Oh, well that was an offer I was not about to refuse. I flipped the lights back on in my shop then retrieved my keys from my purse in the storeroom. Clint was close behind me. I turned and handed them over. “Thank you. Just turn the lock to get out.” I pointed at the door.
“I’ll let it run a while then drive around to the front.” He disappeared outside of Curio Finds in seconds. I slipped into my coat then picked up the purse I’d dropped on the checkout counter and was about to go into Brew Ha-Ha to turn off the light when my shop door opened. I wondered if Clint had forgotten something. Instead, it was the young woman who’d been interested in the three bears and lone man snow globe that Frosty had bought.
“Hello, I saw your shop was open, but it looks as though you are closing for the night,” she said.
There was something about her that tugged at my heartstrings. “Yes. We aren’t actually open this late. I was just taking care of some things. Can I help you find something, as long as you’re here?”
She shook her head. “Thank you, no. I was just walking by. I will come back another time.”
“It’s awfully cold to be out walking. How about a cup of something hot to warm you up?”
“I do not want you to bother.”
“No bother. I can have a cup of hot chocolate ready in about ninety seconds.”
“All right. How much does it cost?”
“Nothing tonight, it’s on the house. We have leftovers from today that we’ll have to throw away otherwise. I’d feel better if it warms someone’s tummy instead.”
Her face brightened. “Thank you, that would be very nice. One of those take-with-you cups would be good.” She had a quaint way of phrasing things, and a dialect that I tried to place. But she was guarded and I sensed it was too soon to ask questions she might consider personal.
“Okay, one hot chocolate to-go coming right up.” I slipped off my coat, dropped my purse on a chair, and walked behind Pinky’s counter. She had hot chocolate in a decanter in the small refrigerator. I took it out, poured some in a disposable cup and set the microwave on seventy seconds. It was just the right amount of time to warm it to a drinkable temperature without it boiling over.
The young woman smiled when I put the lid on and set it in front of her. “Thank you. It smells very tasty.”
I smiled back. “Do you live close by?”
“Yes, madam.”
“If you need a ride, I’d be happy to give you one. A friend of mine . . .”—okay, it was a bit of a stretch referring to Clint as my friend—“. . . is actually warming up my car now.” Speaking of the devil, he pulled up in my Subaru and parked by the curb in front of the shops. The streetlight caught the shiny metal of his badge on the front of his blue stocking cap as he got out of the car. I pointed at the shop window. “And here he is now.”
The young woman took a look at Clint then grabbed her cup. “I must get home. Thank you, madam.” Two “madam”s. I was starting to feel old, and supposed I was in her eyes. My thirty-seven years to her eighteen or so. She dashed toward Pinky’s door and found it locked when she pulled on it. She turned to me with what I read as a panicked look on her face. Did being locked in frighten her?
“It’s okay, you can get out that door. Just turn the lock,” I said, lifting my hand and demonstrating.
Clint had come in the Curio Finds door and was in the archway between the shops as the young woman darted out Brew Ha-Ha’s door. “Who was that?” he said.
“I was about to ask her name when it seemed she suddenly had to get home.” Maybe it wasn’t only getting halted by a locked door that had upset her. It occurred to me she may have been making a fast exit to avoid running into Clint. Was she a runaway, after all?
“What was she doing here so late?”
“She said she was walking by and saw the lights on and thought we were still open.”
“That kid shouldn’t be running around town alone after dark in the bitter cold,” Clint said.
“I agree. She told me she lives near here. Maybe in one of the apartments above a business.” Downtown buildings constructed in Brooks Landing in the 1920s commonly had a store or professional service on the street level, and an apartment upstairs for the owners. That practice had ceased long before I was born, but most of the buildings still stood and many had apartments on the second floor that were rented out to tenants. Our buildings, Curio Finds and Brew Ha-Ha, didn’t have second stories.
Although on that frigid night, as I was growing wearier and wearier after the long day—mostly from the horror of finding Frosty dead like that—the thought of crawling up a single flight of stairs to a place called home seemed like an answer to my prayers. In fact, even a cot with a sleeping bag in the storeroom would have suited my needs tonight if Pinky hadn’t kept bringing up the subject of Molly’s ghost haunting the place. Although 95 percent of me didn’t believe it was true, there was still enough of a niggling doubt to keep me on edge.
Clint bent his face closer to mine. “Are you okay? I lost you for a minute.”
That snapped me out of my reverie. “Oh. I’m not exactly okay, but I’ll feel better when I get home.”
Clint picked up my coat and helped me into it. As I reached for my purse, he picked that up as well, and handed it to me. “Let’s make it happen.”
I nodded and watched Clint as he shut off the lights and then locked Pinky’s door. We walked through my shop, and I flipped off the lights and locked up. When we stepped out onto the sidewalk Clint slid his hand under my arm and held it firmly as he guided me to my car. He opened the door and I slid in, adjusting my coat under me. “Thank you. I know you still have work to do, so you really don’t need to follow me home,” I said as I pulled the seat belt across my middle.
He bent over, leaned his head in close to me, and spoke quietly. “It’s not far and I told your friends I would. I don’t believe there is a threat to the public, but until we find the killer, we should use extra caution. And you especially, since you’re the one who found Mayor Frost. Wait here and I’ll bring my car around.” He shut the door then jogged down the sidewalk and around the corner, out of sight.
A few cars drove by, but the street was mainly deserted that frosty winter night. Frosty. Oh, my, when I thought of how his upsetting day of battling with angry people had ended, my tired mind went into overdrive trying to figure out who could have done that to him. I didn’t know any of the three people I’d heard arguing with him well enough to even hazard a guess. Lila said there had been a number of visitors in to see the mayor. But who was the last one, the one before I got there? The killer. There must have been a struggle and at least two crashes, judging from my observations of his office. So why hadn’t Lila heard anything? And then to make things more curious, there was that large gem lying on the carpet.
Clint pulled up in his police car behind me and I took that as permission to head on home. I lived about a mile away, and the police escort was not necessary. But I had to admit it was comforting to have one on that dark night. Until we find the killer, we should use extra caution. And you especially, since you’re the one who found Mayor Frost. Clint’s words from a few minutes before hadn’t registered in my brain until then. Surely he didn’t think I was in any special danger, did he? Whether he did it on purpose or not, Clint, too, often acted like I should have my own personal bodyguard.
I barely remembered the short drive home, and that was not a good thing. And admitting it to Clint would be even worse. I lived in a homey 1960s brick Tudor-style house that had belonged to my birth mother’s dearest friend on earth. When Sandra McClarity joined Berta Brooks in heaven the past year, I liked to think the two of them had picked up where they’d left off over thirty years before.
I rented the largely-furnished house from her children, and loved living in a place that had always held a special place in my heart. The home sat in an older part of town where th
e blocks were plotted so alleys divided neighbors’ back yards. Most had garages that were accessed from the alleys, and others had upgraded by adding garages that attached to their houses. It would be a nice feature to have in the cold days of winter or in inclement weather. I pulled into the alley and pushed the button to open the automatic garage door. That was the perk I’d added when I moved in so I didn’t have to wrestle with the heavy overhead door. I kept an extra opener in my purse and always fished it out before I got out of the car.
Clint’s car was idling in the alley as I stepped out of the garage and pushed the button to close the door. He rolled down his window. “Your house is locked, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Be sure to lock up again as soon as you get inside.”
It was one of his favorite warnings for me. “Yes, sir.” My teeth were starting to chatter, and that time it was the freezing air causing it. I dropped the opener back in my purse and pulled my keys from my pocket. When I reached the back door my fingers were stiff from the cold, even with my leather driving gloves on. I either needed to buy a warmer pair or wear my wool mittens instead of the gloves. I fumbled to get the key in the lock and finally got the door open.
Clint called out from his car. “Let us know if you need anything.”
I waved, stepped into the warmth then shut and locked the door behind me. I flipped on the kitchen lights and leaned back against the wall, hoping the friendly vibes the house gave off would surround me and help me feel better. My cell phone rang and my body jerked in response. I dug it out of my pocket and saw it was Pinky calling.
“Cami, Erin and I are wondering if you want some company tonight.”
“No, thanks. I just got home and I need to call my parents before they hear about Mayor Frost from someone else.”
“Good idea. But after word gets around the rest of your family, you’ll be on the phone all night.”
“Let’s hope not. I’m really beat and need to quiet my mind. I can’t seem to stop thoughts about the mayor from spinning around up there.”
“Me either. Erin says the same thing. And we didn’t even see what you did. I just want to remember how he looked when he came in for his morning coffee. That’s the image I’m going to hold onto—his smiling face. And it’s better than the expression he’d get when someone got after him for this or that. I couldn’t make myself listen to that chatter half the time.” Pinky disliked conflict and avoided confrontations whenever possible.
“I understand, Pink.”
“Erin wants to talk to you.”
There was a pause then Erin came on the line. “Cami, call if you need us to come over. You’ll do that, right? I’m going to help Pinky bake for a while. But we can take a break.”
That brought a smile to my face. Erin was not exactly domestically inclined when it came to cooking or baking. That meant Pinky was behind schedule and either she’d begged Erin for assistance, or Erin had volunteered, as she so often did. Even with her full-time teaching position, she had filled in at our shops here and there since Black Friday, when the Christmas shopping season had started off with a bang.
When I took off my coat I got a quick reminder that my thermostat was turned down to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, like we did at the shops. It conserved energy and saved money, and there was no reason to keep the temperature up when I was gone. I turned the thermostat to 68 degrees then flipped a living room lamp on, plopped down on the couch, and pulled a throw blanket over me.
The little bird popped out of the clock and its single cuckoo let me know it was 7:30. I still had my phone in my hand and punched in my parents’ home number. My dad answered with less enthusiasm than usual.
“Hi, Dad. Is everything okay? How’s Mom?”
“Hello, Cami. Everything’s fine here. We’re just tuckered out for no good reason other than it’s cold out and gets dark so early.”
“A lot of people are affected by the short daylight hours. Look on the bright side, in a few weeks we’ll start gaining light again, little by little.”
“It’s always good to get on the other side of the winter solstice, that’s for darn sure.”
“Dad, have you and Mom heard the news about Mayor Frost?”
“No, what happened?”
“He died today.”
Dad made a sound like “haah,” then said, “He died? I thought he was the picture of health, for an older guy that is.” My parents were about the same age as Frosty.
“Actually, it seems that someone was responsible for his death. And when I went to meet him in his office I was the one that found him.”
“I can hardly believe he’s gone. Wait a minute, Cami, are you saying he was killed, and you found him?” His voice climbed up a few notes.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Hold on, Mom wants to talk to you.”
“Your father held the phone so I could listen, too. My poor dear. Tell us what happened.”
I gave a summary of the day’s events. Then I went into deeper detail about finding the mayor and how I’d checked for a pulse before I ran for help. I left out the part about getting the blood on my hand and scaring Margaret so badly that she conked out from fright.
Dad came back on the line. “We just can’t figure out what he would’ve done that got him killed. It’s no secret as mayor, Frost gets into disagreements with people over this and that, but that goes with the job. It doesn’t seem like the kinds of things that would get a guy killed.”
“Cami, go back to the part about Mayor Frost asking you to consider a seat on the city council.” It was Mom back on the phone.
When I repeated that piece, I heard her clicking her tongue, an indication she didn’t know if that was such a good idea. “I know you’re very sharp when it comes to legislation, and you have all that experience working for Senator Zimmer, but is this something you’d really want to do? I mean, with running Curio Finds, you might have people tracking you down at work with any number of issues.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“And it’ll be so different from the kind of job you had in Washington, doing research behind the scenes. That’s where you always liked to be,” she added.
I’d been a shy kid who would rather have endured a week without ice cream if it meant I didn’t have to get in front of the class for any kind of speech. “You’re right, Mom. At the state and national level, I wouldn’t have been comfortable being in the public eye. Not that I’m hiding any skeletons in my closet. But it’s different at the local level. Sandy Gibbons’s newspaper articles covering the highlights of the Brooks Landing’s city council meetings has not yet gained national appeal.”
Mom chuckled at the thought. “That’s true. You’ll give it very careful consideration, won’t you, Cami?”
“I will.”
“We’ll be happy to come stay with you if you need us,” she said.
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”
After we disconnected, I sat and stared for a while, trying to free my mind of the image of Frosty lying there lifeless in his office. It was something I knew would always be there. Not front and center like it was now, but never too far back in the recesses of my brain. Who had killed him and why? I’d witnessed him having heated discussions with three people that morning. I hadn’t heard Rosalie Gorman’s specific beef, but she’d warned him about watching himself before she stormed off.
I thought of Lila, the clerk at city hall. Did the killer walk by her on his, or her, way to Mayor Frost’s office? Or was Lila away from her post when the killer snuck in, as she had been when I arrived? It may have been mere minutes between the killer’s arrival and my own. A series of prickly sensations skipped their way up my spine as I realized that if I’d arrived before the killer had made a hasty escape I may not have gotten out of there alive.
6
My dreams were vivid
during the night and Mayor Lewis Frost was the main character in each one I remembered. He was going about normal activities like walking down the street with his earphones in, listening to something on his device, as he often did. Then he was sitting at a table drinking coffee with some people I couldn’t identify, and then he was presiding over a city council meeting. All the while he was seemingly unconcerned about the activities of those around him, like he didn’t have a care in the world or feel threatened in any way.
In the last dream he was standing in Curio Finds holding the snow globe with the three bears and lone man he’d purchased. That’s when I woke up. My heart was beating loudly in my chest and a sinking feeling of guilt settled in the pit of my stomach. Frosty was attacked with that same snow globe, the one I’d sold him.
I sat up in bed then pulled a fleece robe around me. My furry pink bunny slippers—a gift from my pink-loving friend—were sitting on the floor next to the bed. No matter that they weren’t my usual style. I slid my feet into them, appreciating both Pinky’s thoughtfulness and their comforting warmth. It was almost like having the soft little creatures attached to my feet. They were the only things I’d ever worn that had little faces, complete with floppy ears, a mouth, a nose, whiskers, and eyes that looked alive in a certain light. Like now. I closed my eyes and chided myself for being silly. Even if they had been real, they were bunny eyes. Sweet little bunny rabbits, not big bad bears.
My stomach rumbled, reminding me I’d skipped supper the night before. I shuffled my tired self into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and smiled when I spotted the leftover honey and balsamic vinegar-glazed chicken breast on the shelf. I’d made two servings a few evenings before to have a second meal on hand. I popped the container in the microwave then sat down at the kitchen table a couple of minutes later with the chicken and a tall glass of milk. I’d get my fill of carbs with one of Pinky’s muffins or scones midmorning, but my body was telling me I needed protein to start the day right.
As I chewed and swallowed bite after bite, I thought of Mayor Lewis Frost and how he’d died. But by whose hand? I finished eating and pushed the plate aside. A notebook and pen were lying on the table. I slid them in front of me and wrote Lewis Frost at the top of the page. Mayor of Brooks Landing. Poor Frosty. He’d been well-liked by the majority of people. But, there was a handful who didn’t like him or his politics. That was true of virtually everyone who served in public office. I’d heard harsh words from two people who didn’t agree with his stance on certain issues. Plus whatever Rosalie Gorman had to say was not something she wanted overheard. Not a good sign.
Frosty the Dead Man (A Snow Globe Shop Mystery) Page 6