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, "to 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.