Bagpipes, Brides and Homicides (Liss Maccrimmon Scottish Mysteries) Page 7

  Dan’s sister Mary tapped Liss on the shoulder. She might have been visiting the playground section of the square with two-year-old Jason—it boasted a jungle gym, slide, swings, and a small merry-go-round—but Liss thought it more likely she’d gotten a phone call from someone and come out to investigate. Two-month-old Katie was strapped into a baby sling across Mary’s chest.

  “Are you okay?” Mary asked. “You aren’t in any kind of trouble, are you?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry. There’s no contraband on the premises.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Mary’s molasses brown eyes were so like Dan’s that Liss nearly confided in her, but there was no point in burdening her future sister-in-law with her worries.

  “I’m fine. Really. Everything will be . . . fine. They aren’t going to find anything incriminating.”

  As if to prove the truth of her words, three state troopers filed out of her house, followed closely by Detective Stanley Franklin. They were all empty handed. Liss’s father appeared in the doorway behind them. She could see Mac clearly. He was not in handcuffs. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then Detective Franklin crossed the sidewalk in front of the house and stopped beside Mac’s car. “Search it,” he ordered.

  “Now wait just a minute,” Liss objected. “This has gone far enough. You have no right to harass innocent people.”

  “What about the not-so-innocent?” Franklin’s expression remained both bland and uncompromising.

  “It’s okay, Liss,” her father called from the porch, just as she was about to go toe-to-toe with the detective. “I gave them permission to look in the car. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” Liss muttered.

  Mac came slowly down the porch steps, careful to hold on to the railing—a sure sign his knees were bothering him. The smile he meant to reassure her with was a trifle shaky but quite genuine.

  Behind her, she heard the trunk of her father’s car creak open. Because her gaze remained on his face, she saw his eyes go wide with shock.

  “What the—?”

  By the time Liss turned, broad male backs blocked her view of the inside of the trunk. “What is it?” she hissed at her father. “What’s in there?”

  “It looked like—” He shook his head in disbelief. “No, it couldn’t be.”

  “What?”

  “A sword.” His skin had turned a sickly shade of green. “Good God.”

  Vi materialized at her husband’s side and grabbed hold of his arm. As she led him back to the Emporium and urged him to sit down before he fell down, Liss’s gaze shifted to her display window. She wasn’t really surprised by what she saw.

  Or rather, by what she didn’t see.

  One of the reproduction weapons was missing. Where the hand-and-a-half broadsword had been, there was now only a long, empty stretch of black velvet cloth.

  The state police evidence technicians took their time going over the display window. When they were done, Liss would have an unholy mess to clean up. Fingerprint powder stuck to everything.

  “All that black velvet may as well go straight into the nearest trash bin,” she grumbled under her breath.

  “Settle down,” Sherri warned in a whisper. She’d stuck with Liss, accompanying her back into the Emporium, hanging out the CLOSED sign, and brewing a fresh pot of coffee in the stockroom.

  “I wish I could.” And she wished she knew what was happening next door, where Detective Franklin had taken her father for more questioning. At least Franklin hadn’t arrested him on the spot, but she didn’t know how long that situation would last.

  “We’ll sort things out,” Sherri insisted. “Obviously, someone’s trying to make Mac look guilty. It was a pretty clumsy attempt at a frame-up.”

  Liss squeezed her friend’s hand. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  She was grateful that Sherri didn’t automatically assume the worst. She wished she could be sure the same held true for her mother. Vi was acting as if she believed her husband had killed “Lee” Palsgrave.

  Of its own volition, Liss’s gaze shifted to the ceiling. Once Vi had realized that, for the time being, she wouldn’t be allowed to go back inside Liss’s house, she had taken refuge in Aunt Margaret’s apartment. Although Liss was now sole proprietor of the Emporium, the building still belonged to her aunt. Liss paid a modest rent to continue to operate on the premises.

  Liss expected that the police would want to question her mother. She wondered what Vi would say. As upset as she was, her comments might do her husband more harm than good.

  “There’s so much I don’t understand,” Liss whispered.

  “Just tell Franklin what you do know,” Sherri advised as they watched the detective mount the front steps and open the door to the Emporium. “Everything, even if you don’t think it’s important. And even if you think it makes your parents look bad. There’s no point in keeping secrets. In any investigation, everything always comes out in the end, and it always makes things worse if it turns out that you held back information.”

  “I know.” She sent Sherri a wry smile. “Sadly, as you are well aware, this is not my first encounter with murder.” But it was the first time her father had been nominated as prime suspect.

  A uniformed officer had already taken Liss’s statement about the missing sword. Now Detective Franklin informed her that he wanted to go over every detail of that deposition again. After he sent Sherri away, he pointed to the window.

  “Show me where this—what’s it called? A broadsword? Show me exactly where it was in your display.”

  She walked him to the window. “Right there. Dead center.” She winced at her unfortunate choice of words. “It was the largest weapon in the display. And I’d just like to point out that my father has arthritis in his hands, his wrists, and his neck, as well as in his knees and ankles. It would be extremely difficult for him to lift such a weapon, let alone use it effectively.”

  “What gives you the idea that the sword was used in a crime?”

  “I’m not stupid.” Exasperated all over again, Liss glared at him. “A moron could put two and two together and guess that you think the missing sword was used to kill Professor Palsgrave.”

  Franklin neither confirmed nor denied her statement, but Liss’s excellent imagination was quick to paint the crime scene in gruesome detail. Blood everywhere, Sherri had said. That would certainly have been the case if Palsgrave had been slashed with the hand-and-a-half broadsword. Or hacked to death. Liss swallowed convulsively.

  “If my father had wanted to use a sword at all, and I can’t imagine why he would have, then it would have made far more sense for him to borrow one of the lightweight weapons, like that thirty-inch tapered blade arming sword.”

  Although the state police detective spent a few more minutes examining the contents of the display window, he kept his thoughts private. “Is that coffee I smell?” he asked when he’d finished his inspection.

  Play nice, Liss reminded herself, and directed him toward the cozy corner and the coffee pot and mugs Sherri had set out. Her friend was right. She had to cooperate with the police. She just hoped Franklin didn’t ask her too many questions about her mother. Quite honestly, Liss did not know how to answer him if he wanted details of Vi’s relationship with Professor Palsgrave.

  “I understand this was a display of reproduction weapons, rather than the real thing,” Franklin said when he’d doctored his coffee with cream and sugar and taken the first swallow. “What’s the difference?”

  “Value. If those swords had been made in medieval times, they’d be worth a fortune. And weight. The real ones are much heavier.”

  “Those look pretty real to me.”

  “They’re supposed to look real, but they weren’t made to slay enemy soldiers in battle. Most of the people who use weapons like those in reenactments keep the blades dull or blunted. I’m not an expert on the subject, but I’d think that, e
ven in the interest of authenticity, most people would prefer not to risk being maimed or killed while engaging in what is, essentially, a hobby. Are you planning to arrest my father?”

  Franklin ignored her question. “Were these blades sharp?”

  She managed not to glare at him. She took a moment to make sure she wouldn’t sound testy, then answered honestly. “I don’t know. I didn’t exactly run my fingers over any of them to find out. I didn’t even handle most of them. I don’t see why it matters. Anyone with a kitchen knife sharpener could turn a dull blade into one that could kill.” At his raised eyebrow, she added, “I read a lot of murder mysteries.”

  “Who set up the display?”

  “Professor Caroline Halladay and her assistant. Willa somebody. A student.”

  “Willa Somener?” Franklin asked.

  “That sounds right.” Liss was surprised that he knew the name, but she supposed he’d encountered her at the college. “I only met her twice, both times with Dr. Halladay.”

  Franklin scribbled something in his notebook. “When did you last see the missing sword?”

  “I don’t remember. I know it was there on Monday, but I can’t be certain after that. The cloth draped across the back of the display keeps me from seeing into the window from the store side, and I had no reason to stop and stare at it from outdoors. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve even walked past that window during the last few days. I go the other way to get to the post office and I come in and go out through the back door most of the rest of the time.”

  “Why did you notice on Monday?” Franklin persisted.

  Liss shrugged and told him about the visit from old Alistair Gunn and his grandson. Franklin made more scribbles. She tried to read his handwriting, but couldn’t decipher it. When he flipped back a few pages to consult earlier notes that looked more like hen scratches than words, she decided he probably used some kind of cop shorthand.

  “You were closed from five in the afternoon on Wednesday the eighth until ten this morning, the tenth. Is that right?”

  She nodded. “Yesterday I had a fitting for my wedding gown. I was out of town most of the day.”

  “Congratulations.” He sounded as if he meant it.

  Liss mellowed slightly. “Thank you.”

  “You were late opening this morning.”

  Any lessening of the antagonism she felt toward him evaporated. “We had an unexpected early morning visitor. I was held up.”

  He fielded her glare with annoying equanimity. “And after I left?”

  “As usual, I entered the shop through the stockroom.” She gestured toward the door to her work area. “That way in is the shortest distance from the kitchen of my house.”

  “Who has access to this building when the shop is closed?”

  “I do. And my aunt, Margaret Boyd. She lives in the upstairs apartment.”

  “And your parents?”

  “They know where the keys are,” Liss admitted, “but I’d like to point out that anyone could have come in here during business hours and taken that sword. I might have been in the stockroom, or the restroom.”

  He gave the bell over the door a pointed look. “Wouldn’t you have heard them?”

  Liss squirmed under his intense scrutiny. “Probably,” she admitted.

  “And did anyone come in when you weren’t out front to see them? Anyone who had already left again by the time you poked your head out to see who was here?”

  “Not that I know of.” She was feeling testy again, and this time she didn’t care if it showed.

  “Any other theories you’d like to share?”

  Liss fidgeted. She was pretty sure he was being sarcastic. She wondered if he’d asked Gordon Tandy about her. Her involvement in previous cases of murder was no secret. She offered a suggestion anyway.

  “Maybe someone broke in here after hours. My locks aren’t the greatest.”

  He didn’t say anything to that. He’d probably already noticed.

  “Look, I know you’re investigating a murder. And it’s obvious you think that sword was the murder weapon, but why on earth do you think my father had anything to do with it? And if he did, why would he put the sword in the trunk of his own car and then leave the car unlocked?”

  “You’ll have to ask him those questions, Ms. MacCrimmon.”

  Before she could come up with a suitably scathing reply to that suggestion, Franklin resumed his interrogation. He repeated all of his questions a second time. Cops did that, as Liss well knew, but that knowledge didn’t make the experience any easier to endure. Finally, he seemed satisfied and closed his notebook.

  “Where is Mrs. MacCrimmon?”

  “Upstairs, in my aunt’s apartment.”

  “If you’ll show me the way?”

  Given no choice, Liss led him to the door that hid the stairwell. She meant to accompany him to the second floor, but he wouldn’t allow her to come with him. Politely but firmly, he told her he would talk to Vi alone.

  Liss stayed put at the bottom of the stairwell, listening as he rapped on the door at the top and identified himself. When her mother opened the apartment door, Liss was ready. “Mom?” she called. “I can come up if you want me there.”

  “That’s all right, Liss,” Vi answered. “You have the shop to run.” She had let Franklin in and closed the door again before Liss had time to remind her that the Emporium wasn’t open and probably wouldn’t be for the rest of the day.

  “Great,” she muttered.

  With nothing better to do while she waited for the detective to finish interviewing her mother, Liss confirmed that it was okay to clean up after the other officers and got to work on the display window. The sooner she had all those weapons out of her sight, the better.

  She paused in the act of reaching for a jewel-encrusted dagger. What she really wanted was to have them gone entirely. The minute she had them boxed up, she decided, she’d phone Caroline Halladay and tell her to come and get them.

  All the while Liss had been working on the window, she’d kept an eye on the police car parked in front of her house. She’d half expected to see her father led out in handcuffs and put in the back of the vehicle. When the cruiser finally left, however, Mac MacCrimmon was not in it.

  As soon as it was out of sight, Liss shut off the lights in the Emporium and made a dash for the stockroom. Vi must have been watching from an upstairs window. She scurried down the outside staircase just as Liss burst through the back door. She matched her daughter stride for stride across the driveway and the strip of lawn that separated the Emporium from Liss’s kitchen door.

  There was no sign of Liss’s father downstairs.

  “Bedroom,” Vi said, and led the way.

  The guest room door was closed. Vi reached for the knob, turned it, and frowned when it didn’t open. Mac had locked himself in.

  “Daddy?” Liss cringed at the helpless note in her voice. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Dad, we need to speak with you.”

  “Go away.” His muffled voice was barely audible.

  “No,” Vi said.

  “Not a chance,” Liss seconded her. “You owe us an explanation.”

  Silence greeted this declaration. Liss and Vi exchanged a worried look.

  “I don’t suppose either one of us is strong enough to break down the door,” Vi said. “Unless you think you can kick it in.”

  “I was a professional dancer, Mom. Not a martial arts expert.”

  But Liss had a better idea. Leaving her mother glaring at the guest room door, she entered her own bedroom. It occupied a front corner of the house, on the same side as the guest room. She opened the side window and stuck her head out. A narrow ledge ran below it, connecting to the balcony—a small porch, really—that was attached to the guest room.

  Before she had time to overthink her plan, Liss went out the window. She could almost reach the porch railing while she still had one foot on her windowsill. She lunged over the short distance to the porch . . . and felt
her feet slip out from under her.

  For one terrifying moment, Liss thought she was going to fall. The ground wasn’t that far away, she told herself as she started to panic. If she landed right and rolled, she probably wouldn’t even break anything. She twisted her upper body in a last ditch effort to save herself. Her right hand connected with solid wood. She curled her fingers around the railing and clung.

  She hung there, suspended over the strip of lawn next to the driveway, heart pounding and head spinning. Then she slung her left arm up and caught hold of the railing with that hand, too. She was just starting to pull herself up and over when her father gripped her shoulders to help her climb the rest of the way onto the small porch.

  “Jesus, Liss!” His eyes were wide and all the color had leeched out of his face. “You could have killed yourself!”

  A moment later she was engulfed in a bear hug. It squeezed the breath she’d just gotten back right out of her again, but she managed to hug him in return. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes.

  “I had to be sure you were okay,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

  She felt as well as heard his deep sigh. When he let her go, it was to walk straight through the guest room and turn the old-fashioned key in the lock. Vi all but fell through the door as it opened. When she’d righted herself, she smacked Mac, hard, on the upper arm.

  “Don’t ever worry me like that again!”

  “We may as well go back downstairs and put on a fresh pot of coffee.” He sounded resigned.

  “You’d better not be planning to bolt,” Vi said.

  His laugh was humorless. “Can’t. I’ve been ordered not to leave town.”

  Chapter Six

  Liss’s father wouldn’t say another word until the three of them were seated around the kitchen table with steaming mugs of coffee on the table in front of them. Liss needed several reviving sips before she felt ready to start the inquisition.

  “Why did the police take your fingerprints?” she asked.

  “I answered that question this morning—for purposes of elimination.”

  “Well, they obviously didn’t eliminate you!” Liss felt her temper spike and fought to keep it under control. “Why were your fingerprints at a murder scene?”