Page 86 of Sleigh My Heart

“Jonny, Cliff, and Junior?” Michelle’s head was spinning.

“Not according to Margarita. She claims to have sent her aunt Garmen’s address to bring some food over because she would be working late.” Jim leaned in. “But here’s the interesting part. The van from Garmen’s house, we got four sets of prints off it. Three were in our system.”

“Jonny, Cliff, and Junior?” Michelle asked.

“Yup. And the fourth we matched today. Elaine Smith.”

“Oh. She was more than the contact?” Michelle hadn’t seen that coming. Or her being a killer.

“And Garmen could connect her to Staniski and the sleigh.”

“So, did she have her big brother’s help?” Nick asked.

“The crime scene techs are scouring the roof for casing now.”

“Then she didn’t mean to kill Junior?”

“Nope. She was pretty torn up about him.”

Nick ran his palm over his chin. “Do we know who vandalized Mickey’s garage door?”

“I still think the only one who could have done it was Junior, but it didn’t seem like him,” she said.

“It wasn’t. Banks and Brannon brought in a seventeen-year-old for tatting up the high school with red paint. I did some checking. You arrested his mother on drug charges two weeks ago.”

“That would explain it,” Nick said.

“As for who was driving the van the day your father was hit, we can’t say. My best guess would be Junior. I don’t think he wanted to kill your dad, but just take him out of the festival.”

Nick stiffened.

Michelle could feel the shift in the air. She hated it. She wanted to grab his arm and keep him close, but he was up and out of his chair before she could move.

“I have to get going. Thanks for the updates, Jim.” He turned to Michelle and gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll see you later.”

“Hey, sorry, dinner didn’t work out last night.” Jim said.

Nick’s brow climbed halfway up his forehead.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot with everything. Mom invited you guys to dinner.”

His face blank, he nodded, then waved a farewell to her brother.

Crap. It was an innocent mistake.

“He seems to be handling this well.”

“Yeah.” He seemed to, but was he really? She stared at the door.

***

Nick broke an egg in the bowl. Steak, spaghetti, even meatloaf he could make edible, but cookies? Not his thing. “Are you sure I can’t just get store-bought cookies? Mabel’s Café downtown has some delicious snowflake ones.”

“No, Dad. We need homemade for Santa. And someone ate all the ones from the Swenson’s.” The way she stood with her hand on her hip said he wasn’t getting out of this.

“Fine, but I didn’t eat all those alone. I know you snuck more than a few.”

The festival was only two days away and he should be finding a Santa stand-in and building a sleigh from scratch. But even if he could do it, no way it would be the work of art his father’s sleigh was. Maybe he could break into the police impound and steal it back? Anything but Plan B.