Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings. Liz Ireland
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Название: Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings
Автор: Liz Ireland
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика
isbn: 9781496726605
isbn:
“I have to get back to the castle. There are scads of Santa letters to get through in the next few days and a few problems in production. The Workshop’s been texting me all morning.”
“I guess I can come back later,” I said.
“I don’t want you driving into the Christmas tree forest by yourself. I’ll send someone to take care of Charlie.”
We continued in silence. Nick wasn’t usually this rigid. But I’d never seen him juggling so many responsibilities at the busiest time of the year. And now there was Giblet’s suspicious death....
“Strange how coal in a stocking means something negative,” I mused, watching Nick closely. “But a lump of coal can be vital to snowmen.”
Nick’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “What are you talking about?”
“Coal in a stocking.”
He shot me a sidewise glance, smiling a little as if he worried about my soundness of mind. “I’m not sure I get your drift.”
The bells on the reindeer harnesses were loud enough that I wasn’t too worried about being overheard, but I lowered my voice anyway. “Giblet’s death was an accident, wasn’t it?”
His face swung toward me, startled. “Why ask me?”
Because of words you wrote on a sheet of paper in your office. Had they been a prophecy, or a plan? Worried it was evidence, I’d burned the paper so no one would ever be able to use it against him. But I hesitated to explain what I’d done. It was hard to confess to your husband of just a few months that you worried he’d murdered an elf.
“How would you have described Giblet?” I asked.
He thought for a moment. “Irritating?”
“Are there other people in town who might have wanted to kill him?”
His eyes narrowed. “Other than who?”
Oops. “Well, his family think you did it.”
“They’re upset, naturally. Constable Crinkles doesn’t suspect me.”
“No.” In fact, he’d almost seemed to be on Nick’s side, just as Noggin Hollyberry had claimed. Of course, having Constable Crinkles as an ally probably wasn’t much better than having Constable Crinkles as your lead investigator.
“You can’t let all this get to you, April. We’re supposed to be cheerful and jolly.”
I laughed, but not exactly in a jolly way.
He glanced at me. “Well, you know what I mean. Until we hear more we should just go on as normal. It’s not as if there’s any lack of things to do this time of year.”
“No.” I looked at my watch; then I did a double take. Almost eleven already. “Just drop me off at the community center,” I said.
Murder or no murder, Luther Partridge, the conductor of the Christmastown Concert Band, frowned on us showing up late for rehearsals.
Chapter 3
My first clear memory of Nick was on a warm day in June in Cloudberry Bay. The sun was shining on the Oregon coast, giving tourists and even natives the illusion that we were a real surfing-and-suntan oil kind of place. He was standing at the edge of the beach, contemplating the expanse of gray-blue surf and flexing as if preparing to dive in.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
During warm summer days, lots of visitors were one plunge away from being disabused of the notion that Cloudberry Bay was Miami Beach. This man showed all the earmarks of being our next casualty. Something about the body pointed bird dog–like toward all that beautiful water. That beautiful, frigid water.
He’d registered at the Coast Inn the day before as Nick Kringle, saying as little as possible as he’d swiped his card and taken his key. He hadn’t come down to breakfast. It all gave him a mysterious air, and nothing taunts me like a mystery. Youngish men on their own didn’t wander into my cozy establishment often. Nick had brown hair, brown eyes, and a rather pale complexion that didn’t seem to go with his muscular build, but the parts all added up to a dreamy whole. Like Laurence Olivier in Rebecca, only without the fake gray streaks and with a neatly trimmed beard instead of Olivier’s pencil mustache.
His only response to my warning was to turn his gaze turned toward me. I’d been on an early afternoon walk and was togged out in a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. I usually took advantage of the post-breakfast/checkout, pre-check-in break to get a little exercise. Otherwise it was easy to become chained to the inn round the clock, a mistake I’d made when I’d first bought the Coast Inn after my husband died. Owning a small hotel can be a hamster wheel existence if you don’t fence off time for yourself.
“The water’s cold,” I warned my guest.
“I’m used to cold.”
Those were the first words I remember him saying to me. I’m used to cold. Understatement of the century, but how was I to know? I assumed he meant he was from Wisconsin or something. Part polar bear was more like it. I watched in amazement as he took a few steps into the fifty-something-degree water and dived in. Most tourists who did that popped right back up shrieking and streaking back to shore and the nearest towel. When Nick surfaced, he sliced through the surf in an Australian crawl without missing a beat.
There was another reason I’d been a little anxious that Mr. Kringle stay out of the water. One I couldn’t exactly voice to a stranger. Until that moment on the beach, the few times our paths had crossed he’d exhibited a brooding, preoccupied air. The quiet ones worried me. I’d had a guest check in and take an overdose of sleeping pills once. I didn’t want another visitor to my inn to end their stay with an ambulance ride.
That evening, the mysterious Mr. Kringle sought me out after dinner.
“Thanks for the warning today,” he said.
“You didn’t need it. You must be part ice cube.”
“Where I’m from, most people are. But I’m here to thaw out a little, so I appreciate your being a good hostess.” He produced a small box of chocolates and presented them to me. “I brought these from home.”
“Where is that?” I opened the box, picked one, and bit into the most heavenly confection of chocolate and peppermint I’d ever tasted. I may have even let out a moan, because his face cracked in a smile and he pointed to a different one in the box.
“You should try that one. It’s my favorite.”
As I looked at him and remembered his ripped body in that surf, it was hard to believe he was a chocolate aficionado. “I’ll try it next. I want to savor this one. Where did you say you were from?”
“A little place up north—it’s sort of hidden.”
In the days of Google, was there any place that was still hidden? “Canada, you mean?” He had the faintest of accents, so I was fairly certain he wasn’t an American.
“It’s СКАЧАТЬ