Meltdown in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  “Oh, that’s a real shame.”

  “Yes,” I said, filling up her friend’s mug with coffee. “I wish I could go, but it’s a very busy time of year for us murderers.”

  Judy went pale.

  And for a second, she didn’t seem to realize that I was joking.

  She put a hand on her chest.

  “Oh, Cinnamon…. You didn’t understand me just a second ago. I didn’t mean that I thought that you—”

  “I think I understood just fine,” I said sharply.

  I left Judy fumbling to finish her sentence and moved onto the next table.

  People didn’t stop speaking about Moira’s murder the rest of the afternoon.

  Chapter 32

  “Are you sure you’re up for this tonight, Cin? I know that this Moira business has been hard on you. If you want to go home and get some rest or something, then I completely understand—”

  “And let all this gingerbread dough go to waste? No way.”

  A thin smile crossed Brad’s lips.

  “And besides, this is how I process the tough things in life,” I said. “In the kitchen, with gingerbread, unseemly amounts of frosting, and lots and lots of gumdrops.”

  Brad looked amused. He unhooked the wool scarf around his neck and set it down on the counter.

  I had just closed up the pie shop for the day and had almost forgotten that I’d made plans to help Brad with his gingerbread house.

  Daniel was working late tonight. With many of his deputies on Moira’s case, it was left up to him and a few Christmas River Police officers to help with the numerous accidents on the roads this evening. The arctic temperatures had turned the highway out of Christmas River into a bobsled track and last I heard, the northbound lane had been shut down indefinitely after a three-car wreck.

  I didn’t like that Daniel was out there doing such dangerous work. But there wasn’t much I could do except try to take my mind off of it.

  I was glad when Brad showed up.

  I began flattening out a disk of spice-flecked dough as Brad reached into his messenger bag and brought out some large rolls of thin paper.

  “I was hoping you could take a look at this, Cin,” he said, bringing the rolls over to me. “I know you told me to sketch what I had in mind for the gingerbread house design. So… here it is.”

  He laid the paper flat on the kitchen island. I leaned over, studying it for a long moment.

  Brad might have been clumsy in the kitchen, but his drawing skills were good.

  Maybe too good.

  “You’re thinking of doing all of this?” I asked.

  His sketch of an intricately-decorated Swiss chalet, complete with a chandelier, a massive wood-burning fireplace, furniture, and North Woods inspired décor, was so realistic, I could almost feel the warmth from the fire in that massive hearth when I gazed at it.

  “I know it’s a lot,” he said, shifting his weight nervously between his feet. “But I need it to really stand out if we’re going to get that contract with the Reisters. This is a near-exact replica of what Will and I had in our bid, and I know they’ll appreciate the attention to detail.”

  I scratched my chin, studying the drawing some more.

  “What do you think, Cin? Am I out of my depth here?”

  I thought about the last gingerbread-building session and how there’d been more crumbs than cookie when he left the shop.

  “Because if it’s impossible, then we could—”

  “I don’t use that word when it comes to gingerbread houses,” I said. “I don’t think this design’s going to be easy, Brad. It’s going to require work, and a heck of a lot of it. But if you’re up to it, than dang it – so am I.”

  He let out a long sigh of relief, then shook his head.

  “Kara was right,” he said.

  “About what?

  “You really are the best.”

  I didn’t know about that, but it was nice to hear.

  I tossed some flour on the gingerbread dough.

  “But before we start, Brad, I do have one condition.”

  “Name it, Cin.”

  “You have to tell me about what happened in the seventh grade.”

  I glanced up at him

  The color had drained out of his face suddenly, as if an invisible vampire had started sucking away his life energy.

  “I was… I was hoping you wouldn’t find out,” he said quietly.

  “Well, it’s too late so you might as well tell me,” I said, dusting my hands off on my apron and going over to the cupboard.

  I opened it, finding my stash of tea bags, along with the same bottle of Wild Turkey that Kara had put a dent in the day before.

  “You want some tea? Or is it the kind of story that’s better with bourbon?”

  I looked back, smiling.

  But Brad didn’t seem to get the humor in it. His face was still as pale as Charity Peak after a snowfall.

  “Bourbon,” he said bluntly.

  I poured him a big glass, and then sat down – ready to listen.

  ***

  “The contract bid for the ski lodge interior isn’t a lie,” he said. “That’s the main reason why I entered in The Junction. But there’s more to why I’m doing this. There’s something… something I have to do.”

  He took a sip of his drink and made a sour face. He set the old fashioned glass down on the butcher block next to a big stainless steel bowl.

  “I know this is all going to sound stupid, Cin, but you know how it is when you’re 13. Everything just gets blown way out of proportion. Everything seems to matter so much. You admire people, and what they say or do can make your life great – or make your life miserable.”

  Brad had started transferring a bowl of fresh buttercream icing to a piping bag, but he was making a mess of things. At this rate, half of the contents would end up on the kitchen floor. And that would have been just fine with Huckleberry and Chadwick, who were both sitting at his feet, catching flecks of buttercream on their tongues like raindrops in a spring storm.

  Brad, however, didn’t seem to notice the mess, and I wasn’t about to point it out to him just as he was telling me his story.

  “For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be an artist,” he said. “I never knew my biological father, but my mom used to talk about what a great painter he was and how he would have been one of the greats if he’d lived longer. Well, I decided that there was nothing I wanted more than to be an artist like him. And you know, I wasn’t half bad at it, either.”

  “You still aren’t,” I said. “That drawing you made of the gingerbread house was really well-done.”

  He shrugged.

  “I was always really shy in school, Cin. I mean, painfully shy. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. I had a lot of issues going on. But art was the thing I could escape into and feel safe. It was my happy place.”

  His face tightened.

  “In seventh grade, there was this competition. I don’t know if you remember our middle school doing this, but they used to have a kids’ version of The Gingerbread Junction. It was run by the art teacher. The winner would get a chance to be principal for the day. Remember that?”

  I did remember, but I didn’t enter in it. Middle school had been hard for me. My mom died when I was 13 and my world had been turned upside down. Gingerbread houses were the very last thing on my mind at that age.

  “I remember being so excited when I heard about the Jr. High Junction,” Brad said. “I thought it was a chance to show off my artistic talent to the whole school. I even thought…”

  He gazed down sadly at the floor.

  “I even thought that maybe if the other kids saw just how talented I was, they might actually want to be my friend. That they might see past my shyness and awkwardness and want to get to know me.”

  He let out a pained sigh and shook his head.

  “Isn’t that ridiculous, Cin? I put all my hopes and dreams of acceptance on this stupid littl
e gingerbread house competition.”

  It wasn’t ridiculous. I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  I imagined most kids who didn’t fit in had dealt with those same feelings at one point or another.

  “So what ended up happening?” I asked.

  “I worked very, very hard on my gingerbread house. I didn’t want to just settle with graham crackers or pre-made houses, the way the other students were. I wanted it to be spectacular. Something special. So I made the gingerbread myself and did everything by hand. The day of the competition, I came to school with my creation. It wasn’t bad. I mean, it was original, you know? All the others looked exactly the same – square and boring. But mine was something different. It was crooked and weird, but I was actually happy with it.

  “But then...”

  Brad set the pastry bag down and went for his glass of bourbon, taking a long, long sip.

  Even all these years later, telling this story seemed to pain him deeply.

  “The judging was done by Mrs. Arnold – the art teacher. I don’t know if you remember her, but she was like this star at the school. The kids in her class always won national art awards and she was named teacher of the year in Oregon several times.”

  “Yeah, I remember her,” I said. “The one with the cat-shaped eye glasses, right?”

  He nodded severely.

  Mrs. Arnold still lived in Christmas River and still taught at the school, amazingly. But we moved in different circles and the only time I saw her was at the grocery store. All I really knew about her these days was that she liked cheap red wine and garlic hummus.

  “Anyway, she judged each gingerbread house that day, going around and saying all these encouraging, complimentary things to every student about their houses. Then… she got to mine.”

  Brad rested his forehead on his palm.

  “I’ll never forget the way she looked at my gingerbread house, Cin. She actually frowned. Like this big, huge, dramatic frown. Like my house was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. And then you know what she did?”

  He looked up.

  “She started giggling and – loud enough for the whole gym to hear – she said: ‘I’m afraid you’ll never be much of an artist, Bradley Houston. But thanks for the laugh.’”

  I closed my eyes, letting out a groan.

  I’d had a feeling that Brad’s story was headed in this direction.

  “I know it’s stupid. But I was crushed. Hearing her say that just… it just killed me. After that, I didn’t pick up a paintbrush again until I was 33. I gave up any notion that I could become an artist. I studied interior design, but I never felt comfortable with it. I always felt better handling the business side of things. Before that stupid competition, I wanted to be a great artist, but after…”

  His eyes were damp behind his glasses.

  “I can’t completely blame her for everything. I let that comment get into my head. I let her stop me. And I just… well, it didn’t help me any with my identity issues. I didn’t figure out who I was for a long, long time because I kept everything stuffed down inside.”

  He sniveled a little bit.

  “Hence that brooding biker phase when I dated Kara,” he added.

  I smiled sadly.

  It just went to show that you never really knew what was going on inside a person – the secret hurts and trials and burdens they carried beneath the façade. For years, I’d judged Brad by his James Dean stage, thinking that he was arrogant and full of himself. Yet I’d known nothing about the pain he was going through at the time.

  “So you see now why this Gingerbread Junction matters so much, Cin. You understand?”

  I nodded.

  It was clear as a bell now – because aside from Penny McGowan, a pastry chef from Seattle, and Donna Reister, the wife of the ski lodge developer, the third judge in this year’s Gingerbread Junction Competition was none other than Hope Arnold. The cruel middle school art teacher herself.

  “If I can just show her that I can do it, that I’m not bad at this after all, then maybe…”

  He trailed off.

  I was glad that he’d told me his real reason for entering in the competition, but I didn’t like the idea that he was trying to prove his worth to that so-called “teacher.” The fact that Brad was once again setting himself up to be judged by her didn’t sit well with me.

  But then again, maybe it wasn’t my place to judge his need for redemption.

  Maybe if I was in his shoes, I’d have wanted the same thing.

  He had asked for my help. And maybe that was all I needed to know.

  “You must think I’m a real sap, Cin,” he said. “Hanging onto something that small all of these years and letting it affect me so much.”

  “I don’t think that,” I said, shaking my head. “You know what I do think, though?”

  He lifted his eyebrows.

  “I think we’re going to show that old bag of an art teacher what real artistic talent is,” I said. “I think we’re going to show her what a fool she was all those years ago. And you know what? I think we’re going to have the time of our lives doing it.”

  For a few seconds, it looked as if he was struggling to say something he couldn’t quite get out.

  Then he swallowed hard.

  “That’s… that’s exactly what I think, too, Cin.”

  I smiled, taking away his half-empty glass of bourbon and placing it out of reach.

  “Good. Now this isn’t a pity party. Let’s get down to work. We’ve got a long night ahead of us if we’re going to build this chalet.”

  He nodded, wiped at his cheeks, and picked up the pastry bag again.

  Chapter 33

  It had been a long night, but I didn’t feel like going home just yet.

  Brad’s cookie construction skills were still reminiscent of a certain big green monster, but he’d finally built a solid foundation and I found the progress promising. The Junction was this coming weekend, and I knew there wouldn’t be enough time to teach him everything I wanted to about the art of making gingerbread houses. But he was a quick learner and more than that, a dedicated student. And for my money, those two things were more important than all the skill and talent in the world put together.

  After Brad headed home, I had given Daniel a call. The three-car accident had been cleared, but another bad one had taken place a few miles down the highway. Driving conditions were terrible out there and Daniel said it’d be another few hours before he’d be able to get off work.

  It was late and I was tired, but I didn’t feel too excited about going back to an empty house. The pooches were here at the shop with me, I had some good Christmas tunes on the stereo, and the kitchen was warm and cozy. Going out into the frigid, icy night sooner than I needed to just didn’t seem necessary, so I decided to stay put and get a head start on tomorrow’s pies.

  I poured several bags of cranberries into a saucepan along with a good helping of brown sugar, cinnamon, and clove, and began stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon. I hummed along to Willie Nelson, thinking about Brad and his scarring experience with the old art teacher. Trying to keep my mind off the elephant in the room – the thing I’d done my best to avoid all day.

  Moira’s murder.

  I shook my head, forcing my thoughts back to gingerbread. A topic that was much more manageable.

  I remembered Mrs. Arnold from middle school. I’d even been in her class for a week in eighth grade. She was the kind of teacher who had favorites. She was particularly fond of the highly-talented, artistic students, and everyone else who wasn’t as talented was often ignored in her classroom. I wasn’t that good at art, and she didn’t help inspire much enthusiasm in me for it. I’d transferred to Home Ec only a few days in.

  It was wrong what she’d said to Brad. It was wrong anytime someone told someone else they couldn’t go after their dreams, but especially when something like that came from a person of authority. Teachers were supposed to inspire and uplift – no
t beat down and make students feel ashamed. And though there were plenty of good teachers working hard to make a difference in the world, Mrs. Arnold hadn’t been one of them.

  I didn’t know why it touched such a nerve in me, but it did.

  Maybe it was because growing up, I’d been like Brad in the sense that I’d been quiet and introverted and also in a lot of pain. Between my dad leaving our family when I was 7, and my mom dying at such a young age, I had seen my share of suffering. I responded to it by stuffing all of my emotions down and not dealing with them.

  And even though I was well into my thirties, I still grappled sometimes with issues that stemmed from those two life-changing events. Issues of abandonment and insecurity and self-confidence.

  It wasn’t easy to get over things that happened to you as a kid. Even when you grew up and came to know better—

  Something suddenly flashed in the corner of my eye.

  I looked up.

  The wooden spoon slipped out of my hand, landing in the cranberry mixture I’d been stirring. I left it there and walked over to the back door, raising the blinds to get a better look.

  The woods were darker tonight than the filling for the Midnight Chocolate pies I made every year at Halloween. There was no moon and only a few dim stars swimming in the thick mist.

  That was why the thing out there was so striking.

  I rubbed my arms, gazing out at the flickering fire in the woods.

  I should have stayed right where I was and left whoever had started that campfire out there to go on with their business uninterrupted.

  That was the smart thing to do, all right.

  I glanced at the temperature gauge on the wall.

  It glowed a glacial 6 degrees.

  And it would only keep dropping as the evening hours ticked by.

  I gazed into the darkness, thinking about that poor soul who must have been so hard-up for money, building a campfire was their only option.

  I thought about Tobias and how before coming to work for me, he’d been in a similar bad spot. He’d been homeless on the streets of Christmas River for a long while.