Duck the Halls: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries) (14 page)

“But I haven’t seen any choir events scheduled in the Catholic church,” she went on. “So there goes that theory.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “What if St. Byblig’s wasn’t the intended target?”

She raised one eyebrow and cocked her head.

“You’re keeping the New Life building locked up pretty tight, right?”

“Tight as a tick,” she said.

“And I suspect Trinity wasn’t left standing wide open last night.”

“No,” she said. “I was one of the last to leave—I was helping make sure we’d left everything at least as clean as we found it. And your pastor was there to lock the door behind us, and when I told her she should go home and get some rest, she said she would as soon as she made sure everything was secure.”

“That fits,” I said. “Imagine you’re the prankster, and you drive your truck full of ducks up to your intended target and you can’t get in. Are you just going to give up and take them back where you stole them? Or are you going to look around for someplace else to cause trouble?”

“Ye-es,” she said slowly. “But why the Catholics?”

“St. Byblig’s isn’t far from Trinity or New Life,” I said.

“The Methodists are closer,” she said.

“Yes, but the Methodist church faces the town square,” I said. “Not exactly the place I’d pick to unload several hundred contraband ducks. Way too public and visible.”

“No,” she said, with a note of excitement in her voice. “But a church at the edge of town, whose parking lot is completely hidden from the road by trees…”

“Exactly.”

“And besides,” she said. “St. Byblig’s has a loading dock.”

“It does?”

“No idea why, but it’s quite useful,” she said. “That’s why they’re the central distribution point for the county food bank—it’s so easy to load and unload. I’ve put a loading dock down as a feature we’d like at New Life next time we do a little expansion and remodeling. It would make handling the choir equipment a lot easier.”

“So once they got into St. Byblig’s, they could just drive up to the loading dock, herd the ducks out, and drive off,” I said. “Maybe it was the target after all, because of the loading dock.”

“Very interesting.” She looked preoccupied.

“I should be heading out,” I said. “If I stay much longer, someone will force me to sew, and I’d hate to ruin any of that beautiful fabric. But if you happen to talk to Henry, remind him that I have some information for him. About the case,” I added.

“Will do,” she said. “Thanks again for the use of the room.”

I headed back to the foyer. But before I left the long hallway, I heard the library door open. Minerva stepped out into the hallway, closed the door after her, and raised her cell phone to her ear.

The chief had probably already thought of everything we’d been discussing. And maybe he hadn’t called me back because he knew what I had to say—I might not be the only one who had overheard Ronnie and Caleb. But just in case he hadn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to have Minerva remind him to call me.

Lunch was pleasant, if a little chaotic. Unfortunately one of the interesting facts Grandfather had told the boys about ducks was that having no teeth, they swallowed bits of grit to help grind up their food. I could tell the boys were eager to experiment with this, but fortunately our gravel driveway was currently covered with snow. Perhaps they’d forget by the time the weather warmed up.

After lunch, Michael curled up to have a nap with the boys. I checked my e-mail and voice mail and found that a few small schedule kinks had to be ironed out. Normally I’d have worked on it in Michael’s office, where I could use the printer, but I was wary of getting sucked into the sewing frenzy. So I packed up my laptop and headed to town. After all, I could do some shopping while I was there. We were running low on a lot of things, particularly coffee, tea, juice, and sodas, thanks to the enthusiasm with which Rose Noire was keeping the sewing circle refreshed.

While I was at the market, I spent a little time hanging around the poultry section, frowning at everything, but no lurking Shiffleys offered to sell me illicit poultry. Evidently Randall had reined in Duane.

I dropped by the New Life Baptist Church and St. Byblig’s so I could check on the progress both sets of cleaners were making. And then I went over to Trinity and settled down into my little office to sort out the schedule once more.

I’d been there for fifteen minutes or so when Barliman Vess walked in. He started when he saw me, so I deduced I wasn’t the object of his visit.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

I was tempted to ask, “Then why are you standing here, hovering over me?” But I decided it would be more effective to ignore him.

I was wrong. He just stood there. After what seemed like an eternity but was really only five minutes according to the clock on my laptop, I looked up again. He was staring at the junk. Or possibly at the window at the far end of the room, behind all the junk.

“It’ll be nice when all that junk’s gone, won’t it?” I said.

“Junk?” He looked over as if startled that I was still there, and frowned thunderously. “Nonsense. Perfectly good furniture. Plenty of use left in it. Complete waste of money, replacing all of it.”

He glared at me. I shrugged, because it was less likely to make him angry than saying what I thought—that he was a pigheaded old skinflint to begrudge Robyn a nice office. It wasn’t as if the church was broke.

He eventually stopped scowling at me and ran his eyes across the junk filling the room one last time. Then he turned and left without saying another word.

“And a merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. Scrooge,” I muttered.

I had barely turned back to my laptop screen when Riddick scurried into my office.

“What did
he
want?” he asked.

“Vess? I have no idea,” I said. “Just shedding a little yuletide warmth in my direction, I suppose.”

“Didn’t he say anything?”

Riddick was clearly overwrought. I turned reluctantly away from my computer again to face him.

“He just stared at all the junk,” I said. “And when I said something innocuous about how nice it would be to see it gone, he nearly bit my head off.”

“I’m trying to deal with it,” Riddick said. “It’s not my fault. Even before all these snakes and skunks there’s been so much more work with the new rector here, and it’s not really the right time of year for a rummage sale, and I can’t just get rid of it like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“Of course not,” I said, in my most soothing tones. Although I couldn’t help thinking that anyone with an ounce of common sense and gumption could get rid of everything here pretty quickly. Mother could do it. I could do it. And if she and I could convince Robyn to turn the two of us loose on it …

“He wants my job, you know,” Riddick said. “Wants to eliminate it,” he clarified. “Thinks what I do should be done by volunteers.”

“As far as I can tell, he’s the only one in the church who feels that way,” I said. “I know Mother disagrees. Don’t let it worry you. And if you need help dealing with the junk, I’m sure Mother will be able to help. I could, too. But let’s not worry about it till after Christmas.”

“‘After Christmas,’” he repeated. He didn’t exactly look thrilled at my suggestion. But he did look a little less tense. “Yes. Your mother is always very … Yes. After Christmas.”

He glanced warily at the clutter as if half afraid it would jump out and attack him. Then, with a visible effort, he straightened his spine and forced his face into an unconvincing but very determined smile.

“Thank you,” he said. “And merry Christmas.”

And then he scurried out.

A few moments later, when I had buried myself back in my schedule, I heard Mr. Vess’s voice.

“I need to speak with you for a moment.”

I braced myself and looked up, but he wasn’t in my office. The words had come from out in the vestibule. Just then the organ began to play, drowning out anything else Vess had to say. According to my schedule, that would be Trinity’s regular organist, sneaking in a short rehearsal between Baptist choir rehearsals. I resigned myself to the possibility that Lightfoot might barge in and complain about this minor interruption in his frenzied rehearsal schedule.

A soft instrumental version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” filled the air. When no one barged into my office, I relaxed and went back to my work, happily humming along with the carols.

I’d thought it would only take a few minutes, once I was finally free of interruptions, but by the time I finished juggling and e-mailing the resulting schedule, I looked up from my laptop to find that the sky outside was getting dark. And since my temporary office had only one small window at the far end of the room, behind all the boxes and old furniture, it had grown very dark indeed.

I sat up, stretched my shoulder gently, and checked my watch. Nearly time for our organist to turn the sanctuary back to the Baptists for their final preconcert prep. I didn’t quite share Rose Noire’s suspicions of Jerome Lightfoot, but I had no desire to talk to him. And so, time for me to go home and have some Christmas fun with Michael and the boys.

I organized all my papers, turned off my computer and my desk lamp, and was about to stand up and be on my way when I heard low voices outside my door.

“Man, are you crazy?” Ronnie Butler.

“What do you mean?” Caleb Shiffley.

I crept a little closer to the door, the better to eavesdrop.

“That thing with the ducks.”

“Shut up—what if someone hears us?”

“No one here,” Ronnie said. “The rev is out running the prayer meeting, and old man Hedges went home to nurse his migraine.”

And if Caleb was suspicious and decided to check doors, should I try to hide behind some of the old furniture and keep eavesdropping? Or just look startled and pretend I hadn’t overheard them?

Luckily I didn’t have to make a decision.

“Look,” Ronnie went on. “I know you’re still mad at Bigfoot about the whole April thing, but enough’s enough. The chief’s got Horace Hollingsworth doing fingerprints and stuff. They could still catch us for the skunk thing, or the snake. We should lay off with the pranks, not do stupid stuff that might leave more evidence and doesn’t have anything to do with old Bigfoot anyway.”

“Wait,” Caleb said. “You think I put the ducks in St. Byblig’s?”

“You mean you didn’t?”

There was a brief silence. Presumably Caleb had answered by shaking his head and they were staring at each other in dismay.

“This is creepy,” Caleb said at last. “If you didn’t, and I didn’t—man, they’re gonna blame this on us, too.”

“If they catch us.”

“When they catch us.”

“And why would anyone want to cause problems for St. Byblig’s?” Ronnie asked. “Everyone likes Father Donnelly.”

Another pause.

“Maybe we should go to the chief,” Ronnie said. “Or Reverend Wilson.”

“You think they’d believe us?”

Silence.

“You know,” Caleb said. “I bet it’s going to be a lot easier for them to catch whoever did the ducks.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” Caleb said. “We were in and out of the New Life Church pretty quick, and the snake didn’t even take ten minutes. But somebody had to load all those hundreds of ducks and bring them over there in a truck or something and carry them all into St. Byblig’s. That took a lot more time. Which means a lot bigger chance of being seen or leaving evidence.”

“Are you suggesting that if they catch whoever did the ducks, we should let them take the blame for the rest?”

A sigh.

“I guess not,” Caleb said. “That would be pretty slimy. Though if you ask me, it was slimy of them to do the ducks. Everyone was kind of calming down and then the whole thing with the ducks stirred them up again.”

“What makes you think they were calming down?”

A pause. A long pause.

“Well, I think they would have if the pranks had stopped,” Caleb said finally.

“Yeah, right.” Ronnie sounded unconvinced. “Look, no matter what Bigfoot gets up to, we just sit tight. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Soft departing footsteps signaled that my eavesdropping was over. I decided to wait for a little bit before emerging. And as soon as the coast was clear, I should call the chief and report what I’d heard. Everything I’d heard—he still hadn’t returned my call from yesterday.

And was Rose Noire right about Lightfoot having something to do with the pranks—at least the latest one? And should I relay her suspicions to the chief? I knew he shared my skepticism about premonitions, but did he also share my trust in Rose Noire’s subconscious?

As I was crouching there, trying to decide how soon to take out my cell phone, it rang. Michael. I hurried to answer it before it alarmed the departing pranksters.

“Josh has been begging to come to tonight’s concert,” he said. “I told him I’d ask Mommy if it was okay.”

“I have no idea how crowded it will be,” I said. “But if nothing else, we can listen from here in my temporary office. You said Josh has been begging—does Jamie have an opinion?”

“He has no objection. He wants to see the snake again. He’s asked about it several times.”

“Let’s hope he’s disappointed. Want to meet for dinner someplace before the concert?”

“How about Luigi’s?”

“My very thought. I’ll head out in five minutes.”

Before leaving my now completely dark little office, I called Chief Burke’s cell phone. Which went to voice mail. Not knowing who might be around when he played it back, I made my message noncommittal.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s Meg Langslow. I really need to talk to you. I’ve overheard several things that I’m pretty sure are relevant to the question of who’s pulling off these pranks. Would be happy to fill you in at your convenience.”

With that I tucked my phone in my pocket, threw on my coat, hat and gloves, and headed for my dinner with the family.

Dinner was splendid. Luigi’s had been one of Michael’s and my favorite spots since we’d begun dating, and it was nice the boys were finally old enough that we could take them out for a restaurant meal. At least we could at Luigi’s. It was noisy enough to drown out any racket the kids produced. Most of the waitresses were matronly Italian ladies, Luigi’s sisters and cousins, who all had a soft spot for handsome bambini. And since the decor was designed to survive the nightly onslaught of dozens of starving college students, whatever damage the kids did would disappear when they swabbed the place down after closing.