Candy Cane Killer

by Kate Bell

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t,” I said.

  “She did!” she said, pointing at Jennifer.

  Jennifer whimpered and pushed her head up against my back. “No, she found him already dead,” I said. That was when I noticed the dagger with blue crystals on the handle. She held it by her side, close to her body. I swallowed hard.

  “I know the truth,” the woman said, slowly nodding her head.

  I remembered Mama had said the cleaning woman’s name was Mabel. “Mabel, we would never hurt Tom. Tom was our friend. We want to find the person that did this. We want to help you find them.”

  I could see the hesitation in her face. “You can do that?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I can help you. But you need to untie me so I can help.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s a trap. You’re lying to me.”

  “No, I swear. I wouldn’t lie to you. I want to find the person that killed Tom.”

  My head throbbed, and I felt nauseous. The bright light in the bedroom made it worse, and the room started to spin. What was she going to do to us? If I could just get her to untie me, we would have a chance.

  “Please. I really do want to help you,” I said. “We need to work together to figure this out.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t try to confuse me,” she said.

  She looked to be in her late sixties, but she was stout. On a good day, I knew I could take her. But in my current condition, I wasn’t sure. My eyes rolled back in my head as a wave of pain surged through my head.

  Then the door burst open and Alec knocked Mabel to the floor. She screamed, and the dagger flew across the floor. She raised a hand up to strike Alec, but he grabbed her arm.

  “Let me go!” she screamed.

  “What’s happening?” Jennifer cried from behind me. Her face was still buried in my back and I knew she was too scared to look.

  Alec wrestled with Mabel on the floor, then he flipped her over and held her down. She lay beneath, him sobbing.

  “They killed my husband! They killed Tom!” She cried.

  Alec and I looked at each other wide-eyed. Husband?

  “Mom! Jennifer!” Thad cried, stepping around Alec and Mabel. He rushed to our side and reached for his pocketknife.

  “It’s in my pocket, underneath me,” I said.

  He reached for the dagger on the floor instead, and cut away what held me, then worked on Jennifer’s bonds. I slowly brought my arms around and rubbed my wrists. Blood rushed to the parts of my body that had been cramping up. I looked, and she had tied me with one of Tom’s ties.

  “Are you both okay?” Thad asked. I could see the fear in his eyes.

  “I’m okay. Jen?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  Alec was on the phone, calling John for backup, and I forced myself to sit up. Pain flooded my head with the effort, and I squinted my eyes shut.

  “You’re bleeding,” Thad said and left the room. He was back in a few seconds with a wet washcloth, and he dabbed at the side of my head.

  I pulled away in pain and saw the blood on the white washcloth and felt things going black. I breathed in deeply to keep from fainting.

  “We need an ambulance,” Thad said to Alec.

  “No, we don’t. I’m okay. Just have a heck of a headache is all,” I said, holding the side of my head. I took the washcloth from Thad and dabbed at my head again.

  “Jennifer, do you need an ambulance?” Alec asked.

  She shook her head, staring at the floor. “I’m okay.”

  “I want you checked out,” he said to me and called for an ambulance anyway.

  Mabel lay on the floor and whimpered, and I lay back on the bed. All I wanted was something to make the headache go away and to sleep.

  --25--

  Christmas morning, we gathered around the Christmas tree, opening presents. My head still ached off and on throughout the day, but it was getting better. As I looked around the room at my family, my eyes filled with tears. This could have been a completely different outcome if Alec and Thad hadn’t shown up when they did.

  I took a sip of my hot cocoa and leaned my head against Alec’s shoulder. The smell of baking cinnamon rolls filled the house, courtesy of Jennifer and Sarah. I took a deep breath and savored the moment. We had been through a lot, but we were all in one piece. I was one banged up piece, but it was still one piece.

  When the cinnamon rolls were done, Sarah jumped up and took them out of the oven, cut them, and put them on plates. Jennifer handed the plates out, and we ate in the living room, watching the lights twinkle on the Christmas tree.

  Alec had gotten home late last night after having gone down with John to process Mabel.

  “Did Mabel say why she killed Tom?” I asked Alec as everyone settled down to eat cinnamon rolls.

  “Well, it seems she thought they had a relationship. She had been cleaning his house for a few years and apparently she’d told herself she was his wife. When she told him she was moving in, he told her no, and she persisted for what we think was a few weeks,” he said. “I have to wonder if that prescription medicine bottle you found was one of many for Mabel.”

  “So she had lost her mind?” I asked. “She sure didn’t seem to be all there yesterday.”

  “It took a while for us to get her to answer questions coherently. She had some trouble with reality.”

  “She kept saying I killed him,” Jennifer said. “Why would she think that?”

  “She said she had seen you do it. What we think really happened was that she killed him in a fit of passion, and then hid and saw you when you took him the chicken and dumplings, and in her mind she got confused,” he explained. “In essence, she had a psychotic break.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Jennifer said, shaking her head.

  Alec smiled. “We know that. You didn’t have enough time. We are all a witness to that.”

  “Why did she ditch the murder weapon in the woods?” Thad asked.

  Alec shrugged. “I’m not really sure. She may have been in a panic and ran out there, and either dropped it, or tried to hide it in the woods. Every time we brought up the fact that Tom was stabbed to death, she would go into a panic and start screaming and crying hysterically.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Why was the vacuum gone and then brought back?”

  “I don’t think she really believed Tom was gone. Even though we kept saying it and she kept reacting to it the way she did, she would go back to saying she needed to go and clean Tom’s house and she needed to leave now. She also said she needed to get some gingerbread men baked for Tom before Christmas. He apparently liked gingerbread cookies.”

  “Ah,” I said, nodding my head.

  “That’s a shame,” Mama said, looking down at her hands. “I always thought Mabel was a little touched in the head, but I never thought she was capable of killing someone.”

  “It’s hard to know about some people,” I said, shaking my head.

  “She mentioned that she thought Tom had a girlfriend and it upset her. I think she tried to keep up the fantasy of being his wife and that kind of thing would jolt her back into reality. She just didn’t want to see the truth,” Alec said.

  I took a bite of my cinnamon roll. It was just as good as mine, and I was proud of the girls. I had been worried about Sarah fitting into the family, but this trip made me change my mind. She cared about Thad and that was enough for me.

  I got up and limped into the kitchen and put my plate in the sink. It would be good to get home. I needed the rest. I had never expected Christmas to be scary, but that’s what it had been. I just wanted to sleep in my own bed and forget this ever happened.

  Focusing on Alec and the kids would help me to forget all about this. Alec and I had a new career to begin in January. A career we had yet to iron out the details on, but we had time.

  THE END

  RECIPES!!!!

  Joe Froggers

  1/2 cup butter, softened

  1 cup
granulated sugar

  1 cup unsulphered molasses

  4 tablespoons dark rum

  3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

  1 1/2 teaspoons salt

  1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

  1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger

  3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

  3/4 teaspoon all spice

  ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  1/3 cup hot water (not boiling)

  Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

  In a small mixing bowl combine hot water and molasses. Whisk until water is incorporated into molasses. Set aside.

  In a large mixing bowl, cream softened butter into granulated sugar with a beater. Mix in vanilla. Set aside.

  In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, spices, salt and baking soda, until everything is incorporated into the flour.

  Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and using a mixer, mix until combined. Mix 1/3 of the molasses mixture to this mixture, and alternate with remaining flour mixture and molasses mixture, until well combined. Do not over mix.

  Cover and refrigerate 2 hours.

  Cover rolling surface and rolling pin with flour, and remove ¼ of the dough from the refrigerator, and roll out 1/2 inch thick. Cut out with 4” gingerbread men cookie cutters, and place on parchment paper lined cookie sheets, 2” apart.

  Bake approximately 10 minutes, until cookies are set, but still slightly soft in the center. Do not over-bake.

  Let cool 3 minutes on cookie sheet, and then remove to a wire rack.

  Pipe decorator icing onto cookies and add candies for decoration.

  Apple Cinnamon Rolls

  Dough

  2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

  3 tablespoons granulated sugar

  3/4 teaspoon salt

  1 pkg instant yeast

  1/2 cup warm water

  1/4 cup milk

  2 tablespoons salted butter

  1 large egg, beaten

  Filling

  1 medium Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped

  1 teaspoon lemon juice

  1/4 cup butter

  1/3 cup brown sugar

  1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

  ¼ cup finely chopped walnuts

  Frosting

  4 ounces softened cream cheese

  2 ounces softened butter

  1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  small amount of half and half

  1 tablespoon melted butter for brushing onto dough

  Preheat oven to 200 degrees for ten minutes, and then turn it off. Leave the door closed until you put the rolls in to rise. Line a 10x10 square baking pan with parchment paper and set aside.

  Filling

  Mix in a small bowl peeled, cored and chopped apple with lemon juice to prevent browning. In a non-stick saucepan, melt butter over low to medium heat. Add apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts and sauté until apple is soft. Set aside.

  Dough

  Place flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a stand mixing bowl. Mix the flour by hand until well incorporated and then put bowl on stand. Heat butter, milk, and water in microwave just until butter is melted, about 30 seconds. Mix butter mixture into the flour mixture, then add beaten egg. Mix for 3-4 minutes, until dough is no longer sticky.

  Sprinkle flour on a flat surface and rolling pin. Roll out dough into a 14”x9” rectangle. Brush dough with tablespoon melted butter using pastry brush. Spread filling onto dough, leaving bare a 1/2” of dough all the way around. Carefully roll dough from the short end. There will be a lot of filling, so take care not to squeeze it out the ends.

  With a sharp knife, cut roll evenly into 9 pieces and carefully transfer slices to baking pan. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and place in warm oven to rise for 20 minutes.

  When 20 minutes is up, remove plastic wrap. Turn oven on to 375 degrees. Bake cinnamon rolls for 18-22 minutes.

  While rolls are baking, make the frosting. Place all ingredients except half and half into stand mixer and mix until creamy. Add half and half by the teaspoon until frosting is desired texture.

  Remove rolls from oven, and allow to cool 10 minutes. Spread frosting on rolls and serve warm.

  Buttermilk Biscuits

  2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

  1 tablespoon baking powder

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon granulated sugar

  1 stick, (1/2 cup) cold butter

  1 cup buttermilk

  Melted butter for brushing

  Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

  Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar until well incorporated. Unwrap butter and slice butter into flour mixture with a butter knife, making approximately 20-25 pieces. With a fork or pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until butter pieces resemble small peas. Mix buttermilk in until dough is combined. Do not over-mix or biscuits will be tough. Dough may be a little sticky.

  Sprinkle flour onto flat surface and onto rolling pin. Using half the dough, roll out 1” thick and cut with a 2” round biscuit or cookie cutter. Do not twist cutter. Shake off excess flour from the bottom of cut biscuits and place 1” apart on cookie sheet.

  Roll scraps of dough together to make a single piece of dough 1” thick and cut out more biscuits. Continue, adding the remainder of dough from bowl until all biscuits are cut. Brush tops of biscuits with melted butter and place in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. Watch carefully so they don’t over-brown.