Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree (31 page)

“An even better idea is for them to move in with me for good,” Daddy insisted.

“It’s a three-bedroom house and three of you already live there,” I said, though that wasn’t my real reason for not wanting to occupy my dad’s house. Not only would staying there mean Mike and Frankie had to share a room, Jane and I would, too. We’re the best of friends, but every time we’ve lived together, it’s brought chaos. Besides, Daddy would treat us both like we were ten years old.

“I raised six kids in that house,” he said. “Three bedrooms should be enough for any family—a room for parents, one for the boys, and another for the girls.”

I couldn’t help giggling. “That’s Daddy’s idea about bedrooms. It’s why I always had my own room and The Boys were all piled up on bunk beds together. He also believes that one bathroom is enough for a family of any size.”

“A family of seven?” Miss Ellen asked.

“All of us,” Daddy said and nodded. “I was one of nine children, and we grew up with just one bathroom. When the children wanted me to add another, I didn’t see the need for it with just me and my kids.” He winked at me. “You’d better be glad you’re your age, not mine. When I was growing up, my grandmother still had an outhouse instead of indoor toilets.”

Dr. Donald looked a little irritated by the continuing bathroom discussion. Surely he wasn’t offended. After all, don’t doctors deal with all kinds of bodily functions? He interrupted, “You can figure out where everyone’s sleeping tomorrow, but I don’t want Callie staying by herself for a few more days.” He gestured toward the top of the IV pole. “I’ll tell the nurse to remove that when this bag of fluid is empty.”

After he left, Miss Lettie looked at me and almost purred, “He’s certainly a nice young man. You should try to get a date with him.”

“She’s already dated him several times,” Daddy informed her.

“What was wrong? Too busy with his career?” Miss Ellen asked, but she was smiling.

“No, he’s a womanizer,” Jane said in a matter-of-fact tone. She slid off the bed and found her way to our chocolate stash. “Anybody want something?” she asked as the felt the cellophane-wrapped goodies and settled on a brownie. She stood there and ate it.

“Maybe you could tame that doctor,” Miss Lettie suggested.

“Like Sheriff Harmon says, ‘If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably
is
a duck.’ Dr. Donald says he’s ready to settle down, but he can’t take his eyes off any good-looking woman he sees, and he’s got that smooth-talking charm that comes with lots of practice,” I responded.

Miss Ellen laughed. “They don’t cheat with their eyes, honey. If all he does is look, he might be a good catch anyway.”

I lay back, trying to give Daddy and the ladies the idea that I wanted to rest. They took the hint and remained silent for a while. Jane gathered several more chocolate treats, put them on the bed, and then sat and examined them with her fingers.

“I believe you’re right not to try to change that doctor,” Miss Lettie commented as though she’d been seriously thinking about it the whole time. I peeked through the bottoms of my almost closed eyes and noticed she was staring at Jane. “People who run around don’t ever change. I was lucky that my Jeffrey Senior was a faithful husband and never stepped out on me. Some of those girls that Jeffrey Junior fooled around with in high school cheated and lied all the time.”

Personally, I couldn’t think of any response to that, but Miss Ellen objected, “All of that’s water under the bridge, Lettie. Most people don’t settle down with their high school sweethearts like you and Jeffrey did. Junior got a rough start what with his daddy dying before he was born, but he was a good boy. You were blessed to have him. I’d give anything if my Leland and I could have had children, but the good Lord didn’t see fit to send any to us.”

Bored. It was obvious to me that we were all bored out of our minds sitting there. I couldn’t understand why Daddy had brought Miss Lettie and Miss Ellen to see me. I didn’t know them that well, and I certainly didn’t look nor feel like receiving visitors. Apparently, Miss Ellen picked up on my thoughts because she stood, patted my hand, and said, “Is there anything we can get you before we go—maybe some munchies or something?”

I waved my arm toward the top of the cabinet where Frankie had left all the chocolate snacks and pointed toward Jane and her pile of food. “We have plenty to eat,” I answered, “but before you leave, I’d really like for someone to go down to the gift shop and buy me a paperback book.” Maybe my headache would ease up enough for me to escape into the world of fiction.

“What do you read?” Miss Ellen said.

“Mysteries,” I answered. “Sometimes I read Stephen King or sci fi, but what I really like are mysteries.”

“I don’t know how to pick a book for a girl,” Daddy grumbled.

“I’ll go with you.” Miss Ellen continued patting my hand, but her words were for Daddy. “I read mysteries, too. We’ll buy the newest one they have and hope Callie hasn’t already seen it.” She looked at Miss Lettie. “Do you want to come with us, Lettie?”

“No, I’d rather wait here. I certainly don’t want to pick out a mystery book, something about a homicide, when my own dear boy Jeffrey Junior was murdered.”

“Lettie, I’ve told you over and over. Junior’s death was an accident. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” For the first time, I detected a bit of irritation in Miss Ellen’s voice.

“It was
so
that woman’s fault. If she’d kept dating Jeffrey Junior, they could have settled down right here in St. Mary and made me grandbabies.”

“That was years ago, Lettie. You’ve gotta let it go.”

Daddy looked uncomfortable, which isn’t normal for him. Most of the time, he ignores things that would be embarrassing to other folks.

Obviously ready to get out of there, he asked, “Jane, can we get you anything?”

“No, just buy a book for Callie. I’ll listen to the radio or television through her earphones. This is a great hospital room. The earphones reach to the chairs as well as the bed, and when you push the call button, it activates a signal at the nurses’ desk and they ask what you want through an intercom above the bed. That way, they can bring what you need when they come. Back when Mommy was in the hospital, the call button just turned on a light in the hall. The nurse had to see the light, come ask what Mommy wanted, and then go get it.” She slid off the bed and sat in the wooden straight-back chair where Miss Ellen had been.

When Daddy and Miss Ellen left the room, Miss Lettie babbled on about her deceased son. She started loud and fast but soon reduced her words to mumbling as she opened the tote bag beside her. She pulled out a tiny, unfinished blue sweater, skeins of yarn, knitting needles, and a gigantic pair of scissors. It’s not unusual to see ladies knit or crochet in public around St. Mary, and I’ve read Maggie Sefton’s Kelly Flinn Knitting Mysteries, but I’m not into needlework of any kind.

With my eyes closed, I wondered why Miss Lettie’s scissors were so big. My aching brain jumped to Little Red Riding Hood telling the wolf, “My, what big teeth you have,” and the wolf answering, “The better to eat you with.” That thought didn’t come from my years of teaching kindergarten. I’d edited the fairy tales I told my students. The bad people (or animals like the poor beleaguered wolf in so many stories) always died in such gruesome ways that I changed the endings for the boys and girls in my class. I mean, get real. Do five-year-olds need to hear about the wolf falling through the chimney into a fire at the third little pig’s house?

I wanted to tell Miss Lettie, “My, what big scissors you have,” but I didn’t. I was afraid that she’d answer, “The better to cut you with.”

Silly, silly, silly. Too many ridiculous thoughts. My head hurt, and I didn’t really care what Miss Lettie was doing.

Jane started humming—not one of the Christmas songs she’d been singing since Halloween. This was an old Patsy Cline song—one of Jane’s favorites—“Crazy.”

We used that trick in high school. When we wanted to tell each other something we didn’t want anyone else to know, we’d hum the melody to a song with words we wanted the other to think. It generally worked. Was Jane telling me that Miss Lettie acted crazy?

Why not? The whole world seemed insane. My mother had six children and died before she raised them while Miss Ellen never had any kids and lived to old age. Amber Buchanan, a good woman who devoted her life to helping other females out of abusive situations, lost her life. Whoever killed Ms. Buchanan dumped her body on
my
front porch under the huge Christmas tree that celebrated the birth of Christ. Then someone attacked Jane and hurt me. Senseless, too, that anyone would steal an infant who was only a few days old and needed his mom and dad.

Wayne says that police officers don’t believe in coincidences. It seemed way too coincidental that the home where someone dumped a dead body was the same house where a tall stranger tried to make a corpse out of me—unless the person was one and the same. Unreasonable that the man most likely to have killed Amber Buchanan was locked in jail when Jane and I were attacked. One person violating our home by leaving a corpse and later attacking Jane and me seemed possible. Was someone after me because of my involvement in solving previous murders? Could the corpse under our Christmas tree have been a warning, a threat? But separate, unrelated events? I didn’t think so. The whole thing was—yep, crazy.

I lay back, agreeing with Jane that Miss Lettie seemed to be more and more irrational. I didn’t like her being here with Jane and me, and her constant talking was maddening. I wished Daddy and Miss Ellen would hurry back. If Miss Lettie kept mumbling and Jane didn’t stop humming, I’d soon be crazy myself.

I looked over and saw Miss Lettie drop her yarn and needles on the floor beside the bag. I closed my eyes again and thought about pressing the call button for a nurse. I could ask for something for the throbbing pain in my head, but I was afraid Dr. Donald would want to keep me hospitalized longer if I complained. When would Daddy and Miss Ellen be back? Despite the noise, or maybe to escape it, I dozed off for a few minutes.

“What
are you
doing
?” Jane’s gasp woke me.

Miss Lettie stood behind my friend, holding Jane’s waist-length red pigtail in one hand and those huge scissors in the other. She forced Jane into a headlock and
chop
! The scissors hacked off ten years’ growth of Jane’s hair—prized locks that had seldom been cut and never artificially colored.

Jane swatted her hand at Miss Lettie and hit the point of the scissors. Blood dripped. I jammed my finger against the call button for the nurse over and over. No one answered on the intercom. I bounded off the bed, bringing my IV pole crashing down to the floor and pulling the needle from my arm. I yanked the tape away, releasing the tubing that held me to the pole. This time, blood didn’t drip, it flowed.

Miss Lettie rushed toward me, holding the scissors over her head and cackling as she swung the pointed end at me. I sidestepped her and knocked her off balance onto the floor. As I tried to move away, Miss Lettie locked her teeth into my ankle. I howled in pain. She unclenched her jaws, dropped the scissors, jumped up, and seized me.

She tossed me across the room—literally hurled me through the air like those wrestlers Daddy likes to watch on television. I landed on the recliner. Jane’s pillow softened the blow, but my head blurred—dizzy and dazed.

Miss Lettie caught Jane and headlocked her again. She lifted the red braid from the floor and grasped each end of it. She wrapped it around Jane’s neck like a garrote, and then twisted, pulling the ends so hard that the muscles stood out in her sinewy arms. Jane thrashed in every direction, trying to pull away. The crazy lady was strong, but Jane’s adrenaline must have been sky-high because she snapped her arm straight up and pried one of Miss Lettie’s hands off the noose just as I reached them. Jane’s elbow hit the old woman’s face, and blood gushed from her nose all the way down to her wrinkled chin and throat. Weird thoughts popped into my mind. All three of us were bleeding. Would we create a DNA puzzle for forensics if Miss Lettie succeeded in killing Jane and me?

No time for such ridiculous thoughts. I’d like to say I jumped from the recliner. The truth is that I got up as quickly as possible, but I certainly didn’t leap. My head felt like it was turning round and round like that possessed girl in that old movie,
The Exorcist.
Excruciating pain across the back of my skull didn’t stop my weird thoughts. Was I going crazy? Or was the concussion causing these ideas?

Miss Lettie’s voice dropped to a whispered growl. “I gotta bone to pick with you, Amber Clark, an axe to grind. My boy would never have left St. Mary if it hadn’t been for you. He wouldn’t have wrecked his car. He’s lying in a box in a cold graveyard, and it’s
your
fault.”

She reached for Jane, but Jane had positioned herself as far as possible from the sound of the old woman’s voice.

“No! No!” Jane wept as she quickly circled the bed, finding her way by clutching the edge of the mattress like an infant holding onto the sides of a playpen.

I managed to get from the recliner to the bed and reach the call button—smacked it as hard as I could.

Miss Lettie walked methodically behind Jane like a wild animal stalking its prey. Her words became slower and more precise.

“You lied to me on your porch and told me it was his idea to break up.” Miss Lettie lifted the scissors over her head, ready to stab. Jane turned around and struck out wildly at Miss Lettie. She knocked the scissors to the floor.