Six Geese A-Slaying (16 page)

“Right, right,” he said. “So what can you tell me about this Doleson guy?”

Michael and I both immediately put on appropriately somber, regretful expressions. Michael, of course, was the better actor,
but I’d had plenty of experience behaving properly at funerals of relatives I’d hardly met—and a few I’d met and heartily
wished I hadn’t.

“A terribly sad business,” Michael said, shaking his head. I shook mine too, in solidarity.

“Sad?” Werzel said. “Who are you kidding? From what I hear, he was the biggest louse in town. If you liked him, you must be
the only two who did.”

“I didn’t know him very well,” I said.

“But any man’s death diminishes me,” Michael intoned.

“Dickens?” I asked. “Not
A Christmas Carol
, I know that.”

“Donne,” Michael said.

“Oh, right.”

“Done what?” Werzel asked.

“John Donne,” Michael said. “Seventeenth-century poet. ‘No man is an island’?”

“Oh, I get it,” Werzel said, though from his expression I didn’t think he did. “Getting back to Doleson—”

“Look, if you’re trying to get us to say something snarky about the dead guy, forget it,” I said. “We didn’t know him very
well, but we can still feel sad about someone dying in such a horrible way at a season when people are thinking about holiday
celebrations, not funerals.”

Michael nodded solemnly. Werzel looked back and forth between us for a few seconds.

“Right,” he said. “I’m going to see what the chief is up to.”

Chapter 24

Michael and I both breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m going to rehearse,” he said. “I can’t do it in the barn with Chief Burke and his men, so I guess I’ll stay out here.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “The cold air’s not good for your voice. Rehearse in the house. I’m used to it, and our house guests
will just have to deal.”

“I’ll probably drive them all out again,” he said.

“You make that sound like a bad thing.”

Michael did go to the other end of the house, where he could really cut loose and declaim at full volume. Very soon everyone
else found it important to be out in the barn or back in town. I never got the chance to ask Clarence or Caroline about the
camera.

Our land line wasn’t working yet, but I checked in with a few people while my cell phone still had signal. Our Virgin Mary
had given birth to a nine-pound baby girl, to be named Noel Grace. Dad got rave reviews on all sides for his performance as
Santa. All the parade participants had made it safely home, except for the animals, who were warm and snug at the college
barn. But I failed miserably in my subtle attempts to gather information about Doleson. Did people really know that little
about him? Or were they just unwilling to share what they knew? I finally abandoned all subtlety and called several of the
worst gossips in town, with no luck. Either no one had any dirt on him or they weren’t going to share it within the remaining
useful life of my cell phone battery. The signal was getting fuzzy anyway, so I gave up.

Around ten, the snow began again. At first only a few scattered flakes came down at apparently random intervals, like advance
scouts. Then, all of a sudden, as if the scouts had sent back particularly good reports, the flakes began coming down more
heavily. And not big, damp flakes that promised a wet, sloppy, but short-lived snow. These were tiny, earnest little flakes
that meant real accumulation if they kept it up for a while. Which, according to the weather reports I could get on my battery-operated
radio, they would.

I didn’t tell Michael. He could look out the window for himself, and if he hadn’t, no need for me to upset him.

As the snow arrived, the remaining police officers departed, although before they left, they wrapped a few more rounds of
crime scene tape around the pig shed, the barn, and several unidentifiable snow-covered lumps in other parts of the back yard.

I wrapped presents, muttering along as Michael rehearsed. Then I packed the borrowed Boy Scout equipment, still muttering.

About noon, I heard the noise of heavy machinery outside—probably the Shiffleys’ snow plow going by at close range.

Michael strolled into the kitchen and put the teakettle on the camp stove.

“Maybe we’ll make that show after all,” he said. So he had been peeking.

A few moments later, I heard the strains of “Good King Wenceslas” out in the yard.

“More carolers?” Michael asked.

“No,” I said peering out. “It’s the Boy Scouts. Come to fetch their camping gear, I assume. And looks as if they’re starting
their cleanup, even though the litter’s buried under the snow. They’re caroling while they work.”

“Excellent,” Michael said. “I’d go and help them if I didn’t have to rehearse some more.”

“Will they bother you?” I asked, suddenly anxious. “I can tell them to keep it down if you need to concentrate.”

“What more perfect background music could I have for rehearsing
A Christmas Carol
?” he said. He took his coffee cup and his script and headed back toward his office. I put on my coat, hat, boots, and mittens;
picked up my coffee; and went outside.

I had to admire the Boy Scouts’ dedication. It was still well below freezing and as in the carol, the snow was deep and crisp
and even—three inches of it and counting. It covered everything, including the trash they’d come to pick up. I’d have been
tempted to postpone the cleanup until warmer weather. But the Scouts were rummaging all through the yard and up and down the
road, excavating even the smallest lump under the snow to fill the huge black plastic trash bags they were dragging behind
them.

Randall Shiffley, who owned the construction company and served as one of the scoutmasters, had apparently used his tractor
not only to plow snow but also to drag over a Dempster Dumpster, which stood at the end of our yard closest to town. Some
of the older Scouts were dusting off the temporary trash barrels we’d scattered throughout the yard, gathering them up, emptying
them into the Dumpster, and finally loading the trash barrels onto a big Shiffley Construction Company truck. I was relieved
to see that the Scouts gave the various objects festooned with yellow crime scene tape as wide a berth as if they were radioactive.

Randall was sipping coffee from an insulated mug and observing the action with an approving look on his face.

“I had to come out anyhow, to pick up the camping gear, so I thought we might as well make a start,” he said. “Get the trash
cans out of your way; do what we can. We’ll need to come back after the snow melts for the final policing, of course.”

“That’s great,” I said. “You think they’d like some hot chocolate, or maybe some cider?”

“I’m sure they’d appreciate either one,” he said. “It’s a cold day, and this is thirsty work.”

“I’ll go make some if you’ll help me carry it out,” I said. “And I’ve got a lot of their gear inside—we borrowed it for our
unexpected houseguests.”

“That’s fine,” he said. He followed me back to the kitchen and sat at our kitchen table, sipping his coffee, as I heated the
milk and cider over the camping stove.

“By the way,” I said, “I heard you might be one of the people who isn’t entirely broken up by Mr. Doleson’s death.”

“You heard right,” he said. “You probably also heard about when I tried to punch his lights out.”

“Over the eagle’s nest thing?”

Randall nodded.

“I didn’t realize you were that much of a bird lover,” I said.

“Well, I guess I like birds as well as the next guy. But this wasn’t just any bird. It was a bald eagle. Our national bird.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, feigning ignorance. “I just heard it was an eagle. Michael and I were out of town then.”

“Yes, a bald eagle. Only eagle we usually get in Virginia. And everyone knew Doleson had smashed that eagle’s nest, but he
was too sneaky to leave any evidence. Not that Chief Burke didn’t do his best.”

“No wonder all the SPOOR people were so upset,” I said. “I’m surprised Dad didn’t tell me about it.”

“I think your father felt that what happened was his fault,”

Randall said. “Since he was president of SPOOR when Doleson did it. Which is nonsense—no one blames your father at all. Not
much you can do when you’ve got a sneaky, mean bas—er, scoundrel like Doleson.”

Randall still seemed quite worked up about the eagle, even four or five months after the event. Worked up enough to take revenge?
I had a hard time believing it. But then, I had a hard time believing Clarence could be involved, either. And I remembered
what the chief had said about the killer’s height—at least six foot two. Like Clarence, Randall was tall enough to have staked
Doleson.

“So yes, I was mad at him,” Randall was saying. “And since he was still trying to cause me trouble over punching him, I guess
you could say I had a double motive. That what you’re asking—whether I could have killed him?”

“Or whether you know anyone who might have?”

“Lot of high words down at the American Legion hall after the bald eagle incident. But not a lot of people mad enough—or stupid
enough—to actually do anything.”

“Of course, if you’re thinking of killing someone, you wouldn’t necessarily run around making threats first,” I said. “Makes
it so much easier for the police.”

“True,” he said, with a slight nod, as if conceding a point. “Still—there was some talk of boycotting Doleson’s businesses,
but hardly anyone rents storage units from him anymore, and it’s not as if the poor souls living at the Pines have anywhere
else to go, so that died down. Most anyone did was get up a petition to get him kicked out of the Santa job, and you can see
how much notice the Town Council paid to that.”

“It still seems incredible that the Town Council made him Santa,” I said. “Do you think he had something on one of them?”

“You mean, was he blackmailing them?” Randall tilted his head as he considered the idea. “It’s a thought. If the chief ever
finds Doleson’s files, maybe we’ll find out.”

“Ever finds the files—you mean they weren’t at the Spare Attic?”

Randall shook his head.

“One of my cousins is a deputy,” he said. “He’s back out there tonight, searching the Attic and the Pines, top to bottom.
And no luck. So either Doleson didn’t have files or he kept them someplace they haven’t found yet, or someone got out to the
Attic before the police did.”

“And before Caroline and Clarence did,” I added.

He nodded.

“So who do
you
think killed Doleson?” I asked.

Randall tipped his chair back and folded his arms behind his head as he considered the question.

“Plenty of people mad enough,” he said. “But it’s hard to think of anyone mean enough to do it at Christmas, and risk spoiling
the parade like that. Still—the Lord moves in mysterious ways, and if He was moved to call Ralph Doleson home at what might
seem to us an odd and inconvenient moment—well, I’m not going to complain.”

In other words, good riddance to bad rubbish. I wondered what he meant by Doleson still trying to cause him trouble. Legal
trouble, perhaps? I was searching for a tactful way to ask when Randall spoke up again.

“I don’t know who killed him,” he said. “But I’ll tell you who didn’t do it.”

“Who’s that?”

“Norris Pruitt, that’s who. There’s no love lost between me and any of the Pruitts, you understand. But Norris? He has the
height, yes, and the strength, but he sure as hell doesn’t have the gumption. Or the cunning to cover it up even as well as
the killer did. And you can tell Chief Burke I said so.”

“It’s not as if he listens to me,” I said. “And after all, the chief knows Ralph Doleson wasn’t exactly well liked in Caerphilly.”

“ ‘Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone!’ ” Randall and I both started as Michael stepped into the kitchen,
declaiming from memory, but carrying the script behind his back.

“ ‘A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!’ ” Michael went on. “ ‘Hard and sharp as flint,
from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.’ ”

“Yeah, that was Doleson all right,” Randall said.

“Actually, that was Scrooge,” I said. “Michael’s rehearsing. Don’t you say his name in there, somewhere?”

Michael consulted his text.

“You’re right,” he said. “ ‘Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge!’ ” he repeated. “For the show tonight,”
he added, for Randall’s sake.

“A one-man show of Dickens’s
Christmas Carol
,” I said.

“I heard,” Randall said. “I’ve got tickets. It’s still on, then?”

“Far as I know,” I said. “Assuming the power’s still on at the theater, and anyone can get there.”

“Power’s fine in town,” Randall said. “So far, anyway. And plenty of people can walk to the college theater. But if I were
you, I’d head in there now, before the second storm gets going.”

I looked at Michael.

“We’d probably get snowed in there rather than here,” Michael said. “And that would spoil our plans for a quiet Christmas
alone together.”

“I could try to bring you back afterwards on the plough,” Randall said. “Of course, I can’t do anything about the power in
the house—odds are that’s out till after the second storm. But if I can get through, I’ll bring you back.”

“But you can’t guarantee that even you can get through,” Michael said. “How many inches were they predicting? Six to twelve?”

“Ten to fifteen, last I heard,” Randall said, looking out the window and nodding. “You don’t see many snows like that around
these parts.”

He sounded as if he approved of the weather’s rare burst of industry.

Michael looked wistful.

“You want to do the show,” I said. “And I want to see it. Let’s get packing.”

“You’re on,” Michael said.

I handed Randall the tray of ciders and hot chocolates and turned to go upstairs.

“Take the truck,” Randall said. “No offense, Meg, but that Toyota of yours can’t handle what’s on the roads now. And as for
that little windup convertible of Michael’s—”

“No way I’m taking the convertible out in this,” Michael said. “The truck it is.”

“And if you can be ready in half an hour, you can follow me back to town,” Randall said.