“Grab him!” I yelled, hurling myself off the small stage and into the crowd. As I shoved through, people did move but just not fast enough. Some received elbows from me, others I outright pushed. With my heart thundering, I continued to yell for someone to stop Terry, but I was met with confused stares.
I finally reached the tables by the door.
“What are you doing?” Annabelle shouted, grabbing my arm.
“Terry! We have to stop him!”
“Why?”
Why, indeed? He hadn’t done a darn thing to make me want to chase him, except try to leave. “B-because he’s running!”
It didn’t mean he was guilty, but the fact I’d found the blood on the leg of the chair and he watched me do so, then tried to leave the building had me feeling as if he were hiding something… like a murder confession.
Annabelle’s jaw worked as she stared at me, probably deciding if I’d finally lost all my marbles. After a quick moment, she ran ahead of me toward the door.
I took a quick peek at our table and silently appreciated the fact all our gift baskets had sold, then followed Annabelle.
Terry moved fast for an old guy, and I respected his dedication to taking care of his body for all these years. The fact he was outrunning both Annabelle and me upset me, and I vowed to get more exercise in case there ever came a time where I had to chase a senior citizen again in the future.
He sprinted down the hallway toward the kitchen where we’d found Paul. Why hadn’t he gone out the front door? It was much closer.
“Terry!” I shouted. “You can’t get away from us! We know it was you!”
Well, I had no idea, but circumstances seemed to indicate it as so.
Just as we burst into the kitchen, we found him at the back door trying to push it open. Cakes and cookies lined the steel tables, each labeled with the name of the person who had made them. As Terry shoved on the door one last time, I heard commotion behind me. My mad exit hadn’t gone unnoticed.
My suspect turned, his gaze darting all around like a madman. As my breath sawed from my mad sprint, I approached him slowly. “Terry, let’s discuss this like adults. Tell me what happened.”
He grimaced, picked up a cake, and threw it at me. It landed on the wall to my right, splattering bits of an absolutely delicious chocolate lava cake on my hair, face, and Mrs. Claus suit. What a waste.
“Don’t do that!” Annabelle yelled. “You’re going to ruin the baking contest!” She received a pie to the chest for her efforts.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Please! Terry, tell me what happened that night with Joyce.”
“I don’t know!” he replied, trying the door again. “I wasn’t here!”
“Then why are you running?” I asked as I wiped away bits of cake and a trickle of sweat from my face.
After one last shove, his shoulder slumped. “I didn’t kill Joyce,” he said. “I swear to you, I didn’t. My car’s parked out back. Just please let me leave.”
With a sigh, I crossed my arms over my chest, ignoring the chunk of cake stuck to the center of my jacket. “No, Terry. You aren’t going anywhere, not until you tell me why you’re running.”
“Don’t try to deny anything,” Annabelle hissed, her hands fisted at her sides. “Only an absolute monster would ruin the entries in the baking contest! You killed Mrs. Claus!”
How she went from throwing a cake to murder was beyond me, but if the leap got Terry talking, I was happy she’d made it.
“No, I didn’t!” he screamed. As his face turned a shade of red I’d never seen, I worried he may have a stroke.
“Then who did?” I asked.
He glanced past me to the doorway. There I found Mary glaring at him, her hands on her hips.
Had it been Mary? It made sense. She was the one who had been saying she deserved more of their father’s inheritance since she was the one who took care of him. Paul had told us they were fighting so loudly, he’d had to leave. Or, he was guilty as sin and trying to pin the killing on someone else.
“Mary?” Terry said. “It’s over.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, shaking her head. “What have you done?” Tears welled in her eyes as she pursed her lips. “Was it you, Terry? Did you kill my sister?”
“Absolutely not!” he shouted. “You know what happened that night, Mary!”
“I know my sister was brutally killed,” she whispered, the tears now falling freely. “I never imagined you could’ve done it.”
“I didn’t!”
The blame game continued and I became more confused with every passing moment. “Wait a minute,” I interjected. “Let’s take a step back here. Terry, tell me everything.”
His gaze never left Mary as his breath heaved. Finally, he spoke. “I was sleeping with both sisters. Mary and Joyce. Only Mary was aware of this. She knew I was low on money. Weeks ago, she came to me with a plan. I was to convince Joyce that Mary deserved more of the inheritance because she’d taken care of their father.”
I recalled his run-down home that desperately needed a paint job and new gutters. “But Joyce said no,” I urged. “She thought Mary was guilty of elder abuse.”
He nodded as Mary grimaced, pain lancing across her face as if she’d been slapped.
“And Mary didn’t like that,” Terry continued. “She wanted it all. Felt she deserved it, especially since Joyce was out living her new life without George while Mary was caregiving.”
“You’re a sick, sick man,” Mary whispered. “How dare you say such things?”
“You came here that night with the intention of convincing Joyce you deserved more of the inheritance. You told me that, Mary. Then you asked me to clean up your mess.”
I recalled the evening we’d found Joyce. Annabelle had thought she’d heard a door close. Had we walked in on Terry trying to do something with the body? “What time were you here?” I asked.
Terry shook his head. “I don’t remember the exact time. It was about an hour or so after Mary came to me and told me what she’d done.”
“And were you… interrupted?” I asked.
Terry nodded. “I’d tried to wipe down the chair leg and put it back together, but I heard someone coming in, so I ran and headed out one of the back doors.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, taking a step toward him. “Why are you trying to convince these people that I murdered my beloved sister?”
“Because you told me you did,” he spat.
“Can you tell us exactly what she said when she came to you?” I asked, noting a flash of red out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over to find Jordan in the doorway. I held up a hand, hoping to stop him right there. We were on a roll and I didn’t want him to interrupt Terry’s train of thought.
“She showed up at my door that night, very upset,” he said. “She’d come down here to the Community Center in hopes of talking some sense into Joyce and make her understand that she deserved more of the inheritance for taking care of her father. Paul was here, and they were putting together the Mr. and Mrs. Claus chairs, getting ready for the dress rehearsal. Joyce and Mary began fighting and Paul got angry, then left the gym. Mary said she’d thought he’d gone home. She picked up one of the chair legs, then, in a fit of rage, she bashed Joyce’s head.”
He glanced over at the killer. She stood stone-faced, not an emotion to be found. I recalled how upset she’d been when she’d arrived just as they were wheeling out her sister’s body. Had it been an act, or was there real remorse for what she’d done?
“After she killed Joyce, I guess she freaked out and came to me to fix everything,” Terry continued. “She wanted me to get rid of the body and clean up the mess.”
“Why didn’t you, like, just go to the police?” Annabelle asked.
His cheeks flushed and he lowered his gaze to the shiny countertop before him.
“Because everyone knows that Terry’s low on cash,” Mary spat. “He’s the big player with a string of women ready to cook for him, warm his bed, and slide him some money every now and then after they fall for his charms.”
“Is that what happened with you?” I asked, recalling her prescription bottle in his bathroom. “Did you fall for his charms, Mary?”
She didn’t answer but based on the way her face was tinged pink, I took that as a yes.
“I told her to go to the police,” Terry said, his voice barely a whisper. “But she said we could share the inheritance that was now fully hers.”
A moment of silence filled the room as the air crackled with anxiety. I’d expected everyone to settle down now that the confession was out in the open, but how wrong I’d been.
With a primal scream, Mary lunged at Terry. She grabbed a knife as she flew around the table with the weapon raised above her head.
Without thinking, I hurried to Terry and wrapped my arms around him, trying to pull him out of the way. Jordan raced at Mary, sliding over the steel table and landing in between her and Terry. Unfortunately, he also took out a plate of chocolate chip cookies. As they crashed to the floor, he grabbed Mary’s raised hands and wrenched the knife away. He tossed the weapon to the ground, then pinned her face down on the steel table. Sobs wracked her body as he placed his elbow in the middle of her back.
“I… I didn’t mean to kill her,” Mary cried. “I honestly didn’t. I lost control of my temper for a minute and went out of my mind. I’d never hurt my sister!”
It was then I realized a crowd had gathered at the doorway and the reporter, Barry, from the Heywood Sentinel, stood front and center, jotting down notes in a notebook.
Loosening my grip on Terry, I stepped away and grabbed the knife Jordan had dropped. All weapons should be cleared from the room until someone with a pair of handcuffs arrived for Mary. Glancing around, I realized that would be impossible since it was a kitchen. It would take us hours to find and remove them all.
“Sam, fish my phone out of my pocket, please,” Jordan ordered, and I quickly did as he asked.
As he leaned on Mary’s back, he phoned the department, reported the incident, and hung up. “See if you can find something to tie her hands,” he asked. “Maybe there’s something in the pantry?”
“Where are your handcuffs?” I asked.
“Santa doesn’t carry handcuffs. I’m off duty.”
Annabelle joined me in my search. “It’s weird to think just a few of days ago we thought there was a wolf or something in here,” she whispered as we rifled through the shelf contents. “And it was a snoring Santa.”
“I know,” I replied. “I hate that the Christmas Festival has been interrupted like this. Maybe I should’ve waited to confront Terry. I feel like I’ve ruined everything.”
“Well, you did, but it is what it is,” Annabelle said, winking.
“Do you think we can put everything back on track?”
“I don’t know. We can try. But that stupid sheriff better hurry up and get here because I don’t see anything to tie someone up with. Is plastic wrap strong enough?”