“Coming up,” Marjorie said.

  We took seats at the table. I studied Mrs. D’Angelo’s face. Some of the color was returning, her breathing almost back to normal. She gave me a weak smile. “I might have overreacted a fraction there. Sorry, dear.”

  “Overreacted about what?” Vicky said.

  “Here you go.” Marjorie placed three mugs on the table. “Can I get you something to eat, Mabel? We have a couple of mince tarts left, and you know how unusual that is at this time of day.”

  “A tart would be nice, thank you.”

  Marjorie bustled off. Vicky gave me a curious look. I shrugged in response.

  Mrs. D’Angelo took the first, long welcome sip of her drink. “How’s your cookbook coming along, dear?”

  “My book? To be honest, Mrs. D, it’s mostly out of my control now, and I don’t handle that too well. My editor wants some changes I don’t want to make.”

  “What sort of changes?” I asked.

  “She phoned me this morning, not long after you and that weird lot from Muddle Harbor were here. She doesn’t want three recipes for Christmas cake. She says no one eats fruitcake these days. I said they do at my place. She said the readers won’t be at my place, will they, but baking for their families. And their families don’t want fruitcake. One fruitcake recipe is enough, although she’ll accept two at a pinch. She wants another cookie recipe to replace the third cake. I told her I’ve given the book the best cookie recipes I have and I have no time to develop any more. I fear we left things at an impasse.” Her face crinkled up in thought. “Do you suppose they’ll dump me and the book if they think I’m being difficult?”

  “They’re not going to dump you, Vicky. Not only do you have the advance in your dough-covered little hands, but they’re invested in the book. They understand; you all have the same goal here. To produce the best book possible. Some back-and-forth is not only acceptable but desirable.”

  “Donalda told the police I was the mastermind behind the counterfeiting ring!” A line of whipped cream covered Mrs. D’Angelo’s top lip.

  Vicky’s mouth snapped shut. I stared at Mrs. D’Angelo open-mouthed.

  “What?” we said simultaneously, once we’d recovered our wits.

  “They came to my house. Detective Simmonds and little Candy Campbell.” I doubted Officer Campbell would be all that pleased at being called little Candy, but I supposed she was used to it, trying to be a police officer in a town where people remembered seeing her pee her pants onstage in the first-grade Christmas play.

  Heck, even I remember that. I’d been standing next to her.

  “Without naming names, Detective Simmonds said I’d been seen in the vicinity of that house in the days before Raquel’s death. Sneaking was the word their source used. As if!”

  “What did you say?”

  “I denied it, of course. Quite firmly. I might have been attempting to pay a neighborly call, as one does in this town, but I was most definitely not sneaking.”

  “Here you go. A nice mince tart. I took the liberty of getting one for you too, Merry. And Vicky.” Marjorie put a plate on the table between us.

  “Thanks,” Vicky said.

  “We’ll be closing in a few minutes,” Marjorie said.

  “We’re fine here,” Vicky said. Marjorie slipped away after giving Mrs. D’Angelo a questioning look.

  “First things first,” I said. “We know you weren’t running a counterfeiting ring out of a house on Broad Street. Or anyplace else.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Vicky mumbled around the rim of her mug. I ignored her.

  Mrs. D’Angelo took a bite of her tart. “Yummy.”

  “You said Donalda told them so, but you also said the police didn’t name their source.”

  “Who else but Donalda? Always watching, always gossiping.”

  Vicky gave me a wink. I ignored her once again. Yes, the description could easily apply to Mrs. D’Angelo herself.

  “In major cases such as this one, the police ask everyone who might know something to let them know about anything they observe, no matter how inconsequential it might appear to be. Anyone of the people on the street could have seen you … uh … paying attention to the goings-on. Delivery people, the letter carrier maybe.”

  “No. It was Donalda. I’m sure of it. What you suspected, Merry, about her husband is absolutely true. But you don’t know the half of it. He travels extensively for work, and we all know what that leads to.”

  “We do?” Vicky said. Vicky, I realized, was not taking this seriously. But it was serious. Serious for poor Mrs. D’Angelo.

  “Donalda pretends not to know what he gets up to, but I’ve seen the tears in her eyes when she watches him drive away and heard the shake in her voice when she tells me on the phone he’s been delayed getting home. He didn’t even make it in time last August for her birthday party. So there! Some feeble excuse about plane cancellations and delays. As if that ever happens in August.”

  “It does. But that has nothing at all to do with why she’d tell the police you’re a counterfeiter,” Vicky pointed out. She studied her mince tart, out of which she’d taken one small bite. “Not half bad, if I do say so myself.”

  “Have you included a mince tart recipe in your cookbook?” Mrs. D’Angelo asked.

  “Yup. It’s going to be the cover photo.”

  I took a bite myself, and I was not disappointed. Vicky’s mince tarts are the best I’ve ever had. Flaky pastry, rich spicy filling packed full of fruits and the essence of rum and brandy, a light dusting of sugar sprinkled on the top crust before baking to give it a bit of crunch.

  I forced my attention away from the delights happening in my mouth and back to the matter at hand. “What exactly did Detective Simmonds say about this accusation?”

  “She started by wanting to know if I’d been in that house at any time prior to being knocked over the head and stuffed into the pantry. I told her I visited Dorothy on occasion before she passed away—”

  “Glad you didn’t visit her after she passed away,” Vicky said.

  I threw Vicky a warning glare. She grinned in return.

  “But not since,” Mrs. D’Angelo continued. “Not even once. The first bunch of renters were that stuck-up lawyer and his brittle, skinny wife. The next lot, who stayed longer, had a large family, always rushing about with hockey equipment or baseball bats and soccer balls. No time for stopping for a chat to get to know their neighbors. Those without children, at any rate.” She sniffed in disapproval. “Although they could be polite enough if we met on the sidewalk or in town. I told Detective Simmonds that. She apologized for taking my time and left.”

  “So they didn’t actually accuse you of being a member of the gang?” I licked pastry crumbs off my fingers.

  “Well, no. But why else would she have asked that question?”

  Why indeed.

  “The police have to follow up on any tip they get,” I said. “It would be negligent of them not to. You know that. From what you say, Detective Simmonds told you about this tip, she asked if it was true, and then she left.”

  “You think I overreacted?”

  I chose my words carefully. “I think you’ve been through a highly traumatic experience and you’re still struggling to come to terms with it. As would anyone in that situation. Seeing the police on your doorstep”—even in the form of “little Candy”—“brought it all back.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, Merry.”

  “As for Donalda and her husband. What’s his name again?” Vicky asked.

  “William.”

  “William Reynolds. Has he been seen since the curious incident of the cellar in the nighttime?”

  “The what?”

  “Has Mr. Reynolds been seen since you were kidnapped and Raquel murdered?”

  Mrs. D’Angelo thought. Her mocha and tart were finished. Around us, Vicky’s staff were going about the business of closing up at the end of the day. The display cases were almost empty, and on the blackboard behind the counter, chalked lines had been drawn through the soup of the day—sausage and sweet potato—and the day’s lunch special—sliced roast turkey and cranberries on a baguette.

  “I haven’t seen him,” she said at last.

  I exchanged a look with Vicky. Earlier, I’d wondered if it was possible Raquel had come to Rudolph for a man, either a genuine relationship or one of her marks. Could it be? Was that man the illusive William Reynolds?

  “That might be an avenue to pursue,” Vicky said. “Did Donalda accuse you to cover up her own guilt? Or his?”

  My landlady’s eyes brightened. “I’ll get onto that straightaway. I’ll make some calls. Not to Donalda, of course. She will rue the day she set the police on me, let me tell you.”

  “If it was her,” I said. “You don’t know for sure. Don’t ruin your friendship without proof.”

  Marjorie began collecting the used mugs and plates. “I couldn’t help but overhear. You need to talk to someone, Mabel D’Angelo, and I know just the person. My cousin Rose, who would be Vicky’s mother’s cousin also, is a trained and registered therapist. I’ll make an appointment today for you to see her.”

  “I don’t need—”

  “Yes, you do,” the three of us said at once.

  “Come along, Mabel,” Marjorie said. “Merry will take care of your bill.”

  “I will? I mean, okay, I will.”

  “We’ll call Rose this very minute and get you in as soon as possible. Everything you tell her will be under the strictest of confidence, so no need to worry about it getting around.”

  “Hey!” Vicky said. “Before you go, I’ve had the best idea ever. Molasses spice cookies!”

  “What about them?” Marjorie asked. “Are you thinking of putting those on the rotation?”

  “I need a new cookie recipe for the book if I’m going to drop one of the fruitcakes. Mrs. D, your spice cookies are fabulous. Would you share the recipe with me? I’ll mention your name in the notes in the book. Something about how neighbors in Rudolph help each other out, usually over coffee and cookies.”

  Mrs. D’Angelo’s eyes lit up. “Oh my goodness. Why, yes. That would be marvelous. Imagine, my mother’s recipe in a New York–published cookbook.”

  Marjorie took Mrs. D’Angelo by the arm and helped (forced?) her to stand. “My phone’s in the back. Come along now.”

  “If you’re okay,” I called after them, “I need to get back to the store.”

  Behind Mrs. D’Angelo’s back, Marjorie lifted her right thumb.

  When they’d gone, Vicky let out a bark of laughter. “Mrs. D’Angelo, criminal mastermind. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Let me think about it again.” She laughed again.

  “I don’t know why you find it so amusing. She’s obviously highly disturbed about her ordeal, anyone would be, and anyone would know she would be. Mean trick sending the cops after her.”

  “Live by the gossip, die by the gossip, Merry. I agree it wasn’t very nice, but I don’t have all that much sympathy for her. She’s quick enough to dish the dirt about everyone else.”

  “That’s sort of my point, Vicky. She doesn’t so much dish the dirt as spread the news. In the old days, Mrs. D’Angelo would have been the town crier. Walking up and down Main Street in a tricorn hat and brass buttons, ringing a bell and shouting, ‘Hear ye, hear ye.’ I’ll admit sometimes the news gets exaggerated a bit, but she’s never genuinely nasty. Far as I know, anyway.”

  “Okay. I’ll buy that.”

  “You’re not as unsympathetic as you pretend. When was the last time you had one of her cookies?”

  “Let me think.” She put her chin in her hands and twisted her face in what she thought was a thoughtful expression. “Never.” The thoughtfulness disappeared, the hands dropped, and she laughed. “She brought some out when we had iced tea with her the other day, but I wasn’t hungry. You say they’re good, and that’s enough for me, so I thought the offer would cheer her up, and I do need a new recipe, at least according to my editor. A win-win. Back to the subject at hand. What do you think Donalda, if it was Donalda, was playing at? I’d say deflecting blame.”

  “Blame from who?”

  “From whom. Her. Her husband, who’s gone missing all of a sudden.”

  Vicky was thinking along the same lines as I was.

  “He travels a lot,” I said. “Or so we’ve been told.”

  “Suspicious, I say. Let’s suppose he ran into Raquel in town. Suppose she suggested they get to know each other better, and by the way, could he lend her a couple of thousand bucks. Suppose Donalda got wind of this and decided to put a stop to it. Suppose he realized his new friend intended to cheat him and he decided to put a stop to it. A permanent stop.”

  “It’s possible, if she got wind Raquel and William were up to something.” Like Mrs. D’Angelo, Donalda had been keeping an eye on the house on Broad Street. She’d have been eager to have the honor of making “first contact” with the new people on the street. To be the first to find out what was going on to make them so elusive.

  Raquel was a young, attractive woman. Had Mr. Reynolds decided to do the neighborly thing himself and make her acquaintance? Had Raquel invited him in even though he, presumably, came without an offering of a casserole or homemade cookies? I remembered the couple of times I’d seen a lone man outside the house. Could that have been the wayward Mr. Reynolds, watching for Raquel to return? Had Donalda seen him entering the house? Had he perhaps stayed longer than it took to say Welcome to the neighborhood? Had she followed him, intending to put an end to his straying once and for all? One way or another?

  It made sense, in a strange sort of way, but it was mighty extreme. “Isn’t it more likely that of the two of them, William’s the killer? I’ve been wondering why Raquel not only came to Rudolph but to her parents’ own house. Maybe the house itself wasn’t the attraction, but its proximity to William Reynolds. If she was scamming him, it must have been going on for a while. It takes time to set up that sort of confidence trick, and Raquel and her friend were only in that house a short time.”

  The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. A married man like William would have far more to lose than someone like Bob Gravel, who’d seen straight through Raquel and regarded his involvement with her as a form of entertainment, costing him nothing more than he could comfortably afford. But what if William had been spending money on Raquel? Money that should go to support his family, money that belonged to both him and his wife? Not a laughing matter. Did Raquel start demanding more? Did she want payment for out-and-out blackmail? Did she move into a house in his own neighborhood as a way of making sure he realized she was serious and would expose him if he didn’t pay up? What would William have done to put a stop to that?

  “Maybe he was having a legitimate affair with her,” Vicky said. “Not that any affair is legit, but you know what I mean. She wanted to break it off. Maybe she threatened to tell his wife.”

  “That might be possible, if they knew each other before the move. The time frame’s way too short for them to have started an affair after her arrival in town. As far as we know, she didn’t spend much time, if any, in the house and the guy who did spend time there was apparently her boyfriend. If, and of course it’s still a mighty big if, William Reynolds is our guy, I’m thinking she came to town after him.” I explained my reasoning to her. How William would have far more to lose than a man like Bob Gravel.

  Vicky ran her index finger across her plate and scooped up the last of the pastry crumbs. I sipped my latte. We thought.

  “Let’s slow down here,” I said at last. “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves. We’ve never even met this William Reynolds, and now we find ourselves at the point of accusing him of murder. We’re making a lot of assumptions here. Beginning with the fact that we don’t even know if it was Donalda who talked to the police about Mrs. D’Angelo. Could have been anyone. Attempting to deflect blame or for any number of reasons.”

  “True.”

  “Do you know what Occam’s Razor is?”

  “No.”

  “It means the simplest solution to any problem is more often than not the correct one. It means don’t make things more complicated than they have to be. We know Raquel was into illegal stuff. I’ve heard criminals don’t aways operate on the up-and-up and they sometimes fall out. Raquel had a boyfriend, right? One who was also her accomplice. He’s in an off-again, on-again marriage, with kids, and he’s known to the cops as a small-time crook. He’s disappeared. The New York police are looking for him.”

  “Yes, but—” Vicky said.

  “No buts. It’s Christmas week in Rudolph, and we both have more than enough on our plates.”

  “True enough,” Vicky said.

  I changed the subject. “You’ll never guess what happened this morning.”

  “What happened this morning?”

  “You remember Graham Johannesen from Muddle Harbor? The young guy. Young compared to the rest of them, anyway. He was with the group this morning.”

  “Yeah, I do. Reasonably okay-looking guy. I didn’t know they had such a thing in Muddle Harbor. What about him?”

  I leaned back in my chair with a grin. “He asked me out. Like on a date.”

  “Ooh. Do tell.”

  “Nothing more to tell. I told him I was in a relationship, which I am, and he accepted that graciously.”

  “Never hurts to be asked, does it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Speaking of being asked, did you know your mom invited me for Christmas Eve?”

  “I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised. Is Mark coming?”

  “No. He’s working that night, but he’s taking all of Christmas Day off. Which means we’ll wake up in our own house and run into the living room together to see what Santa put under the tree. We’ll spend all morning opening presents with coffee and mimosas and a big, cooked breakfast. Then we’ll go to my parents’ for a light lunch and more presents, maybe a walk in the snow-covered woods, a good restaurant for dinner, followed by postprandial liquors.” She glowed with the joy of anticipation.