by Sarah Fox
I waited for her to draw closer. When she was within a few feet, she slowed to a stop.
“All the way out here by yourself?” she asked.
“It’s not so far from town.” I couldn’t help but think it an odd question, especially since she was on her own too. “I’m getting ready for the race on Friday.”
“So am I.” She eyed me up and down as if assessing her competition. “I hear you were at my mom’s store the other day, asking questions about Penny.”
I shifted on my snowshoes. Her side of the conversation lacked any sort of friendliness and there was a sharpness to her eyes that sent a chill creeping over my skin.
“I just wanted to know how Penny was doing. I didn’t mean to upset your mom.”
“The only thing she’s upset about is Penny being in jail.”
An awkward silence fell around us. Not even the chirping of a bird interrupted it.
I cast around for something to say. “How’s your dad doing?”
“He’s fine. Why do you ask?” The question came out like a challenge.
“I know Freddy’s death was hard on him, that’s all.” I wasn’t sure why she was acting so cold.
“We’re all better off without Freddy.”
She was about to say something more, but she snapped her mouth shut when something moved among the trees, grabbing our attention.
A white German shepherd bounded through the snow toward us.
“Bowie!” I crouched down and the dog rushed over to me. I gave his fur a good rub down as his tongue lolled out of his mouth, his eyes bright and happy.
Footsteps crunched through the snow. I straightened up in time to see Grayson coming along a branch of the trail to the right of the main path. He too wore snowshoes.
“I need to get going,” Lara muttered.
She stomped past me and turned onto the trail Grayson was on. They paused to exchange a few words and I could have sworn I heard a tinkle of laughter come from Lara. A moment later, she set off again and she soon disappeared from sight.
“Training for the race?” Grayson called out to me as he headed my way.
Bowie trotted over to him as he reached the main trail. I followed more slowly behind the dog.
“I am,” I said as we met up and stopped in the middle of the trail. “How about you?”
“I’m mostly out here for Bowie.”
“You’re not entering the race?”
I found that disappointing. After the disastrous hockey game, it would have been nice to have a chance to beat him at something. Although, knowing my luck with such things, he was probably a snowshoeing champion.
“The brewery’s hosting a beer-tasting event on Friday afternoon. I’ll be getting ready for that.”
“Oh, right.” I’d heard about the tasting event. It was part of the Winter Carnival.
“Have your missing books turned up?” he asked as Bowie wandered over to the nearby trees to sniff out interesting scents.
“No.” I’d checked after closing the pub the night before. It hadn’t surprised me to find that they were still missing.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Determined not to let my spirits droop, I decided to change the subject. “Have you heard anything more from the Craft Nation producer?”
“Actually, there’s good news on that front,” Grayson said. “Now that the murderer’s been caught, the episode’s going ahead. They’re planning to film it sometime in February.”
“That’s fantastic! At least something good is coming from Penny’s arrest.”
“You mean other than getting a murderer off the streets?”
“Yes, I guess there’s that too,” I said.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
I tugged my scarf up over my chin. Now that I’d been standing around for a few minutes, all the warmth was seeping out of me.
“I’m becoming more convinced, but I’m disappointed to find out Penny’s a killer.”
“I get that. She seemed like a nice woman.”
“But apparently she had a lot of bitterness beneath the surface, at least where Freddy was concerned.” I told him about the letters she’d sent Freddy over the years.
“That’s too bad,” Grayson said. “I don’t think Freddy was worth all the time and energy she must have spent on her grudge against him.”
“No. And Jade . . . what a waste.” Despite my earlier resolve to keep them high, my spirits were definitely sinking now.
This time it was Grayson who changed the subject. “I’ve been thinking about Christmas.”
“Oh? You’re going away after all?”
“No, I’m still staying in Shady Creek. I enjoy cooking, but there’s not much point in cooking a big Christmas dinner for one person. I’d love it if you’d join me.”
The invitation took me so much by surprise that I stared at him for a second or two before speaking. “Really?”
I wanted to kick myself for my response.
Grayson grinned and my stomach did a somersault. “Really. I’ll be making pumpkin pie.”
My mouth watered. I’d tasted his prize-winning pumpkin pie back in the fall and I still daydreamed about its incredible taste from time to time.
“Thank you . . . that’s . . . I . . .” Why was I stumbling over my words? I pulled myself together. “That would be great. Thank you.”
“Good.” He held my gaze and my heart nearly tripped over itself. “I’d better get back to the brewery. Enjoy your snowshoeing.”
“I will.”
“Don’t get too close to the trees.”
“Tree wells,” I said with a nod. “I’ve been warned.”
Several people had given me the same advice.
“See you around.” He treated me to another grin before he set off along the trail, heading the opposite way as I was going.
Bowie ran off ahead of him, excited to be on the move again.
I watched until they’d disappeared from sight before resuming my trek. I was thoroughly chilled from standing still for so long, and yet a small glow of warmth in my chest kept me from shivering.
It seemed I wouldn’t be alone for Christmas after all.
Chapter 25
Grayson’s invitation left me in a good mood that continued into the afternoon. It also didn’t hurt that the bright winter sunshine had brought more tourists and locals to the Inkwell. While business had been quiet the day before, now it was steady.
In the early afternoon, Shontelle stopped by for a brief visit. She accepted a cup of coffee but didn’t have time to stay and eat.
“I came by to talk about Christmas,” she said once she was seated at the bar with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her.
“Can we get together at some point so I can give you and Kiandra your gifts?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about.”
“You tell me when you’re free,” I said. “You’re the one with family coming to visit.”
“And you’re the one going away.”
“No, I’m not. I’m staying in Shady Creek.”
“A couple of weeks ago you said Michael had invited you to spend Christmas in Knoxville.”
“He invited me.” At his wife’s prompting, I suspected. “But I decided to stay here.”
“And Gilda’s going to Savannah?” When I nodded, she said, “Then you’ll come to my place for Christmas, right?”
“Actually . . .”
“Sadie, you can’t spend Christmas alone.”
I hesitated before plowing ahead. “Grayson invited me to his place.”
Shontelle’s eyebrows shot up. “For Christmas? And you didn’t tell me this when we talked yesterday?”
“He only invited me this morning. I ran into him while I was out snowshoeing. He was going to be on his own and apparently he likes cooking Christmas dinner for people.”
“Wow. And you keep telling me there’s nothing between you.”
“There’s not,” I
protested.
“You’ll be spending Christmas with him,” she reminded me unnecessarily.
“We both thought we’d be on our own. He was just being nice.”
“Uh huh.” She wasn’t buying my explanation for a second.
“He was.” I faltered. “Most likely.”
This time Shontelle raised one eyebrow.
My nerves jangled. “Maybe I should have said no.”
“What on earth for?”
“I don’t know!” I grabbed a cloth and ran it over the bar, even though it was spotless.
Shontelle put a hand over mine to still it. “Why are you so nervous?”
“I wasn’t until a few seconds ago.”
“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” she said, contrite. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I just hadn’t thought things through before. It’ll probably be a disaster.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because half the time we don’t even get along.” I thought about what I’d said. “Well, we get along more than we used to. But still.”
“If you’re going to worry about it, both of you could come over to my place. If he still wants to cook, he could bring something.”
His pumpkin pie, I hoped.
“You’ve already got your aunt coming to visit,” I said.
“The more the merrier.”
“But I said yes. I shouldn’t back out now. Should I?”
“Only if you’re going to stay awake at night worrying about it.”
Was I going to do that?
Shontelle finished off her coffee. “I have to get going. Let me know if you want me to invite him. Otherwise, let’s get together on Christmas Eve, all right?”
“That would be great.”
Shontelle reached across the bar to squeeze my hand before getting up. “Relax, Sadie. Everything will be fine.”
I repeated her last words to myself after she left.
I wasn’t sure if I believed them.
* * *
Later that afternoon, as daylight was fading from the sky, Bobby arrived at the pub and took a seat at the bar. He ordered a pint of beer and a burger but didn’t seem quite himself. Although there were people he knew in the pub, he stayed at the bar, sitting alone, focused only on his food and drink. When he finished his burger, he pushed the plate away, his shoulders slumped.
“What’s wrong, Bobby?” I asked as he drained the last of his beer. “Has the Penny situation got you down?”
He nodded and nudged his pint glass toward me. When I set his refill in front of him, he shook his head. “If only she hadn’t let her bitterness win out.”
“Her bitterness toward Freddy?”
“She should have forgotten about him,” he said as if he hadn’t heard me. “He wasn’t worth it.”
“So you believe Penny is guilty?” That surprised me, since he’d been willing to lie for her.
“Of course she’s not guilty!”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I thought that’s what you were getting at.”
He took a long drink of his beer and set the glass down with a thud. “I meant if she’d gone home from the church instead of meeting with that . . .” He seemed to realize what he was about to say and snapped his mouth shut.
“Reporter,” I finished for him. When surprise showed on his face, I added, “Penny told me about that.”
Bobby lowered his voice. “Nobody else needs to know she’s the one who dished the dirt on Freddy.”
“Of course not.” Except the police, I added in my head, but they already knew. “What were you going to say?”
“If she’d gone home instead of meeting with the reporter, maybe her neighbors would have seen her and could have given her an alibi. A real one. She wasn’t sure about talking to the reporter, you see. She almost didn’t go to the meeting, but her grudge won out. She wanted to get back at Freddy.”
A bell dinged in the kitchen, signaling that an order was ready. Mel set off to retrieve it, so I stayed put.
“You said she was at church? There wasn’t a service at that hour, was there?”
“No. She was there by herself, wrestling with her conscience. Too bad it didn’t get the upper hand.”
I agreed that was unfortunate. If she’d let her conscience guide her, maybe Freddy and Jade would still be alive. I didn’t add that last part out loud.
Bobby left a short while later, no less dispirited. He clearly cared for Penny a great deal. I wondered if his feelings were reciprocated.
He still believed in her innocence, but was that because he was blinded by his feelings for her? Or did he know her well enough to be certain she wasn’t a killer, despite the bitter grudge she’d harbored for so many years?
I remembered what Shontelle had told me about seeing Penny drive along Hemlock Street right around the time of the murder. There was a church on that street, a couple of blocks away from the village green.
As I mulled things over, I wiped down a table Mel had recently cleared of dirty dishes. When I was done, I surveyed the pub, checking to see if anyone needed anything.
I noticed Emery Leyland at a table with a couple of her friends. She was the daughter of the man who owned the local computer repair store, which was located right across the street from a church on Hemlock Street. But was it the church?
A group of four tourists requested two platters of nachos and another round of drinks, so I hurried off to the kitchen. After I’d delivered their food and had mixed their cocktails, I sent a quick text message to Shontelle.
Does Penny go to the same church as you?
While I waited for a response, I kept busy with serving customers. I delivered burgers to a group of tourists from Texas and I mixed up Happily Ever After cocktails for two women seated at the bar. When I managed to sneak another look at my phone, I had a response from Shontelle.
She does. What’s up?
Just thinking, I wrote in reply. I’ll tell you more later.
No one seemed in immediate need of my attention, so I made my way over to the table where Emery Leyland sat with her friends. Emery was in her early twenties and worked as a waitress at Lumière, Shady Creek’s nicest restaurant.
“How is everything, ladies?” I asked the three young women. They had several appetizers on their table along with their drinks.
“Delicious,” Emery said, and her companions agreed.
“Your dad’s store is across from the church on Hemlock Street, right?” I said to Emery.
“That’s right.”
“Have the police talked to him in connection with Freddy Mancini’s murder?”
“Why would they?” she asked with alarm.
“Penny was at the church that evening,” I hurried to explain. “If he’d seen her leave, and knew what time he’d seen her, that would be of interest to the police.”
“Oh,” Emery said with relief. “My dad was out of town for a week, so he hasn’t talked to anyone. He got back this afternoon.”
“The police seem to have enough evidence against Penny, anyway,” one of Emery’s friends said.
“Thank goodness,” the other woman added. “Who knows how many more people that psychopath would have killed if she was still on the loose.”
I wanted to object to the labeling of Penny as a psychopath, but I held my tongue. She had killed two people, after all.
Hadn’t she?
A grain of doubt still lingered in my mind, I realized. But surely the police had the right woman. Penny certainly had a motive for killing Freddy, and if she wanted to keep Jade from telling the police about her long-standing grudge against the chef, then she had a motive for the second murder as well.
And yet for some reason I still felt the need to convince myself that the police had nabbed the right person.
I got back to clearing tables and serving customers, and when I glanced Emery’s way later on, she and her friends were getting ready to leave the pub. As they wound their way around the tables, h
eading for the door, I intercepted Emery.
“Does your dad have surveillance cameras outside his shop?”
“Yes. One out the back and one out the front. Why? Are you still thinking about the murder?”
“Yes. It could help to establish a timeline if there was some evidence of when Penny left the church.”
“Do you think she’s innocent?” Emery asked with skepticism. “I heard she really hated that chef guy.”
“I just want to be sure nothing’s overlooked,” I said.
Emery glanced at her friends, who stood waiting for her by the door. “Let me call my dad, okay?”
She took a moment to say something to her friends and then moved into a quiet corner. She spoke on her phone for a minute or so, and then came back my way.
“He says the police left a message for him while he was away, but he hasn’t got back to them yet.”
“They’re probably wondering about the surveillance footage.”
“That’s what I told him. So he’s going to look through it now. You can go over there if you want. I told him you might.”
“Thank you.”
She barely acknowledged my words. She was already following her friends out the door.
It wouldn’t be long before the dinner rush got underway, but I thought I could manage a short break. I spoke to Mel, and she assured me that she didn’t mind me leaving for half an hour or so. As soon as I was bundled up, I hurried across the green and down the street to the computer repair store. A light was on inside, and when I knocked on the door Mr. Leyland answered it within seconds.
“Hi. Sadie, isn’t it?” He shook my hand. “Come on in out of the cold.”
“Thanks for letting me come over, Mr. Leyland,” I said once I was inside.
“No problem at all.” He led me over to a desk with a flat-screen computer monitor. “I fast-forwarded through some of the footage from the night of the murder.” He shook his head. “What a terrible thing. Two murders! I leave town for a week and I come back to find out there’s been a crime spree. At first I thought it must have been a deranged tourist in town for the Winter Carnival, but then I heard Penny Blaine was arrested. That’s why you’re here, though, right? You think she might be innocent?”
“I’d like her to be,” I said, “but that might be wishful thinking.”