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  MISSING UNDER THE MISTLETOE

  A Flower Shop Mystery

  Christmas Novella

  Kate Collins

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  MISSING UNDER THE MISTLETOE

  A Flower Shop Christmas Mystery

  Copyright © 2017 Linda Tsoutsouris

  Smashwords Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  EPIGRAPH

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Dedication

  Other Flower Shop Mysteries

  ‘Twas the day before Christmas on New Chapel square

  Not a store front was empty, not a street corner bare;

  The red and green lights on the trees were a glowing,

  And last minute shoppers held bags overflowing

  For in a few hours the bells would be rung;

  The tree would be lit and the carols all sung

  But there were a few who were not in the spirit,

  While mysteries beckoned all those who would hear it

  For even through trouble, though heartaches evolve,

  There were gifts to deliver and cases to solve

  And Bloomers was nestled in one prime location,

  To bask in the town’s Christmas Eve celebration.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bloomers Flower Shop

  December 24th

  9:30am

  “Abby,” I heard Lottie call, trying her best to maintain a cheerful tone, “could you come out here for a minute? We have customers waiting.”

  I poked my head through the purple curtains separating the workroom from the sales floor and saw that Bloomers was already packed. Giving me a pointed, impatient stare was Mrs. Guilford, standing in front of the register holding a long branch of mistletoe, her wallet out, with one white glove pushed back just far enough to check her gold and diamond-laced wristwatch.

  Meanwhile Lottie, my long-time assistant, was bouncing between two couples with her hands full. Literally. She had a potted poinsettia in one hand and a white lily gift basket in the other. I immediately stopped what I was doing and headed for the register.

  Normally I enjoyed the Christmas Eve morning rush, but the spindle in the workroom was still half-full of orders that needed to be finished before the store closed at four o’clock, Lottie was besieged by customers needing help in selecting gifts, Grace was attending to thirsty customers in the coffee-and-tea parlor, and Rosa hadn’t yet returned from an early delivery. That left me popping back and forth between workroom and shop floor trying to be everywhere at once. My head was spinning.

  As I passed the parlor, I paused at the wide, arched doorway to ask Grace if she had a moment to spare, but she lifted her hands to show me a silver tea pot and a plate of piping hot scones on their way to be delivered. “I wish I had time to help you out, love, but as you can see, we’re jammed.”

  Scones. My mouth watered at the sight of Grace’s homemade scones, today’s flavor blueberry pecan. I knew I should have had Rosa make her famous egg dish, huevos ranchero, before sending her out for that delivery. I’d hurried out the door without having a bite, since the shops around the square open early on the morning before Christmas. Now I was starving, as I was sure my employees were. But the holidays were always crazy at Bloomers Flower Shop, so I just had to suck it up.

  Where was I? Oh yeah, breakfast.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Knight, but would you hurry, please?” Mrs. Guilford asked. “I am a very busy woman.”

  Oh, right. Mrs. Guilford.

  I pushed a lock of my bright red hair out of my eyes. I’d barely had time to blow it into its usual long bob that morning and now one side was hanging in my eyes and driving me crazy. “It’s Abby Knight Salvare, now. And of course I’ll hurry. I’m so sorry you had to wait.”

  Rosa suddenly burst into Bloomers, accompanied by a blast of cold air, causing the jingle bells we’d hung above the door to unharmoniously crash into the ceiling, stopping the store’s bustle momentarily. Before scurrying past, she caught my eye, nodding her head toward the backroom, flailing the curtains behind her, leaving me standing awkwardly before my perplexed customer.

  “I don’t have time for this.” And with that, Mrs. Guilford placed a twenty-dollar bill onto the counter. Picking up her mistletoe she added, “Keep the change.” And then she exited the shop in a rush.

  Lottie, who had returned to the register to ring up one of her customers, leaned close to whisper, “Actually, the mistletoe was twenty-one dollars.”

  As I headed toward the workroom I thought back to earlier that morning when Grace, Rosa, Lottie, and I had taken our traditional brisk Christmas eve morning walk around New Chapel’s town square. This morning we’d left just as the sun was peeking above the two-and-three story nineteenth century buildings, and holiday preparations were already getting underway.

  From Bloomers, we’d headed across the street toward the courthouse lawn, where booths were being constructed for vendors selling holiday decorations, ornaments, knit wear, snacks, and hot apple cider later that evening. Then we stopped to inspect our booth, just opposite Bloomers, where we’d be selling arrangements of holly, mistletoe, and poinsettias.

  On the other side of the courthouse square stood Churchill’s department store, the main Christmas shopping destination of downtown New Chapel, Indiana. The large, beautifully decorated old building occupied half a city block and was central to the annual Christmas Eve celebration. And that reminded me, I had to stop day-dreaming and get moving. Bloomers had been hired by Churchill’s to deliver and display two dozen poinsettias before the store opened at ten o’clock that morning. I glanced at my watch. We only had thirty minutes.

  When I entered the workroom, I found Rosa pacing back and forth, muttering something in Spanish as she fixed the black and gold head wrap that covered her ears. Poor Rosa. It was her first year working for me and she wasn’t accustomed to the holiday hassles.

  “Rosa, you’ve got to chill out and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “First, I am more than chilled. I am frozen stiff. I spent the last half hour standing on a small stool, hanging holly from the eaves of a Spanish colonial house, taking orders from a woman who seemed to think I knew only two words of English. Here and there!

  “And second, we have two dozen poinsettias and stands that still have to be delivered, carried inside, and arranged at Santa’s Village before ten. How will we finish it all?”

  “It’s okay, Rosa. We can be a little late.”

  “Ha! I used to work for Mr. Churchill and I will tell you this, he might look like San Nicolás but he is no saint. He does not tolerate his employees being late. Now where are the poinsettias so I can start loading them? I have the delivery van waiting in the alley.”

  “You can’t load them until the wrought iron stands are inside. I’ll have to give you a hand, though, because they’re heavy.”

  “You do not have time
for that and everyone else is too busy.” She started for the cooler only to pause and glance back at me, one eyebrow cocked. “Unless you want to call Marco for help, as I suggested earlier.”

  “We don’t need Marco.” Which wasn’t the truth, because the stands were made of heavy wrought iron so they wouldn’t be easily tipped by the line of children waiting to see Santa. But I couldn’t tell Rosa that because Marco and I hadn’t parted on the best of terms that morning. “Grace and Lottie will just have to manage without me for a while.”

  I was about to follow Rosa to the cooler when a small Christmas miracle happened. I couldn’t believe I was using those words to describe my zany cousin, but when the purple curtain parted, there stood the tall, beautiful Jillian Knight Osborne with a tea cup in hand, dressed almost head to toe in white.

  She had on a white snow cap over her long copper-colored hair, a white turtle-neck sweater beneath a furry white vest, sparkly silver leggings, and bright white snow boots that looked like they had never even seen the snow.

  Her smile turned to surprise as I rushed to hug her. “Jillian, thank God you’re here! I need you out on the sales floor now.”

  She blinked back a sudden rush of tears. “You actually want my help?”

  “Yes, so yank off that vest, grab one of the yellow smocks hanging in the storage closet, and get behind the register. That’ll give Lottie a chance to catch up back here. You’ll be fine.”

  She began listing off the reasons why she wouldn’t be fine as I made my way back to the work room. Rosa was inside one of our walk-in coolers, straining as she tried to carry two of the heavy wrought iron stands through the door.

  “Rosa, you’re going to hurt your back. We’ll have to take one out at a time.”

  “Twenty-four stands and then twenty-four poinsettias one by one? I’m telling you, Abby, we need Marco’s help.”

  “No, we don’t. We can do this if we work together.” The heavy stands were stacked on top of each other. I lifted one and carried it out to the workshop floor, then stopped. My arms were already burning.

  Rosa put her hands on her hips and gave me a perplexed look. “I don’t know what is going on between you and your husband, but you need to put that aside because we need his help now. So go down to his bar and get Marco or I will.”

  “I’m telling you we can do this, Rosa. Let’s stack two together then and lift on the count of three. Ready? One. Two –”

  It was almost ten o’clock when I knocked on the front door of Down the Hatch, Marco’s bar, just two buildings down from my shop. The lights were off and there was no sign of activity but I knew he was in there; we’d driven together. I just didn’t know what kind of mood I’d find him in.

  “It looks like the Grinch’s lair in there,” Rosa said, peering into the darkened glass between her gloved hands.

  “Tell me about it,” I said and knocked again. As I waited for him to open the door I glanced around. The entire square sparkled with brilliant red, green and gold decorations, shop windows abounded with Christmas candles, awnings were decorated with dangling doves, and red-wrapped wreaths hung from the fronts of doors. Then there was Marco’s bar. The black hole of Christmas cheer.

  Rosa turned to me and asked the question that I knew had been on everyone’s mind. “What happened between you and Marco? You haven’t been yourself all morning.”

  I sighed, feeling the start of tears. “Same thing that happened last year.”

  “What happened last year?”

  “All I can tell you is that for some reason Marco and Christmas don’t get along. I made the mistake of asking him why, but he wouldn’t answer.” I wiped away a stray tear. “I don’t know how to reach him.”

  She pounded on the door, trying to get his attention. “Maybe he will tell me why.”

  Good luck with that, I thought.

  “Morning, ladies,” Marco said from behind us, as if our earlier disagreement had never taken place. He was holding a paper coffee cup, steaming in the cold morning air.

  “Marco, you must come help us,” Rosa said. “Vamonos!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We have twenty-four iron stands and twenty-four pots of poinsettias to deliver and we are already late,” Rosa said. “We need your help.”

  He wiggled his key into the front door with his free hand, “No problem,” he said. “Where exactly are we delivering them?”

  “Santa’s Village at Churchill’s,” Rosa answered, and instantly Marco’s body tensed.

  “We must be quick,” Rosa continued. “Bring your coffee and come. We are late already.”

  “Nope. Sorry.” He opened the door and stepped inside, dropping his keys onto the long, polished wood bar the filled the left side of the room. “I’m not going anywhere near that place.”

  “Why?” Rosa asked, as we followed him into the darkened bar.

  “Because I can’t, that’s why.”

  “That is not a reason,” Rosa said.

  “Rosa, let’s go,” I said.

  “You want to know my reason?” Marco asked. “The Christmas carols, the shopping, the needy kids, the pushy parents. . .” He stopped and let out a long, frustrated sigh, running his fingers through the sides of his hair. “They make me crazy, that’s all.”

  “But that is Christmas,” Rosa said with a puzzled frown.

  “You can have it,” Marco muttered.

  “In other words,” I said to Rosa, “bah, humbug.”

  Marco stopped to take a drink of his coffee. “If you want to put it that way,” he said, “yes. Bah, humbug.”

  “Okay, I get that you don’t like Christmas,” Rosa said, “but think of it this way. All we need is twenty minutes to make a delivery. Thirty minutes, tops, I promise.”

  Marco stood there sipping his coffee, unwavering in his decision, his behavior so unlike my handsome hero that he felt like a stranger to me.

  “Forget it, Rosa,” I said, giving him a scowl. “We’ll manage ourselves.”

  “Santa Madre de Dios,” Rosa cried, finally losing her patience. “What is wrong with a man who would not want to help his own wife?”

  He grabbed his keys from the bar and started toward the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rosa pulled out of the alley and drove us toward Churchill’s. It was quite a sight to behold, even that early in the morning. Just outside of the department store’s main entrance was a scene straight out of a movie. The street was blocked on both sides of the building. Oversized candy canes and ornaments decorated the sidewalks. On the frosted courthouse lawn facing the store was a gigantic Christmas tree that stretched as high as the courthouse clock tower in the center of the square. Next to the tree was Santa’s sleigh being led by eight plastic reindeer, and beside that was a pathway marked by golden stanchions strung together with thick red rope, leading straight into the store.

  Already children and parents bundled in thick winter gear were beginning to form a line that extended out into the street. It had been a long-standing tradition that every Christmas Eve morning at ten on the nose, Santa would exit his indoor workshop, drawing a large crowd to Santa’s Village at the back of the store, right next to their two-story Christmas tree. Santa was always played by Mr. Churchill himself, sitting in his big red and gold chair in front of a tiny, brightly painted workshop. He would sit the children on his lap and make a big show of checking his list twice, and then hand out gifts, the most expensive ones first, until they were all gone.

  I could remember waiting in that line as a child. My parents and I would stand outside in the freezing cold and then slowly wind our way through the warm building, with me shedding layer by layer until my dad was holding all but my snow pants. My dad would tease me about being on the naughty list, but I never was. Although the other kids would be cranky and tired, I was always eager and wide awake. I couldn’t wait to see Santa.

  Churchill’s department store had been family owned for generations, but
Levi Churchill took the holiday to a whole new level. After his wife died he became wrapped up in the role of Santa Claus, even going so far as to grow a full beard and put on a few extra pounds to look the part. He seemed to be comforted by his role and was no longer content being confined inside the department store. He got the whole town involved.

  The jubilant tradition that was formed from Churchill’s tragedy was the New Chapel square Christmas Eve celebration. Once the sun had set, Santa would come outside to sit in his sleigh while the whole town turned out to count down the annual lighting of the star on top of the Christmas tree. It gave joy to Churchill, brought business back into the town square, and became a treasured memory for me and my family. I was thrilled to be a part of it again.

  Rosa turned the van into the alley behind Churchill’s where a tall, older woman wearing oval, black rimmed glasses, a festive red dress, and, what I could only describe as a modern beehive hairdo, stepped out of the delivery door to meet us. She had the van’s back doors opened before we could even exit the vehicle and, without any introduction, immediately began reading off a list of instructions.

  Rosa passed beside her with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We know what to do, Marcille,” she said in a surprisingly rude tone. “Move out of our way and let us work.”

  “You’re just lucky Mr. Churchill is running late,” Marcille snipped back, “or you’d be in real trouble.” She repositioned her glasses on her face and peered down at her clipboard. “He wants two dozen poinsettias lined up ten feet apart starting at the east door and ending at Santa’s Workshop.” She looked up from the clipboard to make sure we were listening. “And by the way, the east door is the main entrance.”