Murder by Christmas (Edna Davies mysteries) (7 page)

“That’s right,” Mary scoffed, shaking her head. “Witches’ familiars. Even in this supposedly enlightened age.” She put a now-wiggling Charcoal down beside his friend and the two felines scampered out of the room.

“We have work to do, ladies” Laurel said abruptly. “Hang these Christmas balls along the garland on the banister in the hall, if you would, Edna. On the outside, please. Otherwise, the cats will have them all battered off within the hour.” She smiled as she thrust the box into Edna’s hands.

Returning to the card table, she picked up a clump of mistletoe with a slender red ribbon wrapped around the stem, its ends curled through the green leaves of the plant. “I need you to hang this from the light fixture in the front hall, Mary.” She reached for a smaller sprig with a few berries on it. “This one I carry with me.” Holding it over her head so the other women would catch her meaning, Laurel rolled her eyes and grinned. “I’m going to hang the ribbons with the Christmas cards along the hallway. Don’t you think that’ll look nice?”

Standing on the stairs and bending over the banister to attach Christmas balls to the garland, Edna wondered how she’d gotten roped into decorating someone else’s house when she still had her own to do. Hindering her progress were the black cat and his white friend who chased each other around her feet and batted at the shiny balls as she took them out of the box. It was a distraction she enjoyed, though, and she teased the half-grown felines with a string of tinsel she’d found caught on one of the hooks.

When the last of the glass balls had been hung, Edna remembered that she and Mary needed to broach the subject of Bethany’s job, or at least ask about the back pay. She looked over to where Mary was standing on the hall chair, tying mistletoe to the base of the ceiling’s light fixture. As Laurel pinned ribbons along the wall in the hallway leading to the kitchen, she carried on a stream of conversation, mostly about the customers who had sent the cards. Realizing she needn’t reply to any of the woman’s comments, Edna sat on the stairs, absently playing with the kittens as she thought about how to open a delicate subject in which she had no business. She had nearly decided on a plan of action when she heard Laurel squeal.

“Quick, Mary. Jake just pulled up in his van. I want the mistletoe secure before he gets to the door.”

Glancing out the side window behind the coat rack, Edna could see that a white van was indeed parked in the driveway. Jake was sliding out of the driver’s side. Laurel, halfway down the hall, must have super sensitive ears, Edna thought. As she continued to watch the scene outside, someone in a Santa Claus suit climbed down from the passenger side. From that angle, Edna could only see his head and shoulders, topped by a red stocking cap and wrapped in a furry collar. The figure disappeared toward the rear of the van without turning her way.

Flapping her hands in agitation, Laurel urged Mary to restore the chair to its place against the wall and instructed Edna to leave the empty ornament box on the table in the living room. While they obeyed, Laurel plucked their coats from the rack, handed one to Mary and held the other out to Edna as she returned to the hall.

“Thanks so much for your help. I know you both must have a ton of things to do, and I’m going to be awfully busy with this photo shoot. I’m so sorry about tea, but maybe another time.” These last words were directed at Edna as Laurel practically pushed them out onto the porch.

Meeting Jake on the porch steps, Edna and Mary stopped for a few seconds to greet the veterinarian before crossing the lawn to the Jeep. Santa was leaning in the van’s open side door, rummaging through boxes. All Edna could see was a broad, red backside trimmed in fluffy white. Whoever was in the suit finally stood, turned and glowered at them as Mary maneuvered a U-turn in the road to head back toward town.

“I hope that man puts on a happier face for the pictures,” Edna said.

Santa’s beady eyes looked familiar, but with fake white eyebrows, mustache and beard, she couldn’t think of whom she was reminded. She twisted to look out the back window at the costumed figure, trying to place him. Behind the less-than-jolly elf, her eye caught another movement and she watched as Laurel pulled Jake into the hall where Mary had hung the mistletoe.

Chapter 7

While they had been inside CATS, the cloud cover had lifted, which raised Edna’s spirits as well, so it wasn’t with a great deal of regret that she said, “We never had a chance to talk to Laurel about Bethany’s job,”

“We sure got the bum’s rush, didn’t we,” Mary said, sliding her eyes toward Edna before refocusing on the road.

Edna chuckled. “More of her assertiveness training, I suppose.”

Traffic had picked up during the hour they’d spent at CATS, so Mary was keeping her eyes on the road. “Wanna go get a Christmas tree?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea. Laurel’s looked so pretty, I’m in the mood. Let’s go to Schartner Farms over in Exeter, shall we?” Edna felt like going to a place that was guaranteed to be filled with Christmas cheer. She certainly had a lot to do at home, but every item crossed off her list was another step forward. “Working on Laurel’s stairwell made me think about my own banister. Schartner’s has those evergreen ropes and a big selection of decorative wreaths. I can also pick up a couple of my favorite traditional poinsettias.”

Eventually, Edna found everything she was looking for, plus a few additional gift items she couldn’t resist. By the time they reached home, they had been gone a little more than four hours. Edna gasped as Mary pulled into the driveway, wondering for a second or two if they’d arrived at the wrong house. The first thing that caught her eye was a large, white wireframe sleigh complete with two full-sized reindeer in the middle of the circular drive. The cow--Edna assumed the slightly smaller figure with no antlers would be the female--had her head bent as if grazing. The twelve-point buck stood protectively by his mate with head raised and turned to look sideways toward the road as if he’d been startled by the car that had just pulled in.

As the Jeep passed this central display, Edna’s gaze was caught by a larger-than-life Santa Claus, waving to them from the rooftop beside the chimney. When Mary pulled up to stop behind a white pickup truck, Edna dropped her eyes to the row of translucent plastic icicles dripping from the eaves and the strings of multi-colored lights twinkling around the yew trees.

Oh my goodness
, she thought.
I wonder what Albert will make of this. Good thing he isn’t home. In his weakened condition, his heart might not take it,
she mentally joked.

Albert had been the one to decorate the outside of the house--or supervise the boys when Matthew and Grant were old enough to help their father. He had always kept outside decorations simple, typically a single string of lights along the edge of the roof. To complete the exterior holiday presentation, Edna would set a single, battery-powered candle in each of the downstairs front windows.

As the women got out of the car, mouths agape at the sight of the house and yard, Charlie appeared on the brick path from the south side of the house. Behind him walked a man Edna had never seen before. The stranger was carrying a metal ladder and a red toolbox that he stopped to put in the back of the pickup before joining them. As he dropped the equipment into the bed of the truck, Edna noticed the logo emblazoned across the driver’s door, “Honeydew Home Repairs.”

“What do you think?” Charlie asked as he approached, smiling broadly and stretching his arms wide.

Edna, still stunned, circled slowly, trying to take it all in. As she looked from sleigh to twinkling trees to the man on the roof, she began to imagine her grandchildren arriving at the house and catching sight of the scene. At the thought, she burst into a laugh of pure delight. “It’s marvelous, Charlie. How did you get all this done in so short a time? And where did it all come from?” She stared anew at the sleigh and reindeer. Sculpted of wire with white lights outlining their shapes, they would look magnificent on a dark night. 

“You brought these from your house, didn’t you?” Mary grinned at the detective. “I remember seeing them in your yard last year.”

He looked pleased with himself. “You’re right. I hadn’t been in the mood to put them up this season, so they were just collecting dust in my garage. When Edna asked me to help her with this place, I thought I might as well bring everything to where there’ll be kids to enjoy them.”

Edna wondered if he might have gone to these extremes as a surprise for Starling. Could it be that her daughter’s leaving for Colorado just before the holidays might have had something to do with Charlie’s lack of enthusiasm for decorating his own house? These thoughts abruptly disappeared as her eyes fell again on the white truck’s logo “Honeydew Home Repairs” and the stranger who walked forward from the vehicle. She eyed the man who looked to be about ten years older than Charlie. Early to mid-forties, she thought. What is an employee of Norm Wilkins doing at her home? Norm was the one person in the community who could set Edna’s teeth to grinding.

Don’t be so unreasonable
, she scolded herself silently. Taking a step forward, she extended her hand. “Hello. I’m Edna Davies.” The hostility she felt--and which she hoped didn’t show on her face--began to fade as she tried to think of whom the man reminded her. “I’m guessing I have you to thank for helping Charlie decorate my home so beautifully.”

“Kevin Lockhorn.” He shook her hand with a firm but gentle grip. “I understand you knew my uncle, and I’m glad to help out.”

Of course. She should have guessed immediately. He was heavier than Edna remembered Tom Greene to have been, but the dark curls were so much like his uncle’s, even where they were beginning to go gray. With his charming smile and the twinkle in his eyes, the resemblance was such that Kevin could have been Tom’s son.

“Yes, I did know your uncle, and I liked him very much,” Edna said, remembering with a pang that she had been a prime suspect in the man’s murder. “How did you happen to get roped into this job?” She turned toward Charlie, frowning with the question as she remembered that Mary had told her about Tom’s nephew moving to town to work for his cousin. Norm Wilkins was the owner of the handyman business, and Charlie knew full well what her feelings were about the man. She would never have hired one of Norm’s employees to help put up the Christmas decorations. She refused to give Norm any of her business after the way he’d treated her when she’d been hunting for Tom’s killer.

“Things were slow this morning, so I thought I’d come by and introduce myself.” Kevin’s words brought her back to the present. “Uncle Tom spoke highly of you.” He paused briefly as if searching for the right words to continue. “I understand you helped solve his murder.” He looked curiously at her as he voiced this thought. “I didn’t see much of him in the years before he died, but we were still a close family.”

“It was my fault,” Charlie interrupted as he clapped a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “I corralled him.”

Edna suspected the detective was trying to lighten everyone’s mood and swing the conversation away from Tom and the murder. “Kevin happened to arrive at just the right time to help us raise and secure old Santa to the roof.”

“Us?” Edna glanced around, wondering if another body or two would appear from the bushes.

“The other guys left about twenty minutes ago,” Charlie said. “I called a couple of friends from the department who I knew weren’t working this morning. I wanted to have everything done before you got back. If I’d known you were going to go shopping, we could have put up more lights and stuff. I’ve got a bunch of outdoor, baseball-sized ornaments I could hang around these yew trees.”

Edna laughed with delight. “You did much more than I expected and a splendid job it is, too.”
I do hope Albert will be as pleased as I am
. The thought flashed through her mind and was gone in an instant. Christmas was for children, and she knew their grandchildren, especially, were going to love this holiday spectacle.

“Want us to get your tree off the car?” It was Kevin who made the offer.

“Yes, please. That would be very helpful,” Edna said, turning to him with a smile. “I’m about to make lunch for everyone. Can you stay?”

“I’d like to, ma’am, but I’ve probably been away from the office too long already. Norm was out on a job this morning. That’s why I could get away at all.”

“Can you join us for a tree-trimming party this evening, then?”

Kevin hesitated for only a second or two. “Yes, ma’am. I’d like that.”

“Good,” Mary spoke up. “I think you were about twenty, the last time I saw you. We have some catchin’ up to do.”

“And I’ll enjoy hearing more about your family,” Edna added her own enthusiasm.

The two men grappled the six-foot spruce tree off the roof of Mary’s Jeep and set it in the stand Edna had put at the end of the living room. After that, Kevin left with a broad smile and an assurance that he was looking forward to helping decorate the evergreen that evening.

While Edna heated butternut squash soup and melted cheese on saltine crackers for lunch, Charlie hung the wreath on the front door. In the hall, Mary wrapped the evergreen rope around the newel post and up the banister to the second floor landing. Benjamin followed Mary up the stairs, occasionally attacking the swaying end of the rope.

By the time lunch was over and the kitchen cleaned up, it was almost two o’clock. Mary had gone home to take Hank and Spot out for a walk when Charlie announced his intention to go across the street to see if Gran was home. He still needed to ask her about bicycle sightings.

“I’ll go with you,” Edna said, draping the dish towel over the edge of the sink to dry. “I want to invite her to my party this evening.”

Having become friends and visiting with their neighbor fairly often, Edna knew to walk up the driveway to the deck instead of ringing the front doorbell. Taking that route, they’d pass beneath the kitchen window where, if she were in her usual working mode, Gran would spot them on their way to the back door. 

As they crossed the deck, Charlie was glancing down and around at the redwood planks. When Gran opened the kitchen door, he said, “Who’s your visitor?”

She first gave Edna a brief welcoming hug before she frowned up at Charlie, clearly puzzled. “What visitor?”

He stood aside and, fixing his gaze on the boards of the deck, swept his arm back to indicate what he meant.

The sun had melted most of the storm’s evidence of the night before, but where heavy boots had stepped and packed the snow, Edna now noticed that, indeed, someone had walked across the deck and stood at the kitchen window.