by Amy Vansant
“What are you doing?” asked Two.
“I’m trying to decide whether it would be easier to try and step through or go in head first.”
“I don’t think our legs split far enough to step in.”
“Probably not.”
“Try head first.”
One shoved his giant head through the window and fell forward, catching himself with his hands. He walked his hands forward, dragging his body through the window until he was clear.
He stood as Two grunted his way into the living room.
“We need light,” said One.
“I have my phone.”
The room remained dark.
“So turn it on.”
“It’s in my pocket.” Two tried to remove his mitt, but he’d had Three snap them to his costume for him and found it impossible to release the snaps with no fingers.
“I can’t get my mitts off. They’re attached.”
One sighed.
Two pulled off his gingerbread head and wrestled one arm out of the neck hole to then reach down into the body of the costume and find his phone. He popped out that arm with his prize, wearing the costume off-the-shoulder.
“That’s the worst prom gown I’ve ever seen,” muttered One, watching the empty gingerbread man arm flop up and down as Two struggled with his phone.
Two flipped on his phone’s flashlight and glided it from one side of the room to the other.
One gasped. “The place is trashed. We didn’t do this.”
“The television is gone,” said Two, shining his light where the set had been.
One gasped again. “The chest of drawers.”
They both tried to walk down the hallway at the same time, bouncing off one another and the walls. One huffed and took a step back, ushering his partner ahead. Two walked down the hall.
“It’s gone. All the furniture is gone,” he called back as One wandered around the kitchen. He’d wanted to check the drawers but had forgotten without Two, he had no light.
“Someone was here,” said One as Two joined him.
“Who would tear the place apart and take all the furniture?”
“I don’t—” One clapped his hands together. “Noelle.”
“Noelle? The wife? You think she might have been here already?”
“What do you think? You think she’d let stuff she could turn into money sit in one place for more than two seconds?”
“I never met her. They were divorced by then.”
“She made Kris look like a saint.”
“So you think she took all our stuff?”
One shook his head. “I don’t know. The way Kris talked about her—he knew what kind of person she was even back then. I don’t think he would have trusted her to know where he kept stuff.”
“No honor among thieves.”
One grunted. “That whole honor among thieves never really made sense to me. Of course they’d all double cross each other.”
“Right? That never made sense to me either.”
The two of them fell silent.
“What are we going to tell the others?” asked Two.
One pounded a foam fist into the kitchen countertop. “We should have looked in the house earlier.”
“It’s not our fault. The police were all over it. It wasn’t safe.”
One sighed. “Let’s get back. If there was anything here, it’s gone now.”
Two nodded and raised his light to look for his head.
One and Two wrestled their way back through the window and scurried across the street to the car.
“Did you find it?” asked Four as they hopped inside.
“No. It’s gone. Everything’s gone,” said Two.
Three’s voice hopped up an octave higher than usual. “Everything? Did the police take it?”
One shrugged. “I doubt it. I’m thinking maybe Noelle.”
“You think she could have gotten here that fast?”
“I knew we should have done this sooner,” grumbled Four.
“We couldn’t. The cops,” said Two.
One started the car and drove them back, heading up the main shopping road that led to their hotel on the outskirts of town.
“What now?” asked Two.
“Maybe we can snoop around a bit and confirm Noelle took everything,” said Three.
Four laughed. “How are we going to do that?”
Three turned to stare at him with her big blue circle eyes. “I don’t know. Do you always have to be so negative?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I tend to get a little grumpy when I might be arrested as an accessory to murder at any second—”
“Stop,” barked Two.
The cookies in the back stopped arguing.
Two turned. “No, not you two. The car. Stop the car.”
“Why?” asked One.
“Just do it.”
One tapped the brake and, realizing he couldn’t stop in the middle of the road, slowed and pulled to the right.
“What is it? We shouldn’t be hanging out looking like this—”
Two twisted to look behind them. “Back there. That pawn shop.”
One looked in his rearview mirror and saw the glowing sign. “The Hock o’Bell?”
“That’s cute,” said Three.
“I thought it was a taco restaurant. I’m starving,” said Four.
Two pointed to a parking lot. “Pull in here.”
One coasted the car into a large parking lot in front of an outdoor furniture store, next door to the pawn shop.
“Go as far towards the pawn shop as you can,” said Two.
One eased the car across the lot until the barrier between the two lots stopped him.
Two pointed. “Look in the window.”
The lights were on in the pawn shop. All four cookies turned their attention to the store and a collective gasp rose in the cabin.
“Is that the chest of drawers?” asked Three.
“It has to be, right?’ It looks like it.”
One nodded, though the others couldn’t tell. “It is. I built the damn thing.”
“What’s the pawn shop doing with it?” asked Four.
“Maybe Noelle was here. She might have sold everything,” suggested Three.
“Sounds like her,” said One.
“We can go in and buy it tomorrow.”
One sighed. “He has to have cameras. We can’t go in there dressed like this.”
“Just one of us can go.”
“Which one of us?”
“I’ll go,” said Three. “My options for disguises are better. I’ll mess with my makeup or something.”
“I’ll go. I dragged us all into this mess,” said One.
Two shook his head hard enough that his costume moved. “I’m the one who killed him. I should go.”
The other three fell silent. Three reached out and put a hand on Two’s shoulder.
“I’ll go.”
Two began to sob, his cookie-brown shoulders bobbing. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Chapter Thirteen
Charlotte looked at her watch as she left the jeweler’s.
Time to swing by the car lot.
There was something else I was going to do. What was it?
She thought on it as she drove, but her brain kept ping-ponging back to the case. The list of people who might want Kris dead was getting longer by the second. There was his wife, who seemed opportunistic and not necessarily murderous, but who knew? Jimmy was technically a suspect. He could have gotten angry about the missing ring and lost his cool. Frank said the mayor might be in the mix—
What was I going to do? There was something...
There was the person who sent Jimmy the note warning him that Kris was up to no good. Who knew how angry that person was—if what they said was even true. Charging someone for help didn’t inspire confidence in the helper.
Charlotte pulled into the car lot and took a moment to yank her concentration back from
the suspect list. Her missing thought had almost returned to her when a young man approached and waved at her through the window. She stepped out of the car.
“How are you today, miss? How can I help you? Just let me know what you’re looking for and I can point you in the right direction because here at Burke motors—”
Charlotte held up a hand. “I’m not here to buy a car.”
The young man grinned. “That’s what everyone says. But once you see our inventory—”
“No, I’m really not here to buy a car. I’m just here to talk to Mr. Burke.”
“I’m Mr. Burke.”
Charlotte scowled. The man in front of her was barely older than she was. The man in the commercials was quite a bit older. “You’re Arnie?”
He nodded. “Arnie Jr.”
She smiled. “Oh. I think it’s your father I need to talk to.”
Arnie Jr. hooked his mouth to the side and squinted his left icy blue eye. The redhead sported fair skin, ill-suited for a Florida boy. “He’s not here. He’s not here much these days. He got remarried a couple months ago and they’ve been doing a lot of traveling.”
Arnie Jr. tried to flash a smile but Charlotte found it unconvincing. Clearly, Arnie Jr. didn’t love having a new stepmother. He wiped his brow with his hand and Charlotte felt a motherly urge to drag him towards the shade.
She strolled towards the entrance of the showroom where an overhang would block the sun, and Arnie Jr. followed.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
He shook his head. “It’s sort of an open-ended thing. Last I heard they were in Marrakesh.”
“Oh.” That took Arnie Sr. off the suspect list.
Arnie exhaled with what appeared to be relief as they entered the shade. “Maybe I can help you?”
“I wanted to talk to your father about Kristopher Rudolph.”
Arnie Jr.’s eyes popped wide. “What about him? He’s running our charity thing.”
“Your charity thing?”
“We’re raffling off a car for charity.” Arnie Jr. put a hand to the side of his mouth to imply his next sentence was confidential. “And we get a little publicity out of it.”
“Of course. Which car are you raffling? Is it here?”
“It’s not here right now. I can show you one like it...”
“Where’s the actual car?”
“Kris took it. He’s filming a commercial with it.”
“How long ago was this?”
“About two weeks—” Arnie Jr. snapped his mouth shut and tilted his head. “Why?”
“Were you aware Mr. Rudolph died about a week ago?”
Arnie Jr. gasped. “Died? How?”
“Uh, there was a fire...” And an elf... Charlotte picked through her memory, trying to recall what had already been reported in the paper and what she only knew from being at the crime scene.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“It was in the paper. Is there a reason you think you should have been told?”
“Because he has my car, that’s why.” Arnie Jr. dropped his arms to his sides like an albatross trying to fly with one sloppy flap. He remained rooted to the ground, the corners of his mouth sinking deeper by the second.
“I guess you didn’t hear the news.”
“I don’t read the paper.” Arnie leaned against a post, staring at the ground with his arms crossed against his chest, looking very much like a petulant boy. After a good pout, his head snapped up. “So where’s my car?”
“I don’t know. If you give me a description we can start looking for it.”
“Are you a cop?”
“I’m a private investigator, but I’ve been deputized for this case.” She pulled the badge from her bag and showed it to him. She attempted to retrieve it with more flair this time, but the purse still wasn’t cutting it as a badge carrier.
“This case? Did someone set his house on fire?”
Charlotte grimaced, realizing her slip.
“No. I mean, the sheriff’s office is just short-handed right now.”
Arnie Jr. squinted at the badge. She feared the way she’d pulled it from her purse like a toy had made him dubious of her new far-reaching powers.
“I’m thinking about getting one of those leather badge holder things you wear around your neck,” she added, slipping it back into her bag.
“Why don’t you put it on a uniform?” Arnie Jr.’s tone had turned nasty. All his salesman’s pleasantries had been tossed aside like a chewed piece of gum upon being told his car was in the wind.
“I don’t have a uniform. I’m a plain-clothes deputy.”
“Like homicide cops.”
She grinned at the idea she’d already been upgraded to homicide. “Right.”
Arnie glowered at her. “So Kris was killed.”
“What? No, I didn’t say—”
“Did the killers steal my car?”
“No, I mean—”
“You said you were a private eye, too?”
“Yes.”
“Can I hire you to find the car?”
Charlotte took a breath, happy Arnie Jr. had left the notion of Kris’s murder. “Well, like I said, I’m working with the police, so you’d be paying me for something I’m already being paid for.”
Arnie Jr. ran his hand through his hair. “I hope it wasn’t hurt in the fire. Were there any burned cars?”
“No, the fire was in his house.”
“Oh good. I mean, not good, but you know what I mean.”
Charlotte nodded. Arnie Jr. repeatedly tapped his thigh with a balled fist, looking as if he was about to turn himself inside out with agitation.
“You seem pretty upset,” said Charlotte, realizing how silly her sentence sounded directed at a man who may have lost a car.
Arnie Jr.’s eyes flashed with anger. “I gave the man a car. That car was my responsibility.”
The emotion in his voice didn’t sound like love for a car. She guessed he’d come just short of saying Dad’s going to kill me...
Charlotte raised a palm to calm him. “I know but, you seem really upset.”
Arnie smoldered for a moment before his shoulders relaxed. He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “I didn’t clear the raffle with Dad.”
“So you need the car back before he returns.”
He laughed one loud, bitter-sounding bark. “Oh yeah. Definitely.”
“He would have found out eventually, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes, but Kris told me they make so much money on these holiday raffles that he’d be able to pay me the wholesale cost for the car. No harm, no foul, free publicity.”
Charlotte nodded. Jimmy had said the same thing. Kris’s win-win offer to the retailers suddenly seemed much too good to be true.
“So your dad wouldn’t have minded you selling the car wholesale.”
“No. Plus, sales were already starting to pick up for the holidays, and it’s a great cause.”
“Sure. Cancer.”
“Cancer?”
“The raffle. For testicular cancer research.”
Arnie Jr. frowned. “The raffle’s for wounded veterans and their families.”
Hold the phone.
“Rudolph told you the money would be going to vets?”
“Yes. It’s one of the main reasons I did it. My older brother was killed in Afghanistan. I thought Dad would be touched.”
“All the money? Or just the portion of people playing for the car?”
Arnie Jr.’s brow knit. “I thought all the money. He never said there were different raffles for different prizes...” Arnie Jr. held up a finger. “Hold on. We have one of the posters on the wall.”
Arnie Jr. strode to the front of the showroom and pointed to a poster mounted on the inside of the glass. The colorful sheet encouraged people to sign up for the raffle, where they could win a slew of gifts, many of them big ticket items. The car and the ring were featured, along with a one-week stay at a vacation proper
ty in the Bahamas, a pair of racing bikes and cash. While it did tout all the profits would be going to charity, it didn’t specifically mention which charity.
“Do you mind if I take that poster with me?”
“No, sure, I’ll grab it.”
Arnie Jr. jogged inside and she watched him carefully peel the poster from the glass. He held the poster in front of him as he walked back to her, studying it.
“Now that you mention it, it doesn’t say which charity,” he said, handing it to her. “I never noticed that.”
She took the poster. “Thanks. I’m going to go now but I’ll give you an update when I have one.”
“Great. The photo of the car is on that poster, but if you need any other information—VIN number, whatever—I can get that to you. I’ll text it to you, what’s your phone?”
Charlotte rattled off her phone number.
“Will do.”
As Charlotte walked toward her car her eye fell on a used Volvo 240 wagon. Something about the strange boxy shape of it appealed to her.
“How old is this?”
Arnie Jr. released his hold on the door to the showroom and spun on his heel. “It’s a nineteen ninety one.”
“Oh. Yikes.”
“Ah but you have a good eye.” Arnie Jr. hustled over, eating the pavement with his long gangly legs. “It was kept in a little old lady’s garage and was hardly ever driven. It only has fifty thousand miles on it.”
“That sounds like a lot.”
“For a car this old? They usually have at least twice that on them. And we went over everything with a fine-toothed comb. She’s in great condition.”
“You didn’t say how much.”
“Sixty two.”
“Thousand?”
“Hundred.”
“Oh. Right.” Charlotte felt herself blush. She’d never really gone car shopping before and was embarrassed by how little she knew.
“Can I open it?”
“Sure.
She opened the hatchback and peered inside. It didn’t seem very worn, and the back wagon area would make a great place to throw Abby when they wanted to drive to a park or the beach for a walk. The exterior white paint had held up well under the Florida sun.
“Can I drive it?”
“Sure. I’ll go get the key.” Arnie Jr. thrust his hands in his pockets and stared at her, smirking.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m not here to buy.”