Treacherous Toys (6 page)

“Marry Chase,” he urged. “Live happily ever after. Forget all that crazy stuff about being on your own. Chase is a good guy, Jessie. He never messes around while you’re gone. Go for it.”

He smiled and left. I wondered why he thought I should get married when he seemed so unlikely to do it. Maybe because I’d have money to lend him again. Or maybe because he really cared about me. I hoped it was the latter.

I stopped walking to let a little goat cart go by. It was followed by a colorful goat girl with her crook and several other goats. Behind her was the Green Man, who was practicing on his leaf-covered stilts. He made me think about Bart, who’d played the Green Man once. He was so tall, he hadn’t needed stilts. He was strong, too, like the proverbial ox.

I hoped he and Daisy were speaking again this morning. I’d try to get over to Armorer’s Alley later for a chat.

I had to stop thinking about Chris’s death, I reminded myself. Nothing good ever came of it. Detective Almond was going to take care of everything. Christine and her family might never know who killed Chris, or why. But that wasn’t my job. My job was to make toys and stay out of trouble.

I could stay at the toy workshop, learn a new craft, and not let it bother me. It wasn’t like the Village would pay me more because I found out what had happened.

I kept repeating that mantra over and over as I passed familiar faces like Fred the Red Dragon and Brother Carl, head of the Brotherhood of the Sheaf. I waved to each of them, always glad to see them. They were like family to me.

Chase had told me that the police had moved as much as they could of the toy-making materials from the old shop, which was still being investigated by the crime scene people, to the basement of the second manor house. No one would be able to access the place where Chris was killed until the police were finished.

I went to the basement door of the new workshop and entered, but I wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted me. Christine and all the children, dressed in their costumes, were hugging each other and crying. They all looked up when I walked in.

“You have to help us, Jessie,” Christine said. “We have to find out who killed Chris.”

H
ow was I supposed to ignore that? All of my mantra work went out the window. That left behind my own suspicious nature. Someone killed Chris, taking him from his family. We had to do something.

“What did the police say?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

Everyone started talking at once. Christine had to quiet the children down before she could answer.

“Basically nothing,” she said finally. “But they asked me plenty of questions. Now they want to question all the kids. I think they have a theory, but they won’t tell me what it is. I don’t know what to do. Do you think they can find Chris’s killer?”

“I don’t know. They don’t know the Village.”

“Exactly! Which is why I think we should turn to you and Chase for help,” she explained.

I looked at all the tearstained faces. This was the right
thing to do, even though Chase wasn’t going to like it. “Chase works with the police. He doesn’t like to do anything without them. But you and I can look around and ask questions. I already have a few I’d like answered.”

“That sounds like a good place to start,” Christine agreed. “I think we should write a journal or something where we can chronicle our search for what happened to my husband.”

“We want to help, too,” chorused a few of the older children.

“Us, too,” the twins, Joy and Star, said at once.

“So what about the journal?” I encouraged everyone to take a fresh look at what had happened to Chris. “Let’s think about what we know for sure.”

Christine brought out a lovely, hand-bound notebook. We all sat down at one of the workshop tables, and she began writing down everything we could think of.

“I left him in the workshop to meet with Jessie,” Merry Beth said. “He was alone, getting ready to set up and make some toys.”

“Did anyone else come to the workshop after that, before I got there?” I asked the group.

Heads shook, indicating they hadn’t. “But we weren’t watching the whole time,” Garland admitted.

“Jolly, you were down there talking with Daddy right before you and Mom left for the store,” Merry Beth said.

They all turned to look at Jolly. “What?” he demanded. “I just wanted to ask him not to call me Jolly again in front of people. That’s all.”

“You think you have a bad name. What about me?” Garland said. “I’m a Christmas decoration!”

The kids started talking about how much they all hated their seasonal names. Christine finally broke it up and they
quieted down. “Your father and I did the best we could to keep you happy, healthy, and fed. We chose your names to go with the important calling your father had. I don’t want to hear a bunch of complaining.”

No one said anything else about it. I felt this discussion wasn’t getting us very far. I wanted to ask Christine about Chris working in the Village before and if he’d left behind any jealous girlfriends, but I didn’t want to do it in front of the kids. Those topics were too adult for them.

Christine looked at what she’d written. “This isn’t much help, Jessie. What else should we do?”

“What about enemies?” I asked. That seemed a safe subject. “Did Chris have any enemies?”

They all took a moment and thought about that. “Do bill collectors count as enemies?” Merry Beth finally asked. “They seemed to call and threaten Daddy a lot.”

“This is neither the time nor the place to discuss problems with our finances,” her mother chastised.

“Actually, this is the best time and place for it. Were there a lot of bill collectors?” I asked Merry Beth.

“I’ll say!” Her bright blue eyes opened wide. “People called all the time. They said some really bad things sometimes when I wouldn’t let them talk to him. I don’t really understand all the details.” She glanced at her mother.

“We owe some bills,” Christine confirmed. “It was this stupid life he wanted to lead. Always moving around from one place to the next. I kept saying, ‘Let’s settle down someplace with plenty of tourists, like Dollywood or Williamsburg.’ People would have respected him for his craftsmanship.”

“Why did he want to keep moving?” I asked. “Was he afraid to stay in one place?”

“It was like a hobby for him,” Jolly said. “Once I saw
him throw a dart on a map and that’s the next place we went. You remember, Mom. Six hot months in Arizona without any kids around, just old people who wanted to sit on Dad’s lap.”

Christine passed her hand across her eyes. “I’m sorry you saw that, Jolly. But your father loved you and all the rest of us very much. He was always trying to find the perfect place. It wasn’t easy for him.”

“But did he ever borrow money from someplace outside of a bank or other financial institution?” I was hoping to get away from Chris’s character flaws—at least from his family’s point of view. At the rate they were going, there would be nothing good left for the younger kids to remember.

Christine thought back. “The Santa Fund loaned us money a few times. But that’s what they’re for. Sometimes it can be tough between jobs. Everyone pays in something, and then they can use it during the bad times.”

That didn’t seem to be anything like a loan shark, which was what I’d been thinking. There wasn’t much to put in the journal. There didn’t appear to be any good reason for killing Chris.

“Do you know anyone here in the Village?” I asked. “Chris mentioned working with Queen Olivia and King Harold. Did he have a good relationship with them?”

Christine raised her eyebrows and shot back, “A little
too
good, if you know what I mean. I told you we had a few problems in that general direction, Jessie. But that was a long time ago. I’m sure your king and queen remember Chris, but I can’t imagine either of them wanting to hurt him. They probably had some input in his coming here, but certainly not to kill him.”

I wrote Olivia’s and Harold’s names in the journal anyway. Sometimes hard feelings lasted a long time. If Chris
and Olivia were messing around when he was first at the Village, anything was possible.

I couldn’t imagine Harold sneaking down here and killing Chris—it would take a few knights to assist him—so that was probably a dead end. Livy, well, that seemed like another implausible idea.

I was about to ask another question when the door to the workshop flew open and a crowd began to spill into the basement area.

“Oh my heavens!” Christine put her hands to her face. “I completely forgot that the new Father Christmas was visiting the shop this morning. Quick! Everyone look busy.”

I sat down at the nearest table and hid the journal under some thin pieces of wood. I wasn’t sure what to do to look busy, but the Christmas twins, Joy and Star, sat on either side of me and started right in making fire trucks. They were young, but they knew exactly what to do.

“And here is my workshop.” The new Father Christmas led the way for a pack of reporters. “I enjoy spending time here making toys for the good girls and boys.”

Chase was right. The actor Adventure Land had hired to take Chris’s place looked more like the Burger King than a Christmas figure.

True, he wore a long red velvet cape and matching outfit, much like the one Chris had worn. His black boots were shiny, and the brass buttons on his jacket were polished. But his face looked molded, unreal. I didn’t know if they’d put too much makeup on him or what. He looked like a large plastic doll.

Of course, the only reason a mob of reporters from the Myrtle Beach area were interested in the Village was because someone had died there under mysterious circumstances. While the new Father Christmas went on about the
toys and the spirit of the holiday, the reporters were asking questions about where the body had been found. They took long videos of the children and Christine, speculating on when the police would release information on the case.

“Do you have any problem with taking over the role from a man who was murdered just yesterday?” A reporter whose badge said she was from Charleston got right to the point.

New Father Christmas grinned. “It’s very sad when someone dies. Believe me, I have mourned my predecessor extensively. But life is short, and there are thousands of little children who are still waiting to talk to their favorite person in the whole world—me.”

Everyone kind of smirked at that. The reporters threw more questions at him, which he answered in ever more irritating ways. When one of the reporters asked him to comment on why he thought someone would want to kill Chris, that was enough for Christine.

“My husband was a good man. I won’t have you defaming his name and reputation. None of you have the right to ask questions about him. You should all leave.”

Everyone was stunned by her outburst—until they realized who she was. Then the reporters turned on her, the cameramen zooming in on her tearful face, as though she were an alien newly arrived from outer space.

Christine, probably realizing what she’d let herself in for, jumped up and walked quickly out the door. The reporters followed her like flies buzzing after a garbage truck. She’d probably saved her children a lot of embarrassment—the reporters would’ve been happy to question them, too.

The kids and I were left in the basement workshop with the new Father Christmas, who tried in vain to call back the reporters, promising them a show they wouldn’t forget.
When he saw the reporters weren’t interested, he turned on the rest of us as his only audience.

“I can see all of you have been hard at work.” He smiled and sounded like a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school. “Father Christmas—that’s me now—will be making stops in here from time to time with visitors. Try to keep your toy making tidy, okay? We want the visitors to be happy.”

Jolly got up and walked out. I didn’t blame him. It was bad enough they’d lost their father yesterday. They shouldn’t have had to put up with a comedian making jokes about him.

“That elf doesn’t look very happy,” New Father Christmas said to me. “I guess that leaves you in charge since you look like the only one here over the age of twelve. How would you like to be my liaison with the elves?”

“We’re not elves,” I flatly told him. “And these children belong to the Father Christmas you’re replacing. Have some compassion.”

He smiled and looked around. “I guess none of you are into this today. You know what? That’s fine. We’ll all learn to get along. You’ll see. Now, you, elf liaison, you go get Father Christmas some coffee. Double shot. Nonfat milk. I’ll be upstairs.”

“I’m not an elf,” I repeated, a little more emphatically. “I’m not your liaison, and you can get your own coffee. Go away.”

The new Father Christmas finally convinced Merry Beth to go to the Monastery Bakery for coffee. I told her she didn’t have to go. She said she’d rather get coffee than sit there any longer.

She wasn’t gone more than a minute before Queen Olivia, in a gold and white maternity gown, came briskly into the workshop. “Have we missed the press conference?”

New Father Christmas shrugged. “They were here. Now they’re out there, chasing the widow, I believe.” He smiled at the queen as he took in her crooked crown and the jewels slightly askew on her bosom. “You missed the excitement, my good lady.”