Sarah sniffed loud enough for me to take the hint and fetch a tissue. By the time I returned, James had already found a box and set it next to his daughter. She was talking between sniffles. “I doubt it. We were married last week.”
A hush fell over the room, more awkward than if Santa had passed gas. James fell off the arm of the chair and spoke from the floor. “Sarah, when were you going to tell us this? I-I didn't even get him a present.”
“Christmas Day. Drake and I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“I would have been surprised all right. I would have felt like an ass.” Ernie had stood up. From the color of his face, I surmised that his circulation was doing fine, despite the cold. His neck had reddened to the shade of a poinsettia. Ernie shifted, and Ross clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
Sarah looked up at the men. Her eyes looked as cold as the gales outside. “Get over it, Ernie. I told you last night we were finished. Get it through your head. Why can't you just accept that?”
James looked at me with eyes begging that this situation go unreported to the neighbors. I could see the mortification in his face as his mouth drooped. “Sarah, I thought you and Ernie were going to—”
“You thought wrong.” Sarah picked up a pillow and cradled it against her chest. “Drake was incredible. We were going to stay in New York after graduation. You just didn't take the chance to get to know him and now y-y-you never will.” She began to wail as she rocked back and forth.
I cleared my throat. “Did anything happen last night to give you an idea that this was going to occur?”
James furrowed his brow. “What indications tell you that one of your houseguests is going to be murdered?”
Sarah stared at her father. “Drake and I sat downstairs talking for a long time last night. Alone. He wanted to tell everyone about our marriage and not wait until Christmas day.”
“Why was that?”
Sarah shot a glance to Ernie and then looked down at her hands. “He said Ernie was giving him the creeps. He wanted him to know we were married, so he'd leave me alone.”
“What time did you go to bed?” Norman stuck his snout between my legs so he could observe the proceedings and make sure I wasn't going anywhere without his august company.
Sarah shrugged. “About two, maybe two-thirty. It was late.”
Ernie bristled for his turn to speak. “How could I be giving him the creeps? I wasn't even around last night. Ross and I played video games until about three a.m. and then I went to bed.”
Ross nodded in agreement, making his bowl cut jiggle. He squeezed Ernie's shoulder with the hand that had never left the man's side. “We did. Ernie and Drake were both sleeping in my room, so I can tell you he was there.”
“What time did Drake come upstairs?”
Ross shrugged. “He never did. I just figured he was downstairs letting Sarah unwrap his gift.”
James bit his lip at that last statement. “I came downstairs about four to get some milk and no one was around. Somewhat of a stumper, eh? Why didn't Drake go to bed?”
Ross stood up and took a seat near Sarah's feet. Norman stalked over to see the person who sat at his eye level. The boy absentmindedly rubbed my dog's long ears as he looked at his sister. He probably would have scratched his sister's ears if he'd thought it would help. “Don't worry, sis. The police will solve this case in no time.”
“It still doesn't bring him back.”
Ernie sneered at Ross. “Don't be too sure. In case you didn't notice, there weren't footprints near the body. Those fools aren't going to be able to solve this crime without a gift from Santa and a star overhead to point them in the right direction. Without physical evidence, anyone could have done it and no one could have.”
James looked at the young man. All traces of compassion had disappeared faster than wrapping paper on Christmas morning. “What are you saying?”
“Just that we shouldn't expect the police to solve this.”
I cleared my throat and spoke. “There was ice all around the sleigh. That's why there aren't any tracks. I did find one set of boot tracks.”
Ross looked at me as though I wasn't the host. “Hello, it's winter.”
Sarah nodded. “We kept an extra pair of boots by the door for running outside in this weather. Anyone could have worn those outside with Drake. Or Drake could have worn them himself.”
Norman whimpered by the door, and I let him outside as the winter winds invaded the room. “But he didn't strangle himself, so someone went outside with Drake.”
I kept an eye on the police as they cordoned off part of the street. Santa would have to resort to desperate measures to call on my house tonight. The snow around the sleigh had been flattened in some places by their boots. I could still see the shine of the block of ice from the moon's glow, though soon no one would be able to trace the footprints to the Maxwells'.
Norman started to do his business on the sidewalk, but I shooed him to the bank of snow just beyond the hedge. I didn't want any yellow ice on my walk to slip and fall on in the morning. Just the thing to be sued for—a neighbor slipping on your dog's pee. Norman jaundiced the front lawn and trotted back to the front door through my legs. He didn't want to miss a moment of drama.
He curled up on the kitchen floor as I slipped him a treat. I returned to my guests and laid a hand on James's shoulder. “How are you holding up?”
The blanket was wet and clammy. I wiped my hand on the back of the sofa and sat down again, facing the group of people. I figured since their Christmas was already ruined that I didn't have to worry too much about tact. “You know it just seems very convenient about the sleigh being frozen in ice. Most of the rest of the yard is still snow.”
Ross shrugged and went back to pulling the marshmallows from his hot chocolate. Ernie continued his vigil of Sarah, as she wept for her dead husband. James seemed to be the only one paying attention to my soliloquy.
“If we thought the ice might not be an accident, it might explain a few things which have been puzzling me. Like Norman's reaction to the murder.”
Ross looked up at me. “Do you have cable?”
I squinted my eyes at him to make sure he was human. “Yeah, I do. In the living room. As I was saying, Norman didn't bark when the killer took Drake out to the sleigh. I was confused about that for a while. He'd been barking at Ross, and he wouldn't really know Sarah or Ernie, so they would get the four tone treatment.”
Sarah looked up. “Maybe he just slept through the whole thing.”
“I don't see how. He knows when Ross gets home and that can't be noisier than carrying someone out to a plastic sleigh and murdering him. Norman doesn't miss much.”
Sarah shivered and I knew it had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures outside.
“The lack of footprints bothered me. At first, I thought that it indicated that someone too light to make tracks had committed the crime, but the ice made me wonder. The killer would want the ice if he planned to use the sleigh to hold the body. That plastic will slide easily in all the snow.”
Ernie stood up. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Just that the killer would have to put the body in the sleigh and that the weight of the body and his weight would make the sleigh wobbly, taking time and perhaps making a lot of noise. Ice would make the sleigh stay put.”
“So the killer froze the sleigh into the ice how?”
“Water, maybe a hose or a bucket. Which was it, James?”
The man looked up, eyes vacant. “The hose actually. I made sure the water seeped into the snow.”
“Then you knocked out Drake and took him out to the sleigh to strangle him. You used your blanket to drag him outside so that you wouldn't make prints with his body. The cloth is still wet from where it absorbed the snow.”
Sarah broke into sobs. “Why?”
“I couldn't bear to see you leave town. You're my only daughter. I didn't realize that you'd gone and married him. I wanted to see
you with Ernie so you could have lived in Cincinnati. I'm so sorry.”
Ross's mouth hung open as Ernie stood up. “Dad, how could you? What were you thinking?”
“You and Sarah were all I had since your mother died. I just wanted to make sure you were nearby. Ernie seemed to ensure that.”
Ernie's face reddened again. “So you killed the other man so Sarah would be interested in me? Some prize that would be. Second place.”
The doorbell rang and I went to open it. Outside, the bells of a nearby church chimed the start of the holiday celebration. We'd have a present for the police on Christmas morning.
O Little Hound of Bethlehem
Taylor McCafferty
BARBARA TAYLOR McCAFFERTY has so many noms de mystère she confesses that she has no idea who she really is. As Taylor McCafferty, she is the author of the Haskell Blevins mystery series; as Tierney McClellan, she is the author of the Schuyler Ridgway novels. Moreover, with her twin sister, Beverly Taylor Herald, she has created a series about identical twin sisters Nan and Bert Tatum. “O Little Hound of Bethlehem” was written in memory of Taylor's dog, Ogilvy, who was her furry friend for seventeen years.
If I had not put up the Christmas tree the night before, I know I would've spotted him the second I walked in the door. There wasn't much in my sparsely furnished living room that a man as big as Harlan Campbell could hide behind. The seven-foot Scotch pine that I'd decorated with as many ornaments as I could buy at Wal-Mart for twenty dollars was, in fact, pretty much it.
It did cross my mind, as I closed the door behind me, to wonder why my dog Ogilvy wasn't standing there the way he always was—tongue lolling, quivering all over, waiting to give me his usual welcome-home licking. I got my answer as soon as I switched on the floor lamp next to my couch, and Harlan stepped out from behind my Christmas tree, moving quickly around the brightly wrapped presents encircling the tree's base. He came around all in a rush, as if he thought maybe I'd try to get away.
I just stood there and looked at him. My heart had started pounding, and my mouth had gone dry, but I would never give Harlan the satisfaction of running from him.
He'd have enjoyed the chase too much.
Not to mention, I'd tried to run from Harlan just once before—shortly after he and I started living together. What he'd done to me after he'd caught me was something that still made me shiver when I thought about it.
Ogilvy, the traitor, had apparently been keeping Harlan company behind the tree. It must've been a tight fit for both him and Harlan between the tree and the opposite wall. Ogilvy's mom had been a pedigreed Old English sheepdog, and his father a handsome German shepherd who evidently could jump six-foot chain-link fences. The eleven puppies that had resulted from their union had ended up with the shaggy coat and white/gray coloring of a sheepdog, and the erect ears and large frame of a shepherd.
Ogilvy's shaggy coat was quite a bit curlier than his brothers' and sisters'; he'd looked as if he'd just given himself an Ogilvie Home Permanent. I'd decided what his name would be the second I laid eyes on him.
As Ogilvy brushed past my Christmas tree to stand at Harlan's side, several branches shook so much a couple of glass ornaments dropped to the floor. When they hit the floor, they made little clinking sounds, but Ogilvy didn't even glance in that direction. He was too busy licking Harlan's hand.
What a guard dog.
“I think the damn dog remembers me, Beth,” Harlan said. I hadn't seen Harlan in almost three years, and yet the man spoke as if he were simply continuing a conversation that had been interrupted.
Some interruption. Three years at the Kentucky State Reformatory for Women. Three long, long years.
Harlan reached out and scratched Ogilvy's head. “He sure does seem happy to see me again.”
What could I say to that? Ogilvy has never been known for his discriminating tastes. If Ogilvy thought there was a chance that you'd pet him or feed him or scratch his ears, he was happy to see you. If Charles Manson had showed up with a dog biscuit in his hand, Ogilvy would've greeted him as if he were a long-lost relative.
I hadn't said a word so far, but Harlan didn't seem to notice. He just kept on scratching Ogilvy between his ears. The dog's tongue lolled happily. “I sure remember Ogilvy, too,” Harlan went on.
The owners of Ogilvy's mother had not realized immediately that her new family was not purebred, so they'd bobbed all the puppies' tails. Poor Ogilvy has always seemed to realize that he'd been short-changed in the tail department. He'd apparently decided a long time ago to make up quantity with quality. Now, at the sound of his name, he wagged his stump with such vigor, his entire rear end wagged, too.
“Yep,” Harlan said, smiling, “I recognized Ogilvy the second I saw his picture in the paper.”
So that was how he'd found me. Not exactly a surprise. Ogilvy's photo had appeared on the front page of the Louisville Courier-Journal yesterday morning. I'd known, of course, that the picture was going to be in there. Fact is, I'd been worrying for a week, ever since a staff photographer from the C-J had shown up at my front door, asking who I was and what Ogilvy's name was.
I'd briefly considered refusing to tell the guy anything. And, even more important, refusing to give permission to print the picture. And yet, how could I do that without attracting even more attention? The reporter, no doubt, would have been curious as to why I was so publicity-shy. What's more, it wouldn't have taken much to dig up the whole story. I sure as hell had not wanted another story about the bank robbery showing up on the front page of the Courier.
I'd seen enough stories about that to last me a lifetime. The headlines back then had all but screamed at me: LOCAL WOMAN ARRESTED IN BANK HEIST! BANK ROBBER REFUSES TO NAME ACCOMPLICE! And let's not forget my personal favorite: ROBBER GETS TEN YEARS!
As it turned out, that last headline had been in error. I'd been paroled for good behavior after serving just a little over three years, after which I'd moved into this rental house in Valley Station, a suburb of Louisville. I'd gotten a new job working as a secretary; and I'd been more or less taking it one day at a time, trying to make up my mind what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. The last thing I needed was the Courier taking a walk down Memory Lane. Compared to that, just having a picture of my dog appear in the paper seemed like a cakewalk.
I hadn't counted on Ogilvy's photo being on the front page, though. Or that the damn thing would take up almost one quarter of the page. Or that it would give the address of the church beneath the picture. That's what made me mad. Because the second I'd seen the photo and, even more significant, the headline in big bold type over the photo, I'd realized that I should've expected this. I mean, how stupid could I be? It was the Christmas season, for God's sake.
It being the Christmas season, in fact, was what had started it all. The house I'd rented was right across the street from the Valley Station Baptist Church. Ever since the church had set up their Nativity scene the day after Thanksgiving, I'd been having trouble with Ogilvy. I couldn't keep him in the backyard. Having apparently inherited his father's remarkable talent, Ogilvy kept jumping the back fence and running across the street.
What was the attraction? Oddly enough, Ogilvy seemed to be convinced that the church, in its infinite generosity, had erected a doghouse just for him. That this doghouse only had three walls, that it had a glowing neon star attached to the roof, and that it sheltered weather-worn statues of Mary, Joseph, and the Holy Infant, did not matter in the least to Ogilvy. All Ogilvy wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep on the nice soft straw, his body curved around the sandaled feet of Joseph. I'd had to haul that dumb dog back home at least five times before one of my neighbors—or maybe somebody just driving by—had decided that Ogilvy was a photo opportunity and had phoned the paper.
After taking Ogilvy's photo, the reporter from the Courier had hurried across the street to find out whose dog this was. According to what he'd told me, he'd gone to my next-door neighbor's house first, and then had been direc
ted to mine. And, of course, once he'd heard what my name was, he'd been beside himself. “Oh, this is great. This is terrific!” he kept saying.
My name, you see, is Beth Saunders. The Beth is short for—would you believe—Bethlehem. I know what you're thinking. Who in their right mind would name a baby Bethlehem? The answer to that one, of course, is: my mother. I'd heard from various relatives over the years that Mom had apparently found religion right about the time she met my father. I'm sure Dad's being a goodlooking, Methodist minister was purely coincidental to Mom's sudden conversion.
Before meeting my dad, though, my mom had been pretty rowdy. Drinking and partying and carrying on with one guy after another. To make sure that the Almighty—and, not incidentally, my straitlaced dad— knew that she'd truly repented, Mom had named every one of her kids after some place with religious significance. My two younger brothers are Israel and Jericho (Jeri, for short).
I did ask Mom once, when I was in high school, why she didn't just give us the usual Biblical names—like Ruth and Mark and Matthew—but Mom had sniffed, “Too ordinary.” She'd also added, “You should be glad I didn't call you Gomorrah.”
What could I say? She'd had a point.
With my name being what it was and it being the Christmas season, I should have known that a photograph of Ogilvy would not be buried on some back page of the Courier. Hell, the photographer had probably thought of the headline as soon as he heard my name: O LITTLE HOUND OF BETHLEHEM. Even though Ogilvy was not exactly little, and he was most certainly not a hound, it was a headline no journalist could pass up. No wonder the photographer's eyes were all but dancing as he left.
In the week that it had taken for the photo to finally appear, I'd told myself that maybe Harlan wasn't even in the area any more. Maybe he wouldn't even see the picture in the paper. Maybe he wouldn't even recognize Ogilvy. Harlan and I had only had the dog for a year or so before my life had taken an abrupt detour. After that, I'd had to give Ogilvy to my mother so that she could keep him for me until I served out my sentence.
Canine Christmas Page 5