Christmas Card Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “How are you? That was some day you had.”

  “I’m kind of a mess,” confessed Lucy. “I can’t concentrate.”

  “I think that’s pretty normal.” She squeezed Lucy’s hand. “I was just going over to the Christmas Free Store, want to come along?”

  Lucy felt her spirits lifting. “Yeah. I do.”

  * * *

  In the remaining days leading up to Christmas, Ted called every morning to ask if she was coming in to work, and every morning she said she didn’t think so. Then she went over to the free store to help distribute the toys, or worked alongside Bill on the master suite. She learned how to lay tile, she mastered the caulking gun, and she happily painted walls the palest of pale blues with crisp white trim. When Christmas Eve arrived, they finally moved into the master suite, temporarily making do with the old bedding and curtains. Lucy did splurge on new towels for the gorgeous master bath, but she had decided to wait until the January white sales to buy new linens for the bedroom. She was plumping up the pillows when Bill came into the room with some lightbulbs for the new fixtures.

  “How do you like it?” he asked.

  “It’s great. It’s the best Christmas present ever.” She smiled at him. “No more bumped heads.”

  “I’m sure I lost quite a few IQ points over the years.”

  “Me too,” said Lucy, wondering if she’d ever be ready to go back to her job at the newspaper.

  “Sara’s here!” yelled Zoe, so they hurried downstairs to greet her. Then they were off to church for the candlelight service, which Lucy always loved. There was something magical about the old church on Christmas Eve, with the piney scent from the evergreens arranged on the windowsills, the beloved carols, and the familiar story of the baby born in the stable. The best part was when the lights were turned out and the flame from a single candle was passed from person to person as the churchgoers sang “Silent Night.” Then the sanctuary’s darkness gradually gave way to the shared, flickering candlelight and everyone looked radiant and happy in that beautiful, magical moment.

  When they returned home, Lucy got busy in the kitchen, setting out cookies and eggnog, while Bill went in the family room and started the fire. Zoe and Sara were with him, sorting the Christmas stockings and catching up with each other’s news. Lucy had just returned the eggnog to the fridge when her phone rang and she grabbed it, thinking it was probably Toby, calling from Alaska, or Elizabeth, calling from Paris, but instead heard a strange male voice.

  “I got your message. I’m Gilbert Brown.”

  Lucy sat down at the kitchen table. “Thanks for getting back to me. I called because I found a Christmas card that I think you sent to Doris Pritchett. Do you remember that?”

  “I sure do. She’s the one who sent me to jail. She lied about me and I was very angry with her for a very long time.” He paused. “You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I got that check from the lawyers. Nearly half-a-million dollars. In the end Doris did right, and I gotta say, a half-million dollars buys a lot of forgiveness.”

  “So you’ve forgiven her?”

  “Truth is, I forgave her before I got the money, long before. In prison you have a lot of time to think, you gain perspective, and I realized she was pressured to lie by her boyfriend at the time. He was the true killer. It was a bar fight, you know, and I was there, but I didn’t kill anybody. I think she was terrified of him, he was real mean. She didn’t get free of him until he died in a motorcycle accident. She was hurt, too, and spent months in the hospital. That’s what she told me when she came to see me in jail and apologized. She was actually the one who got me involved with the Innocence Project.”

  “That’s some story,” said Lucy, who was itching to write it up for the paper. “Do you mind if I write this up and share it? I work for a little Maine newspaper.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that. I’m free and easy these days. Fine and dandy. I wake up every morning with a song in my heart. I feed the birds, breathe the good clean air. Every day is Christmas.”

  “Do you want that card? As a reminder?”

  “No, ma’am. You can just tear that thing up. Will you do that for me?”

  “I sure will,” promised Lucy.

  “Merry Christmas to you,” he said.

  “And a happy New Year, new life to you.”

  Lucy already had the lead sentence of the story in her mind when she plucked the card from her purse and carried it into the family room, along with the tray of cookies and eggnog. Bill was poking at a log in the fireplace, where he had a nice blaze going, and the girls were relaxing on the sectional, where four big red plush stockings were arranged in a neat pile.

  “I have to do something before we hang up the stockings,” she said, setting the tray down on the coffee table. Then she joined Bill at the fireplace and tossed the Christmas card with its hateful message into the fire. She stood and watched as it curled and blackened, finally bursting into flame and sending fear and hate and anger right up the chimney. When it was gone, she smiled and announced, “Now let’s get those stockings up! Now it’s really Christmas!”

  DEATH OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL

  Lee Hollis

  Chapter One

  Hayley could never have imagined in her wildest dreams that one simple Christmas card would alter the lives of so many people forever.

  But it did.

  And in dramatic fashion.

  It all started on a blisteringly cold, gusty winter night in mid-December at the Island Times newspaper office on lower Main Street. The sky was already dark by four fifteen in the afternoon. The office holiday party was not scheduled to begin until six thirty, so Hayley still had time to get everything ready before the staff showed up to celebrate the end of another year of local news reporting.

  It had become somewhat of a tradition for Hayley to take charge and plan the annual Christmas gathering. Luckily, she had some help this year. One of her besties, Mona, had generously donated enough lobster and crabmeat from her seafood business for some of the tasty appetizers Hayley had been tirelessly preparing for the last two days. These included a Spicy Tuna Dip, Blue Cheese–Stuffed Shrimp, and a Crab–Brie Cheese Ball. Hayley had sent Mona over to her house to pick up all the food she had prepared earlier. Mona was now setting them out on the serving table, but leaving them wrapped in tinfoil to keep the food warm until the guests arrived.

  Meanwhile, Hayley was busy arranging her homemade Christmas cookies on a platter and keeping a watchful eye on Mona. She wanted to make sure Mona didn’t scarf down half of her holiday cheesecake before anyone else had the chance to try it, like she had done last year when she unexpectedly crashed the party.

  At least this year, Mona had been officially invited. Editor in chief Sal Moretti’s one rule was that the holiday party was for employees of the paper only. However, everyone was welcome to bring one guest. Since Hayley and Bruce both worked at the Island Times, this year Hayley had made Mona her plus one. How could she not? Mona had given her hundreds of dollars of free seafood!

  Her second helper assisting with party preparations, Sal’s wife of twenty-six years, Rosana Moretti, was at the moment standing on top of a small ladder, up on her tippy toes. Her arms were stretched as far as they could be as she tried pinning mistletoe on the top of the door frame leading to the back bull pen. She was a tiny thing, barely cracking five feet tall. She had a mop of grayish hair and thick black glasses that made her look like an aged version of the bookish Velma character from all those Scooby-Doo episodes and movies Hayley watched as a kid.

  Hayley suddenly noticed the ladder teetering from side to side as Rosana, a piece of Scotch tape attached to her right index finger, her tongue protruding out of her mouth as she concentrated, tried in vain to tape the string tied to the piece of mistletoe to the door frame. She suddenly lost her balance and started to topple over.

  “Rosana!” Hayley squealed.

  “I got her!” Mona cried. She was much closer to the ladder and
managed to dash over in time to catch Rosana in her thick arms. Mona effortlessly set the woman down as if she weighed no more than a rag doll.

  “Rosana, I told you to let Mona do that!” Hayley scolded. “She’s taller than you.”

  “I know, I just didn’t want to bother her,” Rosana said meekly. “I’m sorry to cause such a fuss.”

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Just be careful,” Hayley admonished.

  Hayley adored Rosana. Unlike her blustery, loudmouthed, hot-tempered husband, Sal’s wife was soft-spoken, sweet, never without a kind word, and was always concerned with keeping the peace.

  The saying was true.

  Opposites did indeed attract.

  That old cliché probably explained Hayley and Bruce’s surprising marriage as well.

  Mona gently pushed Rosana out of the way, climbed up the ladder, and, without breaking a sweat, easily taped the mistletoe so it hung down from the top of the door frame perfectly. When Mona stepped back down, she turned to Hayley and barked, “When can we have some cheesecake?”

  “When the guests arrive, Mona, and not a moment before. Got it?” Hayley warned.

  “That’s two hours from now. I’m never going to make it,” Mona groaned. “By the way, Dennis is coming. He’s Bruce’s plus one.”

  This unexpected news blindsided Hayley—not that Bruce had invited Mona’s husband, Dennis, to be his guest, but that Dennis had actually agreed to get off the couch for once and appear in public. And at a Christmas party of all things! Dennis hated mingling and talking to people. He rarely talked to Mona. In fact, the only recent time Hayley had heard him speak was when she was over at their house earlier in the fall. Dennis was yelling at some Red Sox player on TV for striking out at the top of the ninth inning.

  “I know, I know, I was as shocked as you. I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately. Suddenly he’s acting like he’s a real person in this world. Maybe he’s dying and just hasn’t gotten around to telling me yet,” Mona said.

  “Mona, don’t say such things!” Rosana gasped, mortified.

  “Trust me, Rosana, he’s not going anywhere. The man eats and drinks too much, never exercises, has a negative attitude most of the time, but he’s as healthy as a horse. I know God will kill me off first and let him live to be a hundred just to be funny!” Mona barked.

  “It’s Christmas! Let’s talk about something more pleasant! Did you see the sweater I knitted for Sal? He wore it to the office today,” Rosana chirped.

  “Oh, yes, the one with the gingerbread man on it that says, ‘Let’s Get Baked’?”

  “Isn’t it adorable? I saw one like it on Pinterest, so I just had to make one for him myself.”

  Mona raised an eyebrow. “ ‘Let’s Get Baked’? Do you know what that really means?”

  Rosana nodded. “Yes. Sal loves eating my gingerbread cookies. I bake them every Christmas.”

  She clearly did not know the real meaning of the phrase.

  Before Mona had a chance to explain to the naive Rosana that her homemade sweater was promoting the use of marijuana, Hayley quickly interjected, “You’ve done a wonderful job decorating the office, Rosana.”

  “Thank you, Hayley,” Rosana beamed, glancing around and inspecting her work: the hanging Christmas ball tapestry, the flower tree, the blinking colored lights strung around the room.

  Hayley spied Mona, who was about to covertly cut herself a piece of the cheesecake, when suddenly they heard a screeching voice coming from the back bull pen. “I saw you with my own eyes! You embarrassed me, yourself, and that poor woman you were accosting! Yes, you were, Leonard! There is no other word for it! You were accosting her!”

  Hayley instantly recognized the voice. It was Andrea Cho, the Island Times’s new sports reporter who had moved down to Bar Harbor from Hampden in October with her husband, Leonard, to start working at the paper. Hayley believed Sal had hired her because she was his kindred spirit, outspoken and short-tempered. She was nice enough to Hayley, they got along just fine, but when it came to her henpecked, browbeaten husband, well, Hayley felt sorry for him. The few times she had seen them together, Andrea was always berating and belittling Leonard. In fact, she almost seemed to enjoy tormenting him.

  “I wonder what he’s done now?” Hayley asked absently, taking the last of her cookies out of the Tupperware container and arranging them on the platter.

  “Oh, this has been going on all day,” Rosana said. “I was here decorating during the lunch hour, and from what I could understand, apparently Andrea was out at the high school last night covering the boys’ basketball game, where Leonard volunteers as assistant coach . . .”

  “Yeah, I hear he’s a real sports nut,” Mona said.

  Rosana lowered her voice, flicking her eyes around to make sure no one was around to hear. “Apparently, sports isn’t the only thing he loves. He’s also a big fan of the ladies. Andrea showed up and one of the varsity cheerleaders couldn’t wait to tell her that Leonard had been shamelessly flirting with a woman who was watching the game in the stands.”

  “Who was the woman?” Hayley excitedly asked.

  “She never mentioned a name. But Andrea’s been calling him all day, yelling at him about it,” Rosana said.

  Suddenly, without warning, Andrea stormed out from the bull pen into the front office. Rosana, panicking, snatched one of Hayley’s cookies and stuffed it in her mouth. “Oh, Hayley, these are delicious,” she said, bits of cookie tumbling out of the sides of her mouth.

  Hayley, Mona, and Rosana all struck awkward poses, desperately pretending they had not been eavesdropping on Andrea’s intense phone conversation.

  Andrea was an attractive, petite Asian woman. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing jeans and a bulky sweater. She marched over to the table with the big punch bowl of eggnog and stared at the one small bottle of Bacardi rum next to it.

  “That isn’t going to be nearly enough rum for the eggnog,” she announced.

  “Maybe Leonard could pick some up on his way over,” Rosana chirped before her eyes bugged out as she realized she had just brought up his name.

  Andrea rolled her eyes and snapped, “Leonard’s not coming tonight.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Is he sick?” Hayley asked, not at all convincing as she tried acting clueless.

  “He’s fine. He’s just not invited,” Andrea said, scowling. “We definitely need more rum. In fact, we’re going to need lots of it, if I’m ever going to make it through this party tonight.”

  “Mona’s got her truck outside. Maybe she can swing by the Shop ’n Save and pick some up,” Hayley suggested.

  “Forget it. I’ll go get it. I need the fresh air. It’s way too hot in here,” Andrea said before brusquely pushing past them and out the door.

  “She didn’t even put on a jacket. It’s like twenty degrees outside,” Rosana said, shivering.

  The door had not yet closed when they heard a man’s voice outside say, “Merry Christmas, Andrea.”

  She didn’t bother to answer him.

  After a few moments, a young man in his midtwenties—tall, good-looking, wavy blond hair, bundled up in an L.L.Bean parka—ambled in with a bright smile on his face. “Good evening, ladies.”

  “Hi, David,” Hayley and Rosana both said.

  Mona just grunted.

  Like Andrea Cho, David Pine was also a relatively new hire at the Island Times. He was a Maine native, his family from Bangor, and he had studied journalism at the University of Maine at Orono before interning at his hometown paper, the Bangor Daily News. He took an interest in crime reporting, and when the regular reporter was on vacation, he had written a few articles, which had impressed Sal.

  Always scouting new talent, Sal had hired him to come down to the island and work at the paper. David was an avid kayaker and loved the idea of living near the ocean, so he had jumped at the chance. Bruce had quickly taken him under his wing and the two worked closely together on a few stories
over the ensuing months. Bruce was equally dazzled by David’s writing talent and considered him a protégé.

  At first, Hayley worried the ambitious young cub reporter might be out for her husband’s job, but Bruce didn’t seem too worried. Not to mention the fact that Bruce had been making some noises lately about leaving the paper and trying his hand at writing true crime books. So things just might work out fine in the end anyway.

  “Is something wrong with Andrea?” David asked.

  They all looked at each other warily and said in unison, “No.”

  David cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a firm ‘no,’ or do you just not want to tell me?”

  “It’s more of an ‘Ask her if you really want to know,’ ” Hayley answered firmly.

  “Gotcha,” David said, shaking off his parka to reveal a blue Oxford dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the collar open just enough to show off his smooth, muscled chest, which definitely got the attention of all three ladies in the room.

  He then wandered over to the food table and perused all the delectable sweets. “Wow, this looks awesome.”

  “I get the first piece of cheesecake, so don’t even think about it!” Mona barked.

  David raised his hands in the air. “I would never want to get on your bad side, Mona.”

  Hayley smiled. “Help yourself to a cookie. We’ve got plenty.”

  David picked up a sugar cookie in the shape of a Christmas tree and took a bite. Once he swallowed, he said, “Oh, before I forget . . .” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, extracted a red envelope, and handed it to Hayley.

  “Is this from you?” Hayley asked, brightening.