by Krista Davis
I found it hard to imagine that Natasha would have any reason to murder Shawna, unless she thought Shawna had designs on Mars—but that was silly. Shawna only had eyes for Beau.
Oy. My head spun. I needed a drink to warm up from standing out in the cold, too. I ventured toward the kitchen. The girls had started a fire in the fireplace and turned on the Christmas lights. They kneeled on the seat in the bay window with the kittens, looking out at their snowman and the neighbors’ festive lights.
“Have you tired of hot chocolate yet?” I asked.
“No!” they chimed.
“Natasha won’t make hot chocolate,” said Vegas. “She says it’s too fattening.”
That sounded like Natasha. There were simply times when one deserved to indulge and the holidays certainly qualified.
I stirred milk into the pot, finding it hard to concentrate. Although I had my doubts about Shawna being clever enough to come up with the idea of gassing Bonnie, somehow the situation had seemed sort of simple. Natasha’s new information had expanded the field of suspects and, even worse, the potential field of intended victims.
I poured the hot chocolate into three mugs decorated with snowmen, sprinkled minimarshmallows on top, and garnished each one with a candy cane.
When I handed them to the girls, Vegas said, “Wow. I don’t know why Natasha pretends that you’re not a domestic goddess like she is.”
I bit back a grin. “Thanks, Vegas. Natasha and I have different styles.” I resisted the urge to add—and Natasha thinks her way is the only way.
I settled into a chair by the crackling fire, and tried to lure Mochie onto my lap. He paced angrily, hissing at Daisy, who did nothing to deserve his ire. Otherwise, my warm kitchen in semidarkness evoked all the wonder of the holidays. Snow fell outside, but the neighbors’ Christmas lights sparkled across the street. The girls, perhaps exhausted from their snowman building, had fallen silent.
My eyelids grew heavy, and I thought about setting up a movie for the girls to watch so I could sneak a nap.
But a strobing light flickered through the bay window and Vegas screamed, “Daddy!”
TWENTY-THREE
From “THE GOOD LIFE” :
Dear Sophie,
I have four dogs. Between leashes and harnesses, I have a tangled mess filling a drawer and can never find what I need. How can I store them so they won’t tangle?
—Dog Mom in Angel City, Florida
Dear Dog Mom,
I’m a big fan of peg rails, especially for leashes. Hang one on each peg and they won’t tangle anymore. No room for a peg rail? Look for an expanding peg rail. They’re also useful in the kitchen for mugs and hanging utensils.
—Sophie
I jumped up, spilling hot chocolate on my sleeve and pant leg. “What’s wrong?” I looked out the window and saw a police car, but no one else.
Too late. Vegas had run to the foyer.
“What did you see?” I shouted, running to the foyer. “Your dad isn’t out there.”
Vegas turned toward me for all of a second. “I have to be sure he’s okay. He’s all I have left.” She tore out the door. Jen raced after Vegas, and Daisy loped along in the street. I slammed the door behind me and dashed outside, grateful that there wasn’t much traffic due to the snow. A police car was parked at the curb in front of Natasha’s house. Teal Christmas lights still glowed along the handrail leading up stairs to the door. I still stood at the bottom, catching my breath, when the door opened and Vegas, Jen, and Daisy disappeared inside. I could hear Natasha yell, “What is that dog doing in my house?”
Kenner stood at the door, and I guessed he was confused about whether to enter. As far as I could tell, Natasha had chased after the girls and Daisy.
The girls would be fine, but I didn’t want Natasha to be unkind to Daisy. I rushed up the stairs, panting, passed Kenner, and paused in the foyer, trying to hear where they’d all gone.
It wasn’t hard to figure out. Natasha shouted, “Have you lost your minds? You’re tracking snow all over my hardwood floors!” I peeked in the room to my right.
My ex-husband, Mars, rubbed Daisy’s ears, apparently unconcerned about Natasha’s ire. Vegas clung to a younger man with a military haircut, who seemed extremely uncomfortable, and Jen looked on, cringing.
Still ranting, Natasha stormed toward me, fussing about the melting ice on the floor. She didn’t get far, though. Kenner blocked the doorway to the foyer.
He flashed his badge, which I thought unnecessary, but given Natasha’s state of mind, maybe he thought it would lend an official tone to his visit.
“I’d like to have a word with you,” he said to Natasha.
“I have to get a mop,” she growled.
“What’s going on?” asked Mars.
Kenner ignored him. “Is there someplace we could speak privately?”
“Excuuuse me! I have to mop the floor.” Natasha brushed past Kenner, and his face turned the shade of a candied apple. His nostrils flared and he waited, as frozen and motionless as the snowman the girls built.
“Won’t you have a seat?” asked Mars, ever the diplomatic political consultant.
Natasha swept back into the room. “The dog is not allowed in my living room.”
I thought Kenner might explode.
Cleaning is not my favorite thing. In fact, it’s pretty much at the bottom of the list, but there are times when you have to do what’s right. “Let me do that for you,” I said gently, taking the mop.
Natasha held fast, and for one long, painful moment, we all stared at her in silence.
“Is there someplace we could speak privately?” Kenner asked again. It sounded like he was gritting his teeth when he spoke.
Natasha let loose of the mop. “What on earth for? Mars, get that dog out of my living room.”
I swished the mop a bit to satisfy Natasha.
“Ma’am, I am here on official police business. You don’t seem to understand that.” The words pelted from Kenner’s mouth.
Natasha flashed me an annoyed must-I-do-everything-myself look, seized the mop, and asked Kenner testily, “What do you want?”
“Did you give Shawna Lane a gift recently?”
“Yes.”
“What was the nature of the gift?”
Natasha continued mopping and glared at me. “It was a music box that Ginger Chadwick gave me, evidently intending to kill me.”
“Natasha!” cautioned Mars.
“Excuse me, I have to wring out the mop.” She left the room and returned shortly. “Mars, what is it about ‘the dog is not allowed in my living room’ that you’re finding so difficult to comprehend?” She mopped her way to Daisy’s feet.
Kenner turned to me, eyes wide, cheeks gaunt, complexion purple. He swung back toward Natasha and barked, “Sit down!”
Natasha plunked onto the sofa next to Mars, and Jen scrambled in my direction. I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“Are you saying that this Ginger Chadwick intended to kill you?” asked Kenner.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Oh, good heavens, Natasha,” grumbled Mars.
“Has she made threats?” asked Kenner.
“I thought policemen were supposed to be bright. Isn’t it obvious? I did not plant anything in the music box, and I hardly think Shawna has the IQ to pull it off. Ergo, it must have been Ginger.”
Jen turned her face up to me and whispered, “The Ginger who lives next door to me tried to kill Natasha?”
As much as I hated to miss the rest of Kenner’s interview, the time had come for Jen and Vegas to leave. I borrowed a leash from Mars and coaxed the girls to come home with Daisy and me.
Vegas bit her top lip, looking like she might burst into tears. “You’ll still be here in the morning, won’t you, Daddy?”
Her father’s face wrinkled with pain and worry. “You bet! You have fun now.”
“Wait!” Natasha called out.
I thought Ke
nner’s face might explode from high blood pressure when Natasha disappeared to the kitchen. She returned with a pizza packed in a robin’s egg blue pizza box with NATASHA printed across it. “It’s shiitake mushroom and venison burger with rosemary and Asiago cheese. Enjoy it, girls!”
Curious about what Kenner would do next, I wished I could stay, but the fire still blazed in my kitchen, and we had to get back. None of us had even worn our coats. We rushed through the blowing snow, relieved to reach the warmth of my foyer.
We hadn’t been gone long. Still, I was relieved that the fire had dwindled substantially in the kitchen fireplace. I threw another log on and sent the girls up to my closet to find dry clothes to wear. They sprang up the stairs gossiping about Natasha and murder, with Alice and Jasper racing ahead of them and Mochie stalking the kittens from behind.
I set the table with a bright red and white tablecloth, and washed crisp Romaine lettuce for a salad. The tiredness I’d felt earlier had vanished, probably from the cold snow, or the scene between Kenner and Natasha. I chopped crunchy pecans to throw in the salad, along with apples and celery, and whisked together a vinaigrette with apple cider vinegar.
I was cutting the pizza when the girls pranced into the kitchen decked out in evening clothes. They’d hit Vegas’s new makeup kit and my closet, and somewhere, they’d even found two boas that they threw around with pomp. Jen turned on funky Christmas music and the two of them paraded like they were models on a runway with all the enthusiasm of “almost thirteen-year-olds.”
After dinner, they pulled out the sofa in the family room, fetched fresh sheets and down comforters, and settled in to watch movies. They changed into jammies but still wore their boas and flicked them around.
I ought to have gone up to bed, but some sense of duty compelled me to curl up under a throw in a big chair with my feet propped up on a hassock.
When I woke up a few hours later, the girls were asleep, looking as angelic as the kittens that nestled by their feet. I switched off the TV and the Christmas lights and dragged upstairs to my bed. Daisy and Mochie joined me, ready to settle down.
In the morning, the girls were still asleep when I tiptoed downstairs to make coffee. While it brewed, I threw on a winter coat and took Daisy outside at the exact time that Natasha marched along the sidewalk.
Snowplows had worked their magic during the night, but I noted that I needed to shovel the snow from the sidewalk in front of my house.
She thrust a foil-covered dish in my hands. “This is for Vegas. The girls will need a decent breakfast.”
I almost laughed at her feeble attempt at a slight.
“I baked extra, in case your family is still around. Make no mistake, however, that I’m furious with you for reporting me to the police. I thought we were friends.”
We were, in a weird way. “I did no such thing.”
“Please, Sophie. I tell you about the music box and less than an hour later a cop shows up to grill me? I’m not stupid.”
That last part was debatable. “I did not call the police. In fact, if you paid any attention to me, you’d know that I loathe Kenner and wouldn’t call him except under the most dire circumstances. I did, however, call George and Laci, because it puts Shawna’s case in a new light.”
“Honestly, I can’t imagine who would have thought she was smart enough to create a poison gas in the first place. Of course, that just makes me appear to be the guilty one since I have skills and could have pulled it off.” She scowled at me. “How do you get me mixed up in these things?”
Me? “I had nothing to do with it. If you hadn’t regifted the music box, you wouldn’t be in this pickle.”
“I’d be dead.” She placed three fingertips on her forehead like a drama queen. “Thank goodness I regifted it. It could have been me who inhaled the poison instead of Bonnie.” She removed her hand from her face and cast her gaze toward my house. “I was saved for a reason.”
Give me a break. “Because everyone wants to be you?”
“Face it, Sophie. They do. Bonnie and Ginger would love to be domestic divas like me. But I was saved because of Vegas. Mars and I have no choice, we have to take her in when her dad returns to the military.”
My knees nearly buckled. No one I knew was less nurturing or maternal than Natasha. “She’s going to live with you?”
“Can you believe it? The child has nowhere else to go, and you know Mars, he’s a sucker for anyone in need. Oh, Sophie! What have we done? I know nothing about children.”
I pitied Vegas. Life with a perfectionist like Natasha wouldn’t be easy. All I could do was try to reassure her. “You’re doing a generous and wonderful thing. Besides, Vegas isn’t a baby ...” I swallowed the rest of my thought—she’s almost a teenager. Babies were probably easier than teens!
“Send her home after breakfast, okay? Does this mean I need to schedule play dates?”
It was a rhetorical question, muttered as she walked away. I watched her, proud she was going to care for Vegas, but worried, too, since Natasha never thought about anyone but herself.
I carried the breakfast into my kitchen, where Vegas was pouring herself a mug of coffee. Jen looked on, and I had a bad feeling she was experiencing extreme peer pressure to be mature. “Would you prefer tea or hot chocolate?” I asked.
“I adore coffee,” said Vegas.
To help Jen save face, I zapped a little milk in the microwave. “I’m having café au lait. So much more decadent than plain old coffee.” Before they could object, I diluted their coffees with generous quantities of hot milk and suggested they add sugar.
Hannah stumbled in wearing a bathrobe. Jen and Vegas tittered and whispered to each other. When Hannah sat at the table nursing a mug of coffee, Jen cried, “Oh, Zack!” Vegas and Jen immediately smooched the backs of their hands as though they were kissing boys.
Hannah smiled coyly. “I thought I heard some mice scurrying around last night when I came in.”
The girls burst into giggles.
“Did you invite him to our New Year’s Eve dinner tomorrow night?” I asked.
“Of course. I have such a great time with him.”
That brought on a fresh bout of unmerciful teasing by the girls while we ate Natasha’s rich ham and cheese brioches. Light and buttery dough encasing salty meat and melted cheese—heavenly! Even if Natasha wasn’t the best mother type in the world, at least Vegas would eat well.
After breakfast, Vegas walked home, and Jen, Hannah, and I drove to George’s house so we could return Jen to her parents. When we arrived, except for the fact that the sun shone, the scene was so reminiscent of Christmas Eve that Hannah and I simultaneously chanted, “Déjà vu!”
Neighbors mingled on their lawns, and spilled into the road. I pulled into a spot behind a parked police car. Jen jumped out and ran to Laci, George, Phil, and my dad, who stood in George’s driveway with Tom Thorpe. They all held steaming mugs.
Hannah and I joined them. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Not another theft?”
“It’s Kenner,” said George. “We think he’s here to talk to Ginger about trying to poison Natasha.”
“Great news for us.” Phil lifted his mug like he was toasting Ginger. “They’re more likely to let Shawna out of jail if they suspect Ginger.”
“I feel terrible.” Tom held his warm mug in both hands. “I was the one who suggested they work together on the Christmas decorations. Who would have thought someone would commit murder over something like that? And it was our Bonnie who died as a result. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Where’s Mom?” asked Hannah.
Laci’s mouth twisted in disapproval. “Babysitting my mother. We don’t want her out here. There’s no telling what she might say to Kenner.”
“Why is everyone standing around outside?” I asked. “It’s not like you can hear what’s going on between Ginger and Kenner.”
George snorted. “Are you kidding? The meanest woman in the neighborhood accused of murder?
This is high drama for our street.”
Their patience paid off. The door to Ginger’s house flew open, Kenner marched out, pale as the snow dusting the trees, and Ginger’s husband Forrest ran after him shouting, “It’s a lie. I’m telling you—my wife is lying.”
TWENTY-FOU R
From “THE GOOD LIFE” :
Dear Sophie,
I’m pregnant and my mother-in-law has already told me I can’t put up a tree next year because of the baby. I think that’s ridiculous, but she insists the tree will fall on him. What do other people do?
—Expecting in North Star, Michigan
Dear Expecting,
Congratulations! Don’t worry about your mother-in-law’s predictions. Protect the baby and the tree by placing the tree inside a baby or dog playpen!
—Sophie
A titter spread through the little crowd.
Kenner stopped in front of Tom Thorpe. “I need to speak to your son—the one they call Dasher.”
“Has Ginger made allegations against him again? She has a vendetta against my boy, especially now that he’s going to be the father of her grandchild. She’d like nothing more than to saddle some kind of blame on him.”
Kenner appeared unmoved. “I need to speak with him and Emma.”
Tom shook his head. “They left.”
“Left?” sputtered Kenner. “For where?”
“They sell their artwork and crafts at fairs. I think they were headed south—to Florida.”
“You see?” Forrest Chadwick preened. “Maybe now you’ll believe me. I told you they weren’t here.”
