Scone Cold Dead Page 11

  Liss started to comment but thought better of it. Beth was nine. At that age, the mind worked in mysterious ways.

  When the girl had gone home, however, Liss looked to Zara for an explanation. “What do you suppose she wants with Lumpkin’s fur? You don’t think she’s going to try casting a spell on him, do you?” Beth was a big Harry Potter fan.

  Zara chuckled. “I suspect Beth is trying to collect enough to stuff a pillow. Now, tell us what you found out in Waycross Springs.”

  Once they’d gotten comfortable, Liss in the Canadian rocker in the bay window and Sandy and Zara on the sofa, Liss complied, leaving nothing out. She no longer felt bound by any promises she’d made to Gordon Tandy, not after the way he’d behaved. He’d strung her along, letting her think she was part of his team, and then he’d shut her out completely.

  “So that was that,” Liss told Sandy and Zara. “Don’t call us. We’ll call you. My short, illustrious career as a supersleuth sanctioned by the authorities seems to be over.”

  “Just as well,” Sandy said. “We don’t want you getting hurt on our account.”

  Liss shot an exasperated look in his direction. She wasn’t sure which was worse, Dan jealous of Sandy or Dan and Sandy ganging up to protect the little woman. She was certain Dan was the one who’d convinced Sandy that it was dangerous for her to get involved in a murder investigation.

  It was a little early for a drink, but Liss excused herself to open the bottle of her favorite white wine that was chilling in the refrigerator. A box of dark chocolates with outrageously fattening cream centers would have been better, but she didn’t have any in the house.

  “Did Detective Tandy say anything about me?” Zara asked, following her into the kitchen.

  “He didn’t ask about anyone in the company except Stewart, and that was only because Stewart’s animosity toward Victor was so obvious.”

  Sandy joined them and began rummaging in the cabinets. “At least we know now where the scones came from, but I suppose anyone could have broken into that cabin.”

  “Anyone who had the recipe, knew about the housekeeping cabins, and planned ahead to somehow arrange transportation out there. The timing would have been close. I suppose the next step will be for the police to ask everyone for alibis for the hours between reaching Fallstown and the start of the show.”

  Sandy and Zara exchanged a glance. She spoke. “We were together.”

  “Sort of,” he corrected her.

  Liss didn’t like the sound of that. “Meaning?”

  She took the package of macaroni and cheese Sandy had found and foraged for a pot. She had hot dogs in the freezer and a bag of salad in the fridge. She wasn’t up for preparing anything fancier. They’d have to count on the wine to make the meal more palatable.

  “We had a couple of hours to kill.” Sandy winced at his inadvertent word choice, then continued. “We weren’t scheduled to meet you until after the show, so we stayed with the bus until it dropped Ray, Paul, and Winona off at the theater. They didn’t need our help setting up for the show, and it was too cold to stay on the bus, so we decided to explore the campus. We ended up at the college library. There’s a reading room off the lobby. I went in there to see if there was anything interesting in the day’s newspapers.”

  “And I went off on my own.”

  Zara pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes, presumably to help her better recall how she’d passed the time. Liss filled a saucepan with water for the macaroni.

  “I listened to music in the audiovisual center for a while. Then I read a magazine—an old copy of People —in the reference room. I didn’t see Sandy again until we had to go to the theater and dress for the show.”

  “Neither of us left the building,” Sandy said, “but I don’t suppose there’s any way to prove that. We didn’t do anything to call attention to ourselves. The circulation desk is directly opposite the reading room, but the students working there would have no reason to remember if I was there the whole time or not.”

  “Same for the girl working the desk in the reference room.” Zara frowned. “I think it was a girl. Maybe it was a long-haired boy. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying much attention.”

  “You could hardly be expected to know you’d need an alibi.” Liss was about to ask if they knew where any of the others had been, besides the crew, when she saw Sherri’s small truck pull into her driveway. The fact that her friend was still wearing the uniform of a Carrabassett County deputy sheriff was not reassuring. Sherri almost always changed into civvies before she headed home. Besides, she should have gone off shift hours ago.

  Liss was at the door and had it open before Sherri had a chance to knock. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s good news. I think. Emily Townsend has turned up.”

  Ten minutes later, Sherri had finished recounting the story of her “capture” of the fugitive. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Liss was having trouble smothering a laugh.

  “Go ahead,” Sherri told her. “Yuck it up. The guys at the jail got a major chuckle out of the whole thing.”

  “Is Emily all right?” Zara asked. “Why was she behaving so oddly?”

  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? And ‘oddly’ is the right word. After running away like that, and in spite of the way I reacted, she decided I was the only one she could trust. Lucky me. I got to transport her to the hospital to be checked out. I wasn’t allowed to sit in on her questioning when Gordon Tandy arrived to interview her, but I was with her until then and Emily was rambling the whole time.”

  “Did she make any sense?” Liss asked. “Rambling” did not suggest it had been a particularly coherent monologue.

  “Some of it did. Enough that I think I’ve pieced together what happened. From the questions the emergency room doctor asked her and a few other comments Emily made, I think she took some medication prescribed for Victor. Apparently, she thought the pills would calm her down. She was pretty shook-up by his death even before she knew it was murder. Whatever she took, it made her paranoid. She convinced herself that Victor’s killer was going to come after her next.”

  “That goes along with what Detective Tandy told me earlier today.” For Sherri’s benefit, Liss repeated the sketchy facts she had about Victor’s medical condition.

  “Something that could be painful, huh? That must have been what the pills were for.”

  Sherri didn’t speculate further, but anyone who watched the news on television knew that powerful painkillers were popular on the black market. Liss preferred not to take anything stronger than aspirin herself, but it seemed logical to her that if pain pills could produce a high in some people, they might trigger a different reaction, such as paranoia, in others.

  “So you have no idea what was wrong with Victor?” Zara asked.

  “Not a clue.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t tell anyone he was sick.” Sandy, who had taken over the cooking, drained the macaroni and mixed in the milk, butter, and powdered cheese. Liss popped the hot dogs into the microwave. “I’m surprised no one suspected. If the diagnosis was really bad, that would certainly explain his behavior these last few months. I’d be moody and irritable, too.”

  “I can almost feel sorry for Victor,” Liss said, “but I don’t have much sympathy for Emily. In fact, I have to wonder if taking those pills was just a ploy to divert suspicion away from her.”

  “Where had she been all this time?” Zara asked. “You said she looked awful when she came through the door at the jail.”

  “She hid out in the Wayfarer, Fallstown’s other motel. It’s a real dive.” Sherri glanced at Liss. “There’s more, I’m afraid. Remember I said she seemed to be scared of everyone? At one point she seemed to think the entire company had conspired to kill Victor. Then she narrowed it down. She said that Sandy had threatened him. Said he swore to ‘stop’ Victor ‘once and for all.’ ”

  “More paranoia.” But a worried frown creased Zara’s forehe
ad.

  Sandy just looked puzzled. “I honestly don’t remember saying that, but I might well have. Victor got me pretty steamed on more than one occasion.”

  “Including during an argument in a parking lot?” Liss asked. “If Emily repeated that claim to Gordon Tandy, I think you’d better level with us before he comes around again.”

  Sandy stopped stirring the macaroni and cheese long enough to reach for Zara’s hand and squeeze it. “Good intentions will screw you every time. All I was trying to do was avoid repeating what it was that Victor said to make me lose my temper.”

  “Something about me?” Zara asked.

  “Not just you.” He pulled her into a hug and met Liss’s eyes over the top of her head. “He was bragging about how he’d messed up Sarah’s job prospects after she left the company. Then he threatened to do the same to Zara and me if we tried to leave. I told him I’d have thought he’d be glad to see us go. Then he said that what he’d really like was for Zara to be ‘nicer’ to him and suggested that I should ‘share the goodies.’ ”

  “And that’s when you lost your temper,” Liss said. “Did you threaten to ‘stop’ him?”

  “If I used that word—and I really don’t remember exactly what I said in the heat of anger—it wasn’t a death threat. Stewart, Ray, and I were already working on a formal complaint to file with the company backers at the end of the tour. I wasn’t vowing to kill Victor. I was planning to get him fired.”

  The first thing Dan Ruskin did when he got home was look across the town square to Liss’s house. Sherri Willett’s truck was just pulling out of the driveway. She saw him and waved as she drove away. Margaret Boyd’s station wagon, which Liss drove in Margaret’s absence, was parked out front. Lights blazed from both the living room and kitchen windows.

  Dan didn’t bother going into his own house first to check for phone messages and look at the day’s mail. Instead he jogged the short distance between his place and Liss’s. This evening he even had a legitimate reason for stopping by.

  He opened with that: “Are you going to need more volunteer drivers? My sister was one of the ones you originally had lined up and she’s already been called out twice. It wasn’t a problem over the weekend, but during the week she has other responsibilities.”

  “You offering to take her place?”

  “Ah, no. In case you’ve forgotten, I have to work.”

  “So do I. The Emporium will be open tomorrow.” She waved him inside. Zara and Sandy were at the kitchen table, just starting on a meal of macaroni and cheese, red hot dogs, and salad. Liss had opened a bottle of wine. “Join us?”

  “I’ll pass. Go ahead and eat, though, before the food gets cold.”

  He didn’t know if Liss had cooked or Zara had, but either way he knew he’d eat better fixing something for himself. If he ended up asking Liss to marry him, it wouldn’t be for her domestic skills.

  The thought took him by surprise and for a moment he lost the thread of the conversation.

  “Maybe it won’t be a problem,” Liss said. “Fiona has a rental car now. She can help out. And Sandy and Zara can use the station wagon while I’m at work.”

  Dan could almost see the wheels turning as Liss pondered logistics. “Everyone’s leaving Tuesday, right?”

  “I wish I knew. Fiona has canceled several more performances. She’s anxious to cooperate with the police so we can get this settled.”

  While she and the others ate, Liss filled Dan in on the reappearance of Emily Townsend, the break-in at Lakeside Cabins, and the state police detective’s thwarting of her plan to question the Scone Lady.

  “Sounds like the cops don’t need your help anymore.”

  Liss frowned at him. “You needn’t sound so happy about it.”

  “Hey, just trying to look on the bright side.” He’d been worried when Pete told him the state police were going to ask Liss to assist them. What Sandy had said about her plans to question everyone herself hadn’t thrilled him, either. Now that it looked as if she’d been cut out of the loop, he couldn’t honestly say he regretted that turn of events.

  When Liss glared at him, Dan had to suppress a grin. Another minute and she’d come up with a scathing comment designed to put him in his place. He was looking forward to deflecting it, but someone knocked at the front door before she could launch the first barb.

  “Now what?” Liss grumbled, tossing her napkin on the table and rising with ill-concealed impatience.

  Dan followed her down the hall and into the foyer and was standing beside her when she opened the door to admit a man whose almost military bearing screamed “cop.”

  “May I come in?”

  “I suppose so,” Liss said ungraciously. “Gordon Tandy, this is Dan Ruskin, my neighbor.”

  Dan didn’t care for that description, but “boyfriend” was even weaker. He stayed close to Liss and studied the state police detective. Dan had an inch or two on him, but they had similar builds. Tandy was older, although it was hard to tell by how much. And there was something about the way he looked at Liss that Dan did not like.

  “Ruskin.” Tandy acknowledged the introduction with a nod. He did not offer his hand. “Someone should have talked to you earlier today, about the reception for Strathspey.”

  “Someone did. A uniformed state trooper stopped by the construction site to ask if I saw anything suspicious. I didn’t. It was a very short interview.”

  Another nod. Then Tandy turned his attention to Sandy, who had ventured into the hall. Zara stood behind him, almost hidden except for her hands, both of which were clamped, white-knuckled, around the upper part of his right arm.

  “I wonder if I might ask you a few more questions, Kalishnakof.”

  As soon as they’d disappeared into the library, Zara bit back a little sob. Liss put her arm around the other woman’s shoulders.

  “What’s going on?” Dan asked.

  “Sandy had an argument with Victor last week. He threatened him. It didn’t mean anything, but I’m afraid Gordon thinks it does.”

  She’d left any mention of an argument out of her earlier summary. She’d also been calling the state trooper “Detective Tandy,” not Gordon. Dan frowned. “Do you know that cop from somewhere?”

  “Scottish festivals,” Liss said absently, her attention fixed on the closed door to the library. “He and his brother play the bagpipes. Used to, anyway. I wonder what’s going on in there.”

  In heavy silence, they waited. Finally, the library door opened and the two men emerged. No handcuffs were in evidence.

  “That’s it for now,” Tandy said to the group in general. “Sorry to have interrupted your evening.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Liss said.

  Dan heard them exchange a few muffled words at the door, but he barely had time to wonder what they were saying before Liss was back. Her bright smile had faded into an expression that combined panic and frustration.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” She stamped her foot for good measure. “I thought I could stay out of it. I wanted to. But I can’t. Not if Gordon Tandy thinks Sandy killed Victor.”

  “Does he?” Dan asked, shifting his attention to the other man.

  Sandy shrugged. “He may. He asked me what I did when we first got to Fallstown. I told him. He didn’t look like he believed me. And he didn’t bother to verify it with Zara.”

  “See?” Liss said. “He’s made up his mind. Closed his mind. That means it’s up to us to find someone else without an alibi, someone who had a real reason to want Victor dead.”

  The determined look on Liss’s face was enough to convince Dan that arguing with her would be pointless. Resigned to the only other option—sticking close to her so he could watch her back—he headed for the kitchen to scrounge for leftovers. He had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Eight

  After foraging in a drawer for a legal pad and a felt-tip pen, Liss carried both over to the sofa, curled her legs beneath her, and rested the
pad on her knees. Writing quickly, she listed twenty-nine names. After a moment’s thought, she added “Victor Owens” at the bottom. It wouldn’t hurt to know where he had been just before the performance.

  “Okay. Alibis.” Liss wrote each one as she enumerated it. “Stewart says he was alone in his motel room. Fiona was napping in her cabin. That’s her usual practice,” she added for Dan’s benefit. “She likes to be well rested for the performance.”

  “Zara and I were at the library on campus. Who knows? Maybe someone will remember seeing us there. A fair number of students were using the facility, plus the library staff.”

  “Winona, Ray, and Paul were at the theater, setting up for the show. Winona West is in charge of costumes and props and Paul Roberts is Ray’s stage crew.”

  “So they should be able to vouch for each other,” Dan said.

  He had settled into one of the easy chairs while Sandy took the other with Zara on his lap. The two men appeared to be getting along well, but Liss couldn’t quite forget Dan’s outburst on Saturday night. The incident had unsettled her, making her wonder if she knew Dan as well as she thought she did. She wasn’t certain why he was still here tonight, either, evidently ready, willing, and able to help investigate a murder. Still, she wasn’t about to send him away. As an outsider, he might be able to spot something the rest of them overlooked.

  “Liss? Would they all have worked in sight of each other?”

  She glanced at Sandy. “Pretty much, but Ray was part of the drive to get Victor fired, right?”

  Sandy nodded.

  “Because of Sarah?”

  He looked uncomfortable, but nodded again.

  “Then Ray has to remain a suspect. Sarah Bartlett is a dancer who left the company after a quarrel with Victor,” she told Dan. “Ray has romantic feelings for her. If they were working together, that would certainly explain how they got around a tight schedule. She could have provided the scones while he smuggled them into the Student Center kitchen.” She hated to think of Ray Adams as a murderer. She’d known him a long time and she liked the guy. But someone had killed Victor.