Silent Knife (A Celebration Bay Mystery)

by Freydont, Shelley

  Bill put his fork down and wiped his mouth. “Something happen?”

  “Liv has a confession to make.”

  “What?” said Liv.

  “What?” said Bill.

  Whiskey, who had just settled down next to Liv, stuck his head over the table’s edge.

  “This is gonna be good,” said Genny, who put a Corona and a glass of pinot grigio on the table, then slid in beside the sheriff.

  “Mind if I keep eating while you confess?” Bill asked. “Or is it gonna take my appetite away?”

  “I don’t have anything—” Liv stopped. She had been spying on the Thornsbys in the alley. There might be something in their fight that would be helpful to Bill’s investigation. Though she couldn’t imagine what.

  “Actually.”

  Bill groaned, put down his fork, and speared his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Keep eating,” Liv said. “It isn’t anything bad.”

  Chaz snorted. Whiskey gave a big doggie yawn, then stretched out with his head on Liv’s lap.

  Liv took a deep breath, fortified herself with a sip of wine. “I was on my way home from the meeting when I remembered that I wanted to take a look at the alley.”

  Bill groaned again. Genny patted his shoulder, then gave Liv her full attention.

  “I just needed to see how dark the alley was and if I needed to requisition additional lighting to ensure the safety of our visitors and ourselves. It was an innocent recce.”

  “Ha,” Chaz cracked.

  “I was just going to look. I wasn’t going to go into the alley. Just stand on the sidewalk and check out the light. I’m not that dumb.”

  “Ha,” repeated Chaz.

  Liv glared at him.

  Resigned, Bill said, “Go on.”

  “Most of the alley is decently lit, but the edges are really dark. Then I thought, it would have been almost that dark during the tree lighting. Dark enough for someone to steal the suit, change into it, then get into Trim a Tree, kill the PI—”

  “What?” said Chaz.

  “What PI?” Genny asked.

  Liv clapped her hand to her mouth. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t matter much,” Bill said. He wiped his napkin across his mouth and tossed it on the table.

  “The fake Santa was a private investigator?” Chaz asked.

  Bill nodded. “But I’ll thank you to keep it to yourselves.”

  “Sure thing. Who hired him?”

  “Don’t know. The only reason I found out so quickly is because Liv’s security head recognized him.”

  Chaz whistled. Turned to Liv. “And I suppose he told you?”

  “It was part of his report. How am I supposed to stay on top of things if I don’t know what’s going on?”

  Chaz put down his beer. “You think Clarence Thornsby hired him to keep tabs on his wife?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to ask,” Bill said. “He roared into town like a crazy man. I ran into the both of them on my way into town hall. I asked him to come to the station, he said he would. But while I was reassuring the mayor, he ran off again.”

  “Did you put out an APB on him?” Genny asked.

  “No, as far as I know he hasn’t done anything. But I will get him to come in and tell us what he knows about Phil Cosgrove.”

  “The dead Santa?” Chaz asked.

  “Oh, Chaz, that sounds so awful.” Genny shook her head. “What is this town coming to?”

  Liv’s face grew hot.

  Genny reached across the table and patted Liv’s arm. “Don’t you look like that, Liv, it’s not your fault that some crazy person came in and killed that man.”

  “Or someone who found out he was a private tec decided to take him off the case, permanently,” Chaz said.

  “Do you think Grace did it?” Genny asked, wide-eyed.

  Bill huffed out a sigh. “Let’s just keep an open mind and stop conjecturing. If something like this gets out, they’ll draw and quarter Grace before she can say, ‘Bah humbug.’”

  “So where was Grace when he was killed?” Liv asked.

  Bill frowned at her. “Didn’t say. I heard she was back in town, and I thought she’d come out to the station. But she didn’t. Maybe she was with her husband like she said.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “While I was looking at the lighting, Grace and Clarence came out of TAT. I guess that means it really will reopen tomorrow?”

  Bill shrugged. “I gave them the key. Crime scene finished up this afternoon. So I guess it’s back to business as usual.”

  There was nothing usual about Grace Thornsby or her tacky Christmas store. “I didn’t want it to look like I followed them.” Liv glanced at Chaz. “Which I didn’t, if you’re wondering. So I stepped into the shadows.”

  “Hid behind the Dumpster,” Chaz corrected.

  “Anyway, they were arguing, and he asked her where she was last night and why she wasn’t in the store. Then carped on about his reputation. Then Batman here grabbed me from behind and shoved me on the ground where I couldn’t hear any more.”

  Bill turned his frown on Chaz. “And what were you doing there?”

  “Following her. I swear, the woman’s a walking self-destruct button.”

  “I am not. I would have waited for them to leave, which they did—Clarence to the parking lot and Grace into the store—and then calmly walked away.”

  She laughed, ruefully. “Except Nancy came out to empty the trash. She’s been keeping the TAT cat—which, by the way, is named Tinkerbell—and it ran out of the Pyne Bough and Whiskey chased after it.”

  Whiskey lifted his head, ears twitching.

  “It’s all right, buddy, you showed that cat. I had to go after Whiskey, and Chaz and Nancy followed. Then I was apologizing, and we would have gotten out of there, but Chaz tried to pet the devil cat and it scratched him.”

  She suddenly remembered. “How’s your hand?”

  Chaz rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Gangrene could have set in for all you care.”

  “A big guy like you getting scratched by a cat named Tinkerbell. Give it here.” She took his hand and wet a napkin in Bill’s untouched water glass. “And that’s all I—we know,” she said as she patted the scratch clean and Chaz winced.

  Bill dropped his head to one side and the other, cracking his neck. “Well, I’ll just have to see what Grace Thornsby has to say about that. So, can a person get from Nancy’s to TAT and back without being seen?”

  Liv shrugged. “Possible, if they were lucky. Even this late, several groups of people crossed the alley.” Liv frowned.

  “What?”

  “Well, did it have to happen in order? Couldn’t someone have taken the suit, put it in a bag, and dressed somewhere else, then . . . no, that doesn’t make sense.”

  “And hiding behind a Dumpster, eavesdropping on possible suspects does?”

  “Come on, Bill. It wasn’t exactly like that. I didn’t even know they would be there.”

  “No, but you being there might just be a lucky break for us.” He nudged Genny out of the booth. “I’d best be getting home. I think tomorrow might be a busy day.”

  Chaz stood. “We’ll get going, too, so Genny can close up. You okay here by yourself?”

  “Oh, the boys are still washing down the kitchen, I’ll be fine. Night, Bill. Chaz, you and Liv have a good time.”

  “I’m going straight home,” Liv said, in case there was any question in anyone’s mind, including Chaz’s.

  “Well sleep tight,” Genny said, but her grin said something else entirely.

  They parted on the sidewalk. Bill’s car was parked at the diner. Chaz’s Jeep was in the town parking lot.

  “You knew Bill was going to be there, didn’t you?” Liv said, her breath making puffs in the air with each word.

  “No idea.”

  “I’ve never known you to take an interest in the police blotter.”

&n
bsp; “You’ve only known me for four months.”

  “So, are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  Liv suppressed an urge to smack him. “Are you interested in this case?”

  “Nope.”

  While Chaz drove her home, Liv tried to get him to admit he was intrigued by the latest murder. God forbid he actually felt something like compassion or outrage. But she soon gave up and just looked out the window. The streets were dark except for the streetlights. The homes had turned off their decorations; the wagon and carriage rides had stopped hours ago.

  Celebration Bay seemed like any other small town asleep for the night. Except for the murder. A man was dead. While they had all been celebrating the start of the Christmas season, someone had sneaked in and taken his life.

  “What’s wrong now?” Chaz asked, without taking his eyes from the street.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why were you sighing?”

  “I was just thinking about Phil Cosgrove. He probably had a family.” A family whose Christmas would be ruined this year and for years to come.

  “That’s the thing about murder. It screws over a lot more people than just the victim.”

  “Is that why you quit reporting and came back to Celebration Bay?”

  “I came back here to take over the paper I inherited.”

  “A weekly paper with local news.”

  “That’s what’s important to the local people,” he said, concentrating on the street ahead.

  She looked at his profile. His hair looked dark, only hinting at its true color when they passed under a streetlamp. He had one of those leading-man noses, straight, not too cute, not too big. A face with good bones. He was almost too good-looking. The first time she’d met him, she’d immediately pegged him as a misplaced airhead surfer dude.

  Most of the time he acted like a rube. But sometimes, when he wasn’t holding up that façade, she thought she glimpsed something deeper, someone who might care about injustice, someone who had—at least from her Internet search—cared enough at one time to put himself in harm’s way to uncover a story.

  She had to respect that person even if the one now sitting beside her in an old, battered Jeep cared only about fishing and sleeping and seemed as shallow as a birdbath.

  Against her protests, he drove her all the way up the driveway to the carriage house. But when he cut the engine, she put her foot down.

  “I was just going to see you to the door like a perfect gentleman.”

  “Thanks, but Whiskey and I can take it from here.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll just wait until you get inside.”

  Liv smiled. “Thanks. Good night and thanks for the glass of wine.”

  He gave her a two-finger salute and winked.

  “That is so annoying.” She closed the door on his laugh.

  Liv didn’t go to bed but booted up her laptop. She still had a lot of work to do, which only partially included stemming the fallout from the murder. She pulled up her calendar. Added notes to the “scheduled events” column. Wondered if she should give it up and just add another column for murders.

  “You’re being morbid,” she said out loud. Whiskey, who was sleeping on her feet, twitched and lifted his head.

  Liv looked beneath her desk. “Sorry, buddy. Don’t get up. You’re comfier than a pair of Uggs.”

  Whiskey gave her a look, yawned, and stretched out over her ankles.

  She reached down and scratched his ears, then pulled up the next day’s schedule.

  Sunday. She had to make an appearance in church. The sisters expected her, and it was something she should do to become a part of the community. Besides, she had to admit, she liked going.

  Then after that she would swing by the Trim a Tree store to see if Grace had reopened. Make an appearance at Santa Village, go to the office, make a few calls.

  Then she should really drive out to Dexter’s Nursery to check on the reindeer. Later that afternoon she had to meet with Fred for an opening-night traffic-flow report, and maybe get to bed early for a change. Her list was two pages long when she finally closed her laptop.

  And remembered that Chaz had never told her the other reason he’d known the Thornsbys were lying.

  *

  The First Presbyterian Church was packed with worshippers.

  The organ was playing a quiet hymn. The front of the church was overflowing in color. Two huge arrangements of red carnations and white roses sat on the altar. Pots of red and white poinsettias lined the communion rail. They would be taken to shut-ins and nursing homes in the week before Christmas.

  “Look, there’s Roger Newland,” Miss Ida said. “Let’s say a quick hello.”

  Liv followed them to where several people stood around a man in a wheelchair. Roger Newland was all bones and flaccid skin, ravaged by illness. Next to him at the end of the pew, his wife kept a brave smile as people nodded and stopped to talk. She’d once been a pretty woman, Liv guessed, though now she was gaunt and sallow looking. Illness didn’t just strike the victim, but the whole family.

  Sort of like murder, Liv thought.

  The organ swelled to a new tune, interrupting her morbid thoughts. Miss Edna hurried them to their pew and stared at the family that was sitting there until they scooted over to make room.

  “They only come on holidays,” Edna said and sat down, giving an extra nudge to the child sitting next to her. The kid climbed into his mother’s lap.

  “Edna,” Ida scolded.

  Liv sat between them feeling a little dowdy in her dark green slacks and sweater. The sisters were dressed in red and green from head to toe: hats, dresses, shoes. Like traffic lights, thought Liv. But they went all out for holidays, even though they were long-retired schoolteachers and didn’t make a dime off the tourist season.

  They volunteered for a multitude of tasks. They practically ran the local Toys for Tykes, including collecting, wrapping, and delivering presents out of their old Buick.

  “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” filled the sanctuary and could probably be heard out on the street. It gave Liv a rush to think of the four Celebration Bay churches all pouring out their hymns at the same time.

  The congregation rose, picking up their hymnals as the choir, dressed in white and purple, processed up the aisle. Edna opened her hymnal and pointed to the place. As the choir passed, Liv caught sight of Penny walking with the sopranos, her face uplifted, her hair shining and falling past her shoulders. At least Grace hadn’t demanded that she work instead of going to church.

  At the end of the hymn, the Reverend Schorr, a young man with a flair for dynamic sermons, climbed to the pulpit.

  “Behold the days are coming . . . .”

  In view of recent events it would have sounded like a threat coming from anyone else. But the words were offered in a melodious tenor, and the pastor spread his beneficent smile over his flock as he spoke.

  At the end of the sermon, the choir rose and began to sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” On the second verse, Penny Newland stepped away from the choir and sang solo. She was looking at her father, her love so readable that it hurt to watch.

  Liv wondered if this would be Roger Newland’s last Christmas and the last time he would hear his daughter’s lovely voice. And it brought an unexpected tightness to her throat and a sting to her eyes.

  At the end of the service, BeBe met them at the back of the church. “I was running late and had to sit in the last pew. Wasn’t Penny’s voice glorious?”

  “The whole service was just beautiful,” Ida agreed. She had a little sparkle to her eye, and Liv wondered what Christmas would be like for two elderly sisters, who lived alone and had no family. They had gone to friends for Thanksgiving. Liv had grabbed a turkey sandwich leftover from the cast-of-thousands Pilgrims’ Feast and worked at her desk.

  That had been necessary with Christmas following so closely on the heels of Thanksgiving, but she didn’t want to do that for Christmas. She’d spent her last
several Christmases and Thanksgivings sitting at a computer planning for the next holiday she wouldn’t have time to celebrate. But this year she was determined to do something festive.

  “Are you coming with me to the Tour of Homes this afternoon?” BeBe asked.

  Liv deliberated. She’d just been thinking she should enjoy the holidays more, but there was so much work. . . .

  “You really should. Just to make sure everything is running smoothly and keep your finger on the pulse of Celebration Bay.”

  “And we’re the last house on the stop unless you go on to the inn for dinner,” Ida said. She lowered her voice. “Edna made mulled wine. You’re both invited.”

  “How can I resist?” Liv said.

  “Good.” BeBe buttoned up her coat. “Gotta run. Meet me at the trolley stop at five to three. We don’t want to miss it. That’s the last tour of the day.” She hurried out the door.

  “You young girls work too hard,” Ida told Liv as they stopped at the cloakroom to retrieve their coats.

  “Does seem that way. But it would be even worse if I didn’t have Ted.”

  “And Penny Newland is another one,” Edna said. “Now, there’s a burden on slim shoulders.”

  Ida sighed. “When bad things happen to good people, Edna.”

  “Seems to be a theme these days.” Edna flourished her scarf around her neck. “And I refuse to let it interfere with my Christmas spirit. Life is short. Come along.”

  They’d almost reached the door when Liv saw Roscoe Jackson and Rufus Cobb cutting through the crowd, practically pulling another man along between them. And they were headed straight toward Liv.

  Liv recognized Frank Salvatini Sr., who ran the Corner Café. He was a friendly, talkative older gentleman with an eye for news and an ear for gossip.

  “Frank has something he wants to tell you,” Rufus said.

  Frank’s lips were clamped so tight, Liv doubted if he could speak even if he wanted to. And it didn’t look like he wanted to.

  “Go on,” Roscoe urged. He turned to Liv. “I know we put a spanner in the works back in October, but now we aim to help.”

  Great, thought Liv. What are they up to now? “What’s this all about?”

  Rufus drew himself up to his full five foot six. “Frank saw the murderer going into TAT.”