Free Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews Page B

was alibied not only by several dozen
     parade participants but by the chief himself. I made a mental note to give the small evil one a whole handful of treats next
     time I saw him.
    “The time of death’s not the important thing anyway,” Dr. Smoot was saying. “Clearly someone thought he was a vampire!” He
     sounded downright happy about it.
    “Halloween’s over,” the chief said, with an involuntary glance at Horace’s gorilla suit. “And while I’ve heard half a dozen
     people just today call Mr. Doleson a bloodsucker, do you really think anyone takes that literally?”
    “You see a whole lot of those college students running around wearing black,” Horace said. “Black clothes, black fingernails,
     black lipstick.”
    “That just means that they think they’re cool, and goth,” I said. “Not that they literally think they’re vampires.”
    “Perhaps the stake’s intended to be a symbolic gesture,” Michael said. “Suggesting that the killer considers Mr. Dole-son’s
     business practices no better than commercial vampirism.”
    “That sounds more likely to me,” the chief said.
    “I still think you should assign someone to infiltrate the local occult community,” Dr. Smoot said. He sounded as if he wanted
     to be recruited for the job.
    “We have a local occult community?” the chief asked.
    “Oh, yes,” Dr. Smoot said. “You’d be amazed at some of the things that go on in a seemingly quiet town like this.”
    “No, I wouldn’t,” the chief muttered.
    An idea struck me.
    “Dad,” I said. “What kind of wood is the stake made of?”
    “Now that’s an interesting question,” Dad said. He turned to the chief. “May I?”
    The chief frowned slightly and tightened his lips. I had the feeling that the only reason he was putting up with what he would
     normally have called interference from civilians was that we’d all been moderately useful, especially in fending off the press.
     But this was pushing his limits. Finally he nodded.
    “But don’t touch anything,” he snapped. “We haven’t fingerprinted that thing yet.”
    “No, no,” Dad said. “Of course not!”
    He placed his hands ostentatiously behind his back, stepped into the shed, and peered at the stake, both through and over
     his glasses. And then he pulled out a magnifying glass to reinspect the wood. He paid particularly close attention to the
     areas where the bark still clung.
    “Probably holly,” he said, as he stood up. “Very light color, close-grained. I’d say Ilex opaca —the American holly. Is that significant?”
    “ ‘Out upon merry Christmas!,’ ” I declaimed. “ ‘What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a
     time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer.’ ”
    The chief and most of the other bystanders were looking at me as if they thought I’d suddenly lost my mind, but Michael joined
     in on the rest of the quote.
    “ ‘If I could work my will,’ said Scrooge indignantly, ‘every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” upon his lips should
     be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.’ ”
    “ A Christmas Carol !” Dad exclaimed. “Of course!”
    “Christmas Carol?” the chief echoed. “Like ‘The Holly and the Ivy’?”
    “It’s a quote from Dickens’s book, A Christmas Carol ,” I explained. “Something Scrooge says.”
    “So you think the murderer was making a statement about Christmas, not about Mr. Doleson’s character?” the chief asked. He
     was scribbling frantically in his pocket notebook.
    “No idea,” I said. “Maybe it just struck the killer as appropriate. After all, Scrooge was a miser, and Mr. Doleson was no
     philanthropist.”
    “I still think you should look at the local occult community,” Dr. Smoot muttered.
    “Or maybe the murderer just thought he was being clever,” Horace said. “Using a weapon that fit in with the theme of the