The Nightingale Before Christmas (12 page)

Maybe she was even crying over Clay's death. I didn't think they'd known each other that well. I couldn't recall any run-ins between them.

Maybe not knowing him that well made it easier to feel sad over his death. She could be the one person in the house who had no negative feelings about Clay, and could react to it simply as the death of another human being.

“Got to run,” I said. “Call me if you need anything.”

She nodded but didn't raise her head as I slipped out of the room.

I went back into the hall. It looked as if the chief was about to finish up with Alice. Sarah was sitting on the stairs with her chin in her hand, watching Ivy paint. Overnight the blue streak in Sarah's hair had morphed into a rich purple that matched her sweater. I decided it was an improvement.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “The chief's got your room.”

“He's only got a couple of people left to interview,” she said. “And he did point out that this was faster for us than having to go down to the station. I'm good with it.”

Ivy smiled over her shoulder at us, then got up and slipped down the hallway. In her brown skirt and brown sweater, she seemed to disappear into the shadows after a few steps. But oddly enough, she didn't seem drab like Linda. More elfin.

“If we're bothering you, we can leave,” I called out.

“Just going to the basement to mix some more pigments,” she said.

I heard the basement door close.

“I don't think we're bothering her particularly,” Sarah said. “She just needs a lot of time alone. It's not quite the same thing.”

I nodded.

“Hell of a night last night,” I said.

Sarah nodded but didn't say anything.

“What I wouldn't give to have been anywhere but here,” I said.

Sarah giggled.

“Meg, if you're trying to find out whether or not I have an alibi for the time when Clay was killed, you could just ask me,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “I gather you do have an alibi.”

“Yes,” she replied. “I was neutering tomcats.”

I wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

“Actual feline tomcats,” she went on. “Not Clay's kind. And spaying the females.”

“I didn't know you moonlighted as a vet,” I said.

“I was helping Clarence Rutledge. He's been doing a lot of pro bono work down at the animal shelter, spaying and neutering that whole feral cat colony that lives in the woods behind the New Life Baptist Church.”

That made sense. Clarence was Caerphilly's most popular veterinarian. And although his appearance was intimidating—he was six feet, six inches tall and almost as wide, and usually wore leather and denim biker gear, even under his white lab coat at the clinic—he was a notorious softie when it came to any kind of animal.

“His clinic's so busy during the day that the only time he can do the surgeries is after hours,” she said. “And we'd trapped a lot of feral cats. We were running out of cages. So every night this week I've been going over there at nine or ten o'clock, as soon as I can get away from here, and we work until he's too tired. Usually one or two in the morning.”

“That's great,” I said. “Best alibi I've heard all day, in fact.”

“There is one thing I'm worried about,” she said.

“What's that?”

“My fingerprints might be on the murder weapon.”

 

Chapter 10

My jaw fell open, and I couldn't think of anything to say for several moments.

“How did that happen?” I asked finally.

“I don't know for sure,” she said. “But there's a gun missing, and for all I know, it could be the murder weapon, and if it is, my fingerprints will be on it.”

“Missing where?”

“From the house,” she said. “From my room.”

“You were keeping a gun in your room?”

“Not on purpose,” she said. “It's not even mine—it's Kate's.”

Kate—her business partner, the one Sarah had been having such an angry conversation with the day before—Kate saying “keep it” and Sarah saying “I don't even want it around me.”

“Her husband got it for her when he started having to commute to Tappahannock for his job,” Sarah said. “She never really wanted it around. But then when I began working here at the show house, she kept telling me I should take it with me, for protection. Because of Clay.”

“She was afraid of Clay?”

“He's got a temper,” Sarah said. “He had a booth near us at the Caerphilly Home and Garden Show last year, and he was just a pill the whole time. Flirting with us, and smirking at us, and then snaking people away from us the whole time, and then at the end of the show, during the teardown, someone ticked him off and he just went berserk. Wrecked part of his booth and the booth next door. He was like a crazy man. And Kate freaked. Ever since then, she's wanted nothing to do with him. He works out of his house, which isn't that far from our office, and for a while he kept trying to drop in and schmooze. Until Bailey tried to bite him.”

“Bailey?” I echoed. “The third partner in Byrne, Banks, and Bailey?”

“Bailey's an Irish setter,” she said, with a giggle. “And he pretty much hates Clay, too.”

“Dogs can be good judges of character,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” Sarah agreed. “Anyway, when Kate heard Clay was part of the show house, she wanted us to pull out. And I didn't think that would be good for our rep. I said she could pull out, but I'd do it myself. We had a pretty big fight over it.”

“And then she brought her gun over here.”

“Yesterday morning,” she said. “I was off running an errand, and evidently, while I was out, she came in and put it in the drawer in one of my end tables. I found it there a little later, and told her to come and get it. And then the whole flood thing happened, and when I remembered the gun and looked in the end table drawers, it was gone. I was hoping she'd taken it after all, but I asked her this morning and she didn't. It's gone.”

“And you think someone took it while we were moving everything out from under the flood?”

Sarah nodded.

“Damn,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“What kind of gun was it?”

“I have no idea.”

“How big was it?”

She held her hands out about eight inches apart. Then moved them out to ten inches. And down to six. And then threw them up in frustration.

“I don't know,” she said. “Gun-sized. Kind of small, I guess.”

Her inability to identify the gun very accurately might have been more frustrating if I knew more about guns myself. Or if we knew what kind of gun had killed Clay.

“Anyway—I figure I should probably tell the chief.”

“Absolutely.”

“Even though it will make Kate a suspect, and she'll be mad at me, and maybe her husband will be mad at her for losing the gun?”

“Even though.”

“Damn,” she said.

We waited in silence for a while, and then the door opened. Alice came out, looking relieved to have gotten her interview over with.

“Ms. Byrne?” the chief said.

Sarah stood up and slowly walked toward the study.

My phone rang. I answered it, my eyes still on Sarah and the chief.

“Goose or turkey?”

“What's that?”

“I said, goose or turkey?”

I looked at my phone. The number showing was Michael's and my home phone. But the voice—

Wait—it was Michael's mother. Who evidently had arrived, and was starting the preparations for Christmas dinner.

Last year, my mother and Michael's had each decided to cook a Christmas dinner for the family. No amount of diplomacy could convince them to combine their events, and I heard that several people unlucky enough to attend both dinners developed a temporary aversion to eating and fasted for one or more days afterward.

One of the saving graces of Mother's involvement in the show house was that it would prevent a recurrence. Even the mothers realized that last year's excess had been over the top, and while we'd made progress on getting them to join forces, I'd been more than a little worried about the possibility of conflict in the kitchen. Not that Mother cooked, of course. She usually drafted one or two relatives whose culinary skills she admired and got them to cook for her. But while most of her family were quite willing to let Mother order them around in the kitchen, I didn't think Dahlia Waterston would be as patient.

So I'd been very relieved when Mother announced that, alas, due to the show house, she would have to withdraw from Christmas dinner preparation. Would Dahlia ever forgive her?

Michael's mother not only forgave her, she rejoiced in the opportunity to plan the dinner solo. And I'd been grateful to have at least one holiday chore completely off my plate.

Evidently I wasn't going to be completely uninvolved.

“I tend to prefer turkey,” I said. “But goose is also nice.”

“And goose is traditional,” she said.

I decided not to say “So's turkey.”

“But many people find goose a little too greasy.”

“That's true,” I said. “A lot of people have trouble digesting it.”

“But turkey's so bland.”

I wanted to say “that's why we put gravy on it,” but I held my tongue.

“Maybe I should have both.”

“That's an excellent idea,” I said. “That should keep both parties happy.”

“Not the vegetarians,” she said. “But I'll worry about them later. Oh, by the way—do you really want an Xbox for Christmas?”

“No,” I said. “I can't say that I do, and Michael and I agreed that we don't want the boys exposed to video games this young.”

“I thought as much,” she said. “So I told Jamie that I couldn't help him buy you one for Christmas.”

With that she hung up.

Should I warn Michael that Jamie was trying to do an end run around him on the present-buying front?

No time. Mother and Eustace were waiting to ask me something. And one of Randall Shiffley's cousins was standing behind them. And Vermillion was peeking through the railings from the upstairs landing as if waiting for a time to get my attention.

I took care of Randall's cousin first, because he appeared to be in the middle of doing actual physical labor. Not that I didn't think what the designers did was work, but as a blacksmith I suppose I was ever-so-slightly more sympathetic to work that produced sweat. Then I had to listen to Mother and Eustace explain something that they felt was essential to do to smooth the flow between their two areas. After twenty minutes I finally interrupted them.

“Let's cut to the chase—does this involve knocking down any load-bearing walls or otherwise threatening the structural integrity of the house.”

“Of course not, dear.”

“Will what you're doing intrude on or inconvenience any of the other decorators?”

“Of course not, dear. You see, all we really want to do is put a little bit of crown molding right here—”

“Do you need any supplies or workman other than what Randall has already provided?”

“No, dear.” Mother was starting to look a little provoked.

“Then make it so,” I said. “I approve with all my heart.”

As I strode back toward the hall, I heard Mother murmur softly to Eustace. “Clearly not quite herself again.”

I climbed upstairs—noting, to my satisfaction, that the chief had finished with Sarah and was interviewing Ivy. Her tiny, brown-clad body looked oddly out of place against the rich red velvet of Sarah's armchair.

Upstairs, I found Vermillion wanted me to solve a dispute over what color to paint the door between her room and Martha's bathroom. Vermillion had painted her side glossy black, to match everything else in her room. But when the door opened, it looked like a blob of ink against the white tile, white walls, white shower curtain, and white towels of Martha's spa décor. Martha, of course, wanted to paint it white.

“The door will be open most of the time, which means it will be in my room,” Martha said, tapping her paintbrush against the lid of the can of Benjamin Moore “White Dove” that she was holding.

“But when it's closed, it will look as if a polar bear has landed in my room,” Vermillion wailed.

We went back and forth about that for half an hour or so. Neither of them would budge an inch.

Suddenly inspiration came.

I pulled out my phone.

“Randall,” I said. “Can you come up to the back bathroom?”

“On my way.”

When Randall arrived, I let him watch Martha and Vermillion going at it for a couple of minutes, just so he could see what we were dealing with. He glanced at me uneasily. Settling catfights between the designers was supposed to be my job.

“Ladies!” I shouted.

They both subsided reluctantly and glowered at me.

“Randall, you see the problem.”

He nodded, and looked a little wild-eyed, as if trying to beg me to leave him out of it.

“Can you build us a door that will solve this problem?”

“A door that looks white when it's in one room and black in the other?”

“One of those doors that disappears into the wall when it's open instead of swinging one way or the other.”

“A pocket door.” Randall and Martha said it in unison.

“Yes,” Vermillion said. “That would work.”

“I'll get right on it,” Randall said. “You ladies hold on to your paint cans for a little while. Help is on the way.”

I fled the room, and he followed.

“Ingenious,” he said. “Of course, it'll cost money.”

“I will gladly pay for it myself if it shuts them up,” I said.

“On the contrary, it will be my treat, on account of you took this job and kept me from having to deal with all of them.”

“Of course, even once the pocket door is in, they won't get along,” I said. “They'll each complain that every time the door opens, the other one's room will spoil the look of their own.”