Miles approached her from behind, putting a warm arm around her shoulders and ushering her to look away. We had all been living in denial… We all had massive targets on our backs and another one was biting the dust before our very eyes.
The Weisses were about to lose their ninth family member, if we counted Eugene. And I did count Eugene… He, too, had died completely unexpectedly when we had all been together. And Toots had seemed pretty adamant someone had murdered him. It was time to wake up and smell the cinnamon rolls… One of us was a cold-blooded murderer.
I looked at Callum’s and Martha’s faces; each looked as shocked and pale as the other. Then at Mrs Harlow and Miles, the former now crying into Miles’s chest as he held her and comforted her. I looked to Jeannie. Jeannie was standing slightly away from us, jaw set, every muscle in her body taut, as if she was a guitar string about to snap.
And what about Ceecee?
Where thehellwas Ceecee?
24
FROSTBITE AND FINAL DRAFTS
24thDecember 2025
Is there a person alive who will miss the useless, lecherous old bigot that we all knew as Fergus Weiss? He’s most certainly been a permanent fixture on Santa’s naughty list, especially after he impersonated him and drove his car under the influence… That day had been a botched attempt. I was all dressed up, disguised as Santa on his way to bump off Madam Mimi. I swung back to the village and saw Fergus heading to the pub. I needed to get rid of the costume, and challenging him to a drinking game I knew he couldn’t win was genius. Or so I thought. The pub was dark and he was seven sheets to the wind; to be honest, I was so sure that he would get in his car and end up in a ditch. I just hoped he didn’t kill anyone else. Plan A backfired. So plan B it was.
Rule 333 of the ‘steering clear of getting murdered handbook,’ don’t let a room full of people find out that you’re allergic to cardamom.
Jeannie paced near the fireplace, her eyes darting between Mrs Harlow and the detective. I could see the internal struggle written across her face. She knew something, that much was clear; but loyalty to Mrs Harlow was keeping her silent. For now.
Mrs Harlow was beside herself. We told her repeatedly that it wasn’t her fault, that it was an accident. As we consoled her, I saw Jeannie practically bursting, fighting herself not to say something.
We didn’t want to drop Mrs Harlow in it in front of DCI Randolf, for what could have been a temporary but extremely dangerous lapse in judgement, but… Shedidknow Fergus was allergic to cardamom. We all knew. And even if she had forgotten, it hadn’t been that long ago that Jeannie had practically screamed at Fergus in a room full of people not to eat the tapioca pudding because it contained the offending spice.
Somehow, she, or someone else, had put cardamom in the eggnog. Enough to make Fergus’s airway constrict. And although the air ambulance had arrived within fifteen minutes, it was already too late.
As I sipped my now cold coffee, my mind raced through the events of the afternoon. Who’d had access to the eggnog? When was it left unattended? And most importantly, who would want Fergus’s death badly enough to risk slipping in the cardamom in front of everyone?
As we stood watching Mrs Harlow sob into her handkerchief, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of suspicion.
‘And you’re certain no one else had access to the eggnog?’ DCI Randolf pressed.
Mrs Harlow paused for a moment, then shook her head.
DCI Randolf cleared his throat, his keen eyes scanning the room. ‘I need to speak with each of you individually,’ he announced, his voice cutting through the tense silence. ‘Starting with you, Mrs Harlow.’
As the detective led Madge away, I caught Jeannie’s eye. She looked just about ready to break, her lips pressed into a thin line. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was: could we have finally caught the killer?
But what on earth would Mrs Harlow’s motive be? That she secretly plain hated us all? Was sick of doing the laundry? She could have just quit, though; murder seemed rather extreme. But then, she’d put up with Jeannie for all these years, the madness was bound to rub off on her at some point.
Miles was on the couch with the kids wrapped in his arms. As the interviews were taking place, DCI Randolf instructed us that a second full-scale sweep of the house was underway. We waited for our turn to be questioned, sitting in silence as our brains whirred with possibilities: the who, what, where and how. We glanced furtively at one another while the fire snapped, crackled and popped merrily in our ears.
The grandfather clock in the corner chimed softly, marking another hour of this interminable night. Eventually, Mrs Harlow emerged from her interview, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. She shuffled past us without a word, collapsing into an armchair by the window.
DCI Randolf entered and addressed Jeannie. ‘Mrs Weiss, you said that a pool-maintenance specialist looked at the mechanism for the pool cover. My officers are still unable to open it.’
Jeannie sat, eyes glazed over, staring into the fire.
Randolf said firmly, ‘Mrs Weiss?’
‘Hmm?’
‘The pool cover, Mother,’ Miles said gently. ‘What did the maintenance man say?’
‘I don’t know…’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘I didn’t even speak to him. George used to deal with all of that…’ The corners of her eyes glistened as she continued looking into the flames. I almost wanted to warn her about burning her retinas if she wasn’t careful, but I didn’t think now was the time or the place.
‘I saw him,’ I piped up. ‘He said that the motor was jammed and that he would order new parts.’
