A Wee Christmas Homicide. Kaitlyn Dunnett
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the story tumbled out, Dan collected the blanks he’d just cut in various shapes and sizes and carried them to his worktable. Everything was a “blank” until it was finished. With a little work these would become small boxes, each one unique. They sold reasonably well at Angie’s Books, as did his small battery operated clocks. Like the boxes, no two were exactly the same. Sometimes he also supplied Angie Hogencamp with cherrywood walking sticks and wooden back-scratchers to sell in her shop.
He didn’t usually have so much trouble finding time to turn out these small projects. He used scrap lumber, so they didn’t cost him anything to make. If he figured by the time involved—a couple of hours for each box—he wasn’t making much profit, but every little bit helped. Besides, it all went to building his reputation as a custom woodworker. One day, with luck before he was too old and gray to appreciate it, he’d be able to strike out on his own and make things from wood full time.
Liss was still talking. As some of what she had already said sank in, Dan sent an incredulous look in her direction. That single glance was enough to tell him she was completely serious.
He went back to loosening the clamps on a box he’d glued together the day before. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. Liss appeared to have everything worked out already. As usual. He wondered when he’d started to resent that quality.
“They call them the Daft Days in Scotland,” Liss concluded, “instead of the twelve days of Christmas, but I think we’d better stick with what most Americans will find familiar.”
“Whatever works,” he mumbled, and crossed back to the scroll saw. His workshop was almost the way he wanted it. He’d acquired a table saw, a miter saw, and a band saw. Next time he had a little extra saved, it was going for a drill press. “Liss, I’m sorry to give you the bum’s rush, but I need to finish cutting these before my lunch break is over.”
He flipped a switch. Immediately, the workshop was filled with a loud hum that drowned out every other sound. He’d just dropped his ear protectors back into place when Liss jabbed him in the ribs. She kept her fingernails cut short but put enough force behind the poke to make it hurt like blazes.
“Not while I’m cutting!” he yelled.
“You’re not cutting yet!” she shouted back. “Turn off the saw! This is important!”
Swallowing his irritation, he obeyed. “Okay. You’ve got my attention.” He turned to her with arms folded across his chest and a look of annoyance on his face. He’d give her five more minutes.
“Did you hear a single word I said?” He heard frustration in her voice, but what he saw in her expressive blue-green eyes was disappointment.
Dan suddenly felt ashamed of himself. So they hadn’t progressed to the point he’d thought they would in their personal relationship. They were still friends. They had been since they were kids. It was a given that if Liss needed him, he would be there for her.
With a sigh, he raked his fingers through his hair. Sending her a sheepish, apologetic look, he asked her to explain the situation to him again.
The second time around it still didn’t make a lot of sense, but Dan was willing to take Liss’s word for it that a rare opportunity had just fallen into their laps. She had a better head for business than he did.
“So, can we tap into funds from the Moosetookalook Small Business Association for this?” she asked.
“Not without calling an MSBA meeting and taking a vote, but I think they’ll go for it.”
His father was certainly desperate enough.
Five months earlier, on Fourth of July weekend, Moosetookalook’s venerable old grand hotel, The Spruces, had reopened. Joe Ruskin had poured heart, soul, and every penny he had to spare—and some he didn’t—into renovating the place. He was convinced getting the hotel up and running was the key to putting Moosetookalook back on the map.
Dan had to admit that things had started off well. Most of the rooms had been full during the summer and the hotel had held its own during leaf-peeper season. But ever since the trees went bare, they’d struggled to fill even half the rooms, and heating the place cost a small fortune. With no snow on the ground to support winter sports, they’d started to accumulate canceled reservations. With each passing day, the hotel sank deeper into debt.
“That it?” Dan asked when they’d settled on a time for the members of the MSBA to gather at Liss’s house.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d attend the selectmen’s meeting with me tonight,” Liss said. “Lend support to the cause. It starts at seven.”
“No problem, but I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”
“You know the selectmen better than I do. They may take some persuading to support us, especially since it involves spending money.” She gave a small, humorless laugh. “I expect the whole scheme will sound crazy to them at first.”
“No more than some of your Scottish heritage stuff.” Dan quickly threw both arms up to shield his face as Liss raised her fists. “Kidding, Liss. Just kidding!”
A wicked grin overspread her face. “You’d better be.” Eyes sparkling with mischief, she added: “‘Daft Days’ is also the title of a poem by Robert Fergusson.”
“Who?”
“He was a Scot born in 1750. He inspired Robert Burns to become a poet.”
The snicker that escaped her warned Dan she was up to no good. Besides, he recognized Burns’s name as the guy who wrote “Auld Lang Syne.” “I assume you’re using the word ‘poet’ in its broadest sense?”
Liss struck a pose more in keeping with a nineteenth-century actor declaiming Shakespeare than a twenty-first century businesswoman. “Now mirk December’s dowie face/Glowrs owre the rigs wi’ sour grimace,” she recited in a faux-Scots accent.
When she made “grimace” rhyme with “face,” Dan rolled his eyes. The rest of the poem was just so much gobbledygook as far as he was concerned. Still, he didn’t say a word until she was finished and even then refused to be goaded into making any more snide remarks.
“Let’s go inside,” he suggested instead. “I haven’t had lunch yet.” His workshop was a converted carriage house only a dozen yards from his back porch.
“I’ll make sandwiches,” Liss offered.
She knew where everything was. This was the house she’d grown up in. Dan had bought it after Liss’s parents moved to Arizona. Back then, she’d been long gone, earning her living performing with a professional Scottish dance troupe. He’d never expected to see her again.
While Liss foraged in his refrigerator, Dan pondered the best way to help her with the board of selectmen. “You do know one of them,” he said when she handed him a can of soda. “Jason Graye.”
She made a face before proceeding to slather mayonnaise on white bread and slap lettuce, bologna, and cheese together between the slices. When she had three sandwiches ready—two for him and one for herself—she unearthed a bag of sour cream-and-onion-flavored potato chips to go with them.
“Graye doesn’t like me.” She bit into her sandwich with enough force to remind him that she didn’t much like Jason Graye, either.
A local real estate agent and self-proclaimed entrepreneur, Graye had walked precariously close to the boundary between ethical and unethical business practices in the not-so-distant past. That he seemed to be making an attempt to clean up his act, mostly because people were on to him, did not inspire either Liss or Dan to trust him.
“Who else is on the board?” Liss asked.
“Doug Preston and Thea Campbell.” Doug was the local mortician and somewhat staid. All the selectmen were frugal.
“Pete’s mother?” Liss brightened when she recognized the second name. “There’s