A SEASON OF MURDER (The Darling Deli Series Book 29) Read online

  She picked one up and looked at it. It was an advertisement for a Christmas tree farm not far out of town. There was a photo of a team of reindeer hooked to a sleigh, and she smiled. It looked like she had found the perfect place for her and David to get their Christmas tree.

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  Moira turned the radio down as David turned the car into the Christmas tree farm. They had been listening to Christmas music, and she was filled to the brim with holiday spirit.

  “This place really has reindeer?” David asked.

  “That's what the flyer said,” she said. “Look at that sign there.” She pointed, and both of them turned their attention to the sign, which read, Welcome to Chris Yule’s Reindeer Farm and Christmas Tree Emporium. The sign advertised photo opportunities with Santa Claus and the reindeer, which made Moira smile.

  “All that they're missing is Rudolph,” David said.

  “Who knows, maybe they have him,” Moira said with a chuckle. “Let's get a nice, tall tree this year. We're having a big get together on Christmas Day, so it will be worth it.”

  “Our living room isn't that big,” he said. “Where are we going to put it? We’ll have to move the couches around.”

  “We will make do,” she said. “It will be worth it, you'll see.”

  “Remember, we have to be able to get it indoors and set up on our own. You know where the tree stand is, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Well, I'm pretty sure I do.”

  He chuckled, but didn't comment. Moira looked around as he drove down the long, muddy dirt driveway. This was a real tree farm, with hundreds and hundreds of pine trees and many different species. She wasn't sure what she wanted to get. She loved the look of the blue fir tree, but also loved the longer needles of the white pine. It was never fun to step on a Christmas tree needle first thing in the morning when she was barefoot, and the longer needles were much less painful.

  She felt a pang of nostalgia, wishing that Candice was there. She had always loved picking out the Christmas tree with her daughter. Of course, it was wonderful to have her husband beside her, but it wasn't quite the same thing. There was something so special about watching her little girl run down the rows of Christmas trees, choosing the perfect one for their home. Once, Candice had chosen the ugliest, most lopsided tree in the whole lot, and when Moira had asked her why, her then five-year-old daughter had said so it wouldn't be lonely over the holiday.

  Of course, Candice was older now. She was an adult herself, and had the beginnings of her own family. Moira would just have to get used to this new part of her life.

  “Park there,” she suggested. It was the spot closest to the little tent that had been set up for the business. She didn't want to get her feet too wet with the mud and salt from the road. She didn't mind walking through clean snow, but dirty slush was another matter.

  David shut the engine off and they both got out, walking over to the tent. Inside was an older man, his hair and beard snow white.

  “How can I help you?” he asked.

  “We're looking for a tree,” David said.

  “Got any specific kind in mind?”

  “Something big,” Moira said. “It should be full, and have lots of room for ornaments.”

  “Well, if you don't have a specific species in mind, feel free to walk around. The taller trees will be toward the back. As you get closer to the front, you'll see the shorter ones. Now, do you have your own saw, or will you be needing me to cut it for you?”

  “If you'll cut it for us, that would be great,” Moira said.

  “Just be sure you mark it with something before you come back to find me,” he said. “You don't want to lose track of the perfect tree.” He coughed, then added, “Want a candy cane before you go out? They might not make it any less cold out there, but they'll make it more tolerable.”

  Moira took one, but David declined. She unwrapped the sticky red and white cane as they walked out of the tent.

  “So, where should we start?” she asked.

  “Wherever you want,” he said. “As long as whatever you choose fits in the house, I'll be happy.”

  She chose an aisle of trees at random. She wasn't really sure what she was looking for, but she was sure that she would know it when she saw it.

  “If only we had a taller ceiling,” she said. “I’m sure there are some wonderful trees further back. Most people don't have enough space for them, so I bet they haven't even been looked through for years.”

  “It doesn't need to be a big tree to be perfect,” he said. “I'm sure once we get done decorating, any tree will look wonderful.”

  “I know,” she said with a sigh. “I guess part of it is that I want to give Candice the perfect Christmas. When she was a teenager, she always wanted huge trees. For a while there, before I opened the deli, December was always a tight month, so sometimes we had to get a smaller tree just to stay in budget.”

  “She's not a teenager any longer. I'm sure her idea of a perfect Christmas is everyone being together, being healthy, and happy. She has plenty of reason to celebrate this year. She knows just as well as anyone how much worse things could have been for Eli. You supporting her like you have been is the best gift you could give her.”

  “I just want her to know that there is still a place for her here.”

  “I'm sure she does,” her husband said.

  “Still, I want to find the perfect tree. Let's try over here.”

  They walked for a while longer. Moira found a couple of trees that she liked, but she was always certain that the perfect one was the next row over. Eventually, David said, “I don't even know if we are still on the Christmas tree farm, haven't you noticed that the rows have been getting less and less straight?”

  “Maybe you're right,” she said hesitantly. “We must have wandered into the actual forest without realizing it.”

  They began to backtrack. Moira's feet were beginning to get cold. Her boots were leather, but not waterproofed, and her socks were starting to get wet. She began paying less attention to where she was stepping, and more attention on what was ahead of them. All of a sudden, her foot caught what felt like a log under the snow and she fell to her knees.

  “Moira, are you all right?” David asked. He hurried back to her and helped her up.

  “Yes, I'm fine. My feet are just numb, and I tripped on something back there…” She turned to gesture at the branch that had tripped her up, then froze. It wasn't a log. She saw a tennis shoe and a leg covered in jeans.

  She had stumbled over a body.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  They waited by the tent for the police to arrive. Moira was cold, but it was a faraway feeling. She knew that she was in shock. No one was ever prepared to find a body in the snow, especially not at a Christmas tree farm. She and David had dusted off the body, under the faint, useless hope that the man might still have been alive. He wasn't.

  When they had told the proprietor, Chris, what had happened, he hadn't believed them at first. Somehow, the looks on their faces had convinced him.

  “How did he end up out there?” David asked, shaking his head and gazing down the driveway.

  “Maybe he got lost,” she suggested. “If he was drunk, and wandered into the woods, he might have died of hypothermia.”

  “No,” her husband said. “That was Harper Nowak. You met him, a couple of days ago, remember?”

  She felt her breath catch in her throat. David was right. She hadn't recognized him at first because she had only seen the man once before, and he had been alive then, but it was Mr. Nowak. Once her husband had made the connection, she was sure of it. The paranoid Mr. Nowak and the body they had found were one and the same.

  “Nowak wasn't a drunk,” he continued. “Besides, I saw blood on his shirt. How ever he died, it wasn't an accident. I would be willing to bet that somebody killed him.”

  The first police vehicle pulled into view, and the two of them stra
ightened up. Moira had a lot to think about, and had many questions that she wanted to ask her husband, but now wasn’t the time.

  After the police verified the body's location, and the forensic team began taking photos of the area, Detective Jefferson and two police officers returned to where she, David, and Chris were waiting.

  One of the younger officers spoke to Moira, while Detective Jefferson talked to David. The deli owner was distracted as she answered questions. She couldn't stop glancing toward her husband. He had known the dead man. She didn't know how well he'd known him, but he must have met him at least a couple of times. What must he be feeling right now?

  She didn't know much about Mr. Nowak's case, but she remembered David telling her that he had been paranoid that his own wife had been trying to murder him. Is that what had happened here? She felt a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather. If that was what had happened, would David blame himself for not solving the case in time?

  “Mrs. Darling?” the officer asked.

  She jolted, realizing that she hadn't been listening. "Sorry, what was that?"

  “I asked if you knew the victim at all.”

  “I had only met him once,” she said. “I… I didn't even really meet him. He was just talking to my husband for a few minutes on the street before we got into the car.”

  “What do you know about Mr. Nowak and your husband's relationship?”

  “Mr. Nowak was my husband's client,” she said. “That's all I really know.”

  “Do you know the last time your husband saw Mr. Nowak?”

  “I think on Sunday, which is when I saw him too,” she said. “Why don't you just ask him?”

  “We will,” he said. “According to your statement, you tripped over the body. Doesn't that seem like something of a coincidence to you? What were you doing so far out in the woods, anyway?”

  “I was just looking for a Christmas tree,” she said. “There are so many pine trees in this forest, I didn't realize that we had left the farm.”

  “Was there anything that made you go the direction you did? Any tracks you were following?”

  She frowned, trying to think back. “Now that you mention it, I think so. There weren't any fresh tracks, but there was definitely an old path through the snow. That must be why I thought we were still going the right direction. It definitely looked like someone had walked out there before.”

  “Recently?”

  “I… I don't know,” she said. “Maybe the night before? The tracks were covered in snow.”

  He nodded, making a note. “Did you touch the body or move it in any way?”

  “No,” she said. “Other than dusting the snow off to see if there was any way he was still alive. It was obvious that he was dead, so we didn't touch him, not even to check for a pulse.”

  “Thank you for answering my questions, Mrs. Darling,” he said. “I think that’s all we need. I’m sure Detective Jefferson will give you a call if we need anything else. I hope you have a good holiday.”

  With that, he was gone. It only took Detective Jefferson another couple of minutes to finish talking to David. By then, the officer that had been taking Chris's statement was done as well. The gruff, white-haired man, looked thoroughly shaken by everything that had happened. Moira felt bad for him. This wasn't the sort of thing that anyone ever wanted to happen on their property. She made a note to tell David that she wanted to come back here to get a tree later. She didn’t want the poor man to lose out on their business after everything else. Of course, that was if he didn't blame them for what had happened. She knew that when people were upset, they could be irrational.

  “Well, I guess we’re free to go,” her husband said, coming over to her.

  “We should get home,” she agreed. “We need to talk.”

  “I swear, nothing like that has ever happened here before,” the older man said, walking with them over to their car. “I'm really sorry, to both of you.”

  “It's not your fault,” Moira said. “We shouldn't have gone so far out there. I didn't even notice that we had left the actual farm. I'm glad we did, though. Otherwise, who knows how long that poor man may have been out there.”

  “I wasn't meaning to eavesdrop, but it sounds like the two of you knew him?”

  Moira nodded. “Not well, but my husband took a case for him. Did you know him?”

  Chris shook his head. “I don't recognize the name, at least. If I saw the man's face, I might, but… well, I don't want to go looking at a dead body just for that. I'm sure the police will show me pictures of him later. I’ve got to go down to the station once I get things tidied up here. My poor wife, she’ll just have a heart attack when she finds out what happened.”

  “I hope everything gets straightened out for you,” David said. “And I hope this doesn't impact your business much.”

  “It might,” the man said. “But at least most everyone has their tree by now. Hopefully, by next year, this will have blown over.”

  Moira waited until David pulled out of the driveway to ask her husband about what had been on her mind. “I'm sure you already told Detective Jefferson most of this, and I get if you don't want to talk about it right now, but do you think Nowak’s wife did this?”

  David hesitated. “Honestly, I'm not sure. I had already been working his case for about two weeks. Ashleigh – his wife – never did anything that I found suspicious.”

  “Why did he think that she wanted to kill him?”

  “He said that she's been trying to poison his food,” David said. “The symptoms he described to me sound like he just has a sensitive stomach, but he was adamant that he wanted someone to tail his wife and see what she's been up to. I took the case because I thought it may calm him down, but it didn't. He latched onto every single unusual thing that she did. And I don't mean unusual as in suspicious, I mean something like if she stopped at a different gas station than usual, or ordered something new at the Chinese restaurant. Nothing about his wife struck me as odd, but he did. I think the poor man was suffering from paranoia, and possibly an undiagnosed stomach problem. That's it. At least, that’s what I thought until now.”

  “Now do you think that she might have done it?”

  He shook his head. “Now, I'm not sure what to think. All I know is that a man came to me because he was afraid that someone was trying to kill him, and now he's dead.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  Instead of going home, David drove them to his office. The building hadn't been used in days, and Moira felt strangely unsettled as she flicked on the lights, half expecting to see cobwebs and dust covering the surfaces.

  “What are you looking for, exactly?” she asked.

  “All of the pictures I took when I was tailing his wife. I saved them onto the desktop in here.”

  “You can't access them from our computer at home?”

  He gave her a puzzled look. “No, I saved them to this computer.”

  “Whenever I take a photo, it automatically saves somewhere on the Internet, and I can access it from anywhere,” she said. “Candice showed me how to set that up before she left earlier this year.”

  “Well, I still save my photos the old-fashioned way. That doesn't sound very secure, to store them in the cloud. Everything I'm doing is confidential. I don’t trust a storage device that I can’t see.”

  Moira chuckled. In many ways, David was much better with technology than she was, but he was still decidedly old-fashioned on some issues. He enjoyed using everything that computers offered, but he didn't seem to trust them. He set up a security system for her, and had showed her how to access the website to view the videos from any device, but he hadn't upgraded his own desktop computer for probably ten years. He was definitely a man of habit. She wondered, not for the first time, just how hard it had been for him to change all of those habits when they had gotten married.

  “Well, this'll take a second to turn on,” he said. “This old thing doesn’t like waking up w
hen it’s been off for a while.”

  “I know you're looking for pictures,” she said, leaning against the desk next to him. “But what exactly are you looking for? What are you hoping to find?”

  “I just want to go through them again,” he said. “I feel like this is my fault. The man is dead, Moira. And he was depending on me to save him.”

  “It wasn't your responsibility to protect him.”

  “When I took the case, there was a promise that I would do everything I could to solve whatever mystery he wanted me to. Maybe because I didn’t believe him, I overlooked something important. It can’t be a coincidence that he died not long after he came to me convinced that someone was trying to do him in.”