Santa Clawed

but, best of all, look!” She held out her right arm, on which dangled an intricately wrought bracelet of eighteen-karat gold. “Can you believe? At today’s prices, no less.”
    “That’s gorgeous.” Harry held Susan’s arm, pretending to unlock the bracelet.
    Susan slapped her hand. “How about you?”
    “A huge thermos so I can make his coffee the nights he’s on call. He says I need my sleep and, much as he loves me getting up to hand him a thermos, he wants me to sleep. There’s the thermos.” She pointed under the tree. “I mean, you could water a platoon with that.”
    “He’ll need both hands to carry it. What else?” Susan’s eyebrows raised expectantly.
    “A necklace to match the ring he bought me last summer when we visited the Shelbyville Saddlebred show.” Harry knelt down, lifting up a luxurious presentation box. “Look at this.”
    “Spectacular. He really does have good taste.”
    “But here’s the best present of all. I can’t believe he bought me one.” She breathed in deeply, as if to contain her excitement. “A Honda ATV. I mean, this thing is four hundred horsepower. And, thank God, he didn’t buy one in camouflage. It’s a pleasing shade of blue. I can go seventy miles an hour on it if I want and through anything.”
    “If you go seventy miles an hour on that beast, I will beat your ass with a wooden spoon. Where is it?”
    “In the shed. Come on.” Harry walked back to the kitchen, pulled a coat off the peg.
    Susan, who’d thrown her coat on a kitchen chair, zipped it back up. As Harry tried to slide the baseball cap down against the weather, Susan noticed the edge of the nasty cut, plus some bare scalp.
    “Hey. What’d you do?”
    “Oh, a little accident.”
    “Bullshit, Harry.” Susan snatched the Orioles cap off her head. “Stitches. Whoever did it was careful to shave just around the wound. But, girl, you need help. Better call Glen at West Main.” She cited a fashionable hair salon.
    “I clunked my head on a beam.”
    “None of your beams are that low.” Susan folded her arms across her chest. “Furthermore, I know you better than you know yourself. ’Fess up.”
    “I can’t.” Harry sounded morose.
    Susan knew Harry shared most everything with her, so her conclusion was easy to reach. “You’re in trouble and Rick told you to button it.” She touched her lips.
    “Well—”
    “Harry, I know you found Christopher Hewitt. Made the papers, and you told me everything. At least I think you did.”
    “I did tell you. When Dr. Gibson found the obol, I told you that, too. However, Rick and Cooper let me know I had to keep quiet about this.” She took the cap back, clapped it on her head, then walked out onto the screened-in porch.
    Susan, hot on her tail, said, “Listen, I don’t want to have this conversation in front of Fair, but if you’ve stuck your nose into the two monks being killed, the killer must have found out.”
    “I haven’t. I
swear
I haven’t.”
    “Then who hit you on the head hard enough to split it open like that?”
    “I don’t know. He—or she, but I think he—came up behind me as the blizzard started.”
    “On the farm? That person came here?” Susan was aghast.
    “No.” Harry slipped her arm through Susan’s as she opened the screen door. “I can’t tell you any more, even though I’m dying to.”
    “It’s the dying I’m worried about. Is that why you didn’t want me to tell anyone I’d talked to you?”
    “Yes.” Harry walked slowly as they navigated the cleared path, now turned to ice. “Forgot the treats. Wait a minute.”
    She carefully walked back to the house, pulled out a small Tupperware full of mince pie, and grabbed molasses icicles from the freezer and a bag of marshmallows from the pantry.
    On returning, she handed the Tupperware to Susan. “Now, if we hold hands, we’ll be in balance. We each have something to carry with the other.”
    “Sure.” Susan smiled at her.
    “And, Susan, I’m not scared much, but I’m scared enough. No point in pretending otherwise to you.”
    “What kind of person would show up in a snowstorm? A desperate one, I think.”
    “I don’t know. But if it is Christopher’s or Brother Speed’s killer, why didn’t he kill me?”
    “I don’t know, but I’m exceedingly grateful.”
    They entered the barn, the horses nickering a greeting. Fair was sweeping up the center aisle.
    “Merry Christmas.” He leaned the big push broom against a stall and