Рита Браун - Santa Clawed

Sometimes Harry could open her mouth before weighing her words.

“Never. I’d know. Can you think of anyone or any reason?” Brother Morris didn’t take offense.

“I can’t. Fair and I were just discussing that.”

Fair carefully placed his fork on his plate. “Whoever is doing this can’t live far. How would they get to Crozet or Afton Mountain with the weather? Brother, this person may not be in your brotherhood, but it must be someone with an intimate connection.”

At the word “intimate,” Brother Morris raised his dark eyebrows. “I’ve sat with Brother George and Brother Luther, our treasurer. We’ve gone over the list of people who have supported us. We’ve even made lists of delivery people. No one jumps out at us, and no one has even had cross words with any of us. It’s baffling and frightening.”

“Maybe it’s someone who’s mentally ill.” Harry flipped more waffles onto a plate.

“Perhaps.” Brother Morris sounded mournful, even though he’d just inhaled two waffles.

Harry had never seen food disappear so quickly in her life, and Fair could eat a lot himself.

“I wish we did have some ideas,” Fair said.

“Ah, well, it was a hope that maybe you knew something of Bryson’s character that I didn’t.”

“The only thing I can say about Bryson is that his exceedingly high opinion of himself grated on some people,” Harry said. “But he also had some close friends, like Bill Keelo. Some people could take him and some couldn’t.”

“That could be said of us all.”

After finishing his waffles, Brother Morris thanked them profusely, and he thanked Harry again for the pitch pipe. When he reached the door he appeared to notice Harry’s deep cut for the first time as her baseball hat, a bit loose so as not to irritate the wound, slipped a little.

“Harry, what did you do to your head?”

“Low beam,” she replied with half a smile.

“I thought that was something on a car,” he replied, half-smiling to himself as he left.

29

The afternoon of Boxing Day, Harry, Fair, Susan and Ned drove to Racquel’s, where Jean and Bill Keelo greeted them. Jean had organized everything, from answering the phones to keeping a notebook with information of who brought food. Miranda Hogendobber placed food on the dining-room table and kept the coffee going. The place was jammed with people.

Bill Keelo and Alex Corbett made sure people had enough to eat and drink. They acted as unofficial ushers, in a sense.

Susan carried a large casserole, while Harry had made a huge plate of small sandwiches. The two Deeds teenagers had their friends there. Everyone must have realized that teenagers eat a lot, because there was enough food to feed the entire high school senior class.

After handing over the food, the next thing that the Haristeens and the Tuckers had to do was properly visit the new widow. Racquel sat by the fireplace in the living room. Tears flowed, but that was natural. Upset as she was, vanity probably saved her. What does a new widow wear? In Racquel’s case it was a suede suit, a heavy gold necklace, and small domed gold earrings to match her domed ring. Flanked by her sons, who didn’t quite know what to do, Racquel accepted proffered hands and kisses on the cheeks. Racquel did rise to greet Harry and Fair, Susan and Ned behind them.

“Please don’t get up.” Fair gently seated her.

“What was he doing at Barracks Road? What?”

No one could answer this question.

Susan bent low to say, “Racquel, I am so terribly sorry.”

Ned kissed her on the cheek, while Harry and Fair shook the boys’ hands and hugged them, too.

The contrast of the house—all red and gold for Christmas—with the emotional misery only underscored how awful everyone felt.

A new stream of classmates entered. Harry knew they’d be at sixes and sevens, too. It takes some time to learn how to handle these events, but the good thing was, the boys would be surrounded by their friends. In years to come, they would remember who came to console them.

Both Harry and Susan went into the kitchen, where Miranda was in command.

“Dreadful! Dreadful!” Miranda wrapped her arms around Harry, then Susan.

“Frightening.” Susan began garnishing a huge plate of sliced ham with parsley.

These women had attended those who were bereaved many times. They worked hand in glove.

Harry pulled the overflowing trash bag out of the can, tightened the drawstring, and walked it out to the porch to place it in one of the large garbage cans.

On reentering the kitchen she said, “Remind me to take the trash when I go.”

“Thank you, Harry. I was beginning to worry about that.” Miranda deftly stacked biscuits on a plate. “There will be a few runs to the dump today.”

“There’s enough food here to feed an army.” Harry glanced around at the incredible abundance.

“That’s problem number two.” Miranda kept stacking biscuits. “I don’t know where to store all this food. She’s going to need it.”

As if on cue, the doorbell rang and another flood of people washed through the front door. BoomBoom helped carry the largesse into the kitchen. Alicia, also burdened, followed behind her.

“Put it on the counter.” Miranda pointed.

Harry went over to greet her two foxhunting buddies.

“There’s enough food here to feed an army.” BoomBoom unknowingly repeated Harry’s sentiments after kissing her on the cheek.

“Out-of-town people will begin arriving tomorrow and for the rest of the week. We’ll go through all of this,” Miranda informed them.

Alicia offered, “Why can’t we all take some home and then bring it back in the morning?”

“Might work. Let me check with Jean.” Miranda looked up as the kitchen door swung open and yet more food arrived.

Just then Jean pushed through the door. “How are you doing, Miranda?”

“Doing,” Miranda said, then told her of the distributing food idea.

“Yes, that ought to solve the problem.” Jean turned to leave as the doorbell rang again and she heard Bill’s voice greeting more people.

“Harry.” Miranda pointed to an overflowing garbage bag.

“That was fast.” Harry carried it out to the porch. Returning, she mentioned, “We need more garbage cans.”

Miranda said, “I’ll run by Wal-Mart. Can’t do anything now.”

“Ah.” Harry had opened her mouth to say more when a loud voice in the living room riveted all their attention.

“I don’t care!” Racquel shouted.

Harry and Susan hurried into the room to see if anything could be done.

Tom, at fifteen Racquel’s oldest son, tugged at her arm. “Mom, Mom, come on.”

She shook him off, then bore down once more on Brother Luther. “He’s dead because of you! They’re all dead because of you.”

Shocked, Brother Luther took a step back. “I thought Brother Morris—”