Jolly Dead St. Nicholas (41 page)

Daniel felt his cheeks heat up as his blood turned to ice water in his veins. “The night Susan’s house burned down.”

Brenda laughed loudly. “I drugged your wine. Then later sneaked out to do the dirty deed. You never suspected a thing. I must say, though, I cut it pretty close. I barely got cleaned up and back into bed before the first sirens started wailing in the distance. Then your phone rang and Ken showed up at your door. You were all groggy, thoroughly sleep tousled. I love it when you look that way, with that lock of hair dangling over your forehead.” Her voice took on a whimsical quality.

Daniel felt his throat tighten. To think that he’d been in a drugged stupor while Brenda was setting fire to Susan’s house made him feel sick all over.

Luke, Dennis, and Ken were in a huddle off to the side, talking in low tones. Daniel joined them.

“Okay, so the chute is welded shut?” Luke was asking.

Ken nodded. “A metal plate makes a frame around the opening. A solid piece of metal was welded to it.”

“If we break it off it will be too noisy,” Dennis said. He ran a bony hand through his thick blond hair.

“We may have no choice. We haven’t heard a word from Adelaide in several minutes,” Luke told them. “You know, Judy might fit through there. She’s the only one, though.”

Panic ripped through Daniel as he hobbled painfully to the oak door. “Mother? Are you all right? Talk to me? Now!”

* * * *

Adelaide roused at the sound of her son’s frantic voice. “Daniel? I’m here. Break down the door. This needs to end,” she cried.

Brenda pulled a snub-nose revolver out of her coat pocket, placing the barrel against the side of Adelaide’s head. “In case you thought I was kidding about the gun, ask your mother how this cold steel feels pressed against her temple.”

Adelaide began to shake. “Where did you get the gun, Brenda?” She hoped she’d said it loud enough for those on the other side of the door to hear.

“I stole it, of course. From that slut Susan Hatfield’s house the night I set it on fire. She left her back door unlocked, can you believe that? I wasn’t even going to go inside, just throw the gasoline around the outside, but when I accidentally hit the door with the gas can as I was dousing it, the thing opened a little. The gun—this gun—was in a kitchen drawer, of all places.”

“You went through the house before you lit the match?” Adelaide asked.

“I was about to commit arson and, I hoped, murder. Going through her drawers didn’t seem like a big deal. Besides, I figured I had time, since your son was fast asleep thanks to a glass of spiked wine.”

Adelaide felt a shiver rake up her spine. “You attacked Carl in the alley, didn’t you?

“I overheard Jerry Hatfield mention something to Carl about the offering being low lately. I got to thinking later on, after Jerry confronted me, that he might tell that old geezer the truth. They were close friends. I couldn’t take the chance. He was easy.
So
predictable.” Brenda grinned. The gun was no longer pressed tightly against Adelaide’s head but was still only inches away.

“Like with Jerry, I left my car at the park and walked. I put out that one light in the alley, like I did the one behind the Hatfield’s a few nights later. Easy for me. My dad is a high school coach. I was on the girls’ softball team in high school. He always said I pitched like a boy. I guess he thought that was a compliment. Anyhow, it was nothing for me to lob a couple of rocks up there and hit the mark.”

“You needed to get rid of Susan for the same reason,” Adelaide said.

“Sure. Husbands tell their wives things. Plus I knew he had to have put that spreadsheet on his home computer, which she probably had access to. After his…untimely demise, who’s to say she wouldn’t discover it and put two and two together, even if he hadn’t confided in her about what I’d done. I wasn’t about to leave any loose ends around. That would have been pretty stupid, now wouldn’t it?”

Adelaide had to bite her tongue to keep from spewing out several caustic retorts. Instead, she said, “You just kept making matters worse, Brenda. Now look what a bad situation you are in.”

Brenda put her mouth very close to Adelaide’s ear. “Your concern is sooooo touching, Adelaide. I didn’t know you cared.”

Adelaide could see Brenda was getting restless. She got up and began pacing around, waving the gun in the air with one hand while doing the same with the knife in the other. “Daniel should have died after I cut that brake line. Did you hear that, Daniel? You should have died,” she yelled.

I need to keep her talking. That will give the police a chance to come up with a plan. If worse comes to worst, I’ll just have to make a run for the door. I’m so weak…Lord, please be with us all here tonight.

“How did you get involved with that loan shark, Brenda? You’re an intelligent young woman. I can’t believe you’d be so foolish,” Adelaide said.

Brenda spun around, staring down at Adelaide. “I thought I explained that. Are you deaf or just dumb? I needed a stake to get me in the game again. I was due for a big win. I deserved a big win!”

“So when you asked me to sit in for you at the office on that Tuesday, you really didn’t have a doctor’s appointment, did you?”

“
Duh!
You know where I was. You were there today. You went with that gossipy bunch who thinks running to Columbus once in a blue moon makes them high rollers.”

Adelaide felt a sudden sadness as she watched Brenda pace back and forth. “Is that how you see yourself, Brenda, as a high roller?”

Dropping the knife, Brenda aimed the gun at Adelaide’s chest. Rolling away from the attack, Adelaide knocked over the kerosene lamp. Flames jumped off the concrete floor, licking at the sleeve of her sweater.

Then everything happened at once. The screeching of metal on metal resounded through the small area. A cold rush of air from the far corner was followed by a figure sliding through the opening that had once been the coal chute. The figure did a somersault tumble onto the concrete floor. The ancient oak door flew open at the same moment. Light spilled in from the basement, giving the scene an even more surreal quality.

Brenda got off a wild shot, which hit the limestone wall behind Adelaide, just as the coal chute acrobat, who Adelaide now recognized as Judy Hess, wrestled her to the floor. “Lie still or I swear I’ll break your scrawny neck, you murdering bitch,” Judy yelled.

A hissing noise was followed by a white foamy mist that enveloped the small fire. “Got it, Chief!” Larry Schwartz called. He tossed the fire extinguisher aside, joining the officers trying to restrain Brenda. She flailed around, clawing and biting. The knife lay inches away from Adelaide, forgotten in the fray.

Daniel was suddenly at her side, helping her out of the coal cellar into the improved, but still not-so-sweet air of the basement. Dennis Ackerman and Ken Lafferty hustled Brenda past them and up the stairs. She was screaming like a mad woman.

“Here, Mrs. McBride,” Judy Hess said, handing Adelaide a cold bottle of water.

Adelaide drank thirstily, finishing over half of it before she stopped. “Did you hear everything Brenda said?”

“We heard enough,” Judy said.

Daniel examined Adelaide’s wrist. “It’s broken. Badly, I’d say.”

Two paramedics, Reed Fletcher and a younger man Adelaide didn’t recognize, came running down the steps.

Adelaide said, “I can walk out to the ambulance. And Daniel needs to go back to the hospital at once. And where is my cat?”

Suddenly Vernon was on one side of her, James on the other, helping her up the stairs.

“Don’t worry, Addy,” Vernon assured her. “Oscar is fine. He’s in one of the police cruisers. We’ll get him back into the house.”

The paramedics insisted Daniel lie down on a stretcher. Walking beside him as they wheeled him out of the house, Judy held his hand. He decided he like the feel of that very much.

As Adelaide looked out her kitchen window, a light snow began to fall. It was Christmas Day and although her kitchen was a hubbub of activity she, along with Daniel, had been instructed to
sit this one out
.

In a revised Christmas Day schedule, she’d exchanged gifts with Daniel that morning after breakfast. Vernon and James had arrived bearing gifts around eleven to help with dinner preparations. The Henshaws weren’t far behind. “We decided we didn’t want to spend Christmas alone this year,” Ethel had said.

At the stove, Vernon was basting the turkey breast. Standing next to him at the kitchen counter, James arranged dinner rolls on a cookie sheet. The ham was already done and now sat, covered by foil, on the kitchen counter.

Ethel was expertly chopping up apples for the Waldorf salad. “These are gorgeous, Adelaide. So crisp and juicy.”

“They were in a fruit basket Buck sent me the other day,” Adelaide replied. “It came with a get-well card.” She’d gotten many such cards during the past few days as well as numerous phone calls and visits from well-wishers.

In the dining room, Carl was setting the table with Adelaide’s best china, silverware and crystal glassware. For this year’s centerpiece, she’d chosen something simple—white candles sitting in a cradle of live pine boughs.

“How is your wrist feeling, Mother?” Daniel asked. He was sitting next to her at the kitchen table.

After her ordeal in the coal cellar, she’d been rushed to the medical center where x-rays confirmed that her wrist was broken. She would be in a cast up to her elbow for the next six weeks.

Daniel was readmitted that same night, but released two days later. He was now on sick leave from the police department, leaving Lieutenant Luke Fagan in charge.

Adelaide smiled at her son. “I’m fine. I wish
everyone
would quit hovering. I’m certainly capable of fixing Christmas dinner.”

“We’ve got it all under control.” Vernon said. He put the lid back on the roasting pan then shoved the rack into the oven. Closing the door, he turned and grinned at her.

Finished with his task of arranging the rolls on the cookie sheet, James turned to face her also, a big smile on his florid face. “This meal is coming along right on schedule. You just sit back and relax, Adelaide.”

“I got a call from Luke this morning,” Daniel said.

“About Brenda?” Adelaide asked.

Daniel nodded. “She’s been transferred to Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Columbus for psychiatric evaluation. Mark Cardosa is her lawyer.”

“Maybe she’ll finally get the help she needs,” Adelaide said.

“You’re a lot more magnanimous than I would be, Adelaide,” Ethel said. “That woman was going to kill you. She did kill Jerry. She also tried to murder Carl and Susan. I think she belongs in prison.” Her face was red, her eyes bright with anger.

“She’s mentally ill, Ethel. She needs treatment, not punishment,” James said.

Ethel huffed. “Everyone who commits a crime these days wants to get off using some sort of insanity plea. They had a bad childhood, their mother didn’t love them enough, their daddy loved them
too much
, they were abused, they were bullied—the list is endless. No one is willing to take responsibility for what they do. I’d be a widow this Christmas if Brenda Collier had her way about it. Susan Hatfield will have months of rehab ahead of her. Carl still has dizzy spells from that whack on the head she gave him in that dark alley. To say nothing of the fact that Jerry Hatfield didn’t live to see his thirty-ninth birthday. That woman is a cold-blooded psychopath and no amount of psychiatric treatment is going to change that.”

The silence that followed Ethel’s tirade was almost palpable. Carl, standing in the doorway between the dining room and kitchen, stared open-mouthed at his wife.

Adelaide wanted to say something in Brenda’s defense, but found she couldn’t. She glanced over at Daniel. He was staring down at his hands, which were clasped tightly together on the tabletop.

Vernon finally broke the awkward silence. “Has anyone heard from Douglas?”

Douglas Underwood had been released from jail the same night Brenda Collier was arrested. He’d promptly disappeared without saying a word to anyone, taking only his personal belongings.

“It’s like he vanished into thin air,” Carl said. He went to Ethel, patting her on the shoulder. She was standing by the back door, staring out into the yard. “It’s all right, dear, we understand,” he said softly.

Ethel returned to the counter where she resumed chopping the apples. Carl took a seat next to Adelaide at the kitchen table.

Vernon and James remained standing against the counter.

James said, “I called the district superintendent at home yesterday but he hasn’t heard a word. I don’t think Douglas wants to be found. His cell phone has been disconnected.”

“Maybe he needs some time to get his head together. I can relate to that,” Daniel said.

Ethel faced Daniel. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I know you were very fond of Brenda. I know you’re hurting now. I guess I should keep my mouth shut sometimes.”

Adelaide stood up. “We’ve all been through a terrible time. Our nerves are still raw. But this is Christmas Day. I want us to remember that. We have much to be grateful for.” She looked at James. “The service last night was beautiful. Your message about celebrating the season in the face of loss was inspiring. I think we should take it to heart today.”

James flushed a little, as though embarrassed by the compliment. “I have some news. I’ve agreed to stay on at Crescent Falls UMC until at least February. Hopefully, by then, the district will be able to send a permanent replacement for Douglas.”

Adelaide noticed a slight frown briefly cross Vernon’s face. He turned quickly to check on the turkey breast again, even though he’d just basted it.

“That’s wonderful news, James. I have some news of my own. You all can make up your minds whether it is good news or not. It seems that Gayle Nelson and Mark Cardosa are engaged to be married,” Adelaide said.

Ethel’s mouth turned down. “What is that girl thinking?”

Daniel, too, was frowning. “I didn’t know things were so serious between them.”