One Corpse Open Slay

by Dakota Cassidy

  It felt familiar but exciting, and I liked it more every day.

  He brought two glasses of one of our favorite white wines, handing me one before leaning down to drop a kiss on my lips. “Where’s Barbra and Atti?” he asked before sitting in the puffy chair next to me, straightening his long legs to warm his feet by the fire. “I brought her a can of salmon and Phil some soft liver treats. Still stumped on what to bring a hummingbird who shuns me like I have the bubonic plague.”

  Laughing, I shook my head at how sweet he was. Hobbs was trying pretty hard to make nice with Atti, and if I could tell him, I’d explain that Atti was nothing more than a very-difficult-to-impress surrogate father with a British accent and it would just take time. But I wasn’t ready to do that quite yet.

  “Aw, c’mon,” I chastised, tucking my feet underneath me. “He’s warming up to you. The other night he almost sat on your shoulder.”

  Hobbs scoffed at that. “No, he fell over because he was falling asleep. Where’s the new addition to the fam? At least she likes me.”

  “She’s chasing Phil somewhere around here. Phil, who, I’ve found, does have a heart.”

  Hobbs cocked his head. “Are you sure he’s not just buttering her up to catch her off guard and eat her soul?”

  You know, I’d seen a soul go that way a time or two. But I couldn’t tell him that. Instead, I laughed. “I can’t believe it either, but he really likes her. Now,” I said, taking a sip of my wine. “Who goes first, you or me, Cagney?”

  “You go first. I’m still digesting what Blanche told me about Yule Wolfram.”

  Wincing, I wondered, “Is it bad?”

  Hobbs cracked his knuckles. “Well, it’s not good in terms of his work life and his championships. Which is why I looked up some of his work and the pieces he won with. But you go first.”

  I told him everything Twyla told me, ending with the phone call she’d overheard then wondered out loud who could have been on the other end of the line.

  “Who could he have been talking to like that? I mean, it feels like this guy’s littered the highway of romance with bodies, but it’s the bit about how the caller isn’t going to ruin his life and he would deny everything, that’s troubling me most.”

  “So maybe we can ask Stiles about his phone records? It would be easy enough to identify who the caller was.”

  “True, but I’m not sure he’d tell me. And don’t think I haven’t considered telling him I had a vision of Yule on the phone, because I have, but that’s cheating and I don’t cheat. So who do you think it could be? Maybe something you learned from Blanche Ritter can tell us.”

  Hobbs set down his glass of wine and pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. “I don’t know if what she told me will do that, but I can tell you, since we looked earlier, Wolfram’s Facebook page has filled up with condolences…and also some not-so-nice words for the dead playboy.”

  I took the phone from him and scrolled all the posts of sympathy before I got to a couple that weren’t so kind. One actually said he deserved it.

  The post was from a woman named Alyssa Milo. But she lived in France, and had posted a selfie in some café by the Seine in Paris, timestamped today, so unless she was lurking around Marshmallow Hollow via some serious time travel, we could rule her out.

  Though, I did note she was an ice sculptor, too. I guess it couldn’t hurt to send her a private message and dig around to see why there were hard feelings.

  “So we’ve established everybody hates Yule Wolfram. Noted. That still leaves us with only two suspects. Twyla and Blanche. And Twyla said she gave her alibi to the police. She was at Gracie’s. Gracie invited her to sleep over at her place after her fight with Yule. Gracie confirmed that in a text to me.”

  I pulled out my phone and showed him the text I’d gotten from Gracie, who was quite upset to find her mother had been brawling with Blanche Ritter in the middle of the festival.

  “But wouldn’t Gracie lie for her mother?” Hobbs wondered. “She’s pretty protective of her, and she certainly has motive. He treated her mother worse than a dog with fleas.”

  “But Gracie’s boyfriend might not, and he confirms Twyla was with them last night.” I tapped the part of the message that said as much.

  “Same for Blanche Ritter. She was at the Marshmallow Hollow Inn, sharing a room with Connie Ingram, another judge for the beginner-level competition. I made a note to verify with her. Now, on to Blanche. She did say something I found very interesting.”

  Sighing, I mentally crossed my fingers. “We could really use some interesting, because right now it’s looking pretty grim in the way of suspects. We had a ton of them, but they all appear to have alibis.”

  Hobbs gave me one of his long, intense looks—the one he got when he thought we could be onto something valuable. “Blanche said that Yule wasn’t as good a sculptor as he claimed he was—or as good as his championships claimed.”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “I hate to say it, but him being such a cruel man to almost everyone around him, makes a little sense. Overcompensation and all.”

  “Blanche implied that he’d catted his way through all those competitions in the nineties. But that’s not the worst of it. He was involved in some scandal only last year in Norway, where he was accused of accepting a bribe to vote for some guy from Russia. Someone outed the Russian competitor’s agent.”

  I snickered my disbelief. “Ice sculptors have agents? Seriously? I learn something new every day. I thought they ended up with jobs on cruise ships and catering companies.”

  Hobbs shook his dark head. “Uh-uh. It’s pretty serious—in some circles, it’s considered a real sport. Anyway, the undisclosed witness apparently had a video of Yule taking the money, all cash, to vote for this Russian guy named Timor Volkov. Whoever the witness was captured a vid of it with audio.”

  My brow furrowed. “So why is he still so revered? I mean, to hear some of the people talk in the class I took, you’d think he was an ice sculpting god. When our instructor Darien heard he was going to be judging, I thought he’d have a Christmas tree farm right there in front of us, he was so excited.”

  Hobbs winked. “The video was never given to the commission that sponsored the contest. So it could never be proven.”

  “Huh? Why didn’t the witness send it?”

  “Because someone stole his laptop and his thumb drive before he could. But not before he’d told everyone who would listen he had proof Yule was a fraud.”

  “Who was the person who took the video?”

  “Blanche’s ex-husband—Renaud Ritter.”

  I gasped. “I notice you said ex, but worse, how could she still fool around with a guy she knew was dirty?”

  “They divorced right after the competition, but according to Blanche, her ex-husband was jealous of Yule. Blanche and Yule had shared a flirtation or two over the years, which Renaud wasn’t so fond of. She thought Renaud was lying at the time, making it all up—to get back at Yule for her obvious attraction to him.”

  “So she labeled him jealous and dismissed it. What makes her think those rumors are true now?”

  “I don’t think she does. She’s sticking to the story that Twyla killed him in a jealous rage, and even if Yule was a—her words—‘flirty-flirt,’ she still doesn’t believe he liked Twyla better than her.”

  “And the rumor about him taking bribes? She doesn’t believe that either?” I almost couldn’t believe after all Blanche had probably seen over the years, that she’d ever want to become even remotely involved with a man like Yule Wolfram.

  “What have I told you about bad boys, Cowpoke?” he asked with a grin, rolling up the sleeve of his navy cable-knit sweater. “Sometimes, a girl just can’t see reason. And before you say anything, men are the same way—it might take even less on our parts. But I think in the case of Blanche, she doesn’t much care about the fact that Yule might be easily bribed. She cared more about the idea people would think he liked Twyla more than her
.”

  I frowned in disgust. “Yikes. Okay, so we have a couple of people to talk to. Maybe we could find out where Renaud is? Maybe he’s still mad at Yule?”

  “Renaud is dead. Died a couple of months ago of liver cancer.”

  I sighed in aggravation. “Man, we’re really racking up the suspects, aren’t we?”

  “Well, we do have the nurse Stiles talked to, Teresa Kline, and I think we need to talk to the contestants again tomorrow. There was too much commotion tonight. Everyone dispersed when they canceled the judging before I could have a go at ’em. And it was really cold.”

  “Lightweight,” I teased. “Anyway, speaking of the contestants, they looked pretty upset with the cancelation, though I can’t blame them. I mean, keeping those sculptures from melting, especially with the warmer weather yesterday, can’t be easy. I thought Stiles was going to have a chicken when baby Jesus slash Yoda began to melt.”

  “Which accounts for why I thought it was a donut in a manger,” Hobbs explained as though he needed to defend his position.

  I grinned. “No. That’s not why, but I’ll use any excuse to pacify him. Anyway, now that we’re back down in the single digits tonight and due for a really bad snowstorm, that ought to help them.”

  Hobbs laughed. “When isn’t Marshmallow Hollow in for a bad snowstorm?”

  I pointed a finger at him. ”You haven’t seen bad yet, buddy. What you’ve seen so far has been what we like to call a flurry. Wait until it dumps three feet on you and we’re out there shoveling for our lives. Then we’ll talk.”

  “And still nothing on who might have trashed your sculpture?”

  “I forgot all about that. You know, if it wasn’t such a crappy thing to do—if it was intentional, that is—I’d buy whoever did it dinner. It saved me the ultimate in humiliation.”

  He grinned that handsome smile that made my heart turn over in my chest. “So where do we go from here?”

  “There’s nowhere to go at this point. We can surf profiles on Facebook and Twitter. But I don’t know if we’re going to learn anything that we didn’t find out earlier today. Everyone’s either dead, in France or Russia, or has an alibi. And we don’t have much of a motive other than lust, and the people who were lusting for that icky Yule Wolfram all have alibis. We need to talk to actual people.”

  We sat silent for a moment before I remembered something. “Didn’t you say you dug up something on Google when I came by for the allspice today?”

  He snapped his fingers. “Shoot, I forgot all about that!” Pulling his phone from his pocket, he scrolled and tapped on the screen. “Look at this. Wolfram was sued for paternity by one Lisette Demille, in 1992. It’s an obscure article, but it says—and this is no surprise—an ice sculptor from Sweden tried to sue him for paternity, but she miscarried.”

  “Shut the front door. Has there been a single pie his finger hasn’t been in, for gracious sakes?”

  Hobbs clucked his tongue. “I’m starting to think he spent more time cattin’ around than he did sculpting anything, but the bad news is, Lisette also died. Though, it might not hurt to get in touch with her family. Maybe someone’s still mad.”

  I was skeptical. “And came here all the way from Sweden and waited all this time to whack him? I dunno, Hobbs. The only thing I know for sure is, Yule Wolfram was a dirty dog and he left a trail of women in his wake. I want to strangle him, and I didn’t even date him.”

  Hobbs typed that into his phone. “So, we’ll put her family on our list of suspects to call. I don’t know what time it is in Sweden, but I think it’s probably pretty late.”

  I sighed. “So then, now what?”

  “Movie?”

  I gave him a skeptical look as Phil and Barbra came tearing around the corner, little Babs in the lead, her tiny paws scraping the hardwood floor. “What did you have in mind, Texas? The last time you picked, I ended up considering scooping my eyeballs out with the melon baller,” I reminded him with a chuckle.

  “I don’t understand what’s not to like about Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? It’s a great movie.”

  “I said Christmas movie, not Christmas catastrophe.”

  Hobbs rose from his chair and held out his hand to me with a snicker. “It was a Christmas movie. How can you claim it’s not a Christmas movie when Santa fights to give little Martian kids Christmas gifts? It’s a cult classic.”

  I put my hand in his and stood up. “I think that cinched it for me. No way do I want to join that cult.”

  Hobbs barked a laugh in my ear, husky and deep. “Fine-fine-fiiine. It’s your pick this time. Popcorn?”

  “Is there any other way to watch Love, Actually?” I thought for sure that would make him groan, but instead he smiled.

  “Good pick. I’ll make the popcorn, you get the kids settled on the couch.”

  And so it went. The way we’d spent most of our days recently—murders aside. Sharing meals, walks, a horse-drawn sleigh ride by moonlight, a movie with Stephen King piled on the couch next to us, a shared blanket over our laps by a warm fire, the glow of a Christmas tree, and Atti on my shoulder.

  That comfortable, familiar feeling tingled in my belly again and resonated deep in my heart.

  And I liked it.

  CHAPTER 11

  “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.”

  A fter Hobbs left, I decided to take the trash out, my mind going over and over the events of the day with not a single connecting dot other than the tired refrain of Yule Wolfram’s playboy ways.

  Yes, Yule was a jerk, but who’d want to kill him over that? There were plenty of playboys who lived long, healthy lives. Yet, the only motive to kill him I could find were his playboy ways and the fact that he was an elitist jerk.

  And every single person we could call a suspect was either a scorned lover or someone he’d been a jerk to.

  As I stepped out of my garage, the bag of trash slung over my arm, I noted Hobbs was back to burning the midnight oil. I wondered what he did so late at night.

  Lost in my thoughts, I rounded the house and realized I’d forgotten to switch the light on, and it was really dark. All of the timers for the Christmas lights had turned off, making it hard to see. But I knew this house like the back of my hand.

  And everything was fine until I heard a slight rustle.

  Instantly, I froze in place and gulped. There was a murderer loose somewhere, after all. Maybe they’d decided to stay awhile—enjoy the beauty Marshmallow Hollow had to offer at Christmas while we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to figure out who they were.

  Gulping, I squinted into the dark, cursing myself for not bringing my phone and its handy flashlight app.

  “Who’s there?” I whispered into the dark.

  Because all killers always answer, “The killer.”

  I listened, but only the sound of the ocean, roaring and crashing on the rocks, filled my ears.

  What if it was Yule’s killer? What if he was angry because we’d been asking so many questions and he’d come to take care of business?

  What if you’ve watched too many horror movies, Hal?

  My heart sped up in my chest and just as I was about to turn around and head back into the house as fast as my legs would take me, I heard the rustle again.

  Pulse pounding in my ears, I peered into the velvety dark, moonless night, trying to retrace my steps I’d suddenly forgotten in my panic, when someone nudged me from behind.

  I fought a scream as I fell forward in the deep snow, scrambling to stand up as I heard someone laugh.

  “Oh, you should see your face, Susie-Q! Ahahahaha!”

  “Nana!” I hissed, jumping up and brushing the snow from my clothes. “What are you doing out here? You scared me half to death! I thought you might be the killer!”

  Nana nudged me with her muzzle. “Do I look like a killer to you?”

  Sighing a ragged sigh, I cupped her face. “What are you doing out of the barn? You know better than to roam.
What if Hobbs sees you?”

  She snuffed at me. “So he sees me. I was just out takin’ a walk. No harm, no foul.”

  My reincarnated grandmother was going to be the death of me. I grabbed her by the reins of her harness and began to lead her back to the barn. “Nana? You can’t take moonlit walks whenever you want. I’m begging you to help a witch out.”

  “Susie-Q?”

  I stopped walking and looked at the outline of her face, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Yeah?”

  “You shoulda seen your face!”

  And then she laughed some more.

  Ha-ha.

  “So nothing from Lisette’s family and the paternity test that never was?” I asked Hobbs as I huffed and puffed.

  “They were really reluctant to talk to me, but they did tell me it was a one-night stand and she miscarried three months into the pregnancy. They also told me it was an awful time in her life and after that, she was never the same.”

  I didn’t hate many things, but I sure was on the road to hating Yule Wolfram. “Was anyone ever the same after that jerk walked into their lives? He makes me think homicidal thoughts, Hobbs.”

  Hobbs grimaced at me over his shoulder. “Me, too,” he said on a gasp for air. “When you said snow, I didn’t know you meant this kind of snow, Cowpoke.”

  I trudged up the hill behind him to the storage shed Marshmallow Hollow used for safety cones and the like, the snow now almost thigh deep. We were officially in the midst of our first serious snowstorm, fat flakes fell all around us and it was freezing. But I loved it regardless of the hassle it was now creating.

  “I told you, and whose idea was it to climb this hill, Hobbs?” I puffed and heaved my way behind him.

  He huffed a laugh, a bit breathless from our efforts. “We should have looked at where that sled was parked yesterday, Hal. What were we thinking?”

  “We were thinking this hill is much more fun to sled down than climb up? And no way were the police going to let us up here anyway.”

  He stopped at the top of the hill by the side of the shed where Yule Wolfram had sat in a sled, hidden from the world, and turned to wait for me, his cheeks bright red, his knit cap covered in falling snow.