Murder Most Merry

by ed. Abigail Browining

  “I’m sorry if anyone was hurt. You didn’t tell me Santa Claus was a woman. That threw off my timing and enabled a couple of detectives to get the drop on me.”

  “What about the beard?”

  “I didn’t get it.”

  Culhane cursed. “That means Santa will be back in place as soon as they get the smoke cleared out and things back to normal.”

  Nick was beginning to see at least a portion of the scheme. “You wanted the beard stolen so Santa couldn’t appear.”

  “Sure. It was easier than stealing the whole costume, except that you bungled it.”

  “They could have found another beard quickly enough,” Nick argued.

  Grady Culhane shook his head. “They don’t sell them in the store. I checked. The delay would have been an hour or two, and that was all I needed.”

  “For what?”

  He eyed Nick uncertainly for a moment before deciding to yield. “All right, I’ll tell you about it. But I want something in return. I want that beard tomorrow, and no slip-ups this time!”

  “You’ll have it, so long as you play square with me. What’s this all about? Does it involve the Santa Claus killings?”

  The dark-haired young man reached into a desk drawer and extracted a sheet of paper which he passed across the desk to Nick. It was a copy of a crudely printed extortion letter addressed to the president of Kliman’s department store: “Tuesday, December 15—I have just come from killing my second Santa Claus of the Christmas season. The deaths of Bajon and Averly were meant as a demonstration. A third Santa Claus will die in your store, in full view of the children, unless you are prepared to pay me one million dollars in cash within forty-eight hours, by noon Thursday.” There was no signature.

  “Sounds like a crackpot,” Nick decided, returning the letter. “He doesn’t even give directions for paying the money.”

  “This letter was hand-delivered by a messenger service Tuesday afternoon. A second letter came yesterday, with instructions. They haven’t shown me that one.”

  “You’ve been hired by Kliman’s store?”

  Culhane nodded. “Frankly, it’s the first major client I’ve had. Even though the police have been called in, the store is paying me as a personal bodyguard for Santa.”

  “Or Mrs. Santa.”

  He smiled. “She’s an unemployed actress named Vivian Delmos. I just met her yesterday after I talked with you. There are some female Santas around. They’re good with children. If their voices are deep enough and the suit is padded enough, no one knows the difference. I didn’t know the cops would be guarding her too.”

  “How much are they paying you?” Nick asked.

  “That’s proprietary information.” the young man answered stiffly.

  “I figure fifty thousand, at least, if you can afford to pay me twenty-five.”

  “I don’t get a thing if the Santa strangler kills her.”

  “You thought he’d strike right at noon, so you needed me to keep her from going out there then. That means they decided not to pay.”

  “It’s not just them. There are other stores involved. The killer is trying to shake down the largest stores in New York.”

  “The police must have a description from the messenger company that delivered this note.”

  Grady Culhane shook his head. “They deny any knowledge of it. One of their messengers was probably stopped in the street and paid to deliver it. Naturally he won’t admit it now and risk losing his job.”

  “What happens after the smoke is cleared out?”

  “The Delmos woman puts on her beard and goes back out there. I’ll probably have to be standing next to her, and I’m too big for those elves’ costumes.”

  “Don’t worry,” Nick promised. “This time I’ll get the beard.”

  On his second visit to the store Nick Velvet wore a grey wig and a matching false moustache. He was taking no chances on coming face-to-face with one of those detectives again. In the atrium at the center of the main floor where Santa’s throne was in place, a sign announced that he would not return until noon the following day due to the illness of one of his reindeer. Nick found a pay telephone and called Culhane at his office.

  “You’re off the hook until tomorrow,” he said.

  I just heard from the store.”

  “Do you still want the beard?”

  “Of course—unless the police come up with the extortionist by then.”

  Nick hung up and decided he should know more than he did about the Santa Claus killings. He went down to the subway newsstand and bought all the local papers. It wasn’t the lead item anymore but the unsolved killings still filled several columns inside each paper. The first victim, Russell Bajon, was a young homeless man—a would-be actor—who’d been staying at the men’s dorm maintained by a charitable organization. He’d been collecting money for the charity at one of their Christmas chimneys when he’d been strangled. One of the other Santas, a man named Chris Stover, had come by in a van a few minutes later to find a crowd gathering around the fallen man. No one admitted to having seen the actual killing.

  The second victim had followed less than twelve hours later, on Tuesday morning. Larry Averly lived in a rundown hotel on the fringes of Greenwich Village, a place where Nick had grown up. His Christmas job as a Santa Claus for a local radio station’s holiday promotion involved coming to work in costume that day. since they were doing a remote broadcast from the Central Park skating rink. He’d been heading for a subway exit near the park when the killer struck. This time two people saw the attack and scared him off, but not in time to save the victim. The killer was described as a white man of uncertain age wearing a bulky coat. Averly hadn’t been carrying any identification in his shabby wallet and it had taken police most of the day to trace his room key to the hotel where he’d been staying. The radio station had hired him through an employment agency and didn’t even know his name. They’d finally learned it just in time for the six o’clock news.

  The papers, of course, carried nothing about the extortion plot. That would have been enough to get the story back on page one. Nick read them all and then tossed them aside. He had his own problem to consider. Stealing Santa’s beard the following day would be next to impossible in Kliman’s store, but the alternatives were equally impossible. He knew Vivian Delmos carried her costume to work in a large canvas bag, but he wasn’t about to mug her on the way to work. Still...

  Culhane had mentioned that the lady Santa Claus was an unemployed actress. Nick phoned Actors’ Equity and had her address within minutes. Vivian Delmos resided on East Forty-ninth Street. He called her number and got the expected answering machine. Next he phoned Gloria to say that he wouldn’t be home till late.

  The address on Forty-ninth was past Third Avenue, in an apartment building across the street from the Turtle Bay block. The Delmos woman must have been successful at some stage of her career to afford the moderately high rents in the neighborhood. There was no answer to Nick’s ring so he took up a position down the block on the other side of the street. Within twenty minutes he saw Vivian Delmos appear, walking briskly and carrying her canvas bag. He crossed the street to intercept her at her door, but she was a bit faster than he’d realized. She was halfway through the door by the time he reached it.

  Blocking its closing with his hand, he began, “Miss Delmos—”

  She turned, recognized him instantly, and acted without a word, yanking on his wrist and pulling him inside but off balance. He felt himself falling forward as she twisted his arm behind him. Then he was on the floor, his cheek pressed against the hall carpeting, while she pulled painfully on the arm. Her foot was on his neck.

  “Mister, you just made your second big mistake. I hope you don’t mind a broken arm.”

  “Wait a minute! I just want to talk!”

  “How’d you find me? Did you follow me home?”

  “Through Equity.”

  “Got a job for me?” She gave his arm a painful wrench. �
�I’m real good in action parts.”

  “I don’t doubt it! Please let me up.”

  “Nice and slow,” she warned, relaxing the pressure on his arm. “We’re going upstairs while I call the police.”

  “All right.”

  She led him ahead of her up the stairs, keeping a grip on his arm. They paused outside a door at the top while she put down the canvas bag and got out her key. “Inside!”

  The apartment was large but plainly furnished, as if in some sort of limbo while awaiting its permanent decor. “I’m not trying to kill you,” Nick assured her. “When you saw me earlier I was only trying to steal your beard.”

  “My what?”

  “The beard from your Santa Claus outfit.”

  She released his arm and gave him a shove toward the sofa. “What’s your name?”

  “Nick Velvet. I steal things.” He decided to stay on the sofa for the moment. Facing her now, he had a chance to confirm his earlier impressions. She was into early middle age but still had a good figure. By the strength she’d shown in overpowering him, he guessed that she worked out regularly. It had been an unlucky day from the start.

  “I’m Vivian Delmos, but I guess you know that. You called me by name.” She walked to the phone without taking her eyes off him.

  “I was hired to steal your beard.” he told her. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

  “The people at Kliman’s weren’t too happy when you set off that smoke bomb.”

  “I only did it to escape. If I hadn’t needed it I’d have returned later and removed it.”

  “What does all this have to do with the Santa strangler?”

  “The killings are part of an extortion plot against the big department stores. My job was to keep you from being the next victim.”

  “By stealing my beard?” She gave a snort of disbelief. “Kliman’s wanted to replace me with a cop but I wouldn’t let them. I finally convinced everyone I could take care of myself, but they still made me carry that beeper. And this noon after you tried to attack me—”

  “Steal your beard,” Nick corrected.

  “—steal my beard, they canceled Santa’s appearances for the rest of the day. I lost a day’s pay because of you!”

  “Give me the beard and stay home tomorrow, too. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars for it.”

  “Are you whacky or something?”

  “Just a good businessman. I’m getting too old to be tossed around by a woman who works out at the gym every day.”

  “Three times a week,” she corrected. “I’m an actress and I find it a good way to keep fit.”

  Nick worked his shoulder a bit, getting the kinks out. “It sure doesn’t keep me fit. How about it? A thousand dollars?”

  “They’ll find another beard for me, or use the cop after all.” She’d moved away from the phone at least, and Nick was thankful for that.

  “It’s the easiest money you’ll ever make. Far easier than doing some off-Broadway play eight times a week.”

  “How’d you know I was off-Broadway?” she asked, immediately suspicious.

  “I guessed. What difference does it make?”

  “You didn’t—” she began and then cut herself short. “Look, I’ll agree to your condition if you do one thing for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to go down to the men’s dorm at the Outreach Center and pick up Russell Bajon’s belongings.”

  “Bajon? The first victim?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Slightly. We appeared in a play together.”

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t understand any of this. What right do you have to his belongings?”

  “As much right as anyone. The paper says he left no family.”

  “But why would you want his things?”

  “Just to remember him by. He was a nice guy.”

  “Why can’t you get them yourself?”

  “I don’t want people to see me there.”

  It was a weak reason, and her whole story was weak, but Nick was into it now. Unless he wanted to risk seriously injuring her, it seemed the only way to get the beard. “All right. I’ll go down there now and then I’ll be back for the beard.”

  Outside it had started to snow a little, but somehow it didn’t seem much like the week before Christmas.

  The Outreach Center was a sort of nondenominational mission located on the West Side near the river. Some of their operating expenses came from the city, but much of the money was from private donors. The Center gave homeless people a safe place to sleep if they were afraid of the city shelters, but certain rules applied. Drugs, alcohol, and weapons were forbidden, and guests of the Center were expected to earn their keep. In December that often meant dressing up in a Santa Claus suit and manning one of the Center’s plywood chimneys with a donation bag inside.

  The first person Nick saw as he entered the front door of the Outreach Center was a young man in sweater and jeans seated at an unpretentious card table. “I’ve come to pick up Russell Bajon’s belongings,” Nick told him. “The family sent me.”

  The young man seemed indifferent to the request. Apparently people who stayed at the men’s dorm weren’t expected to have anything worth stealing. “I’ll get Chris.”

  Nick waited in the bare hallway until the young man returned with an older worker with thinning hair, wearing a faded Giants sweatshirt. “I’m Chris Stover. What can I do for you?”

  “Russell Bajon’s family sent me for his belongings.”

  The man frowned. “Didn’t know he had a family. There sure wasn’t much in the way of belongings. We were going to throw them out.”

  “Could I see them?”

  Stover hesitated and then led him down the corridor to a storage room. For all its drabness, the dormitory building seemed to be well fitted for its clients, with a metal railing along the wall and smoke alarms in the ceiling. Nick stood by the door as Stover pulled out some boxes from one shelf in the storage room. “If I’d been five minutes earlier, Russ might be alive today,” he said.

  “I think I saw your name in the paper—”

  “Sure! I placed him there and I was picking him up. When I rounded the corner I saw a crowd of people gathering. He was dead by the time I got to him.”

  “Nobody saw anything?”

  “I guess not. Who pays attention in New York? I swear once I was driving by Radio City Music Hall about six in the morning, when they were having their Christmas show. Some guy was walking two camels around the block for their morning exercise and hardly anyone even noticed.” He slit open the tape on one of the boxes and peered inside. “Nothing but clothing in here.”

  “I’ll just take it along anyway.”

  When he opened the second box he frowned a bit. “Well, there are some letters in this one, and a couple of books.” He looked up at Nick. “Maybe I should have some sort of authorization to release these.”

  “I can give you his sister’s phone number.” He’d worked that out with Vivian in advance. “You can check with her.”

  “Never heard about a sister,” the man muttered. Then, “Our director is away today. I better wait till he gets back. Come back tomorrow.”

  “Sure thing.” Nick turned to leave, his hand unobtrusively on the door’s latchbolt. Stover shut the door and they walked back down the corridor together.

  “See you later,” the man told him and disappeared into a little office.

  Immediately Nick turned and vaulted onto the handrail that ran along the wall, steadying himself with one hand against the ceiling, With his other hand he reached toward one of the smoke alarms. This model had a plastic button in the center of the unit for testing the battery, and he shoved a thin dime between the button and the casing, keeping it depressed. Immediately a loud blaring noise filled the hall. He jumped down to the floor as people began to look out of the rooms.

  Some headed immediately for the exits while others s
tood around looking for some sign of smoke. Nick slipped into the storeroom just as Chris Stover emerged from his office to join the others. There was little chance of getting out with two boxes so Nick settled for the one containing the letters and books. He peeked down the hall and saw that Stover had gotten a ladder from somewhere to examine the blaring alarm. Perhaps he had noticed the edge of the dime holding the button in.

  Nick went out the storeroom window as the smoke alarm was suddenly silenced.

  Vivian Delmos seemed just a bit surprised to see him back so soon. “I thought you were going to get me Russell Bajon’s things.”

  “I did. They’re in this box. There was another box with a few pants and shirts, but I figured this was what you wanted.”

  “I’ll know soon enough.”

  She opened the box and began looking through the objects, setting aside a worn pair of shoes and some socks and handkerchiefs. When she came to the books she examined them more carefully. One was a paperback edition of some of Shakespeare’s tragedies, the others were a small dictionary and a book on acting. But she soon tossed these aside too, and turned only briefly to the letters, shaking the envelopes to make certain nothing small was hidden in them.

  “You got the wrong box,” she grumbled.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She seemed to relent then. “No, what I’m looking for probably wasn’t in the other box either. Somebody told me Bajon was involved with a shoplifting ring, stealing watches and jewelry from fancy stores during the Christmas season. I thought if he had anything in his belongings—”

  “—that you’d take it?”

  She flushed a bit at Nick’s words. “I’m no thief. When Russell and I were in the play together I loaned him a few hundred dollars. I could use that money now. I figured anything I found among his belongings would pay the debt.”

  “Any jewelry or valuables he had were probably removed by whoever went through his clothes.” As he spoke he was looking down at one of the envelopes that had been in the box. It was addressed to Russell Bajon at the Outreach Center. The return address bore only the surname of the sender: Averly.

  It took him a few seconds to realize the significance of the name. The Santa strangler’s second victim had been named Larry Averly. Nick slipped the letter out of the envelope and read the few lines quickly: “Russ—I was happy to do you the favor. No need to send me any more money. Keep some of the pie for yourself. Merry Christmas! Larry.” The note was undated, but the envelope had been postmarked December second.