Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings. Liz Ireland

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СКАЧАТЬ have to keep the button,” Constable Crinkles told Nick apologetically. He lowered his voice. “It wouldn’t be good if word of this got out. The Hollyberrys are already clamoring for me to call in an outside investigator.”

      “Maybe you should,” Nick said.

      Crinkles looked from Nick’s face to mine, then shook his head. “We’ll see.”

      Nick bade him a good day and steered me toward his sleigh. The head of the reindeer team watched us approach. I was still terrible at guessing which herd the animals came from.

      “It’s true, then?” the reindeer asked. “About Charlie?”

      “Yes,” Nick said. “He’s gone. Killed, most likely.”

      The animal hung his head low. “Strange times.”

      “Yes.”

      “And a Cupid won the race today,” the reindeer added. The others nodded as if that were as strange a portent as two homicides in one day.

      I stepped onto the sleigh and covered myself in a lap robe. This was probably another side of my outsiderness to locals. She’s always cold! I could hear them saying.

      We rode half a mile with only the muffled clop of hooves against packed snow to break the silence. Finally, Nick spoke. “Go ahead, April. Say what’s on your mind.”

      “Who says I have anything on my mind?”

      He shot me an amused look. “You usually do.”

      I wondered if this was a time to bring up Therese’s sneak attack in We Three Beans and her strange reference to my last marriage. On second thought, never seemed the best time to bring that up, so I focused on more recent events. “If you must know, I don’t appreciate being shut down like you did back there.”

      “When?”

      “ ‘Let’s let the constable and his deputy do their work,’ ” I said, doing a fair impression of Nick. “As if I were butting in.”

      “Weren’t you?”

      “I was trying to help.”

      “They don’t need help. They’re the law.”

      “Are you kidding me? It’s like Barney Fife times two.”

      He stared at me, uncomprehending. “Who times two?”

      My husband hadn’t grown up watching The Andy Griffith Show reruns, or any other TV shows, except the few who made it on to North Pole television, which from what I could tell was mostly weather, Lawrence Welk reruns, and weather. Satellite dishes had changed things a little, but entertainment to Nick’s generation had been elf clogging recitals, the Elfmen’s Chorus, and umpteen Christmastown Little Theater productions of A Christmas Carol. Most pop culture—aside from a few toy tie-ins needed to do his work—was as much a mystery to him as things like proms and pep rallies. We came from two different worlds, and I had blithely eloped to Santaland thinking I could fit in, when even my name marked me as an outsider.

      But my name and fitting in were the least of my problems today. “Where did you go after dropping me off at rehearsal? ” I asked.

      He glanced over at me. “Why are you asking?”

      More interestingly, why wasn’t he answering? “In case Constable Crinkles ever asks me, I should know.”

      “In case I become a suspect, you mean.” His mouth turned down.

      “You’re already a suspect. That button . . .”

      “That button could have come from anywhere. It might have been stolen from one of the Santaland seamstresses who make our clothes, or it could have been a hand-me-down donated to the charity store in Tinkertown. Or it might simply have fallen off one of my coats somewhere else.”

      “And was planted at the scene of the murder.” The idea that someone had planted a clue to implicate him made me uneasy.

      It didn’t sit well with Nick, either. “Who would have done that?” he asked. “A Santa hater, in Santaland?”

      “The Hollyberrys didn’t seem very friendly toward Clauses.”

      “They’re grieving, April.”

      It was so frustrating. “Would you stop being understanding? I’m trying to think of things that could clear you.”

      He laughed. “You should wait till I’ve been accused to worry about that.”

      “By the time someone is accused, the minds of a lot of people are already made up.” Also, I couldn’t help noticing Nick was still avoiding telling me where he’d been. “So after you dropped me off . . .”

      “My brother’s grave,” he said, almost resentfully. “I went to be near Chris. I do that sometimes. And after this morning. . .”

      The reminder of his grief chastened me. What was wrong with me? Ever since Jingles woke us this morning, the craziest thoughts had been flitting through my mind. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been such a strange day.”

      “For everyone.” He looked straight ahead as he drove. “That’s why we need to keep our spirits up and present a calm, united front.”

      That was what Pamela had said.

      “United against what?” I asked.

      “Against suspicions, gossip, and hysteria. Those things can sweep through Christmastown quicker than a blue norther. You don’t know this place like I do.”

      “I wasn’t trying to fuel hysteria. I was just trying to find out what happened.”

      “That’s not your job.”

      Right again. “Maybe that’s the problem. I don’t have a job.”

      Shocked, he turned toward me. “You’re Mrs. Claus.”

      The words almost made me laugh—the way he said it made it sound as if being the wife of Santa Claus was as responsible a position as that of the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. “I’m a Mrs. Claus. Your mother runs Castle Kringle. And Tiffany . . . well, she’s also Mrs. Claus, and everyone respects her as Chris’s widow.” Or at least they stayed out of her way. “Meanwhile, I wander around in an overcarbohydrated funk and play the triangle.”

      “You do more than that.”

      Sure. I had an Excel file of musical acts I kept up with. I was like a one-person talent agency. Although there was a lot of busywork involved, being Musical Events chairwoman didn’t feel as fulfilling to me as running the Coast Inn. “I know, but it’s not . . .”

      I couldn’t bring myself to finish. I was used to running a business, handling staff, juggling accounts, barely getting everything done by the end of the day. I sometimes forgot how wearying that had been. How I’d wake up at three in the morning worrying about what would happen if I stopped getting enough guests, or if I got too many at once and had turn them away. I worried СКАЧАТЬ