Holiday 2025
Light in San Francisco
San Francisco is always a magical place to visit, and even more to play, but never more so than at the holidays…and yet more if one is on honeymoon. (My husband and I had married in June, so close enough!) Unfortunately, that December of 1900, our celebrations were upended by events.
Our Western season began auspiciously, with enthusiastic audiences for our new opera, The Princes in the Tower, at the Grand Opera House, and a happy round of social events and sightseeing between performances. My dear mother-in-law, the Dowager Countess of Blyth, had never been to California, so she had set herself, and any members of the party who wished to join her, an ambitious itinerary to view every interesting spot in and around the Paris of the West. I, my singing partner, Marie, and my cousin and manager Tommy, of course, had other things to do, but the Countess’s efforts kept Marie’s husband and children, Tommy’s dear friend Cabot, and my own spouse busy running through the city and environs.
Two days before Christmas, we ended the first week of the run with a Sunday matinee and plans to enjoy a quiet holiday together in our luxurious quarters at the Palace Hotel. Well, quiet only in the sense that we would not perform on Christmas Day itself. Marie and I had been asked to sing at Christmas Eve services, I at Midnight Mass at the Catholic Cathedral, Marie at the Presbyterian Church, and we had more invitations than we could accept for receptions and the like.
After the matinee, though, I was thinking only of returning to the hotel suite for a long bath, and dinner à deux with my husband. Sitting at my dressing table, still in costume as Henry Tudor, waiting for the happy onslaught of backstage admirers, I glanced at him, and received a warm smile. Gil, known to the world as Gilbert St. Aubyn, Duke of Leith, was reading a book and looking as unassuming and harmless as was possible for a Peer of the Realm.
A knock at the door brought us both to attention.
“Heller!” called Tommy, “get ready – folks for you to meet!”
I smoothed my velvet cloak. “Bring them in!”
In the wake of a dangerous incident in New York, now nearly a year ago, we had set strict limits for backstage visitors, so everyone who wished to see me had to get through a couple of Pinkertons, and finally, retired boxing champion Tommy.
I stood, to see a strawberry-blond woman in a lovely sapphire velvet gown, and a shortish, salt-and-pepper-haired man with glasses and a VanDyke beard. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something familiar about the woman’s blue eyes and generous mouth.
“Miss Shane!” she exclaimed. “Such a pleasure to meet you. I’m Rheba Weiss, and this is my husband, Joel. We’ve followed your career for years.”
I shook the offered hands and prepared for a session of pleasant small talk. But then came Rheba Weiss’s next comment:
“My maiden name was Metz. Papa changed it from Steinmetz when he came out here.”
“Steinmetz?” I asked. “My mother’s name…”
“Yes!” She smiled, and I realized her eyes were the same color as my mother’s. “It was mentioned in one of the feature stories about your marriage. Several friends have asked me if we are cousins.”
“I suppose we might be. Mama said her American relatives had left New York when she got here.” Leaving her without family – and all alone with an infant after my father’s death from typhoid. She had spent the next eight years scraping out a meager living in a tiny tenement room, ultimately dying of consumption.
For a moment, I was pulled back a quarter-century, to a frigid morning in February, huddled in the pile of blankets that passed for a bed, praying my mother would wake and knowing she would not.
I realized Rheba was talking: “…so of course, I was thrilled by the possibility of a connection to such an amazing talent.”
“Um…” I tried to find a response.
“Are you-” Rheba reached for my hand, her face tightening with concern. “Are you quite all right?”
“She has some – difficult memories, Mrs. Weiss.” Gil’s calm voice was accompanied by his warm hand on my back.
Rheba squeezed my fingers and patted my arm. “I’m so sorry. I knew you grew up on the Lower East Side, I didn’t realize it was so hard.”
“Of course, you couldn’t,” I assured her, taking both her hands. “I’m so glad we’ve met.”
“As am I.”
We were still beaming at each other when Gil turned to Rheba’s companion.
“Delighted to meet you, as well.”
“Ah.” Joel Weiss smiled and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you…Your Grace?”
Gil shrugged. “It’s the correct address, yes, but I’m not in the habit of waving my title about, and especially not when my wife is distressed.”
“Might we invite you for tea and candle-lighting tomorrow, Miss Shane?” Rheba asked.
“Oh, yes,” I said quickly, embarrassed. “I’m sorry…I have – upsets occasionally, when I’m reminded of my early life.”
“I truly am sorry to bring up bad memories.”
“No, no. You had no way to know,” I assured her. “I cannot tell you how happy I am to meet one of my mother’s relatives.”
“I’m glad too.”
Soon after, Rheba and Joel left, and Gil gently guided me to the vanity chair, taking my hands.
“Are you quite all right, Shane?”
“Better than all right.” I held his gaze. “What a joy to find new family.”
“That is definitely a pleasure,” he agreed. “And they do seem congenial.”
I slipped my hands out of his. “I think so.”
“Good, then.”
“More visitors, Heller!” called Tommy. “They’re lining up out there.”
“All right,” I called back, my voice steady. “Let’s bring them on.”
As Tommy opened the door, I reached for my charm bracelet to put it back on. Heavy gold, with more than a dozen miniatures and oval plaques representing everything from my first leading role to my marriage, it was more than an adornment; it was a record of my life and career. Certainly, it held some intrinsic value, but its true worth is in the meaning of the charms, accumulated over more than two decades. I always enjoyed clasping it back in place after a performance, turning from the diva to the woman.
But the bracelet was gone.
**
At first, I thought it must have fallen off the table. Or behind something. My dresser Rosa put down her book and started the search, quickly joined by Gil, Tommy, and Booth, the stage manager, looking under, inside, and behind everything in the room. Hoping to avoid the inevitable, and exceedingly depressing conclusion.
My irreplaceable bracelet had been stolen.
The police officer we called to report the theft was less than impressed, probably because he had to pass through a backstage area filled with bejeweled matrons to reach my humble complaint.
Not unreasonable. Especially since my lavender fancy diamond – my one piece of considerable intrinsic value – was still safely reposing in Gil’s waistcoat pocket, its usual home during a performance. While the theft was probably technically serious because of the bracelet’s value, it was minor in comparison to the items that easily might have been taken.
The report filed and likely instantly forgotten, we turned for the hotel. My wrist felt naked and far too light.
Despite the happy news of new connections and the invitation to celebrate the last night of Hanukkah with them, the theft cast a shadow over the evening.
Or at least it did until I got out of my long bath, wrapped up in my favorite lace-trimmed violet cashmere tea-gown, and saw my husband waiting in the parlor of our suite, holding out a glass of wine.
The rest of the evening is our business, and none of yours.
**
The next day was a very special one. Occasionally, the Christian and Jewish holiday calendars align, and this night, both the final evening of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, was an especially happy coincidence.
Happier still for me, daughter of a Jewish mother and Irish Catholic father. A chance to honor both of my parents at once.
With that in mind, I tried to concentrate on the quiet pleasures of sleeping in and relaxing with Gil, and the joyous hours ahead: a visit to my new cousins, and the beautiful ceremony of lighting the menorah, followed by the timeless celebration of the Mass. More joy than I had any right to expect.
The sort of unalloyed pleasure that would make anyone feel a bit guilty, never mind a tenement girl made good.
In a way, I was not really surprised when Tommy and Cabot blasted into the parlor at midday.
“We got a lead on the bracelet,” Cabot said, undeniably taking a bit of pleasure in sounding like a real detective. A Knickerbocker aristocrat by birth, he enjoys tagging along on Tommy’s occasional forays into matters dark and dangerous.
“I asked around at the theatre,” Tommy explained, “and the head of the crew pointed me to a pawnshop. More importantly, he said one of the boys had just been asking about it.”
“And look what we found.” Cabot elbowed Tommy, who pulled the bracelet out of his pocket.
“Oh, how wonderful!” I held out my wrist and let Tommy clasp it. “I hope you paid off the broker.”
“Of course I did,” Tommy said. “Not his fault.”
“One might argue he should have asked a few more questions,” Cabot said. “But no need to create bad will.”
I shared an amused glance with Tommy -- however much our Knickerbocker enjoyed playing investigator, he was not as comfortable with the ethical compromises of the less-elevated corners of the world.
Still, with the light jingle of the charms and the bracelet’s familiar weight, I felt like myself again.
But the recovery, of course, was only half of the picture.
Now, we had to accept the fact that one of our hands was a thief.
“Do you know which boy?” I asked.
“Yes. Davey Moran,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “Skinny dark-haired fellow. Somebody told me his mother’s ill, but I don’t know the story.”
I stroked the bracelet and met Tommy’s gaze. “I think we’d better find that boy.”
**
With our plans for the day upended, I made a quick phone call to Rheba Weiss, who immediately enlisted her husband and offered to help us navigate the scruffier precincts of her city and help us find the boy.
More help than I might have expected, but entirely in character for any member of my family. Definitely a true connection of mind and spirit – in addition to the blood tie.
By the time Booth, the stage manager, had given Tommy a general idea of where to look for Davey, Rheba and Joel had arrived at the hotel.
“Did you call the police?” Joel asked.
“We thought it better to talk to him first,” I said.
“It would likely be a grand theft charge,” Gil added, “and it seems unfair to pursue without knowing why he did it.”
“Very kind of you,” Rheba agreed. “Now, where did you say he lived? We may be able to help you find him.”
San Francisco earns its sobriquet of Paris of the West, as it unfolds graciously around the Bay and stretches magnificently up the surrounding hills. But, just as New York is not only Washington Square and the Ladies’ Mile, so too are there sadder, darker corners of want and misery, even here.
Rheba, a leader of the poor relief effort at her temple, was well aware of the less salutary neighborhoods, and Booth’s sketchy information on the Moran household was enough for her to lead us in the right direction. Which, fairly, would have been the wrong direction at any other time.
Were it not for the milder San Francisco climate, we might have been stepping back into the Lower East Side of Tommy’s and my youth. As our little party wound through the streets, asking after the Morans at pushcarts, newsstands, and wretched stoops, Gil kept a close eye on me, occasionally squeezing my hand. I caught my new cousins also watching me closely.
None of them need worry. My need to find – and hopefully help – our thieving young stagehand more than balanced out my own sad memories.
Finally, we found the right place, a wooden house that had probably once been a gracious, or at least decent, abode for one prosperous family a half-century before. Now, ramshackle, rundown, and deep in disrepair, divided into a rabbit warren of tiny rooms, it was hardly fit for human habitation.
A toothless woman who looked sixty but had probably not left her twenties pointed us to a room in the back.
“Davey Moran!” Tommy called, knocking hard.
“Who is it?” A weak, fearful woman’s voice responded.
“We’re from the theatre.” Cabot replied. His calm, cultured tone offered reassurance the knock had not.
Still, silence.
Tommy knocked again.
“Open it, David.”
The door opened, revealing the scrawny young stagehand. I’d only seen him backstage once or twice, and I didn’t realize until that moment how pale and tired he looked, or how worn his carefully clean clothes were.
“Davey.” I met his terrified gaze, keeping my tone soft and kind.
“Who are these people, David?” The voice from the far end of the room was suddenly quavering and worried, and I saw a skeletal hand reaching out from a pile of rags that apparently passed for a bed. “My son’s a good boy.”
Her voice broke on the last word, as she realized there was likely no good reason we would have come for him. And then a breath, and an anguished cry:
“What have you done?”
Davey went from pale to gray, and cast about, trying to figure out whether to comfort his mother, run, or burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?”
Everyone turned in the direction of the new voice, to see a tiny girl sitting at a makeshift table, looking up from a book. She was hollow-eyed and dressed in ragged layers, but the rags were clean and her hair neatly braided.
Tommy and Cabot exchanged glances and then looked to me, and I to Gil, and finally to Rheba and Joel.
And we all shared the same thought: in their circumstances, we’d have done exactly the same.
“There’s been a bit of confusion at the theatre,” I told the ailing mother in my most reassuring tone. “Something was misplaced.”
“And it’s been recovered without incident,” Gil added in the ultimately reassuring tone of the powerful British male. “You need have no worry for your son.”
“Can we talk in the hall?” Davey asked, his voice quavering.
The door closed, he looked up at us.
“Are you going to take me to the police?”
“That’s the last thing we have in mind,” Cabot, who ran several charities for poor children back in New York, assured him.
Davey Moran gazed up at him, stunned and still terrified.
“Why did you do it, son?” Tommy asked, as gently as he could.
“There was nowhere to go for help, Mr. Tom.” The boy took a breath, tried to hang onto his composure. “We’re not Chinese, so we can’t go to the relief society. Ma’s Jewish, and her family cast her out when she married Da – who was Irish, so we don’t belong to anybody else…”
“Not so.” Rheba Weiss’s eyes flashed. “Your mother is Jewish and you are her children. She still belongs to us – and so do you.”
“I do?” Davey breathed.
“Your mother is Jewish, so you are, too. You are not alone.”
“Oh.”
“No more thieving, though,” Joel added, with only a little sternness in his tone. “That doesn’t help anybody.”
“S’pose not.” The boy turned to me. “Sorry, Miss Ella.”
“Apology accepted,” I said. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I misplaced that bracelet, and Mr. Booth will write you a glowing character for future productions.”
“I’ll tell him to recommend you to the Symphony, too,” Tommy added.
“Thank you.”
The boy stared at us all, stunned. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Well,” I began. “Thank you is quite enough. What you do, though, is you remember how you were helped today, and someday, when you get the chance, you do the same for the next family in need.”
“Oh, I will, Miss Ella. I absolutely will.”
“That’s all the thanks we need, then.” Rheba put her hand on the boy’s arm and shot me a smile. “Now, let’s get to work…”
**
Several hours later, we found just enough time before Midnight Mass to stop at Joel and Rheba’s to light candles. By then, a swarm of volunteers from their temple had descended upon the Morans with food, clothes, and fuel, and plans to get them into a better home soon.
In the Weiss family’s comfortable parlor, the silver menorah was set with candles, waiting to be lit.
“Would you do the honors, Ella?” Rheba asked, handing me the helper candle.
“Only if you say the blessings,” I replied. “My Hebrew-”
“Will be quite good enough,” said the Countess.
Rheba sent me an understanding nod. “But it’s better if we do it together, anyway.”
“Absolutely.”
We shared a smile, and I struck the match.
Rheba began the blessings in her lovely, soft voice, calling God into the room, honoring freedom and miracles.
After I lit the last candle and Rheba finished the blessings, Gil slipped his hand into mine, lacing fingers. Surrounded by light and love, celebrating my mother’s holiday with our cousin, and the knowledge that I would sing in my father’s a few hours from now at Midnight Mass, I could not help thinking about the Miracle of Lights…and all the miracles that had led us here.
And if I was beginning to suspect one more miracle might be coming to us, well, it was my secret to keep for now.
MORE IN 2026
Learn Ella's secret - and follow her next adventure in A FATAL FLOURISH, coming June 2026 from Level Best Books!
Holiday 2024
O Holy Hound
“Scotchie, NO!”
Too late. The giant blond mutt had already toppled the six-foot inflatable Grinch, and even as he happily licked his new friend’s face, the unavoidably flatulent sound of escaping air told me how this was going to end.
The same way every other one of these incidents did: limp lawn art, sad dog, and owner buying a replacement piece.
Good thing I’d already ordered a couple from my buddy Brian at Loquat’s Hardware.
Hopefully, I’d be home from the Alcott-Unity Cookie Crawl in time to give Mrs. Citron the new one before dark. While Scotchie continued trying to make friends with the rapidly deflating Grinch, I stepped up the walk to her door, which was framed with those cute LED snowflakes, and rang the bell.
No answer.
Well, it was 6:30 on a Saturday morning. Still, I’d have expected her to be up. She’s a retired proofreader, a scrawny woman of sour precision, not especially fond of us, her neighbors across the way. Even before Scotchie loved her previous Grinch to death on Thanksgiving weekend.
I rummaged a business card out of one parka pocket and a red crayon out of the other (can you tell I’m a part-time lawyer and full-time mom?) and wrote: Sorry. New one tonight.
Stuck the card in her storm door and turned back.
Scotchie was waiting for me, sitting on what was left of the Grinch. Looking sad. Once again, instead of making a new friend, he’d killed it.
Just another wonderful holiday-season day in suburbia.
Scotchie 3, Grinches 0
**
Let’s face it. The holidays in suburbia are enough to make you want to kill somebody.
But they’re a lot less fun if you just did.
That’s not an exaggeration for effect, a metaphor, or some kind of residual family guilt. It’s a simple statement of fact. I’m a member of a seven-hundred-year-old order of lady poisoners who quietly put things right…for a price.
As I’d been doing since my last year of law school, I’d removed an evil predator, this time a white-collar scammer who bankrupted elderly people and did even worse things to his sister and daughters, deploying the poison in an apparently casual contact in the coffee shop line. I was in the next store over buying art supplies for my son’s latest project when my target collapsed of an apparent heart attack.
That night, I lit a candle and offered prayers for him, probably the only sincere ones he’d get, and went on with my life. Right back into the mom whirl, shopping, baking, volunteering – and of course, Scotchie v. Grinches.
Except for the little matter of murder for hire, pretty much the usual holiday season in our town, where I live with my husband, Michael Adair, the lawyer you call when you’re really in trouble in New Haven County, and our six-year-old son Daniel. And our enormous blond mutt.
But I’d never had a commission so close to the holidays.
That famous former FBI director says killing is tough the first time and gets easier. All due respect, he’s not a consecrated assassin, and he has no idea. Taking a life, even that of an evil man who richly deserves to be removed, as my sisters and I have been doing for the last seven hundred years, is never easy. And never without repercussions.
I’d also never been dragged into a giant event like the Cookie Crawl. My friend Corinna, assistant director at Alcott’s town library, had joined forces with some folks in the next town over, Unity, to set up an afternoon of caroling, cocoa, and cookies, connected by a hayride. Our pal Brian, who runs Loquat’s Hardware with his great-uncle, was providing a vintage truck and tractor to pull the flatbeds, and just about everyone we knew was involved somehow.
It was a pretty big deal, and a fundraiser for three good charities: the food bank, the animal shelter, and Type-1 Diabetes research. That last one was added for the Unity Historical Society head, Christian Shaw, whose eight-year-old son Henry has T1D.
Dr. Shaw, a widowed former history professor, had seemed pretty cool when I met her briefly at a planning meeting: another high-powered professional woman choosing a career stall for family reasons. Her site, an eighteenth-century mansion facing the Unity Town Green, was the last stop, with snickerdoodles and eggnog by the kitchen fire, followed by a final candlelight carol on the Green.
Of course, we had to get there first.
Everything started fine, with Brian, Corinna, and I setting up the wagons at Loquat’s Hardware in Alcott, where Brian and Old Man Loquat – as everyone calls the hardware-dynasty patriarch – welcomed us with coffee while Jimmy Stewart, the hardware store cat, glared down from her (yes, her!) shelf. We set up the flatbeds with hay bales from Darcey’s Farm, and Brian took the tractor, and Corinna’s husband Clay took the old truck, and drove the wagons across the street to the Alcott Library parking lot. Then we spent another hour or more setting up tables for the first stop, pumpkin bread, hot cider, and Corinna’s boss Moira’s famous reading of the Grinch.
By go time, we were more than ready to collect our kids and ride off into the afternoon. The flatbeds pretty much sorted out by town – we were at the back of the first one, surrounded by plenty of pals from the Friends of the Library, PTA, and other groups. Almost everyone in fun, festive garb – a lot of Santa hats, antlers, and sweatshirts with goofy holiday puns. Looked like the same mix on the other one, just unfamiliar faces because they were from Unity.
Apparently, there were more folks from Unity than Alcott, because an unfamiliar older guy with a friendly round face and horn-rimmed glasses, a medium-sized dark-haired boy, and a very large red dog joined us after they couldn’t fit on the Unity truck. Kryssie Farrar, the PTA president and sweetheart of the emergency services (let’s just say she collects firefighters) looked up from her iPhone with a sniff.
“I didn’t know dogs were allowed.”
“Norm isn’t just any dog,” the man said.
“He’s special,” confirmed the boy. “Uncle Garrett says he takes good care of all of us.”
Being person to a giant mutt myself, I had no doubt. Scotchie was back home with my husband Michael today only because I’d had to set up early I’d have happily brought him on the ride.
I gave the dog and his folks a little smile and stifled a snicker as Kryssie pulled the bottom of her insanely expensive caramel-colored shearling coat away from Norm, and then pretty much forgot about her, in the fun of the lights and the ride and the kids’ joyful faces.
The second stop, cocoa and chocolate chippers, at the Community Arts Center on the town line, was uneventful fun…other than the kids – and many of the parents – picking up a coating of glitter during the make-your-own ornament activity.
Afterward, everyone, now a little shinier and happier, piled back onto the flatbeds for the ride to the final stop, the Unity Historical Society. The streetlights hit our coats and our hair, striking little sparks. Somebody started singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and everyone joined in, bouncing verses between trucks, shouting out the numbers, and laughing like fools.
The older guy and boy from Unity seemed perfectly happy with us Alcott people, though I noticed the boy hadn’t brought cookies with him, the way a lot of the kids had. Nothing big, just something that stuck in my mind, same as the nasty little glare Kryssie shot toward dog as she sat down, pulling that wildly wrong shearling coat away from him again. You really shouldn’t wear a coat worth more than my first car on a hayride.
It was full dark by the time we pulled up at the Unity Historical Society, which was decked out in evergreen boughs, with candles in the window, and lanterns on the porch. Several people were waiting on the porch, including a tall redheaded woman with the same “Happy Challah Days” sweatshirt under her puffer that Brian had under his, and a vaguely familiar-looking spare, gray-haired man in a barn jacket with a string of blinking lights draped around his neck.
The woman was Dr. Shaw, the Historical Society head, and I was trying to place the man when I heard a yip and a bark and a scream. Everyone on both trucks turned in the direction of the noise, at the edge of our flatbed, where Kryssie Farrar was shrieking and pointing at Norm the Dog.
“He bit me! He bit me!”
“Oh, he did not,” said the older man. “Norm doesn’t bite.”
“Well, what do you call this?” she asked, waving her hand in his face.
“Ma’am? Ma’am, please?”
The smooth, calm voice belonged to Dr. Shaw, who was standing at the base of the flatbed holding out her hands.
Kryssie bristled at the “Ma’am,” but let the historian help her off the truck. Dr. Shaw exchanged a glance with the older man, who rolled his eyes, then took one searching look at the boy. I realized he must be her son.
“We have a first aid kit in the Society,” continued the historian, “a nice modern one, and we’ll take a look…”
“Why don’t the rest of us get going,” Corinna said, giving me the HELP face.
“Look,” I said, herding Daniel and the other kids within reach, “let’s see what the cookies are here!”
As it turned out, the cookies were snickerdoodles, and I didn’t get one for a while. Corinna and I were at the back of the refreshment line when the man who’d been on the porch came up to me.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.” I followed him a few steps away from the line. “I think we know each other.”
“Ed Kenney,” he said, holding out a hand.
I took it and shook. “Sergeant Kenney, Major Crimes?”
“Yes. Wait…Grace MacInnes – Assistant State’s Attorney?”
“Well, it’s Adair, and mostly just Daniel’s mom now,” I told him.
“It’s just Ed, now. Retired a while back, got married, and spend most of my time with the husband and grandkids.”
“Sounds pretty good.”
“It is.” Ed shrugged. “So what’s a decent person like you doing lawyering for that PTA jerk in the shearling coat?”
“Lawyering?”
“She’s all over my husband Garrett telling him you’re her lawyer and she’s going to sue over Norm-”
“No flipping way!” It came out harder than I’d intended. I took a breath. “I’m a lawyer, of course, but I am absolutely not Kryssie’s lawyer.”
“Good. I have a hard time believing Norm did anything to her, anyway.”
“He didn’t.” Christian Shaw, still holding the first aid kit, appeared behind Ed. “Her glove had a couple of tooth marks. Nothing broke the skin. Not a scratch.”
“But what the hell happened?” Ed asked. “Norm’s the calmest dog I’ve ever seen.”
“Had to be her.” The older man from the hayride, now identified as Ed’s husband Garrett, joined us.
“Grace Adair, Professor Emeritus Garrett Koziekiewicz Kenney,” Christian said, patting his arm. “Otherwise known as the dad I should have had.”
“One of them, anyhow. It’s Garrett.” He held out his hand. “You’re the lawyer?”
I shook. “Not hers. Just another mom with a Connecticut Bar card I’m not using…and certainly not for this.”
“Good to know.” Garrett looked around the room, to the corner where Kryssie was sitting on a probably priceless chair, still fluttering and complaining to a couple of fellow moms who clearly didn’t want to hear it. “It just doesn’t add up.”
“Norm didn’t do it.”
The voice was young, but just as cool and commanding as his mother’s. Henry, who looked to be a couple years older than my Daniel, spoke with absolute confidence.
“Honey, we’re still sorting it out…” his mother started.
“I saw what happened.”
Garrett, Ed, and Christian all stopped cold.
I looked at them, puzzled.
“Henry’s a little – special,” Christian said.
“Ma, I’m not special. I just see things. Everything.”
“Photographic memory,” Garrett clarified. “He’s like a human surveillance cam.”
“It’s true.” Modest smile from Henry. “And I saw her. She stepped on his tail.”
Three adult jaws dropped.
“Yeah. And she blamed him.”
“Not cool,” I said. “Where’s the dog now?”
“On the porch,” Ed pointed. “I’ll go look at him – can I have the first aid kit?”
“Sure,” Christian agreed, handing it over.
“I’ll take Kryssie,” I offered. “She’s my client after all.”
“I’m coming with you,” Garrett said. “I want to watch.”
Walking over to Kryssie, I was probably moving with a bit more intention and command, the way I used to do in court. The women around her saw me first and backed away.
Then Kryssie looked up from her beige acrylic nails.
“Hi,” I said.
“Um…hi…”
“I am not your lawyer. Do not lie about me.”
“Well, that’s not very nice.”
“It’s not very nice to step on a dog’s tail and blame him for nipping at you,” Garrett said. “You can apologize to me and Henry. I’d be just as happy if you stay away from Norm.”
“Well!” Kryssie huffed, standing up so quickly the little needlepoint-covered chair wobbled.
A hand caught it. “Please leave.”
Kryssie turned sharply to Christian Shaw, who had righted the chair with one simple, careful movement.
“Ma’am,” Christian Shaw said, emphasizing the honorific, I’m sure because she knew it annoyed Kryssie. “People who are a danger to animals and property are not welcome in the Society.”
“A danger-”
“I’m sure you can call an Uber on that iPhone,” Garrett said. “Please respect the rules of the Society and Dr. Shaw.”
“Oh, fine. I’ll call from outside. See if I ever come over here again.”
“See that you don’t,” Christian said.
Ed and Henry were walking in with Norm as Kryssie reached the hallway. Norm, true to his nature, merely gave her a wounded look, and Henry draped himself over the big mutt, reassuring him.
Kryssie minced out, her stiletto-heeled boots clacking, the insane shearling coat flapping.
“Good riddance,” Ed said.
“This calls for a cookie,” said Christian, walking toward the refreshment table. “Henry, the ones on the red plate are no-sugar-added.”
Once everyone had their treat, Henry held up his, and crowed: “Cookie toast!”
Agreement all round as we tapped cookies.
“Happy freakin’ holidays,” Christian said
“Peace on earth – or else,” I agreed.
**
Back home, Mrs. Citron’s house was still dark, and the remains of the Grinch were still on the lawn. And my business card was in the door, too.
I went up and rang the bell. Scotchie followed me and scratched at the door – barked.
He was alerting.
I rang again.
Scotchie scratched and barked again.
“Hush, pal. Let me listen.”
I leaned in, and that’s when I heard it. A faint cry:
“Help me!”
“We’re here!” I yelled. “I’m calling the medics now.”
The ambulance was there in less than ten minutes. Scotchie and I waited, while the firefighters kicked down the door, and the medics ran in. As the crew rolled Mrs. Citron out, she reached toward us, her hand landing right on the big blond head.
“Good doggie,” she said, in a faint and raspy voice.
No argument there.
She looked up at me. “He can kill all the Grinches he wants, Grace.”
Scotchie licked her hand.
Mrs. Citron was smiling as they loaded her onto the ambulance.
One of the firefighters turned to me on his way back to the truck. “You called it in?”
“Yep.”
“You saved her life, ma’am. Looks like a knee ligament tear and a broken arm from trying to catch herself. Maybe a concussion. She’ll make it…but she wouldn’t have if she’d stayed on that floor all night.”
“Glad I heard her,” I said. Funny how saving a life helped clear the emotional residue from taking one.
“Bet she and her family are, too.” I returned the sturdy young man’s smile. “Thanks.”
“Thank you.”
I watched the ambulance and fire engine pull away, lights flashing, adding a serious note to the strings of multicolored LED’S festooning the houses.
“C’mon, big fella,” I patted Scotchie’s back. “You’ve earned some extra treats.”
And I’ve earned some fudge.
The End
On March 25, 2025, Grace and Christian Shaw will be together again, sharing a publication date! Keylight Books/Turner Publishing will release Nikki Knight’s Hound of the Bonnevilles and Level Best Books will release KMK’s The Stuff of Mayhem. Fudge and/or limoncello on me!
Holiday 2022
You can't beat a cute little New England town for the sweet sights of the season, but Unity’s celebration that year ended up more Law & Order than Holiday Channel.
Light Night started off well enough, with the Chamber of Commerce tree all decorated with sweet old-fashioned red bows and LED candles that looked like the real thing without the fire hazard. Next to it, a giant menorah elegantly crafted of silvery pipes was ready, too.
Both were set up in front of the old Congregational Church, which was Congregation Beth Shalom these days. The dwindling goyim needed to sell, and the town fathers (and mothers) liked the idea of keeping the historic building in religious use, so the deal was done.
Great for me, since I got to have my close friend, Rabbi Dina Aaron, nearly next door to my work at the town Historical Society. That afternoon, I was making sure the Society was ready for our little open house after the lighting with the help of my eight- year-old son Henry.
Well, let's say without Henry's hindrance. He wasn't wild about wearing knickers and a newsboy cap -- it was probably the last year he would be young enough that I could bribe or blackmail him into it. But he definitely did enjoy helping decorate the foyer, and with his photographic memory, he could make sure everything ended up in the right place.
Henry didn't want to rock the vintage look, but I always had fun with it. Playing dress-up is one of the fringe benefits of this job, which is a much better fit for me than my old post as a history professor. I'll answer to Dr. Shaw if I must, since I did in fact pile it high and deep, but I much prefer Christian. NOT Chrissy.
Christian is a very old Scottish woman's name, and my family apparently thought it would help me stand out. Not that I need it.
I'm too big for the actual surviving clothes, but I have a cute reproduction coat in black velvet that I bring out just for this. Makes me look like a 150% copy of Anne of Green Gables, complete with red hair.
Most of the time, I don't mind my size -- I'm six-one, and life-stress thin, but big-boned -- but I do feel like I'm missing out with the gorgeous Victorian gowns. Of course, they’re old and fragile, and no responsible person would wear them. But the whole reason I work with stuff is the vibes I get from things that were loved and used decades or even centuries ago.
It's not paranormal, well, not exactly. It's just an echo of the energy of the people who used, wore, or carried things.
So my costume coat is nice, and I feel pretty in it, but there's no kick.
We figured there was enough kick from the event. After the lighting, the Society was hosting a little open house, and after THAT came the real holiday fun: cocoa by the fire at Garrett and Ed's.
The dads I should have had (as I like to call them – we’re family of choice, not blood) host a private little party every year for family and friends to unwind after the town festivities because most of us are involved in running it, and we all need a break.
A little background: Garrett was my mentor back when we were both misfits in the History Department at Shoreline State University. Despite being a first-rate Lincoln scholar, he was too out and too honest to ever be Department chair; I didn't study the right topic or publish in the right places to get tenure. Eventually, I left for the Society, he retired and married former state trooper Ed, and we all ended up where we belong.
These days, I'm more grateful than ever for Garrett and Ed. Since my husband died in a stupid car crash, they've become the primary males in Henry's life. It's a lot easier to raise a good man with a couple standup guys around.
Speaking of standup guys, my assistant Lewis had also gotten the vintage fun memo, in a mackintosh and deerstalker. He wasn’t a Sherlock Holmes fan – he just liked the style, and it suited him, the long lines giving him a little height and the warm russet tweed adding a glow to his caramel skin. Lewis – full name John Lewis Barnes, of course for the Civil Rights hero – is less than a year away from his Yale doctorate and comes from a prominent New Haven church family. Lewis’s aunt, a pal of mine, had sent him my way because he was looking for an understanding employer at the same time my last assistant retired at 85.
All good.
Anyway, Henry was bouncing between helping Lewis and me hang garlands and set out the Nativity Scene and watching the Light Night setup outside when the fellas arrived.
I knew they were there before the bell; Empress Frederick, the Society cat, hissed and bounded away.
It wasn't Garrett and Ed -- it was Norm. Their giant red mutt, part St. Bernard, part Clifford and all sweet and loving, offended Her Imperial Majesty with his very existence.
“Hey, Uncle Garrett!” Henry called. “Ma made you dress up, too!”
“No, pal, I chose to get into the spirit.” Garrett was in full Victorian kit: gray wool greatcoat, red muffler and an actual vintage top hat.
“And good for him.” Ed, as usual, had opted out; a retired State Police Sergeant, he had zero interest in playing dress up, but he liked watch Garrett get into it. His sole concession to the season was a red-and-white striped scarf, knit by his daughter, which made him look a little less spare and stark than usual.
Henry and I went out to the porch to meet them; it wasn’t worth the aggravation of a potential confrontation between the Empress and Norm. I wasn’t worried for her safety, but Norm’s. He’d try to love her into liking him, and she’d shred his nose. Not exactly a happy holiday family moment.
“What kind of cocoa do you have this year, Uncle Garrett?” Henry asked.
“All the usual – dark chocolate, chocolate mint, mocha for the grownups – and a special treat for someone who has to watch his carbs – low-sugar double chocolate with whipped cream.”
“Awright!” Henry high-fived Garrett as Ed and I smiled. Henry has Type-1 Diabetes, and while it doesn’t rule his life, it does require some accommodations, especially during the holiday sweets season.
“All we have to do is survive this happy holiday horse – er – manure,” Ed said, quickly editing himself for Henry, “and we get to hang out by the fire with cocoa.”
Garrett chuckled. “Celebrations never killed anybody.”
He had no idea how close that was to famous last words.
Just then, there was a funny little woop-woop sound, like Henry’s old toy First Responder truck. We turned to see Unity’s only police cruiser, a cute little hybrid, painted up in powder blue and white, scuttling past as fast as its miniature engine would go.
The four of us looked at each other, and Norm let out a sad little whine.
The cruiser, woop-wooping all the way, scooted up to the stairs of the synagogue. That was all we needed.
“Henry, stay with Uncle Garrett and Norm,” I said, cutting my eyes to Ed. His cop radar had already kicked in, and my friend antennae were buzzing with concern for Dina.
Ed’s still in pretty good shape for a retiree, and even in my floofy velvet coat, I was able to cover ground too, so we made it to the steps in seconds – Lewis just a few steps behind us, trying not to be overly protective.
The former Congo Church (as parishioners cheekily called it) is a perfectly preserved early eighteenth-century house of worship, complete with white stone stairs and columns. Inside, a high, stark sanctuary centers around a carved wooden pulpit hovering ten feet in the air, and further up in the rafters, a balcony that once held with enslaved people and indentured servants. Even though the church evolved into a loving and open-minded group, and the place is now a warm and welcoming Reform synagogue, there’s still a tiny edge of the bad old days in the air.
Or maybe I just pick it up sometimes.
Certainly there was plenty of edge to go around on this day. Rabbi Dina Aaron stood at the huge white doors, wrapping her blue waterfall cardigan around her and staring at an object that had been left at the top of the portico.
It was cylindrical with a pointed top, of some dark and dingy old metal, with a few scrapes and dents. Somehow, it managed to look impossibly old and menacing at the same time. Also vaguely familiar, though I was racking my brain to figure out where I’d seen such a thing before.
“What’s this?” Tony Di Biasi, an old State Police pal of Ed’s, and the senior of Unity’s three cops, walked up to the thing and took a look. “Do you think I should call the bomb squad?”
“I’m not sure,” Dina said. “It does look kind of like an old shell. And there’s this.”
We were close enough by now to see the note in her hand. A piece of pretty stationery, with thick blue ink smudged by the light snow. It was mostly unreadable, but the few words that had survived were awful enough.
“Back where…came from.”
The signature was indistinct too. Who signs something like that anyhow?
“Happy freaking holidays.” Ed muttered. Only he didn’t say freaking. “Call hate crimes, DiBiasi.”
“Already did.” The pudgy little cop shook his head. “Now I’ve got to go talk to the selectboard and see if we want to go ahead with the event this evening.”
“You’re darn right we do.” Dina’s eyes flashed blue fire. “We don’t go hide somewhere just because somebody doesn’t like us.”
“The rabbi’s right,” Ed said. “Can’t let ‘em win.”
“All right. Well, let’s call a few of our old buddies, then, Ed.”
“That I can get behind.” Ed followed Di Biasi inside the building.
I was still looking at the metal object. Yes, it was corroded and battered, but it looked like something I knew. And not a shell.
We have a surprisingly good collection of old armaments – all duds or disabled, of course – brought home by veterans of various wars. The VFW guys take care of them, but I’ve catalogued enough over the years to recognize something like that when I see it.
And I was pretty sure this wasn’t artillery. The metal was old and dark, but very thin, and the piece looked rough and handmade, which was all wrong for a weapon. Even Colonial shells were made with care and precision.
This may have been made with care, but not a lot of precision. The front of the piece looked as if it would fall off if I touched it. Definitely not a shell – it would fall apart in the firing process, endangering the good guys before it hit the enemy.
But what, then? I bent down and took a closer look.
“Christian, don’t!” Dina grabbed my shoulder. “What if it’s-”
“It’s not.” I patted her arm. “I think I know what this is.”
Close up, I was absolutely sure. Still confused about why it was here, but certain what it was.
I pulled a pen from my pants pocket, and poked at what looked like a seam. The whole front of the piece swung away, revealing a glass screen and a candle stub.
“A lantern.” Dina let out a sigh of relief. “It’s a lantern.”
“A dark lantern.” I picked it up and showed her how the metal covered the glass – and the light. “If you’re trying to do something at night without being seen, this is what you’d want.”
“Wow,” Lewis said. “Looks early nineteenth century. Maybe even eighteenth.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” I agreed.
“Why would someone leave that here?” Di Biasi asked. “With a note like that?”
“No idea,” I said. Lanterns are usually good symbols – light and all that.
“Hard to know what any freak is thinking on any given day.” Ed shook his head irritably. “I’m getting really sick of hate.”
“We don’t know it’s hate,” Dina said. “All we know is that it’s weird…and that we’ve got to get ready to light everything.”
“Well, that’s true.” Di Biasi gave her a reluctant nod.
“That we do,” I agreed.
“Good. Then I’m going to go put on my pretty cape.” Dina wears a glorious sweeping blue velvet evening topper for the lighting every year, one of her very few frivolities.
“I need my stole and muff,” I said. Though I couldn’t wear any real vintage pieces, I’d invested in a few reproductions for occasions like this, including the coat, and very authentic-looking (but cruelty free, thank you!) black pretend muskrat accessories.
“Not without a little extra protection,” Di Biasi said with a nod to Ed.
“I’d expect nothing less, gentlemen.” Dina gave them a cool, brave smile. No backing down here.
A few minutes later, properly kitted out, Garrett, Henry and I stepped out on the Historical Society porch to take a good look at the scene. Lewis was already on the porch, surveying the Green, his jaw tight, clearly wondering what was lurking out there.
Still, if you didn’t know that Ed’s old Statie pals were circulating in the crowd, it would have been a perfect New England holiday scene. The light snow had returned, and the streetlights had come on, giving the whole thing a sparkle worthy of a cable movie.
Dina, in her cape, swept over to join the crowd of town leaders between the big silver menorah and the tree. Most of the town leaders had geared up for the event; there were several more capes in various colors, mobcaps, a smattering of top hats and greatcoats like Garrett’s, and of course plenty of Santa hats.
Ed, in his usual brown suede barn jacket and jeans, always looked like he was visiting from a different movie…and didn’t care.
Henry tugged on my sleeve. “Ma.”
“What, honey? You know you don’t have to sing if you don’t want to.”
“Not that, Ma.”
“Your numbers were okay five minutes ago. Are you-” His blood sugar is always the first thing I worry about, even though he’s very well regulated.
“Ma, I’m fine.” He scowled. “Everything isn’t that.”
“You’re right.” I nodded. I hate when I overstep like this. “So…”
“The old lady – behind Rabbi Dina.”
He pointed to Mae Tillotson. Henry wasn’t being disrespectful, just factual. Mae Tillotson was eighty if she was a day, one of those stern, upright matriarchs who usually seems stark and ferocious.
But in a gray vintage fur topped with a red velvet hat piled with holly leaves and berries, even she had a festive, jaunty air.
“What about her?”
“What was she doing earlier? I saw her putting something on the Temple steps when we got here.”
“You did?” I wasn’t questioning Henry’s recollection – he has a true photographic memory, and if he says he saw something, he did. I was just shocked to think that Mae would have done such a thing.
“Yeah, Ma. Looked like she had some old metal thing, like a paint can, maybe? But it was her. The red hat with the leaves. Was that why the cops came?”
Garrett and I exchanged glances.
We still had a couple of minutes before go time, and I wanted to settle this before the fun began.
“How about you stay here with Norm and Uncle Garrett while I go talk to Mrs. Tillotson.”
“Okay.”
I marched across the path toward the group.
Dina saw me coming – I’m hard to miss, after all – and moved toward me. Ed fell in behind her.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Henry saw Mae Tillotson putting something on the steps.”
Ed nodded and walked over to Mae.
“Mae?” Dina asked. “Surely not. I hate to think…”
“So do I. She’s a volunteer at the society, and a nice lady.”
“Not that nice, if-”
“Rabbi!” Mae had one of those Julia Child voices you could hear for miles. More so, as she swept over to us, much exercised in mind. “I believe we have a terrible misunderstanding.”
“I sure hope so,” Dina said.
“That lantern was a gift.”
“A gift?”
“My father was the sacristan. When I was cleaning out the garage this fall, I found the old thing, and wanted to make sure it went back where it came from.”
“Back where it came from.” Ed said. “Where the lantern came from.”
“Well, yes.” Mae bristled a little. “That’s what I said in the note.”
“Which got wet.” I shook my head. “It didn’t read that way.”
“All we could read was ‘back where – came from,’” Dina told her.
“Oh, dear. I’m truly sorry.” Mae patted Dina’s arm. “Of course it might seem scary if you couldn’t read the rest. What a mess.”
“It’s all right.” Dina returned the pat and smiled. “I’m just glad it was all right. Let’s go light the candles and tree.”
“And bring the lantern,” Mae said. “There’s more to the story.”
The whole story didn’t come together until later, at Garrett and Ed’s over that wonderful hot chocolate buffet.
“So here’s what Mae told me at the Society,” I started, after a sip of my mocha.
“She was just returning the lantern, right?” Dina asked.
“Yes, but the twist is what it was used for.”
Garrett perked up, as if he could guess what was coming. So did Lewis.
“Apparently, it was kept in the basement, in a hidden room that was a stop on the Underground Railroad.”
“Yes!” Dina clapped her hands. “One of the storage rooms has a little metal bedstead and a table. I thought it might be a place of refuge.”
“It sure was. And the dark lantern was for when the pastor guided enslaved people to their driver for the next leg of the trip to freedom.”
“Right,” Garrett said. “Because even if almost everyone in town was on board with the idea – there was always the possibility of someone who wasn’t.”
“And horrible consequences.” Ed nodded. “Even here in the supposedly free North.”
“Exactly. Hence the dark lantern and secrecy.” I wrapped my hands around the cocoa mug, thinking about what the people who came through the church must have suffered. I hoped they’d found safety and happiness in Canada.
“I wonder how many came through,” Dina said, gazing down into her mug, almost certainly contemplating some of the same questions I was.
“There are some individual accounts, and a very few records,” Garrett told her. While Lincoln was his primary focus, he’d studied a variety of other aspects of mid-19th century American life. “But unless you have the pastor’s diary, you’ll probably never know.”
Everyone was quiet for a long moment. The past is always with us, just under the surface, for good or bad.
“Well, we know about a few people.”
We all turned to Lewis.
He smiled. “One of my great-great-great grandparents – I think -- came through here as a boy with his mother. Family legend has it that New Haven County was so beautiful and the people were so kind that he never forgot it, and when it was safe to come back as a freedman, that’s what he did. Built a new life and a new world for his family.”
“And now you’re here, at the Society.” Garrett smiled.
“And the lantern is back where it belongs.” Dina nodded, .
“I think we all end up where we belong,” I said. “And sometimes you take the happy ending.”
“And the cocoa!” Henry chimed in.
Lewis raised his mug. “Especially the cocoa.”
OUT NOW!
"Danno and the Shadyside Butcher" is one of the many female PI stories in the NEW anthology from Murderous Ink Press!