Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 6) (17 page)

She swallowed back tears.

I continued to look at her hard, but the vengeful side of me was shrinking with every passing second.

She was right. It was a BS excuse. Meredith, after all, was a woman in her mid-forties. She should have known better by now.

But a small part of me was beginning to feel a flicker of compassion. Compassion, because given my own past, I understood what she had been through.

She dabbed at her eyes dramatically with a Kleenex she pulled from her purse.

“Listen, Cinnamon. I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to apologize. For not only my behavior, but my husband’s as well”

I furrowed my brow.

“You mean the husband who’s suing Daniel and the Sheriff’s Department?” I said. “The one who destroyed my husband’s truck and almost killed me, and then has the gall to say Daniel caused
him
injury? You’re apologizing for him?”

She puckered her lips together and looked away.

“George has problems of his own,” she said. “That doesn’t excuse what he did. To you, or to the Sheriff. But he’s been under a lot of stress lately. Things are—”

“Stress like his Bentley’s in the shop and he has to use the Jaguar instead? That kind of stress?”

Meredith let out a strange little noise when I said that, and I immediately felt like a horrible classist for letting the words slip out of my mouth.

I may not have liked the Drutmans, but it wasn’t because they were wealthy.

I didn’t like to judge people on the basis of whether they had or didn’t have money.

She dabbed at her eyes some more.

“I’m sorry,” I said, letting out a long breath. “That was… out of line.”

She looked back at me.

“He’s dropping the lawsuit, you know,” she said. “He’s not going to sue Daniel or the Sheriff’s Office. We don’t want any more trouble, Cinnamon. George is going to take full responsibility for his actions this time.”

I started to say something, but stopped, surprised.

I studied her a long while.

Now just what was her angle?

“We’ve talked it through,” she said. “He’s willing to own up to what he did. And if the Sheriff did indeed punch him, well, I wouldn’t hold it against him. George was acting poorly and he needed to be reigned in.”

Acting poorly
was one way of putting it. ‘Reckless’ and ‘Out of His Mind’ were other descriptors I might use for George Drutman’s behavior that night.

“So he sent you to do his apologizing for him?” I said. “That’s real classy.”

She sighed heavily, as if the dinner guests had arrived late and the soufflé had collapsed in the meantime.

“As a representative of
all
the Drutmans, Cinnamon, I want you to know how sorry we all are.”

She bit her lower lip.

“George has always liked to drink,” she said, twisting her wedding ring nervously. “We did meet at a bar, after all. But it’s gotten out of hand lately. Very out of hand. And I’m afraid…”

Her voice trembled. The tone of it affected me, melting a small corner of my cold heart.

I may not have liked Meredith. Hell, I may have detested her and everything she stood for. 

But I wasn’t the sort to turn my back on someone if they were in need. No matter what they did to me.

Well, in most cases, anyway.

“Has he… has he hurt you, Meredith?”

She picked up on the truthful concern in my voice and looked up, meeting my eyes.

“No,” she said. “We’ve just been through some trouble lately, that’s all. But that’s marriage, isn’t it? A lot of trouble?”

Her voice did that tremor thing again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This isn’t your concern. I just came here because I wanted to sincerely apologize for how my family has treated you over the years. It’s been wholly uncalled for. And I hope that we can be on better terms in the future.”

She stood up abruptly.

“Meredith, if you need help or need to talk to somebody about this, then—”

“No,” she said. “We’re just fine. Just fine. We’re Christmas River folk, Cinnamon. We see our shares of ups and downs, but we always come out all right. Don’t we?”

She said the words, but she didn’t sound altogether convinced.  

She sidestepped the kitchen island and headed for the backdoor.

“Please pass along my apologies to the Sheriff, as well,” she said. “We’ll pay for a new truck.”

“Meredith—”

But she was out the door before I could say anything more.

In the past, whenever Meredith Drutman had left my presence, I’d felt a great sense of relief.

But now, all I felt was a deep-seated feeling of unease.

Chapter 39

I placed the last dirty coffee mug in the top of the dishwasher, hit the start button, and untied my apron strings.

Then I took in a deep breath and turned around to look at him.  

He stood over the kitchen island, pushing the lattice cutter back and forth over a piece of freshly-rolled dough. His wiry shoulders were hunched over as he worked with a degree of speed that I hadn’t seen in the pie shop before. After a few, violently-swift slices, he already had enough lattice strips for several pies.

I watched as Ian worked, my mouth drier than the lava fields that populated the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains.

The words that I’d been rehearsing in my head all day had up and vanished on me.

I’d been waiting for this moment, when it would be just the two of us here, to ask him. Though honestly, I had been considering calling Daniel instead and telling him that Tobias had seen him and Rip Lawrence arguing out in the woods the day the latter was murdered.

But in the end, I decided against calling my husband. Ian deserved a chance to explain himself, I figured. He deserved at least tha—

“Can I help you with something, Mrs. Brightman?”

Ian had caught me staring at him. He gazed back at me with a troubled expression.

I lowered my eyes, feeling the sting of embarrassment.

“Uh, sorry,” I said, clearing some nervous phlegm out of my throat. “I was, uh, just spacing out there.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I know it’s been a long week.”

He went back to hacking at the dough. My heart hammered away in my chest.

Though he seemed like a nice kid, the truth of the matter, when you looked at it objectively, was that I hardly knew Ian.

Yes, he was my cousin now. But that didn’t mean anything. Not really.

Ian could have been anybody.

And he could have done anything.

Anything
.

Like kill Rip Law—

“I, uh, I just wanted to thank you again, Ian, for all the good work you’ve been doing here,” I muttered.

It wasn’t what I really wanted to say, but it was a start.

He looked up again.

“You don’t have to keep thanking me,” he said. “I like the work. It’s the only way I’m going to become a world-famous chef, right? By working hard?”

He smiled a lopsided smile.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “That’s right. But I just want to make sure you understand how much I appreciate all your help.”

“I do.”

“Good.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words weren’t there.

Dammit, Cinnamon
, I thought.
Just say what’s on your mind
.

I swallowed hard.

“Is everything okay?” he said, dusting his hands off. “You don’t look well.”

“I’m not, Ian.”

“What’s wrong?”

I swallowed again.

Here went nothing.

“You didn’t tell me you knew Rip,” I said.

The lattice cutter dropped out of his hand, hitting the floor with a goose bump-inducing metallic clang.

Chapter 40

“You mean Rip Lawrence? Who says I knew him?”

Ian leaned on his back heels defensively, making no motion to pick up the lattice cutter off the floor.

“It doesn’t matter where I heard it from,” I said. “You knew Rip and you had an argument with him the day he was murdered.”

He looked around suddenly, as if he was afraid somebody had heard what I had just said.

“Mrs. Brightman, I don’t know who told you that, but they’ve got other motives,” he said. “I have
no idea
what you’re talking about.”

Tobias had a troubled past, but there was one thing I knew: he wasn’t any liar. If he saw Rip and Ian arguing, then they were arguing. No question about it. And with Ian being so distinct-looking, odds were against a case of mistaken identity.

Besides, some people were bad liars. Ian was one of them. I could hear the fib in his voice easy enough.

“Ian, the only reason I haven’t gone to Daniel about this is because I think you deserve a chance to explain yourself,” I said, trying to put some iron in my tone to let him know I wasn’t backing down. “For the life of me, I can’t fathom how you even knew Rip, let alone why you’d be arguing with him about money.”

His eyes widened at the mention of money, and I was now convinced that he was lying.

But he kept up the charade.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Honestly. I didn’t even know who Rip Lawrence was until he was found dead at the brewery. That’s the honest truth, Mrs.—”

“
Ian
,” I said.

I looked hard at him, meeting his dark eyes with a solid, unflinching stare. It stopped him talking and he tried to give me a hard stare of his own, but it was no match.

He winced and lowered his head.

The game was up. And he knew it.

“Just tell me,” I said. “I won’t judge you.”

“I’m ashamed,” he said after a few moments of silence. “That’s the only word I can think of. Just complete
shame
.”

His voice had lost its ridged edge, and he sounded much younger than his 19 years.

He looked up at the ceiling.

“I came here to get away from trouble. But there’s something in me that just won’t stop. Something that just… seeks it out. I try, but I can’t control it, Mrs. Brightman. And I finally saw how wrong I was, and I tried to fix things, but it’s all just rolling back on me. Like a feckin’ boulder.”

His voice was on the verge of panic.

“I never meant to hurt anybody,” he said. “I never did. But I know that I’ve done something really horrible. I—”

Just then, the front door of the pie shop let out its little jingle, alerting us that somebody had stepped inside.

Of all the timing.

Tiana was supposed to turn the sign around to ‘Closed.’ But either she hadn’t, or whoever had just walked in couldn’t read.

I looked back at Ian.

“Don’t go anywhere,” I said. “I want to hear everything.”

He nodded, his face darkening. I walked quickly past him and through the swinging doors to the front.

“I’m sorry, but we’re clos—”

I looked up to see several Christmas River police officers standing around the dining room.

“Cinnamon Brightman?”

I swallowed hard.

“Yes,” I said in a raspy, fearful whisper.

“Is an Ian Watters here on the premises?”

“What, uh, … what’s this about?”

“Is he
here
?”

I was knee deep in quicksand with no hope of breaking free.

“I’ll say it again, Mrs. Brightman
. Is Ian Watters here
?”

“What—”

“Yes,” a voice said from behind. “Yes, he’s
here
.”

I turned around.

Ian stood in the doorway. Looking guiltier than a dog who had just nabbed a steak off the grill.

Ian gazed back at me with remorseful eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Brightman.”

Chapter 41

“I was the one who said he ought to come here this summer to get away from Glasgow,” she said, her Scottish accent thicker with panic. “This is all my fault. I was the one who told his
mudder
I’d watch out for him here and make sure he didn’t get into any more trouble. And now look. Just look what’s happened. My grandson is being questioned by American police in a murder investigation!”

I glanced up at Aileen in the rearview mirror. She sat looking rattled in the backseat of the Escape, clutching onto a balled-up Kleenex like her life depended on it. Next to her, Warren was doing his husbandly duties, consoling his new bride the best that he could.  

“Now, darlin,’ I’m sure that it’s just a formality,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “They’re talking to everybody who was there when Rip was shot, isn’t that right, Cin?”

I let out a grunt in agreement, but didn’t meet his eyes in the rearview mirror.

All I had told Warren and Aileen was that Ian had been taken in for questioning by the police. I hadn’t mentioned what Tobias told me, or what Ian was about to tell me before the Christmas River Police Department came storming through my pie shop door looking for him.  

I didn’t mention that Ian had done something.

Something… “
horrible
.”

I knew that some people used that word facetiously, but I wasn’t one of them.

And I had a feeling Ian wasn’t one of them either.

The thought made my stomach turn.

I just couldn’t believe it. Ian… killing Rip Lawrence? What kind of motive would he have? Why would he kill a man he hardly knew?

Additionally, where would Ian have even gotten a gun from?

So much of it didn’t make sense.

Yet what I couldn’t debate or argue with was the look in Ian’s eyes as he admitted to his wrong-doing.

It was a look of unmistakable guilt, sorrow and regret.

Shame
, as he’d called it.

“Aileen?” I said, looking up into the mirror. “You just said that you told Ian’s mother that you wouldn’t let him get into any more trouble. What did you mean by
more
?” 

She chewed on her upper lip and looked out the window at the passing trees.

“It’s not important,” she said.

“No, Cinny’s right,” Warren said, studying his wife. “What does that mean?”