That Christmas Feeling (2 page)

Feeling a bit lonely as the holidays approached, Claire had been trying to make herself reach out into the community. She joined her church’s special Christmas choir, attended a play, even accepted a position on a committee. Bringing the wreath as a gift for her great-aunt had seemed a perfect way to honor the holiness of the season and to express her own newfound hope that her life had truly taken a turn for the better.

Now this.

Claire took a step toward the porch. “My father isn’t in town, Aunt Flossie. The day after Thanksgiving my parents drove their RV to Texas to spend the winter. No one else is here, either. Dad’s brother, Jake, moved to St. Louis three years ago. And his sister, Johanna, is on a mission trip to Haiti until next summer. I’m the only Ross around. So it’s just you and me.”

Flossie bent over and picked up a gray-and-white-striped cat. “Well, go on home, then,” she said, her voice softening as she rubbed her cheek against the animal’s fur. “I don’t need you or any of the rest of ’em.”

“You’re planning to paint the house by yourself?” Claire stepped onto the porch. The odor emanating from the open front door would have made a skunk swoon. “And clean it up? And get rid of all the cats? That’s what Chief West said you have to do.”

“I don’t care what that ol’ buzzard said.” Flossie set the cat back on its feet. “This is my house.”

“Yes, but he has the power to condemn it. And he’s only given you two weeks.”

“Who cares? I have the deed to this house! It’s mine!” She frowned as Claire stepped past her and went into the foyer again. “Hey, what are you doing? Get out! Get out of my house!”

“Oh, no…oh, Aunt Flossie…” Claire gritted her teeth to keep from gagging as she edged around a waist-high stack of newspapers. Swags of cobwebs draped from the chandelier overhead. Was it crystal? Impossible to tell with all the dust. The wallpaper, once a flocked velvet maroon in an Oriental pattern, hung in shreds. Fraying ropes held cockeyed pictures in heavy gilt frames, their art obscured by soot and dirt. The rug had rotted out from under the piles of damp newspapers, and everywhere lay evidence that the cats had ceased to use their litter boxes years ago.

“Aunt Flossie, this is…” Claire tried to think of adequate words. “Well, it’s just—”

“Just
get out
is what it is! I didn’t invite you in! I don’t want you, and I don’t need you!”

“And I don’t care!” Rounding on the much smaller woman, Claire jabbed a finger at her. “You’re stuck with me, Aunt Flossie. You can either clean up this disgusting mess, or that nincompoop Rob West will turn you out of the house and make me take care of you! Do you understand that? Do you see that you have no choice in this, and neither do I?”

Flossie’s narrow lips went white. “I heard the man. I’m not deaf.”

“Then what do you plan to do about it?”

“Why, I’ll clean it, of course.”

“You will?” Her aunt’s capitulation stunned Claire. “You’ll throw out all the newspapers? And you’ll wash the floors?”

“With disinfectant.”

Claire eyed her. “What about the cats?”

“Fare-thee-well to the cats.” Flossie flipped her hand in a jaunty wave. “I’ll call the animal shelter to come get ’em.”

“All of them?”

“Every one.”

Letting out a breath, Claire set the wreath on an old chair with upholstery that had been clawed to shreds. “Fine, then. I won’t bother you anymore.”

“Good.”

Grateful, she stepped back out onto the porch. “Because it’s really not healthy for you in there, Aunt Flossie,” she said, feeling a little guilty about the relief she felt. “It’s not safe for your food, for one thing. I mean…do you have enough to eat? Do you need anything, because I could—”

The door slammed shut in her face. Claire stared at it for a moment, fighting fury, biting back rage.

“And a merry Christmas to you, too!” she called out as she turned and headed for her car.

Rob West took his seat at the far end of the long polished oak table, directly across from Mayor Clement
Bloom. The last place he wanted to be on a frosty December night was tucked away in the dank county courthouse basement with the mayor and a bunch of other community-spirited citizens. Not that planning the Christmas parade didn’t rank fairly high on his priority list.

Rob enjoyed his role as a public servant, because it meant getting out of the office and mingling with Buffalo’s residents. Every able-bodied man, woman and child in the area always turned out for the annual parade—police sirens wailing, fire trucks blasting their horns, floats rolling by, endless thrown candy soaring through the air. Not only did the police force cordon off streets and control traffic, but the chief of police traditionally joined the mayor in leading the procession through town. The Christmas parade created the perfect opportunity to promote goodwill, and Rob welcomed it.

But tonight his focus was elsewhere. Trouble had come to Buffalo. Throughout the fall the local police, the highway patrol and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department had noted an increase in methamphetamine traffic in the region. Somebody was cooking and distributing the illegal drug. But who? And where?

Methamphetamine manufacturing had become one of Missouri law enforcement’s biggest headaches. The largely rural state provided meth makers with an ideal setup. From farmers’ fertilizer tanks they stole a primary raw ingredient for the drug. And they used the many isolated farms and forests as hideouts in which to cook the highly explosive and pungent mix. As the public’s appetite for the drug
grew, meth manufacturing had gradually crawled into Missouri’s towns and cities. But until this year, Rob had seen very little activity in his territory, and he was grateful.

His force—an assistant chief, a corporal, five patrolmen and a secretary—had more than enough to handle as it was. Domestic altercations were the most common of their calls. Petty stealing cropped up now and then. And traffic accidents sometimes occurred around five in the evening when cars attempted to negotiate the narrow streets of the town that formed the junction of U.S. Highway 65 and Missouri Highway 32.

“Well, I guess this committee probably ought to come to order,” Mayor Bloom spoke up. A hefty fellow with a big mustache, Clement Bloom was Buffalo’s lone veterinarian. “Who’s here? Let’s see, we’ve got Chief West, a’course. Mrs. Hopper, you represent the board of Realtors, right? Jerry, you’re speaking for the downtown merchants. By the way, the store windows look real good this year.”

“I think so, too, Mayor.” The owner of the local drugstore grinned. “The middle school art classes came to the square and painted them.”

Rob checked his watch. He had two men out patrolling side streets and alleyways in search of any suspicious activity. As soon as the parade meeting ended, he would join them in his own squad car. The past few weeks, he had worked far into the night in the hope of ferreting out the source of the methamphetamine that was entering his jurisdiction. But so far, few clues had crossed his radar screen.

“We’ve got silver bells and green holly and gold stars,”
Jerry was saying. “It’s not just your usual Santas and reindeer. There’s even a window with a scene from Dickens’s
A Christmas Carol.
You know, Tiny Tim and Scrooge and everyone. I thought the kids were real creative with their painting this year.”

“Any complaints about the manger scene on the barbershop window, Mayor?” One of the local pastors had come to the meeting to represent the ministerial alliance. Various church choirs would be performing on the parade floats. “Last year someone griped that the schoolchildren shouldn’t be allowed to paint Bible scenes—due to the separation of church and state.”

“And we all know who made
that
complaint,” Mrs. Hopper put in.

Rob nodded along with the others around the table. Jack Granger, the local atheist, liked to voice his opinions in the newspaper and at city council meetings. Every town had its colorful characters, Rob realized. Buffalo enjoyed perhaps more than its fair share. In addition to Granger, they had “The Walker,” a fellow who claimed he had been wounded in Vietnam and had a steel plate in his head. They had Mr. Chin, an Asian gentleman who appeared out of nowhere every now and then. Wearing white gloves and a black hat, Mr. Chin strolled around the square, peered into shop windows, got himself a haircut at the barbershop and vanished again. And then there was Florence Ross.

The image of the vituperative old woman had barely entered Rob’s head when the meeting room’s door swung open and Flossie’s niece stepped in.

“Sorry I’m late,” Claire Ross said, pulling off a pair of bright blue wool gloves. “The high school secretary gave me a message that we were meeting at the public library, so I went over there. When nobody showed up, I made a few phone calls and found out you were here. Whew!”

She let out a breath and smiled broadly—until her eyes fell on Rob. Instantly serious, she pulled off her hat, releasing a billow of auburn curls, and took the only chair available. Right next to his.

“Good evening, Chief West,” she said in a low voice, flashing her green eyes at him. “No one told me you were on this committee.”

“I’m on all the committees. It’s part of the job.”

Hard as he tried not to, Rob couldn’t help staring at the woman beside him. What had become of skinny Claire Ross with her too-big mouth, her pasty white face and her straight hair that stuck out in all kinds of strange directions? And who had replaced her with this curvaceous, full-lipped, porcelain-skinned, redheaded beauty?

Ol’ Clarence had never sported curls in high school. And those eyes! Hadn’t they once been a sort of muddy olive? Tonight they sparkled like emeralds as she glanced across the table.

“What?” she whispered, flipping the word at him. “Have you forgotten who I am again?”

“You didn’t used to have curls.”

“That’s because I ironed my hair.” She shrugged. “I gave that up in college. Quit staring, you lamebrain. It’s me.”

He tore his focus from her and tried to concentrate on
the mayor, who was outlining the parade route. Bloom was famous for his visual aids, and tonight he had brought along a map drawn in black marker on a large sheet of neon-green poster board. He held a laser pen to create a tiny white directional point.

“Now, we’ll have the marching bands gather over here in the usual spot,” he was saying. “And the floats—”

“Excuse me, Mayor, but you’ve put the bank on the wrong corner of the square.” All eyes turned to the speaker, Mrs. Hopper. “In my work as a real estate agent I see a lot of maps, and this one is incorrect, sir. The bank should be across the street.”

The mayor studied his carefully executed drawing. “Well, I’ll be. Are you sure?”

Rob leaned toward Claire. “What do you mean, you ironed your hair?”

“With an iron. On an ironing board.” She tipped her head to one side and demonstrated. “Straight hair was in style.”

He eyed the curls that bounced and bobbled down her shoulders and onto her soft blue sweater. Clarence Ross had curls. How about that?

“So, what do you think, Chief West? Uh…
Rob?
” The mayor leaned over and cleared his throat. “About blocking off the streets around the school? Will that be a problem?”

Collecting himself, Rob stared at the map and tried to make sense of it. “We’ll block off the usual streets. Just like every year.”

“But we were discussing the idea of moving the march
ing bands over here.” He pointed at the green poster board. “Because what I was saying was that the local cable company has asked to have a float this year. And several clubs at the high school want to do floats, too. Isn’t that right, Miss Ross?”

Claire pulled a sheet of paper from her purse. “That’s correct, Mayor Bloom. The Spanish club and the chess club each would like to create a float.”

“The chess club?” Mrs. Hopper frowned. “What kind of a float can that be? Kids playing chess? What’s interesting about that?”

“The students are planning to make large chess-piece costumes and walk around on the float as though it’s a chessboard. It’s a way to draw attention to their club, which they feel doesn’t get as much community support as athletics.”

“No question about
that
,” Mayor Bloom said.

Bloom had never played on a school sports team, and Rob had considered him the quintessential nerd. That is, until he’d returned to town with “D.V.M.” attached to his name and set up a bustling veterinary clinic. Nothing nerdy about that.

“All right, Miss Ross, we’ll let the two clubs build floats,” Bloom continued, “if you’ll speak to the school superintendent about our parking problems.”

“Certainly,” she said. “I’m sure we can work something out. And I would think the police force can figure out how to adapt to the changes, even though it might be a little confusing for them at first.”

Rob stiffened at the dig. “No problem, Mayor.”

“Well, I guess we’re about done here, then. Mrs. Hopper has typed up the order of entries in the parade. Like always, she put a float or two between each of the marching bands. She’s got the squad car with the chief and me leading the parade, and the fire truck with Santa at the end. Looks like it’s all in good shape. You can go ahead and hand out copies of your list, Mrs. Hopper. The police are on board to control the traffic, and Miss Ross will take care of the parking issue. We’ve got city sanitation set up to clean the streets after the horses. There’s always a lot of candy wrappers lying around, too. And finally, we’ve got the parade route worked out.” He eyed his neon map again for a moment. “I’ll move the bank to the correct corner for the diagram that’ll go in the newspaper. Anything else? All right, then we’re adjourned. See you at the parade.”

Chairs scraped back across the tile floor as Mrs. Hopper passed around her list of parade entries. Never much good at sitting for long periods, Rob stood and stretched his muscles. Claire was speaking to the preacher as she pulled on her gloves and hat. Rob considered walking away without another word to her, but the woman had clearly baited him with that crack about his police force. Besides, he had a little matter to lob back at her.