The pile of gifts was even bigger than it had been the day before, but I needed more coffee before I dug through to find out whose presents the tree had stolen this time. I headed to the small kitchen in the back room and started the coffeemaker. While I waited, I called the vet.
"Dead End Veterinary Clinic," Phin said.
I laughed. "This is Tess. I see you continued our fine Dead End tradition of naming everything as literally as possible."
"And boring. Don't forget boring. Charithra wanted to go with something clever, but I gently told her about Dead End residents and their prejudices against 'funny-sounding names.'"
"How is the dog doing?"
"She's a trooper. Slept through the night with minimal discomfort, although of course we had the pain meds and fluids going. It's really a shame she isn't chipped. Somebody must miss that dog."
"No luck on any owners coming forward?"
"No. But Deputy Kelly is interested in adopting her if her owners don't show up. He says she can ride along with him and be a kind of friendly police dog. He already named her, even."
"What did he name her?"
"Galadriel." Phin chuckled. "Once a nerd, always a nerd. He's going to call her Ellie, though."
"Hey. AnyLord of the Ringsname is good with me. I named my cat after Lieutenant Uhura."
"Oh, that's right! You were always a huge Star Trek fan."
"Commander Data liked one of my tweets once before I abandoned Twitter. It made my whole day," I admitted.
"Brent Spiner? I saw him at MegaCon. He's so nice and so funny."
I heard voices in the background and, sure enough, Phin said he had to go.
"Come by tonight for dinner, if you can."
He promised he'd try, and we hung up. Then I sighed, poured myself a cup of coffee, and called Mrs. Frost.
"Hello! This better not be any telemarketers. I've got a crossbow, and I'm not afraid to use it!"
Exactly what I was afraid of.
"Mrs. Frost? This is Tess Callahan. I'm calling to apologize and explain about those Christmas presents you've probably noticed are gone…"
By the time I finished explaining, she was cackling with laughter.
"Oh, Tess, you're better than a tonic, I swear."
I didn't know how to respond to that and wasn't at all sure it was a compliment.
"You know, we were sure we had a haunted tree once when I was a child."
"Really?" I took a sip of coffee. "Seems unlikely."
"You'd think, but this is Dead End."
She had a point.
"My folks were out to dinner, and we were home alone. Something started making a horrible moaning noise, and we were sure it was our tree! We all ran and hid upstairs. We tried to tell Mama and Daddy when they got home, but they'd had a bit too much to drink and just sent us to bed. I swear, I was up all night, terrified of that stupid tree."
"Really? What happened?"
"I finally fell asleep with my sisters all in bed with me. When sirens woke me up in the middle of the night, I was sure that the tree had done something terrible! Turns out, though, the horrible sound was just old Mr. Gyorsky next door with a raging case of indigestion. He'd been moaning fit to wake the dead all night, and his wife finally woke up and called the ambulance. Do you remember him?"
