“The town hall burned down. This is temporary until they can rebuild.”

  “Gosh, I didn’t hear about that,” I said. “When did it happen?”

  “Nineteen eighty-four. That they’re still gathering here might have something to do with the aforementioned post-meeting serving of pie.”

  The man seated next to Randy Baumgartner, resplendent in the chain of office worn over his denim shirt, stood up. He was a hefty guy in his late thirties, at that stage of a man’s life when muscle competes with fat to see which will dominate as he moves into middle age. His goatee was neatly trimmed and his brown hair combed. He gave me a quick glance, a slight smile. I smiled back, just being polite. Then he turned his attention to the matter at hand and pounded the table with a gavel. “Shut up, everyone. As I believe Ralph so astutely said, let’s get this show on the road.” Another quick glance at me. “For those who don’t know me—”

  “Everyone knows you, Graham. Get on with it,” a woman called.

  He cleared his throat. “Just going through the formalities, Edith. I am Graham Johannesen, here to conduct this meeting and take the minutes. This is the monthly meeting of the Muddle Harbor town council. Anyone who’s not here for that is welcome to leave.” This time he pointedly looked at my father.

  “Carry on,” Dad said. “You all know me, Noel Wilkinson of Rudolph. I’m here today as an observer, as I have a keen interest in local politics.”

  “Yeah, okay. Whatever. I call the meeting to order.” More pounding of the gavel.

  Kyle stood in front of Graham. The town clerk straightened, lifted his chin as well as his gavel. He attempted to look stern and serious as his photograph was taken for the official record.

  “Johannesen,” I whispered. “That’s the name of Raquel Torrone’s mother’s family. I’d heard Dorothy’s brother lived in Muddle Harbor. Heck of a coincidence.”

  “Not really a coincidence, honeybunch,” Dad said. “You heard the name recently, and thus you noted it next time you heard it. Happens all the time.”

  “If our honored guests would keep their chatter to themselves, we can get on with it,” Graham said. “Thank you for your consideration. First on the agenda is to approve the minutes of the November meeting. Any comments? Any objections?”

  No one commented or objected. Someone approved the minutes, and someone else seconded. Graham jotted their names down on the laptop open in front of him. Then he said, “First item of business—”

  “I’ll have another coffee,” Randy shouted. “Janice, coffee!”

  Janice stepped forward. She was not carrying her ever-present coffeepot. “The order of business has changed.” She shifted her feet and wiped her hands on her apron. My dad sat straighter.

  “You can’t do that,” Graham said. “We have to follow the agenda. As you can see, the first point to be discussed is the issue of that big-box store chain wanting to open a location in our town.”

  “Which,” Janice said, “brings me directly to my point, thus keeping to the agenda as outlined in crayon on a bar napkin last night.” She cleared her throat and shifted again. A few people exchanged questioning looks. Randy peered into his cup, disappointed coffee hadn’t magically appeared.

  “Those people have no intention of opening a store in Muddle Harbor,” Janice said. “Not the way things are now. That meeting was eight months ago, and you haven’t heard a word since.”

  “They’re playing it cool. A negotiating ploy,” Randy said. “Common tactic in business at our level. Get back to your kitchen, Janice. I see the Rudolph folk haven’t got their food yet.”

  A collective gasp went up from the women in the room.

  “Not a politically astute comment,” Vicky mumbled gleefully.

  If Randy’s intention had been to force Janice to retreat, he only managed, as could have been expected, to put the fight into her. She lifted her chin, turned away from him, and addressed the room. “No one is investing in Muddle Harbor. This town is dying, and our useless mayor hasn’t a single idea about how to save it. I do.”

  “Order, order.” Graham pounded the table with his gavel. “We’ll put your concerns under new business, Janice.”

  “I want to hear what she has to say now,” a woman yelled. Ohers murmured their agreement. Randy opened his mouth. He closed it again. Graham looked unsure and lowered the gavel.

  Janice didn’t wait for permission to continue. “We live next to one of the fastest-growing, most prosperous towns in this area. Are we taking advantage of that? No, we are not. We’ve let old resentments and old thinking by old men—and that means you, Randy Baumgartner—let every opportunity we’ve had to seek new opportunities pass us by. Noel Wilkinson!”

  Dad stood up, obviously prepared for this. “Yes?”

  “What’s the current vacancy rate of hotels and B and Bs in Rudolph?”

  “Zero,” Dad said. “In fairness, I will point out that it is the holiday season. At other times of the year, the vacancy rate varies between five to fifteen percent.”

  “Rhonda, what’s the current vacancy rate at the motel?”

  A wild-haired woman stood up. “I don’t know about the arithmetic of it, but maybe we’re quarter full for the next two weeks. Almost every one of those folks said they couldn’t get a room in Rudoph so they booked with me.”

  “Noel, what would you say is the current number of vacant stores on your main street?”

  “One,” Dad said. “Due to unexpected circumstances, the specialty olive oil and balsamic vinegar shop had to suddenly close before Thanksgiving.”

  “How many olive oil and balsamic vinegar stores do we currently have in Muddle Harbor?” Janice asked, somewhat redundantly.

  “There are stores selling nothing but oil and vinegar?” someone asked.

  “A tourist favorite,” Dad said. “They make attractive gifts for people who enjoy cooking.”

  “Graham,” Janice demanded, “as the town clerk, part-time, unpaid or otherwise, can you tell us what percentage of the stores on Main Street are currently vacant?”

  “I don’t have that information at my fingertips. I’ll have to check.”

  “Anyone want to venture a guess?”

  “A lot?” a man said.

  “Yes, a lot. I don’t need to guess, nor do I need to check. Half. And you wonder why you haven’t heard from the big-box store people in eight months?”

  “She’s got a point,” Rhonda said. “The only reason I can keep my business going is my parents bought the land the motel stands on back in the sixties.”

  “We have no need of any help from Rudolph.” Randy’s face was turning a decided red, and a vein pulsed in his forehead. I checked my phone was at hand in case of the need to call 911.

  “We do, and you’re too darn proud to admit it,” Janice said. “But someone has to. I hereby announce my candidacy for mayor of Muddle Harbor.”

  “You … can’t,” Randy gasped.

  “Of course I can. My hat is in the ring. I will be raising funds for my campaign and asking for volunteers. In the meantime, I am open to bringing anyone onto my team who has intelligent, modern solutions to our problems. And that includes working with the good citizens of Rudolph, always ensuring the interests of Muddle Harbor come first and foremost. Now, who wants pie?”

  The room burst into an uproar, everyone talking at once. People leapt to their feet and slapped Janice on the back or shook her hand. The woman looked slightly stunned, and I hoped she wasn’t going to come to regret taking on the task. I heard plenty of comments along the lines of “about time.”

  The waitress began bringing out plates, napkins, and forks and arranging them on the counter. Next came an assortment of pies.

  “Likely the first time in the history of Muddle Harbor,” Vicky said, “no one’s rushing to be front of the line for pie. As I still don’t have my carrot cake, I might check them out. Research purposes only, of course. In case I do a second book.” She stood up and made her way through the excited crowd.

  “A picture for the Chronicle,” Kyle yelled. “You, Casey, get out of the way; I want a photo of the mayor-to-be.”

  “Been thinking about doing some shopping in Rudolph.” An elderly woman stopped at our booth and spoke to my dad. “My husband always says Rudolph’s no place for a decent woman, but I figure why not see for myself.”

  “Why not indeed,” I said. “You must drop in at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures and then have lunch at Victoria’s Bake Shoppe.”

  Graham Johannesen abandoned his gavel and joined the crowd around Janice. Randy Baumgartner stayed where he was, sunken into his seat. Not a single person approached him offering their support.

  “Good job, Noel.” Vicky returned with a slice of blueberry pie and another of pecan. “I would have brought a piece for you, but I didn’t know what you wanted and several varieties are on offer.”

  “Hard work’s still to come,” Dad said. “People get excited at new possibilities easily enough, but soon interest begins to fade and it all seems like too much bother.”

  “Poached eggs, soft, bacon, sausage,” a young waitress said. “Potatoes browned.”

  I lifted my hand, and she put the laden plate in front of me. “Carrot cake?”

  “That would be me,” Vicky said. The cake was arranged next to her two slices of pie. It was triple layered, bursting with shredded carrot and nuts, lavishly filled and decorated with thick coatings of cream cheese icing. I refrained from making a comment as we both picked up our forks.

  The breakfast was as delicious as ever, and I finished it. I’d regret having it all later, but right now, my tummy was content. Vicky managed to eat all her carrot cake, including scraping up the last of the icing, and she’d enjoyed half of each diner-size slab of pie. Dad helped her finish off the pie. Vicky, I knew, would not regret eating so much. Life, as I often reflected, was not fair. Vicky made her living baking, and thus tasting, wonderful things, yet she remained model slim. Whereas I tried, and usually failed, to watch everything I put in my mouth, which quickly made its way to my hips.

  The meeting was breaking up now. People yelled their encouragement to Janice as they left or assured her they’d be in touch about working on her campaign. Janice had taken a seat at a booth with three middle-aged women. Pens and pads of paper and phones were brought out and heads bent as they made their plans.

  I hadn’t seen Randy Baumgartner slink away, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Do you think Randy will give in gracefully?” I asked Dad.

  “Hard to tell. He should have known Janice was interested in his job; she’s been asking questions about the running of town council and what’s involved in doing the mayor’s job. That he was so obviously completely blindsided is, once again, an illustration that he truly doesn’t know, or care, what goes on in his town. He likes the limelight. Being the big fish in an excessively small pond.”

  “Seems to me as though all the enthusiasm is on Janice’s side,” Vicky said.

  “For now,” Dad said. “We will see.”

  Vicky chuckled. “He didn’t do anything to keep the women on his side, not with that crack about Janice getting back to her kitchen.”

  Dad slapped his hands together. “My work here is done. Time to be heading home. I offered to put in a shift on the sleigh today. Sit up front with the driver and wave to passersby.” On weekends in December, the Yuletide Inn provides a horse-drawn sleigh to ferry guests between the hotel and town and up and down Jingle Bell Lane.

  “I got some great shots.” Kyle stood by our booth. “Sorry about not including you, Vicky and Merry, but … uh …”

  “We’re not news in Muddle Harbor,” I said.

  “Right.” He had a firm grip on Graham Johannesen’s right arm and pulled the man forward. “Here’s someone who’d like to meet you. Graham, these are the ladies I told you about.”

  Graham smiled at me for a beat longer than polite before turning to Dad and Vicky. “Nice to meet you.” He and Dad shook hands.

  “Vicky and Merry were the ones who found Raquel,” Kyle said.

  “Oh,” I said quickly, “I’m sorry. Were you and she close?”

  Graham looked down. “I won’t say close, not really. I hadn’t seen her in a few years. She was my cousin. Sort of a cousin. My granddad and her great-aunt, Dorothy, were brother and sister, so we had the same great-grandparents. Is that second cousins?”

  Before anyone could try to work out the family tree, Kyle sucked in a sob. “I still can’t accept it.” His eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. “I hadn’t seen her for a long time either, but I always hoped she’d come back to Rudolph someday. That we’d …” He started to cry. He grabbed my arm. His eyes were wide and wet, his focus intense. “You saw her, Merry. After … after … How did she look? Even in death, was she as beautiful as ever? She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever …”

  My dad got to his feet. He took Kyle’s hand off my arm, not unkindly. “Why don’t you have my seat. We’re leaving now. Take a couple of minutes to yourself.”

  Kyle sat, and his head dropped to the tabletop. He wrapped his arms around his head, and he began to weep. Great racking sobs. Dad, Vicky, and I looked at each other. Graham backed slowly away. “Okay, then. Sorry buddy. Uh … see you around. I get to Rudolph now and again. I’ll look you guys up next time I’m there.”

  Kyle lifted his head. His face was streaked with tears, his eyes and nose red. He sniffled heartily. “Wait! Graham! You’re her cousin, right? That means you’re family. I went to the hospital after … after it happened. I asked to see her, but they wouldn’t let me. I’m not a relative, they said.”

  “I don’t know if distant relatives can get into the morgue,” Dad said. “The police will be releasing the body soon, and her parents will be in touch with those who want to pay their respects.”

  “But I wasn’t just anyone to her,” Kyle insisted. “We were … we had something really special. Truly deep. Soulmates. Sure, she went away for a while, but I always knew she’d remember what we meant to each other and come back someday.”

  Embarrassed by the sudden display of emotion, Graham continued to back away.

  “Why don’t you and Vicky be off home, honeybunch?” Dad said. “I’m in no hurry, so I’ll stay with Kyle for a while.”

  Vicky and I grabbed our bags and slipped away.

  “Who is that guy?” Graham said as we passed him. “Do you know him? I thought he was part of Janice’s press team, and then, out of the blue, he started blathering on about Raquel.”

  “I don’t know that Janice has a press team,” I said. “When did you last see Raquel?”

  “It’s been years. I didn’t even know she was back in Rudolph. I haven’t had any news of her since Aunt Dorothy died.”

  “Since Dorothy died? That was a few years after Raquel left town. Did she keep in touch with Dorothy?”

  “A bit, yeah. I knew Raquel sometimes skirted the law. Nothing serious, though. Aunt Dorothy thought it was a great lark, and she loved to tell me all about it.”

  “She did?”

  “I used to go round to the house to do errands for her. Cut the lawn, that sort of thing. No one else would do it. Aunt Dorothy never got on with the rest of Raquel’s family. Only Raquel herself, so they kept in touch even after Raquel left town.”

  This came as news to me, although I had to admit there was no reason for me to be aware of what Raquel, a person I hadn’t seen or heard of since high school, was up to. Still, everyone said no one had heard from her since she left Rudolph. Such would appear not to be the case. “Did she ever say anything to her aunt about counterfeiting?” I asked.

  “Counterfeiting?” His eyes widened. “You mean printing money? Was she?”

  “It would appear that might have been going on in the house where she died, yes.”

  He chuckled. “Can’t say that comes as a total surprise to me, but Aunt Dorothy never mentioned anything like that. It was mostly about how easy it was for Raquel to get money out of lonely old men. Aunt Dorothy liked to hear stories like that. Aunt Dorothy didn’t like men much. She didn’t like many people, come to think of it. Other than Raquel, and maybe me. She told me many times to keep a firm hand on my wallet and not let some cheap floozy know how much I had.”

  “Can’t say I’ve heard the word floozy for quite some time,” Vicky said. “If ever.”

  I, however, had. It was the exact word Bob had used when trying to convince his late wife to change her hairstyle. Clearly, a generational thing.

  Graham grimaced. “I won’t deny I was disappointed when Aunt Dorothy died and she left her house to Beth Torrone, who never had the time of day for her. Not to Raquel or even to me. All those times I cut her lawn or shoveled snow because she didn’t want to pay for some neighborhood kid to do it. Not that I minded, of course,” he added quickly. “Always happy to help out. Raquel would phone her from wherever she was living and tell Aunt Dorothy about what sort of scams she was up to. That amused the old lady no end. And then Dorothy cut her out of the will in favor of people who didn’t want anything to do with her. Dorothy wasn’t the easiest person to get on with, but you have to make the effort, right?” He gave me a crooked smile. He wasn’t bad looking, but I didn’t care for something about that smile. I doubted he helped out his elderly aunt from the sheer goodness of his heart. He was clearly hoping to be mentioned in the will and angry when that failed to happen.

  Not the first person to be disappointed when the will was read, and unlikely to be the last.

  Which made me wonder if Raquel had also been disappointed and angry not to inherit at least part of the estate from her great-aunt. Yes, she might have gotten some of it, eventually, when her parents passed on, but her parents were not elderly, and she had two older brothers. It would be a long time before even a portion of the value of the house came to her. I couldn’t see how that might relate to her murder, but I put the idea in the back of my mind to ponder later.

  “Will you look at the time,” Vicky said. “I have a business to get back to, Merry. And the store will be opening soon.”