As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles_Food Lovers' Village Mystery

by Leslie Budewitz

  Bello headed straight for us while Kim circled the building. Though detectives don’t wear uniforms, they both wore black suits and long wool coats.

  “Who found her? You, Taylor?” Bello said.

  Greg nodded. “After you left the Building Supply, I decided to search for her myself. I just—I couldn’t believe she’d rob me and take off, no matter how it looked.”

  Kim returned from her perimeter circuit and stood behind Bello, a foot or two from the bottom step. Even in flat shoes, she had a couple of inches on him.

  “First, I went to her house,” Greg said. “Then I came here, and I found—I found her.”

  “Why come to her parents’ farm?” Bello asked. “And Miss Murphy, why are you here?”

  “I called her,” Greg said.

  Kim pointed to the open door. “Quiz session later, Bello. Body first.”

  We watched from the porch as Kim gestured to Bello to check the space. He peered behind the big teacher’s desk and into the two small back rooms while she knelt beside the body. Then she called to the ambulance crew hurrying forward.

  “Transport only, I’m afraid.”

  I slid an arm around Greg and led him down the steps, tiny snowflakes melting on our cheeks.

  “Why here, Greg? Why the schoolhouse?” I made no effort to keep my voice down. Greg’s behavior was curious, and I wasn’t going to let suspicion of him spread to me. But I did have questions.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “It was her special place. Like mine is the hayloft in Uncle Frank’s barn.”

  And mine is the tree house my grandfather Murphy built in the cherry orchard.

  But I sensed more, and waited.

  “We were friends in high school, though Merrily was a year ahead. Our crowd hung out here.”

  “Nick, too? You guys palled around a bit.” My brother and Greg, my sister and Wendy, pairing up by age. At four years younger than the boys and two years younger than the girls, I’d always felt left out. But I’d had Kim.

  “Sometimes. By junior year, he was already into tracking and stuff. Dancing with wolves, we called it. Merrily’s parents didn’t mind us using the schoolhouse, but after they finished the restoration, they kicked us out.” He paused, remembering. “Actually, things had already started to change. Merrily graduated, and then …”

  And then her friends started college or found jobs, and she went to prison.

  “Her happy place, huh?” Bello said. How much he’d heard, I didn’t know. As he sauntered closer, he pulled a small peppermint candy cane out of his coat pocket, unwrapped it, and stuck it in his mouth. “Miss Murphy,” Bello said, and pointed toward my car with his candy cane. “Why don’t you wait over there? We’ll talk to you in a minute.”

  “It’s okay, Oliver,” Kim said. “We’ll interview them both formally later. But right now, I want to hear what happened.”

  He raised the candy cane to his mouth. “You’re the boss.” Then he turned to Greg. “So you were saying why you came out here. Some kinda hunch?”

  “What, you don’t believe in those in Florida?” I couldn’t help myself.

  He ignored me. Kim shot me a careful look.

  “It made no sense,” Greg said, “your theory that she took the cash from the deposit and split. First, it was only a few hundred dollars.”

  Criminy. She’d paid cash in my shop, hadn’t she? Had I inadvertently taken in stolen bills?

  “And as Erin said this morning, why take off without the money? If she’d been stealing from me, which I don’t believe.”

  “You’re a trusting guy,” Bello said. “That why you called Miss Murphy?”

  “I called her because—” Greg broke off and ran his hand over his hatless head. “I’ve known Merrily since we were kids, and finding her—it sucked. Erin’s been through this before.”

  Finding a friend dead. That I had. And he was right—it did suck. But was I meant to be a friend or a smokescreen?

  “Greg,” Kim said, her tone frank but not harsh. “You know what Merrily did twenty years ago.”

  Greg sank back against the porch rail. “Does it matter why I thought she’d come here? I was right.”

  “Now, we may not have a lot of snow in Florida,” Bello said, “but I do know it’s like sand. Anybody walks through it, they leave their footprints. All I see is yours.”

  Beside me, Greg stiffened.

  “Which means,” I said, “that she’s been here since before the snow started last night. She was supposed to be at my place at one—right, Kim? You were there. She didn’t come, and she didn’t call.”

  “Medical examiner will give us an idea how long she’s been dead,” Kim said. “Overnight in an unheated building complicates things, though.”

  “Well, who else saw her? Did her parents know she was here? They can’t see the schoolhouse from the main house, but they can see it from the driveway. Even if they didn’t recognize her car, wouldn’t they have wondered who was out here? When—”

  “Erin,” Kim said quietly. “Trust us. We’ll ask those questions.”

  Sooner rather than later, from the looks of it. A silver SUV pulling a white cargo trailer crept down the driveway and parked alongside my Subaru. The car had barely stopped when Taya Thornton flung open the passenger door and jumped out, pushing back her fur-trimmed hood.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “May I ask where you’ve been?” Kim said.

  “Not until you tell me why you’re here,” Taya replied.

  Walt came up behind her. “Down at the Lodge, delivering a vintage sleigh for some Christmas parties. Your father can vouch for us. What’s going on?”

  “I have some sad news. It’s Merrily.”

  “What has she done now?” Taya’s harsh tone gouged my heart.

  Kim took a deep breath before responding. “I’m afraid she’s dead.”

  Nothing about Taya and Walt Thornton’s relationship with their elder daughter was anything like what I expected. Neither was their reaction to her death. Taya stared at the detectives, then let out a shriek, a high, whistling sound like an osprey closing in on its prey. She flung herself against her husband’s chest. He pulled her close, wrapping her grief in his.

  A gust of wind tore at my hat and hair. The light snow that had been falling since I arrived turned hard and pellet-like, stinging my cheeks. I wanted nothing more than home and cocoa and Adam. Or the Merc and my mother.

  Kim spoke to the Thorntons. “Where can we talk?”

  Taya jerked out of her husband’s embrace and charged toward the schoolhouse. “I want to see her.”

  Now that she’s dead?

  Beside me, Greg shuddered.

  Oliver Bello blocked her way. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mrs. Thornton.”

  The sound of an approaching caravan caught all our attention, lights flashing, sirens off. Two more sheriff’s vehicles. In that split second of distraction, Taya scooted around Bello, up the steps, and inside. Bello tore after her, Walt on his heels. Though I couldn’t see into the building, I could hear Taya’s wail.

  Half the county could have heard her.

  Ike Hoover, still coroner and soon to be sheriff, jumped out of his rig. He reached the foot of the steps as Bello hauled Taya down them, Kim behind him with a firm grip on Walt.

  “Under control, boss,” she told Ike. He sized up the situation with a slow, sweeping glance that paused on me, then kept on moving. Behind him, uniformed deputies unpacked their cameras and forensic gear.

  The wind whipped up and Kim told me to leave, promising that I’d be interviewed later. Deputies would stay on scene for hours, photographing, measuring, checking every inch. Darkness would fall, but they’d keep working under big lights. They’d tow Merrily’s car to the county garage and send her body to the state crime lab in Missoula for an autopsy.

  But the terrible afternoon held one more terrible surprise. Taya Thornton twisted out of Detective Bello’s grip and marched up to Greg Taylor
.

  “This is all your fault.” And she slapped him in the face.

  Six

  The pink neon cat in the window of Muir Veterinary beckoned, and I turned into the small parking lot fronting the highway as if drawn by a magnet.

  As Greg had said, I’d been through this before, but that didn’t stop me from feeling the loss. From feeling like the world had turned topsy-turvy. My eyes were hot and scratchy, my throat raw. Merrily had worked so hard to stay on the right path and rebuild the family she feared she’d destroyed, and now she was dead.

  And I didn’t trust her parents to mourn her properly. So though I knew I shouldn’t, though the detectives would give me heck for it, I decided to call on Merrily’s sister.

  The only sign of the season was a cardboard box labeled X-MAS on the grubby vinyl floor in the entry. Apparently, Holly Thornton Muir hadn’t inherited her parents’ love of all things Christmas.

  When I said the matter was personal and urgent, the receptionist led me past the treatment rooms to the office the doctors Muir shared. Animal and antiseptic smells mingled. No sign of Jack Muir, but Holly sat behind the big desk littered with stacks of patient charts, catalogs and dogalogs, and who knew what else. Merrily’s desk at the Building Supply had been spotless. Clearly, Holly did not share her sister’s passion for order and talent for organizing.

  “Erin, hello.” Holly stood, eyes bright, smoothing her light blue cotton tunic, plain but for a dark blue embroidered logo—a dog and cat nuzzling each other, above the name Muir Veterinary. She was shorter than Merrily, and slimmer, but with the same straight, pale hair, drawn back in a ponytail. “What brings you here?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it, forcing myself to breath slowly, calmly. “Holly, this really isn’t my place, but I thought you should know. Something’s happened.” What are you doing, Erin? But there was no backing out now.

  “My dad?” she said, her voice rising with worry.

  “No. No, it’s Merrily. She’s—she’s been killed.”

  One small hand flew to her mouth, the patches of color on her cheeks deepening. She sank back into her chair, and her hand slid down to her throat, fingering the bronze chain that slipped out of the vee of her tunic, her only jewelry besides a plain gold wedding band.

  “How—what—do my parents know?”

  “They do.” I told her what I knew, wishing I could comfort her, but the big desk stood like a bulwark between us. Although the cats were our main connection now, I’d always liked Holly. She’d been a senior when I’d been a freshman. A science geek, like Nick had been, and nice to the younger kids.

  I looked around for water and spotted a small, glass front refrigerator. Tried the handle, but it was locked. For drugs, no doubt. I stepped out to the front desk and asked the receptionist for water. Told her Holly had had some bad news, and asked if her husband—known as He Dr. Muir, as opposed to She Dr. Muir—was around. In with a punk pug and his person, she said, but assured me she’d send him in the moment he was free.

  I returned to the office. Back turned, Holly gazed out the window to the mountains beyond. Even from the doorway, I could hear her heavy breath. Several framed photos sat on the credenza below the window—Holly with her husband, Jack, and their son and daughter. Pictures of the kids, including one of the boy, about nine, in a basketball uniform, a ball cradled in his arms. A shot of Walt and Taya on the schoolhouse steps.

  But no pictures of Merrily or her daughter. As if they didn’t exist.

  A moment later, Jack walked in, thanked me with not a little confusion, and took his shaking wife in his arms.

  “If there’s anything I can do, give me a call,” I said. No one ever calls, but you say it anyway.

  And with sadness in my heart, I slipped away.

  ∞

  I turned off Hill and drove down Front, the only street running through the village. My eyes were drawn to the Thorntons’ shop window. The woodland scene no longer seemed so tranquil.

  Part of me thought I should stop in the bakery to let Wendy know that Merrily had been found, but I didn’t have the heart. Besides, she’d ask about Greg, who could be under arrest by now, for all I knew. Anyway, since the baby came along, she tried to get away after the lunch rush, so she’d probably left already.

  But there was no escaping Lou Mary. She’d heard my side of the conversation with Greg—she deserved an explanation for my sudden departure. Fortunately, the Merc was quiet for the moment, so I filled her and Fresca in.

  “Merrily is—dead?” Lou Mary covered her mouth with one hand, reaching behind her with the other for a stool. “So young. And she had a daughter.”

  “Oh, darling.” Fresca put an arm around me. “How dreadful. Do Walt and Taya know? They must be devastated. What about Holly?”

  “Umm, yeah. The Thorntons drove up right after the sheriff. And I stopped to tell Holly.” Who hadn’t said anything about calling Ashley, and in my own muddled state, I hadn’t thought to ask.

  “I’ll take a dish up to the house. Salad and a ready-to-bake rigatoni. Although I can’t imagine they’ll want to eat. Their child. Oh, Erin.” Mom hugged me again, then leaned back, gripping my shoulders. “You are not going to get involved.”

  “No, of course not. It’s Christmas. We’re busy. The village—”

  “You’re getting married in two and a half weeks.”

  My throat got tight. She didn’t need to remind me. Adam Zimmerman was Mr. Right, no question. At thirty-three, I was ready. We had a sweet house getting sweeter every day. And yet …

  My mother has an uncanny knack for reading my mind. “Pre-wedding jitters are natural, Erin. But if there’s something more worrying you …”

  “No. Not a thing.” Not about Adam or our future. Though it might be weird to marry a man without meeting his family. Not that I’d had a chance—between my job in retail and his in recreation, travel opportunities were almost nil. Adam had spent a few weeks in Minnesota lending Tanner a hand last summer, and I’d hoped to visit and meet the family then, but the shop had been too busy. Which was a good thing, but it did feel odd.

  “No,” I repeated. “I just can’t imagine what I was thinking, planning a wedding for Christmas Eve.”

  She smiled. “Everything will be perfect. You’ll see.”

  “From your mouth to the wedding fairy’s ears.” I tried to smile but wasn’t sure it worked. I’d seen dead bodies before, far too often, but Merrily’s death, coinciding with the theft of cash from the deposit bag, troubled me. Light snow had fallen off and on for days, filling in the killer’s footprints. She could have laid there, dead or dying, for hours before being found. Maybe even before the bank manager’s call and the discovery of the cash in her desk drawer.

  Kim had said the temperatures would complicate the ME’s time of death calculation. We needed an eyewitness.

  What’s this “we” stuff, Erin? Got a mouse in your pocket?

  Mom released her grip on my shoulders. “If you’re all right, darling, I’ll head out for the day,” my mother said. “The salad dressings are done, and we should be good on chai mix through the end of the season. That was a great idea.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  I kissed her goodbye, then watched Lou Mary work with a customer trying out lotions.

  “See my knuckles?” Lou Mary extended one hand, a jar of green salve in the other. “They were so swollen, so cracked and dry, I’d have been mortified to show them to you. They’re still not going to win any beauty contests, but when I heard that young Luci and Bill the herbalist were cooking up a salve, all natural, especially for arthritis, I volunteered to be the guinea pig. And you see the result.”

  The customer saw. She reached for the jar and studied the label.

  I love retail.

  I do not, however, love all Christmas songs. Somewhere—at the Building Supply, I suspected—I had picked up a nasty earworm. I shuffled through my mental playlist for an antidote song to banish all hints of Grandma
getting run over by a reindeer. No, I screamed silently as the second most irritating tune popped into play. Go a-way, Jose Feliciano. I do not want a Feliz Navidad.

  Upstairs, I waited for my computer to boot up. Why would Merrily steal again? Why had she stolen in the first place? No one seemed to know.

  My phone buzzed. I hoped it was Nick, saying he’d pick up a sheet of plywood and fix the rotting roof line this afternoon.

  But the message was from Adam. CHANGE IN PLANS. PROMISE NOT TO FREAK OUT. I’LL TELL YOU TONIGHT.

  Oh, great. That just about guaranteed that I’d freak out. What else could a person do?

  A person could get to work.

  ∞

  Ten minutes to closing, I was on the shop floor, helping a woman interested in our beef and pork, when the front door chime rang ominously. Or maybe it was the sound of the heavy heels rapping on the plank floor, heading my way.

  “This sausage is seasoned with fennel and red pepper,” I told the customer, ignoring Oliver Bello in his black suit and his black boots with the Cuban heels. He was working on another of those baby candy canes. A smoker trying to quit? “More flavor than heat. Just the right amount of fat—it bakes or fries nicely.”

  “Same farm as that thick-cut bacon? We love that on Sunday mornings.”

  She took a pound of each, along with enough goat cheese and Fresca’s sundried tomato and artichoke pesto to take a tray of bruschetta to her bridge club holiday party. I carried her selections to Lou Mary at the front counter, then acknowledged Bello.

  He stood in the middle of the shop, arms crossed, frowning. “Where can we talk? In private.”

  “Welcome to the Merc, Detective,” I replied. “Lou Mary, go ahead and lock up when you head out. I’ll take care of the till later.” I led Bello upstairs. The sloped ceiling wasn’t an issue for him—even with his heeled boots, he wasn’t much taller than my five-five. Who says men aren’t as vain as women?

  I took the desk chair, a black Aeron that Tracy had found used for a song, and gestured toward the only spare seat, the rolling piano stool in the corner. “Sorry. Space is tight. How can I help you?”