Phew. Hot cowboy could be really hot. And hot cowboy had also called me his girlfriend…
I had to fight the impulse to fan myself, even if his take was a little on the he-man side of things. I think he knew I could take care of myself.
“Dad!” Jolie complained, yanking on her father’s down jacket. “Please stop this right now. Hal’s been nothing but nice. She owns the factory here in town and everybody loves her. Stop being such a mean bully. You’re embarrassing me.” Turning her back on her father, she looked to me. “I’m sorry he’s being such a macho man. He was all sorts of freaked out when he heard Yule was murdered. Got on a plane and got here faster than you can say lickety-split because he was afraid the murderer might kill me and Mom, too. He’s protective, but he’s not usually so unpleasant.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s fine, Jolie. I grew up with a mother who was a lot like your father. A real pit bull if there ever was one.” I put an arm around her shoulder and turned her toward me. “So listen, is there anything you can tell me about Yule you think I should know? Something he might have said, done? Something you overheard?”
Jerry spoke then, his voice quiet but steady. “He wasn’t a nice guy. But we’ve always known that about him. Jolie grew up hearing stories about him from friends of Tana’s. He was infamous for cheating, bribing judges and being, in general, a flaming bag of dog crap.”
“Jerry!” Jolie scolded. “The man is dead, for heaven’s sake!”
Jerry nodded his gorgeous head of hair, his face a tight mask of anger. “And what your dad said about him was right. He did nothing but beat down every single contestant in the expert-level competition, and even some in the mid and beginner ranges, us included. And all this from a guy who cheated his way to the top on the backs of people like Tana, who always had better vision and creativity than he ever will.”
Turning back around, I looked to Tana. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did he manage to steal fifty thousand dollars from you?” I asked her. He’d certainly been party to similar antics, but to actually steal the competition from someone? That kind of money was no joke.
Tana sighed raggedly, her slender shoulders falling to a slump. ”I don’t know if disqualified is the right word. I think he tampered with my sculptures by weakening one of the supports. I can’t prove it, mind you, and if you know anything about ice carving, you’ll know the designs can be very fragile. Yet, there was a janitor who saw Yule leaving the auditorium that night after we’d all left. Of course, Yule denied it, and there was no way to prove he’d been in the auditorium. Back in the mid-nineties we didn’t have camera phones and the like to monitor every move. He won, naturally, and after hearing that, I hung up my tools and called it day. That was the last time I saw him.”
Wow. Yule was right up there for Dirtball of the Year, and sabotage seemed to be the name of Yule’s game. Surprise. “Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill him?”
Tana twisted a length of her hair around her index finger, her red lips thinning. “I can think of plenty of people who might entertain the thought. Myself included. He really ruined me and tried to ruin my career, but actually kill him? Someone who’d actually do it? I don’t think so.”
Her words alarmed me. “Ruined you?” That was a heavy statement.
But Tana shrugged it off, her eyes falling to the ground. “I just mean my confidence. He made me a paranoid mess after that. I felt like I needed twenty-four-hour security to watch my designs any time I participated in a competition.”
Hobbs, who’d been very quiet since subtly warning Gerald Cross to back off, asked, “What about the guy Yule supposedly accepted a bribe from when he became a judge. Timor Volkov’s agent?”
Tana nodded curtly. “I’m sure Blanche Ritter told you nothing ever came of that, but we all knew it was true. I’d even lay bets Yule was the one who’d stolen Renaud’s laptop and thumb drive. Probably while he was fooling around with Blanche.”
“So she was cheating on Renaud with Yule?” We didn’t know that.
Tana clucked her tongue. “Well, like everything with that worm, I can’t prove it, but that was the rumor going around. It’s Yule’s MO and always has been. My skin crawls just thinking about him.”
“Mom?” Jolie interrupted. “I’ve got to go to the lady’s room. You guys gonna be okay here?” Jolie looked to her father who somberly nodded.
“We’re fine, sweetheart,” Gerald assured her, kissing her on the cheek.
She turned to me then, her wide eyes smiling. “You need anything else, Hal?”
“Just one more thing. Can you think of anyone who argued with Yule during the competition? Anyone he had a scuffle with?”
“He was pretty crappy to that guy over there.” Jerry pointed to a smallish bald man in a short-waisted, hunter-green coat, busily concentrating on his sculpting.
“If you’re not the police, why are you so interested?” Gerald asked.
I didn’t bother to lie—well, not much anyway. I wasn’t going to tell anyone about Barbra. First, I’d probably sound like I was off my rocker. Second, I wasn’t going to let anyone know I had her.
“Because I’m nosy,” I replied casually, giving him an impish grin.
“Hal helped solve a case just a week ago about some missing girls, Dad. Everyone was talking about it yesterday. Maybe she can help. I mean, if you could help find a murderer, wouldn’t you?” Jolie asked.
Nodding, I brushed off Jolie’s words. “We’ve taken up enough of your time, but if you hear anything or remember something, would you give me a call?”
“You bet. You sure you got everything?” Jolie asked again, handing her phone to me so I could type in my number.
“I think we’re good. Thanks for the help, Jolie I hope you’ll get the chance to compete and show off your skills somewhere soon, because you guys are really great.”
She patted my shoulder and took Jerry’s hand, heading off toward the bathrooms.
Hobbs clearly wasn’t done because he said, “So let’s go back to the day of Yule’s murder. Tana, you arrived after it happened, right?”
Tana eyed Hobbs, and this time, it wasn’t as friendly. “Yes, handsome. I arrived late in the afternoon, after he’d died.”
Oh, dead ends—you are aplenty, aren’t you? Shoot. We were still nowhere.
Either way, I guess the police would question her. Certainly, Stiles knew of her existence, and would try to verify her arrival.
And sure, she could have arrived before telling anyone and killed Yule, but until there was proof otherwise, we were still eating a big fat nothing cake, and the vibe between us had turned semi-hostile.
“Are we done here?” Gerald asked in a tone that said he’d had enough.
I guess we were. Besides, I wanted to talk to the guy in the hunter-green coat Jerry had pointed out.
“Thanks for your time, guys and good luck with the judging, Miss West.”
Signaling Hobbs with my eyes, I tilted my head in the direction of the guy in the green jacket. But I felt Gerald’s eyes boring into my back, following me over to the table the entire way.
He was definitely someone whose alibi I needed to check.
Hobbs leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You know what this round of questions represents in song, don’t ya?”
“‘The Same Old Song,’ by The Four Tops,” I whispered back.
If that wasn’t the truth, nothing was.
After coming up dry yet again with the man in the green jacket Jerry suggested had an argument with Yule, whose name was Heinrich Leichter, we strolled out of the tent hand in hand to head back to the car and decided to take the long route back to the house. The drive was prettier, according to Hobbs.
“Jumpin’ jack rabbits, Yule was some kinda jackhole, huh?” Hobbs commented as we rounded a bend in the road.
With the ocean to the left of us, and the snow-covered trees to the right, I looked at Hobbs and nodded. “I’m here to tell you, I don’t know if we got luck
y or he just didn’t think we were worth his time, but if he said something like that to me about our nativity scene, even as horrible as it was, I’d have punched him square in the face,” I admitted.
“And I wouldn’t blame you. What a crummy thing to say to someone and disguise it as a critique.”
Apparently, Yule had told Heinrich his cottage in the woods looked like a nightmare in the forest.
“But Heinrich didn’t let him get away with it, did he?” I reminded him on an evil cackle, hunkering down in the seat.
“Well, if telling a guy he should be more concerned with the state of his zipper and chasing after girls young enough to be his children instead of wandering around like he was still even relevant in the ice sculpting world is not letting him get away with anything? I think Heinrich wins that round.”
I laughed out loud just moments before I noticed Hobbs look into the rearview mirror, his face concerned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, a chill running along my spine.
“This guy behind us feels awful close is all. Could just be me being paranoid.”
I pulled the visor down and pretended to look in the mirror to check my lipstick, and indeed, the truck, a monster of a blue truck, was very close, but I couldn’t identify either the vehicle or the driver.
Hobbs tapped the gas, picking up a bit of speed, but the truck behind us did as well, and then he began honking the horn—really laying on it until the sound screamed in my ears.
I gulped when Hobbs said, “Hang on,” cool as a cucumber right before he swerved onto the first road we came upon. I clung to the handle above the window, my hands going clammy, my mouth dry.
But as the truck followed us, still frantically honking the horn, my fears began to get the best of me.
I looked to Hobbs wordlessly, sure my eyes were the size of saucers and wondered if he thought we were being stalked by a killer, too.
And then the driver swerved to the left of us—a dangerous thing to do on a road so narrow and icy—even in a big truck.
My pulse slammed in my ears, and terrified, I began trying to pull my phone from my snow pants to call 9-1-1, but my fingers were suddenly like jelly and I couldn’t pull it out of my zippered pocket as my mind raced.
What if this was someone who was angry about us fishing around at the ice carnival today? What if it was the killer and he was going to run us off the road to take us out because we didn’t know how to keep ourselves out of everyone’s business?
As the enormous truck pulled up beside us and my heart crashed in horror in my chest, from the corner of my eye, I saw the passenger window roll down and a hand wave at us.
“Hey!” the driver bellowed.
“Isn’t that Buddy Wilson?” Hobbs yelled over the roar of the truck’s engine.
It was indeed, Buddy. Buddy Wilson had always been a bully, but a killer?
“Hey!” he mouthed, motioning for Hobbs to roll down his window.
Hobbs accommodated him, pressing the button for the automatic window. “What the flip are you doin’, man?” he hollered into the freezing cold wind blowing into the window.
“Your taillight’s broken!” Buddy hollered back, hitching his thumb over his shoulder before he rolled up the window and took off, crossing over in front of Hobbs and zooming out of sight.
When I was able to speak without bursting into tears of laughter and relief, I said, “I think this was a sign.”
Hobbs blew out a breath, running his hand over his beard. “Of?”
“Maybe we need to lay off all the true crime and stick to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians?”
Hobbs sputtered a cackle, igniting my own laughter until we were laughing so hard at our paranoia, tears fell down our faces and our stomachs hurt.
Hobbs dropped me at home, both of us still a little shaken, but still self-consciously laughing at the thought that Buddy Wilson was the killer. He’d gone off to take care of some things at the cottage, and I’d decided to visit with my grandmother in the barn.
I ran a hand over my nana’s muzzle. “Nana? Are you awake? Do you want to take a walk?”
She rose on all fours and snorted as she stretched. “No. I want a candy cane. And no walk in this weather. It’s snowing buckets.”
I looked outside at the snow that hadn’t let up since early this morning. I loved it, but it could make for a real hassle getting anywhere. “Are you going to pick a fight with me today, when I’m at my lowest of lows?”
She reared upward and stood on all fours. “Whassamatter, Susie-Q? Bad day at the detective agency of Hal and Hobbs?”
I laughed out loud, a puff of condensation shooting from my mouth. “I guess you could say that. So first, as we drove back from the ice festival today, we thought we were being chased by a killer, only to find it was Buddy Wilson, trying to tell us Hobbs had a broken taillight.”
My nana chuckled. “Seeing shadows where there are none, huh, kiddo?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face with a ragged sigh. “If you only knew. I’m going in circles here, and really, what business do I have poking my nose into this investigation anyway? It’s not like I’m an officer of the law. I’m just nosy.”
“But, Poppet, might I remind you, you were responsible for solving the mysteries of not one, but two murders in what has become the hellmouth of Maine,” Atti said, landing on my nana Karen’s back. “You’re not just nosy. You care about your community.”
Scratching my head, I sighed. “But I had a vested interest in the two cases before this one. Uncle Monty and his life comes to mind. This one? Maybe I should just let the police do their jobs. I can hide Babs for as long as it takes for them to figure this out.”
“But what about the critter?” Nana reminded me. “Isn’t her little life at stake?”
My heart tightened in my chest. “Not if no one knows I have her…”
“But I do know you have her,” I heard from behind me, the words making me stiffen.
Folding my hands in front of me, I turned to face Stiles, covered with a light dusting of snow. “Afternoon, BFF. How goes policing?”
Atti flew to hover in Stiles’s face. “Indeed, young police officer, how goes the fight for justice?”
He grinned at us and sauntered into the barn, handsome and tall in his street clothes. “Not great.” He leaned over to drop a kiss on Nana’s nose. “Hey, Nana Karen. Long time no see.”
“There’s my handsome boy!” she cooed. “How the heck are you and why don’t I see you more?” She nuzzled his hand.
He smiled at her. “It’s been a hectic time, Nana, but I sure miss our talks.”
Stiles and my nana always had great affection for each other—ever since she made him a peanut butter and fluff sandwich when we were in the sixth grade. It had been a grand friendship ever since.
“So what’s goin’ on with you, boy? Why so glum, chum?”
“My investigation is going nowhere fast.” Then he looked to me, his eyes hopeful. “So tell me what you got.”
I gave him a careful glance in return. “I got nuthin’.”
And Goddess knew that was the case. We’d gotten absolutely nowhere after talking to Tana and company. We questioned the man in the green jacket, whose name was Heinrich Leichter, and he, like everyone else, said the same thing about Yule. He was a jerk.
“You’ve got a kitten.”
I looked at the wall of the barn at Stiles’s back and avoided his intense gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He rasped a long sigh. “It doesn’t matter. No one’s asked about it much, to be honest. Bitty gave us a statement and offered to let us see the body of the dead cat to take samples if we wanted. She said she’d hold off on cremation, but I can’t see the cat being the problem if it was a stray. It probably hopped up into the sled is all.”
My glance was cautious. “And what did Stiles Fitzsimmons’s superiors have to say to that?”
“They said they’d get to it and that it wasn’t a prior
ity.”
I tentatively waded into the pool of Stiles’s investigation. “So that means this ghost kitten you keep accusing me of having is in the clear?”
“Not necessarily. But maybe. Let’s just say, it’s the least important clue as clues go, at this point.”
Which meant maybe I could ease up on investigating. Yet, the thought of giving up didn’t sit well with me and renewed my sense of loyalty to my Marshmallow Hollow community.
It still meant a murderer was in my beloved town, and if you couldn’t use your magic and whacky visions to do good, what good were you?
Stiles leaned back against Nana’s stall and eyed me. “So I heard you were asking questions at the ice festival. I’m guessing you know about Tana West and Yule’s ice sculpting drama?”
“Yep. Man, he was awful, huh? Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money to steal from someone. But I haven’t found a single person who has anything nice to say about him.”
“Especially Tana’s husband, Gerald,” Stiles reminded me. “He’s one big fella. A big fella whose alibi checks, according to the flight manifest from the airline he flew from Wyoming to get here.”
This was getting to be like Alibis-R-Us.
I agreed. “Big and angry is what Gerald is. Any news on the weapon that was used to kill Wolfram?”
“Nothing. The weapon is a total mystery, too, but we’re waiting on a full report from the coroner in Bangor. Nothing on a witness, either. I figure it was pretty early in the morning, but no one’s come forward, and I feel like we talked to every inhabitant of Marshmallow Hollow today. And still I’ve got nothing, nothing, nothing.”
I patted a bale of hay. “Have a seat at the table. I’ll share my nothing cake with you.”
“No more visions?”
I blew out a breath. “Not a one. Though, I heard Yule had a heated phone conversation with someone. Did you look at his phone records? Because Twyla told me he was on the phone with someone she thought might be another woman the night before he died.”
Stiles jabbed a finger in the air. “I talked to her, and while the phone call might not mean anything at all, we checked his phone records, and I suspect that’s the number we logged under a burner phone. That means there’s no way to trace it.”
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