2 Mayhem in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  Things had changed a lot for me since those days.

  “I’ll be okay,” she finally said.

  “If you feel like talking, my door’s always open,” I said, patting her back.

  She nodded.

  “I know,” she said. “Thanks.”

  Just then, I heard a rapping at the front door. We weren’t open for another hour, so it was still locked.

  “Is anybody in there?” I heard a muffled voice say.

  I wiped my hands on my apron and went out through the dividing door to the dining room.

  A large man in a gray jumpsuit with a clipboard and a tool box was outside.

  “Well, look at that,” I mumbled as I opened the door.

  Maybe a little air conditioning would go a long ways to help cool everybody down.

  Chapter 25

  I read through the Christmas River in July Play script while I waited for the last round of pies to finish up baking. A stream of sweat trickled down the side of my face.

  True to what I had initially thought, the air conditioner repair men were as useless as a bag of hammers. After half an hour of tinkering around, they had informed me that the unit was busted and way past redemption. I would have to buy a new one if I wanted to survive the remainder of this heat wave.

  So not only did I have the heat to contend with, I also had this torturous script to read and memorize.

  Sarah had really outdone herself this year.

  The more I read through it, the more I hated all the characters in it. Even Santa was unlikable. And you know that when you make a fat man who brings toys to underprivileged children unlikeable, there’s no hope for any of the other characters.

  But I had to get through memorizing my lines. The play was in less than three days, and even though I was playing the part of Mrs. Claus for reasons other than wanting to show off my acting abilities, I didn’t want to do a total face plant.

  “Hey Cinnamon? Can you come out here?” Chrissy’s voice echoed from the dining room.

  I got up off the barstool and went through the doors to the front.

  I had a visitor.

  “I’ve heard so much about your pies, I just couldn’t resist stopping by and trying a slice.”

  Stephanie Calder stood there, a pair of large, movie star-style glasses propped atop her flowing mane of red hair. She was wearing a tightfitting t-shirt with a long necklace, and even in such casual attire, she looked striking.

  Sheriff Trumbow, who was sitting in a corner booth digging into his usual fattening pecan pie, couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away from her. He had a dazed, smitten look on his face that kind of made my skin crawl.

  “Oh,” I croaked. “Well that was nice of you.”

  I wiped away a stream of sweat that was running down my temple. It seemed like every time I saw her, I just so happened to be a sweaty mess.

  I suddenly noticed the impatient line of people standing behind her, so I signaled her to follow me over to the side of the pastry case.

  “It looks like business is pretty good,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It can get busy in here sometimes.”

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my apron.

  “So,” I said, clearing my throat. “What can I offer you?”

  “What would you recommend?” she asked.

  “The Moundful Marionberry pie’s always a winner this time of year,” I said. “The Marionberry is a specialty of Oregon. It only grows here.”

  Internally, I was shaking my head at my poor attempts at small talk.

  “Sounds great,” she said. “I’ll take it.”

  I reached under the heated pastry case for the pie tin. I placed a big slice on a plate along with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. Then I handed it to her.

  “Yum, yum,” she said.

  She smiled nervously, and I realized that she was here for more than just the pie.

  “Listen, I hope you didn’t get the wrong impression the other day,” she said, lowering her voice slightly. “I mean, I know it looked like… but that’s not what it was. Not at all.”

  “I know,” I said. “Daniel told me that you’re in town looking for someone.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Dan’s been a real big help so far. He’s a really good guy.”

  I dug my hands into the pockets of my apron.

  “He is,” I said.

  “I’m glad to see him looking so happy these days,” she said. “I’m sure you have a lot to do with that.”

  “Well, that’s nice of you to say,” I said.

  I suddenly remembered what Daniel had said the night before about us going out to dinner.

  Maybe I could iron all this out myself.

  “Listen,” I said. “How about I cook us all up dinner tonight? Pastry’s really my thing, but I make a mean steak. You guys can catch up, and I can hear about what Daniel was like in his 20s.”

  She smiled, the corners of her eyes wrinkling slightly.

  “I’d absolutely love that.”

  Chapter 26

  “He’s really good at his job, you know,” Kara said from behind a pair of dark sunglasses. “He really made me feel like they’re going to catch this bastard.”

  Soft flute music floated through the air. The pedicurist placed Kara’s left foot down on the edge of the foot bath and started scrubbing the heel of her other one.

  Kara sighed and pressed a button on the chair control. The seat’s leather back started vibrating.

  I sat next to her in another pedicure chair, my legs crossed. I’d never been the pedicure-type. I’d never get used to strangers massaging and scrubbing my feet. Plus, being stuck in a room that smelled heavy with brain-killing chemicals for half an hour wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.

  But I wanted to take Kara out for a relaxing afternoon. And being the high-maintenance gal that she was, there was nothing she loved more than a good pedicure at her favorite spa downtown.

  “Daniel will make a great sheriff,” she said. “He’s very competent.”

  I nodded in agreement and flipped through an issue of People Magazine.

  “Did he tell you who he thought might have done that to your shop?” I asked.

  “You mean who he thought was behind the white beard and red suit?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “No. He just had a lot of questions. Like if I knew anybody who would have done this. An ex-boyfriend or something.”

  “Do you think one of them could have set the fire?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I haven’t hurt anyone that badly. And anyway, why now? I’ve been on-again and off-again with John for a long while. If an ex had a grudge, why wait all this time?”

  I didn’t say anything, but I could have thought of a few guys from Kara’s past who might have still had hurt feelings. Before John, she’d dated a lot. And most of the time, she’d been the one to end things.

  But burning down her shop over a little hurt pride seemed pretty extreme.

  “Well what about someone else. Other people you might have crossed paths with. Someone from the play?”

  I searched her face, but couldn’t read anything. The glasses concealed her expressions too well.

  “No way,” she said. “I mean, it makes sense with the whole Santa arsonist thing, but those people are harmless. I mean everyone but Sarah, who I’m sure by now you’ve found to be a complete wench.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks so much for the heads up about her.”

  “I may have forgotten to mention it,” she said.

  She stared down at the electric bug-green color that the pedicurist was applying to her toes.

  “It’s probably just some nut in town for the Christmas River in July festivities,” she said. “And he probably burned the ornament shop as some sort of twisted statement.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “Just bad luck it happened to be your shop.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. I flipped through the magazi
ne, not recognizing half the names of the celebrities they were gossiping about.

  “Well, John and I are back together,” she said. “In case you hadn’t made that brilliant deduction on your own.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I kind of figured that. That’s really great, Kara.”

  “He’s promised to make us more of a priority,” she said. “And not to just drop everything anytime his mom calls.”

  “I’m really happy for you two.”

  She shrugged.

  “Well, we’ll see if he really means it this time,” she said. “But at least something good came out of all of this.”

  I jumped up in my chair.

  The ear-shattering sound of a fire engine suddenly rang out.

  A second later, a red truck zipped past the windows of the spa, wailing as it flew by.

  Some of the spa staff wandered over to the window to get a better look at what was causing the commotion.

  Kara and I both looked at each other.

  I could tell she was thinking the same thing that I was.

  The bastard had struck again.

  Chapter 27

  I drove over to Daniel’s house with Huckleberry later that night after the play rehearsal.

  After what had happened earlier that day, I figured that we should push Stephanie’s dinner to tomorrow night instead.

  The fire engines had been racing toward Valley Corson’s floral shop on Butler Street a couple of blocks away from my pie shop. Someone reported seeing smoke and flames coming out of the shop window. The fire crews got there as quick as they could, but with the heat wave, they had trouble putting it out. The fire practically destroyed the small hole-in-the-wall shop in a matter of minutes.

  When I heard that it was Valley Corson’s shop that caught fire, I didn’t need anyone to tell me that Santa had struck again.

  Because when Valley Corson wasn’t arranging bouquets, she was playing the part of Nicholas Claus’s sister, Brandy Claus, in the Christmas River in July Play.

  I was convinced now that it wasn’t just a coincidence.

  Santa was after the actors in the play.

  I drove up to Daniel’s, parking in the driveway of his cozy, cabin-esque house. I got out and Huckleberry jumped down in front of me, trotting up to the porch. He wagged his nub and looked back at me anxiously, waiting for me to open the door.

  Like me, Huckleberry had been missing Daniel all day.

  This was Daniel’s childhood home, and before we’d gotten into a fight over him wanting to get married, I’d been planning on helping him renovate and redecorate it. It was an old house with nice bones, but years of wear and tear had taken their toll. It was worn and tired looking, but that didn’t make me like it any less. Maybe it was because since my youth, I’d associated this house with Daniel and those feelings of first love. There was something special about it. Something nostalgic that made me feel like it was part of my own history, as well as his.

  I knocked, rapping two times quick and two times slow, the way I always did when I came over.

  After a few seconds, the door opened. He stood there in a worn Christmas River High baseball shirt.

  He had a beer in his hand, and judging from the faraway look in his eyes, it wasn’t his first.

  Huckleberry clawed lightly at his legs, and Daniel rubbed him on the head before the dog went inside, making a beeline for the kitchen, and probably his food bowl.

  “Well, if it isn’t Anne Hathaway,” Daniel said, leaning against the door jamb. “How’s the theater these days, Anne?”

  I crossed my arms.

  “I didn’t come to talk to you about the play.”

  “No, I figured as much,” he said, opening the door wider. “Well come on in then. It’s not every day that I’m graced with a visit from a movie star.”

  I gave him a sharp look.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  He looked at me and shrugged and then closed the door behind me as we walked into the living room.

  “You want a beer?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He sat down in his recliner and fixed his eyes on the TV screen.

  There was black and white footage that was paused. A parking lot and street poles, and a back door.

  I realized it was tape of the alleyway behind Kara’s shop.

  “I came over to see how you were doing,” I said.

  “Well, I think beer number five speaks for itself,” he said, shaking the remains of his bottle.

  I sat down on the arm rest of his chair.

  “Hard day?” I asked, looking down at him.

  I rubbed my hands softly through his dark hair.

  “Hard week,” he said, his eyes still glued to the TV.

  “Because of me?”

  He looked up, meeting my eyes.

  “Partly,” he said. “Partly because I’m not getting very far with this Santa arson case. It makes me feel like I’ve lost my touch.”

  “So he struck again?” I said.

  “He did,” he said. “And I’m gonna tell you again, Cin, you really shouldn’t be part of that play. I know how much Cinnamon’s Pies means to you. Do you really want to see it go up in flames if this nut decides to go after you next?”

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about that already.

  “No,” I said, softly.

  I didn’t feel like arguing about it anymore. I knew how he felt, and he knew how I felt.

  We were at an impasse.

  Daniel leaned back, looked up at me, and let out a long sigh.

  “We’re just not seeing eye to eye these days, are we?”

  “I didn’t come over here to talk about this,” I said.

  “Then what did you come over here for?”

  “Stephanie stopped by the shop,” I said.

  “She said she might,” he said.

  I cleared my throat.

  “I invited her to dinner tonight, but rescheduled for tomorrow instead,” I said. “Think you can make it?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  He pressed play on the remote, and went back to looking at the screen. A few cars passed down the alleyway, and then there was a long while where everything was still. Then, suddenly, something flashed on the screen and the back door of the shop was busted open. A few minutes later, someone came back out of the door.

  Santa glanced around, and then looked up at the camera

  It was hard to see his face. His white beard covered most of it, and he had exaggerated white eyebrows that couldn’t possibly have been real.

  And from the poor quality of the footage, you couldn’t really tell much more.

  Then, he stretched his arms out, leaned forward, and took a sweeping bow.

  Then, he was gone.

  I shook with visible chills.

  “Same thing at the florist’s shop,” Daniel said. “He’s bold doing that in the middle of the day.”

  “What a sick son of a bitch,” I said.

  He rubbed his face.

  “Dangerous, too.”

  Daniel put an arm around my waist.

  “Do you have any suspects?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer for a little while.

  “I may have a lead,” he finally said. “But I don’t like where it’s headed.”

  I waited for more, but that was all he was going to say.

  “Aren’t you gonna tell me?” I asked.

  “I’m not certain about it yet,” he said. “It’s just a theory. And you knowing wouldn’t help anything.”

  “Is it part of the play?” I asked.

  “Not sure yet.”

  He skipped back to the beginning, and we watched the same scene unfold again.

  I looked around the room at the empty beer bottles. There seemed to be more of them than usual.

  This place was definitely lacking a woman’s touch.

  “Is anything else bothering you?”
I asked.

  Despite the way we’d met, Daniel didn’t get drunk like this that often. And while it’d been a stressful and difficult week for him, I could tell there was something more to it.

  He wasn’t telling me something.

  I slid my hand into his.

  “It’s just that it’s my brother’s birthday today,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about him all day. It would’ve been his 40th.”

  I bit my lip.

  It’d been over 15 years since Daniel’s older brother had been murdered in a convenience store robbery in California. But looking at Daniel’s face, the pain of his death was still very real for him.

  I slumped into the chair and held him tightly.

  “I’m so sorry, babe,” I said.

  “I still miss him so much.”

  That old saying that time heals all wounds was a lie.

  Time can lessen or dull the pain, but it can’t always heal it.

  He held me back and we stayed like that for a long, long time.

  Chapter 28

  I stood off to the right of the stage, my insides trembling like a jar of jam on the back of a three-wheel delivery truck.

  Santa was out on stage, delivering his lines like a real professional. I was sure that Sarah had Ronald practicing every minute of every hour. Several elves were also up on stage, along with a couple of actors playing reindeers and extended family of the Clauses.

  In a couple of moments, I was about to make my grand entrance, which amounted to me completely raining on Santa’s parade of summer fun.

  Before rehearsal, Sarah Reinhart had gathered us around and told us the news that everybody already knew—that Valley Corson’s shop had been burned down, and that she no longer could play the role of Santa’s sister. She said there was a donation fund set up for both Valley and Kara that we could contribute to.

  There was no talk of postponing or stopping the play. But judging by some of the actor’s faces, the thought of quitting had occurred to them.

  “She’s out of her mind,” Kat Wilson, one of the elves, muttered after Sarah’s speech. “Are we going to get donation funds when the arsonist burns our businesses down too?”

  A few of the others nodded their heads in agreement. But they were too scared of Sarah to drop out of the play. Everybody stuck around for the rehearsal.