Chapter 12
It was impossible to insinuate the snow monster hunt and Chris’s death into conversations with my in-laws. If Nick wouldn’t talk to me about Chris’s death, I doubted anyone else would open up to me, either. So I spent a day inserting snow monster questions into my interactions with various elves around the castle. Most of them thought I was as mad as Tiffany and sidled away from the subject, and me, as hurriedly as they politely could.
But with the gardener, Salty, I hit pay dirt.
“If you want to know about tracking snow monsters, there’s only one elf you need to talk to,” he said as he fixed a light on one of the trees in front of the castle. “That’d be Boots.”
“Boots?”
“Boots Bayleaf. He was born in the Reaches. He knows all about abominables. He’s led every hunt since I’ve been alive. It’s what everybody says around here: ‘Snow monsters? Ask Boots.’ ”
“Does he live in the Reaches now?” I asked.
Salty tugged his ear. “I don’t know where he lives, exactly. He just shows up during troubles. He knows all about snow monsters, bears, snow leopards. That kind of thing. I’m sure he has a cottage somewhere, but I don’t know where. I don’t know who would—except Santa, of course. Your husband would know.”
I couldn’t ask him, though. He’d see through me at once, no matter how subtly I dropped Boots Bayleaf’s name into conversation.
But I bet someone else in the castle knew how to locate the snow monster hunter.
I found Jingles in his lair, the butler’s pantry, polishing silver. Most people in charge of a castle of staff would have hated this menial chore, but to Jingles, hiding himself away to rub valuable tableware to a sparkling shine was akin to meditation. Fat headphones covered his ears and he was rocking back and forth with a vigor that made me suspect he was not listening to Perry Como.
I tapped on his shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin.
The earphones were whipped off, a pulsing sound screeching out from the headphones before he managed to jab his finger at his smartphone screen and turn off the music.
I raised a brow at the headphones. “Cheery holiday tunes? ”
You’d have thought I’d caught him doing something disgraceful. “I’m not a subversive.”
I got it. “Everybody needs to flush the sugary residue of Christmastown out of their system occasionally,” I guessed. It didn’t seem very elf-like to listen to death metal, but then I remembered what Punch had told me about Jingles’ mixed heritage.
He assumed his usual proud stance. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
I entered the narrow space—it was more of a deep closet than an actual room—and closed the door. “I need to find someone named Boots Bayleaf.”
He nearly dropped the gravy boat he’d been polishing. In the blink of an eye, his manner turned apprehensive. “What do you want with him?” He gulped. “Has there been a sighting?”
“No, but he led the snow monster hunt last summer.”
“Are you still worrying about that?”
Jingles hadn’t been very helpful when I’d raised this subject with him when he’d brought me my coffee this morning. If only he’d told me about Boots, it would have saved me a couple of hours of pestering the rest of the castle help.
“Boots might be able to tell me a little more about how Chris died.”
“I thought you were looking into Giblet’s death.”
“Maybe Chris’s accident relates to that. Tiffany seems to think so, and someone needs to check out her story. Giblet accused Nick of killing Chris. Until it’s proved that didn’t happen, he’ll always have a cloud over his head.”
“And you think you’re the best someone to exonerate him?”
“Who else?”
“Well . . .” Reluctant didn’t begin to describe the distaste with which he spoke the next words. “I could do it.”
I remembered wondering why he’d sent me off with Quasar yesterday. He hadn’t answered my questions about the snow monster hunts this morning, either, except with a vague shrug and to tell me he’d never been on one. Why would he want to question Boots in my place?
As if reading my mind, he said, “If it gets out that Santa’s wife has been hunting down a character like Boots, people might start to ask questions. Elves would think you’re trying to buy his silence about what happened on Mount Myrrh that day.”
Maybe he had a point, but as long as I picked a time when I had no appearances to make, prizes to give out, or rehearsals to attend, no one would notice if I left for a few hours, much less that I’d met with Boots.
If I could find Boots.
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but hopefully no one will hear about my visit to Boots. I’m free tomorrow until the Reindeer Bell Choir rehearsal.” This time I’d double-checked my schedule. “I just need to know where to find Boots Bayleaf. That’s what I thought you might be able to help me with.”
He nodded. “I know where to look.”
Stealthily, we made our way to Nick’s office. Outside the door, Jingles tapped lightly. When there was no answer, he cracked it open, peeked in, and then turned back to me, beckoning with his hand. The office was empty, but our being in there felt sneaky and wrong. I couldn’t help thinking of the last time I’d come in here with Jingles and burned the message Nick had scrawled on the paper. A VENOMOUS ELF. That note, almost as much as Giblet’s murder itself, seemed to be the beginning of this troubled time.
Jingles went straight to a corner of the room where a map was, and a table with a few large books below it. I took a detour by Nick’s desk and grabbed a gumdrop from the bowl he kept there.
“For most places, Santa relies on the internet and GPS,” Jingles explained, “but in Santaland we still find people the old-fashioned way.””
He reached into a cabinet and brought out what looked like the Santaland White Pages. It had been a while since I’d seen anything like it. He thumbed along the Bs until he reached Bayleaf, and then he started scrawling the address down. “This won’t mean much to you,” he grumbled. “I’ll need to draw you a map.”
“Thanks.” I kept one eye on the door. If Nick walked in now, what would I say to him? I supposed I could tell him I was looking up Juniper’s house, but after our talk in the sleigh yesterday I doubted he’d believe me. That was the sad state of affairs between us. In order to save my marriage, I worried I was wrecking my marriage.
“Okay, pay attention.” On the map, Jingles pointed out the route I should take, his manner as serious as a toy shortfall. “This cottage is out almost to the border. It will take over an hour. The terrain is hilly, and if you get lost you might end up out of phone range to get directions home.”
It didn’t look that far, but I took his word for it and paid closer attention, leaning in as he determined where the trouble spots would be.
After Jingles had finished telling me the directions, it occurred to me that I had a bigger problem than not getting lost. How was I going to get there?
“I don’t have a sleigh,” I said. “And I would rather not have the entire castle staff know what I’m up to, which they would if I asked for a sleigh from the castle stables.”
His lips turned down as he considered my dilemma. “I suppose you drove in your home country, before you came here?”
“Well, yes. But the conditions weren’t exactly the same.” Were any conditions like these, outside of Siberia?
“Good driving record?” he asked.
“Completely clean, except for a few parking tickets.” What was he getting at?
Jingles hesitated before saying, “I might be able to help you out. If you promise to be very, very careful.”
I wasn’t sure what he’d come up with this time, so it was with curiosity and trepidation that I followed him down to his private quarters at the rear of the main wing. The little suite had its own entrance, next to which a small shed had been installed. He went inside the shed and then backed out a sleek new snowmobile, painted electric blue. The way the fat body of the thing hunched behind the protruding skis gave it the appearance of a mechanical grasshopper. Jingles ran his thumb along the shiny paint job and radiated smug satisfaction when his digit came away dust-free.
“Oh my,” I said. That Jingles would be harboring such a vehicle—the Porsche of snowmobiles—amused me. It was clearly his pride and joy.
“What do you think?”
“It’s . . . quite a machine.”
He beamed like a proud parent. “I saved up for it for years,” he explained. “It’s got a power-boosting regulator, high-performing shocks, a comfort seat, and a fourteen-gallon fuel tank.”
It definitely beat a pokey sleigh, but I’d never driven one of these contraptions. “Are you sure you want to lend it to me?”
His expression said he wasn’t sure at all, but he swallowed his reluctance and said, “It’s for a good cause. Our investigation. And I know you’ll take good care of her.” He caressed the metallic haunch, then frowned. “You will take good care of her?”
I assured him I would bring the vehicle back safely. It would save me time, that was for sure. “I’ll leave tomorrow morning early. I shouldn’t have any trouble getting back in time for the bell choir rehearsal.”
Jingles gave me a brief demonstration and took me on a practice ride. It was like driver’s ed on skis, with Jingles as a very nervous instructor. But I got the hang of it enough to feel that I could manage an hour-long trek.
* * *
I set off the next morning after breakfast, which would allow me ample time to find Boots Bayleaf’s shack and get back in time for bell choir rehearsal. It was entirely possible that no one would even know I was gone, since Jingles instructed me to go out the castle’s service road, which bypassed the main artery down to town. I skirted around Santaland altogether, passing few sleighs or other snowmobiles. Jingles had also lent me his helmet, so chances were no one would have recognized me anyway. The people who were familiar with Jingles’ vehicle would have assumed it was Jingles behind the handlebars.
The snowmobile was fun to drive, but every once in a while I would feel it slide a little on the terrain and was reminded of the dangers of traveling cross-country over ice. In the course of investigating Chris’s death, I didn’t want to become a fatality myself. I sat stiffly, concentrating on the path ahead, looking for landmarks Jingles had alerted me to, and winced anytime I heard a rock or chunk of ice hit the undercarriage. I needed to bring the vehicle back to Jingles in pristine condition.
Most of the time I was more worried about the snowmobile than I was about the route I was taking. I lost my way when a road forked and didn’t realize my mistake for almost a mile. Once I’d doubled back and corrected that mistake, however, it seemed Jingles’ directions were fairly clear. It seemed that way, except when I got to the place he’d indicated Boots’ cottage should be there was no cottage, just a barn. I buzzed by a few times before deducing that this was the only building in the area.
I stopped the snowmobile in front of the barn and approached it guardedly. There was no door at the front, except the timbered barn door. I knocked.
For a moment no one answered. Then I found myself in a bright spotlight. A voice directly above called out, “What is it? A bear?”
I craned my neck, squinting into the light. I could make out a man leaning out a window directly above me. He was wearing a down coat and holding a rifle. I took off my helmet.
“I’m a person,” I said.
He snorted. “I know you’re a person—I heard you buzzing by my house three times. You think I’m a bloomin’ idiot? What is it you want to hunt?”
“I’m not here to ask you to hunt for anything, Mr. Bayleaf. I just need information.”
He squinted down at me, then looked over at the snowmobile and whistled. “Holy macaroni! Is that a Snow Devil 1100?”
I followed his pop-eyed gaze to Jingles’ vehicle. “I, uh, think so.”
“Fourteen-gallon tank, Gator-gripper treads, and whisper-pro shocks?”
“And optional comfort seat.” I was especially grateful for that padded seat after my hour-and-a-half ride.
He whistled again. “That’s a fine machine.”
“It got me here.” I tried to turn his attention away from the snowmobile. “Mr. Bayleaf, I need to talk to you about the snow monster hunt earlier this year.”
He frowned down at me. “What are you, some kind of journalist?”
“I’m the new Mrs. Claus. I married Nick Claus several months ago.”
“Oh!” That gave him a jolt, and he lowered his rifle and tucked it out of sight. “ ’Scuse me—I didn’t know. I’ll be down in two shakes. Just let me get some pants on.”
“Thanks.” I certainly didn’t want to interview an armed, pantsless man.
Boots took his time, and when he appeared again he did indeed have on pants and was still wearing his coat. The coat indoors struck me as odd until he beckoned me inside. The room was freezing and also, when he turned all the lights on, startling. The entire space was filled with taxidermy creatures—snarling wolves and ferocious polar bears, moose heads and snow leopards, and a large, sad-looking walrus head sitting atop a workbench. I couldn’t help thinking of Norman Bates from Psycho.
“I hope there aren’t any skeletons in your cellar,” I muttered.
“No, just root vegetables and figs.” He was fine with my thinking that he might have had a skeleton down there, though. “Got anything you want stuffed?”
I shook my head and burrowed deeper into my coat. How was it colder inside than outside? Although, given that there was a peculiar odor coming from that walrus, perhaps it was just as well that the heat wasn’t cranked up.
“So you really came all this way just to ask about the snow monster hunt?”
“That’s right. I heard you led the expedition, and I wanted to know—”
He held his hand up to stop me. “Just a minute, Mrs. Claus—”
“April,” I said.
“Okay, April. I should let you know. I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
I drew back. “Sworn by whom?”
“Nick Claus,” he said. “Your husband.”
My old friend anxiety clogged my thoughts. Why had Nick sworn Boots to secrecy? It might not be an answer I wanted to hear.
“So before we get started and I agree to go back on my word, I got a question for you,” Boots said. “Namely, what’s in it for me?”
I blinked. Was this a shakedown?
“Boots Bayleaf wasn’t born yesterday. Think he just runs his mouth for nothing? You think I built all this”—he gestured grandly about the room and its eerie display of lifeless wildlife—“by running some kind of charity outfit?”
“You mean . . . you want money?” Foolishly, I hadn’t even brought any money with me.
He scratched his thick gray beard, which had a streak in it. A brown streak. Either it was a remnant of his real color or he’d dribbled coffee down himself. Repeatedly. I tended to think it was the latter.
He studied me intently. “It doesn’t have to be money. There are other ways to pay.”
A wave of heat crashed over me. “Now listen here—”
“Like a ride on that sweet, sweet Snow Devil 1100,” he finished.
“Oh.” My outrage, punctured, deflated. “I see.”
What would Jingles think of this creature riding his beloved snowmobile? I knew the answer to that—he would probably just as soon Quasar take the controls. That wasn’t the answer I needed at the moment, though.
“I could pay you,” I said. “I’d have to go to town and come back, or if there’s any way to send it to you by post . . .”
He spat on his floor, which was probably not the first time those wood boards had received a gob of expectoration. “Corn nuts! Money I got enough of at the moment. But not much opportunity to try out a Snow Devil.”
That was really all he wanted? Just to test-drive the snowmobile? That didn’t seem like much.
Except, again, it wasn’t my snowmobile.
Noting my hesitation, Boots added enticingly, “I just might be able to tell you something about that snow monster hunt that nobody else knows.”
What did he know? Temptation was an evil beast.
Jingles would kill me, though.
If he found out.
But he’d only find out if something happened to the Snow Devil 1100, so . . .
No. The pride with which Jingles had showed off his vehicle came back to me anew. “I just can’t,” I said. “It’s not my—”
“Five minutes,” Boots said.
“Deal.”
* * *
Pop quiz: When can five minutes feel like an eon?
Answer: When you’re watching a grizzled mountain elf climb aboard the expensive snowmobile you borrowed from your persnickety steward and tear off into the white void, whooping with glee.
I didn’t want to look. But I couldn’t not look.
Vehicle and rider raced up and down in front of the barn, then flew off-road, slaloming between trees, hot-dogging over hills, popping wheelies on the snowmobile’s back tread, skimming in sharp turns that churned up curtains of snow. The engine faced each trick and hill with a sickly whine, like an overheated vacuum cleaner in its death throes. As I stood in horror, I could witness it all because the bright lights on the snowmobile lit every foolhardy maneuver.
My hands clenched into tight fists. At some point, Boots drove over a hill and out of my view, but I heard the Snow Devil shrieking like a giant strangled mosquito, in unison with its rider’s cry of terror and glee. Fool sounded like he was on a roller coaster.
Then there was a crash, accompanied by branches snapping.
And then nothing.
Heart in mouth, I went running out in the snow, which sometimes drifted up to my knees. “Mr. Bayleaf!” I yelled, struggling up the hill I’d last seen him fly over. Cresting the top, I saw that he had simply flown, Evel Knievel–style, over a stand of snow-covered bushes. Only he hadn’t cleared it. The snowmobile’s skis and treads had landed on branches, wobbled off sideways, and then turned upside down in the snow.
I ran, fell, and rolled down the hill to the rescue. With my luck, the man would be dead, I wouldn’t get my information, and I would have to explain to Jingles why his vehicle was wrecked.
But there was my luck and then there was the luck of Boots Bayleaf. When I dug into the snow, I found his coat and yanked him out by his shoulders. To my surprise, after he was pulled free he popped to his feet, shook snow off himself like a dog shaking off water, then let out another heartfelt whoop of glee.
“Son of a nutcracker! Now that’s what I call a sweet ride!”
I groaned, and set about putting the Snow Devil upright.
“I gotta get me one of those,” he said.
“I hope it’s not damaged beyond repair.” I attempted to brush snow off the comfort seat with my snow-encrusted glove.
“Damaged? After a little floopti-do like that?” He snorted. “This thing’s a monster. Toss it off Calling Bird Cliff and it’d come out sparkling.”
Sure it would.
“These things were meant to take abuse.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to abuse them,” I said, unable to keep the scolding tone out of my voice.
He muttered something about prissy women who didn’t deserve to drive sleek vehicles.
“Or crash them,” I retorted.
But once the machine was de-snowed, it appeared to have come through its ordeal relatively unscathed. I pored over the surface for scratches—because God knows Jingles would—but I found not a flaw in the paint. And when I got on and turned the key, the engine jumped to life.
I drove us back to Boots’ place—carefully. When we reached the barn again, I turned to him. “All right. You’ve had your ride. What do you know?”
“You’d better come have some cider. You might not like what I have to tell you.”
Just that quickly, my stomach started gnawing again.
He poured cider out of a small barrel that had a rudimentary spigot poking out. The first sip made me choke. It was like apple juice crossed with ethanol.
“Good, right?” He laughed. “Got a kick!”
I coughed. “It’s potent.”
For what he was about to tell me, I needed something bracing.
“This isn’t something most folks are supposed to know about,” he said, “but I guess you’re special, since you married one of them.”
“A Claus, you mean?”
He nodded, then leaned back in his chair, which stood next to the stuffed wolf. He put his hand on the animal’s scruff and petted it as though it were alive. “I never saw the monster we were hunting—didn’t even know for sure if one had been sighted.”
“You mean you don’t know if there was a point to the trip?”
“All’s I know is that someone reported spotting a snow monster track by Angel Lake. We can’t have abominables making incursions that far into Santaland.”
“You don’t know who reported the track?”
“No, ma’am. And like I said, I never saw it myself. But I was gung ho to find the creature, and so were the other men. So off we went. We took sleighs halfway up Mount Myrrh, then started climbing. Treacherous terrain. We hunters say Mount Myrrh is the beast that contains beasts. You have to go careful. Everybody knows that. Most of the time, we were a rope team. But then Santa said he heard a snow leopard calling, and Amory and Santa—the old Santa, that is—went back to hunt it down, in case it was stalking us.”
My eyes narrowed. Midge hadn’t mentioned that Amory had backtracked with Chris. “Why Chris and Amory?” Although what I really meant was, Why Amory?
“Chris, because that’s who he was. He insisted on going back himself—he loved danger, loved shooting. Nick volunteered to go with him, but Amory said no, they both couldn’t go on account of both being Claus brothers. Sort of like they don’t let all the royal family fly in one plane, he said. So Chris asked who would go with him, besides me, because he said I was needed to lead the monster hunt. Then, before anybody could pipe up, he sort of voluntold Amory to go.”
“Chris made Amory accompany him?”
“Not in so many words, but there was a little dare in it.”
“Surely Chris wasn’t suggesting Amory was too much of a coward to go?”
“Nah, he was just razzing him a little. Chris loved to joke with people, and up on a mountain, in tough conditions, you need a little humor.” Boots took a long swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyway, that’s when the party split up. And that was the last anyone besides Amory saw of Chris. They were supposed to catch up with us at our next camp, but Amory showed up alone, in a state. Said Chris had fallen. We backtracked to find him, but of course he wasn’t there—just a yawning crevasse where Chris’s tracks ended, and lots of Amory’s tracks, too. Thing was, Amory had told us he didn’t know where Chris had disappeared—said he couldn’t find him.”
“But Chris’s footprints were in the ice by the crevasse. And Amory’s.”
“Plain as day.”
One other thing didn’t make sense to me. “How could Amory have lost Chris? You said the team was tied together—hooked together with a rope.”
He scratched his beard. “Amory told us Chris thought that was a bad idea—for just the eventuality that happened. If two people are tied and one falls, it’s easy for the other to get pulled down, too. There’ve been cases where the one above has to cut the rope and let the other drop to avoid falling himself.” He stopped for emphasis. “The end of Amory’s rope was frayed.”
I froze at the implication.
“That’s what your husband didn’t want to get out, why he made us all swear not to talk, and so far’s I know, nobody’s uttered a peep about Amory.”
“Because . . .?”
“To save Amory’s reputation, I guess. It’s a helluva thing for a man to have to live with, letting his cousin—Santa Claus, no less—fall into the icy depths of Mount Myrrh.”
It was hard to feel sorry for Amory just then. Suspicion crowded out my compassion.
Noting the gears turning in my head, Boots grinned. “Now, wasn’t that worth a ride on your fancy vehicle?”
I didn’t respond to that, but he wasn’t expecting an answer. “You’ve told me this,” I said, “but there’s no reason to tell anyone else. Not if Nick asked you not to.”
He drew back in offense. “Boots Bayleaf knows how to keep his lip buttoned.”
Given that he’d just spilled the story to me in exchange for a joyride, I took those words with a whole block of salt. I stood, preparing to leave.
“Wait!”
“Do you have anything else?”
“Do I ever.”
He hurried across the room and picked up something silver. Another clue?
“What . . . ?”
He turned, striking a pose. “Is there still a spot left for the Skate-a-Palooza? My mama always said I had the best voice she ever heard.”
And he proceeded to demonstrate how wrong Ma Bayleaf had been, by singing “Winter Wonderland” and accompanying himself on spoons.