Free Slay Bells and Satchels (Haley Randolph Mystery Series) by Dorothy Howell

hate her—and while I actually enjoyed a good confrontation, dealing with Rita—I hate her—isn’t the best way to begin a four-hour stretch in a place I really didn’t want to be.
    Plus, if you got your name on the board four times in one month, you got fired. I wasn’t all that excited about keeping this job, but I wasn’t about to give Rita—I hate her—the satisfaction of dropping the ax on me.
    I put my wish list and pen in my tote and got out of my car. Just as I hit the button to lock the doors, a car zoomed into the space next to me. Detective Shuman got out.
    My heart did its usual little oh-wow flip-flop whenever I saw Shuman—which was bad of me, I know, but there it was.
    Then my heart did an oh-no flip-flop when I realized that Detective Madison might be with him. No way did I want to start off my day dealing with him.
    But then I saw that Shuman was alone. My heart did an oh-whew flip-flop as I walked to the back of my car to meet him.
    Shuman looked pretty good this morning. He had on a brown sport coat with khaki trousers and a yellow shirt. He’d paired these with a teal tie, for no apparent reason. Jeez, where was his girlfriend? Wasn’t she dressing him?
    My heart did a little I’m-glad-and-I-shouldn’t-be flip-flop when I realized this probably meant the two of them weren’t living together yet.
    “Solve McKenna’s murder?” I asked, giving him a smile.
    “Sure did,” he said. “Hers and six more just yesterday.”
    Nothing like a little homicide humor first thing in the morning.
    “You called me yesterday,” Shuman said.
    I figured he’d call me back sometime today when he had time. This was way better—I mean that strictly as a concerned citizen anxious to aid law enforcement, of course.
    “I didn’t know if you’d gotten word that only two of the elves reported back to work after the murder,” I said. “Made me wonder about why the others didn’t show up. Most of them were scared, I guess. But maybe one of them was involved in McKenna’s death somehow.”
    Shuman pulled a little tablet from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Who are they?”
    I gave him Alyssa and Nikki’s names.
    Like most homicide detectives, Shuman was tight-lipped about an ongoing murder investigation. But we’d worked together on a few cases in the past—and I am, after all,
me
—so he was a little freer with details.
    “The victim was struck on the head with a nutcracker,” Shuman said.
    “The big wooden ones that look kind of like soldiers?” I asked.
    I remembered seeing dozens of them tangled with the other Christmas decorations on the floor of the stockroom the morning I’d found McKenna.
    The image of her being struck on the head with one of those things flashed in my head. I pushed it away.
    “Fingerprints?” I asked.
    “Lots of prints,” he said. “Nothing yet that’s any help.”
    “Motive?” I asked.
    He gave me cop-face—which was way hot, of course—so I knew he wasn’t going to give up anything else, unless I had something to offer.
    “McKenna had just gotten a role in a sitcom,” I said. “Starting at—get this—twenty grand an episode.”
    Shuman’s brows rose, and I was pretty sure I could see his thoughts spinning out a motive. “Professional jealousy?”
    “TV roles don’t have understudies. The production company would just re-cast the part, and there’s no guarantee who they’d pick,” I said.
    “That’s a lot of money up for grabs,” Shuman said.
    Greed was a favorite motive among homicide detectives and murderers alike, and following the money trail usually paid off. I couldn’t disagree that somebody—especially a starving actress—would kill for it. Still, I thought there was something else going on.
    “McKenna wasn’t well liked even before she got the role,” I said.
    Yesterday when I’d left Jasmine’s apartment, I’d wondered if she was just playing me by using her acting skills to avoid answering my questions, and instead make