A Wee Christmas Homicide Read Online Free Page A

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