Murder in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery Read Online Free Page A

asked.
    “What is this place?” he said.
    I held the door open for him and he stepped inside, shaking the snowflakes from his hair.
    He looked around slowly, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
    “I followed the dog through the woods,” he said, again. “And I saw this place… and it looked like heaven from out there. It smells like it too.”
    I smiled nervously.
    “It’s my pie shop,” I said.
    “It’s beautiful,” he said, slurring a little. “It’s so warm in here.”
    “Why were you following the dog?” I asked.
    “I was coming out of the tavern and I saw him,” he said, still looking around in awe. “He looked like a stray. I wanted to catch him and bring him home.”
    “I’ve been trying to lure him in for the past two weeks,” I said. “With no luck. But he keeps coming back here for scraps.”
    “I can see why,” he said, looking around some more. “It smells like… like home in here.”
    He looked at me for a moment, his bleary eyes locking into mine. I was waiting for him to say something. To say my name. For a look of recognition to pass over his face, and for him to smile at me.
    But the recognition never came. Just an awkward silence, and a gaze that lasted a little too long.
    And then he seemed to come out of his drunkenness a little bit.
    “I should go,” he said. “You look busy and I’m taking up too much of your time.”
    “No,” I said, the words slipping out of my mouth without my permission. “Stay until… until you can see straight, at least.”
    He laughed.
    “I’m sorry. I must stink of it.”
    “Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see you’ve had a few. Can I take your jacket?”
    He looked at me, confused for a moment. Like he didn’t know why I was being so nice to him, a strange man who’d nearly scared me half to death a few moments earlier.
    He hadn’t realized it yet, but he wasn’t any stranger.
    He took off his heavy, buffalo plaid jacket and handed it to me, hesitating a little. I took it from him along with the cowboy hat in his hands, and brought them out to hang in the front room coat rack. When I came back, I saw him looking intently at the gingerbread house in the corner.
    “This is something else,” he mumbled. “Did you make this?”
    I nodded, going for the oven doors and checking on the pie crusts. They were just about ready.
    “That’s incredible,” he said. “Ha! Is that the sheriff?” he said, pointing to a small, decorated gingerbread man coming down the steps of the unfinished mansion.
    I grinned.
    Usually, we waited until right before the competition to start making the embellishments and decorations like that. But earlier that afternoon, I had worked on a few sheriff prototypes. They turned out so well, I added them to the partially-built house.
    “Sure is. The sheriff’s heading into work. Can’t be letting those hooligans paint the town red, now, can he?”
    That made him laugh some. He shook his head.
    “But what’s this house doing here in the corner, all lonesome and sad-looking? It should be where people can see it.”
    “It’s not done yet,” I said. “It’ll be a few days before it’s complete.”
    “Ohhh,” he said, like he understood. “You’re one of those gingerbread competition ladies, aren’t you?”
    I laughed.
    “Guilty as charged.”
    “I used to know a girl once who entered every year,” he said. “But that was a long, long time ago.”
    I was quiet. He still didn’t recognize me.
    “Are you hungry?” I asked.
    His eyes wandered over to the brightly lit oven.
    “Starved,” he said.
     

 
    Chapter 6
     
    Daniel Brightman sat at the kitchen island and ate the reheated slice of Christmas River Cherry pie in the same way that Huckleberry ate it.
    Like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.
    Something about watching him eat the pie like that was oddly satisfying. I hadn’t seen anybody eat one of my pies like that in a long, long time. The customers were usually