Cozy Christmas Shorts

by Halliday, Gemma

  "Anywhere in particular?"

  "Oh, it doesn't really matter. I just like to see new things, meet new people. I travel whenever I can get away from the demands of my constituents."

  "Politics is a demanding career," Helen said. "Look, we both know how negotiations work. Everyone has to compromise a little. I'll accept whatever ranking you and Mr. Wharton choose among the ribbon-winners, as long as you choose from the barn scene, the falling tree, and the light-stringing."

  Edie shook her head. "Mr. Wharton has excellent taste, and I have to agree with him. The cookie-making scene belongs in the final three, and the barn scene doesn't. Besides, Mr. Wharton is old and frail, and the least we can do is to let him have the final say. It might be his last year judging, after all."

  Helen thought they'd probably been saying this would be his last year for a decade now and would likely be saying it for the next twenty or thirty years. He struck her as the sort of invalid who would, in fact, live to be a hundred and ten while sending everyone around him into an early grave. There was no way Mr. Wharton was on his last legs. Not with Kolya around to do most of the walking for him.

  But that wouldn't sway Edie. What would?

  "What if I can convince Mr. Wharton to go along with my choice of the top three? Would you go along with us?"

  "There's no way he'd go along with you," she said smugly. "He and I are a team. He'd never betray me."

  Another dead end. Was Edie being stubborn just because she distrusted Helen, or did she actually have a good reason for preferring her choice of top three?

  "Then convince me of what's so wonderful about the"—Helen remembered at the last moment to use Edie's preferred phrasing that glossed over the death by poisoning—"the cookie-making scene. It's a cute premise, but they just plopped some melted and flattened white chocolate chips on a Necco wafer plate for the cookies, made the arsenic bottle out of marzipan, and that's about it for the details. The barn has all those little haystacks and miniature mistletoe that must have taken hours forming the individual leaves, and the little sign that says Christmas Hop. In some ways, it's the most positive message of all the entries, with the gingerbread men in blue police uniforms making sure that no one gets away with murder."

  "I don't need to convince you of anything." Edie's fake smile disappeared and her eyes narrowed in sudden anger. "I know what you're doing. You aren't the sweet, little old lady that everyone says you are."

  Helen was so startled by the venom in Edie's words, and the number of errors her statement contained, that she didn't know how to respond or where to start. She might be little, but she wasn't old, and no one would ever, ever call her sweet. Not since her first visiting nurse Melissa had been murdered, anyway.

  Edie continued her rant. "You're trying to take my place with the town's political players. I'm the only woman on the Board of Selectpersons and you want my seat. You think you can waltz in here with your Boston experience, and everyone will be so impressed. Well, I'm not. You're just a pathetic little wannabe riding your ex-husband's coattails."

  "The absolutely last thing I want is another role in politics," Helen said, although it was obvious that Edie wasn't in a receptive mood.

  "I'll make sure you never get back into politics," Edie said, stubbing out the last of her cigarette in the provided container and heading toward the back entrance. With her hand on the door, she turned around and bit out, "You're never going to get anywhere in this town. I know how to deal with someone like you. I've disposed of rivals before."

  * * *

  Edie took off, slamming the door behind her, leaving Helen more bemused than scared. She'd survived much more serious threats before. She wasn't afraid of winter, and she wasn't afraid of a small-town politician trying to hold onto her little fiefdom. Still, Helen wouldn't have been surprised to find the door locked when she got there, as an additional warning, and was relieved when the knob turned easily beneath her gloved hand.

  Helen dropped off her parka at the coat room and headed toward the dining room, passing the activity room on the way. Geoff Loring had apparently been assigned the role of look-out, and he intercepted her. "Betty and Josie want to know where your friend, Tate, is."

  Helen looked past Geoff to where Betty and Josie were working on their respective holiday projects. Martha Waddell was circulating among the residents, occasionally breaking up a couple engaging in a little too much public display of affection beneath the mistletoe balls, but she didn't seem to have noticed Helen yet.

  Helen gestured for Geoff to join her out in the hall, out of Martha's sight. "I don't have time to chat with them right now. You can tell them Tate will be here when he's done with his errands. He's retired, so he doesn't keep to an exact schedule."

  "So when are you going to announce the winners? I've got a deadline, you know."

  "It shouldn't be much longer. Mr. Wharton needed a blanket, and Edie needed a cigarette." Helen couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some inside information on her two opponents. Geoff might know something she could use to get them to change their votes. "Speaking of the town's only selectwoman, what can you tell me about her background?"

  "Edie's been here forever. Born and raised in Wharton."

  "What's her day job, when she's not attending town meetings?"

  "She doesn't have one," Geoff said. "She comes from old money. Not as old as Mr. Wharton's, of course. Edie never married, never had a job, and the stipend for being a selectmen is a pittance, so the only other possibility is that she inherited her money. And a lot of it. She lives in an expensive condo, and she's always taking lengthy vacations, coming back with an off-season tan like the one she's got now."

  "If she's gone for weeks at a time, doesn't that irritate her constituents?"

  "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Geoff said. "But Edie's just so nice, it's hard to get angry with her. Besides, she's good at responding to her supporters' complaints even when she's away. She can generally get some sort of resolution to their problems, which is all anyone cares about. She was gone pretty much all of November, but I was still able to interview her a couple of times by email. She stays in touch with the local residents by email and Facebook, and it's not like the selectmen really have that much business to take care of. The town administrator handles most things, and the elected officials rubberstamp his decisions."

  "It's not really all that different at higher levels of government."

  "Hey, look," Geoff said. "There's Tate."

  He had indeed arrived and was signing in at the front desk. He'd changed into what she thought of as his lawyer clothes, which was any outfit that wasn't covered with sawdust. He wore black pants with a dark blue sweater and black boots instead of wingtips, a concession to the icy conditions underfoot.

  Tate handed over the dark parka that made even his tall, lean frame look fat and joined Geoff and Helen. "You two look like you're plotting something."

  Geoff raised his hands as if to ward off an attack. "Not me. I'm just covering the gingerbread contest."

  "That's always how it starts," Tate said. "Something perfectly innocuous. And then Helen drags you into a crime scene."

  "Not me. Not unless it involves gingerbread." Geoff gave Helen a suspicious look. "Wait. Were you asking about Edie because you think she's involved in some sort of crime? No, no. Don't tell me. I've got to go now. I'm sure Betty and Josie need me."

  He scurried off, leaving Helen alone in the hallway with Tate. "Well," she said, "you really know how to end a fruitful interrogation."

  "It's not nice to grill someone who doesn't know he's being grilled. The Miranda ruling may not apply to private citizens' investigations, but it's based on a general concept of fair play, which applies to everyone."

  "I'm not investigating a crime or dragging Geoff into a sticky situation," Helen said. "I'm just gathering information on Edie's weaknesses so I could convince her to change her vote."

  "Finally run into someone as stubborn as you are?" Tate let his amusement
show in a small grin. "I'll lay odds on you getting your way eventually."

  "I will," Helen said. "If you don't want to get stuck here for hours while we try to reach a unanimous decision, you should help me defeat Edie."

  "I don't mind waiting."

  "Betty and Josie have been asking about you. I think Josie wants you to teach her to play poker."

  He glanced toward the entrance of the activity room, which was overflowing with residents and visitors.

  "And don't think you can simply lurk out here in the hallway without Betty and Josie finding out. They're every bit as resourceful as I am, and if they sic the nursing home administrator on you, even you won't be able to talk your way out of meeting them."

  "All right," Tate said. "What do you need?"

  She already knew a good bit about both Edie and Mr. Wharton. What else would be useful in convincing them to vote for the right contest entries? Maybe something about their theme. "Tell me what you know about the Gingerbread Man."

  "He ran so fast that no one could catch him, except by trickery."

  "No, not the fictional one," Helen said. "The real, live one. The grifter who's been taunting the police, daring them to catch him."

  "What has that got to do with swaying Edie's vote?"

  "I can't tell you right now," Helen said. "Isn't there some rule about judges not discussing a case with anyone while it's pending?"

  Tate nodded. "You're thinking of ex parte communications. A judge can't discuss a case with either of the parties or even outsiders, unless all the parties are present."

  "That's it," Helen said. "But I can do my own research, right? That's what I need from you."

  "I've heard about the search for the Gingerbread Man on the news, but that's all," he said. "None of my clients would have been stupid enough to dare the police to catch them. At least not that they'd admit to me. Not all braggarts get caught, but motivating the cops to work overtime on your case definitely increases the likelihood of an arrest. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about any more clients doing something that stupid. I'm retired, and I don't have any clients. Especially not you. No attorney-client relationship whatsoever."

  "Then what are we?"

  "You're the person who needs to know about the Gingerbread Man, and I'm the person who's going to keep you from doing anything foolish." He pulled out his smartphone and connected to the internet. After a couple of minutes, he showed her a picture captioned, "Can't Catch the Gingerbread Man."

  It showed just a runner's shoes and athletic-sock-clad calves, cropped so that no skin was visible. It didn't offer any obvious clues to the identity of the runner. The calves were muscular, but without anything in the background to establish perspective, they could have belonged to either a man or a woman. The socks were generic white sports socks, and the shoes didn't have any of the easily recognized brand logos. The left shoe did have a little tag on the side, centered beneath the row of eyelets.

  Helen pointed at it. "Can you enlarge the picture enough to read the tag?"

  The manufacturer's name came into focus. Tate then entered the name into a search engine, which led them to the website of a tiny company near Worcester, Massachusetts that made entirely custom running shoes, one at a time, based on casts of the customer's feet.

  "I'm not driving you to Worcester," Tate said. "There has to be another way to decide the winners of the gingerbread contest."

  "There's no need," Helen said. "I'm sure the police have already interviewed the shoe company. Even Hank Peterson couldn't have missed that obvious a clue."

  Helen noticed that Martha Waddell had wandered close to the activity room's entrance and was chatting with one of her nurses. Martha looked up and locked gazes with Helen.

  "I'd better get back to the judging," Helen said. "Otherwise, Martha's going to drag me into the dining room and handcuff me to a chair until we reach a decision."

  * * *

  Mr. Wharton was still on his throne, but apparently all was not right with the world. He fidgeted with the wool, plaid blanket draped over his legs and gestured Kolya closer to whisper something in the nurse's ear. Kolya nodded and tucked the blanket more securely around his patient's thighs.

  "It is taken care of," Kolya said. "You should not even have to ask."

  Edie had assumed her spot at Mr. Wharton's right hand again, looking down at him fondly. As Helen approached, the smile that had been genuine turned artificial.

  She needed to get rid of Edie. Not in the way Edie had implied she'd gotten rid of political rivals, just far enough away for Helen to have an unimpeded claim on Mr. Wharton's attention. Kolya wasn't likely to leave his patient's side, but neither was he likely to interfere with a non-life-threatening conversation about the judging. Edie, on the other hand, would interfere, if only to establish who had the greater power.

  Helen had no qualms about lying to Edie to get her out of the room. They were never going to be friends, or even colleagues who needed to work together on the town council, and there was no way Helen would let herself get dragged into the judging again next year. "Martha wanted to have a quick word with you, Edie. She wouldn't tell me why, but it sounded important. She said you'd know what it was about."

  The initial confusion on Edie's face was replaced with sudden comprehension and a bit of triumph at knowing something that Helen didn't. "Of course. I'd better go talk to her now, unless you've come around to a reasonable position on the judging."

  Helen shook her head. "I haven't changed my vote, but I'll take another look at the entries while you're gone."

  Edie raced off, and Helen didn't waste any time on small talk. She stood across the table from Mr. Wharton, planted her cane beside her for emphasis, and aimed for a firm but conciliatory tone. "Look. All I want is to include the barn scene somewhere in the three top spots, above the honorable mentions. I think it should take the top prize, but I can live with third place. What I can't accept is the cookie-making slash poisoning scene getting a better placement than the barn scene. I'm not going to budge on that, and you can ask my ex-husband just how long I'm willing to stand fast and wait for other people to change their minds. I don't give up."

  Mr. Wharton let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "I'm really not strong enough for a battle, but with greatness comes responsibility. This town depends on me to do the right thing, to set standards and be a role model. The barn scene… It's just so awful the way the gingerbread man dies. It's the only one where the death is front and center, and it's so terribly brutal."

  He shuddered, and the blanket slipped off his lap. He reached out one wan hand to pull it back up, but it was just out of his reach. He managed to bend forward slightly from his waist, but he still couldn't reach the blanket. He glanced forlornly at Kolya, who promptly retrieved the blanket and tucked it around Mr. Wharton's thighs.

  "The electrocution is pretty in-your-face too, and you're okay with that," Helen said, pointing to the little gingerbread man in question. She had to admit the craftsmanship on that one was almost as good as on the barn scene. The gingerbread man even had hair that was standing on end, made out of super-fine pasta—which met the requirement of being edible, even if it wasn't particularly tasty in its raw state—dyed a coppery blond, and he wore a startled expression on his face that was recognizable even from a distance.

  Mr. Wharton studied the two entries for a minute, showing more willingness to compromise than Edie did. Ultimately, though, he shook his head, and said, "It's not the same at all. The man falling on his head is just awful. We can't expose children to that."

  Helen hadn't seen any children in the activity room, unless she included the sixty-something "children" of the eighty-something nursing home residents. "In my experience, children are the least susceptible to the horror of death, at least when it's presented in the form of dead cookies."

  Mr. Wharton shivered. "Kolya, would you be a dear and move my chair further away from the door and windows. I'm still feeling a draft."

  Kolya bent at h
is knees, just like a demonstration of correct lifting procedure, and picked up the recliner with his patient still in it. Mr. Wharton gripped the arms with surprising strength in his usually fluttery hands.

  Kolya set the chair down a couple feet to the left end of the table, closest to the inner wall of the dining room. "How is that?"

  "Perhaps a little farther." Mr. Wharton released one arm of the chair and waved it limply in the intended direction. "And perhaps move the table a little bit too, so I can see the entries more clearly."

  Helen could only watch in appalled amazement. Mr. Wharton didn't even offer to get out of the chair as he fussed repeatedly over moving the chair a few inches at a time, considered the placement briefly, and then announced it needed to be moved a few more inches, sometimes back to a spot he'd already rejected.

  Despite his physical weakness, he certainly wasn't a follower like Edie, and he wasn't easily swayed once he made up his mind. Otherwise he would have gone along with Helen's compromise solution simply so he could go home and be more comfortable. In other circumstances she'd admire his grit. Just not when it was rubbing up against her own determined stance.

  The chair was still being moved back and forth, now in quarter-inch increments, with additional adjustments to the table. Helen glanced anxiously at the entrance to the dining room. It wasn't going to take long for Edie to realize she'd been sent on a fool's errand and come racing back to assert her rightful place at poor Mr. Wharton's side. They didn't have time to redecorate the entire room.

  Kolya bent again, using proper form and inhaling deeply as he gripped the base of the chair. This time Helen happened to glance down at his feet. The hem of his pants had risen a few inches, and she could see that he wore black running shoes. She was about to look away when she noticed the little white tag on the side of his left shoe. It was the same little tag Helen had seen in the Gingerbread Man's picture.

  Kolya, the man described by Betty and Josie as a bodyguard/assassin, wore the same shoes as the Gingerbread Man. And they weren't just any old shoes; they were custom-made and worn by only a few thousand people in the entire world, rather than the millions who owned mass-produced footwear.