Scone Cold Dead (7 page)

Gordon actually seemed to consider it before he shook his head. “No. Better do this on my own. But I may want to talk to you again after I've had a chance to question everyone and I may want you with me when I talk to one or two of them a second time.”

“I'll do anything I can to help,” Liss assured him. Collecting his coat and hat, she showed him out. She could feel Sandy's stare boring into her back the whole time and wheeled around to face him the moment she'd closed the front door. “What?”

“Kind of chummy, aren't you?”

“He's not the enemy, Sandy. He's trying to find a murderer.”

“He's after one of us.”

She returned to the bay window to watch the state trooper get into his car and drive away. If she'd understood Gordon correctly, he'd call on her only if he needed help persuading one of the troupe to cooperate, or if he needed more information about someone in order to judge if that person was telling him the truth. “Conflicted” pretty much summed up her feelings about the role she'd agreed to play.

“So what happens now?” Sandy asked.

“He talks to everyone. He tries to figure out who killed Victor. If no one confesses and he can't find any hard evidence, things will be in limbo. That could be worse than discovering one of us is a murderer.”

“How so?”

“The police will probably want everyone to stay in the area until they figure out who did this.”

“I don't think they can enforce that, but even if they can, what's the big deal? I like your part of the world, Liss.”

“I'd love to have you and Zara stay longer, too, but that won't help the company's bottom line. You're the one who told me that
Strathspey
is in financial trouble.”

“I also told you Zara and I were thinking of leaving. Thanks so much for sharing that with the cop, by the way. He seemed to think our plans were highly suspicious and that we had an ax to grind with Victor.”

“There's no point in trying to hide things, Sandy. Keeping secrets, even silly little ones, just makes people look guilty.”

“Maybe. Anyway, I think I put him straight. I told him that if I'd wanted to bump Victor off, I'd have done it up-front and personal, so I'd have the satisfaction of seeing his face when he realized the worm had turned.” He grinned. “I told your cop friend that I'd have used one of the swords from the sword dance. I thought that was a nice touch.”

“Don't joke about it,” she warned. “I've been a suspect in a murder case. It's no fun.”

“You're serious, aren't you?”

“Dead serious.”

“Has he left?” Zara's disembodied voice floated down from the head of the stairs.

Liss exchanged an anxious look with Sandy. Zara sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. As one, they moved to the stairwell.

“It's okay, hon,” Sandy called up to her. “He's gone.”

Before their eyes, Zara seemed to wilt. She sank down onto the top step in a graceful collapse, grasping the railing with one hand and letting her head fall limply forward until it rested on her forearm. “He'll be back,” she whispered in a broken voice. “He's going to come back and arrest me. I just know it.”

This time the look Liss and Sandy exchanged was incredulous. Sandy took the steps two at a time and dropped down onto the step below Zara, taking hold of his fiancée's free hand. “Honey? What are you talking about?”

“That cop. He's going to blame me for Victor's death.”

“
Did
you kill him?” Liss, following more slowly, stopped climbing when her head and shoulders were level with Zara's.

“Liss! Zara wouldn't—”

“Zara? Did you kill him?”

Tears welled up in the dancer's eyes. “No, but I can't prove that I didn't do it. And when they find out . . .”

“Find out what?”

But she just shook her head. The waterworks came on in earnest and she bent forward over her knees, burying her face in the long skirt she wore. Sandy slid up to sit beside her, slipping an arm around her thin, shaking shoulders, and she turned into his embrace, clinging to him and sobbing as if her heart would break.

At a loss, Liss simply watched them, waiting for the deluge to end. Zara had denied killing Victor. That was good enough for her, but there was more in play here. Liss had a hunch that it was not something she was going to be able to share with Gordon Tandy.

Sandy glanced up from stroking Zara's hair. “We can't let this go, Liss.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Find out who really killed Victor.”

“We aren't detectives, Sandy. Let the pros do their job.”

“What if Zara's right? What if they decide she did it?”

“Zara?” She spoke sharply to the other woman, hoping to startle her into answering. “Why would they?”

But Zara still wasn't talking. Although the sobs had diminished, tears continued to stream down her pale cheeks.

When Sandy had taken Zara into the guest room to try and get her to rest, Liss went back downstairs. She didn't want anyone in
Strathspey
to be guilty, but even less palatable was her knowledge that, until the killer was caught, all of them were under suspicion.

Gordon Tandy had asked for her assistance and she wanted to help her friends. Two good reasons, she virtuously assured herself, to go out and ask a few questions of her own.

Chapter Four

T
he remaining twenty-seven members of the
Strathspey
company were lodged in three places, the Fallstown Motor Lodge, Lakeside Cabins, and the Lonesome Stranger B&B. Liss knew all the room numbers because she had been the one to make the arrangements. There was only one thing she needed before she talked to each of them—another pair of eyes and ears.

Sherri Willett lived with her mother and young son in a trailer park halfway between Moosetookalook and Fallstown. Fortunately for Liss, this was one of Sherri's rare Sundays off.

Unfortunately, Ida Willett answered the door. “What do you want?” she demanded ungraciously, blocking the door with her body. “Shame on you, Liss MacCrimmon. Keeping my daughter out till all hours and now here you are again, disrupting the only time all week she has to spend with her son.”

Trust Mrs. Willett not to mince words! Liss felt bad about asking Sherri to abandon Adam, but it wasn't as if she hadn't just spent several hours playing with him. It was already well past noon and she knew her friend's habits. No matter how late she'd gotten home, Sherri would have risen when the boy did—the crack of dawn. In fact, Liss might be doing her a service. Sherri was probably ready for a break from nonstop motherhood.

“Shouldn't you invite me in?” Liss asked. “I'm letting all the heat out.”

For a moment it was touch-and-go whether Mrs. Willett would step aside and let her pass or simply slam the door in her face. Evidently she decided that Sherri would be upset if she followed her own inclinations. Grudgingly, she allowed Liss to enter.

The living room was littered with toys, but there was no sign of either Adam or his mother. Liss followed the soft murmur of voices toward the back of the trailer where the bedrooms were. Sherri and her son were in the smaller of the two rooms, a bedsheet stretched out between them. Adam kept dropping his end but gamely tried again and again until they'd managed to fold it into a neat square.

“Now go put it in the linen closet,” Sherri told him, and he raced off toward the other end of the trailer.

“Linen closet?” Liss asked, amused, as she shrugged out of her jacket. It was warm in the trailer, especially after coming in from the chill outside, and the room smelled of bleach and flower-scented fabric softener.

“All-purpose storage closet.” Sherri shrugged and pulled a pillowcase out of her laundry basket. “Today it's the linen closet. So, what's up?”

The glance Sherri sent Liss's way was a trifle wary, as if she wasn't sure how much Liss knew about her activities the night before. She also looked tired. No—exhausted.

“Did you get any sleep at all?”

“Maybe four hours. I've managed on less.”

Liss reached for the matching pillowcase and they folded laundry together in companionable silence until the task was complete.

“I thought you had houseguests,” Sherri said.

“I do. They'll be okay on their own for a few hours. I thought it was more important to check on the rest of the company. I wondered if you'd like to go with me, but if you're too tired, I can—”

“I'm not too tired. And you probably shouldn't go on your own.”

Liss felt a twinge of guilt. She knew how hard it was for her friend to carve out blocks of quality time with her son. There was no husband in the picture—never had been—and between Sherri's full-time job at the jail, changing shifts every seven days, and her part-time job at Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium, she had little free time. It wasn't as if Sherri had a choice about working that much, either. Even with two jobs she only just managed to make ends meet.

“There's no danger,” Liss assured her. “I'm just going to . . . talk to people.”

“You're going to meddle in an official investigation.” Sherri put the last of Adam's T-shirts away in a drawer and turned her sharp-eyed gaze full on Liss.

“You're a fine one to talk! There wouldn't be an investigation if you hadn't stuck your nose in.” Liss clapped her hands over her mouth, horrified. Her words had come out in an accusing tone, as if she blamed Sherri for finding out the truth about Victor's death. “I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Honest. It's just that . . . well, now I've got a lot of friends who are suddenly under close scrutiny by the law. Been there. Done that. I wouldn't wish the role of prime suspect on my worst enemy.”

“I have a feeling you would have started to think something was fishy before long yourself,” Sherri said. “You knew there were no mushrooms in the food, yet that's what must have killed him.”

“I was trying not to think about Victor's death one way or the other, but that's a lost cause now. Gordon Tandy came and talked with me this morning.”

Sherri's grin was impish. “Cute, isn't he? He's one of those guys who just gets better looking as he gets older. If I wasn't already engaged to Pete, I might be sorely tempted.”

“He's not married, then?”

“Not that I know of.” Sherri's eyes narrowed. “Oh-ho! So you think he's cute, too.”

“I don't think ‘cute' is precisely the word I'd use. And that's not the issue here. Because you went snooping, he's got a murder case to solve and he asked for my assistance and I'm asking for yours.”

“I'm not sure how much help I can be. I'm only a dispatcher for the county sheriff's department. I've got zero training in anything else except for what I've learned in my online courses in criminal justice.”

“Oh, please! You're dying to put what you've learned to use.”

Sherri avoided meeting her eyes. “Maybe.”

“At least you
have
some training. And that's exactly why I want you to watch my back. This whole mess needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. Every canceled booking means the company comes closer to financial ruin. I can't let that happen to
Strathspey
. To be trite, the show must go on.”

“So you're going to question people. I don't know, Liss. Remember what almost happened the last—”

“Don't say it! This time it will be different. That's why I stopped here to get you.”

“And if we stumble over the most likely person to have killed Victor Owens?”

“We call in the troops. No heroics. No trying to talk that person into surrendering.” She really had learned her lesson. Anyone could be a killer, and killers tended to go to great lengths to keep from getting caught.

“Okay, then.” Sherri hadn't really needed much convincing. She snagged her parka off a peg on the back of the door, stopping only to address Mrs. Willett, who was in the living room, building a castle out of blocks with Adam. “Mom, I need to go out for a while. Can you watch Adam for the rest of the afternoon?”

No answer. Mrs. Willett didn't even look up.

“Mom?”

“Are you going to miss supper?” The words were muffled but loaded with acid.

“I don't know. Don't wait for me, okay? Go ahead and eat when you and Adam get hungry.”

Mrs. Willett glared at Liss.

Despicable old witch
, Liss thought. But since Ida Willett
was
Sherri's mother, she kept her opinion to herself.

“So, what's the plan?” Sherri asked once they were on the road.

“I made a list.” Liss handed it over. “The ones with checkmarks are those who had particular reason to dislike Victor.”

Sherri gave a low whistle. Just over half of the twenty-nine names were marked.

“Of course I told Detective Tandy all this, and by now he's talked to everyone, but I can't help but think there may have been something he missed.”

“Or they just might be more willing to open up to you.”

“Right.” And didn't that make her feel like a turncoat! “I thought we'd start at the Fallstown Motor Lodge. Most of the company have rooms there.” She'd booked twenty people into the fifteen-room motel, including Victor.

“What's your excuse for stopping by?” Sherri asked.

At least that was open and aboveboard. “I'm letting everyone know they can stay another day where they are.”

“And that gives you a good lead-in to bring up the reason they're staying longer. Good thinking.”

“Sherri? Can Gordon compel them to stick around indefinitely?”

“Not really, no. He can make it sound like they have to stay put, but there's nothing he can do if they all decide to get on the company bus and head out. Of course, if he arrests someone and there's a trial, they'll subpoena people to come back and testify.”

“What about material witnesses?”

“You've been reading mysteries again, haven't you? I don't know what Gordon Tandy's turned up since I last saw him, but all he had then was a suspicious death to investigate. I expect the autopsy will prove Victor Owens died from a reaction to mushrooms. Analysis will show there were mushrooms in that one batch of cocktail scones—and by the way, yuck!—and interviews will establish that Mrs. Eccles didn't bake them. I found an EpiPen in a wastepaper basket that turned out to have no fingerprints on it, indicating that someone wiped it clean. Can't prove it belonged to the victim, but it's a good bet someone took it off him to prevent him using it, then dumped it in case anyone got suspicious and ordered the people at the reception searched.”

“So no one person is suspected more than any other at this point?”

“As of around three this morning, no. A confession would be nice, but it's unlikely. And maybe someone saw something suspicious, but ditto. There was quite a crowd there last night. It wouldn't have been hard for the killer to slip away to add a few extra scones to the ones Mrs. Eccles baked or to get rid of the EpiPen—a trip to the bathroom, or out for a breath of fresh air, would do it.”

“But where did the scones come from?”

“Prepared in advance, I imagine. The food services people were the ones putting out the goodies. They'd have taken whatever was delivered, heated it up if it was supposed to be served hot, and taken it into the function room. Time it right, and they would have been too busy to notice a few extra scones. There's no way to tell what the filling is until you bite into one.”

It
would
have been easy, Liss thought. Too easy. It had taken careful planning, and a certain amount of luck, but Victor's murderer would have needed only a minute or two when the kitchen was empty to slip in and make a deadly addition to the menu. As for getting hold of the EpiPen, that would have been even simpler. Victor customarily kept it in his outside jacket pocket. In a crowd, a jostle could easily go unnoticed. As far as Liss knew, no one in the company had experience as a pickpocket, but how hard could it be, especially when the victim had been drinking?

“Dumb luck factor,” she murmured.

“You betcha. Could just as easily have ended up without him so much as tasting one of the poisoned scones. Or someone could have sampled one and realized how awful the flavor was and tossed the whole batch. Owens must have been pretty drunk to reach for a second one. Then again, he all but inhaled the first. Maybe he didn't even taste it.”

“He
was
kind of a glutton.”

“One of the seven deadlies.”

“He didn't deserve to die for it!”

A little silence fell in the car as Sherri studied the list again. “Are any of these suspects way more likely than the rest?”

Liss debated with herself for a moment, but decided Sherri would be more helpful if she knew everything. “There is one thing. After Gordon left my house this morning, Zara broke down. She's sure she's going to be charged with Victor's murder, but she won't say why the police should think she's guilty. She swears she didn't kill Victor, and I believe her.”

“Zara's the woman who's staying with you?”

Liss nodded. “I invited her and Sandy to bunk at my place. They're engaged to be married,” she added. “They were thinking of leaving the company because Victor was giving Zara a hard time. Victor and Zara were a couple for a while, maybe a year or so ago. Nothing all that serious, though. Victor had a tendency to take up with any new addition to the troupe.”

Sherri didn't comment. She didn't have to. Any time a romantic triangle existed, there was potential for tragedy. Some pretty deep and desperate emotions could lurk just beneath a polished surface.

“So, who's first?” Sherri asked as Liss pulled into the parking lot of the Fallstown Motor Lodge. She unfastened her seat belt but made no effort to get out of the station wagon.

Liss glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes before three in the afternoon. “Let's try Stewart Graham's room, although I'm guessing he won't be there.”

“The punster?”

“Yes. Stewart likes what he calls his ‘afternoon libation. ' By now he's probably discovered that the Meandering Moose is walking distance from here.” The Moose was the local brew pub.

“Almost everything of interest in Fallstown is walking distance from here. Isn't that why you picked the Motor Lodge?”

“Yes. The company travels by bus, so no one has transportation of their own. Unfortunately, there wasn't room here for everyone in the company. The rates were so low that a lot of people who'd usually double up with a roommate to save money opted for singles. I booked the overflow into the Lonesome Stranger Bed-and-Breakfast and out at Lakeside Cabins. The B-and-B is just around the corner, but I had to find volunteer drivers to play taxicab for the other six.”

“Did the bus take them back and forth last night?”