Death of a Dapper Snowman (5 page)

I shuddered at the thought.

“But it wasn’t violent,” she said. “We’ll know more once he’s defrosted, but there were no signs of a struggle inside the house, and no obvious marks or defensive wounds.”

“Was he strangled in his sleep?”

“Maybe. If he was married or had a girlfriend, I’d be interviewing her right now and not you.”

“No girlfriend. That figures. He was such a cranky loner, even fifteen years ago.”

“That matches what I’ve been hearing. There won’t be many people to canvas.”

“Do you have any suspects?” I fidgeted in my chair as I remembered the morning’s events. “The mail carrier seemed anxious. He was part of the reason I took off the way I did.”

“I’ll note that on your statement.” She smirked, then made a funny noise, like she was trying to suppress something.

“What?”

She raised her eyebrows and waved her hand. “It’s just that the mail carrier suggested you as a prime suspect.”

“Good grief.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s just what my reputation in this town needs.”

“True. So, was there anything unusual about the snowman?”

I pulled out my phone and showed her the photo I’d taken with it. “See how the face is a bit crooked? That’s a bit unusual, don’t you think?”

“Hmm.” She frowned at the image. “What’s unusual is how good it looks. Like a professional snowman-builder made it.”

“If such a thing existed, we’d have the case cracked wide open,” I joked.

She consulted some notes, then asked, “Did you see any other footprints in the snow when you approached the crime scene?”

I tried to remember what I saw, but I couldn’t recall much. “I don’t remember seeing any, but I was focused on chasing the cat.”

“How much force did you have to apply to break apart the head?”

I held out my hands to help me visualize it. “A fair amount. The snowman was constructed to be secure, I think. I actually had to karate chop the neck to loosen it. Pretty hard.”

“One chop?”

“Multiple chops.”

“Right hand?”

“Yes. I’m right-handed.”

“Amateur karate chop or professional?”

“I took some martial arts classes when I was a kid, but I’m no black belt.”

“Did the snowman have any scent?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did it have one of those corn cob pipes? Or a pipe of any kind?”

We consulted the photo again. “No.”

She kept going, asking what seemed to be the exact same questions, but worded differently. I had to admire her repetitive technique, which had two potential benefits: jogging the memory of a witness, and providing the opportunity for a suspect to slip up and contradict herself.

As time went on, and the questions kept repeating, the horror of the situation gradually gave way to boredom.

Finally, when we were done, I said, “I feel like a sponge that’s been squeezed dry. Is that it for questions?”

Officer Peggy Wiggles studied me with narrowed eyes. “One more question, if you don’t mind. Who cuts your hair? Is it Rose?”

I patted the back of my newly-short hair. “Yes! Is she your hairdresser, too?”

“Yes. She talked me into this pixie cut. My mother hates it.” Peggy rolled her eyes.

“Does she say you’ll never catch a man with short hair?”

“How’d you guess? You must be a detective.”

I laughed. “Only in my spare time.”

She looked around, then leaned in to say softly, “Well, if you hear of any leads in this case, call me. Any time. We’ve had another round of budget cuts, and between me, Tony, and the lady who volunteers to answer the phones so she can get the first scoop on town gossip, you’re looking at the entire homicide investigation crew.”

“I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”

She thanked me and walked me out of the room. As we walked through the station, I looked around for Tony, but he wasn’t in sight.

We got to the front door, where she thanked me and gave me one of her cards. I stepped outside into the fresh winter air, happy to be out of there, my civic duty done for the day.

My car was several blocks away, at the vet’s clinic, but at least the snow clouds had cleared away and it was a balmy day, perfect for a walk through town.

I started walking, letting the crisp air clear my head.

A neighbor was dead, and a killer was loose in Misty Falls. If the mailman actually suggested I was the killer, rather than someone believable, that ruled him out as my prime suspect. With no wife or girlfriend, and no children going after his will or insurance money, that cut out the obvious leads. Because I’d grown up next door, I knew Mr. Michaels was a cranky loner who didn’t pay or receive many social calls.

Therefore, because there were zero people on the list of obvious suspects, that meant the killer could be anyone. The entire town of Misty Falls was populated with suspects.

As I walked past a costume rental store, my eye was caught by their elaborate window display. It was an outdoor scene, with fake snow and a winter scene. A female mannequin in formal wear held a snowman’s head in her hands. I felt my gag reflex trigger at the scene, which wasn’t meant to be gruesome. I wondered if the store owner would change the display once the news of Mr. Michaels’ chilly demise spread throughout town.

I leaned in to take a closer look at the display snowman, which was made of carved white foam. He appeared to be wearing the exact same top hat I’d posed in earlier that day. I pulled out my phone and checked the picture, since the actual top hat was currently in my car. It appeared to be the same hat.

I stepped back from the window and took a few steps toward the costume rental shop’s front door. I had my first suspect. My pulse quickened at the idea of going in and asking questions.

The top hat was a pretty good clue.

Mr. Michaels had become my father’s neighbor years ago, before I’d turned ten. I didn’t know him well, but he wasn’t the kind of festive guy who’d splash out on high-end seasonal decorations. He didn’t even hand out candy on Halloween. One year, he put out a stack of old paperback Westerns and a sign telling kids to help themselves. Nobody did.

So, if Mr. Michaels didn’t buy a fancy top hat for a holiday display, that meant the killer did. I stared at the glass front door, my feet not yet convinced to get moving. What if the owner of the costume shop was the killer? I couldn’t walk in there unarmed.

Sure, I’d accidentally removed the top hat from the crime scene, so I felt some responsibility for that piece of evidence, but to what end?

As I stood there debating my next move, a woman and her two teenage daughters excused themselves as they walked past me and into the shop.

There was my opportunity. With them as a safety buffer, I followed the trio in and started looking around the costume shop, pretending to be browsing.

Chapter 7
 

I poked around
the dimly-lit, cramped interior of the costume rental store.

“Can I help you with anything?” asked the tall man working behind the counter.

“Just browsing!” I ducked shyly behind a display carousel of sequined costume ball masks. I picked out a glittering purple mask with green feathers and brought it up to the counter.

“You’re not browsing,” the man said.

“I’m not?” My heart started pounding so hard, I could feel my pulse throbbing in my throat. The man was so tall, with long fingers, perfect for strangling.

He reached out with one long arm, and I stepped back with a gasp. His eyes narrowed behind his frameless square glasses, making his long, thin face look more gaunt. He must have picked up on my apprehension because he quickly softened his expression with a polite smile.

I tried to return the smile as I nervously took another half step back, clutching the mask to my chest.

“You can hang onto that if you like,” he said. “I know the code for those masks by heart.” He tapped away at a computer keyboard as he hummed a little tune. “Still snowing out there?”

I swallowed down my paranoia and set the purple costume ball mask on the counter between us. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the woman with her teen daughters sort through a rack of ballerina costumes.

“The snow’s let up,” I said with forced cheerfulness. “It’s a balmy day out there. Perfect for building a snowman.”

“A snowman?”

My mouth got sticky, but I pressed on. “I was just outside admiring your window display. Do you arrange that yourself, or is there someone you hire to put together everything?”

“You should know all about that, Miss Day.”

My mouth went completely dry. I glanced over and watched as the woman gathered her daughters and left the store, leaving me alone with Mr. Strangling Hands, who knew my name.

I let out a squeak.

He pulled off his eyeglasses and started cleaning them with a kerchief.

“Pam does my window displays these days,” he said. “She’s a crafty woman, that Pam. She’s still with your father, isn’t she?”

“Oh. Yes.” I remembered that Pam had been hounding me to let her do the displays for the gift shop window. I’d insisted on doing it myself. Pam did nice enough work, but her taste had always seemed a bit off, to me. She couldn’t tell the difference between things that were so ugly they were cute, like certain breeds of dogs, and things that were just ugly, like garishly floral bath robes.

The main continued, “In fact, Pam was by here earlier this morning to say hello and chat about this and that.” He tilted his head to the side and gave me an appreciative look, which felt flattering but not lecherous. “If you ask me, your new haircut is charming. It really suits your nice features, Stormy.”

“Thank you.” I patted the back of my head and fluffed up the top as I tried to recover from the shock that everyone in town knew all about my business, and I barely remembered who they all were. Maybe I was a big city hotshot after all, and I’d never fit in again.

As I looked at his thin, yet friendly face, a name floated up. “Mr. Jenkins,” I said. “You did the costumes for the school band. I remember you now. Let’s see… that must have been fifteen years ago, right?”

He nodded down to show me the top of his head. “That was back when I had hair up here.” When he straightened up again, his eyes were twinkling. All at once, the time that had passed folded up like an accordion, and didn’t seem so long after all. He still had that same twinkle.

“Mr. Jenkins, I remember how funny and charming you were at the high school. Everyone on the marching band loved you, and I think a few of the girls had crushes on you.”

“They loved my thick, luscious hair.”

“I don’t know,” I said with a grin. “It was pretty sparse up there, even back then.”

He clutched his hands to his chest and stepped back, pretending to be shot, but still laughing.

I quickly added, “Not that anyone would ever see the top of your head, anyway. Don’t worry, you’ve got plenty left where it counts.”

He finished cleaning his glasses, put them back on, and rang up my purchase with a smile on his face.

“How are things at the gift shop? I got a postcard from the former owner. She’s enjoying her world tour by cruise ship.”

“I bet she is,” I grumbled. The woman got the deal of a lifetime when she suckered me for twice what the shop was worth.

Mr. Jenkins gave me a curious look, like he was eager for me to spill some town gossip about what a liar the former gift shop owner was. As much as I wanted to tell him how she’d cooked the books and buried expenses to make the store seem more profitable, I knew to bite my tongue. People already had plenty to talk about when it came to me.

Mr. Jenkins tucked my purchase into a bag, then pointed one long thumb in the direction of a cork board on the back wall behind the counter.

“There’s the postcard she sent me,” he said. “Alaska.”

The store’s lighting was a little brighter near the counter, but I still had to lean in to get a good look. The cork board contained dozens of postcards, business cards, and photos of smiling customers in costumes and formal wear.

My eyes went past the photo of icebergs and straight to a row of photographs rigidly arranged in the lower right corner. The pictures looked like mug shots. The one on the far right was a picture of the deceased, Mr. Michaels. It was taken when he was in his non-frozen state, but he still had a similar stunned expression.

I pointed to the row of pictures and said, “What event are these photos from?”

Mr. Jenkins quickly shifted down a calendar so that it covered the row of photos. “I’m afraid that’s not for customers to see.”

“But I’m not just a customer. I’m a local business owner. That’s your Wall of Dishonor, isn’t it? Shoplifters?”

He lifted the calendar back up to let me have a look.

“Yes, I’m sorry to say that’s exactly what it is. Keep an eye on these ones if they start spending a suspicious amount of time inside your store.”

“That woman with the platinum hair… she drives a pretty nice car, I think. What’s she doing shoplifting?” I pointed to the woman, but I was really interested in getting a good look at Mr. Michaels. Yes, the picture was definitely of him.

“Some of them must do it for the thrill,” Mr. Jenkins said. “This one’s husband always pays for what she takes. I suppose I could let her come and go, but lately she hasn’t even been trying to hide what she’s doing. I can’t let people carry on like that without punishment. It’s the principle of the thing.”