How the Finch Stole Christmas!

by Donna Andrews

  I had just turned left, heading for my office, when I heard a noise behind me.

  “Meg?”

  I whirled to find Haver, standing near the other end of the barn. Evidently he’d been hiding behind some of my blacksmithing equipment.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Looking for you, actually,” he said. “I need your help.”

  He wasn’t holding a gun. Of course, I’d turned the one from his dressing room over to the chief, but there were plenty more guns where that had come from. But he wasn’t holding one right now—that was a good sign, wasn’t it? In fact, he was holding out his hands as if pleading with me.

  “You need my help?” I repeated. “With what?”

  “I’m going away,” he said. “The cops are about to arrest me for murder. Arrest me—for murder! Are they crazy?”

  “Maybe they’ve eliminated all their other suspects.”

  “Then there must be some other suspect they haven’t thought of,” he said. “Anyway, I’m not going to stick around to be railroaded. I’m going to blow this pop stand. Stay hidden till they figure out who really did it. Michael can have my part. He’s better at it anyway. Better at it the way I am now—sober, I could give him a run for his money. Maybe I will someday. But not now.”

  “So you’re leaving.” Clearly he was an actor, not a scriptwriter—even I could have scripted a punchier farewell speech.

  “Yeah, but there’s just one thing I need you to do for me. I want you to take care of Fiona.”

  “Fiona?”

  “Here—I’ll show you.”

  He turned and took a few steps back toward where he’d been hiding and ducked behind my forge. I was curious to see what he wanted to ask me, and he sounded harmless enough. Still, I began backing slowly toward the door, with an eye to making a break for it if he emerged from hiding again with the gun.

  But instead he emerged carrying the Gouldian finch in its cage.

  “This is Fiona,” he said. “I can’t take her with me. It’s not fair. Hell, I don’t know what came over me. I’m not fit to take care of a pet. Not right now. When I got her home, I was so excited—I love birds anyway, but there’s something about these finches that really speaks to me—the beautiful plumage, the sweet singing. But then I realized I had no idea what to feed her. I gave her some crackers and granola, but she didn’t seem too crazy about either of them. I tried to call Willimer to ask what she should eat, but he wasn’t home, and I figured I’d go out and find a pet store and ask, but I only found one in the whole town and it was closed by that time, and after that I got stuck in the snow. Never got home again that night. And by the time I did get there, the next morning, I guess the hotel staff had figured out what she needed. Whole sack of birdseed was there waiting for me. Which was nice of them, but it just made it more obvious how unfit I was to take care of her.”

  The whole time he’d been talking, he was staring at the bird with the sort of dopey-eyed half smile you’d see on the face of a middle-school boy in the throes of his first crush. Not just staring at her, but scratching her feathers gently with one finger. Fiona seemed to like that and chirped melodiously.

  “Take care of her.” He pulled out his hand and shoved the cage toward me. “I know if you can’t keep her yourself you’ll find her a good home.”

  “I’ll consider it,” I said. “If you answer a couple of questions.”

  “Anything.” He set Fiona’s cage down in the space between us and drew himself up to his full height.

  “So you say you didn’t kill Willimer—do you know who did?”

  “No.” He shook his head violently. “Why would I want to kill the only man in town who would sell me a drop to drink?”

  “Maybe because you realized he was ruining your chances of a comeback,” I suggested.

  “You’re assuming I’m still sober enough to care about the comeback.” He gave a hollow laugh. “I’m pretty close to not caring about anything but my next drink. I’m sure Vince O’Manion would like to throttle him about the comeback, but—”

  He stopped short and suddenly looked ashen.

  “You don’t suppose it was Vince, do you?”

  “Could be. Chief Burke’s probably still checking out his alibi. But the chief tends to pay a lot more attention to people who run away when he tries to talk to them.”

  “Damn.” Haver seemed stunned at the possibility. “If they lock Vince up, I’ll never get another agent. You have no idea what he’s put up with from me over the years.”

  Actually, I had a pretty good notion, but I didn’t think it would help if I told Haver that. Instead, I asked the question that had really been bothering me.

  “What about your gun?” I asked. “Where is it?”

  “Gun?” He looked genuinely surprised. “I didn’t kill him. I told you that. And I don’t have any gun.”

  “What about the gun that was hidden behind the tile ceiling in your dressing room?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “You didn’t hide your gun there?”

  “I don’t have a gun, so how could I hide one in my dressing room? Are you—oh, my God. Vince!”

  “Your agent?”

  “It could be his. It has to be his.”

  “Does he normally travel with a gun?” It sounded pretty farfetched to me.

  “Yeah.” Haver shook his head as if this baffled him. “He basically thinks there’s no civilization outside of L.A., New York, and maybe London. If he has to go anyplace else, he gets totally paranoid, like it’s someplace out of Deliverance and brings his peashooter. And yesterday we got into it a bit about my drinking—he was telling me if I got pulled over for drinking here, he would have no way to fix it, much less keep it out of the papers, and did I want to see headlines like ‘Hollywood Has-Been in DUI.’ And I was trying to get back at him, so I said that maybe he should be careful himself, because ‘Over-the-hill Agent Arrested with Concealed Weapon’ wasn’t much better. And then I had to go to rehearsal, so I stormed out.”

  “And you think O’Manion hid his gun in your dressing room while you were out?”

  “I have no idea—I wasn’t there. But he could have. That’s the only way I can think of that there’d be a gun there.”

  It sounded plausible enough. I’d pass it along to the chief. Maybe he could confiscate O’Manion’s gun and see if it was the murder weapon. And—

  “How nice,” came a voice from behind me. “Just the two people I wanted to see.”

  Haver’s head jerked toward the voice, and he didn’t look happy. I turned to see what was up.

  Mrs. Frost was standing in the doorway pointing a gun at us.

  Chapter 37

  “Who’s that?” Haver asked.

  “John Willimer’s mother,” I said.

  “The old bat in the wheelchair?”

  I winced. Haver had a lot to learn about not ticking off people who were pointing guns at him. But Mrs. Frost seemed to find his words amusing.

  “Yes, the old bat in the wheelchair.” She chuckled. “Funny, isn’t it, how everyone overlooks old people. Especially old women. You were so hell-bent on getting your bottle you probably didn’t even notice me.”

  “I noticed you.” Haver shook his head. “Don’t remember much about you, though. I was kind of distracted by the seven million damned cats.”

  My mind was sorting through the possible implications of Mrs. Frost’s unsuspected mobility. Sorting through them and not liking them one bit. I decided at least to pretend to assume she was pointing the gun at Haver because she thought he’d killed her son-in-law and wanted revenge.

  “Look, Mrs. Frost, there seems to be some doubt about Mr. Haver’s guilt, after all,” I began. “Please don’t shoot him until we find out for sure. There’s some very good evidence to suggest that Mr. Haver’s agent shot Johnny.”

  “His agent! Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “I shot the bastard.”

  “Oh, God, no,” Haver moaned.


  “But why?” I asked. She liked to talk. Now was a good time to keep her talking until I could figure out some way to get us out of this.

  “He was a jerk,” she said. “He’d been sponging off me for years. Couldn’t hold down a job. Drove my Becky to drink—she might be still alive if it wasn’t for him. And he was threatening to turn me in.”

  “Turn you in?” Did she mean to Social Services? “For what—having too many cats?”

  “Too many cats!” She seemed to find that funny. “Did you really think Johnny was the brains behind the animal business? He was terrified of anything bigger than a puppy. Hell, sometimes I think he was scared of the puppies.”

  “But he was the one who sold me Fiona,” Haver said.

  “The finch?” Mrs. Frost snorted. “Not without running into the house to ask my permission and find out what price to ask. And he overcharged you, you know. Doubled what I told him to ask for and kept the extra cash for himself.”

  Haver blinked in surprise. He looked at Fiona mournfully. I hoped knowing she wasn’t as expensive as he’d thought she was didn’t cool his enthusiasm for her.

  “Johnny always was a sneak,” Mrs. Frost went on. “But I figured if he was starting to pull stupid stuff like that, it was time to get rid of him.”

  “So you shot him? With that?” I nodded at the gun she was holding. “But how did you ever get it out of your house?” Surely perky Meredith hadn’t obligingly packed it for her.

  “I didn’t, honey—you did. In the litter box. In a plastic bag, so the litter and the cat pee wouldn’t get to it.”

  “So all that fuss about bringing your favorite cat and his special litter box was just a ruse to get the gun out of the house. And the wallet, too, I suppose. How did you manage to plant that in Haver’s room?”

  “Got the maid to let me in to see the bird,” she said. “And hopped out of the wheelchair for a few seconds when she went into the bathroom to scrub the john.”

  “If you hadn’t come in here, we’d probably still be trying to figure that out,” I said.

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “I overheard you talking to that nosy Russian bitch. The two of you were getting way too close. And planning to go to the cops. I knew I’d have to arrange accidents for the both of you. Didn’t expect you to give me such a perfect opportunity so soon, but I do appreciate it. Now—let’s see how we’re going to arrange this.”

  My mind was scrambling, trying to come up with a plan. She was standing just inside the barn door, which was by far the closest exit, and probably the only unlocked one. She had her back to my office door—what if I pretended to see someone behind her, so she’d whirl around and—

  No. What if she not only whirled around but fired in the direction I’d been looking. She’d be firing at the door of my office. The office that was filled with puppies. I could hear their faint whining and yipping still. A glance to my right wouldn’t be any better—it could induce her to fire into the wall of cat carriers. And she was keeping too close an eye on the barn door to fool her into suspecting a threat from that direction.

  “I really should shoot you first,” Mrs. Frost said. “The scenario I’m going for is that Haver here shot you, and then committed suicide.”

  “If only I’d gone for the dinner theater job,” Haver moaned.

  “You’ll have a hard time making it believable,” I said.

  “Well, they might guess it was a double murder instead of a murder/suicide,” she said. “But they won’t have a clue it was me. I’ll be sitting in the front seat of your car, feebly calling for help.”

  “I could be doing Mousetrap in Fort Myers.” Haver wasn’t even watching her, just standing there with his eyes closed, awaiting his fate.

  Maybe I could manage to fake with eyes left, to the barn door. She might fall for it. If only I could count on Haver to do something useful when I made my break.

  Just then I heard a slight creaking noise. I looked over Mrs. Frost’s shoulder to see that the door to my office was open a crack. Hope surged. Was someone in there?

  “And do you really think I’m going to fall for that old trick, dearie?” Mrs. Frost said. “The eyes widened in concern for something you see behind my back? Nonsense!”

  No, it wasn’t nonsense. Suddenly my office door swung open and a tidal wave of golden retriever puppies spilled out into the barn, yipping with delight.

  Mrs. Frost’s gaze wavered for a moment, and I decided this was our chance.

  “Take cover!” I shouted to Haver.

  I gave him a shove in the right direction before following my own order and darting behind one of the tall metal storage cabinets that held my tools and supplies. I armed myself as well as I could, grabbing a half-finished fireplace poker in one hand and a ball peen hammer in the other.

  “Cry ‘Havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war!” Haver proclaimed. Instead of taking cover, he’d climbed on top of my worktable, as if the puppies were the danger rather than Mrs. Frost.

  A few of the puppies were running toward him, or me, or exploring the far reaches of the barn, but most of them had converged on the first human being they’d encountered. They were leaping on Mrs. Frost’s legs, barking at her, and grabbing the cuffs of her bright green stretch pants with their sharp little teeth.

  “That this foul deed shall smell above the earth / With carrion men, groaning for burial,” Haver continued. Still quoting Julius Caesar, I noted mechanically.

  Mrs. Frost was kicking at the puppies, and using language that most little old ladies of my acquaintance either didn’t know or refrained from using in public. Fortunately, she didn’t seem inclined to use up any of her ammunition on the puppies. Also, fortunately, her kicking wasn’t hard enough to hurt the puppies. In fact, they seemed to think she was playing with them, and more and more of them joined in the exciting game of tugging on her pants legs, trying to topple her.

  “Get these monsters away from me!” she shouted.

  “I gin to be aweary of the sun / And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.” Haver had snatched up a three-foot iron rod that had been lying on the table, awaiting its turn to become a poker, and was waving it wildly overhead. I wondered if there was any significance to the fact that he’d switched from Julius Caesar to Macbeth.

  I’d worry about that later. Seeing that Mrs. Frost was starting to lose her balance, I crept out from behind the cabinet, hammer and poker at the ready, and began sidling along the side of the barn, preparing either to jump her or make a beeline out the door, whichever seemed possible.

  She toppled over suddenly, and fell over backward into the throng of puppies. A few puppies, who didn’t get out of the way fast enough, yelped in pain as they wriggled out from under her, but most yipped and began enthusiastically licking her face. Or her neck. Or whatever part of her body they could reach.

  I dashed over, pinned her wrist to the ground with the poker, and scooped up the gun.

  “Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!” Haver exclaimed, waving his arms wildly. “At least we’ll die with harness on our back.”

  He jumped down from the table with a wild yell that was no doubt intended as a war cry. But he landed unsteadily, shouted “ow!” and was easily toppled over by a contingent of puppies that had grown bored with chewing Mrs. Frost’s shoelaces and were looking for new challenges.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Get those horrible things off me!” Mrs. Frost screamed.

  “I may have sprained my ankle,” Haver announced. “That was the sort of thing that I would have left to the stunt men, even in my callow youth.”

  “Do you think you can still go on?” I asked. “Onstage, that is.”

  “Of course I can,” he said. “If you still want me. I think Scrooge would work with a limp.”

  “There should be some duct tape over on the table you leaped off of,” I said.

  “I’d rather have my ankle bandaged by qualified medical personnel if it’s all the sam
e to you.”

  “The duct tape is for Mrs. Frost, not you,” I said. “See if you can limp over to get it, and make sure she can’t so much as move a finger.”

  “To hear is to obey,” he said.

  “Mommy?”

  I looked up to see a head peering out of my office door.

  “Jamie? What are you doing here?”

  “We came out to play with the puppies while Aunt Rose Noire finished packing up her dishes for the potluck supper,” Jamie said. “When we heard the little old lady saying nasty things to you, Josh climbed out the window and went to the house to call the police. And I let the puppies out so they could rescue you.”

  “You did splendidly,” I said. “Both of you.”

  “Everything’s okay now, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Should I go tell Josh to call 911 again and tell them not to come?”

  “No.” I was keeping my eyes on Mrs. Frost. “I think Chief Burke would like to talk to both of these people. You go back to the house and tell Josh and Rose Noire to stay there until I’m finished here. And you stay and make sure they do it.”

  “Okay.” The prospect of bossing his twin around did a lot to relieve his anxiety.

  Though it was probably too late to keep Rose Noire in the house. I could hear her voice outside, coming rapidly closer.

  “Meg? What’s going on? Meg?”

  And in the distance I could also hear sirens.

  “Do you think the police can finish with us in time to get to rehearsal?” Haver asked.

  “Odds are good,” I said. “The chief knows how important the dress rehearsal is to the success of the play.”

  “Excellent! Because now that I’m vindicated, I can’t wait to go onstage. ‘Spirit! hear me!’” He struggled to his knees, carefully brushing the odd puppy aside, and assumed the pose he used when Scrooge finally repented at the feet of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. “‘I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope? Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life.’”