by Vicki Delany
I called Diane Simmonds to tell her about the car I’d seen last night backing out of my parents’ driveway. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say anything about the make, the model, the identity of the driver, or the number of people inside. All I could describe was a small compact. Maybe gray. Maybe black. Maybe dark blue or even deep red. I realized that covered about half the cars in North America. Simmonds thanked me for my help, but didn’t offer any information. Not that I expected her to.
Once I was off the phone, I went to the shop floor to relieve Jackie. I’d had a quick shower at Mom’s but I felt dirty and grubby in the clothes I’d been wearing yesterday and had slept in last night. Monday is never a busy day in the shop, other than in December, so I hoped to be able to get home when Jackie finished lunch, shower again, change, and come back to relieve her. I’d drive so I could lock up at six and head straight to Alan’s. I was so looking forward to a relaxing evening with a glass of wine by the fire.
Last night, even before Karla had died, had been anything but relaxing.
Jackie left for her lunch break, and I tidied the shelves while keeping an eye out for anyone who needed my help. A woman took the last of the turkey brooches off the display and showed it to her friend. “Look at this, Gale. Perfect for Thanksgiving dinner, don’t you think?”
“I love it,” Gale said. “But not as much as I love this wreath brooch.” She helped herself to one of Crystal’s pieces. “We’re starting our Christmas shopping,” she said to me, “but we both believe in the principle of one for them and one for me.”
Her friend laughed heartily. “Do you think Vivienne would like that set?” She pointed to the train winding around the outside of the toy display. The engine, bright red caboose, boxcars, and interlocking tracks had been hand-carved by Alan.
“I think she’d love it,” Gale said. “I certainly do.”
The first woman peered at the price tag. “It’s pretty expensive.”
“Hand-made by a local artisan from wood he gathered on his own property,” I said. “You don’t have to buy the entire set, if it’s too much. The pieces can be purchased separately.”
“What the heck. It’s my granddaughter’s first Christmas. I’ll take the full set. She’s only two weeks old, as of tomorrow, but she can play with it next year.”
“This year, her father will be the one playing with it,” Gale said, and both women laughed once again.
I grinned at them. I love owning a Christmas store. No matter the time of year, there’s something about the atmosphere in here that simply makes people happy.
Most people, that is. The door hadn’t shut behind the two women, laden with their purchases, before Margie Thatcher, owner of Rudolph’s Gift Nook, the shop next door, was through it. “Merry Wilkinson,” she said in a voice stiff with disapproval. Then again, disapproval is her normal style of speech; I’ve never heard any other. “I cannot believe your family’s caught up in another scandal.”
“What scandal might that be, Margie?” I asked politely.
She peered at me through her small black eyes. The look wasn’t friendly. Margie didn’t do friendly. When she arrived in Rudolph last Christmas to take over running the Nook from her twin sister, Betty, she introduced herself to me by saying, “Don’t you dare call me Margaret. I am not the former prime minister of England.” Now she said, “The scandal that’s all anyone’s talking about in the take-out line at Cranberry Coffee Bar. Someone was murdered at Noel Wilkinson’s house.”
“A woman died, that’s true,” I said. “Out of respect, we’re not discussing it pending the results of the autopsy and forensic report.”
Margie sniffled. I don’t think she knows what “respect” means. She certainly had none for me, my family, or my store. Rudolph’s Gift Nook specialized in mass-produced, cheap, imported goods. I believe there’s room for every sort of business in Rudolph, and I believe in catering to all tastes and all pocketbooks. Not everyone can afford handmade twenty-piece train sets or intricately crafted silver jewelry. Margie believed Mrs. Claus’s Treasures was stealing customers that would otherwise be pouring through the door of the Nook, ready to engage in a shopping frenzy for made-in-China trinkets.
“Your father’s supposed to be our Santa Claus,” she said. “A murder in his house is not a good image for the town.”
“My father was at the other end of the country at the time. He was fishing in Florida. He had nothing to do with anything that happened.”
“We will see. Have you met Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy?”
I wondered at the sudden change of topic. “I met them yesterday. They seem nice.”
“Changes are coming around here, Merry Wilkinson, and not a moment too soon.” She slammed the door on her way out.
I didn’t much care what Margie thought—of me or my store. But I cared a great deal about the rest of the town, and my father’s position in it. As Margie had said, Dad was the town’s official Santa Claus. Even out of costume he looked the part, with his twinkling blue eyes under heavy white eyebrows, round belly, full white beard, and prominent red nose. He liked playing the role, and he was good at it, but his identity wasn’t tied up in it. He’d been mayor of Rudolph for a long time and was still a town councilor. Sue-Anne was worried he’d run for mayor again, knowing that if he did, he’d win. Dad had no intention of doing that; he insisted that part of his life was over, but the ambitious Sue-Anne didn’t believe him.
“Oh dear.” A customer peered out from the alcove, clutching a plush reindeer doll to her chest. “Did she say a woman was murdered in this town? Is it safe here?” She glanced around the store, as if expecting to see armed assassins leaping over the display tables at any moment.
I couldn’t help but sneak a peek at the row of angels, complete with wings, song sheets, and trumpets, made by Alan, lining the shelf next to the curtained doorway leading to the back rooms. One of those angels had saved my life over the summer. “Sadly, a woman died last night,” I said. “But you know how fast rumors can spread. Some people like to make themselves sound important by repeating idle gossip, the more lurid, the better.” I smiled at her. “Can I wrap that doll for you? It’s so charming, isn’t it?”
“Doll? Oh, this doll, right. Yes, please. I’ll take it. I have a collection of stuffed Santas I bring out every year. My grandchildren love them.”
Once she left, several groups of customers came in and I was kept on the hop greeting them, answering questions, ringing up their purchases, and waving them a cheery good-bye. When I next got a few moments of downtime, my thoughts returned to my mother. I wondered what was happening at my parents’ house, what Mom and her friends were up to, and if Simmonds was making any progress. I totally forgot to wonder what Margie had meant when she told me changes were coming, and why she’d linked that comment with the Fitzroys.
Chapter 11
“Merry Wilkinson! I’ve been calling you and calling you! Stop right there!”
I considered making a run for it, but unfortunately Mrs. D’Angelo knew where I lived. Which is on the second floor of her house. She’d have no hesitation in following me there. I might as well talk to her on the front porch rather than upstairs in my apartment.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. D’Angelo,” I said. “It’s cold, but not cold enough to snow yet, I don’t think. Do you agree?”
“One of your mother’s guests killed another of the guests, and the entire house is in lockdown. How did you get out?”
“Because the house wasn’t locked down,” I said.
Mrs. D’Angelo was dressed in her fall gardening clothes: baggy track pants, a heavy sweater under a purple raincoat, pink and purple rubber boots. The garden was put away for the winter, perennials and wild grasses trimmed back, bushes wrapped in burlap, annuals dug up, and the soil turned over. We had the nicest garden on the street in spring and summer, the tidiest in fall, and the best-shoveled paths in winter. Not
so much because Mrs. D’Angelo was a keen gardener, but because time spent outdoors enabled her to keep an eye on the comings and goings in the neighborhood. In order to keep her up to date on events she couldn’t personally witness, she carried her ever-present iPhone in a pouch around her waist and had the earphones permanently attached to her ears.
“Janice Reid called me first thing this morning. She heard sirens last night and hurried over to see if she could help. She saw an ambulance and police cars outside your parents’ house. And then forensics officers coming and going all night. She wanted to call on your mother, to check if she was all right, of course, but that silly Candy Campbell said it was a crime scene and ordered her to go away.”
Whenever I got annoyed at Candy, when she tried to intimidate me or shove her weight around, I reminded myself that it can’t be easy being a police officer in a town in which half the residents remember you peeing your pants on the school stage while performing as the second shepherd in the first-grade Christmas pageant.
There was no point in trying to shame Mrs. D’Angelo into stopping gossiping, the way I had with the customer earlier. Mrs. D’Angelo lived on gossip the way normal people lived on air. And if she didn’t know the latest dirt, she simply made something up.
“One of my mother’s visiting friends died, yes,” I said. “It was sudden and unexpected so the police came out, as they do in such cases. Nothing has been determined yet about the cause of death. She had some health issues.”
“I hope that’s the case, Merry,” Mrs. D’Angelo said sternly. “Noel makes a good Santa Claus. Everyone says so.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I asked, but my landlady was already speaking into her phone. “Noreen, I’ve just spoken to Merry Wilkinson. She confirms that . . .”
Mattie and I let ourselves into the backyard (not nearly as nicely maintained as the front, as it doesn’t overlook the street) and climbed the stairs. I share the second floor with another apartment, so mine is small, but it’s perfect for Mattie and me. I tore off my clothes and hopped into the shower. When I got out, hair washed, body tingling, I felt like a new woman.
The thought of seeing Alan tonight had lifted my spirits considerably.
I dressed for a casual dinner at his place in a short red and black striped tunic over black leggings and ankle-high black boots. The moment I took the car keys down from the hook by the door, Mattie’s ears popped up and his tail began to wag. Mattie loves to ride in the car.
“Back to work we go,” I said. “But we’re going to have a nice treat later.” He dashed for the door.
When we got back to the shop, I told Jackie she could have the rest of the day off. She went home after making sure I knew what a giant favor she had done for me by coming into work early (not acknowledging that I was paying her for that and also not acknowledging the giant favor I had done for her by letting her leave early without docking her pay). We were busy for the rest of the afternoon, but the last of the customers left at quarter to six.
At five minutes to six, when I was contemplating risking Margie’s disapproval and closing early, the bells above the door tinkled cheerfully and Dad came in. The bells may have been cheerful, but that was not the word I’d have chosen to describe his expression. “What’s happened? Is Mom okay?”
“Your mother’s fine,” he said. “If you’re asking if there have been any developments around the death of her friend, nothing has happened. Nothing of significance, anyway. Diane talked to them all again. They protested their innocence and expressed their shock at the death of their friend.”
“Did she ask them about the EpiPen?”
“I believe so. They all claimed never to have seen it and had no idea how it ended up in our garage.”
“Are they going to be allowed to go home?”
He shook his head so vehemently his beard shook. “No. Diane said quite plainly that until she knows the cause of death for sure, no one leaves Rudolph. A couple of the women, the rich one from California and the New York lawyer, tried to argue, but Diane doesn’t argue with anyone. She walked out and left them sputtering.”
“You mean Constance and Barbara.”
“I get them mixed up,” Dad said. “It’s natural enough that they want to go home for Thanksgiving, but it’s also natural enough that Diane needs them here in town. Looks like we’re stuck with them for the duration.”
“You can ask them to go to a hotel,” I said.
“Your mother and I huddled in the backyard earlier discussing precisely that. One of her friends can’t afford a hotel.”
“Ruth.”
“I’d be happy to offer to pay, but your mother thinks Ruth would take offense at that. I suggested Ruth stay in our house and the other three be shown the door, but Aline doesn’t want to embarrass Ruth by singling her out.”
“What a mess.”
“That it is. I escaped to come into town. After I retired, your mother suggested we turn my study into a TV room. Thank heavens I put my foot down against that. At least I have someplace to flee to, but your poor mother doesn’t. Were those women so nasty to each other before their friend died?”
“Yup. Mom was seriously regretting extending the invitation.”
“If this isn’t cleared up by tomorrow,” Dad said, “Aline’s going to call Chris and Carole and tell them Thanksgiving’s off.”
“Oh no! I was looking forward to it. I haven’t seen Chris since last Christmas.”
“There is, as the old story goes, no room at the inn. I don’t feel in a festive mood anyway.”
“Speaking of unwelcome guests, Dad, I saw a car leaving the house last night when I arrived. I told Simmonds about it, and that I couldn’t see who was in it. Did she ask Mom who it might have been?”
“Aline didn’t know. No one came to the door last night other than you and Vicky.”
“No one she knows about, anyway,” I said.
Dad nodded. “Bad business all around.”
I studied my father’s face, all rosy red cheeks, soft blue eyes, deep crags, and white whiskers. At the moment, those blue eyes were not twinkling, and the crags were deeper than usual. “What else has happened that you’re not telling me, Dad?”
“You know me too well, honeybunch. Gunpowder, treason, and plot.”
“What on earth does that mean?”
“I called Ralph Dickerson a short while ago on another matter.”
“And?” Ralph was our town’s chief financial officer.
“Ralph informed me that my unexpected return to town has interrupted a plot to unseat me.”
“Dad, you’re making no sense.”
“Have you met a man named Wayne Fitzroy?”
“Yes, I have. He and his wife came in on Sunday on their way home from church. She bought several things, as I recall.”
“Sounds like him. A twofer: buying locally and being seen in church. They bought Ed and Jean Fernhaugh’s house over the summer.”
The Fernhaughs were longtime Rudolph residents. They were getting on in life, and their children had moved away and rarely came home, so they decided, reluctantly, to sell. Their house, a large early-twentieth-century mansion on a beautiful property on the lake, had been for sale in the two-million-dollar range. A heck of a lot for a small, rural town in Upstate New York. “Nothing wrong with trying to fit into a new community, is there?” I asked.
“Not unless he has ulterior motives, which I believe he does. He wants to be Santa.”
“Is that a problem, Dad? You’re always saying you’d be happy to quit and let someone else take it on if the right person wanted to.”
My father stroked his beard. His eyes were dark and serious. “The right person, yes. Fitzroy isn’t the right person. I’ve had a couple of encounters with him. He’s come to town council meetings a few times, introducing himself to everyone, glad-handing all
the councilors, saying he wants to—and I quote—‘get up to speed on what’s important in Rudolph.’ He wants to be a big man in this town, but I can’t figure out why. I didn’t get the slightest impression he was in any way nice. Frankly, I find it hard to believe he even wants to be Santa.”
I nodded. “Not nice.” Nice, as everyone knows, is the prime requirement for playing Santa Claus. Like my dad, I’d detected something false beneath Fitzroy’s getting-to-know-you charm. “Margie Thatcher was in here earlier, saying that having a murder take place at your house disqualifies you from being Santa.” She’d also mentioned Wayne Fitzroy and muttered about changes coming. I didn’t tell Dad that.
His face twisted. “I normally wouldn’t give a fig for anything Margie has to say about anything. Her community spirit, like that of her sister before her, is known to be nonexistent. But if she’s saying that, you can be sure others are, too.”
“Does Ralph think Fitzroy has a chance? If you don’t offer to step down, the council will have to fire you, won’t they? Not many, if any, of them will do that.”
“It isn’t up to the council. The mayor has sole responsibility. Ralph thinks Fitzroy and Sue-Anne are becoming very chummy.”
“Chummy? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But I intend to find out. This is a bad time for this to come up, with what happened yesterday.”
“Except that you wouldn’t have even known about this plot if you hadn’t had to cut your vacation short. How was it, anyway?”
“Too short. Keep your ears open, honeybunch.”
“I will,” I said.
The chimes sounded again and the door opened. I began to tell the customer we were closed but snapped my mouth shut when I recognized Diane Simmonds.
“Noel,” she said.
“Diane.”
“How was your vacation?”
“Altogether far too short.”