The Nightingale Before Christmas

The pageant began, as always, with Mary and Joseph entering the back of the church to wend their way down the center aisle to Bethlehem. In another of Robyn’s i

Cut to the shepherds, who filed out from behind the curtain to abide in their fields by night—the fields being represented by the area in front of the curtain and a potted palm tree. Josh seemed to think that abiding meant walking up and down at the front of the stage with his crook over his shoulder like a sentry’s rifle, glowering at any sheep who even thought of leaving his or her assigned piece of turf. Jamie took a milder view of his duties, and was happily sitting in the midst of the sheep, his head barely visible over the sea of woolly forms.

It was at this point that I deduced that Jamie and Josh’s promotion to shepherd had occurred not because they were so much older and wiser but because, thanks to the new influx of families, the church had an overabundance of children even younger.

I caught a glimpse of Robyn, looking harried, peeking out from behind the curtain. It occurred to me that she was filling much the same cat-herding role for the pageant that I did at the show house. Though at least her charges had an excuse for behaving immaturely. And so far none of them had slaughtered each other, though if Josh kept waving his crook about wildly that, too, was a possibility.

I was about to hiss a cease-and-desist command at Josh when the angel of the Lord appeared stage left, causing Josh to leap to the defense of his flock. Some of the smaller sheep, startled by the angel’s sudden appearance, cried a little and huddled closer to Jamie for protection. But the angel ignored Josh’s dramatic flourishes of his crook and mimed speaking while Michael intoned the relevant verses from Luke.

And when Michael read out that a “great company of the heavenly host appeared,” a dozen assorted preteen angels shuffled out from the wings and put their hands together as if in prayer. Most of them weren’t in costume yet, but they were all wearing their wings, because not putting each other’s eyes out with the wings was the tricky part that they needed to rehearse. Along with not knocking each other down and not stepping on the sheep as they lined up between the sheep and the curtain. Robyn took them through their entrance half a dozen times, to the great displeasure of the sheep, who were impatient to get to their favorite part of their roles, singing “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” along with the choir.

But eventually the angels managed their entrance to Robyn’s satisfaction, and then we all sang the carol together, sounding almost as good as we would when the full choir joined in. After that, the curtain opened, and Josh and Jamie and a third shepherd herded the sheep past the stable and settled them on one side of the stage—except for one very small sheep who was discovered to be in dire need of a diaper change and was handed down to his waiting mother.

Then the wise men entered. In spite of Grandfather’s offer to lend her three of the camels from his zoo, Robyn had decided not to risk it. So the wise men entered stage right, afoot, while one of the older boys stood in the wings and played a recording of Grandfather’s camels making their characteristic moaning and groaning sounds. Perhaps by Christmas eve someone could help him edit out the part where an adult male voice yelped and then said, rather loudly, “let go of my hat, you smelly beast!”

Then we took another break in the action to sing “We Three Kings,” after which the three wise men presented their gifts—represented, at the moment, by a popcorn tin, a shoe box, and a coffee pot, since the church’s traditional gold, frankincense, and myrrh props had been repainted at the last minute and were not quite dry yet.

A final rousing rendition of “Joy to the World” ended the pageant, and the players all scattered to join their parents and hurry back to the room where the buffet lunch had been set up.

“Mommy,” Josh asked me during lunch. “Do you like frankincense and myrrh?”

“Frankincense and myrrh are for babies,” Jamie said scornfully.

“No, they’re not,” Josh said.

“Then why did the wise men give them to Baby Jesus?”

“No one had invented Xboxes yet,” Michael said.

“Actually, I think I might be allergic to frankincense and myrrh,” I said.

Josh looked disappointed.

After lunch, Michael headed off to take the boys sledding, and I was walking out to my car, pla

I opened my e-mail and scrolled down till I found one from [email protected] /* */ I opened it and found it consisted of page after page of links. E-mail worked on my phone, but for links, I’d need to be at my computer. I closed it and was getting into my car when my phone rang. Chief Burke.

“Meg, are you very busy right now?” he asked.

If anyone else had asked me that, I’d have given them chapter and verse of everything waiting for me back at the show house. Somehow I didn’t think it was a good idea to be so blunt with the chief.

But while I was struggling for a tactful answer, he figured this out.

“Of course you’re busy,” he said, with a sigh. “What I meant was, can you possibly break away for a few minutes to take a look at something here?”

“Where’s here?”

“Mr. Spottiswood’s house—1224 Pruitt Avenue.”

Suddenly leaving the show house to fend for itself for a while seemed like an awesome idea.

“I’ll be right there.”

Clay’s house surprised me. I’d expected something imposing, expensive, and decorated to the nines in taste that was utterly different from mine. But 1224 Pruitt Avenue turned out to be one of a nearly identical row of town houses, in a subdivision full of such rows. I suspected most of the town houses were rented by pairs, trios, or quartets of young singles. There were no toys in any of the yards, very little landscaping, and even though every house had a garage, both sides of the street were lined with parked cars, bumper to bumper. I had to park over a block away.

When I showed up at the doorway, Sammy Wendell came out to meet me. His deputy’s uniform looked disheveled, as if he’d been working several shifts without a break.

“This way.” He led me through a living room decorated with mismatched and slightly battered articles of furniture that looked as if they belonged in larger and more imposing rooms. The only things that didn’t look like castoffs from some of Clay’s decorating projects were the paintings—a dark, moody landscape over the mantel, an equally dark and moody bar scene over the sofa, and a huge cityscape filling all of one otherwise empty wall. Were they Clay’s own paintings? Probably. I could see a signature in the corner of each that looked rather like a stylized CS.

“It’s this way,” Sammy said, interrupting my study of the art.

I followed him through a kitchen decorated only with dirty dishes. And finally into the garage.

Chief Burke was standing in the garage, looking down at a collection of twenty or so boxes. I could see my cousin Horace squatting down beside the boxes, writing something down in a notebook. His uniform also looked a little the worse for wear.