by Vicki Delany
“Guess I am, at that.” He opened his wallet and carefully selected the exact amount. “Too bad about that magazine guy, eh?”
“What about him?”
“I hear he kicked the bucket. How sad.” Kyle made a wiping-away-tears gesture. Then he grinned. I knew his family. They were hard-working, well-meaning people, who had four boys and not a lot of money. Certainly nothing extra for luxuries such as dentistry. Kyle worked for a lawn maintenance company over the summer. In the winter he plowed driveways and made extra money helping out at hotels and restaurants over the busy Christmas season.
“What do you know about that?” I asked, handing him the earrings, which I’d wrapped in tissue paper and slipped into a small bag.
“Me? Nothing at all. Except good riddance.”
“Ready!” Jackie called. She’d freshened her makeup and combed her hair. “I’m absolutely starving. You have no idea what a slave driver that Merry is. I hope you’re taking me someplace nice for dinner, Kyle.”
He handed her the shopping bag. “Sure am, babe.”
I unlocked the door for them. Jackie threw me a self-satisfied smirk as she left. Sometimes I didn’t like her very much. None of my business, though. Kyle was a big boy.
Kyle wasn’t exactly mourning Nigel Pearce. I was thinking that the death of the Englishman had turned out rather well for Kyle, when Crystal came out of the back. “I can stay for a while, help you unwrap and arrange the new stuff, if you like.”
“I’m sure you have more than enough to do at home. I can manage.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Good night. Did you remember that we have Midnight Madness Friday and Saturday?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Sorry,” I said. “Forgot who I was talking to for a minute there.”
“See you Thursday, Merry.”
I cleared some space on the main display table—which wasn’t difficult as most of the stock there had been sold—and laid out the fresh supply of Crystal’s beautiful jewelry. I was ticking off the enclosed packing slip against the items when someone rapped on the door.
I let in my dad. His white hair and beard were full of snow and he stamped more snow off his boots. “It’s starting to come down hard out there,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Need a hand, honeybunch?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, there are a couple of boxes in the storeroom that need to be unpacked.”
“I hear it was you who found that Pearce guy last night. You okay?”
“I’m fine, Dad. He hadn’t been shot or stabbed or anything awful. He was just lying there. Like he’d gone to sleep. It was Mattie who found him, not me. Oh, gosh, Mattie! I forgot all about him. We were so busy this afternoon.” An image of Vicky’s scolding index finger wagging in my face popped into my head. “I’ll have to go home now, and then come back and finish up.”
“A few more minutes on his own won’t hurt none. I’ll help you with this stuff. You could always ask your mother to walk the dog when you don’t have the time.”
“Mom? Are you serious? Mom hates dogs.”
“She doesn’t hate dogs. Sometimes you don’t give her enough credit, Merry. She’d be delighted to help. Of course . . .” His voice trailed off. “She might not want to do the picking-up-after stuff.” Another image popped into my head, this time of Mom’s face when she realized she was expected to clean up after the dog. “She can go around to your place and let him out into the backyard for a break.”
“You’re sure she wouldn’t mind?”
“She’d be happy to do it,” Dad said, not sounding entirely sure of his facts.
With Dad’s help I was able to get the additional stock unpacked and displayed in record time.
“Was everyone as busy as I was today?” I asked as we worked.
“No complaints. Lots of talk, though, about that Pearce guy and why Vicky was closed all day.”
“What sort of talk?”
“Rumor. Speculation. Gossip disguised as interest. ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence.’” Dad was a Sherlock Holmes fanatic. He could usually be relied upon to come up with an appropriate quote for any occasion.
“What exactly are they saying?”
“One loudmouthed police officer—I won’t mention any names, but a female of your acquaintance—who’d been at the scene, let loose with the word ‘poisoned.’”
“Oh, dear.”
“You can say that again. We’ve been trying all day to put a lid on that, without appearing to hush it up, which would only stoke further talk. The autopsy was supposed to be done this afternoon.” He was arranging boxed sets of tree ornaments on a side table. He shoved the Christmas-themed napkins and place mats I’d placed there earlier to the back.
“The larger things go behind,” I said. “Leave the flat napkins in front.”
“This works better.”
I began to argue, but my phone chirped to tell me I had an incoming text.
Vicky: Wine and movie? My place.
Me: Just finishing up. Then Mattie. One hour?
Vicky: Gotcha
Vicky and I had a fun, relaxing evening. We watched Jane Eyre, ate too much microwaved pizza and popcorn, and drank too much white wine. Vicky lives in walking distance of my place, so I didn’t have to worry about driving and enjoyed sitting back with my best friend, doing more talking than watching the adventures of poor, plain, unloved Jane and haughty Mr. Rochester. By unspoken agreement, we avoided the topic of Nigel Pearce and World Journey magazine. Mattie was always welcome at Vicky’s house, and he spent the evening tormenting Vicky’s elderly golden lab, Sandbanks, who was not in the mood for playing with an overactive puppy, thank you very much. Mattie dragged me home around midnight and I fell straight into bed, looking forward to sleeping in a bit. Even in December, Mondays were always slow.
I woke around eight, feeling a good deal better than I should have after a night of indulgence. I let Mattie out and popped in the shower. When I walked back into the bedroom, toweling off, I noticed the phone flashing at me. I called up my voice mailbox to hear Vicky’s frantic voice.
“You’re my one phone call, Merry. I’ve . . . I’ve been arrested. Call my dad. Send help.”
Chapter 6
I don’t know why Vicky hadn’t called her dad herself. He was a lawyer, had a small practice in town. Her mother ran a successful catering business, and despite her dad’s fondest wish that his daughter follow him into the law, the cooking part of Vicky’s genes had won out.
“Casey and Sorenson,” said the efficient voice on the other side of the phone in answer to my call.
“Is Mr. Casey there? It’s Merry Wilkinson speaking.”
“Hi, Merry. John’s gone down to the police station.”
“Is it about Vicky?”
“I believe so.”
“Thanks.” Whew! The cavalry had been called. I threw on clothes without checking for color coordination or style. Poor Mattie would have to go without a morning walk, once again. And poor me would once again venture out into the below-freezing temperatures with wet hair and without even a proper coat. The police hadn’t returned the coat I’d used to try to warm Nigel. I didn’t much care if they gave it back or not. I never wanted to wear it again.
The Rudolph police station is tucked behind the library on Jingle Bell Lane, beside the town council buildings. I could have walked there, but, besides being coatless, I was in too much of a hurry, so I got my ancient, but reliable Honda Civic out of the garage where it spent most of the winter.
I tore into town, parked in the station lot, and bolted up the stairs. I was out of breath when I arrived in the reception area. Unimpressed with my obvious concern, the cop at the desk, who didn’t look as though he was old enough to shave yet, wouldn’t tell me if Vicky was there, and let me know that I wouldn’t
be allowed to see her if she was. He also informed me that he wouldn’t tell me if Mr. Casey had arrived. I suspected that if he’d had about half an hour less training at police college, he would have stuck out his tongue and said, “I know something you don’t know.”
I headed back to my car, going out the doors at the highly unfortunate moment Officer Candy Campbell was coming up the steps. “What a surprise to see you here,” she said.
“Harrumph,” I said, deciding I would not stoop to her level.
“Vicky Casey. Who woulda thought it?”
I stooped low enough to beg for info. “What’s happening? Do you know?”
Her eyes flicked to the lobby and then around the parking lot. No one was in earshot. “Pearce was poisoned, all right. In a piece of . . . get this . . . gingerbread.”
I didn’t have to pretend to look horrified.
Candy chuckled. “Don’t worry, Merry. I’m sure Vicky didn’t do it on purpose. They’ll take that into consideration in determining her sentence.” She pushed her way past me.
The old Honda Civic squealed out of the parking lot and headed toward Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, which was pretty much across the street. I was so upset, I parked in front of my own shop, taking up a space that could be used by a paying customer.
Jackie was perched on a stool behind the counter, flipping through a magazine. The shop was empty of customers. Business would be slow until Thursday, when the weekend tourists began arriving again.
My assistant took one look at my face and rose half off her stool. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ll be in my office.” I stalked through the shop and slammed the office door behind me.
“Office” is a grand name for what is the storage closet, staff coatroom, overflow stockroom, and the spot where I do the books. I had to weave through piles of boxes to reach my desk. The computer was almost buried under stacks of paper: invoices, accounts receivable, accounts payable, tax forms. All of which would continue to pile up until January, when I would have time to look at everything. I loved owning my own business, but I sure hated all the paperwork that went with it.
I threw the phone book and a couple of catalogues off my chair and dropped down. I put my chin into my hands and stared at the room. The single decoration was a simple poster designed the first year the town of Rudolph, New York, decided to turn its focus to Christmas.
Rudolph had begun life as an important port on the southern shores of Lake Ontario. The town had been incorporated in 1805 and named for one of the original business owners, Reinhart Rudolph, son of proud German immigrants. Reinhart had been a local hero during the War of 1812, when he’d organized a motley collection of farmers and townspeople to rush to the defense of American sailors whose ship had wrecked on the rocky shore during a winter storm, while fleeing a much larger and more heavily armed British ship.
When heavy industry began to die off in this part of the country and the factories and industrial lands were abandoned to fall into disrepair, the town tried to promote itself as a War of 1812 commemorative destination. Funds were raised and an imposing statue erected to celebrate Reinhart Rudolph’s patriotism. High school kids were outfitted in period costumes, trained to march in orderly formation carrying muskets, and taught the history of the great man’s great deeds with the goal of entertaining and educating the swarms of history buffs soon to arrive. The Rudolph family had owned a Victorian mansion not far from where I currently lived, and in the 1980s, the town had been able to purchase the house for much less than its former value because the place was falling down and the owners were desperate to move to Arizona. Renovations were planned to turn it into a period museum. The more optimistic of the project’s boosters began to talk about a rival to Gettysburg.
All of which came to a grinding halt when a postgraduate student from CUNY was doing original research in England, where he came across the previously undiscovered letters of Mrs. Reinhart Rudolph. Mrs. Rudolph boasted to her sister that her husband was, in fact, spying for the British all along, using the convenient widow’s walk at the top of their lakeside home to report on the passage of American ships and troops. As for the famous rescue incident? Reinhart happened to know where the Americans would be coming ashore because he and his wife had lit a blaze of lanterns to guide the American ship onto the rocks. No doubt thinking he’d accept the kudos while he could, the wily fellow had then rushed into the streets to rouse the townspeople to see off the British ship, which he knew was bobbing happily in the lake with no intention of landing.
The town might have been able to dismiss Mrs. Rudolph’s letters as fiction, but the eager postgraduate student went further and managed to unearth records of payment from a grateful British government to Reinhart.
It had been my dad who’d come up with an alternate plan to save Rudolph. We’d quietly forget all about Reinhart and pretend the town was named after the most famous Rudolph of them all: The Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Thus Rudolph, New York, was reborn as Christmas Town. The statue of Reinhart, nobly holding a lantern aloft to light the sailors’ way, was melted down, his former home sold for even less than the town had paid for it, and the high school kids’ sailor costumes replaced with red hats and elf-wear.
Every time I thought of that story it brought a smile to my face. But today I remembered Vicky and my smile died.
The morning passed at the speed of the losing entrant in a snail race. I sat at my desk, drumming my fingers on the desktop and pretending to do accounts. I phoned my dad, but he wasn’t answering. Mom gave private lessons to adults on Monday mornings so no point in calling her.
The phone at Victoria’s Bake Shoppe was picked up by a machine, thanking me for my call and giving the opening hours. That it was now well into opening hours, but no one was there, was not a good sign.
A floorboard creaked and I looked up.
Vicky stood in the doorway. Her short purple hair was standing on end and deep, dark circles were under her eyes. Her thin frame looked lost in a pair of too-large track pants and a faded gray sweatshirt. She wasn’t wearing a coat, just a scarf looped twice around her neck and home-knitted red mittens on her hands. I leapt to my feet, sending piles of paper flying in all directions. I kicked boxes aside as I made my way toward her. I wrapped her in my arms and she fell into them.
When we separated, Jackie was watching us, eyes round with curiosity. “Run to Cranberries,” I told her. “Two extra-large lattes, full strength.”
“Who’ll watch the shop?”
“No one. Take the money you need out of the till.”
There’s only one chair in my office. I pushed Vicky into it. “What’s going on? I called your dad, but he’d already left. They wouldn’t tell me anything at the police station.”
“Sorry about that,” she said. “I kinda overreacted. I wasn’t actually arrested.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“I was brought in for questioning.”
“About?” I asked.
“They got the autopsy results on Nigel Pearce back this morning. Pearce was poisoned. The poison was in the gingerbread cookies. My gingerbread cookies.”
“Rubbish! I had one of those cookies. As I recall, I ate more than one. I didn’t get sick. Do they think your eggs had gone bad or something? Maybe Pearce was particularly sensitive?”
“No, Merry. It was GHB.”
“What the heck is that?”
“Also called liquid ecstasy. An illegal, but widely available drug, so my dad tells me.”
“Keep that to yourselves,” my dad said from the hall. “The police are not making that detail public. You shouldn’t leave the shop unattended, Merry. Anyone could walk in.”
“Let them,” I said. “We have more important things to worry about here.”
“That’s my girl talking,” he said.
“I sent Jackie for drinks.”
“Nigel Pearce,” Dad said, “died of an overdose of GHB, which he contracted through an iced gingerbread cookie consumed within an hour of his death. GHB is not usually fatal in the quantity he consumed, but Pearce was not a healthy man, according to the pathologist. He was taking a prescription drug that reacts very badly with GHB.”
“That’s a party drug, right?” I said. “Maybe Pearce gave it to himself and misjudged the dose?”
“I’d like to believe that,” Dad said, “but it was in the cookie. That no one else who was at the reception at the time in question has reported so much as an upset tummy is leading the police to suspect that one cookie only had been laced with the drug.”
“Accidentally?” I added hopefully. “A by-product of cooking, maybe?”
“No,” Dad said. “GHB isn’t something that’s going to be consumed through cream past its sell-by date or uncooked eggs containing salmonella.”
Vicky groaned.
“How do you know this, Dad, if it’s supposed to be secret?”
“Let’s just say the town council has friends who work in the police station and the coroner’s office, so we got a heads-up. If this gets out it could kill the Christmas season in Rudolph.”
“Never mind the town. My Christmas season is ruined.” At last, Vicky began to cry. She favored a lot of makeup, including thickly applied eyeliner and mascara. Black rivers ran down her face. “In the food business, reputation is everything. If word gets around that my baking killed someone, I’ll never recover. The police have ordered the bakery closed until further notice.”
“Did they say how long you have to be closed?” I bent over her and wrapped my arms around her heaving shoulders. Vicky was a good six inches taller than me. It wasn’t often I was able to comfort her.
I felt the force of her head shaking.
We promoted Rudolph as a year-round tourist destination. No matter the time of year, it seemed that folks loved to pretend it was Christmas. Even in the hot, humid days of July and August people came here to see “Santa” enjoying his summer vacation by the lake. Dad had been known to set out a beach umbrella and chair down by the water, dressed in bright red swimming trunks and the traditional red hat topped with a bouncing white pom-pom, while elves with pointed ears and big shoes, wearing bikinis (the girls) and board shorts (the boys) attended to him. We’d even made the New York Times travel section with a picture of Dad with kids in bathing suits and sun hats lined up to sit on his knee.
