Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes)

by Mignon F. Ballard

  Now, I’m proud of my son and love him all to pieces, but since he’s been made chair of the History Department at Sarah Bedford, our local college, he’s gotten obnoxiously bossy. I chose that moment to tell him so. “Look,” I said, “the man was already dead when we found him. I doubt very much if he picked that morning to jump or fall or whatever from the balcony just because I was in the vicinity.” (I didn’t dare mention the notion that he might have been pushed!)

  “Well, something’s going on out there, and I hope you and Aunt Ellis will have the good sense to stay out of it. Let Cousin Grayson worry about it. After all, it’s his house.” Roger stood to clear the table while I scraped dishes at the sink. Ellis is the closest thing to an aunt my two will ever have since neither Charlie nor I had any sisters and my brother can’t seem to stay married. “Preacher Dave seems to think the guy might’ve been a homeless person who probably had too much to drink,” he said, stacking glasses on top of plates until they leaned precariously, “and I can’t get a word out of Ed down at the Police Department.”

  Ed Tillman and Roger had been friends since kindergarten and I knew him well enough to know he could clam up tighter than a miser’s purse. I wasn’t having any better luck with my friend Kemper Mungo.

  “Maybe he doesn’t have anything to tell,” I said, rescuing the tottering stack, “but if I learn anything, I promise I’ll let you know.”

  “Just promise you’ll stay away from there.” He brushed my cheek with a kiss. “I worry about you, you know.”

  “I know,” I said, giving his arm a damp pat. There was no way I was going to tell him about our experiences at Willowbrook that morning. I just hoped I could count on Ben to keep his mouth shut, too.

  “I ran into Nettie at the library this morning and she told me you had made new window treatments for Julie’s room,” Jessica mentioned later as we finished decorating the tree. “When do I get to see them?”

  “Anytime,” I said, watching Roger boost Teddy up to put the star on top of the tree. It was a pitiful-looking star my great-grandmother had made by sewing gold oiled paper to cardboard but, dog-eared as it was, it was tradition, and traditions die hard in our family.

  “What about now?” Jessica was already on her way upstairs so there was nothing I could do but follow.

  Augusta had fashioned simple tab curtains from a heavy cotton blend, and since Julie loved purple, the pattern featured inch-wide vertical stripes in that color against a white background. At intervals, a scattering of fern fronds lent a bright touch of green.

  Jessica fingered the fabric and inspected the lining. Naturally, she found it perfect. “This is absolutely lovely!” she exclaimed, turning to me with a new glow of respect. I know she must have been wondering how I learned to sew so well after the disaster of Teddy’s Halloween costume—or what was meant to be Teddy’s Halloween costume—but, of course, she was too polite to mention it. “I’ve been looking for something similar for that little upstairs bedroom. Bought those curtains in a hurry when we first moved in, and I never have liked them. Did it take you very long to make these?”

  “Oh, not too long … I worked on them off and on, of course.” I stiffened. I could feel Augusta standing behind me and I didn’t dare turn around.

  “Do you think you might show me how? I hate to pay somebody to make them, and I’d really like to learn if you think it wouldn’t be too terribly hard.” Jessica turned imploring blue eyes on me and I felt like the lowest kind of worm. My daughter-in-law seldom asks favors and I really wanted to do something special to please her.

  “Great jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Don’t tell me you made those!” Roger stood in the doorway, his eyes wide with shock—an expression, I thought, which was unnecessarily exaggerated. “When did you learn to sew?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not a very good instructor, but if you’ll measure your windows and decide on the fabric, I’ll be happy to make your curtains,” I said, turning to his wife.

  Behind him in the hallway Augusta laughed silently.

  “I guess I stepped into it this time,” I told her after the others had left. “You are going to help me, aren’t you?”

  “Of course, but they really aren’t all that difficult to make,” she said. “I could show you how.”

  “When I was in high school, I made a C-minus in home economics—and I was lucky to get it,” I said. “Our teacher, Mrs. Settlemyer, retired after that year. Everybody said she went to live in Alabama with her daughter but we always suspected the poor soul had a nervous breakdown. … You might be an angel,” I told her, “but you’re not a saint!”

  The two of us sat in the darkened living room watching the lights of the tree reflected in the window while the fire burned low on the hearth. Since Teddy had done most of the decorating, a lot of the ornaments hung on the lower branches but that was fine with me. I closed my eyes, drinking in the fresh cedar smell. “Just two more days until the caroling party,” I reminded Augusta, “and we’ll finally get to meet Melrose DuBois!”

  he next day was Friday and Weigelia Jones was coming to help me get ready for The Thursdays’ caroling party the following night. Weigelia and I became friends when I was her tutor in the literacy program several years earlier, and when I’m in a bind she’s good enough to work me in on her house-cleaning schedule. There’s no spot of dirt that can elude Weigelia Jones’s keen eyes, no cobweb too far from her reach, and when I see her coming I want to throw my arms around her and shout hallelujah. Instead, I put on a huge pot of coffee. Weigelia loves it almost as much as Augusta, only she fills her cup about halfway with cream.

  I was hurrying through my breakfast of cereal and orange juice that morning when it occurred to me that Augusta was trying to get my attention. “Did you say something?” I asked, rinsing my bowl at the sink. I didn’t want to be in Weigelia’s way when she started working her miracles on my kitchen floor.

  “Only two or three times,” Augusta said. “You must have been a million miles away. Is something on your mind?”

  “It’s that blasted song!” I admitted. “That little snatch of melody we heard at Willowbrook yesterday. I can’t get it out of my head and it’s about to drive me crazy.”

  “The violin music?” Augusta tapped her slender fingers on the table. “Why don’t you ask someone who might be familiar with the piece—perhaps someone at the college. Didn’t you tell me there was a group who played—”

  “The Fiddlesticks! Of course! Our postmaster, Albert Grady, plays the violin and so does his wife, Miranda. I have to buy Christmas stamps anyway, and today would be as good a time as any.” And I bent to kiss her angelic cheek. “Augusta, you’re a genius! Now, what was it you wanted to say?”

  Augusta flushed, which meant she was pleased. Although she tells me vanity is folly, I’ve seen her admire her own reflection too many times to take her seriously. “I asked what you had in mind to serve for your caroling party tomorrow,” she said. “I saw a recipe for individual meat pies in the newspaper the other day, and—”

  “Perfect!” I said. “We’ll probably be chilled when we return so I thought I’d have some kind of hot soup … “

  “Hmm … that butternut squash soup would be good … with a bit of ginger and nutmeg and a dash of sherry, of course. We had it last Christmas, remember?”

  “Good but troublesome. Too much stewing and brewing!” I told her.

  “I don’t mind stewing and brewing,” she said in what I thought was just a hint of self-righteousness. (I didn’t say so, of course.)

  And so we decided on the menu—or Augusta decided on it. Not that I minded one bit. “Naturally, The Thursdays will bring finger foods,” I said. And I could guess what most of them would be. Ellis would bring a chafing dish with her famous hot clam dip; Jo Nell, sweet-and-sour meatballs; Zee, chicken salad puffs; Claudia usually brought marinated mushrooms; Nettie made a wonderful cheese ball; and I could count on Idonia to furnish fresh fruit.

  “Of course, we’ll have sweets co
ming out of our ears,” I said, thinking of all the Christmas cakes and cookies everyone would bring.

  Augusta’s eyes grew wide. “Out of your ears?” she gasped, and I laughed so, I hardly had breath to explain that it was merely an expression.

  I was still laughing when I heard Weigelia’s car pull up behind the house. Besides going to the post office, I had several other errands to run and I asked Augusta if she’d like to go with me as she usually preferred to be out of the house while Weigelia cleaned. “Sometimes I have a feeling she suspects I’m here,” she once told me, “and I don’t like to take any chances.”

  But this time she had other plans. “Ellis has decided she wants plum pudding for Christmas dinner,” she explained, “and I promised to help her make it. If you’re going by the library, however, I’m almost out of something to read.” Augusta has been on a mystery kick for the past few months and has already worked her way to the M–P section in the Stone’s Throw Library. I promised to see what I could do.

  Weigelia hadn’t even finished her first cup of coffee before I realized she knew something I didn’t. She hadn’t had much to say when she came in lugging that big old bucket with all the brushes and soaps she likes to use. (She turns up her nose at mine.) Today she wore the new Reeboks her sister Celeste gave her for her birthday and a long purple skirt that touched the top of her rolled-down socks. The “ten-gallon” red plastic handbag she carries had been duly deposited behind the pantry door along with her faithful green plaid coat.

  “Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

  “I guess you want me to do Julie’s room since she be comin’ for Christmas,” she said, pouring a second cup to go with her muffin.

  “You might run the sweeper in there and flip the dust around a little.” I sat across from her and stared until she had to look at me. She hates it when I do that. “It’s something about that man who died out at Willowbrook, isn’t it? You’ve been talking to Kemper, haven’t you?”

  Weigelia’s cousin Kemper Mungo is a sergeant with the Stone’s Throw police and if anybody could worm information from him, it would be Weigelia Jones. Now it was up to me to get her to turn loose and tell.

  It wasn’t easy. “You know Kemper ain’t supposed to be talking to me ‘bout things like that—and he sure don’t want me spreadin’ it around,” she informed me.

  “And you know I’ll find out eventually. Besides, The Messenger is going to get wind of it sooner or later.” The Messenger is Stone’s Throw’s weekly newspaper, and when its editor, Josie Kiker, gets the scent of a story, she’s like a hungry dog going after a bone. “After all,” I reminded her, “Ellis and I did find the body. That should entitle us to something.”

  Weigelia finished her coffee, and in slow motion, rose, rinsed her cup, and put it in the dishwasher. “They found out that man’s name,” she said finally.

  “The dead man? Who was he?”

  She tied an apron around her middle and took her sweet time about doing it. “Last name Clark, I think … wait just a minute … I wrote it down.”

  I waited while Weigelia reached into her vast bosom for a scrap of paper and handed it to me. And then she laughed. She knew that I knew she was eventually going to tell me. The name Dexter Clark was printed in block letters on what had been the flap of an envelope. “Who’s this Dexter Clark when he’s at home?” she said.

  I shrugged. “Beats me.”

  “Kemper say he got a record: breaking and entering, drunk and disorderly—you name it.” She shook her head. “Not a very nice man.”

  “Not nice at all,” I said, “but that kind of explains what he was doing at Willowbrook.”

  Weigelia grabbed her polish and dust rag and headed for the living room. “What you mean?” she asked, pausing in the doorway.

  “Breaking and entering, and being drunk and disorderly,” I explained.

  According to Weigelia, the dead man didn’t have a permanent address so nobody seemed to know where he came from or what he was doing here—other than taking shelter. And if my cousin Grayson didn’t do something about securing Willowbrook, I was afraid he wouldn’t be the last casualty there.

  The lines in the post office reached to the door and I waved to Clarence Allen, one of the clerks, who waited patiently on a customer. He nodded in return, eyes glazed. It was mid-December and people were still mailing packages. The postmaster’s door was closed and I knocked softly and called out to Albert. The Gradys are members of our church and I’ve always found him to be pleasant and even-tempered. However, as I said, it was the middle of December.

  He looked up from his computer, glasses halfway down his nose. “Lucy Nan! How can I help you?” I noticed he didn’t ask me to sit.

  “I realize this is a bad time,” I began, “but this tune is driving me crazy and I thought you might recognize it.” I told him about the mysterious melody we’d heard at Willowbrook and even went so far as to hum a few bars.

  His expression was blank. “Well, it does sound familiar, but I have no idea what it is. I hope you’ve told the police about this, Lucy Nan. It all sounds peculiar to me, especially after that fellow was found dead out there.”

  “My cousin thinks it’s probably a prank, but I thought if I could just find out the name of the song it might have something to do with what’s going on out there,” I told him.

  Albert pushed up his glasses and sighed. “If anybody might be able to tell you it would be Miranda. She has perfect pitch, you know—never forgets a melody—although to tell you the truth, I think you ought to leave it to the police.”

  “She still teaching at the middle school?”

  He glanced at the clock. “Yes, but she has a free period in about an hour. Why don’t you drop by and ask her? She’ll probably be glad of a break.”

  I thanked him, stood in line for my stamps, and phoned the school to let Miranda know I was coming. By the time I collected Augusta’s books at the library, I had five minutes to get to there.

  Miranda is choral director at the school and I found her in the music room surrounded by stacks and stacks of sheet music. “We’re as ready as we’re going to be for our holiday concert tomorrow night,” she said when I came in. “Now, I have to decide what we need to work on for the spring!”

  “Albert said you never forget a song and might be able to identify something for me,” I said, explaining the reason for my visit.

  “Why don’t you hum a few bars and we’ll give it a try,” she said, sitting at the piano.

  When I finished, she repeated the notes on the piano, adding even more of the melody. “That’s it!” I said. “Please tell me you know what it is!”

  Miranda laughed. “Of course. It’s Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 by George Enescu. I played it in a concert once when I was in college. Beautful piece.”

  I nodded. “It has a haunting quality, don’t you think? Maybe that’s why whoever’s doing this chose that particular song.” I told her the story about the family ghost and how some have even claimed to see a figure in a period gown.

  She frowned. “And this was supposed to have happened when?”

  “Sometime during the War Between the States,” I said. “Probably around 1863.”

  “Then they need to go back and do their homework,” Miranda said. “Enescu wasn’t born for more than a decade after that!

  “I don’t want to scare you, Lucy Nan,” she added, “but it sounds as if somebody might be trying to frighten people away. They could easily use a CD or a tape of the music to give the ghostly effect—but why? What’s going on out there they don’t want anyone to know about?”

  I had been thinking the same thing, and the more I thought about it, the madder I got. In fact, I was practically seething by the time I pulled up behind the Stone’s Throw Police Department. The grocery store could wait!

  Weigelia’s cousin Kemper wasn’t in but I was lucky enough to catch Captain Alonzo Hardy in an idle moment, and by the time he saw me coming, it was too late to run and hide.


  “I want to know what’s going on at Willowbrook,” I demanded, telling him of our experience the day before. “First, a man is killed out there, and now this! Are you sure you searched that place thoroughly? And just who was the man we found?” I didn’t want to get Kemper in trouble by admitting I already knew the dead man’s name.

  He sighed and motioned for me to sit, then proceeded to tell me what I already knew. “I’ve spoken with Dave Tansey and he’s promised to board up the more accessible windows and do more to discourage vagrants out there. That old house is practically an open invitation to trespassers, I’m afraid. As far as we could tell, this man who was killed hadn’t been drinking—fellow by the name of Dexter Clark. Had a record, though—petty stuff mostly. Didn’t seem to have a permanent address.” The captain picked up a pencil and rolled it between his palms. “No tellin’ how long he’d been camping there. Reckon he knew a good thing when he saw it, and others, no doubt, have followed suit.”

  “But the music—”

  “Shoot, everybody around here knows that crazy old ghost tale! Somebody rigged that up to scare people away.” He tossed the pencil aside. “I’m telling you, we looked over every inch of that place, checked very nook and cranny where they might hide something like that, and came up with zilch!”

  I told him Ben and Vance hadn’t had any better luck.

  “Well, we’ll try to give it another look-see. Maybe we can surprise them, find out what this is all about … could be just some kids with nothing better to do, but if you’ll take my advice, Ms. Pilgrim, you’ll stay away from there.”

  I told Augusta about our conversation that night as I helped her make the small meat pies for the party. I browned the ground beef and combined it with onion, spices, and other ingredients while Augusta made the pastry and cut circles for the pies. She planned to make the soup the next morning, she said, and we had decided to serve hot spiced punch when everyone returned from caroling.