The Nightingale Before Christmas

When the Ghost of Christmas Present arrived laden with “turkeys, geese, game, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and great bowls of punch” I began looking forward to the upcoming holiday meals and thanking my lucky stars that Michael’s mother was in charge of providing them. And when Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed Scrooge the sorrow the Cratchits were suffering from losing Tiny Tim, audible sniffles could be heard throughout the theater, and I looked down the aisle to make sure the boys remembered that thanks to Scrooge’s reformation Tiny Tim would not die. Jamie looked anxious and was holding tightly to Mother’s hand, but Josh was fine—he was practicing the look of grave sorrow with which Michael read Bob Cratchit’s words: “I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child! My little child!”

The idea of being without one of the boys was bad enough—but at Christmas! I sniffled a little myself, and wanted to cheer when Scrooge woke from his ordeal and exclaimed “It’s Christmas day! I haven’t missed it.”

As everyone in the audience slowly filed out of the theater, exclaiming about the show and exchanging Christmas greetings as they went, I caught Rob’s sleeve.

“Rob,” I said. “I need to borrow one of your employees. Have you got an online Sherlock who can find out anything about anyone?”

“Sure thing.” He pulled out his phone and turned it on, scrolled through his contacts for a few moments, then nodded.

“Boomer’s your guy,” he said. “I’ll e-mail you his info.”

“Great,” I said. “How early can I call him tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Rob sounded amused. “Call him now.”

“It’s past eleven,” I said. “It could be midnight before I find a quiet place to call him.”

“He’s up,” Rob said. “He keeps vampire hours. If you wait till tomorrow, I wouldn’t call him before three or four in the afternoon.”

“And he works for you?”

“Flextime,” Rob said with a shrug.

So while everyone else went backstage to congratulate Michael, I lagged behind, found a quiet corner, and called the number.

“Yeah?” said a voice on the other end.

“Hi, is this Boomer?”

Silence.

“This is Meg Langslow,” I went on.

“Rob’s sister,” Boomer said.

I waited for a few moments, but clearly he thought that was enough of a response.

“Rob told me you could help me find out about someone,” I said. “A guy named Claiborne Spottiswood.”

“Spelled?”

Well, at least Boomer’s terse style was efficient. I spelled the name and reminded him also to look under “Clay” and every possible misspelling of “Spottiswood” he could think of.

“Standard operating procedure,” he said. “I’ll call you when I find something.”

When, not if. I liked the way Boomer thought.

“Thanks,” I said, but he’d already hung up.

I pocketed my phone and headed for the dressing rooms. But along the way I stopped, almost by force of habit, by the rack that usually held copies of the student newspaper. It was empty. Not surprising this late in the evening. Well, I could check their Web site tomorrow to see if they’d run an article on the show house, or for that matter, on the murder.

Wait—the rack wasn’t empty because of the late hour. We were on winter break. The newspaper wouldn’t be putting out another issue until the students came back, in two weeks. There might be a few students still hanging around for the holidays—students from the area, grad students, students on tight budgets who couldn’t afford the fare to go home for the holiday, and students who had something to do in town, like the ones working backstage at Michael’s show. Presumably Jessica was one of the few still here. Maybe she was whiling away the long dark days on the near-deserted campus by pursuing stories from the wider community. But by the time the paper’s next issue went out, the show house would be over, so an article wouldn’t do us any good.

“Blast!” I muttered. I remembered all the time I’d spent talking to Jessica—time I could so easily have spent doing something more immediately useful. And who knew how much of the designers’ time she’d wasted?

Ah, well. At least if she did the article it might get the decorators some publicity. And there was always the chance that once the chief caught up with her he might find something useful in the photos she took.

I ran into Randall in the throng of family and friends crowding Michael’s dressing room.

“Everything go okay at the house after I left?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Ivy was the only one still there when I left to come here. I’m going to drop by on the way home and make sure everything’s locked up.”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “You go home and rest.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Jamie was asleep on Michael’s shoulder by the time we got to the Twinmobile. Josh was busily discussing the costume he needed to have for his Dickens show, and was so wide awake that I was afraid I’d have to start assembling his miniature Victorian dress suit as soon as we got home. But a few seconds after I strapped him into his booster seat, he fell silent and his head lolled to one side in the sort of awkward position that never seems to bother children, though any adult who tried it would probably end up with a semipermanent sore neck.

Michael took off with the boys, and I headed up the street to where I’d parked my car. The streets that had been lined with cars belonging to shoppers and people going to the theater were nearly empty now that the stores were closed and the show over.

I was enjoying the peace and quiet and the crisp night air until I suddenly noticed the sound of footsteps behind me.

Chapter 14

Was I imagining the footsteps? I stopped and bent down as if to adjust my boot fastening. I stole a look behind me. There was no one in the street. And I heard no footsteps nearby.

Yet when I walked on, I heard it again. My footsteps made just a little more noise than they should. And the noise varied ever so slightly, as if someone was walking behind me, taking a step every time I did, and almost—but not quite—disguising the sound of his footsteps.

I walked along at a slow saunter until I came to a corner. Then, instead of crossing the street as I’d originally pla

I waited there, peering out from behind the trash cans to the mouth of the alley.

It wasn’t my imagination. I could hear footsteps in the street I’d left. Soft footsteps approaching the mouth of the alley.

“Meg? Are you all right?”

I started, and whirled to find Muriel, owner of the diner, standing there with a full black plastic garbage bag in one hand. Not surprising, since this was the alley that ran behind the diner.

“You startled me,” I said, a lot more softly than Muriel had spoken. “I thought someone was following me.”

We both fell silent and listened while peering toward the end of the alley, but we didn’t hear anything. At least I didn’t, and after a few moments Muriel shook her head.

“You sure you’re not just feeling spooked?” she asked. “What with finding a body last night and all?”

“Could be.” I stood up and dusted my pants off. “Sorry if I startled you.”

“No problem,” she said. “Hey, just in case someone really was following you, how about if you walk me to my car and then I’ll drive you to yours?”

“It’s a deal,” I said.

She deposited her garbage bag in the Dumpster and locked the back door of the diner behind her.

When we got to the mouth of the alley, I paused to look up and down the street. No one visible. Plenty of places to hide.