Meltdown in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  And I hadn’t been able to think about anything but her story since getting back to the pie shop.

  Billy Jasper let out an abrupt cough from out in the dining room, and I jumped a little.

  Daniel had asked the young deputy to keep an eye on me until I closed up the shop for the night. Just in case – he’d said.

  And as the skies darkened outside, I felt more and more glad that Billy was here.

  Who was to say that Moira’s murderer wasn’t done killing yet? Who was to say that when he saw me the night before, he hadn’t thought about killing then, too?

  I abandoned the cookie dough for a moment and went over to the window, looking out at the winter sky fading into shadowy shades of blue. The trees swayed in a freezing wind, their branches encased in a shiny cocoon of ice. My eyes settled on the area where the campfire had been the night before.

  And even though I knew Billy was there in the shop with me, I reached for the knob of the back door again to make sure that it was locked.

  “Just in case,” I whispered.

  Chapter 40

  I sat on the sofa later that night, running my hand through Huckleberry’s soft, fluffy fur. I reached his ticklish spot and he started kicking his back paw wildly, a funny, oafish smile coming across his lips. But he soon got tired of kicking, and rolled over on his back so that his ticklish spot was out of my reach.

  I laughed.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d been packing on the pounds this holiday season. Hucks had added a pound or two or maybe more. The reason for it was the new pet food store that had opened up on Holly Avenue this October. The Christmas River Barkery sold gourmet chicken jerky snaps that Hucks and Chadwick went crazy for. Both Daniel and I over-indulged the pooches with this new snack, and it was starting to show on my canine friend.

  “Come January, Hucks, you and I are gonna start a diet,” I said, running my hands through his fur some more. “Me on the greens – you on the Science Diet. What do you say?”

  Huckleberry threw his head back and let out an unhappy grumble.

  “Okay, maybe not Science Diet. What about Pup Healthy? The commercials say that 9 out of 10 dogs agree that it’s rufflicious.”

  Huckleberry didn’t answer this time, and I gathered the statistic had persuaded him to give it a try.

  I pet him for a while longer, waiting for Daniel, who had gone in the bedroom to take a phone call. Though the Sheriff’s Office had no fresh leads on Moira’s murderer, Daniel said that Pam Dallas had gotten a much better look at the man than I had. Lt. Delgado had Pam talk to a police sketch artist, and they now had a drawing of the suspect circulating from Portland to Missoula. They were also looking into tracking down the man by the make and model of his car, along with the Washington state plates.

  Daniel said he was optimistic about their chances of finding him, but I was wondering if he really felt that way. Since he’d gotten home, he’d been unusually quiet and preoccupied.

  I supposed he had a lot on his mind. Moira’s case was turning into a high-profile one, and I knew a lot of eyes were on the Sheriff’s Office and how they would handle it.

  The door to the bedroom creaked open and the sound of slippers stealing across the pine floor echoed through the room. Huckleberry’s ears pricked up and I looked over, watching Daniel as he walked.

  He reminded me of the way someone might look after drinking too much coffee during a cross-country red-eye flight.

  “Was that about Moira’s case?” I asked.

  “In a way. That was Marla Browning from The Christmas River Weekly.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I’m surprised you took her call after how she acted at the news conference earlier,” I said.

  He took a seat next to me on the sofa.

  “I only took it to tell her I wouldn’t be answering any more questions. She’s been in the media long enough to know that she could be putting you in danger by mentioning your name like that. But she did it anyway. I think she was trying to provoke me on purpose.”

  He shook his head.

  “Anything for a headline,” he added.

  He gazed blankly at the television. Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh were walking through the park in Holiday Affair – one of my very favorite Christmas movies.

  Only I wasn’t feeling in the mood to watch it.

  I reached for the remote control and muted the TV.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, looking over at him.

  “Who said anything’s wrong?”

  “Me. I see it in your face. Something’s got you worried and you’re not telling me about it.”

  His eyes drifted back to the screen. I waited for him to say something, but he just kept silent.

  “Does it have something to do with Moira’s case? That black book of hers we found out in the woods? Did you find something out?”

  “No, it doesn’t have to do with that. Turns out, it was only a planner, anyway. All we have are some vague initials and reminders to attend her quilting club on Wednesdays. Not too many leads to go on.”

  Daniel shifted in his seat. He looked like he couldn’t get comfortable.

  “So it’s not that,” I said. “But something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  He let out a long sigh.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  He fell silent.

  “Well, what—”

  “You know that rumor Moira spread around?” he said interrupting me. “The one about me and Liv and embezzling money... Remember?”

  It wasn’t so easy to forget your husband being the talk of the town on account of his rumored infidelity.

  “Don’t forget that she was pregnant with your child, too,” I added. “That’s a big one.”

  I smiled.

  But he didn’t seem to see as much humor in it as I did.

  “Well, there’s a part of Moira’s rumor that’s true, Cin.”

  He swallowed visibly, like the words had caught in his throat. There was a vague expression of shame in his eyes.

  I didn’t like the direction this conversation was headed.

  My stomach tightened.

  “What are you say—”

  “There’s money missing from the office, Cin.”

  Chapter 41

  I mixed up another hot buttered rum and brought it over.

  It had turned into the kind of night that would require several stiff drinks.

  He took the steaming mug from my hands, nodding to me gratefully. I sat down next to him.

  “When did you find out?” I asked.

  “Today. Obviously, Moira’s rumor about me and Liv running off together was BS. But you know how Moira was. There was usually a kernel of truth in her tall tales. The part about stealing money from the Sheriff’s Office kind of caught my attention for some reason. So I decided to take a closer look at some of our books from the past few months.

  “Turns out, she was right. Our Victim’s Assistance Fund is missing a little over seven grand.”

  I felt my eyebrows lift in surprise.

  “Seven-thousand dollars?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t know how Moira knew about it, but she did.”

  He stared at the television for a long, long moment.

  “It’s bad enough that someone took money from that account – from victims who could really use help. But you know what really gets me? The thing that I can’t get past?”

  He let out a sad sigh.

  “It’s that someone at the office – someone I see every day – was capable of this. Someone who I trust, Cin.”

  The folks at the station had become like a second family to Daniel. He took pride in the small force and in the fact that the department operated like a well-oiled machine. He believed in all of his deputies – he’d even come to like the former Sheriff, Deputy Trumbow. Daniel worked hard to create a friendly, safe environment at the office.

  And now, it seemed like someone was taking advantage of that.

  “Wh
at are you going to do?”

  He set his drink down on the side table and leaned forward.

  “Find out who did it,” he said. “And then… then we’ll go from there.”

  We stared at the TV screen in silence.

  “It’s a shame,” I finally said. “I like everyone at the office so much.”

  Daniel took a sip of his drink and grimaced.

  “Me, too, Cin. Me too.”

  Chapter 42

  He stood at the kitchen island, a flour-dusted apron over his collared shirt, sweat running down his temples. He was hunched over the gingerbread house, pressing two cookie walls together. A big bowl of blue-tinged buttercream frosting sat by his elbow.

  The intense expression on his face reminded me of a doctor performing a difficult surgery.

  Usually, finding the lights on and hearing music coming from my pie shop kitchen after arriving at five in the morning would have alarmed me. But it was “Last Christmas” coming from the speakers, and I could smell the cozy aroma of spice and butter wafting through the air the second I opened the door to my shop.

  And unless Moira’s murderer was a gingerbread-baking George Michael aficionado, I figured I wasn’t in any danger.

  “Well, I’ll be Mrs. Claus in Maui…” I muttered.

  It wasn’t Brad’s work ethic that surprised me.

  What surprised me was the fact that he actually had a gingerbread house to show for it.

  A good gingerbread house, at that.

  The Swiss chalet was coming to life.

  “Oh, hey, Cin,” he said, looking up nonchalantly. “I hope you don’t mind me coming in here early.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “That’s why I gave you a key.”

  I circled the house, studying the construction some more.

  “I know, I know – it’s got some serious problems,” he said quickly. “I think I messed up big time on the roof. It’s lopsided and kind of funky. Not to mention the—”

  “Brad.”

  He stopped babbling.

  He looked about as nervous as a tomato plant in a cold September breeze.

  “You’re doing a great job,” I said.

  His cheeks darkened.

  “It’s only because of you,” he said. “Without your help, I’d still be drowning in frosting.”

  “No, Brad – It’s all you. I just taught you a couple of things. But you’re the one making this happen.”

  He turned redder than Rudolph’s nose in a snowstorm.

  “Oh, Cin,” he said, tilting his head up to the ceiling and closing his eyes. “I can’t wait to see the look on Mrs. Arnold’s face when she sees this. I can’t wait to tell her that the kid she said had no artistic talent made this. You’re coming to the competition on Saturday, aren’t you?”

  “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss that smack-down for all the Wild Turkey in Kentucky.”

  “Ha!”

  He laughed at my silly joke, so giddy that he almost knocked over the bowl of buttercream frosting.

  “Oh, look at me. You’d think I’d already broken into the bourbon this morning,” he said, laughing some more.

  Brad seemed about as happy as a kid on Christmas Eve listening to footsteps on the roof.

  Chapter 43

  I had just grabbed four Santa’s Sleighride dark roast coffees down in Meadow Plaza, and was heading back to the shop when something in a newspaper dispenser caught my eye.

  The coffees were for Tiana, Tobias, and Ian – a small gesture of gratitude for covering for me the day before. Even though they’d said it wasn’t a big deal, I knew that it was. Especially during this frantic time of year.

  I was planning to give them all Christmas bonuses in the next week as a more proper thank you for all of their hard work this year, but for the time being, coffee would have to do.

  Those coffees, however, nearly ended up on the sidewalk when I caught sight of the latest edition of The Christmas River Weekly.

  I set the carrier down and quickly opened one of the dispensers, ripping out an edition.

  My heartbeat roared in my ears.

  “What is Daniel Brightman Hiding?: An Editorial About the Sheriff of Pohly County.”

  They’d put Daniel’s face on the cover – a picture taken at the news conference. The photo was in black and white, and it gave him a guilty, sinister look.

  I hurriedly flipped to the story.

  The byline, unsurprisingly, read Marla Browning.

  How had Marla found out about the missing money at the Sheriff’s Office? Who told her? And what would happen now? Was Daniel going to lose his job? Would he be held responsible for that money disappearing?

  Was she accusing him of stealing it?

  But as my eyes scanned over the story, I found no mention of missing money, no mention of the Victim’s Assistance Program. No mention at all about what Daniel had told me the night before.

  What I did find in the story was no end of my name.

  “Though the Sheriff’s Office would not confirm it, sources say that Cinnamon Peters – Sheriff Brightman’s wife – was the one to see the supposed murder suspect behind the 400 block of Main Street earlier this week. She was also the one to find Moira Stewart’s body. While this can be chalked up to coincidence, no one is asking the hard question here. At least, only this reporter is: Does Cinnamon Peters have an alibi for the morning that Moira Stewart was found dead? Could she possibly be making up the mystery man in an attempt to deflect interest in herself as a suspect? And if so, is our Sheriff – the man we elected to protect our county – doing a disservice to his constituents and shielding his wife?”

  I felt my teeth grind together.

  Then a strange grunt – a cross between a scream and groan – sounded from somewhere deep in the base of my chest.

  “You have to be kidding me!” I shouted.

  I suddenly noticed that a young family sitting on a nearby bench in the plaza was staring. Looking at me like I was crazy.

  The youngest, a girl of only two or three, had buried her head in her mom’s arm.

  But I was so angry, I didn’t stop to apologize for my outburst.

  Because Marla Browning wasn’t just innocently asking a question –

  She was damn near accusing me of murder.

  I left the coffees steaming on the newspaper dispenser and began walking.

  Chapter 44

  “How could you publish this… this…?”

  I stood there stuttering like a broken nutcracker.

  Marla looked up from her computer screen, narrowing her eyes from behind a pair of large, purple-rimmed glasses.

  “Look,” she said, her New York accent coming on strong as she smacked her gum. “It’s not personal. But I represent the public and there are some glaring questions that your husband has refused to answer. The public pays his salary and that means he owes them an explanation.”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation, Marla. And you had no right to infer that I had anything to do with Moira’s death. You have no evid—”

  “I believe you mean imply, Cinnamon. Not infer.”

  She had just accused me of murder in front of the whole town.

  And now she was correcting my grammar.

  I thought I was going to explode right then and there like a ball of confetti at New Year’s.

  I was a few seconds away from saying something rude and shocking to Marla Browning, but some sort of bell noise dinged from her computer. Her eyes shifted down, and a moment later, she shot up out of her chair.

  “This is going to have to wait.”

  “No, we’re going to have this out now,” I said.

  But Marla was already going for her coat on the back of her chair.

  “Well, you can tag along to the press conference if you like,” she said. “But I’m not sure what else I can do for you—”

  “What press conference?”

  “The one your husband’s having in ten minutes in front of the Sheriff’s station.�
�

  “About what?”

  “The email didn’t say, but I can only think of one thing that would warrant another news conference.”

  A second later, Marla brushed past me on her way out the door of the small office.

  I wasn’t far behind.

  Chapter 45

  I stood a distance back from the crowd of reporters, afraid that one of them might recognize me.

  “At approximately 7:45 a.m., the Pohly County Sheriff’s Department responded to a tip from a concerned citizen in the Redmond area. This person had seen a man fitting the description of the suspect in the Moira Stewart case leave the Sinclair gas station on Sixth Street in a 1999 Subaru Outback. Pohly County deputies responded to the call and located the car as it headed westbound on US Highway 20. The suspect was signaled to pull over. He refused and led authorities on a car chase through the Red Pines Neighborhood.”

  Daniel’s eyes fell on me and he stopped speaking for a second.

  I could tell by his expression that he’d read Marla’s editorial this morning. And that like me, he wasn’t too happy about what she’d written, either.

  He cleared his throat.

  “The Sheriff’s Office did not pursue the suspect due to public safety considerations. However, we have identified him as a Kent William Utley of Spokane, Washington, age 59.”

  Daniel opened the file in his hands and held up a photo for the reporters to see.

  I felt shivers run up and down my spine.

  It was a clear mugshot of the man I’d seen behind the shop. His piercing blue eyes stared out from the photo with a look of barely-controlled rage. A cross-shaped tattoo dripped from his left eye.

  There was a mad scramble of clicking cameras and flashing lights.

  “We ask that anyone who sees this man or a green Subaru Outback with the Washington license plate PLO-578 to please call the Sheriff’s Office. Utley is a felon and considered very dangerous. The Pohly County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police are working around the clock to keep the community safe this Christmas season and bring Kent Utley in without incident. Thank you. All questions may now be directed to Lt. Delgado.”