“You think I stole the presents.” Heathcliff's words were clipped, dripping with scorn.
“If you didn’t, then why are you trying to hide these from me?” Heathcliff’s entire face shut down. “If you’d just talk to me, we could—”
“What’s the point in talking? You’ve already made up your mind.” Heathcliff collected the gifts in his arms, stomped from the room, and slammed his bedroom door, shrouding the room in heavy, hurtful silence.
Chapter Fourteen
Iran downstairs. The furniture guys were just removing the sex desk and dumping out the contents of Heathcliff’s drawers in a pile in the corner. I slumped against the wall, my head in my hands. Quoth hopped across the rug in front of me, tugging a string of tinsel for Grimalkin to chase. Even their antics couldn’t cheer me up.
At least the furniture guys didn’t have any qualms about stepping into the shop owned by Heathcliff the evil Christmas Grinch. The desk’s absence left a square of bright blue on the rug, vibrant against the dull grey where the exposed carpet had faded.
A hand rested on my shoulder.
“I don’t want to see any more of this moping, gorgeous. We’re still working the case.” Morrie dragged me to my feet, brushing stray pine needles from the breast of his jacket.
“What’s the point? Heathcliff stole the gifts. He won’t give them back, and he won’t say why he did it.”
“Do you really believe that?” Morrie’s ice eyes bore into mine. “Do what my arch-nemesis Sherlock Holmes would never do, and put aside the evidence for a moment. You know Heathcliff better than anyone. Would he steal the presents and then hide them right here in the shop?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, bringing up every tender moment and every scorching kiss Heathcliff and I had shared ever since I took the job at Nevermore Bookshop. From our picnic date beside the stream in King’s Copse and shagging in the bathroom at Lachlan house to attempting regency dancing at the Jane Austen ball. I’d trod on Heathcliff’s feet every few steps, and he never complained. Okay, he did complain. But he never stopped dancing.
“No,” I said. “He didn’t do it.”
“Exactly.” Morrie handed me a brand new notebook. “Now let’s prove it.”
I hunted around in the pile of stationary in the corner for my favorite sparkly pen, but it was still nowhere to be found. Sighing, I picked up another and made a note at the top of the page. “We know Earl and his friends took the tree around 1AM, and the presents were still here. I discovered the presents missing around 7:22AM. That means there’s a six-hour window during which the presents could have been stolen. Maybe an intruder snuck in while Earl was leaning out the side window talking to his boys?”
“I’m still betting on the accountant,” said Morrie. “I’ve been tracking him all day. He visited five different shops and businesses in the village and begged them to pay his invoices. He had his dog and her four puppies on a lead, and they’re looking very well fed. They all had brand new collars, too. I bet those came from under the tree.”
“Princess had five puppies,” I corrected him, writing that down.
“Did she? I must’ve counted wrong.” Morrie sounded put out. He didn’t like to have his intelligence or observational skills questioned. “Anyway, I think he’s our strongest suspect, but he’s tricksy. Our only hope of beating him is to catch him red-handed.”
“You’re probably right. I don’t see how we can get him to confess,” I said.
“There’s always a means.” Morrie cracked his knuckles.
“What do you think about Roland Crabapple?” I’d been wondering about the creepy photographer. “He was MIA during our window.”
Morrie tapped on his phone. “Interesting that you were thinking about him, too. I was intrigued by something Tabitha said, about him going to King’s Copse and video-chatting his cat. So I did some sleuthing on the Dark Web. It turns out our friend the BDSM photographer is a known dendrophiliac.”
“What’s dendrophilia?” Morrie turned his phone around. At first, all I could see were arty pictures of trees. But then I noticed people in the images as well, hugging the trunks and bending themselves into strange shapes. They were all naked and…
Ew.
Gross.
What?
I shoved his phone away. “I can’t unsee that. People are sick.”
“Don’t be such a prude. Most dendrophiliacs aren’t shagging the shrubbery. It’s a bit of a mother-earth cult thing, where trees stand as phallic symbolism—”
“Okay, fine, I get it.” I held up my hands. “You’ve painted a vivid picture. So Roland has a tree fetish, which might explain why he wanted to shag Tabitha at the shop or why he might go to King’s Copse. But do you think our tree shagger friend would steal the presents?”
Morrie stared at his phone screen, deep in thought. “Roland knew Tabitha had the key. He could have easily slipped it from her pocket and returned it at breakfast. Maybe he got angry when he came back to the shop and found the tree gone, so he decided to steal the presents as a kind of retribution. But I have another explanation – I found this.” Morrie handed me his phone again.
I stared at the screen. It was a photograph of a grumpy-looking Persian cat sitting on a throne that looked like something the Romanovs would’ve turned their noses up at for being too extravagant. I scrolled down. The article was from one of the gossip rags, explaining in lurid detail how Roland was squandering his fortune buying every conceivable luxury for his cat, Miss Purrfect. Apparently, she ate only the finest caviar, had a litter box made of solid gold, and even owned her own Soho penthouse. ‘He may be a dominant in the bedroom, but Roland Crabapple has his own master. He’s addicted to that cat’s approval,’ said one source. ‘And we all know about cats – it’s impossible to truly win their love.’
