“Well, Detective, I personally didn’t have much actual contact with Mr. Beringer, but his secretary, Grace Masterson will probably be able to give you all of the information that you need,” was the smooth reply. The receptionist seemed to be without guile, although his tone seemed to be laced with something – contempt perhaps? – when he spoke Grace’s name.
“I see,” Chas nodded. “Is Ms. Masterson here today?”
“Yes, she’s been contacting clients to inform them of our unfortunate circumstances. If you’d care to have a seat, I’ll notify her that you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
Chas sat down in a sleek chrome chair and pulled out his phone, pretending to check his messages while actually listening to the receptionist. There was nothing unusual about the manner in which he spoke to the woman on the other end of the phone, and within moments, a door which clearly led to the inner sanctum, swung open.
“Detective?” the polished young blonde approached him, extending her perfectly manicured hand. “I’m Grace Masterson.”
“Chas Beckett. Can we sit down and talk for a bit?”
“Certainly. Please, come with me,” she turned and moved back toward the door, leaving the faintest trace of expensive perfume in her wake.
Instead of stopping at what was clearly a secretary’s desk in front of Arthur Beringer’s office suite, Grace Cameron entered the suite itself, seating herself in her deceased boss’s leather chair, and indicating that Chas should sit in one of the club chairs across the desk from her. The forensics team from the police department had combed through the suite earlier in the day, and were still processing items that had been secured, but there was no telltale mess left behind, the grand suite was immaculate, and had incredible views of the beach.
“How can I help?” she asked coolly, folding her hands in front of her on the desk.
“Since you worked very closely with Mr. Beringer, I would assume that if he’d been in conflict with anyone in a business setting that you’d know about it, is that correct?”
“Yes, of course. I monitor activity on all accounts and am often present in his meetings and negotiations,” Grace nodded gravely.
“And has there been any conflict that you’re aware of?”
The secretary cut her eyes to the left, but shook her head. “Not in his business dealings, no.”
“What about personal?” Chas probed, keeping his tone neutral.
“Well, there was a ridiculous thing that blew up between Arthur and the piano teacher who wanted to be Santa Claus,” Grace offered, rolling her eyes. “It was so silly. It means so much to him to be able to give back to the community by playing the role of Santa. There was an honest competition, which he won fairly, and the other gentleman was just irrationally irate about it.”
“Were there any specific instances where the two men interacted after the competition?”
“No, not that I know of. Mr. Samuels just threw a tantrum after the voting was announced.”
“He alleges that the contest was rigged. You wouldn’t happen to know why he’d say something like that, would you?”
Grace’s eyes flicked down to the desktop momentarily. “No, I’m sure I wouldn’t. Sounds like sour grapes to me,” she shrugged delicately.
“How was your boss’s family life?”
The secretary stared at him for a moment, seeming offended. “It’s not something that he discussed with me, but as far as I know, everything was picture perfect. What are you really asking, Detective?” she raised an imperious eyebrow at him.
“Just covering all the bases. Tragedies like this are often the result of some sort of domestic situation,” Chas stared her down.
“Well, I’m certain that that wasn’t the case,” she pressed her lips together in disapproval. “Arthur was a hardworking man who lived a good, stable life. He didn’t deserve this, and I would hope that you don’t offend his grieving widow by suggesting that something was amiss at home.”
The detective eased back in his chair and gazed at the secretary thoughtfully. “Barbara Beringer wasn’t at all offended when I went through the standard questioning process with her,” he mused.
“Thank goodness for that. The poor dear has been through enough already,” Grace murmured.
“Are the two of you close?”
“No. But I can only imagine that this must be heartbreaking.”
“Indeed,” Chas stood to go. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Masterson. I may check back with you in the near future if any other questions pop up.”
“If you could call ahead for an appointment, that would be great,” she smiled tightly. “I’m trying to keep up with quite an extensive client list on my own, so my time is limited.”
“I understand,” Chas nodded. “I’ll see myself out.”
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
Thirteen year old Destiny meandered her way through downtown Calgon, taking in all of the sights and sounds of the unfamiliar city, until she found herself in the parking lot that had been the final destination for the parade floats that were a part of the competition a few days ago. The crime scene cleanup crew had done a pretty good job of eradicating the blood from the scene, but if one knew where to look, there were still faint stains marring the pavement. She wandered around and around the stains, thinking, her brain whirling with questions. Standing beside the largest stain, where Arthur Beringer’s blood had pooled under the flatbed, she slowly turned in a circle, surveying a radius of the immediate area. When she spotted a stand of trees that had low bushes and plants concealing their bases, she moved toward them, scanning the ground in front of her as she went.
Destiny circled around behind the clump of trees and looked toward the staging area. Her view was obscured, so she shimmied in between two large bushes and found herself in a hidden pocket of shrubbery, where she couldn’t be seen easily, but where she had a perfect view of the staging area.
“They stood here, I bet,” she murmured, gazing toward the crime scene and remembering the horrific display she’d seen there. “They waited here to kill Santa.”
The intelligent and inquisitive young lady scanned the ground at her feet and noticed two things; one, some kind of candy wrapper, and the other, a strange appearance to the top layer of sand. It was crumbly, almost as though it had been dug up and smoothed over. Curious, she took a tissue out of her pocket and picked up the candy wrapper, which was the yellow cellophane type typically used to cover butterscotch disks. Putting the wrapper in her pocket, being careful not to touch it, she knelt in front of the crumbled earth at her feet and used a stick to do a bit of digging. The stick snagged on something below the surface of the loose sand, and she carefully swept the sand away to reveal a coil of something. There was a glint that suggested the coil was metallic, and, not wanting to come into contact with something that might be dangerous, she took a photo of the coil with her phone, then swept the sand back over it, her heart pounding. Before standing up, she glanced around, feeling suddenly that she might have stumbled upon something scary, but important. Seeing no one nearby, she slipped from behind the tree and headed back toward downtown, where she curled up on a loveseat in Echo’s book store and sent Missy a text.
**
Dolores, Evan and Destiny Crandall each carried two bags of groceries back to the RV park on the edge of town. The family had walked to a supermarket a couple of miles away to purchase items for their stay in Calgon, and chattered happily all the way home, excited at the prospect of spending the holidays in the lovely beach town. Their first clue that something was amiss was when they arrived back at their site and saw the door of the RV slightly ajar. Destiny’s parents exchanged a look and Evan handed his bags of groceries to his wife.
“Stay here,” he said in a low voice, walking slowly toward the RV.
When he got to the vehicle, he tried to peek in the crack of the door, but the interior was dark, so he couldn’t see anything. Setting his jaw, he yanked the door open, fl
ooding the main living area with sunlight. Dolores gasped, seeing the shambles inside from where she stood with her daughter.
“Be careful,” she called out to her husband, worried.
Someone had ransacked their normally spotless home. The cabinets in the kitchen were all open, and the contents strewn across the countertop. The drawers were pulled out and overturned on the floor, and every item that could be moved had been tossed about with seeming abandon. Dolores and Destiny made their way to the RV after Evan came out, shaking his head.
“Who would do such a thing?” Dolores’ voice shook, as tears threatened.
“This doesn’t look random,” Evan replied grimly. “It looks as though someone was looking for something. As far as I can tell, nothing was even stolen.”
“Did you check the bank box?” his wife whispered.
“Yeah. It wasn’t discovered. Everything is still in there,” he assured her.
“This is my fault,” Destiny murmured, her lower lip quivering.
Both parents fell silent and turned to stare at her.
“Oh honey,” her mother finally spoke. “This couldn’t possibly be your fault. You were at the store with us,” she pulled her daughter into a hug.
Miserable, Destiny pulled away and bit her lip, trying not to cry.
“No, someone saw me…that has to be what happened,” she shook her head.
“Pumpkin, you’re not making a whole lot of sense right now,” Evan observed with a puzzled frown.
“I’m sorry Daddy. I was just trying to help. I went back to the parking lot where they found Santa dead, and I started looking around to see if I could figure out what might have happened.”
“Well, I’m sure a bunch of people walk through that parking lot every day. Why would someone single you out?” Dolores asked, her eyes tight at the corners.
“Because I found some things…”
**
The forensic tech leaned on his metal detector, frustrated.
“Detective, I’m sorry, but it seems like you must’ve gotten a bad tip. The soil was clearly disturbed recently, but there’s nothing buried here. We dug a two foot radius at least sixteen inches deep, and I’m not even getting a blip on the detector.”
“Then they did see her,” Chas mused, more to himself than to the tech.
“Beg your pardon?”
Chas shook his head. “Nothing. Just thinking through some things. Thanks for trying. You guys can pack it up, it looks like we’re done here.”
The detective gazed around the area, looking for something, anything, that might yield another clue, when his cell phone buzzed with a text. It was from one of the officers who was investigating the break-in and vandalism.
We found a candy wrapper. The kid thinks that it’s significant.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
“Thought I might find you here,” Izzy said softly, approaching Spencer as he sat on the beach, arms around his knees, staring out at the ocean.
“Hey,” he greeted her, not even bothering to fake a smile.
“You okay?” she asked, her tone colored with compassion.
She couldn’t help it. Spencer might not trust her enough to have a relationship with her, but that didn’t mean that her feelings had changed. She’d tried dating other people to get her mind off of him, and the results had been so disastrous that she took down her online profile and gave up.
Spencer didn’t reply to her gentle question, which deepened her concern.
“Spence?” she tried again, feeling utterly helpless.
“No, Iz, I’m not okay,” he said quietly, not turning to look at her.
“Can I help?”
“No,” his answer was soft.
“If you want to talk…” she began.
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” he finally turned, the pain in his eyes searing her heart. “My whole adult life has been programmed, mapped out, and orderly…until now. Now I feel like I have no purpose. It’s not a good feeling. It takes me to a dark place. The man whom I’ve been protecting for years thinks there’s a chance I might have murdered a Santa Claus. Do you have any idea how that feels? I’ve put my life on the line time and again for Chas and his family and he never even knew it. He never had to deal with danger because I always stood between him and those who would harm him. And now I’m a suspect,” he finished bitterly, his cobalt eyes stormy.
“I thought you were a person of interest,” Izzy commented, trying to make him feel better.
“Let’s not split hairs here. The suspicion is the point. What does a man have to do to prove himself?” Spencer shook his head and stared back out at the ocean.
“I don’t think that Chas thinks that you…” the heartbroken author began.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” the Marine cut her off. “It’s not like it matters anyway.”
Izzy’s heart dropped to her stomach. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” she whispered.
“Forget it,” he dismissed her, a muscle in his jaw flexing.
“Spencer, I’m worried about you,” a single tear tracked down her cheek.
“Don’t. I don’t need that hanging over my head, too,” he muttered, standing up and brushing the sand from the back of his board shorts.
“Where are you going?” she asked, alarmed.
“What difference does it make?” he churned his way through the sand at a fast clip, not bothering to turn around.
Izzy dropped her head and cried, unable to watch him walk away yet again.
**
“The obvious conclusion would be that the coil of wire was piano wire,” Chas sighed, staring at the printout that he’d made of the picture on Destiny’s phone. “Which would point toward Seth Samuels being the murderer, but we still haven’t determined what sort of blunt instrument was used to knock Arthur Beringer out.”
The detective had a habit of talking through the details of a case in order to try to figure out how the various pieces of the puzzle fit together, and he was coming up with quite a lot of mismatches on this particular case. He spun around in his baseball-glove leather chair, staring up at the ceiling while he thought, fingers tented under his chin.
“So, the next logical thing to do would be to search Seth Samuels’ house for a blunt instrument.”
Chas got on the phone to place a call securing a warrant, and hoped that someday Spencer would forgive him for having to question him. The young man had been sullen and non-communicative when he was released, which distressed the detective to no end. Chas Beckett knew full well that the Marine was a man of utmost integrity, and he trusted him fully, but he’d had to follow procedure when physical evidence which potentially linked him to a crime had been uncovered.
The detective re-read the coroner’s report, paying particular attention to the drawings referring to damage caused by a blunt instrument. Tim Eckels’ conclusion in that regard was that, to the best of his knowledge, it appeared that the victim had suffered a blow by something flat, with rounded corners. The impression was somewhat like one that would be made by a rowing oar, but didn’t quite fit the profile. Something seemed familiar about the sketch of the impression, but Chas couldn’t seem to put his finger on it. At least he knew that he’d be looking for something flat with a rounded end. It wasn’t much, but it was at least something. He’d also be looking for candies wrapped in yellow cellophane.
**
“What now, Detective?” Seth Samuels sighed when he opened the door to his tiny ranch home and saw Chas.
“I have a warrant to search your house. Are you going to let me in, or do we have to do this the hard way?” the detective asked reasonably.
“Wow, there’s no need to get snitty. I have nothing to hide,” Seth shrugged, flinging the door open wide with decidedly sarcastic flair.
The furnishings in the home were worn, but clean, and there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. A television, sitting atop an end table from the seventies, had a game show
playing, with the volume subdued. A TV tray, with Samuels’ dinner, a formerly frozen piece of pale lasagna, with a side of green beans, had been placed in front of the sofa.
“You mind?” he gestured at his dinner.
“No, go ahead. Just don’t try to leave the house,” Chas warned.
“Don’t worry, I don’t exactly have a lot of social obligations at the moment,” Seth muttered.
“Good. I’ll let you know if I need you.”
“Can’t wait.”
Chas ignored the comment, and headed first for the garage, which was even more spartan than the house. Aside from a pristine workbench, some yard tools and a lawnmower, the garage was entirely empty and devoid of character. There was nothing that looked even remotely like it could’ve made the impression in Beringer’s skull, so the detective went back into the house.
He went through every cabinet in the kitchen and laundry room, then headed down the hall toward the tiny bathroom and two bedrooms. The bathroom yielded nothing, although Chas paused for a moment when he saw a pipe wrench under the sink. When he measured the jaws of it though, it was clear that the tool was too small to have done the damage to Arthur’s head. Moving on to the bedrooms, the detective checked first in the small master bedroom, digging through the nearly empty closet, checking under the bed and between the mattresses and finding nothing.
When Chas backed out from under the bed, Seth Samuels was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, an amused look on his face. The detective sneezed.
“Pretty dusty under there,” Chas commented.
“I don’t spend much time under the bed,” Seth drawled.
“I don’t blame you. This dust is getting to me,” he coughed behind his hand. “You wouldn’t happen to have any throat lozenges, would you?”
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