Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree (2 page)

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 wheeled 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?”

“Yes, he’s dead.”

Robinson pushed the body’s fake beard over and checked the carotid artery. “I’d like for you to move off the porch so you don’t continue to contaminate the scene.” He gestured toward the steps.

“I need to go inside. I’m cold, and my friend is probably …”

No need to continue. At that moment, Jane opened the door and asked, “What’s going on?”

“One of Harmon’s detectives is here,” I answered. “I’m coming inside with you.”

“Unless there’s a back door, she needs to come outside,” the detective said. “I’ll be putting crime scene tape around this porch.”

“Crime scene tape?” Jane screeched, totally losing it like she always does when there’s a corpse involved.

“She has a back door,” I said and stepped toward Jane.

“I don’t want either of you in there anyway. Both of you come outside. We’ll need to check the inside of those apartments to be sure that’s not the place of death.” He paused. “And to find out if this person was here on a B & E.”

“B & E?” Jane questioned.

“Breaking and entering,” I explained. I read so many mysteries that I know what most of the terms mean.
Dalmation! A hundred and one dalmations and shih tzu!
I’d realized that Jane and I would be sleeping somewhere else that night—somewhere away from our apartments—because this man would have forensics techs go over the entire building and then probably ban us from our own homes with that yellow tape.

Courteous but firm, Detective Robinson walked us to his car, opened the rear door and said, “Sit here until I’m ready to take your statements.”

“We’d rather sit in the Mustang,” I said.

“No, get in the cruiser.” His authoritative tone left no room for discussion.

We sat in the back while he sat up front and called for CSI and the coroner. He got out of the car and closed the door.

“What’s he doing now?” Jane asked.

“He’s putting crime scene tape all around the front of our porch.”

“Is it a dead man or woman this time?”

“I didn’t look close enough to tell. The body’s wearing a white wig, false beard, and Santa Claus suit. No makeup, but the face is kind of feminine-looking.”

“I hate this, Callie. I just hate it.”

“I know you do. I’m not exactly fond of finding decedents away from work either.”

“Won’t they let us back in if they see that no one has been inside while we were gone?”

Then it hit me. I hadn’t opened my door before I found the dead Santa Claus. Could the Santa have come to our place to rob us and died on the porch after trashing my apartment? The thought of cops searching my home wasn’t pleasant even if there had been no invasion, and I hate cleaning up black fingerprint dust.

What’s the likelihood Santa was at our place to steal from me or Jane? Not much,
I answered myself.
Neither Jane nor I have any real valuables—not much real jewelry or silver or anything like that. Even our electronics aren’t the current high-dollar kind. The most expensive thing I own is my Gibson banjo. Thank heaven it’s at Daddy’s.

“What cha thinking about, Callie?” Jane asked.

“Just wishing Wayne was here. I’d be a lot more comfortable with him than this new guy.”

Sometimes hopes do come true, because just then Sheriff Wayne Harmon arrived, hopped out of his car, and went up to Robinson. I watched Wayne nod a few times before he came over, opened the back door of the cruiser, and slid in on the seat beside me.

“Merry Christmas,” the sheriff said.

“Yeah, a real good end to the day,” Jane answered. “Callie here found another body.”

“I know. I assume you met my new detective, Dean Robinson. He’ll be heading up homicide investigations, including this one, but you girls know you can call me any time.”

Girls!
Wayne thinks of me as a child just like my daddy does.

“How long do we have to sit here?” I asked.

“We’ll need to get statements, and I’ll want you to look inside both apartments to see if there are signs you’ve been burgled.”

“I guess then you’ll expect us to go to Daddy’s to spend the night, but John and his family are on the way here. It’ll be awfully crowded if the four of them are there along with Daddy, Mike, and Frankie.” I paused and then asked, “Did you know Jeff Morgan was killed in a car accident?”

“Yes, I was over at his mom’s home when I heard about this. Miss Lettie is completely shattered. You know Jeff was her only child and his daddy died in Vietnam right before he was born. She went all to pieces when Jeff left St. Mary, moved to Rock Hill, and went to work right over the state line in Charlotte. You can imagine what she’s like right now. Jeff’s body will be brought from Rock Hill to Middleton’s in the morning. When Otis or Odell picks up Santa Claus off the porch to take it to Charleston for the autopsy, I’m going to tell them I think it would be a good idea if you’re there tomorrow when Miss Lettie makes the plans for Jeff’s funeral.”

“You know I don’t usually sit in on planning sessions unless there’s a question about clothes or hair.”

The sheriff smiled at me. “I know that, but an elderly lady like Miss Lettie would probably appreciate having a female with her.”

“So, knowing Daddy’s house will be full, how long will you keep us locked out of our homes? I’ve been in Jane’s apartment, and there didn’t seem to be anything out of place.”

“How long will depend on whether there’s any evidence inside.” He smiled. “Callie, since you found the victim, did you recognize him?”

“I moved the beard, and I didn’t recognize the face, but I couldn’t tell if it’s a man or woman. Skin’s discolored and the features are feminine if it’s male, a little coarse if it’s female.”

“That’s interesting. I just assumed it was a man. I guess because of the Santa Claus suit. Hadn’t thought of Santa being a woman, but we’ll know when the coroner gets here.”