Silent Night, Deadly Night by Vicki Delany

Author:Vicki Delany [Delany, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440000310
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

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The scents drifting from Cranberry Coffee Bar, two doors down from my shop, reminded me I hadn’t had breakfast. Not even Mrs. D’Angelo’s toast and jam. Before going back to open the store, I went for a coffee and a muffin. Cranberries was busy, as the shops on Jingle Bell Lane were about to open and store clerks filled up. People nodded at me and exchanged greetings. No one asked what had happened at Mom’s, for which I was grateful.

I ordered an extra-large latte and a cranberry muffin and went to stand at the end of the counter while waiting for my drink to be prepared. Conversation buzzed all around me.

“I reported it to the police,” the owner of Diva Accessories was telling Jayne from Jayne’s Ladies Wear. “They said they’d look into it, but didn’t seem terribly keen. I mean, what can they do now? I’m telling everyone to be on extra lookout this season.”

“Lookout for what?” I asked.

“Morning, Merry. We’re talking about shoplifters. I had one of my ribbon scarfs stolen on the weekend. I might not have noticed except there were only two left, and I made a point that morning of reordering more stock for the holidays.”

“I had something snatched, too,” I said. “On Friday before lunchtime. What time was yours?”

“Saturday, but I can’t say what time of day for sure. Shortly before closing a customer asked if I had it in another color, and when I went to look—gone.”

“We try so hard,” Jayne said, “to keep our prices reasonable, and then things like this happen.”

“Let’s hope they were weekend visitors and have left,” I said.

The barista called my name as she put my drink on the counter. I took it with thanks, said good-bye to the others, went back to my shop, and flipped the sign to “Open.”

A rush of eager customers did not knock me over in their hurry to get in.

I should spend this quiet time planning what to do about my float. Vicky and the bakery would be eager to win the trophy again, and I imagined her and her legion of bakery staff, most of whom were her relatives, working hard on it. Whereas I hadn’t even asked old George Mann if he and his equally old tractor would pull my float again this year.

Instead of looking up ideas for a showstopping Santa Claus parade theme—maybe something around the story of the dogs of the Great Saint Bernard Pass rescuing snow-trapped travelers in the Swiss Alps—I pulled a stool up to the sales counter and opened my iPad.

Ruth had said something this morning about one of the friends being previously connected to a suspicious death. Judging by the way Constance reacted, Ruth had been talking about her. Now I remembered something else: at the fateful dinner party, Karla had said that the death of Constance’s husband had been “suspicious.” I’d been so uninterested in their petty squabbles and this morning anxious to talk to Dad, the comments had gone straight over my head, but I was thinking about it now.

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