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

  Picking at the paint on door, she said, “The news isn’t saying much about Lele McCorkle’s murder. Is it true that Christmastowne is reopening today?”

  Ah. The donuts had been in trade for information. Unfortunately for Brickhouse, I didn’t know much. “It’s true.”

  “The police are already done with their investigation?”

  “No, but they’ve cleared the scene.”

  “Kevin hasn’t told you anything?”

  I shook my head. When he picked up Riley last night, he hadn’t shared any information at all. Probably in retaliation for the video Kit made—which reminded me that I still needed to get that from him.

  “And Fairlane?” Brickhouse asked. “She’s not saying anything?”

  I didn’t mention that I’d seen Fairlane going into Mr. Cabrera’s house last night. Some things Brickhouse just didn’t need to know. “Not that I’ve heard. She’s been keeping a low-profile since Saturday.”

  Since the murder.

  Which was probably smart, considering that she may have been the intended victim.

  When I mentioned that fact to Kevin, he’d grunted at me but didn’t say anything. I hoped he took my theory seriously.

  I set my donut down and frowned at it. Only the thought of a murder could make me lose my appetite for a Krispy Kreme.

  Brickhouse said, “Do you still think it was supposed to have been Fairlane killed?”

  “Everyone liked Lele. It doesn’t make sense that she was the intended victim.”

  “What about her past?” Brickhouse asked.

  “What about it?”

  She clucked. “Maybe she has some skeletons in her closet?”

  I poked at a flake of glaze clinging to my donut. “I don’t really know anything about her past. Do you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Strange that we’d been neighbors for months, but I didn’t really know much about the sisters. I didn’t even know if either had been married. Or had kids or other family.

  “Ach. I did hear that Lele wasn’t happy at Christmastowne.”

  “You did?”

  She nodded.

  “Who said so? And why wasn’t she happy?”

  “Donatelli said Lele told him she didn’t like working there. That she’d seen some strange things going on.”

  I put my hand up. “Wait, wait. First, Donatelli told you? When were you talking to Mr. Cabrera?”

  She shrugged coyly. “He might have stopped by with some strudel yesterday.”

  “And you let him in?”

  “I’m feeling much better these days.”

  Well, Mr. Cabrera wouldn’t be if she found out about Fairlane’s late-night visit to him. I rolled my eyes. “What kind of strange things?”

  I wondered if it had anything to do with the missing toys Riley had noticed.

  “Lele said she wouldn’t share the ‘sordid’ details with him. That she wasn’t a snitch.”

  “Sordid? That was her word?” Toy thefts might be called a lot of things, but sordid wasn’t one of them.

  Brickhouse nodded. “Makes you wonder.”

  It did. Sordid sounded like there might have been some hanky-panky going on behind all that tinsel at Christmastowne. But who had Lele been referring to?

  More importantly, how could I find out?

  The phone on my desk rang, and even though it was before office hours, I picked it up. “Taken by Surprise, Garden Designs, this is Nina.”

  “Nina, oh my God, you have to get over here.”

  It was a near-hysterical woman. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Jenny! Jenny Christmas.”

  Brickhouse had moved closer so she could eavesdrop, so I put the call on speakerphone. She’d brought donuts after all.

  “Jenny? What’s wrong?”

  “Everything,” she cried. “My whole life. But right this very minute? Every poinsettia you planted last week has shriveled up and died. I need you to get rid of the dead ones and replace them with new ones by the time the doors open at eleven.”

  I could feel my eyes widen.

  Brickhouse clucked softly and shook her head.

  “I’m not sure that’s possible, Jenny,” I said as gently as I could. There were hundreds of poinsettias at Christmastowne. Replacing them all would take a couple of days—not hours—and that was if my supplier had enough in stock. If.

  “Make it possible, Nina,” Jenny snapped. “I paid you a lot of money for those plants. Get me new ones, and get them now! Make it happen, or I will drag your name through the mud alongside mine. Got it?”

  She hung up on me.

  “Whoa,” I said, staring at the phone.

  “I never liked that Jenny Chester.” Brickhouse clucked. “She made faces, too.”

  Obviously, Brickhouse could hold a grudge.

  I stood up, then sat down, then stood up again. “We have to remove the dead plants at least. Can you call and see how many poinsettias our supplier has on hand?”

  She nodded. “What do you think happened to those plants?”

  I curled my hands into fists. One of them dying...I could see that. But all of them? There was only one answer. “Sabotage.”

  And whoever was behind it had just made it very personal.

  ***

  Calling in help wasn’t as easy as I expected, especially as today was a day off for my crew. Some of my employees either didn’t have their phones turned on—or didn’t answer them. So I did the only thing I could—promised lots of favors to friends.

  “Thanks for helping me out,” I said to the crowd gathered, trowels in hand. I glanced from face to face and felt a warm gush in my chest. These were the people I could count on when I needed them most.

  “Anytime, Miz Quinn,” Mr. Cabrera said.

  My neighbors Flash Leonard and Mrs. Daasch nodded. As did Tam (with baby Niki strapped to her chest). I was beyond grateful anyone had responded to my SOS. “Kit will be here any minute with the replacement poinsettias, but for now, we need to start digging up the dead plants.”

  It had been a little over an hour since Jenny’s call had come in, and we were gathered in Christmastowne’s atrium. There were a hundred poinsettias—at least—in this area alone.

  I fanned the pack out in pairs to tackle the uprooting, and I kept checking the door—not only for Kit, but because my parents had yet to show up. I thought they would have been here by now.

  “Where you go, trouble always follows,” a voice said behind me.

  “You’re not always trouble,” I said as I turned. “Just most of the time.”

  “Ha ha. I wasn’t talking about me,” Kevin said.

  “That’s strange, because it feels like you’re the one following me. First you’re at my party, then you’re an elf, now this. What’s a girl to think?”

  “Maybe I just can’t stay away from you,” he said, blinking his eyelashes.

  A weird, warm fizzy feeling slid down my spine. I didn’t like that one bit. Kevin and I were divorced. Done. That fizz was probably just a remnant of post traumatic stress from the breakup. “Now you’re scaring me. Stop that.”

  He grinned a lopsided grin as if he could sense that fizz.

  Damn him.

  He nodded to the plants. “What happened?”

  Safe ground. Thank goodness. “Looks like someone poured weed-killer over them.” I picked up a shriveled plant. “Which had to take some time. Please tell me this place has security cameras.”

  “It does.”

  “Have you checked the film yet?”

  “There’s no film to check. Not from last night, when these plants bit the dust, and not from the day of Lele’s murder.”

  “But you said...”

  “Christmastowne has cameras, but they don’t work. Someone tampered with the system on Saturday, and it’s still not functioning.”

  I read between the lines of what he was saying. “Tampered with them before Lele’s murder?”

  He nodded.

  I pu
t two and two together. “Lele’s murder was premeditated?”

  “Sure looks that way.”

  I put the sad little poinsettia in a brown bag. “Do you know yet if she was the intended victim?”

  “No proof otherwise.” He plucked three plants from their bed and dropped them into the bag. He wiped his hands on his jeans.

  I kind of missed his tights. Kevin had great legs. “Have you talked to Mr. Cabrera? He might have some information for you.”

  Great legs? I grabbed another plant and yanked. What was I even thinking about Kevin’s legs for? I had Bobby now. Bobby.

  Blond-haired, blue-eyed Bobby, who was the complete opposite of Kevin. Which was one of the reasons I liked him so much.

  “Like what?” Kevin asked.

  I told him what Brickhouse had said.

  The lines around his eyes deepened as he said, “Sordid?”

  I nodded. “And I’ve been thinking...”

  “Dangerous.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you know anything about Lele and Fairlane’s backgrounds? Family? Where they lived before they came to the Mill. That kind of thing.”

  “I’m looking into it, Nina. It’s my case, remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  He looked around. “Did I see Mr. Cabrera around here with a trowel?”

  “You did. He’s working in the food court area, but you may want to stay away from Flash Leonard.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s not happy that his baseball disappeared after Lele was discovered. He thinks someone stole it and is going to try and sell it on online.”

  “Was it signed?”

  “I don’t think so. He said he’d only get it autographed if there were old-timers here on Saturday—and there weren’t.”

  “Then why does he think someone would sell the ball?”

  “I think he puts a high price on sentimental value.”

  “Gotcha.” Kevin’s lips twitched. “I’ll look into it. It’s probably in the evidence room.”

  He looked up at the tree. “Did you know that someone cut the wires on the lights the day of the tree-lighting?”

  “Really?”

  “It’s why the tree wouldn’t light at first. Some quick-thinking elves spliced the wires together, but the tree will need to have all the lights replaced, sooner rather than later.”

  More sabotage. But why?

  Over Kevin’s shoulder, I spotted my parents coming in the front door. My mother was stomping like a pissed-off soldier, and my father trailed behind her, wearing his “patience” face.

  Kevin turned to see what I was looking at and said quickly, “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Chicken,” I called after him as he strode off in the opposite direction.

  My mother’s eyes were wild, bloodshot, and wide open in a crazy-person-on-the-loose kind of way. “We’re here!” she cried.

  I glanced at my father.

  He said, “Thanks to me.”

  My mother just kept staring, wide-eyed.

  “What’s wrong with Mom?” I asked.

  Dad smiled. Mom jabbed him in the chest. “This is not funny, Tonio. Not at all.”

  “A little,” he said to me.

  Mom let out a small cry.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “We were backing out of the driveway to come here,” he began.

  “And it was on the roof,” Mom said. “On. The. Roof.”

  I looked between the two of them. “What was?”

  “A Santa Claus and nine reindeer. The Santa’s arms move,” she said, waving wildly.

  I took it to be a manic mimic of Santa’s abilities.

  “Rudolph’s nose blinks. Blinks like a freaking blinking beacon.” She laughed a maniacal laugh.

  “You can see it for miles,” Dad said. “At least we don’t have to worry about planes hitting the roof.”

  He might have himself a death wish, too.

  “How long is this going to take?” Mom asked. “Because we have to take that Santa down. As soon as possible.”

  “I convinced your mother to come here first,” Dad said.

  “You owe me, Nina Colette Ceceri,” my mother said, fisting my shirt and pulling me close. “You better have a good Christmas gift planned for me.”

  I, perhaps, needed to rethink the slippers and robe I was going to get her.

  Because, even as we stood here, I could see snow starting to fall outside. Which meant that there was no way my father was getting on the roof to take down Santa today.

  “How,” I asked, “did someone put a Santa and reindeer on your roof without you noticing?”

  “In addition to her ear plugs, she took one of her pills,” my father said.

  “What pills?” I didn’t know she took any pills.

  “A mild tranquilizer. It helps me sleep,” Mom huffed, finally releasing me. “Don’t judge me.”

  She’d been hanging out with Ana, apparently. There was a lot of non-judgment pleas going on these days.

  I passed them both trowels and a brown lawn refuse bag. “Well, thanks for coming. Just dig up as many dead poinsettias as you can find.”

  “They look so sad,” my mother said, glancing around. Then her gaze hardened. “But not as sad as that Santa on my roof after I get my hands on it.” She stomped off, cursing loudly.

  I looked at my dad. “Did you see the snow?”

  He nodded.

  “You might want to give her one of those pills now so she doesn’t have a stroke.”

  He patted my cheek. “I’ve got it covered. She has about twenty minutes before she’ll be down for the count. We’ll keep this between us?”

  I nodded.

  “Good girl.”

  As he followed my mother’s trail of curse words, I turned my attention back to work.

  I’d dug up four plants before the fire alarm went off.

  Followed by the sprinkler system.

  Chapter Seven

  “At least the new plants are well-watered,” Kit said an hour later.

  I was still damp from head to toe. “Har. Har.” My sense of humor had been drowned out of me. I looked like something washed ashore and just wanted to go home and crawl into a hot bath.

  Kit had arrived after the fire department. The fire hadn’t been in Glory Vonderberg’s kitchen as I assumed, but in a trash bin in the men’s room.

  Apparently, someone had dropped a lit cigarette into the trash and it had ignited crumpled paper towels. The fire had been contained, thankfully, and the sprinklers had only been on for a few minutes, but the damage had been done.

  Christmastowne was a soggy mess.

  “Chop, chop!” Jenny shouted from across the atrium as she clapped her hands loudly. “Get to work. We have one hour to get this place bone dry.”

  Kit looked at me. “Is she serious?”

  “Delusional is more like it.”

  I didn’t know how Jenny planned on explaining damp merchandise to her customers. Thankfully, the biggest draw, pictures with Santa, wasn’t going to suffer. Santa’s Cottage didn’t have sprinklers inside it, so it had escaped the deluge.

  “Uh-oh, she’s headed this way,” I mumbled, looking around for a place to hide.

  “I’m out of here,” Kit said.

  “Don’t leave me,” I pleaded.

  “You don’t pay me enough to deal with that, Nina.” He grabbed a pallet of poinsettias and trotted off.

  I didn’t pay myself enough to deal with it, either.

  “Nina!” Jenny yelled as I turned to slink away.

  Slowly, I pivoted and plastered a phony smile on my face. “Hi, Jenny.”

  “Look,” she said, touching my arm, “I’m sorry if I snapped at you this morning. You cannot imagine the stress. And now the sprinklers?” She shook her head. “I feel like someone is out to get me.”

  And I felt like collateral damage. The sooner I wrapped things up at Christmastowne the better, but what she said resonated. It really
did feel like someone was out to get her. “Do you have any enemies? Besides the thirty workers currently giving you dirty looks?”

  She scowled. “They’ll get over it.”

  I wasn’t so sure. She was turning into a boss-from-hell.

  “And no, I don’t have any enemies. That’s ridiculous. I was only kidding about someone out to get me. Why?” she eyed me. “Do you think someone’s out to get me?”

  Totally. “It just seems a little coincidental, all these things going wrong.”

  She chewed on her lip. Little bits of pink lipstick stuck to her teeth. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “Is there any chance the fire this morning was set on purpose?”

  Her brow crinkled. “I don’t think so. The fire chief would have said so, right?”

  I shoved another three, now soggy, poinsettias into the bag. “Probably. Has anyone admitted to dropping the cigarette?”

  “Not yet.” She glared at her scurrying employees. “Coward.”

  Whoever it was probably feared for not only his job but his life. There was a dazed, crazed look in Jenny’s bloodshot eyes that left me suspecting she was, in fact, capable of murder.

  But I still doubted she had anything to do with Lele’s death. It didn’t make sense, unless I was missing something big.

  I noticed that every hair on her head was fluffed and perfect. “How come you’re not wet?”

  Anger tightened her lips. “Because I was in Santa’s Cottage when the sprinklers went off, firing Santa.”

  “What? You fired Drunk Dave?”

  “He was drinking on the job again. Never hire family, Nina. I’m never going to hear the end of this at family gatherings.” She shook her head, then looked at me slyly. “Speaking of hiring, I poached one of your hired hands to take over Santa’s job. I hope you don’t mind, but I was desperate to fill the position, and when I walked out of Santa’s Cottage, there was the perfect man standing there. I asked, and he accepted.”

  I hoped she wasn’t talking about Kevin. He couldn’t pull off the elf look, much less a respectable Santa.

  “Who?” I wavered between admiring her go-get-’em attitude and being really angry she hadn’t asked me about it first.

  “Donatelli Cabrera? He’s starting as Santa this afternoon.”