“Columbo thinks there must have been something incriminating on the other garments—like DNA. Nancy Drew says there’s probably DNA on the skirt, too, but we won’t know for weeks.”
That didn’t really answer my question, unless the killer didn’t want anyone to see Red Velvet Cake on the jacket. I wouldn’t know about it if Daisy hadn’t torn off a piece.
“Oh, oh! I have to go. They’re checking
our
trash now.”
“Wait, Mom! Did you happen to see Tom Thorpe last night?”
She chuckled. “The whole neighborhood gathered on the street in front of the Chadwick house. I know for a fact that he was there. We all had a good laugh.”
I felt like I was out of the loop. “What happened?”
“After dark, someone stole the pink and teal Christmas decorations from the community center, set them on Ginger’s lawn, and plugged them in. It was absolutely hilarious!”
I bet Ginger didn’t think so.
Mom hung up as Hannah opened the back door of my car and shoved three bags of Chinese food inside. “How much do you think pregnant women eat?” I asked as she climbed into the front seat.
“The rest is for us. I’m starved! Thanks for buying.”
Were all sisters like this?
I put the car in gear and merged into traffic. A few turns and we rolled down the alley behind Forrest’s bakery. “Which building do you think it is?”
“I’d bet it’s the one with a sheet covering the window on the second floor.”
I suspected she was right.
We clambered out of the car and Hannah grabbed one of the bags of Chinese food. “Now what?”
I looked for a bell. “There must be some way to announce deliveries to the back of the shop.”
Hannah spotted it first and pressed the button. We heard a buzzer inside. On a hunch, I stepped back and looked up at the window with the sheet in it. Sure enough, a finger coaxed it aside. “Emma!” I hissed. “We brought food!”
For the longest time, nothing happened.
“We could buzz again,” suggested Hannah.
At that moment, the door opened a crack. Emma glanced around nervously. “Is anyone else with you?”
Hannah didn’t waste time. She pushed the door open, saying, “I hope you like lo mein.”
“Hurry!” Emma motioned me inside.
We found ourselves in a dated multipurpose area with pegboards and benches lining the walls, presumably for employee coats. A lonely white apron hung on a peg, carefully draped to display the name “Big Daddy’s Bakery” and a Red Velvet Cupcake made of shiny bugle beads and sequins. Beneath it, not quite tucked away under the bench, stood a pair of men’s boots. Rugged, they’d seen better days. As we walked past them, a tiny glimmer caught my eye. I didn’t dare bend to examine them, but I gave them a little nudge with my foot to see better. A blotch of turquoise glitter gleamed on the toe.
The area opened onto a commercial restaurant kitchen. Stainless steel dominated the room, along with workhorse ovens and stoves.
“How did you know we were here?” asked Emma.
A male voice came from above somewhere. “They didn’t know about me until now, you goose.”
Emma peeked inside the bag of takeout. “We’re getting a little crabby from being cooped up. Come on upstairs. This was so nice of you!”
We followed her up narrow stairs and could hear footsteps above us heading for the third floor. The second floor didn’t offer much in the way of creature comforts. A bean bag and a couple of wicker chairs provided the only seating. A television rested on a box.
“So, how
did
you know we’re here?” repeated Emma. “Do the cops know?”
“We saw your dad picking up coffee.” I wandered toward the front window. The hardwood floors gleamed. It would be a nice room once it was furnished.
“Stay away from the windows, please!” The panic in Emma’s voice ripped through me. I hadn’t realized how taxing it must be for them to hide out in plain sight.
“Where’s the van?” I asked.
Whispering, Emma said, “In the alley. Dasher went out last night and switched license plates.”
“You’re an idiot, Emma!” The angry voice came from above. “Why not tell them everything?”
I bit my lip to keep from reacting. Did he think if we didn’t see him, we couldn’t report his presence to the police?
She forced a smile. “Could I offer you something?” She looked around. “Dad made these Red Velvet Cupcakes. They’re my favorite, and from the way I’ve been craving them, I think they’re the baby’s favorites, too. He made a small batch in a hurry while Mom was out. She doesn’t like him using the kitchen.”
We looked at the three cupcakes sitting on a paper plate, and I hated to eat them when she obviously loved them so much.
As though she read our minds, Emma said, “Oh, but you have to try one! He made them with organic ingredients and no red dyes, because of the pregnancy and all.”
“I’d love to have a husband who baked.” Hannah took one and split it with me.
“Me, too,” whispered Emma. “I think it makes Mom feel inferior because he’s so good at baking. They came out great, don’t you think?”
“Delicious,” I assured her. “Will he offer these in the bakery?”
Her face fell. “How could you know about that? My mom and Edward don’t even know. Mom thinks he’s still going to work every day. Please don’t tell her. She’d turn in Dasher in a heartbeat. And me, too, probably.”
I smiled reassuringly, but I had a bad feeling her mom wasn’t her only problem anymore. Dasher hadn’t said one nice thing to her since our arrival. Had she subconsciously selected a mate who treated her as poorly as her mother did? “Who’d have thought the music box you gave your mom would cause so much trouble?”
“She never should have bought it. We could have lived a week on what she paid for that thing.” Dasher’s voice came from the stairwell loud and clear.
Emma dropped into a wicker chair, her expression weary. “He doesn’t know what it’s like to have a mother. All he had was Bonnie. I thought Mom would cherish the music box, and love me for it. Dad told me her colors this year were red and gold, and I wrapped it so beautifully.”
Emma knew her mother’s color scheme? I tried not to show a reaction to her statement, even though it troubled me. If Emma had wrapped the gift correctly in red and gold, but it was wrapped in red and green when Ginger received it, then she had almost certainly been the intended victim. The murderer must have unwrapped it, installed the gas, and then wrapped it back up again. What other reason could there be to rewrap it?
She glanced at the stairs before whispering, “The truly awful thing is that I know I should feel terrible about Bonnie’s death, but the thing that hurts the most is that Mom regifted the music box. It was like she was getting rid of me by giving it to someone else.”
Tears came to my eyes and I was furious with Ginger for being so heartless. No wonder someone wanted to do away with her.
Striving to sound casual so she wouldn’t know I was trying to reconstruct what happened, I said, “Edward told me you sent your gifts ahead of time?”
Emma spoke in a soft voice. “We didn’t think we’d have the money to come for Christmas ...”
“We would have if you hadn’t spent so much on your mother!” No matter how softly Emma spoke, Dasher didn’t miss a word.
“... so we wrapped everything up and Dasher took it all to the post office to pack in one of those flat-rate boxes. A good thing since the music box weighed so much. I was afraid Mom might intercept the box and throw everything out if we sent it to my parents, so we shipped it to Tom and put in a note asking him to give my family’s gifts to my dad.”
Interesting. Dasher, Tyler, Tom, Edward, and Forrest all had access to the gifts and could have tampered with the music box intended for Ginger. But whoever did it had made a huge error that narrowed the field of contenders.
I listened to Hannah chat with Emma for a few minutes so it wouldn’t be too obvious that I was itching to leave, then suggested we’d better get going before someone recognized my car and wondered what I was doing there.
When we were safely in the hybrid and headed home, I spilled my theories to Hannah. “The killer didn’t know about Ginger’s Christmas package color scheme. That eliminates Forrest and Edward. They would have known for sure.”
“Are you going to call Kenner?”
I guessed I would have to. Why wasn’t Wolf home yet? Kenner would think I wanted a date for New Year’s Eve tonight. I hated to reveal Emma’s whereabouts, but I couldn’t see any way around that—unless we managed to give Emma a heads-up and get her out of there. Of course, once they had the killer, the police wouldn’t care about Emma.
“It could still be Ginger, you know.”
“I don’t think so. If I can believe Edward, and Ginger came home to rewrap the music box and give it to Natasha that night, then she didn’t really have much time to set up the poison inside. Plus Ginger would have been smart enough to ditch the Mrs. Claus outfit in its entirety in the river. No, Hannah, I think the killer tripped himself up by using the wrong wrapping paper.”
“The music box!” cried Hannah. “Tom said Dasher isn’t adept with his hands. Whoever installed the poison in the music box had to be clever and very good at tinkering with things.”
“I wonder if it’s true that Dasher isn’t good with his hands. He and Emma make a living selling their artwork.”
“There are all kinds of art. He might be a great photographer, for instance, and completely inept at sculpting wood or making poison music boxes.”
I stopped for a light and looked over at my sister. “Or Tom could have said that about his youngest son to throw us off his trail.”
THIRTY-THREE
From
“Ask Natasha”
:
Dear Natasha,
My husband is on the verge of leaving me because of my shoes! I adore shoes, but they’re all over the floor of our walk-in closet. I can’t get rid of them. Help!
—Aching in Tar Heel, North Carolina
Dear Aching,
Buy an old dresser with deep drawers. Paint or stencil it to match your decor. Divide the drawers into shoe-size sections with narrow planks of cedar. Your shoes will have a lovely dust-free home and they won’t be underfoot anymore.
—Natasha
“Dasher tampered with the music box figuring he had an alibi because they were out of town!” exclaimed Hannah. “Sounds like something a worm like him would do.”
“Seems like Emma would have told him about her mother’s gift wrap rules, though. I think we’ve narrowed it to Tom and Tyler.” I pulled into a parking space near my house.
“Tyler!” exclaimed Hannah. “Sophie, we’re supposed to be looking for Tyler and Shawna.”
I rubbed my eyes. In my excitement at narrowing the suspects, I’d completely forgotten about Shawna. “We’re already home. Maybe we should make sure they didn’t come back?”
We plodded along the sidewalk and were almost at my house when we heard doors slam and angry shouts.
It wasn’t hard to find Laci and Shawna screaming at each other on the sidewalk.
“Mom and Dad paid a lot of cash to get you out of jail. I’m not letting them lose it!”
Shawna spat back, “Oh, right. Did it ever occur to you that I might need a few things from the drugstore—like makeup and a toothbrush? It’s not as though Tyler drove me out of state. You had no business dragging me out of the store. Like it wasn’t humiliating enough to go to jail? My own sister has to hunt me down and embarrass me in public, too? And then to make me ride back with you and George like a child!”
“You couldn’t have told me where you were going? Would that really have been too much to expect of you?”
George slid a hand over his face, dragging his features down like a Dali painting. “Could we at least take this inside?”
George tried to steer Laci along the sidewalk. Hannah and I brought up the rear, walking behind Tyler and Shawna. They all came to an abrupt and silent halt at my front door. I unlocked it and watched as they filed inside, thinking about how I could get Tyler to confess.
Daisy greeted everyone with doggy glee, wagging her tail so hard it went in a circle.
How could Natasha not adore her?
I opened the door to the den and the kittens scampered through the foyer, but Mochie bore down on them at rocket speed and all three cats scrambled toward the kitchen.
I snagged George’s sleeve. “I talked to Tom about the kittens, and he was okay with giving them to Jen. We might buy him a nice gift since they cost so much and he’s not charging us.”
George leaned to the side—I presumed to be sure Laci was in the kitchen and wouldn’t hear him. “This has been such a wonky holiday. Jen will be overjoyed. She deserves something special. I still can’t believe that Laci changed her mind about the kittens.”
“You can thank Jasper for getting lost and running to her in the dark of night.”
George peered into the kitchen again. “It’s going to be miserable hanging around here watching Shawna. So here’s my plan. I’m taking Laci, Shawna, and Tyler to the six o’clock movie. At least they won’t yell at each other in the movie theater. We should be back around eight thirty for your fondue dinner. Luckily Mom and Dad will be here tonight for dinner and the New Year’s Eve fireworks. More people will make it easier to keep track of Shawna so she can’t pull any more stunts. Want to come to the movie with us?”
George knew I had to fix everything for our New Year’s Eve dinner. Still, it was nice of him to ask. “I’ll hold down the fort. What are you going to do with Shawna the day after tomorrow, when we all have to go back to work?”
I saw terror in his eyes. “Mom and Dad will have to help out, I guess. I don’t think we can trust Marnie and Phil to keep Shawna in check.”
We ventured into the kitchen, where Laci and Shawna glared at each other, and Hannah unpacked Chinese food. She’d bought enough to feed an army.