Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings. Liz Ireland
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been a strange day,” I said.
The comment—it seemed so innocuous—made her draw up to her full height. Pamela Claus was the only person I knew who could make five foot two look formidable. She was in a red-and-green wool suit with a skirt featuring felt mistletoe appliqués, and her gray hair was piled into a bun that added another three inches to her. “During times of crisis, it’s more important than ever to stick to routines . . . and the formalities.” She gave my outfit another jaundiced up-and-down sweep. “And perhaps stick closer to home.”
“I went to the scene of Old Charlie’s murder.”
“Murder?” Her voice looped up. “Who said it was murder?”
“It was twenty below out and the poor creature melted. He didn’t spontaneously combust.”
Her manicured hands fluttered as she mentally reached for a response she couldn’t find. There was no reason Charlie would have melted the way he did without being the victim of malicious action. “I don’t know why you should have gone out there, though. If you must play Sherlock Holmes, you can try to find Tiffany for me. No one knows where she is.”
“Couldn’t you just look for Christopher?” Tiffany usually stuck to her son like white on rice.
“He’s having his lessons.”
“Wouldn’t she be in the west wing, then?”
“Naturally, that’s the first place we looked. I haven’t been able to find her, and neither has Jingles. You might try the Old Keep. Maybe she’s wandering around there.” She shooed me off with a wave. “Tell her that we’ll have a special tea in the salon at four.”
The prospect of tea, at least, cheered me. I hadn’t eaten much at breakfast, and had only drunk a cup of coffee since.
And yet . . . the Old Keep. The name was an understatement. The Old Keep was ancient, abandoned completely several generations earlier because it was so difficult to maintain. The stone was crumbling, all the mortar needed repointing, and bits of roof occasionally caved in. There was no way to heat it efficiently. Not to mention, the Old Keep, situated on the edge of Calling Bird Cliff, was expected to eventually tumble into oblivion as weather eroded the promontory.
“I’m not sure I—”
Pamela’s hand clamped down on my arm. “Just do your best. We need to look after each other now.”
She clicked away on her sturdy two-inch pumps. Look after each other? What did that mean? It almost sounded as if she suspected Tiffany of something.
In all my months in Santaland, Tiffany and I had spoken only rarely and we’d never had what I’d call a tête-à-tête. We sometimes bumped into each other in the morning in the empty breakfast room and shared a silent meal for a quarter hour. Usually Christopher was with her, and in that case I chatted with him while Tiffany lurked guardedly close.
I doubted she would appreciate my spying on her.
But to placate Pamela, I’d give the Old Keep a look-see and then come back and have my tea with a clean conscience.
The castle consisted of four parts. The aforementioned west wing was the modern section built on the west side of the Old Keep. “Modern” in this case dated back to the 1800s. Tiffany and Christopher occupied the first floor, while Lucia, Martin, and Pamela lived on the floor above. Nick and I had our quarters on the second floor of the main part of the castle, which was several hundred years older. Below us was the main hall, and behind that was the kitchen, and Jingles’ quarters. Attached to this section was the east wing, where there were salons, and the big meeting hall. Behind all of these structures was the Old Keep, mostly hidden from the vantage of the drive up the hill and from Christmastown, except for the high, crenellated tower that rose above the main wing’s roof.
I breezed through the modern west wing’s first floor, just to double-check Tiffany hadn’t returned to her room. Down the corridor where Tiffany and Christopher lived came the droning of one of Christopher’s teachers, but a quick look inside the doorways of that hall produced no Tiffany sighting.
I sighed. On to the Old Keep, then.
My footsteps slowed as I walked down the echoing corridor that led to the Old Keep’s entrance from the main castle. Evidently, the family had kept using the grand hall of the Old Keep for festive occasions up until the 1970s, when the roof had collapsed under the weight of too much ice. It was a miracle no one was killed.
The vaulted ceiling still made me nervous, although Nick had sworn to me that it had been stabilized. I crossed the empty hall nearly at a run just so I’d be at risk of being crushed by roof tiles and ice for a slightly shorter duration. The only reason I risked it at all was because I saw a heavy door ajar across the abandoned great hall and could feel a draft coming in from it.
The door opened on to a large stone spiral staircase. It led down to a cellar—no way was I going down there—and up to the old tower. I looked up, debated with myself, and decided to go. It was exercise; I’d earn myself a piece of cake with my tea. At this point, though, I moved slowly. The only time I’d come here before, with Nick, we’d encountered a strange wooly ice rat on these steps. My heart was still recovering.
When she’d heard about the rat, Lucia had said she would put poison around—not to spare my worries, but because the wooly rats carried fleas that could transfer to her reindeer. Priorities.
I moved carefully, squinting at first in the darkness, cursing myself for forgetting to bring a flashlight until I remembered my phone had one. I turned it on and almost immediately heard a squeak, followed by the scritching of tiny feet against stone. So much for Lucia’s efforts.
As I wound up the staircase, the way became lighter and the temperature dropped. Someone had left the heavy door to the walkway along the castle tower wide open.
I peered through it and swallowed a gasp. Her straight, narrow back to me, Tiffany was sitting on one of the crenellation’s depressions, dressed in nothing more than a dress and a wool cape, her feet dangling over the side—where there was a hundred-foot drop to the cliff. Cold wind howled around the tower walls. One strong gust could blow her petite body right off into the void.
I stepped out, moving cautiously. I’d never felt secure on this aerie walkway, and now I also feared startling Tiffany. When I got close, though, she turned her head calmly as if some sixth sense had warned her of my presence. “Oh, it’s just you,” she said.
As opposed to whom?
I edged closer, leaning into an icy breeze. “Do you think it’s safe to be sitting there?”
“Perfectly safe.” She patted the space next to her, inviting me to join her on her lunatic perch.
I gulped. I didn’t want to be taken for a complete coward, even if I was . . . at least when it came to being blown off a tower and smashing to the rocks below like a watermelon dropped from the Empire State Building.
I gingerly wedged myself next to her but kept my body facing the castle and my feet on terra firma. Tiffany was staring out at the distant mountains of the Farthest Frozen Reaches. From far away, the peaks looked like a picture postcard—pale winter light reflected off the snow, making the treacherous passes and glaciers resemble peaks of fondant icing. Yet those mountains held danger and tragedy. Chris, Tiffany’s late husband, had fallen into a crevasse on Mount Myrrh, whose summit loomed highest on the distant horizon. I was sure it was that mountain Tiffany had been contemplating.
“Frightened?” she asked me.
“N-no.”
She tossed me a knowing smile. “It made me nervous at first, too. Chris used to bring me up here to talk, sometimes for hours. He loved the view. But Chris wasn’t afraid of anything.”
And that’s how people die in snow monster hunts. I shook my head at the uncharitable, un-Clausian thought. Her husband had died protecting Santaland and all its elves and people.
“What did you