by Kathi Daley
“Go. Network. Have fun with Tanner.”
Once Lacy arrived, the two of us headed to the community center. Although the wine tasting would be held a week before Thanksgiving, we knew the Santa House would open the day after Thanksgiving, so we would decorate with a Christmas rather than a Thanksgiving theme. If the event had been a few weeks earlier, it might have worked to provide a fall display, but with the tight turnaround, Lacy had decided that being efficient was more important than variety. Besides, the green garland, white lights, and red bows would look really nice. Very festive, without being gaudy. Once the wine tasting was over, they’d move the tables and chairs out and move the actual Santa House in. For now, however, the lights, garland, and bows would be perfect.
“Is there going to be a live tree this year?” I asked.
She nodded. “It’s being brought in on Monday. I have a volunteer crew who will decorate it Tuesday, and the Santa House opens Friday.”
“What about the tree in town?”
“I’m not in charge of that, but I think the tree lighting is on December fourth. It’s always a fun affair. The high school choir shows up, and there are usually vendors selling hot cocoa, cookies, roasted chestnuts, and those sorts of things.”
Lacy pulled a huge box from the back of the truck she’d borrowed from her husband, Lonnie.
“Wow. Let me help you with that.”
It took the two of us ten trips to get all the boxes inside. I wondered why Lacy hadn’t rounded up additional volunteers, but she assured me that once we got everything unpacked, putting up the lights, garland, and bows would be a two-person job, and having helpers would just mean there would be people for us to manage.
“Do you have a lot of events planned at the inn this holiday season?” she asked as I began untangling strings of lights.
“A few, but we decided not to go as crazy as we did last year. It seemed that most of the guests liked to do their own thing. The snowman building contest was a hit, so we’ll do that again, and the sleigh rides were so popular that we plan to offer them every Saturday afternoon, weather permitting.”
“The list completion thing Mylie did last year was fun.”
“It was,” I agreed. “I think Jeremy and Mylie are planning something similar for the week before Christmas. We were lucky to have booked several families for the holiday week.”
“That’ll be fun. I felt like the daily activities really kept everyone involved. I know I really enjoyed the handful of events I joined in on, and it seemed like the guests were really into everything as well.”
Last year had been fun. Mylie had found a list written by someone who we believed may have visited the inn in the past, which outlined a series of events the author wanted to participate in. The list contained a variety of tasks such as baking cookies, building a snowman, and taking a sleigh ride. Mylie decided to try to do everything on the list during her stay, and once she got started, other guests, as well as staff and neighbors, joined in.
“Did anyone talk to you about Thanksgiving?” I decided to ask before it slipped my mind.
“I did talk to Georgia about it, and I think your plans will work perfectly for Lonnie and me. Lonnie’s parents went to visit his sister in Topeka, so we only need to worry about my family this year. My mom wants to eat early. Like at one-thirty or two. She offered to keep the kids overnight, so we’ll have lunch with her and dinner with you all. I’m really looking forward to it.”
I smiled. “I’m glad it worked out. I think it will be fun to get everyone together, and it sounds like Georgia is planning a feast that only she can pull together.”
“My mouth is watering already.” She picked up a staple gun and began hanging lights. “I guess I should call her to see if she wants me to bring anything. I spoke to Velma, and she’s planning to bring a couple pies.”
“Oh, good.” I handed Lacy the next string of lights. “I hadn’t heard if she and Royce were coming. I meant to ask her, but I forgot. I’m glad they are.”
“It sounds like the whole gang will be there.” She moved down the row and then started on a different section. “Have you met Nikki’s new boyfriend?”
“No. Have you?”
“No.” She bent over to plug the two strings of lights into each other. “I am curious. It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that she was totally head over heels for Damian, and now only a few weeks after his death, she has a new man in her life she is serious enough about to bring to a family dinner.”
“Well, it isn’t exactly a family dinner. I think Tanner is actually inviting a pretty large group. But I get what you’re saying. I hope she isn’t rebounding and setting herself up for heartbreak.”
“Yeah, me too.” She reached out to grab the box of staples to refill the gun. “I suppose that when you’re Nikki’s age, you tend to go through a lot of guys while looking for Mr. Right. Not that I did. I knew Lonnie was the one for me the minute I met him, but for the majority of twenty-year-olds, I suppose that dating widely is the norm.”
“Yeah. Nikki has a good head on her shoulders. I’m sure she’ll figure it out. Do you need all these lights untangled?”
“Fraid so.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Lacy and I continued to work steadily. By the time it was time to go and pick her older kids up from school, the community center had been transformed into a magical wonderland.
The elementary school Lacy’s triplets attended required parents who were picking up children to arrive ten minutes before the buses. There was an area for the parents to park their cars while they went up to the classroom to check their children out. I was going to wait in the car, but decided to get out and sit on a bench near where the car was parked. It was while I was sitting there that Robby from the pageant wandered by.
“Are you supposed to be out here all by yourself?” I asked.
He sat on the bench next to me. “It’s okay. Most of the parents go inside to get their kids, but my dad won’t go in. He worked it out with the principal so I can come outside and wait here. Do you have kids?”
“No. I’m here with Mrs. Parker. She’s picking up the triplets.”
“Oh, sure. I see her sometimes.”
Robby swung his feet as he waited, kicking the support beneath the bench with each backward movement. I was about to say something when I noticed the strange expression on his face.
“Is something on your mind?” I asked.
He turned his head, wiping his sleeve across his nose before he answered. “Did you find out who killed Mr. Hollander?”
“No, not yet.” I reached down, grabbed one swinging foot, and tied his shoelace. “I guess that must have been scary for you. For all the kids.”
“I guess.”
“I guess maybe everyone has been talking about it,” I fished as I retied his other shoe.
“Yeah.”
“I know that you were in the room right next door with Ricky and the others that night. Did anyone ask you if you saw or heard anything?” I was sure Colt had talked to the boys but decided to ask just in case.
“Police Chief Wilder talked to us. We all told him we didn’t see nothin’.” He began swinging his legs again after I’d finished with his shoes and sat back up. He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “But maybe that wasn’t exactly right.”
“Did you see something?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“You can tell me if you did.”
“Timmy said that if we told what we saw, we’d get into trouble.”
I took Robby’s filthy hand in my own. “You won’t get into trouble. I promise. But if you saw something, anything at all, it’s important that you tell me.”
He hesitated.
“You can trust me, Robby.”
“It was bad for us to watch,” he said.
“Watch what?” Suddenly, I really hoped those four little boys hadn’t witnessed the murder.
“Mr. Hollander. We heard him in the rehearsal ro
om, so we went to see what he was doing.”
“And what was he doing?” I prompted.
He made a face. A face of revulsion. Whatever he’d seen had clearly been unpleasant.
“What did you see, Robby?”
“Mr. Hollander was kissing Evette’s mommy.” He wrinkled his nose. “On the lips. It was so gross.”
Evette’s mommy? Evette’s mommy was a very attractive blond who was married to a local pediatrician. Suddenly, I had to wonder if Evette’s daddy had been at the theater that night. He’d been helping out with the props, although he did keep a sporadic schedule. The needs of his patients had to come first, which is why he’d taken on a backstage role rather than a cast part. Robby’s dad pulled up along the curb right about then, so I thanked him for talking to me and then watched him trot away. Once his father pulled away, I pulled out my phone and called Colt.
Chapter 10
“Doctor Dearborn’s wife was kissing Dashwood Hollander in the rehearsal room while her daughter was down the hallway in the theater?” Lacy asked as we drove toward the inn. All six of her children had been picked up and were in the back of the van, watching cartoons on the vehicle’s entertainment center.
“That’s what Robby said.”
“You don’t think Doctor Dearborn…”
“I don’t know. I sort of doubt it, but I suppose he might have walked in on the pair after the boys returned to the prop room.”
“Wow,” Lacy said. She glanced in the rearview mirror; I imagined making sure the kids weren’t listening in. “My kids see Doctor Dearborn’s partner, Doctor Kim, so I don’t know Doctor Dearborn well, but he doesn’t seem the sort who would kill a person even if that person was kissing his wife.”
“It does seem like a stretch to suspect him, but Colt is going to check it out. I know that Doctor Dearborn has been volunteering to help out with backstage tasks as he has time to contribute, but is Mrs. Dearborn involved in the play in any capacity?”
“No,” Lacy answered. “Paula isn’t a volunteer, but she does bring Evette to rehearsal almost every day, and she usually just waits for her. I’ve noticed her sitting in the theater, but she does leave at times. I’m not sure where she goes. I guess I’ve never stopped to wonder about it, but I imagine she might have been making calls and stretching her legs.”
“If Robby is right, it seems that Paula Dearborn might have been using the rehearsals to get a little something extra on the side from Dashwood Hollander.”
Lacy wrinkled her nose. “That’s just wrong.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It really is. Especially since anyone could walk in on them at any time if they made a habit of getting their jollies while rehearsal was in session.”
“Do you really think there has been something going on this whole time?” Lacy asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I know that Hollander was divorced, so I guess he’s free to kiss whoever he wants, but Paula is a married woman with a child. You’d think she would be more discreet.”
“You’d think, but apparently, discretion wasn’t the main thing on her mind that Monday night.”
Lacy dropped me off at the inn and then continued home. When I’d called Colt earlier, he’d promised to call me later and to come by if he was able to work it out, so I decided to clean up a bit in the event he did show up. As I made my way through the inn to the back door, Georgia stopped me. “How was the decorating party?” she asked.
“It was fine, but the really interesting part occurred after the decorating party.”
She raised a brow. “Do tell.”
I filled her in on my encounter with Robby and the news he’d shared with me.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s just so wrong.”
“I know. The part I’m unclear on is whether Dashwood Hollander and Paula Dearborn had an exclusive thing going on, or if Paula just uses men to entertain herself while she’s waiting for her daughter to participate in the various activities she’s involved with.”
Georgia tossed the dishrag she’d been using to wipe counters into the laundry. “I can’t claim to know Paula well, or really at all, but I had noticed her at several events I’ve attended, so I asked Riva Long about her.” Riva was the president of the local chamber of commerce, where Georgia often volunteered and often attended meetings. “Riva told me that as far as she knows, Paula doesn’t work or volunteer in the community. She does attend various events with her husband, who is apt to volunteer, but Riva wasn’t sure what Paula did with her time other than driving Evette around to her after-school activities and then waiting around for her.”
“Maybe she has an activity she enjoys that can be done from home,” I said. “Painting, sewing, or writing, for example.”
“Maybe.” Georgia shrugged. “I don’t suppose it really matters. Will you be having dinner here this evening?”
“I was going to, but Colt is going to stop by and catch me up on the case, so I think we’ll just eat in the cottage. I am anxious to see how things are going with the sisters, so maybe I’ll come by and chat with them if they will be here for breakfast tomorrow.”
“I’m pretty curious as well. They got in late last night, so we didn’t chat, and they left early this morning. I thought they might be here for breakfast, but they just grabbed coffee and muffins and left.”
“If you get the scoop, you can catch me up later,” I suggested.
Deciding to grab a quick shower to wash away the dust I’d collected from the boxes of decorations, I headed toward the cottage. After deciding on jeans and a forest green sweater, I put together a tray of appetizers Colt and I could nibble on if he showed up before the meal Georgia was preparing was ready to be served. Normally, when I wasn’t planning to eat with the guests, Georgia would make me a plate, and I would pick it up and bring it back to the cottage, but tonight Georgia planned to serve the guests late, so she’d prepared us our own mini-dinner from leftovers she had on hand.
“So fill me in,” I said to Colt once he’d arrived, I’d handed him a beer, and we’d settled in on the sofa. “Was there anything to the make-out session Robby told me about?”
“Yes, and no,” he answered. “I spoke to Paula, who admitted that she’d been flirting with Dashwood.”
“Flirting? It sounded like more than flirting.”
He shrugged. “That’s what she called it. She said the two of them had been flirting ever since rehearsals began, and while she would admit to having met him backstage for a little harmless hanky-panky on occasion, she said nothing serious was going on. She said she’d never slept with the man and swore that she hadn’t killed him. She claimed to be a lover, not a fighter.”
“And what about her poor husband? Did he know what was going on?”
“Paula said no, but she also said that even if he did, he probably wouldn’t care since he was having his own flirtation with one of the nurses who works at the clinic.”
“Sounds like a fun marriage,” I said sarcastically.
“Yeah. I didn’t get the feeling that the union between the Dearborns was based on a deep abiding love and respect. I’m actually not sure why they’re still together. I suppose maybe for Evette’s sake.”
“I suppose that would be as good a reason as any. So do you believe that both Dearborns are innocent of killing Dashwood?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t have anything conclusive to suggest that either Doctor or Mrs. Dearborn killed the man, but I don’t have a way to clear them either, so at this point, both Doctor Dearborn and his wife are still on my suspect list.”
I grabbed the appetizer tray I’d prepared and set it on the coffee table. Georgia had texted to let me know she’d bring our meals over in about thirty minutes, so I texted her back and told her not to bother and that once the food was heated, Colt and I could head over to the inn and pick everything up. I hated for Georgia to even have to make us a separate meal, but she assured me she had leftovers that needed to be eaten, and she was happy to h
ave someone to eat them, so they didn’t go to waste.
“So, who else is on your list?” I asked after I’d finished texting with Georgia. “Did you ever clear the four men you started with?”
“As you know, from the original four, I cleared Justin Marlow and Karl Grafton early on. Scotty Crabtree could have done it. He did leave the stage area to go to the men’s room, and no one can really say how long he was gone. We know he met up with one of the kids who’d also gone to the men’s room before returning to the stage area, and we know that the two walked back together. What we don’t know is where Scotty was before heading to the men’s room.”
“What did he say when you asked him?”
Colt answered. “He said that he was in the men’s room the entire time. He said that his stomach was upset, so his trip was a longer one than one might normally expect. I can’t prove that isn’t true. He left the stage area to head to the men’s room, and I haven’t found a single person who claims to have seen him between that point and the point where he was coming out, and the kid he ran into was going in. He very well might have been inside the whole time.”
Okay, I supposed it was possible he’d eaten something bad, and actually had spent twenty to thirty minutes in the men’s room. It seemed more likely that he’d killed Hollander and then headed to the men’s room, but without proof or even a motive for Scotty to have killed Hollander, there was nothing Colt could do. “And what about George Manheim?” I asked. I knew that he’d claimed to have gone outside for a smoke. He may have, but he didn’t really have an alibi since no one had seen him.
“George is cleared. I thought to check the security tape for the exterior of the building and was able to verify George’s story. In fact, the tape clearly shows him coming out of the theater and then going back inside fifteen minutes later. It doesn’t show what he was doing during those fifteen minutes, but it does prove he didn’t kill Hollander, who was inside.”
“Okay, so at this point, you have Scotty and the Dearborns,” I confirmed.