Deck the Halls

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Jack had notified the FBI and was now working in tandem with them. Besides the police helicopter, which would be tracking Regan’s car, an FBI fixed-wing aircraft would be overhead, ready to follow the signals sent by the device planted in the bag with the ransom money.

  Alvirah’s tape recording of the call from the kidnappers had been run through an exhaustive audio analysis. The voice of the person who had made the ransom demand, as well as those of Luke and Rosita, could be heard clearly. The feeling was that the low and almost guttural tone of the caller was almost surely an attempt to alter his normal tones. Another man’s voice could be detected in the background, although it was so faint that whatever he said had not yet been deciphered.

  From analyzing the ambient sounds on the tape, they were able to ascertain that Luke and Rosita were being kept in a relatively cramped area near a body of water.

  As Gabe Klein observed, “That really narrows it down—three quarters of the earth is covered with water.”

  Now, except for the intense manhunt for the Gonzalez brothers, the police were entering the waiting-game segment of the investigation.

  Regan’s call, however, changed that.

  “I’m on the way,” Jack told her.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Jack was in Nora’s room at the hospital.

  “The logo on the box is from the gift shop downstairs,” Regan told him.

  “There’s nothing in the picture that gives me a clue about where it was taken,” Nora said. “Luke and I go to a lot of black-tie affairs.”

  “By the time we realized what this was, our fingerprints were already on the card and the frame,” Regan said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jack told them. “If there are any other fingerprints, we’ll get them. Do you happen to know what time the gift shop opens?”

  “I already asked,” Regan said. “Nine o’clock.”

  “How about if you go down there and speak to them?” Jack said. “See what you can find out about who might have bought this. We have to be careful not to let anyone think this is a police investigation.”

  “I thought I’d tell them that the person who bought the gift forgot to sign the card, and we wanted to be able to send a thank-you note.”

  Jack nodded. He looked at the bouquets of flowers in the room. “Nora, there’s been publicity about your accident. This could, of course, be a somewhat macabre coincidence.”

  “I do get a lot of mail from people who read my books,” Nora acknowledged. “But isn’t the sentiment on that frame too much of a coincidence?”

  “Possibly,” Jack admitted.

  “In which case, it becomes a pretty grim threat,” Nora said.

  Regan was studying him. “Jack, you’re leaning toward coincidence. Why?”

  “Because Rosita’s ex-husband is our strongest suspect, and from what I know about his type, this kind of thing is way too subtle for him. But then again . . .”

  He shrugged and looked at his watch. “It’s almost nine o’clock. Regan, why don’t we go down to the gift shop together and see what we can find out? Then I’ll take all of this downtown and give it to the lab.”

  He looked at Nora. “I know how upsetting this is for you. But it could be an important break for us. There may be fingerprints that will match up with some we’ve found in the car. If the frame wasn’t bought downstairs, we’ll try to trace it to where it was purchased. Perhaps someone in the gift shop will be able to give us a description of whoever bought the teddy bear.”

  Clearly on the verge of tears, Nora nodded. “I understand.”

  Jack turned to Regan. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, on the Upper West Side, barely a mile away from the hospital, Alvin Luck was bent over his bowl of oatmeal, still glowing with pleasure at the thought of the happiness his gift must be giving to Nora Regan Reilly, perhaps at this very moment.

  He had wisely not broken his resolve to keep his mother in the dark about the purchase of the teddy bear. But his wisdom only went so far.

  “What do you mean you didn’t sign the card?” his mother badgered as she settled heavily into the chair opposite him. “Are you crazy? What were you thinking? She could help you get published. For God’s sake, her editor is Michael Korda!”

  “Will Mommy be home soon?”

  It was the first question Chris and Bobby asked when they opened their eyes at 7:30. At least they slept well, Fred thought as he answered, “She’ll be home as soon as she can.”

  On the shelf in Rosita’s closet he had found extra sheets and a blanket and pillow, so he had bunked on the couch. It would have been more comfortable to stretch out on top of her bed, but he had found himself unable to do that. It felt almost as though it would be an invasion of her privacy.

  He knew that the deeper reason was that everything in the bedroom conveyed a sense of Rosita’s presence that was haunting.

  A smiling picture of her with her arms around the boys dominated the top of the small dresser. There was a faint scent of perfume—a scent she had worn when he last saw her—emanating from the atomizer on her dressing table. When he had opened the closet door to find the bedding, the first thing he saw was her white silk robe and, peeking from beneath it, a pair of satin bedroom slippers.

  Cinderella, he thought with a stab of pain.

  Before he had settled on the couch the night before, he’d called Josh Gaspero, the friend he’d planned to meet. “Not home,” he muttered to himself as Josh’s machine picked up. “Figures. He’s probably over at Elaine’s having a Christmas drink with the regulars.” The explanation he’d left had been brief. “Delayed on a special case. I can’t discuss it. I’ll try and catch up with you down there in a couple of days. I’ve got the schedule of stops.”

  Now he watched as Chris and Bobby went into the bathroom and reached for their toothbrushes without being told. When they began lightly splashing water on their faces, though, Fred decided to lend a hand. “As my mother used to tell me, ‘You wash for a high neck,’ ” he said as he rubbed soap on a warm washcloth and took over.

  While he made coffee, the boys got their own cereal and juice. “Please, will you make the toast in the oven?” Chris asked. “Our toaster broke, and we’re not allowed to turn on the gas ourselves.”

  “Mommy gets really mad if we play near the stove,” Bobby volunteered.

  “Mommy’s right,” Fred replied.

  Had the lab found anything significant in the limo? he wondered. By now they would have gone over it thoroughly. Alvirah Meehan had called him from her apartment last night and told him about the find. “Regan asked me to let you know. She said we’ll keep you informed on anything that comes up.”

  As they were finishing breakfast, Sgt. Keith Waters from the Major Case Squad phoned. “Captain Reilly asked me to call you, Fred. I know what the situation is out there. Let me bring you up to date on what we have here.”

  He began with the results of the lab’s inspection of the limo and the focus on Ramon Gonzalez and his brother.

  “We’re homing in on them. You’re in place in Rosita’s apartment. We want you to go through it carefully and see if you can find anything that would suggest that her ex was either threatening her or trying to get money from her. Keep your eye out for anything that would show where he might be hiding out now. You know the routine. We have a search warrant, of course.”

  Fred was aware that the boys were listening intently to his conversation, trying to figure out who was on the phone. “Will do,” he said, “and if you see Rosita, tell her that the boys are being very good and are glad she’s helping Mrs. Reilly.”

  “But tell her she has to be home for Christmas,” Bobby cried out, dismayed.

  “And ask her when we’re going to decorate the tree.” Now even Chris seemed to be about to cry.

  “What are you going to tell them?” Waters asked softly.

  “Sure, I’ll be glad to,” Fred replied heartily. He turned to the boys.
“Mommy sent word that she’s going to be really tired when she gets home, so she’d like it a lot if we’d decorate the tree for her today.”

  He saw the doubtful look on their faces. “I’m really good with the lights, and I can reach to the top. We’ll save your favorite ornaments for your mom to hang when she gets home. How about that?”

  “Good luck,” Keith Waters said as he hung up the phone.

  Willy was snoring loudly in the bedroom, and Sister Cordelia was fast asleep on the living room couch when Alvirah tiptoed into the apartment at midnight.

  A newspaper was under Cordelia’s hands, and her glasses were perched on the end of her nose. Alvirah had removed the glasses and newspaper, unplugged the Christmas tree, and turned out the lights, without disturbing her.

  Now, over breakfast, the three of them comfortable in their bathrobes, she related everything that had taken place since she had phoned Cordelia yesterday and asked her to stay with Willy.

  “The ransom drop is set for six o’clock tonight, and I intend to be in one of the unmarked cars following Regan,” Alvirah declared as she spread a generous lump of butter on her English muffin.

  Now that the troublesome dental implant had been mercifully extracted, Willy both sounded and looked more like his old self. “Alvirah, honey, I worry about you being in one of those cars,” he began to protest, but then shaking his head, poured himself more coffee. “Useless,” he muttered.

  Cordelia, the eldest of Willy’s six sisters, had entered the convent fifty-three years earlier, at age seventeen. Now the mother superior of a small convent on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, she and the four nuns who lived with her spent their time tending to the needy in their parish.

  Their many activities included running an after-school day-care center. Two years earlier, Alvirah had been the one to track down a long-missing child, who turned out to be one of the seven-year-olds in their charge.

  After having been her sister-in-law for more than forty years, nothing Alvirah did could surprise Cordelia, and that included winning $40 million dollars in the lottery.

  Alvirah and Willy had been most generous with their newfound wealth. As Cordelia put it, “They’re the same down-to-earth people they always have been. Willy still comes running whenever any of our people need a plumber. The only difference in Alvirah is, now that she isn’t cleaning houses anymore, she’s turned into a first-rate amateur detective.”

  With her regal carriage and no-nonsense air, Cordelia inspired both trust and deference. She also had a way of getting immediately to the heart of the matter.

  “Are those ransom drops usually successful?” she asked.

  “More successful in fiction than in fact,” Alvirah said with a sigh. “And the problem is that if something does go wrong, the kidnappers tend to panic.”

  Cordelia shook her head. “I’ll get everybody praying. I’ll just say it’s for a special intention.”

  “We need all the prayers we can get,” Alvirah said soberly. “I just feel so helpless.”

  “Honey, thanks to you they have the kidnapper’s voice on tape. That could turn out to be a big help,” Willy reminded her.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Alvirah exclaimed, clearly cheered. “The detective gave me a copy of the tape last night. Let’s listen to it.” She got up, retrieved the cassette from her purse and reached into the mahogany cabinet in the living room for her special, highly sensitive tape player, yet another gift from her editor at the Globe.

  She had spent many hours with her ear cocked to its speaker, listening for nuances in the countless conversations she had recorded in her relentless pursuit of justice.

  Willy moved the coffeepot out of the way as she set the machine down between the empty bacon plate and the jar of imported raspberry jam.

  She snapped in the cassette. “After we hear this, I’m going to get dressed and head over to the hospital. I told Regan I’d come by this morning. What a long day this is going to be for them. There’s almost nothing to do now but wait until six o’clock tonight.”

  “I feel better today, so if there’s anything they need for me to do, I’d be glad to help out,” Willy offered.

  “I’ll call you from the hospital,” Alvirah promised as she pressed the PLAY button.

  The cassette made for grim listening. Willy’s frown and the tightening of Cordelia’s lips mirrored Alvirah’s own sense of anger and concern.

  “It’s pretty straightforward,” Cordelia said when it was over. “It especially breaks my heart to hear that young mother so worried about her boys.”

  “I’d like to get my hands on that guy,” Willy said as he unconsciously punched his left palm with his right fist.

  Alvirah was rewinding the tape. “I want to hear it again.”

  “Did you pick up something, honey?” Willy asked hopefully.

  “I’m not sure.”

  She played it a second time and then again, her eyes tightly closed. Then she turned off the machine. “There’s something there that’s ringing a bell, but I can’t quite figure out what it is.”

  “Run it through once more,” Willy urged.

  “No, it won’t make a difference right now. It will come to me later. It always does,” she said. Frustrated, Alvirah got up from the table. “I can tell it’s something important. But what is it?”

  When Regan and Jack entered the gift shop in the hospital lobby, the carefully made-up fortyish woman behind the counter was yawning. Spotting them, she halfheartedly held up a carefully manicured hand to cover her open mouth.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m so tired. All this holiday stuff has me aggravated.”

  “I know what you mean,” Regan murmured sympathetically.

  “At least you’re standing here with a good-looking guy. I haven’t had a decent date in months.”

  “Oh, we’re not—” Regan began, but Jack nudged her and smiled at the saleswoman, whose name tag read “Hi. My name is LUCY.”

  “They told me to get a job in a hospital. You’ll meet a lot of doctors. So I get myself hired here to help out for the month of December.” She paused briefly as though unable to believe what she was about to report. “Not one doctor has set foot in this place since I started three weeks ago. They all go flying right through the lobby in their white coats.”

  “Oh dear,” Regan found herself murmuring inanely. She cleared her throat. “Well, I’m sorry to bother you but . . .”

  “Go ahead,” Lucy said in a resigned voice as she picked up her Styrofoam coffee cup. “I’m all ears.”

  “We need to speak to whomever was working in here last night.”

  “You’re looking at her. Why do you think I’m so tired?”

  Regan and Jack exchanged glances. What a stroke of luck was the unspoken mutual thought.

  Jack had put the teddy bear with the framed picture in a clear plastic bag he’d gotten from the nurses’ station.

  Regan held it up “We think this teddy bear was bought here last evening.”

  “Bingo.”

  “You remember selling it?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the person who bought it?”

  “Please. Don’t get me started. I let him in when I’m closing up, and he takes forever to pick out a teddy bear.” Lucy pointed to the display of bears on the shelves. “Do you see any difference between any of them and the one you’ve got there? I don’t.

  “Then he reaches down into his shopping bag and pulls out the package that frame was wrapped in. So I stand here—after I’ve been on my feet all day—and wait for him to unwrap the package, just so he can use the paper again. Then he sticks the frame in the teddy bear’s arms and asks me to rewrap the whole thing. So I put it in a box and tied it with a ribbon. Then he takes out his wallet and spends forever getting the exact change out of the secret compartment.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I can tell you one thing,” Lucy concluded, “anyone who goes out with him better know the definiti
on of Dutch treat.”

  “He paid in cash?” Jack asked.

  She looked pained. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “How would you describe him?” Jack continued, a steely edge creeping into his voice.

  She paused. “What’s this all about anyway? Please don’t tell me he’s Bill Gates’s long-lost brother.”

  Regan smiled reluctantly. “He left this for my mother, who’s a patient upstairs, but he didn’t sign the card. She wants to be able to send a thank-you note.”

  “That’s weird,” Lucy said, looking genuinely perplexed. “He seemed so pleased with himself, ya know, sticking the frame in the box with the teddy bear and all. I would have thought he’d have signed the card.”

  “I might be able to figure out who it is if you give me an idea of what he looks like,” Regan prodded.

  Lucy scrunched up her face. “Not that great,” she replied. “You know, around fifty maybe. Brown hair, not much of it, average height, a little wimpy.”

  “You say he was carrying a shopping bag,” Jack said. “Did you happen to notice where it was from?”

  She rolled her eyes again. “Oh yeah, I went shopping there once. I bought an outfit that fell apart first time I washed it.”

  “Where was that?” Regan asked.

  “Long’s. You heard their commercial? ‘I’m longing for Long’s.’ I’ll tell you one thing—I’m not longing for Long’s.”

  “What time do you close here?” Jack asked.

  “Usually 7:30. This week we stay open till 9:00. We want to get rid of all this holiday stuff. Once Christmas is over, you can’t give it away.”

  It was obvious that there was nothing more to be learned from her. Regan and Jack crossed the lobby to the reception desk. The obliging clerk there knew who had been on duty the previous evening. “It’s my friend Vanessa. Let me phone her.”