Murder Trims the Tree (A Gertie Johnson Christmas Novella) by Deb Baker

Author:Deb Baker [Baker, Deb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Women Sleuths, humorous crime fiction, christmas stories, christmas
Publisher: D. B. Publishing LLC
Published: 2011-10-25T22:00:00+00:00

What was she doing down in the dark? More importantly, wasn’t she up in her office? Maybe she had a second pair of glasses and had dropped them earlier.

I went the rest of the way down and flicked on more lights from a bank of switches along the wall. There wasn’t much to see, just storage items, boxes packed up and stacked. Closer examination told me they were kitchen supplies – paper toweling, napkins, cases of condiments, canned goods – and a few broken wheelchairs off to the side. At first I expected to see a washer and dryer, but then I remembered the laundry room upstairs.

Close by, a dehumidifier kicked into action, scaring me half to death.

“Nurse Shrank,” I called. She didn’t answer.

“Where did you get these glasses, Fred?” I asked him, holding them up in case his memory was short.

Fred’s ears shifted forward, a sign he heard me and understood the question. Then he trotted past, around behind the staircase where an overhead light had burned out. It was much dimmer for my human eyes. Not for Fred’s, though.

He stopped and waited for me while my eyes adjusted to the dark. We were in front of a row of three storage garment bags hanging from a metal rod. He looked down at the floor under the one on the left side, then back up at me.

“I wonder what they keep in these,” I said to Fred, working my hands along the outside of the bag, feeling that it was made of vinyl. Clothes, like coats or formal wear or linens, hanging inside would be uniformly thick and flat. Whatever was inside this garment bag was lumpy with most of the bulk in the bottom half.

I felt along the middle garment bag. Thick and flat from top to bottom.

The third one was just like the middle one.

Back to the first one, feeling all around, my intuition beginning to tap inside my head.

Hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. I wanted to turn and run. I should get the gang together to dig out the Lincoln. We’d fly this coop and come back with reinforcements, even if it meant pushing the car all the way to town. Or I could take off on foot. It wasn’t below freezing yet. I stood a chance.

Warning bells were going off all over in my head loud and clear. Ding, ding, ding.

Investigators are naturally suspicious. Retired police dogs probably are too. It wasn’t much of a stretch to come to a probable conclusion. I was pretty sure there was a body inside bag number one.

I fumbled with the sides of the bag, finally finding the zipper pull near the bottom. The zipper was stuck and wouldn’t open more than a few inches. Sticking my fingers in the hole, I felt something shockingly familiar, as in human flesh.

After that dawning realization, we hightailed it out of there, Fred at my side, me on legs that hadn’t moved that fast for a decade.

Safely

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