Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 6) Read online

  Manic in Christmas River

  A Christmas Cozy Mystery

  by

  Meg Muldoon

  Published by Vacant Lot Publishing

  Copyright 2015© 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.

  The Meg Muldoon Collection

  The Christmas River Cozy Mystery Series

  Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 1)

  Mayhem in Christmas River: A Christmas in July Cozy Mystery (Book 2)

  Madness in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 3)

  Malice in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 4)

  Mischief in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Book 5)

  Roasted in Christmas River: A Thanksgiving Cozy Mystery Novella

  The Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series

  Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery

  Busted in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery

  The Dog Town USA Mystery Series

  Mutts & Murder: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery

  Coming Soon to Amazon

  Bulldogs & Bullets: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (Book 2)

  Magic in Christmas River: A Christmas River Cozy Mystery (Book 7)

  Manic in Christmas River

  by Meg Muldoon

  Chapter 1

  “Pie or die! Pie or die! Pie or die!”

  The fork-wielding mob of Christmas River tourists jabbed their spiky utensils into the air and gnashed their sharp teeth like a pack of rabid wolves.

  “The pie’s coming, folks… any minute,” I cried. “Just hold on, you all! Just hold on!”

  A moment later, one of the mob leaders threw his fork aside, lifted his beefy hands up into the air, and shattered the glass pastry case in abject hostility.

  “Pie or die! Pie or die! Pie or die!”

  “Just one more moment!”

  I opened the oven. Burnt black smoke streamed out in thick plumes. Flames licked out from the aluminum rounds that had once been Firecracker Cherry pies.

  “No, no, no!”

  From somewhere amidst the broken glass and smoke, baby Laila wailed like a fire engine headed for a four alarm fire.

  “Just hold on! I’m coming, Laila!”

  But it was too late. The mob flooded the kitchen, brandishing their steely, sharp forks. Growling and chanting and chanting and growling.

  “Pie or die! Pie or die! Pie or—”

  Then, Daniel’s phone rang.

  My eyelids flung open and I gasped in terror as the noise broke through my nightmare the same way a rock breaks through glass.

  The back of my head was soaked with sweat. My tongue felt thick and swollen, my throat, cracked and dry.

  But there was no mob. No chanting. No babies crying in fires. Just the sound of soft murmuring.

  I looked around the familiar room, trying to figure whether I was still in the dream, or if I’d returned to reality. For a split second, I wondered if the mob had gotten me and if I was now in some sort of limbo awaiting permanent relocation.

  But then, a strong pair of arms hooked around my waist, and I knew I was closer to heaven than any of that.

  “You had another one?” he whispered in a scratchy voice.

  “Was I talking in my sleep again?” I said.

  “Yeah. You were shouting something about pie,” he said. “It sounded like you were in Young Frankenstein or something.”

  He let out a chuckle.

  If only the nightmare had been as funny as the Mel Brooks movie.

  I knew it sounded stupid when I retold it by the light of day. But my recurring nightmare about the hungry mob threatening to turn cannibal on me if I didn’t feed them pie was nothing short of positively terrifying.

  Noticing that I didn’t find it quite as humorous as he did, Daniel stopped laughing. He pulled me closer to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t joke about it.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s just… that dream leaves me with a real bad feeling when I wake up. Like…”

  I trailed off. Unable to express the mood in any way that made sense.

  “Like what?”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know. Like something terrible is going to happen.”

  A chill suddenly passed through me, and I shivered.

  “It’s okay, Cin,” he said, reassuringly. “You’re safe now.”

  I turned back to look at him. A shaft of moonlight cascaded across his face, dancing along his rugged, familiar features.

  I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  “I know I am,” I said. “Because I have you to look out for me.”

  He smiled. But after a few moments, the smile faded and that concerned look, the one he often had when he was in the middle of a case at work, took its place.

  I had a feeling the look had something to do with his phone ringing. I didn’t know exactly what time it was, but any way you looked at it, it was either too late or too early for a phone to be ringing.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Depends on how you define the term okay,” he said. “If okay means that nothing major’s happened and nobody’s hurt, then yes, everything’s fine.”

  He rubbed his face.

  “However, it does appear that to keep things okay, the Sheriff of Pohly County is going to have to drag himself from his wife and warm bed at 3 o’clock in the morning to stop a drunken George Drutman from rolling his RV over a troop of boy scouts and driving into Waldo Lake.”

  I sank my head into his arm and let out a groan.

  “Can’t Billy or Owen or Trumbow deal with all that?”

  “Billy’s the one who called for back-up,” he said. “Seems George won’t listen to reason and is putting up a fight. Billy thought my, uh, my diplomatic skills might resolve the situation.”

  I couldn’t say I was all that surprised to hear that George Drutman was acting boorishly, George being the middle-aged train wreck of a man that he was. A rich kid to the bone, George was the sort of man who thought the law just didn’t apply to him

  Daniel pecked me on the cheek and then let go of me. He rolled out of bed, and I started getting up too. Noticing the movement, both Huckleberry and Chadwick lifted their heads from their own beds near the window and pointed their snouts in our direction, wondering just what their crazy owners were doing up at this Godforsaken hour.

  “Go back to bed, Cin,” Daniel rasped, seeing that I was shuffling down the hallway behind him.

  “You might have to leave your warm bed, Sheriff Brightman,” I said, heading for the coffeemaker. “But that doesn’t mean you have to leave your wife behind, too.”

  Daniel started saying something, protesting the way he always did whenever I wanted to come along on one of his calls. But he stopped talking before the first logical point about it possibly being dangerous could esca
pe his mouth.

  My husband knew well enough by now that arguing with me was nothing but a waste of time.

  When Cinnamon Peters made up her mind about something, there was little anybody could do to talk her out of it.

  Chapter 2

  Daniel handed me the thermos, and I took a hearty sip of the smooth and silky coffee. The brew, called “Santa’s Reviver,” was made fresh from Christmas River Coffee Shack beans and had a kick that could bring the dead back to life on most days. It made being awake at three in the morning almost bearable.

  I returned the thermos to the cup holder and looked ahead. The high beams of the truck illuminated the forest service road, highlighting its numerous potholes, dips and bumps. Outside of the beams, the night glowed blue under the swollen face of the full July moon.

  Though it was early, it felt good being on the road instead of back at home, where I would still be lying awake, haunted by the lingering feelings of the bad dream.

  The recurring nightmare had started a few months earlier, arriving with the warmer temperatures. In the dream, I was never able to please the hungry, hostile crowd in the pie shop, and I was never able to get to the oven in time to stop the pies from burning to a crisp. Neither was I ever able to save baby Laila from the rabid mob.

  I had a feeling that the nightmares had something to do with the increase in visitors the pie shop had seen these past few months. So far this summer, we were setting all-time highs in terms of sales and customer visits. Folks were lining up around the block by 7 a.m. most mornings just for a slice of pie, and Tiana, Tobias, and I were all working our hands to the bone trying to keep up with the demand. Most days lately, we were fresh out of every variety of pie by 2 p.m., despite my attempts to keep the kitchen stocked with ingredients.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what accounted for the pie shop’s overwhelming surge in popularity, though I suspected it had a little something to do with an article that had come out in a recent issue of Sunrise Magazine, a west coast living and travel magazine. The article had been about Christmas River, promoting it as a must-visit small town in the Pacific Northwest. The article had mentioned Cinnamon’s Pies as one of the best establishments in the town, and recommended it highly to the magazine’s readership, saying that there was no better pie in the West.

  I had been tickled pink after reading the article: it was the kind of thing that every owner of a small bakery dreams of.

  And though I was excited by all the interest, I had also been overwhelmed these last few months at the long lines of hungry visitors who were willing to wait upwards of an hour for a single slice of Firecracker Cherry or Moundful Marionberry or Blueberry Cinnamon pie.

  But I couldn’t complain about the increase in business. Things were going great, and for the first time since opening my pie shop, I was actually beginning to save some money. It was just that sometimes I found myself staring out the back deck window, watching the bright green aspen trees sway in the fresh mountain wind, and a fleeting thought of all that I’d be missing this summer would cross my mind.

  Summer was hard to get to in Central Oregon. There were months and months of bleak, cold days, icy roads, and heavy snowfall to contend with before getting to the warm sparkling days of summer. And it felt like a shame to spend every single hour of daylight slaving away in a small, hot, cramped kitchen instead of fishing or camping up in the mountains.

  It made me a little sad to think that my chances of getting out into the great outdoors this summer were about as good as my grandfather Warren saying ‘no thank you’ to a double fudge brownie. Or to a cold pale ale, for that matter.

  “Whatchya thinking about over there, so sullen like?” Daniel said, interrupting my train of thought.

  “Aw, nothing,” I said.

  There wasn’t much use bemoaning anything at this hour. Being up so early was plenty difficult on its own without other troubles weighing a person down.

  “Okay, don’t share. I know what you were thinking about, anyway,” Daniel retorted.

  “Do you now?”

  He nodded confidently.

  “You were thinking to yourself, ‘Hot damn! Ain’t I just the luckiest gal in the world to have landed myself a husband who looks this good this early in the morning?’”

  I snorted before taking another sip of coffee.

  “Now, how did you know?” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “I can’t rightly say, exactly,” he said. “The words just sort of drifted into my head while I was sitting here. Sometimes I can read minds. Or didn’t you know that about me?”

  A devilish smile spread across his face that was worthy of Vincent Price.

  “Well if that’s true, then what am I thinking now?”

  “That’s an easy one,” he said. “You’re thinking I’m full of something that a bull might, uh, might leave behind after a big meal.”

  I laughed.

  “Well, Daniel Brightman, I stand corrected,” I said. “You are a mind reader.”

  “Damn straight I am,” he said, smiling.

  He reached over, grabbing my hand.

  “Sorry for all of this, Cin,” he said. “I know this is probably the last thing you want to be doing at this hour. Especially with how busy you’ve been at the pie shop lately. I’m sure you could use your sleep.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “This is the most camping I’ll probably see all summer. And now that I’m awake, it’s kind of fun to be out here. I kind of feel like a deputy or something.”

  “Well, you’d make one hell of a law woman,” he said. “Though I have a feeling that once you see George Drutman, you’ll reconsider wanting to be one. Have you ever seen the man drunk?”

  “No, but I’ve heard the stories.”

  “Well, it ain’t pretty,” he said, shaking his head. “Ain’t too pretty at all.”

  George Drutman was a wealthy business investor who was the heir to the Drutman Mills fortune. Along with his wench of a wife, Meredith, and their two children, Haley and Hunter, the Drutmans were the closest thing Christmas River had to royalty. The family hobnobbed with state representatives and city councilors and wealthy vacationers, and their annual Christmas parties were legendary. Not that I or anyone else I was friends with really knew on a first hand basis – none of us were ever invited to the parties. But from town gossip, those gatherings would last deep into the night, and it was rumored that George Drutman would get so drunk sometimes, he’d shoot off his array of firearms into the air and scare all his wealthy neighbors. There were more sinister rumors, too, about George driving off from last year’s Christmas party with a couple of women who were widely believed to be ladies of the night in tow. The story went that Meredith chased the car all the way down their long, snowy driveway, screaming and eventually throwing her martini glass at the back windshield.

  Though to me, the last rumor sounded almost too juicy to be true. Like something straight out of the warped mind of Moira Steward, the town’s worst gossip. No doubt she had fabricated the entire event and shopped it around town as the God’s honest truth.

  “Just promise me you’ll stay in the truck when we get there, okay Cin?” Daniel said, his voice having taken on a serious tone.

  “George isn’t really dangerous, is he?”

  “Not intentionally,” Daniel said. “He’s just stupid. And that right there makes him more dangerous than most folks. Sober or drunk.”

  I picked up the thermos and offered Daniel some more coffee before taking another sip myself.

  “So Billy said George is driving his RV around the campground right now?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Apparently George came out here for some sort of business investors retreat,” Daniel said. “Seems things got a little out of hand with the good old boys. By Billy’s account, George demolished a fourth of Grey Goose before getting behind the wheel of his RV. The fool’s somewhere out here now, honking the horn and singing Billy Joel at the top of his lungs. Now norm
ally, I’d say just let the fool drive himself into Waldo Lake and not interfere. But there are civilians to think of, namely a troop of boy scouts only a few campsites over.”

  I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

  What a selfish fool George Drutman was.

  “So you’re going to be a hero this morning, is that what you’re saying?” I said.

  He smiled wryly. The way he always did when I complimented him.

  “I reckon Meredith’s not going to be too happy with any of this,” I mused, somewhat pleased with the prospect.

  Saying Meredith Drutman wasn’t my favorite person in Christmas River was putting it politely. After this past November’s run-in with her, in which I was compelled to expel her from my pie shop for the nasty and terrible things she’d said about Tobias and an innocent kid named Frankie, she had gotten her friends to litter my pie shop’s Yelp page with nasty reviews.

  “Nope, I reckon she won’t be too happy at all,” Daniel said in agreement.

  Then he smirked.

  “Would you put up my bail, Mrs. Brightman, if I got drunk one night and drove this here Sheriff’s truck around town honking the horn like a maniac?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be able to read minds,” I said.

  “I guess I must be tired because I can’t get a read on you with this particular one.”

  “Well, first of all, I’m certain I’d never have to post bail for you for such irresponsible behavior,” I said. “But if it came down to it, you know that I’d bust you out of jail with my bare hands, hon.”

  He looked over, those green eyes of his that I loved so much catching mine.

  “Now that’s an answer,” he said. “Almost makes me want to go rob a bank now knowing that. What do you say, Mrs. Brightman? Care to be Bonnie and Clyde for a day?”

  I smiled.

  “I think the Bank of the Cascade Mountains is the place to start. Then after, I say let’s hit up the High Desert Union over in Redmond. They’re always understaffed.”