Christmas Caper

by Jennifer Oberth

  “Guns are a good business,” I pointed out.

  “But Oscar knows nothing about them, and he can’t pay the price to learn on the job. Not this time. He should stick to what he knows. Make something of himself. But he flits from one bad idea to the next. This town is already supplied with weapons, and aside from Oscar’s lack of knowledge about the product, he knows nothing of the competition.” Seth looked sadly at his empty glass. “I’m talking too much. I can share my own confidences, but I’m telling you about someone else’s.”

  “I know I’m on holiday, but I can promise you anything you tell me won’t be bandied about town.”

  He waved a hand. “Everyone’s talking about it, anyway. But not correctly.”

  “Rumors so seldom strive for accuracy.”

  “No, they don’t. Maybe I wouldn’t mind if you did spread this around. It’d stop making Oscar look so dim.”

  “I haven’t heard these rumors, Seth.” I really hadn’t, and I kept my ear to the ground in this town so I could effectively conduct my investigations armed with as much knowledge as I could gain. I am kept—and keep others—well informed to also help ward off problems. That was where Joe and his kind came in; when they planted themselves in the midst of a crisis and defused it before it escalated to the point my services were needed. “May I ask if they’re as bad as you’re making out or are you offended for your brother?”

  Seth gaped like a fish for a few seconds before setting down his glass and plates and leading me to the dance floor. “I’m antsy, Mrs. Westin. Would you care to dance while I reveal my family’s skeletons in our closets?”

  I supposed it was the least I could do. Taking his hand, we joined in the line at the end. After a minute or two, he spoke again.

  “Oscar isn’t doing well financially. Not since James Waters came into the picture. Hope thinks Waters is simply a bad businessman, but I happen to think he’s been pilfering money.”

  I did wonder what the wife thought of the situation and was grateful Seth brought her up. “So Mrs. Cryer doesn’t want her husband to enter into this latest business arrangement either?”

  “Hope doesn’t want Oscar to enter into this latest business scheme, to use her words. She was quite adamant on the matter. Even threatened to…” Seth swung us around to the center of the dance floor, and we swayed with the music before he continued. “I advised Oscar to pass on this one.”

  “Mrs. Cryer threatened to what, Seth?”

  Seth refused to meet my gaze, raising his chin so his head was tilted to the ceiling. That’s when he stepped on my toe, and I milked it for all it was worth. After apologizing profusely, he felt bad enough to spill some more family secrets.

  “Hope was going to leave him, anyway, so it was more an empty threat than anything.”

  “Mrs. Cryer thinks her husband is having an affair, correct? Don’t forget Doris and I already knew that,” I lied.

  “That is…” Seth glanced around the ballroom, treading so lightly across the floor I think he was afraid to lift his feet lest he injure me again. His head sank and he almost whispered, “That is true.”

  “If she can prove it, she gets to keep everything.”

  “That’s what the government of this state says.”

  “Can she prove it, Seth?”

  Seth refused to answer, so I limped a bit as the musicians started up a lively tune.

  “How important would it be to Mrs. Cryer for your brother not to enter into this business deal?” I asked.

  He gripped my back tighter, steadying me. “I think you can guess.”

  I let Seth continue to think I was injured as I mulled over his family troubles. Did Hope Cryer think it important enough to kill her husband to stop him from throwing money into the weapons business? A widow wouldn’t have to prove anything to inherit everything. “Oscar wouldn’t have much to lose, would he?” I asked Seth. “If Mrs. Cryer was going to leave him, anyway, perhaps Oscar wanted to lose the money.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

  Seth wasn’t convincing; there was no heat in his words. “I’m only trying to understand how a marriage can fall apart.” I blew a breath and spoke to myself, but loud enough for him to hear. “I’d like to avoid that.”

  He nodded, taking me seriously, as I suspected he would. “That’s a wonderful goal to strive for. However, there are certain unforeseen circumstances that can conspire against a couple. You can’t prepare for unexpected happenings.”

  “No, you can’t. But if a couple faces them together, they should come out all right.”

  “Mrs. Westin, you can’t be serious.”

  “Can’t I?” Was I wrong? I truly believed it, but this man nearly stepped on my foot again staring me down, disappointment flashing in his blue eyes. It was almost condescending. Then his face lightened.

  “You are serious.” He shook his head and laughed. “You remind me so much of my Annabelle. She was as optimistic when she was alive as you are today.”

  I thought Joe was the optimistic one. Everyone else said I was the realistic one.

  “Perhaps if both parties believe it…then perhaps it can be true.” His face looked wistful as he glanced around the ballroom, and I’d bet Jasper’s money he was looking for a polite excuse to escape. But I wasn’t through with him yet.

  “Seth, do you think Hope knows who Oscar is seeing?” I nearly slipped and used past tense.

  He sighed heavily. “No. I don’t think she knows, but I ought to give up on guessing what women do and do not know. Too often I’ve been wrong, sometimes with humiliating repercussions.”

  “Seth…who is Oscar seeing?”

  “I thought we went through this earlier.”

  “We did.”

  “I thought you knew.”

  I tilted my head and pressed my lips together. “Maybe you should give up guessing what women know and don’t know.”

  “But if you…wait a minute, you do know who Oscar’s….But if you know, why are you asking me?” He fiddled with his glasses and studied my face intently. “Did Hope put you up to this?” Keeping his voice low, he talked fast. “Mrs. Westin, I don’t condone what my brother is doing, and I’ve told him so on many occasions; every time I’ve seen him since I found out. But I can’t be a witness against him. He’s my brother, for better or for worse, and while I will do anything and everything I can do to see Hope is taken care of, I will not stand against my brother.”

  “That’s noble. I think.” I’d have to ponder that one. “But I promise I won’t use what you say against you. We’re just having a conversation while we dance.” I squeezed his hand, and he allowed me to start us moving again. “I need to know some things. I’m not going to confirm or deny this, but perhaps Mr. Peterson has approached my husband with the same offer of business. Perhaps I want to know all there is to know about every player.”

  Shaking his head, his whole body drooped. “Mrs. Westin, please stay out of this. If your husband has been approached by Peterson or Waters, mark my words, nothing good will come of it.”

  I bent forward to close the distance he’d put between us. “Are you insinuating they’re up to something criminal?”

  “Heavens, woman, if I were, I’d tell you and Joe to proceed full steam ahead. No, I don’t think it’s anything underhanded, per se, but Waters wants money that’s not his own to play with. Men like that have no vested interest. He makes money if the venture succeeds, and he loses nothing if it fails. That’s not someone I’d want to do business with, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else place themselves in such a situation with these men.”

  “I see. Thank you for that.” How to bridge the gap between a business deal and a maid, I wasn’t sure. So I went full steam ahead. Why not? “The name of the woman?”

  Seth stared at me for a moment, but he warmed up, sighing as deeply as Joe usually did. Was it me? An affect I had on men? I thought it was something unique to my husband.

  “Mary. Mary Anderson. She’s a new m
aid at the Stoker mansion. I really don’t know anything about her, except she doesn’t have her head on straight, to take up with a married man.”

  Mary Anderson. Not surprising. She liked privacy. She was private herself. She gave up the busy room in the busy hallway so she could get a quieter room upstairs, farther away from prying eyes so she could continue to take up with a married man. Smart, I supposed, cunning. She wasn’t dumb, but was she shrewd enough to have had something to do with Oscar’s murder? Perhaps he was going to break it off with her, and she poisoned him and dumped his body in Mrs. Copra’s bed.

  Poison could easily be found in any well-stocked pantry. Nora Copra’s bedroom was close to the Stoker kitchen. It could explain Oscar Cryer’s presence at the mansion, if Mary lured him there with the promise of another liaison and killed him. That was a definite possibility. But there were so many others.

  A business deal going bad—or for James Waters, not going at all if he couldn’t convince Oscar to invest. Would Mr. Waters have anything to gain by killing him? Not as much as Hope Cryer would in stopping her husband from losing a large chunk of money on unsound business dealings with men she didn’t like or trust.

  The musicians took a break. “You are quite a dancer,” I said, and I thanked Seth profusely before ducking out and meeting up with Doris in the hallway by the front door. Still radiant in her gorgeous, satin dress, she seized me, not spilling a drop of wine, and we climbed the stairs, making our way to Annie’s room to reconvene.

  “It was Mary Anderson that Oscar Cryer was taking up with,” I said at the top of the stairs. “The Stoker maid.”

  “I knew it!” Doris cried out. “I figured it would be her. She’s a sly one—giving up a well-trafficked room in order to carry out her nefarious deeds in private. But how long did she expect to get away with it?”

  “What do you mean?”’ I asked.

  “It’s a well-staffed mansion with many, many busybodies, believe me. I can get more of my information from that household when I’m on a job than from anywhere else. Everyone knows everyone’s business, Mr. Stoker is constantly picking up new staff members, and everyone seems to know everyone else outside the walls, too. And almost no one is shy about sharing.”

  I was intrigued. I’d have to lean on Copra more often in future. Copra’s mother, actually. Get info straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

  “Does this help us?” Doris asked.

  “Well, we have more information.”

  “That’s what you said last time. And the time before, that, too, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes, well, I’m not sure, yet.”

  “Will you ever be?”

  “Yes, Doris, I will be. Would you like me to accuse someone and have them arrested so I can drink eggnog and sing like a fool?”

  She shuddered. “Like you did not so long ago?”

  “I did that to save your bro—”

  “You did it for your own purpose.” She waved a bejeweled hand. “Anyway, I don’t want to end this night. It’s been delightful. I had no idea being on this side of the law was so exhilarating. So fun. It’s almost as time consuming and demands as much creative thinking as burglary.” She took a sip of wine. “Or so I’ve read.”

  “Read. Right, Doris. And yes it’s a challenging job and full of pressure. That’s why I like to do it alone and certainly without Joe, though I admit I like his company.”

  “More than mine?”

  Doris was teasing, but I thought about it. She was different and less agonizingly judgmental than her brother. She didn’t really expect anything of me, so everything I did or said was a plus. I kind of liked that.

  “Who else do you suspect?” she asked.

  “Well, it could be Copra’s mother. She has access to the kitchen, could lay her hands on poison, and the bedroom Oscar was found in was right next to that very same kitchen.”

  “But how would she get him to drink or eat it?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. She introduces herself and he takes tea with her or they break bread together. Oscar was a nice man, a gentleman.”

  “Except for sleeping with women who weren’t his wife.”

  “Yes, except for that.”

  “What do you think? Could Nora Copra really kill this gentleman? And why would she?”

  “Well, that’s a stickler, I admit. She wouldn’t, would she? I mean, what would she have to gain?”

  “What if someone put her up to it?”

  “I don’t think it’s fruitful to discuss at this juncture. We’d have to find out if anyone saw them together for any reason, and right before his death. Which no one knows about yet.”

  “Except for us.”

  “We don’t count.”

  “We don’t?” Doris looked disappointed.

  “We’re outsiders, Doris. We’re interlopers in these people’s lives. Their world. And usually, we’re not welcome.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound enjoyable. But it doesn’t bother me. Although, I do prefer working under cover of darkness and…shall we say, interloping when everyone’s sleeping. That way, I’m not bothering anybody.”

  “No, not until morning when they realize their jewelry has disappeared.”

  “What people in this town will misplace.” Doris tsked. “You know, if Nora Copra is involved in this somehow, in any way, Copra himself could…” Doris swallowed. “I don’t relish saying this, but he could have taken care of the problem if he felt his mother was in danger.”

  My mouth dropped open, and my voice came out a wispy breath. “You think Copra killed Oscar?”

  She scrunched her pretty nose. “Not really. But I don’t think we should dismiss it as a possibility, however slim, simply because we like Copra. And before understanding the circumstances. Maybe we would have killed the idiot, too.”

  I wasn’t sure which part to respond to. “We have the same problem as suspecting Nora Copra. There’s no motive.”

  “I told you, he might have been protecting his mother.”

  “From what?”

  “Who knows? I thought that’s what we were doing tonight, figuring all this out.” Doris eyed me suspiciously. “You don’t get it, do you, Ella?”

  “Get what?”

  “Some children would do anything for a parent.”

  I stared at her in horror. “Even murder?”

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  “Yes, I know, I’m in the business, but it’s too far to reach.”

  “It’s not, Ella. Look at Annie. St. James is in jail for killing the man who attacked her.”

  “It’s still foreign to me.” I shook my head. “You’re the daughter. You’re the older sister. I never had family. I never had anyone to protect. No one ever protected me, either, except for my mentor, but he taught me how to protect myself.”

  “That’s what fathers do.” She tilted her head. “Wouldn’t he have strangled anyone who even looked at you the wrong way?”

  I was about to deny the claim when I was forced to reconsider. Now she mentioned it, his actions did fit some of what she was saying. But he’d never said anything to me.

  Doris swatted my arm. “Come on. Let’s interrogate Copra.”

  “Doris.” I reached out to grab her, but she took off, holding her violet skirts out of harm’s way. Doug was stationed outside Annie’s door, and Doris gained entrance before I arrived. Doug caught me before I could follow; the hint of licorice lingered sweetly on his breath.

  “Ella, is everything all right?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Chris told me something was up, and to be ready to provide protection should the need arise.”

  Everyone was protective tonight. That was understandable, but would regular, average, everyday people murder in cold blood? Oscar Cryer had been poisoned—not stabbed, shot, or beaten. “That’s good advice no matter what the situation, while we’re on duty.”

  “Just tell me if Annie is in danger. Have there been threats? Talk a
bout an attack?”

  “No, Doug.” I squeezed his arm in earnest honesty. “Nothing along those lines.”

  “Thank goodness.” He visibly relaxed, his shoulders lowering and his breathing evening out. So it’s just something you’re up to then? You and Doris?”

  “Now you’re onto something.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me what it is.”

  “You’re on a roll tonight, Doug.”

  “Even if I ask Joe about it?”

  “I don’t think Joe would know who you were, at the moment.”

  “Oh, Ella, he hasn’t been drinking, has he?”

  “Like a fish.”

  “He’ll regret that, come morning.”

  Doug brightened my evening. Who knew how long this murder investigation would last. I wanted to figure it out tonight and be done with it, though it was looking less likely as the number of suspects grew and included people who were not present. The thought of sleeping until noon raised my spirits, so I was grateful Joe was raising his own. He’d sleep like a rock. “Thank you, Doug.”

  He smiled and allowed me entrance into Annie’s room.

  Doris was towering over a shrinking Copra while Annie stood in front of him.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Westin, Copra’s mother had nothing to do with this! We’ve already been down this line and dismissed it.”

  Doris spoke. “You dismissed it. Ella has something even more unsavory to ask.”

  Ella? Thanks a lot, Doris.

  Annie turned cold, blazing eyes at me, daring me to accuse Copra’s mom of anything more. Just wait… “Doris and I are trying to establish if there was any connection between your mama and Oscar Cryer.”

  “There wasn’t,” Annie insisted.

  “Oh, but there was,” Doris said, not unkindly. “The dead man was found in his mama’s bed.”

  “He already told you his mama isn’t strong enough to have killed him.”

  Doris fixed her gaze on me, so I fixed my gaze on Copra and said, “But you are.”

  Annie stomped her foot, her face burning red while Copra’s drained of color. Annie recovered her voice first. “You really think Copra killed this man?”