My mom and her classes had sung a couple of carols to get the party started, and then Mom slipped away. Dad was still ho-ho-ho-ing to the last of the children and a few teenagers who pretended to still believe, but Alan had folded up his scroll, tucked away his pen, and peeled off his mustache and sideburns with a sigh of relief.

  The restaurants and bars in town would be packed tonight, so we decided to order pizza and watch a movie at my place. Vicky Casey, despite being my bitter rival for the best-in-parade trophy, and her husband, Mark Grosse, were going to join us.

  Victoria’s Bake Shoppe’s float was, to absolutely no one’s surprise, announced as the winner of the trophy. Blushing and giggling and telling everyone how shocked and delighted she was, Vicky accepted the big statue. Which would now be returned to its regular place at the top shelf of the bakery, where it would remain for another year.

  I tried not to be too bitter about that. It was, truth be told, a good float. Mark, head chef at the best restaurant in town, had gone all out to help Vicky put it together, and he’d dressed in his chef’s whites, making a show of serving the holiday meal to the preteen children of her staff, who played the elves. The kids themselves had a blast, dressed in their fathers’ old suits or mothers’ cocktail dresses, pretending to be drinking wine and engaging in fine dining as they waved to their proud, beaming parents and grandparents.

  “I’ll check if Vicky needs a hand cleaning up,” I said to Alan. “Then I have to pop into the shop for Mattie.”

  “See you in about an hour,” he said. He was going home first to get out of his toymaker getup and to collect Ranger, his Jack Russell terrier, who, if left at home overnight, would tear the softer parts of the furniture to shreds. As well as put a few bite marks into the harder parts of the furniture.

  I went into the community center kitchen, where I found everything, as expected, under control. Vicky was packing mugs into a plastic tub. I tried not to look at the trophy sitting on the counter, ready to be transported to the bakery.

  “You win again,” I said.

  Vicky turned to me with an enormous grin. “Yet another triumph. And I mean more than my gingerbread. Help yourself.”

  I already had, and I was biting the head off a lady cookie. Vicky’s gingerbread is a Rudolph tradition and justifiably famous throughout New York State and beyond. “Do you need any help here?”

  “No, thanks. We’re almost finished.”

  “I can take all this back to the bakery,” Mark said. “And then go to the house, if you want to go straight to Merry’s. One of us has to check on Sandbanks; no point in us both doing it.” Sandbanks was their geriatric golden Lab.

  “Good idea,” Vicky said. “Merry and I are long overdue for a solid girlfriends gossip session before you and Alan show up and ruin it.”

  “I hate to think,” Mark said.

  Vicky wrapped me in a spontaneous hug. “I love parade day!”

  I hugged her back and said, “So do I.” Vicky and I have been best friends since the first day of school. I’d been shy, timid, terrified of the new environment in which I found myself. Vicky’d been confident, brave, excited about the new environment in which she found herself.

  I can still be timid, although I hope I’m no longer shy, and Vicky is still confident and brave. And, always, fun to be with and a fiercely loyal friend.

  Except when it came to the Santa Claus parade trophy. Which I’d forget about until time to get ready for the next event in July.

  “I had a peek over my shoulder a couple of times to check on you,” Vicky said. “I can’t believe that tractor of George’s keeps chugging along. It’ll outlive us all. I thought Mrs. D’Angelo was going to be on your float? I didn’t see her.”

  “New neighbors moved in, and she had to be at her post.” I snapped to attention and saluted sharply.

  Vicky laughed. “Poor things. They have no idea what they’re in for. I could have leant you Aunt Marjorie if you needed help.”

  “Eve came with me, and we were fine. If you’re ready, then, let’s go.”

  Chapter Three

  The main shopping street of our town was renamed Jingle Bell Lane when Dad and the town council hit on the Christmas Town idea. Past the bandstand and the town’s lakeside park, it returns to its original boring name of Broad Street.

  In the spring and summer, our house has the most beautifully maintained front garden on Broad Street. In the autumn, every leaf is raked up moments after it decides to fall; in the winter, the sidewalk is shoveled before the town can even get to it, the front path scraped down to the cement, and a thick layer of deicer applied. Over the holiday season hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny colored lights illuminate the bushes and lower branches of the trees.

  Not necessarily because Mrs. D’Angelo is all that house proud but because she’s always outside, watching the activity on the street. Ever-present cell phone in its sparkly pink case clipped to her belt, earbuds firmly in her ears. Most of the year, she spends her non-gardening/raking/shoveling time sitting on her wide front porch. She keeps a pair of high-quality binoculars on the small table by the door, ready to spring into action at all times. In the coldest days of winter, even she can’t sit out for too long, so she lurks at her living room window, watching for passersby.

  Today, the front door was open and Mrs. D’Angelo on the porch before Vicky, Mattie, and I so much as turned into the driveway. Holiday lights were on, as were the lamps above the porch and over the front door. “Merry Wilkinson! And Vicky Casey, how nice! Do you have time for tea?”

  “No,” I called back. “Sorry, we don’t. Alan and Mark will be here soon.”

  “You don’t need to stay for long. Tea’s ready.” She held a dog biscuit in one hand and waved it in the air. “Mattie. Here, Mattie.”

  Matterhorn is a Saint Bernard. One hundred and seventy pounds of slow, lumbering canine with a mind of his own. He’s well trained, as a dog of that size has to be if we’re to have a happy relationship, but sometimes he forgets that. Such as when a dog biscuit appears out of nowhere.

  He took off across the snowy lawn, dragging me behind, and loped up the steps. I stumbled up after him, barely able to keep myself erect.

  Mrs. D’Angelo gave me a self-satisfied smile and Mattie the biscuit. “How nice. You and Vicky take seats, dear, and I’ll get the tea. I have a fresh batch of my special molasses spice cookies ready, and I know how much you like them. I’ll be right out.” She bustled off.

  “About the last thing I need right now is a cookie,” I said. “Another cookie.”

  “We’re here now,” my friend said, and we sat down at the small round table. Dry cushions were on the chairs and thick fluffy blankets placed over the backs in case we got cold. Mrs. D’Angelo knew to be prepared.

  The house was a grand old Victorian, all wraparound porch, gingerbread trim, turrets, and dormer windows, as were many of the houses on this street not far from the center of town. In its heyday, Rudolph had been an important Great Lakes shipping port, and shipowners and businessmen built impressive houses on substantial lots for their large families and numerous servants. In the years of the town’s decline, many of those houses had been torn down, converted to offices or divided, like ours, into apartments. Now the town was prosperous again. Largely through the vision and leadership of my father, Rudolph had been revitalized by taking advantage of the town’s name and marketing itself as “Your Year-Round Christmas Destination.”

  I tugged a blanket free and put it across my lap. The daytime temperature had been perfect for the parade at just under the freezing point, keeping the snow clean and fresh and parade-goers from freezing along with it. But it was dropping rapidly now the sun had gone down and the wind come up. Up and down the street, colorful lights broke the gloom of the early winter night.

  “We’ll stay a couple of minutes to be polite,” I said to Vicky, “and then we have to go. Never mind the boys, it’s cold.”

  “Have you ever been inside this house?” She kept her voice low.

  “Once or twice. Let’s just say she spends more time on the yard than the interior. I don’t think the furniture or the appliances have been updated since Mr. D’Angelo was around. And that was long before my time.”

  Mrs. D’Angelo came out, carrying a tray containing a jug full of ice, three glasses, a plate of homemade cookies, and another dog biscuit. “I hope you girls don’t mind having iced tea. I made it nice and sweet to keep the chill off.”

  I shuddered at the thought of the icy liquid running down my throat.

  “I love a nice glass of iced tea on a cold day while sitting outside being cold,” Vicky said.

  Mrs. D’Angelo put the tray down, took a seat, handed Mattie the dog treat, and then poured the tea. She still wore her costume of a long brown dress under a full white apron adorned with hand-embroidered pink flowers and a lace-trimmed bonnet. “I made these cookies specially to welcome the new neighbors. I find people appreciate a nice friendly gesture such as this as an introduction to their new home. In her day, my mother would always make one of her famous tuna fish casseroles to take over, but these days people usually order pizza or go out for fast food on moving day, don’t they?”

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “Speaking of new neighbors, Vicky dear, how are you and Chef Grosse getting on in your place?”

  Vicky and Mark had married and bought a small 1970s-era house the previous spring. “We love it,” she said.

  That wasn’t entirely true. Vicky didn’t “love” the house. She and Mark bought the best place they could afford in town, close enough for Vicky to walk to work, which was important to her. The house was small and dark, nothing but a stopgap until they could afford something better. But Vicky was in love with Mark, and she loved being married to him, and they were excited about the future they were building together.

  Mrs. D’Angelo smiled at her. “And how are you finding your neighbors, dear?”

  “Nice.” Vicky sipped her tea. She smiled back, clearly having no intention of allowing herself to be drawn into a discussion of the proclivities of her new neighbors.

  “And the book? When will I be able to get my hands on a copy?”

  Vicky’s face fell. “We’ve run into some … glitches.”

  “You have not,” I said. “That’s how publishing works. The editor suggests a few changes. If you like her suggestions, you accept them. If you don’t, you explain why you don’t and go from there.”

  “I’ve done that. But she keeps insisting.” Vicky threw up her hands. She hadn’t taken a cookie. “I don’t know why I bothered. It’s all just too much work. Too much stress. Too much time. Too much … everything.”

  Over the spring and summer, Vicky had written a cookbook. I was wildly excited about it—Holiday Recipes From America’s Christmas Town. Between Vicky’s skill and reputation and the Rudolph name, the book had such promise she’d easily landed a contract with a major publisher and received a hefty advance. Now, as she and her editor worked on refining and perfecting the book, nerves and doubts were kicking in.

  “You’re almost there,” I said. “And then all that’ll be left is basking in the glory.”

  “And promotion. They want me to go on a book tour. I can’t take time off from the bakery. Why did I think I could do this?”

  “Because you can,” I said. Normally my friend was the most confident of women. She worked hard; she’d made a huge success of her bakery. She loved deeply, and her husband loved her just as much in return. No one could ask for a better friend. All she needed, I knew, was the occasional word of encouragement in this new endeavor. No one who knew her doubted the book would be a huge success. (Subject to the whims of the baking and publishing worlds, but I wasn’t going to think about that now.)

  “I, for one, am looking forward to it,” Mrs. D’Angelo said. “Please, dear, do have a cookie. I’ve had the recipe for decades. It was my mother’s before me.”

  “They look good,” Vicky said. “Nice color. But not right now, thank you.”

  “I made this batch for the new neighbors, but I didn’t get a chance to go over in person and introduce myself.”

  “Why not?” Vicky asked.

  “They seem to have left right after dropping off their things.”

  We all looked at the house across the street. It was, like this one, large and ornate and very Victorian, also with a wraparound porch and gable windows. It had been a rental property since the death of the owner, one Dorothy Johannesen, about ten years or so ago. Dorothy left the house to her niece, Beth Torrone. I’d known the Torrones’ daughter, Raquel, in school, but not well, as she was younger than I was. As I remembered, the family moved away from Rudolph before Dorothy died. When they inherited, they hadn’t wanted to come back to Rudolph or to sell the house, so they rented it out.

  The previous tenants had lived there for most of the time since, until the last of their six children was off to college, and then they relocated to an apartment in New York City. Why anyone would exchange a house and garden on Broad Street for an apartment in Manhattan was the topic of much town gossip for a long time. Turned out nothing was at all nefarious about it. The wife told Mrs. D’Angelo they loved good restaurants and musical theatre; they both had work-from-home jobs and were looking forward to no longer being responsible for teenagers’ sports activities, school clubs and plays, and everything else that goes with a large, highly active family.

  “If the new people only moved in earlier today,” Vicky said, “isn’t it natural they’d be going out for dinner? Maybe they have more stuff to bring tomorrow.”

  Mrs. D’Angelo leaned toward us. Instinctively, Vicky and I leaned toward her. Having had his treat, Mattie was resting on the edge of the porch, his chin on his paws, watching the traffic pass. “I see no sign of a they. Just two men. One man drove a car, and another followed with a small truck. They unloaded the truck, and I have to say, I didn’t see many signs of normal furniture.”

  “Normal?” Vicky asked.

  “Like a sofa and chairs. Dining room table. Instead, all they had was a few chairs and a small table. Only one bed. That and a lot of big boxes. The man who came in the truck drove away, and not long after the other one left in his car. He has not been back.”

  “He might have come back while you were at the party,” Vicky said.

  Mrs. D’Angelo pointed. “It continued snowing while I was out, yet there are no fresh tracks in the snow.”

  The lamp over the front door was on; otherwise, the house was wrapped in darkness. Unlike every other house on this street and in most of Rudolph, it displayed no holiday lights.

  “That’s not at all abnormal,” I said. “Single men do live in houses. They have to live somewhere. If it is a single man. They have friends who help them move. He might not even be single; perhaps his partner and any children they have stayed behind for a while. So the kids could finish the school year.”

  “I didn’t see a woman viewing the house, Merry. Nancy—that would be the previous tenant,” she explained to Vicky, “told me they were donating most of their excess furniture to a secondhand charity shop, because it would be far too much for their new place in Manhattan. I myself saw the charity truck arrive last week and take away a great deal. Then, the next day, the moving truck came. Nancy told me they were leaving the light fittings and the rugs and drapes in the house.” She sat back with a self-satisfied expression.

  Despite myself, I glanced once again across the street. At that moment a man stopped to look at the house. He stood on the sidewalk, next to a huge old blue spruce laden with pine cones. I could only see him from the back, heavily wrapped in a winter coat and scarf with a hat pulled over his ears. Hard to tell it even was a man except for the six-foot height and the bulk beneath his coat. He pulled his collar up, tucked his chin down, and walked rapidly away.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Who?” Vicky said.

  “That man? He was looking at the house. Seems to have disappeared.”

  Vicky shrugged. She hadn’t noticed anyone. “I didn’t recognize him,” Mrs. D’Angelo said. “All these winter clothes can be as effective as a disguise sometimes. Likely a curious neighbor—people sometimes don’t know when to mind their own business.”

  As well as the man, I’d noticed the drapes were closed. “Does it matter that rugs and drapes were left for the new people?”

  “It matters enormously, Merry. What woman would want to live in a house with someone else’s choice of drapery?”

  “Will you look at the time.” Vicky stood up. “Thanks for the tea, Mrs. D’Angelo, but we have to be off. Mark and Alan will be here soon. The new people are taking their time moving their things in, that’s all.”

  My landlady looked at the plate of cookies. “What am I to do with these if he doesn’t come back soon?”

  “You could freeze them,” Vicky said.

  “Yes, I suppose I could.” Mrs. D’Angelo glanced at the house across the street. “I do want to be welcoming.”

  I called to Mattie, and Vicky and I made our escape.

  “Must be a slow news day in Rudolph,” Vicky said as we rounded the house, heading for the stairs to my apartment. “Talk about trying to make something out of nothing.”

  Chapter Four

  The November/December parade marks the official start of the holiday season in Rudolph, and I had little time over the next week to worry about my new neighbor(s) or to stop and chat with Mrs. D’Angelo, much as she tried to flag me down to update me on the happenings, or lack thereof, across the street.

  In the morning when I left for the store, or in the evening when I arrived home, I often saw her at her living room window, trying to conceal herself behind the curtains as she peered across the street through her binoculars. All I saw of the residents of the house under observation was tire tracks in the snow on the driveway leading from the street to the closed door of the double garage and back again. No footprints marked the driveway, lawn, or front walk, so I assumed the garage opened directly into the house.