Trouble Under the Tree (A Nina Quinn Mystery) (12 page)

Sure enough, there was someone in that
doorway. Someone who had been in Santa’s Cottage the whole
time?

“Do you know who it is?” Maria asked.

“Hard to tell,” Kevin said.

I let out a breath. “I know who it is.”

“Who?” Kevin asked.

“It’s Jenny Christmas.”

“How do you know?” Maria asked. “The tape
isn’t very clear.”

My stomach turned at the thought of what
Jenny must have seen. I looked between Maria and Kevin, and said,
“Because she told me.”

Chapter Twelve

I explained to them how Jenny told me she’d
been in Santa’s Cottage when the sprinklers went off—firing Santa,
aka Drunk Dave.

“She obviously lied about the timeline,”
Maria said.

The lights on my Christmas tree cast a
colorful glow on the walls. A fire crackled in the fireplace, and
the scent of vanilla hung in the air, thanks to a few lit candles.
It was all so cozy, yet I felt a chill. A chill that seeped into my
soul.

“Where do you stand in Lele’s murder case?” I
asked Kevin.

Kevin removed the disk from my computer. “I
spent most of yesterday trying to get background on Lele.
Unfortunately, Fairlane wasn’t talking, and I didn’t have much else
to go on. I ran a simple background check on both of them, and I
didn’t find anything.”

“Nothing?” Maria asked. “Not even a parking
ticket?”

“
Anything
,” Kevin said. “Neither have
a history. You know what that means, right?”

My eyes widened. “Aliases?”

He nodded. “I called over to the county
coroner and asked him to take fingerprints from Lele and fax them
to me.”

Maria shuddered. “That’s gross.”

Again, I agreed with her. What was the world
coming to?

“I ran the fingerprints through the system,”
Kevin said. “I just got the results. Turns out Lele was Leigh Ann
Walters, and Fairlane is Elaine Walters. The two sisters have rap
sheets three pages long. Theft, fraud, forgery, embezzlement,
bribery, blackmail. They’re con artists who specialize in going
after rich men and taking them for all they’re worth.”

“Both of them?” I could see Fairlane...but
Lele? Sweet, shy Lele?

“Apparently, Lele was the mastermind, while
Fairlane did the dirty work,” Kevin said.

Wow. I leaned back against the sofa cushions.
Just wow. “So, they were at Christmastowne just to get their hands
on Benny?”

Kevin nodded. “Seems so. The toy donation
thefts were probably secondary. Too good to pass up.”

“Why Benny?” I asked.

Kevin said, “They probably saw that
documentary on him and heard about the huge settlement he won
against Carrie Hodges’s insurance company. He got millions.”

Millions of which he sank into
Christmastowne. But maybe the McCorkle sisters didn’t know
that.

“Well,” Maria said, examining a fingernail,
“we know that Fairlane blackmailed Benny to get her job back.
Perhaps Lele blackmailed him, too, without her sister knowing?
Looking for a big payout for herself? She had to have known
Fairlane was sleeping with him.”

It kind of made sense. “She had talked about
sordid things going on at Christmastowne to Mr. Cabrera,” I said.
“Why would she have done that? It implicated her sister.”

“Does Mr. Cabrera have money?” Kevin
asked.

I nodded. “Not that he shows it.”

Kevin lifted his brows. “She might have been
targeting him, trying to get on his good side, playing with his
sympathies.”

“Playing with fire,” I said. “She had to have
heard about the curse.”

“Maybe she didn’t believe it.”

“She’d dead, isn’t she?”

Kevin smiled. “Hey, you don’t have to
convince me. I’ve seen that curse firsthand.”

Me, too. I shuddered.

Maria leaned forward. “Maybe Benny didn’t
want to pay Lele’s price and killed her because of it! He totally
looks like a killer.”

Maria wasn’t going to let this go. “A minute
ago you called him a hottie,” I said.

“I clearly lost my mind for a second
there.”

I could buy that. It happened a lot with
Maria.

“He deserves to be in prison,” she added.

I ignored her. Seemed to me that Benny had
paid the price for drinking that night. He’d almost died, too, and
had also lost a career.

Kevin said, “Blackmail is a strong motive.
Benny wouldn’t want Jenny to know about his affairs.”

Kevin would have firsthand knowledge about
that. Since he’d cheated on me...

Forgiveness
, I told myself.

But dammit, forgiveness was hard. Even after
he’d almost paid the price for his indiscretion with his life.
Thankfully, for Riley’s sake, the bullet Kevin had been hit with
hadn’t been fatal.

Okay, and for my sake, too.

As mad as I had been at him, I didn’t want to
see him dead.

Maimed a little, but not dead.

“Whether it was Fairlane or Lele, or both,
who was blackmailing him,” Kevin said, “the question remains if
this murder is a case of mistaken identity.”

Aha! He had been listening to me, after
all.

Kevin went on. “Fairlane, whether she
realized it or not, was a big risk for Benny, especially after she
blackmailed him to get her job back. He might have realized she was
a loose cannon and thought killing her would be the best way to
shut her up. He could have thought he was killing Fairlane Saturday
morning, but killed Lele by mistake.” He explained to Maria about
how Fairlane had been fired and how Lele took her place as Mrs.
Claus.

I added to this theory. “When I saw Benny
before the tree-lighting, he was shocked to hear that Jenny fired
Fairlane. He had no idea. So he could have easily thought Lele was
Fairlane—especially if he snuck up behind her.”

We sat in silence for a minute, letting it
all sink in. Finally, I said, “But it seems like Jenny has motive,
too. She’s gung-ho on seeing Christmastowne thrive. If she knew
Fairlane or Lele was blackmailing her husband, she might have
killed to keep the news from leaking out. Part of Christmastowne’s
appeal is Benny’s tie to it. It’s his name, his career, his
accident, his recovery that will bring people in. The All-American
Hero, remember? Would they still come if they knew he was a serial
adulterer? I don’t think Jenny would want to take that risk.”

And I knew right at that instant Jenny had
probably known about Benny’s affairs all along. She turned a blind
eye to get what she wanted—a successful business. It made me
realize that I hardly knew her at all.

Maria nodded. “I could see that.”

Kevin leaned back on the cushions and rubbed
his temples.

I said, “I still don’t know how either would
have been able to move the body, though, without anyone
seeing.”

Kevin said, “Many witnesses place Santa
dragging a large, lumpy velvet sack around Christmastowne that
morning, but no one can say for sure if it was Drunk Dave in the
Santa costume. I’ve already sent the sack to the lab for testing.
And,” he added, “those enormous presents were placed under the tree
just before Lele’s body was discovered. It would have been simple
enough for someone to put Lele under a box and wheel it to the
tree. It wouldn’t have aroused suspicion.”

“Has anyone admitted to putting the exact box
Lele was found beneath under the tree?”

“Several people unloaded boxes, but no one
said they saw anything suspicious. I suspect that whoever put Lele
under the box did so after the box was already under the tree.”

I sighed, remembering the chaos of that
morning. “I suppose we can’t rule out that Fairlane may have killed
her sister, too. Maybe she got sick of splitting their proceeds? Or
of sharing the Mrs. Claus limelight. Remember how she didn’t seem
too happy that people always liked Lele never got fired? Have you
questioned Fairlane formally yet?”

Kevin said, “She lawyered up right away,
probably figuring the truth of her identity would come out. I have
an appointment to speak to her—and her lawyer—tomorrow at the
station.”

“At least Fairlane doesn’t seem eager to
leave town,” Maria said, trying to lure Gracie out from under the
table. The dog wasn’t budging. “Not if she wanted her job back at
Christmastowne and is having Mr. Cabrera and Ry take her Christmas
things down from the garage attic.”

Kevin looked around. “What? Ry’s not
upstairs?”

“He’s helping Mr. Cabrera over at
Fairlane’s.”

Kevin jumped up. “I don’t think that’s a good
idea. She could be a killer.”

My stomach sank.

“Way to go, Nina,” Maria said, then
yelped.

I might have “accidentally” kicked her. “I
didn’t know!”

“I’ll go get him,” Kevin said. “Maybe ask
Fairlane some questions while I’m there.”

“Officially or unofficially?” I asked.

“Officially unofficial.”

I stood up, too. “Well, I’m coming
along.”

He looked about to argue, but gave a quick
nod instead.

“Don’t worry about me,” Maria said. “I’ll
stay here, all alone. By myself.”

“Oh, all right, you can come, too,” I said as
I put on my coat.

She jumped up with a
squee
. “Don’t
forget to wear your new scarf!”

Maria brought it to me, and wrapped it around
my neck. And wrapped. And wrapped.

Kevin grinned evilly. “Did you make that
yourself, Maria?”

She nodded. “Do you like it?”

He adjusted the fabric so it covered my
mouth. “It’s perfect for Nina.
Ow
!”

I might have “accidentally” kicked him,
too.

As we trooped outside, I saw that Riley had
uncovered the snow globe and plugged it in. Inflated, its top was
covered in snow, but Snoopy and Woodstock were aglow.

Maria wrinkled her nose. “Really, Nina?”

“It was a gift, but I love it.”

“A gift from whom?”

“Mom.”

Maria stumbled in the snow. Kevin grabbed her
arm. “You’re kidding,” she said.

“Nope.” As Kevin trudged ahead of us, I
explained what was going on at our mother’s house.

Maria, instead of finding it amusing like me,
said, “That’s disturbing. Who would do such a thing?”

Who, indeed?

I’d ruled out Ana. And Maria, too—her outrage
was genuine. Who else knew my mother’s eccentricities so well? Only
someone close to her would understand how these pranks would get
under her skin.

I wasn’t sure who, but I had an idea how to
find out, thanks to Nancy Davidson. I was going to get myself one
of those motion cameras and hook it up at my parents’ house... But
when I discovered the identity of the prankster, I wasn’t sure
whether I should turn him in or buy him a drink.

Another snow burst was moving through, and by
the time we reached Fairlane’s garage, another inch had fallen.
Inside the garage, we found Riley standing at the bottom of a
ladder leading to an attic access in the ceiling.

There was only one box with “XMAS” marked on
it at his feet. “Only one box?” I asked. “You’ve been over here
almost an hour.”

“Well,” Riley said, dragging the word out.
“First, we waited and waited for Fairlane, but if she’s home, she’s
ignoring us. The garage was open, though, so Mr. Cabrera finally
decided we should get started without her.”

“I can’t hear you, boy!” Mr. Cabrera said. He
stuck his head into the attic opening. “Oh! You weren’t talkin’ to
me. HO, HO, HO, hello!” he exclaimed.

“Better,” Maria said, encouragingly.

He disappeared again.

Riley said, “Second, Mr. Cabrera lost his
footing almost fell through the rafters, but he insists he be the
one to bring the boxes down. He’s a stubborn old man.”

Yes, yes he was.

Kevin said, “I’ll go help him.”

“So, Fairlane’s not around?” I asked as Kevin
headed up the ladder.

I might have admired his backside. Just a
little. Sue me.

“She’s probably visiting around the
neighborhood,” Riley said. “Her car’s here.”

It was parked in the driveway, covered in
snow. I looked across the street, at Mrs. Greeble’s empty
house—she’d moved to a retirement home a few weeks ago and the
house was now up for sale. My gaze skipped to Flash Leonard’s home.
Maybe Fairlane was there, trying to con him out of his life
savings. I was going to have to warn everyone about her.

Maria snooped around the garage. She turned
the handle on the door connected to the house and it swung
open.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Looking for evidence,” she said.

“Maria Ceceri Biederman, close that door
right now.”

“Evidence of what?” Riley held the ladder
steady as his dad heaved himself into the attic.

“Long story,” I said.

Above us, a cry rang out. Then a loud
bone-jarring crash.

Kevin yelled out, “Call 911! Mr. Cabrera’s
fallen through the ceiling.”

Riley whipped out his cell phone, while Kevin
jumped through the attic opening, ignoring the ladder. He ran to
the door to the house and whipped it open.

Maria said, “Oh, so it’s okay for him to go
in?”

I ignored her and followed Kevin inside.
Riley and Maria followed me. The house was neat as a pin and
sparsely furnished.

“Mr. Cabrera!” Kevin called.

“In here.” The loud shout came from a room at
the end of a long hallway.

Kevin turned the knob on the door, and we
each bumped into each other as he stopped short.

My eyes widened as I took in the
room—completely covered in piles and piles of toys and
merchandise—undoubtedly all stolen. It was a shoplifter’s
paradise.

Mr. Cabrera said softly, “Please don’t tell
me she’s dead.”

Kevin rushed inside as I said, “Dead? Who’s
dead?”

“Stay back,” Kevin warned us as he knelt next
to Mr. Cabrera. “Don’t move,” he told him. “An ambulance is on its
way.”

“Dead?” Maria echoed, crowding the doorway,
trying to see into the room. “Who’s dead? Not Mr. Cabrera!”