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Baxter had to be almost twice my weight and a good foot or more taller than my five feet. Nina tried pulling away the lights that entangled him. I tugged, and he rolled up to a sitting position. Branches cracked under him and broke as he kicked at them to free his legs. When he tried to stand up, he collapsed into a heap on the ground.
    Nina rushed to his front door and rang the bell. “Should I call an ambulance?”
    “No! I’ll be quite fine. I just”—he pulled a strand of lights that tugged at another strand of lights—“need to catch my breath.”
    The sight of the staid and slightly pompous businessman sitting on the ground wrapped in Christmas lights
was
a little bit amusing. The next time he prattled on about the best meal he ever had in a tiny village in Tuscany, I would remember this moment. “Would you mind if I cut these lights off you? They’re caught on each other. How many strands are there?”
    “Twenty.”
    “Decorating for the Christmas contest?”
    “Gwen’s been pestering me about it. She has to have the best house on the block. Better than Natasha’s. And”—he grunted when he tried to stand and failed—“my brother is coming for the holidays. I guess I have a little Clark Griswold in me after all.”
    The homes in Old Town Alexandria were gorgeous. Many of them, like those on our street, had been built in the 1800s in typical colonial styles. But they were tall and hard to climb. Baxter’s house was three full stories with dormer windows on the third floor. Very difficult to cover in lights.
    “Have you heard anything about Horace? You work for him, don’t you?” Nina asked.
    Baxter scowled. “I haven’t heard beans about poor old Horace. There won’t be a business if he dies. His insufferable wife had the locks changed on the building. No one could go to work today.” He shook his head. “We have deals pending,” he whined. “Everyone has to work from home. It’s unbelievable.”
    The front door swung open. Gwen Babineaux seemed surprised to see Nina. A bottle blonde, Gwen had gone too long without a boost of color. Dark roots gave away her true brunette color in spite of the dark blond curls that cascaded around her shoulders. Tall and curvy, she prided herself on her cooking and baking skills, and the resulting extra pounds enhanced her voluptuousness. She tended to squint, hiding eyes the color of milk chocolate. With her long straight nose and thin lips, the squint sometimes gave the impression that she was being critical. She wore an oversized green flannel pajama top with the sleeves rolled up. Pictures of the Grinch and wrapped presents alternated all over it. “Baxter? What have you done now?”
    “Do you have scissors I could use to cut the lights off him?” I asked.
    She huffed, shook her head and went inside, returning in a minute with shears. She handed them to me and pulled twigs of boxwood from his thinning hair.
    “Honestly, Baxter is about the least handy man I’ve ever known.”
    “You’re the one who wants to win the contest,” he protested.
    She took a step back. “I don’t see a single light! What’s that on the roof?”
    “The staple gun.”
    “You were on the
roof
?” she shrieked. She shook her head. “And I’m the one who goes to a shrink! Well, he’ll be hearing about this.”
    “How else am I supposed to put lights up there? I took the ladder upstairs and pushed it out the window. Then I set it up so I could string lights on the dormers, but when I stepped on it, a rung broke. I fell down, but managed to grab hold of the ladder. It slipped at first, but then it caught on something. If Bethany didn’t crank up her music so loud, you would have heard me yelling for help. Then the whole thing gave way.”
    I snipped faster. “If you fell all the way from the roof, you really should go to the emergency room. You’re incredibly lucky the bushes broke your fall. Did any branches stab you in the back?”
    Gwen appeared more irritated