The Christmas Tree Caper

by Melodie March

  And if he showed up at The Flour Girl, I would just have to make him believe it was the truth.

  Chapter Three

  Once we were sure that Kit and Steve were settled while Ross and his crime scene tech/coroner/deputy sheriff, Bowen, worked on the window, Gladys and I made a beeline for my granddaughter’s store. Belle had a good view of Golden Oldies from her shop, so there was a chance she may have seen something if she came in early. When I opened the door to The Flour Girl, the only person out front was my great-granddaughter by marriage, Daisy. She was sitting in a chair in the front, finishing some last-minute homework before she ran off to school, but Belle was nowhere to be found.

  I leaned down and gave Daisy a kiss on the top of the head.

  “Hey, kiddo. Is Belle around? I need to talk to her about something.”

  Daisy looked up from her math equations with a serious face. “She’s in the back putting a bunch of panettone in the oven. Is it about what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Farmer? I saw the mess when we got here this morning.”

  I nodded my head and gestured for her to head into the back.

  “Go grab her for me, will you? If I distract her, she’ll yell at me. She never yells at you.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes as she set her homework down on the floor and walked under the counter and into the back of the bakery. As she did, she left a trail of red glitter footprints behind her.

  Gladys reached out and grabbed my arm.

  “Meggie, you don’t think…”

  I laughed as if it was the most ridiculous thing in the world but a tiny, far away part of my mind couldn’t help but wonder. Daisy was a good girl, but her obsession with Christmas was something else altogether. Her mother passed away on Christmas Eve and ever since, the little one has been intent on making every holiday the best holiday ever. Daisy had always loved Ruthie’s star but breaking a window to steal it?

  “That’s just not something Daisy would do,” I whispered out loud. I thought if I said it out loud, it would mean it couldn’t be true.

  Daisy came back out a minute later with flour all over her face and a scowl.

  “She flicked flour at me for bothering her, so you were wrong,” she said as she grabbed a napkin. “And she said she would be out in a minute.”

  Once Daisy sat back down, I grabbed the seat next to her and turned her chair to face me.

  “What?” she asked nervously. I picked up her foot and ran my fingers along the bottom. They came back covered in red glitter. She opened her mouth to say something, but I’d been raising kids long enough to know what was coming next.

  “Don’t lie to me, Daisy. I think we love each other enough not to lie to one another, don’t we?”

  Daisy’s shoulders slumped and she nodded her head.

  “Okay, Nan. I… I’m sorry. I saw the mess before Mr. and Mrs. Farmer came in and knew something bad had happened. I wanted to take some pictures in case anyone else came along and messed it up. I was super careful, I promise! I know how important it is to preserve the crime scene,” she said as she handed me her phone. I couldn’t help but smile at our little junior detective. I handed her phone back without looking.

  “You could have been hurt, little flower. I know you want to help, but sometimes the best thing you can do to help the grownups is give them space to work.” Her little face looked so disappointed that I could hardly stand it. “But tell you what, you email me all those pictures you took and maybe Sheriff Ross can find a use for them. You never know what a fresh set of eyes can spot at a crime scene. Now, why don’t you run along to school and we can talk about the pictures later?”

  Daisy cheered up a little bit at the mention of her work being useful, then scooted out the door and toward the bus stop. My grandson-in-law and Belle wanted me to discourage Daisy from helping when the Grannies gave a little outside help to the Wintervale PD, but she was a curious kid and I didn’t want to stifle her curiosity. Besides, crimes were usually pretty rare in Wintervale. It was a “sleep with your doors” unlocked kind of town.

  The idea that anyone in Wintervale could steal Ruthie’s star was impossible to fathom.

  “Gran? Where’s Daisy?”

  My granddaughter’s voice startled me back into the real world. I looked up and saw Belle, her wavy red hair dusted with so much flour, she looked like she’d been playing in the snow.

  “She went off to school,” I said as I gave Belle a hug across the counter. “Say, you didn’t happen to see anything when you got here this morning did you?”

  She tried to wipe away some flour from her forehead and just ended up making it worse. “No, I wish I had though. Finn had me up at 3am for a feeding, so I just went ahead and drove over here to start the breakfast pastries since I was awake. Speaking of, Gladys… did you plan on working today, or?”

  I realized Gladys was hiding behind me. She worked at The Flour Girl four days a week and this was definitely one of her work days.

  “Sorry, Belle. I got caught up in all the excitement,” she said as she walked under the counter to go get changed. “Two minutes and I’ll take the front register!”

  Belle just smiled and shook her head. “Anyway, I was in the back all morning with the music up, so I didn’t even hear anything. I feel just awful about it. I didn’t even know anything was wrong until Daisy came and told me. By then, you were all already outside. Do they have any leads?”

  “Nope,” I said as I stole a croissant from the counter. “Not yet, anyway. Well, I guess I should open up Meow & Then. Let me know if you hear anything, Belle.”

  As I walked over to my shop, I couldn’t help but wonder who in Wintervale could possibly want Ruthie’s star that badly…

  And what else were they willing to do to keep it?

  Chapter Four

  Since it was the middle of the week, things were a little quiet in downtown Wintervale. Still, since Christmas was fast approaching, there were always tourists wandering around our beautiful little town, stocking up on presents and checking out our restaurants and shops. My store, Meow & Then, was popular with cat-loving locals, but when Christmas rolled around, people came from all over to buy trinkets and treats for their furry friends. Things felt different today, though.

  Everything was a little… sad.

  Whenever I looked across the street and saw poor Kit and Steve’s shop window covered with wooden planks to keep out the cold, my heart would break a little more for them. Kit and Steve were the heart and soul of Wintervale, so I could only imagine that everyone else was feeling the same way. The sky had even clouded over, casting a depressing ghostly pallor over the whole town. It didn’t help that all I had to do all day was stare at the sad remains of the Golden Oldies shop window and mull over what kind of grinch would steal Ruthie’s star.

  I was just considering closing up the shop and heading home early to my kitty boys, Henry and Otis, when Gladys came charging in. She was still wearing her apron from The Flour Girl which had red icing smeared all over it. It was the perfect color to match the flaming red in her cheeks. She looked like she was ready to light something on fire.

  “Meggie, I’ve been staring at that boarded up window all day and I don’t care what Ross Slater says,” Gladys snapped defiantly. “We need to figure out what happened last night.”

  I tossed her a pack of wipes from under the counter to get the icing off her hands and face, then plopped down on my stool. I didn’t disagree with her. I wasn’t sure Sheriff Slater was going to put a lot of leg work into recovering a stolen ornament, especially when he claimed there wasn’t any physical evidence he could use to find the thief. But it only took me a couple of minutes to figure out it was Daisy’s footprints in the glitter. Ross didn’t even seem to think it was a detail worth noting.

  Sheriff Ross was a good man, but ever since he moved back from New York to take over the Wintervale PD, he seemed to find small-town crime a little more amusing than it really was.

  “I’m not arguing with you, Gladys! Take a
breath before your blood pressure spikes and I have to call Doc Thornton. I don’t think there’s any harm in asking around. It never hurts to have a few extra eyes on something, does it?” Gladys looked at me like she knew I was spinning it as I went along.

  “Okay, so what do you suggest we do? Half of the grannies left town for the holidays this year. Allison’s daughter is back for Christmas this year, so I don’t know how much help she’ll be. It might just be the two of us on this one.”

  Usually, when The Green Mountain Grannies were on a case, they sniffed out clues together. But this year, everyone seemed to scatter for the holidays. That meant Gladys was right.

  It was up to us to get Ruthie’s star back.

  I was just about to close up the shop again when I saw Will Slater crossing the street and making a beeline for Meow & Then. For a moment, I considered locking up anyway and running away, but Gladys would never let me get away with that even if I tried. Instead, I opened the door once Will was close enough to look through me with those same sparkling eyes that used to make me silly when I was a teenager.

  “What can I do for you, Will? Are you in the market for some catnip toys?” I asked knowing full well that Will was a dog person. He tipped his baseball hat at me again.

  “Maybe I am. But I’m actually here on business, so to speak. I managed to hear a bit of news about Kit and Steve, and I thought you and Glady would want to hear about it.”

  Well, you can’t very well send him away now, can you Meg?

  I opened the door all the way so Will could come in, but then I locked it behind him and turned off the store light to indicate we were closed. I didn’t want anyone stumbling into our meeting, especially Ross. Gladys gestured for him to join her on one of the stools in front of the counter. I took up court back behind the register, ready to write down any notes he could give us.

  “Spill the beans, Sheriff Will! What did you hear from your son?” Gladys asked, her chin in her hands like she was a little kid. Will smiled and shook his head at her.

  “Well, there were no fingerprints on the broken glass because Ross thinks it was broken from the outside with something blunt. Whoever committed the crime never touched anything, inside or out, except for the star when they took it.”

  I felt my shoulders deflate. “There has to be something, Will. Anything!”

  But Will wouldn’t make eye contact with me now, so I knew he couldn’t help.

  “I’m sorry, Meggie. But Ross said that without witnesses, it’s going to be next to impossible to figure out who stole the ornament.”

  Gladys chuckled. “Next to impossible is not impossible. I think we’ve all been in tougher scrapes before. Besides, Ruthie’s star isn’t just an ornament, Will. You know that as well as the rest of us.”

  I suspected that Will didn’t need reminding. He’d grown up in Wintervale like the rest of us. But he was trying to keep up a stoic facade for our benefit.

  “I want to find it too, Gladys,” Will said, his mustache twitching with the slightest hint of emotion. “And I’ll do everything I can to help. Just don’t step on Ross’s toes. If he even thinks you’re working this case underneath him, he won’t just shut you down. He’ll assign some of his officers to follow you around and make sure you only go to work and then home, and back again.”

  Gladys scoffed.

  “It wouldn’t be the first cop I’ve shaken.”

  We both looked at Gladys with our eyebrows raised, but this was just one of many new and surprising facts about her that we seemed to learn every week. Gladys had a heck of a past before she came to Wintervale and more than a few stories after she got here. She was our very own little adventurer…

  Of sorts.

  “Be that as it may,” I interrupted before Will could ask her questions, “I’m sure we can figure something out, even if we have to do it covertly. Thanks for letting us know, Will.”

  He didn’t say anything else. He just winked at me, tipped his hat at Gladys, and walked back out onto the snowy streets.

  “I’ll need to lock the door again,” I said absent-mindedly.

  “That man is so in love with you, Meg Harrison,” Gladys replied, totally off topic.

  Of all the things I wanted to talk about in that moment, Gladys knew that Will Slater was the last on the list.

  “Time to go!” I said as I pushed her out the door and locked it before she could get back in. “I’ll call you tomorrow!” I called out the door through the glass into her scowling face. It was time for me to go home and figure out how we were going to get Ruthie’s star back…

  With or without the help of the Wintervale PD.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, Gladys and I skipped our usual coffee and breakfast bar at Bean There, Done That and went straight to Golden Oldies. I knew that despite the window being broken, Kit and Steve would have the shop open and ready for customers and sure enough, they were open alright. Steve must have gotten there at the crack of dawn because he was up on a ladder as he finished painting the wood with a cheery Christmas scene. On the top, he’d painted, “Golden Oldies is OPEN FOR BUSINESS! Happy holidays!”

  “Good gravy, Steve!” Gladys said as we walked up to him. “Were you out here painting in the cold all night?”

  He laughed as he dropped his brush back in the green paint and wiped some sweat from his brow.

  “Aw, heck no. I just set the alarm for a few hours earlier and got out here before the streetlights turned off. We certainly can’t have some boring old wood representing our shop for now, can we? Certainly not with Christmas so close!”

  I was always in awe of Steve and Kit and their ability to stay joyful under the worst of circumstances. It made sense, though; those two traveled to the ends of the earth to be together. I could see how everything else was a little easier to handle after that. Steve carefully came down off the ladder and wiped his hands on the apron he was wearing.

  “If you ladies are here to talk to Kit, she’s inside cleaning up before the glass people get here. She’s intent on getting everything back to normal as soon as possible.”

  I patted Steve gently on the back. “We’d like to talk to both of you if that’s okay?”

  He nodded and opened the door to Golden Oldies, then followed in behind us.

  “Kitty, the Grannies are here to see you!” Steve called out. At first we didn’t see her, but then we heard the rustling of garland from behind us. Kit was in the window, up on her tiptoes, trying to reattach a string of fresh pine garland that looked a little worse for wear.

  “Let us help you, Kit!” I said quickly as Gladys and I rushed over. We grabbed either end of the string of pine and helped her reattach it to the hooks in the wall.

  “Thanks, ladies. I guess I’m a few inches shorter than I used to be,” she said with a laugh. Her Australian accent had barely disappeared after all her years in the US and it was even more pronounced when she was amused by something. “What brings you to Golden Oldies today? Certainly not the decor.” Kit kicked a stray piece of glass into a dustbin like a soccer player scoring a winning goal.

  “Actually,” I said as I helped her out of the window, “we are here about the decor. “We were hoping to ask you a few questions about the attack.”

  Kit plopped down into an old armchair that was for sale in the store and let out a long sigh.

  “Are they going to be questions that Ross Slater didn’t already ask? Because I’m not sure he took any of it all that seriously.”

  I wrote down a few notes the night before, though I couldn’t help but hope Ross already asked them. At least then I’d have faith we were all working together to get Ruthie’s star back.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but Kit, Steve, can you think of anyone who would have a grudge against you or want to ruin the contest for you?”

  Kit shook her head. “Ross did ask that and I’ll tell you what I told him. I can’t believe anyone in Wintervale is that competitive. Half the shops in this town are owned b
y Green Mountain Grannies. No; I don’t think this was about the contest at all.”

  I was inclined to believe Kit was right and I made a note in my notebook about it. I was about to ask a follow-up question when Steve chimed in from behind us, where his arms were full of red velvet fabric.

  “If you ask me, and I know you didn’t, this is just about the ornament. Though I can’t say who would go to such extreme lengths to steal it,” he said as he walked over to the window and started creating plush waves of red velvet around the tree. Kit looked at him like he was a nut.

  “Steven Farmer, don’t you fib. You know full well that plenty of people might want the ornament. But I find it shocking that after all these years…”

  I sat down on a footstool next to Kit and patted her leg. “You can tell us, Kit. If it seems like something the police need to know, well, we can go from there.”

  Kit took a long, exhausted sigh and brushed a strand of her still blonde hair away from her face.

  “When Ruthie passed away and it turned out she left me that ornament, well… her family was not too pleased. It was a family heirloom and at first, I also thought it was a little odd that she put such a precious keepsake in my care. But she made it very clear that I was the only one who was allowed to have it.”

  I was writing in my notebook as quickly as she talked, trying to keep track of everything. You never knew what might be relevant later.

  “Tell them about the letter, Kit,” Steve called over helpfully.

  “I was just getting to it, Steve,” she said as she rolled her eyes, but then lovingly smiled in his direction. “A few years later, Mrs. Middleton, Ruthie’s mother, found a letter in one of Ruthie’s bedroom drawers. Someone else had written to her, someone named Levine, and claimed that the star was theirs. This Levine person said the star was stolen from their family in Russia and they wanted it back. Mrs. Middleton and I decided that Ruthie gave me the star to try and prevent anyone from stealing it.”