Babies It's Warm Inside - Lia Farrell

It’s almost Christmas and Sheriff Ben Bradley and his wife, Mae, are expecting twins. All is quiet in Rosedale until elderly Mrs. Cooper falls off her porch. She is taken to Rosedale General and later dies. The Sheriff suspects foul play, but the Coroner disagrees, saying the cause of death was a dislodged oxygen tube. Ben refuses to give up and sends Investigator Dory Clarkson to talk to Mrs. Cooper’s neighbors. She learns Mrs. Cooper refused to vacate her small home that property developers building large mansions in the neighborhood wanted razed. It’s a motive for the crime, but both the property developer and the builder have cast-iron alibis. Plus, nobody can figure out exactly how Mrs. Cooper was killed. The only clue is a line of bruises across her ankles. Then a Nativity Display is stolen from the church. The carved figures are valuable, but there is no ransom demand. The whole village is focused on finding the Nativity figures, but Ben is still worried that there’s a killer in Rosedale. Pregnant Mae thinks the murder and the Nativity theft are connected. All the threads of the story come together at the Christmas Eve church service.