Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy, Book 2) (16 page)

I didn’t want him to anyway.

I already knew the story.

He told me to go home and get some rest, and he called some of the other deputies out to section off the scene. He said he’d take care of it and talk to the Reinharts about what had happened.

I went home, but I didn’t get much rest. Despite everything that had happened, Sarah had insisted we have a 6 a.m. dress rehearsal this morning to make up for the shortened rehearsal the day before.

And at the auditorium, both she and Ronald had acted like nothing bad had happened at all the night before.

Like a psycho arsonist hadn’t been staking out their house.

Meanwhile, I tried to busy myself with my incredibly stupid lines that morning, trying to distract myself from the ugly truth that last night had exposed.

That I had just possibly lost the love of my life.

Yes. I was doing that. I was now calling him the love of my life. 

“Sorry to hear that you had such a tough night,” Chrissy said, snapping me out of my fog of despair. “Seems like we’ve both been going through a rough patch lately.”

I sighed.

She started rolling out some dough to make some lattice toppings for a batch of cherry pies.

I heard the bell on the front door jingle as one of our first customers of the day walked in.

“I’ll get that,” Chrissy said.

“No,” I said standing up. “Let me. You’re in the middle of doing some actual work, and I’m just sitting here feeling sorry for myself.”

I went through the dividing doors and went up to the cash register.

I held in another sigh when I saw who’d come in. 

“Pecan,” former Sheriff Trumbow said, eyeing the glass case.

I leaned in and grabbed a big slice for him, scooping it onto a plate.

“Anything else?” I asked curtly.

“Coffee,” he grumbled.

He made his way over to his usual booth in the corner.

Most of the time I felt sorry for him. But he never said please, and he never said thank you, and he never left tips, and it was a bad morning to be acting like a jackass to Cinnamon Peters.

I carried the cup of coffee over to his booth. He was already stuffing a big piece of the pie into his mouth.

“Why do you keep coming back here?” I asked abruptly. “You keep coming back, even after you almost ruined my good name with bad police work. You come in acting like a brute, and you never say please or thank you. Why don’t you find somewhere else to go?”

I felt my heart racing rapidly in my chest.

He didn’t do anything for a moment. He sat there, not moving.

I’d probably shocked him.

Then he put his fork down and looked up at me.

And I immediately felt a horrible guilt.

The sheriff was on the verge of tears.

He finished chewing.

“I didn’t…” he started saying. “I didn’t mean… if that’s the way you feel then…”

But it was too late.

A big fat tear slid down his red, inflamed face.

Ugh.

What had I gone and done now?

Chapter 39

“No, no,” I said, placing a hand on the former sheriff’s back. “That’s not what I meant. I’m out of line. I’m sorry… I’m just having a bad day and I’m taking it out on you.”

He pulled a crinkled tissue from his khaki pocket and blew his nose.

“I know what that’s like,” he said after a minute. “Having a bad day. I’ve had plenty of those since… well, since the Junction.”

I lifted my eyebrows.

“I know you’re upset with me because I haven’t apologized,” Trumbow said. “But that’s what I thought I was doing by coming in here all the time. I thought I was making it right in my own pathetic way. But I see now that I’ve just been trying to take the cowardly way out of it.”

I took a seat at the booth across from him. My feet hurt from standing in those Mrs. Claus pilgrim shoes all morning.

“I know,” I said. “I mean, on some level I guess I knew there was a reason you kept coming in here.”

“I’m not a man who finds it easy to admit when I’m wrong,” he said, avoiding my eyes and playing with the pie in front of him. “But dammit, I really screwed up the Mason Barstow murder investigation.”

“I’m sure you were just trying to do your job,” I said. 

Though I didn’t completely believe that. He had almost arrested me in front of the local TV station. That didn’t seem to have been necessary, even if I had been the murderess.

He’d wanted the glory of catching a murderer. No matter what it cost others around him. 

“I got carried away,” he said. “And I wasn’t out to get you or nothing. I just thought given our evidence, you were the only one who could’ve killed Mason.”

I wasn’t sure whether or not that was supposed to make me feel better. Not that the former sheriff and I were simpatico before the murder, but I thought he’d give me the benefit of the doubt. I was, after all, a relatively upstanding citizen. I paid my taxes, donated food on occasion to the local soup kitchen, and led a decent life.

But I guess so did a lot of murderers.

“I’m…” he inhaled slowly. “I’m sorry Cinnamon. I made a big mistake.”

I could tell he was honest-to-God sincere. His beady eyes, which were normally aggressive, were now downcast and sullen.

I hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.

“I appreciate that,” I said.

“Sometimes you’re just wrong about people,” he said. “And when you’re wrong, you’re dead wrong.”

I looked out the window at the mid-morning summer glow that was covering everything.

He was right.

Sometimes you couldn’t always tell about people. Sometimes, no matter how smart or worldly you were, you could still make the wrong judgments about a person. Sometimes, you just had to play the fool.

I patted the former sheriff’s chubby hand.

“It’s good of you to say that, sheriff,” I said. “I do appreciate it.”

He suddenly looked at me with a relieved expression, like a big weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

“And you’re welcome to keep coming in here,” I said, standing up. “In fact, I’d be sad if you stopped.”

He smiled between a bite of pie.

“That’s good, because I’ve got an addiction to this pecan pie of yours. I wasn’t prepared to go cold turkey.”

“I’m glad to hear you like it so much.”

I left the sheriff to his pie and started sweeping the dining room, making sure that it was sparkling for the tourist onslaught that was bound to occur in the next few days. But I didn’t get very far before he interrupted me.

“So I hear you’re going to be Mrs. Claus this year,” he said, wiping his mustache with a napkin.

“Yeah. Unfortunately,” I said. “I’ll just be glad when tomorrow’s over. Sarah Reinhart is a real slave driver.”

That started him laughing.

“Don’t I know it,” he said. “She was my high school sweetheart.”

I turned around to look at him, raising my eyebrows.

“Really?” I said.

“Sure was,” he said. “She wasn’t any nicer back then, but we got along. I guess some part of me likes myself a mean woman. I probably would’ve married her. I planned to, anyway.” 

“What happened?” I said.

He ate the last piece of his pie and I waited while he finished chewing. I started sweeping again.

“What always happens to me,” he grumbled. “I lost out. She moved out of state for a while to get her teaching degree. I should have gone with her, but I was training to be a policeman then. When she came back, she had a brand new husband ten years her senior and seemed like she hardly remembered yours truly.”

I stopped sweeping.

I was surprised he was being so honest with me. In fact, outside of Mason’s murder investigation, I didn’t think we’d had a single real conversation. Now he was divulging his life story.

I guess when it rains, it pours.

“That must have been hard for you.”

“Hurt like hell,” he said. “But you know what they say. Time heals all wounds. I don’t know if it’s really true, but they say it.”

I smiled.

“I may have lost out, but Sarah didn’t exactly ride off into the sunset with a knight.”

I put down the broom.

“What do you mean?” I said, the hairs on my arms suddenly pricking up.

I sat down at the booth across from him again.

“I was a jealous type, back in the day. I did some digging around on him then and found out some not so nice things about Mr. Reinhart. He’s not the kind of man he pretends to be. Hell, Reinhart isn’t even his real name.”

“Really?” I said in a raspy voice.

I was on the edge of my seat. My heart pounding in my chest.

I had a gut feeling that I was close. Close to something that was going to help figure out why the arsonist had been outside their home the night before.

“He hasn’t committed no legal crime,” Trumbow said. “Just a moral crime. He had a family before he met Sarah. Abandoned them all in Northern California for her. As far as I know, he’s pretended all these years like they never existed.”

I felt my mouth drop open.

“Most people don’t know the truth about our resident Santa Claus,” Trumbow went on. “Seems a little blasphemous to have someone like him play old St. Nick.”

The sheriff took a sip of coffee.

“I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years,” I said.

“Yep,” he said. “The town’s got some sort of sterling image of him. But like I said. Sometimes, you’re just dead wrong about a person.”

He put his hat back on and wiped his mouth down with a napkin.

“Does Deputy Brightman know all this?” I asked.

He nodded.

“He was asking me some questions about Ronald just the other day. Seems as though he thinks Reinhart has a connection to these arsons.”

Trumbow stood up.

“I for one wouldn’t be sad to see him locked away,” he said.

I didn’t respond. The pieces were falling into place now. 

“Well, I just feel a lot better about everything,” he said, pulling out a couple dollar bills from his pocket and placing them under the coffee cup.

If I was surprised about the revelation about Ronald Reinhart, I was blown away by the fact that old stingy Trumbow was leaving me a tip.

“Thank you, Miss Peters,” he said, touching his hat.

He walked out the door, leaving me behind at the booth, still deep in thought.

Wondering about that family Ronald had left behind in California.

I’d heard that same story the night before. 

Chapter 40

“Thanks for coming,” I said, wiping my sweaty hands off on my apron.

My voice trembled with nerves.

We were standing on the back deck, the sun beating down hard on our backs. It was hot out here, but it was better than inside the shop, where it was already sweltering.

“Of course,” he said, digging his hands into his pockets.

I couldn’t read him. He was a brick wall, and I felt like I didn’t know how to approach him.

I figured I’d just stick to business for the time being. After the night I’d had, I didn’t know if I could handle anything more.

I couldn’t handle us breaking up just now.

“I just talked to Trumbow,” I said, gazing at the heat waves coming off the forest floor in the distance. “He told me about Ronald. About the family he abandoned back in California.”

Daniel gripped the railing.

“It sounded a lot like Stephanie’s story,” I said.  

I had trouble saying her name. Each syllable got stuck in my throat like it was made out of molasses.

He took off his cowboy hat and pulled at one of the leather strings that had come loose.

“I was hoping to keep you out of this,” he said. “But it looks like it’s too late now. I’ve had a hunch this whole time that Stephanie’s lost brother wasn’t exactly so lost. Seems like he’s here for a specific reason.”

“To look for his father,” I said, finishing the thought. “Ronald Reinhart is his father.” 

Daniel nodded.

“Ronald Reinhart changed his name when he moved out here. His last name used to be Calder.”

“Jesus. So that means… Stephanie’s brother is the arsonist?” I asked. “Has this all been about punishing his dad in some twisted way?”

“The Santa suit makes sense now, doesn’t it?” he said.

It did. It was a message to his father, who’d played Santa in the play for almost 15 years running. 

“But why go after Kara and Valley’s stores? They don’t have anything to do with Ronald abandoning him.” I said.

“It’s hard to understand the mind of someone like that. But I think he wants his father to know that he’s coming for him, or for Sarah maybe,” Daniel said. “That’s what I think, anyway. He’s been going after the women in the play. I think he’s building up to a grand finale.”

“Jesus,” I said again.

It seemed surreal. That quaint little Christmas River, a harmless little town that celebrated Christmas year-round, would have a madman like this on the loose.

“This is all so crazy,” I said. “Isn’t there some way to track him? Credit cards or something?”

“He’s not using the name Nick Calder,” Daniel said. “All transactions under Nick’s credit cards stopped when Stephanie and her mom stopped getting those postcards.”

Daniel turned toward me.

“I think the play’s the only chance we have at catching this maniac,” he said. “That’s the only reason I’m not going to shut it down. But you have to be careful, Cin. If I had it my way, I’d make you stay at home. But I know you won’t listen to me so I’m not going to ask.”

His words lingered in the air for a few moments as a silence settled in over the conversation.

I rubbed my face.

I suddenly realized that I couldn’t push it off until after the play.

I had to know where we stood. And now. No matter the consequences. 

“Where were you last night, Daniel?” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth like boulders in a landslide.

There was no holding them back, even though they might bring everything down with them.

He looked away from me, not meeting my eyes.

A tell-tale sign if I ever saw one.

I bit my lip and stared out at the forest, shaking my head.