Dashing Through the Snowbirds--A Meg Langslow Mystery by Donna Andrews

Author:Donna Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter 18

I checked the weather app on my phone. Alas, it wasn’t going to get above freezing today. But on the positive side, the chance of precipitation had changed from 0 to 30 percent. And any precipitation that fell today would almost certainly be snow. Maybe a white Christmas was possible after all.

On my way into town I tried to appreciate the surrounding holiday decorations and let them coax me into a holiday mood. So far it wasn’t working all that well, but still, I would keep trying. Deliberately make myself notice everything that would cheer me up.

Nice to see that the tourists seemed to enjoy the Dickensian theme of Christmas in Caerphilly. In fact, more and more of them were showing up dressed in Victorian finery of their own. I made a mental note to suggest to Randall that a costume shop might be a revenue generator if someone wanted to open one.

I took a slight detour to cruise by a yard that always featured some of my favorite decorations. It belonged to a couple who were so enamored of Halloween that they repurposed their over-the-top Halloween decorations into a Christmas display, thanks to strategic use of Santa hats, tinsel, and strings of Christmas lights. A skeleton Santa rode in a rickety sleigh pulled by eight skeleton reindeer. A wreath made of bones festooned their front door. All the bony arms coming out of the ground now held bits of mistletoe or shiny glass balls. And this year the skeletal friendly beasts approaching the bony Holy Family included a flock of bats wired to look as if they were coming in for a landing.

“‘Still through the cloven skies they come,’” I quoted. “‘With peaceful wings unfurled.’”

That was one thing about living in a town that celebrated an over-the-top Christmas festival every year—by now I knew all the words to all the verses of even the most obscure Christmas carol. Unfortunately, there was no one around to be impressed with the fact that I knew the opening to the second verse of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” If I tried I could probably even dredge up most of the lyrics to “Whence Comes This Rush of Wings.” Maybe I’d work on that before I drove some of our visitors past what most locals had taken to calling The Nightmare Before Christmas yard.

I was still humming and retrieving words when I pulled up at the gate of the Methodist parking lot. Luckily, a volunteer from the congregation was minding the phone in the office, which meant I gained admission to the parking lot with a lot less hassle than if Mrs. Dahlgren had answered. I pulled on my work gloves, grabbed the paper bag of cat bait Clarence had given me, and began making the rounds of the humane traps.

The first trap showed no signs of being disturbed, except that the little food trails leading to it had disappeared. I laid new trails and moved on.

The second trap contained an annoyed squirrel who chittered angrily and flicked his tail at me when I peered inside.

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