Mistletoe Murder Read online

  Mistletoe Murder

  Karen MacInerney

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  More Books by Karen MacInerney

  Recipes

  Grandma Vogel’s Snickerdoodles

  Rosita’s Tamales

  Red Chili Sauce

  The Hitching Post’s Tom & Jerrys

  Almond Crescent Cookies

  Candy Cane Fudge

  Christmas Pork Posole

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Karen MacInerney

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Books in the Dewberry Farm Mystery Series

  Killer Jam

  Fatal Frost

  Deadly Brew

  Mistletoe Murder

  Dyeing Season (Coming 2018!)

  Created with Vellum

  1

  "I love a woodstove on a cold night," Flora Kocurek said as the wind whipped out of the north, moaning around the yellow farmhouse and rattling the windowpanes.

  It was cold and raining outside, but inside, the fire was warm and bright. The Buttercup Knitting Brigade was settled around my big pine kitchen table, munching on snickerdoodles and sipping hot chocolate—some of it laced with rum. It was just a few days before Christmas, and we were all working on our Christmas gifts... none of which was quite done yet. It was a busy season for all of us; I'd been harvesting winter veggies for the Blue Onion Café and the Red and White Grocery. I'd made lots of preserves over the summer, and I was offering those along with beeswax candles, mistletoe bunches, and homemade soap for sale at weekend markets. I'd experimented with a few new products this year, including a few homemade cheeses and some lavender sachets I'd hand-stitched and stamped with the Dewberry Farm logo, but they'd already sold out. Based on the rate at which I was managing to knit, Tobias, the local vet—and my boyfriend—a scarf, though, I wouldn't be adding knitted items to my inventory anytime soon. At least not anything knitted by me.

  "Supposed to ice over tonight," my friend Molly said. She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and inspected the red and white scarf she was knitting. "As long as we're home by midnight, though, we should be okay; temperature won't drop until then."

  "I'm glad we got Bessie Mae's house fixed up last year," said Quinn, another of my friends, who was working on a stocking cap for her organic-farmer boyfriend Peter Swenson. She wore a big red Aran Islands sweater—a treat to be able to wear in Texas—and her curly hair was done up in a green ribbon. With her pink cheeks and upturned nose, she reminded me of a Christmas elf.

  "I saw her down there waving to the trains just today," Flora said. "She looked happy." The proceeds of last year's Christmas Market had gone to renovating the house elderly Bessie Mae Jurecka had lived in her whole life. This year's proceeds were to go toward renovating the courthouse. What had started as a minor fix-up in November had turned into a giant nightmare when workers discovered the old wood building was being held together largely by termite spit. Although it was decorated gaily for Christmas on the outside, with garlands and lights and two big wreaths on the doors, the inside was a chaotic mess of ripped-up wood flooring and torn-out walls.

  "How's the courthouse renovation going, anyway?" Molly asked Quinn, as if reading my mind.

  "Slowly," Quinn said. She owned the Blue Onion Cafe, which was one of the town's gathering hubs and right across from the courthouse, so she was the source of the latest information on the doings of downtown Buttercup. "And I can't believe I forgot to tell you what they found today!"

  "More wood rot?" I joked.

  "Um... not exactly," Quinn said, and leaned forward over the table. "Bones."

  "Bones. Well, that's festive," Molly quipped. As she spoke, there was a knock at the door; everyone jumped. I walked over to answer it; it was Serafine.

  "I'm so sorry I'm late," she said as she hurried inside. "It's wicked out there tonight!"

  "Come in and warm up with some hot chocolate," I suggested. "Everyone except Opal's here tonight."

  "She had to pick up a shift down at the sheriff's office," Molly said as Serafine took off her raincoat and came in, rubbing her hands together. "How are the bees doing in this weather?"

  "They're hunkered down, staying warm," Serafine said as I poured her a mug of hot chocolate. Serafine had opened the Honeyed Moon Mead Winery a few months back, and had several hives of bees on her property.

  "A touch of rum to warm you up?"

  "Oh my word, that would be just what the doctor ordered," Serafine said as she pulled a black cap with cat ears out of her knitting bag. If she ever finished it, her sister Aimee would look terrific in it. "Now. I've got to do twenty more rows in the next five days. If I get it done, it'll be a Christmas miracle."

  "Hear, hear," I said, eyeing my scarf with trepidation. "How long does a scarf have to be to be functional, anyway?"

  "Longer than ten inches," Quinn said with a grin.

  "It's much longer than ten inches," I said. "It's like fourteen, maybe even fifteen, if I stretch it a little. Can't you make them bigger by blocking them or something?"

  "Not that much bigger," she said.

  I sighed and picked up the knitting needles. I'd started it last year and hadn't finished it; I was hoping this would be the year, but I might have to give it to Tobias next Christmas instead. If I got it done in time. "Tell us more about the courthouse," I said.

  Serafine perked up. "The courthouse? That place gives me the creeps." She gave a theatrical shudder. "Did they find something nasty in there?"

  "They found a few old paintings, but they also found something else," Quinn confirmed. "Bones."

  "Like, opossum bones?" Molly asked hopefully.

  "Maybe," Quinn answered. "Or maybe human."

  The wind howled outside, and even though the kitchen was warm, I shivered. "Where were they?"

  "They took off the skirting, and Ed Zapp's beagle got off the leash and ran under the courthouse. When they finally got him to come out, he had what looked like a femur in his mouth."

  "How recent?" Molly asked quietly, taking another sip of her rum-laced hot chocolate.

  "It was old," Quinn said, and we all breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "Rooster came waddling over," she said, referring to our less-than-competent sheriff, "and is theoretically running an investigation."

  "Any ideas on who it might be?" I asked. "I mean, have you heard anything at the cafe? I don't expect Rooster to have come up with anything."

  "Not yet," she said. "They stopped the renovation, of course. I was hoping Opal would be here to give us any juicy details."

  "I invited Mandy, too," I said—Mandy Vargas being the primary reporter of the Buttercup Zephyr—"but she's got some family trouble going on, ap
parently. Plus, she claimed not to know how to knit."

  "I think maybe we need to teach her," Molly said. "How else are we supposed to stay informed?"

  "You could always buy the paper," I pointed out. As a former journalist, I was a big proponent of supporting local papers.

  "Of course I'm going to buy the paper," Molly said. "But I want to know before the paper comes out. What's going on with Mandy's family?"

  "Her sister and her husband are in for a visit, and apparently, things aren't going very well."

  "Are they staying with her?"

  "They are," I said. "Apparently, they have a bit of a fiery relationship."

  "I'm surprised she didn't come just to get out of the house," Quinn said. "That can be hard to live with." She shivered, as if shaking off memories of her violent ex. "But let's get to work, ladies. This hat isn't going to knit itself!"

  The wind kicked up again outside, and we all reached for more cookies as we worked on our Christmas projects. And if there were a few snickerdoodle crumbs in the finished products? Well, it would be okay, we decided.

  When the group began breaking up, heading out into the cold, wet evening—I'd made another inch of progress, which meant with steady work it would bring the scarf up to a whopping nineteen inches by Christmas Day—Flora stayed behind to help me clean up. She'd been quiet that night, and as she dried the clean mugs in her slow, methodical way, I had the feeling she had something she wanted to talk to me about.

  "How are things out at your place?" I asked as I scrubbed out the hot chocolate pot with some steel wool.

  "Okay, I guess," she said. "But... it's kind of lonely. I think I'm the only one who doesn't have anyone to knit anything for."

  "I thought you were making that blanket for your cousin's baby?" I asked.

  "I have a confession to make," she said as she replaced a mug on the shelf with bony fingers. "I started that blanket fourteen and a half years ago. The baby is about to get his learner's permit."

  "Ah," I said. The yarn wrappers had seemed kind of vintage. It made sense now. "So, the dating thing isn't going too well?"

  "No, it's not," she said. "Sometimes I wonder if Roger really was my true love."

  "Oh, honey." I put down the pot and looked at Flora, whose eyes looked like they were welling with tears. "He wasn't, I assure you." Although Flora had come into her own when dating her ex, he'd turned out to be a bad apple.

  She swiped at her eyes. "I know that, but... this time of year is hard."

  "I get that," I told her. I'd spent many Christmases without a special someone to share the holiday with. I did at least have my parents, though, and I knew Flora didn't share my good fortune. Her father had passed years earlier and her mother, Nettie Kocurek, had died not long ago. Nettie hadn't been a very nice person; in fact, she'd been a tyrant where Flora—and everyone else in Buttercup—was concerned. "Hey," I said. "I could use some help at the Christmas Market tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to come give me a hand?"

  "I've never done anything like that before," she replied, her eyes darting around the room nervously.

  "It'll be fun! I'll show you what to do," I assured her. "Meet me there at five, okay?"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Unless we get iced out, I'm positive."

  She gave me a tremulous smile. "Thank you, Lucy. You just seem to know how to meet people. I've never been good at that." My rescue poodle Chuck, sensing her emotion, came over and plopped himself down on her feet. She reached down and tickled his tummy, and he writhed with pleasure.

  "It'll come," I told her, surveying the clean kitchen. "Thanks so much for helping me out; and I'm so glad you came." As I spoke, a fresh wave of cold rain dashed against the windowpanes. "Now, why don't you hurry home before it gets any colder?"

  "I probably should," she said, giving Chuck one more belly rub. "Thanks again, Lucy. I know we didn't get off on the right foot, what with my mother and all, but thanks for including me in the knitting group."

  "My pleasure," I said, walking her to the door.

  As I watched her hurry to her mother's Cadillac in the driving rain, I found myself hoping she'd find some Christmas magic of her own this year. I knew the odds of finding someone while helping me out at the Christmas Market were low, but it was better than sitting in her mother's brick ranch-style house alone.

  I woke the next morning buried under two down comforters, with Chuck snuggled in next to me and a cool, wintry light filling my bedroom.

  I knew I should get up and check on the livestock—before going to bed, I'd made a last round to be sure the cows and goats were tucked away safe in the barn and the chickens were all in their coop—but I lingered a moment, enjoying the light and the feel of the chilly morning air on my nose contrasted with the warmth under the comforter.

  Finally, my sense of duty got the better of me, and I emerged from under the covers. Chuck just burrowed in deeper, although I knew once he heard the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, the lure of breakfast would have him running to join me. I threw on a pair of jeans, some wool socks, and a thick woolen sweater and headed toward the kitchen.

  The first stop was the woodstove; I tossed in a few scraps of wood and coaxed the fire back from the embers, and then turned to the morning's next task: coffee. As I scooped the fragrant grounds into the coffeemaker, I gazed at the frozen world outside my window. The rain had turned to ice at some point during the night, leaving a wintry, ice-glazed wonderland behind. The slender branches of crape myrtle outside the kitchen window were coated in ice, weighing down the tips, and the bird feeder was surrounded by fluttering, puffed-up birds. An old plum tree in the corner of the yard had suffered a broken limb from the weight of the ice, and I found myself worrying about the stately live oaks with their wide-spreading branches; how many of them had lost limbs, too?

  I slipped my sock-clad feet into boots, grabbed a jacket and gloves, and headed out into the near-silent world. The rain gauge, though icy, showed almost two inches of rain—good news for drought-plagued Texas, and particularly for me, because my well had run dry a few months earlier—and the thermometer was hovering at just under 30. I'd planted my more tender winter veggies under hoops I'd covered with cloth; I hoped the protective cloth—and the veggies sheltering beneath it—had survived the winds. The grass crunched under my boots as I walked to the barn to let out the cows and goats, who were excited at the opportunity to explore the frozen world, and then checked on the chickens and the veggies.

  The farmhouse was much warmer and redolent of coffee by the time I closed the door behind me, with two pails of milk, enough eggs for breakfast in my jacket pocket, and a sense of relief that all the living things on the farm had survived the storm. I wasn't milking much right now—Blossom, Hot Lips, and Gidget were all pregnant, so I was gradually "drying them off"—but I was hoping to have time to make another batch or two of cheese before the final day of the Christmas Market, which wasn’t far away.

  I fixed myself a cup of coffee, adding a bit of fresh milk before pouring the rest of it into two pots on the stove to process, then cracked a few eggs into a bowl and popped two slices of Quinn's Christmas bread into the toaster. That got Chuck's attention.

  A few minutes later, as I was just sitting down to the table after splitting the eggs with Chuck, there was the sound of a vehicle coming up the drive. I recognized the truck; a moment later, Tobias appeared at the front door, smiling and waving at me through the rippled glass.

  "What a nice surprise! What brings you here?" I asked when I opened the door. His dark hair was speckled with a bit of frost, and his cheeks were ruddy with the cold. He looked so handsome he literally took my breath away.

  He kissed me, and I thought I might die of a heart attack right then and there. When he let me up for air, Chuck was dancing around his feet, begging for attention.

  Tobias bent down to greet him. "Hi, buddy! You're full of energy this morning." He glanced up at me, a glint in his eyes. "The diet must be working."
>
  "Right," I said, glad Chuck had already scarfed down all the evidence of the eggs I'd slipped him. At least I hadn't added cheese or bacon to them this morning.

  "I've got a few more eggs from the chickens if you're hungry," I offered. "And some toast from Quinn's Christmas bread."

  "I already ate," he said, "but I wouldn't say no to a cup of coffee."

  "You're on," I said, feeling almost giddy as we walked into the kitchen. If you'd told me five years ago, as I slaved away in a cubicle in Houston, that I'd be waking up in my grandmother's farmhouse on a frosty morning, cooking my own eggs and entertaining a handsome and extremely diverting veterinarian boyfriend, I would have laughed.

  But here I was.

  "What are you up to today?" I asked as I poured him a cup of coffee and added a bit of milk from the pot on the stove.

  "I'm visiting a few ranches and farms nearby, checking on some animals who had a tough time last night."

  "How are the roads?"

  "They're pretty good, actually. I just go slowly."

  "Be careful," I warned him. "I don't want you to end up in the hospital."

  "I wouldn't drive if it wasn't safe," he reassured me. "Besides, I'm back at the clinic this afternoon with back-to-back appointments."

  "I'm here until late this afternoon getting ready for the Market," I told him. I had a couple of dozen more soaps to cut and package, and I was hoping to pour another batch of beeswax candles. "Did you hear about what they found at the courthouse?" I asked.

  "Old bones." He grimaced. "Sometimes I think there's too much history in this town."

  "I like it," I said. Which was a good thing, because I’d signed on to renovate a historic house a few months ago. Progress had been... well... slow. I was hoping to get to it in January, budget permitting; the first bids for work had been more than I’d anticipated. "Are you coming to the Christmas Market tonight? Flora Kocurek's going to help me out at my stall."

  "How did that come about?"

  "I offered," I told him with a shrug. "She's lonely."