Home For the Homicide (A Do-It-Yourself Mystery)

by Bentley, Jennie

  “Just don’t say she didn’t warn you,” Kate said, and stepped back as the door opened and Kerri came down the hall with the dog. Or the dog came back with Kerri.

  Yes, there really was a dog. And not just a dog, but the biggest dog I had ever seen. It came up almost to Kerri’s waist, and would probably hit me at chest height. And it was furry to boot, so it seemed even bigger. It scrabbled down the hall, and it was all Kerri could do to hang on to the collar.

  I jumped behind Kate while Kerri wrestled the beast past us and over to the sliding glass doors into the backyard. “He wants to go out,” she told us over her shoulder breathlessly.

  The dog must have understood, because he wagged his curly tail.

  She shoved him outside and slammed the door, brushing her hands off as she came toward us. And although she didn’t actually say, “I told you so,” it looked like she was thinking it.

  “Pretty dog,” I said.

  “He’s a handful. But he makes me feel safe. And he’s good company.” She smiled.

  “Thank you for letting us see him. And your house.”

  “You’re more than welcome,” Kerri said.

  “You’re all ready for tomorrow?”

  She said she was as ready as she could be, and we took our leave.

  By now, the sun had almost set and it was starting to get colder. I stuffed my hands in my pockets as we headed for the rectory and the last stop on our little tour.

  I’d been inside the rectory before, of course. Barry and Derek had gone to school together and were good friends, so we’d been over to dinner many times, and we’d also gone to some sort of premarital counseling before getting married. Not that Barry was worried about us, but just because it was what he had to do before performing a wedding in the church. I hadn’t seen Judy’s Christmas decorations before, though, and I was curious to see what they were like.

  The rectory itself was a big house, built of the same gray stone as the church. It had two stories and lots of dark wood inside, and had been constructed sometime between the Colonial and the Victorian eras. Antebellum, before the Civil War, but after the Revolutionary ditto. The ceilings weren’t as tall as in the Victorians, and the windows were smaller and deep-set, probably because the people who lived back then were trying to conserve heat in the winter. There were several big fireplaces, and wide-plank floors. And whoever built it must have expended most of their attention and money on the church—God’s house—and a lot less on the rectory, which would only house man, because it was a very simple house, which hadn’t been updated much in the past hundred and fifty–plus years. The bathrooms were new, of course—or relatively new; there was running water and flushing toilets from sometime in the 1970s—and the kitchen had been updated, as well, but in every respect that mattered, the house was close to the original.

  The tree stood in the middle of the parlor, decorated with lots of lights, a big star at the top, and chains of paper rings and little woven paper baskets full of raisins and nuts and popcorn.

  “Norwegian Christmas baskets,” Judy explained when I admired them. “My mother was Norwegian, like your aunt. These baskets are a traditional Christmas tree decoration over there.”

  “They’re lovely.” Heart-shaped, woven from two different colors of glossy paper. I immediately had a vision for a shoulder bag made in the same style, of two different-colored fabrics, and lined with a third. It would make a fun Christmas gift for someone—like Judy—and it looked like it would be fun to make, and not very complicated.

  “Let me show you,” Judy said and reached for a blue sheet of glossy paper. The big dining room table was littered with them; she’d obviously been busy. “You fold it over, like this. Cut it into a rectangle with a round top. This is one half of the heart. Then you cut a number of evenly spaced slits in the bottom, and make sure they’re as long as the width of the whole thing.”

  I nodded, watching as her scissors flew.

  “Then you do it again with another piece of paper.” She folded a white piece of paper over and repeated the process, including the slits. “Then you weave them together, over and under, so you get a woven pattern, like a checkerboard.” She was weaving furiously as she spoke, and I watched the checkerboard take shape, patterned in white and blue. “When you’re done, you glue a handle on, and you’re ready to hang it on the tree.”

  She held up the finished heart.

  I reached for it. “Can I take it home?”

  “Of course,” Judy said, relinquishing it. “Would you like to try one?”

  “I’d love to!”

  I armed myself with paper and scissors and, under her tutelage, cut and wove a heart of my own. It wasn’t as pristine and flat as Judy’s, it was a bit lumpier, but it looked pretty good, if I do say so myself. “I saw a couple of these crumpled in one of Aunt Inga’s Christmas boxes,” I said, admiring my handiwork, “but I didn’t know what they were. Thanks for solving the mystery.”

  “It’s my pleasure.” She smiled and reached for the scissors and paper again. “I learned how to make these from my mother, who learned from her mother, and so on. These are the most basic ones. My mother made them in all kinds of patterns. There were some that looked like owls, and some that spelled out words or had pictures of pine trees or bells on them.”

  As she spoke, she snipped and wove and, in a few minutes, held up a green and red heart with a green tree on a red background. It even had a trunk planted in the ground, and a star on top.

  “Wow,” I said.

  She handed it to me. “When we have more time, I’ll teach you how to make some others. Or you can take it apart and figure it out yourself.”

  I probably could. Although like a Rubik’s Cube, there was the chance that once I took it apart, I’d never be able to put it together again.

  I stuck both hearts in my pocket. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” Judy said and looked at Kate. “So you’re making sure everyone’s ready for tomorrow?”

  Kate nodded.

  “We’re all set,” Judy said. “I have a little bit of cleaning up to do around here,” like removing all the big and small pieces of glossy paper from the dining room table and floor, I assumed, “but the church is ready. Barry will be there tomorrow, and I’ll be here. We even have a full nativity scene again.”

  “You do?” I said, surprised. “The Baby Jesus came back?”

  Judy nodded, smiling.

  “When? It wasn’t there last night. I looked.”

  She blinked at me, and I added, “Dr. Ben and I canvassed the section of the Village with the church, so we went through the graveyard before we set off. I looked at the nativity scene. The manger was empty.”

  “Of course,” Judy said.

  “So did it just appear overnight again?”

  She shook her head. “Brandon brought it.”

  It was my turn to stare. “You mean . . . Miss Mamie was having tea with Baby Jesus?”

  Kate choked on a laugh, and I frowned at her, which only made her laugh more. I turned on my heel and walked out, snagging my coat from the back of a chair on my way past and tugging it on while I walked.

  I stopped in front of the nativity scene, just where I’d stood with Dr. Ben last night. There were the camels, and the sheep, and the three kings, and Mary and Joseph. And in the manger, Mamie’s doll, looking up at me with big, blue, vacant eyes. For some reason, it was still wearing the blue knits, too. The same ones I’d found in the cubby in Mamie’s room.

  “It’s Mamie’s doll,” I told Judy and Kate when they came up behind me, still pulling on their own coats.

  Judy shook her head. “It’s our Baby Jesus.”

  “That, too. But it’s the doll Mamie had in the playhouse yesterday. She was having a tea party.”

  “She must have been the one stealing it from the manger all these years,” Kate said, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Poor old thing. She probably thought she found her brother, and that she had to bring him home. And
then Ruth would bring him back in a day or two.”

  “Only this year Ruth couldn’t bring him back,” Judy added, “because she can’t get around.”

  Probably so. “I’m glad you got him back,” I said. “And from now on, I guess he’ll stay, too.”

  A shadow crossed Judy’s face. “Terrible about Miss Mamie.”

  It was, rather. Although she had had Baby Jesus watching over her, I suppose, and if she believed she was back with Baby Arthur, maybe she’d been happy.

  “Do you know anything about the funeral?” Kate asked.

  “Tuesday,” Judy answered. “Mr. Silva called Barry yesterday. It’s all set.”

  I looked over at her. “Just for family, or can anyone come?”

  “He didn’t say it was a closed service,” Judy said, “so if you wanted to come, I’m sure that would be fine. She’d lived in Waterfield a long time. I’m sure she had friends who want to come see her off.”

  I made a mental note to mention it to Derek. “We should get home.”

  Kate nodded. “It was good to see you, Judy. The house looks great. Have a good time tomorrow. And remember to lock up anything you don’t want to walk off.”

  “Most people think twice before they steal from a rectory,” Judy said and headed off across the snowy ground. Kate and I turned and trudged back down the hill toward home in the direction we’d come.

  By now it was almost full dark, and the lights were going on inside the houses we were passing. Kerri’s bushes were lit up, and through the big window in the living room, we could see the Christmas tree, as well.

  And we could see Kerri, walking around in the kitchen, probably putting together dinner. And then another figure walked on from stage left—the staircase—and she turned to him. Tall, with a head of thick, gray hair.

  I stopped. “Is that—”

  Kate stopped, too, and peered in the same direction I was. “Who?”

  But there was no one to see anymore. Kerri and whoever she was with—a man who had looked a lot like Henry Silva—had passed out of sight.

  “Nothing,” I said and kept walking. Kate glanced at me, but didn’t say anything.

  I came home to a house smelling of tomato sauce, ground beef, and garlic. Derek, bless him, had taken it upon himself to make dinner. Again. He’d lived alone for long enough to learn how to cook in a halfway decent manner, too—better than I could—so it would probably turn out to taste as good as it smelled.

  “So how do we stack up?” he asked when the food was served and we were sitting across from each other at Aunt Inga’s kitchen table.

  “Your dad and Cora’s house is beautiful. I’m sure you’ve seen it before. The Fraser House is the Fraser House, and very Colonial. Kerri’s tree is decorated with Dab’s stained glass ornaments. Did she have designs on you?”

  He looked startled. “Kerri? Not that I’ve noticed.”

  “Dab. Is that why she moved to Waterfield?”

  “If she did,” Derek said, “she never said anything about it. We’ve never gone out.”

  “Oh.”

  “What makes you think she . . . how did you put it? Had designs?”

  I shrugged. “Just something about the way she said your name. It’s not like she fell on me and tried to kill me because I married you, or anything like that.”

  “Good to know,” Derek said. His face was solemn, but his eyes were laughing. “I think you’re imagining things, Avery. I’m glad you find me so desirable you think everyone else wants me, too, but I think you’re worrying over nothing. So Kerri decorated with stained glass. And I’ve seen Cora’s decorations before. So have you, for that matter. Last year.”

  “She did a little more this year,” I said, “because of the tour. There are real candles on the Christmas tree.”

  “The kind with flames?”

  I nodded.

  “I hope she isn’t planning to light those with Alice’s kids around. They’ll burn the house down.” I wasn’t entirely sure whether “they” were the lights or the kids, but I didn’t suppose it mattered.

  “She said she’d replace them before Christmas Eve. She did it just for the tour, she said.”

  Derek nodded, and I’m sure he was relieved to hear that.

  “Your dad told me he’d look through your grandfather’s medical records,” I added, “to see if your Pawpaw Willie ever treated either of the Green sisters for pregnancy.”

  “You don’t treat anyone for pregnancy, Avery,” my husband said. “It’s not an illness.”

  “You know what I mean. Kate and I thought maybe the skeleton isn’t Baby Arthur. That maybe Mamie or Ruth had a baby at some point, and didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Big coincidence,” Derek said, “but I guess it’s possible. If my grandfather knew one of the Green sisters was pregnant, though, and then there was no baby, he would have wondered what happened.”

  “Maybe they lied. Maybe whoever wasn’t pregnant told him the other one had gone away to have the baby, and someone had adopted it. I don’t think adoption records were all that strict back then, so even if he’d checked, they might not have been there for him to find.”

  “They weren’t there for him to find,” Derek said, “if the baby was dead and in the attic.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He nodded. “It’s more likely it’s Baby Arthur, Avery. A baby going missing and turning up in the attic sixty years later makes more sense than that the first baby went missing and was never found, and another baby, that no one knew about, also went missing—although no one noticed—and that’s the one that’s in the attic.”

  “I guess I just don’t like the idea that someone did something to Baby Arthur. It’s more pleasant—or less unpleasant—to believe that someone took Baby Arthur, and he was loved and cared for and had a happy life, while the baby in the attic was stillborn and the Green sisters just didn’t want to deal with the shame of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.”

  “Could you do that?” Derek asked. When I looked at him, he added, “Give birth to a stillborn baby and hide it in the attic?”

  “No.” The idea was abhorrent, and my response was instant and strong. “Never. But you always say how we can’t judge other people by what we would do. One person’s slight embarrassment might be another’s motive for murder.”

  “True,” Derek said and got up with his empty plate. While I’d been busy talking, taking a bite of spaghetti once in a while, he’d managed to polish off his dinner.

  “On the good news side,” I told him, “Barry and Judy got their Baby Jesus back.”

  “No kidding?” He sat back down across from me after loading his plate into the dishwasher.

  I nodded and had to chew and swallow before I could continue. “Remember Mamie’s doll?”

  His eyes widened. “That was Baby Jesus?”

  “It was.” I twirled more pasta around my fork. “We think maybe Mamie got confused and thought it was Baby Arthur, so she brought him home. Dr. Ben told me the nativity was sixty or seventy years old. Do you think it’s possible it was new the year Baby Arthur disappeared? And when Mamie saw the Baby Jesus in the manger a few months after losing her baby brother, she got confused?”

  “It’s possible,” Derek said. “And then Ruth went back the next night and returned him. Only this year she couldn’t, because of the hip. So he ended up in the playhouse instead.”

  “And Brandon brought him back to the church. He’s in the manger again now. Just in time for the tour.”

  “That’s good,” Derek said. “So at least that part of the puzzle is solved.”

  I nodded. “I wonder if we’ll ever find out what happened to Baby Arthur.” Or the baby in the attic, if it wasn’t Baby Arthur.

  “With Mamie gone,” Derek said, “maybe not. It depends on how many people knew the truth back then. And whether any of them are still alive to tell.”

  I finished my pasta in silence.

  —16—

  The day of th
e Christmas Home Tour dawned fair and cold, with sunshine that sparkled off the snow crystals in the yard. We spent the morning putting the finishing touches on the house: making sure there were no dust bunnies or hairballs lurking in the corners, and baking dozens upon dozens of cookies. With Derek’s help, the task wasn’t as arduous as I had feared. It took a couple hours, but we had fun. Jemmy and Inky chose not to get involved, but Mischa kept an eye on us from the doorway. Occasionally, he’d venture into the kitchen to twine around our legs in an attempt to trip us up.

  Dr. Ben called around lunchtime, to check in and to tell me that he’d perused Pawpaw Willie’s medical records, and there’d been no mention of either Mamie or Ruth ever having been pregnant.

  “I’m only telling you this,” he informed me, “because it’s essentially no information at all. And I called Wayne first.”

  Of course he had. Not that I had any complaints: He’d done what I’d wanted, and had even shared the results with me. “Thank you.”

  “We all want to figure out what happened. But it looks like this, at least, is a dead end.”

  It did look that way. “Did you ask your father whether he remembered anything?”

  Dr. Ben told me he had. “He said that to the best of his knowledge, neither of the Green sisters ever dealt with a pregnancy.”

  I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could scoop cookies off the cookie sheet and onto a rack while we spoke. “Would he have known if they did?”

  “Most likely he would,” Dr. Ben said. “Waterfield’s a small town now, and it was smaller then. I’m assuming we’re talking about a time when the girls were young. Late 1950s, early 1960s, maybe?”

  Probably. By my calculations, Ruth and Mamie would have been between fifteen and twenty-five, roughly, at that time, which seemed a good age for an accidental pregnancy. Not that older women don’t get pregnant by accident, too, but hiding a dead baby in the attic for fear of judgment seemed something a young person would do. Surely someone older would have developed more of a conscience, or at least be less likely to panic.

  Dr. Ben continued, “Back then, women in small towns went to their GPs with pregnancies. Home births were common, and Waterfield didn’t have anyone specializing in gynecology or obstetrics. We still don’t.”