Dying in a Winter Wonderland Read online

  “Secure the scene. No one allowed anywhere past the edge of the driveway unless they’re with us. I’ll be calling for forensics officers.”

  He nodded.

  Candy shifted her utility belt. “Uh?”

  “You’re with me,” Simmonds said. “Someone has to watch all these people.”

  The medics had placed a blanket over Jeff, and I threw him a last quick glance before following Candy and the others out of the clearing. Chris caught my eye and he grimaced. Simmonds brought up the rear and we took the main path through the holly hedge.

  Police cars filled the driveway, their red and blue lights dancing cheerfully across the snow as if wanting to join the Christmas merriment. Officers who were not appreciating the joy of the holiday season strung yellow crime scene tape or milled about, waiting for orders. A group of people had gathered on the steps of the hotel to watch the activity. Grace Olsen stood at the police line by the driveway, trying to talk her way past. Simmonds recognized her and went over. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Olsen, but one of your guests has died in the gardens. We have to keep the scene secure. I’m sure you understand.”

  “One of my guests? Who? How? Chris? Merry? What are you two doing here?”

  “Lately,” Simmonds said dryly, “it seems that where death goes, Merry is sure to follow.”

  “That’s hardly fair,” I said. “I can’t help it if I’m around when things happen.”

  Luanne and her mother stood on the steps among the crowd of people. They were watching, but their faces showed nothing but mild curiosity.

  “That’s her there,” Chris whispered to Detective Simmonds. “The fiancée. In the blue coat next to the older woman with the brown hat.”

  “That’s her mother,” I said.

  Grace threw me a questioning glance and I gave her a slight nod.

  At that moment Luanne caught sight of us. She broke into a huge smile and waved cheerfully at Chris and me. She said something to her mother, and Fran snapped at her. Luanne waved again.

  Chris studied the ground.

  “I’ll speak to the fiancée first,” Simmonds said. “As you know the woman, Merry, you can come with me and help me break the news. Mrs. Olsen, I’ll need two meeting rooms or other private places. Can you arrange those for me, please?”

  “Certainly.” Grace hurried away.

  Simmonds pointed to one of the cops watching the exchange. “I want you to go with the two hotel employees and wait in one of the rooms provided for us. I’ll be in to talk to them shortly. Officer Campbell, take Mr. Wilkinson to the other room to also wait for me. He’s not to leave the room, make a phone call, or speak to anyone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Chris said.

  “When I have time,” Simmonds said, “I’ll listen to your story. And, Campbell, tell those people to disperse. I’m not putting on a Christmas pageant here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Candy said. Then to Chris: “Let’s go.”

  Chris threw me a panicked look. I tried not to give him one in return. Chris had been first on the scene. I’d seen him bending over the body of Jeff Vanderhaven. He had the dead man’s blood on his gloves.

  I could imagine what Simmonds was thinking, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  Chapter 8

  The crowd parted to allow Candy, the other officer, Chris, the groundskeeper, and the security guard into the inn. A wave of shouted questions and whispers followed them. Once they’d gone inside, people began to drift away.

  No one paid any attention to Simmonds and me, still standing in the driveway.

  No one except for Luanne and her mother. Luanne had taken a step toward Chris when he’d passed, but her mother’s arm had shot out and jerked her back. Luanne gave me a smile and beckoning wave. Her mother, at least, seemed to realize something was wrong here, and she snapped at her daughter.

  Diane Simmonds and I climbed the steps.

  “What’s going on, Merry?” Luanne asked. “People are saying there’s been a bomb threat. Is that true?”

  I ignored her question and made the introductions. “Luanne Ireland. Fran Ireland. This is Detective Diane Simmonds of the Rudolph police.”

  Fran’s face turned pale. Luanne gave Simmonds an empty smile. “Nice to meet you, Detective. If there’s no bomb, is it okay if we go back inside now? Merry and I are here for a meeting with Chef Mark Grosse to plan my wedding menu. Where’s Chris gone?” she said to me. “Is he okay?”

  “I’d like a word with you, please,” Simmonds said. “In private.”

  “Okay, I guess.” Luanne shrugged. “I don’t know anything about any bomb. Do you, Mom? We’ve been inside, waiting for Merry. You’re late again, Merry.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  Fran turned and put one foot on the next step. She staggered and I grabbed her arm. Beneath her coat, I could feel her tremble. She’d guessed what Simmonds wanted to talk to Luanne about, even if her daughter had not.

  I gave Fran’s arm what I hoped was a comforting squeeze as we went into the Yuletide Inn together.

  Grace always took charge of decorating the inn herself, and she had once again done a fabulous job. White lights glittered, and red ribbons shone. A twinkling snow-covered village lined the mantel of the great stone fireplace, while birch logs burned cheerfully below. The tree in the center of the lobby was real, reaching to the twelve-foot-high ceiling, and many of the decorations had been bought at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Wreaths made of real pine boughs and tied with huge gold bows lined the staircase, and strings of wooden balls painted red to resemble cranberries ran between them.

  Grace waited for us at the reception desk, her professional face polite but expressionless. “If you’ll follow me,” she said. The receptionist watched us, wide-eyed.

  “Where’s Jack?” I asked Grace as she led the way down a corridor.

  “At the cardiologist. Even though it’s Boxing Day, his doctor agreed to see him. He suffered pains in the night, which the fool didn’t tell me about until this morning. He insists he overate and overdrank at your parents’ home yesterday, but I wanted him to be checked out. Can’t be too careful.”

  “No,” I agreed. Jack had suffered a major heart attack a year ago, and Grace had stepped in to take over the running of the inn.

  She opened the door to a small meeting room, six chairs arranged around a board table, and stepped aside. An arrangement of painted wooden nutcracker soldiers standing guard on the credenza was the only sign of Christmas in here.

  “Thank you,” Simmonds said. “If you could bring us some water, please, and a couple of glasses.”

  “Certainly.” Grace hurried away.

  “Please,” Simmonds said politely, as though she were presiding over an afternoon tea party. “Have a seat.”

  Luanne shrugged and sat down. Her mother gave me a look of pure terror and slowly lowered herself into a chair. She wiggled the chair closer to her daughter. I went to stand behind them, and put my hand lightly on Luanne’s shoulder.

  Luanne wasn’t stupid. She might be flighty and self-absorbed at times, but she wasn’t completely blind to what was going on around her. I wondered if her self-defense mechanisms had kicked in and her brain was deliberately trying to shelter her from what she subconsciously knew was to come.

  “Do you know a man by the name of Jeff Vanderhaven?” Simmonds asked.

  Fran’s body shuddered and she let out a sharp gasp. Tears filled her eyes. She nodded.

  “He’s my fiancé,” Luanne said. “We’re getting married in February. Why are you asking?”

  Simmonds cleared her throat. “I’m very sorry, but Mr. Vanderhaven died a short while ago.”

  Fran burst into tears. Luanne said, “No, that can’t be right. He went to a bar with his dad to watch some silly football game. He loves football
. I think it’s the most boring thing on earth, but I pretend I like it.”

  “Luanne,” I said. “Detective Simmonds is right. I . . . I saw him.”

  She shoved her chair back so hard it crashed into me. I took a step backward. Luanne leapt to her feet and whirled around. “No! That’s not true. It can’t be true.”

  I stared into her face. “It is true, Luanne. I’m so very sorry.”

  Fran stood up slowly. She gathered her daughter into her arms, Luanne’s body crumbled, and they wept together.

  I glanced at Simmonds. The detective must have a heck of a lot to do, but she stood quietly, letting the drama play out.

  Grace slipped into the room, carrying a tray with a jug of icy water and four glasses. She put the tray on the credenza next to the nutcracker soldiers, gave me a long look, shook her head sadly, and left, shutting the door silently behind her.

  Finally, Fran spoke around her daughter’s hair, “What . . . what happened? Where?”

  “He appears to have fallen and struck the back of his head on a rock,” I said. “Death came almost instantly. It happened in the gardens of this hotel.”

  “He fell?” Luanne pulled herself out of her mother’s embrace. Her voice was soft and low. “That can’t be right. Jeff isn’t at all clumsy.”

  “That’s what I’m here to determine,” Detective Simmonds said. “I’ll need to talk to Ms. Ireland about Mr. Vanderhaven, but at the moment she needs to go home and rest. Did you come in your own car?”

  “We came separately,” Fran said. “Luanne in her car, me in mine.”

  “Neither of you should drive. I’ll get an officer to take you home. Merry told me Mr. Vanderhaven’s parents were at your house the night before Christmas. Are they staying with you?”

  “No,” Fran said. “They’re at the Inn on the Square and are going home tomorrow. That was their plan, last I heard.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Rochester.”

  “Would you like me to call them and break the news?”

  “No,” Fran said. “I’ll do it. It shouldn’t come from a stranger.” Luanne wept harder.

  “I agree,” Simmonds said.

  “I’ll get my husband to be with me when I call,” Fran said.

  Simmonds used her radio to ask an officer to bring a car around and meet Fran and Luanne in the lobby.

  “What about our meeting with Chef Mark?” Luanne sobbed. “We’re late.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” I said. “You go with your mom.”

  Fran wrapped her arms around her daughter and they began to walk toward the door. Luanne stopped abruptly and pushed her mother away. She turned to me. “Tell Chris it’s okay. I know he didn’t mean this to happen. They got into another fight, right? Over me.”

  The implications of what she was saying hit me as though one of those nutcracker soldiers had risen up and bonked me over the head. “Hey! You can’t be thinking Chris had anything to do with Jeff’s death. He doesn’t love you, Luanne. He never did.”

  “Come along, dear,” Fran said. “Let’s go home.” She led her weeping daughter out of the room.

  When they were gone, I said to Simmonds, “That woman’s off her rocker. She’s delusional. She—”

  “Calm down, Merry. I won’t be coming to any hasty conclusions. I hadn’t planned to, but it looks as though I should start my questioning with you. I assume by ‘Chris,’ Luanne was referring to your brother. What did she mean?”

  I poured myself a glass of water, not because I needed it but for something to do while I gathered my thoughts. I trusted Diane Simmonds as a good woman and a good detective. I knew she wouldn’t rush to take the easy way out and accuse the first person who came to mind, but this could look bad for my brother. He’d been found—by me, of all people—hovering over the dead man.

  A man who’d only the day before punched him in the face and threatened to kill him.

  I dropped into a chair and nestled the cold glass between my hands. I took a deep breath, marshaled my thoughts, and said, “Luanne told Chris she’s in love with him, not Jeff Vanderhaven. She was prepared, as recently as last night, to call off her wedding to Jeff and go to New York City with my brother, regardless of the fact that the deposit on the hall’s already been paid and plans for the nuptials are under way.”

  “How do you know this? Did your brother tell you?”

  “Believe it or not, I was an eyewitness. She showed up at my parents’ house, drunk and crying and confused, to tell Chris what she was thinking, in front of not only me but my parents, Grace and Jack Olsen, Vicky Casey, and a substantial number of other people, including Russ Durham of the Rudolph Gazette, who’d gathered for Christmas dinner at my parents’ place.”

  Simmonds didn’t often let her thoughts show on her face. They did this time. “You’re kidding! Really?”

  “Really. Chris told her, again, in front of all of us, politely but firmly, that he wasn’t interested in being with her.”

  “What did she do then?”

  “She cried a whole lot. She was drunk. Her dad and Jeff arrived and . . . they left with her.”

  Simmonds picked up on my hesitation. “What happened before they left?”

  There was no point in not telling her. Plenty of other people had been there. The evidence was written all over Chris’s face. “Jeff knocked Chris off his feet and said he’d kill him if he came near Luanne again.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Meaning, if Chris died, we’d know who to go after. But not the other way around. Chris had no reason to kill Jeff. Absolutely none.”

  “Is that how he got that black eye and cut lip? It looks about a day old.”

  “Yes.” I was glad she’d picked up on that. If anyone thought Chris had been in a fight today . . .

  “Some men don’t like being threatened.”

  “My brother’s not like that. Besides, he’s going back to New York City tomorrow. He’ll be well enough out of Luanne’s life and all her drama.”

  Simmonds studied my face. I knew she had other questions—such as, did Chris mean what he’d said to Luanne yesterday?—but she didn’t ask them. Instead she said, “Did you know Jeff?”

  “I met him for the first time on Christmas Eve, when I paid a brief call on the Irelands to talk wedding plans. I met him the second time last night, when he came to my parents’ house.”

  “You and Luanne Ireland are good friends?”

  “Not at all. I scarcely know the woman. She was friends with Chris in school, not me. I’m five years older than them. An insurmountable distance for teenagers.”

  “Then I don’t understand why you’re so closely involved in her wedding.”

  “Oh, sorry. I should have explained. She hired me to do the decorations, design the tablescape, accessorize her dress, stuff like that.”

  “When did ‘tablescape’ become a word? Never mind. You’re telling me Luanne was having doubts about her wedding?”

  “She was having doubts about the groom. Not about the wedding. Although everyone, including me, was angry with her at her sudden change in plans.”

  “What sort of change?”

  I explained.

  “Quite a mess,” Simmonds said when I’d finished. “Is that sort of behavior characteristic of her?”

  “As I said, I don’t know her well, but I suspect it is. Luanne likes to be the center of attention and she likes to get her own way. If Luanne had died, I’d be willing to accuse Jeff of having done it out of jealousy or something. But, again, not the other way around.”

  “All these last-minute changes—I assume that would increase the cost of the wedding substantially.”

  “Leaping from seventy-five guests to two hundred and fifty and from five months away to seven weeks? ‘Substantially’ is the word, Detective.”


  Luanne had told me her father was angry at the increasing cost of the wedding and angry at the Vanderhavens for not offering to help out. But that, I decided, was hearsay. I’d leave Simmonds to ask those questions for herself, as she was clearly on that path without my help.

  “Take me through what happened out there, Merry. As you saw it.”

  I explained, as best as I was able, why I’d been in the garden and what I’d heard and seen. “It’s unfortunate the groundskeeper cleared the snow off the eastern path before you arrived. The killer must have left a good trail behind him in the snow.”

  “We still might be able to pick something up. Thank you for your time, Merry.”

  I stood up. “Is Chris free to leave?”

  “Not until I’ve heard what he has to say. And then I’ll decide.”

  “Why don’t I . . . ?”

  “Sit in on the questioning? I don’t think so, Merry. Good day.”

  Knowing when I was dismissed, I left, walking as slowly as humanly possible in the direction of the door, hoping Simmonds would forget about me and make a phone call or contact her colleagues on the radio. She didn’t. I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. If my ears could have flapped, they would have. Simmonds sighed, crossed the floor in a few rapid steps, and slammed the door shut.

  Curses, foiled again.

  I waited in the hallway, unsure of what to do now. Two people passed me, dressed for a day in the snow. They didn’t so much as give me a sideways glance.

  I straightened up when I heard footsteps coming toward me. Chris appeared, a uniformed cop following too closely behind him. The bruising around my brother’s eye and the healing cut on his lip gave him a menacing air, which was completely not Chris. He smiled when he saw me, and the smile, although not very big and containing no humor, made him look once again like the Chris I know and love. “Everything okay, Merry?”

  “Perfectly okay. Do you need a lift back to town?”

  “I came in Mom’s car.”

  “Oh, right. I saw it outside.”

  “Haven’t got all day here, buddy.” The cop opened the door to the meeting room and gestured Chris inside.