A Holly, Jolly Murder

by JOAN HESSS

  “I refuse to discuss it,” she said with a sniff. “I have my reasons—and they are none of your business. I am very sorry you intruded on our winter solstice celebration, Claire. This is the first year we’ve had problems like this.”

  “Like murder?” I said bluntly.

  “All this unpleasantness. Nicholas should have known better than to think he could…”

  “Could what? Blackmail everybody? Could that be what put the damper on the festivities?”

  “He was a gentleman. He would never stoop to that sort of thing.”

  “Then what?” I demanded, huffing and puffing and close to blowing her out of the car. “You did go there, although not to have a glass of brandy and a civilized conversation. Had Nicholas threatened to expose you, too?”

  “Don’t be absurd. I’ve done nothing wrong. You, on the other hand, are driving erratically. It’s making me nervous. I can see I shall need a cup of valeriana tea before I can possibly fall asleep.”

  I gave up and drove her home without further attempts to elicit information from her. She might not have actually spent any time as a teacher, but she’d studied the techniques of classroom intimidation and paid careful attention.

  “Good night,” I said as I pulled up to the curb. “Can you drive yourself to the hospital tomorrow?”

  “One would think.” She climbed out of the car, gave me an enigmatic look, and went up the sidewalk to her porch. I waited until she was inside, then drove to the corner and obediently stopped in front of an octagonal sign requesting as much from me.

  At this point, I’ll admit, I craned my neck and made sure Roy was not hiding in the backseat. Rather than continue home, however, I pulled to the curb, cut off the engine, and sat back to think about what I’d heard—and what it might have meant.

  If (with a capital I) Gilda had been telling the truth, Fern had been at the house and Sullivan had been going in that direction. What a busy night Nicholas might have had if he’d entertained each and every would-be caller. He must have begun to regret his announcement as cars, cyclists, and pedestrians crunched across the gravel forecourt in an endless parade. Which of them had been admitted? And what had he or she found? A blustery, self-righteous Druid or a corpse on the kitchen floor?

  Roy should have been the central figure, but Malthea seemed to be popping up in the center of the vortex with every revelation. Thanks to Fern’s uncharacteristic cooperation, I had a scanty notion of Malthea’s history: college, a broken engagement, a career in teaching, retirement, volunteer work. Jorgeson might have a few more tidbits, but he wouldn’t have ordered a full-blown background check on any of them unless fingerprints had matched a set in the FBI file.

  At least I wasn’t brooding about Peter, I told myself as I wondered if there was any way to get a set of Leslie’s fingerprints. It seemed obvious that she was employed by the KGB, and used the trite St. Petersburg opera ploy to pass along state secrets to unshaven men named Vladimir and Uri. Myron was likely to be in on it. The wolfhounds undoubtedly had cyanide capsules embedded in their rhinestone-studded collars.

  Clearly, I needed to go home and find something to read, if only the back of a cereal box or an insert in the newspaper announcing a Christmas Eve sale at a local discount store. I needed a cold drink and a hot meal. I needed to be sitting on the sofa when Caron came home.

  Or maybe I needed a lobotomy, I concluded as I got out of the car, made sure the doors were locked, and walked back toward the duplex, careful to stay in the shadows.

  Lights were on inside Fern’s apartment; Malthea’s, as expected, was dark. I asked myself where an Arch Druid might hide a front door key. Despite an escalation in the crime rate and admonishments from the chief of police, residents of Farberville continue to cloak themselves in a small-town mentality of trusting thy neighbor as thyself. However, there was no key under the mat or on the sill above the door.

  I was groping the soil in a clay flowerpot when the porch light came on and Fern opened her door.

  “Have you lost something?” she said.

  I straightened up and brushed grit off my fingers. “My mind, for instance? I think that’s obvious by now. No, Fern, I simply decided that I have to know more about Malthea in order to help her avoid spending the rest of her life in prison. She’s maddening, but I like her.”

  “The rest of her life in prison?” Pulling a shawl more tightly around her shoulders, Fern came out onto the porch. “All she did was tell the police a little white lie about the brandy decanter. Surely that’s not a crime that merits prison. A fine, perhaps, and certainly a scolding from a judge—but prison?”

  “You haven’t spoken to her today, have you?”

  “No, I told you that when we first arrived at the hospital. Has she been accused of something?”

  I gave her a short, sanitized version of Roy’s latest confession. “And she wasn’t in seclusion in her apartment, either,” I added. “She followed me all over town this afternoon, then confronted me in the grove and demanded to hear exactly what Roy’d said. She refused to confirm or deny it. Sergeant Jorgeson had his doubts, but if the media get wind of this, the county prosecutor, who’s never averse to publicity, may demand that she be charged. You’ll have more tabloid reporters in your yard than you have dandelions in the spring. Your photograph—and Malthea’s mug shots—will be on covers in every supermarket in the country.”

  Fern turned around and put her hand on the doorknob. After a long moment, she cleared her throat and said, “I was planning to pack a bag to take to the hospital tomorrow. Just a few things to make Malthea more comfortable, like her robe and slippers, toiletries, a crossword puzzle book. I’ll get her key and do it now. If you’d like, you can come along.”

  Once we were inside Malthea’s apartment, Fern murmured something and went into another room. I sat down at a small desk and began opening drawers. The first contained utility receipts, an expired library card, pencils with worn erasers, and a small box filled with discolored keys.

  I moved along, discovering such keepsakes as match-books, calendars from the previous decade, postcards with illegible scrawls, packets of salt and pepper from fast-food restaurants, and leaky pens.

  In the bottom drawer on the right, covered by notebooks and much-used folders, was a leather box. Feeling oddly guilty, I took it out and set it on the surface in front of me.

  The top item was a neatly clipped newspaper article with a photograph of a smiling couple and a header that announced that Dr. Randall H. Tate and his wife, Dr. Brenda Cockburn-Tate, anthropologists at Farber College, had been awarded a grant from the National Geographic Foundation to study the Dayak of Borneo, an aboriginal people who lived in the tropical rain forests of the highlands. Dr. Tate was particularly interested in their centuries-old tradition of headhunting.

  I put the article aside and took out a much smaller clipping concerning Dr. Tate’s appointment as head of the department of cultural anthropology. Beneath it was a blurry snapshot of a man in his yard who appeared to be Dr. Tate at an age when he possessed a great deal more hair and at least one pair of bell-bottom jeans.

  There were more snapshots of unknown people, some grim and some smiling. The backgrounds were uniformly indistinct. I hurried through them, then froze as I came upon one of Roy. He was walking along a sidewalk, oblivious of the camera. After a bit of scrutiny, I decided that he was outside the used-book store on Thurber Street where he’d claimed Malthea had approached him.

  Had she been stalking him?

  I replaced everything in the box and returned it to the bottom drawer. I’d been through all the desk drawers, but Fern was packing at a charmingly slow pace. I went into the kitchen and eased open drawers until I found one filled with the sort of junk I keep in such a kitchen drawer. There were manuals from extinct appliances, virginal warranty cards, rubber bands, string, an empty roll of masking tape…and a brochure from an outfit called Psychic Confidantes. For a mere pittance of $3.99 per minute, any caller could, from
the privacy of his or her own home, have a totally confidential session with a certified psychic. Answers to questions concerning romance, careers, and money were guaranteed one hundred percent.

  Malthea must have believed this twaddle, I thought as I took out a deck of tarot cards and stared at the depictions of characters dressed in colorful costumes. Even “Death” was gaudy. Although I doubted conversations with a “Psychic Confidante” were covered by the rules of client confidentiality, it might prove difficult to subpoena a voice at the other end of the line with the name Divinia.

  There was a 1-900 number written in ink at the bottom of the brochure. I copied it down on an old grocery-store tape, then put everything back and looked around for another place in which Malthea might have stashed something of note.

  I was heading for the refrigerator (don’t ask) when I saw Fern in the doorway.

  “Did you find anything?” she asked.

  “Photographs of Roy and a couple of clippings concerning his father. Why was Malthea so interested in them?”

  “She was very disturbed when she first caught a glimpse of Roy in some shop, and asked the clerk about him. She did not lead him into satanism; she was trying to save him.”

  “Has she ever mentioned the Sisters of Illumination?”

  “No, and she’s never staggered in at dawn drenched in blood. That’s all balderdash, and I’m disappointed that you would even ask such a question. She and I have a tacit agreement not to impose on each other, so I can’t give you a detailed account of her daily activities. But I’ve never been given any reason to believe that she has an evil bone in her body. Roy has been experiencing nightmares, very likely drug-induced. He needs to be under the care of professionals.”

  I leaned against the counter and tried not to sound too frustrated. “Then why didn’t she just say so?”

  Fern looked away. “She is fond of Roy. I suppose she thinks her silence will in some way help him out of this dreadful mess. Is there any doubt that he shot Nicholas?”

  “The evidence is there. What needs to be determined is if he’s competent to stand trial. Once he’s back in custody, there’ll be a brief hearing at which his lawyer and the prosecutor will agree to a thirty-day period of observation at the state hospital. What happens after that is up to the psychiatrists.”

  “If he sticks to his story?”

  “It’s anybody’s guess,” I said honestly. “If a jury believes that Malthea took advantage of his vulnerability, she may receive a harsh sentence. He was very convincing when he told me. I almost felt as though I could smell a trace of sulfur in the air.”

  Fern picked up a small suitcase. “Then you are in need of a strong tonic to purge your system. I’d like to go to bed now. I doubt I’ll get much sleep; I have many things to think about.”

  I trailed her out to the porch and watched as she locked Malthea’s door, pocketed the key, and went into her apartment. The porch light flickered off. Being a perspicacious person, I realized that it was a not-so-subtle suggestion that I do the same.

  As I drove home, I mulled over the significance, if any, of the two clippings and the photographs of Randall and Roy (père et fils, as it were). There was no way to question either of them and almost no point in questioning Malthea. Was it conceivable that she’d seen him drifting along Thurber Street and pegged him as a potential victim? Had the article about the Borneo sabbatical been in the newspaper before or after she approached him? Could Sullivan Sawyer have said something about his professor’s son that led her to lurk near the bookstore and surreptitiously take the photograph?

  I must have relied on automatic pilot because I was startled when I realized I’d parked in the garage. My car was not there, but Caron had more than two hours before she was due. I stopped by the retiree’s apartment, handed him the keys and assured him that “my friend” was in good shape, then trudged upstairs.

  Not more than two minutes after I’d turned on the lights and decided which frozen entrée might appeal, the doorbell rang. I stuck a chicken à la Popsicle in the microwave and went to the front door.

  The man on the landing was a stranger, and decidedly strange. He wore a shabby overcoat bereft of most of its buttons, a beret that covered his forehead like a moldy blue pancake, and heavy, mud-caked boots. A backpack hung on one shoulder, a rolled-up sleeping bag on the other. His grayish yellow hair hung below his ears, and his white beard was scraggly and dotted with flecks of tobacco. Eyes that might once have been blue were faded into a dull, translucent gray. His nose, in contrast, was markedly red. There was a redolence about him—not of body odor or soured sweat, but of earthiness. I suspected bathing was not on his daily agenda.

  “Ms. Malloy?” he said hesitantly.

  “I’m Claire Malloy. Can I help you?”

  He began to back away. “I knew it was a long shot, and I’m sorry to disturb you. The note was from someone named Caron Malloy. I looked her name up in the directory and found a listing for ‘C. Malloy.’ I’ve been sitting on the wall across the street for most of an hour waiting for someone to come home. I was kinda hoping that…well, never mind. I could have used the dough, but that’s how it goes. Have a nice evening, ma’am. I’ll be on my way now.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said hastily. “You had a note from Caron Malloy? Who are you?”

  “I guess you could say I’m Santa Claus.”

  Chapter 14

  “Won’t you come in?” I said weakly.

  “I don’t want to disturb you. Do you know this Caron Malloy?”

  “Rather well, I’m afraid. She’s not here right now, but I’d appreciate it if you would explain why she sent you a note and promised you money. Would you like some coffee? It won’t take a minute.”

  “That’d be nice.” He dropped the backpack and sleeping bag on the landing and shuffled by me. “Nice place you got here, Ms. Malloy. Real comfortable and casual. I guess you decorated it yourself, huh?”

  I gestured at the sofa. “Please sit down and I’ll start the coffee. Shall I call you Mr. Claus, or may I be more informal and call you Santa?”

  “I answer to Ed,” he said as he sat down and pulled off his boots. Most of his blackened toenails were visible through holes, and one heel was covered by only a few crisscrossed threads. “Don’t want to track up your floor any more than necessary. It’s been a while since I was invited into a home like this. Most of the time I’m asked to wait on the back porch. Not that I mind, of course. I’ll stand on my head and crow like a rooster if that’s what it takes to get something to eat.”

  I caught the hint, and after I’d started the coffee, made him several thick cheese sandwiches. When I returned to the living room with a mug and a plate, I found him reading the complaint. It clicked rather neatly. “You’re the Santa who got sacked, aren’t you?” I said. “How did Caron track you down?”

  “When I filled out some fool form, I put the Salvation Army shelter down as my address. That’s where I found a note late this afternoon.” He chomped vigorously, and after several moments of masticating, said, “Thanks, Ms. Malloy. I know I’m making you uncomfortable, so just tell me to leave when it gets to be too much. I don’t smell so good. I slurp when I drink coffee because of some dental problems. I can understand why you don’t want me to hang around and embarrass you in front of your neighbors.”

  “No,” I protested, uneasily wondering how hypocritical I, an avowed liberal, was at heart. He’d been a perfect gentleman thus far. He was down on his luck, but amenable, polite, and a great deal more sensitive than a lieutenant I knew on the Farberville detective squad. “Caron was a reindeer for a few days. I suppose she wanted to ask you about your stint in Santa’s Workshop before she and Inez were hired. Did you have a problem with Ms. Portmeyer?”

  Ed wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Not like those first girls had with her. They’d show up on time, put on those idiotic costumes, and smile like gargoyles. They weren’t Fulbright scholarship material, but they tried as hard as they could. It
didn’t matter. Ms. Portmeyer gave ’em hell all day every day.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “You heard how I got fired, right?” He waited until I’d nodded, then continued. “I have a problem with drinking, but I really needed this job and I was being careful. There may have been a day or two when I took a couple of swallows of whiskey, but facing a stream of greedy little kids and tight-assed mothers isn’t all that easy. One kid gave me a notarized list, if you can believe it. Another wanted a week at a health spa. ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ I’d say, wishing I could turn my head and puke. But then along would come some kid who wanted a doll for his sister and a daddy who wouldn’t hit them.”

  “The day you were fired, Caron said that she noticed you were unsteady.”

  “That I was, Ms. Malloy, and then some. I was cold sober when I got to the employee lounge that morning, mostly because I was broke. Portmeyer was in a real foul mood and started making nasty remarks about how sorry she was that she’d hired me in the first place. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t last the rest of the week, much less until Christmas Eve, but I kept my mouth shut. Finally she left and I opened my locker to get out the Santa suit. Right there in front was a pint of whiskey. It wasn’t my preferred brand, but I’m not as picky as I used to be.”

  “So you drank it,” I said.

  Ed took another bite of sandwich and washed it down with coffee. “Not right then, I didn’t. I didn’t dare go out to the Workshop with whiskey on my breath, not with Portmeyer waiting for one little mistake so she could fire me. I did okay most of the day, even with her watching me like a buzzard on a low branch. Every time I took a break, she’d follow me into the lounge and tell me how pathetic I was.”

  “What a dreadful woman,” I said.

  “It’s amazing what you can put up with when you’re desperate. Finally, late in the afternoon, she told me I could take a break and then added in a real sugary voice that I’d better make the most of it because it might be my last one. I figured I’d be fired at the end of the shift. Since I had nothing to lose, I opened the whiskey bottle. My nerves were so shot that I guzzled it. You know the rest.”