Kilt Dead Page 26

  A glance at his companions told him Sherri and Pete were probably thinking the same thing, but Liss clearly had other matters on her mind. The bright lights inside the building showed him that she was worrying her lower lip with her teeth. What next—wringing hands?

  “Liss, if you don’t want—”

  “Hang this up for me, will you?” She slid out of the ankle-length wool coat and just as neatly slipped away from him before he could manage a reassuring touch. By the time he’d located the nearest coat rack and found hangers for Liss’s coat and his own less stylish garment, one of L. L. Bean’s Maine Guide jackets, she’d vanished.

  At his questioning look, Pete shrugged. “Said she wanted to talk to the Scone Lady. Make sure everything is all set with the refreshments.”

  Janice Eccles, aka “the Scone Lady,” was a baker from the nearby village of Waycross Springs. She specialized in scones, a particular weakness of Liss’s. Together, Janice and Liss had come up with a new recipe especially for this reception: cocktail scones. Dan had sampled the prototype. They weren’t bad but in his opinion were nothing to write home about, either. Liss had disagreed. She might not have seen any of the members of Strathspey since she’d left the company, but she had stayed in touch by phone and email. She’d sent word to several of her closest pals that they were in for a new taste treat at the Fallstown reception.

  Liss rejoined Dan, Sherri, and Pete some ten minutes later, by which time the function room was filling up nicely. She was just polishing off one of the flaky pastries, another sign she was nervous. Liss considered scones the ultimate comfort food.

  “Everything in order?”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  “Uh-huh. Listen, Liss—”

  “Sandy!” Eyes alight—they flashed more green than blue—she waved at three members of the Strathspey company, two women and a man, who had just entered at the opposite side of the room. “Zara! Over here.”

  The man heard and waved back. He hadn’t bothered with a coat and was still in costume—unless he went around in a kilt all the time. Dan recognized him, both by his jet black hair and his outfit, as the “romantic” lead in the show. From the looks he was getting from the women in the crowd, females apparently found him attractive. He did bear a faint resemblance to Sean Connery in his James Bond days, and Dan had it on good authority—his sister Mary—that Connery was “to die for.”

  The two women who accompanied him—Zara and Sandy, Dan assumed—had changed into regular clothing. One, a redhead of the carrot-top variety, wore a short knit dress and high boots that emphasized her long legs. The other had on a more conservative outfit but had topped her plain pants suit with a colorful tartan shawl. Both had an air of sophistication about them.

  Liss hurried toward her friends, leaving Dan to follow in her wake. For a moment, as they exchanged air kisses, he had the opportunity to make comparisons. The two dancers were too skinny for his taste, as Liss had been when she’d first come home. She’d filled out in all the right places since she’d been back in Moosetookalook. As far as Dan was concerned, she was just perfect now.

  Then she hugged the guy in the kilt.

  Dan walked faster. Bracing himself for a couple of hours of chatter on topics he knew almost nothing about, he joined the little group just as Liss broke free of the embrace and turned around to look for him.

  “Dan!” She looked flushed, but not with embarrassment. “This is Dan Ruskin, everyone. Dan, this is Fiona Carlson.” She indicated the older of the two women. He wasn’t good at guessing ages, but Fiona had a strand or two of gray in her light brown hair.

  “Hello, Dan,” she said in a soft, husky voice.

  “We’d be lost without Fiona,” Liss went on. “And this is Zara Lowery, one of my house guests.”

  The redhead startled him by going up on her toes to give him a peck on the cheek. “We’ve heard a lot about you,” she whispered.

  “And this is Sandy,” Liss said, indicating the man in the kilt.

  Dan blinked.

  “Alexander Kalishnakof,” Sandy said, holding out a hand. His grip was firm, friendly, and brief. “And in case you’re wondering about the name, my father was born in Russia but my mother can trace her roots back to Angus the Hammer.”

  If he noticed that Dan was taken aback by the introduction—to put it mildly—he did not let on.

  This was Sandy? The “best pal” Liss had talked so much about? One of the two people staying at her house for the next two nights? Until this moment, Dan had assumed “Sandy” was a woman.

  Suddenly all the stories Liss had told him about the two of them took on an entirely new meaning and he felt as if the world had spun off its axis. The conversation around him turned to white noise as Dan tried to tell himself it was ridiculous to feel jealous. If there had been anything more than friendship between Liss and Sandy, it was in the past. Besides, Sandy would be leaving Monday morning and Liss would not. She’d stay in Moosetookalook, with him.

  He willed himself to relax. Maybe Sandy was gay. That would be good. But even if he was, Dan heartily wished Sandy wasn’t going home with Liss tonight. Zara and Fiona as her house guests would have pleased him much better.

  “Dan?” Liss’s tone suggested this was not the first time she’d spoken his name.

  Belatedly, he realized that Sherri and Pete had joined the group and been introduced, as had a second man wearing a kilt. The stranger toasted him with a nearly empty beer glass. “A pleasure to meet you, my dear chap.” He spoke in a British accent so plummy Dan had to wonder if it was real.

  “This is Stewart Graham,” Liss said. “He’s a dancer with the company but he also played that lovely bagpipe solo.”

  “Lovely” and “bagpipe” were not words that went together naturally in Dan’s mind, but he shook hands and mumbled a vague compliment. Stewart was a bit older and a little shorter than Sandy, with a florid complexion and watery blue eyes. Otherwise they were built along similar lines. Dan wondered if there were height and weight requirements to join dance companies. The members of Strathspey all seemed to fit the same two sets of specifications, one for males and one for females.

  “Go tell Victor how talented I am, there’s a good lass,” Stewart said when Liss added a few more favorable comments about his musical performance. “According to him I wasn’t ‘up to par’ tonight. If I wasn’t such a refined gent, I’d show him a birdie!” He sent a glare toward three men, plates heaped high with food, who were standing by the refreshment table on the other side of the room.

  Liss groaned at the awful pun and, in an aside to Dan, Sherri, and Pete, identified Victor as Victor Owens, the company manager. “He’s the one in the middle, the one gesturing with a half-eaten scone.” This portly gentleman, clearly not a dancer, seemed to be lecturing the other two, who just as clearly were performers. “He’s talking to Charlie Danielstone and Jock O’Brien,” Liss continued. “Probably offering a critique of their performance tonight.”

  “Killing two birds with one scone,” Stewart quipped.

  “The three of them are pretty much guaranteed to be first in line to get at any refreshments,” Liss continued. “Free food is a big draw for anyone in show business, since it’s not exactly a profession that lends itself to steady employment or regular meals. Charlie and Jock are living proof of that cliché and they give new meaning to the stereotype of the penny-pinching Scot, too.”

  “Think Scrooge McDuck,” Stewart said, sotto voce.

  Liss patted the sleeve of Stewart’s green velvet jacket. “Anyway, getting back to your solo—you sounded great to me. I can’t imagine why Victor would make such a rude remark.”

  “Why does Victor do anything?” Stewart gulped down the rest of his beer and excused himself to revisit the cash bar.

  Not a bad idea, Dan thought, but he was driving. He settled for offering to get Liss a glass of the white wine she favored.

  As the reception wore on and Dan, Sherri, and Pete drifted off to speak with local
people they knew, Liss finally relaxed and began to enjoy herself. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the easy comradery of the Strathspey company. Working together, traveling together, they’d had their share of rough spots, but there had also been plenty of good times. Most of all, these people understood what it meant to be a performer.

  The troupe numbered thirty in all, including the backstage crew and Victor Owens. Liss wanted to say a word or two to every one of them and chat longer with those she’d been closest to over the years. She hesitated only when it came to approaching Victor. That he’d gone out of his way to insult the company’s only piper disturbed her in a way she could not quite define.

  In all the years Liss had known him, Victor had usually had a good reason for his actions, even the ones that at first seemed inexplicable. That was why they kept him on as manager. He could find them bookings no one else would have thought of and had kept them solvent—and housed, fed, and paid—through some pretty dicey dry spells.

  When she finally took the plunge, Victor was deep in conversation with Emily Townsend. That is, Emily was talking. Victor was making new inroads into the offerings on the refreshment table. Liss planted herself between him and the platters of food to make sure she got his attention.

  “Hello, Victor.”

  “Well, if it isn’t our little angel.” Victor dabbed at his lips with a napkin before he took a sip from the glass of whiskey Emily had been holding for him. Liss assumed he meant “angel” in the theatrical sense and his next words confirmed it. “Felt sorry for us, did you? Thought we needed you to convince the local yokels to invite us to this dinky little burg?”

  “Victor! Mind your manners!” Emily gave him a playful little slap on the forearm and . . . tittered.

  There was no other word for the sound she made. Giggle would have been too dignified. In all other respects, however, Emily Townsend seemed a mature young woman—several years younger than Liss, but exuding the self-confidence of a seasoned performer.

  “This is Emily Townsend,” Victor said, taking another sip of the whiskey. “Best thing that’s happened to this company in a long time. Well, you saw her dance.” He reached around Liss to grab another spinach puff.

  The implication that Emily was better in her role than Liss had been took Liss aback. Victor had always been a bit irascible, and prone to sarcastic comments when someone screwed up on stage, but he didn’t usually go out of his way to be insulting.

  Since she’d always found that the best technique for dealing with unwarranted criticism was to ignore it, Liss pretended not to understand the cutting remark. Keeping a smile on her face, she complimented Emily on her performance.

  “I’m thinking of giving her Zara’s role.” Victor smirked at Liss and spoke loudly enough that Zara would be sure to overhear, even with all the crowd noise. Over his shoulder, Liss saw Zara open her mouth, then close it again. She knew as well as Liss did that she was being baited and that if she refused to react, Victor would eventually grow tired of the game.

  “Goodness, Victor,” Liss said in a mildly reproving tone, “you are on a tear tonight. Did someone eat all the mini-quiches before you got to them? I ordered them special, you know. I remember how much you liked them.” Liss turned to inspect the refreshment table. In fact, there weren’t any quiches left, but she suspected that was because Victor had already devoured them all. “Try a cocktail scone.” She plucked one up and offered it to him. “It will sweeten your temper.”

  For a moment he looked almost apologetic. “I have a lot on my mind,” he muttered, and took the scone.

  “Then it must have been a relief that the show went so well. I thought Stewart’s solo was particularly moving.”

  “Swan song.” Victor munched on the scone, devouring it in record time. “He’s on his way out. Unreliable. Drinks too much.”

  Liss couldn’t deny the last charge. She’d seen for herself how much beer Stewart had put away in the course of the reception.

  “Can’t afford to keep anyone around who doesn’t pull his weight.” Victor took a second scone and bit into it. He gestured at Liss with the remaining portion. “That’s your fault.”

  “Mine? How do you figure that?”

  “After your knee surgery our insurance premiums went up.”

  The experience hadn’t exactly been cheap for her either, not with all the co-pays, but there was no point in telling Victor that. “I lost my career,” she reminded him instead.

  “You seem to have landed on your feet. I heard about your inheritance.”

  Liss repressed a sudden temptation to pick up an entire plate of hors d’oeuvres and dump them over his head. Apparently there was no winning with Victor. Not tonight. He might not have had as much to drink as Stewart, but he’d imbibed enough to make him both belligerent and unreasonable. Perhaps having an open bar at the reception had not been one of her better ideas!

  “Nice meeting you, Emily,” Liss said.

  Without another word to Victor, she left the two of them and resumed circulating. It did not take long to find more agreeable companions among the cast and crew. She accepted a bear hug from Ray Adams with good grace. He was a big man in his forties. His nose was big, too—his most prominent feature. His hair was gray at the temples and he had deeply incised laugh lines around his mouth. He’d always been one of Liss’s favorite people.

  “So, how you doin’, Liss?” Ray’s voice was a bit on the nasal side, a raspy baritone straight out of New York City. He couldn’t speak more than a dozen words without throwing in a rhetorical “y’know?” and his hands automatically went into motion the moment he started talking. “Never figured you for a country girl.” His gesture seemed to indicate all of Fallstown.

  “If you think a big town like this is the boondocks, you should see Moosetookalook!”

  Too late, Liss realized Dan had come up beside her in time to overhear her flippant remark. He was not smiling. He probably didn’t appreciate the criticism of their home town, but it was too late now to take back what she’d said.

  “Dan, this is Ray. He’s our stage manager and one-third of our backstage crew. He specializes in running lights on all kinds of systems, some extremely antiquated. He was also the one to provide emergency first aid—ice packs—the night I injured my knee.”

  Waving off the praise, nodding a greeting to Dan, Ray returned to the one subject Liss wanted to avoid. “You call this a big town? I dunno, Liss. You should pardon the expression, but two days in the back of beyond and I could die of boredom already.”

  “City boy,” she teased him. “Think of it as a chance to catch up on sleep.”

  Dan, community pride piqued, jumped in with suggestions. The Fallstown movie theater offered six screens. There was a pot-luck supper tomorrow at one of the local churches. And the motel where Ray was staying had cable with NESN.

  “NESN?” Ray asked, straight faced. “Never heard of it.”

  “New England Sports Network.”

  Liss kept mum. She knew Ray was just stringing Dan along. He knew perfectly well what NESN was. But he had a point. Not everyone in the company was happy about spending a quiet weekend in rural Maine. Still, they didn’t have another booking until Monday evening and it was far less expensive to stay in Fallstown than to arrive early and pay exorbitant sums for an extra night in the Boston area, near their next gig. Victor, almost as frugal as Charlie and Jock, had jumped at the chance for two nights at cheaper rates.

  Sandy and Zara joined them just as Dan mentioned that the Boston Bruins hockey game would be televised the next afternoon. Liss headed off Ray’s response—he was not a fan of any New England sports team—and turned the conversation back to what had been happening among the members of Strathspey since she’d last seen them.

  Ray recounted a particularly hilarious encounter with a group of locals during a road trip—what was it that made some men think a guy in a skirt must be a sissy? Then Sandy chimed in to tell her about another incident with a similar out
come, except that he’d ended up with a black eye.

  Halfway through the second story, Dan wandered off. Liss started to call him back, then let him go. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know anyone at the reception.

  She surveyed the gathering, quietly pleased at its success. A great many local people had come, in addition to a good number of college students and faculty members. Liss caught sight of a neighbor, Angie Hogencamp, and her daughter Beth, at the other side of the room. Liss had been giving the girl dance lessons since August and had found the task surprisingly enjoyable.

  A burst of laughter pinpointed Stewart Graham’s location. Good old Stewart—the more he drank, the worse his puns became. Liss tuned in just long enough to hear him proclaim that Scottish country dancers were “reel” people and had to stifle a groan at hearing that old chestnut again. None of Stewart’s puns were particularly original and he tended to repeat the same ones over and over.

  “Nice shindig, Liss,” Sandy said a short while later, when they found themselves standing together with no one else nearby.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Thanks.” But she couldn’t hold back a sad little sigh.

  “What’s wrong, kid?” he asked. He was all of three years older than she was, but he’d always called her that. He claimed it was because, during those first few years with Strathspey, she’d tended to look at the world through rose-colored glasses.

  No longer. That wide-eyed nineteen-year-old innocent had started to grow up a long time ago and the abrupt end to her career as a dancer had completed the process.

  “Kid?”

  “I was just daydreaming—wishing there could still be a place for me with the company. A non-dancing role, of course. But there isn’t. Not unless Victor suddenly decides to resign.”

  “He’ll never do that.” Sandy sounded grim. “It would make too many people happy.”

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