“I’ve got something,” Liss called.
Rowena popped back into sight. There was a streak of dirt on the end of her nose. “Oh, yes. Those are mine.”
Durable plastic for Juliette, Liss thought, but cardboard was good enough for her mother. The boxes already had a musty smell.
Rowena started to shift the cartons, placing each one on the floor beside the freezer until they were stacked in reverse order. Then she opened the top one. Papers rustled as she rifled through them.
“Ah! Here it is. At the bottom of the box, naturally.” She hauled out an Old Maine Trotters shoe box held closed with several large rubber bands.
Rowena hastily stuffed the other papers back into the carton and left it sitting on the floor while she placed the shoe box on top of the freezer chest. She tugged at the rubber bands. Two fell apart, dried out with age. As she slid the others off, she frowned. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
Rowena cocked her head. “Hear that humming? This freezer is running. Why on earth would Juliette leave it plugged in? What a waste of money.” She looked around for an outlet.
“Hadn’t you better check inside before you shut it down? Maybe Juliette has a secret stash of ice cream in there.” Liss removed the shoe box and reached for the latch.
It stuck at first. Only when Rowena gave her a hand could they open the lid and look inside.
Rowena blinked, backed up a step, and whispered, “Oh, my.”
Liss swallowed convulsively.
The body inside was frozen solid.
“Do you know who he is?” Liss whispered. Encased in ice, the man’s features were distorted, but he was well preserved.
“Well, of course I do,” Rowena said. “That’s my fifth husband. The one who abandoned me.”
In less than an hour, the storage locker had been sealed off. Official vehicles filled the gravel drive. Farther away, held in check by uniformed officers, news vans had disgorged reporters and camerapersons. They were gathering like vultures, Liss thought, eager to pick over the carrion.
With a sigh, she went back to studying her clenched fists. She was sitting in the back of a police car, forbidden to get out, ordered not to phone anyone. Rowena had been installed in the backseat of a second cruiser and given the same instructions.
With the two of them secured and his officers occupied with guard duty and crowd control, Chief Wyatt Purvey was alone inside Juliette’s storage locker.
Liss didn’t trust the chief as far as she could throw him. She was certain he was in there destroying evidence. If Sherri was right, he had a vested interest in covering up Juliette’s shady business dealings. How far would he go to protect his connection to her?
She felt better when the first state police officer arrived on the scene. He was no more than fifteen minutes behind Purvey and his men. Except in Maine’s largest cities, the state police took over from the local constabulary in a case of homicide. The chief of police was allowed to remain, but only as a courtesy. Someone would stop him if he tried to compromise the crime scene.
Another interminable hour passed. Liss squirmed in her seat. It was no longer the mind-numbing boredom of sitting there that made her twitchy. She opened the door and got out.
Instantly, a uniformed officer was at her side. “You need to—”
“What I really, really need is to find a powder room!” Liss told him. “Or an outhouse. Or a convenient bush. At this point, I’m not fussy.”
He was one of those light-complexioned people who blushed easily. She watched a wave of red climb up his neck and into his face. “Just a minute,” he blurted and turned away. Over his shoulder, he flung a command for her to stay put.
She did, but it required the occasional hop from foot to foot. And he thought he was embarrassed! She could have cried with relief when the familiar form of Officer Mike Jennings appeared and told her to follow him.
The storage facility had a tiny office that didn’t look as if it got much use, but it came with plumbing. The minuscule restroom probably hadn’t been cleaned since Lyndon Johnson was president, but Liss held her breath and got on with business. A few minutes later she emerged to find Jennings waiting for her.
“Thanks.”
“Not a problem.”
“Is anyone ever going to talk to us?”
“You and Rowena?”
She nodded.
“Eventually.”
“My husband will be wondering what’s happened to me. He’ll be worried. I’m surprised he hasn’t already called you folks to report me missing.”
Jennings fought a grin and lost. “He didn’t, but Chief Campbell has been in touch. I’ve explained to her that you’ll be tied up a bit longer to help us with our inquiries.”
So much for leaving New Boston today.
Jennings escorted her back to the police cruiser and closed her into the backseat once again. Yet another hour passed before a state police detective joined her there. She didn’t know him, but he’d obviously done some checking into her background.
“So, Ms. Ruskin,” he said after he introduced himself. “You seem to have a bad habit of stumbling over dead bodies.”
She glared at him. “It isn’t as if I go looking for them.”
“Why were you here?”
“I gave Mrs. Luckenbill a lift so she could look for some photographs she’d stored in that unit. She found them. We were about to leave when she realized that the freezer was running and thought she should shut it off if it was sitting there empty. To conserve electricity.”
“Did you open it up, or did she?”
“It took both of us to get the lid up.” Liss tried unsuccessfully to repress a shiver at the memory. “And she was as surprised by the discovery as I was. She said he was her runaway husband. Her fifth.”
“Who called the police?”
“I did. I had my cell phone.”
“And Ms. Luckenbill?”
“She was in shock. I brought her outside, and we waited for the police to arrive.”
“You didn’t touch anything else?”
“I don’t know. We were hunting for Rowena’s boxes. I could have run a hand over some of the bins. But I had my gloves on because it was so cold. I don’t think I left fingerprints.”
“And you didn’t know the deceased?”
“Not hardly. If that’s the husband who ran out on her, he’s been dead for over a decade.”
The detective’s stern features settled into lines that were even more grim as he wrote her words in his notebook.
“I don’t mean to sound callous, but this has nothing to do with me. And nothing to do with the remains found at the farm where I’m staying. Not that I can see.”
Nevertheless, he took her through it all again—their reasons for coming to New Boston; the John Doe from seven years back; Snowe’s disappearance; Dan’s accident; the fire; and, finally, the discovery of a burial in the middle of Simeon Snowe’s blackened evergreen maze.
By the end of the recitation, Liss’s stomach was in knots and a particularly gruesome possibility had occurred to her. The detective was about to put his notebook away when she added in a very small voice, “I couldn’t help but notice that there’s room in that freezer for more than one body.”
He gave her a sharp look. “Are you suggesting that either John Doe or Simeon Snowe, or each in succession, was stored there temporarily?”
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting. I had this mental picture. . . .” As her words trailed off, she shuddered. “Can I leave now? I’ve told you everything I know.”
“We’ll want to talk to you again.”
“Of course you will.” She knew the drill. He, or someone like him, would want her to repeat her story over and over again, until she was ready to tear her hair out in frustration.
He slid out of the vehicle and offered her a hand to help her stand. As she stretched, she saw that the cruiser in which Rowena had been seated was gone.
“Did someon
e give Ms. Luckenbill a ride home?”
“Don’t worry about Ms. Luckenbill. We’ll see to her.”
His nonanswer stopped her cold. “Whoa. Hold it right there. Are you telling me you’ve arrested Rowena Luckenbill? On what grounds? I told you, she was as surprised as I was to find that body in the freezer.”
“Her husband’s body.” Taking her arm, he steered her toward Sherri’s car.
“Well, yes, but—”
“We’ll be in touch, Ms. Ruskin.” With one hand he opened the door for her and with the other gave her a none-too-gentle assist inside. Before she could sputter out a protest, he’d walked away. Two other state troopers closed ranks behind him as he strode toward the storage locker.
Liss called Dan. Then she drove to Dance-Ex. Someone had to tell Juliette what had happened. And what about Gozer? Who would take care of Rowena’s cat if she was detained by the police?
Juliette was alone in her small office when Liss burst in on her. She blurted out the facts as she knew them. “You need to do something,” she added. “The police think your mother murdered her husband.”
A flicker of what might have been annoyance showed in Juliette’s expression, but it was gone so quickly that Liss couldn’t be sure. When she spoke, her voice wasn’t just cold, but it was frigid.
“My mother did kill him. That’s all too obvious. I always knew her tinkering with herbs and potions would end badly.”
“What are you saying?” Liss could scarcely believe her ears.
“I’m saying what should be perfectly clear if you think about it for a moment. It grieves me to acknowledge it, but my mother has been living a lie all these years. It’s obvious now that she’s a seriously disturbed individual. She murdered my stepfather when he tried to leave her. God only knows why she killed that poor man they found in the netter. And then there was Simeon Snowe. I suppose he guessed she’d done it. How many people have access to a netting machine, after all? When he threatened to turn her in to the authorities, she killed him to cover up her earlier crimes.”
Appalled, Liss backed away from her. And people thought she had an overactive imagination! “She’s your mother, Juliette! How can you think—”
“I don’t think. I know.” Her thin-lipped smile made Liss sick to her stomach. “And you should consider yourself fortunate. Perhaps we both should. She could just as easily have murdered both of us in some mad attempt to hide what she’s done.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Well, that’s one for the books,” Sherri said when Liss had brought them up to date on the events of the afternoon.
She watched her friend down the herbal tea in her coffee mug and refilled it when Liss silently held it out. Dan had said nothing, but the frown on his face spoke volumes. That they were stuck here for another night was the least of what was bothering him.
Sherri patted him on the arm. “Cheer up. I’m sure we’ll be allowed to go home tomorrow. If anyone needs to talk to Liss again, they can come to Moosetookalook.”
“Juliette sounded like she was rehearsing what she was going to tell the police,” Liss said. “She had her facts arranged all neat and orderly. Mom did it. End of story.” She set the mug down with a thump that sent tea sloshing onto the tabletop. “I’d find it easier to believe that Jonas was the killer!”
Sherri went blank. “Jonas? Jonas who?”
“Jonas the dog.” Liss sprang to her feet, then stopped, as if she suddenly realized she had no place to go.
Dan caught one of Liss’s fisted hands in his and tugged on it. When she was close enough, he wrapped his arm around her waist. Once she was securely in his grasp, he sent a fulminating look in Sherri’s direction. “I’ll probably regret asking this, but what is it you two are afraid Wyatt Purvey was up to in that storage locker? What does the chief of police have to do with Juliette Cressy or her mother?”
“I was sure I mentioned that I thought he was crooked,” Sherri said.
“Hints of police corruption aside,” Liss said, “I doubt he put Rowena’s husband in cold storage.”
“That’s not likely, no,” Sherri conceded, “but he’s guilty of a few other things. I’m certain of it.”
“Even if I hadn’t believed it of him before,” Liss said, “I’d have been convinced by the look of panic on his face when he caught sight of all those records stored in Juliette’s unit. And he was in there for a good quarter of an hour before the state police showed up. Who knows what he managed to walk off with?”
“He couldn’t have taken much,” Sherri said. “If he’d tried to carry away a plastic file box, someone would have noticed and stopped him.”
“He could have hidden a manila folder or two under his jacket.”
If he had, Sherri thought, there was nothing anyone could do about it now. Still, she was hopeful. Purvey didn’t know it, but he was already under investigation. The state police would thoroughly examine every item in that storage locker. If there was anything there that linked the two cases, it would come to light. So long as everyone jumped through the right legal hoops, it would be admissible as evidence against the chief of police.
Liss pulled away from Dan and began to pace. “There’s one thing I didn’t tell you. Something that really bothers me. Something stupid I said to the detective, except that maybe it wasn’t so stupid, after all.”
“Cops are used to people saying strange things under stress. They know how to sort out the possible from the truly off-the-wall.”
“Thanks, Sherri, but I can’t quite let go of this one.” She drew in a deep breath and blurted it out. “I told him there was room in that freezer chest for two bodies.”
Sherri considered that. “Rowena’s husband and . . . Snowe?”
“I . . . I don’t know. Maybe. But it was true, what I said. There was room to store a second body there temporarily. It could have been where Simeon Snowe was while everyone was searching for him. Then, later, when the coast was clear, the killer moved his body, burying it in the field.”
“You know that theory makes things look worse for Rowena?” Sherri asked.
Eyes closed, Liss rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I know. But it fits, doesn’t it? That sequence of events makes a horrible kind of sense.”
“Where’s that timeline you made?” Dan asked.
Good idea, Sherri thought.
When Liss had unearthed the page from the legal pad from their luggage and all three of them were seated around the table again, Liss tapped the capped end of her felt-tip pen against her lips, her brow furrowed in thought. “It all starts with the John Doe.”
Sherri nodded. “No question about that. Go on.”
“After the tree buyer in New York City found the body, he called the police and he also got in touch with his supplier, with Simeon Snowe.”
“To complain, if nothing else,” Dan said.
“But that same call warned Snowe that the police wanted to talk to him,” Sherri said. “So, Snowe was tipped off to the fact that his netter was used in the commission of a crime. What would he do?”
“Doesn’t that depend on whether or not he had any idea who was responsible for the murder?” Dan asked.
“Not necessarily.” Liss drew two arrows pointing away from the words Snowe warned. At the point of one she wrote, “Thinks he was set up”; and next to the other, “Guesses who dunnit.”
“Okay,” Sherri said. “Assume he thought someone was trying to frame him for John Doe’s murder and he had no alibi. In a panic, he might have run away to avoid being questioned. People do stupid things all the time when they’re frightened, and even innocent people can have an irrational fear of the police. Where would he go?”
“He’d hide out with his girlfriend,” Dan said. “Rowena.”
“Not if he suspected she was the one behind John Doe’s death.”
“Maybe he didn’t at first. Maybe something she did, or something he found while he was staying with her, tipped him off. Then she had to kill him, too, to keep h
im from ratting her out.”
“Stop that!” Liss slammed the pen down for emphasis. “You two are worse than I ever was!”
Dan sent a sheepish grin her way. “Sorry. I got a little carried away. But the body you found this afternoon was Rowena’s husband.”
“That doesn’t mean she killed him. For goodness’ sake! Think about it. If she was the one who murdered him, why would she have led me straight to his body? Whoever killed him knew he was there. Rowena didn’t. There’s only one person who could have known. It’s Juliette’s storage locker. Juliette’s freezer. The dead man was Juliette’s stepfather.”
“And Juliette,” Sherri said slowly, wondering why it had taken her so long to see the connection, “had something to hide even back then.” She smacked herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. “Dumb, dumb, dumb! He was asking directions to a place where people exercise. He called it a dojo, but he was really looking for Dance-Ex. He was in New Boston to find Juliette.”
“He?” Liss asked in confusion. “He who?”
“It fits. It really does. So long as we make the assumption that Juliette is the one who killed her stepfather and stashed his body in the freezer. There could have been all sorts of reasons why. Domestic violence maybe. That’s the most common reason for homicides.”
“Go on,” Liss said.
“Okay. She’s already killed once and gotten away with it. The clerk at the grocery store recognized the sketch of John Doe. She said he was looking for a dojo, but I think he was going on vague information and it was Dance-Ex he wanted. Assume he found Juliette and represented a threat to her business—her lucrative business. What would stop her from dealing with it the exact same way? Maybe she even stashed the body in the same place, until she got a better idea. Her mother had been getting awfully cozy with Simeon Snowe, and Snowe knew Juliette’s secret. Maybe she was afraid he’d let something slip to her mother. Whatever threat he represented, she decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. She knew how a netter worked and that Snowe left his out in the field, unguarded, overnight. She waited for an opportunity, took the body out to the farm, netted it, and slipped it into a shipment of trees bound out of state. She figured there would be nothing to tie her to the murder, but she could be certain it would cause Snowe a lot of trouble. He might even be arrested and charged with homicide. That would get him out of her mother’s life for good.”
Ho-Ho-Homicide (A Liss MacCrimmon Mystery Book 8) Page 22