Tide and Punishment

by Bree Baker

  Aunt Clara beamed. “Why, yes! I’m painting a gnome garden at Blessed Bee. Each day I add a little something new, and soon there will be lights and signs to brighten shoppers’ days.”

  I grabbed two mason jars and filled them with ice and tea for the Dunfrees. “How about a drink to go with your cookies? I sweetened these naturally with apples and honey from my aunts’ garden and hives.”

  Mrs. Dunfree accepted the offering and sampled the tea carefully, then smiled. “Thank you. It’s lovely.”

  The mayor ignored the jar I’d set before him. “The gnomes are nearing eyesore territory, not to mention a potential tripping hazard. Why are you painting garden statues in the winter?”

  Aunt Clara leaned over the counter and grinned conspiratorially. “I got the idea from a Christmas legend in Norway. They call the gnomes Nisse and the Nisse assist with daily farm chores in return for kindness and a bowl of porridge with butter on Christmas morning. Isn’t that nice?”

  Mrs. Dunfree slid her eyes in the mayor’s direction. “It must be nice to have help with chores.”

  “I’ll paint you a gnome,” Aunt Clara offered.

  I suppressed a shudder. Aunt Clara had a habit of leaving the tale of the Nisse unfinished. She never mentioned that when the farmer forgot to add butter to the gnome’s porridge, the gnome killed his best cow in retaliation. I didn’t have a cow, but I had a fluffy white cat and loyal seagull, and no room in my life for a vengeful gnome.

  Mayor Dunfree dusted crumbs from his puckered lips. “Why don’t we mingle, darling? I’ve heard enough about gnomes.”

  His wife slid off her stool and took his arm. The jingling of seashells and sleigh bells turned me on my toes.

  “Merry Christmas,” I called, hurrying to welcome my newest guest and hoping the mayor wouldn’t provoke Aunt Fran again before I returned.

  A group of islanders were hanging coats in the foyer when I arrived. I welcomed and hugged them one by one, then answered a dozen questions about the Swan holiday cookies. When I confirmed the cookies would only be around for the holidays, despite the fact I had opened a year-round café, everyone wanted to place an order.

  I finished as quickly and graciously as possible, then went to check on my aunts.

  Aunt Clara stood before my boom box at the far side of the room and lowered the volume on my favorite holiday CD.

  Aunt Fran waited impatiently beside my tree. She tapped a spoon against her tea jar when the music was low. “Can I have everyone’s attention?”

  Slowly, the drone and tinkle of voices quieted. The crush of guests looked in Fran’s direction.

  “As most of you know,” she began, “I’m a lifelong resident of this town and a member of the founding family. I’m also the newest member of our town council. I care deeply about this place and everyone in it, which is why I believe there is a need for change.”

  A few heads nodded. One or two faces looked toward the exit. Change wasn’t a word Charmers knew what to do with. We were better prepared to deal with snow or an alien invasion.

  “I believe that even a place as close to perfect as Charm can use a little revision from time to time…some occasional sprucing,” Fran continued. “Specifically, I think it’s time someone takes a close look at the policies and procedures that govern our town and seeks ways to improve them. I’d like very much to be that woman.”

  Most of the guests clapped softly. All kept an eye on Mayor Dunfree, who’d risen while my Aunt Fran had spoken.

  She hitched her chin in defiance, blatantly ignoring the only man on his feet. “Next fall, when the ballots go out, you will see my name in the running for mayor of Charm, and I hope you will vote for me. Vote for change.”

  Aunt Clara led us in a tentative round of applause.

  Mayor Dunfree strode forward, clapping aggressively as the crowd’s enthusiasm died. “Very nice, Miss Swan,” he said, moving into Aunt Fran’s personal space, probably (mistakenly) assuming she would step back. Instead, he settled for standing close enough to rub shoulders with her. “I commend your bravery, especially as someone who’s only been on the town council a few months and therefore so admittedly new to politics. It’s inspiring to see you willing to toss your wildly inexperienced hat in the ring.”

  Aunt Fran scowled.

  “Speaking of change,” he continued, turning on his heels to face the crowd. “I’d like to take this opportunity to let you all know change is already on the way. I’ve decided to run for reelection next fall, with a partner.”

  I furrowed my brow. A what?

  Dunfree extended one arm toward the crowd, and I stopped short at the sight of my childhood nemesis, Bracie Gracie, a.k.a. Mary Grace Chatsworth, emerging from the crush of people. Bracie had moved away when we were in middle school, immediately improving my adolescence, but had unfortunately returned to Charm this September. I was trying to release my old grudge, but Bracie had once told all the kids at school that Grandma raised me because my deceased mother had actually run away to be a circus clown.

  “It wasn’t long ago that I’d planned to step down from office, but when I couldn’t bring myself to do that, I struck up a deal with Ms. Mary Grace Chatsworth, who has recently returned to her beloved hometown. With your votes, there will be a deputy mayor for the first time in Charm history. I believe that with her insights of youth and my decades of experience, we will make this town a place every Charmer will be proud to call home.”

  Fran took a step away from Dunfree and Bracie. She nodded cordially at the room, her cheeks crimson with humiliation as folks shouted questions to the pair who’d crashed her speech.

  “I need a minute,” she whispered, blowing past me on her way into the foyer. Moments later, the wind chimes and sleigh bells jingled with her escape.

  The impromptu Q-and-A session ended several minutes later, and folks returned to the tea dispensers and cookie trays, eager for seconds. Aunt Clara pumped the music back up and dozens of lively conversations resumed. I took cookie orders until my receipt book was nearly full and the trays I’d set out were going for empty. Then, I scanned the scene for signs of Aunt Fran.

  She hadn’t returned, and at least half the guests were suddenly gone, including the Dunfrees and Bracie Gracie.

  How much time had flown by?

  I left the receipt book on the counter and slipped into the foyer for my winter coat and hat. With any luck, Dunfree and Bracie hadn’t cornered Fran outside and irritated her into saying something they could later use against her.

  I huddled low in my coat as I walked the snow-dusted planks of my wraparound porch in search of Aunt Fran. Angry winds snapped my cheeks and bit my nose. White waves crashed and rolled in the distance beneath a smooth and inky sky. The beach was void of people as far as I could see, so I gripped the handrail tightly and climbed down the steps.

  I paused for a look back. My creepy gnome was gone. Hopefully not in search of my best cow. I shivered as a wave of gooseflesh crawled over the skin beneath my coat.

  “Ahhh!” A sudden scream of terror rent the night and spun me on my toes.

  I knew that voice.

  “Aunt Fran!” I called, already in motion toward her gut-wrenching wail. “Aunt Fran!”

  Had she fallen? Slipped on ice? Hit her head? Broken her hip? The gory possibilities worsened with every heartbeat. “Aunt Fran!”

  The silhouette of someone crouched on the ground came into view beneath a tree I’d wrapped in twinkle lights. I recognized the flowing salt-and-pepper hair immediately and slid to a graceless stop at her side. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  She pushed herself off the snowy ground and stood trembling before me. She had tears in her eyes and my missing porch gnome in one shaking fist. The domed tip of his red hat had been broken off and his face was smeared in something red. “I saw it,” she whispered. “I saw it in the snow—and I thought…I thou
ght someone had—had vandalized it.” The words came in fits and starts. “I didn’t know. I didn’t see him. Or anyone. I didn’t think… I thought I was alone.”

  The rest of her message was lost to my ringing ears as I followed her gaze to the figure in the shadows near her feet.

  Mayor Dunfree lay prone in the snow, his unseeing eyes open, and his forehead red with blood from an injury that could only have come from being hit with the gnome in Aunt Fran’s hands.

  Chapter Two

  Aunt Clara arrived on my heels in a flurry of distress. Nearly impossibly, but not surprisingly, she’d heard her sister’s cry from inside and had run out in search of her. “What on earth happened?” she exclaimed as I pulled Aunt Fran away from Mayor Dunfree. “Are you hurt?”

  Aunt Fran shook her head slowly, clearly in a daze and possibly in shock. “No.”

  Aunt Clara eyed us briefly with relief and confusion. A moment later, her gaze fell to the man at our feet. “Heavens!”

  Fran trembled. “I didn’t.” She blinked an avalanche of shimmering teardrops free, then sucked in a shuddered breath. “He was already here. Alone. Except for this.” She stretched the bloody gnome in her sister’s direction.

  Aunt Clara shrieked and swatted Fran’s hand away, knocking the gnome hat-first into the snow.

  We stared at it in the moonlight.

  “Don’t pick it up again,” I advised. “We’ll call the police and let them know about the gnome when they get here.”

  A low round of whispers lifted into the night, drawing our attention away from Mayor Dunfree. A small clutch of guests had gathered on the walkway near the bottom of my front steps.

  “What do we do?” Aunt Clara whispered, pulling her sister against her.

  “Whatever we can to help,” I said.

  I fumbled with my cell phone, searching the contacts for a very specific number. Aunt Fran had gotten herself into a pickle by picking up that gnome, and I doubted anyone but Detective Grady Hays would believe she was innocent after the public embarrassment Dunfree had caused her less than an hour ago.

  “Hays,” Grady answered. His voice boomed loud and strong through the receiver.

  I tried to drag my thick, sticky tongue off the roof of my mouth and tell him everything, but only a small choking sound came out.

  “Everly?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  I shook my head despite the fact he couldn’t see me.

  The little crowd on my walkway had grown and spilled into the snow, moving in my direction. A collective hush rolled over them when they recognized the figure at our feet. Some raced back into my home. Others clambered closer, straining for a better look and firing off questions faster than I could process their words.

  “Everly,” Grady demanded. The roar of an engine rose behind his voice.

  I batted at my tear-filled eyes, still unable to speak.

  The bystanders’ questions kept coming. What happened? Is he dead? Who did this? Did you do this? Did Fran? Why? Over a squabble? I don’t understand. Their anxious voices melded into the white noise of my pending breakdown.

  “Are you hurt?” Grady demanded. The genuine concern in his tone freed my tongue.

  “I think Mayor Dunfree is dead,” I whispered. The words were bitter, too blunt, too unfair, too surreal.

  “I’m almost there,” Grady said. “I’ll radio it in. Hold tight. Keep folks back, and don’t touch anything.”

  My gaze dropped to the gnome in the snow as we disconnected. If only Aunt Fran hadn’t touched it.

  I counted my breaths, steadying my mind. Grady was on the way, but for now, I was in charge. I could do this. “Please step back,” I said with as much authority as I could muster.

  Beside me, Aunt Clara and Aunt Fran clung to one another, their rail-thin frames looking especially frail as they melted together for support.

  The cries of emergency vehicles wound to life in the distance, racing closer until their carousels of ugly lights cast an eerie, heart-wrenching glow over the already awful scene.

  The smattering of onlookers and barrage of questions had grown increasingly fervent and speculative with each passing second.

  “Everly!” Grady appeared in the crowd, jogging confidently in my direction. “Are you okay?” he demanded, lifting his badge and waving the crowd back several steps.

  “No,” I whispered hoarsely, fighting the lump of emotion in my throat. I fell against his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Not at all.”

  Grady planted his palms on my shoulders and pushed me away from him. His trained eyes scanned my body in search of injury. “Do you need to see an EMT?”

  I shook my head and forced my spine to stiffen. There would be plenty of time for a proper breakdown later. At the moment, I needed to be a help, not a hindrance, and Grady needed information. “Mayor Dunfree hijacked Aunt Fran’s I’m-going-to-run-for-mayor speech, and she came outside to cool off. When I noticed she hadn’t come back in, I came to see if she was okay. I heard her scream, then found her here. With him.” I nodded to the mayor. “He was already like that,” I clarified. “Aunt Clara came next, then my guests filtered outside after her.”

  He cast his gaze over the broader scene outside my home, then turned a dissatisfied expression back to me. “Any idea what happened out here before you arrived?”

  I shook my head and tried not to think about my frightened aunts or all the accusations yet to come.

  “How about what happened to his head?”

  That one I knew the answer to. I lifted a finger in the direction of the discarded gnome.

  Grady moved his eyes in that direction, then grimaced. He rubbed his forehead as he crouched for a better look. “One of your aunt’s?”

  I didn’t have to answer. Who else was painting and distributing gnomes ten days before Christmas?

  He groaned. “Perfect.”

  I waited, unsure what to do next, and certain Grady didn’t think the gnome’s role in this was perfect at all.

  He snapped a pair of blue plastic gloves over his hands and removed the festive figure from the snow. He rehoused him in a plastic bag marked EVIDENCE, then zipped it shut. “Did you touch this?”

  “I didn’t,” I promised, “but…” My traitorous gaze flickered to my aunts. “Aunt Fran found it in the snow and picked it up.”

  Grady’s jaw went slack before slamming shut. He expelled a gust of breath through gritted teeth, then let his eyelids close. When he reopened them, he’d switched seamlessly into cop mode. I was highly unlikely to get any personal favors or leeway while he was in cop mode, and I’d learned from experience that my odds of being threatened with obstruction had instantly quadrupled. “I’m going to interview the guests. You and your aunts should stick around. I’ll drive them home.”

  I shuffled backward, poking a thumb over one shoulder as I moved, eager to put some distance between Grady and myself before I said more than I should. I didn’t even know what that would be, only that cop-mode Grady was a little intimidating, and I had enough on my mind already. “I’ll be right over here if you need me.”

  * * *

  I hurried to the gazebo where my aunts had relocated once emergency personnel had begun to arrive. The ornate little structure, like the rest of my garden, picket fencing, trees, and shrubs, was bathed in the glow of twinkle lights. If not for the murder site behind me and gaudy flood of emergency lights, the space would have looked downright magical. “How are you holding up?” I asked. I wanted to comfort them both, but I’d only seen three murdered bodies in my life, and I’d been the one to find the last two. I wasn’t sure how to be on the other end of this stick. “Is there anything I can get you?” I asked, shifting into hostess mode, the thing I knew best.

  Aunt Fran blinked and heavy tears cascaded over her unnaturally pale cheeks, collecting and hanging like icicle
s along her chin before falling into her lap. “Who would do this?” she whispered. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I admitted, though her question had been rhetorical.

  Things like this weren’t supposed to happen in Charm. Despite the two other murders this year, we were a kind, community-focused people. We weren’t violent. Weren’t killers. One of the previous murders was practically an accident, and the other had nothing to do with Charm at all. Neither the killer nor the victim had lived here. It was a crime of unfortunate location.

  Whatever was happening now had to be the same. A fatal accident, perhaps, or an attack by a transient criminal. “Maybe he was robbed,” I suggested. “Mayor Dunfree was an older man, strolling alone at night. It’s Christmastime, and people in need will do crazy things when the pressure is on to fill the space under the tree.” The theory was taking shape even as I spoke, and I liked it. “Maybe a well-meaning criminal just wanted his wallet, but Mayor Dunfree fought back and the attacker panicked. Fisticuffs ensued, and Dunfree lost.” It was a stretch to think an out-of-towner in need of cash had stumbled upon my house at the moment Dunfree had wandered out, but I was willing to make that theory work if it meant one of the locals wasn’t a killer.

  I reran the idea in my mind, preparing to present it to Grady when he came to question Fran and I, officially. “Wait,” I said, turning for a slow scan of the area. “Mayor Dunfree wasn’t alone.”

  Fran mopped her eyes and nose with a handkerchief. “What?”

  “Where is his wife?” I jerked onto my feet and sprinted away from the gazebo with purpose. What if she was hurt? Abducted? Or the killer?

  The crowd had disbanded, taking many of the golf carts that had previously lined my drive and the boardwalk with them. Presumably, the rest of the guests had been pushed inside, if the set of deputies standing sentinel at my door were any indication. I nearly tripped over my own feet stopping short of my front steps.