I looked at Denver and stopped waving the gun, pointing it instead at Amber Dawn.
“Not you, Denver, certainly,” I said, getting to my feet. “But I’ll be more than happy to make Amber Dawn a lot less attractive real fast.”
Denver didn’t take my meaning and started toward me to finish the job she started. I pulled the hammer back on the .38, cocked it and leveled it squarely at Amber’s face. I didn’t know if I could do it, but if not, I was going to play the bluff to the bitter end.
“Stop!” shouted Isabel. Denver looked back at her, puzzled as a gorilla in one of those wax banana factories.
I had figured there was more to Isabel and Amber’s relationship than met the eye and that Isabel wasn’t about to sacrifice her to a beat up gumshoe.
“I can finish him,” growled Denver.
“Maybe,” I said, “maybe not. I might get off one shot, maybe two. Either way, someone besides me is goin’ out of here feet first.” I spit out another tic-tac.
“Now what?” said Isabel, her eyes as narrow as Jimmy Swaggart’s theology.
I pulled some handcuffs from my back pocket and tossed them to her.
“Now you cuff your goon to the piano.” I kept my eyes on Denver but my gun was still pointed at Amber’s lovely visage. Isabel pulled Denver back across the room and cuffed her wrist to the leg of the upright.
Suddenly Amber lunged for the gun on the desk. Isabel dropped down onto one knee in a classic shooting stance, bringing up a heretofore hidden automatic of her own. Denver heaved toward me with the piano in tow like a Clydesdale pulling a beer truck.
That’s when the fun started.
• • •
“Hmmm, what’s that?” asked Meg, climbing into the truck and commenting on the music. This was one of the few times I could remember that she didn’t have a disparaging comment about my mode of transport, probably because we were off to the Pine Valley Christmas Tree Farm and could use the four-wheel drive, but also due to the fact that the heater had stopped working in her Lexus and at three o’clock the temperature was eighteen degrees and dropping.
“A Renaissance Christmas. The Waverly Consort.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“I’ve had thealbum since college, but I just now found it on CD. When are you getting your heater fixed?” I asked.
“I have to take it in to Asheville tomorrow morning. There’s no one around here to do warranty work. They’ll give me a loaner.”
“Ah,” I said, mentally checking my apprehension about having Rhiza visit the house tomorrow morning.
We drove up to the Pine Valley Christmas Tree Farm to the sounds of Renaissance Christmas carols and a few unaccompanied motets of Palestrina. I was definitely feeling the spirit of the season by the time we reached the snow covered rows of seven foot tall blue spruce—my personal favorite. Meg and her mother had put their tree up weeks ago and by Christmas it would be hanging on to its remaining needles like grim death. I liked my trees fresh, preferring to get them later in the season and leave them up until January sixth, Epiphany being the traditional end to the twelve days of Christmas.
We parked and went inside the cabin that served as the sales office. There was a fire blazing in the old stone fireplace and Ardine McCollough was sitting on the couch in front of the fire with an afghan draped over her shoulders reading a magazine. She got up and greeted us as we shook the snow from our boots.
“I hope y’all dressed warm.”
“We did indeed,” said Meg.
“Do you want to pick one out? I can come and cut it down for you if you want. There hasn’t been many folks out here the last few days. Everybody’s got their trees by now I ’spect.”
“I’ve got a saw. You just wait here,” I told her. “It’s pretty cold out there. You have any matches?”
“I sure don’t. You know, we had some books printed up a couple years ago, but they’ve been gone since I-don’t-know-when. Nothin’s gonna burn out there anyway. I got a lighter, if you want it.”
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
“You want a blue spruce? The six-foot trees are sixty, the seven-footers are eighty. If you want an eight-footer I can give it to you for forty-five. Next year they’ll be too big to sell and we’ll have to make wreaths out of them.”
“I’ll get an eight-footer then.”
“They’re down the hill in the far lot. Drive on down past the pond, turn right and you’ll see them there on the left. There aren’t a whole lot left, but they’re all pretty.”
“You’re going to need some more Christmas lights,” Meg quipped, heading for the door and pulling her cap down around her ears.
• • •
We found our tree in short order, cut it down with the chainsaw I had put in the back of the truck, loaded it up and were heading back to the cabin to pay Ardine—all in about twenty minutes. I suspected that the tree was closer to nine feet than eight, but I had the room and I figured that the owner wouldn’t mind too much.
I paid Ardine the forty-five dollars and mentioned that I’d be by on Christmas E with some presents for the kids. She nodded and smiled gratefully. I’d been their Santa Claus for the past four or five years.
It was already dark when we got to the cabin. We spent the next hour getting it in the stand, set in the living room and tied off to the walls. It was Meg who suggested we head for town.
“We don’t want to be late for The Crèches of St. Germaine.”
“We don’t want to be early either. It’s down to six degrees.”
“At least your heater works.”
• • •
We pulled up to the police station and parked in my reserved spot. It was only a couple blocks from the festivities and if worse came to worst, we could duck into the station to warm up. Apparently the rest of the crowd wasn’t as worried about the cold weather. There were at least a couple of hundred people chatting, singing carols and braving the cold and the snow, which was starting to come down steadily. Everyone was bundled up, having a good time and the holiday spirit seemed to be pervasive.
At seven on the dot, the back door of the Rotarian display opened up and the players got into position. The displays were static—that is, the players struck a tableau and stood there for the entire hour-and-a-half while music played in the background. The public wasn’t expected to stay for the entire time—just as long as it took to get the Weinachtsgeist, the Christmas Spirit—so mothers weren’t too worried about their kids getting frostbite. The characters, however, would be feeling the cold pretty fiercely in about twenty minutes.
“How long do we have to stay?” asked Meg, already feeling a little chilled despite the silk long underwear, two sweaters, an insulated ski suit, a coat, a fur hat with ear flaps and electric socks and gloves.
“Till the bitter end.”
The Kiwanians were in position shortly after seven. They had built a small petting zoo that contained a miniature donkey, a calf, two lambs, a llama and a St. Bernard puppy named Bertram. There was a veterinarian dressed in ancient Hebrew garb who had been with the animals since six in case the kids wanted to come early and see them. By seven, the calf was starting to show some distress and one of the lambs had gone to sleep and wouldn’t wake up, so the vet had taken them all back to his heated van, except the llama and the puppy, who was apparently very excited and in his element.
The Nana Pealers, Senior Adult Handbell choir from the Baptist Church, had gotten there at about a quarter till seven and set up their handbell tables to the side of the Kiwanian crèche. The wind was beginning to pick up and the Kiwanians, being on the north side facing south, were going to get the worst of it.
At about five after seven, the handbell choir was ready to play and most of the crowd had moved to the north side of the street. Apparently the ringers had their music memorized because they weren’t using any scores. There was a number of bells placed on the tables in front of the choir as well as two, three, or in some cases four bells in each
of the players hands. They started playing a lively arrangement of The Carol of the Bells and were about thirty seconds into the piece when the first bell shattered.
It didn’t make a loud sound. Just a dull ‘clink’ as the bell broke in half. In the next ten seconds, twelve more bells cracked before the director realized what was happening and stopped the performance. With frozen tears in her eyes, she muttered an apology and the choir started packing up their equipment.
Across the street, the Rotarians and their cast were poised in position. The effect was stunning. The snow was falling harder now and Mrs. Horst, portraying the innkeeper’s wife, was on the balcony in a welcoming pose beckoning all who were weary and heavy laden to come in to the warmth of the stable. But Mrs. Horst’s lips were quickly turning blue.
The Rotarians’ bagpiper showed up at about ten after seven, got his pipes out, gave a couple of preliminary honks and then took off on the bagpipe version of Frosty The Snowman. This caused Seymour Krebbs’ camel, an adolescent last year, but this year a full grown bull, to look around the stable and try to find just what or who was bellowing the mating call of the dromedary.
When the first drone of the pipes had begun to sound, the crowd had moved from the angelic clanking of the breaking bells, across the street to the dulcet tones of a bagpipe and the artistic bellowing of a camel in heat. Joseph and Mary were glancing nervously across the stable, showing absolutely no parental loyalty to the 40 watt light bulb glowing reverently in the manger. They were trying to hold their nativic poses and not bolt and run. The shepherds, most of whom were teenaged boys, had huddled against one of the walls, their eyes looking for a quick and unobtrusive escape.
Seymour was hanging onto the halter of the beast, trying his best to pull it back out of the stable, but to no avail. He was little more than an irritation.
“Don’t shoot the camel,” Meg said. “It’s not his fault.”
I didn’t want to shoot the camel, but I wouldn’t have minded shooting the bagpiper if I had to.
Two more shepherdic Rotarians from the plains of Judea had grabbed onto the camel’s halter and the animal was having a bit more trouble slinging the combined weight of the three men around the stable than it did tossing Seymour. Another of the club members had finally tackled the piper just as he got to “Thumpetty-thump-thump, look at Frosty go.”
The pipes wheezed to a stop and the camel seemed to calm down. Then, as the men relaxed their grip, the animal raised his head to his full nine feet, lifted his nose into the air and spat directly at Mrs. Horst, who was leaning over her balcony rail viewing the festivities. It hit her directly in the face. Caught by surprise, Mrs. Horst yelped and threw herself backward against the opposite rail which, unfortunately, was not reinforced to the extent of holding someone of her particular girth. As the rail gave way and Mrs. Horst fell with a screech into a large haystack placed there to provide the animals with three days worth of fodder, another scream was heard from the crowd. It came from a mother holding her young son in her arms and covering his eyes. Before them was a sight that St. Germaine won’t soon forget—a mature bull camel in full sexual arousal lit from beneath with the luminescent glow of a 40 watt manger.
“O my GOD!” said Meg amidst the gasps from the crowd. “O my GOD! How could...? Is that...? I just don’t believe it!”
I was still trying to decide whether to shoot the bagpiper out of moral justification, but the sight of a male camel with love on its mind made me decide otherwise. If that camel got loose, anything I would do to the bagpiper, including shooting him, would be counted a blessing.
By this time, the entire cast of The Kiwanis Christmas had crossed the street to watch Seymour and his cohorts, all dressed as shepherds, trying to pull the camel from the staging area. Seymour has since told me that there is nothing quite so stubborn as a camel in full bloom, and it looked as though the twelve-hundred-pound animal wasn’t going anywhere until its dreams of dromedary desire were fulfilled. Just then, Bertram, the St. Bernard puppy who had squeezed under the rail to see what all the commotion was, attached its jaws to the camel’s hind leg, causing the animal to disregard all of its romantic notions and leave the stable at a dead run dragging a bevy of shepherds and the dog behind it down the snow covered street.
There wasn’t much talking in the aftermath, most of the spectators being stunned to silence.
Suddenly, from the crowd, came a sweet little voice.
“Mommy, is that an angel?”
All eyes raised to the star on the pole above the manger, shining through the swirling snow and illuminating the feminine form hanging unsupported about six feet above the stable. It settled slowly. It was a naked woman with, as it said in the brochure, “many anatomical enchantments.” Mrs. Horst, who had struggled uninjured to her feet, looked up, gave a thin wail and fainted.
“That one’s mine, too,” shouted Arlen from the back of the crowd.
• • •
Since it was now two degrees above zero with the wind beginning to pick up, The Crèches of St. Germaine was canceled due to the weather at 7:23 p.m. And because there was no break in the Arctic front expected and the forecast was for three feet of snow, the next two nights were canceled as well.
?
“I glad we didn’t miss that one,” said Meg on the way back to the cabin. “And to think you wanted to stay home and decorate the tree.”
“We can still finish it I think. And I’ve been giving Archimedes about seven mice a day. He’s due for a few.”
“Where are you getting all the mice?”
“From Kent Muphee down in Boone. He can get frozen mice by the case. And don’t ask. I don’t know why he’d need them. Just that he can get them from his medical supplier. No formaldehyde. Just frozen.”
“So you have...?”
“Three cases in treezer. About six hundred mice. Oh, and a bag of baby squirrels.”
Chapter 19
My first shot missed, but my second hit Isabel in her right shoulder and spun her to the ground, causing her shot to go wild, hitting Denver Tweed in the leg and dropping her like a three-legged donkey on St. Swithen’s Day. Two down with one lucky shot. Lucky for Isabel, that is. I was aiming for her head.
“You realize, of course, that this mystery series may actually be the worst thing ever written. And I’m not kidding.”
Meg was scrolling through the chapters as I was putting the finishing touches on the tree.
I chomped thoughtfully on my R&J cigar, leaning out precariously on the ladder to place the star atop the now decorated conifer.
“I mean, really. A three-legged donkey on St. Swithen’s Day?”
“Hmmm,” I said, coming down the ladder and surveying the tree. “The choir seems to like it.”
The tree looked pretty good.
“They just said they liked it to be kind. Besides, you have enough chapters to fill their choir folders from now till Pentecost. I suggest you wrap it up and start a new mystery in the spring.”
“You just want me all to yourself,” I said.
“You’re such a clever lad,” Meg said.
Archimedes had graduated from the kitchen to the living room. Although the frigid air didn’t seem to bother him, he seemed to prefer the warmth of the fire and the plate of mousy snacks that Meg had left for him on the table. I had called my contractor and despite the cold weather and the Christmas season, gotten him to come out to the house and install an automatic window for lack of a better term—something of my own design. Archimedes could step up to the kitchen window, trigger the electric eye and the window would slide open, allowing Archimedes access to the warmth of the house. Likewise, he could return to the wild at his leisure. It took no time at all for the owl to learn the trick and it saved leaving the window open for him to arrive. I must say, the first time I saw the bird gliding noiselessly through the house, finally landing on the head of the stuffed elk above the fireplace, I was speechless—as was Meg.
I looked quickly over t
o Amber Dawn, Personal Trainer. She had reached the gun but still looked as unsure about her options as a nun on a double date--options that were changing as quickly as the towel boy in the Vatican basketball locker room.
“Drop it, Amber. I don’t want to shoot you.”
“You wouldn’t shoot me, would you handsome?” Amber squeaked, her lashes going into overdrive.
“In a heartbeat, sweetheart.”
She didn’t believe me, but I was telling the truth. I proved it a moment later.
“You killed Amber? Amber Dawn, Personal Trainer?”
I nodded. “She had to go. It was her or me.”
“At least you spared us the gruesome details.”
“She’s dead all right. As dead as Morning Prayer.”
Isabel groaned, got to her knees and tried to level her own gun at me without success. Denver wasn’t moving.
“Don’t do it Isabel. Or should I say ‘Isadore.’”
“How...how did you know?” He dropped the gun, his shoulders slumping faster than Pete Rose at a poker party.
“I’ve known for years. I just chose to keep your secret. Isadore Gerhardt, famous cross-dressing music evangelist from Pascagoula, Mississippi. I caught your act at the Southern Baptist Convention in ‘74. I knew you were in love with Amber, but the only way she’d be with you was if you were the Bishop.”
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a gigantic shape loom toward me. I spun on my heel and shot quickly, two shots without aiming, my .38 held tight against my hip. The two bullets hit Denver hard but barely slowed her down. She had pulled the leg loose from the piano and was getting ready to finish me when my next shot hit the mark. A puzzled look crossed her face as she sank to the floor.
“That’s six,” said Isadore with an evil grin as I stood contemplating the carnage. He picked his own gun back up off the floor, this time in his left hand.
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