20

I don’t know how they did it, but as soon as the movie was over, Dad and Jules took Laura and Lance aside, and spoke to them separately. The next thing I knew, I had my heavy coat on and was sitting in my Escape with Dad and Jules, while Laura and Lance remained behind to watch another movie. They were all smiles as we left.

A part of me wanted to ask Dad what he’d told Laura, but decided I probably didn’t want to know. The same went for Jules with Lance. I didn’t think they’d lied to them, but I couldn’t imagine that whatever they’d said was the full truth. I mean, we were hunting for a killer, after all.

The night had turned downright frigid, so I had the heat on full blast, yet it wasn’t making much of a dent in the frost-covered windshield—or my chattering teeth. I could see the road, so it wasn’t like I was driving blind, but it did make everything appear blurry around the edges, which in turn, made me even more nervous about the trip.

While I focused on the road, Dad and Jules were deep in conversation, mostly about the gift Jules had received and any suspicions he might have about who had left it. I listened with half an ear, but thus far, Jules had come up with no new suspects.

When I pulled into the church parking lot, both men fell silent. I parked beside Doris’s old Cadillac, but left the engine running.

“Do we really want to do this?” I asked, peering through the circular clear spot on my windshield where the heat had finally started to eat through the worst of the frost. The church looked like it always had, yet the thought of walking in there filled me with the sort of dread normally reserved for walking into a dentist’s office.

“We’re here, so we might as well.” Jules sounded as nervous as I felt.

“We won’t stay long if we’re not wanted,” Dad said. “But I feel like we have to at least poke our heads inside long enough to see who’s here. Maybe someone will stand out.”

Like us.

I shut off the engine. The silence that fell made me shiver. This was going to be awful.

We piled out of the car as if headed for a funeral. Our footfalls sounded especially loud in the crisp air, and peering up into the sky, I noted the clouds were gone and the stars were shining bright enough to leave an afterimage in my vision when I looked away.

Dad led the way to the door and held it open for Jules and me. As soon as I was inside, I could hear Doris’s voice echo down the stairs. She wasn’t yelling per se. She sounded more like a preacher talking to a room full of ardent believers. I could imagine her standing at front of the room, arms spread as she lectured, while the other women sat with their hands clasped, as if clutching at her every word.

Up the stairs we went, and into the room where the writers’ group meetings were held. Doris wasn’t standing, but was seated in front of a semicircle of chairs, each occupied by women, all of whom I recognized as the same group who always followed Doris around. There were no surprises there.

“We must make an examp—” Doris’s mouth snapped shut with a click when she saw the three of us enter.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, hands held up in preemptive surrender. “We’re not here to cause trouble. We just want to listen.”

Murmurs rippled through the small gathering, and then all eyes turned toward Doris to see what she would say.

Doris, for her part, didn’t immediately start shrieking that we were unclean and unwanted. She weighed us one by one, starting with a narrow-eyed look at me, and then moving on to Jules, who received a similar glare, and then on to Dad. She stared at him for twice as long, likely trying to place him, before she heaved a sigh.

“Fine. You can take the empty chairs in the back.”

Sure enough, a pair of seats near the back of the group were empty. I took another quick headcount and realized that Agnes Komph was missing. I didn’t know the group well enough to know if the last seat was always a spare or if someone else was a no-show.

A brief argument followed where Dad and Jules insisted I sit and I steadfastly refused. Everyone watched us with disapproval, and after a few moments, I won out and the two men sat.

“Don’t mind us,” I said once that was settled. “Go ahead.”

Doris scowled at me, and for a moment, I thought she might change her mind and give us the boot. Another sigh followed, this one dramatic enough that I knew it was for my benefit, and then she began to speak.

“Now, where was I?” She plucked a thin white thread from her shirt and dropped it onto the floor. “Ah, yes. I was talking about our beloved town and the travesty that has infected it.” A pause long enough for me to wonder if she might be talking about the murder, before, “Commercialism of the worst kind. It’s disgusting!”

Nods and murmurs followed. I expected someone to shout “Amen!” but so far, none were forthcoming.

Doris leaned forward in her seat. “It’s a shame that it’s come to this. Greed was Andrew Carver’s downfall. I fear that others will follow suit if nothing changes.”

Both Dad and Jules looked over at me. I could read the question in each of their eyes: Was that an admission of guilt?

“I don’t condone what happened to Andrew,” Doris went on. “It has crushed a former member of ours, a woman who was once a great friend, Erin Carver. We should reach out and see what we can do to bring her back into the fold. She needs us, needs our support.”

More nods, more grumbles of agreement. But I did note there was one head that moved less vigorously than the others, someone whose lips barely parted while others were voicing their agreement and support.

“And now, another member of our community has been targeted.”

This was met by gasps and a good amount of head shaking.

“As many of you have noted, our dear friend, Agnes, is not here with us tonight. She and her husband, Lee, received a gift, much like Andrew and Erin before them. A threat meant to scare them. They do not deserve this, as they are the only business in town that hasn’t attempted to exploit Christmas, and yet . . .” She closed her eyes, bit her lower lip as if moments from tears.

“What can we do?” This from a woman whose name I didn’t know.

“We can pray, of course,” Doris said, clasping her hands together, as if she planned on praying for Agnes and Lee right then and there. “And we can push for change. Go out, pressure these other businesses in town. Get them to change their ways. It is because of them that the rest of us suffer.”

Next to me, Jules shifted uncomfortably. Around the room, heads turned, revealing thin-lipped, disapproving stares.

“This might have been a bad idea,” Jules muttered, though he remained seated.

Doris spent the rest of the meeting calling for action against those of us who marred the holidays by trying to profit off it. She also turned her attention to the various groups that met in the church, mentioning both the gin rummy group she’d forced out that very night, as well as the writers’ group. Apparently, it was their presence that caused a perceived dip in the church’s attendance numbers.

It was all I could do to not to speak out. At one point, Jules grabbed my hand, causing me to realize I was halfway to my feet, ready to give Doris a piece of my mind. It was hard to listen to her words and not get angry, especially since it appeared as if she was making it a point to target people and groups close to me.

By the time she was done, I was in a foul mood, but was determined to make something of the night. I’d come here, not because I believed in what Doris preached, but because I wanted to find Andrew’s killer before someone else was hurt. To do that, I needed to mingle, see what I could learn.

Coffee and snacks were set up on a nearby table. As soon as Doris finished speaking, the congregation rose and headed over that way, breaking off into small groups to talk. Some went to stand off to the side on their own, including one woman I was very interested in talking to.

“What do we do now?” Dad asked.

“I’m going to talk to her.” I nodded to the solitary woman. “If you want to join me, you can.”

“Actually, I’m going to step outside for a few minutes,” Jules said. There was actual anger in his eyes, something I wasn’t accustomed to seeing. “This was . . . something.”

“It was,” Dad said, before turning to me. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll go with him. I need some fresh air.”

I’d hoped Dad would back me up like he had been recently but understood. “I’ll see you two shortly.” I rested a hand on Jules’s arm. “Don’t take what Doris said to heart. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Oh, I know,” he said. “But thank you.”

As Dad and Jules headed for the door, I turned toward the woman I’d noticed earlier. She was standing alone with a Styrofoam cup of black coffee in her hand. She looked almost as unhappy as Jules about being there, and I hoped that meant she would be willing to voice her concerns about Doris—if she had any. I plastered on a smile as I approached her.

“Hi! Cleo, right?” I held out a hand. “I’m Krissy.”

Cleo shot a look toward Doris before briefly touching my hand. She pulled back like she was afraid that too much contact with me would infect her. “I’m Cleo, yes.”

“I noticed you didn’t seem to agree with everything Doris said.” When Cleo didn’t answer, I pressed. “Do you think she’s pushing you, as a group, too hard? I mean, a man was murdered, someone whose wife used to join you here for these meetings.”

Cleo held her cup close under her nose, eyes darting around the room like she was a trapped animal. “I, um . . .” Her gaze once more landed on Doris, who was staring right at us. Cleo wilted under that stare. “I’m sorry. I should go.”

Before I could object, she set her mostly full coffee on the table and then scurried for the door, shoulders hunched as if against a blow. She snatched a coat from the rack near the door, dropped it, and then grabbed it as she left, not bothering to put it on until she was out of sight.

Well, that was interesting. Cleo was clearly afraid of Doris. Was that because she feared for her life? Or was she scared that Doris might kick her out of the group for talking to me?

I hoped Dad and Jules would stop her outside, and that Cleo would be more willing to speak to them than she was me.

“What did you say to her?”

I jumped at the harsh voice that had come from over my right shoulder.

I turned to find the woman who’d badmouthed Death by Coffee the first time I’d met Doris and her group standing so close, I could have kissed her. “You’re Annie.”

Her smile was tight-lipped. “I am. And you’re the owner of that bookstore café.” It came out as an accusation. “Cleo is a delicate soul. You should leave her alone.”

“I didn’t mean to upset her,” I said. “Truly. I only asked her what she thought about the meeting.”

Annie continued to give me that condescending smile, though her eyes had hardened. “Why are you here, exactly?”

Some rather unkind thoughts passed through my head then, but I kept them to myself. Who was this woman to question my motives? Okay, yeah, I wasn’t there because I agreed with Doris’s views, but that didn’t mean I meant any ill will toward them.

“I was curious,” I said, going for diplomatic instead of confrontational. “I thought that maybe I could learn something by sitting in on one of your meetings.”

“Did you?”

I blanked. “Did I what?”

“Learn something?” Her self-satisfied sneer made me want to slap her. “Considering you were here with . . .” Her gaze darted toward the door where Dad and Jules had gone. “Well, I’m not one to throw insults around, but you know what I mean.”

I did, and the urge to tell her off was so strong, I had to clench my fists to keep from snapping at her.

“Doris had a lot to say,” I said. It wasn’t much of an answer to the question, but it was better than, “That you’re a bunch of hypocritical, unkind, overly opinionated women who wouldn’t know the Christmas spirit even if it slapped you upside the head.”

“Doris has her finger on the pulse of this town,” Annie said. “If everyone would learn to follow Doris’s lead, all these murders would stop.”

Because Doris would quit killing people? The question was on the tip of my tongue. I bit it back and merely smiled and nodded for Annie to go on.

She was more than willing to keep talking.

“There are bad people in this town, doing horrible things on a daily basis.” She looked me up and down, implying I was one of those people. “The only way to get them to stop is to put the fear of a higher power into them.”

“It sounds like you approve of Andrew Carver’s murder.”

Annie’s smug grin faltered ever so slightly. “Murder isn’t okay, no,” she said. “But there’s no reason why we can’t use Andrew’s death to our advantage. Perhaps others can be saved thanks to his sacrifice.”

Andrew hadn’t sacrificed himself willingly, and I almost said so. “Do you have any thoughts on who killed him?” I asked instead.

Annie’s gaze shot past me, to where Doris stood with a trio of other women. “Well, I can’t right say. We are not here to judge.”

The heck you’re not. Another thought I decided best to keep to myself.

Doris saw us looking and started messing with the gigantic ring on her finger. It brought another question to mind.

I turned my attention back to Annie. “Is Doris married?”

“What?” She seemed genuinely perplexed by the question.

“She’s wearing a ring on her ring finger. I was wondering if that meant she was married.”

“Oh.” Annie frowned. “No, she’s not married anymore.”

“Divorced?”

Annie hesitated before answering. “Her husband, Dave, died. Some say it was under suspicious circumstances.”

I stepped up closer to her, lowered my voice. “Are you saying he was murdered?”

Annie cleared her throat and suddenly looked a lot like Cleo when I’d tried talking to her. “It happened about the time Erin Carver began drifting away from us. There were . . . tensions between Doris and Andrew, if you know what I mean?” She gave me a pointed look, one that said as clearly as words, Which was why Andrew killed her husband.

“When was Dave killed?” I asked. Had I somehow missed a murder happening in Pine Hills?

“It’s been a few years now.” Annie went stiff, almost panicked. “I should let you go.” She spun and walked briskly away.

I didn’t need to look to know that Doris was approaching. I could feel the hostility following her like a dark cloud. When I turned to face her, she was smiling, but there was no kindness in it.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said, voice chilly. “Especially with those two men.”

“We heard about your meeting and wanted to come.” Which was all true. So what if I left out why we’d decided to sit in?

“I have nothing against you personally,” Doris said. “But you really should reconsider who you call a friend. Others see you with these people and, well, your reputation takes a hit.”

My reputation? Boy, did Doris miss the mark on that one if she thought I cared about my reputation. “I like my friends. They haven’t hurt anyone.”

“Not physically, no,” Doris said. “But when you associate with bad people, it impacts your very soul. If you continue to spend time with them, to let them infect you, you will eventually be beyond saving.”

“Saved from what?” I asked, my anger finally bubbling over into my tone. “From receiving a threatening gift like Andrew and Jules? Like Agnes? From your insults?”

Doris’s lips thinned. “What are you implying?”

That you killed Andrew in retaliation for your husband’s death? But if she had, what did Jules have to do with it?

Since I had no other answer, I motioned toward her finger instead. “I like your ring.”

“Do you now?” Doris covered the ring with her other hand, as if afraid I might steal it.

A tense moment followed where neither of us spoke. It was broken when Jules and Dad returned, looking half-frozen.

“It’s getting colder out there,” Dad said, tone light. “Hello. I’m Krissy’s father, James Hancock.” He held out a hand to Doris, who stared at it like he’d just wiped his nose with it.

“I think it’s time you should go,” she said, backing away. “There’s nothing for you here. None of you.” She shot a glare at Jules before turning away.

“I don’t think she likes me,” he said. I got the impression the feeling was mutual.

One look around the room told me that no one else would be willing to talk to us. Doris was right: It was time for us to go.

“Hey, Jules?” I asked once we were back in the Escape. “Did you know Doris’s late husband, Dave?”

“No. Why?”

Why indeed? “I’m not sure. Just trying to put everything together.” Like why any of these people would target Jules and Phantastic Candies. They might not like his Christmas candy sales, but that didn’t seem like a very good reason for murder.