Secret Santa Murder

by Karin Kaufman

  “Is that a mouse?” Birdie asked. “A cricket in the house?”

  “I hiccupped,” Emily said.

  This had to stop. Our lies were becoming casual. “Can I get myself a glass of water?” I asked.

  “Yes, and get one for your friend. Water’s the solution. That’s an old-time recipe. Straight behind you.”

  I rose and hurried to the kitchen, ready to scold Minette. “Lucky for you she can’t hear well,” I said, backing into a corner by the sink.

  “Kate, Kate.”

  “What?” I opened my pocket to find Minette looking back up at me, an agitated expression on her face.

  “She wasn’t afraid.”

  “Birdie? Wait a second.” I found a water glass in a cabinet and turned on the faucet. “Now say it.”

  Minette grasped the edge of my pocket and pulled herself up an inch. “Birdie said she was afraid, but she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t afraid at all, Kate.”

  I stared at the empty water glass, my thoughts tumbling. “But Birdie is . . .”

  “She’s sleepy, but she’s not so stupid,” Minette said.

  “I never said she was stupid,” I set down the glass. “She’ll be in here any second.” With only moments to search the kitchen, I decided to check the refrigerator and freezer first.

  “Kate?” Emily called. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I yelled. There wasn’t much in the refrigerator—bread, butter, milk, some meatloaf—and in the freezer there were only some unopened bags of frozen vegetables and two boxes of frozen lasagna. Where else to look? Where would I hide it?

  “What are you looking for?” Minette said. “Let me help.”

  “Tea. And stay right where you are.” Next I turned to the cereal boxes on the counter. The first and second yielded nothing, but the third cereal box felt too heavy for the few ounces of cornflakes I saw in the bag inside. I lifted the bag.

  Underneath it was another, slightly smaller bag. I held it up to the light from the window. Cloves, orange peel, cinnamon bark, star anise, and something else I couldn’t identify.

  My mouth went dry.

  I dropped both bags, returned the box to the counter, filled my glass with water, and promptly set it on the counter. Birdie? Why?

  “Kate, are you okay?” Emily called. “We’re coming.”

  “My goodness,” Birdie said, “did you want some coffee or juice instead? I could fix it.”

  “No, thank you.” When I reached for my water, I saw Minette and gasped. I’d been concentrating so hard on the cereal box I hadn’t noticed she was now sitting on the edge of the glass, sipping water. I jerked around and covered her with my body. “No, go sit down. I’m fine.”

  Emily must have sensed my difficulty, because she in turn covered me and directed Birdie’s attention to a painting on her wall. “I love lilacs,” she said. “I can’t wait for lilac season, can you? Did you paint this?”

  I felt Minette slide into my coat pocket.

  “I wish I could paint,” she replied. “But I’m hopeless. Kate, you’ve gone pale.”

  I felt sweat beading on my forehead. “Oh, Birdie.”

  “What, dear?”

  “What did you talk with Hazel about this morning? Was it the potato farm?”

  That’s when I saw it. A hint of recognition. Of the befuddled-old-lady mask falling from her face.

  Birdie’s lips drew into a thin line. “Do you know how long ago that terrible thing happened? Why is it the subject of conversation now? My father had nothing to do with it, and it was so long ago.”

  “Did an insurance company pay your grandfather for the farm? It must have been quite a sum.”

  “Of course they did. Of course they did!” She pulled a chair from under her small table and sat. “Why shouldn’t they? And what did I know?” She thumped her collarbone. “I was ten years old.”

  Emily looked from me to Birdie and back again.

  “So your family moved to Presque Isle,” I went on. “And when your grandfather died a few years later, your father inherited what was left of the insurance money?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars,” Birdie said.

  “Holy guacamole,” Emily said. “Seventy years ago that was a lot of dough.”

  “It was a farm, you silly woman,” Birdie snapped. “They’re worth much more than a house.”

  I sat down at the table but kept my distance. This elderly woman was not at all what she seemed, and I wasn’t about to be caught off guard by her. For all I knew, she’d stashed a knife in her cardigan. “If the insurance company had known that your father was the one who poisoned the land, they never would have paid out.”

  “He didn’t do it!”

  “People thought he did. The police, maybe? But there was no conclusion. I imagine people felt sorry for your grandfather and wanted him to have the money. So everyone kept quiet. Did Hazel talk to you about insurance fraud this morning?”

  Birdie slumped a little in her chair. “She disagreed with Phyllis. At our last meeting, Phyllis laughed and said I should forget about it. She said it was too long ago and no one would charge me. I was ten years old.”

  “Phyllis was right.”

  “But that potato ornament. She was warning me on the sly. She was going to blackmail me—you can’t fool me. She said she was going to research it—to prove it to me.”

  “She did research it. She went to the library to prove to you that you would never be prosecuted,” I said. “She was right, Birdie. You don’t still have some of that money, do you?”

  “It all came from my father and his insurance money—most of what I have. He put it away for me, and my husband bought stock with most of it. All those years ago. That’s what I live on now. What will I do without it?”

  “You don’t have to. Did Hazel tell you something different?”

  “She said Phyllis was wrong and insurance companies always come after you. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. How do I pay my doctor? Or live in a nursing home? I have to do that soon. How?”

  Birdie was becoming increasingly agitated, and I feared for her health.

  “You’ll be fine, Birdie,” I said. Lying again.

  “I couldn’t let them tell anyone, Kate.”

  “So you made tea for them.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But the police took Hazel’s red packet of tea.”

  “I gave her a different bag this morning. A blue one. I had it in my purse in Irene’s car. When I asked Hazel to stop at the grocery and take me home, I took my purse out of Irene’s car and gave the bag to Hazel as another Christmas present.” Birdie smiled coyly at me. She actually smiled. “She was so sure I couldn’t be the poisoner.”

  My mouth still felt like cotton, and my lips were beginning to stick to my gums, so I took a sip of water. I needed the answer to one last question. “Who brought up the potato farm to begin with? Someone must have mentioned it recently.”

  “Carla did. I laughed about something she did in high school, and she said, ‘Your hands aren’t so clean, potato farmer.’”

  “She knew your father dumped the pesticides?”

  “Everyone knew. But I told them to shut up. And that started everyone talking about it, all over again.”

  “They why didn’t you poison Carla and the others?”

  It was clear from the expression on Birdie’s face that I was entirely missing the point. “They didn’t talk about the insurance money, Kate. They knew I shouldn’t have it, but they wanted me to have it. Hazel and Phyllis were going to take it from me.”

  Feeling a little sick to my stomach, I nodded and rose from the table. There was nothing left for me to do but call Rancourt.

  CHAPTER 17

  It was pitch black and snowing hard by the time Rancourt left Birdie’s house and walked up to my Jeep. I hit a button and rolled down the window. “I need to get Emily back to her car,” I said. “She’s got an early day tomorrow.”

  “Thanks for waiting,” he said
. “How did you know it was Mrs. Thompson?”

  “I didn’t. My radar went off a little and . . .” I wanted to give Minette the credit she deserved, but of course I couldn’t. “I searched the kitchen.”

  “So did we. But legally, we couldn’t dig into her cereal boxes.” He gave me a weary smile and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “Your search might not stand up to a court challenge either, but she’s confessed, so it doesn’t matter. I think she’s relieved to have it in the open.”

  “Was that monkshood root in the baggie?”

  “It looks like the same root I saw in the red bags, and Mrs. Thompson said it was. She told me she grew monkshood in pots in a sunny bedroom this summer. We didn’t find it because she pulled the plants in August and dried the roots.”

  “In a way, I’m not surprised. I’ll bet that bedroom is like a greenhouse.”

  Emily leaned sideways toward Rancourt. “Did she plan the murders that long ago?”

  “She knew monkshood was a poison, but she said it’s also a disinfectant, and she likes natural plant cleaners and remedies. Old-timey remedies she learned from her grandfather. We’re going to test the muffin we found too. She was mum about that. It looks homemade, and you never know.”

  “Will she go to prison?” I asked. “She’s almost eighty.”

  “She’ll probably plead guilty to avoid a court case. I don’t know about bail. In my opinion—and I’ll tell her attorney this—she’s not competent.” He sighed, and for a moment he lowered his head. In the two minutes he’d stood outside my Jeep, his gray hair had turned white with snow. “That’s not true. Legally, she’s competent.”

  I protested. “She understands she killed them, but she’s far from competent. There has to be a home—a prison nursing home, even. Or a mental institution.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Brewer. Go home and enjoy your Christmas. Whatever happens, I don’t think she’ll go into the general population. And tonight we’ll keep her as comfortable as we can.” He stepped back from the Jeep. “I’ll have to talk to you again, but I’ll call you after Christmas. Drive carefully. The roads are icing up.”

  Snow danced in my headlights’ beam as I drove back to Emily’s car outside Thistle and Wool. Emily and I talked briefly about her trip to Bangor and what was sure to be a fun mini-vacation, but then we lapsed into silence. We were tired, but more than that, discovering that Birdie Thompson was the murderer had drained us of the joy we might otherwise have felt at solving the case. Though I planned to call Irene and Norma as soon as I got home. They’d be relieved to know they could sleep without fear tonight.

  Emily followed my Jeep as we turned onto Route 2, heading for Birch Street. I pulled up my drive, my tires losing traction a couple times, and parked in my garage. Emily had told me to go straight inside and not wait to see if she made it home, but after parking, I walked out on the flagstone path and watched her to make sure she didn’t slip. We needed to worry about falls now, I thought. Especially me. Starting in your fifties, falling could have dire consequences.

  But good grief, when had I started to look at life that way? As mitigation and constraint rather than adventure?

  I went inside, Minette flew out of my pocket toward the kitchen, and I hung up my coat. Even now, after discovering Minette, I no longer looked at life as an adventure, and I had once. It’s not that anything breathtakingly awful had happened to me. Lots of people lose their spouses at a relatively young age. Even more suffer worse than that. But at fifty, I felt pummeled by life. I’d lost my resiliency.

  For me, that was the real danger of losing the love of your life. It wasn’t that you got used to being down, it was that after a while you couldn’t imagine yourself being up. And there was no one around to talk you out of that. I had figuratively curled into a ball—like Minette curling up to sleep in her teacup.

  No, I’d lost more than my resiliency. I’d lost the imagination required for hope. Minette had restored some of that, but tomorrow was Christmas Eve. How I’d loved that day as a child! How Minette loved it now.

  As soon as I walked in the kitchen, she flew down from the hutch, circled my head once, and landed on the table. “We have to decorate the tree, Kate.”

  “Oh, Minette.” I sank to a chair.

  “Please, please. You promised.”

  “I know I did, but I’m worn out. All I want to do is sit.”

  “I’ll help. But you have to do the ornaments I can’t lift. I don’t know where they are.”

  “They’re boxed up. In a closet upstairs somewhere.”

  “You must bring them to the tree!”

  Propping my elbows on the table, I lowered my head to my hands. “I knew December would get me sooner or later.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I felt Minette land on my shoulder and straightened. “Nothing. Christmas turns me into a grump of a woman. I don’t like it, but I can’t seem to help it.”

  She walked across my shoulder to my neck, stretched her arms wide, and hugged me. I raised my hand and cupped her gently in it.

  “You will feel better if you decorate with me,” she said. “Pretend to be happy.”

  “Are you saying I should make an effort?”

  “It works. Nothing can come of nothing.”

  I laughed a little and held my palm out for her. “Shakespeare again?”

  “King Lear.”

  “I know you’ve said you have a good memory, but King Lear? How do you remember lines from a play?”

  She flicked her wings and landed on my hand. “I remember most things I hear and read.”

  “You solved two murders—you know that, don’t you? You’re brilliant.”

  She broke into a grin and brought her pea-sized hands to her face.

  “All right, let’s go.” I stood and extended my hand, as though I were releasing a bird to the sky, and Minette soared into the living room and up the stairs.

  In a closet in Michael’s old office, I found a large box of ornaments and brought it downstairs. Minette demanded I turn on Christmas music, and with some reluctance, I agreed. But as I started hanging ornaments, and Minette alternately danced on branches and flew circles around the tree, I perked up a little. And I continued to make an effort. For Minette.

  Just ten minutes later, there was a small but respectably decorated tree in my living room, and the sugar bowl near the top—Minette’s bed—gave it a certain flair. Good thing I wouldn’t have to explain the bowl to Laurence or anyone else. This tree was going to be for my eyes only. I plugged in the lights and stood back to admire my decorating skills. “Thank you, Emily. I’m glad you bought it.”

  “You must tell her,” Minette said.

  “I told her yesterday, but I’ll tell her again when she comes back from Bangor.”

  “I wish she would be here tomorrow.”

  I sat on my armchair by the fire, the one facing Michael’s chair and the tree. “Me too, but we’ll be okay. I’ll bake us some cookies.”

  I intended to spend Christmas Eve by my fire, reading books and shamelessly eating mounds of food. My refrigerator was well stocked, mostly with leftovers from Emily’s delicious dinner, but I also had a quart of eggnog and a bag of brioche bread with which I’d make my eggnog French toast on Christmas Day.

  “Maple sugar cookies?” Minette asked.

  “Sure. I’ll tweak a recipe and add maple syrup. Come here a minute, Minette.”

  “Slowly and slowly,” she said as she glided toward Michael’s chair. She drifted downward until she sat atop the chair’s back.

  “What about you and Christmas? How did you celebrate it before you met Ray?”

  “I was in the forest then.”

  “Well, I figured as much. But how did you celebrate? Do fairies have Christmas trees?”

  She giggled. “We have Christmas trees all around us.”

  “Do you have them inside your tree homes?”

  “They don’t fit, Kate.”

  “What a
bout decorations?”

  “Berries and pine twigs.” Minette’s attention began to wander—deliberately. It was how she protected herself when I pestered her about her past and the maybe-existence of other fairies.

  “Did you celebrate Christmas with family and friends?”

  “I don’t have family. They’re no more.”

  “Tell me about your friends.”

  “My friends are gone in a different way.”

  I scooted to the edge of my chair. “Did they leave you?”

  “I left them.”

  “Are there scary things in the forest? You said there are other dangers there. Remember? I told you I’d ask again.”

  “Not now, Kate. Ask when it’s not Christmas.”

  She looked so pained that part of me wanted to back off and leave her be, but a bigger part of me wanted to know what had scared her—or was scaring her still. “You’re being obtuse. And don’t pretend you don’t know what obtuse means.”

  Minette smiled down at me and then looked over her shoulder at the tree. “It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,” she said with childlike awe.

  “I know it is. I’m going to bed now.”

  “But we should play more music.”

  “Have a good night in your tree, Minette.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The next morning, Christmas Eve day, I woke to the buzz of Minette’s wings in my ears. When I finally gave in and turned over, she landed on my stomach and told me to get out of bed. Now. First we would have breakfast, she said, and then we were going to the forest for a Christmas Eve walk.

  I knew what Minette was up to. It was the twenty-fourth, and Michael had died exactly a year ago. My little fairy friend was an expert at distraction.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, I gave her a small square of my buttered toast and poured maple syrup into a spoon for her. Then I made tea, and while I ate my toast and drank my tea, I tried to wake up. As tired as I’d been, it had taken hours for me to fall asleep last night. My insomnia, which had improved over the past few months, had returned with a vengeance. Maybe my sleep would improve again after Christmas, I thought, though New Year’s Eve wasn’t a joyous and stress-free day either. Maybe by mid-January . . .