The Chrismystery: A Clarke Quickie
By: Brian P. Borcky
Copyright 2011 by Brian P. Borcky
Published by Project Humanoid
For more information on the R.D. Clarke series and other work by Brian P. Borcky, visit http://www.detectiveclarke.com
This ebook has been priced as free by the author. Feel free to share and distribute as you see fit.
If you enjoy The Chrismystery: A Clarke Quickie, please consider purchasing one of the other books in Brian P. Borcky's R.D. Clarke Series.
I'm Detective Clarke - http://www.detectiveclarke.com/im-detective-clarke.html
Destined For Death (Clarke Quickie) - http://www.detectiveclarke.com/destined-for-death-clarke-quickie.html
Detective Clarke Meets The Reaper - http://www.detectiveclarke.com/detective-clarke-meets-the-reaper.html
Note: The Running of the Santas is a real event, though it has no connection with the fictionalized account provided herein. To the best of the author's knowledge, there has never been a serious crime connected to the actual event.
Chapter One
Life is, by and large, boring.
We repeat the same ‘wake up, morning ritual, work, evening ritual, sleep, then repeat’ cycle for five or six days and then we get a day or two to have some fun – usually in the form of a weekend spent drinking beer and watching a movie on some sort of video on demand service or a sporting event where the hype is often more entertaining than the game itself. Even now, in a year where I went from Robert Clarke, twenty-six year old administrative assistant who still lives with his mom to R.D. Clarke, twenty-seven year old apprentice detective with a kickin’ bachelor pad, excitement comes in small, fun bursts – a first date, a vacation, capturing a serial killer who almost blows your head off – little nuggets of enjoyment in a bland, watery broth of monotony.
For me, one of the most enjoyable events comes two days after Thanksgiving, when the Delaware Valley Galleria – my local shopping mall – engages in the most fun event in the history of the world: The Running of the Santas, and I’ve been to every one of them.
What started as a small gathering of friends and relatives of workers in the mall (I was dating the assistant manager of a popular clothier at the time – think the opposite of New Army) turned into a collection of hundreds, then later thousands of people dressed as jolly old Saint Nicholas running from one side of the mall to the other, and then back again. The stores love it because the crowds that gather and the participants themselves form a customer base that rivals the Black Friday rush of the day before. The media loves it because it’s a feel good story to lift viewers’ spirits after a newscast filled with murder, plunging temperatures, sports heartaches (I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, after all), and a special report about which brand of fabric softener could be giving your children skin cancer. I love it because it’s a chance to put on a red suit with a pillow stuffed inside and a white wig with matching fake beard and have a good time.
I arrived at the parking lot bright and early – well, that’s half true – I arrived so early, it was not yet bright. Darkness aside, I was ready for the pregame festivities. It was 4:47 in the morning, with the Running of the Santas set to take place in exactly five hours and thirteen minutes. These five hours would be the most fun of the entire day, as scores upon scores of people dressed as the jolly old fat man conducted what has come to be known as the ‘North Pole Tailgate.” The tailgate is packed with all sorts of Christmas goodies – smoked ham, leftover Thanksgiving turkey, cookies and such, not to mention copious amounts of spiked egg nog – while the event maintains a wholesome image, it’s been my observation that at least a quarter of the Santas are blitzed by the time ten o’clock rolls around. Of course, I’m not the best person to be doing this unscientific study, because I’m often one of the drunken ones myself.
I was going to be a teetotaler this time around, however, as I didn’t come alone this year. My fellow Santa, a newcomer to the Running, was Karen Wagner. Karen’s a pretty girl, though a tad on the mousy side, but that’s mainly due to her sense of style (or lack thereof). Karen was originally a murder suspect in my first investigation, but I wound up exonerating her and we’ve maintained a casual friendship ever since, though I’ve rebuked any attempts on her part to make it anything more than that.
Karen and I parked at the far reaches of the lot, close to the main road, not too far from a ‘pin the nose on Rudolph’ game. Karen came dressed as Mrs. Claus – a faux pas, or to be more specific, a rookie mistake – people of all ages, sizes, races and both genders dressed up as Santa, not the Christmas themed costume of their choosing. In addition to her inappropriate choice of attire, Karen looked sleepy, her eyes glazed over a bit.
“How are you feeling?” I called out, far too energized and chipper for five in the morning.
“Okay,” she said back, sounding sleepy.
I motioned for her to follow me and walked over to a vendor who was selling different blends of holiday themed coffees and teas – Karen ordered a pumpkin spice latte with an extra shot of caffeine, while I was a little more understated, opting for gingerbread cookie flavored tea.
“This is crazy,” Karen remarked as she took a tentative sip of the coffee, following it up by blowing into the tiny opening on the dome lid atop the cup to cool the beverage down. “I’ve never seen this many people anywhere this early in the morning.”
“Neither have I,” I added, “This is way more people than last year.”
“Every year is bigger than the one before it, right?” Karen asked.
I nodded. “And more fun,” I added.
She took another sip and shivered a bit. “Little cold, isn’t it?” She asked. In fairness, her costume consisted of a bonnet, a frilly white short-sleeved shirt and a tiny red skirt that ended far above the knee, the ensemble complimented with red heels and a pair of stockings that were designed to look like candy canes; to say she was underdressed for the chilly November morning would be akin to saying that the song The Twelve Days of Christmas is slightly repetitive.
“It’s supposed to be the Running of the Santas, not the Running of the Santas and Mrs. Clauses,” I said, trying to think of a nice way of telling her she came in the wrong costume, though I fear I made came off harsh – no surprise there, I tended to have at least one conversational faux pas in most of my interactions.
Karen looked around and saw that the parking lot was populated almost exclusively with people dressed as Santa, stopping to look particularly hard at people who seemed to retain a feminine shape despite their large stomachs and fake white beards. I took my own survey of the place and saw a few people, mostly vendors, not in costume, as well as two other people who made the Mrs. Claus mistake and a small child dressed up as a reindeer, everyone else – well over a hundred people, even at this early hour – was Santa.
“Oh,” she said, her cheeks turning red with embarrassment… or possibly hypothermia.
“It’s a common rookie mistake, nothing to be ashamed of,” I explained, trying to do some damage control.
As far as costumes go, I was on my second Santa suit since the beginning of the event – the first one being soiled and torn beyond repair after a particularly wild run three years ago. My second suit was a bit more expensive – the stitching held up a lot better and I expected to get quite a few years out of it.
“I’ll be sure to dress appropriately next year,” Karen noted. I was happy that she was already planning on doing this again – Karen wasn’t the social type, most of the groups she was involved with tended to slay dragons and other assorted beasts in a massively multiplayer online setting; I thought that diving further into activities involving real human interaction would be good for her. After more coffee, tea and idle chatter, we decided to seek out the food tent, easily located due to its sheer size and the sound of a few generators whirring next to it, cutting through the pleasant tones of a Christmas music marathon, which was currently showcasing that song where the dogs bark out Jingle Bells that’s cute the first three or four times you hear it and then unbearably annoying for the rest of your life.
Karen and I entered the tent, where it was a good thirty, thirty-five degrees warmer than it was outside thanks to a collection of heavy duty heaters, one stationed at each of the four corners of the tent, not to mention the hot plates, Sterno, and other heating elements being used for the food. I was a little stuffy in my heavy suit, but it looked like Karen was enjoying her break from shivering, so I decided to take one for the team and hang around.
The murder accusation Karen had weathered over the summer seemed to be the best thing that ever happened to her – she looked far more vibrant than she was when I first met her; she was dressing better, her hair had volume and shine it once lacked, her teeth – once neglected and yellowing, were now bright and clean. Simply (and crudely) put: Karen was hot… either that or I have a have a very perverted and wrong predilection for Mrs. Claus.
We both grabbed a plate from the largest of the food providers, which served buffet style and charged by weight, I grabbed a turkey leg and a generous helping of cranberry sauce, a small side bowl of pumpkin pie flavored ice cream to go with it. Karen – a stellar chef in her own right – went a bit understated with a vegetable medley, homemade stuffing and two gingerbread cookies shaped like snowmen.
I went to pay for both of us, feeling it was my duty as I had invited Karen to attend, but she waived me off. “I got it,” she declared, giving a twenty dollar bill to the man at the cash register.
“Karen, you don’t have to do that,” I protested, though I’m a cheapskate and could be moved from this stance rather easily.
“I insist,” she replied, “I owe you one.”
That was probably true – Karen was the target of a well-placed frame-up job and would have almost certainly been convicted of murdering her best friend’s girlfriend if not for me nabbing the actual killer. Still, she didn’t have to buy me lunch, er, breakfast – for a while there, I thought she did it too.
I ultimately let her pay and we were on our way to a row of picnic tables when I was hit by the sudden realization that I was eating a turkey leg for breakfast. Eww.
“Thanks,” I finally said to Karen, getting my head back on track as we took a spot at one of the tables.
I removed my hat and wig/beard combination and opened up the Santa suit to reveal a special t-shirt I had made by attaching one upside down shirt to another that was right side up, allowing me to stuff a pillow inside the upside down shirt, achieving the genuine girthy Santa Claus look – there were plenty of skinny Santas around, but I was dedicated to my craft, dammit!
I primarily peeled off my garb because it was getting a bit hot inside the tent, but also because I’m a sloppy eater and didn’t want to mess up my costume. My decision paid off immediately, as a piece of Cranberry sauce fell from my plastic spoon and landed on my shirt before bouncing to the floor. I plowed through the meal anyway, finishing my generous serving by the time Karen was halfway done.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“I always skip dinner the night before the Running,” I explained, “so I can build up an appetite for the morning.” For the first time in seven years, I was acutely aware of the ridiculousness of it all, but I was having fun either way. This was also the first time I wasn’t at least three beers in by now, so that probably had something to do with it.
“Does anything crazy ever happen here?” Karen asked, trying to make conversation.
“Yeah!” I said, enthusiastically, “Santas making out with each other, Christmas Carol Karaoke, complete with dirty words inserted wherever it’s fun – it’s a wild time,” I revealed, making Christmas themed, but otherwise unspectacular drunken revelry sound far more shocking and noteworthy than it really was.
“No, I mean like fights or riots or something like that,” Karen clarified, “when a lot of people get together, bad things can happen – especially if alcohol is involved.” Spoken like a true introvert, though I can’t say she was wrong.
“There’ve been a few shoving matches,” I recalled, conveniently leaving out the fact that I was involved in one of them three years ago, “but nothing big.” I cracked a wide smile. “It’s a fun way to meet new people and get into the Christmas spirit: there’s nothing bad about this thing,” I explained, following up my statement by gnawing a big hunk of meat from my turkey leg.
Boy, was I about to be proven wrong.
Chapter Two
The lining up process started around twenty minutes to ten, Santas lined up in order of their estimated skill level – the fastest runners first, the slowpokes last. I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, more toward the back than usual, as I didn’t want to overwhelm Karen, who had to run in a fairly short skirt and heels – black sneakers were the preferred footwear in the event, but again, she didn’t get the memo; it was almost as if the guy who invited her did an incredibly poor job of explaining things. Nah, couldn’t be that.
The sea of red – probably close to two thousand Santas deep with the mass influx of late arrivers, was amassed in a cordoned off section of the parking lot by the west entrance, right next to a major department store and a casual dining restaurant – both of which opened their doors early to accommodate the crowd – there were probably two or three spectators for every Santa, and most stores (and the mall itself, naturally) opened its doors early, at seven o’clock.
The grand marshal of the event this year was Richard Dale, a local weatherman whose voice boomed throughout the parking lot through a public address system, which made me harken back to the first event, where the mall manager gave instructions to the two or three dozen of us runners through a bullhorn. Television cameras made their debut in the third year and the rise has been meteoric ever since.
“Are you ready for the Seventh Annual Delaware Valley Galleria Running of the Santas?” Dale asked, receiving uproarious cheers in response. I looked around and spotted no less than four television crews and heard at least one helicopter whirring overhead – doing the event sober this year made me really lament how commercialized it had become; a corporate sponsorship was probably right around the corner – the Christmas Tree Shops should be all over that one.
I stood up on my tippy toes, but couldn’t see the front of the pack over the red hats with white poms. I jumped straight up in the air and caught a quick glimpse of the starting line, marked by a green string of tinsel, which would be broken in half by the pack of Saint Nicks to start the festivities.
“We’re going in Ten! Nine! Eight!” Dale shouted out. The adrenaline started to pump. This was the moment where the media hype disappeared and the fun returned.
“Seven! Six!”
I snuck a look over at Karen – her nose was red and she appeared to still be cold, but she seemed excited and the redness added to the holiday theme.
“Five! Four! Three!”
The crowd started to chant along at ‘five.’ I remained silent, but I distinctly heard Karen chanting along.
“Two! One!”
I bent my knees slightly and engaged my legs and thighs, it was go time.
“And we’re off!”
The Christmas classic Here Comes Santa Claus replaced Richard Dale’s voice on the loudspeaker and the pack started to move. We slowpokes in the back still had to wait a bit until the herd advanced some more, but it wasn’t long. As line after line of running Santas took off, Karen grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze… that was unexpected, and cold, very cold.
As taken aback as I was by the hand grab, my first instinct was to remove my white Santa gloves and give them to Karen, whose frigid digits felt like they would break off if I squeezed back. I realized we’d soon be indoors and that there was no time to give her the gloves anyway, as we were off, sprinting in a path sectioned off by more garland, keeping the Santas contained toward the center of the mall floor while shoppers patronized businesses on the sides.
We ran at a moderate pace, more of a jog really, Karen giggling like a schoolgirl the whole way through – glee being one of the most common side effects of this event. There are few choice moments where things slow down to a crawl, worries evaporate, and we are left with sheer joy. The Running of the Santas is always like that for me… well, was always like that for me – someone had to ruin the fun.
I started to feel like something was up when we slowed down to a stop. I reflexively pulled my hand away from Karen once we stopped moving and I was taken out of the moment – I liked the girl – she was nice, beautiful, considerate, the whole nine, but I simply wasn’t interested and didn’t want to send the wrong message.
If taking my hand away didn’t cement my status as a jerk, what happened next would – I started pushing and slithering and nudging my way toward the front of the pack, leaving Karen lost in a maze of people dressed exactly like me. As I advanced, the murmurs about what was happening started to grow louder. I was pretty close to the source of the bottleneck when the alarm started to go off.
WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!
I expected the fire sprinklers to switch on and prepared to get wet, but it never happened. I looked around, trying to get a hold on what was going on and eventually keyed in on the conversation around me, people muttering about a bunch of Santas breaking the tinseled rope and heading for stores, followed by gawking and an eventual stop as the ‘Running of the Santas’ became the ‘Standing of the Santas as they watch some of the Santas break from the line to rob some stores.’ That name is definitely not going to catch on.
I pushed my way out of the line and over toward the stores everyone seemed to be watching: A clothing store called Far Out Threads, a big name video game emporium, a jewelry shop called Howell’s, and Gadgets & Gear, the last of the four being an independent electronics store that mostly sold cell phones, though I’d gone there once to purchase parts to make tiny, easily concealable cameras.
I took a few steps toward the stores – all four of them lined up in a row, all of them seemingly normal from the outside – making it about halfway between them and the pack of my fellow Santas when I heard a male voice behind me yell “Stop!”
I looked back to see a security guard walking toward me. He was a young, severely overweight man; short with long, scraggly brown hair and a bushy beard: he looked like a pro wrestler from the 1970’s or 80’s, the kind who would boast about not being able to be body slammed.
“What’s going on here?” I asked as I turned my head back to the crowd, where I spotted actual police officers pushing their way through.
“Don’t move, keep your hands where we can see them!” called one of the cops, who I didn’t recognize – my dad was a cop forever, plus all of his friends were (or still are) cops too, so I know more than my fair share of police officers.
I did as the man said and started to slowly turn to face the officers when I was hit from behind, the momentum of the blow sending me to the ground. I looked up to see another man dressed as Santa stumbling toward the crowd; he must have accidentally bumped into me and knocked me over. An instant later, three more Santas flew past me as I climbed to my feet, all four of the fleeing Santas disappearing into the similarly dressed mob. The police and mall security gave chase, though all but a few of them quickly gave it up, realizing that they were practically looking for a needle in a haystack – or, more accurately, four specific pieces of hay in a haystack.
Two of the remaining police officers came over to me, one of them aggressively putting his knee in between my shoulder blades, a tactic that’d prevent me from moving my arms with any real effectiveness.
“You involved with this?” one of the cops asked. I couldn’t lift my head up to see which one.
“With what?” I said weakly, the pressure of the cop’s knee severely limiting the amount of air in my lungs.
“Don’t play dumb with me Santa!” The cop yelled. These guys were probably newcomers assigned to the grunt work of babysitting what is usually a fairly well behaved pack of people dressed as the fat man in red. It was time to play the family card – a tactic I often used growing up until I realized the trouble I got out of by telling everyone my father was a cop paled in comparison to the trouble I wound up in when I was summoned to the desk of Officer Dad.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked, painfully aware that the statement made me sound like a colossal douche.
“Kris Kringle? Jolly old Saint Nicholas?” the cop kneeling on me asked, his sarcasm suddenly making me feel better about my own cockiness.
I utilized what little range of motion I had in my position to remove the hair, beard, and hat. “I’m R.D. Clarke, I’m an apprentice detective. My father is Jerry Clarke.”
“Who?” One of the guys said, much to my dismay. Usually, mentioning my dad’s name would gain me a lot of clout with law enforcement – he was royalty to the ones he knew, but as time progressed and his time away from the force grew with it, that clout was diminishing somewhat, especially amongst younger cops.
“Just let me up! I’ll answer whatever you need me to,” I said, my ego soundly thrashed.
I felt a release of pressure and was able to stand, my first observation when I got to my feet being the sheer mass of the crowd of gawkers that had seen the entire debacle go down – those dressed as Santa Claus and normal shoppers alike.
“What’s going on here?” one of the cops – a tall, thin man with olive skin and thick black hair asked.
“I wanted to see what was making the line stop, so I pushed my way to the front. I was walking to the stores when you guys stopped me and the guy running by knocked me down,” I explained. “I’m sure you’ll look at the security footage,” I added, “you’ll know if I’m lying.”
The thin cop looked at the other cop and the mall security, all three nodded.
“He’s right,” one of the other cops added, looking at me, “I’ll still need to get a look at your identification,” he stipulated. I dug into my pocked and produced my wallet, from which I pulled my ID card, furnishing it for the annoying cop.
“Clarke, Robert D,” the thin cop read aloud.
“That’s me,” I confirmed.
“You live at 3503 South Avenue, apartment L?” Thin Cop asked, omitting my town of residence from the question.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“If your story doesn’t shake out, we’ll be paying you a visit,” Thin Cop said, trying to sound threatening. He handed my ID back to me. I slid my ID back behind the plastic window in the wallet and then jammed the whole thing back into my pocket. With my hand still in my pocket, I grabbed my business card and gave it to the cop. The white card had the company logo and prominently featured the letters CDA (for Clarke Detective Agency) in bold black with a yellow outline, and simply read “Robert D. Clarke, Apprentice Detective” along with the office address, my business phone number and e-mail address. One of the coolest things about being promoted from administrative assistant to detective was the ability to hand out business cards.
“That’s where I work, sir,” I said, imagining ‘sir’ was a new, unspeakably vile obscenity, “send someone by if anything I said doesn’t shake out.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” he said, cocky to the bitter end. Satisfied with having the last word, the man turned and sauntered away, motioning for the rest of the police and mall security to go with him, the group complying like trained animals.
“Thanks for your understanding, sir!” I shouted, emphasizing the last word heavily, still pretending.
Undeterred by the intrusion of official law enforcement types, I went on just as I would have if I wasn’t so rudely interrupted, blending in with the scores of gawkers and waiting for the cops to finish taking statements from the people working in the stores that had been robbed, waiting for an opening to investigate them myself.
I decided to start with the video game store, figuring I could kill two birds with one stone and plank down a preorder for that new first-person shooter I had my eyes on. My presence didn’t seem to be welcomed by the staff – a gangly kid with greasy black hair and thick glasses, a fairly pretty girl with a figure a bit on the full side, long brown hair pulled back tight, and an angelic face, and the guy I sized up as the one in charge – a tall, stocky sort who was the only one wearing a shirt with buttons on it; he had orange hair and a matching beard: he looked like a Viking who had just joined the cast of The Office.
“Can I help you?” asked the Viking in the dress shirt. I looked at his name tag and learned his name was Erik. You can’t make this stuff up.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, verbally stumbling out of the gate, as I often did. “I was wondering what was going on around here.”
“You a cop?” Erik asked. I took my eyes off of him for a moment and sized up the situation: everyone seemed really tense, though for good reason, I suppose.
I shook my head. “I’m an apprentice private detective,” I announced, producing a card, but Erik shook it off, so I slid it back into my pocket.
“You’re messing with me,” Erik declared, “you don’t look like a detective.”
I looked down at myself. I had forgotten how I was dressed – more specifically that I looked more like someone who’d be investigating whether or not little Johnny was a good boy or a bad boy this year than whatever had happened here.
“I had a small office up in the North Pole,” I quipped, “I was the best, I brought down a syndicate that was lookin’ to fix the reindeer games.”
“Very funny,” Erik snapped back, “are you a comedian?”
I shook my head, ready, willing, and able to engage in a battle of wits with this clown. “I already told you I was a detective,” I noted. The other employees laughed, probably happy to see the doofus in charge getting taken down a peg.
“Well go detect somewhere else,” Erik shot back with a sneer, thinking this line was somehow funny. This time, the rabble surrounding us didn’t so much as crack a smile.
“I can tell you’re not going to cooperate with me here, so I’ll just be on my way,” I relented, deciding to forego my pre-order and buy a copy on Amazon, my little way of sticking it to the man – I’m spiteful like that.
I must’ve been standing around lost in thought for too long, as Erik cleared his throat and gave me a death stare. “If you don’t mind, this is one of the busiest days of the year for us and the police are already screwing it up enough,” he said in a tone of voice that had an amazingly stimulating effect on the part of my brain that makes me want to punch people. I ignored my brain and saw my way out, feeling like my alibi was stronger than ever – if I had robbed this place, I would’ve shot that guy where he stood.
I walked out, ready to go to the gadget shop when I was poked on the shoulder blade. I turned around to see a small, skinny man who looked to be in his sixties or early seventies; he was wearing a red sweater, thin glasses, and a pair of tweed pants – in short, he looked like a grandpa.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
The man nodded, I got a kindly vibe off of him. “I overheard you saying you were a detective, is that right?” he asked.
I nodded, catching my attire as the nod went downward and feeling bad about my clothing choices. Then again, this whole event was supposed to be nothing more than innocent fun.
“Fletcher Howell,” the man announced, extending his hand. I gladly accepted the handshake. “I’m the owner of Howell’s jewelers, right next door.
“R.D. Clarke,” I replied, “pleasure to meet you sir.” I felt a slight sense of relief that there were still people in the retail business who didn’t outwardly hate everyone they spoke to.
“Likewise,” Howell responded. “Would you mind coming into my store for a moment?”
I nodded and followed him into the shop. It was a small place, not much more retail space than one of those kiosks you see more and more lately – the kind with people flying remote control helicopters and people trying to sell you cell phone plans with the same tenacity a trapped tiger will employ in an attempt to chew its own leg off.
I took inventory of the store and they appeared to be hit pretty hard – most of the display cases were smashed open and now contained nothing more than the pieces of black felt the merchandise was once staged on – a certain Santa’s sack was going to be filled with something a little more valuable than toys.
“Looks like you got cleaned out pretty good,” I noted.
Howell nodded, “they did a number on me,” he admitted, though he didn’t sound too upset by that notion.
“What can I do to help?” I asked, “I’ll be honest, I don’t think the odds of you getting that jewelry back are too good.”
“Of course,” Howell responded, still sounding refreshingly upbeat for a man who was robbed all of five or ten minutes ago, “I’m not worried about the loss of assets – that’s what insurance policies are for.”
I realized how cynical my job had made me when’ insurance fraud’ was the first thing that popped into my mind after the kindly old man looked on the bright side of the situation.
“I understand,” I said, keeping my suspicions to myself, “but if you’re content to let your insurance handle this matter, I’m not quite sure what I can do for you.”
Fletcher Howell cast a wide smile, the kind a grandparent would wear when watching their small grandchild make an innocent, harmless mistake. “Maybe I’m a part of a dying breed, but I don’t think money is the be-all end-all in the world.”
Again, I think it’s an indictment of my own mental state, but I felt there was a chance I was being put on.
“I’ve been in this mall for eighteen years,” Howell said, “and that Running of the Santas is the greatest thing in the world as far as I’m concerned. I want you to find out who messed with it and make sure they go down.”
I smiled, realizing that I’d finally crossed paths with someone who shared my enthusiasm for the event.
“Given the way you’re dressed, I figured you felt the same way about it I did,” Howell explained.
“You’d be right about that,” I said back, “I’m one of the few and proud that’s been at this thing every year.”
Howell cracked a big smile. “How about that!’ he roared, voice booming, seemingly too loud for the little old body that contained it.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Howell began to stipulate, “I’ll pay you whatever your normal rate is, but it’s great to know that I’ll have someone working on this that has passion on his side.” Being an apprentice detective, the only thing I should have done – from a legal standpoint, the only thing I could do – was to thank him and refer him to my overseer.
“I’ll do it,” I said. No one will ever use the phrase ‘a stickler for the rules’ to describe me, that’s an absolute certainty.
“Great!” Howell responded. I liked the man; I sure hoped he wasn’t involved in this somehow.
“Let’s start by going over exactly what happened,” I requested.
“I was watching the people go by when four of them broke out of the pack and ran over here. One of them came in and pulled a gun out from under the suit, used it to crack open the racks and stole all my jewelry. She emptied the register after that, and ran out when the cops were harassing you. Sorry if that doesn’t help – it was quick and nothing really happened that I’d consider out of the ordinary in a robbery,” Howell explained.
I was fixated on one word in his statement. “She?” I asked, surprised.
Howell nodded. “Struck me funny too,” he explained. “Guess we’re a pack of sexist, chauvinistic pigs – the gals can rob jewelry stores with the best of the guys, it seems,” he added.
“I’ll see what I can find out,” I announced.
“Good,” Howell concluded, “I wish I had more for you to go on, but it was very quick and very nondescript – you know, besides the fact that I was robbed by a woman dressed as Santa Claus.”
“I’ve done more with less,” I boasted, “but if you can get me a copy of the footage from the security camera, it might help out – there could have been something you missed in the moment that I’d be able to sniff out.”
Howell nodded. “I’ll get that to you as soon as I can.”
“Great, thanks,” I replied.
“Thank you,” Howell responded. I walked out feeling rejuvenated – damn it, Fletcher Howell and I were going to save Christmas.
Chapter Three
I decided my first step on the path to saving Christmas would be to investigate the other two stores that got hit, fairly certain that their respective proprietors would be somewhere between Fletcher Howell and Erik the White Collar Viking in terms of cooperativeness. My next step was Gadgets & Gear, a curious little independent store that thrived amongst big box electronics retailers with competitive pricing and a unique policy of buying used equipment, which they then turned around and sold either in store or on online auction sites.
I introduced myself to the only person working there, a tall, handsome man with a rugged five o’clock shadow and brown stubble atop his head that wasn’t much longer than the hair on his face. The man introduced himself as Roger Duff, the owner/operator of the store.
“I was checking our active auctions when some guy dressed as Santa Claus ran in the store screaming something about having a bomb in his sack,” Duff explained while I refrained from laughing – which I took as a sign of maturity – the sophomoric R.D. Clarke of ten years ago would have cackled maniacally at any mention of the word ‘sack.’
“He ask for money, valuables?”
Duff nodded. “He made me clear my cash register, stole some of my merchandise too.” Judging by his demeanor and tone, Roger Duff was taking this robbery much harder than my new best friend Fletcher Howell was. “I wasn’t only checking auctions just now, I was also delisting some stuff.”
“You keep the merchandise you auction on display for sale?” I asked, though I couldn’t see how his business practices related to my case – it was mostly to appeal to my own curiosity.
“Yes we do,” Duff said. “The mark-up in store is generally more than we’ll get at auction, so we only put the stuff that we’ve had for a while up for bid. We’ll still keep the stuff on sale here until someone puts a bid on it online, after that, we hold it in the back,” Duff said with a frown. “Unfortunately, some of the stuff that was stolen was bid on overnight, so now I have to cancel those – it’s only two items, but those people aren’t going to be very happy about it.”
“I see,” I said, ready to change the subject to more pertinent matters. “Now back to the robbery, they didn’t raid any of the stuff you have in the back, did they?”
Duff shook his head. “The guy seemed like he was in a hurry, like he was going to get whatever he could as fast as possible and be done with it.”
“How much do you think he made off with?”
My question was met with a shrug. “I’m not sure of an exact number – I haven’t had a chance to go through a full inventory, and since most of my merchandise is made up of things I bought and planned to resell, it’s more of a ball park figure than anything, but he definitely got about two hundred dollars from the register and probably a few grand in merch – a bunch of little digital cameras, a few tablets and smartphones – I had two new Apple iPads I just got the other day, he grabbed both of them quick.”
I cleared my throat, ready to move forward into the actual meat of the crime, “Was there anything distinctive about the robber, other than how he was dressed?” I asked, skimming for leads.
Duff shrugged. “He talked in the Santa voice, I thought that was pretty weird,” he said.
I took out a tiny legal pad and half pencil I kept with me at all times and scribbled down the fact – Santa voice – not that I thought it’d mean anything, though it certainly set this one apart from the Howell robbery, where the perpetrator wasn’t even the right gender to accurately portray the jolly man in red.
“Anything physical?” I asked, “I understand the robber was wearing a Santa suit, but was there anything distinctive – a lazy eye, a limp, something like that?” Boy, I was really hoping for a miracle there – I could see it now: The Limpin’ Santa Bandit With A Lazy Eye, film at eleven.
Duff shook his head on that one. “He had brown eyes, but that’s about all I can tell you – white guy, brown eyes.”
‘White, brown eyes’ I scribbled down on the pad. That narrowed the suspect pool down to about a billion people, but I’m an optimist, so I consider that five or six billion people scratched off the list, including most of the populations of China and India.
“Nothing else?” I asked.
Duff frowned and shook his head, “Nope,” he explained. “I can get you a copy of the security video if it helps,” Duff offered, “but I don’t think it’ll be of much use to you.”
I nodded. “Thanks, that would be great,” I said, taking one last look at the place. The store itself was fairly unremarkable – if not for some empty shelf space, one wouldn’t have much evidence that a robbery had taken place; the store lacked the smashed shelving and broken glass of Fletcher Howell’s shop.
I handed Roger Duff one of my cards, “I know it’s a longshot Mr. Duff, but if you remember anything else, give me a call,” I requested.
“I will,” Duff responded, “and if you ever have any electronics you need to unload, I can help you out with that,” he added, ever the salesman.
“I’ll do that” I lied, knowing myself to be fully capable of putting my old crap on eBay in the hopes that someone with limited technical knowledge would overpay for my junk to give it as a Christmas gift to a distant niece or nephew, no middle man required.
I said my goodbyes and moved over to the final store on my checklist: Far Out Threads, one of the dozens upon dozens of niche clothing stores in the mall, with new ones popping up every other week. This one specialized in retro hippie fashions – stuff with flowers, bell-bottoms, tie-dye, and the like. The clearly shaken women at the counter were chatting amongst themselves when I came in. The woman on the left was a tall, blonde woman with pale skin and an overall lanky build, it looked like she had been crying. The other woman, who was behind the cash register when I walked in, was equally thin but much shorter with stringy brown hair and seemed to be slightly more composed than her co-worker.
“Can I help you?” The shorter woman asked. I couldn’t help but pick up a hint of suspicion in the clerk’s voice, either because she was just robbed by someone dressed similar to me or she had accurately pegged me as someone who would never come into this store unless I was there on non-shopping business.
“My name’s Robert D. Clarke, I’m an apprentice detective,” I said, going with first name, middle initial to make myself sound more official – an important step, considering what I was wearing.
“Apprentice?” The short woman asked.
I nodded, “Yeah. I’m looking in to the robberies for one of the victims, I was wondering if you could tell me what happ…”
“Where’s the person you’re studying under?” the short woman asked.
“Um…” I said, totally stymied. I always announce myself as an apprentice detective and I’m rarely called out for it, most people are more fixated on the word ‘detective.’
“You’re an apprentice, right?”
I nodded, “I’m working under Detective Jerry Clarke,” I said, telling the truth even though I could have told her I was working under Detective Gordon Shumway and it’d mean the exact same thing to her.
“Are you supposed to be doing investigations unsupervised?” the short woman asked. As much as I hoped my suspicions regarding Fletcher Howell were baseless, I wanted even more to find out that the short woman behind the counter was guilty of something that’d get her locked up for the rest of her life.
“No ma’am, but he’s not here right now. Given the immediacy of the moment, I thought it’d be prudent to handle things on my own,” I responded, thinking it sounded good for something that I completely pulled out of my ass. Truth was, some of my best work was done away from the eyes of my father – one case in particular before I was even an apprentice detective.
“Do I have to talk to you?” short woman asked, impatience growing with every word.
I shook my head, neglecting to inform her that she wouldn’t have had to speak to me even if I were a full-fledged private detective.
“All right then,” she said in a manner that made me hate her more than I hate war, injustice, and the Dallas Cowboys, the last of which is really saying something. “If you’re not here to buy something, I’d appreciate it if you’d please leave – we’ve had a rough day today.”
I said nothing and walked out of the store, playing out scenarios of me verbally handing the tiny witch her ass, but they’d exist as fantasy and fantasy alone.
Chapter Four
Still fuming from my encounter with the no-so happy and peaceful clerk at the hippie themed store, I sauntered to my car and started on my drive home. I was about five minutes away from the mall, the Christmas music playing on the radio helping cool my nerves, when I realized that I had left Karen Wagner stranded there – in all of the excitement, I had simply forgotten she was with me.
I took the first available (somewhat) safe U-Turn and sped back to the shopping center, grabbing my phone while I drove and noticing I had four missed calls, all from Karen. My repeated attempts to redial her were all fruitless, but I continued to lean on the gas and hope I didn’t get pulled over.
Once I got back to the mall I decided to do a perimeter sweep of the parking lot looking for Karen, my optimism raised by my knowledge that her decision to dress as Mrs. Claus instead of Santa would make spotting her easier, though that in turn made me feel bad about the grief I gave her for her outfit all over again.
I got most of the way around the mall when I turned a corner and came upon a strip of the parking lot used as a bus depot. I spotted Karen just as she was about to walk onto a bus and leaned on my horn. She snapped her head around, noticed me, and stepped away from the line of people boarding the vehicle. Karen walked over to my car with a disappointed look on her face, like I had kicked a puppy… her puppy… off of a cliff.
The scene of someone dressed as Mrs. Claus climbing into a car driven by someone in a Santa suit was catching more than a few eyes, as I spotted a few people pointing and a few mouths making the motion you’d perform for an ‘aww.’ The mood inside my ancient sports car – the hood up for the winter – wasn’t nearly as tender.
“You’re a jerk!” Karen said before I could even remove the parking brake.
“I know,” I replied as I drove away from the bus stop. “Listen, I’m so sorry I forgot about you, I got tied up in the robbery that happened – first the cops were thinking I was involved, then one of the store owners hired me to look into the thing, and then one of the store clerks treated me like garbage so…”
“Stop,” Karen requested.
“All right,” I replied, doing whatever I could to appease her after my morning of monumental jerkiness. We drove in silence most of the way, nary another word being uttered for the next ten minutes of a trip that usually lasted about fifteen, depending on traffic and such.
I was trying to connect dots in my head regarding the case as I quietly drove in a stop and start fashion down a congested highway, both to get right on the job for Howell and to attempt to forget about how much of a thoughtless jerk of a friend I had been today. In addition to waiting for the security tapes, I figured I could take a look around Internet forums regarding the Running of the Santas (yes, such forums existed) to see if anyone posted an eyewitness account that could be of some sort of use – surely, the robberies would be the biggest topic of conversation on those message boards.
I turned off the highway, that part of the trip taking the usual fifteen minutes it would take to complete the entire trek thanks to the extra traffic. Karen lived in an apartment complex called The Fortunate Son, located just up the block from a famous fast food restaurant known for serving billions. The Fortunate Son held a lot of bad memories for me, so there was an understanding whenever we would hang out and I was picking her up and dropping her off that I would meet and leave her at the door.
“You know why I’m pissed, right?” Karen asked not long after we left the highway.
“Of course I do, I replied, “I left you at the mall.”
“Well yeah,” Karen acknowledged, “but that’s just the beginning of it.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“How many times are we going to do this?” she wondered aloud.
I stopped at a red light and looked over, “Judging by the way your first Running of the Santas went, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to do it again, but you’re more than welcome.”
“Damn it R.D., are you that dense?” Karen asked, the first time I’ve ever really heard anger in her voice. I wasn’t really that dense, I was desperately trying to avoid the elephant in the room, even as it began its stampede toward me.
I was struck so funny that I completely missed the light turning green until a chorus of horns snapped me out of it and I passed through the clear intersection in front of me.
“I guess I am,” I said, playing dumb.
“I woke up at three in the morning, I froze my ass off, I cosplayed for you!” She shouted. I took a moment to place the word ‘cosplay,’ a term with Japanese origins describing the practice of publically dressing up as manga (comic book) characters – the act (and term) was far ahead of me on the Geek-O-Meter but was right in Karen’s wheelhouse.
“I thought you were having fun,” I revealed.
“No!” Karen shot back. “I was cold, I had two and a half hours sleep, I was surrounded by drunk guys who kept asking if I wanted to see their candy cane: I was miserable!”
“Wow,” I said, genuinely dumbfounded, “I thought you were having a good time – I’m sorry.”
I kept my eyes on the road, but heard a loud sigh coming from my right.
“You’re a detective R.D.,” Karen stated, sounding tired in more ways than one, “don’t tell me you can’t figure this out.” I had figured it out a long time ago, but was trying to skirt the issue.
I went silent once again – not out of courtesy this time, but because I really didn’t want to breach this issue.
“Where are we going?” Karen asked. I wanted to feign ignorance and give her some reply about going to her apartment, but I decided to spare her the dumb act.
“I think you’re great Karen, and my life’s way better for having you in it, but I just can’t see this going where I think you want it to go,” I said, amazing myself with my candor – I had a bad habit of playing fast and loose with the truth around Karen, stemming back from the first time I met her, but she deserved better.
She deserved better than me, too.
“Why?” she asked. I think that was the question that made me dread having this discussion more than any other.
“I think you’re great,” I repeated, not knowing what to say and falling back on the crutch of a compliment I had used before.
“Don’t tell me what you think of me!” She snapped, “that’s not what I asked!”
A thousand things ran through my head, most of them variants on the tried and true ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ but none of them seemed like the right thing, so I remained silent.
“Come on R.D., the least you can do is tell me why.”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking it sounded like a cop out.
“That’s a cop out,” Karen concurred, affirming my unspoken opinion.
I grit my teeth and briefly thought about faking some sort of medical ailment, but realized that would be both immature and ineffective. “It is a cop out, but it’s true too,” I said, hoping I sounded as genuine as I was being. “You’re one of my favorite people in the world, I swear you are, but I just can’t bring myself to make this anything more – it’s not because I don’t like you enough; I wish it was because then I could explain myself better, but it’s nothing I can put into words.”
I hoped my apologies meant something. I snuck a few looks at Karen whenever it was safe to do so while driving, but her face provided no cues and she wasn’t talking anymore.
“I’m sorry I can’t explain myself any better than that,” I said as we approached her apartment, not wanting to end the day on such a dour note.
“It’s… it’s fine,” Karen said disappointedly. I decided to leave things at that, realizing that I’d probably only make things worse and I’d done enough damage for one day. We were approaching the Fortunate Son apartments anyway, so I pulled up in front of the main entrance to the complex.
“Sorry you had such a bad time,” I announced, trying to accomplish the difficult task of maintaining eye contact with Karen while totally avoiding a glimpse of the building behind her. “I’ll see you soon?” I added, an optimistic lift in my voice.
“No,” Karen announced. “I don’t think so.” With that, she opened the door and walked toward the building. I felt absolutely horrible about the whole thing – Karen Wagner was too good for me, and the only one who didn’t know it was her.
I pulled away with every intention of drowning myself in my work, hoping that being a good detective would make me forget how awful a person I was.
Chapter Five
As much as I’d like to admit that I stayed true to my convictions and lowered my nose to the grindstone in light of startling new information that made me realize how much of a jackass I was, that simply did not happen. Upon getting home I wallowed in my own self-loathing for about a half hour, forty-five minutes, then proceeded to eat a roast beef and provolone sandwich on wheat bread and nap for three and a half hours – all in all, this was shaping up to be a real banner day for ol’ Detective Clarke.
I woke up to the shaming realization that I had taken a nap in a Santa Claus costume – attire no one should ever be unconscious in unless they’re alcoholics who really, really like the Salvation Army. I immediately decided to change and shower, wondering if the events of the day meant that this would be the last time I ever wore my Santa suit. Aided by the mind-clearing stream of hot water splashing against my body, I concluded that the answer to that question probably had a lot to do with whether or not I could close this case.
Freshly showered and dressed in my civilian clothes, I dove into the forums devoted to the Running of the Santas, finding a lot of accounts of the day’s festivities, most of them centered around people who had stories about being stuck in the line for twenty minutes before being released from the mall one by one, being subject to pat downs as they were leaving. It seemed like every time I refreshed the page, there was a new indignant post about people who “JUST LEFT AND I’M FILING A LAWSUIT AND I HAD TO SIT IN LINE FOR THREE HOURS AND GET PAD (sic) DOWN BY SOME RENT A COP AND THIS IS AMERICA DAMN IT,” it was like some sort of caps lock form letter. Bits of usable information were few and far between, as seemingly every post was some sort of angry rant, all of them bleeding together at some point.
There were a few calmer posts, more on point as far as what I was looking for, but the information in them seemed to be suspect at best – including one that swore one of the Santas was a seven-foot tall black man who jumped over a security barricade after running out of the video game shop. Surely, a detective of my caliber would have spotted this.
Another, more reasonable post, seemed to hold some water.
‘Some guy broke out of the line, but the cops stopped him, told him to freeze, and these four guys ran out while they were concentrating on him,’ it read. Well, I was certain that was the truth, though the new perspective of me distracting the police long enough to allow the perpetrators an escape route was an unsettling one, another blow to my self-esteem in a day full of them, to be certain.
Another post seemed to be more beneficial: ‘The weirdest thing was the shoes. One of them was wearing lime green sneakers.’ I tried to jog my memory on that one. I was fairly certain that the Santa who plowed into me and knocked me down was wearing traditional black boots – the kind I saw Sgt. LeToussier wearing after his arrival in the mere minutes that followed Santa’s departure from the Fraternal Order of Police’s Christmas party back in 1991 – boots impossibly similar to the ones Saint Nick was wearing. That was probably my first piece of detective work – using the sarge’s footwear to uncover the dirty little secret about the jolly old fat man in red.
My own memory of the incident wouldn’t really do much to further my progress, so I turned back to the forum and utilized the search function to bring up all mentions of ‘green sneakers’ that appeared within posts on that particular forum. I didn’t meet with a great deal of success in that endeavor either, as most of what came up was remarkably similar to the original post or just happened to have the terms ‘green’ and ‘sneakers’ in there somewhere, but were otherwise completely unrelated to the robberies.
I decided to keep on digging, thinking that persistence would be what ultimately paid off in this situation – and I was right. On page eight of the search, I found a post made by someone with the user name JingleGuy, who had posted in a meet-up thread “I’ll be there with my green sneakers on.”
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