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  Mayhem in Christmas River

  A Christmas in July Cozy Mystery

  by

  Meg Muldoon

  Published by Vacant Lot Publishing

  Copyright 2013© by Meg Muldoon

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance whatsoever to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Other Works by Meg Muldoon

  Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  About the Author

  Mayhem in Christmas River

  by Meg Muldoon

  Chapter 1

  “I’m going to murder someone if I have to keep this wig on any longer!” Mrs. Claus said, stomping into my shop and ripping the curly white head piece clear off. “I can’t take this heat for one more minute!”

  Mrs. Claus let her platinum blond hair fall against her shoulders in a tangled mess. A bead of sweat ran down the side of her temple, falling onto her bright red flustered face.

  An 8-year-old boy sitting with his mother at a corner table looked at Mrs. Claus with an expression of utter horror.

  “Let’s go to the back,” I said, trying to usher her out of my dining room before any other children had their innocent dreams of Christmas ruined.

  She shook her head angrily and came around the counter.

  “This has been a damn nightmare, Cinnamon,” Mrs. Claus said, leading us through the doors to the kitchen. “I can’t believe I ever let Moira Steward talk me into this. That old hag tricked me into taking over this stupid…”

  She trailed off, apparently unable to settle on the right word.

  She ripped her little wire frame glasses off and wiped her face with the back of her red velvet sleeve.

  I leaned against the kitchen island, trying to stifle the laughter that was forcing its way out.

  “Tell me again, how did she trick you, Kara?” I said.

  I felt a smart-ass smile spread across my face. Her cheeks grew redder as she peeled off her jacket and rolled up her sleeves.

  “Don’t you dare act snide, Cinnamon,” Kara said. “That old crook said her hip was acting up and she couldn’t be Mrs. Claus in the play. And then she started complimenting my cheekbones, and my million-dollar smile, saying that I would make a great Mrs. Claus and, well, what can I say? Maybe I’m a little vain. But I didn’t bargain I’d be wearing hose, a hot wig and a frilly velvet jacket. And I sure as hell didn’t bank on it being 97 degrees out.”

  I started laughing. I knew she’d be angry at me, but I couldn’t help it.

  Seeing my best friend, Kara, as a melted, pissed-off Mrs. Claus was too funny.

  “Cinnamon!” she said, angrily.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hands up. “Let me get you some lemonade, all right? It’ll help cool you down.”

  I went to the fridge and pulled out a batch of pomegranate blueberry lemonade I had made earlier that morning. When things got hot in the kitchen during the summer, a glass of icy cold lemonade always kept me from losing my head. Maybe it would have the same effect on Kara. But after blowing her top just now, I wasn’t sure how much of her head was left to save.

  I poured some into a glass and handed it to her. She guzzled it down in one session. She stuck the glass out for more, and I poured the rest of the pitcher into it.

  “Well, I saw on the news that the heat wave’s supposed to break before next week’s festivities.”

  Kara wiped her mouth after downing the dredges of the lemonade.

  “How does that help with the brain cells I’ve already lost to this crappy wig?” she said, holding it up like it was the head of some aristocrat beheaded during the French Revolution.

  She threw it across the room for added drama.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “If Moira Stewart could stand ten years of being Mrs. Claus in the Christmas River in July Play, than you can make it one year. You’ve got what it takes. I know it.”

  She sat down and the redness in her face faded somewhat. It looked like the lemonade was starting to work.

  “I should really be back at the store instead of prancing around in this get-up,” she said, shaking her head. “I should be getting ready for next week’s tourist invasion.”

  Next week was probably the second highest sales point of the year in Christmas River, right next to Christmas. Tourists, all decked out in baseball caps, t-shirts and plastic sunglasses, would be streaming in for the Christmas River in July festivities that started with a parade and ended with the annual Christmas River skit put on by our local theater group. I, myself, had never been a big fan of the whole Christmas-in-the-middle-of-summer idea that so many people around here loved, but it certainly helped pay the bills. When they weren’t devouring ice cream, tourists came into my shop to chow down on Moundful Marionberry, Mountain Blueberry Cinnamon, Lemon Gingercrisp, and Christmas River Cherry pies while they took a break from shopping.

  “I’m sure Joann has everything under control at the store,” I said. “You should just take a moment to relax.”

  The timer beeped. I pulled on a pair of mitts and went over to the oven to check on the pies. I was met with a wave of hot air that felt only a little hotter than the stifling air of the kitchen.

  The air conditioner had overheated a few days earlier, and I had been left to struggle through the central Oregon heat wave until it got fixed.

  “I’m sorry to come parading in here like this,” Kara said after I pulled the pan of pies from the oven. “I… just, you know, this hasn’t been my best week.”

  I took my mitts off and went back to the kitchen island.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “In fact, I can’t reme
mber the last good week I had.”

  She rested her chin on the palm of her hand and got a faraway look in her eyes.

  “I know,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. You haven’t heard anything from him yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “Lately at night I lie awake thinking about the things that I said, and I can’t believe that those words actually came out of my mouth. I mean, Jesus. I took some low shots.”

  Kara and John had had a big falling out about two months earlier. They’d been on-again off-again dating for about a year and a half, but this latest blow-up seemed to be a little more final than the others. She hadn’t heard from him in two weeks, and he’d taken a leave from his podiatrist practice.

  Kara was a stormy woman with a hot temper. John was mostly easy-going, but Kara had a way of bringing out that same kind of volatile spirit in him from time to time. This latest row had been over his possessive mother, who had relocated to Christmas River a few months earlier, and who Kara didn’t get along with in the least.

  “I’m sure he knows you didn’t mean what you said,” I said. “He’s crazy about you. Any blind man can see that.”

  She let out a long sigh.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But sometimes that’s just not enough. Especially when his mother is as bat-shit crazy as she is.”

  She tried to smile, but it came out weak.

  I could tell that the strong façade she usually had was about ready to crack.

  “I just wish things were easier,” she said. “But they never are, are they?”

  I heard the front door bell jingle. Chrissy, my bakery assistant, wasn’t coming in until later, so I gave Kara an apologetic look before going out to the front to help the customer.

  “I’ll be back in a flash.”

  I went through the door and over to the front counter.

  “What can I get for you today?” I asked, waking up the register with a tap of the keys.

  “Pecan,” Sheriff Trumbow said. “And don’t try to cheat me this time. Give me a decent-sized slice.”

  I struggled to stop myself from rolling my eyes.

  I took his money and gave him a bigger cut of the Pristine Pecan Pie than I usually would for a normal customer. He didn’t leave any tips in the tip jar to warrant me doing that, but what could I say? I felt sorry for the sheriff… er… former sheriff.

  Since the fiasco that was the Christmas River Gingerbread Junction Competition the December before last, Sheriff Trumbow had been demoted within the tiny Pohly County Sheriff’s Department, had become one of my most frequent customers at the pie shop and had gained at least thirty pounds.

  I didn’t know if he kept coming in here because he felt bad about accusing me of murder and almost arresting me in front of a television crew, or if he came in because he wanted something fattening to add to his epic binge. Either way, the man was in the biggest rut I’d ever seen. I mean, I hadn’t even gotten that way after my divorce.

  Despite everything that had happened, I couldn’t find it in my heart to hold a grudge against this sad, depressed man. Well, not much of a grudge, anyway. I guess if I had truly been forgiving, I wouldn’t have let him get the most calorie-laden pie in the shop. I probably would have told him he needed to get help, not more pie.

  I handed the former sheriff his plate, and he took it without saying thank you. He went to a corner table where he sat down and started attacking the slice with his fork. As he took his seat, his beer belly came hanging down beneath his beige collared sheriff’s department shirt that was several sizes too small for him.

  Yep. That was a rut the size of Crater Lake.

  I went back into the kitchen. Kara had put her shoes back on and was throwing her long, frazzled blonde hair up into a messy ponytail.

  “I need to get back to the store,” she said. “It’s better if I keep busy.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “I could make up some more lemonade.”

  “I’ve got too much work to do.”

  “What about a girls’ night tonight?” I asked. “We could make some Beergaritas and eat junk food.”

  “No,” she said. “I know you’ve got plans. And I’ve got ornament inventory to do before next week.”

  “Well, anytime you need me, Kara, I’m here. You know that, right?”

  She nodded and bit her lip.

  “Sometimes you just need to wrestle these things out on your own,” she said. “There’s only so many girls’ nights you can have before they stop working.”

  We had been having quite a few lately.

  “Call me if you need me, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “And remember that it takes a strong woman to be Mrs. Claus,” I said. “Moira Stewart knew that when she asked you.”

  Kara cracked a smile.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m sure that’s exactly what she was thinking when she got me into this mess.”

  She grabbed her Mrs. Claus frames from the counter. Then she collected her wig from off the floor.

  “Have a good time tonight,” she said.

  She clicked her way out of the kitchen. Just as I thought she had left, she poked her head back in.

  “Trumbow’s going to kill himself if he keeps eating that pecan pie,” she said with a shake of the head.

  “Do you think I ought to intervene?”

  She looked back out at the dining room and then back at me. Then she shrugged.

  “I think you could wait a little while longer,” she said. “He did almost arrest you for murder.”

  “In front of a news crew,” I added.

  “Right,” Kara said. “Let’s see how far we can push it then.”

  I grinned and she walked out. I heard her say hi to the former sheriff and then the door jingled as a warm gust of air blew through the shop.

  I checked the wall clock.

  It was just after 11.

  I let out a long-winded sigh.

  The hours were going by as slow as molasses.

  It was going to be hard waiting until two o’clock rolled around.

  I knew I should have been focusing on the customers and the pies in the oven and brewing more coffee, but my mind was in another world completely.

  A place where all I saw was his eyes, his smile, heard his laugh, and felt his arms around me.

  Two o’clock couldn’t get here soon enough.

  Chapter 2

  At 1:15, I took off my apron, dusted off my hands, and started collecting my things. I heard the front door jingle a few minutes later. Chrissy came out of the dining room and into the kitchen wearing her usual tight-fitting plaid shirt paired with her trademark heavy black eyeliner.

  “Hey, Ms. Peters,” she said, nodding at me.

  “Hey, Chrissy,” I said. “Thanks for covering for me. I really appreciate it.”

  After the problems I’d had with Bailey, my former bakery assistant, I had been reluctant to hire someone else on. Bailey had been one of my best friends, right up until the point when I found out that my husband was cheating on me with her. You can imagine the trust issues that that caused.

  I stubbornly worked myself to the bone for almost two years before I finally hired somebody to fill Bailey’s former role.

  But Chrissy had been great so far. And whatever hesitation I’d had about hiring somebody else to help with the shop quickly evaporated within the first few weeks of her working here. She was in her early twenties and had a quiet and reserved manner that some people found off-putting, but that I liked. I’d be lying if I didn’t say she reminded me of me at her age. She had a tough exterior but was a nice person.

  Chrissy was cool under pressure, and she followed my recipes to the tee. She may not have been the friendliest person when it came to the customers. In fact, with those severely plucked eyebrows and heavy makeup, I think she intimidated them a little bit. But I didn’t mind that. She did her job, and she did it well, and most importantly, I felt I could trust her. I
even hired her boyfriend, Carson, to wash dishes a couple of days a week.

  But I just wished she’d stop calling me Ms. Peters. It made me feel old. Like I was an instructor of hers at the local community college where she was taking night classes.

  “There shouldn’t be too much to do,” I said, grabbing my purse and a tin of the Christmas River Cherry Pie that I had made earlier. “And don’t feel like you have to stay here until seven. If it gets really slow, close up early. I’ll still pay you for the hours.”

  “Okay, Ms. Peters,” she said, putting an apron on. “I think I can handle that. You have a good time with your man.”

  I laughed.

  “Thanks,” I said. “And another thing. Please call me by my first name. Seriously. I mean, I know I must seem old to you, but I don’t think of myself that way.”

  She grinned and then shrugged.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

  “Call me if anything comes up,” I said, backing out the door.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Nothing will.”

  I walked through the front door and out to the street.

  It was nice feeling like the shop was in good hands.

  It was nice being able to trust someone with it again.

  I got in my black Ford Escape and pulled away down Main Street, which had heat waves radiating off the asphalt. I rolled down the window, letting the July air blow through my hair.

  I felt absolutely free.

  Chapter 3

  It wasn’t going to be a typical anniversary dinner date.

  There wasn’t going to be any fancy restaurant, glitzy clothes, or expensive wine menu to celebrate the milestone of being together for a year and a half.

  No. I wasn’t that kind of girl.

  And Daniel wasn’t that kind of guy.

  He had something much better planned to mark the occasion.

  I descended the stairs, wearing a pair of sturdy hiking boots, cargo shorts, a tank top, and my dusty old cowgirl hat that I’d had since I was 17 years old.

  “Two weeks,” Warren said, hearing me come down the stairs.

  My grandpa was sitting on the sofa with his legs propped up on the ottoman, watching a Robert Mitchum Western.