Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse by Peggy Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

stride, which just shows the kind of good man he is.
    “I’ll print one up.”
    I wouldn’t put it past Jack. I wiggle from his grasp and steer Champ out the door before my almost-ex thinks up any more absurd reasons why I shouldn’t be going out.
    “Have fun!” Jack is standing in the doorway looking like he means every word. Which I know good and well he does not. He ought to be an actor.
    So should I. Here I am in the car with a really good-looking, really great guy who is probably going to propose, and all I can do is wish I were at the hospital checking on Uncle Charlie or at my house making sure Jack takes care of his leg.
    “You look gorgeous in that red sweater.”
    So much for Jack’s advice. “Thank you.”
    “Is there anything in particular you’d like to do tonight?”
    “Actually I’d like to go to the library.” Nobody is going to get down on their knees at the library. Unless it’s to beg for a current bestseller they’ve been waiting on for three months. “I need to check on some things without having a bossy audience.”
    “The same audience who’s going to write an instruction manual called Taking Care of Callie ?”
    “One and the same.”
    “I always did like libraries.” Champ heads straight toward the corner of Madison and Jefferson Streets. Any woman in her right mind would fall madly in love with this man.
    The Lee County Library on the corner of Jefferson and Madison is a square brick structure with tall, narrow windows, typical of the architecture of the seventies. A mural of all things Mississippi—mockingbird, magnolia and Tupelo gum trees, Civil War battle scenes, Native American scenes—occupies the east wall. A twelve-foot Christmas tree with glowing lights sits in front of the mural. I mist up when I see it.
    “Callie, what’s wrong?”
    “I am just thinking about poor dead Ruldoph and wondering if somebody really was after Uncle Charlie.”
    “I figured that’s why you wanted to come here. How can I help you?”
    “I want to find out the names of everybody who has played Santa at Barnes Crossing Mall.”
    “Done.”
    “Thank you.”
    We walk toward a bank of computers, and Champ finds two unoccupied, side by side. Grateful, I slide into my seat. “This is not much of a date for you. I’m sorry.”
    “Callie, being anywhere with you is fun.”
    Blinking back tears that have been threatening since Uncle Charlie got shocked off Santa’s throne, I try not to feel guilty. Fortunately, I get caught up in the search. Old newspaper articles from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal show the opening of Barnes Crossing Mall and their first Christmas court. Front and center is Santa.
    “Champ, are you finding what I’m finding.”
    “Only one Santa?”
    “Yes. If there is a killer loose, was he after the original Santa or Uncle Charlie?”
     
    After we leave the library, we head to Starbucks—on West Main, as Jack instructed, I notice. Feeling guilty that I’ve deprived Champ of his evening, not to mention his chance for a romantic Christmas proposal, I don’t talk about murder anymore. Still, as soon as we finish our coffee, we head home.
    Thank goodness, I don’t have an audience when I get there. Still, I don’t linger on the front porch, and I don’t invite Champ inside for a cup of coffee. I need a serious conference with Lovie. In spite of my assurances to everybody concerned that Steve Boone’s death was an accident, my instincts are screaming otherwise.
    The minute I walk inside, I know I am not alone. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust. Jack is sitting on the sofa in the dark, barely visible by the light from the electric candles in the front windows.
    “Did you have a good time, Cal?”
    What’s this I hear? Uncertainty? That is so un-Jack-like I forget to turn on the overhead light.
    “Champ’s a really great guy.”
    “I can’t argue with that.”
    Speechless, I unbutton my cape. Jack leaps off the sofa and helps me, taking his own