Mistletoe Mysteries

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Mistletoe Mysteries Page 16

by Charlotte MacLeod


  “He may have called for a taxi. That’s not impossible, is it?”

  “In the middle of the night? Why would he do that?”

  Lev didn’t know. But he kept on speculating.

  “Maybe somebody picked him up. If a car drove up you might not have heard it, being so tired, sleeping deeply, you know?”

  “That’s even worse. A car picking him up! Who was driving? Where were they going?” He started to reply, but she stopped him. “You’re thinking about another woman, aren’t you? That he picked Christmas Eve to run off with another woman! God, what a thing to say!”

  Lev didn’t point out the fact that he hadn’t said it, especially since the thought had been hovering in his mind.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s stop speculating and stick to the facts. His clothes, for instance.”

  “They’re all here,” Mrs. Methune said. “At least I think they are. I don’t keep an inventory of Barry’s clothes any more than he does mine. But I know he has five suits, and they’re still in the closet. He owns three suitcases, it’s a set, and all three are where they always were. Would he run off with someone without even packing his toothbrush? That’s here, too.”

  Lev cleared his throat, wanting to make sure he wasn’t misunderstood.

  “I’ve worked on a couple of runaway husband cases, Mrs. Methune. They can get pretty ingenious. One guy I know, he sent all his clothes to the laundry over a period of months and gave them a new address for delivery. Before his wife realized what was happening, practically all his stuff was out of the house.”

  “But I just told you—”

  “I know, I know. All his stuff is here. But some men are willing to buy whole new wardrobes when they start a new life …” He felt rotten as soon as the sentence was out.

  “Maybe Barry wanted to leave me,” the woman said, her eyes misting over. “I don’t know. He never acted like he did. But his kids? His darling little girls? And on Christmas, the biggest day of their lives?” She shook her head so hard she undid the elastic ribbon holding her hair in place. It shook loose and her soft brown hair tumbled in all directions; she looked even younger and prettier, and Lev began to feel chilled with a doubt that was downright eerie. Where was Barry Methune? What Christmas ghost whisked him away from a family like this?

  Lev didn’t leave the area until three o’clock that afternoon, and was stricken with the guilty realization that he hadn’t even called Elly to see if her contractions had started. He violated the local speed law on the way back, trusting to his badge to get him out of trouble. Luckily, he wasn’t stopped. Even luckier, Elly wasn’t home. She had been visiting her sister. She apologized to him. Lev accepted it gracefully.

  When he told her about the Methune case, Elly identified just as she always did.

  “You ever do something like that to me, copper, I’ll scratch your eyes out.”

  “But we don’t know what Methune did. His wife doesn’t know. Neither do his neighbors.”

  “You talked to them?”

  “I covered half the road. Nobody saw Methune leave the house, nobody heard a vehicle in the middle of the night. I even talked to his kids, two little girls, faces like sunshine. You make me one of those, I wouldn’t mind a bit.”

  “You’re getting a boy, remember?”

  “You keep saying that, only when?”

  Elly’s reply was wistful. “Not on Christmas Day, the way it looks … What was that you said about this man not being home every Christmas?”

  “That’s what his wife told me. He employs only one salesman at this surgical supply company he owns, so they take turns covering their out-of-town territory during the holidays. But he makes up for the Christmases he misses by going all out every other year. He spends a fortune on Christmas decorations, spends days getting them up. He buys tons of presents and wraps each one himself. He doesn’t just rent a Santa Claus costume, he had one tailored for him. He sends out Christmas cards to everybody he ever knew, and some people he barely knows … It’s the happiest day of his year, and he’s not here to enjoy it.”

  The phone rang at six. Elly picked it up in the kitchen, where she was preparing a lamb roast. She came out to give her husband a mock-suspicious look and said: “And exactly who is Pola Methune?”

  “Is that her first name?” Lev said. “I never did ask.”

  He took the phone, hoping to hear that Pola’s wandering husband had returned, that it was Christmas as usual at the Methune homestead. But her first words were wrapped in a sob, and Lev knew that his Christmas dinner would have to wait.

  He grumbled to himself throughout the return trip to the Methune house. He never should have given Pola Methune his home number; he should have referred her back to headquarters, let Sam Reddy take the problem. He felt victimized by sentiment. If this was the result of being a “family” man, he wasn’t sure he liked it.

  The daylight was gone by the time he reached Holly Road. He was conscious of an added poignancy to the lights ornamenting its houses. By tomorrow they would be dimmed. Christmas was almost over. Barry Methune would have to wait 364 days to express his seasonal joy. Or would he ever express it again?

  Pola greeted him with hollowed eyes and a hushed voice. In counterpoint, Dodie and Amanda were shrieking with laughter on the living room carpet, wallowing in a litter of boxes and wrapping paper. Obviously, Pola had decided not to deny them their Christmas presents, even if her own remained unopened.

  “I know what you told me,” she said. “About that Missing Persons regulation, about having to wait … But isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “I’ve already done some things,” Lev told her. “I canvassed the neighborhood after I left you this morning. I also checked the accident reports, the local hospitals, the morgue. You’ll be glad to know it was all negative. Now, did you do what I asked you to do?”

  She looked even more miserable. “Yes,” she said. “I went through Barry’s papers. I even looked in all his pockets. I hated doing that. It was so—distrustful.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No. At least, nothing that meant anything to me.”

  “Would you be willing to let me have a look?”

  “I suppose so … I put everything into a box. Including his address book. Except for a few business numbers, it’s just like mine.”

  “Let me see it anyway,” Lev said. “And if you have any photos of your husband, let me have them, too.”

  She turned and went upstairs, with the trudging steps of a woman twenty years older.

  He watched the little girls while he waited. They had stopped playing and were absorbed in their own Christmas prizes. The older one—Amanda?—appeared frustrated by one of her toys and decided that he was a passable father-substitute. She brought it to him and thrust it into his hands.

  “How do you play this?” she asked. “Can you show me?”

  Lev looked it over. It was some kind of electronic game, a football simulation. There was a liquid display screen depicting the playing field, and dual buttons on both sides, one controlling offense, the other defense. But when he pressed the buttons, nothing happened.

  “Maybe the batteries are dead,” he said.

  Relieved at having an easier problem to solve, he searched among the scattered gifts and saw a small silver flashlight. Sure enough, it operated on the same size batteries, and they were in working order. The younger child, Dodie, didn’t object to his tampering with her present; she didn’t seem very interested in it. Lev himself couldn’t help wondering why anyone would give a flashlight to a little girl. Or, for that matter, an electronic football game.

  Unfortunately, the toy didn’t respond to its new source of power. When Pola Methune came downstairs, holding a white cardboard box, she saw Amanda’s disappointed face and asked what was going on. Lev told her and said:

  “Do you remember where you bought this?”

  “I didn’t buy it, Barry did. Some toy shop near his office, on Broad Stree
t, 900 Broad, the Wyatt Building.”

  “I can probably find the place,” Lev said. “I’ll take it in for exchange, if you like.”

  “You’re so kind. That’s just what Barry would have done.”

  New tears threatened, and Lev became anxious to conclude his inquiry. He went through Barry Methune’s papers and had to agree with his wife that they were innocuous and unrevealing. Methune also proved to be camera-shy. There was only one photograph, probably taken too long ago to be useful. It was a candid shot of a plumpish young man with dark curly hair already receding at the temples. He had crinkly eyes, a broad nose, a smile that had the appearance of being permanently affixed.

  That night, Lev lay awake beside what he called Mt. Eleanor and studied the ceiling. His wife, citing inflation, offered him a nickel for his thoughts.

  “I was thinking about their presents,” he said.

  “Whose presence?”

  “Not presence, presents. As in gifts. What the little girls got for Christmas.”

  “The football game, you mean?”

  “And a flashlight.”

  “So?”

  “It just seemed a little odd, that’s all.”

  “Odd how?” There was the hint of bristle in Elly’s voice. “Because there weren’t any dolls or cooking sets or sewing kits?”

  “Well, there might have been dolls and cooking sets. I didn’t see all the gifts.”

  “But the football game bothered you, because it’s a man’s sport, is that it?”

  “It’s too late at night for feminist polemics.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Elly said. “When John Alexander is old enough, I’m getting him a baby doll.”

  “Have a baby first,” Lev said, turning over on his side.

  Half an hour later he was still awake, wondering where the man who loved Christmas had gone.

  He filed his report the next morning, and Ab Peterson read it with narrowed eyes. “Churches la femme,” he said. “Did you ever think of that?”

  “I thought of it,” Lev said wearily.

  At noontime, he lunched at the Lewisfield Diner with Sam Reddy and told him about the case Sam should have been handling. Like Ab Peterson, Sam had a theory.

  “Suicide,” he said succinctly. “These bouncy types are always hiding something. Maybe he didn’t really love Christmas. Maybe it depressed him.”

  “Then where’s the body?”

  Sam shrugged. “How about the reservoir? He could have walked there from Holly Road, it’s less than a mile away. Maybe people downstate are drinking Methune-flavored water right now.”

  He chuckled into his coffee, untroubled by Lev’s look of disgust.

  Instead of riding back to headquarters with Sam, he asked to be dropped off in downtown Dayton, at McReady’s Toyshop. He had brought Amanda’s inoperative toy with him and presented it to the man at the counter.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Other than the fact that it doesn’t work, nothing.”

  The man had a demeanor like a burnt-out pawnbroker.

  “You got a sales slip?”

  “No,” Lev said. “It was bought by someone else.”

  “How do I know it was bought here?”

  “Take my word for it,” Lev said. To his credit, he didn’t use his badge as a voucher.

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “This is a $49.50 item. I been stiffed before. You give me proof, I’ll exchange it.”

  The heck with this, Lev said, reaching for his wallet. Then he changed his mind and said: “Maybe it was paid for with a credit card. Could you check your records? The name was Methune, Barry Methune.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  Lev did the best he could. He was gratified when the proprietor started nodding his head.

  “Yeah, yeah. I think I know the guy. I think he was in here last week. Let me have a look at my slips.”

  Five minutes later, he came up with a receipt for one electronic football game, one mini flashlight, and two Captain Wango ray guns.

  “I’m sure this is the guy who bought this stuff. The only thing is, his name isn’t what you said. It’s Munsey. Benjamin Munsey. See?”

  He handed Lev the receipt, and despite the pale carbon, the name and signature were clear enough. Munsey, Benjamin Munsey. Lev shook his head. Wrong guy, he said. Mistake. But that didn’t alter his conviction that the faulty game was purchased here. He wanted a replacement, and he was impatient. He had more important things to do, he said. And if you must know, I’m a cop. He sighed when he said it; a principle had been violated. But it did the trick. The toyshop owner shrugged and gave him a working copy of the electronic football game.

  “But I still say that’s the guy,” he grunted. “He’s in here, three, four times around the holidays, asking questions, trying things out. The guy’s a real nut about Christmas.”

  Lev’s hand froze on the door handle.

  “Can I see that credit card slip again?”

  There was no mistaking the signature. Benjamin Munsey. The address was 18 Skyblue Lane, Sycamore Village, a suburban enclave some thirty miles north of Dayton.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  He stood on the sidewalk, reflecting on what was only a mild coincidence. Two men who looked alike and loved Christmas. Well, why not? Two men who looked alike, loved Christmas, and bought almost the same toys. More than possible.

  Two men who looked alike, loved Christmas, bought the same toys, and had the same initials.

  He found a phone booth and called Pola Methune.

  “Did the kids get what?” she said.

  “Ray guns,” Lev said. “Captain Wango’s ray guns, whatever they are.”

  “I could kill Captain Wango,” Pola said fiercely. “That buzzing noise is driving me crazy. If you ask me, they shouldn’t make any kind of guns for kids!”

  Lev started to leave the booth, but then changed his mind. He asked directory assistance for a number in Sycamore Village and dialed it. A woman answered in a depressed voice that turned anxious when he identified himself.

  “No, there’s nothing wrong,” he said quickly. “I just had a couple of questions to ask you. Just routine,” he said, wondering how many times a week he used that word.

  He didn’t give her an opportunity to protest. He hung up and made three more calls in rapid succession: one to headquarters, one to home quarters, and one to the Dayton Cab Company.

  Forty-five minutes later, the driver managed to find Skyblue Lane, a dirt road that tried to hide itself from the proliferating traffic in the area. Number 18 was the third house on the left, two stories of brick and stucco, twice the age and size of the Methune residence in Lewisfield.

  But there was at least one similarity. Strings of Christmas bulbs traced the contours of the house from its wide chimney to its sloping roof, running down all four corners and framing every door and window. At night, it would look like the skeleton of a house outlined in multicolored lights. There was no plastic sleigh on the lawn, but there was a gigantic Santa, waving his mittened hand at passersby.

  Lev made still another comparison when Mrs. Benjamin Munsey answered the door. She was taller and heavier than Pola Methune, but there was still a superficial resemblance around the eyes. Later he realized it was effect more than physiognomy. Both women had been shedding tears, in copious amounts.

  “It’s about my husband, isn’t it?” she said, even before the door closed behind him. “Something’s happened to him! You just didn’t want to tell me on the phone!”

  “No,” Lev said. “That’s not why I’m here, really.”

  “I thought of calling the police,” she said. “But I keep thinking he’ll walk in any minute, or the phone will ring and he’ll say he’s stuck someplace. There’s a blizzard in Illinois, you know, he has customers in Chicago …”

  “Mrs. Munsey, are you saying your husband is missing?” He almost added the word “too.”

  “He said he would be home the day bef
ore Christmas, but he never showed up! I called his office, but the man who works for him was away, on a sales trip his secretary said. And she was only a temp, so she knew nothing, nothing at all …”

  Then it wasn’t a disappearance, Lev thought. It was a nonappearance.

  “Maybe you should have called the police. Your husband might have been in an accident, for instance.”

  “I just didn’t want to think that!” she said, clamping a hand over her mouth. “Not the day before Christmas. That would be just too awful. Ben loved Christmas so much!”

  “May I please come in?” Lev said gravely.

  She let him into the house, and his eyes were drawn to the Christmas accents all over the interior. There was an oversize wreath in the hallway, holly and mistletoe on every wall, a spray of white branches in the baronial fireplace, and a tree that towered at least twelve feet in the high-ceilinged living room. There was another jumble of opened gift boxes, although someone had already cleared away the wrapping paper.

  There was a different kind of debris at the base of the tree, and Lev had to look twice to make sure his eyes weren’t deceived. It appeared to be the scene of a Toyland massacre. There were dismembered arms and legs, a doll’s head with gouged-out eyes, another with its eyes intact looking even more grotesque as it stared at its own torn and mangled torso. The woman must have seen his expression, because she said:

  “That was Michael’s doing.” Her voice was sad. “He’s been out of control these past couple of days, and I’m sure it’s because his father isn’t here.”

  “Is Michael your son?”

  “Yes. He’s only six, but he’s got a temper. God knows where he got it from. Not from me, certainly, or Ben, although my own father used to throw things when he got angry …”

  “Are you saying your little boy—did this?” He nodded at the carnage.

  “Yes. It was sort of like the last straw, Santa Claus not showing up, his daddy not here, and then those presents he opened. It must have been a mistake, of course. Ben must have ordered toys by phone and the store got the delivery mixed up. I mean, twin dolls, girl dolls! Michael went berserk when he saw them. Honestly, it’s amazing; it must be television the way these kids know about macho.”

 

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