Santa Clawed Read online

“We’ve practiced. Brother Morris puts me at ease, but, Harry, that voice.” She threw her hands heavenward. “A gift from God.”

  “So is yours.”

  “Now, now. Flatterer.”

  “Miranda, people wouldn’t have asked you to sing with Brother Morris if you didn’t have the stuff.”

  “Oh, Herbie asked me.”

  “He’s a good judge.”

  She changed the subject. “Visited Phillipa Henry. Sinking fast.”

  Racquel’s aunt had moved to the area when Racquel and Bryson did. Childless, the woman doted on her niece and Racquel’s two sons.

  “Racquel said as much.”

  “You know, I’ve never been to the Brothers of Love Hospice before. They do God’s work.”

  “I believe they do.”

  Harry told her about seeing Christopher Hewitt. They caught up on odds and ends, the glue of life in the country and small towns.

  “Another thing.” Miranda returned to Aunt Phillipa. “Bryson was there. He stops by and visits Phillipa. Brother Luther was there, too, and says that Bryson makes a point of visiting each of the people in their care. I was impressed with how tender he was. I mean, since he’s…uh”—even though she was with Harry, she still paused, since a Southern lady is not to speak ill of anyone—“full of himself.”

  “He is that.” Harry laughed. “But I guess to be really successful at anything, you need a big ego.”

  “I conclude he’s very successful.” They both laughed, then Miranda added, “He seemed distant and tense. Not with the patients but in general.”

  “Racquel’s suspicious.”

  “I hope that’s unfounded.” Miranda shook her head.

  “Truly.”

  “Me, too. How do people find the time for affairs? One man is all I can do.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Tell me what you think. We got into a discussion at St. Luke’s. Started about the Brothers of Love, how each man is trying to change, to make up for past sins. Do you think the leopard can change his spots?”

  “Of course. One asks for Christ’s help, but, of course, Jesus represents change. Rebirth.”

  “Never thought of it that way.”

  “Honey, you’re a good woman, but you don’t have a religious turn of mind.”

  “I don’t need it. You do it for me.”

  They laughed again, then Harry kissed her on the cheek and went on her way.

  The air was cold. The sun had long set, so the cold intensified. The tiny square of red and green lights appeared more festive than it had at two in the afternoon. Eleven people, three of them children, studied the cut Christmas trees with varying degrees of seriousness.

  Pewter elected to remain in the truck, where she snuggled into an ancient cashmere throw. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker tagged along, little puffs of frosty air streaming from their nostrils.

  A child’s shrill voice asserted, “Daddy, get this one.”

  Harry looked to see the source.

  A child, perhaps ten, wanted a beautifully shaped Scotch pine. From the look of his clothing and the expression on his father’s face, the tree must have been beyond the budget.

  The economy was tanking and the high gas prices pinched pocketbooks. Harry felt a pang that the child had selected a lovely tree that his father couldn’t afford. She thought for a moment to buy the tree for him. On second thought, no. The kid had to learn about money. Better sooner than later.

  Rolling his big tree on a dolly, Alex Corbett stopped for a breather near father and son. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a $100 bill, folded it in his palm, then pressed it into the father’s hand.

  Before the man could respond, Alex lifted the dolly and rolled away.

  Fair called out to him, “Hold up, Alex. I’ll help you load.”

  The two men maneuvered the tree to the Range Rover, then with effort hoisted it into the back, tying down the rear door since the tree stuck out.

  “Thanks, Fair. Brother Sheldon is on overload.” He shook Fair’s hand.

  “I’ll take the dolly back,” Fair offered.

  “Hey, want to bet on the Sugar Bowl?” Alex beamed.

  Fair amiably refused. “No. I don’t know enough about either team.”

  Fair inhaled the scent of pine and cut wood as he left the dolly by the trailer. He rejoined his wife. They’d known each other since childhood, and he couldn’t imagine life without her.

  “Honey, who’s playing in the Sugar Bowl?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  Brother Sheldon, harried, tried to keep up with the customers.

  Harry waited for an opportune moment to speak to him. “Is Brother Christopher here?”

  “He’s supposed to be, but I can’t find him.” Exasperation oozed from every pore.

  Like Christopher, Brother Sheldon wore the heavy winter brown robe. He had socks on with his sandals. In his fifties, Brother Sheldon had converted from Reform Judaism to Christianity. The other brothers occasionally teased him about Jews for Jesus, which he bore with good grace.

  “I know you’re busy,” Harry said. “I picked out our tree this afternoon. I want Fair to look at it. If he likes it, we can load it up and pay for it.”

  “Fine.”

  “It’s one of the balled ones.”

  His eyebrows came together. “I’ll need the front-end loader. Might take some time.”

  “Tell you what. Don’t worry about it. It’s in the back. We’ll check it out. If it stays busy, I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Relief flooded over his pleasant, roundish features. “I hate for you to do that, but I sure appreciate it.”

  “Brother, Crozet’s not but so big. Easy to come back.”

  Tucker walked back with Harry at her heels. Fair recognized a client behind one of the trees that were leaning against wooden railings. They chatted about the man’s big crossbred mare.

  Harry knew the fellow, too—Olsen Godfrey. After the pleasantries were exchanged, she took Fair back to see the tree.

  Mrs. Murphy, who’d stayed with Fair, fell in with Tucker.

  The farther away they walked from the lighted square, the darker it became. On her truck key chain, Harry had a tiny LED light. They reached the tree and she shone the light on it.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s a beautiful tree. A real evergreen pyramid.” Fair put his arm around his wife’s waist and said, “You have a good eye.”

  Tucker lifted her nose. “Delicious.”

  Mrs. Murphy inhaled deeply. “Fresh.”

  The two scooted off.

  “Hey!” Harry called to them.

  “We’ll be right back,” Tucker called over her shoulder.

  “This tree is so perfect—the apotheosis of Christmas trees.” Harry admired it.

  “Even if for some reason I didn’t like it, bet you someone else would.” Fair lifted one side of the ball. “Heavy, but I think I can get it to the truck.”

  “Honey, don’t. You’re strong as a bull, but maybe Brother Sheldon would let you borrow the forklift.”

  “Good idea.”

  They hadn’t taken two steps toward the square when Tucker ran past them. She carried her head to the side, something in her mouth.

  Mrs. Murphy, in hot pursuit, called out, “I told you to leave it. You’re going to get us in a lot of trouble.”

  Tucker refused to answer lest she drop her prize.

  Harry yelled, “Tucker, what have you got?”

  “She stole it.” Mrs. Murphy blew past Tucker and turned to face the dog, but Tucker, with corgi agility, leapt to the side, avoiding the swift paw.

  Fair sprinted toward the powerful, low-built dog. “Tucker, drop it.”

  Hearing that bass voice commanding her, Tucker did release her treasure. Standing over it, she kept a glaring eye on Mrs. Murphy.

  “I don’t want the damned thing,” Mrs. Murphy, eyes large, hissed.

  Harry shone the LED light on the coveted object. “Black
rope. It’s what the monks use to tie their robes.”

  Fair stood up, all six feet five inches of him. “I’ll give this to Brother Sheldon. Hate to think of a monk in undress.” He laughed. Then he picked it up. “Sticky.”

  “Tucker, where’d you find this?” Harry asked.

  Tucker led her two humans to the site.

  “You just can’t leave well enough alone.”

  “The blood smells so delicious.”

  Trotting through the long rows of planted trees, Tucker took them to the very back. Leaning against a huge, perfectly pyramidal tree was Christopher Hewitt. Eyes wide open, mouth agape, he appeared to be calling out.

  Harry, using her little light, faltered a moment as she took in the scene.

  Fair stopped, too. Then the vet in him took over. He checked for a pulse. He shook his head.

  “The body is cooling. It’s so cold out, though, I can’t really estimate how long he’s been dead. Shine that light here.”

  When the light hit Christopher’s face, Harry moved it downward. She grimaced. His throat had been so neatly sliced one barely noticed it. The dark brown of the robe matched the blood stains.

  Fair flipped open his cell and called their neighbor, Deputy Cynthia Cooper, who was on duty tonight.

  “Smells wonderful.” Tucker lifted her nose to inhale the aroma of fresh blood.

  “Poor guy. Poor guy,” Harry repeated to herself.

  “At least it was quick. Who would do such a thing?” Fair had been two years ahead of Christopher Hewitt in high school and hadn’t known him well. “Shouldn’t we tell Brother Sheldon?”

  “Listen, for all we know, Brother Sheldon killed him. When we hear the sirens, we can walk out. No telling what he’ll do if he is the murderer.”

  What he did was pass out.

  Cooper arrived not ten minutes after Fair had worried that Brother Sheldon was the culprit. Those ten minutes seemed so long to Harry and Fair, standing still in the biting cold.

  Cooper, having first checked out the scene, brought back Brother Sheldon. He keeled over without even bending at the knee.

  She knelt down to lift him at the shoulders.

  “Coop, let me,” Fair said.

  “Thanks. Get behind him to lift him, Fair. Sometimes they puke all over you.”

  Brother Sheldon didn’t throw up; he simply passed out again.

  “The hell with it.” Coop gave her full attention to the scene.

  “Whoever did this worked fast and knew what they were doing,” Fair commented.

  “How so?” Harry asked.

  “It takes some power to cut through a throat. This is neat.”

  Cooper, plastic gloves on, carefully checked the body.

  “Doesn’t appear there’s trauma elsewhere.” She pushed up his sleeves. No bruising appeared. The coroner would be the last word on this.

  “He was turning his life around. He was so positive. I can’t believe this.” Harry was upset.

  “Any ideas?” Cooper stood up.

  “No,” they replied in unison.

  “It’s bad enough to murder someone, but at Christmas.” Harry felt both sorrow and outrage.

  Brother Sheldon moaned.

  “He’ll come to when he’s good and ready.” Cooper shone her powerful flashlight on Sheldon’s face. “Ought to be interesting when we find the killer.”

  “Why? I mean beyond finding out who did it?” Harry wiggled her toes in her boots, because even with Thinsulate they were cold.

  “Brothers of Love. Right? Can they forgive the killer?”

  Fair smelled that odd metallic tang of blood. “Better find him first. Then we can worry about forgiveness. It’s a crying shame, really.”

  They heard the sirens. In the still of the night, sound carried. The sheriff’s squad car and the forensic team’s car had just driven under the railroad overpass and were now heading north.

  “How do you know the people you told to stay here won’t leave?” Harry considered the shoppers standing in the lighted square.

  “If they go, they’ll be suspect, which I made abundantly clear. I also took the precaution of punching their license plates into my computer.” Cooper kept a laptop in her squad car, as did the other officers.

  “Smart.” Fair nodded.

  “Procedure. Get as much information as you can as fast as you can without being obvious. People like to complain about the department, but then, people like to complain, period. We’re well trained.”

  Brother Sheldon, laid out like a log, nearly tripped Sheriff Rick Shaw, whose eyes immediately darted to the tree, then back to Brother Sheldon.

  “Is he dead?” Rick asked about Brother Sheldon as three other law-enforcement people walked with him, one with a camera.

  “No. Where’s Buddy?” Cooper meant the regular crime-scene photographer, who was a freelancer.

  Well prepared as the department was, the struggle for an adequate budget did create problems.

  “Doak will do it,” Rick said, then added, “Why would anyone take out a monk?”

  Doak called out from behind his camera. “Shine more light here, will you?”

  The other members of the sheriff’s department focused their flashlights on the corpse.

  Rick crossed his arms over his chest. “Doak, when you’re finished with the pictures, go get statements from the people up front. It’s cold, and they’ll want to go home.”

  “Any of them find the body?” Doak answered.

  “No,” Cooper responded. “Harry and Fair found it. Fair said the other person here who left with a tree was Alex Corbett. I’ll question him later.”

  “I found it.” Tucker puffed out her chest.

  “Actually, Tucker and Mrs. Murphy found the body. Tucker brought the rope that tied his robe,” Harry corrected the deputy.

  “I really am going to have to put that dog and cat on the payroll.” Rick smiled down at the two animals, then sighed.

  “Gang, looks like we’ll be working harder than usual this holiday.”

  “I don’t mind pulling extra hours,” Cooper volunteered.

  Rick looked down at Brother Sheldon. “Guess we’d better get him up. We need a statement.”

  Fair again hoisted up the brother, who weighed two hundred fifty pounds, much of it fat. Life was good at the monastery.

  “Oh-h-h.” Brother Sheldon’s eyelids fluttered, then popped open.

  “Gonna puke?” Rick asked.

  “No.” Tears rolled down the portly man’s cheeks.

  “I know this is difficult, but I must ask you some questions.”

  Brother Sheldon nodded.

  “Do you need a drink or anything?” Fair asked. He usually carried a cooler in his truck, as he never knew how long he’d be on a call.

  “No.” Brother Sheldon shook his head.

  “When was the last time you saw Brother Christopher?” Rick asked with a reassuring voice.

  “Breakfast. He wasn’t here when I arrived at six. At first I thought he was digging up trees, balling them or putting them in buckets. We like to have a few that can be planted ready to go.”

  “Did you hear equipment?”

  “No. The place filled up with people, so I didn’t look too hard for him.” Brother Sheldon cried. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it.”

  “Do you have any ideas who might have done this?” Rick asked.

  “Sheriff, he was relatively new to our order. A year, perhaps a few months more. He was in pain for having caused pain. When he came to us and accepted Christ, truly accepted Christ in his heart, he began to heal. He was such a likable man.”

  “He was. I can vouch for that, what I knew of him,” Fair commented.

  “You knew him from the monastery?” Rick continued scribbling in his open notebook.

  “High school. He was two years behind me, a year behind my wife.”

  “Has anyone shown up at the monastery to speak to Brother Christopher that you hadn’t seen before?” Ric
k kept prodding Brother Sheldon.

  “No. People don’t usually go up the mountain. Especially in winter. Roads are treacherous. If someone visits us, it’s usually down at the hospice. Keeping the monastery separate allows us contemplation.”

  “I see. Brother Sheldon, go home.” Rick patted him on the back. “Someone from the department will be up tomorrow to”—he chose his words carefully—“enlist help from the brothers. We will find whoever did this. I promise you, we will.”

  Tears again filled Brother Sheldon’s eyes. “Think how this will upset children. Christmas is such a happy time, and the media will…well, you know how they are. Children don’t need to know such things.” He emitted a long, sorrowful sigh. “They’re not allowed their innocence anymore.”

  “I agree, Brother, I agree.” Rick patted him on the back again while giving a slight nod to Doak, who had returned from getting customers’ statements.

  Doak knew his boss’s messages well. He gently put his hand under Brother Sheldon’s elbow. “Come on, Brother. I’ll take you to your car.”

  “I have to close up the place first.”

  “I’ll help you. And if you need someone to drive you home, just tell me. A shock like this can make you wobbly.”

  “It can. I never imagined such a thing.” The floodgates opened, and Doak walked with the brother back toward the lighted square.

  Fair watched the slumping figure as the two men walked away. “Taking it hard.”

  Rick looked up at the tall vet. “Any ideas?”

  “Only the obvious.”

  “Which is?”

  “The killer is safe and sound and very effectively camouflaged.”

  “What makes you say that?” Cooper trusted Fair as a levelheaded person.

  “Either he’s miles down the road or he’s sitting at home in Crozet, pleased with himself. This is a very cool customer. He walked right in here, killed quickly and silently, and walked right out without attracting notice.”

  “You’re right.” Rick smiled at Fair. “You might make a cop, know that?”

  “Couldn’t do it. But I’m a vet and I’m trained to observe without emotion if possible. Took some effort in this circumstance.”

  “It’s always a shock when you know the victim,” Rick repeated his earlier feeling.

  Once back in the truck, Harry realized that they hadn’t brought the tree. She’d lost her taste for it.