I drove home, determined to unravel the mystery of two murders and Sonya’s threatening calls in the way I did best—by writing things out. I parked in front of my house and went inside, my thoughts swimming. One cream puff later, I was on the couch with a yellow legal pad on my lap. A minute after that, Holly rang my doorbell.
“Peter took over so I could stop by and check on you,” she said, hanging her coat on the back of a kitchen chair. “How are you? How is Gilroy?” She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a hug. “I couldn’t believe someone tried to kill him.”
“I’m fine, and he’s fine,” I said. “I just came back from his place. He’s resting, and he plans to go back to work the day after Christmas.”
“That’s the Gilroy I know. Nothing is going to keep him down.”
“And I’m glad you’re here, Holly. I need to bounce ideas off you.”
“Bounce away. I’ve been thinking about this case—or cases. Two murders.”
I made coffee and we sat at the kitchen table, both of us with legal pads and pens, going over everything we knew so far. I filled Holly in on the latest from Ellen and the medical examiner’s reports, and she told me about the latest gossip at Holly’s Sweets. She had overheard that Oliver Morris was going to quit as head of Juniper Charities. This Christmas would be his last.
“How do we make sense of all these puzzle pieces?” Holly said. “Two members of the Four Santas dead, stolen syringes, a possibly dirty charity, a kleptomaniac Santa.”
“Don’t forget Sonya’s threatening phone calls. I should have investigated those more thoroughly right from the start. I need to go back to square one. In fact”—I took a large and invigorating gulp of coffee—“I have to talk to Sonya. I need her phone number.”
I called Officer Turner at the station. He took some convincing, but when I told him I wanted to call Sonya because it was Christmas Eve and she was now alone in the world, he caved and gave me his parents’ unlisted number in Windsor. I hadn’t lied. Not completely. I did want to wish her a merry Christmas and let her know that Gilroy was on the mend. But I also needed to know what had happened at Juniper Charities just before the threatening calls started. Something triggered those calls, and I felt in my bones that Sonya had seen or heard something she shouldn’t have. In her innocence, and her trust of those she knew, she hadn’t made the connection.
When I hung up with Sonya, I had part of the answer I needed. The day before she received her first threatening call, she had heard Oliver and Craig Eskew arguing in Oliver’s inner office.
“Sonya said that Oliver refused to do something, but she doesn’t know what it was,” I told Holly. “He told Craig he wouldn’t let the charity go back to being what it was.” Sonya had understood little of what the two men said, but then, concerned over their raised voices, she had gone to the office to ask if everything was all right. Craig Eskew had bolted, and Oliver had tried to reassure Sonya. More and more, Oliver was looking like an innocent and honest man.
“Isn’t that interesting?” Holly said. “You need to talk to Craig and Oliver.”
“Does Craig work? Julia thought he might be retired.”
“I think he’s retired, like the rest of the Four Santas. He can’t possibly be a working man. Not with all the time he spends gabbing in my bakery.”
I snatched my coat and car keys from their hooks by the back door. “I’ll start with Oliver, then. He’ll be at Juniper Charities.”
“I’m going with you.”
“But the bakery.”
“We’re closing soon, anyway.” As we hurried out my front door, Holly dialed Peter, telling him she’d see him at home in a couple hours.
“Was he okay with you not going back to the bakery?” I said, hopping into my Forester.
“He says I owe him,” she answered with a grin. “He’ll do fine. Let’s solve this thing for Gilroy.”
“And find the thug who tried to kill him,” I said. My tires crunched on the frozen crust of snow as I pulled from the curb. The sky had turned leaden in the brief time I’d been at home, and a few snowflakes drifted in the air. I drove downtown on autopilot, still trying to reconcile the odd facts, as I knew them, of the two murder cases. All the way, something nagged at me, like a buzz from an invisible insect. What was it? What had I heard? And when? I’d forgotten something important.
I found a vacant space outside the brick office building on Orchard Street, told Holly to wait for me in the car, and headed for office 7A. The gray-haired receptionist, the one with the tricky Thermos, was at her desk and recognized me immediately. She smiled, and I figured that was a good sign. Maybe word that I had suspected Oliver of murder hadn’t traveled very far.
I was disabused of that hope the instant Oliver walked out of his office. When he saw me, he froze, an angry glint in his eye.
“Oliver, please let me have a private word with you. I can explain.”
“Oliver?” the receptionist said. “Should I call someone?”
“No, Margaret, thanks.”
“There are too many unsavory people coming into this office lately,” Margaret said.
“It’s all right, Margaret,” Oliver said as he motioned for me to follow him. “I don’t think Rachel is one of them.”
He shut his office door, an action I was sure didn’t endear him to his protective receptionist, and sat down, telling me to do the same.
“I’ll be frank and say my piece first,” he began. “Ellen Lambert told me you think I murdered Micah Schultz and Farley Brewer. My friends.”
I shook my head. “No, Oliver, I don’t. I just came from Ellen’s house, and I explained everything to her. Sonya told me that she found a syringe in her coat pocket and gave it to Ellen, and then someone else told me you picked up what looked like a syringe near Farley’s body.”
His lips were hard, determined. “And I’d do it again.”
“Now I understand why. Sonya is innocent, and someone tried to frame her.”
His expression softened. “That’s what I thought.”
“Someone stole two or more syringes from her apartment and left them at Micah and Farley’s murders.”
He sat forward. “I knew they belonged to Sonya. That’s why she showed one of them to Ellen.”
“But Ellen didn’t give her a chance to explain that she found the first syringe in her coat pocket. She only wanted to show Ellen because it looked like one of hers. She didn’t know how it got there. Only Amber, Bonnie, or Craig would have taken those syringes. Which one of them visited Sonya at her apartment in the past few weeks?”
Oliver spread his hands. “All of them? Amber and Bonnie, certainly, but maybe even Craig. With her parents gone, all of us take turns keeping an eye on her, and Sonya will let anyone inside. Especially a familiar face.”
I looked back at his door, making certain it was shut, and said in a low voice, “Ellen told me, Oliver. You’re Sonya’s father.”
He glanced away, casting his eyes to the floor. “Oh.”
“I don’t want to intrude, really, but Sonya needs . . .” My voice trailed off. I was intruding.
“She needs a real father.”
“I think so.”
“Her mother had her when she was only seventeen. I was nineteen. That was bad enough, but when her mother died soon after, I had no way to take care of her. I was working in an old fast-food joint just outside of town, making minimum wage. No relatives to help out. It broke my heart, but I gave her up for adoption so she could have a good life. A nice couple in Fort Collins, Glen and Marcia Quinn, adopted her. To my surprise, they moved to Juniper Grove.”
“You lived here back then? Wasn’t it hard to see Sonya?”
“It was both harder and easier. A little later I found a job at the bank on Main Street. I kept an eye on Sonya, but I never told her or her adoptive parents who I was. She had her own family. And an uncle, Micah.”
“Then her parents died.”
Oliver lowered his eyes. “Yes.”
“And now Micah.”
“Who was trying with all his might to protect her.”
“From what, Oliver? Tell me.”
CHAPTER 17
Oliver shoved himself to his feet. “In my heart, I knew. I let the threats go on, and I knew.” He thrust out his chin. “My friend, the man I once thought of as my friend, stuck a knife in my daughter’s apartment door. What kind of father am I, wanting to protect the name of this charity before my own daughter?”
“Do you mean Craig Eskew? Sonya told me you had an argument with him the day before the threats started.”
His anger mounting, Oliver worked his jaw as he walked back and forth between the door and his desk. “Craig Eskew. He used to run this charity. No, not quite. Let me rephrase that. He used to steal from this charity.”
So the rumors were true. “I heard about the flood ten years ago.”
“That was only the start of it. Craig had a scam going. People who gave money after the flood tended to give cash. They were trusting souls in a trusting town. Craig saw an opportunity. I didn’t believe the cooked books he showed me—the phony books he wrote up. I knew people had given far more than he reported, but all I could do was confront him. There was no proof. I told others, though.” He nodded vehemently. “I sure did. I talked about it enough that Craig had to resign. He’s hated me ever since.”
“But you were in the Four Santas together. I didn’t see any evidence of him or Bonnie hating you. I watched you talking together at the caroling festival.”
“I was in the group because I’m the only baritone in this town with half a voice. Craig and I have been politely and quietly antagonistic for almost a decade.”
“You never reported him to the police?”
“No, and I blame myself greatly for that,” he said, retaking his seat. “He saw it as weakness, which is why he came back to me the day we had our argument. He needed money and he wanted to fiddle the cash we’d taken in.” Oliver looked at me as though he’d been struck across the face. “Imagine doing that. Taking good people’s money to cover your own debt, and asking someone who was once a friend to help you do it. I’ve worked hard to restore people’s trust in this charity, and I wasn’t about to let them down.”
“Why do you think Craig dragged Sonya into this?”
“He thought she heard the details of what we were talking about and would tell people in town—like I had a long time ago. He doesn’t understand that Sonya sees goodness in everyone. He thought threats would work against her—keep her quiet—but she knew very little and understood even less.”
“Do you think Craig stole her syringes?”
“Stealing doesn’t bother him. But why syringes?” he asked, bewildered. “Because they could be traced to Sonya?”
“They may have been used to inject poison into cookies. Something called palytoxin, found in sea coral like the kind Sonya has in her aquarium.”
While Oliver was still trying to process that strange bit of information, I asked, “Do you believe Craig would stick a knife in Sonya’s apartment door? Knowing it would terrify her?”
“What do you think a man who steals from a charity is capable of?” he replied.
I got his point. “Murder?”
Oliver hesitated. It wasn’t a bridge he was willing to cross. “Craig is a closefisted, sniveling thief, but kill Micah and Farley? I just don’t know. If I had to say one way or the other, no.”
Thinking it was too late to keep the secrets of a dead man, and more important for the safety of others that I reveal them, I asked Oliver if he knew about Farley’s supposed kleptomania. He stared as if I’d lost my mind and asked me where I had heard such a preposterous accusation.
“Bonnie Eskew told me a little while ago, when I was at Ellen’s house. She said he rifled through coat pockets at parties and she followed him around, putting things back.”
“Ridiculous! What is that woman going on about? I never saw him do that. Farley wasn’t a thief. Not like Craig.”
“Oliver, was Bonnie involved in Craig’s theft of charity money?”
“I don’t think so, but she could have been. They stick close together.”
I couldn’t sit any longer. I had to stand. I had to move. “Injecting,” I mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Injecting poison into cookies.” I halted. “It’s something Amber said. How do you do inject poison into cookies?”
“I don’t have the first idea. I don’t bake. Bonnie and Ellen are the bakers.”
I went back to my pacing, trying to remember every detail of the first two minutes after the Four Santas arrived at Ellen’s house. Between her porch and kitchen. Because it was in those first two minutes, I knew, that Micah was poisoned. He had been fine when he walked in the door. It was in the kitchen that he quickly became ill.
“The Santas started eating cookies while they were still on the porch. Bonnie took them a plate of snowballs Ellen baked,” I said, talking more to myself than Oliver. “She grabbed that plate of fresh-baked cookies so she and she alone could take it to you and the others. We thought it was because it was Craig’s last Christmas singing with the Four Santas.”
“Yeah. About Craig leaving. I told him to quit the group. Essentially, I didn’t give him a choice. I couldn’t stand singing with him anymore, and I wasn’t going to quit myself.”
“Did Bonnie know that?”
Oliver perked up. “I’m sure Craig told her. Quitting the Four Santas is a big deal. She was so proud he was in the group. I’m sure she demanded to know why he was leaving.”
“Did Bonnie hand you your cookies? Or did she let you all choose?”
Oliver thought a moment. “She handed them to us. The first ones. And then we started grabbing.” His eyes narrowed. “If they were poisoned, then—”
“Then why was only Micah’s poisoned? How did Bonnie do it? Ellen couldn’t have. Before the Santas came to her house, she brought the whole plate to the table, and we all sampled her new cookies. Sonya included. Ellen didn’t hand them to us—we took them, and Sonya took more than one.”
“Even if Ellen is the poisoner—and I’d stake my life on the fact that she isn’t—she wouldn’t have taken a chance on poisoning Sonya.”
“I know, Oliver. And there’s something else. Ellen said she made the cookies. She did. No one else. Then she set them on the table.”
Oliver stood. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“She was pointing a very explicit finger at herself. If she were guilty, why would she do that?”
“But Bonnie took the plate to the door.”
“She grabbed it before Ellen could, knowing everyone had heard Ellen say she baked those cookies.” I jammed my fingers into my hair, frantically searching my memory, trying to recall what I’d heard—the thing that was still nagging me. “Bonnie also made sure everyone thinks Farley liked to go through people’s pockets.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve lost you again.”
I thought of Bonnie’s nimble, agile fingers. Was it possible that between the dining room and the front door she had used one of Sonya’s syringes to inject coral, maybe ground-up, liquified coral, into one of the cookies and then handed it to Micah? It was an implausible scenario, even for Bonnie’s super hands.
“Oliver, how did the cookies taste?”
“Pretty good. I liked the walnuts. That was a new one for Ellen’s snowballs.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood.
“What did Micah think?”
“He didn’t get any walnuts.” Oliver paused, fixing his troubled eyes on mine. “He didn’t like the taste, Rachel.”
“What did he say?”
“Micah never complained, so he didn’t say much. I told him I loved Ellen’s cookies and loved anything with walnuts, and he asked me what I was talking about because there were no walnuts in the snowballs. He said the cookie tasted off. We talked for five seconds. I forgot all about it.”
/> That’s it, I thought. I remember now. I stared at Oliver, hardly believing what I was now thinking. “Ellen said the cookies were Bonnie’s recipe. She specifically asked for the recipe so she could bake for the Four Santas when you went caroling.”
“Now hold on. Ellen didn’t take one of Sonya’s syringes and—”
“No, she didn’t. But neither did Bonnie.” I strode up to him and put my hands on his shoulders. “Oliver, she baked her own snowballs at home. Then she filled one with poison and brought it to the wreath-making party. Before she got to the door, or maybe right after she opened it, she took it out of her sweater pocket and put it in Micah’s hand. She was wearing a cardigan.”
“I remember now,” Oliver said, rubbing his chin. “Micah got the first cookie.”
“Then, to cover that, Bonnie did the same with the rest of you. She handed you your first cookie. The syringes were a distraction. Not to throw suspicion on Sonya, but to throw off the police. And that’s exactly what happened. They focused on the syringes. We all did. We all assumed they were used to inject the poison.”
“We were made to think about the syringes so we wouldn’t think about who the bakers were in our little circle of friends. Oh, Bonnie. What have you done?” Oliver’s hands dropped to his side and he sat with a thump.
“Bonnie knew that Ellen would throw out the first syringe—the one Sonya found. And she guessed, rightly so, that one of Sonya’s protectors would throw out the second one. They could never be tested for poison residue, which guaranteed no one would ever discover that they had nothing to do with the murders.”
“They would never be ruled out as the crime weapon. Very clever. Bonnie kept everyone off their feet. But why? Why kill Micah and Farley?”
I didn’t want to ask my next question, but it was crucial. I had to ask. “Did Micah and Farley know about Craig and Juniper Charities?”
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