Purrfect Slaying

by Louise Lynn

  Farrah didn’t look surprised. “The thing is, I never smelled alcohol on him, not like, well, you know.”

  Hazel knew. She meant the drunk Shakespearean actor they’d both had to deal with that summer. “Yeah, me neither. Was that all?”

  Farrah opened her mouth and closed it. “I don’t want to spread rumors. . . .”

  “I know, but if it helps catch John Collins’s killer, it isn’t spreading rumors,” she said.

  Farrah nodded slowly. “You’re right. Well, the fight got the attention of Albert Stone, who took John’s side and said that John wouldn’t feel the need to drink if he wasn’t married to a shrew like Carol in the first place. John said something about not wanting a man like Albert to stick up for him, and Charles came and said Carol should learn to forgive John for his mistakes since Charles had forgiven them. Well, Carol did not like that. She said she’d done nothing wrong, that they were all cowards and fools, and that her conscience was clear in every way and she didn’t need their forgiveness.”

  Hazel blinked. She wished she’d thought to record all of that. “That’s intense. Was that all?”

  Farrah frowned. “Not quite. Just when I thought I was going to have to intervene, a man about our age showed up. I think his name was Justin. He guided Carol away and told John he’d see him for lunch, and that was that.”

  Hazel gaped. “Wait. Justin Collins was in town the day of the murder? Carol claimed he wasn’t going to be in town until today!”

  Farrah shrugged. “He did look like them. Dirty blond hair and a nose like Carol Collins, but I had no idea he was their son. That makes more sense.”

  “Why did she lie about it to the sheriff?” Hazel said, more to herself than to Farrah.

  The woman’s eyes widened. “I have no idea. But now I’m glad I told you. Do I need to give an official statement to the sheriff about this?”

  Hazel wasn’t sure. “Maybe. I’ll ask Colton about it. But thanks. That helps a lot.” That reminded Hazel of something else, the question she wanted to ask Charles Benson. Especially that bit about Carol and John needing forgiveness of some kind. "Did Mr. Benson already leave?"

  Farrah glanced around backstage, which was quickly emptying of both cast and crew. “I haven't seen him since the final curtain call. He is a remarkably busy man. That he takes time out of his schedule to do this is insane, if you ask me."

  Hazel nodded absently. "I heard he likes to give back to the community."

  Farrah gathered up a pile of discarded costumes, probably left there by the children playing urchins, and shrugged. "If anyone thinks prancing around on stage in a big black cloak is community service, I have some words for them. He's a really nice guy, don't get me wrong, but if he wants to do something for the community, he should do more than that, especially with his kind of money.”

  Hazel knew what she was saying and grinned. “Oh, I know. He did step in to play Santa though."

  Farrah stood up suddenly and nodded. "Yeah, without asking me. Which put the whole production in a tough spot trying to find a replacement for the Ghost of Christmas Future to wander around the fair during the day. Look, I don't have anything against the guy, but I'm not sure if he thinks about anyone but Mr. Benson."

  With how rich he was, that didn't surprise Hazel much.

  She wished Farrah a happy holidays and made her own exit.

  Most of the vendors had packed up their wares, and the lights had been turned off, so the entire area had a deserted feel. In order to get back to her shop on Lake St., Hazel had to walk through the darkened park. She wished she had more than her penlight to guide her.

  The only thing still alight was the Christmas tree in the center of the fair, and it sparkled with the multicolored lights strewn about its great height. Hazel raised her camera to snap a photo, standing as still as she possibly could and holding her breath for several beats the way her father taught her when using a slow shutter speed.

  She had the tripod slung over her back, but she didn't feel like setting it up just for a a few quick snapshots.

  Sparkling there in the darkness, the tree was beautiful, and it seemed emblematic of the whole situation—light shining where there was none. Sort of like Christmas itself, a beacon of warmth in the middle of the coldest and darkest time of the year.

  "So you thought you'd run off without saying good night?" A familiar voice drawled, and Hazel found herself smiling before she even turned around.

  Colton's arms draped around her waist and pulled her close. "Sorry. I just didn't want Anthony Ray to give me any more trouble. Are you going to be okay with your parents and Violet tonight?"

  "I think so. They’re taking Violet home right now. I have a few things to finish up at the office."

  Hazel tilted her head to look up at him. The lights from the tree cast red, blue and green light across his handsome features, and she felt as giddy as a schoolgirl in his arms. "You do not. Go home and get a good night’s sleep. You need it. I need it too, but you need it more.”

  At that moment, she decided not to share the new information about Justin Collins and the argument Farrah heard until the next day. If she did it now, Colton would never get any sleep.

  He let out a huff that blew her hair. "Fine. But you made me lose my perfect excuse. I'm going to get home and hear a whole lotta grief about how I don't have nice enough bath towels from my mother."

  Hazel stifled a laugh, because she knew how annoying parent interference could be. But she had to deal with it every day of the week, and as far as she could tell, Colton only had to deal with it about once a year. "Maybe they'll buy you some nice bath towels for Christmas. She's not wrong. You buy the cheap ones. It feels like I'm bathing in a Motel 6."

  “That bad, huh?” he said and gave her stomach a light tickle.

  She giggled and leaned up to kiss him.

  The warmth of his mouth sent a jolt straight to her stomach, and when he let her go, she wished that it would never fade.

  However, she noticed one of the ornaments stuck out of the tree at an odd angle, and she wrinkled her brow.

  “Oh, the tree is more interesting than I am?” he teased.

  "Not really, but what is that?" she said and pointed.

  In the dim light cast only by the lights on the tree, it was difficult to make out.

  Was it a star ornament?

  It was white, with red tips, which seemed strange colors for the otherwise glittering tree. As far as she could tell, all the bulbs and other ornaments on it were gold and silver.

  "Not sure," Colton said and unwound his arms from her. They both took a few steps closer, and Hazel's boot nudged one of the presents at the foot of the tree. She knew they were only wrapped Styrofoam, more for show than anything. They couldn't put real presents under the tree, even in a place like Cedar Valley, without someone deciding to steal them.

  With Colton at her back, she bent for a closer look, and jumped back, gasping. "It's a hand!”

  “Oh, no. Is it attached to something?"

  She glanced up at him, wrinkling her nose. "I assume it’s attached to an arm. It's not a severed hand."

  "You never know around here," Colton grumbled and shone his flashlight, whose beam was much brighter than Hazel's tiny penlight, on it.

  The hand stuck out of the blood red coat, and the red painted nails matched it perfectly. The rest was lost somewhere in the tree, and she pulled branches aside in order to help Sheriff Cross get a better look.

  "What were you saying about Carol Collins being the one who killed her husband?" Colton said after a long moment of silence.

  "I thought she did it. Why?" she said and felt the gnawing fear rise once again.

  His expression turned grim. "Either this is the most elaborate suicide I've ever seen, or she's not the one who did it. She's in the tree, Hazel, and she's dead."

  Hazel peaked at where his flashlight beam shone, and saw the blue cast to Carol's face, stuffed among the bows of their town’s oversized Christmas tree
. Thankfully, she wasn't decorated with candy canes like her husband had been. This time, the killer had decided to use Christmas lights to great effect. They were wrapped around her neck so tightly her eyes nearly bulged, and Hazel looked away quickly.

  "Yeah, I guess this is where she went instead of watching the play. I'll go get my Pentax."

  She walked away as Sheriff Cross called the deputy and the M.E.

  She felt a shiver go up her spine that had nothing to do with the weather.

  Alibi or not, this definitely cleared Carol Collins of her own husband’s murder. But it also meant Hazel and Colton had to solve two murders, and with their best suspect dead, she had no clue who that could be.

  Chapter 14

  “Oh, it is just like Carol Collins to do something like this. Getting herself murdered at the Christmas Fair? She’d love the attention this is going to bring,” Hazel's mother said and shook her head wildly.

  "You sound like her talking about her husband. I'm pretty sure neither of them went out of their way to get murdered,” Hazel reminded her and poured a cup of coffee.

  It was the next morning and this time, both her mother and father had showed up for breakfast, though they’d done so at a much more decent hour than five AM.

  Still, Hazel yawned and watched her dad throw some bacon in a frying pan. “Aren't we not supposed to speak ill of the dead? Isn't that a thing?" her father, Edgar Hart, said with a benign smile.

  “Fa! I'm not speaking ill of her. What a silly rule. Just because someone dies doesn't mean they’re suddenly an angel, and Carol Collins certainly wasn’t.”

  Edgar cast his wife a glance. "I'm glad you were sitting next to me the entire time and have a solid alibi, otherwise Colton might suspect you of something."

  Hazel snorted into her coffee and took a long gulp before she spoke again.

  It wasn't true, far from it, but after the night with Carol's body, she did know that Sheriff Cross and the entire Sheriff's Office were more stymied than before. Even after she told Colton about the fight Carol and John had the day of the first crime, it had only cast suspicion on more people instead of clearing anything up.

  And with Christmas Eve quickly approaching, she knew Colton was desperate to solve it before the holiday. Otherwise, how could they celebrate with a killer on the loose?

  She hadn't even bothered asking why her parents had graced her with their presences that morning, because she was sure she already knew the answer. For one, her father was probably trying to get her mother to take a break from all the knitting she was doing as Christmas presents this year. And, the biggest reason they were here, because Maureen Hart wanted to know everything she could about Carol Collins’s demise.

  Hazel wasn't sure if she wanted to tell her mother the details. Not only because she was afraid they’d be spread around town, but also the sort of glee her mother might glean from the information didn't really suit the holiday.

  Though, it was ironic that the things Carol spent her life selling are what killed her in the end.

  The killer probably thought so too.

  "I know Carol was no angel, and I'm sure most of the town would agree with you, but you know how you get," her father said and kissed his wife on the cheek.

  That cooled her down immediately, and she smiled as she finished beating the eggs.

  While Anthony Ray had already had his breakfast, he still paced around Edgar's feet and meowed, begging for bacon.

  Hazel shook her head. "Your long-lived nemesis is now gone, mom, but the worst part is we really thought Carol might've done it. She looked really guilty after yesterday."

  Maureen carried a pot of tea to the table and settled down. "Oh, I don't know about that. Carol was a lot of things, most of them nasty, but I doubted she was ever a straight out murderer. Her methods were far dirtier.”

  Hazel frowned and sat. "Then why did you accuse her of murder?"

  Her mother's eyes twinkled distantly. "I was just trying to get a rise out of her. Which, I know, after what she'd been through wasn't fair, but you saw how she acted. If anything that horrific befell your father, I would've been devastated. And here she is blaming him for his own death," she said and shook her head. "Though, that is very like Carol. You probably don't remember because you're far too young, but when Justin Collins was just a little boy, he fell off a boat on the lake in the summer and broke his leg. Poor thing, screaming and in all sorts of pain, and his mother's words to him were, and I quote: ‘You reap what you sow, boy.’"

  Hazel pursed her lips. It was true that Carol Collins was never particularly maternal, but that was downright cruel. "Had he done anything silly to fall off?"

  Maureen shook her head.

  Edgar turned to pour the eggs into the sizzling pan. "From what I remember, because I was home during that time, the boat started suddenly and the boy fell off. His leg was twisted around some of the rope . It wasn't his fault at all. In fact, if it was anyone's fault, it was Albert Stone’s."

  Hazel sat upright and stared at her father. "Was he the one driving the boat?"

  Her mother nodded. “Oh, yes. Even though this was after the nastiness between John and those other men, Albert was giving the kids a ride on his new boat that summer, and Justin had managed to get on as well. Of course, to everyone's surprise, Carol didn't blame Albert, but her own son."

  Hazel nodded thoughtfully. "Did John blame Albert by any chance?"

  Her father shrugged, and her mother looked equally uninformed. "He never said he did. Though, he already had a chip on his shoulder against Albert and Marley, so there’s no saying."

  Well, that was new information, but it didn't really help with the present situation. It sounded more like the Collins’s had something against Albert Stone than the other way around, so why would he be the one committing these crimes?

  "Did Albert have anything against Carol?” Her parents cast each other a furtive glance, and she frowned heavily at them both. "Okay, what aren’t you telling me? Do you guys know who this Hilde person is? I know you do, mom, because you said so yesterday."

  "Hilde Reinbacher. I haven't thought of her in decades. Poor girl,” Edgar said and shook his head as he finished scrambling the eggs. Another moment and they would be overdone, but he was quick enough to take them off the fire and start dishing them up on plates. He’d managed to put the toast down at the right time as well, and plucked it out of the toaster so everyone got a slice.

  Maureen rose to help, and Hazel watched her parents do this breakfast dance and wondered how they knew what to do without saying a word to each other. Years of practice, she guessed, and smiled. "So who is this Hilde person? I'm guessing she's not around anymore.”

  Her mother set her plate down and smothered her toast in a healthy amount of butter before she spoke. "Oh no, it’s been decades now. You should eat, dear. At least before we get into this business."

  Hazel rolled her eyes and took a large bite of eggs, bacon, and toast. When she finished chewing she dabbed her mouth and took a large gulp of coffee. "Okay. Now talk. It cannot be worse than anything I haven't seen before. Especially the last couple of days."

  Edgar patted his wife's back as he joined them at the table. Anthony Ray took the fourth chair, and twitched his tail, though he didn't make any sudden moves to eat off of their plates, thank goodness. "If she's investigating she has a right to know. You think your mother is such a gossip, but there are some things she keeps close to the chest."

  "And I'm not trying to keep any secrets, it's just spreading around what happened seems so unfair to Hilde. If you want to know what I had against Carol all these years, that was it. I used to babysit for Hilde. The girl was dear to me."

  Her father gave her a kind smile and rubbed his beard. "I'm sure she was dear to a lot of people. Only, the people left to remember her. . .” He shook his head.

  "Are all old too?" Hazel said and grinned at both of them.

  Her mother ignored that statement and took her own bite of breakfas
t and sip of tea before she spoke again. "All right, from what I remember, and mind you this was a good decade or more before you were born, The Reinbacher’s lived here in Cedar Valley. I'd babysat Hilde when I was a teenager and she was just a little girl. And after I went away to college and married your father and we moved here again, Hilde was in high school. She found out she was in a bit of trouble." She pushed a bite of egg around on her plate.

  "Trouble? Well, that makes it sound like she borrowed money from the mob. Hazel is a grown-up and she can handle a little bit of reality, Maureen. Hilde was sixteen and pregnant,” her dad said and took a bite of his toast. The crumbs landed in his beard.

  Hazel had known a few girls in high school who had found themselves in that same state, though this Hilde person was obviously from a much different era, one that wasn't quite as forgiving as the era in which Hazel was in high school. "Okay. So did she quit school and marry the guy who knocked her up?"

  Her parents cast each other sad glances.

  “Well, this story doesn't have much of a happy ending, unfortunately. She never got the chance to say who the father was, though there was plenty of speculation around town. See, she was a member of the church, the same one that Carol Collins was so enamored with. Apparently, she'd gone there for spiritual counseling and Carol was the one she'd spoken to."

  Hazel didn't like where this was going. "Okay. So what happened?"

  Her father sighed. "It was a different time, and she went to the church before she told her parents, apparently. The only people who will ever really know are Carol and Hilde themselves, and they're both gone now."

  Her mother nodded. "Carol should have kept her mouth shut. She should've let Hilde figure out what she was going to do and instead, the woman who was well into her twenties at the time, let me remind you, spread the rumor of Hilde’s predicament around the whole town. Hilde Reinbacher is pregnant and she doesn't know who the father is because she has far too many lovers. She's going straight to hell for her sins, all sorts of terrible things. Of course, that got the rumor mill going, and everyone started speculating who the father could be and what Hilde was going to do. Her parents were very strictly religious and didn't take kindly to any of that. They kicked Hilde out."