Murder in the Elfth Degree: A Camellia Cove Cozy Mystery Book 2 (A Camellia Cove Mystery)

by Jessica Preston

  “Me, neither,” Betts replied. “I never gave it much thought, you know. The few times I came down this hall, I only came to go to the bathroom. I haven’t even been in the mall more than a couple of times over the last few years. I never knew there was a locker room until Tanya told me about it.”

  Kim cocked her head. “Tanya told you about it?”

  “Sure,” Betts replied. “When she asked me to fill in as an elf, she told me the costume was here, in the women’s locker room. And she told me how to get here.”

  “Is there a men’s locker room?”, Kim asked.

  “I guess so,” Betts replied. “I don’t know.”

  “I guess you didn’t see any of the other....what do you call ‘ems?” Kim asked. “What do you call the other people playing Mrs. Claus and the elves? I guess you can’t really call them performers or actors. What do you call 'em?”

  Betts shrugged. “I don’t know what you call ‘em, but no, I didn’t see anyone in there.”

  Kim smacked her lips. “You were too late. They were already changed and in their places by the time you showed up.”

  Betts sniffed and looked the other way. “Do you really have to nag me so much about it?”

  Kim relaxed. “Sorry, dude. Let’s go inside and take a look around.”

  Betts pushed the door open, and the two friends entered the locker room. They wound their way through a long passage with toilet stalls on either side. Then came the hand washing sinks with roller towels on either side. After that, shower stalls stood open on both sides of the tiled chamber. Kim peered into them. “What is this place? It reminds me of a football team locker room. What would they need a place like this for at the mall?”

  “I don’t know,” Betts replied. “It doesn’t make much sense to me. Maybe they need it for when they have big events and performances.”

  “And when do they have those?” Kim asked.

  Betts shrugged. “Um...never.”

  Kim studied the place. “So where in this room did you change into your costume?”

  Betts pointed. “In the locker room.”

  “But isn’t this the locker room?” Kim waved her hand at the shower stalls.

  “This?” Betts asked. “This isn’t the locker room.”

  “Then where is it?” Kim asked.

  Betts led the way to the end of the shower block. “Here.”

  She turned another corner Kim hadn’t seen. One white expanse of tile merged into another. She followed Betts and found herself in a long carpeted room lined on either side with tall metal lockers. Low benches ran the length of the room, just like a football team locker room.

  Betts made her way to the far end of the room and stopped in front of one of the lockers. “This is it.” Kim went to her side. Betts opened the locker, but it was empty. “This is where the costume was.”

  Kim nodded. “So you came here to change, and then you went back out. That’s when I saw you fall over.”

  Betts gave her a sheepish smile. “Thanks for keeping Tanya occupied while I got myself together.”

  “Where did you go after that?” Kim asked. “You must have had at least ten minutes between when I saw you there and when Simon’s body was found. Where did you go after you got back on your feet?”

  Betts stared at her. “What are you saying? You’re not accusing me of killing Simon, are you?”

  Kim sighed. “I’ll never accuse you again. I know you’re innocent, but I’m the only one who does. I don’t know what’s going to happen between me and Aaron now, because he doesn’t believe a word I tell him. We have to prove beyond doubt that someone else killed Simon, and the only way we’re going to do that is if you tell me exactly what you were doing at every minute of that day.”

  Betts gulped. “Okay.”

  “You might not have had time to kill Simon,” Kim went on, “but you went somewhere after you fell over. We have to account for every minute between when you got your costume on and when you showed up at the crime scene. Now tell me the truth. Where were you?”

  Betts’s eyes shifted from one side to the other. “I was.....you know how it is....I went to....”

  Kim set her fists on her hips. “Cough it up! You’re only making yourself look more guilty with your humming and hawing. Don’t you dare try to hide anything from me.”

  Betts’s eyes widened. “I’m not hiding anything. I was on my period that day, and when I fell over, my tampon started to leak, so I came back in here to change it. That’s what took me so long.”

  Kim’s shoulders sagged. “Oh. Didn’t you know you were going to be late for the Santa Claus program?”

  “Of course I knew,” Betts replied. “But Tanya told me over the phone that the elf costume was really expensive. She said it was handmade by a lady in Woodbend. She said they use the same costumes for the Santa Claus program every year, and she had to put down a five hundred dollar deposit at the Department of Public Works to get the costumes released. She said if anything happened to that elf costume, she would take the money out of my pay. I didn’t want to leak on it.”

  Kim’s eyes shot up to her friend’s face. Then, all of a sudden, she snorted with laughter. “I wonder what Aaron will say when he finds out that’s the reason you disappeared before the murder.”

  Betts stared at her. “You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

  Kim laid her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I won’t tell him if I can avoid it. Any woman would understand why you had to go change your tampon, but I wouldn’t expect a man to understand. We’ll keep it to ourselves unless we really need to bring it up to clear your name.”

  Betts smiled. “Thanks.”

  Kim turned around. “Come on. Let’s go see the men’s bathroom.”

  Betts hurried after her. “You’re not going into the men’s bathroom, are you?”

  “With any luck,” Kim replied, “we won’t have to. But we will go into the men’s locker room—if there is one.”

  They gazed into the shop windows as they passed on their way down the mall. Tinseled trees covered with glittering globe decorations stood in every window, and stacks of boxes adorned with sparkly gift wrap and ribboned bows adorned the display cases. The mannequins wore Santa hats, and glow-in-the-dark stars and snowflakes hung on strings from the ceilings.

  Dean Martin sang, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” on the loud speaker.

  Betts bent her mouth close to Kim’s ear and muttered, “Let it not snow.”

  Kim grinned at her. “I hope you were wearing your long johns under those knee-length elf pants. You looked like something out of the Swiss Alps.”

  “That costume was flimsy and drafty,” Betts replied. “I don’t know who made it, but it wasn’t made for a Maine winter. Here’s the hall leading to the men’s bathroom.”

  They headed down the hall and found the bathroom door. They both stared at it, and Betts shuddered. “I still can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “The Crime Lab will have found all the evidence from the bathroom,” Kim told her, “so we can skip that.”

  Betts sighed with relief. “Good.”

  Kim turned away. “Let’s see if there is a men’s locker room. Oh, yes, here it is. Simon must have changed into his costume in the locker room, and then went into the bathroom before his performance out on the platform.”

  Betts snickered. “Maybe his tampon leaked, too.”

  Kim frowned. “Either that, or the killer dragged him into the bathroom.”

  “Why would he do that when he could have left Simon here?” Betts asked. “This is a much more secluded spot than the bathroom. Why would he want the body to be found sooner rather than later?”

  “Maybe the killer wanted the body to be found,” Kim suggested. “Maybe the killer wanted to spoil the Christmas program by leaving Simon’s body where it would be found in the middle of it.”

  “But he would have spoiled the program anyway by killing the man who was going to play Santa,” Betts pointed ou
t. “The program couldn’t go on without Simon. As soon as they figured out he wasn’t going to be on the platform on time, they would have searched high and low until they found him. They would have searched the locker room first and found his steaming corpse.”

  Kim shot her a sidelong glance. “That’s not the way you should be talking about your god of love, but you’re right. The killer would have no reason to move the body.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” Betts asked. “Do we really have to go into the men’s locker room?”

  Kim sighed. “I suppose there’s not much point. It’ll be the same as the women’s, except for the urinals. But we’re here, so we might as well check it out.”

  The two friends tiptoed into the locker room. It was in fact exactly the same as the women’s except for the urinals in the toilet stalls. Even the locker room itself was the same—except for one thing. Kim stopped in front of the lockers. “This one’s got a combination lock on it.”

  “So?” Betts asked. “Maybe someone keeps their things in there.”

  “Like who?” Kim asked.

  Betts shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t think the shopkeepers are keeping their gold bullion in there.”

  Kim examined the lock. “Whoever's locker it is must come in here on a regular basis to use whatever is in that locker. Maybe that person saw Simon the day he died. They may have seen the killer, too.”

  Betts looked around at the silent locker room. “Can we go now?”

  “One more thing,” Kim replied. “Did Tanya put that elf costume in the locker for you?”

  Betts opened her mouth and closed it again. “Oh, I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

  “If she didn’t put it there for you to find,” Kim replied, “someone else did. That means she or someone else put the Santa Claus costume there for Simon to find for when he went to change.”

  Betts started to say a something, but a cry from Kim cut her off. Kim stamped her foot and clapped her hands. “What is it now?”

  Kim pointed at Betts. “Don’t you see? Simon wasn’t wearing his Santa costume when he died. Don’t you remember? Timothy Hawkins told his mother there was a man on the bathroom floor with a bag over his head, and that’s what she saw when she looked in. If Simon had been wearing his costume, Timothy would have seen that. He would have told his mother Santa Claus was lying on the bathroom floor with a bag over his head, and Mrs. Hawkins would have said the same thing when she came out to the mall to tell everybody else. But they didn’t say that.”

  Betts frowned. “So?”

  “So,” Kim told her, “he hadn’t changed into his costume yet. He may not have come into the locker room at all. He may have gone to the bathroom before he changed, and that’s where the killer got him. He could have been killed long before Timothy found him. He could have been killed long before you came to the mall.”

  “But we’re still not any closer to finding out who did it,” Betts pointed out.

  Kim wilted. “No, we’re not.” She sighed. “I guess we can go. We’ve seen everything.”

  Betts smiled and headed for the door. Kim took one last look around, and just for good measure, she strode to the far end of the locker room and turned around. That’s when her eye fell on another alcove set into the tiled wall. “Hey, look at this. There’s a door.”

  Betts smiled vanished. They weren’t leaving after all. She crossed the room to Kim’s side. “You’re right. There’s a door. Now come on. I’m hungry.”

  Kim shook her head. “This changes everything. Someone could have come into this part of the mall without being seen by anybody. They could have come into the locker room and then the bathroom and killed Simon, and nobody would have known he was here.”

  “But this door is locked,” Betts pointed out. “The person must have had the key, and we don’t know if this door leads to the outside of the building.”

  “It wouldn’t have to,” Kim replied. “As long as the person knew how to get to this door from anywhere else in the mall, they could sneak up on Simon without being seen.”

  “But how would the person know Simon was going to be here?” Betts asked. “How could they plan to kill him and sneak up on him if they didn’t know he was going to be changing into his Santa suit right at that moment?”

  Kim nodded. “Exactly. The killer must have known the program schedule, and they would have known every detail of the mall’s lay-out, and they would have had a key to this door. Once we find out who fits that description, we’ll have found our killer.”

  “But who could that be?” Betts asked.

  In answer to her question, a rattle of keys sounded on the other side of the door. Kim jumped out of her skin. The first key slid into the lock with a grating of metal against metal. Kim spun around. “Quick, Betts! We have to hide.”

  “Can’t we just run for it?” Betts asked.

  Kim didn’t answer. She seized her friend by her bulky knitted sweater and shoved her toward the lockers. “Whoever is opening that door must be the killer. Who else would have keys to the building?” She opened the nearest locker and jammed Betts into it.

  Betts’s chunky frame stuck in the door and she mewed in surprise, but another scraping of metal drove them both to distraction. The lock turned, and the deadbolt slammed back against the tumbler. Kim crammed Betts into the locker with all her might, but Betts soft body didn’t respond to main force. Betts’s arms and legs flailed in every direction, but no part of her entered the locker.

  “Get in there!” Kim hissed. “We can’t get caught here. We could be the next victims. Get in there if you know what’s good for you!”

  “I can’t,” Betts whimpered. “I can’t fit through the door.”

  Kim didn’t listen. She shoved and heaved and puffed, much to Betts’s dismay. In the end, one roll of flesh after another squeezed into the locker until only one round shoulder stuck out. The keys beyond the door rattled again, and another key slid into the hole on the doorknob. Kim didn’t have a moment to lose. She slammed the locker closed, and Betts let out a cry of pain.

  Kim leapt to the next locker and shut the door just in time. The outer door opened, and Kim peeked through the slits in the top of the locker to see who it was. Daylight streamed through the door, and trees jutted into the sky beyond the opening. The door opened to the mall parking lot.

  An angular figure blocked out the light, and an old man in a janitor’s jump suit entered the locker room. He jangled his key chain before dropping it into his pocket, and he crossed Kim’s line of sight on his way to the locker with the combination lock. He faced the lockers to spin the combination wheel, and Kim got a clear look at his face.

  Although wrinkles crisscrossed his face and streaks of white highlighted his grey hair, his eyes glinted with keen fire, and his muscled hands twirled the wheel with expert speed. Powerful shoulders filled out his jump suit, and he walked erect and strong and sure. Kim shuddered at the sight of him. This must be the killer. He filled all their criteria. He was the mall janitor. He knew the lay-out of the mall. He knew that door led straight to the locker room, and he could have come into the locker room and the bathroom without anyone seeing him.

  And last of all, he would have known the Christmas program schedule. He knew Simon Cox was going to be in that locker room to change into his Santa Claus costume, and he knew when Simon was going to be there. He had planned and executed the perfect murder.

  Chapter 7

  Kim grabbed Betts by the hand and towed her out of the mall. Betts hung back and tried to tug her hand free from Kim’s grip. “What’s the big rush? He’s long gone by now.”

  Kim didn’t stop until they got back to the car. “We have to find Aaron and tell him what we found. The sooner we tell him, the sooner he can arrest the janitor for Simon’s murder.”

  “But he can’t be the murderer,” Betts insisted. “He’s Steve Delacourt. He’s Marlene Delacourt’s father, and he’s been the janitor at the mall for over thirty yea
rs. I carpooled to school with Marlene when we were growing up, and her dad is the nicest guy in the world.”

  Kim dropped Betts’s hand and whirled around. “But don’t you see? Marlene is our age. That means she had Simon for chemistry, too. He must have messed around with her, and Steve found out and took revenge on Simon. It’s the same old story. It gives him the perfect motive.”

  Betts shook her head. “I can’t believe Steve would do this to anybody.”

  “I can,” Kim replied. “Everybody’s the nicest person in the world until they snap and kill somebody. If he’s so nice, that explains why he wanted to stand up for his daughter against her lecherous chemistry teacher.”

  “You can’t accuse him,” Betts insisted. “I won’t let you.”

  Kim stiffened. “Listen, Betts. I’m going out on a limb defending you. I might even have blown my chance with Aaron and I’ll never get him back. I’m willing to take your side in this, but I won’t do it for anybody else. Steve Delacourt had a key to the locker room. He had the knowledge to use the back entrance to get in without being seen, and he knew Simon would be there for the Christmas program. Now you’re telling me he had a daughter who could have been one of Simon’s victims. It’s the perfect combination of facts, and it’s our best chance to get suspicion taken off you and onto somebody else.”

  Betts frowned. “I don’t like it.”

  Kim opened the driver’s side door of her car. “You might not like it, but that’s the way it is. Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  Betts got into the passenger seat, and they drove away. Kim refused to talk to Betts or even to look at her until they got back to town. Betts shifted in her seat when Kim parked in front of the police station. “Where are we going?”

  Kim couldn’t help but smile at her. “Don’t worry. We’re not turning you in. There’s a Christmas party at the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, and I’m catering it. I have to go there to set up the kitchen. I’ll text Aaron, and maybe he can meet us there. Then we’ll tell him what we found out.”