Chapter Three
The Jollyflake family lived in Tinkertown, Christmastown’s industrial sister city and the location of all of Santa’s Workshops and factories. Most of the worker elves resided in the neighborhoods of compact cottages that surrounded the factories and warehouses. The trip over took about twenty minutes in Nick’s everyday sleigh with a four-reindeer team.
Visiting the bereaved was never easy. Sometimes I worried that having Santa and Mrs. Claus appear on the doorstep at such a difficult time could be considered intrusive. But the moment she opened the door and looked up at Nick and me, Mrs. Jollyflake, Wink’s mother, seemed grateful that we were there. She was already dressed in mourning, from her black silk elf cap to her best black booties with large buckles and sedately curling toes.
With tears in her eyes, Mrs. Jollyflake accepted the decorative tin of fruitcake I’d brought. It was the customary condolence gift in Santaland, and by the end of today she would no doubt amass a pile of them in her kitchen, but she made a fuss over it and kept hold of the tin even as she introduced us to Wink’s brother, Chuckle, and led us into the parlor. As in many working-class elf homes, the front room of the cottage was a formal salon for greeting guests and showing off family treasures. The Jollyflakes had especially fine china figurines of Santa’s sleigh and the nine reindeer prancing across their mantelpiece. A fire was blazing behind the grate, leading me to assume that we were far from the first guests she’d received this morning.
She set the fruitcake on a glass-covered coffee table and invited me to join her on a settee upholstered in white fabric embroidered with cranberries. I sat, landing with more of a thump than I was expecting. I always forgot how hard it was to situate myself gracefully on elf furniture. It was like an adult sitting in an elementary school classroom.
Nick settled on a chair opposite us. Though he was taller than me and also looked unnaturally large in the elf cottage, he appeared at ease. A benefit of being to the North Pole manner born.
Chuckle, who had dark red hair peeking out from his cap, remained standing.
“This is so kind of you.” Mrs. Jollyflake nodded at the fruitcake tin and lifted a black hanky to her eyes. “Wink always admired the fruitcakes from Castle Kringle. In his opinion, no other fruitcake held a candle to them. One time he made himself sick eating a whole cake to figure out if there was a secret ingredient.” She blew her nose. “That was my Wink. There wasn’t another elf in Santaland as dedicated to cake as he was.”
“From what I’ve heard, he was a valued employee at the cake emporium,” I said.
She nodded, refolding her handkerchief. “He felt he’d hit the big time when Chestnut picked him to work with him when he opened his own shop. He idolized Chestnut. But mark my words, in time Wink Jollyflake would have been a name to contend with in the cake world.”
We could all only hope our parents spoke of us with the same pride. Nick noticed this, too. “Wink was very fortunate to be surrounded by such supportive loved ones.”
Mrs. Jollyflake drew up abruptly. Her entire demeanor changed. “He wasn’t always so lucky.”
Chuckle, who had been quiet up till now, let out a sputter of exasperation. “Mama, please.”
“I can’t help it, Chuckle. Where is she? Everyone has heard about my poor boy by now, but his own girlfriend can’t even be bothered to bring a lousy fruitcake?”
“They broke up,” her son reminded her.
In answering, she looked at me, not Chuckle. “For six years Dandy Redball and my Wink were together, and then she just up and dumped him. Of course, I could see what she was from the very beginning. I also know there are no coincidences in this life. They broke up after all that time together, and then mere weeks later my younger son is dead?”
Chuckle pulled off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re making it sound like Dandy did something sinister. She’s not—”
His mother cut him off. “The fire’s low, Chuckle. Why don’t you go get us some more wood from the pile.”
“But Dandy’s really—”
“Go, Chuckle.” Mrs. Jollyflake’s face was so stern, I felt squirmy even though I wasn’t the one she was barking commands at.
Nick stood. “Let me give you a hand.” He steered Chuckle toward the door.
As soon as she heard the back door close behind them, Mrs. Jollyflake scooted forward on the settee, her eyes bright and clear now.
“Don’t listen to Chuckle. He’s as in thrall to Dandy and her no-good brother, Fir, as Wink ever was. But Chuckle’s more easily influenced than Wink. After he started hanging around those Redballs, I’d notice grog on his breath when he came home at night. He started calling himself Chuck, like a tough guy.”
Juvenile delinquency, Santaland style.
A flame sparked in her blue eyes. “I heard that you’re good at figuring things out. I already told Constable Crinkles about Wink’s trouble with Dandy, but he didn’t seem to think it was significant. They’re saying he was poisoned—by this candy corn stuff. And where has Dandy worked for nearly a decade?” She folded her arms. “The Candy Cane Factory.”
It might have seemed significant, except for one problem. “The Candy Cane Factory doesn’t make candy corn.” Not to mention, a lot of the elves in Tinkertown worked at the Candy Cane Factory, and they weren’t all master confectioners. The Candy Cane Factory was a warehouse complex where the candy was made, yes, but candy canes were also wrapped and packaged there. The factory hired all sorts of workers—office clerks, warehouse people, drivers, even chemists.
“Dandy knows how to make candy,” Mrs. Jollyflake said, “and she’s also been a taste tester. She told Wink that she was instrumental in upping the plant’s mint-to-syrup ratio.” She leaned back, shaking her head. “Always bragging on herself, that one.”
It did sound as if Dandy’s work might have given her the skill to experiment with making candy corn at home and slip a little cyanide into candy syrup. If Wink was poisoned. The verdict would be out on that until Algid Honeytree finished his testing.
Mrs. Jollyflake took my hands in hers. “Please, Mrs. Claus. I need you to get to the bottom of what happened to my boy.”
I hesitated. I was there in my official capacity as Mrs. Claus. I probably shouldn’t be making promises to investigate behind Constable Crinkles’ back.
On the other hand, it was hard to deny a grieving mother’s request. And I had to be honest with myself: If there was a suspicious death in Christmastown, it would be on my mind until the cause of it was discovered. I might not have been born Mrs. Claus, but I was born nosy.
The sound of the back door opening spurred me to make a decision before Nick and Chuckle came back into the room.
“I’ll see what I can find out,” I promised Mrs. Jollyflake.
She squeezed my hands. “Thank you, Mrs. Claus.”
Nick and Chuckle returned with armfuls of wood. Chuckle threw several logs on the already roaring fire while Nick arranged his neatly in the log holder by the mantel. After that, it was time to say our goodbyes. Chuckle showed us out. At the door, he darted a glance back toward the parlor and then slipped onto the tiny porch with us, snicking the cottage door closed behind him.
“Please don’t pay any attention to Mama,” he said, keeping his voice low. “She’s distraught, and she never liked Dandy or her family. But Dandy and Fir are my friends, and I know neither of them would dream of hurting Wink.”
“Of course,” Nick said. He was halfway down the porch before he realized I wasn’t following.
“How long were Dandy and Wink engaged?” I asked.
“About six years.”
That seemed like a long time. A breakup after a six-year engagement was bound to gin up murderous thoughts at some point.
“Did Dandy break up with Wink, or was it the other way around?”
“It was Dandy. Their relationship had been strained ever since Wink took the job at the Silver Bell Bakery. He hadn’t been there all that long, you know. Just a few months.”
“And when did the breakup happen?”
“A few weeks ago, after he agreed to go work with Chestnut. Dandy always thought he should have stayed at the Candy Cane Factory, where we all met. It’s a better job, and she was assuming that they’d be starting a family soon.”
“So she was ready to start a family with him, but broke up because he took a job at a bakery? That’s a pretty extreme reaction to a job change.”
“It wasn’t just a job to Wink, though. Cake was Wink’s obsession. He’d stay up late trying new recipes, and never wanted to do anything on weekends but bake. Then one day Dandy discovered he’d spent a chunk of their savings on expensive bakeware and appliances without telling her. She just got fed up.”
I was fairly certain this wasn’t the whole picture, but as a survivor of a contentious first marriage, I knew the straw-versus-camel’s back quotient didn’t always seem logical from an outsider’s perspective. Of course, the final straw for me was discovering that my husband had been a cheater.
Had there been a final straw for Dandy, too? Something more significant than high-end kitchenware?
“I just don’t want the constable bothering Dandy and her brother,” Chuckle said.
“Even if Doc declares that Wink was murdered?” I asked. “Surely you’d want to find out who killed your brother in that case.”
“But I know it wasn’t Dandy.”
Nick cleared his throat. An elderly elf couple bearing a fruitcake tin had turned into the cottage’s walkway. Nick and I said our goodbyes to Chuckle and sidled out of the way to make room for the Jollyflakes’ next visitors.
“That was peculiar,” I said when Nick and I were settled back in the sleigh. The reindeer team, who had been cooling their hooves during our condolence call, were impatient to get moving again. Nick thanked them for waiting and urged them forward, and we headed to the main snow path leading back to Christmastown.
“Did you notice how Chuckle seemed more concerned about Dandy than what’s happened to his brother?”
“Grief affects everyone differently,” Nick said.
But did it make a guy overprotective of his brother’s ex-girlfriend? I was willing to admit that Mrs. Jollyflake was pointing the finger of blame at Dandy based on pure animosity, but wasn’t it just as odd for Chuckle to extend a blanket exoneration toward Dandy before anyone really knew what had happened to Wink?
Could there have been some bad blood between the brothers? Mrs. Jollyflake exhibited a noted preference for her younger son over Chuckle. Maybe fraternal resentment had led Chuckle to covet Wink’s fiancée. That coveting might have really been what had broken up the engagement.
Could it have also led to murder?