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

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “I enjoy that one myself,” Liss quipped, “but I wouldn’t want to teach it.”

  “Good one,” Kitty said with a laugh. She was still chuckling when Liss collected her coat, waved good-bye, and left the changing room.

  She paused in the doorway leading from the hallway into the studio, surprised to see Juliette and Rowena standing close together on the far side of the room, engaged in what appeared to be an intense discussion, if not an actual argument.

  “Do what you like. You always do,” Rowena said. But then she gave Juliette a quick hug before heading for the exit.

  She and Liss crossed paths at the door to the street. “Hello again,” Liss greeted her.

  Rowena flashed a sunny smile. “Say, I meant to ask you, was that book on mazes any help with the one Simeon planted?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to do more than glance through it,” Liss admitted.

  “What about the maze itself? Have you explored it yet? I have to say I’ve been curious ever since you told me it existed. It’s so fascinating to think that it’s been there all this time and no one knew a thing about it.”

  They stepped out onto the sidewalk together.

  “I expect I’ll take a closer look at it soon.”

  She would, too, Liss promised herself after she told Rowena to have a nice day. But even before she’d crossed the street to the truck, her mind was preoccupied with other things, chief among them the need to get back to the house and make sure Dan was okay.

  The first thing Liss saw when she pulled into the parking area at the Christmas tree farm was a New Boston police cruiser. She flung herself out of the truck and raced to the house. She burst in through the side door and stopped short at the sight of Wyatt Purvey, hat in hand, standing in the middle of the kitchen. To Liss’s immense relief, Dan was seated at the table, his broken ankle propped up on a second chair and a glass of milk and a half-eaten sandwich in front of him.

  He lifted an eyebrow at Liss’s obvious panic but said only, “Chief Purvey got here a few minutes ago. He was about to tell me why he came.”

  Purvey’s face was as unrevealing as it had been at the PD. He nodded at Liss, then once again pretended that she didn’t exist and addressed Dan as if he were the only person in the room. “I heard about your accident, Mr. Ruskin.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Dan said. “Word travels fast in small towns.”

  “The manager of the New Boston Food City has always been good about maintaining his parking lot.”

  Dan gave a short bark of laughter. “I’m not going to sue him, if that’s what he’s worried about.”

  “You can’t blame him for being concerned, you being from away and all.” Purvey’s lips stretched into what he probably imagined was a smile.

  In a young woman, Liss thought, a breathy voice like Purvey’s might be thought sexy. Issuing from the mouth of an out-of-shape middle-aged man, it was both annoying and a little creepy.

  “Didn’t you tell me that the new owner is a lawyer?” Purvey asked.

  “She is,” Dan agreed. “I’m a custom woodworker myself, and my wife is the proprietor of Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium.”

  Purvey didn’t even glance her way. If his mother had told him about Liss’s crime-solving exploits, he’d apparently chosen to discount them.

  “Why are you so sure what happened to my husband was an accident?” she blurted.

  She got Purvey’s full attention with that question . . . and Dan’s, too.

  “I don’t follow you, Ms. Ruskin,” the chief of police whispered.

  Dan’s eyes narrowed, but he kept silent, letting Liss explain herself.

  Oh, boy! Open mouth. Insert foot. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but Purvey’s attitude had annoyed her and she was short on sleep, not that any of that mattered. Think fast, Liss!

  She struggled to look earnest and a trifle naive but stopped short of fluttering her eyelashes. “All I meant, Chief Purvey, was that there is always paperwork to fill out when there’s been an accident, especially one that requires a trip to the hospital. Why, if two vehicles crashed into each other, you’d test the blood alcohol levels of both drivers. If a snowmobile hit a tree, you’d take the time to find out if it was a moose or a squirrel or a bunny rabbit running in front of the machine that caused it to veer off the trail. So, naturally, in a case like this, I’m sure you sent someone to the scene to inspect the ground around where our truck was parked.”

  “That hardly seemed necessary when your husband told the emergency room doctor that he slipped in a patch of motor oil. I saw no need to investigate.”

  “And yet you spoke to the manager of that Food City.”

  “He spoke to me. He assured me that he’s sanded the spot so no one else will slip. There’s nothing for you to worry about on that score.”

  For a moment, Liss thought he might actually act out the cliché of patting the “little woman” on the head. His superior manner amounted to the same thing.

  Purvey left a few minutes later. Liss closed and locked the door behind him and watched until he got into his police car and drove away. “He’s gone,” she reported.

  “What was all that about?”

  “Nothing, apparently.” She watched her husband with wary eyes, uncertain how much information to volunteer.

  “You were yanking his chain for the fun of it?”

  “He yanked mine first. He was ignoring me.”

  As soon as the words were out, Liss felt foolish. Sleep deprivation was no excuse. She’d let her dislike of Wyatt Purvey goad her into doing exactly what she’d promised herself not to do—let Dan wonder if there had been something odd about his fall. The next thing she knew, he’d be pressuring her for answers, and she’d have to spill the beans and tell him she’d sent Sherri a list of suspects because she’d been convinced there was foul play involved. Of course, only a few hours ago, she’d decided there hadn’t been any deliberate intent to harm Dan.

  Purvey’s visit confused the issue. Why had he really shown up on their doorstep this morning? His appearance at the Snowe farm was reason enough, she decided, to think that she might have been wrong to dismiss her earlier conclusions.

  “Earth to Liss,” Dan said.

  She blinked, and he came into focus. He looked . . . amused.

  “I almost feel sorry for Purvey,” he said. “Bad enough he has to put up with that mother of his. Now you’re picking on him.”

  She was off the hook! Dan thought her reaction to Wyatt Purvey was funny. Annoying as that was, it was far better than the alternative. She wasn’t going to be subjected to the third degree. She didn’t have to worry Dan with her unsubstantiated theories and suspicions.

  She gestured toward the remains of his lunch. “I don’t suppose you made one of those sandwiches for me?”

  “In fact, I did. It’s in the fridge.”

  “You are a paragon among men.”

  “Of course I am. That’s why you married me.”

  There followed an amicable half hour, enlivened by Liss’s account of her aerobics class. Afterward, Dan let Liss persuade him to take a nap.

  “You could join me,” he suggested, but she shook her head.

  “I’m going to tackle Simeon Snowe’s office. I promised Gina I’d evaluate his business. While you rest, I’ll spend a couple of hours going through his papers.”

  She needed a fresh cup of coffee to keep her awake, the second wind she’d gotten after her workout having long since blown out to sea. Snowe’s ledgers provided her with statements of profit and loss at the tree farm. Another file yielded the names of seasonal workers, all of which she duly wrote down. But although Liss had an associate degree in business, bookkeeping had never been her favorite course. Going through Snowe’s accounts was mind-numbing. Even his diary was dull. He’d used it to record dates of planting and pruning.

  Eyes at half mast, she opened the final file drawer. For a moment, she perked up. It contained Snowe’s personal records. Unfortu
nately, the insurance policies and the statements from checking and savings accounts were nearly as boring as the annual Christmas tree inventory. Receipts for prescription medicines yielded only one highlight. Simeon Snowe had suffered from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but he’d also taken Viagra.

  Simeon, you old devil you, Liss thought.

  There were no photographs, no scrapbooks, no cards, and no letters. Liss supposed men weren’t as likely as women to keep such things, but since Snowe had been quixotic enough to plant a maze, own a copy of Romancing the Stone, and take Viagra, she stubbornly held on to a glimmer of hope that something interesting might yet turn up.

  A single sheet of paper was the only thing in the last manila folder at the back of the file drawer. Liss stared at it in disbelief. It was a handwritten poem. An incredibly bad poem. It did not improve when read aloud.

  Mighty oak, thick and hard

  Wood for mast, quarterstaff, and yard.

  Cortland and McIntosh, both varieties to delight

  But some of the apples don’t fall quite right.

  Rowan tree very pretty, but the berries aren’t sweet.

  Balsam, pine, and spruce, those are the real treat.

  See what I have planted for you, my love?

  And how my plot is revealed from above?

  In the next line, “I am amazed” had been crossed out and “I am a maze” substituted, but the composition ended there, as if the author couldn’t think of anything that would rhyme.

  Liss wondered why Snowe hadn’t torn up his pathetic attempt at versifying. Maybe he’d thought he could improve upon it before the trees in the maze grew high enough for anyone to recognize what it was.

  She pondered that awhile. Six months after he’d planted it, at the time of his disappearance, it wouldn’t have looked like much. It’s only distinguishing feature would have been that the trees were smaller than those growing elsewhere on the farm.

  Liss glanced at her watch. She hadn’t been going over Snowe’s records for as long as she’d thought, even though the two hours she’d spent on the project had felt like twenty. She had time to take a closer look at that maze. Sunset was more than an hour away.

  Since Dan was still sleeping, she wrote him a note and stuck it on the front of the refrigerator with a magnet in the shape of a Christmas tree. Taking her coat off the peg inside the kitchen door, she slipped into it and added hat and gloves. Then, before she went outside, she rummaged in the kitchen “junk” drawer. There had to be something in there that would suit her purpose. Twist ties. Rubber bands. Yarn. Heck, she’d settle for an indelible marking pen.

  “Ah! Perfect!” Triumphant, she seized a ball of twine that had been shoved to the back of the drawer, extracting it from the rest of the clutter. Her book on mazes had mentioned that the labyrinth of legend had actually been a maze. Using twine or string or yarn was a time-honored method of marking the way back to the entrance.

  The afternoon was overcast, and the air had the smell of impending snow, but nothing had yet started to fall. Liss hurried across the parking area and down the hill into the trees.

  Liss hoped to navigate Simeon Snowe’s maze and reach its center. From the upstairs bedroom she’d been able to make out a relatively empty space in the middle. Although it was undoubtedly clogged with underbrush and weeds, at least there were no seven-year-old Christmas trees growing there.

  There would be no convenient bench to rest on, either, she thought as she reached the field. An authentic hedge maze usually featured such an amenity—a place to sit a spell before beginning the long trek home.

  She had the sketch she’d made with her. In spite of what she’d told Rowena, she’d had time the evening before to study a few of the puzzle mazes pictured in Mazes: Ancient & Modern. Some of them existed only on paper. To solve them, it was necessary to avoid loops that circled back on themselves and dead end passages and figure out which was the true path to the center.

  It took considerable time for Liss to find the entrance to Snowe’s maze, but eventually she spotted a double-wide break between trees. She patted herself on the back for remembering to bring the twine. On crutches, Dan would be hard pressed to rescue her if she couldn’t find her own way out.

  She tied one end of her lifeline to the first tree, took a deep breath, and stepped inside. The trees brushed against her on every side. Having the sketch helped a little, but it was difficult to tell where the paths went. As she advanced, Liss slowly played out the twine. She thought she was doing well . . . until she stopped and looked behind her.

  At ground level, these trees didn’t look all that different from those on the rest of the plantation . . . except that they’d been planted closer together. A flutter of panic unsettled Liss’s stomach when she realized she could no longer see the path she’d been following, let alone pick out the route back to the entrance.

  “Don’t be an ass,” she whispered. “You’ve got the twine. You’re not lost.”

  She was not by nature claustrophobic, but she could swear these trees were moving closer, cutting off her escape. They were tall enough to block her view of the world beyond the maze. She swallowed hard, uncomfortably aware that her heart was beating too fast and she’d broken out in a sweat.

  Liss took another step forward. When her coat snagged on a branch, her breath came out in a ragged gasp. She glanced behind her again. The thin brown twine looked impossibly frail against a solid barrier of evergreen trees.

  “Maybe I should have gone with bread crumbs,” she said aloud. Big mistake. The tremor in her voice echoed the fine trembling of her limbs.

  And then it started to snow. First there were only a few oversize wet flakes. Then they were falling faster and faster, until the twine vanished beneath the accumulation.

  Liss gave a shaky laugh. Who was she to ignore a sign from above? She jerked on her lifeline, making it visible again.

  She rewound the ball of twine as she went. It took only a few minutes to break out into the open, but that was a few minutes too long. The snow was coming down even harder, but she could see the house. Dan had turned the porch light on for her.

  Although her panic now seemed foolish, nothing on earth could have persuaded her to go back inside that maze. She was almost running by the time she crested the rise behind the Quonset hut. The parking area was a sea of white, but she could see Dan standing at the front window, watching for her.

  Liss toed off her snow-caked boots in the entry hall, shrugged out of her coat, and walked straight into Dan’s open arms. “That was one of my stupider ideas,” she whispered.

  “You okay?”

  “I am now.”

  After a brief affectionate interlude, they stood together by the window to watch the dooryard fill up with snow.

  “I can’t say I mind the idea of being snowed in with you,” Dan admitted.

  “You’ll change your mind fast enough if we run out of food. Any idea how much snow we’re supposed to get?”

  “I used the weather app on your iPad. They’re predicting six to eight inches by morning.”

  Not too bad, Liss thought, except that she was the only one able-bodied enough to wield a shovel and the Snowe farm had a very long driveway. “I guess I’d better phone Andy Dutton,” she said aloud. “As caretaker, she must have made arrangements to keep the way in open.”

  “Either that or she swaps her motorcycle for a snowmobile.” Dan didn’t seem at all concerned, but Liss didn’t like the idea of being cut off from the road. In an emergency, no one would be able to reach the house.

  Gina had given her the Duttons’ phone number. Liss located the slip of paper she’d written it on and retrieved her cell phone from the charger she’d left on the kitchen counter, carrying it back into the middle room and sinking into an overstuffed chair to punch in the digits. Someone picked up after two rings, but it wasn’t Andy who answered. It was her mother.

  “She’s busy,” Mrs. Dutton said. “She’s got better things to do than
be at the beck and call of strangers.”

  In the background, Liss could hear Andy’s squawk of protest, quickly followed by her demand that her mother give her the phone. Mrs. Dutton hung up instead.

  Seeing the incredulous look on his wife’s face, Dan paused on his way to the downstairs bath. “What?”

  “Nothing. I hope.” Liss waited, flipping idly through one of the old magazines piled beside the chair. Less than two minutes later, her ringtone sounded.

  “I can’t talk but a minute,” Andy said. “Sorry about my mom.”

  “One minute will do. Can you give me the name of someone who will come here in the morning and plow the driveway? If this snow keeps up, we’re going to need digging out.”

  Andy laughed. “Already taken care of. I’ll be over around eight, if that’s okay.”

  “That’s perfect. And a great relief. See you tomorrow.”

  It was only after Andy broke the connection that Liss realized the young woman didn’t know Dan was laid up with a fractured ankle and a concussion.

  Then again, maybe she had heard. Liss remembered what Dan had said to Chief Purvey, and it was true. If New Boston had anything akin to Moosetookalook’s local grapevine, the news had been all over town before they’d even left the hospital.

  One thought led to another, and she wondered why Andy’s mother had set her mind against them. Beatrice Purvey, she recalled, had said that Mrs. Dutton “despaired of” her daughter. Did that mean Mrs. Purvey and Mrs. Dutton were friends? She wasn’t about to ask. Besides, small town rumor mills being what they were, Mrs. Purvey could easily have heard stories about Andy’s relationship with her mother from any number of sources.

  Liss smiled to herself. Most mothers and daughters had issues. It went with the territory. She’d certainly had a few with her own mother when she was growing up, and more recently, too.

  A line from that awful poem she’d found in Simeon Snowe’s file drawer came back to her: But some of the apples don’t fall quite right. She wondered if that was a variation on the saying “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” As far as she knew, Snowe hadn’t married or had children, but there were certainly hints of a lady friend. Maybe she had a child with whom she did not always see eye to eye.