by J. R. Ripley
“Besides, her death wouldn’t and didn’t put Christmas House Village out of business, anyway. You told me it went to Tyrone’s kids.”
“True. But somebody did—stoop to murder, that is. That same someone may have murdered Mr. Finch.”
Mom shook herself. “I still can hardly believe it.”
I had some more ideas. “Speaking of Tyrone’s kids. You must be about the same age as Tyrone Kinley’s children, Mom. Did you know any of them?”
Mom picked her ceramic snowman mug off the end table and cupped her hands around it. I held the Mrs. Claus mug. It had always been my favorite. Dad’s Santa mug sat in a place of honor under the tree. Aunt Barbara had made the three of them for us ages ago.
Mom took a moment before answering. “Not really. We didn’t travel in the same circles. I don’t believe the Kinley children even went to the same schools as the rest of us.”
I frowned. “How is that even possible, Mom? Ruby Lake is so small.”
Mom took a sip and a foamy brown line appeared on her upper lip.
I pointed. “You’ve got a little something there.”
Mom smiled and licked at her lip. “That’s the best part.” She set her mug on the coffee table and picked up the tray of gingerbread cookies she and her friend Anita Brown had whipped up earlier that day.
“Thanks.” I took a fat one and balanced it across the top of my mug.
“Tyrone’s children all went off to private schools.”
“We don’t have any private schools here, do we?”
Mom shook her head.
“You mean boarding schools?”
“That’s right.”
“Wow. The Kinleys must have been well-off.” Three kids in boarding school couldn’t have been cheap.
“I suppose.”
“And you don’t know where they are now?” My eyelids felt like they were being weighed down with cast-iron skillets. I gave my neck a twist and stretched my legs over the coffee table.
“I believe they are all out of state. The closest one, as I recall, may be in South Carolina.”
I yawned. South Carolina wasn’t necessarily all that far. The Town of Ruby Lake was closer to some parts of South Carolina than it was to parts of North Carolina.
23
At the store the next day, I enlisted Kim’s help in moving our entire order of birdseed ornaments to Finch’s Christmas House Village. I could have used Cousin Riley for the job, but I wanted to keep Kim busy.
I had other plans for Kim, too. She had talked to Dan the night before and learned that the latest incident at Christmas House Village had been phoned in directly to the police rather than reported to store management.
If it had been up to management, the entire incident probably would have been swept under the proverbial rug. The police wrote it up as criminal mischief, but didn’t expect to find the culprit.
Personally, I couldn’t help wondering if culprit and killer weren’t one and the same person.
“Did you and Dan pick out a Christmas tree?” I asked as we gathered everything up in the back room.
“Yep.” Without my asking, Kim pulled her phone from the pocket of her skirt. Her finger played over the phone’s screen a moment, then stopped. “Here.”
I drew her hand closer. It was a real beauty. I pushed her hand away. “Not bad.”
“And you?”
“Yes. It was so big we had to cut it in two pieces to get it inside the apartment.” A slight exaggeration.
Kim looked dubious. “I can’t wait to see it.”
I gulped. “I’m looking forward to it.” We carried box after box of ornaments out to the minivan, which I had backed up to the storeroom door.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am that Eve Dunnellon is honoring our contract for these.” Kim was looking better. Not radiant, but her face held a note of brightness and cheer that had been lacking.
“Me, too. We can use the extra sales.” Plus, with our Birds & Bees tags on the bottom of each package, I was hopeful we’d see an increase in our own foot traffic throughout the year. “Sleep well last night?”
“Better,” Kim answered. “I’m not looking forward to visiting Christmas House Village though.”
I clapped her on the back. “It will be good for you. Hop in.”
Kim went around to the passenger side and climbed in the minivan. I drove to Christmas House Village and was happy to see that the only crowds that had gathered were crowds of holiday shoppers.
I pulled into the alley behind Santa’s House and followed it along to Elf House. “Wait here,” I told Kim. “I’ll go see where they want these boxes.”
Kim nodded. “That suits me just fine.” She pressed her legs together. I noticed she wouldn’t even look at the house. The memory of having discovered Franklin Finch swinging from a rope was still too fresh in her mind.
I left the minivan running so she wouldn’t freeze to death and went around the front of Elf House, expecting to find Eve Dunnellon in her office there.
She was out, but one of her clerks told me to take the merchandise directly to Santa’s House. That made sense. Santa’s House was where Eve had told me she was intending to display the birdseed ornaments.
I hurried to the minivan and explained to Kim what we were doing. “The clerk said she would call ahead and there would be someone there to unload for us.”
“Fine by me.”
Looking carefully over my shoulder, I backed down to Santa’s House and cut the engine. “Here comes somebody now.”
A big-shouldered man in a long brown coat and cap met us at the rear. He was pushing a green handcart.
Kim and I stepped out to greet him.
“Hello. Mr. Sever, right?”
“Good morning, ladies.” William nodded and rolled the handcart to a stop at the rear doors of the minivan. He looked at me as he pushed his glasses up his nose.
“This is my friend Kim Christy.”
“My pleasure.” He clapped his hands together. “It’s cold out here. I’m told you have some boxes to unload?”
“Of course.” I scrambled to open the doors.
“If you want to wait inside, someone will be along to write you a receipt.” He picked up a box and dropped it lightly on the handcart. “I’ll take care of these. If you like, I can move your truck up to the office when I’m done. I’ll leave your keys with whoever’s working the register downstairs.”
“That would be fine. Thanks.” There were three reserved parking spaces directly behind Elf House: one for Finch, one for the manager, and one for the employee of the month. Maybe I’d get employee of the month. “Do you know where I can find Ms. Dunnellon? I didn’t see her in the office.”
William held a box to his chest. “Last I heard, she was in Santa’s Workshop. We’re having a bit of a problem with it.”
That explained the two HVAC company vans I had noticed on the premises. “Santa’s Workshop, got it. Uh, where is Santa’s Workshop?” I racked my brain but couldn’t remember ever having seen it.
“Everywhere.” William set the box on the handcart, atop the previous one, his breath coming out in clouds.
“Everywhere?” Kim asked, slipping her gloves over her hands.
“Some time ago, the individual heater units were replaced with one central unit. It runs under Christmas House Village, connecting all the houses. It’s off-limits. If you want to talk to Ms. Dunnellon, you ask somebody to fetch her.”
I shrugged my shoulders at Kim. William wasn’t the friendliest elf in Christmas House Village. “Thank you, William. I’m pleased to see that you’ve got your job back.”
William ran a hand over his forehead. “I never actually left.”
“But I thought Mrs. Fortuny said—”
William stuck up his hand. “Irma says a lot of things.”
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“Yes, well, don’t let us slow you down. Come on, Kim.” I grabbed my friend by the elbow and pulled her across the side yard toward the house. “Did you see that?” I mumbled.
“See what?” Kim swung her head around.
“Don’t look!” I admonished her.
“Fine.” Kim pushed my arm away. “But what is it you want to know if I saw, and don’t want me to look at?”
I waited until we were in front of the house before answering. “William wasn’t using a cane.”
“So?”
“So, every time I’ve seen him before, he’s had his cane.”
Kim pursed her lips. “Come to think of it, the day the employees were out front protesting on the street—”
“The day Irma Fortuny clobbered you,” I added.
“Yes,” Kim said, her hand going to the side of her head, “thank you for reminding me, Amy. I do remember that William had a cane. But so what?”
“If you ask me,” I said, urging her toward Elf House, “it means our Mr. Sever is perfectly capable of strangling somebody with two hands and then stringing them up. Very possibly, capable of stringing up two people.”
“You mean Virginia Johnson?”
I nodded.
“My tree is almost that big,” I quipped as we passed the giant outdoor Christmas House Village fir.
“You are so full of it, Amy.”
“Possibly,” I admitted. I took Kim’s wrists. “Now,” I began, “I want you to think back to the day Mr. Finch was killed.”
“Not on your life, Amy.” Kim tried to pull free but I held her.
“Please,” I said. “This is important. You want to find out who murdered Franklin Finch, don’t you? The sooner his killer is caught, the sooner life around here can get back to normal. Maybe people will stop looking at you funny, like you’ve been complaining about.”
Kim pouted. “Let Jerry do it.”
“Jerry? Really, Kim? You really think Jerry Kennedy is going to solve Franklin Finch’s murder—and probably Mrs. Johnson’s too, if it’s not too late—without help?”
The corners of Kim’s mouth inched down. “Probably not.” She shook her head. “But he’s got Dan, plus the others.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s give them all the help we can then. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“I suppose not. What did you have in mind?” Kim eyed me with suspicion.
I let her loose. “I want to take you back to the day that you found Mr. Finch in his loft.”
Kim groaned. “What for? I wish it had never happened. I’m trying very hard to forget that it did, Amy.”
Several shoppers moved past us, giving us odd looks.
I ignored them. “Trust me. Maybe you’ll remember something or somebody that you saw.” I looked around the cluster of houses. “Or maybe you’ll recall something you might have heard.”
Kim grabbed a tissue from her purse and wiped her nose. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. But let’s try. Please?”
Kim crumpled the tissue and dropped it in a trash bin at the edge of the walkway. “Fine.”
“Good.” I pulled her over to a bench and we sat. “What time did you get here that night?”
Kim sighed wearily. “About eight thirty, I suppose. I’d been at the diner earlier with Mr. Finch. Like I said, it hadn’t gone well.”
“What did you do next?”
“I went to the biergarten and had a glass of wine. Or two.”
“Then what did you do?”
Kim folded her hands in her lap. “I drove downtown and walked around. Did some window shopping. All the time, I couldn’t stop thinking about Christmas House Village and how mad everybody was at Finch, at me, and Mr. Belzer.”
“So that’s when you decided to talk to Finch again?”
“Yes.” Kim looked straight ahead, not at me. “And like everything else I’ve done lately, I wish now that I hadn’t. The man was unhappy enough as things stood.”
Kim’s regret was understandable under the circumstances. But all this moping and self-pity weren’t getting us anywhere. I nudged the conversation forward. “Okay, you walk over to Christmas House Village, right?”
“Right.”
“And it’s about eight thirty?”
Kim nodded.
I squeezed my brows together. “Who knew you were going to see Mr. Finch?”
Kim shrugged. “Only my boss.”
“Mr. Belzer?”
“Yes, I think I told you about that already.”
“He was here?”
Kim shook her head. “I telephoned him at home. I hated to bother him. He was hosting a party for underprivileged children, but I wanted to get his advice.”
A slow sigh escaped her lips. “I only wish I had listened.” She turned and faced me. “He told me I should go home, forget about talking to Mr. Finch, and forget about Christmas House Village. He told me that he had been on the phone with Mr. Finch earlier, who’d had some rather unflattering things to say about me.” Kim sniffled and pulled out a fresh tissue. “I guess Mr. Finch didn’t take too kindly to me, as Mr. Belzer put it, badgering him about his business.” She ran the tissue along the bottom of her nose.
“But you went anyway.” I couldn’t help grinning despite the fact that there was no humor in the situation. “Okay,” I said. “You arrive at Christmas House Village against all common sense and advice, and nobody else knows you’re coming, and who do you see when you get here?”
I had a feeling wine may have played a significant part in her decision-making process but saw no point in bringing it up.
Kim shrugged once more. “Customers. That’s about it. And Santa.”
“Sidewalk Santa? The one collecting for charity?”
“That’s right.” She turned toward the entrance. “The same one that’s there now, I guess. Though . . .”
“What?”
“Actually, there were two of them when I got here. Must have been a shift change or something.”
“Okay, let’s move on from Santa. What else do you remember? Anything else out of the ordinary?”
“Well,” Kim began with obvious hesitation, “there was one thing.”
“Spill.”
“I saw Randy.”
I jerked my neck. “Randy as in Randy Vincent?”
Kim nodded.
“What was Randy doing here?”
“I don’t know, Amy. It’s not like I was going to ask him.”
“Was Lynda with him?”
“No, he was alone.” Kim’s voice had grown small.
“Well, what did he say?”
“Nothing. The truth is, I avoided him. I saw Randy walking toward me as I was walking in.” She lowered her chin. “I didn’t want to see him, so I ran over to that porch over there.” Kim pointed to the porch of Frosty’s House. “I don’t think he even saw me.”
I decided to let the subject of Randy go. “Okay”—I made moving-on motions with my right hand—“let’s get past Randy.” I’d deal with him later. “After Randy passed—”
“After Randy passed I went to Elf House.”
“Who else was there?”
Kim shrugged. “Nobody.”
“Nobody?”
“Not a soul.” Kim quirked her brow. “Except for maybe Franklin Finch’s soul, considering he was dead.”
“If the man even had a soul,” I grumbled.
Kim sniffled and pushed her tissue against her nose. “I called out and nobody answered, so I went upstairs to the office. There was nobody there either.”
“So you decided to check upstairs?”
“Yes, I mean, I might have gone up anyway, maybe not, but I thought I heard a noise and figured that Mr. Finch must be up there. So up I went.”
“What kind of a noise?”
Kim squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Sorry, Amy,” she said, facing me. “Just a noise. Like a clatter, maybe?”
“I have a hunch the clatter you heard was the sound of Franklin Finch going for a swing, not the clatter of reindeer hooves up on the rooftop.”
Kim visibly shuddered. “Must you be so . . . vivid?”
“Sorry.” I stood and pulled her up from the bench. “My butt’s getting cold. Let’s go.”
“Good idea.” Kim allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She moved one way and I moved the other.
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
Kim turned around and faced me. “Where are you going?”
“To the loft. Come on.” I waved her on.
“Are you completely mad, Amy? You want to go poking around in a room where a man was murdered mere days ago?”
“That’s the general idea.” I put my hands firmly on Kim’s back and pushed her forward. She squawked every step of the way, but complied.
24
We followed the path to Elf House and went inside.
“It’s freezing in here,” complained Kim. She had unbuttoned her tan cashmere coat and was now quickly buttoning it back up.
“I know,” I said. “It was like that when I came in a few minutes ago.” I tapped a friendly looking sales elf on the shoulder as she waved goodbye to a mother and daughter with a large shopping bag between them. “Why is it so cold in here?”
“The boiler is on the fritz. There are people working on it,” she said perkily. “We have hot cider and hot cocoa in the kitchen!” She pointed over her shoulder. “Hey, weren’t you here a few minutes ago?”
I nodded. “Ms. Dunnellon asked me to drop some papers off on her desk.” I patted my purse as if that meant something.
“Okeydoke.” She spun on her elfin feet and went in search of needy customers.
“Come on.” I started for the stairs with Kim right behind me. The sounds of voices came from the second-floor offices. I tiptoed to the last flight of stairs and beckoned Kim to keep up.
“What if the door’s locked?” asked Kim as we climbed.
“Shh. You worry too much,” I whispered.
