The Nightingale Before Christmas (21 page)

But eventually the angels managed their entrance to Robyn's satisfaction, and then we all sang the carol together, sounding almost as good as we would when the full choir joined in. After that, the curtain opened, and Josh and Jamie and a third shepherd herded the sheep past the stable and settled them on one side of the stage—except for one very small sheep who was discovered to be in dire need of a diaper change and was handed down to his waiting mother.

Then the wise men entered. In spite of Grandfather's offer to lend her three of the camels from his zoo, Robyn had decided not to risk it. So the wise men entered stage right, afoot, while one of the older boys stood in the wings and played a recording of Grandfather's camels making their characteristic moaning and groaning sounds. Perhaps by Christmas eve someone could help him edit out the part where an adult male voice yelped and then said, rather loudly, “let go of my hat, you smelly beast!”

Then we took another break in the action to sing “We Three Kings,” after which the three wise men presented their gifts—represented, at the moment, by a popcorn tin, a shoe box, and a coffee pot, since the church's traditional gold, frankincense, and myrrh props had been repainted at the last minute and were not quite dry yet.

A final rousing rendition of “Joy to the World” ended the pageant, and the players all scattered to join their parents and hurry back to the room where the buffet lunch had been set up.

“Mommy,” Josh asked me during lunch. “Do you like frankincense and myrrh?”

“Frankincense and myrrh are for babies,” Jamie said scornfully.

“No, they're not,” Josh said.

“Then why did the wise men give them to Baby Jesus?”

“No one had invented Xboxes yet,” Michael said.

“Actually, I think I might be allergic to frankincense and myrrh,” I said.

Josh looked disappointed.

After lunch, Michael headed off to take the boys sledding, and I was walking out to my car, planning to head back to the show house, when I got a text from a vaguely familiar phone number. It said simply “Check e-mail for Smith info.”

I opened my e-mail and scrolled down till I found one from [email protected]. I opened it and found it consisted of page after page of links. E-mail worked on my phone, but for links, I'd need to be at my computer. I closed it and was getting into my car when my phone rang. Chief Burke.

“Meg, are you very busy right now?” he asked.

If anyone else had asked me that, I'd have given them chapter and verse of everything waiting for me back at the show house. Somehow I didn't think it was a good idea to be so blunt with the chief.

But while I was struggling for a tactful answer, he figured this out.

“Of course you're busy,” he said, with a sigh. “What I meant was, can you possibly break away for a few minutes to take a look at something here?”

“Where's here?”

“Mr. Spottiswood's house—1224 Pruitt Avenue.”

Suddenly leaving the show house to fend for itself for a while seemed like an awesome idea.

“I'll be right there.”

Clay's house surprised me. I'd expected something imposing, expensive, and decorated to the nines in taste that was utterly different from mine. But 1224 Pruitt Avenue turned out to be one of a nearly identical row of town houses, in a subdivision full of such rows. I suspected most of the town houses were rented by pairs, trios, or quartets of young singles. There were no toys in any of the yards, very little landscaping, and even though every house had a garage, both sides of the street were lined with parked cars, bumper to bumper. I had to park over a block away.

When I showed up at the doorway, Sammy Wendell came out to meet me. His deputy's uniform looked disheveled, as if he'd been working several shifts without a break.

“This way.” He led me through a living room decorated with mismatched and slightly battered articles of furniture that looked as if they belonged in larger and more imposing rooms. The only things that didn't look like castoffs from some of Clay's decorating projects were the paintings—a dark, moody landscape over the mantel, an equally dark and moody bar scene over the sofa, and a huge cityscape filling all of one otherwise empty wall. Were they Clay's own paintings? Probably. I could see a signature in the corner of each that looked rather like a stylized
CS
.

“It's this way,” Sammy said, interrupting my study of the art.

I followed him through a kitchen decorated only with dirty dishes. And finally into the garage.

Chief Burke was standing in the garage, looking down at a collection of twenty or so boxes. I could see my cousin Horace squatting down beside the boxes, writing something down in a notebook. His uniform also looked a little the worse for wear.

“What's up?” I asked.

“You tell me,” the chief said. “Horace?”

Horace stood up and pointed to a stack of four boxes. I squatted down and looked at them. They were all addressed to Mother at the show house address.

“These are Mother's,” I exclaimed. “What are they doing here?”

“A good question,” the chief said. “You can think of no legitimate reason for them to be in Mr. Spottiswood's possession?”

“All four of these packages are ones Mother thought were lost in transit,” I said. “Three of them she had to have shipped again. She's been bugging me for two days to find this one.”

I held up a small, flat parcel from The Braid Emporium.

The chief turned to Horace.

“And what did the UPS tell us about these packages?”

Horace looked down at his notebook.

“These two were drop shipped,” he said, touching two of Mother's parcels. “No signature required. These two were signed for.”

“Who signed for them?” I demanded.

“This one was a W. Faulkner,” Horace said. “The Braid Emporium one went to a C. Dickens.”

“We also have signatures from T. Capote, F. S. Fitzgerald, and D. Hammett,” the chief added. “The manager of our local UPS facility will be having a word with the driver responsible.”

“That jerk,” I said. “Clay, I mean. Ever since the designers started working in the house, we've had problems with packages taking longer than expected, or getting lost entirely. I assumed someone had figured out that a lot of expensive stuff was being left at a house where no one lived, and was pilfering packages. So a week ago I told everyone that I'd rather they ship stuff to their own offices, but if they had to ship to the house they had to require a signature. We still had a few problems with packages, but not nearly as many.”

“That makes sense,” the chief said. “Most of these packages would have been delivered between ten days and three weeks ago.”

I glanced through the other packages. They came from fabric and trim companies, glass and china vendors, antique stores—all the kinds of vendors the decorators would have used.

“That jerk,” I said. “He's been sabotaging everyone.”

“That makes you angry,” the chief observed.

“Damn right it does,” I said.

“I imagine the designers themselves would be even angrier,” he said.

“Angry enough to kill him? Is that what you're asking?”

The chief raised one eyebrow and waited.

“How should I know?” I said. “Maybe. I can't see killing someone over a bit of braid, or a few yards of fabric. But if one of them realized Clay was deliberately sabotaging them, and had been for weeks? Can I see someone losing it and lashing out in anger? Yes. Don't ask me who, though.” I waved at the stack of packages. “He's got at least one from everyone.”

“If Mr. Spottiswood had been stabbed or bludgeoned by something that could readily be found at the crime scene, I could more easily accept the theory that someone lashed out in anger.” The chief leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “But he was shot. Someone had to bring a gun to the scene. Which looks more like premeditation. Unless, of course, Mr. Spottiswood had the bad luck to enrage someone who happened to be carrying a firearm. Were you aware that any of the decorators were armed?”

“If any of them were, it's news to me,” I said. “Apart from the gun Sarah's partner Kate tried to get her to take. I assume you heard about that.”

The chief nodded.

“Given the amount of arguing, backbiting, and general nastiness going on in the house, if I'd known any of them were packing, I'd have ordered them to leave their guns at home, on pain of expulsion from the house. Remind me to suggest to Randall that we make that a rule for next year. No guns at the show house. New rule number two.”

“What's new rule number one?” the chief asked. “No murders at the show house?”

“No packages sent to the show house,” I said. “The amount of bickering and backbiting those stolen packages have caused … Incidentally, I'd already planned to come and see you this morning to see if you could do anything about the thefts. I wasn't sure any of the designers paid any attention when I told them to make a police report.”

“Two of them did,” he said. “Mrs. Martha Blaine and Mrs. Linda Dunn.”

The other Martha and Our Lady of Chintz.

“But I didn't have enough officers to stake out the house, as Mrs. Blaine suggested,” the chief went on. “And as I pointed out, a stakeout wouldn't do much good if, as they suggested, the thefts were an inside job.”

“Did they suspect Clay?” I asked.

“Mrs. Blaine, rather presciently, did,” the chief said. “Mrs. Dunn was more suspicious of the various workmen who frequented the house, particularly Mr. Cruz and Mr. Torres, who worked for Mr. Spottiswood.”

“Tomás and Mateo?” I said. “I don't believe it. And do you really think two guys who speak little or no English would forge William Faulkner's and Charles Dickens's signatures on the UPS forms?”

“We were aware of that implausibility,” the chief said. “We thought it was neighborhood juvenile delinquents.”

“Very erudite delinquents,” I said.

“The same ones who had been vandalizing the house this fall,” Horace added.

“Vandalizing it how?”

“On several occasions, neighbors called us to report that there was activity in the house,” the chief said. “We found wallboard ripped away from the walls, floorboards pulled up. As if someone was trying to destroy the house from the inside out. We were keeping our eyes on several neighborhood juveniles with troubled histories. So you can imagine how pleased the bank was when Randall Shiffley approached them offering to fix up the house if it could be used for the show house. Apparently your mother thought she had a house lined up, but it fell through at the last minute.”

“She was planning to use our house,” I said. “And it didn't fall through at the last minute. When she told us what she was planning, months ago, Michael and I both put our feet down. It just took her till the last minute to believe we were serious. That's the reason the show house didn't open up so people could tour it in the weeks before Christmas, which would have made a lot more sense. By the time Mother got it that she couldn't use our house, there wasn't much time for Randall to get this house ready.”

“I see.” The chief was trying to hide a smile and failing. “Would that have anything to do with your taking the job as coordinator?”

“Everything to do with it,” I said. “I said I would do anything else she wanted, but if any decorators invaded our house, we'd set Spike on them.”

“Very sensible,” he said. “Some of the things they're doing to that house are mighty peculiar. Like gluing moss to the ceiling.”

“Moss?” I repeated. “To the ceiling? Which room?”

“The one that looks like Dracula's lair,” Horace said. “She's got Spanish moss hanging all around the edge of the room, and from the chandelier, and—”

“Good grief,” I said. “Well, as long as she either takes it down when the house closes or reimburses us for doing it. But getting back to—”

“Where is he?” a woman was shouting in the main part of the house. “Where's Clay? I need to see him.”

 

Chapter 18

The woman's words grew louder, and I could hear Sammy trying to calm her down and hold her back. With no success. She burst into the garage and looked around, puzzled at seeing us there. She was petite, buxom, redheaded, and probably attractive when she wasn't hysterical. She focused on me and her face contorted with rage.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” she shrieked, and launched herself at me, fingernails poised to attack. Horace and Sammy both grabbed her and held her back, taking damage in the process.

“Madam!” the chief roared.

The woman stopped struggling and fixed her gaze on him.

“I am Henry Burke, chief of police here in Caerphilly. Ms. Langslow is assisting me in an investigation. You have already opened yourself to charges of assaulting a police officer in the performance of his duties.”

“
Two
police officers,” Sammy corrected.

The chief favored him with a withering glance.

“Kindly cease this ridiculous behavior and tell me who you are and what you're doing here,” the chief went on.

“My name is Felicia Granger, and Clay is my … my friend.” She pulled herself up and stood still. Sammy and Horace let go of her, but stood ready in case she backslid.

Granger—she was probably the wife of the man who'd been following me the night before.

“And your purpose in coming here?” the chief asked.

Felicia seemed to wilt.

“We were supposed to see each other last night,” she said. “He never showed up, and never returned my calls, and—did something happen to him?”

“I'm afraid Mr. Spottiswood is dead,” the chief said, very gently.

Felicia uttered a shriek and fell in a small heap on the floor.