Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes)

by Mignon F. Ballard

Ellis inspected it closely. “No way. Double trunk. Keep looking.”

  The three of us were on a mission at Willowbrook to find the perfect Christmas tree for our church fellowship hall and so far nothing had met with Ellis’s approval.

  With a few exceptions, my friend Ellis is the only person besides me who can see and speak with Augusta. As the angel explained when she first appeared at my front door at 101 Heritage Avenue, Ellis could use a little looking after as well. And didn’t that turn out to be true!

  Augusta wrapped her voluminous green cape about her and shivered. She has never gotten over that treacherous winter with General Washington at Valley Forge. A host of heavenly help was on hand during those times, she tells me, but she has suffered from the cold ever since.

  “Why don’t you wait for us in the car?” I suggested. “We shouldn’t be much longer.” But Augusta had already disappeared behind a clump of cedars until all I could see was the gleam of her candle-bright hair as she moved among the branches.

  The ground had been covered with frost when we first arrived, and now at mid-morning grass still crunched underfoot. Even in thick socks and my old clodhopper boots my feet were beginning to feel numb and I beat my gloved hands together to keep them warm.

  “With it being this cold so early in December, maybe we’ll have a white Christmas,” I said.

  “Remember that big snow when we were in the fourth grade?” Ellis said. “We slid down that hill behind the school on cafeteria trays, and I almost got hit by a car when mine ran into the street because I didn’t know how to stop.”

  “How could I forget?” I said. “You scared me half to death.”

  “I was so terrified I couldn’t think straight until you hollered at me to roll off—probably saved my life.”

  “Just remember that when Teddy comes around selling gift wrap for his class this year,” I reminded her. “And for goodness’ sake, will you please hurry and decide on a tree before my feet freeze to the ground!”

  “I believe I see one over here!” Augusta called. “Come and look. What do you think?”

  “I’ve already looked over there, Augusta. I didn’t see a single one taller than I am.” But Ellis plodded after her, holding aside limbs for me to follow.

  “Now, where did that come from?” Ellis stopped so suddenly I almost stepped on her heels. “It’s—it’s perfect, but I’ll swear it wasn’t here earlier.”

  The lofty cedar lifted its feathery branches in majestic splendor over all the others around it. I pinched the tip of a frond to release a fragrance like Christmas perfume. “This one’s just right,” I said. “Hurry and tag it, Ellis, so we can collect the greenery we need and go home.” I had already made note of a smaller cedar I’d seen that would be perfect for that spot in our livingroom window, but we could come back for that later.

  I looked around for Augusta, who stood quietly in the background. “Lucky you saw this one, Augusta. It should be a big hit at the church.”

  Ellis tied a strip of yellow ribbon to a branch of the tree so Preacher Dave could find it. “It’s the strangest thing! I don’t understand why I didn’t see it before.”

  “I think I know why,” I told her, noticing Augusta’s secret little smile. “It’s because it wasn’t there.”

  With a stroke of her fingers, the angel gave the elegant tree a parting caress. “Of course it was,” she said. “It just grew a bit.” With graceful steps she hurried along beside us in dainty furtrimmed boots, her radiant hair escaping from a purple-tasseled hat. “And I believe I will wait for you in the car if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course,” I said, concerned. “Augusta, are you feeling all right?”

  She smiled. “Fit as a banjo. Take your time.”

  Ellis rolled her eyes and grinned over the angel’s choice of words. Augusta sometimes gets her expressions a little bit jumbled. “Why didn’t you give her the keys so she can warm up the car?” she asked as we watched Augusta walk away.

  “She won’t use them,” I said. “Augusta’s never been comfortable with the internal combustion engine—says she much prefers a horse.”

  Ellis laughed. “She seems quite at home with other modern conveniences like the refrigerator, for instance, and the washing machine, and I know better than to interrupt when she’s watching those old movies on TV.”

  “But she still practically jumps through the ceiling when I turn on the garbage disposal,” I said, smiling at the thought. Augusta had come to my house the year before when I advertised a room for rent in our local paper, and although she has served as a guardian angel “temp” from time to time throughout the ages, she’s just now becoming accustomed to some of our more recent inventions.

  I skirted a scattering of pine saplings as we made our way to the house. Willowbrook reminded me of a once proud lady who had met with unfortunate times and was in dire need of a visit to the beauty parlor, or better still, a good plastic surgeon. The old house looked bare and forlorn standing in scruffy undergrowth with sagging shutters and peeling paint. Jo Nell had a point. I was glad Mimmer couldn’t see it now.

  “There’s a holly tree by the portico around front,” I said, “and there should be plenty of hemlock and pine on the other side of the house.”

  “Maybe we’ll see the ill-fated Celia,” Ellis said. “Isn’t that where she was supposed to have fallen?”

  “Or jumped.” I stopped to break off a few branches of pine, making certain to choose the ones with the prettiest cones. “Remember that poem we made up about her?”

  Ellis laughed. “Poor Celia! Weren’t we the callous lot—you, Joel, and me? I think your mother got kind of upset with us.”

  “But not Mimmer! In fact it was her idea,” I said.

  My great-grandmother Nellie had written a verse about Celia sometime in the early nineteen hundreds and it had even been published in The Messenger, our local weekly, which must have been having a light news week at the time. Mama kept a copy of it in her scrapbook, and much to her dismay my brother, Joel, came across it and delighted in quoting it on every occasion while I fluttered in the background in an old window curtain.

  Now, striking a pose, I touched my palm to my chest and chanted:

  “When there’s music in the air

  You’ll see Celia standing there.

  Quietly now she moves in grace,

  Soft the smile upon her face.

  Then, like a shadow, Celia’s gone,

  But the scent of flowers lingers on!”

  Ellis responded by climbing on a convenient tree stump to echo the parody the three of us had collaborated on years before:

  “Did Celia jump or did she fall

  When she landed in a sprawl?

  Or maybe someone gave a push

  To send her tumbling on her tush.

  Poor Celia! What a sad demise!

  It must have been a big surprise,

  At least I think it would to most

  To have to end up as a ghost.”

  I laughed. “Well, I hope she’s not around today. It’s cold enough out here without ectoplasm.”

  “We’d better hurry before Augusta turns into an icicle,” Ellis said, adding more evergreens to her bag. “How much holly do you think we’ll need?”

  But I didn’t answer because either somebody had dumped a scarecrow on the porch beneath the balcony or poor Celia had jumped again.

  “Hurry! Get Augusta,” I said—or tried to say, but the words came out in a squawk. And it wasn’t necessary anyway because suddenly Augusta was standing there beside us.

  Ellis dropped the greenery she had collected. “Is he still breathing? Do you know who it is?”

  The man lay on his stomach with his legs bent beneath him in the center of the porch between two Doric columns, and from the peculiar angle of his head, it looked as if his neck had been broken. I knelt and felt for a pulse, finding none, while Augusta checked for breathing. She looked at me and shook her head. “Maybe you should give him artificial insemina
tion,” she said.

  “In his case I don’t think that would do any good,” I told her, realizing what she meant. “I’m afraid he’s beyond help now.”

  “My phone’s in the car. I’ll call nine-one-one!” Ellis took off running, but we both knew it was too late to help the man sprawled on the portico at Willowbrook.

  “He’s still warm. It must have just happened,” I told Augusta. “Looks like he fell from the balcony up there. The railing’s broken.”

  “Do you know who he is?” Augusta touched the man’s face as if in a silent benediction, her eyes filled with compassion.

  “Never saw him before,” I said. The dead man, dressed in faded jeans and a tan jacket, was stocky and seemed to be of medium height. His dark curly hair was badly in need of a trim and he had the beginnings of a beard.

  “Oh, dear God!” I stepped back as it occurred to me that this might be Preacher Dave’s son.

  “The man who looks after this place has a grown son who lives with them but I’ve never seen him. Do you suppose this might be Jeremiah Tansey?”

  “Do you know his age? This fellow looks to be in his late twenties or perhaps his early thirties.” Augusta stooped to examine him more closely.

  I considered searching the man’s pockets for some kind of identification but couldn’t bring myself to do it. We would find out soon enough anyway, I thought, as Ellis returned to tell us the police and an ambulance were on the way.

  Stepping back, Augusta looked up at the balcony. “Why don’t you keep an eye on things here? I believe I’ll step inside for a minute.”

  “Keep an eye on what? He isn’t going anywhere.” Ellis hugged herself for warmth. “And it isn’t any warmer in there than it is out here.”

  “We can’t get in anyway,” I said. “The house is always kept locked to discourage vandals.”

  I knew of course that wouldn’t deter Augusta but didn’t take to the idea of being left here with the dead man while both of us grew colder by the minute.

  And neither did Ellis. “Why do you want to go inside?” she asked, slowly backing away from the house and the body that lay beside it. “There’s nothing in there to see.”

  “He must have gotten in somehow or else how did he manage to fall from the balcony?” Augusta said. “And, as you can see, the front door is slightly ajar. Perhaps whoever was with him is still in there.”

  “What makes you think someone was with him?” I asked, glancing up at the shadowy balcony. But Augusta had already slipped inside.

  Through the glass panels on either side of the heavy door I glimpsed peeling wallpaper and layers of grime on the sturdy old heart-of-pine floors, which were in sharp contrast to the elegant gold acanthus leaves on the hallway arch as well as on the ceiling medallion in what was once the drawing room. Years ago Joel and I had played hide-and-seek under the graceful curving stairway. I was not going inside that house—angel or no angel!

  “What if there is somebody in there?” I said, joining Ellis in the yard.

  “If there is, Augusta will let us know, but what would anybody be doing in there?” She glanced briefly at the still form beneath the balcony. “What was he doing in there?”

  “I don’t know unless he turns out to be Jeremiah Tansey,” I said.

  Ellis frowned. “Is that Preacher Dave’s son?”

  “Right. Lives with his parents in the Green Cottage over there.”

  The Green Cottage where the caretaker lives was now painted more of a pale yellow and hadn’t been green since I was a child, but old habits die hard here in Stone’s Throw. I still refer to most of my high school classmates by their maiden names and some of them have been married for almost forty years.

  But Ellis shook her head. “Nope. Dave’s son is fair and kind of skinny—not nearly as large as this man. I saw him when he helped his dad hang those new curtains in the ladies’ parlor at the church. This man isn’t Jeremiah Tansey.”

  “Thank God for that!” I said, relieved that we wouldn’t have to be the bearers of sad news to Preacher Dave and his wife, Louella. But then the dead man was somebody’s son or husband or brother and I felt ashamed of myself for being so grateful. Must be Augusta’s influence.

  Ellis was still for a minute. “Lucy Nan, do you hear that music?”

  “What music?”

  She cocked her head. “For a second I thought I heard violin music—you know—like Celia was supposed to have played.”

  “No, and I don’t smell gardenias, either,” I told her. “What you probably hear is a siren. Here comes an ambulance now, and finally the police.”

  Although Willowbrook had been a country estate in my grandmother’s day, and even in my mother’s, the city limits of Stone’s Throw had eventually crept out to include it.

  Captain Alonzo Hardy of the Stone’s Throw Police Department stopped in mid-stride when he saw me. “You!” he said, shoving back his cap to reveal his fiery red hair. He didn’t look happy to see me, but I didn’t take offense because I was certainly glad to see him.

  “Captain,” I said, going to meet him. I was relieved to see he was accompanied by my friend Kemper Mungo instead of that nincompoop Police Chief Elmer Harris. During the recent troubles at the local college I learned I would much rather have Sergeant Mungo on my side than against me.

  “Any idea who this man might be or what he was doing out here?” the captain asked after a preliminary look at the dead man.

  I shook my head. “None. Could be a vagrant looking for a place to get in out of the cold.”

  Kemper glanced up at the splintered balcony railing. “Looks like he might’ve had a little too much to drink last night.”

  Ellis approached with an armful of pine that filled the air with its clean fresh scent. “There’s no way it could’ve happened last night,” she told him. “He was still warm when we found him.”

  “And when was that?” Captain Hardy asked.

  “About fifteen minutes ago,” I said. “We were gathering greenery for the Advent wreath—”

  “And were about to clip some holly from this tree right here when we saw him,” Ellis pointed out as she shook one of the lower limbs of the evergreen.

  “I don’t suppose you saw or heard anyone else around here?” the captain asked as Kemper roped off the area.

  Ellis, who had been busily adding holly to her collection, looked quickly at an upstairs window. “No, but …”

  “But what?” he asked, squinting against the late morning sun.

  Ellis avoided looking at me but I knew what she was thinking. Augusta might have seen something when she went inside the house.

  “The Tanseys live over there in the Green—I mean the yellow house a little way down the road,” I said. “Dave Tansey sort of looks after this place. Maybe they’ll know something about him.”

  Kemper frowned. “Tansey. That Jeremiah’s folks?”

  “That’s right,” Ellis told him. “You know him?”

  “I know him,” Kemper said. It didn’t sound as if the two were on a friendly basis.

  The captain gave Kemper a look that clearly read, Keep your mouth shut. “I expect we’ll be finding out more about this fellow here before too long,” he said, giving Ellis and me a dismissive nod as the coroner and a couple of police cars pulled into the yard behind him. “I think you’ve told us about all we need to know for now,” he told us. “No reason for all of us to freeze out here—that is if you think you have enough holly there.”

  This last was directed at Ellis, who crammed one more limb in her bulging bag. “We’ll be in touch, and if anything comes to mind, you will let us know, won’t you?”

  Ellis looked over her shoulder the whole time as we walked back to where we had parked the car, bags of evergreens bumping along between us.

  “If you’re looking for Augusta you’re wasting your time,” I told her. “You know good and well she’ll be waiting for us in the car.”

  And of course she was. We found her muffled from head to
toe in a throw I keep for that purpose. “It’s going to take about a pot of coffee to warm me up,” Augusta said from the backseat. “Do you think you might get that heater going soon?”

  Ellis and I didn’t speak as we quickly crammed our fragrant gatherings into the trunk and drove away. Both of us were eager to put that dreadful scene behind us.

  Ellis turned to Augusta as we entered the main road. “Well?” she said.

  Augusta pulled her knitted hat closer about her ears. “Well, what?”

  “Did you see or hear anybody when you went inside the house?” I could tell Ellis was trying to hide her exasperation.

  But Augusta only shivered and drew her wrap more snugly about her.

  “For heaven’s sake, Augusta, tell us! You did see something, didn’t you?” I caught her eye in the rearview mirror but she quickly looked away.

  “I was so hoping it might snow,” she said, scanning the sky.

  “Do you think it will?”

  I glanced silently at Ellis, who shrugged. I could have told her that if Augusta Goodnight had anything to share she would tell us when she was good and ready, and not a second before.

  ’m going to have to quit hanging around with you—in fact, it makes me a little uncomfortable having you right next door,” my neighbor Nettie McGinnis said.

  Bellawood, the restored plantation where I work several days a week, was planning its annual Christmas candlelight tour and Nettie had brought over her punch bowl for the occasion.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “How come?”

  She set the box on my kitchen table and plopped into a chair. “How many bodies have you found in the last year or so? Three? Four? I’ve come to the conclusion it might be in my best interest to stay out of your way.”

  “I wasn’t even there when that man fell from the balcony yesterday—cross my heart.” And I did. “The police think he probably spent the night in there to get in out of the cold. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody found a way inside Willowbrook. Preacher Dave tries to keep the place secure but he says he had to run off a couple of teenagers making out in there a few weeks ago.”