Christmas past meets Christmas present in this holiday whodunit set in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, featuring reporter and sleuth Lucy Stone—and a not-so-cold case of murder. For fans of cozy mysteries and the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author’s ever-popular Lucy Stone series.
When Lucy Stone discovers the body of Rick Juergens, whose five-year-old son Nemo disappeared, she senses foul play. Crumbs from a gingerbread cookie Lucy gave to Nemo are found in the back seat of Rick’s car. With the hours quickly ticking till Christmas, Lucy races against the clock to find a killer before he strikes again.
Release date:
October 1, 2023
Publisher:
Kensington Books
Print pages:
112
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Lucy Stone knew that some women loved Christmas. Her friend Sue Finch was one of them. Sue put up a Christmas tree in every room of her house, she baked dozens of cookies that she distributed to everyone, from her manicurist to the mailman, and she kept her husband, Sid, busy for a week wrapping every tree in their front yard with twinkly white lights. She also shopped all year, snapping up bargains, which she stored in her Christmas closet and which, when elaborately and imaginatively wrapped and presented to the lucky recipients, were the absolutely best, most perfect gifts imaginable.
Lucy admired Sue’s Christmas spirit, but she preferred Thanksgiving, a relaxed holiday requiring only a turkey dinner and football, or Halloween, simpler still with a mask and a couple of bags of candy. As Lucy was a busy wife and mother, as well as a part-time reporter and feature writer for the town’s weekly newspaper, the Pennysaver, her schedule was already jam-packed without the shopping and baking and wrapping that Christmas required. So today she’d brought her son, Toby, and twenty-one-month-old grandson, Patrick, along, as well as her reporter’s notebook and camera, to cover the annual arrival of Santa Claus at the town pier.
Unfortunately, it was one of those bone-chilling, drizzly gray days, and she was shivering as she looked out over the slate-colored water, hoping to spot Santa’s bright red boat. A few inches of snow lingered from last week’s storm, and they were rapidly turning to slush, which was seeping into her left boot, which must have sprung a leak.
“He’ll be here soon!” she told Patrick, who was tucked snugly into a backpack worn by Toby. She stepped closer and nuzzled his plump pink cheek with her nose.
“An-a!” Patrick knew who Santa was; a colorful version of “The Night Before Christmas” was his favorite book. Lucy enjoyed reading it to him, too. In fact, it was because of Patrick that she was almost looking forward to Christmas. Last year he was just a baby and too little to understand what all the excitement was about, but this year he was old enough to enjoy the surprise of Christmas morning, with its bulging stockings and piles of presents under the tree.
“Christmas is going to be wonderful this year,” she told Toby, who was bouncing up and down to amuse his son. “I can’t wait to see Patrick’s face on Christmas morning.”
Toby stopped jiggling and bit his lip. “Uh, Mom, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
A foghorn blasted, and the crowd on the pier began cheering as the little red boat rounded Quisset Point and began chugging across the harbor.
Patrick’s eyes lit up and he gave a bounce in the backpack, nearly knocking Toby off balance.
“You know Molly’s folks?” Toby asked, referring to his wife’s parents.
“Sure,” said Lucy. She knew that Molly’s family would also want to spend time with Patrick; in fact, she was planning to invite them for a special Christmas Eve dinner. She was even thinking of making that Mexican Christmas salad with oranges and pomegranate that was such a hit at Sue’s open house last year.
“Uh, well, they’ve invited us on one of those Disney cruises for Christmas.”
The boat was halfway across the harbor now, and they could clearly see the lighted Christmas tree on its bow, and the plump figure of Santa, standing beside it.
“That’s nice,” said Lucy, snapping a picture of Patrick’s smiling face. Adorable. It was cute enough to run on page one. “When are you leaving?”
The boat was slowing as it approached the dock, and everybody was cheering and clapping. Lucy got another good photo, a shot of Santa waving.
“That’s the thing, Mom,” said Toby. “We’re leaving a couple of days before Christmas.”
Lucy missed her chance to shoot Santa jumping onto the dock with his bulging bag of presents on his back. “You mean you won’t be here for Christmas?”
“That’s right, Mom.”
Santa, actually Lucy’s friend Officer Barney Culpepper, was making his way down the dock, toward the seat that had been arranged for him out of a pile of lobster pots. He was reaching out to the children, clasping their hands as he passed, and when he reached Patrick, he stopped. “Ho-hoho!” he roared in a deep Santa voice.
Startled, Patrick burst into tears.
Lucy knew exactly how he felt.
A few days later, on Wednesday afternoon, Lucy was at the supermarket. She liked to do her big grocery shopping then, after the noon deadline at the Pennysaver. It was too early to start working on the next week’s edition, so she had a free afternoon.
If only the groceries were free, she thought, wincing at the price sticker on a jar of mincemeat. Almost seven dollars! What was in the stuff, anyway? And did she really need to make mincemeat cookies? She was already well over her weekly budget thanks to the holiday extras she’d put in her cart: chocolate chips for Santa’s thumbprints, almonds for sand tarts, a couple of tubs of candied fruit and a box of currants for plum pudding, extra eggs, and a bag of sugar.
She started to replace the mincemeat on the shelf, then changed her mind and placed it in her cart. Her husband, Bill, loved mincemeat cookies, and he hadn’t taken the news about Patrick’s Disney cruise very well. “No wonder he can afford to take them on a cruise. He’s in insurance. He’s making out like a bandit,” he’d declared, referring to Molly’s father, who owned an insurance agency. “It doesn’t matter what the economy’s doing. You’ve gotta have insurance.”
The economy hadn’t been doing well for Bill, who was a restoration carpenter. The recession had hit the building trades especially hard, and Bill had lost his big job renovating an old barn when the owner lost his job on Wall Street. Bill had managed to pick up some small handyman jobs installing replacement windows and insulation, but he wasn’t making the kind of money he had during the boom years.
Lucy knew he was worried about the family’s finances, but she didn’t think Christmas was the place to cut corners. She’d make him his mincemeat cookies and economize someplace else. They could have a meatless meal one night a week, or she’d put the thermostat down when he wasn’t home.
The girls, her daughters Sara and Zoe, could also do a better job turning off lights, she thought, rounding the corner of the baking goods aisle and practically bumping into a little boy in a too-small orange parka.
“Nemo!” she exclaimed, recognizing the child she’d driven home from a Halloween party when his parents had car trouble.
“Sorry,” muttered his mother, grabbing him by the hand. “How many times do I have to tell you not to wander off like that?”
“No problem,” said Lucy, smiling at the young mother. “It’s nice to see Nemo again. I don’t know if you remember, but I drove him home on Halloween night. I’m Lucy Stone.”
The girl was holding tight to Nemo, who was squirming. “Oh, right,” she said.
Her tone was vague and Lucy was sure she didn’t remember. Judging from her shaved head and numerous facial piercings, Lucy suspected Nemo’s upbringing was, to use a polite term, unconventional.
“I’m Ocean,” she added, “Ocean Anderson.”
Lucy couldn’t help smiling. It was too cute. Ocean and Nemo, she knew, lived in an abandoned aquarium on Route 1. It had been a flourishing tourist trap in its prime but was now a derelict collection of buildings with a broken neon sign. “Nice to meet you in the daylight.” She turned to Nemo. “Did you see Santa when he came to the town pier?”
Nemo frowned. “Did he have reindeer?”
“No. He came by boat.”
“That’s wrong. Santa doesn’t have a boat. He has a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.” Nemo, a typical four-year-old, was a stickler for detail.
“I think he can have both a boat and a sleigh. I’m not sure reindeer can swim.”
Nemo’s little face was set in a determined expression. “If they can fly, they can swim.”
“Come on, Nemo. Don’t argue with the lady,” said his mother, tugging at his hand. “We’ve got to go.”
Nemo wasn’t about to knuckle under parental authority without a struggle. “I want a cookie,” he declared, pointing to a basket full of decorated gingerbread men wrapped in cellophane that was displayed on top of the bakery counter.
Ocean gave Lucy an apologetic smile, then gave her cart a push toward the canned goods. “Come on, . . .
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