Magic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 7)

by Meg Muldoon

  She swallowed hard, meeting my eyes after a long, long moment.

  “The power of suggestion, Ms. Peters,” she said, forcing a sad little smile. “The psychic had put the seed of thought in my mind, and it didn’t take long before I saw it become my reality.”

  She looked down, as if ashamed.

  “You can see where this is going? Over the next few months, I began having feelings for Rick,” she said. “Like I had fallen under a fervent love spell. Every time he looked at me, I felt my soul burst into flames. This mad, fiery feeling welled up inside of me. It got out of hand.

  “Then one day…”

  She trailed off for a moment, as if she feared the next portion of the story, and was looking for the courage to tell it.

  Finally, she cleared her throat.

  “One day, Ralph, Rick and I were supposed to meet for lunch at the Snowcap Diner downtown, close to where Rick worked. But Ralph cancelled on us, rather rudely. He’d gotten an early start on drinking with some new friends of his that day, and they were headed to the woods to go hunting.”

  She let out a sigh.

  “It was the worst possible thing that could have happened. It left just Rick and me at lunch,” she said. “And I… halfway through the meal, I couldn’t pretend anymore. I broke down crying. I told Rick about how Ralph had been behaving lately – the way he’d been drinking so much and doing things he shouldn’t have been doing – associating with people he shouldn’t have been. And he was so kind to me, Rick. He took me out for a long walk, down to Meadow Plaza, and then down to the river. To that big flat obsidian rock overlooking the water, do you know that one? He listened to everything I had to say, not judging a word of it. Saying nothing but the nicest things.

  “And that’s when… that’s when I told him about how I’d been starting to have feelings for him. And that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And how wrong I knew it was, but that I couldn’t help it.”

  She ironed out her dress again with her old wrinkled hands. She started to say something, but it was as if the words had just evaporated into thin air.

  I suddenly wondered how I had ever thought this woman could have been responsible for my string of accidents.

  “What happened then, Hattie?” I said, urging her along.

  She took in a gulp of air, and started again in a hoarse voice.

  “He told me he felt the same way about me,” she said. “That he’d loved me since high school. That he’d been living in a state of torture for six years, being Ralph’s best friend, but being in love with me. He told me he’d been praying to God lately for deliverance from his pain. That he prayed I wouldn’t marry Ralph. He said he was asking for a miracle, and that God must have heard his prayers.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Then he kissed me,” she said. “And in that moment, I felt the whole world come to life around me like I never had before. I heard the river singing, the trees laughing. The whole world lighting up in technicolor, a valley of unbound promise, where before there had only been drab shadows.

  “And it became clear to me then – I knew the psychic was right. Rick was who I should have been with – not Ralph. For as much as I still loved Ralph, he… he wasn’t the one.”

  She paused, as if to let the significance of that sink in.

  It wouldn’t have been easy back then – living in a small town and leaving your fiancé and high school sweetheart for his best friend. Hell, that wouldn’t be easy today, and Christmas River wasn’t nearly as small as it had been in 1960. People could be nasty, especially small towns folk with nothing better to talk about than a scandal.

  I could see the predicament that Hattie’s change of heart had put her in.

  She reached for her tea, which was cold by now, but then, as if the act of holding it made her uncomfortable, she set it back down.

  “But I denied Rick,” she said. “I pushed him away before it could go too far, telling him I couldn’t betray Ralph like that. And I ran off like a scared animal. I went running back to Ralph, like nothing had happened.”

  Her voice began trembling slightly, and I knew we were getting close to the part of the story that I’d come here to listen to.

  “It was December. Very cold – how it used to get around here. Ralph and I went to a party out at Sutter’s Barn,” she said, speaking quickly. “He drank too much, and we got into a fight. A particularly bad one over the way he had been acting lately. It came out that I had feelings for his best friend. And that I had kissed Rick. And Ralph, he… he just lost complete control. I thought he was going to hurt me. But instead, he just told me that he never wanted to see me again. And he left the party, roaring away in his truck. I had never seen him so upset. Never before.”

  The pain was so strong in her eyes, I didn’t know if I could stand looking into them any longer.

  “That’s the last I ever saw of my Ralph,” she said. “I’ll never forgive myself for ending it on that note. For hurting him so badly. I’ll never…”

  She trailed off.

  She didn’t have to say it again:

  Her, alone in this musty old house, a recluse all these years – it was obvious that she’d never forgiven herself.

  “All he ever did was love me,” she mumbled.

  Her words hung in the air like the dust that was so thick in this house.

  I scanned her face, wondering whether I should wait longer to ask my next question.

  But I couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “Hattie,” I said. “Tell me what happened to him.”

  She bit her lip.

  Then a moment later, she launched into a frenzy of words and pain, going so fast, I had trouble keeping up.

  Chapter 36

  “After Ralph disappeared, a lot of people thought that he must have left Christmas River. That he had left me, his family, and everybody else to go to a big city like New York, or Chicago. But I knew better. I knew that even if Ralph hated me forever, he’d never leave his family like that. And then…”

  She took in a deep breath.

  “The next time I saw Rick, he had bruises on his abdomen and chest, and he couldn’t look in my eyes. I asked him if he had seen Ralph, and he told me he hadn’t. But there was something about it that didn’t feel right. Something that… didn’t ring true.

  “So one night, I went over to the place where Rick worked. It was late, and I didn’t tell him I was coming. I went around the back and was about to knock on the window when I saw him. Alone. I watched him take out a brick from the wall. I stood there the whole time – watching as he pulled Ralph’s class ring from his pocket. The one that Ralph wore everywhere. And I watched Rick hide that very class ring in the wall.”

  She paused for a moment.

  “I was absolutely horrified,” she finally said. “Because I knew, Ms. Peters. I knew that he had killed Ralph. Hiding that ring was as good as any confession.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling my mouth go dry with the revelation.

  Like I had suspected all along – Ralph Henry Baker had been murdered.

  “Did you go to the police?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I never told them what I saw Rick do. I never told them what I know to be true – that my fiancé drove over to Rick’s house out in the woods that night, out on Old Drablow Road, and got into a fight with him over me. And that Rick killed him for it.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Instead, I spent the next year blaming myself. I refused to speak to Rick, and I drowned my sorrows in a bottle and in wild behavior unbefitting for a woman in that day and age. I ran off with the first man who looked in my direction – a man by the name of Bernard Blaylock. We moved to Los Angeles and I married him. I thought over time I would grow to love him – but I could never find that feeling within me again. I left Bernard ten years later, and since I was penniless, I moved back here to Christmas River and lived with my sister in this old house, God rest her soul. I kept the nam
e Blaylock, and went by Hattie instead of Hannah. And you know what? It was as if nobody here recognized me anymore.

  “I suppose my guilt over Ralph’s death made me old before my time.”

  She smiled sadly.

  “You see, dear, I’m a cursed woman. And that’s where the story ends,” she said. “Or so I thought, until I read in the paper that your shop was undergoing a series of renovations. The very shop I had seen Rick hide the class ring in all those years ago. And I thought perhaps… perhaps I’d been selfish and spineless. Perhaps it was time to tell Ralph’s story.”

  I mulled over her words, realizing that one final question still burned in my mind like a wildfire.

  “Have you talked to Rick in all these years, Hattie?”

  She shook her head so hard, I thought her neck might snap with the effort.

  “I haven’t said a word to him, though he’s tried to speak to me several times,” she said. “But I just couldn’t bring myself to even look at him. Not after what he did to Ralph.”

  “Hattie – does Rick still live in Christmas River?”

  She gazed at me, the numb vacant look returning to her coal eyes.

  “Yes,” she said, deliberately. “He still lives here. Though I’ve heard that he’s moved into town and no longer lives out in the woods.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “How can I find him, Hattie?”

  She paused for a long moment, as if she was still considering whether to take that final step – to reveal who Ralph’s killer was, once and for all.

  Her dark eyes probed mine for a long while.

  Then she let it all go.

  “He’s easy to find,” she said. “Go to the First Presbyterian Church on Mirth Avenue, and ask for Pastor Frederick Morgan.”

  My jaw nearly hit the ground in shock.

  Chapter 37

  “Hey, I was just going to call you,” he said in a hushed whisper, picking up after the first ring. “I’m just getting out of the library right now. And I found something that you’re really gonna want to hear.”

  I unlocked the car door, but stopped for a moment, turning around to look at Hattie Blaylock’s crumbling house – the same house that had put fear into my heart just a few hours earlier. Now, as I gazed at it, I saw it for what it really was – just a sad home with an even sadder woman living inside.

  “I found out something big too—” I started saying.

  “The Pastor lied to us, Cin,” Daniel blurted out suddenly. “Lied right to our faces, in his own church.”

  “I know,” I said.

  There was a momentary silence from the other side of the line.

  “Wait… you know? How?”

  “Because I found Hannah Templeton this morning.”

  “You found…”

  He trailed off, clearly shocked by the news.

  “Well, hot damn, Cin. I can’t believe it.”

  “Neither could I,” I said. “What do you say we meet up and compare notes?”

  “You read my mind,” he said. “My office?”

  I took one long last look at the gloomy house, my heart sinking with the sorrow that Hattie Blaylock had been living with all these years.

  Then I got into the car, and turned the engine over.

  “I’ll be right there,” I said.

  Chapter 38

  My eyes scanned the photocopy again, rereading the words slowly, letting them sink in.

  “Best friend suspected in Christmas River man’s disappearance.”

  Beneath it was a small black and white photo of a young man, barely out of his teens, with thick glasses, a hawk-like nose, and smooth, pale skin.

  The resemblance was all in the eyes. Sharp and piercing, they carried with them an element of stern righteousness that was the Pastor’s hallmark.

  “I don’t understand,” I finally said, looking up at Daniel. “Why wasn’t this in the case file along with the other articles?”

  “It probably went to the same place the police report went – which I think, given what we’ve found out, was purposefully destroyed by somebody who wanted to make sure this case would never be solved.”

  “How is it that nobody knows about any of this?” I said, tossing the photocopy on the desk in front of me. “I mean, this is a small town. I’d think something like this would be common knowledge – a pastor once being a suspect in his best friend’s disappearance?”

  Daniel leaned back in his chair.

  “It was a long time ago,” he said. “Christmas River’s still a small town, but it’s not like it used to be. Back in those days, everyone who lived here knew everything there was to know about their neighbors. But times have changed, and people forget things when there’s nothing there to remind them anymore. And besides, it’s obvious the police couldn’t pin the murder on Frederick Morgan. Nothing was ever proven.”

  He paused, lacing his fingers together on the desk.

  “I mean, you didn’t even know Ralph was your great uncle. People just forget, Cin. Like the way they forgot about Hannah Templeton.”

  He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

  “I still can’t believe that old Hattie is Hannah Templeton,” he said. “What a strange course of events.”

  I had told Daniel everything about my visit to Hattie Blaylock’s house that morning, down to the last detail.

  “Do you think if you could get Hattie to testify to what she saw in the bakery that day – about Frederick Morgan hiding Ralph’s class ring – that the Pastor could be charged with Ralph’s murder after all these years?”

  Daniel broke eye contact with me and stared out the window, mulling the question over for a long moment.

  “I don’t know, Cin,” he said. “So much time has passed. And if the only evidence is a ring that could have been put in the wall of that building by just about anybody, along with the testimony of an old recluse who many in the community believe to be of dubious moral character… I just don’t think it’s enough to hold up. Especially considering the fact that Frederick Morgan is a well-regarded man of the church in this community, and has been for several decades.”

  I let out a disappointed sigh.

  Outside, the braches of the bushes crowding near the window scratched against the pane in a stiff autumn wind.

  “It just can’t end like this,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just so… wrong. All this time, the people of this town has thought the Pastor was this moral pillar of faith. I mean, jeez – Warren even had the man officiate his wedding. But the Pastor is nothing but a murderous coward.”

  I closed my eyes for a second, the image of Ralph Henry Baker’s class picture, him smiling like he had the world on a string, burning in my mind.

  I knew that the world was an unfair place. That despite the crime shows that made it seem like every criminal got caught, the reality was that plenty of people never saw justice in this world. Their stories – their pain and suffering – went by the wayside.

  Ralph Henry Baker’s story had been lost all these years. And while he hadn’t been perfect by most accounts, I believed that he still deserved some sort of justice.

  Somebody needed to pay for what they did to him.

  Daniel studied me for a long time from across the desk.

  “You’re right, Cin,” he said. “It is wrong. But we need more evidence. Something more than a class ring and Hattie’s version of events that took place five-plus decades ago.”

  “How are we going to get that?” I said, searching his eyes.

  He leaned back, looking out the window again.

  “I don’t know, yet,” he said.

  Then he was quiet.

  The silence said it all.

  We’d hit another dead end. Except this time, it felt particularly dead.

  The door to Daniel’s office opened suddenly.

  “Uh, Sheriff?”

  Deputy Billy Jasper stood there, red in the face, his chest heaving slightly.

  “What is
it, Billy?”

  “We’ve got that meeting with the county commissioners in ten minutes, don’t we?”

  Daniel’s eyes lit up.

  “Damn,” he said, glancing at his watch. “You’re right. I clear forgot.”

  He stood up abruptly.

  “I better get going, Cin,” he said, coming around, kissing me quickly on the top of my head. “We’ll talk more about this later, all right? We’ll figure out what to do.”

  I nodded, squeezing his hand, then watched as he put on his jacket and grabbed a file from off the desk before quickly following the young deputy out the door.

  I sighed, looking out the window.

  I believed that my husband was the best law enforcement agent in the state, if not in all fifty.

  But even the best of the best couldn’t solve every case.

  Chapter 39

  I pulled out a pan of bubbling Cinnamon Pear Gingersnap pies from the oven as a hot burst of air flooded my senses.

  It smelled of butter and sugar and spice – and seemed to encapsulate all the magic of autumn in one beautifully-balanced explosion of aromas.

  But instead of savoring the magical moment, I found that my thoughts were somewhere else completely – in a place much more sinister than the cozy confines of the pie shop kitchen.

  I was thinking about what it would have been like to kill your own best friend.

  Frederick Morgan had motive. He had opportunity. And he had plenty of time to hide the body. Nobody noticed Ralph missing until a couple of days after the night he drove away, giving the Pastor plenty of time to do away with any evidence.

  Finding that evidence fifty-five years ago probably would have been difficult. Today, I realized, it would be damn near impossible.

  “Anything wrong, Cin?”

  I looked up to see Tiana peering at me with a motherly expression of concern.

  Though it had taken her a little while to get over the embarrassment of the kitchen fire, she had arrived that morning with her usual zest and spunk. And more than that, Tiana had been particularly attentive to her work – ensuring each ingredient was measured exactly, and that the ovens were set to the right temperatures.