Page 82 of Always Murder

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“What?”Bobby asked.

I was surprised to find myself grinning so fiercely my cheeks hurt.“She did it.Millie did it.”

“Did what?”

I shook my head and patted his arm.

Christine made a few more welcome remarks.There was a prayer.And then music began—a flute, soft and plaintive.A mellow, NPR-quality voice came over the speakers, saying, “In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken…”

I tuned it out.I wasn’t here for the story.

I was here for Millie.

“—so Joseph went to Bethlehem with Mary—”

Millie stepped onto the stage a moment later, and she looked radiant: a blue dress, her blond hair miraculously tamed for once, a smile glowing on her face.My eyes stung.It was such a silly thing; I knew that.It was a church Christmas pageant.And it wasn’t going to change anything with Millie’s mom.

But maybe it already had, at least a little.And it meant so much to Millie.And she looked so happy that I had to blink rapidly to keep tears from falling.Bobby rubbed my back, and then his arm settled across my shoulders.

Millie’s victory hadn’t been complete, though; instead of Keme, her Joseph was a young man with an improbably long neck and ill-fitting brown robes.My brain had just long enough to wonder if this was the costume emergency Indira had been sorting out when Keme stepped onto the stage.

He was the donkey.Floppy ears.A shapeless gray sack of a costume.Black shoes that were supposed to be hooves.His face was set to murderous, and he stared out at the audience with an unmistakable challenge in his eyes.

Indira whispered in my ear, “His tail kept falling off.”

“Oh my God,” I said.“Oh myGod.I will love you for the rest of my life.”

And then I started to cry.

“What’s wrong?”Bobby whispered.

I shook my head and wiped my cheeks.

“Dash, he’s fine.He’ll be grumpy about it, but he’s okay.”

“I know,” I said through the tears.“I know.”

Because I couldn’t explainwhyI was crying, not completely.Sure, a lot of it was because of the emotional and physical exhaustion of the last few days, culminating in that life-or-death shootout only a few hours before.But it was also because of what tonight meant, for Keme to do this for her in front of the whole town.And what it meant for Keme to do it even after everything that had passed between him and Christine.And how much he and Millie loved each other, and how hard they were trying to make it work, and the fact that I loved them, and I wanted everything to be perfect for them, and it made me so happy to see them being happy.I wanted to laugh, of course—I mean, a part of mewishedI could laugh—but when I thought about Keme’s long-suffering glower as Indira kept trying to fix his tail, a confusingly happy sob tore its way out of me.

“Dash—” Bobby whispered.

“He’s fine.”Fox patted my arm.“He’s all right.”And they kept patting my arm, and I realized their eyes were wet too.

It helped, a little, that when Mary and Joseph and the donkey crossed the stage toward Bethlehem, Christine whispered furiously from the wings, “Donkeys don’t stomp!”

My God, if you could have seen Keme’s face.

The pageant was an absolute train wreck, if you hadn’t guessed that already.Christine’s approach to casting clearly favored friends and family over acting talent.Joseph was a mumbler.One of the shepherds tripped over his own crook.A camel kicked a Wise Man.Angeline wasn’t in evidence, but Kassandra and David played the innkeeper and his wife, and I have to be honest: I had no idea someone could turn the role ofinnkeeper’s wifeinto something that required parental guidance for children under the age of thirteen.Bobby even flipped Sybil’s astronaut visor down again.

“Is David supposed to be wearing headphones?”I asked.

Fox rolled their eyes.

Indira ignored me.

Bobby took out a pen (my Deputy Bobby was always prepared) and wrote on the back of the programDAVITT.

---