by David Dean
“Sir,” she protested, attempting to escape his grip, “I have a dinner to serve and you are becoming a nuisance!”
Leaning down to nibble her neck, Nick tugged her more tightly to him. Only the slightest trace of her wounds remained. “I’ll have dessert first,” he murmured while inhaling the perfume of her body. He snugged her rump against him. “I have developed a terrible sweet tooth since I’ve met you.”
Fanny felt the unmistakable evidence of this, but persisted, “You only get dessert after dinner in this house… and only if you’ve been a very good boy!” Freeing herself, she swatted him with an oven mitt. “Now then, take these,” she flung the second one at him, “and get that bird out of the oven. And be careful not to spill any of the juices onto my floor!”
Pulling the mitts on with a sigh, Nick bent to his task.
From the dining room her father called out, “Fanny, that damned kitten of yours is shredding my cuffs! Can’t anything be done about this beast?”
“No,” she answered. “He’ll grow out of it, but until then you’ll just have to put up with it.”
Nick had given her the kitten just the month before, a rescue from the pound that bore an uncanny resemblance to her beloved Loki—even his bad behaviors were reminiscent of his predecessor and she would tolerate no interference with his happiness.
Preston said something more, the words not clearly audible, but the intent plain enough all the same.
“You’ll go before he does,” Fanny promised her father in return. The complaints ceased.
Nick set the large turkey onto the oven top in preparation for placing it onto a serving dish, being careful of his sleeves. He caught Fanny studying him from the corner of his eye. “What?” he asked. “Did I mess it up?”
She stared at him for a moment longer before saying, “Everything is going to be all right now, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I think so… In fact, I know so… now.” Drawing a long envelope from his inside jacket pocket, he extracted a letter from it. Fanny could see the county prosecutor’s letterhead at the top of the paper. Nick held the folded correspondence out to her, but she just stared at it, shaking her head.
“Please,” she asked, “just tell me what they’ve decided.”
“The prosecutor considers the case closed… exceptionally cleared, is the proper term.”
“I don’t understand, Nick. What does it mean?”
“Officially, it means that the case has been closed and that no further actions will be taken without additional evidence. Unofficially, it means that neither your dad nor I will be facing any charges. In fact, the prosecutor’s not even going to call a grand jury to consider them.”
Fanny’s long thin hands flew to her face, “Oh Nick, that’s so wonderful! What a wonderful Christmas present for us all!” She paused to catch her breath, growing thoughtful once more. “But why, Nick? What decided him? At first, I thought he was going to try and hang the entire thing on dad and charge you with the death of that… that… creature. What changed his mind?”
Smiling, Nick answered, “You can’t charge someone with homicide if you don’t have a dead person… and they didn’t. It was just like I thought. The autopsy blew everything out of the water. No matter which way they came at it, the results were always the same… the corpse, or in this case, the carcass, was not human. Even the DNA results were conclusive on that much… if nothing else.
“That’s what’s taken so long with all this. The M.E.’s Office just couldn’t let it go. They even farmed out the remains to Rutgers’s Medical College and still came away no wiser. In fact, the prosecutor told me the whole thing has become an embarrassment for all concerned. Add to that Megan and the boys’ stories, at least what they could remember, matching our own, and there just wasn’t anywhere to go with the case—exceptionally cleared.” He snapped his fingers. “I am fully restored as the chief of police and Preston is no longer a suspect. I have it all in writing. And as an added bonus the prosecutor gave Weller the choice of resigning or facing charges over the flyers—guess which he did?”
“Does dad know all this yet?”
“I thought I’d let you tell him at dinner.”
Crossing the few steps separating them, Fanny put her arms around Nick’s neck, reaching up to kiss him. He returned it with feeling. When their lips separated at last, he said, “You’ve been a very good girl, I think, so why don’t you just whisper in old Saint Nick’s ear what you’d like most for Christmas.”
Fanny leaned back and thought for just a moment before doing as he asked. Nick’s eyes widened as she pulled away. “Well now, that’s a tall order little girl, but I’ll just see what can be done, and if we don’t get it right the first time or two, we’ll just keep at it till we do.”
Arching an eyebrow at him, she answered with a sly smile, “I’m gonna hold you to that, mister,” then flicked him with a dish towel. “Now get that turkey into the dining room and no more tricks! There are hungry men in there!”
Nick hoisted the heavy tray, mumbling, “Yes ma’am,” and did as he was told.
Preston sat up from something he had been doing under the table.
“You’re not annoying Rastus, are you?” Fanny asked.
Preston answered without meeting her eyes, “It’s the other way around, daughter. You’re demon cat is making it his life’s mission to harass me.”
“Good,” said Fanny as Nick set the platter down onto the center of the table.
“Marvelous,” Father Gregory murmured, folding his hands over his plump belly. “Truly a marvelous bird, is it not, Preston?”
“If you say so,” Preston agreed. He tugged at the starched collar and the stricture of the tie that he had grown unaccustomed to wearing. “Of course, anything appears good after you’ve been kept waiting for hours on end.”
The priest laughed at this remark as if it was the best of jokes. Preston cast him a sour look and snapped, “Did I say something funny?”
“You have a wonderfully dry sense of humor, my good friend.”
“Oh dear God,” Preston cried. “Why don’t you make yourself useful by opening the wine… we’re perishing for the lack of drink, you know.”
“Please do us the honor, Father Gregory,” Fanny chimed in. “And disregard the cranky man opposite you—he’s a heathen.”
“But, God’s heathen, I think,” the priest smiled as he popped open a bottle of chardonnay and began to fill the glasses. “A man at war with God is a man who acknowledges God.”
“Dear Lord,” Preston moaned, raising his hands in supplication. “Deliver me from this foreign priest’s endless moralizing, I beg you.” He turned to glare at Father Gregory, saying, “There, now you should be happy—I’ve said a prayer at last.”
Waggling one of his long fingers at his new friend, Father Gregory replied, “No, no, I must insist, you are good man, Preston Howard, and an instrument of God, as you have so ably demonstrated—it was you that He chose to meet the devil and best him. You cannot refute the truth of this.”
“I can and do… it was the devil that chose me… so there!”
Fanny interrupted the debate, “Would you please give us a toast, Father? I think daddy will be a little more agreeable once he’s had a glass of wine.”
“Oh no, thank you,” Father Gregory declined. “It is more appropriate that my good friend, Preston Howard, lead us in the Christmas toast. He is the head of the household and its most senior member, is he not?”
Fanny smiled, answering, “I’ll agree to the most senior part in any case.”
Shoving his chair away from the table, Preston rose to his imposing height, summoning all his previous professorial authority. The glass trembled ever so slightly in his right hand. “Sometimes the priest gets it right,” he grunted. “In any event, if I’m ever going to be allowed a drink I guess I must take matters into my own hands.”
He paused, appearing to give the subject of his toast some thought, then looking
down at the three people who were gathered at his daughter’s table, commanded, “Raise your glasses,” and seeing this done, continued, “To my daughter, Fanny, who never tires of forgiving, because she cannot stop loving, and to Nick Catesby, valiant police chief and local hero, who has won the heart of the lovely Fanny Howard and the gratitude of her disreputable father.” He paused to smile at the couple in a rare show of public affection.
“And speaking of fathers,” he went on, “Lift your glasses in praise of Father Gregory Savartha, charlatan of distant lands, whose impractical and improbable faith nonetheless awes while not informing.” The priest smiled broadly at Preston’s words, nodding in agreement. Preston added, “This little man, against all reason, has become our True North, our own Christmas Star by which we steer.”
Father Gregory interjected, “Now you have gone too far… the first part of your speech was the more accurate.”
Preston waved him away. “Quiet! I am the toastmaster here, am I not?” He didn’t wait for agreement but went on, “To all of us gathered here, not for reason or for gain, but only out of a misguided affection for our fellow man—good on us!”
Bringing the glass to his parched lips, he drained it without further ado. The rest repeated his final words in a lusty chorus, then happily followed suit.
?
Almost a year after his death, the remains of the creature were returned to the Wessex County Medical Examiner’s Office for disposal. As it had been repeatedly opened, and samples of all its tissues and organs obtained, it was of no further use and would in the normal course of things face cremation. Yet, the M.E. hesitated over this very final method.
In spite of her long years of experience, the creature presented an enigma and a challenge that had proved insoluble. And in the back of her mind, in spite of all that had been learned, a fear flickered in the darkness, a terror of misidentification—what if it was human after all? Of course it would be a freak of a human… but what if, somehow, it was? A missing link, if you will. What if, someday, someone came to claim the pitiful remains? After a week of mulling this possibility over, she decided against cremation and handed the body over to the undertaker for a pauper’s burial.
Having been told nothing of the history of his new charge, the mortician secured the burial site and ensured that the examiner was made aware of its exact location. He stitched the odd-looking boy back together, placing him in a simple wooden casket, and laid him to rest with the other indigent dead in the old cemetery he had once frolicked in.
He was not given a headstone, but an inexpensive plaque set into the earth above his head. As the undertaker had been told neither his surname nor the dates of his birth and death, it read simply, “Gabriel—an unknown boy.”
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David’s short stories have appeared regularly in ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE, as well as a number of anthologies, since 1990. His stories have been nominated for the Shamus, Barry, and Derringer Awards and “Ibrahim’s Eyes” won the EQMM Readers Award for 2007. His story, “Tomorrow’s Dead”, was a finalist for the Edgar for best short story of 2011. He is a retired Chief of Police in New Jersey and once served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. His groundbreaking horror novel, “The Thirteenth Child,” is now available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo Books.