M iracle on Main Street looks like Santa’s workshop after a corporate takeover—sleek, commercial, and profitable, yet still packed with enough Christmas cheer to give even the Grinch a festive seizure.
The place is a year-round tribute to holiday capitalism, with aisles upon aisles of ornaments, tinsel, fake snow, and enough animatronic elves to staff a toy factory in the North Pole’s industrial district.
Christmas carols blast through hidden speakers at bone-rattling volumes and the display of toy desserts is really making me crave a cookie.
Watson pulls at his leash, barking with excitement at a life-sized mechanical reindeer that bobs its head in rhythm to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
My cute pooch’s tail wags with enough force to power the North Pole itself as he bounces from display to display as if he were adding every toy in sight to his canine wish list.
He trots over to a tall plastic snowman and proceeds to lift a leg.
“Gah!” I give his leash a quick tug. “Would you stop? You’re embarrassing yourself,” I tell him as he attempts to mark his territory. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”
“At least he’s enjoying himself,” Niki says, although she’s not exactly focused on dog-wrangling duties.
My sister has wandered into the nostalgic Christmas section and is currently holding a vintage-looking doll in one hand while trying on a sparkly red tutu with the other.
“Do you think this makes me look festive or just desperate for attention?”
“Both,” I reply, scanning the store for anyone who might be the elusive Gabe Esposito. “We’re here on a mission, remember? Find the disgruntled Christmas shop owner who might have murdered—or at least had a motive to murder—Nicholas and maybe even Enzo Bianchi.”
“I’m multitasking,” Niki insists, twirling in the tutu that’s now riding up to her boobs. “I can solve murders and look fabulous at the very same time.”
“Try not to pee on anything,” I say as I hunt down a saleswoman arranging a nativity scene where the Three Wise Men appear to be offering gifts from the store’s clearance section. Her name tag reads “Noel,” which seems almost too on-the-nose for a Christmas shop employee, but ’tis the season.
“Excuse me,” I say, lightening my voice an octave and offering a quick wave. It’s sad I have to try so hard to be friendly. “Is Gabe Esposito available? I have some questions about, uh, some custom ornaments.”
Noel’s candy cane earrings jingle as she shakes her head. “Sorry, he’s not in at the moment,” she says as she chews away on the gum in her mouth. “Gabe always cuts out early on Saturday nights. It’s sort of his thing.”
“Any idea where I might find him?” I press. “It’s kind of important—it’s sort of a custom ornament emergency, if you know what I mean.”
Noel glances over her shoulder as if checking for eavesdropping elves before leaning my way. Her breath smells like peppermint schnapps barely masked by the cinnamon gum she’s chewing. It’s nice to know how she gets so holly and jolly.
She nods my way. “He likes to spend his free time and his money at some sleazy gentlemen’s club in Leeds called Red?—”
“Red Satin?”
Her eyes widen. “You know it?”
“More intimately than I’d like to admit,” I mutter, already turning to collect my sister and pooch. “Niki! Put down the nutcracker and grab Watson. We’re heading to Leeds.”