Holly and Homicide (16 page)

“Cameron’s working hard on your behalf, Wendell,” Audrey said. “You should cut him some slack.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Wendell said. “He’s run off to put out some fire so that I don’t have to. Instead, I can enjoy this wonderful food with this wonderful company.” Wendell emptied Cameron’s wine into his own glass, which he then lifted. “Here’s a toast to many more enjoyable meals like this one, and to our great success at Snowcap Inn.”

We clinked glasses. Heaven knows I was all for achieving some success at the inn. Yet it seemed obvious to me that we still had a number of fiery hoops to leap through.

As we got out of Wendell’s BMW, Wendell told Audrey
he had something he wanted to ask her, so Steve and I went in alone, using the front door, with its government-approved steps.

“That was fun,” Steve said sarcastically as he shut the door behind us. “We’ll have to hang out with Cam and Wendell more often.”

“Enough with the put-downs of Cameron, already!” I
chucked my purse into the coat closet, removed my coat, and stuck it on a hanger. “He is who he is, and he’ll be out of our lives for good in another couple of weeks.”

“If
we finish on time. Otherwise, God only knows how much longer we’ll be stuck here.”

“Sorry you’re having such a terrible time.”

“I didn’t mean that as a personal affront.” He removed his coat and hung it up, shutting the closet door with unnecessary force. “A woman’s been murdered. You’ve been named as a suspect, all because I talked to her for five minutes at a coffee shop. Your ex still has a thing for you. Everyone’s snapping at everyone else. Building codes are being changed by the hour. So, yeah, I’m getting anxious to finish up and get back home.”

“He doesn’t still have ‘a thing’ for me. And even if he does, it doesn’t matter because the feeling isn’t mutual.”

We glared at each other. I was getting really tired of this tension. “This isn’t a contest for my affections or my esteem, you realize. You won both a long time ago.”

“That’s not it, at all. I just think the guy is—”

Audrey entered. We both turned and looked at her. “I obviously interrupted something. My apologies.”

“No, we were just—”

“Having another stressful discussion,” she interrupted. “How are things going with the Twelve Days of Christmas design? Is there anything I can do to help with that?”

“No, but thanks,” Steve said.

“Actually, there is one thing. We were thinking about hanging ornaments that duplicate the Twelve Days in miniature on the Christmas tree. If you could maybe shop
for things like pipers, ladies dancing, and so forth, on the Net, that’d be a big help.”

She smiled as she unbuttoned her coat. “That’s going to be great fun. I could buy a whole set of ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ tree decorations, I’m sure, but that would be too easy. I’ll make most of them myself, and any that I don’t feel like making, I’ll buy.”

“Wonderful! Thanks, Audrey.”

“Oh, don’t mention it.” She folded her coat over her arm. “Also, I’m sorry Wendell was acting so arrogant during lunch. He sometimes gets like that, especially when he drinks. When he and I are alone, he’s really very sweet.”

Yet why was she willing to continue to date a guy who turned into a pompous ass when he was in the company of anyone besides her? Not to mention that he was also a murder suspect! “It was good of him to pick up the tab.”

She held my gaze for a moment and said, “I’ll leave you two to have at it, and I’ll start shopping for materials for my ornaments.” She left.

Sullivan waited a few seconds, then asked, “What number of Christmas days did we get up to this morning?”

“Six.”

“Oh, good. An even number, so it’s yours.” We started to amble toward the kitchen, where we’d left the folders containing our decorating ideas. “Six what?” he asked. “I forgot the carol again. I can never remember the stupid thing, except days one to five.”

“It’s really simple from seven swans on down. Seven swans a-swimming has excellent alliteration.”

“So does
six
swans a-swimming.”

“But it’s six geese a-laying. Think about the fact that eggs are sold in a dozen, and that a goose egg is twice the size of a chicken egg, and so laying half a dozen eggs is comparable to a chicken’s dozen.”

“I can do that. Although, technically, I only have to remember the odd numbers, since you’re designing the even ones.”

Although it was a little silly, he held open one of the barroom-style doors for me. As I walked past him I admitted, “I have a hard time remembering how many lords are leaping, pipers piping, drummers drumming, ladies dancing, or my personal design horror—maids a-milking.”

“Oh, hey. No problem, Erin.
I’ll
do the milkmaids. I always mentally picture them in short black dresses with white collars, their feather dusters in hand.”

“You’re thinking of French maids, Sullivan,” I replied, although I knew full well he was pulling my leg. “That’s hardly the same thing.”

“Oh, right. Too bad. French maids would have been great for one of the more masculine bedrooms.”

“Apparently so. But, remember, this song is about a woman’s gifts from her true love. Not to mention that I shudder to think what a French maid’s action verb would have been.”

“That’s obvious. ‘French maids a-cleaning.’”

I laughed in spite of myself. “Okay, fine. I take it all back.
Now
you’re talking about a
woman’s
ultimate fantasy Christmas gift.”

“Yes!” He pumped his fist. “It worked!”

“What
did?”

“My devious plot to discover what you wanted me to get you for Christmas.”

“A cleaning service would have been nice, except it’s Audrey’s house, and she already has one.”

“Damn! I’ll have to stick with my Plan B, then.”

“Plan B?”

“Yeah.” He narrowed his eyes. “Apropos of nothing, Audrey’s house only has the one bathtub, right?” “Right.
Why?”

“No reason, really.” He hesitated, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “Just …off the top of your head, would you say that your tub is big enough for seven swans to swim in?”

I started to laugh, but my attention was suddenly drawn to my manila folder, which had been lying on top of the neat stack we’d made of our work before we’d left for lunch. The folder now had a stain that looked like a drop of blood.

Late morning the next day, Audrey was hard at work in the kitchen when I cheerfully approached, expecting to find her creating an ornament related to our theme. Instead she was fastening ribbons to meticulously halved, scooped-out orange rinds that formed perfect little round bowls. “Are you in the middle of a crafts project involving orange rinds, Audrey?”

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “I wanted fresh-squeezed orange juice this morning, and there was no sense in wasting the rinds. So I saved them for the birds.”

“Birds like to eat orange peel?”

“I’m going to fill them with birdseed and little pieces of suet.” She dangled one off her index finger to show me. She had knotted loops of
plaid ribbon underneath the halved rind. “See? I’m making a half dozen of them.”

“Nice.”

“I’m also decorating the pine tree in the front yard, just to add a special touch to the lights that you hung.”

Henry and Ben had actually hung the lights on the tree, but I smiled and said, “So the seventy-eight decorations I asked you to make for the indoor tree wasn’t enough work for you?”

“Oh, that’s been keeping my hot-glue gun and me plenty busy, thanks. I’m multitasking. Although it
was
my cookie cutters that got me started on decorating the pine out front, as well.”

“Cookie cutters?”

“Yes. Fortunately, I was planning on baking for the holidays, so I brought up my full set of cookie cutters. I made a lot of the decorations for the indoor tree out of a basic Play-Doh recipe.” She slid a shirt box across the granite counter toward me. “I painted them on both sides so they wouldn’t be strictly two-dimensional.”

“Three French hens,” I cried, delighted. She’d cut miniature berets from green felt and glued dainty pieces of lace to the hardened hen-shaped dough. “These are so cute!” I looked closer at a dove-shaped cookie. “Is that a green turtle on the two doves’ bodies?”

“For the two turtledoves, yes. And fortunately, I had a swan-shaped cookie cutter, so those were a breeze, and a cow-shaped one for the maids to milk. I’m making the people out of clothespins. With felt jackets and pipe
cleaners, and drinking straws for the pipers, small spools of thread for the drummers. I painted their faces and the details. I did take the easy route and ordered tiny ballet dancers for the ladies dancing and the lords a-leaping. And I’ve got five linking rings from gold pipe cleaners to make into one larger wreath. Plus this little guy here.” She showed me a plump bird sitting on a yellow pear, which she’d sculpted from artist’s clay and baked.

“Ohh! That’s adorable, Audrey!”

“It’s sitting on a pear, if not a pear
tree
. Still, it gets the general idea across. I’m going to need another couple of days to complete the decorations for inside, but I want to finish with the pine tree outside tonight.”

“Can I help?”

“Thanks, but actually Mikara already volunteered. She cut stars and circles out of the heels from three or four loaves of bread. She’s out there hanging them now, along with the old standby pinecones.” My blank expression spurred her on. “You mix equal amounts of Crisco with peanut butter so that the birds can swallow it, spread it onto a pinecone, then roll the pinecone in birdseed. They’re messy as all get-out to make, but the birds love them. Provided the squirrels don’t immediately run off with them.”

She frowned a little as she tied a ribbon around the last orange-rind seed bowl. “I wish I could have found biodegradable ribbon. I was actually considering licorice strings, but I’m worried about the animals’ teeth. The last thing I want to do is give them cavities.”

“Birds don’t have teeth.”

“But we have so many squirrels around here. It’s not like they can go to the dentist.”

“I’ve never thought about squirrel dental hygiene before.”

“Neither have I, but then, I never considered using candy on an outdoor tree before. At any rate, lastly, I’m shaping suet into ornaments and just kind of squeezing them onto thread. Like little meatballs.”

“That sounds a bit gross, frankly.”

“Yes, but think of it this way: The tree itself will have dozens of lovely birds perched on its branches. What could possibly be a nicer decoration than that?”

T
hat afternoon, I returned from picking up some supplies that Audrey needed at the nearest hobby shop and found Chiffon and Henry sitting on the bench in the mudroom, removing their outerwear. I watched as Chiffon hung her pink skates by their laces on a wall hook. I quickly shed my own coat and gloves and said, “Chiffon, suspending something with razor-sharp blades directly above a bench isn’t a good idea.” Having a skate fall onto even just the
empty
seat below would aggravate me no end. That bench was divine—an elaborate
nineteenth-century Russian piece, its green paint faded to a lovely copper patina.

“But my skates are so pretty, Erin. You should really hang them over the fireplace.”

I’d just as soon hang my ski boots on the mantel
. Knowing I’d be wasting my breath by suggesting she use one of the numerous cubbies for boots and skates, I said, “They’d look better hanging in the corner. Where there’s less visual competition.”

She mulled this over for a moment, but then moved the skates to this safer location.

“How was the skating?” I asked Henry.

“It was sort of fun,” he replied, “in a falling-down-a-lot way. Chiffon’s many times better at it than I am.”

“When I was little, I had to choose between my music and ice skating,” Chiffon interjected. “I very nearly opted to enter the Junior Olympics.”