Read A Little Yuletide Murder for Free Online Page A

expression change.
    “What a nice surprise,” I said, standing back to allow her to enter. “Please, come in.”
    She looked as though she wasn’t sure what to do next, but then entered the foyer. I closed the door behind her. “Can I take your coat and hat?” I asked, extending my hands.
    “All right,” she said. Large, thick fingers unbuttoned her plain gray gabardine coat. I helped slide it off her shoulders. She reached up and removed her artificial fur hat and handed it to me. I hung them on pegs and said, “Come in. I’ll make tea. Unless you’d prefer coffee.”
    “Neither, thank you, Mrs. Fletcher.”
    I led her into the living room, aware of what a large woman she was. She stood six feet tall, and her body was boxlike, her face broad and square, too. Once, when I was in a shoe store, looking for winter boots, Mary came in looking for a new pair of moccasins. They had nothing in a woman’s style large enough to fit her feet, which, I noticed, were measured at size twelve. She settled for a man’s moccasin, saying as she paid at the counter, “Big feet, big heart, they say.”
    To which the sales clerk replied, “I’m sure that’s true, Mrs. Walther. Have a nice day.”
    A big woman—everywhere.
    I’ve always respected Mary Walther. Despite marriage to a difficult and unpopular man, she was active in the larger Cabot Cove community, quick to respond to charity events to help out someone who’d fallen on hard times. She was aware of the occasional snide, sometimes cruel comments behind her back, but seemed able to put them aside. Mary wasn’t a leader; there always seem to be too many leaders and not enough soldiers to do the grunt work on a project. But you could depend upon her to follow through and get the job done.
    Like Patricia Brent, Mary Walther married a farmer and lives on a farm. But there is a dramatic difference between both families.
    While Rory Brent had been a successful farmer, Jake and Mary Walther seem always to be on the brink of insolvency. And the family’s living arrangements are strange, to understate it. There isn’t just one house on the property. There are three, each in decrepit condition and not larger than what might be termed a shack. The three houses are lined up one behind the other, starting a dozen or so feet from the road. Jake Walther, at least according to those who claim to know, lives in the house closest to the road. Mary lives in the next house up the hill, perhaps 200 feet from the first, with their only child, Jill, who was away at school. And in the third house lives Mary’s mildly retarded young brother, Dennis, a sweet, pleasant man who earns his keep by helping Jake on the farm. I can’t attest to it from personal knowledge, but people say that Mary would ring a bell just outside her door at mealtimes, and Jake and her brother would come to her house for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, then return to their respective houses.
    Unconventional? Without a doubt. Then again, there are undoubtedly those families who live in the same house without having any interaction. The older I get, the less critical I’m determined to be.
    A number of merchants in Cabot Cove had complained about not being paid by Jake and Mary, and a few had taken legal action against them. The bank, I’d heard, had been threatening for a long time to repossess their farm and home.
    The problem is, as Cynthia Curtis had put it, unpleasant people are sued more often than pleasant ones. Compounding the Walther’s financial problems is Jake Walther’s sour, combative personality. He is a tall, thin man with a craggy face and salt-and-pepper hair that looks as though it hasn’t been combed in years. His clothing is always dirty and in need of repair, and his face is set in a perpetual scowl, to the extent that children express fear of him just because of the way he looks.
    Mary sat ramrod straight in a chair I indicated, clasped her gnarled hands in her lap, and planted her feet