Trouble Under the Tree (A Nina Quinn Mystery) (19 page)

Ah. So this was what her newfound quest for a
“hobby” was about. It also explained how tired she’d been lately
and why she was reluctant to get her roots done. “You can buy soap,
Maria.” Now that she knew where the grocery store was.

“But what about the other stuff?”

“You can learn how to cook and bake.
Obviously. Mom raved about the bread you made.”

She sniffled. “I bought that at a local
bakery and passed it off as my own.”

Of course she had. It seemed to be a family
trait. “You’ll learn, Maria. Being a mom isn’t about cooking, or
baking, or sewing. It’s about love. And I have a feeling this
little baby is going to have a lot of that in his or her life.
Right?”

Maria nodded.

“The other day when I stopped by—were you
working in here? Is that why you didn’t answer the door?”

“Actually, I wasn’t home. The muralist, a
neighbor, was working, but I told her not to answer the door if
anyone stopped by.” Her eyes grew wide with excitement. “Do you
know that she’s the size of a grape now? And that she’s starting to
get ears?”

“The muralist?”

She smiled. “The baby!”

“She?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her as
we headed back downstairs.

“Of course it’s a she.”

I smiled. I had a feeling, by sheer will,
Maria would have a daughter.

And I hoped that Riley would find a new
little cousin a good substitute for a sibling.

In the living room, we found Gracie chewing
on the baguette. I sat down and stared at my sister. A baby. My
mother was going to flip out. Flip. Out. “Are you starting a
scrapbook for the baby?” I asked, nodding toward the pictures.

“I should—that’s a great idea, but these
photos aren’t about the baby.”

I picked one up. It was of a teenaged Maria
cheering at a high school football game. “What’re they for
then?”

“I’ve been thinking about the woman at
Christmastowne yesterday. The one you were talking to.”

“Nancy?” Nancy, who wasn’t Nancy at all. I’d
totally forgotten to give Kevin that information. I needed to call
him. “What does she have to do with this?” I held up the
picture.

“See this?” She reached for a different
picture. One taken at a basketball game when Maria was cheering.
This one showed the squad from a different angle—it also captured
some of the audience. “Look here.” She pointed at a woman in the
crowd.

A woman that looked a lot like Nancy
Davidson.

“Nancy Davidson has a doppelganger,” Maria
said. “It had been driving me crazy, thinking I knew her. Then I
realized how I knew her. Through cheering.”

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Emily Hodges. Carrie’s mom?”

My jaw dropped. Suddenly, everything made
sense.

Why Nancy had suddenly become ill when Maria
came into Santa’s Cottage.

The sabotage at Christmastowne.

The address on her application. There had
been something located on that stretch of that road...

A small white cross. The cross that probably
marked the site where Carrie Hodges died.

“I’d bet you my Swiss Miss that she’s not a
doppelganger,” I said, explaining. “Nancy is Emily. But what I’m
wondering is just how far she’d take her revenge against the
Christmases.”

“You’re not suggesting Emily is a killer, are
you? Because that’s crazy talk.”

“No, that’s logical.”

Maria jumped up. “I don’t believe it. I’m
going to go talk to her.”

“What? You can’t! She might be
dangerous.”

“Crazy talk,” she sang, headed for her coat
closet. “I’m going and you can’t stop me.”

I ran after her. “If I can’t stop you, then
I’m coming with you.”

Chapter Twenty

Maria remembered exactly where Carrie Hodges
had lived.

I pulled my truck into the driveway of the
two-story farmhouse, not too far from the crash-site where Carrie
had died.

Goats played in a pen near the house, and I
could hear the clucking of chickens from nearby. I wanted to go
play with the goats (they were incredibly cute), but Maria pulled
me along the driveway.

The front door opened long before we reached
it, and Nancy—Emily—appeared in the doorway wiping her hands on a
dishtowel. “Come on in, girls.”

We wiped our feet on the welcome mat and
followed Emily inside. A weak fire crackled in a stone hearth. Two
well-worn sofas faced each other, and a large area rug covered a
pine floor. There were pictures everywhere—some of Carrie on the
mantel and the walls, but on clothesline that criss-crossed the
room hung dozens of photos taken at Christmastowne. Random shots,
pictures of the Christmases, of Benny and Glory, of Benny and
Fairlane. Of everything.

“I’d wondered if you’d recognized me
yesterday, Maria. I didn’t realize the two of you were sisters—or I
might not have become so friendly with you, Nina. Sit, sit.”

We sat opposite her, but immediately Maria
stood up and walked over to the fireplace to look at pictures of
Carrie. “She was so pretty.”

She was. And now that I knew the relation, I
could see Carrie in her mother. The same bright eyes, the
dimples.

“Do you remember the time my cheer shorts
split before a performance, and Carrie used a bobby pin and an
earring to pin it until we could find a needle and thread?”

Emily smiled and nodded. “She was always an
inventive girl.”

“Well, she saved my butt that day.
Literally.”

Emily looked at me. “I suppose you figured
out that I’m the one who was sabotaging Christmastowne.”

“We guessed,” I said. “But didn’t know for
sure.”

Wringing the dishtowel for all it was worth,
she said, “I couldn’t let them profit from Carrie’s death.”

My brow crinkled. “Profit?”

Anger tinged her words. “Jenny and Benny used
the settlement from the accident as a startup for the business.
They don’t deserve that money, and come hell or high water, I
wasn’t going to let their business thrive. It’s blood money. My
daughter’s blood.”

Maria sat back down, and I said, “But Emily,
the insurance company wouldn’t have paid out if they didn’t think
Carrie was liable—even if it was an accident.”

Emily shook her head. “Benny was drunk.”

“Not legally,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter,” she countered. “It was
close to the legal limit. Enough to impair him.”

“There was ice...” I said.

“There’s an accident reconstructionist at the
insurance company who contacted me privately with a theory. He said
that there wasn’t enough proof to prove his theory, but he wanted
to let me know in case I wanted to pursue a case privately. He was
getting a lot of heat from his bosses to close the case, since
Benny was so high-profile.”

“What theory?” I asked.

“Based on the reconstructionist’s findings,
he thinks Carrie first swerved hard right onto the shoulder of the
road, hit the gravel, then swerved left to keep from going off into
the trees. It was then that she hit the ice and skidded across the
yellow lines and into Benny’s car. Why would she do that? Swerve
right like that?”

“Ice?” Maria guessed.

“The road was dry where she’d first gone
off.”

I stared blankly. I had no idea.

“The reconstructionist said he’d seen this
type of pattern before. Imagine if you’re driving along and ahead
you see a car coming the opposite way swerve into your lane. What
do you do?”

Swerve right to avoid a collision. My eyes
widened.

“Benny was drunk,” Emily said again.

I said, “He crossed into Carrie’s lane
first?”

“I told you he was guilty,” Maria said
smugly.

Emily nodded. “But there wasn’t enough proof.
And the only person alive to tell what happened that night was the
guilty party. Why would he tell the truth? He’d end up in jail on
vehicular manslaughter charges. He’s a liar, he’s a lech, he’s
despicable, and he killed my daughter. He deserves every bad thing
that happens to him.”

“Amen,” Maria breathed, sinking back onto the
couch.

“It makes me sick seeing him prance around
Christmastowne,” Emily said, “flirting with anyone who has double X
chromosomes. He thinks he’s above prosecution. His ego is so large
that I’m surprised it fits through the doorway. In his eyes, he
does no wrong. Not when he kills someone and not when he cheats on
his wife.”

And not when he attacks poor landscape
designers in his office, either.

Was he a narcissist? Or a sociopath?

“Did you see him cheat on Jenny?” I asked,
hoping to hear what kind of information she’d dug up on Benny.

“Let me count the ways,” she said. Motioning
to the pictures on the clothesline, she added, “There are pictures
up there of him with Fairlane, Glory, a girl from the food court,
one of the elves at Santa’s Cottage, and with one of the health
department inspectors. He’s a pig.”

“A scummy, scuzzy pig,” Maria added.

I agreed. “What were you planning to do with
the pictures?”

She continued to wring the dishtowel. “I was
hoping to see Christmastowne never open—and I hoped with all my
little bits of sabotage that it wouldn’t, but Jenny’s a fighter. I
give her credit for that.”

I kept my opinion of Jenny to myself.

“She’s going to be crushed when she learns
about all Benny’s cheating,” Emily added.

I continued keeping my mouth shut about
Jenny.

Instead, I said, “You set the fire in the
bathroom? Cut the wires to the tree? The poinsettias?”

“Yes, yes, and I’m really sorry.”

All those plants... “Did you tamper with the
security system?”

“That wasn’t me.” She fidgeted.

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I believed her. “Do
you know who killed Lele and Fairlane?”

Blinking innocently, she shook her head. “I
wish I did. Those two weren’t innocent by any means, but they
didn’t deserve their fate.”

“What do you know about them?” I asked.

“Well, I know Lele was not happy with
Fairlane sleeping with Benny. She knew he played around, and she
didn’t want her sister getting hurt.”

Ah, the sordid things happening at
Christmastowne.

“And I know,” she continued, “that Fairlane
was perhaps the biggest narcissist I’ve ever met. She loved no one
more than herself.”

“Not even her sister?” Maria asked.

“No one,” Emily said.

“Did you see Lele the morning she died?” I
asked.

“Actually, I did. I saw her and Fairlane
arguing in the employee locker room.”

“About?”

“About Fairlane getting fired and ruining all
their plans. They clammed up pretty fast when I came in.”

Hmm.

“That was the last time I saw her. I was out
taking pictures, trying to catch Benny in the act with one of his
floozies, but I couldn’t find him that morning.”

“He wasn’t with Glory?” He’d been with her
after the fire alarm went off.

“Nope. It was the first place I checked.”

“Did you see Jenny at all?”

“Not that I can recall.” She stood up and
walked through her clothesline photo gallery. “She’s not in any of
my shots from that morning. You don’t think Jenny had anything to
do with these murders, do you?”

“I’m not sure,” I said carefully.

“Well, if you can pin it on Benny, I’d be a
happy mom.”

Suddenly uneasy, I said to Maria, “We should
go.”

Maria nodded and gave Emily a big hug.

Emily said, “I suppose you’ve already
contacted the police about the sabotage?”

“Someone will probably be contacting you,” I
said. She didn’t need to know I’d be calling them as soon as Maria
and I drove away. It was better to let her think they’d already
been notified.

She smiled. “That’s okay. It’ll make for a
good chapter in my book.”

“Your book?” I asked on the way to the
door.

“My tell-all about Benny.
All-American
Zero
. I will bring him down one way or another. Mark my
words.”

We said our good-byes and walked to the
truck. Maria buckled in, turned and looked at me, and said, “That
last part was weird, right?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I understand a mother’s grief,” Maria said
softly, “but she seems to be taking it to the next level.”

Emily had definitely taken it to the next
level.

Maria threw me a look. “You don’t think Emily
would have killed Fairlane and Fairlee just to frame Benny, do
you?”

“I thought that was crazy talk?”

“It is! Because if it’s true, it would make
Emily just as bad as Benny.” She glanced at me. “Right?”

I drove past the little white cross on the
side of the road and felt an ache in my chest. “Right.”

Chapter Twenty-one

As soon as I dropped off Maria, I headed for
my mother’s house to pick up the plastic candles—and the motion
camera.

I dialed Kevin on my way and was a bit
surprised he actually answered. There was a pit in my stomach.
Would he joke about what he overheard this morning? Or be nice
about it? Both sounded dreadful to me.

“Nancy Davidson, or should I say Emily
Hodges, just called,” he said before I could even get a word out.
“I don’t suppose you had something to do with that?”

“Maybe a little,” I said.

“She’s coming in tomorrow morning for an
interview.”

“She has some pretty interesting things to
say.”

“Why do I feel like you’re talking about more
than the sabotage?”

I told him about mine and Maria’s theory.

“That’s quite a leap,” he said.

“Just something to look into. And here’s
another theory for you.” I told him about Jenny’s visit to my
office this morning. And how I suspected that she might have been
the one to pay off the sisters.

He whistled low. “That’s not so much of a
leap.”

“You’ll look into it?” I asked. Because,
really, I didn’t want anything else to do with Christmastowne.