The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

Inspector Patel asks when “it” started. Maggie says it all started in the elevator.

Five years earlier, Ethan boarded an elevator while taking a call from his father, a former military officer who still expected everyone to obey him. He wanted to know why Ethan hadn’t come to Maui, and Ethan explained that he still couldn’t use his right arm. Suddenly a beautiful but harried woman entered, and Ethan ended the call. He couldn’t stop staring at her. When she saw her reflection, she declared that she looked like a “Victorian street urchin someone tried to drown in a rain barrel” (138), but to Ethan, she looked like an angel. He asked if she was an author, and she confirmed this. She realized that her name tag read “Marcie” and freaked out because Eleanor Ashley was supposed to be at the party; she didn’t want Eleanor to think that her name was really Marcie. Maggie said she’d just have to change her name to Marcie if that’s what Eleanor called her. Ethan gamely offered to act like as though Marcie had always been her name, and they shared a smile.

Suddenly, the lights went out and the elevator stopped. Ethan reassured Maggie, revealing that even though he looked ragged and feral, he had just sold his first book to Killhaven. She congratulated him, but he downplayed his accomplishment. The elevator started moving, and as they exited together, Ethan heard a man call Maggie’s name. She removed her gloves, revealing her wedding ring. Colin looked at Maggie critically and asked what she had done to her hair, and Ethan saw her “shrink” under Colin’s gaze. She reminded Colin that she just parked their car in the snow because he didn’t want to ruin his shoes. Ethan’s anger turned to rage when Colin said, “They’re suede.” Then someone called Maggie away, and the interaction was over.

In the narrative present, when Ethan wakes up, he sees Maggie curled in a ball on the other side of the bed. When she wakes and sees that he is still there, he reassures her that he’s not going anywhere. They each realize that the other is the only other trustworthy person in the house. They know that Eleanor would try to find the would-be killer, so that’s what they decide to do.

Maggie and Ethan go to the kitchen to speak with James, who says he has run the house for 30 years. He didn’t hear the gunshots aimed at Maggie, but when Cece found Sir Jasper, James ran up the steps behind Maggie and Ethan, so he was definitely in the house with an alibi. He tells them that Eleanor had recently been considering changing her will. Maggie and Ethan ask Freddy about the will, but he says he cannot reveal that information. He has only been at the firm for a few months, and he worries that his father will be angry that he has lost their most important client. Maggie and Ethan then speak with Dr. Charles, who thinks that Sir Jasper will be fine; however, he is a psychiatrist and lacks the expertise to be certain. He says he “didn’t come here for this” (149). He claims that he just came for Christmas, but Maggie and Ethan suspect that this isn’t the truth.

Maggie and Ethan find the duke and duchess, David and Victoria. Maggie assures the duchess that they’ll find Eleanor, then asks if Victoria is trying to kill Eleanor. Victoria denies this. However, she says that in the past, when they were young, Eleanor never gave them gifts on Christmases or birthdays. Instead, she gave the children clues, but Victoria grew tired of Eleanor’s games and eventually stopped chasing them. The duke tells Ethan that they are now searching for the safe, so Ethan deduces that they know about Eleanor’s will.

The chaotic house is filled with rambunctious children who are stuck inside because of the storm; the baby is teething and crying nonstop. Kitty is disappointed with matters as they are, especially since Eleanor was recovering nicely from her fall and Rupert “had finally sorted out that mix-up with the accounts” (154). When Maggie asks about this, Kitty explains that there was a miscommunication regarding Eleanor’s royalty checks; Kitty says that Rupert told her about the change, but Eleanor forgot. Ethan takes the screaming baby, who immediately quiets down. As he walks the baby around the room, Kitty tells Maggie that Ethan seems “smitten” with her. Later, Maggie and Ethan hypothesize that Eleanor caught Rupert doing something shady with her money; this would give him a motive to kill her. Maggie enjoys the teamwork with Ethan and is glad that they can brainstorm aloud together. Just then, they see Rupert heading down the hall, looking like he does not want to be followed.

While following Rupert, Ethan and Maggie are compelled to duck into a small alcove, where they end up kissing. Suddenly, they hear Dr. Charles telling Rupert that he didn’t come to Mistletoe Manor to deal with poisonings and shootings. Rupert reminds him that he is there because Eleanor is “delusional.” Dr. Charles says that in the wake of the murder attempts and the author’s disappearance, Eleanor’s suspicions are justified. Rupert reminds Dr. Charles that the two of them already agreed that Eleanor is “no longer of sound mind” and that “[s]omeone needs to take over her affairs […]. For her own good,” (159). However, Dr. Charles counters that he never had an opportunity to examine her. Maggie begins to pull away from Ethan, but he asks her how certain she is that Eleanor’s disappearance is a test. She deflects, claiming that she was wrong, but when he insists, she admits that she has never felt more certain of her instincts. He reaches behind her and pushes against a wall panel bearing a mistletoe carving. It shifts, revealing a passage.

Maggie and Ethan tumble into the passage. Maggie does not like small, dark spaces, not since “The Wine Cellar Incident” (162). As the door swings closed behind them, Ethan reassures Maggie that she wasn’t wrong and that Eleanor wants them to follow the clues. Maggie trusts him.

Inspector Patel asks if Maggie and Ethan believe that falling into a secret passage is normal. They say that when one is dealing with Eleanor Ashley, such a thing is indeed normal. The inspector insists that they ought to have told Dobson about it.

Ethan leads the way through the dark passage, checking on Maggie because he knows that she doesn’t like small, dark spaces. She wants to know who told him that, and he says that she did. She asks if this is about Tucson, and he retorts that he thought they weren’t supposed to talk about Tucson. He reminds her of their encounter in an elevator, and she suddenly remembers. She can’t figure out why she didn’t recognize him from that experience, but he knows it’s because he looked very different then. Maggie admits to seeing his scar on the plane, and he explains that he got it on Christmas one year. His family has a house in the mountains, he was there for a Christmas gathering that turned unpleasant, so he decided to drive home even though the roads were bad. A car had gone off the road, and he saw the beams of its headlights pointing straight up, so he climbed down an icy cliff to check on the driver only to find the car empty. Suddenly, the snowy cliff shifted, and he fell. He doesn’t remember what happened until he woke up in the hospital days later.

Maggie apologizes for mentioning the scar, and Ethan explains that when they met in the elevator, he had already had multiple surgeries and had been in rehab for months. He couldn’t shave or comb his hair because of his arm, and he had stopped eating and had lost his job. Now, he doesn’t feel like the same person he was then, or when he worked for the Secret Service. These days, he has a tremor and fears that it will always be there, but when Maggie takes his hand, she finds that it is steady.

Maggie realizes that she does not feel scared when she is with Ethan. She wishes that she could ignore the inner voice telling her that her instincts about Eleanor are wrong. She recalls that Colin was the one who always made her feel “crazy” or paranoid. Ethan urges her to trust herself. He asks about her pen names. Maggie explains that she got married at age 21 and did not realize that Colin and Emily both liked the fact that she needed them; to them, she was “somewhere between charity case and mascot [….]. She was the ultimate foil—only there to reflect their light” (173). Colin got 50% of her copyrights in the divorce. She did all that she could to buy back his half, including writing under four new names so that the money would not be linked to her. This and her hard work allowed her to buy him out. However, Ethan was only aware of three pen names, not four. Maggie doesn’t want to explain the fourth, so he assumes that she must be writing “dirty” books under that name. He jokingly vows to find these mysterious novels. Finally, they reach a ladder that leads up to a trapdoor.

The trapdoor leads to the greenhouse. There has been a fire recently, and Maggie realizes that the greenhouse contains a poisonous garden. When poisonous plants burn, they produce poisonous smoke. Moreover, a crowbar is wedged in the door so that the greenhouse cannot be opened from the inside. Ethan believes that someone set the fire and blocked the door, locking Eleanor inside. Without the secret passage, Eleanor would be dead.

Maggie and Ethan go back through the passage and into the house, where Maggie asks Cece about the fire. Cece says the fire occurred about a month ago and was small enough that the sprinkler system put it out. Ethan then asks about Eleanor’s fall, and Cece says the runner came loose and the old railing wobbled. Hearing this, Maggie realizes that someone has been trying to kill Eleanor for weeks. She and Ethan go to the kitchen, where he anticipates her hunger and her need for caffeine. He even knows how she takes her coffee. They realize that including the shooting, four attempts have been made on Eleanor’s life. Dobson orders everyone to the library.

The police inspector demands to know where Maggie and Ethan have been. Maggie asks Dobson if he knew that someone had locked Eleanor in the greenhouse and set a fire weeks ago; he says that Eleanor told him about this incident. When Maggie then asks about the stairs, she hears Rupert huff. He says that his aunt is “a careless old woman” (186), but Maggie challenges him, asking if Eleanor is so “careless” that Rupert thought she wouldn’t realize that some of her money was missing. Ethan asks if the duke found Eleanor’s will, and the duchess accuses Cece of trying to finagle an inheritance. Rupert reveals that Eleanor didn’t know about Cece until six months ago. Cece says that her father was Eleanor’s baby brother, and he was a bit wild. He ran away from home, fathered Cece, then abandoned her and her mother. Cece did some research, found Eleanor, and wrote to her. Freddy confirms Cece’s explanation, saying that his firm completed the DNA testing that proved Cece and Eleanor’s kinship. Rupert says that Cece is the only person who would try to kill Eleanor. Dobson accuses Maggie and Ethan of “playing” detective, and Maggie loses her patience and yells at the group, saying that none of them cares that Eleanor is missing. She suddenly realizes how similar she and Eleanor are. Just then, the house lights go out.