A Holly, Jolly Murder (11 page)

“And drank it?”

Fern began rearranging a tray of seedlings in tiny pots. “I wasted no time in telling him what I thought of his petty display earlier in the evening. He spat out a mouthful of brandy and threatened to throw me out of his house. It was clear that he was beyond reason, so I returned to my car and sat until I felt calm enough to drive home. I am not accustomed to being treated that way. My deceased husband, rest his soul, was always solicitous of my feelings and never so much as raised his voice. Not, of course, that he ever had reason to do so.”

I wasn't interested in the late Mr. Lewis, no matter how he died. “How long did you sit in your car?”

“Until I realized I was shivering not from shock but from cold. Ten minutes, I'd say.”

“Did you see lights on in Roy's apartment?”

“I believe so, and I could hear the caterwauling that passes as music with today's youth. It's disgraceful. I don't know why their parents allow them to listen to such garbage. Music should have a melody and lyrics that contain no obscenities.” She looked down at the rows and smiled to herself. “I'm finished for the evening, Claire. I suggest we walk through my apartment so you can leave through the front door like a proper guest.”

Her rebuke was hard to miss, but I merely said, “It is rather dark in the yard. There's something I don't understand. If you arrived at eleven, it sounds as though you left no later than eleven-thirty. Malthea claims she was there after midnight.”

Fern shoved me out the door and flipped off the lights in the greenhouse. I thought she might ignore my question, but after a moment, she said, “Then my previous statement was in error. I was confused about the time. This has been so dreadfully upsetting that it's a wonder I can remember anything that's happened. The winter solstice is meant to be a glorious celebration, not a nightmare of rage and violence. You must excuse this lapse on my part.”

She continued to apologize as she propelled me through the apartment, and I found myself on the front porch before I could get in another word. “Good night,” she said, then closed the door. Seconds later, the lights in the living room went off.

Good night, Fern.

Malthea was still holding the receiver to her ear, but the tarot cards had been replaced with standard ones and she appeared to be playing solitaire. She spoke steadily for a few moments, paused to shift a card, and then resumed.

Gilda was not available and it was too late to drop by the Sawyers' house. I drove home, thinking about Fern's account of her visit. It explained the presence of the bottle and glasses, and also Roy's assertion that he'd smelled booze on Nicholas's breath. There was no alcohol in Nicholas's blood because he'd spat it out. It was all falling into place so neatly that I wouldn't have been surprised to find Morning Rose in my garage, ready to tell me how she'd gone back to Primrose Hill at precisely twelve-fifteen and taken away the murder weapon.

As I went inside, the telephone started to ring. It was not apt to be Peter, who was in a limo headed for a lodge in Vermont. Would he be sharing a bedroom with Myron, while his mother and Leslie shared the other one and stayed up all night, giggling and giving each other pedicures? If there were lots of bedrooms, how much tiptoeing might take place in dark hallways? Myron might be rolling in money, but what would Peter be rolling in?

I realized the telephone was still ringing. I picked up the receiver and waited silently.

“Mrs. Malloy?” said Jorgeson. “Are you there?”

I exhaled. “Yes, I'm here. It's eight o'clock, Jorgeson. Don't you ever go home?”

“I went home at five, and as soon as I got there, my wife dragged me out to the mall. It's how I imagine the Black Hole of Calcutta would be if everyone had American Express and Visa. Haggard faces, dazed eyes, twitchy fingers, bad tempers. Not a healthy place.”

“Are you calling me to pass along your sociological insights into a great American tradition, Jorgeson? Couldn't you have waited until tomorrow?”

“Thing is, I got beeped in the middle of Sears. The murder weapon's been found, and I thought you'd want to know. It's registered to Randall Tate.”

“Roy's father?”

“Randall ain't his dog, Mrs. Malloy. He's owned the gun for ten years.”

“And you're sure it's the murder weapon?”

“The only thing I'm
sure
of is that my wife's still at the mall, buying everything that's left to teach me a lesson. You need any sheets? She's real fond of sheets.”

I sat down and rubbed my eyes. “Where was the gun found?”

“In the hearse, which is appropriate in a screwball way. There's a compartment under the carpet in the back part. I dunno why, unless the funeral director needed a place for his wallet during the cemetery service—or he plucked watches and jewelry off his customers during the ride. Anyway, you see the problem, don't you?”

If I'd rubbed any harder, I would have peeled off a layer of cells. “Yes, Jorgeson, I see it. Nicholas didn't pull a gun on Roy, Roy took the gun with him when he went into the house. This seems a tad premeditated, doesn't it? He either sensed what might happen and armed himself, or he had an entirely different agenda.”

“The real reason I called was to warn you, Mrs. Malloy. Randall Tate owns another handgun. All of his furniture and personal belongings are in storage, and it'll be a couple of days before we can determine if it's there. You need to be careful. Roy lied to you.”

“That doesn't mean he's going to stalk me,” I said, glancing uneasily at the kitchen window. “All I know is what these Druids insist on telling me. By the way, I listened to yet another casual confession this evening.” I repeated the gist of Fern's story. “Tidy, isn't it?”

“That's what my wife puts in the toilet bowl,” Jorgeson said without amusement. “I wish the lieutenant was here to figure these people out. I don't think even one of them is telling the truth.”

“As in the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I don't think we've heard a pitiful fraction of the truth,” I said. “What are you going to do about Roy?”

Jorgeson grumbled under his breath. “Same thing we've been doing, which is hoping to catch him on campus or walking down the street. We know where he's not—and that's about it. If he approaches you, Mrs. Malloy, don't offer him eggnog and cookies. Get hold of me or whoever's on duty. The boy could be dangerous.”

I replaced the receiver and went into the living room. Roy's version of what had happened in Nicholas's kitchen might inspire an R-rated Disney film, but not a documentary. It had been holding up rather well until now; Malthea and Fern had covered a few glitches, and Morning Rose had volunteered several comments about Nicholas's questionable motive for living in isolation.

Only two more shopping days till Christmas, I thought as I gazed at the packages under the tree. I'd planned to give Peter a hefty book about the history of some football organization; for reasons unfathomable to me, he seemed enamored of bearish men knocking each other to the ground.

The book was among the other packages, meticulously wrapped and adorned with a big silver bow. Clearly he would not open it Christmas morning—or any other morning until January was under way. Leaving it there would only serve as a reminder of where he was.

I considered putting the book on a closet shelf, but even its unseen presence in the apartment would wear away at me like an endlessly dripping faucet.

I decided to take the book back to the store, and then see if I could persuade Luanne to watch a movie rather than plan a wedding. If she persisted in harping on the subject (and she could be very persistent after a few glasses of wine), I would feign the onset of flu symptoms and allow myself to be ejected.

The wind was colder than it had been earlier, and gusting imperiously. Brittle leaves scratched across the floor of the garage. I quickly got in the car, started it, and gave it a moment to warm up. As I waited, I tried to recall the last time I'd had the oil changed. It was definitely more than two thousand miles ago.

The streets were almost empty as I drove alongside the campus and turned on Thurber Street. Anybody playing with a full deck (tarot or conventional) was at home, wearing warm bedroom slippers and munching popcorn.

I parked behind the Book Depot, grabbed the package, and hurried to the back door. My teeth were chattering by the time I managed to get the key in the lock and push open the protesting door. I stomped my feet to announce my presence to the nighttime denizens, some with six legs and some with brown fur, long tails, and an irksome habit of leaving traces of their presence along the baseboards.

It was tempting to unwrap the book and return it to its rightful rack, but that would be an admission of abject defeat by lovely, capricious, athletic, wealthy Leslie.

“Stop this!” I said loudly. “You are being more immature than Nicholas and Peter combined.”

I dropped the book on my desk and went outside. I stood for a moment to let the wind batter me, hoping its frigidity would bring me to my senses.

When all it did was sting my face, I got in the car and reached for the ignition switch.

“Good evening,” said a voice from the backseat.

This was getting old.

“Where do you want to go tonight, Roy?” I said without bothering to return his greeting. “The lot by the stadium is closed, so we can't go back there. How about the police station?”

“What did the guy say when you told him?”

“He said that you ought to turn yourself in.”

Roy grabbed my shoulder. “So he believes me? I mean, he understands that it wasn't my fault because Nicholas said he was going to kill me. All I was doing was protecting myself. You told him that, didn't you, Mrs. Malloy?”

“I repeated exactly what you told me. Why didn't you mention all the traffic in front of the house that night? It must have rivaled the parking lot at the mall.”

I could hear him sucking on his lip as he thought about it. “I guess I had the music pretty loud. Once I thought I saw headlights, but I didn't bother to look out the window.”

“Why would you?” I said comfortingly, if inanely. “Let's go to the station. Sergeant Jorgeson's off duty at the moment, but I can call him at home and ask him to join us. He'll want to question you tonight, and tomorrow he'll arrange for a lawyer from legal services. Everything will be okay, Roy, and you'll have a place to sleep and hot meals.”

“I don't need a lawyer. I already told you why it was self-defense. Any guy my age would have done the same thing. The kids at the high school may think I'm weird, but they sure as hell don't think I'm gay. I had a girlfriend while I was living with my mother. We had sex every weekend—and nothing kinky, either. You want her name and phone number? As long as her parents aren't in the room she'll tell you the same thing.”

He was more agitated man I would have preferred. The whereabouts of the handgun used on Nicholas was known, but Jorgeson had made a point of mentioning the possibility of a second one. Roy's jacket had deep pockets.

“What's the matter, Mrs. Malloy?” he continued, thumping the seat. “I'll bet you don't believe me! Is that it? What's wrong with what I told you last night? You got problems with it?”

“Nothing major,” I said, wishing I sounded more sincere. I am not adept at lying; normally, it's a praiseworthy attribute, but under the current circumstances, it was a distinct disadvantage. “I'm sure you can easily explain a couple of things that are a teensy bit confusing. You just now said why you didn't hear the cars drive up, and I believe you. The autopsy report said that there was no alcohol in Nicholas's blood, but one of your fellow Druids admitted that she was there before midnight and saw him take a mouthful of brandy.” I realized I was babbling, but I couldn't seem to stop—even though I knew the most credible fabrications are unadorned. “We know who broke the window in Nicholas's study, and who put away the decanter and glasses. Most of the inconsistencies have been dealt with, Roy. You shouldn't worry about talking to the police. It'll be nothing more than a formality. You'll be released on your own recognizance tomorrow or the next day.”

And the archbishop of Canterbury would elope with Princess Margaret.

This time his fingers dug into my shoulder and I could feel hot breath on my neck. “Who broke the window and put away the decanter?” he growled.

“Malthea. Fern was there earlier, when Nicholas got out the brandy and glasses. That was when he took a drink of brandy and then spat it out.”

“They told you that?”

“Yes, they did. Do you mind if I start the car so we can get some heat?”

He released my shoulder and fell back against the seat. “Don't so much as move a finger, Mrs. Malloy. I've got to think here for a minute. I don't like this.”

Neither did I, but I refrained from saying so and waited passively as the wind found ways to sneak in through the floorboard. I could see him in the rearview mirror, but it was too dark to discern his expression. His hisses and muttered curses indicated he was not in the best of moods.

I was on the verge of repeating my suggestion about heat when he said, “After I went out the bathroom window, they searched my place, didn't they?”

“They might have looked for some tips about where they could find you. If they did, it was because they were concerned about your welfare.”

“Did they find the gun?”

“I couldn't say,” I said, struggling to sound casual. Alas, even I heard a faint tremor in my voice.

He slammed his fist on the seat. “That's it, isn't it? That's the detail that's ‘a teensy bit confusing,' as you put it. Damn! I knew I should have buried it in the woods! How could I have been so friggin' stupid!” He hit the seat again. I did not interpret it as a request for consensus with the assessment of his mental faculties.

“All of us make mistakes,” I said. “I can think of several I've made lately.”

“Shut up.”

I shut up as he resumed hissing and cursing. Having never spent a significant amount of time in my car behind the Book Depot at night, I had no idea if patrol cars ever ventured into the parking lot. If I'd believed for one second that my forty-year-old reflexes were at all quicker than his sixteen-year-old ones, I would have attempted to scramble out of the car and run down the railroad tracks. However, I had no desire to be shot in the back or even tackled in the gravel.

“Okay,” he said abruptly, startling me to the point I nearly yelped. “I'm gonna tell you the truth about what happened. I stole my father's gun back in the fall because some guys at school were giving me grief, and I used it to shoot Nicholas Chunder. First I hit him a couple of times, then I stepped back, aimed, and pulled the trigger. I would have shot him more than once if I hadn't freaked when I saw the blood. I rolled him over, thinking I'd take his wallet so the cops would jump on the burglary story, but I guess he'd left it in his bedroom.”

“Why did you do it, Roy? He overlooked his personal dislike of your…ah, religious practices and allowed you to live on his estate. If you were short on cash, I'd think he or someone else would have loaned you enough to get by until your parents returned.”

“I didn't kill him for spending money, fer chrissake! I killed him because of her. She made me do it, and there wasn't any way I could refuse. She's had this power over me since the moment we met. She took me out to the grove, just the two of us, and she drew a pentagram on my forehead with her finger. It burned so fiercely that I thought I was gonna pass out. You can't see it, but I can every damn time I look in the mirror. When I do something that she doesn't like, it turns bright red and begins to smolder. The pain's unbearable, like someone's pressing an ember against my skin.”

I felt as though he'd knocked me on the head with a rock. “Who are you talking about,” I asked.

“Malthea, of course. I know nobody will believe me, but I swear it's the truth. I'll swear on a bible if you want me to, or a whole stack of them. Malthea ordered me to kill Nicholas, so I did.”

He began to whimper, and when I looked back at him, I saw him wiping away what I presumed were tears. I waited until he'd calmed down, then said, “Why would Malthea have done that, Roy? I haven't heard her say anything that implied she hated Nicholas so vehemently that she wanted him dead.”

“You haven't been around her that much. Sure, she can come off like somebody's grandmother when it suits her, and she puts on a really good pretense of being scatterbrained and helpless. She's not, though. She may be the Arch Druid, but she's also a member of a secret cult called the Sisters of Illumination that goes all the way back to ancient Egypt and Babylon. Once a year they have a Black Sabbath and perform a human sacrifice.”

“Malthea Hendlerson?” I said. “That's…hard to believe.”

“I know it is,” he said dispiritedly. “What happened was, when I first moved to Farberville, I spent a lot of time in that used bookstore up the street, just poking around for funky old stuff. I saw her there a couple of times, then one afternoon she came up to me and said we had to talk. She looked pretty harmless and I didn't have anything better to do, so I said okay. We drove out to the grove in her car. That's where she told me she worshiped Satan and could sense that I would make a perfect servant after she finished training me.”

“Were you wearing a black T-shirt in the bookstore?” I asked.

He nodded. “I buy them at rock concerts because they're cool.”

“What about the hearse? How long have you owned it?”

“The guy who lived down the street ran a funeral home. When he died last summer, I talked his wife into selling it to me real cheap. I get a buzz when people on the street stare at me. It wasn't like I was into satanism.”

“Why don't you tell me more about what happened at the grove?” I suggested politely, as if we were discussing the merits of a movie.

“She pulled out a little pair of scissors and cut off a lock of my hair. She said she could use it to send this demon called Ambesek whenever I needed to be disciplined. I didn't believe her, but one night at the carriage house I was awakened by the stench of sulfur. I sat up and saw this—this eight-foot-tall creature with a hideous face, fiery red eyes, and huge hands. Its skin was covered with black scales that glinted like armor. It dragged me out of bed, ripped off my shirt, and raked my back with its claws. I passed out on the floor. The next morning I thought maybe it had just been a really bad nightmare. I changed my mind when I saw the bloody marks on my back.”

“Come on, Roy,” I said, “you fell out of bed and somehow scratched yourself on the bedside table.”

“I wish that was true, but she sends the demon whenever she's angry at me. Once she ordered me to steal a dog and bring it to the grove so she could slaughter it and drink its blood. I refused. That night the demon came and practically disemboweled me. She told me later that its formal title was Ambesek the Eater of Intestines.”

It didn't matter whether or not he believed what he was saying; I was getting nauseated—and nervous. “Did you go to the hospital?”

“She said the demon could find me no matter where I was and not to get medical help. I bandaged myself as best I could. I was scared the wound would get infected, but she gave me this salve and it worked so well you can barely see a scar.”

“When did Malthea order you to kill Nicholas?” I asked.

“She's been saying nasty things about him ever since the Samhain celebration at Halloween.. He wanted everything to be done his way, and he and Malthea had an argument. I wasn't there, but she said he was hateful You should have seen the look on her face the night before the solstice when he said he was selling his properties and moving to Wales. While the others were pleading with him; she took me out to the patio and told me what to do. I didn't want to, Mrs. Malloy, but she gave me a gruesome description of what Ambesek would do if I disobeyed her. You want to hear what she said?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “If Malthea has this demon at her beck and call, why didn't she sic him on Nicholas instead of getting you involved?”

“She said I had to kill someone so I could participate in the next Black Sabbath. I knew I wouldn't live that long if I didn't do it. I went to my apartment, popped some pills to give myself the guts to go through with it, then went to the house and knocked on the door till Nicholas let me inside. You know the rest.”

I still couldn't see Malthea as an evil dominatrix, and Roy had already proved himself to be a much more adept liar than I. “If you're so terrified of another visit from the demon, why are you telling me now?”

“I deserve to suffer for what I did. I've been trying to find spells that can protect me. If they work, they work. If they don't, then I'll be tortured until I beg to die. Let's go to the police station and get it over with.”

I wasted no time starting the car. Although his story of demonic retribution was preposterous, I was not about to sit there in the dark and wait for an eight-foot-tall creature with fiery eyes to come ambling down the railroad tracks, swooping down from the sky, or popping up from the sewer drain in front of the Book Depot.

 

I was exhausted the next morning, having not been able to fall asleep until almost dawn. Jorgeson had permitted me to be present at the interrogation, but it hadn't lasted long. Roy's descriptions became increasingly graphic and filled with repugnant details; he'd shouted and cried and stormed around the room until Jorgeson gave up and packed him off to the psych ward for sedation and a seventy-two-hour evaluation. Gilda was already there in a padded room. I rather longed for one, myself.

After Roy'd been taken away, Jorgeson had asked me what I thought, and I'd told him that for the first time I could remember, I was out of opinions. He'd almost smiled.

Now, at nine in the morning, the sun was shining, but this was not enough to lure in the occasional pedestrian. I was hunting through the racks in hopes of finding a book about satanism when the telephone rang. The sound was not as harsh as a fiendish screech, but it had a comparable effect on me. There were a few people I was willing to talk to, but the converse list was very long and multiplying steadily.

Then again, it could have been Franklin with good news. I numbly picked up the receiver.

“Claire, this is Inez's mother.”

Goose bumps rose on my flesh, but I managed a calm, “Is anything wrong?”

“I think the girls are up to something. They were acting odd last night, and her father and I agreed you ought to know about it.”

This was a very forceful decision on Mrs. Thornton's part. She's as mousy as Inez and usually only faintly bewildered by the girls' escapades, but I never knew quite how much of the truth she heard from Inez. At this moment, I could almost hear her twisting her hands, which was alarming. I waited for a moment, then said, “What did they do?”

“Nothing, and that's what worries me. Last night when I picked up Inez at the mall, she told me about this ridiculous lawsuit and said she was going to quit her job, no matter how desperate Mrs. Claus was. I told her that she'd made the right decision. Well, Caron came over and the two locked themselves in Inez's bedroom for a long while. I could hear them talking and arguing. Then Inez came out and said she'd changed her mind about quitting. I was flabbergasted that Caron would want her to continue at Santa's Workshop, but it's obvious that she does.”