Holly and Homicide

by Leslie Caine

  “You haven’t experienced her mood swings like I have,” Henry retorted in an angry whisper. “I’m telling you, that girl is schizophrenic. She can turn on a dime!”

  “If you say so,” Mikara muttered, filling the teakettle and putting it on the burner. She grabbed the cast-iron skillet and carried it over to the sink, muttering, “You’re lucky she didn’t crack you over the head with this thing.”

  “I’m going to go see if I can help Ben with that lock in the garage door,” Henry said.

  I felt a pang for poor Ben. He was going to feel tortured by Henry’s proximity and would never, I was sure, admit his feelings.

  Henry started to head through the mudroom, then said, “Oh, good. Audrey’s back. I need to ask her opinion about the board meeting tonight.”

  Mikara glanced at me as Henry headed outside to talk to Audrey. “What board meeting?”

  “He’s scheduling an emergency meeting to discuss how his breaking up with Chiffon might affect ownership at the inn.”

  “He should have thought of that before, for heaven’s sake. He does this all the time. He breaks up with a woman, hides, assumes all hell’s going to break loose, and creates even more problems for himself.”

  “I think he regrets his lack of foresight now.”

  “Erin?” Steve said, finally emerging from his conversational coma, “we need to hang those shelves of yours in the master bedroom. Once Chiffon’s gone, that is.”

  “Right. In any case, I haven’t gotten much of anything done this morning.”

  “You deserve to take a break now and then,” Mikara said.

  “We’re pretty much done anyway,” Steve said. “In fact, Erin and I might want to head back to Crestview this evening, then come back early Friday to finish up for the party.”

  “Party?” I asked.

  Mikara gave Steve a sharp look. “Did you forget to tell your partner about the second housewarming party?”

  Steve winced. “Henry and Chiffon decided on that back when you and Audrey were out shopping the other day. We decided on the date for the party to show off Audrey’s Twelve Days theme. It’s this Friday. Mikara told Audrey, so she knows.”

  I heard Chiffon’s footfalls descending the stairs just as Audrey came inside. “There’s a housewarming party here on Friday?” I asked Audrey immediately.

  “You didn’t tell Erin?” Audrey said to Steve.

  “Neither did you.”

  “Now we’ll have to stay for the meeting tonight,” I said a bit testily to Steve. “We should finish up everything before we leave town, in any case.”

  “Or we can finish everything Friday afternoon, before the party,” Steve countered. “We’ll have to come back up then anyway.”

  He had a point, but so did I, and I had already won this particular argument by virtue of his having forgotten to tell me that the party had been scheduled.

  Chiffon returned to the kitchen, her eyes puffy once more. She’d obviously started crying again once she was alone and had probably been trying to gather herself. Her grocery bag was now partially full.

  “I’m going to get back to work,” Steve said, brushing past Chiffon as he made a hasty exit.

  “Where’s Henry?” Chiffon asked.

  “Ben’s giving him a ride to get his truck,” Audrey replied. “He seems to think your breakup is going to cause severe problems as far as your being a co-owner of the inn. He’s wrong about that, isn’t he?”

  “Of course he’s wrong! That’s ridiculous! He isn’t even a co-owner—you and Wendell are, and I’ve got nothing against either of you. We all share the goal of making Snowcap Inn a successful venture. What the hell is Henry’s problem?”

  “He does seem to have some strange ideas about women,” Audrey remarked.

  “He thinks we should all be as unemotional as he is,” Mikara said. “As if emotions equal craziness.”

  “So he acted like this to you, too?” Chiffon asked her, perking up a little.

  “Absolutely. Been there, done that. Of course …in my case, we were engaged to be married, so I had a lot of cause to be emotional. You’ve been together for all of two weeks.”

  “They were important weeks, though.” Chiffon sniffed. “Two people were murdered. And somebody tried to tamper with my skis and kill me. You get extra close to a person when you’re facing life and death together.”

  “I haven’t forgotten about Angie and Cameron,” Mikara snapped, “considering the first victim was my only sister.” She dried the now clean skillet and put it away, banging the cabinet door shut. “One of these days you need to figure out that everyone’s the star of their own story, Chiffon.”

  “Meaning what?” Chiffon asked, jutting her lip out defiantly.

  “Meaning you’re not half as important as you think you are.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well …neither are you! And neither is Henry … Bad win. Or Henry Badloss, more like it.”

  “Go home, Chiffon,” Mikara said, shaking her head.

  “You can’t tell me what to do!” Nevertheless, Chiffon turned and stomped through the door.

  “That was harsh,” Audrey said to Mikara. “She’s just a kid. And she’s been treated unfairly by the man she was dating.”

  “I realize that, Audrey. But I’m sick and tired of indulging in her egotistical fantasies, including naming a pie after her.”

  “She plunked down a lot of money to own a part of this inn,” Audrey interposed. “The place hasn’t even opened yet. With the power struggle between Henry and Wendell, and now this breakup nonsense between Henry and Chiffon, the friction among management is going to sink us before we’re even off the ground.”

  Mikara sighed. “You’re right, Audrey,” she said grudgingly. “When I accepted this job, I promised Henry I’d help him out. Next time I see Chiffon, which sounds like it’s going to be at tonight’s meeting, I’ll apologize.”

  “Thank you,” Audrey said, touching Mikara’s arm. “That’s big of you, and it will make a difference to her. And, you know, Chiffon truly is a draw for the inn. She makes it cool for the young professionals with all kinds of discretionary spending to stay at a B-and-B. That’s an important demographic. If only Henry hadn’t been so damned stupid as to date her as a means to manipulate her vote, things would be nicely balanced.”

  Audrey started cleaning the kitchen, and I helped her. Mikara, meanwhile, started reading a copy of yesterday’s Denver Post that someone must have bought downtown. I ran through my to-do list and realized that Sullivan and I were down to just three bedrooms to decorate for our Twelve Days. After that, we needed to do a final inspection of all the rooms for any last-minute details, then we were done. If we could both work efficiently, we might be able to finish today, head home, and return on Friday like Steve had suggested. No sense in cutting my nose off to spite my lover.

  Audrey stood transfixed, staring out the window above the sink. “That’s odd,” she muttered. “Now, why would Chiffon be carrying a stepladder toward the shed?”

  Mikara rushed beside Audrey and peered out. “She has to be carrying the ladder back to the shed. Oh, God! That’s a spray can in her other hand!”

  “Let’s hope she was just touching up the paint on the cardboard M-and-M’s,” I offered hopefully, though I knew full well that Chiffon’s it’s-all-about-me mentality would never allow her to focus on something so wholesome when her feelings had recently been injured.

  Mikara bolted toward the front door and I followed, while Audrey dashed to the back door, probably to try to speak with Chiffon.

  Mikara trotted halfway down the walkway, then turned to look at the gingerbread façade. She grabbed her head in shock and glared at the house. I whirled around and looked at the still-wet red paint graffiti. Mikara’s face contorted and she cried, “Look what that spoiled little princess painted on our house!”

  Chapter 30

  Chiffon had painted in enormous block letters that “Henry G” was a crude term for part of the male anatomy.
<
br />   Hoping to inject some humor, I said, “She’s got really legible print, for using a spray can freehand.”

  “This isn’t funny, Erin!”

  “Maybe not, but it is the best thing she possibly could have done for us. Now we can take down that idiotic façade.”

  Mikara was having none of my very rational response. She balled her fists and started to march toward the driveway. Chiffon’s cute little powder blue Prius was heading toward us.

  Mikara broke into a run, determined to block her exit. Chiffon stepped on the accelerator, and for a terrible moment, I thought I was going to be witness to a hideous collision.

  “Let her go!” I hollered to Mikara, racing toward her for all I was worth. I grabbed the back of her blouse, but by then she had pulled up short anyway. Chiffon flew past us, barreling onto the street without slowing, let alone stopping, for possible traffic.

  “You idiot maniac!” Mikara screamed at her, shaking her fist in fury. “You’re never setting foot in this house again!” She was panting in rage as Chiffon drove away.

  For my part, I was immensely grateful that there was no squeal of brakes, followed by a crash. “Seriously, Mikara, it’s just graffiti,” I said as we watched Chiffon’s car disappear down the hill.

  “I know that! This house is historical! It represents all of what’s good and solid and decent about the old Snowcap! And that little twerp is the epitome of what’s gone wrong with this town!”

  “She didn’t mark up the house itself, though. She ruined her tacky Masonite gingerbread!”

  Audrey was trotting toward us but stopped to examine the house. “Oh, my!” she cried. She turned back to us as we made our way up the front walk. She beamed at us. “Hallelujah! We get to take down the god-awful gingerbread!”

  Several minutes later, when Henry arrived home, he threw a dozen “I told you so’s” at all of us, then settled into the task of moving tonight’s meeting up to five-thirty, in the hopes that Chiffon would miss it entirely.

  He kept grumbling about wanting Chiffon to be arrested. Ben, however, pointed out that the inn would be much better served by taking down the Masonite board immediately than by having the graffiti on display for another hour or two, while the sheriff investigated and the townspeople came by to see for themselves what was causing yet another fuss. Ben said he would store the offensive boards in the garage so that Henry could show them to Sheriff Mackey later. Sure enough, in less than two hours, Ben had restored the inn’s beautiful siding, which lifted my mood considerably.

  At around four o’clock that afternoon, the doorbell rang. Steve and I were checking the paint job in Audrey’s room. He grinned at me. “I know what this is. Meet me in our bedroom.” He trotted downstairs to get the front door.

  Much as I’d have liked to think that he was about to present me with something so intensely romantic that the privacy of our bedroom was required, I knew he was strictly in work mode; we were moving the ten lords a-leaping from our bedroom into Audrey’s. (He’d sung: “Six crows Erin’s eating …” while, instead of the panels, we placed a lovely oak highboy against the aubergine accent wall.) I sat on the Queen Anne bench at the foot of our bed and waited for him.

  A minute later, Steve entered our room, exclaimed, “Tah-dah!” and presented me with a long, skinny package. He sat next to me and proceeded to open a second, larger box.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s the eleven pipers piping.” Steve handed me his pocketknife.

  “It’s heavy …but I’m surprised you can fit eleven pipers into one long box like this.” I started to open it. “Wait. Didn’t we agree on eleven candlestick holders?”

  “Yeah, but eleven separate candles didn’t feel right to me.”

  Concerned, I met his gaze. “So you put them all together into one candelabra? Isn’t that going to be sort of Phantom of the Opera-ish?”

  “Reserve your judgment till you at least look at it, okay?”

  I worked my way through the protective packaging and removed the bronze sculpture/candelabra. The base was three feet long and loosely resembled a flute, or rather, a flute that had been adapted into a candlestick holder, with eleven holders projecting from the holes in the flute. The middle candleholder was the tallest at six inches, with each of the surrounding holders progressively shorter; the ones at both ends were only an inch tall. “So there are ten finger holes, plus one blow hole for the flautist?”

  “Which have all been converted into candleholders.”

  “You realize your ‘piper’ had to have twelve fingers? He’d need two thumbs to hold onto this instrument.”

  He shrugged. “Artistic license. Did you notice my eleven pipers?”

  The tiny figurines were molded into the front side of each of the candleholders. I grinned as I studied them. “They’re cute.”

  “Some of them could probably have used a little more detail,” Steve said, peering over my shoulder.

  “The four littlest ones on the ends are a bit generic. But the seven bigger ones on the taller candleholders all look great.”

  Steve smiled and unpacked eleven cream-colored, elegant, tapered candles and put them in place while I stared at his creation. By the time he’d inserted the eleventh candle I decided I liked it very much.

  “Were you going to put this on our mantelpiece?”

  “Originally. But I think we should center it on the wall over the bed. Ben is going to build us an eight-inch-deep shelf this afternoon.” He knelt on the edge of the king-sized bed and held the candelabra against the wall so I could get a feel for how it would look there. “You’ve got to imagine this with the candles lit. And a crackling fire in the fireplace directly opposite.”

  “Yes. It will work wonderfully,” I told him honestly.

  He grinned at me. “Thanks.”

  “So now you’ve got one thirty-six-by-eight-inch shelf to install, while I finally hang the leaping-lords panels. Then I’ve got to hang two pictures depicting four drummers, and tactfully distribute eight drummer figurines in Henry’s bedroom. Which, by the way, makes me feel a bit like the Easter bunny, hiding drummer boys instead of eggs.”

  Steve crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. “Looks like this time my man-hours were more efficient than your woman-hours.”

  “That’s only because I’ve been a slacker this past week.”

  “My point exactly.”

  I was on the verge of suggesting that we engage in some truly enjoyable slacking together, but I heard heavy footsteps ascending the staircase and correctly guessed that this would be Ben, reporting for duty. He leaned in the doorway and knocked on the lintel. “I got that shelf ready to install.”

  “Excellent,” Steve replied.

  “I’m going to go creatively place my dozen drummers in …” I let my voice fade as my imagination wandered. “A dozen drummers. A dozen eggs. Damn! Why didn’t I think of this before! I could have had a dozen Faberge-egglike creations made up for this! The interior of each one could have revealed a different drummer figurine. That would have been fantastic!”

  “And it would have blown our entire budget on one room,” Sullivan replied.

  “Oh, and then some, but it would have been amazing!”

  “Next time we get a twelve-plus room mansion to decorate for Christmas, using a limitless budget, you’ll be ready.”

  “I will, indeed. And you’ll already have a premade mold for a bronze candlestick holder.”

  With one small, square painting of a drummer boy, one long photograph of three drummers emerging from the mist and the dark background, and eight figurines to blend in with the existing décor and accessories, this was a design challenge. Because of the relatively small, short dimensions of the pictures, I had to spatially treat them more like figurines than wall hangings. I had to move personal effects, accessories, lamps, and paintings accordingly to achieve visual balance and harmony in the room. This was more an art than a science, and I had plenty of false starts.

  I k
new I would need to place one figurine on each of the two nightstands. I was thrown off guard, though, when I discovered a five-by-seven picture frame facedown, pushed off to the side on the left nightstand. I flipped it over and saw to my dismay that it was a photograph of a much younger Angie Woolf and Henry embracing.

  This photograph being here was so odd that I didn’t know what to do with it, and, frankly, I didn’t feel fond enough of Henry at the moment to ask him. Mikara had hired her maid-service staff to begin work on December 23, one day before the inn’s grand opening gala on Christmas Eve. Till then, she was responsible for dropping off fresh linens to our rooms. She would come in here eventually and would be hurt at seeing this picture next to Henry’s bed. I immediately suspected Chiffon of planting it here, but then, she wouldn’t have had access to such an old photograph. It had to have been taken in high school, before Chiffon was even born.

  While I was still staring at the picture, Ben did his usual knock on the open doorway. “Need my help with anything?” he asked.

  Could Ben have put it here to cause trouble? I wondered. I showed him the photograph. “You wouldn’t know anything about this picture, would you?”

  He came closer and smiled wryly. “That’s from our senior prom. It was in the yearbook. Angie and Henry were chosen as king and queen.” He glanced around. “You found that in here?”

  “On the nightstand, lying facedown. I guess I’ll keep it there and work around it.”

  “I guess,” Ben replied, taking a long, sad look at the image before handing it back to me. I returned it, faceup, to its place on the nightstand. “If you don’t need me for—”

  “Give me just a minute. Let me just set out my drummers at random so I can get an idea of what’s left to be done.” I arranged the final three drummers on Henry’s large mahogany dresser. “I might want to duplicate Sullivan’s design of putting objects on a small shelf. It works with the three of them here on the dresser, but the balance of the twelve within the one room might be wrong.”