Marry Christmas Murder

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  And it would all come down to Garrett.

  I took a deep breath. “And I can’t cast any stones at Olivia and Toby when I’ve been living in my own house of glass.”

  I’d been unwittingly careerist, choosing to grow my business over spending time with Garrett. I’d replicated my life at the law firm, just with wedding planning as the substitute. “How can I scrutinize Olivia and Toby, when Garrett and I are doing the same thing?”

  We were all silent for a moment. My mother began to say something, no doubt considerate and consoling, when the doorbell clanged.

  “Saved by the bell.” My mother shrugged as we all went to let the Marches in. Olivia, her parents, and grandparents shrugged off their heavy coats and followed us to the kitchen. I normally would have a tasting in my office or the formal dining room, but since they’d spent a few days at the B and B, I kept it more casual. They tasted each dish in the kitchen. Half an hour later, every last morsel of Alan’s meal had been devoured.

  “This will make a fine wedding meal,” Clementine grudgingly said.

  “It’ll be super.” Rudy clapped his son-in-law on the back. “Olivia, you made a fine choice.”

  Olivia beamed at her grandfather, who now seemed no worse for wear from his near perishing in the cabin inferno.

  “And now we can all enjoy a little surprise.” I ushered the family into the parlor and revealed a tray of Czech wines, some red, some white. I pulled Olivia aside as her family oohed and aahed.

  “And some champagne for the bride.” I beamed as I handed Olivia a flute of sparkling, pale gold liquid. I leaned in close to her ear. “It’s grape juice.”

  “Thank you.” Olivia smiled with relief and paused before she took a sip.

  “Na zdraví,” Alan said a toast in Czech, and the Marches each took a sip. We all drifted toward the elaborately tiled fireplace, fashioned in a mosaic peacock pattern. The warm flames danced off the iridescent tiles in shades of teal, lavender, and gray. Two Christmas trees flanked the fireplace, and electric candles danced on the mantelpiece. I’d also hung a jaunty row of stockings, one for each of my family from the mantel.

  I noticed Rudy kept a healthier distance from the fire than the rest of his family.

  I don’t blame him.

  Clementine noticed too and went to twine her arms through her husband’s.

  “What the . . .” Goldie let out a sharp slip of her tongue and softly cursed. She recoiled from the set of stockings. I never thought I’d hear her swear.

  “Mom?” Olivia made a motion to join her mother, when Goldie held her back.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Wait a minute.” I made a beeline to the stockings.

  “Who put up this extra one?” Rachel reached the fireplace just as I did. There was a knit snowflake stocking for Doug, and a magenta, pineapple-embossed stocking for Mom. Rachel had a glittery, sequin confection of a stocking in blue and purple. And I had a tartan plaid one. There were even stockings for Whiskey, Soda, and Ramona.

  And a new, eighth stocking had made an appearance. I picked up a green satin stocking with script embroidery done in contrasting red thread.

  “Who is Joy Christine?”

  Goldie dropped her drink, the pretty cut glass goblet shattering into several long shards. “I’m sorry.” Her voice came out barely above a whisper.

  “Your original name.” Alan turned to Olivia with sorrow in the depths of his eyes. Goldie seemed to recover and shot her husband a murderous glare.

  But not as angry as Olivia’s expression. Her initial shock had transformed to fury. “My original name? What are you talking about?” She stared from Alan to Goldie like an accusatory tennis judge. “You told me you knew nothing about my whereabouts, just that I showed up in the manger, and you were the first ones to leave the church.” Her chest rose and fell with each intake of breath. “What else do you know?”

  She had morphed from a blushing bride, happy to spend the evening with her family, into an eagle-eyed and sharp-tongued litigator. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of her courtroom questioning and neither did her parents.

  Alan looked downright miserable while Goldie seemed defiant.

  Clementine decided to wade into the fray. “Your parents changed your name to match the March family botanical theme,” Clementine explained.

  Goldie nodded. “There was a note hidden among the folds of your blanket,” Olivia’s mother admitted. “It said just those words, Joy Christine.” She winced. “Obviously your name. But nothing more.”

  Alan cleared his throat and gave his wife a barely perceptible nod.

  “Fine.” Goldie huffed. “That ridiculous glass angel. That was in the manger, too.”

  “Mallory, I’d like to see the angel.” Olivia ignored her family and pivoted on her heel. I gulped and went to get my purse in the front hall.

  It’s not there.

  A sickening wave of dread coursed through me as I pawed through my big purse. The glass angel was gone.

  “Never mind. We’ll just have to get a ladder. But why did you put it there?” I returned to follow Olivia’s pointing index finger. There atop the highest tree resided the angel, staring down at all of us.

  “I didn’t put it there,” I whispered. “And I obviously didn’t hang up the stocking, either.”

  Which meant someone had been in Thistle Park uninvited. I glanced at Rachel, who seemed to realize, too. She made for the security system.

  “It was off,” she whispered to me.

  “Did the police thirty years ago check the note and the tree topper for fingerprints?” Olivia was pacing now, her sparkling grape juice long forgotten.

  “Of course!” Rudy nearly roared.

  “And none of this matters, sweetie.” Goldie tried to sidle up to her agitated daughter. “If there’s one thing I know, you’re one hundred percent March.” She’d spoken the phrase before, back when we’d had the initial tasting for what was to be a spring wedding. It seemed a hundred years ago, not a mere week and a half.

  “No one could fathom who would leave behind a baby as lovely as you.” Rudy’s eyes shone with genuine love for his granddaughter.

  “I can’t either,” Olivia said flatly. She cradled her still nearly flat stomach and raised her eyes defiantly to her family. “Especially now, since Toby and I are going to have a baby of our own.”

  Her big news created a splash of silence, followed by a whoop of joy, and a flurry of congratulations. But the bride was having none of it. She tore from Thistle Park, down the front stairs, and into her car—leaving her family in her wake.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “It’s a beautiful snowy day.” I peered out the window in the library and observed the scene before me. Four inches had fallen overnight. The branches of the trees glittered in the weak sunlight, each crystal sparkling. The Christmas lights popped against the white background, and cardinals fought over their place at the bird feeder, a pleasing red blur against the dazzling winter canvas. You never knew what kind of weather would show up in Western Pennsylvania for the holiday season. It could be as classic and snowy as a Christmas card, or, more likely, just cold and gray and dreary. But the mercury was firmly below freezing, so this snow would probably grace us with its presence for a while.

  “Too bad those crazies probably ruined Olivia’s shower today by holding back details about finding her in the manger.” Rachel joined me at the window and handed me a steaming mug of peppermint coffee. I had to silently agree. As of the last text message I’d received, Olivia’s small bridal shower would still go on today. But the bride wasn’t feeling merry and bright after the revelations her parents had kept from her for three decades had come to light yesterday.

  “I still haven’t figured out who got in here to put that angel on top of the tree and slip in that stocking.” I shivered despite the roaring fire and the heat coursing through Thistle Park. Someone had come into the B and B uninvited, unnoticed, and unwanted.

 
“I didn’t turn the security system off.” Rachel gave me a look and raised one perfectly plucked brow. “And Faith didn’t find anything, either.”

  Truman’s partner Faith had stopped by to walk the perimeter of our property and house. Nothing seemed tampered with or out of place.

  “Then it had to be one of them.” The March family flummoxed me. “Who would want to spill the beans to Olivia? Definitely not Goldie. She was so ticked.”

  Devastated was more like it.

  “Well, no one looked happy yesterday.”

  While we pondered the possibilities, Olivia arrived.

  “Sorry I’m early.”

  I beamed at my friend. It was customary for the person being feted at a shower to be the last to arrive. “Nothing we’re doing is traditional. Come on in.”

  Olivia beamed at the setup in the library. Rachel and I had tied simple arrangements of evergreen and silver Mylar balloons around the already decorated holiday space. I’d opened the door of the wooden unit concealing the large flat screen. A whimsical slideshow featuring pictures of Toby and Olivia together ran in a loop.

  “I wanted to get here a little before my mom and grandmother to discuss some things.” Olivia sank into an armchair and happily accepted the steaming cup of cocoa Rachel brought her.

  She rubbed her belly in an absentminded way. “We actually made up last night. My whole family.” Her eyes grew misty. “My mom explained to me her reasoning in keeping some details from me all these years.” She sighed. “I can’t blame her. And everyone is ecstatic about the baby.” A look of relief flooded her delicate features.

  “How did your parents justify keeping those details a secret?” Rachel plopped down on a loveseat, her jaunty ponytail bouncing in time.

  “Rachel!” I was outwardly once again astounded by my sister’s lack of tact. And inwardly happy she’d busted out a question I wished I had the nerve to ask.

  Olivia chuckled. “It’s a fair question. Alan and Goldie couldn’t have children of their own. They’d given up and were in the process of looking into adoption. They were told it would take years. Then they got to church late Christmas Eve. They had to take the last seats in the last pew. My mom told me she prayed for a miracle. They were the closest to the back door and the first to leave. And the first to hear me crying in the manger.”

  “It was meant to be.” I brushed a tear from my eye and caught Rachel doing the same.

  “It was, in a way,” Olivia carefully agreed. “But even though we’ve all made up, I sense there’s more to the story.” She gently turned the emerald ring Toby had given her around on her finger. “My mom made me promise to accept the information she was forced to reveal last night. But I’m not ready to stop there.” She set down her cup of cocoa. “Mallory, can you investigate my adoption? All I have to go on is my original name and this.” She pressed the angel tree topper into my hands. It had been void of any prints, according to Faith, wiped clean no doubt by the person who had found it in my purse and placed it atop the tree.

  Olivia continued, a frisson of nerves laced through her words. “I’m afraid it’ll get back to my parents if I’m the one doing it. They have a lot of connections and friends in high places through their business dealings over the years. You still have those research skills from your years at the firm. I know you can do it.”

  But do I want to wade into this?

  Lacey Adams was dead. The stager had perished at a party thrown by none other than yours truly. And someone had seemed to set my mother up to appear to be the perfect perpetrator. Rudy March had almost died in the inferno at the March family cabin. And someone had snuck into this very house to send Olivia and her family a message. Not to mention, it all started with the spray-painting of Olivia’s car.

  But Olivia was nearly family. She’d held my hand through my breakup with my fiancé and helped me get back on my feet after I left my first career. I couldn’t let her fend for herself now.

  “I guess I could look into it.”

  Truman’s gonna love this.

  But he would never know. He couldn’t know.

  “Thank you!” Olivia leapt to her feet and gave me a quick embrace. “I bet when you agreed to plan my wedding you never imagined it would come to this.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Rachel grumbled. Olivia and I laughed and headed to the kitchen to set up for the shower.

  An hour later, a small gaggle of ten women close to Olivia and her family noshed on petit fours, savory sandwiches, and piping hot dips meant to be spread on little triangles of bread. Word had spread fast that Olivia and Toby were going to have a baby in the summer. Her gifts were a silly blend of lingerie and baby gear.

  “For he’s a jolly good fellow!” Clementine raised her glass of pink champagne as Toby sheepishly made an appearance. He was followed by Rudy and Alan. The surgeon groom had a rare day off, and the two March men had taken Toby out for midday drinks in lieu of a formal bachelor party.

  “Here’s to a wonderful marriage and family for two amazing people.” Alan looked for a drink to punctuate his toast and selected a pretty electric blue martini from the tray at the bar we’d created atop a waist-high bookshelf.

  “Um, Rachel, did you make that?” I nudged my sister as Alan’s speech grew longer and longer, waxing and waning about the qualities that made his daughter and Toby a good match.

  “Heck no. That looks like—”

  But I was off before my sister could confirm my suspicion.

  “So here’s to two people I love. To Olivia and Toby.” Alan raised the martini to his lips.

  “Argh! Have you gone mad?” I made it across the room in a flash, skidded on the rug, and crashed into Olivia’s father. The drink sloshed all over the floor, but I managed to wrestle the martini glass out of his hand for safekeeping.

  “We didn’t make this drink.” I was nearly panting.

  “What?” Alan recoiled from the blue puddle marring the herringbone-patterned hardwood. “Is this the same kind of drink that Lacey . . .” He trailed off. The small party of merry-makers had gone silent.

  “Yup.” I held the martini glass away from my body as if it were a liquid cup of kryptonite. “Let’s call the police.”

  * * *

  The next day I worked out the stress kinks in my neck with a fun morning in the snow with Summer. The back of my property connected with the Davieses’ backyard, and Summer made the trek through the woods pulling a sled behind her. We made a wonky snowman, created snow angels, and whooshed down the tall hill on the west end of my property until we could no longer feel our fingers.

  I whooped and hollered and let out steam I hadn’t known was gathering. But at the back of my mind, I kept picturing Alan March about to take a swig of a mystery drink that may or may not have been poisoned. Truman hoped he could rush results on the drink but didn’t make any promises. Something was rotten in Port Quincy, and he didn’t seem any closer to finding out. And neither did I.

  “See you later, Mallory.” Summer beamed as she retrieved her sled from the trunk of my station wagon. I turned back to Thistle Park, took a long, hot, restorative shower, and headed out to the Candy Cane Lane Christmas store to get the final items I’d need for the Marches’ toy drive and Olivia’s wedding.

  “Hello, Nina. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  The once-jolly proprietress was standing behind the glass counter with red-rimmed eyes. The Christmas music was no longer jaunty but set to more solemn tunes. I heard the lament of Frank Sinatra croon “I Wonder As I Wander,” the notes pensive and serious. Lacey had been buried mere days before. The store had lost its sparkle with the loss of Nina’s remaining daughter.

  “Lacey would have wanted me to get back in the swing of things.” The shop owner wiped her eyes with a tissue.

  “I genuinely enjoyed working with your daughter on Paws and Poinsettias. She was a lovely woman.” And her drunken performance the night of the gala had seemed completely out of character, according to those who
knew her.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever find out what happened. First Andrea was taken from me, then Lacey.” She gave a weary sigh. “My daughter didn’t drink. She was on a waitlist for a new kidney. Someone spiked her punch and poisoned her at the same time.”

  I nodded, not wanting to reveal that Truman had already told me as much.

  “She was hiding her issues from her employer.” Nina grew thoughtful. “The March family didn’t know she was having dire kidney complications; they just realized that she’d used up almost all of her leave for medical appointments.”

  I cocked my head. That was an interesting tidbit of information.

  “She told me she’d planned on drinking Hawaiian blue punch all evening.” Nina gave a mirthless chuckle. “She said it looked festive and was a dead ringer for an ice blue martini. No one would suspect anything. Well, now there are no suspects.”

  Save for my own dear mom.

  I swallowed and let her go on in her grief.

  “It’s funny. Lacey’s sister Andrea was the one who decided to give the girls’ cousin her kidney. My niece was in dire need, and Andrea rushed out to get typed. She was a giver, that girl. But it turns out she wasn’t a match. My niece luckily found another donor, and she lives today. As for my poor Andrea . . .” Nina trailed off. I followed her gaze to a small, holly-bordered photograph of the woman in happier days with her two girls. There was the once-jolly purveyor in this very shop, behind this very glass case. To her left was a young Lacey, grinning behind an elaborate gingerbread house. And to her right was a pretty young woman I guessed was her missing daughter, Andrea.

  “I can’t begin to imagine your pain.”

  “It’s the not knowing that gets to me. Everyone wants me to accept that Andrea must be dead. But I still hold out hope. I suppose that’s one thing to be grateful for, that I know that Lacey is truly gone. Now that she isn’t here, my mind can’t stop replaying the last few days I saw Andrea.”

  “What happened when Andrea disappeared?” I spoke the question in a near-whisper.