by Krista Davis
I squatted to Daisy’s level and stroked my wriggling mutt with one hand, while accepting the ornament with the other. Handmade, it appeared to be a hard foam ball covered with glittery beads attached with pins. “Very pretty.”
Zack walked up behind Jen, his mouth grim. “That ornament is one of the items stolen from your brother’s home on Christmas Eve.”
“What?” I stood up.
Jen reached for the ornament. “I made this for Grandma but the thief stole it. Daisy found it behind a bunch of boxes in the back.”
I blinked at her, trying to absorb the implication. How could it have gotten here? “Honey,” I said as gently as I could, “did you make this from a kit? Maybe it just looks like the one you made.”
“Kit? I bought all the beads and made it myself. Look, see how some of the beads are a different shade of silver? They spell out Grandma’s name, Inga.”
So they did. I looked to Zack, bewildered.
“I’ve got three officers phoning the donors to be sure they donated the goods and that they weren’t stolen. So far, everything checks out. This is the only item we’ve found that corresponds to the list of stolen items. I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“The Christmas Eve thief donated something to the auction and included this little bauble? How else could it possibly have gotten here?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Zack ruffled his hair by running a hand through it. “I can’t quite wrap my head around it, though. The timing is a little bit weird. It wasn’t stolen until Christmas Eve, and Bonnie was murdered on the day after Christmas, so she would have had to accept the donation on Christmas Day or before her party.”
A chorus of laughter broke out near the pastries. “Is that Tyler?” I asked. “Could he have accepted the donation?”
“Isn’t he cute!” said Jen. “I’m so crushing on him.”
Zack shot me a look of amusement.
“He is very cute,” I assured her. And he was. The shaggy hair in need of a good cut made him seem boyish, and far younger than his years.
“He told me the police called him about a break-in here last night.” Zack massaged his eyes. “Says nothing is missing.”
I bristled a little. “I’m the one who reported it. I saw someone loading a car in the back. No question about it.”
Zack’s concerned cop expression returned. “But there was no sign of a break-in, right? Could you have confused this building with one of the other stores that back to the alley? They look a lot alike in the rear.”
“I suppose so, but I don’t think so.” I thought back. “No! I’m certain of it. I looked through the show window right there and could see someone moving about in the back with a flashlight.”
“Hey, Tyler!” called Zack.
Tyler ambled over, and Jen blushed. “I think my Aunt Shawna should be in love with you instead of Beau.”
Tyler laughed aloud. “You tell her that.”
“Okay. As soon as Dad springs her from the slammer.”
Tyler’s expression changed fast. “Slammer?”
“Shawna and Phil were arrested early this morning. My brother is trying to get them out of jail,” I explained.
“No!” Tyler shouted it so loud that everyone turned to look. “Not Shawna. I’m sorry, I have to go. Maybe I can help.”
“Just a couple quick things before you leave.” Zack issued that very polite request in a no-nonsense voice. “There were a lot of boxes when we arrived today. How did you know nothing was missing?”
Tyler seemed taken aback. “Nothing had been moved. I didn’t do an inventory, if that’s what you mean. Everything was exactly as I last saw it.”
“And there was no sign of a forced entry?” Zack asked.
Tyler’s mouth pulled to the side. “I checked my coat at Bonnie’s party—you were there,” he said, pointing at me. “Stupidly, I left my keys in the pocket, and when the coat was returned to me, the keys were gone. Initially, I thought I’d just misplaced them, but now it seems apparent that someone took them on purpose.” Tyler jingled coins in his pocket.
Zack fixed him with a cold stare. “Did you accept any donations to the auction?”
“Sure.” Tyler shrugged. “I brought them to Bonnie.”
“Did you receive any between Christmas Eve and the time of Bonnie’s death?”
“No. The shop was closed. If that’s all, I’d like to go see what I can do to help Shawna.”
Zack flicked his hand in approval, but seemed deep in thought.
Tyler hurried out as Hannah floated toward us. She slid an arm around Zack’s waist, and they grinned at each other in that giddy new love sort of way.
“You looked so serious!” she said.
He couldn’t stop the silly grin. “I was just thinking that it has to be more than coincidence that Bonnie was murdered and someone stole the key to get into her office.” He glanced around. “Do you suppose they got what they wanted?”
I drifted over to the coffee and pastries, poured a cup of java, and selected a croissant. I bit into it. Something didn’t seem quite right. It made sense that the killer might have stolen the key to Bonnie’s office, killed her to silence her, then paid a nighttime visit to the office to find whatever she possessed that troubled the killer. If that desk was any indication, though, he might not have found an incriminating document, if that was what he was looking for.
If viewed from that perspective, Shawna might be off the hook. I doubted Bonnie had anything Shawna needed back.
Instinctively, I glanced at the door from which Tyler had left. Had Shawna been involved with Tyler at some point? Did she have something to hide? He certainly had been eager to help her.
“Last box!” called Laci, which caused whooping and high-fiving in the back. She ambled toward me and poured herself a cup of coffee. “I know you needed help to do all this, but it couldn’t have come at a better time. I would have worried about Shawna and Dad nonstop.”
“Have you heard anything?” I was almost afraid to ask.
She shook her head. “I’m going to call George now.”
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed. I debated walking away to give her privacy, but I wanted to know what was going on. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much from her side of the conversation. When she hung up, she said, “He’ll meet us at Bernie’s in an hour.”
“What about Shawna and Phil?”
She swallowed hard. “He didn’t say.” She stared into her coffee cup for a moment. “Sometimes I get upset with George because he keeps things from me. The truth is that he knows me really well and tries to protect me. He knows how agitated I can get, so I try to see his ‘no news’ as good news.”
Couples have odd rituals, and Laci and George were no exception. I would have interpreted his lack of information as some kind of silly power play, but the women in Laci’s family were capable of overreacting, so maybe George had learned this as a coping mechanism.
“One hour? We’d better wrap up here.” I thanked all my helper elves, especially the police, and trusted Hannah and Zack to lock up. I collected Daisy and Jen, deposited Daisy at my house, and headed back to the auction site to pick up Dad. He and his helpers had done an admirable job of arranging all the items on tables around the room for viewing before the auction.
By the time we arrived at The Laughing Hound, it was well past anyone’s idea of lunchtime and heading toward midafternoon. I apologized to Bernie for our slightly grubby appearance, but in his typical easygoing way, he didn’t seem to care.
We’d just been seated when George and Phil walked in. A cheer rose from our table, and a few chairs landed on their backs in the big scramble to embrace Phil. Laci, Marnie, and Jen beamed, and for a few minutes, it looked as if they would never let him go.
Eventually, we made room for Phil to join us at the table, between Laci and Jen. When he sat down, Shawna’s absence became horribly overwhelming.
George spoke and everyone stopped talking to listen. “Sh
awna’s attorney did his best, but they see Shawna as a flight risk because they caught her with Phil, and they’re convinced Phil was going to transport her out of state.”
I glanced over at Phil, who lifted his brows and made a face.
“Phil hasn’t been charged with murder ... yet,” continued George. “He’s not completely off the hook, though. Here’s what we know. The deadly gas was inside a music box, which Shawna gave Bonnie as a gift. There’s not much doubt about that. Shawna admits giving it to her, and her name was on the gift tag.”
Laci frowned at him. “I love my sister, but she nearly flunked high school chemistry. Even if she meant to kill Bonnie, which I don’t think was the case, where would she get deadly gas?”
George sighed. “We have it in our house.”
TWENTY
From “THE GOOD LIFE ONLINE” :
SOPHIE’S TIP
Don’t forget to remove batteries from animated decorations, candles, and Christmas toys before storing them. Batteries can corrode, damaging the items permanently.
Laci’s eyes sprang wide. “Impossible!”
George nodded. “I’m willing to bet we all do. It seems that if you combine ammonia, which most people have for window washing, with bleach, it makes an unbelievably deadly chlorine gas. People innocently make it at home all the time, thinking they’re getting a better and stronger cleaning agent.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “How could the gas be contained in the box? Wouldn’t it have leeched out?”
“The two ingredients were in separate plastic bags in the lined movement compartment. The cops are saying when Bonnie wound it up to play its song, the winding action broke the bags, the ammonia and bleach combined and wafted out. If Bonnie had been farther away from the box, she might have survived, but she probably held it on her lap and inhaled it before she realized what was happening.”
“I thought I smelled chlorine in her house, but chalked it up to Bonnie being a cleaning fiend,” I said.
George raised his eyebrows. “It’s a good thing you broke that big window so fresh air could blow into the house.”
No wonder Kenner called it devious. What kind of person would do anything so heinous? As we bit into an assortment of Bernie’s fabulous oversized sandwiches, I tuned out the conversation and entertained serious doubts about my judgment. I’d thought Bonnie was lovely, but she’d pulled a fast one on Phil with that engagement business. Beau had said Bonnie thought Shawna and her family were beneath them. Had she tried to break them up? Had she stolen Beau’s engagement ring and ruined his proposal by making her own announcement of an engagement? What a contrast to the thoughtful, caring person who came up with the Auld Lang Syne Auction. Had I misjudged Shawna, too? The police had to be wrong. I didn’t know her all that well, but I never would have expected her to be capable of such a clever murder. The killer didn’t need to be at the scene of the crime, and the murder weapon—the gas—would have dissipated into thin air before the police arrived.
I bit into my veggie-surprise sandwich. Creamy avocado contrasted with the fresh crispness of julienned cucumber. Red delicious apples and an occasional spark of lingonberry provided the surprise.
Meanwhile, Laci’s family speculated about the poison gas and Shawna. I forced myself to pay attention.
“Then someone has to talk with Shawna,” said Mom. “Someone she would confide in.” I couldn’t help noticing that Mom stared at Laci when she said that.
There was one other person at our table who’d been very quiet. Zack chewed on an onion ring and listened attentively. “I don’t know Shawna. Could she be protecting someone? Who would she be willing to go to jail for?”
He’d honed in on the right question.
“Do you think they’d let me talk to her this afternoon?” Laci asked George.
“We’ll take Jen home. I’ve been wanting to play Cat-opoly.” Mom winked at Jen.
Weariness overcame me as we finished our late lunch, and even a strong cup of tea did nothing to reenergize me.
Hannah and Zack, now in the hand-holding stage of their romance, chose to go to a movie, so for the first time in days, I would be home alone.
When we were collecting our coats, Hannah pulled me aside. “Guess what I found out. The kid who lives next door to George and Laci—Edward Chadwick—he wasn’t at the pageant like he said he was.”
“He’s the thief?” I hated to think that. He’d loaned his camera to Jen. Surely a thief wouldn’t do that. Or had he offered it out of guilt? “Are they going to arrest him?”
“They don’t have evidence yet, just the fact that he lied about where he was.” She raised her eyebrows at me and slipped into her coat.
Everyone scattered to their appointed destinations. Early darkness fell as I drove home. I found a parking space a block away and trudged toward my house. The automatic candles in the windows had already clicked on. I let myself in, shared a mini-lovefest with Daisy and Mochie, and snapped a leash on Daisy for her evening walk.
We hadn’t reached the sidewalk when I heard, “Yoohoo, Sophie!”
Natasha strode toward us and handed me a gift.
“What’s this?”
“It’s really for Daisy, and somehow in the commotion of Christmas, we overlooked it. Daisy will forgive me”—she bent her head ever so slightly in Daisy’s direction—“won’t you?”
“Thanks!” We walked under a streetlight. I ripped open the elegant wrapping paper and did a double take. The halter and leash with Daisy’s name on the fabric was exactly like the one I’d given Mars for Christmas.
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? It’s a special leash with Daisy’s name on it.”
“It’s exactly like the one Mars said he wanted. It’s made for running with special give in the leash so the dog can move ahead or slow down.”
“Oh?” Her tone changed as though she recognized her blunder. “Oh! Well, now Daisy has one.”
“You’re regifting this, aren’t you?”
Natasha laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“I gave this to Mars for Christmas.”
Natasha inhaled noisily. She composed herself quickly and giggled. “It had to happen someday, I suppose. I thought it was from Bernie.”
“I can’t believe you regift! Does Mars even know about the halter and leash?”
“Oh, don’t play innocent. Everyone regifts.”
“I don’t!” I protested.
“Then your friends and family must have better taste than mine. I can’t have all that stuff cluttering up the house. You just keep the halter at your place, okay?”
I wanted to shove it into her face and demand she take it home to Mars, but I had a bad feeling it might land in the trash. It would be better if I handed it to him personally.
A little miffed that my gift had bypassed Mars entirely, I wondered how many other gifts I’d given them that landed elsewhere. “You’re always so proper. I can’t believe you regift.”
“Everyone does, Sophie. Once a gift is given, it’s the property of the recipient, and he or she has every right to give it to someone else.”
I shook my head. Nothing like the spirit of the holiday. I always took such joy in picking out something special and hoping the person would love it. That was more fun than getting gifts as far as I was concerned. “C’mon, Daisy, let’s find a spot for your new harness.”
Natasha smiled sweetly, and I figured she thought she’d won, but she wasn’t through with Daisy’s harness just yet ... I was just too beat to tangle with Natasha.
Poor Daisy got a short walk. Too tired to do anything requiring mental acuity, I switched on a movie. Leaving the rest of the lights off, I turned on the lights in the little Christmas village Jen had helped me set up. Grabbing a throw, I snuggled up on the sofa with Mochie and drifted off.
I jerked upright out of a dead sleep thirty minutes later. The kittens! Where were the kittens?
I ran to the study and through
the living room and dining room. No sign of kittens. Were they asleep upstairs on Hannah’s bed? I chugged up the two flights of stairs and staggered into the attic bedroom. No kittens. This couldn’t be happening. Had they found some chink in the wall of my old house and crawled inside it?
I stood completely still and listened for mewing but only heard silence. “Jasper! Alice! Here, kitties!” I didn’t hear a thing. Dread that they might be in trouble weighed on me. I walked down to my bedroom on the second floor to retrieve a flashlight from my nightstand. The closet door stood ajar, and Daisy poked her nose into the depths, wagging her tail. I looked more carefully and found Alice and Jasper curled up together, asleep in my laundry basket. They yawned and blinked their bright eyes at me. Laughing, I scooped them up and carried them downstairs to feed them before I hunkered down on the sofa again.
Dawn struggled to cut through heavy clouds on the day of the auction. I showered and pinned my hair up in a loose version of a French twist so I wouldn’t have to worry about it all day.
As soon as I opened my closet door, little balls of fur zoomed past me and jumped into my laundry basket again. I giggled about their fondness for the laundry and heaved them out.
The Christmas season would soon be over, so I dressed in a deep green sweater with white angora sleeves and shoulders, and matching green trousers. The waistband was tight. Achingly tight. After promising myself that I would lose weight in the new year—sure I would—I relented and used the old rubber band through the button hole method to close the top of the pants. The sweater hung over the waistband, so no one would be the wiser.
I convinced myself that I needed a hearty breakfast, though. After a cold stroll with Daisy under leaden skies that threatened more snow, I made a bowl of oatmeal to fortify myself and shared it with Daisy. Mochie, Alice, and Jasper preferred kitty salmon.
I left a note for Hannah, lectured Mochie about being polite to the kittens, and donned a cozy hooded jacket for the walk to the auction site.
