Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen (6 page)

Alan and I headed for the door. “Hold up!” Vicky called.
She ran to the counter and stuffed blueberry muffins and cinnamon buns into small white paper bags. The bags showed the Victoria's Bake Shoppe logo of two mischievous gingerbread children peeking around a stylized Christmas tree. “These are no good a day old.” The smile she gave us was genuine. Vicky never stayed down for long. I gave her a spontaneous hug. We left her whistling to herself and reaching for a long apron.

“Thanks for that,” I said to Alan as we stood on the steps, gripping our bags of cinnamon and sugary goodness. “You knew exactly what to say to her.”

“I didn't say anything I didn't mean. People die all the time, unfortunately, no need for the town to get into a panic.”

I decided not to mention the puddle of vomit next to Nigel. Hopefully the autopsy would reveal that he'd died of natural causes and that would be the end of that.

We began to walk toward Mrs. Claus's Treasures. The street was full of cars and pedestrians. Shoppers browsed the gaily decorated windows and strolled in and out of shops. Most of them came out, I was pleased to see, carrying shopping bags. I saw more than a few with the logo of Mrs. Claus's Treasures. The air was cold but the sun was warm and people had untied scarves, discarded gloves, and thrown open coats.

“Jackie told me where I could find you,” Alan said.

Outside The Elves' Lunch Box a waiter was setting up a sandwich board advertising the day's specials. Fish tacos might not be traditional North Pole fare, but they did sound pretty good. “You were at the shop?”

“I dropped off a box of those necklaces you ordered.”
As well as toys, Alan crafted bowls, vases, and jewelry out of wood. I particularly loved his necklaces, as did my customers. He strung twelve to twenty-four highly polished wooden disks on a chain, each piece of wood getting progressively larger as the chain descended.

“Great. They've been very popular and we're almost sold out. Is there a problem? You could have left them with Jackie. You know I pay on time.”

“I know. I guess . . . well, I . . .”

I yelped as a tiny ball of indignation leapt out of Rudolph's Gift Nook. “Merry Wilkinson, I should have known you'd have something to do with this.” Betty Thatcher glared at me.

She then glared at Alan. “Shouldn't you be in your
workshop
, young man? Crafting exclusive
handmade
custom decorations?”

If Betty didn't like me for selling artisan things, she liked Alan even less for making them. He never seemed to mind. “Thanks for reminding me, Mrs. Thatcher, ma'am. Only twenty-three shopping days until Christmas. That's a pretty sweater. It sure captures the mood of the season.”

“Why, thank you,” she said, softening a fraction. She wore a red fleece sweatshirt (only $29.99!) decorated with a picture of Rudolph (the deer, not the town), his flashing nose powered by a battery concealed on Betty's person.

“Talk to you later, Merry,” Alan said. He walked away in his slow, lazy fashion.

He'd been about to say something to me when we'd been so rudely interrupted.

I glared at Betty, and decided to make my escape as well. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough. She plucked at
my arm. If a pack of well-dressed and obviously highly competitive shoppers hadn't passed us at that very moment, I might have attempted to shake her off. But her grip would have made a professional wrestler proud, and I didn't want to be observed knocking an apparently (appearances can be deceiving) frail woman to the ground.

“What's this I hear about that nice Mr. Pearce being found dead in the park?” Betty demanded.

“So they say.”

“They also say you found him. How do you explain that?”

“I don't have to explain that. But I will. I was walking my dog. My dog found him.”

Her lip curled up. “That comes as no surprise to me. I've always said they're filthy, disgusting beasts, dogs. Attracted by no end of rubbish.”

Whether said rubbish was intended to mean a dead body or me, I didn't know.

“I couldn't help but notice,” Betty went on, “that you were spending a lot of time with Mr. Pearce at the reception last night, Merry.”

“I . . .”

“Almost smothering him with your demands for attention, it seemed to me. The poor man didn't get much of a chance to talk to anyone else. Not between you and that mother of yours.” She gave me a supercilious smirk, waiting for me to respond.

“Have it your way, Betty,” I said, walking away.

“I intend to tell the police that, when they come calling,” she shouted after me.

Inside Mrs. Claus's Treasures a line was forming at the counter. Jackie rang up sales and handled money in her usual efficient fashion, but it didn't take more than a quick glance for me to know that she'd heard the news. I rushed to discard my outerwear and replace her at the cash register.

“Take a break,” I whispered to her.

“Is it true what Mrs. Thatcher's saying?” she whispered back. “About Nigel?”

“I'm afraid so. Although she's adding a healthy dose of malice to a story that's sad enough as it is.”

“Excuse me, but do you have any more of those glass vases? I bought one for myself yesterday, but I've decided they'd make lovely gifts.”

“We might be all out, but I can check in the back,” Jackie said. The door opened and more shoppers streamed in.

“I'll be okay until Crystal gets here,” Jackie said to me, referring to my other assistant, scheduled to come in at noon.

We were so busy for the rest of the day that I scarcely had a moment to think about Nigel Pearce. Or to wonder what Alan had been about to say to me when Betty Thatcher had pounced. I overheard a few people talking about Nigel, but they seemed to think he'd either passed out drunk and then froze, or had suffered a heart attack. Crystal arrived, and Jackie went for her lunch break. She came back with red eyes, smeared mascara, and a swollen nose. She hadn't known Nigel well enough to be mourning him, but she was an emotional person. Not to mention that she would have realized that she wouldn't have her picture in
World Journey
magazine after all.

It was a long, hectic, trying, but very profitable day. Jackie, Crystal, and I were constantly on the hop as eager shoppers browsed and bought. Whenever my face began to ache from all the smiling I was doing, I just had to hear the merry sound of the cash register ringing up another sale to feel better. A light snow began to fall around four o'clock as the lights came on, laying a fresh layer of pure Christmas magic over Jingle Bell Lane.

I'd placed Alan's wooden train sets on a prominent table, and they were soon snapped up. When I got enough of a break to check the window, most of the jewelry on display had been sold. “Please tell me you have more merchandise,” I said to Crystal. “I never thought it would be so popular.”

With a grin, she tucked a strand of silky black hair behind her ear. “I might be able to find some. I'll have Mom bring it over.”

“Thanks. You're a gem.” I meant that literally. Crystal was an incredibly talented small-metal artist and, although she was a senior in high school, she supplied many of the jewelry pieces I sold at Mrs. Claus's Treasures. She'd been accepted at the prestigious School of Visual Arts in New York for next fall, and I'd miss her terribly. As would my mom. Along with her other talents, Crystal had a beautiful singing voice and was Mom's star pupil. She was busy enough with her music, her classes, and her jewelry workshop, but she worked in Mrs. Claus's Treasures during the busiest times to make money to help with college.

She slipped into the back room to place the call to her mom for more stock, and I went to politely, yet firmly, remove
a handblown glass ornament from the clumsy fingers of a five-year-old.

“Do you like the pretty thing, sweetie?” the boy's mother gushed. “It will look wonderful on the children's tree. We'll take the box, miss.”

“You spoil that boy,” an older man said to her. “In my day we made ornaments out of popcorn, tinsel, and seed packets.” I couldn't help but notice that his arms were full of stuffed toys.

“And,” the woman said to me, “they walked twenty miles to school. Uphill. Both ways.”

As they left the shop, laden with parcels, the boy began demanding, in a piercing voice, ice cream.

Crystal came out of the back room. “Mom'll bring some things around later. She said that newspaper guy from England died last night. That's awful. I was talking to him at the reception. What do you think happened, Merry?”

Before I could answer, Jackie caught wind of our conversation and hurried over. “It's such a shock. He was going to photograph me today. I can't believe it. My big break gone. I mean . . . poor man.”

“He didn't look at all healthy,” I said, repeating Alan's suggested line. “Thin and pale.”

“English people all look like that,” said Jackie, who had never been out of New York State.

“Colin Firth doesn't,” Crystal pointed out.

“Who?” said Jackie.

“We do have customers,” I reminded my staff.

At one minute to six, I was flipping the sign on the door to “Closed” when it almost hit me in the face. Kyle Lambert
strode in, head and shoulders flaked with snow. He was a big guy who hadn't quite learned to control his arms and legs. Thinking of the proverbial bull in the china shop, I snatched up two wineglasses painted with delicate lines to represent red and green colored lights and clutched them to my chest.

“Ready, babe?” he said to Jackie.

“I'll be just a minute.” A few customers lingered, and Jackie was on the till.

He turned to me with a smile. “Hope your boss lady pays overtime.”

I held open the door. “Jackie will be out when she's finished.”

“I'll wait,” he said.

I wasn't about to make a scene, so I flipped the lock without another word.

Kyle wandered through the shop, looking not at all impressed by my display of merchandise. I let the last of the customers out. Crystal went to get her bag. Kyle spent a lot of time studying the jewelry display. He picked up a pair of earrings, delicate silver filigrees in the shape of snowmen. He held them up. “Do you like these, babe?”

“Sure do,” Jackie said. “Aren't they beautiful?”

“I'll take them. You deserve something special.”

She preened.

Then he caught sight of the price tag. “Forty bucks!” His face fell.

“They're handmade. Merry will ring them up while I powder my nose.” Jackie gave Kyle a hearty kiss on the lips and skipped off to the back.

“You don't have to buy them if they're too much,” I said to him.

“I can afford it,” he said, almost choking on the words.

“You seem in a cheerful mood today, Kyle.”

“Guess I am, at that.” He opened his wallet and carefully selected the exact amount. “Too bad about that magazine guy, eh?”

“What about him?”

“I hear he kicked the bucket. How sad.” Kyle made a wiping-away-tears gesture. Then he grinned. I knew his family. They were hard-working, well-meaning people, who had four boys and not a lot of money. Certainly nothing extra for luxuries such as dentistry. Kyle worked for a lawn maintenance company over the summer. In the winter he plowed driveways and made extra money helping out at hotels and restaurants over the busy Christmas season.

“What do you know about that?” I asked, handing him the earrings, which I'd wrapped in tissue paper and slipped into a small bag.

“Me? Nothing at all. Except good riddance.”

“Ready!” Jackie called. She'd freshened her makeup and combed her hair. “I'm absolutely starving. You have no idea what a slave driver that Merry is. I hope you're taking me someplace nice for dinner, Kyle.”

He handed her the shopping bag. “Sure am, babe.”

I unlocked the door for them. Jackie threw me a self-satisfied smirk as she left. Sometimes I didn't like her very much. None of my business, though. Kyle was a big boy.

Kyle wasn't exactly mourning Nigel Pearce. I was thinking that the death of the Englishman had turned out rather well for Kyle, when Crystal came out of the back. “I can stay for a while, help you unwrap and arrange the new stuff, if you like.”

“I'm sure you have more than enough to do at home. I can manage.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. Good night. Did you remember that we have Midnight Madness Friday and Saturday?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Sorry,” I said. “Forgot who I was talking to for a minute there.”

“See you Thursday, Merry.”

I cleared some space on the main display table—which wasn't difficult as most of the stock there had been sold—and laid out the fresh supply of Crystal's beautiful jewelry. I was ticking off the enclosed packing slip against the items when someone rapped on the door.

I let in my dad. His white hair and beard were full of snow and he stamped more snow off his boots. “It's starting to come down hard out there,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Need a hand, honeybunch?”

“If you wouldn't mind, there are a couple of boxes in the storeroom that need to be unpacked.”

“I hear it was you who found that Pearce guy last night. You okay?”

“I'm fine, Dad. He hadn't been shot or stabbed or anything awful. He was just lying there. Like he'd gone to sleep. It was Mattie who found him, not me. Oh, gosh, Mattie! I forgot all about him. We were so busy this afternoon.” An image of Vicky's scolding index finger wagging in my face popped into my head. “I'll have to go home now, and then come back and finish up.”

“A few more minutes on his own won't hurt none. I'll
help you with this stuff. You could always ask your mother to walk the dog when you don't have the time.”