Dying in a Winter Wonderland

by Vicki Delany

  I sucked in a breath.

  “What?” Amber said.

  “Nothing. I thought of something, that’s all. I’ve left my dog outside long enough. I have to get back to the store.” I stood up. “Thank you for the tea.”

  Amber grabbed her Kate Spade bag and leapt to her feet also. She pulled a set of keys out of the bag. “Time for me to be off, too. Thank you so much for the tea, Fran.”

  “Must you go so soon?” Fran said. “We’ve so much to catch up about.”

  Amber ignored her. She leaned over Luanne and gave her an air kiss that landed about a mile off the other woman’s cheek. “I do hope we can do this again. If not . . . have a nice life, Luanne. Bye.” She hurried for the door. Fran and Luanne scrambled to their feet and we all followed Amber. She trotted down the sidewalk and flicked the fob on her key. The Porsche blinked in acknowledgment. She glanced at Mattie as she passed, but she kept going, leapt in her car, and sped away without a backward glance.

  “One good thing came out of this,” Luanne said. “I won’t have that horrible woman for my sister-in-law.”

  “Now, now, dear,” Fran said. “That’s no way to talk. The rich are sometimes not as thoughtful as they might be.”

  “Which is something you’re never going to experience firsthand, Mom. Much to your regret, I’m sure.”

  Fran’s eyes tightened, but she forced the edges of her mouth to turn up. “Thank you for stopping by, Merry. Do give my regards to your parents.”

  I stepped out of the house onto the porch. Luanne followed and shut the door behind us. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and wrapped her arms around herself against the cold. She coughed lightly and avoided my eyes. “Merry, I want to thank you for not making a big deal out of what happened yesterday in your store. I can’t imagine what I was thinking, letting that woman get to me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “I’ll cover the damage. I don’t know why I said Dad would do it, maybe just to show off to Amber. I’ve only met her once before today, at Jeff’s and my engagement party, and I didn’t like her then any more than I do now. She’s pretty horrible.”

  “She did manage to get a dig in at me and Rudolph. Didn’t bother me one bit. Don’t let it bother you.”

  “I shouldn’t gloat, but I will. She’s got a heck of a shock coming to her.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Their company’s going down. Way down. Without Jeff in charge, it’s the end. Louis can’t even begin to run it, but he’s going to try. That won’t last long. Her allowance is going to be cut off soon enough. I don’t know if Jeff’s Porsche is fully paid for. She’d better hope it is.”

  “Didn’t you tell me she owns an art gallery in Dallas?”

  “Please, Merry. She’s a rich girl playing at being someone important in the world of art. Vanderhaven Development funds the entire money-losing operation. It was a bone of contention between Jeff and Louis. Jeff wanted to cut her loose, and Louis resisted. Her place’ll be closing soon enough.”

  “Do you think she knows that? About the future of the company, I mean?”

  “Oh yeah. She knows. She’s pretending she doesn’t. I’m sorry Jeff died.” Luanne’s voice turned wistful and she bit her lower lip. “I truly am. Maybe I didn’t love Jeff as much as my parents wished I did, but I did care for him. His family meant a lot to him, the approval of his dad in particular. He didn’t deserve to die so young.”

  “Do you have any idea, Luanne, who killed him? And don’t say Chris.”

  “I do not. You can tell Chris I’m sorry I made things uncomfortable for him. I guess I was just hoping—never mind what I was hoping.”

  From his post beneath the tree, Mattie was watching us. “I’ll tell him. What are your plans now?” I asked. “Are you going back to Rochester?”

  “I’ve decided to stay in Rudolph. This morning, I called the bank where I work and quit. Rudolph’s where I belong. The people I belong with. I’ve come to realize that over the past few days. As for the job at Jeff’s company, I don’t want it anymore. I probably never did.”

  “See you around, then,” I said.

  She reached out and grabbed me in a fierce hug. When I finally broke away and stepped back, her eyes shone with tears.

  “Take care of yourself,” I said.

  “You, too, Merry.”

  I untied Mattie and we walked to the store. I hadn’t been able to question Fran Ireland about her activities the afternoon of the day after Christmas, but I had learned a few interesting things. I might try and find out if Detective Simmonds knew whether Amber Vanderhaven had been in Dallas the day her brother died. Might she have killed him, knowing he was planning to cut her income off? Seemed unlikely to me, particularly in light of what Luanne said about the change in the family fortunes, but I didn’t know the dynamics of that family. Amber had seemed more interested in making digs at Luanne than their grieving together over Jeff.

  Amber said Madison had been stalking Jeff. Was that true? It might well be. Which would mean that Jeff had absolutely no intention of getting back together with Madison, and she wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer. Madison’s behavior didn’t seem entirely rational to me. Might it have been Madison I’d heard outside the Ireland home Christmas Eve, and then again watching my parents’ house on Christmas night?

  If Madison had been stalking Jeff, then it was entirely possible she’d followed him to the Yuletide on Saturday, begged him to come back to her, and killed him when he said no.

  Except for the pesky fact that she had an alibi for the time of death.

  Unless the police officer who’d given her the ticket was wrong about the time. Or the official time of death was wrong.

  I’d told the police I heard Jeff shout at about quarter after two.

  Was that right?

  Was it possible I’d heard someone else yelling about something completely unrelated? Had Jeff died before two? Had Madison been, in fact, heading out of Rudolph, not toward it, when she was pulled over? Surely the cop would know which direction she’d been going in?

  Unless she’d turned around for some reason.

  My head hurt. I was thinking Madison had to be the killer and trying to twist the facts to fit my theory. The police would have far more reliable information on the time of Jeff’s death than some nebulous account by me.

  Wouldn’t they?

  As for last night, outside McGinley’s Irish Pub, had Madison been watching from the woods? Even after Jeff’s death, was she still obsessed with Luanne? Had she followed Luanne to the reunion?

  But Luanne wasn’t standing outside in the dark. Chris was. I was.

  Madison hadn’t come inside the bar. I hadn’t seen her, and I would have. She had no reason to be watching Chris. Unless she was simply watching everyone and everything.

  I gave my head a shake. My brother was on his way to New York City.

  This was none of my business anymore.

  “Isn’t that right, Mattie?” I said.

  “Woof,” he agreed.

  Chapter 20

  When I got back to the store, Jackie slipped out for a break.

  The moment the door shut behind her, Crystal approached me. “Uh, Merry, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  First thing this morning, I’d put in a rush order for more pieces of the Christmas-themed tea set, but they wouldn’t arrive for a few days. That might be a problem, as I didn’t want to get stuck with a lot of inventory once the holiday shoppers left town. “Sure,” I said to Crystal as I rearranged a line of glass candlesticks a customer had rummaged through and debated canceling the order, except for the one set I’d promised Rachel McIntosh, if it wasn’t too late.

  “I . . . uh . . .” Crystal stammered. “I don’t know how to say this, Merry, but I quit.”

  I stopped fussing over ca
ndlesticks and worrying about tea sets. “You what?”

  “I quit. I’m sorry. I said I’d work the day after New Year’s and I will. Because I promised. But not after that. I can’t take it anymore.”

  “Why? I thought you liked working here. The customers love knowing you made the jewelry yourself, and your pieces sell so well.”

  “I like it fine.”

  “Do you not have time? Your jewelry business is doing so well, plus your college courses. I suppose you don’t plan to come back to Rudolph for your holidays all the time anymore. I’ve barely had a chance to ask you if you’re loving living in New York. Are you?”

  Her long dark hair fell over her face as she studied the carpet.

  I took a step toward her. “Crystal? Is that not it? Have I done something wrong? You weren’t here when that fight broke out, so it can’t be that, can it? It’s not going to happen again.”

  “I . . . I . . . Merry, it’s not you or the store. I love you and I love Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. I’m sorry, but I can’t work with Jackie any longer. Ever since you made her assistant manager, she thinks she’s the boss. When you’re not here, she shouts out orders at me. She follows me around, moving everything I arrange. When I’m finished with a customer, she tells me I handled them wrong and should have sold them more stuff. I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

  “Oh dear.” I didn’t want to lose Crystal. She’d started working for me when she was a junior in high school. I liked her a lot, and she was a reliable employee and a good worker. Not to mention that the tourist season in Rudolph is so seasonal, it isn’t easy to find reliable part-time staff.

  “Just now, when you were out,” Crystal said, “Kyle came in. Jackie told Kyle, in a voice everyone in the store could hear, that it was necessary to be strict with junior staff. Otherwise, they got too full of themselves.”

  I groaned. Not only because Jackie had embarrassed Crystal but because that blasted Kyle had been hanging around inside my shop again.

  “Do you want me to have a word with her?” I asked.

  Crystal shook her head. “No. She’ll be even more difficult if she thinks I tattled on her. I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to put in here next year anyway, what with college and all.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope you know I value your help.”

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t running off all the time.”

  “Sorry,” I said again.

  “I’m back!” Jackie held up a paper bag. “I brought you guys a treat from Cranberries. Crystal, you can’t eat out here, not in front of the customers. When it’s time for your break, you can go into the back and have it there.”

  “You mean I can eat in the washroom?” Crystal said.

  “Don’t be silly. Who does that? The storage room will do. I’ll put it here.” Jackie looked at us, waiting to be thanked.

  “Thanks,” Crystal said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Jackie smiled and put the bag under the counter.

  As I was thinking that, murder to investigate or not, I should be devoting more time to my business, Vicky arrived. “Ready to go?”

  “Go where?”

  “Dress shopping, like you said. I’ve got a ton of work ahead of me tonight, with all the New Year’s Eve parties on Thursday people need food for, but I can spare you some time. Why are you looking at me like that? It was your idea.”

  “I don’t have time, sorry. We’re too busy in here.”

  “Run along, Merry,” Jackie said. “I can manage. With a bit of help from Crystal.”

  Crystal rolled her eyes and went to assist a customer who was pawing through the ornaments on the tree.

  “You’re too busy,” I said to Vicky. “I’m too busy. Let’s forget about it.”

  “What are you going to wear? New Year’s Eve is the day after tomorrow, so you don’t have much time. You said you wanted to get something really special.”

  “I’ll find something in my closet.”

  She studied my face. “Is everything okay?”

  I jerked my head at her and stepped outside.

  “What’s up?” she asked when we were on the sidewalk. The temperature had been rising all day and was now above freezing. The accumulation of snow in the street was slowly turning into dirty mush. At least we’d had a lovely white Christmas.

  “Employee problems. I can’t go shopping. Doesn’t matter, I’ll find something.”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “I am.”

  “I didn’t see the paper this morning, but Aunt Marjorie told me the police are saying the state police are widening the investigation. What does that mean?”

  “It means Chris has left town, and he’s happy to be out from under the cloud of suspicion.”

  “That’s good to hear. What happens now?”

  “The police do what police do, and I do what I do. Which is run my business. Maybe we’ll never know what happened to Jeff Vanderhaven. I don’t like not knowing, but I guess that’s life. Not all secrets are revealed.”

  “They might still catch the guy. I bet the cops have their eye on that man we saw in Muddle Harbor. He looked like a shifty sort to me. I told you that at the time.”

  “You did not.”

  “Sure I did,” Vicky said.

  “Want to come around tonight and order pizza and watch a trashy movie?”

  “Can’t. Mark and I are having dinner together. We’ve both been so busy since Thanksgiving, we’ve scarcely seen each other for weeks.”

  “You’re still going to the Yuletide to help in the kitchen Thursday?”

  “Yup. For which I don’t need a new dress. If you change your mind, or your employee problems suddenly sort themselves out, let me know.” She wiggled her fingers in a wave and ran off.

  I went back to work. Time to put the investigation behind me. Not that anyone ever said it was up to me to get involved in it in the first place. I’d done what I could—asked a few questions—and I’d learned nothing that would point to the killer. No one I’d spoken to wanted Jeff dead. Cui bono is what they say in mystery novels. Who benefits?

  No one, as far as I could see. Not Luanne or Madison, who both loved Jeff in their own strange ways. Luanne might have had some idea of breaking the engagement with Jeff in order to be with my brother, but all she had to do was tell Jeff it was over. She didn’t need to kill him. If she had been so inclined, better to wait until they were married and she had some inheritance rights before bumping him off. I could see Madison as the killer, but there isn’t much of a better alibi than being pulled over for speeding and sitting at the side of the road stewing while the cop checks your ID.

  Luanne’s family didn’t benefit by Jeff’s death. If everything I’d heard was true, they were now worse off, their financial prospects and social-climbing ambitions in tatters.

  No one at Vanderhaven Development or in his family wanted to lose Jeff. He was the only thing keeping the company afloat and his sister living in the style to which she’d become accustomed.

  The businesspeople from Muddle Harbor had lost their chance of getting a big new development in their town. Sure, they could try again, and they might be able to attract new money (with or without ties to organized crime), but that was by no means a sure thing, and essentially meant starting all over. Wayne Fitzroy, Jim Morrow, and Rudolphites like them saw a benefit to themselves if the Muddle Harbor plan went ahead. No sensible person from Rudolph would go so far as to sabotage a potential advantage to our rivals. Would they?

  Granted, there were a few non-sensible people in Rudolph, but I had to consider the idea unlikely to the point of ridiculous.

  No, Jeff had been killed by person or persons beyond my range of acquaintances. Jeff didn’t even live in Rudolph. He would have plenty of friends and not-friends in Rochester who could easil
y have followed him to Rudolph and argued with him in the lovely little glade with the statue of a girl and her dog at the Yuletide Inn. For all I knew, there might be a host of other women like Madison who figured he’d done them wrong. Amber said Madison had been stalking Jeff, but she would have been telling me what Jeff had told her. Maybe Jeff had a habit of getting himself engaged to women and then breaking it off.

  In short, it was absolutely none of my business.

  “Do you have another one of these train sets?” a customer asked me. “I have twin grandchildren, and I’m thinking the trains will be perfect gifts for next year.”

  “I do,” I said.

  Chapter 21

  Okay, so I didn’t have a new dress to wear for the fanciest party of the year at the best place in town. But I’m a design guru (supposedly). I know how to make do.

  Thursday afternoon all the shops on Jingle Bell Lane closed at five so everyone could get home to prepare for their parties or a wild night on the town. I took Mattie for a long walk along the lakefront as the early-winter dark descended. The shoreline was rimmed with thin ice, and on the surface of the lake, patches of ice drifted across the open blue water. The sky was clear and stars were coming out as we headed away from the lights of the town.

  I’d avoided giving much thought to Crystal quitting, but I couldn’t keep not thinking about it now. I always knew she wouldn’t be working for me much longer, but it had still come as a blow when she said she was leaving. I’d have to find a new part-timer for the busy periods. And then I’d worry that they’d not want to put up with Jackie, either, and quit on me.

  Which meant I had to have a word with Jackie.

  That was not going to be fun. It wasn’t that Jackie didn’t take criticism well, more that she simply didn’t hear it.

  Mattie stepped on a patch of ice, and it broke under his weight. Surprised, he leapt backward, shaking cold water off his foot. I called to him, and we went home to get ready for the party.