His rugged face broke into a smile. “Yeah. She got an apartment in Sacramento. They’re good. And I’m still a part of Jordan’s life.”
Relieved, I reached for his hand. Then I remembered myself and drew away. “That’s fantastic news.”
“She’d just freaked out about how fast things were moving. One minute I didn’t know I had a son, and the next we were all living together like a happy family.”
“It’s enough to throw anyone for a loop,” I agreed.
His ears turned red. “I’m not sure where this is going with Belle, but I’m grateful I have the chance to find out.” He shuffled his booted feet.
“That’s great. Have you seen them yet?” Because while I was happy for him, I was also in suspicious amateur detective mode. Belle could have called him from anywhere and said she was in Sacramento.
He nodded. “I stopped by their new apartment. It’s in a decent neighborhood. And I told your Detective Slate everything was fine.”
“He’s not my Detective Slate.”
Mason winced. “I screwed that up for you, didn’t I? He thinks we’ve still got something going.”
“I don’t know what he thinks,” I said. “But if it’s meant to be, it’ll be.” Urgh. Now I was quoting my mother.
“No, Mad. If it’s meant to be, you’ve got to go after it.”
I smiled, rueful. “When did you turn philosophical?”
“Having a kid really does change your perspective.”
“I’m glad you and Belle have a chance,” I said. “You deserve it.” I only hoped Belle did too.
I stood on my mom’s doorstep and banged the knocker encircled by a Christmas wreath. The late afternoon sunlight slanted low, breaking through the clouds, and the wreath’s holly leaves glistened.
Suddenly I felt lighter. I was nearer to a solution—and not just for the murder. I really was over Mason.
“It’s open!” my mother shouted.
I strolled inside.
“Is that you, Madelyn?” she called from the kitchen. The scent of baking pumpkin and spices filled the house.
“It’s me.” I walked into her kitchen. Flour lay in drifts across the granite counter. The red-and-white room was cheerful any time of year, but the scent of baking pies took me back to Christmases long past. And this Christmas would be upon us in two short days. I hugged her. “How’s it going?”
She blinked. “Fine, dear. I’m baking pies for our shut-in members.”
“Need help?”
“You’re too late. They’re in the oven. All I need to do now is clean up.”
“That I can manage.” I grabbed a sponge and wiped down the granite counter.
She planted her fists on her aproned hips. “You’re in a good mood.”
“Mason stopped by today.”
She canted her head. “Madelyn, you’re not—”
“He found Belle in Sacramento, and they’re moving forward with their lives, together it seems. He’s hopeful.”
“And you’re all right with that?”
I brushed the flour into my hand and dumped it in the sink. “Yep. ’Tis the season for family reunions. He deserves it.”
“That’s very mature of you.”
“Also, he’s hired Dieter to fix my wall.” Which meant I wouldn’t have to.
“Good news all around, except for Craig, whose father is sitting in jail.”
I cringed at her faintly accusatory tone.
“Have you learned anything that might clear his name?” She flicked a wet cloth across the counter.
“We don’t know if Tom’s innocent. He did have motive and opportunity to kill his wife and Bill Eldrich.”
“And Belle had fifty thousand motives to set that cow on fire,” my mom said. “Can you really tell me Bill might not have gotten hit by one of her stray arrows? Though she had no reason to kill Tabitha.”
“Actually,” I said, “she might have. Belle and Tabitha got into it over some licensing issue for hairdressers at a town council meeting.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“From Dean Pinkerton, who’s the only person we can cross off the suspect list. He couldn’t have shot arrows at us when we were at his house.”
“Unless he had a co-conspirator.”
I shook my head. “This has the feel of a lone archer to me. We can account for all four of the gingerbread men. The killer had to have been Santa.”
She shuddered. “Don’t call him that. The killer was only dressed as Santa.”
I glanced at the collection of Santa figurines on the ledge above the kitchen sink. “Someone lured Tabitha to the Wine and Visitors Bureau for a bogus Christmas Cow committee meeting. Dean wasn’t on the committee. If he was trying to lure her there to kill her, he’d need a different excuse.”
“We only have Tom’s word that that’s where she was going. Even if he was telling the truth, who’s to say that Tabitha was honest about the call? She was having an affair with Bill, and she’d lied to her husband about that.”
“But Bill was already dead.” I pried open a blue cookie tin and grabbed a pfeffernüsse. “If she was off for a romantic rendezvous, whom with?”
“I can barely imagine Tabitha having an affair with anyone, much less finding a new lover right after the old one died.”
Unless her new lover had killed them both? Shaking my head, I took a bite and licked powdered sugar from my lips. We had to stick with the facts, and we had no evidence a new boyfriend had been in Tabitha’s life. “I hate to bring this up, but what about Craig?”
My mother blanched. “No. It would be monstrous. Besides, how would Craig have known that Bill would be at the Christmas Cow that night?”
“Who managed the guard schedule?” I finished the cookie and brushed sugar from my fingers.
She picked up the tin and replaced the lid. “Cora did, and we circulated the guard duty roster among the Dairy Association and Ladies Aid members who participated. But I don’t see how Craig could have gotten hold of it.” Her brow wrinkled. “Or Tom, for that matter. We didn’t send the list to his wife.”
“It might be another point in Tom’s favor.”
“Or not,” she said. “The list might not have been public, but it wasn’t exactly private either. It wasn’t the sort of information I thought we’d need to keep confidential. And Bill was complaining to everyone who’d listen about his guard duty.”
“Then there’s Kendra Breathnach.”
“Kendra?” My mom’s blue eyes widened. “What did she have against Bill?”
“She wanted to expand her development into the dairy pastures.” I gazed wistfully at the cookie tin in her arms. “Bill and Tabitha blocked that.”
“But she has her development—that agrihood thing.”
“And it’s surrounded by dairy farms. You know how they smell in the summer.”
My mom wrinkled her nose and set the tin on top of the humming refrigerator. “Surely people who move to the country will expect to be around livestock.”
“But they might not understand what that really means until it’s too late.”
“This won’t get Tom out of jail.” My mother folded her arms. “What else do you have?”
I rubbed my cheek with the flat of my hand. “The only suspects we’re left with are Belle, Tom, Craig, and Kendra. Unless you can figure out some Agatha Christie way Dean could have arranged for us to be shot at while he was cowering inside the house with us.” I straightened. Oh, damn. Damn!
“What’s wrong?”
“The newspaper article!” My pulse hammered in my skull, my breath quickening.
“What article?”
“The one about Tabitha’s murder. Dammit, I know who killed them both.”
“Why is that a bad thing?” My mom pressed her palm to her apron.
“Unless … it isn’t Tom or Craig, is it?”
“It’s a bad thing because there’s no way I can prove it.” And then I made a fatal mistake.
I told her everything.
twenty-nine
Tuesday morning. The museum was closed for the day, and I stared vacantly at my aunt’s bookshelf of nautical instruments. I bounced my stockinged foot. How could I trap the killer without my prior irritate-them-until-they-try-to-kill-me approach? Seriously, there had to be a better way.
The logical person to call for advice was Jason. Maybe I should have called him last night. But I didn’t have proof, and he was still on medical leave.
I was not going to call his partner. Laurel would either laugh or threaten me with interfering in an investigation. And I certainly wasn’t going to poke the bear and try to get the murderer to confess. That sort of thing never ended well.
At loose ends, I bundled up in a Paranormal Museum hoodie and down vest and hurried down the steps to my pickup. It coughed, sputtered, died. I pumped the gas and turned the key again. The truck wheezed and fell silent.
Cursing, I lowered my head to the wheel. The lingering morning fog spiraled around my truck.
I called a tow truck and then an Uber driver, and arrived at the museum way past GD’s breakfast time. The cat looked up from a sunny patch on the glass counter and hissed.
“Sorry I’m late.” I unwound my scarf and draped it over the cash register.
He flicked his tail and growled, a ridge of black fur rising along his spine.
Hastily I fed him, then pulled my clipboard from beneath the counter and scanned the inventory list. My forehead wrinkled. The Christmas fairies were nearly sold out. But we were closing in on the big day. There was no time to order more.
Clipboard beneath my arm, I strolled into the Gallery and turned on the twinkle lights to cheer myself up. Delicate fairies spiraled from the ceiling, danced atop display cases, frolicked in drifts of fake snow. But there were empty spots that needed filling.
The front door opened and I froze, heart thumping. I was sure I’d locked the door.
“Maddie?” Jason called.
My heart beat faster. “In here.” I strolled into the main room.
Purring, GD rubbed against Jason’s leg, depositing black hairs on his jeans. The detective knelt and stroked the cat’s fur with his good arm. Then he rose, adjusting his sling. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Relief fizzed inside me. Jason was here. We could finally talk, and the first thing I wanted to talk about was my theory on the murder. But something in his expression stopped me. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”
There was a long, brittle silence. Two deep lines appeared between his gold-flecked eyes. “I guessed you would think something was wrong after the last time we met. I’m here to say I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I know I was brusque the other night, about you and Mason.”
I raked my hand through my hair. “There is no me and Mason. There hasn’t been for months.”
“I know.”
“You do?” I asked, relieved.
“I was angry the other night, but not at you.”
“Oh.” I shrugged to hide my confusion.
“What?” he asked.
“If that was you angry, you hid it well.” And that seemed like a good thing. Between the museum, my mom, Herb the paranoid paranormal collector, and Ladies Aid, a drama-free relationship would be heaven.
“You can’t lose your temper when you’re a cop. But it leaked out the other night when I saw that hole in your wall.” He stepped closer. I could feel the warmth radiating from his body, smell his musky scent. “You’ve thrown me off-balance, Maddie. After the divorce, I thought I was done with relationships, but …”
My breath caught.
He smiled, wry. “You’ve got the strangest look on your face. Should I go?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Please stay.” My face warmed. “Assuming being off-balance isn’t always a bad thing.”
“Not in this case,” he rumbled. Gently, he pulled me into the circle of his uninjured arm and kissed me.
I melted against his broad chest. My legs trembled, and I clutched his parka for balance.
We drew apart, breathless.
“At least I can kiss you now without any police ethics violations,” he said.
“Ethics are important,” I agreed, pulse pounding. And now was the time for me to tell him what I suspected.
But then he kissed me again, and I forgot all about newspaper articles and murderers.
GD gagged, expelling a hairball.
Pulling away, I glared at the cat. He’d timed that.
“Sorry.” I sighed. “I need to clean that up.” Because I couldn’t kiss Jason next to one of GD’s hairballs festering on the black-and-white floor.
Jason braced his good elbow on the counter and watched, grinning, while I cleaned up. “I’ve been doing more digging into that curse,” he said.
My feet as light as one of Adele’s cream puffs, I returned the broom to its black-painted cupboard. “I didn’t think there was much left to dig into. We talked to Jennifer Falls. I spoke to her husband—”
“You did?” Jason straightened off the counter, and his cop face dropped into place like a mask. “What did he say?”
I sat on my barstool behind the counter and rested my hand on the glass. “Byron Falls denied all knowledge of and interest in the curse. And I believed him. He seems a lot more practical than Jennifer’s first husband. People said her first husband was a sensible, driven guy, if a bit of a cheapskate. But only an idiot would put an electrical appliance on the bathtub ledge.”
“I talked to one of the cops who worked the bathtub scene.” Jason’s mouth drew into a straight line. “He’s retired now. He said he hadn’t liked writing it up as an accident. It looked too pat—his words. But there was no evidence of foul play.”
GD sank his fangs into my hand.
I yelped, springing from my seat. Scowling, I rubbed the two faint white marks. “What was that for?”
And then my mouth fell open. The jolt of pain had got my brain firing. “The hat pins.”
“What?”
“Jennifer Falls was here wearing one of her old-fashioned hats the day of the curse removal.” My words tumbled over each other. “There were hat pins in it. She could have used them to make those marks on the women who were attacked.”
GD growled.
“I always knew you didn’t do it,” I said to the cat, then looked up at Jason. “But if I’m right … I can’t be right. There must have been other ways those two women could have been bitten. Because why would Jennifer intentionally promote the curse?”
Jason’s eyes glittered. “What else did you hear about her first husband?”
“He was a miser. Jennifer liked to party and presumably spend the money. You don’t think …” My eyes widened. “Could she have killed him? Is that why she’s pushing the curse? To shift attention away from the real cause of his death?”
We stared at each other.
“I’m jumping to conclusions, right?” I asked.
“Right.” But he rubbed his jaw.
I laid my hand beside his on the counter. “Jason, nothing’s changed. She remarried the same type of guy. She still has a motive. What if she’s not talking up the curse just to cover for a decades-old murder?”
“She’s using it as cover for a new one.”
My head spun. Had Jason and I actually stumbled upon a murder in the making?
“I’ve gotta go.” He strode out the door, knocking into Leo and Cora Gale coming in. “Sorry.” He raced down the street.
“Good goddess.” Cora floated into the museum on a current of scarves. She smoothed her windblown gray hair. “Is everything all rig
ht?”
“What’s his hurry?” Leo set his motorcycle helmet on the counter. His black leather jacket was zipped to his chin.
I swore. Dammit, I hadn’t had a chance to tell Jason what I’d learned about the arrow murders. “He has a hot lead. What are you two doing here?”
“Christmas shopping for Leo’s cousins,” Cora said.
“You’ve got cousins?” I asked. I didn’t think Leo had any family left after the death of his parents, and I was glad he did.
“They’re in Eureka.” He shrugged. “They invited me for Christmas, but I’d rather stay here.”
“However, it’s an excellent excuse to reconnect with family,” Cora said. “And it’s only polite to arrive with host and hostess gifts. Especially for a holiday dinner. We saw the lights on and thought we’d stop by. What are you doing here on your day off ? And with the police detective …?” Her brows arched, coy.
“He saw the lights on in the window too, and with everything that’s been happening …” I turned to Leo. “Are you feeling better?” I was desperate to change the subject.
He sniffed. “Yeah. I can work tomorrow. Hey, I parked my bike in the alley—do you mind?”
“Of course not,” I said.
A pained look crossed Cora’s face at the mention of the motorcycle, and I shot her a sympathetic look. It unnerved me every time I saw Leo get on it.
“Leo,” she said, “perhaps one of those fairies would make a nice hostess gift?”
Leo rolled his eyes. “Do you mind, Maddie?”
“I never say no to a sale.” Even if he did get an employee discount.
While they perused the Gallery, I locked the front door and unlocked the cash register. A few minutes later, they emerged with a delicate blue-and-white fairy.
“This one doesn’t suck,” Leo said.
Cora rolled her eyes. “He’s in a mood.”
Leo’s brows lowered. “I don’t want to drive to Eureka.”
“It is a long drive on a motorcycle,” I said innocently as I rang up the fairy. “Maybe he could use some company?”
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