Murder on the First Day of Christmas (Chloe Carstairs Mysteries) (35 page)

    
Over the crowd noise, I could make out the band playing in the basement. Saul, returning from his phone call, asked Robin to dance. Straining to block out conversations in the foreground, I listened to the background music. Unable to make out all the words, I heard snippets of the crowd singing along - twelve drummers drumming, eleven lords-a-leaping, ten ladies dancing, just as Robin had requested.

    
“Better than what?” I asked again.

    
Mom backed up the DVD to where Angela prepared Saul’s drink. “Again, if I had tampered with Saul’s food or drink, this is when I would’ve done it. No one did, though, because the police checked the Scotch glass, the decanter and the cigar. Nothing.”

    
We stared at the scene, looking for a glimpse of Cassie’s blond hair or her petite frame.

    
The videographer swung to the left to include some party guests, but at least part of the doorway was still visible. No one but Angela went in or out.  He swung back to the right, and I got another full-frame shot of the study. Angela replaced the decanter while ten pipers looked on.

    
What in the world?

    
Mom saw it, too, freezing the shot of Angela replacing the decanter. But she wasn’t alone. The pipers were with her.

    
I counted again, half out of my chair. Instead of a back row of five and a front row of four, there were now two rows of five. Ten pipers, where before there had been only nine.

    
“You see it?”

    
“I see it!”

    
Adrenaline surging, I hit keys on the computer, going back to the beginning of the DVD - Saul, welcoming guests with the study doors wide open. Nine pipers. Back to the middle, Angela pouring a drink. Ten pipers.

    
Had someone brought a piper in from the garage where the two extras had been stored? When? How? It occurred to me that the pipers where life-sized - smock, tights, boots, black caps. Someone could easily have borrowed the outfit and slipped into the study.

    
Everything fell into place with an almost audible click. I closed my eyes and pictured Cassie putting her head on the piper’s shoulder that day we were in the study - exactly the same height. Same blond hair, the length of Cassie’s easily tucking into a black cap. Plenty of time to slip into the garage for a smock, which she would return after she had slipped in the poison.

    
I saw the scene clearly. Margie checking her work before the party, and Cassie nervously putting an extra pin here, a strip of floral tape there. Had she unlocked the study’s exterior French doors, put floral tape on the tongue of the lock, and pulled the door shut so that we were none the wiser? I suspected she had.

    
Then during the party, when she was sure the study’s interior French doors were locked, she had slipped in dressed like a piper and waited until the drink had been poured. She had only to lean forward, pour some digitalis into the Saul’s glass and return to the shadows. This had been the riskiest part, but she had probably counted on our host to be tipsy, his attention focused on the party and his phone call.

    
When Saul left, she had simply replaced his glass with a clean one laced with Scotch she had brought with her. She had stolen the discs (the desk remaining unlocked because the study door was), slipped out the exterior French doors, taking her strip of tape with her, replaced the smock and gone home.

    
Saul hadn’t looked closely, but he had noticed there were ten pipers. He had preferred Robin’s nine. That’s probably why he had frowned as he left the study.

    
“What did you do with those books?” I asked.

    
Mom retrieved
We, the Jury
from her bookshelf, and we poured over the pictures in the middle.

    
“Here she is,” Mom pointed to the grainy picture of a five-year-old Cassie or Sandy as the picture identified her, crying in her grandmother’s arms as her dad was led off to jail.

    
“Look who else was on the case, Judge Stone.” I flipped to another page, one that showed the Judge in his chambers. “Out of shape even back then. You want to say, lay off the cheesecake, Bernie. Get some exercise. That pacemaker thing isn’t going to work for you.”

    
“Was it really less than a month ago that he passed away?” Mom asked, as I continued to flip pages. “I’m ashamed to admit that, with all that’s happened, I’ve completely forgotten to check on Ellie. She sent me a card thanking us for…”

    
I looked up, to see why she had gone so quiet.

    
“You don’t think?” she asked.

    
“Think what?”

    
“Surely not.”

    
“Not, what?” I demanded. Could the woman milk a moment or what?

    
Mom’s eyes were huge. “I sent the judge a funeral arrangement. Cassie delivered it. Remember what she said? That she didn’t do poinsettias because he had gotten so many while he was in the hospital. She was there.”

    
I stared at my mother, unable to take in much more.

    
“We need to find your father. This is unbelievable.”

    
Mom dialed frantically while I flipped through the book, looking for more pictures, but all she reached was Dad’s voice mail.

    
She turned back to me. “Should I leave a message?

    
I flipped another page, and this time I was the one who received a shock. “Mom, it’s worse than we thought.” She clicked off the phone. “It can’t be.”

    
I held the book out to her, my finger on another picture. “What was the name of that officer McGowan was telling us about? The woman who was hit by a car?”

    
Mom looked down at the picture of the young cop who had testified against Cassie’s father. Margaret-Anne Margulies.

    
I jumped to my feet and started pacing. “Okay, let’s think about this. We have to tell McGowan, right?”

    
“If we’re wrong, we’ll look even more foolish to him than we already do.”

    
Not an appealing option.

    
“What about Margaret-Anne? If she saw the car that hit her and it matches the description of whatever Cassie drives, that’s one more tie back to her.”

    
Mom nodded. “I like that. Plus she’s a cop, she can tell us if we have enough information to convince Detective McGowan.”

    
I looked up Margaret-Anne’s phone number on the Internet. The address popped up too, not too far from where we sat.

    
“Think we should drop by in person?” I asked, completely absorbed by our find.

    
“I’m game if you are.” Mom stood.

    
Minutes later, I was sure we would be stopped by a cop before we reached Margaret-Anne’s house, the way Mom was lead-footing the Escalade, but no one gave her cheerful disregard of speed limits or stop signs a second glance.

    
“I have a feeling about this one.” Mom gave Margaret-Anne’s doorbell a nervously triumphant push. The house was a modest ranch-style home in an older neighborhood on Birmingham’s south side.

    
“Me, too. There’s no way we’re off base this time. McGowan will be so happy that he’ll throw a parade in our honor.”

    
“I wouldn’t go that far, but a bottle of Champagne wouldn’t be out of line.”

    
No one answered our ring. Mom tried the knob and found the door locked.

    
“Want me to check around back?” I asked, not wanting to know the answer.

    
“I think you had better.”

    
Margaret-Anne kept a tidy back yard with a covered brick patio and a chiminea that had seen lots of use.

    
A back window was cracked.

    
I peered in and saw a tiny bathroom with honeycomb tile and a pedestal sink, as I pictured a few scenarios, none of them good, in which I slid open the window and crawled in. Each scenario ended with me in a great deal of pain or humiliation - my being shot by Margaret-Anne, mauled by an as-yet-unseen pit-bull, or having to be freed by the jaws of life for underestimating my hip size.

    
These thoughts didn’t stop me from dragging over a patio chair and sliding the window up further, though. Might as well add B&E to the other felonies I was racking up, I decided. Having climbed through without incident, I opened the front door for Mom.

    
“What are you doing?” she demanded.

    
“Shouldn’t we make sure Margaret-Anne is alright?”

    
“Well, yes, but…”

    
“Then come on.”

     Sometimes a house tells you it’
s empty. There’s a heavy quality to the silence, a somber feel to the way dust motes swim in the light. Margaret-Anne might have been a reserved, quiet woman, but the red walls, brightly patterned furniture and festive Christmas decorations, in which feather boas and martini glasses played an important role, hinted otherwise. A woman who uses that much tinsel has to be lively and energetic. The house felt empty of her presence. Either she wasn’t home or something was terribly wrong.

    
“Let’s check the bedroom,” Mom said. “She might be staying with friends or relatives during her recovery, but we need to be sure.”

    
As we moved to the back of the house, I felt unnerved by the silence. Amanda marched on without a second thought. I followed so closely that when she opened the back bedroom door and stopped abruptly, I walked into her.

    
“Watch it,” she hissed.

    
“Why did you stop?” I looked over her head.

    
She took a tentative step into the room, so I could see better, not that I wanted to.

    
Just as the silence of the house had made us uneasy, so did Margaret-Anne’s unnatural stillness. A small woman with curly blond hair and dark brows, she didn’t flinch, twitch or start as we made our unceremonious entrance. She lay serenely in bed, a burgundy-and-navy double wedding ring quilt tucked gently around her.

    
“Is she…?” I whispered.

    
“I can’t tell.” Mom whispered back

    
“Should we…?” I didn’t know how to finish.

    
“One of us should check her pulse,” Mom stated.

    
“I’m not doing it.” I knew where this was headed.

    
“You have to. I’m not very good at these things.”

    
“What things?”

    
“Touching people who might be…” She waved vaguely.

    
“If we think she’s…, “ I waved vaguely, “then there’s no need to touch her.”

    
“Except that if she’s not…,” vague wave, “and we call somebody on a false alarm, we’ll look like fools. Again. And after the disc episode, we need to be surer of our facts before we call in the cavalry.”

    
I saw her point, but didn’t budge. “Bridget. We could call Brige. She does this stuff all the time.”

    
“Chloe, there’s no time. Now get over there and check. Right now.”

    
She used her mom voice, and God help me, I actually took a step before catching myself. “Nice try.”

    
“It was worth a shot,” she said. “So what do you think? Dead?”

    
“Let me check,” a voice from behind us suggested.

    
Mom and I clutched at each other, startled. One of us may have yelped. I’m pretty sure it was me.

    
Cassie moved past us, silent in her size-seven Reeboks and touched Margaret-Anne’s throat.

    
“Not dead,” she said matter-of-factly. “Resting peacefully for now.”

     I
t wasn’t until she turned that we noticed the revolver.

CHAPTER 39

    
Mom eased me behind her. Not that she and her Ann Taylor sweater offered much protection as a human shield.

    
“What the hell?” I addressed Cassie in what I hoped was bewildered surprise. “What’s with the gun?”

    
“Don’t give me that innocent look,” she replied. “I heard Margie talking to you on the phone when she thought I was gone. I knew you two would figure it out eventually, but hoped I’d be finished with everyone on my list before then.”

    
I had to smile at that, truly touched by her confidence. Such a nice girl. As homicidal maniacs go.