Holidays Can Be Murder: A Charlie Parker Christmas Mystery (4 page)

He groaned, dropped one arm, and turned to face her.

“Oh, Charlie, I’m sorry Paula came over so early this morning,” she began. “I thought she was still in her room—it takes her forever to get dressed and made up in the mornings.”

“It’s okay. Catherine was almost ready.” I glanced up at Drake, who was eyeing the neatly placed luminarias along the sidewalk.

A dark blue car cruised by, the driver looking at addresses. I got an impression of a male with longish dark hair and wraparound sunglasses. When he realized the three of us were staring at him, he sped up and took a left at the intersection. I glanced toward Drake, but he was still staring after the car.

Without a jacket, I was feeling the chill in the air. I’d ask him about it later. I turned to Judy. “Want some coffee—or how about a cup of tea?”

“Tea would be great,” she said, pushing a wisp of mousy hair behind her ear.

In the kitchen, I set a kettle on the burner and found two muffins left from earlier in the week. I gathered the scattered newspapers into a relatively neat pile and set mugs and tea bags out. Judy slumped into one of the chairs.

“I tell you, Charlie, I’m whipped,” she sighed. “Having Paula around is like inviting a tornado into your home. She’s a bundle of constant energy, the kind that needs to be the center of attention. And the phone rings constantly for her. What did she do—tell everyone she knows that she’s visiting us?”

I didn’t mention Paula’s comment about possibly making it more than a visit.

“Course, I guess that also describes what having a child must be like,” she laughed. “Maybe this is good practice for me.”

“Well, at least a baby starts out small and unable to get into everything,” I offered. “You have a little time to get used to it.”

She dunked her teabag four times and wrung it out by twisting the string around a spoon. Laying the wet bag on a saucer, she began to peel the paper off a muffin.

“I’ll tell you, though,” she said, her eyes narrowing to slits. “I won’t
ever
get used to having Paula around. Wilbur won’t do anything about her. He’s . . . well, she’s ingrained a lot of intimidation into him. But I will. And pretty soon.”

I sipped my tea and watched her rip the muffin paper into tiny shreds.

By four o’clock that afternoon I’d stuffed the last of the packages under the tree, helped Drake straighten the luminaria sacks, and had the pot of green chile stew simmering on the stove. Catherine had come home around three, looking somewhat frazzled. She’d opted for a nap before the evening festivities and, thinking that sounded like a pretty good idea, I crawled onto our bed and pulled a quilt over myself.

Drake’s gentle hand on my shoulder woke me. “Hey, you gonna sleep all night?” he teased.

I mumbled something incoherent.

“Elsa just showed up at the back door with corn bread, and I have a feeling the others might arrive any time.”

“Oh, my god, what time is it anyway?”

“Almost six.”

I realized the windows were dark and couldn’t believe I’d slept nearly two hours. I whipped the quilt aside and stood up too fast.

“Take it easy,” he said. “I turned on the outdoor lights. Cars are already coming up the street. The stew is doing fine, and Mom and I set the table in the dining room. I think everything’s under control.”

The doorbell rang. “Uh-oh, get that, okay? I’ll brush my teeth real quick and get the tangles out of my hair.”

He blew me a kiss from the doorway. “No rush.”

I emerged five minutes later to a houseful of people. Catherine was setting food on the table and Drake had managed to satisfy everyone’s needs drink-wise. I slipped past Judy (looking a little tense around the mouth) and Paula (dressed in green leather pants, a tight red sweater, and red flats) and made my way to the kitchen. Tasted the stew, just to be sure it had turned out all right, before we began ladling it into bowls.

“How did the shopping trip go today?” I asked Catherine, keeping my voice low.

“Interesting.”

“Just—interesting?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, I learned more about Paula that I ever wanted to know. She gave me the whole lowdown on what was wrong with each of the five ex-husbands, and a few juicy tidbits about some new young hunk she’s seeing.”

“Oh boy, I’ll bet that was fun.”

She rolled her eyes and began carrying the bowls of hot stew into the dining room. I followed with another batch and called everyone to the table. I noticed that Catherine chose to sit by Drake’s side at one end, staying as far from Paula’s chair as possible. Wilbur sat near Paula, probably at Judy’s insistence, although from what she’d told me, if Paula got out of hand Wilbur would be the last person to do anything about it. Judy seated herself on the other side of her husband, undoubtedly for the close proximity to his shins.

Actually, dinner went quite well, with Elsa entertaining us with stories of Christmases in the ’50s. When she got to the point where she was about to reveal some of my crazier antics as a kid, it looked like a good time to start our tour of the neighborhood lights.

While I have to admit that having the neighborhood barricaded and watching bumper-to-bumper traffic snake its way down our street until the wee hours of the morning doesn’t sound like an appealing way to spend Christmas Eve, we local residents have discovered a nice side benefit. We get to slip behind the barricades and walk the closed-off streets, enjoying a private show of our own.

“Looks like it could snow a bit,” Drake said, peering out between the bedroom drapes as I slipped on heavy socks and walking boots. “That sky’s awfully white.”

“Better caution everyone to bundle up,” I said, remembering Paula’s attire.

Out in the living room, everyone had put on heavy coats, gloves and caps. Rusty and Kinsey were waiting by the door expectantly.

I eyed Paula’s leather slacks and thin leather flats without socks. “Paula, I’d be happy to loan you some sweats and some socks,” I offered.

“Oh, thanks, Charlie, but that’s okay. I’ll be fine in these.” Her chic winter jacket of red faux fur just wouldn’t have been the thing with sweats, I guess.

I clipped a leash on Rusty’s collar, and Catherine did the same with Kinsey. By default, because we were being dragged ahead by the dogs, she and I ended up leading the little procession. I glanced back to see Drake lock the front door behind him, then offer Elsa an assisting hand on her elbow.

We walked past Elsa’s house and the next one, holding our breath against the exhaust of the tour buses. At the corner, we turned left, slipping past a barricade that kept traffic off the side street as well as two other blocks behind ours. By the time we were one street over from our own, the difference was incredible. The traffic noises and smells faded away and we strolled leisurely down the middle of the streets enjoying our own private show of all the homes not on the regular tour.

Catherine exclaimed over the number of luminarias lining the sidewalks and driveways. “I can’t imagine how much work went into all this,” she said. “And the lights, look how beautiful they are!”

“Oops!” cried Paula. “I sure didn’t see that crack in the street.”

Wilbur reached out and grasped his mother’s arm, steadying her. I wondered how many martinis she’d made for herself after the one Drake had given her. I reined Rusty in and held him back until Drake caught up with us. He slipped his arm around my shoulders.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” I whispered to him. No matter how crazy the rest of the holiday got, I was glad we had each other.

“Hey, look,” he said. “Told you it looked like snow.”

A big, fat white flake drifted in front of me and landed on Rusty’s back. Soon, there were thousands of them and the street had a thin white cover. I smiled, remembering Drake’s and my first Christmas together last year at the Taos Ski Valley. There’d certainly been no shortage of snow there. I tilted my face up to the sky and let the flakes land on my eyelids. I would ignore Paula and do my best not to get involved with my neighbors’ problems.

Well it was a good intention, anyway.

6

I awoke to gray light filtering around the edges of the drapes and utter silence outside. My first thought was: the buses have gone away. I rolled toward Drake and he pulled me into his arms. The next thing I knew he was planting little nibbles along my neck and shoulder and the rest became a pleasant blur of sensation as we pulled the covers over ourselves and enjoyed each other.

I awoke for the second time to a brighter gray light. I reached for Drake again, but he wasn’t there.

“Snowed about three inches,” he whispered, emerging from the bathroom.

“Really?” I was instantly awake and wanting to go out and play in it. He pulled me back into his arms and wrapped the comforter around both of us.

Rusty sat by the edge of the bed, signaling that he’d soon require attention. We ignored him.

“I’ll make breakfast if you want to go out there and build a snowman or something,” Drake said. “I can tell you’re itching to get up.”

“Well . . . if you’re sure.” I was up and rummaging in the closet for my ski pants almost before he’d finished the offer.

He laughed out loud and tossed a pillow at me. I dashed into the bathroom and brushed my teeth in record time, then slipped into ski pants and boots.

“C’mon, Rust, we’re gonna have some fun.”

I heard water running in the guest bath, so I opened Catherine’s bedroom door and let Kinsey dash out. “You too,” I told her. “We’re gonna play!”

The two dogs beat me to the back door by a longshot and bounded ahead of me. Kinsey leaped through the fresh powder, her stubby little tail pointing straight up. Rusty made his usual rounds of all the trees and sniffed to make sure intruder dogs hadn’t used them during the night. I packed a bit of the powder and tried for a snowball, but it was pretty hopeless. The stuff was dry as shredded cotton. I had to be happy with running around the yard, tossing handfuls of white powder at the two dogs and watching them try to bite at it as it hit their heads.

“Breakfast!” Drake called from the doorway. He batted at the dogs’ fur with an old towel, knocking the powdery white off them. Kinsey had loads of it imbedded in the long blond hair around her legs and belly and in her long, curly ears.

“Your cheeks are red,” he said to me.

“Umm, feels good. Don’t worry about the dogs—they can’t hurt the kitchen tile too badly.”

An hour later, we’d finished a fabulous breakfast of eggs Benedict and fresh fruit and were well into the loot under the tree in the living room. Catherine had given us matching robes and Drake gave me a heart-shaped diamond pendant and my very own .380 automatic. He’d been teaching me to shoot at our local range where I usually used his 9 mm Beretta. This would be lighter to handle and small enough I could carry it in my purse. My gift to him was a set of aviation references—lacking the romantic element, but something he’d been wanting for a long time. Together, our gift to Catherine was a vacation trip she’d been wanting to take to visit her elderly aunt in Vermont. Drake had told me that Aunt Ruthie was a real pistol at eight-nine years old, but just couldn’t quite manage a two-thousand-mile-long journey.

“This is the best,” Drake sighed, plopping himself on the couch, gazing fondly at his mother and then at me, while stroking one of the reference books in his lap. I wasn’t sure which of the above made him the happiest, but it didn’t really matter. I stretched out in one recliner and Catherine took the other. I had an instant’s déjà vu as I remembered holidays in this same room when I was a kid.

“Well, if we’re going to have turkey tonight, I think I better put it in the oven,” I finally said, pulling myself out of my little haven.

The phone rang just as I walked into the kitchen.

“Merry Christmas, Charlie.” It was Judy. “If you’re not terribly busy right now, could I come over for a minute?”

“Sure. We’re pretty much just laying around, fat and happy,” I told her. With eggs Benedict for breakfast and a full turkey dinner coming up—fat and happy was a pretty good description.

A couple of minutes later, I heard Drake open the front door then Judy came into the kitchen.

“Thanks so much,” she breathed, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs. “I just had to get out for a little while.”

“Coffee?” I offered, belatedly remembering that she didn’t drink it.

“Please. Strong.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I could make you some tea, if you’d rather.”

She waved her hand back and forth. “No, it’s okay, really.”

She accepted the mug I handed over and doused it liberally with sugar and cream while I put the turkey into the roasting pan and set it in the oven.

“You don’t look like you’re having such a great day,” I offered tentatively.

She made a low growling sound. “Oh, it started off all right. Paula was so hung over from last night—apparently she’d restocked her hidden supply and managed to duck into her room several times throughout the evening. Anyway, she slept til nearly eleven this morning and Wilbur and I finally had some time to ourselves.”

She sipped at the coffee and grimaced. “The fun started after that. She came dragging into the kitchen and informed us that she plans to stay in Albuquerque and that she’ll be living with us until she gets a job and a place of her own. Not more than a couple of months—” Her voice cracked and she put her forehead on the table. A sound came out that sounded like “no, no, no.”

“Staying?” I’m afraid my own voice sounded frightened.

Judy raised her head. Her eyes were red rimmed, her face blotchy. “I can’t handle it, Charlie, I really can’t.” She raised the coffee mug and put it back down. “And the worst part is that Wilbur won’t say anything. He doesn’t want her here either. We’ve talked about this when we’re alone. But he just can’t stand up to her.”