Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane

by JoAnn Ross

  “I haven’t a clue,” Bodhi said. “Hell, if I knew anything, I’d have told you earlier on. But for what it’s worth, I hope she gets an A-OK. Not just for her sake, but for yours and Gidget’s—Jolene’s,” he corrected.

  “Me, too.” Patience, Aiden reminded himself. It had been fourteen years since they’d been together. He could wait a bit longer.

  But not much, he thought as he headed back toward town. While usually Honeymoon Harbor night police calls transferred to his cell or the deputy chief’s cell phone, he decided to patrol a couple more hours, because Thanksgiving dinners, with the mix of alcohol and family members forced together on holidays, were always trouble waiting to happen. Then, if the night stayed quiet, he’d head for home himself.

  * * *

  ALTHOUGH GLORIA HAD closed the salon from Thursday until Monday, the day after Thanksgiving she insisted she was well enough to start getting ready for Saturday’s merchants day at the farm.

  “It could be an exhausting day,” Jolene warned. “Maybe you should rest up.”

  “Dr. Lancaster said I could go to work the day after the procedure,” she pointed out. “It’s been longer than that. Plus, I still need to work to get my samples ready to give away tomorrow.”

  “All right. We’ll do them together. I was planning to try new blends while I was here, but for now, we should probably stick to the tried-and-true.” She went over to the closet where she’d stored the boxes.

  “Wow.” Gloria’s eyes widened at all she’d brought with her. “You’re thinking big.”

  “Titanic big,” Jolene said. It had occurred to her, as she’d left the supply store that by planning for such a commercial success for her mother, she could well be sending vibes to the universe to prevent her from having cancer. Because if her products could help generate new spa customers, then Gloria would have to be well.

  “While I make some new batches, why don’t you start opening the larger jars you have in stock and putting products into these sample sizes,” she suggested. “Lotions in the bottles, creams in the jars.”

  “I could have figured that out for myself,” Gloria said dryly.

  “I know. I’m sorry. That was condescending. But I’ve never really been an employer before. So I can make all my mistakes with you if I take Quinn and Seth up on their idea.”

  That would first require Gabe Mannion to be her angel investor. And Quinn to help her set up a business plan. She’d also probably need an accountant for that because this was going way beyond her current self-employed small business.

  “Do you think I’d be biting off more than I can chew?” she asked as she could feel anxiety hovering out there just beyond horizon, like Jaws, waiting to attack. “I won’t even be living here. How will I keep track of what’s going on?”

  “That’s what planes are for,” Gloria said. “And phones. And I’m sure you can find someone to manage production for you.”

  “It’s always just been me and occasionally a couple of part-time beauty school employees to help fill a larger order,” she said.

  “You’ve got the college here,” Gloria pointed out. “And enough salons around that you’d undoubtedly be able to find an experienced manager. Maybe even from one of the cities, someone looking for a slower pace of living. I see those couples all the time on House Hunters International.”

  “But ten thousand square feet?”

  “It is a lot,” Gloria allowed. “But not that much larger than this place.”

  “You started small.”

  “So did you. You’re just skipping some middle steps. Besides, you have a secret weapon.”

  “A magic wand? Wonder Woman’s bracelets?”

  “No.” Her mother’s smile was wide and warm and gave Jolene the impression that this conversation had momentarily taken her mind off waiting for the doctor’s call. “Me. I’ll be here to oversee things. Hold down the fort, so to speak. Because I’m your mother and I love you.”

  A rush of love almost too large and strong to contain swept through Jolene with the power of a tsunami. She threw her arms around her mother and hugged her tight. The way she had that night Aiden had stood her up for prom. “I love you more.”

  “But I’ve loved you forever,” Gloria repeated their familiar lines. Then laughed, stepped back and said, “For the win!” She’d just high-fived Jolene when the phone rang.

  And although it was probably just her imagination, the room turned chilly. As if a ghost had just entered.

  * * *

  AIDEN HAD JUST walked into the police station with a large cup of coffee, a sugar-dusted doughnut and a lingering bit of sexual frustration from last night’s dream of Jolene when Donna stopped him at her desk. Today’s sweater signaled the change in holidays with an ice skating penguin wearing a red scarf.

  “I have the plan,” she greeted him.

  “Plan?”

  “For the boat. In the parade.”

  Damn. He’d forgotten all about that. He took the piece of paper she thrust at him. “You want to make the boat look like a police car?”

  “Exactly.” She tapped the eraser of her yellow pencil on the top of the outline. “Then you could put red, white and blue flashing lights on the top. Right here.”

  “I like it,” Jennifer Stone said, coming over to look at it. Her shiny new deputy chief name tag must have arrived from the engraver while he’d been out looking for Palmer. “It beats the plain old boring lights and poor Charlie Brown tree we’ve been doing forever.”

  “Not forever,” one of the older deputies said. Jim Hooper had retired two years ago, but continued to volunteer three days a week because his wife told him he was driving her crazy. “Don’t forget the year of the jail.”

  “Oh, Lordy, don’t remind me of that,” Donna said.

  “Would you care to fill me in?” Aiden definitely needed more caffeine. Like in an IV.

  “Don decided we needed something different. So he came up with the idea of a jail cell.”

  “A cell?”

  “Yep,” Jim said. “It was essentially a steel cage. With a door. He also thought it would be a riot to have some deputies dress in black-and-white prison uniforms.”

  “How did that go over?”

  “Because nothing says Christmas like imprisonment,” Bodhi said. Aden couldn’t disagree.

  “Like a fart in church,” Jim said.

  “A few drunks thought it was a riot,” Donna added. “But the Herald got a lot of negative letters about it. It was, thankfully before Facebook was real popular so folks couldn’t yell about it on that. I told the chief it was a mistake, but bucking James too much was a sore subject in his marriage, so he mostly shrugged it off. Next year we went back to the lights and tree.”

  “How hard would this be to do?” he asked Donna.

  “My Hank’s real handy. He said he could make a frame in an afternoon. One where you wouldn’t even be able to see the boat under it. It’d look just like a car floating on the water. Though he did recommend blue lights for the bottom and white for around the windows and the top. He says heavier colors look better on the bottom.”

  “Sounds like he knows what he’s doing,” Aiden said.

  “Oh, he certainly does. He’s done all the lights on both the town’s Christmas trees since before you were born. And he’s built all the animated lighted figures in the park. This year’s theme is penguins. Though we’ll always have the angel at the start of the walk-through, because she’s real popular and, of course, Santa... Speaking of which, you do know you’re going to be driving the boat in a Santa costume.”

  “That would be a hell no.”

  “The police float always ends the parade. Then Santa gets off and hands out candy canes to all the kids. It’s a tradition.”

  “Maybe I’ll hang around to see this,” Bodhi suggested. “Because so far that sounds like
the second-best highlight of my visit, after bringing down Jess’s killers.”

  “Can’t anyone else do it?” He looked pointedly at Hooper.

  “Don’t look at me,” the retired officer said. “I may have packed on a few extra pounds since Cops and Coffee brought their doughnuts to town.” He folded his arms over his doughnut belly. “But I damn well never volunteered to play a jolly old elf.”

  Hooper had been a good cop who’d come from Phoenix before looking for a slower life in the Northwest. Aiden thought that if he hadn’t retired, he would’ve probably made a great chief.

  Donna lifted both her chins. “Like I said, it’s a tradition. And it connects the police with the people you’re protecting and serving.”

  “I thought that was what I was doing when I went out and found Mrs. Gunderson’s gnome.”

  “It was. And she appreciates that. And what you did for that poor girl Amanda Barrow was wonderful. But this is a big deal, too, Chief. It’ll also show those few naysayers out there that you’re the real deal.”

  “And me wearing a Santa suit will do that?”

  “It’s public relations. It’ll work,” she assured him.

  “Do I have to wear padding?”

  “Well, all I can say about that is that you have a damn fine body, Chief.” She swept an appreciative look over him. “I imagine you’ve also got a fine washboard beneath that shirt. But what do we tell the little kids when a skinny Santa shows up in Honeymoon Harbor?”

  “Don’t forget what happened when the chief didn’t listen to her last time his brother-in-law suggested the lame cell idea,” Bodhi said. “I say go for it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Aiden caved.

  “Ask if we get to run the siren,” Bodhi suggested.

  “I suppose I’m expected to run the siren.”

  “It ends the parade,” she confirmed.

  “Ask Hank to start building,” Aiden said. “And ask him if he needs a down payment to buy materials.”

  “Oh, he never takes any money.” Donna waved his words away. “He’s got three barns full of stuff on our property and building Christmas displays is his hobby. Like some guys fish or hunt. He’s got displays on all five of our acres hooked up to a computer this year. He figures he’ll be ready to get on The Great Christmas Light Fight TV show in the next couple years.”

  “Well, tell him thanks, and I hope he makes it on the show.”

  “Oh, he probably will. Hank can do just about anything when he puts his mind to.”

  A lot like his wife, Aiden considered.

  After approving the plan, he received a call from the DA that Don James was paying back the money he’d stolen from the fund and pleaded guilty to embezzlement and criminal charity fraud. Because of his years of service to the town, he’d been given a sentence of two years’ probation, credit for the night he’d served and a schedule to pay back the debt with interest. If he missed a payment, he’d be immediately arrested and incarcerated in the Salish County jail.

  The best news, as far as Aiden was concerned, was that he’d been allowed to serve his probation time across the state in Spokane, where his younger sister’s husband owned a body shop and had offered to give him a job. Which meant that he wouldn’t be around to stir up trouble in Aiden’s town.

  “Hot damn,” Bodhi said, as they drove out to respond to a stray dog that had been reported to look as if it’d been hit by a car. The caller had tried to catch it, but it had run away. Honeymoon Harbor was too small for its own animal control team, so usually those were handled by the fire department or police. Unless it was something bigger, like a bear wandering through town getting into trash cans. After breaking into a house and tearing apart a pantry, one had been taken back out into the woods by the county wildlife control.

  “The trouble with working undercover was that we didn’t get to use the siren all that much.”

  “But we did get to drive a Ferrari and a Lamborghini,” Aiden reminded him. The second had been wicked cool, but took too much time to climb out of, so they hadn’t even driven it out of the impound lot.

  “There was that,” Bodhi agreed. “So, when are your detective friends going to get back?”

  “Monday. I’ll call them first thing... Damn. I should’ve thought of that.”

  “What?”

  “You said Jess sent you photos.”

  “Texted them.”

  “So where’s your phone?”

  “I don’t know.” Aiden could see his partner’s mind working. “Since I was dead, and not a suspect, the cops on the scene weren’t paying as much attention to me as to trying to figure out who all the bad guys were. It’s probably sitting in an evidence box with all my clothes.”

  They’d been removed in the coroner’s office while Aiden was getting the slug dug out of his thigh, where, the doctor on duty had told him, if it’d had hit two inches to the left, he would’ve bled out before he’d gotten to the ER.

  “Then moved to a box in the evidence room,” they both said in unison.

  They exchanged looks.

  “Great minds,” Aiden said.

  “We still got it, dude,” Bodhi said. “Just like Crockett and Tubbs.”

  Aiden couldn’t disagree.

  They stopped by Mannion’s, where Jarle cooked up a plain burger to go for dog bait, and headed out to the location he’d last been seen, Aiden spotted the black, white and copper Australian shepherd limping along on three legs down the railroad tracks that ran through the edge of town. Coincidentally, it had been the lack of a railroad that had kept the once bustling seaport from becoming the state’s capital city as early dreamers had lobbied for.

  She was down to skin and bones, her coat was matted, and, as he’d suspected, she was hungry, because she swallowed down the burger in one bite after he’d lifted her into the back of the SUV, where she’d settled down with a huge moan.

  He drove the dog to Cameron Montgomery’s veterinarian office where Cam, who suspected either a bad sprain or a break, was going to X-ray the leg. She whimpered as Aiden left, as if she’d already decided he’d do just fine as her new human. As he drove away, Aiden thought that might not be such a bad idea. He’d been thinking of getting a dog. Maybe fate had stepped in and given him this one.

  As he went back on patrol, Bodhi drank in the trees outside the windows, as if committing them to memory. Aiden wondered, once they put the DC away for a very long time, hopefully life, if his partner would be taking off to continue his journey to wherever the hell he was going next. If he did, he’d miss him like hell, but at least this time he’d be prepared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “IT’S DR. LANCASTER.” As Gloria read the caller ID, she turned as pale as snow and sank down on one of the shampoo chairs, as if her legs had given out on her.

  “Put her on speaker,” Jolene advised. Her mother’s head had to be spinning even worse than hers was, so it was important for both of them to hear. Whatever the news was. She grabbed the old-fashioned appointment book that her mother used as backup in case of a computer crash, and pulled a pen from the pretty round box next to the book so she could take notes.

  “Hello?” her mother answered tentatively.

  “Good morning, Gloria,” the doctor said with a professional warmth that gave nothing away. Jolene wondered if they taught that tone in medical school. “The results of your biopsy just came in and I’ve good news. It’s benign.”

  “That means no cancer, right?” Gloria said.

  “None. Though, since you did have this abnormality, we’ll want to keep a close eye on it. While the odds are against any additional problems, I’d like you to have another mammogram in six months.”

  “I will. Thank you!”

  “You’re very welcome. Passing on good news is the one of the best parts of my job.”

  Jolene took out her
phone. “I’m writing a date down six months from today on my iCal and make sure you schedule one, then I’m going with you when you have it done.”

  “What if you’re in Los Angeles? Or Ireland?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I’m in Timbuktu. I’ll be here.”

  “I’m sorry I caused you to come up here.”

  “You didn’t. Not really.”

  “I could always tell when you were fibbing.”

  “All right,” Jolene allowed. “You’re right. If Sarah hadn’t called me, I probably would’ve just rented another apartment in LA. But she did call me, so I came, and I’m so glad I did. Because even though it was sometimes hard and scary, I wouldn’t change this time together for anything. And I’m so looking forward to working the booth with you tomorrow and meeting all your friends.”

  “You’re going to work the booth?”

  “Of course. It’s my product, I should be pushing it. And it’s a chance to work with my mom again. Just like the old days.”

  Gloria looked around at the beautiful salon and spa. “We’ve come a long way from the trailer.”

  “We have. But back then we were closer. And it’s been my fault.”

  “You had your reasons for moving on,” Gloria said. “I always understood that. And look how well you’ve done. And the same way I was your date for the Emmys, you can be mine for the annual showing of my holiday movie.”

  Jolene laughed. “I wouldn’t miss it. I was only nominated for an Emmy for makeup. You, on the other hand, are the only person in Honeymoon Harbor who’s appeared in a movie.”

  “Well,” Gloria said, patting her colorful hair. “I wouldn’t want to boast, but everyone in the theater did point out that the camera did seem to focus more on me than the other extras.”

  “As well it should,” Jolene said. “Because you outshone the stars. Now, let’s take this over to the cottage and you can make up the gift bags on the kitchen table, while I make up more samples on the counter.”