DEATH ON HOLIDAY
by
BV Lawson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 BV Lawson
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Wonder if he should call it the “list of doom”? Baggy green pants with elastic waistband, check. Stuffed velvet jacket that made him look like a pregnant frog, yep, had that, too. Floppy hat with broken bell (wonder how that happened?), check. Curly-toed Elf shoes that pinched his feet, check. Vial of poison, check.
Ten a.m., must be “White Christmas” again. The tape-loop at the Irving Towne Mall always started off with that piece of claptrap. How many times did this make, one hundred, two? White Christmas—bah. He’d always hated snow, although the anonymity was nice. Couldn’t tell a crack house from a gingerbread house, under a foot of snow.
Ten-fifteen, and guess who was late again? Mr. Big Shot, Santa himself, and those cheeks weren’t rosy from the cold, it was 60 degrees outside. Wonder if Santa had been with *her* this morning? She’d gone to work an hour earlier than usual, hadn’t she? Hmm.
Ten-thirty, and he tripped down the stairs and fell on his ass. Damn these pointy shoes. Would it kill them to make Elf footwear that weren’t instruments of torture? Oops, probably shouldn’t be thinking about killing and torture. Note to self, don’t say it out loud. Oh, panic—what about the vial? Whew. There it was, still in his side pocket, unbroken.
Ten-forty. Only ten-forty? He’d had root canals that flew by faster than this. Maybe he should see a doctor, with the pain grinding his stomach into mincemeat. Definitely a tied-up-in-knots kind of feeling. It only started recently, about the time he saw the two of them coming out of that seedy motel together. Yeah, that’s when it started.
Eleven o’clock, and a line of children stretched back to Macys, a few of them crying. They’d had their share of criers lately, which Santa was quick to hand off to the Elf. He looked past the kid-conga-line into the sea of shoppers, looking for that one expected face. Not yet, too early. Don’t blow it, don’t get ahead of yourself.
Eleven-ten, and the woman with the red-haired twins kept staring at him, but not in a I-think-you’re-cute kind of way. Could she tell? Was she psychic? He’d been very careful to stick to his normal routine. Smile, take the kiddies from Santa, shoo them off stage with another smile, reset the photo counter, and smile yet again. It sure was hot in here. He probably had sweat stains the size of Lake Erie under his arms by now.
Eleven-fifteen, and his hands were shaking. Were the tots getting heavier?
Eleven-twenty, and if he had to hear one more ho-ho-ho, he was going to go ballistic like an ice hockey player after a sucker punch. No, gotta be careful, mustn't bring attention to himself. Just another generic Christmas sidekick, smiling and gritting his teeth.
Eleven-thirty, and finally, the patsy, uh, nice young woman arrived, lattes in hand. He’d given her a huge tip to buy those for Santa and his Elf. Thanks young lady, now go away. He fingered the smooth vial in his pocket and opened the coffee lid. The liquid in the vial was supposed to be tasteless, but he’d had the chick buy a spicy gingerbread latte, just to be safe.
Eleven-thirty-two. Coffee break. Here you go, Santa, a holiday latte, just for you. After all, you’ve been working hard, haven’t you? Juggling all those squirming kids on your lap, posing for photos, soaking up the love from your adoring public, screwing my wife in your spare time.
Eleven-thirty three, and the Mall Manager picks this moment to drop by for a meet-and-greet. Damn. Where’d that coffee go? Please don’t say someone knocked it over! Please don’t—was the Manager carrying his own cup of coffee when he arrived? What was the Manager saying? Thanking Santa for the coffee—and gingerbread lattes were a personal favorite?
Eleven-thirty five. He’s thinking snow. He’s thinking Saskatchewan or maybe the Yukon Territory. Anywhere above the Arctic Circle. After all, Elves live in the North Pole, right?
Nick had considered himself a lucky guy, until now. Until his brand-new Mazda was rear-ended by the mayor’s wife who was talking on a cell phone. Until the police found a complete human skeleton in his trunk.
Fifteen years with a spotless driving record, not so much as a parking ticket, but of course this was all his fault, or at least that’s what the police officer was trying to tell him, since of course the Mayor’s wife was perfectly innocent. Did anyone really expect him to focus while his wrists were handcuffed behind him through the rails of a chair? The officer could have been speaking in Klingon, for all Nick knew.
Wait—what was the officer saying? Oh. At least they were past the accident now and on to the skeleton. That was progress.
“So, punk, is this some kind of sick Halloween joke?” Officer Ayers growled at him. Was he the good cop or the bad cop? Nick tried to remember which one had read him his rights. Or had they? Oh boy. He really could use a shot of Jack Daniels right now, with a Budweiser chaser.
Officer Ayers got right in Nick’s face. OK, he must be the bad cop. “You say you have absolutely no idea how a decaying skeleton found its way into the trunk of your car. Surely you must have smelled something or heard it rolling around?”
Eww. Decaying? Well, there had been that funny odor, but he thought it was dog doo on his shoes from the neighbor’s Rottweiler they never chained up.
Nick replied in what he hoped was a confident tone, although when the words came out, he probably sounded more like an teenage boy in the middle of puberty, “Wasn’t I supposed to have a lawyer?” Yup, his voice just scaled an octave and cracked in the middle of “lawyer.”
Good cop had stood over in the corner being mostly silent, but finally he proved he could actually talk. “We should put him a holding cell with our other guest and let him cool off for awhile, after he makes his phone call.”
Bad cop just grunted, but he did grudgingly let Nick call his cousin Eddie. Eddie mostly handled divorce cases, but he was only the only attorney Nick knew. Funny how you never thought about how many lawyers were in your circle of acquaintances until you found yourself in a police station accused of…well, whatever it was he was being accused of. Transporting the dead? Having defective olfactory glands?
They put him in a cell with a man who looked a lot like Hulk Hogan, except maybe hulkier. And definitely hairier. Hulk-clone introduced himself as Bobby, which was funny because he definitely didn’t look like a Bobby, although Nick still had enough wits about him not to say that out loud.
Bobby was very friendly. “Whacha in for?” he asked.
“Hitting the mayor’s wife and having a skeleton in my car.”