by Parnell Hall
On the other side of the room, Sam Brogan was questioning the actors, who were still in costume. They were all schoolkids, and seemed pretty shaken. Dorrie’s boyfriend, Lance, dressed as Joseph, appeared to be taking it particularly badly.
There was no other Mary.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Cora asked. “I may have influenced the doc a little ’cause I didn’t wanna have to follow you to the hospital.”
“Uh-huh. Is she . . . ?”
“Is she what?”
“Dead?”
“You already asked that. Maybe I should stick around a little. But, yes, she is. Dead as a doornail.”
“I guess that joker wasn’t kidding. It’s hard to believe.”
“Yeah. Look, if you’re sure you’re all right, I’d like to get out to the crèche. Harper’s there now, and Doddsworth’s on his way.”
“Go on. I’ll be fine.”
Left alone, Sherry realized she was still somewhat dizzy. She sat back on the gurney to catch her bearings.
On the other side of the room the interrogation of the actors continued. Sam Brogan seemed intent on his task, and no one paid the least bit of attention to her. Not that she needed it.
Still.
Sherry wished Aaron were there. Surely he’d be along soon, it being a murder.
And not just any murder.
Her murder.
Becky’s murder.
Becky Baldwin.
Her rival.
Her nemesis.
The thorn in her side.
Never had Sherry been gripped with such conflicting emotions. Suddenly it seemed as if every obstacle to her happiness with Aaron Grant had been removed. But removed in such a way as to make happiness impossible. Could she ever look at Aaron again without feeling she had won by default? That but for the hand of fate, she might not have been so lucky?
Lucky.
Sherry shuddered.
Get a grip, she scolded herself angrily. She was behaving like a child. A lovesick schoolgirl. A self-centered, self-obsessed, lovesick schoolgirl. Evaluating every action solely in terms of herself. How could she be so crass, so cruel, so—heartless? Becky was dead. Never mind what it meant to her. Becky Baldwin was dead. Murdered. Someone had killed her. As promised in the poems. The poems Sherry had dismissed as doggerel. Had ridiculed. Just as she’d ridiculed the police surveillance. Becky’s bodyguard, Dan Finley. Where had he been when this happened? And what kind of trouble was he in now?
As if on cue, Dan Finley banged in the door, glanced around, then strode over to where Sam Brogan was interrogating the actors. While Sherry watched, Dan pulled Sam aside, and the two conversed in low tones.
“So where’s Chief Harper?” an imperious voice demanded.
A familiar voice.
Sherry turned and looked.
Becky Baldwin stood in the doorway.
12
THE VIRGIN MARY LAY IN THE SNOW. HER COWL WAS OFF, and her blond hair fanned out behind her like a halo. Her sky-blue eyes were open, staring. Her cheeks were frosty pale. Yet she still had that ethereal, waiflike quality.
It was heartbreaking.
Jonathon Doddsworth looked stricken. “Dorrie?” he cried incredulously. “Good God, little Dorrie!”
“Would you keep it down, sir?” Barney Nathan said snippily. The prissy medical examiner was nattily dressed in a pin-striped suit. His bow tie was red, perhaps in keeping with the season. “Hard enough, having to examine the Virgin Mary without outside interference.”
“But that’s my daughter’s best friend!”
“Well, you can’t help her now. Just let me do my job.”
“Come on, now,” Chief Harper said. “Come on, now.” He and Cora guided Doddsworth back to the stable.
Doddsworth stumbled, climbing, had to be helped up. He rose from the straw. A tremendous sigh rumbled the features of his face. “Poor Max!”
It took Cora a second to realize he was talking about his daughter.
Doddsworth seemed overwhelmed, as though his mind refused to process the information. “And you say she wasn’t supposed to be here?”
“No,” Cora said. “It should have been Becky Baldwin. Somehow they must have swapped shifts.”
“Good God!”
“I know it’s upsetting,” Harper sympathized, “but if you have any insights I’d be grateful.”
“Of course, of course.” Doddsworth made a visible effort to pull himself together. Cora could see him centering himself, trying to focus his attention away from poor Dorrie and onto the problem at hand. It clearly wasn’t easy.
Doddsworth regarded the crime-scene ribbon stretched across the front of the stable, muttered, “Utterly ineffective, since she fell out there. Everyone and my auntie Enid’s been across that snow. You’ve got your police, your doctor, your ambulance men, the two trolleys they pushed. Plus however many spectators were milling about.”
“None. I read ’em the riot act, kept ’em on the road.” Chief Harper pointed to the crowd of people avidly gathered in front of the church. “As you can see.”
“Yes. But all the actors jumped down. And I understand some idiot onlookers rushed across the lawn.”
Cora Felton flushed. Having been too far away to see which Virgin Mary took the plunge, she’d scampered across the green in record-breaking time. Idiot onlookers, indeed.
“So what can you tell from the tracks?” she asked judiciously, in an attempt to distance herself from the gawkers.
“Not bloody much,” Doddsworth told her. “Rum show, really. Makes us dependent on the accounts of witnesses. Who, I daresay, are generally unreliable. Nonetheless, the actors here freezing their bums would surely have noticed if some bloke happened by.”
“Well, they didn’t,” Chief Harper said sourly. “Even her boyfriend was no help.”
Doddsworth’s eyebrows rose. “What, her steady chap? Was he here too?”
“He was Joseph.”
“Blimey.” Doddsworth thought a moment. “What was the cause of death?”
“Don’t know.” Harper turned, called, “Hey, Barney, got anything yet?”
“I’m pronouncing her dead.” The doctor jerked his thumb at the EMS unit, who were loading the body onto a gurney. “They’ll run her down to the hospital, but she’s beyond help. I’ll finish up there.”
“You got a cause of death?”
“You’ll know when I do.”
Dr. Nathan followed the gurney off.
“Any chance it was natural causes?” Doddsworth asked.
“Not likely,” Harper told him.
“Right. Because of the childish ditties. Without the verses, it’s an odds-on bet to be a natural death. With them, the reverse is true.”
“Could she have been shot?” Cora suggested.
“I don’t see how,” Doddsworth said.
Cora pointed to the church. “High-powered rifle. Telescopic sight.”
“The actors would hear the shot.”
“And think it was a car backfiring,” Cora pointed out.
Doddsworth shook his head. “No, we have a subtle crime here. Must have, or it wouldn’t have met with success.”
“As to that—” Chief Harper began.
Doddsworth cut him off, shouting at the police officer and young woman coming across the green, “See here, now! This is a crime scene! Stay in the road!”
“I want my clothes!” the police officer shouted.
Doddsworth, surprised to hear Sherry Carter’s voice coming out of the officer’s huge overcoat and hat, exclaimed, “What the deuce!”
“My niece,” Cora explained. “She’s dressed as the Virgin Mary. She came to relieve the corpse. Her clothes are part of the crime scene. She must have borrowed Dan Finley’s coat.”
“Is that Miss Rebecca with her?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Excellent. I want a word with her. Look here,” Doddsworth yelled, “you shouldn’t come this way. Do go around by the actors’ path.”
; Sherry and Becky retreated to the road and worked their way around the green to the path Sherry had taken not an hour before. They made their way to the crèche, stepped inside.
“Miss Baldwin. Miss Carter,” Chief Harper said. “Just a few questions, if you don’t mind. Miss Baldwin, you called me last night to tell me you were switching spots with Dorrie Taggart.”
“You knew about this last night?” Cora said accusingly.
Chief Harper ignored her. He said to Becky Baldwin, “Why did you change your schedule?”
“I didn’t change it. She did.”
“Oh?”
“She called me up, said she had a shopping trip planned in the afternoon, and would I mind switching spots. I actually did mind—eleven to twelve is much more convenient than one to two—but there was no real reason why I couldn’t. So I rang you up, told you I was switching spots.”
“Who else did you tell?”
“No one. I assume you told Dan Finley.”
“Someone might have told me,” Sherry said. “I thought Becky was dead until she walked in the door.”
Doddsworth regarded Sherry with interest. “So, you’re the one who found her?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you feel up to telling us what you did?” Chief Harper asked.
“Of course,” Sherry said. “I changed in town hall. I walked around the green, took the actors’ path to the back of the crèche so as not to mess up the snow. I stashed my bag of clothes and coat behind the door. I’d like to get them now.”
“Are they there?”
“They should be. May I have them?”
“If you don’t mind us looking through them first.”
“Looking for what?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps a murder weapon. Perhaps a clue. Anyway, you stashed your clothes and then what?”
“I peeked out to make sure there was no one passing by. Then I crept out to relieve the girl playing Mary. I thought it was Becky. I tapped her, nudged her, got no response. I thought she’d fallen asleep. I tried to lift her. That’s when I realized I was dealing with a dead weight. I lost my grip, and she fell out of the stable.”
“What happened then?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid I fainted.”
“So you didn’t see the other actors react?”
“No. I’m sorry. You’ll have to ask them.”
A car skidded to a stop in front of the Congregational church. The doors slammed, and two women came pelting across the snow.
Doddsworth scowled. “Something must needs be done. I realize you have limited personnel, yet there must be some way to keep the spectators back.”
Doddsworth put up his arms, started to yell at the approaching intruders. The angry words froze on his lips.
It was his wife and daughter.
13
“DADDY!” MAXINE CRIED, DUCKING UNDER THE CRIME-SCENE ribbon and climbing up into the stable. “Is it her? Is it Dorrie? Tell me! Tell me, please!”
The inspector sighed heavily. “Yes, Max. It is.”
Maxine let out a fresh wail, threw herself sobbing into her father’s arms. “That can’t be! It can’t be! We were going shopping.”
Doddsworth hugged his daughter tight, but looked up inquiringly. “When?”
His ex-wife glared at him as if this were all his fault. A slight but attractive woman with full lips and green eyes, Pamela Doddsworth resembled her daughter a great deal, yet struck Cora as an unlikely mate for the lumbering Englishman. That epiphany had evidently occurred to Pamela too. “This morning. Dorrie was going to come pick her up.”
“You were at home, Max?”
“That’s right. Interrogate your own daughter.” Pamela pried Maxine away from Doddsworth and cradled her protectively.
“No!” Maxine cried, twisting away. “I have to know what happened.”
Doddsworth shook his head apologetically. “It’s too soon to tell.”
“But she was fine when she came to the crèche.”
Doddsworth blinked. “When she what?”
“She was just fine.”
Cora studied the look on his face as comprehension dawned. “You mean you were the previous Mary?” Doddsworth murmured incredulously. “The one she came to relieve?”
“Yes, of course. We were going to go Christmas shopping. But she got scheduled one to two. What good was that? I was done at eleven. So she found out who was eleven to twelve, and asked her to change.”
Doddsworth, overcome, could think of nothing to say.
Chief Harper stepped in. “How did she find out who was eleven to twelve?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Dorrie just called me up, said it was okay, everything was going to be all right.” The tears came again. “All right. How can it be all right?” she wailed. “Daddy, you have to find out who did this to Dorrie. You have to.”
“It’s not actually my place.”
A pudgy man erupted from a Mercedes, came lumbering across the lawn. He wore a suit and tie, but no hat, coat, or boots. His black leather shoes disappeared in the snow. He slogged forward, his muscles clearly unused to any such activity. He seemed on the brink of falling down.
A woman ran after him. Thin and big-boned, she had no trouble keeping up, would have been in the lead had she not been sitting in the passenger seat and had to run around the car. She tore across the green, her blond hair streaming out behind her in the wind.
The man ducked under the crime-scene ribbon, leaned on the stable, breathing hard. His face was red. His hair, an elaborate comb-over, hung down the side of his head, leaving him virtually bald. His flesh was even flabbier than Doddsworth’s, sporting double and even triple chins.
The woman scrambled up beside him.
Chief Harper, confronted with Dorrie Taggart’s parents, swallowed hard. “Horace. Mindy.”
“Where is she?” Mindy Taggart cried.
“Dr. Nathan took her,” Chief Harper said.
“To the hospital?”
“Yes.”
Mindy grabbed her husband’s arm. “I told you. Come on, Horace. Let’s go.”
Horace Taggart had recovered his breath. “Who did this?” he growled.
“Mr. Taggart—” Chief Harper began.
“Who?”
“Horace—”
“Mindy. I have to know.” Horace looked up pleadingly at the chief. “Tell me. What happened?”
“Dorrie was playing the Virgin Mary. Miss Carter here came to relieve her and found her dead.”
“You did?”
From that angle Horace Taggart was a grotesque apparition. Sherry could barely meet his eyes. “Yes.”
Taggart studied her from head to toe. If he found it strange that she was dressed as a policeman, he gave no sign. Cora could practically see his brain whirling, filing the information away.
“Who did Dorrie relieve?” he asked.
“Me!” Maxine Doddsworth fell to her knees. “Oh, Mr. Taggart!” she wailed. “It was me!”
Horace Taggart digested that fact too. His expression never changed. But Mindy Taggart looked stricken. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Horace—” Mindy began.
Taggart put up his hand, silencing her. “Harper, I want this solved. I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care who gets hurt. Do you understand me?”
Chief Harper cleared his throat uncomfortably.
Doddsworth opened his mouth to say something.
“Do you understand me?” Taggart’s query was like steel, cutting Doddsworth off.
Mindy Taggart seemed drowning in emotions, the loss of her daughter overcoming her natural instinct to apologize for her husband’s bad manners. She looked at Doddsworth as if appealing to him for understanding.
But Doddsworth’s eyes were on his weeping daughter, clasped in his ex-wife’s arms.
Chief Harper exhaled heavily. “I understand you, Horace.”
Horace Taggart turned and stomped back toward his Mercedes.
Cora frowned.
Mindy Taggart looked grief-stricken, yes.
She also looked terrified.
14
THE CROWD IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH HAD SWELLED. THE spectacular nature of the crime, with the Virgin Mary tumbling headlong from the stable, had drawn the townspeople as well as the sightseers who had driven up to see the Nativity. Grumbling, Sam Brogan had taken on the job of keeping them back. Even so, they filled the road, making it impossible to drive around the green.
Chief Harper and his contingent from the crèche had just reached the church when a puce Volkswagen Super-beetle careened by and skidded to a stop inches from the crowd.
Rupert Winston erupted from the door. The eccentric director looked as flamboyant as ever in a full-length suede overcoat, felt hat, and six-foot-long scarf of scarlet velvet. “Is it true?” he cried, playing to the crowd, the heavens, and the last row of the balcony. “Is she dead? Is Becky really dead?”
“Not so you could notice,” Becky Baldwin said.
Rupert Winston’s face ran a gamut of emotions that could have served for an actor’s audition piece. “Thank God!” he exclaimed. “It seemed too awful to be true, and yet! . . . And yet! . . . Thank God you’re safe!” The hollow smile on his face froze as realization dawned. The reaction was so hammy Cora couldn’t tell if he really was surprised, or was simply emoting. “Then what’s wrong?”
“One of the other girls is dead,” Cora informed him.
“Oh, how awful!” he cried, though it obviously wasn’t nearly as awful as if it had been Becky Baldwin. “Who is it?”
Maxine Doddsworth flung herself into the director’s arms. “It’s Dorrie, Mr. Winston! Dorrie’s dead!”
“Oh, my God!” Rupert pried himself from her clutches, held her at arm’s length. “Are you sure, Maxine? Are you sure it’s her?”
“It’s her,” Chief Harper said. “We have a positive ID. Did you know the girl?”
“She was in my play.”
Cora Felton frowned. “Really? What was she?”
“Oh, no,” Rupert said. “Not the Christmas pageant. The high school play. Dorrie was in The Seagull.”
