Death, Snow, and Mistletoe

by Valerie S. Malmont

  Because it was late and everybody was so downhearted, I was surprised when Maggie and Ginnie immediately agreed to come over. Even Primrose accepted, saying she'd be along as soon as she could tell her husband where she was going. However, since the reverend was very busy shaking hands and hugging babies, that might be a while.

  Driving Garnet's truck, with Praxythea practically glowing in the dark beside me, I drove home to Moon Lake with Maggie and Ginnie following close behind in their cars.

  Praxythea shed her white fur coat, covered her white satin gown with her organdy apron, piled little moon-shaped cookies on Wedgwood plates, and poured chips into ceramic bowls. While I petted Noel, who was obviously depressed at being separated from Fred, Ginnie poured eggnog and a bottle of brandy into the Waterford punch bowl, and Maggie, following orders from Praxythea, searched for linen napkins in a drawer in the pantry.

  We carried everything into the front parlor, where the giant Christmas tree stood. Oohs from Ginnie and aahs from Maggie pleased Praxythea, who recounted the story about bringing it from Lancaster strapped to the roof of a stretch limo.

  “Here we go,” Praxythea said. “I made popcorn this afternoon—for stringing. There's red construction paper and paste for making garlands. Does everybody remember how from kindergarten? And,” she said, pointing to three enormous cardboard boxes, “I bought a few little ornaments to fill in the gaps. Lights go on first, I think. My household staff usually takes care of that part.”

  “Me, too,” Maggie giggled. “My butler does it all.”

  We wound the strings around the tree and plugged them in. After a few bulb replacements, the tree sparkled with hundreds of tiny white lights.

  Ginnie ladled eggnog into four crystal mugs, then settled down on a sofa with a bag of popcorn, a needle, and a spool of plastic thread, while Maggie gravitated toward the construction paper. “Just like the children's room at the library,” she said.

  Praxythea handed me a bowl of cranberries. “Why don't you string these?” she suggested before leaving the room.

  It was an impossible task. The little red balls were as hard as rocks. I stabbed myself with the needle half a dozen times and only succeeded in staining my fingertips red.

  “I give up,” I announced. “Hand me a bag of popcorn, please.”

  It was much easier to poke a needle through the soft popcorn, and an added benefit was I could nibble on it as I worked. While my popcorn garland lengthened, I couldn't help thinking this was a sad little gathering, despite all of Praxythea's attempts at gaiety. I was feeling lonelier by the minute and missed my cat, Garnet, my mother, and my few good friends in New York. For the first time in many years, I thought about Nobuko, the Okinawan woman who lived with us from the time I was born and was practically my second mother, and wondered how she was.

  Praxythea, despite her fame, also claimed to have no one in her life. Ginnie was a widow, who'd moved to a town where outsiders were rarely accepted. And Maggie? I wondered why she wasn't with her fiance this evening.

  “When are we going to have the snacks?” Maggie asked after we'd worked for twenty minutes or so. “I'm getting hungry.”

  “I thought we'd wait for Primrose,” Praxythea said. “Have some more eggnog.” She had returned, with Icky draped over her left shoulder. “He was lonely.” She stroked the beast's head.

  “Yuck!” Ginnie squealed. “It looks like a dragon. Keep it away from me—far away.”

  Maggie didn't say anything, but she quietly placed her scissors and paste on the couch cushion next to her so Praxythea couldn't sit there.

  “I don't understand you three,” Praxythea said. “He's a sweetheart. Iguanas may look frightening, but they are really very gentle. Why, just last night, he—” The ringing of chimes interrupted her. “What's that?”

  “It's the front doorbell.” I took off for the front hall at a run, praying that the person on the porch wouldn't be crushed to death by the roof before I got there.

  I jerked open the door, dragged Primrose in by one arm, then closed the door gently so as not to disturb anything.

  “Well!” Primrose said, shaking off my hand. “That was some greeting.”

  “I'm sorry. It's just that the porch roof is about to collapse. I guess you didn't see my sign.”

  “It would help if you turned on the porch light. A person could break her neck out there in the dark.”

  She placed the small paper bag she was holding on the silver calling-card tray next to the door. I assumed she'd brought something to eat, or maybe even an ornament for the tree. “Why, thank you, Primrose—” I began.

  “Don't thank me. I found it next to your front door. It has your name on it.”

  As she shrugged off her coat, a burst of laughter came from the front room. I had the feeling the “girls” had dipped into the eggnog again.

  “You've got to see what Maggie's made for us,” Praxythea called.

  “Come on in and have some of Praxythea's crescent cookies,” I told Primrose. “They look wonderful.” I led her into the parlor, where she was greeted with warm cries of welcome from the three women wearing red and green crowns decorated with popcorn “jewels.”

  Praxythea poured eggnog for Primrose and refilled Ginnie's and Maggie's cups. I declined, since I really don't care for sweet drinks.

  “I found a tape player and some Christmas tapes in the dining room breakfront while I was looking for the punch bowl,” Praxythea announced. She fiddled for a moment or two with the little black box until Andy Wil-liams's smooth baritone voice filled the room with “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

  After several more cups of eggnog, our homemade decorations were complete—and only a little peculiar-looking. We danced around the tree, entwining the popcorn strings and paper garlands, while Bobby Vinton sang “Christmas Eve in My Home Town.”

  “It is beautiful. Really beautiful,” Praxythea announced. “It looks as I imagined it would. So country. So homey. So old-fashioned. So—”

  “So tacky,” Maggie interrupted. “Let's put the store-bought decorations on. It might look better.”

  We unloaded Praxythea's ornament boxes. Everything was very lovely and very expensive-looking, although I thought she'd gone rather heavy on stars and moons. We loaded the branches and stepped back to admire our work.

  “Now it's beautiful,” Maggie said. “So elegant. So sophisticated. So—”

  While she grasped for another adjective, Praxythea interrupted. “Let's toast the tree.”

  We switched off the lamps, so the only light in the room came from the tree. With arms entwined, we sang “Silent Night” with Perry Como.

  I heard several sniffles. “‘Silent Night’ always makes me cry,” Ginnie said.

  Maggie handed her a Kleenex, then blew her own nose. “Me, too.”

  Even Praxythea's eyes were moist, and Primrose kept her face turned away from us.

  “What makes me cry is seeing a group of women who have had too much to drink acting maudlin,” I said. “I do believe the party's over.”

  I wasn't about to let any of them drive home in that condition. Maggie accepted my invitation to sleep over.

  “I'll walk home and pick up my car in the morning,” Ginnie said.

  “And I'll call my husband,” Primrose announced.

  It was about another half hour before Reverend Flack arrived and the party officially ended. At first, I interpreted Reverend Flack's frowning countenance as disapproval, but then I realized it was really concern. He helped his wife into her coat, propped her up against the wall in the kitchen, and went back to the living room with me to find her bag.

  “You're a very understanding husband,” I remarked as we hunted for her purse among the empty ornament boxes.

  “I'm not one to throw stones,” he said. “Christmas is a rough time of year for my wife. It brings back memories of her birth parents. They died in a car accident on Christmas Eve when Primrose was seven.”

  “I'm sorry. I didn't know that.”r />
  “It's not the kind of thing that would come up in casual conversation. Ah! Here it is.” He held up Primrose's missing purse.

  “Thank you for having her over tonight, Tori. Mostly, local people wouldn't think of inviting her to something like this. I believe they think a minister's wife has to be serious all the time.”

  We rejoined the ladies and the lizard in the kitchen.

  “I'll drop Ginnie off at her house,” Reverend Flack said.

  “What a nice man,” I said, after they'd left. “I wonder if I'll ever have someone like that in my life.”

  “You already do,” Praxythea said, placing Icky back in his glass home.

  “I wonder … Let's put the cookies and chips away and get to bed.”

  We went back to the parlor and gathered up the debris from our party.

  “What about the paper and empty ornament boxes?” Praxythea asked.

  “We can get all that in the morning. I'll just out the lights in the foyer.”

  “‘Out the lights'?”

  “I'm speaking Lickin Creekese,” I said as I went into the front hall. There I saw the paper bag with my name on it.

  “What's that?” Praxythea said behind me.

  “I don't know. Primrose said she found it on the porch.” I opened the bag and peeked in.

  “Odd. It looks like a stuffed toy.” I pulled the little object out of the bag. It was one of those collectible bean-bag animals. Orange and white. Like Fred.

  “Why, it's a little toy cat. How cute,” Praxythea cooed.

  “It's not cute at all.” I held it so Praxythea could see there was a knife stuck in its belly, and some of the beans clattered onto the floor.

  “Oh, my God!” I screamed.

  “What?”

  “A note. On the back of the tag.” I couldn't bring myself to read the foul words out loud and handed it to Praxythea.

  She read, “‘Stay out of our business or I'll do this to your other cat, too.’”

  CHAPTER 16

  Jolly old Saint Nicholas

  THE BLUSTERING WIND THREATENED TO PUSH my truck into a barren field as I drove the very quiet Maggie home on Saturday morning. Her face was a ghastly shade of green, and she kept the window on her side open all the way despite the near freezing temperature.

  Hangover-free, I felt really pure, having chosen for once not to overindulge.

  “Oh, shut up,” Maggie said to me.

  “I didn't say a word,” I protested.

  “You were thinking I'm an idiot. Well, I am.”

  I couldn't argue with that.

  “I'll never do this again.”

  “We've all said that, Maggie. Many times.”

  “This time I mean it.”

  Bill Cromwell, Maggie's fiance, was waiting for us outside their small split-level home. As he walked over to the truck, I noticed he still walked with a limp, a painful reminder of our adventure last fall when he was injured while trying to help me trap a killer. He was wearing his Union Army general officer's uniform, plumed hat and all.

  “Kinky,” I said to him. “Do you hang around your house all weekend in that getup?”

  He grinned and opened the door on Maggie's side.

  Maggie looked up from her struggle to unbuckle her seat belt and laughed. “His regiment is going to be in the Christmas parade today. Doesn't he look glorious?”

  Kind of young and skinny, I thought, but refrained from saying so. I still wondered why Maggie came to the funeral service alone last night, but if there was a problem between them, she kept it to herself.

  I drove on to the Sigafoos Home for the Aged, where the Chronicle's Christmas party was to be held.

  “Why a nursing home?” I'd asked Cassie when she told me about the brunch plans she'd made there.

  “Because the Holiday Inn's been booked for months. Besides, the Sigafoos serves good food and is really inexpensive.”

  Inexpensive was the magic word at the fiscally challenged Chronicle.

  The parking lot behind the home was only half full. I pulled in between two black vans. From one came a swarm of little Amish boys, all dressed in identical black overalls, blue shirts, and little flat black hats.

  “ 'Morning, miss,” the non-Amish driver said. “Brought some of your paperboys down from Burnt Stump Hollow. I'll be back to get them after the parade.”

  “What do you mean ‘after the parade'? The brunch only lasts till noon. I can't baby-sit them all afternoon.”

  “You'uns wouldn't want the kiddies to miss the parade, would you? They don't get to town much—just for special occasions like this one.” He tipped his ball cap and pulled out in a rush before I could argue with him.

  “Okay, men,” I said to the children, as we headed toward the canopy-covered back entrance of the nursing home. “Let's party!”

  The Chronicle's “staff” consisted mainly of the delivery team: about fifty boys and girls under the age of twelve and ten retired men who drove the papers to places where the children could pick them up. The rest of the people present were the dozen men and women who sold advertising, six freelance writers, and the printer. Most were already seated, waiting eagerly for breakfast to be served.

  Cassie greeted me with today's paper in hand. “Wait till you see the front page,” she said, laughing.

  I unrolled the paper and was smacked in the face with a headline that said PUBIC SAFETY THREATENED. “Pubic Safety! For God's sake, I know I typed public.”

  “Stuff happens,” she said with a shrug. “Half our readers won't notice. The rest will say something like ‘What do you expect from the Chronicle?' and then forget about it.

  “It looks like everybody's here, Tori. Why don't you make your welcoming speech now?”

  “Welcoming speech? Oh, dear. I never thought about—”

  But Cassie was already tapping a water glass with a knife to attract everyone's attention.

  “Sit down, please. Our editor has a few words to say to you.”

  “Very few,” I promised, and was greeted with enthusiastic cheers from the group.

  I thanked them all for their hard work. More cheers. Urged them to drop by the office any time for a visit. Cheers from the children, a frown from Cassie. Wished them a happy new year. Polite applause. Announced brunch was ready. Standing ovation, followed by a wild charge to the buffet table.

  After everyone, including a few stray nursing home residents who dropped in to see what was going on, had filled their plates, Cassie and I helped ourselves to what was left: dry scrambled eggs, cold English muffins, and warm fruit cups. The coffee was good, though, and plentiful, since very few of the children drank anything but orange juice.

  Everybody seemed to enjoy the party, especially when the waitresses came out with big trays of sticky buns. Everybody but me, that is, for I kept thinking about that dreadful stuffed cat with its stomach slit open that some sadistic person had left on my porch last night. Please, I thought, please let Fred be all right. Who hates me enough to want to hurt my cats? What does anyone have to fear from me?

  As the waitresses cleared the tables, Cassie began distributing gifts. Apparently, I was the only person present who found it odd to have a practitioner of a pagan religion passing out Christmas gifts, but I decided it was quite likely that I was the only one who knew about her unorthodox beliefs.

  Once the food was gone and the gifts were opened, it was time to leave for the parade. The logistics of getting everybody downtown could have been overwhelming, but Cassie had done it before and knew just what to do. After the children put on their coats and mittens, she had them line up side by side, flanked the two rows with the adults, stationed me at the tail end to round up stragglers, and led us out of the nursing home and out onto the sidewalk.

  Four residents of the home, one man and three women in bathrobes and slippers, tried to follow us. One woman was tall and thin, and had silvery-blonde hair pinned in neat curls on top of her head. She looked something like my mother, making me wonder
how Christmas was celebrated at the Willows, where she was warehoused. Or if she even knew it was Christmas.

  When I led them back inside the home, they looked so disappointed that I asked the nurse if I could take them with me.

  “They're going to be in the parade,” she said. “But thanks anyway.”

  I tried to say good-bye to my mother-look-alike, but her attention was already on something else.

  We had only a few blocks to walk, and we soon found a place to stand in the square right in front of the ruins of the burned-out courthouse.

  “This is the best place to be because Santa stops here at the end to pass out candy,” Cassie said. “Yo u 'll be able to get some good pictures here for the paper.”

  Our staff bounced up and down, screaming, “Candy. Yay!”

  Downtown was beautiful, from the white lights in the bare branches of the trees to the red and white plastic candy canes hanging from the streetlights.

  “It's like fairyland,” one of our papergirls said.

  Someone behind me grumbled, “Nothing says Christmas like colored lights.”

  Cassie no longer seemed upset with me, and I was glad for that. For one moment, I considered asking her if I could come to her coven meeting tonight, but in the back of my mind I kept hearing Weezie's voice repeating “baby blood” over and over, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. We chatted amiably about nothing of importance and thanked several people who came up to us to tell us today's edition of the paper was the “best one yet.”

  “I wonder why a paper full of tragedy is so popular?” I asked.

  Cassie shrugged. “After years of looking at our ‘grip and grin’ photographs and reading hot tips from the extension office about the latest developments in cattle food, they probably find it exciting to have something interesting to read about.”

  The sound of a band approaching on a side street caught the crowd's attention, and everyone pushed forward. I worried about my kids losing their places, but they all held their own quite nicely. The high school band came around the corner and was greeted with a rousing cheer. Their instruments were decorated with red ribbons and sprigs of mistletoe.