Death of a Dapper Snowman (20 page)

Jessica clapped her hands. “You have the best luck.”

I smiled at my sweet best friend. “I am awfully lucky.”

The music on the movie we’d been watching changed. The slow part was over, and the action was starting up again.

We turned to watch the movie, and lost ourselves in the tale of action and suspense.

Later, when was driving home, I kept thinking about the spies from the movie. Even when the bullets were flying, the man and woman kept flirting with each other. Despite the situation being so silly, Jessica and I both ate it right up.

Now that I was single again, the romance aspects of movies meant more to me. The romantic gestures weren’t just unbelievable things I’d have to roll my eyes at. They now seemed like hopeful possibilities—actual things that could happen to me.

I drove toward my home, the duplex that I owned but hadn’t been to in days. I’d planned to spend the night at my father’s and maybe talk to Pam. We could discuss things woman to woman, and deal with the situation between her and my father.

However, the more I thought about breaking up with Pam on behalf of my father, the more appealing sleeping in my own bed got.

My body tensed as I pulled up to the curb in front of the duplex. I didn’t turn off the engine. My palms started to sweat, making my hands slick on the steering wheel. I wiped my hands on my brown cords and chided myself for being ridiculous.

Here I was, sitting in my car like a stalker, nervous about going into my own house, that I owned, because I might bump into my tenant, or hear him through the wall.

During the movie, Jessica had pointed out how much the leading man looked like Logan. She hadn’t officially met him yet, but she’d been well aware of the bearded guy thanks to him trying to get my attention at the Fox and Hound the night before.

Jessica was single. Maybe I would set the two of them up on a date, since she found him so appealing.

And he was appealing.

I sat in my idling car and stared at the windows on the lit side of the duplex. As I was watching, he walked by the living room window, shirtless.

I gasped and pulled back in my car seat, but I didn’t dare look away. He walked up to the window and glanced left and right, first at the snow-covered lawn, and then at the cloudless night sky. He stretched, rubbed his nice-looking stomach, then pulled the curtains closed.

Another car drove down the street, slowing as it passed my vehicle. I leaned over and pretended to be digging through my purse for something.

The other car stopped next to my car.

Slowly, I straightened up and turned to look out the driver’s since window.

Officer Peggy Wiggles waved back and signaled for me to lower my window.

Once our windows were down, she called over, “Is everything okay, Ms. Day?”

“Great, thanks. I was just heading out to check on Pam and the cat, at my father’s house.”

“This is your house, right? The duplex? Do you normally park on the street? I would imagine you’d park up there, on the driveway.”

I gave her a goofy smile and shrugged. “I like to mix it up.”

She sat up straight and leaned from side to side, like she was visually inspecting my back seat for signs of anything unusual. Seeing her look suspicious made me feel suspicious. I whipped my head around, the nervous part of me expecting to see a killer in my back seat.

To my relief, there was nobody in my car besides me.

I turned back to Officer Wiggles. “How about you? Any breaks in the case?”

“You know I shouldn’t discuss that with you.” She leaned over and looked at either her phone or a laptop screen. I couldn’t see from my low angle, but it glowed blue on her face.

“Are you going to a call in this area?” I asked.

“No,” she answered without looking up. “Just checking on your residence, as per Tony’s request.”

Tony sent her to check on my residence? I didn’t know what to say about that, so I decided to switch the topic back to the Michaels case. She said she shouldn’t discuss the case with me, but she didn’t say she wouldn’t or couldn’t.

“Tony said you found something interesting in the toxicology report,” I said, totally bluffing.

She ruffled one hand through her pixie-cut hair, so I did the same, mirroring her. It was a tactic I learned in the board room. You reflect someone’s gestures and it subconsciously primes them to think you’re just like them.

“Sleeping pills,” she said. “That’s not very interesting on its own, but Mr. Michaels didn’t have a prescription, and these weren’t the over-the-counter kind.”

“Somebody drugged him, then strangled him?”

“With the same red scarf that was on the snowman.”

I took a deep breath as the news washed over me.

“So, it was pre-meditated. Wow. Do you think the killer was already planning to make him into a snowman? That is cold.”

“Cold.” She guffawed. “Very cold.”

She had her arm sticking out of the window and patted the side of her police cruiser with a metallic whack that startled me.

“Well, have a good night,” she said with a cheery grin.

“You, too. Be careful out there.”

She winked at me. “I have a gun,” she said, then she drove off.

As I watched her tail lights disappear in the darkness, my thoughts moved away from the snowman and to myself.

Why was Tony even thinking about me, much less sending his rookie by my house? Was he worried about my safety? Or was he freaked out that I was going to crack the case and make him look bad?

I pondered this for a few minutes. Tony would rather see justice be served by any means, even if it meant looking embarrassed. He couldn’t be that worried about my amateur detective work… unless he knew something I didn’t, like that I was in danger.

I looked up at my driveway, at the empty space next to Logan’s vehicle, and then the dark windows on my side of the duplex. Someone could be waiting inside my house, holding a red scarf, just for me.

I put my car into gear and started driving toward my father’s house.

Chapter 26
 

The lights were
all off at my father’s house when I arrived. It was barely ten o’clock, so I assumed Pam was either out or at her sister’s.

I settled in for some reading after helping myself to my father’s collection of true crime paperbacks. Jeffrey climbed onto my lap and batted the book every time I turned a page.

No sooner had I gotten to the scary part of the book when I heard an unsettling, suspicious noise I couldn’t identify. I set the book aside and turned down the stereo, which had been set to a classical station. The noise continued. It was a rumbling sound.

I crept slowly down the hall and then carefully pushed open the door to my father’s bedroom. There was a lump in the center of the bed, and at the top of the lump was Pam’s head. The rumbling was her, snoring.

Jeffrey jumped up onto the bed, bounced over to her face, and bopped her on the nose. When the snoring didn’t stop or slow down, he bopped her again.

I couldn’t control myself and started laughing. He reached up one grey paw and bopped her a third time, to no effect.

“Bad Jeffrey,” I said as I scooped him up. “We don’t bop people on the nose. Not even if they sound like hibernating bears.”

Pam kept snoring, oblivious to the nose-bopping and my giggling.

I cuddled the cat to my chest and carried him out of the room, then shut the door on my way out.

“So much for Pam being a light sleeper,” I said to Jeffrey. “Sometimes humans are in deep denial about what they’re really like.”

I went to the kitchen and left Pam a note on the table, so she’d know I was in the house, in the guest room.

I shut off the lights and stood in the dark, staring out the kitchen window at the house next door.

After a few moments, I found myself talking to the deceased neighbor in my head.

Mr. Michaels, why did you have to go and get yourself killed? I remember how you helped me and my sister with our lemonade stand that summer. And now I remember other things, as well. You argued with my father over the years, because you loved to argue with everyone. But you always had a smile on your face. That was part of your entertainment, wasn’t it? You weren’t content to stand around and talk about the weather. You liked to get into discussions about economics and politics.

You and I would probably have a lot to talk about these days, now that I’m back in town. You always were a bit of an outsider, like me.

I met your daughter today, and she seems like a lovely girl. I’m sorry that you won’t get to know her better, but I’ll promise you two things. I’ll keep an eye on Harper for you, and I’ll make sure whoever did this to you gets caught and brought to justice.

Once I’d shared my thoughts, I turned and went off to bed.

That night, I dreamed of lemonade stands and happy summer days.

I woke up in the morning to a raspy tongue on my eyebrow. A door slammed—the front door of the house, by the sound of it.

I threw some clothes on and got to the living room window in time to see Pam’s car driving away.

Did Pam know I planned to talk to her about moving out? I hadn’t hinted at anything of the sort in the note I’d left on the kitchen table. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since driving to the city and seeing my father, but maybe she suspected I knew.

I wished she would just talk to me instead of ignoring the problem or running away. We’d never been the best of friends, but neither my father nor I would toss her out if she had nowhere to go. Ever since I’d found out about the breakup the day before, I’d been mentally shuffling households. If Pam wanted to, she could stay at my duplex for a while and I’d keep my father company while he was recovering from the hip surgery.

As soon as I saw her again, I’d make the offer.

Jeffrey jumped on the windowsill and looked at me, his big jade green eyes asking where he would be living.

“You’ll stay here,” I told him. “This is your house, and you seem settled in.”

He flicked his tail and then turned to watch the little winter birds forage for frozen berries in the front hedge. His tail swished as he chattered at the delicious-looking birds like they were the cat equivalent of french fries and ketchup.

I sat on the couch for a moment and quietly watched him, watching the birds. I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but it felt very restful, the way I imagined meditation would feel.

Then I remembered the cufflinks in my purse and my mind raced, making plans for the day. I had to phone Tony and tell him that Harper’s connection to Mr. Michaels was an innocent one, then I would return the cufflinks to Mr. Jenkins, and then I’d stop in at Ruby’s Treasure Trove to show her the photo I took of the panther broach.

Chapter 27
 

I parked in
my regular space by the gift shop and sat in my car while I put a call through to the Misty Falls Police Department’s non-emergency line.

Tony answered, and I was glad to hear his voice.

“Please forget what I said about the girl, Harper,” I told him. “She shouldn’t be a suspect. In fact, if you happen to get a DNA sample from her, you could run a test to see if she’s his illegitimate daughter.”

“Why would I do that if she’s not a suspect?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because those tests are expensive, and she can’t afford it?”

“We don’t go around running DNA tests on random civilians.” He tapped away on a keyboard for a moment. “This girl really is his long-lost daughter? I guess that particular rumor was true, after all. These other tips are mostly junk, though.”

“No new leads? Did you talk to Ruby yet?”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree. Ruby’s harmless. Actually, that’s not true. She’s extremely useful. Ruby always knows things about the people in this town. She calls in plenty of tips about things. If we were in the city, I’d make her an official CI. That means Criminal Informant.”

I rolled my eyes at Tony, which was a waste of an eye roll, since he couldn’t see it through the phone.

“I know what a CI is. Oh, and I know how Ruby gets her information.”

“You do?” The sudden interest in his voice gave me a chill.

“Sure. And I’ll trade you that info for something in the future.”