Mistletoe and Mayhem

by London Lovett

  Chapter 20

  I'd arrived home after truffle making more intoxicated on chocolate than on the wine. Even though I was a little bleary eyed from the long day and lightheaded from the sugar rush, I had made a firm decision to add more twinkling lights to my porch. My house had looked drab and dreary compared to Elsie's winter wonderland.

  Ryder had texted that he would open the shop because he had a few more details to add to the window. He insisted I take the morning off and with my chocolate hangover, I wasn't about to argue the point. The free morning had given me time to search through my closet for my spare Christmas lights. Unfortunately, I hadn't taken much care with them when I had yanked them off my city apartment balcony. I had to waste my precious time untangling them from a knotted ball.

  I sat on the bench on my porch, working out the knots and watching Kingston take a much needed flight around the neighborhood. The poor bird really hated the winter months when the trees were more laden with snow and ice than leaves and edible treats.

  While I worked, two cars sped along Myrtle Place, each filled to capacity with passengers. More out-of-towners intrigued by the murder-suicide in the big gothic mansion on the hill. I'd been so busy I hadn't had time to think much about the startling information I'd discovered about the case. It seemed to me that there was no way Bertram Hawksworth had taken his own life. That meant someone else had shot him and then placed the gun in his right hand to make it look like a suicide. And that someone had most likely killed the rest of the family as well. It was not a murder-suicide. It was a murder. A cold, tragic murder and the officer who was first at the scene had figured that out himself before being sent off to a different precinct.

  The sharp thwack of a hammer rang out. The sound ricocheted off the houses across the street and bounced back to my side. I put down the thread of lights and walked over to Dash's house. Captain sat on the bottom step, his tail wagging in rhythm with the hammer as Dash pounded a piece of wood to the new porch overhang.

  Dash reached for another nail and noticed his audience of one had doubled. "Howdy, neighbor," he called down from the step ladder. He hopped off.

  "I don't want to stop you. I just came to watch a tradesman at work."

  He blew air from his lips. "Tradesman, I wish. I'll just be happy if the thing is level and stays standing in a wind storm. What are you up to this morning?"

  "Well, Elsie's picture worthy holiday decorations made me feel ashamed. So I'm trying to add some more zip to my porch. Only I'm spending most of my time trying to unzip the lights from each other."

  Dash laughed. "Ah yes, the annual untangling of the holiday lights. I know it well. My dad used to get so frustrated, he'd just start hanging them up in knotted clusters. All you need is one of those Victorian kissing boughs like you made for Kate's shop."

  "You saw that? So you were in her shop and under the kissing bough too?" I shouldn't have been disappointed, but I was definitely feeling a hint of it.

  "Next week is my sixteen-year-old niece's birthday. I'm terrible at picking gifts for her. And my sister warned me no gift cards because they are too impersonal. Of course, she didn't give me any good suggestions either, so I called Kate. She told me to come down to the shop, and we'd find something for her. We settled on a shiny pair of boots and a vintage denim jacket. I think Riley is going to love it."

  "I sure would if I was sixteen." Suddenly Kate's urgent need for the kissing bough was explained. She was expecting a visit from Dash. I looked up at him. "Did the mistletoe draped kissing bough work its magic while you were shopping?"

  "If that's your roundabout way of asking if I kissed Kate while I was there, then sorry to disappoint you. Your kissing bough isn't as magical as you might think."

  I released a breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Was I interested in Dash? Or was I not thrilled with the idea of Kate having him? Sometimes a woman's mind was as tangled as a ball of Christmas lights.

  Dash walked past me and picked up several planks of wood. He headed back with his load and stopped in front of me. "Just to be clear, Lacey, there's nothing between Kate and me. She was just helping with a perfect gift."

  "That's all right, Dash. It's none of my business. I'm going to take my nosy nose and head back to my knotted ball of lights." I turned and caught a whiff of the fresh lumber he was holding. "The woodsy smell," I muttered.

  "Yep, that's because it's wood."

  "No, I know. That’s it. That’s the smell I was trying to find. What kind of wood is it?”

  "Douglas Fir. It's the most popular wood for building lumber." He pushed his nose close to it. "I don't smell a thing."

  "No, it's faint. But it's there. Thank you for this." I headed back toward my house.

  "For what?" he called.

  "For having lumber for me to smell."

  Chapter 21

  My elation about recognizing the woodsy smell on Chad Ruxley's sweater had waned a few minutes after my discovery. The odor had been so faint, and it had been long enough that I felt I needed to smell the sweater again just to be sure. And even then, I wasn't sure how it would help solve the crime.

  Kingston had decided to take a longer than anticipated journey around the neighborhood. I had to resort to standing on the front porch loudly eating peanuts to get his attention and lure him back to the house. The entire pet trick made me almost miss the window judging.

  I jumped out of my car and raced into the shop. Ryder looked miffed about me being so late.

  "I'm so sorry, Ryder." I held up the container of truffles I packed for him. "Candy for you." I placed the chocolates on the counter and continued with my apology. "Kingston wouldn't come home, and I didn't want to leave him out in this cold weather. I thought I was going to have to rub hardboiled eggs on my head to get him back into the house."

  Ryder opened the container and bit into a truffle. "Man, that's delicious. Good ole, Kingston." He smiled. My story and the peace offering of truffles had washed away any anger. "I miss that bird." He walked over to the paper curtain. "I wanted you to see it before the judge walked by."

  I tossed my coat on the hook and joined him at the bay window. "Should I close my eyes?" I asked.

  "Then how will you see it?"

  "Good point."

  The paper ripped away. A marvelously sculpted set of snow loving animals, white birch polar bear, black sunflower seed penguins and an Arctic fox made of white rose petals played in a white carnation snow drift.

  "Wow, Ryder, they look so animated." I took a deep breath. "And they smell good. They are perfect. It's perfect." I gave him a quick hug.

  "I've got to climb inside and pulled down the paper on the window pane. Go outside and see how it looks from the sidewalk."

  "Yes, I can't wait." I headed outside and immediately regretted peeling off my coat so fast. I hugged myself and did a little dance to keep warm as he tore away the paper.

  "Well?" he called through the glass.

  "It's gorgeous."

  "It certainly is," Lester said from behind. "Next time, I'm going to have Ryder decorate my window. Yolanda only spent one minute looking at mine. She's writing some notes on her clipboard." He added an eye roll to that. "And then she's coming to your shop."

  Yolanda had enlisted the help of Franki's son. I wasn't sure which one because Tyler and Taylor were so identical, I couldn't tell them apart. Especially when I only saw one. Franki's twin daughters were easier to distinguish because they had different taste in clothing and different hairstyles, but that wasn't the case with her boys. Taylor or Tyler was carrying a small trophy and a blue ribbon.

  Yolanda reached my shop window.

  "How is everything going, Yolanda?"

  She groaned as her shoulders fell. "Things would be a lot better if people didn't keep getting killed during my planned events. I put all this time and effort into making things perfect."

  "Yes, I know you do. And you do an incredible job."

  "Thank you. But what's the use of turning
the town into a storybook Christmas town when a man is just going to end up dead in the middle of it all. Not that I'm blaming him. Poor man." She blew out a frustrated breath. "Anyhow, let's see what you have." She walked up to the window to get a better look. "Oh my goodness, this is adorable. You outdid yourself, Lacey."

  "Yes I did. I hired an incredible assistant. Ryder did this all on his own."

  My innocent confession caused her mouth to purse together in disapproval. Ryder was watching anxiously through the window to gauge Yolanda's reaction. I showed him a thumbs up to let him know she loved it, even though I was sure my big mouth had just cost him the trophy.

  I let Yolanda do her judge thing and stepped back with Lester, who was chatting with Franki's son. Instantly, my sense of smell was overwhelmed with the pungent, menthol smell of sore muscle cream.

  "Tyler," I said, happily. "You're Tyler," I repeated.

  Lester laughed. "He probably already knows that."

  "Yes, of course. I was eating at the diner when you called your mom about your injury at practice. She told you to put on the sports cream. Now I can tell you apart from your brother."

  "Never thought of that," Tyler said. "But I'm not sure how much longer I can stand the stuff. It's giving me a headache more than it's helping my pulled muscle."

  "I'm still excited that I could tell you two apart this morning."

  Yolanda wrote something down on her clipboard. "Come, Tyler. Let's walk over to Elsie's shop."

  They hurried on to the next window. Lester walked up next to me. He waved into the window at Ryder.

  "Did you get any good vibes from her?" Lester asked.

  I kept smiling as I spoke because Ryder was watching. "I think I just blew our chances of winning by being too darn honest. And now I have to tell Ryder."

  Lester chuckled. "Yeah, that honesty stuff can sometimes get you in the end. I guess I'll get back to brewing coffee and leave window decorating events to people like my sister."

  "Have a good day, Les."

  Chapter 22

  I was glad that I'd at least brought truffles to brighten Ryder's otherwise dismal mood. I had warned him that I'd probably taken us out of the running by letting Yolanda know that I'd had no part in the genius and talent behind our window display. I wanted to make sure Ryder got all the credit. I hadn't expected Yolanda to be quite so petty. But I took a lot of photos of the display and posted them on the shop's website so everyone could see it and so that the memory of the amazing display would still be fresh long after the petals and flowers wilted away.

  Elsie had also missed out on the trophy, which hadn't surprised me too much because I'd always noticed a hint of tension between Yolanda and Elsie. I often wondered if it stemmed from them both being filled with non-stop energy. There might just have been a touch of competition between them to see who could out-dynamo the other.

  And after the entire drama and angst of the window competition, the person who won was sitting behind her computer at her desk in the back office not even wearing a proud smile.

  Lola looked up as I walked in.

  "Congratulations on the blue ribbon." I sat on the rustic old farm bench in front of her desk.

  "Yeah, I don't know what Yolanda was thinking. All I did was dust off a bunch of old toys and arrange them in the window."

  I reached into the crystal candy dish at the front of her desk and took out a peppermint. "Not true. There is something about the toys you chose and the way you positioned them that makes them seem as if they were taken right out of a Victorian Christmas card." As I gushed on about her window, she continued clicking away on her keyboard and staring intently at the screen.

  "Why, thank you, Pink, what a nice thing to say," I said in my best imitation of Lola.

  Her brown eyes peered over the top of the computer. "Sorry, I was just looking something up."

  I unwrapped the peppermint. "Let me guess, Dayton Construction and its illustrious owner?” I popped the mint into my mouth, and as predicted, a sneeze followed. I'd never figured out why peppermint made me sneeze.

  "Gesundheit," Lola said absently. "Apparently Dayton Construction is only a couple years old. They are based in a town called Rowley, which is about a hundred miles from here." That piece of information made her slim shoulders sag. I had hoped it wouldn't be the case, but my friend still seemed to be obsessing about Randall Dayton. It made me wish we had never walked into Franki's Diner that day.

  "A hundred miles is not exactly a day trip." My rational comment earned a disgruntled snort.

  Lola's chair creaked as she sat forward. "Wow, the stuff you find when you're snooping around into someone's life. There's a company called Big Bob Construction that keeps coming up with Dayton Construction. It seems Big Bob was owned by Robert Dayton, Randall's father."

  She quickly typed something into the search bar.

  "I guess I'll go and leave you to your research. I just wanted to congratulate you on your win."

  Before I stood up, she raised her hand to stop me from going. "It says that Bob Dayton lost his contractor's license and his company went bankrupt after he was cited for at least a dozen safety violations." Her finger reached toward the screen as her eyes darted back and forth. "Oh, that's sad." She sat back with a frown. "It seems the whole fiasco drove Big Bob to suicide."

  I got up from the chair. "It sounds like Randall comes with a lot of baggage. Something you are better off without." I wasn't going to play the supportive friend with this guy. I hadn't even bothered to mention to her what Dash had told me after his interview with Dayton. I was relieved he wouldn't be in the area for long. "I'm heading back to my store. Catch you later."

  I was just about out of her office when she called to me. "Hey, Pink?"

  I turned back. "Yeah?

  "What was the name of the man they found strangled on the pier?"

  The question surprised and confused me. "Chad Ruxley. Why?"

  "That's what I thought." She finally lifted her eyes from the monitor. "It says in one of the articles about Big Bob Construction that a sub-contracted plumber working on one of the Big Bob Construction sites had blown the whistle on the company's safety violations. It was Chad Ruxley."

  Sometimes a revelation could nearly sweep you off your feet and not in a good way. What were the odds that Randall Dayton's family had a rough and rocky history with Chad Ruxley. I hurried over to her computer to read the article myself. It was dated April 2012. "Chad Ruxley of Ruxley Plumbing was being praised for speaking up about some egregious safety issues, something that Big Bob had been cited for many times. But instead of cleaning up his act, Dayton continued to break the OSHA rules. Ruxley alerted the contractor's board, and they stripped Dayton of his license. The business folded soon after. A year later, Robert Dayton took his own life with a handgun, leaving behind a wife, Patricia and two sons, Randall and Scott."

  Ideas and notions were shooting around in my head like a wild game of darts. Was it possible Detective Briggs was overlooking another potential suspect? I was going to head straight over to his office and tell him what I'd just learned. I was sure he'd be interested to hear.

  "I'll talk to you later, Lola, and try not to waste—spend too much time on this man. There are many other fish in the sea."

  Lola stared at me over her computer. "You didn't just throw the fish in the sea metaphor at me, did you?"

  "We live in a coastal town so it works," I chirruped on the way out.

  Chapter 23

  I swept by my shop to grab my coat and gloves and to let Ryder know I was going on an important errand. Then I race walked to the police station as if there were tiny turbo charged wings on my shoes.

  Fingers crossed was often my go to move, but it rarely ever worked for me, especially when I was wearing gloves. But this time I was in luck. Detective Briggs' car was parked out front of the police station. Earlier, I'd been anxious to tell him about the scent match with fresh lumber, but I quickly questioned my conclusions. I hated to give him mo
re superfluous information. What he needed was something cogent, something he could use. And it seemed to me I had it.

  Hilda was on the radio giving directions to an officer when I walked into the station. She finished the call and removed the headphones. "Good morning, Lacey. Nice to see you." She stood to see me better over the tall counter. "I'm sure you're here to see, Detective Briggs. I'll just let him know." A sheepish grin appeared. "Did you notice what I hung from the ceiling?"

  I dropped my head back and stared up at the cluster of mistletoe taped to the ceiling of the station. "I see it now."

  "Thought it would add a festive touch to the place." Poor Hilda tried to spruce up the drab, utilitarian office every holiday, but her added touches only seemed to make the place look even more like a police station. Almost as if the small adornments stood out in stark contrast, highlighting just how cold and uninviting the station was.

  Hilda's laugh brought my chin back down to my chest. "I think Officer Chinmoor has been hoping a pretty girl would walk in just so he could give the mistletoe magic a try."

  Detective Briggs' door opened. His face seemed to light up when he saw me. (At least that was what I was telling myself.) "Miss Pinkerton, I thought I heard another voice out here. I was just on my way to Chad Ruxley's boat to do another sweep for evidence before his brother has it taken to storage."

  "I can go with you, if you need a nose."

  "That would be great."

  "First though, I have some information I think you might find interesting."

  "Sure. Come into my office. I have someone waiting to give me a ride out to the boat, but I have a few minutes." Briggs buzzed me through the metal gate between the counters, and we walked into his office.

  He stopped short of circling around to his chair and leaned against the front of his desk. "Would you like to sit?"