The next person on her list, and the first for whom she had a name, was Beatrice Purvey. Liss put a star by her name. She’d been at the store right before Dan fell. She’d had opportunity. She might even have had motive, depending on whether or not she really believed Liss’s and Dan’s questions could harm her son’s reputation. It still seemed absurd to Liss that the mother of the chief of police would stoop to committing a crime, let alone one that was so impulsive and poorly planned, but she couldn’t completely dismiss the possibility, especially after it occurred to her that Mrs. Purvey might know what Dan’s truck looked like. She could have been watching from the window of the town office when they drove away on Friday afternoon.
The town manager was next on her list. Liss couldn’t remember his name, but she knew it would be easy to find. New Boston undoubtedly had a town Web page. These days, even the smallest villages invested in their own domains. She resolved to search for it on her iPad just as soon as she finished writing down names.
The next few flowed easily from her pen: Andrea Dutton, Wyatt Purvey, and Michael Jennings. She didn’t know the name of the receptionist at the police station, but the woman wasn’t a likely suspect, either. No matter. Liss wrote “police receptionist” after Officer Jennings’s name.
“Clerk in café and Cook in café,” came next. Then she scratched out the last line and replaced it with “Miranda.” That was what the man with the dog had called her. And he’d introduced himself as Harlan Woolgar. What a name! She wrote it down, too, and put Jonas—the dog’s name—in parentheses.
Liss paused, her pen suspended above the tablet. Given the acoustics in the café, anyone who’d been there could have overheard what she and Dan said to each other, to Miranda, and to Harlan Woolgar. She hadn’t paid any particular attention to the other patrons. She thought there had been two men seated at another table. And at least three people had come in to grind their own coffee beans. Liss couldn’t recall anything about any of them, not even whether they’d been male or female. She was pretty sure there had been no other dogs.
Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe this was all a waste of time. Still, she forged ahead, adding the names Juliette Cressy and Rowena Luckenbill. She couldn’t identify the young woman she’d met going into the dance studio as she’d been coming out, but she put down a description—“young, brown hair, apologetic.” She couldn’t even recall that much about the other shoppers at the grocery store. The only one she’d paid attention to was Beatrice Purvey.
So, that was everyone. She counted—eight names.
Liss fired up her iPad and entered her favorite search engine. As she’d anticipated, the New Boston, Maine Web page provided the name of the town manager—Steven Wilton—and that of the woman at the PD. It turned out that her actual title was dispatcher. Her name was Philippa Crockett.
The coffee shop, Madison’s, also had a Web site. Liss was not surprised to discover that Miranda’s surname was Madison. It did not provide a name for the young man who was Miranda’s employee.
Dance-Ex and All Things Mystical both had Web pages, but neither had been updated recently. Only Rowena’s offered a bio page, and it was clear to Liss after reading only a few sentences that Rowena had made up the details, beginning with her claim to have been born on the planet Actuarius.
Frustrated, Liss typed in a new search string. Information on the seven-year-old murder and the missing persons case was sketchy. The few listings she did find led to newspaper archives that were available to view only if she wanted to subscribe or pay a fee or both. For the time being, she declined these offers. It seemed unlikely that she’d find any details in those articles that she did not already have. She’d do better by finding a way to go directly to the source—state police reports.
Liss exited the search engine and entered her e-mail program. For once she ignored the messages waiting to be read in favor of composing one of her own. It took considerable time to organize everything she wanted to say. Along the way, she changed her mind about asking for the inside scoop on the two cold cases. She’d have less to explain if she stuck to questions about the people on her list of suspects. Even so, she almost hit the delete key. She stopped herself in time and read over what she’d written one last time. Deciding it would have to do, she closed her eyes and hit SEND.
At once she felt better, as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She thought she might even be able to fall asleep now. A glance at the clock on the iPad had her hoping she could. At best, she’d get only four or five hours of sack time.
The Moosetookalook Police Department operated out of two small rooms in the municipal building: a waiting area and an office that contained a desk, several filing cabinets, and a closet-size holding cell. When Sherri Campbell had taken over as chief after Jeff Thibodeau’s heart attack convinced him to opt for early retirement, she’d replaced the rumpsprung desk chair out of her own pocket. Little else had changed. The annual budget covered Sherri’s salary and those of one other full-time officer and three part-timers. It did the department no good at all that Sherri’s mother-in-law was a member of the board of selectmen. The town’s coffers weren’t just locked up tight. They were sealed with superglue.
As she always did when she logged on to the department’s computer, Sherri gave silent thanks for federal grant money. Those funds, before they’d dried up, had paid for a badly needed upgrade in equipment. At her fingertips, she had the technology to search records from all sixteen Maine counties.
There was a downside, of course. She had to enter all her own reports into the system. When she worked the late shift, she often spent nearly the entire eight hours typing.
She took a break at three in the morning. After a good stretch, a few jumping jacks, and a minute or two of running in place, she refilled her coffee mug and checked her personal e-mail. She smiled when she saw that she had a message from Liss Ruskin. Her expression changed to one of concern as she read it.
The e-mail was short on explanation. In essence, Liss had sent her a list of names and wanted Sherri to check them out. She apparently thought one of them might have a police record.
“Oh, Liss,” Sherri whispered. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Unsure she wanted to know the answer to that question, Sherri printed the e-mail. When she’d finished entering the last of her official electronic paperwork, she read over the e-mail again.
It would have been a simple matter to open another program and type in the first of the names on Liss’s list. Unfortunately, that would be “using department resources for a private purpose.” Personally, she wouldn’t fire one of her officers for running a check on his daughter’s new boyfriend, but all these names? With no clear suspicion of wrongdoing? And in someone else’s jurisdiction? Nope. Not worth losing her job over.
On the bright side, criminal records were available to the general public online . . . for a fee. Whatever this list was, it had to be connected to the Snowe farm, since that was where Liss and Dan were staying. That being the case, Sherri saw no reason why Gina Snowe shouldn’t reimburse her for the charges she was about to run up.
An hour later, Sherri sat back in her chair, uncertain whether to be relieved or worried. Nothing had popped up, not even an unpaid parking ticket. It appeared that the good citizens of New Boston, Maine, were all remarkably law-abiding.
At six, she went off duty. She shed her uniform the moment she got home, but it wasn’t as easy to shake off the nagging conviction that Liss had run into more than she’d bargained for on her “vacation.” Honestly! The woman had a positive talent for walking into trouble!
Quietly, since Pete and the kids were still asleep, Sherri fixed herself two slices of toast and a cup of hot cocoa. She knew she ought to try to nap for a few hours, but she was too keyed up to rest.
At seven, she picked up the phone and used speed dial to call Liss’s cell phone. She was sent straight to voice mail.
Muttering to herself, Sherri booted
up her laptop and checked for new messages. Nothing. She started to log off, then gave a resigned sigh and typed “Gina Snowe” into the search engine.
Ancient history aside, Sherri thought it a little odd that Gina had asked Liss to do such a big favor for her. She had family—her mother and at least a couple of cousins that Sherri knew of. And she could have let the matter ride until after the case she was working on in Chicago was wrapped up. Or hired someone—
She jumped a foot when Pete touched her shoulder. She’d been so intent on reading what was on the small screen that she hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen.
“Why are you checking up on Gina?” he asked.
Sherri handed him the printout of Liss’s e-mail.
He read it while he waited for their single-cup coffee brewer to do its thing. “Any hits?”
“Not a blessed one. These people are pure as the driven snow. Even Gina. Pun intended.”
“Maybe.”
Her head, which had been drooping, shot up. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“I recognize one of the names. I went through the criminal justice academy with a Mike Jennings.”
“Same guy. It’s got to be. He’s on the New Boston PD. Tell me everything you know about him.”
“Give me a minute. It was more than a dozen years ago.” Pete sat and downed half the coffee in his mug before he began. “I don’t remember much, but I do recall that he didn’t trust his boss.”
“That would be this Wyatt Purvey?”
Pete shrugged. “He didn’t give me a name. Or if he did, I’ve forgotten it. To tell you the truth, Mike was pretty careful not to say anything specific, but I had the distinct impression that he thought the guy was dirty. He talked about being glad he’d landed a job in law enforcement in his hometown, but he was worried that he’d be working in a department where the chief might end up being investigated. If that happened, Mike could end up being tarred with the same brush.”
“But it didn’t happen. One of us would remember hearing about it if there had been a scandal in law enforcement in New Boston.”
“Yeah. Seems likely. And if this Purvey is chief now, chances are good he was chief back then, too, or at least on the force, him being a local and all.”
Things didn’t change much in small towns. They operated on the maxim “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And sometimes they didn’t bother fixing things that were broke. Sherri supposed that only proved another old saw: “Better the devil you know.”
She and Pete sat in silence for a few minutes. The only sounds in the kitchen were the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional slurp as Pete drank more coffee.
“I’m too tired to think about this now,” Sherri said.
She called Liss’s number again and this time left a message.
Then she went to bed.
Dan was still protesting the decision to remain at the Snowe Christmas tree farm until his headache diminished when Liss parked the truck beside the Quonset hut. He’d been given crutches at the hospital and needed help getting down from the cab’s high passenger seat. The walk to the house was a slow, painful process. He was visibly flagging by the time Liss got him into the house and installed in the downstairs bedroom. Moments after he lay down atop the covers, insisting all he was going to do was rest his eyes for a minute or two, he was out like a light.
“Sweet dreams,” Liss whispered and went back outside to unload the groceries.
The paper sacks from the grocery store had spent the night in the bed of the truck, but the cold temperature had kept the contents from spoiling. After Liss had put away their purchases and checked on Dan once more, she methodically searched every room in the house. She couldn’t spot anything that was out of place. If anyone had been inside while they were gone, they’d been extremely careful to leave no trace.
Paranoid much? Liss wanted to laugh at her own foolishness, but she wasn’t able to talk herself into discounting any of the scary possibilities she’d come up with after discovering it was a puddle of olive oil Dan had stepped in.
He was still sleeping when she circled back to look in on him again.
The cot the hospital had provided for her had been hard and the blanket thin, but Liss had managed to snatch a few hours of rest. She’d get more later, she promised herself. At the moment, she was too wired to consider crawling into bed beside her husband. She returned to the kitchen and made herself a cup of chamomile tea instead. It was her aunt Margaret’s sovereign remedy for a nervous disposition.
Once she was settled at the kitchen table with the hot beverage, Liss checked her e-mail. She was disappointed not to find an answer from Sherri. Then she remembered that her friend was working nights. She’d probably gone straight to bed when she got off shift at six.
On the table, next to Liss’s purse, lay the bag from All Things Mystical. Liss fished out Mazes: Ancient & Modern and skimmed the first few pages while she sipped her tea. In her present restless mood, she found it difficult to focus on what she was reading. The need to do something—anything!—more active drove her to drain her cup, retrieve her tablet and pen, and climb the stairs to the second-floor bedroom. She was no artist, but she could make a passable sketch of her bird’s-eye view of the maze. The result would be a rough map of the pathways.
She felt calmer when she had completed the drawing and checked that item off her mental to-do list. She still didn’t know why anyone would have wanted to hurt Dan. She didn’t have any answers. But her self-confidence was back. She was smart and capable. With the map she’d drawn, she could see what route she’d need to follow to reach the center of the maze. It was all a matter of perspective. Given time enough, she’d also figure out what was going on in New Boston.
Liss hurried back downstairs, stopping only long enough to make sure Dan hadn’t awakened before she returned to the kitchen. She checked her e-mail again. There was still no reply from Sherri. Although she thought it unlikely her friend would shell out for a long-distance phone call, she burrowed into her oversize purse for her cell phone to check. One glance at it had her groaning aloud. The hospital, while happy to provide Wi-Fi for laptops and e-readers, had insisted that all cell phones be turned off while on the premises. She’d forgotten to turn hers back on when Dan was released.
As soon as Liss listened to Sherri’s voice-mail message, she returned the call.
A groggy voice answered.
“Sheesh, Sherri. I’m sorry. I forgot you’d be sleeping.”
“It’s okay. I’m awake now. Talk to me. What’s going on there?”
Liss gave her the short version. “Dan had a bad fall. He’s got a concussion and a broken ankle.”
“Is he going to be okay?” To judge by the sounds coming over the phone, Sherri was out of bed and on her way to the kitchen.
“I’ve got my fingers crossed. The doctor was encouraging, but I have to keep a close eye on Dan for the next couple of days and make sure he doesn’t overexert himself.”
“No sex, huh?”
“Sherri!”
“Sorry. Blame it on caffeine deprivation.”
Liss heard a refrigerator door open and close and the fizzing sound of a carbonated drink being opened. Moxie for breakfast? She grimaced.
“I appreciate what you’re going through with the fracture,” Sherri said. “When Adam broke his arm, that cast he had to wear made doing the smallest thing a huge challenge.”
“Adam was seven.”
“And your point is?”
Sherri’s quip surprised a laugh out of Liss. Men were big babies when they were sick or injured.
The moment of levity past, Sherri was all business again. “I repeat, what’s really going on there? Start with that list of names you sent me. They’re squeaky clean. All of them.”
“Even Andy Dutton? She’s supposed to have a juvenile record.”
“You didn’t mention that in your e-mail.” Liss heard the scratch of a pencil as Sherri wrote a note to herself. “
I don’t know if I’ll be able to access it or not. What do you expect to find?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I’m grasping at straws.”
Liss told Sherri the rest of it then—about the John Doe in the netter and Simeon Snowe’s disappearance and the mysterious slick spot that had caused Dan’s accident. She didn’t identify the substance as olive oil. Even a good friend might find that a little far-fetched. But she didn’t hold back any other relevant facts.
Somewhere during the narrative, Liss rose to her feet and started to roam. She wasn’t quite pacing, but as jumpy as she felt, she found it necessary to move. By the time she finished telling her story, she had come to a halt in front of a window. Everything outside looked still and calm, almost picture perfect.
Dead silence reigned on the other end of the phone line. It stretched until Liss felt compelled to break it.
“Say something,” she begged.
“You’re sure there was nothing slippery on the ground next to the truck when you parked there?”
“I’m certain. I know it sounds crazy, but what if we did spook someone into trying to run us off?”
“Because you showed a perfectly natural curiosity about two old, unsolved cases?” Sherri sounded skeptical, and Liss couldn’t blame her.
“Can you think of any other reason?” Liss rested her forehead against the cold windowpane and closed her eyes.
Instead of answering, Sherri asked another question, one Liss had already asked herself. “Why use such a chancy method to drive you away? If Dan had simply lost his balance for a moment, he wouldn’t have been scared off, and anything more serious would only make you stay longer, as it has.”
“My alternate theory was that someone wanted us out of the house for that one night.” Liss turned away from the window. The kitchen snapped into focus, reassuringly ordinary and nonthreatening in appearance.
“Did you find any indication that anyone had been in the farmhouse while you were at the hospital?”
“No.” Liss felt her frustration building again. “But, Sherri, I don’t know what’s supposed to be here.”
Ho-Ho-Homicide (A Liss MacCrimmon Mystery Book 8) Page 10