Blue for Christmas: A Romantic Christmas Story Read online

Blue for Christmas:

  A Romantic Christmas Story

  By Rusty Fischer, author of A Town Called Snowflake

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  Blue for Christmas

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2012 by Rusty Fischer

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © detailblick – Fotolia

  This story was formerly released under the title “Snooping Around in Snowflake.”

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a FREE short story edited by the author himself. If you see any glaring mistakes, I apologize and hope you don’t take it out on my poor characters, who had nothing to do with their author’s bad grammar! Happy reading… and happy holidays!

  Enjoy!

  * * * * *

  Blue for Christmas:

  A Romantic Christmas Story

  She shows up the Monday after Thanksgiving, 9:01 a.m., clutching moist tissues and dabbing dry eyes.

  “Welcome to Snooping Around Snowflake,” I say, greeting her at my office door before showing her to the seat across from my cluttered desk. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  She smiles, edging crow’s feet from around both of her sad, blue eyes and says, “Please, call my Myrna.”

  Her voice is gentle and kind; like her eyes.

  She looks like she’s been up since Thanksgiving Eve, pondering whether or not to show up here today.

  I slide down into my ergonomic desk chair and feel that extra tug at my heart that always means I’m getting ready to tackle a tough case.

  Not tough for me to crack, mind you.

  Just… tough for me to forget.

  “Well,” she begins, voice cracking as she stares past me to the wall of movie posters behind me. “Wait… are those of… you?”

  I blush and nod; many people think it’s vain of me to put those posters in such a high place of prominence but, for me, they’re one big ice breaker.

  This is one time when they’ve really done their job.

  “Guilty as charged,” I say in a practiced, mock-humble voice.

  “I had no idea,” she marvels, inching up closer to my desk to get a better look. “I loved Murder Most Manhattan,” she gushes. “And Murder Most Melbourne; ooh, and Murder Most Manchester, too. Look how young you were!”

  She looks at me then, almost startled at what she’s just said.

  Before she can apologize I say, as I have 100 times before from this very desk chair, “Seems like a million years ago.”

  “But… how did you end up here? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  I smile and say, “We were filming my last installment of the Murder Most… installment here. You might have seen it? Murder Most Myrtle Beach? Anyway, I was tired of the Hollywood scene, my husband – who was also my producer – was having an affair with his assistant, it all seemed so cliché. I wanted somewhere the opposite of cliché. After the last day of shooting I packed a bag, rented a car and drove until it ran out of gas. I landed here, in Snowflake and, well… I’ve been here ever since.”

  She sits back in her chair, done stargazing and says, “What an absolutely marvelous story.”

  I nod and try to reel her back in. “You’re not here today to hear my story, Myrna; I’m here to hear yours.”

  She nods, like a scolded schoolgirl, and takes a deep breath. “I think my husband is cheating on me.”

  I nod and ask calmly, “Why is that, Myrna?”

  Myrna frowns and says, “I knew you were going to ask that.”

  She’s wearing black slacks in about a size 16; I know, because that’s my size, too.

  She has on a black blouse underneath a seasonably red jacket, a bright holly pin affixed to its left lapel.

  She is in her early 50s, with vibrant red hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  Small, diamond pendant earrings are her only jewelry.

  She doesn’t even wear a watch.

  “I just… do I have to have proof?” she asks, catching me off guard.

  “No,” I chuckle, crossing my legs. “That’s my job. I’m just interested in hearing why you suspect your husband is having an affair.”

  She shuts down, afraid to give voice to the concerns she’s no doubt been living with for weeks, maybe even months.

  If not years.

  I try a different strategy.

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Pierce and I have been married 32 years,” she says. “And I never, ever thought I’d be someplace like… this. I didn’t even know places like this existed.”

  “Most people don’t, Myrna. That is, until they do.”

  She nods, wearily, and as the morning sunlight filters in through my office window it spotlights the dark bags beneath her restless eyes.

  “In all that time,” she goes on, “I’ve never had a reason to distrust him.”

  I nod as she looks away, not at my wall of framed movie posters but… past… them.

  “What does Pierce do, Myrna?”

  “He’s in real estate,” she harrumphs. “So he’s got all the time in the world to run all over town and I’d never suspect anything.”

  “But you do suspect something. Right, Myrna?”

  “I just, well, he’s been having these late night ‘meetings.’ Or so he says…”

  As she begins her tale, Myrna’s normally placid, pale face comes to life.

  Her skin blushes, her eyes widen, her lips scowl.

  “And getting calls all time of day and night…”

  I nod because, well, that’s real estate kicked in the pants.

  But I don’t say anything because a smart woman like Myrna already knows that.

  There must be something else or she wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to look me up or set the appointment, nonetheless keep it.

  “Then,” she says, reaching into her small black purse and retrieving a well-worn piece of crinkly white paper, “there’s this.”

  She slides it over, face down, like she’s offering me a quote on some pricy objects d’art.

  I pick it up and scan its contents.

  It’s a receipt; for a bed.

  A queen-size bed, to be exact.

  And sheets, and pillows, a comforter and bed skirt, even a mattress pad, totaling nearly $800 at the local department store.

  “It’s the holidays,” I rationalize diplomatically. “Maybe it’s a… gift?”

  Myrna shakes her head and says, almost apologetically, “We haven’t slept in a queen-size bed since we first got married. Even our guest rooms have king-size beds. Unless he’s turning the basement into a bachelor pad, there’s only one reason I know for my husband to buy a queen-size bed AND new sheets.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Clearly, he’s dating someone with very low expectations…”

  * * * * *

  I begin tailing Pierce Fletcher the next afternoon, waiting outside his real estate office on Fiske Street and Elm, one of those cozy Victorians they converted into office space early last year.

  Despite the holiday season it’s still open window weather this far south, and he and a male assistant have rolled up their sleeves and spent two hours just after lunch stringing Christmas lights over the door and around the giant picture window in the reception suite.

  I eat a granola bar around three in the afternoon, hitting the “seek” button on my radio dial continuously trying to find something, anything, othe
r than the 24-hour, 7-days-a-week Christmas music stations that have suddenly taken over the dial.

  I finally find one on the local jazz station that plays mostly instrumental and listen as Pierce starts up his sporty red convertible and races off toward downtown Snowflake, South Carolina.

  It’s not very far from one place to anywhere else in Snowflake, and harder still to follow someone in sparse midday traffic, but that’s why I drive a generic, tan sedan.

  No bumper stickers, clean windows, quiet engine – the “invisible machine,” I call it.

  And for good reason – no one ever remembers it.

  Sometimes even I forget I’m driving it!

  He stops at the Snowflake Suds and Salts, a bath shop on Main Street and walks out, 10-minutes later, with several gift bags full of assorted bath salts, soaps and other bath time paraphernalia.

  Pierce is tall, reasonably fit, losing his wispy blond hair in the back and fond of whistling.

  I can hear him from across the street as he slides into his car and peels away from downtown, whistling something that sounds vaguely like “Winter Wonderland.”

  I follow Pierce to the hardware store, the wallpaper store, to several stores, one after the other, until his backseat and trunk are literally coming apart at the seams with holiday goodies stacked as high – and as wide – as they will go without tumbling into the street.

  He looks happy, content, excited; the exact opposite of his lovely and nearly grieving wife, Myrna.

  I shake my head as he finally pulls into the local Burger Barn, grabbing a sack full of burgers and fries so heavy and greasy it must be for two.

  I shake my head again, wishing I had time to grab a burger and fries – maybe even a gingerbread shake – for myself!

  Just then Myrna Fletcher rings, my cell phone vibrating on the dashboard.

  The tan sedan cruises to the light on 5th Street; just then Pierce guns it through the yellow.

  “Hello?” I ask, understandably a bit short.

  “Holly?” she asks. “Holly Hunter?”

  “Yes, Myrna, it’s me. What did I say about calling me while I was on the job?”

  “Well, you said not to do it but… what am I supposed to do, sitting here alone all day?”

  I’m tempted to snap, “Uh, how about get a job you Real Housewife of Snowflake?”

  But I don’t; for obvious reasons.

  Besides, it’s not Myrna’s fault her husband has a lead foot!

  “What can I do for you, Myrna?” I sigh.

  “Tell me who my husband’s cheating on me with,” Myrna blurts, half-frustrated, half-anguished – all blunt.

  “I know, honey,” I sigh back, easing away from the stoplight as it finally turns green and trying to catch up to Pierce.

  I can tell by the way the empty road stretches in front of me, turnoffs in every direction, that it’s a lost cause.

  “I know you’re upset, and I know you’re anxious and it’s not fun sitting on pins and needles waiting for some private eye to do her job, but it’s only the first day, Myrna. You’ve got to give me some time.”

  There is a frustrated groan on the other end; the kind that usually dissolves in tears.

  I let her do her thing while I drive, from one end of the town back to the other, with no luck.

  Finally I get inspired and ask, “Myra, honey? Did Pierce say whether or not he’s coming home for dinner tonight?”

  “He called a little while ago, Holly, and said he had to take a client out to dinner. At that new country club in Pine Hills? He told me not to wait up. This must happen, I dunno, three times a week lately…”

  Her voice trails off and I think of the bulging Burger Barn bag.

  He may not be cheating with anyone who likes queen size beds, bath salts and onion rings, but Pierce Fletcher is definitely lying to his wife.

  I give her my pat line – “Tomorrow is another day, doll” – and hang up, knowing there’s nothing I can tell her to ease her mind tonight.

  Then I pull into the Burger Barn myself, ordering enough for two and driving back to my lonely little condo for one.

  Sure, it overlooks the ocean and has six rooms, but when you’re eating greasy burgers all alone at sunset, what’s the point?

  * * * * *

  Pierce Fletcher is dating a comely blond leasing agent.

  I think.

  As I snap the 400th picture of her this week, I imagine what Myrna is going to think, watching her husband schmooze this nubile 20-something as she escorts him to their third apartment this week.

  It’s December 9th, and I’ve been tailing Pierce for over a week.

  In that time he’s eaten more Burger Barn burgers than most football teams after a post-game binge, bought more household products than most newlyweds setting up house and visited the Snowflake Saplings apartment complex six times in seven days.

  Most days he’s accompanied by “Madison,” or so says the nametag on the comely lass’s forest green Snowflake Saplings golf shirt.

  Madison is fond of snug khaki shorts that stop mid-thigh, and matching green and gold running shoes that add an extra inch or two to her already considerable 6-feet of young, nubile curves.

  She laughs often and heartily at Pierce’s jokes, and if only my zoom lens had a microphone I’d love to be a fly on the wall for their almost daily conversations.

  I take careful notes on what apartment they’re in now – B-6 – what time they go in – 4:17 PM – and how long they stay – 27 minutes, exactly.

  Afterward, Pierce follows Madison to the rental office, where he stays another 42-minutes, emerging with a manila envelope bursting with what looks like an entire ream of freshly-signed documents and a smile that could choke a horse.

  Afterward, rather than race home to Myrna – he hasn’t gotten home before 10 p.m. all week, and don’t think my aching eyeballs aren’t cursing him every minute after 5 p.m. – he races down to the Snowflake Hardware Store and buys three giant boxes of… Christmas lights???

  That’s just the beginning; for the next week straight Pierce Fletcher spends less and less time at his real estate office – to say nothing of his once happy home – and more and more time inside Apartment B-6 of the Snowflake Saplings.

  Occasionally his comely sidekick Madison will pop up the stairs in her snug cargo khakis and peppy running shoes, blond ponytail bouncing as she knocks on the door and, without waiting for an answer, lets herself in.

  I snap photos of her entering, then leaving, making sure the time stamp will be clearly visible when I print them for Myrna later in the month as I prepare my final report.

  The days, then the weeks, drag on.

  Although I have more than enough evidence to convince Myrna that her husband is having an affair with Madison while he’s supposed to be wining and dining real estate clients from here to Myrtle Beach, I stay on his trail.

  For one, the holidays are a remarkably slow time at my private detective agency, Snooping Around in Snowflake.

  For another, I feel really, really badly for Myrna and want to find something, anything, to prove me wrong.

  But every night, it just gets worse and worse.

  Sometimes Madison comes over right after she closes the rental office at seven; other times not until later, bearing a pizza box or to-go bags or cardboard trays full of green smoothies from the health food store down the block.

  Meanwhile, the tiny apartment begins to literally glow with Christmas spirit.

  Tiny white lights circle around every window, around every slat on the balcony made for two, where Pierce and Madison often share a quiet moment while she smokes a hasty cigarette before they return inside to carry on their torrid affair, breaking only to hang a new decoration as the apartment turns into some hot and heavy holiday hideaway.

  I finally call it quits when Pierce leaves work early on December 22nd to race over to the Snowflake Saplings and meet the delivery men who climb the stairs to Apartment B-6 holding a 5-foot Christm
as tree and half-a-dozen crates marked “decorations.”

  I drive back to the office, grumbling, grinding my teeth, and order up coffee and donuts from the deli downstairs before printing and collating and binding my final report well into the night.

  * * * * *

  “I want to confront him,” Myrna says, face red, mascara drying on her swollen cheeks the next night when I finally lay it all out for her; the clandestine meetings, the hottie known only as Madison, the lies, the Burger Barn takeout instead of client meetings, the whole ball of wax. “Will you help me?”