As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles

by Leslie Budewitz

  Preparations were nearly done. I’d always wanted to get married at the Lodge, though I’d envisioned it in summer. But at Christmas, the place would be picture-perfect. Choosing a band had been a challenge after the bass player in my favorite jazz ensemble went to prison, but they’d regrouped, and a rock guitarist was going to join them for the reception, so we could kick up our heels.

  “Shame about Merrily Thornton,” Kathy said when I came out to the front room, back in my winter uniform of stretchy black pants, long-sleeved T, and a fleece jacket, my red boots in hand. “Her parents must be devastated.”

  “Hard to tell,” I said. “The way Taya blew up at her Saturday, then carried on this afternoon. Has she always been so … dramatic? In kindergarten, I thought she was fun, but I was six.”

  “Yes, always,” Kathy said. “Good thing Walt is so steady.”

  “It’s funny how different they are. But they’re both so passionate about Christmas, and the antiques.” I slipped into my coat.

  “They are a team against the world.”

  That’s what marriage is supposed to be—the team part, anyway. Not the against the world part. And for sure not the against our kids part.

  “So, how did the community respond when the scandal broke all those years ago? I was too young to notice.”

  “People were shocked, but no one blamed the Thorntons for what Merrily did. Except Sally, but that’s understandable. People felt sorry for her. She hated that. Then she opened her shop downtown, and later the Thorntons did the same, but by then, the tensions had blown over.”

  I thanked Kathy and left. Outside I paused for another look at her windows. Crocheted doilies in shades of white and ivory had been hung to form delicate Christmas trees. With the shop dark behind them and only the glow from the lighted tree outside hitting the windows, the lacy forms looked like fairies’ skirts.

  I walked down Front Street, then around the corner to Back Street. Nick’s Jeep was parked nearby, and I needed to talk to him about the roof, but it could wait.

  After this crazy day, all I wanted was to go home.

  ∞

  For weeks, when I opened the door to my childhood home, I’d been greeted by the smells of sawdust, Sheetrock mud, paint, and varnish. This time, it was ground beef, mixed with the piquant aroma of tomato sauce rich with oregano. Before meeting—or re-meeting—me and joining in my family’s weekly food-fests, Adam had been indifferent to meals. Except coffee, which doesn’t count. He’d quickly become a convert, and my mother had taught him to make her classic lasagna and her special basil vinaigrette. He’d learned well.

  One more reason I call him Mr. Right.

  “Hey, babe.”

  I tugged my arm out of my purple and gray jacket and let it drop to the floor, then slipped in to a sweet embrace. “Hmm. That tomato sauce tastes great,” I said as we pulled apart a few moments later.

  He gave me the grin I still can’t believe didn’t turn my head in college. Other things on my mind back then.

  Silly me.

  “Wine?” he called over his shoulder on his way back to the kitchen. “I opened that bottle Donna gave us for helping recruit new Elves.”

  I hung up my coat, shut the closet, and scooped up Pumpkin, who’d appeared as if by magic. “The red from Sardinia that guarantees a long and happy life? You bet.”

  He handed me a glass and I took a sip. Mmm. It would make a long life worth living.

  “You heard about Merrily Thornton, right?” I moved to the newly redecorated living room, the full-figured orange tabby trailing me. No sign of Mr. Sandburg. He’d taken to hiding lately, and I wasn’t sure if he was pouting over the move or exploring new secret places. “But first, tell me about this big change in plans.”

  “I can’t believe Greg called you and you went out there.” Adam sat on the couch and I took the other end, the cat on the cushion between us.

  “The change in plans,” I prompted.

  “Ughh.” He sighed heavily and set his wineglass on the coffee table, a pine trunk with rope handles we’d found in the Thorntons’ back room. A dark curl fell over his forehead. “They’re coming after all.”

  “Who? To the wedding?”

  “The whole crew. Except my dad.”

  For reasons I didn’t fully understand, apparently a mix of shame and agoraphobia, his dad rarely left town. His mother seemed sweet, though. When Adam told her we were engaged, she’d called, then sent me an album filled with photos, artwork, and school stuff from his childhood. He had never known she’d kept one. But the boys, Calvin and Alan, whom he called Cain and Abel, made me nervous. Identical twins married to cousins, they’d spent much of their adolescence torturing Adam, three years younger, and playing pranks on any adult unfortunate enough to cross their path.

  “They’re grown up now, Adam. They behaved themselves last summer when you visited, right?” He’d stayed with Tanner, helping his childhood buddy through chemo, but I knew he’d seen his family several times. “They run a successful business. They’ve got wives.”

  “Those women are saints. If they have kids someday, I can only imagine—”

  The oven timer sounded and Adam bounced up and out of the room, leaving me to imagine what wild and crazy fathers he thought his older brothers might be.

  “What do you think, Pumpkin?” I said in a low voice. “Are Calvin and Alan Zimmerman really the devil’s spawn? Or is Adam still mad about the time in the seventh grade when they snuck his jock strap and cup out of his wrestling bag and replaced them with a pink lace thong?” Tanner had told the story last summer, and by the scowl it had put on my easy-going guy’s face, I suspected it was the tip of the prank iceberg.

  Where would they stay? So much for progress on my to-do list.

  Careful of the cat glued to my thigh, I stretched, hooked a finger on the strap of my gorgeous handmade leather bag, and tugged it toward me. Got out my iPad and added Call Lodge—twins? to my list.

  Adam had warned me from the start that his dad would not come—he’d only made the twins’ double wedding because the church was two blocks from the house. So neither of us would have a father present. The idea of being “given away” didn’t appeal to me, but I did want to walk down an aisle, and my mother and brother would do the honors.

  I was getting married. I could hardly believe it.

  Over dinner, I told Adam about the tragedy of Merrily Thornton and the strange behavior of Greg Taylor. And Wendy. “She wants me to investigate, but when I asked her about Greg’s old friendship with Merrily, she changed the subject. Like she was afraid she might incriminate him.”

  “Families,” he said. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”

  The lasagna was herby and gooey, the way I like it. “Who’d have thought Mr. Mac ’N Cheese From a Box would become such a great cook? What’s for dessert?”

  The face I love took on a wicked slant as Adam leaned across the corner of the dining room table toward me.

  A little while later, I wrapped myself in a fluffy fleece robe and scrounged under my side of the bed for my slippers. My fingers found something else soft and furry, and I pulled Mr. Sandburg out of his hiding place.

  “You little stinker. Were you there the whole time?”

  Back in his jeans and Henley, barefooted, Adam trekked downstairs to work on “the media room.” Two weeks ago, he’d hung a blanket across the entry and pinned up a NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign. I still hadn’t seen the space. That was fine. The remodel had taught us both that even small projects can trigger major “discussions” if you’re not on the same page. So when your partner says they’ve got a project to tackle, pour another glass of wine or beer and curl up on the couch with the cats.

  Adam knew my penchant for investigating, and swore that my passion for justice and for this community were part of what he loved about me. He’d never tried to stop me from getting involved, and I knew he wouldn’t try now.

  But he had reminded me gently, when I told him
how upset Wendy was, that I had a lot on my plate. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are pivotal for village merchants, including the Merc. Most of us make the bulk of our income in the ninety days of summer and depend on the holidays to give us a cushion against the winter doldrums. I’d added Lou Mary to the payroll this year, increasing our expenses. The Merc needed all my attention.

  Not to mention the wedding. And we were taking two weeks off in mid-January for a honeymoon.

  But I felt a draw to this case. The friendship with Merrily nipped in the bud. The parents who acted like her reappearance, and then her murder, were a personal affront. And the new detective who didn’t grasp that I could see and hear things law enforcement might miss, or misunderstand.

  As for actually getting Bello to listen, I’d cross that bridge later. If I came up with any useful facts or insights.

  I didn’t know a lot about Merrily. She’d grown up in Jewel Bay, on the picturesque Rolling River Farm. It was a working farm, though the Thorntons leased out the pasture and hayfields. Before retiring to retail—not the piece of cake newbies often expect—Walt managed timberlands for one of the big conglomerates. Not the company Sally had inherited. Hers was small potatoes, to mix my agricultural metaphors. But that timber connection might have been how Merrily got the job working with Sally’s husband, the late, unlamented Cliff Grimes.

  How much money had Merrily taken back then? Had it all been recovered? More questions.

  I grabbed my iPad and started making notes, using my favorite mind map software.

  Had Merrily stayed in Billings all these years? Another note.

  The photos of Ashley in the cigar box haunted me. I’m thirty-three and Chiara and Wendy thirty-five, so that made Nick and Greg thirty-seven and Merrily thirty-seven or thirty-eight. She’d gone to prison at eighteen or nineteen, about the age Ashley was now.

  By extending their spite to the next generation, Walt and Taya had deprived themselves of a beautiful granddaughter.

  I shuddered. No family was perfect—certainly not mine, despite our reasonably peaceable weekly gatherings. But the Thorntons made no sense to me, devoted to one daughter and disowning the other.

  That took me back to where the evening started, to Adam’s family. Meeting them was the only thing about this wedding that had me worried. Thank goodness Adam is a rock. And Tanner would be there to help us both.

  At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, I closed the iPad and picked up my wine.

  I’m not one of those women who oohs and ahhs over every house, mentally redecorating it, or who curls up in the evening to watch House Hunters or Property Brothers, cute as they are. Took me weeks, after Adam accepted my proposal and we decided to buy the place, to sift through all the ideas my mother and sister offered and figure out what I wanted. Our family friend Liz had insisted on a feng shui consult, too, to maximize the healthful flow of energy in the space.

  We’d redone the kitchen and bathrooms, and created a master suite from two small bedrooms. Adam and I had done all the painting ourselves, and spent hours hunting for the right mix of affordable furniture, new and antique. Neither of us had much after years of cozy rentals. It was time for us to settle down and for the house to get an update. Still warm and inviting, still home to the traditions my parents and grandparents had begun. But ours.

  And Adam had ideas of his own. The biggest was converting part of the basement into a cozy den. Now he stood in the doorway, grinning that loveable grin.

  “Ms. Murphy, your presence is requested in the lower level.” He held out a hand and we started down the stairs. At the landing where the stairs jogged, he told me to close my eyes, and led me the rest of the way. The sounds of Cold Play’s latest surrounded us, and my bare feet touched a soft, looped carpet. Behind me, Adam put his hands over my eyes.

  “Ta da!” He slid his hands away and rested them on my shoulders.

  My mouth fell open. The giant flat screen on the wall, I’d known about. Tanner’s wedding gift, it had arrived at the store a few days ago. On either side, built-in cabinets held stereo equipment, speakers, and other electronic doodads. Pieces from my glass and pottery collection sat on other shelves, and a panoramic photograph of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park filled one wall.

  “Chiara hung the art. The guys and I put the cabinets in Saturday when you were working. Bill laid the carpet last week.”

  The day I’d noticed a funny smell.

  “We’ve got digital surround sound, though I haven’t got the TV hooked up yet. The controls are hidden.” He wiggled a switch on the wall, and the lights lowered, then rose. “Dimmers.”

  “You did all this yourself?” Two long couches could hold a crowd for a big game, or let us stretch out to watch a movie. An oversized chair was made for cuddling. Trays on the ottomans would hold food and drink, a book, or the remote.

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  I put a hand on his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re the guy who thinks a calendar showing a different ski run every month is art, and who never bought a piece of indoor furniture in his life except a bed. Your friends never needed to take a table or chair to Goodwill—they just gave it to you.”

  “You like it? I even sent pictures to Liz to check out the feng shui.”

  “I love it. Oh, a wet bar. This is what you were doing when you said the plumber had to redo the pipes for the laundry and I didn’t think they needed redoing!”

  “Yep. I was hoping to update the bathroom, too, but that will have to wait.”

  “For our first anniversary,” I said and reached up for a hug.

  Because I knew that whatever else happened, whether a blizzard hit our wedding or his brothers hauled out their teenage pranks, whether my sister had her baby that day, or any of a million other things went wrong, the wine had already done its magic.

  We would have a long and happy life here.

  Nine

  Two days in a row, I started the morning at the Building Supply.

  I got there earlier on Tuesday than the day before, and the place was buzzing with contractors picking up Sheetrock and screws and all kinds of whatnot for the day’s jobs.

  I found Greg in the electric aisle, talking with an employee about putting the LED bulbs on sale before a new supplier’s first shipment arrived. “Don’t know why the old vendor dropped us, but let’s make some room.”

  “I’ll make a sign,” the other man said. “Merrily made a template I can use.”

  Greg flinched. “Do that,” he said. The other man left and I called Greg’s name.

  “Surprised to see you again so soon,” he said, rearranging his face from grouchy boss to affable retailer. Everybody in the Taylor family looks alike. Wendy and Greg hadn’t followed their parents and older brother into the theater biz, but they had natural acting talent. “Did those items you picked up yesterday do the job?”

  “Truthfully, I’ve been too busy to find out. Can we talk?”

  For a moment, the facade slipped, his lips going straight, his shoulders sagging. Then he gathered an invisible strength and became the pleasant store manager.

  “Erin, I know my sister thinks highly of you. And you certainly were a big help to Fresca and Nick when they were under suspicion.” He tucked his chin, balancing on that edge between understanding and patronizing. “But I don’t need you digging around.”

  Though his tone wasn’t rude, his words surprised me. He’d been panicked when he called me yesterday, and he’d confided in me at the schoolhouse. What had changed?

  “Did they identify another suspect? Make an arrest?” Because a killer was on the loose and we were all at risk until they did.

  His mouth tightened, and a muscle in his jaw quivered.

  “Boss.” It was Cary Lenhardt, the bookkeeper. “I’ve got those deposit records you wanted.”

  That perked my ears. “Checking for more discrepancies?”

  “Good to see you, Erin. Good luck with that drafty door.�
� Greg gave me a firm, dismissive nod, and walked past me toward the offices, Cary in his wake.

  The light bulbs might be going on sale shortly, but I needed an excuse now. I grabbed one. The other customers had cleared out, leaving the cashier alone at the front counter. It was the same redhead as yesterday. Jeri? Jackie? No. Her puffy, red-rimmed eyes told me that unlike her boss, she wasn’t covering up her emotions.

  I put the bulb on the counter and left my hand there, a universal sign of empathy. “I’m so sorry about Merrily.”

  “I know what they’re saying—that money is missing, and because she stole from somebody once years ago, it must have been her.” Not-Jeri’s voice wavered, but with grief rather than uncertainty. “She was like a shelter dog, you know?”

  I cocked my head, not following.

  “They’ve been treated bad,” she continued, “and you think they’d be mean. But instead, they’re the sweetest dogs you ever had.”

  If that wasn’t a testimonial to a life transformed, I didn’t know what was.

  “She brought in cupcakes and cookies. She lent me money when my tire blew between paydays. That doesn’t sound like a thief to me.”

  Detective Bello would say it’s easy to be generous with other people’s money. And he might be right.

  “Me, neither,” I said. “I’m worried about her daughter.”

  “Oh, that poor girl. Ashley. Lives in the same dorm as my Jasmine. The sheriff’s office said they’d send someone to tell her.”

  Older than I’d been when my father died, but not by much.

  She reached under the counter for her phone, thumbs flying. “Let me text Jas. See if word’s gotten out.”

  I waited, feeling a bit awkward.

  “No reply. She must be in class.” The cashier tucked her phone away and reached for my light bulb. “I’ll let you know what I hear.”

  “Thanks. Merrily worked early Saturday, right? Were you on shift?”

  She ran the scanner over the box and asked if this was going on the Merc’s account, which made me feel worse about not knowing her name. I vowed to get us all name tags, so no one would have the same problem at the Merc. “Yeah, I was here Saturday. We counted the till together, like every morning. Then she and Cary finished up the deposit. She dropped it off on her way to help her folks decorate.” She choked back a sob, and I was glad the place was nearly empty.