Mistletoe is Murder

by Kathy Cranston

  “I can show you,” Ray said.

  Jessie glanced at him. He seemed even more agitated than before. She tried to look away but her curiosity had gotten the better of her. Why was he so jumpy? What was he hiding? she wondered.

  “This one?” the chief said, hovering the mouse pointer over a line of text on the screen. “Season’s Greetings. Sent to clients at 8am on the 16th.”

  Ray leaned closer, hands fidgeting. “Yes, that’s the one.”

  Chief Daly clicked.

  “Wait,” Jessie said. “That’s too early. It’s the wrong one.”

  “That’s the only client mailout we’ve sent in recent weeks,” Ray Clintock said.

  “But—”

  “Maybe there was a delay,” Ray snapped.

  “Where are the sent items?” the chief barked.

  “Click on contents,” Ray sighed.

  The chief did so and a box appeared on the screen.

  “How do I see who it was sent to?”

  “Go back out,” Ray said, sounding calmer now. “And click on ‘report’.”

  “Okay,” Chief Daly said, biting his lip and frowning. He scrolled to the bottom of the page. “I see a list of email addresses. Where can I see the email that was sent to Lottie?”

  Ray sighed as if they were truly testing his patience. “You don’t. The whole purpose of this program is to send a lot of emails at the same time.” He pointed at the screen. “There’s her email. See? She and all recipients on that list received the same one.”

  Chief Daly clicked back to the email and read through it slowly. Then he opened up the window containing Ray’s sent items and began to scroll through. Ray became agitated again.

  “If you tell me what you’re looking for then maybe I can help you,” he said.

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” Chief Daly said. “This is good practice for me. I’m not used to all these new-fangled things.”

  Jessie smiled to herself. The Chief was far more tech-savvy than she was.

  “Okay. Between twelve and one thirty,” he said to himself, scrolling through.

  Ray fidgeted so hard that Jessie thought he was in danger of bursting, but he didn’t say anything.

  “No,” the chief said, hopping out of his chair. “I can’t see anything.”

  The relief on Ray’s face was obvious. “You’re done?”

  Chief Daly tilted his head to one side. “Sure.” He reached for the tower and unplugged it.

  “What are you doing?” Ray gasped.

  “Surely you won’t mind,” the chief said innocently. “I’m going to ask the technical team to take a second look. Just in case I missed something.”

  This time Ray looked as if he might faint.

  ***

  “That was interesting to watch,” Jessie said, once they were back in the cruiser. Ray’s computer was stowed safely between her feet.

  Chief Daly nodded. “I meant what I said. I’m going to ask technical to take a look.”

  “Why? The email was exactly like he said it was.”

  “He could have edited in the meantime. I want to be sure that there was no trickery.”

  Jessie nodded and fastened her seatbelt as the chief started the engine. “It’s a shame we’re no closer,” she said. “There was something incredibly shifty about that guy.”

  “I noticed,” the chief said. “I’m sure if there’s anything on here the guys will find it.”

  Jessie shrugged. “I’d like to think so. But so far we’ve found nothing promising.” She gestured to the glovebox. “Like, I sort of hoped we’d see something in the coroner’s report.”

  Chief Daly killed the engine. “You know what? Let me take a look while it’s all fresh in my mind. There might just be some technical detail that you weren’t familiar with.” He looked embarrassed to bring it up.

  “Please,” Jessie said, flinging open the glove compartment. “I really hope you do. This isn’t about my ego—I just want this case solved.”

  He took the folder from her and opened it up. Jessie turned and glanced back at the Clintock building. It looked as deserted as ever. She wondered what Ray had been doing in there all on his own with the lights off.

  Beside her, the chief gasped. She jerked her head around. “What is it?” she asked, startled.

  “The back impacted,” he muttered. “My goodness. That shouldn’t be. It should have been the face. Let me see…maybe…No. It references the sole and I know the coroner’s a golfer.”

  “What—” Jessie started to say.

  But the engine of the cruiser has roared into life and they were bolting out of the parking lot.

  Chapter 25

  Jessie shook her head bewildered. She had never seen the chief like this. She clung onto the seat for dear life as she waited for him to explain.

  But he didn’t.

  He sat ramrod straight and stared at the road.

  “Chief?” she ventured, after a few moments. She half expected him to turn on his siren despite the clear road ahead of them.

  He muttered something to himself. For a moment, Jessie seriously contemplated the possibility that he was hallucinating. Then he relaxed his grip on the wheel and took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at her.

  “The report,” he said quickly, jerking his head at the folder that had fallen down the side of his seat as he accelerated. “It says he was hit with the back of the club. I don’t know how I didn’t see it on the scene.”

  Jessie shook her head. She dimly remembered seeing that description but she didn’t know why it was so important now. “So? He was hit with a golf club. We knew that, didn’t we?”

  The chief’s expression didn’t lighten. Nor did Jessie believe that he’d simply forgotten the detail about the golf club. His mind was laser sharp and they’d found the club at the scene.

  “We took it at face value. We thought we’d seen everything it said, but we didn’t.”

  “Chief, I’m not following. Sorry.”

  He squealed to a halt at a stop sign. “Lottie plays right-handed. I’ve played with her enough to know that—I borrowed her five iron when I forgot mine.”

  Jessie nodded. “Okay.” She didn’t see where this was going.

  The chief’s face was stony. He took off again as soon as the road was clear. “What I’m saying is, I know for a fact she plays right-handed and the club we found is a right-handed club.”

  Jessie stared at him, wondering if she wasn’t the only one who had started to grasp at straws in this case.

  He glanced at her and sighed, seeing that she hadn’t got it. “You’ve never played golf?”

  She shook her head. “Not my thing. My ex used to. I can think of better ways to spend my weekends.”

  “Well, you’ve got different clubs depending on whether you’re left or right handed, see?” He took one hand off the wheel and held it out toward her, straightening his thumb and holding it against his curved fingers. “See? Flat side and a curved side. Face and back. That’s your right-handed club.” He made the same gesture with his left hand and leaned it across his body so she could see. “And a left-handed club is like this.”

  Jessie nodded. “I get that. Okay. But you said it was a right-handed club that was found at the scene? And there’s no doubt that it’s Lottie’s. So…”

  He pulled the folder out from beside his seat and handed it to her. “It’s in the report, see? The injury was caused by the back of a golf club—that’s the curved back part.” He signaled suddenly and pulled over. He turned to her as soon as he’d put the car in park. “Look,” he said, staring at her intently. He held up his right hand. “This is my golf club. Here’s the back, here’s the face.”

  Jessie nodded.

  He swiped it at the wheel and nodded. “See? I swing the club with my right hand and it’s the face that hits. Now, say I’m holding my club in my left hand, like so.” He gripped his right elbow with his left hand. Then he swung it toward Jessie. “You see? See what h
appened there?”

  Jessie’s stomach flipped. “You’re making contact with the curvy bit of the club,” she gasped.

  He nodded and put the car into gear. “Exactly,” he muttered. “The back—just like the report said. I think our killer was left-handed. Did you notice anything about Mr. Clintock?”

  Jessie clamped her hand over her mouth. She had found it odd at the time, but she hadn’t dwelled on it. Now it couldn’t have been clearer. “His mouse!” she exclaimed. “And the strange way he had of leaning into your personal space so he could point things out with his left hand instead of his right! I thought that was weird but in this context…”

  Chief Daly nodded as he accelerated along the highway.

  Jessie glanced back over her shoulder. “Wait. Stop,” she said, feeling slightly panicked. “Aren’t we going back to pick him up?”

  “I can’t arrest him just for being left-handed,” he said calmly. “You think that would fly in court? No, we need to get that computer to the technical guys as soon as possible.”

  “But what if he’s spooked? He could make a run for it and we’ll never see him again,” she said, looking behind them even though Clintock’s office was well out of view by then. “Shouldn’t we bring him in for questioning?”

  Chief Daly shook his head and sighed heavily. “I can’t risk having to let him go before we find anything concrete on him. This way, he thinks we’re looking for triggers that set off Lottie. We’re just tying up loose ends after her arrest.”

  Jessie bit her lip. “That’s if he can hold off long enough ‘til the Chronicle comes out. What if he kills again?”

  “Jessie, there’s not a lot I can do. If I send somebody to watch him then there’s a chance he’ll figure out what we’re up to. The best approach is to find out what’s on this computer that he was so determined to stop us from seeing. My guess is he’s modified the email he sent to Lottie. Think about it—he knows all about her quick temper from dealing with her regularly. He knows about the party because maybe she’s mentioned it on the phone. All he’s got to do is send her something that’s almost guaranteed to set her off and then wait. Then he alters the evidence to make it look like she completely overreacted to his pleasant festive letter.”

  “Almost like hammering the final nail in her coffin,” Jessie murmured. “Paint her as an unhinged individual who over-reacts to something that isn’t even a provocation.”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  They were on the outskirts of Springdale now, thanks to the chief’s speeding.

  “So what do we do now?” Jessie asked as they slowed to enter the town.

  Chief Daly laughed humorlessly. “I get on the phone to the tech team’s boss’s boss and get that expedited through their queue. And you? I don’t envy your task.”

  “What is it?” she asked, staring at him suspiciously. She had done a lot of difficult work to help with investigations. Chief Daly had never labeled any of those tasks as unenviable, preferring to do the dangerous work himself.

  He smiled. “It’s your job to convince Lottie that’s it’s in her best interest to allow me to arrest her in a highly public place.”

  Jessie groaned. She'd done a lot of things in her life, but this seemed impossible. “I’ll try,” she said, climbing out of the car when it came to a stop outside her house. “But I can’t promise anything.”

  Chapter 26

  “It’s only for a night,” Jessie said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. Lottie was like a predator in one respect: she could sense desperation and it made her pounce. “Maybe. We hope.”

  Lottie shook her head vehemently. “No. I’m not doing it. Think of the reputational damage to my business.”

  Jessie threw her hands up in the air. “You won’t care about your business’s reputation if you’re murdered by some madman,” she yelled, before swallowing and telling herself to keep her voice down. She didn’t know who was lurking outside—for all she knew, Ray could have followed them back there.

  “You’re being hysterical,” Lottie said, as if she was simply reeling off today’s specials.

  “With good reason,” Jessie hissed back. “And you’re far too calm. You’re in danger. Even the chief is rattled.”

  “Officer Kendall is sitting outside in an unmarked car.”

  “So? You think he’s going to protect you from some guy who’s covered his tracks perfectly to now?”

  Aunt Bee spoke for the first time since Jessie’s return: “wait, you’ve found out who it is? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Jessie turned away and massaged her temples. Her head was throbbing painfully from everything that was going around inside. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Tell us, young lady. We deserve to know. Especially Lottie.”

  Jessie gritted her teeth. The last thing she needed was an order to tell Lottie what to do, but an indignant Aunt Bee on the case? That was just the icing on the cake. “Look, what we need to do is—”

  “No,” Bee said firmly.

  Jessie turned around with a sinking heart to find her aunt staring at her with her hands on her hips. It was the closest Bee came to having a signature move. She knew she wasn’t going to win this argument.

  “Fine,” Jessie said, holding her hands up. “I’ll tell you. On condition that Lottie considers the chief’s suggestion.”

  “That’s blackmail,” Bee said, insolently.

  Melanie rolled her eyes and shot Jessie a sympathetic look. “You’d know all about that, Aunty dearest. Stop giving her such a hard time—she’s only trying to get this case solved.”

  Jessie sent her a silent thank you. She’d take any backup she could get. She moved back to the table and sat down. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. The chief hadn’t told her to keep the latest development to herself, but she was well aware of how quickly news traveled in Springdale. “It’s Ray. Remember we were going to speak to him?”

  Lottie snorted. “It can’t be,” she laughed. “Trust me. Are we talking about the same guy?”

  “About five eight with glasses? Wiry?”

  Lottie nodded. “Yeah,” she said faintly. “That’s him. But it can’t be him. For one thing, I don’t know him that well. And he always seemed like such a well-mannered guy.”

  “He’s hardly likely to wear an ‘I’m a sociopath’ t-shirt now, is he?” Melanie said matter-of-factly. “For one thing, he probably wouldn’t be allowed to wear it around food products.”

  Jessie sniggered despite Bee’s scowl of disapproval.

  “He doesn’t work around food,” Lottie pointed out. “But I’m serious. I just don’t think it’s him.”

  “Wait,” Jessie said, holding up her hand. “I haven’t told you the most interesting part yet. Chief Daly got the coroner’s report back.” One look at Lottie’s fallen face made her skim over the details. “Anyway, it seems that the killer was left-handed. And it just so happens that Ray is too. That’s not the only thing—being left-handed is hardly a crime. You should have seen him—he was so cagey when we asked to see his emails.”

  Lottie frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him. If anything, he’s irritatingly calm: he’ll go out of his way to avoid an argument at all costs.”

  “No,” Jessie said, shaking her head and wondering if she was finally beginning to get through to her friend. “There was nothing calm about him today. He was so jumpy the whole time we were there.”

  “The email. Did you see it?” Lottie asked. “The one I described?” Her laptop was still at the police station, having been seized when she was arrested. Getting it back had fallen low on their priority lists. They had logged into Lottie’s email from Jessie’s laptop, but there was no sign of the email even though Lottie couldn’t remember deleting it.

  Jessie nodded. “Yeah. According to Ray Clintock, he sent a form email. Just a festive greeting. We saw it ourselves. The chief took it with him to get the police technicians to have a look and see if it was tampered with.”


  Lottie nodded. “No, it definitely wasn’t just a festive greeting.”

  Jessie’s phone buzzed. She grabbed at it just in case it was the chief. When she saw Mike’s name, her heart skipped a beat. She opened the message. It was one word long.

  What?

  Disappointment welled up within her. That was his response to Bee’s text? But now wasn’t the time for this, no matter how much she wanted to dwell on it. She shook her head and dimmed her screen.

  “Don’t worry, Lottie,” Jessie said. “Once the tech guys get at Ray’s email I’m sure they’ll be able to piece together what happened. I don’t know anything about that software, but it could be possible that he never sent you the general email. All he’d have to do would be delete the abusive email he sent to you.” Jessie shook her head and sighed. “Unlucky for him, Chief Daly thought of taking his hard drive. I don’t know how those police scientists do it, but apparently all they need is the machine—they can somehow magic up its entire history no matter what’s been deleted.”

  It was a great relief to Jessie that they could—it meant she didn’t have to delve into the technical world that was alien to her. PowerPoint presentations and document editing were about the height of her tech skills, much to her embarrassment.

  Lottie seemed to think it over. Jessie watched her, willing her to take the cautious route. She shook her head. “No, I just don’t see it. I was on the phone to him when it happened. How could he have done it?”

  Jessie frowned. “Did you call him on his office line or his cell?”

  Lottie shrugged. “I don’t know. Can’t remember.”

  “Try,” Jessie said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. “Seriously. It makes all the difference—you remember that from when the cops thought you did it. Because you called from your cell it meant that you could have called from anywhere.”

  Lottie’s face fell. “You mean he might have been here in Springdale when I spoke to him? He was just pretending to be in the office?”

  Jessie shrugged.

  “Do you have both of his numbers in your phone?” Melanie suggested.