Gingerbread and a Murder

by Kathleen Suzette

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “It must have been a stressful thing to go through. Losing a house.”

  “Why do you ask, Rainey?” Carol asked me.

  I shrugged. “I knew Roger was in real estate and I just wondered if that was one of the houses you all bought. It’s in a nice, older neighborhood. I bet it will sell quickly.”

  “It is in a good location,” Roger said. “You know what they say. Location, location, location. It should be the most important factor when you buy a house.”

  “I agree. I recently bought a house, and it’s in a nice quiet neighborhood,” I said.

  I sighed inwardly at having dodged that question. Poor Susan. That house and its memories had been important to her. Losing a house is tough. Losing a house during the holidays is tougher. But would it be enough to cause her to make the Joneses lose something that meant even more to them?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Christmas Eve dawned clear and bright and it gave me a warm feeling in spite of the brisk cold air. I had the day off from the diner and the newspaper was closed. It was going to be a wonderful day. I had stayed up late the night before and gotten all the presents wrapped and they were sitting prettily beneath my Christmas tree. Cade and I had plans to attend a church service in the evening and then we’d drive around town and look at Christmas lights. Chinese takeout would follow that up, and then we’d relax in front of the fireplace and sip cocoa. I could pinch myself. It felt like I was finally living the life I had always dreamed of.

  I had high hopes for the coming year. I was almost finished writing my cookbook, and I had been promised a few more hours at the newspaper. I still wanted to write more than lifestyle articles, but I did enjoy what I was doing. If I could wrangle a publishing contract for my cookbook, I might be able to pay back the money I had borrowed from my mother for the down payment on my house. I sighed. The new year was going to be wonderful with Cade in my life. If someone had told me at the beginning of this year, things would turn around for me as they had, I would have said they were crazy.

  But, I couldn’t get what the Joneses had said about Susan Lang and her house out of my mind. I also couldn’t get what Susan had said about decorating her house for Christmas out of my mind, either. She had had me convinced it was true.

  Cade was at the police station and I had time to kill until he got off work, so I got into my car and drove around town. The season had gone so quickly and it wouldn’t be long before all the lights were taken down and we’d be back to our regular world. It had snowed two days earlier, and it had stuck, making Sparrow look like a winter wonderland. We still hadn’t gotten around to building the snowman that Cade said he wanted to build, but if he got off work early enough, maybe we could fit it in before the church service.

  I thought I would stop in at the British Coffee and Tea Company and get what would probably be my last candy cane mocha of the season as well as say hello to Agatha. But as I was driving, I couldn’t get Susan Lang living at the Hello Motel out of my mind. Elaine hadn’t said what room she saw Susan in, so it probably wouldn’t do me any good to go by there, but it wouldn’t hurt either.

  I pulled into the parking lot and sat with my engine idling, taking it in. The motel needed a good cleaning and a fresh paint job. It wasn’t a place I would want to stay. I turned the engine off and looked around the parking lot, but I didn’t know what kind of car Susan drove.

  As I watched, a maid pushed her cleaning cart into a room. A couple of kids came out of the room and scampered about in the parking lot. They looked to be about eight and nine and they had a small ball they bounced to each other. The ball got away from the boy and both he and his sister ran after it. It bounced beneath a dark blue sedan and they knelt beside it to take a look for it. It made me sad that these kids would be spending Christmas in this motel. I hoped they would benefit from the toys donated to Santa’s workshop and that it wouldn’t be a disappointing Christmas for them.

  As I watched the kids hunt for the ball beneath the car, my eyes fell on the license plate. SUSNLNG. It was personalized and must have meant something to the owner, and I tried to come up with what it might mean. I don’t want to brag, but I figured out it must mean ‘Susan Lang’ in under three minutes. Some days I wasn’t real quick.

  It was parked in front of room number eight. The blinds were drawn, and I wondered if I should go up and knock on the door. What would I say to her? ‘Surprise! I came to see your Christmas decorations’? That hardly seemed appropriate. I bit my lower lip. I could knock on the door and say I was looking for a friend, but no one I knew would want to stay at this motel.

  After a few minutes, I took a deep breath and decided to do it. I could tell her I saw her go into the motel. I could tell her I wanted to invite her to my family’s Christmas dinner the following day. I didn’t know Susan all that well, but it was Christmas and everyone was doing things they don’t normally do at other times of the year. It was sad that a lot of people didn’t do more charitable things all year, but it was true, nonetheless. Maybe I could also invite the kids and whoever they lived with. I watched as the maid came out of room nine and the kids went back inside. Whatever she had done in there, it wasn’t a thorough cleaning.

  I got out of my car and went to the door of room eight and knocked. When Susan opened the door, her eyes went wide. She stood, her mouth open in surprise.

  I smiled. “Hi, Susan,” I said and waited to see what she would say once the surprise wore off.

  “Hi, Rainey,” she said slowly. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

  “Sorry to just pop over here like this, Susan,” I said. She was dressed in gray sweats, a white t-shirt, and a ratty pink bathrobe. “I was just in the neighborhood.”

  Her eyes went behind me, scanning the parking lot, and she pulled her robe around herself. “I have to go to work soon,” she said and took a small step backward, making a move to close the door.

  “Susan, I know this is awkward, but I wondered about tomorrow. If you don’t have any plans, would you like to come to my house for Christmas dinner?” It sounded lame, even in my own ears. We both knew things weren’t right here.

  She looked at me, the surprise not fully gone from her face. “That’s so sweet of you—I have plans though.” She nodded in an attempt to convince me.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay. Well, I just thought I’d stop by and ask.”

  “I—I don’t live here.” Her face was turning pale.

  “Oh? Oh, of course not,” I said and waited.

  She licked her lips. “My house is being painted. It was a mess. I didn’t want to get in the worker’s way, you know, so I decided to stay at a motel for a few days. I should have thought things through before scheduling the painters to come so close to Christmas.” She shrugged and tried to laugh it off.

  I nodded. “Of course.” I didn’t know what to do next. Had I just humiliated a woman that was trying her best to survive a tough situation? And then I thought I better get down to business. I really wouldn’t mind her coming to Christmas dinner. It was the least I could do. “It’s tough, losing a home this time of year. I’m sorry.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and she gave a short nod of her head. “It is. But, things will get better. I know they will.”

  “Of course. You’re still more than welcome to come to dinner.”

  “I’ll be okay. Everything will work out.” She forced herself to smile.

  “I’m sure it will,” I said. “Sometimes things don’t turn out as we’d planned. I know that feeling. I thought I’d be married to my ex-husband for the rest of my life.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. I waited while she came up with what she wanted to say.

  “It’s a shame that those with money feel they can take advantage of the less fortunate, especially this time of year,” she finally said and nearly choked with the bitterness in her voice. “But you know how it is. Karma never lets the guilty go free.”

  “What do
you mean?” I asked, hoping she would say more.

  “You know, an eye for an eye,” she said with a smirk.

  “You mean a daughter for a house?” I asked.

  “Whatever it takes,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “A house doesn’t compare to a human life,” I pointed out. There were butterflies in my stomach and now I wished I had waited to talk to Cade about this before coming here.

  “I find that when you commit one evil act, the act that comes back to you is worse than what you did. It’s the way the world works. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

  I shook my head. “What a terrible way to think,” I said. I took a step forward and placed my foot against the door. My phone was in my pocket and I pulled it out.

  She shoved me, and I lost my grip on my phone as it flew out of my hand. She pulled a knife from her robe pocket and my eyes went to it. It was a serrated steak knife with a cheap plastic handle.

  “It’s a terrible neighborhood, and it’s all I have to protect myself,” she explained with a grin. “Let’s go for a drive.”

  I backed up, keeping an eye on the knife and she stepped outside her room. She reached back and locked the door, then fished her car keys from her pocket.

  I stepped back again and without a word, I kicked her arm with all my might. I had recently returned to the gym and my kickboxing skills were in full form. She screamed, and the knife flew from her hand. I kicked her again, this time in the thigh and she dropped to her knees with a scream.

  “You broke my leg!” she howled.

  I was sorry to see the door to room number nine open, and a woman looked out, the two kids peeking out from behind her. I didn’t want the kids to see this.

  “It’s okay,” I assured them and went to where my phone had landed. While Susan cried and cussed me, I picked up my phone and called Cade.

  Susan shrieked again and told the woman I was assaulting her and asked for help. “The only help I’m giving is calling the police,” the woman said and slammed her door.

  I dialed Cade and told him Susan Lang had killed Chrissy. Christmas would never be the same for a lot of people, but especially for the Joneses and Susan Lang.

  Chapter Twenty

  It didn’t take much to take Susan down. She wasn’t in great shape and I had caught her off guard. If the motel hadn’t been in such a lousy part of town, she wouldn’t have had that knife in the pocket of her robe and might not have even tried anything.

  The woman in room nine had done what she said she was going to do. She dialed 911. Cade and the police were there at the motel within minutes. While we waited, the maid came out of room ten and helped me keep Susan there in the parking lot by spraying her face with antibacterial cleaner. Having been far more dramatic than necessary about a supposed broken leg, she had tried to limp over to her car to make a getaway. I threatened to give her another kick, this time to her head, and that helped convince her to stay put. Kick boxing classes came in handy.

  I had invited the woman with the children in room nine at the Hello Motel to Christmas dinner, but she had declined. I think I might have scared them a little when I kicked Susan in the leg. She had assured me that the children had received some donated toys and they had plenty of food. There was a small Christmas tree in their window and wrapped presents beneath it, so I let it go. Life could be hard, but it seemed that she had taken care of what mattered to the kids at Christmas. I wished them well and came home to wait for Cade.

  Cade and I had missed the church service we had planned to attend, and it was nearly eleven o’clock by the time he got free after questioning Susan. That meant no Christmas lights or Chinese food, either. Everything was closed up tight by the time he got to my house, so I whipped up grilled cheese sandwiches and a piece of leftover Noel cake. But now we were finally sitting in front of that roaring fire, snuggled up together on the sofa with a cup of cocoa. It was cozy, and I was sleepy, but the Christmas tree was so pretty by the light of the fire. I leaned my head on Cade’s shoulder and closed my eyes. My dog Maggie dozed with her head on Cade’s shoes, having enjoyed several bites of his grilled cheese sandwich.

  “Do I have to tell you that I want you to stay out of trouble?” Cade murmured. He had held back and so far wasn’t complaining about me asking suspects if they had murdered anyone recently.

  “No, I’ve heard it enough,” I said sleepily.

  “Good. I’m tired of saying it. I just wish you’d listen.”

  I chuckled. “My mother didn’t have any more success at getting me to eat my vegetables than you have in keeping me out of trouble. Still, it’s a shame. Chrissy is dead because of a foreclosed house. I mean, I get that it’s an awful thing to have happen, but it isn’t worth anyone’s life.”

  “Nope. Sure isn’t.”

  “I don’t get why she blamed the Joneses. They just bought the house at auction,” I mused.

  “She said when her negotiations with the bank failed, and the Joneses bought her house, she tried to buy the house back from them. When they refused, she tried to rent it from them. She was angry and bitter when they refused. But then she changed her story, saying she never missed any house payments, and that Carol Jones arranged for her to lose her home so she and her husband could buy it. I guess the frustration built up, and she decided to take something they loved from them,” he said and took a sip of his cocoa.

  “When I stopped in at the store, she went on and on about how she had decorated every room in her house for Christmas and her late husband thought she was going overboard. She sounded as if she still lived there and I honestly thought that was true. I think the grief of losing her husband must have played into it all. Losing her husband and then the house where they had made so many happy memories drove her over the edge.”

  “She did in fact say she felt like she was losing her husband all over again,” he said. “Sad.”

  “It really is. Do you ever feel bad when you arrest people that have a sad story behind why they did what they did?” I asked him.

  “If I did, it would affect my ability to do my job. Sure, it’s sad that she lost her husband and her home, and it’s very sad the loss of the house was during the holiday season. But, losing a daughter far outweighs any pain she experienced in losing the house. The Joneses have to live with that for the rest of their lives.”

  I sighed. There was no easy way out of either of these situations. “I wish things could have turned out differently.”

  “Me too.”

  “How did she do it?”

  “She stewed over losing the house and decided that Carol and Roger should lose something dear to them as repayment for stealing her house, as she puts it. She was angry that Chrissy won the gingerbread house decorating contest and it occurred to her that it would be fitting to kill Chrissy and stick her under the table that held the winning entries.”

  “That’s really twisted,” I said.

  “Isn’t it though? She lured Chrissy to the workshop with Natalie’s cake decorating kit. She thought Chrissy would be petty enough to want it just so Natalie couldn’t have it, so she stole the kit. She was right. Chrissy fell for it and met her there after hours where Susan hit her on the head with a brick.”

  I sighed. “That’s just nuts.”

  “It is indeed.”

  I sat for a few minutes, taking this in. Then I looked at him. “Hey, why don’t we open the traditional Christmas Eve present? It’s still Christmas Eve for a couple more minutes,” I said, getting up and heading to the tree. I had bought Cade several presents, and I still wasn’t sure I had done a very good job figuring out what to get for him. But there was one thing I thought he was going to enjoy. I picked up a present from beneath the tree and brought it to him.

  He eyed me. “Your present is at my apartment. We can wait until tomorrow.”

  “No. It’s tradition and traditions are important,” I said and handed him the gift. I decided the socks could wait. I wanted to see his reaction to what I h
ad bought for him.

  He smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. I hoped I hadn’t brought up sad memories for him. He took it from me and slowly began unwrapping the paper, a pretty design with a white background and red glittery Christmas bells on it.

  When he tore open the paper enough to see what was in it, he looked up at me and gave me a genuine smile. “You are something else.”

  “Thank you,” I said and sat beside him again.

  “I’ve wanted an Orvis fly-fishing rod for a while now. I haven’t gone fly-fishing in years.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” I said. “I wasn’t sure if it was something you’d like, but I thought I’d take a chance since you’ve been hinting to me for months now that you wanted to go fishing.”

  “And now we’re going to have to get you a rod so we can go together,” he said.