A Killer Christmas Party Read online

  “Yeah, I guess.” I stood from the chair. “Is there anything else I should do for the event?”

  “You’ll need to cancel anything we can and notify the staff that we may not have an event on Sunday night. There’s a small balance on the account, but we’ll just write that off instead of trying to get the money from them.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I hate doing this to our staff too. I’ll try to see if I can drum up some business for Sunday night to make up for the loss of the event, but it’s such short notice.”

  “I’ll take care of cancelling everything.” I walked back to my office, lost in thought. Not having the big event bearing down on me had lifted a weight from my shoulders, but I mourned the loss of all of those hours of work—hours I could have spent with my family instead.

  To take my mind off of the event cancellation, I left the building to get some fresh air and walked over to the BeansTalk Café.

  It wasn’t too busy at this time of the morning, so Desi served me herself.

  “How’s it going?” She peered at me. “You look like someone died.” She sucked in her breath. “Did someone die?”

  I bit my lip and averted my eyes.

  Her eyes widened. “Oh no, who died?”

  “Harry Pearson, the owner of the Pearson Company. I was planning their big Christmas party and his son just cancelled it. Beth said they closed their whole business.”

  “Oh!” she said. “I didn’t know you were working on a party for them. Hold on.” She ran into the back room and returned, holding a newspaper. She thrust the folded-up newspaper at me. “I was reading about it this morning. Look at the headline.”

  I looked at the front page of the paper, my eyes settling on a headline at the bottom of the paper. Local business owner dies. Employees find doors shuttered.

  “What happened?” I murmured out loud.

  She stabbed a finger at the paper. “Harry Pearson died at the retirement home on Saturday night and his son shut down the company before his father was even in the ground.”

  Saturday night? Desi and I had been at Ericksville Heights on Saturday. If I’d known he was ill, I would have liked to have visited him. Something occurred to me.

  “Do you think this has to do with what Delilah said? About there being suspicious deaths at the retirement home?”

  Desi shook her head. “He was eighty-eight. It was probably natural causes. But can you believe his son shuttered the company? I can’t imagine going in to work and finding the doors locked and my job gone. And right before Christmas! Those poor people.”

  “No kidding.” I skimmed the rest of the article. “What are the employees going to do?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like they’ll get severance or anything, but they should get unemployment benefits.”

  “Sheesh. That’s just so wrong.” I closed up the newspaper. I almost wished I could still have the Christmas party for the company, but it would be expensive for us at the Boathouse and I didn’t think they’d want a reminder that they were no longer employed by the Pearson Company.

  Usually the thought of a Christmas party made me happy, but with this one cancelled because of a company shutdown and the retirement home party being cancelled because of Mila’s death, it seemed to bring too much sadness for the season. I left the BeansTalk with a latte in a to-go cup and decided to walk the beach for a while to work out some of my melancholy.

  Walking on the beach worked, and I returned to work at the Boathouse with a much clearer head. When I got back to my office, I located anything related to the Pearson Company Christmas party, including my revamped binder, and filed it away in a box that I’d move to the storage room. With that off my desk, I moved on to other projects.

  At quitting time, I stopped in at Beth’s office. She was still tapping away at her computer and sipping from a cup of coffee.

  “I’m leaving now. Did you need me for anything else?” I leaned against the doorframe.

  She looked up at me. “Nope, I’m good. I’m going home soon too.”

  I felt her eyes on my face.

  “You look upset,” she observed. “Is it about the party?”

  Maybe I wasn’t as clear-headed as I’d thought.

  “I feel bad for all those people that lost their jobs so close to Christmas and for the residents at the retirement home because their recreation director was killed. Now they don’t get a Christmas party because she was in charge of planning it. It doesn’t seem fair.” I sighed.

  She regarded me for a moment. “I can’t do anything about the company shutting down, but I have an idea. Why don’t you organize the Christmas party for the retirement home?”

  “Have you been talking to Delilah?”

  “No, why?” She smiled. “Did she ask you to help?”

  “Yeah, but I had to turn her down because I had so much to do with the Pearson party.”

  “Well, maybe this was a blessing in disguise.” Beth shut her computer off and stood. “Now that the party is cancelled, you can help out Delilah. If you’d like to use work hours for it, I’m happy to pay you for your time. I know it would mean a lot to her and the other residents.”

  A glimmer of hope entered my body. She was right. I couldn’t change any of the bad things that were happening around me, but this was something I could do.

  She snapped her fingers. “I’ll give her a call. Hold on.” She dialed a number.

  “Hi, Delilah, it’s Beth Andrews.” Delilah must have said something because Beth smiled and said, “Uh huh.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I was just talking with my daughter-in-law, Jill, and she mentioned that your Christmas party had been cancelled because of the recreation director’s death. We’ve had a cancellation here at the Boathouse, and she’s available to help out with your party if the managers of the retirement home are interested.” She was quiet. “Ok, great. I’ll see you next week at the Historical Society meeting.”

  She hung up and turned to me. “Delilah said she’ll talk to them about having you help. She’s pretty sure they’ll say yes because the residents are up in arms about not having the annual party.”

  “I’ll stop by and talk to them tomorrow about the party. Maybe Mila already had some things in the works before she died and I can just follow her plans.”

  Beth shrugged. “Maybe. But whatever the case may be, I know you’ll do a great job.” She beamed at me. “I’ve trained you well.”

  I laughed. “I suppose you have.”

  We walked out of the Boathouse together and got into our cars. I appreciated Beth’s faith in my abilities. My life would be vastly different if I had a relationship with her that was as bad as the one between her and Tania. Although I was upset by the cancellation of the Pearson Company’s Christmas party, I was looking forward to helping Delilah and the other residents at Ericksville Heights with their party. I’d felt awful to not be able to help her before, and maybe this was exactly what I needed to get back into the holiday spirit.

  11

  When I walked into the retirement home the next morning, the receptionist greeted me and said, “If you’re looking for Delilah, she’s in the Great Room. That’s where she spends most of her time.”

  “Thank you.” I continued to the Great Room, quickly spotting Delilah at a table for two near the window. While some of the other residents had games or books in front of them, she had none, but was watching something intently outside of the window. Near the fireplace, I overheard a woman asking a nurse if she’d light the fire. A look of panic filled the nurse’s face, and she rapidly twisted a wedding ring on her finger but quickly recovered and told the woman that she’d send someone by to take care of it. The resident wasn’t happy and stomped off to the back of the room. Apparently there was more drama at a retirement home than one would expect. I shifted my attention to the reason I’d come.

  “Hi, Delilah.” I didn’t want to startle her, so I tried to make some noise by shuffling my feet as I approached her.


  She turned to me, and a wide smile spread across her face. “Jill. I’m so happy you’re here.”

  “Me too.” I realized that I really was very happy to be there and to be able to use my newfound organizational talents to create a special event for her and her fellow residents. “The woman at the front desk told me I could find you in here. Were you looking at something special outside?”

  She pointed at the window. “Do you see that tree over there?”

  I followed her finger to a large tree at the far side of the property. “Yes, I see it.”

  “Well, it’s full of birds. I love watching them flying around and seeing all of their antics.”

  I continued to watch the tree as a bird flew out from beneath a low-hanging branch. “I see some of them.”

  She pulled out a notebook and was suddenly all business. “Let’s get started now. I’ll go over everything I can with you, but you’ll need to talk to the retirement home administrator when we’re done.”

  I raised an eyebrow, but obeyed her order, taking the seat across from her.

  “They can’t afford to pay you much, but it’s a little.” She named a figure. “Is that all right?”

  I put my hand on hers. “Tell them not to worry about it. Beth gave me time off to do it. I’m happy to do it for free.”

  Her smile wobbled. “You have no idea how much this means to all of us.”

  “I’m happy to help. When you asked me before, I felt bad to not be able to take on the job, but after a cancellation at work, my schedule is much clearer.”

  “Thank you.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tube of cherry LifeSavers, just like the ones she’d offered to the boys. “Would you like one?”

  “Uh, no thank you.” I hadn’t had one since I was a kid, but I remembered them being very sweet.

  She shrugged and put them away. “Now, these are the plans that Mila had in place for this year. They shouldn’t be too difficult to follow. The party is pretty basic, but it’s still special to us. All of the families are invited and my daughter comes up every year from Oregon to attend the party and then bring me back down to Portland for Christmas.” Her lips wavered. “It’s been a while since she was here last.”

  “I’m sure she misses you.” I didn’t know what to say. Neither set of my grandparents had lived in a retirement home before they died, so I wasn’t sure how often most people visited their family members. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen too many visitors at the home while I was there, but maybe that was because it was usually during the middle of the day when people had to work.

  She went over the plans with me and I took notes on my own notepad to review later. As she’d said, most of it seemed pretty simple.

  When we wrapped up the planning session, I looked up at her and said, “When Desi and I were here last time, you were about to tell us about something bad that you thought was going on here—but then you stopped. Are you able to tell me more about that?”

  A fearful expression came over her face and her eyes darted back and forth, as if searching the room. “Let’s take a walk outside in the gardens.”

  Wow. She must have been frightened by someone or something if she didn’t want to discuss it where we were sitting. No one was close enough to hear us talking, but she obviously wanted even more privacy for what she was about to tell me.

  “Sure. Lead the way.”

  Delilah led me out the door to the concrete patio and then took us on the path to the beautiful gardens I’d noticed when I had followed the boys around the back of the building and found the body.

  “Aren’t you cold?” While I was wearing my winter coat, she’d come from the toasty warmth of the Great Room and wore nothing but a light sweater over a pink cotton blouse. However, she didn’t appear to be affected by the weather.

  “No. The cold has never bothered me.” She nimbly ducked her walker through a gap in the tall, maze-like hedges and took us off-roading toward the edge of the property.

  Now I had my answer about the cliffs. The edges of the bluff were guarded by a railing made of thin logs. It would keep any adult from accidentally falling off the edge, but would do nothing to keep a small inquisitive child from climbing through it.

  Below us, the dark blue waters of Puget Sound swirled against the edges of the bluff, only a thin patch of raised land keeping it from eroding the sides. In most of Ericksville, the raised train tracks usually kept storm waters from reaching the bottom of the bluff, but here, the tracks veered inland as they went through Everton. Nothing, however, could keep small sections of dirt from crumbling off of the edge. To our left was a vast, heavily wooded gulch that led down to the beach—typical of the Ericksville area.

  “Sometimes when I’m out here, I can imagine that things are the same as they were when I was a child, before everything was so developed. But I guess you can’t stop progress.” She peered at me, then sat down on a concrete bench that had long been forgotten by the groundskeepers. “Harry Pearson was murdered.”

  “What? Are you sure?” My heart pounded in my chest. If she was right, something was very wrong at the retirement home.

  “When he arrived a couple of months ago, he was healthy as a horse. He once told me that he’d been tired of living at home, so he moved here where he could be around other people. It wasn’t until this last week that his health went downhill and his mental state declined. Just like the other two men who died.” She looked at me defiantly. “I’m telling you, he was murdered for his money.”

  “That’s a big accusation.” I thought for a moment. “Why would you say he was murdered for his money? Did that happen to the other two men?”

  “Before they died, both Lenny and Albert blabbed about how they were going to triple their net worth. I’m sure it was some get-rich-quick scheme and that someone conned them into it.”

  “Did their families say anything about money being missing?” I wasn’t sure about her theory, but I wanted to hear more.

  “Neither of them had much family to speak of. I’m sure their estates are still tied up in probate.” The wind blew her streamers every which way and she ran her fingers through the strands to untangle them.

  “Ok,” I said slowly. “But what about Harry Pearson? Surely his son would have said something if money was missing.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about any missing money, but his death was just like the other two. There has to be a connection.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but you’re telling me there is a serial murderer on the loose at the Ericksville Retirement home.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  I drew in a deep breath. “So you think that someone is drugging elderly men in the home so that they act senile and then convincing them to sign over their money. And then that person murders them somehow and makes it look like they died of natural causes?”

  “Yes,” she said again. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s too much of a coincidence. I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

  I thought about it. She was right. The police should at least look into it to determine if there was some sort of connection between their deaths.

  “I agree that it does seem suspicious. Have you talked to the police about this?”

  “We told Mila about it and she said she’d look into it and contact the police.” She gasped and placed her hand over her heart. “Do you think Mila was killed because we told her about this?”

  Probably she was, but I wasn’t going to tell that to Delilah. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with her death.” That was the truth at least. I was 100 percent certain that Delilah hadn’t been directly responsible for Mila’s death.

  She looked out at the water. “I hope you’re right.”

  The temperature had dropped while we were outside and the sky had turned gray. Miniscule snowflakes fell from the sky, peppering us with icy coldness.

  “We’d better get back inside.” I didn’t want to be responsible for Delilah
slipping and falling on the wet ground, especially when we were so far away from the home.

  “All right,” she said as she rose from the bench. I think our conversation had tired her out, because it took her twice as long to get back to the home as it had to get out to the gardens. When I had her safely ensconced in her favorite chair in the Great Room, I whispered in her ear, “I’ll make sure the police investigate, ok? I promise.”

  She gave me a curt nod to show she’d heard.

  “I need to take care of some of the party planning, but if you’re still out here when I’m done, I’ll come by.”

  She grabbed my hand. “Thank you, Jill.” She released my hand and stared out the window at her beloved birds.

  I reluctantly left her alone and went out to the lobby.

  The receptionist was at her station behind the desk, so I asked her if she could point me in the direction of the administrator.

  “Alfie?” She pointed at the hallway behind her. “His office is right down this hall, but he’s not in right now.”

  “Oh, ok. Do you know when he’ll be back? I need to talk with him about the retirement home’s Christmas party.” I smiled at her. “I’ve recently taken over the party planning.”

  “I’m glad someone is going to do the party. I’ve heard the residents really enjoy it.” She shrugged. “But I have no clue when Alfred is coming back. He’s been gone for a while to the hospital.”

  I heard the word hospital and immediately wondered if there was another possible victim who’d suddenly fallen ill.

  “Oh, I hope everything is ok.” I smiled sweetly at her.

  Before she could respond, the nurse I’d seen earlier came out of the door at the far end of the hallway. She twisted her ring around her finger as she walked past, but didn’t make eye contact with me.

  The receptionist looked at her, then leaned closer to me so the nurse wouldn’t hear. “He’s never around because his thirteen-year-old daughter is in the hospital. She’s on the list for a kidney transplant, but I don’t know how much longer she can hold on.”