“Right.” She forced a smile she was pretty sure wouldn’t convince anyone, let alone a perceptive seven-year-old. “I guess I’d better be going now. I’ve got things to do.”
“Okay,” Amber said. “Bye.”
“Bye, sweetie.”
Liss nipped out the kitchen door and was halfway down the driveway to the street when she realized she’d left Charlie’s memo on the table. She retraced her steps, relieved to find the room empty. She collected the sheet of paper and was about to repeat her retreat when she heard Thea’s voice.
“No, it’s good you were late,” Thea said. “Don’t come at all now. There’s been a . . . complication.”
Liss knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but there was such an odd note in Thea’s voice that she hesitated. It was obvious the other woman was speaking on the phone, but to whom was she talking?
This is none of your business, Liss lectured herself. So what if Thea was expecting someone else when I showed up?
Although she was intensely curious about the identity of that person, this was a private conversation. Besides, if Thea caught her listening in, there would be hell to pay.
She slipped outside and this time she kept going, her thoughts gloomy. So much for me convincing Thea to see common sense! Not only had she failed miserably in that regard, but she’d forgotten to ask if any of the Merveilleuse International people had been in Moosetookalook at the time of Charlie’s murder. Now that it was too late for a do-over, she wished she’d asked that question first, before she’d shown Thea the memo.
* * *
Fifteen minutes after leaving Sherri’s house, following a short stop at home to check on Dan, Glenora, and the Scotties, Liss moved on to the next item on her to-do list. Dolores and Moose Mayfield lived on Upper Lowe Street, just three doors down from Joe Ruskin’s place, the house where Dan, his brother, Sam, and his sister, Mary, had grown up.
According to Dan, all three of them had been scared of Moose Mayfield when they were small. Liss could easily imagine how he’d appear to a four- or five-year-old. His unkempt mop of hair topped an oversized head that was home to a brain the size of a pea. Moose scowled far more than he smiled.
At first, Liss didn’t think anyone was at home. The car wasn’t in the carport and no one answered her knock. Just as she was about to give up, the front door swung open to reveal the glassy-eyed, somewhat disheveled man of the house.
“Liss MacCrimmon.” Moose breathed beer fumes into her face.
“Liss Ruskin,” she reminded him. “May I come in?”
“Wife’s not home. Had some meeting to go to.”
“It’s you I want to talk to.”
“Yeah? Sure. Want a beer?” He waved her into the living room.
“No thanks.”
She braced herself as she went through the door. The Mayfield living room had a peculiar décor. Weapons were displayed on every wall. Crossed swords hung above the fireplace with a shield showing a family crest between them. On the opposite side of the room, one glass-fronted cabinet contained an assortment of hunting rifles, while another held a collection of knives, most of them with wicked-looking blades. A bow and arrows, the kind used in competition, not the Renaissance Faire–Robin Hood variety, occupied a place of honor atop an upright piano. A blunderbuss, the style of gun used in Colonial days, rested on a shelf three-quarters of the way up the wall behind the sofa.
Dolores had been a champion fencer in college and now, as a hobby, collected bladed weapons. Her husband preferred things that went bang. Liss’s gaze strayed to the antique oak lowboy the Mayfields used as a TV stand. The last time she’d been in this room, Moose had reached into one of its drawers, pulled out a gun, and shot a hole in the ceiling. He’d been inebriated at the time and filled with righteous anger at that year’s board of selectmen because they were planning to close the library and put his wife out of a job.
For a while Dolores had considered running for a seat on the board herself. She’d changed her mind when the selectmen reversed themselves and decided to keep the library open. It was a pity she hadn’t persevered, Liss thought. Dolores would have been quick to spot any irregularities in the water deal.
Moose dropped heavily into his recliner and retrieved a half-empty Sam Adams from the end table. He didn’t meet her eyes. “How come you want to talk to me?”
“I’d like to ask you about Charlie MacCrimmon.” She settled into the chair opposite his. “You two were good friends in high school, isn’t that right?”
That she wanted to know about her uncle didn’t seem to surprise him. Liss supposed Dolores had already told him about her interest in Charlie’s youthful exploits, and he certainly knew how Charlie had died. He was one of the townspeople who’d stopped by the shop to pester her with questions. Since he’d shown up after closing, she hadn’t let him in. She wondered now if she should have.
“Charlie and me, we went way back.” Moose stared morosely at his beer before setting it aside. He sat with both hands dangling between his knees. “We had some good times.”
“Did you know he’d come back to Moosetookalook?”
“I thought he was dead,” Moose mumbled, “just like everybody else did.”
When his shoulders began to shake, Liss feared he was about to break down and cry. That prospect was enough to have her rushing into speech. If he started sobbing, she wouldn’t be able to get any coherent answers out of him. Even worse, she wouldn’t have a clue how to react to such an outburst. Moose drunk, she could ignore. Moose angry, she could walk out on. Moose in tears? The mind boggled!
“I’m making a list of Charlie’s friends from high school. Can you help me with that?”
He sniffled, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and sat staring at a spot on the floor for so long that Liss wondered if he’d gone into a trance. It startled her when he asked a question.
“For the funeral?”
“Uh, yeah.” It was as good an excuse as any, although she hadn’t given any thought to who would bury Charlie, let alone where or when. “We’ll be wanting to let people know about the services.”
Moose nodded. “Guess you want to wait till Margaret gets back.”
“She’ll be home Tuesday.” Liss’s heart sank at the thought. As yet, her aunt knew nothing about her oldest brother’s sudden return, let alone his second death.
“Guess you want me to be a pallbearer. Charlie would’ve liked that.”
Liss could have kicked herself. Why hadn’t she asked her father what plans he intended to make for Charlie? While it was true that they didn’t know when the body would be released, she doubted the police would hold on to it much longer.
She cleared her throat. “As a longtime friend, you should definitely be a pallbearer.” Liss felt sure her father would honor that promise. “Who else should we ask?”
“All the old gang, I guess.”
“Can you tell me their names?”
His brow furrowed as he thought about her question. “There’s Billy,” he said, “but I guess you can’t count on him. He lives in San Diego. Greaser’s in Miami, so he probably won’t make the trip, either.”
“Wait a minute. One of Charlie’s old friends lives in Miami, Florida?”
The sharpness of her voice seemed to alarm Moose. He picked up his beer, polished off the contents in one gulp, and got up to get another.
“Want one?” he asked again.
She shook her head and stayed put while he made his ponderous way to the kitchen. She heard him open and close the refrigerator door and then the distinctive sound of a cap coming off a bottle. By the time Moose returned, the beer in his hand was already down a quarter. He’d brought a spare, but not to offer to her. It went onto the end table as backup.
“About this friend in Florida,” Liss began. “ ‘Greaser’? What’s his real name?”
Moose shrugged. “Always just called him ‘Greaser.’ Hell, Liss, it’s been years since I gave him a thought. How am I supposed to remember?”
“You knew
he was in Miami.”
He ducked his head and mumbled, “Dolly must’ve told me. She keeps up on what’s what.”
“Dolly” was his name for Dolores, and the librarian was usually up to date on the latest gossip, but Liss had already asked her about Charlie’s friends. Why hadn’t she mentioned Greaser, especially when he lived so close to where Charlie had ended up?
Had Charlie and Greaser met again in Florida? There was no reason to think they had. Greater Miami had a huge population. Still, she made a mental note to find out more about him.
“What about Billy?” she asked. “Do you recall his last name?”
Moose shook his head. “Don’t remember. Too long ago.”
And alcohol rots the brain, Liss thought. She had begun to doubt that she’d learn anything more from Moose Mayfield, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up on him. “Did anyone else hang out with Charlie back then?”
Moose chuckled. “There was a tagalong kid. Younger. Bad case of hero worship.”
Liss sent him a wary look, alerted by the sudden shift in the big man’s manner. He was getting a huge kick out of something he’d just remembered. She braced herself to hear him name Joe Ruskin, or maybe Margaret’s late husband, Noah Boyd.
Instead, he said, very slowly and precisely, “That’d be little Ernie Willett. Kid was a pest, but we couldn’t shake him. Finally Charlie said to let him come along. He might be useful.”
“Useful how?”
Moose gave a snort of laughter and opened the spare beer. “Ask Ernie.”
“Okay, then, who else?”
“Well, there was George, but he’s dead.” Moose chuckled. “Guess you could say him and Greaser and Billy all ended up in hot places. Maybe Charlie, too.”
“George?” Liss leaned toward him. “Would that be George Campbell?”
“Yeah. Good old George. Been dead twenty or thirty years.”
Liss supposed it shouldn’t surprise her that both Sherri’s father and Pete’s had been among her uncle’s pals. Moosetookalook was a small town. Dolores had implied that Charlie had been partial to friends from Fallstown, but maybe she didn’t know as much as she thought she did. She, too, had been younger. She wouldn’t have started dating Moose until after Charlie joined the army.
“Lived large, George did.” Moose had a reminiscent gleam in his bleary eyes. “Got up to near three hundred pounds before his heart gave out. Some say that was Thea’s fault for cooking all those big Italian meals.”
Liss had no comeback. Fortunately, she didn’t need one. Now that he’d started remembering, Moose was on a roll.
“Wonder if Charlie would have blown up like a balloon if he’d married her? Lucky escape, if you ask me. He knew it, too. I always figured he let her catch him with Cissy Moody just so she’d explode and dump him.” He chuckled. “Went after him with a knife, but she was such a little bit of a thing that she didn’t even manage to nick him before he got it away from her. Never laughed so hard in my life.”
Liss blinked several times as comprehension dawned. “Wait a second. Are you telling me Charlie MacCrimmon and Thea Campbell were a couple back in the day?”
“Well, she wasn’t Thea Campbell then. Althea Briscetti from Fallstown. Pretty little dark-haired girl. And wasn’t she a pip! Up for anything. I remember one summer day when we all went down to the coast to party. Her and Charlie had sex on the beach, and I don’t mean that fancy cocktail, either. They went at it behind a dune, but everybody knew what they were doing.”
Liss did not want that image in her head.
“Almost made a play for her myself.” A sappy smile came over Moose’s face. “Charlie wouldn’t have cared.”
“What about Dolly?”
“Wasn’t dating her yet.” The smile turned into a grin. “She already had a big crush on me, though. Still can’t get enough of me.”
Too much information, Liss thought. She wasn’t sure she believed everything Moose was telling her. His memory seemed to have a lot of gaps. Then again, it made sense that there had been something between Charlie and Thea in the past, given her harsh words about him.
“Do you think Charlie would have told Thea he was back in Moosetookalook?”
“What for?” Moose looked genuinely puzzled. “Not like they kept in touch.”
“You don’t know that they didn’t.” When her statement appeared to confuse him, she tried again. “Did anyone from here know he was still alive?”
“I sure didn’t,” Moose said. “Surprised the hell out of me when I found out.”
When he chugged what was left in the second bottle, Liss decided it was time to leave. Maybe she’d try talking to him again when he was sober, if she could ever catch him in that condition. She definitely needed to ask Dolly more questions, and talk to Ernie Willett, too.
As she walked home, she considered Thea’s refusal to believe that Charlie’s memo had any validity. Was she predisposed to distrust anything that came from him simply because he’d cheated on her and humiliated her when they were teenagers? That seemed a petty reason to ignore the charges he’d made against Merveilleuse International.
Thea’s logic seemed to fall into the “cut off your nose to spite your face” category, a far cry from the image of her Liss had always held. The selectwoman had a reputation for being practical and conservative. As one of only three people on the board of selectmen, she’d always done what she thought was best for Moosetookalook. Always. Whatever her reasons, Liss hadn’t doubted that she believed she was right to trust the promises the water company had made to the town . . . until now.
Instead of going straight back home, Liss lingered on her way through the town square. The swings in the playground area were big enough for adults. Despite the cold she sat down and pushed herself back and forth with one foot.
Although it was a nice day for March in Maine, no one else was nearby. Liss stayed there for some time, her eyes unfocused as she contemplated a new scenario—one she’d not seriously considered before her chat with Moose.
What if Charlie had gone to Thea to warn her about the water scam? If Moose was to be believed, Thea had a temper. Did she also hold a grudge? Could it have been Thea who met Charlie in Liss’s backyard? Had he managed to infuriate her, as he had all those years ago? Had she impulsively grabbed a handy tree limb and bashed him over the head with it?
* * *
At four o’clock that afternoon, Liss put boned chicken breasts topped with sweet and sour sauce in the oven to bake for an hour and turned her attention to Glenora. The Scotties were in the yard, chasing a ball that the neighbors’ son was throwing for them.
“I think she’s wheezing less and eating more.” She looked to Dan to confirm her observations.
He looked up from the novel he’d been reading on his iPad and sent her a crooked smile. “Did I tell you I found this morning’s half pill in the corner by her food and water dishes? The little sneak only pretended to swallow it. She must have spit it out as soon as she was sure you were looking the other way.”
“That’s not funny, Dan. Did you give it to her again?”
“Uh . . .” His sheepish expression said it all.
Liss sighed. “It’s too late to give her another one now. It’s almost time for the second dose.” Her voice was grim. “This time I’ll make sure she keeps it down.”
Pilling the cat was her chore, and usually one she could handle on her own. Except for the first time they’d given her the medicine for her upper respiratory infection, she’d been pretty good about the whole thing. She objected more strongly to the goo Audrey had left for her. Fortunately, Dan took responsibility for administering that and had developed a successful technique that involved sneaking up on her while she slept.
As if she’d heard them plotting against her, Glenora was nowhere to be found when they went looking for her. They searched the entire house without catching a glimpse of black fur. After Liss looked beneath the living-room sofa for the third time, she was seriously c
oncerned.
“You don’t suppose she got out, do you?”
“More likely she’s shut in somewhere.”
Glenora had a tendency to enter and explore open cabinets, drawers, and closets. Next to sitting in empty boxes, and sometimes in boxes that weren’t yet empty, that was one of her favorite activities. The cabinets in the kitchen didn’t latch, so she could escape from those easily enough on her own, but the closets were another matter. So, Liss realized, were the storage areas built into the end tables in the living room. The door to one of them had been slightly ajar when she got home. Without thinking, she’d pushed it shut and heard the latch catch. Cautiously she tugged it open and peered inside.
Green eyes stared back at her. If it had bothered Glenora to be locked in, she showed no sign of it. She’d settled in atop the towel, TheraBand, and wrist and ankle weights Liss used when she exercised. Given the evidence, it seemed she’d passed her time in captivity gnawing on one of the Velcro strips attached to an ankle weight.
“Come out of there.”
Liss didn’t wait to be obeyed, gathering her pet into her arms and carrying her into the kitchen. Keeping her voice low and soothing and stroking the soft fur on Glenora’s back with one hand, she reached for the pill bottle with the other, only to discover that she couldn’t remove the childproof cap without letting go of the cat. Dan had to open the bottle for her. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Be a good girl, now,” Liss crooned to Glenora as Dan fished out a pill and used a dinner knife to break it in half at the scoring.
After placing Glenora on the kitchen counter, Liss slid her left hand over her head and used two fingers to pull her mouth open. In the split second before the cat could start to struggle, Liss used her right hand to deftly shove the small pill as far back as she could. A quick shift of position allowed her to hold Glenora’s mouth closed with her left hand while she rubbed her throat with her right. After the cat had swallowed, Liss held her a little longer to make sure the medicine had gone down, all the while stroking her and telling her what a brave girl she was.
“This stuff,” she added, glancing at the label on the bottle, “with the unpronounceable name, is good for you.”
A View to a Kilt Page 14