Treacherous Toys

by Joyce

  “Looking at my gun, Jessie?” he asked. “It’s loaded, too. I won’t give the killer a chance when I finally meet him.”

  “It’s possible the killer is a woman,” Chase said.

  “That doesn’t matter.” Miller smiled at me. “The female of the species is more deadly than the male. Ever heard that, Jessie?”

  I didn’t answer—but I did wonder why he was so weird. As soon as the door was open, I followed Chase inside as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to be alone with Miller any longer than I had to be.

  “Try not to touch anything,” Miller said. “And be careful you don’t walk on the chalk outline where the dead man was lying.”

  I saw Nick wince at his words and I turned on the man despite my best efforts not to talk to him. “This is traumatic enough for this boy. A little tact would be nice. Or don’t they teach basic humanity in police school?”

  Miller kind of chuckled, but he also stood by the door and didn’t say anything else stupid, at least for a few minutes.

  Chase put his arm around Nick’s shoulders. “Show me exactly what happened and where you were.”

  I stayed off to one side, not wanting to get in the way. Nick showed Chase where he’d stood at the bottom of the stairs when he’d first come down.

  “I was right here the whole time. I think she couldn’t see me because the big lights in the ceiling weren’t on. Dad liked to work with just a lamp on near the toy. He didn’t like bright lights. He said they hurt his eyes.”

  “Okay, Nick,” Chase said. “I’m going to come over here and sit where your father was sitting. Jessie is going to come in the door and be the woman you saw. Okay? You’re doing great so far.”

  “Okay,” Nick agreed.

  “You tell us if we do something different than what you saw,” Chase told him. “Don’t be afraid to speak up. This could be very important.”

  I went to the door while Chase went and sat down at the table beside the chalk mark on the floor. Chase picked up a toy and turned on the lamp beside him. He looked down at the toy as though he were trying to work on it.

  I walked in as I thought the killer might have done. I didn’t act out holding a gun or anything since Nick hadn’t described her doing that. I approached Chase slowly from behind and then used my fingers to pretend to shoot him in the back of the head.

  The whole time, Nick hadn’t said a word. I looked at him and tears were streaming down his face. Despite my role as the killer, I rushed over to him and hugged him. “It’s okay. It’s not for real.”

  “I know.” He sniffed. “But it was a lot like the real time.”

  “How was Jessie’s height compared to what you saw?” Chase asked despite Nick’s tears. “Do you need her to stand near me again?”

  “Chase!” I hissed. “He’s very upset. I think this could wait.”

  “He’ll feel better when we catch the killer,” Miller joined in. “Was she about Jessie’s height?”

  “No. She was much shorter. And even in the big dress, Jessie is skinnier,” Nick said. “She was wearing black gloves, too. And I think I was wrong. I think she put her head by Dad’s and said something before she shot him. I couldn’t hear what she said. I guess she was whispering.”

  “Let’s try it that way,” Chase said.

  It seemed a little relentless to me to put Nick through that again. I knew we needed to find the killer, but he was just a boy who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “Maybe we should wait.” I tried to give Chase a look that might help explain my reasoning. Maybe it was the shadows in the room, but he didn’t seem to get my message. In his way, he was as relentless as Miller.

  “There won’t be a better time,” Chase said. “The longer we wait, the less he’ll remember. He’d already almost forgotten that the killer talked to Chris before she killed him.”

  I had to agree with that, though looking at Nick’s face made me sorry Christine hadn’t come instead of me. I left my arms around Nick and asked, “Are you okay with this? If not, I don’t care what those bullies say, we’ll quit.”

  “It’s okay, Jessie.” He wiped his eyes. “I want to help. I’m the only one who knows what happened.”

  Except the killer. “Okay. Let’s try it one more time.”

  This time, as Chase pretended to work, I came up behind him and lowered my head to his, whispering, “How can you be so mean to this poor boy? I didn’t know you were that kind of person.”

  And I got a strange satisfaction from pretend-shooting him again, even adding a gunfire sound effect, like one from a cartoon.

  Chase looked at Nick. “Was it like that?”

  “Yes. Except she didn’t have to lean down as far. And she moved her head away before she shot him.”

  “So he knew the killer,” Chase surmised. “She spoke to him. He was familiar enough with her not to get up right away or turn around.”

  “He should’ve,” I muttered. “Maybe he’d still be alive.”

  “Good exercise, people,” Miller said. “We might have to go through this again for Detective Almond. But I think we’ve learned something here. Good job.”

  Miller unlocked the door that led from the workshop to the upper floors of the manor house, and Chase, Nick, and I went upstairs to the apartment where Christine and the kids were staying. Miller left through the outside door, locking it behind him.

  A strong rumble of thunder shook the house around us. It looked as though the bad weather was settling in for the remainder of the day. Rain pounded on the rooftop and blew against the windows. Most visitors weren’t going to wait this out.

  We walked into the living room, surprised to find Detective Almond already with the rest of the family. They were all eating Christmas cookies and drinking eggnog.

  “I thought he couldn’t make it until later,” I whispered to Chase.

  “He knew this was an important development,” he said. “And I’m sorry if I seemed heartless downstairs. But what we found out could be really important. Just think—if we clear Christine’s name, she’s out of jail and gets the money from the insurance policy. That seemed worth a little discomfort for Nick. Don’t you think?”

  A knock on the front door had Merry Beth scrambling to answer it. It was Miller again. It would’ve been nice not to see him for a while.

  “Great! Cookies and nog. Just what we need on a stormy day like this.”

  Twenty-two

  An almost festive air permeated the discussion that followed even though it was about Chris’s death. Christine had sent the children, including Nick, to their rooms. I felt sure they were listening anyway. That was why they were so well-informed.

  “Tell me how the role-playing went.” Detective Almond sat next to the Christmas tree, which was covered with twinkling lights and shiny ornaments. “Find out anything we could use?”

  Chase didn’t say anything. He let Miller take the credit for the idea and act as if he’d actually participated in some way other than being mean to Nick.

  “Sounds promising,” Detective Almond commented as he ate a cookie. “Any thoughts, Manhattan? This is your show after all.”

  I was surprised that he was perceptive enough to realize that Chase had been taking the backseat.

  “One thing we discussed before our reenactment with Nick downstairs is that there’s no way of knowing for sure if the killer was a man or a woman.” Chase reiterated what we’d talked about earlier. Miller hadn’t thought of that. “Everyone here is good at role-playing. Any one of them could’ve dressed up like a man or a woman.”

  “I get it,” Detective Almond said. “But did we get an approximate height and weight?”

  “Maybe between five-six and five-nine. Thicker in the waist than Jessie,” Chase said.

  “How did you come up with that, the part about the waist?” Miller asked.

  “The only place you can really tell a body-size difference is in the waist,” I explained. “The rest of it is hidden by the big skirt.
And don’t forget, the killer was wearing a large black veil.”

  “But the part about her putting her head near his and whispering something,” Miller interjected. “That sounds like something a girl would do.”

  A girl? The man was a complete loser.

  “It does seem like a feminine gesture,” Detective Almond agreed as he wrote in his stained notebook. “Any ideas about a woman who could have a grudge against your husband and lives close by, Mrs. Christmas?”

  Christine got to her feet. “I don’t know. I’ve already told you that Chris was indiscreet. I know I was, too, but only on this one occasion. There have been women in the past who were angry when I had him break it off. He always left them when I told him to. He didn’t want us to break up, you know. He just got…bored sometimes.”

  “What about the guy in the castle who was your lover?” Miller asked. “Any chance he has a nice black dress and wanted you for himself?”

  “He’s got an alibi for our time frame,” Detective Almond said. “Otherwise I’d like him for this, too. If he’d wear that silly outfit as king, he’d certainly wear a dress to disguise himself.”

  “What about Chris’s first wife, Alice?” I asked.

  “What about her?” Detective Almond faced me. “Any idea where she is? Do we know if she’s in the Village?”

  “No. But she could still be here, or she could’ve come back after they split up.”

  Chase shook his head. “I checked when you mentioned her, Jessie. There’s no one named Alice working here.”

  “She could be using another name.”

  “Would that be on the off chance that her ex-husband would show up so she could kill him?” Detective Almond sounded dubious. “That seems like a long shot after all this time.”

  “What about Queen Olivia?” Christine wondered aloud. “She was here when Chris and Alice left the Village. She had an affair with him. And we came at her personal invitation. If I had known that she and Chris had an affair, I would never have come. But he didn’t tell me until we got here. He didn’t think it was important.”

  “She’s a little pregnant to be going around shooting people, isn’t she?” I pointed out.

  But Detective Almond seemed to like Olivia as a suspect. “Maybe that explains what happened to the king, too,” he said. “Maybe she just got fed up with everyone fooling around.”

  “That could explain why Harry wasn’t very forthcoming about who stabbed him,” Chase suggested. “But I can’t imagine Livy shooting or stabbing anyone without fainting when it was over.”

  “I’ve heard there’s some talk that her baby isn’t her husband’s,” Miller added. “Is it possible the dead man is the father?”

  Everyone looked at Christine, who sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Have a talk with her anyway, Manhattan,” Detective Almond said. “God knows I’m putting it off on you—I never want to discuss anything with that woman again.”

  He told Christine to come up with a list of all the women she knew of who’d dated her husband. Christine agreed, but I could tell from her face that she was embarrassed and heartsick at the thought of doing it. It was one thing to know your husband was sleeping around, but quite another to have to parade that fact in front of everyone.

  Chase didn’t mention anything about Jolly and Nick and their modest thirst for vengeance. I was glad he’d gone that route. The boys didn’t deserve to be punished. I hoped they could be kept out of it altogether.

  “What about Christine?” I asked. “Now that you know that Nick found the gun after seeing his father killed, will you drop the charges against her?”

  Detective Almond shrugged. “Who knows? For now, nothing changes. We’ll compare the boy’s fingerprints to the one’s we found on the murder weapon. But let’s face it—he could’ve come into contact with the gun here after she tried to hide it. Until we know better, nothing changes. Sorry.”

  At least he looked apologetic, as if he wished there was something else he could do for Christine. He didn’t say anything else, just left with Miller and a pocketful of Christmas cookies.

  Christine sat down hard on the sofa. “I wish we hadn’t told him about Nick. What if he tries to make it all his fault?”

  “I don’t think that will happen,” Chase said. “Despite appearances, Detective Almond is a fair man. At least he was open to the idea that you aren’t guilty.”

  “So what do we do now?” I asked him.

  “You go and see Livy—I agree with Detective Almond right now. You seem like you can handle her.”

  “Okay. I guess I’m working as her lady-in-waiting anyway. I can talk to her as easy as anyone else. But what else can we do?”

  Chase’s two-way radio went off. A coolant line under the ice skating rink had ruptured, and they couldn’t get in touch with the repair person who’d installed it.

  “I’m on my way,” he said, then turned to me and Christine. “Let’s try to come up with some real suspects for the police. Anyone you think might have wanted to hurt Chris. Let’s get the police talking to them, especially if they’re living within fifty miles or so of the Village.”

  He kissed me and was gone. I comforted Christine as best I could. I knew Livy was waiting for my report from Chase—if she was up and around after Edgar’s sudden death in her parlor.

  “There’s still hope,” I told Christine. “Christmas isn’t here yet. Maybe something wonderful will happen.”

  “I hope so. Do you think Chase will be able to convince Merlin to let me stay in the Village?”

  “I’m sure he will. I’m sorry, but I have to go. Don’t do any packing until we know something for sure. Take the kids out for supper.”

  I was about to open the front door when it suddenly burst open, slamming against the wall behind it.

  “Ho ho ho! I’m Father Christmas. I hope there is someone ready to make some toys for me. Well, really, I hope someone here can tell me exactly what Father Christmas is supposed to do.”

  Christine jumped to her feet, and all the kids came running out of their rooms, bearing out my theory that they were all listening anyway.

  I laughed. “Bart, you make a great Father Christmas. The kids are going to love you.”

  “I hope so, because Daisy isn’t in love with me doing this. The only reason she let me go was because Merlin promised her something. I don’t know what I’m supposed to get out of it.”

  “A lot of enjoyment and satisfaction,” Christine said as she took his arm and smiled up at him. “My, you’re a big one. I thought my Chris was big. Children, let’s go and help Father Christmas.”

  To my surprise, even Jolly agreed to go with them. I left as they were explaining everything to Bart. Maybe it wasn’t too late to get a new Father Christmas after all.

  I walked to the castle with a borrowed umbrella. The worst storm clouds were moving quickly toward the ocean. There were still a few visitors left in the Village. They looked a little wet but seemed to be having a good time at the climbing wall and the hatchet-throw area. The well-dressed lords and ladies—and anyone else with expensive costumes—hadn’t emerged from their shelters yet. The heavy rain might have signaled the end of the day for them.

  Gus was gone from his post at the castle gate. That was good news for me. I walked in and checked to see how Livy was doing. Lady Jane and Lady Barbara looked relieved when they told me that Wanda had given Livy an herbal sleeping tonic to relax. She was still sleeping off the trauma of Edgar’s death.

  I certainly didn’t want to be the one to wake her much less ask questions about where she was when Chris was killed.

  It was stupid anyway, thinking she had actually taken a gun and killed her former lover. Her affair with Chris had been a long time ago. I felt sure Harry either knew about it or no longer cared. It was water under a very wide bridge for both of them. Edgar was a different story, though, not only because he had been involved with Livy so recently but also beca
use their affair had taken place very near the time Livy had gotten pregnant. If it turned out that Edgar had been murdered, well, I might have to rethink Livy’s innocence on that score. But as Chris’s killer? No way.

  And I believed even Nick would’ve noticed if the killer’s stomach had stretched out two feet in front of her—no matter the wide base of the gown. Livy’s pregnancy was very obvious.

  Of course, I might be biased. I just felt sure Alice was involved in some way. Maybe she hadn’t actually pulled the trigger, although it seemed to be established that it was a woman who’d done it. She could’ve hired someone. Nick’s story strengthened my theory. Who would hate Chris more than his first wife? Sure, the divorce happened a long time ago, but bitterly divorced couples had been known to feud for longer than twenty years, in my experience.

  Alice was our best suspect. Maybe she was one of the group who’d been at the Village almost since its opening. Or maybe she was a recent hire. I hadn’t considered that idea. Maybe she came back because she knew Chris would be here. There had been plenty of advertising about the Father Christmas event. I’d even seen a commercial with him in it when I was in Columbia. Maybe his killer had seen the ads, too.

  With that in mind, and since I was already at the castle and the rain had started again, I decided to go back and take another look at the computer.

  I might’ve been wasting my time trying to figure out what Alice had once looked like from pictures or paintings. Maybe she was right under my nose. The chances were good that I might not even recognize her from an old photo. It had been a long time. People changed. I needed to know what she looked like now.

  Had Chris known who she was when she whispered to him before she shot him? Had he thought she was just fooling around, or had he felt that he deserved to die for what he’d done to her? It wasn’t normal for someone to sit still and let himself be shot. Maybe she’d whispered something romantic and he’d had no idea she meant to kill him. Maybe he’d thought she wanted to be with him despite all their years apart.