A Haunted Holiday in Hillbilly Hollow Page 4

  I told myself everyone had their own way of coping with tragedy, and that Betty’s method was clearly working for her. I was pulled back out of my thoughts when a young woman holding the hand of a little girl approached Betty. The child was excited, bouncing up and down as she walked, her mouth moving quickly as she chattered away. Her mom smiled down at her.

  “Nothing to see here, Mrs. Abernathy. Move on back to the main square please,” Betty told the woman as they approached. Betty angled her body so that the mother and child couldn’t get close enough to see the grisly scene inside the pen.

  Her no-nonsense tone did nothing to quell the girl’s excitement, but it did get the attention of her mom. Mrs. Abernathy focused on Betty and offered a friendly smile.

  “I’m sorry. Are we in the wrong place? Isn’t this where we get tickets to see Santa?”

  “No, it most certainly is not,” Betty snapped. She softened her tone slightly when it evidently occurred to her that Mrs. Abernathy most likely wasn’t bringing her daughter to see a dead body. “Santa will be here later, and tickets are available from the ice rink.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Abernathy replied. She smiled down at her daughter. “Why don’t we go and get a candy apple and then we can see Santa, okay? He’s not here yet. He must be busy with all of his elves.”

  Mrs. Abernathy tried to lead the child away, but the little girl dug her heels in.

  “But Mommy, she’s lying,” the little girl said in a voice loud enough to make her mom blush.

  Betty frowned. “I beg your pardon?” she said to the girl.

  The girl, unfazed by the icy tone from Betty, crossed her arms.

  “I saw Santa in the parking lot,” she said. “I asked why he wasn’t in his sleigh and he said the reindeer are resting so they’re ready for Christmas Eve.”

  “Listen honey,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “He’s still getting ready. He’ll have to check his good and naughty list so he knows who to give the best presents to, okay?”

  This seemed to appease the child slightly and she allowed herself to be led away. They’d only gone a few steps before Betty called out.

  “Mrs. Abernathy, wait,” she said.

  It sounded more like an order than a polite request and I found myself stepping closer, just in case Mrs. Abernathy didn’t respond kindly to the tone. I couldn’t stand by and allow Betty to ruin this child’s day.

  Mrs. Abernathy turned back to Betty but she didn’t look angry. She was obviously used to Betty Blackwell’s commanding ways.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Did you really see Santa in the parking lot?” Betty demanded.

  Mrs. Abernathy nodded and Betty turned to me, looking furious. “Why is he here so early? Did you do this?”

  I was startled. “No, I didn’t. If I remember correctly, Santa wasn’t meant to be here until the weekend. It was your idea to change that and have him come every day. And you said no one but you could be trusted to organize it properly.”

  I was saved from Betty’s cutting response by the little Abernathy girl.

  “Look! I told you he was here now,” she said, pointing excitedly.

  I looked where she was pointing, and sure enough, a man in a Santa suit complete with a big bushy white beard was approaching us.

  “Well, this is just unacceptable,” Betty griped, seemingly forgetting all about guarding the body in the reindeer pen.

  She stormed off in the direction of the arriving Santa.

  “I think maybe we should leave and come back tomorrow,” Mrs. Abernathy said to her daughter.

  She obviously wasn’t aware of Frank’s corpse lying not far off, but she could surely tell that something was going on here.

  “But Mommy, Santa’s here. And I wanted to tell him about the dolly I want,” the girl replied.

  I walked over to Mrs. Abernathy and the girl.

  “You know something?” I asked.

  The girl shook her head, looking up at me with big brown eyes.

  “That’s not the real Santa. The real Santa was too busy to come today. That’s why Mrs. Blackwell is so upset. She doesn’t want any boys and girls seeing anyone but the real Santa.”

  “Really?” the girl asked.

  “Really,” I said.

  “But the real Santa is definitely coming?” she confirmed.

  I nodded. “Yes. He’ll be here tomorrow and every other day.”

  The girl turned to her mom. “Okay, we can come back later.”

  Mrs. Abernathy gave me a grateful look and led her daughter away.

  I headed after Betty. I didn’t know what was going on with this Santa, but I wanted to make sure she didn’t run him off for good. I caught up to her and we walked together across the lawn towards Santa.

  “I won’t have him or anyone else ruining this event,” Betty grumbled. “Frank Clarkson has already done enough damage today without this happening.”

  I raised my eyebrows. She made it sound as though poor old Frank had got himself killed just to spite her.

  “Maybe this is the same Santa you ordered and he’s just running a little early,” I tried to reason with her.

  “Well, he shouldn’t be. He should be on time,” Betty snapped. “Not that I’d expect you to know that.”

  I ignored the barbed comment as we met with the Santa Claus.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re far too early. Please leave and come back at the time you were requested to be here,” Betty greeted him.

  The Santa’s eyes darted left and then right, as if checking to see if the coast was clear. There was something familiar about those eyes, and I placed them just as he lifted up the beard, giving us a quick flash of his full, handsome face.

  “It’s me, Sheriff Tucker,” he hissed.

  Betty recovered quickly from her surprise and rolled her eyes.

  “And you thought that…” She paused and pointed at Tucker, taking in his entire body with a sweep of her hand. “…was an appropriate way to be dressed when coming to investigate a death?”

  Tucker’s cheeks reddened, ironically making him look more like Santa than ever.

  “I’ve been volunteering to be Santa at the children’s hospital over at Elmsworth,” he said, referring to a neighbouring town. “That’s why I took awhile to get here and why I’m wearing this costume.”

  “Well, could you at least take the beard and the hat off? This is a serious matter, Sheriff,” Betty said.

  She spat the word “Sheriff” like it pained her to refer to Tucker that way. Perhaps it did. Tucker’s heart was in the right place but, unfortunately, his brain didn’t always get the memo and it tended to get lost easily.

  As Betty spoke, the wail of approaching sirens rent the air. It seemed the ambulance was finally arriving. It always took awhile to get emergency services in Hillbilly Hollow because most of them had to come from Elmsworth. The Hollow was too small to have its own hospital; we only had our little day clinic.

  Tucker clicked into professional mode and told Betty, “This whole park needs to be shut down. Maybe it can re-open tomorrow once my deputies and I have had a chance to examine the scene, but for now we need the area cleared.”

  As if summoned by his words, there came the sound of another set of sirens, undoubtedly Tucker’s deputies showing up.

  I wasn’t in the least bit confident Tucker would have any answers by next month, let alone tomorrow, but I bit my tongue.

  Betty beckoned to a volunteer. “Get everyone out. The park is closed for the day and will be re-opening tomorrow,” she said.

  “But why?” the young volunteer made the mistake of asking.

  “Because I said so, that’s why,” Betty snapped. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

  “No,” the girl replied.

  She hurried off to do Betty’s bidding. As much as I didn’t appreciate Betty’s way of talking to people, I had to admit she had a knack for getting things done. Even as we approached the deer pen, the last few park visitors were being herded out of the Christmas Garden and the gates were being locked.

  When the paramedics hurried past, guided by Betty toward the reindeer pen, Tucker finally removed his hat and beard, stuffing them inside his red coat and making his padded stomach look even bigger.

  “So what happened?” he asked us all. “Who found the body?”

  “I did,” Betty replied. “Frank Clarkson was supposed to be looking after the reindeer when they all escaped from their pen. I went to find him to demand to know what had happened, but I discovered him dead on the ground inside the pen.”

  Tucker walked into the pen but kept back from Frank’s body, as the paramedics checked for signs of life. It was obvious even to me that there were none.

  Tucker nodded his head toward the scene and told Betty, “Yes, I think I see what happened here. One of the deer must have kicked the victim in the back of the head. I had an uncle who once got kicked in the head by a mule. Knocked half his brains clean out, it did. Yep. The reindeer will have to be destroyed, of course.”

  I felt my heart sink as Tucker cheerfully related his grisly story. I hadn’t expected a lot from him in terms of real detective work, but this was bad, even for him. And there was no way I could keep quiet and let the innocent reindeer be put down.

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied, looking confused by the question. “It’s the most obvious explanation.”

  There was so much wrong with his theory that I barely knew where to start.

  “Tucker, a reindeer didn’t do this,” I said. “Look at the body. It’s lying on its side. If a reindeer had kicked Frank, don’t you think it would have happened while he was approaching the animal, putting the wound on the front or the side of his face? Instead, this blow came from the back.”

  Tucker considered this, watching as his deputies scattered around us to examine the area and tape off the crime scene.

  “Hmm, maybe,” he said.

  I continued. “Reindeer probably don’t have that much force in their kicks, either. Besides, look at the size of the wound compared to a reindeer’s hoof. There’s no way a reindeer could have done this, Tucker.”

  “But then why would the reindeer stampede?” Tucker frowned.

  I said, “They didn’t stampede. They aren’t violent animals. They were running around, and granted it caused chaos, but it’s only because they were afraid when we all started chasing them.”

  I pointed to the latch on the gate. “Look, it’s not broken. They didn’t break out. The gate was left open, probably by whoever did this, hoping to create a distraction and buy themselves time to escape the scene.”

  Tucker came back over to where I stood just outside the pen. He examined the latch, opening and closing the gate a few times. He shook the gate, testing to see how solid it was, then he nodded his head.

  “You might be right, Emma,” he said. “Betty, what do you think?”

  Betty seemed preoccupied. “I think this place will at least run a lot smoother without Frank Clarkson around to keep upsetting the apple cart,” she grumbled.

  I frowned. It definitely hadn’t taken Betty long to find her acid tongue again.

  To her credit, even she looked surprised and then embarrassed at the gruff words that had escaped her mouth. She nodded toward me and admitted grudgingly, “But Emma is probably right. The reindeer didn’t do this. They aren’t capable of it.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The reindeer would be safe, and whoever had really committed this crime would be brought to justice. Hopefully.

  Tucker re-entered the pen now and went closer to Frank’s body, moving past the paramedics. Crouching down to peer at the wound, he reached forward and touched the area around it.

  I cringed, noticing that he wasn’t wearing gloves. He had already contaminated the crime scene when he waded through the pen, and now he had contaminated the area of the wound too.

  Tucker stood back up. “After the coroner carries out his post mortem we’ll know more. It’s obvious old Frank died from a blunt force trauma to the head, but the report should be able to give us a bit more detail about the murder weapon. Meanwhile, did anyone see anything today that might give a clue as to who did this?”

  None of the volunteers who had gathered around spoke up.

  “Okay then,” Tucker said when no one responded. “How about suspicious behaviour of any kind?”

  That got me thinking. Of course there was Betty. Her behaviour was strange. She’d had that argument with Frank not long before he was killed, and she wasn’t exactly sorry to see him dead. She had been the first one on the scene, which meant she had plenty of time to have opened the gate and shooed the reindeer out. She just had to wait until they were causing the maximum amount of chaos and then start screaming to draw a crowd.

  I had suspected Betty of murder once before, though, because of her seemingly cold reaction to Preacher Jacob’s murder several months back, and I had ultimately been way off base. That time, the killer had wound up being someone very different. That didn’t mean she hadn’t done this, of course, but I wanted something more to go on than a hunch if I was going to tell Tucker I thought Betty was suspicious, especially with her standing right beside me.

  There was also the woman in the green coat from earlier. It was quite a leap for me to think that someone vandalising a mural was a murderer, but Tucker had only asked if we had seen anything suspicious, and she definitely stood out to me as suspicious. Would she have had time to kill Frank and open the pen, though? Or would she have already been in the middle of spraying her paint when the murder took place? Anyway, no matter how I played it out in my head, I couldn’t imagine why she would have killed Frank Clarkson, released the reindeer, and then stopped to vandalise the mural. It just didn’t make sense.

  There were way too many holes in either of my theories of who the killer might be for me to mention them to Tucker. He was likely to ignore me completely or not want my interference. I was a bit unsure of the sheriff these days anyway, and didn’t want to step on his toes.

  We hadn’t exactly had the most comfortable relationship since our recent trip to New York together. Through a misunderstanding, Tucker had accompanied me on what he mistakenly thought was a romantic trip that ended with me solving the murder of my former landlady. It also ended with me having to set Tucker straight on the fact that our acquaintance was nothing more than a casual friendship.

  To his credit, he had treated me ever since as if the whole thing had never happened. Knowing Tucker, he may have actually forgotten it ever did happen. Still, I didn’t want to push my luck now by telling him how to do his job.

  “I haven’t seen anything strange,” I said to Tucker’s question.

  “You took a long time to answer that, Emma,” Betty pointed out.

  “And yet I still answered before you,” I couldn’t resist saying.

  Betty bristled.

  “Now now, ladies,” Tucker said smoothly. “No need to get upset.”

  It was an odd thing to say while he stood with the body of a man who had most likely been murdered lying on the ground behind him, but that was Tucker for you.

  Now Betty had drawn attention to my pause, I felt like I had to explain it.

  “I was just thinking about the lights being vandalised,” I said. “But it can’t be related, right?”

  “Of course not,” Betty said, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, Emma. As if children did this. Stop with the theories before you waste Sheriff Tucker’s time.”

  The fact that Betty still hadn’t answered Tucker’s question was certainly raising my suspicions about her. As though she had read my mind, she turned to Tucker.

  “I’ve seen nothing either, Sheriff,” she said. “The ironic thing is that if the victim had been anyone else, I would have been sending you to talk to Frank as a suspect. He was a very angry little man.”

  She let that thought hang in the air for a moment, before continuing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do. I have a Santa to cancel. Sheriff, this fair will be re-opening tomorrow as discussed, so I suggest you have your people clear everything away.” She waved a hand in the general direction of the crime scene, as if the murder victim was an inconvenient mess to be tidied away.

  Then she walked off with her head held high, carrying herself like a woman who was used to being obeyed.

  Most of the other staff had gone home while we were talking to Tucker. There was no reason to hang around, really. Colin and Marty remained, working together on fixing the apple cider stand. It didn’t feel right for me to just walk away.

  As if reading my mind, Tucker said, “It’s fine, Emma. You get going. We’ll take care of everything here. And don’t forget to call me if you think of anything that might help, okay?”

  I nodded absently. “Yes. Yes, of course,” I said, before heading for the parking lot.

  This chance to go home early would give me plenty of time to split tomorrow’s firewood in advance, maybe allowing me an extra hour in bed in the morning. And I would have all evening to work on my pitch for Eva for the design work on the Baron’s Construction rebrand. I didn’t like the tragic reason I had been given the extra time, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t make full use of it.

  I arrived back at the farm and returned my grandpa’s truck keys. I wandered through to the kitchen where I could smell all kinds of delicious aromas wafting. The thick scent of roasting meat mixed with the sweetness of a cake. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the smell.

  “What are you making?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen.

  “Emma, you’re back early,” my grandma exclaimed. “I’m making a steak pie and a chocolate cake for dinner. Both your grandpa’s favourites.”

  “And mine,” I said, my stomach growling.

  I was surprised. It was barely two hours since I had last eaten, and in the interim I’d seen a dead body. Still, the stomach wants what the stomach wants.

  “Why are you home so soon?” Grandma pressed, turning to face me, a spoon coated with chocolate in her hand.

  She saw me eying the spoon and handed it over to me. I sat down and licked the gooey goodness, enjoying the sweetness on my tongue. It took me back to my childhood, when murder wasn’t even something I knew happened.