by Liz Ireland
Murmurs rippled through the rehearsal room. My stomach tightened into a knot.
A flute player stood. “We’re sending a card around for everyone to sign.”
“Good,” Luther said. “Thank you.” He lifted his hands again, but Woody interrupted a second time.
“There should be more than a card. It’s almost Christmas, and it’s beginning to look as if an elf has been murdered. I won’t say by whom.”
So they had heard rumors. I had the unnerving feeling that everyone’s eyes were on me, although only one person turned. Martin. He gave me an encouraging half smile and a little shrug.
“As most of you know,” Woody continued, “I’ve been working on a piece for tuba trio and orchestra for a while, and I’d like to dedicate it now to Giblet Hollyberry’s memory. I’m calling it ‘Requiem for Giblet.’ I was hoping we could play it at our next concert.”
Requiem for Giblet? Was he kidding? No one even liked Giblet!
“It’s Christmas,” Luther pointed out. “We can’t be debuting requiems when everyone feels like celebrating with carols and holiday songs.”
Across the rehearsal hall, the men and elfmen were all nodding, but the elves directed stony stares at Luther. “Not that I don’t think it isn’t a wonderful idea for a tribute, Woody,” Luther added, reading the room.
Giblet’s death, I worried, was going to tear Christmastown apart.
Smudge flicked an angry glance at me. “Stop jangling,” he hissed.
I hadn’t realized that annoying sound was coming from me. I tried to keep it together for the rest of the rehearsal. After it was over, when we were all packing up our instruments and gear, someone passing by me murmured, “Everyone heard what Giblet said to him, but no one guessed it was actually true.”
“Hear that?” Martin, coming up behind me, asked in a low voice.
I nodded.
“I was getting strange looks all through rehearsal,” he said. “I’m guessing Nick didn’t do very good PR this morning at Giblet’s cottage.”
“PR’s not his forte. But I do think Constable Crinkles will help. He seems to be on our side. Not that he’s covering up,” I added quickly, “but he is keeping an open mind. As long as nothing else goes wrong, we should be fine. Nick should, I mean.” God, I was babbling. “Have you ever heard of a snowman called Old Charlie?”
Juniper jumped in. “He’s very old.” As soon as the words were out, a red flush rose in her cheeks. “You probably guessed that, though.”
“Nick said he usually stayed near Giblet’s, but we saw him heading into town.”
Smudge frowned. “No one’s seen Old Charlie in Christmastown in a long time. He likes the country.”
“Maybe he was just restless because of all the activity going on around Giblet’s,” Juniper said.
I nodded. For a snowman used to stillness, it was probably annoying to see sleighs, skiers, and sleds whizzing by.
“Need a ride back to the castle, April?” Martin asked.
“Thanks, but Juniper and I are going for coffee.”
He looked down at Juniper and her cheeks brightened even more. She’d mentioned Martin a couple of times to me before, but it finally dawned on me why. The way she was blushing, it probably dawned on Martin, too.
“I should drop by that place more often,” he said. “Though I’m not much of a coffee drinker.”
“They have other things besides coffee,” Juniper said quickly. “Tea, hot chocolate, eggnog, soft drinks, and spritzers . . .”
Martin laughed. “Do you own We Three Beans stock?”
Her face continued on to a deep crimson hue, and I jumped in to help her out. “It’s our hangout,” I said. “We’ve got the menu memorized.”
“Well, good luck getting there today,” he said. “The sidewalks were already crowding up for the race before rehearsal started.” He edged past us and left the hall.
Juniper looked as if she might pass out. Luckily, the band hall was emptying, so few were around when she swooned into a chair. “Did I just sound like an idiot, or what?”
“Not at all,” I assured her.
“I did, though, didn’t I?” she said.
“Not that anyone would notice,” I said.
“I noticed,” Smudge said, putting away his cymbals.
“Smudge noticed,” I said, “but Smudge doesn’t count. Martin might have noticed, but probably only in the way that you wanted him to.”
“Right,” she said. “There’s noticing and there’s noticing.”
“I’m positive he good-noticed you,” I assured her.
The Christmastown Reindeer Dash drew even more interest than the rest of the never-ending Reindeer Games did. In the last contests of December, the culmination of tournaments all year long, the stakes were the nine slots of the sleigh team. To Santalanders, the final Reindeer Games were the Super Bowl and World Cup rolled into one. Last year there had been a last-minute surge by the representative of the upstart Fireball herd. Several elves had lost their cottages making bad bets.
Juniper and I squeezed our way through the crowd to We Three Beans, placed our orders, and then claimed a corner table in the cozy timbered-ceilinged room—me, Juniper, and Juniper’s euphonium case. Juniper tried to calm my worries about the investigation. “No one thinks Santa killed Giblet.”
“You didn’t see Noggin.”
She rolled her eyes. “No one with any sense, I meant. Noggin Hollyberry’s been a rabble-rouser his whole life. A couple of years ago he tried to get the elves at the Candy Cane Factory to walk out two weeks before Christmas.”
“What happened?”
“Someone showed him Christmastown’s SSR.”
I shook my head, clueless.
“The Strategic Sweets Reserve. There’s enough candy stored in Sugarplum Mountain to send all seven continents into a diabetic coma. And that stuff doesn’t go bad—candy canes, especially. Those have longer storage life than uranium waste.”
“The Hollyberrys must be quite a clan.”
“No one will listen to them, especially if what you say is true and Giblet just got bit by a bug. Who could possibly blame your husband for that?”
Someone who’d seen the note written on his desk.
“The elves were awfully solemn at the rehearsal when the requiem was brought up,” I reminded her.
“Well, most elves live to a ripe old age, you know? For that matter, it’s rare that anyone dies around here in an odd way. You should have seen the mourning commemorations after the last Santa died, this past summer. A hunting accident. That was a shock to everyone.”
“Did they ever catch the abominable?”
Juniper’s blue eyes widened, surprised that I had to ask.
“It’s not a subject my in-laws ever talk about,” I explained, embarrassed by my ignorance.
“No. A lot of men were out on that hunt. The snow monster probably saw the hunting party coming from miles off. You have to be sneaky when hunting abominables.”
A shadow passed over us and Juniper and I looked up. My stomach roiled. As if the day weren’t turbulent enough, Therese Jollyfriend glared down at me, her eyes shooting daggers. “Maybe you should take up snow monster hunting. You seem very good at sneaking, Mrs. Claus.”
Every eye in We Three Beans was now directed toward our table. Ever since my arrival three months before, Therese had made no secret of her belief that I’d stolen Nick from her. Apparently they’d been an item at one time, although not at the time I met Nick. Nevertheless, his marriage had caused something inside the young elfwoman to snap.
“Give it a rest, Therese,” Juniper said in disgust, projecting her voice so that all who were listening could hear. “One date to an elf clogging show doesn’t equal a lifetime commitment.”
The titters from the tables around us further incensed Therese. “What do you know about it? What does anyone?” She was practically trembling now, and her long black spiral curls shook, too, as her eyes narrowed on me. “Everything
was fine until Nick went away and you preyed on his grief to get your claws into him. Others might not know about the destruction you leave in your wake, but I do. And now look what’s happening! You’re going to bring Nick down.”
Pottery clattered on the tables of We Three Beans, and then the floor started shaking. Attention pivoted from Therese’s tirade as people leapt up to press against the windows or run out to the sidewalk. The first time I’d experienced anything like this, I’d thought I was about to die in an earthquake and had created a scene by doing a duck-and-cover under the nearest table. Now, though my hand was trembling, it wasn’t because of fear of natural disaster. Therese’s words had rattled me.
When I glanced up again, though, she was gone.
Hoofbeats thundered past, and cries and whoops went up all around us. Juniper stood on her chair, craning to see out the plate glass windows. “Cupid colors in front!” She hopped in excitement.
I nodded, feigning as much interest as I could in a reindeer race when worries and suspicions clouded my thoughts.
Others might not know about the destruction you leave in your wake, but I do....
Had Therese found out about what had happened to my first marriage? That had to be the destruction she’d been referring to. But how could she have known? No one in all of Santaland knew about Keith . . . no one except Nick.
I couldn’t believe he would have told her.
“There’s never been a Cupid at the head of Santa’s team before,” Juniper said, sinking back down into her chair. “This will be a first, if he manages to hold on to the lead in the hurdles.”
Hurdles for the elite class of flying reindeer meant stands of trees and small ponds. The Reindeer Hop would be the last big event of the Christmas festivities. December in Christmastown was a never-ending parade of lunches, soirees, outdoor events, and parades.
December in Christmastown also meant more work than the inhabitants did during the rest of the eleven months of the year combined. It was North Pole life on steroids. I was already looking forward to January and hoped the questions surrounding Giblet’s death would be cleared up by then.
Juniper’s brow pinched in worry, which caused the tips of her oversized ears to tilt slightly, as if they were concerned, too. “Are you okay? You’re not going to let crazy Therese bother you, are you?”
“Oh no,” I lied.
Hoofbeats thundered down the street again, but this time they weren’t as heavy. The race was over, so people turned curiously to see the few reindeer galloping through town. One stopped in front of We Three Beans, while others continued running up the hill toward Kringle Castle. The reindeer that had stopped was lathered and breathing hard. Elves and people got up and headed for the door to find out what the hubbub was about. Juniper and I followed.
The animal, which had a comet blazed on his flank, puffed his nostrils and then took a deep breath.
“Old Charlie’s gone,” he announced to the crowd gathered around.
“Where to?” someone yelled.
I wondered the same thing. Nick and I had just passed Old Charlie on the forest trail. Snowmen couldn’t move fast enough for him to disappear that quickly.
“Not just gone,” the reindeer elaborated. “Killed. Poor old guy’s nothing but a puddle. Somebody melted him.”
Chapter 4
By the time I arrived on the scene, Charlie’s melted remains had frozen solid. His vest, his stick arm, and his one eye and button nose were all preserved in an icy puddle.
Constable Crinkles stared at the sad sight in disbelief. The befuddled lawman was in shock. Everybody had liked Charlie, and it was difficult to keep away the scores of elves and people who had trekked out to witness the scene after hearing the news. In a rare show of model police work, Deputy Ollie had roped off the area, hoping to preserve what evidence there was.
Only Claus privilege had allowed me through.
Two deaths in one day couldn’t be a coincidence, and that thought gave me a little relief—mixed with guilt at my relief. Whatever suspicions I had concerning Nick were completely unfounded if Christmastown had a psycho killer on the loose. Entertaining the notion that Nick had a grudge against an angry elf had been a stretch for me; imagining my husband on a killing spree, however, was impossible. He’d never harm a helpless old snowman. And I even knew where Nick had been when Charlie was killed. He’d just dropped me off at rehearsal and then gone . . .
Where? I frowned. Where had Nick gone?
Crinkles tugged at his chin strap. “It must have been a powerful blast of heat to melt him like that, so fast. Some kind of blowtorch, maybe.”
Everyone within hearing range shuddered in horror.
“Were there any footprints?” I asked.
The constable’s eyes blinked at the question, and then, belatedly, he glanced around.
Nick pointed to a swath of sweeping marks in the snow. “Looks like someone cleared them away, probably with a branch.”
“Whaddaya know,” Crinkles said. “That’s what it looks like, all right.”
I despaired. “Maybe you should start canvassing people to see if anyone owns a blowtorch.”
A light dawned in Deputy Ollie’s eyes, as if he’d never thought of this angle before. “And then we could ask those folks where they were when all this happened.”
“But we can’t say for sure when Charlie was melted,” Crinkles argued.
“Of course we can,” I said. “Nick and I saw him moving along the road just a few hours ago. It had to have happened sometime soon after, especially given that he’s frozen solid now.”
Nick draped his arm over my shoulder. “We should get going and let the constable and deputy do their job.”
Had I been getting in their way? I thought I was helping.
Ollie went to his sleigh and returned with a pickax. He hefted it with the handle over his shoulder, like a soldier with a musket.
“What do you intend to do with that?” Crinkles asked.
“You said we needed to remove the body.”
“I didn’t say we were going to hack poor Charlie into ice cubes. Have you gone crackers? Folks are watching.”
Ollie’s face scrunched in confusion. “So what do we do?”
“We’re going to lift him off the snow—gently and respectfully—and carry him back to the office.”
Ollie sighed, and I could see why. That was quite a chunk of ice to haul away. Nevertheless, he returned to the constabulary’s motorized sleigh and backed it closer. Ollie, Crinkles, and Nick wedged the block of ice off the ground and hefted it into the back of the sleigh. No easy feat.
When they were done, Ollie leaned over, puffing out an exhausted breath. Staring at the indentation the snowman’s remains had left in the snow, he squinted. Then he leaned in and picked something off the ground.
“That’s funny,” he said. “Charlie just had the one eye, right?”
“Of course. It was coal. He lost the other one in the blizzard of 2012.”
“Huh.” The deputy turned over the item in his hand, which on closer inspection turned out to be a button. “We found his button nose frozen in the ice . . . so where’d this one come from?”
We all stepped in closer to examine the brass button.
“That’s not the type of button a snowman would have for an eyeball,” Crinkles said. “Even if he needed a spare.”
“Maybe it came off his vest,” Nick said.
Ollie wiped it off and inspected it more closely. He glanced up at Nick, more nervously now. “More likely it fell off yours.”
Dread roiled in the pit of my stomach. Minutes before I’d been appalled at how bad the constables were at their jobs. Now that they seemed to be picking up on clues, I wished they’d stop.
Still, I wanted to know. I had to know. I leaned in to inspect the button. It was large and perfectly round, with the same waving Santa emblem I’d seen on the box of chocolates Nick had given me last summer. The same kind of button was on many of Nick’s cloth
es, including the coat he was wearing now.
Strained silence ensued. “Did you just lose it, maybe, when we were picking up Charlie?” Crinkles asked hopefully.
Nick stared numbly at the button. It was obvious he hadn’t just lost it. We had only to look at his coat to see all its buttons were accounted for. Was that the same coat he’d been wearing this morning, though? I honestly couldn’t remember.
“Could be you lost it a while ago and it just happened to be here,” the constable said.
“What are the chances of that?” Ollie asked.
The constable shot him a look.
“It would be quite a coincidence,” Nick said in the deputy’s defense. “And I haven’t lost a button—at least, not that I recall.”
I didn’t, either. Not that I was a button-sewing kind of wife. Nick’s mother probably was. In fact, I doubted there was a missing button in Christmastown that could escape Pamela’s eagle eye.
“I’ll have to keep the button,” Constable Crinkles told Nick apologetically. He lowered his voice. “It wouldn’t be good if word of this got out. The Hollyberrys are already clamoring for me to call in an outside investigator.”
“Maybe you should,” Nick said.
Crinkles looked from Nick’s face to mine, then shook his head. “We’ll see.”
Nick bade him a good day and steered me toward his sleigh. The head of the reindeer team watched us approach. I was still terrible at guessing which herd the animals came from.
“It’s true, then?” the reindeer asked. “About Charlie?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “He’s gone. Killed, most likely.”
The animal hung his head low. “Strange times.”
“Yes.”
“And a Cupid won the race today,” the reindeer added. The others nodded as if that were as strange a portent as two homicides in one day.
I stepped onto the sleigh and covered myself in a lap robe. This was probably another side of my outsiderness to locals. She’s always cold! I could hear them saying.
We rode half a mile with only the muffled clop of hooves against packed snow to break the silence. Finally, Nick spoke. “Go ahead, April. Say what’s on your mind.”
