Silent Night, Deadly Night

by Vicki Delany

  It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, less than a week before the Santa Claus parade, and my parents had moved their cars out of the garage so we could convert a rented flatbed truck into a remote outpost in the Swiss Alps. True to his word, Alan had arranged for George Mann and his World War II–era tractor to pull it.

  “It’s almost noon,” I said. “I’d better be going if the store’s to open on time.”

  “Catch you later, Merry.” Kyle lifted the case of beer that was his payment for the morning’s work. “Coming, babe?”

  “Sure,” Jackie said. “I’m stopping at my place to change and then I’ll be right there. You can take your time if you want, Merry. I can open the shop today.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “On time.”

  “Alan,” she said, “did Merry tell you I’ve been promoted?”

  “No, she didn’t,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  She puffed up her chest ever so slightly. “Assistant manager.” Kyle bumped her hip with his. “With a salary to match my new responsibilities.” Kyle high-fived her, and they left.

  Alan, Mattie, and I took another minute to admire our handiwork and then we walked out into the beautiful, but cold, sunshine. A layer of fresh snow sparkled in the sun, and it looked as though it was going to stay. Alan pulled down the garage doors.

  A BMW pulled up to the curb, and Diane Simmonds got out. She’d called me a few minutes before to say she had some news. Mattie ran toward her and greeted her politely. She touched the top of his head, and they walked together up the path.

  “Morning, Detective,” Alan said. “If you’ve come for a sneak peek at Merry’s float, you can’t have one. It’s a surprise.”

  She smiled. “I can’t wait to see it, but I guess I’ll have to.”

  “Is your daughter going to be in the parade?” I asked.

  “No. We’re going to be spectators.”

  “If she’d like to ride on my float, there’s room. All she needs in the way of a costume is something that looks sorta woodsy.”

  “Woodsy? That shouldn’t be hard. Thank you, Merry. Charlotte will love it.”

  “What’s up?” Alan asked.

  “I thought you’d want to know I’ve charged Constance with the murder of Karla. I have enough to take to court, and I’m pretty confident we can get a conviction.”

  “She confessed?”

  “No, but the L.A. police searched her home office and computer and came up with a great deal of interesting correspondence. They found a series of e-mails Karla had sent to Constance over the past six months. All of them had been deleted, but it’s easy enough for the techies to access deleted e-mails. Basically, Karla wanted to meet her son. She claimed that enough time had passed, and he deserved to know the truth about his parentage. At first Constance simply refused, but Karla got more and more insistent. She said he was an adult, and she didn’t need Constance’s permission to meet with him.”

  “Which was true enough,” I said.

  “At that, Constance’s tone changed. She became more consolatory, saying she’d arrange something, but right now he was traveling or busy with work. She arranged a date for Karla to come to California, even made the flight bookings herself, but the day before Karla was to leave, Constance claimed an emergency at work had taken Edward out of the country, and she canceled the flight. She was, I believe, preparing to get rid of Karla and her demands once and for all. Constance booked a flight for herself to Minneapolis, which she canceled a few days later. In that time, the invitation from Aline for the reunion weekend in Rudolph arrived.”

  “Good timing,” Alan said.

  “For Constance,” I said. “Not for Karla.”

  “Constance immediately wrote to Karla and said they would use the weekend as an opportunity to get to know each other again, and then they could talk to Edward together.”

  “Karla told me she came because Constance was coming,” I said. “I think we can assume Constance had no intention of taking Karla to meet her son.”

  “Probably not. The way I read it, Constance was terrified of her father finding out Edward is not his biological grandson.”

  “Surely after all these years?” Alan said.

  “Mr. Stewart is known to have some out-of-date ideas about the importance of family bloodlines. Whether he would have accepted the news about Edward or not doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that Constance believed he wouldn’t. Edward is the CEO of Stewart Industries, a role he took on after his father’s death. Constance’s father, Mr. Phillip Stewart, is physically incapacitated as the result of a stroke, but he’s mentally as astute as ever. He owns the majority of shares and controls most of the board. He could get rid of Constance and Edward if he wants to. He could also write them both out of his will.”

  “So Karla and her secret had to be silenced,” I said.

  Simmonds nodded. Mattie sat at her feet and smiled up at her. She rested her hand on his head.

  “And Ruth?” I asked. “Can you pin the attack on Ruth on Constance?”

  “We’re not having much luck there,” Simmonds said. “No one at the bar can positively say where Constance was at the time. Ruth had been struck by the rock we found lying nearby, no doubt about that, but we couldn’t get any prints off it. It was a cold night; most people would have been wearing gloves. These things have a way of coming to light when other questions are being asked.”

  “All you have is still only conjecture,” Alan said. “You can’t prove what was going on in her mind, and any lawyer will argue that thought doesn’t necessarily lead to action.”

  The slightest of smiles lifted the edges of Simmonds’s mouth. “As I told you, we’ve had officers going around town with your mother’s friends pictures, particularly to food stores. Constance bought a bag of peanuts and a tiny amount of curry powder, enough to make one dish, in the supermarket on Saturday. We hadn’t been able to find the clerk before now because she went out of town the next day for a pre-Thanksgiving visit to her parents’, so she didn’t get back to work and hear that we were hoping to speak with her until yesterday.”

  “Ha!” Alan said. “Gotcha.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “A store clerk remembered that? They must have been busy in the week before Thanksgiving. Most of the time the clerk in the supermarket doesn’t even look into my face. She passes the goods over the scanner and tells me the price at the end.”

  “That’s usually true,” Simmonds said. “But in this instance, the clerk remembered Constance quite clearly. The scanner didn’t read the bar code on the bottle of water she also bought. The clerk had to send someone to check, and for some reason that took a long time. Constance had what is commonly called a hissy fit.”

  I laughed. “She would.”

  “She’s well-dressed, well-groomed, attractive. Her clothes and appearance speak of money. Thus, she’s someone who would be remembered, particularly after she drew attention to herself by being difficult. I won’t mention the word the clerk used to describe her, but she’s prepared to testify in court that it was Constance. Ironically, Constance got impatient with the waiting, thinking there was now more of a chance of someone recognizing her and going to the police later. Instead, she got angry and thus ensured she’d be remembered.”

  “What about the death of Constance’s husband?” I asked. “If she killed Karla, I can’t help thinking this was a woman who did what she thought she had to do to people who got in her way.”

  “That case will be reopened. The L.A. police were never satisfied that Frank Westerton’s death was the result of a random robbery, but they simply had no proof. The timing of his death is interesting. He was the CEO of his father-in-law’s company, and the business was struggling under his leadership. He’d made some bad decisions. He and Constance were increasingly arguing in public, both at the office, where she worked, and in their privat
e life. The night before his death, they’d been at a dinner at Mr. Stewart’s home. Witnesses told the investigating officers that Frank Westerton had a substantial amount to drink, and when Constance told him to slow down, he said he’d had enough of her bossing him around. Mr. Stewart then said that Frank should be happy to have a wife as good and as honest as Constance, and Frank replied that he knew things Mr. Stewart might not want to know. He then walked out of the house.”

  “And he died the next day,” I said.

  “And he died the next day,” Simmonds said. “I stopped in because I thought you’d want to know how the case is progressing. I also want to thank you for your help, Merry. But please, please don’t do anything like that again. That scene at the motel could have gone badly wrong. I believe I told you not to interfere; I can’t imagine what you would have done if I’d asked for your help. In the future, please bring your suspicions to me, and let me take care of it.”

  Alan put his arm around me. “I’ll see she behaves herself.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him. “No need. I have absolutely no intention of getting myself involved in a murder case ever again.”

  Mattie barked in agreement.

  About the Author

  Vicki Delany is the author of the Year-Round Christmas Mysteries, the Constable Molly Smith Mysteries, and, writing as Eva Gates, she is the author of the Lighthouse Library Mysteries.

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