The Nightingale Before Christmas

by Donna Andrews

  “The Shiffley Construction Company did a little fixing up, as their donation to the project.”

  “That’s the company Mayor Shiffley owns?”

  “Yes. Randall Shiffley’s a big supporter of the historical society.” And luckily, not here to hear me call thousands of dollars in major repairs “a little fixing up.”

  “So if all the decorators—” Jessica began.

  “I am going to kill that man,” came a voice from the doorway.

  Chapter 2

  Jessica and I looked up to see a tall ash-blond woman standing in the doorway. Martha Blaine, another designer. The one Mother and I called “the other Martha”—though not, of course, to her face, because we’d figured out she wasn’t a big Martha Stewart fan. Like Mother, she was tall enough that her head brushed the trailing evergreens, and she whacked them aside with a vicious swipe.

  A loud hammering began upstairs.

  “I said—” Martha began, raising her voice to be heard over the hammering.

  “You’re going to kill him,” I said. “I get it. You’ll have to take a number, though. What’s he done now?”

  I didn’t have to ask who she wanted to kill. There were only two male decorators in the house, and everyone loved Eustace Goodwin.

  “What hasn’t he done?” She paused as if briefly overcome by the weight of Clay Spottiswood’s transgressions. I heard the whir of Jessica’s camera as she took a few pictures of Martha in the doorway.

  I wondered, not for the first time, if Martha had stage experience. Not only did she carry herself with a certain dramatic flair, she also had the trick of speaking from the diaphragm so her voice could easily be heard in the last row of the theater. Or, in this case, in the farthest corners of the house. Outside the study the hammering stopped, and everything suddenly seemed very still, as if all the other designers on the premises were pausing to eavesdrop.

  “What’s he done today?” I asked.

  “He’s been rinsing paintbrushes and rollers in my bathroom again,” Martha said. “And bloody carelessly. Oh, and he’s dripped paint all over Violet’s room on his way to mine.”

  Inhaling the evergreen scent wouldn’t help with this. I closed my eyes to count to ten. Martha, who’d had several occasions to watch me perform this temper-calming ritual over the last few weeks, waited patiently. I hadn’t even made it to five before Jessica piped up.

  “Who’s this you’re going to kill?” she asked.

  I frowned at Martha and shook my head to suggest that perhaps we should not be having this conversation in front of a reporter. Either she didn’t get my signals or she ignored them.

  “Claiborne Spottiswood,” she said. “If he doesn’t stop messing up other people’s rooms— I don’t know why Clay was allowed to participate in the show house to begin with.”

  “He’s a local decorator, and he turned in his application before the deadline, and the committee approved him,” I responded.

  Martha scowled at that, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to remind her that she had waited until two weeks after the deadline to apply, and wouldn’t have gotten in, despite her impressive reputation, if the committee hadn’t been short on applicants and eager not to offend her. I thought she should be happy with what the committee had given her—two bathrooms and the laundry room. Not the most glamorous rooms in the house, but still, rooms that could be fabulous when done by a designer with her talent. In the five years since she’d moved from Richmond to set up shop here in Caerphilly, she’d quickly become one of the town’s leading decorators.

  But even though she was well on her way to making her rooms fabulous, I knew she was still angry that the committee had accepted Clay. Not just because they’d given him the master suite, which she thought should have been hers. There was bad blood between the two of them. I’d figured out that much. Maybe I should find someone who could tell me why.

  But not right now, with Jessica drinking in every word and occasionally snapping off a few shots with the little camera, whose whirring and clicking was starting to get on my nerves.

  “You can’t let Clay keep ruining our work like this,” Martha said. “Unless you want a half-finished, paint-spattered mess on opening day.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “I’ll go inspect the damage, and then I’ll talk to him.”

  I strode out into the foyer and started up the stairs, walking as calmly and deliberately as I could. Martha and Jessica followed. Upstairs, to my relief, the hammering had stopped.

  At the top of the stairs, to my right, I could see the open double doors to the master suite. When I was a few steps from the top, Clay Spottiswood stuck his head out.

  “Where’s my package?” he asked. “I’m expecting a package.”

  “Not happy with all the packages you’ve stolen from the rest of us?” Martha snapped.

  “Stop blaming me for the packages,” Clay said. “I’ve lost packages just like the rest of you.”

  He had—or at least claimed he had—and he’d probably spent more time complaining to me than all the rest of the designers put together.

  I ignored both Martha and Clay and turned left. I could see spots of blood-red paint on the tarp covering the hall floor. And a few spots on the walls, where Ivy, the trompe l’oeil artist, was painting an elaborate mural of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

  Had this, rather than paint fumes, stress, and eyestrain, caused the headache Ivy had gone home with?

  I heard the whirring and clicking of Jessica’s camera. Well, okay. Document the damage.

  I entered Violet’s room, which she was decorating in what Mother called “Early Disney Princess.” Her room was so over-the-top that Mother and I sometimes called her “Princess Violet,” though the name was a bit incongruous for a small and rather mousy-looking woman of around thirty. Everything in her room was in pink, white, and lavender. White-painted furniture. Wallpaper with pink and lavender floral garlands on a white background. Matching fabric on the twin bed and the half canopy over it. Pink and lavender decorations on the white-painted built-in bookshelves. A cluster of pink, white, and lavender stuffed animals and pillows on the bed.

  The drops of red paint stood out like a trail of blood on the pink, white, and lavender petit-point rug.

  I carefully avoided stepping on the drops, in case they were still wet, and entered the bathroom.

  A good thing I knew it was only red paint. The room looked like a crime scene from a slasher movie, with not just drops but splashes, sprays, and even a few puddles of red. They stood out dramatically against the white-on-white spa look Martha had chosen for her design. The tile could probably be scrubbed clean and the walls repainted, but many of the towels and accessories would have to be replaced.

  Behind me, in the Princess Room, I heard a shriek. I winced. Apparently Violet had come back and discovered the damage. I stuck my head back into the room and saw the hem of her frilly ruffled dress disappearing through the doorway to the hall. The wailing faded into the distance, and I suspected she had fled downstairs to seek comfort from Mother.

  I grabbed one of the hand towels, its soft white terry cloth surface smeared with red. Then I turned, almost bumping into Martha and the reporter. Martha smiled, no doubt because she was pleased with the frown on my face. Jessica was clicking away with her camera.

  I strode through the Princess Room and the hall and stopped in the double doorway of the master bedroom suite. The hammering had started up again and seemed to be coming from somewhere nearby—either the master bath or the huge walk-in closet.

  “Clay!” I shouted.

  Two heads popped up in the far corner of the room. Clay’s workmen, Tomás and Mateo. Neither of them spoke more than a few words of English. They looked alarmed.

  “Que nada,” I said, giving them as much of a smile as I could manage. I thought que nada meant something like “it’s nothing to worry about.” They didn’t look reassured. I wished my Spanish was good enough to say, “Don’t worry, I’m not m
ad at you, I’m mad at your pig of a boss, and by the way, I could find you better jobs in about five minutes if you’d like to stop working for him.”

  Clay didn’t answer. Tomás and Mateo went back to whatever they were doing behind the giant four-poster bed. Whirring and clicking noises at my elbow warned me that Jessica was here.

  If one of the other designers had been causing a problem, I’d have postponed dealing with it until after Jessica left. But Clay had already used up his last chance and then some.

  “Claiborne Spottiswood!” I yelled. “Get out here before—”

  “Where’s that package I asked you for?” The hammering stopped, and Clay reappeared from the master bath, evidently attempting to deflect me with a counterattack.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.” In fact, I didn’t even believe he was missing a package. More likely he was pretending to have lost one. He’d probably overheard some of the designers speculating that he was behind the disappearances. “You’ve splashed red paint all over Ivy’s hallway, Violet’s rug, and Martha’s bathroom.”

  “How do you know it’s my paint?” he said. “There are eleven other decorators in this house—”

  “But only one of them is using this particular shade of red.” I held the hand towel up against the wall. The blood-red stains on it matched the walls perfectly. “All paintbrushes are supposed to be cleaned downstairs in the garage. And if you couldn’t be bothered with going downstairs, why not mess up your own bathroom?”

  “Wasn’t me,” Clay said. “I’ll speak to my painters.”

  “You can’t blame Tomás and Mateo,” Martha said. “I was still here last night when they left. And my bathroom was fine then. You were here, doing some touch-up painting.”

  Clay scowled at her. He was probably considered tall, dark, and handsome by those who’d only seen him in a good mood, but it had been a while since I’d been able to see past his personality. And when he scowled, his thick black eyebrows and neatly trimmed goatee made him look almost diabolical.

  Jessica was staring around the room in openmouthed surprise, even forgetting to use her camera.

  “Martha’s right,” I said. “The bathroom was fine when I left last night, and the only ones here were her, Clay, and Eustace.”

  I felt a pang of guilt—usually I was the last one to leave the house, and made sure everything was locked up and in good condition. But the closer we got to opening day, the longer the designers seemed to work, and I had a family to think of and Christmas preparations of my own. I wouldn’t have left workmen unsupervised, but I thought—silly me—that the designers could be trusted.

  “Martha, Violet, and Ivy will be giving me invoices this afternoon for the time and materials required to repair the damage to their rooms,” I said aloud. “Clay, I’ll expect reimbursement from you by tomorrow morning, or you’re out of the show house.”

  I heard a gasp from behind me. I glanced over to see Mother, Violet, and Eustace standing in the doorway, peering over the reporter’s shoulders. Violet was the one who had gasped. She was looking shocked, wrapping her fluffy pink embroidered cardigan around her as if to protect herself from my wrath. Mother and Eustace were beaming with delight.

  “Oh, so you’re going to have a show house with no master suite?” Clay leaned against one of the garish red walls and folded his arms. He made a dramatic picture, and Jessica obligingly captured it with her camera.

  “I imagine several of the other designers would be happy to pitch in and help out,” I replied.

  “I’ve already got a design for the space,” Martha volunteered.

  “And I’d be happy to help out,” Mother said.

  “Same here,” Eustace added.

  “If you think you can use my stuff—” Clay began.

  “Of course, not, Claiborne,” Mother said. “I’m sure Randall Shiffley can get a crew over here anytime to haul all your materials back to your shop.”

  She gave him what Clay probably thought was a sweet smile if he didn’t know Mother very well. Eustace’s expression was a lot more noncommittal, and Martha looked like a leopard about to pounce. The clicking from Jessica’s camera had started up again, so I assumed she was enjoying the scene. Of course, the photos she was getting right now weren’t very flattering. Perhaps I should start planning a way to mug her for her camera and delete any photos I didn’t want to see on the front page of the student paper.

  “I’m losing money on this gig as it is,” Clay grumbled.

  I decided to accept this as a capitulation.

  “Then be careful how—and where—you clean your equipment from now on,” I said. “Okay, everybody. Back to work.”

  “Yes, dear,” Mother said. “Oh, Claiborne—as long as I’m here, I’ll take my vase back.”

  She smiled and pointed to a Chinese urn sitting on top of the chest of drawers. Its elegant shape and cool blue-and-white color were completely at odds with the red-and-black color scheme and aggressively modern furniture that filled the rest of the room.

  “Your vase? I’m afraid you must be mistaken.” Clay stepped between Mother and the vase and crossed his arms as if prepared to fight her for it. Which took a lot of nerve—I recognized the urn as one that, ever since I could remember, had stood on the mantel of the house I’d grown up in, down in Yorktown.

  “I’m sure you saw it downstairs in my room yesterday,” Mother said. “Someone must have brought it up here by mistake. Silly, isn’t it? The color’s all wrong for your room.”

  “You’re right, about the color,” Clay said. “I thought it might make an interesting contrast, but—well, not my best idea. I’ll be taking it back to my shop tomorrow.”

  “You’re quite sure it’s yours to take?” Mother’s tone was deceptively gentle. Any sane person with a normal instinct for self-preservation would be leaping to hand her the vase.

  An idea struck me.

  “Well, if he’s positive it’s his vase, that’s that,” I said.

  Mother frowned at me. Clay smirked with premature triumph. Jessica frowned and lowered her camera, as if resenting me for preventing another dramatic confrontation for her to photograph.

  “But I’m curious, Clay,” I went on. “Who do you keep in yours?”

  “Who do I what?”

  “Mother keeps her great-aunt Sophy in hers.” I walked over, lifted the vase, and shook it. I was relieved to hear the familiar rattle of the cremains inside.

  “You’re decorating your room with someone’s ashes?” Clay backed away from me as if afraid Great-Aunt Sophy might have died of something contagious.

  “She was so fond of beautiful design,” Mother said. “I always like to bring her along if possible and make her a part of my projects. And the vase has always been one of my favorites. That’s why I recognized it so easily.”

  “What a coincidence,” Clay said. He was visibly recovering from his initial shock. “My urn—”

  Was the jerk about to invent his own great-aunt? I took the top off the urn and peeked inside.

  “Yes, looks like Great-Aunt Sophy,” I said. “And look!”

  I gritted my teeth, stuck my hand into the urn, and then pulled it out, brandishing a small object in triumph. “Her onyx ring!”

  Jessica’s camera captured my dramatic revelation with a burst of whirs and clicks.

  “Dear Sophy!” Mother had pulled out a handkerchief and was pretending to blink back tears. “How she loved her little trinkets.”

  “Yes.” I brushed the ring off and handed it to Mother, who closed her fingers around it and clutched her hand sentimentally to her heart.

  “So you see,” I said to Clay, “you must be mistaken. I’d recognize this urn out of a million.”

  “I do hope yours turns up soon,” Mother added. “Bring it along, Meg.”

  She sailed out of the room. I popped the top back on the urn and followed her. When I got out into the hall, I handed it to her.

  “Onyx ring?” she murmured. “Looks more like
a dime-store trinket to me.”

  “It is,” I said. “I had it in my pocket—I brought it in to give to Eustace for his wise man costume in the living nativity scene.”

  “Thank you, dear.” She beamed at me, and then began carefully descending the staircase with the urn in hand.

  Eustace stepped out of the room.

  “Your great-aunt’s ashes?” He shook his head and made a face.

  “Actually, Sophy’s ashes got dumped in the York River years ago by a sneaky criminal,” I said. “But Mother liked the urn, so she reused it for the ashes of one of our favorite cats. I thought human cremains were more likely to put off Clay.”

  Eustace chuckled at that.

  “Oh, Mother has your wise man’s ring,” I said. “And don’t worry,” I added, seeing his grimace. “It was never actually in the urn—I palmed it.”

  Violet slipped past Eustace into the hall and fled back to her own room with a flash of pink and ruffles. Jessica followed her out but stopped near me in the hall, camera ready. I glanced through the master bedroom door. Mateo and Tomás, who had been peering over the bed to watch our confrontation, smiled nervously and ducked back down to work on whatever they were doing.

  “Sorry about that,” I said to Jessica. “Just give me a minute to wash my hands, and then I can show you some more of the rooms. Martha, mind if I use your bathroom?”

  “Be my guest, doll.” Martha could be touchy, but clearly browbeating Clay had put me in her good graces for the time being.

  “Is it always this … dramatic?” Jessica asked, as she followed me across the hall.

  “Darlin’, we’re decorators,” Eustace said. “We all have egos and pinking shears, and tempers usually get a little short this close to an opening. It’ll all turn out okay. Don’t worry.”

  Was he reassuring Jessica or me? He smiled, lifted one forefinger to his temple in ironic salute, and went back downstairs.

  “He’s not far off,” I said.

  Jessica followed me through the Princess Room, where Violet was making little squeaking noises of dismay while rolling up the paint-stained petit-point rug. Jessica stopped to take a few shots of the damage.