Candy Cane Murder Read online

  “I might run out to the mall. I want to question Cory again.”

  “Why? You said he couldn’t have done it.”

  “I need to find out the name of Melinda’s gardener.”

  “Okay. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Take your new cell phone with you and don’t forget to turn it on. Doc Knight will probably have to get back to me, and I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

  “Thanks, Norman,” Hannah said, hanging up the phone and turning to the cat, who couldn’t be less interested. “I have to know if Melinda or Cory requested that particular plant, or if either of them knew it was poisonous. I’ll think of some excuse to ask Cory for the gardener’s name.”

  Moishe looked up at his mistress and gave a yowl that was midway between, Figure something out, lady with no fur, and, If you’re leaving, don’t forget to give me more food. Hannah recognized the look, and gave him more food. She was about to go out the door when the phone rang again.

  “So soon?” she said, assuming it was Norman with Doc Knight’s answer.

  “So soon what?”

  It was Mike’s voice. Hannah did an abrupt turn-around and apologized as she did so. “Sorry, Mike. I thought you were someone else.”

  “I was me the last time I checked.”

  “Of course you were. So what’s up?”

  “There isn’t any.”

  “There isn’t any what?”

  “Hole. There’s no hole, Hannah. I called the crime lab and they checked it for me. No hole.”

  It all came back in the rush. She’d asked Mike to check the Santa suit Wayne was wearing for the hole in the pocket. But there wasn’t a hole. And that meant that Andrea had been right about her Hansel and Gretel analogy. The miniature candy canes had been dropped deliberately. Had Wayne known that he was in danger and dropped candy canes to lead someone to the scene of his murder?

  Hannah reined in her imagination. No, that was simply too far-fetched. But what if the killer had murdered Wayne and then dropped the candy canes deliberately so that the body would be found?

  “Are you okay, Hannah?”

  “I’m fine,” Hannah pulled herself together enough to answer normally.

  “Anything new on your end?”

  “Not really. It’s all speculation.”

  “Okay, then. Let me know if you get anything.”

  “I will.”

  Hannah felt a bit guilty as she hung up the phone, but she told herself that there was no reason to tell Mike about the poisonous plant that Norman had discovered growing in Melinda’s orangery. She’d tell him if Doc Knight confirmed that Wayne’s liver was enlarged, but not before. In the meantime, she had to hurry if she wanted to get out to the mall before it closed for the night.

  Chapter Twelve

  The mall was closing. Hannah could tell by the long string of cars coming toward her as she approached the entrance. One frustrated Christmas shopper was beeping his horn, as if the sound might make the dozens of cars in front of him go faster.

  Hannah turned in at the outside entrance to Bergstrom’s Department Store. There was no one behind her and the parking lot that flanked the Christmas tree lot at the side of the store was deserted. Hannah pulled right up in the loading zone next to the lot and jumped out of her truck to rush toward the door. She ran past a sign saying that they were expecting a fresh shipment of Douglas fir trees tonight, past another that listed the prices per foot, and around the corner of the building to the entrance. The bright lights were off and there was only dim lighting inside the store, but she hoped she could catch an employee leaving late who would call Cory and ask him to come down from the penthouse and talk with her.

  The door was locked, but she could see someone moving inside. Hannah hammered on the door with gloved fists until she got his attention and he moved toward her. The lights were dim, but as he drew closer she realized that he was in a Santa suit.

  “I’m Hannah Swensen and I need to see Cory,” she shouted, hoping he could hear her through the heavy glass door. “It’s really important.”

  “Hold on,” the man dressed as Santa shouted back. Then he unlocked the door and ushered her in.

  “Is Cory still here?” Hannah asked him.

  “He’s here.”

  The Santa gave a chuckle and pulled off his hat, white wig, and beard. It was Cory! Hannah was so startled, her mouth dropped open.

  “I didn’t recognize you in that costume,” she said, feeling a bit embarrassed. “I guess you must have been playing Santa tonight.”

  “That’s right. The guy I hired to replace Wayne called in sick.”

  “Well, you make a great Santa,” Hannah complimented him, and then she got down to business. “I came out here to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “Ask away.” Cory said.

  “The first thing I need is the name of Melinda’s gardener.”

  “Why do you need that?”

  Hannah was all ready with her excuse. She’d devised it on her drive out to the mall. “I told Mother about Melinda’s beautiful solarium and one of her friends wants to hire her gardener to do something similar on a smaller scale for her.”

  “Okay. It’s Curtis something-or-other. I can’t think of his last name right now, but he comes tomorrow and I’ll get his card for you.”

  “There’s one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m having trouble with the timeline on the night that Wayne was killed. I saw him leave the inn the back way, wearing his Santa suit. And that’s the last time I saw him alive. I found his body later in the evening.”

  “Right. What’s troubling about that?”

  “Cyril Murphy was out in front of the inn, working on Florence Evans’s car. He didn’t see Wayne walk past and Wayne had to walk past him to get to the path where I found him.”

  “That’s easy to explain. Come with me for a second. I need to turn off more lights.” Hannah walked into the interior of the store with Cory as he continued to talk. “Wayne wouldn’t have said anything to Cyril. For one thing, they were on the outs because of the limousine thing. And for another thing, Wayne had laryngitis. If Cyril didn’t see him, Wayne probably hurried on by and figured that was a good thing.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought, at first. But when I went out to the inn tonight, I talked to one of Sally’s guests and her room has a perfect view of the side of the building and the path to the parking lot. She was in her room when Wayne left the stage. She heard the applause he got. That’s when she started watching for him to pass by her window. But he never did.”

  “She must have looked away for a minute or two and missed him. I watched him walk around the corner and then I dashed back in. It was cold out there! And I know he didn’t come back inside for any reason. I was standing right there waiting for you, and I would have seen him down at the end of the hall.”

  “I’m sure you would have.” Hannah gave a quick nod. “It’s not like he could blend with the party crowd. That Santa suit would stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “You’re absolutely right. Do you mind if I take this off, Hannah? These things are really heavy.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Hannah watched while Cory took off the top part of his Santa suit. He was wearing a regular shirt under it and that gave her an idea. “Think about this, Cory,” she said. “What if Wayne was wearing regular clothes under his Santa suit? Then he could have taken off the suit, hidden it somewhere, and slipped back inside. Would you have seen him if he’d done that?”

  Cory began to frown. “I’m not sure. Maybe not.”

  “Was Wayne in the habit of wearing regular clothes under his Santa suit?”

  Cory’s frown deepened. “I don’t know. Let me call Melinda and I’ll find out.”

  As Cory disappeared around the corner, Hannah came close to laughing. He looked ridiculous in big red Santa pants with white fur cuffs, topped by a regular shirt. It reminded her a bit of a centaur, the top half of a
man rising from the back half of a horse. If he’d greeted her that way at the door, she would have recognized him immediately. But it was almost impossible to tell who was inside a Santa suit. Unless you recognized the voice, of course.

  It was one of those frightening moments of clarity when the pieces of the puzzle flew together from every direction. They locked into place with a series of lightning fast clicks, sounding like a million tiny firecrackers that illuminated the dim and confused picture in her mind. Cory killed Wayne. He’d rolled Wayne’s body behind the snow bank, planted the candy canes so someone would discover him, and then, while everyone was waiting for Wayne to appear as Santa, he’d put on another Santa suit, perhaps even the one he was wearing tonight, and appeared in Sally’s kitchen as Santa Wayne with laryngitis. It was the reason he’d seemed a bit confused when Sally had handed him the receipt from Mayor Bascomb. Santa Wayne would have known what it was, but Santa Cory didn’t.

  Immediately after the party, Santa Cory had stepped outside the back door, ditched his Santa suit, and stepped back in, dressed for the party.

  He used me as his alibi and I fell for it! Hannah thought, gritting her teeth. Norman’s gut is right. Cory is probably in it with Melinda. And at almost the same time she had another thought that had her moving at top speed toward the door. He knows I know and he’s going to kill me!

  A third thought, one in bright neon capital letters for emphasis, flashed across the screen in her mind. RUN, it said. RUN FAST!

  Hannah ran faster than she’d ever run in her life, and she arrived at the heavy glass door, breathless. Locked. It was locked and Cory had the keys. There had to be another way out!

  Another thought flashed through Hannah’s mind. They expect another shipment of trees and I parked in the loading zone. The moment it occurred to her, Hannah rushed toward the annex.

  The annex was a large enclosure with three cinderblock walls. The fourth wall was the back wall of the store. In the summer, this area was used as a garden center and shade cloth was attached to form a temporary roof. In December, a sliding roof was attached. It was capable of being opened when the weather permitted, and closed at night when the store was locked. Right now it was locked and a single rope of white twinkle lights were strung across the ceiling to provide a bit of light. Tall space heaters, the type used in patio restaurants, sat every few feet to provide warmth. Now they were cold and dead, the way Hannah would be if she didn’t get out the delivery door and into her truck before Cory caught her.

  Dozens of frozen trees were stacked by the far wall, far away from the nearest space heater. They were still in their protective netting and they looked like cone-shaped green carrots. Employees would take them into the thawing and flocking tent, a large area draped with heavy construction plastic that held in the heat from several space heaters. The trees would thaw and their branches would loosen so that prospective buyers could see their real shapes.

  The delivery door was right in front of her. Hannah grabbed the handle to jerk it open, but the corrugated metal door didn’t budge. It was locked. The stacked trees she’d seen must have been the Douglas firs and they’d been delivered already.

  Hannah eyed the wall. It was at least twelve feet high. Even if she could somehow manage to climb it, the sliding roof was closed. There was no escape there. Her only chance of surviving was to hide and hope that Cory hadn’t seen her dash into the annex. He couldn’t search the whole store. It would be impossible. She might be able to elude him until time for the store to open in the morning.

  Attempting to think positive thoughts was difficult. It was cold in the annex and although she was dressed for winter, a parka wouldn’t protect her all night. If Rayne Phillips on KCOW television was right, and Andrea had reported it accurately, it was going to be a bitterly cold night.

  The warmest place in the annex would be the thawing and flocking tent. Hannah lifted the flap, dashed into the tent, and gave a huge sigh of relief. The large area was filled with thawed trees and their branches would hide her from view. And it was at least twenty degrees warmer than it had been in the main part of the annex.

  Hannah chose a spot in the very center of the group of trees waiting to be flocked because those had the fullest branches. The tree in front of her bore a tag saying that it had been purchased by Doug Greerson for the lobby of the Lake Eden First Mercantile Bank. The word “white” was written under Doug’s name and Hannah knew that he always ordered a tree flocked in white, and Lydia Gradin, his head teller, trimmed it with blue lights and decorations.

  At least there was no snow on the ground. Hannah shifted from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. She judged it to be several degrees above freezing in the warming tent, but the frozen ground beneath her feet seemed to send up cold waves through the soles of her boots, and she shivered. It would help if she could move closer to the space heater, but the trees surrounding it were just starting to thaw and their branches weren’t full enough to hide her.

  Hannah glanced at the tree on her left. It was for Bertie Sraub, the owner of Lake Eden’s beauty parlor, the Cut ’n Curl. Naturally Bertie’s tree would be pink. Two cans of pink flocking sat on the ground under her tree, caps already loosened, all ready to be used in the morning. The former owner of the Cut ’n Curl had decorated the shop with pink flamingoes. While Bertie wasn’t as wild about the huge birds as the former owner had been, she did like pink and she’d left the walls and the shades that color.

  Hannah’s heart leapt into her throat as she heard heels clicking against tile. Someone was coming! The door to the annex opened, letting in a bright burst of light, and Cory stood there in silhouette.

  “I know you’re here, Hannah. I saw you run in the door.”

  Hannah’s heart raced, thumping so loudly she was almost afraid he’d hear it. Cory knew she was here! But perhaps he was just faking, hoping that she’d panic and give away her position.

  “Guess the cat’s got your tongue, but that’s fine. We can do this the hard way. I haven’t played Hide ’n Seek since I was a kid. You can change hiding places if you like. I’ll be right back.”

  The door closed, cutting off the bright light. Hannah wasn’t sure whether Cory had left, or not. It didn’t really matter. She had chosen the optimal spot and she wasn’t going to move unless she had to.

  A weapon. Hannah glanced around in the dim light and cursed neat employees. There was nothing useful on the ground, no carelessly dropped screwdrivers, hammers, or metal Christmas tree stands. Except for the two cans of pink flocking under Bertie’s tree, the area was as spotless as an army barracks right before an inspection.

  Hannah moved quickly, flipping off the caps and shaking the cans of flocking. She didn’t have much in her arsenal, but she planned to use what she had. If she could hide here until Cory lifted the flap and came into the tent, she could hit him in the face with…

  There was an explosion of lights and sound that made Hannah’s senses reel. Cory had turned on the bright lights and music. Santa’s Winter Wonderland tree lot was in full swing. Through Hannah’s slightly blurred perspective behind the plastic sheeting, the red and green Christmas train chugged its way around the perimeter of the area, the colored lights on the huge Christmas trees in the corners flashed on and off, and the loudspeakers blared the strains of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” sung by a chorus of penguins with red and green stocking caps next to the cash register.

  For one long moment, Hannah just stood there, too shocked to do more than blink. And then she saw Cory coming straight toward the thawing and flocking tent with an ax in his hand, and her survival instinct kicked in. When in doubt, attack. It was one of her father’s favorite phrases. She’d always thought it was original with him until she’d heard it in an old movie. But it seemed appropriate now, and Hannah wasted no time thinking about it. She just waited until Cory lifted the flap and stepped inside, and then she hurtled forward and blazed away with double-barreled spray cans, covering his face with pink flocking before he co
uld even raise his arms.

  Cory screamed as the spray hit his eyes. He clawed at her but a blind, pink-flocked adversary was not that difficult to elude. Hannah stepped to the side, sprayed him again, and he dropped the ax. Hannah grabbed it and tossed it into the stand of trees behind her.

  He was trying to wipe his eyes and Hannah knew it would be only a matter of time before he recovered enough to strike out at her. She had to render him immobile while he was still reeling from pain and shock.

  The netting machine. The moment that Hannah remembered the machine she’d seen right outside the entrance to the tent, she grabbed his arm and pushed him through the opening. Another spray in the eyes and another shove with her hand, and he fell onto the chute where trees were placed for netting so that they could be carried home on the roofs of cars. Two more sprays for good measure and she turned on the machine. With a grinding of gears caused by a burden that was twice as heavy as usual, Cory was carried forward to be wrapped with several layers of netting that rendered him immobile and covered him with bright yellow plastic mesh from head to toe.

  There was a phone on a pole decorated like a candy cane with red and white stripes. Hannah dialed nine, the usual code to get an outside line, and was rewarded by a dial tone. Nine-one-one seemed unnecessary. Cory was trussed up like a mummy, and there was no way he could get free. Instead of dialing the police, Hannah called Norman.

  “Hi, Hannah!” Norman sounded glad to hear from her. “I tried calling you a couple of minutes ago, but your cell phone was off.”

  “It’s recharging,” Hannah said, crossing her fingers at the little white lie she’d just told, and hoping he wouldn’t be too upset with her if he ever discovered that she had it in her purse, but it was turned off and she’d forgotten it was there. “Did you hear from Doc Knight?”

  “He called me back about five minutes ago. I was way off base, Hannah. He checked and Wayne’s liver was fine.”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure Melinda would have tried to poison him if she’d known that her plant was poisonous. But it doesn’t matter now. I’ve got the killer. It’s Cory.”