Romancing the Holidays: Twelve Christmas Romances - Benefits Breast Cancer Research

by Crista McHugh

  “That’s great. Thanks. I do want to speak to her. Did she say what time she’d be here?”

  “Around eleven, which is between ferries, so it’s a good time for us.”

  “Perfect. Is Alex here?”

  “He’s in the office inputting the new inventory that came over on last night’s ferry into the computer. He really is a great employee. And he’s so good with the kids. I’ve already asked him about working for us over the summer and he seemed open to the idea.”

  “That’d be great. And he’s such a good sport. There aren’t many twenty-year-old guys who would be willing to put on a Santa suit for the kids.”

  “Marva from the church delivered it this morning. I’m superexcited to see whether having Santa available for photos will bring in additional foot traffic. I’ve posted a notice that Santa will be here from two until five this afternoon.”

  “Perfect. I’ll finish helping you shelve the new inventory as soon as I get the cats settled. Hopefully, Liza will be on time and we can chat before it gets too busy.”

  As it turned out, not only did Liza show up right on time but she brought Jane Partridge, the Pottages’ maid, with her. It wasn’t superbusy during the morning hours, but there was a steady flow of customers, so Liza, Jane, and I took our coffee into the cat lounge.

  “I’ve been wanting to stop in to check out your place,” Jane said. “I love cats and coffee.”

  “Please come by any time. We have cats on site every day to visit with while you sip your coffee and enjoy a book.”

  “So you’re looking into the disappearance of Charles Pottage,” Liza commented. It appeared that, unlike her friend, she wasn’t there for chitchat.

  I nodded.

  “Why? It’s been twenty years. What can you possibly hope to learn after twenty years?”

  I explained about my agreement with Pottage concerning the apartment building and my real motive behind wanting to solve the case.

  “I can respect that,” Liza said. “I know a couple of people who live in that building. How can I help?”

  “I’d just like each of you to tell me what you remember about that day.”

  The women shared their memories, and it was clear they both remembered things much the same way everyone else had. There had been tension between Belle and Balthazar Pottage that had been building for some time. The much older man treated his wife like a prisoner most of the time. He told everyone it was to protect her, but both women felt it was really more about controlling her. They remembered that Mr. Pottage had been furious about the guests Belle had invited, and he’d insisted that they be given bedrooms on the first floor and told not to venture to the second floor at any time. They also reported that the couple had been sleeping in separate rooms ever since Charles was born. Of course Charles had been kidnapped when he was only six weeks old, so the fact that Belle had recently given birth might have had something to do with the sleeping arrangements.

  Although she’d been hired as a maid, Jane had spent the day of the christening helping with the buffet lunch because the woman who’d handled the catering had to leave. Liza had spent the day in the same way. Both women had gone back and forth from the kitchen to the area where the buffet had been set up and both insisted they hadn’t noticed anything odd.

  “Do either of you know who the caterer was?” I asked.

  “No,” Liza answered. “If you ask me it was a total waste of money to hire a caterer when I could have come up with something just as nice.”

  “Why did the Pottages have the luncheon catered?” I asked.

  “I have no idea.” Liza shrugged. “The missus and I got along well and she seemed to like my cooking, but she was most insistent that the affair be catered by this woman. I think she might have been friends with her. I saw them speaking several times before the guests arrived.”

  “But she left shortly after the ceremony was over?” I verified.

  “Yeah. She said she had another event she needed to get to. She left shortly after the mayor and his wife did.”

  I felt like there was a clue there, but for the life of me I didn’t know what it was. The timeline seemed to be airtight; everyone seemed in agreement as to who was where at what time. If everyone was telling the truth Baby Charles couldn’t have been taken from the house. Yet somehow he had been.

  “Do you mind if I go over this one more time?” I asked the women.

  “Feel free,” Jane answered.

  “The christening was Mrs. Pottage’s idea.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the overnight guests showed up while Mr. Pottage was out of town.”

  “Correct.”

  “And Mr. Pottage was angry when he found out about the guests and the christening in general?”

  “He was.”

  “On the day of the christening the caterer showed up first?”

  “She did but only just a few minutes prior to Father Kilian’s arrival,” Jane informed me.

  “And the local guests showed up at some point following the arrival of Father Kilian.”

  The women nodded.

  “What time was the ceremony?”

  “One o’clock,” Liza answered.

  “And what time was it over?”

  “About one fifteen. The missus took the baby upstairs to put him down immediately after Father Kilian completed the service.”

  “And what time did Father Kilian leave?”

  The women looked at each other. “I guess around one thirty, maybe one forty-five,” Jane answered. “It’s hard to remember exactly, but I remember he said his good-byes to Mrs. Pottage as soon as she came down from tending to the baby.”

  “And the caterer? When did she leave?”

  “Shortly after. The mayor and his wife also left, but everyone else stayed to eat,” Liza reconfirmed what I’d already been told by others.

  “And then Mrs. Pottage went upstairs again?”

  “So we heard,” Jane answered. “We were busy in the kitchen and didn’t see Mrs. Pottage go upstairs to check on the baby. It was Roger, the man who was guarding the stairs, who told us that she went back upstairs—probably at around two o’clock, give or take a few minutes, and she told him the baby was sleeping peacefully and returned to the party. She didn’t find him missing until later, around three o’clock.”

  “Why do you think it was Mrs. Pottage and not the nanny who was attending to Charles, given the fact that there was company in the house?” I asked.

  “The nanny—a woman named Edith Cribbage—hadn’t been feeling well. Charles was a fussy baby and I don’t think she was getting enough sleep,” Jane informed me. “I’ve heard people say she fell asleep on the day of the kidnapping, but it’s always bothered me that the baby was taken while she slept in the next room. She was a trained nanny and was used to sleeping with one eye open. I’m certain she would have heard the baby had he wakened and cried.”

  “Okay, thank you. I guess that’s all I need for now. Please do let me know if you think of anything else.”

  While both women had seemed nice enough, neither of them had told me anything I hadn’t already known. I did, however, learn that Edith Cribbage lived on San Juan Island. Maybe I’d stop there and try to speak to her on my way out to Balthazar Pottage’s estate on Monday.

  “So?” Tara asked after the women had left.

  “I got a phone number for the nanny, but other than that, they said pretty much the same thing everyone else has. I still need to talk to Tripp, which I may try to do when I get off here. Other than that, I guess I’ll just have to wait to hear what Pottage has to say about things when I visit him next week. The people I’ve talked to have given me an entirely different perspective on his relationship with his wife than he led me to believe when I spoke to him on Monday. It sounds to me like he almost anticipated what would happen.”

  “It does seem like he suspected his son was in danger, given all the precautions he took. Maybe he can shed some light on the source of the t
hreat. It might end up tying in.”

  “I hope so. I also need to talk to him about the developer he was working with before we made our deal.”

  I filled Tara in on my conversation with Siobhan the previous evening.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Tell me about it,” I agreed. “All I’m trying to do is to help my neighbors remain in their homes and suddenly I’m on this guy’s hit list.”

  “He doesn’t sound like the sort of person we want on the island anyway. I for one think we should find a way to keep him from building here no matter how things work out with the Bayview Apartments.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Tara looked over toward the front door of the store. “It looks like you have a visitor.”

  I turned around to see Ebenezer standing outside the door. I wanted to ask how he’d gotten there as I let him in, but then realized if he could get from Balthazar Pottage’s island to Madrona Island, he would certainly have no problem getting from my cabin to the bookstore.

  “I don’t know why you’re here, but I have to work to do, so whatever you have in mind will have to wait,” I said to the cat.

  He just looked at me, then trotted over to the door that separated the cat lounge from the coffee bar. I opened the door and he trotted inside. He headed to the sofa, where he curled up in a ball and went to sleep.

  “I guess he just didn’t want to stay home alone,” I decided. “Max is with Cody today.”

  “He really is a beautiful cat. I hope we won’t have anyone wanting to adopt him.”

  That very situation was the reason I’d never brought the cats Tansy sent to work with me to the store. Each and every one of them was gorgeous and would have generated a lot of interest as a potential adoptee.

  “Maybe I should put a sold sign around his neck,” I teased.

  “Hopefully he’ll reveal whatever it is he’s here for during the lull between the midday ferry and the last ferry of the day,” Tara commented. “I anticipate both will be filled close to capacity with the holiday next week.”

  As it turned out, Ebenezer didn’t seem to have any plans for me but rather for a boy who was four years of age and terrified of animals. He came in with his mom and started to totally freak out when he saw the cats. The mother apologized and shared with Tara and me that her son was deathly afraid of all animals and she had no idea why. She’d brought him into the store in the hope that he’d be willing to at least look at the cats through the glass. She was afraid his intense fear of animals was stunting his social development because he refused to go anywhere animals might be present, which was pretty much everywhere.

  The woman explained that she’d taken the boy to see a psychologist, who couldn’t figure out what the problem might be. As far as the mom knew, the child had never been bitten by a dog or harmed by any other type of animal. She really had no idea where his fear came from. Tara invited her to have a cup of coffee while the child played nearby with the blocks we provide for our youngest guests. I don’t know how he did it, but Ebenezer somehow managed to make his way from the cat lounge into the coffee bar. I was about to make a mad dash to intercept him when I noticed the little boy smiling at him. Tara and his mother were intent on their conversation and hadn’t yet noticed, and I decided to wait while the drama played out.

  Ebenezer slowly walked over to the child and lay down next to him. The boy slowly reached out a hand and touched the cat on the stomach. I held my breath; he momentarily looked like he was going to cry before tossing the blocks aside and paying full attention to the cat. He didn’t seem to be aware that I was watching, and Tara and the mom still hadn’t noticed, so I made my way slowly over to the coffee bar in the hope of intercepting them before either made a big deal over what was occurring.

  “Don’t look up and don’t turn around,” I whispered, “but your son is petting one of the cats.”

  The mom’s eyes grew big. “Really?”

  “Yeah. But don’t make a big deal out of it. That can only backfire. Slowly turn around and smile, but then go back to your conversation as if nothing of any importance is happening.”

  The woman did as I suggested, but the child was so intent on the cat that he didn’t seem to notice.

  “That’s amazing,” the woman whispered. “How did you do that?”

  “I didn’t do anything. Ebenezer did it all by himself.”

  “I want to adopt that cat,” the woman announced.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, “he isn’t one of my cats. He belongs to a friend of mine. I’m only keeping him for a short time.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” The woman looked disappointed, and given the circumstances, I couldn’t blame her.

  “If you want to bring your son back tomorrow I’ll have Ebenezer here. Maybe we can work together to help your son choose another cat. I’ll bring in some of my most kickback kitties.”

  “It’s worth a try. His fear of animals seemed to have appeared instantly overnight; maybe he can get over it just as abruptly.”

  “We can let your son play with Ebenezer a little while longer. We really aren’t supposed to have the cats in the coffee bar, but hopefully no one will complain. We should move him before the ferry docks and the crowd comes in, though.”

  The child continued to play with Ebenezer until we saw the ferry on the horizon. The mom casually told the child it was time to leave but that they could come back the next day if he wanted. He smiled, said okay, and left without a fuss.

  I picked up Ebenezer and looked him in the eye. “You really are a magical cat, aren’t you?”

  The cat didn’t answer, but he did start to purr. Loudly. I cuddled him to my chest and scratched him behind the ear. He really was a sweetie. I was willing to bet he provided a lot of companionship for Balthazar Pottage despite the fact that the old man pretended not to care about him one way or the other.

  I took Ebenezer to the cat lounge and then headed into the back room to let Alex know that the arrival of Santa to the bookstore was less than a half hour away, so he might want to get ready. He’d already donned the suit but was having problems with the white wig and long beard. I volunteered to help him.

  “Hold still,” I said as I tied his long dark hair back in a band so it wouldn’t show beneath the wig.

  “I’m trying to, but that tickles.”

  “Don’t be a baby. I’m just brushing your hair. There.” I stood back to admire my handiwork. “I think I’ve got everything tucked up. Now for the wig.”

  “I hope it isn’t going to be itchy,” Alex complained.

  “It won’t be itchy,” I promised, even though I had no idea if it would be or not. “We’ll need to smooth back your bangs or they’ll show.”

  Alex used his hand to smooth back the hair from his forehead.

  “Interesting birthmark.”

  Alex had a red mark shaped like a heart on his forehead just above his left eye.

  “Hence the long hair,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I countered as I adjusted the wig so it was straight. “I kind of like it. It’s got a sexy vibe to it. If I were you, I’d cut my hair and wear it proudly.”

  “Are you flirting with me?” Alex’s eyes twinkled, which let me know he was just messing with me, but I couldn’t help but turn just a tad red.

  “I’m most certainly not flirting with you. I have a boyfriend.”

  “I know; I’m just teasing. I’ve always hated that birthmark, so I’ve always worn my hair long to cover it up. Luckily, I have thick hair that actually looks good long.”

  “Well, I like it, and I think other girls would too. I wasn’t kidding about cutting your bangs. They look good the way they are, but I think you’d look good with your hair short as well. Are you ready?” I asked when the beard was in place.

  “As I’ll ever be. Let’s hope we don’t have any pants wetters in the crowd.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, let’s hope.”

  Chapter 10

 
; “Are you sure about this?” Cody asked me that evening as he held up a bright green sweater. Cody wanted to buy Christmas gifts for my family and had asked me to go shopping with him to help him pick out the items I felt my relatives would like best.

  “Cassie will love it.”

  “But I thought she was into the whole black and white thing.”

  “She was. She’s over it. Now it’s loud and bright all the time.”

  Cody shrugged. “If you say so.”

  I began sorting through the sweaters to see if I could find something a bit less trendy for Siobhan, while Cody added Cassie’s sweater to his basket. If we had time maybe I’d look for something for my mom and my other siblings. I was usually a lot more on the ball, but this year I’d barely even started my shopping. Still, it was fun shopping with Cody, although the heater in the store was turned up to something just short of inferno.

  “Maybe we should walk down to the sporting goods store to look for something for Aiden and Danny,” I suggested.

  “Hot in that thick turtleneck?”

  “I feel almost charbroiled.”

  Cody looked toward the cash registers in the front of the store. I followed his gaze. The lines were endless, as was to be expected a week before Christmas.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and get some fresh air? I’ll pay for the stuff we picked out and meet you outside the store.”

  I could feel a trail of sweat trickling down my back. “Thanks. I think I’ll do that. This sweater is great for the walking-around part but not so great for the actual shopping part of our outing. Maybe I should go home to change before we go to dinner. It’s likely to be warm in the restaurant.”

  “We can do whatever you’d like,” Cody assured me.

  I pushed my way through the crowd as I made my way toward the exit, which wasn’t an easy feat. The place was packed. The bookstore had been busy as well, but not nearly as much as the shops in town. Coffee Cat Books closed at five on Friday, but I couldn’t help but wonder if we might want to stay open later during the holidays. It was a little late to change things this year, but it would be something to keep in mind for next year.