Milicent Le Sueur Read online

  “Twist off?”

  “Well, that’s not the word he used, but yes. And Wade doesn’t think you did it either.”

  “That’s a relief to me. If Tate Wade says it, then it must be true.”

  “It’s a lonely Christmas without you, Milicent.”

  “That’s why I’ve called. I’m coming home today.”

  “Oh, Milicent, that’s wonderful. I’ll have dinner ready. I have a turkey but didn’t feel like cooking it. I’ll run put it on right now.”

  “Turkey sounds wonderful. Are you crying, Miss Vinnie Ledbetter?”

  “Yes, I’m so happy to hear from you, Milicent. I’ve needed you. Everything is so awful here.”

  “Like what?”

  “Kirkenberger and Pennebacker are taking me to court for incompetence.”

  “You’re the most competent woman I know, Miss Vinnie Ledbetter.”

  “I think so too, but they don’t like how I spend my money, so they want me declared incompetent so they can run my estate.”

  “You need a good lawyer.”

  “I hired one. Buddy Hoffenmeir.”

  “Uh, oh. I think I better call Greta again.”

  “Actually, Buddy has turned out to be a good man, Milicent.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that. I’ll be there this afternoon.”

  “I have you a Christmas present and everything, Milicent. I shouldn’t tell, but it’s hard for me to keep a secret. I got you a new bag.”

  “Wonderful. I have you a present too, Miss Vinnie Ledbetter.”

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have, Milicent. I know you’ve been away from your rock.”

  “I found this present, and actually, it comes with a bag too.”

  “I love you, Milicent.”

  “I love you too, Miss Vinnie Ledbetter.”

  “Milicent, are you crying?”

  “Merry Christmas, Miss Vinnie Ledbetter. I’ll be home by dinnertime.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  I would have bet my life on there being a Christmas Day horse meet since the holiday fell on a weekend—and I was right.

  There was no snow, sleet, or ice to deter the equine faithful from their circle games in the dust-filled arena. Just plenty of good cheer and singing among the gatherers. The announcer kept saying, “Merry Christmas to all. Don’t forget to sample the Christmas Day buffet located directly outside the arena. Our Little Misses will perform their ‘Christmas Salute to the Animals of the World’ in just fifteen minutes. They’ve worked on this special presentation for over three months.”

  “Maybe someday, you can be a Little Miss,” I whispered to Harriet. “I come to these meetings often.”

  “Excuse me,” said a windblown woman, “Don’t I know you? Weren’t you at the meeting right after Halloween? The one near Portsmith?”

  “Might have been me,” I replied cautiously.

  “I’ve been looking for you at every meet since,” she declared.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, you’re the one who brought the lime Jell-O salad. I just can’t get that taste out of my mouth. I have to have that recipe. What a beautiful baby. I can see why you haven’t been around since then.”

  “The lime-green Jell-O salad. Yes, that’s me. I think I brought it again today. It’s an old family recipe. Give me your name and address, and I’ll send it to you. I have my hands full right now.” My heart resumed a normal pit-a-pat as I thankfully realized the woman hadn’t said she’d seen my picture on TV. I’d rather be famous for someone else’s Jell-O than as someone else’s murderer.

  “Oh, I will,” she said. “But tell me this now. I can’t wait. That nutty taste? I’m guessing walnuts, but it could be pecans or almonds.”

  I laughed. “Take another sample of it and tell me what you decide. It’s right here on the end. Oh, my, I put something red in it today. Would you look at that? Little ribbons of pimentos. Now doesn’t that have a Christmas look to it?”

  Hair flying, she raced off to grab a plate. Over her shoulder, she said, “I bet for Easter you add those tiny jelly beans.”

  “I bet I do,” I yelled after her.

  All in all, the weather was pleasant, and the Little Misses did a super job of dressing like animals sitting on horses. The zebra girl won. Someone thoughtfully brought me a folding chair so I could sit at ringside and hold Harriet in my lap.

  As the meet wound up, the announcer said, “Let’s hear it one more time for our Little Misses and a special welcome to our new Little Miss—Harriet Diamond Peace. Her mom assures me she will be riding the ring soon.”

  So many people gathered around us that Harriet and I barely had time to slip into the Portsmith-bound trailer before it pulled out of the lot.

  It was early but dark when the trailer arrived back in Portsmith. Winter is like that.

  The wind had picked up, and the chill felt like someone had left the refrigerator door open. I held Harriet close to me as I headed toward Miss Vinnie Ledbetter’s house. “Oh, you’re going to be warm in a minute, Harriet. And you’ll love Miss Vinnie Ledbetter.” I came up the alleyway and through the naked trellis path. There’s no place like home for Christmas.

  I was almost beside myself as I knocked on Miss Vinnie Ledbetter’s back door. Tears welled in my eyes with anticipation.

  No one came.

  I knocked again.

  I yoo-hooed. “Miss Vinnie Ledbetter. Merry Christmas. It’s me. Milicent and a surprise.”

  I tried the brass knob on the green wooden door. It swung open on silent hinges.

  “Miss Vinnie Ledbetter, I’m coming in.”

  The house looked right. A warm glow came from the fireplace in the den, and fragrant candles were lit throughout the rooms. A fairyland Christmas tree glowed in one corner of the den, and good food smells filled the rooms.

  I raced into the kitchen.

  There were pots of stuff bubbling on the stove. A perfectly browned turkey sat smack dab in the middle of the counter. “Miss Vinnie Ledbetter,” I called again. “I’m turning off your potatoes. They are more than done.”

  In fact, I turned off all the controls. The green beans stopped simmering, and the potatoes stopped bubbling. The cream-style corn began to form a skim on the top.

  It was so quiet I could hear the cranberry sauce in the fancy glass bowl beginning to melt around the edges.

  I held the baby close and whispered, “Harriet, what’s wrong with this picture?”

  THIRTY-TWO

  The doorbell rang and before the chimes could quit echoing through the house, I laid Harriet down under the Christmas tree and ran to answer it.

  “Millie.”

  “Tate Wade.”

  My Police Chief was all bundled up in a brown overcoat and gray gloves. A felt fedora almost covered his brows and a bright red scarf hung loosely around his neck. “The cold won’t find you,” I said as I stood aside to let him in the house.

  “And Merry Christmas to you too, Millie. I’ve been delivering Christmas dinners to shut-ins all afternoon. Old Mrs. Watson gave me the scarf. Knitted it herself. So, how are you?” He took off his coat, gloves, hat, and scarf and gave them to me.

  I gave them back to him.

  He laughed and laid the whole gob on the chair in the entranceway. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Millie. Those green sweats make a holiday statement all by themselves, not to mention that garland around your neck. Is that straw in your hair? Shouldn’t that be silver tinsel?”

  Wade Tate was in a good mood.

  “Miss Vinnie Ledbetter gave me these sweats. I haven’t worn them much. Black has been better for me lately. So it was almost like having a new Christmas dress to wear.”

  “Where is Miss Vinnie? In the kitchen, I bet. Just smell those smells.” He yelled into the kitchen, “Merry Christmas, Miss Vinnie.” Then he came over an
d whispered in my ear, “Millie, we need to talk. Serious talk. But let’s don’t ruin Miss Vinnie’s holiday. Another couple of hours won’t hurt.”

  “Okay,” I whispered back. My, my, he smelled good. I recognized Battle Cry, which is a lot better than T-Y-P-H-O-O-N I do love a good-smelling man.

  Wade Tate kept calling, “Miss Vinnie? Miss Vinnie?” as he came on down the hall and into the kitchen. When he didn’t find her there, he turned and asked, “She in the bedroom?”

  I followed along as he looked first in the kitchen and then the den. When he reached the dining room, he turned and said, “Millie? Where is Miss Vinnie?”

  The dining room table was garlanded with ropes of silver and red tinsel. A huge bowl of red and green apples stood in the center of the table surrounded by green candles of every shape and size. “Isn’t the table pretty, Wade Tate? You must be the mystery guest. The table is set for three, see?”

  “Millie, where is Miss Vinnie?”

  “Well, now, how should I know? I just got here five minutes ago. Everything was simmering away in the kitchen, so she can’t be far. I turned off the burners. You think I should take the pies out of the oven? They look done to me.”

  “She’s not here?”

  “Not that I can tell. I’m going to take those pies out.”

  “What do you mean, she isn’t here? Where in the hell is she?”

  I used the kitchen hot pads and took two pies from the oven. One was apple, and the other was pumpkin. “Don’t yell at me, Tate Wade. I have no idea. I guess she needed something from the store and ran to get it. Maybe some whipping cream for the pies. Ethel was always forgetting the whipping cream when we had Christmas dinner at her house.”

  “I’ll check the garage,” he said.

  I checked Harriet while Wade Tate checked the garage. She was sound asleep under the Christmas tree.

  “Millie, her car is in the garage. And the engine is cold.”

  “Maybe she walked,” I guessed.

  “In this cold? And with food on the burners? Anyway the only store open today is the Quick Stop. That’s three miles from here. What’s going on here?”

  “Maybe she ran next door? Took something to a neighbor? Or to see if they had extra whipping cream? People who do remember to buy whipping cream usually buy too much.”

  He ran out the door.

  “Don’t forget your coat. Oh, well, he won’t freeze just running next door.” I drained the potatoes and put them in a mixing bowl. “Now where does she keep her mixer?” I was asking myself when he burst back into the house.

  “No one has seen her,” he told me, a genuine look of concern on his face.

  “Oh, dear. Now you’re starting to worry me,” I said. “I hope she hasn’t fallen and can’t get up.”

  “You sure you checked the bedrooms and the bathroom?”

  “Yes, but you go do it again.” Men do checking so good, and it gives them something useful to do.

  As I made whipped potatoes I could hear going-through-the-rooms and looking-under-the-bed sounds from throughout the house. He called, “Miss Vinnie, Miss Vinnie,” about a dozen times. I counted each call.

  He came back into the kitchen a very worried man. “Okay, Millie. Tell it to me from the top. You came in—?”

  “The back door.”

  “Yes, you came in the back door. Was it locked?”

  “No, I have a key, but it just pushed right open.”

  “Right before I got here, right?”

  “Yes. About five minutes or so. Oh, and we can forget about the whipping cream theory. There are two cartons in the refrigerator.”

  “Tell me every move you made after you came in,” he said.

  “Okay. Well, I yoo-hooed around the den and the kitchen. And I went into the bedrooms and bathrooms. And the dining room. That was when I noticed we were having company for dinner.” I thought for a second and then continued, “Then I took my coat off and laid my bags down. No, first I laid the baby down, and then I took my coat off. Then I picked the baby up and heard the doorbell.”

  Wade Tate turned pale. “Millie? What baby?”

  The angels on high couldn’t have timed it better. Is there any sweeter sound than a healthy baby cry?

  I smiled as we both looked under the Christmas tree.

  “Millie, who is that?”

  “Why, it’s Harriet, Tate Wade.”

  “Millie, whose baby is that?”

  “She’s mine, Wade Tate.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Is that a prayer?”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Everyone knows that thirteen is a bad number.

  I don’t know why, but who am I to go against the crowd?

  That is why I wandered around Miss Vinnie Ledbetter’s house counting the people who filled it after Wade Tate called them in. No matter how many times I counted, it always came out thirteen.

  Until I remembered to count Harriet.

  Fourteen was a shade of blue better than thirteen, but with the way the people from Social Services and the Child Protective Agency were looking at me, I had a feeling I would have to subtract her real soon.

  They were examining Harriet on Miss Vinnie Ledbetter’s big bed covered with the log cabin quilt. She squirmed and cooed at them and looked all pink and rosy against the muted greens of the quilt. Ordinarily I was proud when people called her “a little angel” or “the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen,” but today the wrong people were saying the right words.

  Tate Wade looked up from some paperwork he was doing at the kitchen table when I wandered in. “Relax, Millie. It’s not going to do your case any good if you go around the bend now. Which reminds me.” He reached into the jacket of his sports coat and took out a small brown envelope that he handed to me. “When Miss Vinnie told me you were coming home for Christmas, I stopped by Seedy Apple’s office and got you some Stelazine.”

  “Thank you, Wade Tate, but it’s not like taking an aspirin, you know. It takes more than twenty minutes for these things to take effect.” But I obediently went to the sink for a glass of water. I would do anything to keep them from taking Harriet from me.

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked him. “Coffee? A sandwich? Want a Stelazine?” I sat down at the table beside him.

  “No, Betty just filled my cup, thank you.” He resumed his perusal of some papers.

  “Should this many people be at a crime scene?” I asked him.

  “No, there shouldn’t. You’re right. I’m not happy about that, and frankly, I’m surprised this many people showed up. You’d think they had better things to do on Christmas evening.”

  “It’s because it’s Miss Vinnie Ledbetter who’s missing,” I told him. “Everyone loves Miss Vinnie Ledbetter, but why did the Social Services people come?”

  “Just covering all bases, Millie. Actually, I want them to see how healthy Harriet is. How well you’ve cared for her. Just covering the bases.”

  “And I don’t understand. What is he doing here?”

  “Titus? Being city manager sometimes gives Titus a swelled sense of importance, Millie. I guess he heard about Miss Vinnie’s disappearance on his police scanner. He’s always doing that—following up on police calls.”

  “Tate Wade, did you follow up? Did you get in touch with Sandi Swanson in Upston?”

  “Hush,” he whispered. “I’ll fill you in later. Titus, what can I do for you?”

  I looked up to see Mr. Titus Moore leaning against the doorframe between the kitchen and the den.

  “I want to know, Chief Tate, why that woman isn’t in jail.”

  “What woman?”

  “That woman. That crazy woman sitting beside you. The one draped like a Christmas tree with all that tinsel.”

  “You mean Milicent Le Sueur? This woman? Well, I’ve been questioni
ng her, but there’s no reason to take her to jail, Titus.” Wade Tate reached over and covered my hands before I could make the sign of the cross at Mr. Titus Moore. “Millie is doing just fine, Titus. Remember, Dr. Apple gave her a clean bill of health when she left the hospital.”

  “Yeah, in the middle of the night,” said Titus.

  “She’s fine as long as she’s taking her medication. That’s what Dr. Apple said. You’re taking your meds, aren’t you, Millie?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said calmly.

  “Good for you,” said Titus. “Wouldn’t want you going naked on us again now, would we? Now, tell me again what she is doing in Miss Vinnie’s house?”

  “She has every right to be here, Titus. Miss Vinnie invited her. She’s the one who first reported Miss Vinnie missing. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do here. Excuse me?” And he went to talk on the phone that Betty, the lady elf, held out to him.

  Mr. Titus Moore glared at me for a few seconds and made like he was going to leave, but changed his mind and walked over to me, leaning over to whisper, “I’m gonna get you, girl. You can sit there with the chief of police and feel safe right now, but I’m going to get you. You just have your little Christmas dinner with the chief and have yourself a piece of pumpkin pie. Or maybe you prefer apple. Yes, that’s the image you’re trying to promote, isn’t it? God, Mother, Country, and Apple Pie. You’re fooling everyone but me. Enjoy, crazy lady. Enjoy. We’ll be solving that little homeless problem you have real soon.”

  “That’s enough, Titus.”

  I looked up and saw Wade Tate standing there with the phone in his hand.

  Titus took his time leaving, smirking as he went through the door.

  Tate Wade waved aside my beginning protests about Mr. Titus Moore. “That was the head of the field units calling in, Millie. No trace of her yet.” He sat back down in his chair.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I told him.

  “Yeah?”

  “When did you know I was coming home for Christmas? When did Miss Vinnie invite you for dinner?”