Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree

by Fran Rizer

  Praise for the Callie Parrish Mysteries

  “… all ‘I’s’ dotted and ‘T’s’ crossed, Rizer proves her mettle by presenting us with such a gripping story of personal loss, as a loved one fades slowly away, yet she never lets this overpower or derail the mystery or humor. A difficult feat, but one she handles with a hand so deft that I sometimes found myself laughing through misty eyes.”

  —Dixon Hill, Sleuthsayer Mystery Author

  “What a wonderfully realized set of characters in an authentic and welcoming sense of place. Callie is wonderful! It’s such fun following her and very moving as well.”

  —David Dean, Author of The Thirteenth Child.

  “Callie Parrish is a hoot! I laughed so hard I dropped my book in the bathtub.”

  —Gwen Hunter, Author of the Rhea Lynch, M.D. Suspense Mysteries, the Delande Saga, and more.

  “Fran Rizer’s Callie Parrish and St. Mary, S.C., are as Southern as fried chicken and sweet tea—and just as delightful.”

  —Walter Edgar, Walter Edgar’s Journal, SCETV Radio.

  “A lively sleuth who manages to make funeral homes funny.”

  —Maggie Sefton, Author of the Molly Mallone Suspense Mysteries and the Kelly Flinn Knitting Mystery Series.

  The Callie Parrish Mysteries by Fran Rizer

  A Tisket, a Tasket, a Fancy Stolen Casket

  Hey Diddle, Diddle, the Corpse and the Fiddle

  Rub-a-Dub, Dub, There’s a Dead Man in the Tub

  (published as Casket Case)

  Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, There’s a Body in the Car

  Mother Hubbard Has A Corpse in the Cupboard

  A Corpse Under The Christmas Tree

  A Corpse Under The Christmas Tree

  ISBN 978-1-62268-051-1

  Copyright © 2013 by Fran Rizer

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For more information contact Bella Rosa Books, P.O. Box 4251 CRS, Rock Hill, SC 29732. Or online at www.bellarosabooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also available from Trade Paperback: ISBN 978-1-62268-050-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013953499

  Cover design by: David Smoak Graphic Design

  BellaRosaBooks and logo are trademarks of Bella Rosa Books.

  Dedicated to my grandson

  Nathaniel Aeden Rizer

  and my sons

  Nathan Randolph Rizer

  and

  Adam Everett Rizer

  in appreciation for their

  ideas, inspiration, and encouragement

  “You don’t have to be Santa to come on Christmas Eve.”

  My brother Mike sang those words as Daddy and my brothers played the melody to an old Ernest Tubb country song, “You Don’t Have to Be a Baby to Cry.” Daddy had been singing it when Mike butted in with, “Keep pickin’ but let me sing. I’ve got a Christmas version of that tune.”

  I confess I whapped Mike across his bottom with Mortuary Cosmetology News, the magazine I’d been reading while Daddy played my banjo. Hardly an adult action, though I’d been trying really hard to behave like a true Southern lady recently, even with my brothers. The music stopped.

  “Why’d you do that?” Mike whined and rubbed his behind. “I was referring to relatives visiting on Christmas Eve.”

  “Oh, no, you weren’t. You were making up one of those smutty little songs you love to sing. It’s Christmas night. I’ve had a wonderful day without anyone being a total redneck, and now you sing something like that! Why do you always have to do something trashy when we get together?” I began gathering up the presents my family gave to Jane and me.

  “What are we doing?” Jane asked. She’s blind and couldn’t see me.

  “Going home. I’ve had enough family for one day.” I stuffed my last package into a big Santa Claus gift bag.

  “Calamine, will you leave your banjo here for me to play?” Daddy asked.

  “Of course,” I agreed. After all, the valuable pristine prewar Gibson had been a birthday surprise from him.

  “Or I can make these boys behave if you want to stay,” he offered while he tuned the banjo again. “Michael was out of line to sing that in front of you.”

  The Boys are all older than I am, and those capital letters aren’t a typo. I refer to my brothers collectively as The Boys because I don’t think there’s any hope they’ll ever grow up.

  I’m thirty-three years old, been married and divorced one time each, and Daddy still thinks I’m his little girl. He forbids my brothers to tell risqué jokes in front of me and won’t let me drink beer in his presence either. He’s the only person in the world who calls me by my given name—Calamine. Everyone else calls me “Callie” or sometimes “Calaparash” all smushed together into one word the way folks here on the coast of South Carolina do double names.

  “Jane and I need to head out anyway.”

  I claim I never take nor give guilt trips, but I realized my reaction to Mike’s song had been kind of strong. “I’m probably extra touchy because I’m tired. This has been one of the best Christmas Days ever—even if my family does act a little redneck at times.”

  “We aren’t as bad as ‘Merry Christmas from the Family’ by Robert Earl Keen.” My brother Bill has been argumentative as long as I can remember. He picked up the magazine I’d dropped when I swatted Mike. “And we might be redneck, but we aren’t always stuck in a mystery book or a magazine about dead people. This stuff is gross to the rest of us.” His wife Molly headed to the kitchen, which fits her routine of leaving the room whenever any of my brothers disagree with anyone.

  “I’ll have you know that’s a professional magazine. I could lose my job if I don’t keep up with current trends.” I glared at him. “I’d rather be expert at what I do than act like one of you.”

  “Who’s got lights all over the outside of her building as well as a monster decorated tree on the front porch? That’s a little redneck,” Frankie broke in. He’d been relatively quiet since Jane and I arrived that morning. Today was the first time he’d seen Jane since she broke off their engagement.

  “Don’t you dare insult that tree!” I scolded him. “It’s beautiful, and it didn’t look half as big when I found it in the woods. One of you could have told me it wasn’t going to fit through my front door.”

  “You wouldn’t have believed us if we’d told you,” Mike snapped. Daddy ignored all of us and began picking out a tune on the banjo.

  I didn’t bother to argue, just went to the kitchen, told Molly good night, and grabbed a bottled Diet Coke for me and a can of Dr Pepper for Jane from the refrigerator. Daddy had a dish of shelled peanuts on the table, so I took a handful of those and dropped them into my drink bottle.

  As Jane and I left Daddy’s house, I heard Mike singing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

  • • •

  Driving my vintage 1966 Mustang toward home, I glanced over at Jane. She had her waist-length red hair tied in a ponytail she’d draped across her left shoulder and over her dark green sweater. Her more than ample bosom made the embroidered Santa Claus into an even chubbier jolly old elf than usual.

  “Are you working tonight?” I asked her.

  “Not until late. Why?”

  “Big Boy’s still at the vet’s, and I missed him something awful last night. I tho
ught we might visit for a while.”

  “You and that dog! When can you pick him up from the vet?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Well,” Jane acquiesced, “come on in, but you can’t stay late. Tonight will be a good night for Roxanne. Holidays always are.”

  Jane claims Roxanne is her stage name. She also refers to her job as being a fantasy actress. To call a spade a flipping shovel, Jane’s a telephone sex operator. She pays her own bills and doesn’t have to rely on anyone for transportation to and from work. She just answers the second landline, which is designated as Roxanne’s, in her apartment and assumes a low, sexy voice.

  “Did you take all those cookies you made to Daddy’s?” I asked.

  “No, I kept some. I don’t know how you can still be hungry after that feast your family called Christmas dinner, but you can have all the cookies you want.” She laughed. “So long as you don’t put them in your drink.”

  I drove and drank my Coke while Jane sang, “Jingle Bell Rock.” Suddenly she quit singing.

  “You’ve got peanuts in your Coke again, haven’t you?” she asked. I don’t know how she knew that, but she did. I didn’t think I was smacking, and even if I was, she shouldn’t have heard me over her loud singing. “Don’t you remember almost choking on a peanut in your drink that time? I think you should make a New Year’s resolution to give it up.”

  “I’ve been putting peanuts in Cokes all my life and I only choked once.”

  “Once is enough. If you’d died that night, I would have been left with a dead body until 911 came.”

  Jane has a morbid fear of anything deceased. I work in a mortuary, and death is not so traumatic to me. “I gave up my bad habits,” she continued. “When will you give up yours?”

  “I don’t consider liking peanuts in Coke a bad habit,” I protested. “You gave up breaking the law when you quit shoplifting and scamming stores out of free merchandise, but how can you compare that to something innocent like putting peanuts in Coke?”

  “How many times have I told you that putting those peanuts in your drink isn’t just a Southern custom like you claim. It’s redneck—pure tee redneck. I swear, they ought to call you Callie Boo Boo. I’ve given up my bad habits. You need to give up a few of yours.” She laughed. “My bad habits. Your bad habits. Who’s to say which is worse? Shoplifting didn’t almost kill me. Maybe we should both make some resolutions. Give up our bad habits, eat better, and get healthier this year.”

  Jane and I have been friends since ninth grade, and like all BFFs, sometimes we disagree, but I didn’t feel like fussing with her right then. Besides, how can anyone argue against getting healthy?

  “It’s Christmas. We’ve had a wonderful day, and I refuse to discuss stealing versus eating peanuts with you.” I giggled. Okay, I know that sounds like a thirteen-year-old, but I still giggle sometimes. We rode in silence until we were almost home.

  “Callie,” Jane said. “Tell me when you can see our tree, okay?”

  Three of my five brothers had cut down a tree I picked out in the woods near Daddy’s house and brought it to my apartment for me. It wouldn’t fit into my place, so they stood it on the wide porch that stretches across both front doors of the duplex where Jane and I live beside each other. We’d put so many lights and decorations on it that hardly any green showed through.

  “I see it,” I said when I turned onto Oak Street. “The timer worked. The lights are on, and it’s beautiful!”

  Jane’s voice became pensive. “You know, Callie, I’ve never felt sorry for myself for not being sighted, but right now I wish I could see our tree.”

  “I do, too, but you ‘see’ more with your ears and heart and brain than most sighted people do with their eyes.” I opened my mouth to begin describing the tree to her for what felt like the hundredth time but closed it again when Jane began belting “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” at a deafening volume.

  I pulled into my side of our circular drive, parked, and gathered up several large gift bags of presents. No need to guide Jane to the steps and into her apartment. She had her mobility cane and knew the way.

  Glancing up at the porch, I saw a red and white bundle pushed up beside the tree.

  “Hey, Jane,” I shouted, loud enough to be heard over her singing. “Someone left us a big present on the porch.”

  I took the gifts into Jane’s apartment, planning to separate mine from hers before I went next door to my place. I piled everything on her couch and then went back out to get the package. Wondering if it was for me or Jane or for us together, I reached down to lift it and realized the red and white thing appeared to be a mannequin dressed in a Santa Claus suit.

  “Bad news, Jane,” I began, but she interrupted from her open doorway.

  “Do not tell me you see a body somewhere. I am sick and tired of you finding dead people every time we’re having a good time. Today was too perfect for me to deal with that again.” She trembled. “I don’t even want to think about it.” She headed toward the kitchen, calling, “I’m going to make fresh coffee, or would you rather have hot chocolate?”

  “Coffee,” I called and turned my attention to the bundle under our tree. “The package doesn’t appear to be a present for us,” I called back to her. “I think it’s a Santa Claus dummy, probably meant to be dropped off down the street for that man who runs the costume shop in town.”

  I nudged the red and white cloth with my toe. It didn’t feel right. I leaned over and pulled the fake white beard away from the face. I work at Middleton’s Mortuary as a cosmetician/girl Friday. I know dead when I see it. The “present” on our front porch was a real person—a man with a very effeminate face or a woman with no makeup—a lifeless human in rigor mortis with a bluish purple complexion which might be bruises or livor mortis where the body had lain face-down after death.

  “Change that coffee to hot chocolate,” I told Jane and closed the door to her apartment. Standing on the porch, I shivered as I pulled my cell phone from my bra. I keep it there because I’ve found it’s the only way I could stop losing it.

  “911. What’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.

  “There’s a body on my front porch,” I answered.

  “What kind of body?”

  “A human corpse.”

  “Is this Callie Parrish?”

  “Yes, it is.” Dalmation! I silently said my favorite kindergarten cuss word at the thought that a report of finding someone deceased made the sheriff’s department think of me.

  If I’d been on a landline, the dispatch equipment would have shown my name and address, but calling from my cell meant I had to give him all that info. When I’d finished, he said, “I have someone on the way. I’d like for you to stay on the line until authorities reach you.”

  “Listen, I’m on the front porch. I’m cold, and my friend Jane is in her apartment wondering what’s going on,” I complained. “Can’t I hang up and wait inside? Tell Sheriff Harmon to knock on Jane’s door when he gets here.”

  “You’re on a cell phone. Take it into your friend’s place.”

  “She’ll freak out if she hears me and knows there’s a body on the porch. Just tell the sheriff to knock on Jane’s door.”

  “It won’t be Sheriff Harmon. He’s off duty, and if there’s a body on your friend’s porch, how long do you think you can keep it a secret from her?”

  “This is a murder. Don’t you think you’d better call him?” I ignored the dispatcher’s question.

  “How do you know it’s murder? Is there a knife or gun wound?”

  “Not that I know of, but why would there be a corpse on my porch if it’s not a murder?”

  “Come to think of it, Callie, if you found a body on your porch, it probably will turn out to be homicide. It’s policy for me to keep you on the phone. Can’t you just wait there with this line open?”

  I was prepared to argue my case, but the discussion ended abruptly when the wailing of a siren announced a patrol car that whe
eled into my drive. I disconnected the phone, and James Brown burst out singing “I Feel Good” immediately. I’d been planning to change my ringtone for weeks.

  In answer to my “hello,” my brother Mike said, “Pa wants me to let you know John and his family are headed up here from Georgia. They should arrive in a couple of hours. Pa wants you and Jane to come for supper tomorrow night while they’re here.”

  “I thought they were spending the holidays with Miriam’s family this year.”

  “They were there when John got a call from Miss Lettie, Jeff Morgan’s mom. Jeff’s been killed in a car wreck, and she’s having him brought back to St. Mary for the services.”

  “Good grief!” No, not “good” grief. Horrible news and grief are seldom good in any way. And on Christmas! Working at Middleton’s Mortuary, I know that people die every day of the year, but this struck home.

  Jeff Morgan, a businessman in Charlotte, North Carolina, had been a close childhood friend of my oldest brother John. The two of them and Sheriff Wayne Harmon had been like the Three Musketeers—the ones in the story, not the candy bar. Those three weren’t sweet. They were usually in trouble through high school, but Wayne had become an honorable law man and John a financially successful family man in Atlanta, Georgia.

  “I’ll plan to be there for supper,” I told Mike. “Gotta go now.”

  Since I know a lot of Sheriff Harmon’s deputies, I was surprised when the tall, lean man who stepped out of the cruiser was a stranger to me. He was handsome in a striking, but stern, way with chiseled features, and blue eyes. I couldn’t see his hair color because he was in a Sheriff’s Department uniform, including the hat.

  “Hello, are you Callie Parrish?” he asked.

  “Yes, who are you?”

  “I’m Detective Dean Robinson, Homicide, Jade County Sheriff’s Department.” He walked up the steps and looked down at the red and white bundle. “Is this what you called about?”