To me, they looked a lot like blood.
His wife had also accused him of having an affair, because he'd lied about where he was onSunday morning.
Sunday morning—exactly when somebody'd murdered Darryl.
Lucky had told me about how he'd overheard Judd and Darryl arguing, and now Judd had no alibi for the time of the murder.
Tess and I needed to tell Andy. Well, after I told her.
I put the pizza boxes on my passenger seat and frowned at them. I hated the idea that Judd might be the killer. And not only because the pizza had gotten so much better since he'd bought the place. I genuinely liked the guy. But, as people had brutally shown me so many times during the past decade, even the nicest people could snap and do violent things.
Starting the car, I decided to talk it over with Tess before I called Andy. A snippet of overheard conversation and what might—might—be blood on shoes did not equal proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Tess and I would discuss it like real private detectives, even though neither of us were, and then I'd decide what to do. That resolved, I drove myself and my pizzas over to the pawnshop, pulled into the parking lot, and turned off the truck.
Then I just sat there for a moment, staring, before I picked up my phone and called Tess.
She answered on the second ring. "Jack! Where are you? We're starving over here!"
"Tess," I said slowly. "Why is there a reindeer on the roof of your shop?"
24
Tess
I dropped my phone on the counter and raced to the door. A normal person would think "he's messing with me."
But normal people didn't live in Dead End.
I opened the door, glanced up, and then carefully walked out onto the porch. Jack ambled toward me, staring up at my roof the whole time. I leaned back over the railing and looked up, but still couldn't see anything.
"You're going to need to come down here." The expression on Jack's face told me he didn't know whether to laugh or clutch his head and groan.
I slowly edged down the stairs, backward, until I could get a good view of my roof.
My roof … and the reindeer standing on top of it.
"Well, that's unexpected."
Jack stopped just behind me and put his arms around my waist. "Definitely a new one on me, too."
"Are you sure that's a reindeer? I mean, just because he's brownish white, has antlers, and looks like he ought to be pulling Santa's sleigh doesn't prove anything."
"It's a reindeer, Tess. Remember, I told you about the time—"
"Stop. Stop right now. I just can't."
The door to the shop opened, and Eleanor, Shelley, and a half-dozen customers all rushed out to see what was going on. Probably because of the weird squeaky noise I'd made before rushing out the door.
"Why are you standing in the parking lot staring at the roof?" Shelley asked. Then she skipped across the porch and down the stairs, turning as she went, until she was standing next to me and Jack, her eyes huge, staring up at Rudolph.
I took a deep breath. "I'm looking at the reindeer on my roof. Before you ask, no, I don't know how it got there or why it's standing there now. It seems a little like the abandoned dogs and cats, but not really, because—reindeer."
All the customers and Eleanor were chattering and taking selfies with Rudolph in the background, and I had a sinking feeling the pictures were going to show up in the Dead End Gazette.
Shelley's little hand slipped into mine. "Um, Tess?"
"It's okay. We're going to figure out what to do and how safely to get the reindeer off the roof. Don't you worry."
