2 Mayhem in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  Could it have been an ex-boyfriend maybe? One of the dozens of men she’d dated over the years who might have been holding onto a grudge all this time?

  Or did she even know the perpetrator at all? Was he just a nut roaming the streets of Christmas River who saw an opportunity to carry out his insanity?

  Even though it had been Kara that had been targeted, I couldn’t help but feel angry and helpless, as if I’d been the victim.

  The same question kept churning over and over in my head.

  Who would do such a thing to Kara?

  I spent the rest of the day thinking it over, but by the end, I was no closer to an answer than I had been when I started.

  Chapter 21

  “Now, here’s the script. I know it’s a lot to remember in such a short period of time, but you’re going to have to call upon your inner thespian for inspiration. Despite a last minute change in actress, Christmas River is still expecting their Mrs. Claus to be as warm and ethereal as ever.”

  Sarah Reinhart, the vocabulary-toting director of Christmas River’s Christmas in July Parade and Play, handed me a stack of papers that probably had killed an entire oak tree.

  As I sat there in one of the auditorium seats, flipping through the pages, my regret level soared to an all-time high.

  Not only was I in full Mrs. Claus dress in the hot, dank Christmas River High School auditorium, but I had a script the size of Crime and Punishment to memorize.

  “I’m just curious,” I said, clearing my throat. “I guess I was wondering why none of the other cast members here wanted to be Mrs. Claus after Kara stepped down. It just seems like it might be easier if one of them takes on this role. I mean, they know the play already. I’m just jumping in blind.”

  Sarah’s eyes narrowed from behind her glasses, and she crossed her arms.

  “Everybody’s too invested in their current roles right now,” she said. “And we have high standards with this play. I’m afraid not just anybody can take on the role of Mrs. Claus. Frankly, I even have my doubts about you.”

  I bit my tongue to stop from saying something I’d regret while a rush of anger made its way up to my head.

  I couldn’t believe this woman owned a tutoring business. The little lab wasn’t too far away from my shop. I could imagine she’d made a lot of little kids cry in her time.

  When Kara had asked me to fill in for her as Mrs. Claus, I had imagined myself sitting on top of a parade float in the sunshine, waving and smiling and throwing candy at happy children. Not performing in front of the entire Christmas River community in a bad play directed by a full-of-herself, untalented theater director who had yet to thank me for filling in at such a late hour to save her stupid play.

  No. This wasn’t how I imagined it going at all.

  But I had to remind myself why I was here.

  It wasn’t just because I was helping my best friend out, saving her from a hole she’d elected to lower herself into after being convinced by Moira Stewart that the view looked a lot better from below the topsoil line.

  Though that was one of my motivations.

  The other one, the reason that I was really there, was because I thought I might be able to help Kara out in a more substantial way.

  I’d thought of it while I was making a batch of Lemon Gingercrisp pies that afternoon.

  What if the fire at Kara’s shop had something to do with the Christmas in July play?

  It seemed possible. The arsonist had been dressed up as Santa. I mean, it could just have been some random maniac with a flair for dramatics. This was Christmas River, a town that prided itself on having the Christmas spirit year-round.

  But the timing of the fire so close to the Christmas in July festivities seemed like it could have been more than a coincidence.

  Kara had been playing Mrs. Claus. And Mr. Claus had just set fire to her shop. Had the arsonist been someone in the play? Someone who had it out for Kara?

  It was worth looking into.

  I wasn’t any Nancy Drew, but I felt a strong need to see justice done for my best friend.

  I wanted to see whoever had done this pay for burning her dreams to the ground.

  Daniel didn’t know yet about this grand plan of mine. And I just knew that he wasn’t going to like the idea of me being an undercover Mrs. Claus.

  But sometimes in life, we have to make our own choices.

  And if I could help find out who was responsible for the heinous arson of my best friend’s store, I was going to do what I had to do.

  “Now listen up everyone,” Sarah said, taking off her garishly jeweled glasses and addressing the 15 or so actors and crew members. “We’ve had a setback with Kara dropping out of the play. But Cindy here is going to do everything she can to fill her shoes.”

  Living with a name like Cinnamon for 34 years, I’d had my share of problems with people getting it wrong.

  But I couldn’t recall ever having a day when I got called Cindy by two different people.

  “Cinnamon,” I muttered loudly

  Sarah stopped mid-sentence and looked over at me with an angry, wrinkled expression.

  “What?” she said.

  “It’s Cinnamon,” I said again. “My name.”

  She gave me a look like I had just tracked dog poop onto her stage.

  I had half a mind to take the Mrs. Claus costume off and stomp on it right then and there.

  “She’s saying her name’s not Cindy,” said one of the other actors who I recognized as being Valley Corson, the owner of a flower shop down the street from Cinnamon’s Pies.

  Valley looked at me and rolled her eyes.

  I nodded at her appreciatively.

  Sarah cleared her throat.

  “Anyway, she’s going to be taking over the role of Mrs. Claus. And if we all make sure to do our part these next few days, then I’m sure Christmas River in July is going to be the same kind of smashing success it has been in past years.”

  The actors half-heartedly clapped. I suddenly realized they’d been putting up with Sarah’s nonsense for the past month, and judging from their faces, they were all sick of her.

  I took that opportunity to quickly scan the group, looking for anyone who might look suspicious or guilty of something. But nothing stood out about any of them. They were mostly middle-aged women. A few of them I recognized as teachers at the high school. The others worked at various offices or owned their own businesses.

  They were just about as harmless as a quilting club.

  The group broke up, taking their places on the stage. I stayed in the auditorium seat, where I planned on finding out what warranted an entire forest being annihilated in the name of the Christmas River in July script.

  I pored over the pages while some of the actors rehearsed their lines up on stage.

  The play had been written by Sarah, and even if her name hadn’t been splashed across the front page in the same large font as the name of the play itself, it was easy to tell it was her work. Mrs. Claus was a slave-driving old hag who liked to squash all the fun that Santa and the elves were having in the Christmas off-season. Santa just wanted to lie out in the sun and get a tan, but Mrs. Claus kept putting him to work. It was supposed to be funny, but the jokes fell flat. At least on the page.

  “Don’t let her get under your skin,” a voice suddenly said from behind me.

  I must have jumped six feet up in the air. I lost my grip on the script, and it hit the cold auditorium floor with a thud.

  I turned around. Behind me was a man with a thick white beard, bushy eyebrows, and smiling eyes.

  It was Old St. Nick himself.

  And when Ronald Reinhart wasn’t busy being Santa, or being a high school principal, he was Sarah Reinhart’s husband.

  “She doesn’t mean anything by it. She just… she likes when things are done her way.”

  “I guess my name isn’t part of her way,” I said.

  “The best thing to do is just laugh it off,” he said, winking. “Tha
t woman’s all bark and no bite anyway.”

  Just at that moment, Sarah, who was sitting at the end of the row, gave us a dirty look before putting her finger to her mouth and shushing us loudly.

  “Well, I can’t say I like her bark much,” I whispered. “But I’m glad at least that Mr. Claus isn’t that way.”

  He smiled at me, and then I went back to skimming the pages of the script.

  I didn’t know if I had it in me to be the Mrs. Claus that Sarah Reinhart wanted me to be, but I was going to have to do my best.

  Because as I sat there in that overheated auditorium, reading through the script and watching the actors up on stage, I was suddenly struck with a feeling.

  I couldn’t rightly say where the feeling came from, but it was one of those gut intuition feelings that my mother had always told me never to ignore.

  And it was telling me that there was something here that would help us figure out who was responsible for the fire at Kara’s store.

  I just knew it.

  And that was why I was just going to have to put up with Sarah Reinhart’s obnoxious bark.

  Chapter 22

  After a grueling rehearsal, I was glad to get out of that stuffy auditorium. The fresh night air felt good in my lungs.

  I drove over to Kara’s house and tried to drop off a cherry pie. But when I got there, the house was dark and nobody answered. I texted her, but got no response.

  I figured John had somehow managed to pry her from the recliner, and they were probably at his house.

  I took the pie back with me. Warren would appreciate it.

  I drove to the grocery store with the car windows rolled down. It was the sweetest relief I’d felt all day. Dusk was settling in on Christmas River, and the air was finally cooling off. The wind blew through my hair and made me almost forget about the troubles between Daniel and me.

  Almost.

  I pulled into the mostly empty parking lot and went inside.

  I liked grocery shopping at these hours. The local Ray’s Grocery was always quiet and peaceful in the evening. Living in such a small town, going to the grocery store was like going to church. It was a social outing that always took so much longer than you thought it would.

  But at night, it was a different story. So most of the time, unless I absolutely couldn’t avoid it, I’d do my shopping during the quiet hours.

  I grabbed a cart and pushed it toward the baking aisle. I needed to stock up on a few things for the shop before I got to some of my personal shopping. I’d run out of vanilla extract and white chocolate, and even though I’d already ordered some in bulk, I needed some small quantities to tie me over until they arrived.

  I stopped the cart in front of the spice rack and analyzed the various vanillas, trying to find one that was high quality but that wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg.

  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone down at the other end of the aisle.

  I glanced over, my heart skipping a beat.

  It was a reaction that after years of hating her, I just couldn’t control.

  I’d recognize that bleach blond blown-out hair and those trashy boots anywhere.

  I looked away, pretending I hadn’t noticed, but it was too late. She’d already seen me.

  She started walking toward me.

  My stomach tightened like a snake coiling around its prey.

  I hadn’t seen Bailey since that day at the Gingerbread Junction the December before last. By some miracle that was rarely afforded residents of small towns, we’d avoided seeing each other all this time.

  But I had heard some gossip about her since then.

  Not that I cared anymore, but Bailey and Evan, my ex-husband who had left me for her, had broken up. It became clear to me, and probably to her that day at the Junction, that Evan was no longer in love with her. From the town gossips, I’d heard that she threw him out, and he was now dating Talia Curtis, a wealthy out-of-towner who was nearly 15 years older than he was. She met the definition of a cougar, but Evan was most definitely no catch.

  After the break-up, Bailey had opened up her own pastry shop, the aptly named Wicked Pastry, on the outskirts of the downtown area. At first, the thought of working in such proximity to her and having to compete for customers had gotten under my skin. But when I realized that my business was as brisk as ever after she opened her shop, my anxiety about the situation subsided.

  But that didn’t mean I wanted to see her. Ever.

  But she apparently didn’t feel the same way.

  She rolled her cart toward me. I tried to ignore her. Maybe she’d just roll right past.

  “Hi Cinnamon,” she said in that same old honeyed smoker’s voice that never failed to irritate me.

  I kept a straight, expressionless face.

  “Bailey,” I said in an icy tone.

  I started rolling my cart past her, but she blocked my way.

  “How’ve you been?” she asked.

  Maybe it was just the harshness of the fluorescent store lights, but I suddenly noticed that Bailey wasn’t looking too hot. She was wearing too much make-up, and it caked in wrinkles that hadn’t been there the last time I saw her. There were dark circles under her eyes, and even her bleach blond hair had dark roots.

  She also looked like she’d gained some weight around her face since I last saw her. She wasn’t chubby, but her face looked puffy. Like she’d been getting high off her own pastry supply.

  The Bailey I’d known wouldn’t have been caught dead looking like this in public.

  And maybe that’s why I didn’t just ignore her, like my gut told me to do.

  “Uh… I’m great,” I said. “Things are going well.”

  I felt my face twitch.

  “That’s good to hear,” she said.

  Then there was an awkward pause. Basic conversation etiquette would require me to return the question, but I couldn’t quite muster that.

  I wasn’t in the habit of carrying on conversations with my arch enemies.

  But her eyes were sad, almost pleading. And I couldn’t find it in me to be such a bitch.

  “And yourself?” I asked, looking away.

  “Well, I’ve got to be honest,” she said, a little too readily. “Things haven’t been easy. You know, with running the pastry shop and… Evan leaving.”

  What, was I supposed to feel sorry for her now? Express my condolences for her loss?

  Here was the person who had thrown a wrecking ball into my world not too long ago. The person who’d taken a match to all my dreams, who had watched them burn without so much as a hint of remorse. Here was my former friend, who had gone behind my back with my husband for months while keeping a straight face the entire time.

  It would have taken a saint to forgive her. And I most certainly wasn’t one.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, that’s just life I guess,” I said, backing up the cart and trying to wheel it around her.

  “Wait, Cinnamon,” she said, looking flustered. “I know I’m looking for sympathy in all the wrong places. I know what I did to you. I’m not stupid.”

  “I doubt that,” I said, every word dripping with venom.

  I felt myself losing grip on my emotions.

  Those bitter feelings I’d felt toward her for so long were still stuffed deep down, and they were coming up to the surface now.

  I had to get out of there before I blew my top.

  “Look, I messed up really bad,” she said. “If it’s any consolation, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish it could have been avoided. But you have to understand, I thought… I thought he was the one. I wouldn’t have wrecked your marriage if it was just a fling, Cinnamon.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it really—”

  “I am so sorry, Cinnamon,” she said, suddenly gripping my arm with her cheap plastic nails. “If I could go back and make different decisions, I would. In a heartbeat. I really never wanted to hurt you. It was
a horrible thing that I did.”

  I flinched at her touching me, but there was a sincerity in her voice and in the words she was saying.

  She meant it. Or at least it seemed like she meant it.

  I paused for a moment. Even though I tried to think of something to fire back at her with, I couldn’t come up with anything.

  “It was a really stupid thing that I did, and I’m ashamed of myself for it.”

  Her eyes were welling up with tears.

  I realized that I had never expected an apology from Bailey. I figured someone who does what she did wouldn’t have the guts to try and make things right.

  But maybe I’d been wrong.

  “I just needed you to know that,” she said, brushing away a tear that was making a break down her face.

  “Okay,” I finally said, letting out a long breath.

  She looked up, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

  Things could never go back to the way they were before the betrayal. We would never be friends. I doubted very much if we would ever be on speaking terms.

  “I have to get going now,” I said, pushing the cart.

  “Wait, Cinnamon, there’s something else I have to say.”

  What more could there be?

  “What?” I said.

  She looked down at the ground, like she couldn’t meet my eyes.

  “You know how things at my store have been a little slow?” she said.

  “I may have heard something about that.”

  I didn’t know much about her pastry shop. I tried to avoid going near it. But from what Kara had told me from the one time she’d visited, the shop had practically been a ghost town.

  “Well, it’s not just slow,” she said. “It’s a lot worse than that.”

  The tears continued to fall, and it was becoming all too clear what this was really about.

  I crossed my arms.

  “If things don’t start going in a different direction, I’ll be finished by the fall.”

  I should have known that there was an angle to all of this.

  And here I’d fallen for her apology hook, line and sinker.

  “Yep. It’s a real tough business. But like I said, that’s just life—”