Nina squinted and sighed. “Andrea was a perfectionist. Lacey was always in her shadow. Sometimes it just happens that way with children, no matter what you do to try to make things even and fair. Lacey really came into her own after her sister disappeared. The girls had an epic fight the day Andrea went missing. I love Lacey, but I always wondered.”
I shivered at the near accusation hanging in the air by a slender silver thread. Did Nina Adams really think her younger daughter had a hand in the disappearance of her older daughter? A mini film of all of the scuffles Rachel and I had been in over the years played through my mind. Some of our sisterly fights had been real doozies. If Rachel had vanished after a few in particular, I never would have forgiven myself. No matter what had happened between Lacey and her sister, it would have been a grave weight for the stager to carry around for the last decade.
“The police latched onto the theory, too.” Nina shook her head. “It was a theory of convenience, according to me. Lacey always had a temper. It was the perfect foil. Blame the one sister for the other’s disappearance. But Lacey was only fifteen.”
“What were the other leads? A lot of time has passed, but maybe Andrea’s disappearance has something to do with Lacey.”
It was a stretch. But stranger things had happened.
Nina made a face. “This shop originally belonged to Andrea. She had a particular customer who stopped by a little too much. Over the course of a few months, it morphed into full-blown stalking and harassment. She had a restraining order and everything. It was Greg Gibson.”
“The same guy suing his parents for selling their land to the March family?” The name had rung a bell.
“Yes. He’s always been a hothead. I was happy the March family seemed to like my daughter, well, except for Clementine. I really thought they’d give her the boot after what happened with Toby, but I guess her relationship with Goldie was strong enough to withstand it.” Her mouth twisted down in a frown as she mentioned Olivia’s fiancé.
Say what?!
“You mean Toby Frank?” She had to have been mistaken.
Nina looked at me as if I had four heads. “Yes, Toby Frank!” She was nearly hysterical. “That man strung my daughter along for over a year. He claimed he couldn’t take their relationship to the next level and give her a ring because her main tasks staging were in Pittsburgh. He dumped her a fortnight before the Marches announced they’d carved out enough of Allegheny County like the locusts they are and were setting their sights south. Lacey begged Toby to take her back once she knew she’d be relocating to Port Quincy for the foreseeable future. But it was too late,” she spat. “He’d already taken up with Olivia.”
“This was back in June.” I heard the miserable tone in my voice.
“How did you know?” A sharp tone pierced Nina’s grief as she gave me a cool once-over.
“Um, no reason.”
Yeah, right. I’d just gotten the gig planning Toby’s surgery department’s holiday party. I’d thought he’d be a good match for my friend and introduced the two just six months ago. And the rest was history.
“I told Lacey to drop it and that Toby had moved on.” Nina sighed. “But she kept trying to make Toby see reason.”
A realization spilled over my shoulders in an icy bath. Unless Toby had shielded Olivia from the knowledge of his previous relationship, she had to have known her mother’s favorite employee had once seriously dated her fiancé. Then why hadn’t she told me?
It was really none of my business. Unless, that is, this was an important clue to the puzzle of Lacey’s murder and maybe even the fire at the cabin.
A great clue for Truman to have.
My subconscious gently reminded me that sleuthing was not technically my purview. I should leave the real investigating to the experts and stick to planning weddings.
“So,” I started, my voice falsely bright. “Do you have any more artificial garlands?”
Nina seemed to stare through me. I was done trying to see how the pieces all fit together, but it would seem she was not finished yet. “Lacey was a smidge stalkerish, if I’m being honest with myself.” She seemed to deflate. “She couldn’t handle that Toby had broken up with her a week before she learned she needed a new kidney. Not only was she sure he wouldn’t have ended the relationship if he’d known she was moving back home, but she was also certain he definitely wouldn’t have cast her aside when she was so sick.”
My heart went out to the departed stager. She’d borne the double whammy of getting dumped and learning she’d need a transplant all within a fortnight.
“The last straw for Toby was when Lacey pressured him for a ring. She wouldn’t have done it if she’d known.” Nina gave a shrug. “But after she found out about her kidney, and had started calling Toby morning, noon, and night, he did help her.” A wistful look crossed her face. “He used his medical knowledge to research options for her health care while she waited for a donor match. My daughter accepted his help, and even more importantly, accepted that he’d moved on.”
“That’s wonderful,” I breathed, desperately searching behind her for the garlands in question.
“But then Lacey found out.” Nina’s eyes grew flinty, her anger more arresting than the redness from crying.
“Found out what?” I stopped trying to surreptitiously scope out decorations and turned my full attention to the woman.
“About Olivia’s pregnancy.”
Okay, now you have my full attention.
“Lacey was at her doctor’s in Pittsburgh for her annual exam. As it so happens, Olivia used the same physician’s office. Olivia was checking out. A nurse took her copay and said congratulations to her. It didn’t take much for my daughter to put two and two together.”
I gulped in response, as much as a comment as I could give.
“It was the biggest slap in the face of all. Here Toby claimed he couldn’t continue to see my daughter because she wasn’t committed enough to him. She wouldn’t take on a two-hour commute and move back to Port Quincy. And two weeks later, Toby had started a new relationship with another woman who worked two hours away. One busier than my Lacey. And six months later, this woman had a ring, and a baby, and her whole life ahead of her. While Lacey had nothing, living on borrowed time.”
“It would be a pickle.” I croaked out my lame response and abandoned my quest for ornaments. “May I use your restroom?”
I took the slender key Nina proffered and disappeared into the back of the store. My head was spinning. I splashed cold water on my face and gazed at my reflection.
I now had a hunch who had spray-painted “gold digger” on Olivia’s car and placed the manger there. Maybe it had nothing to do with the incredible story of how Olivia was found in the nativity scene and everything to do with a woman scorned.
A glimmer of red caught my eye in the last vestibule in the back. I glanced toward the front of the store. I heard Nina talking with another customer and took a deep breath.
Holy tamale.
There lay all the purloined toy drive presents. There were bikes and scooters and dollhouses and baseball bats. If I hadn’t inventoried the stolen and replacement gifts, I may have mistaken the cache of toys for something else. I decided to wait for Nina to come to me. And five minutes later she did.
“I can explain…” she began.
“I can’t wait to hear it.” My voice was cool and even. I couldn’t decide what emotions were appropriate. Empathy and understanding for a woman who had just lost her second daughter, fear for a woman who had every reason to hurt Olivia, or anger at someone desperate enough to steal from a youth toy drive.
“I did steal the toys. But I did it early enough for them to be replaced.” Nina held up her hand as I began to speak. “I took the toys to get the police to look into March Homes.” She took a series of deep breaths when she knew she had my attention. “Lacey was poking her nose into things there that weren’t her business.” Nina’s voice was nearly a whisper. “I have e
very reason to think they poisoned my daughter.”
“What was Lacey looking for?”
Nina twisted the red-and-green striped apron she wore with her left fist. “She didn’t say,” she moaned. “She said she wanted to protect me. Too bad she couldn’t protect herself.”
“We’ll have to tell the police about the toys.” I whipped out my cell phone, my finger hovering over the programmed number for Truman. The poor man had to hear from me nearly once a week.
“No!” Nina made a swipe for my phone, but I nimbly spun away from her and clutched the device to my chest. “Just give me twenty-four hours to make it right. I promise I will.”
I blinked and took in her desperation.
“I just buried my daughter.”
“Okay. But I’m going to take a picture.” The camera on my phone flashed and it photographed the toys in bright relief in the dark back room.
“Mallory.”
“Yes?” I’d sidestepped the woman and started to make what I’d thought was a fast getaway.
“I’d be careful, if I were you. If I weren’t suspicious already about the Marches, I’d have a perfect suspect for who killed my Lacey. None other than your mother.”
I left without another word and threw myself behind the wheel of my station wagon. My hands were shaking and not from the cold.
* * *
“You what?” Rachel shook her head in disbelief. “The old Mallory I know would have had Truman on the horn in two seconds flat about those toys.”
“But she made good on her word.” I squirmed under the censure of my sister’s glare and held up my cell phone. The front page of the Port Quincy Eagle Herald had been updated with a quickly written account of how the March Homes toy drive proceeds had been miraculously found. There was a quote from Faith about the anonymous tip that there were toys inside one of the homes that had just been built out by the highway.
“All’s well that ends well,” I nervously said.
But Rachel just gave me a smirk. “If you were me, you’d tell yourself to just spill to Truman.”
I wanted to. But the anguished look on Nina’s face kept coming back to haunt me.
“Let’s just enjoy the toy drive.”
It would be a truly bountiful Christmas for those in need. After the Eagle Herald got some shots of Rudy and Clementine counting gifts in their Santa and Mrs. Claus garb, Rachel and I would hand over the updated spreadsheet of recipient children and families. With twice the toys, those Nina had stolen and returned, and their replacements, we were able to include each family on the waiting list that had not made the initial list. The Marches would begin personally delivering the goods after the photographs.
“Clementine and Rudy have eclipsed your and Garrett’s status as Port Quincy’s ‘it couple.’” Rachel motioned to the grandparents decked out as Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Rudy went ultra-traditional, in a red velvet coat and pants, shiny black boots topped with fur, and a jaunty red hat. He already had the beard, twinkling eyes, and a belly that looked like he enjoyed a cookie or two. Clementine’s take on Mrs. Claus was predictably more daring. She wore a green velvet dress to accentuate her hair, a faux fur stole, and a retro pair of reading spectacles. Clementine and Rudy made a big show of stacking toys in a large brown cloth sack and transporting some of the goodies to a sleigh that had appeared in the lobby of March Homes’s headquarters. The newspaper photographer was eating it up.
“Mallory and Rachel, please join us.” Rudy stopped yukking it up to motion my sister and me over. We dutifully joined in the photo shoot as the hosts for the toy drive. I couldn’t help but imagine Lacey in her rightful place.
“You done good, kids.” Rudy sent us a wink and a smile. He transcended simple American mall Santa and exemplified the real deal, as imagined in my youth before I’d found out on the playground the big guy wasn’t real.
“Thank you for hosting the toy drive. I hope this is the first of many to come.” I couldn’t help but beam at the older man.
“As long as we’re not run out of here first.” Clementine’s megawatt beam that had appeared for the photographer slid from her barely lined face. “I’m just going to shimmy out of this.” She unzipped her green dress right then and there and slid it off, revealing a tight black yoga cat suit.
Phew.
Clementine caught my eye and erupted in laughter. “Didn’t know what was under there, did you?”
Rachel and Clementine chatted amiably about their shared gym while Rudy slung his giant arm around my shoulder. “You’ve really taken care of my Olivia.” His eyes twinkled merrily beneath the faux white fur trim of his hat. “She’s so special to us.”
I flashed a smile. “She’s special to me, too. She deserves every happiness.”
“And I want her to be happy, too.” Rudy took a deep breath. “I understand your beau is weighing his options.” He quickly amended his phrasing when he took in what must have been my alarmed expression. “Career-wise, that is. If he doesn’t end up inviting Olivia into his practice or handing it over to her, I think we can find a place for her at March Homes.” Rudy studied my reaction to his news.
“That’s fantastic!” I tried to keep my voice buoyant and enthusiastic. As I would have been before I heard the rumors that the real estate developers might not be on the straight and narrow.
“Alan doesn’t want her to join the family company, but if it’ll make my granddaughter happy and give her a way to move here to start her new family with Toby and continue practicing law, I’ll find a way.”
The jolly old fellow gave me a clap on the back and ambled over to see his wife.
“Mallory and Rachel, I’d like a word.” I jumped as Truman appeared at my elbow. He seemed immune to this staged version of a holiday tableau.
“Yes?” My sister and I leaned in.
“Alan’s blue martini?” Truman raised a single, bushy gray brow. “Chock full of antifreeze.”
I felt a cold chill steal over me. The blood in my veins may as well have been made of the stuff.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Okay, this is getting downright creepy.” I bit into a crispy brown figure.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Truman reached across the table to grab his own cookie.
He had followed us back to Thistle Park in his police cruiser. Rachel, the chief, and I noshed on cardamom men and sipped peppermint tea. I felt like the trappings of Christmas this year were being tainted with murder and mayhem and wondered if it would ever be the same. I absentmindedly picked up Whiskey, who had been twining around my legs, begging for a morsel. She’d survived as a stray for I’m not sure how long before Summer found her under the porch at Thistle Park. She’d developed a fine repertoire of batting her big kitty eyes and purring to ensure you shared your food with her.
“Cats don’t eat cookies.” Truman gave me a disapproving look as I broke off the tiny hand of the cardamom man.
“This one does.”
Sure enough, Whiskey pranced over to the morsel and gobbled it up. She rewarded me with a rumbly, outsized purr and settled onto my lap. I was happy to have the cuddly little calico fluff ball to pet and hopefully calm me down.
“Focus, people.” Rachel rolled her pretty green eyes and took a swig of peppermint tea. “We’re talking about antifreeze.”
Truman’s rush request on the contents of Alan’s drink had been approved.
“It was the very same antifreeze used to poison Lacey,” he said. “Well, at least the same brand and composition.”
“So we can assume we have the same perpetrator.” I petted the calico and reached for the legal pad I liked to use to plot out my thoughts. I enjoyed using my tablet and phone to manage some aspects of my wedding planning business, but there was nothing like the tactile experience of musing over something with paper and pen.
“No, you can’t make that assumption. Every big box store, hardware store, and some grocery stores in town carry several brands of antifreeze this time of year.” Truman glare
d at my notation on the legal pad until I crossed it out.
“Well, that’s why you’re chief of police,” I replied testily.
“And I’m just here to interview you two in my official capacity since the drink was served by you, technically. Don’t get any ideas about deputizing yourself in my investigations.”
I squirmed in my chair, causing Whiskey to jump down in a kitty cat harrumph. I avoided the sly glance from my sister. She no doubt wanted me to spill the beans on Nina Adams stealing and then returning the toys.
Truman cleared his throat. “But while I’m here, I may as well run some theories by you.”
Rachel and I exchanged triumphant glances.
“So we need to think about who would want to do this to Alan.” I glanced at Truman. “And how they got in here. And why.”
“Maybe someone who is mad about their big real estate plans did it,” Rachel put in her theory.
“Yes, and I’ve questioned several people who fit the bill.” Truman nodded.
“Including Greg Gibson.” I brought up the name that had kept coming up in my own informal conversations. “He’s mad his family sold their farm to March Homes.”
And he used to stalk Andrea Adams.
I felt a blush creep up my neck. Truman definitely wouldn’t approve of me trying to tie in the current nefarious goings-on in Port Quincy with a ten-year-old crime. Or possible crime, that is. I’d typed Andrea Adams into a search engine and read the stories in the newspaper that cropped up each year near her disappearance. It was never definitively proven she’d been a victim of foul play.
“Greg knows he’s being watched and is behaving like the perfect little altar boy.” Truman smirked. “He hasn’t engaged in his usual drunken disorderlies or other petty crimes in the last month.”
“What about Toby?” Rachel’s voice was small and apologetic.
I laughed out loud. “C’mon. You can’t be serious.”
But she was. My sister’s face fell. “I’m dating his best man. And he talks.” Rachel asked Truman for wordless permission to go on. He gave her a barely perceptible nod. “Toby is pretty ticked off at Alan. With Garrett’s decision up in the air, he’s not sure how Olivia can keep up her career, relocate to Port Quincy, and take care of their baby.” Rachel seemed to give me an apologetic look. “Toby doesn’t like how Alan’s been bullying his daughter into accepting the partnership at her firm in Pittsburgh.”
Marry Christmas Murder Page 17