Six Merry Little Murders

by Lee Strauss et al.

  “Don’t do that!” I shouted, but it was too late.

  She spotted me racing toward them and waved me over to meet the new arrival, the one who shouldn’t have been let in at all.

  “This is Andy Crenshaw,” she said, glaring first at him and then at me. “He’s the one who should have been here.”

  Sure enough, Andy was dressed in a Santa costume of his own. His was of a far better quality than the dead man’s, though. Probably didn’t mean anything, but it was hard not to notice.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, ignoring me, Nan, and the other store employee as he addressed the manager and only the manager. “I couldn’t find my beard to save my life this morning. Got it now, though.” He stroked the silky white hair on his chin, completely oblivious to what he’d just walked into.

  “Oh, Andy. That missing beard probably saved your life,” the manager cried, and as soon as she did, her employee began to cry hysterically all over again.

  6

  The new Santa—the living one—let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, c’mon, Shirley,” he said with a shake of his head in the store manager’s direction. “Saved my life? That’s dramatic even for you.”

  “We have an unidentified body in the back room,” I confirmed with a dead-serious expression on my face. “And he’s dressed as Santa Claus. Just like you.”

  “What?” Santa number two squeaked. “She’s not serious.” He turned back toward the store manager—Shirley—with his jaw hanging open.

  She nodded. “Unfortunately, she is.”

  “Well, I’m outta here.” Santa turned back toward the door and pulled hard with both gloved hands. Luckily, it had been relocked immediately following his arrival.

  “Now that you’re here, you can’t leave,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest and hoping I looked at least somewhat authoritative. “Your name is Andy Crenshaw. Is that right?”

  “Yes, and if some psycho is taking out Santa’s impersonators, then I need to get the heck out of Dodge,” he grumbled, but he wasn’t fooling me. Not with this act.

  “Well, seeing as you’re already here,” I said with a shrug. “Come with me so I can ask you a few questions. Um, Shirley, do you have a private room where I can speak with Andy?”

  “We have rooms for the cats and birds,” she explained with a nervous glance toward Andy. “Oh, and the storage room. But I’m afraid that’s it.”

  I shook my head. “Those are all occupied at the moment. Are you sure you don’t have anywhere else?”

  She thought for a second, then her face brightened. “The bathroom?” she suggested as if it was the solution to all the problems we faced today. In some ways, perhaps it was.

  “That’ll have to do,” I said, charging toward the back of the store without giving it another thought. “C’mon, Andy.”

  Shirley pushed him forward, then called after us. “It’s toward the back, just to the left of the storage room door.”

  We found it easily enough. Thankfully, it was clean. Unfortunately, it was also rather small and offered no real seating other than the toilet itself.

  “I hate human litter boxes,” Octo-Cat sneered. “They’re so unsanitary.”

  “You can sit if you want,” I told Andy, ignoring the tabby’s side chatter.

  He crossed his arms and leaned against the yellowing wall by the hand dryer. “Yeah, I’d rather not. In fact, I don’t really want to be here at all.”

  I mirrored his body language and backed myself up to the closed door. “Sorry about that. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t have been let in at all.”

  He let out a sarcastic huff, making his feelings about me excessively clear. Couldn’t he see that I was just trying to help? And if he had nothing to hide, then why was he acting like he might?

  I stared at him, working hard to keep my expression neutral and open. “Okay, now tell me. If you were hired to play Santa today, why is someone else lying dead in the back dressed as Mr. Claus?”

  Andy shook his head and set his gaze toward the tiled floor. “I still can’t believe any of this real. Do you think that the killer meant to come after me instead of… well, of whoever it is back there?”

  “That’s a possibility.” I studied my fingernails, trying to appear disinterested in case he looked up again. “But then that begs a whole new host of questions, such as who would want you dead and why?”

  He scoffed. “Jeez, you don’t beat around the bush, do you, lady?”

  “Angie,” I introduced myself without a smile. “My name is Angie.”

  “I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but we both know that would be a lie, given our introduction comes with a body count.” He reached out his hand in greeting and I reluctantly accepted.

  Andy’s eyes locked on mine and he squeezed my hand tight. “Can I please go now? Angie?”

  “But you haven’t told me anything,” I argued.

  “Because I don’t know anything,” he said, his jaw firm.

  I narrowed my eyes and silently counted to five before continuing. If he had nothing to do with the murder, then why was he in such a hurry to get away from me? Away from here? I had plenty more I wanted to ask him, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to some other people before taking a second crack at Andy Crenshaw.

  I stepped to the side and motioned toward the door. “All right. You can go.”

  “Thank you,” he enunciated as he pushed through the door.

  “You can leave the bathroom,” I clarified, chasing after him. “But not the store. I may need to talk to you some more later.”

  He shook his head, then walked away without another word.

  Octo-Cat, who had observed the whole exchange in rare silence, hopped onto the back of the toilet tank, fixing his large amber eyes on me. “Well, that guy’s an idiot,” he said plainly.

  “We’re not here to judge his intelligence,” I reminded him. “We’re here to try to find out if he did it or if he might know who did.”

  “I doubt that guy can remember what he had for breakfast,” my mean kitty quipped, then laughed at his own joke.

  “He didn’t seem suspicious to you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “He did,” my cat confirmed, raising a paw to begin his mid-day ministrations. “But not because he did it. Because he’s too stupid to act cool under pressure.”

  I nodded, even though I didn’t quite agree. “Can you think of anything I should have asked him?”

  “Well…” Lick, lick, lick. Pause. “It’s hard to figure out whodunnit when you don’t even know who they done it to. If you were a pro like the guys on Law & Order, you would figure out that first part before trying to solve the second.”

  Yes, he was one hundred percent right. I scratched him under the chin to reward him. “You’re really smart sometimes. You know that?”

  He flicked his tail and raised the hair on his scruff of his neck. “Please. I’m smart all the time. Also don’t touch me. I’m not in the mood.”

  I was more than used to my cat’s wildly shifting attitudes, so I knew better than to be offended. At least he was helping me.

  Now I just needed to hurry up and solve this murder before he grew bored with it…

  7

  Octo-Cat and I left the bathroom a few short minutes later and traced our way straight toward the bird room. But when we spied Charles inside with a willowy, middle-aged woman and her massive dapple dog, we carried on our way toward the cat room and waited outside until the door cracked open and a young couple slipped through with their giant blue-and-gold macaw.

  As soon as they were out, I slid in and closed the door securely behind me.

  Officer Bouchard sat on a metal folding chair jotting notes into a small spiralbound notebook. “Is it going any better for you than it is for me?”

  “I doubt it,” I answered, keeping my voice quiet. “We still don’t even know who the dead guy is.”

  He finished writing then slipped the notebook into his back pocket and sighed. “Yeah
, that does complicate things.”

  “What are you asking people about then?” I wondered aloud.

  “I’m mostly trying to get a grip on who’s here and whether anyone seems unusually nervous or unusually calm about what happened.”

  I nodded. His strategy made sense, but it wasn’t exactly easy to decode the behavior of people I didn’t even know outside of today’s situation. “Would you mind if I took a picture of the victim’s face and showed it around? See if we can get an ID on the guy?”

  “Go for it. Let’s regroup after we’ve had the chance to speak to a few more people each. Oh, and before you head back, will you please send my next witness in?”

  I had to wonder if the people at the pet store could really be considered witnesses, given that nobody had actually seen what happened—but I supposed it was nicer than calling them suspects. Though, in truth, they were that, too.

  Exchanging a quick nod of acknowledgement, Octo-Cat and I breezed right by Mr. Gable, our impromptu crime scene guard, and returned to the closed-off storage room and the corpse that lay within.

  “Poor sad sap,” Octo-Cat hissed as we strode up to the victim. His body lay on the floor undisturbed since our last visit.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, realizing he had only seen a dead body once before—and that it had belonged to his late owner, a woman he had loved very much.

  “Humans are gross.” He paced away from the body and plopped himself down beside my feet. “Even more so when they’re dead.”

  I couldn’t argue with him there. “It creeps me out being back here. Let’s get the picture and go.”

  Taking his silence as confirmation of this plan, I squatted down and hovered over the body. The elastic string on the beard had snapped, and the victim’s fake beard lay slightly askew across his face. Was that a result of Officer Bouchard’s roughness with it earlier?

  Whatever the case, I pulled it down and snapped a quick closeup photo with my phone. Once I confirmed that his features didn’t appear too blurry or otherwise difficult to make out, I shoved my phone back into my purse and hightailed it out of there.

  Octo-Cat stayed close at my heels, chatting incessantly as we journeyed back through the store. “Let’s see, let’s see. Who looks like a murderer here?”

  We passed a woman holding a baby on her hip and lecturing twin toddlers who sat near her feet. One of the kids held a small plastic tank with a pair of teddy bear hamsters inside.

  “A poor overburdened mom? Yeah, she looks like the type to snap,” my cat commented as we passed, and I was so, so thankful she couldn’t understand him.

  I circled back toward the young family and held my phone up so that the mother could see it, but the kids couldn’t. “Do you recognize this man?” I asked with a frown.

  She shook her head and rocked the baby seemingly even before it started to whimper. “Sorry, no.”

  We spotted the couple with the large dapple dog next. Since Officer Bouchard had just finished questioning them, I decided to pass them by—at least for now.

  “Dog people?” my cat quipped. “Guilty!”

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from mentioning that he had recently become best friends with a Chihuahua. According to Octo-Cat’s infallible logic, his doggie buddy was too small to actually count as a dog, though. Typical.

  We continued making our way down the long aisle and stopped at the next customer, a single man who appeared to be roughly my age. He had an all-white ferret draped loosely across his shoulder. It wore a harness but still didn’t seem entirely under control.

  “This guy definitely could have done it,” Octo-Cat said dryly. “Why keep a ferret when you could have a cat? Dogs, I can almost understand. But a ferret?” He shuddered, staring up at me as if he expected me to immediately slap some cuffs on the witness simply for his choice of pet.

  “Any chance you know this guy?” I asked ferret man, flashing my cell phone his way.

  The animal on his shoulder crept down to sniff at the phone. “That’s Marcus,” the ferret told me, slithering back up to his owner’s shoulder just as quickly and as fluidly as he descended from his perch.

  “Yeah, that’s Marcus Manetti,” the human man said after a few awkward moments passed. “We went to high school together. Still hang out sometimes, too.”

  “Sometimes?” the ferret demanded with a thick accent. “Try every single week. I have to stay in my cage whenever he comes over.”

  “Thanks for helping us put a name to the face,” I told the guy. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions somewhere a little more private?”

  “Yeah, sure, no problem.” He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering for a moment on my ample hips. Ick.

  “Let’s get going then,” I said, feeling his eyes on me as I made my way toward my impromptu bathroom office and he followed.

  “Wait here for a moment while I, uh, review my notes,” I mumbled, taking great satisfaction in the crestfallen expression that crossed his face right before I slammed the door in it.

  “You want me to talk to the ferret while you talk to the creepy human. Am I right?” Octo-Cat asked drolly.

  I nodded and gave him the thumbs up, so happy we were on the same page when it came to procedure. Now that that little bit was taken care of, it was time to commence questioning.

  I flung the door open again and placed one hand on my hip. Since I’d already caught ferret guy ogling me, I wanted to make extra sure I appeared professional and authoritative while speaking with him.

  “Okay,” I began. “Let’s get this…”

  My voice fell away when I discovered that Octo-Cat and I were entirely alone. Our carefully placed—and only very temporarily abandoned—pair of witnesses had vanished.

  8

  I did a full circuit of the pet shop but couldn’t find the man and his ferret. Just as I was about to give up on him for the moment and question someone else, something pulled me back to the storage room.

  More specifically my cat. “Yuck, ferret stench at nine o’clock,” he groused as we were passing by the doors that led into the back.

  I immediately turned back and pushed through those doors. Sure enough, our missing witness and his ferret knelt shaking beside his murdered friend.

  He jumped when I entered. “Why would anyone want to kill Marcus?” His voice cracked midway through the question.

  I stared down my nose at him. Although he was clearly upset about seeing his friend in such a state, he’d also barged in uninvited and contaminated the crime scene. “That’s what we were hoping you could tell us.”

  He glanced toward me, not bothering to hide his tears as he asked, “We? Us?”

  “Officer Bouchard and me,” I clarified. Jeez, I needed to be more careful with my pronouns before they got me in trouble.

  “Way to show appreciation for your real partner here,” my cat growled, then stalked right up to the man and unleashed a wicked hiss.

  The ferret made a defensive noise somewhat resembling a hiss, but his owner remained unperturbed.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him. “Any why did you come back here? How did you even get past our guard?”

  His shoulders slumped. “I’m Scott. I just needed to see Marcus to be sure. I still can’t believe anyone would want to kill him.” Now a sad smile crossed Scott’s face. “And, um, by guard do you mean the old man who’s sitting outside the door, sleeping while cuddling a rabbit?”

  Okay, that was embarrassing. I’d been in such distress over trying to find Scott and his ferret, I hadn’t even noticed that Mr. Gable had nodded off.

  “Why are you surprised by Marcus’s death?” I asked.

  “Hey, ferret, c’mere,” Octo-Cat commanded the little white rodent.

  “The name’s Dmitri. Thanks,” the ferret responded. Finally I placed his accent as Eastern European. Where did all these animals get their accents from if they’d only ever lived in Maine?

  Dmitri showed zero fear of the larger feline preda
tor as he climbed down his owner’s leg and plopped onto the ground. His leash, however, prevented him from wandering too far.

  “Step into my office,” my cat said, circling behind Scott and using the man’s baggy pants to serve as a makeshift screen, thus separating his conversation with Dmitri from the one I was about to have with the ferret’s owner.

  Scott cleared his throat, but his voice still came out scratchy. “Murder is always surprising,” he answered matter-of-factly. “Don’t you think?”

  Fair enough, but not exactly helpful. “Did he have any enemies? Anyone who would want to hurt him?” I asked next while the animals whispered to each other nearby.

  Scott became rigid. His face set in a determined scowl. “Is Marcus the one on trial here?”

  “No, but we need to know more about him and who might have wanted him dead,” I pointed out. “That is, unless you don’t want us to be able to catch the killer.”

  “Of course I want you to catch the killer. I just have no idea who it could be.” And just like that, all the newfound bluster drained away and Scott sat limp and sad once more. “Nobody had a problem with Marcus,” he continued. “I mean, he didn’t really know that many people. He mostly stayed at home, seeing as he was between jobs.”

  This was new information. So far, Scott was the only person who seemed to have any information at all—or at least the only one who was willing to share with some random woman and her cat.

  “At home?” I asked gently, not wanting to scare him out of sharing. If he saw me as an ally, perhaps he would speak even more freely. “Did he live with you?”

  He shook his head and tightened the ferret’s leash in his hand. “No, he and Dmitri don’t exactly get along, though he has crashed on my couch a few times.”

  Hmm. “So he didn’t like Dmitri? Why not?”

  “It wasn’t just Dmitri. He didn’t really like any animals as far as I knew,” Scott explained.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Allergic?”