by Mona Marple
“I’m just waiting for my friend,” I explain.
“Which friend is that?”
“This is his room. I guess he must have gone for some tests or something.”
“You mean Santa Nick?” The nurse asks with a grin. “Well, he was released yesterday. I was half expecting reindeers to come and collect him but he just called a cab. He’s back home, sugar.”
“Back home?” I repeat. I think back to Nick’s injuries, to the wires hooked up to him, and think that can’t be true. I’d expected him to be kept in for weeks. “But he’s really badly burnt.”
“It was his choice, we weren’t kicking him out,” she says with a throaty laugh. “Trust me, he was more charming than most patients in here. He could have stayed all year for me.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why wouldn’t he call me? I’d have picked him up.”
The nurse shrugs. “Lots of men want to prove they don’t need help. Maybe he thought you’d tell him to stay put. We got a lot of people wanting to go home, always happens this time of year. Nobody wants to wake up in a hospital bed Christmas morning.”
I nod slowly and rise to my feet. No wonder the room looks so impersonal. It’s ready for the next patient who needs it.
“Well, thanks for your help,” I say.
“You give that sweet boy my love,” the nurse commands. She holds the door open for me and I bid her an awkward wave as I walk past and back through the corridors towards the main entrance.
**
I knock on the door expecting Nick to take an age to answer, or maybe not even answer at all. By this point, I’m more annoyed than concerned. How could he be so irresponsible? Discharging himself without telling anyone? Sure, he could have told someone other than me, but I doubt it. I’ve been his best friend for years. And now he’s home alone, injured and in pain, with nobody to take care of him.
To my surprise, the door opens after just a few moments.
“What are you –“ I start, then stop when I see that it isn’t Nick standing in the doorway. I swallow. The uniform has always had an effect on me. “Taylor?”
Taylor shoots me a look that burns my cheeks red. “Seriously? You left without telling me, while we’ve got an active murder situation? Do you have any idea how worried I was when I saw you’d gone?”
“I’m, I didn’t, I didn’t think,” I admit, gaze focused on my feet.
“I know you didn’t. I’ve got Sage and Patton searching for you. darn it Connie. Whatever game you’re playing, that wasn’t fair.”
I remember my surroundings and feel panic reach me. “What are you doing here? Is Nick okay?”
“I’m questioning him. Come in,” Taylor says. I scoot inside. Nick’s on the settee and, to my surprise, a small Christmas tree has been set up in the corner of the room.
“The neighbours thought it’d cheer me up,” Nick explains as he follows my eye. “Luckily I got home before New Year, hey. Not sure how I feel about the clutter.”
The room is literally empty apart from the settee and the tree. Clutter couldn’t be further from the truth. I stand around near Taylor awkwardly, then decide to take the second seat of the settee, right beside Nick. I’m his friend, after all.
“Are you well enough to be home?” I ask, placing the back of my hand on his forehead. To my knowledge, a temperature has never been part of his diagnosis, but it’s the only medical check I know how to do.
“I’m good as new,” he says, then holds up his bandaged arm. “Well, soon as the burns heal I will be. I can take pain meds and rest as well at home as I can in hospital. I’ll go back for them to change the bandages. No need for me to take up a bed when I got a perfectly good one here.”
“Why didn’t you call? I’d have picked you up,” I say.
“Connie, girl, you got a man now. Not to mention two babies. It’s the week before Christmas. I know you got better things to do than help me out. The cab was fine, honest.”
My cheeks flush at the mention of the babies. “I’d never be too busy to help you, Nick. I’m your friend.”
Taylor clears his throat. “Let’s get on with this, if we can.”
“Sure thing.” Nick says. “I still can’t believe somebody killed Lionel.”
“Not just someone,” Taylor says, “it was almost certainly the same person who attacked you. Can you walk us through what you remember before the attack?”
Nick exhales and looks up at the ceiling. A tiny patch of discolouration remains, a circle of taupe in a ceiling of white. It’s been there years, caused by the roof leaking during a particularly bad storm, and no matter how often Nick redecorates he can’t get rid of it. It drives him crazy.
“Well,” he begins, “I was just chilling. Lionel had told me not to worry about being at the show for the start. He wanted to save me til the end. I was pretty psyched about that, gave me an extra hour or so.”
“To do what?” Taylor asks. He isn’t being especially unfriendly, but it’s clear he’s listening to this story with the detachment of a professional, while I’m just listening to my old buddy chat.
Nick shrugs. “Nothing in particular, Sheriff. I watched a little sport, rang my momma, that kind of stuff. Then I thought I’d take a nice long shower. I thought I had the start of a cold coming on, ya know? Had my shower, got dry and put on my boxers and that’s when it happened.”
“It happened?” Taylor questions.
“Someone hit me over the head,” Nick says, “that’s all I remember.”
“You didn’t see them?”
“I didn’t even hear them. I had some Christmas tunes playing, getting me in the festive spirit, ya know. And it was just like, bam, and I went down and everything went black.”
Taylor frowns. “Who has access to your house?”
“Oh, a couple of neighbours have keys. Connie has a key. That’s it really. I travel a lot so I need there to be some people who have access to the house if needed, but nobody ever really needs to get in here. No pets to feed, to plants to water. I’m a low maintenance kinda guy.”
I notice how Nick is freshly shaved, despite being at home recuperating. Low maintenance is not a way to describe him. His house, yes, but not him.
“And the radiators? They were switched on or set to a timer?”
“They were on while I was here,” Nick says. “I hate being cold. The radiator in the bathroom, you wanna come see?”
“Sure,” Taylor says, although he’s already inspected the scene. Nick leads us through the bungalow, into his bedroom and then to the en suite. The heat radiating out in the small room hits us instantly.
“So this radiator, it’s probably the most powerful in the house. It’s the newest, and it’s so big for this sized room.” Nick explains. We all gaze at the radiator. While the others in the house are traditional single panels, the bathroom features a modern towel rail radiator.
“And you were hit on the head, lost consciousness. And that was it until help came?”
“Oh, no,” Nick says with a shake of his head. “I was only out cold for probably a few minutes. I heard the person leave. I actually called out to them to help me.”
“Where were you then?” Taylor asks. I snap my neck towards him. Nick was handcuffed to the radiator, of course. Why is he asking that question? Does he think Nick’s lying?
“Slumped in that corner, handcuffed to the radiator.” Nick says.
“So the attacker had brought handcuffs, and some kind of weapon to hit you with.” Taylor says. He does a full 360, taking in the en suite in detail.
“Well,” Nick says with a bashful smile. “The handcuffs are mine.”
Taylor’s cheeks flush. “Okay, so the person had to know you owned them and where they’d be?”
“Not really,” Nick says. “They were right on the bedside table.”
“You keep a pair of handcuffs on your bedside table?” Taylor asks.
“Not always.” Nick says, but he doesn’t expand. I don’t know if I wan
t to hear more or not.
“Right. How do you end up unconscious when Connie finds you?”
“I blacked out from the heat. There wasn’t any wiggle room in the cuffs, I couldn’t get my arm away from the radiator. After a while, I guess I just passed out.”
“You didn’t have your phone on you?”
“I literally had my boxers on me, Sheriff, nothing else. I was getting dressed.” Nick says, impatience slipping into his tone. “My cell was by the dresser charging.”
“We couldn’t find any CCTV covering the house. You don’t have any?”
Nick shakes his head.
“Might be a good idea. To say you’re away so often.”
“I’ll look into it.” Nick says, his voice tight as stretched elastic.
“So, Nick, anyone with a reason to want to hurt you?”
Nick ponders the question as he moves out of the en suite and lowers himself on to his bed, where he sits and stares right at me.
“I can’t think of anyone,” he says, “and since you think my attacker went off to kill Lionel Wright, they’d have to have a problem with both of us.”
“Possibly.” Taylor agrees.
“I didn’t really keep the same company as Lionel Wright, Sheriff. I can’t imagine many people knew the two of us, never mind had a problem with us both.”
“And how about the other people in the show?” Taylor asks. “Because that would seem to be an example of you two keeping the same company.”
Nick purses his lips. “When I say keeping the same company, I mean friendship. I mean, who are the people who know where I live, who got my phone number, who know my mamma’s name. I can have a thousand friends on Facebook, don’t mean they my real friends.”
“Nick, we’re just trying to get to the bottom of what’s happened,” I soothe. I wish Taylor was less heavy-handed. Nick’s injured, and a victim not a suspect. I turn my attention to Taylor. “Shall we call it a day? I’m sure we’re tiring Nick out.”
“I’d rather get it all done,” Nick says, his burnt arm hanging by his side, limp.
“We’re pretty much done,” Taylor says. “I know you’re not exactly friends with the people in the show but did you have anything to do with them at all?”
“Not really,” Nick admits. “Connie came with me to pick up the tickets the day before the show and it was a rehearsal, I didn’t even know it was happening. This woman, Tanith I think, got me over to the stage to join in but Lionel flounced off before it had even finished.”
“Tanith?” Taylor asks.
“It was Tabitha.” I murmur. His words about the rehearsal remind me of the rehearsal schedule I’d found near his unconscious body. If the schedule wasn’t his, how did it get there?
“Tabitha, right, you don’t know her?” Taylor asks, an almost imperceptible shift in his demeanour as he mentions the dead woman’s name.
Nick shakes his head. “She seems nice, I guess. I can’t say we’re ever going to be best friends, ya know, but she seems pretty inoffensive.”
“She’s dead, Nick. She was shot yesterday by someone wearing your Santa costume.” Taylor explains.
Nick’s face blanches, and then he opens his eyes, wide. “That’s awful.”
“I think you were back home from the hospital by, what time would you say?”
Nick shrugs. “I had no way of checking the time. I couldn’t say.”
“I checked with the hospital. They say you discharged yourself after lunch. You’d have been home before 2pm.”
“And?” Nick asks.
“And so I have to ask what your alibi is for the shooting of Tabitha Reed.” Taylor says. I feel my stomach drop and automatically go to Nick, sit next to him on the bed. I’m on your side, I want him to know.
“I was right here, Sheriff. I haven’t left the house since I got back yesterday.” Nick says. He stares straight ahead, refusing to look at me.
“Can anyone corroborate that for you?” Taylor asks.
Of course they can’t, I want to scream. I’m his best friend and I didn’t even know he’d discharged himself. He was home alone, in pain, and now his stubbornness has made him a suspect in a murder case. I clench my fists at my side. Why couldn’t he just have rang me? I’d have picked him up and stayed with him.
“Nick? I said, can anyone corroborate that?” Taylor repeats.
Nick takes a deep breath. “Yes, yes someone can.”
**
I may not see Nick every day, or every week, but he still knows everything about my life. Whenever we do speak, or see each other, we talk for hours. He’s a master at hearing a change in my voice, unspooling my secrets one by one.
I thought I knew as much about him as he does about me. Turns out I was wrong.
The front door opens and Nick gives me an apologetic smile.
Carrier bags are dropped on the kitchen side and then we hear footsteps walk through the rooms of the bungalow, before a tall man with tight dreadlocks and oversized glasses appears.
“You okay?” he asks, mahogany eyes full of concern.
Nick nods. “Denzel, this is Sheriff Morton and my best friend Connie Winters. And this is Denzel, my partner.”
Taylor, detached from Nick’s life, shows no reaction to this news and somehow appears unaware that inside I’m screaming. How could I not know this? How could my best friend have a partner he’s never even mentioned to me?
“Denzel, we’re trying to get to the bottom of who did this to Nick,” Taylor explains.
“Good,” Denzel says. His voice is rich with an accent I can’t quite place. New Yorker, maybe. “I can leave you all alone. You want a drink?”
I shake my head. The domesticity of this man making a drink in Nick’s house is too jarring for me.
“Stay, please,” Taylor asks. “So, I understand you picked Nick up from hospital yesterday?”
“No, sir,” Denzel says. “I got the call from the hospital telling me what had happened and I flew in early. I was meant to arrive tomorrow, stay til the New Year. I got the earliest flight I could and by the time I got here, he was on his way back. We literally pulled up outside at the same time.”
“And what time was that?”
“It was around 1.45,” Denzel says, “I know because just the drive from the hospital wore him out. He came in and went to bed and I figured I should maybe track how much sleep he got. He slept right through until this morning.”
“So you weren’t even awake?” Taylor asks Nick, who shakes his head. “Why didn’t you say that?”
“I told you I was right here, you didn’t ask what I was doing,” Nick says.
“Okay, well, that’s all for now but we might have to do this again. I’m going to say you need to keep your doors locked.” Taylor says, then meets my gaze. “Let’s go.”
“Connie, can I talk to you for a minute? In private?” Nick asks.
Taylor nods and he and Denzel leave the room.
“I’m sorry,” Nick begins, “I never wanted you to find out about him like this.”
“You could have told me,” I say. “Why didn’t you?”
Nick shakes his head. “It’s early days. I only met the guy last month. It’s been pretty intense. I didn’t want to jinx it.”
“Well, he looks pretty smitten. Flying across here to nurse you.” I say and reach across and squeeze his leg. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Nick. I was so scared when I found you.”
“I’m so glad you came.” Nick says.
“Sorry for Taylor,” I say, quietly. “He can be a little rough in work mode.”
Nick shrugs. “He needs to find a murderer, he can’t be worrying about pleasantries. It’s fine Con. He’s a good man. You hold onto him, okay?”
I give Nick a sad smile and nod my head. “I’ll try.”
**
“So, you’ve ticked him off your suspect list?” I ask as I get into the passenger side of the squad car.
Taylor nods. “Did he say anything of interest when you
were alone?”
“He just apologised for not telling me about Denzel,” I say, then decide to step into the unknown. My heart pounds. “And he told me you’re a keeper and I should hold on to you.”
“I am,” Taylor says. He reaches across the centre console and takes my hand in his, his fingers massaging mine. “And you should.”
I crinkle my nose to break the intensity of the moment. “You’re not bad I guess.”
And then we’re off, and Taylor is back in work mode, his head filled with murder and suspects and the investigation.
11
Sage
The note asked me to be at the Springs on this particular day at this particular time, but since I thought it might be suspicious for me to randomly announce going for a walk alone one day, I’ve been sneaking in a few walks a day at different times.
To begin with, Patton would ask if I wanted company, but I politely declined. Now, he doesn’t offer. He’s working on the principle that I’ll ask if I want him to come with me, plus he has a head full of investigation ideas to work on.
I’ve spent a lot of time considering the fact that Bernard is a person of interest. Could he really be a killer? I doubt it. Sure, it’s strange that he arrived in town and people started dropping dead, but coincidences happen all the time. They do, okay?
He’s already there as I approach the Springs, his back to me. The water roars as it tumbles over the edge and plummets to the pools below. The railings have been decorated with tinsel, half hidden in the snow that’s gathered on every surface.
“Bernie?” I call out, but my voice is lost to the water.
The note gave no indication of why he wants to meet, and at first I decided I wouldn’t show up. But then I thought back to my wedding vows, the commitment I’d made to him. He is still my husband. Still father to our girls. What if he needs to discuss our daughters? As soon as that had occurred to me, I knew I would be exactly where he asked me to be.
“Bernie!” I call, a little louder, a little closer. He spins on his heels and smiles at me, then holds out his arms. I realise he wants to hug, and in the panic of the moment, can’t think of a way to dodge the embrace. He smells of tobacco and honey even after all these years.
