The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  Cinda occasionally ran with her boyfriend, Jonathan Michaels, and always with her golden retriever, Three-Dot Po, or Po. The dog’s name meant something private to her and Jonathan; they only laughed and shook their heads when I asked about it.

  Jonathan played the piano, often at late-night private parties. He was seldom up before noon and usually left exercise to Cinda and Po. Cinda was a diligent runner, even on the hottest days of summer and the coldest of winter. I do twenty-five miles a week in a grudging fight against age and calories, but Cinda made a ten-mile circuit every morning with religious enthusiasm.

  One December I didn’t see her out for a week and wondered vaguely if she might be sick. The following Saturday, however, we met on the small promontory abutting Belmont Harbor—she returning from her jaunt three miles farther north, and I just getting ready to turn around for home. As we jogged together, she explained that Eli Burton, the fancy North Michigan Avenue department store, had hired her to photograph children talking to Santa. She made a face. “Not the way Eric Lieberman got his start, but it’ll finance January in the Bahamas for Jonathan and me.” She called to Po, who was inspecting a dead bird on the rocks by the water, and moved on ahead of me.

  The week before Christmas the temperature dropped suddenly and left us with the bitterest December on record. My living room was so cold I couldn’t bear to use it; I handled all my business bundled in bed, even moving the television into the bedroom. I didn’t go out at all on Christmas Eve.

  Christmas Day I was supposed to visit friends in one of the northern suburbs. I wrapped myself in a blanket and went to the living room to scrape a patch of ice on a window. I wanted to see how badly snowed over Halsted Street was, assuming my poor little Omega would even start.

  I hadn’t run for five days, since the temperature first fell. I was feeling flabby, knew I should force myself outside, but felt too lazy to face the weather. I was about to go back to the bedroom and wrap some presents when I caught sight of a golden retriever moving smartly down the street. It was Po; behind her came Cinda, warm in an orange down vest, face covered with a ski mask.

  “Ah, nuts,” I muttered. If she could do it, I could do it. Layering on thermal underwear, two pairs of wool socks, sweatshirts, and a down vest, I told myself encouragingly, “Quitters never win and winners never quit,” and “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that counts but the size of the fight in the dog.”

  The slogans got me out the door, but they didn’t prepare me for the shock of cold. The wind sucked the air out of my lungs and left me gasping. I staggered back into the entryway and tied a scarf around my face, adjusted earmuffs and a wool cap, and put on sunglasses to protect my eyes.

  Even so, it was bitter going. After the first mile the blood was flowing well and my arms and legs were warm, but my feet were cold, and even heavy muffling couldn’t keep the wind from scraping the skin on my cheeks. Few cars were on the streets, and no other people. It was like running through a wasteland. This is what it would be like after a nuclear war: no people, freezing cold, snow blowing across in fine pelting particles like a desert sandstorm.

  The lake made an even eerier landscape. Steam rose from it as from a giant cauldron. The water was invisible beneath the heavy veils of mist. I paused for a moment in awe, but the wind quickly cut through the layers of clothes.

  The lake path curved around as it led to the promontory so that you could only see a few yards ahead of you. I kept expecting to meet Cinda and Po on their way back, but the only person who passed me was a solitary male jogger, anonymous in a blue ski mask and khaki down jacket.

  At the far point of the promontory the wind blew unblocked across the lake. It swept snow and frozen mist pellets with it, blowing in a high persistent whine. I was about to turn and go home when I heard a dog barking above the keening wind. I hesitated to go down to the water, but what if it was Po, separated from her mistress?

  The rocks leading down to the lake were covered with ice. I slipped and slid down, trying desperately for hand- and toe-holds—even if someone were around to rescue me I wouldn’t survive a bath in subzero water.

  I found Po on a flat slab of rock. She was standing where its edge hung over the mistcovered water, barking furiously. I called to her. She turned her head briefly but wouldn’t come.

  By now I had a premonition of what would meet me when I’d picked my way across the slab. I lay flat on the icy rock, gripping my feet around one end, and leaned over it through the mist to peer in the water. As soon as I showed up, Po stopped barking and began an uneasy pacing and whining.

  Cinda’s body was just visible beneath the surface. It was a four-foot drop to the water from where I lay. I couldn’t reach her and I didn’t dare get down in the water. I thought furiously and finally unwound a long muffler from around my neck. Tying it to a jagged spur near me I wrapped the other end around my waist and prayed. Leaning over from the waist gave me the length I needed to reach into the water. I took a deep breath and plunged my arms in. The shock of the water was almost more than I could bear; I concentrated on Cinda, on the dog, thought of Christmas in the northern suburbs, of everything possible but the cold which made my arms almost useless. “You only have one chance, Vic. Don’t blow it.”

  The weight of her body nearly dragged me in on top of Cinda. I slithered across the icy rock, scissoring my feet wildly until they caught on the spur where my muffler was tied. Po was no help, either. She planted herself next to me, whimpering with anxiety as I pulled her mistress from the water. With water soaked in every garment, Cinda must have weighed two hundred pounds. I almost lost her several times, almost lost myself, but I got her up. I tried desperately to revive her, Po anxiously licking her face, but there was no hope. I finally realized I was going to die of exposure myself if I didn’t get away from there. I tried calling Po to come with me, but she wouldn’t leave Cinda. I ran as hard as I could back to the harbor, where I flagged down a car. My teeth were chattering so hard I almost couldn’t speak, but I got the strangers to realize there was a dead woman back on the promontory point. They drove me to the Town Hall police station.

  I spent most of Christmas Day in bed, layered in blankets, drinking hot soup prepared by my friend Dr. Lotty Herschel. I had some frostbite in two of my fingers, but she thought they would recover. Lotty left at seven to eat dinner with her nurse, Carol Alvarado, and her family.

  The police had taken Cinda away, and Jonathan had persuaded Po to go home with him. I guess it had been a fairly tragic scene—Jonathan crying, the dog unwilling to let Cinda’s body out of her sight. I hadn’t been there myself, but one of my newspaper friends told me about it.

  It was only eight o’clock when the phone next to my bed began ringing, but I was deep in sleep, buried in blankets. It must have rung nine or ten times before I even woke up, and another several before I could bring myself to stick one of my sore arms out to answer it.

  “Hello?” I said groggily.

  “Vic. Vic, I hate to bother you, but I need help.”

  “Who is this?” I started coming to.

  “Jonathan Michaels. They’ve arrested me for killing Cinda. I only get the one phone call.” He was trying to speak jauntily, but his voice cracked.

  “Killing Cinda?” I echoed. “I thought she slipped and fell.”

  “Apparently someone strangled her and pushed her in after she was dead. Don’t ask me how they know. Don’t ask me why they thought I did it. The problem is—the problem is—Po. I don’t have anyone to leave her with.”

  “Where are you now?” I swung my legs over the bed and began pulling on longjohns. He was at their apartment, four buildings up the street from me, on his way downtown for booking and then to Cook County jail. The arresting officer, not inhuman on Christmas Day, would let him wait for me if I could get there fast.

  I was half dressed by the time I hung up and quickly finished pulling on jeans, boots, and a heavy sweater. Jonathan and two policemen were standing in the entryway of
his building when I ran up. He handed me his apartment keys. In the distance I could hear Po’s muffled barking.

  “Do you have a lawyer?” I demanded.

  Ordinarily a cheerful, bearded young man with long golden hair, Jonathan now looked rather bedraggled. He shook his head dismally.

  “You need one. I can find someone for you, or I can represent you myself until we come up with someone better. I don’t practice anymore, so you need someone who’s active, but I can get you through the formalities.”

  He accepted gratefully, and I followed him into the waiting police car. The arresting officers wouldn’t answer any of my questions. When we got down to the Eleventh Street police headquarters, I insisted on seeing the officer in charge, and was taken in to Sergeant John McGonnigal.

  McGonnigal and I had met frequently. He was a stocky young man, very able, and I had a lot of respect for him. I’m not sure he reciprocated it. “Merry Christmas, Sergeant. It’s a terrible day to be working, isn’t it?”

  “Merry Christmas, Miss Warshawski. What are you doing here?”

  “I represent Jonathan Michaels. Seems someone got a little confused and thinks he pushed Ms. Goodrich into Lake Michigan this morning.”

  “We’re not confused. She was strangled and pushed into the lake. She was dead before she went into the water. He has no alibi for the relevant time.”

  “No alibi! Who in this city does have an alibi?”

  There was more to it than that, he explained stiffly. Michaels and Cinda had been heard quarreling late at night by their neighbors across the hall and underneath. They had resumed their fight in the morning. Cinda had finally slammed out of the house with the dog around nine-thirty.

  “He didn’t follow her, Sergeant.”

  “How do you know?”

  I explained that I had watched Cinda from my living room. “And I didn’t run into Mr. Michaels out on the point. I only met one person.”

  He pounced on that. How could I be sure it wasn’t Jonathan? Finally agreeing to get a description of his clothes to see if he owned a navy ski mask or a khaki jacket, McGonnigal also pointed out that there were two ways to leave the lakefront—Jonathan could have gone north instead of south.

  “Maybe. But you’re spinning a very thin thread, Sergeant. It’s not going to hold up. Now I need some time alone with my client.”

  He was most unhappy to let me represent Jonathan, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He left us alone in a small interrogation room.

  “I’m taking it on faith that you didn’t kill Cinda,” I said briskly. “But, for the record, did you?”

  He shook his head. “No way. Even if I had stopped loving her, which I hadn’t, I don’t solve my problems that way.” He ran a hand through his long hair. “I can’t believe this. I can’t even really believe Cinda is dead. It’s all happened too fast. And now they’re arresting me.” His hands were beautiful, with long strong fingers. Strong enough to strangle someone, certainly.

  “What were you fighting about this morning?”

  “Fighting?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Jonathan: I’m the only help you’ve got. Your neighbors heard you—that’s why the police arrested you.”

  He smiled a little foolishly. “It all seems so stupid now. I keep thinking, if I hadn’t gotten her mad, she wouldn’t have gone out there. She’d be alive now.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. What were you fighting about?”

  He hesitated. “Those damned Santa Claus pictures she took. I never wanted her to do it, anyway. She’s too good—she was too good a photographer to be wasting her time on that kind of stuff. Then she got mad and started accusing me of being Lawrence Welk, and who was I to talk. It all started because someone phoned her at one this morning. I’d just gotten back from a gig”—he grinned suddenly, painfully—“a Lawrence Welk gig, and this call came in. Someone who had been in one of her Santa shots. Said he was very shy, and wanted to make sure he wasn’t in the picture with his kid, so would she bring him the negatives?”

  “She had the negatives? Not Burton’s?”

  “Yeah. Stupid idiot. She was developing the film herself. Apparently this guy called Burton’s first. Anyway, to make a long story short, she agreed to meet him today and give him the negatives, and I was furious. First of all, why should she go out on Christmas to satisfy some moron’s whim? And why was she taking those dumb-assed pictures anyway?”

  Suddenly his face cracked and he started sobbing. “She was so beautiful and I loved her so much. Why did I have to fight with her?”

  I patted his shoulder and held his hand until the tears stopped. “You know, if that was her caller she was going to meet, that’s probably the person who killed her.”

  “I thought of that. And that’s what I told the police. But they say it’s the kind of thing I’d be bound to make up under the circumstances.”

  I pushed him through another half-hour of questions. What had she said about her caller? Had he given his name? She didn’t know his name. Then how had she known which negatives were his? She didn’t—just the day and the time he’d been there, so she was taking over the negatives for that morning. That’s all he knew; she’d been too angry to tell him what she was taking with her. Yes, she had taken negatives with her.

  He gave me detailed instructions on how to look after Po. Just dry dog food. No table scraps. As many walks as I felt like giving her—she was an outdoor dog and loved snow and water. She was very well trained; they never walked her with a leash. Before I left, I talked to McGonnigal. He told me he was going to follow up on the story about the man in the photograph at Burton’s the next day but he wasn’t taking it too seriously. He told me they hadn’t found any film on Cinda’s body, but that was because she hadn’t taken any with her—Jonathan was making up that, too. He did agree, though, to hold Jonathan at Eleventh Street overnight. He could get a bail hearing in the morning and maybe not have to put his life at risk among the gang members who run Cook County jail disguised as prisoners.

  I took a taxi back to the north side. The streets were clear and we moved quickly. Every mile or so we passed a car abandoned on the roadside, making the Arctic landscape appear more desolate than ever.

  Once at Jonathan’s apartment it took a major effort of will to get back outside with the dog. Po went with me eagerly enough, but kept turning around, looking at me searchingly as though hoping I might be transformed into Cinda.

  Back in the apartment, I had no strength left to go home. I found the bedroom, let my clothes drop where they would on the floor and tumbled into bed.

  Holy Innocents’ Day, lavishly celebrated by my Polish Catholic relatives, was well advanced before I woke up again. I found Po staring at me with reproachful brown eyes, panting slightly. “All right, all right,” I grumbled, pulling the covers back and staggering to my feet.

  I’d been too tired the night before even to locate the bathroom. Now I found it, part of a large darkroom. Cinda apparently had knocked down a wall connecting it to the dining room; she had a sink and built-in shelves all in one handy location. Prints were strung around the room, and chemicals and lingerie jostled one another incongruously. I borrowed a toothbrush, cautiously smelling the toothpaste to make sure it really held Crest, not developing chemicals.

  I put my clothes back on and took Po around the block. The weather had moderated considerably; a bank thermometer on the corner stood at 9 degrees. Po wanted to run to the lake, but I didn’t feel up to going that far this morning, and called her back with difficulty. After lunch, if I could get my car started, we might see whether any clues lay hidden in the snow.

  I called Lotty from Cinda’s apartment, explaining where I was and why. She told me I was an idiot to have gotten out of bed the night before, but if I wasn’t dead of exposure by now I would probably survive until someone shot me. Somehow that didn’t cheer me up.

  While I helped myself to coffee and toast in Cinda’s kitchen I started calling various attorneys to s
ee if I could find someone to represent Jonathan. Tim Oldham, who’d gone to law school with me, handled a good-sized criminal practice. He wasn’t too enthusiastic about taking a client without much money, but I put on some not very subtle pressure about a lady I’d seen him with on the Gold Coast a few weeks ago who bore little resemblance to his wife. He promised me Jonathan would be home by supper time, called me some unflattering names, and hung up.

  Besides the kitchen, bedroom, and darkroom, the apartment had one other room, mostly filled by a grand piano. Stacks of music stood on the floor—Jonathan either couldn’t afford shelves or didn’t think he needed them. The walls were hung with poster-sized photographs of Jonathan playing, taken by Cinda. They were very good.

  I went back into the darkroom and poked around at the pictures. Cinda had put all her Santa Claus photographs in neatly marked envelopes. She’d carefully written the name of each child next to the number of the exposure on that roll of film. I switched on a light table and started looking at them. She’d taken pictures every day for three weeks, which amounted to thousands of shots. It looked like a needle-in-the-haystack type task. But most of the pictures were of children. The only others were ones Cinda had taken for her own amusement, panning the crowd, or artsy shots through glass at reflecting lights. Presumably her caller was one of the adults in the crowd.

  After lunch I took Po down to my car. She had no hesitation about going with me and leaped eagerly into the backseat. “You have too trusting a nature,” I told her. She grinned at me and panted heavily. The Omega started, after a few grumbling moments, and I drove north to Bryn Mawr and back to get the battery well charged before turning into the lot at Belmont Harbor. Po was almost beside herself with excitement, banging her tail against the rear window until I got the door open and let her out. She raced ahead of me on the lake path. I didn’t try to call her back; I figured I’d find her at Cinda’s rock.

  I moved slowly, carefully scanning the ground for traces of—what? Film? A business card? The wind was so much calmer today and the air enough warmer that visibility was good, but I didn’t see anything.