Murder on the Toy Town Express

by Barbara Early

  “We wanted to welcome you to East Aurora,” Dad said. “And offer our condolences. We knew Craig for a long time, but honestly, not that well.”

  Amanda sent up a pained look and then tipped her head toward the corner of the store. “I’d rather not have Kohl overhear too much about his father. It’s kind of a sensitive subject.”

  We followed her to the corner, and I glanced up at the spot where the photographs of Craig with his sponsored sports teams had been.

  “Yes, I took them all down,” she said, catching my gaze. “Kohl just stared at them. Looked at all the faces. All the strange boys, but not one picture of his own son.”

  “We didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject,” I said.

  She shook her head. “No avoiding it. It’s going to come up. I’m just trying to keep it from coming up in front of Kohl. I’m not sure what part he understands. Most of it, I expect. He knew he had a father who never came to see him. But those pictures were hard to take.”

  “Was Craig into sports when you knew him?” I asked.

  She set her jaw. A tear formed in the corner of her eye. “Not my proudest moment. I didn’t know much at all about Craig. If I had, maybe things would’ve been different. All I knew was that my mother hated him, and that was all I needed.”

  “You must have been very young,” I said.

  “Old enough to know better. And old enough to pay the piper.” She closed her eyes. “And no, my mother didn’t really hate him. She could just see where it was all leading. And I was right at that place where if she’d told me to eat ice cream, I would have had a nice bowl of broccoli instead. Craig didn’t have good things to say about parents. I guess it fueled my rebellion even more.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “Detention,” she said. “My first one. Late book report. I thought it was like that old movie, The Breakfast Club. Everyone loves a bad boy, right? We only went out a couple times. I wouldn’t call it love at first sight, and I’m not exactly easy, but I was tired of being called a goody-two-shoes and a virgin. I got rid of those nicknames fast.”

  “So you were never married,” Dad said.

  “No,” Amanda said. “Not even sure I could even call him my boyfriend. It was over that quick. He’d been sent back to some juvie facility when I found out I was pregnant. I just wanted to leave him out of it, but Mom tracked him down. She got a lawyer. Made him take a paternity test. He didn’t send much child support at first, but it had been going up recently.”

  “It must have been hard for you,” I said.

  “Certainly changed my plans. Instead of staying up late studying for exams, I was up walking a cranky baby. Those first few weeks were tough, but then his stomach straightened out and we were doing good. He was such a sweet boy. I got my GED at night when Mom was available to watch Kohl. Poor little guy would try to stay up until I got home. He’d run out to meet me, jabbering a mile a minute.” She bit her lip. “And then he started talking less. You can probably figure out the rest.”

  I must have looked sad.

  “Oh, but it’s good. Not the life I might’ve picked, but Kohl is doing well. We got him into a special program early enough that it really made a difference. He’s doing a pretty good job managing his challenges and frustrations. Now, of course, he’s a bit stressed out. But when he’s feeling secure and comfortable, he’s pretty much that sunshiny boy that I remember. Not many moms of teenagers can say that. Now, some people have a hard time telling.”

  I nodded. “I think you met Maxine the other day. She’s been putting in some hours in our toyshop. She’d just mentioned that he seemed well-mannered and quiet.”

  Amanda smiled, then winced. “Now I feel bad about fibbing to her.”

  Dad pulled a bin of comic books closer and started to thumb through them. “She was under the impression that you weren’t going to be working here until the weekend.”

  “I wasn’t sure about having her around Kohl,” she said.

  “Maxine seems like such a nice person,” I said.

  “I’m sure she is very nice. She volunteered to come in and help, even though I told her I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pay her. But Kohl was upset about his father, and Maxine had worked with him. I’m sure the subject would’ve come up, and I was just thinking it’d be awkward for all of us. Do you think it’ll offend her if I don’t take her up on her offer?”

  I looked to Dad. I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I could understand why she’d want to insulate her son from more pain, but she was unwittingly keeping him away from a grandparent.

  “I think Maxine would understand,” Dad said, “but the job would be a lot easier on you with her here. Comic books definitely have a learning curve, and she already has a good working knowledge of what you have in the shop. You’d probably be cutting off your nose . . .”

  “To spite my face?” she said. “Apparently that’s my MO.”

  “Would you like us to talk to her, maybe fill her in on the . . . special challenges of the situation?” I asked.

  “I guess that was a snap decision on my part. I could use her expertise. See how it works out. But I meant what I said that I wasn’t sure I could pay her, at least not right away. I know Kohl should get something, but that’ll be down the road. Until that happens, we’re stretched kind of thin.”

  “Have you decided what you’re going to do with all the stock when you’re done with the inventory?” Dad asked.

  “That I’m still trying to figure out. I just want to sell it, but Kohl has it in his head that he wants to work in the store and sell comic books. I’d like to get someone to go over the accounts and see if that’s a financial possibility, especially since Kohl is the actual beneficiary of all Craig’s assets.”

  “It was good of him to remember his son,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Who else was he going to leave his stuff to? Right now, though, I have no idea if he was even in the black or what any of this is worth. But I guess the shop computer was stolen, and the police have the backup files.”

  “They should be able to copy those for you,” Dad said, pulling out his notebook. “I’ll ask them. I’m retired, but I help out from time to time.”

  I snorted. Couldn’t help myself.

  “That’d be wonderful,” she said.

  “If you decide to stay, East Aurora is a good place to live and do business,” Dad said. “And for what it’s worth, Craig seemed to be making a go of it. I can introduce you around to the chamber of commerce folks. There’s a meeting tonight if you’re interested.”

  Amanda glanced at her son. “I couldn’t. Not tonight.”

  “I understand,” Dad said. “You probably need time to make up your mind. But if you decide you want to sell, I wouldn’t mind putting in an offer on the stock.” He pulled out one of his business cards and handed it to her. “No pressure, though. It’s up to you.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, tucking the card into her pocket.

  When we climbed into the car, I turned on the ignition. “How do you think Maxine is going to take the news that her grandson has autism?”

  “I’d think she’d be delighted that she has a grandson. I hope she gets up the nerve to tell Amanda. That could work out very well for all of them.” But Dad didn’t look all that happy.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Bummed out about possibly losing that comic room that we have no space for anyway?”

  “Perhaps that’s it,” he said.

  “Let’s get back to the shop.” I expected his mood would change pretty quickly. After all, Maxine wasn’t going to be the only one to learn she was a grandparent.

  Chapter 20

  “Where’s Cathy?” I asked Maxine as Dad and I finally got back to the shop from our little errand.

  “She had to go home,” Maxine said. “She said to check your phone.”

  I glanced over at Dad, who was leaning a little bit heavier on his cane.

  “I think I’m going to re
st my knee before the chamber meeting tonight,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I teased, “you want to look your best when you mingle with all those single female business owners.”

  “Oh, so you’re East Aurora’s most eligible bachelor?” Maxine asked. “I think I’m going to like it here.”

  Dad rolled his eyes. “Hardly. Marriage may only be a word, but to me it’s a sentence. With no hope of time off for good behavior.”

  “Don’t let him fool you,” I said to Maxine. “He’s quite the chick magnet. I have a whole file cabinet of stepmother applications.”

  “Yeah, the good, the bad, and the pathological,” he said, then stopped to tap the frayed box of a 1950s Visible Man figure, in all its anatomical glory. “Hey, did you hear that the Invisible Man finally settled down and married the Invisible Woman?”

  I pinched my eyes shut. I’d heard this one before.

  “Their kids were nothing to look at either.”

  Maxine laughed but rubbed her head as if she were in physical pain.

  “I’m going upstairs,” Dad said. “I’ll give Ken a call and see if I can’t get the financial records for Amanda.”

  “Amanda?” Maxine said.

  “Yeah, let me fill you in.” While Dad was almost to the back room, I added in my best stage voice, “And let me get you that application.”

  Dad let out a groan and Maxine blushed ever so slightly.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Lots of teasing goes on around here. And be prepared for a barrage of puns at times. I think my dad uses them to defuse tense situations.”

  “I like that better than off-color humor. Sometimes there were a few things I wish Craig’d left unsaid.”

  “Was he inappropriate?”

  “Oh, no. Not like that. Then again, I’m not sure frumpy middle-aged women were his type.”

  “What was his type?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I thought I knew. But then I met Amanda. She actually seems nice.”

  “We just met her, too.”

  “What’s up with that? I didn’t think they were going to be back until later in the week.”

  “I guess plans change. But she did say that she’d appreciate your help, so if you wanted to work there tomorrow, I’m sure it’d be all right.”

  “Oh, okay.” She licked her lip. “Not that I won’t be back here.”

  “And we’ll be looking forward to having you. Only . . . one thing you should probably know about Kohl.” I explained about her grandson’s autism and Amanda’s desire to shield him from talk of his father.

  “Is he going to be all right?” she asked.

  “From what I gather, they intervened pretty early on. But you can probably ask Amanda for advice on how to get to know him without making him uncomfortable. Assuming you do still want to get to know him.”

  She thought for a moment. “But do they want to get to know me? I think I should play it by ear.”

  “You mean, not tell them?”

  “Cowardly, huh?”

  “Family is tough, and this is uncharted territory. I certainly won’t tell them. That will be up to you. For what it’s worth, I think they’d want to know.”

  “Something to think about, anyway. Say, do you need me at the shop tonight if you and your dad are going to this big chamber of commerce do?”

  “No, Miles should be coming in to work. It’ll be slow, and he does our web orders at the same time.”

  “Have I met him yet?”

  “You may have. He was working our booth at the toy show.”

  “Young kid?”

  “He’s in college. Pretty tech savvy. Handy to have around.”

  “You got a nice little business here. At the comic shop, it’s just me and Craig . . .”

  She punctuated the sentence with a sigh.

  # # #

  The “big chamber of commerce do,” as Maxine had put it, was a special meeting to finalize plans for reviving the Toy Town parade. Without the big corporate sponsorship, the parade had been suspended a number of years earlier, but public sentiment and a desire to bring more tourism—perhaps overruling common sense—had led to a move to restore it, but in a slightly different form: as a kick-off to Small Business Saturday, the weekend after Thanksgiving.

  “You don’t think it’s too early in the day?” someone asked.

  “If we run the parade from ten to eleven, we’re hoping that people will spill into the shops afterward,” Glenda said. Glenda ran the local yarn shop and had just shown me a picture of her “float,” a wooly lamb resembling a pull toy, made with yarn from her shop. The ladies who came to her various crochet and knitting classes had worked on it.

  I wished I had a picture of our entry to show her. Parker had volunteered to make a float for Well Played and pull it with his riding mower. Apparently it was almost done and locked in his garage, but he’d let no one, not even Cathy, see it. Dad used to call him the mad scientist of the family, saying that most of his creations were brilliant, but that every now and then he’d come home to find a monster wandering around the yard and he’d have to grab his gun and shoot it before it started terrorizing the town, so I was right to be nervous.

  “Besides,” Glenda continued, “we’ve already advertised the starting time and someone even put it on the Twitter, so that’s a moot point. Can we just get on to the business at hand?”

  “Which is?” Dad asked. It’d been so long since we’d been on topic that I’d forgotten too.

  “The train problem,” she said.

  “I still don’t understand what the issue is,” Dad said. “The folks at the train show were very kind to offer a locomotive engine for the parade. It’s been fitted with a motor. It spouts smoke and makes a chugging sound, and the train wheels move, even though it actually rolls on golf cart wheels that nobody can see. They did a fantastic job. It’s really spiffy.”

  Glenda pressed her palms together. “But is it a toy?”

  “It’s a model train,” Dad said. “Only bigger.”

  “But a model train that’s bigger is basically a train,” she said. “So we have all these cute toys coming down Main Street, and then a train.”

  “Lots of kids like trains,” Dad argued.

  “But does it fit the theme?” Glenda said. “If it was Thomas the Train or something like that . . .”

  “But it’s not,” I said. “It’s a good reproduction of a model train, only larger.” Which only proved her point.

  For the next ten minutes, various members debated whether or not to cut it from the parade. Some argued they needed to keep the continuity of the theme. Others reminded them that the train show had just officially joined the chamber, signaling their commitment to remain in East Aurora, even though they hadn’t sent a representative to the meeting. Would it be wise or ethical to deny their entry?

  “So we’re at an impasse,” Glenda said, followed by groans. It was going to be another long one.

  I considered making a motion to adjourn. I’d read somewhere recently that in Robert’s Rules of Order, a motion to adjourn takes precedence and has to be dealt with, and I was dying to give it a try. I had a feeling I’d get a quick second and win the vote in a landslide, but that wouldn’t solve the most immediate problem. Then another idea struck.

  “Put Santa on the train at the end,” I said, “like the Macy’s parade.”

  Dad sat up straight. “Maybe some kids too, as if it’s the Polar Express? Throw some candy to the crowd?”

  The groans and grumbles turned into whispers and chatter.

  “I . . . love it,” Glenda said. She pointed to my dad and me. “Now get us a Santa.” She looked at her watch. “And since it’s late, I’d like a motion to adjourn.”

  # # #

  It was quite nippy when Dad and I walked home, and our breath immediately condensed into puffy clouds in front of us. The moon was near full in the sky, and the streetlights, partially strewn with their Christmas decorations, illuminated the sidewalks almost as if it were dayti
me, even though all the shops, except for a few restaurants, were closed.

  We were silent as we walked past Wallace’s. The door opened and I glanced up, but it was only a couple of patrons. The two young women laughed and staggered a little as they descended the steps, and Dad watched them for a few moments. I’m not a mind reader, but I knew he’d continue to watch them until he was sure they weren’t driving somewhere.

  I sat and waited at one of the patio tables and pulled my sweater closer. Since the fall had been warmer, it had greatly extended the alfresco season, although that, too, would be over very shortly.

  The restaurant door opened again, and I could hear the conversation and smell the food. “Can I help you?” Jack’s longtime hostess called out, in a voice that suggested what she’d really meant to ask was, “Why is this idiot sitting out in the cold?”

  “Just waiting on my dad,” I said.

  And when the door closed again, my heart sank in my chest.

  “It’s okay,” Dad said. “They turned down a side street a couple of blocks down. I think they’re walking.”

  I nodded but didn’t get up.

  “Jack?” Dad pulled out a chair and sat across from me. “He’s probably right inside.”

  “That only makes it worse.”

  “You knew you couldn’t just go on seeing two men for the rest of your life. Something had to change. And you like Ken, right?”

  I nodded again, dangerously close to becoming a human bobblehead.

  “Did I . . . uh . . .” He paused for a moment and rubbed his bristly chin. “Did I pressure you too much?”

  “Maybe I needed a push.”

  “But not in the direction I was pushing.”

  I propped my elbows on the table and let out a long, billowy breath. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I made the right decision, and sometimes . . . I just miss Jack.”

  “Can you go back? To the way things were?”

  “And see two different men for the rest of my life?” I shook my head. “Wouldn’t be fair to Ken. I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “So you do like him.”

  “Very much.”

  We sat there for another minute or so until I shivered.