Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) (4 page)

“But what?” he asked, squinting against the late morning sun.

Ellis avoided looking at me but I knew what she was thinking.
Augusta might have seen something when she went inside the house
.

“The Tanseys live over there in the Green—I mean the yellow house a little way down the road,” I said. “Dave Tansey sort of looks after this place. Maybe they’ll know something about him.”

Kemper frowned. “Tansey. That Jeremiah’s folks?”

“That’s right,” Ellis told him. “You know him?”

“I know him,” Kemper said. It didn’t sound as if the two were on a friendly basis.

The captain gave Kemper a look that clearly read,
Keep your mouth shut
. “I expect we’ll be finding out more about this fellow here before too long,” he said, giving Ellis and me a dismissive nod as the coroner and a couple of police cars pulled into the yard behind him. “I think you’ve told us about all we need to know for now,” he told us. “No reason for all of us to freeze out here—that is if you think you have enough holly there.”

This last was directed at Ellis, who crammed one more limb in her bulging bag. “We’ll be in touch, and if anything comes to mind, you will let us know, won’t you?”

Ellis looked over her shoulder the whole time as we walked back to where we had parked the car, bags of evergreens bumping along between us.

“If you’re looking for Augusta you’re wasting your time,” I told her. “You know good and well she’ll be waiting for us in the car.”

And of course she was. We found her muffled from head to toe in a throw I keep for that purpose. “It’s going to take about a pot of coffee to warm me up,” Augusta said from the backseat. “Do you think you might get that heater going soon?”

Ellis and I didn’t speak as we quickly crammed our fragrant gatherings into the trunk and drove away. Both of us were eager to put that dreadful scene behind us.

Ellis turned to Augusta as we entered the main road. “Well?” she said.

Augusta pulled her knitted hat closer about her ears. “Well, what?”

“Did you see or hear anybody when you went inside the house?” I could tell Ellis was trying to hide her exasperation.

But Augusta only shivered and drew her wrap more snugly about her.

“For heaven’s sake, Augusta, tell us! You
did
see something, didn’t you?” I caught her eye in the rearview mirror but she quickly looked away.

“I was so hoping it might snow,” she said, scanning the sky.

“Do you think it will?”

I glanced silently at Ellis, who shrugged. I could have told her that if Augusta Goodnight had anything to share she would tell us when she was good and ready, and not a second before.

’m going to have to quit hanging around with you—in fact, it makes me a little uncomfortable having you right next door,” my neighbor Nettie McGinnis said.

Bellawood, the restored plantation where I work several days a week, was planning its annual Christmas candlelight tour and Nettie had brought over her punch bowl for the occasion.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “How come?”

She set the box on my kitchen table and plopped into a chair. “How many bodies have you found in the last year or so? Three? Four? I’ve come to the conclusion it might be in my best interest to stay out of your way.”

“I wasn’t even there when that man fell from the balcony yesterday—cross my heart.” And I did. “The police think he probably spent the night in there to get in out of the cold. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody found a way inside Willowbrook. Preacher Dave tries to keep the place secure but he says he had to run off a couple of teenagers making out in there a few weeks ago.”

Nettie frowned. “Preacher Dave? Isn’t he the man the deacons hired to fill in for Luther at the church?”

“Right. He and his family have been living out there for over a year since Cudin’ Grayson decided to try his hand at farming. Kinda looks after the place.”

Nettie helped herself to one of Augusta’s apple spice muffins as I poured coffee for both of us. I had known our neighbor for as long as I could remember, but when Charlie and I moved into the house on Heritage Avenue over twenty years ago she became an integral part of our lives. “This man who fell—do they know who he is—or should I say,
was
?” she asked.

“Kemper said they didn’t find any kind of identification on him,” I said. “They don’t seem to know a lot more than they did.”

“Had he been drinking?” Nettie stirred another spoonful of sugar into her brew.

“I guess they’ll know more about that after they get the autopsy report. According to Kemper they found several empty beer cans and an old whiskey bottle or two upstairs but he didn’t know if any of them belonged to the dead man. Preacher Dave said he could’ve sworn he locked that front door up tight but it wasn’t closed when we saw it. Looks like he just walked right in and made himself at home.”

My neighbor clicked her false teeth, a sign which usually meant she was studying on something. “How do they know he fell from that balcony? Could’ve been pushed, you know.”

I passed her another muffin. “Or jumped like poor Celia. But why come all the way out to Willowbrook to do away with himself? Nobody here seems to have even known the man.”

She chewed on that for a minute. “What about the preacher’s son—Joshua, isn’t it?”

“Jeremiah. His mother says no,” I told her.

“Or that’s what he would want her to believe, but I wouldn’t put too much faith in what that boy says. Kim—you know Kim, does my hair at the Total Perfection—well, she says she’s seen him hanging out with that rough bunch over at the Red Horse Café.”

“What was Kim doing at the Red Horse Café?” I asked, but Nettie didn’t bother to answer. “I don’t reckon you all had a chance to get enough evergreens for the Advent wreath,” she said.

“Then you reckon wrong,” I told her. Geraldine Overton is working on it as we speak. Says she’ll keep it in that big refrigerator at the church until Sunday.” Geraldine Overton used to work part time at a flower shop.

“You could do just as good a job as Geraldine,” Nettie told me. “Back when you used to help out at Bud’s Blooms I thought you made some lovely arrangements, Lucy Nan.”

I laughed. “My children called them ‘derangements,’” I said. “Besides, I don’t want to risk the wrath of Opal Henshaw. She’s already on the warpath about our using fresh greenery.”

“Opal’s always got her drawers in a wad about something,” Nettie said, lifting the punch bowl from its box. “Do you think this is gonna be big enough?”

“If it was any bigger we could swim in it,” I said. “But I’d hate it if anything happened to your pretty cut-glass bowl, Nettie. Are you sure you want to let us borrow this?”

“Cut glass, nothing! I got that old thing at the Five and Ten Cent Store for three ninety-eight back when I was first married. Tell ‘em they can keep it if they want. I can’t remember the last time I used it.”

Nettie blew off my attempt at thanks. “What are they going to serve?”

“Just a few simple things: shortbread cookies, gingerbread, orange-cranberry punch, and peppermint sticks for the children.”

My neighbor snorted. “What? No syllabub? I was always told that’s what they used to serve for Christmas, weddings, and almost any festive occasion. Every house worth its salt had a syllabub churn.”

“So does Bellawood,” I said. “I’ve seen one in the kitchen, but that’s kind of like eggnog, isn’t it? Lord, Genevieve Ellison would
have a cow if we brought alcohol onto the property!” Genevieve, a strict teetotaler, was on the board of directors at Bellawood and I wanted to keep my job. I had been hired to take care of publicity and public relations for the plantation over a year ago, and although the pay wasn’t anything to brag about, I could take care of much of the work from home.

“They’ve asked The Thursdays to help greet visitors,” I told her. “I think you and Jo Nell are supposed to be in the schoolhouse.”

“Well, I hope they’ll have a fire in that old stove out there. I just about froze my ass off that year they stuck me in the upstairs hall.” She frowned. “Where are you going to be?”

“Entrance hall, I think. Of course I’ll get a chill every time somebody opens the door. Lucky Ellis gets to help in the kitchen.”

Two other members of our book club, The Thursday Morning Literary Society (which now meets on Monday afternoons), Idonia Mae Culpepper and Zee St. Clair, were scheduled to guide guests through the upstairs rooms. Our seventh and youngest member, Claudia Pharr, planned to attend a holiday program at her son’s school and wouldn’t be available to help out that night.

“Some of the schoolchildren plan to decorate a small tree with cranberries and popcorn for the parlor,” I said. “I remember Mimmer helping us string those for our tree when I was a little girl.”

“I’m glad your grandmamma can’t see the sad condition her old home has fallen into,” Nettie said with a sigh. “Grayson ought to be ashamed for not taking better care of that place—Mercer, too, God rest him. It’s a wonder it hasn’t burned to the ground.”

“It was rented off and on for a while,” I reminded her, “but the last tenants couldn’t afford to heat those big rooms. You remember my cousin Nellie Virginia, don’t you? Well, she told me her son Vance has shown an interest in Willowbrook, but of course
he’s young and has no idea how much it would cost to keep it up. His mother thinks he’s crazy. Says he’s got his head in the clouds because he’s in love.”

Nettie nodded. “Bless his heart, I hope his girlfriend has money.”

My neighbor hadn’t been gone five minutes when Ellis phoned. “Got something to tell you,” she said.

“What?”

“Tell you when I get there. Just wait till you hear this! Need anything from the store? I have to stop by the market first.”

“Why do you do this?” I asked. “You
always
do this, Ellis Saxon!”

“Do what?” Innocence dripped from her voice.

“You know very well what. You bait me with the promise of some tantalizing news, then leave me hanging while you go running—”

But I was talking to a dial tone. Ellis had hung up.

I was washing a handful of dishes a few minutes later when a gust of cold air ruffled the pages of a magazine on the kitchen table and Augusta, followed by our dog, Clementine, came in from their afternoon romp in the backyard. The magazine was one of those publications that featured an article on “How to Lose Ten Pounds in Ten Days” and a recipe for Christmas trifle with eggnog custard and whipped cream, both in the same issue. Augusta had seemed especially interested in the trifle.