Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings

by Liz Ireland

  I laughed. “I’d imagined you trying to teach them how to read.”

  “So how did you know it was me?” she asked.

  “Yours was the only name under ‘Nice.’ I figure it had to be you.”

  She frowned. “Weird. I don’t remember doing anything like that.”

  “Go look—it’s still down there. You’d probably recognize your handwriting.”

  She shook her head. “That wouldn’t prove anything. We were all forgers.”

  “What?”

  “We thought it was hilarious to copy our dad’s handwriting and leave ‘Naughty’ and ‘Nice’ lists that we’d made up on his desk. Then we started doing it to each other—copying out homework assignments badly to get one of the others in trouble with our tutors. One time Chris wrote a story about a kid poisoning an English tutor and signed Martin’s name. Martin was furious.”

  “Did Nick do this, too?”

  “Oh sure. He was the most serious of us, but even he indulged in hijinks every once in a while.” She tilted her head. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.”

  “You could talk to Nick about it, you know.”

  As if he didn’t have enough troubles.

  “Talk about what?” Nick asked from the doorway.

  Lucia and I turned.

  He was standing in the doorway, looking at us with concern. “What do we have to talk about?” he asked.

  Lucia and I exchanged glances; hers was apologetic.

  “For one thing,” she said, “you need to talk to April about Therese. That crazy woman attacked April right here. Nearly strangled her—look.”

  She pointed to my neck.

  Whatever Nick had been feeling about my discussing our marriage with his sister, it changed now as he looked at the angry red marks on my neck.

  “Therese did this?”

  I nodded.

  “April wouldn’t let me call Crinkles. I still can’t figure out why. Therese is a menace. April was about to lose consciousness when I found them.”

  “Thank heavens you came in when you did,” he said.

  He put his arms around me, and I leaned into him. Despite months of eggnog and carbs, he was no less in shape than he was last summer. I breathed in the evergreen scent of his aftershave and a rush of reassurance flowed through me. I really was safe now.

  Lucia backed toward the door. “If Therese had tried to strangle me, I wouldn’t want her running loose in Santaland, waiting to ambush me again. But hey—maybe that’s just me. I’d prefer not to be murdered.”

  After she was gone, I looked up at Nick. His face was drawn with worry.

  “You need to get Therese help, Nick. She’s miserable here. Send her south; give her a new start. Most of all, get her counseling.”

  He nodded. “This place seems to be hard on people when they’re alone.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I said.

  He drew back, surprised.

  Why had I said that, and in that sarcastic tone of mine? “In the U.S. we have football widows. I feel a little like a Christmas widow some days. I know you’ve been busy. I understand that. I’m just trying to navigate a new world here.”

  “You’re doing fine,” he said. “Has anyone said anything to you?”

  “Not really.” I laughed. “Aside from your mom. I spent the afternoon with her. Baking and supposedly bonding, although I’m afraid we might be immiscible, like oil and water. But we did get the croquembouche done.”

  “Anyway, better that you’re baking instead of carrying on some half-baked investigation.”

  “Half-baked?” I swelled in offense until a vision of myself running in terror from a jack-in-the-box flashed in my mind. Don Knotts, detective.

  “Let’s make a deal,” Nick said. “I’ll talk to Therese tonight if you promise just to drop your snooping. Things are bad enough without having to worry about you chasing a murderer—and, worse, a murder catching on to what you’re up to.”

  I felt the sore ring around my neck from where Therese had tried to strangle me. He was right. I’d almost been killed—and I didn’t even think Therese was the one who’d been causing mayhem in Christmastown. The real killer might be more effective at eliminating me. And poor Nick was supposed to be acting his jolliest while I interrogated everyone who’d talk to me. Even him. I just couldn’t bring myself to try to bring up the snow monster hunt with him. He had too much to worry about already.

  I had so much to do in the coming days that I wouldn’t have time to put much thought into who killed Giblet Hollyberry and Old Charlie.

  Besides, Jake Frost was on the case.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll leave the investigation to the detective for a while.”

  And I meant it.

  Honestly, I did.

  Chapter 17

  The evening after my husband’s ex-not-really-a-girlfriend’s attempt to kill me, I tried to resume normal life. Nick slipped out to talk to Therese, while I played a game of Scrabble with Martin and Christopher. As usual, I got trounced by Zs and Xs on Triple Letter Scores. After that, I took myself off to bed. I might even have nodded off for an hour or so.

  But when I woke up, Nick wasn’t there next to me. The last time I’d awakened in the middle of the night and found Nick’s side of the bed empty had been right before they discovered Giblet dead in his cottage.

  A sampling of two is not a pattern, my brain told me. Nick was probably in his office, catching up on work. I could get up and check.

  But if I checked, it would look as if I didn’t trust him. I did trust him. Therese, on the other hand . . .

  He probably wasn’t even with Therese at all. Maybe he’d fallen asleep reading in his study.

  Right.

  The point was, I just didn’t know where he was. And if there’s one thing that drives me crazy, it’s not knowing.

  I sat up. If I wanted to find out whether Nick was in his office, I should just go look. A good spouse would tell him to come to bed and get some sleep. Or, if he insisted on working, I could fix him some hot spiced tea.

  I rose, shrugged on my robe, and headed down to his office. There was enough glow from the lights strung along the hallways to feel comfortable strolling around. Nick’s office, however, was dark. I turned on the ceiling lights just long enough to confirm he hadn’t fallen asleep at his desk.

  So much for bringing hot beverages to my workaholic husband. Now I felt I needed something myself.

  There were no strings of lights in the cavernous kitchen, and I didn’t see a light switch. I crossed the room and bumped into the butcher-block island.

  Strange. I’d never been in the kitchen when it was empty. In fact, I rarely was in it at all. In just a few months I’d become so used to being waited on that I no longer knew my way around my own kitchen. I’d never lived in a place where I couldn’t even find a box of tea bags. Cupboard after cupboard revealed practically any ingredient or gadget a person could hope to find in a kitchen. Except a simple tea bag.

  I pushed through a pair of thick swinging doors and entered a frigid room that had me pulling my robe more tightly around me. This insulated room served as the walk-in freezer. I gave the swinging doors another look to make certain there was no way to get locked in. There wasn’t, at least not that I could see.

  Squinting, I scanned the shelves. All manner of dairy was kept here—butter and ice cream—anything needing to be preserved that could be frozen, and things I wouldn’t have expected, like bread. The castle made fresh bread several times a week, and yet they had a shelf of loaves right here, pre-made.

  I was studying an adjacent shelf when I heard a scream.

  Where had the sound come from? I was disorientated. I couldn’t say for sure if the scream had been outside or inside the castle.

  More important, who screamed? Or had it been an animal?

  There was a window high on the wall, and I scrambled up on a worktable to get on my tiptoes and look out. I suspected the sound came from ou
tside. But when I peered out, I could see nothing but the lit trees and ice sculptures that dotted the grounds. Nor could I detect any telltale footsteps in the snow.

  A banging noise sounded in the next room. Someone was running—loudly, clumsily—almost as if they were fleeing. Trying to escape. But they weren’t familiar with the kitchen, either. Another crash made my heart leap a foot in my chest. I could hardly hear for the rushing of my pulse in my ears. Who was out there?

  Whoever it was, they were coming closer. I grabbed the first object I could find, what looked like a frozen pheasant, and gripped it like a baseball bat. I wasn’t sure how much damage frozen poultry could do against a panicked assailant, but it felt better than nothing.

  I had just enough time to position myself, Babe Ruth–style, when the doors swung open with a crash. I yelled, and so did the huge flashing thing that came after me.

  Quasar and I were both braying at each other, shock in our eyes. He dug in his front hooves and then hopped back awkwardly, mirroring my own reaction. A split second later, the sound of glass shattering filled the room. I almost yelled at him to be careful, but I caught myself. Now was not the time to point out that he might have broken Claus heirloom crystal. He was already one freaked-out reindeer. His one remaining antler made him look even more distressed and off-balance. His nose fizzled once and then went out, as if his nerves had drained all the power out of him.

  “D-did you hear the scream?” He was screaming himself. “I bet it was Lucia!”

  I only had to think about it for a moment. “It couldn’t have been her. Too high-pitched.”

  “But she isn’t in our room. Where is she?”

  Quasar looked as if he might burst into tears. Could reindeer cry? I patted the thick fur on his neck and did my best to calm him down. “Maybe it was just an animal outside.”

  His lopsided head waggled. “I-I don’t know.”

  “What is this racket?” Jingles yelled, pushing through the doors. He stopped, arms akimbo, dressed in a calf-length flannel nightshirt, pointed-toe booties, and a long candy-striped-pattern nightcap with a fluffy green pom-pom at the tip. “Do you two want to wake up the entire castle?”

  “Quasar and I heard a woman screaming. Or maybe it was an animal.”

  “Lucia might be in trouble!” Quasar insisted.

  “No one would touch Lucia,” Jingles said. “Not without getting hurt plenty in return.”

  No doubt we were both remembering how she’d dealt with Therese.

  “Maybe it had something to do with what happened this afternoon,” I said.

  “Therese, you mean?” Jingles sounded skeptical. “Why would she be screaming?”

  I didn’t want to tell him that Nick had gone off to talk to her and had never come back. I didn’t want to drag Nick into this at all.

  “We sh-shouldn’t be talking. We should be looking!”

  For once I agreed with Quasar, and so, to his obvious astonishment, did Jingles. “Right,” he said. “Let’s split up and search to see if we can find what happened.” He looked at the reindeer. “Quasar, go outside, circle round the grounds, and report back if you see anything. April and I will look in all the rooms to make sure everyone’s where they should be.”

  I knew at least one person who wasn’t where he should be, but I said nothing for the moment. I couldn’t decide how to shield Nick from suspicion . . . or if I should.

  Quasar was reluctant to go outside, so I convinced Jingles I could look after the inside if he accompanied Quasar investigating the perimeter of the house. After Jingles went to slip on his coat and snow boots, I returned to the living quarters of the house.

  Now I wouldn’t have to make excuses for why Nick was not in our bedroom and, as far as I knew, was still absent from the castle entirely. I checked our bedroom again—he was still gone—and then made my way to the west wing. Christopher was sound asleep, and when I peeked into Tiffany’s room she was also in bed. One floor up, Pamela was flat on her back wearing both a satin sleeping mask and a nightcap, and some sort of earphones over her ears. No mystery why she wouldn’t have heard anything.

  As I was sneaking back out of her room, Martin opened his bedroom door across the hall. He was wearing his robe and slippers, and his hair was pushed every which way, as if he’d been tossing and turning all night. He squinted at me through bleary eyes. “What are you doing?”

  I finished closing Pamela’s door as quietly as I could. “Quasar and I thought we heard someone screaming.”

  He frowned. “You two staying up all night together now?”

  “No . . . well, it’s a long story. I just wanted to check on everyone.”

  “I didn’t scream,” he said. “Though I might if I can’t get back to sleep.”

  “I’m sorry. I just need to check on Lucia and I’ll be out of your hallway.”

  He drew back, puzzled. “You think Lucia’s running around the castle shrieking in the middle of the night?”

  “Quasar said she wasn’t in their room.”

  Curious now, he led the way down to the end of the corridor. The minute he opened the door to Lucia’s room, the earthy scent of hay wafted out at us. There was a trodden-down pile of it in the corner—where Quasar bedded down, I presumed. The nearby four-poster was conspicuously empty, although the covers were pulled back. She’d at least made the attempt to sleep there tonight.

  We proceeded to check every room in the castle from top to bottom. I peeked into the servants’ quarters, counting the sleeping elves. I even braved going back down to the doll cellar. Nothing.

  “Maybe Quasar’s right to be worried,” I said.

  Martin shook his head. “Lucia’s okay. She’s probably got a perfectly good explanation for that noise, and it won’t be what you think. It never is.”

  I bit my lip. Should I wake up more of the staff and organize a search party? Should I call Constable Crinkles?

  “Besides Lucia, is everyone else in the castle accounted for?” Martin asked.

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Good. I can go back to bed, then. Good night.”

  Before he could leave, I hooked his arm. “Wait. Maybe Quasar and Jingles found something outside. Don’t you want to find out?”

  He arched a brow. “You sent that dynamic duo to do the outside check? Now I’m curious.”

  We all congregated back in the kitchen.

  “Nothing,” Jingles declared of the search outside. “At least nothing that we could find that looked lethal. There were some footprints and odd paw prints in the snow.”

  “Odd, how?”

  “Too big to belong to a snowshoe hare or a rodent, too small to be reindeer. Whatever it was made Quasar jumpy, though.”

  “I-I wasn’t scared,” the reindeer insisted.

  I remembered Starla Winters. “Could it have been a wolf?”

  Quasar choked, then made a reflexive hacking sound. Guess he didn’t like wolves.

  “That wasn’t a wolf howl I heard, though,” I said.

  Jingles tilted his head. “But if a wolf got hold of someone and was killing it—”

  “Good grief!” Martin said. “Could you two be any more gruesome?”

  I shook my head. “If a wolf had attacked someone right outside the house, I’m sure it would have sounded different. And there would be evidence.” Bowing to Martin’s sudden sensitivity, I didn’t say the word blood.

  “Is there a snowman nearby?” Martin asked. “Maybe he could have seen something.”

  Quasar shook his head. “No snowmen at the moment. All the ones who’d been on castle grounds retreated after what happened to Old Charlie.”

  Though it showed a lack of faith in the Claus family, who could blame the snowmen for decamping into the forest? They felt vulnerable. Any maniac with a blowtorch could reduce them to a puddle in nothing flat. And Nick was the only suspect anyone had spoken of.

  Just then, Lucia sauntered in through the back door into the kitchen. “What is this?” She pulled off her
hat and gloves. “The midnight snack club?”

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  “Out for a stroll. Is that a crime?” Nonchalantly, she extended a long arm over to a bowl of fruit, picked out an apple, and crunched into it. Her parka puffed her up to twice her bulk, but she was still so tall and lean, it didn’t seem to matter. She was the only person I knew who looked svelte in a puffer coat.

  “We heard a scream,” Quasar said. “I was worried.”

  “Aw, I’m sorry,” she said, chewing. “I just got restless and wanted to stretch my legs.”

  I had a hard time believing her. “You were out there and you didn’t hear anything?”

  Her eyes widened. “Not a thing. Sure you weren’t just dreaming?”

  “I was awake.”

  “A-and I heard it, too,” Quasar said.

  Martin frowned, then looked down, crooking his ankle to inspect the bottom of his slipper. “What’s this sticky stuff on the floor?”

  I remembered the sound of the glass shattering after Quasar and I had surprised each other. “Something broke in the freezer room. Be careful where you step.”

  “Broke?” Jingles’ eyes bulged in alarm. “What broke?”

  He pushed through the swinging doors into the freezer room, flipped the light switch, and let out a yelp. He nearly flattened us coming right back out again just as we were going in. It felt like we were all in a Three Stooges sketch.

  “We’re dead,” Jingles declared. “We might as well toss ourselves off Calling Bird Cliff.”

  “What are you jibbering about?” Martin asked. “Who’ll notice something broken in this place?”

  “Amen,” Lucia agreed. “This castle has more glassware than Santaland has snowflakes.”

  Jingles shook his head frantically. “It’s not glass. It’s the croquembouche.”

  Frozen, we exchanged shocked glances. Then, as one, we stampeded through the doors. And skidded to an abrupt halt.

  It was a tragic sight. Pamela’s beloved cage had shattered into a thousand sugary shards. The castle itself hadn’t fared much better. The half closest to us was squished, with the crushed cream puffs creating a gloopy mess. The remaining walls and the tower leaned precariously.