Valerie Malmont - Death, Snow, and Mistletoe

I still wondered if his story about the robbery was a cover-up. “Were you here when they broke in?” I asked.

“Uh-uh.” He smiled slyly. “I was at a friend's house, if you know what I mean.” Again, “nudge, nudge, wink wink.”

I smiled like a conspirator. “You naughty boy, you have a friend, and you're flirting with me.”

“We have an understanding, her and me.”

I restrained the impulse to scream, She and I , and asked, “Were you at her house the night of the fire when Oretta Clopper was killed?”

“No. My friend was staying here that night. Why are you asking?”

“You do know that Oretta was shot, don't you?”

He nodded.

“The police and the fire chief think the fire was set to cover up her murder. If you were home, I thought you might have seen or heard something that would help the police find her killer.”

“I see,” he said. “Sorry I can't help, but I was otherwise occupied, if you know what I mean.”

“Would you be willing to give me your friend's name and address? Perhaps she noticed something you didn't.”

“I don't suppose she'd mind,” he said. “We have nothing to be ashamed of.” He wrote something on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. I glanced at it, didn't recognize the name, and stuck it in my pocket. If the woman backed up his story, it was a classic alibi.

He placed the gun in my hand and stood close behind me. “Now, Tori. Let's try a few shots.” His breath was hot in my ear, as he said, “I always bring my girlfriends down here for some target practice. You can tell a lot about a gal by the way she handles a weapon.”

I placed the gun on the ledge and said firmly, “Dr. Wilson, I am not one of your girlfriends. And I am not going to shoot at Bambi or any other target you put up. I was a reporter on the police beat in New York for too many years, and I've had the misfortune to see firsthand the kind of havoc guns can cause.”

Unabashed, he adjusted his ascot and smiled at me. “Can I offer you another martini, my dear?”

For some reason, the second martini went down a lot smoother than the first. Before I left, I was feeling quite warm and content. Even Cletus didn't seem as noxious as I'd first found him.

When I entered my house, Praxythea was sitting at the kitchen table with Fred on her lap. In one excited burst, I told her the story of Fred's adventures and amazing rescue. My voice trailed off as I realized she wasn't giving me her total attention.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Not at all.”

I could tell by the glint in her emerald-green eyes that something was very wrong. I waited for her to say more.

“I'm sorry, Tori, but I have to leave,” she said.

“You mean right after Christmas? I didn't expect you could stay for much longer.”

She studiously avoided looking at me. “Now, Tori. I have to go now. My friend sent his plane. It's at the Lickin Creek airport, now. I've been waiting for you to come home so I could say good-bye.”

Her suitcases were next to the door.

Stunned, I sat down and stared at her. “What about our old-fashioned Christmas? All our plans? I was really looking forward to it.”

“But you have so much, Tori. I didn't think he cared, but it turns out he needs me more than you do. I'm sorry.”

I have so much? What could she possibly mean? Wasn't I the loneliest person on earth? I thought of all the people in the world who were so much worse off, and my despair slowly vanished. It was time to climb off my pity-pot. “I understand. Really.”

“There's one thing I'd like to ask of you,” Praxythea said.

“Ask away.”

“I wonder if you'd mind if I took Icky with me? He and I have bonded over the past few days, and I know he'll miss me.”

She wanted to take the lizard! Hallelujah. God works in mysterious ways.

“He's really not mine to give away,” I reluctantly pointed out.

“But he's homeless. Now that Oretta's gone, who's going to find a home for him?”

“Good point. He's yours.” I walked over to the terrar-ium and chanted, “Adios, sayonara, adieu, dzaijyan, lakon, aloha, auf Wiedersehen, ciao.” I could think of no more ways to say good-bye.

“Have you been drinking, Tori?” Praxythea stood at my side with a disapproving look on her face.

“Two martinis,” I admitted.

“I'd stay away from them in the future if I were you.”

Outside, a car horn tooted. “That must be the taxi,” she said. “Can you help me carry Icky's stuff out?”

As we picked up his home, some papers that had been under the terrarium fell to the floor. “Let them lie,” I said. “I'll get them later.”

“They could be instructions for his care and feeding. We'd better look at them.”

I gathered the pages into an inch-high stack. “For Pete's sake,” I said as I looked through them. “ Death in the Afternoon by Oretta Clopper. It's a copy of Oretta's play! I see she continued with the tradition of stealing other people's titles.”

“She must have dropped it when she brought Icky in,” Praxythea said.

“Accidentally on purpose. When she asked me if I wanted to read it, I made some sort of excuse about being too busy. My guess is she left it here knowing my natural curiosity would get the better of me.”

I tossed it on top of the Christmas catalogs stacked on the counter and took hold of one end of Icky's abode. “We'd better get you on your way before the weather turns really bad.”

After she left, in a flurry of promises to come back as soon as possible, I sat down at the table and drank the last cup of freshly-brewed coffee I'd probably have this year. Things could be worse , I thought. After all, I've got a nice place to live, a job, some new friends, and a baby brother due any minute. I don't need Praxythea to have a nice Christmas.

To break the extraordinary silence, I turned on the radio. Public Broadcasting was offering Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” painfully reminded me that Oretta's adaptation of the ballet had ended up being “The Death of the Sugar Plum Fairies.”

Even the cats looked dejected. Fred probably wished he was back at the art studio where he was a star. We were all startled when the phone rang with a call from Luscious.

“I don't believe this,” I shouted, after he was finished talking. “We can't just quit!”

“I don't have any choice, Tori. Marvin Bumbaugh and the mayor just left my office. They said there have been too many complaints about you, and they want it to stop. Now!”

“But what about your job?” I stammered. “We've got to find the killer or you'll be fired.”

He sounded as low as a man could possibly be when he said, “You don't get it, do you? They gave me two weeks’ notice.”

“But they can't do that.”

“They can, and they have. It's over, Tori. All over.”

Dashing through the snow

ON MONDAY MORNING, I MOPED. NOT BE cause I was still feeling sorry for myself-I'd gotten over that; I didn't need to depend on other people to make me happy-but because I felt terrible about what I'd done to Luscious. Instead of helping him, my investigative efforts had cost him his job.

I spent the afternoon reading Cassie's book on witchcraft. Although I'd never belonged to a church, I always felt I was a spiritual person, and her depiction of the Wiccan religion touched a spot deep inside me where something had always seemed to be lacking. I was determined to find out more.