Holly and Homicide (24 page)

“No, I’m making panels,” I answered. “Ben’s making the frames for me. Then I’m going to hang them like large pictures. They should each come out to be about five feet tall and three or four feet wide. I hope to get four male dancers in one frame and three dancers each in two of the frames, but the fabric is sixty inches wide to start with. I just know that two frames with five dancers apiece won’t
work. I might even have to do five frames with two leaping lords each.”

“So you’re putting sections of fabric into picture frames? Under glass?” Audrey asked.

“No. I’ll wrap the fabric around the frame, and staple it to the back side.”

“Well, getting back to our plans for the day,” she said, returning her attention to Steve, “all I had in mind for Erin and me this afternoon was to do some research under the guise of Christmas shopping downtown.”

“Research while shopping?” Steve rose and brought his cereal bowl to the sink.

“Precisely,” she replied. “We’ll casually ask some shop owners about their relationships with our associates at the inn. This is strictly women’s work, Steve.”

Steve grimaced. “It doesn’t sound like anything I’d be much help with. I will say that.”

Whereas it sounds like a perfect afternoon to me. Gossip and shopping? Woo-hoo!

“When is Ben supposed to build these frames for you?” Steve asked me.

I glanced at the clock and cursed to myself. I’d somehow lost an hour in the process of building a marshmallow snowman and holding up gingerbread walls. “Five minutes from now. I really wanted to have figured out my precise dimensions by then.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” he said.

I grabbed a pair of large T-squares, and he helped me unfurl the fabric in the central hall, where there was plenty of floor space.

“These frames are going on the wall across from our bed?” he asked.

“Right.” He knew that already, which meant he had an objection, but I didn’t want to hear it; I was busy trying to picture the finished wall hangings. We’d already painted that wall in our bedroom a complementary gray-blue, and I’d managed to match one of the pattern’s accent colors to that exact hue.

Audrey, curious to see the fabric herself, had followed us and said with a smile, “These are scenes from
The Nutcracker Suite
, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s wonderful! Doubly appropriate for Christmas! Now you’ve got the typical holiday ballet,
plus
the ten lords a-leaping.”

“Which makes it doubly seasonal, though,” I said. “I wanted to be sure to attach the fabric on easily movable frames. Come May or June, Mikara can remove them, or we could replace the fabric with something summery. Or Steve and I could come back and switch them out every season, which would be good for our job security.”

“Erin, for the time being,” Steve interjected, “we’re just concentrating on pulling off the Twelve Days theme and opening the doors Christmas Eve without any more fatalities.”

That afternoon, Audrey and I parked in the lot just outside
of town, then walked toward Main Street. I was struck once again by how truly lovely this mountain town was. Truth be told, I sympathized with the Snowcap natives. I
could easily imagine how frustrating it must have felt to have this pretty, cozy community change so rapidly and so drastically.

“Let’s begin by discussing our game plan,” Audrey said, “over a hot toddy.” She gestured at the pub across the street.

I shivered from a chill unrelated to the brisk wintry breeze. “I’m up for the hot toddy, but let’s go someplace else. I went there with Cameron. The night that Angie was killed.”

Audrey ushered me toward a second bar. My mood had darkened. Here I’d been treating this afternoon like it was just another happy little excursion with Audrey, but all the while, two people were dead. I was also being inconsiderate to Steve; my fabric panels had taken longer to construct than I’d anticipated, so I’d selfishly allowed him to add hanging the panels in our bedroom to his to-do list. Not to mention preparing for tomorrow’s building inspection.

With a purposefulness that I didn’t share, Audrey entered the old-time bar—mahogany wainscot paneling and forest green walls extending up to the hammered-copper ceiling—strode across the room, and claimed a booth. Never having been here, I stopped just inside the door to study a display of a dozen black-and-white photographs of Snowcap Village.

The oldest photo had been taken eighty years ago; downtown had consisted of five wood buildings with an Old West flavor to them. I was startled to spot a second picture of what must have been three generations of Goodwin and Orlin men. According to the card below
the picture, it had been taken nearly forty years ago in front of “the Goodwin estate.” Two elderly gentlemen were centered in the foreground, flanked by younger-looking men who, judging by strong family resemblances, could only be their sons. Two five- or six-year-old boys, one beaming and one frowning, were standing in front of their fathers. I didn’t need to refer to the caption to know that the happy boy was Henry Goodwin and the sad one was Ben Orlin.

As I slid into the seat across from Audrey, she said, “I ordered us both hot cocoas with a shot of schnapps.”

“Sounds good.”

“We need to know what caused the extreme bad will that could give someone a motive for two murders,” Audrey told me with the same matter-of-fact tone she’d used to inform me of our drink order.

“One obvious source of bad feelings is Wendell Barton buying the mountain and the inn. But for someone to actually take another person’s life … the offense has to be deeply personal. Personal enough that the killer felt that his or her life was destroyed by the victim … or
would
be destroyed in the future, if the victim continued to live.”

“Which is why Wendell makes such a weak suspect,” Audrey said. “He’s King of the Hill. He didn’t even
know
Angie Woolf. Neither Angie nor Cameron had the ability to destroy Wendell’s life.”

I held my tongue, but in fact, I suspected Angie or Cameron might have easily possessed some piece of evidence of wrongdoings on Wendell’s part that could have knocked him clear off his mountain. “For now,” I said, “we should concentrate on looking into Angie’s past. She
grew up with Mikara, Henry, and Ben. She might have done something hurtful to one of them a long time ago.”

We paused as a waitress delivered our drinks. “I learned that Ben’s father blamed Ben for Henry’s teenage pranks involving the town’s nativity scenes,” I then told Audrey. “And last night, I saw him staring up at Steve’s and my window from the front lawn.”

“He was staring at your window?!”

“Yes, and it creeped me out, but maybe he’s an insomniac and just happened to be looking up at the house, or at Chiffon’s horrible decorations.” I took a sip of my spiked hot chocolate, which was delicious.

“Maybe Ben and Angie used to date in high school,” Audrey suggested, “or there was some other tempestuous personal history between them. But even if there was, we still have to wonder why Cameron was also killed. Could he have witnessed something?”

“No, he was with me all evening. If he’d seen something suspicious earlier that afternoon, he’d have told me or the authorities about it.”

“Unless Cameron was keeping quiet to protect you. Maybe he caught Ben in the act of tampering with your skis, for example, and tried to stop him, but Ben overpowered him.”

“I’d hate to think that Ben had any reason to want to kill me.”

“Somebody
did,” Audrey stated.

“I’m starting to like Chiffon’s theory suddenly … that my skis were merely mistaken for hers.” I sighed and muttered, “Although it’s pretty unlikely my eggnog would have been mistaken for hers.”

“There was friction between Angie and Mikara due to Mikara accepting the job at the inn,” Audrey said. “We know Mikara used to work at the art gallery. That’s a perfect place to investigate while pretending to be shopping.”

Twenty minutes later, we were studying the artwork in
the two-room gallery. We were the only patrons, although a family of four was leaving as we entered.

“Oh, look, Audrey!” I said, pointing at a small, framed oil painting. “This is the perfect picture for the kitchen! See that woman carrying a pail? She could easily be a milkmaid. Now I won’t have to decoupage the tray.”

“Wonderful! We’ll be able to charge the purchase to the inn, even,” Audrey replied, grinning at me.

The word “purchase” drew the immediate attention of one of the two sixtyish women behind the counter. She approached us, smiling, and said, “You’re Audrey Munroe, from the
Domestic Bliss
show. I’m one of your biggest fans! I made us get a TiVo, just so I would never miss your show.”

“Oh, thank you! You’ve totally made my day!”

“I’m Mildred, and this is my sister, Carol.”

At her name being mentioned, the second owner, a dyed blonde, rounded the counter to join us.

“Nice to meet you both,” Audrey said. “This is Erin. She’s an absolutely brilliant interior designer.”

“Audrey’s flattering me, of course. It’s nice to meet you, Mildred and Carol.”

“I’m sure a little extra praise is welcome these days,”
Carol replied. “Mildred and I are well aware of all the terrible times you’ve been having at the Goodwin house.”

“I understand Mikara used to work here, before she came to the inn,” Audrey said before I could reply. “So you must have known her sister, Angie, too.”

“Yes,” they both said in unison.

“Poor thing,” Mildred added. “She’d pulled herself back together after her divorce.”

“Let’s not gossip with our customers,” Carol scolded. “So were you just looking for the one painting today?”

“Oh, no, not necessarily,” Audrey said. “We might need lots and lots of pieces!”

Audrey proceeded to explain about the milkmaids, and I added that, technically, I was now down to looking only for drummers, although I thought I’d check for Steve’s sake to see if they had any particularly eye-catching ballerinas for the library. I’d checked his notes earlier today and knew he’d only purchased six lady dancers so far.

“Has your gallery been here since before the resort opened?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mildred said. “We’re hanging in there. All of us business owners incorrectly assumed our profits would go up with the influx of yuppie skiers.” Her eyes widened and she hastened to add, “No offense, Erin.”

“None taken. I’m certainly a young, urban professional, but my skiing days might already be history.”

“She took a nasty spill yesterday,” Audrey explained. “Erin and I are always anxious to support the local businesses. It’s unfortunate that so many of the original owners in Snowcap apparently didn’t do well after the ski resort opened.”

“For what it’s worth,” I added, “my business partner and I try to buy from local merchants whenever possible.” I glanced in the back room and saw stacks of paintings leaning against the wall. “Is there any chance you might have some pictures of drummers?”

“We have at least one,” Carol said. “I remember getting in an acrylic depicting a little drummer boy.”

“I’d also like to buy some blown glass for my bedroom,” Audrey said. “Did you know the Woolf sisters well?” Not a particularly deft segue, I mused to myself.

“Oh, yes,” Mildred replied. “They grew up just down the block from us. We used to say that those two were going to be best friends for their entire lives. Which is why I think it was all the more heartbreaking that
Angie
wound up being the reason that Mikara’s and Henry’s wedding was cancelled.”

D
id Angie and Henry have an affair?” Audrey asked. “That’s what
I’ve
always suspected,” Carol said, exchanging glances with Mildred. “Mikara never said that directly, though. But it was pretty much implied.”

“Personally,” Mildred interjected, “I don’t think those two actually slept together. I always figured it was just Angie being Angie, acting like she knew better than Mikara about who she should marry, and then—”

“And then
Angie
was the one who wound up marrying a good-for-nothing drunkard and bully,” Carol scoffed.

“So,” Mildred continued, “when Angie’s hubby was out of town on a fishing trip, she set out to prove to her sister that Henry was incapable of being faithful.”

“Angie and Henry went either all the way or just part of the way,” Carol said, “but, in any case, Angie made a point of being seen all about the town on Henry’s arm.” She indicated Mildred with her chin. “We spotted ’em ourselves at the church bazaar. They were being all kissy-face at a fundraiser in the morning, just in case Mikara missed hearing about Angie and Henry’s escapades the night before.”

“Such as how she’d been sitting in his lap at a corner table at The Nines,” Mildred added bitterly.

“That couldn’t have sat well with Angie’s husband when he got back into town,” I said.

“I’m sure it didn’t,” Mildred agreed. “But that marriage was on the skids from the time it started.”

“They got married because Angie was pregnant,” Carol explained. “But she lost the baby.”

“Angie told me a couple of years ago that she thinks it was her depression over that loss that led her to have a fling with Henry,” Mildred said. “Although she still claims she really only had Mikara’s best interests in mind.”

“Maybe that’s the truth, too,” Carol said. “She’s gone now. I’d like to think the best of her.”

“Oh, absolutely. The poor thing. Angie claimed she sincerely wanted to protect Mikara from marrying the wrong man … from making the same mistake she’d made.” Mildred sighed. “She dropped Henry immediately after he and Mikara broke up. I guess Angie truly felt she’d only acted on her sister’s behalf. At the time.”

For the first time since Audrey and I first opened the floodgates of the Snowcap Rumor Mill, the gallery owners paused.

“How long was it till Angie and Mikara became close again?” Audrey asked.

“Three, four years later?” Carol said tentatively, looking to Mildred, who nodded.

“Their mother had gotten breast cancer around that time,” Mildred continued. “She died two years later. Both girls moved back home and took turns caring for her. They vowed to set their differences aside for the mom’s sake.”