Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 6) (21 page)

Kara winked at me.

“Your husband is
so
humble, Cin,” she said.

“Hey now, is that supposed to be a crack about me or something?” John said in a joking tone.

Kara grinned and reached for his hand across the table.

“No, honey,” she said. “I love hearing about all your triumphs at the podiatrist office.”

She said it honestly, and John smiled back at her warmly.

I tossed the cucumbers with some freshly chopped tomatoes.

I figured after the long, intense week all of us had gone through, a nice relaxing summer dinner with family and friends was just what the doctor ordered. After George being arrested the day before, I could think of nothing better than spending the evening in our backyard, eating burgers, corn, grilled nectarines, and salad.

Daniel suddenly lifted Laila high up in the air and started making funny faces at her. She giggled something fierce, and I couldn’t help but laugh right along.

Seeing Daniel and how much fun he was having playing with Laila Mae gave me a peculiar feeling. A new feeling, one that I couldn’t quite get a handle on. A longing of some sort.

I turned away and smiled quietly to myself.

Daniel was going to make a great dad one day.

One day
…

I felt my stomach tighten, all those old feelings I’d been grappling with coming back to the surface. The feeling that I had to make a decision, and I had to make a decision sooner rather than late—

Just then, the doorbell rang. I wiped my hands off on my apron and went for the front door, finding Aileen and Ian on the other side.

I gave Aileen a big hug.

“I’m so glad you all could make it,” I said, glancing at Ian and smiling. He met my eyes briefly and then awkwardly nodded.

“As am I, Cinnamon,” she said, stepping into the house. “What wonderful news about the murderer being caught.”

I nodded, noticing that someone was missing.  

“Where’s Warren?”

“Well,” she said. “Your grandfather is staying a little later at the brewery. You see, he’s piddled away the day at the Pine Needle Tavern, and fell behind on work. I told him to wait until tomorrow to catch up, but he’s stubborn as an old donkey.” 

“He’s not coming at all?” I asked, feeling my spirits sink.

Warren was practically the guest of honor at this dinner. Not to mention, the life of the party.

“Oh, don’t you worry yourself, Cinnamon. He said he’ll be here just in time for dessert.”

I did my best to conceal my disappointment.

Aileen squeezed my arm.

“He said he wouldn’t miss one of your pies for all the beer in Portland.”

I smiled.

The old man could probably subsist on only beer and pie for the rest of his life and be happier than a fat cat locked in a stocked pantry.

Chapter 50

The Blueberry Peach Pie sat on the table, waiting like a single gal at a dance with no bachelors.

The reason for its predicament being that Warren still wasn’t here.

For at least the tenth time that evening, I shot a glance in the direction of the door, hoping to see it open at any moment. But all was quiet.

I finally stood up from the table and took my apron off.

“You know, I think I’m just going to swing by the brewery and see what’s keeping the old man,” I said.

“There’s no need for that, Cinnamon,” Aileen said. “He just sent me a text message a few minutes ago saying he was cleaning up and would be over soon.”

I rubbed the back of my neck.

The hairs were standing on end for some reason.

“All the same, I think I’ll go check. Just to make sure he hasn’t fallen in one of the vats. Or tripped over a bucket, or something.”

“I’ll come with you,” Daniel said softly, so as not to disturb the sleeping babe in his arms.

Daniel and Laila had developed a real close friendship in the last couple of hours.

“And come between you and sweet Laila?” I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “I don’t think so.”

“No, it would just take a sec—” he started saying, but I was already going for my car keys.

“I’ll be back in a flash,” I said. “I could use some air anyway. In the meantime, all of you please feel free to dig into that pie. It’s looking a little sad sitting there uneaten.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Kara said, quickly grabbing the knife, as if she’d been waiting hours for me to give her permission.

I smiled to myself and headed out the door to the car.

Chapter 51

“You here, Grandpa?”

I slid inside the back door of the brewery, realizing that it was a stupid question: the strong, sticky aroma of bubbling wort, the liquid base that eventually turns into beer, hung thick in the air like smoke.

Of course
Warren had to be here.

But the brew house was dark. I rubbed the back of my neck again, trying to get those goose bumps to go away.

Maybe I was coming down with something, brought on by the events of the past week. During the short ride over here, I’d been close to shivering, despite the fact that the wind blowing through the car windows was hot and arid.

“Grandpa?” I said again, my voice echoing through the large space.

Once again, there was no answer.

I started heading for the brew house’s small office, where sometimes I found Warren gazing hard at various bills.

I shivered some more as I neared the spot where Rip had died.

Warren had had the spot scrubbed as much as it could be, but there was still a faint red tinge to the concrete that made my stomach turn.

Maybe, once the brewery reopened, Warren would get the concrete redone. Heaven knows, he didn’t need any reminder of the murder that took place in his brewery. Nobody did, for that matter.

The door to the office was closed, but a faint light spilled from beneath the door crack. I could hear the sound of papers being shuffled and a long sigh that sounded to me like Warren was doing some heavy checkbook balancing.

I placed my hand on the doorknob and pushed.

He was sitting at the desk, writing something.

“Don’t you know that I’ve got a freshly-baked Blueberry Peach Pie waiting on the table at home? What in the heck is keeping you, old man?”

“Cinny, I—”

“Everybody is waiting for the man of the hour to arrive. And you’ve made me come all the way down here to pull you from your beer making and—

“Cinny!”

I noticed too late that the old man’s face was a shade paler than usual.

I noticed too late that there was a panic running through his voice.

I noticed too late that his hands were trembling.

And I noticed too late the woman with the gun standing behind me.

Chapter 52

“Damn you, Cinnamon.
Damn you
. This was just going to be a suicide. Do you know how hard
that
in and of itself was going to be to stage? Now I’m going to have to stage a
murder-suicide
, you interfering fool.”

She pushed the .44 toward my midsection and I let out a short gasp.

“You wench!” Warren said, his voice shaking like the branches of a tree in a windstorm. “It’s over. Can’t you see that? You’re not gonna be able to pull this off. You haven’t got the brass or the brains. Don’t you know my son-in-law’s the sheriff? Don’t you know that he’s gonna find you out?”

She brandished the gun so that the metal was almost touching my shirt. Another shiver, this one like a rolling train, ran through me.

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there,” she said. “But for now, you keep writing that note, old timer. After you confess to Rip Lawrence’s murder, say that you’re taking Cinnamon with you because you can’t stand the thought of leaving this world without your granddaughter.”

I inhaled sharply.

There was a kind of cool, calculated madness in her eyes. Something that had never been in them in all the times she’d come into my pie shop. Not even when I’d kicked her out and told her never to come back.

I had always known Meredith Drutman was mean-spirited. Mean and demanding and unkind.

But a killer?

A cold-blooded murderess?

I was seeing her hold the gun that killed Rip Lawrence with my own two eyes, and I still couldn’t believe it.

She studied me for a long moment, as if she knew what I was thinking.

“Not that I have to explain myself to
you
, Cinnamon, but I didn’t intend to kill anyone,” she said. “I only wanted to threaten him that night. Let him know I meant business. That he couldn’t push me around. It was a pure accident. It’s this damn hair-trigger gun. George never took care of this gun the way he should have. My finger slipped and before I knew it, Splat! Rip just dropped.”

She casually handled the gun to emphasize the “splat” part, and my breath caught in my throat.

So George hadn’t been the murderer after all.

It was his wife who had done the dirty deed. George must have only confessed to save her.

“Rip really ought to have known who he was dealing with in the first place,” Meredith continued. “Threatening me and my family like that… he should have known better. I’m a Drutman. I don’t get pushed around.
I
do the pushing.”

“You… you killed him because he was seeing Haley?” I said, my voice cracking. 

Meredith’s face went white as a ghost’s suddenly at the mention of Haley.

But then she smiled.

“You don’t have the slightest clue about what’s going on here, do you?” she said. “But you know what? I think this is one mystery you’ll never get to understand, Cinnamon. You and your grandfather are going to go to your graves without ever knowing
why
.”

Her eyes narrowed cruelly.

I knew Meredith wasn’t a good person.

But I hadn’t known she was
this
bad.

Nobody had.

“Now, soon as old gramps gets done writing that suicide note, I’m going to ask you to stand over there, Cinnamon,” she said, nodding to the corner. “I’m going to make it like you just walked in here while he was writing his farewell to the world. You see, poor Warren here just couldn’t live with himself, knowing that another man was going to prison for a crime he committed.”

“A crime
you
committed, you old hag,” Warren said, his voice full of fury.

“Now, there’s no reason to get nasty, gramps, just because a business rivalry got out of hand,” Meredith said, looking over at him and sticking out her bottom lip in a pout. “I mean, everybody knows Rip had it coming. You did us all a service, in fact, by killing him. It’s just your own damn conscious that couldn’t live it down.”

My mind raced, trying to come up with something. A way to get us out of here, away from this lunatic.

“See, Warren. You stole the gun, the one I’m holding right now, out of my husband’s truck one night. Then you shot Rip in a dispute over territory. You didn’t mean to, but the gun just went off. You
are
frail and feeble, after all.”

“You’re out of your mind, woman,” Warren said. “I will not write that. I will not write anything. You’ll just have to kill me.”

Meredith nudged the gun closer to me.

“Or I could just kill your granddaughter here first,” Meredith said, staring him down. “The choice is yours.”

Warren glanced over at me, looking helpless.

“Get writing, you old geezer.”

He slowly picked up the pen and continued the note.

My heart hammered hard in my chest.

I had to stall somehow. I had to distract her. I had to buy us more time.

“Just tell me why, Meredith,” I said. “I’ll give up easy. All I want to know is why you’re doing all this.”

“That story’s much too complicated for the little time
you
have,” she said, looking at me with mock sadness.

“If you weren’t trying to protect Haley, then why kill him? What could you possibly gain from it?”

“I told you it was an accident,” she said. “I told you, it’s this damn hair-trigger pull, that’s all—”

“No it wasn’t,” a strong, high-pitched voice suddenly sounded from behind us. “It wasn’t any accident, and you know it, you liar!”

Meredith jumped high in the air, and for a second, the gun wobbled in her hands like a three-legged table.

I shut my eyes tightly, afraid of being the victim of another one of her “accidents.”

Chapter 53

“Sweetie, how…?” Meredith started saying to the young redheaded woman who looked as enraged as a disturbed anthill.

For once, she was without that little white scrappy dog she carried with her everywhere.

“I followed you today,” Haley said, her eyes bloodshot. “Because I knew it couldn’t have been Dad. I knew he couldn’t have done something like this. He doesn’t have it in him. But you do, mom. You do.”

“Honey, why don’t you just go back outside and wait in your car?” Meredith said in a soft voice.

That only seemed to incense Haley more.

Her freckled face turned red, and I thought she was going to blow her top at any moment.

“How could you, Mom?” she said. “How could you kill him?!”

“Sweetie, you don’t know the whole story,” she said. “We can discuss it more on the way home, if you like. But for now, get your
skinny little ass
back in the car. I’m trying to save the family here.”

Haley shook her head. 

“You killed him in cold blood. You killed…”

A couple of fat tears popped over the rims of her eyes, sliding down her face.

“You killed my… my
father.
”

It came out in just above a whisper. As if Haley herself couldn’t quite believe what she was saying.

I heard someone gasp. It took me a few moments to realize that the gasp had come from me.

Meredith’s eyes grew wide. She lowered the gun slightly, as if the metal was too heavy for her shaking hands.