Meltdown in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  The reporter was crossing a line.

  “I can’t disclose the identity of the witness,” Daniel said, keeping his voice cool and even. “It’s an ongoing investigation, and revealing the identity of this person would be a reckless thing to do as the suspect is still on the loose and could pose a significant danger.”

  Daniel raised his voice at the word reckless, emphasizing it for the reporter.

  “But this is all a little strange,” the woman continued, as if she and Daniel were the only ones at the news conference. “First we have reports that Cinnamon Peters is the one to find Moira Stewart’s body. Now this behind her pie shop—”

  “I would appreciate it, Marla, if you’d let me finish my original statement,” Daniel said in a strong voice. “Lt. Delgado will address your question and any others you have afterwards.”

  There was silence in response to that.

  Daniel cleared his throat.

  “Now, if anyone has information about this man or any other information that may lead to the arrest of our suspect, please contact the Sheriff’s Office at…”

  “What a wench,” Kara mumbled, crossing her arms tightly against her chest. “I always thought she was one based on those columns she writes. But now I know for sure.”

  “Was that Marla Browning talking?” I asked, looking over at Kara and raising my eyebrows.

  “Yep, that was her,” Tiana chimed in. “Only woman in town who sounds like Joan Rivers’ long lost daughter.”

  I bit my lower lip, letting out an unsteady sigh.

  Marla was the editor-in-chief of Christmas River’s local weekly paper. She wrote half the news stories in the paper and also a prominent column where she often skewered our local city councilors and government-run agencies. A former big city journalist from New York, Marla had come to Christmas River a couple of years ago to retire. But apparently, retirement didn’t suit her. When the former editor of our ramshackle little weekly left town, she jumped on the position and ran with it. She had a reputation for being as fiery as Tabasco sauce when she thought somebody wasn’t doing their job right. She was also often ahead of the rest of the local media when it came to breaking news on the paper’s web site.

  “...Lt. Delgado will take over from here. Thank you.”

  Daniel stepped aside and Vicky, looking as serious and professional as ever, took his place. The media began firing off questions, but the lieutenant kept her answers as brief as possible before cutting the news conference short.

  I reached for the remote control, turning the TV off.

  Then I went back to rolling out the rounds of pie dough like nothing had happened at all.

  That was what I was going to do today, I’d decided. Go about everything and pretend like nothing strange or out of the ordinary had taken place.

  I wasn’t going to think about why that man had murdered Moira.

  Or why, of all places, he was here in Christmas River.

  Or why he had seemed familiar to me.

  Or the fact that not only had I seen him the night before.

  But that he had seen me.

  I was going to roll pie dough, mix fillings, and bake pastry until my fingers ached and my mind was so tired, I could no longer think.

  As if sensing the madness going on in my head, Kara peered at me.

  “You doing okay with all of this, Cin?” she asked.

  I nodded, looking up, forcing a smile that came out tighter than a spool of thread.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know this will all be over soon. Someone will recognize the description and that guy will be arrested.”

  “No, I mean are you okay?” Kara said, peering at me, the way she did when she knew I wasn’t being honest. “Between finding Moira’s body and the guy out there last night, I’d be pretty shaken up if I were you. Hell, I’m not you, and I feel pretty shaken up.”

  “I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry.”

  I forced another tight smile. It felt like my cheeks might just snap.

  I briskly folded the pie dough round in half and transferred it to a tin. I unfolded it and began pressing the soft dough’s edges down with the back of a fork.

  Kara was quiet for a long while and I could feel her studying me.

  “You know what, Cin?”

  “What?” I said, not looking up, keeping my hands busy.

  “I think you could use a break.”

  I let out a scoff.

  “I’ve got fifty customers out there right now and another hundred on their way all hungry for pie. I can’t take a break.”

  Kara stood up and glanced over at Tiana and Ian, who were making batches of Pumpkin Pecan and Hazelnut Chocolate pies.

  “Say, can you guys cover for Cin for a couple of hours?” Kara asked.

  “That’s really not necessary—”

  “Absolutely,” Ian said, tossing a panful of pies into one of the ovens. “Isn’t that right, Tiana?”

  “That’s right, youngin,’” she said.

  “Thanks, but I’m not going to abandon you guys during one of the busiest days of the year—”

  “Get going, Cin,” Tiana said. “I don’t want to see you back here until the afternoon.”

  I was about to protest some more, but then I stopped.

  Though I didn’t want to admit it, maybe my usual way of dealing with tough things – by working hard – wasn’t always the healthiest.

  After a few moments of hesitation, I finally took off my apron and headed for my jacket hanging up on the coat rack.

  “Thanks, you guys,” I said quietly.

  “Don’t mention it,” Tiana said. “And I mean what I said. If I see you back here before 2 p.m., I’m going to be peeved. And nobody around here wants to see me when I get peeved.”

  I smiled – mostly because Tiana was the sweetest person I’d probably ever known and didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

  “Better listen to her, Cin,” Tobias said, coming in and grabbing a pan of pies. “Believe me – I know well of what I speak.”

  Tiana shot him a mischievous glance.

  I pulled my jacket and scarf on.

  I was lucky to have such good friends looking out for me.

  Chapter 37

  I wiggled out of the Styrofoam flip-flop, bringing my knee up to my chest and tapping the dark cranberry-red layer of nail polish on my big toe. The polish appeared to finally be dry. I pulled my wool socks back over my feet and then stuffed them into my snow boots, enjoying the warmth of proper foot gear.

  A few more minutes of wearing flip-flops in Kara’s car like that, and I was pretty sure that my toes were going to look like the Fourth of July.

  I wasn’t a big fan of getting pedicures – especially in winter. I rarely went around in my bare feet this time of year. But despite it not having much of a purpose, it was sweet of Kara to take me to get my nails done. And as I settled into the seat of her Audi and took a sip of the extra-large peppermint mocha we’d just picked up, I felt a subtle sense of ease that had been missing from my life since the morning I’d come across Moira’s corpse.

  “You sure you don’t mind coming up to the Dallas Lodge with me to pick up my chapters?” she asked. “I could drop you back at the shop now if you’re tired.”

  “I don’t mind coming along,” I said. “You were right. It’s nice to be out of the kitchen. And besides, I’ve always wanted to see what Pam Dallas’s lodge looks like.”

  Kara smiled slightly.

  “You won’t be disappointed there,” she said. “It’s not huge, but what it lacks in square footage it more than makes up for in style. When Ridley Scott was there last month, Pam said that he was really taken with the lodge—”

  “Wait – Ridley Scott was at the lodge?”

  Kara nodded, raising an eyebrow.

  “He’s directing the movie based on her book. Pam said he came out to go over some script revisions.”

  “Wow…” I mumbled. “I didn’t know he was directing it.”

 
Kara let out a short sigh.

  “Yeah. I just wish none of this ugly business with Moira had happened. It put a real wrench in the workshop.”

  “Is Pam going to give you a refund?”

  “Partial refund for the days it was cancelled,” she said. “Which I guess is fair. It’s not like she knew Moira was going to be murdered. And I guess she’s right in that it doesn’t seem appropriate for us all to continue with it in light of the circumstances.”

  Kara fixed her eyes ahead on the road, following its winding, snowy curves as it gained elevation. I took a sip of my hot mocha, enjoying the minty tingling flavor as it washed over my taste buds.

  “I just hope that Pam liked my chapters,” she said, fiddling with the heater, turning it up higher. “I know it might be callous to think of that during a time like this, but Pam’s got some big connections in the publishing world. If she saw something she liked in my writing, I bet she could pass it on to somebody. It could be a big opportunity and—”

  She stopped speaking abruptly.

  “Oh, listen to me rattle on like this,” she said. “Do you think I’m heartless, Cin? To be talking about my book when Moira’s been murdered? I mean, jeez. I must sound terrible.”

  “I think we all deal with death in different ways, Kara.”

  She let out a long breath, slowing the car down as the road became steeper.

  She was quiet for a long while. Then she shot a sideways glance at me.

  “I know you can’t talk about this stuff, Cin,” she said, lowering her voice. “But I was chit-chatting with Hannah – the manicurist at the salon back there? And she said that people have been talking.”

  I felt my throat tighten.

  Lately, I was tired of hearing that people were talking.

  “What about?”

  “Well, that thing Daniel mentioned in the news conference? About the guy in the woods leaving something behind that tied him to Moira’s murder?”

  She glanced at me again when I didn’t answer.

  “It was one of her notebooks, wasn’t it?”

  Kara knew me far too well. She saw my tell before the question had even fully left her lips.

  I averted my eyes and looked out the window.

  “I just knew it,” she said.

  She smiled slightly to herself, taking a slow right and we traveled down a snowy forest road for a little ways. The snow tires crackled against the slick top layer of ice.

  “Now was it her planner or her book of gossip?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “I already told the police, but Moira had two notebooks, Cin. One was a planner – that was a black one, if I remember right. The other one is where she kept all of the gossip she came across. That one was red.”

  I didn’t answer.

  I hadn’t gotten a good look at the black book’s contents, but even if I had, I knew that I couldn’t say anything about it.

  Lt. Delgado had asked me to keep things quiet.

  Kara waited for me to respond. When I didn’t, she continued on anyway.

  “If it was that red one, then I just hope the ladies and gentlemen at the Sheriff’s Office can keep a secret. Because if not, things are going to get pretty crazy around here, Cin. Moira had a lot of dirt on people.”

  She shook her head.

  “A lot of dirt,” she said again.

  I was quiet the rest of the way to the lodge.

  Chapter 38

  “Ms. Dallas is on a phone call with her agent right now, but you’re welcome to take a seat and wait.”

  The tall gray-haired woman, who I recognized from Warren’s fundraiser at the brewery, placed a few mugs into the dishwasher.

  Though she hadn’t properly introduced herself, I knew from what Kara told me that her name was Syd and that she helped facilitate the writing workshop. She was a writer also, Kara had told me, though not nearly as successful as Pam.

  “Okay. Thanks, Syd,” Kara said. “Any idea how long she might be?”

  “They’re discussing something to do with the movie deal, so I’m afraid I don’t know how long it will take.”

  Kara nodded.

  Pam Dallas’ assistant didn’t say anything else as she went about sprucing up the lodge’s modern, expensive-looking kitchen.

  I took a seat in a big, plush leather chair, staring up at the large pine beams overhead, wondering just how many books Pam Dallas must have sold to have a second house this striking.

  Though it wasn’t a big place, it was obviously very high-end. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined the grand living space and featured phenomenal views of the snow-covered mountains soaring up in the distance. A giant stone hearth anchored the living room, and a massive fur rug was spread out in the middle. The lodge was both homey and luxurious at the same time, and when I thought of things like the Sundance Film Festival and celebrities on vacation, this was the kind of place I imagined.

  It was also the kind of place that I imagined would have been pure heaven for a book lover. Books of all sorts were nestled in nearly every nook and cranny, and it seemed like a beautiful place to pass a cold and stormy winter.

  I stole a glance at Kara. She had taken a seat on the mahogany-colored leather sofa across from me and was chewing uncharacteristically on the nail of her pinky.

  “This is such a cozy place for a writer’s workshop,” I said, doing my best to take her mind off the fact that in just a few minutes, Pam Dallas would be coming out of her office with Kara’s freshly-critiqued pages.

  “Yeah,” she nodded in agreement. “Very cozy.”

  But I could tell that she wasn’t really paying attention to what I was saying.

  I was sure all she could see were negative words scrawled in red marker across her chapters.

  When the door to Pam’s office burst open suddenly, Kara nearly went through the roof. She stood up as if she’d just sat on a pin cushion, a taut smile stretched across her face as she watched Pam walk quickly across the room.

  I stood up, too.

  Then I noticed the odd, distraught expression on Pam’s face.

  She looked like her doctor had just called with a grim diagnosis.

  “Is everything all right?” I blurted out.

  She put a hand over her heart and gripped the arm rest of the sofa to steady herself.

  “Yes. I mean – no, not really,” she said breathlessly. “Syd? Can you get me a glass of ice water?”

  Syd dropped the dishes in her hands and a few seconds later, rushed over with a glass. Pam brought the water to her lips with shaky hands.

  “Is there something we can do to help, Ms. Dallas?” Kara asked, looking worried. “Are you on medication of some sort?”

  “No, it’s not that,” she said. “It’s just… I just got off the phone with my agent and caught a rerun of the morning news and…”

  She swallowed visibly, tightening her grip on the armrest.

  “That man – the one the police described during the press conference? The one they said had something to do with Moira’s murder?”

  My mouth went bone dry.

  “I saw him. He was here, ladies. During the writer’s workshop this past week.”

  Her face went as pale as birch bark.

  “My God,” she rasped. “The murderer was here at my house.”

  Chapter 39

  Maybe I would have eventually put it together.

  Maybe if I’d had some more time, I would have realized why the man in the woods had seemed so familiar.

  I flattened out another sheet of spice-flecked cookie dough with a rolling pin, thinking about the man in the green Subaru that Pam had seen outside of the writing lodge earlier in the week. The one with piercing blue eyes, a small cross-shaped tattoo on his face, and stringy gray hair.

  The same man, as it turned out, who had honked at me in front of Geronimo Brewing the night of the fundraiser. The one who had caused me to drop that Marionberry pie on the asphalt.

  The same man who had murdered Mo
ira Stewart in cold blood.

  Kara didn’t get her critiqued chapters back that afternoon – instead, we got a drive down to the Sheriff’s Office and a bone-chilling story.

  Pam had seen a forest green Subaru with Washington plates idling several hundred yards away from the writing lodge a couple of mornings in a row before Moira was killed. Both mornings, the car had been there when Pam woke up and went to place letters in her mailbox. The first time, she thought the driver might have been lost.

  But the second day – the day before I found Moira’s body – the car was there again. Only this time, it was blocking her driveway. The workshop participants hadn’t arrived yet, but Pam began getting worried that they would have to park out on the street because the Subaru was in the way. So she went out to talk to the driver.

  “I asked him politely to move his car,” Pam had said earlier from the front seat of Kara’s Audi, her voice small and shaky. “I told him I had students coming who would need to park in the driveway.”

  She had paused then, and in the side mirror, I’d seen her anxiously rubbing her hands together.

  “He didn’t say anything,” she said. “But the look. The look that flashed across his eyes...”

  She shook her head.

  “Pure hatred. I think something was very wrong with that man. It’s just a feeling, but I was with someone like him up on K2 during the storm. A climber from Germany – I thought he was mentally unsound to begin with and shouldn’t have been up there in the first place. When the storm hit and we were stranded, he nearly killed another climber over an energy bar.”

  Pam had closed her eyes.

  “This man reminded me of him. After I asked him to move his car, he gave me this hateful look. And then without warning, he pulled away out into the road. Moira was just arriving and turning into the driveway. He nearly hit her car. She honked and flipped him the bird and…”

  Pam trailed off.

  “It can’t be a coincidence. Right? It just can’t be.”

  Pam had been quiet for the rest of the drive, seemingly in shock.