Cozy Christmas Murder

by Summer Prescott

  Just being there made her heart feel glad. She hung her coat and her purse in the office on one of the hooks, then went to find Natalie, who would be helping her make Christmas dinner.

  “There you are,” she said when she found the girl at last. “Are you ready to get started?”

  “Yes, just let me take Mrs. Zimmer to the common room. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  Autumn hurried to the kitchen, eager to get started. She poured over the menu, making sure she didn’t miss anything. She had already gone over it a couple of times, but wanted to get everything right. Pot roast would be the main course, with fruit salad, homemade bread, and a variety of pies for dessert. They usually served frozen dinner rolls instead of homemade bread, but tonight was special. Everything would be made from scratch. It was going to be a busy day, but she was glad that all of the residents here would be getting a wonderful homemade meal for Christmas.

  She decided to start by preparing vegetables for the pot roast. She was busy peeling carrots when Natalie appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Ms. Roth, someone is here to see you.”

  “Who?” she asked, surprised. If it was Nick, he would have just walked into the kitchen.

  “Brandon… I can’t remember his last name. I’m sorry.”

  Brandon was there? What in the world could he want? She hadn’t spoken with him since he had stopped by her house the week before her date with Nick. Hoping that everything was okay, she took off her apron and told Natalie to keep working on the vegetables.

  She found Brandon waiting in the common room. He was holding a bouquet of roses, which he handed over to her when he saw her.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said, “What is this about, Brandon?”

  “I want to apologize. I know our last discussion didn’t go so well. The more I think about it, the surer I am; I made a mistake, Autumn. I know that it will probably take you a while to trust me again, and I want to make it up to you. You are a wonderful person, who I want to be a part of my life for a long time to come.”

  He pulled her into a hug. She returned it, feeling flustered. She opened her eyes, and over Brandon’s shoulder, she saw Nick. He was staring at the two of them, a hurt expression on his face.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  * * *

  She pulled back, out of Brandon’s embrace. She didn’t know if things would go anywhere with Nick, but she wanted to give it a chance. Just one date with him had shown her that there was so much more out there. She cared about Brandon, yes, but things were over between them. He had to accept that.

  “Brandon, I appreciate the gesture, but you really shouldn’t have come here. I have a job to do, and I have to get back to work. What I said before still stands. I think you were correct when you said that we aren’t right for each other. Maybe we can get a coffee sometime this week and talk about it, but I really do have to go now. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.”

  “That’s it?” he said. “Autumn, I miss you so much. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Please, give me one more chance. I…”

  Autumn heard a soft whump come from behind her, then heard someone start screaming. She spun around and realized that the sounds had come from the kitchen. Dropping the roses, she rushed forward. She found Natalie beating a fire out of her smoking apron. Her hair was singed, as was her shirtsleeve, and her hand and arm were burned. The oven door was open, and a lighter lay on the floor.

  “Natalie, what happened?” she asked, kneeling beside the younger woman.

  “I don’t know,” Natalie sobbed. “I was trying to get the oven lit – the pilot light must’ve gone out – but when I clicked the lighter on, a huge fireball just exploded. Thank goodness I was using one of those long lighters, or my entire head would be on fire.”

  “We have to get out of the kitchen now,” Autumn said. “Someone go and find Nick I think he’s in his office.”

  No matter what he said, she knew that she would no longer entertain the thought that all of this was a coincidence. Someone is trying to kill whoever cooked in the kitchen at the assisted living home.

  “What happened?”

  She turned to see Brandon standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “You should get going. We can deal with this,” she said.

  “No, I want to help,” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  Nick was there now, standing next to Brandon, gazing at Natalie with concern.

  “Someone fixed the oven so it would explode when someone tried to light it,” Autumn said.

  His eyes widened. “Both of you need to get out of here right now,” he said. “We don’t know if there are other booby-traps in here. I’m going to call the police, but for now, we need to keep everyone out of the kitchen.”

  She helped Natalie into the common area, and one of the other staff members brought an ice pack for her. The sight of the injured young employee brought both residents and staff swarming over, making sure she was okay and asking what had happened.

  Autumn saw a couple of people heading towards the kitchen, their faces curious. She got up and hurried over to the door.

  “No one can go inside,” she said. “I’m sorry, but it may not be safe.”

  Mrs. Zimmer, who was standing by the door with her walker, was frowning.

  “You really have bad luck, don’t you?” she said.

  “It’s not bad luck,” Autumn said. “Someone’s trying to sabotage me.”

  She managed to shoo people away from the door. By now, the common room was full of people. Everyone was talking about what had happened and crowding around Natalie. Feeling frazzled, Autumn took a step toward Natalie, but Brandon beat her there. She saw him ask people to give the young woman space, and offered him a smile from across the room. With Natalie taken care of, she had to find Nick.

  He was in his office, and was just getting off the phone with the police when she found him. “They’re on their way,” he said. “I asked for an ambulance too. I don’t know how hurt Natalie is.”

  “Good. I can’t believe something like this happened again. Who had access to the kitchen today?”

  “Too many people,” he said. “It’s been a crazy day. Natalie helped make lunch with a couple of the other staff members. I don’t know who made breakfast. The door has been open most of the day; Natalie was trying to clean it for you so that it would be nice for Christmas dinner. A couple of the residents were also in there, making Christmas cookies for their families. It could’ve been anyone. I know you’re going to hate to hear this, but are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

  “How could this have been an accident?”

  “Well, it’s possible that the pilot light just went out. It does happen sometimes, and these ovens are older.”

  “If that was the case, wouldn’t the gas have shut off automatically? There should be a safety valve, shouldn’t there?”

  “There is, but it responds to the metal cooling down after the pilot light goes out. The gas would have kept flowing for a little bit. Like I said, it’s an older system and it isn’t perfect. The fact that the explosion was so small tells me that the valve did work. The gas must have shut off just a few minutes after the pilot light went out.”

  Autumn sighed and took a seat across from him. “So you think that it was an accident, just like the burners being left on and Benson’s EpiPen disappearing?”

  “I don’t know what I think,” he said. “That’s why I called the police. It’s just hard to imagine that someone would try to kill the cook on Christmas day. What motive could anyone have to try to kill you and Natalie?”

  Autumn frowned. Something had occurred to her. Natalie had been around each time that something bad had happened. This most recent incident was the least serious; like Nick had said, the emergency shut off valve had worked, and the explosion had been minor. Was it possible that she had done this on purpose to turn suspicion away from herself? If so, did that mean that she had something
else planned?

  She shook her head. No, that was ridiculous. Natalie had never given Autumn any reason not to trust her. Besides, why would the young staff member want her out of the kitchen?

  “The police will be here soon,” he said after a moment. “And the ambulance for Natalie. We should talk to them together.”

  “What are we going to do about Christmas dinner?”

  “Well, with any luck, they will be able to finish up their investigation soon and we can get back to cooking. I’ll help you out; now that Natalie is injured, I wouldn’t want to ask anyone else to do it.”

  It took the police a while to get through the kitchen and make sure everything else was safe. Natalie left for the hospital to get her burns treated, and everyone in the assisted living home wished her well. Brandon insisted on staying, and Autumn did her best to ignore him. She wished that he would just listen to her and leave; he was choosing the wrong time to act chivalrous.

  At last, the police determined that the kitchen was safe. They had been unable to find any evidence of foul play. They suggested to Nick that he implement some basic safety training for anyone who was working in the kitchen, then left.

  “Are you willing to help me with dinner?” Nick asked her. “I don’t want you to stay if you feel unsafe. No one will blame you if you don’t want to cook anymore.”

  “I’ll stay,” she said with a sigh. “I wouldn’t feel right leaving, not with my aunt and uncle here, and not with you here. I would feel terrible if someone else got hurt.”

  “All right, let’s get to work. Dinner might be a bit late, but I think we still have time. Do you want to ask your boyfriend to help?”

  “Brandon? We aren’t dating. We broke up a while back. I don’t know what he’s doing here, but I already told him I’m not interested.”

  His face seemed to relax a bit. He gave her a small smile. “Do you want me to ask him to leave?”

  She glanced through the kitchen door, where she saw Brandon talking with her uncle and helping her aunt drink a glass of water.

  “No,” she said. “They like him, and he’s a good guy. Let him stay if he wants to. I don’t think he has anywhere else to go, anyway. His family all lives out of town.”

  Nick nodded, and the two of them began work on Christmas dinner. Even though she was jumpy, nothing else happened. It seemed that the police had been right; there were no further booby-traps in the kitchen.

  A couple of hours later, Autumn pulled the freshly baked bread out of the oven with a feeling of deep satisfaction. Despite everything that had happened, she and Nick had managed to pull together a wonderful Christmas dinner.

  After the bread had had a few minutes to cool, she began to cut it into slices. Eager to try a bite of her creation, she cut a small slice for herself. She buttered it, then raised the warm bread to her lips.

  A moment later, she spit the bite out in disgust.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  * * *

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asked, turning to her with concern on his face. His sleeves were rolled up, and he had an apron tied around his waist.

  “It’s salty,” she said. “Way too salty.”

  Frowning, he tasted a piece of the bread himself, and spit it out immediately. “How did this happen?”

  She had no answers. Worried, they tasted everything. The pot roast and fruit salad were both fine, but the gravy and the pie crusts were all way too salty.

  “There must be something wrong with the flour,” he said.

  She pulled the bag of flour out of the pantry and tasted a tiny bit. She could tell immediately what was wrong. Granules of salt had been mixed in with the flour.

  “Okay,” she said, “this cannot be an accident. Nick, you have to admit that something is going on here.”

  He gazed at the flour, and she saw sadness on his face. “You’re right. But who? Who would do this? Why would someone want you out of the kitchen so badly? Why kill Benson?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Whatever’s going on, it has to have something to do with the job position, doesn’t it? Whoever is doing this doesn’t seem to be targeting anyone in particular. We should start looking through the applications.”

  “All right. We’ve got about half an hour before everyone will be ready. Let’s leave the food on warmers, and go to my office. We can look at the applications together. I don’t want to involve the police in this until after dinner, though. Everyone’s looking forward to this dinner so much. We will just have to put some frozen rolls in the oven and use one of the gravy mixes.”

  “Agreed. Let’s go look now, though. I won’t feel safe until we know who it is.”

  They returned to his office, shutting the door behind them. He pulled the blinds shut, then took a stack of papers out of the drawer, handing her half.

  “You start with these, I’ll take the other half. Look for people that live locally, or have relatives in the home. Whoever did this would’ve had to have been here all three days that something happened.”

  They began pouring through the applications. Autumn cross-referenced the names with the names of the residents, and looked for any possible connection between them. There weren’t too many applications, and it didn’t take long until one of them found something promising.

  “Look at this,” he said. “Jimmy Zimmer. He applied before Cook Benson died. That’s a bit suspicious, isn’t it?”

  “That’s very suspicious,” she said.

  “We were looking for a temporary cook, since our other cook is out on maternity leave, so it may not mean anything, but look at this… He applied again a few days after Cook Benson died. We should talk to his grandmother and see if she can tell us anything. She might remember where he was on those days.”

  Taking the application, Nick left the room. Autumn followed him, wondering if this could really be it. Had this Jimmy person tried to kill her? Just how badly could he want the job?

  Nick stopped outside of Mrs. Zimmer’s room. He knocked on the door, and said, “Mrs. Zimmer? It’s Mr. Holt. I’d like to speak to you for a second.”

  “Come on in,” she called faintly. He pushed open the door and Autumn followed him. Ms. Zimmer was sitting on her chair, reading a book.

  “Can we sit down?” Nick asked her. She nodded, and the two of them sat on the couch.

  “We just want to ask you some questions about your grandson. He sent a couple applications in for the job as the new cook. He seems pretty interested in the job. Could you tell me anything about him?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s always wanted to cook. He is so skilled in the kitchen. He always made the best meals for us. I practically raised him, you know. He lost his job a couple of months ago, poor thing, and has been searching so hard ever since.”

  Nick exchanged a look with Autumn. That could be motive, right there.

  “Mrs. Zimmer, do you know if your grandson was here earlier today?”

  “Why yes, he stopped in to give me my gift, and he told me he would be back later for dinner.”

  “Do you remember if he visited the Sunday that Benson passed away?”

  “He was there for dinner…” She trailed off. “Now, Mr. Holt, I’m sure I’m wrong about this, but it sure sounds to me like you are accusing him of something.”

  Nick opened his mouth, but at that moment the door to the room opened. In walked a man about Autumn’s age. He looked between his grandmother and Nick.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked.

  “Oh, Jimmy, I’m glad you’re here. This man is making a horrible accusation.”

  “You’re accusing my grandmother of something?” Jimmy asked, his face reddening. “How dare you? You are just like all of the other homes out there, trying to take advantage of the elderly.”

  “Now, Mr. Zimmer – can I call you Jimmy? I…”

  “No, I don’t want to hear it. As soon as I get a job, I’m taking my grandmother out of here.”

  “Jimmy, they aren’t accusing me,” the
older woman said. “They were accusing you.”

  Jimmy froze. “What?”

  “It’s just, a few things have come to our attention. We know that you were here earlier today, and that you were there when Benson passed away. I don’t want to upset you, but I am going to insist that you talk to the police. I’m sure this is all a big misunderstanding, but I have to do my best to protect the people here, and whoever has been sabotaging the kitchen is putting everyone in danger.”