He dipped his chin. “Yeah.”
“What did you argue about?”
He turned cautious eyes on me. “Why? What have you heard?”
“Nothing more than that. I’m just trying to process what’s happened. I’ve never known anyone who died like that before. It doesn’t feel real, and everyone’s carrying on today as if nothing happened.”
“No,” he disagreed. “We’re all hurting, but life’s like that. The living have to live. Some say that’s the hardest part about loss.”
I didn’t disagree. “I’ve been talking to everyone who spoke with her last night. Do you know what had her so up in arms lately?”
A sense of debate hung over him. “No.”
“Will you tell me what the two of you fought about?” I turned to the animals while he decided. “Cookie said something about livestock licensing.”
“I lease the stable space here,” he said. “Did you know that?”
“I assumed. It’s the way we handled the horses until we had our own.”
“I yelled at her,” he said after a long silence. “I shouldn’t have. I flew off the handle—it’s a bad habit of mine.” He clicked his tongue, coaxing Chrissy to his side. He turned the soft bristled brush on her. “I should’ve taken the time to explain things more clearly. Maybe she didn’t understand the trouble she was causing.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“Listing these guys as livestock would make me a farmer, and I can’t afford to pay the agricultural taxes. I’m not farming; I’m raising pets. Besides, reindeer aren’t livestock; they’re wildlife, and my deer aren’t wild. They’ve been in captivity all their lives. Fed. Bathed. Groomed. What if I registered them as livestock and managed to pay the added taxes only to have some yahoo up at the state level come down on me with orders to release them? They’d never survive in the wild, and registering the reindeer as livestock would’ve put a spotlight on their backs.” His voice had ratcheted up with each new sentence, and he’d traded brushing his pet for pulling his own thin ponytail over one shoulder with undue force.
“Did you tell her that?”
“She didn’t care!”
I started. “I’m sorry.” A pool of unease circled in my stomach. I didn’t like his tone or his fevered expression. I stepped away from the reindeer and freed my phone from my pocket. “I have to take this call.”
He locked his heated gaze on me as I hurried away, silent phone pressed to one ear. “Hello?” I carried on a fake conversation with the quiet device until I was out of earshot, then returned it to my pocket.
I hated to see the sheriff spend any more time at the farm than necessary, and adding Mr. Fleece to the suspect pool would probably keep the farm closed longer, but it wouldn’t hurt for Sheriff Gray to talk to him one more time. Mr. Fleece’s temper was quick and hot, and protecting the animals he’d rescued seemed a reasonable motive for lashing out. I wasn’t sure if what he’d said about taxes and wildlife was accurate, but he certainly believed it was, and it only took a second to do something rash that couldn’t be taken back.
I hadn’t known Margaret Fenwick, but someone had taken her life, and she deserved justice. I’d been so determined to find an off-site suspect for Sheriff Gray that I’d failed to let the weight of her loss truly register. Margaret was a local woman, exactly like Cookie or my mom, and someone had killed her.
Someone in Mistletoe was a murderer. And I might have spoken with them today.
A sudden shiver rocked down my spine, and it had nothing to do with the temperatures.
* * *
I climbed the guesthouse steps and stomped snow from my boots, then pressed the door shut behind me. Cindy Lou Who met me with a look of expectancy.
“Hello, gorgeous.” I bent to pet her, but she walked away, nosing through my bags before exiting the room completely. Thus was our relationship. I fawned over her, and she was satisfied to know I was still alive. An assurance the meals she pretended to hate would continue uninterrupted.
I sloughed off my winter gear and stowed my bags in the corner. “I’m going to build a fire,” I called after her, hoping she’d rejoin me. The thermostat said sixty-seven, which in Maine at Christmas was practically subtropic, but I’d been outdoors so long, the cold had settled in my bones. I needed a crackling wood fire and a hot cup of tea to truly get warm.
The logs flamed to life with little effort, and I went in search of a kettle. The guesthouse kitchen was galley style, a long, narrow addition from my early childhood after Mom decided the farm needed a guesthouse. The renovation came, coincidentally, on the heels of her father’s retirement, shortly after my grandparents began making routine trips to Mistletoe.
“What do you think?” I asked Cindy when she poked her head around the counter. “Peppermint or cinnamon?” I set the boxes on the counter before her. She leapt onto the white Formica and stalked closer, crouching lower and wiping the area with her bushy calico fur as she moved.
I freed a mug from the rack and righted it on the counter. “Well?”
The boxes of tea hit the floor behind me. Cindy squinted at them.
“Gee. Thanks.” I scooped them up and put the peppermint away.
I dropped a cinnamon packet into the mug and covered it in hot water. The sweet steam lifted my spirits.
Cindy was on the couch in front of the fireplace when I returned. I curled onto the cushion beside her and pulled Mom’s favorite afghan over my lap. Colorful tassels danced against my legs, and nostalgia nearly overwhelmed me. The wood smoke and cinnamon in the air. Mom’s blanket. The roaring fire. Snow piled on the windowsill. I rested my head back, and my eyes drifted shut.
My phone buzzed with an unheard voice mail, promptly ruining the moment. I dialed in to see what I’d missed, and Ben’s voice echoed over the line. “Hey, babe, it’s me.”
My grip tightened on the little phone.
“So I know you probably don’t want to hear from me.”
“Correct,” I told the recording.
“But a wedding present was delivered to the apartment today, and I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do with it. You’ve been taking care of all this, so I thought you’d want to call my aunt Karen and let her know about the split. She doesn’t speak to my mom, so I guess she hasn’t heard. If you don’t feel comfortable calling my aunt, you could probably call my mom and ask her to relay the message.”
My jaw dropped. “Unbelievable.”
“What should I do with the gift, though?” he continued.
I had a few suggestions.
“It’s that espresso machine we both wanted. Should I keep it? I mean, I hate to see it wasted.” The line went silent, and I nearly hung up, assuming the message had ended. “Really,” Ben’s voice returned in a sullen whisper, “I wish you’d just come home and share it with me like we’d planned. Things aren’t working out for me. I screwed up big time by letting you go, and I think we should talk. Maybe we can still go on that honeymoon together, work out our problems in Hawaii. Sun. Sand . . .”
I pressed the disconnect button until my fingertip was sore, then deleted the message and rubbed my temple. “Idiot,” I muttered, only slightly unsure of who I meant exactly, Ben or me.
Cindy slunk across the back of the couch and batted my earring.
I caught her and pulled her onto my legs in a forced snuggle. At least one good thing came from my doomed relationship. Ben had failed to clean up after making salmon one night, and the next day I’d come home to find Cindy on the patio licking the grill. She’d looked like a mean old alley cat with her unruly fur and chipped ear, but I took her in anyway, certain that all she needed was love and security. She was so grateful for the warm bed and food that she stopped hissing when I looked at her after only a few weeks. Eighteen months later, she only hissed at bath time.
She rolled on my lap, extending her invisible claws toward my ears. I’d made a lot of jewelry lately. Maybe I subconsciously knew it was time to come home long before Ben br
oke the engagement. The jewelry reminded me of better days, when I knew the neighbors and didn’t eat alone every night.
Cindy took an interest in chewing my feet through the blanket, and I hoisted the tackle box turned craft supply kit from the coffee table. I sorted through the small glass discs in search of the perfect lollipop tops. “People here like my jewelry,” I told her.
Ben had thought my candy jewelry was juvenile. He never understood me or this town and hated visiting, which was why I’d come alone for Christmas every year at first, making excuses to my family for his absence and apologies to his family for mine. Later, I’d chosen Christmas with him over my parents. “I figured it out, Cindy. I was definitely the idiot.”
I sipped my tea and mentally replayed the day while I wound silver wire into jingle bells and holly shapes. I didn’t like the way Paula had grouched about Margaret even after her death. Was her attitude symptomatic of an awful habit? Incessant negativity nurtured over several decades or something more? I also didn’t like Mr. Fleece’s temper or his understandable anger. Lots of things made me mad, but I didn’t scream about them, especially not to someone who was practically a stranger.
I pried myself off the couch when the tea was gone. Comfy as I was, the sheriff needed to know what I knew, and his cruiser was still at the gates. “I’ll be back in time for your dinner,” I told Cindy as I returned my supplies to the plastic chest for safekeeping. “Enjoy the nice warm fire.”
I pulled a fresh coat and boots from the closet and stuffed my toasty arms and feet into them. An elegant navy number with a wide collar and belt, the classic wool pea coat had been in my family for three generations. My mom’s mom had purchased it on her honeymoon in 1962. I always felt a little like Jackie O when I wore it. I especially loved the big black buttons, reminiscent of another time. The boots, unfortunately, were the sort of mud-soaked, calf-high rubber ordeals only found in the wilderness. I doubted the sheriff would notice or appreciate the collision of style and practicality. All he needed to know was that I’d been out on reconnaissance all morning and that I had at least two solid leads for his team.
I adjusted matching mittens over my fingers and tugged the front door open. A gust of snow swirled in, temporarily stealing my breath before vanishing into the cozy room. A line of red-and-white-striped stakes were arranged on the porch before me. My tummy dropped as the message settled in. These stakes matched the one used to kill Margaret Fenwick, and the pointed ends were aimed at my door. One word was spray-painted on each of the four tree markers:
STOP OR YOU’RE NEXT
I slammed the door shut and pressed my back against it. Someone knew I’d been asking about Margaret’s death, and they didn’t like it.
Chapter Six
I pulled myself together and looked out the front window. There was no one in sight. I inched the door open and scanned the stretch of snow-covered land between myself and the tree farm perimeter. No one. Whoever had left the message hadn’t hung around to see that I received it. I snapped a picture of the threat with my phone, then tugged my hat over my ears and started off at a jog. I picked up the pace as the guesthouse shrank behind me and the main building of Reindeer Games drew closer. Shadows loomed behind every tree and outbuilding, daring me to wonder if the killer was watching now. If he was, would I be safe? Would my screams be heard at this distance from my family and their crew, or would the sound be swallowed by the fresh blanket of snow?
I ran toward the stables hoping to find a friendly face or two inside. The low rumble of my dad’s voice pushed my feet into a sprint. “Dad!”
He came into view with a smile.
Hot tears burned in my eyes. I didn’t have to be strong or calm. Dad was my refuge, and he’d make this better.
His broad strides ate up the space between us. “What’s the matter?”
“I need Sheriff Gray,” I said, heart pounding. “Have you seen him? Is he still here?” I blinked the tears back frantically.
“I’m here.” Sheriff Gray appeared at the stable door.
A strange mix of relief and fear flooded my system. I was certain he could help, but the fact I needed a sheriff at all made the threat intensely scarier.
Dad’s giant gloved hands caught mine. “What’s going on? Are you hurt?” He trailed my limbs with keen parental eyes, lifting my arms at my sides like an airplane.
“No.” I swallowed hard. “I’m okay, just a little shaken.”
“Why? What happened?”
The sheriff stopped at our sides, creating a tiny triangle. “Tell me what happened.” His cheeks were red, and his eyes glossy from the unrelenting wind.
I wiggled my hands free of Dad’s grip. “I found a line of those tree markers on my porch.”
“At the guesthouse?” Dad frowned.
“Yeah.” I brought up the picture I’d taken on my phone. “Someone left me a message.”
“With tree markers?” Dad asked, still perplexed by my story.
I handed my phone to the sheriff. “Yeah. Exactly like the one used to kill Margaret Fenwick.”
“You think someone threatened you?” Dad jerked his gaze to the sheriff. “Give me that.”
Sheriff Gray turned the phone over to Dad and locked cool green eyes on me. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
“I don’t think so.” I shifted my weight, suddenly feeling as if I’d entered the principal’s office.
“We’ll revisit that question in a minute.” He raised the walkie-talkie from his belt and squeezed. “I need someone for evidence collection at the Whites’ guesthouse. Crime scene review and photographs as well.”
“Copy that,” a man’s voice crackled back.
The sheriff holstered his walkie-talkie and motioned for me to lead the way, but Dad turned on his boots and cut me off. We fell into step behind him like a mismatched platoon.
A few minutes later, we stood shoulder to shoulder at the base of my porch. Dad fumed. The sheriff sucked his teeth. I bit into the tender skin alongside my thumbnail.
“Well?” I asked. “It’s a threat, right?”
The sheriff didn’t answer. He lifted his phone and snapped several pictures before circling my house. He disappeared in one direction and returned moments later in the other.
What was he thinking? Was there something here that I couldn’t see?
“Please talk to me,” I begged. “You’re making it worse.”
Lines raced across his forehead. “Sorry. I’m thinking. Did you hear anything before you left the house?”
“No.”
“See anyone? In the distance, maybe?”
I gnawed a little harder on my thumb and winced when I drew blood. “Nope.” I pushed my hand back into its mitten and made a fist to ease the sting on my thumb.
He lined his boot beside one stake and snapped another picture. “Would you say these are your stakes, Mr. White?”
“They are,” Dad agreed. The color in his face had bled from red to eggplant at the first sight of my porch.
I rested a hand on his arm. “Breathe.”
The sheriff climbed my steps carefully, placing his feet in my prints. “The stake used on Mrs. Fenwick weighed about eight pounds. There’re four stakes here. That’s thirty-two pounds.”
I inched closer to the objects in question. “Even if I could lift thirty-two pounds of loose wooden stakes, I couldn’t carry them without looking like one-half of Laurel and Hardy.”
“So whoever did this had a sack like mine,” Dad said.
I mimed the size of the woodpile with outstretched arms. “If I put those in a sack, they’d drag to the ground, but I don’t see any drag marks.”
Sheriff Gray squinted into the sun. “She’s right. Whoever carried the stakes was tall or had help.” He turned in an arc, examining the area from his new perspective atop my porch. “We’ve got footprints, sled tracks, and hoofprints.”
“Footprints could be anyone,” I said, “including me.”
Dad pulled a phone fr
om his coat pocket. “I’ll get someone to follow the tracks and see where they go, maybe even who they belong to.”
“Paula drove a sleigh to the Hearth last night,” I said. “Could she have come here today?”
Dad hovered near the marks, bent at the waist, phone pressed to his ear.
I idly wondered if Mr. Fleece used the reindeer to pull a sleigh. Maybe Santa did it.
The sheriff moseyed back down the steps to my side, phone in hand. He turned the device to face me. A close-up of the words “STOP OR YOU’RE NEXT” was centered on the screen. “Any idea what this means?”
“Me?” I asked, slightly baffled by the question. “I guess someone wants me to stop doing something.”
He widened his stance and crossed his arms, effectively removing the phone from my sight. “Stop doing what, for example?”
My cheeks burned. “I don’t know.”
“If you had to venture a guess.”
Dad turned back to us. “These tracks are too narrow for a sleigh, and there aren’t any hoofprints. Looks more like a person with a large sled. Your mother’s going to see if someone took one of our sleds out, then she’s headed this way.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Sheriff Gray’s steady gaze never left mine. “Any ideas yet?”
I turned my chin left and right, lips pressed tight.
He circled me the way he had with the wood. “Why don’t I believe you?”
Dad moved closer. “What’s going on?”
The sheriff stopped at my back and leaned over my shoulder. “You must at least have a guess.”
My eyes slid shut, ruffled further by his nearness, but my lips sprang apart. “I went into town and asked a few people about Mrs. Fenwick.”
He went rigid. “Care to elaborate?”
I peeked one eye open and turned until I faced him toe to toe. “There’s a possibility that one of the people I spoke to or someone who saw or heard about what I was doing wants me to stop doing it.”
“Holly,” Dad scolded, “what were you thinking?”
I forced an apologetic smile his way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think asking questions would cause a problem. I was trying to figure out what Mrs. Fenwick was up to before her death.”
Twelve Slays of Christmas Page 5