Chapter Four
When we got back to Christmastown, Nick stopped the sleigh in front of Municipal Hall, where I had a meeting to attend. The building, which overlooked the park by Peppermint Pond, now had the best view of the haunted ice castle. The workers had finished the construction of the second tower and now an array of elves were busy stringing lights around the structure. I couldn’t wait to view it lit in orange and see what spooky touches the organizers had planned.
I leaned over and kissed Nick, overwhelmed with love for my magical home, and for him. I wasn’t normally big on PDAs, but there’s something about a guy in a Santa suit.
Pumblechook the snowman, who was still standing nearby with his odd sign, snorted. “Hey—get a room, you two.”
Nick and I laughed.
Given all that had happened of a criminal or suspicious nature lately in Santaland, I wasn’t expecting to see Constable Crinkles at the meeting of the Christmastown Events Committee. True, Crinkles was supposed to advise us on the law-and-order aspects of large gatherings like the Halloween carnival, but with a candy corn thief and a rumored killer on the loose, I assumed the constabulary had bigger fish to fry. When I walked into the conference room on the second floor of Municipal Hall, however, there he sat at the long conference table, positioned strategically near the platter of Puffy’s All-Day Donuts.
I just had time to swing by the sideboard table holding a hot cider urn and the ubiquitous eggnog pitcher before the meeting started. I poured a mug of cider, grabbed a plate, and took the place next to Mrs. Firlog, the mayor’s wife and this year’s committee chair. Also at the table were Mayor Firlog, recording secretary Hope Dovebright, symphony conductor Nippy Goldmitt, and Red Candler, who as the owner of the Santaland Sweet Shop represented the business community on the council.
I flicked a glance at Puffy’s platter and noted to my annoyance that Crinkles had bogarted all the Christmastown creams. The cream-filled and chocolate-glazed donuts were Puffy’s equivalent to a Boston cream pie. I ended up grabbing a cherry bismarck topped with enough powdered sugar to smother a moose.
I squirmed to adjust to my short chair. “It’s nice to see a platter of baked goods without pumpkins or candy corn involved. Although I guess it’s harder to integrate candy corn into donuts.”
“Oh no.” Red set me straight on that score. “Puffy’s hard at work on a candy corn donut for the bake-off. He’s ordered three pounds of my candy corn. I have two candy makers working overtime to fill all the orders. Halloween’s been great for business—at least until this morning. What happens next is anybody’s guess. If someone’s poisoning candy corn . . .” He shook his head ominously.
“I wonder if Chestnut will be able to open back up again,” Nippy said. “Poisoned cupcakes aren’t a good way to launch a business.”
Crinkles’ mouth was full, so I felt the need to insert a correction. “It’s not yet certain what killed Wink.”
“That half-eaten cupcake, though,” Mrs. Firlog said.
“Wink was also drinking cocoa,” I pointed out. “It’s easier to poison a drink than a cake. And Doc Honeytree still hasn’t ruled out natural causes.”
“Doc’s got his nephew doing tests on everything Wink ate,” Crinkles said after gulping down a bite of his Christmastown cream. “He’ll figure it out. Kid’s a genius, according to Doc.”
Mrs. Firlog cleared her throat. She was an elf of a certain age, with graying hair piled high and the look of a pouter pigeon in her linen smock. “Maybe we should start the meeting. Murder or no murder, we need to go over final plans for the Halloween carnival.”
“The symphony is all set to play in the band shell outside the haunted ice castle,” Nippy said. “We have a forty-minute program.”
To that, I added, “They’ll be followed by the Santaland Concert Band, and the Swingin’ Santas are all set to play outside the haunted ice castle after we’re done. For Halloween they’ve volunteered to appear in costume and change their name to the Groovin’ Ghoulies.”
Everyone approved. The Swingin’ Santas were always a hit.
“Before we move on to the subject of overflow carnival sleigh parking, we need to address the issue of the headless snowman,” the mayor announced. “My office is already getting complaints.”
I scanned the faces around the table. “Headless snowman?”
Hope tapped her pen impatiently. “There’s going to be a headless snowman outside the haunted ice castle,” she explained to me. “It’s just one.”
“Some of the other snowmen are objecting,” the mayor said.
Pumblechook’s sign made sense now. I hadn’t heard about this. “How are you going to find a headless snowman?”
“Durdles has volunteered,” Hope said brightly.
Red’s lips twisted down. “Some snowmen will do anything for a laugh.”
“That’s why some of the snowmen are objecting.” The mayor sniffed dismissively. “They think it’s dangerous and exploitive or something.”
I nearly choked on my cider. “Well, he is going to be without a head.” Snowmen who fell apart could be reassembled, but that always came with risks.
“Please, his head will be right there on the ground next to him,” Hope said. “We’ll put it back when the night’s over.”
“Do you have to behead an existing snowman, though?” I asked. “Couldn’t we just make a new headless snowman especially for the event?”
All the elves around the table gaped at me as if I were a monster. I shifted self-consciously.
“Just build a snowman willy-nilly in order to have something to stick in a Halloween carnival?” Mayor Firlog asked, his voice looping up incredulously.
“And what would we tell the poor snowman once we put a head on him?” Hope asked me. “That he was created as some kind of gag?”
“No.” I nodded. “I see the problem.”
Snowman ethics could get tricky.
Mayor Firlog’s brow scrunched. “What’s so scary about a headless snowman anyway? Not like it could actually hurt anybody.”
I snorted. “Unless the victim is frozen in fear, like in old horror movies.”
Eyes around the table stared blankly at me—yet another reminder that I was from a different world. I attempted to explain that characters in classic black-and-white horror movies were often unable to escape the slow-moving blob, or the amorphous monster (aka a man under a carpet remnant) as in The Creeping Terror, or any number of shambling zombies.
“Zombies!” Crinkles said, shuddering. “I’d freeze in fear, too.”
“It’s fiction, Constable,” I reminded him.
Crinkles took offense. “Headless snowmen are real, and I don’t care what anybody says, they are terrifying.” He blinked and started to look shaky, as if there were one in the conference room with us now. “Or just imagine—a snowman zombie.” His blue-wool-clad body rippled in a shudder.
“Ice zombies!” Red said, seeming to relish the idea—or to relish scaring Crinkles.
“Ice zombies aren’t a thing.” I looked around the table. “Are they?”
“You never know what’s lurking up in the Farthest Frozen Reaches,” Crinkles told me.
Hope cleared her throat impatiently. “Well, this is just going to be one plain old headless snowman.”
“If Durdles wants to do it, I don’t see why we should object,” Mrs. Firlog said. “Is everyone agreed?”
Hands darted up around the table, except for the constable’s. He was so upset about ice zombies he’d had to set down his half-eaten donut. “I know it’s Halloween, but does everything have to be so darn scary?”
Before anyone could respond, the door opened and my sister-in-law, Lucia, strode in, followed by her best friend, a reindeer named Quasar. As soon as she appeared, the elf men leapt to their feet. Lucia was almost as tall as Nick, wore her thick blond hair in a long braid down her back, and dressed in well-worn boots, woolen pants, and a quilted vest jacket.
Gazes then turned to Quasar. Reindeer in the corridors of Municipal Hall weren’t unheard of, but the ones who did appear there tended to be the leaders of the great herds—the Blitzens, the Prancers, the Comets. Quasar, though clearly a Rudolph descendant, was born with a malfunctioning nose and one slightly short leg, which gave him a shambling gait. He hadn’t yet started to shed his antlers for the winter, though, and their full growth made him look more impressive than he usually did by Christmas. He often knocked things over with them, but the elves in the room didn’t know that. Their startled, slightly distasteful looks probably had more to do with the strong musky odor that now permeated the room.
In fairness to Quasar, the source of that musky odor was just as likely to be Lucia as him. Lucia resided at Castle Kringle, but her days were spent with the reindeer herds.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
Lucia approached the empty seat at the head of the table opposite Mrs. Firlog. “I’m here on behalf of the Society for the Benefit of Misfit Reindeer,” Lucia said. “We’ve got an idea for a Halloween carnival ride.”
“But we already have our concessions set up around the haunted ice castle,” Mrs. Firlog said, flipping through the pages on her clipboard. “I’m afraid that the Society for the Benefit of Misfit Reindeer isn’t on our list.”
“This is last minute, but we wouldn’t interrupt your plans. We could use the other side of Peppermint Pond from the haunted ice castle . . . and maybe a few city blocks.”
“What do you have in mind?” Mrs. Firlog asked.
“Quasar’s Runaway Sleigh Ride,” Lucia announced.
“I-I won’t really run away with anyone,” Quasar explained, his nose fizzling nervously.
“The ride’ll be a hit with the kids,” Lucia said. “And adults, too.”
“This is irregular,” Mayor Firlog said. “How can we close streets when the city is going to be packed?”
“The biggest crowds will be around the park, where the haunted ice castle is. We just need a street or two—Quasar will hop over a rooftop and bump the sleigh down for a few blocks of breakneck fun. I’ve rigged out a sleigh for the occasion with seat belts and padding. The riders will be as safe as Santa on Christmas Eve.”
That analogy gave me no comfort. I still quailed inside at seeing Nick fly off in his huge sleigh on the big night. But Lucia’s sales pitch seemed to satisfy everyone else. And then she sealed the deal with an enticing offer.
“Just to prove how safe it is, and how fun, we want to treat the council to a sample runaway sleigh ride. Quasar and I set up a test path just outside town.”
A collective squeal went up. If there was anything elves loved—other than candy, carbs, and year-round Christmas carols—it was a sleigh ride. Around the table, eyes lit with childlike excitement.
“Permission granted,” Mrs. Firlog said, not even bothering with a vote. She smacked her gavel on the table. “Meeting adjourned to sample Quasar’s Runaway Sleigh Ride.”
Forget overflow sleigh parking or whatever else was on the meeting’s agenda; a mad dash for the door ensued. I barely had time to grab Crinkles by the coat sleeve. “You’re going sleigh riding?”
His eyes widened. “Why not?”
“What about the candy corn theft? And the suspicious death?”
“Can’t do anything about Wink until I hear back from Doc Honeytree. And as for the candy corn theft”—he scratched his head under the bill of his cap—“we’ve had no new leads on that.”
“But shouldn’t you be out looking?”
He cast a longing gaze through the doorway and down the hall, where the council members were retreating behind Lucia for their sleigh ride.
“Sorry, April. I’m a member of this council and an officer of the law—I need to make sure that sleigh ride’s safe for the children.”
He pulled free and scrambled away to catch up with the others.
I did not follow my fellow council members. I’d experienced enough reindeer and sleigh flight to know I preferred the boring safety of solid ground. More importantly, I’d agreed to meet Juniper for coffee. We had a lot to catch up on.