Duck the Halls: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries) (13 page)

“Oh, dear.” Rose Noire glanced toward the kitchen.

I suddenly realized that I could hear Spike barking in the kitchen.

I had a bad feeling about this. I strode down the hallway and burst into the kitchen.

The duck was in the middle of the kitchen, inside the plastic fencing that we had used as a portable playpen for the boys before they figured out how to climb over it. The boys were inside the pen, petting the duck. Spike and Tinkerbell had deserted their heated cushions to inspect the newcomer. Tinkerbell was just sitting outside the pen, sniffing occasionally, and wagging her tail. Spike was scurrying around the outside of the pen, growling nonstop, except when he erupted into brief fits of barking. Rob was standing just outside the pen with his hands in his pockets, looking worried. Mother was setting the kitchen table. Michael was tending two pans on the stove, and Dad was slicing ham. From the haste all the adults were displaying—well, Michael and Dad, at least—I deduced that the boys had returned from rehearsal hungry and perhaps a little cranky, and they were hurrying to get food ready before the distraction of the duck wore off and they remembered their tummies.

“Rob brought him down,” Rose Noire said. “And I left him there while I went out to fix a place for him…”

“I get it,” I said. “I’m more interested in where the duck came from in the first place.”

Rob and Michael both winced. That surprised me; I hadn’t suspected Michael of any involvement in the duck’s arrival. Mother and Dad looked as if they’d also like to hear the answer.

“Mom sent a grocery list of things she wanted for her Christmas dinner,” Michael said. “I was pretty busy yesterday, so Rob offered to get everything.”

“And I did,” Rob said. “Except for the duck. The market didn’t have fresh ducks. And she was very specific—not a frozen duck.”

“You should have gotten a frozen one,” Michael said. “We could have taken the wrapper off and hid it till it was thawed. She’d never have known.”

“Now he tells me,” Rob said. “Anyway, I ran into one of the Shiffleys who said he could get me a fresh duck. Said he’d deliver it this morning. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Unfortunately, the duck is a little too fresh,” Michael said.

We all looked in dismay at the boys, who were happily chasing the duck around the perimeter of the playpen while Spike kept pace with them on the outside. The duck didn’t seem to mind. Dad took up a station just outside the pen and began handing the boys little bits of ham or cheese each time they passed.

“The first thing to do is to get the duck out of sight,” I said. “Jamie! Josh! It’s nearly time for lunch. Go wash your hands.”

“Can I feed ducky?” Josh asked.

“The duck has to go outside,” I said. “Ducks don’t belong in the kitchen.”

“Nooo!” Josh wailed.

“Want ducky,” Jamie whined.

Think fast, I told myself, if you don’t want to start a flock of ducks on top of all the chickens.

“We have to hide the duck,” I said. “It’s a present for someone else,” I said.

Both boys’ faces fell, and I could tell that tears, in large quantities, were moments away.

“But don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll be able to see him all the time.”

The boys looked hopeful. As I glanced around, seeking inspiration, I could see that every adult in the room was staring at me in dismay. Mother was shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

“Where is everybody? And when’s lunch?”

Grandfather strode into the room.

Although giving animals to Grandfather made about as much sense as trying to give Mother a decorating book she didn’t already have, he was probably the only adult in the room who wouldn’t hate me if I gave him the duck.

“Darn,” I said. “Looks as if we’ve spoiled the surprise. I guess there’s nothing to do but give it to him a little early.”

I picked up the duck, strode over, and handed it to Grandfather.

“Merry Christmas,” I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

Grandfather stared for a few moments at the duck in his hands as if he’d never seen one before.

“Gampy like duck?” Josh said. He sounded anxious.

“Why, yes!” Grandfather said. “What a surprise!”

“Better than a tie,” Rob put in.

“Wear it in good health,” Michael said, lifting a water glass and then gulping down half its contents.

“And a fine, fat bird,” Grandfather said. He poked the duck’s ample, downy white breast and nodded appreciatively. “Well, I shall look forward to having this with—”

“With all the other animals in your petting zoo,” I said.

“Not sure we need any more—” he began

“Because he’s a very fine duck,” I said. “I’m sure the children who come to the zoo will enjoy visiting him.”

“But what’s wrong with a little roast—”

“You know how much little children love ducks,” I said. “The boys have already grown fond of him.”

As if on cue, they both toddled over to tug at Grandfather’s trousers, in a subtle hint that he should hold his present a little lower and let them enjoy it, too. He obliged.

“Ducky!” Jamie cooed happy. He was gently stroking the duck’s wing feathers.

“See,” I said. “They’ve already named him.”

“That’s not a name,” Grandfather growled. “It’s a generic description.”

“Ducky Lucky!” Josh said. He was pounding the duck on the head with the same vigor one would use on a large and rambunctious dog. Ducky Lucky seemed to take it all in stride.

“I rest my case.”

“Hmph!” Grandfather said.

“And see?” Michael put in. “He’s obviously quite tame enough to be a great addition to the petting zoo.”

Grandfather shook his head. But it wasn’t a “Hell, no!” headshake. More of a “What now?” He turned his attention to Ducky Lucky and his two human acolytes.

“Feel how oily his feathers are.” Grandfather demonstrated for the boys by stroking the duck’s feathers gently. “You know why that is?”

Both boys shook their heads and began massaging the duck’s feathers with enthusiasm.

“It makes them waterproof and keeps them warm. Come on—Let’s take Lucky out to the barn and I’ll teach you a few things about ducks.”

He strode out, and his tiny pupils tried to follow, though we had to stop them and stuff them into their winter wraps before we let them out. Dad grabbed several newly made ham-and-cheese sandwiches and trailed after them. Everyone else in the room let out a sigh of relief.

“So I guess I should tell Michael’s mother I couldn’t find a fresh duck?” Rob asked.

“Please,” Michael said. “I’m not sure I’ll ever want Peking duck again.”

“She won’t be happy,” I said. “Why not call whoever you got it from and demand a replacement that’s ready to cook?”

“I can’t do that,” Rob said. “I mean, he did deliver the duck. Besides, I don’t know his name. And I paid cash. I offered to write a check, but he insisted on cash. I got the feeling maybe he wasn’t really supposed to be selling the ducks. He was kind of hanging around the poultry section of the market, and came up to me when he overheard that I couldn’t get a fresh duck.”

“Let me get this straight,” Michael said. “The night before several hundred ducks were stolen from Quincy Shiffley’s farm, you made arrangements for a random Shiffley to deliver a live duck here.”

“A fresh duck,” Rob said.

“And sometime this morning you took delivery of what you already suspected might be a stolen duck.”

Rob squirmed and nodded. I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that if Michael had gone in for law school instead of drama school, he’d have made a first-class prosecutor. And that the chief might want to check up on the Shiffley who’d delivered our duck.

“It sounds so terrible the way you put it,” Rob said.

“How can you be so sure he was a Shiffley?” I asked.

“He looked like a Shiffley,” Rob said. “And besides, I saw him helping build the stage at Trinity.”

“So maybe he was just working for the Shiffley Construction Company.”

“Do all their employees call Randall ‘Uncle Randall’?”

I pulled out my cell phone and hit one of my speed dial buttons. Randall Shiffley answered his phone on the first ring.

“What’s up?” he said. “Any new schedule changes?”

“Do you have any idea which of your many relatives would have sold my brother a fresh duck last night?”

A pause.

“Was there something wrong with the duck?” he asked finally.

“The duck is just fine,” I said. “In perfect health, in fact; he arrived here still alive. And the twins met him, and the newly christened Ducky Lucky will soon be an exhibit at Grandfather’s petting zoo rather than the main course of our Christmas dinner.”

Randall sighed.

“The only Shiffley I know of who raises ducks is Quincy, and he wasn’t hanging around the supermarket flogging them last night, that’s for damn sure. I saw him in the hospital this morning and he hadn’t been anywhere. But I think I can figure out who did this. You want a replacement duck or shall I just get Rob his money back?”

“Either would be fine,” I said. “Do you already have a suspicion who did it, or do you just plan to raise Cain with all the family black sheep until one of them confesses? If it helps, Rob thinks the seller was one of the men doing construction at Trinity.”

“I’m going to start with my cousin’s boy Duane, who’s been known to pull stuff like this before—and yes, he was on the crew over at Trinity. Consider the original duck my gift to the Caerphilly Zoo.”

“I’ll have Grandfather send you a receipt for your generous donation,” I said. “Thanks.”

“That works. Someone will drop by with the new ready-to-roast duck tonight.”

“After the boys’ bedtime?”

“You got it.”

“Good!” I said. “And thanks.”

We both hung up.

“We’re getting a new duck?” Rob asked.

“Make sure there’s someone here to receive it tonight,” I said. “And can someone figure out what’s French for ‘Peking duck’ and explain to Michael’s mother why we all have to call it that when the boys are around.”

Dad pulled out his iPhone.

“I’m going to check on the sewing bee,” Mother said.

“Lunch in a few minutes,” Michael said.

“
Canard laqué de Pékin,
” Dad said, looking up from his iPhone.

“I’ll come with you,” I told Mother.

We left the men to finish putting lunch on the table and went through the foyer to the long hallway that led back to the library. Some ancestor of the previous owner had added it on as a ballroom, back when that was a fairly normal thing to have around the house, and we’d finally finished converting it to the library of our dreams. The boys already loved curling up in the big sofa for story time, and in due course I was looking forward to sitting with them at one of the long oak tables, supervising their homework and helping them with their science projects.

I opened the big double doors to find the entire room had been decorated to the hilt and was filled with red velveteen in various stages of being made into seat covers and curtains. Mother and whoever she recruited to help must have stayed up half the night working in here. Ropes of evergreen framed every one of the tall windows and built-in bookshelves and looped along next to the double-height ceiling. Red and gold tinsel festooned the circular stairway leading up to the second level of shelves, where the tinsel-wrapped railings seemed barely adequate to hold back a small jungle of pointsettias, live spruces, and Norfolk pines. Trailing wicker baskets of red Christmas cactus hung down from the railings so far that I could see some of the sewing circle members having to duck as they bustled around the room, and the baskets were decorated with ribbons holding little silver bells that set up a constant tinkling with the breeze when anyone passed beneath them. Mother and her minions had even gussied up the books—on every shelf, two or three of the volumes had been wrapped with temporary dust jackets of red, gold, green, or purple foil paper. When you added in the soft instrumental carols playing—no doubt from wireless speakers hidden behind the books—and enough Christmas potpourri to send up an almost visible haze of evergreen, clove, cinnamon, and ginger fumes—well, I’d bet anything that the decor stopped everyone in their tracks for at least the first half hour after they arrived.

But now everyone was hard at work. A dozen portable sewing machines were set up in a line on the right-hand table, with a dozen women sewing away busily on them. The center table was covered with cloth on which other women were fitting white pattern pieces and then cutting out various shapes—mostly the red velveteen, along with a sturdy black cotton for curtain linings and parts of the cushions that didn’t need to be seen. One end of the left-hand table was piled high with bolts of red and black cloth, while at the other end Minerva Burke had set up her command center.

Mother was immediately drafted to give an opinion on some fine point of upholstering—not that she ever sewed much, apart from doing the odd bit of crewelwork, because she thought it an elegant thing to be seen doing. But she was a very expert consumer of upholstery services. I strolled over to talk to Minerva.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“I’m optimistic that we’ll have everything done by Christmas Eve,” she said. “It won’t be a problem if we stay up rather late finishing, will it?”

“You’d have to be pretty loud out here for us to hear you,” I said. “Just lock up when you leave. How’s the smell removal going?”

“Slowly. If I ever catch the wretches who did that to our lovely church—” She broke off and set her jaw, as if forcibly restraining language no self-respecting Baptist matron would know, much less use in public.

“I tell you one thing,” she said. “This duck thing has confounded my theory of the crime.”

“I find myself wondering if your theory was also the chief’s,” I said. “But I know better than to ask. What is your theory?”

“That the pranks have something to do with the choir,” she said.

I nodded agreement. Should I tell her about what I’d overheard? No, the chief would probably be annoyed if I tried to involve Minerva, and I wasn’t at all sure a proper Baptist matron would approve of Rose Noire’s premonitions. Besides, she was already keeping a close eye on Lightfoot.