by Sarah Fox
Fortunately, every piece was intact, and I loved each one. The sea creatures were adorable, their colors bright. They would look amazing on the tree.
I let Bentley outside to run around the yard in the rain while I held Flapjack in my arms and watched from the shelter of the covered front porch. Flapjack enjoyed spending time out in the yard, but he didn’t like getting rained on. Bentley, on the other hand, never minded the weather. Rain or shine, he was always excited to get outside.
He moseyed around the yard for a few minutes, checking out the scents and looking for the perfect spot to lift his leg before returning to the porch. After drying Bentley off and giving him and Flapjack each a treat, I gathered up my packages and drove over to the seniors’ center, eager to get back to decorating my tree.
A lot had been done in my absence. When I stepped into the main room, it was like walking into an indoor winter wonderland. Almost all of the trees were now fully decked out, red and green lights twinkled overhead, and artificial snow had been liberally dusted around the trees. The pathways had been demarcated with red and white ropes reminiscent of candy canes, and decorations like three foot tall wooden nutcrackers, cute woodland animals, and wicker reindeer filled in the previously empty spaces.
All of the sponsors had done a great job with their trees. Lonny and Zach’s garage had a tree decorated with classic car ornaments. My favorite was an old red truck with a Christmas tree in the back. The tree sponsored by Marielle’s Bakery featured cute cupcake ornaments as well as pink and white bows that matched the colors of the logo on Marielle’s bakery boxes.
The local coffee shop, the Beach and Bean, had opted to go with more traditional decorations rather than themed ones. The tree was decked out in blue and silver, with baubles, stars, and sparkly snowflakes. The local birdwatchers’ society had festooned its tree with bird ornaments and gold and silver pinecones. There was also a mermaid-themed tree and one with decorations all in shades of purple.
Of all the trees I admired on my way down the path, my favorite was the one sponsored by Wildwood Cove’s public library. Miniature books hung from the branches, all with covers from real novels. I spotted classics like A Christmas Carol and Pride and Prejudice, as well as newer books by authors like Louise Penny and Stephen King.
I’d almost reached my tree when I stopped short, staring with surprise at the one next to mine. I couldn’t help but smile. According to the sign, the local toy store had decorated the tree. That made perfect sense. Black and silver decorations hung from the branches, but what really made the tree stand out was the Darth Vader helmet topping the tree and the lightsaber sticking out from the middle branches. A black cape hung over the back half of the tree and black boots showed from beneath the lowest branches. I didn’t doubt that Darth Vader would get plenty of votes, especially from Wildwood Cove’s younger citizens.
Still smiling, I stepped over the rope to get to my tree, ready to get to work. I hoped I’d be able to make my tree look as good as all the others. I set down my boxes and then straightened as I heard Patricia’s voice.
“Hi, Marley. How’s everything? Are any of your decorations missing?”
She sounded stressed and she had worry lines across her forehead.
I studied my tree. “As far as I know all of my decorations are here.” I did a quick check of my breakfast-themed ornaments. All seemed to be accounted for. “Why? Have more gone missing?”
“Unfortunately. Several people came by this morning to finish decorating their trees. Four of them reported missing decorations.” She consulted her phone. “Three snowflakes were taken from the Beach and Bean tree, two cupcakes from Marielle’s, some purple baubles from the general store’s, and a couple of red ones from the Windward Pub’s tree.”
“That’s a lot,” I said, puzzled. “Why would anyone do this?”
Patricia sighed. “I wish I knew. The thefts are putting a damper on the festival, and it hasn’t even officially started yet.”
I felt bad for her, and for everyone else who’d worked so hard to organize the event.
I glanced around the room. “No surveillance cameras in here?”
“No,” Patricia confirmed. “And not outside either.”
That was unfortunate, but not surprising. Most buildings in Wildwood Cove didn’t have surveillance cameras. I’d installed some outside The Flip Side only after the pancake house had been the target of some vandalism.
“Have there been a lot of people around the past couple of days?”
“Several, but mostly just the volunteers and sponsors. And Letty Campbell. She’s the chair of the center’s board of directors.”
“Maybe one of the sponsors is trying to sabotage their competition?” Even as I voiced the theory, I had trouble believing it. The individuals and businesses sponsoring the trees didn’t have anything to gain personally by winning. The prize money would go to a charity of their choice.
“I really don’t know what’s going on.” Patricia sounded weary. “At least this won’t stop the festival from going forward. The trees still look great. It’s just been adding unneeded stress.”
“Do you know when the latest missing ornaments disappeared?” I asked. I had trouble shrugging off mysteries, no matter how small.
“Between the time I left yesterday and when I opened this morning. Marielle started decorating her tree yesterday afternoon and left just minutes before I locked up. She popped by again first thing this morning to add a few more bows. That’s when she realized some of the cupcake ornaments were gone.”
“Was anyone else here when you left, or when you first arrived today?” I asked.
Patricia thought for a second. “Annette left when Marielle did. Aside from me, Marielle was the first to arrive this morning.”
“Who has keys to the seniors’ center?” I knew I was asking a lot of questions, but Patricia didn’t seem to mind.
“I have one for the duration of the festival. Letty Campbell and the other board members. And the maintenance guy, Chuck Banfield. But he’s out of town for a couple of days and, anyway, I can’t imagine any of them stealing Christmas decorations.”
“Patricia?” a woman called from the next room.
“Excuse me, Marley.” With a brief smile weighed down by stress, she rushed off to find the woman who’d called her.
Someone else hurried down the central pathway. Annette, I realized a moment later.
She stopped between two trees and peered over a large nutcracker at me. “Hi! Have you fallen victim to the thief?”
“Not yet,” I said. I noticed that she had a small box in her arms. “Replacement decorations?”
“Yep. Hopefully these ones won’t get taken. I’m determined to win this competition!” She flashed me a brief smile and then hurried off.
I got busy decorating my tree, carefully hanging the beautiful glass sea creatures as well as the snowmen that Lisa, Chloe, and I had made out of shells. Chloe had also made a couple of angels, using clamshells for the dresses and mussel shells for the wings. Store-bought or handmade, they all looked great on the tree. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if someone stole my decorations, but I hoped it wouldn’t happen.
I wished there was a way to identify the thief, but without surveillance cameras, the chances of that happening were slim. In the end, I decided I’d simply have to be vigilant while at the seniors’ center, in case the thief was operating in plain view. Other than that, all I could do was cross my fingers and hope that he or she wouldn’t strike again.
Chapter Thirteen
I texted Patricia around noon the next day, asking if any further ornaments had disappeared from the festival trees.
So far nothing more has been reported missing, she wrote back. Thank goodness!
I shared her relief. Maybe the thief was satisfied with what he or she had already taken. It was still unfortunate that some i
tems had been stolen, but hopefully the festival would run smoothly from now on. It would officially open the next morning, and I was looking forward to stopping by after work tomorrow so I could take in the entire display.
Brett and I planned to go together, but we also had more immediate plans. After he finished work today, we were heading out to a nearby Christmas tree farm to pick up trees for The Flip Side and our house. We’d gone to the same farm the year before, for our first Christmas together, and I hoped the trip would become an annual tradition.
The thought of establishing traditions with Brett, ones we could enjoy together for years and years, filled me with happiness. We’d been married for more than three months now, but sometimes I still had to pinch myself to make sure that my life was real and not just a beautiful dream. Before Brett, I’d never dared to imagine that I’d find a man as amazing as him.
After closing the pancake house and giving it a good clean, I locked up and headed home, looking forward to the evening I’d be spending with Brett. Although we finally had a clear and sunny day, without a drop of rain, I’d still driven to work. I knew I wouldn’t have wanted to make my way along the beach in the pitch darkness of the early winter morning, but I missed spending time by the ocean. I could see it from my house and from The Flip Side, but that wasn’t quite the same as spending time on the beach.
When I arrived home, I had some time to kill before Brett would finish work. I got together all the ingredients I’d need to make a batch of spaghetti sauce, but before starting to cook, I took Bentley out for a walk along the shore.
Bentley was as happy as I was to spend some time by the water. He galloped and bounded around, even splashing in the shallows for a few seconds here and there. I wasn’t crazy enough to dip so much as a toe into the cold waters. Even Bentley didn’t go in beyond the depth of a couple of inches.
We walked all the way to the eastern end of the cove, enjoying the fresh air despite the chill. It was quiet out that way, with only a few seagulls sharing the beach with us. The sun shone brightly, though I couldn’t feel much of its warmth through the cold wind. I was glad I’d bundled up in a winter jacket, hat, and gloves before setting out. Wildwood Cove might not have been in the mountains, and we might not have had any snow, but it still felt like winter.
On the way back home, I spotted a lone figure standing on the beach out in front of Patricia’s bed-and-breakfast. As I drew closer, I realized that the person was Lily. Bentley wasn’t quite as exuberant as when we’d first set out, but he was still wagging his tail and enjoying the outing. He trotted over to Lily and she gave him a pat on the head.
“What a cute dog!” She smiled at me. “We meet again.”
“I live nearby,” I explained.
I didn’t tell her exactly where, even though I could have pointed out my house from where we stood. There were a few people out on the beach closer to town, a couple of them with dogs, but out this way we were alone. I wasn’t too worried, but I couldn’t help but recall what Wilson had said about Lily during our last breakfast at Holly Lodge. On the night that Kevin had died, Lily had been up and about just after two in the morning. I didn’t know for sure when Kevin had been killed, but I also didn’t know for sure that I wasn’t talking to his murderer.
“Have you heard anything more about Kevin’s murder?” I asked, watching Lily’s face for any clues as to her guilt or innocence.
“Not a thing.” She buried her gloved hands in the pockets of her knee-length coat. Her expression revealed nothing.
I changed tack. “I hear you’re planning to write a book set here on the Olympic Peninsula.”
She brightened at the change of subject. “That’s right. Wildwood Cove might even make an appearance.”
“That would be cool,” I said, meaning it. “Will it be another murder mystery? That’s my favorite genre.”
“Yes, it’ll be a mystery, probably with a dash of romance. I love combining my two favorite genres.” She huddled deeper into her coat as a gust of wind swirled around us. “I wanted to have the murder take place at Holly Lodge. It’s fun for my readers if they can visit—or think of visiting—the places where my books are set. I thought it would have benefitted me and the Mannings.”
“But you changed your mind?” I guessed, judging by her frown.
“I had to. I make a practice of getting permission if I’m going to set a murder at a real place of business. This time it wasn’t forthcoming.”
“I can see why Rita wouldn’t agree now.”
“So can I, but I had to change my plans before Kevin died. I never even got a chance to talk to Rita about it. Kevin was adamant that he didn’t want a fictional murder taking place at his lodge.” She shrugged. “Now he’s got a real one instead.”
The cool way she said that sent a chill skittering down my spine.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I’ll probably still use Holly Lodge as my inspiration, but I’ll use a different name. I might even incorporate a ghost story, like the one about Henrietta Franklin.”
“That sounds great.” I didn’t have to feign my enthusiasm. “I look forward to reading the book.”
The afternoon was morphing into evening, daylight quickly fading from the sky. I needed to get home so I could start cooking the spaghetti sauce, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up on digging for information.
“Was it your first visit to Holly Lodge last week?” I asked.
“It was. I heard about it through Ambrose. He’s been there several times. I can see why he finds it great for inspiration.” Her expression grew somber. “Poor Ambrose.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Kevin was hoping to expand the lodge. He told Ambrose he could run writing retreats there once it had meeting rooms and more space for guests. Ambrose was really looking forward to that. Rita was never on board with the expansion, so there’s no chance of it going ahead now.”
“Hopefully Ambrose will find a way to have his retreats, whether at Holly Lodge or somewhere else,” I said.
“Hopefully.”
I took a step back. “I’d better run. Enjoy the rest of your time in Wildwood Cove.”
She smiled. “I plan to.”
Bentley had wandered off to sniff at one of the logs on the beach. I called to him and he came running. As we walked the rest of the way home, I thought over everything Lily had said. It seemed like Ambrose didn’t have a motive to kill Kevin. In fact, if what Lily said was true, Kevin’s death may have thwarted his plans, especially if Rita didn’t want to expand the lodge.
Lily, on the other hand, I couldn’t rule out as a suspect. Maybe Kevin’s refusal to agree to have a fictional murder set at Holly Lodge wasn’t a strong motive for the author to kill him, but I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Lily. She seemed mostly unaffected by Kevin’s death. That could have been because she didn’t know him, or maybe she kept her emotions to herself. Nevertheless, something about her made me uneasy, and I decided that I needed to learn more about her before drawing any final conclusions.
* * * *
While the spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove, I got comfortable on the couch with Flapjack by my side and my laptop on my knees. Lily’s mention of Henrietta Franklin had brought the ghost story to the front of my mind and had piqued my curiosity. I’d learned a little bit about Henrietta while at Holly Lodge, but I wanted to know more. How had she died and why was she thought to haunt the lake? Those were the questions I hoped to answer.
Fortunately, I had no trouble finding information about Henrietta, even though there wasn’t a huge number of websites with hits. A non-fiction author and history buff who lived on the Olympic Peninsula had written a lengthy blog post on the subject, and a historical society had a write-up about Henrietta on its site. I read both accounts of Henrietta’s back story and found that they didn’t differ in s
ubstance.
According to both sources, Henrietta Langford was born in Colorado in 1902. At the age of twenty-three, she moved to the Pacific Northwest with her sister and cousin. Henrietta found work as a barmaid at a tavern on the peninsula, and that’s where she met her future husband, Billy Franklin, a regular patron at the tavern. Henrietta and Billy married in 1926, and their marriage marked the start of a downward spiral in Henrietta’s life. It was no secret that Billy was violent toward Henrietta, and she often showed up for work bruised and battered.
Then, one day in September 1929, Henrietta failed to show up at the tavern for her shift. She was never seen again.
Friends of the Franklins reported that the couple had gone up to Billy’s cabin at Holly Lake, ostensibly so Billy could do some hunting and fishing, but only Billy returned. He claimed that Henrietta had run off with another man, but few accepted that story as the truth.
Nothing was ever proven, but Henrietta’s friends and family firmly believed that Billy had killed her at the cabin and sent her body to the bottom of the lake. The first sighting of Henrietta’s ghost—with her long red locks and wearing her best dress—was reported in 1931. Since then, many people had claimed to see Henrietta’s ghost out on the lake or on the shore.
Billy had been questioned by the police after Henrietta’s disappearance, but he was never arrested or tried. He had died in 1939 as a result of injuries sustained in a tavern brawl.
I sat back, stroking Flapjack’s fur as I digested the story. I wished there’d been some evidence that concretely established what had happened to Henrietta, but I didn’t see any reason to doubt that Billy had killed her. He certainly hadn’t been much of a husband. It was too bad he’d never had to pay for what he’d done to Henrietta, but maybe karma had caught up to him at the tavern in 1939.
Now I knew Henrietta’s connection to Holly Lake—it was most likely her final resting place. I still didn’t know if I believed that people had seen her ghost. I didn’t know if I’d seen her ghost.