Kilt at the Highland Games (14 page)

Liss's jaw ached from holding her shopkeeper's smile in place as Grant droned on. It didn't help that she could see potential customers, one after another, giving her booth a wide berth. No one wanted to risk catching the attention of someone as obnoxious and belligerent as Angus Grant. Until he decided to move on or someone else was brave enough to challenge him, she was going to keep losing business.

Like an answer to a prayer, such an individual appeared.

He did not wear a kilt, having realized on a previous visit to the Western Maine Highland Games that he did not have the knees for it. Civilian clothing, however, did not dampen the effect of his arrival.

“Angus Grant, right?” The newcomer grabbed Grant's hand in a death grip. “I'm Murch. Jake Murch. Private investigator extraordinaire. I've been looking for you.” Without giving his victim any opportunity to escape, Murch shifted his hold to Grant's elbow and steered him away from Liss's booth.

“What's this all about? What do you want with me?” Grant tried to break free, but Murch was by far the stronger of the two.

The detective's jovial voice drifted back to Liss as they disappeared into the crowd: “Nothing to worry about, Grant. Not unless you have something to hide. I understand you were a witness to that terrible fire last week in the village.”

Murch to the rescue,
Liss thought.

The last time Jake Murch had attended the Highland Games, she'd been in mortal danger. She'd managed to save herself, but the private detective had provided very welcome backup.

She wondered if he truly suspected Angus Grant of setting the fire. The idea seemed absurd. If Grant was going to torch any of the businesses in Moosetookalook, the Emporium would have been a more likely target.

That horrific thought provoked an involuntary shiver. Liss was glad to have the distraction of a customer. Then, for the next hour or so, she was far too busy to dwell on any of the troubles that had plagued her hometown.

* * *

Liss worked on her own until noon, when her young cousin Boxer reported for duty. She had recruited him weeks earlier to help out at the booth. He pitched in with a will, and since business was brisk, it was not until there was a lull that Liss noticed how haggard he looked. She didn't have any trouble figuring out why. He'd been worrying about Beth Hogencamp.

“When did you last get a good night's sleep?” she asked him.

“Do you really need to ask?” He brushed an unruly lock of reddish brown hair out of his eyes and sent her a rueful look.

“I wish there was something I could say that would help, but all I have are more questions.”

“Questions for me?”

She nodded.

“Might as well ask them, then. Maybe one of us will come up with something.” The hopeful look on his plain, square face broke Liss's heart.

“Did Beth ever talk about any of her mother's friends? Maybe someone from out of town?”

Boxer shook his head. “I've been asking myself that. Beth and I were good buddies long before we started dating, but I never paid all that much attention to her mom.” He shrugged. “She never liked me much.”

When she'd first met him, Angie had thought Boxer was a wiseass and a troublemaker, and he had been back then. That his mother was a Snipes hadn't helped his reputation. Members of that family tended to be shiftless and hard on their wives. Boxer, however, had turned out to be the exception that proved the rule. He was headed for college in the fall and had a bright future ahead of him.

“They can't have vanished so completely without help.” Liss fished a bottle of water out of the cooler Boxer had brought with him and tossed a second one to him.

“Seems to me you're the one Beth's mother was closest to.” Boxer opened the bottle and took a long swallow.

It wasn't abnormally hot for summer in Maine, but it was late July. The air was just muggy enough to make Liss sweat if she did more than take in money and rearrange stock. She held the cold bottle against her forehead before she followed Boxer's lead.

“Besides me, who else?”

He shrugged. “I guess that would be Gloria Weird.”

“Gloria
Weir
.” The correction was automatic, as was Liss's smile. Gloria
was
an odd duck. “I didn't realize she and Angie were particularly friendly.”

“She lives right across the street. I guess they see a lot of each other.”

Did
Gloria know anything? Sherri hadn't seemed to think so after she'd talked to her. Murch, too, had interviewed the owner of Ye Olde Hobbie Shoppe and come up empty.

“Anyone else?”

“Patsy, I guess.” Suddenly he grinned. “Hey, all you old fogeys go to Patsy's.”

Caught by surprise, Liss had no comeback. Then the arrival of a customer kept her from responding. Where
did
the kids hang out? He was right. It wasn't at Patsy's. Graziano's Pizza, maybe? Deciding that it probably didn't matter, she took another pull on her water.

The more time that passed, the clearer it became that Angie must be staying away deliberately. Was she in hiding? If so, was it because she was a fugitive from the law or because she was afraid to show herself for some other reason? The only other possibility Liss had been able to come up with—that she and her children had been prevented from returning—didn't bear thinking about. What kind of psychopath would kidnap an entire family?

Liss was glad to be pulled from such fruitless speculation by a customer wanting to buy a kilt pin. As she wrapped it in tissue paper and tucked it and the receipt into a small red bag with the Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium logo emblazoned on both sides, she listened to the music filtering through the noise of the crowd. The sound soothed her troubled mind.

There were performances scheduled throughout the day—singers, fiddlers, and harpists as well as pipers. At the moment, somewhere not too distant, a woman with a lovely soprano voice was singing a ballad to the accompaniment of a guitar.

“Liss, do you carry Scottish-themed bumper stickers?” Boxer asked.

A boy of about fifteen stood on the other side of the display table, a look of deviltry in his eyes. “I want one for my dad,” he said. “The one that says ‘Old Pipers Never Die. Their Bags Just Dry Up.'”

“The gentleman selling T-shirts also has bumper stickers,” Liss called back, trying not to grimace at that old chestnut.

“How come you don't stock them?” Boxer asked when their customers had moved on. “You've got all this other Scottish stuff.”

“I'm aiming for a slightly more high-class clientele.”

“But you do sell T-shirts.”

“Only the ones that have thistles or Scottish lions on the front. No risqué slogans. When I first took over the business, I discontinued all the truly tacky items in the inventory.” She was careful not to mention the fact that it had been Boxer's father who had ordered most of them in the first place.

“My cousin the prude,” Boxer teased her.

“Am not.”

“Are too!”

They grinned at each other.

Reminded of their kinship, Liss remembered that she had yet to ask Boxer about Angie's sister-in-law. Murch had not had any luck identifying her, nor had Sherri. Neither Patsy nor Gloria had admitted to knowing Angie
had
a sister-in-law.

Boxer reached into the cooler once more and this time snagged a soda. The crowd around the vendors had thinned out. Cheering from the field where the athletic competitions were under way explained why. There was only one customer at the Emporium's booth, a woman examining the rack of ready-made kilts.

“I don't suppose,” Liss said without much hope, “that Beth ever mentioned an aunt. Her father's sister? Or maybe the wife or widow of Angie's brother? A sister-in-law, anyway.” She supposed, these days, a sister-in-law could also be the spouse of a sister.

“Nope.” Boxer took a long drink.

“She visited at the time of the Maine-ly Cozy Con. You probably don't remember that. You may not even have known Beth back then.”

“I knew who she was. And I used to go in the bookstore sometimes. Just looking around. I didn't have the money to buy anything.” A rueful expression on his face, he added, “Angie always thought I was going to shoplift stuff. She kept an eagle eye on me.”

“Do you remember someone else manning the store while Angie was at the Cozy Con?”

Boxer drank again. Frowning, he considered. “Y'know, I do. A woman. She didn't kick me out.”

“Do you remember what she looked like?”

She was unsurprised when he shook his head. It had been more than six years. But then the most peculiar expression came over his face.

“Bumper sticker,” Boxer said. “There was a car parked in Angie's driveway that day, and it had a bumper sticker that said ‘Virginia Is for Lovers.' I remember thinking that was a pretty stupid slogan, but then I was only, what? Twelve? Does that help?”

“Not much,” Liss admitted, “but it's more than we knew before.”

Boxer polished off his soda and tossed the empty can into the bag they were using for recyclables. “You want to take a break while it's quiet?”

The same woman was still browsing among the kilts. No one else had shown any interest in their booth for a while now.

“Are you sure you can answer any questions she has?”

“I've only heard your spiel about a gazillion times. All those are tartans anyone can wear, clan or no clan. The red, green, yellow, blue, and white is Royal Stewart. The dark one is Black Watch. The dark green and blue with black and pink worked in is Flower of Scotland and was specifically created for those who don't have Scots roots. The fourth one is called Hunting Stewart.”

“Okay. Okay. You pass the test.” His sing-song recitation had her smiling again. “Just don't forget to tell her we can also special-order kilts in any tartan.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go if you're going.”

“And don't count on making a sale,” she warned him. “The cheapest kilt on the rack is priced at over three hundred dollars.”

They were labor-intensive to make, requiring at least eight yards of material apiece. Tightly pleated at the back with an apron front, a kilt had to hang just right and be the correct length, just clearing the ground when the wearer knelt. At one time, when Margaret had been sole proprietor of Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium, she had made kilts herself. She'd given up the sideline when she went to work at the hotel.

Liss's first stop was at the row of port-a-potties. Her second was the scone-maker's booth.

“I was so sorry to hear about all the troubles in Moosetookalook,” Janice said as she passed over the freshly baked pastry and took Liss's money. She was from Waycross Springs, a good hour away by car, but news traveled fast on the Carrabassett County grapevine.

“It's just been one thing after another,” Liss agreed.

“And this latest! I hear you know a little more than most people about what happened.”

Liss repressed a groan. She didn't think she'd been identified in any news reports as the one who'd found Jason Graye's body, but the local gossips must all know by now. Neighbors would have recognized her at the scene.

“I'm sorry, Janice, but I can't talk about it.”

The Scone Lady looked disappointed but didn't press for details. Whether she thought Liss found the subject too upsetting to discuss or guessed she'd been ordered to keep quiet by the police, Liss couldn't tell.

“You take care of yourself now, Liss,” Janice called after her as she turned to wait on her next hungry customer.

A quick glance at the Emporium's booth reassured Liss that Boxer was doing just fine on his own. She fished a copy of the schedule of events out of her pocket. She'd just missed the sheaf toss, an event that involved tossing a sixteen-pound sheaf of hay encased in a burlap bag over a bar using a three-tined pitchfork. The current athletic competition was the hammer throw.

Liss grimaced. The hammer, a metal ball attached to a wooden handle, weighed a little over twenty pounds and had been known to fly more than a hundred yards. She'd come close to being coldcocked with one once and had been a little leery of the sport ever since.

She did enjoy watching the caber toss. The cabers, which most people compared to telephone poles, were nineteen feet long and weighed 120 pounds and took a good deal of skill to lift, let alone throw. That event, however, wouldn't be held until later in the day.

Her timing was off to attend any of the dance competitions, too. No one was currently performing on the stage set up for those events. There were, however, a few people lingering in the area. She walked in that direction, hoping to spot someone she knew from the old days.

Liss did recognize one face, but it was not that of a dancer. It was the gentleman who'd come into Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium looking for postage stamps—Martin Eldridge. Omnipresent walking stick in hand, he was deep in conversation with another man, one who looked vaguely familiar.

The second man was both shorter and younger than Eldridge. His hair was cut so close to his scalp that he very nearly looked bald. Was this the same man she'd seen talking to Eldridge in the town square? She had no idea. On the previous occasion, he'd been too far away for her to see clearly.

Murch would know for certain. He'd been close enough to eavesdrop on that earlier conversation. Although he'd dismissed what he'd heard as harmless, Liss had to wonder if he might have missed something. Watching the two men near the stage, she had a strong sense of something “off” about them.