by Linnea West
"Why don't you get out of the car and we can celebrate Mom?" Tank said.
My mom grimaced and pointed down towards her leg. My dad and Tank competed for space as they both leaned into the car to look. At the sight of the large cast, they both yelled in surprise and concern.
After a short explanation, the men worked together to carry my mother inside and upstairs to our family room where we settled her in on the couch and arranged a late lunch for everyone. I warmed our leftover pizza up in the oven and while most of it was scarfed up by Tank, there was enough for both of my parents to have some too. I just had coffee as my stomach was still full from my pancake breakfast.
This day had been full of twists and turns and it was only lunchtime. Who knew the holiday season could be so suspenseful? And no one had even been arrested yet.
Chapter Thirteen
"So tell me what happened," I said once Tank had slowed down his lunch inhalation.
"I don't really know," he said with a shrug. "They had been questioning me for so long and they kept asking me the same things over and over again. The police were starting to get a little angry with me because they were convinced it was me and that I was just holding out on them. Then all of a sudden they came back from one of their breaks and told me things had changed and that I could go. They told me to stick around town, but that I was no longer considered a suspect."
I thought back to the Christmas Shop as I had seen it early that morning and wondered what else they had found. What did I miss that would have ruled Tank out? I don't think they could have tested any DNA on that charm that fast. I would have to try to get some information out of Max.
"Well no matter what, I'm just glad to have you home," my mom said quietly. She grabbed Tank's large hand in her small bony one. "I'm just sorry that I'll need to ask you to do some extra help around here."
"Oh yes," I said. "We are going to need to get the B&B ready for the holiday decorating contest soon. The judging is less than a week away and we haven't done anything yet. Well, Mom has done some planning, but we need to do the actual decorating now."
"Well I'm kind of busy, but I can help out a bit," Tank said, shifting around in his seat a bit. I remembered that he wouldn't give his alibi and I wondered what he was hiding. I needed to try and ask him about it.
"First order of business is for Mom to tell us her vision," I announced. "Dad, why don't you fetch her planning materials while Tank and I take the dishes downstairs."
My mom started describing where all of her planning papers were while Tank grabbed some dirty plates and I grabbed the baking tray where the pizza had been. We walked downstairs without talking, but once we walked through the kitchen's swinging doors I took my chance.
"What are you doing that is keeping you so busy lately?" I asked. I tried to be nonchalant about it as I squirted dish soap on the baking tray and scrubbed off the stuck on crust bits. I glanced briefly at Tank's face to try to get a read on his feelings, but it was pretty neutral. I didn't blame him; he was probably exhausted after all of the questioning he had been through.
"I just have a lot of things on my plate," he said as he loaded the dishwasher. I couldn't tell if he was blushing a little bit or if he was just tired.
As I scrubbed, I made a quick decision to push on with my questions. I decided that he must be blushing and there was only one thing that would make a teenage boy blush: his family trying to figure out his love life.
"Is it a girlfriend?" I asked. "Have you been meeting up with a girl?"
"Not meeting up with a girl, no," he said. The way he said it was very particular.
"But does it involve a girl?"
"Sort of."
"Is it a girl who can give you an alibi if you need it again?"
"No," Tank said. He turned to face me, his face a bit cloudy. "She isn't my girlfriend, not yet anyways. But I won't tell you anything else unless you promise not to tell anyone. Not the cops. Not Mom and Dad. No one."
I weighed that back and forth while I grabbed a dish towel to dry the baking sheet. I didn't like to make promises I couldn't keep and I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep it to myself if the police did come for him again and I knew his alibi.
But I looked at his face. I could see that he was desperate to tell someone and to have someone he knew he could trust. I may have to work hard at not letting my big mouth run the show, but I decided it was worth it to be my brother's secret keeper.
"Okay, I promise," I said. I stuck out my pinky finger towards him. The Schmidt siblings take pinky promises very seriously and we always have, although Tank and I had enough of an age difference that we hardly ever made them together.
But Tank locked his large pinky around my thin one and gave it a firm shake. He walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. I poured myself another cup of coffee and followed him over.
"There is this girl at school," he said. "Her name is Angie and she just moved here like a month ago. Anyway, she's really cool and I like her a lot and I think she likes me too. But I don't know how to ask her out."
"That can be tricky," I said. I practically had to sit on my hands to stop myself from squealing and jumping up and down. As a typical teenage boy, Tank played his love life close, never telling us much of anything about it. I continued to sip my coffee, playing it cool so that he would hopefully tell me more.
"I think she likes me," he said. "Actually I know she likes me but I just didn't know what to do about it. But last week, we were hanging out and she was talking about how she wanted a nice guitar so bad but that her parents wouldn't be able to afford one. So I decided that I was going to buy her one and then maybe ask her if she wanted to go out with me."
I was a bit taken aback by how romantic Tank was. For someone who was literally built like a Tank, he was a soft teddy bear inside.
"So I looked at some guitars at the music shop downtown and they had a purple one that I think Angie would love because her favorite color is purple," he continued. "But it is super expensive and I knew I wouldn't be able to buy it just from what I was making at the Christmas Shop. So I went out to get another job. I wanted something where I knew I could make some good money but that it wouldn't interfere with school or working at the Christmas Shop."
"Wait, you went out and got a second job?" I asked. I had not seen that coming. When the topic of Angie had come come up, I figured he was just spending time with her.
"Yeah, I had an idea to talk to some of the local bar owners and ask if they needed someone to do the clean up. They pretty much all took me up on it, so after bar close I go in and clean everything up. The only thing is I'm underage so technically I'm not supposed to work anywhere that serves alcohol. So they all pay me under the table and I can't tell anyone about it or they will get in trouble."
Well this was all starting to make a weird sort of sense. He couldn't tell the police that or both he and the bar owners would get in legal trouble. He also couldn't tell my parents that. My parents weren't against drinking or the local bars, but I was pretty sure they would be a bit upset about their teenage son working there.
"But if I can keep it all up, I'll be able to buy her that guitar in another couple of weeks," Tank said. He was staring starry-eyed out the window. I had never met Angie, but I had to imagine she was beautiful if she did this to my giant of a brother. "She plays guitar and sings so beautifully. I can't wait to see her play that purple guitar."
"I promise not to tell Mom and Dad," I said. "But you have to promise me something. After you give her that guitar, you need to introduce her to me. I'd love to hear her play that guitar."
Tank smiled at me. Sometimes I forgot how old he actually was. When I thought of my baby brother, he always seemed to be perpetually four years old. But here he was holding down two jobs while going to school and wooing a girl. I guess I'd have to get my subconscious to update his perpetual age.
"We should probably get back upstairs," Tank said, suddenly embarrassed by our previous conversation.
Thanks for the tip today Sweet Thing.
I couldn't help but smile. I decided I'd try to kill two birds with one stone and invite him over.
You're welcome :) Are you busy? I need to help my mom start to decorate for the contest and I could use a little help.
Max told me he didn't have anything planned and told me he'd be over in an hour or so, dressed to help outside. The chilly November wind was blowing and could cut through a person if they weren't wearing enough layers.
After I went upstairs, I was glad I had asked for his help. My mother's plans were ambitious and I would need as much help as I could get, especially if I also had to take over inside decorating, gift buying, gift wrapping, and planning our holiday meal.
Chapter Fourteen
Ten strands of Christmas lights had not been near enough for my mother's ambitious plans. As Max and I worked on getting them on the house, I had sent my father and Tank to the store in my station wagon to buy more. The first part of the plan was simply to outline the entire house with lights. On an old, three-story Victorian style house, that equaled a very long length of Christmas lights.
We had started on the third level of the house and worked our way down. Thankfully my parents had an extendable ladder that we could use to reach that high, but it made me nervous. Max had no problem getting up there, though. He had always been a thrill seeker.
Technically Max shouldn't even be helping as he was part of the judging committee but he said as long as he was only helping with the very basic lights and not the other stuff, it wouldn't be a problem. Besides, it wasn't like he was the only cop with personal ties to one of the entrants of the light contest. That was one of the perils of being in a small town.
As Max reached the end of the last strand of lights we had, Max climbed back down the ladder and plopped down in one of the wicker chairs on the front porch. I sat down in the one next to him and smiled as he put his hand on my knee. Thankfully the wind had died down and we were protected from what little breeze there was here on the porch.
"So Tank is no longer a suspect?" I said as casually as I could as I pulled out the thermos of coffee my father kept refilling for us. I poured two cups of steaming hot coffee and handed Max the mug that said Bah Humbug on it.
"No, he isn't," Max said in a measured tone.
"And you have a new suspect?" I asked casually.
Max took a sip of coffee and I did the same, trying not to gulp it down in my excitement over both a hot beverage and the fact that Max may answer my questions about their investigation.
"We do have a new suspect," he said. "And I will tell you more about it only because you have done a lot of legwork and it'll be in the news soon enough. Chelsea was there when we got him to the courthouse, so it will be on the front page of the paper tomorrow."
"Well, who was it?"
"Rich," Max said.
"Rich?!?" I blurted out. "What did you find to implicate him?"
"I shouldn't be telling you this, but I'd much rather you knew than Chelsea," Max said, rolling his eyes. I could just imagine her badgering them as they brought Rich into the jailhouse in handcuffs. "When we were looking for the charm that you told me about, we noticed cigar ash under the lip of the shelves. And we all know Rich likes a good cigar."
I sat back in the chair and looked out over the frozen lake while I thought about that. The lake wasn't frozen through yet, but soon enough it would be and the view would be dotted with ice houses and snowmobiles. I liked to enjoy it now when it was icy and snow covered but no one had invaded it yet.
Rich had definitely been on my suspect list so that wasn't totally out of left field. But I didn't think it would really matter if there was a dog grooming salon next to his bar, so that couldn't be the full motive. I did have to kind of kick myself for missing the cigar ash. I had just been so distracted by the charm I found.
"Okay, so if Rich was the one that killed Claire, what was he doing in the store?" I asked.
"Our working theory is that he happened to see her going into the Christmas Shop to do some mischief as he was closing up the Loony Bin," Max said. "We think that it made him so mad that he went in and the confrontation drove him into a fit of rage."
"You think Old Man Rich was driven into a fit of rage by Claire?" I said. That just didn't make sense to me. "Sure, he was mad about what Claire said when she was there before, but I don't think he was mad enough to confront her and then subsequently kill her."
"Well, I said it was a working theory," Max said. "We aren't exactly sure yet, but we just know that he did it. Rich said he was busy that night, but he won't tell us what he was doing. Apparently that is a running theme during this investigation. Maybe he and Tank were somewhere together."
As Max chuckled, I just about blurted out that I knew where Tank had been, but I pressed my lips together and then swallowed down more coffee. I couldn't spill his secret, especially not less than a few hours after Tank had told it to me. Instead I just shrugged as I tried to slurp down more coffee without burning my mouth and esophagus.
"Rich says he wasn't alone, but that he would rather not say who he was with," Max said, rolling his eyes. "I told him that was not how an alibi works. But he is remaining steadfast that he doesn't want to say."
I filed that away, telling myself I would think about how to figure out his alibi later. Maybe I would ask Sue. She and Rich seemed pretty close. That reminded me to ask Max one more important question.
"So if you think you are mostly done with the investigation, then I'd like to know when the Christmas Shop will be able to open," I said. "You know we still haven't had our grand opening yet and it would be nice to do that before Christmas is actually here."
"I actually called Sue right before I came here," Max said with a laugh. "I told her to give us tomorrow to go through the shop one more time to make sure we didn't miss anything else and that she would be good to go for a grand opening any time next week."
I smiled at him and patted his hand in thanks. Hopefully we could still get people to come out despite the murder that had happened in the shop. I made a mental note to call Sue later so we could plan this grand opening.
The station wagon came rolling into the driveway with Tank in the front seat pumping his fists into the air like some sort of champion. The entire back end looked like it was full of boxes of lights. I had to laugh as he jumped out and yelled up to us.
"We literally just bought them out of lights," he said. "We bought like fifty strands of lights."
"I figured that any we didn't use on the house could be used on some of the trees," my dad said with a shrug. My father was a frugal man, but one thing he wasn't afraid to spend money on was my mother. If she wanted something, he would buy it for her and make sure it was top of the line. If my mother wanted the house decorated for the holidays, then by golly he was going to decorate it as much as he possibly could.
As Max drained his coffee cup and then went down to help unload the car, I thought about what he had told me. I hadn't seen it coming that Rich would be killer. Sure, he had been upset at Claire, but so had the rest of us. And although I had only met her that once, I was pretty sure she wasn't the type of person who endeared people to her.
For now, though, I had to push all of that out of my mind. I had fifty more strands of lights to help organize and hang up and we were running out of daylight. I also had to figure out if Rich actually had an alibi and plan the grand opening of the Christmas Shop on top of doing all of the holiday preparations my mother normally did. I wondered if I'd get any time to relax before the new year because so far it wasn't looking like it.
Chapter Fifteen
We had done as much work as we could on the house decorations until the sun had set on us. Then we had sent Max out to pick up some Chinese food for us. A
ny significant others of us Schmidt children quickly figured out that they would be hazed upon joining the family in the form of light teasing and being sent out on errands. As I waited for Max to get back, I realized why Tank would be tentative about introducing us to Angie.
I had also sent a quick message to Sue who assured me she would come over the next day to do some planning with me. I was a little surprised she hadn't been the one to contact me, but it had been so crazy lately that I didn't really blame her.
The next day, Sue came over to have lunch while we got our planning done. I had whipped up some quick sandwiches with a side salad. I knew my stomach could use some vegetables after all of the junk food I had been ingesting.
Unfortunately, it was Sunday so we either would need to wait an entire week to have the grand opening on a weekend or we would just have to do it on a weekday, so I had quickly jotted down two plans before she arrived. If we were going to open on a weekday, we may as well do it tomorrow so the one plan was for the grand opening to happen quickly. If we waited until the weekend, we would have more time and could make it bigger. So the other plan was for a bigger and better opening. I figured she could just pick one and we could go for it.
"I am a little worried, Tessa," Sue said. "What if people don't want to come out to the store now? If we wait until next weekend, people might not want to buy any more decorations. They may be done shopping by then. But I want to make sure the grand opening is a success. How can we make both of those things happen?"
I speared a tomato and thought about it for a moment before an idea struck. I put up a finger telling Sue to wait while I jumped out of my chair. We kept flyers with the going-ons around the town up at the desk. I tried to quickly chew up my mouthful of food as I rushed back to the table with a copy of the flyer.
