by Louise Lynn
Hazel gave him a quick smile. "Thanks, that actually helps a lot."
As she turned to go, he snagged her shoulder. "You really don't think I did this, do you? I swear, I couldn't murder my own parents.”
Her smile felt plastic, and she nodded quickly. "Yeah, I'm sure you couldn't. And we’ll find the real culprit soon enough. Merry Christmas!”
The rush of cold air and snow was more welcome than it had ever been as she stepped outside. When she turned around to glance back into the Christmas shop, she found Justin Collins staring at her, a frown etched on his face.
He hadn’t said Merry Christmas back.
Chapter 16
"You need to find everything you can about the suicide of a sixteen-year-old girl named Hilde Reinbacher. It was over forty years ago though, so I'm not sure what sort of records remain. But Albert Stone should know about it,” Hazel said and leaned against Sheriff Cross's desk. She had gone there first thing, and was glad she had, because seeing his face calmed her spiked nerves from the encounter with Justin.
"Wait a minute, you think this has to do with some forty-year-old suicide case? What about Justin Collins? Because I think I need to have a word with him first," he said and stood up.
Hazel had already told him what they'd spoken of, and Sheriff Cross’s frown had grown deeper with every new revelation. "Yeah, you really do need to talk to him too, but what's his motive?"
"Being creepy," he said, and it sounded like something Violet would've come up with.
Hazel laughed. "Okay, he was a little creepy. And I didn't like being alone with him, but why come all this way to kill his parents when he's obviously going to look like the prime suspect?"
“Well, he pointed the finger at Albert Stone. In… wait a minute. Didn't you tell me that Farrah said Charles Benson mentioned the thing about forgiveness and not Albert?"
Hazel wrinkled her nose. "Yeah. She actually did. Well, maybe one of them got it wrong. But you really should talk to him, because he lied about being here early, and we’ll never know if the reason he was here checks out. I didn't ask about an alibi either, so it's probably good to touch on that," she said and patted his chest.
Sheriff Cross rolled his eyes, then he pulled her into a quick hug and pressed his lips gently against hers. "You say that as if I haven't been doing this for well over a decade."
She shrugged. "You're right. But I just wanted to let you know that I hadn’t asked about an alibi yet. And maybe one of the deputies can look up the files? Or I could go talk to Albert Stone?"
He gave a quick shake of his head. I don't know if it's safe for you to talk to Mr. Stone. If he did do this, he's obviously a very sick man."
Thinking of the way John and Carol Collins had been killed, Hazel thought he was more than sick. "But if he's not the one who did it, he might know who is. I'll have Anthony Ray with me."
Sheriff Cross grumbled and looked down at the cat. Then he bent to give Anthony Ray a scratch under the chin. “I know he thinks he's as tough as a German Shepherd, but he's really not. Oh, that reminds me, that ledger you found in Marley Sinclair's place? I talked to Mr. Stone about it. He said he was getting $10,000 a month from Marley, and it wasn’t under the table or anything. He let us look at his bank records without a warrant, which was kind of incredible, and there was nothing weird there. He said it was part of an investment that had been going on for years."
Hazel frowned. More investment talk. “Do you think it has anything to do with that investment Carol never forgave her husband for?"
Sheriff Cross tapped his nose. "I think it's a bit too much of a coincidence. But Mr. Stone didn't mention John Collins at all."
“Well, maybe he was the one that screwed John out of the deal, and John never forgave him.”
"Could be, but we need proof. Remember? Not just wild speculation."
It was Hazel's turn to roll her eyes. "Like I don't know that. I've been doing this for nearly a year, Sheriff Cross. As far as I can tell, you wildly speculated that I was a killer once, and that my mother was a killer."
His lips tugged into a smile and his eyes sparkled. "Are you ever going to forget that?"
She shook her head. "Not on your life. I forgive you, but I'm going to constantly remind you just for fun."
With a chuckle, he threw on his overcoat and they stepped outside together. She climbed into her truck while he climbed into his SUV.
She realized he'd asked her not to confront Albert Stone. But that didn't mean she couldn't casually run into him while working at the Christmas Fair. And he'd said nothing about talking to Charles Benson.
She had no doubt that one of them knew something about Hilde, and even more pressing, that mysterious investment.
If Justin didn’t do it, one of those things might be a good enough motive for murder.
"What do you mean Charles Benson and Albert Stone aren’t here?" Hazel said and glanced around Santa's Village. It wasn't time to open, but it was drawing close, and the elves ran about in a frantic rush as if they could hide the fact Santa wasn’t there.
Michael, the person she'd asked, shrugged. "He wasn’t in the trailer. And no one has seen him today. Do you think…” Michael didn't finish the sentence, but Hazel understood what he was getting at.
Did she think they had been killed too.
She hoped not. With everything else going on, that was just one thing too many to deal with. "They both did lose a good friend the other day."
"I thought John Collins hated both of them?" Michael said and fiddled with the camera that hung around his neck.
"I meant Marley Sinclair. Wait. You think John hated Charles Benson too? Why?"
Michael shrugged. “Well, that first day he came around once as the Ghost of Christmas Future, and Mr. Collins screamed at him saying he was never going to forgive him for what happened, and that he didn't care what anybody else said. Honestly, it didn't make a lot of sense to me."
It didn't make much sense to Hazel either, considering it didn't seem like it had anything to do with Hilde. Maybe it was the investment. "I'm gonna check the community center and see if that’s where they are,” she said and patted Michael on the shoulder.
He gave her a tight nod. "Be safe."
To Hazel’s dismay, they weren't at the community center, and Farrah was in a frazzle. Her hair didn't look nearly as neat as it had the previous day, and her eyes had darker bags under them. "This is a nightmare. Scrooge is missing again? First, I lose my Ghost of Christmas Future and now this? Who's going to fill in for him?"
Hazel gave her an apologetic smile. "I don't know. Do you think they’re at home? Maybe they just didn't feel well today?"
"I don't know, because no one bothered to tell me anything. But I did hear them talking about Marley Sinclair yesterday. They said something about wanting to have a drink in his honor. Has he been buried yet?"
Hazel didn’t think so. "No, but that does give me an idea. Thanks."
She glanced at Anthony Ray, who yawned. "Okay, we’re going for another ride, and maybe you can work your magic."
Then she pulled out the set of keys she hadn't returned to the Sheriff's Office quite yet. Marley Sinclair's house key dangled on it, and Anthony Ray perked up.
If they were going to have a drink to their dead friend, what better place to do it than his house?
Chapter 17
Hazel never imagined she'd be returning to Marley Sinclair’s house for the third time in so many days, but there she was.
Anthony Ray trotted up to the front door as if nothing were amiss, and Hazel looked at the snow covered walkway for hints.
She’d been here the other day, as had Albert Stone, and the snow had nearly filled in their footprints. Yet now there was a fresh set, possibly more than one. It was impossible to tell with the way the new snow fell in and how the old footprints were scattered about.
She didn't bother to knock, since she had the key, but she didn't need it anyways. The door turned easily, and she wondered
if Albert Stone had a key as well.
The silence of the house welcomed her, and she stood for a moment and took a deep breath. It was cooler than it had been the other day, but still not as cold as the outside warranted.
Now that Mr. Sinclair was dead, she wondered who would be paying his heating bills. Maybe Albert Stone had stepped in to do that since he was the one using the heat.
"Okay, do your thing," she whispered to her cat and undid the leash from the harness.
Anthony Ray sat for a moment in the foyer, sniffing the air and flipping his tail as if he had no interest in looking around the house.
He gave up the pretense soon enough, and turned toward the kitchen.
Strange. She thought he was going to go upstairs again.
Slowly, she followed him.
It was impossible to walk silently on those squeaky wooden floors with her heavy winter boots, but she tried as best she could.
There was a clink from the kitchen, the sound of glassware, and Anthony Ray moved inside before Hazel. To her surprise, Albert Stone stood there, alone, a glass in his hand with something dark inside of it. From the open bottle on the countertop, she guessed it was wine.
"Come to have a drink for your old friend?" she asked.
Albert Stone started and stared at her as if she just stepped out of the wall and not through the open kitchen door. "You nearly gave an old man a heart attack. I—yes. Came to drink for Marley." He downed the glass in one long gulp and pulled a face.
A glance at the bottle which told her it wasn't merely wine but port, and she would've made a face too.
"Alone? I'm surprised Charles Benson isn’t here," she said as casually as she could and strained to listen to the rest of the house.
Albert Stone let out a bark of laughter. "Charles? Why would Charles be here? He's got that business in Santa’s Village to attend to. He has no reason to be here. No reason. . . .”
Albert Stone's eyes darted everywhere but at Hazel, and his hands shook as he poured himself another glass. He looked paler than she’d ever seen him, and he wasn't even wearing makeup. His eyes were also dark lined, and the greasepaint wasn't to blame this time.
"Are you feeling all right? I'm actually here because Farrah was looking for you. You're needed at the Christmas Fair as Mr. Scrooge."
Albert took a shaky sip of the port. "Scrooge. Yes, the part I've been playing my whole life, and here I'm haunted by the same sorts of ghosts. Only, mine might be worse."
Hazel raised her brows. "How so?"
At least he was willing to talk, but she wasn't sure if that had to do with the port or the fact that he seemed so scared he was about to fall over.
"Don't you see? First John, then Carol. I'm next. This reckoning is coming down on my head and there's nothing I can do to stop it," he cried and great fat tears trickled down his cheeks. He let out a miserable wail, and Hazel winced at the site of his stained yellow teeth.
"All right, Mr. Stone, I'm very sorry about this reckoning you're afraid of, but if you think you know who could be doing this, you need to go to the sheriff right away."
She also thought he might need to get some sort of mental health help, but she decided not to mention that.
""The sheriff? What on earth is he going to do? You can't stop it. No, girl, you don't understand. This is an avenging angel. It's not a flesh and blood killer. It's something else. Something that can't be arrested or stopped. It won't end, not until I'm dead too," he said and blew his nose on a cloth handkerchief that he pulled from his waistcoat pocket.
Hazel took careful steps forward and noticed Anthony Ray sniffing at Mr. Stone's snow-covered boots. So, he hadn't been at the house for long. And he didn't seem like he’d gotten much sleep, if any.
"Was Marley part of the reckoning?" she asked as kindly as she could and moved the port bottle away from him. If he drank anymore, he'd start making even less sense than he was now, and Hazel didn't want that.
Albert Stone finally looked at her, and his eyes cleared. "Marley Sinclair part of the reckoning? Of course! You said his death was natural, but it wasn’t. You don't understand, after what happened, I tried my hardest to make up for it. But— no. It makes too much sense. First Marley, then John, then Carol. Yes. All of us, guilty of the same thing!”
Hazel's lips thinned into a frown. He kept talking in circles without making any sense, and she was sick and tired of it. "All right, you’re all guilty of some nebulous crime, but no one can help you unless you say what that crime is. Does it have anything to do with Hilde Reinbacher?" she said and put her hands on her hips.
Anthony Ray had grown bored of sniffing Albert Stone’s boots and trotted out of the room to sniff something else.
She wished he hadn't.
"Who is Hilde Reinbacher? The girl? Oh, no why would I have anything to do with that? I'm talking about the investments, the apartments, the money, everything—it’s all come back to get us. All our faults on our heads, all at once,” he said and shook his head sadly. His shoulders slumped, as if it all became too much, and Hazel rushed forward and ushered him into one of the kitchen chairs.
He sank into it gratefully and sobbed into his hands.
Hazel stared at him for a long moment and let out a sigh.
So, it wasn't about Hilde Reinbacher but the investment. Well, at least she was right about that part of it. "All right, I thought the problem was that John Collins was cheated out of some investment, so why did he end up killed? And why Carol? This doesn't make any sense!”
She said the last bit more to herself, and Albert Stone's shoulders shook. She thought at first he was sobbing harder, but then she noticed he was laughing, the sort of hysterical laughter that someone pushed to the edge might make.
It sent a chill up her spine, and she thought about her time alone with Justin Collins that morning, and found she preferred that to this.
"That's the thing, I know you found the ledger, because the sheriff asked me about the money. That was money from the investment I made with Marley something like thirty-five years ago. Back when those apartments and several of the commercial ventures in Cedar Valley were built. He'd been paying me out steadily ever since, but John and Carol had a different understanding with him. Instead of the monthly payout on the interest, which is what I took. They wanted a lump sum. Only, they were both playing each other for the fool!” he said and laughed harder.
Hazel blinked. “What do you mean? Carol said John lost a bunch of money. Did she wish he took the interest investment like you or. . . Wait. Carol said she was going to use that money to start her shop, but she did start her shop. And John didn’t work, as far as I can tell, so did they actually get money from Marley Sinclair?”
Albert nodded frantically. “They both took the lump sum investment individually, but they lied to each other and claimed they didn't get any money. And they spent it all years ago. That’s why John hated me. He wished he took the investment, but it was too late.”
Hazel felt as if she'd been hit with a sack of bricks and found herself sitting down as well. "They were lying to each other? So, John pretended he lost the money, and Carol pretended she was angry at him for most of their marriage?"
Albert Stone let out another hysterical giggle. "It appears so. I only just found out about it recently. I told John he should finally fess up, since his marriage was in shambles it didn't matter anymore, but he was going to take that secret to the grave. Apparently, he did. They both did. Or, they tried to.”
Hazel shook her head. She’d heard a lot of awful things about the Collins’s in the last two days, and that wasn’t the worst of it, but it did show how selfish each of them were. ”Okay, but why would someone want to kill you for it?"
His eyes locked on hers, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth. "You said so yourself that Marley Sinclair was a slumlord, and you were right. I shouldn’t have denied it, but I was terrified of what his death meant. We knew what he was doing. He overcharged for his terrible properties. He
didn't fix them, and he took all the money they made and hid it away. How could we be any better? You have no idea the things that have happened in those places. The apartments as they are now were built in the late 1990s because a terrible fire burned the entire complex years before that. Ten people died in the blaze, and the fire was Marley’s fault! The electricity wasn’t up to code, and he got a fine and just kept on doing what he always did! That money that I've been taking for years is blood money. The money Carol and John took was also blood money. And that's the reckoning. How could I ever atone for that?" he said and shook his head.
Hazel stared at him. She wasn’t sure, and she chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about it. This was the second time someone had mentioned that fire in one day. “I remember that. I was a kid at the time, but I know there was an outpouring from the community. One of the kids in my school died in that fire," Hazel said, and Albert Stone flinched. If her mother had known that Carol had anything to do with the investment, she would've held that against the woman, she knew.
"Yes, I remember. I know all their names. I've been carrying that guilt around with me for years, but I still took the money. Every month it felt like another chain being wrapped around my neck, and now, I get to pay for my sins. I just wish it would happen already. That they’d put me out of my misery.” He folded his knobby knuckles into fists.
She didn't think for a moment that the spirits of the people who died in a fire were the ones responsible for the killings, but it could be someone avenging their loved ones, she supposed. Though she didn't know if anyone still lived in Cedar Valley whose family had died in those fires, and when she thought about it, she couldn't remember a single soul.
“Weren't they families who died? I didn't know there were survivors that could want revenge," she said.