Christmas Passed

by Anita Klumpers

  Dinah bent to pick it up. “The knot. At some point I guess it worked its way out.”

  Mick shone the flashlight in the knothole. He said nothing, moved nothing, for so long that Dinah touched his shoulder gently. He moved the muscles under her fingers but at least didn’t shrug her off. “I can’t see much. But I’m willing to bet there’s open space back there.”

  And maybe that space was home to bats and rats. Mick sat back on his haunches, head swiveling from Dinah to the knothole and back again. He straightened his shoulders and shuddered slightly. “If I feel anything furry, I guarantee you I will scream like a little child. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as Grandmother says.” He reached a finger into the knothole. “I wonder what will happen if I apply a bit of force?”

  A square of wood between the beams moved.

  Dinah scuttled backwards, looking wildly for something to protect her from the hordes of bats and other rodents she was certain would pour forth. It was too late. With an anguished screech, the section of wood fell away. Mick propelled himself sideways as a cloud of dust erupted along with the miasmic stench of a long-enclosed space.

  10

  Dinah was far enough away to see the dust cloud coming and buried her face in her arm. She hoped Mick hadn’t inhaled anything toxic. Risking a quick peek, she saw his hands clapped over his mouth. He wasn’t covered in dust, so the leap he’d taken might have gotten him far enough away to escape the worst of it.

  “Get out!” Dinah called through the sleeve of her sweater. “And don’t inhale!”

  She clattered down the ladder, and Mick almost stepped on her fingers in his haste to follow. They ran into the hallway, down the steps and out the front door as though the hounds of Hades were at their heels.

  Mick leaned against his car, gasping. “What was that all about? A vampire bat? The ghost of Christmas future?”

  “Of course not.” Dinah was out of breath, too. “Didn’t you see that cloud of dust? Smell that nasty stench? If we disturbed something like bat guano or a pile of dead squirrels or let loose some toxic mold spores, the last things we want is to get it in our lungs.”

  Mick gaped at her, eyes wide.

  “No, I think we’re all right. We both covered out mouths, and I doubt either of us took a deep breath. Make sure you pay attention to your lung function for the next week or so.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ahoy! Special meeting?” The aroma of pipe tobacco reached them the same time as the question. Ralph Konig stood on the sidewalk, the glow from the porch light barely touching him. A beautiful Weimaraner stood next to him. The dog was smallish and trim and presumably still young. The pair walked up the driveway to where Dinah and Mick still leaned against the car.

  The porch light reflected from the dog’s light blue eyes, almost the exact color as those of its master. Only young Weimaraners had eyes that color. Already though, the dog was beautifully trained, not even leashed. Yet it stopped immediately when Ralph did, with no detectable verbal commands or hand signals. The lustrous silver gray of the dog’s coat even matched Ralph’s thick hair.

  “May I pet your dog?”

  “Of course. This is Freyja. She is a charmer, don’t you think?”

  Dinah extended her hand, palm down, and let Freyja sniff it. Even this very canine activity was performed with class. In a moment, Dinah was on her knees on the driveway, rubbing the dog’s soft ears and crooning.

  “I’m surprised you’re still here,” Ralph said to Mick. “Is everything all right?”

  “Not sure. Maybe you can help us solve a little mystery. Dinah and I were up in the attic looking for Christmas ornaments.”

  “Ah, yes, Helen mentioned you’d found a treasure trove.”

  “Dinah seemed to think so. I can’t really tell one ornament from the next.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret. I can’t either.” Ralph grinned as if they were co-conspirators.

  “There was something else odd about the attic.”

  “What would that be?”

  “I think when the insulation was added and boarded over, one section between rafters was constructed differently. We think there’s open area behind it.”

  “Ah. A secret room?”

  Freyja tensed under Dinah’s hands. “I’m sorry, Mr. Konig. I think I invaded her personal space.” With a regretful glance at the beautiful dog, Dinah got to her feet.

  Ralph didn’t seem concerned. “She is young yet.” His light blue eyes turned to Mick. “I’m intrigued. What did you find in this secret room?”

  “Your guess is as good as ours. And it isn’t technically a room. More like an empty space.” He reconsidered. “Not totally empty. A cloud of dust like one of the plagues came out with the board. Dinah thought it would be a good idea to beat a hasty retreat before we inhaled the stuff.”

  “I am relieved you are in company with a young woman of such good sense.” Ralph smiled approvingly at Dinah. “There are cases of people contracting terrible, terrible disease from such circumstances as you found yourselves in. May I suggest you either get professional masks or, better yet, real professionals, to check further into this little mystery?”

  “So,” Mick persisted, “you don’t know anything about it? I wouldn’t ask except that I heard my great-grandfather considered you almost a son.”

  “I wish I could help. There no doubt is nothing particularly mysterious about the spot you found. Your great-grandfather fancied himself a jack of all trades. Always putting little extra touches on the house. If I remember correctly, your great-grandmother was not thrilled about several of them. Sometimes he would let me help. But I’m sorry. I never worked in the attic.”

  Another invisible, inaudible command passed between dog and master. Freyja rose and waited while Ralph said his farewell, and they both walked back to the sidewalk and presumably home. Mick watched them go then unlocked his car and rummaged in the back. “You’d think in all this mess there’d be something useful.”

  Dinah expected fast food wrappers and discarded coffee cups to tumble out. Instead, stacks of papers and notebooks filled seats and floor. The crate with the menorah perched precariously on top. She didn’t see the box of swastika ornaments. “What are you looking for?”

  “Something to put over my face.” When she made no response, he pulled his head out of the backseat. “You look confused.”

  “Perfectly accurate. What you are talking about?”

  “Never thought to hear you claim ignorance about anything. In my rush to exit the attic without inhaling, I didn’t pull the access door shut. We don’t need any more toxic microscopic molecules floating downstairs than necessary. I’m going to close that panel and don’t want anything floating into my respiratory system.”

  “Good idea. I’ve got just the thing.”

  “I would have been disappointed had you said otherwise.”

  Somehow, over the course of the last several hours, Dinah’s prickliness had decreased as had the acidity of Mick’s taunts. She dug into her own car and came out with a cloth shopping bag. “This one?” She pulled out a baby blue infinity scarf knit from soft yarn. “Or”—she unfolded a length of scarf she’d crocheted from pink merino wool—“this one?”

  “No manly plaid?”

  “Nope. I’m dropping these off at the women’s shelter. The pink brings out the color of your eyes, but let’s go with the blue to match your skin tone.”

  “Were you always this hilarious?” he asked, taking the blue one. “And you want to tell me how this circle of life can protect me from the crud floating from the attic?”

  “Here.” Dinah pulled the loop over his head, twisted, and looped it several more times, making sure it was secure over his lower face. He didn’t move, and when her hand brushed his cheek, rough with almost invisible stubble, she pulled back as though burned. A quick glance at his eyes showed amusement glinting in them. “Ready?”

  She didn’t ask permission to follow him into the house, and apart from
a sideways glance as she wound the pink scarf over her mouth and nose, he didn’t do anything to discourage her. Less additional dust coated the bedroom floor than Dinah expected. The door of the closet had swung shut behind their hasty retreat and kept the particles contained. Mick called down that the air in the upper level seemed relatively clear in the flashlight’s beam. He pulled the access panel in place and slid the ladder in the hallway closet before he spoke again.

  “Say, partner in crime, if I bribe you with hot cocoa, can we talk?”

  He did make hot cocoa. It was a bit on the weak side, but Mick looked so anxious when he set it in front of her, that she drank it with gusto.

  He sat across from her, took a sip from his own cup and made a face. “Mine’s pretty watery. Glad yours is all right.”

  She smiled and took another sip, trying to make it seem rich and full-bodied. “What did you want to talk about?”

  He nodded toward the clock over the sink. “It’s almost eleven. Don’t you need to be up for class or work tomorrow?”

  “My only classes are on Mondays and Tuesdays. And I’m…between jobs right now.”

  He made a half-hearted jab about the idle rich, not realizing how close he was to the truth. “I’m usually up at six but finals were last week. Plenty of grading to do. Still, chemistry professors have it easier than English or history professors.”

  Dinah stared. A chemistry professor? And he’d mocked her for being too smart? But his career choice wasn’t the topic he wanted to discuss.

  “My sister did one of those DNA tests. We told her if she wanted to waste money she could take us all out for a beer since it would come back one hundred percent Germanic. We were wrong. A good percentage was European Jew.”

  Dinah frowned. “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

  “Not at all. But such a high percentage indicates a Jewish ancestor only a few generations back, and we’re all befuddled. Mom’s family was some petty royalty in Germany ’til they came over here about a hundred and fifty years back to make more money. And we thought we knew all about the Wagners.”

  “Are you thinking your great-grandmother was Jewish? It would explain the menorah and the candles.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. And it makes those Nazi ornaments in the attic even more ominous.”

  “According to Helen, your great-grandmother was Danish. Denmark had a decent-sized Jewish population at the start of the war. The Danes helped most of them escape the Nazis during the occupation.”

  “Maybe my great-grandmother’s method of escape was to hide her ethnicity.”

  “It wasn’t unheard of. Persecutions of Jewish populations were nothing new in the 1930s. She could have been Danish on the Mikkelson side, or the family took the name at some point to avoid unpleasantness. Of course, she’d already been in America for years by then.”

  Mick stirred his cocoa with impatient little clicks and didn’t respond. It seemed the conversation had dead-ended.

  Dinah stood. “Are you finished? Let me clean your cup. Thank you for the cocoa, by the way.” She tried to make small talk. “My parents keep an account with a genealogy firm, but we can’t find a single thrilling ancestor. Your family, on the other hand, is chock full of intrigue.”

  The clinking from the spoon stopped. Dinah glanced back. Mick’s expression could only be described as sheepish. “You think I only told you about those results because you’re a pretty face? Not that it isn’t true.”

  Dinah put damp fists on her hips and tried to ignore the sideways compliment. “You set me up, hoping I might volunteer to do your research!”

  “Hoping against hope. Since you are the smartest person I know.”

  “And you’re a professor of chemistry.”

  “True. For sheer variety though, you’ve got me by a mile. Yes, I’m hoping you will put your seemingly infinite resources and curiosity to work for me. I’m getting curiouser and curiouser. And I always was a self-serving type.”

  Before she could agree, Mick jumped to his feet. “Do you smell that?”

  Dinah smelled it. “Electrical fire.”

  “I’ll check upstairs. You stay on this floor.” Mick was already was in the hall. “If you see so much as a wisp of smoke, run outside and call 9-1-1.”

  Overhead, Mick pounded from room to room. Dinah heard him opening and closing doors and she followed suit, examining every room and every outlet and every light fixture.

  “I’ll check the basement!” Mick called, but her momentum was already carrying her down the cellar stairs. “Don’t you ever listen?” he roared.

  “The smell is barely noticeable here.” They hadn’t time to quibble over who checked what.

  “The same upstairs. I even lifted the panel to sniff the toxic attic.” He pulled her up the steps and into the kitchen. “It actually was smelling fresher.”

  “It’s bad here. We need to call the fire department.”

  He was sober. “I agree.”

  The fire department was in front of the house in moments, swarming and doing what firefighters do.

  Only moments more and Dinah heard a shout from inside. Mick grabbed her arm, and time halted in its tracks and refused to move. All she could do was pray.

  “Oh, Lord, I know it’s only a house, but it is a beautiful house and means so much to the Wagners, to Helen and Ebbie, to the Listers. And Mick. Please let them find the source and put it out.”

  A cold nose nuzzled her hand, and Dinah looked down. Freyja. Ralph stood next to her. Mick barely seemed to register their presence.

  “The sirens woke us,” the old gentleman explained. “I told Helen I would investigate. She’s in a fearful state, worried the house will burn down. I told her maybe this is possibly much ado about nothing.”

  Dinah grimaced. “Maybe. We didn’t actually see a fire. What scared us was that electrical fire stench.”

  Ralph put a hand to his head. “What a good thing it was you and your young man there and not me. I’ve not got much sense of smell left.” He smiled ruefully. “The place could burn down around my ears before I apprehended a problem.” He reached down to pat Freyja’s head. As soon as he moved, she stopped nuzzling Dinah’s hand and sat immobile, but when he straightened she thrust her soft snout back into Dinah’s palm. “Freyja senses that you are upset and wants to comfort you.”

  Dinah’s laugh was shaky. “She caught me mid-prayer.”

  Ralph chuckled. “Maybe the gods heard and sent you Freyja. She is a great comforter.”

  One of the firefighters walked to their small group and focused on Mick. “You called in the alarm?”

  “Yes.” Mick’s grip on Dinah’s arm tightened. “Did you figure out what’s going on?”

  “We did, and it’s a good thing you called when you did. Our thermal imaging found a hot spot in the dining room. Fortunately, we could put it out easily. Unfortunately, it meant knocking a hole in the wall.”

  Mick, Dinah, and Ralph groaned in unison.

  11

  “This place is going to be more full of holes than a bagel shop.” A forlorn Mick surveyed the damage. He, Ralph, and Dinah had been allowed into the house. Beautiful Freyja lay in the hallway at another of those undetectable commands.

  A gaping hole in the plaster above the paneling yawned back at them. At least someone removed the plates first. The firefighters were gone, confident there was no further danger.

  “How could this happen?” Mick was still groaning.

  Dinah tried a positive approach. “It’s probably as simple as old, frazzled wiring. An electrician will handle it and tell you to replace every bit at a cost that rivals the national debt.”

  “Here’s one thing you don’t know.” Mick kicked a hunk of plaster at his feet. “Before we gave permission for this fiasco of a Christmas spectacle, an electrical inspector went over every inch of the house. It’s got knob and tube wiring that’s been maintained so well, we were told not to worry about changing it.”

  “Here’s som
ething else you don’t know.” Ralph stood by the table, his face pale under the tan. “It’s a likelihood that when I drilled holes to reinforce the plate rail, I hit an electrical line. A fireman confirmed it was a possibility.” Even in obvious distress, the man’s dignity didn’t abandon him. “I take full responsibility. We’ll speak in the morning. Now I must leave and comfort my Helen. Maybe even lie to her a little so she can sleep.”

  He bid them good night, left the room, and Freyja rose to follow. Dinah and Mick watched them go.

  “Do you think it’s his fault?” Dinah hoped not.

  Mick shrugged. “Hard to tell. A simple mistake to make. I hate to make a big deal of it since he so obviously feels awful.” He touched the edges of the hole. “At least they didn’t take out the paneling, or we’d need a pipeline to your supplier in Chicago.”

  “You’ll still need a really good plasterer.”

  “Got someone in mind?”

  “Nope. I don’t know a single plasterer.”

  “Letting me down again? I’m sure I can find one, but will they be able to get this done by next weekend? Or do we call the whole Christmas thing off? There’ve been more disasters in one day than since this place was built.”

  “I’m guessing most people aren’t having major work done on their houses so close to the holidays. You may be able to get someone quickly.” Wagner genealogy would have to wait, she thought with regret. “Do you want me to start calling around in the morning?”

  “No. My grandmother comes here in the morning to check on progress. I better run interference for the historical society or she’ll shelve the whole project. And I want you running interference for me, or she’ll strike me from the family record. So you best get home and rest up.” He took her hand in both of his. “Dinah, you’ve been terrific. I understand you’re doing it because you’re a good person and you love the house and are kind to old women. And I remember what a prize jerk I was when we were young. Which gives me all the more reason to be grateful.”

  He squeezed her hand, and her heart felt it. When she realized it was just Mick being Mick, she told him it was her pleasure and went home.