BETTER WATCH OUT Read online

  Stop it. It was that kind of thinking that made me the prime suspect for my ex-husband Samuel’s murder. I shouldn’t jump to the obvious conclusion. Of course, Eric would know if his wife decided to bail on the parade. It was likely he was the driver of her float and would’ve known of any changes to the plan. Jenna was more the stand-on-the-float-and-wave-to-the-crowd type than stay inside in the cab and be invisible. But Jenna hadn’t made any decision to boycott the parade. The choice to participate in it was taken from her. The most likely scenario was Eric was drunk and had no idea he should be concerned about anything.

  “Santa is coming!” A little girl screamed, her voice filled with joy and wonder. “Santa.”

  The easiest way to figure out what Eric knew was to make myself visible. If Jenna hadn’t decided not to show up tonight, Eric would look for me to find out why his wife’s float wasn’t in the parade.

  I walked out into the store. Cassie and Garrett were helping customers. I waved goodbye and weaved through the crowd gathering near the window to watch Santa come to town. Children jumped up and down in excitement. Some adults were in the moment and others had a far-off look in their eyes, either remembering Christmas pasts when they eagerly awaited Santa’s arrival or devising a route to get to their car first and beat the after-parade traffic.

  A customer opened the door and I slipped outside. The cold wrapped itself around me, pepping me up a bit. This was my favorite part of the parade. Santa’s arrival. I remembered the anticipation on my children’s face and how they’d wiggle and jump, barely able to contain their excitement. Longing filled my heart. How I wished my children were here tonight. Like all our past Christmases. On second thought, I was glad my children weren’t here tonight. This was going to be a parade to remember, but not in a good way.

  The red lights of the fire truck swirling behind them caused me to blink and turn away as the motion started a headache at the back of my head. The pain in my head spread to the sides, tiny throbs that seemed to beat in tune to the rotating lights. I was feeling a little out of sorts and wobbly. Since most of the children were on their feet, I snagged a vacant spot on the curb.

  “That’s my child’s spot.” A mom glared at me.

  “Parade organizer,” I said. “Need to watch the floats and if I sit, children behind me can see.”

  “My child needs to sit also.” She snagged the belt loop of her squiggling and dancing school-age child and dragged him back toward his seat.

  “I see better by my friend.” He tried to break from his mom’s grip.

  “Sit,” she said between clenched teeth.

  I totally forgot how territorial people were over their parade spots. It had been a long time since I worried about my children not being able to see or having to worry about carrying a tired child back to the car.

  “That lady is there. I don’t mind standing.”

  “Sit.”

  Sighing, I placed my hands on the curb, readying to push myself into standing. I didn’t want to get the little boy in trouble.

  “I’ll scoot over.” The little girl beside me plopped herself onto her mom’s lap. “Plenty of room for you and him.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll stand.”

  “My mom’s lap is comfier.” She grinned at me. “Can you get me a private meeting with Santa.”

  I laughed. “I think I can arrange that.”

  The little boy on my other side pouted. “I could’ve met Santa if you let me stand.”

  “I’m sure she’ll let you.”

  I wanted to snap at the woman but the fatigue on her face stopped me. My days as a single mom weren’t so far past me that I couldn’t remember when my exhaustion had my patience stretched to the breaking point. For some reason, taking her child’s spot was the thing that broke her fragile Christmas spirit. It was Christmastime. Time of love and charity. And sometimes charity wasn’t about money, it was about giving your kindness.

  “You can both meet him.”

  The truck towing the trailer bed of the Harmony Baptist Float drove by. Something fell from the underside near the tire well. I leaned forward, straining my eyes. It was a dark lump. The base of the trailer bed was large, the tires missing the lump on the ground. As the truck and trailer pulled past the fallen item, I walked out onto the road to get a better look.

  It was a large clump of mud with strips of a glittery gold material mixed in. The Wilcox’s driveway had been a muddy mess yesterday morning, and likely still had been that night. Gold strips of fabric. Fringes. Jenna’s scarf. Theories flowed fast and furious in my head, and one made itself right at home. The pastor had “guessed” Jenna was up to no good. He knew about her float because he had been to the Wilcox home and saw her naughty sign with his name on it. Had Jenna added his naughty deed to the list and the pastor silenced her? I hoped the road my mind was veering on was wrong, but in case it wasn’t, I had to do something.

  The siren from the fire truck blipped on and off. I motioned for Paul to stop and ran to the driver’s side door.

  Paul rolled down the window. “Are you okay?”

  I held up my phone. It was loud. The only way for him to hear me was to yell, and it wasn’t something everyone needed to know.

  Mud fell from underneath the truck pulling the Harmony float. The pastor said the float had been parked by the church for days. Wilcox’s place had tons of mud. I hit send and looked up at Paul.

  He checked his phone. His eyes widened, and he glanced down at me, concern etched on his face. Cassie’s message. I pointed at my phone then myself. He looked down.

  “Need you to move away from the truck, Merry.”

  That was all? Move?

  The fire truck inched forward. Children were yelling and screaming for Santa.

  What now? What was I going to do until I could get an officer’s attention?

  The truck stopped, right over the mud that had fallen from the nativity float. Paul was protecting the potential evidence.

  Nine

  “You saw Jenna’s body?” Cassie asked as I unlocked the front door.

  Her tone was making it hard to decipher if she was interested or creeped out by the thought. The girl had asked millions of questions on the drive to my house. Part of me wondered if her interest stemmed from her father’s murder. It was easier for her to ask questions she had wanted to know about Jenna’s death when it was someone she really didn’t know that well or had liked.

  I didn’t want to talk about it, especially with an eighteen-year-old girl. The parade turned into a disaster and my head was spinning not only from the knocking it took but also from all the thoughts and suspicions swirling around in it. Did the pastor, his wife, or both have something to do with Jenna’s death? If not, who? Why?

  The woman wasn’t the nicest person in the world and enjoyed riling people up, but it wasn’t a reason to kill her. And why Santa’s bag? Was it the only place available?

  Ebenezer tried to bolt out the door. The critter loved snow and had once again found a way out of his habitat. Fortunately, Ebenezer was enthralled with my guest and stopped mid-run.

  Cassie scooped him up and carried him inside. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate. Want me to make some popcorn?”

  “I still have some Christmas sugar cookies left from my last baking session.”

  “We’ll get them.” Cassie and Ebenezer headed into the kitchen.

  “Watch him. He’ll try and eat them all.” I settled on the couch, gently resting my head on the plush cushion.

  To help move the crowd away from the fire truck, Norman had climbed down from the fire truck and announced Santa was going to read a story at One More Page. He invited all the children and parents to followed him. Santa saved the night. The children were excited about a bedtime story read by Santa. It was hard for parents to say no even though I could tell a couple of them wanted to sta
y and see what was really up with the stalled fire truck.

  Orville told me to go home since the parade was over. My official duties were done. I wanted to tell him about the naughty list, but Cassie had stepped outside to check on me and the officer was preoccupied with evidence he was able to get his hands on. Telling him about the sign later wouldn’t hurt anything.

  Paul had examined the back of my head and while he agreed I was fine to go home, advised me to have someone stay with me. Cassie volunteered. I was about to argue until I heard my name scattered about conversations. Most of it related to my and Jenna’s “fight” and not about the awesome job I had done with the parade. A fight I had made up in a moment of panic by telling the pastor I had banned her. If Cassie was with me, she wouldn’t be hearing rumors about me that I’d have to explain away.

  “Here we go.” Cassie placed a tray with hot chocolate in two of my Twelve Days of Christmas mugs, and a mix of decorated sugar cookies. She picked up a reindeer and bit off his head.

  I cradled a mug of hot chocolate, the warmth from the beverage spreading to my limbs. A tension I hadn’t known I was carrying slipped off me like I shrugged off a sweater. I hadn’t realized how drained the day made me. Tears welled in my eyes. I blinked them away. Where were they coming from?

  “You okay, Merry? This hasn’t been an easy day for you.”

  I swallowed down grief bubbling up in me. I knew Jenna, but we weren’t close. Finding a body was a horrid experience, though not as traumatizing as finding my murdered ex-husband. “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll turn on the indoor Christmas lights. That should cheer you up.” Cassie rushed around the room, switching on the multitude of lighted Christmas decorations in the living room and kitchen.

  The Christmas blocks glowed from near the fireplace. The giant “X,” eliminating Jenna, brought tears to my eyes. It was ugly. A sharp contrast not only in design but in spirit to the other images on the blocks.

  Cassie sat on the arm of the couch. “Can you teach me how to make a vinyl decal?”

  I drew back, the request a little confusing. Was Cassie trying to take my mind off what happened tonight? “Sure.”

  “Great. I’ll get Ebenezer settled and I’ll meet you upstairs in the craft room.”

  I went upstairs and booted up my program and clicked on the icon for the Design Space software, which was the easier of the programs to explain to a beginner. I pulled over my rolling cart with the die cutting machines and inserted the USB port from the Cricut into the laptop. By the time Cassie arrived with a plate of sugar cookies and hot chocolate, the machine was ready to go.

  “What did you want to decal?”

  “A glass block. We should add something to the one with an ‘X.’”

  My face felt hot.

  Cassie hugged me. “I noticed it upset you. That was Jenna’s float wasn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “She wouldn’t tell you what it was and now you feel bad that she was x’ed out.”

  “Actually, I found out the theme of her float and x’ed it out because I was angry with her.” The tears trailed down my face and Cassie’s image wavered before me. I took off my glasses to swipe away the spots on them.

  Cassie brushed away the tears on my cheeks. “Let’s change the design to something more festive. How about a dancing Santa? Nothing is holly jollier than Santa dancing. What do you have?”

  “Click on new project, then images, and type Santa into the search box.” I pushed the rolling chair away from the computer, giving Cassie space to bring another chair forward. “There’s a few in the library. If you don’t like any of them, we can look through the Santa folder on the flash drive.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a flash drive just for Santa Clauses.” Cassie scrolled through the Santa images.

  “You can look in my projects area. There are some Santas I designed.”

  Cassie clicked over. “Are these all from this year?” There were about fifty different Santas. “You’re one busy woman.”

  “Santa is one of the biggest requests I get this time of year.”

  “That’s it,” Cassie squealed. She hovered the cursor over a silhouette of Santa dabbing. “He’ll be perfect. We can cut him out in a glitter green and put it over the black ‘X.’ Add the North Pole onto the ‘X’ and it’ll look like Santa is dancing after returning to the North Pole.”

  I hugged her. “You’re brilliant.”

  “Can I borrow the block to use as my art project for class?” She grinned at me.

  The child had an ulterior motive. At this point I didn’t care. She made me feel better and changed something I regretted creating to a teaching moment. “Absolutely.”

  “Now I won’t be lying to Bonnie that I came over here for help on homework.”

  “You told Bonnie that you were staying here?”

  Cassie nodded and resized Santa by pulling down the arrow in the lower left-hand corner. “Since we’re living together, I thought it was the nice thing to do.”

  “How’s that working out?”

  Cassie shrugged. “It’s weird. She’s trying and I’m trying. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends but it’s a little better since I know she didn’t kill my dad.” Her voice hitched on the last three words. “I can’t throw her out. My dad loved her. And she is paying for all the expenses right now while we’re waiting to see what the court says about who owns the house.”

  Another complication that arose with the question about our divorce. Would I be legally responsible for the mortgage? I couldn’t remember if it was paid off. “I won’t claim ownership. I want you to have the house.”

  “I just don’t know if I can afford it.” Cassie drew in a deep breath.

  “You can live here.” I made the offer again. The first time was right after her father’s murderer was arrested—and Helen confessed she was dying. Helen couldn’t take care of her granddaughter and didn’t want the girl to watch her die.

  “I want to live in my house, Merry. Mine and my dad’s house.” Her voice shook. She drew in a couple of breaths and squared her shoulders. “I want to be happy tonight. Let’s think and do happy things. Here’s the design I want, what do I do now?”

  “Pick out the color of vinyl you want and put it on the cutting mat.”

  Cassie followed my instructions, first choosing the colors for her project, white for the words and glitter green for Santa.

  “Click on make it and the software will show you which color to put on first. Load the mat with the vinyl and press send.”

  “This isn’t too hard,” Cassie said. “Kind of fun. You know, I could always help you out at your shop during the holidays.”

  “I might take you up on that.”

  The doorbell rang. Cassie was the first one down the stairs and opened the door. “Hi Officer Martin.”

  Orville was standing with his hands resting on his belt, looking very serious and police professional. Ebenezer’s feet scratched on the floor. The critter was racing for the door.

  “Hurry, he’s trying to make a break for it.” I knelt to intercept Ebenezer as Orville stepped inside and shut the door.

  “I need to speak with you, Ms. Winters.”

  Ms. Winters. This wasn’t a neighborly visit. He wanted to talk to me about Jenna’s death. “Why don’t you get Officer Martin a cup of cocoa and some cookies?”

  “Okay.” Cassie volleyed a concerned gaze from me to Orville and back to me.

  “Orville’s been working non-stop today. He could probably use some refreshments.”

  “I saw some sub rolls on the counter. I’ll make us some sandwiches. I’m starving,” Cassie said.

  Orville sat in the recliner, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. “I’m curious why you thought the mud might be evidence in Jenna’s murder. McCormick showed me a text you s
ent him.”

  “Pastor Heath had said that he hadn’t moved his truck from the church’s lot. There’s no mud there.”

  “Doesn’t mean he went to the Wilcox’s.”

  “When he saw the police cars, he assumed it had something to do with Jenna trying to ruin the parade. How would he know it was about her unless he saw her float?”

  Orville frowned. “What float?”

  “Her theme was Santa’s naughty list and the huge sign had a lot of resident’s names on it. And a spot to put the reason for being on that list.”

  “Which residents?”

  I told him the names I could remember. “There were a few others, but I can’t recall them.”

  Orville wrote everything down. “Did you speak to Jenna today?”

  “No. I hadn’t spoken to her since I stopped at her house to check on her float.”

  “What time was it?”

  “Yesterday morning. Right before I went to speak to the mayor. I was hoping he could talk sense into Jenna. I didn’t think airing grievances was the proper theme for a float.”

  “You also called about a sign.”

  “I made a sign for Rachel to use in her display window. It was Santa’s naughty list and had the names of Christmas villains. Someone added Jenna’s name to it today. I had checked the stores this morning and the sign hadn’t been vandalized.”

  “Whose names were also on it?” Orville snuck a glance up at me. He was trying to hold back disappointment.

  I straightened my spine. “I did not add Jenna’s name to the naughty list or any other resident of Season’s Greetings. I used the theme of famous Christmas villains. Grinch. Scrooge.”

  It dawned on me that Jenna had a main theme also. City council members. There were a few names, like her husband, that didn’t fit. I wasn’t sure why Jenna would add the extra names, it wasn’t like the sign was subtle. Everyone would figure out she had a problem with everyone else on the council.