Have Yourself a Merry Little Murder Read online

  “I did promise to come in to help.” She looked around at everything set up in the room for all these people stranded by the storm. “Looks like you’ve got everything running smoothly though.”

  “Thanks to some good people like Akers.” He gave the man a smile and took the extra linens from him. “Lots of donations from Clara Barstow, too. Thankfully the storm’s let up and the next band of snow isn’t set to hit us until tomorrow afternoon. Should give some folks a reprieve to take care of things. Shovel driveways and clear off their cars and such. Still don’t think anyone’s going to be able to leave town. Why don’t you check back with us tomorrow? I’m sure we’ll need more help then.”

  “I’ll be happy to. I’ll bring Izzy, too. I’m just hoping this break in the weather will allow a few planes to get up in the air.”

  “Oh? Expecting family?”

  “Yes, my mother and her new husband. Well, he’s not a ‘new’ husband anymore, I suppose, but I still tend to think of him that way. Yesterday they said they were delayed. Today… well, I haven’t heard from them today. I hope they’re all right.”

  “I understand. Family’s important. You and I both know the truth of that, right?”

  He smiled at Darcy. Neither of them had to explain what he meant. Darcy knew his family history, and how much he’d overcome to become the man he was today.

  “Well, we’ll come back tomorrow… um, but Jon has a question first.”

  “Oh? Ah, not just a social visit, then. No, no, that’s fine, Jon. In your business, you don’t keep normal office hours.”

  “Heh,” Akers chuckled. “He doesn’t serve slushies, either.”

  “But I am always working,” Jon said. From the inside jacket of his winter coat he took out the wallet Tiptoe had brought to them. He opened it up to show Phin the driver’s license photo. “Have you seen this woman here? At your shelter, I mean, here in the church?”

  “Let me see that,” Akers offered. “I know most of the people here. Their names, where they come from, where they’re going to…”

  Darcy had already scanned the faces of everyone here, at the tables and standing around, and hadn’t seen Lana Harris among them. That didn’t mean she hadn’t been here before.

  Pastor Phin looked at the license, holding it at an angle to keep the glare off the plastic sleeve, and then nodded. “Sure. Didn’t know her name until now, but sure. She came looking for shelter here. Poor woman, she hasn’t said hardly anything.”

  Jon’s face brightened. That was a break in the case, to be sure. Lana Harris was still alive! “Do you know where she is now?” he asked. “Did she say where she was going?”

  “Going? No, she didn’t go anywhere. She’s still here. Right over there.”

  He pointed over to the cots, to the person curled up under the blanket. It was the only person in the room whose face Darcy couldn’t see.

  “I don’t think she’s said two words since she got here,” Phin explained. “She showed up at my door with a purse and a thousand-yard-stare, like she’d seen something awful. Not even a jacket. I figured the storm had got her upset, so I showed her down here and gave her some warm soup. Ever since then, she’s been there, on that bed.”

  “Well,” Jon said, putting the wallet away again. “I guess we should go wake her up.”

  “Um, Jon?” Phin said, hesitation in his voice. “You’re not going to make a scene here, are you? These people are hiding it well, but they’re all worried. About their families, their jobs, how they’re going to get home. I’m trying to create a peaceful place here for them to rest until the roads can be cleared and they can get on their way again.”

  “I don’t plan on upsetting her,” Jon said, but he kept his face carefully neutral. If Lana Harris didn’t know what had happened to her family yet, the news Jon had to give her would be nothing but upsetting.

  But, if she already knew what had happened, and she was hiding here in Phin’s church until she could make her getaway, then this would be upsetting in a different way entirely.

  They both went and sat on the cot next to the one she was asleep on. Jon cleared his throat, and then after a moment he coughed more loudly. Lana didn’t stir.

  Under the cot, on the floor, Darcy saw the corner of a large tan handbag. She slid it out and set it down on her lap.

  Jon reached over and set a hand on Lana’s arm. He shook her gently and when he did, she jerked upright and spun her head left and right, her eyes wide and unfocused.

  “It’s okay,” Jon told her gently. “You’re still in the church. My name is Jon Tinker. I’m the chief of police in town. I need to talk to you. Lana? Can you answer me? We need to talk to you about… uh, about what happened.”

  She was looking at him, but her eyes were looking through him. They were pale brown eyes, probably very pretty when they weren’t so cloudy with pent up emotion. Her long brown hair fell over the shoulders of a blue sweater. Her face was angular, her lips puffy. Her long gold earrings swung against her neck as she continued to look around like she expected something to be coming for her. She was the spitting image of her driver’s license photo.

  In that face, Darcy could see the resemblance to her little boy, Joel.

  She unzipped the handbag and looked inside.

  Jon reached out to touch Lana gently on her wrist. “Lana. Do you remember how you got here? Do you remember what happened to your car? To your family?”

  She looked his way again, and this time her eyes cleared, and her gaze focused.

  Darcy stared inside the bag. Personal items. Makeup. Papers. And…

  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  “Jon?”

  He didn’t hear her. He was still talking to Lana. “Do you remember what happened? We found your car. We found… we found your family.”

  The woman’s lips moved. She was trying to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  “Lana,” he pressed. “I need to know what happened. Did you and your family come here together?”

  She nodded, slowly, while her lips kept trying to form words.

  “Jon,” Darcy tried to get his attention again.

  He held his hand out, asking her to wait.

  Darcy really didn’t think this could wait.

  “Lana, tell me,” he said. “Tell me what happened to your family.”

  “Uhhhhh,” Lana moaned.

  Darcy fidgeted on the cot. “Jon, you need to see—”

  “Uhhhhh,” Lana muttered.

  “Tell me what happened,” Jon asked her again. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

  “Jon.”

  “Uhhhhh.”

  “Tell me.”

  Darcy held the handbag out where Jon could see it this time. “Look at this!”

  He turned to her, and she could see he was about to tell her to wait, again, but then he stopped when he saw what she had been so frantically trying to show him.

  Inside the bag, nestled in with the other items, was a short metal bar with dark blood dried onto the metal. The blood had stained the inside of the bag and smeared several of the items inside.

  Lana saw it at the same time, and her eyes went wide.

  She jumped up from the cot. Her hands flew up to her chest, shaking violently, her fingers clenching and unclenching. She was about to run.

  Jon caught her wrists and held them tight as she began to struggle.

  “Lana Harris,” he told her, in his strong, deep voice. “You’re under arrest for murder.”

  Her whole body froze at those words. It was so sudden that Jon stumbled to keep his balance. Every eye in the room turned their way.

  Then Lana tossed her head back, and she screamed until she ran out of breath and passed out in Jon’s arms.

  Chapter 6

  “So much for not causing a spectacle.”

  All Jon could do was shrug at Darcy’s comment. They’d tried their best. Neither of them could have foreseen a reaction like that.

  They wer
e sitting in his office at the police station, finally warm again, finally dry, with cups of very foul-tasting coffee in their hands. Darcy didn’t care what it tasted like. It was warming her insides just like the building’s antiquated baseboard heating system was warming her outside.

  The police department was decorated for the holidays like everywhere else in town, but in a minimalist style. There was a wreath hung on the front door. A string of Christmas lights circled the service window at the front. Here in Jon’s office, the only nod to the season was a very sad looking plastic Christmas tree maybe twelve inches high, on top of the filing cabinets. Charlie Brown had a better tree than that one.

  Jon had his feet kicked up on the desk. “Phin already said he forgave me, under the circumstances. I didn’t expect her to scream like that.”

  “She’s obviously upset. What do you think it means?”

  He blew out a heavy breath through his nostrils. “I’d like to say I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that metal bar in her purse is the murder weapon. The way she reacted when she saw it… Some people might see that as a confession, of sorts. Especially if she isn’t willing to say otherwise.”

  “She’s scared, Jon. She’s overwrought.”

  “Sure. That’s one explanation. Another is that we found our murderer.”

  He looked tired, which made sense considering it was already close to midnight now and he’d been up early. It had taken them a little bit of time to get Lana Harris upstairs at the church, and more time to have one of Jon’s officers arrive with a snowmobile to transfer her to the station. Even more time for Jon and Darcy to catch up on their skis.

  When they had arrived at the police department, Lana had just barely woken up. She still wasn’t talkative. After half an hour of trying, Jon had Lana put in a holding cell, and told her to get some sleep. She curled up on the metal bench behind the bars and fell asleep almost immediately.

  “This doesn’t put us any closer to solving the mystery,” Darcy said, saying out loud what both of them were thinking.

  “No, it doesn’t. At this point I have to believe the prosecuting attorney is just going to have me process Lana on the murder charges, in the absence of any other evidence.”

  “Then I guess we’d better find some other evidence, right?”

  “Sure. Just like that.” He threw his hands in the air and let his feet drop back down to the floor. “Unless Lana Harris decides she wants to talk to us I won’t have any idea where to look for other evidence. Their car was stuck in the snow during a storm that kept everybody indoors. There wasn’t any other traffic because the roads were closed. No one was out walking their dogs. To tell you the truth I don’t know how Lana made it out of that car and out of that snowbank to Phin’s church. She must’ve dug her way out with her bare hands. No wonder she dropped her wallet.”

  “Hmm,” Darcy mused. “But you said there wasn’t anything wrong with the car? It didn’t hit anything in the road, didn’t break down?”

  “Nothing like that at all. We’ll have to send it to a garage to be checked out once we can actually get it off the road, but from what I saw there wasn’t any reason for them to be stopped there.” He leaned forward, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the desktop. “Maybe they ran into the snow. Maybe it’s just that simple. Brian Harris was stupid enough to keep going in that storm and plowed right into a snowbank and the car got stuck. Clog the tailpipe with anything, even snow, and the car stops running.”

  “Okay, but then… what?” Darcy asked. “They just sat there in the car, the three of them, until Lana killed her husband and her son?”

  “Maybe.” Jon certainly didn’t sound convinced by his own argument.

  Neither was Darcy. “Why? I mean, what’s her motive?”

  “That’s just one more question I can’t answer unless she starts talking. Maybe she has a severe case of claustrophobia. I don’t know. Maybe the husband said something stupid like husbands will sometimes.”

  “Not my husband,” Darcy told him sincerely. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d argued with each other. Not seriously. Maybe the issue of Colby getting a cellphone would break their streak once they finally found time to discuss it. Maybe, maybe not. They always seemed to work things out.

  “You and me are a special case,” Jon told her in response to her unspoken thoughts. “All of our friends think we’re freaks the way we love each other.”

  They shared a smile for a moment. Even in the middle of a murder mystery, they couldn’t help loving each other. Once, a long time ago, they had broken up and it had nearly crushed her. That was before they got married though, and before they started this wonderful life they had together. Now they were stronger than ever. Darcy Sweet and Jon Tinker. A love story for the ages.

  “So,” Jon said, drumming his fingers again. “Just the three of them stuck out there in the car. Snow all around. Snow up to the windows. Snow up to the roof. The car can’t go anywhere. Somehow, the father and the son end up dead. I tell you what, if Lana didn’t do this then we’re looking for someone who can walk on snow like some kind of Christmas miracle.”

  “Or someone who had a snowmobile,” Darcy suggested, “like you and your officers.”

  That idea made Jon frown. “Or someone with snowshoes like Pastor Phin.”

  “Right. Or skis, like me and Izzy.”

  “Well, sure, but I think you’re asking a lot to suggest someone skied out there just to kill two people and let one escape. That’s the sort of farfetched plot you get in one of those murder mystery movies on TV.”

  “I think we’ve seen stranger things than that over the years.”

  “That’s true. We have.”

  “I mean, maybe the killer was out skiing, no intention of killing anyone, but then he finds the Harris family in their car and something happens. He kills two of them, and skis away again. The falling snow covers up his tracks, and bam. It’s like he was never there.”

  “Someone was there. Someone killed those two. Lana needs to tell us what happened. Either that, or we need to find another witness.”

  Something about that snagged at Darcy’s memory. She couldn’t remember what, but the thought of someone on skis, finding the car in the snow, killing Mister Harris and then the son Joel, reminded her of something she’d seen not too long ago.

  She blinked and tried to concentrate. “So, if I understand you right,” she said to her husband, “the next thing we need to do is figure out why the Harris family was here in Misty Hollow. Either Lana’s the killer, or not. If she is, her motive might be tied up in why they came here. If she isn’t, then someone else killed her family and again, their motive might involve why they came to town. Is that what you’re saying?”

  He nodded. “Exactly. If we can find out who they were here to see, that person might be able to give us some information we’re missing. I’ve already had Grace call each of the Harris families in town. None of them were related to Brian Harris, or Lana or Joel either. So they weren’t coming in to town to visit relatives for Christmas. Friends, maybe.”

  Darcy sighed. It was just so frustrating. Until Lana started talking again, they wouldn’t have any way to find out who she and her family were coming to see. Unless…

  “Jon, did you look in the trunk of their car?”

  “The Harris’s car? Sure. Of course we looked in the trunk. There was just luggage back there. Clothes, toiletry items, and then a separate bag full of wrapped Christmas gifts.”

  That was just what Darcy expected him to say. “Because, when you come to visit people for Christmas, you bring gifts with you. Right?”

  “Yeah. People think it’s rude when you don’t.”

  “Well, do you know what Christmas presents have on them?”

  “Pretty bows and lots of tape?”

  “Yes, and one other thing,” she reminded him. “They have gift tags. With names on them.”

  Jon blinked at that, thinking it through. Then he reached over and picked up the
receiver from the phone on the desk. “Wilson? You’re still up at the front desk, right? Okay. Go to the evidence room and get a list of the names on the gift tags for those presents. Yes, the ones from the car. Yes. All of them. Bring it up to me when you’re done.”

  After a few more instructions he dropped the phone back in its cradle. “Well. That just might put us a step ahead in this case. I imagine the tags will only have a first name on them but if we put those names together, we’re sure to match them with a family in town.”

  “Yes. Between the two of us we know just about everyone in Misty Hollow.”

  Even the newcomers, she thought, and wondered why that came into her mind at that particular moment.

  Then she thought again about someone who was able to move around in the snowstorm, with skis…

  All the way down both ends of Main Street.

  Oh… that was… that couldn’t be right.

  But, maybe it was.

  She stood up, about to tell Jon that she had to go check on something. She wanted to be sure first.

  But when she opened her mouth all that came out was a loud yawn.

  It was the midnight hour, she reminded herself. Their kids were back home, tucked in bed while Izzy watched over them, and there was going to be lots of shoveling to do tomorrow now that the storm had let up for the time being. There was a lot of work to do.

  And a murder to solve.

  “I’m going home,” she told him. “I need a few hours in my bed. I would sleep a lot better with my husband next to me.”

  His smile was coy. “I’d like that, too. I’ve got some work to do here, but then I’ll be home. I’ll be sure to snuggle up close to you to get warm again after skiing home.”

  She definitely liked the sound of that. Coming around the desk, she gave him a long kiss. Something to tide him over until he slid that glorious body of his into the sheets next to her.