Candy Cane Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Holy Moses. Could it be? Was Ethel Claudia Jamison?

  At that moment I became aware of footsteps behind me. I whirled around to see Ethel coming at me—not with tea and brownies—but wielding one of Willard’s huge neon candy canes.

  The last thing I noticed before it came crashing down on my skull was what Ethel was wearing:

  A pastel sweat suit.

  Just like Claudia Jamison.

  I came to on the floor near the Christmas tree, my wrists and ankles bound tightly with packing twine, my head throbbing like a bongo drum.

  Ethel was kneeling over me, putting the finishing touches on the twine around my ankles.

  How wrong I’d been about Ethel. All along, I thought she was a helpless housefrau. The woman was about as helpless as a Sherman tank.

  I tried to lift my head and set off a thousand drumbeats of pain.

  “Oh, dear!” Ethel looked around, startled. “I didn’t realize you’d come to. You poor thing,” she said, clucking in sympathy, “your head must be pounding. I’d give you an aspirin, but you’ll be dead soon anyway. So why waste an aspirin?”

  I gulped at this latest news bulletin, setting off a fresh wave of bongo beats. If indeed I was headed for my final reward, I’d be darned if I was going to go without a fight.

  “So you killed Garth,” I said, stalling for time.

  “Well, duh, as you young people say. Of course I did. Such fun pretending to be a roofer and loosening those shingles!”

  “But why?”

  “Because he killed Pumpkin. That was no accident. Garth ran over my poor baby on purpose. So naturally he had to die.”

  “But I don’t understand. Why frame Willard for the murder?”

  “Oh, Willard,” she said, with a dismissive wave. “I’m so tired of that man, always bossing me around. Gave me his lunch order every day like I was a waitress at a restaurant. I swear, I never want to cook another meal for him as long as I live.”

  So Cathy Janken wasn’t the only one who’d wanted to dump her husband. I’d been pinning my suspicions on the wrong desperate housewife.

  “What a pill!” Ethel grumbled. “Forty-three years of marriage and we went on the same dratted vacation every summer. Fishing on Lake Arrowhead. I hung around the cabin all day, bored silly, while he caught fish. And then I had to clean the stinky things.

  “I begged him to take me places. All my life I’ve wanted to lie on the sand in Bermuda, but no, he’s so selfish. Everything’s got to be his way or no way.

  “So you see, dear, I had to get rid of him.”

  “Ever hear of a little thing called divorce?”

  “Oh, no!” Ethel blinked, horrified. “I could never do that. It’s a sin, you know.”

  Yikes. Murder and sending her husband to jail was okay, but divorce was a no-no. The woman had enough loose screws to open her own hardware store.

  “I’d never kill Willard. I just wanted him out of the way. Besides, prison will be good for him. It’s time he learned to take orders from somebody else for a change.”

  Our cozy chat was interrupted by the sound of my cell phone ringing in my purse.

  “Don’t get up, sweetheart,” Ethel said. “I’ll see who it is. Ha ha. That was a joke.”

  “I got it.” And yet, I wasn’t laughing.

  Ethel scooted over to the sofa where I’d left my purse and checked out my caller ID.

  “It’s the police.”

  Great. Now they’re getting back to me.

  “I’m afraid you won’t be returning this call,” she said. “Or any other calls, for that matter.”

  She picked up a china tea cup from the coffee table and headed back to me.

  “What a shame,” she sighed. “If only you hadn’t interfered. I didn’t mind killing Garth, but you seem like such a nice girl. I hate to have to kill you, too.”

  “Then don’t. I swear, I won’t say a word to the cops. Honest. Garth was an awful man; he deserved to die. And as for Willard, hey, prison’s not so bad.”

  “I wish I could believe you,” she said, kneeling at my side, “but I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Now drink this, sweetheart. I brewed it while you were sleeping.” She gently propped my head into a sipping position. “It’s some lovely Constant Comment tea, with a tad of rat poison.”

  “Sounds tempting, but I’ll pass.”

  “I really wish you’d drink it, dear. Otherwise I’ll have to bludgeon you to death with my candy cane, and I really hate getting my carpet all bloody. But I will if have to.”

  “Just what do you intend to do with my body?”

  “Oh, I’ll put it in the freezer till I get back from Bermuda. I’ll figure out something then.

  “Bottoms up,” she said, holding the tea cup to my lips. “Just remember. If you don’t drink it, I’ll bash your head in. And that won’t be very pleasant, will it?”

  No way was I going to open my mouth and drink this stuff. I had to do something to stop her.

  “Okay,” I lied, “I’ll drink it. But can you grant me one last wish before I die?”

  “That depends. What’s the wish?”

  “I’d really love one of your brownies. They were so darn delicious.”

  “How sweet of you to say so.” She blushed with pleasure. “It’s so nice to get a compliment for a change. I must’ve cooked 60,000 meals for Willard but did I ever get a thank you? No, I did not.”

  “So can I have one?”

  “I’m afraid they’re in the freezer.”

  “Can’t you nuke one for me? And maybe heat up the tea? It looks sort of cold.”

  “Well, okay. But after the brownie, then you promise you’ll die without a fuss?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  Much to my relief, she got to her feet and started off for the kitchen.

  “Don’t even think of crying out for help while I’m gone,” she warned. “Otherwise I’m going to have to gag you.”

  Damn. Plan A just went flying out the window.

  As she skipped off to fix my Last Snack, my mind started racing. How the heck was I going to get out of this mess?

  I craned my neck, looking for something sharp to cut the twine binding my wrists and ankles, but saw nothing.

  Then I thought of another plan. It was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. My head throbbing with every bump, I manage to roll myself behind the Christmas tree. Lucky for me, Ethel was not an expert in bondage. She’d bound me only at the wrists and ankles, which meant I could still bend my knees and elbows. And that gave me some degree of mobility. I had just managed to prop myself into a sitting position with my back up against the wall when Ethel returned with my brownie and poisoned tea.

  “Oh, Jaine,” she sighed. “Aren’t you silly, trying to hide. I’m certain to find you.”

  She looked around the room and then spotted me behind the tree, as I was hoping she would.

  “There you are, you foolish girl!”

  She started toward the Christmas tree.

  This was it, the moment of truth.

  I raised my knees to my chest and sent up a last desperate prayer to the heavens.

  Get me through this, and I swear I’ll never have a food fight with a twelve-year-old or wrestle with a nun for as long as I live!

  Then, with every ounce of strength in my body, I kicked the tree trunk.

  For a terrifying fraction of a second, it looked like it wasn’t going to fall, but then my prayers were answered. Ethel’s eyes widened in shock as the tree toppled over, sending reindeer ornaments flying and pinning her underneath.

  Now it was her turn to lie on the floor unconscious.

  I scanned the wreckage for something sharp enough to cut twine. Not two feet away, I saw my instrument of escape. A shattered teacup, the one that had just a few seconds ago held my poisoned tea.

  I maneuvered myself over to it, and managed to pick up a sharp shard of china. It wasn’t easy with my wrists bound together, but eventually I sawed thro
ugh the twine on my ankles. Then I sprang to my feet and raced over to Ethel’s phone. Somehow I managed to punch 911 and scream for help.

  Five minutes later, just as I was cutting through the twine on my wrists and the cops were banging at the door, Ethel regained consciousness.

  She looked up at me, bewildered, from under the tree.

  “That’s the police,” I told her.

  She moaned softly.

  “Don’t get up, sweetheart,” I said. “I’ll let them in.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  After checking out my story, the cops carted Ethel off to the prison wing of County General Hospital. When I finally limped home, I swallowed a fistful of Tylenol and spent the next heavenly hour or so soaking my aching muscles in a marathon bath. After which I collapsed into bed where I slept for twelve straight hours (near-death experiences tend to tucker me out) until Prozac lovingly clawed me awake for her breakfast.

  In spite of a bump on my head the size of a potato puff, I felt fine. And starving. If you don’t count those Tylenol, I hadn’t had a thing to eat for nearly twenty-four hours. So I drove over to Junior’s deli and treated myself to a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and an English muffin with strawberry preserves.

  I’d come home and was working off my breakfast with a strenuous nap on the sofa, when somebody rang my doorbell.

  You’ll never guess who it was.

  Angel Cavanaugh.

  She stood on my doorstep in a Hello Kitty T-shirt and flip-flops, barely big enough to cast a shadow, a bouquet of flowers in her hand.

  Her dad stood at her side, holding a shopping bag.

  “Don’t you have something to say to Jaine?” he said, nudging her with his elbow.

  “I’m really sorry,” Angel said, looking up at me with sheepish eyes. “For lying to you. And for getting you in trouble with Sister Mary Agnes.”

  Alert the media. She actually seemed to mean it.

  “These are for you.” She held out a bunch of supermarket daisies.

  “Why, thank you!” I have to admit, my heart melted just a tad. “Won’t you come in?”

  I ushered them inside and hurried to the kitchen to put the daisies in water.

  When I came back out, they were sitting on the sofa. Prozac, the shameless flirt, had wandered in from the bedroom and was shimmying in ecstasy against Kevin’s ankles.

  “Wow, you’ve got a cat!” Angel said. “I always wanted a cat.”

  “I’m not sure you want this one.”

  Prozac glared at me through slitted eyes. I swear, that cat understands English.

  Don’t listen to her, kid. I’m adorable.

  With that, she leapt into Angel’s lap and began purring like a buzzsaw.

  “You have something else for Jaine, don’t you?” Kevin said, once again nudging Angel with his elbow.

  Reluctantly she plucked Prozac from her lap, and walked over to me with the shopping bag her dad had been carrying.

  “Here are the jeans,” she said, taking them out of the bag. “You shouldn’t have spent so much money.”

  This time, I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “You keep them.”

  “Thanks!” She grabbed them back so fast, she almost got whiplash. “Can I go put them on?”

  “Sure. You can change in my bedroom,” I said, pointing down the hall.

  “I can’t tell you how much those jeans mean to her,” Kevin said when she’d dashed off. “Angel doesn’t get very many gifts. I’m all the family she’s got. And, as you can imagine, she doesn’t make friends very easily.”

  I could imagine, all right. In Technicolor and Dolby stereo.

  “We’ve tried other mentoring programs, and you’re the first person who ever stuck it out for more than an hour.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish. That’s why I’m so grateful to you. Anyhow, I called L.A. Girlfriends and explained how Angel lied to you about having asthma, and how she goaded you into the food fight. Which, incidentally, she loved. She said she hadn’t had so much fun since the time she fingerpainted on our living room walls.” He shuddered at the memory. “It took three coats of paint to cover that mess.

  “Anyhow, Sister Agnes has agreed to take you back. That is, if you want to see Angel again.”

  He looked at me like a puppy begging for a bone.

  Acck. The thought of a date with Angel without intravenous Valium was daunting, to say the least.

  But before I could fumpher an excuse, Angel came bouncing back into the room in her new jeans.

  “They’re great!” she beamed, a radiant smile lighting up her pinched face. “Thank you so much.”

  At the sight of that smile, my heart melted again.

  “I was just telling Jaine the good news about L.A. Girlfriends.”

  “Yeah,” Angel said. “They want you back. So how about it, Jaine?”

  Angel smiled shyly. “Will you be my Girlfriend?”

  By now my heart was the consistency of a pint of Chunky Monkey in the microwave.

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll be your Girlfriend.”

  “Great! They’re having a sale at The Limited. Wanna go?”

  “Forget it, Angel.”

  “Hey,” she shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

  Okay, so it wasn’t going to be easy.

  But like the kid said, it was worth a shot.

  Epilogue

  You’ll be glad to know that Ethel Cox got her wish. She never has to cook another meal as long as she lives. The state is providing her with three meals a day at a prison for the criminally nutsy.

  At first Willard visited her regularly, in spite of the fact that she refused to see him. After a while, though, he gave up. Last I heard, he was dating a woman he met in the Christmas decorations department of Home Depot.

  Peter Roberts and Prudence Bascomb (aka Brandy Alexander) are still practicing law, and frankly I’m glad I never got around to telling the cops about what I’d discovered in Garth’s file. So what if they’ve got dark secrets in their pasts? What attorney doesn’t?

  And remember Peter’s secretary, Sylvia Alvarez? I saw her wedding picture in the paper not long ago. She and Hector finally tied the knot. I only hope the priest managed to get a word in edgewise during the ceremony.

  Even more good news: Seymour Fiedler and his merry band of Fiedlers are back in business, plying their trade on the roofs of Los Angeles. In fact, they just finished Libby Brecker’s place.

  Speaking of Libby, I saw her the other day when I took a sentimental spin over to Hysteria Lane. She was out front, buffing her door knocker. She congratulated me for my work on bringing Ethel to justice (the police were kind enough to mention my name in their account of Ethel’s arrest) and told me that Cathy Janken had sold her house and was living in an apartment in Van Nuys. Contrary to Cathy’s expectations, Garth left her saddled with debt, which may have been the reason Jimmy the mailman dumped her for the UPS delivery gal he’d been seeing on the side.

  Angel and I “dated” for a few months, until her dad got transferred to Sacramento. It was tough sledding at first (I wanted to throttle her when she threw her house keys into the La Brea Tar Pits to see if they’d sink), but gradually she stopped acting out, and I grew quite fond of her. We never bonded in the lovey-dovey way of my fantasies. But we definitely Scotch Taped.

  Things were never the same between me and Tyler. Maybe because it’s hard to have romantic feelings for a woman once you’ve seen her with chocolate mousse up her nose. But mainly because Tyler and Sister Mary Agnes (who, as the authorities discovered, wasn’t really a nun) ran off to Acapulco with the proceeds from an L.A. Girlfriends fund-raiser. I should’ve known there was something fishy about a nun who’d go mano a mano for a pair of Hot Stuff jeans.

  Finally, I’m happy to report I had a very merry Christmas that year.

  Daddy and Uncle Ed got into a big fight over a Monopoly game, and when Daddy th
rew Uncle Ed’s hotels—along with his toupee—in the Tampa Vistas pool, Uncle Ed got so mad, he checked his whole family into a Ramada Inn.

  So Prozac and I had the guest room—and my parents—all to ourselves. How lovely to eat all the Christmas cookies I wanted, free from invidious comparisons to Cousin Joanie and her string bikinis.

  And the flight to Florida wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Prozac didn’t throw up on a single passenger.

  Nope, this trip, she threw up on the captain.

  But Homeland Security finally took her off their Most Wanted List, so we’re free to travel again.

  Catch you next time.

  PS. If you’re reading this during the holiday season, Prozac and I want to wish you a marvelous Christmas, a heavenly Hanukah and/or the coolest Kwanzaa ever.

  Well, I do, anyway. Prozac just wants you to scratch her back.

  CANDY CANES OF CHRISTMAS PAST

  LESLIE MEIER

  Prologue

  A fire was crackling in the grate, Christmas carols were playing on the stereo and Lucy Stone was perched on a step ladder in the living room arranging strings of twinkling fairy lights on an eight-foot balsam fir her husband Bill had cut in the woods behind their old farmhouse on Red Top Road in Tinker’s Cove, Maine.

  “Watch out, Lucy,” warned Bill, coming into the room with several battered brown cardboard boxes of ornaments. “You don’t want to lose your balance and fall.”

  “I’ve just finished,” said Lucy, slipping the last loop of wire over a branch and stepping down from the ladder.

  Bill put the boxes on the coffee table and stood back, arms akimbo, admiring the tree. “It’s the best we’ve ever had, I think. I’ve had my eye on that tree for a couple of years now.”

  “A special tree for a special Christmas,” said Lucy, wrapping her arms around his waist. “It’s Patrick’s first.”

  “Not that he’ll remember it,” said Bill. “He’s only nine months old.”

  “We’ll remember. After all, it’s our first Christmas as grandparents.”

  As if on cue, the dog’s barking announced the arrival of Toby and Molly and the baby, who had come from their house on nearby Prudence Path. Feet could be heard clattering down the stairs as Zoe, at eleven the youngest of Lucy and Bill’s children, ran to greet them. Behind her, moving more sedately but unable to resist the allure of their nephew, came her older sisters, Sara, who was a high school sophomore, and Elizabeth, home from Chamberlain College in Boston, where she was a senior.