Charlotte Douglas - Holidays Are Murder

“So you’re withdrawing the invitation?” Bill asked.

“No, I’m just warning you that dinner with Mother will be an ordeal. It always is. So you might want to reconsider.”

He reached across the table and grasped my hand. “Maybe just once you ought to tell your mother to take her hoity-toity attitude and stick it up her—”

“Bill!”

“You’ve heard the word ass before,” he said with a rare flash of temper. “You’ve even used it a few times yourself.”

“But never in relation to my mother. Mother wouldn’t be caught dead with a common ass. She has only a very sophisticated derriere.” I teased to defuse his irritation.

“You’ve got to stop tiptoeing around her.”

“She and Caroline are all the family I have.”

Pain flashed through his eyes, and I wished I could take back my words. Bill had even less family than I did.

He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Maybe it’s time for a family of your own. We could be a family, you and I.”

I was on the verge of choking up over his proposal when my beeper sounded. “I have to call the station.”

“I’m giving you a cell phone for Christmas,” he promised with a scowl.

“I’d either lose it or forget to charge it, so save your money.” I hurried from the table to the pay phone in the lobby.

I was gone only a couple of minutes before I returned and cast a longing look at my unfinished burger. “Gotta go,” I said. “Another break-in.”

“You’re dead on your feet,” Bill said. “At least let me drive.”

For a few seconds I luxuriated in the unaccustomed comfort of having someone fuss over me. Then duty kicked in.

“Okay, but let’s roll. Shelton was already frothing at the mouth over last night’s burglary. I don’t want him putting me on report for slow response.”

Last night’s burglar may have been stupid, but if he was hoping to make the Pelican Bay Police Department look bad, tonight’s repeat break-in had definitely accomplished that goal. Bill parked his car in the same space I’d used the night before. I thanked him for the ride and left the car in a hurry. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that our discussion about families had been interrupted. Relieved, I decided. Being with Bill when he was relaxed and laid-back was easy. When the serious stuff kicked in, I was out of my element.

It was just after 8:00 p.m., and light poured from the windows of Mama Mia’s, doing a booming take-out business, judging by the activity visible through the plate glass and the number of drivers scurrying from the restaurant with insulated bags. Monday night football apparently created a huge appetite for pizza.

My attention this evening, however, wasn’t on Mama Mia’s but Bloomberg’s Jewelers next door. Steve Johnson let me in the front entrance.

“The owner’s on his way,” Johnson said. “It was a smash-and-grab.”

Shards of glass from several display cases littered the narrow aisle. Bloomberg’s wasn’t a large store, but its small space packed a hefty inventory of high-end goods. Even my very picky mother was a frequent shopper here. Looking at the empty display cases, I hoped Bloomberg’s insurance was adequate. The man had lost a mint.

“We have to quit meeting like this, Maggie.” Adler appeared at my elbow and handed me a large foam cup of coffee. “Malcolm sent you this. Got it at Mama Mia’s.”

I took the steaming infusion of caffeine with gratitude and glanced toward the parking lot where Bill had returned to his car and was now reading a magazine in the glow of the dome light. It was going to be another long night.

Bloomberg arrived immediately after Adler. He entered the shop and, for a moment, I feared the little man would burst into tears.

“I’m Detective Skerritt,” I said. “We spoke on the phone this morning.”

A frail, nondescript man with kind brown eyes and graying hair, Bloomberg wrung his hands. “You warned me, Detective. And I called the contractor. He’s scheduled tomorrow morning to secure the ducts on the roof. Too late now.”

Bloomberg seemed to shrink into his shapeless gray sweater as he shook his head and surveyed the damage. Adler moved toward the rear of the shop and entered a hallway.

“Can you tell me what’s missing?” I asked Bloomberg.

“Someone knew what he was doing,” the jeweler said. “He took only the most expensive items.”

“Didn’t have much time, though,” Johnson chimed in. “I was in the neighborhood and was here within minutes of the alarm sounding.”

Adler returned to the front room. “Entered through the roof, just like last night.”

“Do you have motion detectors?” I asked Bloomberg.

The elderly man shook his head. “Only alarms on the doors and display windows.”

“Were the interior lights on when you arrived?” I asked Johnson.

He shook his head. “I hit the lights when I got here so I could see to turn off the alarm.”

“Then our burglar couldn’t be seen from the street,” I said, “and he didn’t set off the alarm until he left. He had all the time in the world to pick and choose what he wanted.”

The CSU techs arrived. “Déjà vu all over again,” one commented before starting to work.

“I’ll need your surveillance tapes,” I told Bloomberg.

“From how far back?” he asked.

“How far back do you keep them?”

He looked chagrined. “My wife makes fun of me. Says I’m obsessive/compulsive. It takes a lot of tapes, but I keep them for a month. Just in case.”

“In case?”

His lined cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “I’m an old man. Sometimes I don’t notice things like I should. If something was missing, like from a shop-lifter, it could be days before I’d notice.” His eyes brightened. “But if I have the tapes, I can at least go back and see what happened.”

“Let me have them all.”

I’d begin with the past few hours. I was hopeful surveillance would reveal a good view of our burglar. Even if masked, if he was a habitual offender, I might recognize him. If not, I’d work my way backward through the remaining videos. If someone had cased the store in the past month, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to hide his face and I’d have him on tape.

Several hours later I wasn’t feeling as confident. I’d returned to the station to view the most recent surveillance video. Even in the dim light from the streetlights outside, it had captured perfect images of the burglar, who had ditched Bill Clinton for a ski mask. After the pizzeria closed, Maria Ridoletti stopped by the station to confirm our perp. Standing in front of the monitor, she watched the tape and shook her head.

“That’s not him.”

“You mean, it’s not Clinton?” I suspected that the ski mask had thrown her.

She crossed her arms over her skinny chest and tapped her foot impatiently. “It’s a different guy altogether. He’s almost a foot taller than the one who robbed me.”

Those were words I didn’t want to hear. “You’re sure? After all, you were sitting down.”

“And the guy in the Clinton mask was almost eye-to-eye with me. Nope, that’s definitely not the one who robbed me.” Her scathing look spoke volumes. “Looks like you’ve got two robbers to catch now.”

The next morning the insistent ringing of the telephone awakened me. A glance at my bedside clock indicated the time was a few minutes past seven. I’d had less than four hours’ sleep in the past two days, and I wanted nothing more than to let the answering machine pick up while I dived under the covers until the alarm sounded at seven-thirty. But, recalling the dynamic duo of thieves still at large, I fumbled for the phone beside my bed and braced to hear Darcy announcing another break-in.

“Good morning, dear.” My mother’s refined voice, buoyant with irritating cheerfulness, resonated in my ear. “I was hoping I’d find you at home.”

That one simple statement carried a truckload of disapproval, her indirect snipe at the unpredictable hours of my job.

“What’s up?” I asked. Mother never called simply to chat or pass the time of day. She communicated only to issue a summons or an edict. This morning was no exception.

“I’m calling about Thanksgiving dinner. You are coming, aren’t you?”

“I certainly intend to.” I didn’t want to get into the possibility, of which Mother was well aware but chose to ignore, that work might intervene.

“We’ll gather at five for cocktails. Dinner at six.”

With partial consciousness came the memory of my conversation with Bill at the restaurant the previous night. “If it’s all right, I’d like to bring a guest.”

“A guest?” Her voice crackled with surprise.

“Bill Malcolm.”

“Oh.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Of course not.” Her tone contradicted her words. “But, really, Margaret, what do you know about this man?”

“This man was my partner for seven years and he’s been my friend for over twenty.” The fact that in all that time he’d never met my family said a lot about my shaky relationship with them.

“I’m aware of that, dear,” she said with a hint of exasperation, “but what do you know about him?”

“I know that he’s good and decent, but if you’d rather I came alone—”

“I’m sure Mr. Malcolm is a very nice man, but what do you know about his family?” For Mother, with people, as with art and antiques, provenance was all.

“Most of them are dead,” I said.

“Don’t be obtuse, Margaret. You know exactly what I’m asking. Who were they?”

Decent, unpretentious, hardworking people, with whom my elitist mother had absolutely nothing in common. “His father was a citrus grower in Plant City. He’s eighty-five, suffers from Alzheimer’s, and is in an assisted-living facility in Tampa.”

“He was a farmer?”

“You could say that.” Contrariness kept me silent on the fact that Bill’s father’s orange groves were several thousand acres of prime real estate, worth millions if sold for development. A sufficient amount of wealth covered a multitude of sins in Mother’s book, but I wasn’t about to pander to her prejudices.

“And his son lives in Pelican Bay?” She was sounding more dubious by the minute.

“At the marina. On his boat.”

“Mr. Malcolm lives on a boat?” Horror laced her voice. “Like a transient?”

Even in my sleep-deprived state, I experienced a guilty thrill at Mother’s disapproval. I’d learned long ago I could never please her, so sometimes I took perverse pleasure in pushing her buttons instead. Especially since I was still smarting from her dismissive attitude a few weeks ago at the yacht club when I’d saved her from an armed teenager intent on robbery. Instead of thanking me, she’d criticized my language. Why I, at forty-eight, still longed for my mother’s approval, was one of the mysteries of the universe.

“Because he does live on a boat, I’m sure he’d enjoy having Thanksgiving dinner in a real home,” I lied, knowing Bill could whip up an elegant holiday meal in his small galley kitchen that would put Mother’s expensive caterers to shame.

“Your friends are always welcome at my house, Margaret,” Mother insisted, but her tone lacked conviction. “I’ll be happy to have Mr. Malcolm join us for Thanksgiving. But please, remind him that we dress for dinner.”

I stifled the irrational image of Mother, my perfect older sister Caroline and her stuffy husband, Hunt, sitting naked around Mother’s antique dining table, and I couldn’t resist baiting her. “Clothes are always helpful, especially when the weather’s chilly.”