Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree

by Fran Rizer

  When she ended the call, I went to Otis’s office. “Miss Lettie called,” I said. “She wants a flag presented tomorrow at Mr. Morgan’s service, but he was never in the military. She’s bringing us the one she got at her husband’s funeral.”

  “Never done that before, but Odell and I will present it to her. I don’t see anything wrong with that since the flag belongs to her anyway. So long as what they want isn’t against the law or decency, you know we always aim to please the bereaved.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Otis looked thoughtful. “Callie, I’ve been thinking about renaming our slumber rooms.”

  Dalmation! What now? I don’t think any widow is going to want her big, strapping truck driver husband lying in the Rose Room. Or maybe paint the rooms colors and call them names like at the White House. Mr. Jones is in the Blue Room and Mr. Smith is in the Green Room. Actually, that might not be too bad.

  “A lot of funeral homes call their slumber rooms ‘state rooms.’ That sounds good—like royalty or the Pope lying in state. I think families might like that,” Otis explained.

  “Sounds good.” That’s my answer to any suggestion made by either of my bosses unless I think it’s really terrible. After all, they sign my paychecks.

  “Peace in the Valley” announced an arrival. I met Miss Lettie and Ellen in the hall. Ellen handed me a flag folded in the traditional triangular shape. Miss Lettie stopped by the display case exhibiting Print Memories and Remembrance jewelry. Print Memories are gold and silver items with the deceased loved one’s fingerprints. We’ve sold a few of those, but not a lot. Remembrances are gold and silver chains and bracelets with translucent colored plastic pendants containing a tiny speck of ashes. Of course, lockets to hold cremains have been available for years. I haven’t sold any Remembrances yet, but cremations have increased lately, so someone will probably order one soon.

  “That’s what I want,” Miss Lettie said and pointed at the display.

  “Printies?” I asked, accidentally calling the Print Memories by the nickname Odell called them. “I can take Mr. Morgan’s prints and have one made for you.”

  “No, I want the other thing. One of those pretty necklaces with the plastic drop with some of Jeffrey Junior in it.”

  “Mrs. Morgan,” I said, pronouncing Mrs. as Missssusss like she had earlier, “those are for cremains.”

  “Cremains? What’s that?” Miss Ellen asked.

  “Ashes. Mr. Morgan isn’t being cremated, so there won’t be any ashes.”

  “Put some other part of him in it then,” Miss Lettie insisted.

  My mind immediately went into senseless mode. Did she want me to cut off something like part of her dead son’s little finger to put into a piece of jewelry? Might begin a new business. We could call them “Pinkies.” After that thought, I should have prayed, “Lord, please keep my mind respectful as it should be so nothing like that ever pops out of my mouth and causes me to lose my job.”

  “Put a lock of hair in it,” Miss Lettie suggested. Once more, my mind went off in outlandish directions. The man was bald!

  “I’ll check with Mr. Middleton and see what we can do.”

  Apparently Miss Ellen’s mind had been where mine was because she suggested, “How about fingernails?”

  I didn’t reply. We could have done that if we’d known before we’d cosmetized him, but I certainly hadn’t saved any nail clippings. That would have felt like voodoo or root doctoring.

  For sure, I’d turn the situation over to Otis or Odell.

  Still expecting Miss Lettie to collapse or grab the body, I escorted them to Mr. Morgan’s casket. Exclaiming over the beauty of each plant and flower, they read the cards aloud.

  “Don’t you take these off and give them to Lettie so she can send thank you notes?” Ellen asked.

  “The florist puts two on each floral tribute,” I answered. “We keep the duplicates in an envelope and will give them to Mrs. Morgan after the service along with enough thank-you notes for her to send for flowers, food, and anything else she wishes to send appreciation.”

  “I knew Middleton’s would do a good job.”

  I wasn’t sure that even an inferior funeral home would neglect to give floral cards to the family, but for a wonder, I kept my mouth shut.

  When they left, I reported the conversation to Otis.

  “I doubt seriously that she’ll order any Remembrance jewelry,” he replied. “But just in case, let’s go in and retrieve something to put in it if she does.”

  He brought a pair of scissors with him into Slumber Room A. We were standing there surveying the situation when Odell came in. When we explained what we were doing, Odell took the scissors from Otis.

  “Close that door.” Odell motioned toward the entrance to the slumber room.

  He lifted one of Mr. Morgan’s hands. “Can’t get anything here. The nails are clipped too close to take anything. We’ll go with hair.”

  Now my mind went from senseless to the gutter. Where was the hair he planned to clip?

  Odell loosened Mr. Morgan’s shirt, stuck one hand with the scissors under the body’s arm, cupped the other hand in Mr. Morgan’s armpit, and brought out a very small lock of hair.

  “Straighten his shirt and tie,” he told me. “I’ll save this in a zipper bag in Mr. Morgan’s file folder in case his mother does order something.” He turned away, but immediately looked back at me. “I’ve got some papers to send to the sheriff. Come get the package and you can take them by his office on your way to lunch.”

  That’s how I wound up at Wayne’s office just before lunchtime. He sat behind his big, shiny mahogany desk, and I sat facing him.

  “No word yet on who Santa is,” he commented and tapped the pencil in his hand on the surface of the desk.

  “Your new homicide man said that it’s a female—a red-haired woman.” I smoothed out the wrinkles in the skirt of my black dress.

  “Yes, apparently strangled to death.” Wayne set the pencil into a cup holding pens and pencils.

  “That’s what he said.”

  “When did you see Detective Robinson?” He must have been nervous because he took a Sharpie from the cup and began tapping it on his desk.

  “He came by Middleton’s. He told me about her and wanted to know if I knew anyone who fit that description. She sounded like Jane, but thank heaven Jane was inside Christmas night, not lying dead on our front porch.” I trembled at that thought.

  “Want to ride over to Gee Three for lunch?” he asked.

  “Gee Three?”

  “Yes, haven’t you heard the ad on the radio? Rizzie’s advertising the Gastric Gullah Grill as Gee Three.” He returned the Sharpie to its place with the other pens. “She and Tyrone had on shirts with that on them when I was in there for breakfast yesterday.”

  “She’s developing a logo for her ‘brand’. That’s the buzzword these days—brand. Last time I talked to her, she said she’s going to ask you to help her put up a webpage for the grill,” he added.

  “Sounds good.” I know that’s my standard answer for my bosses, but I use it with the sheriff also.

  • • •

  “You can ride along if you like,” Wayne said. “This will probably turn out to be nothing. By far, most missing people reports about adults wind up being cases where the disappeared person went somewhere else by choice. That’s why an adult usually has to be missing over seventy-two hours before it’s an official missing person case.”

  We’d been sitting in the grill discussing what to order when a call from Wayne’s office had interrupted us.

  “Who’s missing?” I asked as we got into the sheriff’s cruiser.

  “Amber Buchanan. The call came from Safe Sister, the haven for abused women and children.”

  “If someone’s missing from there, she could have just decided to go home or move on,” I commented. “How will you investigate this? I understand that no men are allowed on the premises of Safe Sister.”

  “We’
re not going to the shelter. Amber works for Safe Sister in their office, not on the shelter premises, but we’re going to her home. She’d volunteered to help Christmas morning at a party for the kids at one of the safe houses, but she didn’t show up. She was off yesterday but scheduled to work today. When she didn’t come in again and they still couldn’t reach her by telephone, someone at their office called and asked us to check on her.”

  “Why don’t you send a deputy?”

  “Because her home is near here. Besides, I remember her, went to school with her. She was a pretty girl, quiet, and kind of big—not fat, just pleasantly round.”

  The house wasn’t far away—just a few blocks. A single-family dwelling. Amber Buchanan was as enthusiastic about decorating for the season as I’d been. Not that she had a monster tree on the porch like Jane and I did, but colored chaser lights had been strung all around the eaves of the house. Lit even now in daylight, they twinkled—sparkling bright reds, yellows, and blues everywhere except right around the door. Three red plastic wreaths with outdoor lights hung at the entrance—one on the door and two more on each side. The wreaths were lit with red bulbs. A string of brilliant green and red lights dangled down from over the door.

  The burgundy Saturn in the drive was probably a 2009 or so, one of the last ones made. The doors were locked, but we peeked through the windows. The car was completely empty—of people as well as clutter.

  Wayne would probably be right. This wouldn’t be a kidnapping. Maybe the lady just wasn’t ready for the holiday to end, had left her Christmas lights on, and gone off with a friend.

  But as we walked closer to the house, I saw red-and-white-striped candy canes scattered over the porch, and the string of lights dangling from over the front door, still lit, were definitely out of place.

  Then I noticed something significant—a lady’s purse. Not an expensive brand, it probably came from Wally World. Zipped closed, black imitation leather, it lay on the edge of the step. I pointed it out to Wayne at the same time he must have seen it because he stepped over to it.

  He picked up a stick from the ground, stuck it through the straps on the purse, and lifted the handbag just like cops do on television.

  “Something’s happened here, but I don’t know what at this point. I think we need to go into the house to be sure Amber’s not in there sick or injured.”

  Dalmation! I wished I was anywhere but here with the sheriff. The way my luck goes, we’d find this woman neither sick nor injured, but dead in her house, and I’d feel like it was my fault. Shih tzu! That was ridiculous. I didn’t cause people to die around me.

  Wayne stepped to the door and pushed the dangling string of illuminated lights over with the stick. The green wire snapped back at him and slapped his finger. He snatched his hand back and let out a mild cuss word. Then he put his finger to his mouth. “Burned just a little,” he said.

  He knocked and rang the doorbell, but no one answered. I’ve known the man my whole life, and I could almost see his brain working, considering what to do next. Action was swift when he made up his mind. I expected him to kick the door in, but, instead, since there was no dead bolt, he jimmied the lock with a credit card from his wallet and the door swung open.

  Inside, everything appeared decorated and immaculate. An empty cereal bowl and coffee cup in the sink were the only things not spotless in the kitchen. The single bed in her bedroom was made with corners folded in military precision and ornamental Christmas cushions spread across the top. She had Christmas trees and nativity scenes in every room along with ceramic figurines of angels and Santas.

  “Not to hurt your feelings,” Wayne said, “but I want you to stand still while I check this out. The purse on the steps bothers me, and I’d feel better if her car wasn’t in the driveway.”

  The sheriff oozed tension into the air. Something was wrong. He knew it, and I knew it, but we didn’t know what had happened or what he might find as he opened every closet door and inspected the contents. When he finished, he came back to me and said, “The only evidence of foul play is her handbag on the porch. Everything in here looks fine, and her car in the driveway isn’t necessarily an indication of anything wrong, but the purse is.”

  “Those candy canes all over the front porch aren’t a good sign either,” I commented. “She appears to be a good housekeeper, not the kind of woman who’d drop things and leave them lying all around.”

  Wayne took the broom from the kitchen and swept the candy canes on the porch into an evidence bag from his car.

  “Are you doing that in case there are fingerprints on the cellophane wrappers?” I asked.

  “Just in case.”

  He put the broom back, then locked the door behind us as we left.

  By the time we’d finished at Amber Buchanan’s, neither of us had time for a sit-down lunch at Rizzie’s. We went through the McDonald’s drive-through and picked up sandwiches before he took me back to his office to get my car.

  • • •

  My niece Megan and nephew Johnny ran over and gave me great big bear hugs when I went into Gee Three that evening. I’m really trying to use Rizzie’s “brand,” and Daddy or John were supporting it because one of them had bought the kids Gee Three sweatshirts which they wore. Daddy, John, Miriam, Mike, and Frankie nodded at me and said “hello,” but none of them are into hugging me hello or goodbye like the kids are.

  “Where are Bill and Molly?” I asked when I sat down at the biggest table Rizzie has in the grill.

  “He called and said they wouldn’t make it,” was Frankie’s answer.

  Tyrone arrived at the table with eight glasses of sweet iced tea and asked, “Are you ready to order?”

  “Not yet,” Daddy said. “Does Rizzie have a special today?”

  “Yes, she calls it the ‘Split Po Boy.’ ” Tyrone paused.

  “What’s that?” Daddy asked.

  “It’s a twelve-inch sub on crusty French bread. What makes it a split is that she puts oysters on one end and catfish on the other. You can get it dressed with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onion or undressed with just meat and either tartar sauce or remoulade sauce.” Tyrone delivered this in a monotone, making it obvious that Rizzie had made him memorize it.

  “What’s remoulade?” my nephew asked, mutilating the pronunciation of the name of the sauce.

  “It’s a special mayonnaise kind of thing that Rizzie makes. It has a little mustard and pickles and something that makes it pinkish-colored. Oh, and horseradish, definitely has some of that in it.” Rizzie clearly hadn’t rehearsed him on that.

  Most of us decided to try the Split Po Boy but Johnny and Megan both asked for hamburgers.

  After turning in our orders, Tyrone came back to our table. “You should have been here yesterday morning,” he said to everyone. “Callie helped deliver a baby.”

  “What?”

  “Callie and Pork Chop Higgins helped Misty Bledsoe have her baby right here in the diner. It’s a boy. Billy Wayne came by while ago and said he was on the way to the hospital to pick them up.”

  Megan screwed up her nose and made that “eeuhh” sound teenaged girls sometimes use to express distaste. “We’re not eating at the table where she had the baby, are we?”

  “Nah,” Tyrone answered, “Misty was actually lying on the floor over there by the first booth.”

  Thank heavens Rizzie called him then to pick up an order. I really didn’t want a blow-by-blow description of birth from a fifteen-year-old. Johnny’s the same age though, and I could see that he was interested.

  Our food was scrumptious, and the only thing wrong with a Split Po Boy is that it’s impossible to tell which side tastes better—the catfish or the oysters. Rizzie came to the table just as we all finished eating. “How about dessert? I have some homemade fruit cake and several kinds of cookies.”

  The adults all ordered cake, and the kids wanted cookies. “Granpa wouldn’t let us eat any of the bourbon balls,” Megan said as she licked the frosting o
ff a bell-shaped sugar cookie. Then, with a proud as punch expression, she said, “But he’s making Aunt Cutie’s Peanut Butter Blossoms for us tomorrow.” I grinned at that and made a mental note to go by Daddy’s tomorrow. Those were my favorite cookies growing up.

  “Don’t be offended,” I answered her with my mind back on the Bourbon Balls. “He won’t let me drink beer at his house and probably wouldn’t let me eat bourbon balls either.”

  Daddy grinned. “Start sharing my bourbon balls with everyone, and I might run short after I take some over to Miss Lettie. Did you know that woman ran that farm by herself since the Vietnam War?”

  “Better be careful,” Frankie said. “From the way she behaved last night, Miss Lettie may already be noshing on some bourbon balls.”

  “I think maybe the doctor had given her something to keep her calm,” John defended his friend’s mother. “Until Jeff moved, she was really a paradox. She was very demanding and strict, yet she smothered him, too. I hadn’t seen her in years until last night, but this has to be as awful for her as her husband’s death was, and that was a major subject at their house the whole time Jeff and I were growing up.”

  “Losing a spouse that you love isn’t something a person ever gets over,” Daddy said. “Then to have a child die has to be dreadful.”

  “And Jeff was her only child,” John commented.

  “That don’t matter a whole lot,” Daddy said. “Do you think I’d grieve less for one of my children than someone who only has one? You can’t replace a child, no matter how many you have.”

  “You could replace a wife and a child, Granpa,” Johnny suggested. “You could marry somebody new who had a child or your new wife could have a baby.”