Duck the Halls(87)

“I’ll be a bit late,” I said. “I have to pick up a few things at the grocery store. Don’t mention that to Mother if she changes her mind and decides to come,” I added.

“Because she would think planning for the rummage sale should trump mere groceries?” Robyn said, with a laugh.

“Something like that,” I said. “You have no idea.”

“Actually, I do.” She looked serious for a moment. “Your mother is a force of nature. I’m just glad she’s usually on my side. Call me when you and your mother are coming over tomorrow to inspect the boxes. Matt’s back from North Carolina. He and I can help.”

My errand at the grocery store didn’t take long. I was picking up supplies for tomorrow night’s secret Christmas dinner. Cans of refrigerator rolls. Cranberries. Cran-apple juice for the boys to drink—we always served it on festive occasions so they would feel included when we lifted glasses of red wine for toasts. I pondered getting some ice cream, a popular favorite with the boys and Michael. But I wasn’t sure there would be room in the tiny freezer compartment of the basement apartment’s ancient toy-sized refrigerator for both the ice cream and an ice cube tray.

The store was surprisingly crowded for such a late hour. Some of the people were piling their baskets high with the makings of their own Christmas dinners—turkeys, geese, ham, ribs, pork roasts, potatoes and sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberries, pies, premade pie shells, cans of pumpkin, bags of flour and sugar—looking at other people’s carts was giving me an appetite. And just walking down the spice aisles and seeing people filling their carts with cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and other spices made me happy.

In the housewares aisle, I convinced a young, recently married Shiffley that no, a fancy electric mixer would not be the perfect present for his wife and suggested he contact Rose Noire, who could put together a deluxe basket of luxurious foods and wonderfully scented sachets, lotions, and potpourris. And then I ended up giving her card to several other present-seeking husbands and boyfriends who had been eavesdropping on our conversation. Tomorrow, I knew, would be one of her busiest days of the year, as the growing number of men who waited till the last minute to start looking for presents for their wives and girlfriends descended on her en masse, all begging for special gift baskets. A good thing she started making up the special baskets before Thanksgiving, though this year business had been going so well that several times in the last month she’d enlisted the rest of the household, even the boys, for several intense evenings of cutting up and wrapping soap, mixing and bagging potpourri, using rubber stamps to create labels, and doing all the other small tasks needed to get her supplies back to a good level.

All in all, I was in a good mood when I left the market. When I got to my car, I put the few things that were going home in the trunk, and the two bags of items going to the basement apartment on the front passenger seat. Probably a good idea to deliver them before I went home, lest one of the mothers come across the cranberries and ask what they were for.

My route to the apartment led near Trinity, and on sudden impulse, I passed the turn that would have been my most direct route to the basement apartment and took a slight detour. I realized that Mother had been on my mind. And I found myself suddenly thinking that perhaps it had been a little too easy to convince Mother to postpone her inspection of the estate sale hoard until tomorrow. And that her decision to go home and rest rather than attend the cast party was slightly suspect. And Mother was on the vestry—wasn’t it possible, even probable, that Mother was in possession of one of those million spare keys Robyn had mentioned? And that in spite of Trinity being a deserted recent crime scene, she might decide to drop in to check on Mrs. Thornefield’s legacy?





Chapter 38


Sure enough, Mother’s gray sedan was in the parking lot. Toward the left side, as close as you could get to the basement door. I didn’t see any lights on in the church, but I caught a few flickers of light through the basement windows, as if someone was walking around with a flashlight.

I parked my car next to hers. I put the groceries destined for the apartment on the floor and threw a couple of things on top of them, in case she came out and peeked inside before I found her. Then I headed for the stairwell that led to the basement door. The parking lot was empty except for our two cars, which would have been unheard of, except that there was nothing scheduled here tonight—I’d relocated everything that was supposed to happen here today to other venues, and hadn’t rearranged anything after the chief finally released the crime scene. The parking lot would be full enough tomorrow. All the parking lots. But tonight …