Kilt at the Highland Games
Page 19
His eyebrows lifted nearly to his hairline. “I’m being stubborn?”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Gordon Tandy! I demand to be taken seriously.”
He ran one hand through his short, reddish brown hair. “I do listen, Liss, and I take your ideas into account, even the ones that sound completely bonkers. You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that we’re pursuing every lead. There is no need—and I can’t emphasize this enough—no need for you to involve yourself further in this investigation.”
“I won’t fire Murch.”
“So long as all he’s doing is looking for Angie and her children, that’s fine.”
Liss thought better of reminding him that she thought Angie’s disappearance was directly responsible for everything else that had happened.
She hadn’t been lying when she’d said, repeatedly, that she did not want to get involved in police matters. But what else could she do if Gordon didn’t see the urgency in following up the lead she’d given him?
Aloud, she said only, “May I go home now?”
“With my blessing.”
More than ready to leave, Liss hefted her tote bag. The clink of coins from the cash box she’d stuffed inside it reminded her that she had one more question to ask Gordon. “When can I pack up my booth?”
“You can do it now if you like. The booths were searched at the same time we were questioning people. Once they gave statements, they were free to collect their stock.”
“Did you find a weapon?”
“No.”
“Was it the same kind of knife that was used to kill Jason Graye?”
“Liss, you know I can’t tell you that.” He held a hand up, palm out, to stop her automatic protest. “Literally, I can’t. The medical examiner will have to determine if they were the same. It’s possible,” he conceded. “Looked to me like a long, thin blade of some kind was used in both instances.”
Knowing that he shouldn’t have confided that much, Liss didn’t badger Gordon for more information, but she was still in an unhappy frame of mind when she left the ballroom. She cheered up, if only slightly, when she discovered that the police had allowed Dan through their barrier. He was waiting for her in the lobby.
* * *
As Dan drove his wife home, he kept stealing glances at her, alarmed by her pallor and wary of the way she kept clenching and unclenching her fists.
The first thing she did when she walked into the house was scoop up Glenora and cuddle the little black cat in her arms. Glenora, having no idea what had been going on at the Highland Games, objected to being rudely awakened from a nap on the back of Dan’s recliner, her favorite spot in the living room. She made her feelings known with a set of claws that were in dire need of clipping.
Liss yelped and released her. With a flash of bushy tail, Glenora disappeared into the dining room.
“Let me see that.” Dan reached for her forearm, where a thin line of blood was welling up, stretching nearly all the way from wrist to elbow.
“I’m okay.” She jerked away from him and reached for a tissue to dab ineffectively at the injury.
Dan wanted to steer her toward the bathroom medicine cabinet and doctor her arm, but he knew his wife well enough to realize that he’d do better to wait a bit. If she didn’t take care of the scratch herself, he’d use brute force to sit her down and slap disinfectant on it.
Lumpkin poked his head around the corner of the pocket doors that separated living room from dining room. When he realized Liss was looking at him, he sent her a superior glare. She grabbed a pillow from the sofa and hurled it at him.
“You’re never appreciated in your own home,” Dan quipped.
His offhand remark, intended to break the tension, instead pushed Liss over the edge of reason. She whirled on him, fist raised, and thumped him on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince.
In the next instant, her eyes widened, aghast at what she’d done. She tried to back away, but Dan caught her by the shoulders. He could feel his own temper rising. An answering spark of anger flashed in her eyes.
Was she trying to taunt him into fighting back?
Dan Ruskin had never hit a woman in his life, and he wasn’t about to start with his own wife. With an effort, he dialed back his emotions until he had control of himself. “What the hell was that for?”
Well, maybe not 100 percent in control, Dan thought as he heard the outrage underlying the question.
“The devil made me do it!”
Dan blinked at her. Now she was trying to diffuse the situation with humor. Her quip was only partly successful. He pulled in a deep breath and stooped until his forehead rested against hers.
“What are we doing, Liss?”
“I don’t know about you, but I am seriously losing it. You know it’s not you I’m mad at. I’m just frustrated by this whole situation—the fire, then finding Graye’s body, and now this . . . this . . .”
He eased his grip on her shoulders, sliding his hands down her arms until he could catch hold of her hands. “We both need to chill. And you need to accept that you can’t solve all the problems of the universe. Not even close.”
“I know.” Her voice sounded choked, as if tears threatened. “I can’t even figure out where Angie is.”
“Maybe, just maybe, since she’s made it so hard to find her, she needs to stay hidden, even from her friends.”
“But—”
Dan released her right hand and lifted his fingers to her lips to stop her protest. “No buts. I know it’s not possible to forget everything that’s happened over the last week, but you have to stop driving yourself nuts over it. Things will sort themselves out eventually. You’ll see.”
He’d been terrified when he’d found out, thanks to a summons on the brand-new pager he’d been issued—only that morning—as a Moosetookalook volunteer fireman, that there was a stabbing victim at the Highland Games. His first thought was that Liss had gotten too close to finding Jason Graye’s murderer and paid the ultimate price.
He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost her. She could be exasperating, but she was the other half of himself. They were supposed to be a team, damn it!
“I need you to promise me something,” he whispered as Liss—finally!—collapsed against his chest and let him wrap his arms around her.
“I—”
“Shhh. I won’t ask the impossible. Just try to keep me in the loop, okay? No running off on your own. No risking your neck on a hunch.”
Her hunches were just too damned accurate.
“Okay,” Liss whispered back. “Next time I have a brilliant idea, you’ll be the first to know.”
* * *
Unable to sleep, Liss tossed and turned for hours and finally gave up, got up, and went downstairs to the kitchen. A cup of hot chocolate beside her, she reached for her iPad. She had a name—Martin Eldridge. She had the city in Virginia he supposedly lived in. It was probably a futile effort to type both into a search engine, but doing something felt better than doing nothing.
She tried various combinations, with quotation marks and without. Nothing seemed relevant until she switched to a search for images. She was clicking through them, growing more and more discouraged, when something caught her eye.
The photograph showed an accident scene. There were police cars and an ambulance. Gawkers stood around rubbernecking. But off to the side was a figure that seemed vaguely familiar—a woman. A very pregnant woman.
A few keystrokes enlarged the image. They also blurred the woman’s features, but not enough to keep Liss from recognizing Angie Hogencamp’s dark wavy hair and the way she held herself.
There was a story to go with the photo. A young woman named Marianna Eldridge had dashed in front of a car and been killed. The pregnant woman wasn’t identified, but the accident had happened in the Virginia city Martin Eldridge called home. The clincher was the caption—a date just over twelve years earlier.
The source of the photo was a blog e
ntry posted only five years back. The author was writing about ambulance chasers, having apparently been one for some time. He’d taken the picture but provided no additional details about what had happened.
To Liss’s immense frustration, no related articles showed up, no matter what combination of words she used to search. Because of the early hour, she e-mailed Murch rather than phoning him and passed on what little she had found. Then she sent the same information to Gordon and to Sherri.
By the time the sun rose, Liss felt the need for a hard physical workout. Fortunately, the best place in town to get one was right next door at Dance Central.
Zara Kalishnakof was already in the studio, warming up with a series of pliés at the barre. She glanced at Liss and did a double take. “You look like hell.”
“Just what a girl wants to hear!”
Slipping off the shoes she’d put on for the short walk across her driveway and Zara’s side yard, Liss plunked herself down on the floor to begin her regular stretching routine. She avoided looking into the mirror that covered all of one wall by turning her back to it. Instead, she faced Zara and the barre. Her friend lifted one leg onto the wooden rail and bent over it, touching her forehead to her knee. Zara’s long red hair was scooped back into a neat ballerina’s bun.
For a short time, neither woman spoke. Then Zara, inevitably, raised the subject of the missing family.
“I’m worried about Beth.” She switched legs. “She lost interest in taking dance lessons once she was in high school and had so many more exciting extracurricular activities to choose from, but she used to stop by every once in a while just to talk.”
Liss paused with one arm curved over her head and her body stretched sideways until her fingertips touched the floor. “No one seems to have a clue where her mother could have taken them.”
“Have you talked to Beth’s friends? Did any of them have a suggestion as to where she might be?”
“Boxer says not, and he’d know. He gave Sherri a list, and I’m pretty sure she talked to everyone on it. If she’d gotten a lead, she’d have told me.”
Thinking of Beth’s friends took Liss’s thoughts straight to the attack on Kent Humphrey. The latest report from the hospital, passed on from Kent’s mother to Amie, Amie to Boxer, Boxer to Margaret, and Margaret to Liss by e-mail, had the boy holding his own but still listed in critical condition.
“Angie always struck me as having lots of friends.”
Liss sat up and stayed upright to stare at the other woman. Zara might look like a flake, with her bright, carrot-colored hair and her penchant for dressing in short skirts and high boots long after both went out of fashion, but she had a good head on her shoulders.
“Who would you say Angie was closest to?”
Zara slung a towel around her neck and came over to squat beside Liss on the floor. Her expression was thoughtful. “She’s an outgoing person, the kind who makes you feel like you’re a personal friend when, in fact, you’re only an acquaintance. Off the top of my head, I’d say you, Margaret, and Patsy. Was she really close to any of you? She was busy running her bookstore and raising her kids. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of time for friendships.”
“You’re right about that, but maybe keeping herself to herself was deliberate, too. I certainly don’t have a clue where she could have gone, and both Margaret and Patsy have said they don’t know, either. ”
Zara stood. “Speaking of Patsy, did she catch up with you the other day?” Without waiting for an answer, she started a series of pirouettes that took her to the far side of the dance studio.
“I didn’t know she was looking for me.”
“She must have been.” Running leaps brought Zara back to where Liss sat, exercises forgotten. “I saw her circle around your house, heading toward the door to the kitchen.”
Liss frowned. It wasn’t at all odd for a neighbor to visit by way of a back or side entrance. Some Mainers never used their front doors at all and left them covered with insulating plastic all year round. But Patsy wasn’t a regular visitor to Liss and Dan’s house. As far as Liss could remember, the only time she’d come over had been to attend a meeting of the MSBA.
“When was this?” she asked.
“Let me think.” Zara stopped to stand flat-footed with her hands on her hips. “I’m pretty sure it was Wednesday afternoon. Yes. I’d just put the kids down for a nap, and Sandy was finishing up that break-dancing class he teaches. Yes, I’m sure that’s right. My session with the group learning to belly dance hadn’t started yet.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Liss had been at the Emporium. Why would Patsy have expected to find her at home? Had she stopped by to talk to Dan? That seemed unlikely. She’d have picked up the phone and called him or waited until the next time he stopped by for coffee. Besides, it wasn’t like Patsy to leave the café unattended.
Then she remembered. Wednesday was the day someone had stepped up onto her back stoop and tucked an anniversary card into the screen door. That could mean no more than that Angie had left the card with Patsy, to be delivered when it got close to the twenty-fifth of July.
Or it could mean Patsy knew where Angie was and had been protecting her, even from Angie’s other friends.
Chapter Fifteen
When Dan and Liss arrived at The Spruces, it was with every intention of taking down the booth and packing up the contents as quickly as possible. Liss was anxious to get back to town and talk to Patsy, who had been busy with the Sunday morning rush at the café and put her off until later in the morning.
The majority of the vendors had taken away their stock the previous evening, once they’d been questioned and their booths had been searched for the knife used in the attack on Kent Humphrey. Liss had been in no mood to pack delicate figurines or cart boxes around. She’d made do with rolling down the sides and left everything else for today. With all the police around, she hadn’t been worried about theft.
“Is Boxer showing up to help?” Dan asked.
Liss shook her head. “When he called, he said he plans to spend most of the morning at Amie Fitzwarren’s house. Then he’ll give the Scotties a run for his grandmother and go home. If he’s as short on sleep as he sounded, I hope he plans to take a long nap once he gets there.”
They didn’t talk much after that, and in short order Dan had both tent and stock stashed in the back of his truck. “Give me a minute to check with Dad?”
There was a good deal of cleaning up to be done on the grounds. The hotel gardeners had already started work to repair the damage to the lawn.
Liss went with him into the hotel, but they never made it to Joe Ruskin’s office. Teacup in hand, Margaret poked her head out into the corridor at the sound of their approaching footsteps.
“Oh, good. There you are. I have someone here who wants to talk to you two.”
Dan gestured for Liss to enter ahead of him. He stopped just inside the door, taken aback by the sight of his wife’s aunt serving tea to Jake Murch. The PI handled the delicate little cup with extreme caution. The look on his face made it plain he had no idea how he’d ended up sitting on the love seat that faced Margaret’s desk, as out of place as the proverbial bull in the china shop.
Liss waved away Margaret’s offer of a calming herbal brew. “I’d just as soon keep every nerve on alert.”
“Suit yourself.” Margaret cocked her head in Dan’s direction and accepted his shake of the head as a negative answer to the same question. Pouring herself a cup, she carried the tea to her desk and sat.
“Have you found something new?” Liss asked Murch after joining him on the love seat. She tucked one leg beneath her and turned so that she was facing him.
The detective looked relieved to have an excuse to abandon his cup on the glass-topped coffee table in front of him. “Remember how I said Eliot Underhill looked familiar?”
“You figured out where you’ve seen him before!” Liss’s whole demeanor changed. For all her denials, she loved solving puzzles.
“Turns out I was remembering something I saw online not too long ago,” Murch said. “Underhill—well, his real name is Arbuthnot—lost his private investigator’s license for some shady dealings. The case was written up in a professional journal I subscribe to.”
“Is he connected to our other suspect?” Liss asked. “You were going to do background checks on both men.”
“I’d like to hear that answer, too,” Joe Ruskin said from the doorway. “Margaret has been keeping me up to date on what’s been going on, but it sounds like there have been some new developments.” He propped his back against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest, and looked expectantly at Murch.
“First off,” Murch began, “you should know that I already passed all this information on to the state police.”
Dan didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried. Private detectives were no more fond of sharing information than the cops were.
“If you remember, the hotel register listed addresses.”
“Two towns in Virginia,” Joe agreed.
“Right. Edgar Arbuthnot lied about where he was from, but Eldridge didn’t. Truth is, they’re both from the same small city. It wasn’t much of a stretch to figure out that these two guys knew each other before they came here. My take is that Eldridge hired Arbuthnot. Since Arbuthnot’s license was revoked more than six months ago, it isn’t much of a stretch to place Eldridge among the not exactly law abiding.”
Impatience had Liss interrupting again. “But why did Eldridge hire him?”
“I’m still working on that, but the information you found may be the key. Marianna Eldridge was Martin Eldridge’s daughter, an only child. She stepped out in front of a car and got herself killed. There was nothing the driver of the car could have done to avoid hitting her.”