Merry Christmas Cozy Mystery Gift Set

by Meredith Potts

  “What about him?” Anthony asked.

  “When was the last time you talked to him?” Joe replied.

  Anthony tensed up.

  “What’s the matter?” Joe wondered.

  Anthony untied his tongue and answered my brother’s question. “When he fired me.”

  I had wondered if Anthony would be willing to admit that he had been pink-slipped. That wasn’t the kind of detail that suspects tended to freely tell investigators like us. Refreshingly, he had volunteered the information. That was much easier than my brother and I having to pry it out of him. At the same time, even though Anthony had come clean about being canned from his job, he had not been so honest when it came to another matter.

  My brother pressed him further. “Are you sure that’s the last time you saw Nick?”

  That was a trick question, mostly because both my brother and I already knew the answer to it. We just wanted to see if Anthony would tell us the truth.

  “Yes. That’s the last time,” Anthony said.

  We had given him two chances to reply truthfully. He had refused to do so either time. It was time to call him out.

  “Why are you lying to us?” I asked.

  A look of puzzlement came over Anthony’s face. “What are you talking about?”

  “We know that you went to the ad agency’s holiday party last night and blew up at Nick,” I said.

  Anthony hemmed and hawed, then finally copped to it. “All right. Yes. I went to the party.”

  Joe scratched his chin. “That’s very interesting.”

  “Not quite as interesting as why you felt the need to lie to us in the first place,” I said. “Why did you lie to us exactly?”

  Anthony became increasingly uncomfortable. His mouth opened, but no words came out. The silence lingered until I finally spoke up.

  “Is it because you were worried that your answer would make you look guilty?” I asked.

  Anthony shrugged. “Guilty of what?”

  “Murder,” I said.

  The look of bafflement returned to Anthony’s face. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nick was murdered shortly after the office party ended,” I said.

  Anthony’s eyes widened. His voice cracked as he replied, “Wait a minute. I didn’t know Nick was murdered.”

  Joe stared him down. “Really?”

  “I’m serious. I didn’t know he had been killed,” Anthony replied.

  “Mr. Rogers, you already lied to us once. Why should we believe you now?” Joe asked.

  “Because I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I’m not sure that I believe it.”

  Anthony kept trying to convince my brother. “But I’m telling you—”

  Joe cut him off. “I don’t care what you’re telling me. I just care about the truth, and I’m not stopping until I get it.”

  “What do you want from me?” Anthony asked.

  “It’s simple. I need to know the answer to one question. Where were you between eleven and midnight?” Joe replied.

  “I was here,” Anthony said.

  Joe followed up. “Alone?”

  Anthony squinted. “Why does that matter?”

  Joe narrowed his eyes. “Just answer the question.”

  “Yes, alone. What does that have to do with anything?” Anthony asked.

  “That’s easy. If you were here alone, it means you don’t have anyone to verify your alibi,” Joe said.

  “I just told you the truth. I was here,” Anthony replied.

  “I heard you. What you fail to realize is that your story is only as believable as my ability to verify it,” Joe said.

  I saw panic in Anthony’s eyes.

  “I didn’t do this,” he said.

  “I want to believe you. The problem is, in addition to having an uncorroborated alibi, you had also just been fired from your job. That gives you a motive,” Joe replied.

  Anthony shook his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Joe stared him down. “Are you really going to try to play me for a fool? I know losing your job was a huge deal to you. Otherwise, why would you have stormed into the holiday office party and told Nick off last night?”

  “The minute I left that office party, I picked up a six-pack of beer at the grocery store, then went home and drank off my anger.” Anthony pointed to a slew of empty beer cans that were on his coffee table. “See, there’s the proof.”

  “That’s only proof that you drank a bunch of beer. What if all that alcohol made you even more belligerent and propelled you to drive over to Nick’s house in a drunken rage, hell-bent on getting revenge?” Joe speculated.

  Anthony didn’t waver. “For the last time, I didn’t have anything to do with Nick’s murder.”

  My brother stared him down, wondering if he would crack. He didn’t.

  We questioned Anthony some more but didn’t get a lick of extra useful information out of him. Once my brother and I felt that we had reached the point of diminishing returns with Anthony, Joe warned Anthony not to leave town. My brother and I then headed out to question the next suspect on our list.

  Chapter Five

  As my brother drove through a section of Orange Coast Drive that was filled with retail shops, I heard Christmas music playing over the loudspeakers of one of the stores. It was a jarring experience to have such festive music blasting in my ears while I was in the thick of a murder investigation. After all, there was no revelry going on inside me, and no amount of holiday music was going to change that. My only hope of ringing in the season with cheer was to crack this case—and soon.

  Tyler Wilkinson rented a ground-floor apartment in a small two-story, brown-stucco complex on Mentone Avenue. As Joe parked in front of the place, the charmless look of the complex only briefly held my interest. My focus quickly shifted to the argument that Tyler Wilkinson and Lisa were having on the front lawn.

  Much to my surprise, they were really ripping into each other. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Not because they didn’t have a reason to fight. After his girlfriend had cheated on him with his boss, Tyler no doubt had a sizable bone to pick with Lisa. Even so, to air their grievances in such a public setting where anyone who was passing by could hear them was just reckless, especially given the fact that they were both murder suspects.

  Not that I was complaining. Stupidity on their part was an opportunity on my part. I was determined to take advantage of the opening they gave me. I knew my brother felt the same way. So much that Joe and I deviated from our normal operating procedure.

  Amazingly enough, this was not the first time we had encountered two suspects arguing with each other. During those previous investigations, Joe and I had always hung back, waiting for the fight to end. We then tailed one of the suspects before finally confronting them.

  This time, Joe and I decided to jump right into the fire. By catching them in the heat of the moment, we hoped that we could throw them for a loop. After all, they were already on their heels. Could we knock them both over?

  Joe and I approached the couple with resolve in our eyes.

  Tyler was a thirty-three-year-old man with a goatee, black-rimmed glasses, well-coiffed short black hair, and skinny jeans that clung tightly to his thin frame. He wore an ugly Christmas sweater with a dancing Christmas tree on it.

  Lisa meanwhile was a curvy thirty-two-year-old woman who wore a tight green dress that hugged her voluptuous figure. There was a green bow tying back her long, curly red hair. With her hair pulled back, her hazel eyes and red freckles stood out even more on her round face.

  Tyler yelled at Lisa without any regard for who could hear him. “I want you to leave!”

  Joe and I reached the couple right as their argument seemed to hit a fever pitch.

  My brother wasted no time coming between them. “Not so fast.”

  Tyler and Lisa both spun their heads around, completely confused. While Lisa clammed up, Tyler appeared ready to lash out at my brother.

 
Before Tyler had the chance to, Joe held up his police badge. “Did we come at a bad time?”

  Joe thought that would calm them down. He was dead wrong. Instead, Tyler blew his top.

  He spun around and yelled back at his apartment complex. While he didn’t address anyone specifically, he clearly wanted his fellow neighbors to hear him.

  “You called the police? So what, it’s okay to let your stupid dogs bark at all hours, but if I have one argument, you call the cops?” Tyler barked.

  Joe had news for him. “Mr. Wilkinson, your neighbors didn’t call the police.”

  Tyler didn’t calm down in the least. “Then who did?”

  “We’re actually here about another matter,” Joe replied.

  “What matter?” Tyler snapped.

  “The murder of Nick Newton,” Joe revealed.

  Tyler went dead silent. He wasn’t alone. Lisa hadn’t opened her mouth since Joe and I arrived.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Wilkinson? Did you swallow your tongue?” I asked.

  Tyler managed to untie his tongue long enough to answer. “I didn’t know Nick was dead.”

  “Spare us the act. We have a number of questions to ask you both, and we expect you to answer honestly,” Joe said.

  While Tyler and Lisa wanted to protest having to answer our questions, Joe kept his focus on the matter at hand. He separated the couple so they couldn’t unite against us. From there, he detained Tyler in the back of his squad car so that he could question Lisa in peace.

  My brother had a very specific reason for questioning Lisa first. To start, Lisa had been very quiet the moment she spotted us. Next, by detaining Tyler in the back of his squad car, my brother hoped that it might calm Tyler down a little. It was a very intimidating experience being in the back of a police car. Perhaps sitting back there would put a scare into Tyler.

  In the meantime, Joe and I went to work on Lisa.

  Chapter Six

  “I think this is a mistake,” Lisa said.

  That was one of the oldest tricks in the book. Did Lisa really believe she could steer us away that quickly? Nice try, but it wasn’t going to work.

  Joe held firm. “I know you want it to be a mistake, but it isn’t. Now, we need to ask you some questions.”

  “Why me? I don’t know anything about Nick’s death,” Lisa argued.

  Joe corrected her. “Murder, you mean. And I’ll be the judge of that.”

  I shared an observation that had been nagging at the back of my mind. “I couldn’t help but notice how quiet you were back there the moment my brother pulled out his police badge.”

  Lisa had a quick reply to my statement. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

  “I wish I could believe you,” I said.

  There was a look of confusion on Lisa’s face, but I couldn’t tell if it was just an act, or if she was genuinely having a difficult time grasping what was occurring.

  Either way, Lisa stuck with her story. “I still don’t know what you want with me.”

  “We need answers,” Joe said.

  “What kind of answers? I don’t even know what the question is,” Lisa replied.

  “My first question is, what were you and Tyler just arguing about?” Joe asked.

  Lisa became offended. “That’s a private matter.”

  I scoffed. “Really? You were just arguing right out here in public.”

  “That wasn’t my choice. I wanted to go inside. It was Tyler who insisted on talking outside,” Lisa replied.

  I took offense to how egregiously she was understating things. “That’s what you call talking? Because it sounded a lot more like yelling to me.”

  While I harped on the minuscule details, Joe was thinking bigger picture. “Ms. Dalton, you still haven’t answered my question. What were you and Tyler arguing about?”

  Lisa remained evasive. “What relevance does that have to anything?”

  Joe grew impatient. “Ms. Dalton, stop trying to squirm out of this. We’re not leaving until we get answers. Now, you and Tyler were arguing about the fact that you were cheating on him with Nick Newton, weren’t you?”

  Lisa’s eyes widened. “How did you know about Nick and I having a fling?”

  “I’m a detective. It’s my job to know things like that,” Joe replied.

  I followed up with a question of my own. “You came over here hoping Tyler would take you back, didn’t you?”

  Lisa folded her arms. “That’s none of your business.”

  I pressed on. “Judging by that argument you were having, I’m guessing things didn’t go according to your plan.”

  “That’s really personal information. Not to mention, it’s none of your business,” Lisa said.

  Joe stopped her right there. “That’s not true. A man you were sleeping with has been murdered. This is very much our business.”

  Lisa looked deep into Joe’s eyes and realized that he wasn’t about to give in. No matter how much she tried, there was no wriggling her way out of this. Faced with that sobering fact, she finally came clean.

  “Yes, I came here hoping to win Tyler back,” Lisa replied.

  The volume of her voice was becoming quieter as she began staring at the ground.

  Just as she was hitting a low point, I ramped up my questions.

  “Does that mean Nick had broken things off with you?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I had actually broken things off with him.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It just wasn’t working out for us,” Lisa replied.

  Her answer was annoyingly vague. Although, I should have gotten used to it by then. She had been reluctant to divulge any information to us, no matter how innocuous the question. Even so, she took her evasiveness to new levels.

  I dug deeper. “Why wasn’t it working? You got a nice promotion. Isn’t that what you wanted, to sleep your way to the top?”

  Lisa glared at me. “I didn’t sleep with Nick to get a promotion.”

  “Why did you sleep with him, then?” I asked.

  “We had some real chemistry.”

  I furrowed my brow. She had managed to contradict herself in the span of a few sentences. I tried my best to connect the dots. “If you two had such great chemistry, then why wasn’t it working out for you?”

  I saw the frustration on Lisa’s face as she realized she had talked herself into a corner.

  My brother gave Lisa a warning before she opened her mouth to answer.

  “Don’t lie to us,” Joe said.

  Lisa took a deep breath. “Nick wanted our relationship to stay in the closet. His entire demeanor changed when people found out about us. Like he was ashamed of people finding out we were together. On top of that, he kept worrying that people would think I only got the promotion because I was sleeping with him—”

  “That’s a fair assumption,” I said.

  Lisa shot me another glare. “I’ll have you know, I’m very good at my job.”

  “We’ll have to take your word for that,” I said.

  “When things went south with Nick, it made me appreciate what Tyler and I had even more. Tyler was never ashamed to be with me. He was the opposite of Nick in that way,” Lisa explained.

  Joe cut her off right there. “Thanks for spelling out your motive for us.”

  Lisa was outraged. “What are you talking about?”

  “You said it yourself, Nick acted ashamed to be with you. Meanwhile, you had put your whole heart on the line for him. When a woman is in that deep only to be jilted by a man, crazy things are known to happen,” I said.

  Lisa went into full denial mode. “No. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Don’t try to go back on your own statement. You were the one who told us Nick was ashamed to be with you,” I said.

  “I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill Nick,” Lisa replied.

  “Can you prove that?” Joe asked.

  “How am I supposed to prove it?” Lisa asked.

  “
There’s one simple way,” Joe replied. “Where were you between eleven and midnight last night?”

  “I was asleep,” Lisa said.

  “Where? Here?” Joe asked.

  Lisa hesitated, not wanting to answer. “Again, that’s really personal.”

  My brother pressed her for one. “Lisa, answer the question.”

  Lisa winced, then replied, “At my house.”

  “Were you sleeping with anyone?” Joe asked.

  Briefly, she looked over at Tyler detained in the back of the patrol car.

  “Lisa,” Joe snapped.

  “For the last time, you’re talking to the wrong person. I didn’t do anything,” she pleaded.

  “That wasn’t the question. Were you sleeping with anyone?” Joe asked.

  My brother’s piercing stare was too much for her.

  Lisa lowered her head. “No. I was sleeping alone.”

  “So you have no one to confirm your story, then?” Joe asked.

  “I didn’t kill Nick. I was asleep at the time of the murder,” Lisa said.

  “You keep saying that—” Joe replied.

  Lisa cut him off. “Because it’s the truth.”

  “The problem is, without proof, those are just a bunch of empty words,” Joe said.

  “I have answered all your questions,” Lisa replied. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

  She wasn’t kidding. Although my brother and I continued asking her questions, she didn’t answer any of them. Even more, as we didn’t have any hard evidence against Lisa, we couldn’t force her to talk. Faced with that reality, Joe warned Lisa not to leave town. We then moved on to questioning Tyler.

  Chapter Seven

  A twinge of anxiety came to me as Joe and I approached Tyler to interview him. He had been detained in the back of the squad car for the better part of a half-hour. Being cooped up like that could have done one of two things to his mood. If my brother and I had any luck at all, Tyler’s confinement would have mellowed him out—or at least subdued his anger slightly. There was also the distinct possibility that being stuck in such tight quarters only served to make him even more upset.