A Holly, Jolly Murder (3 page)

Her mood much improved, she went down the hall to call Inez. I accepted the futility of convincing her that nonconformity was not the worst of personal attributes; maturation rather than maternal enlightenment would be required. I did feel a bit sorry for Roy Tate, but there was nothing I could do short of inviting him for dinner. I wasn't anywhere near that sorry for him.

I was heading for bed when Peter finally called. Our greetings were chilly, but I decided to be magnanimous and forgive him for his previous childish behavior.

“How's your mother?” I asked.

“Still jabbering away about Myron. She's eager to elope, but I convinced her to think about it for a few days. She may very well forget her promise to me, though; she barely notices that I'm here. Maybe I ought to change my name to Myron.”

“Oh, Peter,” I said with a flicker of irritation, “you're behaving like a jealous toddler. Your mother is capable of making up her own mind. If she wants to get married, she should hop on the next flight to Las Vegas and haul Myron down the aisle of a wedding chapel. Maybe they can find an Elvis impersonator to do the honors.”

“I don't trust him. He's probably after her money.”

I did not point out that he'd ignored my astute psychological diagnosis. “There's nothing wrong with her wanting some excitement in her life. You yourself were complaining that all she ever does is have her hair done, shop, play bridge, and have dinner at the country club. If Myron has swept her off her feet, more power to the both of them.”

“You're hardly in a position to encourage someone to climb out of a rut,” he said.

“Would you care to expound on that remark?”

“You get up in the morning and go to the bookstore. If we don't go out, you spend your evenings at home with a book. I'll admit you've stuck your elegant nose into some risky situations, but for the most part, you're in a rut somewhat deeper than, say, the Grand Canyon.”

I was not pleased to be characterized as a total bore, even though there was an iota of truth in what he'd said. I could have pointed out the situations had been more than risky, but this might have led to another of his tedious lectures about meddling in police investigations.

I waited until I could trust myself not to bark at him, then said, “So I prefer as much order as possible in my life. What's wrong with that?”

“It's hypocritical of you to say my mother ought to elope when you won't even go to a movie until you've read a dozen reviews. The only times you've done anything remotely spontaneous were when you were hot on the trail of a murderer.”

“That's not true,” I said in such a cold tone that I hoped icicles were poking out of his receiver. “I happen to be a very spontaneous person when it suits me.”

He snickered, fully aware it would infuriate me. “Do you have a block of time on your calendar marked off as ‘be spontaneous from one till three'?”

“If you're quite finished, I suggest you spontaneously stick a fork in a light socket.”

This time I was the one who terminated the conversation by banging down the receiver. I gave him a moment to call back and apologize, then stalked down the hall to my bedroom. When I glanced in the mirror above the dresser, I was surprised at how composed I appeared to be. Unlike Caron, I prefer to internalize my anger—an unhealthy habit most likely picked up from Carlton, who'd preferred sarcasm to histrionics.

I was still studying my reflection when Caron came into the room and collapsed across my bed.

“What were you shrieking about a few minutes ago?” she asked as she inspected her fingernail polish for infinitesimal flaws.

“Peter annoyed me,” I admitted as I sat down beside her and massaged her back. “Was I really shrieking?”

“No, you were slightly strident, which is about all you ever are. When I tell my friends how you smacked somebody with a chair or barely escaped being blown up, they don't believe me. They think you're too stodgy for anything like that.”

Great, I thought as I gave her neck a final (nonlethal) squeeze. According to popular consensus, I was in a rut, boring, stodgy, and incapable of raising my voice. Forty seemed too young for me to retreat to a rocking chair, but it sounded as though Peter, Caron, and her friends might beg to differ. They'd no doubt agree that knitting would be a suitable pastime—as long as the needles were too dull for me to hurt myself if I knitted when I should have purled.

I poked Caron's rump. “Call me in the morning if Mrs. Claus wants you back, dear. I'll close the store and take you and Inez to lunch in the food court at the mall.”

“You won't close the store. Every time some emergency comes up and you have to go galloping off, you moan and groan about the sales you might be missing. I'll call you if Santa gets kidnapped or Mrs. Claus is found dead on the toilet, okay?”

I tried not to sigh. “Well, I do need every sale I can get. The post-Christmas season is bleak until the spring semester starts in the middle of January. Maybe I should close during that period. You and I can jump in the car and simply go wherever catches our fancy. The beach might be fun, don't you think? Or how about New Orleans? You've never been there.”

“Oh, Mother,” she said as she rolled over and gave me a piercing look, “you know perfectly well that we won't go anywhere. Spare me the long-winded excuses about Christmas bills and the checking-account balance. Inez and I are already resigned to cleaning out her closet. If I find that blue sweater I loaned her last year, I may pass out from the excitement.”

I sent her away, then climbed into bed and tried to read. The words failed to capture me. I finally closed the book and spent several hours in critical self-examination before falling into restive sleep.

The following morning I felt somewhat proud of myself as I opened the Book Depot fifteen minutes later than usual, proving to one and all that I was not a slave to routine. Instead of automatically starting a pot of coffee, I sat down with the morning paper and turned to the entertainment page. There was a long column of movie offerings. I could go to any one of them I chose, I thought defiantly, even if I'd never heard of it. Or better yet, I could go to a country music bar, guzzle beer, and dance with bowlegged good ol' boys. I could respond to a personal ad and meet a stranger in a secluded spot. I could pull an Ambrose Bierce or a Judge Crater.

I was still entertaining myself with possibilities when the bell above the door tinkled. Entering the store was a petite woman with waist-length black hair and an exceedingly determined expression on what otherwise would have been a pretty face. Even in her wool coat and field boots she couldn't have weighed a hundred pounds; she would have made a perfect undercover agent in a junior high drug investigation. Trailing behind her were two small children of indeterminate gender, since they were swaddled in coats, mufflers, and knitted caps.

All three of them examined me from just inside the doorway. The woman finally said, “Are you Claire Malloy?”

“Yes,” I said cautiously.

“Malthea Hendlerson told me you'd ordered some books for her. I'd like you to try to find one for me.”

I felt a twinge of apprehension as the children disappeared behind the racks. Grubby little fingerprints do not enhance the value of books. “I'll do my best,” I said. “Do you have the title and author?”

She glanced in the direction of her offspring, shook her head, and then came to the counter. “I'm looking for
Psycho-Sexual Transitions in Wiccan Initiation Rituals
. I'm not sure of the author, but I doubt the title's all that common.”

An aroma of muskiness accompanied her. It brought back memories of my college days, when those of us who were adamantly antiwar staged demonstrations with temporary allies who wore flowers and beads in their hair and nothing at all on their feet. The woman across from me was much too young to have participated, and in fact was more likely to have found a bottle of patchouli oil in her mother's belongings.

“I'll try the microfiche,” I said, glancing over her shoulder to check on her children, who were as silent as commandos on a covert mission. I slid the plastic sheet into place and scanned titles as quickly as I could. “No, I don't see it. Do you know the publisher?”

She shrugged. “A small press, I should think.”

I took out
Books in Print
and started flipping pages, mindful of minute rustling from the far side of the store. “Yes, here it is. I can order it from the publisher, but it may take several weeks to arrive.”

“Mother!” howled a high-pitched voice. “Cosmos tried to bite me.”

“No, I didn't, you pig-faced lump of dung!” said another. “But maybe I ought to.”

The first speaker was not intimidated. “I'll yank off your penis, chop it into pieces, and throw them in the composter!”

The woman gave me a proud smile. “Children can be so forthright, can't they? They're blessed with a naive ignorance of societal conventionality.”

I assumed this meant she approved of their nasty mouths and graphic threats. This further confirmed my hypothesis that she was the member of the grove who home-schooled her children. Since it was not a home I cared to visit, I said, “If you'll leave your telephone number, I'll call you when the book comes in and you can pick it up. As I said, it may be several weeks.”

As the level of insults escalated from behind the rack, she unhurriedly wrote a name and telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Do you have children?”

I winced as the rack shuddered. “A sixteen-year-old daughter.” Who, in contrast to the present barbarians, was a veritable paragon of restraint and decorum.

“Such a perfect age,” the woman murmured, looking into my eyes as though planting an idea in my mind.

It was not going to germinate, I thought as I watched her collect her children and leave. The musky smell lingered, but now it seemed to imply malevolence rather than flower power.
Psycho-Sexual Transitions in Wiccan Initiation Rituals
was not likely to be a New Age version of the Girl Scout handbook. I picked up the piece of paper and read her name: Morning Rose Sawyer. One of the children had referred to his or her sibling as “Cosmos”; I couldn't remember the other's name.

Not that I cared, I concluded as I wrote up an order to Peanut Brittle Press and stuck it in an envelope. For that matter, I didn't care if the book ever came. My profit on a nine-dollar trade paperback would cover the cost of postage, but it would not impress my accountant.

I was straightening the cookbooks when Caron came into the store. “The tyrant called,” she announced. “She found another Santa and wants us to report as soon as possible. Inez's mother has a meeting, so she can't take us to the mall. Can I have the car?”

“There's not much gas,” I said as I gave her the key. “You may have to spend a couple of your own dollars if you want to make it home tonight.”

She politely overlooked my ludicrous suggestion. “What's that awful smell?”

“It's from a customer who left a few minutes ago.”

“Well, I didn't think you were wearing some peculiar perfume. All you ever smell like is talcum powder.”

After she was gone, I tried to reimmerse myself in fantasies, but it was futile. What was wrong with smelling like talcum powder? It was preferable to smelling like ripened roadkill or rotten eggs. Peter had never objected, much less commented on it. He'd never given me a bottle of perfume, for that matter.

But he had, I remembered with a guilty start. I'd thanked him profusely, then tucked the bottle away in a dresser drawer. Maybe the time had come to shatter the aura of predictability that surrounded me like a scratchy wool blanket. In that I couldn't afford to enroll in a flight school or book a trek to Nepal, I took Malthea's card out of a drawer and dialed her number.

What had seemed like a moderately eccentric thing to do the previous day seemed downright insane as I walked across the wet pasture. Frost crackled beneath my feet as though I was crushing glass. The diffused light from the eastern sky was adequate for me to avoid stepping in or on anything, although I was more concerned about snakes and mice than I was about livestock droppings. Minutes earlier I'd driven through a subdivision of treeless lots and prefabricated houses, but I was not at all convinced I wouldn't encounter a dinosaur, or at least a woolly mammoth, before the sun rose.

If the sun rose on places this desolate.

As per Malthea's instructions, I'd parked my car on a dirt lane in the company of a rusty van, an antiquated white subcompact, and a bicycle propped against a fence post. I would have dressed more warmly if I'd realized how far I had to walk. Okay, to be candid, I most likely would have stayed in my cozy bed until I heard Caron leave the bathroom after a ritual that was longer and more complex than anything Druids could ever dream up. I am not what is commonly called a morning person; the idea of hopping out of bed before dawn, jogging several miles, and arriving back home just as the newspaper is plopped into the front yard is inconceivable. I do not enjoy unnecessary physical exertion any more than I do bran muffins, and I prefer to stay in touch with my outer child, who does not care to sweat.

My shoes were making squishy noises by the time I reached the edge of the woods. My disposition had fared no better, and I sharply reminded myself that I was here by choice. Not a good choice, mind you, but without coercion of any kind. Malthea had been pleased, if not rhapsodic, when I'd called and accepted her invitation to attend the winter-solstice ritual. What I hadn't anticipated was that said ritual would begin at sunrise; the winter solstice, being a technical kind of thing when the sun reaches its most southerly point in the sky, can happen at any time during the day, including midafternoon. Malthea had informed me that they were using calculations from an eighth-century Celtic calendar. I hadn't thought they were relying on
TV Guide
.

An unfamiliar woman stepped out from behind a tree. Her anemic brown hair had been chopped off by what was clearly an untrained hand; uneven bangs obscured her eyebrows (presuming she had them). Her skin was sallow and scarred from acne, her cheeks concave, her countenance more sour than her thirty-odd years of life merited.

“Malthea asked me to meet you,” she said. “I'm Gilda D'Orcher.”

“Thank you. I wasn't quite sure how to find the grove.”

“Those who genuinely come to seek enlightenment shall not stray. The Mother Goddess watches over us. Blessed be.”

She turned and walked quickly into the woods. I followed as best I could, catching an occasional branch in the face and tripping over vines and rocks. There were no birds to be heard; birdbrained though they might be, they had enough sense to sleep in.

I was breathing heavily as we detoured around a fallen tree trunk and came into a small clearing defined primarily by oaks and scruffy firs. In the center was a stone altar made of two vertical pieces and a horizontal slab; it had been decorated with branches of holly and clumps of mistletoe. As far as I could see, there were no faded bloodstains or remnants of animal entrails on its surface.

Despite the imminence of dawn on what I gathered was a major holiday, the Druids were not in a festive mood. Malthea and Fern were on the far edge of the clearing, deep in a conversation that obviously disturbed both of them. Roy Tate sat on a log, his shoulders slumped and his hands twitching as his eyes flickered around the clearing. His hair was either wet or a good deal greasier than it had been when I first met him. Beyond him was the woman who'd ordered the book about Wiccan initiations; after a moment I remembered her name was Morning Rose Sawyer. The man beside her was small and wiry, his thin, receding hair a contrast to her profusive black mane. He stared at me as though I'd stepped in something in the pasture and brought an obtrusive fetor into the grove.

All of them, to my disappointment, were wearing conventional coats and gloves, including Malthea, who'd eschewed her scarlet cape for dowdy tweed. It was much too early to be confronted with naked flesh, but I'd been hoping for ornate robes and headdresses to spice up my subsequent accounts of my adventure (preferably interrupted by frequent gasps of admiration for my derring-do).

Gilda gestured at a stump. “Sit there.”

“What's going to happen?” I asked her.

“How should I know? You'll have to ask the Arch Druid. She's made it clear
she's
in charge.”

I went around the perimeter of the clearing and approached Malthea and Fern. In that I was not well versed in orthodox Druidic greetings, I opted for a commonplace, “Good morning.”

Malthea gave me a forced smile. “I'm surprised to see you.”

“Why should you be?” snapped Fern, her sharp chin quivering with annoyance. “You invited her, even though we have a covenant to ban skeptics. That was probably what pushed Nicholas over the brink. He's been fussing and fuming for the better part of a month, but he was not intractable. You must bear the responsibility for this, Malthea.” Her eyes filled with tears, fogging up the lenses of her bifocals. “To think after all these years…”

“Now, now,” Malthea said, patting Fern's shoulder. “We must not give up hope that Nicholas can be persuaded to change his mind. I may have erred, but Gilda and Morning Rose share the responsibility. Roy is not completely innocent, either. He refused to tell me why Nicholas was so angry earlier in the week. That well may have had something to do with the current calamity.”

It seemed I had stumbled into something more multifarious than a sacred grove. “What's wrong?” I asked, as much to remind them of my presence as to meddle in the muddle.

Fern took a tissue out of her coat pocket and wiped her eyes. “Forgive us, Claire. You're here in anticipation of our celebration to embrace the primacy of the Earth Mother and honor the Celtic deities. The ‘calamity,' as Malthea calls it, has nothing to do with you.”

I glanced at Malthea. “If it would be politic of me to leave, please say so. I won't be offended.”

“There's no point in that now,” she said with a shrug. Raising her voice, she said, “Roy, did you see Nicholas this morning? The sun will be up soon, and I don't want to begin without him.”

Roy rose to his feet and came across the clearing to join us, walking with the same indolent slouch that was epidemic in the halls of Farberville High School. “I came directly here. There was a light on in the kitchen, so maybe he's having a last cup of coffee or something.”

“Or he's not coming,” added Morning Rose. “After what happened last night, he may have decided to boycott the ritual.”

The Arch Druid hesitated, then threw back her shoulders and said with great regality, “Nicholas would never do that, no matter how upset he was. The cyclical celebrations are very meaningful to him. This is not to say he might not take petty pleasure in arriving at the last minute in order to alarm us.”

Gilda glided up. “Perhaps someone ought to go ask him if he's coming. My shift at the hospital starts at eight, and it'll take me half an hour to get there on my bicycle.” She looked at Morning Rose. “Did you put some kind of curse on him?”

“Of course not,” Morning Rose said, ignoring Malthea's sudden intake of breath. “Sullivan has forbidden curses because of the children. Besides that, I don't know any specifically suited for this situation. Do you?”

Sometime between leaving my car and arriving at the Sacred Grove of Keltria, I'd lost my mind, I thought as I edged out of the circle of decidedly peculiar people. What's more, they were in the midst of a conflict among themselves that had unpleasant undertones. I'd hoped to come away with a diverting narrative, but at that moment all I wanted to do was leave without incurring any curses.

“Do you want me to go to the house?” asked the man who was apt to be Morning Rose's husband, or at least the father of her children.

Malthea nodded. “Yes, Sullivan, I think that's what needs to be done. If Nicholas does not intend to participate, then there's nothing to do but get on with it.”

After he left, Malthea and Fern drifted away to continue their conversation. Roy resumed his seat and Gilda faded into the woods, leaving me with Morning Rose.

“Where are your children?” I asked her.

“At home. They got into a tussle last night and knocked over a bookcase. Sullivan was furious enough to ground them for two weeks. He doesn't believe that they should be allowed to express their aggressive impulses. I'm afraid they're becoming stifled. Cosmos, in particular, needs to act out his inherent urge to compete with his father for tribal dominance, which is all he's doing when he attacks Rainbow. She, on the other hand, must deal with her sexual attraction to her father and her resentment toward me.” She touched a bruised semicircle below her eye. “She was so upset last night that she hit me. She cried afterward, but I assured her that she was only acknowledging her basic instincts.”

I tried to hide my revulsion at her psychobabble. “It's a shame they'll miss the ritual.”

“Perhaps not,” she said. “Last year Cosmos ate so many tarts that he threw up in the van.”

Malthea clapped her hands to get our attention. “The sun is going to rise with or without Nicholas's presence. I do not intend to allow him to put a cloud on this glorious day when we seek Herne, who at Samhain promised to protect us through the dark months of winter.” She pulled off her coat. To my delight, she was wearing a silky white robe with embroidered symbols.

“What about us?” asked Gilda as she came back into the clearing, her smug expression leading me to wonder if she'd been casting the odd curse or two. “As I said, I'm going to celebrate in the manner I prefer.”

Malthea frowned at her. “It was decided last night that Wiccan elements will be excluded from today's ritual. I believe we should continue to abide by that.”

“Nicholas is the only one who objects,” retorted Gilda, her hands on her hips, “and he's not here. I should be allowed to affirm my traditional beliefs. Go ahead and expel me from the grove. I don't care. I won't be here for Beltaine anyway.”

“You'll catch your death of cold,” said Fern, sounding more like a grouchy great-aunt than a joyful solstice celebrant.

“The first thing I did this morning was to cast a spell to protect myself from the cold,” Gilda said, “and it's none of your business, anyway. I warned all of you when I joined the grove that I would continue to practice my religion.”

I glanced at Morning Rose. “What's the issue?”

“Gilda wants to perform the ritual skyclad. So do I, but Sullivan would have a fit. He's incredibly surly when I insist on engaging in certain observances in the backyard. He thinks they're a bad influence on the children. He's being ridiculous, of course. Children come into the world without the artificial restrictions of clothing.”

Sullivan staggered into the clearing. “There's been a terrible accident,” he said in a raspy voice. “It's Nicholas. He's—” We all gaped at him as he leaned against the altar to steady himself. After a deep shudder that threatened to put him on the ground, he added, “He's badly hurt or even dead.”

“Nonsense,” said Malthea.

“When he didn't answer the doorbell, I went around to the back of the house to see if he might be in the kitchen listening to the radio. The door was locked, but I could see his body on the floor. There was blood.”

Malthea gestured at Gilda. “It may well be a practical joke, but we must act. You hurry ahead on your bicycle and see if there's anything you can do. The rest of us will follow as quickly as we can.”

No one commented on the sudden eruption of sunlight through the foliage as we ran toward the vehicles parked on the road. I could see Gilda pedaling across another pasture as I dove into my car and scrambled to find my key in the bottom of my purse. After a significant amount of maneuvering, we formed a procession and drove back to the highway, and then turned almost immediately on a driveway lined with poplars.

Nicholas Chunder's house wasn't a castle, but it was nevertheless impressive in its size and ivied stone facade. A separate building, also of stone and perpendicular to the house, was more likely to have sheltered cars than carriages, but it added a stately pseudo-Regency touch. I parked in front of a row of marble statues of bearded men and comely women, and beyond them, a nonfunctioning circular fountain. Sullivan, Roy, and Morning Rose were already running around the corner of the house as I caught up with Fern and Malthea.

“What are
you
doing here?” said Fern.

Rather than answer, I dodged around them and hurried toward the back of the house, where I saw Gilda peering through a window. Sullivan was seated on a wrought-iron chair, bent forward while Morning Rose held his head between his knees. Roy stood apart, with hands in his pockets.

Gilda straightened up. “He's lying on the floor, and like Sullivan said, there's blood on his face. What should we do?”

“Is the door locked?” I said.

“Yes,” Sullivan whimpered. “I tried it earlier. The front door's locked, too.”

Morning Rose released the back of his neck, picked up a flowerpot, and smashed the window in an unsettlingly proficient manner. “Roy, crawl through here and unlock the door.” As he carefully climbed over the sill, she handed a small metal box to Gilda. “This is the first-aid kit we keep in the van. It's probably a little late for a Band-Aid and Mercurochrome. You'd better leave the smelling salts on the table for Sullivan.”

Malthea and Fern arrived as Roy unlocked the back door, and with the exception of Sullivan, we all jostled our way into the kitchen. Gilda dropped to her knees and put her fingers on Nicholas Chunder's neck. I took a quick glance at his bloodied forehead, vacant eyes, and limp, outflung limbs. Suspecting it was a great deal more than a little late for a Band-Aid, I continued through the kitchen and into a hallway, where I found a telephone on an antique escritoire.