The Great Candy Caper

I’ve been at the holiday game for a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen anything like this, I thought to myself as I popped another toffee into my mouth.

Mrs. Claus’ kitchen lay in disarray, pots and pans strewn everywhere. Mrs. Claus could be heard quietly weeping in the next room. It was Christmas Eve, and every bit of Christmas candy she and the elves had so carefully crafted had been stolen. Every gumdrop, every caramel, every chocolate soldier, pilfered. If they couldn’t be found before Santa left, then there would be no candy for the children’s stockings this year. It would be the greatest holiday disaster since that nasty business with the Grinch.

“So, what do you think, Gumdrop?” Taffy asked. She’d been patiently waiting as I perused the crime scene. Her bright green eyes were fixated on my face, full of hope that I could crack this case. After all, I was the best P.I. in the North Pole.

I continued to slowly chew my toffee. “Looks like someone is trying very hard to convince us this was a break-in,” I offered up between chews.

Taffy shook her head in confusion, the little silver bells on her hat tinkling musically. “But the window was smashed in - how could this not be a break-in?”

Taffy had declared herself my apprentice a couple of decades ago, despite my protests to the contrary. Since then, her whimsy and innocence had gotten us out of some sticky binds, but she still had a lot to learn about following the clues.

“Where’s the glass from the broken window?” I gently prompted.

Taffy gazed around the room in consternation. She trotted to the window, searching. A table sat under the window, and she looked between all the ingredient canisters on the table before looking under it. Finally, she stepped into the connecting living room. I heard her open the front door, her tiny footsteps crunching in the snow until she stood outside the window. Finally, I heard a high-pitched gasp before she came barreling back into the house.

“The glass is on the snow outside!” she exclaimed.

“So what does that mean?” I waited quietly as she put the pieces together.

“The thief broke the window out from inside the kitchen!” She beamed, proud of solving the puzzle.

I gave her a smile and a toffee from my pocket. “Very good, apprentice.” She beamed at the rare praise. I turned to the kitchen supervisor, Licorice, who had been quietly watching the proceedings. “How many elves have access to this kitchen?” I inquired.

Licorice scratched his head as he pondered. “Probably a couple hundred,” he replied, “It is an industrial kitchen that churns out enough candy for every child in the world, after all.”

I had to find a way to narrow down the suspect list, and fast. “How do the elves access the kitchen? I noticed there’s no direct entryway.”

Licorice blinked at me blankly as his assistant, Brickle, interjected, “But there is a direct entry?” He pulled at a short shelf on the wall, revealing an elf-size portal leading into a tunnel. "This is how the workers enter so they don’t disturb the Clauses when they’re sleeping. That way, we can staff the kitchen day and night to make sure we stay on schedule.”

Well, that adds a new wrinkle, I thought to myself. "Where does the tunnel lead?" I asked Licorice and Brickle.

"To a security station near the elf dorms," Licorice replied. "Everyone has to check in and out so we can keep track of work shifts.....and so no candy goes missing," he said with a chagrined expression.

"Sounds like something went wrong with that system," I dryly observed. "Can you show me the way?"

Licorice gestured at his second-in-command, "Brickle can take you. I've got to try to figure out some way to salvage this mess if you can't find the culprit in time."

Brickle nodded his tousled blond head in acknowledgement, "This way, detective," he said as he flipped a switch to illuminate the tunnel with light.

The tunnel was lined with light fixtures shaped like candy. It seemed like every candy in the world was represented, although that was probably just my imagination. "Brickle, how long have you been on candy detail?" I asked as we trudged for what felt like a mile.

"Four centuries in the kitchen, assistant supervisor for the last 50 years," he replied. "It sure beats reindeer detail, let me tell you."

I chuckled appreciatively. I'd started off working with the reindeer myself until I solved my first case. "So you've been at it awhile, then. You suspect anyone for this? Anyone disgruntled or maybe jealous? Candy making is a pretty sweet gig, if you'll pardon the pun."

Brickle scrunched his face in thought before replying, "No one I can think of. The team all get on really well; we're always joking with each other, and the work is even more fun than making toys. I don't think any of our crew would jeopardize their position for one candy payout."

"Joking? What kind of jokes, any pranks?" I asked.

"No, nothing like that. Just picking on each other about techniques or names, things like, 'Watch the butter, Brickle!', you know, that sort of thing."

I smiled wryly at the amateur wordplay. "I'm sure that sort of thing cracks the whole room up," I replied.

"Oh yeah, that one had everyone in tears for hours," he chuckled, "We hardly got anything done that day."

I could see a yellow arm barrier up ahead blocking the exit from the tunnel. "That the security point?" I asked, pointing.

"Yep," Brickle replied, "Cocoa should be on duty; it's her night."

The sound of snoring echoed off the tunnel walls as we got closer to the exit. An elf with dark brunette hair lay slumped over the controls in a security shed. I banged on the closed door with my fist, and she shot up with a start.

"Halt! Present ID!" she shouted blearily.

"Well, I guess we know how the culprit managed to sneak in and out," I said, as Cocoa rubbed her eyes and looked at us, then the clock.

"Jumping jelly beans, it's nearly end of shift!" she observed. "How'd I nod off like that? And, Brickle, why's the Sniffer with you?"

I was never going to live that one case down, was I? "I'm here because your negligence let someone steal all the candy and get away lickity split," I snarkily answered.

Cocoa's eyes widened in horror, "WHAT? But I didn't even mean to fall asleep! I don't know what happened! One minute, I'm enjoying a nice cupcake, the next, I hear banging on the door."

"Back up a minute," I held up my hand to get Cocoa's attention during her monologue, "What cupcake?"

Cocoa pointed to half a strawberry cupcake on a plate next to her. "It was waiting for me when I came on shift."

I took a closer look. There was a note next to the cupcake proclaiming, "Thanks for all of your hard work! Compliments of the kitchen!" I leaned in and took a quick sniff (guess that one really wasn't ever going to go away, was it?). There was a distinct scent of almonds under the berry smell.

"This cupcake was dosed with cyanide," I observed. "It's poisonous to humans, but for elves, it's a potent sleeping drug. Guess you weren't ignoring your post, after all."

Cocoa bristled indignantly, "Of course not! 1000 years, and I've never napped on watch! The idea!"

"Ok, ok, I get it," I tried to placate her. "Is there any way to see who left the cupcake for you?"

"Sure," she replied, "there's cameras inside and outside the shed. Let me pull up the feed."

She tinkered with knobs and buttons for a few minutes, then furrowed her brow, "Huh, that's weird."

"What is?" I prompted.

"The footage from the start of my shift is gone. Usually, footage is stored for two weeks before being deleted. Someone must have deleted it manually."

"Who would know how to do that?" I inquired.

"Anyone who ever served as a guard would know the system, and that's half the kitchen crew. A lot of elves move to kitchen guard duty to get an in with the kitchen staff. Helps them get a position if they have a recommendation from inside," Cocoa explained.

Well, that wasn't going to help me narrow things down. "And how many of them know your favorite cupcake flavor?" I asked.

"Pretty much all of them," Cocoa replied sheepishly, "I'm always asking them for the scraps when they bake strawberry cake."

Another dead end, and I now had less than an hour to sort this out, or else. Taffy suddenly jumped into the conversation, "Oh, what pretty snowflake earrings! Where did you get them?"

I'd nearly forgotten Taffy was standing there. Brickle and Cocoa both suddenly blushed bright red. Guess that answered the question, and it gave me a new hypothesis. "So, how long you two been dating?"

They both looked down sheepishly before Brickle shyly spoke up, "Actually, the earrings were my engagement gift to Cocoa. We're getting married in the spring." He gently clasped her hand as she smiled at him.

It was circumstantial at this point, but things weren't looking good for Brickle. Then again, the culprit seemed to be going to a lot of trouble to throw the investigation off track, so maybe....."Who else knew you were engaged?" I asked on a hunch.

"Only a few people," Brickle responded, "the Clauses, of course, and a few close friends. Licorice, obviously, since he had to approve my time off for the wedding and honeymoon."

Yep, there it was. "Where's Licorice's room?" I requested, "Can you show me the way?"

Brickle was confused, "Sure, but why?"

"Tell you when we get there," I replied, and we set off through the snow.

As we re-entered the kitchen, we saw a bustle of activity. It was now just 15 minutes until takeoff. Licorice was barking out orders as kitchen elves filled plastic bags with candy.

"What's going on?" I asked Mrs. Claus, who stood sadly by.

"Licorice saved the day, sort of. He remembered he had put away a stash of overflow candy to save for next year. Unfortunately, it was mostly licorice. Still, it's better than no candy at all," she trailed off forlornly.

"Is that so?" I questioned. I waded through the crowd to approach the hero of the hour. "Rather lucky that there was extra candy put aside, huh? You really saved the day."

Licorice barely looked at me before returning to commanding his crew, "We miscalculate some years and have some surplus. We lucked out that this was one of those years."

"Yeah, almost suspiciously lucky, don't you think?"

Licorice rolled his eyes, "What are you going on about? We're down to the wire, so we really need to finish loading this up, if you don't mind."

"Actually, I do mind, and so do Brickle and Cocoa. You set them up to take your fall. You knew it would look suspicious that Cocoa was drugged and fell asleep during her fiance's shift."

Licorice snorted derisively, "Seriously? What possible proof could you have of that?"

"Quite a bit, actually. You know how I got my nickname, right? I have a rather sharp sense of smell. You may have tried to douse your room in cinnamon to cover it up, but the smell of all those sweets was unmistakable. It led me right to your hiding place. Not too smart, hiding the loot in your room, but I guess you didn't really have too many options, did you?"

Suddenly, Licorice made a break for it, but I'd already warned the security force ahead of time, and two of them had quietly snuck up during our discussion. They grabbed Licorice before he could take two steps and snapped their candy cane cuffs on him. It was impressive work.

"Let me go! Help, Mrs. Claus, you know me! You know I would never endanger Christmas!" Licorice implored.

Brickle was now standing next to Mrs. Claus, bags of the lost candy in hand. "I never would have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes. Why, Licorice? You've been a faithful member of this kitchen since the very beginning."

Licorice's pleading expression suddenly soured, and he declared harshly, "And I've been ridiculed since the very beginning as well! 'Oh, poor Licorice, it must be tough to be named after the least favorite candy.' Every year, I make loads of licorice in every flavor, and most of it goes straight from the stockings to the trash. I just wanted one year to make the children give it a chance, to prove that licorice could be as tasty as any other candy." He looked down his nose dismissively at me, "But the Sniffer had to poke his nose in, didn't he? You're more pathetic than I am, and people idolize you for it. It's ridiculous."

"I may have a huge schnoz, but it's saved more than one Christmas along the way," I responded, playfully tapping my nose. "And it's never landed me in the hoosegow, unlike your antics today."

Licorice was still calling me every name in the book as they hauled him off. The rest of the crew had already swapped to loading the recovered candy into Santa's sleigh. There was no time; Santa was going to be leaving late for the first time in 500 years. The big guy sat patiently waiting for every piece of candy to be loaded up. As the kitchen team gave the go signal, he turned to me and gave his signature wink. I knew that meant he would be thanking me when he returned, but for now, I was simply happy that all the world's children would have another great Christmas. Taffy and I both chewed toffees as we watched the sleigh rise up and become another star in the night sky. It was going to be a wonderful night.