O deadly night, p.1
O, Deadly Night,
p.1
O, Deadly Night
A YEAR-ROUND CHRISTMAS MYSTERY
Vicki Delany
To Gail Cargo, my mom. One hundred years strong.
Chapter One
Is there anything in this world more guaranteed to bring joy to the hearts of both children and adults than a Santa Claus parade?
Waking up early Christmas morning and slipping downstairs in the dark to see a lit and fully decorated tree, stacks of brightly wrapped packages underneath, is a strong contender. But I still maintain that the parade is the top of the list, provided the day is cool and crisp, but not too cold, and a light snow, not too much to impede traffic or visibility, is falling; certainly no icy rain, as can sometimes happen in Upstate New York in early December.
This year, the weather was as perfect as though it had been organized by Santa Claus himself. Thinking of Santa, I took a quick look around the parade assembly grounds. There he was, Old Saint Nick himself, dressed in his full uniform of red jacket with white trim and wide white belt, red pants, white cuffs and upturned hem, wide black belt, jaunty red hat with a white pom-pom bouncing gaily at the end. All-white beard, mass of curly white hair, glasses, rosy-red cheeks, sparkling blue eyes.
My father, Noel Wilkinson. I know Dad isn’t Santa Claus, but sometimes I do wonder. Particularly on a day like today, as I watched him climb onto the Santa’s castle float and make his way past the smiling elves to take his place on the high throne. He saw me watching and gave me a wave.
Santa’s head toymaker, in position next to the throne, also waved at me. In contrast to his parade appearance, Alan Anderson was not in his nineties, and he didn’t normally have bushy sideburns and an enormous gray mustache spreading out from his cheeks as though he were about to use them to take flight. He wore a wool topcoat, green breeches over green stockings, and black shoes with shiny gold buckles. He carried a feather-topped pen and a long paper scroll, on which he would write down children’s gift wishes.
“Listen up, everyone!” the parade marshal bellowed into his megaphone. “Time to get this show on the road. We move in five minutes, be ready. No stragglers.”
A member of the band from Rudolph High blew a note on her trumpet. Costumed children giggled nervously in excitement and anticipation. A few of the costumed adults giggled also. It’s always difficult to tell who’s more excited: the children or their parents.
“Are we ready, George?” I asked. George Mann would be pulling my flatbed with the help of his World War II–era tractor, as he did every year.
“She’s not here.” He peered intently into the crowd. “She said she’d be here. She knows what time we start.”
“Perhaps something unexpected came up. We can’t wait. I refuse to be disqualified, again.”
“We’ll have to go when they get underway,” he said. “She was so looking forward to it. Let me try and call her. She might be on her way and forgot downtown streets are closed to traffic.” He pushed a few buttons, and I didn’t need to see the expression on the craggy, windblown, permanently tanned face to know he got voice mail. “No answer. Okay, Merry. Let’s go.” He climbed into the seat of his tractor, and I ran around to the back of the float to check everything and everyone was in place.
The theme of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures float this year was The Elves’ Workshop. Not terribly original, and I’d done something like that before, but it was getting increasingly difficult to come up with a new idea. My boyfriend, Alan Anderson, aka Santa’s head toymaker, had outfitted the flatbed with a high wooden table, which he covered with various pieces of discarded woodworking equipment and hunks of wood that hadn’t made the final cut in his woodworking business. Semiconstructed toys, rejects from his own exacting standards, were on the benches as though in the process of being assembled. I wore my regular Mrs. Claus costume of mobcap with attached curly gray wig, fake spectacles, floor-length dress over substantial padding, and gingham apron.
My landlady, Mabel D’Angelo, was supposed to be helping me, and it was she who had failed to put in an appearance. She’d been pleased and excited when I asked her to be the elves’ foreman today and had consulted in great deal with me about her costume.
I needed another adult on my float to help supervise the kids who made up my elves, caps bobbing with enthusiasm, winter coats peeking out from under homemade green and turquoise tunics, as they banged away with toy hammers on old pieces of wood. I’d borrowed children from my friend Vicky’s vast collection of relatives to be my elves. They stood at the bench now, bubbling with excitement, hammers in hand, and looked mighty cute.
“Ready to go, kids?” I asked.
“Ready!” they shouted with such enthusiasm the pom-poms on their hats shook. A girl clapped her hands. My dog, Matterhorn, sat at her feet, a matching turquoise ribbon tied around his neck. Even Mattie looked excited, although it could be hard to tell sometimes.
I was in need of another adult because this year my mother, Aline Steiner, decided at the last minute she’d have a float of her own rather than ride on mine as she’d always done before. Her float was done up like an opera stage, which would promote her vocal classes.
Needless to say, Mom’s float looked more like what one might find in one of the great opera houses of Europe than a small-town Santa Claus parade. Mom had been a soloist with the Metropolitan Opera for many years, and she’d sung at many of those great opera houses. She was not, shall we say, inclined to cut corners when it came to appearances. Unfortunately, Mom having her own float meant I didn’t get the time and attention I needed from Dad and Alan to get mine ready. I had little, as in no, hope of winning the best-of-parade trophy this year.
Her float would follow mine, with some of her littlest students seated on the flatbed next to her, while the older children, as well as several adults up to and including retirement age, marched behind singing carols. The parades (plural: in the town of Rudolph, we also have one in July) were the highlights of the season for Mom’s highly-sought-after singing classes.
The float in front of mine was from Victoria’s Bake Shoppe. This year Vicky Casey was featuring The Elves’ Christmas Eve Party. From what I could see, their festivities involved a lot of eating. Some of the helpers carried trays of tiny gingerbread cookies to hand out along the route. I suspected Vicky would have hot chocolate, maybe laced with something to “keep the chill away,” and full-sized cookies for the panel of esteemed judges. Vicky usually won the best-in-parade trophy every year. Twice.
My sister, Eve, ran through the crowd, waving at me. She was supposed to walk in front of Santa’s float, handing out candy canes, and looked lovely in a knee-length black cape lined with fake white fur and a matching hat borrowed from our mother. Her black boots with sky-high heels were more suitable for clubbing with celebrities in LA than marching in a parade, but to Eve, appearances were everything. She was a struggling actress trying to make it in Hollywood, home for the holidays as she had “a temporary gap in her calendar.”
She grabbed the back of my flatbed, and I reached out my hand to give her a good yank up. “Got a text from Dad, who got a text from George. Your helper hasn’t shown up, so I’ve been volunteered. You can’t manage all these kids as well as that dog on your own.”
“What about candy cane duty?”
She held out her basket. “Want one?”
Horns tooted, trumpets trumpeted, kids cheered, adults cheered, my mom sounded a note, her children broke into an enthusiastic round of “We Wish you a Merry Christmas,” and the annual holiday season Rudolph, New York, Santa Claus parade began.
Without the participation of Mabel D’Angelo.
Chapter Two
“Did you see Mrs. D’Angelo earlier?” I asked Wendy as children were being helped off floats, tools and instruments packed away, and flatbeds towed to their resting places until they’d be needed again seven months from now.
“You mean today?” Wendy said. “No, I didn’t. I know she was super excited about being on your float.” Wendy and her husband, Steve, and their daughter, Tina, were my neighbors in the second-floor apartments we rented in Mrs. D’Angelo’s once-grand and still-huge Victorian house.
“She didn’t show,” I said.
“Was that a problem?”
“Not really. We had no emergencies such as kids getting sick and throwing up all over Mattie in their excitement or trying to jump off the float when they saw a friend. So I managed with the help of my sister, Eve.”
“The actress? I heard she’s in town. I’d love to talk to her about all the famous people she’s met.”
“Famous people she’s seen across a set or leaving a restaurant, most likely.”
“Now, now, Merry. Don’t be catty.”
“Was I? I didn’t mean to.” And I hadn’t. Eve kept up a brave front when she talked about her career, and she was eternally optimistic (probably a requirement in that business), but she couldn’t help occasionally let it slip that things were not progressing as she’d so desperately hoped. She was thirty now, getting late to make it as a woman in Hollywood.
“There’s no more difficult career to take on than being an actress,” Wendy reminded me. “As for today, wasn’t Jackie available to be with you?” Wendy was referring to my shop assistant, Jackie O’Reilly.
“Jackie, the traitor, apologized profusely and falsely. She said she didn’t realize I’d need her, as I have every year since I opened the store, and she volunteered to be on the Gazette float. I got a glimpse of her in her elf costume, and I’m pretty sure she’s hoping to be the front-page
Finding help on Santa Claus parade day can be a heck of a challenge in a town where everyone is involved in one way or another.
“Mrs. D’Angelo could get distracted by a squirrel,” Wendy said. That, I knew, was true enough. “Have you tried calling her?”
“I didn’t want to once the parade started. George is doing that now.”
At that moment, the old farmer came around the flatbed, holding his phone. “I finally got her. She’s hoping to make it to the after-party if you still need her.”
Mattie sat quietly by my side, exhausted from the excitement of being admired by people all along the parade route. I tucked my plain glass spectacles into my apron pocket, pulled off my cap, and gave the top of my head a good rub. That cap itched. “I don’t need her, as I have no specific duties at the party, but if she wants to come in costume, that’s fine.”
No duties other than to put my cap and glasses back on and make friendly as Mrs. Claus. The town always sponsored a children’s party in the community center after the parade. Santa would greet children while his head toymaker recorded their requests. The staff at Vicky’s bakery had been frantically busy over the past week, preparing all sorts of lovely little holiday baked goods to be on offer along with hot chocolate and warm apple juice for the kids and mulled cider for the older partygoers.
The best-in-parade winner would be announced at the party. No doubt Vicky would make sure the judges had full mugs of spiked cider as they made their deliberations.
“Did she say what happened to cause her to miss the parade?” I asked George.
“New neighbors moved in across the street. Highly inconvenient of them to come today of all days, she says. Their truck pulled up just as Mabel was about to leave the house. They didn’t have much in the way of goods, so she thinks they’re finished now, and she can come down. Did you happen to hear a lot of phones going off as the parade was happening, Merry?”
“I couldn’t hear anything, but I did see people checking their screens, yes. Both parade participants and those watching from the sidelines.”
Wendy, George, and I exchanged exasperated looks. Mabel D’Angelo is the gossip queen of Rudolph. She lurks at the heart of a vast web spread throughout our town and beyond. Little happens in Rudolph or environs Mrs. D’Angelo doesn’t know about. If she doesn’t witness the event herself, one of her network of contacts does. And if they don’t—then she makes it up.
Yup, new people on our street meant phone lines in Rudolph were as busy as at FBI headquarters. I sometimes thought Mrs. D’Angelo should be put on the payroll at the FBI or CIA. Except, of course, for her tendency to exaggerate in order to make her information sound more important than it was.
“One crisis averted,” Wendy said. “I’d better find Steve and make sure he hasn’t let Tina overdose on parade candy.” As an employee of the town, Wendy walked the parade route handing out candy canes.
“Too late!” I called after her. “Come on, Mattie. I’ll take you to the store for a while. Party time is not for you.”
* * *
“It seems to be a single man, Merry,” Mrs. D’Angelo said to me. “Most unusual on our street, I’m sure you’ll agree. He didn’t have many possessions, hardly any furniture—just one bed, a couple of chairs, a small table, and a lot of boxes. He didn’t have a moving company, just a rental truck and one man, a friend likely, to help lift the heavier things.”
“Two men,” I said. “Maybe they’ll live there together.”
She ignored that point. “A single man, living in a house that size. And so little furniture? I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Make nothing of it,” I said. “Maybe he moved from another country, didn’t bring many possessions, and is starting over. Maybe he doesn’t need much. Maybe his family is still to follow. If he doesn’t have a family, that doesn’t mean anything either. Plenty of single men live in houses. Even big ones. Like Alan.” Alan has a rambling old stone farmhouse in the woods about ten miles outside of town. Not only does he need a big place for his woodworking shop and storage areas, but he forages on his own property for treefall and follows the county’s maintenance trucks as they tidy up the woods and clear growth near the roads. Along with toys and home decor items, even hugely popular necklaces and earrings made of concentric wooden rings, much of which I stock in my own shop, he makes beautiful handcrafted furniture that sells well all over Upstate New York.
“Alan Anderson’s different,” she said. “He’s a Rudolphite, through and through.”
“Did I hear my name?” Alan put his arm around my shoulders. “Hi, Mrs. D. Did you enjoy the parade?”
“Unfortunately, I was delayed. I wasn’t able to get away until the party started. Something of perhaps vital importance to the town came up.”
George Mann joined our group. “Mabel. At last. Did you run into a problem earlier?”
“Duty, George, duty.”
He smiled at her. “Don’t let your duty to the town take the place of enjoying yourself.”
She giggled, putting me in mind of a high school girl when the captain of the football team happened to look her way.
George turned to Alan and me, and his face became serious. “I had a call just now from my friend Bob. Bob Gravel. Lives in New York City now, although he’s an old Rudolph boy.”
“Gravel. Robert.” Mrs. D’Angelo flipped quickly through her memory banks. “Don’t know that name.”
“He moved to the Big Apple,” George explained. “Must be forty or more years ago now. Him and his wife, uh … sorry, forgot her name. Anyway, she died recently.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Alan said.
“Yeah. He took it hard. I hadn’t heard from him in donkey’s years, but notice of his wife’s passing was posted in the Gazette, so I gave him a call. Like I said, they didn’t have any children and he had a hard time dealing with her death, but he’s starting to come back.”
“Back?” Mrs. D’Angelo asked. “He’s moving back to Rudolph? Can’t be him I saw this morning. Those were younger men.”
“Don’t know about him moving,” George said. “I meant back to himself. Starting to get interested in life again …” His voice trailed off.
“But?” Alan prompted.
“He’s met a lady.”
“Isn’t that good?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’m telling you this, Merry, because I don’t know how to handle it. Don’t know if I should handle it. You see, he met her online. They talk on FaceTime and send texts. He’s never actually met this woman in person. She says she lives in Kansas City.”
“ ‘Says she lives.’ You don’t think that’s true?”
“She asked him for money so she can come and visit him in New York.”
I raised my right hand high in the air. “Red flag!”
“Merry’s right,” Alan said. “If she can’t afford the trip, why doesn’t he go to Kansas City?”
“He says she’s never been to New York and has always wanted to see it.”
“I assume you’re telling us because you’re worried about your friend,” Alan said.
“Yeah. I am. He’s not short of funds—he did well in his life—but … I wouldn’t want to see him cheated.”
“Hard thing to deal with,” I said. “Have you told him about your concerns?”
“I tried to. He laughed it off and said I was jealous. He offered to ask his new girlfriend to find one for me.”
“I hope you said no!” Mrs. D’Angelo said. “What’s the world coming to when people think they have a relationship with someone they’ve never even been in the same room as? The idea’s preposterous. I notice not many cookies are left. I haven’t had any yet.” She grabbed George’s arm and dragged him away.
Alan and I exchanged looks, and then we both laughed. Mrs. D’Angelo would ensure George didn’t stray into an online scam. I felt sorry for his friend, though.
The post-parade party was winding down. Exhausted, overstimulated, oversugared children were being gathered up and stuffed into winter coats; townspeople heading off to get ready for another busy holiday week; catering staff cleaning up the few leftovers and packing away dishes.
