A Holly, Jolly Murder

by JOAN HESSS

  “Give it your best shot, Sherlock. I’m sure you can dig up some dirt and destroy your mother’s last chance for happiness. Think how grateful she’ll be, knowing she was saved by her son, who chooses to live two thousand miles away and has to be reminded to send flowers on her birthday.”

  Instead of engaging in a civil discussion about the transparency of his motives, he hung up. I replaced the receiver and examined my own motives, which were by no means transparent. Peter is very attractive in a rugged, vulpine way. His bite is significantly worse than his bark; countless convicted felons would agree. When angered, he can be ruthless. When the anger’s directed at me, he can be irrational as well, but at other times, his eyes turn to pools of golden brown molasses and his amorous expertise leaves me breathless. He’s divorced, rich, physically fit, accustomed to picking up his dry cleaning, and devoted to old B-grade movies.

  If he’d only stop battling the marital status quo, he’d be close to perfect.

  I glanced up from my book when Caron exploded into the living room that evening. I opened my mouth to ask her about her first day in Santa’s Workshop, but I didn’t get a chance.

  “That woman is a tyrant!” she said as she flung herself into a chair. “She is incapable of listening to reason, and she is a slave to her stupid manual. She probably keeps it under her pillow at night.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Costumes. I could Just Die right here and now. I have never been more mortified in my entire life, including the time I was dragged to the animal shelter simply because of the gorilla suit. Adults have no flexibility. Not a shred.”

  Steeling myself to maintain a sympathetic look on my face, I said, “What kind of costume?”

  “Reindeer, if you must know. Furry brown tunics, tights, boots, and a collar with a bunch of jingle bells—which means we sound as idiotic as we look.”

  “I’m sure you look adorable.”

  She crossed her arms and glared at me. “And these hoods with droopy felt antlers. Rhonda Maguire and Louis Wilderberry were at the mall with some of the other kids. Rhonda yelled something about Blunder and Stupid, and everybody started laughing so loudly that I’m surprised mall security didn’t come racing down the hall. Even the tyrant thought it was funny.”

  “Oh, dear,” I murmured, determined not to smile.

  “Is that all you can say?”

  I rubbed my chin to control my trembling lips. “I can understand why you were embarrassed, dear. It must have been ghastly. However, you’re making a lot of money, and by the time school starts in January, everybody will have forgotten all about it.”

  Caron groaned. “I won’t. I’ll remain traumatized for life and spend years in psychoanalysis coming to grips with my scarred psyche. Christmas will become an annual ordeal that evokes an overwhelming sense of humiliation. Hearing ‘Jingle Bells’ will reduce me to tears. I might as well join a convent and save you the cost of college.”

  I could think of nothing to say as she dragged herself to her feet and stumbled down the hall to her room. Maternal platitudes would not have been appreciated when all she wanted was for me to offer to put out a contract on the evil Rhonda Maguire.

  Both of us knew I was too broke.

  Peter did not call back that evening. I wasn’t exactly brooding, but I was feeling rather grumpy the following afternoon as I unpacked a shipment and found the books I’d ordered for Malthea Hendlerson. Out of curiosity, I flipped through several of them and learned that the original Druids weren’t nearly as romantic as I’d assumed and had never pranced around Stonehenge for the benefit of camera-wielding tourists. They’d been members of the ancient Celtic priesthood, serving as scholars, judges, and philosophers. They’d utilized divination via animal and human sacrifices, but their traditions were oral and almost nothing was known about them. By the end of the fifth century A.D., they were history (so to speak).

  The contemporary ones, properly known as neo-Druids, sounded like stepchildren of the 1960s’ social insurrection. Like their predecessors, they had rites and rituals aimed at a pantheon of Celtic deities, but they’d replaced the grisly sacrifices with fir branches, cake, and drops of wine. One reference book declared contemporary Druidism to be an alternative religion; another declared it to be a path to spiritual enlightenment. I was unable to make much sense of the blithe references to metaphysical principles and festivals with peculiar names like Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and Lughnasad. I was familiar with the less mysterious concepts of the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes, although I had no idea what was de rigueur on such occasions. A photograph of naked bodies cavorting around a bonfire gave me a clue.

  I found Malthea’s card and called her. When she answered, I told her that her order had arrived.

  “How splendid,” she said. “Do you need instructions?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, staring at the photograph in the encyclopedia. If I were struck with an urge to dance around a bonfire in my birthday suit, I could figure out how to go about it on my own.

  “Most people do.”

  “I’m not into paganism,” I said tactfully.

  Malthea chuckled. “Instructions how to find my house, Claire. My car is in the shop, awaiting a part, and it’s a bit too far for me to walk to the bookstore. You may keep the books if you wish, and I’ll come by when I can. However, I was hoping to get some decorating hints for the holiday season. I do so love to deck the halls with boughs of holly.”

  “You celebrate Christmas?” I asked, somewhat bewildered. “I wouldn’t have thought Druids…did that.”

  “Why, of course we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We also welcome Dionysus, Attis, Mithras, and Baal with song and dance. We have an absolutely lovely ritual, then share a splendid feast, with my special ‘Tipsy Tarts’ for dessert. Why don’t you join us this year?”

  I took a deep breath. “Thank you for inviting me, but I’ll have to check my schedule. I have a daughter, you see, and she and I always—”

  “Rainbow and Cosmos will be delighted to make a new friend. Morning Rose and Sullivan believe in home schooling, and I often worry that the little ones miss out on opportunities to socialize with their peers.”

  I had a feeling Caron would not appreciate being cast in that particular role. “Well, we’ll see,” I said. “If you’ll tell me how to find your house, I’ll drop off the books on my way home this evening.”

  She obliged, and an hour later I pulled up in front of a one-story beige brick duplex in a neighborhood that had once been staunchly middle class. Now the majority of the residences were rental properties that housed college students and marginal derelicts. Station wagons had been replaced with motorcycles, and porch swings with chairs salvaged from the local dump. Landscaping was mostly aluminum.

  Malthea’s duplex was tidier than the ones on either side, although the sidewalk was cracked and paint bubbled off the trim. She’d told me her apartment was on the right, but as I raised my hand to knock, the other door opened and she said, “Over here, Claire.”

  I obediently went into a living room crammed with chairs, a love seat, a bulging sofa, and a dozen teetery tables holding potted plants of every sort, from dangling vines to exotic cacti. The walls were covered with amateurish watercolor paintings and overly ambitious macramé hangings.

  Malthea beamed at me as if I’d made it across a minefield. “This isn’t where I live,” she confided in a low voice, her eyebrows wiggling jauntily.

  “It isn’t?” I said.

  “I have a cat.”

  “Do you really?” I murmured, wondering what on earth we were doing in someone else’s home. I was not inexperienced in breaking and entering (I have an eclectic rap sheet), but I preferred to do so with adequate provocation.

  “And a very fine cat she is,” Malthea said. “Why don’t you sit in this chair by the radiator and get comfortable? It’s so drafty here that we might as well be outside.”

  It was indeed drafty
where we stood, but I could feel a veneer of perspiration forming on my forehead. “Who lives here, Malthea?” I asked in a shaky voice.

  “Her name is Merlinda. It’s a play on Merlin of the Arthurian folklore.”

  “Merlinda who?” I persisted. “What are we doing in her home?” I did not add: and what have you done with her? I was glancing over her shoulder, however, and remaining close to the front door.

  “I don’t understand, Claire,” Malthea said, her smile fading as she approached me. Creases appeared between her eyebrows and cut semicircles from the corners of her mouth. “I think you’d better sit down and have a cup of something. I’d hate to think of you driving in this condition. If you’re coming down with a cold, I can fix you a very nice fresh gingerroot infusion with a touch of honey. Nothing’s nicer than clearing one’s sinuses.”

  I kept the bag in front of me as I edged backward. “I promised my daughter that I’d—have dinner ready when she gets home from work, so I’d better be on my way. I’ll leave the books on this table and you can mail a check when you get the chance.”

  “At least a cup of tea,” she said sternly.

  “No, thank you,” I said, groping behind my back for the doorknob. “It’s so kind of you to offer, but I must be going. As I said, I’ll just leave the books—”

  The doorbell rang. Malthea froze, but I’m embarrassed to say I gasped as if a slobbering monster in a horror movie had just leapt out from behind a headstone. I glanced wildly at Malthea, then spun around and yanked open the door.

  The situation did not improve.

  Chapter 2

  Standing on Malthea’s or Merlinda’s or whoever’s porch was a teenage boy who exemplified every mother’s nightmare. He was not exceptionally tall or heavy, but he had stringy black hair that hung to his shoulders like some species of slimy seaweed. His eyes were dark, close-set, and wary. His worn leather jacket was unzipped, exposing a black T-shirt with a depiction of distorted white faces and the words: SATAN RULES. To make matters worse (if such a thing were possible), he was holding a hammer.

  “Who’re you?” he asked in a deep voice that made it clear puberty was a thing of the past.

  My mouth was so dry that the best I could do was croak, “Nobody, really. I came by to drop off some books.”

  “Why, Roy,” Malthea chirped from behind me. “Do come in. Claire and I were about to have a cup of tea.”

  He didn’t move. “Mr. Chunder sent me over to fix the back steps. I would’ve made it earlier, but I had to run some errands for Morning Rose. You know how she can be.”

  I wished I could slide into the bag between Applied Magick and The Encyclopedia of Pagan Rituals and Initiations. Malthea was right behind me, and the boy she’d called Roy appeared to have taken up permanent residence in the doorway. Neither of them had said anything remotely menacing, much less implied I was in danger of physical assault (one of my least favorite things). I did not, however, have a fuzzy feeling about the situation.

  I turned around as I heard footsteps. Entering the room was a gaunt woman with a narrow nose and thin, colorless lips. Her gray hair was pinned up in a braided bun, but unlike Malthea’s, not a wisp dared to stray. She inspected me through wire-rimmed bifocals for a long moment, then said, “What’s going on in here?”

  “Claire came by with some books I ordered,” Malthea answered, “and Roy’s here to repair the back porch steps. I was just suggesting we all have a cup of tea.”

  “With the front door wide open? This room is by no means easy to keep warm, and my heating bills are exorbitant. Can you imagine paying over seventy dollars a month to heat a one-bedroom apartment?”

  I stepped aside to allow Roy to come into the living room. “I’ll be on my way, if you don’t mind,” I said to Malthea. “There’s a receipt in the bag.”

  “Do allow me to introduce you to two more members of our grove,” she said. “This is Fern Lewis, my neighbor, and this is Roy Tate, who’s currently living in Nicholas Chunder’s carriage house. Claire owns a bookstore just down the hill from the campus. When I was there, I could feel it breathing.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I mumbled mendaciously, inching toward the door in hopes of escaping before the unseen Merlinda burst out of a closet with a bloody ax.

  Roy acknowledged the introduction with a nod, then brushed past me, saying, “Is there a light on the back porch?”

  “Come along,” said Fern as she started out of the room. “It would have been much more convenient if you’d come here earlier, but I suppose I should be grateful that you came at all. I called Nicholas well over a week ago. It’s a miracle the step hasn’t given way and sent me crashing into the side of the greenhouse. I shudder to think of the cuts and abrasions…”

  Her voice diminished as they went into the back of the house. Malthea shook her head. “Fern is still having difficulty coping with her husband’s death. He was a very competent handyman who could fix anything. Now that her circumstances have changed, she’s frustrated at the need to rely on others.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said as I put down the sack and tried once again to retreat. “Please let me know if I can order books for you in the future.”

  “Of course, after hearing her story, I began to speculate about his death. It’s not to say that men of a certain age don’t have severe gastric attacks, but Fern grows some plants known to cause a variety of disagreeable symptoms. She’s particularly proud of her lilies of the valley and euphorbia. She said she gave him nothing but meadowsweet broth. I can’t help wondering, though.”

  “You believe Fern murdered her husband?”

  “Suicide was more likely,” she said darkly.

  “I truly must leave now,” I said with all the resolve I could muster.

  Malthea sat down on the sofa and opened her satchel. “Let me pay you for the books. It was so thoughtful of you to drive all the way over here to bring them to me. Are you sure you won’t have one cup of tea before you go back out in the cold?”

  The redolence of cash was too much to resist. “I can stay for a minute,” I said, “but then I’m leaving. The total came to one hundred twenty-seven dollars and forty-three cents.” I sat down on the other end of the sofa and smiled brightly at her.

  “Let me put on the kettle first,” she said, then left the room before I could protest—not that I thought it would do any good. I resigned myself to a cup of tea and a brief conversation about whatever wacky idea popped into Malthea’s mind.

  From the back of the house, I could hear hammering as Roy did the repair work under Fern’s supervision, and from the kitchen, water running as Malthea filled the tea kettle. I’d come to the conclusion that I was in Fern’s half of the duplex, so I wasn’t surprised not to hear any whimpers or pathetic scratching from a closet that might be serving as Merlinda’s temporary dungeon. All I had to do is gulp down the tea, get the money, and head home for a drink and a dose of the nightly news.

  I was beginning to relax when the doorbell rang and I nearly slid off the sofa. As I caught myself, Malthea called, “Would you get that, please?”

  Rather than pretend I’d been struck by an acute hearing affliction, I went to the door and opened it. The man on the porch stared at me for a moment, then said, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “Neither do I,” I said.

  “I’m Nicholas Chunder, the owner of this property. I came by to have a word with Fern Lewis.”

  I didn’t have a response to that, so I waved him inside and closed the door. Nicholas Chunder was of the same generation as his tenants, but he was clearly in a much higher income bracket. He had a neatly groomed mustache of the sort favored by nineteenth-century politicians and military men. I hadn’t noticed a limp, so I presumed the gold-knobbed walking stick he carried was an affectation, as were the ankle-length black overcoat and fur hat.

  “Nicholas,” said Malthea as she came into the room, “you’re just in time for tea.”

  He gave her a small bow
. “Not tonight, Malthea. I stopped by on the way to a genealogy meeting to make sure Roy repaired the steps. Has he been here?”

  “He’s here right now. Did you introduce yourself to my friend Claire?”

  “Claire Malloy,” I murmured, extending my hand.

  He squeezed it briefly. “Delighted, I’m sure. If you will excuse me, the meeting begins at seven and I’m presenting a paper on utilizing the Internet to access documents around the world. It’s quite amazing.”

  “Tell Claire all about it while I fetch the tray,” Malthea said as she made another unanticipated exit.

  In that my technological prowess went no further than calculators and microwave ovens, my smile may have been unconvincing. “Please do, Mr. Chunder.”

  “Are you interested in genealogy?”

  I sank back down on the sofa. “I’ve been told it’s a very popular hobby.”

  “You’re Irish, I suppose?”

  “Someone in my late husband’s family must have been.”

  He winced at my offhanded reply. “I have traced my ancestry back to early-eighteenth-century Wales. One of my distant cousins was influential in the formation of Uileach Druidh Braitreachas.” When I merely looked at him, he added, “It was the first meso-Druid group to be organized after so many centuries of disrespect and ignorance resulting from the libelous writings of the Romans.”

  “Claire’s not a neophyte,” said Malthea from the doorway. “She’s a bookseller.”

  Chunder frowned at me as if I’d misrepresented myself. “Then you must forgive me for boring you,” he said coolly. “I should not have assumed you desired to join the grove. Few people do because of the erroneous idea that Druidry is associated with black magic and animal sacrifices. That, too, goes back to the writings of Julius Caesar and others of the era.”

  Malthea shoved a cup in my hand. “You really should join us for the winter-solstice celebration so you can see for yourself that we harbor no evil within the Sacred Grove of Keltria.”