Death of a Dapper Snowman Read online

  Logan stretched his arms out along the empty chairs on either side of him, getting comfortable.

  “I’m not from around here, but I think everyone in Misty Falls knows about this hotshot lady. She’s the one who grew up here, then moved away to make a fortune. She was involved in some technology start-up companies, and she was headed toward becoming a billionaire, but she cracked under the pressure. She had some sort of public meltdown and walked away from everything.”

  I swallowed hard. He wasn’t far from the truth, but he didn’t know the whole story. Nobody did.

  “And she’s your new landlady?” I asked politely.

  He raised his eyebrows. “For as long as I can stand it. My cousin sent me the list of rules for the house. Here, listen to this: Tenant is responsible for fifty-five percent of the electricity bill. Isn’t that hilarious? Why not just half? Why fifty-five percent?”

  “Maybe the tenant’s square footage is fifty-five percent of the house, and she’s trying to be fair.”

  He laughed. “She sounds like one of those uptight Type A ladies who needs one good night with a real man.”

  My jaw threatened to drop open, but I held myself together. “And you think you’re the man for the job?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe she’ll knock a few bucks off the rent if I get all up—”

  “Stop!” I held up my hand to silence him. “I really don’t need to hear all your personal thoughts.”

  “How about later? I’ve got the keys to move into my new place tonight. You should drop by. You look like someone who enjoys a nice glass of wine.”

  He gave me a charming grin, and, to be perfectly honest, I did consider having that glass of wine with him. It had been a long time since an attractive man had made me an offer, and Misty Falls wasn’t exactly teeming with eligible men my age.

  Our conversation was interrupted by the veterinary assistant returning. “Jeffrey’s all checked in,” she said.

  “Ouch,” said Logan as he crossed his legs in sympathy for the cat.

  I gave him a smile, then finished filling in the paperwork for the cat’s day surgery.

  I’d just signed the bottom of the permission form when the front door opened and someone came in, noisily stomping the snow off his boots. He cleared his throat.

  I turned around to see one of my father’s former colleagues, Officer Tony Milano.

  “Tony Baloney,” I said. “You’ve got a little something in your hair at the sides. Is that snow? It’s really coming down out there.”

  “Very funny,” he said without cracking a grin. “Get in my car. Now. We’re going to the station, young lady.”

  Logan got to his feet, looking concerned. “Is everything okay, officer?”

  Tony gave him a withering look. “Go about your business, citizen.”

  Logan stuck out his chest. “Citizen? I’m an attorney.”

  Tony snorted and said gruffly, “Not with that beard, you aren’t.”

  Then he took me by the elbow and firmly escorted me out of the vet clinic.

  Chapter 5

  Officer Tony Milano walked me over to his police car and held open the passenger side door.

  “I heard you were back in town,” he said.

  “Did you hear the rumor I was almost a billionaire before I had a meltdown?”

  “Just get in the car,” he said gruffly, avoiding my question.

  That confirmed it. Everyone knew. So much for me keeping a low profile. I climbed into the police car, wincing at the strong scent of cleaning products wafting from the back seat. I didn’t want to know what Tony had been cleaning up recently, but I was thankful to be sitting in the front.

  Tony slid into the driver’s seat and checked his hair in the rear view mirror. “Never turn forty, Stormy. Your hair gets scared about the next milestone and turns white.”

  “Tony Baloney, I think it might be your two children turning your hair white.”

  “Three. The new baby should be sleeping through the night soon.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “You didn’t know about the newest one, did you?”

  He started the vehicle and began driving toward the police station.

  I crossed my arms and turned to the window to hide my face. Tony was a rookie when my dad started mentoring him. I was sixteen, and he was twenty-three, with jet black hair cropped short and dreamy brown eyes. To me, Tony was bigger and better than every cute actor and singer rolled into one. I lived for those nights he came over to see my father and spent a few minutes chatting with me. He always treated me like an adult, like an equal.

  I dreamed of dating him once I was older, but when I finally made my move at twenty-three, it was already too late. I had my job offer with a new venture capital firm, and was leaving the next week.

  We made the most of those five days, which were extra thrilling because we didn’t want my father to find out. Tony was the one who drove me to the airport. We promised to stay in touch, but of course we didn’t.

  I’d seen him over the last ten years, when I visited home for the holidays, but only when we bumped into each other. He was already married the first time I saw him after I moved.

  “How old is Tony Junior?” I asked. “He must be nine already.”

  Tony grunted in response, then said, “We’ll have you over for dinner soon, I promise.” He tapped the steering wheel. I smiled. Tony always tapped his fingers when he was nervous. “Stormy, why did you run from the crime scene?”

  “Obviously because I’m the murderer, Detective Baloney.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said gruffly. “We’re not kids anymore.”

  “Sorry.” I crossed my arms tighter, hugging myself as I shivered at his cool tone.

  We drove for five minutes in silence, then he said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have come to the party at your dad’s house when you got here.” He stifled a yawn, which made me notice the dark circles under his handsome brown eyes.

  “You have a new baby. I’m sure you’ve got your hands full.”

  “You have no idea,” he said ominously, but didn’t explain further.

  “Hey, how did you know I was at the vet clinic? That was some good detective work.”

  “You think?” He frowned and kept looking straight ahead. We reached the town’s police station, and he pulled into a reserved parking spot. He turned off the engine and put his forehead in his hands like he had a terrible headache.

  “Tony?” I reached over and put a hand on his shoulder.

  He rubbed his face and glanced back at my hand, but didn’t shrug it off.

  “I’m not much of a detective, I’m afraid. Some citizens reported Mr. Michaels missing a couple days ago. It was the waitresses from the diner, concerned he hadn’t made an appearance in a while.”

  “And you didn’t do anything about it?”

  “We took the report, then I sent someone out with a locksmith to check the property. There were no signs of forced entry at his house, but no sign of Mr. Michaels, either. I figured he would turn up eventually, but not like this.”

  “He was there the whole time.”

  Tony groaned. “Hidden in plain sight. In that damn snowman.”

  I squeezed his shoulder. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “But you knew, Stormy. You’re a better detective than me. Hell, you’re better than your father, but don’t tell him I said that. We’d both be the laughing stock of the whole town if they knew you were the one who cracked the Donut Heaven case. And you were only eighteen.”

  “Seventeen.”

  He groaned, then opened his door and got out of the car. My hand hovered in the air for a moment, where his shoulder had been.

  “C’mon, kiddo,” he said. “Let’s get your statement.”

  “Can we hook ourselves up to the lie detectors and ask each other a bunch of embarrassing questions?”

  I looked up at his face and watched his expression change to amusement. I was glad to see I
could still put a smile on Tony’s face, even if it was just a small one.

  Chapter 6

  The police station hadn’t changed much since the days I used to come in after school and help type reports. The computers were new, but everything else, from the heavy wood desks to the swirling dark carpet, was exactly as I remembered.

  What did surprise me was how few people were inside the station. I counted only four people, including myself and the white-haired woman knitting a scarf at the reception desk.

  I figured everyone was out gathering evidence at the crime scene.

  Tony led me into the interrogation room, and started to take my statement, but changed his mind and called in his rookie to do it for job experience.

  He said, “You don’t mind a substitute, do you, Stormy? I’ll let you and my rookie get better acquainted.”

  I gazed up into his familiar face and lied. “Sure, that’s fine.”

  He left me in the room, and within a few minutes I was joined by another police officer.

  Like Tony, she was in uniform. To my surprise, though, she looked older than him—maybe fifty. Her sandy brown hair was flecked with white and styled in the same pixie cut as mine.

  “You’re the rookie?” I asked.

  “Were you expecting someone younger?” she replied.

  I was pretty sure that question didn’t have a right answer, so I said, “I like your hair.”

  I meant the compliment, too. Her white-flecked brown hair did look cute, cut in what seemed to be the exact same short style as mine. I expected her to point out the similarities between our hair, but she was all business as she solemnly took a seat across from me.

  The fifty-year-old rookie dove right into the first question. “What led you to believe Mr. Michaels’ body was inside the snowman?”

  “Mainly it was his frozen head sticking out of the top.”

  She gave me a dirty look.

  “Sorry, Officer…” I checked her name tag, which read Peggy Wiggles.

  “Officer Wiggles,” I said. “Wow. That is really cruel. I know the cops around here pull some funny pranks on the rookies, but making you wear that name tag is pretty humiliating.”

  “That’s my name.”

  My cheeks burned hot as I blushed furiously. I couldn’t take her withering gaze, so I bowed my head forward and buried my face in arms on the table. Suddenly, the events of the whole day hit me, and I realized what a wreck I’d made of my supposedly “fresh” start.

  As I sometimes do when I’m overwhelmed, I started to giggle like a maniac. The more I tried to stop myself, the funnier everything got. For one thing, my new tenant thought I was a nutty hotshot Type A lady. The veterinary assistant thought I couldn’t tell the difference between a boy cat and a girl cat. And I started off the day by taking a selfie with a murder victim.

  Officer Wiggles patted my shoulder. “There, there. It’s perfectly normal to cry in the interrogation room. To be honest, I’ve cried in here a few times myself, and I’m supposed to be on the no-crying side of the table. It’s this PMS curse that runs in my family. Five days out of the month, they should lock me up in the drunk tank for everyone’s protection.”

  Her soothing voice stilled my nervous giggles, and soon I actually was crying.

  She got me some tissues and a bottle of water, then waited patiently while I pulled myself back together.

  “You can call me Peggy,” she said. “I’m just a person, trying to do a job. We’re on the same side. We both want to catch the person who did this. Now, can you think back and remember what led you to investigate the snowman?”

  “My father’s cat ran over and scaled it like a tree. After I got Jeffrey down, I took my picture with the snowman, to show my old friends and former fiancé that I’m a fun person.” I laughed awkwardly.

  “Why? If they’re your friends, they should already know how fun you are.”

  I gave Officer Peggy Wiggles a smile. I liked her.

  She continued asking questions and taking down my answers to finish the statement.

  In between her asking me questions, I asked her a few of my own, including the cause of death.

  “We won’t know for sure until he thaws out on the coroner’s table,” she said, “but preliminary examination points toward strangulation. There are marks around the neck.”

  I swallowed hard. “Do you think it was done with the same scarf that was on the snowman?”

  Her eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe. They’ll test everything, of course.” She gave me an appreciative look. “That’s very smart of you to think of the scarf like that.”

  I shrugged. “Growing up with a cop for a father, you learn to see things in a different way. We’d watch the news together sometimes, and if something scared me, he’d explain the statistics of something bad happening, and how to avoid situations where I might get hurt.”

  She nodded slowly. “Sounds like Finnegan Day was a good cop and a good father.”

  I smiled. “He was an excellent cop.” I paused for a moment, then added, “He did the best he could raising us, and I love him.”

  “Good,” she said.

  Her eyes unfocused, like she was lost in thought for a moment. Time passed. I looked around the featureless room and wished it had a vending machine, because the shock was wearing off and I was in need of sugar. They should always have candy on hand, I decided.

  Officer Peggy Wiggles broke the silence by uttering one word, “Strangling,” then shook her head.

  “Yes. Strangling. So awful.”

  “And personal.” She lifted her hands and mimed the gesture. “The killer was an arm’s length away.”

  I shuddered at the thought.

  “But it wasn’t violent,” she said. “We’ll know more once he’s defrosted, but there were no signs of a struggle inside the house, and no obvious marks or defensive wounds.”

  “Was he strangled in his sleep?”

  “Maybe. If he was married or had a girlfriend, I’d be interviewing her right now and not you.”

  “No girlfriend. That figures. He was such a cranky loner, even fifteen years ago.”

  “That matches what I’ve been hearing. There won’t be many people to canvas.”

  “Do you have any suspects?” I fidgeted in my chair as I remembered the morning’s events. “The mail carrier seemed anxious. He was part of the reason I took off the way I did.”

  “I’ll note that on your statement.” She smirked, then made a funny noise, like she was trying to suppress something.

  “What?”

  She raised her eyebrows and waved her hand. “It’s just that the mail carrier suggested you as a prime suspect.”

  “Good grief.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s just what my reputation in this town needs.”

  “True. So, was there anything unusual about the snowman?”

  I pulled out my phone and showed her the photo I’d taken with it. “See how the face is a bit crooked? That’s a bit unusual, don’t you think?”

  “Hmm.” She frowned at the image. “What’s unusual is how good it looks. Like a professional snowman-builder made it.”

  “If such a thing existed, we’d have the case cracked wide open,” I joked.

  She consulted some notes, then asked, “Did you see any other footprints in the snow when you approached the crime scene?”

  I tried to remember what I saw, but I couldn’t recall much. “I don’t remember seeing any, but I was focused on chasing the cat.”

  “How much force did you have to apply to break apart the head?”

  I held out my hands to help me visualize it. “A fair amount. The snowman was constructed to be secure, I think. I actually had to karate chop the neck to loosen it. Pretty hard.”

  “One chop?”

  “Multiple chops.”

  “Right hand?”

  “Yes. I’m right-handed.”

  “Amateur karate chop or professional?”

  “I took some martial a
rts classes when I was a kid, but I’m no black belt.”

  “Did the snowman have any scent?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did it have one of those corn cob pipes? Or a pipe of any kind?”

  We consulted the photo again. “No.”

  She kept going, asking what seemed to be the exact same questions, but worded differently. I had to admire her repetitive technique, which had two potential benefits: jogging the memory of a witness, and providing the opportunity for a suspect to slip up and contradict herself.

  As time went on, and the questions kept repeating, the horror of the situation gradually gave way to boredom.

  Finally, when we were done, I said, “I feel like a sponge that’s been squeezed dry. Is that it for questions?”

  Officer Peggy Wiggles studied me with narrowed eyes. “One more question, if you don’t mind. Who cuts your hair? Is it Rose?”

  I patted the back of my newly-short hair. “Yes! Is she your hairdresser, too?”

  “Yes. She talked me into this pixie cut. My mother hates it.” Peggy rolled her eyes.

  “Does she say you’ll never catch a man with short hair?”

  “How’d you guess? You must be a detective.”

  I laughed. “Only in my spare time.”

  She looked around, then leaned in to say softly, “Well, if you hear of any leads in this case, call me. Any time. We’ve had another round of budget cuts, and between me, Tony, and the lady who volunteers to answer the phones so she can get the first scoop on town gossip, you’re looking at the entire homicide investigation crew.”

  “I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”

  She thanked me and walked me out of the room. As we walked through the station, I looked around for Tony, but he wasn’t in sight.

  We got to the front door, where she thanked me and gave me one of her cards. I stepped outside into the fresh winter air, happy to be out of there, my civic duty done for the day.

  My car was several blocks away, at the vet’s clinic, but at least the snow clouds had cleared away and it was a balmy day, perfect for a walk through town.

  I started walking, letting the crisp air clear my head.