How the Finch Stole Christmas!

by Donna Andrews

  “Can do.”

  “And that will give you time to see if you really want him or her.” The kitten, deprived of his stuffed bear, had gone after Niva’s dangling earrings and had snagged his claws in her lace collar.

  “Oh, don’t worry. He—hmmm.” She abruptly flipped the kitten over, inspected his hindquarters, and nodded matter-of-factly as she turned him right-side up again. “Yes, he. He’s just a kitten. He’ll settle down. And they’ll both bring a little life to the place. Amuse the guests.”

  “Speaking of guests, you have a Ms. Flanders saying here.”

  “Yes—Melisande Flanders—Milly for short.”

  “Is she in?”

  “For the moment. She doesn’t spend much time here.”

  “If it’s the person I’m thinking of, she spends most of her time over at the theater.”

  “That’s the one.” She glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure Ms. Flanders wasn’t in the hallway. “You should see what she’s done to my blue room.” She’d damped down her normally hearty voice to a mere murmur. “Turned it into a shrine for that actor. The one who’s appearing in Michael’s play. I almost had a cow when I first saw it—posters all over the walls! But she was very considerate, really—no tape on the walls or anything destructive like that. She hung all the posters with strings from curtain rods or sprinkler heads. It’s obviously not the first time she’s done this to a rented room. Well, it takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”

  “Do you think I could talk to her?”

  “She hasn’t shown her face yet this morning,” Niva said. “Not surprising, considering how late she came in last night. Nearly three o’clock!”

  “And woke you up, evidently.”

  “I can’t rightly say she did. I was up and down all night, worrying about the storm. She came in real quiet-like—can’t complain about that. But what with hearing the snowplows going by, and worrying about whether the guests who were leaving would be able to get away, and whether the ones due in might cancel—well, I was up and worrying most of the night. Lord, I hope tonight’s guests don’t need anything after dinner, because I’m already dead on my feet.”

  Suddenly she switched back into hearty hostess mode.

  “Good morning!” She beamed at someone over my shoulder. “Milly, wait till you see the cats Meg brought me. Are you hungry? It’s past our usual breakfast service time, but everything’s out of whack with this snow. I could whip you up something.”

  “No thanks.” Milly/Melisande was standing a few steps from the bottom of the stairway. She was already wearing her coat and hat, and was pulling on her gloves. “I’m heading out.”

  “Be careful,” Niva said. “The roads will be slippery.”

  “It’s okay,” Melisande said. “I’m walking.”

  “If you’re going to the theater now, I could give you a ride,” I offered. “I’m going that way anyway, and it’s beastly cold out there.”

  “They say we’re going to have a high of eleven today,” Niva exclaimed. And the wind chill’s below zero.”

  “Well—thank you,” Melisande said.

  Niva showered us with admonitions to stay warm and safe on our way out, and waved as we climbed into the Twinmobile.

  I was just starting the engine when the phone rang. The caller ID showed the police station.

  “I should take this,” I said, turning the engine off again. “What’s up?” I said into the phone.

  “The chief is releasing Mr. Haver,” Kayla said. “At least for the time being. He has no idea where his car is, and it’s probably buried under the snow anyway. Any chance you could pick him up? Or should I call him a cab?”

  “Tell Mr. Haver I’d be happy to take him to the theater.” I watched Melisande’s eyes light up. “I’m only a few blocks away, so it should only take me a few minutes.”

  “Oh, my,” Melisande said, as I started the car again. “I’ve never gone anywhere with Malcolm before. But are you sure it will be okay?”

  “If he’s having one of his fits of artistic temperament, you can wait at the police station, and I’ll circle back and get you as soon as I’ve dropped him off.”

  “I hate to put you to all that trouble.”

  “You wouldn’t be the one putting me to trouble,” I said. “And I appreciate your flexibility.”

  Haver was pacing up and down the stretch of sidewalk in front of the front door of the police station when I pulled up. He didn’t object to Melisande’s presence—I wasn’t even sure he noticed her. He stomped up to the back door of the Twinmobile and hopped in.

  “What took you so long?” he said. “I was freezing out there.”

  “You could have waited inside,” I pointed out. “I’d have come in to find you.”

  “I didn’t want to spend another second in durance vile,” he said. “They’ve had some squalid little murder at the far end of the county, so of course they’re looking to pin it on the outsider.”

  “Doesn’t look as if they’re trying all that hard to pin it on you,” I said. “After all, they let you go pretty quickly.”

  “Because my lawyer pointed out that they have neither a time of death nor a weapon, and that I am alibied for most of the evening. To say nothing of the fact that they cannot come up with a plausible motive for me to kill a man I barely knew.”

  Knowing the chief, I thought it a lot more probable that he was turning Haver loose only to lull him into a false sense of complacency. And maybe to give him scope to do something to incriminate himself.

  “I expect as soon as rehearsal starts they’ll march in with their jackboots and haul me off for another round of the third degree.”

  “Ridiculous!” Melisande burst out. “I know perfectly well that you couldn’t have done this—and I’m sure all your fans will be outraged. We believe in you, even if the police don’t. We’ll organize a demonstration.”

  “Not necessary, my dear,” Haver said. “Not yet, anyway,” he added in an undertone. “But that was an experience! I shall have to use these emotions in my performance! ‘I have almost forgot the taste of fears. / The time has been, my senses would have cool’d / To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair / Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir, / As life were in’t.”

  Macbeth, I noted, as he continued to soliloquize the whole way back to the theater. Macbeth gave way to Hamlet and eventually to Richard III. I more than half suspected that his lawyer had ordered him to say as little as possible in the interrogation room and he was babbling to relieve the unaccustomed stress of having to be silent. Ah, well. Melisande was enchanted, and I was just as happy not to have to make conversation with him.

  When we got to the theater, the lights were on in the box office in the lobby, so I pulled up to the front steps. Haver generally preferred going in the building that way whenever possible—it made for a grander entrance.

  To my surprise, after hopping out of the back seat of the Twinmobile, Haver opened Melisande’s door with a dramatic bow. She sat frozen.

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” she murmured. “I just usually wait by the stage door.”

  “And it’s much too cold for that today,” Haver said. “You should come in to keep warm, and watch the rehearsal. If you sit quietly in the back, no one will mind.”

  She looked at me.

  “If it’s okay with Mr. Haver, it will be fine with Michael,” I said. “Go on.”

  I paused for a moment, watching her float up the broad marble steps on Haver’s arm. I hoped his gracious mood lasted at least a little while. And that he snarled at someone other than her when what I’d come to think of as the real Haver emerged.

  Chapter 27

  “She’s been a fan for over three decades,” I muttered as I drove around to the back to park. “If he hasn’t managed to disillusion her in all that time, I doubt if he’ll do it today.” And there was nothing I could do about it if he did. I parked my car, and slipped in through the back door. Which was propped open again. I confiscated the bit
of wood someone had put in it as a doorstop and added an item to my notebook to research alarms for the door, and meanwhile to put up a stern sign.

  Two o’clock. If things were going well, they might already have finished the first run-through. Probably better if they hadn’t. Michael could just step aside and let Haver take over. Haver often managed to disappear before the fifth act, and it had probably been a while since he’d done the fourth or the fifth wholly sober.

  In the corridors, I ran into O’Manion. He seemed to be coming from Haver’s dressing room.

  “Where the hell do the local cops get off, arresting my client?” he said.

  “They haven’t arrested him,” I said. “They were questioning him. He was one of the last people to see the murder victim alive.”

  “Says who!”

  “Says me,” I snapped back. “Shortly after we talked yesterday I followed him from here to the farm where the murder subsequently took place and watched him buy alcohol from the man who was later killed.”

  O’Manion blinked, and it was a good ten seconds before he found his tongue again.

  “That doesn’t mean Malcolm killed him,” he said. “Ridiculous.” But he said it with much less conviction.

  “You were out looking for him till very late, I heard,” I said. “A pity you didn’t find him.”

  “A pity, yes,” O’Manion said. “Not only didn’t I find him, I got stuck in a snowbank.”

  “You too?” I said. “The same thing happened to Mr. Haver.”

  “Yes, although I managed to dig myself out. Took several hours, and by the time I was finished, I just went back to the hotel to get out of my wet clothes and warm up.”

  Not quite the story Sammy had told. And Sammy’s story might well be confirmed by other deputies, or by the Shiffleys driving the snowplows. I wondered if the chief had talked to O’Manion yet.

  “And then I was awakened by a call from Malcolm, demanding that I find him a defense attorney,” O’Manion went on.

  “And you found him one with admirable speed,” I said.

  “I already had some names,” he said. “Something I do for all my clients when they’re making any kind of protracted stay in a strange place, incidentally,” he added, seeing the look on my face. “Because I know how much prejudice there is in small towns against outsiders, and particularly actors. And my list also includes a dentist, a dry cleaner, and an all-night pizza delivery in towns civilized enough to have one. Do you know you don’t even have a Starbucks in this godforsaken place?”

  “I’m sorry you’re not getting any pleasure out of your visit to Caerphilly,” I said. “But maybe things will pick up soon.”

  He gave me a sharp look—perhaps a guilty conscience was making him wonder if there was a double meaning in my words. A guilty conscience or just a well-developed sense of propriety?

  “You know the police impounded Malcolm’s rental car,” he said.

  “No, but I’m pleased to hear it,” I said. “He doesn’t need a car.”

  “Is that why the owner of the rental agency isn’t returning my phone calls?” he asked. “Have you got him in on the plot along with all the bars and liquor stores?”

  “No, but it’s a small town. He probably knows all about the murder. Maybe he’s squeamish about the possibility of having one of his cars used by someone who might stash a body in the trunk.”

  “And he’s the only agency in town.”

  I nodded.

  “I could call one of the big chains and have them deliver a car,” O’Manion said. “Or I could let him use my car.”

  “That’s your prerogative,” I said. “If you really want to undermine our efforts to keep him sober so he can go onstage tomorrow night.”

  “You want to be the one to tell all this to Malcolm?” he asked.

  “I’d be happy to. The sober companion we’ve hired is on his way here—he should be here by the time rehearsal is over. He can drive Mr. Haver anywhere he needs to go. To and from rehearsals. To and from meals, if Mr. Haver chooses to eat someplace other than the Inn. On personal errands. Anywhere we actually want him to be able to go.”

  “He won’t like it.”

  “He doesn’t have to like it. He just has to put up with it until the play is over.”

  O’Manion shook his head, and his anxious face suggested he might be just a little afraid of his client.

  “You did tell him about the sober companion, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “I did. He told me to … he expressed his distaste for the idea.”

  We stood looking at each other for a few moments.

  “He’s your client—maybe even a friend—after all, you’ve been together for what—forty years?”

  O’Manion nodded. I wasn’t sure if he was agreeing to the friend part or just the forty years.

  “Help us help him,” I said. “Or if you can’t or won’t help, just don’t get in our way.”

  He closed his eyes and nodded. Then he opened his eyes again and shook himself.

  “I’m going to watch the rehearsal.” He strode off toward the stage.

  I went around and made my entrance through one of the doors the audience would use.

  To my relief, rehearsal had begun, and Melisande was sitting quietly in the very back row. She was beaming with delight, so I gathered Haver had held fire while in her company.

  “I’m so excited!” she whispered. “Thank you—I owe this to you. And I promise I’ll stay back here and be quiet as a mouse.”

  “If it’s okay with Mr. Haver it’s fine with me,” I said. “Just remember that if his mood changes—”

  “Of course!” she said. “The minute he says he wants his creative space, I’ll leave.”

  Creative space? More likely he’d tell us to get her the hell out of here. But I kept the thought to myself.

  I turned my attention to the stage where Michael and Haver were sorting out some tricky bit of blocking. Haver’s owlish solemnity suggested he might not be entirely sober, but at least he was, for the moment, here, vertical, and cooperative.

  I wondered if the presence of Mr. O’Manion, now sitting in the front row with folded arms, had anything to do with it.

  Melisande and I watched in silence for a few minutes. At least she was watching. I was focused more on coming up with a suitably subtle way to ask her about Weaseltide. But before I’d come up with anything she leaned over and whispered to me again.

  “Do you know if the college ever lets people use any of their rooms for community events?”

  Bingo!

  “They’ve been known to on occasion,” I said. “You generally have to go through the proper bureaucratic channels, of course, and it helps to know someone at the college. What’s the event?”

  “Well, a lot of Haverers are coming to town for opening night,” she began.

  “Haverers?”

  “That’s what we call ourselves—Malcolm’s most devoted fans. I’m the one who thought that up.” She actually simpered as she said it. “And don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. And we’d like to have a little party together. The landlady at my bed-and-breakfast is very nice, but I can tell she really wouldn’t like the idea of having it in my room—and she’s probably right, we do stay up late and get a little silly. And it’s such a small room that there might not be room for all of us. I remember at Worldcon one year we had over two hundred people! Of course, that was when the show was still running in prime time—a lot of people seem to lose interest after a show goes off the air.”

  She frowned, and shook her head slightly as if the fickleness of these former fans both saddened and puzzled her.

  And the show had been off the air for nearly thirty-five years. To me, the puzzling thing was not that some fans had fallen by the wayside but that any had remained so devoted.

  “I asked at the Inn, but like most hotels, they wouldn’t let us bring our own food in, and their prices were astronomical, and they weren’t exactly encouraging.”
/>   I tried for a moment to imagine her dealing with Ekaterina and shuddered at the thought.

  “So I’ve been asking around town, and I haven’t had much luck,” she said.

  “You asked at the Episcopal church, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but they never got back to me.”

  “Probably because you never really explained what you wanted,” I said. “Although the fact that you didn’t leave them a phone number or an email might also have something to do with it.”

  “Oh!” Her hands flew to her mouth. “I didn’t—but I thought. Oh, goodness. Yes, I probably did forget to give the minister my number. I was so nervous, and she was so … imposing.”

  Imposing? I’d heard Robyn called many things. Deeply spiritual. A fierce advocate for the underdog. A passionate crusader for peace and justice. An inspiring preacher, an excellent organizer, and a serious contender in town’s unofficial contest for best maker of chocolate chip cookies. But imposing? She was about as imposing as Niva’s new kitten.

  “Did she really not understand?” Melisande asked.

  “All you said was that you wanted to hold a Weaseltide celebration,” I said. “At least that’s what she thought you said—maybe she misunderstood you. And if you tried to explain it—”

  “Oh, dear,” she moaned. “Did I do that again? Yes, Weaseltide is what we call our little celebrations.”

  “Not that it’s any of my business—but it’s an odd sort of name. Where did it come from?”

  “From an episode of Dauntless Crusader,” Melisande explained. “Episode thirteen of season two, called ‘The Lady in the Lake.’ Sir Tristan—that was Malcolm’s character—Sir Tristan was supposed to guard a group of nuns who are going on a pilgrimage, and one of them turns out to be the widow of a man he served with in the crusades, and she wants to meet him alone so he can tell her what really happened to her husband. Do you remember the actress who played Sue Ellen on Dallas? J. R. Ewing’s wife? She was—but you don’t want to hear about that, I’m sure. Anyway, at one point in the evening Malcolm bows and says, ‘My lady, I will meet you in the herb garden at eventide.’ Only for some reason it came out garbled, and ‘eventide’ sounded more like ‘weaseltide.’ So that’s what we started calling our little gatherings. Weaseltide.”