Mistletoe & Misdemeanors (a Jamie Winters Mysteries holiday short story) Read online

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  MISTLETOE & MIDEMEANORS

  by

  KELLY REY

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  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Kelly Rey

  Cover design by Yocla Designs

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  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, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Fridays are supposed to be easy. I'd had the sort of day that could have only been made worse by running over a box of roofing nails on the way home. I hoped to improve it by spending the night decorating my Christmas tree and plotting my gift list. The tree wasn't big, and the list wasn't long, but it still might get me in the spirit of the season despite the fact I worked in an insane asylum masquerading as a personal injury law firm which passed out lumps of coal as Christmas bonuses.

  My name is Jamie Winters. I'm in my early thirties, not married, have no kids, and am mostly okay with that. I'd worked at a local law firm since the invention of lawyers—or maybe it only felt that way—and I still hadn't worked my way out of a secretarial position. They'd spiced up my title to legal assistant, but that was only aesthetics; the paycheck remained vanilla. I still made just enough to keep me in Payless shoes and Walmart clothes. To be fair, there weren't any positions to promote me to. The bookkeeper, paralegal, and lawyer jobs were all taken. I was okay with that, too. I'd seen first-hand the nut jobs who traipsed through the doors, and I didn't mind limiting my exposure.

  In keeping with the holiday season, there was a festive red light on every corner on my way home. I was waiting at the stop line when a red El Camino rocketed past me, tires squealing. I caught a glimpse of a lot of boxes and containers bouncing around in its bed before it shot into the intersection against the light, barely missed being T-boned by a mail delivery truck cruising along on the cross street, and disappeared in a puff of blue smoke.

  Consumed as I was pretending to be with the spirit of Christmas generosity, I bit back the impolite words that leapt to mind and focused instead on the El Camino itself. I was a fan of older cars, a trait which worried my mother and pleased my father, and I hadn't seen an El Camino in years. But I indulged my affection for older cars by driving one—an '80s vintage Ford Escort I'd bought from my father when he'd gotten tired of feeding it hundred-dollar bills.

  I managed to get home without witnessing any more red light abuse, and I parked in the driveway behind my landlord's Jeep. It had started snowing, thick flakes that immediately coated the ground and brightened the world, if not my outlook. Especially when I saw my landlord, Curt Emerson, standing at the hood of the Jeep, talking on his cell phone. Ordinarily Curt was something to see, but he was wearing a bulky winter coat that covered up his studliness.

  I climbed out of the Escort, slung my handbag over my shoulder, and went to see what could be important enough to keep him standing outside in a snowstorm when he could have been nice and toasty and shirtless in his own apartment downstairs.

  I stood next to him, shivering, until he hung up. "What's going on?"

  He jabbed a thumb toward the house next door, a cheerful yellow Cape Cod with white shutters and window boxes, empty at the moment. "Jack seems to be missing." Jack Angelino had lived next door to Curt forever, and he was the ideal neighbor. His grass was mowed in the summer, his leaves were raked in the fall, and his snow was eventually shoveled in the winter, after he got done playing in it. I would have gone out with him in a second, except he was anywhere between 75 and 102. But he was adorable, short and round with a cottony white beard, a perpetually happy demeanor, and owner of a Flexible Flyer.

  "Doesn't he go visit his kids for the holidays?"

  Curt nodded. "One of his sons called, and said he didn't make it. He asked me to check the house."

  "Do you think he had an accident?" I squinted at the house through the blowing snow. The living room light was on, but I knew that was on a timer. Everything else was dark.

  "I hope not." Curt hesitated. "He keeps a spare key by the back door. You think I ought to go in and look around?"

  "It might make his son feel better," I said.

  "Depends what I find." Curt took a deep breath. I could see he really didn't want to go in the house. Curt felt the same way I did about Jack. Neither of us wanted to see anything bad happen to him. He was like the grandpa of the neighborhood.

  "Want me to go with you?" I asked. Not that I wanted to be the one to find the poor old guy lying at the foot of the stairs or anything. But I really didn't expect that. The house looked empty. Probably Jack was out Christmas shopping.

  The wind took a shift and suddenly came in harder and icier. I was about to retract my offer and go straight upstairs to a mug of hot chocolate and a pair of warm sweatpants when Curt showed me his dimple and nodded. I was a sucker for that dimple. At least that wasn't hidden under his Michelin Man coat.

  It took us a few minutes of poking through the snow to locate the spare key inside a little garden gnome by the back door. Inside, the house was dark but warm. No sign of Jack. No sign of a struggle. The coat rack was empty of Jack's red goose down coat. An unlit Christmas tree stood in a corner of the living room, beautifully decorated. No wrapped gifts underneath. We went upstairs and found more of the same, minus the tree. The master bedroom was neat as a pin, the bed a smooth, wrinkle-free field of cotton. The bathroom toiletries were corralled neatly into a little basket on the vanity counter.

  We stood in the upstairs hallway, considering our next move. The furnace fired on, providing white noise in the otherwise silent house. Usually I didn't like empty houses. Probably some neurosis going back to my childhood. I didn't feel settled in them and felt the need to constantly look over my shoulder.

  I glanced through an open doorway into what I guessed must be a guest bedroom, fully made up in coordinating ocean blue drapes and comforter. Even the neck roll and throw pillows piled on the bed complemented the South Sea vibe. "He makes me look like a slob," I said, thinking out loud.

  Curt grinned.
"Honey, you are a slob."

  "I am not," I said hotly. "I just have better things to do than dusting." Like sleeping. Apparently I couldn't get enough sleep. I didn't like getting up before eight, and I was usually asleep by ten. It was like I was trapped in perpetual adolescence. Lord knows I was built that way.

  Curt sighed. "I guess we should check the basement while we're here. Then I can give Pete the all-clear."

  I did a gallant hand wave. "After you."

  "Don't push me down the steps," he said over his shoulder. "I don't really think you're a slob. I think you have a time management problem."

  "Maybe you're right." Still, my palms itched to plant themselves on his back as I followed him down. "For instance, it might've been a bad time management decision to come here when I could be home, eating dinner."

  "There'll be a hot plate of ravioli waiting for you when this is done," he said, and I took my hands back and shoved them in my pockets.

  Jack's house was a carbon copy of Curt's but flipped around, so that where Curt's basement door was toward the left of the kitchen, in Jack's it was to the right. We stood in front of it, Curt's hand on the knob, hesitating.

  "He's not down there," I told him, my fingers firmly crossed behind my back.

  "Yeah. I know he's not." Curt didn't open the door. "So where is he in this weather? Where do we look when we don't find him?"

  My chest tightened because the obvious answer was local hospitals. "Let's worry about that if we need to," I said.

  "Yeah." Curt twisted the knob but didn't pull. "You know Jack's been slipping a little. Forgetting things."

  I blinked in surprise. "I hadn't noticed."

  "He tries to hide it. Sometimes he can." A shadow crossed Curt's face. "And sometimes he can't." Curt had lost his Aunt Ronnie to Alzheimer's. Years later, it was still a painful place for him to go.

  "But he lives alone," I said. "How bad can he be?"

  "Bad enough that his kids are thinking of moving him into assisted living," Curt said.

  My heart sank at the thought of Jack gone from the neighborhood. "Then he probably ran away," I said. "And I don't blame him." I tipped my head toward the door. "Let's find out for sure."

  I don't like empty houses much, but I don't like basements at all. Too many spiders and dark corners and weird sounds. I hadn't met a basement yet that I liked. Until Jack's. Going down the steps into Jack's basement was like stepping into a cozy kitchen filled with the good smells of chocolate chip cookies and gingerbread on a cold day. It was warm and welcoming and, when Curt flipped a switch, it was bright. We stood in the center of the room with our mouths hanging open. A model train track ran around the perimeter of the room, the train now sitting silently in its miniature depot, all the little buildings of the town shuttered and still. The miniaturized landscape was sprinkled with fluffy white cotton and silvery glitter to simulate snow. A second Christmas tree, grander than the one upstairs, stood to the right, fully decorated and sparkling with yards of tinsel and garland. Two metal folding tables stood dead center, loaded with toys in various stages of assembly. A pegboard on the wall held an array of hand tools. A single box sat on the table, wrapped in shimmering red gift paper. No name tag. "Wow," I said. "Would you look at all this. It's Santa's workshop."

  "I didn't know Jack built toys." Curt picked up a few random pieces, studied them, and put them back where he'd found them. "He does good work."

  "Who do you think all this is for?" I asked. "This is an awful lot of toys."

  "Maybe he's a closet do-gooder." Curt walked over to take a closer look at the train set.

  "You know, he might be one of those people who everyone thinks is dirt poor," I said, "and when he passes away, it turns out he's got a million dollars stuffed in his mattress." That was a lot of dollars. Probably if a few of those disappeared, they'd never be missed. I backed casually towards the stairs. "I think I have to run upstairs and use the bathroom."

  "Don't even think about it," Curt said. "We've done what we came here to do. Jack's not here. I'll call Pete back and let him know, and then we'll go eat."

  "Are you sure?" I asked. "'Cause I can be gone and back like that."

  "Do you want dinner or not?" Curt hustled me toward the stairs, flipping the light switch on his way past so the basement was draped in darkness again. Now that I knew what was down there, it didn't scare me in the least.

  I took the steps two at a time anyway. Never hurts to be careful.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We were halfway through dinner when someone passed by the window, huddled up against the storm, head down, bright blue Smurf hair whipping around in the wind. Whoever it was looked to be heading up to my apartment. I didn't need any good will toward men tonight.

  Curt muttered something under his breath and went to open the door. "Maizy, what are you doing out in this weather?"

  The Smurf skidded to a stop and turned. "Oh, you live downstairs?"

  "I live downstairs," Curt said, his jaw tight. "You might know that if you bothered to visit once in awhile. Get in here before you catch pneumonia."

  He stepped aside, and Maizy clomped in, shook the snow off her Doc Martins, slid out of her coat and gloves and hat, and unwound about seven feet of scarf, leaving all of it in a heap in the corner along with a floppy satchel the size of a suitcase. Taking off the winter gear shaved about twenty pounds off of her. She was built like an anorexic palm tree, skinny and straight all the way up, with a huge sprout of unruly blue hair up top. Despite the weather, she was wearing torn jeans and a cropped shirt. Her belly button was pierced. Her lower back was tattooed.

  Curt pushed her toward a seat at the table. "Jamie, this is my niece Maizy. Cam's daughter."

  Cam Emerson was a police officer by day and a superhero by night. He had pure testosterone running through his veins alongside the ice water. He and Curt were as dissimilar as brothers could be, but they made it work. I wasn't sure about Curt and Maizy. There seemed to be a strange tension there. Probably because Curt had never had to relate to a teenaged girl before. Having been one of them once, I could sympathize.

  I smiled at her. She hiked up a lip and eyeballed the Italian bread halfway across the table. I pushed it toward her. She snarfed a piece in two bites and eyeballed my ravioli. I had my limits, so I sat on my hands and stopped smiling.

  Curt fixed her a plate. "Eat this, and I'll take you home," he told her when he brought it to the table. "Before your father sends out an APB on you."

  "I don't want to go home. I'm going Christmas shopping." She stabbed at a ravioli and it shot off her plate onto the floor, along with about a quart of marinara sauce.

  She made a move to pick it up, and Curt said, "Don't," with such sharp authority that I put down my own fork immediately.

  Maizy sat back, her lower lip pooched out. "Fine. I'll just starve. Look at me. I look like a twelve-year-old boy." She turned her attention my way. "You ever seen a grown woman built like a twelve year old boy?"

  Every time I looked in the mirror. "You're just slender," I told her. "You'll fill out." In about thirty years. At least that's what I was hoping.

  She just stared at me.

  Curt sopped up the mess, lobbed the wad of paper towels into the trash, and came back to the table. "You're not a grown woman. You're seventeen years old."

  "That's old enough to drive," Maizy said, pushing her plate away uneaten. "Yet I don't have a car. I'm still walking everywhere." She looked at me. "You ever heard of a grown woman having to walk everywhere?"

  Who was she kidding? My car was in the shop every other week. "Walking is good exercise," I told her.

  She rolled her eyes. "Not in a blizzard. There's got to be two feet of snow out there."

  We all turned toward the window. Four snowflakes drifted by lazily and came to land amid the half inch of snow already on the ground.

  She shrugged. "Anyway, if I had a car, I wouldn't have seen that carjacking. I'd have been nice and warm at the mall where I belong."


  Curt stopped chewing. "What carjacking?"

  "I'm probably traumatized," she said, examining her fingernails. They were green with tiny jeweled wreaths glued on both middle fingers. Probably not a coincidence. "Childhood trauma can stay with you for life, you know," she added. "I saw that on Dr. Phil."

  Did this girl have a time machine? Ninety seconds ago she'd been a grown woman.

  Curt put down his fork very deliberately. "What carjacking?"

  Maizy did another eye roll. "Santa Claus. He got carjacked near Third and Grant. I saw the whole thing. It was some skinny dude wearing a weird suit. Except Santa wouldn't get out of the car, I guess 'cause he had all that stuff in the back, so the skinny dude just took him, too. It just happened a little while ago. Didn't you hear about it on the news?" She glanced around the kitchen, where the refrigerator hummed and the clock ticked and utensils clattered. No TV. "God, Uncle Curt, don't you have anything from this century?"

  Curt and I looked at each other in disbelief. "You mean some guy in a Santa suit," Curt told her. "You're too old to believe in Santa Claus."

  She studied him for a long moment before giving a sad little head shake. "What's wrong with you old people? I mean Santa Claus. White beard, fat face, red suit, ho-ho-ho. I know what Santa Claus looks like, Uncle Curt."

  White beard? Fat face? Red suit? That sounded familiar, especially if the red suit was actually a red coat. I nudged Curt with my toe and mouthed Jack?

  He just shrugged. "Those Santa suits can look pretty realistic," he said. "I'm sure it was just a guy on his way home from the mall or something. What would Santa Claus be doing at Third and Grant?"