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Sarah’s books would have kept Dad and me happily occupied for however long Mother wanted to spend in a house.
“Nice selection,” I said, adopting the traditional posture with my hands clasped behind my back and my body leaning toward the shelves. “You must patronize a better class of thrift shop than Violet.”
“Actually, I brought in some of my own books,” she said with a laugh.
Better and better. I saw a lot of my own favorites, both childhood and adult, and Dad would have been gratified by the large selection of crime fiction. And she had interesting tastes in history and biography.
“I admit, I left my small collection of first editions at home,” she said. “And I’m sort of arranging these by color, which I wouldn’t do at home. I’m strictly alphabetical there.”
“Michael and I do alphabetical within subject,” I said. “Although we recently pulled together all the kids’ books that we want the boys to find and read over the next few years, and put them on shelves in their rooms. And we also decided to get a few locked bookcases for the stuff we didn’t want the boys to get their hands on for a couple of decades.”
“Good idea.” She took a few steps back, tilted her head, and squinted to see what effect she’d created. “So is my library more interesting than Violet’s?”
“No idea,” I said. “She’s covering all her books with pretty pastel paper.”
Sarah winced. She was a reader. She got it.
I made a mental note to come back later and peruse Sarah’s shelves.
“So is this photographer really coming to see the house?” Sarah asked. “Or is he coming to see the place where a murder took place?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “But who cares, as long as it gets the show house some publicity?”
“And if he shows up and only wants to take pictures of the crime scene?”
“Then I’ll tell him that I have to get permission from the police to let him do that, and in the meantime, would he like to take some pictures of the other rooms.”
“I like the way you think,” Sarah said. “And if he doesn’t bother with our rooms—”
“Then the chief won’t give his permission.” My phone had started ringing, so I nodded to Sarah and stepped out into the hall to answer it.
“Do you put marshmallows on your sweet potatoes?”
Michael’s mother again.
“I don’t, because I never make sweet potatoes,” I said. “And I have no idea what Mother does, because I dislike sweet potatoes and never eat them. You could make some with and some without.”
“But what’s your family tradition?”
“I’ll ask Mother,” I said.
I stuck my head into the great room.
“Mother! Sweet potatoes! With or without marshmallows?”
“Well, I prefer them without,” she said. “But your father and your brother love marshmallows. And while I don’t know about—”
“Some of each,” I said to Michael’s mother. “Gotta run.”
The relief I felt at getting out of the show house for an hour or two was a little preview of how happy I was going to feel when it had opened. Better yet, when it was all over but counting up how much we’d raised for the historical society.
Chapter 17
Downtown, the sidewalks were full of shoppers—the sidewalks, and in a few places, the streets, where residents and business owners hadn’t yet done a good job of snowplowing. A lot of unfamiliar faces, so it looked as if Randall’s a
Last year, Randall had had to scale back his plans when the county council had balked at any major expenditure. But after seeing the dramatic increase in revenue from local shops, restaurants, and lodgings generated by Randall’s relatively modest efforts, the council had authorized a much more ambitious plan this year. Nearly every building in town had been decorated to the hilt and the street swarmed with low-paid or volunteer reenactors in Victorian costume. The clothing shops featured bustles and top hats in their front windows. The toy store displayed wooden toys and elaborately painted nutcrackers. The candy store featured rock candy, candy canes, and old-fashioned taffy.
Volunteers in thick Victorian greatcoats lurked on every third corner, ringing bells and collecting funds for Caerphilly Cares, a consortium of local charities. Parties of carolers roamed the streets in hoop skirts and frock coats, serenading the crowds with Victorian-era carols. Chief Burke had drawn the line at forcing his officers into old-fashioned London policemen’s outfits, so Randall had recruited a volunteer security force who strolled about the town wearing their distinctive custodian helmets and twirling realistic looking truncheons. And some of the more enterprising shopkeepers had begun showing up in costume and claiming it increased sales.
About the only holdout to the Victorianization of Caerphilly was Muriel’s Diner, whose owner was so firmly entrenched in her attempt to maintain its original 1950s décor that even Randall couldn’t sway her. But she’d decorated the building with so many garlands, bows, angels, holly branches, and “Merry Christmas” ba
My route to Grace Episcopal took me past the town square, where the Christmas tree—“just a smidgen shorter than the National Christmas Tree,” according to Randall—was beautiful, even though a lot of the ornaments were presently obscured by snow.
The Methodists, who would be hosting the a
But the Methodists were getting busy for tomorrow’s big event, shoveling the area around Bethlehem and the wise men’s tent—and with luck, once they dug a path to it they’d clear off the tent as well.
I arrived at Grace Episcopal in plenty of time for the rehearsal. I waved at Robyn, the rector, but I’m not sure she saw me. She had her hands full. There were at least twice as many children appearing in the pageant as last year, which spoke well for Robyn’s efforts to recruit new members and get the existing ones more involved. But as any parent can testify, doubling the number of children in any given situation quadrupled the amount of noise and confusion.
I wondered briefly if any of the children came from the women’s shelter. I thought I recognized one small sheep as the child Vermillion had been carrying. What if—
And then I shoved Vermillion and the shelter and the show house and the murders out of my head and tried to concentrate on enjoying the pageant.
There were several mothers helping, and I needed a break from my own set of rambunctious and badly behaved charges—by which I meant the designers, not Josh and Jamie—so I just sat with Michael in a pew a few rows back from the temporary stage and braced myself to leap into the fray if either of our angels did anything particularly heinous.
The church was beautifully decorated, as usual, with spruce and fir garlands, clusters of holly, and ba
And one of Robyn’s i