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 a piece of luck.”
“Not necessarily. She’s pretty conservative in her views and she’s gotten more so since her husband died.”
“But she’ll go for the Scottish angle.”
“I know Pete competes in athletic events at Scottish festivals, but—”
“The whole clan used to be very active. I can’t imagine she’s completely lost interest.”
“She might have, if it was Pete’s father who was the fan of all things Scottish. If I’m remembering right, and I’m pretty sure I am, Thea Campbell was born a Briscetti.”
“Then I’ll just have to get Pete to work on her. Or rather, I’ll get Sherri to work on Pete to work on his mother.”
He wasn’t quick enough to hide his reaction.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Dan.”
Shaking his head, rolling his eyes heavenward, he gave in. “I just don’t think you should put any additional pressure on Pete and Sherri right now.”
“What are you talking about? They’re engaged to be married. They—”
“They don’t exactly see eye to eye about Sherri’s current career path.”
Liss blinked at him in surprise. He swore he could hear the gears whirring as she ran that concept through her mental computer. Apparently she’d been clueless about the conflict between their two friends.
“Sherri said she’d had a difference of opinion with Pete,” Liss said slowly, “but she dismissed it as a minor problem. Said he’d come around.”
“Well, he hasn’t.”
“I knew he was unhappy when she went to the police academy. Sixteen weeks is a long time to be separated, even if she did come home on weekends.”
“Most of those she spent with her son, not her fiancé. But that wasn’t the real problem. Pete’s worried about Sherri’s safety.”
“Dan, she’s working for the Moosetookalook Police Department. How much safer could she be?”
“She could be back in the sheriff’s office, working dispatch.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Will you listen to yourself? It’s okay for Pete to be a patrol deputy, out there all alone with a whole county full of bad guys, but it’s too much of a risk for Sherri to walk around the square and check the locks on the shops?”
“That’s just it. He’s seen firsthand the kind of nasty situations a cop can get into. Domestic disputes, for one thing. Not to mention the—”
“Of all the male chauvinist pig mentality! Pete’s a Neanderthal.”
“Probably, but—”
“I’ll just have to convince Mrs. Campbell to support us without her son’s help. So, we’ll make our appeal, and then, as soon as there’s money to pay for them, we launch the ads.” Liss glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to call Rich Smalley. See if he’s got a partridge. Do you have any idea where I could find a pear tree?”
Liss breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t know what she’d been so worried about.
