Not at all like the slacker Jared of today, who spent way too much of his time at Lollie’s Tavern, slinging back beer after beer.
Cyril’s desk was one of those metal ones, more practical than pretty, but it was clean and orderly. His chair squeaked as he pushed it back and motioned for us to sit, his round face and the pillow-puffy bags under his eyes cheerful and welcoming.
I took a deep breath, trying to remember this wasn’t an interrogation. I was simply inquiring about Lance Hilroy and commiserating over someone who’d contacted me about selling the factory. But I felt more like a turnip who’d rolled off a truck. I don’t know how my sister does this all the time, and with such enviable ease, because I was a nervous wreck.
“Cyril, thanks so much for seeing us. I know you’re busy. This is my new tenant, Hobbs. I’ve been showing him around town.”
“Uh-yup. Just remembered we’ve met. Drive a Jeep, don’t ya?” Cyril asked with a smile yellowed from too much chew.
Hobbs pulled off his glove and held out his hand to him before he said, “Hobbs Dainty, case you forgot. Pleasure to see you again, sir.”
The men shook hands before we took our seats and Cyril leaned forward, his thick dark hair, sprinkled with salt and pepper, tucked under his knit cap as he stuck his thumbs in his grease-covered denim overalls. “And no trouble, Hal. No trouble at all. You’re good to Aggie, and you tried to be good to Jared…” He shook his head, his hooded blue eyes going cloudy for a moment before he shook it off. “What can I do for ya?”
I had tried to hire Jared, but he showed up drunk one too many times for my comfort, and thankfully, he quit before I had to fire him. Heavy machinery and booze don’t mix.
Licking my lips, I tried to form the words—words that wouldn’t upset him, but this was foreign territory for me. I’d never questioned someone I thought might be a suspect in a murder investigation.
But now, looking at Cyril, I almost couldn’t believe he’d murder anyone. He was too sweet. Too kind. Too much of everything a murderer wasn’t.
Maybe I was too close to this… Wasn’t everyone a suspect until they weren’t?
“We just came to check on you, Cyril. Hal was a victim of this Lance Hilroy, too. You know, the man who was murdered last night?” Hobbs said, intervening on the long pause, and I gratefully let him.
Yet, I bristled at the word victim. “Victim is the wrong word, Cyril. Maybe target is a better one. I’m no victim.”
“Mea culpa,” Hobbs said, smiling at me. “My apologies. Hal was a target of this unsavory character Hilroy.”
Instantly, Cyril’s face went dark, his chapped lips pursing. He tapped his index finger on the metal desk. “I sure do know who he is. Tried to talk me into selling the garage for next to nothin’.”
I nodded my head, pulling my gloves and cap off to set them in my lap. “Same here. He wanted to talk to the man in charge at the factory, but when he found out it was me, a woman, his tone changed quicker than Eddie Ryan’s high school record for the hundred meter when Jacob Bing beat it. Then he turned into a condescending jerk, and I hung up on him.”
Cyril shook his head in clear disgust. “You give him a little of that Karen magic?”
I giggled. Nana was known all over Marshmallow Hollow for her razor-sharp tongue. If you crossed her, she wasn’t afraid to give you forty lashes with it. “I did. I learned from the master. Anyway, what did he say to you, Cyril? Why do you think Hilroy thought you’d accept the offer if it was so low?”
“I think he thought I’d take it because I told him I was tired of the grind. But don’t think for a minute a slick fella like that didn’t look into the history of what he was buyin’.”
“Yeah. I got the impression he’d done his homework on the factory, too. He was all numbers and margins and overhead before I was even able to say boo,” I agreed. “So what did you tell him?”
Cyril’s face went hard and angry. “This garage has been my whole life for thirty years. I’ve worked my caboose off, and even with the fancy new cars and all their computers, people still need a good mechanic. I may not have all the pricey stuff some of these dealerships have, but ask anyone if I can’t get an engine to purr for me. But I’m tired, Hal. The cold’s pokin’ at my brittle bones these days. It’s getting harder and harder to get my engine started. I’m just not the man I used to be.”
I gave him a sympathetic glance before reaching forward and patting his gnarled, chapped hand. “But you’re a good one, for sure, Cyril, and if anyone ever makes an offer like that again, you come to me. I’ll have the factory lawyers look it over.”
“That’s real kind, Hallie-Oop,” he said, calling me by the nickname my mother had given me.
“So you were hoping to retire with the money Hilroy offered?” Hobbs asked, setting his ankle on his knee.
“I’m pushin’ sixty-four this year. Aggie’s almost sixty-three. She wants to spend part of the winter after Christmas in Georgia, where it’s milder. She’ll never completely leave Marshmallow Hollow. We love it here. But with the way the economy went kaput a few years back, I lost a lot of money. The only way I can retire now—never mind buy us another place somewhere else—is if I sell this place, but not for the kind of chump change that slick snake-oil salesman offered me. And when I heard about him offering squat to some of the others, there was no way I’d sell out and cheapen my neighbors’ real estate. No blinkin’-stinkin’ way.”
I had no idea things were so dire for Cyril, but as I suspected, he was concerned for the people of our town.
“So he lowballed you. You know, Bitty told me last night his plan was to turn Marshmallow Hollow into some kind of Santa land theme park. You know anything about that?”
Cyril shrugged, his shoulders slumping. “He didn’t say anything to me about a theme park, but I’d bet my last house payment he wouldn’t, knowing how loyal I am to the folks here. Though, he did threaten me.”
Hobbs abruptly sat forward in his chair, frowning. “Threatened you?”
“Yep. He was nice as pie, buyin’ me dinner and drinks at an expensive restaurant in Portland until I told him no way would I sell for couch change. He said he’d make me sell by buyin’ up all the other places around me and forcing me out.” Cyril’s fist clenched, his lips thinning. “I’ll tell ya, Hal, I’m not a violent man, but I was ’bout ready to clock him right there in that snazzy candlelit restaurant with his crème brûlée.”
Well, if nothing else, Cyril had a motive. If he was worried Hilroy was going to force him out and leave him penniless, killing him would certainly fix that.
But still…he was Cyril.
The man who, when I was in high school, had given me a huge discount on a new radiator for my Bug, knowing full well I couldn’t afford to fix my only form of transportation on a movie theater ticket-taker’s salary.
He was a good guy.
“Did he threaten you physically?” I asked, my stomach in knots at the thought.
I watched Cyril’s eyes closely when he answered. “Nah. Just tried to intimidate me with his money and connections.”
Hobbs ran a hand over his crisp beard. “Ever see anything suspicious going on with Hilroy? Maybe he got into a fight or argued with someone?”
Before he could answer, the door to Cyril’s office burst open and Jared Chatham rushed inside, his pockmarked face red, his eyes bloodshot. “I didn’t do anything!” he yelled, his words slurred, his voice hoarse. “You can’t arrest me for doing nothing!”
Ansel’s face appeared in the doorway, with Stiles—crisp and fresh in his uniform—right behind him.
As Hobbs and I stood, smooshing ourselves against the far wall, he placed me behind him in a protective gesture. I looked to Stiles for answers, and he gave me the “don’t ask questions” BFF signal with his eyes.
Ansel held up his hands as white flags, his tone soothing and calm, but his eyes were intense and shiny. “Jared, no one wants to hurt you. Come with us nice and quiet and it’ll all be fine.�
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Cyril shoved his chair away, knocking it against the back wall of his small office. “Jared? What’s going on now, boy?” he asked, but he sounded almost defeated, as though he immediately thought Jared’s trouble was of his own making—and it made my heart hurt.
I suppose Jared’s constant brushes with the law and his drunken bar fights had become something Cyril expected, but they didn’t hurt or make him worry for his son’s future any less.
Jared backed up against his father’s desk, knocking a large square calculator to the floor with a crash as the plastic split and broke apart. “I didn’t do anything, Dad!”
“Jared, we just want to talk to you about Lance Hilroy. Now we can do this quietly, or we can make some big noise about it. The choice is yours. You can come peacefully or we can go the other route,” Ansel assured in a calm tone. “But the other route is no fun, and you know it, buddy.”
Jared’s eyes, so much like Cyril’s, went wide and panicked. “I don’t know anything about that dead guy!”
I’m not sure what made me do what I did. Maybe it was my sister, who’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met and the stories she’s told me about how she’d handled some tricky situations with compassion, but I reached out to Jared and patted the arm of his faded denim jacket.
It was all I could do not to wince at the stench of the alcohol on his breath, but I managed to keep a straight face.
“Jared, it’s okay, c’mon. You’ve known Ansel forever. Would he lie to you? He just wants to ask you some questions. It’ll be over before you know it.”
But Jared leaned back, barring his teeth and shaking his head, the pom-pom on the top of his rainbow-colored hat bouncing furiously. “No way! No way I’m talkin’ to you because I got nothin’ to talk about!” he screeched, and with the might of an unhinged gorilla, he bull-in-a-China-shopped his way through both Ansel and Stiles, knocking them out of his way and making a break for it.
After that, things got a little jenky. Or maybe a lot jenky. There was a scuffle as Stiles went after Jared and managed to tackle him before he got out of the garage, knocking over tool tables and gas cans as he did…
But worse, my pulse began to slow and my heart chugged.
I reached out at the first sign of a vision, but I don’t know what I grabbed to steady myself or if I was successful at latching onto anything at all.
Suddenly, I wasn’t in Cyril’s small office anymore, I was outside, at the ice festival. The sound of children’s laughter, muffled but still distinguishable, rang in my ears. “Jingle Bells” sang out in the air as people strolled the icy paths of the festival, chatting and smiling.
The sounds, the colors throbbed, pulsing their life while I watched the scene play out, and then everything went black and white—muted and muffled except for…Hobbs.
Hobbs?
He was right there in front of me, almost close enough to touch, and the only object in the scenario in vivid color. I think I tried to call out to be sure it was him, but past experience tells me that nothing came out of my mouth.
Yet, I felt a rushing sense of relief when I realized I recognized his jacket, a brown rawhide with fuzzy white lining. I’d seen him wear it several times this year.
As he came into better focus, I had that sluggish, underwater feeling again. The one where I want to move to warn him—even though I don’t know what I’m warning him about—but I can’t, stuck with the inability to do anything but let the scene play out before me.
He was in a chair—a scarred old chair with one of those pads on the seat that you tie to the spindles. His head was down on a table, his arms dangling at his sides.
And there on the table, was a cast-iron frying pan right next to a typewriter.
A typewriter?
Chapter 9
“Not too hot, extra chocolate. Shaken, not stirred.” Judy the Elf on the subject of hot chocolate.
The Santa Clause, 1994
* * *
“Hal! Hal, are you okay? What’s happening? Tell me how I can help!”
Little by little, Hobbs’s panicked voice reached my ears, penetrating the muffled wall of my vision.
“It’s okay, son,” I heard Cyril say. “Stay calm and let it happen. It’s just one of her migraines. She gets attacks real bad. Had ’em all her life, according to her mother. Just gotta let it pass and make sure she doesn’t fall and hurt herself.”
See? My mother and grandmother had the people of Marshmallow Hollow well trained on my “migraines.”
When a vision ends, it’s like being sucked back into another dimension. I literally feel the shift in my body from vision to reality. I jerked forward and fell into Hobbs’s hard wall of a chest.
He immediately tipped my chin up, brushing his thumb over my skin, and asked, “Hal, are you all right? Does it hurt? What can I do?”
I made a show of rubbing my temples, but I won’t lie and say I didn’t linger a moment or two in his warm embrace—because I did—before I nodded my head and untangled myself.
I patted his arm in reassurance. “It’s okay, Hobbs. I’m fine. Like Cyril said, I’ve had them all my life.”
But Hobbs didn’t look comforted. “Have you thought about seeing a doctor? I know some pretty great specialists in Boston if you need a referral. How can I help?”
Seeing his handsome face so concerned, seeing his eyes searching mine, made me feel like a real schlub for the lie I was about to tell him. But I had no choice. The women in my life had drilled the warning into my head since birth. At all costs, don’t expose yourself to humans or invite a burning at the stake in the town square.
“I’ve seen several, and they all say I’m fine. I don’t have any brain tumors or anything so wrong medically that I have need of another specialist. Promise. It just stops me dead sometimes, and then I move on. I’d prefer it if you did the same.”
It was a canned response, but it was the one I used time and time again.
“Do you take medication for them?”
Leapin’ Lena. No one had ever asked me that before. Not in all the time I’d been having visions. Not even my ex-fiancé Hugo had asked me that—never. In fact, in hindsight, he’d never even offered to get me a cold pack or an aspirin when I had a vision.
Though, in all fairness, I hadn’t had them as often in New York as I do here at home…
So I shook my head and stooped to pick up my hat, which had fallen to the ground. “No medications. Sometimes I take acetaminophen, but that’s it. Now, back to the business at hand, because I sort of blanked out on you. What’s going on with Jared?”
“Stiles got him. It was quite a tackle,” Hobbs assured me in a soft tone of admiration as he brushed my hair from my face, his eyes still filled with worry.
I swatted him with my hat. “Quit looking at me like that, Hobbs. I’m fine. Ask anyone. This isn’t the first time and it probably won’t be the last, so if you want to be my sidekick, get used to it.”
His raven eyebrow rose. “Your sidekick? How did you become top dog?”
Laughing, I said, “Listen, if you get the good hair, I get top billing in this duo. Now, what’s going on with Jared?” I glanced at Cyril, my smile sympathetic when I saw how downtrodden he looked.
“I’ll tell ya what’s goin’ on with him. He needs a lawyer, that’s what’s goin’ on,” Cyril griped, but his voice shook. “That boy’s gonna kill me, Hal. He’s always in trouble for somethin’, but this is the worst yet. How the heck am I gonna pay for a lawyer? My Aggie’s gonna be so upset when she hears.”
I felt for Cyril. Jared was their only child and he’d put them through enough for three kids, but he was right. Aggie was very fragile when it came to Jared.
I reached out to Cyril and rubbed his arm. “We don’t know how bad it is, Cyril. He might not even need a lawyer. Do you know where he was last night around the time Hilroy was found?”
Cyril’s sigh was raspy and tired. “I’d bet my boots he was at the tavern doing what he does. Isn’
t that where he always is?”
The defeat in his voice made me wince.
“Did he know about what Hilroy offered you for the garage? Was he angry over it?” Hobbs asked.
“I’m sure he heard us talking about it, but who knows if he was sober when he did. I never can tell with that boy anymore. Listen, my Jared’s done a lot of things. I won’t deny he’s a troublemaker and a boozer, but kill someone? That doesn’t sit right with me.” Then he laughed a sarcastic laugh. “I’m sure that’s what every parent says about their kid. Sounds pretty hollow now.”
I hesitated to ask my next question, but I felt more invested in Hilroy’s death today than I’d been last night, due to how upset Cyril looked. I hated his defeat.
But Hobbs beat me to the question, and he did it with finesse. “Where were you last night, Cyril, when all this went down? Are you sure Jared left the house?”
Cyril reached for his red-checked flannel jacket and shoved his arms through the sleeves. “I was long gone and home by the fire. Closed up shop at three yesterday ’cus my Aggie was makin’ lobster pot pie. She can tell you I was there. Fell asleep in my recliner, but Jared always goes out at night. I just assumed he did last night, too.”
“But!” I said with what I hoped was a positive tone as I helped him button up his coat. “You don’t know for sure that he wasn’t home. So there’s that. Now, you want me to go with you to the Marshmallow Hollow PD? I’ll wait with you, if you’d like.”
He yanked his hat off and scrubbed a hand over his thick hair before readjusting it and patting my hand. “Nah. I don’t want to involve you, Hal. You two kids go enjoy the day while you can—we got a big storm comin’, I hear. Might be stuck inside for a coupla days. Jared’s my problem. I’ll fix it.”
I didn’t push because I knew Cyril and his pride, but I did grab a pen from his disheveled desk and wrote my number on a piece of paper. “Call me anytime, Cyril. Day or night. I’ll be there lickety-split.”
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