Canine Christmas (6 page)

Mrs. Lemmen couldn't have asked for more details about the menagerie next door than Norman cared to provide with his nightly alarms. Mrs. Maxwell had passed away before the family had moved in next to me, and I'd only met the father and two children. James Maxwell, the patriarch, seemed to live for these visits from his rapidly maturing children. He'd been spending inordinate amounts of time adjusting the outside lights and the plastic figures, which combined a crèche and Santa and his sleigh. My single electric candle in the window felt Grinchlike in comparison.

Now Norman had decided to conduct his own investigation of this Christmas crime scene. He'd finished his business and made a cautious path over to the red plastic sleigh. Several sets of footprints made their way to the decorations, including two pairs circling each other like a double helix. All the tracks led from the Maxwell house. Not a surprise, since the neighbors on either side of us had left town for the season.

Norman didn't bother with these late night ruminations. He put two paws up on the side of the sleigh to have a peek, and he'd summarily slid down the side of the plastic faster than Santa down a greased chimney. I made cautious negotiations to retrieve my dog and learned why he'd had so much trouble in maintaining his perch. The ground surrounding the sleigh was solid ice. It appeared as if the warmer temperatures had thawed the ground enough to refreeze the water when the mercury dropped again. The plastic runners on the sleigh had sunk into the block of ice and wouldn't budge. Nothing like winter in the Midwest. The wind must have swept the dusting of snow away because the area was slippery enough for a Tonya Harding sighting. I tried not to disturb the footsteps in the snow; rubbersoled prints crunched toes deep into the powder. A few steps made their way back to the Maxwell home.

Norman made another attempt at the sleigh, but ice repelled his advances. I hooked a finger under his collar and crunched back toward the house to call 911.

Twenty minutes later, the front yard shone with red lights and yellow police tape, the closest I would get to lawn ornaments for the holidays. The police tramped around the sleigh, taking pictures and measurements before they removed the unfortunate houseguest.

The Maxwell clan huddled around the activity. Sarah, for her part, looked genuinely aggrieved. I wasn't sure if it was because Drake was dead or because there would be no more squabbling over her this holiday season. Her father stood next to her, trying to coddle her with a ratty discolored blanket that had seen too many holidays. He hovered over her like the star from the East. For her part, Sarah pushed him away, standing alone and weeping.

I couldn't read Ernie's face from this distance, but he either grimaced at the cold or sneered at the elimination of the competition. Ross stood behind the group, visible only from the neck up. I tried to contain my curiosity, but it tugged at me like a gift under the tree. I wanted to know what had transpired in their house to produce this drastic turn of events.

I put a pan of milk on the stove and cocoa powder in some mugs. As I filled the cups, the marshmallows barely breached the brownish surface of the liquid. I wasn't sure about police protocol, but hot chocolate seemed appropriate to serve at a winter murder investigation. Martha Stewart would approve.

With dispensation from the police, the Maxwells trudged inside my home for a cordial grilling. Ross and Sarah didn't disturb the ice-crusted ground covering as they walked, but Ernie and James had to take high steps to extricate their feet from the snow. Neither man wore boots. Norman pranced around them, thrilled at the prospect of additional hands to feed him. He performed figure eights through their legs as they stomped Nature's gift from their feet.

I settled them in the living room, served them hot chocolate, and sat down to pry. Under the incandescent lights, Sarah looked every bit the coed, a stretch from the holiday spoiling vixen. She wore only an oversized Columbia University T-shirt and a light cotton robe, which did little to expose the reason for the perpetual bickering next door. Her eyes were red, chapped around the corners. She huddled over her mug in my armchair and tried not to make eye contact with anyone in the room.

Ross broke the silence. He'd worn his own version of his sister's outfit, a T-shirt from the University of Cincinnati and jeans. His slippers didn't look sturdy enough to make the footprints outside. “Man, this is just like TV. I keep expecting Drake to stand up and join us. Too weird.”

His words were sufficient to break the ice. Sarah began to sob, heaving with a force that made her put down the mug and cover her face. Tears streamed through her ring-spangled fingers. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her robe. “I can't believe he's gone. I can't understand why this happened.”

James tried to comfort her again, but she'd selected an overstuffed armchair which accentuated her loneliness. Norman circled her feet a few times but realized he wouldn't be the center of attention near a crying woman. He shuffled off to his food dish to crunch dry kibble.

Ernie sipped his chocolate and coughed politely. “You shouldn't make such a production. It's not like you knew him that long. You'll get over it.”

Sarah sniffed loud enough for me to take the hint and fetch a tissue. By the time I returned, James had already found a box and set it next to his daughter. She was talking between sniffles. “I doubt it. We were married last week.”

A hush fell over the room, more awkward than if Santa had passed gas. James fell off the arm of the chair and spoke from the floor. “Sarah, when were you going to tell us this? I-I didn't even get him a present.”

“Christmas Day. Drake and I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“I would have been surprised all right. I would have felt like an ass.” Ernie had stood up. From the color of his face, I surmised that his circulation was doing fine, despite the cold. His neck had reddened to the shade of a poinsettia. Ernie shifted, and Ross clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

Sarah looked up at the men. Her eyes looked as cold as the gales outside. “Get over it, Ernie. I told you last night we were finished. Get it through your head. Why can't you just accept that?”

James looked at me with eyes begging that this situation go unreported to the neighbors. I could see the mortification in his face as his mouth drooped. “Sarah, I thought you and Ernie were going to—”

“You thought wrong.” Sarah picked up a pillow and cradled it against her chest. “Drake was incredible. We were going to stay in New York after graduation. You just didn't take the chance to get to know him and now y-y-you never will.” She began to wail as she rocked back and forth.

I cleared my throat. “Did anything happen last night to give you an idea that this was going to occur?”

James furrowed his brow. “What indications tell you that one of your houseguests is going to be murdered?”

Sarah stared at her father. “Drake and I sat downstairs talking for a long time last night. Alone. He wanted to tell everyone about our marriage and not wait until Christmas day.”

“Why was that?”

Sarah shot a glance to Ernie and then looked down at her hands. “He said Ernie was giving him the creeps. He wanted him to know we were married, so he'd leave me alone.”

“What time did you go to bed?” Norman stuck his snout between my legs so he could observe the proceedings and make sure I wasn't going anywhere without his august company.

Sarah shrugged. “About two, maybe two-thirty. It was late.”

Ernie bristled for his turn to speak. “How could I be giving him the creeps? I wasn't even around last night. Ross and I played video games until about three a.m. and then I went to bed.”

Ross nodded in agreement, making his bowl cut jiggle. He squeezed Ernie's shoulder with the hand that had never left the man's side. “We did. Ernie and Drake were both sleeping in my room, so I can tell you he was there.”

“What time did Drake come upstairs?”

Ross shrugged. “He never did. I just figured he was downstairs letting Sarah unwrap his gift.”

James bit his lip at that last statement. “I came downstairs about four to get some milk and no one was around. Somewhat of a stumper, eh? Why didn't Drake go to bed?”

Ross stood up and took a seat near Sarah's feet. Norman stalked over to see the person who sat at his eye level. The boy absentmindedly rubbed my dog's long ears as he looked at his sister. He probably would have scratched his sister's ears if he'd thought it would help. “Don't worry, sis. The police will solve this case in no time.”

“It still doesn't bring him back.”

Ernie sneered at Ross. “Don't be too sure. In case you didn't notice, there weren't footprints near the body. Those fools aren't going to be able to solve this crime without a gift from Santa and a star overhead to point them in the right direction. Without physical evidence, anyone could have done it and no one could have.”

James looked at the young man. All traces of compassion had disappeared faster than wrapping paper on Christmas morning. “What are you saying?”

“Just that we shouldn't expect the police to solve this.”

I cleared my throat and spoke. “There was ice all around the sleigh. That's why there aren't any tracks. I did find one set of boot tracks.”

Ross looked at me as though I wasn't the host. “Hello, it's winter.”

Sarah nodded. “We kept an extra pair of boots by the door for running outside in this weather. Anyone could have worn those outside with Drake. Or Drake could have worn them himself.”

Norman whimpered by the door, and I let him outside as the winter winds invaded the room. “But he didn't strangle himself, so someone went outside with Drake.”

I kept an eye on the police as they cordoned off part of the street. Santa would have to resort to desperate measures to call on my house tonight. The snow around the sleigh had been flattened in some places by their boots. I could still see the shine of the block of ice from the moon's glow, though soon no one would be able to trace the footprints to the Maxwells'.

Norman started to do his business on the sidewalk, but I shooed him to the bank of snow just beyond the hedge. I didn't want any yellow ice on my walk to slip and fall on in the morning. Just the thing to be sued for—a neighbor slipping on your dog's pee. Norman jaundiced the front lawn and trotted back to the front door through my legs. He didn't want to miss a moment of drama.

He curled up on the kitchen floor as I slipped him a treat. I returned to my guests and laid a hand on James's shoulder. “How are you holding up?”

The blanket was wet and clammy. I wiped my hand on the back of the sofa and sat down again, facing the group of people. I figured since their Christmas was already ruined that I didn't have to worry too much about tact. “You know it just seems very convenient about the sleigh being frozen in ice. Most of the rest of the yard is still snow.”

Ross shrugged and went back to pulling the marshmallows from his hot chocolate. Ernie continued his vigil of Sarah, as she wept for her dead husband. James seemed to be the only one paying attention to my soliloquy.

“If we thought the ice might not be an accident, it might explain a few things which have been puzzling me. Like Norman's reaction to the murder.”

Ross looked up at me. “Do you have cable?”

I squinted my eyes at him to make sure he was human. “Yeah, I do. In the living room. As I was saying, Norman didn't bark when the killer took Drake out to the sleigh. I was confused about that for a while. He'd been barking at Ross, and he wouldn't really know Sarah or Ernie, so they would get the four tone treatment.”

Sarah looked up. “Maybe he just slept through the whole thing.”

“I don't see how. He knows when Ross gets home and that can't be noisier than carrying someone out to a plastic sleigh and murdering him. Norman doesn't miss much.”

Sarah shivered and I knew it had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures outside.

“The lack of footprints bothered me. At first, I thought that it indicated that someone too light to make tracks had committed the crime, but the ice made me wonder. The killer would want the ice if he planned to use the sleigh to hold the body. That plastic will slide easily in all the snow.”

Ernie stood up. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“Just that the killer would have to put the body in the sleigh and that the weight of the body and his weight would make the sleigh wobbly, taking time and perhaps making a lot of noise. Ice would make the sleigh stay put.”

“So the killer froze the sleigh into the ice how?”

“Water, maybe a hose or a bucket. Which was it, James?”

The man looked up, eyes vacant. “The hose actually. I made sure the water seeped into the snow.”

“Then you knocked out Drake and took him out to the sleigh to strangle him. You used your blanket to drag him outside so that you wouldn't make prints with his body. The cloth is still wet from where it absorbed the snow.”

Sarah broke into sobs. “Why?”

“I couldn't bear to see you leave town. You're my only daughter. I didn't realize that you'd gone and married him. I wanted to see you with Ernie so you could have lived in Cincinnati. I'm so sorry.”

Ross's mouth hung open as Ernie stood up. “Dad, how could you? What were you thinking?”

“You and Sarah were all I had since your mother died. I just wanted to make sure you were nearby. Ernie seemed to ensure that.”

Ernie's face reddened again. “So you killed the other man so Sarah would be interested in me? Some prize that would be. Second place.”

The doorbell rang and I went to open it. Outside, the bells of a nearby church chimed the start of the holiday celebration. We'd have a present for the police on Christmas morning.

O Little Hound of Bethlehem

Taylor McCafferty

BARBARA TAYLOR McCAFFERTY has so many noms de mystère she confesses that she has no idea who she really is. As Taylor McCafferty, she is the author of the Haskell Blevins mystery series; as Tierney McClellan, she is the author of the Schuyler Ridgway novels. Moreover, with her twin sister, Beverly Taylor Herald, she has created a series about identical twin sisters Nan and Bert Tatum. “O Little Hound of Bethlehem” was written in memory of Taylor's dog, Ogilvy, who was her furry friend for seventeen years.