Murder on the First Day of Christmas (Chloe Carstairs Mysteries) (21 page)

    
“What about Gavin?”

    
My mouth was full, so I signaled Mom to wait a sec while I chewed and swallowed. “Antique speculum,” I said with a shudder.

    
“A what?”

    
“You heard me. Apparently Gavin collects them. It was wood, from like the 1860’s and came with a matching obturator.”

    
“And that is?”

    
“Some other kind of gynecological device, also wood, used to put medicine on the mouth of a cervix. Or, get this, direct leeches to the cervix.”

    
Mom pushed away the rest of her sandwich and reached for her tea. “My goodness.”

    
“I know. Apparently the cops had to get Dr. Beaumont to identify the gadgets because nobody else knew what the heck they were. Their best guess was some kind of shoe stretcher.”

    
“Ah.”

    
“Yeah. And Dr. Beaumont was all disappointed when he saw them because they would’ve been a nice addition to his collection.”

    
“Moving right along. I say we head out to Saul’s so we can catch up with Angela, ask her about the discs, the handcuffs and anything else we can think of. Then we’ll put in a couple of hours at Monica’s if you’re up for it.”

    
I said I was if she and Monica didn’t get as manic as they had yesterday. Mom assured me she was in no mood for mania today, so we tidied the kitchen and headed out.

    
Saul’s house had a slightly deserted feel when we arrived, so it was a surprise when the front door swung open. Even more of a surprise to find Meagan Taylor, Saul’s daughter, on the other side of it.

    
Not to be uncharitable, but Saul’s daughter wasn’t exactly the delicate flower type. In fact, she was ugly, there was just no getting around it. Not in an interesting way either. Merely coarse and not at all feminine, despite a decent figure and decent clothes.

    
I despaired every time I saw her hard eyes under their thick brows in a their perpetual scowl. Her sloped shoulders made her look petulant, and her hands and feet were too big for her body. Part of me wondered if I put a dollop of hair mousse in one hand, could I casually trip and slide it into that mass of cowlicks she had stampeding across her forehead?

    
While Mom greeted Meagan, I stood there dressing the poor girl with my eyes, trading the dumpy dress and cardigan for something more tailored, mentally correcting her posture, putting concealer on those under-eye circles and a smile on that down-turned mouth. The changes would work wonders, but this was neither the time nor the place for an extreme makeover.

    
“Meagan, dear,” Mom said. “I didn’t know you were still home. Did you get my message? I’m so sorry about your father.”

    
“Yeah, I got it,” Megan said in her husky baritone. “What are you doing here?”

    
Now, from anyone else that would be rude, but I had met Meagan before and knew not to take offense. Like Angela, she had no social skills and had never been one for small talk.  She was brilliant, mind you, with a string of degrees in biochemical-something or other, but not one for inviting guests inside, by the looks of things.

    
“Actually, we were looking for Angela,” Mom said, “but I’m glad we’ll have a minute to visit with you. You remember my daughter Chloe?”

    
“You’re not the only ones,” Megan said without even glancing at me.

    
“The only ones what?” I asked.

    
“Looking for Angela.”

    
“Who else is looking for her?” I demanded.

    
“The police. That Detective McGowan was here this morning.”

    
She had our full attention now, so I asked if we could come in. She nodded, not necessarily pleased with the idea, and led us toward the living room. It was the first time I had been back since the party, and let’s just say the whole thing was depressing.

    
The Bradford pear tree that Saul had pulled over when he fell was back in place, but the partridge was nowhere to be seen. The greenery on the mantle had dried out and looked faded and dusty. As we passed the study, I could see the pipers still keeping their silent watch, forlorn and tired in the harsh daylight.

    
When we had settled on the couch, the five golden rings still sparkling over the mantle, Mom quizzed Meagan as to why McGowan was looking for Angela.

    
Meagan lifted her sloping shoulders and let them fall. “More questions, I guess. Something about missing discs.”

    
“And he couldn’t find her?” I asked.

    
“She’s been living in the guest house for three years, but after the lawyer told us about the will, she moved out without telling anyone.” Meagan delivered her report as if she were reading from the phone book.

    
I tried to make sense of her announcement. “Saul’s will?”

    
Meagan nodded. “Angela got nothing. Everything was split equally between Robin and me.”

    
Mom’s gasp told me she was as stunned as I was. Robin, the woman who once had no motive, now stood to inherit yet another fortune. Meagan gave no sign that she shared our dismay.

    
“And Angela was upset?” I asked.

    
“She called Robin a gold-digging bitch and said she would show everyone who was the real talent behind my father’s books.”

    
“That qualifies as upset.” I glanced at my mother.

    
“And this was when?” Mom asked.

    
“Two days ago.”

    
“When are you heading back to Berkeley?” I asked finally.

    
“First week in January. Maybe sooner, if things get settled here.”

    
“When did you get here?” Mom asked, probably hating to think of Meagan traveling by herself, having just heard about her father’s death.

    
For the first time, Meagan looked uncomfortable. “I’d flown into town the day it happened. I just didn’t want to come to the party. Crowds make me nervous.”

    
I thought back to that night and how Saul had gone to make his nightly call to her and received no answer. Did that make her a suspect? It made my head spin to think so. We hadn’t cleared anybody yet, and now we were adding new possibilities.

    
Eerily, Megan seemed to read my thoughts. “I was having dinner with my grandparents - my mom’s parents. The police checked it out.”

    
“It’s probably better that you weren’t here.” Seeing Meagan’s blank look, I added, “Since the party ended so tragically.”

    
Meagan nodded. “It looked fun, though, not the death part, but before.”

    
Again, I was baffled. “What do you mean it looked fun?” I pictured her watching through binoculars, but her explanation was much more reasonable.

    
“I got an invoice from the videographer. He apologized when I called, said he had mailed the bill before. I paid it, of course, and got a copy. The police said it was ok, they had their own.”

    
I got the same feeling I’d had when I heard about the gifts in the Santa sack. As Lily would say, “well, duh.” I’d forgotten that Saul had a videographer recording the party, a perfect record of the night’s events.

    Meagan’s expression was almost dreamy. “He offered to edit the end of it, but I said not to. Part of me had to see it. It made me feel closer to my father somehow, to be there when he passed from this life.  The moment was really quite fascinating.”

C
HAPTER 24

     We were tempted to skip Monica’s house and head right home to watch the DVD Meagan had loaned us. But Mom wasn’t about to get behind schedule, so we spent a couple of hours in Monica’s two story great room decorating six antique white goose feather trees of various sizes.

    
I don’t know about you, but feather trees don’t really do it for me. From a distance, they look too much like those artificial toilet brush type trees you find in places where Christmas decorating is an after-thought, like convenience stores or the DMV. It’s only on closer inspection that you see a feather tree, or a Nuremberg Christmas tree as they’re also called, is made of downy-soft goose feathers and that its square wooden base has cracked and faded paint applied with an artist’s hand.

    
Mom assured me that feather trees, first created in late 1800’s Germany to save a dwindling fir population, are highly collectible. Two of the trees we were working on were circa the 1920s.

    
I still wasn’t convinced, but then, what do I know. I once left a Christmas tree up so long that Mom claimed it had gone from Noble Fir to Chernobyl Fir and finally to straight-up fire hazard. I just hang ornaments where I’m told.

    
With Monica busy in her studio, Mom and I had plenty of time to discuss Meagan’s revelations.

    
“You’re building a rapport with him. We can use that to our advantage,” she said, when I balked at the idea of calling McGowan to pump him for more information. I had nothing against the guy personally, but working together would be like trying to make low-slung jeans work with granny panties. Not happening.

    
Mom was adamant. “Something might have happened to Angela.”

    
“It sounds like she just went off in a snit because Robin inherited and she didn’t.” I placed another delicate white glass ornament on an equally delicate branch. Thank goodness Monica didn’t have a cat.

    
“Maybe so, but there’s a murderer out there and Angela could be in trouble. Not to mention the fact that it looks suspicious for her to disappear like that.”

    
I agreed to nothing, but knew compliance was inevitable. This is my mother we’re talking about here.  “Speaking of the will,” I changed the focus. “I about died when Meagan said Robin was in it.”

    
“Me, too. Saul was out of his mind. I don’t know which was worse, putting Robin in his will or constantly telling her she wasn’t.” Mom opened another box of ornaments, clear etched glass with sculpted silver tops. Gorgeous.

    
“Surely the police consider her the number one suspect. The one thing she lacked was motive, and now she’s got that in spades.”

    
“They would have to prove Robin knew about the will, though, and she could provide dozens of witnesses, us included, that heard Saul tell her she wasn’t.”

    
“But she was,” I argued. “There are ways she could’ve found out. She had the run of the house, and on the subject of money, I bet she made it her business to know.”

    
“You’re preaching to the converted, dear. I think she’s a dandy suspect, and she has all but admitted to killing twice before. We don’t have proof, though, and till we do we might as well keep digging.”

    
I sighed and stepped back to see where the next ornament should go. Locating a gaping hole up high and to the left, I moved over to fill those branches. “You know, Jack brought up a good point. These were two very different types of murder. One a precisely planned poisoning. The other, what he called a rage killing. Are we off base thinking one person committed both?”

    
Mom shook her head, never taking her eyes off her work. The largest of the trees was six-foot tall and the smallest just thirty inches. The latter was the one she was working on, and it took an especially steady hand to hang such tiny ornaments.

    
“I can’t make myself believe we have two killers in one neighborhood,” she said. “This isn’t some mystery novel where crazed killers crop up everywhere, no matter what Gavin Beaumont says.”

    
“So the two different MO’s mean what?”

    
“They mean something happened to force the killer’s hand with Oscar. Either it was a spur-of-the-moment murder, or there was a plan in place that somehow went awry.”

    
“I can’t wait to look at that DVD. The whole party caught on tape.”

    
Mom gingerly placed her last ornament and stepped back. “What do you think?”

    
“Amazing!” Margie from Flower Fantasy said, appearing in the doorway to drop off the last of the poinsettias, two gigantic pots. I took one from her and looked over the room.

    
Did I say I didn’t like feather trees? I stand corrected. With an array of white, silver, and clear glass ornaments now dangling from each of the randomly spaced branches, the trees looked terrific, like the snow-tinged firs you might find in a German forest.

    
“Awesome,” I breathed.

    
Margie winced. “Are you shouting? I told Cassie I don’t need these things.” She reached up and pulled out two small hearing aids.