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

by Mignon F. Ballard

  But Claudia waved my comment aside. “Every year our Sunday school class takes fruitcake and homemade cookies to shut-ins and we’ve always included Luther and his family, as well. Since Preacher Dave is filling in as sexton, we voted to take the Tanseys some, too.”

  “Lucky Tanseys,” Ellis whispered under her breath.

  “I always seem to get stuck on the committee with Opal,” Claudia said with a groan. “I wish I could think of a good excuse not to go.”

  “Cheer up! Maybe you’ll come down with smallpox or typhoid fever or something,” Zee told her.

  “Smallpox? My goodness, Zee. People don’t get—” Claudia smiled as realization dawned. “Oh, you’re pulling my leg again!” She shrugged. “Well, we’re not going for another week so with luck I might catch a mild cold.”

  Nettie clicked her teeth in annoyance. “For heaven’s sake, Claudia, just tell the woman you won’t be able to help out that day.”

  Claudia paled. “Tell Opal Henshaw that?”

  “Melrose is taking me to a choral concert at the college tonight,” Idonia said, “and I’m having a terrible time deciding what to wear.”

  “Your black sheath always looks nice,” Zee said. “Or what about that blue silk you bought last year?”

  Ben and I had made plans to go to the concert, too, but I didn’t want to steal Idonia’s thunder by mentioning it. “You’d look great in either one,” I told her, “but I kind of favor the blue.”

  “Will Julie be home for Christmas this year, Lucy Nan?” Jo Nell asked as we helped clear away teacups.

  “For five whole days! She saved part of her vacation time and we’re—I’m making new curtains to jazz up her room a little.”

  “You’re making curtains?” Nettie didn’t even bother to hide her amazement. She has never forgotten that clown costume I made for Teddy’s third Halloween. I forgot to put an opening in the neck and he couldn’t get his head through.

  “Well, my goodness, it’s not that big a deal!” I told her, not daring to look at Ellis, who knew who was really making the curtains.

  “Or I could wear that turquoise pants suit I made last winter,” Idonia mused aloud. “Melrose says that color shows off my hair.”

  Everyone agreed that the turquoise pants suit would be a good choice.

  “Have you heard any more about what happened to that poor man you found out at your grandmother’s old home?” Zee asked me as The Thursdays prepared to leave. She frowned. “You don’t suppose somebody pushed him, do you?”

  “If somebody did, the police aren’t saying,” I told her. “Kemper said they looked around inside but didn’t see anything suspicious.”

  Idonia shrugged into her coat and tucked her purse and her book under an arm. “Well, I must be off if I’m to have my hair done this afternoon. Melrose doesn’t like to be late.”

  “Did you tell Kemper about the secret stairway?” Ellis asked after the others had left.

  “I left him a message but haven’t heard back. He probably thinks I’ve let my imagination run away with me again.”

  “Again? What do you mean, again?” she snorted. “If they didn’t have us to prod them along, the police here in Stone’s Throw wouldn’t have a clue!”

  I had to admit she had a point.

  “I guess you noticed Kemper didn’t seem to think too much of Jeremiah Tansey,” Ellis said. “I wonder if he had anything to do with all this.”

  “Nettie seems to think he runs around with that rough bunch at the Red Horse,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”

  “Hmm … I wonder if his dad knows he hangs around out there. Preacher Dave is as straitlaced as they come—or seems to be. I’ve never met Louella, though. Wonder what his wife’s like.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but I’ll soon find out. Grayson has ordered one of those huge Christmas baskets from that specialty shop over in Fort Mill and I told him I’d pick it up tomorrow and deliver it to the Tanseys. Says he feels kind of guilty because he hasn’t done anything for them since they’ve been out there at

  Willowbrook.”

  “You’re going to The Peach Stand? Wait up a minute, will you?” Ellis hurried away and returned with several bills that she stuffed into my hand. “How about bringing me a couple of jars of peach pickles and some blackberry jam?” She hesitated while I shoved the money into my purse. “You’re not nervous about going out to Willowbrook again, are you? I’d go with you but Susan and I are shopping for the new baby tomorrow.”

  Ellis’s daughter was expecting a boy after Christmas and Ellis’s husband Bennett had already bought enough sports equipment to furnish a gym.

  “Actually I’m kind of curious to see what Louella’s like,” I said. “Besides, Augusta’s going with me.”

  “She was with us the other day when we found that body, too,” Ellis reminded me. “You be careful out there, Lucy Nan.”

  The Green Cottage sat about a quarter of a mile from the plantation house at the end of a long gravel road in a grove of oak trees that had been huge even when I was a child. In the pasture across the road reddish-brown and white cattle grazed, and beyond that a hill of new pine saplings showed green against the brown December landscape. A couple of Herefords licking a salt block looked at us briefly through the barbed-wire fence as we turned into the drive. “Have you noticed how cows always look bored?” I said.

  Augusta laughed. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  A rambling pyracantha bush stretched arms full of fiery orange berries against the pale yellow walls of the house and browning chrysanthemums, once purple, tumbled against the doorstep. Someone—Louella, I presumed—had hung a wreath of gold-sprayed cotton bolls on the front door. I had seen some like it earlier at the craft fair at the Baptist Church.

  Preacher Dave himself met me at the door. He was a tall man with thinning hair and stooped shoulders. Keen blue eyes smiled at me from a weathered face. “Come in, come in!” Accepting the basket, he stepped aside to usher me in front of him. “And excuse the coveralls, please. Just got through waxing floors over at the church and haven’t had time to change.”

  “That’s quite all right … I don’t mean to stay …” I found myself seated in a comfortable overstuffed chair, the arms and back of which were protected with crocheted doilies. “My cousin Grayson asked me to drop this by to thank you for looking after the property. He plans to get up here himself soon after the holidays but wanted to wish you and your family a merry Christmas.”

  Preacher Dave set the large basket on the floor. “My goodness, this looks wonderful, but it isn’t necessary …” His voice trailed as he examined the contents of ham, cheese, jams, and pickles. “Louella! Come here, honey, and see what Santa Claus brought us!”

  “Are those spiced peaches? My favorites! What a nice surprise!” At first glance Louella Tansey seemed to be all of one color—sort of a faded tan. Her thin brownish hair was pulled back in what would’ve been a bun if there had been enough of it and her eyes, behind bifocals, seemed to take on the tone of the beige housedress she wore. The only bright color, I noticed, was the green rickrack trim on the woman’s apron. “Louella Tansey,” she said, offering her hand. “Let me get you something to drink. I just made tea.”

  “Thank you, but I can’t stay,” I said, introducing myself. “I know it must be close to your supper hour.” Augusta, who stood by the upright piano across the room, brightened at the mention of tea, but I could have told her it was probably iced tea our hostess was offering. Most people where we live drink it all year long. “I really must go,” I said, rising.

  “We’re not going to hear of it are we, Louella?” Preacher Dave lifted the basket at my feet. “You just rest a minute while I take this to the kitchen and Louella’ll bring you a nice glass of tea—or there’s coffee if you’d rather.”

  “Coffee would be fine,” I said, trying to avoid what I knew would be Augusta’s envious expression. I’ve stopped counting the number of cups she drinks in one day
. But Augusta, apparently oblivious to our conversation, was examining a large framed photograph on the piano.

  I looked about the room while waiting, and although some of the furnishings seemed worn, the oval hooked rug in colors of green and rose looked bright and new as did the coordinating swag over the front windows. A burgundy Christmas candle sat in a silk arrangement on a lovely mahogany side table. Grayson should be pleased to have such caring tenants.

  I wandered over to look at the photograph that had captured Augusta’s attention. It was a studio portrait of a pretty young woman, whose wide sweet smile made me want to smile, too. Her dark hair was cut in a becoming page boy and her large eyes held a spark of mischief.

  “She’s lovely,” I said, noticing that Louella had come back into the room. “Is this your daughter?”

  She nodded, setting my coffee cup aside. “Dinah. But she’s gone now. Dead.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” How horrible! Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? Having children myself, I could only imagine how tragic it would be to lose them.

  Louella moved quietly past me and came to stand by the piano.

  “This was hers, you know,” she said, caressing the closed lid over the keyboard. “She did love to play.”

  I looked around to see Preacher Dave standing in the doorway. “Tell your cousin the vet thinks that little heifer we talked about is gonna be fine, and I mended that tear in the fence up there on the main road.” And with that he turned and left the room.

  I drank my coffee as quickly as I could, made my thanks, and left. Louella Tansey, looking frail and drab, a sad shadow of a woman, stood at the door gazing after me as if she wanted to follow.

  id you notice Preacher Dave’s face?” I said to Augusta as we drove away. “He was as white as Logan’s cat.”

  Augusta immediately turned on the heater. “Logan’s cat?”

  “It’s a term my grandmother used,” I explained. “Except nobody seems to remember who Logan was.”

  “How sad for their daughter to die so young,” she said. “I can see it’s been a hardship for them.”

  “I wonder how she died, but I didn’t dare ask. I could tell they didn’t want to talk about it. As far as I know, nobody even knew they had a daughter.”

  I pulled up to the stop sign before entering the main road, and as I did, a pickup truck turned in and passed us going in the opposite direction. The young man behind the wheel had straw-colored hair pulled back in a ponytail and he made the turn so quickly he almost went into the ditch. I waved because that’s what just about everybody does around here whether we know the driver or not, especially out in the country, but the driver didn’t wave back.

  Augusta turned to look over her shoulder. “Who was that?”

  “I’m not sure but I think it might have been Jeremiah Tansey.

  Obviously in a hurry.” In my rearview mirror I saw the faded blue truck disappearing in a cloud of dust.

  As we passed the area behind the house at Willowbrook where we had found the tree I thought about stopping to get holly as we planned to decorate at Bellawood the next day, but it was already beginning to get dark and I didn’t feel comfortable about going back there just yet—even with Augusta. Besides, there was always plenty of holly at Bellawood Plantation.

  “I do wish we had some holly!” Genevieve Ellison said as she broke off a spray of pine. “This mantel just calls for it.”

  “I think they’ve used most of it in the other rooms,” Nettie told her, “but we’ve plenty of cedar and spruce, and I think there’s some hemlock down by the schoolhouse. That always looks graceful in an arrangement.”

  “I’ll get it,” I offered, glad of a chance to get some exercise. Several of us had congregated in the kitchen at Bellawood, which was separate from the main house, and a fire leapt on the great hearth blending the smell of wood smoke with that of the evergreens.

  “ ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!’” Idonia sang as she heaped pine cones into a large wooden bowl. Idonia’s idea of decorating doesn’t stray too far from Opal Henshaw’s, but you can’t go too far wrong with a bowl of pine cones. Idonia had been singing since she arrived that morning, and had even attempted (with a hilarious jumbling of lyrics) “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

  Melrose, she told us, had given her his Christmas present early: an antique gold locket in the shape of a dogwood blossom with tiny seed pearls in the center, and it dangled now against her forest green sweater. The locket had once belonged to Melrose’s grandmother, she explained earlier, and she had hesitated about accepting anything so personal, but Melrose had insisted.

  “It doesn’t do a thing for me,” he’d told her, laughing. “Who else is going to wear it?”

  Idonia fingered it lovingly as she paused to admire her work. “Melrose said it had six pearls in it originally,” she said, “but two of them are missing. Sometime after the holidays he’s going to see if he can get them replaced for me.” And with that remark she drifted into “Jingle Bells” and began to poke cedar boughs into a ceramic jar. The small room had become increasingly warm with the wood fire and I was glad I’d elected to wear a cotton shirt and jeans as had most of the others. Idonia must have been uncomfortable in her sweater as I noticed she stayed as far away from the fireplace as possible.

  “Why don’t some of you help me make a swag for the front doorway?” Genevieve asked with a critical eye on Idonia’s attempts at arranging. “We can cut the greenery in lengths and spread them out here on the table to wire together.”

  I knew from experience that sounded easier than it actually was, so I put on my jacket and went outside for the hemlock. When I returned with the greenery, Nettie trailed it along the big pine mantel and tucked it behind fat red candles along with clusters of red nandina berries. Idonia, I noticed, was still attempting to make a swag while Genevieve worked quietly behind her repairing the damage. Still humming, Idonia apparently hadn’t noticed, or if she had, she didn’t care. I hoped this wasn’t too good to last.

  We spent the rest of our time at Bellawood in the main house, tucking sprigs of spruce and pine behind picture frames, putting candles in every room, and setting out bowls of nuts and apples. Someone with more artistic ability than I had made a feathery wreath of evergreens interspersed with fluffy white bolls of cotton for the front door. It reminded me of the wreath on the door of the Green Cottage back at Willowbrook, and for a while that put a bit of a damper on my Christmas spirit.

  I told Nettie about my visit to the Tanseys on the drive home together. (Idonia was entertaining Melrose for dinner and had to stop for groceries.)

  “Did you know they had a daughter who died?” I asked.

  “No, but then I don’t know them very well,” Nettie said. “From all I’ve heard Preacher Dave seems to be a hard worker and everyone says he’s doing a good job filling in at the church for Luther. I’ve only seen his wife once or twice—shy little creature.”

  “I think they go to Chandler’s Creek Baptist Church out on Sawmill Road,” I said. “Preacher Dave’s a part-time minister there.”

  “Wonder where they lived before they came here?” Nettie said. “Nobody seems to know much about them.”

  “Maybe they’re just trying to escape sad memories.”

  “Well, they’d better brace up because it doesn’t look like they’re going to escape Opal Henshaw and her fruitcake,” Nettie said. “Reckon Claudia will work up enough gumption to tell her she’s not going to help with the ‘run’?”

  I laughed. “I doubt it. Let’s just hope nobody offers us any while we’re caroling this weekend.”

  “I can’t wait to meet Idonia’s admirer,” I said to Augusta that night after supper. “But I’m not quite sure what to think. She’s known this Melrose about a month yet he’s given her a locket he says belonged to his grandmother. Wouldn’t you think a family heirloom like that would go to one of his children?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have any children,” Augusta sai
d. With a smile she added a tiny gilded angel to an arrangement of hemlock and pine and stepped back to examine it. The caroling party was days away and the only Christmas decoration I’d put up was an evergreen wreath on the front door. Now the two of us were doing our best to make the house look festive with the leftover greenery I’d brought from Bellawood.

  “If he has any, Idonia hasn’t mentioned it,” I said. “Ellis said he works part time for his cousin at the funeral home, but surely he didn’t come to Stone’s Throw just for that.” I rummaged in the box of decorations until I found the stuffed reindeer with a bell around its neck that always spent the season on Julie’s bed and set it aside. “I wonder what did bring him here?”

  “Perhaps we’ll know in time, but from what you tell me, your friend seems happy with things as they are, so it would seem advisable to let sleeping cats be,” she said, refilling her coffee mug. Augusta rarely sips coffee; she drinks it, and she did that now. So fortified, she set the mug aside and with flying fingers went about weaving the remaining greenery into a fragrant swag. My giggle at her jumbled expression seemed to escape her completely.

  “That’s just the point,” I explained. “Idonia’s marriage wasn’t very happy—only lasted a few years until her husband found somebody else and left her to raise their little boy alone. I don’t think Idonia has ever gotten over the hurt, and I hate to think of it happening again.”

  The stones shimmered green and gold as Augusta twined her long necklace through her fingers. “Your friend is a grown woman, Lucy Nan, and she makes choices just as most people do. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s best to let her make her own decisions … “

  I followed her as she carried the swag down the hall to the living room where she draped it over the mantel. It looked fantastic. “Everybody will think I hired a decorator,” I told her.

  “… still,” Augusta continued, “I don’t believe it would be inappropriate if we looked into this fellow’s background—inconspicuously, of course.”