Upon a Midnight Clear

by Catherine Mulvany

  Alex looked around at Great-grandmother Yano’s snug little house, then up at Dixon. “I don’t know. It’s not so bad. I think we need a Christmas tree, though. Can’t we slip into town and get one?” She crossed to the sofa and curled up at one end. Wynonna immediately wrapped herself around Alex’s shoulders like a fur stole.

  Dixon nudged Reba aside to claim his fair share of the rocker. “It’s been snowing steadily for the last twelve hours. My four-wheel drive’s pretty reliable on bad roads, but even it would get stuck if we tried to go anywhere. The snow is deeper than the axles and just the right temperature to pack.”

  “How about an artificial tree, then? Does Great-grandmother Yano have a fake Christmas tree in storage? I’d even settle for one of those ugly old aluminum ones.”

  “Sorry. Great-grandmother Yano’s a Buddhist.”

  “Well, phooey!”

  “Hey, it’s a perfectly respectable religion.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” She looked at him sideways. “Are you Buddhist?”

  “My father is.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Lutheran.”

  “Which makes you …”

  “Confused.” He grinned. “Midnight services every Christmas Eve. Obon festival every summer. How about you?”

  “Presbyterian, more or less.” She made a face. “Actually, more less than more. We used to attend church every Sunday, but after Daddy died, we got out of the habit.”

  A melancholy silence fell between them. Alex didn’t know what Dixon was thinking about, but her own mind was filled with memories of her father. Stuart Roundtree had been dead almost ten years now, but the grief still invaded her thoughts from time to time. Little things triggered it—certain smells she associated with her father, particular phrases he’d used, or sometimes just the time of year.

  “Daddy loved Christmas,” she said softly. “All of it. He used to take us up into the mountains to cut our own tree.”

  Dixon cleared his throat. “There aren’t any trees within hiking distance, but we could cut a sagebrush.”

  “Really?” Alex sat up so abruptly that she dislodged the calico perched on her shoulders.

  Wynonna landed awkwardly on the arm of the sofa with a disgruntled meow. Then, as if she’d planned the whole maneuver herself, she jumped down onto the floor, where she proceeded to give herself a spit bath.

  “In lieu of a real Christmas tree,” Dixon explained.

  Alex grinned. Granted a sagebrush wasn’t quite the same as a pine, but Dixon’s enthusiasm was contagious. Unfortunately … “I don’t have any warm clothes. In fact, I don’t have any clothes at all other than the few things Mother bought at the mall before we left town.”

  “No problem. Great-grandmother left all her cold-weather gear. She doesn’t need it down at Uncle Taro’s.”

  Alex had a sudden mental image of herself in a pair of the doll-sized woman’s ski pants. With any luck they might come to her knees.

  She met Dixon’s gaze with a skeptical expression and they both burst out laughing.

  “Or maybe not,” he amended. “So scratch that suggestion. Do you have any ideas?”

  “Why don’t we make cookies?”

  “You mean like Oreos?”

  Alex gave him a disgusted look. “No, not like Oreos. I’m talking real cookies. Homemade gingerbread men.”

  “Okay. I’m game as long as I get to eat the finished product.” Dixon stood up, depriving Reba of his lap.

  The cat’s glare was full of reproach. She stalked off toward the kitchen, where she immediately began crunching her way through a bowl of Meow Mix.

  “Darn.” Alex made a face.

  “What?”

  “I forgot. I can’t make cookies without a recipe. Maybe your great-grandmother has a cookbook?” she said hopefully.

  “I doubt it. Great-grandmother’s from the old school. I don’t think she uses recipes.”

  Alex snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it. I’ll call Mother for her recipe. She’d probably like to hear from me anyway. She worries.” She jumped up, narrowly missing Wynonna’s tail, then quickly sat down again. “Rats. I just remembered.”

  “What? The recipe?”

  “No. Like Mark, Mother has caller ID. If I phone her, she’ll know where we are. Not that she’d tell anyone on purpose, but …” She shrugged.

  “The phone’s in Great-grandmother’s name. Even if it occurs to your mother to look Great-grandmother up in the telephone directory—”

  “Believe me, she’ll look. Mother doesn’t miss a trick.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She can look all she wants; she still won’t be any the wiser. No address is listed.”

  Alex laughed. “Like that would faze Regina Roundtree. The woman has contacts all over town. If anyone knows where your great-grandmother lives, Mother will obtain that information. You can bet on it.”

  Dixon smiled. “You worry too much, Alexandra. Even if she knew our exact location, she’d have one hell of a time finding us. The roads aren’t marked and this snow’s an added complication. I think we’re safe.”

  The illusion of safety lasted just over four hours.

  At first Alex thought the buzzing sound was Dixon cutting down a sagebrush “tree” with the chain saw he’d found in the shed. By the time she realized what it really was, the snowmobile had circled the house twice. Terrified, she dropped the gingerbread man she was decorating. Her heart raced, but time itself seemed to crawl. In slow motion the cookie hit the edge of the counter, then arced toward the floor, where it bounced once, scattering crumbs across the spotless white tiles before coming to rest frosted side down.

  Panic sent her rushing from door to door to check the locks, even though she knew all was secure. “Deep breaths,” she muttered, positioning herself off to the side of one of the long, narrow front windows at an angle where she could peer outside without being seen.

  As if on cue, the snowmobile came flying around the corner of the house, throwing up a rooster tail of snow. The driver’s body was disguised by the muffling thickness of his insulated suit, his face hidden by a fake beard and sunglasses. An oversized Santa hat concealed his hair completely. The anonymous figure could have been anyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Madonna, anyone from Danny Hall … to her mother.

  The snowmobiling Santa cut between two of the shrubs edging the yard, spun a quarter turn, and headed straight for the front door. Alex winced, preparing for a crash of splintering wood that never came. At the last second the big Polaris veered off to the right. Moments later Alex saw why. Dixon, his face hidden by a ski mask, came racing into her line of vision, brandishing a roaring chain saw like the villain in a cheap horror film.

  Santa turned so abruptly he nearly lost control, then revved his engine one last time before fleeing back down the road in the direction of town.

  Alex slumped against the wall. Her legs felt rubbery. She pressed a trembling hand to her chest. If she hadn’t known better she’d have sworn someone was playing racquetball inside her rib cage.

  The roar of the chain saw stopped suddenly and the silence was deafening. She fumbled with the dead bolt, clumsy in her haste. It gave way at last and she fell back to let Dixon in.

  “Either Mark or my mother must have told someone where we were.” She felt as if she were strangling on the words.

  “Call them,” snapped Dixon.

  “What would Mark have to gain from terrorizing me?”

  “Call him. If he’s not there …”

  Moving like a sleepwalker, Alex stumbled to the kitchen, where Reba was nibbling tentatively at the fallen gingerbread man. Up on the counter, Dolly was sampling the contents of the frosting bowl. Dixon shooed the cat away and handed Alex the phone.

  She tried Mark’s work number first, then home, but reached answering machines both places. She left no messages. What was there to say? Done any snowmobiling lately?

  Her stomach rolled as if the cookies she’d sampled were about to tur
n on her. “Dead end.” She hung up the receiver, then searched Dixon’s expressionless face for a clue as to what he was thinking. “Okay, Mark’s a pig, but I can’t believe he’d do something like this.”

  Dixon’s face remained locked in neutral. “Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Call your mother.”

  Bile rose in her throat. “My mother? You don’t suspect my mother, do you?” I don’t suspect my mother, do I?

  Dixon tossed hat and gloves on a kitchen chair. “It’s my job to suspect everyone.”

  Alex felt numb. “It can’t be Mother. She only kills people in books, not real life.”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe so, but someone out there favors a more direct approach. Call her.”

  Dixon stared at the mess on the kitchen floor, frowning fiercely as he tried to make sense of what he knew. Dammit, that snowmobiler could have been almost anyone. Jordan could be the guilty party or he could have quite innocently passed Great-grandmother’s number out to someone else who’d traced them here.

  Regina Roundtree was definitely off the hook. Alexandra was on the phone with her mother right now. But God only knew whom she’d shared information with. He tapped Alexandra’s shoulder. “Ask your mother if she gave this number out to anyone.”

  Alexandra nodded. “… yes, that’s right. We’re staying at Dixon’s great-grandmother’s house.” She sighed. “I knew you’d figure it out. No, I realize you wouldn’t purposely put me in danger. But this is very important. Did you mention our whereabouts to anyone? Anyone at all?”

  There was a short pause. Then Alexandra covered the receiver with her palm and whispered, “She says she didn’t tell anyone where I was, but she did give the number out to a couple of people.”

  “Who?” Dixon’s gut clenched.

  “Mandy, for one. She said she needed to talk to me about the fire insurance on the shop.”

  Amanda Roundtree Sutton had a strong motive—money—but Dixon wasn’t sure she had the killer instinct. “Who else?”

  Alexandra’s expression told him he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “Officer Rios.”

  The words dropped into a pool of silence, the only sounds in the kitchen the soft vibration of the refrigerator’s motor and his own harsh breathing. Cesar? Hell, no! It couldn’t be. What possible motive would Cesar have? Dixon felt as if a heavyweight contender had just landed a shot to his jaw, effectively scrambling his brains.

  “Anything else you want to know?” Alexandra’s voice brought him back to the present.

  “Yeah. Ask her when she talked to them.”

  “When did you talk to them, Mother?”

  Another pause while Alexandra absorbed her mother’s reply.

  “Hang on a minute,” she said at length. “I need to fill Dixon in.” Once again she covered the mouthpiece. “They both left messages on her machine. Mother normally won’t leave the computer to talk to someone unless it’s urgent. Otherwise she wouldn’t get any work done,” Alexandra explained. “Anyway, she wound up the chapter she was working on a couple hours ago and that’s when she listened to her messages and returned calls.”

  “A couple hours ago,” Dixon repeated, his mind racing.

  “She claims she didn’t tell either one of them where we were, just gave them the number where we could be reached. It doesn’t necessarily have to be one of them,” she argued. “Maybe they told someone else.”

  “Maybe.”

  Alexandra removed her hand from the mouthpiece. “Mother, I’ve got to go. Try not to worry. Dixon won’t let anything happen to me.” She hung up slowly. “I’m sorry. I never should have called Mother. I knew she had caller ID and I knew she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.” Alexandra refused to look at him.

  Dixon pulled her into his arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “It’s not your fault … or your mother’s either. I was the one who assured you it was okay to call her.”

  She nestled against him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “It is going to be all right, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, hoping it was true. Though he was damned if he knew where to hide her now.

  Her body tensed at the sudden shrilling of the phone.

  “I’ll get it.” He reached across her for the receiver. “Yeah?”

  “Dixon? Is that you?”

  A chill snaked down his spine as he recognized the voice. “Cesar?”

  “Hey, man. I been trying to reach you ever since I went off shift. Who you been on the phone with, buddy?”

  “How’d you know where I was?”

  “My mother—” started Alexandra.

  Dixon shushed her. He wanted to hear what Cesar had to say.

  “I spent half the damn day trying to trace you. I finally sweet-talked this number out of your client’s mother.”

  “What’s so urgent?”

  “We found a corpse in the rubble of Gemini Gifts.”

  “Alexandra’s mother didn’t mention it.”

  “No way she would have known. We haven’t released the information to the press.”

  “Have you ID’ed the body?”

  “Yeah. It’s Myron Finney, the bum who hung around the downtown area.”

  “Damn.”

  “We thought at first he died of smoke inhalation. He was curled up in a pile of rags in the corner behind the furnace like he’d been sleeping down there. Latch was broken on one of the side windows. We figure he must have gotten in that way.”

  “What is it? What body?” Alexandra demanded.

  Dixon gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “You said at first you thought he died of smoke inhalation. You mean he didn’t?”

  “Who died?” Alexandra was trembling.

  “Just a minute, Cesar.” He covered the mouthpiece. “The bum from the alley,” he told Alexandra. “Cops found his body in the basement after the fire.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Okay, Cesar. What’s the word?”

  “Coroner says the guy was shot point-blank right in the heart. Figures he was dead a good six to ten hours before the fire.”

  “Damn, how’d your guys miss something as obvious as a bullet through the heart?”

  “Get real, Yano. The old man’s clothes were filthy. He stank to high heaven. Sergeant Kirkwood made us wear gloves just to handle the body. You think anybody was going to notice one extra hole in all those layers of rags during a casual examination? Hell, we thought he’d died of the smoke.”

  “He must have seen something.”

  “Or somebody.”

  Like Santa without his fake beard.

  “How did the fire start?”

  “The investigators haven’t filed a formal report yet.”

  “But?”

  “But the word is, they’re saying arson. Fire apparently began in the supply cupboard under the stairs.” Cesar cleared his throat. “I just thought you’d want to know. Stay in touch, man. And the next time you decide to take off, at least leave a number where you can be reached.”

  “Don’t leave town, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Cesar?”

  “Yeah, man?”

  “We’re leaving in the morning.”

  Cesar spat out a few choice words in Spanish. “Why?”

  “It’s not safe here any longer.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Right before you called, we had an uninvited guest. Santa on a snowmobile.”

  This time Cesar swore so loudly that Dixon had to hold the receiver away from his ear.

  “My sentiments exactly.” His tone was dry.

  “Where you gonna take her?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Well, keep in touch, man.”

  Dixon didn’t answer. His gut told him that everything Cesar’d said was on the level, but a few niggling doubts remained. Trust no one. He should have followed that advice in the first place.

  He hung up, then turned his full attenti
on on Alexandra. “I think Cesar’s trustworthy. We’re friends. I’ve known him for years. But I don’t want to take any chances. We’ll leave tomorrow morning at first light.”

  “Why not now?” Her voice shook uncontrollably.

  Dixon held her close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She smelled of ginger and cinnamon. “It’s getting dark. There’s a tractor with a blade out in the shed. I can use it to clear the road, but not until morning. The headlights don’t work.” He caressed her back and shoulders with slow, soothing strokes. “Don’t worry. We’re okay for now. I have a gun. The bastard knows a fake beard isn’t going to protect him from a bullet.”

  “So what you’re really saying is we’re trapped.”

  He frowned. “We could walk out, but I honestly think we’re safer here.” He leaned back so he could examine her face, disturbed to see the tears trickling silently down her cheeks. “Do you want something to eat? It’s past dinnertime.”

  “I’m not hungry. Just upset. Why would anyone want to hurt that harmless old bum? Earlier this week—God, was it only the day before yesterday?—I saw him rummaging through the trash bin behind the store. He looked so cold and miserable, I gave him the leftover muffins and fudge from the break room.” She shuddered. “And now he’s dead. It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.” Her voice rose, approaching hysteria.

  Dixon folded her close. “Hang in there, sweetheart. The cops will get to the bottom of the mystery; that’s their job. And I’ll keep you safe; that’s my job.”

  A strong sense of déjà vu assailed Alex a few minutes past two as she slipped into the bedroom where Dixon was sleeping. Though this time, she promised herself, there was no question of telephonis interruptus. She’d taken Mandy’s advice and unplugged the phone.

  Of course, there was one other major difference. She wasn’t wearing pale silk this time. After her shower, she’d changed into one of Great-grandmother Yano’s highnecked flannel nightgowns. The voluminous purple-and-orange plaid garment boasted long sleeves that hit her just below the elbow, a hem that covered her knees, and yards of fabric that masked any hint of a curve in between. Victoria’s Secret, it was not.

  “Dixon?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”