Duck the Halls

by Donna Andrews

  Michael set down his top hat on a nearby prop chair, stepped to the podium, and began.

  “Stave One,” he announced. “Marley’s Ghost. Marley was dead, to begin with.”

  Josh settled down immediately and stared at Michael as if intent on every word. Jamie spent the first five minutes wiggling and craning his neck around, so he could catch a glimpse of all the people staring at his daddy. Then, after another few minutes of scanning the rafters intently—no doubt in hopes of a cameo appearance by another snake—he settled down with his head against my side and went quietly to sleep. Josh remained rapt, with his mouth hanging open. In fact, occasionally I saw his lips moving, and I realized he was mouthing the words along with Michael.

  I was absorbed myself, at least at first. No matter how many times I saw him rehearsing, I was still surprised at how much better it seemed when he took the stage. Was it the lights and the theater setting? Or did he take the energy most people would fret away in stage fright and channel it into his performance? I marveled at how different he made his voice for each character, at how I almost could see what he was describing come alive.

  And then he came to the part of the story where Scrooge goes home to his gloomy lodgings and, after the shock of briefly seeing Marley’s face where the door knocker should have been, gives way to an uncharacteristic fit of nerves and searches his rooms.

  “Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.”

  There were chuckles at that, and I remembered my own brief moment of fright when I’d been searching the Trinity church basement and had been startled by the coat tree, with its own suspicious attitude.

  Thinking of the coat tree reminded me of the whole mass of clutter currently infesting Trinity—in the furnace room, the classrooms, the storage closets, and the office that would soon cease to be mine. Strangely, the clutter no longer oppressed me, perhaps because I knew it would be leaving soon. As Michael acted out the confrontation between Scrooge and Marley’s ghost, part of my mind was following him, and the other half was happily making lists. Things we’d need for the church clean-out. Things Michael and I could donate to swell the estate sale. Places where we should publicize the sale.

  I felt wonderfully content. I had my family all around me. The boys seemed happy. And I was simultaneously doing two of my favorite things: watching Michael perform and making mental plans for organizing a project.

  I glanced over at Mother, who was sitting proudly upright in her Victorian finery and following the performance with the keen appreciation she bestowed on anything belonging to a more genteel bygone era. But she didn’t look as content as I felt. Clearly she was still concerned about Mrs. Thornefield’s estate. I hoped it turned out that some of the larger boxes held the furniture Mother remembered so fondly.

  And if they didn’t—well, I remembered hearing that Mrs. Thornefield’s house had been rather run-down by the time it had come into Trinity’s hands. What if she hadn’t been quite as well off as she’d led everyone to believe? What she’d had a cash-flow problem and had solved it by selling a few of her nicest pieces?

  Mother would be so disappointed. Maybe I should try to postpone our box-opening visit until after Christmas?

  No. It would only prey on her mind. If the Sheraton and Hepplewhite furniture had been sold, best find out as soon as possible.

  Jamie woke up after half an hour’s nap, and from that point both boys remained wide awake to the end, following Michael’s every word, and laughing when the audience did, though I suspected they were laughing not because they understood the funny lines but out of delight, because so many people were laughing at Daddy’s jokes.

  Michael took ten curtain calls. Afterward we took the boys backstage to see everyone congratulating Daddy in his dressing room. They were incredibly impressed.

  And also starting to show signs of impending crash and burn, in spite of the preemptive extra napping earlier in the day.

  “Rose Noire and I are going to take them home,” I told Michael. “Before they ruin everyone’s impression of them as little angels.”

  Michael’s face fell.

  “You mean you’re not coming to the cast party?” Dad asked. “Your mother and I will be there.”

  “Your father will,” Mother said. “I am worn out and planning to go home to bed.”

  “Besides,” I said. “With a cast of one, how big can it be?”

  “Okay, it’s also the unofficial departmental Christmas party,” Michael said. “And all of my family are invited! And it doesn’t start till midnight, after we finish cleaning up the theater, so you could run the boys home and come back for it—if that’s okay with Rose Noire.”

  She had no objection, so after making our good-byes to everyone, we led the boys out to the parking lot. We had to carry them the second half of the way.

  “Let’s just put them in my car,” Rose Noire said. “I’m giving Rob a ride home—he can help me carry them in and you can head to the cast party a little sooner.”

  By the time we strapped them into their car seats, both boys were fast asleep. So I applied my best good night kisses to their unconscious foreheads and waved as Rose Noire and Rob drove off.

  “Does this mean you’re coming to the cast party after all?” I turned to see Robyn picking her way across one of the parking lot’s many patches of ice. “It sounds like fun.”

  “I’ll be a bit late,” I said. “I have to pick up a few things at the grocery store. Don’t mention that to Mother if she changes her mind and decides to come,” I added.

  “Because she would think planning for the rummage sale should trump mere groceries?” Robyn said, with a laugh.

  “Something like that,” I said. “You have no idea.”

  “Actually, I do.” She looked serious for a moment. “Your mother is a force of nature. I’m just glad she’s usually on my side. Call me when you and your mother are coming over tomorrow to inspect the boxes. Matt’s back from North Carolina. He and I can help.”

  My errand at the grocery store didn’t take long. I was picking up supplies for tomorrow night’s secret Christmas dinner. Cans of refrigerator rolls. Cranberries. Cran-apple juice for the boys to drink—we always served it on festive occasions so they would feel included when we lifted glasses of red wine for toasts. I pondered getting some ice cream, a popular favorite with the boys and Michael. But I wasn’t sure there would be room in the tiny freezer compartment of the basement apartment’s ancient toy-sized refrigerator for both the ice cream and an ice cube tray.

  The store was surprisingly crowded for such a late hour. Some of the people were piling their baskets high with the makings of their own Christmas dinners—turkeys, geese, ham, ribs, pork roasts, potatoes and sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberries, pies, premade pie shells, cans of pumpkin, bags of flour and sugar—looking at other people’s carts was giving me an appetite. And just walking down the spice aisles and seeing people filling their carts with cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and other spices made me happy.

  In the housewares aisle, I convinced a young, recently married Shiffley that no, a fancy electric mixer would not be the perfect present for his wife and suggested he contact Rose Noire, who could put together a deluxe basket of luxurious foods and wonderfully scented sachets, lotions, and potpourris. And then I ended up giving her card to several other present-seeking husbands and boyfriends who had been eavesdropping on our conversation. Tomorrow, I knew, would be one of her busiest days of the year, as the growing number of men who waited till the last minute to start looking for presents for their wives and girlfriends descended on her en masse, all begging for special gift baskets. A good thing she started making up the special baskets before Thanksgiving, though this year business had been going so well that several times in the last month she’d enlisted the rest of the household, even the boys, for several intense evenings of cutting up and wrapping soap, mixing and bagging potp
ourri, using rubber stamps to create labels, and doing all the other small tasks needed to get her supplies back to a good level.

  All in all, I was in a good mood when I left the market. When I got to my car, I put the few things that were going home in the trunk, and the two bags of items going to the basement apartment on the front passenger seat. Probably a good idea to deliver them before I went home, lest one of the mothers come across the cranberries and ask what they were for.

  My route to the apartment led near Trinity, and on sudden impulse, I passed the turn that would have been my most direct route to the basement apartment and took a slight detour. I realized that Mother had been on my mind. And I found myself suddenly thinking that perhaps it had been a little too easy to convince Mother to postpone her inspection of the estate sale hoard until tomorrow. And that her decision to go home and rest rather than attend the cast party was slightly suspect. And Mother was on the vestry—wasn’t it possible, even probable, that Mother was in possession of one of those million spare keys Robyn had mentioned? And that in spite of Trinity being a deserted recent crime scene, she might decide to drop in to check on Mrs. Thornefield’s legacy?

  Chapter 38

  Sure enough, Mother’s gray sedan was in the parking lot. Toward the left side, as close as you could get to the basement door. I didn’t see any lights on in the church, but I caught a few flickers of light through the basement windows, as if someone was walking around with a flashlight.

  I parked my car next to hers. I put the groceries destined for the apartment on the floor and threw a couple of things on top of them, in case she came out and peeked inside before I found her. Then I headed for the stairwell that led to the basement door. The parking lot was empty except for our two cars, which would have been unheard of, except that there was nothing scheduled here tonight—I’d relocated everything that was supposed to happen here today to other venues, and hadn’t rearranged anything after the chief finally released the crime scene. The parking lot would be full enough tomorrow. All the parking lots. But tonight …

  The basement door was new—no doubt Randall had arranged to replace the one the firefighters had broken down to get to the fire. But to my relief my key still worked. I unlocked the door, holding my key ring tightly so nothing clinked, and turning the lock as quietly as possible.

  The hall was dark, but there was enough moonlight streaming in the windows for me to see in the hall. Should I go back and get my flashlight? No, once I’d surprised Mother, we could turn on the lights. I had no idea why she was creeping around with a flashlight. Surely as a member of the vestry she had more right than most to be here.

  I found her standing in the furnace room with her hands on her hips—well, the hand that wasn’t holding the flashlight—glaring at some of the hulking furniture stored there.

  “You see?” I said. “Seriously ugly furniture.”

  She started slightly.

  “Hello, dear,” she said. “I am perturbed. These are not Mrs. Thornefield’s things.”

  “Must be some of the stuff from the church attic, then.”

  “No.” She shook her head with quick impatience. “I helped clean out the attic. Remember—just after the dear rector arrived.”

  “I remember,” I said. “I was just thinking the other night how much better the basement looked, even with all Mrs. Thornefield’s stuff.”

  “The guild inspected everything in the attic, the closets, and the basement,” Mother went on. “We put all the things the church really needed in neatly labeled plastic bins, and we hauled out bags and bags of trash and recycling, and we boxed up everything that might possibly sell at the rummage sale and had it hauled down here, to the basement. None of this hideous old furniture was here then.”

  “How can you be sure it’s not Mrs. Thornefield’s? Even if it wasn’t in her living room, maybe she had it in her attic?”

  “Mrs. Thornefield enlisted my help,” Mother said. She was opening up a box, using a small jeweled metal nail file to slice open the packing tape. “In fact, the guild’s help. She didn’t entirely trust our old rector. Not his character, of course; the dear man was above reproach. But even those of us who were fondest of him realized that dear Dr. Womble wasn’t a very practical person. Mrs. Thornefield was afraid he’d just give her things to the poor, not realizing how valuable they were. So one day she invited the officers of the guild to tea, and she gave us a full tour. Including her basement and attic. There wasn’t any ugly old furniture in her attic—only a few seasonal items and a number of banker’s boxes containing all her financial records. She wanted us to know where those were. And she showed us her basement so we’d be aware of what a nice wine collection she had. Everything in her house was perfectly organized, spotlessly clean, and in impeccable taste. Nothing like this!”

  “How long was that before she died?” I asked. “Maybe she downsized a bit. Sold some of the nicer furniture. To make sure the church got its full value.” Or to live on, if I was right about her having financial reverses.

  “Only a few months. Look at this … this … rubbish!” She pulled a few items out of the box she’d been opening up and shook them at me, sending the flashlight beam darting wildly. In her left hand, along with the flashlight, she held a small bronze-colored statue of a scantily clad nymph. In her right she held a superlatively ugly china lamp.

  “Maybe someone else donated a few boxes of junk that Robyn—or more likely the old rector—forgot to mention?”

  Mother focused the flashlight beam on a label on one side of the box, which read THORNEFIELD ESTATE. BOX 14.

  “I’ve opened up six boxes whose labels claim they are from the Thornefield estate,” she said. “And so far I haven’t found a single thing Mrs. Thornefield would have allowed in her trash can!”

  She strode over to another box and began slicing at the packing tape with her nail file. Surely she wasn’t planning to inspect every box in the basement?

  “Let’s work on that tomorrow,” I said. “Preferably once we’ve already moved the boxes—we’re only going to have to tape those up again to move them.”

  “I can’t rest till we get to the bottom of this,” she said. But she did stop hacking at the box she was trying to open. “I think someone has stolen Mrs. Thornefield’s legacy.”

  “We can’t possibly get to the bottom of it tonight,” I said. “And if someone did steal anything, you’re making it harder for the chief to figure out what happened. We need to leave those boxes sealed, so the guys from the Shiffley Moving Company can tell us if those boxes are packed and sealed the way they would have done it. That one you were working on—it looks to me as if it could have been opened up and then resealed.”

  Mother frowned as she looked down at the box.

  “How can you tell, dear?”

  “The tape that’s closed up the top doesn’t quite match the tape on the bottom,” I said. “It’s a little more opaque. And there’s a little area right by the tape where it looks as if someone peeled off some tape, and the top layer of the cardboard with it.”

  Mother bent down to inspect the label more closely.

  “You’re right, dear. I wonder why I didn’t spot that.”

  “You have to hold the flashlight at just the right angle,” I said. “You’d probably have noticed it immediately if you’d turned on the lights to do this.” I walked over to the wall and flipped the light switches.

  Nothing happened.

  I walked out into the hall and flipped a switch out there. Still nothing.

  “The lights aren’t working, dear,” Mother said. “I assume it’s something to do with the fire. Or with it being a crime scene.”

  I thought for a moment, then shook my head.

  “The lights were working fine right after the fire,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure they were on when I was here this afternoon, talking to the chief and Robyn and the fire chief.”

  “Then perhaps there was some damage that didn’t come to light until now,”
Mother said.

  “If there is, that could be dangerous,” I was pulling out my cell phone. “It could be a fire hazard—we should call the fire department. And dammit, I need to cancel all the events we have scheduled here until we’re sure the building is safe and—”

  “Drop the cell phone.”

  Mother and I both whirled to find Riddick Hedges standing in the doorway to the furnace room. In his left hand he held a flashlight so large it dwarfed Mother’s little pocket light. In his right hand he held a gun.

  Chapter 39

  “Riddick!” Mother exclaimed. “Just the person we need. There appears to be something wrong with the power. Do you think you can do anything?”

  Riddick looked at her for a few moments in disbelief. Actually, I did, too.

  “Yes, the power is out because I cut the wires,” Riddick said finally. “Now you”—he focused his flashlight beam on me—“I said drop that phone.”

  I leaned over, put the phone on one of the boxes, and then leaned back and tried to look as if the phone were unreachably far from me instead of a good lunge away.

  “Not good enough,” he said. “Put it on the ground and kick it over to me.”

  Reluctantly, I followed his orders. To my chagrin, he managed to bend over and pick it up while still keeping the gun, the flashlight, and his eyes aimed at us. I wouldn’t have thought him that agile. I noted that he put my phone in his right pants pocket.

  “Riddick, dear,” Mother said. “There’s really no need for this.”

  “Don’t ‘dear’ me, you bossy old cow,” Riddick said. “You and the witches of St. Clotilda’s have had a lot of fun laughing at me all these years, haven’t you? ‘Poor Riddick—he tries so hard, but he just doesn’t understand anything.’”