The Slay of the Santas Read online

  The Slay of the Santas

  The Jennifer Hunter Mysteries

  By: Kacey Gene

  The right of Kacey Gene to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patent Act 1988.

  Copyright © 2019 by Kacey Gene

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Acknowledgments:

  Yes, a writer spends countless hours by themselves staring at their computer and drifting into a world that they weave for their readers, but there are always people that help them get there. For me, my mother, Michele, has always been my number one reader, editor, and supporter. Whether it’s hashing through ideas, tearing through drafts, or revising the revised edits, she is always there to talk through my best and worst creative endeavors. So much of my writing is because of her, and my words would never form into what they are without her. I have always felt supported by my family, especially my sister, Lindsey, who challenges the world with her epiphanies and inspires me everyday in her warrior ways that are coated in love (GOWY, baby).

  My other editors, readers, and all around inspirers are my brilliant friends -- Sarah (girl, you give me so much love, support, and popcorn), Joe (aka Chips!), Travis (Le squeak!), and that great Ski-Ski Alex.

  And, of course, I want to thank all of you who support me through reading this book and the books to come.

  For My Ya-Yas: The biggest mischief makers of all

  Chapter One

  Christmas Craft Chaos

  Jennifer Hunter, or Miss Hunter as she's called by the second graders she teaches, always hears the screams first. And today, it is the scream of Lauren Bruso that grabs her attention.

  Jennifer is a small woman -- reaching only 5’1” -- and she’s round in places that let her second graders easily rest their heads on her lap or against her legs, and they feel comforted by her soft arms when she hugs them. She has deep brown hair that flows in soft waves to the middle of her back, and her hair always smells like cloves. Yet, it’s her straight nose, green eyes, and caring -- although firm -- voice that give her the calm authority she needs on a daily basis.

  “Hayden, honey, I’ll be right back,” she says.

  Hayden is eight years old; he has dark, poofy hair and a face that looks exactly like Elvis Presley. He’s attached to Jennifer at the hip, but since he’s focused on his crafting, which he told Jennifer involves “macaroni and the baby Jesus,” she can leave him to his pasta and settle the dispute that’s now increasing in volume. Jennifer’s actually relieved to have a break from watching a baby’s face be constructed out of macaroni. It is a terrifying sight.

  By the time Jennifer gets to the crime scene, Lauren’s tears have turned into blind rage. That rage is directed at Colin Majcina, whose eyes are as mischievous as his smile, which is as crooked as a hook.

  Squatting down, Jennifer puts her hand on Colin’s and Lauren’s shoulders.

  “He glued it,” Lauren cries. “He glued my hair.”

  Quickly eyeing Lauren’s cornsilk dark brown strands, which look like they’ve been dipped in marshmallow at the ends, Jennifer turns her full focus toward Colin.

  “Colin,” she says, looking straight into his nervous brown eyes, “tell me what happened.”

  Jennifer is used to having conversations like this. She’s been teaching second grade for eight years, so she’s seen it all -- boys who dipped their hands in honey so they’d be better at playing catch, girls who braided their hair into the hair of their best friend and then couldn’t get apart, and the one boy every year who is the bug collector. This year that bug collector is Trey Johnson. In fact, he’s currently making cockroach ornaments for his craft project. Jennifer is sure his mother, Janet, will love getting that surprise when she opens the present from him.

  “I didn’t do it,” Colin quickly says.

  “I didn’t ask if you did it,” Jennifer says. “I asked for you to tell me what happened.”

  Colin is stumped. This is the trick Jennifer uses with kids and with adults. She doesn’t ask for opinions; she asks for facts.

  “I might have had glue on my hands,” Colin confesses, now looking straight into Jennifer’s eyes.

  “And then what happened?” Jennifer asks, her voice always loving. Always promising that the confessor can tell her anything.

  “And then I might have wiped my hands in Lauren’s hair.” Colin’s eyes move over to Lauren, whose arms are crossed and lips are pursed.

  “Colin, who got hurt in this situation?” Jennifer asks, knowing that it’s her job to get these little ones to take responsibility for their actions.

  “Lauren got hurt.”

  “Then I think you know what to do.”

  Colin turns straight toward Lauren, who is still dead-eyeing him like she’s mentally plotting her retaliation. “I’m sorry, Lauren. I think your hair is really pretty.”

  And with one compliment, Lauren’s icy stance shatters. “It’s okay,” Lauren says, uncrossing her arms with a shrug. And then she shyly smiles and says, “You think my hair is pretty?”

  Jennifer can’t help but internally laugh as she grabs Lauren’s hand and says, “Let’s go wash that pretty hair out in the sink.”

  Surprisingly, the rest of craft time continues without a hitch. By the end of it, there are 22 holiday crafts -- ranging from the cockroach ornament and the baby Jesus macaroni figurine to a cotton ball snowman without a face and a three-legged reindeer made from pipe cleaners.

  Jennifer looks at the clock. There are only seven minutes left until the final bell. Seven minutes left until Christmas break. Seven minutes left until Jennifer can have two weeks full of sleeping in, crafting all day, and total relaxation. She’s already fantasizing about the peppermint ginger tea she has at home and the tree skirt crochet pattern she hasn’t even started yet. With the cold Wisconsin air already greying the sky this afternoon, she can’t wait to get home, start a fire, put on her favorite Christmas album, and get crafting.

  “Okay, kids,” she says, “everyone gather round. We’re going to read one story before I send you off for Christmas break.”

  The kids circle up as Jennifer pulls a book from the bookshelf that lines the side of the classroom wall. She snuggles down onto the soft carpet squares where the kids sit cross-legged with their elbows on their knees, waiting for her to take them to an imaginary place.

  But before she can even crack the book’s spine, Gabby has her hand in the air. Gabby has dozens of braids with bows at the ends; she loves to use large vocabulary words; and with every new activity, Gabby has at least two questions.

  “Yes, Gabby?” Jennifer asks.

  “I was curious as to who the gentlemen at the door is.”

  Jennifer’s heart skips, and she immediately panics that it’s Matt Kiley. He’s the fourth-grade teacher, and just this morning in the office he caught Jennifer off guard with a question she never would have expected. He asked if she’d like to get a drink with him over the break.

  Stunned and in a hurry, she gave a friendly, “That sounds great,” but when Matt’s face lit up, she realized that she might have agreed to something she didn’t realize she was agreeing to. A date.

  But it’s not Matt at the door. It’s Jake -- the 6’
3”, dark-haired, strong, and always trailed with trouble, Jake. He’s standing in her classroom door with a vulnerable and somewhat apologetic look that Jennifer knows all too well.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” Gabby asks, which initiates giggles from the entire class.

  Jake’s serious face cracks into one of slight embarrassment as Gabby and the other kids continue to giggle. Jennifer even thinks she spots a blush lightly come to his cheeks and a small smile attempt to grip his mouth.

  But Jake is not her boyfriend. And Jennifer knows there’s only one reason that he’s here. There’s a dead body somewhere surrounded by unanswered questions, and Jake needs her help.

  Chapter Two

  The Face in the Bowl of Pudding

  The house is made of large grey and brown stones, like it fell from the pages of an old fable book. It’s small, with only two criss cross windows, and the front entrance is cone shaped without any windows. It’s like a mini castle, Jennifer thinks.

  The house is about a ten minute drive from Main Street downtown, which is where Jennifer lives. Their town, Middlebridge, isn’t necessarily big by any standards -- every corner of it can be reached in under twenty minutes. It’s the kind of town where familiar faces smile at Jennifer in the grocery store, her doctor remembers when she had pneumonia in fourth grade, the woman who owns the local diner knows Jennifer’s order, and it’s also the kind of place where a secret transforms into gossip within a matter of hours.

  But Middlebridge is also a big enough town that Jennifer can look at the house in front of her and not know who lives there.

  Jennifer and Jake duck under the CAUTION tape, and Jennifer glides her hand across the large wooden front door that’s propped open. The entryway hall, which is long, narrow, and made fully of stone, is also pitch black and a bit musty. Jennifer imagines that living among walls and floors of rock lends itself to a bit of must. Jake clicks on his flashlight, but even that beam of light doesn’t do much to light the way.

  “Oh,” Jennifer yelps as one of the stones wiggles below her and sends her off balance. Without realizing it, she grabs onto Jake’s arm, which barely flinches against her grip.

  “You might as well just keep hold of my arm,” Jake says, carefully watching each one of his steps. “It only gets worse from here.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of walking,” Jennifer says, but the moment she gets the last prideful word out, another stone wiggles, causing her to topple and brace herself against the wall.

  “Perfectly capable, huh?” Jake says just under his breath, but Jennifer hears every word, and she sees the smile he thinks the unlit hallway hides.

  “Oh, shut up,” Jennifer playfully says, brushing off her grey pea coat. She pulls at the bottom of her cream cable-knit sweater and smooths her black skirt. When she feels her foot wobble beneath her again, she lets out a defeated, “fine,” and grabs onto Jake’s arm.

  It’s not that she’s upset Jake came to her for help. They’ve been friends since second grade, and she’s helped him out dozens of times before. And Jake always respects her rule: He can only ask for her help when she’s on holiday -- seeing as there’s no way she could balance crime solving and second graders. And they both know she can’t resist trailing a crime until it’s finally solved. She just wasn’t expecting him to show up the exact second her Christmas break started.

  She keeps thinking about all the presents she needs to make, and she can already hear the words of her demanding, always-in-competition-sister-in-law, Julie: Oh, I see you used regular strawberries for the jam this year. I only ever buy organic. I’ll send you an article about it.

  Julie buys organic, she only shops at stores that sell free-trade items, she’s vegan, and she has evangelical opinions about all of those choices. Jennifer likes Julie, it’s just that Julie is four months pregnant, and Jennifer promised a crocheted stocking for the baby-to-be. Julie will expect it to be perfect. And Jennifer doesn’t want to disappoint her -- or deal with the judgment and comments that come from that disappointment -- but she knows that for something to be perfect, it requires time and focus. And she only has four days until Christmas.

  But all of those thoughts drain from Jennifer’s mind when she and Jake turn the corner and she sees the victim. His white hair contrasts against the dark wooden table, which is where his face lies, in a bowl of something brown and liquified.

  “No. No. No. This is a possible crime scene. She cannot be here,” Captain Sharb barks. He comes waddling over to Jennifer and Jake, standing directly in front of Jennifer and blocking her view of the body.

  Jennifer has been helping Jake out with cases since the day Jake started at the Middlebridge Police Station. As Jake tells her each time he comes back to her for help, “No one's brain can piece together clues like your brain.” So Jake never got a partner, and the other officers at Middlebridge Station eventually accepted that Jake and Jennifer were going to periodically work together. It helps that Jennifer also brings her famous chocolate muffins into the station every weekend. That sweetens the other officers.

  Except Captain Sharb.

  “You know she can help,” Jake says, challenging Sharb.

  But Sharb is a Captain and Jake is a Lieutenant, so Sharb easily says, “I don’t care if she’s already solved this crime. I want her out of here.”

  Jennifer has never understood why Captain Sharb hates her so much. He’s built like a Russian Doll -- as if someone grabbed his middle, pulled from all sides, and then never balanced out the top and bottom of him -- and his face is always red, like he’s either on the brink of yelling or just finished yelling.

  “Sharb, let her through.”

  Jennifer would recognize that voice anywhere. It’s the Police Chief Jefferson Hollow. Of course, she doesn’t know him as “Police Chief Jefferson Hollow;” she knows him as Jake’s dad.

  “How you doing, sweetie?” Jefferson asks as Jennifer strolls right past Sharb. Jefferson envelops her in a hug and gives her a kiss on the cheek before he holds her by the shoulders out in front of him. “Pretty as a picture,” he says, shaking his head. “When is my knucklehead of a son going to come to his senses and marry you? I love it when my J&J are together.”

  Now it’s Jennifer who blushes. Jake’s dad has been calling them “J&J” since grade school and questioning their relationship since high school, even though they’ve explained millions of times that they’re “just friends,” and happy to be.

  “Do you think we could at least pretend to be professional, Police Chief Hollow?” Jake asks, circling the table where the victim lies.

  That table is in the middle of the kitchen, which looks like it traveled back in time. There are copper pots and dried bunches of herbs hanging from the dark, wooden beams that grid along the kitchen ceiling. The cabinets are made of chipped and distressed wood, and the stove sits by itself, taking up almost half of the wall. The stove has six doors on the front of it, and when Jennifer gets closer to it, she sees that it’s the kind of stove that has to be lit with a match.

  “Victim’s name is Fred Gailey,” Jefferson Hollow says.

  “That name sounds so familiar,” Jake says, reaching into his memory but coming up empty-handed.

  “It’s the father’s name in Miracle on 34th Street,” Jennifer says, having seen that movie hundreds of times. But she’s not focused on the victim’s name; her eyes are occupied with the stock pot, which could almost be called a cauldron due to its size, on the stove. It’s bubbled over with the same brown sauce that’s in the bowl on the table. It releases a stench that overrides the musty smell in the air.

  It’s a combination of hazelnut and milk with just a small hint of brewed coffee.

  “Pudding,” Jennifer says, returning her eyes to the brown liquid splattered across the table where the victim is. “He’s in a bowl of pudding.”

  “Well, look who cracked the case,” Sharb sarcastically says. “We know it’s pudding, but what this man was eating when he died isn’t why we’re here.�
��

  Jennifer is about to explain what she’s already pieced together, and what these other officers have completely overlooked, but before she does that, she crouches down and gazes into the cloudy blue eyes of the victim. They’re the most circular eyes she’s ever seen, almost like a fish’s eye. And that’s when she has her moment -- the moment when she thinks about how this man is possibly someone’s father, someone’s husband, someone’s friend, or someone’s smile on a bad day. She lets the sadness that he’s gone overwhelm her and then she makes him a promise -- a promise that she’ll find out what happened to him.

  “But he didn’t make that pudding,” Jennifer says, knowing that if he did, it would be on his clothes or smeared on his hands or forearms in some way. But his hands, which are splayed against the table like the arms of a cactus, are meticulously clean, not one crescent moon of darkness under his fingernails.

  “Well, this cabinet would disagree with you,” Sharb says, opening the cabinet that’s above to the white farmhouse sink.

  Jennifer can barely believe what she sees. There are pudding boxes lined up next to each other, stacked on top of each other, and shoved into every corner of the cabinet.

  “They’re all empty,” Jake says, walking by Jennifer. “All the pudding has been used.”

  “Why would he keep all the boxes?” Jennifer silently asks herself.

  “Not quite the detective you thought you were,” Sharb says, but Jennifer ignores his snide remark. Instead, she eyes the trash can, which is almost completely empty. More importantly, there isn’t one discarded box of the pudding mix in the trash, which further confirms her notion that Fred Gailey was put in a bowl of pudding, but not a bowl of pudding he made.

  “That does seem like a lot of pudding for one man,” Jake adds. The two police officers who have remained silent on the sides, scribble down notes and one of them moves to the pot of pudding and photographs it.