Trouble Under the Tree (A Nina Quinn Mystery) Read online

  “You’d prefer someone else’s daughter?”

  “Of course, chérie.”

  My mother loved using the French endearment. It made her feel cultured.

  A large Christmas tree stood in the corner of the room, looking majestic. It was covered in white lights, white feather garland, and delicate crystal ornaments. I knew that somewhere on the tree, probably buried deep within the boughs, was a red and green paper snowflake with elementary school pictures of me, Maria, and Peter. Maria had made it in Sunday school when she was six, and it was my father’s favorite. He insisted it be hung every year (despite my mother’s temper tantrums about it.). It was Mom’s only concession of color on the tree—and I suspected it was allowed only because my father threatened to hang his collection of Elvis ornaments (of which there were many) if she didn’t comply.

  Theirs was a marriage about compromise.

  My father winked at me. “I think finding dead bodies is a handy talent to have. Did you know on this day in 1765, Eli Whitney was born? He invented the cotton gin, you know.” He glanced at my mother. “Speaking of gin, do we have any? Nina looks like she could use a drink. Finding dead bodies must take its toll.”

  My mother’s eyes looked to pop out of her perfectly coiffed head.

  It reminded me a bit too much of how Lele McCorkle’s eyes had looked under that box, and it made me shiver.

  “Maybe a hot toddy?” my father suggested.

  “Maybe a hot chocolate,” I said, blinking my not-so-innocent eyes at my mother.

  She narrowed hers in a perfect Ceceri Evil Eye. A double one at that. It was too much for me to resist. “Fine. While you’re making the hot chocolate, I’ll tell you all about my morning.”

  My mother said, “Now that’s my good girl.”

  My father went back to his magazine and whispered, “Capitulator.”

  “Self-preservation,” I countered.

  “Smart girl,” said my dad as I walked into the kitchen.

  A loaf of freshly-baked bread sat on the counter. I eyed it. “When did you learn to make bread?” Usually, she bought the Pillsbury kind that comes in a can from the local Kroger and passed it off as her own.

  “I didn’t. Your sister brought it over.”

  I poked the loaf. “My sister Maria?”

  “Do you have another?” she retorted as chopped a square of semisweet chocolate.

  “Dad could have been living a double life all these years. You never know. It could happen.”

  “Tee-hee,” my father laughed.

  My mother waved the knife. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  My father, I noticed, still smiled. He loved getting under my mother’s skin. It was his favorite pastime next to being a history and Elvis buff.

  “Since when does Maria know how to bake?” Last I checked, she didn’t even know how to turn on her oven.

  “I told you she’s acting strangely,” Mom said. She poured milk into a saucepan and warmed it up.

  My mother made a mean hot chocolate, but secretly, I preferred Swiss Miss. Mom’s recipe was a very close second, though.

  “You need to talk to her. Something is going on,” she said. “Last week she called from the grocery store and asked me if I needed anything.”

  “Maria knows where the grocery store is?” I was only half-kidding.

  Mom whisked sugar and vanilla extract into the milk. “Exactly my point.”

  “Maybe she’s finally throwing herself into being a newlywed to impress Nate?”

  “Maybe she’s had a lobotomy,” Mom said.

  True enough. Maria rarely thought of anyone beside herself. I was going to have to check this out, because despite myself, now I was curious as to what was going on.

  Mom stirred the chopped chocolate into the warm sweetened milk. Delicious scents filled the kitchen. She said, “Now tell me, did Mrs. Claus really get whacked?”

  “Whacked?” I repeated.

  Dad said, “Your mom has been watching Sopranos repeats.”

  She wiggled her champagne blond eyebrows. “I kind of think that Tony Soprano is handsome. Is that wrong?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is.”

  She frowned at me.

  “Turns out,” I said, “that it was Fairlee McCorkle who was murdered. Strangled. At first we thought it had been Fairlane.”

  “Lele!” Mom said, shocked. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. When I left, Kevin was still interviewing employees.”

  “Who is twisted enough to put a body under a Christmas tree?” Mom said, whisking away. “That’s just wrong. Poor Benny and Jenny,” she added as she poured the liquid into mugs. “They’ve been through so much. First Benny’s accident, now this. Has he fully recovered from that car wreck?”

  “He walks with a bit of a limp,” I said. “Otherwise, you would never be able to tell he’d been critically injured.”

  Mom tsked again. “It’s a miracle he made it out alive.” She made the sign of the cross even though she hadn’t been to church in decades. “Unlike that poor girl who died in the crash. What was her name?”

  I wracked my brain but couldn’t come up with it. The crash had happened nearly two years ago in March. It had been after midnight, the road had been covered in black ice, and the two cars collided head-on.

  Investigators reported that the young woman who died had crossed into Benny’s lane. But reports also showed that Benny had an elevated alcohol level. Not enough to be considered legally drunk, but enough, experts said, to impair his reaction time. After the crash happened, there had been speculation the accident may have been avoided—or at the very least it would not have been as severe—if Benny had been stone-cold sober.

  Jenny told me that Benny hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since, and that he was still dealing with the demons born that night. He’d even been the subject of a documentary that followed his rehabilitation. The Recovery of an All-American Hero. The ratings had been huge, and Benny had become a national star—bigger now than before the accident.

  “Carrie Hodges,” my father said.

  My mother snapped her fingers. “That’s it. Pretty young thing, she was. Her poor family.”

  Immediately, a photo of a dark-haired girl popped into my mind. It had been shown on the news and in the papers over and over. She’d been heading home from graduate school to spend spring break with her family, who lived in the area.

  I dropped two peppermint marshmallows into my mug and watched them melt. It never ceased to amaze me how quickly a life could change.

  My mother brought a mug out to my father and kissed the top of his head. She kissed mine on her way back, as well.

  Suddenly, I felt the need to wrap Riley in a bear hug.

  And to call Bobby, just to hear his voice.

  Mom must have been reading my mind, because she said, “Have you heard from Bobby lately?”

  “He called last night. No news quite yet. He loves the weather down there. Eighty degrees and sunny.”

  “I’m green with envy,” my mother said. “Perhaps we need a vacation, Tonio.”

  Dad said, “I’ve always wanted to visit the ruins of Machu Picchu.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a cruise in the South Pacific,” Mom said lightly.

  “Oh.” He turned the page of his magazine and didn’t say another word.

  I wondered what the compromise would be on this one.

  I finished my hot chocolate, and said, “I should be getting home. Where’s Snoopy?”

  My mother’s face morphed into a scowl, and suddenly she looked like an evil queen in a storybook. “When I find out who’s doing this, ooooo!” She shuddered with anger.

  “You’ll visit them with a poisoned apple?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” I mumbled, heading for the door leading into the garage.

  Sure enough, there was a large plastic puddle on the floor. Next to it, an air compressor.

  Someone had shelled out
a lot of money for this particular prank. And a suspect was forming in my mind.

  “You didn’t hear the air compressor running last night?” I asked.

  “Thanks to the earplugs I wear to block your father’s snoring, I hear very little at night.”

  “Dad didn’t hear anything, either?”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “Without his hearing aid in, he wouldn’t hear if a plane landed in the yard.”

  I was suddenly glad they had a good alarm system, not that either would hear it if it went off.

  I reached down to scoop up the snow globe.

  “Isn’t it hideous?” Mom asked.

  “It’s going to look perfect in my side yard.”

  “Where did I go wrong in raising you?” she asked.

  “I think Peter dropped me on my head when I was a baby.”

  “That explains it.”

  My dad helped me load Snoopy into my truck, and I gave them both kisses and drove off.

  At the end of the street, I turned left, in the opposite direction of my house.

  As much as I wanted to spend some quality time with Riley watching a Die Hard marathon, there was someone I wanted to talk to.

  I glanced back at Snoopy.

  And she had better have a good alibi for last night.

  ***

  She answered on the third knock, and I flashed my keychain light into her eyes. “Where were you between the hours of midnight and six a.m.?”

  “Have you been hitting the leftover eggnog?” my cousin Ana Bertoli asked. She waved me inside her apartment and closed the door.

  Colored Christmas lights had been tacked along the ceiling, mini Santa Clauses cluttered every surface, and a large silver tree with pink lights stood in the center of the room. Every branch had an ornament—or two—weighing it down. A giant rhinestone star topped the tree like an elaborate Vegas headpiece.

  The scent of popcorn filled the air, and I saw that she’d been in the middle of making popcorn garland. “What are you talking about?” she asked, clicking the TV to “mute.” She’d been watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas—the Jim Carrey version.

  “You,” I said. “Maybe doing a little nocturnal sneaking around. With Snoopy? And Woodstock.”

  Her brown eyes widened. She had her dark hair pulled up in a sloppy bun and wore a pair of plaid lounge pants and a The Ohio State sweatshirt. If her clients could only see her now—they might go back to a life of crime.

  “You skipped the eggnog,” she said, “and went straight for Kit’s flask, didn’t you? It makes sense, considering the dead Mrs. Claus and all.”

  Even though I hadn’t known her well, there was an ache in my chest, a tug of grief for Lele. She had been a nice woman—at least toward me. Who had killed her. And why?

  I plopped down next to Ana on the couch, and she offered popcorn from her bowl. “I’m perfectly sober.”

  “Then maybe I should get you a drink, because you’re not making any sense. Snoopy?”

  I eyed her. “Last night, someone set up a giant Christmas lawn decoration at my mother’s house. One of those inflatable snow globe things—Snoopy and Woodstock. It’s actually very cute.”

  Ana’s mouth dropped open and a piece of popcorn fell out. She picked it off her lap and popped it back into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Suddenly, she started laughing. “An inflatable Snoopy snow globe? At Aunt Cel’s?” She fell backward onto the couch cushions and kept laughing. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she held her stomach as if it ached. “Oh, oh! My stomach hurts. My cheeks, too. A snow globe. Priceless.” She wiped tears away.

  “You didn’t put it there?” I asked, not sure I believed this fit of laughter wasn’t to throw me off her scent.

  “I wish I did. That’s classic.” She massaged her cheeks. “Oh, I wish I could have seen Aunt Cel’s face this morning when she saw it. You don’t know who did it?”

  “I thought it was you!”

  Ana shook her head. “Nope.”

  I crunched a piece of popcorn. “Then why were you late to my party last night? And don’t tell me you were working. I’m not buying.”

  A guilty flush flooded her cheeks.

  “Aha!” I accused.

  “Aha yourself,” she countered. “I wasn’t at work, but I wasn’t plotting the Great Snow Globe Escapade either. Though, really, I wish I’d thought of it.”

  “Then where were you?”

  She rolled her eyes and set the bowl of popcorn on the table. “Trying to finish Kit’s Christmas present,” she said slowly.

  “Finish his shopping?”

  “No, his present.”

  “You’re making something?” She was the least crafty person, besides my sister Maria, that I knew.

  She scrunched up her face. “No.”

  “I’ve had a long day and not a single drink,” I said. “Could you just tell me? I don’t have it in me for twenty questions.”

  “Promise not to laugh?”

  I sat up, suddenly very interested. “Maybe.”

  She frowned at me, stood up, and pulled off her sweatshirt. “Whoa!” I said. “What’re you doing? You’re not taking one of those stripper pole gym classes to learn a few moves, are you? As a surprise for him?”

  She winked at me. “Been there, done that.”

  “Ew! Too much information!”

  She pulled up the back of her tank top. “See?”

  I stared at the small of her back. “What am I looking at?”

  “That.” She twisted and pointed.

  I leaned in, so close that my nose was almost touching her waistband. “Freckles?”

  “Those aren’t freckles.”

  “What are they?”

  “It’s the start of my tattoo.”

  Shocked, I looked up at her. “A tattoo?”

  “Don’t judge me.”

  “I’m not judging,” I said, totally judging. Ana and a tattoo? Her mother would kill her. On second thought, Aunt Rosa had probably given Ana the idea. “I’m just a little surprised. Considering how you feel about needles.” There were three or four little dots on her back. “Is it supposed to be a constellation or something?”

  She sighed and pulled her shirt down. “It’s supposed to be a heart with my and Kit’s initials in it. But every time I go, and the needle touches my skin, I pass out. I’ve been there three times already. I tried again last night with the same result.”

  I pressed my lips together. Hard.

  “You promised not to laugh!” she cried, tossing a piece of popcorn at my head.

  “I said ‘maybe,’” I mumbled.

  “It’s not funny, Nina.”

  My eyes watered, and I fanned them with my hand.

  “What am I going to do? I can’t think of a single other present for him.”

  The urge to laugh uncontrollably finally faded. “Yeah, considering you already did the stripper pole thing.”

  “Tell me about it. I should have saved that for Christmas. What was I thinking?”

  I didn’t want to know.

  “Besides, I really wanted to do this for him,” she said. “Show him I’m committed. Plus, you know how he likes tattoos.”

  “I think he likes you more.” I wasn’t sure about that at all—the man had the strangest fixation with ink. “He’ll like anything you get him.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “Let me think on it.”

  “Think fast,” she said. “Christmas is next Sunday.”

  “I will. So,” I hedged. “Committed, eh?”

  Ana wasn’t known for long-term relationships.

  Her cheeks colored. “I think so. Maybe. I don’t know. I really like him, Nina. You won’t tell him, will you?”

  I smiled. I’d never seen her so head-over-heels. “My lips are sealed.” I stood up. “I’ve got to go. I need to stop by Maria’s on the way home. Apparently, she’s acting strangely.”

  “More than usual?”

  “She’s baking.”
<
br />   Ana gasped.

  “I know.” As I pulled open the door, a big black blur barreled down on me. I braced myself as BeBe, Kit’s massive mastiff, threw her paws on my chest and slobbered my face.

  Kit followed behind her, carrying a bag of take-out Chinese food.

  “Only action you’ll see for a while with Bobby out of town,” he said, winking.

  I gave BeBe some love and attention, and said, “Don’t remind me.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, I pulled into Maria’s driveway. She lived in a McMansion on the edge of town. The house was done up much as my mother’s—with dazzling white lights and tasteful decorations. I knocked on the door and waited. There was no noise coming from within at all—not even a yap from Maria’s neurotic Chihuahua, Gracie.

  As I climbed back into my truck, I could have sworn I saw a curtain shift in the upstairs window—one of the guest rooms.

  I frowned and kept watching to see if it happened again. It didn’t.

  After a few minutes, I drove off.

  It must have been only my imagination.

  Chapter Six

  Bright and early Monday morning, I sat in my office. I had a lot of paperwork to sort through and phone calls to return. ’Tis the season to set up garden makeovers for the spring.

  I’d given everyone else the day off so I was a little surprised when I heard the front door of the office open.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  Brickhouse appeared in my doorway. Her hair was a bit perkier this morning, but her body hadn’t returned to its normal brick-shape yet.

  She clucked as she set a box of donuts on my desk, and I immediately forgave her for every insult she ever hurled my way. I picked through the offerings and said, “What’re you doing here? You’re not supposed to be back until tomorrow.”

  Leaning against the doorjamb, she shrugged. “Thought I would make sure you’re not running this place into the ground.”

  I waved a glazed donut at her. “You’re lucky you came bearing gifts, but suddenly I’m reminded of a certain Trojan horse.”

  Smiling, her eyes twinkled. She looked so much healthier than she had in the past few weeks. Her break from Mr. Cabrera was paying off.