Free Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) by Mignon F. Ballard Page A

there.”
    “My cousin thinks it’s probably a prank, but I thought if I could just find out the name of the song it might have something to do with what’s going on out there,” I told him.
    Albert pushed up his glasses and sighed. “If anybody might be able to tell you it would be Miranda. She has perfect pitch, you know—never forgets a melody—although to tell you the truth, I think you ought to leave it to the police.”
    “She still teaching at the middle school?”
    He glanced at the clock. “Yes, but she has a free period in about an hour. Why don’t you drop by and ask her? She’ll probably be glad of a break.”
    I thanked him, stood in line for my stamps, and phoned the school to let Miranda know I was coming. By the time I collected Augusta’s books at the library, I had five minutes to get to there.
    Miranda is choral director at the school and I found her in the music room surrounded by stacks and stacks of sheet music. “We’re as ready as we’re going to be for our holiday concert tomorrow night,” she said when I came in. “Now, I have to decide what we need to work on for the spring!”
    “Albert said you never forget a song and might be able to identify something for me,” I said, explaining the reason for my visit.
    “Why don’t you hum a few bars and we’ll give it a try,” she said, sitting at the piano.
    When I finished, she repeated the notes on the piano, adding even more of the melody. “That’s it!” I said. “Please tell me you know what it is!”
    Miranda laughed. “Of course. It’s Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 by George Enescu. I played it in a concert once when I was in college. Beautful piece.”
    I nodded. “It has a haunting quality, don’t you think? Maybe that’s why whoever’s doing this chose that particular song.” I told her the story about the family ghost and how some have even claimed to see a figure in a period gown.
    She frowned. “And this was supposed to have happened when?”
    “Sometime during the War Between the States,” I said. “Probably around 1863.”
    “Then they need to go back and do their homework,” Miranda said. “Enescu wasn’t born for more than a decade after that!
    “I don’t want to scare you, Lucy Nan,” she added, “but it sounds as if somebody might be trying to frighten people away. They could easily use a CD or a tape of the music to give the ghostly effect—but why? What’s going on out there they don’t want anyone to know about?”
    I had been thinking the same thing, and the more I thought about it, the madder I got. In fact, I was practically seething by the time I pulled up behind the Stone’s Throw Police Department. The grocery store could wait!
    Weigelia’s cousin Kemper wasn’t in but I was lucky enough to catch Captain Alonzo Hardy in an idle moment, and by the time he saw me coming, it was too late to run and hide.
    “I want to know what’s going on at Willowbrook,” I demanded, telling him of our experience the day before. “First, a man is killed out there, and now this! Are you sure you searched that place thoroughly? And just who was the man we found?” I didn’t want to get Kemper in trouble by admitting I already knew the dead man’s name.
    He sighed and motioned for me to sit, then proceeded to tell me what I already knew. “I’ve spoken with Dave Tansey and he’s promised to board up the more accessible windows and do more to discourage vagrants out there. That old house is practically an open invitation to trespassers, I’m afraid. As far as we could tell, this man who was killed hadn’t been drinking—fellow by the name of Dexter Clark. Had a record, though—petty stuff mostly. Didn’t seem to have a permanent address.” The captain picked up a pencil and rolled it between his palms. “No tellin’ how longhe’d been camping there. Reckon he knew a good thing when he saw it, and others, no doubt, have followed suit.”
    “But the music—”
    “Shoot, everybody around