Her face smoothed. “Know something?”
I remained silent and attempted an enigmatic look.
She jerked to her feet. “Are you accusing him of being involved?”
“No. But if this was a prank gone bad—”
“If ? Are you saying it wasn’t a prank? That it was intentional?”
“I have no idea, but if—”
Kendra Breathnach paced in front of the red-and-gold tree. “Isn’t it more likely someone who was betting on the cow set it on fire?”
“That’s a possibility,” I said. “But if it was a prank, it’s in the students’ best interests to come forward voluntarily. The police are looking hard at this.”
“Who told you my son was involved?”
“It’s not important—”
“Who told you?”
“The easiest way to clear this up is to ask your son.”
“My son was home in bed the night the cow was set on fire.”
“How can you be sure?” It was unlikely she’d watched him while he slept—or pretended to sleep.
“I’m sure. And if the police ask me, I’ll tell them the same thing. My son had nothing to do with that arson.”
“Is your son home?”
“No,” she said coldly. “He’s at Lake Tahoe, skiing. It’s his winter break. Why are you really here?”
“I’m doing an informal survey of people associated with the Wine and Visitors Bureau and the Dairy Association about the future of the cow.”
“Because it sounds like an interrogation. And my son is none of your business.”
A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. “Of course not. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause offense. There’s a college student working at the museum, so I’ve got some sympathy for them. I’m sure none of the attackers planned to hurt anyone.”
Kendra’s mouth pinched. “To answer your survey question, I think the Christmas Cow is one of San Benedetto’s biggest attractions. It would be a shame to see it go.”
“Then that’s all. Thank you!” I bounced off the couch and race-walked into the foyer.
She followed me to the paneled wood door.
But my speedy exit was thwarted. I hopped on one foot, trying to wedge the other into my sneaker. I squatted, knotting my shoes. “Will the winery development also be Tudor-style?” I asked.
“No. Tuscan.”
“Sounds great,” I said brightly and straightened. I edged out the door. “Well, Merry Christmas!”
“Goodbye.” She slammed the door shut.
Not-quite-running to my truck, I jumped in and drove to my mom’s ranch-style house.
In the front yard, three reindeer fashioned out of grapevines and wrapped in twinkle lights glowed, giant red bows around their necks. My headlights flashed on the white picket fence and an empty police car parked outside.
Empty? Where were the cops?
Skin prickling, I parked beneath an oak and crept up the brick path to the front door. My mom owned a lot of acreage that she’d let revert to the wild. She said she liked the privacy. But now the acres of dark and tangled shrub seemed threatening.
I tried the knob.
The door was unlocked.
I swallowed, my pulse accelerating. True, my mom never locked the door. But under the circumstances, her lax attitude toward security worried me. And where were those cops?
Slowly, I swung open the door and sidled inside.
“No!” my mom shrieked.
Breathless, I sprinted into the kitchen and skidded to a halt.
My mom bent double, laughing.
Two police officers sat around the gray granite island munching pfeffernüsse cookies, powdered sugar drifting onto their blue uniforms.
Dieter leaned against the counter, mug of hot cocoa in his hands. He quirked a brow. “Hey, Mad.”
“Dieter.” I willed my heartbeat to slow. “What’s going on?”
“Just an impromptu holiday party,” my mom said. “Pfeffernüsse?” She offered me a plate.
“Thanks.” I took a cookie. Pfeffernüsse was one of my favorites, even if it did leave me covered in powdered sugar.
“What brought you here?” she asked. “Not that I mind.”
“I thought we were having dinner tonight,” I said, disappointed.
She shook her head. “I forgot. We got caught up in telling stories, and the time flew.”
I glanced around her country-kitsch kitchen, with its distressed off-white cabinets and missing cabinet doors. Trays and boxes of cookies filled every available counter space. “Maybe we should order in?”
“Marvelous idea,” she said. “What do you boys want for dinner?”
The cops shook their heads. “We can’t,” one said. With smooth cheeks and an earnest expression, he looked like he was barely out of high school. “We should get back to the car. Thanks for the hot chocolate, though.”
His partner’s face fell, but he nodded. “Rules.” They walked out.
“Dieter, would you order Chinese?” my mom asked. “You know what everyone likes. And Maddie, could you help me in the project room? I need your young eyes for some sewing I’m working on.”
“Sure,” I said and followed her into the project room that had once been my bedroom. Plastic boxes sat neatly stacked along industrial-looking shelves. My childhood flower-print curtains still hung in the window. “What’s Dieter doing—”
“What did you learn?” my mom whispered.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “What?”
“The investigation! Surely you got some detecting done today?”
“I talked to Tabitha again, and she pointed the finger at Kendra Breathnach’s son, Oliver, as one of the gingerbread men.”
“You’ve got powdered sugar on your chin, dear.”
Whoops. I wiped it off.
“But did you talk to Oliver?” she asked.
“No, I talked to his mother, the agrihood developer.”
“You should have talked to him. Really, Madelyn, what were you thinking?”
“But—”
“Never mind.” She fiddled with her turquoise necklace. “Did Kendra tell you anything?”
“She said Oliver was home in bed that night, but I don’t know how she could be sure. It’s a huge house. It wouldn’t be hard to sneak out after his mom went to sleep.” I fingered my old curtains, wondering why she’d kept them.
“And Kendra’s divorced, so he’d only have one parent to evade. What else? You said you followed up with Tabitha?”
“She followed up with me. She offered to pay for any damage from the bombing.”
“She called me as well, and I told her not to bother. Insurance is dropping off a rental car tomorrow, and they’ll take care of getting a permanent replacement. But she’s afraid her son set the bomb.”
“Or her husband.”
“What are you two up to?” Dieter asked from the doorway.
I started guiltily. “You caught us gossiping.”
His eyes narrowed. “Maddie, can you help me get something out of the truck?”
“Your truck?” I asked. “What do you need?”
He smiled determinedly. “Can you help or not?”
“Sure! Sure, sure, sure.” I followed him out of the house.
He stopped beside his rickety truck. “Look, I like your mom and all, but she’s starting to wig me out,” he hissed.
“Not enough for you to turn down free Chinese food.”
“She already knows Belle won the cow bet.” Dieter’s breath misted the night air. “What more does she want?”
“To know how much money Belle won?”
“Sorry, babe. I draw the line at financial information.”
“You’re a bookie, not a financial advisor.” Harper was sticky abou
t client privacy too.
“There are people who would say there’s no real difference.”
“Dieter, it’s my mom. She was nearly killed in that bombing.”
His suntanned face creased. “Look, I can’t tell you how much Belle won, but I can tell you she needs the money. And the more your mom pokes her nose into this, the more danger she’ll be in.” He reached into the truck bed and grabbed an extension cord, then thrust it into my arms. “You’ve got to shut her down, Mad.”
If only I knew how.
twelve
I left Dieter to my mother’s tender mercies and forgot about him by the next morning. Between the museum’s usual Sunday crowd, the calls of frantic tinnitus sufferers, and the impending binding of the cowbells, I’d been forced to skip lunch. I’d also caught myself giving parked cars a wide berth in case one suddenly exploded. That made me cranky.
Jason Slate prowled into the museum. He paused before the counter, his brown eyes twinkling. Beneath one muscular arm, he carried a manila folder. He wore a thick black coat over his suit and looked good enough to eat. It was almost unfair.
My irritation fading, I steadied my cartwheeling heart.
“A binding spell?” He slid my flyer onto the glass counter. “Really?”
“It’s simple psychology.” I admired the flyer, then returned to wrapping a silver fairy for my elderly customer. Her gray head barely cleared the top of the counter. I suspected elf heritage.
“Don’t you mean parapsychology?” he asked.
I smirked. “Smartass.”
“Young lady!” My customer’s marshmallow brows rose. “Such language! And to an officer of the law.”
“Sorry.” I handed her the fairy. “And happy holidays!”
The elderly woman sniffed and tottered from the museum.
“Anyway,” I said, “curses are psychosomatic. This binding ritual should un-psycho everyone.”
“I wish you’d talked to me first,” he said.
“Why?”
“Someone who knows how to set bombs tried to kill you and/or your mother.”
“And you think the event might be a target,” I said, aghast. Why hadn’t I considered that? Was I putting people in danger?
“It probably won’t be, but I’ll be sticking around to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“The ritual was a last-minute event. I doubt there will be many people.”
“No offense, but let’s hope not.” Jason set the manila folder on top of the flyer. “And on another topic, here are those case files you asked for.”
“You found stuff on the cowbell-related deaths in the ’80s?” I hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a wild bell chase. But we wouldn’t need the files once the town believed I’d bound the curse. “And the bombing? Have you learned anything?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Have you had lunch?”
My stomach rumbled and I checked my watch. It was after one. “No. Between the Christmas rush and the ceremony at three, I’ve been swamped.”
“Want to grab a bite? We can go over these files together before your show starts.”
“Is this part of your guard duty?” I figured the only reason he’d ask me out was because he had to.
“No, this is me hungry.”
“Then sure!” I quickly returned to earth. “But I can’t. Leo isn’t back from his lunch …”
Leo, carrying a shopping bag, hurried through the front door. “Hey. Sorry I’m late,” he said, panting. “I can take over.” He sidled behind the counter.
My assistant’s appearance was enough to make me believe in fate. “I guess I’m free for lunch after all.”
“How about the Book Cellar?” Jason asked.
The place was a little dark for perusing police files, but they had an excellent prosciutto and Brie panini. And the idea of having a candlelit lunch with the handsome detective wasn’t wholly unappealing. Who was I kidding? It was totally appealing.
I grabbed my purse. Jason held the door for me, then followed me onto the brick sidewalk.
It was one of those cloudless winter days that snap at your cheeks. My spirits rose, even if I had to trot to keep up with Jason’s long strides. He waited for a slow-moving Buick, giving me time to catch up, and then we crossed the street.
He held the door to the Book Cellar for me, and we walked through carpeted aisles scented with books and down the steps into the dimly lit cellar. Empty wine casks lined its walls. The bar and restaurant buzzed with conversation.
At a corner booth, I shrugged out of my pea coat. Jason hurried to help me, his fingers whispering across the back of my neck. I shivered and hoped he didn’t notice.
We ordered, and he opened the manila folder on the red tablecloth. “Maybe it would be easier if we sat on the same side,” he said.
“You’re probably right.” Casually, I slid out of the booth and sat beside him.
“Okay,” he said, “we had five committee members when the Christmas Cow tradition started and the town was gifted the cowbells from our sister city in Sweden. All of them were dead by the following December.”
“Were any of the deaths suspicious?” I asked.
“We’re looking for proof there’s no curse, remember. Not proof of murder.” A corner of his mouth quirked. “But no, none were suspicious or we’d have more detailed reports.”
“So what have you got?” My elbow brushed his and a tingle of energy flowed between us.
Or had I imagined it? Was I making up a fairy-tale romance because I’d lost Mason?
Jason slid a coroner’s report toward me. “Hansel Braff, aged sixty-seven, height five-foot-ten, weight two hundred and eighty pounds. Died of a heart attack the January after the first Christmas Cow—which survived the season, by the way.”
“Which is why they kept building the cow each year.”
“Right. The arson didn’t begin until the early 1990s. But that’s got nothing to do with our curse issue.”
“Hansel Braff was the driving force behind the Christmas Cow,” I said, reciting the bells’ placard from memory. “He was a Swedish dairy farmer. He traveled to our sister city in Sweden to receive the bells. People who believe in the curse say the first to touch them was the first to die.”
“Next up was Heidi Durian, aged seventy-two.” Jason’s suit jacket sleeve brushed my hand as he passed me another report. “We have a bit more on her, because she died in a car accident. She drove her Honda into an oak during a bad storm in February.”
I scanned the documents. “She was the president of Ladies Aid and met Hansel at the airport upon his return from Sweden.”
“Where I suppose she fondled the bells.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
He grinned.
“Joking aside,” I said, “second to encounter the bells, second to die. It is a little spooky.” This lunch was just business, two colleagues getting together. Just business …
“You’ve been spending too much time in your museum.”
“I’ve been spending all my time in my museum.”
The waitress arrived with our drinks—iced tea for me and coffee for the detective. She bustled away.
“Third to die,” Jason said, “was another member of Ladies Aid, Kamilla Shapira. Aged fifty-eight, she had a stroke in March and a history of high blood pressure. Her husband found her at home and called 911. She was pronounced dead at the scene.”
He handed me that report, and I skimmed it.
“It all seems normal,” I said, “but her death was when people started rumbling about a curse. She drove Hansel and Heidi from the Sacramento airport to San Benedetto.”
“You’ve been doing a lot of research.”
“For my cowbell exhibit. I should do more, but it’s been so busy at the museum. Hopefully the binding ritual will calm things down
. Are you still sure you want to come?”
“I’d better,” he said, grim.
I straightened. “You’re not really expecting trouble, are you?”
“Not expecting it,” he said, “no.”
“But?”
“We’re getting more calls at the station, not less, since your flyers went up around town.”
Brow furrowing, I sipped my tea. “At the museum too. The panic seems to be catching.”
“Why now?” he asked. “Those bells have been around for decades. Sure, Mr. Eldrich’s death was dramatic, but why would people connect it to the curse?”
My appetite fled. “There was the newspaper article. And maybe just because this was the year the bells were brought out of cold storage?” In my defense, the museum is packed to the rafters with supposedly cursed and haunted objects. Nobody had ever freaked out before. How was I to know the bells would set off such a brouhaha?
“It’s not your fault.”
“Thanks,” I said, not believing him. The worst of it was, I really didn’t want to give up the bells. So this afternoon’s binding ceremony had better work. “But the curse—which never really existed, of course—has only ever struck people on the original Christmas Cow committee. Why would anyone else think they’re in danger?”
“People are irrational. We like to think we’re driven by logic, but we’re creatures of emotion.”
“That’s what Harper says.”
“Your friend the financial adviser?”
“Yeah. She says all decisions are emotional. We just rationalize them later.” Like my decision to go out to lunch with Jason, even though we didn’t really need to go through these police files together. “Okay, who was the next to die?”
Expression startled, the waitress set our plates on the table. A spinach leaf dropped from my plate onto the red cloth. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
Jason looked to me, and I shook my head.
“No, thanks,” he said. “We’re good.”
She scuttled away.
I took a bite of my sandwich, and my appetite returned. Hot melted Brie and prosciutto heaven. Which immediately jammed between my teeth, dammit. I should have known not to order it on a date. Not that we were on a date. This was purely professional. “Next?” I asked, hand over my mouth.
Deja Moo Page 12
