Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

“He could not have climbed those steps with the knife in him,” Lowara said, shaking his head. “It would have killed him at once.”

“What about the knife? You admit that jeweled dagger is yours?”

He shrugged. “It is mine. I wore it yesterday beneath my coat. But in the crowd after services I was jostled. The knife was taken from me.”

“Without your realizing it? That’s hard to believe.”

“It is true, nevertheless.”

“Why would anyone want to kill Parson Wigger?” I asked.

He smiled and opened his hands to me. “So a gypsy would be blamed for it,” he said, as if that was the most logical reason in the world.

The snow stopped falling as I walked back to the church. In my pocket, neatly wrapped in newspaper, was the jeweled dagger that had killed Parson Wigger. The sheriff had given up any hope of finding fingerprints on the corded hilt with its imitation ruby, and had allowed me to borrow it to conduct an experiment.

It had occurred to me that the knife could have been thrown or propelled from some distance away, and that it might be slender enough to pass through the chicken-wire barricade. To test my theory I entered the unguarded church and climbed once more to the belfry in the steeple.

But I was wrong.

True, the knife could be worked through the wire with some difficulty, but coming at it straight ahead or even at an angle, the width of the crosspiece-the hilt guard-kept it from passing through. It simply could not have been thrown or propelled from outside.

Which left me with Carranza Lowara once more.

The only possible murderer.

Had he lied?

Remembering that moment when Sheriff Lens and I found him standin’ over the body, rememberin’ the terror written across his face, I somehow couldn’t believe it.

I went back downstairs and walked around the pews, hopin’ some flash of illumination would light up my mind. Finally I stuffed the dagger back in my coat pocket and went outside. It was as I took a short cut across the snow-covered side yard that somethin’ caught my eye, as white as the snow and half buried in it.

I pulled it free and saw that it was a white surplice like the one Parson Wigger had worn during the Christmas service. There was a dark red stain on it, and a tear about an inch long.

I stood there holding it in my hand, and then turned to stare up at the steeple that towered above me.

“I reckon we gotta ship the gypsy over to the county seat,” Sheriff Lens was saying when I returned to the jail and placed the dagger carefully back on his desk.

“Why’s that, Sheriff?”

“Eustace Carey says there’s talk o’ lynchin’. I know damn well they won’t do it, but I can’t take no chances. It happened fifty years ago and it can happen again.”

I sat down opposite him. “Sheriff, there’s somethin’ you’ve got to tell me. That man’s life may depend on it. You sought out Parson Wigger on Christmas Day for some reason. It was somethin’ that couldn’t even wait till after the holiday.”

Sheriff Lens looked uneasy. “I told you-it don’t matter now.”

“But don’t you see it does matter-now more than ever?”

The sheriff got to his feet and moved to the window. Across the square we could see a small group of men watching the jail. That must have decided him. “Mebbe you’re right, Doc. I’m too old to keep secrets, anyway. You see, the Hartford police sent through a report suggesting I question Parson Wigger. Seems he wasn’t no real parson at all.”

“What?”

“He’d been passin’ himself off as a parson down Hartford way for two years, till somebody checked his background and they run him outta town. Some said he was runnin’ a giant con game, while others thought he was more interested in the parish wives. Whatever the truth, his background was mighty shady.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Like I said, the man’s dead now. Why blacken his character? He never did no harm in Northmont.”

The door opened and Eustace Carey came bargin’ in, followed by a half-dozen other local businessmen. “We want to talk, Sheriff. There’s ugly words goin’ around. Even if you keep that one safe, there might be an attempt to burn the gypsy wagons.”

I knew then that I had to speak out. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Settle down, and I’ll tell you what really happened to Parson Wigger. He wasn’t killed by the gypsy, and he wasn’t killed by any invisible demon, unless you count the demon within himself.”

“What do you mean by that?” Carey demanded.

I told them what I’d just learned from Sheriff Lens. “Don’t you see? Don’t you all see? The parson was standin’ there in the doorway and he saw us comin’ for him. It was the sight of the sheriff that frightened him, that told him the jig was up. Why else would he run into the church and up the belfry stairs, boltin’ the door behind him? It was fear that drove him up there, fear of Sheriff Lens and the truth.”

“But who killed him?”

“When he heard that bolt break, when he heard us on, the stairs and realized his masquerade was about to be uncovered, he took the gypsy’s dagger and plunged it into his own chest. There was never any invisible murderer or any impossible crime. Parson Wigger killed himself.”

It took a lot more talkin’ after that, of course, to convince them it was the only possible solution. You see, I had to get Carranza out of his cell and demonstrate that he couldn’t have stabbed the parson with his right hand because of that old arm injury. Then I showed, from the angle of the wound, that it had to be done by a right-handed person-unless he’d stabbed himself.

“There was no one else up there,” I argued. “If Carranza Lowara didn’t kill him, he must have killed himself. It’s as simple as that.”

They released Lowara the next mornin’, and Sheriff Lens drove him out to the gypsy encampment in the town’s only police car. I watched them go, standin’ in the doorway of my office, and April said, “Can’t you close that door, Dr. Sam? Now that you’ve solved another case can’t you let the poor man go home in peace?”

“I have something else that must be done, April,” I told her. “See you later.”

I got into the Runabout and drove out over the snow-rutted roads to Minnie Haskins’ place. I didn’t stop at the farmhouse but continued out around the back till I reached the gypsy encampment. When Volga saw the car she came runnin’ across the snow to meet me.

“How can we ever thank you, Dr. Hawthorne? You have saved my husband from certain imprisonment and even death!”

“Go get him right now and I’ll tell you how you can thank me.”

I stood and waited by the car, venturing no closer to the wagons, where I could see little Tene playing in the snow. Presently Carranza joined me with Volga trailing him.

“I owe you my thanks,” he said. “My freedom.”

I was starin’ out across the snowy fields. “I owe you somethin’ too. You taught me something about the different types of deception-deception as it is practiced by the gadjo and by the rom.”

As I spoke I reached out and yanked at his long black hair. It came away in my hand, and Volga gasped. He was almost bald without the wig, and seemed at least ten years older. I stripped the mustache from his upper lip too, and he made no effort to stop me.

“All right, Doctor,” he said. “A little deception. Will you have me arrested again because I wear a wig and false mustache? Will you say after all that I killed Parson Wigger?”

I shook my head. “No, Carranza. This doesn’t tell me that you killed Wigger. But it does tell me that Volga killed him.”

She gasped again, and fell back as if I’d struck her. “This man is a demon!” she told her husband. “How could he know?”