The Case of the Missing Elf: a Melanie Hart Mystery (Melanie Hart Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Anna Drake

  “What do you think?” she asked when we teamed up.

  “I can’t see why anyone would drop a dime on this place,” I said.

  “Come on,” she answered, holding out the keys. “Let’s go poke around.”

  We trooped to the gate. Fortunately, the big gate contained a pedestrian entrance within it. Otherwise, Ginger and I would never have been able to push the large, heavy thing open through the deep and drifted snow.

  As it was, both Ginger and I had to slam our shoulders against the small gate to shift it open.

  “This whole complex,” I complained, “needs to be torn down. I doubt any of the buildings are salvageable. What was Scroggins thinking?”

  “Beats me,” Ginger said, inserting the door key to the warehouse.

  “How come the real estate agent didn’t come with you?” Ginger swung the door open, and we stepped inside the building.

  Ginger snorted. “She probably didn’t think she had much chance of making a sale.”

  I let my gaze take in the decay around me. “I can see why.”

  The warehouse interior was vast and cold and was only dimly lit by the weak light filtering through the windows on this dark a day. Apparently, others had preceded us here. Several piles of trash told us the space had been used by intruders.

  “They probably got in through the broken windows,” I suggested.

  “I don’t even want to think about what they did in here.”

  I nodded. “But seriously, what did Scroggins think he could do with this building? There aren’t any shopping outlets within blocks of here. Even if he rehabbed it, the other buildings would still be decaying. And its ambiance is all wrong for retail.”

  “They’re asking fifty grand for the place,” Ginger responded.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re joking.”

  “It’s a large building. And it comes with lots of off-street parking. The space could hold a lot of crafters and antique dealers. If those kinds of malls were still popular, this place would be perfect.”

  “But what would it cost to remodel? They’d need to replace the windows, put on a new roof. That’s before they even got around to insulating the walls. Then, they’d have to build stalls to house the retailers.”

  Ginger looked around and shook her head. “Put that way…..”

  “It’s not doable,” I said, with conviction. “Even if Scroggins had all the money in the world, his idea would have failed.”

  “Plus, his nine grand wouldn’t even have come close to buying the place... let alone fixing it up.”

  “Where could he expect to get his hands on that kind of cash?”

  “As I’ve told you, my money’s on a blackmailing operation.”

  I laughed.

  “I’m serious. He arrived here broke. He hasn’t worked a job beyond Santa’s Cabin, and I know exactly how much that pays. He’s too old to be a second story man, and there haven’t been any bank robberies any place near here. What’s left?

  “Who in Cloverton could pay out that much money?”

  “How do I know? Maybe Scroggins had more than one victim. Or maybe he’s been at it for a while. You haven’t been able to track the money from the riverboat. Who’s to say he doesn’t have more cash stashed away someplace?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt he was a blackmailer. I’ve read that society is so permissive today, there’s nothing left to blackmail anyone over.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ginger shot back. “Everybody’s got some secret they’d hate to see exposed. Things haven’t changed that much.”

  I studied my friend and wondered if that were true of everyone? And if so, I’d have given my arm to know what Ginger’s secret was. “Well can you think of any of our suspects who might have secrets to hide?”

  “Who are our suspects?”

  “Well, for now, I suppose there’s only Porter.”

  “And Wendy,” Ginger added.

  “No way. She’s innocent. I’d stake my life on it. And I’d rule out blackmail for Porter. From what I saw, he barely has enough money to keep himself alive, let alone subsidize someone else’s lifestyle. But he had committed to investing what little he had in savings into Scroggins’ plan for the warehouse.”

  “I’m getting cold,” Ginger said. “Think you’ve seen enough?”

  I nodded. We turned and followed our tracks back to our cars.

  “Wendy told me that Scroggins used to cheat his business partners. Maybe he was about to run one, last scam at Porter’s expense,” I said, unlocking my car doors.

  “What kind of operation would that be?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.” I leaned back against the car and drained the last drops from my coffee cup. “But maybe it cost Scroggins his life.”

  “So what’s next?” Ginger asked.

  “I double checked on with Larkin on the Plummer boy. He either didn’t have anything more on the kid, or he didn’t want to share with me. Still, he did say the kid might be iffy.”

  “Yeah, I met him. He came in Sunday night.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He had a bit of an attitude problem.”

  Larkin said the boy seemed okay if you didn’t look too closely. But since the break in I’ve been wondering….”

  “Why would you think about him?”

  “Because I still find it odd that Agnes turned up out of the blue to take on the role of elf. I know you trust her. So do I. It’s just this niggling doubt in my stomach that won’t entirely go away. Somehow, I still think its possible there’s a tie between her, or possibly her son, to Scroggins or Porter.”

  Ginger’s face turned reflective. “Jeremy and Toby didn’t hit it off. That’s for sure.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what triggered it. But scowls adorned both their faces.”

  “Did you ask Agnes about it?”

  “Nah. It’s just another one of life’s little irritants. When people dislike each other, I don’t usually get involved. Until one kid punches the other one in the face, who cares?”

  Now, there was one of the big differences between Ginger and me. She possessed an alarming lack of curiosity. While, on most days, curiosity rocked my world.

  ~~~

  Back at work, I had little more than tucked my knees under my desk when the phone rang.

  “Melanie Hart,” I said.

  “The Melanie Hart I intend to drive down and visit this weekend?”

  “Josh,” I squealed.

  “How are you?”

  “Wonderful now that I hear you’re coming to town. What’s changed?”

  “I got to thinking about you, and how much I miss you, and how much I wanted to see you, and I decided the company up here wouldn’t fall apart if I took one day off.”

  “One day?”

  “I’ll leave here around noon Saturday. That should put me into Cloverton sometime before five. Then, it’s out to dinner. What do you say?”

  “Sounds grand to me.”

  “I’ll sleep over Saturday night and head back home early the next morning. I should get back here around noon. That way I’ll be able to work Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon.”

  “Do your employers realize what a treasure you are?”

  “I think so.”

  “I can’t wait to see you.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

  I smiled. “I hope work is going well.”

  “It’s fine. Meanwhile, I see you’ve had a bit of trouble down there?”

  Josh had a mail-order subscription to the Cloverton Gazette. He’d said keeping up with me wasn’t quite enough for him. He wanted to know what was happening throughout the town.

  I took that as a good omen. Maybe one day Josh would be willing to move here, a place I loved with my whole heart. A place I never intended to leave.

  “Yes. As you read, the man who played the elf in Santa’s Cabin was murdered.”

  �
��Do the police have any leads?”

  “It doesn’t appear so. I won’t check in with Gossford until tomorrow morning. Maybe things will have shifted by then.”

  “Are you and Ginger doing your best to beat the cops at their game?”

  “Please, hush.”

  “Well?”

  “Ginger took it personally that somebody had the nerve to kill her elf.”

  “So I take it that’s a yes?”

  “Please, I beg you, don’t tell a soul.”

  “I doubt that I have to. I would imagine somebody’s figured it out for themselves by now.”

  My thoughts turned to Larkin. “I don’t think so. At least not yet. We haven’t really done much so far.”

  “You be careful.”

  “Absolutely.” I heard a voice call out from his end of the line.

  “Gotta go,” Josh said.

  “See you Saturday.”

  “Remember, I’m taking you out to dinner. You can make book on that.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up the phone with a silly grin plastered on my face. I couldn’t help it. Josh had that kind of an effect on me. And he’d elected, despite the heavy workload he faced, to come see me. That thought launched my heart into triple overdrive.

  Thirteen

  Later that day I managed to corral Toby on his way into Santa’s Cabin. It was afternoon and just about the time I’d figured he’d arrive at work. When I stepped up beside him, he greeted me politely.

  “Toby, could you spare me a minute here before you go inside?” Accosting him this way made me feel like a cheap gumshoe detective in some dimestore novel. But I needed to do what I needed to do if I wanted to free Wendy from suspicion.

  My turning up a few feet short of his workplace didn’t appear to rattle Toby. “Sure,” he said, “I’ve got about five minutes before I go on duty. What do you need?”

  “I’ve heard things got a little tense between you and Jeremy Plummer the other day.”

  Toby pulled a face. “Why would you care about that?”

  “It’s just that Mrs. Plummer is a new hire. With Ginger being a friend, I thought maybe I should scope out what the trouble is. I’m here to help Ginger avoid any problems.

  Toby shrugged. “Our differences have nothing to do with my work here, or his mom’s as far as I can tell.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

  I thought my cover story for delving into the relationship between Toby and Jeremy was pretty thin. I wondered if the teenager would read through my bluff and tell me to take a hike. But people often told me I had an open and honest face. I hoped that fact would cover my current lie.

  Toby sighed. “It’s about some stuff that disappeared from my school locker.”

  “Are you saying you think Jeremy stole from you?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “Has he stolen things from other people?”

  “I have a couple of friends who think so.”

  “Did you file a complaint with the police?”

  “Nah, I don’t have any proof.”

  “Is there any reason he could be a suspect just because you dislike him?”

  “Yeah. That’s part of the problem. He’s kind of weird.”

  “In what way?”

  “He doesn’t hang around with us normal kids. He sort of goes his own way. He even claimed he was going to be rich someday.”

  Shades of Scroggins’ friend, Lester Porter, I thought. He, too, thought someday Scroggins would turn him into a wealthy man. What kind of a tie could there have been between Scroggins, Porter, and Jeremy?

  And what did Jeremy’s mother know of this connection — if it existed? Agnes Plummer had solicited Ginger for the elf job. Was it because she was dying to play Santa’s helper or was there a darker reason she wanted inside that cabin?

  “Is that all you wanted to know?” Toby asked.

  I glanced back at him and nodded. “Yes, and thanks for your help. You’d better head into work now.”

  He shot me a grin and scrambled up the cabin steps.

  I stayed behind and watched him go, wondering about Jeremy, and Scroggins, and sudden wealth.

  ~~~

  That night, after having consumed a startlingly good lasagna dinner, Wendy and I settled into the living room. She explained that one of her favorite programs was on TV. “I hope you don’t mind if I watch it.”

  Nero hopped up onto her lap and pranced about briefly before settling in. I’d had a close call a time or two up in my bedroom with the feline, but so far, he hadn’t outright attacked me.

  “Watch away,” I told Wendy. “I’ve heard some good things about the show. I’m looking forward to seeing it.”

  Of course, I hadn’t heard a thing about the program, but she didn’t need to know that. If the TV show kept her happy, so be it. She had enough to deal with just now.

  Wendy nodded with satisfaction and clicked the remote. I watched as the TV sprang to life.

  I’d kept the conversation neutral during dinner. Partly, I refused to interrupt my first homemade pan of lasagna with any other thoughts. I still couldn’t quite believe the delicious dish I’d consumed had been assembled by me.

  Wendy had been a hard taskmaster, making me not only put together a salad, but also whip up a homemade salad dressing. Talk about smug. I was so pleased with my accomplishments that my feet probably wouldn’t come back down to the ground for months.

  But at the first commercial break, I broached a subject that had been bothering me. “Wendy, were you aware that there’d been a teenager hanging around with your cousin?”

  She turned her large eyes on me. “Do you mean the Plummer boy? Sure, I knew about him. Barnaby employed the kid to run errands.”

  “Really? What kind of jobs did he give the kid. Do you know?”

  “No, dear. I never interfered in Barnaby’s doings. If I had, he’d have walked out on me in short order. The man might have been down on his luck, but he had his pride.”

  “But I thought you said Barnaby didn’t run any kind of operations on the side. So weren’t you curious about what the kid was doing.”

  “Oh, no. I think he sent the boy to grocery store once in a while. I think it was a kindness really. Just little jobs that brought in some spending money for the kid. Of course, I didn’t know anything about his warehouse plans back then..”

  “But you knew about Jeremy?”

  “Who?”

  “The Plummer boy.”

  “Oh, is that his first name? Yes, I saw him come and go, but I never met him. Then, I saw him one day with his mother. That’s how I knew he was a Plummer.”

  The program returned from commercials, Wendy turned away from me and refocused her attention on the TV. And I sat there wondering about two grown men and a teenaged boy. What kind things would they have been having him do?.

  As the program rolled toward its inevitable conclusion, I sat in my chair thinking about business gambits, empty warehouses, con games, and Jeremy Plummer and his mother. But try as I might none to figure out a connection, none of it added up to anything concrete.

  At the end of the sitcom, I excused myself and rushed upstairs to my bedroom. Grabbing my cell phone from my purse, I punched in Ginger’s number.

  “Hello there,” she said after a single ring.

  We exchanged a couple of banalities before I got down to business. “Can you meet me for breakfast tomorrow?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “We need to chat.”

  “Hmm, that sounds mysterious. Can you give me a clue?”

  “I’d rather fill you in over breakfast.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you at the Shopping Cart?”

  I thought Ginger might hang up on me if I suggested meeting at Roger Bradley’s restaurant. I’d give anything to know why Ginger disdained him. She usually viewed each new male face in Cloverton as a choice offering put up for her personal enjoyment. But not this time. And I could
n’t figure out why not.

  “Fine,” I said. “If that’s your choice, that’s where I’ll be.”

  Then, I spent most of the rest of the night, staring out my bedroom window at the carriage house. I couldn’t turn off my mind or stop wondering who had murdered Scroggins and why. The only thing I did know was that I couldn’t let Ginger walk blindly through her job at Santa’s Cabin. We needed to chew on this possible connection between Scroggins and Porter and Jeremy and Agness and the possibility of blackmail.

  ~~~

  Wednesday dawned cold and clear. The snow glistened. A north wind held most people captive inside their warm homes. The rest of us, apparently, had all decided to have breakfast at The Shopper’s Cart.

  The place was actually a grocery store, but in one corner it offered a small eat-in restaurant that was usually stuffed when it came to breakfasts. When I arrived, the eatery was filled with chilly customers ordering up hot food.

  I spotted Ginger at the back of the room. With a fierce glare at passing diners, she had snagged, and now held fast, a place for us at a small table.

  “What’s the deal?” she asked, as I joined her. “This place is always busy, but I’ve never seen it like this.”

  “There’s nothing like cold weather to give me an appetite.” I peeled off my parka and grabbed a menu. “I guess I’m not alone.”

  Jasmine Hargrove turned up to take our order. Just out of high school, she was perky and an excellent antidote to the blustery weather just beyond the restaurant window.

  I opted for a full breakfast platter. Ginger ordered toast and orange juice. We both nodded enthusiastically, when Jasmine asked if we wanted coffee. She quickly filled our cups and then dashed off with our orders.

  In her wake, I returned my attention to my friend. “Are you feeling okay?”

  Normally, Ginger was grumpy when we met this early in the morning. She much preferred lunchtime sessions.

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Ach,” she groused. “We’re not even a week into Santa’s Cabin, and I can’t wait to close the thing down. It’s draining every drop of energy out of me.”