The Nightingale Before Christmas (3 page)

Clay didn't answer. Tomás and Mateo went back to whatever they were doing behind the giant four-poster bed. Whirring and clicking noises at my elbow warned me that Jessica was here.

If one of the other designers had been causing a problem, I'd have postponed dealing with it until after Jessica left. But Clay had already used up his last chance and then some.

“Claiborne Spottiswood!” I yelled. “Get out here before—”

“Where's that package I asked you for?” The hammering stopped, and Clay reappeared from the master bath, evidently attempting to deflect me with a counterattack.

“I don't know and I don't care.” In fact, I didn't even believe he was missing a package. More likely he was pretending to have lost one. He'd probably overheard some of the designers speculating that he was behind the disappearances. “You've splashed red paint all over Ivy's hallway, Violet's rug, and Martha's bathroom.”

“How do you know it's my paint?” he said. “There are eleven other decorators in this house—”

“But only one of them is using this particular shade of red.” I held the hand towel up against the wall. The blood-red stains on it matched the walls perfectly. “All paintbrushes are supposed to be cleaned downstairs in the garage. And if you couldn't be bothered with going downstairs, why not mess up your own bathroom?”

“Wasn't me,” Clay said. “I'll speak to my painters.”

“You can't blame Tomás and Mateo,” Martha said. “I was still here last night when they left. And my bathroom was fine then. You were here, doing some touch-up painting.”

Clay scowled at her. He was probably considered tall, dark, and handsome by those who'd only seen him in a good mood, but it had been a while since I'd been able to see past his personality. And when he scowled, his thick black eyebrows and neatly trimmed goatee made him look almost diabolical.

Jessica was staring around the room in openmouthed surprise, even forgetting to use her camera.

“Martha's right,” I said. “The bathroom was fine when I left last night, and the only ones here were her, Clay, and Eustace.”

I felt a pang of guilt—usually I was the last one to leave the house, and made sure everything was locked up and in good condition. But the closer we got to opening day, the longer the designers seemed to work, and I had a family to think of and Christmas preparations of my own. I wouldn't have left workmen unsupervised, but I thought—silly me—that the designers could be trusted.

“Martha, Violet, and Ivy will be giving me invoices this afternoon for the time and materials required to repair the damage to their rooms,” I said aloud. “Clay, I'll expect reimbursement from you by tomorrow morning, or you're out of the show house.”

I heard a gasp from behind me. I glanced over to see Mother, Violet, and Eustace standing in the doorway, peering over the reporter's shoulders. Violet was the one who had gasped. She was looking shocked, wrapping her fluffy pink embroidered cardigan around her as if to protect herself from my wrath. Mother and Eustace were beaming with delight.

“Oh, so you're going to have a show house with no master suite?” Clay leaned against one of the garish red walls and folded his arms. He made a dramatic picture, and Jessica obligingly captured it with her camera.

“I imagine several of the other designers would be happy to pitch in and help out,” I replied.

“I've already got a design for the space,” Martha volunteered.

“And I'd be happy to help out,” Mother said.

“Same here,” Eustace added.

“If you think you can use my stuff—” Clay began.

“Of course, not, Claiborne,” Mother said. “I'm sure Randall Shiffley can get a crew over here anytime to haul all your materials back to your shop.”

She gave him what Clay probably thought was a sweet smile if he didn't know Mother very well. Eustace's expression was a lot more noncommittal, and Martha looked like a leopard about to pounce. The clicking from Jessica's camera had started up again, so I assumed she was enjoying the scene. Of course, the photos she was getting right now weren't very flattering. Perhaps I should start planning a way to mug her for her camera and delete any photos I didn't want to see on the front page of the student paper.

“I'm losing money on this gig as it is,” Clay grumbled.

I decided to accept this as a capitulation.

“Then be careful how—and where—you clean your equipment from now on,” I said. “Okay, everybody. Back to work.”

“Yes, dear,” Mother said. “Oh, Claiborne—as long as I'm here, I'll take my vase back.”

She smiled and pointed to a Chinese urn sitting on top of the chest of drawers. Its elegant shape and cool blue-and-white color were completely at odds with the red-and-black color scheme and aggressively modern furniture that filled the rest of the room.

“Your vase? I'm afraid you must be mistaken.” Clay stepped between Mother and the vase and crossed his arms as if prepared to fight her for it. Which took a lot of nerve—I recognized the urn as one that, ever since I could remember, had stood on the mantel of the house I'd grown up in, down in Yorktown.

“I'm sure you saw it downstairs in my room yesterday,” Mother said. “Someone must have brought it up here by mistake. Silly, isn't it? The color's all wrong for your room.”

“You're right, about the color,” Clay said. “I thought it might make an interesting contrast, but—well, not my best idea. I'll be taking it back to my shop tomorrow.”

“You're quite sure it's yours to take?” Mother's tone was deceptively gentle. Any sane person with a normal instinct for self-preservation would be leaping to hand her the vase.

An idea struck me.

“Well, if he's positive it's his vase, that's that,” I said.

Mother frowned at me. Clay smirked with premature triumph. Jessica frowned and lowered her camera, as if resenting me for preventing another dramatic confrontation for her to photograph.

“But I'm curious, Clay,” I went on. “Who do you keep in yours?”

“Who do I what?”

“Mother keeps her great-aunt Sophy in hers.” I walked over, lifted the vase, and shook it. I was relieved to hear the familiar rattle of the cremains inside.

“You're decorating your room with someone's ashes?” Clay backed away from me as if afraid Great-Aunt Sophy might have died of something contagious.

“She was so fond of beautiful design,” Mother said. “I always like to bring her along if possible and make her a part of my projects. And the vase has always been one of my favorites. That's why I recognized it so easily.”

“What a coincidence,” Clay said. He was visibly recovering from his initial shock. “My urn—”

Was the jerk about to invent his own great-aunt? I took the top off the urn and peeked inside.

“Yes, looks like Great-Aunt Sophy,” I said. “And look!”

I gritted my teeth, stuck my hand into the urn, and then pulled it out, brandishing a small object in triumph. “Her onyx ring!”

Jessica's camera captured my dramatic revelation with a burst of whirs and clicks.

“Dear Sophy!” Mother had pulled out a handkerchief and was pretending to blink back tears. “How she loved her little trinkets.”

“Yes.” I brushed the ring off and handed it to Mother, who closed her fingers around it and clutched her hand sentimentally to her heart.

“So you see,” I said to Clay, “you must be mistaken. I'd recognize this urn out of a million.”

“I do hope yours turns up soon,” Mother added. “Bring it along, Meg.”

She sailed out of the room. I popped the top back on the urn and followed her. When I got out into the hall, I handed it to her.

“Onyx ring?” she murmured. “Looks more like a dime-store trinket to me.”

“It is,” I said. “I had it in my pocket—I brought it in to give to Eustace for his wise man costume in the living nativity scene.”

“Thank you, dear.” She beamed at me, and then began carefully descending the staircase with the urn in hand.

Eustace stepped out of the room.

“Your great-aunt's ashes?” He shook his head and made a face.

“Actually, Sophy's ashes got dumped in the York River years ago by a sneaky criminal,” I said. “But Mother liked the urn, so she reused it for the ashes of one of our favorite cats. I thought human cremains were more likely to put off Clay.”

Eustace chuckled at that.

“Oh, Mother has your wise man's ring,” I said. “And don't worry,” I added, seeing his grimace. “It was never actually in the urn—I palmed it.”

Violet slipped past Eustace into the hall and fled back to her own room with a flash of pink and ruffles. Jessica followed her out but stopped near me in the hall, camera ready. I glanced through the master bedroom door. Mateo and Tomás, who had been peering over the bed to watch our confrontation, smiled nervously and ducked back down to work on whatever they were doing.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Jessica. “Just give me a minute to wash my hands, and then I can show you some more of the rooms. Martha, mind if I use your bathroom?”

“Be my guest, doll.” Martha could be touchy, but clearly browbeating Clay had put me in her good graces for the time being.

“Is it always this … dramatic?” Jessica asked, as she followed me across the hall.

“Darlin', we're decorators,” Eustace said. “We all have egos and pinking shears, and tempers usually get a little short this close to an opening. It'll all turn out okay. Don't worry.”

Was he reassuring Jessica or me? He smiled, lifted one forefinger to his temple in ironic salute, and went back downstairs.

“He's not far off,” I said.

Jessica followed me through the Princess Room, where Violet was making little squeaking noises of dismay while rolling up the paint-stained petit-point rug. Jessica stopped to take a few shots of the damage.

In the bathroom, I washed my hands with a generous dollop of Martha's imported geranium-scented liquid soap and dried them on the least stained of her white towels. Martha was muttering to herself as she stuffed the ruined towels and accessories into a black plastic garbage bag.

“First the packages and now this,” she said. “He'll do anything to sabotage the rest of us. You need to keep an eye on him.”

“We don't know that he's the one taking the packages,” I said. “But yes, I'm keeping an eye on him.” And on all of them. Clay wasn't the only one whose competitive instincts were working overtime.

I tried for a moment to think of something I could say to cheer her up. Then, when Jessica appeared at my shoulder and began snapping pictures, I gave up the notion as impossible.

“Come on,” I said to Jessica, and I led her back out into the hall.

“Everyone seems to come to you with their problems,” she said. “So this on-site coordinator gig—you're like the boss or something?”

“Or something,” I said. “I'm the one responsible for making sure everything turns out okay. Settling any disputes. Enforcing the committee's guidelines—for example, that the designers are not allowed by make any structural changes to the house without prior approval. And if—”

“Oh, my God!”

I recognized Sarah Byrne's voice, coming from downstairs in the study, and turned to sprint down the stairs to see what new disaster had struck.

 

Chapter 3

I ran into the study and found Sarah frantically trying to push one of the beautiful red-velvet armchairs out from under a stream of water that was coming through the ceiling.

“Help!” she shrieked. “That bastard's trying to flood me out!”

Jessica and I leaped to the rescue. The three of us managed to shove one of the chairs out into the hall. As we were turning to go back in for the second chair, Eustace appeared in the hallway. Instead of helping, he galloped up the stairway, shouting in rapid-fire Spanish along the way. Tomás and Mateo appeared at the top of the stairs. More machine-gun Spanish. Tomás disappeared back into the master bedroom. Mateo raced down the stairs after Eustace. The two of them dashed into the study and quickly rescued the second chair. Meanwhile, Martha, Violet, and even Mother showed up and helped carry out all the other smaller—and, I hoped, less valuable—objects.

The water slowed and then stopped. Tomás called out something in Spanish from upstairs. Mateo answered.

By this time we'd hauled everything out of the room that wasn't nailed down. Sarah sat down in the hall, with her head between her hands, curled in an almost fetal position.

“My beautiful room,” she muttered. “My beautiful room. It's ruined.”

Mother and Martha stood on either side of her, patting her on the back. Usually it was Mother or Eustace to whom the younger designers like Sarah and Violet turned for moral support. Was Martha just trying to look good in front of the reporter? Or was she feeling a sense of kinship with Sarah because Clay was responsible for both of their woes?

Tomás had come downstairs, and he and Mateo and Eustace were discussing something in Spanish. Much pointing toward the ceiling. Now that the water had stopped, I could see, to my relief, that there was only a little damage visible, right around the ceiling light fixture. Still, there wouldn't be any damage at all if Clay hadn't done whatever he'd done.

Speaking of Clay, what had he done? I hurried up the stairs and into the master suite. Clay was standing there, sopping wet and toweling himself off with some ratty paint-smeared rags.

“I need a towel,” he said.

“What the hell were you doing?” I asked.

“Removing the wall between the bathroom and the closet,” he said. “I wanted to open up the space.”

I stepped into the bathroom. The wall was half demolished, and I could see the broken end of a pipe. There were puddles all over, with chunks of wallboard soaking in them, and a sledgehammer leaning against the wall.