Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Aaron sprinted toward the scream, and I followed as quickly as I could in my heeled boots. I nearly slipped on a small patch of ice and threw my arms around a six-foot-tall plastic candy cane for balance.
“You okay?” Aaron asked, skidding to a stop.
Yeah, just clinging to a human-sized holiday decoration while a woman in the distance screams bloody murder in my new town where it’s Christmas every day. Totally fine. Totally normal.
“Here, take my arm,” he insisted.
I looped my arm through his, which wasn’t as romantic as it could have been—note the screaming—and kept moving.
Around a bend, the path led to the land behind the Christmas Creek Inn.
A woman—still screaming—stood motioning toward something with her giant mittens.
As we got closer, the scene before me became clear.
Someone was in the creek. Face down, their body half submerged in the shallow water.
Lumbering footsteps came from the inn where the screaming had caught someone else’s attention.
Jack, the inn’s resident handyman, hollered, “Everything okay out there?”
“No, Jack!” I yelled back. “Call an ambulance!”
He nodded and rushed back inside.
Aaron didn’t hesitate. He knelt in the snow, reaching into the creek and pulling the person out. I could see now that it was a woman, an older one by the tight-gray curls on her head. And when he turned her over, I gasped.
“M-Mary,” I stuttered. “She works at the town hall.”
“I know,” Aaron said. “I’ve met her.”
He felt for a pulse. Time seemed to stand still. My heartbeat thundered so loudly I could hear it in my ears.
“Is she alive?” the woman beside me asked, in a sweet southern accent. Definitely a tourist, who certainly didn’t expect to find a body on her vacation.
“No,” Aaron said sadly.
“Did you see what happened?” I asked the woman.
She shook her head, the pom-pom on her winter hat bouncing.
“Was she face down like that when you found her?” Aaron asked.
“Yes,” the woman said, tears springing to her eyes. “I saw a cardinal and wanted to get a photo. Then—I need to go find my husband. This is terrible. I can’t believe this.”
“No one’s going anywhere quite yet,” a voice boomed.
I turned to see Sheriff Kris and Officer Nick heading this way. For the second day in a row they would be questioning me about a body. At least I didn’t find this one myself.
Aaron stood, dusting snow off his suit pants. “She has no pulse. I would have attempted CPR, but I think it’s too late for that.”
The sheriff nudged Aaron over and knelt beside the body, shining his flashlight over her face.
Nick corralled the three of us back up onto the path. “Stay here while we inspect the scene.”
The woman beside me had begun to shiver even though she had on a puffy winter coat. I put my arm around her and whispered, “It will be okay. You’re okay.”
She nodded quickly, and the trembling calmed a bit.
“Are you and your husband staying at the Christmas Creek Inn?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “But I want to go home. I’m calling my husband.” She pulled a mitten off one of her shaking hands.
Kris held a hand up. “No phones yet.”
I rubbed her shoulder. “When the police are finished chatting with us, we’ll call your husband. I’ll walk you back to the hotel. Everything will be okay.”
She grabbed my hand and gave it a thankful squeeze. Aaron looked on with an appreciative gaze. Kris and Nick worked the scene, flashlights bouncing, whispering and pointing between the two of them.
A few other people had come down the path and were now stopped, staring at the scene. It wouldn’t be long before a crowd formed.
“Turn back,” Kris barked at them. “The path is closed.” Then he leaned toward Nick. “Call for backup. We need to mark off a perimeter and keep people away.”
The EMTs had arrived and were now attending to the body, officially confirming the death. I couldn’t believe Mary was dead. I’d just met her this morning. I didn’t exactly befriend her, but maybe in time I would have.
“Oh!” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “I should call Carol.”
“We’ll inform the mayor ourselves,” Kris said.
I slid the phone back.
Their attention seemed to be focused now on a rock in the snow at the edge of the creek. Had she tripped over it, maybe? The sheriff snapped some photos, then looked up at us, suspicion in his eyes.
“Who found her?” he asked gruffly.
“I did,” the woman said, raising a mittened hand. “She was face down in the creek. I just started screaming. And then this nice man and his wife came running.”
“Oh, I’m not his—” I began, but the sheriff cut me off with a look. Yeah, not important I guess.
“Why was she not still face down when we got here?” he asked.
“I pulled her out,” Aaron said. “I didn’t know if she was just injured or—”
“And you did a great job of destroying the crime scene,” Nick said, joining us. Yellow police tape flapped in the wind behind him.
“I didn’t realize that’s what it was,” Aaron said. “She could have fallen in and needed help.”
“She has a deep gash on the back of her head,” Kris said. “And there’s enough blood on a nearby rock to explain it.”
The tourist asked shakily, “Did she trip and hit her head on a rock? Or did someone hit her on the head with a rock? Am I safe here?”
Kris cut his eyes to Nick. “Bring her back to the inn. Take an official statement. And get her contact info in case we have any more questions.”
Then he returned his attention to the woman and put on a warm voice that matched his Santa looks.
“You’re perfectly safe, ma’am. Christmasville has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.
Mary, here, was an unfortunately well-known klutz, and I’m sure—as you said—she tripped and hit her head.
A very unfortunate incident. I hope it doesn’t taint your experience here in town.
Mary wouldn’t want that. She was one of Christmasville’s biggest cheerleaders. ”
I’d only met Mary for five minutes, and I knew that was a straight-up lie. But the tourist seemed to breathe a little easier as Nick led her away.
Kris returned his attention and his gruff voice to us. “Did you see anyone else out and about while you were on your little stroll?”
“No,” I said. “Not until we heard the scream and went running toward it.”
Aaron rubbed his face. “If it helps at all, I came by this way about an hour and a half ago. I took the path from the Christmas Creek Inn to head to the Golden Spoon for dinner. I suppose I could have missed her, but I doubt it. So whatever happened, happened recently.”
Kris narrowed his eyes. “Or, and I’m just spit balling here, you did it yourself as you passed by.”
Aaron’s mouth opened and closed. “You’re kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Aaron’s cheeks reddened. “If, in fact, it’s true that she was hit with a rock, why would I volunteer information placing myself at a murder scene?”
Kris took a step closer to us. “To preemptively explain if anyone saw you here. I’m sure you looked around and thought you were alone. Thought you could do the job quickly and not get caught.”
Aaron groaned in frustration. “Your far-fetched theories aside, why would I randomly kill an old lady?”
Kris rocked back and forth on his heels, never taking his eyes off Aaron. “Because the town is asking too high of a price for that big plot of land you want. Maybe if people in town start dying, the price of Christmasville land goes way down.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Aaron snapped. “Negotiations are only beginning.”
My head swiveled back and forth between the two of them. All the while, our conversation about the land purchase echoed in my head. About how he needed the price to be right.
“Even still,” Kris said. “I’ll want you to come down to the station to answer more questions.”
“Fine by me,” Aaron said confidently. “Take my fingerprints while you’re at it. They won’t match whatever’s on that rock.”
Kris crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “I’m sure there won’t be any on the rock because you’re wearing gloves.”
My mind went back to the moment he came to my table in the restaurant and peeled off his black leather gloves.
I did not just almost kiss an old-lady killer.
“This is a somewhat aggressive line of questioning for an incident that you haven’t even determined is a murder yet, Sheriff,” I said. “I mean, weren’t you just telling that woman you thought Mary tripped and fell?”
Aaron flashed me a thankful look.
“And you,” the sheriff pointed a stubby finger at my face. “Stay in town. Lots of people seem to be slipping and falling around you lately.”
“Two,” I said defensively. Though it was a personal record.
And now that I thought about it, two people “falling” to their deaths in two days didn’t seem right. I risked a glance at Aaron who was staring down at the snow. He’d walked right by the murder scene before he spent an hour with me. Was he truly interested or had he just used me as an alibi?
Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to lock myself in my room and sink under the covers. “Sheriff, am I free to go?”
“For now. Like I said, stay in town.”
I wouldn’t be anywhere else.