Candy Cane Killer

by Kate Bell

  “John told me you were helping out in Tom Turner’s murder,” she said. “I just can’t believe that happened.”

  “It is a shame,” Alec agreed. He looked at John. “Did you know Leslie Warren is saying that her father Tom Turner abandoned her mother at a nursing home and was dating other women? She said that’s why they were estranged.”

  “I’ve heard different things. Sometimes it’s hard to sort out fact from fiction in a small town,” John said.

  Alec looked at me. “That’s the truth.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  We stood and talked for a few minutes when Jennifer walked up to us. She took my arm and pulled me aside.

  “Hey, Jen, I want to introduce you to someone,” I said, before noticing the wild-eyed look on her face. “What’s up, sis?”

  “Mom, there’s this woman following me,” she said, and glanced over her shoulder.

  I looked in the direction she was looking, but only saw people enjoying the carnival. “Who?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, I don’t see her now,” she said, searching the crowd.

  “How do you know she was following you? There are a lot of people here. Maybe she was just looking at the same booths you were,” I said.

  “No, I swear, every time I turn around, she’s there,” she said, still looking.

  “What did she look like?” I asked.

  “She was wearing a black trench coat and had dark curly hair. I think she was older, but she didn’t get that close to me so I could see. Mom, it’s creepy,” she whined.

  “Where’s your brother and Sarah? You should stay with them, or stay here with us,” I said.

  “I don’t know, I lost track of them when I played the hoop game over there,” she said, pointing to a booth.

  I continued scanning the crowd, but didn’t see anyone in a black trench coat. I didn’t want to say that Jennifer was being paranoid because she was my sensitive child, but I didn’t see anyone behaving the least bit odd. She could have seen something, but I couldn’t imagine how she could tell with all the people moving around. Whoever she had seen could easily have been moving from booth to booth, playing games and visiting with people and just happened to be following behind her.

  “It’ll be all right,” I said and gave her a hug. “Come over here and meet my best friend from high school.”

  I introduced Cara to Jennifer, and we walked around the carnival, with Jennifer sticking close. She looked over her shoulder frequently while Alec looked at me questioningly.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I whispered.

  --15--

  “All right, I’m depending on you to win that Rudolph for me,” I told Alec as we stood in front of the ring toss. Small goldfish bowls sat on Styrofoam rings that floated in a large pool of water. Alec needed to toss a ring onto five of them to win the Rudolph for me. Otherwise, we were taking a goldfish home with us.

  “All right, I’ve got this,” he said, warming up his arm.

  “I want Bambi,” Jennifer said, looking at the stuffed animal hanging from the top of the booth.

  “You hear that? You’ve got two stuffed animals to win,” I told him. “That arm better be strong.”

  He grinned, keeping his eyes on the goldfish bowls. “No problem,” he said and let a ring go. It landed perfectly over the bowl and he laughed. “See?”

  “I see,” I said. “Now don’t miss this one,” I said as he let another loose.

  It landed squarely around another bowl.

  “Wow, look at that,” I said. I kept an eye out for the woman in a black trench coat, but couldn’t find her. Jennifer would look at the crowd every few minutes, scanning nervously. I still wondered if she had imagined things, but she seemed so sure some woman had been following her.

  Alec tossed the next two rings, and they sank perfectly around the fishbowls. “One more and you’ve got a Rudolph,” he said and let the last one go. It hit the top of a fishbowl and bounced off, sinking sadly into the pool of water.

  “Oh, no!” Jennifer and I howled together. “You missed!”

  “You get one of the smaller animals for four rings around the bowls,” the man behind the booth said.

  “Which one do you want?” Alec asked me.

  “Oh, no. I want Rudolph. You’ll have to try again,” I said, leaning on the front of the booth.

  The man running the booth handed Alec a small stuffed cat. “You still get a prize anyway,” he said.

  “What do we do with the cat?” he asked me. “It’s awful cute. Are you sure you don’t want it instead of Rudolph?”

  I grabbed the kitty from the man and handed it to a little girl walking by. Her eyes lit up and her mother reminded her to say thank you.

  Ten minutes and thirty dollars later, we had our stuffed animals. Alec looked at me as the man behind the booth handed us our prizes. “We could have gone to Walmart and spent half that amount.”

  “Yes, but where’s the fun in that?” I asked him.

  He sighed and rolled his eyes. The man had no clue about fun.

  I looked up just as Elmer walked in with Ann Marie, and I groaned.

  “Who’s that?” Jennifer asked, looking in the direction I was.

  “Ex-boyfriend and the girl that use to steal most girl’s boyfriends,” I said.

  “Mom, she’s not even pretty,” she said.

  Have I mentioned how much I love that girl?

  “Thanks, honey, but she really is pretty. Just not nice,” I said.

  “And how could you date that guy? You should be embarrassed,” she said, curling her lip up.

  “Gee, thanks. Back then he was on the football team. It was a long time ago,” I said.

  “So. Not cool, Mom,” she said.

  Elmer made a beeline toward me. I debated whether I could run to the nearest bathroom fast enough, but he had a determined look on his face and I figured he’d probably wait outside the bathroom for me.

  “Hey, Allie,” he said, looking at me and then at Jennifer. Somehow he forgot Alec was standing there.

  “Me and Ann Marie are going to get married,” he said, grinning at me like a loon.

  “Oh really?” I said. “Congratulations.” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but I probably didn’t.

  “Hey, Allie, haven’t seen you around in a while,” Ann Marie said, catching up to Elmer. Her hair was teased like it was 1987 and she wore a skirt that was way too short for the weather.

  “Hey, Ann Marie. I bet you’re excited about getting married,” I said, trying to be nice.

  “Yes, I am. Maybe I’ll have you make my wedding cake. I know you bake a little,” she said. “Oh, a wedding cake won’t be too hard for you, will it?”

  I could feel anger rising up on the inside of me. “I’m pretty sure I could handle a wedding cake,” I said, trying not to spit poison with my words.

  “Who’s this pretty little lady?” Elmer asked, still looking at Jennifer.

  “My daughter Jennifer,” I said, and introduced them.

  “Well, she sure takes after her mama,” Elmer said, looking her up and down. I really wanted to punch him, and if he didn’t quit looking at Jennifer that way, it would happen.

  “Thanks, we need to get going,” I said, and turned away, taking Alec’s hand.

  “Hey, Elmer, John said you were getting some evidence processed for the Turner case. Where are you on that?” Alec asked.

  I smiled. Alec had said it just because he knew it would irritate him, but I gave him a warning look, only because I felt like it was my obligation.

  “I don’t see where that’s your business, seeing as how it isn’t your case,” he said.

  “Now, you know John asked me to help out. There’s no need to get riled up. That’s a Southern word, isn’t it? Riled?” he asked, ignoring my warning look.

  I wanted to reach over and pinch him, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. He was having fun and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  Elmer’s face w
ent red. “I have already submitted the evidence for testing,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now I have things to do.” With that, he grabbed Ann Marie by the arm and pulled her back through the crowd.

  That would teach him to come over and talk to me. I hoped. I would be happy if he never talked to me again.

  “So, you’re making their wedding cake?” Alec asked with a grin.

  “I don’t think so,” I said curtly. “I’d rather have honey poured over me and be staked to an ant hill.”

  “He’s creepy,” Jennifer said and shuddered. “I can’t believe you dated him.”

  “Me either.”

  ***

  “Jennifer said there was a woman following her at the carnival,” I whispered to Alec as we stood on the front porch and gazed at the moon. It was cold out, but the moon was beautiful. I could stare at that moon all night, even if it meant freezing my nose off.

  “Who?” he asked, looking down at me. He was a good ten inches taller than I was, and I had to look up at him.

  I shrugged. “She doesn’t know anyone here. She just said she had a black trench coat on and had dark curly hair. She thought she was older, but she didn’t get that close to her. I don’t know why anyone would follow her.”

  “I remember a woman with a black trench coat,” he said, still looking at me. “Why did she think she was following her?”

  “I’m not sure. Jennifer can be very emotional, so I kind of thought she might be just a little paranoid is all. She said every time she turned around, the woman was there. I pointed out the woman could have just been following the crowd along, like everyone else, but she insisted she was following her. Did the woman you saw have dark curly hair?”

  “I’m not sure. I just glanced at her. I remember the coat and not much else. I wasn’t really looking for anyone and the only reason she caught my attention was because of the coat. Something about it struck me as different. Or maybe it just seemed like an odd choice for outerwear, given the weather was dry and cold.”

  “Well, I told her to stick with her brother and Sarah, or us. I never did see that woman. I kept looking for her after she told me about her.”

  “Tell her not to go out alone, and if she sees her, she needs to call me,” he said.

  “I will,” I said. “You think it was the killer?”

  “I have no idea. But she trusted her instincts, and that’s good. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

  “Okay,” I said, laying my head against his chest. As much as I loved getting to visit with my mama, I really wanted to go home. There had been entirely too much excitement since we had arrived and I was ready for some peace and quiet.

  Tom Turner’s house stood dark in the moonlight and it made me sad. Christmas should be a happy time, not one of grieving. I worried about Leslie and thought I needed to visit her again. Maybe I would invite her to Christmas dinner if she was going to be spending it alone.

  --16--

  The weather stayed cold with a heavy frost covering the ground in the morning. Alec and I got up early to get a long run in before breakfast. My running pants felt snug, and I reminded myself to cut back on Mama’s buttermilk biscuits.

  The ground was slippery as we headed for the woods, and I almost lost my footing. Alec reached out and grabbed my jacket sleeve to steady me.

  “I got it,” I said. We were slowly jogging to warm up as the sun rose above the trees. It was a glorious sight with the bright, clear blue sky above us. “I love this place.”

  “It is beautiful,” Alec agreed. “By the way, how is Lucy doing?”

  “She’s good. Trying to figure this thing out from Maine, and Dixie the cat is doing fine,” I said between breaths.

  He chuckled. “So glad to hear it.”

  We ran in silence for a while, just enjoying the sights. The birds in the trees slowly woke up and began their songs and a rabbit popped its head out of its burrow. I wondered how people in big cities managed to survive in their concrete worlds, devoid of God’s creation.

  “Faster?” Alec asked after we had been running for ten minutes.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding my head.

  The cold bit at my cheeks as we picked up our pace. I glanced at the pace and heart rate monitor on my arm. We were making good time with an eight-minute mile, but I wanted to go faster. There was something freeing about being out here in the wild that made me want to run at my fastest pace.

  As a girl, I had spent many afternoons and weekends exploring these woods and I had known them intimately. I explored mostly on my own, but sometimes with Jake or a friend. Jake had shown me how to catch frogs and fish in the pond on the other side of the woods, and we had grown close, with me looking up to my big brother.

  “Over here,” I said to Alec, and I took him down a now overgrown path, deeper into the woods. Years ago the path had been clear, but in the years since then, it had grown over with weeds and grass. There were some bushes that I didn’t remember seeing back then and for a few minutes, I wondered if I had taken a wrong turn. But then I saw the old oak tree that had been split by lightning when I was ten. I was amazed that it still stood, still leeching out life where it could.

  We increased our pace to a seven and a half minute mile and the woods whipped by. My eyes watered in the cold and I brushed the moisture away with the back of my gloved hand. The trees were devoid of leaves, having dropped to the ground earlier. The carpet of leaves we ran through crunched under our feet, protesting our presence.

  Alec pulled ahead of me by a few paces, and I increased my pace to match his. His longer legs had an unfair advantage over me. He glanced sideways at me and grinned.

  “Ready to go harder?” he gasped out.

  “Yeah, sure,” I breathed out. My breathing sounded like a freight train now, and my lungs burned with the cold, but I was always game to run harder, longer, or faster.

  He turned on the speed and I pushed myself to keep up with him, my lungs protesting.

  In a few moments, my body was airborne. I hit the ground with a dull thud, my head spinning, and the breath in my lungs gone. I lay in the leaves, trying to figure out what had happened and why I was on the cold hard ground.

  “Allie! Are you okay?” Alec panted, kneeling beside me.

  I stared at the small pile of leaves in front of me, confused.

  “Allie?” Alec asked.

  I could hear the panic in his voice, and I looked up at him. “Hey,” I whispered, trying to catch my breath.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, breathing in hard.

  “I, I think so,” I said, mentally assessing my body.

  “Let me help you to a sitting position,” he said and reached his arms around me, turning me over. He gently helped me to a sitting position.

  My head was still spinning and my right knee was throbbing.

  “I must have tripped,” I said, looking in the direction we had come from.

  He smiled. “Maybe running fast through leaves on unfamiliar ground wasn’t the brightest thing to do,” he said.

  “Maybe not. I use to run through these woods all the time as a girl,” I said.

  “I’m sure it’s overgrown since then, and become a running hazard, as we’ve seen,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Well, it was fun while it lasted,” I said. “But my knee really hurts.”

  “Let me see,” he said and gently pulled up the leg of my running pants to expose my knee. Blood trickled out of a deeply skinned patch the size of a grapefruit. “Ouch. That looks painful.”

  “It’s going to hurt more when the adrenaline wears off,” I said.

  “Let’s see if you can walk on it,” he said, putting his arm around my waist and helping me to my feet. “Is it bad?” he asked when I winced.

  I took a couple of steps on it. “Not as bad as it could be. I think it’s mostly the scraped skin, and not anything deeper. At least I hope not.”

  “Good. I’m sure it’ll bruise, but that’s easier to get over than damage done to the j
oint,” he said and he helped me hobble back in the direction we had come from.

  “I guess that’s what I hit,” I said, pointing to an exposed tree root reaching across the path we had been running on. “It must have been covered by the leaves.”

  “I guess that will teach us to run wild and free in the woods, eh?” he said.

  I laughed. “That’ll do it. I’m getting too old to take a fall like that. I am going to hurt in the morning.”

  We hobbled a few more steps, and I saw something glint in the morning sun. “Hey, what’s that?”

  Alec went over and moved some more leaves and exposed what looked like a dagger lying there.

  “Well,” Alec said, kneeling down. “It looks like we may have discovered the murder weapon.”

  “Really?” I asked, hobbling over to him.

  The handle on the dagger was bejeweled with red and green rhinestones and it had what looked to be an eight-inch blade, covered in dried blood.

  “Wow. That looks nasty,” I said leaning closer.

  “It sure does,” he said and took his phone out of his pocket and started taking pictures of where it was laying.

  “Those red and green rhinestones don’t make me feel very jolly. Do you think Tom picked it out for its Christmas colors?” I asked him.

  He chuckled. “You think of the oddest things sometimes.”

  “I can’t help it,” I said. “I’m not odd, I’m creative.”

  “Maybe the victim bought himself a Christmas present,” he said. “I wish I had my notebook with me.”

  I smirked. “I thought it was attached to you somewhere.”

  He picked the dagger up with his gloved hand after taking pictures of the entire area, being careful to not disturb the blood on the blade.

  “We’ll have to send that in to make sure it’s Tom’s blood, but I’d put money on it,” he said. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

  I hobbled over to him and he put his arm around me to help me. The other hand held the dagger, and I couldn’t help but glance at it from time to time as we walked.

  We had gone out over five miles and it was a long walk home. I wondered who could have wielded such a menacing weapon and plunged it into Tom’s chest. I shivered. I couldn’t imagine doing something like that and I couldn’t fathom what must have gone through the killer’s mind that allowed them to take a life.