I scooped up Atticus and sat him on my palm, stroking his back to soothe him while I took a deep breath to reset. “Okay, so you don’t know for sure if Hobbs was there before or after you saw Lance Hilroy in the sleigh, am I getting that right? Because I can’t go around accusing Hobbs of something—”
“Accusing me of what?” said a deep voice from behind me.
Whirling around, I turned so quickly, I tripped over my bulky boots and stumbled over the bale of hay, falling into it face first, leaving me with a mouthful of dry hay and Atticus up by the rafters.
Hobbs’s heavy footsteps sounded until he was standing over me, blocking out the sun coming in through the red doorway and holding out his gloved hand.
His smile was warm and inviting when he said, “Need a hand?”
Now, would a murderer offer to help a girl up? Though, I read somewhere Ted Bundy was a real ladies’ man. Maybe scratch that off the couldn’t-be-a-killer list until I had more information.
I pushed myself upright and brushed at the hay in my mouth, spitting it out before taking his hand. “Thanks,” I said sheepishly.
“Speaking of hands, how’s yours feelin’ this fine mornin’?”
“Oh, it’s much better. That antibiotic cream made all the difference in the world, Dr. Dainty. You really do know your craft.”
He nodded his head and chuckled then put his hands in the pockets of his puffy black jacket. “So what are you accusing me of anyway?”
I flapped a dismissive hand and picked up the rake to put it away, looking anywhere but at him. “Uh…I was just telling Karen and Atticus that I won’t have you accusing me of being late for our coffee meetup because I was so slow with my morning chores.”
“Ah,” he drawled, sauntering over to Karen to pull a carrot from his jacket. “Look what I have for you, little darlin’,” he murmured, showing her his gift as though it were slathered in gold.
And what did my traitorous nana do? She snarfed it from his hand, rubbing her muzzle against his arm while she gobbled the orange treat.
I shook my finger in warning at her from behind Hobbs’s back to let her know I was on to her seconds before he turned around. “See? She loves carrots.”
“Would you look at that,” I muttered. “So you’re more like Dr. Doolittle than Dr. House.”
He chuckled, running his palm over my grandmother’s head with a wiggle of his eyebrow and an amused, if not smug, look in his eye. “I’d like to think I’m a little of both.”
“So what brings you to the barn other than spoiling Karen?”
He grinned at me again. “Spoiling Karen. I do it every morning. Sometimes I have coffee out here with her. Other times we sit and shoot the breeze. Or I shoot it, she naps.”
My eyebrow shot clear up into my hairline. This was new information Nana hadn’t shared with me. I can only imagine why. “I see.”
“Hey, does Atticus like anything in particular in the way of treats? I know hummingbirds like sugar water because I looked it up. I hung a feeder outside in case he ever comes out, but it froze. Still, I’d be happy to bring him treats, too, if there’s somethin’ he likes.”
Would a murderer be so nice to animals? A good ol’ Southern boy like Hobbs? Would a murderer be considerate enough to research what hummingbirds ate?
Would he?
I set Atti on my shoulder and smiled at him. “He’s mostly an indoor hummingbird. He hates the cold—for the most part, anyway. He really only drinks sugar water, nectar and eats bugs. Not an easy diet in the winter. But it’s nice that you thought of him. Isn’t it nice that Hobbs thought of you, Atti?” I asked, chucking him under the chin, trying not to fall into fits of laughter.
I knew it was killing my familiar to keep his thoughts to himself, and that made it even funnier.
“It’s nothin’,” Hobbs drawled with his light Southern twang. “I love animals. In fact, I think Atticus is the first creature to snub me. But I’ll win him over yet. Just you wait and see. Right, little guy?”
He leaned down and smiled at Atticus, who promptly turned his beak into my hair as I purposely inhaled the cologne Hobbs wore and fought my eyes rolling to the back of my head.
Listen, he smells good. Murderers can smell nice. Don’t judge.
“I love animals, too,” I agreed with a smile. “I love them so much, I volunteer at the shelter when Bitty needs help. Atticus just happens to be a persnickety bugger, but I know he’ll warm up. Just give him time. Now, I have to grab a shower and get the smell of barn and hay off me before our coffee. Meet you in town in an hour?”
“I’ll be there with spurs on,” he joked, making me laugh at how corny he could be.
“See you in a bit.”
I gave Nana a quick kiss on the top of her head, tweaking her ear so she knew our conversation wasn’t over, and headed out the barn door as Hobbs cooed at her and gave her another carrot.
Making my way down the short path to the house, I squinted at the snow, so bright under the sun. We’d gotten at least eight inches last night, and as I looked out over my land, and heard the sound of the ocean crashing against the rocks, tasted the tang of saltwater on my tongue, I smiled.
Freshly fallen snow made me giddily happy. It was as though the sky had coated everything with powdered sugar and left it glistening and brand-new.
“Sugar water? Really, Halliday. He’s always talking to me as though I’m some pet. What a simpleton.”
Atticus’s disgust at being treated like a hummingbird made me snicker.
“He’s just trying to make friends, Atti. Don’t be such an uptight snob and give the guy a break. And for all intents and purposes, you are a pet, sir. Shall we just tell him you’re my familiar and that you can talk so he’ll quit cooing at you in a baby voice?”
I popped open the door to the mudroom and pulled off my jacket, glancing with satisfaction at the shiplap walls and dark gray bench tree with tons of storage and hooks for jackets.
“Of course not.”
“Then like I said, give him a break.”
Atticus flew to the top of the shelves above the bench tree and settled there. “Should I give a murderer a break? That seems risky, Halliday. What if he hacks your head off because I gave him a break?”
Pulling off my boots, I clucked my tongue. “We don’t know if he’s a murderer, Atticus. Nana can’t remember because her judgement’s been clouded by carrots and the scent of his cologne.”
Which again, is very nice, in case you’re wondering.
“Of course he’s not. I said it merely in jest. You don’t really believe your grandmother, do you, Poppet? That man’s no more a murderer than I am an elephant.”
Sighing, I headed inside, the warmth of the fireplace in the kitchen hitting me in the face. I dropped down onto a buffalo-checked chair by the fire and pondered what my grandmother had said.
“No. I don’t really think Hobbs murdered anyone. He has no motive to kill Lance Hilroy. But if he was there earlier, why didn’t he tell us that?”
“Likely because he wasn’t there, Halliday. Or at least not when Karen saw him. I’m convinced it was before the murder occurred and she’s simply fuzzy on her recollection. It won’t be the first time, and it surely won’t be the last. She confuses easily.”
“Well, I hope that’s true, because I’m going to ask around today. I know I should keep my nose out of it, but Cyril’s wife and Judy’s cousin both work at Just Claus. I want to be sure they’re okay and they don’t need any financial assistance.”
Atticus flew to the fireplace mantel, a smaller duplicate of the one in the living room, his feet grabbing into the layer of greens. “Things are going quite well for you and the factory, Halliday, but you can’t afford to save every employee who struggles financially.”
I winced. If only I could. Atticus was right. Just Clause was definitely doing well for a factory in America these days, but I wasn’t rich from my earnings.
“I’m not talking about saving anyone. I’m talk
ing about Cyril and his wife, who have a kid who isn’t exactly motivated offspring, and Judy’s cousin, who, while not the timeliest employee at Just Claus, is without a doubt a good employee—once she shows up, that is. You know Nana would do the same thing if she were able.”
“I worry you’re poking the bear, Halliday.”
“I’m not poking anything, Atticus. I’m just asking a couple of questions. I’m no Agatha Raisin. Stop worrying about me.”
“I shall die a tragic, watery death before I do that.”
Rising, I dropped a kiss on his head. “That was eerily specific, Atti. Now, I’m off for a shower. Love you.”
I made my way through the kitchen, avoiding the amazing scent of the coffee bar, where, beside my Keurig, cups in red and white hung on a tree, now surrounded by more greenery and lights shaped like candle flames.
If I drank another cup of coffee, I’d be on a caffeine buzz for days. Best to wait until I met up with Hobbs—who I still really didn’t think was a murderer.
Inside my bedroom, I closed the door and saw Phil was snuggled happily on a pillow, and realized I’d forgotten to make my bed.
I reached out to pet him, even though he mostly only tolerated my touch because I didn’t give him a choice. He lifted his head, his ironically narrow face in staunch opposition to his enormous ears, and curled into my hand for two-point-two seconds before he was squirming away to the other side of the bed.
But I scooped him up and plopped a kiss on his head before holding him up to explain. “I hate to do it, Fussy Face, but I have to make the bed or for the next week, I’ll hear about how only guttersnipes and people who’ve given up on life don’t make their beds. You don’t want that, do you?”
In response, Phil looked at me, his glassy eyes wide.
“That’s what I thought. I knew you’d be on my side.”
Phil hung limply in my hands to remind me he despised a good snuggle before I set him down on the pale beige armchair in the corner of the room, plumping up his favorite white burlap, handstitched pillow with a red farm truck on it much like my grandpa’s.
And then I looked at my rumpled bed and the zillion pillows I loved when they were on the finished product, but hated to arrange every day, and sighed.
Son of an itch, I hated making the bed. It was one of my most dreaded chores. That and emptying the dishwasher.
Looking around, I decided what Atti didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
I lifted my hand and flexed my fingers so they’d be nice and warm before I zapped my bed into showroom perfection, seconds before I heard, “Miss Valentine! I will snatch those fingers from your very hand and shan’t give them back for a full week! You’ll be forced to have coffee with your non-murderous gentleman friend using your toes to hold your mug!”
Stomping my foot, I stuck my tongue out at Atticus and yanked at the duvet on my bed.
“Put your tongue back in your mouth, young lady, or I shall snatch that from your pretty head, too!”
Sigh.
Chapter 8
If I’m not the best manager in the business, I’ll eat a garage mechanic’s shirt!”
Danny Reed, Holiday Inn, 1942
* * *
After grabbing our coffee, Hobbs and I walked along the salt-covered sidewalk toward Cyril’s garage, passing several mechanical Santas ringing bells and some of my favorite displays of all—the window boxes on each store’s second-level window.
Some of the folks in Marshmallow Hollow live above their brick shops, and it had become a fun almost-rivalry for them to decorate the life out of the window boxes with all sorts of Christmas decorations.
Teddy bears with earmuffs and Santa’s famous cap were strung together with presents and ornaments amidst the greenery. Tally Lazinski, who owned Knitters Delight, had mittens she’d knitted and bows strung across hers. At night, when everything was all lit up, it was pure magic—so magical, you almost forgot how cold it was.
“So, you suspected me—me—of murder?”
While we grabbed coffee, I’d explained to him what my nana had said—except I left out the part about Nana being the one who’d told me, and claimed it was one of my employees from the factory who’d casually mentioned she’d seen Hobbs at the scene of the murder.
I couldn’t figure out how else to get an alibi from him, and I’m sure I was awkward and definitely not terribly true-crime savvy, but I had to get it off my chest before we got any deeper into this “investigation” that wasn’t really an investigation.
“Not exactly. Well, no, wait. I take that back. Maybe I did for about a half second. But you cleared that all up.”
He stopped for a moment in front of the dry cleaners and took a sip of his coffee, his eyes dancing. “I’m glad I could provide you with a satisfactory alibi, Detective Lacey.”
“Who?”
His look was aghast. “Only one of the best in the fictional business of crime solving. It’s pretty evident you’re not a real crime buff or you’d know who I meant right away.”
I yanked my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and did a quick Google search for the name, to find it had been a detective show in the late eighties.
“I wasn’t born until 1985. I wasn’t old enough to watch Cagney and Lacey. I was still watching Sesame Street.”
“I was born in 1981 and I still managed to find this thing called Amazon,” he said with a laughing smirk.
“Anyway, why do you get to be Cagney and I’m Lacey?
“Because in my head, I called her part first. At least in my wildest crime-solving fantasies. Also, she has better hair.”
Laughing, I decided he could be Cagney. I would never have hair that nice. “Okay, fine. I’ll be the one with the questionable hair. Anyway, I’m sorry if I suspected you, but it’s good to know you were at the pet store just before his murder, and not after. I mean, technically we don’t know each other that well, and I suspect any good detective would suss out everyone—even a new acquaintance who appears perfectly innocent.”
Hobbs told me Marvin, the pet store owner, could verify he was there with Stephen King just prior to Hilroy’s death. I wasn’t sure if I should check up on his alibi, but in truth, it felt like something he couldn’t lie about because Marvin had tons of video cameras in his store.
He saluted me with his cup of coffee. “That sounds like something a good crime solver would say. So you’re off to a good start.” Hobbs paused for a moment or two and took a look around as though he were seeing downtown for the first time. “Dang, it’s beautiful here. I feel lucky to be livin’ where I’m livin’.”
I grinned. For a former Texas boy to love twenty-degree weather during the day, even with all the pretty snow and fun decorations for the holiday, I had to believe he meant what he said.
We walked the next few hundred feet in companionable silence, me lost in my thoughts about how I was going to pull this off without sounding like a buttinsky. When we stopped just across the street from Cyril’s, I blew out a breath of air and inhaled deeply.
“So are we ready to do this?” I asked, my palms sweating in my gloves, despite the twenty-degree weather.
He smiled at me, the dimples on either side of his mouth impossible to hide even with a beard. “We don’t have to treat this like we really are Cagney and Lacey, Hal. We’re just gonna see what, if anything of significance, Hilroy said to Cyril. It’s not really that big a deal.”
I gulped. “Unless he confesses to murder.”
“As murderers who don’t want to be caught are wont to do.”
“Look at you and a sense of humor and, also noted, a big vocabulary,” I teased.
He gave me a funny, smug smile and pointed to his dark head. “It’s all the reading I do. You learn things that way.”
“Do you read romance novels?”
“Would rather be tied to a spike with my eyes glued wide open in a sandstorm.”
“What a weirdly specific sentiment. You’re the second person today who’s said so
mething of a similarly precise nature.” I frowned as I began to walk across the street, passing folks out shopping. “So not a reader at all?”
“Not a big reader except for Stephen King. I read The Stand and it was life-changing.”
“Which explains my favorite-ever dog’s name.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am. It made that much of an impact,” he said, his accent growing a bit more pronounced, doing funny things to my stomach I can’t quite describe. “I am, however, a crossword puzzle lover, which accounts for my vocabulary. Though, I would never knock your choices, or Stiles’s either. Romance novels just aren’t my jam.”
“So I guess you won’t be joining our book swaps?”
“Um, no. But if you need my lone Stephen King, I’m your guy.”
My Styrofoam coffee cup warmed my fingertips as we entered the garage and asked to see Cyril.
While we waited to talk to him in his cold garage, warmed only by two standing heaters, I noted he had an old Volvo on one lift and an Impala in the bay as two of his employees banged away with whatever tools one uses to fix a car.
The scent of gasoline and engine grease in the air, mingled with the cold, clung to my nose.
Hobbs was busy looking at the undercarriage of the Volvo when Cyril poked his head out of his office with a welcoming grin. “Hey, Hal! C’mon in the office where it’s warmer, girl, and bring your friend. It’s a cold one today.”
I smiled my greeting and made my way past the oil slicks and wet patches of concrete to enter his office. I was sure, like most garages, he’d have pictures of curvy women in very small clothing hanging on the wall. Maybe a calendar from 1996 with half-naked models in swimsuits.
Call me a raging sexist when I discovered there was only his certificate of occupancy, his business license, and a couple family pictures of him and his wife, Aggie, with a baby Jared in her lap, his gummy smile sweet and innocent.
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