Christmas Can Be Murder: A Chaplain Merriman Christian Cozy Mystery (Chaplain Merriman Christian Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Jacob Lee

  “Well, then, I'll ask you to forgive me, Chief,” I said, giving back as good as I got in the insult department. “My main concern at that moment was for the living, rather than the dead, and for the record, yes, I'm smart enough not to touch anything here. I saw that the boy was asleep, looked through the house to be sure the killer wasn't still here, and then stood right here where I could hear the boy if he woke up and started crying, and waited for you. Is that good enough?”

  I could see his anger deflate a bit, as he was forced to agree that I'd done the right thing under the circumstances. “Yeah, okay,” he said, “makes sense, I guess, and I'd rather you be here with the kid than anyone else I can think of who might have been involved. And speaking of involved, what are you even doing out at this time of night? I saw that motorbike of yours over by the body; isn't it a little cold to be out for a moonlight ride?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, it would be, except that I'm doing Santa in the parade this Saturday, and the committee wanted me at a suit fitting tonight. You can check with Naoma Brodrick or Selma Lender at the dress shop, I was with the two of them all evening.”

  He wrote that down in a little notebook he took from a pocket. “I will,” he said. “How did you come upon all this?”

  I gave a shrug and nodded towards where I'd left my motorcycle, back through the woods. “I was on the way home from the fitting. Cemetery Road is the quickest way.”

  He harrumphed. “You mean it's the best way to go if you don't want me to catch you speeding, right? Okay, so you found Brenda laying there in the road?”

  “Nope,” I said. “She came out of the woods at the side of the road, and scared me half to death. I managed not to hit her as I stopped, but by the time I got off the bike, she was falling. Dark as it was, I could tell by the feel and the smell that she was covered in blood, and when I heard her breathe her last, I thought of little Colton. I knew she lived right over here, so I ran as fast as I could to make sure he was all right, and thank God, I found him safe.”

  Clark wrote all that down, and asked me again if I'd touched anything. I replied that the only thing I had touched in the house was the light switch in Colton's room, and he said I'd need to come to his office the next morning to make an official statement.

  I looked around at Clark's two Barney Fife clones, and it occurred to me that they weren't going to do much in the way of crime scene investigation. I glanced at their chief's face, which was pretty pale, and said, “I'm sure you saw the nicks in the kitchen floor, right? Where it looks like someone was stabbing at someone on the floor, and kept missing?”

  Clark looked down at the floor and his eyes went wide, but then he glared at me. “Yeah,” he said, “I saw that, and I saw that the knife block is missing a knife, too. Don't try to do my job for me, Dex, it's a little out of your department.”

  “True,” I said. “Seems kind of odd to me, though, that the knife that's missing from the block is the big French Chef, with a wide, sort of thick blade, but the nicks in the floor are tiny. They look more like the work of a filet knife, don't you think?” I pointed at the block again, and the filet knife that was right in its proper place.

  Clark looked at it, then back at me, and said, “My office, tomorrow morning, Dex. Now, get out of here.”

  I got. I went back to my bike and got there just as the county Medical Examiner was loading up poor Brenda's body, but other than whispering a prayer, there wasn't much I could do. I climbed on the Harley and headed for home, let myself in, then washed the blood off of me the best I could and went to bed. The blood all over Brenda, and then all over me, had brought back some pretty rough memories of the morning Nervy died, so it took me a little while to get to sleep.

  I woke to find Baggins on my chest, kneading it with his front paws, and I was glad that I had put on my thick sweatshirt before I'd slipped into bed. Without it, his claws could do me some damage, and had resulted in him getting some frequent flyer miles, when the sudden surprise of claws digging into sensitive flesh had caused me to react by flinging my arms about, but it hadn't broken him of it.

  Baggins was my cat. His curly fur, and the fact that it seems to be thickest on his feet, reminded me of a Hobbit, which is how he got his name. He'd shown up on my doorstep one morning meowing at me, and I almost thought I could translate his meows as Meriadoc Brandybuck's line from The Lord Of The Rings, “Where's my bed and brrrreakfast?” Kneading was simply his way of saying, “Hey, Human! It's time to feed me!”

  I could push him off, in which case he'd be back in fifteen minutes. I could ignore him, in which case he'd keep digging deeper until the sweatshirt wasn't thick enough; or I could get my lazy blessed assurance out of bed and make him some breakfast, which struck me as the path of wisdom in this case. I gently shoved him aside, then rolled over and let my feet fall into my slippers and headed for the kitchen.

  Baggins knew where I was going, and beat me there, walking figure eights around his bowls. I filled one with his favorite dry cat food, then rinsed out the other and gave him fresh water. Once that was all taken care of, his meows seemed to say that I was free to consider my own breakfast needs, so I put on a pot of coffee and waited until it was far enough along that I could get a cup, then popped a frozen breakfast burrito into the microwave and told it to get hot in a hurry.

  When both were on the table in front of me, I sat down and started thinking about the events of the night before. Between the similarities between Brenda's and Nervy's deaths, and my natural concern for the little boy, I hadn't really slept all that much, and I was having trouble getting my mind off of them.

  Yeah, yeah, I know—Clark told me to stay out of it, but sometimes a Shepherd just has to worry about sheep, even if they aren't in his own flock, y'know? I ate my burrito, told myself I didn't need the second one my appetite was begging for, and wondered if it was too early to go to the station. Maybe, if I went about it just the right way, I could get some information out of Barney Fife—I mean, out of Mike Miller, the only other full time officer the town had.

  I was just sitting there, thinking about it all, when I heard something outside, and I saw Baggins raise his head and look at the back door. A second later, there was a knock on it, which was surprising since almost no one ever bothered to come to my house. I wondered who it could be, but the only way to find out was to get up and answer it, so I did.

  “Well, are ye gon' let me in, or just stand there gawkin' at me?” The woman who asked me that question was one of the more, shall we say, colorful of the local folk, and that was saying a lot! She was known as 'Crazy Maisy,' and is somewhat famous on a wide scale for her homemade remedies and such, things she sells in the local monthly flea market during tourist season. I particularly like her fire cider, a blend of things like peppers, horseradish, garlic, ginger and other spices, with honey. Around this time of year, there isn't much that can warm you up after a chill like a hot toddy with a shot of rye whiskey, another shot of honey liqueur and about four ounces of fire cider! I haven't had a cold since I discovered the stuff, and it'd take an act of congress to take it away from me! I even added a dash of it to my coffee on cold mornings!

  Maisy lives in an old trailer out in the woods not far from town, one of those old round-cornered, silvery ones that was originally meant to be used for traveling. I've been out to it a couple of times, and if you ask me, it's probably time to haul it to the scrap yard, but she calls it home. Somewhere in her yard, you could probably find just about any type of antique gadget you might wish for, and there's an old school bus out back of the trailer that is literally packed full of furniture and dishes and toys and God alone knows what else. I'd bet the contents would fetch a small fortune at a decent antique auction, but Maisy won't hear of any such thing. When anyone comes around asking to look at her treasures, she'll smile and dig through things with them all day long, asking five or ten dollars for each item no matter how big or small or old, or even what it's made of. I shudder when I think of the priceless antiques t
hat people have happily bought for far, far less than they should have paid.

  But that's Maisy. She isn't all that interested in money.

  I stood aside and allowed her into the house, ignoring the pungent odor that goes everywhere Maisy goes, like a shadow that only your nose can detect. It isn't actually unpleasant, and it isn't body odor; it's a combination of all of the spices and oils and such that she works with in making her various decoctions, but it certainly makes its presence known.

  “Good morning, Maisy,” I said. “Would you like some coffee?”

  She stomped over to my kitchen table and sat down in my chair. “Nah, I don't need no coffee. I come by to tell ye somethin' 'bout that dead woman ye found last night!”

  I stared at her, wondering how on earth she could know anything about Brenda Hawley's murder, or my involvement in it, but this was Crazy Maisy; there were stories about her that made one think of clairvoyance and old Ozark Mountain witchcraft. I was flustered, and sat down opposite her and took a big swig out of my own cup.

  I was about to ask her what she had to say when Baggins suddenly hopped up into her lap. He's not normally very sociable, and it struck me that he would take to her so easily, but then again, he was a cat; if Maisy were some kind of witch, then cats would be part of her world, wouldn't they?

  I mentally slapped myself for thinking like that, and smiled at my guest. “If you know something about that poor woman's murder, Maisy, you should go to the police. Why would you come to me?”

  She scowled. “I got no faith in police, and Clark Rodgers ain't got no business wearin' a badge, nohow! Many's a time my old Pop caught him stealin' from us when he was a boy! And I ain't got much believin' in God, either, but I can see when someone be a man of integrity, and ye be one of the best at that, so I can trust ye to do as right!”

  Her odd, back hills way of talking always amused me, but I tried my best not to let it show. “Do as right about what?” I asked, and she stopped stroking Baggins to look up at me and squint one eye until it was almost closed.

  “I might just be knowin' who the killer be!” She said with an air of importance, and while that wasn't quite what I expected her to say, I wasn't completely taken aback.

  “Then you really should go to the police, Maisy,” I insisted, but once again she shook her head. I sighed, and said, “Okay, then, go on.”

  She gave me her one-eyed squint again. “Was five years gone, she came to me one night, wantin' a potion to help her get with child. Now, I've knowed Brenda Hawley all her life, but I hadn't heard nothin' about her gettin' married, so I asked, and she said she wasn't, so I told her I would not help her bring a child into the world, and it not have a family! Too much o' that these days as it is!”

  I raised an eyebrow, surprised that her morals were so strong on that point. “Maisy,” I said, “I'm impressed. That's a very commendable thing to do, and I'm proud of you, but what has it got to do with the poor girl's murder?”

  She snapped both her eyes open and glared at me. “Well, and I'm a-comin' to that, can't ye keep your pants on? So, anyway, one of the things I always need is evening primrose, and there's a big patch of it in the clearing out back a ways from Brenda's house. I go out to gather it in the evening, of course, and more than once when I was there did I see a man a-sneakin' away from her back door to the house next door!” She narrowed one eye again, and nodded once, briskly. "And was again yesterday evening, as I went to gather some of the roots before the big frost that's comin' next week, that I seen the same feller sneaking away again!"

  I'm sure that both my eyebrows went up, then, and I was about to ask her if she knew the man, but she stood up, dumping Baggins onto the floor without warning, and walked out the back door without another word. I called after her twice, but she kept going as if she couldn't hear a word, and finally I shook my head and poured myself another cup of coffee.

  Four

  I puttered around the house for a couple of hours, trying to tell myself that Maisy was probably full of baloney, and that even if she had seen a man leaving Brenda's house, it likely meant nothing at all.

  However, a morbid curiosity has often been my downfall. Back in the Army, I used to ask other Chaplains to cover for me on the days I was scheduled to take Catholic confessions, simply because I'd go nuts trying to figure out who some of the people were who told me their secrets. The Confessional is supposed to be sacred, so for me to even wonder about such things was a sin. Unfortunately, that's how bad my nosiness could be, and I could feel it getting its fur up on this murder case.

  I knew I should call Clark and tell him what Maisy had said, but then they'd want to talk to her, and she'd end up mad at me. I finally decided to just take a look at Brenda's neighbor's house, and see if I could get a sense of whether it was important. Something about Maisy's words, and the way she'd said them, wasn't sitting well with me, and I just felt the need to do something.

  I got on the Harley and rode out toward Brenda's, then slowed as I turned onto her road. I wanted to look like I was just riding by, not even a little bit curious about the houses on the street, and I'm sure I was failing miserably, but there was no help for it.

  I noticed immediately that the houses were not very close together, and that sort of surprised me. Not living there, I'd always had the impression that they were closer than they were, but that was probably because I would have ridden past them rather quickly. Everything looks close together when you're passing it at forty or fifty miles an hour, but when you slow down, you can see the actual distance between the houses, or telephone poles, or what have you. In this case, there was probably a good hundred and fifty yards between houses, and there were only four of them on this whole stretch of road. Brenda's was next to last as you approached the opposite end from where I was at.

  A trash truck turned onto the street from the other end, coming off of Old Cemetery Road, where I'd found Brenda the night before, and an idea hit me. I stopped the bike near Brenda's house and waited until it got to the pile in front of her place, then walked over to talk to the two men who were tossing stuff into the truck.

  “Hi,” I said, “I'm Dex Merriman, I'm with the local Christmas toy drive. You guys didn't see a box of toys set out here, did you? This lady said she had some toys to donate.” I sent up a silent prayer for forgiveness for the little white lie.

  They looked at each other, and then one of them looked at me. “No, sir,” he said, “haven't seen any toys. I guess you heard she got killed last night, right? It was all over the radio this morning.”

  I nodded sadly. “Yeah, I heard, that's kind of why I rode by. I was supposed to pick them up this morning, and I was hoping maybe she'd set them outside for me, but they've got the whole house taped off for the investigation, so I don't even want to try to get up there. If it wasn't out here by the trash, I guess I should just write it off.”

  The guy nodded. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “Really sorry about that. We sorta knew her, and she was a nice lady, always polite and friendly. Such a sweetheart.”

  His partner laughed. “Yeah, she was great. Bo, here, he had a crush on her.”

  Bo grinned. “Why not? She wasn’t like a lot of people, who think garbage men are someone to look down on, know what I mean? It was a real shame, her getting stabbed to death in her own kitchen like that, y'know?”

  I smiled and nodded. “I do,” I said. “Some of them look down on long haired motorcycle riders, too, believe me!”

  They laughed at that, and I glanced at the space between the houses. There was a hedgerow on each side of Brenda's house, and to go from either one of the houses that neighbored hers would mean climbing through the hedge. It struck me that getting all scratched up by the piney bristles was something you wouldn't likely do unless you were trying to be sneaky and not be seen.

  “Yeah, it's a shame about Miss Hawley,” I said again. “I wonder if she was close to her neighbors? Do you know either of them?”

  Bo turned and pointed at on
e of the houses. “Old couple lives there,” he said, and I caught the scent of some fairly strong alcohol on his breath. He turned and pointed at the other house. “That one, he's a single guy. He's got money, he's one of them people thinks he's better'n everyone else.”

  I took notice of the house he was pointing at, and saw that he was probably right about the guy having money. I spotted some landscaping that I knew must have cost a pretty penny, and a fairly large bronze fountain stood in his front yard. I knew, because Nervy had always wanted a small bronze fountain, that they were far from cheap.

  In my years as a Chaplain, I had been called on many times to counsel soldiers, both male and female, who had been the victims of one form of abuse or another, and one of the common denominators of many of the stories I heard from female soldiers was that the abuser was often financially well off, or seemed to be. In psychology courses, I had learned that wealth tends to reduce compassion, meaning that people who consider themselves to be fairly well off have a tendency to be cruel to people they consider beneath their own social status; that would explain the neighbor's disdain for the garbage men, but if he were consorting with Brenda, might he also have looked down on her? Domestic abuse and rape is just as prevalent among the affluent as it is among the poor.

  There didn't seem to be anything more to learn from the two men, so I thanked them and got back on the Harley. I rode down to the police station and went inside looking for Chief Rodgers. Mike Miller was behind the desk, and he found my statement and gave it to me to sign, then told me that the chief was out, working on the murder case.

  "Oh, well," I said, "I think I may have stumbled across some additional evidence. I had a visit this morning from Crazy Maisy, and she told me that on a lot of evenings when she was out gathering herbs back behind Brenda's house, she saw a man sneaking through the hedges from Brenda's house to the one next door. And she said she saw him again last night, probably not long before the murder. Maisy didn't want to come in to the station, but I felt like this was something important that the chief should hear."