FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20
Chapter 1
“This stupid peace and quiet is killing me!”
Delaney, my sister-in-law, waved her arms wildly, like a windmill in a tornado—a familiar gesture. I’d seen her do it while pacing up and down like a red-maned tigress, celebrating a victory or venting her frustration over a project gone awry. Or while seated at a conference table, having a lively discussion with her fellow programmers and techies. But the seated windmill almost always gave way to the pacing version, as if only by covering ground could she cope with overwhelming emotion.
Pacing wasn’t an option right now, and the windmill looked a little silly when she was lying on the chaise longue in our sunroom, tucked up under a fluffy lavender-and-pale-green afghan, with the soothing strains of an instrumental version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” filling the air so softly it was almost subliminal.
“Now, now,” my cousin Rose Noire said. “You need to stay calm.”
Delaney rolled her eyes and looked at me as if for support. I smiled and nodded. I knew how she felt. How annoying those words were. After five months of bed rest—made necessary when her obstetrician had declared her pregnancy “high risk”—Delaney was thoroughly sick of being told to stay calm and not overexert herself. I’d gone through the same thing for the last month or so of my pregnancy. Not that there had been anything high risk with me—just the fact that twins often came early, and bed rest had been the best way of giving Josh and Jamie as much time as possible to grow and mature before they entered the world. Delaney wasn’t having twins—just one very large and healthy single baby of as-yet unrevealed gender.
“The last few days do seem like years,” I said. I didn’t add my view that maybe it was time to stop torturing her with bed rest. Let her do whatever she felt like doing—it probably wouldn’t be much. And let nature take its course. If she gave birth today, at eight and a half months, the baby would be in good shape—even Dad admitted that.
But saying it aloud would be heresy, particularly to Rose Noire, who had dedicated the lion’s share of her waking moments over the last five months to waiting hand and foot on Delaney. And providing just about every known herbal, Wiccan, or New Age remedy for the minor indignities or major perils of pregnancy—at least those that passed muster with Dad and Dr. Waldron.
At the moment, Rose Noire had her phone out, and appeared to be using it to dial up the volume of the music coming from the little speakers hidden around the room. “O Little Town of Bethlehem” went from almost subliminal to merely soft.
“I don’t know why we had to chase everyone away,” Delaney said. “We always have a houseful of family and friends for Christmas. This just feels weird and depressing. And there’s never anyone to talk to.”
“Dad’s orders,” I said. “He didn’t think the usual holiday chaos would be good for you.”
Delaney sighed loudly.
I almost reached for my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, as I called my combined calendar and to-do list. But that would probably remind her of her own organizational system, which lived in an app on her phone. Dad hadn’t been joking when he ordered her not to open that app for the duration. I decided to wait until I was out of Delaney’s sight, so I wouldn’t remind her of all those lovely, neglected tasks—and wouldn’t have to tell her the task I wanted to jot down: find someone to talk to Delaney. Someone interesting but calm.
“At least I’ve got the chickadees to keep me company,” Delaney declared, in a tone that suggested she’d have been completely abandoned if not for her tiny feathered friends. “There’s no suet out. Don’t they like suet? And don’t they need it when the weather is this cold?”
“They’re very fond of suet,” I said. “And we ran out this morning, but we’re getting another delivery later today.”
“Delivery?” Delaney frowned. “Caerphilly has a suet delivery service now?”
“One of Randall Shiffley’s farmer cousins sells very nice organic suet,” Rose Noire said. “And he’s happy to deliver it.”
“Which isn’t surprising,” I murmured. “Given the amount of the stuff we go through.”
“In the meantime, do you want me to bring in your laptop?” Rose Noire asked. “I could set up a Zoom call with your mother.”
“It isn’t even eight a.m. here,” Delaney said. “Which means not even five in California. Mom loves me to pieces, but she doesn’t want to hear from me in the middle of the night.”
“And if you forgot and did call her this early, she’d probably assume something was wrong and panic,” I said. “Besides, isn’t this the day she’s flying out to the East Coast? To visit your aunt and then spend the holidays with us and be here for the birth?”
“Yes.” Delaney sighed heavily. “She doesn’t have time to talk to me today.”
“I’ll bring your laptop in anyway,” Rose Noire said. “You can listen to the birds again.”
“Oh, yes.” Delaney’s face brightened. “And I can try that Merlin app to learn more bird calls. I do have one down: chick-a-dee-dee-dee! Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee!”
Just then my grandmother, Cordelia, appeared in the doorway.
“Very nice,” she said. “But don’t go crazy with the extra dees at the end. They only tend to add those in when they’re alarmed.” She glanced at her wrist, and I deduced this was her subtle way of telling me it was time for us to leave.
“I’d stay and talk to you,” I said to Delaney. “But at the moment I have to take Cordelia over to the Caerphilly Inn for the conference.”
“Just what is this conference anyway?” Delaney’s tone was fretful, so I didn’t think it was a good time to mention that I’d already explained it to her. Several times. She kept falling asleep in the middle of my explanations.
Which meant maybe it would be worth giving another sleep-inducing explanation. Although it would have to be a brief one—Cordelia needed to be at the Inn well before nine.
My grandmother must have had the same idea.
“It was Kevin’s idea, actually,” she said.
“So another true-crime thing?” Delaney asked. A good guess—my nephew Kevin was an up-and-coming true-crime podcaster.
“Not exactly,” I said. “It’s designed to provide practical help for people who are working to exonerate someone they believe has been wrongly convicted.”
“Kind of a niche market, isn’t it?” Delaney frowned at the idea.
“Not really,” I said. “Cordelia could rattle off the statistics better than I can—”
“I’m not really that keen on statistics.” Delaney shuddered slightly.
“And I’m not awake enough to recite any right now,” Cordelia replied.
“Just as well,” I said. “So I assume that means you won’t care if this next bit is approximate. We have something like two million people in jail or prison across the country, and experts estimate between one and ten percent of them are innocent. That’s between twenty thousand and two hundred thousand people serving time for something they didn’t do.”
“Oh, that’s so sad!” Delaney clutched her baby bump—actually, more like a baby mountain these days—as if already trying to protect her unborn child against the perils of unjust incarceration.
“But good people are busy working to exonerate them,” I said—quickly, before the tears started. “People like our cousin Festus Hollingsworth—his law practice includes a lot of exoneration work.”
“That’s so wonderful of him,” Rose Noire exclaimed. Delaney nodded and shed a few tears after all, but they looked like happy, sentimental ones.
“But he can’t possibly represent everyone in need of exoneration,” Cordelia said. “So I suggested we organize a conference to help train other people to do the same thing. And Festus and Kevin thought it was a good idea. Especially since we’ve got so many experts right here in Caerphilly.”
“And most of them in the family,” I added. In addition to Festus and Kevin, Dad was the local medical examiner, my cousin Horace Hollingsworth was a well-respected CSI, and Grandfather was always happy to talk about the cutting-edge forensic work the J. Montgomery Blake Foundation’s DNA lab was doing.
“We’ve also got Chief Burke giving pointers on working productively with law enforcement,” Cordelia went on. “And a couple of actual exonerees who are going to tell their stories.”
“It sounds so interesting,” Delaney said. “Wish I could go.”
It occurred to me that we might be able to set up a Zoom connection to let her watch a few of the presentations. I made a mental note to ask Kevin. No, maybe I should clear the idea with Dad first to see if he thought true crime would be too stimulating. And I wasn’t optimistic. These days, Dad considered Parcheesi and backgammon too stimulating for Delaney.
“If we pull this first one off, we might start doing others,” Cordelia said. “And we could rope you in to talk about tech issues. But for now we should run.” She glanced at her watch again. “Festus is giving the keynote speech at nine, and I should be there to introduce him. Have a good day.”
She nodded to Rose Noire and Delaney and strode out of the room.
“I’ll see if there’s anyone interesting that I could bring home to have dinner with you,” I said before following Cordelia down the hallway to the rest of the house.
When I reached the hall, I glanced through the door of our once-and-future dining room—now serving temporarily as a bedroom, so Delaney wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs. I saw Rob, sitting on the foot of the bed, looking glum.
“Not bad news, I hope,” I said as I stepped into the room.
“What?” He started slightly and looked up. “No, not bad news. Not yet, anyway.”
“And what bad news are you expecting later, then?”
“I just put in a bid on that house,” he said. “The one in Westlake.”
“And are you more worried that you won’t get it or that you will?” I asked.
Rob laughed at that, and the tension on his face eased.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “It’s certainly not where we saw ourselves living.”
I nodded. Westlake was a relatively new neighborhood on the outskirts of Caerphilly, an enclave of large, imposing houses in meticulously manicured yards. Rob and I had a running debate on whether the houses there qualified as McMansions. I argued that you couldn’t insult a house that way just because it was ostentatiously large, unimaginatively designed, and not that well built—you also needed the obligatory postage-stamp yard, and some of the Westlake houses had half an acre. To Rob, they were McMansions, period. The fact that he’d actually put in a bid on a Westlake house showed how desperate he was getting in his search to find a suitable house for him and Delaney and the impending new arrival.
“I was really hoping to find something out in the country,” Rob said. “Big house, big yard, but nothing too fancy or fussy. No traffic. Good neighbors. Something a lot like what you and Michael have here.”
“We have no plans to move, if that’s what you’re hoping,” I said. “Sorry about that.” I didn’t add that we had more than enough spare bedrooms so that he and Delaney—and eventually the new arrival—could stay as long as they liked. He already knew that. As I knew that the impending birth of his son or daughter had fired up some atavistic urge to make a home for his family. A home of their own.
“Even if you were moving, it wouldn’t be the same,” Rob said. “Because we’d want you guys as neighbors—you and Seth and the Washingtons and the Rafferties, with Mother and Dad close enough that we can see them as often as we want but they can still go home at the end of the day when the grandkids wear them out. And Westlake won’t be so bad. Shorter commute to the office. And … um…”
He’d run out of good things to say about Westlake rather quickly.
“That’s true,” I said. “And you’ve heard me say that the best thing for Westlake would be if we could insinuate a few sane and sensible people into the neighborhood. I just didn’t expect you and Delaney to have to be among the ones making the sacrifice.”
“Yeah.” He chuckled, and stood up, pocketing his phone. “Well, keep your fingers crossed.”
“That the sellers accept your bid?”
“That whatever would be best in the long run is what actually happens.” Rob sounded uncharacteristically thoughtful. “That we get what we need, not what we think we want. Damn—I sound like Rose Noire, don’t I?”
“Sometimes she’s pretty wise,” I said.
“Is this the day Michael’s going up to Washington to collect Delaney’s mom?” Rob asked. “Because doesn’t he have classes to teach today? I feel guilty letting him do that if—”
“The trip to D.C.’s not till tomorrow,” I said. “And he has to go up there anyway, to pick up his mother at Dulles and take her to the pier in Baltimore for her Christmas cruise. So it’s more efficient to let him do it.”
And also, as Michael and I had discussed, less nerve-racking for Delaney’s mother, given how distracted Rob was these days.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said. “It’s all good then?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Laters.”
Out in the front hall I found Josh and Jamie, my just-barely-teenage twins. Jamie was helping their great-grandmother with her coat while Josh was carrying two copier paper boxes, presumably full of stuff Cordelia was taking to the conference.
“No, it doesn’t look as if you’ll need your snow boots today,” she was saying.
“But tomorrow for sure!” Jamie exclaimed.
“It’s only a fifty-percent chance.” Josh’s tone made it very clear that Mother Nature needed to shape up and produce the longed-for white Christmas.
“Now remember what I told you,” Cordelia said as she opened the front door. “And you should keep out of any trouble.”
“Of course.” Josh rolled his eyes as he said it.
Jamie just nodded solemnly.
“Quick,” I said, as I led the way toward where the Twinmobile was parked. “Tell me. Because I want to stay out of trouble, too.”
Chapter 2
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Cordelia said as we settled into the Twinmobile, our elderly but well-maintained van.
“We’re not supposed to argue with anybody about a case,” Jamie said. “Even if we know for sure they’re absolutely wrong. Because they’re our guests.”
“And because Gran-gran doesn’t want fights breaking out in the hallways at her conference,” Josh added. “Also, it’s rude to ask the exonerees if they really are innocent.”
“And stay away from the Gadfly,” Jamie added. “Because he’s just plain nuts.”
“The Gadfly?” I echoed.
“Godfrey Norton,” Cordelia said. “You’ll probably want to avoid him, too.”
“That name sounds familiar,” I said.
“Probably because you know your Sherlock Holmes,” Cordelia said. “It was originally the name of the lawyer who married Irene Adler in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia.’ It’s also the name of one of the conference attendees, although I seem to recall that it isn’t his real, legal name.”
“It’s an alias?” I asked.
“More like a stage name or a pen name,” Cordelia said, “or whatever you call the name someone uses for his podcasting career.”
“Nom de pod?” Josh suggested.
“Podcasting,” I echoed. “A friend of Kevin’s then?”
Jamie and Josh both burst into raucous laughter.
“Alas, no,” Cordelia said. “If you asked Kevin to give you a list of people he really, truly hoped wouldn’t show up at the conference, the Gadfly would be number one on it.”
“And he’s mad ’cause Gran-gran and Uncle Kev wouldn’t put him on a panel,” Jamie said.
“The Gadfly’s a contrarian,” Cordelia explained. “And very invested in the idea that genuine wrongful convictions are quite rare.”
“So you figure he’s only showing up at your conference to cause trouble,” I said.
“Yes.” Cordelia frowned slightly. “Remind me to point him out to you, so you can help deal with him if necessary.”
“Are you going to suppress him?” Jamie asked. “Like the guinea pigs in Alice in Wonderland?”
“We’re not going to put him in a bag and sit on him, if that’s what you mean,” Cordelia said. “But we’ll intervene if he tries to hog the microphone during a question-and-answer session. And do our best to keep him from harassing the rest of the attendees, the way he did last night at the opening reception.”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “I didn’t hear that you had problems.”
“Not big problems,” she said. “I shut him down pretty quickly. But I suspect it was a clue to what he has planned, and I can’t be everywhere at the same time. So keep your eyes open for him.”
I nodded.
“And we’ll help,” Josh said.
“I don’t want you confronting anyone,” I said. “Especially not anyone your great-grandmother thinks is nuts.”
“I didn’t say he was nuts,” Cordelia protested.
“You didn’t argue when Kevin said it,” Josh pointed out.
“We won’t confront anyone.” Jamie’s tone was reassuring. “We’re just supposed to come and get you or Gran-gran and let one of you confront him.”
Josh’s sigh was not reassuring, since it suggested that he rather liked the idea of confronting the Gadfly.
“But we can watch,” Jamie reminded him.
“Sorry we weren’t there to help last night,” I said to Cordelia. “But the boys had a rehearsal for the Trinity Episcopal Christmas pageant, and I’d already promised Robyn to help wrangle the younger cast members. I’d much rather have been at the reception. I think next year Robyn should have a rule—no sheep in diapers. If your kid hasn’t graduated to training pants, they don’t get to join the flock until next year.”
“Sounds sensible to me,” Cordelia said. “Glad to hear we’ll be having the pageant again this year—I look forward to seeing it. And we managed without you—as I assumed we would. I didn’t expect we’d have too many problems at the opening reception—everyone would be pretty much all in the same room, and most of them would all still be on their best behavior, and if they weren’t we had plenty of peacekeepers available, what with Festus, Kevin, your parents, Chief Burke, and me all there.”
I noticed that she hadn’t mentioned Grandfather. I knew he’d been there, too. But even if he was trying to be on his best behavior, his natural fondness for argument and drama wouldn’t make him very useful as a peacekeeper.
“But today people are going to be a lot more spread out,” she said. “We have two tracks going on during some parts of the day, plus we set up a small side room as a lounge where people could get together informally to pick the experts’ brains or discuss the cases they’re interested in. A lot more scope for people like the Gadfly to stir up trouble.”
“Just point him out to me when we get there,” I said.
“Here,” Josh said, pulling out his phone and fiddling with it. “I’ve got pictures.”
“So do I.” Not to be outdone, Jamie also pulled out his phone.
I frowned, wondering how they happened to have photos of the Gadfly, since they’d both been at the Christmas pageant rehearsal all evening.
“They checked him out online,” Cordelia said, correctly interpreting my expression.
“Here’s a picture of him from CrimeCon,” Jamie said, leaning over my shoulder to stick his phone within my field of vision.
“Hang on till I hit a stop sign,” I said.
“I’ve got video,” Josh said. “From his YouTube channel.”
I came to a full stop at the next stop sign, and put on my flashers, just in case some impatient tourist pulled up behind me. I glanced at Jamie’s phone first. Godfrey Norton was a stocky thirtyish man, with a full black beard. The photo showed him talking to two young women and shaking his forefinger in their faces.
“You can put that one in the dictionary,” I said. “Under mansplaining.”
Copyright © 2024 by Donna Andrews.
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