer and of the missing girl, Beth Hogencamp.
The thought that those kids were only a few years older than her own son, Adam, left Sherri choking out the rest of what she had to say around a humongous lump in her throat: “Kent is the boy who was on the swings with his girlfriend in the town square last night.”
Gordon’s “cop face” was replaced by an expression of alarm. “Where is she?”
“Home with her parents. Safe. I’ve already phoned the Fitzwarren house. I spoke to Amie’s mother. I didn’t give her any details, but I convinced her she needs to keep her daughter at home until someone from my department or from the state police can get there.”
“Had you interviewed either Amie or her boyfriend?” Gordon asked.
“I talked to her earlier today. She didn’t see anything last night and didn’t think Kent had either. I hadn’t yet connected with him.”
“Either he saw something or someone thinks he did.”
“Looks that way. And that someone was here. Why? What was he . . . or she . . . doing attending a festival the day after killing a man?”
Gordon had been surveying the area. Now he turned his sharp-eyed gaze on her. “Are you okay? You look shaky.”
“I feel shaky. He’s just a kid.” Her voice broke, but she shook her head when Gordon touched her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. “Don’t worry. I’ll hold it together. It’s just that I knew Kent was here. I should have come looking for him right after I saw his girlfriend. Instead, I figured it would be easier to wait and catch him at home. I should have—”
“Stop beating yourself up. You can’t know that things would have turned out any differently. No one can.”
Sherri said nothing. Despite Gordon’s words, guilt weighed heavily on her.
“Snap out of it, Chief Campbell.” The command was issued in such a sharp and authoritarian voice that she came to attention. “You’ve got a job to do, and so do I. I don’t have time to pamper you.”
As he no doubt intended, Sherri felt a bracing flash of anger at his words.
“I want you to go stay with the girl. Make sure she doesn’t take it into her head to go off on her own, especially if she hears that the boyfriend is in the hospital.”
“How much do you want me to tell her and her parents?”
“Whatever it takes to keep her safe.”
Sherri sent him a curt nod and headed for the parking lot where she’d left her cruiser. The girl’s father was going to react badly to the news that his daughter had been sneaking out to meet a boy he didn’t approve of, but that secret wasn’t worth keeping if it meant an innocent sixteen-year-old girl might become the killer’s next target.
She left the wooded area and had gone barely a dozen yards beyond the athletic field when she ran into Liss MacCrimmon and Jake Murch.
“This isn’t just an accident, is it?” Liss asked. “Not with Gordon Tandy here.”
Sherri shook her head. Belatedly, it occurred to her that Liss had caught a glimpse of Graye’s murderer, too. Amie wasn’t the only one who needed to be warned of potential danger.
“Someone stabbed Kent Humphrey, the boy on the swings. It looks like whoever killed Jason Graye is trying to cover his tracks.”
Liss’s eyes widened as she absorbed the implications of Sherri’s words. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “What about the girl who was with him?”
“Amie Fitzwarren. So far, she’s okay. But you saw him, too.”
“I don’t think he saw me. He, or she, was heading away from me.”
“If there’s the slightest chance you were recognized, you need to be on your guard.”
Sherri was already moving again, but Liss trotted along beside her with Murch lagging a little behind. “Sherri, wait. There’s something peculiar about a couple of the guests at The Spruces. I don’t know if it connects to the murder, but it may to Angie.”
That stopped her in her tracks. “Which guests?”
“Underhill and Eldridge, only Eldridge isn’t his real name. Jake overheard some things they said to each other, and we think they may have been talking about Angie and her kids.”
Sherri gave the private investigator a sharp look. “Let me know what you find out.”
“What?” Outrage underscored Liss’s words. “Sherri, you need to follow up on this.”
“Much as I like Angie and Beth and Bradley, finding three people who appear to have disappeared of their own volition is not at the top of my current to-do list, nor is figuring out why a guest at the hotel is registered under a pseudonym. Right now, priority number one is to make sure a teenaged girl stays safe.”
Certain she had made the right decision, Sherri hurried on her way without so much as a backward glance.
* * *
Liss returned to the Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium booth in an unsettled state of mind. Although it was already close to the six o’clock closing time for the Highland Games, the grounds were still crowded with people, both festival-goers and vendors. No one who had been in the area when Kent was discovered could leave without first speaking to an officer. Liss didn’t envy the state troopers that job. They’d have to take hundreds of statements. Worse, chances were good that no one had seen anything useful. From what she could gather, Kent Humphrey had been found in a wooded area that was not being used for any part of the Highland Games.
Boxer had loyally remained on the job, but he was bursting with curiosity. “What’s going on, Liss? Why are the cops swarming all over the place?”
“You haven’t heard anything?”
He shrugged. “I know better than to listen to wild speculation. Is there really a body?”
“No, thank goodness. At this point it’s a case of attempted murder. A young man who may have seen the person who killed Jason Graye was just taken to the hospital in the Fallstown ambulance.”
Boxer’s frown deepened. “Who?”
Liss caught herse
lf before she could blurt out the name. She didn’t know Kent Humphrey, but it seemed likely Boxer did. The two boys were about the same age. “You’d better sit down.”
“Hey, I—”
“Sit down, Boxer.” She waited until he’d grudgingly settled himself in one of the folding chairs behind the display tables. She took the other. “The boy who was attacked is Kent Humphrey, Boxer. Do you know him?”
He started to laugh, then stared at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not. He and his girlfriend were in the town square last night.”
“Amie—is she okay?”
“Yes. Sherri’s taking care of her.” She put a hand on Boxer’s shoulder and was not surprised to discover that it was shaking.
“I don’t fu—I don’t bleeping believe this!”
“You know, if there were ever an occasion when bad language was acceptable, I think this is it.”
He almost cracked a smile. “My grandmother would wash my mouth out with soap. But damn, Liss, if Kent really saw something, he’d already have told the cops, so what was the point of trying to kill him?”
“Maybe he didn’t realize what he saw.” She wished she had more to offer, but anything she could think of to say seemed inadequate.
Whether Kent had seen anything or not, if the killer had run into him, he might have recognized Kent and decided to take no chances. And if Kent had seemed to recognize him?
“We double-date,” Liss’s cousin said, interrupting her thoughts. “Me and Beth and Kent and Amie. Movies. A concert once. He’s a good guy.”
A soft voice called Liss’s name. She looked up to find Margaret Boyd standing on the other side of the display table. By the stricken expression on her face, she’d already heard the bad news.
“I could use your help,” Margaret said.
“Boxer—”
He waved her away. “I’m okay. Just give me a minute.”
Margaret sent her grandson a sympathetic look, but she had too much on her plate to do more than that. “We have to cancel the rest of the Highland Games.”
Kilt at the Highland Games Page 17