Diva Wraps It Up, The (7 page)

“So you’re the one!” Luis laughed.

Nina shook her head. “What a stupid thing to say in a Christmas letter. Didn’t Gwen know that she would worry wives all over the neighborhood?”

“Oh, come on, Nina. No one has to worry,” said Luis. “That was obviously the lie about Gwen. But what was the lie about Baxter?”

“There were so many details in that letter that I can’t remember them all.” I thought back. Hadn’t she heaped praise on Baxter?

“I’ll give you a hint,” said Luis. “It involves a mountain cabin.”

A car screeched to avoid the large reindeer leg that still jutted out into the street.

“Hey, guys, would you mind giving me a hand? I could use some help deflating that thing. I’m afraid it will come down on cars.”

The three men headed across the street, and Nina went home with her purchases.

It seemed like old times when I draped the pine around my doorway and added bulk with glossy magnolia leaves. Neighbors drifted by to pick up their coats and ask about Horace. Mars puttered around the house with lights and occasionally stopped to give me a hand. Daisy sniffed the pine and decorating items I had bought.

We were chuckling about Mrs. Scroggins striding by yet again, when we noticed Natasha hanging a giant purple wreath on the door of Francie’s house. My elderly neighbor had been away visiting friends over Thanksgiving and was due home any day.

“Purple?” I whispered to Mars. “Really? Natasha knows Francie hates it when Natasha decorates for her.”

“Give Nat a break. She’s trying to do something nice. She knows Francie doesn’t have the energy to do a lot of decorating anymore. This is Nat’s gift to Francie.”

“If she brings topiaries, there will be big trouble when Francie comes home. I can’t wait to hear what Francie thinks about the purple color.”

Natasha left and returned shortly. With great care, she set two large topiary raccoons on either side of Francie’s front door. They wore Santa hats.

Natasha stepped back to admire her work. She ambled over to Mars and me. “Mars, when we have the block party, could you add some string lights to Francie’s door and maybe the front windows? I have some in purple that will go perfectly with her décor.”

“Why don’t I wait until Francie comes home and find out what she would like?” asked Mars.

Natasha pretended to pout. I hoped he didn’t fall for that ridiculous gag.

“Can you imagine, Gwen told me I shouldn’t let Mars work over here by himself. She thinks you’re going to steal him from me, Sophie!” Natasha chortled. “Isn’t that a hoot?”

Dear Sophie,

I live in an apartment and can’t do much exterior decorating. I have a very wide living room window but I never know what to do with it. Do you have any suggestions?

Noel in Joy, Illinois

Dear Noel,

One of my favorite decorating tricks is to use multiple wreaths. Either hang three straight in a row or stagger them with the middle one higher or lower than the others.

Sophie

Suddenly, I felt terribly guilty for enjoying Mars’s company.

“At least I don’t have to worry about him having an affair with Gwen. I have my money on Bernie.” Natasha brushed a fiber off her jacket.

“Bernie? Why would you think that?”

“He’s a bachelor. He’s not bad looking, though
I
certainly wouldn’t call him yummy. Hey, where’s Humphrey? He usually likes to join in when you decorate.”

“Still at his mom’s house in the country. He’s probably helping her decorate. Should be back any day.”

Across the street, Kat Babineaux skipped along the sidewalk, still wearing her assistant elf costume and chattering gaily at Sugar, who held her hand.

“What do you know about the Babineauxs?” I asked, still concerned about the ladder that broke under Baxter.

“Not much,” said Mars. “They moved here from California.”

“Their kids play their music too loud,” complained Natasha. “Drives me up a wall. Who were those people making all the noise in front of their house this morning? That old VW bus looks like it’s ready for the junkyard. I’m hoping the trash collectors will take it by mistake.”

“Baxter’s brother and his girlfriend, Sugar.”

“Are you going to the cookie swap?” asked Mars, shooting a peeved look at Natasha.

“Do you mean me?” I asked. “Of course!”

Natasha heaved a huge sigh. “I’m only invited because Gwen wants a celebrity guest, and she knows I’ll bring gourmet cookies. What will I get out of it? Nothing.”

“She invited friends from the neighborhood.” If Natasha was going to have that kind of attitude, I hoped she wouldn’t attend. She did have a local cable TV show about all things domestic, but that hardly qualified her as a celebrity. The two of us wrote competing advice columns about domestic issues, which irritated her. Natasha thought of everything as a contest.

Mars wound lights into the pine around my door. “It’s the neighborly thing to do, but Natasha doesn’t care for Gwen.”

Natasha pumped her fists on her hips. “She’s such a braggart! She thinks she does everything better than anyone else.”

I had to bite my top lip and turn my back to hide my amusement. Natasha had just described herself. I pretended to search for another string of lights so she wouldn’t see my expression.

“Seems like you would want to prove you can bake the best cookies, then.”

Whoa. Mars knew how to pull her chain!

The edge of Natasha’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know why you’re so intent on me going to that thing.”

“Maybe he wants you to bring home twelve dozen cookies,” I teased, although I wondered if that wasn’t part of his motivation.

“I shudder to think what they’ll be like.” Natasha regarded my house. “I could do so much with this place. We should have lunch and talk, Sophie. You could make a lot of improvements.” She strode away, passing Mrs. Scroggins, who was making yet another pass along our street.

“Any yelling at the Babineauxs’?” I asked Mars.

“Not more than you’d expect with a couple of rowdy teenagers in the house.” Mars stepped on the ladder and attached pinecones to the greenery. “Why all the questions?”

“Baxter fell off their roof this morning when a rung on his ladder broke. I’m not sure, of course, but it looked like someone might have tampered with one of the rungs.”

Mars gazed toward their house. “That’s a heck of a drop.”

“Luckily, the bushes broke his fall. I thought he should go to the emergency room, but neither he nor Gwen felt it necessary.”

Mars raised one eyebrow. “This isn’t their ladder, is it?”

I laughed at him. “No. But be careful anyway. If you take a spill, you won’t get all these Christmas lights up.”

“
That’s
what you care about?”

“I thought you wanted to trump Natasha.”

“I do.” Mars snickered. He lowered his hand to me, ready for more pinecones. “Are you suggesting Gwen
wanted
Baxter to fall?”

“I’m simply making a discreet inquiry.”

Mars tucked a bit of ribbon into the corner. “I think you miss Wolf.”

“What? Why would you say that? You hate Wolf.”

“Do not. He turned out to be a decent sort. Why else would you be imagining murder and mayhem?”

“You think it’s so I can call Wolf? Don’t be silly. I cannot imagine any circumstances that would prompt me to call him. Besides, I’m not imagining anything. Maybe I should show you the ladder.”

“This date you’re going on—is it with Alex German?”

“It is.”

Mars stepped off the ladder and eyed the remaining items I held. “If you need mistletoe to get him to kiss you, then I would recommend knocking off the murder and mayhem talk. Honestly, Sophie!
’Tis the season to be jolly
and all that.”

“Come look at the ladder with me.”

“Excuse me, Baxter,” Mars quipped, “Sophie wants to know if I think Gwen is trying to kill you. You don’t mind us inspecting your ladder, do you?”

“You’re going to feel pretty rotten if she does kill him.”

“He’s fine. I can see him on his roof—with someone else.”

“Probably his brother.”

“See? You’re imagining things. He’ll be fine.”

Now that he pointed out Baxter’s brother, I felt relieved. Surely Gwen wouldn’t try anything when his brother was visiting. There really was safety in numbers. Wasn’t there?

“We only have an hour or so of daylight left anyway. Let’s finish this and the bay window. Maybe get the wreaths hung? Bernie agreed to come over tomorrow afternoon to help with the roof. Much easier with two people.”

I was glad he wasn’t enlisting my help on the roof.

When we finished, I stood on the sidewalk admiring my house. A wreath hung from a wide red ribbon in each window. We had filled the flower boxes under my bay window with evergreens that spilled over them. Red and green apples adorned them, and the ubiquitous colonial pineapple sat prominently in the center. Small Christmas trees loaded with white lights sat in two large pots that flanked the front door. Red apples filled the tops of the pots hiding the electrical connections. The wreath on the front door and the thick roping Mars and I had adorned with magnolia leaves, pinecones, ribbons, and apples had never been more lush.

Mars slid an arm around me. “We still make a pretty good team, Soph. The house looks great.”

I nodded. “I think your Aunt Faye would be proud.” There were those who thought her spirit still inhabited the kitchen. Sometimes I thought so myself.

“Wait until she sees it tomorrow night with all the lights on it!” Mars pecked my cheek. “I’m beat. See you tomorrow. C’mon, Daisy!”

Before I cooked dinner, Mochie accompanied me through the house as I added a single battery-operated candle to each window. They would turn on automatically at dusk and stay on well after Mochie and I were tucked in bed. I couldn’t imagine that Mars would want to run his lighting extravaganza for hours on end. The candles would provide ambiance when his lights weren’t on. Besides, I loved walking into a room that was lighted by the glow of a candle. It was one of the joys of the season.

For dinner, I whipped up one of Mochie’s and my favorites. He turned up his kitty nose at the salad of crisp mixed greens, but he loved Julia Child’s Chicken Suprême. I had modified it to suit my casual lifestyle. While I readily admitted that it tasted more delicious sautéed in butter, the olive oil I used instead was supposed to be healthier and the chicken breast still turned out soft and delicious. It cooked in minutes, but not fast enough for Mochie, who sat on a chair next to the fireplace, his tail twitching impatiently.

I tossed some kindling into the fireplace and lit a rolled newspaper underneath it. The blaze warmed my kitchen. The crackle and occasional hiss was so comforting that I wanted to stay put.

I cut a piece of the juicy chicken into cat-bite-sized pieces and placed them in a small red bowl. Mochie wasted no time eating. He finished before I ate my first bite. I watched him wash his face in the glow of the fire while I ate my dinner.

After cleaning up the few dishes, I draped leftover pine roping along the top of the window over my kitchen sink and around the bay window in my kitchen. I was hanging gingerbread stars and hearts from delicate red ribbons when I heard a soft tap at the door. A woman peered through the glass.

I opened the door to Edith Scroggins, who said, “My husband is trying to get rid of me.”

Dear Sophie,

My in-laws are coming to Christmas dinner this year. At our wedding, my mother-in-law complained that the centerpieces were too high and discouraged conversation. How do I impress her with a low centerpiece?

Nervous in Holiday, Florida

Dear Nervous,

Double the depth of your centerpiece with a mirror. Use a framed or unframed mirror as the base and add low items. They can be as simple as red berries, gold ornaments, or a cluster of votive candles surrounded by twigs of evergreen.

Sophie

Edith stared at me, wrapped in a black wool coat with a mink collar that had probably been the height of fashion once. A mink band ran around the black hat she wore. Also vintage, it was adorable, with the brim curling up on the right side and down over her face on the left. I didn’t much care for the black veil, but I suspected she’d worn it over her face instead of sunglasses since it was pitch dark outside. It was a classic outfit. Except for the mink and the veil, I could imagine women buying it today.

Her chest heaved, and I heard her breath shudder. She was scared.

In spite of my feelings about her, I invited her in.

“Would you mind drawing the curtains?” asked Edith.

“Has Horace been released from the hospital?” If she thought he was trying to harm her, she didn’t need to worry while he was incapacitated. Unless she thought he had hired someone. What was I thinking? Horace wouldn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t even want her to know about Brown-Eyed Girl!

“No. But he has friends.”

I was one of them. Surely she realized that. “May I take your coat?”

“Yes, thank you. You certainly have a lot of friends. I thought they would never leave.”

I drew the curtains closed. “Could I offer you some hot chocolate?”

“No. Have you a bottle of water with an intact seal?” She didn’t bother removing her black gloves.

“Probably. Would you like ice?”

“No.”

I fetched a bottle of Perrier and a glass. I placed a few sugar cookies on a small porcelain cookie plate shaped like a star, and added a napkin.

When I set them on a small table next to her chair by the fire, she said, “Thank you. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

I didn’t know quite what to make of that. Had Horace’s hospitalization caused her lack of appetite? If she thought he was trying to get rid of her, more likely her lack of appetite stemmed from worry about him coming home.

“I thought it safe to eat what the caterers had prepared for everyone else. Otherwise I would not have attended Horace’s party.”

She wasn’t going to eat the cookies. Poor woman. I felt sorry for her even though I seriously doubted that Horace planned to harm her.

“Can you help me or are you one of Horace’s adoring minions?”

“If you suspected me of being one of his minions, I don’t believe you would be here.”

She nodded. “Astute. Apparently you
do
have a brain.”

I let it slide. “Mrs. Scroggins, I have to be honest with you. If you fear for your life, you should go to the police.”

Her mouth twitched downward. “I am seventy years old, but I’m not stupid. If I go to the police and tell them that items in my home aren’t where they’re supposed to be, the police will think I have simply misplaced them.”

“What kind of items?”

“First my medicine. It is kept on the third shelf in the medicine cabinet, yet it moved to the second shelf with Horace’s medicines. Second, the cash that I placed in an envelope for my cleaning woman’s Christmas bonus vanished from my desk. I found the empty envelope later in my nightstand. Third, a mirror that has hung on the left wall of the back hall since I was a child, suddenly hung on the right. Fourth, the ringer on the telephone was turned off so one could not hear it ringing. Fifth, and possibly the most disturbing to me, which leads me to believe that it’s Horace or someone he’s paying, a small statuette of a boy that Horace gave me as a gift has disappeared from our garden.”

“Was it valuable? Perhaps it was stolen.”

She scoffed. “Only sentimental value.”

It was difficult for me to imagine Edith Scroggins being sentimental over anything. I could understand her problem, though. With the exception of the mirror that moved, all of those things could happen due to sheer forgetfulness. My own mother had turned the ringer off her phone by accident. And who had never misplaced something? Putting medicine on the wrong shelf wasn’t a big deal. Losing the money was odd, but Edith could very well have thought she placed money in the envelope but have forgotten to do it. I was quite a bit younger than Edith, but it wasn’t unusual for me to misplace things.

“Did you ask Horace about any of those items?”

“I’m not daft! Of course I did. Horace denied knowledge of any of them.”

“He didn’t notice that the mirror moved? Wasn’t there a spot on the wall where the paint was a different color?”

“We had the painters in last summer. Horace said he couldn’t recall where the mirror had hung. I am correct. I found a photograph from 1985 that showed the mirror hanging on the left.” She poured water into the glass with a trembling hand.

The veil did a good job of hiding her face, but I knew she was aging well, without the ravages of the sun wrinkling her skin. I wouldn’t have put her at seventy. She was right, of course. The police would likely believe exactly what I was thinking—that we all misplace things.

“Why do you think Horace did these things?”

“No one else has access to the house, except for the cleaning woman. She has no reason to wish me ill.”

Unless she acted a great deal nicer toward the cleaning woman than she did to everyone else, I wasn’t convinced that her housekeeper didn’t harbor resentment. Moving things would be a simple enough way to take revenge. “That wasn’t quite what I meant. It sounds like someone is gaslighting you,” I said, in reference to the Hitchcock movie
Gaslight
, in which a husband tricks his wife to make her think she is going mad. “Why do you think the goal is murder?”

“I’m glad you’re familiar with that film. What other reason would there be? He plans to get me out of the way.”

Oh no. I wished I didn’t know about Brown-Eyed Girl.

Edith paused. I waited quietly to see if she would divulge anything more helpful.

“I own our house and the majority of Scroggins Realty. They belonged to my parents.”

Okay, that was a motive, but I thought Horace had done pretty well for himself financially. “I’m under the impression that Horace could buy another house if that’s what he’s after.”

She folded her hands in her lap. “I suppose that’s true. It wouldn’t be quite as simple to get me out of the business, unless . . . unless he’s trying to make a case that I am incompetent. I don’t know what to do. I hoped you could help me.”

“Do you know Officer Wong?”

Edith frowned. “No.”

I probably shouldn’t mention that she had thrown Wong out with the rest of us after the party, and that Wong was the one who had threatened to get a search warrant for Horace’s office. “She’s very sharp. Maybe you could tell her. I would feel better if the police were on notice.”

“In other words,
you
won’t help me.”

“Mrs. Scroggins, I don’t know what I can do.” I shrugged. “Unless you stayed here with me, I couldn’t keep an eye on you.” The words had slipped out of my mouth. I hurried to add, “I’m certain you don’t want a babysitter. And I’m not big or strong enough to stop anyone who might mean you harm.”

Her eyes focused on something past my shoulder. “I don’t think I would be comfortable here. Your cat has been staring at me.”

I turned. Mochie sat on the banquette in classic Egyptian cat position, his tail wrapped around his front paws. Alert, yet with superior feline aloofness, he studied Edith.
Good kitty!
I didn’t think I would be comfortable with Edith staying with me. I hadn’t meant to invite her, merely to make the point that I didn’t know what anyone could do short of a bodyguard.

“Isn’t there someone who might come to stay with you? A family member or old friend?”

“No.” She said it simply, directly, and to the point.

“Maybe you could hire a bodyguard.”

Edith rubbed her temple. “I prefer my own company. I loathe the notion of someone hanging around. And how would I know that person wasn’t on Horace’s payroll?”

“How about a hotel?”

She raised her eyes to meet mine. Her fingers coiled into fists. “May I call on you again if there are further developments? Much to my surprise, I have found it useful to discuss this with someone.”

“Yes, of course”—I turned the tables on her—“but only if you promise to share this information with Officer Wong.”

She rose. “Very well. Thank you for the water.”

I helped her with her coat and showed her to the front door.

“I always liked this house,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t rip everything out. If one wants a modern house, one ought not buy in Old Town.”

“Would you like me to walk you home?”

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course.” I tamped down the fire to barely burning embers, grabbed a coat from the closet, and slid it on. I seized my keys, locked the door behind us, and strolled along the sidewalk toward Mars and Natasha’s house.

Luis had given up on the giant reindeer. Next door, the lights Gwen had wanted on the dormer windows glowed in the night. It appeared every light inside their house had been turned on. Strains of music reached the street. “The Babineauxs have a lively household,” I observed, making small talk.

“Their household is in a state of permanent chaos.” She sounded angry.

Natasha had gone minimalistic with Christmas lights. They outlined her front door and wound along the railing of her stairs. In pink and orange. They were bright, they were pretty, they were most certainly merry, but they made me want to ask when the circus was coming to town.

Edith stopped to stare at it. “Good lord, it looks like Natasha is advertising a bordello.”

I bit my lip. I could see exactly what she meant. But I didn’t think she intended to be funny.

We didn’t speak much as we turned onto her street. The Christmas decorations on Edith’s home reflected Horace’s love of Scotland. Next to her front door, a giant tartan bow graced a balsam wreath that held pinecones, little black Scottish terriers, and red berries.

She let herself in, said good-night, and closed the door. Locks clanked into place promptly.

I took my time walking home to enjoy the Christmas decorations. Much to my surprise, I found myself feeling sorry for the grouchy old woman. She had alienated everyone, and now that she needed a friend, she had none. It made me appreciate my friends all the more, even Natasha, who, obnoxious as she was, would be the first in line if I needed help.

When I passed the entrance to the alley behind Mars and Natasha’s house, I heard murmuring voices. I slowed and looked, expecting to see them.

Instead, I caught Sugar with a man in what appeared to be a rather personal moment.