by Leslie Meier
When Hayley told Gemma the significance of her homemade chocolate Yule logs wrapped with red ribbon in a basket on top of a Yule log, the blood seemed to drain from her face and she suddenly looked ill.
“Are you saying the killer used the Yule log to bash Ryan’s head in?” Gemma croaked.
“We didn’t find a Yule log on the scene, just the ribbon and the traces of chocolate and cream in Ryan’s system,” Sergio said.
“Oh, my God . . . ,” Conner whispered. “The killer probably took the Yule log with him to bury it or something, in order to get rid of the evidence.”
Gemma gasped. “Mother, if people find out Conner and I were out delivering Yule logs that night, and it’s true one of the Yule logs was used to kill Ryan, then he’s going to be a suspect! I mean, everyone at that party saw him and Ryan fighting! They’re going to think he did it!”
“She’s right,” Conner said, suddenly shaken. “And I left the party early with Mona and her family. They dropped me off at your house and I went straight to bed.”
“And there was no one here with you at the time to corroborate your alibi because Hayley and Gemma were still at the party,” Sergio said, never one to sugarcoat anything.
“Mother, you have to do something! You have to investigate and find the killer before Uncle Sergio arrests Conner!”
“First of all, Uncle Sergio is not going to arrest Conner, are you, Sergio?” Hayley asked.
Unfortunately, Sergio’s dead-serious expression did nothing to alleviate the growing panic in Gemma’s eyes.
Conner was definitely a suspect.
Hayley knew it.
Sergio knew it.
Gemma knew it.
And, most of all, Conner knew it.
Hayley also knew that the whole “innocent until proven guilty” rule didn’t always apply in small towns, where the locals fed off salacious scandal.
No, Gemma was right. Although she harbored her own suspicions about Conner—and in her mind, his questionable character—Hayley was anxious to prove that the young man dating her only daughter, this total stranger whom she had only known for a couple of days, who was staying at her house with her family over the holidays, was not some cold-blooded, dangerous killer.
Chapter Six
“Hayley, could you come see me in my office, please?” Bruce asked, very curt and professional.
“Sure, Bruce, be right there,” Hayley said before hanging up the phone and standing up from her desk. She walked around it and into the back bull pen of the office that housed most of the reporters who worked for the Island Times, as well as the editor in chief, Sal Moretti, Hayley’s boss. He was currently battling a cold, which was making him far grumpier than usual. As she passed by his office, she saw Sal blowing his nose into an embroidered handkerchief with a Christmas tree on it. His wife loved arts and crafts and was constantly knitting and crocheting. She was always showing up at the office to hand out mittens and sweaters and scarves, and holiday handkerchiefs, apparently, from her huge pile of finished projects. Sal muttered to himself that he despised this time of year, the bone-chilling winter months that made him more susceptible to the flu and colds.
When Hayley reached Bruce’s office in the far corner of the bull pen, and swung open the door, she was surprised not to find Bruce sitting behind his desk. After all, he had just called her moments before. As she entered, the door slammed shut behind her, and before she had a chance to turn her head, she was spun around and a man’s lips smacked against hers, two manly hands gripping her tightly by both shoulders. When Bruce finally pulled away, he sported a mischievous grin on his face, and gestured upward with his eyes. Hayley glanced up to see a small mistletoe hanging down, taped to the ceiling.
“Did you just stick that up there so you could get me back here and have an excuse to kiss me?” Hayley asked, crossing her arms.
“You really are a good detective,” Bruce answered with a wink.
“This is incredibly inappropriate behavior for the office, Bruce,” Hayley scolded.
Bruce shrugged.
They were officially dating, so he failed to see anything inappropriate about it. Not like the office Christmas party a few years ago, long before they were an item, when he drank too much spiked punch and made a pass at Hayley by trying to kiss her up against the old Xerox machine in the supply room. When that awkward and embarrassing moment happened, it almost cost Bruce his job at the paper. At the time, the last thing Hayley ever expected was that only a few years later, he would be her actual boyfriend.
Life was full of surprises, of that she was certain.
Bruce went in for another kiss, but Hayley stopped him with a firm finger to his lips. “Stop it, Bruce. What if someone walks in here?”
“So what? It’s not like we’re hiding the fact we’re together anymore,” Bruce whined. “Everybody knows.”
“Yes, but I want to maintain a sense of professionalism,” Hayley reminded him. “So no kissing at the office, understand?”
“Fine,” Bruce sighed as he reached up and tore down the mistletoe. He stuffed it in the pocket of his khaki pants. “I’ll keep it here for safekeeping until we get home and I put it up in your kitchen while you’re making me dinner.”
“Tonight is your turn to cook. I’ve been bragging to Gemma about your culinary talents. She wants to know if my judgment is clouded by infatuation,” Hayley said, laughing.
“Great. The pressure’s on,” Bruce said. “Okay, I need to get cracking on my column. Want to grab some fried clams at your brother’s place for lunch?”
“I can’t. I have to go pick up a few things at the Shop ’n Save.”
“Let me do that for you after work. I’m the one cooking tonight, apparently. You don’t even know my menu yet,” Bruce said.
“Okay, full disclosure, I’m not exactly going there to shop. I want to talk to Ron Hopkins.”
“About what?”
“Well, at Liddy’s Christmas party the other night, when Ryan Toledo showed up, Ron had a very negative reaction. He seemed very angry and upset that Ryan was there.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Bruce, you don’t have to do that. I’m just going to—”
“Hayley, the column I’m writing today is about Ryan Toledo’s murder. I’m sorting through all the details, and I want to follow up on any lead that might shed some light on the story. You just gave me a lead.”
“And you are the crime reporter for the paper, not me.”
“Sometimes I’m not so sure,” he said with a deadpan look. “We can slip out for an early lunch around eleven thirty.”
“Okay,” Hayley nodded before opening the office door to leave.
“Oh, one more thing . . .”
When Hayley turned back, she saw Bruce swinging the mistletoe by the string in front of her face, like a hypnotist trying to put her under his control. He quickly went in for one more kiss. Before she could stop him, his lips landed on hers again as Sal hustled by, struggling to put on his bulky winter coat.
“I’m going to the pharmacy for some cough medicine,” he bellowed, before stopping, and taking in the sight of Bruce and Hayley in a lip-lock. “If I wanted to see all this, I would’ve stayed home sick today and watched The Young and the Restless with my wife!”
“Sorry, Sal,” Hayley whispered sheepishly, before throwing Bruce an annoyed look, and scurrying back to her desk out front.
By lunchtime, Sal was coughing and snorting, his eyes were watery, and he was on his third embroidered handkerchief, this one with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on it. As he sucked down his cough medicine, his mood soured considerably. Coincidentally, all of the reporters in nearby cubicles discovered stories that needed to be covered out of the office. No one wanted to be around Sal and risk getting sick right before the Christmas holiday.
* * *
Bruce and Hayley drove over to the Shop ’n Save, as planned, and found Ron in his office, on his computer, reviewing his employees’ tim
e sheets. Given Hayley’s reputation in town for solving local crimes, and Bruce himself was an investigative reporter, Ron was hardly surprised why they showed up to see him. In fact, he was not the least bit reticent about talking to them. It was as if he was relieved to finally get something off his chest.
“I had been mulling over whether or not I should call Chief Alvares directly and tell him about my run-ins with Toledo.”
“What kind of run-ins did you have?” Bruce asked.
“He worked here a few months back. I thought I was being a good guy giving him a job. No one else in town wanted to hire him. They were afraid he’d steal them blind. But I took a chance. ‘Ron,’ I said. ‘Be a Good Samaritan. Give the kid a break.’ Well, that turned out to be a boneheaded decision, believe me.”
“I take it he wasn’t exactly going to have his photo put up by the checkout registers as Employee of the Month,” Hayley said.
“You got that right. I tried him out as a stock boy. Right off the bat, he goofed off during his shifts, stole food from the shelves to take outside for his smoke break, and was downright rude to the customers. I gave him three warnings, which didn’t do any good, so about a week ago, I fired him.”
“How did he handle it?” Bruce asked.
“He didn’t seem to care at all. He just shrugged, and walked out the door without saying a word. I thought that was the end of it, but then, about three days ago, he came back, and demanded he be paid for his last shift. I laughed in his face. He didn’t like that at all, and things got pretty heated. Bethany, on register one, got her cell phone out to dial 911 if it escalated any further, but he finally gave up and barged out of the store.”
“And that was it?” Hayley asked.
“Not by a long shot. The next morning, I showed up at six to open the store, and there was graffiti spray-painted all over the sidewall outside. Lots of four-letter words, threats against me and my family, obscene images, it was disgusting.”
“Did you call the police?” Bruce asked.
“Of course I did! Officers Donnie and Earl showed up, took pictures, had me make a statement, and I told them it was that hoodlum, Ryan Toledo, who had done it. They said they would talk to him. Talk to him? I don’t want them to talk to him! I want them to arrest him and throw him in jail! He’s a menace to society! Do you know how much it’s going to cost me to get all that crap scrubbed off? Anyway, that’s the last I heard from them or Ryan Toledo. Until he showed up at Liddy Crawford’s Christmas party.”
“Ron, given your conflicts with the victim, you must realize—”
Ron interrupted Hayley. “That I’m a suspect? Of course I realize it! Hell, I wish I had been the one to bash that lowlife’s head in, but I wasn’t. Someone else got to him first.”
“Any idea who that might be, if not you?” Bruce said, studying Ron’s face, which was flushed red with anger.
“Not a clue, and I don’t care. But just for the record, it couldn’t have been me.”
“Why is that?” Bruce asked, still not convinced.
“Because I stayed at the party until ten o’clock. Hayley saw me leave! When I got outside, I realized DeAnn had taken our car home earlier and I had too much of the spiked punch to drive anyway. I saw Mona Barnes loading her kids into her car, and I asked if she could give me a lift home and she did! I have the chocolate stains on my coat to prove it.”
“Chocolate stains?” Bruce asked.
“Those wild kids of Mona’s were eating chocolate candy and had it all over their grubby little fingers, and they got chocolate all over my coat.”
“Why did you stay at the party after DeAnn left?” Bruce asked.
“Because I was having a good time. DeAnn suffers from migraines and she got one at the party. It was a doozy. She took a pill, but it didn’t help, so she went home. I offered to go with her, but she insisted I stay. I’ve been working really hard lately and she said I needed to finally have a little fun, which was very sweet of her.”
“Does DeAnn know Ryan Toledo?” Hayley asked.
“No! What possible reason would she have to associate with that scum?”
“Probably none. Just asking,” Hayley said casually. “I assume she was there when you got home?”
“Of course she was. She left the party shortly after eight o’clock. I arrived around ten thirty. She was already in bed sleeping.”
Hayley did specifically remember Ron leaving the party sometime after ten o’clock. If Ron was dropped off at home by ten thirty like he claimed, then it would have been extremely difficult for him to leave again, track down Ryan Toledo, bludgeon him to death in the woods by Liddy’s house, and then flee the scene by the time the body was discovered around eleven.
Hayley could tell from Bruce’s body language that he was now convinced Ron Hopkins was innocent of the murder, and at this point just wanted to get out of there and get his hands on some fried clams and tartar sauce at Randy’s bar.
“Thank you for your time, Ron,” Hayley said with a smile.
“When they do find Toledo’s killer, I want to be the first one to shake his hand and congratulate him.”
Hayley nodded, not sure what to say to that, and then she and Bruce left Ron to stew all over again about the pornographic graffiti that still marked up the sidewall of his store.
Chapter Seven
Hayley thought about the old saying “If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.” She sat, off to the right, in the back pew of the Congregational Church, listening to Reverend Staples’s sermon during Ryan Toledo’s memorial service. When the reverend stopped talking after only two minutes, Hayley assumed he was going to sneeze or apologize for losing his place on his index cards, but, no, he was done, finished. There wasn’t anything else he felt he needed to say. Just a quick recap of Ryan’s brief, troubled life, and almost a Porky Pig imitation of “That’s all, folks!” There wasn’t much of a reaction in the pews, mostly because there were so few people in attendance. Hayley counted six, including Edie Staples, the reverend’s wife, who always sat in on her husband’s sermons. The other five people scattered around the mostly empty pews included Hayley; Gemma, who was seated next to her; Kimmy Bradford, who sat closer to the front, her face buried in a white handkerchief that contrasted with her low-cut black dress; Lenora Hopkins, Ron Hopkins’s ex-wife, strangely enough, wearing a gaudy black hat with black roses sewn around the rim. She sat upright in a middle pew, staring straight ahead, a stoic look on her face. And, finally, there was Ryan’s doddering, old aunt, Esther, who had driven down from Bangor. She appeared bored and kept checking her watch, anxious for the whole affair to mercifully come to an end. That was it. Ryan’s parents were long gone, both having fled town years ago, his father to chase a woman he met while barhopping one summer night, and his mother on the run from the law for writing a slew of bad checks. Ryan’s older brother, Timmy, his only sibling, was in the state prison after getting busted and convicted of running a meth lab out of his girlfriend’s trailer in Bucksport.
Given how loathed the deceased was by many locals, it wasn’t a surprise his funeral was so sparsely attended.
What was surprising was the number of expensive flower arrangements that surrounded the standard, low-cost closed coffin. Dozens of them.
As they made their way down the aisle to pay their respects, Gemma had turned to her mother and whispered in her ear, “I’ve never seen so many flowers and less mourners.”
When they had reached the coffin in the front of the church, Hayley had bent down to check a few of the cards, and was surprised to discover that none of the cards had been signed. Nobody seemed willing to admit to sending flowers to Ryan Toledo’s funeral, which struck Hayley as very odd.
“Now, please join us in the parlor for tea and coffee, as well as some of my wife’s legendary, tasty baked goods.”
Edie Staples loved baking cakes and cookies, which she always put out after a Sunday service or memorial. The trouble was, sh
e was a terrible baker. Her sweets were always dry and tasteless. Most people tried to be polite and choke down a cookie or brownie, so Edie was under the impression she was a talented pastry chef ready to compete on a Food Network bake-off show.
Hayley and Gemma stood up.
“Mom, do you mind if I skip the reception? Conner’s waiting for me at home,” Gemma said, anxious to make her escape.
“No, go, I’ll meet you there in a bit.”
Gemma made a beeline for the door.
Hayley stepped into the aisle, intercepting Lenora Hopkins, who was on her way out. “Aren’t you going to stay for some coffee and sweets, Lenora?”
“God, no,” Lenora scoffed.
Hayley noticed Lenora’s mascara was smeared from crying. “I wasn’t aware that you and Ryan were close.”
Lenora sniffed, trying desperately to remain impassive. “We weren’t that close.”
Hayley noticed Lenora’s eyes now brimming with tears. “Oh, okay . . . you just seem a little upset . . .”
“I said we weren’t that close!” Lenora wailed loudly, her voice echoing through the church, as she pushed past Hayley and out the door.
Reverend Staples gave Hayley an admonishing look as he gathered his notes from behind his podium. He had always suspected Hayley of being a troublemaker, ever since she was a rambunctious teenage girl, and so he was hardly surprised to see her now causing a commotion after his mini-service.
Hayley shrugged and nodded to Ryan’s aunt Esther, whose cell phone was clamped to her ear as she sailed past Hayley.
“I’m on my way back now. The minister droned on and on for much longer than I thought he would, so now I’m probably going to hit traffic,” she sighed.
Esther considers two minutes droning on and on?
* * *
Hayley made her way into the side parlor to join Reverend and Mrs. Staples and Kimmy, who had plopped down in a metal chair in the corner and was weeping softly. Edie Staples took a deep breath and crossed over to Kimmy with a plate of cinnamon cookies, but Kimmy waved her off. Edie snorted her displeasure, and marched away, insulted. When she spied Hayley, she headed straight for her, plate in hand.
