“I’m here on official business,” Purvey announced in a pompous voice. “That fire of yours last night caused a good deal of damage, and the cost to the town for putting out the blaze will be considerable.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at, Chief,” Dan said. “Surely you’re not blaming my wife and me for the destruction.”
“Somebody set that blaze. Is there insurance on this place?”
“Now, wait just a damned minute!” Incensed, Dan started to stand, momentarily forgetting that he had a broken ankle. Pain distorted his features, reminding him to take it easy.
Liss rushed to his side, but he waved her off. She knew better than to fuss over him, but her emotions had been stirred up, too. They needed an outlet. Turning on Wyatt Purvey, a ferocious scowl on her face, Liss spat her words. “We don’t have a horse in this race, Chief. No personal connection to this land at all. Why in heaven’s name would we want to damage someone else’s property?”
Finally, Purvey spoke to her directly. “Maybe that’s what you were hired to do by the new owner.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, that was a cash crop that went up in flames. The field that was completely destroyed would have been ready to sell in three more years. The other trees that burned, the ones too big to be Christmas trees, had value as pulpwood. Gina Snowe would have to be crazy to want them set on fire.”
“The insurance—”
“I doubt there is any,” Liss said. “Who do you think would have been paying it all these years? Simeon Snowe?”
For the first time, she saw a trace of a reaction flicker across Purvey’s bland countenance. He went so far as to raise his voice by a decibel or two. “You can be sure I’ll be checking into that. In the meantime, the fire marshal will be out here to question you. Until he does, none of you are to leave town.”
He turned on his heel and strode to the kitchen door. If he was hoping for a dramatic exit, he was foiled by the fact that no one had yet unlocked it. Purvey fumbled with the dead bolt, jerked the door open, and then slammed it shut behind him for emphasis.
“My, my,” Sherri said. “How unprofessional.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t try to spike his guns by telling him what you do for a living. Two chiefs of police. No waiting.” Liss poured herself another mug of coffee and sat down at the table.
Her hands were shaking a little, but suddenly she was ravenous. Seeing that Dan had made himself another batch of toast, she filched a piece from his plate.
“I’m reserving that tidbit,” Sherri said. “You never know when the element of surprise will come in handy.”
“What an arrogant SOB,” Dan groused. “Can he really make us stay here?”
“Not unless he wants to arrest us,” Pete said, “but we were going to stick around to talk to the fire marshal, anyway.”
“I hope he shows up soon. I want to get this show on the road.” Dan snagged the last of the toast an instant before Liss could grab it, then took pity on her and relinquished his prize.
“Moosetookalook is only a few hours away,” Sherri reminded them. “And I doubt the fire marshal will have all that many questions. He’ll find his answers out in the field.”
Still out of sorts, Dan refused to be cheered up. “The way my luck is running, he’ll probably agree that we’re a bunch of arsonists.”
“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” Pete drawled. “You’d have to be able-bodied to get out into that field with a can of gas or kerosene or whatever. That lets you off the hook, old buddy. I’m the one who should be worried.”
Dan fought a smile but lost. “Cops! You have a warped sense of humor!”
Although Sherri no longer believed there was any point in searching the downstairs bedroom, she was determined to be thorough. Besides, it looked like they were going to be stuck at the Snowe farm for a while longer. She and Liss might as well do something to pass the time.
Liss opened the top drawer of the dresser and reached inside. “I did find one thing in here when I opened it before. Sachet. Lavender. Rowena Luckenbill wears this scent.” She tossed it back where she’d found it. “But we already know she and Snowe were tight.”
She closed that drawer and opened the next one down, while Sherri tackled the nightstand, the only other piece of furniture the small room held, other than the bed.
“Empty,” Liss said. “I bet the bottom drawer is, too.”
Sherri heard a scrape as Liss opened it and then silence. Having come up empty-handed herself, she glanced over her shoulder in time to see Liss slam the drawer shut in disgust.
“I was right. Not even a stray snapshot.”
“That’s it, then. Nothing here but what you and Dan brought with you and that sachet.” Sherri abandoned the bedroom and headed for the at-home office. “Pete didn’t snoop in Snowe’s computer. Was there any personal stuff there? Photos? Letters?”
“I didn’t find any. The only JPEGs in the pictures file were the ones that came with the software.”
“Too bad. It would have been nice if he’d left a pictorial record of his hired men at work.”
“I didn’t even find any photos of Snowe himself. I have no idea what he looked like.”
“There was one with the missing persons report I saw. It looked like it was taken at some kind of fair or picnic. You could see where it was trimmed to cut out the people on either side of him.”
“I wonder where the cops found it?” Liss booted up the computer. “If I remember right, the town of New Boston Web site has a photo gallery. I didn’t bother to look at it before. I was only after the name of the town manager and the receptionist—sorry, I mean dispatcher—for the police department so I could send them to you to do a background check.”
“Speaking of that.” While she called up the page and began to scroll down, Sherri explained why she hadn’t used official channels to search for information. “I ran up quite a bill,” she added.
“Gina’s good for it.”
“There!” Sherri recognized Snowe’s face halfway down the third page of pictures. “The guy with the beard. That’s Simeon Snowe.”
It was the original of the photograph she’d seen, but it now showed three people. Snowe stood between two women, an arm around each of them. All three were grinning at the camera.
She glanced at Liss, took note of the bemused expression on her face, and poked her in the shoulder. “What?”
Liss pointed a finger at the older of the two women. “That’s Rowena Luckenbill.”
“Okay. You said they were an item. Why the frown?”
“Because the other one is Juliette Cressy, the woman who owns Dance-Ex. She seems to be on pretty friendly terms with Snowe, wouldn’t you say?”
Sherri leaned closer to peer at the screen. “They’re having a good time together, certainly. And this bothers you because?”
“The first time I met Juliette, she claimed she didn’t know Simeon Snowe. Why would she lie about something like that?”
“Maybe she thought it was none of your business?”
Liss scowled.
“I agree it’s odd. Why don’t you ask her why she fibbed when she didn’t have to?”
“I doubt I’ll see her again. I already missed today’s class, and with any luck, I’ll be back home in Moosetookalook tonight. Tomorrow I’ll work out with Zara. It probably doesn’t matter in the long run. I can’t picture Juliette bounding through the Christmas tree fields with a gas can.”
“At this point, everyone is a suspect,” Sherri reminded her. “Especially Wyatt Purvey.”
“Why especially?”
Sherri filled her in on what Mike Jennings had told Pete when they were both at the criminal justice academy.
“That was a long time ago.” Liss sounded dubious.
“It was. But now, while things are quiet, I’m going to do some more digging. If it was Purvey who was chief of police back when Pete was at the academy with Mike Jennings, there are a few ot
her sources I can tap to get the scuttlebutt on what kind of a law enforcement officer he is.”
Sherri spent the next few hours searching for information. On one particularly gossipy law enforcement Listserv, she found complaints about Purvey’s shortcomings. Included were details of several cases that had been thrown out of court because of botched evidence. Such things happened every once in a while, but the posts left the impression that Purvey was at best incompetent and at worst dirty.
Looking up the names of all the itinerant laborers Snowe had hired added to Gina’s bill but was otherwise unrewarding. Then Sherri typed in “Kitty Sloan” and got a hit.
“Well, well,” she said to herself as she read the report. Kitty’s criminal record didn’t appear to have anything to do with the mysteries surrounding the Christmas tree farm, but it sure was interesting.
Chapter Ten
The fire marshal didn’t finish his examination of the scene of the crime until after three that afternoon. Unlike Wyatt Purvey, he didn’t imply that someone in the house had set the fire, but he did confirm that it had been set. When he asked them what accelerants might have been stored on the property, Liss referred him to Andy Dutton. Once he’d written down their contact information, he left, taking the stale smell of smoke with him.
“He didn’t say anything about requiring us to stay in the area.” Dan glanced at his watch. “We can be home in a little more than three hours. We might even catch the tail end of the six o’clock news.”
But before anyone could make a move toward the bedrooms where their suitcases were waiting, already packed, Liss’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and grimaced. “I’ve got to take this. I had to make do earlier with leaving Gina a voice mail.”
She barely managed to say hello before the other woman burst into speech. Liss held the phone farther away from her ear as Gina unleashed a vituperative reaction to the news of the fire, but she seemed even more upset by the idea that Liss and Dan might abandon the property prematurely.
“You promised to stay for a week,” she shrieked. “Who’s going to look after the place if you abandon it?”
Dan mouthed “Speaker,” and Liss enabled that function, allowing all four of them to hear both sides of the phone conversation. To Gina, she said, “It’s not like we had a contract signed in blood.”
“We had a binding verbal agreement.” The shrill fishwife’s voice vanished, replaced by the cold, calculating tones of a highly paid big-city attorney.
“Are you planning to sue me?” Torn between outrage and amusement, Liss gave in to her sense of the ridiculous and laughed. “Give me a break, Gina.”
“Well, you can’t leave yet.” Now she sounded more grumpy than litigious. “I just sent you a package, something I’d forgotten I had. It’s a box Dad took from the farm when he went there after his uncle disappeared.”
Liss’s grip on the phone tightened. “What’s in it?”
That Gina took so long to answer a simple question turned speculation into direst suspicion. Liss took note of the skepticism in Sherri’s eyes and the exasperation on Dan’s face. They were all wondering if Gina had a hidden agenda, after all. Had “forgetting” about the box been an honest oversight, or was this a move calculated to make sure Liss and Dan stayed put?
“There are some personal items in it,” Gina said, sounding as if the information was being pried out of her. “Letters and papers and a few snapshots. You’ll see for yourself if you stick around. The package is scheduled for delivery tomorrow afternoon.”
“We were planning to leave today. In a few minutes, in fact.”
Dan muttered something unintelligible under his breath.
“What will one more day matter?” Gina asked.
“I’m not sure we’re safe here.”
“Nonsense. You’ve had a run of bad luck. No one’s out to get you. Or me, either,” Gina added as an afterthought.
“Now you’re contradicting yourself,” Liss pointed out. “A minute ago, you thought the house needed protecting.”
“You misunderstood.”
“Did I?”
In her ear, Gina the lawyer blathered on, making her case for them to honor their “contract.” Liss barely listened. Would it be dangerous to stay one more night? Whoever had been responsible for the fire was unlikely to try anything else so soon afterward. He or she would have to know that there was an investigation going on and that, even if Liss and Dan wanted to leave, their departure might be delayed by a “request” by law enforcement officials to stick around.
Of course, that reasoning assumed that the person who’d set the fire wasn’t completely bonkers.
Gina was still yammering away when Liss tuned in again. “I’ll call you back this evening,” Liss said and abruptly broke the connection.
“So now what?” Sherri asked. “Do we go home or stay another night? Pete doesn’t have to be back to work until midnight tomorrow, and I’m off for three more days, if that helps any.”
“I’d like to see what’s in that package,” Liss said.
Dan looked as if he wanted to argue, but before a debate could ensue, a car pulled into the parking area. “We ought to charge admission,” he muttered, but he had to smile when he saw who it was.
Somehow, Rowena Luckenbill managed to make a winter coat, a knit hat, and heavy boots look as unsubstantial as a fairy’s wings. It was quite a trick for a woman who was nowhere near tiny in stature herself. The power of the mind, Liss supposed. That Rowena thought of herself as ethereal convinced others that she was.
“I’m so sorry to descend on you without warning,” she said after she’d been introduced to Sherri and Pete, “but I heard about the fire and I wanted to make sure the maze was still intact.”
“I’m afraid it was the maze that burned,” Liss said.
“There’s nothing left?”
“Charred trees.”
Liss glimpsed Sherri’s thoughtful expression and frowned. With all that had happened, she’d lost sight of the crucial fact that it hadn’t been just any field the arsonist had destroyed. It had been Snowe’s maze.
“I’d still like to see it,” Rowena said.
“Give me a minute to get my coat and I’ll go with you.” Maybe seeing the destruction for herself would spark an idea. She hoped so. At the moment she had no clue why anyone would target Simeon Snowe’s Christmas tree farm.
Dan said nothing, but Sherri offered to accompany them.
A few minutes later, the three women stood at what had once been the entrance to the maze. The sun was low in the sky, but it had done its job well throughout the day. Patches of brown grass showed here and there, where the snow had completely melted. Where the fire had burned, the ground was bare, well trampled, and black.
“Why would someone do such a thing?” Rowena whispered. “I was so looking forward to seeing Simeon’s maze.”
There was not much left that resembled one. Here and there, soggy and misshapen stumps thrust up out of a dark scar that covered nearly an acre. An acrid stench hung over the scene, still strong enough to make them cough when they got close. Liss wondered if she’d ever be able to enjoy the smell of a wood fire again.
“Why this field?” Sherri asked the question that had already occurred to Liss.
“What do you mean?” Rowena blinked and tore her gaze away from the devastation.
“Was it because of its location? Because the trees were smaller and might be expected to burn more quickly? Or because the maze itself was significant in some way?”
“Hardly anyone knew there was a maze here. Did you tell anyone?” Liss asked Rowena. “Or mention you were coming out here to look at it?”
“No, I didn’t. But you and I were talking about it at the dance studio. One of the others might have overheard us. I expect my daughter did. She doesn’t miss much.”
Rowena had told her that she had a daughter, but for some reason Liss hadn’t thought she lived in New Boston. “I didn’t realize your daughter
was in our aerobics class.”
This surprised a chuckle out of Rowena. “She isn’t. She’s the teacher.”
“Juliette? Juliette Cressy is your daughter?”
“Well, you needn’t sound so shocked!”
They moved away from the burned field, slogging back toward the house through slush and a few patches of mud.
“Aside from height and build, you two don’t look much alike,” Liss said.
“She inherited her father’s features,” Rowena admitted. “His personality, too, more’s the pity, but we muddle along all right.”
“You told me Simeon Snowe didn’t care for your daughter,” Liss ventured. She was remembering the poem Snowe had written, but then she thought of the photograph she’d seen of Rowena and Juliette and Snowe together, all smiles and friendliness. “Did she know you were seeing him?”
“Of course she did.” Rowena huffed a bit on the slope below the Quonset hut and paused at the top of the rise to catch her breath.
What Liss really wanted to know was why Juliette had lied to her, claiming she hadn’t known Simeon Snowe. Instead she asked, “Would she have found it odd that he planted a maze as a surprise for you?”
“Oh, no. She knew he sometimes had silly, romantic ideas.” A reminiscent smile lit Rowena’s features. “That’s how we met, you know. He was taking ballroom dancing lessons, and I was working late one night and ran into him coming out of the dance studio. Poor man. He was so embarrassed. A lot of men are, you know. They take Juliette up on her offer of private lessons because they think people will make fun of them if they join a class. Most of them, once they get past the first few sessions, discover that they enjoy dancing. Why, one of Juliette’s students,” Rowena added, a touch of maternal pride in her voice, “Harlan Woolgar, has taken private lessons from her ever since she opened the studio.”
On that note, having reached Rowena’s car, Liss and Sherri said their good-byes and returned to the farmhouse. Liss stepped through the door and sniffed, inhaling the enticing aroma of baking chicken. They found Pete and Dan in the kitchen. Dan was seated at the table, his broken ankle propped up on a second chair. Pete stood before the sink, washing vegetables.
Ho-Ho-Homicide (A Liss MacCrimmon Mystery Book 8) Page 16