Candy Canes & Corpses

by Abby L. Vandiver

  I flash a confused glance at Jake.

  “Look, I’m sorry to have to ask this when you’re clearly and understandably upset, but did Bernie suffer from any health issue which might have made you think she passed away of natural causes?”

  Thomas now has his head in his hands, his whole body shaking from the sobs ripping through him.

  Oh boy. This is just awful.

  Jake gets to his feet and heads towards the drinks cabinet. “Brandy? Whisky?”

  “Brandy,” Thomas replies between sobs.

  We give Thomas a few minutes to compose himself as he sips his drink. Jake wanders around the room, no doubt taking in the fine furnishings, antiques and myriad picture frames crammed with photos. I can’t help noticing there isn’t a photo of Thomas and his wife anywhere. I know from CCIA HQ that Alexandra Merry is a tall elegant woman with long blonde hair, perfect eyebrows, immaculate make-up – and high maintenance written all over her beautiful face. She appears in assorted photos – the gold frame on the piano, the cream wood frame on the mantelpiece – with other people, but not with Thomas. Perhaps he really was telling the truth when he said their marriage had been over for quite some time.

  Jake’s clearly got fed up with waiting for Thomas to regain his composure because he’s back to the questions. “Where was your wife this afternoon?”

  Thomas finishes his drink and looks longingly towards the cabinet for a refill. “At the spa. She’s always at the spa – or so she says.”

  “Which spa?” I check.

  “The Five Stars on Melbourne Avenue. She’s a member and goes every day. This afternoon she was supposed to be getting the works.”

  Jake frowns. “The works?”

  “Yes, you know,” Thomas says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Hair. Manicure. Pedicure. That sort of thing. The works.”

  “We’ll give you some time to yourself then, Mr. Merry,” I say, meeting Jake’s eye and gesturing towards the door. I feel as though Thomas needs some time to cry, to start the long and horrible grieving process, after which you and your life are never the same again.

  Time for a spot of alibi checking. The Five Stars Spa lives up to its name. The double doors are closed to riff-raff and we have to speak into an intercom before we are allowed into the inner sanctum.

  Jake flashes his badge and introduces us both, explaining why we’ve turned up at the bottom of their grand stone staircase.

  The receptionist taps away on her computer and eventually announces, “Mrs. Merry didn’t have any spa treatment bookings this afternoon I’m afraid.”

  “OK, so no treatments, but did she just visit the spa today? You know, drop by for a swim, a yoga class, and lunch with friends?” I check.

  The receptionist, whose name badge says Seraphina, taps away on her computer again. “There’s no record of Mrs. Merry using her membership card today at all.”

  We’re quickly back outside. The blizzard from earlier is still blowing in earnest. There’s a layer of snow on the pavements, cars and rooftops but the roads, thanks to the constant stream of traffic, are still clear.

  “Back to the studio?” Jake asks as both our phones beep at once. It’s the CCIA crime scene guys saying they have finished their part of the investigation and asking for a meeting with us to pass on their findings.

  “Studio it is then.”

  There’s no media frenzy outside the TV station so it looks as though the CCIA have managed to keep a lid on Bernie’s murder. That is, after all, why people call us rather than the police. Discretion and a speedy resolution – that’s the CCIA.

  The CCIA crew have elected to have the meeting in a conference room at the studio.

  The conference room coffee machine is quickly put through its paces and its drinks all round before we settle at the table for an update.

  “Basically, we haven’t found much to help you guys out,” says Fiona, the CCIA crew team leader for this investigation. “She was strangled. No signs of a struggle. It seems as though all personal effects were present, so it’s not theft related. No fingerprints at all. Guess someone took the time to go over all surfaces to wipe them clean.”

  “Unless nobody else was involved and this is a case of suicide,” I say, hunger, fatigue and discomfort gnawing at my insides. Bernie may not have been a model citizen but the thought that she’d taken her own life is still a horrific one.

  “We don’t think that’s likely,” Fiona continues. “We think she was murdered. The way the stockings were pulled and knotted around her neck suggests it would have been very difficult for her to have achieved that herself. Especially with a material such as the one the stockings were made from.”

  I nod. “Have you got your hands on any available CCTV footage which might help us?”

  “Sadly, and somewhat surprisingly, the only CCTV cameras are set up at the studio entrances and exits. None inside the building so we can’t flick a switch and see who entered the victim’s dressing room.”

  Jake sighs and leans back in his chair. “Typical. And there was me thinking we’d have this all cut and dried today so I can head home before the snow blocks the roads up.”

  Fiona shoots him a disapproving glare. “I have spoken with security and they have the CCTV footage for this afternoon all ready and waiting for you to view at your convenience.”

  “So that’s it?” I check, a hint of hope still lingering in my voice.

  “Yes, sorry but that’s it. Well, we’re all off home now,” she says with a smirk in Jake’s direction. “Glad to be out of here before the roads get too bad thanks to the inclement weather.”

  Within ten minutes we are watching the aforementioned CCTV footage. It clearly shows one of our suspects, Kitty, leaving the building shortly after the time she’d told us she was off to the GMEX craft show. I guess that gives her an alibi then. Just to be sure we check with the security guy if there are any other ways a person could get into the studios. He tells us about a rear door near the car park that anyone with a key card can use and confirms it has CCTV. The coverage reveals several people coming and going via that door but Kitty isn’t amongst them. To make extra sure, we call GMEX and ask if they can confirm Kitty attended an appointment at the show as one of the journalists invited and they say her press card was swiped in and give us the time she arrived. It was within minutes of us finding Bernie dead in her dressing room. That’s definitely Kitty off the list then.

  The CCTV has also confirmed that Alexandra Merry didn’t visit the studios this afternoon. So, even though she wasn’t at the spa, it looks like she wasn’t here murdering Bernie either.

  Yannick the cameraman proves to be a trickier prospect to pin down. There’s no record of him having left the studios but he didn’t show up for a TV programme he should have been part of the camera team for this afternoon. Seems he’s gone AWOL. That keeps him on the list of suspects.

  “I feel as though we’re getting nowhere,” I complain to Jake who is munching on a chocolate bar.

  “Tell me about it,” he agrees. “We must be missing something. Let’s recap. Kitty had motive in that she wanted to oust Bernie and take over her role as anchor-woman on TV Rise & Shine. We thought she had opportunity as she knows the studios and knew Bernie’s schedule.”

  “But now we know she was at some craft show during the window of opportunity,” I interrupt. My stomach growls. “Where did you get that chocolate bar?”

  “Vending machine down the corridor.” He rummages in his jacket pocket and holds up an identical bar. “Want one?”

  I nod and lean forward, expecting him to slide the bar across the conference room table. Instead he waves the bar in the air and grins wickedly. “Come and get it then.”

  “Jake!” I admonish. “Quit larking about. I’m hungry.”

  Laughing, he skims the bar over to me.

  We sit in silence as we eat and I mull over the events of the day. When I crunch up the wrapper and throw it in the bin I finally voice my thoughts. “Do you
think Thomas could have killed Bernie?”

  “I think it’s a possibility. We need to see if he has an alibi for this afternoon.”

  “He seemed genuinely distraught when we told him though. Plus, he didn’t show up on the CCTV either at the studios. It doesn’t make any sense. What are we missing here?”

  “Whatever it is, it’ll turn up soon, it always does. Things will fall into place. I’ll ring the Merry household and see if the housekeeper can confirm if Thomas was home all afternoon or not.”

  “I’m going to go and have a look around Bernie’s dressing room again,” I say, getting to my feet. “Maybe the CCIA crew missed something.”

  Jake shoots me an ‘as if’ look and starts to make his call.

  I leave him to it.

  It feels weird to be back in Bernie’s dressing room. Inside the air is heavy with both the smell of perfume and the stench of sadness. I shiver and rub my hands up and down the sleeves of my jacket to try and warm myself up.

  On the dressing table are a couple of pictures of what I assume are Bernie’s family and friends. They have no idea she’s gone. Just like that. Here one minute and gone the next. Life is so cruel. I take a seat at her dressing table and look at all the items scattered across the surface. I can pick things up, remove them or do whatever I want now that the crime scene has been assessed.

  I glance around at the remains of Bernie’s life. Earrings. Lipstick. Perfume.

  Hmm. Perfume.

  I would call myself something of a perfume aficionado. I’m not terribly girly but I do love my scents and treat myself to favourites regularly as well as new ones to try. I sniff the air in the dressing room. Then, even though I can already tell the fragrances don’t match, I sniff the bottle of perfume on the table in front of me. Why would this room smell of a perfume that Bernie didn’t wear? Strange.

  The door opens and Jake strolls in and plonks himself down on the sofa. “Housekeeper confirms Thomas was home all day. Thanks to his hangover he didn’t venture out and didn’t even get out of bed until lunch time. The cause of his hangover was a birthday party for his daughter the night before at a country house hotel. Just to be sure she wasn’t fibbing on behalf of her employer I checked for and gained access to some CCTV footage for the road the Merry household lives on. Zilch. He didn’t go out of the house.”

  “You have been a busy boy,” I tease, my thoughts still on my perfume discovery.

  “And what have you been doing in the meantime? You know, I took a look outside and the snow is now most definitely deep and crisp and even.” He bounces up and down on the sofa and punches a cushion to check for the comfort factor. “We might end up having to sleep on this couch at this rate.”

  I look at the couch and decide I’d rather source alternative accommodation. Firstly, because I don’t relish the idea of spending the night in a room that somebody has just been murdered in. Second, the couch doesn’t look especially comfortable to me. And third, and perhaps the most important to me, is that I don’t want to share that couch with Jake. The chemistry fizzing between us is quickly heading towards undeniable – but I’m not ready to go down that road yet.

  Time for a change of topic. I pick up the perfume bottle and wave it at my fellow CCIA operative. “This room smells of perfume but it isn’t this perfume.”

  Jake looks momentarily baffled. He’s not the kind of guy who notices things like perfume. “Maybe the perfume in here was from one of the women in the agency crime scene team?” he suggests.

  I wrinkle my nose, unconvinced. “No. If you look closely there’s a slight smear of liquid on this dressing table and that seems to be where the smell is coming from. It’s like someone knocked over a bottle of perfume on here but the perfume in question was then removed for some reason. The thing is, I think I recognise the smell in this room. It’s a very expensive brand and difficult to get your hands on and yet I’ve smelt it before recently. Someone was wearing it, here at the studios, when I spoke to them, I’m pretty sure of it.”

  Jake leans forward from his spot on the sofa. “The question is, who?”

  “Exactly.” I close my eyes to help me focus for a moment. Could it have been Kitty? She had a rather high maintenance look about her, designer clothes, fancy haircut, perfect make-up. Where would she get the money for things like that on her salary? Where would she get access to an exclusive perfume as well?

  “You’re thinking it might have been Kitty?” Jake correctly surmises.

  I nod. “But if Kitty was at the craft show, how could she have been here murdering Bernie? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Let’s go and take a look at her dressing room and see if we can find anything useful.”

  We lock Bernie’s dressing room behind us and head towards one of the runners who are always racing around the studios.

  “Do you know which dressing room Kitty uses on TV Rise & Shine?” Jake asks the harassed-looking young guy with wild fuzzy hair.

  “She hasn’t got a designated dressing room,” the guy replies as he chews on gum. “Not important enough. She gets changed in a female communal dressing room. She has got her own locker though.”

  Jake flashes his badge at the runner and the guy backs away, shooting us both worried looks. “What’s her locker number?”

  “Twenty three. It’s back down this corridor, then right at the end.”

  “Thanks,” I shout, already heading off to locate said locker.

  In fact, it’s a half locker, the top one at the end of the row next to the toilets.

  “Keep watch, I’ll break in,” Jake declares.

  “Don’t be such a chauvinist. I can pick a lock every bit as well as you can.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe. Unless brute strength is required, in which case I obviously have the upper hand.”

  I consider myself to be pretty fit, it’s a requirement of my job. I go to the gym regularly, can just about run a half marathon. I know that I don’t need to look at Jake to check how gym-trim he is. I’ve worked with him often enough to have seen the well-honed biceps, taught shoulders and perfect physique.

  Stepping back, I nod towards the locker. “Knock yourself out.”

  Jake smirks and sets about gaining access to number twenty three while I keep watch.

  He’s searching through the locker’s contents within a minute. I begrudgingly concede that he does have exceptional lock picking skills. I muscle in to have a look what secrets the locker is revealing. There’s just one item staring back at me – a bottle of the ultra-expensive and highly elusive perfume I’d smelt from the spill in Bernie’s dressing room.

  Weird.

  “Get the feeling somebody is trying to set Kitty up?” Jake asks. “This looks far too convenient to me. We open her locker and there’s just a bottle of perfume. I’ve broken into enough lockers in my time to know that they are dumping grounds for anything and everything – much as you would expect. Somebody has arranged this to try and point the finger of blame firmly at Kitty.”

  “Risky strategy though. The CCIA crew didn’t pick up on the perfume smell or any possible significance when they checked the dressing room...”

  “But you did.” Jake pulls a small metal box from his jacket pocket. “The person who did this either didn’t think at all and is a complete novice in criminal matters or thought about it too much and was trying to be clever. Anyway, the agency cleaning crew have done their job and scarpered so this one is down to us.”

  I know the contents of the metal box are the necessary items to carry out a quick DIY fingerprint check. Within minutes Jake has used the special CCIA app on his phone to get the information sent off to agency HQ. They have people working all day and every day on processing things like this for agents in the field.

  “Coffee while we wait for the results on that and mull over our next move?” I suggest.

  Soon we’re back in the cafe of the TV studios. There’s hardly anybody around at this hour. I haven’t even got through half of my triple choc
chip muffin before HQ get back to us. The fingerprints match those of Alexandra Merry.

  My mind sprints through the possibilities. “CCTV didn’t show Mrs. Merry arriving at the studio today but she could have worn a disguise I suppose. It’s freezing out there so somebody arriving at the studios in a large hat hiding their face wouldn’t have merited a second look.”

  “Should we ask to see the front and back door CCTV again to see if we can spot anyone who fits her height and build arriving at the studios?” Jake quizzes.

  I get to my feet. “It would take forever. I say we go and pay Alexandra a visit, see what she’s made of. Maybe we can scare her into slipping up and saying something incriminating.”

  “You’ve got a devious mind, Abi Anderson,” he grins. “It’s one of the many things I like about you.”

  A bubble of delicious warmth floods through me at his words. Then I push it aside and focus on my job.

  Outside the snow is getting heavier and I pull the collar of my coat around my neck as we trudge through the icy white stuff piling up on the car park at the studios. You could be anywhere because everything is a white blur. Memories – horrible ones which make my heart race and my palms sweat – crowd in on me. I force them away. The sounds of raucous carol singing drift past on the strengthening breeze.

  Just focus on cracking this case and getting out of here, I remind myself.

  The road conditions are now so bad that even Jake who has driven rally cars and done all sorts of extreme challenges has to concentrate on his driving. There’s no sign of snowploughs or a gritter and it seems to me as though everyone is tucked up safely indoors in the warm savouring festive TV programmes.

  I hope Alexandra is tucked up at home tonight too.

  With most sensible people staying off the roads this evening we make good time despite the state of the roads and soon arrive at the house Thomas and Alexandra share. Lights blaze from all the windows which I take to be a good sign for us – someone has to be at home with that amount of electricity burning.