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  He held up his palms and shook them. “Oh, excuse me. You’re a big deputy now, making fun of the little people who knew you when.”

  She grinned. She’d confessed to being deputized on the phone with Declan the night before, about two seconds after it happened. “It’s true. But while we’re on the topic, how did you end up at my crime scene?”

  “Crime scene?”

  Whoops. Frank had told her not to let anyone know Kris was murdered yet. She hated not to tell Declan though...maybe she could just delay it a bit longer and get the go ahead from Frank soon.

  She backtracked. “I mean, someone died here. Doesn’t mean it was a crime.”

  “Uh huh.” Declan noticed tiny, torn piece of crime tape and flicked it as he stepped down off the porch and walked to her. “Looks like they removed the tape. It’s not a crime scene anymore.”

  She put a hand on her hip, realizing she hadn’t heard the techs were finished their work. “I have to admit, not knowing the crime tape came down makes me feel a little less deputy-ish.”

  Declan slid his hands down her arms and pecked her on the lips.

  “That’s an official cop term? Deputy-ish?”

  She snickered and looked away, embarrassed by how his attentions made her heart flutter. “Yes. You wouldn’t know it, being a commoner and all.”

  “I’m pretty sure not being a deputy makes me a civilian, not a commoner.”

  She shrugged. “Potato, potahto.”

  He took a step back and assumed a supercilious countenance. “Well, Ms. Deputy, you can forget your vulture stuff. I didn’t come creeping. She called me.”

  “She?”

  “The wife.”

  Charlotte perked. Kris’s wife could be full of important information. “Is she here?”

  He shook his head. “She’s long gone. Stuck me with the whole house. Trash and treasure. Mostly trash.”

  “Long gone? Where?”

  “Said she was going back to Wisconsin.”

  “Back to Wisconsin? She must have swept into town, called you and left.”

  “Not before she tore the house apart.”

  “It’s a mess?”

  He nodded.

  Charlotte sighed. “I’m sure Frank would have liked to talk to her. I know I would have.”

  “Sorry. It didn’t hit me until she was driving off that maybe I should have called you a little sooner. I didn’t expect her to leave like that.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Noelle.”

  Charlotte cocked an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s spelled differently if that helps.”

  “Oh that makes all the difference in the world. How is it possible he married a Noelle?”

  Declan shrugged, smirking. “That’s what she told me. It’s how she signed the papers she gave me, too.”

  He pulled a set of folded papers from his pocket and handed them to Charlotte.

  “Kris left everything he owns to Noelle Kringle,” she read aloud. She looked up at him. “This keeps getting weirder and weirder.” She scrutinized Kris’s signature, but it was nothing more than a scribble—impossible to read.

  Abby appeared in the screened porch, tongue hanging out. She checked to be sure Charlotte hadn’t left, and then bolted off again to inspect the rest of the house.

  Charlotte headed for the door. “Can you tell if Noelle took anything?”

  He shook his head and fell into line behind her. “Her car was full of papers and mountains of junk, but I don’t know if she arrived that way or not.”

  Charlotte crossed the porch and entered the open door of the home. All the decorations she remembered gawking at the night of the murder had been moved, tipped over or otherwise misplaced. The kitchen looked as if a poltergeist had run through it.

  “The place is a disaster. She did all this?”

  Declan shrugged. “I assume so. She was sweaty and frazzled when I showed up. She’d been doing something. I guess it didn’t look like this when you were here before?”

  “No. I mean, the ash was there but other than that it looked like a normal house in the normal state of disarray. If you can call owning every Christmas decoration on the planet, normal.”

  Charlotte strolled through the room and as far into the kitchen as she could without tripping on the utensils scattered about the floor.

  “She was looking for something.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Do you feel like she found it? Did she seem... satisfied?”

  Declan tilted his head as if considering her question. “No. Now that you mention it, she seemed miserable.”

  “Mad?”

  “More...defeated.”

  “Hm. Maybe what she’s looking for is still here.”

  “Or maybe he kept what she wanted in another spot. A storage unit or something.”

  Charlotte pointed at Declan. “Good call. I’ll have Frank look into that.”

  “You should look fast. If all those papers in her car came from Kris’s house, she might find a receipt for a storage unit among them. Could be why she took them all.”

  Charlotte grimaced. “Another good point.”

  Declan patted her on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry too much. If she found a receipt for a storage unit, she didn’t let on. She didn’t seem hopeful. I believed her when she said she was heading to Wisconsin. Her last words were, He’s your problem now.”

  “Oh my. Bitter, much?”

  “Bitter’s a good word. It was almost as if he’d pulled something over on her one last time.”

  “Yikes.”

  Declan shrugged. “I could be reading too much into it. Could be she’s just not a very jolly person.”

  “Ironically.”

  Charlotte peered down the hall searching for Abby. She spotted the dog’s butt sticking out from the doorway.

  “Abby. Let’s go.”

  The Wheaten ignored her, which wasn’t unusual.

  Charlotte walked down the hall and playfully smacked the dog’s furry tush. Abby barely moved, her nose pressed to the floor behind the open door. Charlotte could hear her snorfing like a furry pig.

  She stuck her head in the bathroom, and searching for the object of Abby’s fascination, closed the door against her chest to look behind it. Shallow grooves marred the bottom of the door, as if a small dog had tried to dig his way through.

  “He had Pudding in here,” she said. “I missed this the other night.”

  “What’s that?” asked Declan, appearing at the end of the hall.

  “When I got here the night Kris died, Aggie Mae’s missing dog, Pudding, was tied to the lamppost out front.”

  “Didn’t she hire you to find that dog?”

  “I wouldn’t say hired. I wasn’t going to charge her for looking for her dog. But yes, he was missing. I thought Pudding had been nearby when everyone showed up for the fire and someone tethered him to keep him safe.”

  “But now you don’t think so?”

  “There are scratch marks back here.” She pushed Abby out of the way so Declan could poke in his head to see. “Someone had a dog locked in here.”

  “Why would he have stolen Aggie Mae’s dog?”

  “Maybe he found it? Maybe he planned to take him to her in the morning?”

  Declan chuckled. “But if he stole it, Aggie Mae’s a suspect now.”

  Charlotte laughed. “She wouldn’t have killed him. She’d probably could put a dent in him though.”

  She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly.

  “But...” Declan prompted. She looked at him and realized he could tell she’d had a thought.

  “If he had found Pudding, who tied the dog out front? He was dead in his chair.”

  “Maybe he tied it there to let it go to the bathroom.”

  “Maybe...”

  Charlotte walked to the front door. She stared through the screens at the lamppost and then wandered back into the house.

  Her gaze set
tled on what was left of the ash pile. The crime technicians had taken most of the ash to pick through it, in the hopes a bit of evidence might be found.

  Declan reappeared in the living room with Abby in his arms.

  “Forget something?”

  “I wasn’t leaving. I was looking at the post outside. Then I remembered that.” She pointed at the ash.

  “What about it?”

  Charlotte picked her words carefully. As far as the world knew, the Santa impersonator died the same night a small fire broke out in his home. There was no murder. No choking-by-elf. She hated not sharing the information with Declan but she also didn’t want to blow her first week as a deputy.

  “This fire might have been deliberately set,” she mumbled.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “If it was, it could be someone put the dog outside where he would be safe.”

  “Hm.” Declan set Abby down next to Charlotte and she clipped on the dog’s leash. “All I know is I bought this mess. I need to finish picking through things. Blade should be here soon with the truck to help me tote the big stuff.”

  They walked outside and chatted about plans for dinner until Charlotte felt a shadow fall across her skin. It felt as though something large had eclipsed the sun.

  “Afternoon, Miss Charlotte.”

  Charlotte bent back her neck to peer up at Blade, Declan’s top sales person and the largest man she’d ever seen. Blade looked like a monster Viking sent through time and space to work at a pawn shop. Though he could crush her head in his dinner-plate-sized paws, she never feared the gentle giant. Blade insisted he’d been christened with his threatening name by his mother, a hippie, who likened him to a blade of grass. His propensity for wearing t-shirts featuring various types and brands of weapons made her wonder, though.

  “Hey Blade, nice to see you. Here to pick up Declan’s ill-gotten gains?”

  “They weren’t ill-gotten. I paid five hundred dollars for it all,” muttered Declan.

  “Five hundred? Was it worth that?”

  He nodded. “There’s some pretty interesting furniture in the master bedroom. The chest of drawers alone is huge and unique.”

  She nodded. “I saw that. Seemed like something old ‘Christmas Kris’s would own.”

  She started towards the sidewalk. “I’ll get out of your way and go let Frank know Noelle was here. He’s going to be mad he missed her. If she’s as disgruntled as you described, she could be a suspect.”

  Declan’s eyes grew wide. “Wait. You’re saying Kris was murdered?”

  She put her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t say that.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe wait an hour before you tell Frank. Let us get this stuff out of here. I don’t need him stopping me, thinking everything has to be searched again since her visit.”

  Charlotte scowled and put her hand on her hip. “Mr. Bingham, are you trying to stand in the progress of police work?”

  He pinched his forefinger and thumb together. “Maybe a little.”

  She chuckled. “Fine. He knows where to find you if he needs you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Charlotte walked Abby home, lost in thought about the possibility that someone had started the fire in Kris’s home. She glanced up as she turned the corner on to her street and spotted a red Viper parked in her driveway. A blonde stood on her porch, staring at her, her fist raised in mid-knock.

  Stephanie.

  Charlotte quickened her step as Stephanie awaited her arrival, hands on hips.

  “There you are,” said Stephanie. Her tone implied it had been rude of Charlotte to not be home.

  Charlotte’s eyes squinted.

  Any time Declan’s ex showed up, things took a turn for the worse.

  She walked up the slight incline of her driveway, Abby tugging on her leash, eager to greet her visitor.

  Apparently, dogs can’t smell evil.

  From the top of the small landing, Stephanie peered down at the dog, her lip curled.

  “Keep the mutt away from me.”

  “You’re standing in front of her door.”

  Charlotte pulled Abby back far enough for Stephanie to walk down the three stairs in her four-inch red heels. She didn’t even wobble. Charlotte couldn’t help but think if she tried to navigate stairs in those heels, she would end up sprawled in the driveway.

  “I’ll put her inside.” Charlotte opened the front door and pushed Abby inside before closing the door. She turned and peered down at Stephanie, enjoying being in the position of power, even if it were by only three feet.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of you darkening my door?”

  Stephanie smiled. To Charlotte, Stephanie’s smile always appeared a little like a snake eyeing up a baby bird for lunch. She hated feeling like the baby bird.

  Stephanie flicked her hair from her eyes. “I have a job for you.”

  Charlotte laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. I wouldn’t work for you if you gave me ten thousand dollars and a lemon meringue pie.”

  Stephanie cocked an eyebrow, but Charlotte refused to explain the bit about the pie. She knew it was an odd thing to mention, but she’d been thinking about lemon meringue pie during the walk home and hadn’t quite gotten over the idea.

  Stephanie let it pass. “I think you will work for me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because if you do, I’ll give you my mother’s ledger.”

  Charlotte frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “The ledger she kept of all her local clients. Her protected clients.”

  Charlotte’s lips slipped open a crack. Stephanie’s mother, Jamie Moriarty, had worked for the witness protection program. Either due to laziness or to amuse herself, she’d assigned many of her ‘clients’—many of them criminals who had ratted out their bosses to avoid jail—new lives in Charity. Every time a crime occurred in the area, Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder if the perpetrator was one of Jamie Moriarty’s clients, reliving his or her glory days.

  Charlotte tried to erase any expression of eagerness from her face. The last thing she wanted Stephanie to know was how much she’d love to have that list. “Just because they’re in witness protection, it doesn’t mean they’re flipped criminals.”

  Stephanie laughed. “Oh, hers were. I promise you that.”

  Charlotte took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders.

  Cool. Be cool.

  “How could she even have a ledger? It would be incredibly dangerous to keep all those new identities in a book. Your mother’s not that stupid.”

  “There’s only very specific information.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Stephanie leaned into her car and pulled out a leather bound book. She opened it for Charlotte to see and flipped through a few of the pages. Each page contained a giant swirly design.

  “Fingerprints?”

  Stephanie nodded. “That’s all there is.”

  “What good is that to me?”

  “Whenever there’s a crime in town, wouldn’t it be nice to know if you’re up against a loose-lipped hitman from New York City or a local idiot?”

  Charlotte scowled. “In theory. So we could see if any prints found at the scene matched any of the prints in that book?”

  “Kind of.”

  “What do you mean, kind of?”

  “Well, all these prints have been expunged from the system.”

  Charlotte nodded. “So if we find prints and they don’t exist in the system, instead of assuming we’re working with a first time criminal, we can compare them to your book and know if we’re dealing with a nobody or a somebody.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That doesn’t tell us which somebody, though.”

  “No. But once you know this much, who knows—combined with other clues—you might have all you need to put the pieces together. It will at least let you know if you need to be worried or really worried.”

  Charlotte sighed
and leaned back against her door. “What is it you want me to do in exchange for this possibly useless, possibly slightly helpful book of magic?”

  Stephanie grinned. “It’s super simple. I need you to follow Jason Walsh over the weekend.”

  “Who’s Jason Walsh? Another man who figured out you’re a psycho and tried to run? Can I give him a head start?”

  Stephanie scowled. “He’s an assistant district attorney.”

  “This sounds illegal.”

  “It’s not. I’m the good guy this time. He’s cheating to make me lose a case. He’s a spoiled rich kid who thinks laws don’t apply to him.”

  “But he works for the government. Your clients are all scumbags.”

  “They still deserve a fair trial.”

  Charlotte grunted. “I suppose. What do you think he’s doing?”

  “He’s meddling. Paying my witnesses to flip sides. I have an important witness who’s going to win this case for me on Monday. I have to reveal I’m using her as a witness on Friday. That gives him the weekend to pay her off and destroy my case. I need a third party—someone he wouldn’t recognize—to keep an eye on him.”

  “Why me? There are other detectives.”

  “Sure. But why not you?”

  “Because you hate me.”

  Stephanie pouted. “Aww. Why would you think that? Does it hurt your wittle heart?”

  “Spare me. You’re up to something.”

  “Yeah, I’m up to hiring you.”

  Charlotte sighed. “I dunno...it feels a little like a spider asking a fly to hop into her web.”

  “Look, I promise. I need a detective. You’re a detective. And you’re cheap.”

  Charlotte squinted. “Watch it.”

  “I have something you want. Something I don’t need. It doesn’t get any cheaper than that.”

  “I’ll think about it. Expenses?”

  “I’ll throw in expenses.”

  Charlotte nodded as her gaze fell to the leather bound book.

  It would make a great Christmas present for Frank...

  “Give me a minute to think about it. I’ll call you.”

  Stephanie smiled. “Great. Declan has my number.”

  Charlotte felt her cheek twitch. “I have your number.”

  “Great.” With the flash of another grin Stephanie slid into her Viper and drove away with a squeal of wheels.