Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews Read Free Book Online

the chief’s wife, had appeared, wearing the maroon satin choir robe of the New Life Baptist Church.
     She shook her head as she watched her husband’s progress. “At this rate, the old fool will break his neck before the parade
     even begins. But there’s no stopping them when they get a crazy idea in their heads, is there? Cal, go keep an eye on your
     grandfather.”
    Cal nodded and scampered off behind the camels. Clarence frowned—was he still worried about Larry’s limp?—and followed.
    Ainsley Werzel sauntered up. He’d thrown on one of the county-issue brown shepherd’s robes and was stuffing his press pass
     inside it.
    “Getting into the spirit of things,” he said, when he saw me eyeing the robe.
    More like trying to fool people into thinking he was part of the parade and catch them off guard, I suspected.
    “So Chief Burke’s one of the wise men?” he asked. “Is that okay?”
    “More than okay, it’s useful,” I said. “In the unlikely event of any trouble, we’ll already have the police chief and a number
     of his officers on hand to deal with it.”
    “Yeah, but isn’t that carrying this whole multicultural thing a little too far?” Werzel asked. “I mean, were any of the original
     wise men African-American?”
    Was he making a joke? No, he sounded serious. I was still trying to figure out a tactful way to answer when Minerva Burke
     spoke up.
    “African- American? ” she said, with a snort. “Not hardly, since it wasn’t till fifteen centuries after the Nativity that Columbus discovered
     what the Indians had already found and a while after that before people started calling it America. Not to mention a couple
     of centuries till the slave trade brought Africans to this side of the ocean. So, no, there weren’t any African-American wise
     men.”
    “However,” I said, “there’s a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages that one of the wise men, Balthazar, was African.”
    “Just African,” Minerva Burke said. “No hyphen required.”
    “And we’ve asked Chief Burke to be a wise man to honor that tradition.”
    “Great, great,” Werzel said. He backed off, smiling nervously, until he was about ten feet away—at which point he pretended
     to become fascinated with one of the musical acts—a barbershop quartet dressed as Christmas trees—and loped off as fast as
     he could.
    “Sorry,” Minerva said, shaking her head. “Don’t know why, but that man just brings out the mean in me.”
    “Don’t apologize,” I said. “You’re welcome to chase him away any time you see him hovering near me. I really don’t want to
     have to deal with a reporter on top of everything else.”
    “I’d have thought you’d be pleased to see he was here,” Minerva said. “After all, we’ve been trying for years to get someone
     other than the local rag to cover it. And you snagged the Star Tribune —it’s a fabulous coup.”
    “I didn’t snag him,” I said. “He just showed up. And if that’s a coup, it’s one that could backfire, big time,” I said. “Have
     you read any of Werzel’s articles?”
    She shook her head. Not surprising—I hadn’t either before the Trib called to request directions and a VIP pass. But a quick Google search told me all I needed to know.
    “He wants to be Woodward and Bernstein for the new millennium, and they’ve got him stuck in the Style section, writing human
     interest stories. So he tries to turn every assignment into a new Watergate.”
    “But there’s no possible scandal he can find connected with our parade,” Minerva said. “Is there?”
    “No, but that just means he’ll drive us crazy trying to find the smoking gun, and when he fails he’ll sulk and try to make
     us look like lunatics.”
    “Oh, dear,” Minerva said. “Yes, we’d be all too vulnerable on the lunacy angle.”
    “You should see the article he did on a group of little old ladies up in Loudoun County who make bears for sick children in
     disasters. He