The Case of the Holiday Clichés Read online

like to buy something for my Aunt Liz,” Christina said.

  “Awww,” Guy said, nudging Diamond. “Cute.”

  The shopkeeper put down her knitting.

  “Nothing else is open today,” Christina continued, rambling a bit. “I saw this shop and thought I’d come in.”

  The shopkeeper smiled.

  “Well, then that must be why I’m open today,” she said. “I just knew you’d come along.”

  “How?” Christina asked. The video lurched back and forth slightly as she scratched her head, nudging the headband.

  The shopkeeper smiled indulgently.

  “Do you want to know? It’s a secret—I don’t normally show people. But I can tell you are a very special little girl. Not everyone can see this shop, you know.”

  “Yeah, some people are blind,” Charming Guy snorted.

  Christina didn’t have a reply. The monitor screens filled with images of the store displays—bins of yarn skeins, lace and mohair shawls, and a large shelf of awkward-looking felted woolen animals.

  “What’s that?” she asked, and Diamond and Guy saw her pointing at a misshapen blob in one corner with several long appendages hanging from it.

  “That’s Gerry the Giraffe,” the shopkeeper said, coming out from behind the counter. She had a chain around her waist with a large set of keys hanging from it.

  “Gerry doesn’t have a head,” Christina said. “He looks kind of like a jellyfish.”

  The shopkeeper ignored her. “Do you want to see how I knew you’d be here today?” she asked, and selected one of the keys dangling from her waist. “Here—it’s through this door,” she said, pointing at a wooden door with an old-fashioned brass knob and large keyhole.

  Agent Diamond unlatched the door to the van. Charming Guy grabbed her arm.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Why don’t you tell me what it is,” Christina said, hanging back from the door, and the shopkeeper looked down at her kindly.

  “It’s a loom,” she said. “It weaves a tapestry—the tapestry of my life. Every time I meet someone new, a new thread gets knotted into the tapestry, and it contributes to the rich, beautiful carpet that represents my life. Every person I’ve ever met makes up a thread in the carpet—and I bet if we go look at it, there will be a new, beautiful golden thread just knotted into the middle of it, a thread that represents you.”

  Guy tilted his head. “That’s actually not so bad,” he said.

  Diamond reared back, scribbling furiously on the citation pad.

  “You don’t just lay out a metaphor like that,” she snarled. “Good writing requires subtlety. I’d call that a massive violation.”

  Charming Guy shook his head.

  “We haven’t gotten to the milk and cookies,” he said.

  “Don’t go into that room, Christina,” Diamond muttered at the screen, wishing she had given her niece an earbud receiver so she could listen to directions.

  Christina clearly didn’t want to enter the mysterious room.

  “Why do you have a loom?” she asked, moving away from the door toward a display of bobbin lacemaking kits.

  “Everyone has a loom, dear,” the shopkeeper said. “Everyone you know is a part of the tapestry of your life. Some of the threads will be on the edges of your tapestry, and some will be in the middle, making up the bulk of it; some will appear and vanish never to be seen again, and some will be a part of your tapestry from the time you are born. All the threads have a purpose— they help shape the pattern of your life, the picture that is unrolling from your tapestry.”

  Christina nodded.

  “But I’m an orphan with no friends,” she said. “And everyone hates me except my Aunt Liz, and the woman at the public library who checks the books out, because I read all the time and not romance books for the dirty parts, either.”

  Diamond winced.

  “She’s really not good at improvisation,” Guy remarked.

  “She’s twelve,” Diamond snapped.

  On the video camera, the shopkeeper dropped the key she had taken into her hand and clasped her hands over her ample bosom. The Peter Pan collar around her neck heaved.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” she said. “What’s your name, child?”

  “Xena,” Christina said.

  “My name is—” and the shopkeeper paused, quirked her head, and dimpled in a small, secretive smile. “You can call me Gabrielle.”

  Christina snorted.

  “Are you saying that because I said my name was Xena?” she asked.

  The shopkeeper blinked. “What?”

  “Xena. Like Xena and Gabrielle.”

  Gabrielle looked blank, then she shook her head slightly, clearly ignoring this interruption to her narrative.

  Diamond nudged Guy. “Come on, come on,” she said. “Surely we have enough.”

  Gabrielle’s face dimpled again.

  “Gabrielle’s not my real name, child,” she said, a beatific expression under her tightly permed gray curls. “But it’s very close to the real one.”

  She looked heavenward. There was an audible click, then the sound of a choir singing suddenly filled the shop, and a spotlight turned on, bathing half of Gabrielle in an eerie white light. She squinted and shuffled over until she was fully under the spotlight, then smiled again.

  Diamond scribbled on her citation pad.

  “Unsubtle references to angelic origins,” she snarled. “Come on, that’s got to be enough!”

  Guy shook his head.

  “We’ve got to put her away for good,” he said. “We’ve got to get as far as the cookies.”

  “That’s my niece in there!” Diamond cried.

  On the screen, Gabrielle had her hands clasped in front of her. Her eyes, behind the steel-frame reading glasses, were shining.

  “Well, Xena,” she said, “I can teach you how to make something beautiful with a single thread. Would you like that?”

  “I kind of just want to get something for my aunt,” Christina said, dubiously.

  “You can knit her something,” Gabrielle said. She walked over to a display of mohair yarn, pulled down a scarf, held it out to Christina.

  “Don’t you think this is beautiful?” she asked.

  “It’s very soft,” Christina said. “But it’s kind of itchy.”

  “I will teach you how to knit,” Gabrielle said, more firmly than before. “You can see how a single thread can be knotted and looped and form something beautiful, and useful, and worthwhile—all you need is a single thread. The thread of your life.”

  She peered intently through her glasses at Christina.

  “It will change your life. A single, beautiful, golden thread,” she said, and the monitors showed that Christina was edging back toward the door of the shop.

  “You’ll see how important your life is to the world,” Gabrielle breathed, smiling glassily.

  “That’s it,” Diamond said, yanking open her door. She slid out, slipping the blackjack from her boot into her hand, and sprinted up the street.

  Guy frowned, watching the monitor.

  Gabrielle straightened up and cleared her throat, fanning herself slightly. The spotlight and choir turned off.

  “My dear,” she said, jovially, “Would you like some cookies and a glass of milk? The cookies just came out of the oven ten minutes ago.”

  “We have milk and cookies!” he cried.

  On the monitor, pandemonium ensued as the door to the shop was wrenched open and Diamond erupted through it. Charming Guy quickly slid out of the van and followed Diamond’s sprint up the street.

  “The last thing this holiday season needs,” he heard Diamond shouting through the open shop door, “is another fucking mystery shop dispensing life lessons to innocent children!”

  “Watch out!” Christina cried, and there was the sound of a scuffle.

  “I’m going to save her liiiife!” Gabrielle yelled.

  There was a loud, meaty smack.
/>   Charming Guy was just in time to see Gabrielle, a lethal-looking pair of number two bamboo knitting needles raised in one red fist, drop them and tumble to the floor. Diamond slapped her blackjack into one palm, looking smug.

  “Cool,” Christina breathed from her vantage point just to one side of the counter, where she had been hiding behind a display of tablet weaving cards.

  “Nobody teaches my niece to knit,” Diamond muttered darkly, pulling a pair of handcuffs from her belt.

  “Christina, go outside,” Charming Guy said, pulling his taser from its holster. “I’m going to look for elves.”

  “Elves?” Christina sounded dubious. “Like Santa’s elves? Those don’t exist.”

  “Neither do shops that magically appear and disappear around the holidays,” Agent Diamond said. She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a set of keys.

  “You did great, kiddo, now go sit in the van while we clear this place up. And don’t touch the recording equipment—we will need the footage for the court case.”

  “Diamond, we got to cookies,” Guy said. “There are enough clichés on record to put her away for a long, long time.”

  Diamond glared at him.

  “That was too close for my comfort,” she said. “You and your cookies. That’s the last time Christina works a case like this.”

  “Awww, but Auntie Liz,” Christina whined, from where she was dawdling in the doorway, boots scuffing at the mat which read, A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed—Welcome Friends!

  “I wasn’t scared,” Christina said.

  “You weren’t scared,” Diamond said, snapping the handcuffs shut on the prone Gabrielle’s wrists. “Go sit in the van, Chris. Keep the doors locked. Guy, hurry up and sweep the place. That felted stuff is giving me the creeps.”

  Guy nodded, and headed into the shop.

  Diamond