“Wait here.” Ophelia practically had the passenger-side car door open before I parked in the drive. “I’ll be right back.”
I’d already caught a glimpse of someone moving around inside, visible yet unrecognizable through the Christmas-light-trimmed front windows. I saw a decorated fir tree, too.
So far, so normal. In case that was Joe Sullivan—and I could wrangle a casual chat with the family’s paternal missing link—I jumped out of the car right behind Albany’s sister.
“Don’t be silly! I’ll come with you.”
I scampered around the parked car in her wake and hurried up the drive. Someone had shoveled the snow recently; it was piled up along the driveway’s edge and at the base of the porch, leaving a clear path straight to the holly-wreathed front door.
I admired its ribboned and ornamented finery for a split second, before Ophelia pushed open the door and rushed inside.
Beyond her, I heard someone call, “Ophelia? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s just me, Mom.” Looking exasperated, the young woman glanced over her shoulder at me. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried upstairs, leaving me in the narrow foyer. So far, the Sullivan household seemed patently normal. Fir garland wound around the bannisters; twinkly lights sparkled in the next room. I glimpsed a fireplace with stockings, the Christmas tree I’d seen through the window, assorted wrapped gifts arranged underneath it, . . . and, through the passageway, Linda Sullivan.
“Linda, hi!” I was surprised to see the Sproutes Sentinel editor home during the day. I was even more surprised to see her wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt covered by a knee-length cable-knit cardigan. Its pockets bulged with tissues. Above that ensemble, Linda’s face looked weary. “It’s Hayden Mundy Moore,” I reminded her. “Josh Levitt’s friend from the cookie exchange.”
“I remember you.” There was startling malice in her tone. “Don’t think I don’t!” Linda winced and touched her temple. I recognized the gesture that had preceded her painkiller dose at the newspaper offices. “I know what you’re up to, too! How dare you come here?” Despite her pain, Linda advanced on me. Her face darkened with obvious suspicion. “You leave my Joe alone!”
Oh no. Sproutesians really did love to gossip, I realized, if word had already spread to Roger B. and Linda that I was some kind of hot-to-trot hussy, eager to “hook up” with Mr. Sullivan.
I put up my palms. “I’m not interested in your husband!”
“That’s what they all say . . . to my face.” Linda’s eyes narrowed. Upstairs, Ophelia thumped around. “I’m watching you!”
The vehemence in her face frightened me. Stripped of her workplace pleasantries and her usual aura of professionalism, Linda seemed like a different person—a deeply malicious person.
I was sorry to have found myself on her bad side.
Before I could formulate a response, Ophelia reappeared.
“Mom! What are you doing up? You’re supposed to be resting.” She slung her tote bag full of props higher on her shoulder, then slipped her phone in her coat pocket. With a caring demeanor, Ophelia hurried to her mother’s side. She took her elbow. “Come on. Let’s get you settled. Did you take some of your medication? Do you need more of it? I want to help.”
“Cash is picking up a refill for me.” Behind Ophelia’s back, Linda gave me one of those “I’m watching you” gestures.
She did seem to be in pain, so I forgave her ire. If I’d been suffering from an ailment requiring medication, I’d be cranky, too. Plus, Ophelia had hinted that her father spent his time doing something other than working. It didn’t take a mental leap to think Joe might be having affairs. That was too bad for Linda . . . although I don’t think I’d have wanted to hold on to him.
You leave my Joe alone! Or what? came to mind. Yikes.
I couldn’t help wondering if Melissa Balthasar and Joe Sullivan had fooled around. If so, had Linda Sullivan known?
“Cash was supposed to have done that yesterday,” Ophelia complained. She made a production of getting her mother settled on the sofa, where a snowman-print throw and several holiday accent pillows awaited. “I can’t believe you keep asking him.”
“One of these days, he’s going to come through. You’ll see.” Linda gave a slight groan as she settled onto the sofa.
“I’m seeing him in a few minutes.” In a tellingly sarcastic tone, Ophelia added, “I’ll tell him you’re still waiting.”
“Oh, don’t do that! You’ll only antagonize him.”
There was no reply from Ophelia as she arranged the throw over her mother. I expected that antagonizing her siblings gave her a reason to get up in the morning. Feeling suddenly aware of my eavesdropping, I politely slipped back toward the front door.
On the other hand, eavesdropping had become my bread and butter as an amateur sleuth. I crept a little closer. I waited.
“But you need your medication!” Ophelia said. “Your head—”
“Will be fine. I’ve already taken a dose. I just don’t have another one ready,” Linda soothed, although it was obvious from her slightly labored breathing that she was still hurting. “You go ahead and have fun today.” Her tone changed. “What are you doing with that woman, anyway? Is she trying to win you over?”
“Mom, come on. It’s nothing like that.”
“I heard about her donut trick! She can’t buy us!”
Catching the obvious resentment in Linda’s voice, I frowned. Travis had warned me it wasn’t smart to “make a splash” in Sproutes. Maybe he’d been right. All I’d wanted was to defuse the protest. Somehow, I’d sparked a social-media frenzy and stoked resentment instead. It was so easy to make a misstep here with these supersensitive folks. Had Melissa done the same thing?
I vowed to avoid punch bowls full of wassail from now on.
“Shh. Hayden’s not trying to buy anyone,” Ophelia soothed. “We’re doing a social-media campaign together, that’s all.”
Linda gave a harrumph. “You’re still doing that? I told you, Ophelia Jane, and your father did, too. You have to go to college! That’s what Albany did. Look how well it’s worked out!”
A pause. Then, “Yeah, really well. For the whole family.”
Before I could be sure of the reasons behind Ophelia’s acerbic tone, the young woman reappeared. She strode toward me as she made a stompingly dramatic exit from her mother’s side.
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!” Linda called from her place on the sofa. “Internet fame is fickle, Ophelia. It’s toxic! Look at what happened to poor Ms. Brown.”
Now rejoining me, Ophelia rolled her eyes. “Let’s go.”
Stuck on Ophelia’s side of this mother-daughter divide, I felt torn. My sympathies lay more with Linda than with her influencer daughter. I knew people sometimes made a good living being “Internet famous,” but that type of celebrity was like every other—likely to be short lived and quickly forgotten.
Awkwardly, I popped my head around the passageway. I gave a brief wave. “I hope you feel better soon, Linda. Bye!”
The editor gave me a killing look, then ignored me.
“Be sure to bundle up, if you’re going to be outside long!” she yelled at her daughter. “Don’t forget your scarf again!”
Ophelia turned pink. Her frown deepened. “Later, Mom!”
She stomped to the door, opened it, then scowled at me.
I recognized my cue. Feeling off kilter, I stepped through. I didn’t want to be on Linda’s bad side, especially on such specious grounds. How could Zach have suggested I was looking for more than a sponsor? He’d made me sound downright tarty.
While I’d been ruminating over my unfortunate new (and unearned) slutty reputation in Sproutes, Ophelia had reached my rental car. She stood beside it, staring at me accusingly.
Sheesh. This whole family was out to get me today.
I remotely unlocked the doors, then followed Ophelia. We might as well get on with our photo shoot, I decided. Until r
ehearsals ended, I couldn’t speak with anyone. Until I’d done that, I couldn’t return to my B&B to ask Zach to please stop spreading the word that Hayden Mundy Moore wanted to “hook up” with Joe Sullivan—and maybe a few other Sproutes men, too.
I didn’t want to make that treacherous drive twice, if I could avoid it. My memory of nearly sliding into that snowbank this morning remained strong. Even frightened by that car chase and slowed by a knee injury, though, I’d been lucky so far.
For Melissa B., visiting Sproutes had been fatal. I couldn’t forget that. The producer had come here only to get some work done. She’d probably had good intentions, good ideas....
“Hey! Earth to Hayden!” Ophelia rudely snapped her fingers. “Are we, uh, getting out of here anytime soon, or what?”
I started, then laughed. “Sure. Let’s go.”
I eased the vehicle into motion, my tires briefly sliding as I did so. The back end of my car fishtailed. I glimpsed a car creeping down the Sullivans’ street with the kind of care that the snowy wintertime weather demanded, and hit the brakes.
We skidded harder across the driveway.
Ophelia yelped. “Hayden, look out!”
My car smacked into the snow-shoveled snowbank. The impact scarcely jolted us, but my heart pounded all the same. That was because as I looked over my shoulder to make sure I hadn’t hit that passing car, I caught sight of its occupant.
The driver was wearing a Santa suit. Plus a hat and beard.
After last night, that particular ensemble felt menacing.
I scrambled for my phone to take a photo, oblivious to our crazy crooked parking position and any damage to my bumper.
I looked at the result. A blurry, useless snapshot.
My eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t sad, though. I was mad. I was frustrated by my own inability to crack Melissa’s case and my inability to save my own skin—say, by not sliding into snowbanks. How long had sinister Santa been following me?
Ophelia snapped out of her tantrum. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I sniffled, then tried to smile. I sneaked a glance in my rearview mirror. Santa’s car had already vanished. Santa’s car. Hmm. Last night our attacker had driven an SUV. This had to be a coincidence—a department-store Santa driving to work. “I’m fine.” I looked at Ophelia. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“I’m good. If I had my driver’s license, I’d take over from here. But I don’t, so I can’t.” She smirked. “Sorry. My dad has been badgering me to get it for years, but I don’t see the point.” She held up her phone. “All my friends are right here.”
I nodded, understanding. Also, I wondered, if Ophelia didn’t have her driver’s license, how did she get around? Was Sproutes’s public transit system comprehensive enough to take her to the B&B to murder Melissa, then bring her back home again?
I didn’t know. If not, it seemed that Ophelia had an ironclad alibi for the night of Melissa’s murder. Either that or Albany’s sister had had an accomplice in any wrongdoing.
I inhaled, put my head on straight, then carefully backed up. “No need. I’ve got this. I just need to go more slowly.”
I did just that and made it successfully to the street.
Inside the Sullivans’ house, someone moved. Linda?
I imagined her hobbling to the window to snicker at my disconcerting almost crash into the snowbank. Well, at least my mistake had probably brightened her difficult day, right? Linda seemed so dedicated to her work at the Sentinel. I was sure her discomfort must be severe to have sidelined her for the day.
Either that or Linda was faking it. But to what purpose?
I sighed and kept driving to the sledding hill, chiding myself for being purposelessly suspicious. Now I was imagining Ophelia taking the bus to pull off a murder? Linda faking an injury while staying home to . . . do what, exactly? Plan another one?
Hmm. Now that I thought of it, it wasn’t that crazy.
But as much as my mind was swimming with theories and horrible instant replays of the night I’d found Melissa dead beside that wassail punch bowl, our morning plans distracted me.
At the top of the Sproutes sledding hill, Ophelia and I parked the car, then gathered all our supplies. She carried her tote bag full of props. I brought along my faux “product.”
“We should probably try some of this,” Ophelia suggested with a mischievous nose wrinkle, “just to make sure it’s good.”
I didn’t argue. It had been hours since my two-pastry nosh. By the look of things, we were going to miss lunch, too. I doled out cellophane-wrapped packages to both of us, then I nibbled.
Ophelia took her first bite. Her eyes widened. “OMG!”
I was proud enough of my work to smile. “You like it?”
“Like it? I, like, want to marry it or something!”
I laughed while Ophelia went to town on the rest of her chocolaty confection. The crushed candy cane topping made it festive; the high-quality chocolate beneath made it delicious.
We brushed off the snow from the fence bordering the sledding hill area, then leaned on it while we munched. Idly, I watched a dilapidated pickup truck rumble into the parking lot.
Beside me, Ophelia stiffened almost imperceptibly.
More curious now, I examined that truck. I thought I recognized the dark-haired man in the passenger seat. Cashel.
“Looks like our model is here,” Ophelia said with forced cheerfulness. It sounded as though she’d gritted her teeth.
I wondered at the source of her annoyance. She’d known Cashel was coming to meet us. Her plan, as she’d explained it to me during our drive, was to enlist her brother as today’s photo-shoot model and pose him with the chocolate-peppermint bark in a variety of social-media-friendly scenarios. Cashel, as an older man, could broaden Ophelia’s “female-centric” demographics.
At least that was her theory. In practice, Ophelia seemed less than thrilled with her choice of male model. She frowned as the ramshackle truck parked, offering us a perfect view of the bedraggled Rudolph-style plastic red nose affixed to its front bumper. Moments later, Cashel climbed out of the passenger side.
As before, he wore an athletic puffer coat and canvas pants, with a dapper red and green flannel scarf twisted around his neck. His face was chiseled, his dark hair topped by an ivory knit cap. Given his physique, I thought he’d make a good model. He exchanged a few muffled words with the truck’s hat-wearing driver, then waved and slammed shut the passenger door.
As Cashel came toward us, I couldn’t miss his cheery demeanor. It stood in marked contrast to the demanding way he’d dealt with Zach at the B&B the other day. I vowed to view him with fresh eyes. He’d had a momentary outburst. It wouldn’t be fair to hold it against him, especially when I barely knew him.
Ophelia wasn’t big on introductions. I wasn’t sure if she was aware that Cashel and I had already met or if she just didn’t care.
She stormed over to her brother, then poked him right in the chest with her non-chocolate-bark-holding hand. “Cashel! You’re supposed to be staying away from those guys, remember?”
“That’s not ‘those guys.’ It’s just one guy,” he said, in an obvious effort to appease her. “He’s helping me deliver some stuff for Dad. Besides, I’m not ‘supposed’ to be coming home for all the Christmas drama right now, either, but I did just that.”
Cashel looked past Ophelia and saw me. He smiled. “Hey, we meet again!” He trod closer and offered me his gloved hand.
I shook it, then studied him while I gave him my name.
“So you’re my little sister’s benefactor, eh?” Teasingly, Cashel gave Ophelia’s shoulder a light shake. “I’m happy she’s found someone. Albany isn’t the only one in the family with talent to spare.” He cast her a fond look, then met my gaze. “I still feel bad about the way we met, Hayden. That wasn’t me.”
As he said so, Ophelia scrutinized him. Her gaze traveled from his boots to his scarf, then lingered on his face. Her expression of
sisterly concern was as touching as it was unexpected. Most of the time, she strived to seem nonchalant.
Apparently, Cashel brought out Ophelia’s caring side. As we got to work setting up photo opportunities, I began to see why.
In marked contrast to the man I’d met at the B and B, today’s Cashel Sullivan was far from entitled, difficult, or rude. On the slope of Sproutes’s sledding hill, with a rented metal-runner sled and many, many packets of chocolate-peppermint bark, the eldest Sullivan sibling seemed positively engaging. He joked around with the little kids who were sledding that day, tossed snowballs, and helped them haul their plastic sleds up the hill.
While doing that, Cashel comically huffed and puffed. His antics drew delighted laughter from several of the children.
“Whew!” With a dramatic gesture, he pretended to wipe his brow. “I’m knackered! That’s a really heavy sled you’ve got!”
“No it’s not!” Its owner, a boy of four or five, giggled. He hefted his sled’s towrope, lifting the apparatus an inch from the sparkling snow. “See? I can lift it all by myself!”
“Wow. You must be superstrong!” Cashel crept closer and jokingly squeezed the boy’s tiny, coat-covered biceps. He gasped. “Are you a superhero or something? I can keep a secret.”
Cashel glanced up at the boy’s mother, then gave a wink.
She tittered, obviously charmed. The little boy explained that he got his strength “from vegables!” pronouncing that tricky word minus a few of its syllables. Nearby, Ophelia snapped away with her camera. She’d switched from her cell phone to a professional rig with multiple lenses to capture the scene.
She really was serious about all this, I realized. For me, showing off “my client’s” chocolate-peppermint bark was a means to an end. For Ophelia, it was a part of her future—she hoped.
The Peppermint Mocha Murder Page 17