Scone Cold Dead (5 page)

“Then I'll go through the Dumpsters.” She tried the office door and to her surprise found it was unlocked. She went in, flicking on the light. Pete and the security guard stayed in the hall, since there was barely room for one person to turn around inside the cubicle.

Sherri heard the guard mumble something about watching too many crime dramas on television.

“Yeah,” Pete agreed.

Traitor!
Ignoring both of them, she peered into the wastepaper basket beside the desk.

“Not every death is a murder,” Pete added in a louder voice—a blatant attempt to convince her to give up the search.

“But some are,” Sherri murmured. “Uh, Pete?” She raised her voice as she lifted the receptacle. “You want to come in here and take a look at this?”

Chapter Three

L
iss was barely awake the next morning when her doorbell rang. Deciding what to wear had been beyond her when she'd rolled out of bed twenty minutes earlier, so she'd thrown on the brightly colored silk caftan Dan had once said made her resemble a circus tent.

That hadn't been the look she'd been going for, but the comment made her smile every time she remembered it. She could count on Dan to be up-front with her. That was a good thing. Wasn't it?

Liss had not passed a peaceful night. Every time she closed her eyes, an instant replay began. First it had been of that ridiculous quarrel with Dan. Then she'd been back at the reception, watching helplessly as Sherri and Pete tried to revive Victor Owens. She felt a nagging sense of wrongness about the way Victor had died. It should not have happened, especially not on her watch.

Liss knew it was absurd to feel guilty about his death. She'd done everything she could to keep mushrooms off the menu. Nor was it her fault that Victor had evidently forgotten to carry an EpiPen. But he'd died at a function she'd arranged. She couldn't help thinking that there might have been something she could have done to prevent the senseless accident that had taken his life.

Was it any wonder that the idea of taking his place with the company no longer appealed to her?

The ringing changed to banging.

“Coming!” Liss fumbled with the chain, the dead bolt, and the brass key in the old-fashioned lock beneath. Nothing worked right with only an ounce or two of caffeine circulating through her bloodstream. She hadn't managed to consume more than a few sips from her first mug of coffee of the day.

A blast of icy air swirled inside when she jerked the door open. A man wearing a ski jacket open over a sports coat and dark slacks stood on her porch. He was holding up a badge, as if he expected her to ask to inspect it before she let him in. “Amaryllis MacCrimmon?”

“Yes?” She wrapped her arms around herself, but that didn't stop a chill from running up her spine. She suddenly wished she'd taken the time to look through the side windows first. Then she might have been able to pretend she wasn't home.

“I'm State Police Detective Gordon Tandy. I wonder if I might talk to you for a few minutes. It's about the incident at the Student Center last night.”

Liss hesitated. It seemed odd to her that the state police would interest themselves in an accidental death, but she told herself there must be formalities to go through when the deceased had been a visitor to the area and had no family near at hand. She wasn't sure how much help she'd be. She had no idea where to find Victor's next of kin.

“Come in out of the cold, Detective Tandy.” As she said his name, it belatedly rang a bell. “Tandy's Music and Gifts?”

“My brother's place.” His glance strayed next door to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium. “Ah. I should have guessed. You're the little girl who used to win all the dance competitions.”

Liss frowned at the “little girl” part as he moved past her into the foyer. “And you're one of the bagpipe-playing Tandy brothers. Small world.”

She studied him as he shrugged out of the ski jacket. She knew he must be at least a dozen years older than she was, but he didn't look it. He had the kind of face that made people think “boy next door” at any age. The body wasn't bad, either.

Liss decided she must be more sleep deprived than she'd thought if she was ogling a strange man at this hour of the morning. That didn't stop her from admiring the thick, reddish brown hair Tandy revealed when he took off his hat. He wore it trimmed very short, a good match for his almost military bearing.

Definitely
not
her type!

“This way,” Liss said when she'd hung his coat and hat in the closet, and led the way to the kitchen. Lumpkin, she noticed, was still sound asleep on top of the refrigerator. “Coffee?”

“That would be great. Thanks.”

His smile was warm, and there was something in his eyes—so dark a brown that they almost looked black—that made Liss think he might disagree with Dan's opinion of the way she looked in the caftan.

She found the notion that he thought her attractive an agreeable one, but suspected it was a delusion induced by lack of caffeine. “You'll have to forgive me if I'm not too coherent yet,” she apologized as she reached for the coffeepot. “It was a late night and I'm not fully awake. I have two houseguests. Members of the dance troupe. Do you want to talk to them, too?”

“I'd like to ask you a few questions first. Alone.”

Something in his tone sounded ominous. Frowning, Liss filled another mug and topped off her own. She gestured toward the table, brought the coffees over, and took a chair for herself.

“Victor Owens's death was not an accident,” Tandy said as soon as he was seated.

Liss heard what he said but her mind refused to take it in. “He had food allergies—”

“Yes. And that's how he was killed. There was mushroom filling in the scone he was eating just before he died.”

Very slowly, Liss lowered her coffee mug. The small sip she'd taken had turned to acid in her mouth. With an effort, she swallowed. “That's impossible. The cocktail scones Janice Eccles supplied were made with sweet fillings. And she knew about Victor's mushroom allergy. Everyone who supplied food for the reception knew. I told them myself. None of them are idiots. They know how careful they have to be about things like that.”

“As I said, this wasn't an accident. Our best guess right now is that someone slipped a batch of their own scones in with Mrs. Eccles's creations.”

“You're saying someone
murdered
him?”

“I'm saying someone murdered him.”

For a moment Liss didn't say a word, although several unprintable ones were whirling around in her head. Victor's death had been bad enough, but this . . .

Tandy cleared his throat. “There's more. It doesn't appear to have been just a tragic oversight on Mr. Owens's part that he didn't have epinephrine on him when he needed it. An EpiPen was found in a wastepaper basket in the Student Center, wiped clean of fingerprints.”

“Good Lord!” In her pleasant kitchen, redolent with freshly brewed coffee, Liss found this new revelation even harder to accept than the idea that someone had deliberately planned Victor's death. She toyed with the nubbly edge of her place mat, trying to wrap her mind around what Gordon Tandy was telling her. She didn't want to believe him, but what choice did she have? He wouldn't be here if it weren't true. Victor had been murdered.

“I understand you knew the victim fairly well,” Tandy said.

“I worked for him for about eight years, if that's what you mean. He was the manager of
Strathspey
.”

“Did you get along with him?” Tandy did not have a notebook out or a tape recorder turned on—unless it was small enough to be hidden in his jacket pocket—but Liss had the feeling he was keeping close track of everything she said. He drank his coffee, watching her over the rim of the bright green ceramic mug.

“Most of the time. He was . . . temperamental.” She leaned closer to the table. “This doesn't make any sense. Victor could be a pain in the ass, okay? And he came on too strong with women sometimes. Not exactly politically correct. But I can't think of a single reason why anyone would want to
kill
him.”

“You may know more than you think, Ms. MacCrimmon. After all, you are familiar with all the members of the dance company.”

She'd been afraid that was where he was going with this. “You think one of them murdered Victor?”

“I think that's a more likely explanation than it having been a random act by someone local who'd never met him before last night.”

He had a point.

Tandy set his empty coffee mug aside. “I'll level with you, Ms. MacCrimmon. My predecessor here in Carrabassett County did not cover himself with glory investigating the last murder in these parts. You, on the other hand, came up with several viable leads and eventually discovered the killer's identity.”

She grimaced. “I didn't have much choice. Your idiot of a predecessor was convinced I was the one he was after. He didn't look for anyone else.” In retrospect, Liss wished she hadn't, either. She hadn't liked what she'd found.

Then those compelling dark eyes locked on hers. “I don't intend to make the same mistakes he did, and it has been suggested to me, by the person who had the foresight to look for the missing EpiPen, that you may be able to help me avoid some of them.”

A harsh jangle from the wall phone interrupted Tandy in midpitch.

“Excuse me,” Liss said, and grabbed it on the second ring.

Fiona's voice, agitated, exploded in her ear. “Do you have any idea what's going on?” she demanded. “I'm getting the runaround from these people. They won't let me have Victor's body.”

“They're probably still trying to locate next of kin.”

Tandy's eyes narrowed when he overheard Liss's words.

“He had no kin left,” Fiona said. “Look, all I want is to arrange for a memorial service on Monday morning so we can all attend before we leave.”

“Fiona, I'm going to give you to a state police detective. His name is Gordon Tandy.” She put her hand over the receiver. “This is Fiona Carlson.” As Fiona was the senior member of the company, it made sense she'd be filling in for Victor to handle practical details. She'd helped out before with bookkeeping, scheduling, and other management tasks.

Liss refilled both her coffee mug and Tandy's while he explained the situation to Fiona. She heard him tell Fiona it would be helpful if she could make arrangements for the troupe to stay in the area longer. Liss expected he'd get an argument about that, but to judge by the one side of the conversation she could hear, Fiona readily agreed to cancel Monday night's show in Lowell, Massachusetts.

After asking Fiona not to tell anyone yet that Victor had been murdered—he wanted to break that news to each individual himself—Tandy handed the phone back to Liss. She assured Fiona she could make arrangements to hang on to the rooms the members of
Strathspey
currently occupied. It made sense for her to handle that, since she'd been the one to make the reservations in the first place.

“Was Ms. Carlson close to Victor Owens?” Tandy asked when she hung up.

“Not the way
you
mean. They worked together.”

“Okay. No romantic overtones. So noted. That's the sort of information it's helpful for me to have. I can get personnel records but you're acquainted with these people. You can help me understand them. You may even be able to persuade them to be honest with me if they're inclined to leave out a detail or two.”

For a moment Liss just stared at him. All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. Her chest felt tight. “You want me to . . . ?
What
do you want me to do?”

“You'd be a liaison.”

“And that entails what?”

Tandy produced a spiral-bound memo pad from the inside breast pocket of his sports coat and flipped it open to a list of names—the members of
Strathspey
. “For starters you can identify each of these people and tell me how they got along with the victim.”

“So what you really want is a snitch. And maybe later a spy?” Clearly he saw her as a source of inside information. He expected her to dish the dirt on her former colleagues. The suffocated feeling was replaced by a hot spark of resentment. He was trying to manipulate her into betraying her friends.

“It's in everyone's best interests to clear this up quickly,” Tandy said, his tone reasonable. “You'll be doing these folks a favor if you help me rule them out one by one.”

Liss stalled by taking another sip of her rapidly cooling coffee. Maybe she shouldn't jump to conclusions. In theory, Tandy was one of the good guys—she'd give him the benefit of the doubt about that.

A rhythmic thump intruded on her internal debate. She recognized it at once—Lumpkin, playing with the cabinet doors above the refrigerator. He liked to use his paw to pry them open an inch or two, then let them thud closed on their own.

Gordon Tandy's attention had also been caught by the sound. He grinned when he spotted Lumpkin. “Does your cat do that a lot? Clever kitty.”

Liss glanced up. “Wait a minute and he'll prove you wrong.”

True to form, Lumpkin tired of the first set of cabinet doors and reached over to try his luck with the one to the side of the refrigerator. This time nothing happened. He was trying to open the hinged edge.

“He hasn't been able to figure out what he's doing wrong,” Liss said. “That's the only thing that gives me hope that he's not really smarter than I am.”

Abruptly tiring of the game, Lumpkin hopped down from his perch and, ignoring both humans, left the room. Liss sighed. She'd welcomed the distraction. Now she had no choice but to once more focus on the reason Gordon Tandy was sitting in her kitchen and drinking her coffee.

Had
someone she knew deliberately poisoned Victor? Had one of her friends taken advantage of the reception she'd arranged to carry out premeditated murder?

Liss tamped down a spurt of anger at the thought. If it was true, she wanted that person caught and punished. She didn't have any alternative but to help the police because she was partly responsible for what had happened to Victor. She'd provided the killer with the opportunity to take a life.

There was a second reason to cooperate with Gordon Tandy, too. The longer his investigation dragged on, the worse things would be for everyone in the troupe. Even now, Fiona was canceling their Monday night performance. Sandy had told her that
Strathspey
was booked solid for several weeks after that. What happened if the police weren't satisfied with their answers? Would they be allowed to resume the tour or would they have to miss even more shows?