As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles

by Leslie Budewitz

  He sat up, groggy, and reached for it. I’d fallen asleep against his chest on the new couch in our basement, the two cats each claiming a cushion on the other couch. The sky was dark outside the small windows high on the wall. But someone wanted us awake.

  “Hello?” He listened. “Now? You are? We’ll be right up.” He stood. “Chiara’s water broke and they’re on their way to the hospital. They’re outside with Landon.”

  We rushed upstairs. Through the living room window, I could see Jason’s SUV in the driveway, motor running. Adam opened the door and Jason handed him the sleeping boy. “Erin, call your mom when you think she’ll be up.” He gave me a small bag of Landon’s clothes, then hurried down the walkway.

  “Tell Chiara we love her,” I called after him. She’d been anxious about going to the hospital, but her miscarriages prevented another home birth with a midwife, as she’d had with Landon.

  “What time is it?” In sweatpants and no shirt, his curls a mess and a child in his arms, Adam looked adorable.

  I peered into the kitchen and squinted at the stove clock. “Five thirty. Why don’t you put him on our bed and let him sleep? I think I’ll stay up.”

  He nodded and padded down the hall. While I waited for the coffee, I stared out the window into the dark, dark night. I’d been hoping the baby would arrive in time for the wedding. A double celebration.

  The wedding. Nine days.

  ∞

  Adam had the day off, and while he could have dropped Landon at Mom and Bill’s house on the river, he knew Mom would want to be able to get to the hospital the moment Jason summoned her.

  “We’ll have a boys’ day,” he said as the three of us drove down the hill. “We’ll go out for chocolate chip pancakes and cocoa, and be back in the village in time for the snowman contest.”

  In the backseat, Landon was just awake enough to clap and shout, “Yay!”

  “Sounds fun,” I said. “The Merc will be super busy. I’ll call you when I hear about the baby.” I missed texting.

  “I’m going to be a big brother,” Landon sang out.

  We were early arrivals in the village, but I didn’t mind. With an extra hour or two in the office, I might even catch up.

  The guys dropped me off out front, and I sent the droopy garland a mental message to hang tight.

  No sign of Wendy in Le Panier, which was good for her. I had a lot of questions that she wouldn’t want to answer—about her brother, Holly, and the conversation in the alley. And why she hadn’t wanted to tell me what she’d known.

  Michelle bustled out of the back room with a fresh tray of rolls, hot and yeasty. I am usually faithful to the French pastries, but the heady fragrance of sugar and cinnamon got to me.

  “Double shot, skinny, and a cinnamon roll,” I said, blindly trusting that my caffeine sensitivity was over. And that my dress would still fit.

  She spoke over her shoulder as she fired up my latte. “I’m so excited about this project, Erin. I’ve started the groundwork.” She paused while the espresso machine hissed. “By the way, I think I know who your thief is. I talked to Mimi George at the Inn. We think she’s one of her part-timers. Works weekends.”

  Which would have put her in the village the day of the theft. But what project was Michelle talking about?

  “Thanks. I’ll talk to Mimi. I don’t want to get the girl in trouble.”

  “No, it’s fine. Mimi loves the idea. She wants to help.”

  “Help with what?”

  “Your thief made me see that this community needs a place where kids can get socks or a decent shirt, free, without being embarrassed.”

  I was embarrassed, realizing I’d almost forgotten about the paper bag left outside the Merc’s back door a week ago. But as she described the need and her vision, I knew Michelle was right. A town where lakefront houses sell for millions and people drop buckets of dough for dinner, wine, and art shouldn’t have kids who pretend to be tough because they don’t actually own a coat or boots that fit.

  “Try the community center first,” I said. “But if space is too tight there, ask Kathy about her work room. She doesn’t use it much, now that she’s given up dress-making, and it’s close to the school.”

  “That’s brilliant.” Michelle set my latte on the counter and reached for my cinnamon roll. “Who should we ask for donations?”

  The we worried me. My plate was already overflowing. “Ask Donna at the liquor store to help you work up a campaign. She’ll know who’s most likely to donate. Get Kathy’s knitters and quilters involved. They’re mothers and grandmothers—they’ll love it. You might also ask a few of the merchants to contribute unsold items—scarves, inexpensive jewelry. The Merc will kick in soap and lotion.” Only fair, since soap had started this train.

  “Oh, Erin, thank you!”

  “Got a name for this project?”

  She smiled. “The Jewel Bay Treasure Chest.”

  Bingo, as Old Ned would say. I smiled as I spun around.

  “Erin, hi.” Brad Larson held the door and I paused, uncertain whether he was holding the door for me to leave or for the striking young woman with him to enter. “Ashley and I were on our way to see you. I’d offer to buy you coffee, but you beat me to it.”

  “Ashley.” I shifted my coffee to my other hand so I could take hers. “I’m Erin Murphy. I’m so sorry about your mother.”

  “Thank you,” Ashley said in a small voice. I led them to a table in the corner. We had the place to ourselves for a few minutes, anyway. Brad ordered for them and Michelle hustled, as she always did. But I saw her sneaking glances at Ashley. In person, her resemblance to Wendy was unmistakable.

  “I hear you got a ride up with a classmate. Her mother works in the Building Supply.”

  “Jasmine’s mom?” Ashley said. “Jane. I met her last night.”

  Jane! How could I forget that?

  “I’ve never been to Jewel Bay before,” Ashley continued, one long, athletic leg wound around the other. “My mom didn’t get along with my grandparents. I hope I get to meet them before the funeral.”

  Wild horses couldn’t keep my own mother from a grandchild. I popped the lid off my coffee. “So the service has been scheduled?”

  “Yes, finally,” Brad said. He shot the girl a protective look.

  “It’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to shield me anymore. I want to know who killed my mother, and how, and why.”

  Brave kid. Braver than I’d been when my father died.

  “I told her everything last night,” he said. “About her mother and prison, and her grandparents. And that I’m not her real father.”

  She reached out a hand and covered his. “Yes, you are. Maybe not by blood, but by everything that matters. You will always be my dad.”

  My throat tightened and my eyes got hot and misty.

  He turned his hand over to squeeze hers. Then he looked at me. “They’re waiting on the toxicology results. Merrily wasn’t strangled after all. Something in her blood …”

  Michelle approached and they sat back, letting her place their drinks and breakfast on the table.

  As I’d guessed, but I sure as butter wasn’t going to say so. I picked up the paper bag with my rapidly cooling cinnamon roll and scooted back my chair. “Again, I’m so sorry for your loss. If there’s anything I can do to help either of you—”

  “Don’t go yet, Erin.” Ashley laid her hand on my sleeve. “Please.”

  I stayed put.

  “Last Saturday, Mom sent me a care package. Truffles and jam and some great scented soap, from your shop. She said—you can read her note.” Ashley’s voice broke, but she swallowed and gathered her strength. “She said you were a friend, and that if anything happened to her, I should give this to you. And I knew she was right, when I got your sympathy card.”

  She slid an envelope out of a quilted faux leather handbag and laid two sheets of yellow paper, folded in thirds, on the table. As she did, a familiar glove fell on the floor.

/>   I bent and picked it up. “These are really cute.”

  “Aren’t they? I worked in a shop last summer that carried them, and I used my discount to splurge. I bought a pair for my mom and for Aunt Holly, and for me.”

  Ah. So that’s why the memory of the gift had given Merrily such a glow.

  “Anyway,” Ashley continued, “I didn’t get her package until Thursday. Campus mail is kinda wonky sometimes. So last night, when I showed the note to Dad—”

  The bakery door opened and a trio of women came in, ready to fuel themselves for a day of shopping.

  I set down my cup and bag, and reached for the first page. Pressed it flat with one hand. My darling daughter, it began, and quickly moved from expressions of pride in Ashley and anticipation of seeing her soon, to the comments about me and her request.

  Names and numbers filled the second page. Dates, names I recognized from the list of possible fraudulent accounts, strings of numbers in columns labeled INV and ACCTS—invoice and account numbers? And dollar figures, all in the same careful handwriting as in Merrily’s note.

  The part of me that adores spreadsheets knew Merrily had loved them, too. But this was information she couldn’t entrust to the computer. To anyone who had access to the system. So she’d entrusted it to her daughter.

  And to me.

  These were originals. Had she kept a copy of the list? Was that what Cary Lenhardt had been searching for when he found the cigar box, the perfect place to hide the cash and misdirect investigators?

  “As soon as I saw this,” Brad said, “I knew it was important, because of all the questions Detective Bello’s been asking about Merrily and the missing money. I didn’t know how to reach you, so I called Reverend Christopherson. She gave me your cell number, but no answer.”

  “My phone got soaked when I got run off the road Wednesday night.” I gestured to the bruises and my rainbow eye. “Did you call the detective? This will make his embezzlement case against Lenhardt stick.”

  “He doesn’t trust me,” Brad replied.

  “It’s not personal. He doesn’t trust anyone.” I turned to the girl. “Ashley, did your mother send you any cash?”

  “A ten. She sent me one every week, to buy myself a latte and a bagel, or lunch that wasn’t from the school cafeteria.”

  As my mother had, though back then a five would do the job. Merrily had not sent her daughter a wad of stolen cash.

  I studied the figures in my hand. They were the nails in Cary Lenhardt’s coffin.

  But they didn’t tell us who had put Merrily in hers.

  Twenty-Eight

  In groceries, the busiest days tend to be the Thursdays before July Fourth and Labor Day, and the weeks before Thanksgiving and Christmas. In Jewel Bay’s peculiar blend of retail, those days are important, but in winter, we live and die on the second and third Saturdays in December.

  Weather is the key. We need enough white stuff to get people in the spirit, but not enough to keep them home, where they can shop online. I was sitting at the counter, finishing my coffee and finally starting my cinnamon roll when outside there arose a clatter. Ignoring my ankle, I sprang from my stool to see what was the matter.

  A happy sight: A man with a ladder.

  Not just any man, but Jimmy Vang, a leather tool belt around his hips, a hammer hanging from the loop in the sideseam of his worn brown Carhartts.

  I pushed the door open. “Jimmy, I am so happy to see you, I could kiss you.”

  “Miss Erin.” The Hmong man bent his head, his shaggy black hair falling over his eyes like a curtain. He flicked it back and began chattering and gesturing. His English wasn’t great, but somehow, we always understood each other. I scurried inside for my coat and joined him on the sidewalk.

  We quickly developed a rhythm. Jimmy charged up the ladder, unhooked a section of garland into my waiting arms, dropped down the ladder, and scooted it down the sidewalk to the next hook. Shoppers veered around us. When he got to the spot where I’d wired the garland to the gutter, he peered down at me. “You do this?”

  I nodded, chagrined.

  “Very bad.” He unwound the wires and descended the ladder, then pointed at the damaged gutter and splintered soffit. “Too much weight. Lucky it didn’t break. I rip out old wood, nail up new. New hooks, too. In spring, I paint it for you.”

  “Perfect,” I said, but I wasn’t looking where he was pointing. I couldn’t take my eyes off the lights tied to the long strand of garland in my hands.

  I knew who the killer was.

  ∞

  By ten thirty, I also knew this would be our best sales day ever. Luci the Splash Artist joined us, wearing a frilly white Mrs. Claus apron, to talk with customers about her soaps and lotions. “Baby products,” I whispered, and her eyes lit up like—well, like Christmas.

  Tracy had charge of the chocolates and Lou Mary ran the cash register, leaving me to roam, restocking, straightening, and answering questions.

  At ten thirty, Oliver Bello strolled in. To my surprise, the Cuban heels were gone, and he wore a shiny new pair of Sorels with fleece cuffs, perfect for a Montana winter. I led him to the back hall, out of shoppers’ earshot.

  “I’ve interviewed the Larsons,” he said. “Thank you for urging them to call me.”

  “I’m sure you can understand Brad’s reluctance. He thinks you’re eying him as a murder suspect.”

  Bello didn’t admit or deny it.

  “Did they tell you who Ashley’s father is?” I asked. “Her biological father, I mean.”

  “Yes. And that keeps your friend Mr. Taylor first on my list.”

  “Not if he didn’t figure it out until after Merrily’s death.”

  “According to him,” Bello replied. “Maybe she told him before that. Maybe she wanted money.”

  “Maybe so.” I couldn’t deny the possibility, much as I wanted to. On our way back through the shop, I plucked one of Candy’s canes out of the display and offered it to him. “Try one of these. To sweeten your mood.”

  He pointed the end at me like a sword and winked.

  Maybe I should have told him my theory about the killer, I reflected as the door clanged shut behind him. But I wasn’t sure yet of all the details. Better to logic out the steps first. All the ways the killer had tricked Merrily into coming to the schoolhouse, appealing to her deepest desires and fooling the rest of us.

  “Ready!” a customer called, the front counter piled high with her choices.

  I limped to the counter. “Looks like you’re doing all your shopping in one place. We appreciate it.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m just getting started,” she said, her Texas twang music to my ears. “From here, it’s on to the kitchen shop and the bookstore. Then we’ll see what damage I can do after lunch.”

  I love retail.

  Next came a couple bearing three “Christmas in the Village” baskets—Montana Gold pancake mix, huckleberry syrup, and Cowboy Roast coffee. A pair of Reg’s handmade ceramic mugs is extra, but worth it.

  The man spotted my bruised cheek. “What happened to the other guy?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I replied, and he cackled as he scooped up the baskets and followed his wife out the door.

  No word yet on Chiara and the baby. All would be well, I knew, grateful for the busy spells that kept me from worrying.

  I refilled the sample pots of coffee and chai, and joined Tracy behind the chocolate counter.

  A woman bent down to study the truffles displayed behind temperature-controlled glass. “Do you have sugar-free? I adore chocolate, but I’m diabetic.”

  “I wish we did,” Tracy said. “I’ve experimented with a few nonsugar sweeteners, but I haven’t found the right combination yet.”

  “Better be careful,” the diabetic’s shopping companion said. “You tick off your hubby, he might do a Claus von Bulow on you.” She gestured as if poking the other woman in the arm, and they drifted off, laughing.

  “Claus von Bulow,” Tracy
said in a low voice. “The guy who shot up his wife with insulin and put her in a coma for what, twenty years? Why would you even joke about that?”

  That was a question I couldn’t answer, but I finally knew how Merrily Thornton had died.

  ∞

  “I can still catch the snowman contest if I hurry,” I told my staff. “Do you mind?”

  “Nooo, go, go,” Lou Mary said, and off I went, moving down Front Street as quickly as my ankle would allow. Between the community center slash library and the bridge sit what everyone calls “the cottages.” Sweet one- and two-bedroom bungalows, immaculately landscaped, they’re where I’d stay if I came to Jewel Bay on vacation. In front of the office stood a jaunty snow gentleman sporting a top hat and a wooden cane, branches for arms, with striped mittens stuck on the ends. I waved hello to him as I passed by.

  The steel truss bridge has guarded the south entrance of town since 1912. Every decade or two, the highway department makes noises about replacing it, but after the locals remind them that its charm brings tourist dollars our way, they pony up for repairs instead. And every December, Elves drape the trusses with garland and lash saplings trimmed with red bows to every pillar and post.

  On the other side of the bridge, a mountain range of snow towered over the entrance to the park. Plow crews had been building the pile since the first flakes fell in November, so the kids would have enough of the white stuff to make snowmen and other statuary. A few ambitious adults had hauled in ice and snow sculptures made elsewhere, the figures now positioned like a welcoming committee: Mickey Mouse, Dumbledore, and Shrek. A twelve-foot tall grizzly, catching a fish. A howling wolf that Nick would appreciate. A trio of singing ice angels.

  But the last in the lineup was easily the winner: a ten-foot-long ice-

  breathing dragon, its wings spread, serpentine tail coiled and ready to strike.

  “Must have taken a crew to build it, let alone get it here safely,” a woman said, and I turned to see Holly Muir. She tucked her hands in her armpits. “Brrr. At least it’s cold enough. The sculptures should last through Christmas.”