Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (13 page)

The deputy looked at me hard for a moment and then placed the mystery knife into a bag.

I had a bad feeling about that. A real bad feeling.

“A lot of strange things going on in and around your shop lately, Miss Peters,” the sheriff said.

“Don’t I know it,” I said, trying to sound calm. “What about this break-in? What can you do, Sheriff?”

He put his notepad away into his top pocket and readjusted his
Smokey the Bear
forest ranger hat atop of his balding head.

“We’ll do what we can,” he said. “We’ll test the doorknob for fingerprints, and see about what Deputy Greene found out there. Hopefully, we’ll find something.”

“I don’t suppose the penalties for destroying a gingerbread house are too severe?” I asked, feeling a drop of sweat form on the side of my temple. 

“Well, no,” he said. “But breaking and entering is serious.”

I nodded.

“That is, if anyone actually did break in and enter,” he said, clearing his throat.

I was about to ask him something else, but then realized I didn’t understand what he was talking about.

“What do you mean? Of course someone broke in. How do you think that window was broken?” I said.

He stuck out his upper lip, like he didn’t believe what I was saying.

“We just have to wait and see,” he said.

He tipped his hat and then him and his deputy went out the front door, leaving me with a mess of glass and broken gingerbread on my floor, and an uneasy feeling in my gut.

That last thing he said just wasn’t sitting well.

What was that supposed to mean?

Did the sheriff think I had something to do with the break-in?

Did he think I would have done that to my own shop? That I would self-sabotage myself in some sort of elaborate scheme?

The front door bell jingled, and I realized that I needed to get to work, otherwise one of the biggest money-making days of the year would be ruined, just the way the gingerbread house had been.

And I couldn’t be a victim twice over. Not when there was something I could do about it.

Chapter 31

“I’m going to murder that…”

I thought I could see steam coming out of Kara’s ears as she tried to find the right word to describe the soulless person who would destroy a work of art with such malicious hatred.

She struggled for the word, and finally just settled on looking down at the crumbly cookie frosting mess at our feet.

Eventually, we would have to clean it up. But not yet. It was still just too painful.

I was rolling out pie crust when Kara came in. I had phoned her earlier to let her know what happened. She was at the shop about five seconds flat after that. I didn’t want to think about how she got here through all the parade traffic outside. I could just imagine her weaving her car around the Christmas River High School marching band and the news channel weatherman’s float while honking and yelling at them to get out of her way.

“I mean, is she insane?” Kara said, rubbing her temples. “Doesn’t she know that by doing this, she’s put her life in danger?”

“Best not to even joke about those things,” I said. “Given what happened to Mason.”

Kara crossed her arms.

“Who said I was joking?” she said. “And Mason’s got nothing to do with this.”

“I’m not so sure,” I said. “I don’t know what in the hell’s been going on lately. But it all seems to be happening around my shop. I’ve been thinking, and I’m not sure that it’s all just coincidence.”

Kara looked up at me, catching my eyes.

“There’s something else I haven’t told you,” I said quietly.

“What?” she said.

“The sheriff found something else when he was here,” I said. “Something out on the porch. Somebody left a knife out there.”

“A knife?” Kara asked, saying the words so quietly, it was like she was lip syncing them.

“I’m really worried, Kara,” I said. “I feel like something’s going on and I don’t have a clue what it is.”

“It’s gotta be Bailey,” Kara said. “She’s messing with you. But do you think she killed…”

Suddenly, there was loud yelling and hollering coming from outside. The parade was turning down Main Street. Santa’s float couldn’t have been too far behind given the loud screaming going on.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Bailey’s stupid and she’s a homewrecker, but a murderer? I doubt she’d have the guts for that.”

Kara nodded.

“But I wouldn’t put it past her to… arrange something,” I said.

“I wouldn’t either,” Kara said. 

“But I just don’t see the angle,” I said. “I don’t know what killing Mason would have gotten her.”

I shook my head.

“And why is she doing this all of a sudden? She’s getting married to Evan for Christsakes. She’s got the ring. She’s got everything. Why all this now? I haven’t even seen either her or Evan in months.”

Kara shrugged.

“Who knows why crazy bitches do what they do,” she said. “All I know is that we’re screwed.”

I sighed. She was right. There was no way we had enough time to make another Gingerbread mansion.

The contest was lost before it had even started.

All my dreams of bright, sunny skies and warm sandy beaches and tanning oil lay somewhere among the broken cookie paneling of the gingerbread house on the floor.

And I couldn’t even grieve for it properly. I had too much work to do in the kitchen for the hordes of tourists who would be coming into the shop after the parade finished.

Kara saw the look in my eye. That tired, exhausted, stressed-out as a one-legged table kind of look.

“Listen,” she said. “I should get back to my store, too. But I’ll be back tonight with some wine and we can plan on how we’re gonna exact our revenge, all right?”

I nodded, wiping away a drop of sweat that was running down my temple.

“There’s a lot going on that I don’t understand,” Kara said. “But there is one thing I know, Cin. She’s going to be sorry. Very, very sorry when we get through with her.”

I tried to smile, but no matter how much I willed myself to, I couldn’t do it.

“I’m sorry, Kara,” I said. “I’m sorry if she did this to get back at me. Going after the gingerbread house is a low blow. She shouldn’t have included you in her warpath.”

Kara half-smiled.

“She involved me the day she betrayed you, Cin,” Kara said. “And the bitch doesn’t even know the meaning of warpath. Wait until she sees what we’ve got in store for her.”

Kara left, and I could hear the screaming of the crowd as Santa Claus’s float meandered down the street.

The sharp noise grated on me like I was a chunk of hard cheese.

Which was exactly how I felt. Cold and hard, and completely devoid of holiday cheer.

Chapter 32

I felt like I could have slept for a decade.

The tourists were coming in and out of the shop like there was a food shortage in town, and my place was the only one with supplies.

I was running back and forth between the front counter and the kitchen, bringing out fresh pies and taking money and doing loads of dishes. It was utter madness, and it reminded me that I really needed to get someone to take Bailey’s place. It had been far too long since I had help at the shop, and I kicked myself for getting into this situation again. Owning my own pie shop was a dream fulfilled, but I didn’t bank on playing cashier or waitress when I had set up this place.

Finally, around late afternoon, the tourists were steadily filtering out, which was a good thing because I was nearly out of pies and even ingredients to make pies.

On the bright side, I had made a lot of money for the day. I tried to focus on that as I loaded up the dishwasher with another batch of plates.

I heard the front door jingle and washed my hands before going out to meet the customer.

“What can I get you to—”

I stopped mid-sentence.

“I’ll take a piece of the blueberry,” the woman said, pointing at the glass, her big, clunky wedding ring catching the light.

“Well,” I said. “This season’s full of surprises. I didn’t ever expect to see you here, Gretchen.”

Her graying hair was puffed out from the winds outside, and she had on her trademark big fur coat. The muted light of late afternoon fell harshly on her wrinkled face. She looked like a mummy who was in need of a drink of water.

But there was something different about her then when I normally saw her from across the Christmas River auditorium, standing in front of her gingerbread house.

That arrogant look that was normally on her face was no longer there. She actually looked almost normal. Not the archnemesis enemy she’d been all these years during the competition.

“I was in the neighborhood,” she said. “And I just wanted to see how you’re doing. I heard about… Mason.”

I handed her a slice of pie, raising my eyebrows.

I looked at her hard for a moment.

Gretchen, in all the time I had known her, had never so much asked me how I was doing in casual conversation.

Now, after my gingerbread house was destroyed by an unknown assailant, she was here, snooping around.

Was this her way of gloating? Had she been the one to ruin my hopes of ringing in the New Year on a tropical island?

“I’m fine,” I said. “As for Mason, he’s most definitely not, as you’ve probably heard.”

She winced. The first time I had ever seen any form of emotion on her face other than arrogance or jealousy when I took the competition from her.

I was speechless for a moment. I didn’t expect the news about Mason to have that effect on her.

I mean, Mason loved her creations.
Loved
them. But Gretchen was such a snob that I never got the feeling she looked at Mason as anything other than a minion of sorts. He was someone she could depend on at the competition to give her the win. This perhaps was why she was lamenting his death.

She knew with Mason gone, she couldn’t count on anything. 

Not that it mattered, though. With me out of the picture, she’d take it, easy. I didn’t give Bailey a chance against the experienced Gretchen O’Malley.

“It’s just so shocking, isn’t it?” she said. “I just can’t believe that could happen in a town like Christmas River. I thought this was a safe place.”

“Well, it’s always a safe place until it isn’t,” I said.

There was a moment of silence. I suddenly got the impression Gretchen was here for something else. To ask me something.

She looked at me for a moment, and then cleared her throat.

“Do you think he suffered?” she asked.

She said it with a sincerity that took me by surprise.

She said it the way you would ask after a friend.

I hadn’t realized that Gretchen O’Malley was human.

But maybe I had been wrong.

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “By the time I found him… it was hard to tell. But I’m sorry if the two of you were close.”

“No, no. We weren’t,” she said. “It’s just… he was such a mainstay at the competition every year. An institution to himself. It’s a shame he perished like that.”

Leave it to Gretchen to call Mason Barstow an “institution.” And to make it sound like he was a bag of lettuce left too long out on the counter.

She placed the untouched pie plate back on the glass case, lightly sliding it toward me.

“See you tomorrow at the competition?” she said. “The beat must go on, right?”

I let out a troubled sigh.

I was just about to tell her about what happened, about my gingerbread house being destroyed when I stopped myself.

The beat must go on.

That phrase seemed to resonate with me in that moment. It rang true.

She was right.

Even in the face of sabotage, I wasn’t going to give up on the competition. I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me with gutter tactics.

It wasn’t in my nature to quit. To let anyone make me quit.

I was going to compete. Even if all I showed up with was a store-bought gingerbread kit and some gumdrops.

Because winning wasn’t the point anymore.

The point was showing up, showing Bailey that she hadn’t beaten me. That she couldn’t break my spirit. No matter what dirt she flung my way, I would stand tall and wouldn’t give up.

“Yeah, of course,” I said. “See you there.”

The corners of Gretchen’s mouth almost turned up into a muted smile. She then walked out of the shop, the door slamming behind her. I saw her get into the passenger side of a car waiting out in front where I could make out the silhouette of her husband in the driver’s seat.

I watched them pull away down Main Street, still strewn with parade streamers and horse droppings.

I turned the front sign over to “closed” and locked the front door.

Then, I went into the back and preheated the oven. I sent a text message to Kara to come over if she could. As I started mixing the ingredients for gingerbread, I thought about how odd things turned out sometimes.

That my archnemesis, Gretchen O’Malley, would give me the exact inspiration I needed to carry on in the competition.

That she would come through in my hour of need.

Yep. It had been a bizarre week. That was for sure.

Chapter 33

I was exhausted, but I was determined. And determination can take you through just about anything.

But I wasn’t so exhausted that I didn’t notice that Daniel hadn’t stopped by, like he said he was going to the night before.

I tried calling him, but it just went to his voicemail. I sent him text messages, but heard nothing back.

As we rolled out sheet after sheet of gingerbread cookie dough, Kara noticed me stealing glances at the kitchen door from time to time. I told her about Daniel, and how he was supposed to be coming but hadn’t shown up yet.

“Be careful, Cin,” she said. “You might not, but I remember how devastated you were when he left the first time.”

“The first time? Doesn’t that imply that there’s going to be a second?” I asked.

“I’m just saying,” she said.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t feel like fighting her on this. I was too tired.