Santa Claus, Lies, and Murder (Amber Fox Mysteries book #4.5 - Novella) (The Amber Fox Murder Mystery Series)

by Sibel Hodge

  I heard the click of a button. “It’s gone.”

  “Thank God for that.” I let go of Brad. “Come on, then. He’s probably still at the museum. The quicker we confront him, the quicker we might be able to find the relics and restore them to the museum in time for Christmas.”

  ~~~~

  The journey to the museum should’ve taken about fifteen minutes, but Brad had his Hummer flat out, and we made it in…

  “Seven minutes, thirty-two and a half seconds,” Brad said as he jumped out of the vehicle in the car park. “Impressive.”

  See, what I mean about these little bits of measurements that are inconsequential to women but are very important to men. No wonder we were a complete mystery to each other.

  The new door was finished and closed when we arrived. Brad banged on it hard.

  No answer.

  He banged again for good measure. Nothing.

  I glanced at my watch at the same time as Brad checked his. It was 4:30 p.m.

  “Sixteen-thirty and fifty-six seconds,” he said.

  “Maybe they’ve all gone home now the door is secure. Let’s check the outside of the building.” I walked past the window of the room that had housed the St Nicholas Exhibit and tried to peer in, but of course, the glass was one-way, and I couldn’t see a thing.

  After half an hour of knocking on windows, which I thought were the offices, we gave up. No one was around. I phoned Hacker as we got into the Hummer.

  “Yo. Can you get me Colin’s home address, please?” I asked.

  Tap, tap, tap. “It’s on Gable Avenue. Number Sixty-Five A.”

  “Fab. Yo!” I hung up.

  Brad programmed the address into the satnav, and we zoomed off at eighty-six-point-four miles an hour.

  Thirty-five minutes, and three seconds, later, we pulled up outside Colin’s terraced house in a quiet street and climbed the steps to the property. It had a red door, and to the left of it was a sash window. The view inside was obscured by closed red curtains. Brad pressed the brass doorbell, and the door swung inwards with a creaking sound.

  I looked at Brad. He looked at me.

  “Probably not a good sign,” I said.

  “Hello?” Brad shouted. “Colin? Are you here?”

  “Maybe he’s done a runner.”

  “Maybe. Colin? Are you all right, mate?” Brad headed inside the entrance hallway, and I followed close behind.

  The room behind the curtains was off to the left.

  Brad stopped in the doorway. “Or maybe he’s dead.” He stepped into the room.

  Colin was sitting in a rocking chair, eyes wide open, his throat cut, burn marks up his arms, fingers broken and twisted at unnatural angles, and a bullet hole in his forehead.

  Chapter 5

  “Kind of overkill, don’t you think? An execution-style bullet hole, broken fingers, burns, and his throat slit?” I said.

  “Definitely. Looks like he was tortured.”

  “Yes, but why? Do you think they were teaching him a lesson for something? Or was it a message of some kind? Maybe he double-crossed whoever he stole the collection for and tried to keep it.”

  “Whatever the reason, it means he was probably involved with some pretty nasty characters.”

  “I expect he already had a buyer for it before he even stole it. Some rich art collector with dodgy connections.”

  “Probably. Let’s search the house before calling the police.” Brad pulled two pairs of latex gloves from his pocket and handed me a pair.

  All rubbered up, we made a thorough and tidy search of the house but didn’t spot anything that would help us identify his buyer or find out where the collection might be.

  I sighed. “I don’t think we’re going to find the exhibit. It must be long gone by now.”

  “You need to call this in to Carole. I’ll leave you here to wait. Phone me when she arrives, and I’ll come and pick you up. I’m not sticking around here in case Romeo turns up.”

  Romeo was my ex-boyfriend and there was a lot of history between him and Brad.

  After Brad left, I phoned my good friend Carole, who was also the Coroner's officer.

  “I knew it.” Carole gave a throaty chuckle down the phone. “The only time you ever phone me these days is when you’ve stumbled on another dead body. Anyone would think you were jinxed.”

  I don’t need to say I told you so, do I? “Or a serial killer.”

  “Have you phoned Romeo to let him know?”

  “Er…no. I’m trying to avoid him after the last time.”

  She was silent for a moment. “OK, well, I’ll wait until I’m there and you’re gone before I call him. How's that?”

  “You’re a star. I love you.”

  “See you soon.”

  ~~~~

  “So that’s it.” I threw my palms in the air in defeat and swivelled back and forth in my office chair. “Colin is a dead end. Literally. We have no more clues as to who he sold the collection to, and we'll never be able to return St Nicholas’s relics and artefacts to their rightful owners for all the world to appreciate. They’re lost forever.”

  “At least we tried.” Brad stood behind me, massaging my tense shoulders.

  All that freaky spider crap had given me knots on my knots.

  “Do you want me to do some reiki on you?” Hacker asked me. He had magic hands.

  “No, thanks. I’m enjoying this too much right now.”

  Tia—AKA Pepto Bismol, AKA Penelope Pitstop—walked into the office, carrying a box of something cake-like. “Commiseration mince pies.” She opened the box and held it out to me, wafting the smell of spicy sweetness under my nose.

  “Oooh, fantastic!” I reached in and took one just as Brad’s thumb dug hard into a big knot on my shoulder, making the mince pie fall out of my hand and back into the box. “Hey! Did you do that on purpose?”

  “You'll thank me for it in the long run.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Will not.”

  “Will.”

  “Not.”

  We all fell into silence then, and the disappointed mood permeated the whole room. I was still thinking about the exhibit, mulling stuff over in my head. Had I missed something that might help us find the collection?

  I got up and walked round my desk to Hacker’s. “You said Colin was on trial for burglary before with four men. Can you check out the other guys and find out any of their known associates? Maybe the items from that burglary went to the same collector as the relics, and if we can find out who that is, we might be able to find where St Nicholas has gone.”

  “I’m on it.”

  A page from the Crown Court’s database appeared on Hacker’s screen, and I read through the names of his co-defendants over his shoulder. “Peter Carter, Tony Foster, Singh Ramprashan, Hakan Ali.” Then my eyes widened and my jaw dropped open as I started reading the court case details.

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Hacker asked.

  “Oh, yes.” I grinned, excitement bubbling.

  “What?” Brad asked.

  “Colin’s barrister who represented him at Crown Court was Anasztaz Kovacs,” I said.

  Brad looked blank. “Not ringing any bells,”

  “Margaret Richardson’s ex-husband was a barrister called Anasztaz Kovacs.”

  “What does that mean, then?” Tia asked through a mouthful of mince pie.

  I paced the room, tapping my lips, the hamsters in my brain running the hundred metre sprint on their squeaky little wheel.

  “Margaret probably heard about Colin from her husband when they were married, and she asked Colin to steal the relics for her,” Brad said. “She knew the layout of the Hertford museum and the fact that the security was not very good. She’s the brains behind it, and he’s the brawn.”

  “And then she killed him afterwards to shut him up,” Hacker said.

  I carried on pacing, my thoughts crashing around. Something wasn’t right.

  I stopped and swung around to face them.
“Torturing someone, then slitting their throat and shooting them in the head requires a particular kind of person. Someone cold and callous. I don’t think Margaret has it in her.”

  “She could have easily hired someone to do it,” Brad said. “Whoever the end buyer was is bound to have a lot of heavies to do their dirty work.”

  “Why would Margaret or those heavy people kill Colin after the job was done?” Tia asked.

  “I think he double-crossed them all somehow,” I said. “But if Margaret was involved, why was she making such a fuss about the lack of security? Giving her the extra security she’d asked for would have made it harder to steal the collection. It doesn’t make sense.” I chewed on my lip.

  Hacker shrugged. “Maybe she was hoping Colin would get assigned as the security guard, and he could steal it from the inside when he was all alone on night duty without having to go to the trouble of a burglary. Then he could just disappear straight afterwards.”

  It sounded plausible, but something still niggled away at me. “When I spoke to Margaret, she seemed genuinely angry that the collection had been stolen. What were her exact words?” I stared at the ceiling, willing it to come back to me. “That’s it. She said, 'They wouldn’t listen to me, and look what happened. Well, it’s their own fault.'”

  Hacker, Brad, and Tia looked at me blankly.

  “So? What does that mean?” Tia blinked rapidly.

  “Don’t you see? I mistook her smugness that the collection had been stolen for anger. When she said it, she jutted her hip out and rested a hand on it. She stuck her chin in the air. Her cheeks turned red and flushed. All clear signs of smugness. She wanted it to be stolen.”

  “Which is why she hired Colin to do it for her,” Hacker said.

  “Maybe. Probably.” I pursed my lips, thinking.

  “But there’s something still wrong with that theory. Margaret wouldn’t have been able to guarantee he was the actual security guard assigned to the Hertford Museum if her wish for more protection was granted. Margaret didn’t get along with the woman who was in charge of security, which is why she went above her to the museum director in the first place. So why to try to get more security?” Brad asked.

  I grinned as a theory formed in my head. “I’ve got a good idea, but that’s what I need to find out.”

  Chapter 6

  Margaret lived in a modern three-bedroomed house. It was new, probably about three years old, and a new build nowadays meant small and boxy. It had a postage stamp-sized front garden, and judging by the layout of the street, I was betting the back garden was about the same.

  It was dark outside, and the lights were on by the time I arrived. I could hear the muffled sound of a TV from somewhere inside. I rang the doorbell and waited.

  Margaret’s eyebrows rose when she saw me. “Oh!” she exclaimed. Her eyes flashed with anger briefly before she covered it with a huge smile. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting to see you again. I thought you’d asked all the questions you needed to.”

  “I just have some information for you, if you have time.” I gave her my best non-threatening, no-I-don’t-think-you’re-a-suspect smile.

  “Um…well…yes, of course. What sort of information?” She leaned her hip against the doorframe and didn’t invite me in.

  “It looks like the security guard, Colin Prescott, was responsible for the burglary.”

  “What?” Her jaw dropped open. “That’s terrible!”

  “Yes. Did you know he'd been arrested in the past for burglary of antiques and artwork?”

  She shook her head, and a hand flew to cover her mouth. A subconscious gesture to try to hide the lie that was coming? “No, I didn’t have a clue. I’m sure the museum didn’t know, either, or they never would’ve hired him. How awful. I suppose you just can’t be too careful these days, can you? You can’t trust anyone.”

  “He was killed a little while ago. We found him at home. Murdered.”

  “Murdered?” she gasped, her cheeks quickly losing their flushed sheen and turning pale.

  “He was tortured before he was killed.” I let my words float in the air for a moment before I carried on. “I think he double-crossed whoever he stole the collection for, and they weren’t happy. It was meant to be a message.”

  She swallowed slowly. “What kind of a message?”

  I pursed my lips, pretending to think. “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t hand over the whole collection. Maybe he kept something for himself. Or maybe something wasn’t quite right with it.”

  “What do you mean 'not quite right?'” She turned from pale to a sickly greenish-yellow tinge. Think Banana Jaundice lipstick and you’d get the picture.

  I leaned in closer then looked around me, making a big show of trying to avoid anyone overhearing our conversation. “Just between me and you,” I whispered, “I think that Alistair may have replaced one or more of the items in the collection with fakes.”

  “Fakes?” Her voice wobbled for a fraction of a second, but she recovered well.

  “Yes, like you said, he knew there’d been an attempt to steal it before, and he couldn’t get funding for any extra security, so he did the next best thing and stole it himself. He probably thought, if no one else can be bothered to protect the collection, why should he bother? So he got some fake items made up that looked as good as the real things and displayed those instead. Then he kept the original work in a secret location.”

  This is what I suspected Margaret had done. Fingers crossed I was right.

  Margaret swallowed in one big gulp.

  “The only trouble is, whoever Colin promised the collection to is pretty pissed off. They wanted originals and found they'd got fakes that they can’t get rid of. The items probably already had a buyer. A very rich, nasty, criminal buyer. And since they haven’t got what they wanted, they’ll probably go after all the staff, one by one, until they find what they’re looking for. Maybe they’ll start with Alistair, but maybe not.” I took a deep breath to give my next words more weight. “So I just wanted to warn you to be extra vigilant. These people won’t be wanting a cosy little chat over afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches. They’ll torture everyone until they find out where it is. It will be something very painful and very messy.” I nodded gravely.

  Wow, I should’ve been an actress. Keira Knightly eat your heart out.

  “Oh, God,” she shrieked. “Can I get police protection?”

  “I doubt it. The police are so short staffed these days. But don’t worry too much. I’m sure they’ll know you had nothing to do with it.” I patted her arm reassuringly.

  “Yes.” She nodded vacantly. “Of course I didn’t. They’ll know that, and they won’t do anything to me.”

  “Right, well, I’d better get off and just tell all the other staff to be careful.”

  “Oh. Yes.” She gulped again. “Thank you.” Margaret closed the door with a dazed look on her face.

  I did a mental high-five to myself and got into my car parked a few houses down. I’d set the bait. All I had to do was wait. There was no way Margaret would want to be caught with the fakes in her possession, and I seriously doubted she would’ve kept them at her own house, in case the police searched all employees' properties after the burglary. That meant, hopefully, she was going to lead me to wherever she’d stashed them.

  ~~~~

  A mere six minutes and eighteen seconds later, Margaret rushed down her path, wearing odd shoes. One was a white trainer. The other was a beige lace-up casual pump. Distracted much?

  She got into her Mini, which was parked in her drive, and I followed surreptitiously behind. I called Brad on the hands-free set as we headed towards the town centre.

  “Speak,” Brad said.

  Answering the phone like that was one of the few things about him that annoyed me.

  “Jingle bells, jingle bells. Jingle all the way. Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh!” I sang down the phone. Having been brainwashed by Tia’s annoying Christmas so
ngs for weeks, I knew all the words. Lucky me.

  “Foxy, you’re nuts. What are you going on about?”

  “What do you expect when you can’t just say hello like normal people?”

  He put on a fake high-pitched, posh voice. “Oh, hello, how may I help you?”

  I chuckled. “Thief Lady is on the move. I’m following her through town.”

  “You think she’ll lead you to the collection?”

  “Yep. Oh, she’s just stopped.”

  “OK, where are you? I’ll make my way over.”

  “She’s just parked in Gymmania, a gym on Blacksmith Road.”

  “Maybe it’s in her locker.”

  “That’s what I’m guessing. I’ll follow her and see what happens.”

  “Cool. See you in eleven minutes and approximately forty-two seconds.”

  I hung up and watched Margaret rush into the building as my stomach rumbled loudly. I obviously hadn't had nearly enough mince pies yet. When this was over, I was having a midnight Christmas Eve feast.

  I followed Margaret through reception, where the blonde-haired receptionist lady was busy conversing with one of the male trainers about protein shakes, and neither took any notice of us. I kept my distance as Margaret hurried past the gym area housing weights and various machines. Since it was nearly eight o’clock on Christmas Eve, the place was almost empty. I spied one lone male walking on a treadmill, and that was it. Margaret walked around the edge of the swimming pool and into the ladies' changing room.

  Luckily for me, someone belted out over the loudspeaker, “The gym will be closing in fifteen minutes. Happy Christmas, everyone!” The noise masked the sound of me opening the door after Margaret.

  As I entered the empty changing room, I saw her with her back towards me in front of a bank of large lockers, trying to pull out a big blue holdall bag that seemed to be stuck. I hustled towards her, but she was so intent on tugging the bag she didn’t notice my approach.