Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen Read Online Free PDF Page B

gingerbread clenched in his paw.
    â€œI hope you’re able to get the tractor fixed,” I said.
    â€œAlready done.”
    â€œNot too expensive, then?”
    â€œHave to tell you, Merry. It wasn’t no mechanical problem.”
    â€œWhat then?” Not that I particularly wanted to hear. I am interested in a lot of things in this world, but the intricacies of a tractor’s innards are not among them.
    â€œSpark plug wires switched.”
    â€œOh. How’d you get it into town, then?” I saw Vicky come out of the kitchen with a fresh platter of cookies. I’d been mad at her long enough. Time to go and help. Give her a chance to invite Nigel Pearce to her bakery.
    â€œMerry,” George said. The tone of his voice was so serious I turned back to him.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI drove the tractor into town last night, right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBetween then and this morning when the parade started,the wires got switched. The wires start in order. If they ain’t in the right order, the engine don’t start.”
    â€œWhy would that happen?”
    â€œIt didn’t do it by itself, Merry.”
    â€œBut you fixed it, right?”
    â€œEasy enough once everyone and their dog weren’t yellin’ at me to start the blasted tractor, and I had a chance to check ’er over.”
    â€œGeorge, are you saying . . . ?”
    â€œThat the tractor everyone knew would be pullin’ your float was sabotaged. Yeah, Merry, I guess that’s what I’m sayin’. Hum, I better get another one o’ those cookies afore they’re all gone.” He touched the rim of his ball cap in his polite old-fashioned way and saunteredoff.

Chapter 3

    G obsmacked, I stared at George’s departing figure. The way George had described it, it certainly sounded as though the inability of his tractor to start this morning hadn’t been an accident. The floats and the vehicles to pull them had been assembled yesterday evening and left in the community center parking lot all night. No one in Rudolph had ever even considered we should put a guard on the floats.
    Who would do something like that?
    And to me!
    I watched Vicky exchange a word with one of her helpers. Vicky was the only one who benefited from the disabling of my float.
    No, not Vicky.
    I hurried across the room to give her a hand. I was beat, but my best friend had also been on her feet all day, and she still had dishes to pack up, the kitchen to clean, and thenneeded to have the shelves in her bakery fully stocked and ready to open at seven tomorrow morning.
    I grabbed an empty tray out of her hands. “You better take a minute and talk to that guy over there. He’s a big-time travel reporter.”
    She pushed the single long lock of purple hair out of her eyes. The rest of her hair was cropped short. “I’ve been told. He was in the bakery at lunchtime. Had ham and Swiss on a baguette and potato soup. Even took a few pictures before he left. Don’t worry, I’m about to wow him with my special cookies.”
    â€œThat’s good, then,” I said, meaning the sandwiches as well as the cookies. Vicky’s baguettes were exceptional, even better than ones I’d had in Paris: soft on the inside, crusty on the outside, served with thickly spread butter from a local farm. Yummy! More than a few pounds on my hips owed their existence to that bread. I pulled my head back from dreams of warm baking. “Still, you should take a break, freshen up. I can help with the dishes.”
    We walked together into the large industrial kitchen. Vicky’s helpers were washing the serving dishes and tossing unfinished food and crumpled napkins—featuring Santa’s sleigh and his nine reindeer crossing a night sky thick with stars—into the trash.
    â€œI’m sorry about what happened to your float, Merry. Really I am. I was sure it was going to win. Although I