Ho-Ho-Homicide (A Liss MacCrimmon Mystery Book 8)

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “Scotch pine,” Andy said.

  And that, Liss thought, inhaling deeply, was why the scent put her in mind of the rosin dancers stepped in to give their shoes traction on stage. Rosin was made from pine sap.

  “Like I already told you,” Andy continued as they left one field and entered the next, “it takes ten or eleven years for a tree to get big enough to sell.”

  In the second field, the trees were significantly smaller and were, Liss thought, mostly balsams.

  “Mr. Snowe sold a whole year’s crop at a time. Of course, some trees die off in the course of a decade, so he’d end up harvesting around a thousand a year.”

  “A thousand trees,” Liss said, marveling. It seemed an astonishingly large number for an old man and a girl to cut down, net, and ship. Then she remembered something Andy had said earlier. “You mentioned that he hired extra help. Did his seasonal workers live around here?”

  “Liss.” There was a warning note in Dan’s voice.

  “I’m not trying to solve a murder,” she insisted. “I’m curious about the details of operating the Christmas tree farm. For Gina, remember?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She couldn’t fault him for his skepticism, but neither could she think how she’d be of any use solving a seven-year-old cold case, even if she wanted to get involved. Which she didn’t. Not at all.

  Andy’s brows knit together, puzzled by their exchange of words. She gave each of them a curious look before she answered Liss’s question. “He hired different people different years. Some local, some not. No one person every year. Except me.”

  “And that last year? Who did he hire then?”

  “It was more than seven years ago. How am I supposed to remember?”

  Liss was willing to bet that the police had those names. None of your concern, she reminded herself and forced her attention back to the matter at hand.

  “The tree farm covers about fifty acres, right?”

  Andy nodded. “The year after Mr. Snowe cut down a section, he’d leave it fallow, then replant the year after that.”

  “What do you do for irrigation?” Dan asked, interested in spite of himself.

  Andy shrugged. “Trees don’t need anything but natural rainfall most years, but there’s a stream along the property line. He pumped water out of that a few times. If you want to walk the whole fifty acres, I can show it to you. It kind of winds around the perimeter.”

  “I’d rather inspect the parts that were planted most recently.” Liss hadn’t completely given up on the idea that there might be a few trees of a proper size to sell locally. “How far from the house are those fields?”

  The first one, planted ten years earlier, turned out to be near at hand. It also showed evidence of having been pruned. Andy admitted that was her doing. The fields from eight and nine years back were a long hike along the overgrown remnant of a logging road.

  “We used this route to remove the cut trees from the property,” Andy explained. “Did the netting on the spot. Stacked the trees on pallets so the shipper could drive right up to them and load the cargo into his truck.”

  “What company did the shipping?”

  Andy gave Liss a name, but it meant nothing to her. She didn’t suppose it mattered. Gina wouldn’t be likely to use the firm again.

  They walked in silence for a bit, wending their way back toward the house. Andy stopped when they came to a field in which the trees were the smallest Liss had yet seen.

  “This is the section Mr. Snowe put in seven years ago, the spring before he disappeared.”

  There was something odd about the field in front of her, but it took a moment for Liss to figure out what it was. The trees in the other sections had all been planted in rows. The open spaces between them, roughly a mowing deck in width, formed paths that were clearly discernible despite underbrush and overgrown branches.

  “Why on earth are these trees planted so close together?” As they’d grown, their branches had intertwined until they were tangled into what appeared to be one impenetrable mass.

  “No idea.” Andy shrugged. “He’d tell me where to dig holes, and I’d dig.”

  Frowning, Liss glanced toward the house. Had it been this field she’d noticed from the bedroom window, the one that had left her feeling so unsettled? It had to be.

  Looking at the mess in front of her, she wondered again if Snowe’s mind had been deteriorating during the months before he disappeared. Andy had said he was still sharp, but since he’d lived alone out here, his only regular visitor a teenage girl, it was possible that he had drifted slowly into senility without anyone noticing.

  Andy headed home as soon as they finished their tour of the Christmas tree farm. By the time the sound of her motorcycle faded away, Dan was lobbying for Liss to phone Gina.

  “In a minute,” Liss said, slipping out of her coat. “There’s something else I need to check on first.”

  Grumbling under his breath, he followed her upstairs. Liss went straight to the bedroom window and stared out at the tree farm. She’d been right.

  “Dan? Come and take a look at this.”

  After a moment, he came up beside her, slinging one arm around her shoulders. “What am I supposed to be looking at besides a heck of a lot of Christmas trees?”

  “That last field Simeon Snowe planted before he disappeared.” Liss pointed. “It’s the one—”

  She broke off as his grip abruptly tightened. “The one where the trees are all planted too close together. It’s like a hedge or a . . . well, damn!”

  The proverbial lightbulb had come on, just as it had for Liss.

  “You see it, too?”

  “Snowe must have been losing his mind.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, until I realized how much clearheaded planning it would take to put together something that complex.”

  The trees were so overgrown that the design was difficult to make out, even from above. It had been impossible to spot at ground level. But once Liss had realized what she was looking at, the entire field resolved itself into a pattern that was not in the least random, only inexplicable. Simeon Snowe had used his last batch of twelve hundred seedlings to create a maze.

  “Hit the speaker button,” Dan reminded her when Liss finally made her call to Gina. They’d already talked about how they’d handle the conversation. Dan had promised to listen and not weigh in too often.

  “I don’t know anything about any dead man in a shipment of trees,” Gina insisted when Liss repeated Andy’s astonishing revelation.

  “Did your father, do you think?”

  “If he did, he never mentioned it to me, and he certainly would have if Uncle Simeon had been suspected of murdering a man. I expect Andy was confused. Or exaggerating. How extraordinary that all this time I thought she was a young man.”

  “So did I, at first. Can you tell us anything more about your great-uncle?” Liss asked.

  “Not a lot. He wasn’t close to the rest of the family.”

  “How old was he?”

  After a long pause, Gina said, “About the same age as my father, I think. He was my grandfather’s much younger half brother, so he’d have been in his midfifties at the time he disappeared.”

  “Not exactly senile, then,” Dan said.

  “Of course not.” Gina sounded offended.

  Liss glanced at Dan, eyebrows raised. “Ah, Gina, if he didn’t just get confused and wander off, get lost, and die of exposure, then the most logical reason for him to go missing at that particular point in time is that he had something to do with the murder.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Liss waited.

  A deep sigh came over the airways. “I suppose, since you’re already there, that it would be a good idea for you to contact the local police. Find out what’s what. After all, you’re good at that sort of thing.”

  “And you’re a criminal attorney, Gina,” Dan said. “Surely you have contacts with law enforcement in both Maine and New York.”<
br />
  “But you two are on the spot. It makes better sense for you to ask questions face-to-face with the local constabulary.”

  “Gina, I—”

  “Look, Liss, I really have to go.” She sounded impatient. “I know it’s Saturday, but I still have tons of research to do for this trial that starts on Monday. I’ll be in touch. Ta!”

  “In other words,” Dan said as dead air followed the click of a disconnect, “don’t call us. We’ll call you.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “So why are you smiling?”

  “Remember the movie we watched last night? Ralph, the character Danny DeVito plays in Romancing the Stone, gets left behind when his cousin is escaping by boat. The cousin—”

  “Ira. The cousin’s name is Ira.”

  “Right. Ira shouts across the water that he’ll come back for Ralph, and Ralph wants to know when.”

  “Soon. Very Soon.” Dan sounded no more convincing than Ira had.

  “Exactly. For some strange reason, when Gina promised to be in touch, I immediately thought of Ira.”

  Her sarcastic tone had Dan giving a short bark of laughter, but he quickly sobered. “Liss, I don’t like the way Gina’s manipulating us. We’re under no obligation to play detective for her. You’ve already found out what she wanted to know—that it’s too late to ship trees this year. Send her that information in an e-mail and we’re done. We can go home this afternoon.”

  “No, we can’t. I haven’t had a chance to go through her great-uncle’s business records yet. And there’s a possibility that Andy could open this place for Gina this year as a cut-your-own operation. Since we have to stay on long enough to look into those things, we may as well do as she asks and talk to the police.”

  “Let Gina hire an accountant and a private detective for those jobs. She can afford it.”

  “There is one other reason to stay on.” Liss stepped closer to her husband and ran both palms up the front of his shirt. “We came here for a mini-vacation. Remember? I’d really like to stay a little longer, Dan. Think how nice it would be to relax, just the two of us. Seems to me you were all for that plan only a few hours ago.”

  Her hands climbed to his face and then into his thick sandy brown hair, sifting through the curls.

  “This morning I didn’t know there had been a murder.”

  “Neither did I.” She tugged his head down so she could plant a smacking kiss on his lips.

  “So you won’t have any trouble staying out of police business?”

  “A visit to the police station does not constitute meddling in murder! Besides, it’s Mr. Snowe’s disappearance Gina wants to know more about, not the man in the netter.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  She grimaced and released him. “No. But what harm will it do to ask a few questions? You can’t tell me you’re not curious, too.”

  “Maybe a little,” Dan admitted.

  Elated, she grabbed his hand and tugged him after her. “Come on, then. Let’s get it over with.”

  “Why do I let you talk me into these things?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but she answered it, anyway. “Because you love me.”

  “I do, don’t I?” He helped her into her coat. “Okay. Here’s the revised plan. We go into town. You ask your questions. Then we do nothing else for the rest of the weekend but enjoy each other’s company.”

  “And on Monday?”

  “On Monday we decide whether we want to stay longer or head home.”

  “Fair enough. And we have lunch in town while we’re there.” The noon hour was almost upon them.

  “Done.”

  During the drive into New Boston, Liss gave herself a little lecture. No matter how strange the events of seven years ago, she was not, absolutely not, going to be tempted to investigate beyond a few questions at the local police department. She’d keep her focus on the two goals she’d set before leaving Moosetookalook. While here, they’d enjoy a well-deserved vacation. They would also settle a very personal matter once and for all—the question of whether or not to have a baby.

  Liss stole a sideways glance at her husband. She knew what she wanted, but Dan’s thoughts about having children were a mystery to her. Did he secretly yearn for offspring? Was he waiting for her to speak before expressing his wish for a son to carry on the family name and the family businesses? Or did his silence on the subject mean he lacked any particular desire for sons or daughters of his own? Liss wished she could discover the answers to those questions without coming right out and asking. If he was bound and determined to father a child, she’d just as soon he never found out that her own feelings about motherhood were, at best, ambivalent.

  “How long have we been here?” Liss asked without opening her eyes. She hadn’t thought to bring a book with her. Within five minutes of taking a seat in the small, stuffy lobby of the police station, she’d been bored silly. She’d have napped if the chairs weren’t so uncomfortable.

  She heard the slide of fabric as Dan shoved up his sleeve to take a look at his watch. “Half an hour, give or take.”

  She shifted in the hard plastic chair, trying unsuccessfully to find a more comfortable position. She’d thought, when they told the receptionist they wanted to talk to the chief about Simeon Snowe, that they’d be ushered in to see him fairly quickly. Instead, they’d been left to cool their heels. The uniformed officer seated at a desk on the other side of a glass partition looked up from his paperwork from time to time to glance their way, but no one spoke to them after that first brief exchange.

  “How do you want to handle this?” Dan asked when she opened her eyes, yawned, and stretched. “Obviously, the chief’s in no hurry to be accommodating, and strictly speaking, he has no reason to tell us anything.”

  Liss sighed. “I know.” The police in general were notorious for keeping information close to their chests, and here in New Boston she and Dan didn’t know anyone on the police force or in the local county sheriff’s department. “I guess we play it by ear.”

  At last, a short, wiry man emerged from a back room. “Wyatt Purvey, chief of police,” he said in a low, whispery voice that went oddly with the position of authority he held. “How can I help you?” He ignored Liss and offered his hand to Dan.

  “Dan Ruskin,” Dan replied, shaking it. “This is my wife, Liss. We’re staying out at the Snowe farm for a few days at the request of the new owner.”

  “And he would be?”

  “She would be Ms. Gina Snowe of Chicago.”

  “We have a few questions on her behalf.” Liss cut in, annoyed by Purvey’s attitude. He hadn’t looked directly at her once, almost as if he wanted to pretend she didn’t exist.

  Forced to acknowledge her, Purvey presented Liss with a poker face. “Yes?” he hissed, the word nearly inaudible.

  “It seems one of the netters used in Simeon Snowe’s Christmas tree business was confiscated by the police. His niece hopes to reopen and was wondering when she might have it back.” It had been Andy Dutton who’d wanted it returned, not Gina, but Liss was sure Gina would have agreed if only Liss had remembered to mention it to her.

  Purvey blinked cold little fish eyes. “I think it unlikely that will happen.”

  “Why not?”

  He hesitated.

  Dan, a look of resignation on his face, jumped in with an “innocent” remark of his own. “Miss Dutton, who worked with Mr. Snowe, told us some preposterous story about a murdered man.”

  Purvey shifted so that he no longer had to look at Liss. “Miss . . . ? Oh, that would be young Andy? That girl.”

  The way the police chief shook his head made his opinion of Andy crystal clear. She was a “foolish young thing,” not to be taken seriously. “Do you have me pigeonholed, too?” Liss wanted to ask him. No doubt she was already filed under “pushy female who doesn’t know her place.”

  His chauvinistic attitude made her bristle, but she held her tongue. It was obvious Dan wo
uld have more luck getting answers than she would.

  “Did she get that wrong?” he asked Chief Purvey, still feigning ignorance. “Are you saying that no one died?”

  “Oh, there was a body, right enough. But it was no one from around here.” The implication was that since the man had been from away, his death was of no importance.

  “Where was he from?” Dan asked.

  “I don’t think the state boys ever did find out. Or his name, either.”

  “How . . . odd,” Liss murmured. Purvey ignored her.

  “So you’re telling us that we can’t get the netter back, because it might still be needed as evidence?” Dan did a good job of looking confused.

  “That’s exactly right. Sorry I couldn’t be more help.” Purvey started to retreat in the direction of his office. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I—”

  “What about Simeon Snowe?” Liss blurted out her question so loudly that both the New Boston police officer and the receptionist turned to stare at her from behind the glass partition.

  Purvey’s expression did not change, and the volume of his voice continued to be set on low. “What about him?”

  “What do you think happened to him? Did he take off because he was a suspect in the other man’s death?”

  “That’s not for me to say.”

  “But—”

  Dan cleared his throat. “Chief Purvey, I think Ms. Snowe has reason to be concerned. Even if her uncle was not involved in the crime, a man appears to have been murdered on her property. As Snowe’s heir, she might even be liable for damages.”

  Liss wondered if Gina had thought of that and decided she likely had. After all, she was a lawyer.

  Purvey’s unrevealing features seemed to become blanker still. “You think someone might sue her at this late date?” A strange rustling sound issued from his throat as he retreated through the door that led to the inner sanctum of the police station. Liss thought it might be a laugh. Whatever it was, it was all the answer he intended to give them.

  “I don’t think he knows any more than he’s saying,” she murmured when the automatic lock clicked closed behind him. “Not about the dead man, at any rate. The state police would have taken charge of the murder investigation, and they probably took over the disappearance of Simeon Snowe, as well.” It made sense that they’d assume the two cases were somehow connected.