A Merry Little Murder

by Patti Benning

  “We did. The roads into town are pretty bad, but the plows were making some progress by the time we got there. Are you going into the diner later today?”

  Lacey nodded. She always helped her mom out at the diner when she visited. She loved the place, and it always brought back good memories of working there throughout her high school years. She had practically grown up in that diner, and it was always a pleasure to spend a few days each year working there again.

  “We’ll leave a little bit after lunch, and won’t be back until after dinner,” she said. “If it's not snowing too badly, you and Dad should come in and grab something to eat. Don’t risk it if the roads are bad, though. There are some frozen leftovers in the freezer that should get you guys through the evening. What do you think you'll do tonight?”

  “Watch hockey with your dad,” he said, making a face.

  Chris wasn't very interested in sports, but back when he had first met Lacey's father, he had been so nervous that when her father had asked him if he watched hockey at all, he had unthinkingly said yes. Too embarrassed to admit to his mistake, he had committed to living a lie, and always did his research about her father's favorite team before coming to visit. After all these years, Lacey couldn't blame him. It was a bit late for him to come out and say that he would actually rather watch a nature documentary than a sports show.

  The change in scenery seemed to have put a temporary hold on whatever problems she and Chris were having, and the next few hours were more pleasant than Lacey could have hoped for. Chris joined her and her mother in the kitchen, and they all chatted happily while making lunch.

  During the meal itself, Lacey caught her parents up on everything that had happened in her work and private life since the last time she had seen them. After that, her mom began to regale them with tales from the diner. By the time they scraped their plates clean, all four of them were laughing.

  Just before three, she and her mother said their goodbyes and headed for town in her mother's SUV; a vehicle much more suited to the snowy roads than Lacey’s car. She settled back into her seat, feeling happy and content until she realized that she still had no idea what her fiancé had actually been doing that morning.

  “Did Dad mention what he and Chris had to do in town?” she asked.

  “Hmm? No, he didn't say anything. Why?”

  “It’s just weird, isn’t it? I know Chris already did all of his Christmas shopping, and besides, they didn’t bring any bags back with them. I wonder what they went out for.”

  “Your dad probably just wanted to get out of the house and decided to take Chris with him. He gets a bit stir crazy whenever the office is closed down. And I know he’s been meaning to get to know Chris a bit better, now that the two of you are officially engaged.”

  Lacey frowned, looking out the window. Maybe she was just being paranoid. After all, what secret could Chris possibly have that her dad would be willing to keep for him?

  Chapter Four

  Pine Tree Diner was a small, stand-alone building on Main Street near the edge of town. It didn't look like much from the outside. It was a simple brick cube, its exterior unassuming and its parking lot cracked and worn. The sign over the door was sun faded and in need of a good painting. First impressions weren’t everything, because the interior was as warm and welcoming as it had been on the very first day that the diner had opened.

  Unlike her bedroom, which seemed like a portal back to another time, there were a multitude of small changes in the diner if one knew where to look. The cash register had been updated to a unit with a sleek touchscreen, the upholstery on the booths had been updated three years ago, and the walls repainted the year after that. The photos behind the register showed a gradual transition of staff, from the very first group of people who had worked there to the current employees. In the kitchen, all the appliances were new, and the back door had been replaced six months ago when an irate waiter had kicked a hole in it after he had been fired.

  The changes all told a story; the story of the diner’s life. Even though the small things were different, Lacey still felt the same sense of comfort whenever she walked in. She took a deep breath, and immediately wondered what the daily special was. It smelled good enough for her stomach gave a twinge of interest, though she had eaten just a couple of hours before.

  “Little Miss Lacey,” a voice called out. A moment later, Lacey found herself enveloped by plump arms and surrounded by a cloud of familiar perfume.

  “Mrs. Fritz,” Lacey said, laughing. “It's good to see you. Are you still working here? Last year you told me you were going to retire.”

  “I did,” the elderly woman said. “But then I realized I was trading in a job that I loved for a lot of lonely hours sitting on my couch alone. Thank goodness for your mother; she welcomed me right back with open arms and even gave me a raise in my pay.”

  “That’s because I realized just how hopeless we all were without you,” Lacey’s mother said. “I was just about to come knocking on your door and beg you to come back.”

  Lacey laughed. Mrs. Fritz had been her babysitter growing up, and when Lacey had reached an age where she no longer needed a sitter, her mother had hired the woman at the restaurant. She did a little bit of everything there. She cooked, cleaned, waited tables, greeted guests, and even managed the finances on occasion. Lacey couldn't imagine the diner without the older woman, and was glad that she was still around.

  “Where do you need me at today?” Lacey asked, looking between her mother and Mrs. Fritz.

  “Why don't you wait tables for a bit?” her mother suggested. “I know the regulars will be thrilled to see you. Then when Mrs. Fritz goes home and Sheila comes in, you can join me in the kitchen.”

  “Sounds good,” Lacey said. She slipped into the back to grab an apron, a notebook, and her name tag, then returned to the dining area to see what she could do. Two drink refills and one order of the daily special later, and she was beginning to wish that she had stayed in the kitchen instead. Yule Falls was a small town, and the Pine Tree was the only diner it boasted. Since Lacey had practically grown up there, many of the regulars still saw her as the little kid who used to bring them drinks under her mother's watchful eye. She had already been waylaid more times than she could count by people decades older than her who wanted to share half remembered stories of her childhood with her. Her face was beginning to hurt from all the smiling, and she was forming the impression that she had been a very clumsy child.

  “One cheddar hamburger melt with a garden-fresh side salad,” she said, placing the order down in front of the guest. The elderly woman, who Lacey could have sworn she had never seen before, immediately launched into a story about the time that a ten-year-old Lacey somehow managed to spill an entire picture of ice water in her lap. Lacey was saved by the bell over the door jingling, announcing the arrival of another customer.

  She turned around, intent on hurrying away before she could get drawn into another half-remembered story, and nearly bowled over the young man who was just coming in from outside. He was being tailed by a young woman his own age.

  “I'm so sorry,” Lacey said. “I really need to watch where I’m going.”

  “I'm fine,” the young man assured her. “Are you all right?”

  Lacey promised him that she was fine. She was about to direct him and the young woman to a booth when the young woman let out a squeal and pulled Lacey into a hug. Surprised – usually when she was greeted in this manner it was by someone five times her age – she pulled back slightly, then felt a grin spreading over her own face as she realized who the young woman was.

  “Michelle? Oh, my goodness. I barely recognized you.”

  Michelle Walden was almost eight years younger than Lacey. Lacey had babysat the younger woman for years before she moved away from town.

  “It's you! I can't believe it. I was just talking about you, wasn’t I, Aidan?” She nudged the young man next to her.

  He looked at Lacey in befuddlemen
t. “You were?”

  “Well, I was talking about her dad. Steven Townsend. Remember? I was just saying that we should call him and see if he's heard from my dad at all.”

  “Ah. That's right.”

  “Why, what's up with your dad?” Lacey asked. Michelle’s father was her parents neighbor. She had known him for most of her life.

  “He's missing,” Michelle said, lowering her voice. “And I was hoping your dad might know where he is.”

  Chapter Five

  He was supposed to meet me, Kelsey, and Sarah for lunch a few days ago, but he never showed up,” Michelle continued, naming her two sisters. “I tried calling him and he didn’t answer. Aidan stopped by his house when he got out of work yesterday, but he said my dad wasn’t there. I’m getting pretty worried about him.”

  “I can ask my dad if he’s heard from him,” Lacey said. “I'm sure he's all right. He probably just went up to that hunting cottage of his for a couple of days. He usually tells my dad when he’s going to be out of town for any amount of time. Do you want me to go call him right now?”

  Michelle hesitated, then nodded. Lacey saw the worry in her face, and hoped that she would have good news to bring back to her soon.

  “You guys can go sit wherever you want. I'll call my dad at home and see what he has to say. I’ll bring your drinks with me when I come back out. What would you like?”

  She took their drink orders and then hurried into the back, making a beeline for the kitchen phone. She dialed her home number and waited while it rang. She was glad when her father answered at last.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said. “I'm working, so I can only talk for a second. Michelle Walden is here, and she wants to know if you've heard from her dad. She said she hasn’t been able to get a hold of him on the phone, and his house was empty when she sent someone to check on him. I thought he might have gone to his hunting cottage and forgotten to tell her.”

  “No, I haven’t heard from him,” her dad said. “I hope everything’s okay. Do you want me to head over there now and see if he’s at the house?”

  “Sure,” she said. “That would be great.”

  “I’ll see if Chris wants to come with me. We can hike over through the woods. I’ll get back to you in about twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said. “I'll tell Michelle that you're heading over to his house to check on him. I’m sure it will help put her mind at ease.”

  She ended the call and went to get the drinks that Michelle and Aiden had ordered. She saw Michelle brighten up as she walked back to the table.

  “My dad says he hasn’t heard from him, but he’s heading over to the house now to check on him. He said he’d call back in about twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks,” Michelle said. “We’ll just sit tight.”

  When the landline rang half an hour later, Lacey answered it on the second ring. She had been hovering by the phone nearly the entire time.

  “Hey, sweetie,” her dad said. “I didn’t see any sign of him. We knocked and looked in the windows, but from what we could see, he isn’t there and probably hasn’t been for the past couple of days. The driveway hasn’t been used, and the front porch wasn’t shoveled. I couldn’t get into the garage to check and see if his truck was still there.”

  Lacey felt her heart drop. “So, he’s missing?”

  “It seems that way.” She could hear concern in her father’s voice. “I tried calling both his cell phone and his landline. I didn’t get an answer on either. The cell phone went straight to voicemail.”

  “That sounds pretty bad,” she said. “What should we do?”

  “Why don’t you hand the phone to your mother, and go tell Michelle what I said and see if she has any other ideas of where I should go look for him, I think it’s about time we involve the police.”

  Lacey called her mother over and handed her the phone, then went back out front and walked toward Michelle’s table. She winced as she saw the hopeful look the younger woman was giving her. Something must have showed on her face, because all of a sudden Michelle’s expression dimmed and she saw Aidan reach over and give the younger woman’s hand a squeeze.

  “No sign of him,” Lacey said quietly when she reached the table. “Do the two of you want to come on into the back? My dad’s still on the phone. He wants to talk to you to see if you can brainstorm and figure out where else your dad might be. If nothing turns up, he thinks we should call the police.”

  Chapter Six

  The rest of the evening passed with agonizing slowness. The phone rang with occasional updates from Lacey's father, but by the time she and her mother were closing up the diner, no one had found so much as a clue as to where Charlie had gone.

  True to his word, Lacey’s father had called the police and they formed a search party to comb the woods near his house. Charlie was an avid hunter, and the theory that Lacey’s father seemed to have landed on was that Charlie had gone out hunting alone and had somehow managed to get himself injured or lost.

  Michelle and Aiden had gone to go comb all of her father’s favorite haunts hours ago, leaving Lacey and her mother to close up the diner at the end of the day. They drove home together in silence, having already said everything they could think of to say while cleaning side-by-side.

  By the time they reached the house, the search party had called it a night, and Lacey’s father and Chris were back home.

  “We were out looking for hours,” Chris said after Lacey asked him how things had gone. “The police split us all up into three teams and sent us out in different directions. I think they are planning on bringing out a search and rescue dog next. I felt so useless out there, walking through the woods with the rest of the guys who were looking.”

  “You tried,” Lacey said. “I don't know what more you could have done. I keep trying to convince myself that there's some way that he's still okay, but it's hard to stay positive. It’s not like him to just disappear like this. “

  “I still have hope,” her father said. “I've known Charlie for longer than you've been alive. He’s a smart guy, and he knows these woods like the back of his hand. He knows how to survive on his own even if he somehow got lost or injured.”

  Lacey didn't respond, not quite sure what to say to her father's optimism. She knew that she didn’t share his hope. By the sound of it, Charlie had already been missing for well over twenty-four hours.

  The mood was somber as the four of them went to bed that evening. Lacey tossed and turned for a long time before finally falling asleep. Every time her eyes drifted shut, she thought about Charlie, lost and alone somewhere outside in the cold. She could only hope that he was still alive, and would miraculously turn up unharmed in the morning. She couldn't even imagine what poor Michelle and her sisters must be going through. For an instant, the thought of her own father going missing like that flashed across her mind, and she shuddered. She was immensely thankful that the three people she cared about most were all safe and sound just a couple of doors away from her.

  Lacey woke up early the next morning, running on barely any sleep. The first thing that she did was track down her mother to see if there had been he any updates on Charlie. She was disappointed, but not surprised, when the older woman said there hadn't been any word. Her father and Chris were still both asleep – stomping through the snowy woods had taken a lot out of them – so Lacey helped herself to a mug of coffee and then bundled herself up and went outside, tackling the porch and walkway with a snow shovel. It had snowed even more overnight, giving the footprints from the night before a soft, muted look.

  The rest of the morning passed in a blur. Chris joined her outside after a while and helped her shovel the rest of the walkway. By the time they went inside, her father had joined the land of the living as well. They ate a hurried breakfast together, then her father made a flurry of phone calls to the people he knew who had been involved in the search party. He returned to the kitchen with disappointing news. A snowstorm was hours away, and the p
olice had decided to delay the search until after it had passed. Lacey was tempted to call Michelle, but she couldn't think of anything constructive to say, so she decided to wait until there had been some news – one way or the other.

  “Hey,” Chris said softly a few hours after breakfast, joining her in front of the living room window where she was gazing out at the forest. “How are you doing? I feel like I've hardly spoken to you since we got here.”

  “I'm just worried about Charlie,” Lacey said. “Thank you so much for looking for him yesterday. I know you barely know him, but he really is a good guy, and I'm sure it means a lot to everyone that you were out there helping.”

  “It was the right thing to do,” Chris said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “I hate that the police are going to wait until after the storm to send out another search party. By then, it could be too late. Everyone I talked to seems to think that he'll be all right, though.”

  “I just don't understand why he wouldn't have shown up by now, if he really was all right. He must know that his daughters are worried about him. If he was just out hunting on his own property, it shouldn’t take him over a day to find his way home.” Chris didn't have any answers to that. He stood there in front of the window with Lacey until his phone beeped, signaling an incoming email. He glanced at the screen, then looked at her apologetically.

  “I’ve got to take my laptop upstairs and do something for work. Will you be okay down here on your own?”

  “I'll be fine,” she said, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. He seemed more like the Chris that she had fallen in love with now. It was strange how emergencies seemed to either bring out the best or the worst in people. “I'll go and bother my mom or my dad. I've hardly had time to talk to my dad at all. Take as much time as you need and don’t worry about me. I know work has been crazy for you lately.”