Silent Night: A Raine Stockton Dog Mystery (2 page)

Ruth Holloway was actually a few years younger than I was, with bouncy blond curls and a cherubic face that made her look even younger.
 
But I had been calling her “Mrs. Holloway” for the past five years that I had been bringing therapy dogs to her class, and I just couldn’t get comfortable calling her by her first name—in the same way it’s hard to call your pastor or your doctor by his first name.  So I generally tried to avoid the problem by not using her name at all.

“I’m giving Cisco the night off,” I told her.  “My friend Sonny is loaning some of her sheep and her border collie for the parade and the living Nativity afterwards, and I promised to help her.”  Mystery, Sonny’s border collie, was a brilliant working dog, but Sonny’s limited mobility made it difficult for her to walk in the parade. 

“Oh, that’s right, we’re having real sheep this year!”  Ruth flashed me a quick brilliant smile as she knotted the drawstrings on the trash bag.
 
“I’m playing Mary in the Nativity the next two weekends,” she added, “and my husband, Jack, is playing Joseph.”

That was perfect casting, as anyone who knew the Holloways would agree.  Ruth was one of those genuinely nice people who never turned down a request or left a need unmet; she was a Brownie leader, head of the March of Dimes, and volunteered at the food bank twice a week.  Her husband was the youth pastor at the Methodist church, a volunteer firefighter, and a Little League coach.  They went on mission trips, hosted foreign exchange students, and were one of the few qualified foster homes for troubled and disadvantaged children in a county that was desperately in need of foster homes.

But even as she spoke, a kind of wistful expression came over her face and she added, “Maybe it will bring us luck, if that’s not too awful to say.  We’ve been trying to get pregnant for two years.”

“Oh.”  I never knew how to respond to things like that.  “Well, you never know, I guess.”

She smiled a little apologetically. “I guess that was tactless of me.  I heard about you and Buck.  I’m sorry.”

Buck Lawson, my on-again,off-again husband of over ten years, and I had finally untied the knot for good recently.  I was fine with it, really.  I mean, it was inevitable and the best thing for both of us.  As long as I didn’t spend too much time thinking about the fact that for the first Christmas I could remember Buck would be sitting at someone else’s table…well, it was fine.  Really.

I said, “Thanks.  But it’s fine.  Really.”

She hurried on, the way people usually do, “Anyway, we’re excited about being in the Nativity.”  She dropped a wadded-up napkin filled with something gooey into the trash bag and moved to the next desk. “My neighbors, the Wilkins, are donating their donkey, and Sadie Tompkins is bringing llamas—I think they’re supposed to be camels, but when they’re all dressed up in those fancy saddles, who can tell, right?”

I grinned in agreement.  “It sounds like it’s going to be really something.  The best Nativity this town has ever had, anyway. Don’t worry about the sheep,” I added, “they do whatever Mystery tells them to.  Sonny will be there every night, but Mystery is the one who really does the work.”

“Well, if Mystery is half as smart as Cisco,” said Mrs. Holloway, with a fond glance toward my Golden, “those sheep are in good hands.”

Cisco raised his ears expectantly when he heard his name, then dropped them again when no treat was forthcoming.  I  tried not to look too reluctant as I glanced around the room  with its miles of red and green crepe paper, the Christmas tree and cardboard sleigh, the general messiness of everything and offered tentatively, “Is there anything else I can do to help?”
 

She laughed and made a shooing gesture. “Go on, get out of here. I get paid for this—kind of—and you and Cisco have done your share.  Thank you,” she added sincerely.  “For some of these kids, this was the best part of Christmas.”

And it was words like that that made what we did worth every minute.

I said my goodbyes and made my way to the girl’s restroom to change.

The Hansonville Elementary and Middle School temporarily accommodated grades one through nine while the School Board waited for funding to complete construction on the new middle school building across the street.  The younger grades were confined to the west wing of the building, and grades six through nine to the east, with the gym and cafeteria in the middle. The  restrooms on the west side of the building were far too crowded with squealing little girls for me to try to squeeze in with Cisco, so we hurried through the gym to the bathrooms on the middle school side.

If you have never tried to change out of an elf costume in a bathroom stall with a seventy-pound golden retriever at your side, you have missed out on one of life’s greatest adventures.  It becomes even more challenging when said golden retriever knows perfectly well there is a basket of dog biscuits with his name on it in the tote bag at his feet.  I managed to wiggle out of the green felt and into my jeans while keeping Cisco’s nose out of the tote and pulled on a festive Christmas-themed sweater embroidered with  golden retriever puppies wearing red bows and, yes, jingle bells across the front. Our next stop was the nursing home, and the residents loved holiday-themed sweaters almost as much as they loved Cisco.

Standing on one foot and using Cisco for balance, I was pulling on my boot when I heard the bathroom door open.  I quickly grabbed Cisco’s collar so that he wouldn’t scoot under the door to greet the newcomer, overbalanced, and almost landed in the toilet.  Trying not to swear—there were children and dogs present, after all—I pulled Cisco away from the stall door and the tote bag and stuffed my other foot into its boot.  That was when I heard the sobbing. 

I have a confession to make.  I’m not very good with kids.  I don’t find them very interesting, I never know what to say to them, and the only time I’m even marginally comfortable around them is when Cisco is there to act as a grinning, wiggling buffer between us.  So when I heard crying in the bathroom, I grimaced visibly and took my time opening the stall door, hoping that whoever it was would either pull herself together or go away before I came out.

She didn’t.

I opened the door a crack and peeked out, expecting a little girl who was brokenhearted over an imagined slight by her BFF or because she’d gotten the cheap box of peppermints in the class  gift exchange. But then I heard her say in a high, shaky, gasping voice, “Nick?  You’ve got to come get me, Nick, something terrible has happened.  I need your help…Can’t you borrow your brother’s car?
 
No, I can’t do that!  You said… I know but you said…”

I stepped out of the stall tentatively, keeping Cisco on a short leash. The girl who was hunched over the sink was clearly in one of the upper grades, tall and broadly built—well, ok, plump—in worn jeans and a big shirt that did nothing to minimize her figure problems. Her dark hair was dull and tangled-looking as it fell around her shoulders, and her face was pale and blotched with crying.
 
She whirled around when she heard us, a stricken look on her face, and disconnected the phone.

I tried for a smile that was both casual and concerned, but that did not look too threatening or adult.

“Are you okay?”

Her eyes dropped to Cisco, who, even without his Santa Dog hat, could not have looked more adorable.  He grinned and swished his tail and pulled a little against the leash, eager to make a new friend.  I reminded him, “With me,” and he settled down.

She looked quickly away from Cisco when I spoke and swiped an unsteady hand over her face, half turning and avoiding my eyes.  She said, “I’m fine.”  But her voice sounded thick and tight and as shaky as she looked.  I thought she might actually be coming down with something.

I was careful to keep my distance as I offered, “Because I can get a teacher or something if you…”

The door opened and another girl of about the same age pushed in, bringing with her a brief burst of noise from the corridor.  “Hey, you about finished with my phone?  Oh! Look at the dog!”

She rushed over to us and started petting Cisco, and the first girl thrust the cell phone at her and hurried out.  By the time I disentangled Cisco from what quickly became a half dozen giggling, cooing middle-grade girls who wanted to tell me all about their own dogs,  we were fifteen minutes late for our next therapy dog visit, and I had all but forgotten about the teenager weeping on the phone.

__________

THREE

N
ursing homes are generally not the most cheerful places in the world, but with a Christmas tree in the lobby and blinking reindeer antlers on the volunteers’ heads, even the antiseptic-smelling, linoleum-tiled facility managed to take on a festive air.  One of the church groups had sent Christmas cards to all of the residents, and the Women’s Club decorated the doors every year with artificial wreaths, so even the wheelchair-lined halls looked less bleak than they usually did.  The Christmas cards were taped around the doorframes and the beribboned wreaths had candy canes on them.  Cisco, prancing down the hall with his red velvet jingle-bell bow sounding merrily and his tail swishing back and forth, managed to dislodge about half a dozen Christmas cards, which slowed our progress considerably as I continually had to stop and tape them back on the doorframes.

The mobile patients—mobile in this case meaning those who were able to sit up in a wheelchair—were assembled in the cafeteria, where there was a tabletop Christmas tree in one corner and a festoon of red and green construction paper cutouts strung around the walls.  The room had that odd institution-food smell that was a mixture of canned green beans, warmed-over dinner rolls, and tomato sauce.  It was, of course, one of Cisco’s favorite rooms in the world.

Cafeteria chairs had been arranged in a semicircle around the room for those without wheelchairs, and there were perhaps twenty-five elderly and disabled people there waiting for us.  They could hear the bells on Cisco’s collar coming down the hall, and by the time we entered, hands were reaching and faces were beaming.  Cisco sat before each and every chair in turn, offering his paw for a handshake, grinning and basking in the affection.

Mr. Morrissey told me about his cocker spaniel, as he always did, and tried to sneak Cisco a piece of fried chicken that he had saved from lunch, as he always did.  Mrs. Daniels, who had been a hairdresser for forty-five years, wanted to brush Cisco’s coat, so I always carried his soft-bristle brush with me.  The nurses told me that Mrs. Daniels consistently had more flexibility in her hands after grooming Cisco, and he loved it. I made small talk as I moved down the line, but I knew the one they had really come here to see was Cisco.  My feelings were not hurt when they ignored me and fawned over Cisco.  In fact, my feelings would have been hurt if they had not.
 

I tried to spend an equal amount of time with each patient, but I have to admit I enjoyed visiting with some people more than others.  I always saved Esther Kelp for last because she was, quite simply, one of the most interesting people I had ever known. She had been a makeup artist in Hollywood during the fifties and sixties, in the days of the Big Studios.  She had known Ronald Regan and Montgomery Cliff. She had worked on movies like
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
and
Giant.
  She knew Frances Bavier (remember Aunt Be
a
from
The Andy Griffith Show
?) which is a huge deal here in North Carolina.  But even more impressive than that was the fact that
she had actually known Lassie. 
She used to have lunch with Rudd Weatherwax, who, I hardly need explain, was Lassie’s owner/trainer and a legend in the world of dogs.  Eventually she married a man from Raleigh, and they retired here in the mountains.  She had the best stories of anyone I had ever known.  And she was the only person in the world who could beat me at Lassie trivia.

“Well, hello there, Mr. Cisco!”  She greeted my dog, beaming.  “Don’t you look like Christmas come uptown?”

Cisco sat and swept his tail across the floor, smiling his biggest smile, as I bent to hug Miss Esther.  She was a petite woman, all bone and sinew, with crisp silver curls and clear hazel eyes.  She was always impeccably groomed, and today she wore a pale pink velour track suit with pearl earrings and carefully applied makeup.  She had broken her hip in a fall from a ladder while painting the trim on her house back in the beginning of autumn, complications had set in, and since she had no one to take care of her at home, she had been sent here from the hospital to recuperate.  She had graduated from the walker to a four-pronged cane over the past month and looked fitter than most people I saw on the street. 

“I thought they would have kicked you out of this place by now,” I told her with a grin. 

Her eyes twinkled.  “Bah! They can’t get rid of me.  But there is some news.  My grandson in California is fixing up his guest house and he won’t have anything but that I should come and live in it.  He’s got some fool notion of selling my life story to the movies, if you can believe that, but I say he just feels sorry for an old woman and thinks I can’t do for myself.”

“Anyone can see you’re not an old woman,” I protested. 

“Well, now aren’t you sweet to say it?  And that’s just why I told him I wasn’t about to up and move to California without seeing you and that sweet Cisco one more time before Christmas.”
She scratched Cisco behind the ear as she spoke and then settled back with a big smile.  “So how is your new kennel coming?  Ready for the grand opening?”