Holiday Murder

Book 0: Lucy Stone Mystery

by Leslie Meier

Genres: Holiday books; Amateur Sleuth; Mystery Anthologies & Collections; Cozy Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

For Lucy Stone, Christmas in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, isn’t just about the gift of giving. Sometimes it’s also about solving a crime or two . . . Mistletoe Murder The First Lucy Stone Mystery! As if Lucy Stone’s Christmas schedule wasn’t busy enough, she’s also working nights at the famous mail-order company Country Cousins. But when she discovers its very wealthy founder, Sam Miller, dead in his car from an apparent suicide, Lucy’s gift for suspecting murder shines bright. Now she must track down an elusive killer—one who won’t be satisfied until everyone on his shopping list is dead, including Lucy herself . . . Christmas Cookie Murder One of the best things about Christmas in Tinker’s Cove has always been the annual Cookie Exchange. But when long-simmering petty rivalries and feuds finally come to a boil, accusations of recipe theft lead to an act of murder. Despite all of the ingredients for danger, Lucy sets out on the trail of a killer and soon uncovers a shocking Christmas secret best left unopened . . . “Reading a new Leslie Meier mystery is like catching up with a dear old friend.” —Kate Carlisle, New York Times bestselling author

Release date: September 26, 2017

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 367

Sample

“Do you have any really sharp knives?” asked the tremulous voice. “Something that will cut through bone and gristle?”

Lucy Stone stifled a yawn, adjusted her headset, and typed the code for “knives” on the computer keyboard in front of her. Instantly the screen glowed with the eleven varieties of knives sold by Country Cousins, the giant mail-order country store.

“What kind of knives were you thinking of?” Lucy inquired politely. “Hunting knives, fishing knives, pocket knives, kitchen knives . . . ?”

“Kitchen knives, of course,” snapped the voice. “Homer hasn’t been out of the house for forty years.”

Lucy hit the code for “kitchen knives,” and the screen listed six sets of kitchen knives.

“I’m sure we have something that will do. How about a set of four carbon steel knives with rosewood handles for fifty-seven dollars?”

“What is carbon steel? Is it really sharp?” insisted the voice.

“Well, some cooks prefer it because it’s easy to sharpen. However, it doesn’t hold an edge as long as stainless steel. We also have the same set in stainless steel for fifty-seven dollars.”

“I don’t know which to get. Homer loves to cut and carve. He’s really an artist at the dinner table.” The voice became confidential. “I’ve always believed he would have been a gifted surgeon. That unfortunate incident in medical school simply unnerved him.”

Lucy stifled the urge to encourage further confidences. “Then carbon steel is probably your best bet,” she advised. She then mentioned a related product, a technique her sales manager insisted upon. “You could also get him a sharpening steel. He would probably enjoy using it.”

“You mean one of those things you draw the blade against before carving? Seems to me Poppa had one of those. I think you’re right; I’m sure Homer would enjoy doing that. It would add a touch of drama. How much are those?”

“We have one with a rosewood handle for eighteen dollars.”

“I’ll take the knives and the steel.”

“All right,” said Lucy, smiling with satisfaction. “I need some information from you, and we’ll ship them right away.” She finished typing in the woman’s name, address, and credit card number. “Thank you for your order. Call Country Cousins again, soon.” She arched her back, stretched her arms, and checked the clock. Almost ten. Three hours until her shift ended at one A.M.

Lucy didn’t mind working at Country Cousins. Like many of the tourists who came to Tinker’s Cove in the summer, she was fascinated by the quaint old country store on Main Street. Inside, there were crockery, kitchen utensils, penny candy, and sturdy country clothes as well as fishing, hunting, and camping equipment. The porch with its ten-foot-long deacon’s bench, the sloping floors of scuffed, bare wood, and the huge potbellied stove were all authentic, they just weren’t the whole story. For the truth was, most of Country Cousins’ business came from catalog sales and was conducted at a mammoth steel warehouse on the outskirts of Tinker’s Cove. There, state-of-the-art telephone and computer systems enabled hundreds of employees like Lucy to sell, pack, and ship millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-four days a year. Country Cousins was closed on Christmas Day. All merchandise was sold with an unconditional guarantee: “We’re not happy unless you are.”

“It’s quiet tonight, isn’t it, Lucy?” said Beverly Thompson, the grandmotherly woman who had the computer station next to Lucy.

“It sure is. And only ten days until Christmas.”

“Are you all ready for Christmas?”

“Not by a long shot,” Lucy said. “I haven’t finished the fisherman’s sweater I’m making for Bill, I still have to make an angel costume for Elizabeth to wear in the church pageant, and I have to bake six dozen cookies for Sue Finch’s cookie exchange. And,” she continued, “I still have quite a bit of shopping to do. How about you?”

“Oh, I’m pretty well finished. Of course, now that the kids are scattered from Washington to San Francisco there isn’t so much to do.” Beverly’s voice was wistful. “I just have something sent from the catalog.”

“Don’t knock it,” advised Lucy. “I have my mother and Bill’s folks coming. Christmas is an awful lot of work. I like Halloween, myelf. All you need is a mask and a bag of candy.”

“Why don’t you all pack up and spend Christmas at Grandma’s?” asked Beverly. “I’d love to have my brood back for the holidays.” Beverly sighed as she thought of the neat stack of presents waiting in her closet, which she would open all by herself on Christmas morning.

“Oh, we started having Christmas at our house back in the granola years when we had chickens and goats and woodstoves. We couldn’t leave or the animals would starve and the pipes would freeze! Now everyone expects it.” Lucy shrugged, pausing to take an order for a flannel nightgown.

“I don’t know how you girls do it,” said Beverly, picking up the conversation. “You work half the night, and then you take care of your families all day.”

“It isn’t so bad. I like it a lot better than cashiering at the IGA or working at the bank. When I did that my whole check went for day care.”

“But when do you sleep?” asked Beverly, yawning.

“Oh, I usually nap when Sara does. She’s only four,” answered Lucy, stretching and yawning herself. “It isn’t sleep I miss, it’s sex. How about you, Ruthie?” Lucy asked the woman on her other side. “Are you getting any lately?”

Ruthie whooped. “Are you kidding? He works all day, I work all night, and the baby wakes up at five.” She lowered her voice and spoke in a confidential tone to Lucy and Beverly. “I’ve asked Santa for a night in a motel.”

The three women laughed, and Lucy realized that the thing she liked best about working the night phones at Country Cousins was the companionship and camaraderie of the other women. If you wanted to know what was going on in Tinker’s Cove, Country Cousins was the place to be, because absolutely everyone worked there, or had worked there, or knew someone who did. It was an institution; it had been in business for years, selling sporting goods to a small but faithful following of customers. Then fashion seized upon the preppy look, and the demand for Country Cousins’ sturdy one hundred percent wool and cotton clothes soared. Preppy was followed by country, and in a few short years Country Cousins had become a household word in most American homes.

Country Cousins’ phenomenal growth, which had been the subject of an article in the business section of the Sunday New York Times, would not have been possible without skilled management. Founded by a discouraged Maine farmer named Sam Miller in 1902, Country Cousins was still owned in 1972 by the Miller family. Fortunately for them, that was the year Sam Miller III graduated from Harvard Business School. He was followed, in 1974, by his brother Tom. Together the two brothers piloted an expansion program that made Country Cousins one of the nation’s largest mail-order retailers, although it was still second cousin to the granddaddy of them all, L.L. Bean.

That had meant growth and change for Tinker’s Cove. Intrigued by the folksy catalog, vacationers began seeking out the Country Cousins store. Big old homes became bed-and-breakfast inns, motels were built, and McDonald’s appeared on Route 1. Soon every available piece of commercially zoned land had been snapped up and Main Street was lined with outlet stores: Dansk, Quoddy, Corning, and even a designer outlet featuring Ralph Lauren seconds. Tinker’s Cove residents enjoyed their new prosperity, but they also complained about the busloads of tourists who swarmed all over town making day-to-day activities difficult, if not impossible, during July and August. In those months, then, when the phones fell quiet at Country Cousins, the operators exchanged views on when was the best time to avoid the crowds at the post office and grocery store.

There was no doubt that life in Tinker’s Cove, especially in the summer, required a certain amount of planning. Doc Ryder claimed he had noticed a definite increase in stress-related illness such as ulcers and high blood pressure among his patients. On the whole, however, most people in Tinker’s Cove enjoyed their new prosperity, remembering the dark days of the oil embargo when the sardine cannery closed.

“You know,” said Lucy, “I’m only a couple of hundred dollars short of making an incentive bonus this month.”

“That’s terrific,” Ruthie said. “What will you do with the extra money?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lucy said slowly, savoring the possibilities. “I think I’ll take the whole family out to dinner.”

“Don’t you want something for yourself?” asked Ruthie.

“Not really. Besides,” Lucy said, brightening, “if we eat out, I won’t have to cook and clean up!”

There was a sudden burst of activity as calls began coming in and the women were kept busy taking orders. Around eleven-thirty the calls finally slowed down, and Lucy found herself nodding off.

“Gosh, if things don’t pick up a little, I’m going to fall asleep.” She yawned. “I’ll never last until one.”

“Why don’t you take a break and get a cup of coffee?” Beverly suggested.

“Oh, no. If I have coffee now, I won’t be able to sleep later. Maybe I’ll just walk around a bit and get some fresh air. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Lucy took off her headset and made her way past the other operators in the phone room, out to the corridor. Walking slowly, stretching her arms and legs as she went, she passed the rest rooms and the break room with its coffee and snack machines. She pushed open the fire door to the outside. It had begun to snow, and the cars in the parking lot were shrouded with one or two inches of soft powder. Lucy took a deep breath of the clean, cold air and watched the flakes falling in the light of the lamps that lit the parking lot. They were large and coming down heavily; the town could get a lot of snow if it kept up all night.

Oh, no, thought Lucy. Not a snow day. A snow day meant that all three children would be home; even the nursery school Sara attended three mornings a week would be closed. She had so much to do to get ready for Christmas that she couldn’t afford a snow day.

Lucy sighed and stepped back into the warm building. As the door closed it occurred to her that something wasn’t quite right outside. She thought she heard a squawk like a duck quacking. But ducks don’t quack at night, especially in December. Perhaps it was a laggard goose making a late migration south, or a dog barking. She opened the door for another look and realized she could hear an engine running. The cars were all mounded with snow, yet the hum of a motor broke the silence. This wasn’t right, and if something wasn’t right, Lucy had to get to the bottom of it.

Lucy took a wooden coat hanger from the rack near the door, wedged it between the door and the jamb, and went out to investigate. It wasn’t very cold, and Lucy was comfortable enough in her jeans and wool sweater. Her high-top Reebok athletics left small prints filled with circles in the fresh snow.

As she drew closer to the row of parked cars, the noise of the humming engine grew louder. It came, she realized, from Sam Miller’s BMW. The navy blue sedan with the SAM-I-AM vanity plates was covered with snow just like the other cars. The only difference was that the engine was running and a black rubber hose neatly capped one of the twin exhaust pipes and snaked around the car to the driver’s window.

Lucy gasped and tried to pull open the driver’s door. It was locked, but she did manage to pull the hose out of the window and then ran back into the building as fast as she could. She arrived in the phone room panting for breath and gesturing frantically with her hands.

“Call the police,” she finally managed to say to the group of concerned women who were clustered around her.

In a matter of seconds Beverly had the police station on the line.

“A suicide in the parking lot,” she repeated after Lucy. “Lucy Stone found Sam Miller’s car running in the parking lot, with a hose pumping exhaust into the driver’s window.” She paused. “No, we’ll stay right here and we won’t touch anything.”

Lucy collapsed on a chair and someone gave her a cup of sweet tea to sip. “Best thing for a shock,” they agreed solemnly.

“Imagine, he had a BMW and a Mercedes,” commented one of the girls.

“And an indoor pool,” added another.

“Really, the fanciest house in town.” They nodded in unison, and then Ruthie ventured to add, “And the fanciest wife.”

“Fancy house, fancy wife, fancy cars. It just goes to show,” said Beverly, “that fancy isn’t everything.”

Then they fell silent, listening for the wail of the police cruiser’s siren.

Home had never looked so good, thought Lucy as she braked to a stop in the driveway. The familiar shape of the old farmhouse comforted her, and the porch light that Bill had left burning: for her was welcoming. The old Regulator in the kitchen read 5:05, too late to make going to bed worthwhile.

While Lucy unbuttoned her coat, Patches, the black-and-white tabby, wove herself around Lucy’s legs.

“You don’t fool me,” said Lucy. “All you want is an early breakfast.”

The cat flicked her tail impatiently and meowed.

“Be quiet,” Lucy hissed as she filled the coffeepot. “You’ll wake everybody up.”

For a moment Lucy considered waking Bill to tell him the news about Sam Miller, but she decided instead to let him sleep. She had been awakened so many times at night by hungry babies that she appreciated the luxury of uninterrupted sleep—and Bill had had his share of sleepless nights with the kids. Besides, he’d be waking up soon, anyway. She switched on the coffeepot and sat down on the rocking chair to watch it drip, smelling its wonderful aroma. She sat and rocked, letting the familiar old-house sounds and scents surround and soothe her.

Lucy loved her kitchen. She loved the old Glenwood woodstove that burned two and a half cords of wood every winter. She cherished the Hoosier cabinet she’d bought at a flea market and spent an entire summer refinishing. Bill had made the cupboards himself out of maple, and they had scraped and polished the wooden floor together. She’d sewn the blue-and-white-checked gingham curtains herself. This kitchen was really the heart of the house, with its wooden rack for wet mittens, its collection of bowls for the cat, and the big round oak table where the family gathered for meals, Monopoly, and checkers.

If she didn’t do something soon, Lucy realized, she would fall asleep sitting up. She poured herself a cup of coffee and began mixing up some Santa’s thumbprint cookies for the cookie exchange. She was just taking the first sheet out of the oven when Bill, looking rumpled and sleepy, appeared in the doorway.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Baking cookies to stay awake,” Lucy answered.

“Oh,” he said, and headed straight for the bathroom. He returned, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down at the table.

“You don’t usually bake cookies so early in the morning.”

“I know. I didn’t get home until five and decided it wasn’t worth going to bed.” She paused dramatically. “Oh, Bill! It was awful. Sam Miller committed suicide in the parking lot. I was the one who found him.”

“Oh, my God. Was it really bad?” asked Bill, reach ing for her hand.

“No, not r.eally. All I saw was the hose going from the exhaust to the window. I couldn’t get the door open, and I couldn’t see much because of the snow. The police came, and they realized it was Sam Miller. He was dead when they got there. Of course, we all had to stay and answer questions even though none of us really saw anything at all. We were all in the phone room.”

“Gee, I never would’ve thought that he’d kill himself. He had so much going for him. Maybe it was all too much—too much responsibility, too much stress,” said Bill, drawing on his mug of hot coffee.

“I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “You and I have stress; someone like Sam Miller goes to Barbados. I don’t believe it was suicide.”

“Oh, Lucy. Just leave it alone. It’s none of your business. Promise me.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Lucy, lifting the cookies one by one onto a rack to cool.

“You know perfectly well what I mean. You can’t just leave things alone. Well, for your information, there are people called police who investigate these things.”

Bill paused to take a swallow of coffee and noticed Lucy’s jaw had become set in a certain way he’d come to recognize. “Lucy, don’t be like this. I’m just saying I don’t think you need to get us involved.”

He got up from his chair and stood behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and nuzzling her neck with his bearded chin.

“It’s Christmastime. Let’s just enjoy the holidays, and the kids. We don’t have to get involved with Sam Miller’s”—he turned her around and looked straight in her eyes—“unfortunate death.” As he put his hand on her chin and tilted her face up to meet his kiss, a high-pitched voice broke the morning stillness.

“Mommy and Daddy alarm. Stop that kissing!”

Seven-year-old Elizabeth squirmed her way between them, demanding, “Elizabeth sandwich! Elizabeth sandwich!”

Bill caught her under her arms and lifted her up between them while Lucy covered her sleep-warmed pink cheeks with kisses. Elizabeth squealed and giggled in delight. Elizabeth’s happy cries attracted her little sister, Sara, who wrapped herself around Lucy’s legs, and her older brother, Toby, who leaned against the doorjamb with all the sophistication a ten-year-old could muster and asked, “Are we really having cookies for breakfast?”

It seemed to Lucy as if years had passed before she finally drove Sara to nursery school and returned to the empty house, hoping to catch a few hours of sleep. She had the foresight to turn on the answering machine, but it seemed as if she had barely dropped off when she was awakened by a loud banging and rattling at the back door.

Wrapping her log cabin quilt around her, Lucy staggered down the back stairs and across the kitchen to the door. Through the lace curtain she could see a massive blue shape: Officer Culpepper. Opening the door, she realized there was someone else with Culpepper, a slim, serious man wearing a Harris tweed sport coat under an unbuttoned London Fog raincoat.

“Sorry to wake you up, Lucy. A few questions have come up that we need you to answer. This is State Police Detective Horowitz. May we come in?”

Lucy stepped back, allowing the men to enter, and followed them into the kitchen. Officer Culpepper sat right down at the kitchen table as if he belonged there. Indeed, he had often sat at Lucy’s table planning Cub Scout and PTA activities. Detective Horowitz was more self-contained. He took off his coat and folded it carefully, then laid it across the back of one of the chairs. He placed his briefcase on the table just so, opened it, and took out a manila folder. Then he closed it and placed it on the floor next to the chair with his coat. Finally he sat down, drawing his chair up to the table and sitting stiffly with his hands on the folder. Lucy herself had collapsed on the corner chair, leaning her elbows on the table and trying to hold up her head.

“Gee, Lucy, you look beat. Let me make some coffee for you.”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“About eleven. Do you have to pick up the kids or something?”

“Not till twelve. I slept longer than I thought.”

“Not surprising. You had quite a night.” Culpepper slipped three mugs of water into the microwave and pushed the start button.

“The instant coffee’s in the cabinet over the sink. Excuse me for a minute.”

Looking in the bathroom mirror, Lucy decided she’d rarely looked worse. Quickly she washed her face, brushed her teeth, and ran a comb through her hair. She smoothed a dab of moisturizer under her eyes, straightened her sweat suit, gave herself a quick spritz of Charlie, and returned to the kitchen.

A cup of hot coffee was waiting for her, and she sipped it carefully. Detective Horowitz, she noticed, had opened his folder and was clearly ready to begin.

“Now, Mrs. Stone, about last night. What made you decide to go outside? Wasn’t that unusual?”

“Not really. The calls had slowed down, I was feeling sluggish, and I didn’t want to drink coffee so close to quitting time. I thought a breath of fresh air might perk me up.”

“I see. You weren’t drawn outside by any unusual noise or occurrence?”

“Oh, no. In fact, the phone room has no windows. When you’re in there you have no idea what’s going on outside. Sometimes we’ll be completely surprised if a storm has blown up during our shift.”

“So it was just a normal night for you. There was nothing out of the ordinary until you discovered the car.”

“That’s right. When I looked out I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then I realized it was the car motor running.”

“Was that unusual?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You didn’t think it might be someone arriving for the next shift or picking up one of the girls?”

“It was too early for that. Besides, when you get out of work at one A.M. nobody picks you up. If you’ve got car trouble, you just get a ride with one of the other girls.”

“I see,” said the detective, pursing his lips and making a tiny notation on his yellow legal pad. He had a slight lisp, Lucy noticed, and his upper lip was elongated, rather like a rabbit’s. Lucy looked at him closely, thinking what a very serious man he must be. He was such a contrast to Officer Culpepper, who had rolled up his sleeves and was cheerfully washing the breakfast dishes she had left soaking in the sink. Perhaps it was his job that made him serious. A man couldn’t investigate sudden death all the time without being affected by it.

Looking around her homey kitchen, Lucy thought how living in Tinker’s Cove had insulated her, until now, from the random violence and cruelty that was twentieth-century life. Of course, in the fifteen years she and Bill had lived in Tinker’s Cove, things had changed, sometimes drastically. When they’d first moved into the old farmhouse, they had heated entirely with wood, and Lucy, like many others, did all her cooking on the old Glenwood. In those days she often took down the long-handled popcorn popper from its hook on the wall and shook homegrown kernels over the wood fire until they popped. It took a little time, but she never felt rushed in those days. Nowadays she was more likely to put a package of preflavored popcorn in the microwave and zap it. Somehow the long, leisurely afternoons with children and friends had vanished; now Lucy was measuring her life in seconds.

“You didn’t see any footprints in the snow, or any sign of disturbance?” insisted the detective.

Lucy shook her head. “No. The snow was clean and unbroken. There were only my footprints.”

“According to your account last night, the car was locked. Is that right?”

“Absolutely. Once I saw the hose I tried to open the car door. I couldn’t, so I just pulled the hose out of the window and went in to call for help. I don’t know what else I could have done.”

“Oh, you did the right thing, Lucy,” Culpepper interrupted. “It was too late to save him.”

“Did you know the deceased personally?” asked the detective.

“Well, everybody in Tinker’s Cove knew Sam Miller. I wasn’t a close friend, I was never invited to his house or anything. But I certainly knew him to say hello to in the street. Most people did. If you work for Country Cousins, he personally hands you your profit-sharing check, and Country Cousins is the biggest employer around.”

“That’s right,” agreed Culpepper. “Everybody knew him.”

“And envied him,” Lucy added. “That’s what I can’t understand. Why did he kill himself?”

The detective and Culpepper exchanged a meaningful glance; finally Culpepper broke the silence.

“There’s no harm in telling you, I suppose. It’ll be in the paper tomorrow, anyway. Sam Miller didn’t kill himself. He had quite a bump on his head. He was unconscious when somebody stuffed him in the car and rigged up the hose. Sam Miller was murdered.”

Lucy leaned back in Sue Finch’s antique rocking chair and took a sip of mulled cider. She inhaled the spicy scent of the potpourri Sue had left simmering in a little copper pot on the woodstove and let out a long breath. After the last few hectic days it was wonderful to relax among friends in Sue’s beautifully decorated house.

Christmas was Sue’s favorite time of year, and she loved using all the decorations she collected at flea markets and antique shops throughout the year. She had no fewer than three Christmas trees: one in the living room, bedecked with baby’s breath and ribbons, which were carefully coordinated to go with the Victorian color scheme; one in the family room, decorated with ornaments her daughter, Sidra, had made; and one in the kitchen, trimmed with cookie cutters and gingerbread men. A collection of teddy bears was gathered in a hutch, lamp tables held a large and valuable collection of St. Nicks, and a twelve-inch feather tree with tiny German glass ornaments stood on the coffee table. Crocheted and starched snowflakes hung in the windowpanes, and a single candle burned in each window.

Looking around at the rosy-cheeked faces and eyes sparkling in the candlelight, Lucy realized she’d known most of these women for her entire adult life. A few were natives of Tinker’s Cove, but most were transplants or “wash ashores” like herself and Bill, idealistic young college graduates who had avoided the rat race and looked for an alternative lifestyle “back on the land.” With their Mother Earth News to guide them, they’d chopped wood, planted gardens, and recycled everything.

Through the years she’d attended Lamaze and La Leche League classes with these women. In those days they wore hand-wrought silver earrings in their pierced ears, and they drove ancient pickup trucks or huge Chevy Impalas filled with apple-cheeked and overalled children. Conversations had centered around how to get a baby to sleep through the night or how to keep the cabbage moths away from the kohlrabi.

Now they drove Jeep Cherokees or Dodge Caravans, and the dangling earrings had been replaced with discreet gold buttons or cultured pearls. Their faces were still scrubbed clean morning and night, but Oil of Olay was carefully smoothed under the eyes and just a hint of makeup applied. The long, flowing hair of the seventies had been cut, tinted, and permed. Now they didn’t look very different from their mothers.

Their lives, however, were different from their mothers’. They all had jobs, some full-time, but most part-time like Lucy. They helped in their husbands’ businesses or answered the phone at Country Cousins, and some weren’t above waiting on tables during the summer. “How else can you make a hundred dollars in a few hours?” they’d ask each other as they sunned themselves on the beach. They were the mainstay of the Scouts and the PTA; they were the class mothers. The cookie exchange was an established part of their Christmas season.

Sue Finch had been the hostess for five or six years. It gave her an opportunity to show off her decorations, and it gave her friends a chance to socialize during the busy holiday season. Sue held the number of participants to an even dozen, and each woman brought six dozen of her best Christmas cookies. All the cookies were arranged on a long pine trestle table, and the high point of the evening was a leisurely procession around the table, each woman taking six of each cookie. All went home with the same number of cookies they had brought, but each had a dozen different varieties.

And what varieties! It was a point of honor to bring cookies rich in butter, chocolate, and nuts, cookies that required a bit of fussing. Of course, the cookies were to be taken home and saved for Christmas, so Sue always provided a dessert, too. This year it was an elaborate bûche de Noël, a sponge cake filled with chocolate-flavored whipped cream and decorated with meringue mushrooms and drizzles of chocolate and caramelized sugar.

“I just don’t know how you do it, Sue,” commented Lucy. “Everything is so lovely.”

“Oh, well, I’m not working like you are.” Sue shrugged. “Lucy, you look exhausted. Are you doing too much?”

“I don’t think so. But I haven’t been getting much sleep. The police kept us so late the night Sam Miller died.”

“That’s right,” said Pam Stillings, whose husband, Ted, was editor of The Pennysaver. “You actually found Sam, didn’t you, Lucy?”

“I did and I wish I hadn’t. I may have discovered the body, but I didn’t even see him. Everyone asks me about it, but I really don’t know anything.”

“Were you scared?” asked Pam.

“No, not really. Just kind of sick and let down the way you feel when the adrenaline stops flowing. Of course, I thought it was suicide. I didn’t realize he’d been murdered.”

“Why would anyone think a man like Sam Miller would kill himself?” demanded Rachel Goodman.