Mistletoe, Merriment, And Murder

by Sara Rosett

  “You’d think Waraday would be interested in Simon. Don’t the police always check out the husband first? Isn’t that like protocol or something?” Abby asked as she selected a chip.

  “Yes, but Waraday told me Simon has an alibi. He was working out at Paige’s fitness center.” I left out the part about the Hula-Hoop class. We only had about nineteen more minutes before the kids’ show was over and I didn’t want to distract her from the topic at hand. Hula-hooping would be at least a ten-minute tangent.

  We both chewed thoughtfully. Abby finally said, “Jean didn’t work anywhere?”

  “No. She had her Internet resale business, but I seriously doubt that some buyer would track her down and murder her if they didn’t like the shipping time or the condition of their goods.”

  We ate some more chips. Finally, I dusted my fingers and said, “I can’t think of anyone who didn’t like her. She wasn’t involved in anything controversial, except maybe the debate over what book the book club would read next. I just don’t understand why someone would kill her.”

  Abby swirled the ice in her glass. “I suppose when you figure that one out, you’ll know who murdered her.”

  “I suppose,” I said with a sigh, thinking how tragic the whole situation was. I’d made a concentrated effort not to think about the scene in the garage—it only upset me, thinking of how Jean’s life had been cut short so abruptly and so senselessly—but the picture was stuck in my mind and I knew I’d never forget Jean’s crumpled body lying on the cold garage floor, her red suit a splash of color on the hard gray concrete. I leaned forward. “Why was she wearing a suit?”

  Abby put her glass down. “Jean was dressed in a suit?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Have you ever seen her in a suit?”

  “No. Only casual clothes like sweatshirts, T-shirts, and jeans.”

  “Me, too,” I said eagerly as I stood up and paced to the other side of the kitchen. “Even at the Christmas party she wore jeans and a sweatshirt.”

  “What kind of suit was it?”

  I knew Abby was asking if I recognized the style or even the designer, but that was far too fashion-advanced for me. “It was nice—a fitted, boiled wool jacket with a matching skirt.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Jean.”

  “I know. Gabrielle wore it to a chamber of commerce meeting—that’s why I thought it was Gabrielle at first, because of the suit,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t mentioned the clothing to Waraday. In the stress and confusion afterward I had forgotten all about it. “I probably should call Waraday and tell him.”

  Abby lowered her chin and gave me a long look.

  “Yeah, right. No more chatting with the guy who wants to arrest me.” I walked slowly to the other side of the kitchen as I said, “The suit probably was Gabrielle’s, don’t you think? I wonder why Jean was wearing it? Diane—from the food bank, you know her, right?—she told me she and Jean were supposed to meet for lunch the day Jean died, but I can’t really picture Jean dressing up for lunch with a friend. Did she have another appointment afterward? A meeting?”

  Abby shrugged. “You could ask her.”

  “Gabrielle? No, I doubt she’d even speak to me. I thought she was about to punch me at the funeral when we came face to face.”

  “Well, I better stay a few minutes then to make sure you two don’t get into a brawl,” Abby said, tilting her head toward the dining room window where I could see a black midsize crossover SUV rolling to a stop at the curb. A magnetic sign on the passenger door read GET ORGANIZED WITH GABRIELLE.

  Still in her clingy black funeral dress and high stiletto heels, she marched across the lawn, head tilted down and shoulders squared. Since our garage was standing open, there was no way I could pretend I wasn’t home. I opened the front door before she could ring the doorbell. “Hello, Gabrielle,” I said. Her shoulders were set as if she was going to stand her ground. I wondered if she was prepared to throw her expensive shoe onto the threshold to keep me from closing the door on her, but then she caught sight of Abby, who was behind me in the living room.

  “Don’t mind me,” Abby called as she reversed the sleeves on Charlie’s coat, which had been pulled inside out when he took it off. “We’re on our way out.” I knew from personal experience that getting a kid out the door required at least five minutes. I should have a read on Gabrielle by then and know whether or not she still wanted to slug me.

  “Oh . . . ,” Gabrielle said uncertainly, crossing her arms over her chest and stepping back slightly. “I wanted to talk to you, but . . . I guess now isn’t a good time—”

  She didn’t look quite so confrontational. Instead, she looked . . . cold and rather deflated. She hunched her shoulders against the cold as she said quickly, “I wanted to apologize for today at the funeral. Being so hostile. And for the other day . . . what I said.” She stopped abruptly, threw her glance upward and shook her head. I realized that she was tearing up. Arms still crossed, she shrugged and made eye contact with me again. “I have this horrible habit of not thinking before I speak and I’ve got a really short temper—Jean was always telling me to calm down and think—but I never do.” She sniffed and blinked determinedly. “Anyway, I lashed out at you and there was no reason for it, except that I was devastated to lose Jean and wasn’t thinking straight. I should never have accused you of . . . anything. I’m sorry,” she said, edging backward to the porch steps. “I’d like to talk to you about that day . . . give me a call when it’s a good time for you.”

  “Wait, Gabrielle,” I said. I’d never seen this contrite, apologetic side of her. She looked so miserable. I couldn’t let her walk away. She’d just buried her sister—and she’d apologized. “Now is fine. Come on in. Would you like some hot chocolate or a cup of coffee? You look frozen.”

  She stepped hesitantly inside. “Coffee would be nice.”

  I waved for her to follow me into the kitchen. My path crossed with Abby and Charlie, who was bundled into his coat and had on his backpack. He was so layered that his arms stuck out stiffly. Abby mouthed the word wow at me and I gave her the I know! signal with my eyes. Abby hugged Gabrielle quickly and said, “We’re on our way out—papers to grade, you know. So sorry about Jean. I wish I could have come to the funeral today, but I couldn’t get a sub.”

  Gabrielle nodded, seeming to choke up again. Abby squeezed her arm and said, “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Sure,” Gabrielle managed to say and Abby whisked Charlie out the door.

  “Have a seat at the island,” I said, and made coffee while Gabrielle pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her eyes. I called out to the kids that they could watch the next show. There was a muted cheer in reply. I leaned against the counter near the sink.

  “Thanks for this.” She raised her mug and took a small sip. “And thanks for talking to me. I would have understood if you never wanted to speak to me again.”

  “That’s a bit extreme,” I said.

  A hint of a smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “That’s you all over, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Just that you’re so normal.” She waved her hand around, indicating the inside of the house. “Nothing too excessive, too crazy. You’re the perfect suburban mom with two kids, a handsome husband, and a home-based organizing business. You’ve got it all. You’d never do anything so out of bounds as murder. It’s just not you.”

  “Ah—thanks,” I said, not sure if she’d just complimented me or insulted me. It depended on your perspective, I guess. But there was no malice, no vicious little undercurrent in her tone today, not like there had been at the Christmas party when she’d given me the backhanded “compliment” about how cute my house was.

  She wrapped both hands around her mug and gazed at me over the rim. “That’s what I decided today at the funeral, when I saw you—really looked at you—I knew you couldn’t be involved in Jean’s death. You just weren’t. It’s a gut feeling. I always
go with my gut. That’s another thing Jean warned me about.” She transferred her gaze to her mug as she said, “Jean and I were so different. She was quiet and steady, always following the rules. She always read the directions—used to drive me crazy. And she never tried to find our hidden Christmas presents when we were kids.” A smile crossed Gabrielle’s mouth. “I was the one sneaking down the stairs at midnight after Mom and Dad were in bed, trying to pry off the tape on the presents to see what we were getting for Christmas. I was the wild child, always challenging everything.” She seemed to shake herself, then wiggled back in her bar stool and focused on me. “But I know I’m right about you,” she said confidently.

  I didn’t know what to say. Thank you for not suspecting me? Could you speak to the police on my behalf now?

  Before I could say anything, she continued, “I suppose you think it’s odd for me to be here, but I couldn’t stand it any longer, the funeral postmortem. Simon, so pale that he looked like something out of a bad vampire movie, and everyone going on about what a lovely service it was and how Jean would have liked it.” A little tremor passed through Gabrielle, a shiver of revulsion, I realized, as she said firmly, “Jean wouldn’t have liked it. She never should have died. She’s not supposed to be dead. Talking about her funeral like it was something she would have enjoyed—it makes me want to scream.” She took a breath, then sipped her coffee. “Sorry to get worked up. It just makes me furious the way some people are . . . accepting Jean’s death. Like there’s nothing to be done, but bury her and get on with our lives. That’s wrong. Whoever killed her has to be caught.”

  I nodded in agreement, hoping she wasn’t about to swerve back into accusing me, but she surprised me by asking, “Was your house searched today?”

  “Yes,” I said guardedly. “How did you know?”

  “Of all the idiotic things to do,” she said under her breath. Then aloud, she said, “I confronted that investigator, Waraday, after the funeral and asked him point-blank if he was close to catching the killer. He said they were in the process of getting a search warrant, but wouldn’t tell me for what, or where they were going to search. I heard later, after the graveside service. Hannah said it was your house. Nadia told her.”

  “Who’d heard it from Abby, who I called.” I should have known by now how news moved with lightning speed through the squadron grapevine. I only had myself to blame that the news was out. Nadia loved to be “in the know.” She would have made an excellent investigative reporter. And I couldn’t blame Abby because I hadn’t asked her to keep it quiet. I hadn’t even thought about trying to keep it quiet, but I guess I’d assumed that I’d have a few hours, maybe a day, before it became general knowledge.

  Gabrielle set down her mug with a solid click. She looked more revived. Her back was straight and she had the determined glint in her eye that I’d seen during the chamber of commerce meeting when she was going after new clients. “That settles it, then. I have to get involved.”

  “Involved? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I can’t sit by and wait for Detective Waraday to solve my sister’s murder. If he’s focusing on you, he clearly needs help.”

  “While I couldn’t agree with you more about the focus of his investigation going in the wrong direction . . . what can you do?”

  “I can make sure he hasn’t missed anything—other suspects or evidence he should know about. When he spoke with me about the status of the investigation, I knew he was focusing on you. He never said anything specific, but I had the distinct impression that he thought you were the murderer. I was so wrapped up in grief, so angry that someone killed Jean, I just accepted it. But then today at the funeral, I looked into your face, really looked, and I thought, that man is crazy. Ellie Avery could no more murder someone than she could flirt with the school superintendent.”

  Before I could arrange my features into something less stunned—she was admitting to her underhanded methods?—Gabrielle breezed on. “So I need to figure out who else Waraday should be looking at. What do you think? I hear you’ve got some experience in this sort of thing.”

  “I have found out a few things in the past that have helped the police, but that doesn’t mean we should get involved in this investigation,” I said, thinking what a hypocrite I was. Hadn’t I just been thinking the same thing—that I better find someone else for Waraday to focus on?

  With a flick of her hand, Gabrielle waved away my objection. “We’re not going to interfere. We’re just going to make sure they find the guilty person.”

  “Trust me, Waraday won’t see it that way,” I said.

  “Who cares? It doesn’t matter if he’s upset as long as we find out who killed my sister.”

  It did come back to that, I thought sadly as I chewed on my lip. But, I wasn’t sure I trusted Gabrielle. She seemed contrite and sincerely apologetic for accusing me of murder, but it might be an act. She didn’t exactly have a track record of honesty and integrity, so I didn’t completely believe her. But as she said, Jean was dead and Waraday wasn’t going to find the killer if he kept looking at me.

  “It’s easy for you to write off Waraday,” I said. “It’s me he’s after. If I step out of line . . . I know he’d love to charge me with interfering with an investigation and anything else he can come up with.”

  “Come on, Ellie,” Gabrielle said, leaning over the countertop as she pleaded with me. “If we find anything, I’ll take it to Waraday. He has to talk to me, anyway. I’m a family member and he has to keep me updated on the investigation. Please?” I wondered if she’d used that same upward, beseeching gaze, through thick eyelashes, when she asked for the school district contract.

  I carefully set my mug down in the sink and said, “Gabrielle, I really don’t think it’s a good idea—”

  She dropped the pleading look and leaned back. With the manipulative appeal stripped away, her voice was level and serious as she said, “Ellie, I know you don’t like me. I can even understand why you’d want nothing to do with me, but you knew Jean through the squadron. I know you weren’t incredibly close to her, but you know how sweet she was. Please help me find out who killed her. And, on top of that, you’re in a risky position. Do it for yourself. I realize now how reckless that was of me—flinging accusations at you. It certainly hasn’t put you in a good position and I’m sorry about that. If we find anything, anything at all, that’s got to help your situation.”

  I stopped chewing on my lip. She was right. I hated it, but she was right. She was inside the family and had access that I’d never get—except maybe through a conversation with Simon, and I only knew him slightly, so I doubted he would have a heart-to-heart talk with me about Jean’s possible killers. And Gabrielle had access to Waraday and the information he shared with the family.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, “but there’s one condition—this is information-sharing only. We don’t confront anyone or accuse anyone . . . or do anything else that could get us in trouble.”

  “That’s three conditions,” she said, grinning. “Oh, Ellie, thank you.” She clasped her hands together. “This is going to be so terrific. I’ve never collaborated with anyone. We’ll be partners. No, wait—partners in crime!”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Not partners in crime,” I said quickly. How had we gotten off on this? What had I gotten myself into? “More like partners solving a crime.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gabrielle said, unclasping her hands and jerking her purse into her lap. “I won’t get carried away. I promise,” she said as she dug around the large Louis Vuitton bag.

  Why did I think she threw those words, “I promise,” around much more freely than I did? She pulled out a wrinkled sheet of paper. “That’s what I remember from the day . . . from the day you found Jean.” She slid the sheet of single-spaced text across the island, then pulled out a notepad with a hot pink high-heeled shoe on the cover and opened it to a blank sheet. “Now, I need you to tell me everything you remember about that day,” she s
aid as she reached back with both hands and gathered her long dark hair at the nape of her neck, as if she was going to put it in a ponytail, then twisted it together and pulled it over her left shoulder. She picked up a pen and leaned over her notepad.

  I blinked. She looked at me, pen poised.

  “Okay, well, I thought you were there. That’s why I walked in the garage. I saw the black SUV and thought it was yours. I walked in, called out, and when I didn’t see you, I went over to Jean’s work area. I didn’t notice her right away because the plastic totes under the table blocked my view of the floor.” I wasn’t sure how Gabrielle would react as I talked about what had happened, so I’d been speaking slowly, delaying the part about when I found Jean, but Gabrielle looked up from her writing with her eyebrows raised.

  “Go on,” she prompted. She’d been so emotional when she arrived, but now she was very businesslike. She seemed to have walled off any feeling and was concentrating on only the facts.

  I cleared my throat and said, “I walked farther into the garage and kicked something on the ground—it was the diamond-shaped Lucite paperweight from the white elephant gift exchange. I realized it had blood on it and that’s when I saw her hand. At first, it was like it just didn’t compute . . . it didn’t fit. I thought it was a mannequin or something, but once it registered that it was an actual person, I hurried over there and saw her.” I decided to leave out the part about thinking it was Gabrielle who was dead. I wasn’t sure that was information my “partner” would like to hear.

  Gabrielle nodded, swallowed hard, but stayed on task. “Okay. What happened next?”

  “I checked for a pulse, but didn’t feel anything. Then you came in.”

  “Yes,” Gabrielle said. “That was . . . there are no words for how horrible it was,” she said quickly, then pressed her lips together.

  “Gabrielle, let’s not rehash that afternoon—”