by J. R. Ripley
“What’s going on?” Derek sat at the edge of the sofa.
“I think Kim’s having a nervous breakdown,” I said, which wasn’t a lie at all.
I moved to the foyer and grabbed my winter coat. “I have to talk to her. I’m sorry. I’m sure I’ll only be a few minutes.”
Derek rose. “Should I come with you?”
“No, sit. Enjoy the movie. And your pizza.” I walked over and gave him a kiss. “I’ll be right back.”
Derek nodded. “Did I understand right? Kim’s at Christmas House Village?”
“Yeah.” I shook my head. “She must have gone to talk to Mr. Finch. She’s with him now.”
“It sounds like she wants you to double-team him.”
“You’re probably right. She’s been saying over and over that she wanted to have a word with him about keeping on the old staff at the very least. She feels just sick about what’s happened.”
Derek opened the door for me. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
* * * *
I hurried down the stairs, pulling my coat tight and tucking my scarf down inside for extra warmth. I pulled my gloves from the pockets of my coat and tugged them on.
I stopped at the corner of the alley, waved up to Derek, then turned and walked quickly up to Lake Shore Drive and crossed the road. The air was perfectly still and icy cold. The half-moon above held court over a handful of visible stars.
I glanced up at Derek’s front window, noticed him watching me, and waved a final time. The carolers had called it a night. A sidewalk Santa’s gaze followed me as I then made my way along the deserted sidewalk that bisected the village.
The sound of my footsteps echoed between the close-set houses. I had been to Christmas House Village in the evening, but the stores were brightly lit then and full of holiday shoppers. Even now, house lights were being flicked off and employees were leaving for the night.
Christmas House Village took on a spooky air with so few people about, all heading in the opposite direction. I felt like the only person on earth who didn’t realize that I should turn around and flee with the others, from some unseen menace.
I quickened my step. Between Kim’s unsettling call and the moving shadows, I was feeling more and more skittish and wished I had rejected Kim’s suggestion that I leave Derek behind. I could have used some company.
Especially some big, strong, manly company.
I arrived at the last house on the left and couldn’t help recalling my previous visit to Elf House, which had ended so badly. Mom had been disappointed when I had returned to Birds & Bees and given her the news that we had lost the Christmas House Village account.
After all our hard work, too, Mom had said at the time. Several of her friends and acquaintances had lost their jobs at Christmas House Village in the aftermath of Mr. Finch’s purchase of the business. Losing our order with Christmas House Village had not been the first blow we’d suffered since Franklin Finch had come to town.
Mom’s sister, my aunt Betty, had worked on and off at Kinley’s Christmas House Village over the years. She hadn’t done it so much because she needed the money as she did because she enjoyed the holiday atmosphere.
That atmosphere seemed somewhat blighted now.
I stepped up onto the porch. Rows of multicolored lights ran around the front windows. The porch light glowed green.
I went to the door and for the first time wondered how I was supposed to get inside. But I needn’t have worried. The door was unlocked. I opened it, went inside, and closed it firmly behind me. I pulled out my scarf, already feeling the impact of the heated space, and got my bearings.
The mechanical elves had quieted for the night and sat frozen in place around the room. Most of the interior lights had been dimmed. A glowing three-foot-tall snowman on the landing stared at me with his big plastic-charcoal eyes and a long plastic-carrot nose.
I turned my head slowly. “Kim?” I pulled off my gloves and thrust them back in my coat pockets as I looked up the dimly lit stairs. “Great.” I didn’t relish going upstairs and facing the ever unpleasant Franklin Finch, but I didn’t appear to have much choice.
Kim had said she was upstairs with him.
I moved upward slowly, the sound of the creaking steps the only sound I heard. I’d been expecting to hear voices yelling at one another.
On the second-floor landing, I stopped and listened again. Nothing. Not a peep. All the office doors were closed.
I took a settling breath and started up the remaining flight of thin-carpeted stairs to the top-floor attic apartment.
“Kim?” I called out softly from the top landing. “Are you in here?” The only door visible up here was ajar. I pushed it open with the palm of my hand. “Kim?”
A small globe ceiling-light above the door on the inside glowed yellow. The only other illumination came from the strings of lights twinkling on the outside of each window.
“Amy!” Kim scrambled to her feet from the braided rug she’d been seated on and rushed at me. “You’re here!”
“Yes.” I squeezed her. “I’m here. Now,” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders, “tell me what is going on!” Kim’s hair stuck out in several directions from her black knit cap. She was bundled up in a hip-length, houndstooth-wool duffle coat and black corduroy slacks with knee-high black leather boots.
“Don’t you see him, Amy?” Kim was practically hysterical now, as if my coming had opened a tap of panic that she had heretofore been holding in check. “Don’t you see him?”
“See who?” I replied, trying to hold her in place.
Kim pulled away and pointed. “Right there!” she shouted. “See? It’s Mr. Finch!”
The living quarters had once been the home’s attic. What I saw was a vaulted room with a convenient beam running lengthwise down the middle—convenient if one wanted to hang oneself, that is.
Because Franklin Finch was hanging from the center of the beam by a rope tied around his neck.
7
A brass floor lamp sat between two cozy, deep-red chairs. I stuck my shaking hand under the shade and fiddled with its innards until I found the light switch. I flicked the lamp on to get a better look.
Franklin Finch wore the same three-piece black wool suit that he’d worn the day I’d visited him in his office. Only the color of his tie had changed. This one was peacock blue.
A stool lay on its side several feet to his right. The window under the eave was ajar. There was nothing at all unusual about the room—discounting Franklin Finch hanging from the long rafter tie.
“And he was like that when you found him?” I whispered.
Kim was visibly shaking. “Just like that,” she whispered back. “Swinging.” She slumped to the floor, pressing her back against the wall as if wishing she could disappear within it.
“We have to call the police.”
Kim nodded. “I already telephoned. I called Dan to report there had been a suicide before I called you.”
“Good. I’m surprised he isn’t here yet.”
“He said they were all out on the highway assisting the state police. There’s been a five-car pileup.”
Ruby Lake’s resources were thin at the best of times. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
“Dan said the ambulance should be arriving as soon as they drop off some accident victims at the medical center.”
I nodded. “That’s good. What about the security guards?”
“I haven’t seen any.”
“That’s funny. You’d think there would be at least one of them around.” I turned to the dangling body. Though I didn’t think Franklin Finch needed an ambulance as much as he needed a hearse, there was always a chance he could be saved. “Come on. We should probably try to get him down.”
“You’re not serious?” Kim gaspe
d and backed away. “Dan said not to touch anything. He even made me promise not to call anyone. But I couldn’t stay here another minute alone.”
I grabbed her wrists. “We have to, Kim. What if Finch is still alive?”
Kim’s eyes grew. “Oh, my gosh! Do you really think that’s possible, Amy?”
“No, not really. But we have to try, right?” I clamped my hands down on Kim’s shoulders.
“I-I suppose,” Kim said, taking a look at Finch.
We hurried to the hanging body. It was a tall ceiling and there was no way for me to reach his neck and loosen the noose. My eyes went to the wooden stool he must have used to get himself up there. I picked it up and set it beside him. “Hold it still for me.”
Kim nodded and placed her hands on the side of the stool while I climbed precariously, my hands clinging to Finch’s trousers. I stretched to my tippy toes and still could barely reach the rope. The knot was too tight.
I jumped back down. “It’s no use. I can’t budge him. Besides,” I said, glancing back at his still form and dead-looking face, “I think it is too late.”
Kim broke into tears as several uniformed men burst onto the scene.
“Step back, ladies!” a burly man in a yellow paramedic’s coat yelled. He whipped out a knife and jumped up on the stool. “Joe, grab his feet!”
His curly-haired companion complied.
Kim and I moved aside.
“This is all my fault,” Kim said through her tears.
I took her trembling hand. “Don’t be silly. Of course, it’s not.”
“But it is, Amy. It is. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I called Mr. Finch and asked him to meet me. I never thought he would agree, but he did.”
“And this is how you found him?”
“No. We met at Ruby’s Diner several hours ago. I told him what a terrible thing he was doing to the town, to the people. I only wanted him to make things right. I didn’t mean for him to kill himself.”
I looked at Franklin Finch as the paramedics carefully lowered him to the ground. One of the paramedics checked for a pulse and shook his head. “He’s gone.”
“This is all my fault,” Kim repeated. “I killed him!” Kim groaned and mashed her face in her hands. “Mr. Belzer told me to leave it alone. Why didn’t I listen to him?”
“Listen, Kim, everything is going to be okay.”
“He got very upset in the diner.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Mr. Finch,” Kim explained. “Some of the locals started berating him, too. After Mr. Finch left, I felt terrible. So I decided to come back here and try to smooth things over. I never expected him to-to . . .” She broke down once again.
Chief Jerry Kennedy arrived with Officers Reynolds and Sutton in tow. All were bundled up in brown leather police jackets and caps. My former classmate, our chief of police, has a head of crew-cut blond hair, a boyish face with a squat nose, freckles that he’s never outgrown, and dark jade eyes.
Jerry marched over to the body, which had now been placed on a stretcher. The thick rope had been cut and now hung loosely around Mr. Finch’s neck. The rope’s knot rested on Finch’s right shoulder.
“Suicide, eh?” Jerry sighed. “And you found him, Ms. Christy?”
I peeked at the body over the chief’s shoulder. Officers Sutton and Reynolds hovered on either side of their chief.
“Yes,” Kim managed to say.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here this time of night? Christmas House Village is closed for the day.”
Kim explained to the chief, like she had explained to me before his arrival, how she’d met with Mr. Finch at Ruby’s Diner. “I felt terrible that our conversation ended the way it did. I knew he was living here. He told me so. I came to try to talk to him one last time.”
“Oh, Kim.” I sighed. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I would try one last time to convince him to let everybody keep their jobs and possibly take our birdseed decorations at cost, to cut our losses.”
“Birdseed decorations?” the chief asked.
“I’ll explain later, Jerry,” I said.
Kim went on. “I was thinking that if only he would listen to reason, then everybody wouldn’t hate me and Mr. Belzer.” She dropped her voice. “I found him hanging there.”
“Well,” said Jerry, unzipping his jacket and pulling out a spiral notepad from his inner pocket, “I’m not surprised Mr. Finch killed himself. The man didn’t exactly make himself any friends when he moved here. Half the town hated him already. That’s not much of a start. It seems to me, the man simply couldn’t take it anymore.”
The chief tipped his hat back with his fingertip. “I’ve heard of people getting depressed around the holidays, but this is the first case I’ve ever come across where someone’s actually killed themselves in a Christmas shop!”
“Must you, Jerry?” I said angrily. Couldn’t he see he was only upsetting Kim all the more? I glanced at the body. Something didn’t look right.
Kim groaned. “Mr. Finch had a history of depression, too,” she added, clutching her hands. “I should have known better than to provoke him.”
I pointed over Jerry’s shoulder. “Did you notice how red, almost purple really, and blotchy Mr. Finch’s neck is?”
Kim moaned behind me and I ignored her.
Jerry stared at me in disbelief. “The man just hung himself from that beam, Simms!” He jabbed his finger at the bit of rope still attached to the wooden rafter tie.
“Yes, but—”
The first paramedic bent, pulled Finch’s shirt collar farther open, and tugged at the rope. He squinted. “She’s right, Chief.”
“Right about what?” Jerry looked down at him, a frown on his face.
The paramedic’s finger hovered over Finch’s sallow neck. “I think these might be finger marks.”
Jerry sighed and dropped to his knees. “Yeah, maybe,” he said, taking a closer look for himself. “And maybe Mr. Finch had second thoughts after jumping off that stool and hanging himself and was trying to save himself.” Jerry’s knees cracked as he stood. “That’s sure as hell what I’d have been doing.”
I moved around the loft, taking it all in for the first time. It was a large, open space with a simple kitchen tucked into the corner on the far right. The bed was on the far left wall with a nightstand beside it. An antique walnut rolltop desk sat several feet away from the bed, near the window.
An electric parabolic heater glowed yellow-orange near the desk chair. A silver computer screen sat on the corner of the desk in front of the cubbyholes. A keyboard lay near the edge of the desk. A bottle of brandy, two-thirds gone, and one glass with a trace of gold liquid at the bottom sat in the center. I sniffed. It was the brandy. Had Finch been drinking heavily before his death?
My hand hovered over the keyboard.
“Don’t touch anything, Simms!” Jerry barked. He hurried over and pushed me gently aside. “Let’s see if our Mr. Finch left us a note.” Jerry hit the edge of the keyboard’s spacebar with his knuckle and the computer screen came to life.
I glanced at the screen. “It looks like Mr. Finch was planning to go somewhere.” The screen showed a motel website.
“Yeah.” Jerry chewed his lip.
“Why would a man who is about to kill himself be making a motel reservation?”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Jerry replied.
“There’s something else that’s been bothering me. A couple of things really.”
Jerry glared at me. “And what might those be?”
I grabbed his shoulder and turned him. “This space heater, for one thing.”
“Lots of people use space heaters, Simms. We have two of them at the house ourselves. Not fancy ones
like this, mind you.”
“But the space heater is glowing, yet the window is ajar. It must be near freezing outside. Why would Mr. Finch do that?” I walked to the window in question and Jerry followed me. The window was open a good two inches.
“I have no idea, Simms,” Jerry snapped, his hands on his hips. “And neither do you. Depressed people do strange things. Don’t they, Reynolds?”
Officer Reynolds turned at the sound of his name. “I’m afraid I really wouldn’t know, Chief.” Larry blinked and turned his attention back to the dead man now strapped securely to the stretcher.
Larry’s about six feet tall with thinning blond hair and a pinkish complexion. He’s a quiet man in his midforties who’s never been married. Somehow, his brown uniform always looks far more rumpled than those of his comrades.
I stood at the window and looked down at the street below. A narrow alley ran behind all the houses. Farther to the left, the bright light of streetlamps and cars moving along Lake Shore Drive lit the night. To the right, the alley dead-ended at a six-foot brick wall. On the other side was a dark woods that I knew led to a small creek.
I put my fingers in front of the window opening. “There’s no breeze coming in through the window at all. Barely a whiff.”
Jerry shook his head in exasperation. “So?”
“So Kim told me that when she came in the room Mr. Finch was swinging.”
Jerry looked at Kim and she nodded. “Hey, Cliff!”
“Yeah?” called the first EMT on the scene. He seemed to be the leader of the team.
“How long would you say the man has been dead?”
Cliff tilted his head and studied the body. I wished they would cover it up. “Only a guess, but I’d say a couple of hours.”
Jerry thanked him and stuck his hand in front of the open window. “Call Greeley and tell him to meet you at the hospital.”
“Can we take him now?” the medic asked.
Jerry waved at Officer Reynolds. “Did you get pictures of everything?”
Reynolds nodded and held his fancy camera aloft. “Pretty much, Chief.”
I moved to close the window sash, then stopped. Some tiny bits of something were on the floor near the baseboard. “What is that?”
