Silent Night: A Raine Stockton Dog Mystery (6 page)

Dolly stared at me.  “What are you still doing here?  Weren’t you scheduled to walk only?”

I held up both hands in a peace-loving gesture.  “On my way.  I was just making sure the sheep were secure.”

“Well, hurry up.  You’re spoiling the vignette.  Mary, Joseph, at the manger, please.  Mary, you’re sitting, and, Joseph, stand at her right side.”

“Should I be holding the baby or not?” Ruth Holloway inquired.

“Holding, holding,” Dolly said impatiently.  “While on duty, the babe is in arms.  When you leave at night, return him to the manger.”

Since no one had volunteered a real infant for the living Nativity, Dolly had been forced to compromise with a doll.  It was supposed to be one of those life-like ones with pudgy little hands and dimples that made you look twice, but it was still a doll.  I thought Dolly was a little put out by that.
 

“Better be careful about leaving it here at night,” I advised.  “Buck said there’s been a rash of baby Jesus thefts.”

Everyone stared at me.  “What?”  For the first time that evening, Dolly actually seemed to miss a beat.  “Did you say ‘baby Jesus thefts’?”

“No lie.”

And one of the wise men shook his head sadly.  “What is this world coming to?”

The choir started singing “Here Comes Santa Claus”.  The sheep bleated louder.  Ruth bent forward to pick up the baby Jesus and then stopped, frozen.
 
“Oh, my God.”

I think we all realized at the same time that the bleating we heard was not coming from the sheep pen, after all, but the manger.
 
Everyone realized it, that is, except Kitty, who exclaimed indignantly, “Don’t tell me someone has stolen our baby Jesus.  Don’t you dare tell me that!”

“Okay,” Ruth said softly.  She bent forward and gently, wonderingly, lifted a bundle of living, bleating, fist-flailing infant from the manger.  “I won’t.”

Dolly stared at the baby.  We all stared at the baby.  “That,” Dolly said flatly, “was not supposed to happen.”

Did I call it?  There was no way this thing was going to go off without a hitch.

We all surged forward at once.  The baby was wrapped in a pilled blue fleece blanket that looked as though it had come from an adult-sized bed, which is most likely what had kept the infant from freezing.  Still, its little fists were shaking and its screams were growing hoarser. Ruth carefully peeled back some of the folds of the blanket to reveal a very tiny, completely naked, baby girl.

Dolly looked around the crowd imperiously and demanded, “Whose infant is this?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dolly, it’s clearly an abandoned newborn,” Sonny said. 

“Probably only a few hours old.”  Ruth rewrapped the baby in the blanket and held it close, trying to soothe it with a bouncing motion.  “The umbilical stump isn’t even dry.”

“Oh, good heavens,” declared Dolly with an expression of the utmost displeasure.  She snatched a walkie-talkie from her pocket and spoke into it.  “We need a paramedic at the living Nativity.  We have an unauthorized infant on the premises.”

Later, when I was telling the story to Maude and Aunt Mart, they made me repeat that part twice.

It is a testament to Dolly’s iron will and undisputed talent for controlling the uncontrollable  that, even with most of the town gathered around, there was very little disruption in the ceremonies, and many people didn’t even know what had happened until they read about it in the weekly paper.  Our one rescue unit was of course on-site, and it took the EMT about three minutes to walk to the scene with his emergency bag.  By this time Dolly had shooed Ruth, who refused to relinquish the baby to anyone except the paramedic, outside the crèche and behind it.  Of course her husband insisted upon going with her, which left our Nativity minus two rather important characters.  But when everyone else in the scene started to trail after them curiously, Dolly was having none of it.  She controlled her players like Mystery controlled her sheep – when the evil eye wasn’t strong enough, a sharp bark or a little nip always did the trick.

I scooted out of the way before I was drafted into playing Mary and hurried around to the back of our plywood stable where Mike Keller, the paramedic, was listening to the baby’s heartbeat with a stethoscope while Ruth held her.  I waited until he removed the earpieces before I said, “What do you think, Mike?”

He took out a penlight and shone it in the baby’s eyes.  The poor thing screamed harder.  “She’s seems okay so far, all things considered.”  He tore open a small plastic package and snapped out a silver space blanket.  “This’ll warm her up a lot faster,” he told Ruth.  He tucked the space blanket inside the folds of the big bed blanket and began to swaddle the baby.  “We’ll take her to the hospital and have them check her out.
 
Not more than a day old, I’d say.”  And he gave a short shake of his head, his tone tight, “She could have frozen to death.  All the mother had to do was drop her off at any hospital or fire station, no questions asked.  We need a public awareness campaign on that.”

I glanced at Ruth and knew we were both thinking the same thing.  “I don’t know, Mike,” I said.  “In a town this small, ‘no questions asked’ doesn’t mean much.”

The children were singing “Frosty the Snowman”.  A few people passed by and looked at us curiously.

Ruth relinquished the infant to Mike reluctantly, her expression uneasy.  “What will happen to her?  Do you really think she’ll be okay?”

Mike said, “The hospital will take good care of her, don’t you worry. After that, social services.  The police will want to talk to everyone who was there when she was found, so y'all hang tight.  A deputy will be up here shortly.” 

“He’s got his work cut out for him,” I said.  “There must’ve been five hundred people in the square when she was found, not to mention everybody who was in and out all day.”

“Well, the manger didn’t go up until four o’clock,” Jack Holloway pointed out.  “I know, because I helped set it up.”

“That’s good,” Mike said. “At least we know she couldn’t have been out here more than a couple of hours.”  The baby started to whimper again, and Ruth reached out a solicitous hand.
 
“Let me get this little one in the ambulance where it’s warm,” Mike said.  “You can call the hospital if you want to check on her.”

Jack put his arm around Ruth’s shoulders as Mike slung the strap of his bag over his shoulder and hurried away.  I remembered what Ruth had told me in the classroom that afternoon about wanting to have a baby and hoping that their roles in the Nativity would bring them luck, and I could see a mixture of wonder, yearning and hope on her face as she watched them go.  I couldn’t help but feel a little shiver of superstitious wonder myself.
 

Ruth said anxiously, “She’s so tiny.”  She looked up at her husband.  “Do you think we should go to the hospital with her?  It doesn’t seem right that she should just be carted off like luggage or something.  She should have someone to take care of her on the ride.”

“Mike is terrific with kids,” I assured her.  “He’s got three of his own.”

Jack added gently, “We’ll call the hospital later, okay?  Let’s go tell everyone she’s okay.”

Ruth frowned a little.  “You don’t suppose Dolly is really going to go through with the living Nativity tonight, do you?”

“If I know Dolly, and I do, she will,” I assured her.  “And the less fuss we make about it the better for everyone concerned.” 

Jack gave a wry half smile.  “She’s right, hon.  There are going to be a bunch of kids lined up wanting to pet the donkeys and the sheep as soon as the choir finishes, and we’re part of the act.  Let’s get back.”

I said, “Hey, Jack.  When you set up the manger, was there a doll in it?”

He thought for a moment.  “Yeah, come to think of it, Dolly came by just as we were leaving and left the doll.  It was wrapped in a scarf or something the same color as Ruth’s robe.  They were supposed to match.”

I nodded.  “I wonder what happened to it.”

Jack looked at me curiously and I explained, “Whoever took the doll out of the manger to put the real baby in had to get rid of the doll somewhere.”  I shrugged.  “You guys had better get back before Dolly comes after you.  I’ll have a look around.”

Of course it wasn’t my job to look around, but I was curious.  If I were a desperate young mother looking to anonymously exchange a real baby for a doll in the middle of town square with all kinds of people milling about, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to carry the stolen doll very far.  I poked around the stable as best I could, looking behind bales of hay and underneath the straw that lined the manger, in the shadows behind the stable and in the corners inside.
 
I wished I had brought Cisco with me.  He had an uncanny knack for sticking his nose in places it didn’t belong, and he loved toys—especially when they didn’t belong to him.  If the doll had been hidden anywhere around here, he would have found it.  I borrowed the shepherd’s crook to stir around the contents of the two nearest trash barrels, but I didn’t find anything bigger than a half-eaten corndog.  By that time Deke, Buck’s number one deputy, had arrived, and I was reminded that I was starving.

“Where’s Buck?” I asked him.  Buck usually liked to handle this kind of thing himself.

“Got a call,” Deke replied truculently, and scowled at the notepad he took out of his pocket.  Since our divorce had become final, some of the men on the force felt it was a sign of their loyalty to Buck to be rude to me whenever possible.  “You know anything about this?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Get on out of here, then.”

I returned his scowl, but I really didn’t want to get into an argument with him that would delay my dinner even further, so I turned away, muttering, “Great police work, sport.”  But my natural sense of good citizenship got the better of me, so I turned back and added, “The doll is missing.” 

He glared at me. “What doll?” 

I pointed at Jack, who had taken his place with Mary in front of the empty manger.  “Ask Joseph,” I suggested and waved goodbye as I made my way through the crowd.

I stopped to bring Maude and Aunt Mart up to speed on events,  so that by the time I walked into Miss Meg’s Diner there were only a few customers left—mostly old men who had seen enough Christmas parades in their lifetime and were enjoying a cup of coffee and ESPN turned on low at the counter.  I ordered a barbecue sandwich with extra French fries and sweet tea before I even sat down, then sank into a booth by the window, stretching out my legs.

I rarely came into town without one of the dogs, so it was a treat to be able to lean back, relax and enjoy a meal in a restaurant without worrying about who was waiting for me in the car.  The view of the Christmas tree was spectacular from my seat in the window, and as far as I could tell the police investigation hadn’t disrupted the festivities much at all. I had finished my sandwich and was swirling the last few fries around in a paper cup of ketchup, contemplating the last slice of lemon meringue pie that was displayed inside the cooler by the counter, when the bell over the door jingled and Miles Young walked in.

Miles is, for all intents and purposes, the man behind Hansonville’s spectacular Christmas parade this year.  Because of him, Reardon Real Estate could afford a prize-winning float with lights
and
sound.  Because of him, our new animal shelter was well underway and the stray dogs had twinkle lights on their collars.  Because of his tax money, the Christmas tree had new lights and the volunteer fire department had a new engine. I had heard he had also given generously to churches, food drives and under-privileged children’s groups.
 
He was Mr. Popularity around these parts lately, but I remained skeptical. 

Miles Young knew how to run a PR campaign, and that was exactly what he was doing; it was no coincidence that every time he wrote a check he was smiling into the camera.  He had done enough interviews about what a positive impact his new resort development was going to have on our county to run for office.  Because of him, my beautiful mountain was scarred with deadfalls and roadbeds, wildlife was being displaced, and someday soon a multi-million dollar country club would be looking down on my back yard.  But because of him, construction workers—the industry that had been hardest hit by the recession in our area—had jobs and children had presents under the tree.  It was hard for most people to hate him these days.  Myself included.

He stopped at the counter and placed an order.  Then he saw me and came over, accompanied some distance behind by a young girl in a green puff coat and red toboggan hat who appeared to be attached to an electronic tablet by a set of earphones.  Her eyes never left the screen as she trudged across the room.

Miles grinned as he reached me and leaned down to kiss my cheek, bringing with him the smell of the cold outdoors and Polo cologne.  “Great job with those sheep, sugar.  I was rooting for you.”

I wriggled uncomfortably, glancing around to see who had noticed.  “Miles, please.  No PDAs.”  But my stomach fluttered with pleasure and my heartbeat had a ridiculous little catch in it.  There’s no accounting for chemistry.  Absolutely none. 

I probably should have mentioned Miles Young is the “kind of” rich boyfriend Miss Esther thought I should have.  It’s not that he’s kind of rich; he’s very rich.  It’s that he’s kind of my boyfriend.  The kind-of part refers to the fact that I think he thinks he wants to be my boyfriend; I am very far from being sure.  At all.