3 Christmas Crazy (6 page)

An hour later, Ellie, Levi, and I sat in Mulligan’s, nursing our drinks. Ellie had called Levi while I spoke to Sheriff Salinger, and he’d agreed to meet us at the bar as soon as our interview was over. One of the best things about having a regular hangout is that, even in the midst of turmoil, there’s something comforting about the familiarity that can be found in your favorite booth, with your best friends, and go-to comfort food.

“Salinger is going to get suspicious if you keep finding all these dead bodies,” Levi joked as he dipped a crispy onion ring into a puddle of ketchup.

“I think he already is. His line of questioning felt more like an inquisition.”

“At least I have an alibi this time,” Levi stated. Last October, Levi had spent several nights in jail before we were able to prove he was innocent of an eerily similar murder.

“Poor Tanner most likely never saw what hit him.” Ellie sighed as she pushed her food around on her plate.

“Did it look like there had been a struggle?” Levi wondered.

“No. Someone must have been waiting for him,” Ellie speculated. “He never even got a chance to change out of his Santa suit.”

The Santa suit.
I made a mental note to call Earl to see if he was out of the hospital and able to play Santa the following day. If not, I’d need to talk to Betty to see about borrowing Earl’s suit for Pappy to use until we could make other arrangements. It’d be too short and too big, but we didn’t have much of a choice. I’d also need to call Pappy to give him a heads-up that he might be needed to man Santa’s Village the following day.

“Did Salinger have any idea who might have done it?” Levi asked.

“Not that he said,” Ellie answered. “I can’t imagine why
anyone
would want to kill Tanner.”

I pulled a notepad out of my purse and jotted down a few to-dos while Levi and Ellie continued to talk. It wasn’t that I was unaffected by Tanner’s death, but my way of coping with unpleasant news has always been to throw myself into some urgent task that occupied my mind as well as my emotions.

“He was a crusty sort,” Levi pointed out. “Maybe he pissed off the wrong guy.”

“Someone would have to be pretty mad to bash in the guy’s head,” Ellie argued. “Tanner is a curmudgeon, but he’s
our
curmudgeon. Most folks in town liked and respected him in spite of his rough exterior.”

Levi nodded. “I’m going to miss the old guy.”

“I’m glad none of the kids wandered in to the back room.” Ellie shivered. “Seeing Santa dead like that. There was so much blood. We’re never going to get the suit cleaned in time for tomorrow’s Village.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. I heard that Sheriff Salinger has taped off the entire building,” Levi said. “One of the detectives who came up from the county office told me they’ll most likely keep the building closed until they complete their investigation.”

“What?” I joined the conversation. If the community center was going to be closed, they’d need the gym for Hometown Christmas and the pet adoption event, which I’d been advertising heavily, would end up getting canceled. I hated myself for being concerned about the darn event after what had happened to someone I’d known since I was a little girl, but the lives of so many animals were depending on it.

“One of the guys on my softball team works in the sheriff’s office,” Levi said. “He came in to pick up some takeout while you girls were in the ladies’ room. I asked him about the murder, and he mentioned that the community center is going to be closed until further notice. I guess they need to get their techs in to check for fingerprints and stuff.”

“Fingerprints? It’s a
community
center,” I emphasized. “Salinger is probably going to find prints for everyone in town.”

“Yeah, but not everyone was in the room where Tanner was killed,” Levi pointed out. “Besides, I think they’re looking for evidence other than prints.”

“If they close the center, we’ll have to move the Hometown Christmas events.”

“Maybe Salinger will figure things out quick.” Ellie tried to sound optimistic.

I rolled my eyes in a dramatic gesture meant to convey my lack of faith in our good sheriff. If there’s one thing you can count on with Salinger, it’s that he’ll act in a contradictory and ineffective way as he approaches the task of finding Tanner’s killer.

“You’re going to investigate,” Ellie realized.

“Someone has to.”

“You know what happened last time,” she warned.

“The guy can’t get me fired from a job I no longer have,” I pointed out.

“No, but he can speak out against the permit you so desperately need.”

I looked at Ellie. She was right. Getting involved was both impulsive and stupid. Of course, I’ve never been known for being anything other than impulsive, and stupid . . . well, I guess that’s a matter of opinion.

“We need to work fast,” I said. “The vendors will be here to set up for Hometown Christmas next Wednesday. If the community center is still closed then, we’ll have to have them set up in the gym. The pet adoption clinic will have to be canceled, and dozens of animals will die.”

“Are you sure about this?” Levi asked. “Ellie is right, you know. Getting involved could put your permit at risk. Maybe you could have the pet adoption in the park.”

“With all the snow we’ve been having?”

“I’m sure there must be somewhere,” Ellie encouraged.

“How about we cross that bridge when we come to it? In the meantime, let’s see what we can do about getting the murder solved and the community center open.”

“I’m in,” Ellie stated.

“Me, too,” Levi agreed.

“So where do we start?” Ellie asked.

“We need to make a list of everyone who might want Tanner dead.”

“Well,” Ellie said, “he was going to sell his boat and move over a conflict he had with some of the other charter companies. I’d say that’s as good a place as any to start.”

“My pappy was pretty close with Tanner. I’ll see if I can come up with a list of exactly who Tanner had a beef with,” I offered.

“I know a guy who works for one of his competitors,” Levi offered. “It seems there’s always been a friendly sort of competition between the fishing charters in the area, but things really heated up when a new company came to the lake last summer. I think they work out of the south shore but frequented locations known for good fishing on the north shore.”

“Do you know the name of the new company?” I asked.

“Yeah, I made a note of it.” Levi took out his phone and skimmed his notes until he found the entry he was looking for. “Get Hooked Charters. The owner’s name is Gilbert French. I heard he used to do deep-sea charters but decided to retire to the lake, so he sold his bigger boat and bought a totally tricked out fishing boat.”

“Tricked out?” I asked.

“The boat has all the bells and whistles. I hate to admit it, but the reason I had the guy’s info to begin with was because I’d heard how successful he’s been. In my opinion, he has the potential to put the old-school fishing boats out of business.”

“I don’t get it.” I frowned. “If this guy has the kind of money it must take to outfit a boat in the manner you describe, why work our little lake?”

“I guess there’s a lot of money to be made in tourism.”

“But if this guy is doing so well, why would he mess with Tanner’s boat?” Ellie asked.

“It really doesn’t track that he would,” I agreed. “Still, I suppose we should put this guy on the list. Wouldn’t hurt to nose around a bit,” I said.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Levi offered. “And I’ll talk to some of the other charter boat captains as well.”

“I’ll talk to Tanner’s ex-wife,” Ellie said. “If there was ever anyone with motive to off the guy, it’s probably her.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out from his friends: Pappy and the book-club gang for a start. We’ll meet tomorrow and compare notes.”

Saturday promised to be a sunny day with unseasonably warm temperatures. I decided to strap on my cross-country skis and head to the hilly trail behind the boathouse to work off some steam. I’d lain awake most of the night, not analyzing Tanner’s murder and our list of suspects as I should have, but rather wondering why Zak had never called as
he’d promised. I’d checked to make certain my phone was turned on at least a dozen times. I know Zak and I aren’t really a thing, and his comment that he’d call every night might not have meant
every
night, but that didn’t keep thoughts of Zak tangled up with Belinda’s voluptuous body at bay.

As I headed out of the door with Charlie and Lambda on my heel, I promised myself that I’d put all thoughts of Zak and his potentially torrid love affair out of my mind. Please understand that I realized I was being completely ridiculous. I’d spent most of the night trying to reason with myself. My mind told me that just because Zak had worked with the beautiful Belinda for lord knew how long, and just because she was staying at his house while she was in town, it didn’t mean they were sleeping together. Zak is a businessman who unavoidably has encounters with a variety of people representing the spectrum of natural—or unnatural—good looks. Ellie was right when she said that in order to be successful in the world of business, Zak would have to be somewhat immune to the allure of a pretty face or a perfect body. My logic seemed irrefutable. I had absolutely no reason to worry. The problem with cold, hard logic is that, no matter how solid it seems, it never really stands a chance against unbridled jealousy.

I tried to clear my head as I began my trek through the woods, but I found it hard to calm my wandering mind. I decided that focusing on Tanner’s murder was the tamer of the subjects available to me, so I reviewed everything I currently knew.

Tanner had been a charter fishing captain on the lake since before I was born. He was a crusty old guy who admittedly was a bit rough around the edges, but he had a natural instinct that I would be willing to bet even the best equipment couldn’t compete with. Tanner wasn’t a rich man by any means, but his needs were simple, and he had a loyal following of hearty clients who returned for his wild tales, homemade moonshine, and natural knack for finding the best fishing spots year after year. The more I thought about it, the less inclined I was to believe that Gilbert French and his fancy new boat was as big a threat to Tanner as Levi believed.

A better question, I decided, was to ask myself whether Tanner was a threat to Gilbert. The transplant had obviously spent a lot of money on his fancy new boat. I had to wonder if his ability to steal customers from the old-school fishing charters on the lake was presenting a larger problem than he’d anticipated.

And then there were Tanner’s other competitors. Tanner was known to be somewhat abrupt in his dealings with others as a general rule. Could the introduction of a new boat on the lake have created a tension that hadn’t previously manifested itself as trickery and sabotage? I considered the charter companies I was familiar with and couldn’t really identify a single prospective killer among the group. Still, it did seem like the natural balance they’d always enjoyed had been disrupted when the new guy arrived.

If Tanner’s murderer hadn’t been one of his competitors, then the next best guess was his ex-wife, Agatha. She had a reputation around town for being a witch. And I didn’t mean a witch as in a bitch; I meant an honest-to-goodness, spell-casting witch. Most people realized that Agatha was living in an imaginary world most likely created by forty years of marriage to one of the orneriest men I’ve ever met. Still, there are those in town who believed her when she spouted off about her magical powers and potent spells.

I remembered hearing somewhere that Tanner was lobbying the state to have his ex-wife committed to a sanitarium. Personally, I think that might have been a bit over the top. Agatha had a vivid imagination and had been known to “curse” you if you angered her, but in spite of her little hobby, she seemed harmless enough. Besides, Tanner had been hit over the head with a cylindrical object, probably a bat, and not turned into a frog, so chances were the slightly mentally disturbed woman wasn’t the slayer we were looking for.

If one of Tanner’s competitors hadn’t killed him, and Agatha hadn’t killed him, who did that leave? A friend? A neighbor? An enemy of unknown origin?

I thought about Tanner’s closest friends, most of whom attended the book club at the senior center where I volunteered. None seemed to have a mean bone in their bodies, so I moved on to his neighbors. Tanner lived in a small house near the marina where he kept his boat. Many of the homes in the area were owned by boat owners
, while others had been turned into vacation rentals. I couldn’t think offhand of anyone who would want to kill Tanner, but I didn’t really know the man as well as some of the other members of the book club, so it made sense for me to call everyone together and ask them.

After returning to the boathouse, I showered and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. I was about to head into town to run some errands when the phone rang. My heart skipped a beat as I prayed it was Zak and not some annoying telemarketer hoping to change my life with his newest product.

“Zak,” I said, as I recognized the number on caller ID. “How’s the trip?” I tried for a light tone I wasn’t really feeling.

“Terrible.”

I smiled.

“The plane was delayed in Chicago due to weather, and then, when we finally did take off, we were diverted through Phoenix.”

“You went from Chicago to Phoenix on your way to New York?”

“We didn’t get to the city until after midnight. I wanted to call but hated to wake you.”

“That’s okay. I probably left my phone off anyway. You know me, Miss Absentminded.”

Zak laughed. “I’m glad you weren’t worried.”

“Why would I worry?” I was trying to sound like I didn’t have a care in the world. “Besides, if I were going to worry, I’d be worried about Tanner Brown’s murder and its effect on Hometown Christmas.”

“Tanner Brown was murdered?”

I spent the next twenty minutes filling Zak in on the developments of the past twenty-four hours, including Tanner’s murder and our current list of suspects, the county’s challenge to the operating permit for the Zoo, and Earl Fielder’s auto accident, which had turned out to be much more serious than we originally realized. Zak offered his input on the murder investigation, promised to look into the permit, and said he’d call me later that evening. By the time I hung up, I felt better than I had since he’d left.