Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(83)

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make money for them. It’s not some sort of welfare scheme, you know.”

“You said it,” snapped Bill. “They’ve got me taking from the poor and giving to the rich and I’m not going to do it.

We’re going to get out of this filthy town and go somewhere where the air is clean and people are honest.”

“I’m warning you, son,” said Bill Sr. “I can’t approve of you putting your family and your livelihood at risk like this.

Don’t come whining to me looking for a handout when the wolf is at the door.”

Lucy smiled grimly to herself. Despite Bill’s high hopes they hadn’t found either clean air or honest people. The local weather forecast announced frequent bad air days, thanks to prevailing winds that carried pollution from the entire country. And the big story last week in the town’s little newspaper alleged that a sweet-faced church secretary, beloved by the entire congregation, had embezzled several thousand dollars for a trip to Las Vegas. Bill had succeeded, however, in bringing the wolf to the door, but there was no way he was going to give his father the satisfaction of asking for help. That would be admitting defeat and Bill wasn’t about to do that.

So they wouldn’t be seeing the elder Stones this year, either.

So here she was, she thought, looking around the kitchen and not liking what she saw. There were no cabinets, no counters, just a stained old Kenmore gas range that was at least twenty years old that stood next to a nasty old porcelain sink with exposed plumbing beneath. The refrigerator stood across the room in lonely splendor, its white porcelain door speckled with rust and its rounded top a slippery slope for anything that she set on top of it. Which she did, having no other place to store things she didn’t want Toby to get into. The wallpaper, a flamboyant pattern featuring black swirls punctuated with red and yellow teapots, was torn, and the patches of plaster that were revealed were painted in various colors of green and beige. Lucy regularly washed the green speckled linoleum that covered most of the worn wood floor but no 284

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matter how hard or how often she scrubbed, it still looked dirty and dingy. And this, she thought with a sigh, was just the kitchen. She didn’t even want to think about the rest of the house, especially the breezy, rattle-trap room that served as a nursery where Toby was napping under a pile of quilts and blankets.

The cookie dough was ready, she realized, mixed to perfection as she fumed about her situation and she chuckled to herself. Anger and resentment were good when you needed muscle power, but not good for the soul. Or for relationships, she thought, hearing Bill banging nails in the living room. It was definitely time she adopted a more positive attitude. It was Christmas after all, and she wanted their first Christmas in their own home to be special.

Lucy was smiling as she stuffed the dough into the cookie press and screwed on the end cap. She heard the hiss of the burner as the oven heated and she switched on the radio, turning the dial until she found a station playing Christmas carols. She hummed along, turning the crank and squeezing out perfect little rosettes onto the cookie sheets. When she’d filled both sheets she placed a bit of glazed cherry in the center of each cookie and slipped the pans into the oven, which the thermometer she’d hung from the rack indicated was a perfect three hundred and fifty degrees.

Toby was stirring upstairs so she climbed the rickety back stairs that led to the second floor bedrooms. She pushed open the door and peeked inside, ignoring the walls that had been stripped down to the studs and the windows that rattled and went straight to the crib, where Toby was sitting in a nest of blankets and talking to himself.

“Did you have a nice nap?” she asked, lifting him out of the crib, nosing his tousled hair and sniffing his sweet baby scent, then took him by the hand and led him to the bathroom where he stood on a stool while she undid his overalls and then slid him on the blue plastic kiddie seat that sat on the toilet. The bathroom was another room that didn’t bear CANDY CANES OF CHRISTMAS PAST

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close examination, she thought, refusing to look at the spotted mirror on the medicine cabinet and the cracked pink tiles.

She checked the diaper he still wore for naps and found it dry; something to smile about. “You’re getting to be such a big boy!” she exclaimed, and was rewarded with a tinkle.

“You went in the toilet! Just like Mommy and Daddy!”

Finished, he raised his arms and bounced in the seat. Lucy slid him off and stood him on the floor where he squirmed and wiggled as she pulled on training pants and hooked his overall straps. At the second click he bolted shoeless for the door and she grabbed him by the back of his OshKosh’s.

“Shoes,” she said, leading him back to the nursery where he protested loudly as she wrestled him into a pair of almost new Stride Rite oxfords that were already getting a bit tight.

She was out of breath as she helped him down the back stairs to the kitchen.

Funny, she thought, helping Toby onto his booster seat.

The cookies ought to be nearly done by now but there was no delicious buttery smell. She filled his sippy cup with milk and then reached for the oven door, intending to give him a warm cookie. But when she peered inside the oven she discovered it was no longer hot, it was barely warm and the cookies hadn’t even browned.

She bit her lip and walked across the room to the refrigerator, where she reached for the box of graham crackers that was sitting on top. She opened it and pulled one out for Toby.