“One of the donors? Some devious self-styled Robin Hood? The manufacturers? It’s pointless to speculate. There’s no treasure. No one slipped cocaine into the flavor straws or gave Barbie a twenty-four-karat necklace. The whole idea is patently absurd. But it makes foolish people do foolish things, and I have to deal with the consequences. Now Homer is gone, and he took the suit and the toys with him. He’s the Anti-Santa Claus!”
“Mr. Blum…?”
A chubby balding little man in his mid-forties stepped out from the stock area. He saw me and recalibrated, but it was too late to retreat.
Blum glanced at him, instantly irritated. “What is it, Arnold?”
“Did you think about what we discussed earlier, Mr. Blum?”
“No. I didn’t need to think about it.”
“But, Mr. Blum, no other store is going to be open on Christmas. No one goes shopping on Christmas. Everyone’s at home with their families.”
“Which, I suppose, is where you want to be.”
“Well—I mean—sure. Of course I do. Don’t you?”
“What I want or do not want is manifestly none of your business.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I just meant—”
“Your children will respect you for working hard to support them, Sprockett. You’re the breadwinner! You might remind them of that when they’re gobbling your bread.”
“Yes, okay, I see, but…could I at least have the morning? No one leaves home on Christmas morning.”
“And so you’d have nothing to do here? Is that it? Rattling around in an empty store while your children eat Christmas cookies? Is that it?””
“Well, yeah, I mean—”
“There’s a sheet posted on the stockroom wall. Tell Chief Kennis what it says.”
He shot me a pleading look but there was nothing I could do, except leave, and I needed to stay a little longer.
“It’s a list. Twenty things to do when…when there’s nothing to do.”
“Thank you. Like marking everything down for Boxing Day.”
“Right. Sure, of course.”
“And cleaning. Deep cleaning—the baseboards are filthy.”
“That’s true. I’ve been meaning to get to that.”
“Well, Christmas will be a perfect opportunity. You’ll have the store to yourself, as you just pointed out.”
“Right.”
“You’ll get a jump on the big sale.”
“Yeah.”
“So that’s settled.”
Arnold Sprockett—I put the pieces together. Jane had told me about his son.
“How is Nat doing, Arnold?’ I asked.
“I—he’s…well, we’re not really sure right now. It’s wait and see, I guess.”
“Well, send him my best. I’m sure the team misses him.”
Sprockett smiled. “Not as much as he misses the team, sir.”
“Well, let’s hope he comes back for next season. That’ll be his senior year, won’t it?”
“Yeah. That’s when the college scouts come sniffing. That’s when you find out the future.”
He looked pinched and miserable. I could tell whatever news he’d received after his son’s brutal knee injury hadn’t been good.
“Well—one future,” I said.
There was no humor in his crooked smile. “Right. One future out of many for a small-town kid with a C-plus average and a college fund paying the mortgage.”
Blum had heard enough. “Chief Kennis is looking into the missing toys. Any thoughts? Any clues?”
He shrugged. I think he was glad to change the subject. “Real crimes don’t have clues.”
“They do, actually,” I said. “We’ve solved crimes with clues as small as a cigarette butt under a bed—or a dry suede jacket.”
This caught Sprockett’s interest. “A dry suede jacket?”
“It was raining where the killer claimed to be that day. The perfect alibi, until it wasn’t.”
“So you might really catch whoever this was—who stole the toys?”
“Sure.”
“By…finding clues.”
“It’s possible.”
“That’s enough, Sprockett. I’m not paying you to socialize with the police.”
“Right—no, of course not.”
He retreated into the back of the store and Blum stepped toward me. “At the moment, none of that matters. The toys were all donated and the whole circus is my wife’s vanity project. Homer Boyce is my Santa and he’s got the suit. Joe McAveety tailored that outfit for him. Funny story. Joe took one look at Homer and said, ‘Forty-eight waist.’ Homer was shocked. ‘I wear size forty pants!’ he said. ‘These clothing companies size pants to make their customers feel better,’ Joe told him. ‘I don’t trust the label, I trust what I see. Anyway, let’s find out. The tape measure never lies.’ Joe was right, of course. Quite the wake-up call for that useless little blimp! The suit was perfect when Joe finished—a bespoke costume from a Savile Row tailor, fitted at substantial expense. Homer committed to wear it. I need to find him, and I have…” he checked his Apple watch “…less than twenty-four hours.”
“Why don’t you ask Siri?” I suggested.
“You can laugh. Until some little computer chip replaces you. They already beat us at chess and Jeopardy.”
“Well, until they can beat us at Clue, I’m not worried.”
Blum frowned. “Just find Homer, Chief Kennis.”
I tipped my head with that half-smiling eyebrows-raised inhale that serves as a shrug for the face. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Why does that not make me feel confident?”
I met his tough-guy stare. “Because you don’t know me.”
That was the best exit line I was going to find, so I gave him a mock salute and started to make my exit.
“One more thing, Chief.”
I turned at the door. “What?”
“I hear Pat Folger dug up a skeleton out in Madaket, yesterday. Any developments?”
“That’s police business, Mr. Blum. How do you even know about it?”
“David Trezize, at the Shoals? I ran into him at the post office. He was gloating about his scoop! I pointed out that The Boston Globe and The New York Times probably weren’t that interested in some bones dug up at a rural jobsite. When they started excavating for the dump back in the eighties, they found plenty of bones. It used to be Wampanoag burial ground! No one cared. I think the Herald ran a little squib about it on page ten. So David’s victory dance was a tad delusional. He beat out Yesterday’s Island! Get that boy a Pulitzer.”
Yesterday’s Island was a free paper that catered to the tourist trade. There was some good writing between the ads, but I wasn’t going to waste time defending it to Blum. I was more interested in The Shoals. “How did David know anything?”
“He has contacts on the police department. I assumed you were one of them.”
“Not this time. And whoever talked to him shouldn’t have.”
“Well, it’s bound to be in next week’s paper. So I suggest you all get your stories straight.”
I shrugged, and pushed open the door. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Blum. I’ll let you know when we find Homer.”
My first stop was his house. There’s a thin line between going missing and simply refusing to answer the door. He could be hiding out or he could be lying on his bed with a stomach full of vodka and valium. He certainly had reason to be depressed, and even more reason to avoid Jackson Blum.
Homer’s little fabric shop on Main Street—one of the last holdouts from the old Nantucket days of Buttner’s, and Robinson’s Five-and-Ten—was about to close its doors. I had never known the glory days of a more casual and rustic Nantucket, but I was very familiar with F&S Fabrics, on West Pico Boulevard in L.A., the shop on which
Homer had modeled his own. My ex-wife had bought all the material for the dresses, slip covers, and curtains she stitched together in our little Westwood condo, and we had spent many hours roaming the endless cluttered rooms, fondling bolts of Egyptian cotton and merino wool.
Homer used to brag about his store, “This is the only place on-island where you can still buy a thimble!”
No longer. That’s what Amazon is for.
Jackson Blum had purchased most of that side of Main Street from Stephen Karp and he was making Karp look like Habitat for Humanity. He doubled the already sky-high rents and demanded a fifteen percent cut of his tenants’ business. No negotiations, no splitting the difference, no grace period: put up or shut up, yes or no, you were good for the money or you were gone.
Homer couldn’t afford it, and no bank would give him a big enough loan.
So he was gone.
The store looked like a missing tooth in the jaw of Main Street right now. But a high-end jeweler from Chicago was supposedly negotiating for the space. Just what Nantucket needed—another high-end jeweler.
I pulled into Homer’s driveway off Fairgrounds Road. His old Volkswagen was nowhere to be seen. I got out, strolled around the house. The shades were down. The place had an abandoned feeling. I knocked on the door—no answer. I checked under the shingles, found a key, and let myself in. The place smelled stuffy—dust and unwashed laundry. But it was neat enough—no bodies, no signs of struggle. And no sign of the missing toys.
The rugs were vacuumed, the bed was made, the cap was on the toothpaste and the toothbrush was still damp. Homer had started out the day at home, and he still had some home-pride. Another sign: the place was warm. The furnace cycled on as I stood in the living room. The house was vacant, not uninhabited.
But Homer wasn’t hiding out here. He wasn’t traveling, either. His suitcases were stacked neatly in the bedroom closet.
I stepped back outside and replaced the key, with a smile: the shingle was marked with a scratched X—typical Nantucket home-security.
One of his neighbors, an older woman wearing a red flannel shirt under denim overalls and clutching a garden trowel, stumped around the corner of her house as I walked to my cruiser.
She hoisted the trowel. “Planting the daffodil bulbs for next year. Feels like spring! A little odd for December, but I’m not complaining.” She stuck out a glove caked with potting soil “Bessie Tarhouse, glad to meet you.”
I shook her hand. “Chief of Police Kennis.”
“I know you. Everybody knows Chief Kennis! You’re on TV, you’re in the newspaper. You’re everywhere—underfoot like knapweed. And here you are in Homer Boyce’s driveway, Mr. Big Shot Henry Kennis, all the way from Los Angeles, California! Some people say you brought the big city with you. More crime than ever since you washed ashore.”
“I hope that’s just a coincidence. The crime I’ve come across seems to be mostly homegrown.”
She shook her head, frowning. “That mad bomber fella was from away. Far away.”
“True.”
“Some kind of Southern red-neck cracker crazy. Wasn’t he?” I nodded. “Well, those boys scare me more than any Muslim I ever met! And I’ve met some.”
“I bet you have.”
“You do that. Take long odds and win some money.”
We stood quietly for a moment. A UPS truck rumbled by. “I was wondering if you’d seen Homer today.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I did. He was loading bottles and plastic and trash bags into the back of that little car of his, and he brought out his Santa suit, too.”
“He took it to the dump?”
“It sure looked that way.”
“It’s not his suit.”
“I don’t think he cares about those details, Chief. He said, ‘I’m done. This is going to bulky waste, and that’s where I belong, too.’ Check that first dumpster. You may find them both!”
I thanked her and took off. I liked the fact that Homer was talking. He might have told someone at our coyly named “Environmental Park” where he was going.
It turned out that he took the suit to the take-it-or-leave-it shed, and he did exchange a few words with Carol, the tough, funny woman who supervised the scavenger’s paradise at the far end of the landfill. The suit was gone, scooped up less than ten minutes after Homer dumped it onto the big used clothes table.
“Horst Refn took it,” she told me. “He got into a fight with two Jamaican ladies. I had to break it up, almost kicked them all out. Civil behavior mandatory—that’s the rule. We even put a sign up. I thought it should have said ‘Civil behavior appreciated,’ you know? That would have been more civil. And we’d be setting an example.”
She had the twinkle in her eye I always enjoyed.
“Horst Refn?” I asked. “The Theatre Workshop guy?”
“I guess he wanted it for the Christmas play.”
“I’ll have a talk with him after I find Homer.”
“Do you think Homer’s all right?”
“Did he not seem all right?”
“He looked like he hadn’t slept in a couple of days and when I went through the Santa suit pockets I found his wallet and his cell phone. I ran out of the shed waving them, but he was driving away. He stopped for a second and said, ‘Keep them. The phone is due for an upgrade.’ He seemed to think that was hilarious—him getting an upgrade on anything.”
“Can I take a look?”
She ducked into her shed and emerged with an old leather wallet and a Nokia flip phone. They both had a sad and battered look, as if they’d given up, along with Homer.
“I’ll get these back to him,” I said, “and figure out what’s going on.”
“Think you can help?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try.”
“Give him a little of the old Christmas spirit!”
“Sure.”
She smiled. “Maybe he’ll take the upgrade.”
I drove back to town, working through the few facts at my disposal. Wherever Homer was hunkered down, it had to be a place where he didn’t need cash, credit cards, photo ID, or an easy way to stay in touch. The Yacht Club? He was still a legacy member, though far behind on his dues. I pulled over and made a call: they hadn’t seen him since the summer. One of his friends managed the Jared Coffin House, but Homer wasn’t there and the guy knew nothing. He sounded authentically concerned. “I’ve been calling him, but it just goes to voice mail.”
Homer was a deacon at the Congregational Church; he even had a small office there. It seemed like a practical place to hunker down. There was a small kitchen in the warren the Theatre Workshop rented for costume storage and dressing rooms, though apart from church functions it was mostly used to set up snacks and coffee for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
My morning report: someone was stealing the food.
Got you, Homer.
I parked behind the church and pushed through into the cluttered backstage area. The place was deserted, though reindeer heads, bits of sleigh under construction, and other props were piled on a big central table, along with a jumble of elf costumes. I tracked through the corridors, past several rooms functioning as costume closets. I noticed the Santa suit hanging in the first of them.
Homer’s office was closed and locked.
I rapped on the door. “Homer! This is Chief Kennis. I know you’re in there. People are worried about you and we need to talk.”
“Go ’way.” His voice was muffled and slurred. I hoped he hadn’t been drinking.
“I have your phone and your wallet.”
“Keep them.”
“This is nuts. You can’t stay in there forever.”
“Long enough.”
“For what?”
“For whatever I want to do that’s none of your business.”
“If you’
re talking about committing suicide, I have the legal right to kick this door open and stop you.”
“Then I’m not.”
“Your Santa suit is hanging down the hall, in case you want to use it tomorrow.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“Let me in, Homer. This is ridiculous.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, of course not. I just want to talk.”
“Fine.”
He unlocked the door and let me push it open. He had the look of a party house on the morning after: squalid and disheveled. His hair was sticking out at all angles; he hadn’t shaved in at least a week; and his shirt was spotted with—what? Wine, grease, spittle? Maybe all of the above. I chose not to investigate. He wore socks and his big toes protruded—they had obviously cut their way out. The nails were long, yellow, and sharp. The room stank of booze, body odor, and cigarette smoke. Smoking was illegal on church property but that was the least of Homer’s problems. I thought of Blum’s mean-spirited suspicions, dismissed them as absurd. Homer was many things that morning, but a cunning thief reaping his yuletide windfall was definitely not one of them.
I looked around. He sat down on his desk.
“So what’s your plan, Homer?”
“Well, since you asked…I’ll be drinking vodka, smoking American Spirits, writing hate mail about Blum to the Inky Mirror and repeat-dialing Alan’s number until he picks up. With time out for naps and bathroom breaks.”
I picked a topic out of the verbal mess, lifted it with two fingers. “I thought you and Alan were solid.”
“So did I.”
“But…”
“He lost thirty pounds, spent most of my money on a new wardrobe from the Ralph Lauren store, and ditched me for some pretty boy who shall remain nameless. Armand Flynn. Ooops.”
“That won’t last.”
“And I suppose he’ll come crawling back?”
“He might.”
“Let him try.”
“You might want to grab a shower and a shave, just in case.”
“I don’t think so. He’s not coming back. Why would he? I lost my store. Which means I lost my job. I’m losing my mind! I’d walk out on me. I wish I could. Does that sound like suicide talk again? Don’t worry, Chief, I’m way too much of a coward for that. Another attractive trait for my grindr profile.”
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