Never Mess with Mistletoe

by Edie Claire

  Lydie, Leigh, and Randall all exchanged a look. None of them commented.

  A gentle rapping sound on the back door alerted them to Maura’s return. Leigh jumped up and let the detective in, then gestured for her to join them. Having been Leigh’s friend since their college days, Maura was treated as one of the family. The imposing detective folded her large frame into a kitchen chair and relaxed. Maura’s gruff demeanor and tendency to explode like a volcano over Leigh’s imagined misdeeds could be scary, but the detective’s baby-blue eyes and apple cheeks betrayed her underlying good nature. Besides which, being happily married and having her first baby at forty-two this past spring had definitely had a mellowing effect.

  “Do you want to interview us officially now?” Frances asked.

  Maura shook her head. “That won’t be necessary, no. I have your statements. I will have some additional questions after I sort through everything, but that can wait until after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Excellent news,” Randall declared, rising. “In that case, off we go.”

  “Wait, Dad,” Leigh insisted. If there was anyone who could get a good night’s sleep content with roughly fifty-fifty odds that a death and not a murder had just occurred in his dining room, it was her no-nonsense father. But her own nerves on one particular point were not so easily soothed, and she wanted his input as well as Maura’s. “Before anyone leaves,” Leigh said, “I want to know what Maura thinks about Allison’s notebook disappearing.” She explained the situation as completely and concisely as she could.

  “Oh, merciful heavens,” Frances wailed. “This is all my fault. I should never have assigned that poor child to the dining room!”

  Oh, no. Leigh wanted to smack herself. The last thing she wanted was to make her mother feel guilty.

  “Do stop that nonsense, Frances,” Lydie demanded. “I think we all need to take a breath and remind ourselves that we are talking about the Floribundas, here! We all know how ridiculously paranoid some of these women are. Not a one of them would be above sneaking a peek at what that child had written. Any perfectly innocent party could have had second thoughts about something they’d said, or worried that they’d been misquoted. Maybe they wanted to see what else Allison had overheard. Maybe they were bored and merely wanted to cause a scene!”

  Leigh took a deep breath and let it out slowly, following her aunt’s advice. Lydie was right. The disappearance of Allison’s notebook was not a good thing. But there were reasonable explanations besides the targeting of her daughter by a deranged insurance-defrauding murderess.

  “I will definitely look into it, Leigh,” Maura said, writing a line in her own notebook. Then she shut it and returned it to her pocket. “And we’ll talk more tomorrow morning. But for now, Dr. and Mrs. Koslow, I suggest you evict the lot of us, take your house back, and get some sleep.”

  Randall stood up again, and this time, so did everyone else. A heavy cloud still hung over the household, but everyone was exhausted, and for now, there was nothing more to be done. Goodnights were spoken, Lydie went back to her own house, and Maura and Leigh walked out to their cars.

  “Maura,” Leigh said quietly as she opened her door and got in. “Tell me straight. Am I just being an overprotective mother? Or should I be worried about Allison?”

  Maura’s answer came a beat too late for Leigh’s satisfaction. “It’s highly unlikely she’s in any real danger. Look, Koslow, I haven’t even read all the reports yet. But you know I’ll do everything I can to keep everybody safe. Even if I get pulled off the case.”

  Leigh groaned aloud. It was only so much help to have a friend who was a police detective when certain higher-ups kept declaring conflicts of interest. “Not again!”

  “And whose fault is that?” Maura returned crossly.

  Leigh shut up. Arguing her innocence when it came to her statistically improbable involvement with homicide never got her anywhere.

  “You’re looking nearly as rough as your mother, by the way,” Maura continued. “I suggest you get some sleep yourself. I promised little Eddie his second-ever taste of cake at your house tomorrow, so we expect this party to be first rate.”

  “Oh, my,” Leigh moaned. “The twins’ birthday. How could I almost forget that?”

  Maura cracked a grin. “Ah, sweet parenthood. It’s amazing what age and a little sleep deprivation can do to you. This morning Gerry squirted diaper rash cream onto his toothbrush.” She slammed the car door shut behind Leigh. “Drive safe.”

  Chapter 15

  Pet therapy.

  It was best stress antidote Leigh knew of. Within ten minutes of her sitting on the couch, she had a geriatric cat purring in her lap and a well-fed corgi asleep on her feet. Now she never wanted to move again.

  Her tasks for the kids’ twelfth birthday party had been completed. She had wrapped the packages, performed her standard perfunctory cleaning pass, set the table, and put up the few low-key, gender neutral decorations both kids had been willing to agree on. Her duties in the kitchen, thank God, were nil. Ethan and Allison, in their infinite wisdom, had specifically asked their father if he would fix all their favorite foods, so the meal was Warren’s problem. She always enjoyed these yearly family get-togethers for the kids, and she was determined that everyone would enjoy this one, too, despite the awkward timing. This moment was the most relaxed she’d felt in days. But her respite was doomed to be brief.

  “She is coming before the party, isn’t she Mom?” Allison asked in a voice underlain with tension. The girl was standing at the window again. She’d been watching out of it and pacing in front of it for the last forty-five minutes.

  Leigh tried hard to maintain her zen. “Allison, if Maura said she would interview you today before the party, she will interview you today before the party. I really wish you would stop thinking so much about it. It’s your birthday! Wouldn’t you like to do something else while we’re waiting? Something fun?”

  Allison turned from the window and regarded her mother with a sober expression. As she reached up and adjusted her glasses, she looked so much like her grandfather Randall it was uncanny. “Mom,” she said firmly, “this is serious. I have things I need to tell her.”

  Leigh sighed and sat up a bit, much to the consternation of Mao Tse, who dug in her claws as her bed shifted sideways. Leigh’s feet moved as well, but the loudly snoring Chewie was oblivious. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to forget about everything that happened yesterday, just for the next few hours?”

  Allison stared back at her. “You know what I really want for my birthday, Mom?”

  For a second, Leigh felt a faint flicker of hope that she was about to hear a request for a shiny new phone or a bedroom makeover or maybe even a bicycle. But then she got real. The girl’s only request to date had been for subscriptions to boring software services, which Warren had thought perfectly sensible. Leigh had thrown a new comforter set into the mix anyway, just to give the girl something solid to unwrap. But she doubted it would be received with much enthusiasm. “What’s that?”

  Allison stepped closer to her. “I want you to talk to me about this case. Like you would if you didn’t still think of me as a little kid.”

  Icy terror gripped Leigh’s heart. No. Allison was her baby. She’d only been born a few weeks ago, after all, and it was Leigh’s job to protect her from all that was evil in the world. Her brother was so much easier. Ethan had always had a cheerful disposition and naturally gravitated toward the positive in life. What’s more, he was in absolutely no hurry to grow up. But this child, this dark-eyed, serious-minded little girl, seemed intent not only on growing old before her time but running into a flaming inferno with a mini fire extinguisher in one hand and a notebook in the other.

  “This case?” Leigh repeated stupidly.

  Allison frowned. “Never mind.” She began to stomp off.

  “Wait,” Leigh said, feeling lousy. She’d been feeling lousy for a while now, wracked with mother guilt ove
r a truth she hesitated to admit, even to Warren. But the fact was, dammit, she didn’t particularly want the twins to turn twelve. Not that the alternative was preferable, of course. But twelve was one of those milestones a mother had mixed feelings about. Eleven was the last year that kids could be kids, while thirteen was full-blown teenagerhood. The only thing that was certain about age twelve was that it was an awkward year for boys and pure hell for girls, and both genders responded by taking their frustrations out on their parents.

  Leigh enjoyed being a kids’ mom. Many times over, she had wanted to freeze her happy little family just the way it was. Why must time rock the boat so viciously?

  Allison stopped. She crossed her bony arms over her skinny middle and looked at her mother expectantly.

  Get a grip, Koslow, Leigh ordered herself. Would you like to be frozen at the age of five, still skipping around your parents’ house in a pixie cut and a polyester dress?

  She shuddered.

  “All right, Allie,” she said boldly, patting the couch beside her. “Let’s talk. What did you find out yesterday?”

  Allison stared at her mother suspiciously for quite some time before a warm smile spread across her face. She stepped over the snoozing corgi, pulled yet another notebook out of her back pocket, and sat down. “Well,” she said brightly, “I found out a lot of things.” She opened her notebook and flipped to a particular page. “The way I see it, there are three options. Either Lucille died of natural causes, she committed suicide, or she was murdered. Right?”

  Leigh didn’t feel as though the sparkle in her daughter’s eyes was appropriate for the subject matter. But she nodded.

  “The first one is probably the most likely,” Allison continued matter-of-factly, “because she was really sick, and it must have been a stressful day for her. I wrote down everything Virginia said was wrong with her—” she stopped and looked at her mother. “You don’t mind if I use their first names, do you? I know I’m supposed to say Mrs. So-and-So, but nobody else uses last names when they’re talking, so it’s kind of awkward when taking notes.”

  Leigh fought back a grin at Allison’s earnestness. The girl was trying so amazingly hard to sound mature. “That’s fine.”

  Allison smiled. “Anyway, I was thinking about how often older dogs and cats die when they’re being boarded, even if they seem fine when they come in. Grandpa says it’s the stress. They can be managing okay with a chronic problem, but then stress puts them over the edge and suddenly it’s a crisis.”

  Leigh felt a twinge of pride. Allison had a good mind for medicine. If only she would stick with wanting to be a veterinarian!

  “The Holiday House Tour had to be really stressful for Lucille,” Allison theorized. “Bridget said that before the Floribundas’ emergency meeting on Friday, she hadn’t been out of her house for a week. So for Lucille to have a natural heart attack or a stroke wouldn’t be that surprising. But…”

  Leigh braced herself.

  “If that’s what happened, then every other weird thing that happened was a total coincidence,” Allison finished, frowning again. “And you know how I feel about coincidences, Mom.”

  “Yes,” Leigh agreed, pushing from her mind several previous examples she didn’t want to think about.

  Allison ticked off numbers on her fingers. “The anthrax call, for one. That was just plain weird. If someone wanted to disrupt the tour, they should have called earlier, when we had bigger crowds. Calling at the end like that, what did they get out of it? Nothing really, except sending the Floribundas into hysterics and making the police show up. Think about that, Mom.”

  Leigh thought about it. She still liked the kids-down-the-street theory. Never mind that kids still young enough to enjoy prank calls would also be too young to remember the 2001 anthrax scare.

  “Second,” Allison went on, “when Lucille’s son showed up, he couldn’t possibly have known about his mother’s death for very long. He must have come straight from wherever he was when the police called him to Grandma’s house. But the first thing he did was start blaming Bridget. I’ve read about the stages of grief, and it just seems like he blew through the ‘denial’ one pretty fast and got straight to ‘anger.’ I know he knew how sick his mother was… but if he expected her to go at any time, why flip out on Bridget like that at all? Strange, Mom.”

  Leigh did not disagree. Although, in her limited association with both Lucille and Bobby, she would not expect the son to mourn his mother’s passing with any great sentiment. Lucille might have doted on Bobby, but the apple of her eye had always struck Leigh as a singularly self-centered lout.

  “Third, somebody ripped off my notebook, which I don’t need to tell you about,” Allison said with a steely tone. “And fourth,” She paused, then blew out a breath. “This one is harder to explain, but I know you’ll know what I’m talking about. Let’s face it, the Floribundas are weird. Even for old ladies. But the way they were talking after Lucille died…”

  The girl’s voice trailed off, and Leigh found herself leaning in. She couldn’t imagine that any of the women would have talked openly, in front of Allison and the husbands and herself and Lydie, about Lucille’s supposed insurance scam. But then again, Allison was right. They were weird.

  “I could say that none of them were surprised,” Allison finished. “And that’s true. But that’s not all of it. They were all just so nervous. Uptight. Almost like suspicious. And not of the Flying Maples, either, although they kept talking about them like they were superhero villains or something. But even though that’s what they said, I kept getting this vibe like they were all really suspicious of each other. And as sick as everybody kept saying Lucille was, that made no sense. You know what I mean?”

  Leigh cocked an eyebrow. Maura was right, dammit. The child did have amazingly good instincts when it came to criminal investigation.

  “You’re right,” Leigh forced herself to say. She tried to stay calm by imagining an adult Allison wearing a white jacket and stethoscope and sitting in a nice, safe veterinary clinic surrounded by puppies and kittens. There, that’s better. “They are suspicious of each other. Grandma admitted as much after you left last night.” She briefly considered censoring the adults’ conversation, but realized that doing so would be counterproductive. If Allison suspected information was being kept from her, her efforts at espionage would only increase, potentially putting her at risk. So Leigh bit the bullet and explained the potential for an insurance scam, as well as Frances’s uncertainty over whether any Floribunda had played a role in it.

  Allison listened with rapt concentration, making several new entries in her notebook. When Leigh finished, the girl’s small face was practically aglow. “Death by natural causes is still possible,” Allison said speculatively. “But it looks like I’m wrong about suicide or murder. If it’s either, it’s going to be both. Lucille would need at least one accomplice besides Bobby, don’t you think?”

  Leigh was uncomfortable. The word “murder” had come from her daughter’s mouth twice in the last few minutes, and it rolled off her tongue all too easily. “Allison,” she diverted, avoiding the question, “what exactly was in the notebook that disappeared?”

  The girl’s brow furrowed. But then her lips drew gradually into a sardonic smile. “That’s the funny part, Mom. I started writing down everything that I could remember about Lucille as soon as you said she’d passed away. But I wrote all that in my pocket notebook. The one that got taken wasn’t that one, it was the second one! All the stolen one had in it were my notes about what people were saying in the living room afterwards. That, and Virginia going on about people’s medical conditions. So if somebody stole my notebook to see what I wrote about what happened in the dining room before Lucille died… Ha!” Allison crowed. “Epic fail!”

  Leigh had a sudden, fierce urge to whisk the entire family away to Bermuda for a month. “Why were you taking notes about people’s medical conditions?” she asked instead.

  Her daughter l
ooked at her as if the answer were obvious. “Poisoning, Mom. You know older people have bathroom cabinets stuffed full of prescription drugs!”

  Leigh reconsidered. Bermuda was too close. Fiji, perhaps? She would check Warren’s frequent flier account immediately after the party.

  They heard the sound of something metal clattering to the floor in the kitchen, and Chewie leapt into action as if he’d been zapped with a cattle prod. A blur of sable-colored fur shot off after the sound while Ethan’s voice drifted toward them. “Sorry, Dad. Slipped out of my hand.”

  Leigh reached down and rubbed her ankle where Chewie’s toenails had excoriated her. Mao Tse, who did not appreciate being compressed, jumped from Leigh’s lap with a mew of annoyance just as the doorbell rang. Chewie dutifully barked to alert them all of a visitor, but he could not be bothered to greet the individual in person. His greater responsibility lay with kitchen floor sanitization.

  “Aunt Mo’s here!” Allison cried with delight, jumping up and running to open the door.

  “Happy birthday!” the detective greeted with a smile. She was wearing a bright red wool coat that made her look frighteningly like Santa Claus, particularly when she carried two wrapped packages.

  “Hey, you weren’t supposed to get us presents!” Allison reminded.

  “I didn’t,” Maura assured, stepping inside. “These are from Eddie. He insisted. I think he’s angling to make sure he gets something from the two of you when he turns one next spring.”

  Allison giggled.

  Leigh wished her daughter did more giggling and less scribbling about poisons in notebooks. “Oh, Eddie will get presents from us,” Leigh teased. “Lots and lots of really noisy presents.”

  Maura smirked. “Gerry and I will never be forgiven for that toddler drum set, will we?”

  Leigh smirked back. “Oh, hell, no.”

  “Can we talk now, Aunt Mo?” Allison begged. “We can go to my room. You want to interview me privately or does Mom have to be there?”