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  Malice in Christmas River

  A Christmas Cozy Mystery

  By

  Meg Muldoon

  Published by Vacant Lot Publishing

  Copyright 2014© 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

  The Christmas River Cozy Series:

  Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery

  Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas in July Cozy Mystery

  Madness in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery

  The Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series

  Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery

  Malice in Christmas River

  by Meg Muldoon

  Chapter 1

  I stood in front of the class of middle-aged women, sure as sure could be that I must have looked like a long-lost female relative of Krusty the Clown.

  I was missing the big red shoes and the bright green wig, but I more than made up for that with the half-pound of makeup on my face, the heavy dusting of blush on my cheeks, and the bright lipstick staining my lips a shade of neon fuchsia.

  Okay. Maybe I was being overly dramatic. Maybe I didn’t look like a Krusty the Clown relative. Maybe I looked more like a garish caricature of an I Love Lucy cast member. Or better yet, one of the mindless drones in The Stepford Wives.

  I stole a glance at my attire in the reflection of one of the pie shop windows, and shook my head quietly.

  At that very moment, I was wondering why on earth I had let Kara dress me up in a fifties-style polka dot dress, a pair of impossibly high and pointy red heels, and large faux pearl earrings that felt like small ankle weights attached to my earlobes.

  Bless Kara’s heart, but she’d really done a number on me when she put my look together for this evening. Kara was always the one with the impeccable style sense – that was my reasoning for asking for her help. I had no idea that I’d end up looking like… well, like this.

  I shifted my weight nervously between my thin-heeled spiky shoes, careful not to make any sudden movements in case the heels suddenly gave out, the way it felt like they might at any moment.

  Kara, my best friend, should have known by now that I couldn’t walk in heels to save my life, let alone stand in them.

  And I thought we were friends…

  The image of one of The Stepford Wives mechanically pouring sugar into a mug and repeating that line over and over flashed across my mind.

  I would have found more humor in it if I wasn’t so damn nervous at the moment.

  “A lot of people…” I trailed off in a low and shaky voice.

  I cleared my throat before trying again.

  “A lot of people will tell you the secret to making a good pie is precision,” I said. “And they’re right. You need to be exact when you’re measuring your ingredients. But that’s only part of it. The other part is creativity. Creativity, and a little bit of fearlessness. And of course, while I know it sounds cliché, the secret ingredient to every pie is a little heart and soul.”

  Several of the women in the class nodded. There was a flash and then a loud snap a few feet behind me as the photographer from the newspaper took a shot of me. I felt my stomach do a few somersaults, hoping I wouldn’t look as insane in the photos as it felt like I looked.

  “And with that in mind, today, with this recipe for my classic Honey-Lemon-Ginger Apple Pie, I’m going to show you how to make a knock-out pastry for your loved ones.”

  I cleared my throat again and pulled together the small ramekins filled with flour, butter, vegetable shortening and salt that I had measured out carefully and set aside. The way I’d seen it done in countless cooking shows.

  I was suddenly very aware that I sounded like I was a student in a freshman Speech 101 class. But I reminded myself that a person had to start somewhere. Talking in front of even a small group of people wasn’t something that was easy for me. Let alone in front of a newspaper reporter and photographer, who were also sitting in. My nerves had been jumping around all afternoon in anticipation of this class.

  I glanced over the fluffy, faded red, hair-sprayed hair of Jo Pugmire to where Erik Andersen, a reporter with The Redmond Register, sat quietly. He was scribbling something in his notebook, and the thought of what he was scribbling made my stomach flip a few more times.

  He looked back up at me with a somewhat skeptical expression on his round, youthful face, and I felt my throat go bone dry.

  I should have been ecstatic to have the opportunity to be featured in The Redmond Register – the biggest newspaper in three counties. And when Erik had called me a couple of weeks ago to see if I was interested in having a story written about me, the pie shop and my new pie classes, I had been thrilled. But now that the moment was actually here, I was beginning to have some serious doubts. The only interaction I’d had with a reporter before was the time Sheriff Trumbow almost arrested me in front of the local news team. And that hadn’t been very pleasant at all. I suddenly began wondering why I had been so gung-ho to trust one of them again.

  The answer to that, of course, was the publicity. Not that Cinnamon’s Pies needed any more of it. The line was out the door most days. But I did want the publicity for my pie classes. I had just started offering the classes this summer through the local community college’s continuing education program, and so far, they’d been providing a nice bump of money. Money that was going directly toward the Maui honeymoon Daniel and I had put off since we got married in December. The one we were taking next week.

  I looked away from Erik’s skeptical face and tried to imagine long days spent browning my skin on crystal white sands under turquoise skies. Then I launched into a spiel about the butter and vegetable shortening controversy when it came to pie crusts, and why I chose to make my crusts with a good helping of both fats.

  “Are you sure about that, honeybuns?” Jo Pugmire said in a deep and booming voice. “My mother always told me that butter was more flavorful. Are you sayin’ she was wrong?”

  Jo fanned herself with the recipe sheet I’d given the students, which she had managed to fold into an accordion fan.

  I bit the inside of my lip to keep from sighing.

  I had a suspicion that of all the students in the pie class, Jo was probably going to be the one to be a loudmouth. Jo was married to Harry Pugmire, a decade-long veteran of the Christmas River City Council and a candidate for mayor in the upcoming election. Jo was a rotund woman who liked to wear bright orange lipstick and animal print patterns that I suspected she wore to intimidate others with her size and general loudness. She had the reputation of being somewhat of a bully. There were rumors that the Pugmire’s oldest son, Michael, had flunked out of his last semester of high school in the spring, but that because of Jo’s bullying ways, Michael came out with his diploma along with every other senior at Christmas River High.

  I had cringed a little when I saw her name on the class roster. But there wasn’t a thing I could do about it except maybe try to feel a little flattered that someone like Jo Pugmire would want to sign up for my class.

  I ju
st wished she hadn’t signed up for this one – when a reporter and photographer were in the room.

  I forced a smile at her.

  “Jo, I wouldn’t dream of ever saying your mother was wrong,” I said. “I’m just telling you what 12 years of being a professional baker has taught me.”

  She raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, which I took as a good sign. I moved on, showing the class how to properly cut in the chunks of butter and vegetable shortening into the flour. I tried not to be alarmed as the photographer stepped close and snapped a few photos of me using the pastry cutter on the dough.

  I brushed away a small trickle of sweat before it could roll down my face.

  The air conditioner was on full blast, but it was still a warm September day, and sometimes not even the air conditioner could successfully keep the hot and dry high desert air out of the pie shop.

  I brought the dough together into a ball and wrapped it in plastic wrap. And just like I had seen on cooking shows, I went over to the fridge and traded the freshly-made dough out for some that I had made and chilled the night before.

  I quickly rolled the cold dough out into a circle and showed the ladies how to transfer it easily to the pie dish without breaking it. I then started to cut away the over-hang, and showed the students how to crimp the edges with a back of a fork to get that picture perfect pie crust look.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a raised hand. I didn’t have to look up to see who it was – I already knew.

  “You know, my mother also told me that you should never touch the dough with your hands because it’ll ruin the consistency altogether. I wonder, Cinnamon, if your crust won’t be one big blob when it comes out of the oven because you used your hands there.”

  I did my best not to let on how irritated I was.

  I looked up, trying to remember that there was a reporter in the room.

  “Well, that’s another good point, Jo,” I said. “However, your mother was using an all-butter crust, which is a lot more susceptible to causing a glutinous reaction when mixed with flour and exposed to heat from your hands. Since I’m using a half-butter, half-vegetable shortening dough, I have a little more leeway when it comes to handling the crust.”

  I forced another smile at her.

  “But thank you for bringing that up. That was a good learning opportunity for everyone just now.”

  Jo Pugmire stared back at me like none of what I said really registered. She drummed her long, scarlet fingernails against the counter like a bored teenager.

  I went back to work, adding pie weights to the crust before placing it in the preheated oven.

  It was surprising that Jo was in the class. In fact, I was surprised that so many of Christmas River’s residents were signing up for my pie classes. Though there was a definite art to making a delicious pie, it wasn’t like making croissants or macarons. I always figured most people could make a pie, as long as they had a good recipe and a little patience. But whether the ladies of Christmas River truly didn’t know how to make the pastry, or they were just looking for something to take the edge off the boredom of late summer in a small Central Oregon town, my class enrollment numbers were starting to round out nicely.

  I grabbed a bowl of Granny Smith apples from the fridge that I had pre-cut earlier, and began showing the class how to make the filling for the Honey-Lemon-Ginger Apple Pie.

  I showed students how to infuse the honey with a good helping of ginger and lemon, before dousing the sautéed apples with the mixture.

  I barely got through adding the honey to the apples when I saw Jo Pugmire’s large, leopard print-ensconced arm shoot up… yet again.

  She didn’t wait for me to call on her this time.

  “It seems to me that you added far too much lemon there, Cinnamon,” she said, drumming her other hand in front of her again like a school girl. “I mean, Harry gets terrible heartburn if he eats anything too acidic. If I made this pie for him, it might just put him in the grave.”

  I’m sure he wouldn’t mind that too much after all these years of being married to the likes of you, I thought.

  A moment later, I was quietly scolding myself.

  That had been a downright mean thought right there.

  But sometimes, you can’t help the thoughts you think. Especially when troublemakers like Jo Pugmire drive you to them.

  “Well, Jo, perhaps this pie isn’t for Harry then,” I said. “But if you want, you could come to my next class where I’ll be making a pumpkin pie. I would think that’d be a better option for him.”

  Jo sighed like it was the end of the world.

  “Yes, but I signed up for this class,” she said snidely. “Not the class in October, Cinnamon. What good is this going to do me?”

  I was close to pulling my hair out. Or at least, somebody’s hair out. A certain someone who used cheap red dye and teased her hair until she looked like some aging 80s soap opera sta—”

  “Gosh darnit, Jo,” a voice suddenly chimed out from the audience. “Would you please let poor Cinnamon make the pie already and quit going on about Harry’s special needs?”

  I looked over to where the voice was coming from, finding that it belonged to Laurel McSween – a woman in her 40s who also happened to be married to a city councilor, and one of Harry Pugmire’s opponents for the upcoming mayoral election.

  Laurel looked the spitting image of Faith Hill, and dressed better than any woman in the three-county area. She wore designer wear that I’d only seen in magazines like Cowboys and Indians, clothes that were afforded only by wealthy ranch types. Which was fitting, because Laurel and her husband, Bernard, were those wealthy ranch types.

  Heads immediately turned in Laurel’s direction, including Erik’s, who suddenly looked very interested in what was going on.

  It wasn’t any secret that Jo and Laurel didn’t get along. In fact, when I’d seen both of their names on my roster, I had gone as far as to let both of them know that the other had signed up. Both of them were too stubborn to drop out, though. There were plenty of rumors about the source of the animosity between them. Everything from Jo’s husband having a major infatuation with Laurel, to rumors of a real estate deal between the two husbands going terribly wrong once upon a time. But whatever had caused the rift, it was a well-known fact by every resident in Christmas River that there was no love lost between Jo Pugmire and Laurel McSween.

  Jo shot Laurel a dirty look. The large woman’s ears flushed with anger.

  “I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking, dear,” Laurel said casually. “We’re not here to hear about your mama’s cookin’.”

  I stopped stirring the pie filling. You could have heard a pin drop as everyone waited to see how the next act of the drama unfolded.

  Jo looked like an angry bull close to charging.

  “You don’t talk to me that way,” she said. “You lyin’, no-good, coward of a woman.”

  Erik was furiously scribbling in his notebook.

  Laurel looked as cool as ever.

  “What did you just say?” she said, cupping a hand over her ear. “I couldn’t hear you that far down on Loser Street.”

  Jo’s face grew redder.

  “You’re one to talk,” she said. “You and that family of yours might live up in that mansion, but you ain’t nothin’ but dressed up low-life trash coming after me and my—”

  Laurel threw her head back and started laughing.

  “Oh, come now, Jo,” she said. “Trash is the word everybody around here reserves for you and that rodeo-chasing slacker son of yours. They might not say it to your face, but they’re all thinking it, just the same.”

  Jo started getting up. She pushed over the legs of a couple of frightened old ladies who were sitting between her and Laurel.

  Laurel stood up to meet her.

  Things were escalating out of control.

  “I’m gonna—”

  “Now, now,” I said loudly, coming around the kitchen island, my legs
shaking as I desperately tried to walk in the pointy heels. “Everybody just calm down. You all are here to learn something, remember? Not to fight each other.”

  Jo gave Laurel a stare that would have frozen sunshine.

  I could hardly believe it – they were acting like my pie shop was the Pine Needle Tavern, or some other bar where people drank too much and came to blows over stupid things.

  “Look, I know it’s hot in here,” I continued. “But there’s some delicious pie on its way if you all can just calm down and let me finish. Don’t you want to know the secrets behind my award-winning apple pie?”

  Laurel let go of Jo’s hard stare and looked over at me, nodding.

  She didn’t appear to be flustered or upset in the least. She was cool as a cucumber.

  “Cinnamon’s right,” Laurel said. “My apologies, everybody. It’s terribly rude of us to bring our personal issues here to this class.”

  Jo scoffed loudly. Laurel mumbled something under her breath that was inaudible.

  “Excuse me, what was that?” Jo said, the bull threatening to break free of its pen and charge full strength.

  “Nothin,’” Laurel said, sitting back down, propping her elbows up on the back of the chair. “I was just wondering to myself if it was true that Michael failed every class his last semester, the way people around here say he did. Which makes me wonder what kind of bribing you and your husband did to get Principal Tisdale to graduate your son.”

  Jo knocked her chair over. It came crashing down on the linoleum floor with a loud rattle. In large, ungraceful motions, she pushed her way through the row. She started coming toward me, and my heart raced, the way a matador’s did when they were facing a furious bull.

  “What are you—?” I started stammering, afraid I was about to get mauled by an angry Jo Pugmire.

  But it wasn’t me she was after, I realized.

  She stomped up to the kitchen island, reached over into the bowl of apple pie filling, and grabbed a hunk of it.