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

by Mignon F. Ballard

  Nettie frowned. “Preacher Dave? Isn’t he the man the deacons hired to fill in for Luther at the church?”

  “Right. He and his family have been living out there for over a year since Cudin’ Grayson decided to try his hand at farming. Kinda looks after the place.”

  Nettie helped herself to one of Augusta’s apple spice muffins as I poured coffee for both of us. I had known our neighbor for as long as I could remember, but when Charlie and I moved into the house on Heritage Avenue over twenty years ago she became an integral part of our lives. “This man who fell—do they know who he is—or should I say, was?” she asked.

  “Kemper said they didn’t find any kind of identification on him,” I said. “They don’t seem to know a lot more than they did.”

  “Had he been drinking?” Nettie stirred another spoonful of sugar into her brew.

  “I guess they’ll know more about that after they get the autopsy report. According to Kemper they found several empty beer cans and an old whiskey bottle or two upstairs but he didn’t know if any of them belonged to the dead man. Preacher Dave said he could’ve sworn he locked that front door up tight but it wasn’t closed when we saw it. Looks like he just walked right in and made himself at home.”

  My neighbor clicked her false teeth, a sign which usually meant she was studying on something. “How do they know he fell from that balcony? Could’ve been pushed, you know.”

  I passed her another muffin. “Or jumped like poor Celia. But why come all the way out to Willowbrook to do away with himself? Nobody here seems to have even known the man.”

  She chewed on that for a minute. “What about the preacher’s son—Joshua, isn’t it?”

  “Jeremiah. His mother says no,” I told her.

  “Or that’s what he would want her to believe, but I wouldn’t put too much faith in what that boy says. Kim—you know Kim, does my hair at the Total Perfection—well, she says she’s seen him hanging out with that rough bunch over at the Red Horse Café.”

  “What was Kim doing at the Red Horse Café?” I asked, but Nettie didn’t bother to answer. “I don’t reckon you all had a chance to get enough evergreens for the Advent wreath,” she said.

  “Then you reckon wrong,” I told her. Geraldine Overton is working on it as we speak. Says she’ll keep it in that big refrigerator at the church until Sunday.” Geraldine Overton used to work part time at a flower shop.

  “You could do just as good a job as Geraldine,” Nettie told me. “Back when you used to help out at Bud’s Blooms I thought you made some lovely arrangements, Lucy Nan.”

  I laughed. “My children called them ‘derangements,’” I said. “Besides, I don’t want to risk the wrath of Opal Henshaw. She’s already on the warpath about our using fresh greenery.”

  “Opal’s always got her drawers in a wad about something,” Nettie said, lifting the punch bowl from its box. “Do you think this is gonna be big enough?”

  “If it was any bigger we could swim in it,” I said. “But I’d hate it if anything happened to your pretty cut-glass bowl, Nettie. Are you sure you want to let us borrow this?”

  “Cut glass, nothing! I got that old thing at the Five and Ten Cent Store for three ninety-eight back when I was first married. Tell ‘em they can keep it if they want. I can’t remember the last time I used it.”

  Nettie blew off my attempt at thanks. “What are they going to serve?”

  “Just a few simple things: shortbread cookies, gingerbread, orange-cranberry punch, and peppermint sticks for the children.”

  My neighbor snorted. “What? No syllabub? I was always told that’s what they used to serve for Christmas, weddings, and almost any festive occasion. Every house worth its salt had a syllabub churn.”

  “So does Bellawood,” I said. “I’ve seen one in the kitchen, but that’s kind of like eggnog, isn’t it? Lord, Genevieve Ellison would have a cow if we brought alcohol onto the property!” Genevieve, a strict teetotaler, was on the board of directors at Bellawood and I wanted to keep my job. I had been hired to take care of publicity and public relations for the plantation over a year ago, and although the pay wasn’t anything to brag about, I could take care of much of the work from home.

  “They’ve asked The Thursdays to help greet visitors,” I told her. “I think you and Jo Nell are supposed to be in the schoolhouse.”

  “Well, I hope they’ll have a fire in that old stove out there. I just about froze my ass off that year they stuck me in the upstairs hall.” She frowned. “Where are you going to be?”

  “Entrance hall, I think. Of course I’ll get a chill every time somebody opens the door. Lucky Ellis gets to help in the kitchen.”

  Two other members of our book club, The Thursday Morning Literary Society (which now meets on Monday afternoons), Idonia Mae Culpepper and Zee St. Clair, were scheduled to guide guests through the upstairs rooms. Our seventh and youngest member, Claudia Pharr, planned to attend a holiday program at her son’s school and wouldn’t be available to help out that night.

  “Some of the schoolchildren plan to decorate a small tree with cranberries and popcorn for the parlor,” I said. “I remember Mimmer helping us string those for our tree when I was a little girl.”

  “I’m glad your grandmamma can’t see the sad condition her old home has fallen into,” Nettie said with a sigh. “Grayson ought to be ashamed for not taking better care of that place—Mercer, too, God rest him. It’s a wonder it hasn’t burned to the ground.”

  “It was rented off and on for a while,” I reminded her, “but the last tenants couldn’t afford to heat those big rooms. You remember my cousin Nellie Virginia, don’t you? Well, she told me her son Vance has shown an interest in Willowbrook, but of course he’s young and has no idea how much it would cost to keep it up. His mother thinks he’s crazy. Says he’s got his head in the clouds because he’s in love.”

  Nettie nodded. “Bless his heart, I hope his girlfriend has money.”

  My neighbor hadn’t been gone five minutes when Ellis phoned. “Got something to tell you,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Tell you when I get there. Just wait till you hear this! Need anything from the store? I have to stop by the market first.”

  “Why do you do this?” I asked. “You always do this, Ellis Saxon!”

  “Do what?” Innocence dripped from her voice.

  “You know very well what. You bait me with the promise of some tantalizing news, then leave me hanging while you go running—”

  But I was talking to a dial tone. Ellis had hung up.

  I was washing a handful of dishes a few minutes later when a gust of cold air ruffled the pages of a magazine on the kitchen table and Augusta, followed by our dog, Clementine, came in from their afternoon romp in the backyard. The magazine was one of those publications that featured an article on “How to Lose Ten Pounds in Ten Days” and a recipe for Christmas trifle with eggnog custard and whipped cream, both in the same issue. Augusta had seemed especially interested in the trifle.

  “I do believe it’s getting colder,” she said, hurrying to warm her hands by the sitting room fire. “Must have dropped ten degrees since morning.”

  I followed her and curled at one end of the sofa where Clementine reached up to nuzzle me with her frosty nose. “Colder than yesterday?” I asked. “I think I was almost as cold as you were while we waited for the police to come. I wonder if they ever found out what that man was doing at Willowbrook.”

  “I don’t imagine it was for any good purpose,” she said, turning to warm her angelic behind. “I’m afraid we haven’t seen the end of the difficulties out there.”

  “Does that mean you saw something when you were inside?”

  She added a stick of firewood to the blaze. “Not at all.”

  “Augusta Goodnight! You’re every bit as exasperating as Ellis! I do believe you’re teasing me on purpose.” I told her about Ellis’s earlier telephone call.

  “Lucy Nan, you must know by now th
at I dislike leaping to conclusions.”

  Augusta sat on the rug with the big dog’s head in her lap and stroked the animal’s ears. If Clementine had been a cat she would have purred. “If I had seen something I would have told you.”

  “Ah,” I said. “But you heard something, didn’t you?”

  Augusta stared into the flames. Her long necklace of glittering stones reflected the blue and amber of the fire’s blaze. “I’m not sure,” she said finally.

  “What do you mean you’re not sure?”

  “It could have been a mouse—and old houses do creak.”

  “What’s this about a mouse? Should I jump up on a chair and scream?” Neither of us had heard Ellis enter by way of her usual route through the kitchen.

  “It would take more than a mouse to make you scream,” I told her. I had made up my mind I wasn’t going to mention her earlier hint of news.

  “We were referring to a noise I might have heard while I was inside the house at Willowbrook,” Augusta explained. “It was rather like a … scuttling sound as if someone were trying to keep quiet.”

  “Could you tell where it was coming from?” I asked.

  “I thought at first someone might be hiding in the room to the right of the stairway, but there was no one there,” she said. “It was almost as if it came from inside the wall.”

  Ellis brightened. “Really? How exciting!”

  I made room for Ellis on the sofa. “Mimmer used to say there was a secret stairway in there somewhere but she never would let us look for it. She pretended she didn’t know where it was, but I’m sure she did. Said she was afraid the steps might be rotten and we would fall through.”

  “Well, whoever might have been there is probably gone now,” Augusta said, “although I’m afraid we haven’t heard the last of this. And I would hope your friends from the police will check to see if there really is a stairway there.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back?” I asked.

  “I suppose it all depends on what they were doing out there in the first place.” Augusta gently dislodged Clementine from her lap and stood, shucking her serious tone. “At any rate, it’s a bit early to worry about it just yet. Would anyone else like hot chocolate?”

  Ellis waved her hand in the air. “I would! But doesn’t anybody want to hear my news?” I yawned. “What news?”

  Ellis shrugged. “Well, if you really don’t want to know … “

  “Depends,” I said. “Does it involve scandal, intrigue, or romance?”

  Ellis grinned. “Romance.”

  “Whose? Yours?” I asked.

  Ellis laughed. “Of course not! Bennett and I are married—not that we don’t—oh, never mind! It’s about Idonia,” she said.

  I think I gasped, but shame on me if I did. “Idonia? Idonia Mae Culpepper?”

  Ellis nodded. “The very same.”

  Augusta stood in the middle of the room with her arms folded.

  “I don’t understand. Why shouldn’t your friend have love in her life?”

  “Well, she should … could … I guess,” I stammered while Ellis readily agreed. “Of course, of course,” she said. “It’s just that … Idonia … well … “

  Augusta twined her necklace through her fingers. “Well, what?”

  “It’s just that she’s Idonia,” I admitted finally. “Actually Idonia was married briefly when she was a lot younger but it didn’t work out. He turned out to be a rotten apple.”

  “An apple?” Augusta shook her head.

  “Ran around on her,” Ellis explained. “Rotten to the core. She’s been kind of sour on men ever since.”

  Augusta paused in the doorway. “A sour apple … I see,” she said, although I wasn’t sure she did. “So what were you going to tell us?” she asked Ellis.

  Ellis paused to get the full benefit of our attention. “Idonia has a gentleman friend,” she announced.

  “Really? Who? Anybody we know?” I asked.

  “Does the name Melrose DuBois ring a bell?” she said.

  “Should it?” I laughed. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? You made that up. Nobody is named Melrose DuBois!”

  Ellis stood to follow Augusta into the kitchen. “Idonia’s fellow is. Works part time for Al Evans over at the funeral home. I think he and Al are cousins or something.”

  I trailed along after them. Clementine trailed after me. “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “Opal Henshaw told me. He’s taken a room with her at the Spring Lamb.”

  “God help him,” I said. The Spring Lamb is a bed-and-breakfast, so called because of the two cement lamb planters filled with plastic flowers on either side of the front door. I hoped Idonia’s friend didn’t have a big appetite because he wouldn’t get much to eat under that roof. Opal Henshaw could squeeze a nickel till the buffalo bellowed.

  “When did all this come about?” I asked, adding a dollop of whipped cream to my hot chocolate. For some reason since Augusta arrived I’ve had trouble zipping my pants.

  “Opal tells me he’s been with them about a month,” Ellis said. “I think he and Idonia met at Harris Teeter over a bunch of grapes. He asked her to help him pick out some fruit.”

  Probably to supplement the breakfast menu, I thought. “Romance in the produce department … sounds like the title of a book. Has Idonia said anything to you about him?”

  Ellis sipped her hot drink slowly. “Not yet, but The Thursdays are meeting at my house Monday. What do you bet we get a full report then?” She closed her eyes. “Mmm … tastes like cinnamon in here. Augusta, this hot chocolate is heavenly.”

  Augusta smiled. “Of course it is,” she said.

  ee St. Clair flung her crimson cloak over the back of Ellis’s living room sofa and took a stance. The Thursdays had just finished reading Zelda, a biography of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, and Zee had been acting even more flamboyant than usual. “I think we should have a caroling party for Christmas this year,” she announced, “instead of going out to dinner like we always do.”

  Jo Nell, who had just settled comfortably in the wing chair by the fireplace, sat up so suddenly she frightened Ellis’s cat, Cookie, who had been sleeping underneath. “You mean walk around out in the cold and sing on neighbors’ porches?”

  “Why not?” Zee tossed her brightly tinted curls. “We used to do it all the time. Remember what fun we had? We could have a few glasses of wine before we start, then come back to Lucy Nan’s for a covered dish.”

  “Fine with me,” I said, since it was my time to host anyway.

  Idonia looked thoughtful. “Would it be all right if I asked Mel—” she began.

  “I think it’s a great idea!” Claudia Pharr set her steaming cup of Russian tea on the marble-topped coffee table and took a calendar from her purse. “When?”

  “Would next week be too soon?” I asked. “We can work it in between rehearsals for Lessons and Carols and the candlelight tour at Bellawood … and by the way, I’m counting on some of you to help us decorate out there.”

  Nettie said she’d be glad to help decorate and would even go along with the caroling if we would agree to carry her home in a pack saddle if her feet gave out.

  I laughed. I had almost forgotten about the term we’d used as children for making a seat with four crossed arms.

  “I think I’ll be able to help, Lucy Nan, and I’d like to invite Melrose to join us for caroling if that’s all right.” Idonia spoke louder this time.

  Zee nodded. “Of course—Melrose who?”

  “Melrose DuBois—he’s someone I’ve been seeing.” Idonia sipped calmly from her cup but I noticed her hands shook slightly when she set it down.

  And then the bombardment began:

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “When did you start seeing him?”

  “Is he from around here?”

  “How long were you going to keep this from us, you sly fox?” Zee asked, perching on the arm of Idonia’s chair. “Tell us, is he handsome?
What’s he like?”

  “All right! Enough!” Idonia shook her head, laughing, and told us how she had met Melrose in the produce department at Harris Teeter. He had taken her to dinner twice and they had seen several movies together, she said, and until he could find a more permanent place, he was staying with Opal Henshaw at the Spring Lamb.

  Her face flushed almost as red as her hair. “He’s merely a friend,” she stressed, “but it’s nice to have someone to go out with—something to look forward to … and well … I find Melrose pleasant company.”

  “I think that’s wonderful,” I said, “and of course you should invite Melrose to the party. I plan to ask Ben as well.”

  Benjamin Maxwell and I had been seeing one another for over a year and it hadn’t taken me long to learn that he was not only an extraordinary spinner of yarns, but sang a pretty good baritone as well.

  “There are a lot of older people here in Stone’s Throw—especially in the neighborhoods right here in town—who might enjoy having carolers come by,” Claudia said brightly.

  Ellis passed around a tray of sandwiches. “In case you haven’t noticed, we are the older people here in Stone’s Throw,” she informed her.

  “I hope your friend won’t have to stay at the Henshaw place long,” Jo Nell said to Idonia. “That Opal Henshaw’s queen of the skinflints—and fussy! Lord, everything has to be just so!”

  Idonia smiled. “I think Melrose just tries to stay out of her way. He said once he accidentally brushed against a picture hanging on the wall and she about knocked him down to straighten it.”

  Ellis nodded. “Probably obsessive-compulsive.”

  “More like obsessive-re pulsive,” Nettie said. “That woman gets on my last nerve.”

  “I think she’s just plain bossy,” I said. “Everything has to be Opal’s way. I heard she practically had a fit and fell in it when she heard we were going to use fresh greenery in the Advent wreath this year.”

  Claudia shook her head. “I dread having to go with her on the fruitcake run,” she said.

  I laughed, picturing panicky people fleeing from giant fruitcakes with legs. “Fruitcake run? I suppose you’re running from them.”