The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  At the lake the mist had cleared away, leaving the water steely gray, moving uneasily under its iron bands of cold. Po stood as I expected, on the rock where I’d found her yesterday. She was the picture of dejection. She clearly had expected to find her mistress there.

  I combed the area carefully and at last found one of those gray plastic tubes that film comes in. It was empty. I pocketed it, deciding I could at least show it to McGonnigal and hope he would think it important. Po left the rocks with utmost reluctance. Back on the lake path, she kept turning around to look for Cinda. I had to lift her into the car. During the drive to police headquarters, she kept turning restlessly in the back of the car, a trying maneuver since she was bigger than the seat.

  McGonnigal didn’t seem too impressed with the tube I’d found, but he took it and sent it to the forensics department. I asked him what he’d learned from Burton’s. They didn’t have copies of the photographs. Cinda had all those. If someone ordered one, they sent the name to Cinda and she supplied the picture. They gave McGonnigal a copy of the list of the seven hundred people requesting pictures and he had someone going through to see if any of them were known criminals, but he obviously believed it was a waste of time. If it weren’t for the fact that his boss, Lieutenant Robert Mallory, had been a friend of my father’s, he probably wouldn’t even have made this much of an effort.

  I stopped to see Jonathan, who seemed to be in fairly good spirits. He told me Tim Oldham had been by. “He thinks I’m a hippy and not very interesting compared to some of the mob figures he represents, but I can tell he’s doing his best.” He was working out the fingering to a Schubert score, using the side of the bed as a keyboard. I told him Po was well, but waiting for me in the car outside, so I’d best be on my way.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon going through Cinda’s Santa photographs. I’d finished about a third of them at five when Tim Oldham phoned to say that Jonathan would have to spend another night in jail: because of the Christmas holidays he hadn’t been able to arrange for bail.

  “You owe me, Vic; this has been one of the more thankless ways I’ve spent a holiday.”

  “You’re serving justice, Tim,” I said brightly. “What more could you ask for? Think of the oath you swore when you became a member of the bar.”

  “I’m thinking of the oaths I’d like to swear at you,” he grumbled.

  I laughed and hung up. I took Po for one last walk, gave her her evening food and drink and prepared to leave for my own place. As soon as the dog saw me putting my coat back on, she abandoned her dinner and started dancing around my feet, wagging her tail, to show that she was always ready to play. I kept yelling “No” to her with no effect. She grinned happily at me as if to say this was a game she often played—she knew humans liked to pretend they didn’t want her along, but they always took her in the end.

  She was very upset when I shoved her back into the apartment behind me. As I locked the door, she began barking. Retrievers are quiet dogs; they seldom bark and never whine. But their voices are deep and full-bodied, coming straight from their huge chests. Good diaphragm support, the kind singers seldom achieve.

  Cinda’s apartment was on the second floor. When I got to the ground floor, I could still hear Po from the entryway. She was clearly audible outside the front door. “Ah, nuts!” I muttered. How long could she keep this up? Were dogs like babies? Did you just ignore them for a while and discipline them into going to sleep? Did that really work with babies? After standing five minutes in the icy wind I could still hear Po. I swore under my breath and let myself back into the building.

  She was totally ecstatic at seeing me, jumping up on my chest and licking my face to show there were no hard feelings. “You’re shameless and a fraud,” I told her severely. She wagged her tail with delight. “Still, you’re an orphan; I can’t treat you too harshly.”

  She agreed and followed me down the stairs and back to my apartment with unabated eagerness. I took a bath and changed my clothes, made dinner and took care of my mail, then walked Po around the block to a little park, and back up the street to her own quarters. I brought my own toothbrush with me this time; there didn’t seem much point in trying to leave the dog until Jonathan got out of jail.

  Cinda and Jonathan had few furnishings, but they owned a magnificent stereo system and a large record collection. I put some Britten quartets on, found a novel buried in the stack of technical books next to Cinda’s side of the bed, and purloined a bottle of burgundy. I curled up on a beanbag chair with the book and the wine. Po lay at my feet, panting happily. Altogether a delightful domestic scene. Maybe I should get a dog.

  I finished the book and the bottle of wine a little after midnight and went to bed. Po padded into the bedroom after me and curled up on a rug next to the bed. I went to sleep quickly.

  A single sharp bark from the dog woke me about two hours later. “What is it, girl? Nightmares?” I started to turn over to go back to sleep when she barked again. “Quiet, now!” I commanded.

  I heard her get to her feet and start toward the door. And then I heard the sound that her sharper ears had caught first. Someone was trying to get into the apartment. It couldn’t be Jonathan; I had his keys, and this was someone fumbling, trying different keys, trying to pick the lock. In about thirty seconds I pulled on jeans, boots, and a sweatshirt, ignoring underwear. My intruder had managed the lower lock and was starting on the upper.

  Po was standing in front of the door, hackles raised on her back. Obedient to my whispered command she wasn’t barking. She followed me reluctantly into the darkroom-bathroom. I took her into the shower stall and pulled the curtain across as quietly as I could.

  We waited there in the dark while our intruder finished with locks. It was an unnerving business listening to the rattling, knowing someone would be on us momentarily. I wondered if I’d made the right choice; maybe I should have dashed down the back stairs with the dog and gotten the police. It was too late now, however; we could hear a pair of boots moving heavily across the living room. Po gave a deep, mean growl in the back of her throat.

  “Doggy? Doggy? Are you in here, Doggy?” The man knew about Po, but not whether she was here. He must not have heard her two short barks earlier. He had a high tenor voice with a trace of a Spanish accent.

  Po continued to growl, very softly. At last the far door to the darkroom opened and the intruder came in. He had a flashlight which he shone around the room; through the curtain I could see its point of light bobbing.

  Satisfied that no one was there, he turned on the overhead switch. This was connected to a ventilating fan, whose noise was loud enough to mask Po’s continued soft growling.

  I couldn’t see him, but apparently he was looking through Cinda’s photograph collection. He flipped on the switch at the light table and then spent a long time going through the negatives. I was pleased with Po; I wouldn’t have expected such patience from a dog. The intruder must have sat for an hour while my muscles cramped and water dripped on my head, and she stayed next to me quietly the whole time.

  At last he apparently found what he needed. He got up and I heard more paper rustling, then the light went out.

  “Now!” I shouted at Po. She raced out of the room and found the intruder as he was on his way out the far door. Blue light flashed; a gun barked. Po yelped and stopped momentarily. By that time I was across the room, too. The intruder was on his way out the apartment door.

  I pulled my parka from the chair where I’d left it and took off after him. Po was bleeding slightly from her left shoulder, but the bullet must only have grazed her because she ran strongly. We tumbled down the stairs together and out the front door into the icy December night. As we went outside, I grabbed the dog and rolled over with her. I heard the gun go off a few times but we were moving quickly, too quickly to make a good target.

  Streetlamps showed our man running away from us down Halsted to Belmont. He wore the navy ski mask and khaki parka of the solitary runner I’d
seen at the harbor the day before yesterday.

  Hearing Po and me behind him he put on a burst of speed and made it to a car waiting at the corner. We were near the Omega now; I bundled the dog into the backseat, sent up a prayer to the patron saint of Delco batteries, and turned on the engine.

  The streets were deserted. I caught up with the car, a dark Lincoln, where Sheridan Road crossed Lake Shore Drive at Belmont. Instead of turning onto the drive, the Lincoln cut straight across to the harbor.

  “This is it, girl,” I told Po. “You catch this boy, then we take you in and get that shoulder stitched up. And then you get your favorite dinner—even if it’s a whole cow.”

  The dog was leaning over the front seat, panting, her eyes gleaming. She was a retriever, after all. The Lincoln stopped at the end of the harbor parking lot. I halted the Omega some fifty yards away and got out with the dog. Using a row of parked cars as cover, we ran across the lot, stopping near the Lincoln in the shelter of a van. At that point, Po began her deep, insistent barking.

  This was a sound which would attract attention, possibly even the police, so I made no effort to stop her. The man in the Lincoln reached the same conclusion; a window opened and he began firing at us. This was just a waste of ammunition, since we were sheltered behind the van.

  The shooting only increased Po’s vocal efforts. It also attracted attention from Lake Shore Drive; out of the corner of my eye I saw the flashing blue lights which herald the arrival of Chicago’s finest.

  Our attacker saw them, too. A door opened and the man in the ski mask slid out. He took off along the lake path, away from the harbor entrance, out toward the promontory. I clapped my hands at Po and started running after him. She was much faster than me; I lost sight of her in the dark as I picked my way more cautiously along the icy path, shivering in the bitter wind, shivering at the thought of the dark freezing water to my right. I could hear it slapping ominously against the ice-covered rocks, could hear the man pounding ahead of me. No noise from Po. Her tough pads picked their way sure and silent across the frozen gravel.

  As I rounded the curve toward the promontory I could hear the man yelling in Spanish at Po, heard a gun go off, heard a loud splash in the water. Rage at him for shooting the dog gave me a last burst of speed. I rounded the end of the point. Saw his dark shape outlined against the rocks and jumped on top of him.

  He was completely unprepared for me. We fell heavily, rolling down the rocks. The gun slipped from his hand, banged loudly as it bounced against the ice and fell into the water. We were a foot away from the water, fighting recklessly—the first person to lose a grip would be shoved in to die.

  Our parkas weighted our arms and hampered our swings. He lunged clumsily at my throat. I pulled away, grabbed hold of his ski mask and hit his head against the rocks. He grunted and drew back, trying to kick me. As I moved away from his foot I lost my hold on him and slid backwards across the ice. He followed through quickly, giving a mighty shove which pushed me over the edge of the rock. My feet landed in the water. I swung them up with an effort, two icy lumps, and tried to back away.

  As I scrabbled for a purchase, a dark shape came out of the water and climbed onto the rock next to me. Po. Not killed after all. She shook herself, spraying water over me and over my assailant. The sudden bath took him by surprise. He stopped long enough for me to get well away and gain my breath and a better position.

  The dog, shivering violently, stayed close to me. I ran a hand through her wet fur. “Soon, kid. We’ll get you home and dry soon.”

  Just as the attacker launched himself at us, a searchlight went on overhead. “This is the police,” a loudspeaker boomed. “Drop your guns and come up.”

  The dark shape hit me, knocked me over. Po let out a yelp and sunk her teeth into his leg. His yelling brought the police to our sides.

  They carried strong flashlights. I could see a sodden mass of paper, a small manila envelope with teethmarks in it. Po wagged her tail and picked it up again.

  “Give me that!” our attacker yelled in his high voice. He fought with the police to try to reach the envelope. “I threw that in the water. How can this be? How did she get it?”

  “She’s a retriever,” I said.

  Later, at the police station, we looked at the negatives in the envelope Po had retrieved from the water. They showed a picture of the man in the ski mask looking on with intense, brooding eyes while Santa Claus talked to his little boy. No wonder Cinda found him worth photographing.

  “He’s a cocaine dealer,” Sergeant McGonnigal explained to me. “He jumped a ten-million-dollar bail. No wonder he didn’t want any photographs of him circulating around. We’re holding him for murder this time.”

  A uniformed man brought Jonathan into McGonnigal’s office. The sergeant cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Looks like your dog saved your hide, Mr. Michaels.”

  Po, who had been lying at my feet, wrapped in a police horse blanket, gave a bark of pleasure. She staggered to her feet, trailing the blanket, and walked stiffly over to Jonathan, tail wagging.

  I explained our adventure to him, and what a heroine the dog had been. “What about that empty film container I gave you this afternoon, Sergeant?”

  Apparently Cinda had brought that with her to her rendezvous, not knowing how dangerous her customer was. When he realized it was empty, he’d flung it aside and attacked Cinda. “We got a complete confession,” McGonnigal said. “He was so rattled by the sight of the dog with the envelope full of negatives in her mouth that he completely lost his nerve. I know he’s got good lawyers—one of them’s your friend Oldham—but I hope we have enough to convince a judge not to set bail.”

  Jonathan was on his knees fondling the dog and talking to her. He looked over his shoulder at McGonnigal. “I’m sure Oldham’s relieved that you caught the right man—a murderer who can afford to jump a ten-million-dollar bail is a much better client than one who can hardly keep a retriever in dog food.” He turned back to the dog. “But we’ll blow our savings on a steak; you get the steak and I’ll eat Butcher’s Blend tonight, Miss Three-Dot Po of Blackstone, People’s Heroine, and winner of the Croix de Chien for valor.” Po panted happily and licked his face.

  MAD DOG

  Dick Lochte

  DICK LOCHTE’S FIRST NOVEL, SLEEPING DOG (1985), recounts the adventures of a precocious fourteen-year-old girl and a worn-out Los Angeles private detective as they search for the girl’s mother across most of California. It was nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards and won the Nero Wolfe Award. It also was selected by the New York Times as a “Notable Book of the Year.” The Independent Mystery Booksellers of America named it one of the 100 Most Popular Mystery Novels of the Century. More recently, he has been co-writing books with Christopher Darden and Al Roker. “Mad Dog” was first published in Santa Clues, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Carol-Lynn Rossell Waugh (New York, Signet, 1993).

  Mad Dog

  DICK LOCHTE

  THE GUY WHO SAID APRIL WAS THE cruelest month must not have spent much time alone in Hollywood during the Christmas season. There’s all that smog-filtered sun shining down. Neon trees. Elves with tans. Reindeer with chrome sidewalls. And the street decorations are flat-out cheesy—sprigs of wilted holly with greetings that are so busy being nondenominational they might as well be serving some other purpose, like telling you to keep off the grass. If there was any grass.

  As you might guess from the foregoing, I was fairly depressed that night before Christmas Eve. My few friends were scattered to the winds and the holidays loomed so bleak that I was at the end of my tether. So I agreed to appear on The Mad Dog Show.

  Mad Dog, last name unknown if it wasn’t “Dog,” was the latest thing in radio talk hosts. He was rumored to be young, irreverent, glib to the max, and funny on occasion, usually at the expense of someone else. As I discovered by listening to his show the night before my scheduled appearance, he was also brash and self-opinionated and he had an annoying habit
of pausing from time to time to let loose with a baying noise. But his coast-to-coast audience was not only charmed by such behavior, it was large and loyal. And, as my publisher’s publicity agent informed me, Mad Dog actually read books and was able to sell them.

  Even stranger, much to the agent’s surprise, the self-described “howling hound of America’s airways” specifically requested that I appear on his pre-Christmas Eve show to talk about my latest novel.

  His station, KPLA-FM, was in a no-man’s-land just off the San Diego freeway, nestled between a large lumberyard, apparently closed for the holidays, and a bland apartment complex that looked newer than the suit I was wearing, if not more substantial. The station would have resembled a little white clapboard cottage except for the rooftop antenna that went up for nearly three stories. It was situated in the middle of a shell-coated compound surrounded by a chain fence.

  Security was a big thing at KPLA-FM, apparently. A lighted metal gate blocked the only road in that I could find. I aimed my car at it, braked, and waited for a little watchman camera to spin on its axis until its lens was pointed at my windshield.

  “Hello,” an electronically neutered voice said, “have you an appointment?”

  “I’m Leo Bloodworth,” I replied, sticking my head out of the side window. “I’m guesting on the …”

  “Of course,” the voice interrupted me. “Mad Dog’s expecting you. Please enter and park in the visitor section.”

  There weren’t many cars. I pulled in between a black sedan and a sports convertible, got out without dinging either, and strolled to the brightly lit front door, my current novel under my arm.

  The door was locked.

  I couldn’t find a bell, so I knocked.

  A little peephole broke the surface of the door, through which an interior light glowed. A shadow covered the light and the door was opened by a pleasant woman in her senior years, rather plump and motherly. There was something familiar about her intelligent, cobalt-blue eyes. Had she been an actress on one of those TV shows my family used to watch? Aunt Somebody who was always baking cookies and dispensing comfort and advice?