As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles Page 17

  “Kathy, you worked with Taya Thornton, right, when you taught art in the grade school?” I blew my nose again and fired the crumpled tissue at the waste basket. “She ever talk about Merrily? Her plans? Any concerns?”

  “All I remember about Merrily was that she’d registered for a business and accounting degree at UM. Taya wasn’t all that happy. She’d hoped Merrily would follow her footsteps and become a teacher.” Kathy reached for a pile of cotton scraps and started flattening them out on the work table. “But Holly was the one who kept them up at night.”

  “Holly was a problem kid?” News to me. “Not in the classroom, if she got into veterinary college.”

  “Oh, both those girls aced school.” Kathy’s capable hands made quick work of the fabric, folding the pieces into neat stacks. “Though they were different in other ways. According to her mother, Holly didn’t choose the best friends. But after her sister went to prison, Holly saw the light. Never one more lick of trouble. Valedictorian, I think.”

  Merrily had just graduated that fateful summer, making Holly a sophomore. My brother or sister—a class ahead and a class behind—might remember the details. Or at least the talk.

  Kathy stood in the doorway, hands full of fabric, ready to get back to work. I gave my dress and the magnificent red shawl one last look.

  “Soon, my lovelies,” I said. “Soon.”

  ∞

  “Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling,” my mother said when I walked into the Merc’s back door a few minutes later.

  “Long story. Dead phone. I’m pooped.” And my head was spinning. Loan denials, fake invoices and fraudulent bank accounts, the sobbing mother of a murder victim, a romance hiding in plain sight, and a wayward kid turned trusted vet. All less than a day after being run off the road.

  I’d come back to Jewel Bay after ten years in Seattle, drawn to the serenity of my hometown. Apparently serenity had been an illusion.

  “Are you cooking today?” I said, puzzled. This time of year, our commercial kitchen sits idle a few days a week. Summer’s fresh berries are already jammed, its cucumbers pickled, its tomatoes sauced. We’d blended our herbal teas and packed up our spice mixes for the Christmas season. Only the items with short shelf lives—truffles and fresh pasta chief among them—kept it busy. And my personal fave: chocolate-Cabernet sauce.

  “I came in to check on you. And to give you a piece of my mind.”

  Uh-oh.

  “I am so disappointed in you.”

  Sometimes I wish my mother were a screamer. That might be easier. Disappointed made me feel three inches tall. But though she’s calm about it, you always know where you stand with Francesca Conti Murphy Schmidt.

  “You promised me you wouldn’t upset Sally over this murder business.”

  “I asked her a few questions. If she got upset, that’s her doing.”

  “Don’t get all technical on me. You know what I’m talking about.”

  For reasons I have never fully understood, my mother’s sympathy bone goes into overdrive when it comes to Sally Sourpuss Grimes. Mom always says that she’s been so blessed in her own life, despite the loss of my father, that Sally’s misfortunes pain her deeply. That Sally had brought some of them on herself—mainly her estrangement from her daughter, now resolved—made no difference. My mother seemed to understand that Sally sometimes spoke without thinking, and that, as Lou Mary had said, we all get thrown off center once in a while. And those to whom an easier road is given need to lend a hand to others on their journey.

  But she wasn’t being so philosophical at the moment. Her eyes burned into me. “And then you conned Lou Mary into lending you her car so you could drive all over kingdom come on a sprained ankle.”

  “It’s a strain, Mom, not a sprain. Plus it’s my left—”

  “Sprain, shmain. You were told to take it easy. Is that so hard to understand?”

  I gave her the look she deserved. She never took it easy. She’d taught by example that work heals all wounds. It doesn’t, but all three of her kids had become workaholics before we figured that out.

  I hated to tell her the latest, but I had to. “The bank won’t give me a car loan. Debt-to-income ratios and other jabber.”

  “Are you sure your car can’t be fixed?”

  She hadn’t seen it. I prayed she never did. “Pretty sure. And it’s so old, when I do get a check from the insurance company, it will barely be enough to buy a bicycle.”

  “You’ll work it out. Meanwhile, there’s someone here to see you. He seems quite anxious. I gave him a mug of chai.”

  Inwardly, I groaned. If it were someone we knew well, she would have just said who it was. I was not in the mood to spar with Oliver Bello.

  But to my surprise, the man sitting on one of the red-topped stools, cradling a heavy white mug, wasn’t the feisty detective, but the grieving widower.

  “Brad. Sorry I was out. How are you?”

  The sunken eyes and pale skin said he wasn’t good. And while I hated to see his pain, I also felt a surge of relief that Merrily Thornton was so deeply missed. Wherever she was, in whatever the afterlife is, I hoped she was feeling the love.

  “Sorry I didn’t recognize you on the road today until too late,” he said. “I was upset. Thank you for the gift basket, by the way.”

  “You’re welcome.” I sat next to him. “Mind if I ask what was so upsetting?”

  “I went in to introduce myself to Walt and Taya, and to let them know Ashley will be here this weekend. I know it’s rough on them, but for Pete’s sake. What Merrily did was twenty years ago, and none of it was Ashley’s fault.”

  I poured myself some Cowboy Roast and refilled his chai, then sat once again beside him. “They’ve had a bad shock. They’ll change their minds.” They had to.

  “When you meet Ashley—” He shook his head. “She’s more than a star student and standout athlete—did I tell you she’s on a soccer scholarship?—she is a genuinely nice kid. Beautiful … not sweet-pretty like her mom, but a real head-turner.”

  I knew. I’d seen the pictures. “And dark-haired, instead of blond. So she looks like her biological father?”

  He jerked his head back, then recovered his composure. “I imagine so. I never asked.”

  “And you never adopted her?”

  “Merrily didn’t want to hassle with the paperwork. Said it wasn’t necessary.”

  But that wasn’t the real reason. She didn’t want to be forced to let the biological father know.

  “We’ve been so busy, I shouldn’t be out of town this long,” Brad said. His barstool squeaked. “But Merrily deserves a decent funeral. I know she never loved me the way I loved her, but I want to give her that.”

  “December is our busy time,” I said, gesturing to the shop, “but I wouldn’t have thought that about plumbers.”

  “Ice dams. Frozen pipes. Cold water can be pretty dangerous.”

  I shivered. I knew.

  “We had more calls than we could handle, all weekend. I musta worked sixteen hours on Sunday. But I had to come up, as soon as I heard. My dad’s filling in for me now.”

  If I’d had any lingering doubts whether Brad Larson had killed his not-yet-ex-wife, the woman he admitted loved him less than he loved her, the woman who left him to reclaim her past, he’d just given me the alibi that washed those doubts away.

  We sipped in silence for a moment or two, then I asked if he knew whether Merrily had been ordered to pay restitution twenty years ago.

  “Court fines. And she paid every penny out of her own salary—she took nothing from me.”

  “When did you last talk to her?”

  He squinted, thinking. “About two weeks ago. She called me. She had questions about some vendors.”

  “Why call you?”

  “I run a plumbing company. I know all the suppliers in this part of the country. She’d found invoices for names she didn’t recognize—not all plumbing companies, but a few.”

 
I reached over the counter for a pen and the yellow pad my mother uses for notes when she’s cooking.

  “Write them down,” I instructed. “Every name you remember.”

  The dead can’t answer questions, but the living can.

  Twenty-Two

  After Tracy and Lou Mary left, my mother emerged from her Merc’s basement refuge, an I’m not done talking with you look on her face.

  A knock on the front door saved me. I hustled to open it, ignoring my strain-shmain.

  My hands shook as I fumbled with the catch on the antique brass lock. I hated disappointing my mother. And facing my sister wasn’t going to be any easier.

  Chiara entered, swaddled in an ancient wool cape, Landon and Jason in her wake. Ever-intuitive, she sized up the situation in a glance, but before she could open her mouth, Landon piped up.

  “Auntie, Mommy says I upset you and I have to apologize I’m sorry I learned a new song to cheer you up.” No breath, no pauses, no hesitation. “On the first day of Christmas, my tulip gave to me …”

  My mother slipped her arm around my waist.

  Sometimes a Christmas carol is all it takes to mend a breach.

  While my mother and sister reveled in Landon’s Christmas spirit, I led Jason into the back hall and handed him Brad Larson’s list. The light in the hall isn’t that great, and he adjusted his rimless glasses. He read it twice.

  “Where did you get this?”

  I explained.

  He gestured with the list. “If Merrily was making up invoices for suppliers that sounded like the actual companies, a word off or some other tiny difference, why would she call him?”

  “Exactly.”

  “They installed a new system right about the time Merrily came. I haven’t been able to search back further, to see when these invoices were created. They have a backup, but the old programs aren’t installed on the new machines. So I’ve got to get the programs, install them, and run a check.”

  “If it wasn’t Merrily, then somebody wants us to think it was her. Cary Lenhardt? But why?” Bello had said they were watching him, but they hadn’t made an arrest. Would this list convince him?

  “There’s another option,” Jason said, his face grim.

  “No. Not Greg. Why would he steal from his own company? And kill to cover it up?”

  “He doesn’t own the Building Supply.”

  “Not even a percentage?” That shouldn’t have surprised me. I didn’t have a share in the Merc, officially. My mother owns building and business. But I’d only been running the place a year and a half. Greg had managed the Building Supply for ages.

  “So he—whoever—could have been using these fraudulent accounts to siphon off money for years,” I said, and Jason nodded. “How long will it take to check the backups?”

  “Twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight.”

  Which didn’t give me long. But it might be long enough.

  ∞

  “You scared her,” Adam said. “It’s not about protecting Sally. Your mother over-reacted to your accident because that’s how she lost your father. Doesn’t matter how much time passes or how happy she is with Bill. That wound will never fully heal.”

  “I know that. And I will always be her baby.” I reached for a pre-dinner cookie, one of the privileges of adulthood, then put my feet on the coffee table, another privilege. Sandburg settled in next to me. “And she’s super emotional about me right now because of the wedding. By the way, Heidi wants us to pick out a few new things for the gift registry.”

  “I haven’t tried those yet.” He pointed at the cookie tray, and I threw him a bourbon ball.

  “Good arm,” he said. “So, what’s the problem with the registry?”

  “First someone from Minnesota splurged on us. Then someone else called and bought up the rest of the list. We know it’s not Tanner. Your brothers?”

  He sank into the brown leather chair, mouth hanging open. “What are they up to?”

  “Being nice? Making up for your childhood?”

  “I suppose.” He gave out a half laugh. “But they’re up to something.”

  Another pleasure of adulthood is eating dinner in the living room when you’ve pushed yourself too hard and your ankle is swollen and your ego dented. Adam, bless the man, said nothing about my aches and pains. He kept my wineglass full, tossed a salad, and cooked up the pasta I’d brought home, served with my mother’s basil pesto. (The taste of summer, the label proclaimed, and I agreed.)

  We were just finishing the pasta when Nick called Adam’s phone and asked for me.

  “Hey, sis. Your phone’s not working.”

  “I know. But getting a new one means making a trip to Pondera, and no one will lend me a car. Or the money. Though we kept Mom’s landline; you could have called that.” Adam had promised to take me to the phone store in Pondera Saturday “if necessary.”

  It was definitely necessary.

  “Hey, sorry I let you down about the building. But I called to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Christine’s SUV is still sitting at my house. Consider it a wedding present.”

  In the background, a woman spoke, but I couldn’t make out Nick’s response. Like he’d covered the receiver with his hand. Who was it? Where was he?

  “Seriously, Nick? That would be great.” Bittersweet—I’d loved Christine, and I’d loved my Subaru—but great.

  “You can have the keys and the title next week.”

  “Ha. Part of Mom’s conspiracy to keep me on the couch.”

  He didn’t deny it, though he claimed the vehicle needed a mechanic’s once-over first.

  That voice in the background piped up again, and this time I recognized it.

  “Gotta go, sis.” Nick hung up before I could say another word.

  “My brother’s giving us a car. Can you believe that?” I set the phone on the coffee table. “Hey, have you heard, is Nick dating anyone?”

  Adam stood and picked up my plate. “Not that I’ve asked, but I kinda thought he and Kim … Not from anything specific, but they give off that vibe.”

  “What? And you never said?”

  “I don’t share every passing thought,” he said, his tone teasing, and headed for the kitchen.

  “That one’s kind of important, don’t you think?” I called after him.

  “Not our business,” he called back.

  I grunted. That never stopped me.

  But the conversation did prick my conscience. When Adam came back, I pulled him down on to the couch next to me and showed him the spreadsheet. “I started it the other night when you were out. It’s how I organize my investigations.”

  He studied it, scrolling up and down and all around. “Do the cops know about this?”

  “No.”

  “You might want to tell them, little darlin’. Because it’s brilliant.”

  Would I never learn? There was no reason to hide the truth from this guy. He was on my side. I promised to stay put while Adam went downstairs to hook up the TV. Going wireless involves a lot of cables.

  “What do you think, Sandy?” I asked my feline consultant. I’d started today convinced Merrily was innocent of both the new crime and the old, then wavered. “How do the two thefts relate to Merrily’s murder?”

  As for Cary Lenhardt and Greg Taylor, you couldn’t investigate embezzlement without considering everyone who had access to the money—or the computers that track it.

  They run our lives, those things. God help us if they turn on us.

  In a way, they had. Not on me, but on the thief—who might also be the killer. That’s why I’d been run off the road, and why I’d warned Jason.

  And why Detective Bello thought killer and thief one and the same, and that “the one” might be Greg. Just because I didn’t want to believe it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. I added my questions to the spreadsheet.

  Those fraudulent invoices might be the key. They’d led Merrily Th
ornton to call Brad and ask if he recognized the suppliers’ names. They’d sent the forensic accountant to the bank, where Pamela Barber and her staff were sniffing their own records for the stink of fraud.

  Greg was hiding something. But I still couldn’t believe he would steal or kill. Unless he had some addiction I didn’t know about. Gambling and drugs can turn an otherwise law-abiding citizen into a rabid rat in search of free money.

  I replayed my mental audio files of every conversation I’d had about the murder and the thefts the last few days. No one had said anything about drugs.

  No. But Kathy Jensen had said Holly Thornton was a wild child who straightened out the moment Merrily pled guilty.

  I’ve watched a lot of old movies, late at night. That’s my only excuse for my next thought: “The plot thickens.”

  Adam’s phone lay on the table. I called my brother back, not at all sure he’d pick up. But he did.

  “Hey, Nick, indulge me in a bit of time-travel. In high school, did you ever hear that Merrily Thornton used or sold drugs? Used regularly, I mean—not pot or an experiment or two.”

  The line was quiet for a moment. “As in, that’s why she needed the money?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  Another silence.

  “Nick, you still there?”

  “Yeah. No. It never made any sense. Holly, on the other hand …” He hesitated, as if deciding what to say. “You’re too young to have known, but there was a group of kids—”

  “There’s always a group of kids,” I interrupted. “In every class. Since Grog and Grunt first sniffed glue from the hoof of a wooly mammoth.”

  “I guess. But these kids were my friends. We used to hang out, play music, goof off. And yeah, smoke a joint or two. But then some of them got deeper into the drugs, and the group split up. After that, I stuck with my crowd—the science geeks and hiking nerds—and I didn’t see much of them outside of school.”

  “Including Holly and Merrily Thornton?”

  “Not Merrily,” he said quickly. “She stayed straight. But Holly and a few others went after the drugs pretty hard.”