The Worst Noel

by Amy M. Reade

  “She approached me directly when she didn’t like the color of the flowers that the City Council had planted last summer. They planted purple and yellow. She wanted red.”

  “And did you do anything about that?”

  “Yes. I told Eden that I had absolutely nothing to do with the color of flowers the city wanted and I thought purple and yellow were very pretty.” A tiny smile played across Officer Vasquez’s face.

  “Did you like Eden Barclay?”

  “No. No one likes Eden. She’s a bully. Was a bully,” Lilly corrected herself.

  Officer Vasquez proceeded to ask Lilly about Juniper Junction Jewels, her finances, her inventory, and her security precautions. Lilly answered all the questions quickly and efficiently and was allowed to leave after about an hour of questioning. Officer Vasquez drove her back to her shop, which was still abuzz with activity. The body had been removed and a few police officers were moving around the store, gathering evidence, taking notes, and talking to each other. Bill was nowhere to be seen. Lilly went in through the back door and found one of the officers sitting in her desk chair. He got up quickly when he saw her.

  “Is this investigation really going to take all day?” Lilly asked him.

  “Yup,” he answered, “and probably a good portion of the weekend. I’m sorry about that. I know how much all the business owners in Juniper Junction look forward to Black Friday.”

  Lilly grimaced. “’Look forward’ is a strong way to put it, but yes, it’s an important day for us. The profits give us a boost through the rest of the holiday season.”

  “Maybe you can have a Black Monday sale when the store reopens,” he joked.

  Lilly wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “You should probably lay off the stand-up comedy,” she said. He looked away and said nothing else.

  She thought about going home and fixing a proper breakfast for her kids while the police were working in the store, but she decided against it. She wanted to make sure she was around in case there were any questions. She also wanted to make sure the police didn’t make too much of a mess in their evidence-gathering, plus the masochistic side of her wanted to keep an eye on the number of people who tried to come into Juniper Junction Jewels and were turned away.

  And she wasn’t disappointed. Time after time would-be customers tried the front door only to find it locked. To a person, they would peer in the front windows and their eyes would widen when they saw the police gathered around. They would whisper to their companions, if there were any, and move back so their friends could look inside, too. Some people stood back on the sidewalk and snapped a photo of the shop front with their camera phone and then hit buttons furiously. Lilly imagined they were texting their friends or posting something online.

  She couldn’t have dreamed up a better publicity stunt.

  Too bad it wasn’t a stunt.

  Chapter 4

  It wasn’t long before Laurel, Lilly’s sixteen-year-old daughter, called. “Mom, what’s going on over there? The store is all over the internet.”

  Lilly pressed her lips together, wishing she could keep this information away from her kids. “You know Eden Barclay, the owner of the general store? Someone killed her in here.”

  Laurel gasped. “You’re kidding. Who did it? And why in your store?”

  “Haven’t figured out either of those things yet. But the police are working on it. Are you going out shopping today?”

  “Nah. I’m too smart for that. Too many people.”

  “Good. Can you make dinner? You and your brother eat whenever you want. I’ll probably be home late, but I’ll warm up whatever you make.”

  “Sure. Does Tighe have to help?” Tighe was a year older than his sister and she was always keen to make sure he did his fair share of the work around the house.

  “Don’t start, Laurel. He has his own list of chores for today.”

  “Aren’t you afraid to be in the store?”

  “Not at all. The police are still here. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Eden and I look nothing alike, so it’s not as if someone was targeting me and got her by mistake. Whoever killed her intended to kill her.”

  “Yeah, but it was in your store.”

  “Laurel, don’t worry about me. I’m totally fine and I intend to stay that way.”

  “All right. See you when you get home.”

  “Okay, honey. And have Tighe call me when he gets up, will you?” Lilly looked at her watch. It amazed her how much her two teens could sleep. Tighe would sleep all day if Laurel didn’t make enough noise to wake the dead.

  It wasn’t long before Tighe called. “Hi, bud. What’s up today?” Lilly asked.

  “I’ve got homework, but I don’t think that’s fair.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether you think it’s fair or not. Just get it done. Hopefully you won’t get any homework over Christmas break.” Tighe scoffed.

  “Are you going out today?” Lilly asked.

  “Yeah, probably. I have to get dressed and eat first. Laur said something about the cops at the store?”

  “It’s true. Someone was killed in here.”

  “No way.”

  “Remember Eden Barclay? The owner of JJ’s General Store? Someone killed her.”

  “That’s terrible. Her son is in our school.” Lilly hadn’t known Eden had any children.

  “That’s so sad. To lose his mother, especially at this time of year.”

  “You don’t like her, do you?”

  “She wasn’t my favorite person, that’s for sure. But I didn’t want to see her die, either.”

  “Better not tell the police you didn’t like her.”

  “Too late.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Don’t worry. I explained that she wasn’t a very nice person. Anyone would vouch for that.”

  By noontime Main Street was teeming with people. Shop owners on their lunch break came to the back door of Lilly’s store to gossip and find out what had happened. Lilly didn’t have much information other than what was already available on the street, so most of her colleagues went away disappointed. There seemed to be a general consensus, though, that Eden Barclay would not be missed.

  Doing paperwork by herself at her desk was not the way Lilly had envisioned her Black Friday unfolding, but she had to admit that she was able to get a lot done without much interruption from the police. By late afternoon the officers who had been there most of the day were going off duty. They told Lilly she would have to leave and followed her out the door after sealing both the front and back doors with special tape. They had also called for an officer to remain on duty overnight to make sure no one tampered with the crime scene.

  When Lilly got home she found Laurel making spaghetti for dinner. She paused in the doorway for just a moment, marveling not for the first time how much Laurel looked like her father—sandy blond hair, long limbs, skin the color of honey. She kissed Laurel’s cheek. “How was your day?” she asked.

  “Better than yours,” Laurel answered.

  “Where’s Tighe?”

  “He went to Gran’s house. She called and said she lost her puppy so he went to help.”

  Lilly looked heavenward and blew out a long breath. Her mother didn’t have a puppy. When Lilly was working and her mom was having one of her bad days, Laurel and Tighe took turns going to their grandmother’s house and humoring her through whatever imagined crisis had taken place.

  “I’m glad he went over. Poor Gran,” Lilly said sadly. Her mother was only in her early seventies, but she had been increasingly forgetful and lately she had been confused, too. Lilly and Bill had talked about it a little, but neither wanted to be the one to broach the subject of moving Mom out of her house. As long as the kids were around to help when Lilly and Bill were working, it would be all right.

  “Let’s eat,” Laurel said. “Tighe can eat when he gets home.”

  “No, I should go over to Gran’s house first,” Lilly answered. “Make sure she’s okay. You keep
dinner warm and when Tighe and I come home the three of us can eat together.” Laurel shrugged.

  Lilly got back into her car and drove the short distance to her mother’s house. Before he had left her and disappeared, her ex-husband, Beau, had been furious that Lilly and her mother spent so much time together. It had been one of the things they fought about the most. But Lilly had always loved having her mother nearby and was especially grateful for the two-short-block distance between them now that her mother’s mental health was failing.

  Every light in her mother’s house was on when Lilly pulled into the driveway. She got out and went inside through the front door.

  “Hello? Anybody home?” she called from the foyer.

  “We’re in here, Mom,” came the answer.

  Lilly pulled off her boots and set them by the front door then went through to the kitchen. Tighe and her mother sat at the table playing cards. She smiled when she saw them, and wondered how Tighe, fair-skinned with darker brown hair, could look so unlike his father.

  Lilly leaned down and kissed her mother’s soft cheek. “Did you find the puppy?” she asked.

  Her mother fixed her with a confused look. “What puppy?”

  Lilly caught Tighe’s eye and he shook his head at her almost imperceptibly. She cringed inwardly. She should have known better than to ask about the puppy. Her mother was probably lucid again and wondering what in the world Lilly was talking about.

  “My friend Mike lost his puppy, Gran,” Tighe answered. “Yeah, Mom, we found him.” Lilly smiled at him in thanks and sat down.

  “How were things at the store today, Lilly?” her mother asked. Her dark green eyes, which had once been full of light and spunk, were now, more often than not, clouded by confusion. Her soft white hair curled around her ears.

  “Fine, very busy,” Lilly replied. She had spoken to her mother’s doctor at an appointment recently and he had pulled her aside to say that her mom needed to minimize stress. Lilly did her best to keep stressful conversations to a minimum.

  “Black Friday is always a busy day. I was watching the television earlier and I saw that three people were trampled to death in Denver at some store. Ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head and making a tsk, tsk sound.

  “We don’t need to worry about that in Juniper Junction,” Lilly said. “No big box stores, no chain stores, as long as the very vocal minority of business owners doesn’t get its way. It’s busy on Black Friday, but not crazy.”

  “That’s good, dear. Have you spoken to Billy?” Lilly and Billy. Her parents had bestowed rhyming names on their children in a fit of what Lilly could only assume was misguided humor.

  “Yes. I saw him today, as a matter of fact.”

  “He works too hard, poor boy.” Lilly glanced at Tighe, who was smiling. He knew Beverly had a tendency to believe Bill worked harder than Lilly.

  “He’s fine, Mom. Don’t worry about him. Do you want to come over and have pasta with us tonight?”

  “No, thank you. I have plenty of those wonderful Thanksgiving leftovers. I’ll have those.” As much as Lilly loved the Thanksgiving feast, she couldn’t bring herself to have it two nights in a row. As long as she had lived away from home, she had always avoided Thanksgiving leftovers on Black Friday. She would start digging into those Saturday for lunch.

  “Suit yourself. Tighe and I should get going so our dinner doesn’t get cold,” Lilly said.

  “All right. Thank you for coming over to keep me company, dear,” Beverly said to Tighe.

  “It was fun, Gran. See you later.”

  Tighe had walked to Gran’s house, so Lilly drove him home. “What happened with the puppy?”

  “By the time I got there she wasn’t confused anymore, so I let it drop,” he said. “We just played cards the whole time. She cheats.”

  Lilly laughed. “I know.”

  Chapter 5

  Lilly was at the store before the police got there the next morning. She didn’t see the officer who was supposed to be watching the place. She parked the car and decided to walk around to the front while she waited for the police to arrive so she could go inside. She wandered around the end of the alley and onto Main Street, where the white lights twinkled, as they would day and night until the first of the year. As she stood looking up at the sign for Juniper Junction Jewels, an officer emerged from the bakery across the street.

  Can I help you?” he called.

  “I’m Lilly Carlsen. I own the jewelry shop.”

  “Oh. I was watching the store from the big front window inside the bakery. I haven’t seen a single movement all night long.”

  “That’s good to hear, I guess. Can you let me inside? I have keys, of course, but I don’t

  want to go in if I’m not allowed.”

  “You’re not allowed, as a matter of fact,” the officer said. “It’s still a crime scene, so no one can go in without an investigator accompanying them.”

  “Any idea when they’ll release the store back to me?” Lilly asked.

  “Nope. Hopefully sometime today, though.”

  “I hope so. I’m losing a lot of business.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Ms. Carlsen. I know how hard it is for business owners. My wife owns a restaurant supply store, so she feels the pinch when she can’t open for some reason. Usually it’s the weather.”

  “It’s not easy, that’s for sure.”

  “Why don’t you go home until the police are ready to let you back in?”

  Lilly said she would, then went back to the alley for her car. At least she could make breakfast for the kids. Before she started the car she made a quick phone call to her best friend, Noley Appleton.

  “Noley? Hi. How would you like to have breakfast at my house this morning? No, the shop’s closed today. I’ll explain when you get there.”

  When she pulled into the driveway Barney bounded through the snow to greet her.

  “Barn! What are you doing out front?” she asked, looking around and expecting to see one of the kids. No one appeared. Even in the snow, Lilly could feel her insides grow colder. “Come here, you,” she said to the dog, grabbing Barney by the collar as he dashed by Lilly.

  She walked around to the backyard through the gate, which was unlatched.

  “One of these days I’m going to lose my temper with those two,” she told Barney. She stomped up the back steps and was surprised to see the back door open.

  “Laurel! Tighe! You left the door open and the dog got out!” Lilly yelled from the doorway. “Come get him. He’s covered in snow and I don’t want it tracked through the house.” She listened for the kids to respond. No answer. “Honestly,” fumed to the dog. “I’ll just do it myself. Thank goodness I came home when I did or God knows where you could have gone.” She always kept a big bin of towels next to the door; she grabbed the oldest, rattiest one and rubbed Barney’s coat with it, then wiped off each of his paws.

  After she took off her coat and boots she went into the kitchen. She filled the kettle and set it on the burner to heat and turned around to see what still needed to be cleaned up in the kitchen.

  That’s when she saw the note on the table. Mom, I’m going to Mike’s house. Laurel went out to breakfast with some friend. T

  The kids weren’t home. Lilly could feel her heart start to beat a bit faster as a small trickle of anxiety wound its way through her body. She reached for her cell phone and dialed Tighe.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, honey. It’s Mom.”

  “I know that.” Lilly could practically see him rolling his eyes.

  “Oh. Did you know you left the back door unlocked when you left earlier?”

  “No I didn’t. I remember locking it because I dropped my keys in the snow after I locked the door. I said something inappropriate and Mrs. Laforge from next door yelled at me.”

  “You must have said it pretty loudly if Mrs. Laforge could hear you.”

  “You didn’t call just to tell me not to swear, did you?”


  “Of course not. I called to ask about the door. But as long as we’re on the topic, please don’t swear.”

  “Maybe Laurel forgot something and went home. Did you check to see if she’s there?”

  “I yelled, but there was no answer. Maybe she’s in the bathroom. I’ll go check.”

  “Bye, Mom.”

  Lilly hung up and looked down at Barney, who was sitting on the floor next to her. She would have sworn Barney was smiling because he had enjoyed an unsanctioned romp in the snow.

  “Come on, Barney. Let’s find Laurel.”

  Barney led the way up the stairs. Lilly called her daughter and knocked on her bedroom door and the bathroom door, but Laurel wasn’t home. Lilly swallowed hard and her breath started coming faster. Someone had let the dog out and left the door open. Who could have done that?

  She went downstairs and straight to the back door to look at the handle. It was then she noticed for the first time that the handle was broken. It tilted to one side and was loose when Lilly jiggled it. It had been in perfect condition when she left for work.

  Now she was afraid. Someone had broken into the house. She reached for her cell phone and called Bill.

  Chapter 6

  “Bill, someone’s been in my house. They left the back door open and Barney got out.”

  “Is he lost?”

  “No, he’s fine. I just happened to come home from the shop and found him in the front yard.”

  “Are you in the house now?”

  “Yes, but there’s nothing missing and no sign that anyone was in here except the broken door handle.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Tighe is over at a friend’s house and I think Laurel is out to breakfast.”

  “Call her just to make sure that’s where she is.”

  Lilly’s insides twisted and tightened. “Do you think she’s all right?”

  “Yes. I just want you to make sure, that’s all.”

  Lilly hung up without another word and dialed Laurel’s cell. “Laurel? Are you all right?” she said in a rush when her daughter answered.