“Love is an extreme word.” I looked at my phone. “And would you look at that? It went to voicemail. Oops.”
Teeny and Miss May groaned. I pushed my phone away. “Now. Back to the case. I was thinking—”
Bing! My phone lit up with a voicemail.
Teeny smiled. “That’s my boy. Left a nice, long voicemail. It’s probably a poem about your beautiful eyes and bodacious bod.”
Miss May shook her head. “Teeny! That’s not Germany’s style. Don’t be silly.” Miss May leaned forward. “But you’re going to listen to the voicemail, right?”
“Sure. Later.”
Teeny rolled her eyes. “Come on. Can’t she let a couple of single ladies in on the thrill of young romance? Listen to it now.”
I laughed. “Fine.”
Teeny scooted all the way to the edge of her seat. “On speakerphone?”
I sighed and pressed play on Germany’s voicemail.
He cleared his throat and began. “Chelsea. I hope this call finds you well and I pray I did not disturb an essential moment in your investigation. If you are hiding from the killer in a precarious moment and the phone rang and you are captured or wounded, I could never forgive myself. But, alas, I must distract myself from these dark thoughts because I have an important question. I must tell you... I have procured the perfect gift for you for Christmas. And I’m calling to request a short meeting so I can present the gift to you along with a brief but meaningful confession of my love. I can make myself available whenever is most convenient for you. Please feel free to give me a call back at your leisure. Thank you. Good day.”
My jaw dropped and I slowly placed the phone on the table. Miss May and Teeny cracked up with laughter.
“I never experienced young will love like that,” Teeny said. “That Turtle sure is an oddball. But I can’t wait to see what he bought you. Man. I wish I had a boyfriend like Germany.”
“Not boyfriend,” I said. “We have yet to DTR.”
Miss May and Teeny exchanged a confused look.
“We haven’t defined the relationship,” I said.
“You kids and your ridiculous lingo,” Teeny shook her head. “You know what we need to define? The suspects in this murder case.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been trying to say that this entire time. We need to define our suspects.”
Teeny grumbled. “Fine. But I want to hear about that gift.”
Over the next few minutes, we summarized the case. Humphrey had motive, but also an alibi. Mayor Delgado claimed her peppermint allergy as an alibi, although the three of us agreed it was far from rock-solid. Dee Dee said she’d been communing with Fred out in nature, which we all believed but acknowledged would not hold up in court. Finally, we circled back to Jennifer.
Teeny shrugged. “Jennifer’s alibi isn’t very strong. Alone in the forest? Please.”
Miss May nodded. “I agree. And, unfortunately, my sister’s alibi therefore doesn’t seem too strong either.”
“But your sister is your sister. We all know she’s not a killer. Kind of. Right?” I asked.
“Let’s assume she’s not a killer for the purposes of this investigation,” said Miss May. “And for familial harmony.”
“Right. So we can believe her alibi,” I said. “But I don’t know if I can believe Jennifer’s.”
Teeny nodded. “That yogi’s got some downward don’t in her.”
“Downward don’t?” I said.
“Yeah, the opposite of downward do, the most famous pose in yoga.” Teeny rolled her eyes like, “Duh.”
“It’s called ‘downward dog,’” I said.
“Oh, you are such a know-it-all sometimes,” Teeny huffed.
“I believe that Jennifer really was in the forest,” Miss May asserted, interrupting our downward dogging.
A waiter placed a giant stack of pancakes on the table in front of us. Without saying anything, we each grabbed a fork and began eating. The pancakes were gooey, flaky, buttery, delicious. I could go into extreme detail about the maple and the chestnuts. I could ponder for quite a while how Peter managed to create such a soft yet chewy texture. But I’d rather tell you about the investigation. I guess.
“How do you figure? Why do you think Jennifer was really in the forest?” Teeny asked.
Miss May swallowed her pancake and took a sip of water. “Just a feeling I have.”
“I know why,” I said. “Because Jennifer said that thing about the moonlight cascading through the trees and twinkling on the shore of the pond near the old country club.”
Miss May narrowed her eyes. “So what?”
“So that’s exactly how the moon would have hit the water around 9 PM the night Orville was killed. You can’t make those details up, unless you know a lot about the celestial happenings.”
Teeny scrunched up her face. “What in the world? You have so much useless knowledge up in that noggin. How do you know this stuff?”
I shrugged. “I took astronomy classes back when I was working on my interior design degree.”
“How do you connect astronomy and interior design?” Teeny asked. “Did you buy a couch with a bunch of stars on it and you wanted to find Orion’s belt?”
I laughed. “I wanted to understand the spatial relationships of objects to one another. So my designs can mirror the natural world. The geometry and symmetry in nature has always been a big inspiration for me.”
Miss May shook her head. “I often wonder if I’m wasting your talents setting up events in my big barn.”
I shook my head. “I use that stuff in the barn all the time.”
Teeny dismissed me with a wave of the hand. “Sounds crazy to me but useful in this investigation. Good job.”
“Yeah, well only kind of useful. If Jennifer’s alibi does check out, we still have a body and no good suspects. Who else could have killed Orville?”
Teeny leaned forward with a twinkle in her eye. “What about Liz? Maybe she killed our Santa to create a news story worthy of a Pulitzer.”
Miss May grumbled. “Liz is not a killer. I still think it was someone from Orville’s past. All we know about him is his professional resume. But what was his personal life like?”
“Interesting point,” I said. “But I wanna circle back to Liz. I don’t think she’s the killer. But she was telling us how desirable the Pine Grove Santa job is. What if someone else wanted the gig and they killed Orville so they could take the position.”
“If that were true, someone would have stepped up to take the job. As it stands, Pine Grove is stuck with an unwilling KP as Santa and he’s the least cheery guy I know.”
“He’s cheery,” I said.
“Not like Santa,” said Miss May.
Teeny threw up her hands. “So what do we do now?”
“What about that angry elf from the diner?” Miss May asked as she took a bite of pancake.
“I don’t even think he’s in town anymore. I haven’t seen them.” I took my own bite of pancake. “But maybe we should try to figure it out.”
“We also need to find out if the mayor is really allergic to peppermint. We just took her word for that. And if she is, we should find out if there was real peppermint in that candy cane,” said Miss May.
Teeny dipped her pancake in the side of whipped cream. “Maybe we can force-feed Linda a candy cane and see if she balloons and gets all swollen in the face.”
“That’s a crime all on its own,” said Miss May.
We all ate in silence for a moment, then Big Dan stepped into the restaurant and crossed toward us with three powerful strides.
Dan sat at the empty chair at our table and took a moment to catch his breath. Teeny looked concerned. “Big Dan. Are you OK? What happened?”
Somehow, I had forgotten Teeny’s obvious crush on Big Dan, but in that moment, it could not have been more clear. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Did something happen with the investigation?”
Big Dan nodded. Helped himself to a bite of p
ancake. Then he looked at us, with true concern in his eyes.
“I’ve been looking all over the place for the three of you. I think I might have had a breakthrough in your case. Teeny, I’ve texted you at least 15 times.”
Teeny pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it. “Oh. That’s what that vibrating was.”
Big Dan shook his head. “What did you think it was?”
Teeny shrugged. “I thought my leg was just tingling again. Sometimes it tingles. What’s up?”
Big Dan took a big sip of water. “I’ve got something down at the shop the three of you are going to want to see.”
20
Short People
We stepped onto the lot at Big Dan’s Auto and he pointed at a maroon Honda Civic. Paint peeled on the hood and the rust spots dotted the runner. A big dent in the driver side door was the cherry on top and I felt comfortable declaring the car a beater.
“That’s a real beater,” I said out loud.
“It’s not just any beater,” Big Dan stepped toward the car and gestured for us to follow. “It belonged to Orville Starr.”
Miss May’s eyes widened. “Really? Tell me more.”
Big Dan circled the car, pausing occasionally to kick the tires as he spoke. “I didn’t realize the car belonged to the dead guy at first. Then, yesterday afternoon, this little bearded guy came by. Said the car belonged to his buddy Orville. The little guy said that he had locked his phone in the car and wanted to get in.”
Teeny slapped her knee. “I knew it. You can never trust short people.”
Big Dan cocked his head. “You can’t?”
“Other than me,” said Teeny. “But I’m not really that short.”
Big Dan laughed and they made eye contact.
Miss May stepped toward the car. “I’m surprised you didn’t realize this was Orville’s car sooner. Isn’t he the one who dropped it off?”
Big Dan shrugged. “I’ve been slammed now that it’s winter. I had a neighborhood kid working a few shifts doing intake. The kid processed this one. So I don’t know who brought it in.”
Teeny pointed at Big Dan. “You need to get security cameras.”
“I don’t want cameras. Then everything I do was going to be caught on tape. I don’t need to be caught picking my nose with my little finger.”
Teeny laughed. “You do not pick your nose with your pinky!”
Big Dan shrugged.
Miss May ran her hand along the car. “What kind of work did the car need?”
“That’s the other interesting thing,” said Big Dan. “My notes say that the brakes need to be repaired. I took a look under there. These are new brakes, but someone tried to cut them. They didn’t get all the way through, but they got close. A few more miles, these brakes would have snapped for sure.”
I furrowed my brow. “So the killer... Whoever stabbed Orville with the candy cane...”
Miss May turned back to me and nodded. “Same person. Someone really wanted Orville dead.”
Teeny bit her lip. “Did you let the sneaky little guy inside the car?”
Big Dan shook his head. “I stood strong. He yelled and fussed. But he barely comes up to my belly button, so I never got too scared.”
“Can we look inside the car?” I asked.
Big Dan unlocked the car and opened the front door. “Why do you think I brought you down here? Have at it.”
Miss May, Teeny, and I spent the next 15 minutes combing through the Honda Civic. In the trunk, we found a pristine, freshly dry-cleaned Mrs. Claus outfit. Bright red pants, a white blouse, a Christmas tree vest, a small red hat, and a fluffy white wig.
Miss May investigated the costume carefully. “Did Orville perform with a Mrs. Claus?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. The mayor would have mentioned it, right?”
“Maybe that outfit belonged to a girlfriend. Maybe she liked the whole Santa thing. In a flirty way,” Teeny said.
Big Dan cringed. “That’s not my cup of tea.”
Teeny shrugged. “Just saying. People are strange.”
Eventually, we moved past the costume in the trunk and searched the interior of the car. There was a box in the backseat filled with a few hundred candy canes. Although the candy canes were retrospectively chilling, considering the murder weapon, we agreed their presence wasn’t necessarily a clue. Orville did portray Santa, after all.
The search, for the most part, wasn’t exciting. But then, I tugged on the glovebox and it wouldn’t open. I tugged again, but it still would not give.
“This glove compartment is locked.” I tugged once more just to be positive. “Do you think he’s hiding something in there?”
Big Dan stuck his head in the car. “Want to find out?”
A few minutes later, Big Dan had picked the lock and opened the glove compartment. I gasped as I looked inside. There, sitting on a pile of rumpled paperwork, was a shiny black handgun.
Miss May stuck her head into the front seat from the back. “What? What did you find?”
I pointed. “It’s...uh...kind of a…it’s…”
“It’s a gun,” said Big Dan.
Teeny and Miss May gasped in unison.
“OK. So Orville was definitely a dangerous guy,” Miss May said.
I reached out toward the gun. Miss May caught my hand. “Don’t touch it. You don’t know what crimes have been committed with that thing. Keep your fingerprints away.”
I drew my hand back and nodded.
Miss May handed me a tissue. “Take this, push the gun aside and see if you can find the registration.”
I did as I was told. “These are mostly fast food menus,” I said.
I handed Miss May the pile. She sorted through the papers one by one. Teeny leaned over. “Is there a menu for my restaurant in there?”
Miss May shook her head.
“Now you know the man is a psychopath. Who doesn’t order from Grandma’s? Our delivery guy is fast and we promise that our food hot. This is ridiculous.”
“The man is dead,” I said. “I think he’s been adequately punished for not ordering from your restaurant.”
“I guess,” Teeny said, grumbling under her breath.
Miss May made a shushing sound. “Teeny. Quiet down for a second.”
Teeny crossed her arms. “Why?”
Miss May held up a small red and white card. “I found the vehicle registration. It’s expired. And it lists a Pennsylvania address.”
Teeny’s eyes widened as she covered her mouth. “Wait. Why am I shocked? What does that tell us?”
Miss May placed the papers back into the glovebox with a careful touch.
“It tells us... Orville Starr was on the run.”
21
A Starr is Born
Miss May and I spent the rest of the day selling Christmas trees up at the farm. At first, I found it difficult to focus on serving our customers and maintaining my holiday cheer. The case of the murdered Santa Claus weighed heavily on my mind. But the more smiling children I saw, the more I relaxed. By the end of the day, I realized I hadn’t thought about the case very much at all. I had eaten at least three apple cider donuts and somehow, that warm, holiday cheer had made a home for itself in my heart.
At the close of the day, I found Miss May over by KP’s cabin discussing orchard business. Both seemed satisfied with the crowd we had drawn that day. Although KP seemed annoyed about his new appointment as town Santa Claus.
“I’m just hoping old Humphrey can pack those pounds on as fast as he thinks. Because I‘m just not a ho-ho-ho type of guy. I don’t carry big red sacks of toys. Also, I’m horrible at wrapping presents.” He held up his hands. “These big paws weren’t made for nimble activities, you get me? I use duct tape to wrap my gifts.”
“Oh, we know,” I said. “One year, you gave me duct tape wrapped in duct tape.”
“That was a good one,” KP said with a chuckle.
Miss May and I laughed. Then KP starting po
king around about the case, asking without asking what we knew about Orville Starr. I didn’t feel like venturing back into those dark waters, but sometimes being a detective required talking about dead bodies instead of Christmas trees.
After a few minutes of hemming and hawing, Miss May opened up. She told KP all about Orville’s car and the registration address in Pennsylvania.
“Great. So what’s the next move?” KP asked. “How are the super sleuths going to solve this one?”
Miss May glanced at me. “I’m thinking we can take a quick trip down to Pennsylvania tomorrow. Check out the address. See what we can learn.” She looked back over at KP. “Can you handle the farm? We should be back mid-afternoon.”
“Hey. If justice is on the line, I can do anything,” KP said. “Except prance around Pine Grove like Santa. I’ll never do that.”
Miss May shook her head. “You mentioned.”
22
Pumpkin Pie
We picked Teeny up in the big yellow bus early the next morning. Too early for me. But Teeny was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as per usual. She chattered excitingly about the success of her French toast balls for much of the ride. She and Miss May discussed possibly selling the French toast balls in the orchard bakeshop later in the season. Then the two gossiped about old friends who had moved in and out of Pine Grove.
After a couple hours, Miss May pulled off the highway and we cruised into a rundown suburb of Philadelphia, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.
The streets were lined with two or three-story brick apartment buildings. Each building had a chain-link fence out front.
One of the fences had a sign that said “Beware of Dog. Dog Always Bites.”
Miss May checked the GPS on her phone. “It says we’re 1000 feet away from Orville’s address.”
I scratched my head. “This area seems a little sketchy.”
Teeny scoffed. “A little? There’s bars on all the windows. The roads are in horrible condition. That pothole’s bigger than my whole head. And I haven’t seen a grocery store for miles.”
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