Christmas Shop Murder

by Linnea West

  "I'm going to go in and investigate something I saw the other day when I found Claire," I said. "You stand here and let me know if you see anything."

  I handed her one of my heavy duty flashlights. I had made sure to grab an extra before I went to the Donut Hut. I had my regular flashlight from my purse and an older digital camera in my other hand. The one thing that wasn't great about a flip phone was that even if you got one with a camera, it did not have great resolution. If I found anything, I needed to be able to take pictures to show the police.

  I snuck in the front door, careful to open the door slowly so that the bell would not chime loudly. It was funny, I was almost positive there would be no one there, but I still wanted to make sure to be quiet. I guess that might be colored by the fact that the last time I came and thought no one was here, I found a murder scene.

  The aisles were still exactly how we had left them, still all ready to have a grand opening that I feared would never come. The police hadn't made too big of a mess, so I was hopeful that the shop could open as soon as they were done with the investigation.

  I made my way over to the aisle where I had found Claire's body. It had been cleaned up and besides an outline on the floor where she had been found, you couldn't tell there had been a murder there. I shone my flashlight around the aisle, looking for that glint of gold I had noticed before. It might not even be related to the murder, but I just wanted to see what it was.

  When I finally spotted the shimmer, I dropped to my knees and crawled towards it, careful not to touch anything. I lay the flashlight down on the ground so it gave light at a good angle. I pulled out my camera and started to snap pictures. It was a little gold wire charm, like you would find on a bracelet. It was shaped like a little horse. I tried to think if I had seen a charm bracelet on Claire. It didn't seem like the sort of thing she would have worn, but I was definitely basing that on the stereotype of suburban women I knew and not on the ten minutes I had actually met her.

  I closed my eyes and tried to flashback to see if I had noticed her wearing any sort of jewelry, but I just couldn't. The only thing I remembered was that she was wearing all black. For one split second, I wondered if Sue had any sort of security camera before I remembered that usually this space was a second hand store and probably didn't need that sort of thing around.

  "Psst, Tessa?" Mandy's voice cut through the quiet darkness.

  "Is someone coming?" I asked frantically. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the flashlight off of the ground. I did not want to get caught inside of a crime scene. My mother did not need a second child to be hauled in for questioning under suspicion of being a murderer.

  "No, but my phone timer went off," she said. "I need to get back to the bakery right now so that I can get the donuts out before they burn."

  "Okay, I'm coming," I said.

  I quickly flipped through my pictures to make sure I had enough and then I scurried towards the front door. Mandy was waiting impatiently out front in the cold. She deserved an extra nice Christmas gift from me this year. I nodded at her as I shut the door to the Christmas Shop and together we ran through the streets back to the Donut Hut. I hadn't been that worried about being caught inside, but I was quite aware how suspicious we looked, running through the dark streets of Shady Lake carrying flashlights in the early morning.

  As we reached the bakery, I knew that my next step was to figure out where that charm had come from. I'd have to enlist help from Max to try and figure it out, but I also knew I'd probably have to trick him into it. Max was an upstanding police officer who did everything he could to not jeopardize investigations, even for me. But maybe I could use my feminine wiles to get him to give up a little information to me.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was glad that I had been able to get Max to come out for breakfast with me, but ordering pancakes had been a mistake. We were at a Shady Lake staple restaurant called The Breakfast Spot and they were known for their pancakes. Well actually, what you got was one pancake so large that it covered your entire plate. Any side dishes came on separate little plates. The secret to eating it is to cut a hole in the middle. That's where you put your syrup and then you eat the pancake from the inside out.

  But I had eaten way too many donuts in the last two days so I'm not sure why I thought I'd want a sweet pancake, even if it is the most delicious pancake in the entire world. Looking around, I spotted someone who ordered a more sensible breakfast of eggs, hash browns, and sausage. But there was only the one person as every single other person was having a pancake.

  Max had also ordered a pancake, but he had upgraded it to a bananas foster pancake which meant that the plate sized pancake had been piled high with sliced bananas, caramel sauce, and whipped cream. It was basically like having dessert for breakfast. Even my sweet tooth wasn't sure how he could eat the entire thing, but I also know he hadn't eaten at least a half dozen donuts in the last two days like I had.

  The Breakfast Spot was unusual as all of the cooking was done in the center of the restaurant. There was a big griddle where all of the pancakes and other things were made. The cook and the wait staff bustled around the little rectangle cooking and pouring coffee. Around the rectangular kitchen area was a breakfast bar with big, pleather round barstools. This was where the regulars sat. All of the regulars were retired men who met each morning to read the newspaper, eat breakfast, and chat about the goings on of the world. Most were lifelong Shady Lake residents and the rest had been here long enough to be considered lifelong residents.

  The outer loop of the restaurant was lined with booths and pictures of local things hung on the walls. There were team pictures, both current and older. There were also pictures of Shady Lake when it first became a town hanging above several booths. The people who owned The Breakfast Spot had so many historical pictures that they swapped them around monthly so that it felt like there was always something new to look at and read, even if you always sat at the same table.

  Each booth could comfortably seat at least six people and some were even bigger. This is where everyone else sat because if you came to The Breakfast Spot, you came with a group. There were families and groups of high school kids all eating breakfast. It was warm and bustling.

  I made sure to have us meet as the breakfast rush at The Breakfast Spot was dying down. They only served breakfast, but they stayed open until lunchtime so that people could sit and relax and enjoy their breakfasts slowly. Most tables were finishing up their meals as we were just getting ours. Once the tables around us were a bit scarce, I decided to make my move.

  "Was Claire wearing a charm bracelet when she was taken in?" I asked casually as I cut another piece of pancake.

  "You know I can't talk about the case," Max said, shooting me a confused and disapproving look. I knew full well, which is why I hadn't technically asked him about the case. And I told him so.

  "I didn't ask about her murder, I simply asked if she had been wearing a bracelet," I said.

  Max took a big bite of his bananas foster pancake. I could tell he was weighing that back and forth in his mind. Max and I had dated seriously for years in high school, so he knew me almost as well as Mandy did. He knew I had some sort of plan in the works, but he just couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

  I casually took some sips of my coffee as I waited. Finally, he swallowed a big gulp and nodded his head.

  "Yes, she was wearing a charm bracelet," he said carefully. "Now tell me why you wanted to know."

  I pulled my camera out of my bag and pulled up the first picture I had taken. It was a wide shot showing both the outline where her body had been and the glint from under the shelves next to it.

  "Because I found one of her charms that was hiding under the shelf and had not been collected by you guys," I said. "Don't worry, I left it there and I didn't touch it. I just took pictures."

  I scrolled to the next picture and then the next. Max's face dropped into a surprised confusion and he grabbed the camera out of my
hands. As he scrolled through the pictures, I could see him mouthing some expletives that I pretended not to notice. I sipped my coffee and waited for him to look up from the camera.

  "Tessa, I've told you before that you can't just go wandering around a crime scene," he started in. "And I'm going to have to take this memory card."

  "Why?" I asked. "You should go to the store and get the charm instead."

  Max whispered another expletive. He rarely swore, so he must have really been upset with himself. It wasn't really his fault if something got missed, though. He wasn't that high in the chain of command and he was a loyal officer who did what he was told to do. I reached across the table and took his hand.

  "I told you this so that you could get it and maybe swab it for some DNA," I said. "I'm hoping it will show that Tank was not the one who did this."

  "I know, Tessa," he said, giving my hand a squeeze. "And I hope you know that I am trying my hardest to find something to help get the focus off of Tank. I've known Tank his entire life and I know he wouldn't do this, but I do wish he would make it a little easier by giving us his alibi. He says he was busy and that there are people who could corroborate for him, but he won't actually tell us what he was doing."

  My stomach had settled a little bit, so I ate another bite of pancake while I thought about it. What in the world could he have been doing that he doesn't want to tell people? I don't think it would be anything illegal. Hopefully they would release Tank soon and I could get his alibi out of him in case the police circled back around to him.

  A faint ringing could be heard as I took a drink of coffee. I looked around, wondering whose phone it was. Suddenly, I realized it was my phone. I must have bumped the ringer this time. The hot coffee scalded my throat as I tried to swallow it quickly so I could answer. I flipped it open and saw that my mother was calling.

  "Tessa, I don't want you to freak out, but I am in an ambulance on the way to the hospital," she said.

  "What? What happened?" I said, a little too loudly as the people around me looked our way in concern. I mouthed an apology to them.

  "I'm okay, but I fell and I think I broke my leg," she said. "That darn ice patch on the front porch got me."

  I made a mental note to go buy a big rubber mat to put over it as I said goodbye and hung up. I filled Max in on what happened and he flagged the waitress down to get me a cup of coffee to go. As I frantically tried to get my jacket on, Max stood up and put his hands on my shoulders to calm me down. He looked me in the eyes and smiled before taking my jacket and helping me into it one arm at a time.

  "It will be okay," Max said. "Everything will get figured out; your mom's leg, Tank, everything will be fine."

  Somehow when Max said that, I believed him. Maybe it was the comfortable familiarity or maybe deep down I truly believed that also. He leaned forward and gave me a quick peck on the lips. He didn't like to show much public affection, but I knew the love behind the kiss was what mattered.

  As I started the station wagon in the parking lot, I wondered what in the world Tank could have been doing that night. I filed that question away with all of the other things I wanted to investigate and headed towards the hospital to find my mother.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was sitting in one of the emergency room bays with the curtain drawn around it waiting for the nurse to bring my mother back from getting a cast put on her leg when I realized something. I had been so wrapped up in finding the body and then trying to figure out the whole Tank thing that I never tried to figure out why Claire was at the Christmas Shop that night in the first place.

  Would she have been there to try and cause mayhem and make the store fail so that Sue would have to shut it down? If she was trying to do that, she hadn't done it very well because everything was still neat and orderly on the shelves, so much so that we hadn't even noticed anything different about the store until we spotted her body.

  Was she expecting to meet someone there? The neat and orderly shelves didn't suggest much of a struggle, so I assumed she hadn't been caught totally off guard by the presence of another person there.

  My thoughts wandered again to Sue. Maybe she had been the one to do it. It was her store, her livelihood that she stood to lose and her keys were in the door. Normally Sue was very mild-mannered, but when everything was on the line, who could blame her for being angry? I just couldn't figure out how small, sweet, frail Sue would have mustered enough physical strength to stab someone with a Christmas ornament even if she was filled with rage and adrenaline.

  I needed to clear my head a bit and get some of these thoughts down on paper. I grabbed my purse and rifled around inside. I found a ballpoint pen, but somehow in a purse big enough to carry a large, heavy flashlight, I didn't have any paper besides a few old receipts.

  I made my way to the nurse's station across the hallway from where I was waiting and asked if they had some pieces of paper I could have. The busy nurse shoved an entire pad of paper at me without responding before answering the phone and punching in some numbers on the computer. I thanked her and she gave a little wave of her hand before going back to typing things.

  At the top of the paper, I wrote SUSPECTS and then I made two columns, one labeled PRO, meaning the motive and anything implicating them, and the other labeled CON, or anything that mean they couldn't have done it. Then I wrote Sue's name and everything I had been thinking of: her motive, her small stature, everything.

  The next person I put was Tank. It pained me to even think about my sweet baby brother being a murder suspect, but if I was going to solve this case I needed to think like the police were thinking. Under PRO, I wrote that he would lose his job, he had threatened Claire and that he was big enough to have actually committed the crime. I didn't have anything to write under CON yet, so I just left it blank, but I drew a little heart to show that I loved him and knew he didn't do it.

  The other person who had threatened Claire was Rich, so he was next on my list. I wrote that he had also been angry with her and physically, he also could have hurt Claire. But besides that threat, why would he want to hurt her? I would need to dive a little deeper with Rich to try and figure out why he had felt so passionately about Claire's plan to shut down the Used-A-Bit. I had an inkling that it had to do with Sue.

  The only other person besides me who had been there when Claire came was Jill. I wrote her name down. Her motive was that she didn't want to live above a dog grooming shop. But I questioned whether she was actually strong enough to have done the crime.

  As I tapped my pen on my paper and tried to think a little bit more about the murder and any other suspects, the curtains were pushed open and my mother appeared sitting in a wheelchair. I quickly folded the paper and shoved it in my purse. I didn't need my mother to worry any more about Tank or the crime. Right now I just needed to get her home.

  I handed my mother her jacket as I slipped mine on and grabbed both of our purses. The nurse told me to run ahead and pull the car up so we didn't have to walk through the cold so I did, making sure to put a blanket on the cold, leather passenger seat and cranking up the heat. At the door, the nurse helped my mother into the car and gave a friendly wave as we pulled out of the drop-off zone.

  I stole a glance at my mother. She looked older and even more tired, exhausted from both the accident and still not knowing anything about how Tank was doing. She had her head leaned back on the headrest and her eyes were shut. The painkiller hadn't worn off yet, but I knew that I'd have to go fill her prescription once we got home and got her settled. I wasn't actually sure how I was going to get her inside and up all of those icy stairs, but we would figure it out together.

  "Tessa, I just thought of something else," my mom said. "How am I going to finish my decorating for the contest? I have such a good plan this year and I will finally be able to get our house featured, I just know it."

  "I'll do it Mom," I said. "I'm sure Trina, Tilly, and Teddy will help me. I think with your plan and our muscles, we can win
this thing. Why don't we drive around for a little inspiration?"

  The absence of Tank's name in that list hung in the air. I didn't know what to say, so I stayed quiet for a moment. Then I reached over and turned on the radio to Shady Lake's AM station. They had started playing their holiday playlist, which brightened the mood a bit.

  We drove through Shady Lake and while I wanted to get my mother home, the car was so warm and cozy that I took the long way. There was just a faint dusting of snow on the ground. It was just enough to make all of the Christmas decorations really stand out and sparkle. I was hoping the little detour through some of the holiday things would cheer my mom up a bit. If nothing else, I knew it would cheer me up a bit.

  I made sure to drive past some of the previous winners of the decorating contest to see if they had any decorations up yet, but everyone seemed to be playing it pretty close to the vest. Mostly what we saw was very basic light displays. It was like most people were waiting to put up the really flashy stuff until it was too late to be replicated.

  When I pulled into the driveway, I right away noticed my father's car parked in the usual spot. I wasn't sure if that meant Tank was home or not, but I decided to be optimistic. I knew I'd need help getting my mom up the stairs and into the house so I told her to hold tight as I went to get someone.

  As I bounded up the stairs, the front door flew open and Tank came running out with my dad close behind him. He had a wide smile on his face, so wide that if he smiled any more, it would crack his face wide open.

  "Tank, what are you doing home?" I yelled as I ran into his giant bear hug.

  "They let me go," he said. "And the good news is that they found more evidence that points to a different suspect so I am completely off the hook. Apparently they went back to the store and found some more stuff. We wanted to surprise you and Mom. Where were you anyways?"

  Apparently the bad news had not reached them yet. I nodded my head towards the car and beckoned them to follow me around to the passenger side. Tank gave my mom the news through the window she had cranked open. My mom's face was absolutely jubilant when Tank came up to her window and gave her the good news.