The Mystery Before Christmas

by Kathi Daley

  It seemed like a good idea when she’d thought of it, but when she approached her neighbors, who also lived in the town which had been thrust into darkness, she found that, while each neighbor needed help with something, none had the money to pay her. The girl, being the sweet thing she was, helped each neighbor anyway.

  As the story progresses, the girl begins to fret about her inability to earn the money she needs to buy the gift she wants for her mother, but as she helps each neighbor, the town begins to change. Those who lived in fear and isolation begin to emerge from their homes, and over time, the town, which had seemed to have settled into permanent darkness, begins to lighten.

  In the end, the gift that the girl is able to give to her mother is not the trinket she hoped to buy, but a town filled with new hope for a brighter future. With her good deeds, she’d brought love and promise to a town that had lost its faith along the way.

  I smiled as I set the book on the bedside table. This was exactly the message I needed as I headed into my day. Leave it to Gracie to know exactly what I needed to see, exactly when I needed to see it.

  Chapter 5

  Gilda Frederickson lived in a lovely home on the south edge of town. When Mrs. Ewing lived in the house, she’d kept a lush garden, and I remembered that she always decorated for the holidays. I supposed the reason the house didn’t display the lights I remembered had more to do with the medical issues of the woman who lived there now than anything else. I also supposed that a cold and snowy mountain home wasn’t the best place for a woman in her late sixties or early seventies with a broken hip to winter. But knowing the residents of this small town, I was sure that Ms. Frederickson would have all the help she needed.

  “Can I help you?” Asked a woman, who looked to be in her thirties, after answering the door.

  “My name is Callie Collins. I’m here to see Gilda Frederickson.”

  The woman stepped aside. “My name is Hallie. I’m Ms. Frederickson’s niece. She’s been expecting you.”

  “Do you live here in town?” I asked.

  “No. I’m just visiting. My mother sent me to check on Aunt Gilda. She was worried about her overall health after her fall, but she seems to be doing fine.” Hallie opened a door at the back of the house. “Ms. Collins is in here.”

  Once Gilda acknowledged my presence, I handed her the muffins I’d brought. She thanked me, handed the muffins to Hallie with instructions to put them in the kitchen, and then Hallie left. “Thank you for meeting with me,” I said to the woman in the wheelchair, who looked younger and healthier than I’d expected. Hallie seemed to be right about her aunt bouncing back quickly. “As I mentioned on the phone, I am writing a feature story about Secret Santa and wanted to ask about the gift you received.”

  “Of course. Please have a seat. I’ve read your column and have enjoyed it very much. I was particularly impressed that you managed to find the missing funds for the tree lighting. I think the whole town thanks you for that.”

  I sat down on the chair the woman pointed to. “It took some digging, but I was glad I was able to find the funds in time to get the tree lighting back on track.”

  “I understand that it was the town’s bookkeeper who embezzled the money.”

  I nodded. “She never actually took the money, but she did move small amounts of money from a lot of different accounts into a new account within the system that only she had access to. She was pretty clever about the way she went about it. If not for the fact that she happened to take a larger than average percentage from the account that had been set aside for the town’s tree lighting ceremony, she might have gotten away with it.”

  “Do you know why the woman did what she did?”

  I crossed my legs and leaned forward just a bit. “I guess she’d been dealing with some medical issues and had gotten behind on her mortgage and several of her other bills. I suppose she might have felt desperate and decided to hide some money for future use if she needed it. I really don’t condone what she did, but I do feel bad that the poor thing might end up spending Christmas in jail.”

  “Has she been arrested?”

  “No. Not yet. The town has someone going over the books to confirm exactly how much she moved, and whether all of it is in the dummy account as she swears it is. I suppose it might help her case if the money is all there, and she is able to return it. Still, I doubt she’ll get out of this without consequences of some sort. When I set out to find the missing funds, I had only the best of intentions, but now I feel sort of bad about the way things worked out.”

  “It is easier when the bad guys in our drama are actually bad and not simply desperate people making poor choices.”

  “Exactly.” I smiled at the woman. “So about Secret Santa.”

  She looked me in the eye. “Before we begin, tell me a bit about yourself. I understand you are Gracie Hollister’s niece.”

  I nodded. “Great niece. Aunt Gracie raised me after my parents were killed in an auto accident, so I grew up here. I remember your mother. I didn’t know her well, but I do remember her lovely garden and her colorful holiday decorations.”

  “Mama did love the holidays.” Her eyes softened. “She spent a lot of time and expended a lot of effort to make sure everything was just as it should be for each and every holiday and milestone when my sister and I were growing up. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her and remember how she seemed to understand the importance of fully embracing each moment.”

  “That’s really beautiful.” It was times like this that I felt a little sad that I’d never have a daughter to remember me the way Gilda remembered her mother.

  “I understand that you were a pianist before returning to Foxtail Lake,” she continued.

  “Yes.” I flexed the fingers on my left hand. “I was injured in an accident and can no longer play at the level needed to continue with my career, so I decided to come home. To be honest, I hadn’t planned to stay at first, but I find I am settling in quite nicely. Gracie told me that you worked with Hope.”

  She shifted her leg slightly and then answered. “I do, or at least I did before I ended up in this blasted contraption.” She glared at the wheelchair. “I worked as a librarian before coming to Foxtail Lake to help my mother. After she recovered from her surgery, I went to work part-time for the local library. Eventually, I decided to retire, but I continued to volunteer at the library as well as other places around town. Of course, now that I am stuck in this chair, I guess I am stuck in the house as well. But you aren’t here to listen to me complain. You want to hear about Secret Santa.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say at this point. It was true that I was here to talk about Secret Santa, and I did have a schedule to adhere to, but it seemed rude to point that out when the woman wanted to chat. Making the decision to jump in now that I had an opening, I asked about the way the woman’s Secret Santa gift had been delivered.

  “I found a gift card for Smitty’s Snow Removal in my purse. The gift card entitles me to unlimited snow removal for the entire season. Initially, I figured that Smitty had somehow slipped the gift card into my purse, but I asked him about it, and he said he hadn’t. He told me that the gift card had been purchased by an anonymous source. Then I heard about the other folks in town who’d received Secret Santa gifts and figured that my benefactor was actually the jolly man in red.”

  “Do you know how the gift card got into your purse?”

  She shook her head. “No idea. I figure that someone must have slipped it in when I was at church. Hallie has been helping with the shopping and other errands since she has been here, so I really don’t have a reason to get out much, which is a good thing given my current circumstances, but I do have a neighbor who picks me up and takes me to church every Sunday.”

  “Was your purse out of your sight during services?” I asked.

  “Briefly. I’d left my coat and purse in the pew during communion. I wasn’t worried about it since I was in a church. I didn’t think
anyone would bother my personal possessions.”

  “So someone who was also at church on the day the gift card was delivered is most likely Secret Santa.”

  She shrugged. “I would imagine that to be a true statement.”

  I paused and considered the situation. “Did you ask anyone in the area if they’d seen who’d slipped the gift card into your purse?”

  “No. I didn’t even notice it until after I got home. I really have no idea who might have gifted me the snow removal, but I will say that I am extremely grateful that they did. There was no way I was going to be able to handle it myself.”

  I narrowed my gaze. “Had you handled it yourself in the past?” The woman looked to have been in good health before her fall, but she still seemed much too old to have shoveled her own snow even last year when she had two good hips.

  “I’ve always shoveled my own walk. I have a service that does the driveway. I suppose if I hadn’t been gifted the snow removal this season, I would have found a way to cut costs to pay for it myself, but now I can have clear walks and keep my cable for the winter. I’m very grateful for that.”

  “It was a thoughtful gesture,” I agreed. “I don’t suppose you have any idea who Secret Santa actually is?”

  “Not really.”

  “But you must be curious.”

  “I guess I am curious, but I figure that if the person behind the gifts wanted to be identified, they would have left a card. I actually think the mystery as to Secret Santa’s identity makes the whole thing a bit more magical. I mean, even as a kid, wasn’t it the fact that Santa was a secret to wonder about but never to know that really drew you in?”

  I supposed it was. I also supposed that it made sense that if Secret Santa had purchased the gift card from Smitty, then Smitty must know who Santa was. Maybe it made sense to add the individuals who had sold the goods to Secret Santa to my list of people to talk to.

  “So of all the people in town that Secret Santa could have chosen to give a gift to, any idea why he chose you?”

  She tilted her head slightly. “You think Secret Santa is someone I know. A friend, perhaps.”

  “It makes sense. Not only did he choose you to receive a gift, but he seemed to know exactly what gift you would appreciate the most.”

  “I guess you make a good point. But I know a lot of people in town, so I’m not sure that really narrows things down for you.”

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  “What I do know is that I was feeling sort of down and sorry for myself after my accident. I guess I let my bad mood affect me more than I should have, and I suppose I might have been letting that bad mood affect others. But then someone I may not even know did something wonderful. The gift of snow removal might seem small to some, but for me, it was a sign that there was still hope and goodness in the world. It meant someone was thinking of me and cared about my happiness. Until you are in the position of needing to rely on others, you really can’t know how much a simple act of kindness can mean. Secret Santa gave me more than a gift card. He reminded me of the joy of the season, and for that more than anything, I am eternally grateful.”

  Chapter 6

  My next appointment was with Connie Denton. Secret Santa had given her a down payment on the diner where she’d worked as an employee for twenty years. I assumed the down payment on a diner would be a considerable amount of money, which made it seem even less likely that the transaction had been handled anonymously. Connie had suggested I come to the diner during the brief lull between the breakfast and lunch crowd, so timing my visit was important if I wanted her to have time to chat.

  The Foxtail Diner had been in Foxtail Lake since there had been a town. I wasn’t sure exactly how long the diner had been around, but I was pretty sure that Connie was at least the fourth or fifth owner. It was nice that she’d been able to buy the diner where she’d worked for so long. Cass had told me that she planned to leave the diner exactly as it had always been, menu and all. Everyone in town was happy that Connie had gotten the help she needed to buy the diner. An out of town buyer might have felt the need to change everything, and that wouldn’t have gone over well with the town’s residents, who seemed to appreciate tradition.

  “Callie,” Connie hugged me when I walked through the door. “I was so happy to hear that you were back.”

  “It’s good to be back.” I’d hung out at the diner, eating burgers and drinking shakes for most of my high school years. I’d meant to come in before this but somehow had never gotten around to it. “And congratulations on buying the diner.”

  Connie grinned. “Can you believe that Santa just gave me the down payment on this place? I mean, who would do something like that? When the loan officer, who by the way, had just turned me down for not having a down payment, called and told me that a down payment had been provided by an anonymous donor, I didn’t believe him. I actually thought he was pulling my leg, and the whole thing was just some cruel joke. But he insisted that he was telling the truth and suggested I come down to discuss the loan now that the down payment obligation had been met. I was totally in shock. I’m still in shock. Very, very grateful, but utterly and completely in shock.” She took me by the hand. “It’s pretty slow right now. Let’s grab a booth in the back, and we’ll chat.”

  I let the woman, who I estimated to be in her early to mid-forties, drag me toward the back of the diner.

  “It seems as if the Secret Santa gift was really a gift to the town as well as to you personally,” I pointed out. “This place has a lot of history. Tradition. I understand business owners wanting to retire and move off the mountain, so I understand that businesses must trade hands from time to time, but if the diner had been sold to someone from out of the area, the history and tradition that is so important to the town could very well have been lost.”

  She raised her brow. “That’s true. Personally, I don’t plan to change a thing other than to add a special of the day, which I’ll describe on the chalkboard near the front counter. That will allow me to experiment a bit with new dishes without having to change the menu.”

  “I think that is a wonderful idea.” I looked around at the brightly decorated space. Carols played in the background, garland lined the counter, and the same train and miniature village that had graced the place when Gracie was a girl were still displayed. “So it sounds as if the money for the down payment was delivered directly to the bank.”

  She nodded. “I knew that buying this place was a longshot, but I also knew I had to try in spite of the fact I have about ten dollars in my savings account. I filled out an application for a loan, and quite frankly, I was assuming they would turn it down right away, but much to my surprise, I was assigned a loan officer. Randy Trainer. He is actually the only loan officer at the local bank, but he still took the time to help me through the process. He told me right up front that the odds of the bank giving me a loan with no down payment were slim to none, but he also reminded me that there was really nothing to be lost by trying. He got creative and assigned a value to my personal possessions, including my old clunker of a car. He figured that if we assigned a value and then used the value as collateral that might get the board to approve at my application, but it didn’t work. Randy really did the best he could, but I had nothing to work with. He called and let me know that he’d done what he could, but that the bank wasn’t going to bite. I’d accepted that, and then he called back to let me know that an anonymous donor had put up the down payment, and we were back in business.”

  “And he didn’t tell you who put up the money?”

  “He didn’t tell me because he didn’t know. Someone simply mailed in a cashier’s check for the down payment along with specific instructions for its use.”

  “So, if you had to guess, who donated the money?” I asked as the song in the background changed from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to Frosty the Snowman.

  She narrowed her gaze. “I’m really not sure. I have thought about it. I mean, someone
just gave me what amounts to a fortune in my book. There aren’t a lot of people in the area with the means to do that. I figure the person who sent the money has to be local. Otherwise, how would they even know about my desire to buy the diner?”

  “That’s true. The donor is probably a local, and he or she is most likely someone who is known to you. I don’t suppose you’d want to take a guess at who he or she might be?”

  “Dean and Martin Simpson come in sometimes,” Connie continued. “They certainly have the means to put up a down payment for this place if they wanted to, and they do seem to enjoy the food and the atmosphere. I suppose if I had to guess, I would say that the donor might have been them. As brilliant as they are, they are sort of set in their ways, and they did make a comment at one point about not wanting anything to change after it was sold.”

  Dean and Martin had been on my original list as well. Perhaps a conversation with the men was in order. I knew the pair were pretty reclusive, and I really didn’t know them at all, but Cass was friends with the brothers, so perhaps I’d have him set up a meeting.

  My other idea, in terms of identifying the guy, was to try to speak to Randy or someone at the bank. I understood that the cashier’s check had been an anonymous donation, but there had been other Secret Santa gifts that had gone through the bank. Grover Wood had received cash on his behalf to bring his overdue mortgage current. Surely, someone at the bank had to have been in on the whole thing.

  Of course, if someone had simply sent in a cashier’s check with instructions as to where to apply it, then I supposed the staff at the bank might have been as clueless as anyone. I wondered if there was a way to track down the source of a cashier’s check. Both the down payment for the diner and the paydown of the mortgage would have been large amounts. Surely, there would be a paper trail somewhere. I wasn’t a financial wizard by any means, so maybe I’d ask Cass to help me find the information I was looking for.