LOWCOUNTRY BOUGHS OF HOLLY Read online

  Every business in town had either greenery or lights or both around the storefront, windows, and doors. Even the weather was in the holiday spirit. It had been unusually chilly that week, with highs of only forty degrees, and we’d actually gotten snow that day with a light dusting on the ground. Snow on the beach was a rarity for us—we maybe saw it once a decade—and it had everyone feeling particularly festive.

  Gradually, folks made their way back to the business district. The town had rented two trolleys for the season, both sporting wreaths on the front and strung with white lights. After the parade, they both ferried people between the marina and downtown. A large crowd gathered in the park that occupied our town square. As they did every Saturday night between Thanksgiving and Christmas and on Christmas Eve, the middle school chorus led everyone who cared to join in holiday carols from the gazebo.

  Nate and I found a spot near the perimeter of the crowd. We enjoyed the music as we finished our cocoa, then sang along to “Angels We Have Heard on High.” How was Daddy faring alone with Claude and Chumley? The reindeer’s owner was supposed to be waiting with a trailer in the marina parking lot. Surely Daddy could manage that far. Between songs, I texted Merry to let her know where we were. She and Joe had popped into the Book Nook for some Christmas shopping, but would join us soon. Poppy and Mamma were window shopping their way to the park.

  Every business in town was open late and craft booths were set up around the perimeter of the park. There were handmade tree ornaments, stockings, quilts, baked goods, jams and jellies, and all manner of crafty things. Stella Maris residents were either hustling, bustling, or singing. I searched the crowd for Colleen. I couldn’t help myself. Was she there? I was hoping for a miracle, and things never seemed more possible than at Christmas.

  My best friend made her first dramatic exit from this world the June we were seventeen, by way of drinking tequila and going swimming in Breach Inlet. Losing someone you love to suicide, that’s not something you get over. It’s the kind of thing that twists who you are in ways you don’t even realize.

  Thirteen years later Colleen popped back into my life like it was no big deal, the way she occupied this world and the next simultaneously. Colleen told me—and I have no reason to doubt her—that she was a guardian spirit sent back on a mission, namely, to protect Stella Maris, our island home near Charleston, South Carolina, from becoming overdeveloped.

  The thing is, there’s no bridge to Stella Maris. Everyone gets back and forth to the mainland by taking a ferry to Isle of Palms and then taking one of two routes across a series of bridges. Some have the option of going by private boat, that’s true, but not many people here have boats big enough to brave bad weather. Evacuating Stella Maris is a process, is what I’m saying. It takes a while. There’s a tipping point, where we’ll have too many people on the island to be able to get this done in time to keep everyone safe.

  It was Colleen’s job to see to it we didn’t pass that mark. Primarily, she accomplished this by looking after members of the town council who opposed high rise hotels, condos, and all such as that—particularly the ones who weren’t vulnerable to blackmail. You’d be surprised how many people have skeletons in their closets, or maybe not.

  Nate and I are private investigators. We see a lot in our line of work. In my experience, there aren’t many folks fortunate enough to have nothing in their past that causes them pain. Anyway, Colleen saved my hide on more than one occasion, that’s for sure.

  It’s bizarre, really, how easily I grew accustomed to having her in my life again. That kind of thing might send some people to the nervous hospital, but I guess I’ve always sensed the presence of lingering spirits. Living in the Charleston area is a bit like time travel. The past coexists with the present. It seemed natural that we were surrounded by ghosts.

  Colleen stayed a little more than three years. I got used to having her in my life again—it was almost like she’d never been gone at all. Losing her the second time was harder in some ways, but easier in others. This time, I knew for certain that she was as alive as she’d ever been, somewhere. My perspective on eternity, and life in general, had shifted as a result of all the things I’d learned from Colleen.

  Who had taken over her job? Who watched over us now, and pushed us towards decisions that kept us safe? My Gram, now three-years departed? Granddad, who’d been gone more than two decades? I scanned the crowd as we sang “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

  I stifled a yawn. I hadn’t been sleeping well. I missed Colleen, but that’s not what kept me awake at night. She was all right, wherever she was, I knew that, and that knowledge was a precious gift. The thought I couldn’t let go of, the one I desperately wanted to talk over with Colleen, was whether or not some other disaster waited to claim my husband, to right the ripple in the Universe that was now off kilter because Nate lived.

  Nate’s fingers were entwined with mine. I squeezed his hand a bit tighter.

  He glanced at me as we finished the song. “You warm enough?”

  “I’m fine, thanks, I—”

  Santa rushed up, grabbed my arm. “You haven’t seen Claude, have you?”

  “Daddy?” I felt my face scrunch. There were a lot of Santas in town. I looked him in the eyes. Yep. This one was my daddy. “What do you mean? Didn’t his owner pick him up in the parking lot?”

  “He was there, yeah. But Claude didn’t want to go in the trailer. He bolted off. I left Chumley over to the police station with Nell Cooper so I could help hunt Claude.”

  “I’m sure Nell’s happy about that,” I said. Nell Cooper was Blake’s office manager and dispatcher. Normally she wouldn’t work on a Saturday evening, but during a town festival it was all hands on deck. Nell wasn’t Chumley’s biggest fan, to say the least. That dog was bad to slobber, and Nell liked the station kept clean enough you could perform surgery in there if you had to. “We haven’t seen anything of Claude.”

  “If you see him, grab ahold of him and call me.” Daddy dashed off towards the north end of Palmetto Boulevard.

  I shook my head. “Through some series of events—you wait—that reindeer will be sleeping in Mamma and Daddy’s garage—”

  Someone slammed into me, knocked me sideways.

  Another Santa grabbed my arm, steadied me. “My profound apologies, my dear! Ho, ho, ho!”

  I squinted at him. Who was that? The voice triggered a dim memory. Icy fingers crawled up my spine.

  Santa darted thought the crowd, quite quickly for a man so portly. How much of that suit was padding?

  “You okay?” Nate asked, as we watched Santa dart away.

  Another Santa whooshed past us fast on his heels.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  A third Santa rushed by, weaving through the crowd.

  “Daddy, wait.” A blonde woman, maybe in her early twenties, ran after Santa as best she could. Two tiny versions of her, twin little girls about five or six years old, one holding each hand, ran as fast as their little legs would go. They were adorable, in matching puffer coats, hats, and scarves.

  “What’s with these Santa Clauses?” I asked.

  “Well, it is pretty close to Christmas,” said Nate. “Some sort of emergency in the workshop, maybe?”

  The woman slowed, then stopped at the edge of the crowd and kneeled down to speak to her daughters. Was her father involved in some sort of foolishness like mine, or was something else going on? The holidays sometimes triggered desperate acts—robberies and the like. Last year there’d been a rash of purse snatchings in the Upstate.

  Nate and I glanced around. Everything seemed fine. Sam Manigault, one of the Stella Maris police officers on duty, watched as the Santas left the park. He shrugged. The middle schoolers broke into “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

  Later, I would wonder if things would’ve been different if Colleen had been there. Sometimes she gave me insights into thing
s that proved helpful. Sometimes she urged me to do things that made no sense at the time, but later proved fortuitous. Perhaps she’d’ve sent me chasing after those three jolly old elves.

  “Oh no.” Nate stared at something over my shoulder.

  I turned to look. Claude stood under a live oak tree munching on Spanish moss.

  “Naturally,” I said. “I’ll pet him and talk to him. Would you call Daddy and tell him to get the guy from the petting zoo over here lickety-split?”

  “Slugger, I don’t think you should get close enough to pet him. That’s a wild animal, a very large one. He’s not a pet. You could be trampled.”

  “Claude? I rode in the parade with him. He’s gentle as can be.”

  But I took one step towards that deer and he snuffled at me and was off through the park in a flash and a jingle of bells. He slowed, then sauntered up to the young blonde woman and her two daughters, leaning his head down so they could pet him. The girls squealed with delight.

  “I never saw him,” said Nate. “Neither did you.”

  As we watched, two blonde women of Mamma’s generation came up behind the twins and their mother. They commenced dispensing rapid-fire advice. We couldn’t make out what they were saying, but their delivery was certainly animated. Who was this family? I knew most everyone in Stella Maris, but these folks were strangers to me. The boat parade and the Christmas festival were community events that didn’t draw many folks from the wider Charleston area. The ferry ride at night in December discouraged visitors.

  A tall man with dark blond hair emerged from the crowd around the gazebo and hurried towards the twins. He slowed as he approached the reindeer, spoke in gentle tones. He must be their father. The girls babbled at the reindeer while they stroked his head. For his part, Claude seemed to enjoy the attention.

  Another man with broad shoulders and the fiery red hair of one of Scottish descent emerged from the crowd. He stood to the side, with the family, but apart, looking on. After a moment, the twins’ mother rose from her kneeling position and looked around, searching. She waved at the redheaded man. He smiled, nodded. But he stayed back. The two older women spoke to him briefly.

  What was going on here? The detective in me was the slightest bit nosey.

  The chorus broke into “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and the crowd joined in.

  From the entrance to the park just beyond Claude and the twins, Mamma, Merry, Joe, Poppy, and Blake strolled in. Nate and I waved to them, and they walked over to join us. We all joined in the song, smiling, laughing, and belting out the Christmas classic.

  “Have you seen your father?” Mamma asked when the song was over.

  “He’s looking for Claude,” I said.

  Mamma raised an eyebrow, looked at the reindeer. “If he misses the last ferry, he’s not sleeping in our garage, nor anywhere in the yard.”

  “He can stay with us,” said Merry. “Isn’t he precious?”

  “I’ll call F.T.,” said Joe. “Let him know where he can find his friend.”

  Mamma smiled, patted Joe’s arm. “That’s a good idea.” She said it like she sure was grateful and relieved Joe had come up with the solution all on his own. We had a name for this phenomenon in our family. Joe had been Mamma-ed.

  “Best hurry now,” she said. “The fireworks are at nine. No doubt they’ll spook the reindeer and they’ll never catch him.”

  TWO

  The Amelia Ruth II makes her first trip of the day from Stella Maris to Isle of Palms at six a.m. Nate said he had Christmas errands to run and needed to be on it that Sunday morning. Nate started talking about Christmas in September, which was unusual to say the least. It’s not that he was a grinch—he loved Christmas as much as the next person. That said, typically, aside from buying a few presents, he left the holiday planning up to me, and I, of course, followed Mamma’s schedule.

  This year, Nate wrestled the reins of the family Christmas celebration from Mamma’s hands—something no one else had ever attempted. None of us knew what exactly he was planning, but we knew it involved a two-week family trip somewhere, and we were leaving Monday, December 21, the day Nate thought was our first wedding anniversary. He’d announced that to our family, and I hadn’t had the heart to tell him our anniversary was actually Sunday, December 20.

  At five a.m., I kissed Nate goodbye.

  “Hey.” He touched my arm as I turned to head out the back door. “You want to put up a tree this afternoon? I know we said we weren’t going to decorate since we’re leaving town, but…I don’t know, maybe we could use a little more cheer around here?”

  I worked up a smile. “Sure, if you’d like. I’m sorry…I haven’t decked a single hall this year.”

  His eyes met and held mine. “I miss her too. Craziest damn thing.” He grinned, shook his head. “You know what she’d tell us, right?”

  I swallowed hard, looked away and back, nodded. “Moving on to the next world isn’t the tragedy we mortals think it is. But I just miss her so much.”

  He pulled me in for another hug. “I know.”

  I held onto him tight, wondered for the thousandth time if some fresh trouble was headed our way. After a moment, he rubbed my arms and pulled away. “Have a good run. Be careful. I should be back by early afternoon. Then we’ll look for that tree.” He touched my face and headed down the mudroom stairs to the garage.

  Rhett and I proceeded out the back door, down the steps, and onto the walkway to the beach. On the sand, I stretched while Rhett barked at a crab, then I took off in a sprint and he followed. What kind of Christmas errands did Nate have in Charleston? Whatever he was up to with this Christmas family extravaganza, you know it had to be pricey. The eight of us couldn’t travel to the UFO Welcome Center in Bowman for free, and I was certain Nate had something far more elaborate in mind.

  I wasn’t typically a Scrooge, but it had been an expensive year. We’d recently had to have the house painted and the boardwalk to the beach replaced at a staggering cost. I like to’ve had a heart attack, but Nate barely batted an eye. He was a saver, he’d told me—had money set aside for emergencies.

  One of the things I loved best about Nate was how he stayed calm in a crisis, kept his head. With his unflappable nature, he’d navigated us through the rough patch, kept my nerves soothed. Still, he must’ve gone through a big chunk of his emergency fund with the painting and all.

  Where was the money coming from for this expensive trip? Asking that sort of question felt ungracious to me, rude even. We were still newlyweds, after all. Money talk was awkward. It was so generous of him to do something for the family, so sweet that he wanted all of us to travel together for the holidays. I wanted to give him the space to plan his surprise and not seem ungrateful. Nevertheless, the thought of how much it was costing made me queasy.

  It was still good and dark outside. The roar and swoosh of the surf, punctuated by the cadence of my shoes drumming the sand, worked its magic on my anxiety after a few minutes, and I slowed to my typical pace. As Rhett and I rounded the tip of the island at Northpoint, I saw the shape of something large on the beach. Was that a boat?

  As I got closer, I could see that it wasn’t properly secured. Waves teased it, raising the back and pushing the bow into the sand. It tossed, then turned sideways. Was someone in the boat?

  Rhett went to barking.

  I slid the small flashlight from inside my running tights and switched it on as I approached the boat, ran the beam across the inside.

  Oh good grief. One of our Santas had apparently added too much peppermint schnapps to his cocoa. He was draped across the hull, passed out cold. It was a miracle he’d ended up on shore. He could’ve just as easily floated out to sea and woken up adrift.

  I put the flashlight away and grabbed the bow of the boat and heaved it farther onto the beach, away from the surf. It was a beautiful, classic teak rowboat, obviously
well cared for. When I had the boat secured, temporarily, at least, I looked at Santa and sighed.

  “Time to wake up,” I said.

  Rhett barked to emphasize my point.

  Santa didn’t budge.

  I gave him a look worthy of Mamma. Really, Santa should set a better example. “Come on, now. Let’s get you some coffee.”

  I put my hand on his arm and jostled him.

  No response.

  “Are you all right?” I shook him a bit harder.

  Rhett commenced barking louder and more insistently.

  I reached inside the collar of Santa’s jacket and felt for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  I moved my fingers to another spot.

  Hell’s bells.

  Santa wasn’t drunk. He was dead.

  I stepped back and spoke into my Apple Watch. “Hey Siri, call Blake.”

  “This can’t be good news,” he said when he answered.

  “It’s not,” I said. “You’d better come out to the beach, just a little ways down from the bed and breakfast.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “Santa Claus is dead in a rowboat.”

  He muttered something, then said. “I’ll be right there.”

  Who was this poor soul? There’d been so many Santas in the boat parade, and more stationed at various businesses. This was someone’s grandfather who tragically had a heart attack or some such thing right before Christmas. Someone’s Christmas was going to be very sad this year, probably from now on. It was likely someone I knew. Stella Maris was a small town.

  I circled around to the other side of the boat for better access to Santa’s head. Carefully, I slipped off the white flowing wig. The gentleman in question had short white hair underneath, but it was still dark outside. I didn’t recognize him. I slid off the beard and looked closer. It wasn’t any of Daddy’s cronies. Whoever this was, he was a good bit older than Daddy.