That was yet to be seen, but I didn't say anything. Instead, I turned back to Smith.
"I guess this means that you're the lead detective on this case?"
"I'm afraid so." He groaned. "I was really looking forward to my last week here being slow and easy, but then you just had to go and find a dead body. Now I'll be working through Christmas. My wife and kids are not going to like this one little bit." He frowned.
"Last week here?" Kelly asked.
"I'm transferring out to California where I can be closer to my parents. They're getting on in years, and I need to be near them."
"I understand," I said, then looked back at the body as they loaded it into a body bag and onto a gurney.
"Ms. Jackson—"
"Barb. Call me Barb," I said as I intently watched the coroner and evidence team do their jobs.
"Barb, just because you found the body doesn't mean that this is your case."
"Uh-huh, sure." I waved him away as I let Kelly's question sink in. Who would want to kill Santa and stuff him beneath the tree? That was a pretty heartless thing to do. Still, I couldn't stop looking at the body and the surrounding area. The crime scene. What had Santa done to anger someone to the point that they killed him? I'd always loved a good mystery, and this was one that had me intrigued.
"Why do I have the feeling that whatever I say to you is just going to go in one ear and out the other?"
"Because it is," Kelly murmured.
I was watching the coroner roll Santa out the main exit when I saw another group of cops gathered by the food court. I don't know what drew me to watch them. One of the cops glanced over at me, as though he could feel my gaze upon him.
He was handsome, with a hulking, muscular build, wide shoulders, a trim waist, thick black hair, full lips, and the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. We stared at each other for a minute longer. Then he narrowed his eyes at me and went back to his conversation with the cop beside him.
He was obviously a take-charge kind of guy. An alpha male if you will and my inner rebel had to fight to resist the urge to run over and wrap my arms and legs around him. There was something about him that drew me in, and I'd be darned if I could point out what that something was.
"That's my replacement, Detective Black. He's being shown how we do things around here until I leave next week," Smith said beside me. "I'm sorry, but I have to get going. You two are going to need to fill out a statement down at the station. Are you all right to get there, or do you want an escort?"
"Are you for real?" I tore my eyes away from the other detective and frowned at Smith. "I'm pretty sure we can find the station without stumbling across another dead body," I snipped, a bit sarcastically.
I couldn't help it. As much as I didn't want to get any more involved in this case than I already was, my curiosity was burning through me like wildfire across a sea in a Game of Thrones novel, and that bit about missing Christmas with his family had me feeling a little guilty. Like I needed to do something to help rectify it.
"Get to the station, and fill out the statements," Smith said and shook his head.
"We will. See you 'round," I said over my shoulder and turned to Kelly.
"Why do I have the feeling that I'll be seeing a lot more of you before this is all said and done?" he asked, but I didn't bother to answer. I simply smiled and hurried toward the exit, sliding another long look at the man Smith had pointed out as his replacement.
Kelly and I hurried past the elves, security guards, mall supervisor, coroner rolling in a gurney topped with a body bag, and a forensics team before finally pushing through the revolving door that led out to the sidewalk.
"Let's take your car. My heater is still on the fritz. You can just drop me back off when we're finished," Kelly said as she snuggled her face down into her scarf.
"Sounds good to me."
The snow was coming down harder than when I'd first arrived at the mall, so we hurried to get into my car and warm up. I started the car, cranked up the heater, and steered the car out onto the main road toward the police station.
"Do you think that the mall will be open tomorrow? I mean, it's Christmas Eve."
"I don't know." I shook my head and navigated around the traffic. "But honestly, if I had to say, I'd say yes. Do you know how much money they would lose were they to stay closed? And from the looks of things when we left, everyone was in a hurry to get the crime scene cleaned up as quickly as possible. I think it's safe to assume that they'll be open in the morning."
"Leave it to you to find a dead Santa Claus," she laughed.
"Rub it in, why don't you?"
"Mona is going to love this," Kelly said and laughed.
Mona worked at the police station as a receptionist. When she found out that I'd found a dead body, she was going to have a cow.
We pulled into the police station parking lot about ten minutes after leaving the mall.
I parked next to the curb outside the police station's main doors and killed the ignition. Kelly and I pulled our coats tighter around us and hurried up the stairs into the much-welcomed warmth of the station.
We brushed the snow out of our hair and let the sleepy-looking guard check our purses then stepped through the metal detector. Of course the underwire in my bra set the stupid thing off. Mr. Sleepy was automatically wide-awake as he waved his big, blinky wand across the front of my chest.
I swear, if his smile got any wider I was going to smack it off of his face and risk an assault charge.
Maybe this was why Smith had asked if we could make it on our own?
Once he was thoroughly satisfied that my bra was what had set the machine off, he handed us our purses and waved us on through to the main lobby of the station.
We approached a tall, slender redhead, who just so happened to be my aunt, Mona.
"What are you two doing here? Is everything all right?" Mona said as she hurried toward us.
Mona was a rail-thin woman with a mass of flame-red hair teased to almost beehive height. Mona's current style was stuck somewhere between the fifties and the eighties. You never knew what hairstyle or clothing she'd be wearing.
"We're fine, Mona," I assured her as she wrapped her arms around me for one of her famous bone-crushing hugs. Once she was finished with me she gave Kelly the same treatment.
"Well, Barb here kind of found a dead body at the mall." Kelly hiked a thumb in my general direction.
"You're who Detective Smith was talking about?" she asked as she led us to the reception area. "All he could really say over the phone was that there were two women coming in to give a statement and something about a dead Santa." She leaned forward and asked in a hushed voice, "You didn't lose your cool and kill Santa, did you?"
"Mona, seriously?" I groaned.
"Hey, you've been known to have a short fuse." She stepped back and held her hands up. "You can't fault me for asking."
"I'll admit that my fuse can be short at times, but I'm pretty sure I'd never kill Santa."
"Hmm." She nodded. "I think you're right. So what did happen?"
She pulled out two forms attached to clipboards and led us to a bench against the far wall. We settled in, and I repeated how we'd come to find a dead body beneath the Christmas tree at the East Wing Mall as I wrote out the story on the paper she'd given me.
"And now you can't stop wondering who killed Santa," Mona said matter-of-factly.
"Something like that," I said. "This isn't my case, but I'm so curious."
"Well, sweetie, I can't tell you to investigate a murder, but I also can't tell you not to. Either way, I'm sure you'll get this all figured out."
I handed her my statement. Kelly did the same. We stood and followed Mona to the reception desk.
"Christmas dinner is at five o'clock. I had Randy's Grill cater the food."
"Great," Mona grinned. "You know I'll be there. And bravo on the catering. You remember how the Birthday Lasagna Fiasco of 2012 played out."
"Do you have to remind
me?" I frowned and rubbed my stomach.
Kelly stifled a giggle, only because she hadn't eaten the lasagna.
Three days of Mona, Mandy, and me hanging our heads over the toilet with food poisoning wasn't something I wished to repeat. That had been my first and only attempt at learning to cook for myself. Since then it had been take-out, cereal, grilled cheese, and Top Ramen.
"I'll be there, doll face." She reached across the desk and patted me.
"Then we'll see you there. Take it easy, Mona," I said with a smile.
Kelly and I wrapped our coats tighter around us and made our way back out to my car. The snow had slowed significantly, but it was still bitingly cold.
I started the ignition and let the car warm up.
"This entire situation has me so intrigued," I said as I started the car. "Why would someone kill a mall Santa?" I shook my head. Try as I might, I couldn't get the image of poor dead Santa out of my head.
"It's too bad there's nothing we can do." Kelly shook her head and gazed out the windshield.
"Nothing we can do," I mumbled to myself.
Kelly whipped her head around to stare at me. "I know that look." She pointed a red mitten-covered hand at me. "That's your I've-got-a-plan look," she said with a hint of excitement lacing her voice.
Maybe I was just bored with chasing cheaters. Maybe I felt guilty for Detective Smith missing Christmas with his wife and kids. Whatever it was, I couldn't take it.
It had me determined to figure out who killed mall Santa before Christmas morning.
"Yeah," I said and nodded as her contagious excitement started to fill me. "Yeah, I do. Call Mandy and see if she can get away from her house tomorrow. This is going to take all three of us…and maybe Mona too."
CHAPTER THREE
Murder at the Mall. Who Killed Santa Claus?
The newspaper apparently wasn't as concerned with ruining Christmas for the children as much as I was. I folded the paper and tossed it back down on the table. So far the police didn't have any leads, or suspects, which wasn't surprising since I'd found the body less than twelve hours ago.
"I should've known you were the one who found that dead guy." Mandy shook her head and laughed. Her long, dark, wavy hair swished over her shoulder as she did so, her full lips tilted up in a grin.
I frowned and stuck my tongue out at Mandy as she took a sip of her coffee. She grinned and shrugged.
Mandy, Kelly, and I were seated around my kitchen table. It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and even though I knew Detective Smith and the rest of the police force were working diligently to find out who killed Santa and making sure the mall was safe, I still felt the need to lend a hand with the case.
I knew I shouldn't, but I felt guilty for Smith possibly missing Christmas with his family. This murder wasn't my job, but I felt the overwhelming need to look into it anyway.
As Kelly and I had assumed, the mall was open for business, complete with a replacement Santa and no trace of the previous one or his murder, except in the headlines of the local newspaper.
"Finding that body was an accident," I defended myself. "It's not like I set out to find a dead guy." I tossed a piece of donut in Mandy's general direction and laughed.
"You know I'm just teasing." She laughed and popped the bite of donut I'd tossed at her into her mouth. "What do we need to do? What's the plan?"
"Well," I sat my coffee cup down. "There really is no drawn-out plan. This is Detective Smith's last week here. He said he's going to have to work through Christmas and miss spending time with his family." I took a drink of my coffee then sat the cup down. "I think we should help him solve as much of this case before the day is over as we can. Mona is going to call me with the name of the dead Santa in just a few minutes. From there, Mandy can gather info on him and feed us the details as they come in. In the meantime, the two of us," I motioned to Kelly and myself, "are going to go to the mall and start asking questions."
"If you found him under the mall Christmas tree, it only makes sense that he was killed in the mall. It's safe to assume that someone who worked with the guy might know something about his murder," Mandy said and ran a hand across the bottom of her chin the way she always did when she was thinking.
"But aren't there surveillance camera all over that place? Wouldn't they have caught the murder on camera?" Kelly asked.
"Mona called me this morning before you all got here," I answered. "Apparently the camera covering the tree is a dummy camera. The only cameras that actually record anything are in the stores themselves and the food court," I explained and took a sip of my coffee.
"That makes sense," Mandy nodded. "There aren't any vendors in that particular area of the mall. The only action that really ever takes place there is around this time of the year when Santa takes pictures with the little kids. All of the cameras would be better utilized in the busier part of the building."
"Exactly." I nodded.
"Mona has had her ear to the ground for any details she can get for us. She's getting really good at gathering information."
"What about this Detective Smith?" Mandy asked. "He has no idea that we're looking into this, does he?" She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow.
"No, and he's not going to find out unless we discover who the killer is. I want to spend Christmas with my family, and I want him to be able to spend Christmas with his. I know none of this is my fault, but I found that body, so I can't help but feel a little guilty."
"I'm free until around five o'clock," Mandy said. "My mom, grandma, and aunt are all holed up in my kitchen cooking, and the nephews were crowded around the Xbox when I left. They won't even notice that I'm gone until around dinnertime."
"Good." I nodded. "You can work from here if you'd like, or you can go into the office. Whichever you prefer."
Mandy never worked in the field. Her strength was behind a computer screen. Thanks to her older, incarcerated brother, she was the best hacker I'd ever seen.
"I think I'll stay here and keep Mickey company." She reached down and patted my ancient black cat's head. "Besides, I just got warmed back up. It's freezing out there."
"Make yourself at home. Stay as long as you'd like."
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it off of the table and checked the display.
Mona.
I accepted the call and put it on speakerphone, then sat it back down in the middle of the table. I figured that we were all working this case, and we might as well all get the same information at the same time.
"Morning, Mona. What'cha got for us today?" I asked.
"Morning, Barb. I'm guessing that I'm on speaker, and everyone else is there listening?"
"Yes, we're here. How's it going?" Kelly said.
"Well, I hate to say it, but I don't have much for you," she sighed.
"We'll take anything you can give us at this point. I want to get this guy before he ruins everyone's Christmas."
I didn't like to get inside information from Mona unless there was no other way because she was risking her job at the police station.
But Mona was an adrenaline junkie with a no-fear mentality, so she gave me information whether I asked for it or not.
"Your Santa's name was Marvin Garvin."
Kelly snorted. "Please tell me that you're kidding? Marvin Garvin?"
"I wish I was. The poor guy. All I can really tell you is what I overheard Detective Smith talking to Detective Black about this morning." She cleared her throat. "Marvin has two teenaged, estranged daughters. Apparently Marvin was a bit of an alcoholic, and a mean one at that, which is why he's been estranged from his kids and their mothers."
"Why in the hell would the mall hire a mean drunk to play Santa Claus?" Kelly voiced the question we were all thinking.
"He was the cheapest hire, I'm guessing," Mona answered. "You'd be surprised at how many mall Santa's are out there looking for a job this time of the year."
"So two estranged daughters, mean drunk, anything else?" I asked hopefully
.
"There was mention of Marvin having a fling with one of his helpers." Mona said. "Bambi, I believe Smith said her name was."
Kelly laughed again. "Bambi the elf? This just keeps getting better and better."
Mona ignored her. "From what I gathered, Bambi and Marvin were hot and heavy up until last week. Also, the cause of death was from blunt-force trauma to the head. They've ruled his death suspicious. That's as much of the conversation as I could get before Smith left the building with Detective Black."
I couldn't help but wonder if the other detective Mona mentioned was Smith's replacement. The handsome one whose image kept creeping into my head. I'd already decided, when I finally started dating again, I wanted one who at least looked like him.
"He doesn't know anything about us looking into this case, does he?" I asked.
"Not that I know of. But Smith is a smart cookie, so watch your step. I'm sure he'll be at the mall on and off all day today, so you're going to have to duck and dodge him if you want to get any investigating done on the down low."
"Thanks, Mona. I'll let you know if we find anything."
"Talk to you later, girls."
I ended the call and slid the phone into my pocket.
"I'll get started looking into Marvin. Do you just want the usual?" Mandy asked as she rose from her chair.
"Yes, please." I nodded, stood, and then moved to the sink and sat my mug down on the countertop. "We should get going. We have less than twenty-four hours to get this figured out."
Kelly stood and made her way to the living room. Mandy situated herself on the sofa with her laptop on her lap and Mickey curled up on her feet. My cat could be a bit of a traitor. Whoever was handing out the love was his best friend, be it me or the mailman, he didn't care.
Kelly and I pulled on our coats, scarves, and gloves.
"We should probably take your car," Kelly said. "My heater is still on the blink."
"Good thinking." I agreed. "Call my cell when you find something," I called over my shoulder to Mandy, who was already hard at work.
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