Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) (7 page)

“I do wish we had some holly!” Genevieve Ellison said as she broke off a spray of pine. “This mantel just calls for it.”

“I think they’ve used most of it in the other rooms,” Nettie told her, “but we’ve plenty of cedar and spruce, and I think there’s some hemlock down by the schoolhouse. That always looks graceful in an arrangement.”

“I’ll get it,” I offered, glad of a chance to get some exercise. Several of us had congregated in the kitchen at Bellawood, which was separate from the main house, and a fire leapt on the great hearth blending the smell of wood smoke with that of the evergreens.

“ ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!’” Idonia sang as she heaped pine cones into a large wooden bowl. Idonia’s idea of decorating doesn’t stray too far from Opal Henshaw’s, but you can’t go too far wrong with a bowl of pine cones. Idonia had been singing since she arrived that morning, and had even attempted (with a hilarious jumbling of lyrics) “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Melrose, she told us, had given her his Christmas present early: an antique gold locket in the shape of a dogwood blossom with tiny seed pearls in the center, and it dangled now against her forest green sweater. The locket had once belonged to Melrose’s grandmother, she explained earlier, and she had hesitated about accepting anything so personal, but Melrose had insisted.

“It doesn’t do a thing for me,” he’d told her, laughing. “Who else is going to wear it?”

Idonia fingered it lovingly as she paused to admire her work. “Melrose said it had six pearls in it originally,” she said, “but two of them are missing. Sometime after the holidays he’s going to see if he can get them replaced for me.” And with that remark she drifted into “Jingle Bells” and began to poke cedar boughs into a ceramic jar. The small room had become increasingly warm with the wood fire and I was glad I’d elected to wear a cotton shirt and jeans as had most of the others. Idonia must have been uncomfortable in her sweater as I noticed she stayed as far away from the fireplace as possible.

“Why don’t some of you help me make a swag for the front doorway?” Genevieve asked with a critical eye on Idonia’s attempts at arranging. “We can cut the greenery in lengths and spread them out here on the table to wire together.”

I knew from experience that sounded easier than it actually was, so I put on my jacket and went outside for the hemlock. When I returned with the greenery, Nettie trailed it along the big pine mantel and tucked it behind fat red candles along with clusters of red nandina berries. Idonia, I noticed, was still attempting to make a swag while Genevieve worked quietly behind her repairing the damage. Still humming, Idonia apparently hadn’t noticed, or if she had, she didn’t care. I hoped this wasn’t too good to last.

We spent the rest of our time at Bellawood in the main house, tucking sprigs of spruce and pine behind picture frames, putting candles in every room, and setting out bowls of nuts and apples. Someone with more artistic ability than I had made a feathery wreath of evergreens interspersed with fluffy white bolls of cotton for the front door. It reminded me of the wreath on the door of the Green Cottage back at Willowbrook, and for a while that put a bit of a damper on my Christmas spirit.

I told Nettie about my visit to the Tanseys on the drive home
together. (Idonia was entertaining Melrose for dinner and had to stop for groceries.)

“Did you know they had a daughter who died?” I asked.

“No, but then I don’t know them very well,” Nettie said. “From all I’ve heard Preacher Dave seems to be a hard worker and everyone says he’s doing a good job filling in at the church for Luther. I’ve only seen his wife once or twice—shy little creature.”

“I think they go to Chandler’s Creek Baptist Church out on Sawmill Road,” I said. “Preacher Dave’s a part-time minister there.”

“Wonder where they lived before they came here?” Nettie said. “Nobody seems to know much about them.”

“Maybe they’re just trying to escape sad memories.”

“Well, they’d better brace up because it doesn’t look like they’re going to escape Opal Henshaw and her fruitcake,” Nettie said. “Reckon Claudia will work up enough gumption to tell her she’s not going to help with the ‘run’?”

I laughed. “I doubt it. Let’s just hope nobody offers us any while we’re caroling this weekend.”

“I can’t wait to meet Idonia’s admirer,” I said to Augusta that night after supper. “But I’m not quite sure what to think. She’s known this Melrose about a month yet he’s given her a locket he says belonged to his grandmother. Wouldn’t you think a family heirloom like that would go to one of his children?”

“Maybe he doesn’t have any children,” Augusta said. With a smile she added a tiny gilded angel to an arrangement of hemlock and pine and stepped back to examine it. The caroling party was days away and the only Christmas decoration I’d put up was an evergreen wreath on the front door. Now the two of us were doing our best to make the house look festive with the leftover greenery I’d brought from Bellawood.

“If he has any, Idonia hasn’t mentioned it,” I said. “Ellis said he works part time for his cousin at the funeral home, but surely he didn’t come to Stone’s Throw just for that.” I rummaged in the box of decorations until I found the stuffed reindeer with a bell around its neck that always spent the season on Julie’s bed and set it aside. “I wonder what did bring him here?”

“Perhaps we’ll know in time, but from what you tell me, your friend seems happy with things as they are, so it would seem advisable to let sleeping cats be,” she said, refilling her coffee mug. Augusta rarely sips coffee; she
drinks
it, and she did that now. So fortified, she set the mug aside and with flying fingers went about weaving the remaining greenery into a fragrant swag. My giggle at her jumbled expression seemed to escape her completely.

“That’s just the point,” I explained. “Idonia’s marriage wasn’t very happy—only lasted a few years until her husband found somebody else and left her to raise their little boy alone. I don’t think Idonia has ever gotten over the hurt, and I hate to think of it happening again.”

The stones shimmered green and gold as Augusta twined her long necklace through her fingers. “Your friend is a grown woman, Lucy Nan, and she makes choices just as most people do. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s best to let her make her own decisions … “

I followed her as she carried the swag down the hall to the living room where she draped it over the mantel. It looked fantastic. “Everybody will think I hired a decorator,” I told her.

“… still,” Augusta continued, “I don’t believe it would be inappropriate if we looked into this fellow’s background—inconspicuously, of course.”

“Fine,” I said. “He’ll be coming here for the caroling party, and Augusta, I don’t know of anyone who can be more inconspicuous than you!

“We’ll have to do a rush job of decorating the tree before the
party,” I said as I swept clippings from under the kitchen table. “Ben and I are going out to Willowbrook tomorrow to cut one so I guess I’d better get the decorations down from the attic.”

“What did your policeman friend think about the possibility of a hidden staircase?” she asked.

“Not much. He said they looked around inside to see if they could find where one might be but didn’t have any luck.” I shrugged. “There’s probably nothing to it. Mimmer always did have a good imagination. She said all the Vances do.”

“Oh, my goodness, that reminds me!” Augusta let the dustpan clatter to the floor. “I forgot all about the phone call. I don’t suppose you’ve checked your messages.”

I shook my head. “Hadn’t had a chance. What phone call?”

“Your cousin Grayson called while you were out. It seems his grandson Vance and his young lady would like to see the old home place and asked if you might meet them there tomorrow. I believe he’s expecting you to return his call.”

I looked at the clock. It was a few minutes after nine. I hoped my cousin hadn’t already gone to bed.

But he sounded wide awake when I reached him.

“My friend Ben Maxwell and I plan to go out to Willowbrook to get my tree in the morning—probably sometime after ten,” I told him. “Would that be too early for Vance and Jamie to meet us there?”

“Should be fine,” he said. “I gave them a key to the house, but they don’t know Dave Tansey and he doesn’t know them. Didn’t want him to think they had a prowler about—especially after what happened last week.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “I’ll phone Preacher Dave in the morning so they’ll know what we plan to do.”

“They never did find out what that fellow was about, did they?” Grayson asked. “Was there no kind of identification or any kind of transportation?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. “The police seem to think he was probably a vagrant taking shelter there for the night—of course, there are things they don’t tell me.”

Ben showed up the next morning in time for coffee and some of Augusta’s pumpkin bread before leaving for Willowbrook. Augusta won’t admit it, but I think she has kind of a crush on Ben Maxwell. I noticed the bread was fresh-from-the-oven warm and the coffee strong and steaming hot just as he likes it. They’ve never met, of course.

“It’s going to be weird going back to Willowbrook,” I said as we got ready to leave. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same way about it again.”

Ben kissed the top of my head as he helped me with my jacket. “You don’t sound like you have much confidence in my ability to protect you. I’m crushed.”

I gave him a quick kiss, then shoved him out the door before he got a notion to linger. Clementine, of course, wanted to go along, too, and jumped into the front seat between us. “I know exactly where the tree is so it shouldn’t take too long to find it, but my cousin Vance and his girlfriend are supposed to meet us out there to see the house,” I told him. “Nellie Virginia—that’s Vance’s mother—thinks he might have an idea of living at Willowbrook someday.” I reached over the dog to touch his hand. “I hope you’re not in a hurry.”

“My time is yours,” he said, giving my fingers a squeeze. “I’m not working on anything that can’t wait.”

Ben is a talented furniture craftsman who does a lot of work restoring antiques at Bellawood, which is where we became friends. His reddish brown hair and beard, now streaked with gray, are an indication of his Scottish heritage, and his blue eyes have the
intensity to warm you through and through or pierce you with an icy glance, depending on the situation. I don’t even like to think about how dull my life had become before Ben Maxwell ordered me out of his workshop at Bellawood along with the children in my grandson Teddy’s kindergarten class. That was over a year ago and to tell the truth it could have been a disaster as a number of yelling children pursued several yelping puppies through his sacred domain, tracking sawdust, scattering nails, and upsetting tools along the way. Ben, I thought at the time, had been unnecessarily gruff. Now he and Teddy have become great friends—and he has a special place in my life as well.

Once at Willowbrook it didn’t take long to locate the tree and Ben quickly sawed it down and carried it back to the van. The weather, although brisk, wasn’t as cold as it had been the week before and while Ben trimmed the base of the tree and lifted it into the back of his vehicle I shed my heavy jacket to race with Clementine in and out among the evergreens while we waited for the others to arrive. It was almost eleven when I saw the approaching car.

“We were about to give up on you,” I called as Vance and Jamie pulled up in front of the house.

My young cousin gave me a hug as we made introductions. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, “but I decided to drop by the Green Cottage first just to let the Tanseys know who we are.” He smiled at Jamie. “Didn’t want to get shot!”

“Did you see Preacher Dave?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nope. Only his wife—Louella, isn’t it? She was just leaving for work.”

“Said her husband had already left for the church and their son works somewhere in Rock Hill,” Jamie added.

“Right. When I phoned out there earlier this morning, Louella said they would probably all be gone. Works at that fabric shop on the other side of town.”