The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (31 page)

“I imagine not,” Parson Wigger replied dryly. “But
I will come to a gypsy wedding only if you honor me with your presence at my
church.”

The gypsy shook his head. “Your townspeople do
not like us.”

“They might like you more if they saw you
attending Christian services.”

Lowara shrugged. “We have no religion
.
We would as soon go to your church as any
other.”

“Come, then, on Christmas Day. It’s just two
weeks away. Once you know the people and are friendly with them, you might even
find an old barn to stay the winter.”

“Would a barn be any warmer than our tents? I
think not.”

“Come anyway,” the parson pleaded. “You won’t
regret it.”

The gypsy nodded. “I will talk to the others. I
think you will see us in two weeks.”

Parson Wigger walked me back to my Runabout “I
think their appearance on Christmas morning will have a good effect on the
townspeople. No one can hate a fellow Christian on Christmas.”

“Some call them beggars and thieves. They say
the women are good for nothing but telling fortunes.”

“They are human beings with souls, like the
rest of us,” Parson Wigger reminded me.

“I agree. You only have to convince a few
hundred of your fellow citizens.” I didn’t have to remind him that his own
popularity in Northmont was not too high at that moment.

April came back from her tour of the wagons,
and we drove away with a wave to Parson Wigger. “He’s really tryin’ to help
those people,” she said. “That Volga thinks highly of the parson.”

“She’s Lowara’s wife. She must have been a
child bride. I treated her son and never even knew she was the mother.”

“There’s an old woman in one wagon who tells
fortunes,” April said with a giggle.

“She tell yours?”

April nodded. “Said I was gettin’ married soon.”

“Good for you.” April was some years older than
me, in her mid-thirties, and not the most beautiful girl in town. I figured the
old gypsy woman was a good judge of human nature.

On Christmas mornin’ it was snowin’ gently, and
from a distance down the street Parson Wigger’s church looked just the way they
always do on greeting cards. I wasn’t that much of a churchgoer myself, but I
decided I should show up. Last Christmas I’d spent the entire day deliverin’ a
farm woman’s baby, and an hour in church sure wouldn’t be any harder than that.

Parson Wigger was out front, bundled against
the cold and snow, greetin’ the people as they arrived. I waved to him and
stopped to chat with Eustace Carey, who ran one of Northmont’s
two
general stores. “How are you, Doc? Merry
Christmas to ye.”

“Same to you, Eustace. We’ve got good weather
for it—a white Christmas but not too white.”

“Folks say the gypsies are comin’ to the
service. You heard anything about it?”

“No, but it is Christmas, after all. Nothin’ wrong
with them comin’ to church.”

Eustace Carey snorted. “What’s wrong is them
bein’ here in the first place! I think they hexed old Minnie to get permission
to camp on her land. These gypsy women can hex a person, you know.”

I was about to reply when a murmur went up from
the waiting churchgoers. A single crowded gypsy wagon pulled by a team of
horses was comin’ down the center of the street “Looks like they’re here,” I
remarked to Carey.

It was obvious then that Parson Wigger had been
standin’ in the snow for exactly this moment. He hurried out to the wagon and
greeted Lowara and the others warmly. It seemed that all the gypsies had come,
even the children, and after the parson shook hands with them, they filed into
church.

“I don’t like
’em
,”
Carey said behind me. “They look funny, they smell funny, they got funny names.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Eustace.”

We followed the gypsies into church and took
our seats in one of the front pews. I glanced around for April, then remembered
that she’d be at the Catholic church, on the other side of town.

After a few moments’ wait Parson Wigger came
out wearin’ his traditional long black cassock and white surplice. He carried a
Bible in one hand as he mounted the pulpit and then began to speak. “First of
all, I want to wish each and every one of my parishioners—and I feel you are
all
my parishioners—the very merriest of
Christmases and the happiest of New Years. I see 1926 as a year of promise, a
year of building our spiritual lives.”

I’d never been a great one for listening to
sermons, and I found my eyes wandering to the double row of gypsies down front.
If the sermon was boring them too, they were very good at masking their
feelings. Sitting right behind them, and none too happy about it, was old
Minnie Haskins, who’d given them permission to use her land.

Later, when Parson Wigger had concluded his
sermon and prayer service and we’d sung the obligatory Christmas hymns, I
sought out Minnie Haskins in the back of the church. Despite her years she was
a spry little woman who moved about with remarkable agility. “Hello there, Dr.
Sam,” she greeted me. “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas to you, Minnie. How’s the leg?”

“Fit as a fiddle!” She did a little kick to
show me.
“A
touch o’ rheumatism can’t keep me down!” Then
she pulled me aside as the others were leaving and whispered, “What’re all them
gypsies doin’ here, Doc? I’m in enough trouble with folks for lettin’ them camp
on my farm. Now they come to church!”

“It’s Christmas, Minnie. I think they should be
welcomed at church on Christmas Day.”

“Well, lots o’ folk are upset with Parson Wigger
for invitin’ them, I’ll tell ye that!”

“I haven’t heard any complaints yet except from
Eustace Carey.”

“Well, him an’ others.”

Carey joined us then, still grumbling. “Soon as
I can get the parson alone I’m goin’ to give him a piece o’ my mind. Bad enough
fillin’ the church with gypsies, but then he takes
’em
right down front.”

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“Would you believe it? He’s taken them up in
the steeple to show them the view!”

I followed them out to the sidewalk, and we
looked up through the fallin’ snow at the towerin’ church steeple. Though each
of its four white sides had an open window for the belfry, no bell had rung
there since its days as a Baptist church. The Baptists had taken their bell
with them to a new church in Groveland, and Parson Wigger hadn’t yet raised
enough money to replace it.

As we watched, the gypsies began comin’ out of
the church and climbin’ back onto their wagon. “They can’t read or write, you
know,” Carey said. “No gypsies can.”

“Probably because they haven’t been taught,” I
replied. “A little schoolin’ for the youngsters like Tene would help.”

“Well,” Carey said, “I’m still goin’ to talk
with the parson about this, soon’s I can catch him alone.”

I glanced around for Minnie, but she’d
disappeared, swallowed up by the fallin’ snow. We could barely see across the
street now, as the
fat
white flakes tumbled and swirled in the
breeze. I could feel them cold against my face, clingin’ to my eyelashes, and I
decided it was time to go home. Just then Volga Lowara came out of the church
and climbed into the wagon. The driver snapped the reins and they started off.

“I’m going in to see the parson now,” Carey
said.

“Wait a minute,” I suggested. I could have been
wrong
but I didn’t remember
seeing Carranza leave the church. He might have stayed behind to talk with
Parson Wigger.

“The heck with it,” Carey decided at last, his
hat and coat covered with fat white snowflakes. “I’m goin’ home.”

“I’ll see you, Eustace. Wish the family a Merry
Christmas.” It was somethin’ to say, avoidin’ obvious mention of the fact that
his wife hadn’t accompanied him to Christmas services.

I decided there was no point in my waitin’
around, either. As Carey disappeared into the snow I started in the opposite
direction, only to encounter Sheriff Lens. “Hello there, Dr. Sam. Comin’ from
church?”

“That I am. A snowy Christmas, isn’t it?”

“The kids with new sleds’ll like it. Seen
Parson Wigger around?”

“He’s in the church. What’s up?”

“Funny thing. I’ll tell you about it.” But
before he could say more the familiar figure of Parson Wigger appeared in the
church doorway, still wearin’ his long black cassock but without the white
surplice. For just an instant a stray beam of light seemed to reflect off his
thick glasses. “Parson Wigger!” the sheriff called out, startin’ through the
snow for the church steps.

Wigger turned back into the church, bumpin’
against the door jamb. It was almost as if the sight of Sheriff Lens had
suddenly terrified him. The sheriff and I reached the back of the church
together, just in time to see Wigger’s black cassock vanish up the stairs to
the belfry.

“Damn!” Lens exploded. “He closed the door
after him. Is he running away from us?”

I tried the belfry door, but it was bolted from
the other side. “He’d hardly run up there to get away from us. There’s no other
way out.”

“Lemme at that door!”

It was an old church, and a powerful yank by
Sheriff Lens splintered the wood around the loose bolt. Another yank, and the
door was open.

Lens led the way up the wooden steps. “We’re
comin’ up, Parson,” he called out.

There was no answer from above.

We reached the belfry and pushed open the trap
door above our heads. The first thing I saw was Parson Wigger outstretched on
the floor a few feet away. He was face up, and the jeweled hilt of a small
gypsy dagger protruded from the center of his chest.

“My God!” Sheriff Lens gasped. “He’s been
murdered!”

From the trap door I could see the entire bare
belfry and the snow swirling around us outside. It seemed there was not another
living creature up there with us.

But then somethin’ made me turn and look behind
the open trap door.

Carranza Lowara was crouched there, an
expression of sheer terror on his face.

“I did not kill him,” he cried out. “You must
believe me—
I did
not kill him!”

It was the damnedest locked-room mystery I ever
did see, because how could you have a locked room that wasn’t even a room—that
was in fact open on all four sides? And how could you have a mystery when the
obvious murderer was found right there with the weapon and the body?

And yet—

First off I’d better tell you a bit more about
that belfry itself, because it was the first time I’d ever been up there, and
some things about it weren’t obvious from the ground. The big bell was gone,
all right, though the wooden frame from which it had hung was still in place.
There was also a round hole cut in the floor, maybe four inches in diameter,
through which the heavy rope for ringing the bell had passed.

But the thing that surprised me most about
Parson Wigger’s belfry was the thin wire mesh fencing tacked up over all four
open windows. It was like chicken wire, with gaps of a couple inches between
the individual strands. Since it obviously wasn’t meant to keep out flies it
took me a moment to figure out its purpose.

“Birds,” Sheriff Lens explained, noting my puzzlement
“He didn’t want birds roosting up here.”

I grunted. “You can’t even see it from the
street, the wire’s so fine.”

Wigger’s body had been taken away, and the
gypsy had been arrested, but we lingered on, starin’ through the wire mesh at
the street below. “The news has really spread,” Lens observed. “Look at that
crowd!”

“More than he had for services. Tells you
somethin’ about people, I guess.”