The Scottie Barked At Midnight (22 page)

Liss stayed on the dirt road, hoping she hadn't just made a fatal error.

Cold and tired and discouraged, she began to lose touch with reality. Maybe this was all a nightmare, she thought. Maybe she could change what was happening to her simply by willing it. A full moon instead of a half-moon would be nice. Bright sunlight would be even better.

“Make it so,” she said aloud, giving her best imitation of Jean-Luc Picard at the helm of the
Enterprise.

Nothing happened.

“These droids are not the ones you're looking for,” she muttered.

A giggle escaped her. She had a feeling that hysteria wasn't far behind.

This road has to lead somewhere,
she told herself, and kept going.

When it finally did, she could scarcely believe it. One minute she was walking on dirt. The next she had reached the paved surface of a crossroad. Liss resisted the temptation to sink down on her knees and kiss the Tarvia.

Like a schoolchild about to cross the street, she stopped and looked both ways. She saw not a single sign of life—no lights, no mailboxes, no road signs. If it hadn't been for that half-moon reflecting off the snow on the ground, it would have been even harder to make out anything in the dark, empty landscape.

Liss stood still, indecisive once more. Which direction had the van turned to get from this road onto the camp road? Left? Or had that been the first turn they'd made, off what was probably the main road leading away from Five Mountains Ski Resort?

Swaying with exhaustion, her feet as heavy as frozen blocks of ice, she was still trying to make up her mind when she heard a faint but familiar sound. Her brain was so foggy that it took her a moment to identify it as the barking of a dog.

It's “the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime” all over again,
she thought, channeling Sherlock Holmes. A second near-hysterical giggle escaped.

Then she remembered. The point of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story was that the dog
didn't
bark. This one was going at it big-time.

Turning in the direction of the sound, Liss moved with renewed vigor. She had a tangible goal to reach. A dog meant an owner, and an owner meant a house, and a house meant shelter, warmth, and a phone. She'd call Dan first. Then Gordon.

She had not yet spotted any buildings when a human voice shouted, “Shut up, you stupid dog!”

The barking ceased, but Liss kept going. Civilization was close. It had to be. And then, across an expanse of open field and through a stand of trees, she saw the most beautiful sight she could imagine—a light in a window. More by instinct than sight, she found the driveway that led to the house. It seemed to take forever to reach the far end.

The dog started to bark again. This time it sounded frantic. Belatedly, it occurred to Liss that the animal might not be friendly. That other bit of trivia about dogs in the night came back to her, bringing with it a sudden sense of dread: Scottish tradition said a dog howling in the night was an omen of approaching death. It didn't say
whose
death.

Liss was panting by the time she reached the three steps that led to a porch. Nothing had leapt out at her. The barking was off to her left. The light from the window illuminated just enough of the yard to give her a reassuring glimpse of a chain-link fence.

At the sight, Liss blinked and stumbled. She knew where she was. The dog was a Doberman, a guard dog with big teeth, but he was also safely confined. She even remembered that the animal was called Cujo, although the name of his owner eluded her.

As she staggered up the steps and onto the porch, she hoped that memory lapse wouldn't matter. She raked an ice-cold, trembling hand through her hair. The other still clutched the blanket, now much bedraggled, around a sweater-and-jeans-clad body that was likewise shaking like a leaf. Even her teeth were chattering. The way she looked, there was a good chance that her appearance alone would be enough to frighten the homeowner into slamming the door in her face. Wouldn't that be a pretty sight in the morning—a woman frozen to death in the dooryard!

No. Not going to happen.
If worse came to worst, the householder would call the police to come get the crazy woman on her lawn.

Sagging against the doorframe, Liss used her last reserves of energy to knock. She wasn't sure the faint sound could be heard over the racket Cujo was making. She supposed it didn't matter. Sooner or later, someone would come out just to see why the Doberman was going nuts.

She knew whoever lived in the house was still up. That light she'd used as a homing beacon came from a downstairs room. In between the dog's increasingly frantic barks, she could hear the faint sounds of a laugh track. The TV was tuned to a sitcom.

The porch light came on, nearly blinding her. She was shading her eyes with her free hand when the woman she remembered from the day she'd tried to find Dandy's owner opened the door. Mrs. Bentley, that was it!

Before Liss could stammer out her name, Mrs. Bentley's eyes widened. “It's you!” she exclaimed. “The one who was asking about the Scottish terrier. The one who was on television in that news story about the snake.”

 

By the time Dan Ruskin arrived to collect his wife, Liss was nearly back to normal and feeling alternately relieved and chagrined by the realization that her condition had been nowhere near as desperate as she'd imagined.

“You're sure you're okay?” Dan asked as he helped her into the passenger seat of his truck. The heater was going full blast. “I can drive to the hospital as easily as I can take you back to the resort.”

Luxuriating in the warmth of the cab and the comfort of the warm winter jacket, lined gloves, and knitted hat Dan had brought for her, Liss sent a reassuring smile his way. “I'm fine. Really.”

He looked doubtful . . . and worried . . . but he closed the door and circled around to the driver's side. “Resort it is, then. Sherri's there. I called her when I realized you were missing.”

“I wasn't gone that long!” Forty-eight hours was the rule, since she was well over the age of consent. She didn't qualify for an Amber Alert.

Dan backed slowly down the driveway, past the barking dog. “True, but she was about to issue a BOLO when you called.”

“What are friends for?” Liss murmured.

Once they were back on the road, Dan reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You're
sure
you're—”

“I'm sure. I admit that it felt wicked cold when I was wandering around in the great outdoors but, according to Mrs. Bentley, the air temperature never dropped below freezing. It was a balmy forty degrees for most of the time I spent trying to get back to civilization. Frostbite isn't in the cards. It doesn't look as if I even developed a case of chilblains.”

Her casual tone didn't fool Dan for a minute. “You're lucky you found that farmhouse when you did, and that Mrs. Bentley was so quick to sit you down in front of the woodstove and let you warm up slowly. You were probably in the early stages of hypothermia.”

“I didn't get wet! I was just cold. That's all. It felt wonderful to hold both hands out toward the heat. And then Mrs. Bentley made me a mug of hot chocolate and insisted I drink every drop before she'd let me use her phone to call you.”

“You didn't even have a coat.”

“I was dressed in layers. I had on a polypropylene camisole next to my skin, guaranteed to wick away sweat.”

He didn't laugh when she quoted the manufacturer's advertising slogan. “What if there'd been a wind? Nothing is proof against a severe wind chill.”

Just thinking about that possibility made Liss shiver. “Okay. If there had been a brisk wind, what I had on wouldn't have made much difference. The cold would have penetrated right through blanket and sweater and camisole. But there was no wind. I'm fine! I kept moving. I even flipped the end of the blanket over my head to keep the heat in. I was in good health to start with. I survived. Okay?”

Liss stared at her hands, flexing the fingers just because she could. She didn't want to think about how much worse off she would be right now if she'd been unconscious when her kidnapper walked away. Or if she'd turned the wrong way on the paved road. Or lost a moccasin. Or taken a header off that scenic overlook. What if she hadn't heard Cujo barking? She could still be out wandering around, looking for shelter, gradually losing body heat. Even at forty degrees, hypothermia would have gotten her in the end.

At the intersection where they had a choice of turning toward Moosetookalook in one direction or Orlin and the ski resort in the other, Dan braked at the stop sign. Engine idling, he put the truck in park. There wasn't another car in sight, and he seemed to need a moment just to turn his head and look at her, to reassure himself that she was there and whole and safe. His voice was low and clogged with emotion.

“You want to tell me how you ended up in the middle of nowhere?”

“Someone threw a blanket over my head and drove me there.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. He swallowed before he spoke. “Who?”

“I don't know. You must have asked around when you realized I was gone. Did anyone see anything?”

“Not that they'd admit to. The bartender said you were talking to Roy Eastmont, but Eastmont was completely out of it. I couldn't get a lick of sense out of him. I did find out one thing, though. There was a problem with the elevators. They were all stuck on the second floor for about an hour. Someone apparently tampered with them. Don't ask me how. That's not my area of expertise.”

“So they
knew
I'd take the stairs.” Liss sat up straighter, suddenly more alert.

“They?”

“There were two people. One grabbed me, probably a man, but another helped, and probably drove the van.”

“A van? You're sure it was a van?”

“Pretty sure, from the sound the sliding door at the side made and from the area I was scrunched into. There was some kind of cargo, I think. That's what kept me from moving around. That and the blanket.”

If she didn't know better, she'd swear Dan had just growled. His face in the dim lights from the dashboard was a mask of anger.

“Uh, Dan—do you know something I don't?”

“I know that when Sherri and I were in the parking lot of the hotel we ran into two people just getting out of a van. They
said
they'd gone out for pizza.”

“Let me guess—the Great Umberto and his lovely assistant?”

“Yeah.” He shifted into drive and continued on toward the resort. He had his temper back under control, but his grip on the steering wheel was so tight that his knuckles showed white. “They looked like they were arguing about something before they caught sight of us and put on the smiles.”

Liss sighed. So much for hoping Iris wasn't involved.

Chapter Fourteen

S
herri was waiting for them in the Amendole suite with Dandy and Dondi.

Dan steered his wife inside and deposited her on the sofa. “Look after her for me, will you?” he asked Sherri. “I'll be back shortly.”

When he started for the door, Liss sprang to her feet and all but tackled him to stop him from leaving. “Dan! Don't you dare! I absolutely forbid you to confront Oscar Yates!”

He tried to take a step and found himself dragging her with him. “I'm just going to talk to him.”

“It won't do any good. He'll deny knowing anything and then you'll get mad and hit him and then you'll be the one in jail for assault. If you think I'll bail you out, you need to think again.”

He stopped trying to reach the door, but the grimly determined look in his eyes hadn't faded. Liss was afraid that the moment she let go of him, he'd take off again.

“I know you're angry, but we have no proof of anything.”

“That's exactly why I want to confront the guy.”

Sherri circled them, blocking the way to the door, and cleared her throat. “Sit down. Both of you. Talk first. Action, if needed, later.”

“Back off, Sherri. You're out of your jurisdiction!”

Liss smacked his arm. Hard. “Don't you mouth off at her. You're the one who called her in. More important, she's right.” She didn't loosen the grip she had on him with her other hand. “I'll sit down if you will.”

She could all but hear the wheels grinding inside his brain, but after a long, tense moment, he nodded. Slowly, she released him and stepped back. Obediently, he went to the sofa and sat. The Scotties, who had been watching the entire exchange with great interest, trotted after him.

He patted the cushion next to him. “Now you.”

But Liss shook her head. “First I need a hot shower, but when I come out we'll talk, calmly and rationally, about what happened to me.”

“Go,” Sherri said. “I'll play jailer. I've had experience.” She sent Dan a stern look that had him throwing his hands up in mock surrender.

Ten minutes later, hair freshly blown dry, body encased in a nightgown and wrapped in a warm, ankle-length bathrobe, and wearing a clean pair of thick woolly socks, Liss was about to return to the front room of the suite when she heard a loud thump on the other side of the bedroom door. She rushed out, skidding to a stop at the astonishing sight of her husband sprawled full length on the floor near the door to the hallway.

“What on earth—”

Sherri offered Dan a hand to help him up, her face split in a grin that went from ear to ear. “That'll teach you.” Shifting her gaze to Liss, she added, “He tried to make a run for it and tripped over a dog.”

A disgruntled-looking Dan limped back to the sofa. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I got impatient.”

“I thought I could trust you,” Liss whispered, and burst into tears.

As moments of catharsis went, it was amazingly effective. When she was cried out, Liss felt much better. Better yet, her breakdown had convinced Dan she needed him close at hand. They sat together on the sofa, his arm around her shoulders, her cheek pressed against his chest.

“While you were in the shower,” Sherri said, “Dan told me you think you were transported in a van. Given everything that's happened, that does suggest a pretty obvious suspect.”

“The Great Umberto.” Liss sat up a little straighter. “He's one of the finalists, so he had motive. What happened to me earlier tonight is the latest in this whole series of dirty tricks. The dognapping. The phony complaint against Eudora. The destruction of Mo's props. Willetta's cough drop. Only this one could have had much more serious consequences.”

Sherri and Dan exchanged a look. He gestured for her to take the lead.

“I don't disagree,” Sherri said, “but you're missing a couple of incidents from your list. Have you decided the dirty tricks are separate from Deidre Amendole's overdose and what happened to Troy Barrigan?”

“I don't know, but I've begun to think it's possible. It came to me in the shower. Well, sort of. It was the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, except that this dog, Cujo, barked.”

They looked at her as if she'd lost her mind.

“I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's the thing. The dog I heard tonight, the one whose barking led me to Mrs. Bentley's house so I could call Dan, made me think of something that happened the night I found Dandy. I heard a twig snap. It was loud as a rifle shot and startled me. My first thought at the time was that there was someone there, watching me from the shelter of the trees, but I called out and no one answered me, so then I figured it was just a branch breaking under the weight of the ice and snow. You know what a loud cracking sound that can make.”

“And now?” Dan prompted her.

“Now I think there
was
someone watching. The person who took Dandy out into what must have seemed like the middle of nowhere.”

“To turn her loose?” Sherri sounded skeptical.

Liss reached out to stroke the Scottie's back. “That's the thing. I don't know. If I hadn't come along, Dandy might have been recaptured.”

“And killed.” Sherri's blunt words made Liss wince.

“Maybe not. Maybe the intention was to keep her confined somewhere long enough for Deidre to have to bow out of the competition.” She lowered her head to her hands. Was that what she really thought or just what she hoped was true? “The thing is, I was dumped in the same area where Dandy was running loose.”

Step by step, Liss told them what she remembered of her abduction and the long, bumpy ride to the place where she'd been abandoned. Sherri interjected questions, but nothing new emerged about Liss's captors, not even the relative size of the person who'd thrown the blanket over her head.

“I couldn't tell how tall he was, or anything about his build except that he was strong. He wrapped his arms around me and then had me in a fireman's carry.”

“You're no lightweight, but neither of those actions take brute strength,” Sherri pointed out. “If I had to, I could haul you a short distance over my shoulder and I'm six or seven inches shorter than you are.”

“Uh-huh.” Liss cast a doubtful look at Sherri's baby bump.

“Well not
now,
” her friend said, laughing, “but I hefted a guy bigger and heavier than you are when I was at the police academy.”

“I don't see what the problem is,” Dan interrupted. “We already have likely suspects. That magician and his assistant. They were lying about going out for pizza. No box.”

“Maybe they didn't get takeout.”

“In Orlin? That's the only choice they'd have.”

“Well, there's one way to find out.” Sherri commenced the rocking motion necessary to heave herself up off the sofa.

“Dan is
not
going to confront him.”

“Nope. Neither am I. What we are going to do is check out that van. I want to look at the tires, see if there's any indication they were on a dirt road. We won't be able to get inside, but we can shine a flashlight around the interior, maybe figure out where you were wedged in.”

Liss brightened. “I left fingerprints inside!” With everything else that had happened, she'd forgotten until that moment. “Maybe we should call Gordon first. I was planning to, after I phoned Dan, but Mrs. Bentley was making such a fuss over me that I thought I'd better wait. He's already investigating Deidre Amendole's death as suspicious, especially since Desdemona seems to have disappeared, and Troy Barrigan's fall wasn't an accident, it was attempted murder.”

Sherri shook her head. “Not just attempted anymore. Troy Barrigan died earlier this evening.”

With an effort, Sherri straightened and turned off her flashlight. “The magician's van has been driven over slushy roads, but there's no way for me to tell when or which ones. I'm sorry guys, but unless Liss is sure she was transported in this vehicle, there isn't enough evidence for me to ask for a search warrant.”

“I couldn't see anything inside to confirm this is the right van.” Liss had shone the light everywhere the beam would reach, but with the Great Umberto's props stored inside, it was difficult to tell where there might be spaces. He'd told her a few days earlier that he was no longer keeping his equipment in the van, but he might have had perfectly innocent reasons for changing his mind.

“She was kidnapped.” Dan's voice was low and dangerous. “That's a serious crime. There must be some way to justify looking for the fingerprints she left inside the van. Find them, and there's your proof that this was how they got her out into the woods.”

Liss placed one hand on her husband's arm. She could feel the tension in him even through the layers of fabric. Dan didn't often lose his temper, but he was on the verge of it now. “Let it go,” she whispered. “We'll figure something out.”

“Liss, face facts. The guy could have poisoned Deidre Amendole. It was probably his balcony Barrigan took the header from. You're not safe as long as he's at large. It's time to call Gordon Tandy.”

Both Liss and Sherri stared at him. Illuminated by the security lighting in the hotel parking lot, his face wore a stark, determined look.

“It's the middle of the night,” Sherri protested, “and no matter what we suspect, this doesn't qualify as an emergency.”

“The alternative is that I march up to the Great Umberto's suite and beat on him until he confesses.” Dan already had his cell phone in his hand. “What's Tandy's number?”

“Okay. We'll call him,” Liss said. “But let's do it inside, where it's warm.” She found Dan's stricken expression heartwarming. “I'm fine. You're not putting me at risk. I just don't see any point in hanging around outside. Besides, the dogs are alone in the suite. After everything that's happened, I'm not comfortable leaving them there unprotected.”

In the end, it was Sherri who made the call to Gordon. Liss listened to her explain the situation without much hope that the state police detective would be persuaded to do anything. She had seen nothing and heard less. Even though kidnapping was a much more serious crime than vandalism or theft, and might or might not be tied to one, or two, murders, they didn't have one iota of incriminating evidence against Oscar Yates and Iris Jansen.

Liss wasn't surprised when, after apologizing a second time to Gordon for waking him up, Sherri reported that he agreed with the conclusion they'd already reached.

“He said he'd be here first thing in the morning, but that unless the magician is willing to let the state police dust for fingerprints without a warrant, he doesn't have much chance of getting into that van.” She directed her next words to Dan. “He suggested that we keep Liss's return quiet, for her own safety. Lots of people know she went missing because we were asking everybody we could think of if they'd seen her, but by now they've all gone to bed. It should be easy enough for her to keep out of sight.”

“Better yet, she could leave,” Dan said. “I don't see any reason for her to stay here longer. She'll be safe back home in Moosetookalook.”

“She's right here,” Liss reminded them.

“You can bring the dogs,” Dan added. “Lumpkin and Glenora will just have to accept the situation.”

All at once, Liss's long, traumatic day caught up with her. She slumped on the sofa she'd been sharing with Dandy and Dondi.

Troy Barrigan was dead. Murdered. If everything that had happened was connected, and she supposed it must be, then she
was
in mortal danger. If she gave in, gave up, went home, she'd be safe and so would the Scotties. That was the practical plan, the one based on common sense.

“I can't do it.”

Neither Dan nor Sherri looked surprised.

“Well, it was worth a try,” Dan said.

Closing her eyes, Liss had to will herself to think about the alternative. “Tomorrow we record the last results show,” she said, talking it through. “All twelve acts that started the season are supposed to reprise their performances before Roy Eastmont narrows the field to two and then makes the big announcement—the act fans supposedly chose to be champion of champions. The three finalists perform last. That means I could wait until the very end to show up. Whoever thinks I'm still wandering around in the woods will be startled whenever I make my appearance, don't you think?”

“I think
startled
is a mild word for it,” Sherri said. “The reaction could run the gamut from gobsmacked all the way to dangerous.”