Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery

by Muldoon, Meg

  Huckleberry.That sweet, poor creature that had been trying to draw attention to his owner’s murder for over a week. That sweet dog that had brought a man I hadn’t seen in 17 years to my doorstep.

  That poor creature that had led me to his dead owner, buried in snow.

  All I wanted to do was say goodbye to him.

  But Bridgette Andrews was determined that I didn’t get that chance.

  She shook her head at me like I had bad credit and was asking for a loan.

  I shook my head and left in a huff, wondering who would have scooped Huckleberry up so quickly and why the police would have just let him go right away.

  It just wasn’t my day. It seemed as though everything had been out of my control, and out of control.

  But there was one thing I could control. One thing that I could do.

  What people did throughout history anytime the world got too overwhelming.

  Drink.

  I walked along the cold streets. Some street vendors were setting up booths along the sidewalks. In all the “excitement” of the last two days, I had almost completely forgotten about the Christmas Parade and Festival. It always heralded the beginning of the mad-dash Christmas season, and always came right before The Gingerbread Junction Competition.

  The thought of the impending barrage of Christmas spirit only made me pick up the pace to get to the Pine Needle Tavern quicker.

  There was a glass of whiskey with my name on it waiting for me there.

  Chapter 26

  “Don’t sweat it, Cinnamon,” Harold, the bartender said, refilling my whiskey glass. “Anybody would have to be out of his mind to choose that Bailey over you.”

  I chomped down on a piece of ice I’d been clinking against my teeth.

  “That’s just something to say,” I said, sighing and looking at the mirror behind the bar at my reflection. “Bailey’s got some things going for her. She’s attractive and young and smart.”

  “But she’s missing the most important thing of all,” Harold said.

  “And what’s that?”

  He tapped his chest.

  “A heart.”

  I smirked.

  “That’s something only a mother would say,” I said. “You’re getting soft, Harold.”

  He smiled, and then was called away by Phillip Cooke who was sitting at the other end of the bar, getting quietly drunk.

  Phillip was, in impolite terms, the town drunk. But on nights like these, I understood him a little better.

  Sometimes it was just easier to curl up with a bottle than it was to face life.

  Tonight, I was giving in to that urge.

  I took a sip of my whiskey and looked around at the bar. It was crowded tonight. Townes Van Zandt was playing loudly over the speakers.

  Warren was there with a group of the old timers sitting at their usual table. I spent Whiskey number one with them, but didn’t want to cramp Warren’s style. They had old-man things to talk about, and I had some serious drinking to do, so I was spending whiskey number two at the bar.

  There were a lot of locals in the bar, but there were also some unfamiliar faces. Some tourists in for the Christmas festivities, no doubt. This time of year, some would accidently wander into the Pine Needle Tavern. Most didn’t last too long. They knew that they didn’t belong here.

  I played with my paper coaster and felt the warm tingle of the golden liquid crawling through me. It felt good, softening the blow of the dark thoughts that were creeping in. They got in, even in the noisy bar.

  I was thinking about what Bailey had said before she left. When I had told her that I’d be seeing her at the competition this weekend, she had said Maybe. Maybe not.

  What did she mean by that?

  Probably nothing. She just had a flare for the dramatics. She just wanted to scare me with some impending threat of doom.

  Sometimes I wondered how I could have been so absolutely wrong about someone. She’d worked in the shop for years, and I would have vouched for her without a moment’s thought. I had thought of her as my friend.

  But I’d been so oblivious to what was going on around me.

  I suddenly wondered about Mason. If that’s what happened to him. If he trusted someone, and ended up being wrong about them.

  Dead wrong.

  I wasn’t any fan of Mason. That was well-documented. But maybe I’d only seen him in one kind of light. He couldn’t have been all bad. And most likely, he probably didn’t deserve to die alone in the woods, in the cold snows of December.

  Sometimes, we were just victims of our own trusting natures.

  I looked down at my drink and swirled it around before mumbling a little prayer for Mason.

  Like I said. He couldn’t have been all bad.

  I hoped the gingerbread houses wherever he was were finally living up to his standards.

  I downed the rest of my drink, feeling better as it traveled down my throat.

  Harold poured me another before I could even ask.

  He was a good bartender.

  “Hard day, huh?” a voice said from behind me.

  I looked up in the mirror and saw Daniel standing behind me.

  And soon, I realized that he wasn’t alone.

  Chapter 27

  “Huckleberry!” I said in a kind of girlish shriek that I seemed to have no control over when I saw that little black wet nose and those sorrowful little brown eyes.

  I stood up off the bar stool and kneeled down on the ground, petting his now-shiny fur, and hugging him.

  He wasn’t completely buying into the idea and kept looking for a way to get away from the drunk woman’s pets, but I didn’t care. I was so glad to see him I didn’t care how it looked to anybody.

  I planted a kiss on his sweet, soft little head.

  “So you’re the one who beat me to the punch,” I said, looking up at Daniel. “I swung by the humane society earlier, but he was gone by then.”

  “Well, I always kind of had the feeling that it was meant to be,” Daniel said. “Ever since I saw him staring at me in the woods that night.”

  “There you go with fate again,” I said, stroking Huck’s fur some more.

  Huckleberry was finally giving into my wild pets. He started licking the side of my face. It tickled and I started laughing.

  “I thought you might want to see him again,” Daniel said, kneeling down beside me.

  He smelled good. Like he always seemed to. Like cedar.

  “Listen,” Harold said from behind the bar. “I don’t want to be a buzz-kill, but we don’t allow pets in here.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Harold” I said. “Make an exception, would you? This dog’s been wandering around in the cold for over a week.”

  “Sorry, Cinnamon,” he said. “Can’t do it unless he’s a guide dog. It’s the code.”

  I sighed, and looked up at Daniel.

  “I’ll take my drink on the road, then,” I said, standing up and taking the glass in my hand.

  It wasn’t really on the road, as I found out. More like through the bar, as I nearly inhaled it while grabbing my coat.

  Daniel held onto my arm, steadying me as we walked out.

  “Let me say goodbye to Warren first,” I said.

  “Let’s hope he lets me walk out of here with you,” Daniel said, smirking.

  “Maybe you should wait for me outside,” I said, winking.

  He nodded and went out the front door, leading Huckleberry by his leash. I went over to Warren's table and asked Larry if Sheila could also give my grandpa a ride when she picked him up later that night. I told Warren I’d meet him back at the house.

  “Don’t think you’re pulling one over on me,” Warren said, raising his white eyebrows.

  I smiled.

  “Of course not,” I said, putting on my coat.

  “Then call me if you need anything. Even if it’s something stupid.”

  Good old Warren.

  I kissed him on top of his head and said goodbye.


  Then I went out the front door.

  But I didn’t feel cold in the frosty air.

  I wasn’t cold at all.

  Chapter 28

  “I’m not usually like this,” I said.

  A light snow was falling, small crystalline flakes sailing through the dark night, gathering on the streets and sidewalks of downtown Christmas River, adding to the already thick snow drifts.

  The red and green and white Christmas lights for the parade and festival had been strung up along street corners and alleyways, and they glowed in the darkness. A soft, icy wind blew through every once in a while, shaking them and casting shadows along the frozen streets.

  Daniel and I were walking in no real direction. I was holding onto his arm. The cold air felt good against my rosy cheeks. Huckleberry was walking out in front of us, stopping every once and a while to sniff a bush or explore a patch of snow.

  He seemed to be used to a leash, and seemed comfortable with us.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I drink. But it’s not too often that I drink.”

  Daniel smiled. It lit up my blurry night.

  “You don’t have to justify it to me,” he said. “You saw how drunk I was the other night.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want you thinking I’m a lush.”

  “That sounds like a word Warren would use.”

  “Hey, don’t insult my grandfather like that.”

  “Then don’t steal his old-man words.”

  I looked over at him, and we were both smiling.

  “So tell me why you dove headfirst into a bottle of whiskey, Miss Peters.”

  I didn’t answer for a little ways. The only sound was our footsteps disrupting the layers of snow.

  “I prefer Ms.,” I said.

  “My apologies,” he said. “Ms. Peters.”

  I sighed heavily.

  “Because I found a dead body in my backyard,” I said. “And the cops think… you, probably think, too… that I had something to do with it.”

  “Hey, I never said that.”

  “No,” I said. “But that’s probably why you’re here. You’re probably trying to catch me while I’m drunk. You think you can make me confess.”

  “I don’t think anybody could get a confession out of you if you didn’t want them to,” Daniel said. “Even drunk.”

  “Is that a compliment or an insult?” I said.

  “Do you really think I’d be here right now if I thought you could actually kill someone over a gingerbread contest?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know you that well. Maybe that’s exactly what you would do. How should I know?”

  Huckleberry pulled on the leash and Daniel followed, breaking free from my grasp. He walked a few feet off the sidewalk, into a small clearing.

  I followed him, digging my hands deep into my coat pockets. The chill was beginning to get to me.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I stood next to him, looking out at the clearing that was Pioneer Park in the summertime, but was just a lifeless field of snow during the winter.

  I watched Huckleberry and sighed.

  “What are you doing back here, Daniel?” I asked. “You haven’t really told me. I mean, not really.”

  “You know, I remember this park, now that I’m looking at it. There’s a baseball diamond under all this snow, isn’t there?”

  “You’re avoiding my question,” I said.

  He hesitated again.

  “Let’s just say something happened back in Fresno, and that all I could think about for months after was coming back to these mountains. All I wanted was to see snow again, and to feel clean air in my lungs. You know? All I wanted was to get back a piece of something I lost a long time ago.”

  He rubbed his neck, like it was sore.

  “Is it helping?” I asked. “Being back here?”

  I wanted to ask him more about what happened, but felt a wall when I started moving in that direction.

  I got the feeling he didn’t want to talk about it. Not yet, anyway.

  “There are moments when it seems like it is,” he said. “I see these Christmas lights and the snow coming down, and here I am walking down the street with a pretty girl in the middle of the night… everything back there seems very far away. But then other times…”

  “Other times it’s all right there,” I said, finishing the sentence. “It’s there, because it’s part of you now. And there’s no way to outrun it.”

  He looked over at me, and I thought I saw a hint of surprise in his eyes.

  And then he nodded.

  “I know a little something about moments like that,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “I can see it in you.”

  I thought of what he said the night I dropped him off at his home.

  I don’t want you to be sad anymore.

  I realized I didn’t want him to be sad anymore either.

  “Copley intuition?” I asked.

  “Is that why you’re drinking tonight?” he asked. “I mean the real reason why.”

  “Finding a man you once knew dead in your backyard isn’t enough to drive someone to drink?” I asked.

  “Maybe for most people,” Daniel said. “But you’re tough. I don’t think that’d rattle your cage so badly.”

  I shrugged.

  “There’s always a reason to drink if you’re looking for one,” I said. “In my case, I can blame it on an ex-husband and his lovely fiancée who just happened to be my bakery assistant in another lifetime.”

  He winced.

  “That explains a lot,” he said. “I don’t blame you for falling into a bottle.”

  “If it were up to me, I’d spend a lot more time in a whiskey fog,” I said. “But you know, I’ve got things to do, responsibilities and what have you.”

  “Plus, you’re tough. You wouldn’t fall off the tracks like that,” he said. “I remember that about you.”

  I scoffed.

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. “You want to know a secret?”

  “What’s that?” he asked, leaning in closer to me.

  “I’m not that tough,” I whispered. “It’s all a show.”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re not selling me on that,” he said. “No. I know the truth, Cinnamon Peters. That you’re nothing short of ruthless. Someone who’s won as many Gingerbread Junction Competitions as you would have to be, wouldn’t they? So don’t try and convince me of something else. I know you, Cinnamon.”

  That made me smile.

  And it suddenly made me feel a lot better.

  That was something I remembered about Daniel.

  He always had a way of making you feel special. Of making you feel like you were the only one in the world. Or at least the most important one.

  Like he believed in you.Really believed in you.

  “And what you said before? About you not knowing me? That’s not true either,” he said. “You know me.”

  “We’ll see about that one,” I said.

  Huckleberry started leading us down a street that led away from the downtown area. There weren’t many streetlights, but we kept going anyway. Christmas lights from the houses cast enough light to see by.

  “So if I didn’t kill Mason Barstow, who did?” I asked.

  “Someone who didn’t like him very much,” Daniel said.

  I laughed.

  “Wow. And you made your way all the way up to lieutenant back in Fresno?”

  “The department’s an equal opportunity employer,” he said.

  We stopped for a moment. The street was getting too dark to see by. I could barely make out Huckleberry in front of us, and I could barely see Daniel’s face.

  “Should we turn around?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  We swung around, me clinging onto his arm while we walked back toward the lights of town.

  “But really,” he said. “Do you have any idea who would
have wanted him dead? Anyone else in the competition or in the town who didn’t like him?”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “Not anyone in particular,” I said. “A lot of people disliked him. About the only person he did get along with was Gretchen O’Malley. He just thought she was some sort of artist with gingerbread. I never understood it. I guess they were cut from the same piece of mean and nasty cloth.”

  Daniel nodded.

  “One time, he called her a Picasso with gingerbread.”

  Daniel laughed heartily.

  “Sounds like a good name for a band, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Picasso with Gingerbread. It’s got a nice ring.”

  I thought back to him playing guitar that night under the stars.

  “Do you still play?” I asked. “I remember you and that guitar back in high school. I never saw you without it slung over your shoulder.”

  “No, I haven’t played for a while,” he said. “It’s just one of those things I kind of lost along the way. I miss it though.”

  “You should start back up,” I said. “Teach me how to play. Remember how you promised to teach me that night? Now’s your chance.”

  “Yeah, uh, sorry for being a few years late on that,” he said.

  “A few?” I said, looking up at him.

  “Well, more than a few years. But, better late than never, right?”

  We suddenly stopped walking, and I could have sworn the clouds up above broke for a moment, and a bright ray of winter moonlight fell on us. Light snowflakes floated magically through the air.

  And in the white light of the moon, he looked the same. The same as that carefree teenager all those years ago, serenading me by the lake in the summertime.

  “I’ve missed you, Cinnamon,” he said.

  “You’re just saying that,” I said as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close.

  “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

  He leaned over and his lips touched mine, and he kissed me tenderly, bringing me close to him in a passionate embrace. Making the cold night glow.

  My heart pounded hard in my chest like it was a prisoner trying to get out of a burning jail cell.