“And Udall?”
“I have no idea, but I doubt he’s lurking in some dark alley, waiting to leap out and cut your throat.” She laughed when she saw Liss take an involuntary step backward. “Don’t worry, dear. If it’s revenge he’s after, he’ll target your business. That’s his area of expertise. And since you’re such a small outfit, I doubt he can do much damage.”
On that cheerful note Thea rose, scooped up her coat, and swept out of the meeting room. A moment later, her parting admonition drifted back to Liss from the hallway.
“Don’t forget to turn out the lights when you leave.”
Liss didn’t follow her immediately. Instead, she lowered herself into the nearest chair to consider what Thea had said. She was probably right. There was no profit for Udall or Forestall in harming her, not when they’d already lost all hope of getting Moosetookalook’s water rights, but that still left the question of whether someone connected to Merveilleuse International had been responsible for her uncle’s death. She was inclined to think the rock tossed through her window was unconnected. It just didn’t seem to be the sort of thing Udall or Forestall would do.
Was Sherri’s mother-in-law capable of murder? Thea’s behavior just now went a long way toward ruling her out as well. However hotheaded she might have been as a teenager, she was no longer that person.
Liss heaved a deep sigh. This was hopeless. She might never figure out why Charlie had camped out in Margaret’s apartment rather than make his presence known, or why he’d been in her backyard in the middle of the night.
She didn’t know how long she sat in the meeting room, mulling over the things she’d learned about her uncle, but eventually she stood up and headed for the front entrance, flicking off lights as she went. She intended to go straight home, have lunch with her husband and her cat, and stop beating herself up because she hadn’t been able to discover the identity of a murderer or track down a vandal.
She was just outside the town clerk’s office, about to leave the building, when someone called her name. She glanced behind her, expecting to see Sherri standing at the far end of the hall where her office was located, but there was no one in sight.
The whisper came again. “Liss. Upstairs. Hurry.”
At the urgency she heard in the disembodied voice, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, but she didn’t hesitate to answer what sounded like a plea for help. It had to be Dolores. No one else could get into the library on a Sunday.
As she hurried up the stairs, fishing in her pocket for her cell phone as she climbed, a half-dozen scenarios ran through her mind. The most frightening was that Dolores had taken a fall and was seriously injured. The best was that the librarian had uncovered some new information about Charlie MacCrimmon and, in true Dolores Mayfield fashion, wanted to see Liss’s reaction to the juicy bits before she broadcast them all over town.
The last thing she expected was to crest the landing and find herself face-to-face with the business end of a gun.
Chapter Seventeen
“Company, Dolly,” Moose Mayfield sang out as he shoved Liss ahead of him into the library. The barrel of the handgun had pressed painfully into the small of her back. Her wrist throbbed where he’d gripped it to wrench her cell phone away from her. But it was the sight of the librarian, sprawled in an ungainly heap on the floor in front of the desk, that caused Liss the greatest distress.
Dolores lay so still that, at first, Liss thought she was dead. Then she noticed the slow trickle of red oozing out from beneath Dolores’s head. That gave her hope. If mystery novels were to be believed, once the heart stopped, so did the flow of blood. A corpse did not bleed.
The click when Moose engaged the dead bolt, locking the three of them inside, was loud enough to make Liss start and turn her head. The man standing behind her looked the same as ever—big head, bleary eyes, moon-faced, and hangdog expression—but now she knew better than to think he was harmless.
Liss had never heard of Moose actually hurting anyone, and she didn’t think he’d ever been arrested, but she remembered all too vividly the time he’d shot a hole in his own ceiling. Dolores had calmed him down that day. Had there been other incidents? She had no way of knowing, but it had clearly been Moose who’d injured his wife. That did not bode well.
She tried to judge how much alcohol Moose had consumed on this occasion. She could smell the beer on his breath, as well as the stink of his sweat. If he didn’t have complete control of his movements, maybe she could rush him and take away the gun.
She abandoned that plan when he gestured with the weapon, indicating that she should move deeper into the library’s main room. Swallowing hard and fighting to keep her trembling under control, Liss backed slowly away from him and closer to Dolores. Just as she reached the other woman, Dolores groaned.
“She needs medical attention,” Liss said. “Let me help her.”
Moose just stood there, looking blank.
“This is Dolly, Moose. Are you going to let her die?”
“All your fault,” he mumbled.
Blinking back tears, he once again used the gun to gesture, this time indicating that she could go to his wife’s aid. Liss knelt beside the injured woman. When her body momentarily blocked Moose’s view, Dolores’s eyes popped open. The emotion simmering in them was unmistakable. She knew her husband had been the one to knock her down and she was furious.
“Help me sit up,” Dolores whispered.
“Are you sure? You have a head wound.”
“I am aware of that.” Dolores glared at her. “Do you always have to ask questions?”
Liss glanced over her shoulder at Moose. The gun was still pointed in their direction. He didn’t seem to be having any difficulty holding it steady, and it was obvious he knew that his wife was conscious.
“Is that okay with you?” she asked him.
She took his grunt for assent.
Although she was clearly woozy, Dolores managed to sit and then to stand. Weaving slightly, she made her way to the nearest chair. Liss sat down next to her, keeping one hand on Dolores’s arm.
The librarian directed a malevolent glare at her husband. “You’re a damned fool, Roger.”
“Shut up, Dolly.”
“Why should I? And stop pointing that gun at me. You know you aren’t going to shoot me.”
Liss held her breath.
“You don’t know nothing,” Moose said.
“Then enlighten me.”
That Dolores wasn’t afraid of her husband struck Liss as monumentally clueless. She was scared enough for two. While Moose’s attention was fixed on his wife, Liss scanned her surroundings, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. Failing that, she looked for a good place to hide if he started shooting. There were rows of sturdy bookshelves to offer concealment, but the books left far too many open spaces for a bullet to pass through.
“She knows,” Moose said.
It took Liss a moment to realize he was talking about her. “I know? What is it I’m supposed to know?”
“That private detective told her.” Yet again he gestured with the gun, indicating that Dolores was now the “her” in question.
Liss shifted her gaze to Dolores. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”
The librarian shrugged, wincing when the movement jarred the injury to her head. “People tell me lots of things. Naturally, I share most of them with Roger.”
And with anyone else who’d listen, Liss thought, but what could Jake Murch have said that would set Moose off like this? Liss wracked her brain to come up with an answer. It had to be something Dolores had heard the other day in the Emporium. She’d been there when Murch showed up and had inserted herself into their conversation. . . which was exactly why they’d been careful not to be too specific.
“We told you about finding Charlie’s flash drive in Margaret’s apartment.” Liss remembered that much.
Moose burst into speech. “He said what’s on that fl
ash drive would send me to jail.”
Liss sent Dolores a puzzled look. Why would Moose think he’d been the subject under discussion? It hadn’t had anything to do with him. They’d been talking about the evidence against Merveilleuse International.
“Now, sweetie, you need to calm down.” Dolores managed to sound conciliatory. “Nobody’s out to arrest you.”
“She’ll tell.” He jabbed a finger in Liss’s direction. In his agitation he began to wave the gun around. “You know what she’s like. She keeps digging. Always digging. This time she didn’t have to dig very far. Charlie said he was going to confess all his past sins.”
Charlie said?
Horrified, Liss stared at the man she and the rest of the town had always discounted as a harmless old drunk. If Charlie had talked to Moose, that could only mean one thing—Moose Mayfield had murdered her uncle.
Her heart raced as rapidly as her thoughts. Charlie and Moose must have met face-to-face after Charlie’s return to Moosetookalook. When Charlie threatened to reveal something that could send Moose to jail, Moose had picked up a tree limb and hit him. Now he thought she knew his secret, and because of that, he intended to kill her, too.
“There was nothing about you on Charlie’s flash drive,” Liss said aloud. “It was all about the water company.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You can see for yourself. I can give you a copy.”
“All the copies.”
“Sure. Of course.” She didn’t think this would be a good time to tell him that the state police had the original.
“It was the car accident, wasn’t it?” Dolores asked. “The wreck you boys were in when you were teenagers. Who was really driving that night? Charlie? Or you?”
“Like you don’t know. Like she didn’t tell you. Why else would you go quoting your damned father at me? That’s when I knew you were just biding your time before you turned me in. Turned on me, your own husband.”
“I wasn’t about to do any such thing!” Offended, Dolores started to rise from her chair. She sat back down with a thump, her hand to her head, overcome by a wave of dizziness. “I didn’t even suspect,” she whispered, speaking more to herself than to him. “All these years and I never suspected a thing.”
Liss felt sick. The statute of limitations had long since run out on that car accident. Even if Charlie had come clean about what happened all those years ago, Moose would have been in no danger of arrest.
She drew in a steadying breath.
“You didn’t intend for that boy to die, and you didn’t plan to kill my uncle. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, wasn’t it? You followed him into my backyard just to talk to him, to try to convince him not to go public.”
Moose’s shaggy head swiveled her way. He seemed to have trouble focusing on her, but after a moment he nodded. “We’d been drinking up in Margaret’s apartment. Talking about the old days. He wanted to see if his tree house was still there.”
His tree house? Liss didn’t interrupt, but she felt a spurt of anger on her father’s behalf.
“We were standing in the backyard, talking real quiet so we wouldn’t wake anybody up, and Charlie started going on about all the things he’d done that he was ashamed of. He said it was time to confess. Clear the air. Mend fences.”
Liss was amazed Moose could remember so much, given how drunk he and Charlie must have been.
“He was dying,” she said in a quiet voice. “Cancer.”
Moose’s face went slack with shock. “No.”
“Yes. He didn’t have much time left. I think he was trying to make amends. He started with you because you were his friend.”
“No. He was going to rat me out. I had to stop him.” The arm holding the gun dropped to his side as he turned away from them, staggering a little as he moved away. “I was so mad. It really pissed me off that he’d even think about betraying me like that. There was this tree limb on the ground. A good, sturdy one. I just picked it up and turned around and hit him with it. I was so mad,” he repeated.
“You didn’t mean to kill him.”
Liss rose slowly from her chair and circled the table. She was almost close enough to make a try for the gun when Moose suddenly swung around. She froze, but he didn’t seem to notice her. His eyes were unfocused.
“Damn fool,” Dolores muttered. “You might have gotten away with it if you hadn’t come up with this stupid kidnap-and-murder plot. What you’re doing now is premeditated, Roger. They’ll lock you up for good for it.”
Liss wanted to tell her to be quiet, but she was afraid that speaking up would draw Moose’s attention. Dolores was right. Even if he didn’t go through with his plan to eliminate everyone he thought had seen what was on the flash drive, he was in big trouble. He’d assaulted Dolores and kidnapped her, and who knew what he’d planned to do about Jake Murch?
“You weren’t supposed to be here, Dolly.” Remorse underscored his words.
“Then you shouldn’t have taken my keys. Did you think I wouldn’t come after you when I realized they were missing? No one except me is allowed in the library after hours.”
“You shouldn’t have interfered.”
“Is that why you hit me over the head the moment I walked in on you?”
“I was waiting for her.” Moose cast an accusing look Liss’s way. “I made sure she’d hear about the selectmen’s meeting. I knew she’d stick her nose in, even if no one else did. All I had to do was wait till she came out and lure her up here.”
“You were going to kill her in my library?”
Outraged, Dolores surged to her feet and this time stayed upright long enough to fling herself at Moose. The gun flew out of his hand as they crashed to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
The weapon skittered straight at Liss. She scooped it up and headed for the door while the Mayfields continued to grapple with each other, oblivious to her actions. She’d released the dead bolt and was about to go for help when she realized that in the time it would take her to get safely away, Moose might succeed in throttling Dolores.
Instead of rushing down the stairs, she made a beeline for Dolores’s desk and the phone on the small table behind it. She kept a tight hold on the gun. She had no intention of firing it, but if she had to, she could point it at Moose and threaten to shoot him.
Sherri was in her office, catching up on paperwork. She answered Liss’s call on the first ring and arrived on the scene within minutes. Dan was hard on her heels. He’d gotten tired of waiting for his wife to return to have lunch with him. They were just in time to see Dolores roll on top of her husband, take hold of his shoulders, and bang the back of his head against the floor. The enraged librarian was stronger than she looked. After three or four solid whacks, Moose lost consciousness.
* * *
The following afternoon, at the request of Kelly Cussler, Liss, Dan, and all the MacCrimmons gathered in Liss’s living room. Glenora was perched on top of the bookcase. The state police detective was expected at any moment. She hadn’t said what she wanted to talk to them about, but Liss assumed it had to do with Moose Mayfield’s confession.
As soon as Sherri had revived him and read him his rights, he’d started babbling, admitting to everything Liss and Dolores had already worked out—and more, besides. He had been driving the stolen car all those years ago when he and Charlie and their friends went joyriding. He’d killed Charlie to keep him from telling anyone what really happened on that long-ago night. He’d thrown the rock through Liss’s window in the hope that she’d keep quiet about what she knew. Later, Moose had decided, in a burst of alcohol-induced paranoia, that he would only be safe if he killed her, too.
He’d also admitted to getting rid of Charlie’s rental car. He’d hidden it, though not very well. The only thing he didn’t confess to was going back to Margaret’s apartment after he killed Charlie. He claimed he’d gone straight home. Liss could think of no reason why he’d lie about that. Unfortunately, the omission left o
pen the question of what had happened to Charlie’s laptop. She was certain he’d brought one with him from Florida.
“What I don’t understand,” Liss said when the conversation turned to Dolores’s bravery and the difficult time she’d face, now that her husband had been arrested, “is why she stuck with him this long. Come to think of it, I have a hard time figuring out why she’d marry him in the first place. He already had a serious drinking problem by the time they started dating.”
“PK,” Margaret said without looking up from pouring tea into her cup and that of her brother. The rest of them were drinking coffee.
“ ‘PK’?” Liss repeated, uncertain what the initials stood for.
“Preacher’s kid. Dolores’s father was the pastor at one of the churches here in town. Naturally, she rebelled against her strict upbringing. That’s what a preacher’s kid does. She dated Moose. Then, after her father insisted she stop seeing him, she eloped with him. The old man was furious. He put in for a transfer, or whatever you call it when you’re talking about ministers, and left town a few months later. Dolores stayed and took over the library after old Mrs. Prentiss retired.”
“How come I never knew any of this?”
Margaret shrugged. “You never asked.”
Liss glanced at her mother. “You knew.”
“Well, of course I did, but it didn’t seem relevant. Who would ever suppose that Moose Mayfield would turn into a homicidal maniac?”
Liss heard the chagrin in Vi’s voice and sympathized. She was glad the truth had finally come out, but appalled at how far off-base their theories had been. There had been a great many questions she hadn’t even thought to ask.
A knock at the front door brought Dan to his feet. He returned to the living room with the state police detective and a man whose name Liss did not know, but whose face was tantalizingly familiar. She gasped when she realized where she’d seen him before.
“You! You’re the one who followed me home from Florida.”
“What?” Dan looked prepared to grab the fellow by the collar and throttle him, even though Liss had never told him about the suspicious man on the plane.
A View to a Kilt Page 24