A Midwinter's Tail

by Bethany Blake

  He shrugged. “I’ve read a few works.”

  I was pretty sure that if I ever got to check out those groaning shelves, I’d find a whole row of volumes by Grass—probably in their native German. I strongly suspected that Jonathan, who’d grown up, and then served, all over the world, had a few linguistic tricks up his sleeve.

  But he probably wouldn’t say more, right then, so I switched the topic back to Celeste French. “To be honest, based upon my brief conversation with CeeCee at the Bijoux, I have a feeling she’s still not to be trusted. Especially around boyfriends.”

  Jonathan seemed intrigued. “I take it she stole one of yours?”

  I shook my head. “No. The boy was Moxie’s true love. And I’m not sure she ever got over it.”

  “Poor Moxie.” I thought Jonathan sounded genuinely sympathetic. “And now it seems as if your former classmate intends to rob the whole town blind, if Elyse—and the Gazette—are to be trusted.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. “Although, honestly, I only have faith in one of those sources, when it comes to accuracy.”

  We’d reached a fork in the paths, and I stopped in my tracks. Jonathan paused, too. Overlooking the fair joke about the Gazette, I asked, “Are you saying that Gabriel . . . ?”

  “Has already posted a story on the online edition.” Jonathan finished my thought. “I looked up the article after Elyse called me. It’s a fairly comprehensive piece, given how quickly Graham slapped it together.”

  “Why do I keep forgetting the Web version of the paper exists?” I muttered, choosing the path that led toward the Christmas tree and resuming our stroll. The dogs darted by again, Artie’s tongue flapping out over his recessive chin, Socrates starting to look tired, and Axis loping easily along. When they were once more out of sight, I shot Jonathan a wary glance. “Was there a picture . . . ?”

  “You were only featured in one shot,” he assured me. Having been the chiseled, heroic-looking half of the legendary image of me being hauled, bedraggled, from the lake, he clearly understood why I was worried. And my concerns were apparently justified. “You seemed to be picking yourself up after a fall,” he added. “The caption read something about ‘local baker for pets collapses in wake of devastating news.’”

  Jonathan was trying hard not to laugh, while I was not amused. “I was actually knocked over by a little, pranking pug in a red sweater with a grumpy logo,” I informed him. “Not that anyone believes me!”

  Jonathan seemed as skeptical as my sister, my mother, and Roger Berendt. In fact, he overlooked my comment about the dog and asked, more seriously, “Daphne . . . are you upset about the store, which likely will impact your bakery, if not Lucky Paws?”

  We’d reached the massive tree, the boughs of which were iced with snow, so the lights glowed more softly, as if behind frosted glass, and I stopped us again, so I could study Jonathan’s reaction when I ventured, uncertainly, “You . . . You called me because you’re worried about me, didn’t you? And not my safety, like when you put a lock on my door . . .”

  “Which you don’t use, I’m sure.”

  I ignored his attempt to laugh off the kind gesture. Plus, he was right. I never locked up Plum Cottage.

  “And now, you wanted to make sure I’m okay in the wake of CeeCee’s bombshell,” I added, watching his blue eyes. “You didn’t just want to get the dogs together. You’re checking on me.”

  I expected Jonathan to deny that and distance himself from me, like he usually did when things got too personal between us. But, for once, that didn’t happen. In fact, his expression softened, and my heart did a funny leap when his deep voice grew lower and quieter, too.

  “Yes, I guess I am checking on you, Daphne,” he admitted, stepping closer, so I could smell his signature spicy cologne on the crisp air. I was barely aware of the dogs playing near the creek—and a person who walked along the bank, too. My gaze was locked on Jonathan’s eyes, which suddenly seemed even darker than the night sky. However, I was pretty sure the figure who had stopped, perhaps to stare at the water, had been walking unevenly, with a limp. I flashed back to the man I’d seen darting into Cherry Alley. The one I’d mistaken for Mike Cavanaugh. Then the individual moved out of my peripheral vision, and the dogs ran to the gazebo, so the night was almost silent when Jonathan said, “And I had a question for you, too. Something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  I tucked the curls that peeked out from under my hat nervously behind one ear. “A question?”

  “Yes,” he said, although he didn’t ask me anything right away. Instead he said, cryptically, “It’s been a . . . challenging year, in some ways.”

  I had no idea what that meant, but I didn’t interrupt him, for fear of shattering the always fragile bridge between us.

  “I thought about contacting you, several times,” he continued, surprising me. “But I wasn’t sure if you and Graham . . .” He hesitated, and for the first time I could recall, Jonathan Black seemed unsure of himself. He dragged his hand through his hair again, then asked, “Are you two . . . ?”

  The half-formed question—which may or may not have been the one he’d originally intended to ask, when he’d contacted me—caught me off guard. And I had no idea how to label my relationship with Gabriel—if that was, indeed, what Jonathan was prompting me to do.

  Nor did I have a chance to form any kind of response before the snow at the base of Sylvan Creek’s huge, pretty holiday tree was suddenly disturbed, and a small tan-and-black face poked out from under one of the lowest, drooping boughs. Big, round eyes gleamed at me, and a pink tongue darted in and out of a pushed-in muzzle.

  Pulling my mitten-clad hand from my pocket, I pointed. “Look! There’s the pug I was telling you about. . . .”

  Then the words died on my lips and my hand fell to my side when I realized that the splash of red I also spied under the tree wasn’t just a glimpse of the dog’s sweater. By lifting the bough, he’d also revealed a very distinctive crimson shoe.

  One that I’d last seen at the Bijoux theater, on Celeste French’s foot . . . which looked cold and blue, poking out from the snow, too.

  Chapter 8

  “Where is the hand-knit, free-range, yak-hair cardigan I bought for you when we need it?” I asked poor Artie, who was tucked into my barn jacket, shivering with either cold or happiness. Maybe both. Artie loved a free ride. His eyes were bulging again, and his tongue was hanging out, dripping little icicles of drool, as Socrates, Axis, and I walked from Pettigrew Park to Moxie Bloom’s garret apartment, where Jonathan’s partner, Detective Doebler, had agreed we could wait, in case Jonathan planned to question me about CeeCee French’s apparent murder. I’d appreciated the offer, because it was getting late, and the temperature was dropping. “I can’t believe I found another body,” I grumbled to the dogs, echoing things Jonathan had said earlier, before the EMTs and coroner Vonda Shakes had arrived to claim his attention.

  In fact, I hadn’t spoken to him again, after he’d gently, but firmly, turned me away from the Christmas tree, so he could confirm what I’d already suspected.

  Celeste French was dead.

  He hadn’t told me anything else, but, as we’d both waited for the backup he’d called, I was pretty sure I’d seen one more red thing on the snow, when he’d pushed aside the low boughs.

  Blood.

  “Poor Celeste,” I whispered, with a glance at Socrates, who was also somber. Axis was padding along quietly, too, his head lowered, as if he grasped that something bad had just happened. We’d almost reached the big, yellow Victorian building that housed the Philosopher’s Tome bookstore and Moxie’s apartment. Moxie’s business, Spa and Paw, was tucked into a tiny storefront, right next door. Across the street, under the town clock, Brett Pinkney had set up a small, white wooden hut, which was surrounded by Pinkney’s pines, for sale like they were every year. The scene, reminiscent of childhood holidays, gave me a rush of nostalgia, which was quickly tempered by the recollection of Brett’s former girlfriend�
�s feet sticking out from beneath Sylvan Creek’s biggest Christmas tree. I sighed, my breath a puff of steam in the cold air. “I wonder how Brett will take the news,” I added, shuffling past Spa and Paw. “I have no idea if they stayed in touch—”

  “Woof!”

  Socrates’s soft, unexpected bark interrupted me. Looking down, I saw that he’d stopped in his tracks, and his nose was pointed toward the salon’s door, which was slightly ajar. Just a crack.

  Like me, Moxie wasn’t very consistent when it came to using locks, and the door was old, so the sight didn’t surprise me. But I told Socrates, “Thanks for pointing that out. Spa and Paw would’ve been freezing in the morning!”

  He wagged his tail, a restrained gesture, then resumed walking, while I pulled the door shut, being careful not to let Artie slip down the front of my coat.

  Then our chilly little party passed by a narrow, dark passageway that separated Spa and Paw from the Philosopher’s Tome, and I opened the door—also unlocked—to a staircase that led to Moxie’s apartment.

  “Come on, guys,” I said, leading the way upstairs.

  I felt a little guilty, because it was late, and I knew that Moxie, who was likely already asleep, would jump out of bed—probably wearing vintage pajamas reminiscent of the Haynes sisters’ attire in White Christmas—to make a fuss over us, even though she’d had a bad day, herself.

  However, when we reached the landing, my ears caught the faint, but distinctive, sound of Dean Martin singing “A Marshmallow World.”

  “At least she’s awake,” I told the dogs. “And maybe feeling a little better.”

  Artie, who’d visited Moxie’s place before and probably recalled having fun, yipped hopefully, while Socrates lowered his already drooping tail, as if to remind me that we weren’t exactly bearing good news.

  “You’re right,” I said, with a sigh.

  Then I knocked on the door, and almost immediately heard slippers slapping against floorboards. A moment later, Moxie opened the door, clad in the exact pajamas I’d imagined, and wearing an equally anticipated look of surprise on her face.

  I, meanwhile, gasped when I looked over her shoulder into the apartment.

  “Moxie!” I cried softly. “What in the name of Burl Ives have you been up to?”

  Chapter 9

  “Oh, goodness,” Moxie said softly, for at least the tenth time since I’d broken the news about CeeCee’s death. Shaking her head sadly, she piped white royal-icing “snow” onto the pitched roof of an exact gingerbread model of the Philosopher’s Tome, complete with a turret, her third-floor balcony, and melted-sugar “glass” windows that glowed from inside, thanks to carefully placed tea lights. The replica, and a towering pile of waiting gingerbread “walls,” which Moxie planned to use to re-create Sylvan Creek’s entire main street, had been the inspiration for my earlier gasp of surprise. She squeezed a pastry bag, and a perfect icicle dripped from the cookie structure’s roof, echoing the jagged ice that ringed the real building. “I didn’t like CeeCee,” Moxie added, pausing to hand Sebastian a bite of broken cookie, which he nibbled gratefully. “But how awful, to be stuffed under a Christmas tree, like the world’s worst present. No one deserves to meet her demise, or be remembered, like that.”

  “No, I agree,” I said, curling myself more tightly under a warm, fuzzy blanket Moxie had offered me, along with a small, but welcome, tumbler of hot buttered rum. I sat on a surprisingly comfortable midcentury modern Danish rocker, while the dogs, including the usually inexhaustible Artie, dozed near a white aluminum Christmas tree. I was warming up, and Moxie’s apartment, strung with cheerful, antique—and probably slightly dangerous—colored Christmas lights, was reminiscent of Santa’s workshop, but I shuddered. “It’s a horrible homecoming.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to be the one to find her,” Moxie said, offering me a sympathetic glance, even as she artfully piped icing snow around a sweet little chimney.

  I often wondered why my best friend seemed capable of conquering every artistic endeavor she undertook, with the notable exception of the terrible painting on the side of my van. However, I couldn’t ask what had gone wrong without hurting her feelings. Especially since I sometimes thought she considered the strange dog just fine.

  And speaking of dogs . . .

  “That little pug—the one that knocked me down at the theater—actually alerted me to CeeCee’s presence,” I told Moxie, as Perry Como began to sing the nostalgic classic, “Home for the Holidays.” I pictured the bah, hum-pug standing in the snow and hoped he had a warm place to call home. Then I recalled that he’d been wearing a sweater, so someone must’ve looked out for him. “He was in the park, off-leash and maybe alone,” I added. “And he popped out from under the tree, right next to CeeCee.”

  I kept explaining long after I realized Moxie was completely baffled. “What pug?” she asked, finally setting down the pastry bag and wiping her hands on a ruffled apron that covered her pajamas. Picking up Sebastian, she took a seat on a rocker that matched mine. “I didn’t see many dogs at the Bijoux, except for Socrates, Paris, and Milan. I don’t think many animals appreciate Frank Capra movies.”

  Socrates’s tail thumped against the floor, as if his subconscious was grateful for the implied compliment.

  “You really didn’t see a pug in a sweater?” I asked, sipping my buttered rum, which perhaps I didn’t need if I was hallucinating.

  All at once, I again recalled how I thought I’d seen Mike Cavanaugh limping away from me on Market Street. And I’d glimpsed a person with a similar gait in the park.

  Was I imagining things?

  I didn’t think so.

  In fact, I knew that I was right, at least about the pug. . . . “Daph?” Moxie asked, breaking into my thoughts. I snapped out of my reverie to find her observing me with shrewd, curious eyes. Sebastian, sitting on her lap, blinked at me, too. “Why were you out walking with Detective Black, anyhow?” she asked, finally posing a question I’d been expecting since I’d arrived. “What was that all about?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  While my mouth opened and closed, repeating the same word over and over, I also thought back to the moments before the pug, and the body, had ended Jonathan’s and my conversation.

  What, exactly, had we been doing?

  Moxie continued to watch me closely. “Was he finally telling you . . . ?”

  The question, which sounded uncharacteristically serious, was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs to Moxie’s apartment. She and I jolted upright, and the dogs roused, too.

  “I suppose that’s for me,” I said, standing up to answer a loud, solid rap on the door. I looked over my shoulder at Moxie, who seemed content to let me welcome the visitor to her home. “I guess I’m going to be questioned, after all,” I added, grabbing the knob and swinging the door open.

  As I’d anticipated, Jonathan Black was standing on the landing, filling the space in the way only he could manage.

  “I’ll get my coat,” I told him, before he could even greet me. In fact, he didn’t seem inclined to say a word, and he looked so grave that I got a different kind of flutter in my stomach, quite unlike the tickle I’d felt back in the park. This was a bad feeling, which was at odds with the scent of gingerbread wafting from the apartment, the colorful lights, and Gene Autry’s jaunty version of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which was currently playing on Moxie’s stereo. I swallowed nervously, then asked, “Should the dogs come, too . . . ?”

  Jonathan was shaking his head—and looking right past me, even as he addressed me. “If you don’t mind, could you please take all the dogs home with you, Daphne? Just for the night, because I may be working late.”

  Confused, I glanced over my shoulder at Axis, Artie, and Socrates, who all sat up, uncertainty in their eyes. Even Socrates seemed unsure. Then I looked at Moxie, whose fair skin was ashen, and saw a flicker of fear in her green eyes as she half rose from her chair.

 
She must’ve grasped what was happening before I did. I was still struggling to connect the dots when Jonathan said brusquely, “I need Moxie to come with me. Now.”

  Spinning back around, I blinked at Jonathan. “What?” He gave me an apologetic look. At least, I thought he did that. The glance only lasted a moment, and once Jonathan was in professional mode, he wasn’t one to say he was sorry for doing his job. Then he looked past me again.

  “Moxie,” he repeated. “You need to get dressed.”

  “Why?” I asked on her behalf, stepping more squarely in front of Jonathan, instinctively protecting my best friend. I knew, by then, that he wanted to question Moxie about CeeCee’s death, but I’d known Moxie Bloom since childhood, and she’d never be involved in a murder. The thought was ridiculous—even crazier than when Piper had been suspected of killing her ex-boyfriend—and I continued to block Jonathan’s path. “Why do you need Moxie?”

  “She and I are going down to the station,” Jonathan informed us all, in an even, measured, deadly serious tone. “And this might take a while.”

  Chapter 10

  In spite of the fire that crackled softly in the fireplace, casting the first floor of Plum Cottage, below my loft bedroom, in a warm glow, and the gentle snores of three sleeping dogs—not to mention the soothing chamomile tea I’d brewed after returning home from Moxie’s apartment—I had trouble sleeping the night of CeeCee French’s death.

  Wriggling carefully down deeper under my warm, goose-down comforter, so I wouldn’t disrupt Tinkleston, who was curled at the foot of the bed, I tried not to recall the sight of CeeCee’s foot in the snow.

  But as soon as I’d banish that image, I’d start worrying about Moxie, who would never harm anyone, but who did have motive to kill our former classmate.

  A stolen boyfriend . . . A business in jeopardy . . . People had likely killed for less compelling reasons....