Candy Canes & Corpses

by Abby L. Vandiver

  The Last Stop (Book 4)

  The Last Dance (Book 5)

  A Mackenzie Coven Mystery Series

  Witch Inheritance (Book 1)

  Witch Indeed (Book 2)

  Witch Cast (Book 3)

  The Candy Cane Killer by Mona Marple

  THE CANDY CANE KILLER

  by Mona Marple

  The Candy Cane Killer Copyright © 2018 by Mona Marple. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Chapter One

  “Sandy, come on, we’re gonna miss the bus!” Coral called from downstairs for the second time. Sandy sat on her bed, raincoat and clunky boots on, and checked that her backpack had everything she’d need. Her purse, stuffed full of the pocket money she’d saved for weeks, the little mobile phone that didn’t just make calls and send text messages but also played snake. Sandy limited herself to thirty minutes a day on the game. She could see how it could become addictive. A packet of tissues, because you should never leave home without one. And a folded-up piece of paper with the list of things she wanted to buy.

  Christmas was just a fortnight away, and the grand lights switch-on in Marsden, the closest town, was a highlight of the build up. Sandy and Coral had attended the event faithfully for years, but this would be the first time their father allowed them to go by themselves.

  “Come on!” Coral screeched.

  Sandy nodded and stood up, then took the stairs two at a time with a thundering she only dared when their father wasn’t home.

  “You’ve got makeup on,” Sandy said. “And dad wouldn’t let you wear that.”

  Coral’s shell suit was an early Christmas present that she’d somehow convinced their father to let her open the week before. He’d given her strict instructions not to wear it out of the house for fears it would be ditched and ruined before Christmas Day even arrived. She grinned, her smile revealing a smear of lipstick on her front tooth. Sandy resisted the urge to offer her a tissue.

  “Come on, what were you doing up there anyway?” Coral asked. She grabbed hold of Sandy’s hand and pulled her down the narrow passageway, then out of the front door. The chill hit Sandy through all of her layers but Coral showed no reaction as they began a brisk walk to the bus stop. Maybe the shell suit was warmer than it looked.

  “We’re going to stay together, yeah? You promised.” Sandy said, hands in pockets. Waterfell Tweed’s village square twinkled with fairy lights that adorned the cottages and hung between lampposts.

  Coral scrunched her nose up and peered past Sandy to see if the bus was coming. It ran just once a day on Sundays, which hadn’t really mattered until Marsden’s shopping centre began opening seven days a week.

  “I’m going to buy a new bra.” Coral whispered. She waggled her eyebrows as if she was out of a silent French movie.

  “You’re what?” Sandy gasped. “I’m not going in a bra shop!”

  Coral shrugged as if the two of them shopping separately was exactly what she’d wanted. The bus appeared in the distance, amber lights illuminating its way.

  “Fine. I’ll come. Why do you even need a bra?” Sandy asked. They’d both had new bras months before. Their dad had suggested they go off for the day with an older woman from the village, and she’d taken them straight to the underwear section of Woolworths. Sandy had expected to die with embarrassment as the shop assistant pulled out a measuring tape.

  “A woman needs more than one bra, Sandy,” Coral said as she stuck her arm out. The bus drew to a stop. “Two returns to Marsden, please.”

  The bus driver barely looked at them as he punched in their request and took their money. The machine spat out their tickets and they made their way to the back seat.

  “Hello, girls,” Dorie Slaughter, the neighbour from the infamous bra-shopping trip, greeted them from a seat near the front. Dressed in a pencil skirt and a blouse with shoulder pads, she looked as if she was going to work, but Sandy couldn’t imagine that secretaries worked on Sundays.

  They said hello and continued walking, past the other few people on the bus. The back seat was free.

  “You know it’s gonna be a good day when you can ride at the back,” Coral said with a grin. “How much money have you got?”

  "£27.35”

  Coral rolled her eyes. “Is that a guess?”

  “Ha ha,” Sandy said as the bus jolted back into motion. She pulled the backpack onto her lap and crossed her arms over it.

  “Are you going to lighten up?” Coral asked with a grin. “This is our day of freedom!”

  “I just think it’s a big thing. We shouldn’t get too silly,” Sandy murmured.

  “Oh, sis, it’s just a little bus trip into town.”

  “And if we miss the bus home? We’ll be stranded.”

  “We won’t be stranded.” Coral insisted.

  “No?” Sandy asked, curious. She’d had nightmares for the last three nights, and they missed the bus home in each one. Since their father didn’t have a car, Sandy couldn’t see an alternative to them being stranded overnight until the next day’s bus service.

  “We’re not gonna miss the bus,” Coral said, which seemed like avoiding the question to Sandy.

  They sat in silence then, the threat of an argument in the air. Sandy shifted in her seat. “How much have you got?”

  “Sixty,” Coral said with a grin. Argument diffused.

  “Wow,” Sandy said. She’d never managed to save that much. But then, Coral had a weekend job while she stayed at home and helped her dad keep on top of the housework. He couldn’t master ironing collars and cuffs. “I’m getting dad some Quality Street. You want to put both our names on it?”

  “Sure,” Coral said. “I need to get some paper.”

  “Like a notebook?”

  “No, proper paper,” Coral said. She’d asked for a typewriter for Christmas, so she could type up the articles she wrote. She’d had a letter published in the local newspaper every week for almost a year before they gave her a weekend job. Now they couldn’t publish her letters, saying it was some kind of conflict, and Coral wanted to begin sending them off to other publications.

  “You think you should wait and see if dad gets it?” Sandy suggested. She’d not asked for anything and yet Coral was still hoping for the typewriter even as she wore a brand new shell suit! She couldn’t think of anything she wanted.

  “He’ll get it,” Coral said, as if there’d never been a doubt. Sandy would like to be so carefree, so self-assured. She doubted everything and then doubted her doubts. “Look, we’re nearly here!”

  The traffic was the first clue that the bus was approaching the town centre. Marsden was in the middle of being reinvented as the town of the future, a place where late-night shopping happened once a week, where shops opened on Sundays, and where a multi-storey was needed for all of the visitors’ cars.

  “The rent problem hasn’t been sorted yet, ya know,” Coral said as if picking up a conversation they’d had previously. She did that all the time. Coral could flit between the typical worries of a teenage girl, and the concerns of a political activist. It was the journalist in her and it worried Sandy, who had no interest or understanding of the topics and saw the gap between herself and her sister widen.

  “Really?” Sandy replied, because any other comment would highlight her ignorance.

  “Sharon’s not a popular lady,” Coral said with a shake of her head as the bus pulled into the bay. “Lots of good shops are moving out of town.”

  Sandy made a non-committal noise in response as she pressed the bell to let the driver know they were getting off at the stop.

 
Coral rolled her eyes. “He has to stop here, this is the end of the route.”

  Sandy let out a nervous laugh. The bus station was busy. “Sharon?”

  “You’re hopeless, Sandy. She’s the Mayor.”

  “Oh, that Sharon,” Sandy said.

  “Seriously, Sandy, you should pay more attention to the world. It’s not just all about Waterfell Tweed, you know. There’s a whole world out there. Don’t you think it’s time we lived a little?”

  Sandy pulled her backpack on and followed her sister down the bus. An older boy she recognised gave way to let them pass. Sandy smiled at him, then felt her cheeks flush.

  Maybe Coral was right. It was no secret that she planned to leave for London as soon as she was old enough. Sandy didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life. She hoped a plan would magically reveal itself at some point. She’d probably find a job and stay in Waterfell Tweed. That’s what everyone else seemed to do.

  “Where first?” Coral said. To Sandy’s relief, she looked a little anxious as she took in how busy the bus station was. They linked arms with each other.

  “The craft shop?” Sandy suggested. She planned to make her own Christmas cards and needed to buy card and decoupage materials. The craft shop was on a side street, too, near the Wimpy. It should be less crowded there.

  They edged through the crowds and out into the open air, the general noise overwhelming to them both. Coral’s eyes beamed with excitement. Sandy clung to her sister a little tighter, knowing the time would come for them each to step into their separate lives, but feeling in no rush at all for that moment to arrive.

  Chapter Two

  The street was a blend of independent stores, charity shops and pubs popular with daytime drinkers. Sandy kept her gaze on the pavement as they walked up the sloped street.

  “You’re kidding.” Coral moaned. She came to a halt abruptly and Sandy followed her gaze to the boarded-up building that had been the craft shop.

  “It’s closed?”

  “That and everything else!” Coral exclaimed. “Do you walk with your eyes closed? It’s the rents. I did tell you all this, Sand.”

  “I don’t understand.” Sandy admitted. A cheer came from one of the bars and she turned to watch a man topple over to the floor with a crack while his mates laughed like hyenas.

  “Let’s go into the centre.” Coral said. She tugged at Sandy’s coat and led her back down the street, away from the giggling drunks and towards the more wholesome part of town. Sandy couldn’t resist a look back at the man, who still lay prone on the floor. His friends had apparently grown bored of the show and returned to the relative warmth of the Wetherspoons.

  The Marsden Mill was a state-of-the-art indoor shopping centre with an attached multi-storey car park. It was the jewel in Sharon Major’s crown as mayor, and Sandy felt giddy as they approached it. The automatic doors glided open as they approached, and the noise enveloped them. Crowds poured in and out of every shop while those needing a rest sat on the benches in the middle of the centre, a small fountain nestled between them. Children tossed pennies in the water for good luck while tired parents clung to jackets to stop them falling in.

  The gaudy electrical tones of festive muzac filled the air, together with the heady scents of grease and vinegar.

  “Shall we get one?” Coral asked. She nudged Sandy and gestured with a nod of her head and a wiggle of her eyebrows towards the chip cob a portly man tucked into as he walked by.

  Sandy didn’t need asking twice. The Bakers’ Oven did the best chip cobs. She nodded and off they went, Christmas gift lists replaced in their minds by the lull of warm food for their empty bellies. The Bakers’ Oven was at the very far end of the shopping centre, and as they approached they saw a stage erected.

  “Huh?” Sandy asked. The area in front of the stage was cordoned off and a huge black curtain was draped around the stage itself. “What’s this doing here?”

  “It’s all indoors this year,” Coral explained. She, of course, had read the newspaper articles criticising the mayor’s decision. “Sharon Major says it makes sense, since it’s so cold. Do it indoors, light the centre itself.”

  “Oh,” Sandy said. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Coral said as they joined the queue for food. Women with hair nets dashed around behind the counter to get through the line as quick as they could. “There was a whole town centre here before The Mill was ever even thought of. The mayor wants to forget everything else.”

  “Is that why the shops are closing?” Sandy asked. She thought about how empty the fridge got at home some days and how often their dad pretended he wasn’t hungry while they ate dinner. Shops closing meant jobs being lost. Her stomach flipped at the thought.

  “It’s all gonna be nationals, that’s her plan,” Coral said.

  “So the jobs won’t disappear then?” Sandy asked.

  “Oh no, this place is booming. There’ll be more jobs.”

  “And Marsden will be like every other town out there,” the man in front of them in the queue muttered. He didn’t even turn to look at them so it was hard to know if he was actually speaking to them. Sandy and Coral looked at each other and shrugged, then fell into a comfortable silence as they looked at the food available behind the glass counter. Marsden being like every other town didn’t sound like a bad thing to Sandy, but then she didn’t go anywhere else. She couldn’t imagine having been to so many places that you’d compare if they were all the same or not. Marsden was different to Waterfell Tweed, that was all that mattered to her.

  A screech filled the air then and Sandy covered her ears.

  “Please make your way to the stage, the display will begin in five minutes,” a nasal voice called out through the tannoy system. A buzz of excitement filled the air.

  “Let’s get a cob after. If we go now we’ll be at the front,” Coral suggested. Sandy nodded and they left the shop and joined an already-growing crowd by the stage. Security staff guarded the steps on either side of the stage. The muzac increased in volume. “I’m so excited.”

  “Me too,” Sandy admitted.

  “Excuse me, coming through, can I just, that’s it, room for a small one, ha!” a voice came from the crowd. Sandy turned to see an older man, maybe approaching forty, hair greying at his temples. He squeezed through the crowd, a wide grin on his tanned face, before he slipped under the barrier rope. He patted down his blazer and waved to the crowd, then approached one of the security guards, where he fell deep into an animated conversation that involved lots of gesticulating and looking at his watch.

  “Ted Burton,” Coral whispered in her sister’s ear. Sandy clearly had no idea who he was. “The mayor’s assistant.”

  Sandy nodded, disinterested.

  “It should have been him,” Coral continued. She was at the annoying stage of maturity where she felt the need to share whatever information she had with anyone trapped near her. “For mayor, you know. He had to opt out. Personal issues.”

  Sandy’s eyes widened then. Personal issues meant drama. Scandal. Or at least, Sandy could hope it did. She’d like some personal issues of her own. Even at primary school, there had been a group of girls who had been in the thick of personal issues. Every play time they had huddled together to dramatically rehash the details of who had fallen out with who. Sandy had played quietly nearby and listened with envy. She never fell out with anyone.

  “What was it?” Sandy asked. “The personal issue?”

  Coral shrugged. “He never said. Whatever it was took him out of the running, Sharon got elected, and he came back to the assistant job. He’d have been an excellent mayor.”

  Sandy watched him. He did seem able to command a crowd into parting to make way for him, and he looked very professional in a suit. “I like him.”

  “Me too,” Coral said. She’d gone a little flush as only Coral could. Other teenagers idolised boybands, not politicians.

  The crowd had built up behind them and the pr
omised five minutes had extended to seven. A child in a pushchair began to scream.

  “Ooh, it’s starting,” Coral whispered. The muzac stopped and Ted Burton carefully treaded across the front of the stage, black curtain closed behind him ready for Sharon Major’s grand entrance.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!” he called out into a microphone. He was like a TV presenter. Sandy had never seen anything like it before. The man was clearly wasted as anyone’s assistant. “I’m Ted and I’m delighted to see you all here in the Marsden Mill. Tonight, we join together for our annual Christmas Lights Display. A lot of planning has gone into making tonight happen, and I know you’d like to join me in a round of applause for everyone for their hard work!”

  Ted began to clap and the crowd joined in. When he stopped clapping, the crowd took it as a cue and their own applause gradually stopped. He leaned back in to the microphone.

  “And now,” he said, wide grin replaced by a tight smile, “it’s my greatest honour to hand over to our Mayor, Ms Sharon Major.”

  The applause was notably less enthusiastic for her, and Ted himself didn’t even pretend to clap.

  The security guard at each side of the stage pressed a button and the curtains opened to reveal a Christmas backdrop. A single oversized candy cane from the centre’s grotto lay on the floor of the stage. There was no mayor in sight.

  The audience let out awkward coughs, throats were cleared, and only after a few seconds had passed did Ted turn to face the stage.

  “Call an ambulance!” he exclaimed, hands over his mouth. The security guards sprung into action, and as they were distracted, Coral jumped up on to Sandy’s back, then let out a shriek.

  “What are you doing?” Sandy asked, the weight of her sister on her back a surprise.

  “Oh my God,” Coral said, eyes filled with tears. “It’s Sharon Major up there, on the stage. I think… I think she’s dead.”