by Vicki Delany
“You didn’t like Gord very much,” Simmonds said. “As you made quite plain.”
“I didn’t like him, but I certainly didn’t kill him. I hope you are not implying . . .”
“I never imply,” Simmonds said. She was cut off by a ringing from her coat pocket. She pulled her phone out and checked the display before answering. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up. “I have to go. I’ll want to talk to you again in the morning, Mrs. Olsen.”
“I’ll be at the hospital as soon as visiting hours begin. I can speak with you after. Right now, I’m going over to the hotel. A murder on the premises isn’t good for business.”
“I didn’t say he’d been killed on the premises,” Simmonds said.
Grace raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Don’t think you’ve tricked me into a confession, Detective. I simply assumed that, seeing as how Aline and Merry are with you and you said Gord was killed not far from here. Now, I’m going to get dressed and go up to the hotel.”
Before we could move, the front door flew open and Irene Olsen ran into the living room, followed by Candy Campbell. “You!” Irene shrieked. “What have you done?”
“I assure you I’ve done nothing,” Grace said coolly.
“Sorry, Detective,” Candy said. “Someone saw the body being loaded into the ambulance and told this lady here. I said she was to wait for you, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
Simmonds stepped in front of Irene. “Mrs. Irene Olsen?”
“Yes? Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Simmonds of the Rudolph police. Why don’t you let Officer Campbell take you back to the hotel? I’ll be with you shortly.”
“My husband has been murdered, and you want me to go back to bed and forget all about it!”
“We are investigating,” Simmonds said, her voice calm and in control. “I need to talk to you about your husband’s movements tonight. But this isn’t the place.”
“I’ll walk back with you,” I said, trying to be helpful. Irene’s face was clear of makeup and very pale. Her feet were stuffed into unlaced boots, and a shawl had been thrown over her white nightgown. I reached out, intending to give her a comforting pat on the arm.
“Keep your hands off me,” she snarled. “You did it. I know you did. You and your father.”
“Huh?” I said.
Irene turned to Simmonds. “I heard him myself. In this very room. That foolish man who pretends he’s Santa Claus, her father, he threatened my Gord.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mom and I shouted at the same time.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were all in it together. I heard him. You heard him, too.” Irene lowered her voice into what, I had to admit, was a good imitation of my dad. “‘I will stop you. One way or another.’
“I demand you arrest that fake Santa Claus.”
Chapter 6
I started to laugh. One glance at Simmonds’s face and the laughter died in my throat.
“That’s ridiculous,” I said again. Mom dropped into a chair.
“I understand you and Mr. Wilkinson left the restaurant early?” Simmonds asked Grace.
“Yes, we did. I wasn’t feeling in a social mood and wanted to be alone. Noel kindly walked me home.”
“Did he come in?”
“For a short while. We talked about Jack, reminisced about the good old days. Noel left and I prepared for bed. I was intending to read for a bit before turning in when you arrived.”
“Mr. Wilkinson was alone when he left you?”
Grace hesitated. She glanced at my mom.
“Answer the question, Mrs. Olsen,” Simmonds said.
“Yes. But people are around all the time. This is a busy place, particularly in the weeks leading up to Christmas.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“Back to dinner, of course,” Grace said. “His wife and daughter were waiting for him.”
Simmonds looked at me. Her eyes were unreadable. “But your father didn’t accompany you on your walk in the garden?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
I glanced at Mom. She took a deep breath but said nothing.
“He phoned Mom to say he was going on home ahead of us,” I grudgingly admitted. “He . . . wasn’t in the mood to come back to dinner and make small talk. He asked Mom to get a ride back to town with me.”
“So you didn’t see him again after he and Mrs. Olsen left the restaurant?”
“No, but . . .”
“What time would that have been?”
“I can’t say. I didn’t check my watch.”
“When he left with Mrs. Olsen, he was intending to return to dinner, though?”
“I don’t know what he was intending to do,” I said.
“I wonder what, or who, Mr. Wilkinson saw that caused him to change his mind,” Simmonds said.
“I resent your implications.” Mom slowly rose to her feet and straightened to full diva posture. She had a way of making herself look larger than life, of projecting to the corners of the room, whether a packed opera house or a crowded living room.
“As I might have said,” Simmonds said, “I never imply. Before this goes any further, I’m going to have a talk with Mr. Wilkinson.” She pulled out her phone, and to my horror she ordered an officer to go around to my parents’ house. He was to pick up my dad and take him to the station.
“You can’t be serious!” Mom cried. Irene smirked.
“I can assure you I am,” Simmonds said. “I take threats of this nature very seriously. Particularly when someone ends up dead.”
“Don’t worry, Mom,” I said. “Everything will be cleared up soon. The idea is preposterous.”
“Before I go,” Simmonds said to Irene. “You appear to be ready for bed, Mrs. Olsen. When did you last see your husband?”
“Yes, what were you up to tonight, Irene?” Grace demanded. Mom put a restraining hand on her friend’s arm. Irene looked as though she were about to spit. Instead she lifted her head and stared directly into Simmonds’s face. “Gord and I ate dinner in Rudolph. At the something-or-other holly. One of those ridiculously childish names they stick on everything in this town.”
“A Touch of Holly?”
“Yes.”
“Why not eat here? I’ve heard the restaurant is excellent.”
“Gord’s the sort of man who is always working, always paying attention to detail. If we had dinner here, at the hotel, he’d be concentrating on analyzing the quality of the food, not enjoying himself.”
Making notes about the prices, more likely. I kept my own face impassive.
“You’re staying here, at the inn?” Simmonds asked.
“Of course we are. Gord needs . . . I mean, he needed, to be close to his father at this time. Regardless”—Irene threw a poisonous glance at Grace—“of what she thinks about it.” Irene pulled an overused tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. I myself hadn’t noticed a touch of moisture in their depths. “We got back to our room around nine or so. I wanted to relax and watch some TV, but Gord said he needed to do one last round of the hotel. Make sure everything was running smoothly. He didn’t”—she paused and took a deep breath—“return.”
“Thank you,” Simmonds said. “I’m heading into town now, but I will want to speak to you again.”
Irene threw another look at her stepmother-in-law. “I may not be welcome here, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“Officer Campbell will accompany you back to your room,” Simmonds said. “And wait with you until we can talk.”
Irene left, followed by Candy, who looked as though she was not pleased at playing babysitter instead of being involved in the questioning of suspects. Grace went to her bedroom to change before going to the hotel to attempt to calm frightened guests. Simmon
ds left to—shudder!—question my dad.
Mom and I drove back to town in silence. Only when I’d dropped her off at the police station, and she’d ordered me to take myself home, did I check my phone messages.
Call me if you want to talk, Alan had texted me.
You OK? said the message from Russ.
I was not okay and I did not want to talk.
But it was nice to know they’d been thinking of me.
* * *
I didn’t get much sleep that night and woke feeling groggy and confused. It was still dark. I called my mom immediately, not much caring if I woke her up. I did, but she said she was glad I’d called. Then she passed the phone to Dad.
“Nothing to worry about, Merry,” he said in a very worried voice. “I’d been overheard threatening Gord, and as I didn’t have an alibi for the time of his death, Simmonds had a few questions for me. I assured her that as much as I didn’t approve of the man’s plans for his father’s business, I wasn’t about to kill him over a Mega-Mart.” Dad’s laugh was about as fake as the snow we used to decorate the town’s Christmas tree in July. “You have a good day, honeybunch.” And he hung up, leaving me not feeling a whole lot better. I could at least console myself with the thought that he hadn’t spent the night in the slammer.
I walked Mattie through the dark streets as lights came on in the houses and people emerged to shovel their sidewalks and scrape snow off their cars. My thoughts kept returning to last night. I hadn’t liked Gord one bit and I’d been horrified at his plans for the Yuletide Inn, but the man didn’t deserve to die. Grace’s indifference to Gord’s death had been, frankly, shocking. Then again, was it wrong to not pretend to grieve for appearance’s sake? It would certainly make things easier, for the police most of all, if we went around saying what we thought all the time. Grace had Jack to worry about, and the news of his only son’s death to break to him this morning. I hoped it wouldn’t bring on another heart attack.
Unwillingly, the image of Gord’s dead body came to mind. I saw the sprig of holly laid out on his chest, the knife through it. Holly wouldn’t have been difficult for the killer to get his—or her—hands on. It was a common decoration in Rudolph. It had to have some significance. Did the killer mean to emphasize that Gord had to die because he threatened to destroy Christmas Town?
Or was it an attempt to make the killing look as though it was perpetrated by someone in Christmas Town?
Was someone trying to frame my dad? The idea was ridiculous. Everyone loved Dad. He was the very personification of Christmas.
Well, not entirely everyone. The Muddites weren’t exactly fans of Dad or of Christmas Town itself. Sue-Anne Morrow was worried Dad would be persuaded to make another run for mayor. And, if he did, she had to know he was almost guaranteed to win.
I pulled Mattie away from his inspection of a line of rabbit tracks and set off home. The police would no doubt find the killing had nothing to do with Rudolph. It had most likely been a random attack. That was not an entirely comforting thought, either. The last thing we needed one week before Christmas was for word to get around that a crazed serial killer was stalking visitors.
Gord’s enemy might have followed him here from California. That had to be it. Irene had been mighty quick to point the finger of suspicion at Dad. Was she trying to deflect blame from herself? I considered paying a condolence call on the grieving widow later, but soon dismissed that idea. She was unlikely to take a visit from one of Grace’s friends kindly. She told Simmonds she’d been in her room when Gord had died. Meaning she had no alibi. How stable was their marriage anyway? Her reaction to the news of her husband’s death was more an attempt to point fingers, than actual grief.
Then again, different people reacted to shock in different ways. Perhaps Irene was the sort to do her grieving in private.
I took Mattie home and settled him into his crate before heading to the shop. As long as I was up and restless I might as well get some paperwork done. I stopped at the Cranberry Coffee Bar to pick up coffee and a muffin. They were busy with people heading for work, and I joined the line.
Everyone, it seemed, was talking about Gord Olsen. If there’s one thing the residents of Rudolph, New York, love almost as much as they love Christmas, it’s gossip.
“I hear you found the body, Merry,” the assistant librarian said. “How awful for you.”
“Was he, like, dead already?” a town hall clerk asked, an unpleasantly curious gleam in her eye.
“Multiple stab wounds, I heard,” said the guy who operated the snowplow. “Must have been blood everywhere.”
“No. It was quite peaceful,” I lied. I tried not to shudder as I remembered the scene.
But they weren’t really interested in hearing how peacefully Gord had gone. When I placed my order, I caught the teenage girl behind the register checking my fingernails for blood residue.
“They say Noel Wilkinson was taken in for questioning in the middle of the night,” I overheard a real estate agent say.
“That’s ridiculous,” the kindergarten teacher said.
“It’s true,” he said. “Ask Merry here.”
“Only because my dad was at the hotel last night. He might have seen something important without realizing it.”
Most of the people surrounding me nodded in agreement, but some looked doubtful.
“Lots of people at the hotel last night,” the real estate guy continued. “They weren’t all brought in for questioning.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the assistant librarian beat me to it. “This town has no stronger supporter than Noel Wilkinson.”
“Right,” I said.
“If Noel took one for the team, good for him,” said Rachel McIntosh. “Someone had to get rid of that Gord Olsen.”
“Hey!” I said. “My dad didn’t have anything to do with it.”
They all smiled at me. Rachel patted my arm. “We understand, dear.” She winked. “Our lips are sealed.”
The barista passed me my coffee. I grabbed it with so much force, I spilled about half of it on the counter. I snatched up my muffin and stormed out.
My phone rang as I was putting my key in the shop door. I balanced a half-full cup, the small paper sack, my iPad bag, my key ring, and dug the phone out of my pocket. “Hold on,” I said, twisting the key in the lock. I dumped everything on the first available counter. “What?” I growled into the phone.
“Everything okay?” Vicky asked.
I let out a long sigh. “Yeah. I guess. I’ve just been to Cranberries, and the talk is all about Gord Olsen. Some people have the nerve to be hinting my dad killed him to save the town.”
“Why did you go to Cranberries? You always say my scones are the best in town.”
“And they are.” I didn’t add that Cranberries’ muffins were slightly better than Vicky’s. “I’m at the shop, and they’re on my way.”
“Just make sure you come here for lunch.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Not always.”
“Okay, today I will. Why are you calling?”
“Because I heard about what happened last night. I’ve been told you and your mom found the body. Is that right?”
“Unfortunately, yes. We went for a walk in the gardens after dinner, and there he was.” I shuddered at the memory.
“Are you handling it okay? Want to come around for dinner and talk?”
“I’m okay—don’t worry. It was unpleasant, but not grisly or anything. It was good that Russ and Alan were with us.”
“Russ and Alan? What were they doing there?”
“My mom invited them to dinner.”
Vicky let out a peal of laughter. “Trust Aline. The two most eligible bachelors in Upstate New York, each one of them handsomer than the other.”
“She was being friendly.”
�
��She’s hearing wedding bells, Merry. Or she wants to. Trust me, I know all about it. Once a woman passes the big three-oh her relatives figure it’s time for them to intervene. Last week we had a bunch of guys going ice fishing in here for breakfast, and Aunt Marjorie had the nerve to get me out of the kitchen on some silly pretext to meet them.” I could almost hear Vicky’s eye-roll over the phone. I laughed and felt my spirits rise. I always did feel better talking to Vicky.
“Talk to you later,” I said.
“Offer’s still open for dinner. We can order in a pizza or something.”
“Let’s see how the day goes. I’ll call you later.”
The shop was busy all morning. I overheard shoppers talking about police activity at the inn the previous night, but they seemed to think a man had either died from a heart attack or fallen asleep in the gardens and frozen to death, probably a combination of both. I suspected Grace and the hotel staff (not to mention the townspeople) had been hard at work spreading those rumors. When Jackie arrived she had a copy of today’s Gazette. The story was on the front page, but small and beneath the fold. The picture of a cruiser and police tape cordoning off the gardens could have been taken at just about any crime scene anywhere. Russ had laid out the facts without sensationalism and with plenty of quotes from Detective Simmonds about it being an “ongoing investigation” and that the police hoped to be “close to an arrest soon.” Most tourists didn’t read the local paper, and the report of a single murder in our out-of-the-way town wouldn’t get much space in the larger papers. Not today, anyway, as the online news on my iPad was all about a fifty-something congresswoman found last night in a highly compromising position with an eighteen-year-old male escort during a routine police traffic stop. Speculation was rampant whether or not her ultrawealthy octogenarian husband would “stand by his woman.”
It was midafternoon when the shop door almost flew off its hinges as my mother stormed in. She carried a newspaper in her hands, and it wasn’t the Gazette. “Have you seen this outrage?” she yelled.