Page 16 of Always Murder

Sometimes, that’s intentional.For example, the client might be trying to frame the private investigator, to make him take the fall.And sometimes, it’s bad luck—the PI has gotten caught up in something larger than himself.Cozy mysteries do it too, or anything with an amateur sleuth.Pippi Parker—one of Hastings Rock’s local mystery writers—had a whole series of laundromat mysteries where the hapless laundress (is that the right word?) inevitably got caught up in murders she had no business solving.InLaundry List Murders, I think she was in charge of cleaning table linens for an American Legion banquet and when she showed up, she found a dead body stuffed in the bingo cage.(It must have been a huge bingo cage, but that wasn’t my biggest problem with the story.And yes, I still read the whole book.) Sometimes the sleuth is happily going about their normal life, doing their regular job, and they find a body.Or sometimes a friend asks for a favor, and they find a body.But it always ended up being a body.It was always murder.

A little voice at the back of my head said, For example, maybe your friend asks you to help prove that her brother didn’t steal some packages.

Except this wasn’t like that at all, I told myself.This was just me helping Millie.This was real life, not some plotty little mystery novel.And anyway—proof!—we’d gone to the shipping warehouse, and we’d talked to Luz, and there hadn’t been a single dead body.

There.

That was it.

The end.

I wiggled around some more, trying to get comfortable so I could focus on my manuscript.

Except—

No, I told that little voice in my head.Shut up.

Except now Paul was missing.

And let me tell you: I’m about as dedicated and committed and focused as they come, but if there’s one thing that can really ruin a writing session, it’s the possibility that the brother of one of your best friends has been murdered.

With a tremendous amount of regret, I decided I would have to stop writing for the day.There were more important things demanding my attention.Paul might be in danger.A fellow human being’s life was at stake.Besides, I’d made some pretty good, uh, progress today.I mean, not that you could see it on the page, but it was there in the conceptual work, plus the mental effort I’d exerted, and the prewriting, etc., etc.

I checked the time on my phone.

If I left now, I could still take Christine up on her invitation to go to the Christmas tree farm with the rest of the Naught family.

Yay.

Chapter 7

GaGa’s Christmas Tree Farm was located on a winding two-lane road, deep in the thick growth of Sitka spruce and lodgepole pine.It was only mid-afternoon, but the chilly gray of the day had darkened in the thick fog.Under the big trees, it was so gloomy I almost missed the turnoff: a massive wooden sign painted with a rosy-cheeked Mrs.Claus.The drive was smooth, clean asphalt that turned silver where my headlights touched it.(Okay, technically Bobby’s headlights, since I’d been forced to borrow his Pilot.) I drove for maybe another hundred yards through the fog, and then I cleared a line of cedars, and the tree farm appeared in front of me.

The phraseas if by magicpopped into my head because, well, it did look pretty magical.Lights hung everywhere—overhead, in long strands of Edison bulbs, and with multi-colored holiday lights framing the tree farm’s buildings.A big gambrel-roofed structure seemed to be the central location; it had been painted red, and it had the right shape and color for a barn, but it was too big and too new.On one gable hung a massive wreath with, yes, more lights.Firepits made little pockets of flickering orange in the fog, and a little farther, at the edge of my vision, I could make out the silhouettes of the rows of trees waiting to go home with a family.

It was harder than I expected to find a spot in the parking lot—which itself was nothing more than a layer of mulch bordered with old pine logs.Cars and trucks were coming and going, with families busily streaming to and fro; the ones coming back to their vehicles were, as often as not, loaded down not only with a tree, but with shopping bags and foam cups and s’mores wrapped in wax paper.

S’mores, my tummy said.

Ignoring it—kind of—I got out of the SUV and trekked toward the big red building.As I did, I worked my phone out of my pocket and texted Millie.

I’m here.When she didn’t reply, I said,Where are you?

Seconds passed, and still nothing.

I pocketed my phone.In an ideal world, I’d wander around for a few minutes, find the entire Naught family (including Paul), and ask him some hard questions—like why he’d lied about what had happened at CPF.If that was asking too much, I’d settle for confirmation Paul was still alive.I mean,someonein this family had to know where he was.Maybe it was just that I’d spent too long writing mystery novels.(And, frankly, doing my own snooping.) But that little plot-conscious guy in the back of my brain told me Paul’s disappearance, under these conditions, wasnota good sign.

On the other hand—as I frequently had to remind Fox—we weren’t living in an episode ofLaw & Order.

When I reached the big red building, I did a quick pass, looking for any members of the Naught family.

No luck.

The usual mix of holiday-goers surrounded me.A woman was cleaning up her daughter after what looked like a delicious massacre of cotton candy.And what must have been a sibling group, all of them with the same coloring and the same nose and a flatteringly complementary color scheme, was trying to take a selfie with a not-to-scale plastic Santa (he was way too skinny, for one, and for another, he topped out at about five feet).A group of teenage boys, dressed in jeans and heavy coats and work gloves, were talking and laughing as they worked together to shear trees into that pleasing Christmas tree shape.(You didn’t think theygrewlike that, did you?) The smell of cider and wood smoke and the clean sweetness of evergreen mixed pleasantly, and “Jingle Bell Rock” was playing over the loudspeakers.

It would have been a great place for a date.Bobby and I could have worn coordinating knit caps, and we would have walked through the trees (holding hands, obvs) until we were both chilly, and we would have gotten a selfie with that disproportionately small plastic Santa, and then we would have sat by one of the firepits, listening to Christmas classics, while Bobby prepared s’mores and I ate them (it’s the natural order of things).

The pang of longing was so sudden and so intense that it startled me.For a moment, I tried to fight it with logic.I couldn’tmissBobby; that didn’t make any sense.We lived together.We shared a bed together.(In the Biblical sense, yes, but also in the literal sense.) Even when he worked doubles, I saw him most days.

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