Misgivings

by Donn Cortez

  Next, he pulled out the length of chain that had been wrapped around the vic’s body. It looked like the kind you could buy at any hardware store by the foot, and there was a lot of it; obviously, it was supposed to have kept the body weighted down and on the bottom. Some of the coils must have slipped off when the gators took an interest, Delko thought. The links were too small to hold a print, and the links on the end—where he hoped to find a tool mark—weren’t cut at all. The last link must have dropped off, or maybe it was still back at the hardware store.

  He went over every link anyway, hoping to find something, anything, that might give him a clue. He found mud, bits of vegetation, and three fibers: the mud matched the area the vic was found in, the plant matter ditto. The fibers all came from the clothes the vic had been wearing, a nondescript T-shirt and cheap jeans.

  So far, John Doe was keeping his secrets.

  5

  “HEY, RYAN,” CALLEIGH SAID BRIGHTLY, strolling into the lab. “How’s it going?”

  Wolfe lifted his head from where he had slumped over the light table. “Too. Much. Santa,” he groaned.

  “So I heard. H told me to come by and give you a hand. And I promise, I will resist making any comments on the festive nature of the evidence.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Wolfe said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the help—but so far, nobody’s been able to resist making Santa cracks. It’s like some kind of highly contagious virus.”

  “Like Ebola, but jollier?”

  “Exactly.” He eyed her suspiciously. “You’ll succumb. No one is immune.”

  “Not even Horatio? I can’t see H making bad puns about reindeer.”

  “If he does, my head’ll explode,” Wolfe said gloomily.

  “Well, hopefully things won’t go that far. What are you working on right now?”

  “Fibers. Between Santa suits, Santa beards, and various Santa accessories, I’ve got a few hundred to process. I’m about halfway through the suits.”

  “All right. How about you finish those up, and I start on the chinwear?”

  “Fine by me.”

  They got to work. Every sample had to have a single strand isolated for comparison; it was a long, tedious process, and Wolfe was glad for the assistance.

  “So, Ryan—any plans for the holidays?” Calleigh used a pair of tweezers to carefully pick out a strand from a sample.

  “Not really. See the family, open presents, eat too much unhealthy food—you know, the usual.” He yawned. “’Scuse me.”

  “Sure. I’m gonna spend it with my dad, I guess.”

  “I guess? You don’t sound too sure.”

  “Well—holidays are one of the times recovering alcoholics tend to fall off the wagon, you know? I don’t really look forward to spending Christmas trying to stay between him and the eggnog.”

  Wolfe stopped what he was doing and looked over at Calleigh. “Must be hard.”

  She shrugged. “It’s family. You do what you have to.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. “Uh—man, haven’t these Santas ever heard of natural fabrics?” Wolfe said. “All I’m getting is polyester and nylon.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting a lot of artificial fibers myself. I suppose it’s too much to ask for our suspect to have worn a beard made of real hair?”

  “No, the hairs I pulled off the body were a synthetic polymer called Kanekalon, a modacrylic often used for wigs, toys, or fake fur. But I also found fibers of viscose rayon—and something I haven’t identified yet.”

  “Well, there are only twenty-seven kinds of fibers that compose fabric,” Calleigh said. “Four natural— silk, wool, cotton, and linen—and twenty-three man-made. If it came from an article of clothing, it has to be one of those.”

  “Yeah, but those twenty-seven kinds can be blended in any number of combinations,” Wolfe said. “I can ID it, no problem—I just haven’t had the time yet.”

  “We’ll get there. Even Santa can’t get away with murder.”

  “Especially since they passed that antistocking law.”

  “Ryan!”

  “Sorry. Guess I’m not immune, either . . .”

  The marina was called Barry’s Boathome, on the north side of Biscayne Bay. No one was in the trailer that housed the office, but Delko found someone out back, in the Hurricane-fenced dry dock area.

  Boats of all sizes and shapes were stored there, from two-person skiffs to sixty-foot cabin cruisers. A squat, gray-haired man wearing a stained pair of bib overalls was jockeying the prongs of a large forklift under the hull of a Boston whaler when Delko walked up.

  “Excuse me,” Delko called out.

  The driver of the forklift stopped what he was doing and squinted at Delko. He had the kind of broad, bulging features that looked as if he’d gotten his head caught in a vise at some point; apparently, the experience had soured his outlook as well. “What?” he demanded.

  “Miami-Dade Crime Lab,” Delko said, holding up his ID. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Yeah, yeah, just a sec.” The man adjusted the forklift’s controls, then shut it off. He climbed down from the seat, pulled off a greasy pair of gloves, and stuck them in a pocket of the overalls. “Whatta ya want?” he asked brusquely.

  Delko refrained from retorting, A little civility would be nice. “I understand you sold this boat recently,” Delko said, pulling out a photo. He handed it over.

  The man studied it, then grunted. “Yeah, sure, Silverbeck’s boat. Unloaded it a few days ago. Why?”

  “I’m trying to track down the person you sold it to. Who was it?”

  “Don’t know. Some guy that answered the ad. Only relative Silverbeck had was a sister on the West Coast, and she didn’t want an old skiff. Got a hundred bucks for it.”

  “The person I talked to said you didn’t provide a receipt.”

  “So? Guy paid cash. Mattera fact, he told me he didn’t want no receipt. I didn’t argue.”

  Course not, Delko thought. Guy probably paid you extra to skip any paperwork, and that went straight into your pocket. “Sure. Want to know something interesting about the State of Florida?”

  “I ain’t got time for a history lesson—”

  “Lot of people retire here, everybody knows that. What most people never think about is that means a lot of people die here, too. A lot of wills go through probate in Florida—and as a result, our rules and regulations about that are pretty detailed. You want to know how much trouble you can get in for breaking any of those rules?”

  “Hey, I wasn’t . . .”

  “See, people tend to be pretty sensitive about things like that. They’ve just lost a loved one, they’re all charged up emotionally, and then someone comes along and tries to take advantage? It can get pretty ugly. . . . Of course, I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  The man glared at him, but Delko could sense his anger was mainly there to hide his nervousness. “I woulda gotta receipt, I’d known it was such a big deal.”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be,” Delko said. “All I care about is finding the person you sold the boat to. The sooner I get to talk to him, the less likely you are to ever see my face again.”

  It was amazing how much more cooperative the man became after that—though it didn’t do Delko that much good. The man had been Hispanic, in his midforties, dressed in a well-to-do middle-class sort of way, and had paid cash. He hadn’t given his name, and he’d taken possession of the boat by simply rowing it away. He’d headed south, but there were any number of beaches or marinas in that direction where he could have transferred it to a vehicle without anyone noticing—the boat was small enough to fit in the back of a pickup or even on the roof of a car.

  Other than that, the forklift driver had given him only one other piece of information, and Delko wasn’t sure how useful it was going to be. “He looked kinda—unfocused,” the driver told him.

  “Unfocused? You mean intoxicated?”

>   “Nah, it wasn’t like he was on anything. Just not really there, y’know? Like he had a lot on his mind. Distracted, I guess. Maybe he forgot to do his Christmas shopping.”

  Maybe, Delko thought. Or maybe he was thinking about something a lot more deadly . . .

  Horatio hated being played.

  He was used to being lied to; that just went with the job. He dealt with people who thought they could get away with murder all the time. But that wasn’t the same—they were all trying to beat the system, and he just happened to be the representative they’d been unlucky enough to attract. His job was to separate fact from fiction, and with the assistance of his team that was exactly what he did.

  But every now and then, someone made the mistake of trying to manipulate Horatio himself.

  Usually, they failed. Horatio’s intellect was surpassed only by his self-control; trying to get him to lose his cool was like trying to burn through a bank vault with a magnifying glass.

  But he could be fooled.

  It didn’t happen often, and never for long. Proof was proof, and sooner or later he or his team would uncover what there was; if there was one unshakable principle Horatio based his life on, that was it. Evidence could be tampered with, but you couldn’t destroy the truth. He believed that, he really did.

  But he was only human. And unlike the truth, sometimes human beings got things wrong.

  Pathan had tricked him. And what was worse, he’d used the evidence to do so. Horatio’s own work had freed the man, a man Horatio now suspected was guilty. And that was—almost—the worst part; that he only suspected Pathan was guilty. It meant Horatio not only had to question his own judgment, but his competence, too—and Calleigh’s.

  Casting doubt on Horatio was one thing. Casting it on a member of his team was another thing altogether . . . a very, very bad thing.

  And then there was the business card.

  It had been very slick, how Pathan had managed to get it into his pocket without him noticing. And it had conveyed a message far more profound than Pathan’s phone number or address. What it had said, simply, was this: I’m smarter than you are. And I don’t care whether or not you know it.

  Horatio sat behind the wheel of his Hummer, the motor idling, holding the card in one hand. Just looking at it.

  He smiled. “Okay,” he said softly.

  The card went into his breast pocket, next to his sunglasses. He put the Hummer in gear and drove away.

  Calleigh and Wolfe tackled the footwear last, and it didn’t take long. They eliminated a bunch simply by size or tread, leaving only a few to actually examine.

  “And the lucky Mrs. Claus is . . .” Wolfe said.

  “Valerie . . . oh, no. This can’t be right.”

  “What?”

  Calleigh handed the list over with an apologetic look, and said, “I know what it looks like, but I swear I didn’t put this in as a joke—”

  Wolfe ran his finger down the list. “Valerie . . . Blitzen. You can’t be serious.”

  Calleigh put her hands palm-up and gave an exaggerated shrug.

  “Our dead Santa was mounted by a reindeer?” Wolfe said. “If this is Tripp’s idea of funny—”

  “Oh, come on,” Calleigh said. “You know as well as I do that Frank would never mess around with evidence. And Blitzen is a perfectly good surname. Life imitates art, right?”

  Wolfe sighed. “I guess . . .” He checked the list again and frowned. “But something doesn’t add up. Blitzen wasn’t wearing a wig—but there are definitely artificial hair fibers here.”

  “From what I’ve heard, the Santas are a pretty touchy-feely bunch,” Calleigh said. “Lots of hugging and lap-sitting. Our vic could have picked up transfer from all kinds of sources.”

  “That’s true,” Wolfe admitted. “I guess the next step is to bring Ms. Blitzen in for questioning.”

  “Yes. Let’s do that.”

  He stared at her suspiciously.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Bring in the suspect. Interview her.”

  “All right, then.”

  “And if she has an alibi, there’s always Donner and Dancer and Prancer and . . .”

  “I knew it,” Wolfe said, throwing up his hands in despair. “No one is immune. Excuse me while I go find some tinsel to hang myself from.”

  “Vixen, can’t forget about her—I hear she’s a real tramp—Comet and Cupid and of course Rudolph— he’s probably the ringleader . . .”

  Wolfe walked out the door while she was still ticking them off on her fingers.

  Doctor Alexx Woods had a love/hate relationship with Christmas.

  On one hand, she loved spending time with her family. She loved the look on her kids’ faces as they opened their presents, and she loved the little rituals and traditions that she and her husband had created over the years—like watching the old, black-and-white version of A Christmas Carol over the holidays, the one with Alastair Sim. The scene where he danced around, ecstatic that he’s been given another chance, never failed to make her laugh. “Now that,” she was fond of saying to her husband as Scrooge stood on his head, “is one seriously happy man. He may be crazy, but he’s having a ball.”

  And her husband would smile and put his arm around her and say, “He ain’t got nothing on me, baby.”

  What she didn’t love was the mess. Christmas wrapping, pine needles, nutshells, orange peels, cookie crumbs, and spilled eggnog. She hated a messy house almost as much as she hated a messy workspace, and the holidays meant she was always either cleaning or telling somebody else to. She always heaved a small sigh of relief when January finally arrived, even though it made her feel a little Scrooge-like herself.

  But Scrooge hadn’t valued the important people in his life. Alexx did, and she never let herself forget how important they were. Every corpse that crossed her autopsy table reminded her of how precious life was, and how easily it could be lost.

  Looking through her notes on the John Doe found in the ’Glades, she was suddenly, acutely aware of just how much it was possible to lose. John Doe hadn’t just lost his life, he’d lost his identity, his history; those who might mourn him didn’t even know he was dead. He was as disconnected from humanity as Scrooge had been, a ghost without even a tombstone to gaze at.

  She left her office, walked over to the body drawers and opened John Doe’s. Most people would have seen the headless torso with its mutilated stumps as grisly, but to Alexx it just looked sad.

  “Nobody should be this alone,” she said. “I’ll bet you have a family somewhere, don’t you? I’ll bet there’s presents under a tree right now, with your name on them. I sure wish I knew what it was . . .”

  Tripp and Wolfe conducted the interview of Valerie Blitzen. She was a young, attractive brunette with long, curly hair, a nice tan, and a hangover. She stared at them through bloodshot eyes, taking slow, careful sips from the water bottle she clutched in one hand. She was dressed in pajama pants and an oversize gray sweatshirt, and huddled in her chair with her knees drawn up.

  “Miss . . . do you mind if I call you Valerie?” Wolfe began. Tripp was already hunched forward in his seat, elbows on the table, staring at his suspect like a hungry bulldog at a bone.

  “Whatever,” she said weakly. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

  “Not feeling too good?” Tripp asked. “You look a little queasy.”

  “I’m all right.” She tried to smile. “Just waiting for the painkillers to kick in.”

  “Too much holiday cheer can do that to you,” Wolfe said. “Especially on an empty stomach.”

  “Oh, there was plenty to eat. We always make sure we have a food stop scheduled along the way. We stopped at this great deli place—they love Santa there. I just overdid it on the Elf Steroids.”

  “Elf Steroids?” Wolfe asked.

  “Shots of pure grain alcohol and eggnog. Short but powerful.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tripp said. “Guess a few of those would loosen you right up, huh?”
r />   She blinked and managed to give the impression that her eyelashes hurt. “You could say that, yeah.”

  “So much so that you found yourself in a snowbank with a dead man?” Wolfe asked. “We matched a bootprint next to the dead Santa with the boots you were wearing—and we found DNA from a sexual encounter. When we test yours, are we going to find a match?”

  She put her hands over her face and groaned. A muffled “Yes” escaped.

  “You want to tell us about it?” Wolfe prompted.

  “Not really, no . . .”

  “Would you prefer to go to jail?”

  Her hands came down. “Look, it was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. All the Santas were partying, we were at the rink, and me and Santa Shaky had been sort of flirting for a while. Then he comes up and says he’s found some actual snow—so I followed him out a side door. Next thing I knew, we were rolling around in it. He ripped off his top and started rubbing snow all over his chest—kept telling me how good it felt.”

  “Guess those Santa suits are pretty warm, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s worse for the guys in the full getup—at least I got to wear a skirt. He was so hot that when he lay down in the snow, steam came off him . . .”

  “So one thing led to another.”

  “Yeah. But I guess he’d had too much to drink, because he—well, he threw up. Right in the middle.”

  “He threw up while you were engaged in intercourse?” Wolfe asked.

  “Yeah. If he’d been on top, it would’ve been— I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “So you just got up and walked away?”

  “More like staggered. I was pretty wasted.”

  “And you weren’t worried he might have asphyxiated on his own vomit?” Wolfe asked.

  “Is—is that what killed him? Oh, God. I swear, he was alive when I left. I could hear him puking when I went back inside—I thought he’d be okay. I didn’t tell anyone else because . . . well, it’s embarrassing, you know? I never had a guy do that before.”