“Thea, we need to talk,” Liss called.
She wasn’t sure what she’d do if the door remained closed. She could hardly break in, tie the other woman to a chair, and force her to listen.
She breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of locks disengaging.
The door opened inward on well-oiled hinges, revealing a much more casual-looking Thea Campbell than Liss had ever seen before. The selectwoman ordinarily wore her hair pulled back from her face in a severe, no-nonsense style. This morning it hung in loose waves that fell to her shoulders. She was dressed in a voluminous, floor-length garment similar to a caftan, except that it had full-length sleeves held closed at the wrist by a series of small buttons. The bright royal blue of the soft fabric flattered her coloring, but Thea’s scowl spoiled the effect.
“What do you want, Liss?”
“We need to talk,” Liss repeated. “May I come in?”
“If you must.” Thea stepped back and gestured for her to enter. “I suppose you want coffee?”
Without waiting for an answer, she led the way along a narrow hallway to the kitchen. The floor plan wasn’t much different from the one at Liss’s house, but where Liss tended to leave her doors open, all of Thea’s were closed.
As Liss passed what was probably the living room, she couldn’t help but wonder what Thea’s décor was like. Comfortable, old-fashioned sofas and chairs? Danish modern? Antiques? The kitchen gave her a clue. It featured glaringly white appliances and furniture. The tiled floor was so spotless you could eat off it. A bit incongruously, every inch of counter space was filled with gadgets—the kind offered in two-for-one specials (“But wait! There’s more!”) on late-night TV. Liss tried to picture Thea using the salad spinner, but the image refused to jell.
“Sit.” Thea gestured to a small table set with two place mats. The single word was less an invitation than an order.
Liss settled into one of the two kitchen chairs, her back to what was undoubtedly the door to a formal dining room. She couldn’t say for certain, since it, too, was closed. In addition to the place mats, the table held a china sugar bowl and cream pitcher. Liss wouldn’t have pegged Thea as a real-sugar person, but the bowl was filled with cubes.
While a high-tech coffeemaker made a tremendous racket, Thea rattled around at the sink, stacking what appeared to be the dishes she’d used for breakfast. Once the noise finally stopped, she removed cups and saucers from an overhead cabinet, filled the cups, and carried the coffee to the table. The pattern on the delicate china matched that on the sugar bowl and creamer.
Resigned to consuming more coffee, just to be sociable, when she’d been trying to cut back, Liss added both cream and sugar and took a tentative sip. The brew was stronger than she was used to, but she managed not to grimace. Thea took her coffee black. She drank deeply before carefully placing her cup in its saucer and leaning back in her chair. She fixed Liss with a hard stare.
“Well? What’s so important that you had to track me down at home? If this is about Charlie MacCrimmon’s crazy claims—”
“They aren’t so crazy, after all,” Liss interrupted. “I’ll have the proof of it, in writing, by this afternoon, but I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“Impossible.”
Liss shook her head. “Charlie left behind a flash drive containing digital copies of the evidence. Margaret found it in her apartment last night. We made copies. Then we sent one to someone who knows how to interpret such documents. According to him, they confirm everything my uncle put in his memo. Merveilleuse International has a long, crooked history of going after the water rights in small towns like ours. The legal fine print is such that those municipalities find it nearly impossible to prove they’ve been defrauded, especially since it isn’t immediately apparent that they’ve been scammed and robbed of a natural resource.”
“I don’t believe you.”
But she was starting to. Liss could see it in her eyes.
“Why not? Why are you so certain you’re dealing with an ethical company? Come on, Thea. You’re an intelligent woman. Why can’t you admit you made a mistake on this one?”
“We didn’t take the company’s word for anything. The permit process was exhaustive. There were inspections. Tests.”
“Inspectors can be bribed.” That had been another item in Charlie’s memo.
Thea reached for her cup, then jerked her hand away and hid it under the table, but not before Liss had seen that it was trembling. “I will look at your proof when you have it. Right now, you’re asking me to take your word that Merveilleuse International is a bad deal. That’s no more convincing than Charlie MacCrimmon’s scribbles.”
“Fine. Have it your way. I’ll make sure you get a copy of everything.” Liss stood. “Of course, the state police may contact you before I do. Naturally, we handed the original flash drive over to them.”
A faint sound from the far side of the door behind her had Liss turning to stare at it in consternation. Unless Thea had a dog, which seemed unlikely, that muffled growl had come from a human throat. Someone was hiding in the dining room, someone who had been eavesdropping on the entire conversation.
Without stopping to think of potential danger to herself, Liss reached out and pushed open the door. In the next instant she found herself face-to-face with an angry Wade Udall.
“You meddling bitch! Do you have any idea how much money you and that uncle of yours have cost us?”
Too incensed to be afraid, although her heart was racing, Liss shouted right back at him. “Do you know how much damage your company could do to our town? Do you even care?”
He took a step closer, his face a mask of hatred.
Belatedly Liss registered the fact that even though he was in his sixties, Udall was bigger and stronger than she was. He was also angry enough to do her considerable physical harm. She backpedaled, caromed off the table, and felt a spike of fear as Udall came after her.
“Wade, stop!” Thea ordered. “Violence isn’t the answer.”
He turned on her. “You stupid cow. You were supposed to take care of this.”
His words made Thea blanch. She clutched the kitchen counter for support.
Liss retreated a few more steps and fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone. Her hands were shaking. She had Sherri on speed dial, but that wouldn’t do her much good if she was attacked before she could hit the right number.
Was this what Charlie had faced? Would Udall strike her down, as he had her uncle?
He advanced into the kitchen, hands curled into fists at his sides, his attention divided between the two women. Rage made his features grotesque.
“Enough!” Thea shouted. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on either of us. It won’t help anything if you end up in jail for assault.”
“Shut up, Thea.”
“Don’t you talk to me that way!”
While Udall was distracted, Liss pushed the button to place a call to the chief of police. At the same time she sidled toward the door that led to Thea’s back porch. She reached behind herself to feel for the knob and found it easily, but it would not turn. She couldn’t unlock it without turning her back on Udall, and that was something she dared not do.
He’d come to a halt in the middle of the kitchen, focused on Thea as she continued to berate him. At the faint sound of Sherri’s voice, his head swung her way. Liss spoke into the phone, but her eyes never left his. If they could have shot daggers at her, she’d have been a dead woman.
“I’m at Thea’s. So is Wade Udall. You’d better get over here fast and bring another officer with you for backup.”
Udall wasn’t stupid enough to stick around until the police arrived. Cursing audibly, he ducked back into the dining room, retrieved a small overnight bag, and headed for the front door, slamming it behind him when he left the house.
Liss sagged in relief. On legs that felt like rubber bands, she felt her way to the nearest chair. A moment later, Thea collapsed into the other one.
&n
bsp; Liss turned her way, meaning to commend her for her bravery in standing up to Udall. She never got the chance. Thea lowered her head onto her arms and burst into tears.
Chapter Fourteen
Sherri’s police cruiser, siren blaring, arrived less than five minutes after Liss’s phone call. A second officer followed some thirty seconds later. Liss was impressed. She was also in a quandary. Udall was long gone, and she’d had time to remember the overnight bag and put two and two together. Explanations were going to be sticky.
“Oh, the hell with it,” she muttered under her breath. “Let the chips fall where they may.”
She stepped out onto the porch and raised her voice. “It’s okay. False alarm. Um . . . sorry.”
Sherri holstered the weapon she’d been holding at the side of her body, the business end pointed toward the ground. “Where’s Udall?”
“Gone. All clear. Really.” As best as she’d been able to tell, he’d left his car parked on the street. She’d heard the squeal of tires right after Thea started crying.
“What’s going on, Liss? Is my mother-in-law okay?”
“She’s . . . upset. You’d better come inside.”
It was a good thing Thea’s home was so sheltered from the street, Liss thought. Otherwise, nosy neighbors would be converging on the place. As it was, the only house close enough for its occupants to notice the sudden burst of activity belonged to the woman who ran the gift shop at The Spruces. At this hour on a Friday morning, she’d already be at work.
The other officer, one of several part-timers, waited for Sherri to give him the okay before he got back into his personal car and left. Sherri had driven the town’s only official vehicle to the scene. As was usual in Moosetookalook, only the chief of police was on duty during the day. The tiny town’s two full-time policemen covered the other shifts while part-timers filled in for vacations and sick days and were on call for emergencies. Almost all of them would be working the next day at the March Madness Mud Season Sale. Since that meant overtime pay for their service, Liss didn’t imagine they had any objections.
“Well?” Sherri demanded as soon as they were inside Thea’s house.
“She’s back here.” Liss led the way to the kitchen.
Thea was still sitting where Liss had left her. The crying jag had passed, but her tearstained face now wore a shell-shocked expression. Sherri took one look at her, swore colorfully, and flew into action. She poured Thea a fresh cup of coffee, added four cubes of sugar to the steaming brew, hesitated, then added one more. Liss approved. Sugar was supposed to be good for shock. At the least, if Thea could be persuaded to drink, the oversweet taste ought to snap her out of her zombie-like state.
“Come on, Thea. Just one sip, okay?” Sherri set the delicate china cup in front of her mother-in-law and pulled the other chair closer to Thea before dropping into it.
Thea picked it up, frowned, and put it down again without tasting the contents.
“What the hell is the matter with her?” Sherri demanded.
Liss leaned back against the kitchen counter, facing the two women at the table, and tried to think how to begin. “It’s a long story.”
“Condense it.”
She did her best, but since Sherri didn’t know about the flash drive, she had to start with Margaret’s phone call the previous evening. As she recounted the pertinent details, the color slowly came back into Thea’s pale face. She drank a little of the coffee before grimacing and putting the cup back down so quickly that some of the liquid sloshed onto her pure white place mat.
Liss grabbed a paper towel off a roll, dampened it at the sink, and used it to dab at the spill. “When I came over here to fill Thea in on new developments, Udall was in the other room. He overheard what I said and got ticked off.” To say the least!
“Why was Wade Udall here?” Sherri asked. “Did he break in? Over the phone you sounded as if he was threatening you.”
“I may have overreacted.” That wasn’t true, but Udall’s rapid retreat had convinced her that she was not in any danger. He knew the cat was out of the bag. It wouldn’t do him any good to kill her now.
“You called the cops, Liss, even if it was a false alarm. All that stuff about Charlie’s flash drive doesn’t explain what threw you into such a panic.”
“You’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”
“I don’t like anything about this situation. Spit it out, whatever it is.”
Liss took a deep breath and complied. “Udall was already here. I think . . . I’m pretty sure he spent the night with your mother-in-law.”
Sherri’s eyes widened. Slowly she turned her head to stare at Thea. “Is this true?”
Faced with Sherri’s astonishment, she squared her shoulders and met her daughter-in-law’s gaze with a show of defiance. “I’m a grown woman. I can sleep with anyone I care to.”
“With Wade Udall?” Sherri couldn’t keep the disgust out of her voice.
“Why not?” Thea’s glare dared her to criticize her choice.
“Well, for starters, there’s a conflict of interest over this whole water issue. And he’s years younger than you are—”
She broke off when Thea abruptly stood. The older woman wasn’t much taller than Sherri, but the change in their relative positions allowed her to loom over her still-seated daughter-in-law.
In part to distract Thea and in part because she still had questions, Liss spoke up. “How long have you two been lovers?”
Thea spun around to glare at her. “That’s none of your business.”
“It is if he influenced your vote on the water contract.”
Thea drew herself up straighter and thrust out her chin. “I make my own decisions and I am capable of keeping my personal and public lives separate.” She sent a pointed look in Sherri’s direction. “If I weren’t, I would have had charges of nepotism leveled at me years ago.”
A wave of crimson swept up into Sherri’s face as she rose to her feet. “I was hired on my own merits and on the recommendation of the last chief of police. The decision had nothing to do with you.”
“Except that the board of selectmen had to approve your appointment.”
“As I recall, you abstained, precisely because you wanted to avoid any hint of conflict of interest.” Before Thea could say anything more, Sherri attempted to get the conversation back on track. “Was Udall living here?”
“He was a guest in my house.”
“Left in kind of a hurry, didn’t he?”
“Already packed,” Liss put in, sotto voce.
“You’ve no call to go after him,” Thea said. “It wasn’t until your friend here started slinging accusations around that matters got out of control, and even then he didn’t harm her. He didn’t even threaten her. What she told me upset him. He was justifiably annoyed.”
Sherri glanced at Liss for confirmation.
“ ‘Annoyed’ is a rather mild word for it. He was infuriated to the point where I wasn’t at all certain what he’d do next. Given what happened to my uncle—”
“You can’t believe—”
Liss rounded on Thea, interrupting her in turn. “Wade Udall had good reason for wanting Charlie out of the way. You can’t blame me for thinking he might have murdered my uncle, or for wondering if he was about to do the same to me.”
“What nonsense!” Thea was nearly back to her old self. She collected the coffee cups from the table and turned her back on Liss and Sherri to rinse them out at the sink.
“How can you defend him?” Liss asked. “He insulted you. He all but admitted he used you to advance his company’s interests. He said you were ‘supposed to take care of this.’ I assume he meant you were supposed to find a way to get me to stop digging. But tell me, Thea, if that was your job, what was it that he took care of?”
“If you think Wade killed Charlie, you’re wrong. He was with me that night. All that night.”
“Oh, boy,” Sherri whispered. “Pete is going to hate heari
ng this.”
Liss sent her a sympathetic look.
“Are you filing a complaint?” Sherri asked her.
“No, but I want Detective Cussler to know what happened here today.”
Sherri grimaced before turning back to her mother-in-law. “You’ll probably have to give a statement to the state police. If you do, they’ll undoubtedly ask you if Udall could have left here and come back again while you were asleep.”
“We didn’t do much sleeping,” Thea said in a flat voice that left Sherri at a momentary loss for words, and gave her mother-in-law time to glare at Liss and jerk her head toward the door to the hall. “You’ve caused enough trouble, Liss MacCrimmon. Get out of my house.”
“You have to understand—”
“Just go.” Thea crossed her arms over her chest and stared pointedly at the exit.
Liss left, but she went only as far as Sherri’s police cruiser. She was sitting in the passenger seat when her friend came out a few minutes later. Neither of them spoke until Sherri had backed out of Thea’s driveway.
“Anything else I should know about?” Sherri asked.
Squirming uncomfortably, Liss spent the short drive from Thea’s house to the parking lot in back of the municipal building debating how much more to share. By the time Sherri turned off the engine, she’d made up her mind. It was time to spill the beans on Thea’s history with Charlie MacCrimmon.
“I hate to think it,” she added after she’d repeated everything Moose Mayfield had told her, “but given both her old grudge and the current situation, isn’t it possible that the reason Thea was so eager to give Wade Udall an alibi is because she needs one herself?”
“You really believe Pete’s mother could have killed your uncle? Come on, Liss. This is Thea Campbell we’re talking about.”
“Would you have believed she was sleeping with Wade Udall if she hadn’t admitted it?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Just listen, okay? It makes sense that Charlie would go to her first with the information he uncovered. She’s on the board of selectmen and he must have thought she’d listen to him because she knew him in the old days.”
A View to a Kilt Page 20