The Scottie Barked At Midnight (16 page)

Desdemona had said she flew to Maine after Dandy disappeared. That would have been late on Monday or very early the following Tuesday. But the itinerary told a different story. Desdemona Amendole had arrived in Portland on Sunday, the day before the dognapping.

She'd lied, but why? And what had she been doing during an extra twenty-four hours in Maine?

Two strikes, Liss thought. Two lies, the one about an honorarium being the first. She remembered how twitchy Desdemona had been that day at the condo. Then again, she'd been fidgeting when she visited Liss at Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium, too. A nervous disposition didn't mean she was guilty of anything.

She looked at the itinerary again, just to make sure she wasn't mistaken. She wasn't. And this time, she noticed something else. Desdemona had booked a round trip. She'd planned all along to leave when she did. Taking her mother's body home for burial had not been the reason she'd chosen that day to fly back to Ohio.

Three strikes?

 

Liss heard the shouting as she passed Willetta's room on her way to record the results show. The singer sounded hoarse, but she definitely had her voice back.

“I know you did it!” Willetta screeched.

“I did not!” Iris shouted back. “You've got no reason to pick on me.” She let out a loud shriek, as if Willetta might be about to do her bodily harm.

Liss pounded on the door. “Willetta! Let me in! It's Liss Ruskin!”

It was Iris who jerked it open, a terrified look on her face. “I never did anything to anybody!”

“Liar!” Willetta shouted. “Bitch!”

Something flew across the room and crashed into a wall. Both Liss and Iris ducked, even though the object came nowhere near hitting either one of them.

With a wail, Iris pushed past Liss and fled to the safety of her own room. Liss drew in a deep, steadying breath and stepped into Willetta's suite, pulling the two dog carriers after her.

“Hold your fire. I'm on your side.”

Arm raised, hand gripping a hairbrush, Willetta glared at her. Slowly, she lowered her weapon.

“Are you okay?” Liss asked.

“I'm pissed off.” Willetta's voice lowered to a hoarse whisper.

“You should rest your voice.”

“Why? Nobody's going to hear me sing now, are they?” Liss didn't argue with her. Instead, she asked another question. “Why do you think Iris is the one who doctored your cough drop?”

“I found one of her earrings.”

“In here?”

Willetta nodded.

“It could have been planted.” She held up a hand to stop Willetta's automatic protest. “Whoever vandalized Mo's props left behind a dog harness to make it look as if Mo was the one who took Dandy.”

Willetta put down the hairbrush. “You think Iris was framed?”

It pained Liss to listen to her speak. “Did you ask her where she last saw that particular earring? She must have dozens of pairs, and she's not the neatest person in the world.”

“I didn't give her a chance to say much of anything,” Willetta admitted. “I accused her. She burst into tears. I told her to cut it out, and the shouting match escalated from there.”

“I'm not ruling Iris out,” Liss said. “Neither Hal Quarles nor Oscar Yates has been the victim of any dirty tricks. Of course, a stand-up comic doesn't have any props to damage and there are two people guarding the magician's tricks, so maybe that explains it.”

“Lucky them.” Willetta went to stand in front of the mirror, checking the line of her gown and patting a strand of hair back into place. “I may as well get this over with. I think I can guess who's going home after this week's results show.”

They went down to the ballroom together.

If Roy Eastmont had planned on eliminating someone other than Willetta, he didn't let on. Instead, he reminded everyone that the “shock” of having one of the leaders voted off would be excellent for ratings.

When the expected result was announced, Willetta bore up like the professional she was, smiling through her tears as she said good-bye to those still in the competition and allowing herself to be photographed packing her bags. Mo, Liss, and the two dogs were instructed to drop by her suite to show what good friends they all were. Liss stopped off in her own room long enough to leave the carriers and attach leashes to collars. Mo left as soon as the dogs arrived, eyes streaming from her allergy rather than her sorrow over Willetta's departure. Liss lingered after the camera crew had gone, watching Valentine Veilleux snap a few more stills.

“Thanks, Willetta,” the photographer said, slipping the lens cap back into place on her camera. “You need any help
un
packing?”

Willetta dumped the contents of her suitcase onto the bed. “Done.”

Dandy trotted over to investigate and was gently shooed away.

It took Liss a minute to catch on to the fact that no one who was eliminated could leave. They had to be on hand until Friday, when the final results show would include one last performance by each of them. “Do the others come here, too? The acts that were eliminated before the show changed venues?”

“Of course.” Willetta finished cramming underwear back into a drawer and began to hang up the blouses she'd folded so neatly when she'd packed for the cameras. “They'll start trickling in tomorrow.”

Oh, great,
Liss thought.
More suspects.
Who knew where they'd all been in the interim. Maybe revenge, not greed, had been the motive behind all the malicious mischief. She checked her rampaging imagination, reminding herself that there was a simple way to find out who'd had the opportunity to doctor Willetta's cough drops.

“Who had the opportunity to doctor your cough drops?” she asked.

Willetta closed the closet door. “I've been thinking about that. It could have been Iris. I'm not letting her off the hook just yet. And I did find one of her earrings in here. But how could she know which cough drop I'd pull out of the package?”

“Maybe you should toss the rest,” Valentine suggested. “Just to be on the safe side.”

“Already done. Right down the toilet.”

Curling her legs under her as she settled into the chair beside the bed, Liss bit back the suggestion she'd been about to make. It was no longer possible to have the remaining lozenges tested for contaminants. Instead, she asked a question: “Has Iris ever been in your suite? Other than earlier today, I mean.”

“Sure. Once or twice. So were Mo and Elise. But not here in the bedroom, which is where I found the earring.”

“Still, she could have lost it a while ago. Maybe housekeeping found it on the floor in the front room and put it on your dresser, or wherever it was that you had the bag of cough drops.”

“More likely it was planted,” Valentine said from her perch on the windowsill. The setting sun behind her made her strawberry-blond hair into a golden nimbus.

Still intent on restoring her possessions to drawers and dresser top, Willetta shrugged. “Like I said, I've been thinking. I can't remember when it was I last saw her wearing that pair—the ones that look like little anchors. Maybe it doesn't matter, not if only a single cough drop was tampered with. I just took the one with me to the ballroom.”

“That's right,” Liss said. “You were holding it in your hand in the elevator. Did you hang on to it the whole time?”

“That's the thing.” She straightened, hands on hips, shaking her head at her own carelessness. “Hal Quarles asked me to give him a hand. The back of his jacket was bunched up. Turned out one of his suspenders was twisted. I put the cough drop down on the prop table so I could straighten it out for him. Turned my back on it. If someone was waiting for their chance, there was time enough to pick it up, unwrap it, doctor it, and wrap it again.”

“Whoever it was would have had to be quick.” Valentine sounded doubtful.

“Whoever is doing these things is good at seizing an opportunity.” Liss ticked them off on her fingers. “Taking Dandy. Damaging Mo's props. Phoning in a phony complaint against Eudora. And now, tampering with your cough drop.”

“You missed one,” Valentine said. “The Great Umberto's magic cabinet is missing.” Her lips quirked. “You know—the one Iris steps into to do her disappearing act. It just . . . disappeared.”

Liss frowned. “They already used that trick. Stealing the cabinet won't set them back in the least.”

“Most of the dirty tricks didn't work,” Valentine pointed out. “That is, they didn't cause anyone to drop out or be eliminated.”

“Except me.” Willetta opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled out a bottle she had not bothered to retrieve and tuck into her suitcase when she'd been pretending to pack.

Liss had never heard of Old Overholt, but she accepted an inch of the rye whiskey in one of the suite's water tumblers when Willetta handed it to her and was pleasantly surprised by the taste.

Valentine proposed the toast: “Here's to finding out who dunnit.”

“And squashing that sucker flat,” Willetta added.

The three of them clinked glasses and drank to it.

The party broke up a short time later when Dandy and Dondi showed signs of needing to go out. Valentine left with Liss and the Scotties.

“Park or pee pads?” she asked.

Liss was already heading for the elevator. “The pee pads are handy, I admit, but housekeeping hasn't been taking the used ones away with the other trash.”

Valentine smothered a laugh. “Can you blame them? Ick.”

“But what am I supposed to do with them?” Liss's answering grin was rueful. “I guess I can take them home with me and dispose of them at the Moosetookalook town dump.”

“I've got a better idea,” Valentine said as they exited the hotel and walked toward the statue of the skier. “Give me a lift there and I'll arrange for you to dispose of them at the dump here in Orlin. I'm supposed to show up there tomorrow morning at eight.”

Orlin was the town in which Five Mountains Ski Resort was located, although few visitors from away, like Valentine, ever knew that. “What on earth for?”

The “park” was less inviting than it had been. The sunny day had left it awash in mud and slush. The pee pads were looking better and better as Dandy and Dondi plunged right into the muck. They were going to need baths when they got back to their suite, and so was she if they decided to shake themselves in her vicinity. Liss took a prudent step back.

“I've taken on a small extra job,” Valentine explained as they watched the two Scotties frolic. “The town of Orlin hired me to shoot photos for a civic calendar. Town office. Fire house. Historical society museum. Dump. I can get to the other places on my bike, but the transfer station is a ways out of town. Going by car would make the trip much easier.”

“It must be inconvenient not having a car.”

Valentine shrugged. “Most of the time I visit locations in the RV. For short trips, the bike is adequate.”

“Except when it rains.”

“There is that.”

Their conversation reminded Liss of something Margaret had said, and she ventured another question. “Can I interest you in a photo shoot at a local historic hotel before you move on?”

“I'm always open to new opportunities. Where is it?”

“Moosetookalook. Just down the road a piece.” She chuckled. “I can also take you to
our
transfer station, if you want to make comparisons. My husband and I load all our trash and recyclables into the truck and visit there every other weekend.”

“Then you
have
to agree to drive me tomorrow,” Valentine insisted with a straight face. “I obviously need a technical adviser. What do you say? Are you in?”

Liss laughed. “Why not? I could use a dose of reality that doesn't have the word
television
after it.”

Chapter Ten

A
s Liss had secretly hoped, Dan returned that evening to stay the night. Although this was the first time he'd met either of the Scotties, they both took to him at once. It didn't hurt that he'd brought dog treats.

“How's Margaret?” Liss asked when he'd divested himself of his coat and lavished sufficient affection on Dandy and Dondi to hold them for a while.

“She's fine. She sends her love. And she asked me to remind you that she's looking forward to watching the show when it airs and to seeing you win.”

“If she only knew!”

“More trouble?”

Liss filled him in on the missing cabinet, Willetta's suspicions about Iris, and Desdemona's itinerary. Once again, to his credit, he did not lobby her to quit
Variety Live
and come home. She almost wished he would. Aside from her concern about the safety of two little dogs, she still felt guilty for abandoning her aunt.

“Who's staying with Margaret?” she asked.

“She has a lot of friends, Liss. They rallied as soon as the Moosetookalook grapevine got the word out. Maud has moved into the spare room for the next day or two. And Audrey Greenwood has promised to spend time with her tomorrow.”

Maud was Maud Dennison, the retired schoolteacher who ran Dan's co-op, Carrabassett County Wood Crafts, in the building next door to Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium and Margaret's upstairs apartment. Audrey the vet, Liss's cochair for the March Madness Mud-Season Sale, was reliable, too. Liss couldn't have asked for anyone better to look after her aunt, but she still felt like a bad niece. She'd seen the trouble Margaret was having that day in the shop. She couldn't help feeling she should have insisted, then and there, on knowing what was really wrong with her.

“What about when Maud and Audrey are at work?”

“Sherri will check in periodically and she's not the only one.” Dan rattled off a half dozen names of friends who'd volunteered, including Sherri's father, Ernie Willett, who'd been Margaret's high-school sweetheart and still had a soft spot for her in an otherwise crusty and curmudgeonly nature. Dan's father, Joe Ruskin, who was Margaret's boss, was also on the list.

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of room service. Liss had ordered Dan's favorite foods in anticipation of his arrival. It crossed her mind, as they sat down at the suite's dining table, that someone could have tampered with their meal, but she pushed that unpalatable thought aside at once. There was a difference between being cautious and descending into paranoia!

They'd barely finished eating when her cell phone rang. “Sherri,” she said as her friend's home number came up on the screen. She answered the call.

After the usual greetings and inquiries, Sherri got to the point. “Remember George Henderson?” she asked.

“Your pal, the medical examiner?” Liss activated the speaker-phone function so Dan could hear.

“
Retired
ME, but yeah. He stays in touch with his old buddies at the state crime lab, so I paid him a visit and in casual conversation—”

“Of course.”

“—I posed a hypothetical question. Apparently the ME who did Deidre Amendole's autopsy spotted something that can't be accounted for by any of the pills they found in her condo. Another drug—a
different
drug—may have played a role in her death, but they won't know for sure until the toxicology comes back.”

“Do they consider her death a homicide?”

“Not officially, but I think you should. And if it's tied to everything else that's been going on there, you need to be very careful who you trust.” Unspoken was the warning that someone who'd killed once wouldn't hesitate to kill again, especially if he or she thought Liss was getting close to discovering the truth.

“Maybe Desdemona did mommy in for the inheritance.” Liss sounded flip but felt anything but.

And as much as she'd have liked to believe that Deidre's daughter was the villain, given the plans Desdemona apparently had for the two Scottish terriers, Liss was very much afraid Sherri was right. Everything that had happened at Five Mountains was connected. It was all too possible that the fear of being arrested for dognapping had led one of the other contestants to silence Deidre before she could make her accusation public.

After Liss hung up, she shared her troubled thoughts with Dan. “It seems so preposterous,” she added. “Deidre might have had her suspicions, but how could she have come up with proof so quickly? She died less than twenty-four hours after I returned Dandy to her.”

Dan had left the table for the sofa and now shifted to make room for her. Dandy and Dondi already had possession of the other end. “Say that Deidre found some compelling reason to believe she knew which of them took Dandy. I might not watch
Variety Live,
but I'd have to be living in a bubble not to know that reality shows, especially those that involve competitions, thrive on feuds.”

“Feuds and romances,” Liss agreed. “More than one hot affair has developed during a competition like this one.”

Dan's eyebrows lifted. “The Great Umberto?”

“He certainly wasn't carrying on with Deidre. She was old enough to be his mother. Besides, as far as I can tell, he's all talk and no action, nothing more than a congenital flirt.”

“So we're back to feud.” He slung an arm around Liss's shoulders, and she felt some of the tension drain out of her. “From what you've told me, Roy Eastmont wouldn't be above egging on rivals.”

“He sees conflict as a surefire way to attract viewers.”

“These days, a celebrity would have to go a long way to cause a public outcry.”

“Any publicity is good publicity? Maybe, but I'm pretty sure murder steps over the line.” She shuddered. “At least, I hope it does.”

Dan held her closer, nestled against him from head to toe. “Deidre must have known how Eastmont operates. Wouldn't she share any evidence she had with him? And if she had anything to back up her claim, wouldn't she have gone to the police?”

“She only reported that Dandy had been stolen to hotel security and they, apparently, didn't take it very seriously.”

“They must have done something or Sherri wouldn't have been able to put you in touch with Deidre so quickly.”

“That's true. Still, Deidre would have hesitated to approach them again. It's also possible she was still in the dark as to the villain's identity. But if the dognapper was convinced that she'd figure it out eventually, why not make a preemptive strike?”

“It had to be someone who knew she habitually took a lot of pills.”

“Everyone seems to have known that.”

With lazy motions, Dan stroked her arm, soothing her even though his words had the opposite effect. “Maybe Deidre did know who was guilty, but she didn't have any proof that would hold up in a court of law. If she was trying to get it, that could have tipped off the guilty party.”

“We can speculate all we want, but it doesn't bring us any closer to figuring out who dunnit.” Liss sighed and snuggled closer to Dan's reassuring warmth.

On the other side, she felt one of the dogs shift closer and reached out her hand. A warm, wet tongue licked her fingers. Tears sprang into her eyes, and her chest tightened as she thought of Deidre and how much she'd loved these little dogs. Murder was always horrible, but this one, over something so petty, had a heartlessness about it that was truly appalling.

The injustice of it ate at Liss. She knew it was not her responsibility to find Deidre's killer, but if she wanted closure for herself, she felt she had to do all she could to help the police figure out what had happened.

Focus on the intellectual puzzle,
she ordered herself. That was the only way she knew to keep her emotions at bay. Emotions clouded judgment and led to making stupid mistakes.

“Is dognapping a felony, or just a misdemeanor?”

“No idea.” Dan considered for a moment. “I suppose how serious a crime it is depends on the value of the stolen animal. Run off with a mutt and you might only get a slap on the wrist. Take a dog insured for a million bucks and you'd probably be arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced to time in jail.”

“So maybe, just maybe, Deidre's suspicions posed a tangible threat to someone. Not just public humiliation, but a prison sentence. Do you suppose Deidre was foolish enough to let on that she thought she knew who took Dandy?” Liss turned her head to look at the little dog. Dandy had fallen asleep, trusting Liss to look after her.

“There's no point in trying to guess,” Dan said. “Besides, it's still possible that the toxicology report will come back saying Deidre died of some easily explicable cause. It could happen,” he protested when Liss twisted her head around to give him a skeptical look.

“Someone
did
take Dandy.”

“That was a dirty trick,” Dan agreed, “but the Scottie wasn't harmed. After Deidre dropped out of the show, her dog would probably have been returned to her.”

“Would she?”

“Sure. Otherwise, why keep Dandy alive in the first place? If Dandy or Dondi was supposed to die, a fatal accident would have been easy enough to arrange. You said so yourself. That's why you've been keeping such a close eye on them.”

Liss's thoughts returned to that night on the icy road. Dandy had been running loose. No collar. No one around.

Or had there been someone? She remembered the cracking sound she'd heard. A branch breaking under the weight of the freezing rain? Or, as she'd first thought, someone stepping on a twig.

Had Dandy escaped? Had the dognapper been trying to get her back? Or had the Scottie been driven out into the middle of nowhere and abandoned? The little dog could easily have died out there with no one the wiser.

Liss wanted to believe Dan's interpretation of events, but hiding the Scottie and returning for her later just didn't add up. Neither did someone chasing the little dog through the storm. The weather hadn't been bad in the afternoon, when Dandy had been taken from Deidre's condo, but it had been terrible by the time Liss almost hit her. The dognapper was probably long gone by then.

“There was no place around there that could have been used as a prison for Dandy,” she said aloud. “She wasn't supposed to be found. She wasn't supposed to survive.”

Her arms wrapped around both dogs and Dan's arms holding her, Liss faced the reality of her situation head-on. If Deidre
had
been murdered, the most logical reason for the crime was to keep her quiet. That meant the killer was also the dognapper, which left the original motive for the crime unchanged—eliminate the competition. The way Liss saw it, she was in danger, but she also had one big advantage that Deidre had lacked.

Forewarned, as the old saying went, is forearmed.

 

Dan left for Moosetookalook early the next morning, too early to be introduced to Valentine Veilleux.

“Are you sure you can trust her?” he asked.

Reaching up to smooth away the frown lines in his forehead and, Liss hoped, the worry along with them, she attempted to reassure him. “Pretty sure. She has no reason to hurt anyone, and no motive to sabotage any of the acts. She's not a competitor.”

“No motive that you know of.” He hesitated before opening the door to the hallway. “It just strikes me as peculiar that she'd ask you along on a visit to the town dump, of all places.”

“That jaunt will probably be the bright spot of my day.” She kissed his cheek and then stepped back to make little shooing motions. “Go on. Hit the road. You've got orders to fill.”

“Oh, it's you lecturing me on responsibilities now, is it?” Grinning, he swept her into his arms for a long, leisurely kiss.

After he'd gone, she stayed where she was, staring at the plain wooden door and the requisite hotel map and safety instructions. Slowly, the floorplan came into focus. A big
X
marked the suite she occupied. Bold letters spelled out
EXIT
next to the series of lines that indicated stairs.

Liss frowned. She knew where they came out. She hadn't considered it before, but on the afternoon Dandy had been taken, someone must have left the hotel, probably from this floor, and driven to the nearby condominiums in broad daylight. Had someone witnessed that departure? Had that same someone given Deidre a name? Liss posed those questions to Valentine a short time later.

“No idea,” the photographer said.

Liss couldn't see her face. Valentine's head and shoulders had disappeared into the backseat of Liss's car so that she could stow her camera equipment next to the two carriers containing Dandy and Dondi and the plastic garbage bag containing the used pee pads. Satisfied that everything was secure, she slid into the passenger seat for the trip to the town landfill.

“You'll have to give me directions.” Liss glanced her way, then looked again. Valentine's complexion was naturally pale, but this morning, in the bright sunlight, it looked ashen. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“Whoa! Don't go all defensive on me.”

“Sorry. Take a left out of the parking lot.” She rattled off the rest of the instructions in a subdued voice.

Liss had no difficulty following them and before long came to a sign reading
ORLIN TRANSFER STATION
. She turned onto a narrow, uphill road sparsely flanked by single-family homes. After a quarter of a mile, a second sign directed her to hang a right and begin an even steeper climb. At the top of the rise were several large buildings and more signs. The road branched, becoming a one-way, one-lane drive that circled back on itself.