Cozy Christmas Murder

by Summer Prescott

  Glancing around the room at all the mess, the Margo sighed. “Well, I better get to work. I’ve got to clean all of this up before I can even think of leaving.”

  “I wish I could stay to help you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Margo said standing up. Walking over to her daughter, she kissed her on the forehead. “Thanks a million for all your help in the shop today.”

  “No problem.”

  “Hey, if you’re thinking of leaving, I’d go now,” a deep voice echoed from the factory door. Diego stood there in his brown bomber jacket, his five-o’-clock shadow showing through on his face.

  “I will as soon as I can, but someone’s gotta clean up this mess,” she motioned to the room around her. Used plates and silverware sat in spots, the chili pot sat nearly empty, and leftover pies were waiting for some lone person to claim them.

  “I’ll take care of that,” the foreman offered, walking into the room and shutting the door behind himself.

  “Oh, Diego, you don’t need to do that.”

  “Sure, I do,” he retorted. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, which was an easy feat considering he was nearly a foot taller than Margo. “Besides, you have a forty-five-minute drive ahead of you. My apartment is just a few blocks away. It’ll be a lot easier for me to get home in this storm than for you to get to your cabin.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I’ll even lock up when I go.”

  For a man who could be so stern with the men and women under his supervision, he sure had a soft spot hidden away. He was such a mystery to Margo. When he’d come to work for her, he didn’t have a whole lot of credentials, just a reference to working as a foreman on a farm in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico.

  “Thanks,” Margo said, hugging the tall man.

  “I gotta go. Love you, Mom,” Sandra waved, heading for the shop door.

  “See you in a few hours, hon,” Margo called, watching her go.

  Diego was already working to gather up the plates.

  “Make sure you wash out the crock. You can just leave it up in my office.”

  He gave a half-smirk. “I’ve got it. You better get going.”

  “Right, I just need to grab my coat.” Dashing upstairs to her office, she pulled the heavy wool coat off the hook along with her hat. Glancing at her computer, which she had shut down before the party, she thought of the missing products.

  Who could be stealing from her right under her nose?

  Shaking her head, she slipped on the jacket and headed back down the stairs to say goodbye to Diego.

  * * *

  Sandra had been right. It was really coming down. Snowflakes blanketed the roads and blurred Margo’s driving vision. Once she was out of the city, the storm was only growing worse. The roads were wet, quickly turning to ice, and snow was building up along the open landscape like a white blanket. Forced to go slow, she turned on her CD of Country Christmas Instrumentals to help calm her nerves.

  Unfortunately, the music hardly helped.

  She had to admit that she was grateful for Diego taking over cleaning duty for her. If she’d taken the fifteen or twenty minutes to clean up, it would have been a miracle to even get out of the factory parking lot.

  She only hoped that her daughter and future son-in-law would be okay driving in the storm. She knew he had four-wheel-drive and tire chains, but sometimes you just couldn’t account for mother nature.

  Finally, after nearly an hour and a half of driving through the winding, snowy hills, turn off for the cabin came into view.

  Letting out an audible sigh of relief, Margo pulled up the long drive and spotted the cabin nestled at the precipice of the hill with a circular surrounding of trees. She smiled, happy to finally be there and looking forward to staring a warm fire.

  Parking just outside, she climbed out of her car and paused as she noticed something that disturbed her.

  The front door of the building was ajar.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. Had someone broken in?

  Even worse, were they still here?

  Digging in her purse, she located her pocket knife and pulled it out at the ready. Walking carefully, she moved up the front steps as silently as she possibly could. Peeking through the crack in the door, all she could see was blueish darkness inside.

  Taking a deep breath, she threw open the door and turned on the light.

  A second later, she found herself screaming.

  Sitting in the easy chair near the cold fireplace was Henrietta White. Her face was deathly pale and a bloody wound in her chest had soaked through her shirt.

  She was dead.

  CHAPTER 5

  * * *

  “Mom, are you okay?” Sandra cried as she leaped out of her fiancé’s truck and rushed over to the back of the ambulance where her mother was sitting with a blanket over her shoulders and a cup of coffee in her hands.

  The small clearing that made up the cabin’s yard was filled with two police cruisers, an ambulance, Paramedics, EMTs, and police officers—all rushing about the scene.

  “I’m okay, sweetheart.”

  “When I saw all the flashing lights up here, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I’m quite alright. I just felt faint for a bit when . . .” her voice trailed off.

  “Hey, is everything alright?” Patrick asked as he got out of the truck and walked up to the two women. He wore a tight pair of jeans with a heavy down coat. His perfectly combed hair was being pulled apart by the blowing wind.

  “Oh, things are fine,” Margo assured the young man.

  “What, Mom? You felt faint when what happened?”

  She hesitated, twisting her mouth to one side. “It was Henrietta White.”

  “W-What do you mean?” Sandra stuttered nervously.

  “Margo Hanratty?” a voice that sounded like it was buried beneath gravel said.

  The trio turned to see a tall man heading their way. He wore an oversized cowboy hat upon his head, had the dark scruff of not having shaved that week, and held an unlit cigarette tightly between his lips. The lapel of his jacket held the star of a sheriff.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Sheriff Brian Carlsbad. Am I to understand you found the body?”

  “B-Body, what body?” Sandra exclaimed, her face going as white as the falling snow around them.

  “And you are?” he insisted.

  Unfortunately, before she could answer, Sandra was collapsing into Patrick’s arms. “Sandra? Are you okay?” he yelled, holding her up and shaking her gently.

  Margo was quickly on her feet as well. “Take her back to the truck for now and make sure she stays warm,” she instructed.

  “Can we get a paramedic over here?” the sheriff barked, his voice cracking from years of smoking.

  In a split second, one of the EMTs ran over and was helping Sandra to the car.

  “I take it she’s related?” the sheriff joked.

  Margo didn’t find it funny and narrowed her eyes at him. “She’s my daughter.”

  “Sorry, sorry. Don’t get your feathers in a ruffle,” he defended himself, pulling a lighter out of his pocket and igniting the cigarette still hanging between his lips.

  “I didn’t faint on the scene, I just got a little woozy by all the blood,” she informed him, trying to put on a good face. She was the kind of woman who prided herself on her strong constitution and spicy personality. However, how could you not help but grow a little faint at the sight of a dead body—especially one as gruesome as that?

  “I’m just saying,” he noted, taking a drag off his cigarette and blowing the smoke out into the frozen night air. It swirled above them with the falling snowflakes.

  “Are you supposed to smoke on a crime scene?” she scolded.

  “Nope, you’re not, but the crime scene is in there,” he jabbed a thumb at the front door of the cabin.

  Margo didn’t care for his nonchalant attitude toward police work, especially mu
rder. It hardly seemed professional. “Are you from the Culver’s Hood Police Department?”

  He chuckled hoarsely. “Hardly. This is outside of the city’s jurisdiction, so it falls to me to take care of it.” He tapped his Sheriff’s badge. “Casper County is my stompin’ grounds.”

  “I see,” Margo replied, not too thrilled to have some small-town sheriff and his deputies overseeing this murder investigation. “And that ambulance?”

  “We don’t have much of a hospital or morgue in Tanson Hills, just a little clinic. However, our clinic does have one ambulance. You know, when you got farmers living thirty to forty minutes out from town, you gotta have something to rush them back and forth when they have an accident.”

  Margo had heard enough. “Okay, I get it. I assume you have questions for me?”

  “I do, Ma’am.”

  “Well, let’s get this over with so my daughter and I can get out of this freezing cold and back to our homes in Culver’s Hood.”

  “We’ll just have to see about that,” he retorted.

  “What does that mean?” she demanded.

  Completely ignoring her question, he jumped in with his own. “First off, you said the little lady is your daughter. What about the gent?”

  “That’s her fiancé.”

  “Mind telling me their names?”

  “Sandra Hanratty and Patrick Williamson.”

  “And they just now arrived?” He peeked over her shoulder at the truck which was still running, pumping cloudy exhaust out into the night.

  “They were nowhere around when I found the body, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I see. So, you were completely alone?”

  “Exactly. I arrived about six-thirty.”

  “Can you take me through those exact events?”

  “It took me longer than usual to get out here, thanks to the storm. I pulled up to where you see my car parked right now. I got out and noticed the door was open.”

  “It was open when you arrived?” he asked for confirmation.

  “That’s right. I pulled out my pocket knife, just to be safe, and quietly stepped inside. I turned on the lights, and there was the body. I screamed and had to sit down for a quick rest.”

  “Where did you sit?”

  “Right out here on the front steps. I also called nine-one-one from here.”

  “Do you know the victim?”

  Margo nodded. “She is a friend and one of my employees.”

  “Employees?”

  “I’m the owner of Spicy Senora. Henrietta White was one of my customer service reps. She helped run the store, stocked shelves, created ads, that sort of thing.”

  “When was the last time you saw her alive?”

  “Yesterday. She had a shift at the shop. She was supposed to come into the shop today but never showed. I have no idea why she was out here instead of where she was supposed to be.”

  “You had no idea she was out here at the cabin?”

  Margo shrugged. “None. I don’t even know how she got inside, unless she broke in.”

  “Your friend didn’t have a key?”

  “No.”

  Glancing back toward the building, the sheriff shook his head. “There was no sign of forced entry, so someone with a key must have let her in,” he deduced out loud.

  Margo couldn’t help but feel like he was revealing this train of thought on purpose. She anticipated his next question, not liking the direction this conversation was going.

  “Mrs. Hanratty, who does have a key to this building?”

  Licking her lips nervously and hesitating to answer, she glanced back at the truck. “Only myself and my daughter.”

  “You’re positive about this?”

  “I am.”

  “The fiancé doesn’t have one?”

  “Not unless he borrowed Sandra’s.” Margo turned her gaze on the sheriff’s eyes, trying to read the thoughts that were hiding in there. “Sheriff, you don’t suspect it was one of us, now do you?”

  His cigarette mostly gone, he dropped it to the ground and crushed it into the snow.

  Margo tried not to flinch at his littering on her property.

  “Honestly, Ma’am, I don’t know what I think yet. Is it possible that someone had access to your keys at some point—could maybe make a copy?”

  Digging into her purse, she pulled her key ring out and examined the item in question. It was nothing more than a simple door key, one that could be easily copied at any hardware store in the area. However, the implication was that someone they knew, someone close to them, got a hold of the key and made a copy. “I suppose it’s possible. When I’m at work, they just hang on a wall hook in my office.”

  “And who has access to your office?”

  “Everyone who works for me. I rarely close my office door, unless it’s at night. I’m not always in there, either. A lot of the time I’m helping out in the shop or supervising on the factory floor.” Margo wrapped her arms around herself and began stamping her feet. The snowfall hadn’t let up and she was freezing.

  “So, basically any one of your employees.”

  “Great. First, I find out one of my people is stealing from me, now there might be a murderer in our midst?” she mumbled.

  “Hold on. What’s all this about stealing?”

  “Just before I left work today for the holiday break, my accountant pointed out that the numbers were off. Someone’s been stealing product.”

  The sheriff stroked his scruffy chin. “Maybe the two are connected.” He raised an eyebrow at her, his gaze peering into her.

  “I wouldn’t know, Sheriff. Until today, I had trust and respect for all my employees. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  “I see.”

  Pulling her scarf tighter, she motioned toward Patrick’s truck. “Are we done here? I’d like to get out of this cold.”

  “Actually, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” he noted, adjusting his hat on his head.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Well, Ma’am, from what I’ve seen so far, and based on what you’ve told me, no one else had access to this place.”

  “And?”

  “And, perhaps, whoever killed your friend was actually looking to shoot you as you arrived this evening.”

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  “You can’t be serious,” Margo complained as she was loaded up into the police truck. “Police protection?”

  “Let’s not call it police protection,” he suggested, leaning in on the passenger side doorframe.

  “That’s what it is, isn’t it?” she protested, folding her arms.

  “Not technically. There would be more red tape involved.”

  “You mean, I don’t have to do this?”

  He hesitated, twisting his mouth to one side. “No, Ma’am. You don’t. However, I would strongly recommend it. This here is just a simple safety measure I’m personally setting in place to make everyone comfortable.”

  That was great, Margo thought. It didn’t make her more comfortable. This meant he was just making her and her daughter stay under his watch because he felt like it. However, the creeping feeling that someone might—just might—be out to get her or her daughter was pushing her to do what the sheriff said.

  After all, he was a professional, right?

  “I don’t often get a murder case like this in my area, and I’m not going to let my only witness be in any sort of harm’s way. It’s just a precaution, believe me.”

  “A precaution, huh?” Margo raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “That’s right. I’ll be checking you into a nice and comfortable boarding house under my name. That way, it’ll be harder for anyone to try and track you down. You’ll be safer this way.”

  Somehow, she felt like this whole situation was overkill. Was going under this sheriff’s personal protection really necessary? Why couldn’t he just let her head back to the city, to her house?

  Glancing over at her, his mouth turned up on one
side as he read her expression. “It’s more for my comfort than for yours, okay? I just think this whole thing will feel better if we just play it safe. I wouldn’t want him getting you.”

  “Him? How do you know it’s a him?”

  “I don’t,” he replied before shutting the door.

  A moment later he appeared on the driver’s side and climbed in. In the confines of the car, he smelled of smoke.

  “What about my daughter?” Surely, if it was a real possibility that someone had hidden inside the cabin to await their arrival, then Sandra could be in just as much danger as Margo—if there truly was as much danger as the sheriff thought.

  “Don’t worry. One of my deputies will be bringing her along later as well, just as soon as we can figure out a place for that boyfriend of hers.”

  “Patrick?”

  “That’s right. You did say that he was spending the weekend here as well, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he may be as much in danger as either your daughter or yourself. However, I’m wanting to check him into someplace different, a motel maybe, just to be safe.”

  Margo raised a shocked eyebrow. “Wait a minute, just to be safe?”

  The sheriff sighed. “I don’t like to think it, but he could have easily been the one to make a copy of the key, am I right?”

  “You mean Sandra’s key?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Are you putting my daughter in a different place, too? It’s Christmas, for goodness sakes.”

  “No, no. For your comfort, I’m keeping you two together. It’s only Patrick who I’m putting up someplace different.”

  “You don’t really suspect him, do you?” she demanded.

  “I can’t rightly say, Ma’am, but I’m taking every precaution to protect all three of you. Whoever it is that’s done this, rest assured I will catch them.”

  Somehow, his reassurance didn’t put her at ease. If anything, she felt more anxious about the whole ordeal than before.

  * * *

  The drive didn’t take very long, only about ten minutes. The tiny town of Tanson Hills came up so suddenly, appeared just off the side of the road in the cozy cusp of a few hills, that Margo nearly missed it. It had started as a few spread out houses here and there, even a trailer park off in the distance, but the lights of “downtown” were a surprisingly warm welcome in the storm.