Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(54)

“Well, maybe Willard Cox,” she conceded. “He and Garth fought like cats and dogs. But I doubt Willard actually climbed up on Garth’s roof and jimmied the shingles, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Speaking of Mr. Cox,” I said, grateful for the opening she’d just given me, “he happened to mention an altercation you had with Garth.”

“Me?” A brief blip of annoyance flashed across her face.

“Yes, he said you accused Mr. Janken of poisoning your roses.”

“Willard said that? How absurd!” She laughed a tinkly laugh about as genuine as Maxine Fiedler’s hair color. “I never accused Garth of any such thing.”

“I heard the same thing from a few other people,” I lied, trying to rattle her.

But she was a cool customer.

“Golly, no,” she smiled serenely. “Garth and I had a perfectly cordial relationship. I pride myself in bringing out the best in even the most difficult people.”

“So you don’t think he poisoned your roses?”

“Not at all,” she cooed. “Roses get sick and die all the time.

I’m sure Garth had nothing to do with mine dying, and if Willard Cox or anyone else said anything to the contrary, they’re sadly mistaken.

“Gracious!” she said, jumping up from the sofa. “Look at the time!

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Laura Levine

“If I don’t get started refinishing the twins’ bedroom shutters, they’ll never get done in time for Christmas break.”

Her lips were smiling but her eyes had turned to steel. My audience with Libby had clearly come to a close.

I retrieved my shoes from her “mud rug” and as I did, I was gratified to see a defiant pink dustbunny clinging to the baseboard of her floor. Somehow the little devil had managed to escape annihilation during Libby’s recent waxing and buffing fest.

More power to you, little dustbunny, I thought, as I put on my shoes.

I thanked Libby for her time and headed back out to my Corolla.

I wasn’t buying her Little Miss Sunshine act, not for a minute. I’d bet my bottom Pop Tart her relations with Garth had been about as cordial as a Ku Klux Klan reception for Martin Luther King.

No, Libby Brecker had been lying through her perfectly whitened teeth. Now all I had to do was prove it.





Chapter


! Five #

That night, after a Spartan dinner of tuna and a toasted English muffin (honest, that’s all I ate!), I went out to the storage space behind my duplex and dug out my Christmas tree.

It was one of those wimpy tabletop models, with the ornaments already glued on—a sorry sight compared to the towering extravaganza at Libby’s.

I used to have real trees with real ornaments, but Prozac, convinced the ornaments were evil spirits from hell, was constantly diving at them with the ferocity of a kamikaze pilot.

The poor trees never stood a chance.

And so I was stuck with my pathetic tabletop model.

I plopped it down on an end table, and after dusting it off and draping it with tinsel, I turned to where Prozac was lounging on the sofa.

“How does it look, sweetie?”

She glared at it through slitted eyes and got to her feet. Tail erect and waving in anticipation of an ornament ambush, she cautiously approached it. Then she put her nose to one of the branches and took a sniff.

“So?” I asked. “What do you think?”

She sniffed under the tree, then turned to me.

What? No presents?

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Laura Levine

Then, having decided the tree was free of lurking enemies, she curled up and went to sleep.

Minutes later, I settled down next to her on the sofa with a cup of cocoa and a stack of Christmas cards. I’d long since conceded defeat to Prozac in the photo-card skirmish, and had picked up some cards with an old-fashioned drawing of Santa on the cover.

I got out my address book and began my task. I tried to think of heartfelt personalized messages in twentyfive words or less, but I couldn’t concentrate. Ever since I’d left Libby’s house that afternoon, I’d had the nagging feeling I’d seen something significant there. An elusive something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Now I drummed my pen against my teeth, trying to remember exactly what it was. Images began flitting through my brain: The Swarovski Rudolph, the family photos, the newspaper clipping, the trophies, the handmade Christmas angels, the “mud rug,” the defiant pink dustbunny— And that’s when it hit me. It wasn’t a dustbunny I’d seen clinging to Libby’s baseboard—it was a piece of flocking.

Pink flocking. Just like the pink flocking I’d seen on Garth’s Candyland roof!

True, Libby could have been working on a project of her own that involved pink flocking. The woman was probably working on more projects than the NASA space team. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help wondering if she’d picked up that piece of pink fluff while jimmying the shingles on Garth Janken’s roof.

Yes, folks. It’s very possible that Libby Brecker’s latest project had been Attempted Homicide.

Armed with my Dustbunny Discovery, I paid a visit to the cop in charge of the Janken case, Lt. Frank DiMartelli.

DiMartelli worked out of the West Los Angeles precinct, a concrete bunker of a building in a none-too-glamorous part THE DANGERS OF CANDY CANES