Early the next morning, I walked into the Forester House foyer and found a bag hanging from the chandelier in the center of the room.
A bag. A plastic shopping bag. Dangling from one arm of the chandelier.
“What in the world?”
I had to admit, the sight gave me a chill. Sure, it was just an innocuous plastic bag, but it was weird. What was it doing there? I glanced around but knew I was alone in this part of the house. I’d seen the crime-scene guy’s car and I figured he was working in the ballroom in the back of the house, so I doubted he would know anything about this. But I would find out for sure, as soon as I figured out what the heck was in the bag.
I walked down the hall to apartment one, found the stepladder, and dragged it out to the foyer. Climbing up, I removed the bag from the fixture. Back on the ground, I hesitated to look inside, then mentally berated myself. What was I expecting, a snake? Of course not.
I took a quick peek and blinked. “What in the world?”
I held the bag over the red couch and let the contents spill out. There was a cellophane package containing three pairs of pink onesies, a pink pacifier, and a soft pink bunny. Obviously they were gifts for the baby.
And how strange was that?
“Very strange,” I muttered. Except for the friends I’d seen last night and the baby’s mother, whoever she was, nobody knew about Angel. Did the baby’s father know about her? I wondered.
So how did this bag get into the house and onto the chandelier? Had the mother convinced one of my workers to hang it up there sometime in the night? Or had she snuck in here to do it herself? If so, how had she gotten inside the house? And why? The items were inexpensive and easily found at any store, so there was no urgency that I could see. It seemed an almost whimsical act, and that didn’t track with her previous crime of essentially abandoning her baby in a truck.
Beyond all those questions, hanging this plastic shopping bag on the foyer chandelier where it was the first thing anyone would notice was just plain weird. Such an odd, seemingly random thing to do. And that’s what convinced me to call Eric.
He arrived fifteen minutes later, clearly intrigued by the mystery of the plastic bag.
“I tried not to touch anything,” I said. “Except for the bag itself.”
“Good.” He leaned over the couch and stared at the contents of the bag. Pulling a pen out of his pocket, he used it to nudge the plastic-wrapped onesies this way and that. “This might yield some prints.”
“I hope so. Not that I want to get anyone in trouble, but the prints might lead us to Angel’s mom.”
“Charlie is in the ballroom,” Eric muttered to himself.
“Yes, I saw his car out front. He got an early start.”
He nodded. “I’ll have him come process all of this stuff.”
He used his phone to call Charlie, and a minute later the crime-scene tech walked down the hall to take care of the pink baby evidence. I still couldn’t see how the contents of the plastic shopping bag had anything to do with the larger mystery of Mr. Potter’s murder, but if it helped solve the puzzle of baby Angel, I would be very grateful.
* * *
Later that morning, I grabbed Wade and we walked over to the Foresters’ garage to see what was inside. I hadn’t seen April the Santa Slapper in three days, but I was still wondering about her. Was she just overly curious or had she been looking for something specific upstairs in the attic? Since everything had been moved into the garage, I wanted to hunt around to see if there was something in particular that might have drawn her to the house. She had to be too young to have known any of the Foresters, but maybe there was a family connection. Or maybe she was just an opportunist. Or a thief?
I didn’t hold out much hope of finding anything important among the old furniture and furnishings inside the garage, but I was determined to give it a shot anyway. Frankly, April’s presence here had been bugging me since the sound of that slap on Monday morning. If nothing else, it would be nice to expose her story and possibly vindicate Slim.
For an hour we searched through the furniture and trunks, but found nothing. Not to say there weren’t some valuable items. I knew most of the furniture would get a good price in an antique store. But as far as we could tell there was nothing hiding inside, like a last will and testament or a deed to a gold mine.
After combing through everything, we still couldn’t figure out what April might have been looking for, if anything. Maybe this was a wild-goose chase after all. Maybe she had just pretended to search around the attic, when she was actually looking for ways to avoid working. Who knew what she was really doing here? She was such an oddball.
* * *
That afternoon, I left the job site early to stop by Lizzie’s and visit with Angel. The baby was just waking up from a nap.
“She’s so lucky to have you taking care of her,” I said to Lizzie as I watched her pull a tiny T-shirt over the baby’s head. “You’re so good with her.”
“I’m the lucky one,” Lizzie murmured.
“We’re all lucky,” I said. “But I feel so guilty for handing her over to you. I hope she hasn’t caused too much havoc in your life.”
She waved away my concerns. “I told you, we’re having the time of our lives.”
“I hope so.”
She lifted the baby and held her out for me. “There. She has a clean diaper and is all ready to visit with you.”
I cuddled the little one tightly. “Such a sweet little thing.”
Lizzie patted Angel’s back. “Let’s make sure we find her a good home.”
“I promise we will.”
After a quick but happy half hour of holding the baby and talking to Lizzie, I took off for my appointment at Hennessey House with Jane. Her small hotel was quickly becoming known as the most fashionable inn along the northern California coast. It was a beautifully restored Victorian mansion with all the amenities and spectacular food, but I knew it was Jane’s welcoming personality that truly made the place a hit with travelers.
“I appreciate you helping me with the interviews,” I said as she led the way to a small, tasteful conference room at the end of the second floor hall. “But are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“It’s going to be fun,” she insisted as we sat down at the table. The room was a tranquil shade of light, sage green and the furniture was lovingly refurbished and authentically Victorian. Jane poured us both a glass of water and we chatted about Angel and the progress made at Forester House. Amazingly we managed to avoid talking about Mr. Potter for ten blessed minutes until Jane’s assistant walked in.
“The first interviewee is here,” she announced.
“Please send him in,” Jane said, exchanging a quick glance with me.
Ninety seconds later, the door opened and Santa Claus walked in.
“Ho ho ho!” he said, then stopped. “Wait. Shannon?”
I scrutinized his face, trying to see beyond the beard. “Steve? Is that you?”
“It’s me,” he said with a laugh, patting his belly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“I work with Jane on the festival committee.” I introduced him to Jane, then went through a brief explanation of Steve’s and my connection through my dad and Forester House and the Santa Brigade. I glanced back at Steve. “I didn’t think you’d be trying out for the parade since you work at the mall.”
“The mall closes early on Christmas Eve so I’ll have plenty of time to make it to the parade.” He grinned. “If you choose me, that is. The entire Brigade is downstairs waiting to be interviewed.”
I frowned. “Everyone’s here?”
“How many is everyone?” Jane asked cautiously.
“There are ten of us,” Steve said, his voice brimming with pride.
I saw the stunned look on Jane’s face and decided we needed to talk. Turning to Santa Steve, I said, “I’m so glad you’re available for the parade. Jane and I have a few things to discuss, and then I’ll be in touch.”
He gave me a hug and left the room. And that’s when I laid out my brilliant plan to Jane.
From Jane’s, I drove to the community center where our Thursday empowerment class took place. I was pleased to see that Lauren, Alyssa and Kailee’s friend, was feeling better. She was still pale and a bit bloated—from the antibiotics, she explained—but it was good to see the happy threesome back together again. The DIY subject of the day was: how to build a brick wall. We had been given permission to build a small, decorative brick wall in the community garden. First I went over all the equipment needed, a spade, gloves, and a level being most important. Then I showed them how to mix cement using four parts sand to one part cement, plus a small amount of water. I pointed out the importance of staggering the joints with each new row, giving the brickwork more strength and support. Everyone had fun and we were laughing by the time we finished. And we had a beautiful, very impressive, very short brick wall to show for it.
* * *
I got home that night at seven o’clock feeling exhausted. My back and shoulders ached and I had to drag myself out of the truck and through the back gate. And that’s where I found Mac preparing the grill. I simply had to stop and stare. I’d always thought the idea of someone’s heart skipping a beat was a silly thing that songwriters wrote about. But my heart was jumping around like crazy. I pressed my hand to my chest to calm down.
“Hi,” I said.
He grinned. “Hi. Feel like having dinner with me?”
“Very much.” Funny. My exhaustion disappeared, just like that.
“Good. I bought steaks and potatoes.”
“My favorite. I can make a salad, too.”
“I love salad.”
I laughed. “Let me put my stuff inside and get the potatoes going.”
He followed me into the house. Robbie and Tiger were so excited, you’d think they’d never seen a human being before. Mac didn’t seem to mind at all and sat down at the kitchen table to scratch Robbie’s ears and let Tiger wind her way in and out and around his ankles.
“They’re shameless,” I said, giving the animals a stern look. “I can put them in the other room if they’re bugging you.”
He chuckled. “You know I love them.”
“And they clearly love you,” I said with a smile.
We talked about Callie and all the girlfriends she’d made during her trip here last spring. She was visiting one of them tonight, which was why Mac was free to spend the evening alone with me. I told him about the search through the Forester garage for something—anything—April might have been looking for. We laughed and wondered about the plastic bag of baby stuff I found hanging off the chandelier. I gave him the full story on how I’d found Potter with an ax in his neck. Being a writer and an aficionado of murder mysteries, he was fascinated, of course, and asked me a hundred questions about the murder scene.
As I set the table, I told him that my crew had finally finished the last bit of the work on his lighthouse mansion. I told him it was ready for him to move in, but he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move away from my garage apartment.
He opened a bottle of wine and we toasted to being together. It was the most perfect kind of night and I couldn’t wait to do it again.
The next morning, Friday, I gathered all the contractors in the foyer and held an impromptu meeting. Each of them gave a rundown of what work had already been done and what was left to do in their apartments. Together we estimated the time each project would take to complete, and Wade and I readjusted our crews and volunteers accordingly. Despite Eric shutting us down the other day, I thought we were in good shape to finish on time, thanks to all of our incredible workers.
As we were wrapping up, the door opened and Patrice, Mr. Potter’s secretary, walked in carrying a huge pink box.
The pinkness threw me off and for a few seconds, I thought it might be another baby gift for Angel. But of course it wasn’t.
She smiled brightly. “Good morning, everyone.”
“Hi, Patrice.” I walked over to greet her. “What a pleasant surprise. What are you doing here?”
“I’m sort of at loose ends at the bank.” She set the box down on the red couch and opened the top. “I know that you and your crew had problems with Mr. Potter, but I’m hoping that this peace offering will help lighten any bad memories. There are muffins and pastries for everyone.”
My crew needed no further arm twisting and swarmed the box like a horde of hungry hounds.
I pulled Patrice out of the way to avoid her being crushed by the mob.
“That was so thoughtful of you,” I said, grinning at Wade as he walked off holding up a bear claw in victory. I glanced back at Patrice. “Are you taking a few days off work? This must be so hard for you to deal with.”
She waved her hands in annoyance. “I’ve been crying for days and I’m sick of it. I want to get back to the real world and do some good. The pastries are my way of asking for forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness? You don’t need forgiveness from anyone, Patrice.” I smiled a little guiltily. “I’ll be the first to admit that Mr. Potter and I didn’t get along very well, but that’s got nothing to do with you. You’re perfectly nice and my crew obviously adores you.”
I swept a hand toward the men who were pushing and shoving to get at the delectable pastries. We both watched in amazement for another minute until the last fellow walked away and the box was empty.
“Wow,” I murmured. “Those went fast.”
“I’m glad,” she said, staring at the men as they headed off to different parts of the house. “That was fun to watch.”
“It was.”
“They’re all so . . . uninhibited.”
“When it comes to food, yes.” I waited a moment, then felt awkward when she didn’t make a move to leave. “Well, thank you again.”
“I was wondering,” she ventured shyly, still gazing around, not making eye contact. “Could I stay and work as a volunteer?”
I wasn’t quite sure I’d heard her correctly. “You want to work here?”
“Well, yes.” She wrung her hands. “The bank is still in charge of this project, so I talked to the president about my representing them as a volunteer. You know, since Mr. Potter is no longer . . . well.” She touched her hair, trying to compose herself. “Our president was willing to let me help out here until Christmas.”
Her hair was perfectly coiffed, of course. But I hadn’t noticed her outfit until now. She wore a crisply tailored blouse tucked into brand-new denim jeans. I could tell she had ironed them because the crease was sharp as a knife. And her sneakers were as white and bright as her smile. It looked as though she had gone shopping for “casual clothes” for this very purpose. It was sort of endearing.
“I’ll be happy to put you to work, if you’re sure that’s what you want.”
“I’m sure. Honestly, I just don’t want to be at the bank right now. Everything is in chaos. But I do want to keep busy.”
I smiled. “Then you’ve come to the right place.”
* * *
At noon, Lizzie surprised everyone by showing up at Forester House with baby Angel.
“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” she said, dropping her bags onto the red settee in the foyer. She placed the baby in her lightweight bouncer on a sturdy side table.
Angel was completely bundled up in another one of those sleeping bag suits, this one made of a pink, puffy, down material that looked cozy and warm. Which meant that Lizzie had gone shopping for the baby. It touched my heart and reminded me that I should buy a few items for Angel myself.
I helped Lizzie get situated on the couch. “You talked to Eric, right?”
“Yes, last night and again just a little while ago. He thinks it’s a good idea to bring the baby out into the open.”
“He thinks it might bring the mother out, too.”
“I guess that makes sense.” But she still looked worried.
I patted her arm. “I’m not worried, because I know you’ll be watching Angel like a mama hawk.”
“You’d better believe it.”
“So nothing’s going to happen to her.”
As if to punctuate that thought, Eric drove up just then and parked his SUV on the side of the driveway. Apparently he planned to spend the rest of the afternoon close to the action. And the action I was talking about was baby Angel and anyone who came around to see her.
After a while, though, I realized that the real question was, who hadn’t come around to see her. The baby was a huge hit with the entire crew, and for the rest of the afternoon it seemed like everyone in the house took a few minutes to come down to the foyer and get a peek at Angel. The baby loved the attention she got from both men and women.
Callie fell instantly in love with the little one. She sat down and kept Lizzie company for an hour, chatting about school and babies and television and every other possible subject in the universe. I had forgotten what a nonstop talker the teenager was. Luckily she was as charming as she was chatty, so Lizzie was happy to have her sit with her.
Heather Maxwell, minus her diamond charm bracelet, had finally returned to volunteer. She told me the police had returned her bracelet after keeping it in the crime lab for a few days in hopes of extracting the killer’s hair or fibers.
Like Callie, Heather seemed mesmerized by the baby and made all sorts of excuses to walk downstairs and check on her every hour or so.
I was passing through the foyer on my way to apartment two, but simply had to stop and gaze at Lizzie and Angel and their current visitors, Callie and Heather. The two teenagers appeared to have bonded over their mutual baby love. I would have thought going googly over babies was a strictly female thing—if I hadn’t already spotted several of my manly contractors also besotted by the tiny creature. The baby was a happy counterpoint to the gruesome murder that had occurred a few days earlier.
Hearing heavy footsteps on the stairs behind me, I turned to see three painters heading my way.
“Hey, Shannon,” Freddie said, his white T-shirt spattered with a rainbow assortment of different paint colors. It was a uniform of sorts. “Glad we found you. Have you seen a five-gallon can of Le Petite Rose floating around?”
“It’s missing from apartment eight,” the second guy, Cliff, added.
I frowned at the word. “Missing?”
Freddie was more succinct. “Not missing. It’s gone. Disappeared.”
“Maybe Lou stowed it somewhere in a closet,” I suggested, naming the contractor in charge of that room, “or someone else moved it out of the way.”
“We already asked Lou and his crew. They’re just as clueless as we are.”
The third painter, Rick, a tall, scrawny fellow who looked young enough to get carded at the pub, scratched his neck, baffled. “We searched the closets, the bathroom, even checked the other apartments. Can’t find it anywhere.”
Le Petite Rose was the color I’d chosen for the walls in apartment eight because the space was being rented by two sisters. In reality, the color was a fairly basic taupe, but there was an underlying hue of rose that I thought would appeal to the older women.
I squeezed my eyes shut and mentally called up a picture of my schedule. I glanced at Freddie. “You’re not ready to start painting until Monday, right?”
“Yeah. But we’re getting through the job in apartment six faster than we expected, so I was hoping we might get started on apartment eight over the weekend.”
“That would be great”—I gave them a weak smile—“if there was paint, right?”
Freddie grinned. “Right.”
“Maybe the can will show up by then.”
He gave me a dubious look. “Sure. Maybe.”
“Look, if it doesn’t show up by tomorrow, let me know and I’ll send one of my guys to go buy another one.”
“Thanks, Shannon.”
The painters walked away and I sighed. A five-gallon container of that particular paint had cost us over one hundred twenty dollars, so I really hoped it showed up. Sometimes you just had to chock things like that up to the usual workplace pilfering. But seriously? It took a particularly slimy person to steal from a charitable organization like this one.
It also took someone with real muscle. Those big paint tubs weighed over forty pounds. Of course, almost every man working here could have lifted it and carried it out of the house. He would had to have done it after hours, because the sight of someone carrying one of those big tubs of paint out to his car would have been conspicuous enough to cause some of us to wonder what the heck was going on.
I made yet another mental note to search for the paint myself. But I had a feeling that unless the can magically reappeared soon, this was one mystery that would never be solved.
I worked late that evening, spackling and priming apartment six’s bathroom so Wade could go home early and the painting crew could get started first thing Monday morning. By the time I was finished, all of the volunteers and most of the workers had left for the day. After cleaning up my mess, I walked upstairs to the attic to start my usual end-of-the-day walkthrough of the house to make notes on the progress in all the rooms. I had finished with the rooms on the second floor and had come downstairs to start checking out apartment two, the large space at the back of the house that also contained the original kitchen, when I noticed that the door to the wine cellar was ajar. That wasn’t a good thing. The reason the door was always locked was because there were still a lot of bottles of fine wine down there that would be sold for some serious money someday.
I crossed the kitchen to close it and heard an odd sound coming up from down below. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from one of the heating vents or from something down in the cellar. But when I tried to shut the door, it wouldn’t close. And that’s when I saw that the lock had been jammed.
I knew for a fact that the door had been locked all week. So someone had done this today.
My shoulders trembled. The hairs on my arms stood on end as fear erupted inside me. My first, best inclination was to call the cops. And I would, in a minute.
I had been down in the cellar once before with Wade and Jason, the head of Holiday Homebuilders, when we’d first surveyed the house months ago. I knew the space was clean and well lighted, so there was no reason to be afraid. The fear came from knowing I was alone in the house and hearing noises I couldn’t identify. I decided to do a quick check down there. My foot hit the first stone step—and I immediately questioned my own judgment. I mean, even if the cellar were spotless, it could still be dangerous. Because . . . hello? Someone had obviously broken the lock. Were they still down there in the cellar? Were they doing something wrong? I had a feeling the answer was yes. Whoever “they” were.
I hustled my butt back up to the relative safety of the kitchen, pulled out my phone, and called Eric.
“I’m just a few blocks away,” he said after hearing my concerns. “I can be there in five minutes.”
“Good,” I said, pacing around the kitchen. “Thanks.”
“And Shannon?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t go down there.”
I frowned as I disconnected the call. How did he know I was planning to venture downstairs?
I guess he knew me pretty well.
An eternity later—but probably closer to five minutes—I heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. It had to be Eric, so I figured I was safe enough to venture down the thick stone steps. Halfway down, I stopped and stared across the small, dimly lit, cave-like room. There were six long rows with hundreds of vintage wine bottles lovingly stacked in open wooden crates. Each row represented a different wine region or style.
Right then, the pungent aroma of a heavy red wine hit me and I wondered who had broken into the bottles.
And there was that noise again. It was almost like a creaking door, except it sounded human.
“Uhhhh.”
The sound was shiver-inducing.
“Hello?” I called. “Who’s there?”
“Uhhhh.”
That was a person! Right then, I heard the front door slam shut and scurried back to the top of the stairs.
“Shannon?” Eric called.
“Come to the kitchen, Eric,” I shouted. “Someone’s down there. They might be hurt.”
He was there in seconds and ran to the stairs, jogging down to the stone floor of the cellar. I followed him, naturally, and while he headed left to explore the three rows on that side of the room, I turned right, going straight to the far corner, where the richest red wines were stored. That was what I was smelling.
I almost stumbled over the person stretched out on the stone floor.
“Over here,” I cried, leaning over to get a closer look at the body. That’s when the overpowering odor of the wine sent me staggering backward—right into Eric.
He steadied me and peered over my shoulder. “Do you know who it is?”
“It’s Santa Claus,” I said. “I’m not sure which one. And I’m sorry to say it, but he’s dead drunk. I think he must’ve opened up one of the expensive bottles of wine. Can you smell it?”
I moved aside so Eric could look more closely. He aimed his flashlight downward and studied the figure for a moment. “He’s not dead drunk, Shannon. He’s still alive, but unconscious.”
“But all that wine.”
“He was hit in the head.”
“Oh dear.” I felt instantly remorseful for calling Santa a drunk. And I still couldn’t tell which one of the many Santa Clauses it was. “With what?”
“With that,” he said, focusing the light on a round object on the ground by his head.
“What is that?” I asked, straining my eyes to figure it out.
“It’s a tape measure. A big one.”
I gasped. It was Blake’s heavy metal tape measure, the one he’d shown me a few days before. The one that weighed almost a pound.
“You know whose it is?”
“I do.” I sniffed the air. “But why do I smell so much wine? Where’s that coming from?”
Eric moved the light beam down to where Santa still clutched a broken bottle of vintage port. It had obviously hit the stone floor and its contents were pooling around Santa.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “Poor Santa.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he said and hustled me upstairs to call an ambulance.