5 Mischief in Christmas River (5 page)

Two employees of
Pepper’s Pies
were standing outside on the sidewalk. The girls couldn’t have been much older than 20, and both had long blond hair and were wearing pink aprons. They were wearing Santa hats and elf shoes, and were ringing jingle bells. They were handing out samples of pie and pastries to everybody who passed by, grinning sunnily as folks asked them questions about the products.   

A chill ran down my spine: there was a huge crowd around the girls.

No wonder my dining room was mostly empty today.

I placed my forehead against the window.

“This is just…”

“Excuse me, Miss Cinnamon?”

I shot straight up, Tobias’s gravelly voice jarring me from my self-pity party.

“Didn’t mean to scare ya, miss,” he said. “Just, there’s this fella who’s out here wanting to see you.”

I leaned back to look at him.

“Did you get his name?”

“Uh, no, sorry miss,” Tobias said. “But he’s sort of a short, pudgy lil’ fella in a deputy’s uniform. Seemed as harmless as a bee that lost its stinger, you ask me.”

I smiled at Tobias’s colorful way of describing folks.

“Less of course the bee has teeth. In which case, maybe he’s not so harmless after all,” he mused.

I glanced one more time back out the window at the two girls across the street.

I might not have had youth and beauty working for me in my pie shop.

But at least I had good, honest, hardworking people who had a unique way of looking at the world.

Chapter 11

Billy Jasper took off his hat and stood nervously in the center of the kitchen. His eyes were bright and his cheeks were dotted with pink splotches from the cold. The normally smooth-faced deputy had been trying to grow a beard lately, but it hadn’t filled in just yet, making him look a little scruffy. 

“Why don’t you have a seat, Billy,” I said, motioning for the barstool by the kitchen island. “I’ll get you a slice of something. What would you like?”

He shook his head, his cheeks jiggling a little with the effort.

“Uh, no ma’am.Not that, uh, not that I wouldn’t love some, but I’ve just eaten.”

I lowered the plate I had just grabbed.

It seemed as though I couldn’t give away my pie for free today.

I half wondered if Billy hadn’t just made a little detour before coming here to see me. If he’d been part of the growing mob surrounding
Pepper’s Pies
.

“Suit yourself,” I said, cutting myself a slice of the cherry pie and sitting down with it at the kitchen island.

I didn’t often eat my own pie other than to taste test it. After many years of running a pie shop, I knew that eating your own supply led to madness. One slice could turn into two the next day, and could turn into more the week after. And before you knew it, you’d be buying yourself a whole new wardrobe.  

But today felt like the kind of day made for breaking such rules. 

I looked up at Billy as I took a bite of pie, waiting for him to say something, but he just kind of stared at me apprehensive like. Like the cat had got his tongue.

I cleared my throat.

“So, what’s on your mind, Billy?”

He swallowed, and then started saying something, but a huskiness in his voice took over and he stopped mid-sentence.

He shifted his weight nervously from one foot to another.

Billy had always been a little bit of a nervous type, but he seemed particularly nervous today.

And now that I thought of it, Billy hadn’t ever shown up at my pie shop, except one time last winter when he was picking up an order of pies for his mother. I always got the sense that I kind of made him jumpy, me being the boss’s wife and all. Though I never quite understood why – I always went out of my way to be kind to the young deputy.

Billy brushed his forehead with his hand, swiping at an imaginary strand of hair.

He looked like a regretful child waiting outside the principal’s office.

“Well…” he started in again, swallowing back spit. “I, uh, I messed something up pretty bad here, Mrs. Brightman.”

He wiped his hands off on his khaki pants and stepped closer to the kitchen island, his scuffed brown boots echoing on the linoleum floor.

I felt my heart suddenly speed up, wondering if something bad had happened at the station, and he was here to tell me about it.  

I was about to say something, but then he must have read my thoughts.  

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing like that. Everyone’s fine. It’s just…”

He let out a long sigh, then looked up at the ceiling.

“Shasta’s lost,” he said, swallowing hard. “And I’m going to be in a tornado of trouble if I don’t find her.”

Chapter 12

Pohly County Sheriff’s Deputy Billy Jasper was a good guy.

What Tobias had said about him being as harmless as a bee without a stinger? Well, he was right about that. Unlike a lot of small town law enforcement types, Billy didn’t have ego or authority issues. He helped old ladies cross the street. He dressed up as an elf every Christmas and was the face of the department’s Shop with a Cop program, which took kids from low-income families and gave them a chance to shop for Christmas presents with a deputy. Billy even made special rum balls every year during Christmas and handed them out to his co-workers.  

Daniel liked him immensely and never said a bad word about Billy. But I could read between the lines easy enough through Daniel’s stories. Billy might have been a good guy. But when it came to his police work, he was a little sloppy sometimes. He wasn’t detail-oriented. And he wasn’t exactly fast either. I’d heard that the former Sheriff Trumbow had been on the verge of firing Billy before he was demoted from being Sheriff three years ago.

So when Billy told me that he lost Shasta, the Sheriff’s Department’s brand new bloodhound K-9, I couldn’t say I was too surprised.

What surprised me was why he was coming to me about it.

“How did it happen?” I asked.

He played with his hat nervously.

“We were out on our nightly walk yesterday. You know, on that path that crosses the river and ends up at BrightStar Trail, near the dog park? Well, Shasta’s got what I call a shy bladder. She needs to go, but she can’t do it if I’m holding the leash. So I figure I’d let her go off leash for a bit, just until, you know, she does her business. But then I got a phone call from my mom. She’s been bugging me for weeks now, wanting to know if I’m bringing anybody special to Christmas dinner this year. I guess I was talking to her longer than I thought.”

He cleared his throat and looked down sheepishly.  

“And, uh, when I hung up, Shasta wasn’t there anymore. I called for her to come back, but she didn’t.”

He shook his head.

“I looked all over those woods, Mrs. Brightman. Must have spent half the night calling out for her, but she was just…”

He swallowed hard.

“She was just
gone
.”

I bit my lower lip.  

The department had only had Shasta for a few months. Billy was the one who lobbied for the idea of getting a police dog to help with the county’s drug trafficking problems. He had volunteered to take on the responsibility of being the dog’s handler. The bloodhound, and the subsequent training that both it and Billy needed to take down in California, had cost the department a pretty penny.

And I was sure they had expected the investment to last a little longer than three months.

“I’m so
stupid
,” Billy said, shaking his head.

Something about the way he scolded himself like that made my heart ache a little bit. It was like watching a kid get an exam back with a bad grade on it.

I stood up and went over to him.

“These things happen, Billy,” I said. “Now just… just take a seat here and let’s think about this for a moment.”

He gave in, finally plopping down on the barstool. I grabbed a mug off one of the hooks above the counter, and poured him a cup of coffee.

“Have you told Daniel about this?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“How come?”

He shrugged, looking up at me with big, guilty eyes.

“It’s just… I wanted to be good at something, you know?” he said, letting out a ragged sigh. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not exactly Sam Spade here. I try, but sometimes I wonder if I’m cut out for this job. I thought getting Shasta might be an opportunity for me to prove that I’m good at something. I’ve always been good with dogs.

“But as usual, I’ve gone and messed it all up.”

He cupped his pudgy hands around the coffee mug in front of him.

“I don’t think Daniel thinks of you like that, Billy,” I said. “I think he’d understand if you told him. He’s an understanding guy, you know? And he believes in you.”

He scrunched up his face.

“I know,” he said. “And that’s what makes it worse, Mrs. Brightman. I didn’t want to let him down. But here I am, losing a $20,000 dog and all that training the department went and paid for.”

I had a hard time not gasping when I heard the value of the dog.

As cute as Shasta was, it was hard to believe that a pooch could cost that much.  

“Well if you haven’t told Daniel yet, Billy, how come you’re telling me?”

A troubled look came across his face.

“It’s just that, I know you walk those dogs over at the Humane Society,” he said. “I thought, you know, you could discreetly keep an eye out for Shasta there. And that you could maybe keep this just between us.”

He looked over at me with pleading eyes.

“I just don’t want it to embarrass the department is all,” he said.

I thought about the proposition, and then nodded.

“Okay, Billy,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye out, and I’ll be discreet about it. But on two conditions.”

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.

“Well, first, you’ve got to tell Daniel,” I said. “If you don’t tell him, then I’ll have to. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”

His face fell a little, but then he nodded solemnly.

“Okay. What’s the second one?”

“The second one is that you sit here for a spell and enjoy some cherry pie,” I said, getting up and grabbing a fresh plate for him.

He nodded again. But this time, not quite as solemnly.

Chapter 13

I tucked my hand into the nook of Daniel’s arm while we strolled past Meadow Plaza, the lights on the towering Christmas tree glowing as the winter sun’s dying rays turned the sky a vivid shade of cranberry.

The aroma of hot ginger cinnamon pretzels wafted from the food cart across the plaza. When I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, I could almost taste that buttery, spicy, flavorful bread. I could almost hear the drums of the annual Christmas parade. I could almost feel the chilly air filling up my lungs.

I could almost feel Warren holding onto my mitten-covered hand.  

To me, that smell was my childhood. Every December, Warren and I would get our annual hot pretzel, come rain, snow, shine, ice, or mountain blizzards. 

Except this year.

The old man had come back home from Scotland with his girlfriend, Aileen, for Thanksgiving, and I had hoped that they would have been able to stay through the holidays. But they had already made plans to spend Christmas with her family back in the old country.

I’d been disappointed, but I had tried to not let it show.

Warren had only planned to stay in Scotland for one year to study beer, which meant that he should have been returning home this January. But now that he’d fallen for Aileen, a kind, lovely beer-brewing lady from Glasgow, it seemed that his trip to Scotland would be extended indefinitely. When he’d been here for Thanksgiving, I’d asked him about his plans, but he didn’t give me much of an answer other than a vague one.

“I’m just gonna wait and see which way the wind blows,” he had said.

That wind was clearly blowing across the Atlantic.

It was an odd sensation, to feel like an empty nester when I was the granddaughter and he was the grandfather. But Warren had always been such a big part of my life, and it was hard not having him around to talk nonsense any time I wanted.

But I knew that the old man was happy where he was. And I knew I had to come to terms with him being an ocean away.

“Whatchya thinking about over there all sad like, Mrs. Brightman?” Daniel said, glancing down at me.

I let out a short little breath.

“Aw, nothing important,” I said. “Just thinking about the old man is all.”

“So he’s not coming back for Christmas I take it?” he asked.

I shook my head sadly.

It was the first Christmas that Warren wouldn’t be around for. Ever.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be home soon, Cin,” he said. “The man’s been bitten by love, true enough. But if I know Warren, I bet he’s missing his granddaughter and all his friends back here something awful too.”

“I hope so, anyway,” I said.

Just then a rowdy group of middle-aged women passed us by, their shopping bags swinging wildly. They crowded our side of the sidewalk, and Daniel and I were forced to step aside.

As a general rule of thumb, the downtown area of Christmas River was dead at this hour of the evening. But after getting a sizeable grant, the folks at the Christmas River Visitor’s Center had been devising all sorts of new plans this year to draw in more tourists to the area. One of these ideas was called Christmas River Friday, a downtown event that came around the second Friday of the month. Instead of shuttering up their shops at 5 o’clock, as was customary in a town this size, the small business owners of Christmas River would keep their doors open until 8 p.m., offering beer, wine, and small hors d’oeuvres to draw folks into their shops. Just before meeting up with Daniel, I’d been talking with customers while dishing out free samples of beer and pie. But after a few hours, I left the rest up to Chrissy and Tiana, and hotfooted it out of there to do some shopping of my own with my husband.  

“So, uh, did Billy tell you about Shasta?” I said, glancing up at Daniel as we started strolling again, trying to gauge his reaction.