The Nightingale Before Christmas (2 page)

“Yeah, that'd be worth it. So, the people who come to see this are mostly rich people, right?”

“Or people who want to see what the pros do to help them get some ideas for their own do-it-yourself projects,” I said. I actually wanted to ask why she was taking so many pictures of the banister and the stair treads. “Some people come to get holiday inspiration—since this is a Christmas show house, after the designers finish doing their rooms, they get to decorate them for Christmas.” Should I remind them again about the holiday part of their marching orders? Some of them, like Mother, had gone overboard, but others had yet to hang a single strand of tinsel.

“And every room decorated in a different style?” she asked.

“By a different decorator,” I said. “And so probably in a different style. For example, as you can see, Ivy Vernier, the decorator in charge here in the foyer, is an expert in trompe l'oeil. Painting stuff so it looks real,” I added, seeing her blank look at the French phrase. A few weeks ago I might not have known it myself. I pointed downward. “That floor's not really marble.”

“It's not?” Jessica bent over, and then plopped down on the floor, the better to study it at close range. She began tapping on the floor, as if testing to see if it really was wood. “Wow. Can I talk to the painter?”

“She's not here at the moment.” Ivy had gone home with another headache. She'd been doing that a lot lately. Was it, as she claimed, a combination of paint fumes and eyestrain from so much close work? Or was the pressure of our deadline getting to her? Or was she reacting to the stress of dealing with the other designers? Dealing with one in particular—

“She'll be around a lot in the next two days,” I said aloud. “To finish up her work before our opening. She might even come back before you leave today, and if she doesn't, I can give you her contact information.”

Jessica nodded, and took several pictures of the faux marble floor. And then several of the faux oriental carpet in the center of the marble.

“And on the walls she's illustrating Christmas carols and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen,” I added. To one side of the door, the Little Match Girl already sat shivering in sparkling painted snow. The three kings processed majestically up the wall beside the stairs, bearing the richest, most bejeweled gifts I'd ever seen. But the seascape of “I Saw Three Ships A-Sailing In” was only three quarters finished, and the painting of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” barely begun—how could Ivy possibly find time to finish?

I banished those thoughts and concentrated on the reporter, who was staring at the three kings. And reaching out to tap them.

“Careful,” I said, grabbing her arm. “Some of the paint might still be wet.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Wow. So what's in here?”

She scrambled up and headed for the double French doors at the right side of the foyer.

“The study,” I said. “Done in a modern interpretation of the Art Deco style by Sarah Byrne from the decorating firm of Byrne, Banks, and Bailey.”

“Wow!” She was peering through the glass panes. And probably leaving a nose print. For a reporter, she hadn't yet displayed a very impressive vocabulary. I hoped she'd find a few more varied expressions for her article. But I had to admit that, like Ivy's painting, Sarah's black, red-and-gold Deco-themed fantasy was worth a few wows. I coveted it, just a little. A good thing Michael and I were very happy with our Arts and Crafts style interior—decorated, naturally, by Mother.

Of course, if seeing Sarah's room inspired Mother to do a little Art Deco experimentation, I could find a room in our oversized Victorian house for it. Michael's office, perhaps? Or one of the guest rooms?

“This designer's not around either?” Jessica stepped into the room and ran her finger over the dramatically curved arm of the closest of a pair of Art Deco armchairs upholstered in red velvet.

“She was here a minute ago,” I said. “Probably had to fetch something.” I was disappointed not to find Sarah around. If Jessica was going to interview some of the decorators, Sarah was one of the ones I wanted to steer her toward, and not just because I found her congenial. She was also articulate, upbeat, and funny. She usually wore a streak of some bright color in her blond hair—green, purple, red; whatever fit her mood—and dressed in odd but interesting clothes.

I was hoping Jessica would illustrate her article not only with pictures of the rooms but also a few of the more presentable designers. Mother's cool blond elegance. Eustace's dapper charm. Sarah's puckish grin and funky retro style.

Yes, definitely a good idea to keep Jessica here till Sarah came back. I nodded with approval as the reporter drifted around the room, taking pictures.

“Try out the chair,” I suggested. “You'd be amazed how comfortable it is.”

She perched tentatively on the edge of the red-velvet seat and then smiled and relaxed back into it.

“Wonderful,” she said. “I would love to have a chair this comfy for studying back at my dorm room. Why do I suspect it might cost a little more than I want to pay?”

“It probably costs as much as your annual tuition,” I said. “And my husband's on the faculty at Caerphilly College, so yes, I know how high tuition is. Those chairs are Sarah's pride and joy. Authentic something-or-others.”

“If I ever get filthy rich, I'll buy one,” she said, wriggling a little deeper into the chair. “But what happens to the chairs when the show is over? The owner of the house doesn't get to keep them, surely?”

“The owner of the house is the First Bank of Caerphilly,” I said, “which has been trying to sell it ever since they foreclosed on it six years ago. They very graciously agreed to let us use it for the Christmas show house. They're putting it up for sale as soon as the show is over, so of course they're hoping that someone will fall in love with it and want to buy it.”

“Weird that it wouldn't sell before,” she said. “It's a nice house. Or did it need a lot of fixing up after being empty for six years?”

“The Shiffley Construction Company did a little fixing up, as their donation to the project.”

“That's the company Mayor Shiffley owns?”

“Yes. Randall Shiffley's a big supporter of the historical society.” And luckily, not here to hear me call thousands of dollars in major repairs “a little fixing up.”

“So if all the decorators—” Jessica began.

“I am going to kill that man,” came a voice from the doorway.

 

Chapter 2

Jessica and I looked up to see a tall ash-blond woman standing in the doorway. Martha Blaine, another designer. The one Mother and I called “the other Martha”—though not, of course, to her face, because we'd figured out she wasn't a big Martha Stewart fan. Like Mother, she was tall enough that her head brushed the trailing evergreens, and she whacked them aside with a vicious swipe.

A loud hammering began upstairs.

“I said—” Martha began, raising her voice to be heard over the hammering.

“You're going to kill him,” I said. “I get it. You'll have to take a number, though. What's he done now?”

I didn't have to ask who she wanted to kill. There were only two male decorators in the house, and everyone loved Eustace Goodwin.

“What hasn't he done?” She paused as if briefly overcome by the weight of Clay Spottiswood's transgressions. I heard the whir of Jessica's camera as she took a few pictures of Martha in the doorway.

I wondered, not for the first time, if Martha had stage experience. Not only did she carry herself with a certain dramatic flair, she also had the trick of speaking from the diaphragm so her voice could easily be heard in the last row of the theater. Or, in this case, in the farthest corners of the house. Outside the study the hammering stopped, and everything suddenly seemed very still, as if all the other designers on the premises were pausing to eavesdrop.

“What's he done today?” I asked.

“He's been rinsing paintbrushes and rollers in my bathroom again,” Martha said. “And bloody carelessly. Oh, and he's dripped paint all over Violet's room on his way to mine.”

Inhaling the evergreen scent wouldn't help with this. I closed my eyes to count to ten. Martha, who'd had several occasions to watch me perform this temper-calming ritual over the last few weeks, waited patiently. I hadn't even made it to five before Jessica piped up.

“Who's this you're going to kill?” she asked.

I frowned at Martha and shook my head to suggest that perhaps we should not be having this conversation in front of a reporter. Either she didn't get my signals or she ignored them.

“Claiborne Spottiswood,” she said. “If he doesn't stop messing up other people's rooms— I don't know why Clay was allowed to participate in the show house to begin with.”

“He's a local decorator, and he turned in his application before the deadline, and the committee approved him,” I responded.

Martha scowled at that, but didn't say anything. I didn't have to remind her that she had waited until two weeks after the deadline to apply, and wouldn't have gotten in, despite her impressive reputation, if the committee hadn't been short on applicants and eager not to offend her. I thought she should be happy with what the committee had given her—two bathrooms and the laundry room. Not the most glamorous rooms in the house, but still, rooms that could be fabulous when done by a designer with her talent. In the five years since she'd moved from Richmond to set up shop here in Caerphilly, she'd quickly become one of the town's leading decorators.

But even though she was well on her way to making her rooms fabulous, I knew she was still angry that the committee had accepted Clay. Not just because they'd given him the master suite, which she thought should have been hers. There was bad blood between the two of them. I'd figured out that much. Maybe I should find someone who could tell me why.

But not right now, with Jessica drinking in every word and occasionally snapping off a few shots with the little camera, whose whirring and clicking was starting to get on my nerves.

“You can't let Clay keep ruining our work like this,” Martha said. “Unless you want a half-finished, paint-spattered mess on opening day.”

“Agreed,” I said. “I'll go inspect the damage, and then I'll talk to him.”

I strode out into the foyer and started up the stairs, walking as calmly and deliberately as I could. Martha and Jessica followed. Upstairs, to my relief, the hammering had stopped.

At the top of the stairs, to my right, I could see the open double doors to the master suite. When I was a few steps from the top, Clay Spottiswood stuck his head out.

“Where's my package?” he asked. “I'm expecting a package.”

“Not happy with all the packages you've stolen from the rest of us?” Martha snapped.

“Stop blaming me for the packages,” Clay said. “I've lost packages just like the rest of you.”

He had—or at least claimed he had—and he'd probably spent more time complaining to me than all the rest of the designers put together.

I ignored both Martha and Clay and turned left. I could see spots of blood-red paint on the tarp covering the hall floor. And a few spots on the walls, where Ivy, the trompe l'oeil artist, was painting an elaborate mural of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Had this, rather than paint fumes, stress, and eyestrain, caused the headache Ivy had gone home with?

I heard the whirring and clicking of Jessica's camera. Well, okay. Document the damage.

I entered Violet's room, which she was decorating in what Mother called “Early Disney Princess.” Her room was so over-the-top that Mother and I sometimes called her “Princess Violet,” though the name was a bit incongruous for a small and rather mousy-looking woman of around thirty. Everything in her room was in pink, white, and lavender. White-painted furniture. Wallpaper with pink and lavender floral garlands on a white background. Matching fabric on the twin bed and the half canopy over it. Pink and lavender decorations on the white-painted built-in bookshelves. A cluster of pink, white, and lavender stuffed animals and pillows on the bed.

The drops of red paint stood out like a trail of blood on the pink, white, and lavender petit-point rug.

I carefully avoided stepping on the drops, in case they were still wet, and entered the bathroom.

A good thing I knew it was only red paint. The room looked like a crime scene from a slasher movie, with not just drops but splashes, sprays, and even a few puddles of red. They stood out dramatically against the white-on-white spa look Martha had chosen for her design. The tile could probably be scrubbed clean and the walls repainted, but many of the towels and accessories would have to be replaced.

Behind me, in the Princess Room, I heard a shriek. I winced. Apparently Violet had come back and discovered the damage. I stuck my head back into the room and saw the hem of her frilly ruffled dress disappearing through the doorway to the hall. The wailing faded into the distance, and I suspected she had fled downstairs to seek comfort from Mother.

I grabbed one of the hand towels, its soft white terry cloth surface smeared with red. Then I turned, almost bumping into Martha and the reporter. Martha smiled, no doubt because she was pleased with the frown on my face. Jessica was clicking away with her camera.

I strode through the Princess Room and the hall and stopped in the double doorway of the master bedroom suite. The hammering had started up again and seemed to be coming from somewhere nearby—either the master bath or the huge walk-in closet.

“Clay!” I shouted.

Two heads popped up in the far corner of the room. Clay's workmen, Tomás and Mateo. Neither of them spoke more than a few words of English. They looked alarmed.

“
Que nada
,” I said, giving them as much of a smile as I could manage. I thought
que nada
meant something like “it's nothing to worry about.” They didn't look reassured. I wished my Spanish was good enough to say, “Don't worry, I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at your pig of a boss, and by the way, I could find you better jobs in about five minutes if you'd like to stop working for him.”