Duck the Halls: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries)

by Donna Andrews

  “What’s up?” he said. “Any new schedule changes?”

  “Do you have any idea which of your many relatives would have sold my brother a fresh duck last night?”

  A pause.

  “Was there something wrong with the duck?” he asked finally.

  “The duck is just fine,” I said. “In perfect health, in fact; he arrived here still alive. And the twins met him, and the newly christened Ducky Lucky will soon be an exhibit at Grandfather’s petting zoo rather than the main course of our Christmas dinner.”

  Randall sighed.

  “The only Shiffley I know of who raises ducks is Quincy, and he wasn’t hanging around the supermarket flogging them last night, that’s for damn sure. I saw him in the hospital this morning and he hadn’t been anywhere. But I think I can figure out who did this. You want a replacement duck or shall I just get Rob his money back?”

  “Either would be fine,” I said. “Do you already have a suspicion who did it, or do you just plan to raise Cain with all the family black sheep until one of them confesses? If it helps, Rob thinks the seller was one of the men doing construction at Trinity.”

  “I’m going to start with my cousin’s boy Duane, who’s been known to pull stuff like this before—and yes, he was on the crew over at Trinity. Consider the original duck my gift to the Caerphilly Zoo.”

  “I’ll have Grandfather send you a receipt for your generous donation,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “That works. Someone will drop by with the new ready-to-roast duck tonight.”

  “After the boys’ bedtime?”

  “You got it.”

  “Good!” I said. “And thanks.”

  We both hung up.

  “We’re getting a new duck?” Rob asked.

  “Make sure there’s someone here to receive it tonight,” I said. “And can someone figure out what’s French for ‘Peking duck’ and explain to Michael’s mother why we all have to call it that when the boys are around.”

  Dad pulled out his iPhone.

  “I’m going to check on the sewing bee,” Mother said.

  “Lunch in a few minutes,” Michael said.

  “Canard laqué de Pékin,” Dad said, looking up from his iPhone.

  “I’ll come with you,” I told Mother.

  We left the men to finish putting lunch on the table and went through the foyer to the long hallway that led back to the library. Some ancestor of the previous owner had added it on as a ballroom, back when that was a fairly normal thing to have around the house, and we’d finally finished converting it to the library of our dreams. The boys already loved curling up in the big sofa for story time, and in due course I was looking forward to sitting with them at one of the long oak tables, supervising their homework and helping them with their science projects.

  I opened the big double doors to find the entire room had been decorated to the hilt and was filled with red velveteen in various stages of being made into seat covers and curtains. Mother and whoever she recruited to help must have stayed up half the night working in here. Ropes of evergreen framed every one of the tall windows and built-in bookshelves and looped along next to the double-height ceiling. Red and gold tinsel festooned the circular stairway leading up to the second level of shelves, where the tinsel-wrapped railings seemed barely adequate to hold back a small jungle of pointsettias, live spruces, and Norfolk pines. Trailing wicker baskets of red Christmas cactus hung down from the railings so far that I could see some of the sewing circle members having to duck as they bustled around the room, and the baskets were decorated with ribbons holding little silver bells that set up a constant tinkling with the breeze when anyone passed beneath them. Mother and her minions had even gussied up the books—on every shelf, two or three of the volumes had been wrapped with temporary dust jackets of red, gold, green, or purple foil paper. When you added in the soft instrumental carols playing—no doubt from wireless speakers hidden behind the books—and enough Christmas potpourri to send up an almost visible haze of evergreen, clove, cinnamon, and ginger fumes—well, I’d bet anything that the decor stopped everyone in their tracks for at least the first half hour after they arrived.

  But now everyone was hard at work. A dozen portable sewing machines were set up in a line on the right-hand table, with a dozen women sewing away busily on them. The center table was covered with cloth on which other women were fitting white pattern pieces and then cutting out various shapes—mostly the red velveteen, along with a sturdy black cotton for curtain linings and parts of the cushions that didn’t need to be seen. One end of the left-hand table was piled high with bolts of red and black cloth, while at the other end Minerva Burke had set up her command center.

  Mother was immediately drafted to give an opinion on some fine point of upholstering—not that she ever sewed much, apart from doing the odd bit of crewelwork, because she thought it an elegant thing to be seen doing. But she was a very expert consumer of upholstery services. I strolled over to talk to Minerva.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “I’m optimistic that we’ll have everything done by Christmas Eve,” she said. “It won’t be a problem if we stay up rather late finishing, will it?”

  “You’d have to be pretty loud out here for us to hear you,” I said. “Just lock up when you leave. How’s the smell removal going?”

  “Slowly. If I ever catch the wretches who did that to our lovely church—” She broke off and set her jaw, as if forcibly restraining language no self-respecting Baptist matron would know, much less use in public.

  “I tell you one thing,” she said. “This duck thing has confounded my theory of the crime.”

  “I find myself wondering if your theory was also the chief’s,” I said. “But I know better than to ask. What is your theory?”

  “That the pranks have something to do with the choir,” she said.

  I nodded agreement. Should I tell her about what I’d overheard? No, the chief would probably be annoyed if I tried to involve Minerva, and I wasn’t at all sure a proper Baptist matron would approve of Rose Noire’s premonitions. Besides, she was already keeping a close eye on Lightfoot.

  “But I haven’t seen any choir events scheduled in the Catholic church,” she went on. “So there goes that theory.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “What if St. Byblig’s wasn’t the intended target?”

  She raised one eyebrow and cocked her head.

  “You’re keeping the New Life building locked up pretty tight, right?”

  “Tight as a tick,” she said.

  “And I suspect Trinity wasn’t left standing wide open last night.”

  “No,” she said. “I was one of the last to leave—I was helping make sure we’d left everything at least as clean as we found it. And your pastor was there to lock the door behind us, and when I told her she should go home and get some rest, she said she would as soon as she made sure everything was secure.”

  “That fits,” I said. “Imagine you’re the prankster, and you drive your truck full of ducks up to your intended target and you can’t get in. Are you just going to give up and take them back where you stole them? Or are you going to look around for someplace else to cause trouble?”

  “Ye-es,” she said slowly. “But why the Catholics?”

  “St. Byblig’s isn’t far from Trinity or New Life,” I said.

  “The Methodists are closer,” she said.

  “Yes, but the Methodist church faces the town square,” I said. “Not exactly the place I’d pick to unload several hundred contraband ducks. Way too public and visible.”

  “No,” she said, with a note of excitement in her voice. “But a church at the edge of town, whose parking lot is completely hidden from the road by trees…”

  “Exactly.”

  “And besides,” she said. “St. Byblig’s has a loading dock.”

  “It does?”

  “No idea why, but it’s quite useful,” she said. “That’s why they’re the central dis
tribution point for the county food bank—it’s so easy to load and unload. I’ve put a loading dock down as a feature we’d like at New Life next time we do a little expansion and remodeling. It would make handling the choir equipment a lot easier.”

  “So once they got into St. Byblig’s, they could just drive up to the loading dock, herd the ducks out, and drive off,” I said. “Maybe it was the target after all, because of the loading dock.”

  “Very interesting.” She looked preoccupied.

  “I should be heading out,” I said. “If I stay much longer, someone will force me to sew, and I’d hate to ruin any of that beautiful fabric. But if you happen to talk to Henry, remind him that I have some information for him. About the case,” I added.

  “Will do,” she said. “Thanks again for the use of the room.”

  I headed back to the foyer. But before I left the long hallway, I heard the library door open. Minerva stepped out into the hallway, closed the door after her, and raised her cell phone to her ear.

  The chief had probably already thought of everything we’d been discussing. And maybe he hadn’t called me back because he knew what I had to say—I might not be the only one who had overheard Ronnie and Caleb. But just in case he hadn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to have Minerva remind him to call me.

  Chapter 18

  Lunch was pleasant, if a little chaotic. Unfortunately one of the interesting facts Grandfather had told the boys about ducks was that having no teeth, they swallowed bits of grit to help grind up their food. I could tell the boys were eager to experiment with this, but fortunately our gravel driveway was currently covered with snow. Perhaps they’d forget by the time the weather warmed up.

  After lunch, Michael curled up to have a nap with the boys. I checked my e-mail and voice mail and found that a few small schedule kinks had to be ironed out. Normally I’d have worked on it in Michael’s office, where I could use the printer, but I was wary of getting sucked into the sewing frenzy. So I packed up my laptop and headed to town. After all, I could do some shopping while I was there. We were running low on a lot of things, particularly coffee, tea, juice, and sodas, thanks to the enthusiasm with which Rose Noire was keeping the sewing circle refreshed.

  While I was at the market, I spent a little time hanging around the poultry section, frowning at everything, but no lurking Shiffleys offered to sell me illicit poultry. Evidently Randall had reined in Duane.

  I dropped by the New Life Baptist Church and St. Byblig’s so I could check on the progress both sets of cleaners were making. And then I went over to Trinity and settled down into my little office to sort out the schedule once more.

  I’d been there for fifteen minutes or so when Barliman Vess walked in. He started when he saw me, so I deduced I wasn’t the object of his visit.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  I was tempted to ask, “Then why are you standing here, hovering over me?” But I decided it would be more effective to ignore him.

  I was wrong. He just stood there. After what seemed like an eternity but was really only five minutes according to the clock on my laptop, I looked up again. He was staring at the junk. Or possibly at the window at the far end of the room, behind all the junk.

  “It’ll be nice when all that junk’s gone, won’t it?” I said.

  “Junk?” He looked over as if startled that I was still there, and frowned thunderously. “Nonsense. Perfectly good furniture. Plenty of use left in it. Complete waste of money, replacing all of it.”

  He glared at me. I shrugged, because it was less likely to make him angry than saying what I thought—that he was a pigheaded old skinflint to begrudge Robyn a nice office. It wasn’t as if the church was broke.

  He eventually stopped scowling at me and ran his eyes across the junk filling the room one last time. Then he turned and left without saying another word.

  “And a merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. Scrooge,” I muttered.

  I had barely turned back to my laptop screen when Riddick scurried into my office.

  “What did he want?” he asked.

  “Vess? I have no idea,” I said. “Just shedding a little yuletide warmth in my direction, I suppose.”

  “Didn’t he say anything?”

  Riddick was clearly overwrought. I turned reluctantly away from my computer again to face him.

  “He just stared at all the junk,” I said. “And when I said something innocuous about how nice it would be to see it gone, he nearly bit my head off.”

  “I’m trying to deal with it,” Riddick said. “It’s not my fault. Even before all these snakes and skunks there’s been so much more work with the new rector here, and it’s not really the right time of year for a rummage sale, and I can’t just get rid of it like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Of course not,” I said, in my most soothing tones. Although I couldn’t help thinking that anyone with an ounce of common sense and gumption could get rid of everything here pretty quickly. Mother could do it. I could do it. And if she and I could convince Robyn to turn the two of us loose on it …

  “He wants my job, you know,” Riddick said. “Wants to eliminate it,” he clarified. “Thinks what I do should be done by volunteers.”

  “As far as I can tell, he’s the only one in the church who feels that way,” I said. “I know Mother disagrees. Don’t let it worry you. And if you need help dealing with the junk, I’m sure Mother will be able to help. I could, too. But let’s not worry about it till after Christmas.”

  “‘After Christmas,’” he repeated. He didn’t exactly look thrilled at my suggestion. But he did look a little less tense. “Yes. Your mother is always very … Yes. After Christmas.”

  He glanced warily at the clutter as if half afraid it would jump out and attack him. Then, with a visible effort, he straightened his spine and forced his face into an unconvincing but very determined smile.

  “Thank you,” he said. “And merry Christmas.”

  And then he scurried out.

  A few moments later, when I had buried myself back in my schedule, I heard Mr. Vess’s voice.

  “I need to speak with you for a moment.”

  I braced myself and looked up, but he wasn’t in my office. The words had come from out in the vestibule. Just then the organ began to play, drowning out anything else Vess had to say. According to my schedule, that would be Trinity’s regular organist, sneaking in a short rehearsal between Baptist choir rehearsals. I resigned myself to the possibility that Lightfoot might barge in and complain about this minor interruption in his frenzied rehearsal schedule.

  A soft instrumental version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” filled the air. When no one barged into my office, I relaxed and went back to my work, happily humming along with the carols.

  I’d thought it would only take a few minutes, once I was finally free of interruptions, but by the time I finished juggling and e-mailing the resulting schedule, I looked up from my laptop to find that the sky outside was getting dark. And since my temporary office had only one small window at the far end of the room, behind all the boxes and old furniture, it had grown very dark indeed.

  I sat up, stretched my shoulder gently, and checked my watch. Nearly time for our organist to turn the sanctuary back to the Baptists for their final preconcert prep. I didn’t quite share Rose Noire’s suspicions of Jerome Lightfoot, but I had no desire to talk to him. And so, time for me to go home and have some Christmas fun with Michael and the boys.

  I organized all my papers, turned off my computer and my desk lamp, and was about to stand up and be on my way when I heard low voices outside my door.

  “Man, are you crazy?” Ronnie Butler.

  “What do you mean?” Caleb Shiffley.

  I crept a little closer to the door, the better to eavesdrop.

  “That thing with the ducks.”

  “Shut up—what if someone hears us?”

  “No one here,” Ronnie said. “The rev is out r
unning the prayer meeting, and old man Hedges went home to nurse his migraine.”

  And if Caleb was suspicious and decided to check doors, should I try to hide behind some of the old furniture and keep eavesdropping? Or just look startled and pretend I hadn’t overheard them?

  Luckily I didn’t have to make a decision.

  “Look,” Ronnie went on. “I know you’re still mad at Bigfoot about the whole April thing, but enough’s enough. The chief’s got Horace Hollingsworth doing fingerprints and stuff. They could still catch us for the skunk thing, or the snake. We should lay off with the pranks, not do stupid stuff that might leave more evidence and doesn’t have anything to do with old Bigfoot anyway.”

  “Wait,” Caleb said. “You think I put the ducks in St. Byblig’s?”

  “You mean you didn’t?”

  There was a brief silence. Presumably Caleb had answered by shaking his head and they were staring at each other in dismay.

  “This is creepy,” Caleb said at last. “If you didn’t, and I didn’t—man, they’re gonna blame this on us, too.”

  “If they catch us.”

  “When they catch us.”

  “And why would anyone want to cause problems for St. Byblig’s?” Ronnie asked. “Everyone likes Father Donnelly.”

  Another pause.

  “Maybe we should go to the chief,” Ronnie said. “Or Reverend Wilson.”

  “You think they’d believe us?”

  Silence.

  “You know,” Caleb said. “I bet it’s going to be a lot easier for them to catch whoever did the ducks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it,” Caleb said. “We were in and out of the New Life Church pretty quick, and the snake didn’t even take ten minutes. But somebody had to load all those hundreds of ducks and bring them over there in a truck or something and carry them all into St. Byblig’s. That took a lot more time. Which means a lot bigger chance of being seen or leaving evidence.”

  “Are you suggesting that if they catch whoever did the ducks, we should let them take the blame for the rest?”