Murder in Her Stocking Read online

  The sheriff fixed his pale gray eyes on Elmer, causing the older guy to squirm. Under the lawman’s suspicious, unwavering gaze, Stella’s wannabe suitor withered like a well-salted slug and slithered away. He limped slightly from an old war wound—a battle that had raged many years ago between himself and a mule he had attempted to harness. Elmer had consumed the better part of a six-pack. The mule, on the other hand, had been stone sober, so he’d won the fight with one well-placed kick, which Elmer was too inebriated to dodge.

  Gilford watched Elmer until he disappeared around the corner, then turned back to Stella. “If that knucklehead brings you grief, Mrs. Reid, you just let me know, and I’ll put a stop to it right away. I know how he is. I get complaints on him all the time.”

  “He called Gran ‘Sexy Stella,’” Alma piped up. “That’s not her name!”

  “But we fixed his wagon,” Waycross added proudly. “I warned him how good she is at skillet smackin’.”

  Sheriff Gilford’s gray eyes twinkled. “Yes, son, your grandmother’s skill with a cast-iron frying pan is pretty much legendary in these parts. If I could do what she does with a skillet, I wouldn’t need to carry a gun.”

  Savannah stepped forward. Her bright blue eyes glowed with admiration and something akin to infatuation as she looked up at the sheriff, who, even though he was in his fifties and had silver hair, was still an attractive man who cut a handsome figure in his sharp, crisply pressed uniform. “He said something downright disrespectful to my grandma,” she said solemnly, “but we stuck up for her.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Gilford replied, with a sober expression that matched the child’s. “We have to look out for each other, and especially our kinfolk. What did he say that was outta line?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Stella interjected. “You can’t take anything a weasel like that says to—”

  “He said something not nice about coming down her chimney and leaving something in her stocking,” Savannah replied with a knowing look that, sadly, was beyond her tender years. “We don’t have a chimney, and I’m pretty sure ol’ Elmer knows that. So, I reckon he meant something naughty.”

  It hurt Stella’s heart to think of the environment her granddaughter was being raised in, one where she would understand a double entendre at her young age. The girl was growing up far too fast, thanks to her mother and the characters Shirley exposed her children to on a daily basis.

  A look of anger crossed the sheriff’s face, and it occurred to Stella that he was thinking the same thing.

  Gilford reached over, placed his big hand on Savannah’s shoulder, and gave her a quick reassuring pat. “Thank you, young lady, for reporting that offense to me. Now that you’ve given your statement to a law official, you don’t have to worry about it or even think about it anymore. I’ll deal with it now, and I assure you that Mr. Elmer Yonce will regret that he showed your grandma any disrespect. In fact, after I get done givin’ him a proper talkin’-to, I reckon he’ll be scared to say boo to a fine lady like your grandmother anytime in the near future.”

  Satisfied and happily reassured, Savannah slipped back in place behind her precious gran.

  Stella was about to thank Sheriff Gilford when she saw a familiar figure sprinting up Main Street in their direction.

  “Pastor O’Reilly,” Gilford said when the out-of-breath runner reached them. “What’s going on? Is the church on fire?”

  “Worse than that,” replied the minister, trying to catch his breath as he leaned on one of four municipal garbage cans evenly distributed for shoppers’ use along the three-block-long city center.

  “Worse than the church bein’ afire?” Stella said, trying to even imagine such a thing.

  “Reckon it’s not quite as bad as that,” Hugh O’Reilly admitted, wiping an overly abundant amount of perspiration from his brow, considering the chilly nip of winter that hung in the air. “But it’s a sacrilegious felony that’s been committed. That’s for sure! You’ve gotta come see for yourself!”

  The pastor and the sheriff took off down the street toward the town square two blocks away. Stella could see that a group of her townsfolk had gathered near the gazebo, with more joining by the moment.

  Whatever felonious mayhem had been committed, the much-revered town square appeared to be the scene of the crime.

  She felt one of her grandkids tugging at her sleeve. When she turned to them, she saw a look of nearly rapturous excitement and curiosity on her oldest grandchild’s face.

  “Please, oh please, can we go see what it is, Granny?” Savannah begged. “Pastor O’Reilly said it’s felonious! We don’t hardly ever have anything felonious to look at here in McGill!”

  “No!” Waycross shouted at his sister, his ruddy face flushing red. “We was on our way to get Merthiolate and bandages. Gran said so.”

  Savannah gave her brother a suspicious look and said with all the grim authority of an FBI agent questioning a suspected serial killer, “Since when, Mr. Waycross Reid, did you get all hot ’n’ bothered about buying Merthiolate?”

  He scowled up at her. “Ain’t hot ’n’ bothered ’bout nothin’. Just sayin’ we should tend to our own bizness fore we go tendin’ to other people’s.”

  At that moment, Stella saw one of her two best friends, Elsie Dingle, join the knot of lookie-loos gathering in the square. She could tell by the way feisty Elsie was elbowing her way through the crowd to get a better view that she considered the sight to be worth the effort. The diminutive black woman might be only five feet tall, but Elsie knew how to use her otherwise abundant proportions to her advantage in a rambunctious crowd.

  Anything Elsie took an acute interest in was something Stella had to see firsthand. Elsie Dingle might be the second nosiest woman in town—or inquisitive, as Stella preferred to call it—but Stella Reid was the Queen of Curious.

  “Okay. We’ll go take a look at whatever it is,” Stella told her brood. Other than Waycross, who had developed that newfound hankering for medical supplies, they were eager to investigate the commotion. “But,” she added in her sternest grandmother voice, “if it’s somethin’ awful and not fittin’ for young’uns’ eyes, I’ll tell you to close ’em, and y’all better snap ’em shut then and there. Understand?”

  Heads bobbed in eager acquiescence.

  In an instant, the Reid clan was off and running, with Stella and Savannah leading the charge and Waycross bringing up the rear.

  As they neared the crowd, Stella caught bits and pieces of the gossip flying about.

  “Blasphemy!”

  “That’s what it is, all right. Plain and simple.”

  “A crime against Christmas itself. I can’t stand it.”

  “Whoever would do such a thing?”

  “I can’t even imagine, but when the sheriff catches them, they should be horsewhipped right here in the town square, in front of everybody.”

  McGillians by the dozen were gathering in a tight semicircle in front of the new gazebo, their eyes wide, mouths gaping at the carnage before them.

  Stella reached the front of the crowd a few steps behind Savannah, who was smaller and nimbler at darting among the sightseers.

  Stella heard her granddaughter gasp. The child whirled around and looked up at her grandmother with a mixture of horror and mortification on her face.

  “Oh, no! Oh, Gran,” she whispered as Stella put an arm around the girl and pulled her close. “Lord help us. We’re in deep doody now!”

  Stella looked past her granddaughter to the town’s pride and joy, the new gazebo and, more importantly, the recently acquired nativity scene, elegantly displayed for all to enjoy, with real hay and everything.

  The sacred depiction of the first Christmas had been bought with monies raised by schoolchildren selling candy, teenagers washing cars, moms baking and selling cakes and cookies, and dads contributing their Christmas bonuses, and with the generous donations of members of the McGill Chamber of Commerce. All six of them.

  The display
was an old one, its paint faded, a few figures chipped, a couple of shepherds’ fingers broken off. But without those minor flaws, the people of McGill could never have afforded such a luxury. The town council had decided that since the sheep had a broken leg and was, therefore, well behaved, the shepherds didn’t need ten fingers to corral it.

  Stella’s next-door neighbor, Florence Bagley, had once taken a correspondence art course that she’d found advertised in the back of a magazine, so she had been given the chore of restoring the figures to their original glory. Other than one of the wise men being decidedly cross-eyed and the Virgin Mary having a downturned mouth, which made her look more disgruntled than “blessed among women,” Flo had done a pretty good job.

  Overall, McGillians had been thrilled with their lovely acquisition. No other town in the county had anything to rival their beautiful, darned near life-size, nativity scene.

  But now . . . the unthinkable had happened.

  Vandalized!

  No wonder everyone was in a dither.

  As Stella gazed upon the destruction wrought by desperately perverse roguery, she thought her heart had surely stopped.

  Every figure, from the Virgin Mary herself to Joseph, from the shepherds and wise men to the sheep and the donkey, and even the angel hovering above them all—every single member of the holy entourage was sporting a mustache.

  And not just a simple under-the-nose dusting of whiskers, either.

  The elaborate, long, sweeping black mustaches curled upward at the ends, then around and around in a series of ever-tightening spirals.

  It was truly a sight to behold.

  Even baby Jesus himself was thus adorned.

  “I wanna know who did this!” Sheriff Gilford exclaimed as he stood next to the manger, pointing at the ruins. “Whoever you are, step forward and own up to it right now. If I have to come after you, you’ll be in a whirlwind of trouble.”

  Stella could scarcely breathe. She could almost feel the mustachioed Virgin gazing at her with painted eyes that were filled with disappointment and sorrow.

  Having been born with the divine gift of Preeminent Nosiness, Stella had solved many crimes in McGill. Single-handedly, she had uncovered the villain who had plundered Miss Abigail’s fine flower garden on the evening before the county rose competition. She had solved the cases of the Ex-Lax-laced brownies at the church social of ’69 and the unsettling appearance of outhouses on the tops of barns on homecoming night in ’78.

  But Stella Reid didn’t need to use any of her finely honed detecting skills to solve the crime at hand.

  Far too many times before, she had seen this particular artist’s distinctive work. Facial hair adornment was his stock-in-trade. His signature flourish—mustaches with tightly wound spiral ends.

  His artwork had adorned the newspapers and magazines in her home, a few books and, one dark night, even a page in her precious family Bible. Yes, Adam and Eve’s wardrobe of fig leaves had been accessorized by these unique spiraled cookie dusters.

  Much to Stella’s and the young artist’s distress.

  Her distress when she had discovered the unwelcome adornment. His when she had taken him behind the henhouse and introduced the seat of his britches to a freshly cut switch.

  Not because of his art, but because he had lied about it when questioned.

  There was one thing that every Reid kid knew: Granny didn’t abide lying.

  As Stella looked down at Savannah, she could tell by the look on her granddaughter’s face that she, too, had solved this mystery in an instant.

  In fact, all her grandchildren had turned and were staring at their brother, whose face was flushing nearly as red as his mop of curly hair.

  He looked like a fox caught in the corner of a henhouse, with a flapping chicken in his jaws.

  Stella took one step toward the nine-year-old culprit, and a second later, all she saw was a copper streak as he wriggled through the crowd and darted down the closest alley between the tavern and the pool hall.

  Someone grabbed Stella’s arm. She turned to see Elsie standing next to her, a look of concern on her round bronze face. But her coffee-colored eyes sparkled with good-natured humor as she said, “Go tend to your scoundrel of a grandson, Sister Stella. I’ll haul the rest of your crew back to your house and get some supper on the stove for ’em.”

  “Would you mind much?” Stella asked, knowing the answer. When it came to helping her fellow man, Elsie didn’t mind a bit. She’d do anything for a friend, and if Elsie had an enemy in the world, Stella was sure she’d do right by him, too.

  Elsie Dingle was one of the few people Stella had met who actually worked hard at living the life everybody talked about in church.

  “Wouldn’t mind a bit,” was the generous answer.

  Elsie expertly herded the Reid youngsters into a manageable huddle. Stella wasn’t surprised at her skill. Elsie had been present the day Savannah was born, and although she had never been blessed with children of her own, she had performed the services of a surrogate grandma for the gang more times than Stella could count.

  Elsie glanced toward the now-empty alley in which Waycross had disappeared. “I recognized your little booger’s handiwork the minute I saw it,” she said with a wave of a hand toward the nativity scene. “You best go grab him before he reaches the Mexico border.”

  “Naw,” Stella replied with a soft chuckle. “I know right where that child’s headed. ’Tain’t as far as all that.”

  Chapter 2

  During the more than half a century of her life spent in McGill, Georgia, Stella had often wondered why her hometown had more cemeteries than grocery stores, schools, churches, or even taverns.

  At first glance, it might seem that people did more dying than living in McGill. But in the end, Stella had decided that she’d seen far more people leave McGill than arrive. It wasn’t the sort of town that people relocated to, seeking a better way of life for themselves and their families.

  When the population of McGill wavered, it generally dropped rather than rose.

  To the consternation of parents and grandparents of grown children, most of their offspring moved away after graduating from high school. Either they escaped to college campuses out of the area or they designed more anonymous lives for themselves in the cities of Atlanta, Chattanooga, or Nashville.

  Then there were the others who left McGill by establishing a permanent residence in one of several cemeteries outside of town.

  The oldest of those graveyards was St. Michael’s, situated just out of town, on a hill overlooking the river. St. Michael’s was established before the Civil War, and its population included soldiers who had died fighting in that bloody conflict and their wives and children who had died when Sherman cut his bloody path through Georgia. Those tombstones showed the gradual but inevitable ravages of time, their inscriptions becoming less readable with each passing decade.

  Even as a child, Stella had walked the rows of that cemetery, smelling the rich mustiness of the place, feeling the too seldom groomed grass swishing against her ankles, reading the names on the stones, most of which she eventually memorized. Entire families had perished during those dark years, and smaller towns, like McGill, had never fully recovered.

  The gnarled oaks dripped their gray Spanish moss onto the weathered stones, adding a feeling of graceful melancholy to the place. The lacy moss softened the hard look of the tombstones, as though lending a maternal, feminine touch to the otherwise cold and forbidding setting.

  The elegant draping graced every tombstone, ancient and recent, without partiality, sharing its gentle beauty with all who rested in that peaceful place. It touched the large, imposing statues of weeping angels and those of soldiers brandishing their battle swords, as well as the simple headstones of the poor, less celebrated, but just as loved sons of Georgia.

  Like Arthur Reid.

  The sun was beginning to set as Stella passed through the wrought-iron gates and entered the graveyard. She gave her cu
stomary brief nod to the statue of Michael the Archangel, who, for as long as she could remember, had been fighting and subduing the mighty dragon serpent at his feet by piercing its head with a sword that was longer than the angel was tall.

  In her time, Stella had seen far too many acts committed by the likes of that old serpent. She figured that any being, like Michael, who could keep Satan under control—even for a season—was all right in her book.

  With a heavy, troubled heart, she headed toward the rear of the cemetery, where the dates on the gravestones were the 1900s rather than the 1800s.

  Where her Irish father and Cherokee mother were buried.

  Where her husband, Arthur, had been buried six years ago.

  Where Stella knew she would find her grandson.

  The small-for-his-age, copper-topped boy was right where she knew he would be, in front of the simple tombstone that bore the inscription:

  ARTHUR REID

  AUGUST 7, 1928–OCTOBER 26, 1976

  BELOVED HUSBAND, FATHER, AND GRANDFATHER

  AT LAST, A WELL-DESERVED REST

  The child sat on the dew-damp ground, his knees drawn up to his chin, his thin arms wrapped around his shins. He was shivering from the cold, and from more than a little fear, Stella suspected.

  A curious, energetic, and highly creative child, Waycross had pulled off some doozies in his life. But no doubt about it, Stella thought as she approached the boy, this one plumb beats all.

  Her heart softened when she realized he was crying. Sobbing, even. His small shoulders were heaving hard and fast. His face was pressed against his knobby knees.

  He wasn’t even conscious of her presence until she knelt on the grass beside him.

  When she touched his shoulder, he jumped and pulled back, then looked up at her with eyes the same shade of brilliant blue as her own and wide with alarm.

  “Don’t worry, little one,” she said. “We’re just gonna talk, you and me. We’ve got us a problem, and between the two of us, we’re gonna figure out the best way to solve it. Okay?”