Читать книгу Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings - Liz Ireland - Страница 7

Chapter 3

My first clear memory of Nick was on a warm day in June in Cloudberry Bay. The sun was shining on the Oregon coast, giving tourists and even natives the illusion that we were a real surfing-and-suntan oil kind of place. He was standing at the edge of the beach, contemplating the expanse of gray-blue surf and flexing as if preparing to dive in.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

During warm summer days, lots of visitors were one plunge away from being disabused of the notion that Cloudberry Bay was Miami Beach. This man showed all the earmarks of being our next casualty. Something about the body pointed bird dog–like toward all that beautiful water. That beautiful, frigid water.

He’d registered at the Coast Inn the day before as Nick Kringle, saying as little as possible as he’d swiped his card and taken his key. He hadn’t come down to breakfast. It all gave him a mysterious air, and nothing taunts me like a mystery. Youngish men on their own didn’t wander into my cozy establishment often. Nick had brown hair, brown eyes, and a rather pale complexion that didn’t seem to go with his muscular build, but the parts all added up to a dreamy whole. Like Laurence Olivier in Rebecca, only without the fake gray streaks and with a neatly trimmed beard instead of Olivier’s pencil mustache.

His only response to my warning was to turn his gaze turned toward me. I’d been on an early afternoon walk and was togged out in a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. I usually took advantage of the post-breakfast/checkout, pre-check-in break to get a little exercise. Otherwise it was easy to become chained to the inn round the clock, a mistake I’d made when I’d first bought the Coast Inn after my husband died. Owning a small hotel can be a hamster wheel existence if you don’t fence off time for yourself.

“The water’s cold,” I warned my guest.

“I’m used to cold.”

Those were the first words I remember him saying to me. I’m used to cold. Understatement of the century, but how was I to know? I assumed he meant he was from Wisconsin or something. Part polar bear was more like it. I watched in amazement as he took a few steps into the fifty-something-degree water and dived in. Most tourists who did that popped right back up shrieking and streaking back to shore and the nearest towel. When Nick surfaced, he sliced through the surf in an Australian crawl without missing a beat.

There was another reason I’d been a little anxious that Mr. Kringle stay out of the water. One I couldn’t exactly voice to a stranger. Until that moment on the beach, the few times our paths had crossed he’d exhibited a brooding, preoccupied air. The quiet ones worried me. I’d had a guest check in and take an overdose of sleeping pills once. I didn’t want another visitor to my inn to end their stay with an ambulance ride.

That evening, the mysterious Mr. Kringle sought me out after dinner.

“Thanks for the warning today,” he said.

“You didn’t need it. You must be part ice cube.”

“Where I’m from, most people are. But I’m here to thaw out a little, so I appreciate your being a good hostess.” He produced a small box of chocolates and presented them to me. “I brought these from home.”

“Where is that?” I opened the box, picked one, and bit into the most heavenly confection of chocolate and peppermint I’d ever tasted. I may have even let out a moan, because his face cracked in a smile and he pointed to a different one in the box.

“You should try that one. It’s my favorite.”

As I looked at him and remembered his ripped body in that surf, it was hard to believe he was a chocolate aficionado. “I’ll try it next. I want to savor this one. Where did you say you were from?”

“A little place up north—it’s sort of hidden.”

In the days of Google, was there any place that was still hidden? “Canada, you mean?” He had the faintest of accents, so I was fairly certain he wasn’t an American.

“It’s actually north of the Northwest Territories.”

That cagey answer assumed I had no knowledge of the geography of the Northwest Territories (I didn’t) and that I wouldn’t want to own up to my ignorance of anything north of Vancouver (I wouldn’t). A handsome, enigmatic stranger was leaning over me, taking me in with his dark brown eyes, and feeding me chocolates. I’d had dreams like this, and I wasn’t about to bust up a living dream by volunteering the fact that arctic geography was a huge hole in my knowledge.

The next day we met again on the beach, which wasn’t an accident on either of our parts. It was the start of the most romantic week of my life. We went for drives; we held hands under towering pines, listening to the music of the wind whistling through millions of needles. After two days we were having our dinners together, and every other meal, too.

No romance with guests had been my motto during the few years I’d been an innkeeper. Circumstances had made it easy for me to eschew romance. I’d been newly widowed when I’d taken my money from a legal settlement and sunk most of it into the house. My husband, Keith, had died in a car accident—hit by an eighteen-wheeler belonging to a megacorporation. That was traumatic enough, but we’d been having troubles for a long time caused by infertility problems and then infidelity problems. Before the accident we’d been on the verge of separation. After the police contacted me about the crash, I realized it had occurred minutes after a phone argument we’d had.

Feeling like an utter failure in family and relationships, I’d retreated across the country, to the Oregon coast near where my grandparents had lived. It was a place that held happy memories for me. When I purchased the inn, I vowed to focus on business and to turn the Coast Inn into a place that would create happy memories for others. For three years, the friendships I formed in Cloudberry Bay and the fleeting acquaintances of paying guests fulfilled me. My no-romance policy had never been difficult to adhere to.

Yet there I was, head over heels for a guy with a weeklong reservation. With Nick, I found myself spilling out more of the history of my marriage than I ever had to my best friend, Claire. More than I had to a psychologist I’d seen after Keith’s accident, even. Nick listened with real understanding and sympathy that seemed deep, almost raw. On the last night, I learned why. He told me about his brother.

“Chris died two months ago. Hunting accident.” The hurt rasp in his voice broke my heart—his grief was so fresh, and his face clouded with an anguished expression I hadn’t seen since the day he’d arrived.

“Your older brother?” I knew Nick had other siblings. He’d mentioned Martin and Lucia several times, but I hadn’t gotten the birth order down yet.

“Yes, he was older than me, younger than Lucia. Now I’m the head of the family.”

It seemed an antiquated way of looking at sibling relationships, almost as if he was the heir of some principality. I couldn’t help asking, “Why wouldn’t Lucia, the eldest, be considered the head of the family?”

He weighed his response longer than necessary. “It’s not our way.”

I laughed. “Even the House of Windsor’s fixed the females-last thing, you know.”

“There are strong women in my family. My mother’s wonderful, a force of nature. She’s the glue that keeps us all together. It’s been a terrible time for us.”

I knew all too well what he was going through, and felt a little ashamed of my glib sparring about Lucia. Also of my thoughts about that force-of-nature mother. (But honestly, how great could a parent be if they saddled their kid with the name Chris Kringle?) I focused on helping Nick. “It’s a cliché, but it’s true. Time is the only thing that helps. Grief never goes away, but it recedes.”

His dark gaze locked on mine. “This week with you has been the balm I needed. Spending time with you here has made me feel as if there’s some hope.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant. Did he really like me, or was I the human equivalent of a Xanax?

“I wish you could stay longer.” I’d blurted out the words before I could think about how needy they sounded.

“And I wish—”

He broke off, taking in the old sprawling house behind us, with its five gables of graying shingle, standing tall as it had for almost a hundred years against the whims of the Pacific. He shook his head. “You have a beautiful place here. You belong here, don’t you?”

“I’m happy here,” I said. “But I don’t belong. I came here to get away from . . . well, I told you about all that. I’ve made this my home, but it’s not the only place I can survive. No one should feel stuck where they are.”

It was the wrong thing to say. That cloud descended over his expression again. “It doesn’t always work that way, April. Maybe if it were ten years from now . . .”

Ten years? It seemed an odd thing to say.

“Are you going to take early retirement?” He was my age—thirty-six. “You must have started socking away money early.”

He laughed a little at that. “If all goes well. We’ll see. In the meantime, though, I shouldn’t sit around daydreaming like a child.”

Frustration filled me. If I was part of them, I wanted him to hold on to his daydreams. Why did he insist on talking like a slumming prince in a fairy tale, duty bound to return to his kingdom? Even as we stood face-to-face, hand in hand, the past week seemed to recede into something unreal.

He left the next day, saying good-bye quickly but brushing his lips against my cheek and then holding them there, as if to remember the moment better. Five minutes later I was helping my housekeeper, Dakota, strip beds. Back on the hamster wheel.

Where exactly was Nick off to? He’d given me an email address but never had told me the name of the town he lived in. I began to pinpoint other basic things he hadn’t revealed, such as what he did for a living and what nationality he was. By the end of the day, when I was greeting new guests, I wondered if anything I thought I knew about him was true. Cinematic possibilities filled my head: He was a CIA agent. A gangster on the run. It was all a dream and he’d been a figment of my imagination....

That night, I remembered Nick’s chocolates, the ones he said were from where he lived. A clue! The box was right where I’d left it. Not a figment, then. I took the chocolate he said was his favorite and bit into it slowly. The strange flavor filling took me a moment to place, and even then I wasn’t certain. Eggnog? The shiny red box had no writing on it, no stamp from the country of manufacture. No ingredients list, even. It must have been a pretty small outfit that had made them. And then I turned the box over and noticed one distinctive mark: a gold stamp in the silhouette of a Santa Claus waving a mittened hand in greeting.

* * *

I skidded into rehearsal just in the nick of time. In taking on the job of Christmastown Musical Events chairperson, I’d drawn the attention of a few of the music group directors, who were all interested in filling gaps in their orchestras, bands, or choirs. I’d been an easy mark. The first meeting of the Musical Events Committee, I was on the receiving end of a firing line of musical wishes:

You aren’t by any chance a coloratura soprano?

I laughed. My warbly voice could barely carry a tune. I didn’t even like to sing in the shower.

Have you ever played oboe?

Um, no.

We need percussion players. Anybody can play percussion.

Three months later, I was well on my way to proving that last statement wrong. Taking my place at the back of the band hall of the Christmastown Community Center, I picked up a triangle and fumbled through my music folder to find the first piece on our playlist.

Smudge, the principal percussionist of the Santaland Concert Band, noted the triangle and shot me an exasperated look. “The first song is ‘Sleigh Ride,’ April.”

“Right!” I fumbled through my sheet music. The pages never seemed to be in order. I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to be on triangle or the glockenspiel for that “Sleigh Ride.” “What am I playing on that?”

His gaze turned withering. “Sleigh bells.”

“Oh. Right.” I scooted past where he was seated at his drum kit and picked up the sleigh bells. Harder to play than you’d think, by the way. At least for someone who was as rhythm challenged as I was. Smudge, an elf who styled himself as a hipster—or as much as anyone could who had Spock ears and tucked his faded denim pants into curly-toed booties—barely tolerated my intrusion into his world. Only the dearth of volunteers and the desperate need for sound effects in Christmas music had reconciled him to my presence on the back row.

The Santaland Concert Band was comprised mostly of elves, but there were a couple of us Claus family members mixed in. A few other members were elfmen, like Luther, the conductor.

My friend Juniper, one of the Christmastown librarians, played euphonium. She turned to me as she settled into her chair in the row in front of the percussion section. “Hi, April.”

“No greeting for me?” Smudge asked, in mock hurt.

“Smudge.” Juniper’s eyes widened as if she were surprised to see him. Smudge and Juniper had dated once. Now they just snarked at each other. “I heard something the other day that made me think of you. What do you call a drummer in a three-piece suit?”

He frowned warily. “I don’t know. What?”

“The defendant.”

Luther rapped on his music stand to bring us all to attention.

Several song sheets had slipped out of my folder, and I was scrambling to gather them all up. Juniper scooped up my second page of “Silver Bells” that had landed by her chair and handed it to me. “Everything okay?”

Was she asking me because I was late arriving, or because she’d heard rumors about Giblet?

“You seem nervous,” she whispered.

The morning had unsettled me, no doubt about that. One day you’re going along, married to Santa Claus, and the next you’re worried he’s murdered an elf. It wasn’t something I could just blurt out to my friend, but apparently carrying around a strip of bells that jangled with every movement didn’t do much to mask my anxiety.

“Is something wrong back there?” Luther asked.

I jangled back to standing. “Nope! All good!”

Juniper mouthed something at me. We Three Beans later?

I nodded vigorously. I could definitely use a sanity break and some caffeine before going back to the castle. Juniper was the best friend I’d made in Christmastown, and We Three Beans was our preferred hangout.

Luther raised his baton. “Let’s begin.”

Before he could count out the intro to “Sleigh Ride,” though, Woody, our sousaphone, rose from his chair, tuba and all. “JoJo Hollyberry’s not here today,” he said. “On account of what happened to Giblet.”

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.”