A YULETIDE MURDER

 

 

Chapter 1

The morning I found out Santa Claus was dead, I was untangling Christmas lights in Jensen Harbor's town hall and thinking about murder. Not real murder, mind you – I was plotting the fictional demise of a character in my next mystery novel. But in small towns like ours, where everyone's life is wrapped around everyone else's like stubborn strands of tinsel, sometimes fiction has a way of bleeding into reality. I only had a month before I had to leave on a book signing tour to promote my newest murder mystery.

 

The hall was packed with citizens, most of who came to listen and to offer their ideas on how this year’s festival should be conducted. Jensen Harbor’s Christmas festival had started small but as the years passed, the festival became more ambitious, as did those who ran it.

 It lasted the entire week before Christmas ending on Christmas Eve night. and had become known as one of Alaska’s biggest winter tourist attractions. People come from all over to see and be a part of what’s been called the most traditional Christmas celebration ever. Many prominent residents reveled in the town’s statewide reputation as a Christmas celebration, where tradition reigns. Regardless, the festival seemed to get grander every year and most of our resident got caught up in the excitement of the holiday and were enthusiastic participants as well.

Dr. Sam Harris, my good friend and the town’s only veterinarian, who sat at the table with me, leaned close to my ear and said, “Where is Logan James? Isn’t he supposed to be here to get fitted for that Santa costume, Tilly?”

I looked at him, and said, “Yes but he’s late again, and that’s not like him.”

 “I wonder what’s keeping him this time.”

"Has anyone heard from Logan?" I asked, checking my watch for the third time. Our mayor had never missed a Christmas festival planning meeting in twenty years of playing Santa. The red suit hung expectantly on its brass hook by the door, waiting for its annual fitting. This year it needed extra padding – Logan had lost weight recently, something Ellie had been oddly quiet about at last week's Ladies' Aid meeting.

 Outside, December snow swirled against the windows, and somewhere in the harbor, a foghorn mourned the morning.

 

A pile of urgent issues sat before me: the structural engineer's report on the harbor pavilion (apparently, it couldn't support our planned light display), the email from our longtime glass ornament vendor announcing bankruptcy, and a tearful message from the choir director about half her sopranos being down with flu. But most pressing was the Santa situation – even if Logan showed up now, the suit would need major alterations. He'd missed last week's preliminary fitting, too, something that had never happened before.

 

 Carrie Morgan  set a tray of peppermint hot chocolate on the conference table, steam rising from the cups like winter ghosts. "He wasn't at the café this morning," she said, frowning. "First time he's missed his Monday morning cinnamon roll in... well, forever."

 

"Probably too busy counting his money," Harry Evans muttered from his corner chair. His rancher's hands were clasped too tight around his cup, knuckles white with tension. I'd known Harry since high school, back when he was the star quarterback, and I was the school newspaper's mystery columnist. These days, he looked more haunted than heroic.

 

Brad Thompson, our hardware store owner, shuffled through his papers. "We need his signature on the parade permits today, or we can't close Main Street for the light display. And speaking of lights..." He glanced at Harry. "Your order still hasn't come through. Without those extra strings, we're short for the harbor pavilion."

 

I added that to my mental list of festival crises, right below 'half the children's choir down with flu' and 'reindeer handler demanding double his usual fee.' Fifteen  published mysteries had taught me about plot complications, but somehow coordinating Jensen Harbor's Christmas festival made my fictional murders seem simple.

 

I turned to Sam. “Where could he be?” I asked. Sam leaned forward and scanned faces at the long table on the other side of the room.

“You’re right, Tilly ,” Eddy said. “The mayor hasn’t ever missed a Christmas festival planning meeting for as long as I can remember.”

“Nor I.” Sam agreed.

 Logan James  was a prosperous businessman in real estate  who’d enjoyed playing Santa Claus at our holiday festival for the past twenty odd years. Logan was a big, friendly man with a merry laugh. I guessed him to be around two hundred and fifty pounds,  at least he used to be.

“Is he sick, do you think?” I asked.

“No, I saw him yesterday,” Sam said. “at Carrie Morgan’s Bakery. He looked okay to me.”

“Maybe some emergency.”

“Maybe,” Sam muttered. A few minutes later, the door opened, bringing a swirl of snow and Sheriff Eddy Brown. My heart did that ridicuEllen s flutter it had been doing lately whenever he entered a room. Since we had been spending more time together, there had been... moments. Glances that lasted a beat too long. Casual touches that felt anything but casual. The kind of subtle courtship that only happens in small towns where everyone is watching but pretending not to.

 

"Logan's not answering his phone," Eddy said, his deep voice carrying that hint of concern that only I seemed to notice. "Wally say’s Logan’s car's in the driveway, but..." He caught my eye, and twenty years of friendship let me read the worry in his face.

 

“Maybe somebody ought to take a ride out to the house and check on him,” Sam suggested.

"I'll come with you," I said, gathering my festival binder. "We need his signature on the permits anyway." That was only partly true. What I didn't say was that after writing fifteen best selling murder mysteries, I'd developed a sixth sense about these things. Something felt off.

 

"Tilly..." Ellen Colby, my best friend had arrived just behind Eddy. She now reached out and touched my arm. "Don't forget you have that call with your editor at eleven."

 

"This won't take long," I assured her, though my writer's instincts were already spinning possibilities.

 

  Sam Harris  caught my eye from across the room. As Jensen Harbor's only veterinarian and my longtime partner in crime-solving, he knew that look on my face. He gave me a slight nod – he'd cover the meeting while I was gone.

 

The drive to Logan's house was quiet, but not uncomfortable. That's the thing about small towns – you develop a language of silence with people you've known forever. I'd known Eddy since he was the shy boy who helped my father at the hardware store, before selling it to Brad’s father twenty five years ago. Now he was our sheriff, and I was Jensen Harbor's claim to fame, our only regular on the New York Times bestseller list.

 

"You're doing that thing again," Eddy said, his eyes on the snowy road.

 

"What thing?"

"That look you get when you're plotting a murder." His mouth twitched with the hint of a smile. "Literary murder," he added quickly.

 

I had to laugh. "Force of habit. Writing books with the subjects of murder and dying tends to warp a person's thinking." I gestured to the grand house appearing through the snow. "Though I have to admit, Logan's place would make a perfect setting for a mystery. All those windows looking out over the harbor, that isolated beach access..."

 

The laughter died in my throat as we pulled up to Logan's house. His car was in the driveway, covered in a thick blanket of snow. More telling were the Christmas decorations: half-finished, as if he'd stopped in the middle of hanging lights. A ladder still leaned against the house, extension cords snaked across the snow like frozen tenacles.

 

"Logan?" Eddy called out, knocking firmly. When no answer came, he tried the handle. It turned easily in his hand.

 

That's when I knew. In Jensen Harbor, nobody leaves their door unlocked in winter. The wind off the harbor gets nasty enough to blow them open.

 

"Stay here, Tilly," Eddy said, his hand moving to his hip where his gun rested.

 

"Not a chance." I'd written enough crime scenes to know what we might find, but I'd also known Logan James since he was a teenager sneaking extra cookies from my mother's bakery. If something had happened to him, I needed to see it for myself.

 

Christmas music played softly from hidden speakers – "Silent Night," of all things. Holiday cards lay half-addressed on the coffee table. A shopping list for festival supplies sat abandoned by the phone.

 

The study doors were open, we found Logan in his home office and the scene before me stopped me cold. Logan James sat at his massive mahogany desk, head tilted back, looking for all the world like he'd dozed off while doing paperwork. Except Logan hadn't fallen asleep. The festival permits lay unsigned beneath his still hand, and he wore a bright red Santa suit and tall black riding boots -on a Sunday night. There was something oddly striking about his body’s position and  the lividity of his skin and the strange blue tinge to his lips and fingernails. Death had a particular quality—a stillness that no living pose could ever truly mimic