Boo Who (8 page)

“I love you, Dad,” she said, hugging him. “I’d better get to the kitchen myself. I have a big feast to prepare. By the way, Alfred Tennison will be joining us.”

“Wolfe’s editor?”

“Ex-editor. And I know, I know, Christmas is family time, but Alfred didn’t have anywhere to go for Christmas, and he’s practically family to Wolfe.”

“That’s fine, sweetheart,” he said. “You know what’s best.”

Just as she was headed for the kitchen, the doorbell rang. She checked her watch. She didn’t expect Wolfe this early but would be glad to see him no matter what the time.

Opening the door, she found Melb there heaving out sobs while trying to explain something that Ainsley couldn’t understand. She pulled her inside the house.

“Melb, calm down. Calm down. Please. Take a deep breath. Are you okay?” She couldn’t remember ever seeing anybody this upset.

Melb’s whole face was red and splotchy, her eyes bloodshot. “Oh, Ainsley,” she finally managed, “it’s all so terrible.”

“What happened?”

“Oliver!”

Ainsley guided her into the living room, shooing her curious dad back into the kitchen. Taking her coat, she sat them both onto the couch. “Did you two have a fight?”

“Not really,” Melb said. “Oliver doesn’t know I’m upset.”

“Why are you upset?”

“I just … I just don’t know if I can marry a man who is so frugal with his money. I mean, the man is saving us hundreds of dollars on this wedding.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

Melb eyed her. “I don’t expect you to understand. You don’t have to worry about money.”

“Melb,” she said, “please, tell me what this is about. I don’t understand why you’re upset.”

Melb shook her head. “Oliver is brilliant with money. He set up this account and this budget for us to plan our wedding.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“I guess. But I found this beautiful dress, Ainsley. My dream dress. But I went $550 over budget.”

“Oh. Well, Oliver will understand.”

“I thought he might. But then he told me he saved a bunch of money
and was
able to get us a horse-drawn carriage. And then I found out he also saved us four hundred dollars on our honeymoon.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the Bass Pro Shop up in Cincinnati.”

Ainsley was about to say something but decided to each his own.

“Anyway, he got some great deal on hotel rates there.” Melb sniffled. “He’s going to kill me!”

“Over a dress?”

“That’s not all. I also received the invitations in the mail.”

“How exciting!”

“Except I spelled Oliver’s last name wrong! I left out a couple of
o’s
and a p, I think.” Melb melted into sobs again. “I’m going to have to pay for them to be reprinted!”

“Melb, Melb,” she said, patting her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

She shook her head. “No. He’s going to think I’m some crazy woman who doesn’t know how to live on a budget.” She glanced at Ainsley. “And I am some crazy woman who doesn’t know how to live on a budget. I’ve never lived by a budget my whole life, Ainsley. I don’t know how!”

Ainsley squeezed her hand, not sure what to say, except, “Melb, I do know your best bet is to be honest with Oliver.”

“I don’t know,” Melb sighed, swiping at her tears. “Besides that, I have to lose four dress sizes by Valentine’s Day. Maybe I’m overly emotional because I’ve been depriving myself of sugar lately.”

“Listen, everything is going to be okay. I know planning a wedding is stressful—”

“You’re not stressed out.”

“That’s not true. I have a lot to do before the big day.”

“Your wedding is going to be perfect.”

“So is
yours,”
Ainsley said, squaring Melb’s shoulders directly to her. “Melb, you are marrying the most awesome guy in the world!”

A small smile erased Melb’s panic-stricken features. “I know.” The smile wilted. “I don’t know if I can live up to him.”

“He’s just as lucky to have you. You are caring, tender, passionate. The guy is crazy about you, Melb. Don’t forget that.”

“Okay.” She stood, but instead of heading to the front door, she went to the kitchen. Luckily, Sheriff Parker had disappeared upstairs to get dressed. “I smell some sort of pastry with cream cheese.”

Ainsley pointed to the oven. “Breakfast.”

“I’d love some. But just a small serving.”

Martin Blarty awoke to the feeling of being attacked by birds. He screamed and flailed his arms until he realized it wasn’t birds, just massive amounts of paper on top of him. He’d fallen asleep the night before, doing research about the town while listening to an owl hooting outside his window. That made for a terrifying dream this morning, and now a mess of papers in a pile next to the couch.

Martin’s back ached, and his eyes were practically glued shut, but he rose anyway. It was Christmas morning, and he always spent it with Mayor Wullisworth. This year Oliver and Melb would join them too. Just the thought of spending Christmas with his closest friends caused the sleepiness to fade. After a quick shower, Martin dressed, even put cologne on, and then went to the living room to gather presents for everyone.

The vase in the corner will do nicely for Melb,
he thought, and took it, packaging it carefully with bubble wrap before putting it in a box and wrapping it up. For Oliver, he decided on the nice Oriental print of a large fish his great Aunt June had given him three birthdays ago. Oliver
always said he wanted to travel the world. For the mayor, he decided on a biography of Rudolph Giuliani. Martin had read it three times and figured it might inspire the mayor that he could be a good leader through tough times.

There. Christmas shopping done. He hated waiting until the last minute, but it had been a busy winter.

Then he went to the refrigerator to get his green bean casserole. He knew the mayor would be fixing his world-famous fried turkey, which everyone always anticipated. This was Martins first year to do green beans. Usually he brought the rolls. But Oliver said Melb was fond of bread, so Martin decided to be generous and let Melb be in charge of that.

Surprisingly, the green bean casserole was not hard to make. The recipe on the side of the green bean can said to add some sort of cream-of soup. At the store, he’d decided on clam chowder. That was his favorite soup anyhow, and who in the world would like cream of celery? Those green stringy stalks were hard enough to eat with peanut butter. The recipe had also called for fried onions on the top, so he was fairly sure he could get away with onion rings from Big Bess’s Burger Joint. He’d laid them on top in a very precise way, a pattern resembling the Olympic rings.

After putting everything in his car, he drove over to the mayor’s house, humming along to gleeful Christmas tunes on the radio. On his way over, he thought about his research on the town of Skary last night. It perplexed him how little information there was. He’d spent the evening at the town hall, trying to come up with some sort of history, but there wasn’t much to go on. Where had all the papers gone? Entire folders lay empty in the filing drawers. But a layer of dust on everything indicated these folders hadn’t seen the light of day in years.

He forced the thoughts out of his mind. This was Christmas. There would be time to worry about Skary on another day.

Pulling into the mayor’s driveway, he loaded his arms with presents and the casserole and went to the door. When there was no answer to his first ring, he pressed the doorbell again. Again no answer. And he
was growing colder by the minute. Maybe the mayor was in the shower, though legend had it he showered only on Tuesdays.

He decided to go around to the other side of the house. Maybe he could see in through a window. Tromping through the snow, he went to the back porch and gasped. He didn’t have to look through a window to find the mayor. There he was, sitting in his pajamas and smoking a pipe on a snow-covered lawn chair. His skin was tinted blue.

“Mayor!” Martin cried, rushing to him. The mayor turned, regarding him with a wave of his pipe.

“Martin! Top of the morning to you!”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Enjoying a beautiful and sunny summer morning.”

Martin stood there, shivering beneath his wool coat. “Excuse me?”

“Would you like to join me?”

“Mayor, it is thirty degrees out here. There’s snow everywhere. It’s … it’s Christmas morning.”

But the mayor did not seem to hear him. Instead he puffed his pipe and hummed a tune about summer rains. His lips were purple. Martin’s own lips, he was sure, had drained of color.

“Come on, why don’t we come inside?” he suggested, taking the mayor by the arm and pulling him to his feet.

“I suppose it is time for me to get dressed,” the mayor said. “I have a full day of work ahead of me.”

Martin slid the glass door open and guided the mayor inside. He quickly poured him a cup of coffee and insisted he drink it immediately. After a few moments, color returned to the mayor’s face.

“Sir, it’s Christmas morning,” Martin said. “It’s not summertime.”

“Can’t you hear the birds whistling? The grass is so green! The sky so blue! It’s going to be a terrific day in the town of Skary, Indiana!”

Martin gulped down a ball of fear.

CHAPTER 8

A
INSLEY SCURRIED ABOUT
the house, trying to decide exactly how to set the table. She knew Alfred would be joining them, and that Butch, her ever-mysterious covert brother, was planning on being there too. Melb was loitering around the kitchen—surely she would spend Christmas with Oliver! But she didn’t look as though she was leaving anytime soon.

Chewing on a fingernail, she decided to go ahead with place settings for six. That was safe. She didn’t want to put the extra leaf in the table; it would ruin the decorations she’d fashioned for the smaller version of the table. But six could easily sit around the gleaming hardwood. Worriedly, she glanced into the kitchen at Melb, who was staring into the oven at the turkey.

“Melb, isn’t Oliver going to be worried about you?”

“I can’t face him yet,” she said. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell him about being over budget.”

“Look,” Ainsley said, “don’t do it today. Christmas is never a good day to break news to people. Get through the holidays, and then sit down and talk with him. He’ll understand.”

“When’s this turkey going to be done?”

Ainsley sighed. “Another couple of hours.”

A knock interrupted Melb’s next question, which Ainsley thought was going to be about the pumpkin pie. Hoping it was Wolfe, she couldn’t help but show surprise at what stood in her doorway. It was Martin Blarty, dressed in a sweater seemingly made of cologne, and the mayor, in his pajamas.

“Is your father home?” Martin asked, his eyes intense with worry.

She ushered the two in and called for her father, who was upstairs with a ball of yarn trying to induce excitement out of Thief. When the sheriff came down, Martin greeted him at the end of the stairs.

“He’s lost his mind,” Martin whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

His statement was met by skeptical looks until the mayor walked to the window, looked outside, and said, “It looks like a balmy afternoon, folks. At least in the seventies, wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s morning,” Melb blurted out. Indeed it was. And with the heavy snow that fell last night, no one could imagine what the mayor was talking about.

“He thinks it’s summer,” Martin said. “I found him outside on his lawn chair smoking a pipe in his pajamas.”

“My goodness,” Ainsley gasped, holding her hand over her mouth. But the mayor seemed completely oblivious to all the concern. “Dad, what should we do?” she pleaded in a low whisper. Everyone but the mayor had gathered around the sheriff.

“There aren’t going to be any doctors available today,” the sheriff sighed. “We could take him to the emergency room at the county hospital, but knowing the mayor like I do, he would kill me if I made a fuss over him like that.”

“He’s having a nervous breakdown,” Martin said. “He’s been depressed lately, over the town, but I never imagined it would come to this.”

“Let’s just watch him today,” the sheriff said, studying the mayor as he stood almost catatonic at the window. “Keep an eye on him. If he doesn’t improve soon, we’ll take him to the hospital.”