Silent Night, Deadly Night Read online

  Praise for the Year-Round Christmas Mysteries

  “Delightful. . . . [A] humorous tinsel-covered tale that made me laugh out loud even while keeping me guessing.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay

  “Delany has given us a story full of holiday cheer, an exciting mystery, wondrous characters all in a place I would love to really visit. Its charm just lit up my day. This is one mystery you shouldn’t miss this holiday season.”

  —Escape with Dollycas into a Good Book

  “I delved right into this story—it grabbed me in and wouldn’t let me go.”

  —Socrates’ Book Review

  “The Year-Round Christmas Mystery series continues to build upon this delightful town inhabited by fully developed characters. . . . [A] smartly funny series written by an experienced author.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Vicki Delany does a masterful job of creating an inviting fictional small town that is all about Christmas.”

  —Open Book Society

  “Ms. Delany has started a promising new series with Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “The dynamic characters in this series really are what stands out most. . . . Compelling and kept me guessing. A great holiday read.”

  —A Cup of Tea and a Cozy Mystery

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Vicki Delany

  REST YE MURDERED GENTLEMEN

  WE WISH YOU A MURDEROUS CHRISTMAS

  HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SLAY

  SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2019 by Vicki Delany

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780440000310

  First Edition: August 2019

  Cover art by Julia Green

  Cover design by Sarah Oberrender

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  To my own friends of long acquaintance: Pat, Jackie, Karen, and Leslie

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I am grateful to the members of the Canadian crime writing community for their help and support. The idea for this book began at a “writers’ retreat” (much retreating is done, little writing!) with Barbara Fradkin, and with Robin Harlick during long walks in the snowy woods surrounding Robin’s Quebec cabin.

  Thanks also to the great team at Berkley, mainly Miranda Hill and Michelle Vega, and to my wonderful agent, Kim Lionetti at Bookends.

  And, most of all, to the cozy community, whose enthusiasm for books and reading, and cozy mysteries in particular, is always an inspiration.

  Contents

  Praise for the Year-Round Christmas Mysteries

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Vicki Delany

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  My mother had been excited for weeks.

  Then again, sometimes it can be difficult to tell. Excited is my mother’s normal state of mind.

  The first of the girls (as she called them) had started arriving yesterday. The rest were due this morning. After settling in, they planned to tour the sights of Rudolph, New York, beginning with my store, Mrs. Claus’s Treasures.

  I checked my watch. Eleven thirty. “Now remember,” I said to Jackie O’Reilly, my shop assistant, “these are longtime friends of my mother, but I’ve never met any of them before.”

  “Doesn’t sound like such good friends to me,” she said. “My mom’s childhood pals are more like aunts to me than my own aunts are.”

  “College friends drift apart. In terms of location as well as moving on with their lives. They’ve kept in touch over the years with Christmas cards and the like, and some of them visited Mom in New York when she was singing. Mom and Dad stayed with one of the women when they were in California last year, but Mom says this is the first time since college that they’ll all be together. Anyway, the point is, Jackie, treat them well. This weekend is really important to Mom.”

  “Treat them well. I’ll remember that. I assume you mean not like I treat our other customers, Merry.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Whatever.” Jackie tucked a piece of fresh holly around a giant glass bowl piled high with silver and pink balls. “How’s that look?”

  I studied it. The display seemed sparse to me. “Fill the bowl up more. It should be on the verge of overflowing.”

  “If it overflows any more, they’ll fall out.”

  “Another one or two will be okay.” In my former life I’d been a style editor at one of the country’s top lifestyle magazines. I had a good eye, and I was proud of it.

  I left Jackie to it, and went to give a small nudge to a customer who’d been spending a lot of time examining the earring tree. “Those are hand-made by a local jeweler,” I told her.

  She picked up a pair of earrings. Delicate threads of silver had been twisted into the shape of a snowman, and a tiny red stone provided his nose. “I’ve been admiring the quality. They are pricey though.”

  “The artist’s name is Crystal Wong. She’s from Rudolph and is in her first year at the School of Visual Arts in New York.”

  “She works here part-time.” Jackie placed a pink ball on top of the stack. It did look dangerously unstable. She picked up a silver orb and slowly settled it in place. The display wobbled, and she held her hands out as though to catch them if they fell. Trust Jackie to make her point, even if the entire display collapsed around us.

  “You’re right, Jackie,” I admitted as I remembered that at a magaz
ine shoot we often had displays tumbling around us moments after the pictures were snapped. A photographic display isn’t designed for stability or permanence. “Any more balls and the whole thing’s going to topple over.”

  She didn’t bother to hide her self-satisfied expression as she removed the last two balls.

  “I like knowing the name of the artist and helping support a local community at the same time,” the customer said. “I’ll take these for me.” She handed me the snowmen and then she picked up another one of Crystal’s pieces, a gold chain with double links and a small jeweled wreath at the throat. She ran the chain through her fingers and checked the price tag. “This might be a bit too much for a preholiday gift. I’ll take these instead.” She swapped the necklace for a pair of earrings shaped like wreaths. “For my mother-in-law. I’ll call it a Thanksgiving present to get her in the mood for the holidays. I’ll take some of those napkins as well. I love your tree.”

  “Thanks.” I gave the tree an appreciative glance. A live Douglas fir, replaced once a month, fully decorated with bells and balls, ribbons and wooden cranberry strings, small, warm white lights, and a glistening silver star at the top, filled one corner of the store. This was a Christmas-themed shop, but that never stopped us from featuring other holidays at the appropriate time. Today the main display was set as if for a Thanksgiving feast, with a centerpiece of real sugar pumpkins, fresh apples, red maple leaves, an orange and brown runner with matching place mats, and turkey-themed dishes.

  I took the jewelry to the sales counter while the customer continued to browse. We’d been busy this morning, but the store was emptying out as lunchtime approached.

  It was the week before Thanksgiving, coming up to the busiest time of the year. At Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, I specialize in locally made crafts and design elements for gift-giving and for decorating the home. The store’s located on Jingle Bell Lane, the main shopping area of Rudolph, New York. The greatest desire of the townspeople and shop owners of Rudolph is to be officially designated America’s Christmas Town. That hasn’t happened, not yet, but we call ourselves that anyway.

  Although we celebrate Christmas all year round, the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year are the busiest, by far, and like all the owners of shops and businesses along Jingle Bell Lane, I was gearing up to do nothing but work for the next six weeks.

  “Speaking of Crystal,” Jackie said once the customer had left, laden with not only the two sets of earrings and Thanksgiving napkins but a porcelain Mrs. Claus doll dressed in Victorian attire, a chain of bright red wooden cranberries, and a set of the silver and pink balls. “How’s she doing in New York?”

  “Well, I think.” Jackie and Crystal had never gotten on, perhaps because bold Jackie was filled with her own self-importance and shy Crystal was genuinely talented, but I got the feeling Jackie was proud of how well Crystal was doing. “She seems to be enjoying her classes and is making friends. She’ll be home for the holidays and is going to do some shifts in here at the busy times.”

  “That’s good,” Jackie said. “I could use the help.”

  She spoke as though I weren’t, at this very minute, rearranging the jewelry display.

  The chimes over the door tinkled and my mother swept in. She’d been a soloist at the Metropolitan Opera and had retired from the stage a few years ago. Now she taught voice lessons, but she was still every inch the diva. Her look was always dramatic with her huge dark eyes and jet-black hair (these days owing more to Clairol than to her Italian mother) and still-flawless olive skin. Today she wore a black wool cape tied with a row of fire-engine red frogs and lined with scarlet silk, a matching red hat trimmed with fake black fur, and red leather knee-high boots with substantial heels.

  “Darling. How lovely to see you.” She wrapped me in a hug, and I was enveloped in the familiar scent of Chanel No. 5. She released me and turned with a dramatic sweep of her arms. “Girls, come and meet Merry, my eldest daughter. Merry owns this absolutely darling little shop.”

  The five women who filed in in my mother’s wake were a mixed lot. Their clothes ranged from new, expensive, and fashionable to mass-produced, well-worn, and slightly tatty. They ranged in size from short and round to tall and lean. They were all the same age as my mom, but if I hadn’t known they’d been college roommates, I might have thought their ages varied by twenty or more years.

  They greeted me warmly and gushed over both me and my shop.

  Mom made the introductions, and I struggled to keep the names straight:

  Constance: designer jeans, three-hundred-dollar haircut, diamond earrings and rings, tall and fit, healthy winter tan

  Barbara: average height but powerful-looking in khaki pants, hiking boots, cropped gray hair, a row of piercings through her right ear

  Karla: short and plump with pale pudgy cheeks, cloth coat pilling around the elbows and under the sleeves, sturdy brown footwear of the sort my paternal grandmother would have called “sensible shoes”

  Ruth: heavily wrinkled, bags under eyes, jeans worn in the knees and hem but not fashionably, scuffed sneakers, an aura of cigarette smoke clinging to her and her clothes

  Genevieve: also smelling of smoke but faint and overlaid with perfume, taller than the rest and as thin as the branches of the earring tree, struggling to keep her age at bay with what might have been a facelift, dyed blond hair tied in a high ponytail that was far too youthful for her

  Introductions over, the women spread throughout the shop. Almost immediately Constance began gathering things off the shelves and display racks. Jewelry, Thanksgiving napkins and place mats, a set of coasters showing the elves hard at work in Santa’s workshop. Genevieve picked everything up, examined it, and put it back again. Karla went straight to the toys, and Barbara studied the Christmas decorations. Ruth stood against a wall, her arms crossed over her chest, and simply watched the others. A deep line had formed between her eyebrows, and she was not smiling.

  “Do you know the origins of these pieces?” Barbara asked me, pointing to a brightly painted wooden nutcracker soldier that formed part of a collection.

  “I can tell you almost to the square mile,” I said. “The woodworker lives not far from town, and he forages in the woods for broken branches after a storm and follows the crews who maintain the electricity wires when they’re trimming trees.”

  His name was Alan Anderson and he was my boyfriend. I didn’t mention that.

  “Is everything you sell here local?” she asked.

  “Not everything. I source some of the finer things in the city, but I do my best to get whatever I can locally.”

  “Merry was a design editor with Jennifer’s Lifestyle magazine,” Mom said. “She has excellent taste.”

  “I can see that,” Barbara said. “I’ll take the full set of these, thanks. They’ll look great decorating my office.”

  “What do you do?” I asked.

  “I’m a lawyer. We specialize in environmental protection.”

  “Sounds interesting,” I said.

  “And important.”

  Karla had left the toy display and come to see the table decorations. “Interfering with businessmen trying to provide jobs and keep their community alive, more like,” she said.

  “That’s your opinion,” Barbara said.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “I’d like to hear more about what you and your firm do, Barbara,” Ruth said.

  Karla turned on her. “People like you, who only work for others, don’t understand what it’s like to be responsible for the welfare of your employees. Some of these environmental people want to bring in ridiculous petty laws that destroy hardworking family-owned businesses. You wouldn’t believe the trouble and expense we have to go to before we can begin a project. All to protect some silly turtle.”

  Ruth lifted her hands. “I’m just asking.”

  “And I’
m just telling you,” Karla said.

  I wasn’t getting in the middle of that. I went behind the sales counter and began ringing up purchases while Jackie followed Constance through the shop, staggering under the weight of the other woman’s selections. Ruth went to stand by the door, where she waited impatiently for the others to finish shopping.

  Genevieve put a small ornament on the counter. “I’ll be back later,” she said to me, “and then I’ll clean you out. For now, I’ll get this charming fellow.”

  I’d noticed her trying to unobtrusively check the price tags on all the items she looked at. This little ornament, a two-inch-high wooden soldier to hang on the tree, was one of the cheapest things I sold. I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to buy something she didn’t really want just to please Mom, but that would come across as pretty insulting, so I said nothing.

  “Why don’t I treat you to a little something?” Constance was examining the jewelry display, and she called across the shop floor to Ruth. “Isn’t this necklace absolutely darling? Would you like it?” She held up a chain with glass stones shaped like holiday lights.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Ruth said.

  “But I’d like to.”

  “No. Thank you.” Ruth kept her arms folded across her chest. The line between her brows deepened.

  “It’s not much.” Constance ran her eyes over Ruth, taking in the too-large brown jacket, the worn jeans, the scuffed sneakers. “You need a touch of holiday color about you.”

  My shop’s not very large, and voices can easily be heard from one side to the other, but I thought Constance could have shown a bit of courtesy by approaching the person she was talking to, rather than yelling across the room so everyone could hear.

  “I told you,” Ruth said, “I don’t want it.”

  “I’m only trying to be nice.” Constance’s tone was sweet, but a sickly sweet. Too much and without good intentions behind it. “You don’t have to—”

  “Lunchtime!” Mom called. “Complete your purchases, girls. I have the perfect place in mind for lunch. Merry, can you join us?” She lifted her eyebrows to the ceiling and opened her eyes wide, asking me to agree.