I forgot that I needed my keys to let myself in and had dropped them into my purse. Sighing, I knocked softly on the candy store door, trying not to spill the coffees. My hands were full, and I couldn’t stop to dig through my purse to find the keys. When no one answered, I knocked again, louder this time. A few moments later my sister, Christy, poked her head outside of the kitchen door. When she saw me, she hurried over to the door and opened it for me.
“Good morning, Mia,” she said eyeing the box of donuts and coffee. “I see you came bearing gifts.” Christy wore a red apron and her hair was up in a bun.
I nodded. “You have no idea,” I said, and hurried back to the kitchen with the donuts and coffee. I put them down on the counter and Mom turned to look at me.
“Well, that’s a nice surprise,” she said. “I was just thinking I needed a refill on my coffee, and those donuts will go nicely with a fresh coffee.”
I nodded. “Yes, I thought you two would appreciate coffee and donuts. I love coffee and donuts. Don’t you love coffee and donuts? So you know how I am, I stopped by the bakery and got coffee and donuts. I would have gone to Amanda’s, but of course, she isn’t open yet. But, if you prefer her coffee, I can run over there as soon as she’s open.” I looked from Mom to Christy and back again.
“Are you okay?” Christy asked. “You sound like you may have already overindulged in caffeine and sugar. Or something.”
I stared her for a moment, then I turned and picked up a coffee from the cardboard carrier. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? I got us all vanilla lattes. I hope that’s okay?”
“Of course vanilla lattes are okay,” Mom said slowly. “What’s going on, Mia? You’re talking awfully fast.”
“I think you’ve had more than enough sugar already,” Christy said, picking up a cup of coffee.
I giggled. Then I took a sip of my coffee. I wasn’t sure if adding caffeine and sugar to my jangled nerves would make them worse or help me settle down. “All right, since there’s only the three of us here, I’ll tell you. Suzanne Wilson is dead. She was murdered.”
The vision of her in her green elf costume laying across the bench on the carousel kept flashing through my mind. I don’t know why some murders bothered me more than others, but hers bothered me a lot. I had gone to school with her, and she had been a cute, perky girl that everyone liked. We’d had a couple of math classes together during our four years in high school and I’d gotten to know her fairly well.
“What do you mean she was murdered?” Christy asked, stepping closer to me. “When? Where? How do you know?”
I took another sip of my coffee. “I found her. She was on the carousel and there was a knife in her chest.” I looked away, took another sip of my coffee, and then reached over and opened the box of donuts.
Christy gasped. “She’s really dead? On the carousel? How on earth did you find her? Wait, did you go back to the carousel after we left last night? Why would you go back?”
Christy was starting to sound like me, and she hadn’t even seen a dead body. I shook my head. “No, I found her this morning. I was driving to work, and for some reason, I decided to drive by the carousel. I was thinking about how much fun we had last night, and I don’t know, I just decided to drive by. When I saw all the lights were still turned on on the carousel, I stopped to see why. And there she was.”
“How terrible,” Mom said picking up the last cup of coffee from the carrier. “Did you call Ethan?”
“Yes, I called him immediately.”
“I wish you had called me,” Christy said. “You know I’m your partner in crime solving.”
“I know, but I’m telling you, making that stop was completely unplanned. I can’t imagine who would want to kill Suzanne.”
“So she was stabbed and left on the carousel?” Christy asked.
“Yes. She was still dressed as an elf, and somehow, that just makes it sadder.”
She nodded. “It really does. I wonder if she was killed there on the carousel or someplace else. But if she was killed someplace else, why did the killer bring her body to the carousel?”
“I don’t know. Maybe somebody has something against Christmas, and they wanted to ruin everyone’s holiday.” I took another sip of my coffee.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Mom said. “Was there anyone else around? I wish you wouldn’t investigate murder scenes in the middle of the night by yourself.”
I shook my head and picked up a lemon filled jelly donut. I wrapped a napkin around it and turned back to her. “I wasn’t investigating anything. I wasn’t expecting to find a murder victim there, it was an accident. I mean finding her was an accident, not that
