Death of a Dapper Snowman Read online

  A neighbor was dead, and a killer was loose in Misty Falls. If the mailman actually suggested I was the killer, rather than someone believable, that ruled him out as my prime suspect. With no wife or girlfriend, and no children going after his will or insurance money, that cut out the obvious leads. Because I’d grown up next door, I knew Mr. Michaels was a cranky loner who didn’t pay or receive many social calls.

  Therefore, because there were zero people on the list of obvious suspects, that meant the killer could be anyone. The entire town of Misty Falls was populated with suspects.

  As I walked past a costume rental store, my eye was caught by their elaborate window display. It was an outdoor scene, with fake snow and a winter scene. A female mannequin in formal wear held a snowman’s head in her hands. I felt my gag reflex trigger at the scene, which wasn’t meant to be gruesome. I wondered if the store owner would change the display once the news of Mr. Michaels’ chilly demise spread throughout town.

  I leaned in to take a closer look at the display snowman, which was made of carved white foam. He appeared to be wearing the exact same top hat I’d posed in earlier that day. I pulled out my phone and checked the picture, since the actual top hat was currently in my car. It appeared to be the same hat.

  I stepped back from the window and took a few steps toward the costume rental shop’s front door. I had my first suspect. My pulse quickened at the idea of going in and asking questions.

  The top hat was a pretty good clue.

  Mr. Michaels had become my father’s neighbor years ago, before I’d turned ten. I didn’t know him well, but he wasn’t the kind of festive guy who’d splash out on high-end seasonal decorations. He didn’t even hand out candy on Halloween. One year, he put out a stack of old paperback Westerns and a sign telling kids to help themselves. Nobody did.

  So, if Mr. Michaels didn’t buy a fancy top hat for a holiday display, that meant the killer did. I stared at the glass front door, my feet not yet convinced to get moving. What if the owner of the costume shop was the killer? I couldn’t walk in there unarmed.

  Sure, I’d accidentally removed the top hat from the crime scene, so I felt some responsibility for that piece of evidence, but to what end?

  As I stood there debating my next move, a woman and her two teenage daughters excused themselves as they walked past me and into the shop.

  There was my opportunity. With them as a safety buffer, I followed the trio in and started looking around the costume shop, pretending to be browsing.

  Chapter 7

  I poked around the dimly-lit, cramped interior of the costume rental store.

  “Can I help you with anything?” asked the tall man working behind the counter.

  “Just browsing!” I ducked shyly behind a display carousel of sequined costume ball masks. I picked out a glittering purple mask with green feathers and brought it up to the counter.

  “You’re not browsing,” the man said.

  “I’m not?” My heart started pounding so hard, I could feel my pulse throbbing in my throat. The man was so tall, with long fingers, perfect for strangling.

  He reached out with one long arm, and I stepped back with a gasp. His eyes narrowed behind his frameless square glasses, making his long, thin face look more gaunt. He must have picked up on my apprehension because he quickly softened his expression with a polite smile.

  I tried to return the smile as I nervously took another half step back, clutching the mask to my chest.

  “You can hang onto that if you like,” he said. “I know the code for those masks by heart.” He tapped away at a computer keyboard as he hummed a little tune. “Still snowing out there?”

  I swallowed down my paranoia and set the purple costume ball mask on the counter between us. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the woman with her teen daughters sort through a rack of ballerina costumes.

  “The snow’s let up,” I said with forced cheerfulness. “It’s a balmy day out there. Perfect for building a snowman.”

  “A snowman?”

  My mouth got sticky, but I pressed on. “I was just outside admiring your window display. Do you arrange that yourself, or is there someone you hire to put together everything?”

  “You should know all about that, Miss Day.”

  My mouth went completely dry. I glanced over and watched as the woman gathered her daughters and left the store, leaving me alone with Mr. Strangling Hands, who knew my name.

  I let out a squeak.

  He pulled off his eyeglasses and started cleaning them with a kerchief.

  “Pam does my window displays these days,” he said. “She’s a crafty woman, that Pam. She’s still with your father, isn’t she?”

  “Oh. Yes.” I remembered that Pam had been hounding me to let her do the displays for the gift shop window. I’d insisted on doing it myself. Pam did nice enough work, but her taste had always seemed a bit off, to me. She couldn’t tell the difference between things that were so ugly they were cute, like certain breeds of dogs, and things that were just ugly, like garishly floral bath robes.

  The main continued, “In fact, Pam was by here earlier this morning to say hello and chat about this and that.” He tilted his head to the side and gave me an appreciative look, which felt flattering but not lecherous. “If you ask me, your new haircut is charming. It really suits your nice features, Stormy.”

  “Thank you.” I patted the back of my head and fluffed up the top as I tried to recover from the shock that everyone in town knew all about my business, and I barely remembered who they all were. Maybe I was a big city hotshot after all, and I’d never fit in again.

  As I looked at his thin, yet friendly face, a name floated up. “Mr. Jenkins,” I said. “You did the costumes for the school band. I remember you now. Let’s see… that must have been fifteen years ago, right?”

  He nodded down to show me the top of his head. “That was back when I had hair up here.” When he straightened up again, his eyes were twinkling. All at once, the time that had passed folded up like an accordion, and didn’t seem so long after all. He still had that same twinkle.

  “Mr. Jenkins, I remember how funny and charming you were at the high school. Everyone on the marching band loved you, and I think a few of the girls had crushes on you.”

  “They loved my thick, luscious hair.”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a grin. “It was pretty sparse up there, even back then.”

  He clutched his hands to his chest and stepped back, pretending to be shot, but still laughing.

  I quickly added, “Not that anyone would ever see the top of your head, anyway. Don’t worry, you’ve got plenty left where it counts.”

  He finished cleaning his glasses, put them back on, and rang up my purchase with a smile on his face.

  “How are things at the gift shop? I got a postcard from the former owner. She’s enjoying her world tour by cruise ship.”

  “I bet she is,” I grumbled. The woman got the deal of a lifetime when she suckered me for twice what the shop was worth.

  Mr. Jenkins gave me a curious look, like he was eager for me to spill some town gossip about what a liar the former gift shop owner was. As much as I wanted to tell him how she’d cooked the books and buried expenses to make the store seem more profitable, I knew to bite my tongue. People already had plenty to talk about when it came to me.

  Mr. Jenkins tucked my purchase into a bag, then pointed one long thumb in the direction of a cork board on the back wall behind the counter.

  “There’s the postcard she sent me,” he said. “Alaska.”

  The store’s lighting was a little brighter near the counter, but I still had to lean in to get a good look. The cork board contained dozens of postcards, business cards, and photos of smiling customers in costumes and formal wear.

  My eyes went past the photo of icebergs and straight to a row of photographs rigidly arranged in the lower right corner. The pictures looked like mug shots. The one on the far right was a picture of
the deceased, Mr. Michaels. It was taken when he was in his non-frozen state, but he still had a similar stunned expression.

  I pointed to the row of pictures and said, “What event are these photos from?”

  Mr. Jenkins quickly shifted down a calendar so that it covered the row of photos. “I’m afraid that’s not for customers to see.”

  “But I’m not just a customer. I’m a local business owner. That’s your Wall of Dishonor, isn’t it? Shoplifters?”

  He lifted the calendar back up to let me have a look.

  “Yes, I’m sorry to say that’s exactly what it is. Keep an eye on these ones if they start spending a suspicious amount of time inside your store.”

  “That woman with the platinum hair… she drives a pretty nice car, I think. What’s she doing shoplifting?” I pointed to the woman, but I was really interested in getting a good look at Mr. Michaels. Yes, the picture was definitely of him.

  “Some of them must do it for the thrill,” Mr. Jenkins said. “This one’s husband always pays for what she takes. I suppose I could let her come and go, but lately she hasn’t even been trying to hide what she’s doing. I can’t let people carry on like that without punishment. It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for her.” I leaned in, squinting theatrically. “I think that’s my dad’s neighbor over there. What did he steal?”

  “Men’s clothes, sometimes. I think he took one of my top hats, but I can’t be sure. It disappeared on a day I had my new employee working, and she might not have recognized him from the board.” He formed his long-fingered hands into fists and shook them angrily. “That was an expensive hat, too. I’ve half a mind to hold him upside down by the ankles and shake him until everything came loose. He had a few of my things.”

  I carefully studied the store owner’s face as he talked about what he wanted to do to the deceased.

  “Even if you dropped something personal, he’d snap it right up,” Mr. Jenkins said. “I’d like to drop something right on his head.”

  In my business deals, I was good at spotting when someone was lying, overselling something with too much emotion and eye contact. Mr. Jenkins was behaving like a normal store owner, upset over losing an expensive hat. If he really had killed someone, he wouldn’t be uttering threats right now to someone everyone knew was a police officer’s daughter.

  Or would he? Was Mr. Jenkins a criminal mastermind? Or just a tall, balding man going through a mid-life crisis? I scanned him again, letting my eyes wander, guided by my subconscious. My attention settled on his left hand, to the indentation where a wedding ring had recently sat.

  He finally stopped ranting about shoplifters and removed his glasses again so he could dab at his eyes with a tissue. “Sorry for my outburst,” he said softly. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”

  “Winter is tough,” I said with matching softness. “The days are short and cold, but spring will come.”

  He blew his nose and turned away for a moment.

  “Stormy, you always did have a gift with words,” he said. “How is your father?”

  “Exactly the same.”

  “Good health?”

  “Except for the new hip, yes.”

  “Good,” he said with a weak smile. “Too many things change these days. People are under the delusion that all change is an improvement. But what’s the word for change that isn’t an improvement?”

  “In the business world, we say restructuring instead of layoffs.”

  He frowned. “Life is full of restructuring. The things they shove down our throats these days!” He shook his head and looked away.

  My gaze went to his bare ring finger as his hand settled on a pile of paperwork. It looked like a stack of waybills and invoices, which made me think of financial matters.

  “Oh,” I said with a sympathetic note. “Is everything okay with the business?”

  “Of course,” he snapped. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “No reason.” I picked up my shopping bag and tucked it into my purse along with my wallet. “See you around,” I said with a cheery smile.

  He forced his thin lips into a smile. “Good to see you again, Stormy.”

  “You, too,” I said as I backed away.

  He gave me a pleasant-enough wave, and turned to busy himself with something on the computer.

  I walked past the racks of costumes and formalwear toward the door, still thinking about the shop owner’s empty ring finger. A top hat was nothing to kill someone over. Stealing away someone’s wife, however, was another story. I made a mental note to ask around about this restructuring Mr. Jenkins was having shoved down his throat.

  Outside on the sidewalk, it was almost bright enough for sunglasses, with the sun turning the recent snowfall into sparkling diamonds.

  Diamonds?

  That gave me an idea.

  Chapter 8

  For the next hour, I walked up and down the main shopping avenues of Misty Falls.

  Word would soon spread about the strange discovery of the body in the snowman, so I only had that afternoon to gather information about Mr. Michaels before people became more guarded. Whatever I found out, I planned to pass along to the police. Both Tony and Peggy seemed like they could use the help.

  I told myself I was just being a good citizen, doing my duty to help dispense justice. But as I went from shop to shop, I got more and more energized.

  While I didn’t miss the long hours and stress of my former life, I did miss the excitement, and the challenge of the puzzle. Mr. Michaels had been shoplifting at a number of places, for years. I felt like I was onto something.

  I was practically beaming as I entered the jewelry store on the corner, Ruby’s Treasure Trove.

  There were two people in there, behind the counter. A young woman who looked like she ought to be in high school was polishing the glass display cabinets. She glanced up at me shyly then scurried away, into the back room.

  “Don’t mind the new girl,” said the other woman, the store’s owner. “She’s as skittish as a newborn colt born on a frosty day.”

  “Ruby Sparkes!” I exclaimed.

  “You remember me!”

  “Of course I do. Who could forget the most fun lady in all of Misty Falls?”

  Ruby Sparkes tipped back her head and let out a big laugh, not denying my compliment. Ruby was an energetic woman of sixty-something, with curly hair colored a purple-red shade between auburn and grape soda. She had a friendly voice, a warm smile, and the kind of bosom you wanted to have your face crushed into as a kid if you were feeling blue. She always wore purple, unless she wore leopard print. It was leopard print today—a blouse paired with purple slacks.

  Ruby came out from behind the counter with her arms held wide. “Little Stormy! You’ve become such an elegant young woman.”

  I looked down at my boring ski jacket, casual jeans, and old boots.

  “Me? Elegant? Oh, Ruby, you’re such a charmer. I have so much to learn from—oof.”

  She grabbed me in a hug and pulled my face down to the top of her bosom. Her hug felt every bit as good as it had when I was a kid. It was a shame my father had no interest in older women, or Ruby might have had a bigger role in my life.

  “I like your short hair. It’s so spunky. Let me look at you.”

  From her bosom, I said, “You’ll have to let me go first.”

  With a burst of laughter that would fill any room with joy, she released me and took a good look at me, from head to toe.

  “I haven’t seen you since your grand re-opening. I popped in and out before we got to talk. I hope you got to slow down and eat some of those mini cupcakes I brought. You’re too thin, honey.”

  “Yes, I ate a few,” I said, which wasn’t exactly true. I’d seen the cupcakes and enjoyed smelling them, but resisted the sugary treats.

  “There’s that lovely smile of yours. You’re taking me down memory lane, dear. I remember when your father used to bring you in eve
ry year on your birthday to pick out something special.”

  “I still have all those little treasures.”

  “He always felt so bad he couldn’t surprise you, but you enjoyed the shopping trip even more than the trinket you picked out, didn’t you?”

  I smiled at the memory. “You sure are good at figuring out everyone in this town, Ruby.”

  She patted her huge, purple-hued curls. “I keep an eye on things.”

  “Thank you for bringing those cupcakes, by the way. That was so sweet of you.”

  “Nonsense. You’re the sweet one! Give us another hug!”

  Suddenly, I was in her arms again, being crushed against her fragrant and ample bosom. This time she patted my back.

  “You poor dear,” she said as she kept patting my back. “That must have been such a ghastly surprise, when you found that poor man’s frozen body.”

  My voice muffled against the ruffles of her leopard print blouse, I said, “You heard the news?”

  “Poor, poor thing. Come into the back. I have more of those mini cupcakes. They’re so small, you can’t say no.”

  She grabbed my hand and practically dragged me past the display counters and into the back room.

  We passed by stock room shelves stacked with cardboard boxes. She had far fewer boxes than I did at my gift shop, because Ruby’s inventory was much smaller in scale than mine. In fact, she didn’t even need such a big stock room.

  Just as I was wondering what she did with all the extra space, we rounded a corner and found ourselves in a bright nook that looked like a miniature tea room.

  My mouth dropped open at the surprise. I felt like how Alice must have felt when she jumped down the rabbit hole and found herself in Wonderland.

  “Sit!” Ruby Sparkes commanded, and plopped me into a chair next to a round bistro table. “I’ll be back with hot tea in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  I took a seat next to the large window, which looked out onto the sidewalk. I could see the front of my gift shop, down the street. How had I never noticed the secret tea room in the back of Ruby’s Treasure Trove?