2Golden garland

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  He poured three fingers into it and joined the rapt Effinger in the other room.

  The on-screen lovers were grunting now, like pigs in pig heaven, if that happened to be a blizzard. Matt leaned against one wall, between Effinger and the door, and watched the interference perform its acrobatics to what sounded like the "Anvil Chorus."

  Effinger glanced at him resentfully. "That's my booze."

  "Thank you." Matt toasted with the glass and drank. Rotgut was rotgut; he was beginning to appreciate the wonders of brand-name liquor. Still, this was a celebration. He was free, finally free. He didn't even care if Molina could hold Effinger on any charge. It was enough to know he finally had to answer to something. The past was just the past, and needed to be settled somewhere other than here, at some future date. Future. Matt had a future.

  Matt's thoughts unrolled, drowning out the television sound effects. He glimpsed bodies in conjunction now and then, but he felt no sense of sin, only of liberation. The Halloween monster had taken off his mask, and he was just Jack Nicholson. The joker. The joke.

  Matt drank again, feeling the fire chase down to his stomach and hang there like an internal vigil light. What had Effinger said? About Matt being a bastard? Matt had never thought of him, the other father, the real father, the faceless sire who had paled after the arrival of his substitute. Temple had implied once that the identity of that man was the true corrosive secret in Matt's personal non-history.

  Temple. Wait until she heard--!

  The knock at the door was so discreet that Matt feared one of Effinger's friends, or at least an associate, had arrived.

  Effinger grasped at that wild hope too, sitting up and tearing his eyes from the dubious on-screen action.

  "Huh-huh-huh," someone grunted in muzzy living sound.

  Matt went to the door. No peephole, like in respectable motels, and little light outside to see anyone by in any case. At the Blue Mermaid, you took your chances.

  He took his for the last time that night and cracked the door.

  "Police," came Molina's jaded contralto.

  He opened the door wide, noticing her hand came away from beneath her open jacket. At the Blue Mermaid, Lieutenant C. R. Molina took no chances.

  Effinger tensed on the bed, then sagged again as he took in Molina. He looked back at the TV.

  Molina approached him. She looked to Matt like she always did, a blank slate in a tailored pantsuit. A competent career woman who carried no briefcase, and no purse. Who wore no shoes worth noticing. And a gun even more low-profile. She stood between Effinger and the TV screen and looked him over.

  "Yup, this is the guy. I guess congratulations are in order. You'll have to tell me how you did it sometime." Not tonight. "You check his ID?"

  "Uh, no. I mean, I knew who he was."

  "But who does he say he is now?" Molina pulled Effinger upright. She was a physically impressive woman, almost six feet tall in low heels, but Effinger didn't look that small in contrast. Matt frowned. Was the smallness he sensed in the man purely spiritual? He had felt like Goliath hauling around an unworthy David all night. But Effinger was his size really. Why had Matt felt so confident? Why had Effinger caved so easily, besides the fact that all bullies are cowards?

  Molina glanced at the liquor glass. "Better put that on the bedside table, if you can call it that. Don't want our John Citizen to look like a lush."

  He obeyed as Molina went to the ajar door and called someone outside. "This is the right guy. Come on in and play patty-cake. I don't want to get lice under my manicure."

  Matt glanced at her fingertips, startled. The same short, unpolished blunt fingernails as always.

  "Professional joke," Molina said, quick to catch his glance. "Lieutenants don't have to don latex except at crime scenes."

  The plainclothes detective came in, hands ghostly in surgical gloves.

  Matt still wasn't used to masked and gloved dentists. He'd never thought about the police having to dress more formally for the job in this age of AIDS.

  The detective had Effinger lean his hands against the wall, and soon was tossing a few belongings on the bedspread.

  Molina picked through them with a ballpoint pen from her coat pocket. "Look at this AARP card. Harvey Kittelman. Poor old Harvey's probably missing a lot more too. Las Vegas is a candy store to you guys, isn't it, Effinger?"

  "I'm not answering to that name. I'm not answering anything."

  "Why not? Didn't I hear him volunteering to come in for a polite police interrogation?" Molina asked her partner.

  "Absolutely."

  Matt watched, a fascinated observer of a television cop-show scene. Effinger performed like a trained seal who knew the routine by heart.

  "Mind if we cut off your reception?" Molina asked ironically.

  Matt didn't realize she was talking to him until the silence grew awkward.

  "Huh?" He glanced at the television set, which had responded to fresh body heat in the room by resolving into perfect focus. He saw . . . knees, elbows, buttocks, breasts in impossible juxtaposition, threes and sixes of everything ... no wonder-- "No. I mean, yes. Please."

  Molina's tall form already blocked the screen. The sound died abruptly.

  "It wasn't tuned in and I wasn't watching," Matt added lamely in the sudden silence.

  "This motel is mainly a passion pit these days," she said with academic dispassion. "Perfect hideout for Mr. Effinger."

  "You have nothing on me." The guy was still truculent.

  "Probable cause for a lot of things," she answered, taking a slow turn through the room. "Starting with a citizen's arrest."

  For a confusing moment, Carmen Molina reminded Matt of Kitty O'Connor. Or maybe the actress on the TV had, the brunette on the bottom with--

  "You can go now." Molina was peering into the bathroom. "Kinda messy in here." She stopped by Matt as her partner hustled Effinger outside. "Looks like he'll have a bruise or contusion or two. Nothing serious, or actionable. How are you doing?"

  "Fine." Matt started for the door. His joints resisted movement. Maybe his struggle with Effinger had been more strenuous than he felt at the time.

  "I'll call later with any news," Molina added, "but don't cancel Christmas on my account. By the way, where's your cohort?"

  Matt turned, a question on his face.

  "Las Vegas's Nancy Drew. I was sure she'd be in on this."

  "Temple's out of town for the holidays, until New Year's."

  Molina nodded. "Out-of-state relatives. I'm surprised she'd leave you languishing over the holidays. And look what you got yourself as a present!"

  "She's visiting a relative," Matt corrected. He resented Molina's put-downs of Temple. "I think you met her aunt, Kit Carlson, during the romance-convention fracas."

  "New York? She's visiting her aunt in New York? Just for fun?"

  "Some people do have that, Lieutenant."

  Her cobalt eyes, definitely too dark for Virgin Mary Blue, glimmered with unsaid response to his gentle gibe.

  "And," Matt added, rubbing salt into the wound for the absent Temple, "it isn't just a family visit. Temple is meeting with a Madison Avenue advertising agency. She and Midnight Louie are under consideration for an assignment as spokes...people, I guess, for a major pet products company.

  "You mean I might be able to turn on my TV and get the dynamic duo live and in color in my off hours too? I'd rather watch bowling."

  "If this came through, I imagine Temple--and Louie, of course-- would be doing a lot more traveling."

  "Thank God for small favors." Molina came abreast of Matt at the door. "Speaking of which, thanks for the collar. You did a good job finding Effinger. Did you enjoy it?"

  "Not as much as I thought I would."

  Molina nodded. "That's good. Because you don't ever want to try a vigilante act like that in this town again."

  "Unless I happen to run into Max Kinsella."

  "That would be worth seeing; you making a citizen's arrest on Kinse
lla. Better keep your hands off him; I want that collar. As for Effinger's arrest, remember: just one to a customer, and only because you're such good friends with Miss Temple Barr."

  Molina grinned and left, leaving Matt to close down the motel room. He did it slowly, methodically, searching the tiny square closet with a few crinkled garments slumping on wire hangers, checking under the bed and finding only dust, food stamps and parking chits, and a business card for a private-dancer service.

  Matt dusted off his hands when he was done, and killed the buzzing light in the bathroom. He shut off the table lamp just before pulling the door closed.

  Sighing, he pushed his hands into his pockets again. So long to get here, so little to show for it, not even the indulgence of a fit of anger. He couldn't believe he hadn't made mincemeat out of Effinger.

  He had a long walk back to the Showboat parking lot for the Hesketh Vampire. Like reputedly real vampires, revenge was turning out to be mostly a pain in the neck.

  Chapter 20

  The Ghost of Xmas Past

  First came the Seventeenth Precinct squad, two uniformed police officers who saw immediately the unfortunate facts: this was a complicated death scene at a high-profile location with a nobody-victim. Before they began interviewing the sixty-some witnesses, they called for reinforcements.

  She arrived in ten minutes, with a male detective in tow. It seemed the lead cop on the Santa Claus case would be a female detective -lieutenant who had done weekend duty as all good workaholic up-and-coming women should. Her last name was Hansen.

  Lieutenant Hansen stood about five feet one, was as blond as Scandinavian furniture, had delft-blue eyes, a winter-red nose like Rudolph and spoke with a LaVerne and Shoirley accent. You know, New Joisey.

  She also kept looking at Temple, because Temple kept looking at her.

  As soon as Lieutenant Hansen had sized up the situation and the population in both conference rooms--she had called for reinforcements.

  She tossed her long black wool coat on a chair back, along with the yellow angora muffler, beret and matching gloves, then strode to the front of the room on her low-heeled red boots that exactly matched her nose.

  Were it not for the nose, which she was blowing into a wad of tissue at the moment, she would have been pretty. Her black suit was indeterminate beyond that.

  "Is there any place else that could hold this many people besides the other conference room?"

  "My office?" Brent Colby offered the suggestion from where he sat, beside his relieved but emotionally burned-out daughter.

  "And you are--?" She eyed the Santa suit with disbelief.

  "Brent Colby, Junior. The Colby in the partnership Colby, Janos and Renaldi."

  "And the erroneously supposed victim?"

  He nodded gruffly.

  "Where did you wait out this second Santa-appearance thing?"

  "My office."

  Her flaxen head shook its disapproval. "Nope. We'll want to inspect that scene too."

  "My office is a 'scene'?"

  "Anyplace is that a major player was, or was supposed to be, at the time of the death. Other suggestions for relocation?"

  "My office," Tony Renaldi said quietly. "It's almost as big as his. I'm Tony, the Renaldi of Colby, Janos and Renaldi."

  "Is Mister Janos here too?"

  Victor Janos held up a hand.

  "Good. Let's go."

  Everyone in the room rose, then paused like third-graders in search of a class leader. Colby, Janos and Renaldi headed for the door, Colby sweeping his daughter along as if she were in their protective custody.

  As they filed out, Temple made sure she was last by fussing with Louie and his carrier. Lieutenant Hansen was marshaling her forces at the door, a trio of intent men, two in uniform. She pointed to the Christmas scene and its sad centerpiece, dead Santa Claus.

  "If we don't want to be here all night, we'll have to separate the sheep from the goats fast. I'll take the nearest and dearest. You handle the extras and see if you can get any leads on who really died here. Unless he arrived in the red long Johns, the victim's gotta have street clothes somewhere. You lose something, miss?"

  Her tone was unchanged as she whirled on Temple, well aware of her eavesdropping. This one-woman computer of crime's outer casing was 180-degrees different in style, but the operating system was SGM--Solid Gold Molina.

  "Just getting the cat back into the bag," Temple said. "He's the one who discovered that something was wrong, you know."

  "No!" Hansen didn't even look at Louie, or heed Temple's words. "Quite a Christmas tale. You know where Mr. Renaldi's office is?"

  "No."

  "Follow the yellow brick road." She pointed to the hall, and Temple hastened to duck out the door.

  Behind her the lieutenant's ratchet-rough voice resumed, outlining and assigning procedures. "How many kids? First, we have to get the youngest ones off-scene. I'm afraid our on-call clown has other holiday engagements. Any other ideas?"

  Temple found the right office by following the low thrum of speculation that emanated from it like the drone of bees from a hive. Now that their leader was not the victim, the employees and associates of Colby, Janos and Renaldi busily buzzed with speculation about the possible murder--and possible murderer--in their midst.

  As Temple entered the standing-room-only event, Colby was attempting to calm them down, his well-manicured hands sketching a conductor's grave gestures on the smoky air.

  "I know this has been an emotionally trying night," he was saying, soothing. "I'm pretty bowled over myself. I'm sorry if I misled you. But, look; I'd finally listened to my daughter, and others, and decided to forgo scaling a cramped chimney this year. So I hired a pro. How he happened to get himself killed, I don't know. One thing I do know: I was never in that chimney, or going to be in that chimney, so I was never in any danger."

  "But no one knew you weren't going to be there, Brent," Janos's dark baritone put in. "You miss the point." A small chrome implement Janos was using to groom under his fingernails slipped. He cursed silently and shook his hand.

  "The point is," Colby explained with paternal patience, addressing everyone in the crowded office, "that because it happened here, everyone assumes I was the intended victim. It's far more likely the Santa substitute was. I mean, we know nothing about him."

  "You must," Temple noted as she took a vacant spot along the wall. "You hired him."

  "I interviewed him, briefly. Not a very substantial-looking man. A bit rough-edged, frankly. But he'd done this Santa gig often before, even at Macy's, and insisted he could handle the chimney-climbing bit."

  "Where'd you find him?" Janos asked sullenly, still digging at the invisible dirt under his nails.

  "One of the employment agencies, where else? But, ah ... I hired him on the side."

  "Why?" Renaldi sipped a demitasse of coffee from his office espresso machine. The fine china cup was as translucent as the half-moon on one of his perfect fingernails.

  Colby shifted in Renaldi's white leather executive chair. Renaldi and Janos sat in the comfy visitor's chairs. The others crowded on the couch or held up the walls.

  "Why hire someone under the table?" Colby asked back. He loosened the thick black belt holding his stuffing in place. "I finally bought the arguments that I was too old for the stunt, but I didn't want to make the fact public. The ersatz Santa was supposed to disappear as I always did, come and tell me the act was up, leave, and then I'd appear in my regular Santa suit to accept the usual congratulations for my feat."

  "Where did he change?" This question came from the Little Dutch Girl look-alike in the office door, in brisk tones.

  "Executive washroom." Colby glanced quickly at his partners. "I couldn't have him seen in the men's room, now could I?"

  "We need the key." The lieutenant held out a small, pale palm.

  All three partners dug uneasily through their pockets. Only one produced a key. Renaldi.

  "I gave him my spare," Colby said, "t
o keep the switch secret."

  Lieutenant Hansen walked over for the key. "He hung out in the executive washroom for how long?"

  "He arrived at seven p.m. as agreed. I got him set up."

  "He bring his own costume?"

  "As I said, he'd done this before. That was the deal. A ready-to-go Santa."

  Silence filled the room as the ironic implications of "ready-to-go" reverberated among this word-conscious advertising crowd.

  "And he appeared in the chimney at--?"

  "Eight," Kendall said. "I was always anxious about Daddy doing this, so I was very time conscious."

  Lieutenant Hansen nodded. A bun of blond braid big enough to choke a Central Park horse coiled at the back of her head. Her fine, embroidery-thread-satin hair, Temple thought, must be long enough to reach her fingertips. Not exactly Molina's style. Fascinating.

  "He wasn't always in the bathroom," Temple put in.

  All eyes switched from Kendall to her.

  Lieutenant Hansen swaggered Temple's way. "You saw him someplace else?"

  "Lurking in the media conference room. Hey, he did lurk. The room was dark and I was passing when Louie ran in, so I had to go in and retrieve him."

  "Louie?"

  Temple patted the black cat head protruding from the carrier hitched to her torso. "Midnight Louie."

  This time Hansen took in the entire setup. "What's a cat doing on the premises?"

  "He's auditioning for a cat-food commercial contract."

  "I see." Lieutenant Hansen clearly did not see, but she wasn't going to admit it. "So you saw a Santa Claus in the conference room. When was this?"

  "I was the last one to enter the party room, so I'd say about seven forty-five."

  "What was he doing there?"

  "Not much. Never said a word. Just put a finger to his lips like a jolly old elf. I see in retrospect that he was hiding out until it was time to make his entrance."