Duck the Halls(92)

Several comparatively tall boys and girls dressed as shepherds appeared at the far right, herding twenty smaller children dressed as sheep. The sheep milled about restlessly, being shushed occasionally by their keepers or whacked with crooks, while the choir and the congregation sang “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night”—thank goodness only the first verse this time. Then the shepherds herded their charges past the manger and got them settled down on the left side of the stage on more hay bales, except for a couple of small boy sheep who insisted on sitting with my two little dinosaurs.

Michael switched over to the book of Matthew.

“‘Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.’”

The three children chosen to be wise men—or, in this case, two wise men and one wise woman—filed out from the left, carefully holding boxes wrapped in gold paper, presumably containing the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, while we all sang the first verse of “We Three Kings.” I was relieved to see that there weren’t any children in camel suits—especially since the donkey still erupted from time to time with stomach-writhing and alarming sounds of internal conflict and had to be suppressed by Joseph.

“‘Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.’” The wise persons all popped the tops of their boxes and showed the contents to Mary, who nodded with approval. “‘And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.’” At this, the wise men looked anxiously back the way they’d come, and then set down their boxes at the foot of the manger and tiptoed off in the other direction.

Then the choir started us off with “Joy to the World” and at the end of the song, the wise men came back. All the participants took a bow while we applauded, and then all the parents and grandparents put away their cell phones and cameras and the children scampered out to join their families in the pews for the rest of the service.

A good thing we weren’t as tightly scheduled as we had been over the last few days, because after the service was over, everyone milled around for at least half an hour, praising all the pageant participants and sharing the latest gossip and generally reveling in the fact that Trinity was ours, not just for the moment, for the whole rest of the day and all day tomorrow. Doubtless all the other churches were feeling a similar sense of relief.

When everyone finally began drifting away, Michael took his mother and our two dinosaurs for lunch at Mother and Dad’s while I headed over to the police station for my interview with the chief.

I took the long way around, in part so I could drive by as many churches as possible. In fact, I cruised through the parking lots of several. The choir was in full and glorious voice at New Life Baptist Church. The parking lot at St. Byblig’s was full, and there were cars parked up and down the road so far in both directions that a couple of parishioners were using their vans to haul latecomers to the door. An early service had just ended at the Presbyterian church and even though it was still below freezing, many of the congregation were lingering in small groups in the parking lot. From the clouds of breath steam rising from most of the groups they were all talking a mile a minute. I exchanged waves with Randall and at least a dozen other Shiffleys. On the lawn of the Methodist church, several people were laughing happily as they hauled away the last few inanimate Nativity figures and shoveled the area, in preparation for this afternoon’s live Nativity.

By the time I reached the police station, I was elated from the sight of so many of my friends and neighbors enjoying their Christmas rituals untroubled by pranks. I was looking forward to my interview—I also had a lot of questions, and provided the chief was in a good mood and I was tactful about how I asked, I stood a good chance of getting answers to most of them.

I got a few of my answers before I even went in. As I parked in the visitors’ section of the station lot, I saw a Goochland County Sheriff’s Department car pull up by the front door. Horace and Vern Shiffley appeared to be watching this new arrival with interest so I went over to wish them good morning and see what I could see.

“Good news,” Vern said. “Our friends up in Goochland County have apprehended Jerome Lightfoot.”

“But is he still a wanted man?” I asked. “Now that we’re pretty sure he isn’t the killer, I mean.”

“Maybe he’s not the killer,” Vern said. “But he probably isn’t Jerome Lightfoot, either. He had several complete sets of identity papers with him, and they’re probably all false. But we sent in his fingerprints, so we should find out who he really is pretty soon. I’m betting the New Life Baptist Church won’t be the only place charging him with fraud.”