The Nightingale Before Christmas(81)

With that he saluted and strolled off into the crowd.

“Meg?” someone said behind me. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

I turned to see Kate Banks, Sarah’s partner, standing behind me.

“How are you?” I said. “And sorry about what?”

“Because maybe if I hadn’t given Sarah my gun, you wouldn’t have had someone murdered in your show house.”

“Or maybe whoever killed him would have found some other weapon,” I said. “We don’t actually know that it was your gun. Why the gun, by the way?”

“I was scared of him,” Kate said. “I thought Sarah should be. Have you ever seen him lose it?”

I shook my head.

“Be glad you never will,” she said. “And the time he got mad at me—it was in a public place, at the Caerphilly Home and Garden Show, and I was still afraid he’d lose control and do something. And she was going to be in that house with him—maybe even alone with him. And he was an ex-con—did you know that?”

“I did,” I said. “But did you have reason to think he had it in for Sarah?”

“He was stealing clients,” she said. “Trying to, anyway. From us—from everyone. He pulled a real fast one on us. We did a proposal for a client, and the client wanted a bunch of changes. Somehow he got hold of our proposal and my notes for the changes the client wanted, and before you know it, we were down one client. ‘He understands me soooo well,’” she cooed, obviously in imitation of the client. “‘He knows what I want without my even having to tell him.’”

“Creep,” I said. “But I don’t see why that would make him mad at Sarah.”

“She outed him to the client.”

“Go Sarah!”

“And took a video with her iPhone of him making fun of the client and posted it on YouTube,” Kate said. “So yeah, I think it’s fair to assume he had it in for her. If she’d been the victim, I’d have said, look at Clay.”

“So who do you think killed him?” I asked. “Most of the designers in the house are alibied.”

“Not every designer who hated him is in the house,” she said. “There’s a few others in Caerphilly that he’s had run-ins with. And a few in Tappahannock. And lots and lots in Richmond. Ask Martha—she knew him back when he was there. Ask her.”

“I will,” I said. Actually, I made a mental note to make sure the chief knew about Clay and Martha’s pre-Caerphilly connection. Hunting down every designer in Virginia who might have a grudge against Clay was a job for the police.

“And don’t forget all the other people he ticked off,” she said. “Contractors, vendors, clients.”

Definitely a police job.

“Anyway—I wanted to apologize,” she said. “We’d better get our seats—they’re dimming the lights.”

I rejoined Dad and the boys and we trooped in to take our seats.

The boys seemed just as fascinated by the show as they had been the previous night. How lucky for us that they were still in that golden age when they idolized Michael and everything he did.

I would never admit as much to Michael, but I wasn’t paying attention to the script tonight, only letting his voice and the words flow over me like a well-loved and utterly familiar piece of music. I could laugh when the crowd laughed and look solemn when they did, on autopilot, while my thoughts kept turning back to the house. Tomorrow I had to get there early enough to let in anyone who still needed a key. Supervise the photographer. Pick up the programs from the printer. Make sure the volunteer ticket takers and docents knew when to show up on Wednesday.

I’d almost forgotten—the banker’s lamp. Probably a bad idea to pull out my notebook in the middle of the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Present, so I focused for a few moments on visualizing the banker’s lamp sitting on top of my dashboard, in the hope that if I got into my car without it, the naked dashboard would remind me. And then I imagined myself pulling the lamp’s gold chain to start the car. The idea made me smile, which would have looked odd in the middle of one of the show’s sadder moments, but luckily just then Michael, in the small voice he used for Tiny Tim, had just cried out “God bless us, every one!” and the whole audience was smiling.

The show was a success, as always, and as always Michael’s dressing room was filled with well-wishers. Michael’s mother, who wanted to get an early start on her cooking, drafted Rob to take her and the boys home.

“Did you bring the lamp?” I asked Michael, when I could tear him away from one of Mother’s cousins who wanted him to autograph her program.