Silent Night: A Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Read online

  I suppose what happened later served me right.

  ______________

  FOUR

  I live in the same white-columned farmhouse that my ancestors built in 1869, which is nestled at the base of Hawk Mountain on the edge of a national forest. Deer graze on my apple tree and use my driveway as a shortcut to their beds. Foxes and raccoons give the dogs plenty to stay excited about, and every now and then a bear will wander down from the hills and make himself known on my front porch. Bobcats and coyote leave pawprints in the snow on my lawn. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

  Dog Daze Boarding and Training is located behind the house, where the original barn had been. After a small fire had caused enough smoke and water damage to justify a major remodel, I had decided to expand and upgrade with an indoor training room large enough to set up a small agility course, in-floor heating, and twenty individual indoor-outdoor kennel runs. As with most construction projects, it had quickly gotten out of hand. I had been promised a fully-functional, bright and gleaming kennel facility complete with happy, barking dogs before Christmas. What I had was an empty shell of a building with no heat, no electricity, no plumbing, and, needless to say, no dogs. Just looking at the deserted structure every time I drove up depressed me.

  It was not even five o’clock when I got home, but the sun had already set behind my mountain and the twilight was deep. My headlights flashed first on the red metal roof of Dog Daze as I came over the slight rise of the long gravel drive that led from the road, and then on the dark windows of my house. I had just enough time to feed the dogs, change into my shepherdess costume, and hopefully grab a bite to eat in town before I had to take my place in the Christmas parade lineup with Mystery and the sheep. I parked in front of the house, opened the back of the SUV for Cisco, and the two of us hurried up the steps.

  The first thing I noticed when I flipped on the lights was a silver Christmas ornament in the middle of the floor. I bent to pick it up and noticed another, a few feet away, and another beyond that. I was starting to get a bad feeling, and I muttered under my breath, “Mischief.” I had taken a box of Christmas ornaments down from the attic yesterday, but had made certain to put it on top of the highboy in the dining room before I left this afternoon. Mischief and Magic were of course crated whenever I was away, but a locked door to Mischief was more of a suggestion than an impediment, so I always double-checked to make certain all valuables, breakables, and dangerous items were well out of reach before I left her alone. But sometimes even double- and triple-checking was not enough.

  While Cisco bounded ahead to explore on his own, I followed the trail of shiny Christmas balls down the hallway and into the dining room, where I found the big cardboard box of Christmas decorations that had been safely stored on top of the five-foot-tall highboy now sitting in the middle of the floor. It wasn’t overturned; it wasn’t shredded. It was just sitting there, its contents neatly unpacked around it—three tidily wound strands of lights, four boxes of tiny glitter stars stacked one on top of the other, and two boxes of silver Christmas balls, one of which was empty.

  I dumped the silver ornaments that I had collected into the box and hurried to the living room, calling, “Mischief! Where are you? Mischief!”

  I stopped short in front of the two crates, sitting side by side, each complete with a grinning Australian shepherd inside. My heart skipped a beat. Once before I had come home to a house in disarray and had blamed the dogs when it had, in fact, been an intruder. I cast a quick, alarmed look over my shoulder before reminding myself that if anyone had been in my house who did not belong there, Cisco would have alerted me by now—and a burglar probably would have done something more inventive than unpack Christmas ornaments. That was when something shiny in Magic’s crate caught my eye. A silver Christmas ball.

  I bent down to examine both crates more closely. The doors were closed, but the slide bolts on each door were not engaged. I had known Mischief to unlock her own crate before, and had even gone through a phase of tying the crate door closed—until Mischief learned to chew through the ties. I stepped back from the crates, stood up straight, and said, “Okay, girls, release.”

  Mischief hooked one paw through the grate of the crate door, swung it open, and walked out, her tailless butt wriggling madly as she came to greet me. I couldn’t help laughing, with both astonishment and exasperation, as Magic carefully picked up the silver ball between her teeth, pushed open the door with her nose, and bounded over to me.

  “You girls are too smart for you own good, do you know that?” I took the shiny ball out of Magic’s mouth; it was plastic coated and less likely to break than the glass ones, but still it wasn’t the kind of thing you want your dog playing with. I tried to look stern as I turned to Mischief, but ruined the effect by rubbing her fur affectionately from head to tail. “So what’s the story? You sneak out of your crate, spend the day playing with Christmas ornaments, then sneak back in when you hear my car pull up? And now you’re sharing the fun with your sister?”

  Mischief grinned up at me in absolute agreement, then favored me with an excited blur-spin and raced off to the kitchen. Magic scurried after her, and because this day’s work had only served to remind me what could happen when they were left unsupervised, I didn’t waste any time before I followed them.

  I scooped dog food into the bowls of three worshipfully fixated dogs, set their dishes on the floor, and released them to eat. I then hurried upstairs to grab my costume, dialing Sonny as I went. “How did it go?” I asked when she answered on the third ring.

  Parade coordinators had volunteered themselves and their animal trailers to transport the livestock and the three sheep Sonny had chosen as the most docile at 3:00 that afternoon. She chortled with pride as she described how Mystery had marched the sheep into the trailer like the Pied Piper. “Mr. Samuels tried to buy her from me on the spot,” she said, “and he doesn’t even have sheep! He was still shaking his head over it when he drove off. Of course, Mystery is a little upset. She doesn’t understand why the sheep left without her.”

  “Just tell her that she’s going to get her chance to show them off in a couple of hours.” I wriggled out of the jingle-bell sweater and into a heavy-duty sweatshirt that would keep me warm under the costume as I spoke, juggling the telephone from one ear to the other.

  “I did,” Sonny assured me. “But her concept of time is a little different than ours.”

  I should mention that Sonny, who is in all other respects a perfectly rational woman and a highly respected attorney-at-law, occasionally has “intuitive glimpses” into the thoughts of animals. In other words, she talks to dogs. And worse, sometimes they answer her.

  I said, “I’m going to head out in a few minutes. Do you want to meet at Miss Meg’s for a quick sandwich before the parade?” I pulled off my stylish wedge-heeled boots and sat down on the bed to pull on a pair of heavy wool socks.

  “I’d better not. You know how Mystery is about being left in the car. I thought we’d plan to get there right before the sheep are unloaded.”

  “Probably a good idea.” If Mystery saw her sheep locked up where she could not get to them, she would have a barking fit that would send every animal in the line-up into stampede mode.

  “Mr. Samuels said they’re going to start moving out of the City Hall parking lot at 6:00, so I figure if we get there by 6:10, it should be just right.” For obvious reasons, the live animals were always last in the parade. “I’ll park where I can see you.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a wave when we’re ready for Mystery.” Cradling the phone between my shoulder and ear, I pulled on one of my rubber-soled boots. I had walked in these parades before. “What do you think the chances are of this thing going off without a hitch?”

  “Let’s see. Llamas, horses, sheep, a donkey and an entire contingent of dogs from the humane society with twinkling lights around their necks.” That part, I knew, was my Aunt Mart’s idea. Since my Majesty had gone to live with her she lost
no chance to volunteer for any charity that would welcome collies, and Majesty would be leading the humane society group tonight—with twinkling lights around her neck. “Not to mention fire engines, cheerleaders, Shriners, twenty floats with multiple moving parts, and a forty-foot-tall Christmas tree. I’d say about one in two hundred.”

  “That high?” I pulled on my last boot and stood. “It’ll never hold up in Vegas. Okay, I’m on my way. See you there.”

  I grabbed my costume—a floor length burlap muumuu and a shepherd’s crook—and raced down stairs just as the dogs were finishing their dinner. I let them out into the fenced exercise yard while I touched up my makeup—not that shepherdesses, traditionally, worried much about that sort of thing. I put the Aussies back in their crates and settled Cisco with a bone, and was back in my car before the engine even cooled off.

  And that was pretty much the way my life would be from now until Christmas.

  During most of the year Hanover County is home to about four thousand people. In the summer that number can easily double, and during the Christmas season, there are enough people from Raleigh and Charleston and Atlanta who decide to spend the season in their mountain vacation homes that the small town of Hansonville can feel even smaller very quickly. We are thirty minutes from the Far Heights Ski Resort, which has man-made snow from November through March, and only two hours from Asheville, in case the tourists get a yen for the big city. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, the rent on lake cabins doubles. Sometimes the holidays in Hansonville can feel like summer without the sunshine.

  When I drove into town there wasn’t a parking place left and the sidewalks were already starting to fill with eager parade-viewers. Someone was selling hot chocolate and children in knit hats were warming their hands around paper cups of it. All the storefronts had their twinkling lights on, and in combination with the wrapped lamp posts, the illuminated sleigh and reindeer atop the department store, and the strands of multicolored lights that looped between the two traffic lights on Main Street, the entire town looked like a fairy land. I didn’t blame the part-timers for wanting to spend Christmas here.

  I drove around the barricade at City Hall and parked in one of the spots reserved for volunteers, waving to a couple of people I knew as I got out. The parking lot was already a melee of winter-wonderland floats on flatbed trucks, little elves in green felt and red tutus, and pickup trucks decorated with evergreen and miles of lights. The animal staging area was actually along a side street that ran behind City Hall, well away from the noise and chaos of main parking lot—which was just as well, because the animal area had enough noise and chaos of its own.

  The members of the riding club, who always proudly led the rear of the parade, were busy securing battery-operated red lights to their horses’ saddles and hooves. The donkey was braying. The llamas poked their heads over the high planks of their trailer, looking big-eyed and scared. A dozen freshly shampooed refugees from our temporary animal shelter were barking and lunging in abandoned celebration of their night of unexpected freedom, their collars dancing with flashing Christmas lights. I spotted my business partner, Maude, with her two regal Goldens, River and Rune, talking with Aunt Mart.

  River and Rune held championship field trial and obedience titles, and were of course lying in perfect, sphinx-like down-stays at Maude’s feet. Majesty’s only title was the one she had awarded herself—Queen of the Universe—and she wore it as proudly as she wore the wreath of red velvet bows and twinkle lights around her snowy mane. She marched to the end of her leash around Aunt Mart’s feet, head alert, occasionally issuing a sharp bark to something or someone she felt was on the verge of stepping out of line. She was in her element.

  I barely greeted my aunt and my friend as I dropped immediately to my knees and hugged Majesty, exclaiming over how beautiful she looked. My aunt beamed at me fondly, and Majesty greeted me with a polite dart of her Collie tongue on my cheek, then went back to her patrol of the perimeter. “So how’s it going?” I asked as I got to my feet.

  “Bloody disaster in the making, if you ask me,” replied Maude cheerfully. “You don’t bring untrained dogs out in the midst of this circus, not to make mention of what the llamas and the sheep are doing to the herding breeds. And if one of those horses doesn’t spook and throw its rider before the night is done they all deserve a bloody gold medal.” Despite having been in this country for forty of her sixty-something years, Maude had never lost her crisp British accept, which always added a certain weight to what she said. “I tried to tell Dolly, but she was having nothing but her way, as usual.”

  Dolly Amstead was perhaps the most organized person on the East Coast. She was in charge of just about everything that needed doing—the animal shelter, the Christmas pageant, the food drive, and of course the Christmas parade. Customarily we used only trained and tested dogs to represent the interests of the humane society: Maude with River and Rune, me with Cisco, and whatever volunteers from nearby dog clubs we could get to walk with us. Dolly had unilaterally decided that it would be much more effective to have the dogs who were available for adoption walk in the parade this year. The secret to her success, apparently, was “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

  Aunt Mart said, “Well, perhaps it will all work out. Everything certainly does look festive, doesn’t it?”

  I grinned at her. “Majesty is the most festive looking one of all of them. I hope you brought your camera.”

  Aunt Mart happily reached into the pocket of her red wool coat and brought out her palm camera. I posed with Majesty and she snapped my picture.

  Technically, Aunt Mart and I had a temporary shared- custody agreement regarding Majesty, but as far Majesty was concerned, she had found her Forever home. Majesty needed to be the center of attention, and Aunt Mart needed someone to dote on. And though I missed my collie terribly, the truth was that they were probably a match made in heaven.

  I said, “I’ve got to check on the sheep, and then I’m going to run over to Miss Meg’s and get a sandwich. Can I bring anyone back something?”

  “Coffee would be lovely, dear, if you don’t mind,” Aunt Mart said. “It’s already a bit brisk, isn’t it?”

  “It’s supposed to be in the twenties again tonight,” I said. “I hope they get this thing moving on time.”

  “The Fuhrer assures us the first marching band will march at precisely six o’clock,” Maude said dryly, and I laughed and waved over my shoulder as I hurried off to check on the sheep.

  Miss Meg’s was crowded with parade-goers, as I should have known it would be, and there was a wait for seating that pressed against the door. I inched inside and stood on tiptoe to peer over the heads in front of me, wondering if I would be better off dashing into the drugstore for a candy bar, when I saw a familiar face toward the front of the crowd. Unfortunately, he saw me too.

  “Raine,” he called and waved me forward. It was the only polite thing to do.

  And the only polite thing for me to do was to return the best smile I could manage and, murmuring one apology after another, edge my way through the crowd. Of course the crowd parted for me without hesitance. He was, after all, the sheriff.

  “Hey, Buck,” I said. “How’s it going?” I was trying very hard to keep our relationship cordial, and some days I succeeded better than others. In the spirit of Christmas, I had resolved to put forth my best effort on every occasion.

  “About like you’d expect this time of year.” He was in uniform, his radio crackling on low volume on his shoulder. His eyes wandered around the room, looking for the hostess. I figured his dinner break would be his only chance to sit down tonight, and he probably wanted to get started on it. “Shoplifters, burglaries, pickpockets, and people stealing baby Jesuses from mangers. 'Tis the season, and all that.”

  I blinked. “Baby Jesus?”

  “Sure.” He caught Meg’s eye and lifted his hand. “The Baptist church had to replace two of them last week, and the Christmas Shop is keeping them beh
ind the counter. It’s a thing with kids, like stealing garden gnomes.”

  Looking harried, Meg arrived with an order pad in her hand and a pair of Santa earrings dangling from her ears. “Sorry, Buck. Have you ever seen the like? Everybody wants to eat early for the parade, I guess. I’ve got a table cleaned off for you. Come on back. Hi, Raine. You two together?”

  While she waited for an answer, I felt awkward and Buck looked embarrassed. Then Buck, who was never uncomfortable about anything for long, said, “Come on, Raine, no sense in both of us waiting for a table.” And he started to follow Meg.

  Well, terrific. I was starving, but a person had to draw the line somewhere. And I thought having dinner with my ex-husband—who, by the way, was practically living with another woman—at the most popular restaurant in town just like old times might be just a tad over that line. I said quickly, “Actually I already ate. I just came over to get a cup of coffee for Aunt Mart. I have to get back. I’m helping set up for the parade, you know.” I hoped he couldn’t hear my stomach growl.

  I couldn’t tell whether he was relieved, disappointed, or completely indifferent. All he said was, “Okay, see you later.” And Meg called over her shoulder, “Nancy! Coffee to go!” as she led him away.

  I edged my way to the counter to pick up my coffee, scanning the selection of pies and cakes and wondering whether I could get a slice to go. I saw Nancy hold up my coffee in a to-go cup, and I tried to get her attention to call out an order for pie, but there were three people in line ahead of me and she simply set the coffee beside the cashier’s stand and rushed off. I was behind a big guy in camouflage who kept shuffling his feet back and forth, so it was possible she didn’t see me. Disappointed, I dug a dollar bill out of my pocket to pay for the coffee and waited my turn.

  I saw Ruth Holloway and her husband, Jack, a couple of tables over and waved to them.