by Tegan Maher
“Absolutely,” Penny said with a nod.
“Actually, the window display contest is what we’re hoping to talk to you about,” I said.
Others were now filtering out of the activities room, heading for various winter clothing items that had been stripped off and laid aside. I didn’t want to bring up Monique's conundrum within earshot of others, lest someone mention it to Kurt. I glanced at Penny, and she seemed to be thinking the same thing.
“Maybe we can walk and talk?” Penny suggested. She plopped down on the bench and pulled off a sneaker.
“Of course,” Bess agreed. “Actually, it would be lovely if you both came up to my apartment. I found a vintage cookie recipe book the other day when I was browsing one of my favorite thrift stores down in Montrose, looking for items for my shop.”
Bess was known for finding treasures in nearby towns and carting them back to Hillcrest, where she sold them for a profit.
“I was going to bring it in to the store and put it up for sale,” she went on, “but then it struck me that it would make a perfect Christmas gift. I couldn’t think just who to give it to, but now I know -- I feel that recipe book is meant for the two of you.” She gave me a friendly wink.
“Thanks, Bess,” I said. “Penny and I haven’t even baked one cookie so far this season.”
“Oh, mercy!” Bess exclaimed in mock despair. “And Christmas is just two days away! Now that is a tragedy! I’ve been baking cookies for months.” She laughed and patted her midsection. “As you can probably tell. Thank goodness for this Zumba class!”
We all laughed as we geared up to face the winter air. Once outside and away from the crowd, I brought up the topic of the window display contest again. “Bess, Penny and I are trying to figure out what might have happened to the penguin that’s usually part of the Nugget Bank’s display.”
“You mean Polly?” Bess said.
“You know her name?” I said.
“Of course!” Bess led us around the corner. “That cute penguin with the pink scarf, on ice skates. I’ve always liked that display. She’s really missing?”
“Since last night,” Penny said.
“Monique was going to take her home to have Garreth do some work on her, but that didn’t pan out,” I said. “Polly went missing --”
“She was kidnapped,” Penny interjected dramatically.
I went on, “While Monique was locking up. She didn’t see who took Polly. We were hoping you did, seeing as you live right across the street.”
“From the scene of the crime,” Penny added.
“Hm…” Bess said. “What time was this?”
We turned a corner, and the Nugget Bank and Bess’s apartment came into view.
Penny spoke as she gestured to the sidewalk in front of the bank. “It would have been about 5:15, right there in front of the double doors. Polly the Penguin was in a big box along with a bunch of other decorations.”
“And the whole thing was stolen?” Bess asked,
“Yep,” Penny said.
“Right out from under Monique’s nose,” I added. “Isn’t it sad?”
“Sure is,” Bess said. “Very un-Christmasy. Who would do a thing like that? A real grump, that’s who. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home yesterday at 5:15, so I don’t think I can help you out. I’ll tell you who may have seen something, though -- Jim, upstairs. Since retiring from the post office, he’s been home an awful lot. Actually, he’d probably love to see you girls and have a chat. If you go pay him a visit, maybe you could bring him the cookies I baked!”
We reached the front door to her building, and she punched in a code on a little pad of silver numbers. There was a click, and she opened the door and held it for us.
The entryway was warm. I unzipped my vest as Bess led us through another doorway and then down a narrow hallway. “So you’re on the first story,” I said. “And Jim is on the second?”
The building only had two floors, which meant that Bess and Jim were the only ones to occupy the units right across from the bank. I could picture Jim’s street-facing window, which probably had a good view of the sidewalk in front of the bank. Hopefully, Bess was right, and he’d seen something.
“That’s right,” Bess said.
She showed us into her place, which was cozy and smelled -- surprise! -- like cookies. Sugar cookies, to be exact. They were piled on plates on her counter, heaped into tins, and cooling on racks.
“I did some baking this morning,” Bess said.
“It smells so good!” Penny said.
I glanced around Bess’s apartment, which was crowded with antiques and vintage decor. A row of windows in her living room looked out on Main Street.
“We actually walked by the bank before Zumba class, but didn’t see any clues,” Penny said.
“All we really learned is that the bank’s architecture is a little bit weird.”
“How so?” Bess asked, while rummaging through a stack of books.
“The gargoyles… they look out of place,” I said. “Do you know if those gargoyles have been part of the building since construction in 1892?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure,” Bess said. “I’ve only lived in this place for… let’s see now… seven years or so. A few years back, I can’t remember exactly when, they finally covered over that strange poem that used to be carved into the stone underneath them. That poem made no sense, and I’m glad it’s gone. But as to the year they were installed up there, I really have no idea. They’ve been there ever since I moved in -- I know, because I close my curtains at night, so I don’t get creeped out by them when they’re lit up by moonlight. If I don’t close the curtains, I get this eerie feeling that they’re looking in at me. I know it sounds crazy.” She laughed.
Penny and I exchanged another glance. Since studying witchcraft, I’d learned that many things that “sound crazy” are completely not crazy -- at all. In fact, they’re perfectly natural and “normal.” In fact, it was a bit “crazy” to think that magic wasn’t real. I’d learned that non-magical folks walked around with blinders on most of the time, in order to protect their world view. But once in a while, their guard slipped, and a bit of magical truth filtered in.
I was interested in Bess’s intuition about the gargoyles, and I could tell Penny was, too. She had her “interested” look going, which was a mix of a squint and bright-eyed curiosity.
“Have you ever… I don’t know… seen them move or anything?” Penny asked.
Bess laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” She waited.
“Nope,” Penny said. I shook my head. We were both looking at Bess, waiting for an answer.
“No!’ she said emphatically. “Girls… they can’t move. They’re made of stone.”
“Just asking,” Penny said casually.
Bess held out a book that she’d pulled from the stack. The cover was a red and white plaid pattern, with a glorious close-up photo of cookies on the front. Just the sight of it made my mouth water. “Here’s that book I was telling you about!” she said.
I accepted the gift and hugged it to my chest. “Thank you so much, Bess,” I said. “This is really nice of you.”
“I hope you two get to try out a recipe in the next few days,” she said. “This season is about spreading love, joy, and a nice treat or two, don’t you think? Speaking of -- here’s a plate of cookies for you. And would you mind bringing one up to Jim? I already gave him biscotti last week, but I saw him this morning and he said he’d eaten them all up with his morning coffees.”
Bess handed Penny two plates that were heaped with iced sprinkle-topped cookies in all shapes and sizes. A covering of plastic wrap kept the whole pile from spilling over the edges.
“Thank you!” Penny said. “And we’d be happy to bring these up to Jim.”
Bess walked us to the door.
“Bess,” I said, as I stepped out into the hallway. “Did you say that there used to be a poem under the gargoyles, but that it was covered over?”
>
“Oh, yes,” Bess said. “It annoyed me to no end, because it was such nonsense. I mean, really. If you’re going to carve a poem into stone, at least make it a good poem.”
“Do you remember it?” I asked.
She furrowed her brow. “Not word for word, no. Just the bit that annoyed me… It was something about how the gargoyles were invisible. I just didn’t like that, because they’re obviously not invisible. Everyone can see them! So why put it in a verse?” She shook her head and made a tsk tsk sound.
“Anyway, at least it’s covered over now, and I don't have to see it and fret over it,” she said with a laugh. “I do hope you can find Polly the Penguin. Good luck, girls!”
“Thanks!” Penny said as the door closed.
I looked over at my friend.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“Lunch break?” Penny asked.
I laughed. “No… that the gargoyles might be magical.”
Penny nodded. “Yep, that thought crossed my mind when she mentioned the poem. Maybe Jim can tell us some more. Ready Freddy?”
“Ready,” I said.
With that, we headed upstairs toward Jim’s apartment.
3
“We come bearing gifts!” Penny said as soon as Jim opened the door. She held out the plate of cookies.
Jim smiled and opened the door wider. “Penny! Marley! To what do I owe the honor?” He looked down at the cookies. “You didn't have to bake for me… Come in, come in!”
“We actually didn’t,” Penny admitted, as we stepped inside Jim’s place. “Bess made these for you and asked us to bring them up.”
In the apartment, Christmas music was playing. There was a half-decorated tree positioned in Jim’s sitting area, right next to the window that looked out on Main Street, plus an assortment of bins out on the couch and chair. On the coffee table, I saw several tangled balls of little LED lights on dark green wires.
The whole room smelled like evergreen, in that way that often happens when rustling around with a freshly cut tree.
“Does my tree look crooked to you?” Jim asked me, as he caught sight of me assessing it.
“It might be leaning to the right just slightly,” I said.
“Darn it,” he said. “I thought so. I’ve been having a heck of a time getting it straight. My daughter and grandkids are coming over for dinner tonight, and we always take a photo in front of the tree, so I’d like it to look good.” He walked over to it and reached for the top. “Ow! Whew, these branches are prickly. Let me just…” He pushed on the top of the tree, and the whole trunk wiggled in its stand. “There we go… How’s that looking? Better?”
“Now it’s leaning to the left,” Penny said. She took off her hat and gloves, as though she was settling in for an afternoon of tree-straightening. Then she knelt down by the base of the trunk, reached in amidst the branches, and pushed to the right. She looked at me. “How about that?”
I stepped back to get a better view. “Perfect,” I said, giving Jim and Penny a thumbs up.
They both stepped back, and the tree immediately settled back to where it had originally been -- which was at an angle.
“Drat,” Jim said. “Maybe I need to attach a wire from the top of the tree to the wall, to keep it in position. What do you ladies think?”
He looked at us like we might be experts at this sort of thing. We weren’t.
I shrugged. “Sure,” I said. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“Why not?” Penny seconded.
As Jim walked over toward the apartment’s little kitchen, apparently on the search for wire, he spoke. “I’m guessing you didn’t stop by here just to help me get the tree perpendicular to the floor and ceiling in time for dinner… although I was wishing for help, and I supposed this could be some kind of Christmas miracle.” He looked back to the living room. Penny was busy staring at the tree through a square that she made with her hands, so I was the only one to catch the wink that he tossed out.
I grinned. “We do like to be helpful,” I said, “but no, we’re not here because of your wish for help.” Not that we know of, I thought. But for all I knew, that’s the way the universe really worked. Life was full of mysteries, as far as I was concerned. “We’re here because a friend of ours asked us to investigate a crime of sorts.”
It felt strange to call the missing box of holiday decorations a crime, but in a way, it really was. Those decorations belonged to the Nugget Bank, and someone had stolen them.
“A kidnapping, actually,” Penny said. She stopped making the little square with her hands and looked over at Jim with a serious “I-mean-business” expression.
Jim gave up his search for wire abruptly and raised his brows. “A kidnapping? You don’t say!”
Penny nodded. “Oh yes. It’s true. Polly the Penguin was kidnapped on Christmas Eve Eve Eve.”
“The precious penguin from the bank’s holiday display?” Jim said, with as much shock and distress as though he and Penny were discussing the abduction of a real person in town. “My granddaughter adores that penguin! We were planning to see it on display tomorrow night and take photographs near it. She loves his ice skates.”
“Her ice skates,” Penny corrected.
“How did this happen?” Jim asked, with so much concern evident in his tone.
It occurred to me that he really was upset about the missing penguin. Before retiring, Jim worked in the Hillcrest Post Office. He acted like the whole office was his personal home, and each person who entered was a valued guest. He gave biscuits to dogs, lollipops to kids, and smiles and kind words to all the rushed and frazzled adults who approached his counter. He treated everyone in town like family, and in a way, he was like a grandfather to the whole town. He took the news of Polly’s disappearance personally, because it was personal; the crime had occurred in his town.
Before Penny or I could answer his question, he spoke again. “I’m going to put on the kettle for tea, and then I want to hear everything, right from the beginning. I don’t like the idea of a crime here in Hillcrest, three days before Christmas!”
He pulled out a spool of wire from the drawer he’d been searching in and placed it on the countertop. Then he moved over to the stove and went about readying the kettle.
While the water boiled, Penny and I filled Jim in on the crime with as much detail as we could. We included everything: the falling snow, the width of the box, the number of minutes that Monique had her back turned, and even the fact that there had been a snowplow driving in the distance.
Penny wrapped up the tale with, “And Monique didn’t see or hear anyone.”
“But we’re hoping maybe you witnessed something,” I said hopefully. “Seeing as your windows look down on the street, and you have a good view of the bank across the way.”
“I do,” Jim agreed, as he set cups of steaming peppermint tea before Penny and me. “And I wish I could help -- I really do. But I don’t think I looked out at the street much yesterday evening, and I don’t recall seeing Monique leave the bank. I’d remember if I saw a box being carted off.” He lifted the plastic wrap off of the plate of cookies that Bess had sent up.
I sipped the hot tea. The strong mint flavor was delicious.
Jim went on. “Hopefully someone else saw what happened. I’m sorry I can’t be more of a help. Poor Monique.” He shook his head and reached for a cookie that was shaped like a candy cane, complete with red and white icing stripes.
“Jim,” Penny said thoughtfully, as she bit into a cookie of her own. “Do the gargoyles on the bank strike you as odd at all? Do you ever get the feeling that they’re watching you?”
Jim raised his brow. “Watching me? What, do you think I’m losing my marbles in my old age? Those gargoyles are made of stone. Of course they’re not watching me.”
I chimed in. “Bess was telling us that there used to be a poem carved into the stone base beneath each sculpture, but that the words were covered over years ago.”
“Poem, hm?” Jim sipped his tea, thinking. Then he said. “I don’t remember a poem. But I do remember when they were doing construction up there. It must have been about three years ago or there-abouts.”
I reached for a cookie. “What kind of construction?” I asked.
“The cornice was old and cracked. The bank hired a few guys from Steve’s Stucco to do repairs. They set up scaffolding, and were up there working for almost a week, applying stucco to all the cracks. Maybe they covered up the poem that Bess was talking about, too.”
I remembered Steve’s Stucco. “Steve moved out of town last year, didn’t he?” I asked.
Jim nodded. “That’s right. He and the wife bought a sailboat, and they planned on living on it and touring the Caribbean. They were tired of the weather here in the mountains, I suppose.”
He looked toward the window. Fat snowflakes were swirling down from above. “I can’t imagine a winter without snow,” he said. “Did you know we’re supposed to get another six inches tonight? Looks like it’s started coming down already.”
I was too troubled over the fact that Steve was off the grid to answer. If we couldn’t figure out what that poem used to say, we might not be able to follow our hunch about the gargoyles through.
I looked over at Penny, and saw that she was feeling just as troubled as I was. “A dead end,” she said to me. Then she narrowed her eyes slightly. “Or is it…?”
She turned to our host, who was polishing off the last of his candy cane sugar cookie. “Jim, did you say you take a family photo in front of your Christmas tree every year?”
I instantly caught on to my friend’s reasoning. If Jim and his family took a picture each year in front of the windows, maybe they’d caught the gargoyles in the frame!
“Every year!” Jim said with a nod. “Why?”
I spoke up. “Maybe the gargoyles are visible in one of the older photos, and we’ll be able to see the poem that used to be inscribed at their base.”
Jim’s eyes lit up. “You girls are brilliant!” he said. “I’ll go get the albums.”