A Wee Christmas Homicide by Kaitlyn Dunnett Page A

wasn’t a doctor, but it looked to her as if the bullet had struck the heart, just as Margaret had said.
    And just like the last victim she’d eyeballed in The Toy Box.
    After one long stare to verify that there was nothing anyone could do to revive Thorne, Sherri turned her attention to her surroundings. She wasn’t the one who’d examine blood-spatter patterns or ballistic evidence or determine cause of death. The experts in those areas would arrive soon enough.
    Quiet engulfed her, the silence of a building empty of life. No one, she was certain, was hiding on the premises. Whoever had killed Thorne was long gone.
    It was warm in the shop. No doors left open, then. Not for long, anyway. Thorne might even have been killed the previous evening, since he was fully dressed and did not seem to have turned the thermostat down. It had been considerably chillier in The Toy Box the night she’d come to investigate the broken window and mutilated bear. On the other hand, he might have gotten up early and been preparing for the day when someone shot him.
    Surveying the shop from her central vantage point, she tried to determine if anything had been vandalized or stolen. Thorne’s arm had struck a small table as he fell, knocking it over and spilling a display of American Girl products onto the floor. Other than that, nothing seemed to be out of place or disturbed.
    Giving the dead man a wide berth, she approached the high sales counter and climbed the steps at the back to check if Thorne’s computer and cash register were still there. Both looked intact and untouched. Using only her fingertips, she opened the drawer where she’d seen him stash his gun. There was no sign of it now. That wasn’t good, but she knew better than to mess with the crime scene by continuing to search for it.
    The distant wail of a siren warned Sherri that she didn’t have much time left for observation. From her lofty vantage point, she gazed down at the shop. The boarded-up front window cut out most of the natural light, but the overhead fixture showed her much the same arrangement she remembered from her previous visit with Liss and Marcia. If anything had been taken, the thief had been neat about it.
    Had the light been on when Thorne was shot? She hadn’t flicked the switch beside the door, but Margaret might have. Or Mark Patton. Sherri frowned, staring at Patton through the still-open door. There was something familiar about him. It came to her a moment later. He was the disappointed customer who’d been swearing so creatively because Thorne’s prices were too high. When had that been? Sunday, she thought. The day the news crew came to town. She couldn’t help but wonder what would bring Patton back to Moosetookalook three days later.
    She was about to go out and ask him when she realized something was different about The Toy Box. She didn’t see a Tiny Teddy anywhere. Sherri hadn’t expected clowns or ballerinas—they’d sold out—but Thorne had supposedly acquired a new supply. Could they all have been bought up so quickly? More likely, having learned his lesson, Thorne had put them elsewhere for safekeeping overnight. She moved cautiously toward the back of the shop, intending to take a peek into Thorne’s storage closet.
    “Officer Willett?” Jeff Thibodeau’s shout came from just outside the front door.
    “In a minute!” she hollered back.
    “Get out of there,” he ordered. “Now.”
    Jeff knew the ropes, particularly what not to do. He had no intention of entering the crime scene himself.
    “I’m just making sure the killer isn’t still on the premises,” Sherri called, using the first reasonable excuse she could come up with. “I want to check the apartment upstairs.”
    “You need backup?”
    “I’m okay. Just being thorough.”
    “Don’t mess anything up. Go up from the inside of the building but exit by way of the outside stairs.”
    “I knew that,” Sherri muttered, but she didn’t sass her boss.
    Jeff