Chapter
Five
When Dan released Liss’s two cats from their
prison, he got a snarl from Lumpkin for his trouble.
“You’re welcome,” he said, and reached
down to stroke Glenora. Friendlier than her “brother,” she was
stropping his ankles in appreciation.
Lumpkin headed for his food bowl. When
he found it was empty, he sent an indignant look over his shoulder.
Dan obligingly poured out some kibble. After a few more hasty
preparations, he returned to the living room. “Alone at last,” he
said when the door closed behind Stu Burroughs.
Liss turned, smiling. “Not quite.” She
nodded toward Lumpkin, who had followed Dan into the
room.
She scratched the big cat behind the
ears, then tried to pet his broad, furry head. She jerked and cried
out when he nipped the tip of one finger.
“So much for the theory that cats have
a calming effect.” Dan took her hand and inspected the indentations
Lumpkin’s teeth had made. Lucky for Lumpkin there was little
damage. Dan had made his share of excuses for the cat in the past,
but he drew the line at serious injury to Liss’s person.
“Apparently he’s not in the mood to soothe.”
“Being locked up makes him
cranky.”
“I wonder how he’d like living at the
animal shelter?”
“Bite your tongue!”
If Liss could forgive the cat, Dan
could do no less. “At least he didn’t break the skin,” he murmured
as he kissed it better. Then, slinging one arm around Liss’s
shoulders, he steered her into the kitchen. He’d found a bottle of
her favorite white wine in the refrigerator and had already poured
her a glass.
“This will knock me out,” she warned,
but she accepted the offering and sipped.
“You could use a good night’s sleep.”
Dan opened the beer he’d extracted for himself and took a long pull
from the bottle. For a few minutes, they enjoyed a companionable
silence. Then Dan gestured toward the answering machine attached to
the kitchen phone. “You’ve got a message waiting.”
“I know. I checked the caller I.D. when
I first came home from the hotel. The message is from my mother.
I’m ignoring it.”
Dan frowned. “Are you sure you want to
do that? What if your folks have some kind of
emergency?”
“If that were the case, there would be
more than one message waiting. And Mom would have called Aunt
Margaret and the hotel as well as here. Trust me, whatever she
wants, it can wait.”
In Dan’s world, you didn’t ignore
family. He regarded her with a steady, uncompromising stare until
she relented.
“Okay, okay. But don’t say I didn’t
warn you.” She depressed the Play button, and her mother’s cheerful
voice emerged from the speaker as clearly as if she was in the room
with them.
“Hi, sweetie,” Violet MacCrimmon said.
“I just had the most brilliant idea for your wedding. But
first—what did Dan say when you told him you wanted to get married
at the Western Maine Highland Games?”
Dan choked on a swallow of beer.
What?
“It will make things so much easier to
have the ceremony there,” Violet went on, “since the wedding and
the games are scheduled for the same weekend. And it will be more
fun for everyone, too.”
“When were you going to mention that
little detail?” Dan asked.
Liss shushed him, but she had a guilty
look on her face.
The message played on.
“Anyway, here’s my idea,” Violet said.
“I’ve just found out that a medieval Scottish reenactment group is
signed up to attend the games this year.” She paused to let that
nugget of information sink in.
Dan set his beer on the counter. His
mind reeled. Get married at the area’s annual Scottish festival?
That was a far cry from his naïve assumption that they’d tie the
knot in a small, quiet ceremony at the little nondenominational
church located just two blocks away on Lowe Street.
Liss’s mother’s voice grew increasingly
chipper as the message continued. “I’ve mailed you a copy of
Renaissance Magazine’s bridal issue. It’s
full of the most gorgeous gowns. Any one of them would look
wonderful on you, especially since all the men in the wedding party
will be wearing traditional dress. Oh, I just can’t wait! Call me
when you get a chance. Love you. Bye.”
The click of the disconnect sounded
abnormally loud in the quiet kitchen.
Dan cleared his throat. “I thought we
were getting married in a church.”
“Mom had a better idea.”
“It’s our
wedding.”
“Well, yes, but it’s important to my
mother, too. As she keeps pointing out, I’m her only child. And the
parents of the bride traditionally pay for the
wedding.”
“We can afford the cost of our own damn
wedding!”
“Not unless we elope. You have no idea
how expensive—”
“I’m not a pauper!” But money was
always tight and he’d been brought up to be frugal. “Elope?” He
hoped he didn’t sound too eager.
Liss ran her fingers lightly over his
cheek. “I know. I’m tempted, too. But Mom and Dad really want to do
this for us. The MacCrimmons are big on tradition. It would break
their hearts if we deprived them of the opportunity to go all out
for the occasion.”
“Tradition, huh?” Funny how that word
kept cropping up. His eyes narrowed. “Would that be Scottish tradition?”
Liss flashed him a grin. “Bagpipes
sound much better outdoors. Inside a church, they’re really much
too loud.”
Dan groaned. “I hate bagpipe
music.”
“But you love me. And it doesn’t make
all that much sense for us to get married in a church anyway.
Neither one of us attends services regularly.”
“Is it okay if I wear
earplugs?”
She laughed, as if she thought—or
hoped—that he was joking. “Not a good idea. You might not be able
to hear the vows. You could agree to anything.”
Beneath the teasing words, Dan heard
her anxiety. He could give her this, he told himself. If bagpipe
music and getting married at the Scottish festival were that
important to her and her folks, how could he deny her?
He caught her hand in his, turning it
so he could plant what he hoped she’d see as a romantic kiss on the
backs of her knuckles. “It doesn’t matter to me where we get
married, as long as it’s legal.”
“Oh, it will be.”
“Anything else I should know about?” he
asked.
“Let me get my list.”
Of course there was a list, he thought.
Liss was a habitual list maker. He followed her back into the
living room and watched while she fished this one out of the drawer
in the end table. When they were settled on the sofa together, she
handed over a 5x8 yellow lined tablet. At the top of the first page
she’d written “Three Months Before.”
“Complete guest list,” he read aloud.
“Order wedding rings. Done and done.” The next few items were
equally nonthreatening, ranging from ordering the wedding cake to
booking rooms for out-of-town guests at The Spruces. Then he hit
number thirteen and he felt a sinking sensation in his gut. “Select
Scottish formalwear for groom and ushers? Okay. I’ll bite. What
exactly does Scottish formalwear consist
of?”
Liss took a last sip of her wine and
set the glass on the end table. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you
about that.”
“It means a kilt, doesn’t
it?”
She nodded. “Traditional Scottish
wedding,” she reminded him.
“Liss, I don’t—”
“It’s no big deal. I know for a fact
that you’re not bowlegged or knock-kneed and I doubt your brother
Sam is, either. And I’ve already seen how good Pete Campbell looks
in a kilt.” Sherri’s husband regularly competed in athletic
contests at the highland games.
Dan chose his words carefully. “I guess
I’m okay with getting married at the Western Maine Highland Games,
and I promise I won’t wear earplugs to block out the
screeching—”
“Skirling,” she corrected him.
“Bagpipes skirl.”
“I won’t wear earplugs,” he repeated,
“but you’ll have to be the one to compromise on what I wear.” He
took both her hands in his. “I love you, Liss MacCrimmon, but there
is no way in hell that you are getting me into a
skirt.”
Liss sighed. “I knew I didn’t want to
listen to Mom’s phone message tonight.”
Dan saw an out and grabbed it like a
lifeline. “We’re both too tired to get into all this now. Let’s
leave any discussion about the wedding until after the weekend,
okay?”
Dan figured time was on his side.
Although Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium sold kilts off the rack,
Liss undoubtedly wanted something custom-made for him to wear at
their wedding. A kilt she’d expect him to wear to other Scottish
events. He repressed a shudder. If he could just stall her long
enough to make ordering such a kilt impossible, maybe he’d have a
shot at convincing her that a tux was the better
option.
“You’re right,” Liss agreed. “I’ve got
too many other things on my mind just now. We’ll let the wedding
ride for the next couple of days.”
“Show me your list of other things.
Maybe there’s something I can help with there.”
She tapped her forehead. “That one is
all up here. I haven’t had time to write anything
down.”
“First item?”
“Stop blog.”
“Moving right along... .”
His grimace coaxed a chuckle out of
her. “Let’s see. Oh—talk to Doug about his son.” She described what
she’d witnessed that morning.
“You can’t do that tonight,” Dan said.
“Next?”
“Open mail and look at bridal gowns.”
She gestured toward the hall table where she’d tossed bills,
letters, and a bulky mailer that was clearly the magazine her
mother had mentioned.
“Nope. That’s wedding related. It’s on
hold until after the weekend.”
“Then that leaves just three items:
work in the dealers’ room; attend conference events; and find a
good home for Lenny Peet’s dog.”
Dan shook his head over the number and
variety of her tasks, but he couldn’t help but smile at the last
item. “I guess I was right,” he said, giving her a quick peck on
the cheek before he left the sofa and headed for the door. “You
definitely need a good night’s sleep.”
“You’re going home?”
Her obvious disappointment pleased Dan
no end. He had a hard time keeping his feet moving away from her.
“Tomorrow is going to be a long day for me, too.” He came back long
enough to claim one last kiss, but then stuck to his resolve to
leave. “If I stay here any longer,” he muttered on his way out the
door, “neither one of us will get any rest.”
Sherri was in the office early. It was
barely six in the morning when she started the coffeepot and
settled in at her desk in the P.D. She’d left her son Adam sound
asleep, but neither of them had gotten a lot of shut-eye the
previous night. The break in his arm was a clean one, but Adam’s
cast seemed huge to her. And for the next little while, he was
going to need someone with him 24/7, if only to distract and pamper
him.
Pete could stay in the apartment until
two o’clock. Then he had to go to work. The town authorized paid
time off for parents to nurse their sick kids, but Sherri didn’t
feel right just abandoning her post and leaving the department
shorthanded. She figured that she had until two to find someone to
cover for her. With luck, one of the part-timers who filled in from
time to time would be available to work her day shifts during the
weekend.
She reached for the phone, knowing that
her most likely prospect was an early riser. Her hand stilled when
a red light went on. It indicated an incoming call to the fire
department. Sherri was on her feet and running toward the front of
the municipal building before the overhead door of the garage that
held the fire truck had time to open all the way.
“What’ve you got?” she shouted to Greg
Holstein, the volunteer fireman who was just climbing into the cab.
No alarms were sounding. That meant it wasn’t a fire.
“Accident out at Lover’s Leap,” he
yelled back. “Someone spotted a body at the bottom.”
“Teenager?” The spot was prime make-out
territory.
“No idea!”
He took off in the truck in the
direction of Spruce Avenue. Sherri raced to the police cruiser
parked in the lot behind the municipal building and in a matter of
minutes had caught up with him. Loaded with search and rescue
equipment and medical supplies, as well as the wherewithal to put
out house and car fires, the town’s fire truck did triple duty for
their small community. A car driven by a local woman who had been
trained as an emergency medical technician fell into line behind
Sherri’s vehicle.
There was no ambulance in
Moosetookalook. One had to be dispatched from the hospital in
Fallstown, a twenty-minute drive at legal speeds. Sherri wondered
if she should start it on its way. Greg had said there was a body,
but there was always a chance that the victim wasn’t dead yet.
Check first, she decided. With the added complication that Lover’s
Leap was a good half-mile walk from the nearest point where any
vehicle but an ATV or snowmobile could go, it might make more sense
to request a LifeFlight helicopter.
Two more members of the volunteer fire
and rescue squad reached the parking lot at the hotel at the same
time as the fire truck, Sherri’s cruiser, and the EMT’s car. Joe
Ruskin was waiting for them there.
They set out together toward the spot
at the edge of the woods that marked the start of the cliff path.
“An early-morning jogger spotted the body,” Joe reported. “He damn
near killed himself scrambling down the goat track, and there
wasn’t a thing he could do when he got to the bottom. Close up, it
was pretty obvious she’d broken her neck.”
Joe was puffing slightly from the brisk
pace Sherri and the others set.
“Any I.D.?” she asked.
“The kid who spotted her body is named
Kline. Davy Kline. He says she’s another guest, that he saw her at
the reception last night. She must have gone out jogging as soon as
the sun came up. Kline says that’s what she’s dressed
for.”
“Did you go out there
yourself?”
Joe shook his head. “I figured I’d
better wait for you. Kline is in my office if you want to talk to
him. He’s pretty shook up.”
They’d reached the break in the trees.
“Tell him he can return to his room if he wants to,” Sherri said.
She felt sorry for the poor guy. Finding a corpse was not a good
way to start the day.
Relieved that he didn’t have to go look
at the body, Joe headed back to the hotel. Sherri and the rescue
team, armed with ropes and other equipment, followed the path into
the woods. It seemed this was going to be a recovery rather than a
rescue. With a little luck, the victim would have I.D. on her. If
not, Joe or one of his employees might be able to supply a name
once they’d brought up the body.
Lover’s Leap was on town property, part
of a small park adjacent to The Spruces. A sturdy rail fence stood
between the jogging path and the drop-off. The cliff was of
substantial height for this part of the world, rising about fifty
feet above rocky terrain. That was small potatoes, Sherri supposed,
compared to cliffs and escarpments found in the Rockies or in
Europe, but it was high enough to be dangerous. . . and to provide
a terrific view. From this “scenic outlook,” she could see
tree-covered mountains rising in the distance, dark green against a
cloudless blue sky. The tallest of them still had a fringe of snow
at its peak.
Too bad she wasn’t there to
sightsee.
The rescue team had already begun its
descent. What Joe had called the goat track wasn’t really a trail,
just a natural route, narrow and overgrown, off to the side of the
height of land. Someone had to want to reach the base of Lover’s
Leap very badly to scramble down that way.
A shout, quickly followed by a curse,
told Sherri that the EMT had slipped and covered the last few yards
on her backside. Last night’s scattered rain showers had left the
goat track muddy.
Gingerly, Sherri climbed over the fence
to stand on the dew-laden grass at the edge of the cliff. At the
bottom she saw what the jogger, Kline, had—a body, dressed in a
jogging suit, lay sprawled facedown, the neck bent at an unnatural
angle. Even from this distance, Sherri had no doubt but that she
was staring at a corpse.
At the EMT’s signal verifying that
conclusion, Sherri punched a number into her cell phone. This was
an unattended death. That meant they needed permission from a
medical examiner before they could move the body.
“Looks like some poor silly woman was
trying to get a better look at the view and lost her balance,”
Sherri said into the phone. It was tragic, but things like that
happened all too often when people got careless.
Assured by George Henderson, the local
M.E., that he’d be there directly, Sherri climbed back over to the
safe side of the fence. This was pretty clearly an accident, but it
was her job to consider the other possibilities.
She made a careful visual survey of the
area in the clearing. She saw no scuff marks that might indicate a
struggle. Neither was there a suicide note held in place by a rock.
The only thing in the immediate vicinity of the scenic outlook that
wasn’t there compliments of Mother Nature was a plastic name badge
holder. Sherri squatted down for a closer look but did not touch
it. It had been lying by the side of the path long enough to be
thoroughly soaked by the rain, and it no longer contained a name
badge.
It could have been dropped by the
victim or by an attendee at some other conference days earlier. The
Spruces had hosted one small gathering after another for the last
couple of months. Margaret Boyd had turned out to be very good at
the job of attracting business to the hotel.
With nothing better to do, Sherri
followed the cliff path a little way into the trees at the other
side of the clearing. She knew that the trail made several large
loops through a thickly wooded area and covered the best part of
another mile before it came out on Spruce Avenue, just short of the
entrance to the hotel’s long, winding driveway. Within the first
hundred feet, she found litter enough to fill a small trash bag,
but only of the sort she’d expected—used condoms, tissues, empty
beer cans, and a couple of gum wrappers. Leaving the items where
they were, she returned to Lover’s Leap to wait for the
M.E.
Dr. Henderson and Jeff Thibodeau,
Moosetookalook’s chief of police and Sherri’s boss, arrived
together. The two men were about the same age but otherwise
provided a study in contrasts. Jeff, portly enough to play Santa
Claus every Christmas and nearly bald, was puffing like a steam
engine as he loped into the clearing. George Henderson, thin as a
whippet, had not only retained all of his hair but had it in
abundance—a shock of dark brown atop his head and eyebrows so bushy
they would have dominated his face had it not been for the
handlebar mustache that was his pride and joy.
“What are you doing out here?” Jeff
demanded when he’d caught his breath. “Go on home to your
kid.”
“I haven’t found anyone to work for me
yet.”
“I’ll call someone in. Go on. Get a
move on. That little tyke needs his mom.”
Sherri’s sense of responsibility to her
job warred with the knowledge that Jeff was right. Adam and Pete
got along just fine, but Pete was still new at the stepfather gig.
She’d have called her mother in to babysit, but Ida Willett had
gone on a bus tour to Graceland with some of her cronies. Sherri’s
father, Ernie, was likewise unavailable. He worked twelve-hour days
to keep his combination gas station and convenience store
open.
“You still here?” Jeff asked. Below
them, George, who had to be fifty if he was a day, had just reached
the bottom of the cliff. Sherri hoped she’d still be that spry at
his age.
“What about that book signing at
Angie’s tomorrow?” Sherri asked. “There might be crowds. If you
need extra manpower—”
“If I do—and that’s a big if—I’ll call
in the sheriff’s deputies.” He chuckled. “It’ll give Pete something
to do for a change. Now shoo!”
George’s brusque voice drifted up to
them, faint but clear. “Injuries consistent with a fall from this
height. Just another damn fool accident.”
“Now will you go
home?” Jeff asked.
Sherri rolled her eyes, but she
went.
She returned to her apartment less than
two hours after she’d left to get an early start on her day. It
wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, and Adam and Pete were both still
asleep. She smoothed a hand over her son’s forehead to make sure he
wasn’t running a fever, then changed from her uniform to jeans and
a loose top. Both of her men would appreciate a hearty breakfast
when they woke up. She could stand to eat something substantial
herself. French toast, she decided. And sausage.
She didn’t give the unfortunate jogger
or her fatal fall another thought.
When Liss’s alarm clock went off at
eight, Lumpkin had her legs pinned at the bottom of the bed. The
kitten, Glenora, had draped herself over the top of Liss’s head
like a pair of furry black earmuffs.
“Off,” she ordered, but she was not
surprised when neither cat moved.
With an effort, she extricated herself,
made a quick stop in the bathroom, and stumbled downstairs to start
the coffee brewing. Lumpkin nearly tripped her as he dashed past,
determined to be the first one to reach the kitchen and his food
bowl. Glenora gamboled after him, fetching up by the water dish and
nearly upsetting it.
When Liss began to run water into a
large glass measuring cup, Glenora was right there, batting at the
stream coming out of the faucet. Liss pushed her off the counter.
Three times. The little cat was back by the time Liss stuck the
container in the microwave. At that point, Liss gave up. She left
the water running in a thin trickle so that Glenora could play with
it.
Still half-asleep, she measured scoops
of coffee into her French press, popped two slices of bread into
the toaster, fed the cats, turned the faucet off, poured hot water
over the grounds, and set the timer for four minutes of brewing
time. Her plan was to drink one cup in the kitchen and a second
upstairs while she dressed, and put the remainder in a thermos to
take with her to The Spruces. She had nib-blies ready to go into a
small cooler, too, just in case business was so brisk in the
dealers’ room that she couldn’t get away for lunch.
Halfway through the first reviving sip
of caffeine, the phone rang. Since the caller I.D. told her it was
Patsy from the coffee shop, she picked up.
“I’m just back from delivering pastries
to the hotel for the author breakfast,” Patsy said. “Good news. Our
little problem has resolved itself.”
“What problem?” Still groggy, Liss
struggled to recall if there had been a crisis over the baked
goods. She couldn’t remember one.
“This morning one of the hotel guests
went out for an early-morning jog along the cliff path,” Patsy
continued.
Liss’s hand clenched on the phone. With
a sick certainty, she knew she wasn’t going to like what she heard
next.
“We don’t have to worry about the evil
blogger anymore,” Patsy announced. “Jane Nedlinger took a header
off Lover’s Leap. Broke her danged fool neck in the
fall.”