Page 67 of Christmas Mittens Murder

This morning was full of surprises. “You do?” I took a sip of stout.

“Yes. Several years ago, I found a murder victim on my farm, and it was a man I’d had to fire the day before. Then, a few months later, a customer was killed and one of my volunteers—a friend—was accused of the crime. There were a few more homicides, too. It’s how I met my husband, actually.”

“So you know how to track down a killer.” Thea sounded skeptical.

“Not alone, but I was able to help the police a bit.”

“Isn’t investigating murder terrifying?” I asked.

Cam smiled. “I’ve been scared a few times. But it taught me a lot about myself, too.”

“I don’t know anything about how the cops work,” I said.

“I’m sure it’s different in certain respects in every locale,” Cam said.

“True.” Allie nodded. “For example, Colinas has its own police department, but it relies on the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department for things like murder investigations.”

“Yep.” Thea bobbed her head with a definitive move.

It sounded like she spoke from experience. Allie finally took a bite of my tamale. She made an appreciative noise and took another.

“Thea, I know Val was divorced,” I began. “But did she have other family? Parents still alive, or children? Somebody must be mourning her.” Even if Thea wasn’t.

She gave a shrug. “I didn’t know her well. You’d have to ask Otto or Rafael or someone else.” She popped in the last bite of her meal, drained her drink, and stood. She dug a twenty-dollar bill out of her jacket pocket and laid it on the table. “Nice to meet you ladies. Good to see you, Allie. I have to shove off.” She strode down the row and out the door, her heavy boots clunking.

“She got out of here in a hurry.” Cam gazed at the door.

“Something’s up with her,” Allie said.

“How do you know her, Al?” I asked.

“I don’t, really,” my twin said. “I’ve seen her name in the local rag. She competes in triathlons and has won a couple. And occasionally she helps her girlfriend at the farmers’ market. I always stop at Narini’s stand on market day. We’ll have to go Sunday, Cece. The Raj Orchards olive oil is to die for, and her cured olives are fabulous. You’re here through Monday, right, Cam?”

“Yes, and I’d like to meet an olive farmer, even though it’s too cold to grow them where I live. By girlfriend, do you mean Narini is Thea’s friend or her romantic partner?”

“The latter, from what I’ve seen.” Allie’s phone gave off two abrupt buzzes. She slapped her forehead. “Rats. I’m late to meet a client for a showing.” She slid out of the booth but downed the rest of her drink before she left.

“Al, take a minute in front of a mirror first, okay?” I smiled to soften my message. She was super discombobulated if she planned to meet a client looking like that. “And pop a breath mint in your mouth.”

Chapter Four

After I paid the lunch bill, insisting to Cam the meal was my treat, she drove off to tour another farm. I slid on my swingy purple fleece coat with the big buttons and began the short trip back to Allie’s, letting myself move at a slow stroll. This wasn’t a power walk, and I’d already done my morning Pilates routine in my room in the big Victorian.

I’d visited Colinas at least once a year for the fifteen years since Allie moved here, but I’d rarely been alone in the town. Edie’s was on Las Marias Road, which bisected the main drag of Manzanita Boulevard. I hung a right and moseyed down a block on a residential street parallel to Manzanita. I was headed away from Allie’s, but I wanted more time to think. For me, slow walking helped make thinking happen.

How awful that Val’s life had been cut short by an act of violence. It was a tragedy anyone ever was murdered. But this was here and now, and, according to Allie, the detective thought she might have done it.

How had Val been killed? Maybe she’d closed the wine bar late and someone wanted to steal the till, although so few people paid cash anymore, that seemed unlikely to be a motive. The murder could have been for a personal reason, the settling of an old hurt or debt. But was she shot? Strangled? Poisoned, coshed over the head, or pushed in front of a train? Had her throat been cut? When the detective considered if a particular person committed a crime, they probably also weighed whether that person was able to use that method. Not everybody would be tall or strong enough to strangle or hit their victim.

I shook my head. I had no way of knowing. Anyway, everybody said, “I could kill that guy” on occasion. Thea herself had expressed wanting Val gone. At the time I’d assumed she meant out of the leadership of the garden club. Maybe she did, or maybe she meant something worse. Had Thea found a way to murder Val Harper? Or the killer might have been the ex-husband. The estranged brother. A random stranger.

What I knew for certain was it was not Alicia Van Ness Halstead. No. Possible. Way.

While Cam might have had successes in the past at putting killers behind bars, and apparently with her farm, her marriage, and her ability to bear children, I myself had not racked up a string of successes in my life. These days it was a thing to identify by your pronouns—“She, her. They, them. He, him.” I identified by “Fail, fail.”

I hadn’t finished college, instead dropping out to get married. I’d never had a defined career. Instead I’d worked retail, had a job with a landscaping firm, and managed a gift shop, until I settled into my current position administering a nonprofit organization in Pasadena. My marriage had been unhappy and had had a terrible ending.

Yes, I’d given birth to a beautiful, healthy, brilliant little girl, who was still all of those things except little. But after her father died ten years ago, I wasn’t able to comfort Zoe in a way we could both get past her anger at Greg’s loss. I knew her fury was grief expressed as anger, but the resentment remained. These days she spoke to me when I reached out, except it was almost always a reluctant conversation. At least she was close to my mom—Allie’s and my mom—and Zoe now attended college where her Gran was a professor. They’d both be here for Christmas.

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