Secret Santa Murder

by Karin Kaufman

  “Christmas spice tea,” Emily said, gesturing like a TV sales host at a teapot and cups on the coffee table. “And dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. Have a seat and tell Laurence more about Phyllis Bigelow’s murder. Anything new?”

  I plopped into a cushy armchair across from the couch where Emily and Laurence sat. “I won’t bore you?” I asked him.

  “What I’ve heard from Emily so far is interesting,” he answered. “Secret Santa ornaments, poisoned tea, ball bearings. The things that go on in Smithwell.”

  While Emily poured tea—and the aroma of cinnamon and cloves filled the living room—I told them both about my talk with Elizabeth in Thistle and Wool and my uncomfortable encounter with Marvin Moretti in his real estate office. “Elizabeth thinks Irene might have left the Secret Santa ornaments,” I said, “but her only proof is that Irene is prickly. Marvin doesn’t like Irene either.”

  “Would Irene give Norma a pig ornament?” Emily asked. “Or spread ball bearings on her kitchen floor? You told me they’re genuinely friends.”

  “They are.” I took a sip of my tea. “Heavenly. It’s the taste of Christmas.”

  “Emily says the events connected to the ornaments happened years or even decades ago,” Laurence said. He crossed his long legs and relaxed into his cushion. “Did anything happen recently to provoke the sender?”

  I cradled my teacup, inhaling the steam that rose from it. “I’ve been asking myself that. Otherwise, why shame people over long-forgotten memories?” I took a sip as I considered my own words. “No, that’s just it. They’re not forgotten. Not by the woman sending the ornaments, and not by the women receiving them. They all remember, and they all cling to their resentments. That said, I do think something triggered the sender.”

  “And Norma, the woman with the broken arm, isn’t a suspect?” Laurence asked.

  “She’s not the type,” I answered. “And logistically, I don’t see how she could have murdered Phyllis.”

  “Or why she would have broken her own wrist in a fall,” Emily said.

  “But this ball bearing incident is bothering me,” I said. “What if it’s a separate incident, not connected to Phyllis’s murder or the Secret Santa ornaments?”

  Laurence slowly nodded, and I could tell he’d wandered down the same road I had. “If you really want to murder someone, you choose a more reliable method,” he said. “Ball bearings are hit-and-miss, and more likely to cause an injury than death.”

  “Okay, so . . .” I stared into my cup, thoughts ricocheting. Maybe I’d been going about this all wrong. “Let’s say the ball bearings thing is a separate matter, not connected to Phyllis’s murder.”

  “An accident, even?” Laurence said. “Is that a possibility?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “And then let’s say the Secret Santa ornaments are also not connected to Phyllis’s murder.” My eyes went from Laurence to Emily. Blank expressions all around.

  And then Laurence sat straight. “Because even a resentful, unforgiving woman probably wouldn’t murder a friend because she made a bad batch of eggnog four years ago,” he said. “And even if she was bitter enough to do that, she wouldn’t—”

  “—announce her motive to the world by handing out meaningful ornaments,” I said. “The ornaments could be a coincidence. Or even a diversion.”

  “If they’re a deliberate diversion,” Emily said, “then the ornament giver is still the murderer, but the ornaments and the past events they signify aren’t her motivation.”

  “They’re a smokescreen,” I said.

  Laurence was nodding again, staring into the fire. “Say you have two different women with two very different motives. One woman’s only motive is to humiliate or frighten her friends over the past.” He looked my way.

  “And maybe something triggered her or maybe something didn’t,” I said. “It could be she’s just been holding on to the past, and with Christmas coming up—”

  “It’s the time of year everyone remembers the past,” Emily said.

  “But I think something triggered the killer,” Laurence said.

  Annoyance flickered across Emily’s face. “Wait. So we’ve been asking the wrong questions?”

  “You’ve been asking the same questions anyone would—at first,” Laurence said. “And listen”—he spread his hands—“this is conjecture. We’re tossing ideas around. But I think it’s something to consider.”

  When a timer went off in the kitchen, Emily excused herself. Laurence and I sat in silence, waiting to be called into the dining room. I knew his mind was working hard on Phyllis’s murder. Like me and Emily, he enjoyed solving puzzles. He didn’t read thrillers—that was my thing—but then, he lived a thrilling life—jetting off to foreign embassies and the like. That was conjecture on my part, but I believed it was well-founded. And so did Minette. I know he knows things. Things you and Emily don’t know.

  “Laurence, you have connections,” I began.

  He gave me his toothy, I’m-honestly-not-James-Bond grin.

  “Don’t try to deny it.”

  “I know a few people.”

  “Is there any way you can find out about something that took place on a potato farm in Aroostook County about seventy years ago? The police were involved, by charges were never brought.”

  He nodded. Emily had filled him in. “The curious potato ornament. I know someone I can ask. Do you want me to see if any of the women have a police record?”

  “Yes! I hadn’t thought of that. And can you see if Marvin Moretti was arrested for the school break-in? He could be lying about that, though this happened when he was a juvenile and the record might be sealed. And find out about that house fire and Hazel O’Brien’s husband.”

  “Anything else?” he asked with a smirk.

  “That will do for starters.”

  “Emily already put me to work on discovering the specific poison that killed Phyllis Bigelow—if it was poison, I should say. I might get a call this evening.”

  “That’s great! How far up in government do your connections go?”

  “Kate, I haven’t worked in government for—”

  “Dinner!” Emily called.

  “I’m starving,” Laurence said, bounding from the couch. “All Emily let me have for lunch was a bowl of soup.”

  “Good for her.” I took my tea with me into the MacKenzies’ kitchen and was promptly shooed away and told to take a seat in the dining room. Emily had done herself proud: there was a large balsam wreath on the dining room wall, a white cloth with silver embroidery on the table, a fresh evergreen centerpiece, and ornaments hanging by silver ribbons from the chandelier. That does it, I thought. The moment I got home, I would decorate my tree—and as a finishing touch, I’d secure one of my Wedgwood cups in it for Minette.

  Laurence carried in the turkey platter, and then the two of them went back and forth to the kitchen until they had emptied it of its side dishes: steamed and buttered carrots, pecan cornbread dressing, homemade cranberry sauce, biscuits, and mashed sweet potatoes decorated with thin spirals of orange peel.

  “Emily, how do you do it? This is like Christmas dinner. It smells so good.”

  “Let’s hope it tastes that way.” She took the chair next to mine and across from where Laurence was already sitting and taste-testing the dressing.

  “Are you kidding?” he mumbled around a mouthful. “It’s fantastic.”

  “Laurence, we haven’t said grace,” Emily said.

  He froze. “Just checking to make sure it’s done.”

  We silently passed the bowls and plates around the table, Laurence cut a few more slices of turkey so we could have seconds without delay, and then Emily said grace—keeping it short for the sake of Laurence’s growling stomach.

  After a couple minutes, Emily took a pause from her eating and said, “We need to solve Phyllis Bigelow’s murder by late tomorrow.” She set down her fork.

  “That would be nice,” I said, “but I think it’s a little optim
istic.”

  “Laurence and I are heading to Bangor early tomorrow.”

  “Oh?” I felt my heart sink a little. They wouldn’t be here on Christmas Eve.

  “Something came up and I have to fly to Athens the day after Christmas,” Laurence said, “so Emily and I made reservations at the Winslow for a two-day Christmas vacation.”

  “How lovely!” I said, injecting my words with far more enthusiasm than I felt. They wouldn’t be in Smithwell for Christmas Day, either. “You won’t have to cook like this again, Emily. Relax and let others serve you.”

  “That’s part of the idea,” Laurence said.

  Emily brushed my arm. “I’m sorry. We planned to spend Christmas Eve at your house. But it just happened. This way Laurence won’t have to leave the house at four o’clock in the morning the day after Christmas. The hotel’s only five minutes from the airport.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I’ll have a relaxing and peaceful Christmas.”

  “Are you saying we’re noisy and irritating?”

  “I’m saying I can sleep in.” I grinned. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be better than fine. And I love that you two are going off together. When was the last time you did that?”

  “I can’t remember,” Emily said.

  The phone rang and Laurence hopped up to answer it. When he returned a minute later, looking like that cat that ate the Christmas canary, he had news about Phyllis’s murder.

  “She died very early on the morning you found her, and the tea that killed her was a homemade mixture”—he glanced at a scrap of paper in his hand—“black tea, cloves, orange peel, bits of star anise, and cinnamon bark. The poison in it was aconite. It’s a plant, also called monkshood. The roots were cut up and added to the tea.”

  “I’ve seen monkshood growing in the woods,” I said. “I’ve even seen it in some people’s yards.”

  “It’s easy enough to find,” Laurence said. “But that’s not all. Every one of the knitters received a bag of the same homemade tea as a Secret Santa gift. The Secret Santa gifts they exchanged before they got the ornaments.”

  My hand flew to my mouth. “They can’t use it! Norma and Irene make tea all the time!”

  “The police have already contacted them and confiscated the bags,” Laurence said. “And guess who made this tea as her Secret Santa present?” He looked from me to Emily. “That innocent old potato lady, that’s who. Birdie Thompson.”

  CHAPTER 11

  When I got home, I called for Minette, and after she swooped out of the fireplace flue, I proudly showed her the double-handled Wedgwood sugar bowl I’d borrowed from Emily. “It’s your bed for the tree,” I told her. “I’ll put some cotton balls in the bottom and tie it between two branches.”

  “A bed in the tree!” Unable to contain her excitement, she careened left, shot right, and then flew up the stairs and back down again. “Put it up, Kate! Put it up!”

  “Hang on a sec. I need garden twine.”

  “Yes, yes. Twine it, twine it.” She followed me into the kitchen, flitting impatiently while I found twine in the junk drawer and cut two pieces from the roll. Next I took hold of the trunk and carried the tree into the living room.

  Minette raced for it and began to circle it while I secured the sugar bowl to the sturdiest of the top branches. When I stepped back to check my handiwork, I saw eight or ten pinecones in the tree, stuck between lower branches and held in place by the needles. “Minette, did you do put these in here?”

  She halted and hovered above the tree. “Is it good, Kate?”

  “It’s better than good. It’s beautiful. Is that why you were going up the flue?”

  “I was gathering pinecones from my forest.”

  “We’ll go there tomorrow and look for berries and more pinecones.”

  “First thing in the morning! I know where to find winterberries.”

  “All right, first thing,” I said with a laugh. “And then we’ll finish decorating the tree. Tonight I’m too tired.”

  Minette floated downward until her feet touched the very top of the tree, and there she stood, her wings gently swaying, keeping her balance. She looked like a tiny treetop angel. “Someone is coming now. I hear them.”

  “Who could that be?” I glanced at my watch, a bit irritated that someone would show up without calling first. It wasn’t all that late—a little after nine—but I wasn’t in a mood for guests.

  “I think it’s Irene,” Minette said. “I hear her funny breaths. Do I have to leave?”

  “Yes, but go upstairs, not up the fireplace. It’s too cold outside.”

  The doorbell rang, Minette took off for the second floor, and I waited a moment before answering the door. “I’m sorry, but I have been phoning you,” Irene announced as she swept into my foyer and wheeled back at me. She slipped off her glasses and let them dangle by the chain. “Do you not answer at night? Do you turn off your land line?”

  “I never turn off my land line,” I said, shutting the door. Now I really was irritated. “I just got home, Irene. What’s so important?”

  “Oh, my foot-in-mouth disease.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry for barging in, but I needed to talk to you, and I had the strangest feeling Birdie gave you one of her red tea packets. Not for Secret Santa because you weren’t part of that, but as a gift when you were at her house. Remember the red bag in Phyllis’s trash can? I wasn’t about to trust the police to know if you had one too. Tell me Birdie didn’t give you a bag—though you wouldn’t be standing here if she had, would you?”

  “Irene, stop. Follow me.” I headed into the kitchen and asked her to take a seat at the table. “I need a glass of wine.” I bent low to look into what I humorously called my wine cellar—a kitchen cabinet holding six bottles of pinot noir and sauvignon blanc.

  “Do you really?” Irene asked. “Wine this time of night?”

  Still holding on to the cabinet door, I pivoted around to glare at her. “Would you like some?”

  “No, I have to drive. Now what about Birdie’s tea? Did she give you any?”

  I came back up with a bottle of pinot. “No, she didn’t. But I know all about it. Aconite poisoning. Chopped-up roots.”

  It seemed to me I could have knocked Irene over with a feather. “But I just found out myself,” she said. “The police came to my door and took my tea. They said they had to test it.”

  I sat down, wine bottle and corkscrew in hand. “You know Birdie Thompson well. Would she accidentally put monkshood in a homemade tea?”

  “Of course not,” she growled. “It’s not something you put in spice tea.”

  “You and I wouldn’t, but would Birdie? Does it grow in her yard?”

  “I’ve never seen it, and I know what it looks like—small purple flowers. Besides, the police said it was the plants’ roots, right? Can you see Birdie with a trowel, digging up a whole plant, drying it, then chopping up the roots?” She shook her head fiercely. “Birdie has concocted her spice tea blend every year for the past six—a perfectly safe blend of black tea and spices. Every year it’s her Secret Santa gift. And now, suddenly, she poisons her tea? No, not possible. Think about it.”

  “I have thought about it.” I centered the corkscrew at the top of the cork and twisted it in. “The fact remains, Phyllis died from aconite poisoning, and aconite was in the tea she got from Birdie. Why did everyone get Birdie’s tea?”

  Irene scowled. “What?”

  “You said the tea was Birdie’s Secret Santa gift, so why did everyone get a bag? Doesn’t a Secret Santa gift go to one person?”

  “That was how Birdie did it. Yes, it misses the point of Secret Santa, but she was sure everyone loved her tea and didn’t want anyone to miss out on it.”

  “And did everyone love it?”

  “I liked it. So did Norma. Phyllis didn’t care for it, but she usually made one cup just to see if Birdie’s recipe had changed.” Sighing, Irene sat back in her chair. “One cup was all it took.”

&n
bsp; “Is that why Phyllis’s red bag was in the trash can?”

  “It must be. She tried a cup so she could honestly say she had. That’s what she was like.”

  I took a wineglass down from a cabinet, returned to my chair, and poured a couple inches of pinot. “So every year, Birdie gives a homemade tea blend as her gift.”

  “Correct.”

  “To everyone in the Merry Knitters. For the past six years.”

  “Correct as well.”

  I took a sizable gulp of wine. “How far ahead does she make this tea?”

  “She buys the bags well ahead of time, that I know. Last year I noticed filled bags in her kitchen about, oh . . .” Irene tilted back her head, thinking. “I think five or six days before the meeting where we all exchanged gifts. What are you getting at?”

  “Are the bags labeled? With names, I mean.”

  “She puts a sticker on each bag—with our names, yes. It’s not needed because we all get the same thing, but she likes pretty Christmas stickers and tags. What are you thinking?”

  “So last year, when you saw the bags in Birdie’s kitchen, you could have put aconite in one of the bags if you’d wanted to?” I leaned forward. “You had the opportunity?”

  Irene reared back. “I most certainly didn’t.”

  “Don’t take this personally.”

  “How can I not when you keep saying you?”

  I took another gulp of wine. “I’m trying to determine if the killer was able to put aconite in Phyllis’s bag, and hers alone. And it sounds to me like she was. She had ample opportunity, and the bags were labeled. She knew where they would end up.

  “But here’s another thing to consider,” Irene said, shaking her finger at me. “What if the killer went to Norma’s house to put the aconite in? Hmm? That’s just as likely.”

  “You’re right, it is. Do you know if anyone else has tried their tea?”

  “Norma hasn’t. That’s all I know.”

  “Who else knew Phyllis didn’t like Birdie’s tea?”

  “I think I was the only one. Phyllis raved about it at our meetings. She was honest, except when it would hurt people’s feelings. Do you think I might have some water?”