by Leslie Meier
“What? No, it’s nothing,” she lied.
“You seem displeased,” Conner said, turning to Gemma, who quickly slapped on her own bogus, strained smile.
“It’s just that with the dinner we’re having, I was going to serve a white wine . . .”
“Meat loaf? Usually you have red wine with that.”
“Well, call me a rebel, I guess,” Hayley said, laughing, eyeing Mona to join in.
But Mona just stood by the kitchen sink, gripping a carving knife in her hand, ready to attack if Conner made the slightest move toward her.
“I can go back to the store if you want,” Conner offered.
“Only if it’s not too much trouble. Let me get you some money from my purse.”
Hayley reached for her purse, which was lying on the kitchen table, and began fishing through it.
Conner finally noticed Dustin. “Hey, I’m Conner. You must be Dustin. Your mom must be so happy you made it home for Christmas.”
Conner stuck out his hand.
Dustin offered a limp handshake as he gaped at Conner.
Gemma tried signaling Dustin to stop staring, but he didn’t catch it.
Because he was staring directly at Conner.
Hayley pressed some bills into Conner’s free hand. “Take your time. There’s no hurry. Dinner won’t be ready for at least a couple of hours.”
“Thanks,” Conner said.
“Wait a minute! It just hit me! I know who you are!” Dustin gasped.
Conner looked at Dustin, confused. “I’m Conner, Gemma’s boyfriend.”
“No, I saw you on TV last night on FBI’s Most Wanted Files!”
“Dustin, no!” Hayley screamed.
“See, I was right!” Mona cried.
“You’re the actor who played the serial killer in the reenactment scenes!” Dustin said, slapping his forehead. “I knew I recognized you from somewhere!”
Everyone took a collective breath.
“Reenactment scenes?” Hayley whispered.
“Yeah, you were awesome hacking up all those bodies!”
“Thanks,” Conner said sheepishly, shuffling his feet, clearly embarrassed.
Bruce tried not to laugh, but a tiny snort escaped through his nose.
As the realization hit Mona, her face turned a beet red, and she inched her way toward the back door past Conner. “You know, I need to get home to my kids! You all enjoy your meat loaf!”
And she was gone.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen Mona rush home to her kids,” Bruce remarked.
“You were on a TV show and you didn’t tell me?” Gemma asked Conner.
Conner shrugged. “I didn’t want to tell anyone I got the job, because I want to be a serious stage actor and those reenactment jobs are so cheesy and stupid, but my agent really pushed me to take the part because I looked so much like the real guy . . . Anyway, in the end, I took it because I needed rent money.”
“I wish you had told me. I would have loved to have watched the show with you. And you should never be embarrassed about a paid acting job,” Gemma said, hugging him. “I’m proud of you.”
She kissed him softly on the lips.
Hayley instinctively cringed.
Not that Gemma was kissing Conner, whom she hadn’t quite warmed up to yet.
More over the fact her daughter was a grown woman now, and she was having trouble accepting that.
Hayley cleared her throat. “Forget the white wine. Red’s fine. Why doesn’t everybody go into the living room and I’ll warm up some hot chocolate and get this meat loaf in the oven.”
Gemma led Conner and Dustin out of the kitchen.
Bruce turned and gave Hayley a playful wink.
Hayley initially believed they had successfully covered up the fact that they suspected Conner of actually being the killer, until she heard Conner in the living room.
“What’s my computer doing down here? Were you looking through my files?”
“Um . . . ,” Gemma’s voice trailed off.
Hayley raced into the living room in time to see Conner bent down, looking at all the serial killer photos and articles on the home screen of his laptop.
“This was my research they sent me on the real guy to prepare for the role,” Conner said quietly.
“Yes, of course,” Gemma said, nodding. “I knew that.”
“Did you actually think . . . ?”
Gemma’s bottom lip quivered.
She was caught.
And there was only one thing left for her to do.
Blame her mother.
“It was Mom! She thought you were the real killer! It was her idea to hack into your computer. I wanted nothing to do with it! She forced me to give up your password! I never believed you were capable of such horrific, awful crimes! I never wavered, not once!”
Conner stared at her with a healthy dose of skepticism. “Maybe you should go into acting, too.”
Gemma sighed.
She had given it her best.
Dustin howled. “I can’t believe you and Mom thought he was a real serial killer!”
Bruce covered Dustin’s mouth with his hand. “You’re not helping the situation, champ!”
There was an uncomfortable silence for what seemed like an eternity, and then, without warning, Conner burst out laughing.
Hard.
Really hard.
To the point where he had trouble breathing.
A giant wave of relief suddenly swept over Hayley.
Especially when Conner put his arm around Gemma and drew her into him and kissed the top of her head between guffaws, to let her know it was fine.
That was the moment when Hayley had a newfound respect for this young man who had stolen her daughter’s heart. And, apparently, she was now also aware of the fact that he was a damn fine actor to boot.
Chapter Twelve
“Where did you find it?” Hayley asked Sergio, who was on the other end of her cell phone.
“In the freezer,” he answered.
“So Ryan Toledo lied to Kimmy Bradford?” Hayley said.
“Looks like it.”
The news surprised Hayley.
But if this was true, then her list of suspects had just drastically narrowed.
While combing for clues to Ryan Toledo’s murder, Sergio’s officers, who had cordoned off the dilapidated shack on the outskirts of town that Ryan had called home, had come upon one of Hayley’s homemade Yule logs tucked away in the freezer. Which, of course, meant that Ryan Toledo only pretended not to have received the Yule log Kimmy Bradford had left on his doorstep, along with an invitation to celebrate New Year’s Eve with her. It was probably a halfhearted attempt to avoid the whole topic of Kimmy’s desire to reignite their relationship.
Just pretend the Yule log and her note had been stolen by one of the roaming thugs in his ramshackle neighborhood.
Hayley ended the call with Sergio and sat down on a stool next to her kitchen counter. She had the whole house to herself. Bruce was at the office, and Gemma, Conner, and Dustin had driven to Bangor to do some last-minute Christmas shopping.
Hayley’s mind raced.
This new revelation about Kimmy Bradford’s Yule log meant that two of the Yule logs were now present and accounted for: the one given to Kimmy Bradford and the one given to Bruce. That left only one Yule log without an alibi: the one Gemma and Conner had delivered to Ron Hopkins’s house.
But Ron had already been considered and discarded as a suspect.
However, his second wife, DeAnn, had not.
DeAnn had left Liddy’s party early, complaining of a headache.
She would have had plenty of time to lie in wait outside, and bash Ryan over the head with the wooden log after he left the party, and still make it home before Ron did. But if she did attack Ryan in the woods near Liddy’s house, what was she doing with the chocolate Yule log and the piece of wood to which it was tied with the red Christmas ribbon? It was unlikely that she
went to the trouble of bringing Hayley’s gift to Liddy’s cocktail party, where there were going to be plenty of sweets already. Unless, of course, she was planning on murdering Ryan on his walk home and had already chosen the heavy log as her weapon. But that struck Hayley as implausible because traces of the chocolate Yule log were found in his system and the red ribbon in his pocket. Did DeAnn serve him the dessert before she whacked him over the head? It didn’t make any sense.
There was only one way to get to the bottom of how this crime actually happened.
And that was to pay a visit to DeAnn Hopkins at her home.
* * *
Hayley hopped in her car and drove over to the sprawling, stately New England–style house Ron’s profitable supermarket had bought for him. The sky began spitting snow and there was a grayness to the day as Hayley cautiously made her way up the icy, recently shoveled pathway toward the house. She stomped her boots to free them of snow and rang the bell. When DeAnn opened the door a few moments later, Hayley was met with a warm smile.
“Hayley, what a surprise, please come in,” DeAnn said, motioning her to come inside. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. I’m trying to get everything in order before Ron’s parents arrive tomorrow night.”
The house was already immaculate.
Hayley glanced in the living room and saw Eben, DeAnn’s son from her first marriage, sprawled out on the couch, watching TV.
“Say hello to Hayley, Eben,” DeAnn said in a singsong voice.
Eben grunted and raised a hand in the air as a greeting, but never bothered to tear his eyes from the television set.
DeAnn smiled tightly, embarrassed by her son’s lack of manners, and pressed on. “Would you like some eggnog, freshly made?”
“No, thank you, DeAnn . . . I won’t take up too much of your time . . .”
“First of all, I want to thank you for that delicious Yule log your daughter and her friend brought over to us the other night!” she effused.
“Actually, that was why I wanted to stop by . . .”
“After I got home from Liddy’s party, Eben and I ate the whole thing together, didn’t we, Eben?”
Eben raised his arm again, but probably didn’t even hear her question.
“And we burned the log it came with in the fireplace, and it kept us so nice and warm. What a lovely idea you had of delivering the chocolate Yule log on top of an actual Yule log. It was so inventive, so clever.”
“Thank you,” Hayley said, then quickly added, “How are you feeling?”
“Excuse me?” DeAnn asked, a blank look on her face.
“The other night you left Liddy’s party early because you had a headache.”
A lightbulb seemed to go off in her head.
“Oh, right, yes, much better now. In fact, by the time I got home, it had gone away, so that’s when Eben and I decided to split your yummy Yule log and watch one of those holiday movies on TV.”
“I love those Hallmark Christmas movies. Which one did you watch?”
She appeared as if she was clicking off titles in her mind to decide which one she should say. “It wasn’t a Hallmark movie. It was A Christmas Story. Eben and I watch it together every year, ever since he was seven.”
“Oh, I adore that one!” Hayley cooed. “The little boy, Peter Billingsley, is so darn cute. Of course he must be in his forties now.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” DeAnn replied, anxious to change the subject. “Now I insist you have a mug of my homemade eggnog. Make yourself at home and I’ll be right back.”
DeAnn scooted off into the kitchen.
Hayley casually wandered into the living room.
Eben’s eyes were glazed over as he stared mindlessly at the TV screen.
“What are you watching?” Hayley asked.
Eben didn’t flinch or move or acknowledge her in any way, so Hayley made a point of stepping in front of him and blocking his view of the television.
That stirred him to raise his head in silent protest.
He finally managed to look up at Hayley and make eye contact.
His eyes were droopy, and his mouth was turned downward in a disaffected pout.
Hayley tried again. “I just asked what you were watching?”
Eben shrugged. “The new Blade Runner.”
“You’re a sci-fi fan, like my son,” Hayley said.
Eben was annoyed this woman in his house would not stop talking.
He struggled to keep up his end of the conversation, but did manage to say, “Yeah.”
“My son is obsessed with all the Star Wars movies. He owns them all,” Hayley said. “Don’t say anything, but I bought him the latest one, The Last Jedi, on Blu-ray for Christmas.”
“That’s a good one,” Eben said, his interest finally piqued enough to at least half-participate in the conversation. “I watched it the other night.”
“What night was that?”
Eben shrugged. “The night my parents went to that party.”
“Before you watched A Christmas Story?”
Eben scrunched up his nose. “A Christmas Story? Hell, no. I hate that stupid kiddie movie. They play it on a loop every Christmas and it drives me nuts. How many times can anyone watch it?”
“So you didn’t watch it with your mother when she came home early from the party?”
“No . . . ,” he said. “My mother rarely can sit long enough to last through a whole movie.”
“Did you enjoy the chocolate Yule log I had sent over?”
Eben stared at her, vacantly, then summoned a half nod, before he returned his eyes to the TV set, deciding he shouldn’t say anything more.
Hayley knew in her gut that the kid had no idea what she was talking about.
DeAnn suddenly appeared, carrying a tray of three piping-hot mugs of eggnog. She winced slightly at the sight of Hayley standing next to the couch talking to Eben, but quickly covered and set the tray of mugs down on the coffee table. She picked one up and handed it to Eben, who grabbed it from her and took a slug, before spitting it out on his sweatshirt.
“Mom, you could’ve warned me it’s hot,” he growled.
“Would you have listened?” DeAnn sighed.
Next, she handed one to Hayley, who blew on it to cool it down before taking a small sip. “Yummy.”
“Why don’t we sit down and enjoy these in my dining room, where we won’t disturb the couch potato,” DeAnn said, scooping up the remote and lowering the volume on the TV.
“What are you doing?” Eben whined.
“We have company,” DeAnn said before seizing her own mug of eggnog and leading Hayley out of the room.
“DeAnn, I have to ask, did you like the cherry glaze I added to the Yule log this year? I was going for something different.”
“Honest to goodness, it was my favorite part,” DeAnn was quick to answer.
Hayley stopped in her tracks, gripping her mug of eggnog.
DeAnn noticed Hayley was no longer on her heels, marching toward the dining room; she stopped, turning back.
“Is something wrong, Hayley?”
“There was no cherry glaze.”
“What?”
“I made it up. I didn’t add a cherry glaze to my Yule log. I used the same recipe I use every year.”
“Oh, okay, then I must have been thinking of something else.”
“You never ate my chocolate Yule log.”
“Hayley, I’m sure I have no idea what you mean. Of course I ate your Yule log. I just told you so. Eben and I—“
Hayley cut her off. “The reason there were crumbs from my Yule log found on Ryan Toledo’s clothing, and traces of chocolate and cream in his system, was because he was the one who ate it.”
DeAnn’s whole body stiffened.
“He was here,” Hayley whispered. “You and Ryan . . .”
“Keep your voice down,” DeAnn hissed.
“You were one of his married cougars . . .”
“Stop it. I hate that term. It’s demea
ning. I’m not a cougar . . . We just . . .”
“You were both at the party,” Hayley said as she tried pulling all the pieces of the puzzle together. “After he caused a scene and got kicked out, he was probably feeling dejected about Gemma rebuffing his advances and wanted to seek comfort with someone who actually desired him, so he must have texted you, or called you, and wanted to meet you . . . Am I right?”
DeAnn pursed her lips, but otherwise didn’t move.
“So you feigned having a headache so you could bow out of the party early and hurry home to meet Ryan back at your place, knowing Ron was having a good time drinking the spiked punch and would stay a while longer.”
DeAnn knew she was caught.
There was no talking her way out of this one.
Hayley had figured out too much already.
Her whole body stiffened as she spoke. “Yes, it was me. I killed Ryan. Congratulations. You caught me. Call Chief Alvares. You’ve solved the crime. Happy now?”
“But it doesn’t add up. You were having an affair with Ryan. You wanted to be with him. What changed so suddenly that you decided to kill him?”
“He was drunk, and sometimes he would get rough, and it got to be too much for me. So I grabbed the piece of wood that came with your chocolate Yule log and knocked him over the head with it. I honestly just wanted to get him away from me. I didn’t mean to kill him. It was just a horrible accident,” DeAnn said flatly, laying out the details in a detached, almost resigned manner.
“So it happened here, and not in the woods?”
“Yes, right. I didn’t want anyone finding his body here, so I dragged him to my car, drove back toward the direction of the party, and dumped him in the woods.”
Hayley closely examined DeAnn’s slight build and short stature.
“That would have been a challenging task, given that Ryan Toledo was almost twice your size,” Hayley said.
“I was full of adrenaline. Sometimes you can be surprised by your own strength.”
Hayley wasn’t buying it.
She glanced into the living room at the tall, lanky figure of DeAnn’s high-school-age son stretched out on the couch.
“Did Eben help you get rid of the body?”
“No, Hayley, he had nothing to do with it,” DeAnn said, her voice strained, her hands shaking, trying desperately to somehow will Hayley into believing her.
