The abundance wasn’t unusual. Most homes in the North Pole were equipped to handle visitors on short notice. Our hospitality was something we prided ourselves on.
But I already knew from my father that George’s social life was nonexistent. And Elma had made it clear Finnoula wasn’t getting a lot of visitors. Or any. So the spread told me something else. Finnoula either still had an appetite, or George was keeping the house well stocked in an effort to get her to eat.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell which, but Finnoula filled her plate along with the rest of us. Whether or not she’d eat what she’d taken remained to be seen.
I took a bite of one of the iced cookies. “These are really good. What are these?”
Finnoula smiled. “Molasses nutmeg sugar cookies with vanilla icing. My own recipe. Elma makes them now. George’s father and I always loved them, although George never cared for them.” Her smile turned wistful with a memory she didn’t share.
The small talk continued while we picked at the food and sipped our tea. Finnoula ate as much as the rest of us, joining in the conversation without any real sign of fatigue. She coughed once or twice while laughing at something, but other than that, she didn’t seem terribly unhealthy. Maybe a little tired.
Mamie was telling us a story about a mutual friend of theirs, but when that was over, she took the conversation in a different direction.
She helped herself to a chocolate truffle rolled in coconut flakes. “How’s George doing? He works an awful lot, doesn’t he?”
“He’s doing well,” Finnoula answered. “And yes, he does work a lot. He enjoys his job, though.”
“That’s good.” Mamie nodded. “Is he seeing anyone?”
Finnoula hesitated ever so slightly. “Not that I know of. But I’m sure he’d tell me if he was.”
“Whatever happened to that woman he was engaged to? Rochelle? Roxanne? What was her name?”
Finnoula’s hesitation lasted longer this time. “Rachel.”
“That’s right.” Mamie nodded like it was all coming back to her. I hoped it was. “What ever happened to Rachel? She’s still in town, isn’t she? Or did she move?”
“I don’t know,” Finnoula said. “I haven’t kept up with her since she abandoned my son. Haven’t talked to her at all. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to talk to her. After what she did to George, she’s dead to me.” She stared at her hands in her lap and took another of those long, ragged breaths that made me want to clear my throat.
But her phrasing had Mamie, Birdie, and me giving each other hard looks.
None of us spoke, however, and a long moment of silence passed. It made me think Mamie was using the trick my father had taught me about letting the other person speak first. It always worked for him, and it had always worked for me.
Finnoula opened her mouth, proving that it was about to work this time too. “She broke George’s heart, you know. Shattered it.”
We all nodded but kept quiet.
Finnoula wasn’t done. “He loved her so dearly. You should have seen the ring he bought her. A beautiful orangey-yellow sapphire cut square with tiny diamonds around it and down the band. And that was well before he was making the kind of salary he is now. He said it reminded him of the sun, and since Rachel was his sun, it was perfect.”
“It sounds lovely,” Mamie said softly. “Why did they break up?”
Finnoula’s gaze was as distant as the memories she was lost in. “I don’t know. And I didn’t want to pry. I just know that she stopped taking his calls. Stopped talking to him. Just removed herself from his life. Didn’t even have the decency to return that ring. He was devastated.”
She shook her head like she was trying to rid herself of those memories. “He won’t talk about it, and I don’t want to dredge up that old pain, so I don’t bring it up.”
“That’s understandable,” Birdie said. “You don’t need the stress of it either. Not with your health.”
Finnoula’s smile was thin. “A lot of people think I made up my illness to occupy my son’s time. So he couldn’t dwell too much on what that awful woman did to him.”
We weren’t expecting her to mention that. I might have been holding my breath.
Finnoula lifted her chin. “Well, I didn’t make it up.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Mamie said.
Finnoula’s smile flattened. “I’d found out I had Grater’s right after he met Rachel. But I kept it a secret. He was so happy, and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that. But when she left him such a broken man, I was concerned he’d go off the deep end without some new purpose in his life. So I gave him that purpose. I told him about my illness. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I think the stress of it all actually made the disease worse.”
She sighed. “I didn’t want to be a burden on him, but I didn’t want to lose him to the darkness he was falling into. And trust me, he was falling. Fast.”
I glanced around. I was pretty sure Birdie and Mamie were on the same page with me in thinking that Finnoula had been between a glacier and a hard place. It made me reconsider everything I’d thought about her up to this point. I sympathized with her. To see her son so hurt and feel like the only way to save him was to give him another heartbreak to focus on… What kind of pain had that caused her?
Mamie took her hand. “We all would have done the same thing.”
Finnoula suddenly looked a lot frailer than she had earlier. She glanced at me. “Please, Your Highness, don’t say anything to George. In fact, please don’t say anything about any of this. His ex, my illness, none of it. He’s a sensitive soul, and he does so much for me. He’s my whole world. I just don’t want him upset.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Thank you.” She seemed to relax. Then her brow furrowed. “What was it you came to speak to him about, anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I watched her face carefully. “I came to talk to him about starting up the Hangar Nine tours again. Not just for schoolchildren, but for anyone who’d like to see it. With our pending wedding, I thought it would be the perfect time for people to be able to view the Crystal Carriage up close.”
She smiled broadly, and an odd light shone in her eyes. Was it hurt? Longing? I couldn’t tell. “I think that’s a marvelous idea. I’d like to see it myself, actually. I’d like to see all the vehicles kept there. I hear there’s quite a collection of retired sleds. You know my late husband was an architect. He worked on some of the designs for those hangars after the storm of 1896 damaged the original ones.”
I shook my head. “I had no idea. That must have been something to watch them being built.”
She shrugged. “I’ve never seen the hangars or been in one. I was too busy raising our children.”
“Oh?” This was new information. “George has siblings, then? What do they do?”
“Yes, a brother and a sister. One’s a chef. The other works part time in a florist’s shop. Both live in the…mortal…world.” She put a hand to her chest and took a wheezy, shuddering breath, then started coughing.
The housekeeper came running in. “Mrs. Bitterbark, are you all right?”
I stood. I’d wanted to ask if she knew why George had stopped the tours, but that moment was gone. “We should go. We’ve kept you long enough. Thank you for your time and your generous hospitality. We can see ourselves out.”
Birdie and Mamie said goodbye as well. None of us spoke another word until we were back in the crawler.
I started the vehicle and got us headed back to the factory. “Mamie, did you know she has two other children?”
She shook her head slowly. “I guess I did, but it’s been so long since I’ve thought about them. I’ve been thinking George was an only child, honestly.”
“He kind of is,” Birdie said. “If his brother and sister don’t live in the North Pole.”
“True.” I stopped at a red light. “No wonder Finnoula wanted to pro
tect him so desperately. With her husband gone, George is all she has left.”
Mamie frowned. “I take back everything I said or thought about her faking that illness.”
“You had no way of knowing,” Birdie said.
She shook her head like she was disgusted with herself. “Can you imagine the prospect of having your son about to be married, the promise of a new daughter-in-law, the possibility of grandchildren, all of that happiness? Then it’s dashed, and you’re left watching your son crumble? What a horrible thing. Especially on top of her knowing how sick she was.”
The light went green, and I drove on. “I was thinking about that. How hard it must have been for her to realize the only way to save her son from one heartbreak was to tell him about another one. I feel for her. I feel for both of them.”
Birdie’s mouth pursed. “I don’t mean to be insensitive—they’ve certainly had a hard time of things, Finnoula especially—but none of what we learned today explains why the hangar tours were stopped.”
I sighed. “I was going to ask, but the moment slipped away.”
Mamie shrugged. “Maybe they weren’t stopped so much as they weren’t renewed or something like that. It could have just been paperwork that got lost in the cracks during that time. I’m sure work wasn’t his focus then.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Or there’s another reason we don’t know about.”
“I’ll dig into it,” Mamie said. “Finnoula probably doesn’t know anyway. But I can check the records. If there’s any kind of paper trail, I’ll find it.”
Birdie grinned. “You really are the North Pole equivalent of me.”
Mamie’s eyes twinkled. “Considering I’m your senior by about thirty years, I’d say it’s the other way around.”
We were still laughing as I parked in the factory lot. I thought Birdie liked being considered a younger woman, although I didn’t think Mamie was quite thirty years older.
Winter elves aged very slowly and lived for a long, long time. About midlife, our physical aging slowed down, too, meaning I’d look like I was in my thirties for several more decades. No complaints from me.
“This was an interesting outing. I’m glad I got to see Finnoula. I need to visit her more often,” Mamie said. She made no move to get out. I thought she’d enjoyed our little adventure. “I’ll look into that hangar shutdown some more and see what I can come up with.”
“Good. I can’t wait to hear what you find out.”
Birdie leaned up from the back seat. “What are we going to do next?”
My answer should probably have something to do with wedding stuff, but I wasn’t quite ready to fall down that hole just yet. I turned to see Birdie in the back seat. “I was thinking we’d go see George at his office. Talk to him about reopening the hangar for tours.”
She nodded. “Okay. Do you think Finnoula called him and told him we came by? And what you wanted to speak to him about?”
“She might have.”
“I don’t know,” Mamie said. “She might not have. After all, if she told him that we stayed to talk, he might ask what we talked about. She definitely doesn’t want to bring up anything that could upset him.”
“Right.” Finnoula had made that clear. “But since you two are old friends, she could just say you reminisced and leave it at that.”
“Possibly.” Mamie seemed unconvinced.
“Hmm.” I narrowed my eyes, thinking of a new possibility.
“What is it?” Birdie asked.
“Do you think Finnoula’s afraid of George? I mean, maybe this dark place he went to after Rachel left him, maybe it wasn’t depression so much as rage.”
Birdie and Mamie didn’t answer right away, just sat there looking at me, considering what I’d just said.
Then Birdie sat back, arms crossed. “That’s an interesting possibility.”
Mamie put her hand to her chin. “You don’t think the reason she hasn’t been out is because he won’t let her leave, do you? What if Rachel’s leaving him really twisted him up to the point that he’s afraid his mother might leave him too? Or that her going out might make her illness worse, meaning she’d pass away sooner? It’s possible that all of that pain he went through has messed with his mind. Made him capable of doing terrible things.”
Birdie made a raspberry. “Lots of men get dumped. They don’t go psycho because of it. If that’s what pushed him over the edge, he already had problems. Obviously.”
We were all silent. All undoubtedly thinking about the bones in the carriage.
Mamie finally sighed. “We really don’t know any more now than we did earlier, do we?”
“We do some,” I said. “But it’s brought up new questions as well.”
“That’s always how it is,” Birdie added. “Takes a lot of digging to get to the truth.”
I tapped my fingers on the console. “Yeah, and we still don’t know who the skeleton belongs to.”
“Do you think…” Birdie went quiet, leaving her sentence hanging.
I finished it for her. “That our skeleton is Rachel? I don’t know.”
The idea made me sick to my stomach. But once again, the thought that George might have killed her for leaving him popped into my head.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Mamie said. “Why don’t you let me try to locate her? And when I do, I can get her side of the story. That should answer a lot of our questions.”
“Good thinking,” Birdie said. “That’s much better than us speculating. Do you remember her last name?”
“Not off the top of my head. I seem to recall it was something unusual.” Mamie smiled at her. “But I’ll come up with it. That’s what we do.”
Birdie grinned right back. “It sure is. Let me know if I can help. I’m pretty handy with that kind of research.”
“Will do. And you two keep me posted on your visit to George’s. Time for me to get back to work.”
My phone vibrated with an incoming message. I gave the screen a glance. “Hmm. That meeting with George will have to be postponed. LeRoy wants me to come by the shop and look at his new wedding dress design and give my input.” I looked at Birdie. “Are you up for a trip to the royal couturier?”
Birdie was practically salivating. “To look at your wedding dress? Are you kidding? Of course I’m up for it. Let’s go.”
Mamie laughed as she got out. “Sounds like fun. I hope the dress is everything you dreamed of.”
“Thanks, Mamie. Have a great day. We’ll talk to you soon.”
She waved goodbye and walked toward the factory entrance, badge in hand. Birdie climbed into the front seat, and we were off.
Birdie rubbed her hands together. “I can’t wait to see the dress.”
“Me either, especially after the last one.” I shuddered.
“That bad?”
“Oh, Birdie, that dress is what caused my breakdown. It was a total nightmare. Or a train wreck. Whatever you want to call it. LeRoy is a sweet man, and I love him dearly, but you’d think for a designer of his clout, he’d have enough backbone to stand up to my mother and aunt. Then again, they are the queen and Mrs. Kringle, so I can’t be too hard on him. But wow, it was next-level bad.”
“I’m bummed I missed it.”
“Settle down.” I laughed. “I’m kind of bummed you missed it too. I think you could have talked some sense into my mom and aunt right there.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I might be an outspoken person, but I’ve never given a queen a piece of my mind.”
“I suppose it’s kind of intimidating if you think about it too much.”
“Hey.” She dug into her purse and pulled out the scrap of fabric she’d found under the skeleton. “Do you think I could ask LeRoy about this? Fabric is kind of his specialty.”
“Not only could you, I think you should. Especially because of how fancy it is. That’s a great idea.”
“Thanks.” She tucked it away again. “We’ll get all the wedding dress s
tuff out of the way first. That’s the most important. Then we’ll show him the fabric. That is, if you think he can be trusted.”
“Of course. He’s been the couturier for ages. He made my christening gown, you know. My mom’s and aunt’s gowns for most things. He makes all my uncle’s suits too. He’s a very talented man. And very sweet. You’ll see.”
We arrived a few minutes later. His shop was near the town square but set back on a small lane with a few other high-end retailers. I parked the crawler at the curb, and we headed inside.
“LeRoy?” I called out. “It’s Jayne. We’re here.”
Birdie leaned in. “This shop is amazing. Do you think it would be okay if I took some pictures for Corette?”
“I want to say yes, but we’d better ask LeRoy.”
“Ask me what, Your Highness?” He came from the back room, bowed, and gave me a big smile.
“Hi, LeRoy. This is my friend Birdie Caruthers. She’s helping me with some wedding things while she’s up here visiting from Nocturne Falls. One of our other friends there, Corette Williams, owns the bridal salon, and Birdie was wondering if she could take some pictures of your beautiful shop to show Corette.”
Birdie nodded. “She would just love to see them, I know it. Your shop is so elegant. And to see the salon of the royal couturier would just be such a treat for her.”
The sparkle in LeRoy’s eyes gave away how tickled he was by the praise. “If seeing my shop would please her, then by all means, take some photos. And thank you for your kind words. I work very hard at what I do. It’s always nice to be appreciated.”
“Thank you,” Birdie said. “That’s very kind of you to allow the photos. But I know there’s more important business to attend to first.”
His smile broadened, and he rubbed his hands together. “Ah, yes. The gown.” He gestured toward the rear of the store where the fitting rooms were, the largest of them the grand salon. “Ladies, if you would follow me, I would be happy to show you what I’ve been working on.”
Miss Frost Says I Do: A Nocturne Falls Mystery (Jayne Frost Book 7) Page 8