by Molly Fitz
I made a slicing motion across my neck, begging her not to exaggerate our position, but it was too late.
Mom smiled even wider. “Yes, yes, we just need to take another look at those photos from Mr. Gable's camera to confirm. Would you mind letting us take a look?”
She paused while Officer Bouchard said something on the other end of the line.
“Luckily, we just so happen to be at the Glendale police station already, so if you would give the word to your colleague here, I'm sure he'd be happy to share.”
I watched Mom as she marched in the direction the officer and Mags had departed and knocked on the door to the interrogation room.
Definitely not standard procedure, but Mom had never worried much about that. She would go anywhere, do anything to pursue a hot story, and this was definitely the hottest of the holiday season.
“Oh, officer!” she called through the door. “I know you're in there. I have Officer Bouchard on the line, and he has a message for you.”
I stood in shocked silence as the door flung open. The officer cursed softly, then told Mags he'd be back in a moment. Sure enough, less than three minutes later we had Mr. Gable's camera in hand and free rein to look through the photographs.
“What are you hoping to find?” Nan asked me as I flicked faster and faster, taking in all the smiling faces from that morning one by one.
“I'm not exactly sure, but I'd like to see if any of the shots send up warning flares.”
Although I didn't say so, I was also trying to determine who the two suspicious characters the rabbit E.B. had noted might be.
I reached the end of the photo roll and then began to flip back through in the other direction. Faster, faster, still unsure of what I was hoping to find, but knowing I was so close.
“Do you think—” my father started, but Charles held up a hand to silence him. He recognized something in my face before I’d even managed to connect the dots in my brain.
I shuffled through the pictures again, finally realizing that one very specific person was missing. “Nan, when did you and Mr. Milton join up today?”
“Why, he found me a few minutes after we arrived while you and Mags were still getting that fancy cocoa. You remember. Don’t you?”
I nodded. “So he arrived before us, then?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Nan assured me.
I found our photo in the lineup. We were one of the first. Only about ten folks had arrived before us, and none of them were Mr. Milton. Could he be one of the people E.B. had identified as acting suspiciously?
I wished I could ask the bunny now, but she'd already told me all humans look the same and I knew she wouldn't be able to recognize a specific person if shown a picture—not that I even had one of those since our old pal Mr. Milton had evaded the camera.
“He's not here,” I told Nan, handing over the camera.
“Oh dear, don't be ridiculous.” She flipped through quickly, her voice trailing off. “He probably took another entrance. There were several to choose from.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Mom mumbled.
“If you hadn't sent him away, he'd be here to answer these accusations for himself,” Nan said, but I could tell she now worried about his possible involvement as well.
“He is a member of the committee, too, you know. He could have helped with information, but you never gave him a chance.” This behavior from Nan was shocking. She'd always supported me, no matter what. So to see her defending Mr. Milton now sent a chill rushing right through me.
“Nan, what exactly is your relationship with Mr. Milton? I never met him before today, and he just seems a little possessive of you.”
“Oh, don't be silly,” Nan responded. “He's an old friend from years ago, and we simply reconnected now.”
“Do you think he's capable of murder or kidnapping?” I asked.
“How could he have been the one to kidnap Mags when he was with us the whole time?” Nan asked with a slight quaver in her voice.
“Okay. Maybe not the kidnapping, but what about the murders? He arrived before us and the victims were already dead by then.”
“He would never,” she insisted and bit her lip, a telltale sign she didn't quite believe the words that had come out of her mouth.
“Don't worry, Nan. I'm not saying he did it. But you are right about one thing. We need to talk to somebody on that committee.”
“Should I ring Mr. Gable?” Mom offered.
“No,” I said, pushing her arm down even as she had already begun to dial.
“Just like Mr. Milton attached himself to us all day, it’s possible the guilty party could be lingering very close to Mr. Gable now, and I don't want to alert him that we’re coming. Not until we have the chance to talk to Mr. Gable directly.”
“Have you figured it out?” Charles asked, rubbing my shoulders as if I were a boxer about to go in for round two of the fight.
“Not yet, but I feel close. Mom, Dad, would you please stay here and wait for Mags? I need to go now while everything is still clicking in my brain.”
“Of course, honey,” Mom replied.
“But be careful and call us if you need anything. Got it?” Dad added.
Charles, Nan, and I rushed out of the station with the pets in tow just as quickly as we entered. “We’ll take my car,” Charles said, unlocking it remotely so that Nan and Paisley could slip into the backseat and Octo-Cat and I into the passenger side.
I took a quick moment to explain my theory to the others.
“There's definite merit to that,” Charles agreed, turning the key in the ignition. “It makes sense. I just hope we’re not playing our hand too soon.”
“Everything will be just fine.” Nan sounded more like her usual self now that Mr. Milton wasn't around.
“Are we going to catch the bad guys now?” Paisley asked with an excited whimper.
“Yes,” Octo-Cat answered for me. “It's time to make the canary sing.”
He licked his lips at the mention of the canary even though we weren't going to confront a snitch—we would go directly to the guilty party.
Chapter Eighteen
We found Mr. Gable at the sleigh same as he’d been before.
“Welcome back,” he called as Nan, Charles, the animals, and I approached on foot, having parked just around the corner.
“Have you been busy?” Charles asked with a friendly smile.
“Things are slowing down now. Far fewer visitors coming into town, but we still have a lot of ticked-off vendors who want to have a word with the person in charge before they head on home.”
Charles shifted seamlessly into the role of ace attorney. “Was the festival insured?”
“Of course we were. And thankfully we should have enough to cover all the fee reimbursements, but I still don't know what the future holds for us. Whether the festival is done for good or it will continue on in a different place.” The weight of this uncertainty hung heavily over his shoulders. Mr. Gable appeared to fold into himself as he considered the options, both of which were far less than ideal.
“But the Holiday Spectacular has always been in Glendale.” Nan also didn’t want to accept that things would likely be changing, and I completely understood where she was coming from.
Traditions were special because you could rely on them being the same each year, and I hated to think that my favorite part of Christmas could be going away for good.
Mr. Gable frowned as he noted the dejected look on Nan’s face. “It has been, but we were chosen to represent the entire Blueberry Bay region when things were first starting up. It could just as easily be moved to Dewdrop Springs or Misty Harbor.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be,” Nan clucked, eliciting a smile from Mr. Gable for the first time since tragedy had struck earlier that day.
“Where’s E.B.?” I asked. Might I find some time to talk with the rabbit in private about my suspicions?
“Burrowed deep in the hay to stay warm, that swee
t girl.”
Upon hearing this, Paisley raced over to the nativity and began to dig furiously.
I set Octo-Cat down on the seat of the sleigh, and he remained quiet, wanting to hear what would happen next just as much as I did. I still didn’t know whether it would be Mr. Gable or E.B. to give me the final intel I needed, but either way, I knew we’d find the culprit soon.
“Can we gather the committee?” I asked him now.
“I suppose we could. Why? Have you figured out something that could help us?”
“I think I may have a lead,” I responded with a poorly concealed smile. “But I'd really rather share with the entire committee if possible.”
Mr. Gable regarded me wearily. “Most of them are still around, but at least one is otherwise occupied.”
“Oh?” Charles asked, stepping closer as his interest grew.
Nan also watched Mr. Gable with wide eyes and shivering shoulders. The day was becoming colder as more and more snow fell, and we were all more than ready to go home.
We were so close now, though. I could practically taste it.
“Yes.” Mr. Gable rubbed his hands together and blew out an icy puff of air. “Officer Bouchard is wrapped up in the homicide investigation, so I don't think he'll be able to put that aside for an impromptu meeting.”
“He was on the committee?” I asked. Why was I only just now learning this? “That’s strange, because he didn't recognize Zelda when we first discovered the bodies. And wasn't it Fred who was the last-minute addition rather than Zelda?”
Mr. Gable nodded as he turned this over in his memory. “I suppose he wouldn't. You see, Officer Bouchard only came to the meetings that pertained directly to safety and security. It's possible he either didn't pay attention to the finer details of areas that didn't concern him or that he knew about Zelda but was unable to connect the face with the name.”
I nodded along, still finding it strange—especially considering Officer Bouchard served as chief detective whenever Glendale needed someone to slip into the role.
“Was it the same for any of the other committee members as well?” I asked, knowing we were mere moments from a big revelation.
“Yes, we had a couple who only contributed to certain areas just like the good officer Bouchard. Most of us were involved in all the planning meetings, though.”
Nan went to join Octo-Cat on the sleigh. I worried that the cold had seeped into her bones. Even though she was in better shape than me, she was also quite old, and we’d been outside for much of the day in this frigid weather.
Charles whipped out his phone and opened the notes app. “Would you be able to give us a list of your members to help me figure out which were only partially involved, like Officer Bouchard?”
I watched as Nan settled in with Octo-Cat on her lap, glad they would keep each other warm now.
When I turned back to the men, I asked, “Mr. Gable, could you please also tell us which of the full-time members missed that last meeting, the one where Fred was added as a second judge?”
“Oh, sure that's easy. Just a second. I'll help you there, son.” Mr. Gable and Charles worked out the list while I checked on the animals.
Paisley had cuddled her small, mostly black body against E.B. in the hay and was grooming her cheeks. The bunny trembled—probably afraid for her life—but I knew Paisley would never harm. She just didn’t have it in her.
Octo-Cat watched the snow fall from his place on Nan’s lap, following individual flakes as they floated down from the sky.
“It really is a pretty day,” he said. “All the snow makes the sun shine brighter. It would be nice to take a nap if it weren't so wet—or there weren’t so many murders happening around town, too.”
I simpered at him and stroked his back. He always had a way of bringing things into perspective, that cat of mine.
“Angie, we've got it,” Charles called me back to his side.
"Here's the full list. As you see, there are fifteen committee members in all that served this year. The ones with the stars only involve themselves in specific areas of the planning.” He pointed to the names Officer Bouchard and Janice Delacroix.
“The ones with the question mark were involved in full-scale planning but missed the final meeting.” He then pointed to Bill Randone and Harvey Milton on his digital list.
“Milton!” I almost choked on the name. “Is that Nan's friend, Mr. Milton?”
“What?” Nan cried, hopping down from the sleigh and coming to join us, Octo-Cat still curled comfortably in her arms. “What bout Harvey?”
“He was on the committee, but he missed our last meeting so he didn’t know about the last-minute judging changeup,” Mr. Gable summarized. “And you know, Dorothy, I don't think I ever would have pictured you two as a couple. That Cupid works in mysterious ways.”
“Can you tell us more about Janice and Bill? I don't know those two,” I asked, shaking off the reference to my grandmother's love life, especially seeing as it concerned Harvey Milton.
Charles stared at his phone while Mr. Gable met my gaze. “Janice is our go-to marketing gal. She manages social media, the website, our newsletter. Doesn't really come to the meetings, but we send her everything by email. I don't know how carefully she reads over the materials we send her way, but she has access to the full information if she wants it.”
“And Bill?” Charles mumbled, not bothering to glance up from his phone.
“Bill usually came with Harvey. They both had a long trek from Caraway Island, having to catch the ferry there and back.”
Something tightened in my chest. “Caraway Island?” I asked as if I'd never heard of the place before.
Mr. Gable nodded. “Yes, and they both missed the last meeting due to something unplanned. I think Bill had to work late and Harvey didn't want to take the trip over on his own. Something like that.”
“Nan, did you know Mr. Milton was on the committee?”
“Of course I knew,” she responded, but her face crumpled a bit as I asked Mr. Gable my next question.
Now my heart began to gallop in my chest. We were so, so close. “Did you take a picture of Bill today?” I asked.
He thought about this. “Actually, no. I don't think I saw him at all until after we were shutting things down.”
If I’d have been a cartoon, a giant lightbulb would have flashed over my head at this reveal. Bill Randone, that was the name of our guilty party. We had it. We had it at last. Now we just had to get him.
Somehow. Someway.
“Is he still here?” I asked, my words slurring together as I worked to get them out of my mouth as quickly as possible. “Is he helping to shut things down and send people over toward the park?”
“Last I knew, he was stationed over on Third Street.”
“Let's go,” I said, breaking into an immediate run.
Nan pulled right up at my side and matched my pace. At some point, she must have given Octo-Cat to Charles, because he ran a few paces behind carrying both the cat and the dog as he puffed along.
Mr. Gable hadn't joined us in the pursuit, probably because he didn't want to leave E.B. on her own.
“I just can't believe all of that,” Nan said. “I trust Mr. Gable, but I also know Harvey didn't do this because he was with me the whole time. Do you think he knew about Bill?”
“There's a chance,” I said between huffs. Running was still not a strong point for me, and somehow I’d managed to do it twice in one day now.
We ran another block before rounding the corner onto Third Street. And while I'd never seen Bill Randone a day in my life, I spotted him immediately because there he stood with Harvey Milton as the two carried on an animated discussion.
Suddenly they both glanced up and spotted us racing toward them. Randone immediately took off in the other direction at a sprint.
I grabbed my phone, still running, and dialed Officer Bouchard to let him know what we’d discovered and that his primary suspect was now on the run.
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Nan pulled ahead, closing the rest of the distance to Mr. Milton faster than I could ever hope to move.
Then slapped him right across the face.
Chapter Nineteen
I don't think I'd ever seen my Nan quite as angry as she was that day.
“You knew,” she spat, her normally warm and friendly eyes saturated with a shocking coldness. “This whole time you knew and were probably even feeding information back to your friend.”
Mr. Milton cleared his throat. Something I now realized he did whenever he felt nervous. “I didn't know for sure, but I suspected.”
“Oh, you suspected,” Nan repeated sarcastically. “So what were you? Warning him just now?”
“No!” Mr. Milton finally raised his voice to join in the fight. “I was confronting him with my suspicions.”
“And giving him a chance to run.” I jumped right into the fray as well. “Why wouldn't you have gone straight to the police?"
Picking up on our emotions, Paisley began to bark and growl and kick out her back legs like a chicken scratching at pebbles. “Bad man! Bad, bad man! No treats for you!”
Charles and Octo-Cat watched silently as the three women—two human and one dog—ganged up on a very guilty looking Harvey Milton.
“I don't agree with what he did, but I do agree with why he did it.” This statement drew gasps from all of us, even Charles and Octo-Cat, who had chosen to mostly stay out of the confrontation.
“What?” Nan and I exploded in unison.
Mr. Milton shook his head. This time he didn't clear his throat, clearly feeling conviction in the words he was about to speak. “Caraway Island needs the Holiday Spectacular far more than Glendale ever did. The whole thing is a tourism goldmine, and our city is struggling. Due to the isolation, few ever manage to venture over. Each year it gets worse. Businesses are closing, and our community is becoming more and more cut off from the rest of the area. We need something… A magic bullet, if you will.”
