The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  “I’m Sylvia Redfern, the assistant station manager,” she said. “I’m not usually here this late, but we’re very short-staffed because of the holidays. Come, I’ll show you to what passes for our greenroom.”

  She led me to a small, pale blue and white, windowless space furnished with thrift-sale sofas and chairs, a large soft-drink machine, and a loudspeaker against a far wall, from which emanated music that sounded vaguely classical.

  There were two people in the room. The man was a reedy type whose lined face and sparse white hair made me place his age as somewhere in his mid-sixties, at least a decade older than me. The woman, tall and handsome with good cheekbones and short black hair, I figured for being at least twenty years my junior.

  “Another fellow guest,” Sylvia Redfern announced cheerily. “Ms. Landy Thorp and Dr. Eldon Varney, this is Officer Leo Bloodworth.”

  “Just Leo Bloodworth,” I corrected, nodding to them both.

  Sylvia Redfern looked chagrined. “Oh, my,” she said, “I thought you were with the police.”

  “Not for twenty years or so. I hope our host isn’t expecting me to …”

  “I’m sure his information is more up to date than mine,” she replied, embarrassed. “Please make yourself comfortable. I’d better go back front and see to the other guests when they arrive.”

  Dr. Varney’s tired eyes took in the jacket of my book. He gave me a brief, condescending smile and returned to his chair. Landy Thorp said, “You’re the one who writes with that little girl.”

  It was true. Through a series of circumstances too painful to discuss, my writing career had been linked to that of a bright and difficult teenager named Serendipity Dahlquist. Two moderately successful books, Sleeping Dog and Laughing Dog, had carried both our names. This was the newest in the series, Devil Dog.

  “May I?” Landy Thorp asked and I handed her the novel.

  She looked at the back cover where Serendipity and I were posed in my office. “She’s darling,” Landy Thorp said. “Is she going to be on the show, too?”

  “No. She’s in New England with her grandmother.” And having a real Christmas, I thought. “So I’m here to flog the book. What brings you to The Mad Dog Show, Miss Thorp?”

  She frowned and returned Devil Dog as she replied, “I’m not sure I know.” Then the frown disappeared and she added, “But please call me Landy.”

  “Landy and Leo it will be,” I said. “You don’t know why you’re here?”

  “Somebody from the show called the magazine where I work and asked for them to send a representative and here I am.”

  “What magazine?” I asked.

  “Los Angeles Today.”

  “Los Angeles Today?” Dr. Varney asked with a sneer twisting his wrinkled face. “That monument to shoddy journalism?”

  Landy stared at him.

  “The magazine ruffle your feathers, Doc?” I asked.

  “I gather they’re in the midst of interring some very old bones better left undisturbed.”

  Landy shrugged. “Beats me,” she said. “I’ve only been there for a year. What’s the story?”

  “Nothing I care to discuss,” Dr. Varney said. “Which is precisely what I told the research person who phoned me.”

  I strolled to the drink machine and was studying its complex instructions when the background music was replaced by an unmistakable “Ahoooooooo, ruff-ruff, ahoooooooooo. It’s near the nine o’clock hour and this is your pal, Mad Dog, inviting you to step into the doghouse with my special guest, businessman Gabriel Warren. Mr. Warren has currently curtailed his activities as CEO of Altadine Industries, to head up Project Rebuild, a task force that hopes to revitalize business in the riot-torn South Central area of our city. With him are his associates in the project, Norman Daken, a member of the board at Altadine and Charles ‘Red’ Rafferty, formerly a commander in the LAPD, ahooooo, ahoooooo, and now Altadine’s head of security.

  “Also taking part in tonight’s discussion are Victor Newgate of the legal firm of Axminster and Newgate, mystery novelist slash private detective, Leo Bloodworth, journalist Landy Thorp, and Dr. Clayton Varney, shrink to the stars.”

  Varney scowled at his billing. I was doing a little scowling, myself. Red Rafferty had been the guy who’d asked for and accepted my badge and gun when I was booted off the LAPD. I suppose he’d had reason. It all took place back in the Vietnam days. Two kids had broken into a branch of the Golden Pacific Bank one night as a protest. The manager had been there and tried to shoot them and me and so I wound up subduing him and letting the kids go. The banker pushed it and Rafferty did what he thought he had to. But I never exactly loved him for it. And I was not pleased at the prospect of spending an hour with him in the doghouse.

  A commercial for a holiday bloodbath movie resonated from the speaker. Dr. Varney stood suddenly and headed for the door. Before he got there, it was opened by a meek little guy carrying a clipboard. He looked like he could still be in college, with his blond crew cut and glasses. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Mad Dog’s engineer, Greg. This way to the studio.”

  “First, I demand a clarification,” Dr. Varney told him. “I want to know precisely what we’re going to be discussing tonight.”

  Greg seemed a bit taken aback by the doctor.

  He blinked and consulted his clipboard. “Crime in the inner city. What’s causing the current rash of bank robberies. The working of the criminal mind. Like that.”

  “Contemporary issues,” Dr. Varney said.

  “Oh, absolutely,” Greg replied. “Mad Dog’s a very happening-now dude.”

  Somewhat mollified, Dr. Varney dragged along behind us as the little guy led us down a short hall and into a low-ceilinged, egg-carton-lined, claustrophobic room with one large picture window which exposed an even smaller room with two empty chairs facing a soundboard.

  The men in the room looked up at us. They occupied five of the nine chairs. In front of each chair was a microphone. Mad Dog stood to welcome us. He was a heavyset young guy, with a faceful of long black hair that looked fake, and a forelock that looked real bothering his forehead and nearly covering one of his baby blues. He was in shirtsleeves and black slacks and he waved us to the empty seats with a wide, hairy grin.

  Since I was locking eyes with Red Rafferty while I located a chair across from him, I didn’t spot the animal until I was seated. It was a weird-looking mutt nestled on a dirty, brown cushion in a far corner.

  “That’s Dougie Dog, the show’s mascot, Mr. Bloodworth,” Mad Dog explained. “We use him for the Wet Veggie spots. He’s not very active. Kinda O-L-D. But we love him.”

  “Is this for him?” I asked, indicating the empty chair next to me.

  “No.” Mad Dog smiled and settled into his chair. “The D-Dog prefers his cushion. That’s for … someone falling by later.”

  “Sir?” Dr. Varney, who was hovering beside the table, addressed our host.

  “Please, Doctor. It’s Mad Dog.”

  “Mad Dog, then.” Dr. Varney’s lips curled on the nickname as if he’d bitten into a bad plum. “Before I participate in tonight’s program, I want your assurances that we will be discussing issues of current concern.”

  “Tonight’s topic is crime, Doctor. As current as today’s newspaper. Or, in Ms. Thorp’s case, today’s magazine.”

  “Sit here, Clayton,” the dapper, fifty-something Gabriel Warren said, pulling out a chair next to him for the doctor. “Good seeing you again.” He looked like the complete CEO with his hand-tailored pinstripe, his no-nonsense hundred dollar razor cut, his gleaming white shirt, and red-striped power tie. His voice was clear and confident, just the sort of voice you need if you’re planning on running for the Senate in the near future, which everyone seemed to think he was. “You know Norman, don’t you?” he asked Varney.

  “Of course.” The doc nodded to the plump, middle-aged man in a rumpled tweed suit at Warren’s left hand, Norman Daken.

  “What are you doin’ here, Bloodworth?�
�� my old chief asked unpleasantly. Never a thin man, he’d added about six inches around the middle and one more chin, bringing his total to three.

  “Pushing my novel,” I said, pointing to the book on the table.

  He glanced at it. “Beats workin’, I guess,” he said.

  “It takes a little more effort than having somebody stick a fifty-dollar bill in your pocket,” I said. That brought a nice shade of purple to his face. There’d been rumors that he’d made considerably more money as a cop than had been in his bimonthly paycheck, especially in his early days.

  “Aaoooo, aaoooo,” Mad Dog bayed. “Gentlemen, lady, I think Greg would like to get levels on all of us.”

  While each of us, in turn, babbled nonsense into our respective mikes to Greg’s satisfaction, the woman who’d greeted me at the door, Sylvia Redfern, entered the engineer’s cubicle and positioned the chair beside him—the better to observe us through the window.

  Mad Dog asked innocently, “Any questions before we start? We’ve got one minute.”

  There was something about his manner, the edge to his voice, that made me wonder if we weren’t going to be in for a few surprises before the show was over. The empty chair at our table was added intimidation. I think the feeling was shared by the others. They asked no questions, but they looked edgy, even lawyer Newgate whom I had observed in the past staying as cool as a polar bear under tremendous courtroom pressure.

  Seated at his console behind the glass window, Greg stared at the clock on the wall and raised his hand, the index finger pointed out like the barrel of a gun. Then he aimed it at Mad Dog, who emitted one of his loud trademark moans. As it faded out, Greg faded in the show’s theme (a rather regal-sounding melody that Landy later identified for me as Noel Coward’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”).

  Then our host was telling his radio audience that they were in for a special show, one that people would be talking about through the holiday season.

  Dr. Varney’s frown deepened and even the smooth Gabriel Warren seemed peeved as Mad Dog blithely continued his opening comments. “Thirty years ago tonight, before I was even a little Mad Puppy, a terrible crime was committed in this city.” Gabriel Warren leaned back in his chair. Norman Daken edged forward in his. Rafferty scowled. “Two crimes, really,” Mad Dog corrected. “But the one people know about was the lesser of the two. The one people know about concerned the grisly death of a man of importance in this city, the father of one of our guests tonight, Theodore Daken.”

  Norman Daken’s face turned white and his mouth dropped open in surprise. He had a red birthmark on his right cheek the size and shape of a teardrop and it seemed to glow from the sudden tension in his body. Mad Dog rolled right along. “Theodore Daken was then president of Altadine Industries, which in the early 1960s had developed one of this country’s first successful experimental communications satellites, Altastar.”

  “Excuse me,” Gabriel Warren interjected sharply. “I understood we were here to discuss urban violence.”

  “If Theodore Daken’s death doesn’t qualify,” our host replied, “then I don’t know the meaning of ‘urban violence.’ ”

  “Please,” Norman Daken said shakily. “I don’t really feel I want …”

  “Bear with me, Mr. Daken. I’m just trying to acquaint the listeners with the events surrounding that evening. Both you and Mr. Warren were young executives at Altadine at the time, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “You were the company’s treasurer and Mr. Warren was executive vice president, sort of your father’s protege. Is that right?”

  “I suppose so.” The birthmark looked like a drop of blood. “I handled the books and Dad was grooming Gabe to assume major responsibilities.”

  “Yes,” Mad Dog said. His blue eyes danced merrily. “Anyway, on that night you two and other executives—and their secretaries, that’s what they called ’em then, not assistants—had your own little holiday party in a large suite at the Hotel Brentwood. A good party, Mr. Warren?”

  “As a matter of fact, Norman and I both had to leave early. Theo, Mr. Daken, was expecting an important telex from overseas that needed an immediate reply. It concerned an acquisition that we knew would involve a rather sizable investment on our part and Norman was there to advise me how far we could extend ourselves.”

  “And you didn’t return to the party?” Mad Dog asked.

  “The telex didn’t arrive until rather late,” Warren said. “I assumed the party must have ended.”

  “Not quite,” Mad Dog said. “You missed what sounded like, for the most part, a very jolly affair. Lots of food and drink. Altastar had gone into space and it had taken your company’s stock with it. Each guest at the party was presented with a commemorative Christmas present—a model of the satellite and a hefty bonus check. And everyone was happy.

  “Daken, very much in the spirit of things, presented the gifts wearing a Santa Claus suit.

  He didn’t need a pillow. He was a man of appetite. For food and for women.”

  “Please,” Norman Daken said, “this is so unnecessary.”

  “Forgive me if I seem insensitive,” Mad Dog said. “But it was thirty years ago.”

  “And he was my father,” Norman Daken countered.

  “True,” Mad Dog acknowledged. “I apologize. But the fact is that he did set his sights on one of the ladies that night. Isn’t that true, Mr. Newgate?”

  “I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make,” lawyer Newgate said.

  “Simple enough,” Mad Dog replied. “On that night of nights, after all the food had been consumed, the booze drunk, and the presents dispersed, everyone left the party. Except for Daken and his new office manager. While they were alone together … something happened. Perhaps you can enlighten us on that, Mr. Rafferty.”

  Red Rafferty was living up to his nickname. He looked apopletic. “Sure. What happened is that the woman went crazy and bashed … did away with poor Mr. Daken. Then she dragged his body down to her car and tried to get rid of it in a dumpster off Wilshire.”

  Mad Dog’s lips formed a thin line as he said, “The woman’s name was Victoria Douglas and because the story about her and Theodore Daken was all anybody talked about that holiday season, she became known as ‘The Woman Who Killed Christmas.’ She was tried and eventually placed into a hospital for the criminally insane. And, after a while, she escaped.

  “She was at large for several years. Then fate caught up with her and she was discovered driving her car on an Arizona road, tripped up by a faulty brake light. She was put back into another facility and again she escaped. Five times over the past three decades did Victoria Douglas escape. She was found and brought back four times. And yes, my math is correct. The last time she escaped from a hospital, eleven years ago, she remained free.

  “But The Woman Who Killed Christmas has never been forgotten. Even now, thirty years after the fact, her ‘crime’ remains one of the most infamous in this nation’s history. And, all of you dog lovers out in radioland, here’s something to chew on during the next commercial: It’s entirely possible that the worst crime that took place that night wasn’t the one committed by Victoria Douglas. Of that greater crime, she was the helpless victim.”

  Mad Dog leaned back in his chair, let loose a howl, and surrendered the airways to a commercial for soybean turkey stuffing.

  Gabriel Warren stood up and turned to his associates. “Our host seems to have made a mistake inviting us here tonight. I suggest we leave him to contemplate it.”

  Red Rafferty knocked over his chair in his hurry to stand. Victor Newgate was a bit smoother, but no less anxious. The same was true of Dr. Varney. Norman Daken stood also. He said to Mad Dog, “I can’t imagine why you’re doing this terrible thing.”

  “How can you call it ‘terrible’ until you know what I’m doing?” Mad Dog asked. He turned to me. “You going, too, Bloodworth?”

  “To tell the truth, I never was certain justice triumph
ed in the Daken case. So I’ll stick around to see what’s on your mind.”

  “Good,” he said.

  Since he didn’t bother to ask Landy if she was staying, I figured she was in on his game, whatever it was.

  The others were having trouble with the door, which wouldn’t budge. Warren was losing his composure. “Open this goddamn door, son, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “You’ll be free to leave when the show is over in a little under an hour,” Mad Dog informed them. “In twenty seconds we’ll be back on the air. Whatever you have to say to me will be heard by nearly a million listeners. They love controversy. So feel free to voice whatever’s on your mind. It can only boost my ratings.”

  Red Rafferty lifted his foot and smashed it against the door where the lock went into the clasp. The door didn’t give and Rafferty grabbed his hip with a groan of pain.

  “Not as easy as they make it seem in the police manuals, is it, Rafferty?” I asked.

  “You son—” Rafferty began.

  He was cut off by Mad Dog’s howl. “We’re back in the doghouse where some of my guests are milling about. Something on your minds, gentlemen?”

  The others looked to Warren for guidance. He glared at Mad Dog and slowly walked back to his seat. The others followed. In the engineer’s booth, Sylvia Redfern was viewing the proceedings with a rather startled expression on her face. In truth, I was a little startled myself at the way Mad Dog was carrying on.

  “O.K., Mr. Bloodworth,” he said, “why don’t you tell us what you know about the eve of Christmas Eve, three decades ago?”

  “Sure.” And I dug into my memory bank. “I was barely in my twenties, the new cop on the beat in West L.A. My partner, John Gilfoyle, and I were cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard when we got a Code Two—that’s urgent response, no siren or light. Somebody had reported a woman in distress in an alley off Wilshire.