The Twelve Gauge of Christmas
P.A. Gardinali
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 P.A. Gardinali
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I scratched my beard. It felt like two days growth, but it was more likely four. And here I was again, on Christmas Day. The ranking brass that should have normally rushed to something like this were too busy with their families and celebrations. Luckily for them, I no longer had a right to any of that. I looked around the room. People moved in and out, doing their job, performing the last rites, talking on their cell phones, taking pictures and notes, all while stepping carefully around the body.
It was the old bastard, all right; laying by the fireplace, contorted in an unnatural pose. The streaks of blood ran down from the mantelpiece, which he had likely grabbed in a desperate escape attempt. The blood pooled around his body, seeping through the seventies shaggy carpet. Bright red on dark, quite festive, if you ask me, but still in the back of my throat I felt the acid souvenir of the scotch I had liberally used to wash Christmas night away.
The radio crowed some nonsense. One of the CSI guys, Dave something, murmured a curse under his breath, digging around with tweezers in the wooden mantelpiece. Looked like everyone was in a foul mood today. Except me, of course. I hadn’t been expecting anything at all: not this Christmas, not any of the recent ones. And a big fat nothing I received. So it was all good. I repeated my mantra to myself, since no one else seemed to be paying attention. “Set your expectations low enough, and you’ll never be disappointed.”
I took some additional notes on a legal pad, and drew a quick sketch of the room, the position of the corpse, arrows pointing to possible evidence and other relevant details. Just something to make writing the report a little less painful later that night, when I’d be lubricating the end of the workday with abundant coffee and why not, another scotch and water or three. One thing I was already sure of: no amount of detail would have explained the motive of this bloody mess.
Wrapped in red and white and sprawled on the floor, the body looked like a leftover macabre decoration from a previous holiday, except it was all too real: the putrid smell, the sunken cheeks, the protruding tongue. His wide-open eyes, looked like they caught in extremis a glimpse of some divine revelation. The CSI had found the pockets of the red outfit to be empty, but there was no doubt he was the real thing. When you are Santa Claus, you don’t need to show your ID. You usually don’t get shot down either. Who would want to off Santa, of all people? Who could even do a thing like that? And why here, in this abandoned house, just one of the innumerable repossessed suburban homes that filled the valley between the two major highways? Why would the old man even stop here? Shouldn't he have been busy enough moving presents around, sliding down chimneys, delivering the goods to inhabited places making all those expectant children happy with endless copies of whatever tech gizmo the marketers had decreed to be the must-have gift of this season?
I looked around. The original carpet had been steam cleaned, giving it the color and appearance of cooked squid. The room had CorianTM countertops in the kitchen mounted over obviously repainted cabinets, recessed lights, one of them crooked. Looked like an attempt at quick’n’dirty remodeling to resell that place and make some dough. Bad timing, of course, to say nothing of the craftsmanship. The bedrooms still had the wallpaper wrapping of days gone by. I walked out to the patio, where a rusty gas BBQ sat there, not far from the pool, bolted to the cracked concrete. Above my head some poorly constructed, unfinished woodworking project threatened to fall on me and completely ruin the day. It looked like an attempt at a balcony, or a sun deck of some sort. Amateurs. The water in the pool was green and slimy, completely opaque. It stank like a dead fish, and as the day progressed it would just get worse. I closed the patio door, crossed the dining room back to the bloody scene of the crime. Great corner lot, pool, a couple of strategic remodeling cues, hell, I could have flipped that place easily, and done the job right. Back when times were good, I’d take on projects like this during weekends and after-hours. Now, all I had left was a mountain of debt and not even enough cash to pay the rent of my shitty studio with great views of a 405 off-ramp.
On a day like this, back when times were good, my kids would be running around the Christmas tree in their PJs, Janice would make French toast for everyone, and... I shook my head, “Get rid of it,” I told myself, “get rid of it right now.” I needed to catch some air. “Does anyone have any coffee?” I asked, to no one in particular.
“Here!” said CSI Dave, who was finally able to extract something with the tweezers, and was holding the prize up to the light, “double ought,” he added before dropping it in a ziplock bag. “Coffee is in the thermos, Thompson, help yourself.”
“Thank you, you are a gentleman and a scholar, Dave.”
*
Earlier there had been a confused, early-morning 911 call from a neighbor, actually the last one left there on Rovaniemi Circle. He had talked about shots being fired a couple of houses away. I spoke to him in front of his house, the middle one in the cul-de-sac. The guy there had told his kids that the noise was probably from the clomping of the hooves of the reindeers on his worn out shake roof. He looked like an average Joe, circles under his eyes cut deep from one too many sleepless nights. His kids had run downstairs, only to find the milk and cookies untouched, and the area around the tree as empty as they had left it the night before
“Daddy,” the little one had asked, grabbing his father’s sweatpants, “is Santa here yet?”
“Sure, he’s coming later today. Go play back in the house.”
We were silent for a few seconds, looking at the kid sauntering back into the house. The garage door was open, taped cardboard boxes completely filled the space.
“I knew they were actually shots, so I called the police. No one is left on this street... I got a little worried. I really wanted to have Christmas here, you know, we’re supposed to clear out by the end of the day.”
“On Christmas Day?”
“Well, we are really past due, the bank just gave us one more day because of the Holiday.”
I turned around, looked at the sun, finally clearing the rooftops at the end of the cul-de-sac. If the man was looking for a shoulder to cry on, I definitely wasn’t offering.
“Doesn’t even feel like Christmas, does it?” I asked him.
I walked out the main door, sipping lukewarm coffee from Dave’s plastic thermos cap. The woman was still in the car, talking animatedly on her cell. She saw me coming out, murmured something into the phone, her eyes making contact with mine. She hung up, got out of her Accord, and slammed the door with impatience. She was young, but walked funny, like she wasn’t used getting around on her feet.
“Look, how much longer do I have to wait? I have a long list of properties to visit.”
I had completely forgotten that the REO agent was there waiting. Corinna something. She had been the one to find the body, earlier, before the dispatcher had been able to contact anyone close to the scene.
I hesitated. “Look, why don’t I take some quick notes, and you come downtown later for a statement?”
She nodded. She was actually kind of cute, in a cold, non-committal way.
“What were you doing here on Christmas morning anyway? Isn’t it an odd time to look at properties?”
“Yeah, well, things do slow down during the holiday season... But that’s also when the squatters move in. We have to check them all, every day.”
I looked at the cracked glass pane in one of the front windows of the house. I could see the flowery motif of the disheveled wallpaper from where I was standing. “I wonder how much worse squatters could really make it.”
“It’s the principle, you know? And that’s what the agency is paying me for, anyway.”
“Ever owned a shotgun?”
She frowned. “So now I am a suspect, because I called the cops?”
“Nah, just need to ask the questions, that’s all. Look just don’t leave town for the holidays or anything, and you’ll need to come in later for a statement.”
“I have no plans to leave. I work for a living, you know.”
I raised my hand in a peace sign, took down her data, and gave her an appointment for the afternoon. Before I raised my eyes from my writing pad she was already driving away, straight into the sun.
I shielded my face, watching her turn, and black spots started to appear. I rubbed my eyes, but the spots just got larger. Then the air started to resonate with the paddle-spanking of propellers. News choppers coming from Los Angeles, like the four knights of the apocalypse. I almost expected to hear the Ride of the Valkyries booming from loudspeakers. Instead it was the Handel Messiah’ Hallelujah. My phone. I’m funny like that.
“Thompson.”
“Yeah?”
“Look, I’m sorry to call you on a Holiday...”
“I don’t care, I’m working. What’s up Samrath?”
“Well, we got wind of something, and you guys might be involved...”
“We guys can’t hear for shit because of the noise your choppers are making.”
“We’re just following Channel 7. Is it what I think it is?”
“Probably worse. What do you think it is?”
“We know it’s about the guy in red. We think he went on a rampage or something.”
“Close, but no cigar.”
“But you do know something.”
“I’m mere yards from the body.”
“What’s it gonna take, Thompson?”
“Let’s start with information.”
“I can’t tell you who the leak is, if that’s what you mean, I don’t even know for sure. We just got a lead, sent our chopper after the competition.”
“Couldn’t care less. I want to know why you thought the old guy could have gone postal. What do you have on him?”
“If I tell you, you’ll give me coordinates? Exclusive content? Maybe an interview?”
“Maybe even more than that. Spit.”
He hesitated a bit, heard him whispering something, then for a while, that underwater feeling you get when somebody presses a hand on the receiver.
“Thompson?”
“Still here.”
“Alright, I’m gonna play nice, but I’m expecting the goods later, ok?”
I made the necessary reassuring noises.
“What I can tell you is that there are quite a few people unhappy with the guy on the West Coast this morning. We keep getting calls...”
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Let’s just say that your callers should not expect jack shit for the time being.”
“So he is...”
“Shut up and listen: I need a line on the guy, known enemies, ex-wives, gossip, any dirt you have, really.”
Samrath chuckled. “Dirt was all we had. Until now, at least. Wild rumors have been going on for quite a while about the guy being close to Chapter 11. Chinese kids are said to be making gifts for everyone else in the world, paid via some screwy Ponzi scheme, so the kids themselves would not get paid, but just move up the list and get the promise of presents for the following Christmas. Which of course never happens as he moves on to the next crew of underage workers.”
“This can’t be true.”
“We have our sources. Look, if what you are not telling me is what I think, we’ll better start re-planning the day’s broadcast, start calling some advertisers, I mean, after all people might actually need to buy the stuff they didn’t get this time around. We are talking serious cash here.”
“How can you think about money at a time like this? It’s your job and all, but it’s Santa we are talking about.” I was starting to get impatient. The load he had dropped had dug a hole in my sense of the case.
“Well, I really never believed in the guy, really.”
“Right. Thanks a lot. Just call me then, when your Kali ends up mutilated or something.”
“I’m Sikh, not a Hindu, Thompson. And last I heard, she can take care of herself quite effectively, thank you very much. How soon can you give me some information?”
“Soon,” I said, and hung up.
I breathed deeply. All this pointed in too many different directions. If it was even partially true, who would not want to whack the old bastard? Yet, I wasn’t convinced. Sure, missing gifts, wailing babies, and no power tools for Daddy. But taking up arms to shoot holes in the holiest of the holy in the middle of Christmas night... No, I knew very well that it took more than simple disappointment. A lot more. Or else I would have become a serial killer quite a while back.
*
The choppers were finally above us, and I hurried back into the house. Cars and photographers would soon arrive, and we needed to take the usual precautionary measures, yellow tape, holy water and all that. The next thirty minutes were almost unbearable as we prepared to withstand the siege of the media. For once I was relieved when the Chief Sanchez arrived in person, getting out of an unmarked car. He put his mitre back on, pressing it down to completely hide his conspicuous bald spot and did not look the happier for it.
The helicopters were hovering right above the house, chopping the still air of the day into bits and making enough noise to shake my dental fillings. The neighbors, who had been dragging boxes, suitcases, and assorted plastic bags out to a U-Haul, stood there, dazed, looking up at the sky, the little kid hugging his teddy bear just a little bit tighter.
“You are off the hook,” the Chief shouted, holding down the mitre against the wind from the propellers, “and don’t talk to anyone, I’m handling this. Just go back and write your report.”
I had never been happier to hear that order. I made a serious face and nodded twice. A crowd of reporters had occupied the front of the house, and the Chief turned to face them, two fingers drawing the sign of the cross in the air for the ritual blessing. Flashes went off like grenades, pointed microphones, shouted questions. The assault had begun. I recognized Samrath’ turban, I made a phone sign with my hand, pushed through the crowd heading for my car, then bailed as fast as I could.
*
I turned on the radio, some AM station, I didn’t really pay attention to the mindless chatter, just used it to offset the contrasting arguments in my head. Stuff like this didn’t usually happen here, and especially not during my shift. Sure, we had the occasional poltergeist phenomenon; lots of housing tracts were built over Native grave sites. Those blessed people used to bury their elders all over the place, really, but we’d track down and fine the developer, then contact the local tribal leaders, have them send out someone to perform the necessary rituals. Big scares, some damaged appliances, but seldom anyone got injured, let alone a deity of any sort. This was Southern California, after all, we didn’t have the problems other places had, no werewolves, no sasquatch lurking in the woods or herds of possessed buffalos roaming the prairies. And nothing like the random voudoun manifestation from down in the Gulf region. All the new agers who moved here in the nineties made this a pretty safe place. I mean, there are always creative ways to get injured with crystals, but one doesn’t usually call the authorities over that.
As much as I tried to avoid it, I kept thinking about the motive of the
bloody, senseless killing in the house. No, this wasn’t about money. Other passions were at play here. Sure, the idea of a psycho with a shotgun was an easy explanation. But how would he even catch the old guy? Kids had forever been waiting just to see him, and were rarely able to steal but a glance of the man in red. After all, he had lots of crap to deliver in such a short time. He had to be damn fast, if you ask me. No, the way he was killed looked more like a mafia-style execution, save for the shotgun. I It was hard to imagine those guys with a big twelve gauge hidden under their pinstripe jackets. No, there was something else, something in the fury of the crime— shooting an old man in the back... Some other passion had been guiding that armed set of hands. Cherchez la femme? Yeah, right, like that would apply to a guy who walks around wearing gaudy red and works surrounded by young elves. Or used to, at least.
I realized I didn’t even know where I was headed, beyond away from the scene of the crime. I drove through the hypnotic sequence of strip malls, apartment buildings, empty lots filled with garbage. It was hot now, and I lowered the windows, and it felt inconsequential, given the season, like the random lines of a half forgotten poem from my school days. The traffic was a little less stop and go than usual, and the smog cloud above the city, a little less yellow. The weak sun, still low on the horizon, would peek through the overcast skies to make objects stand out a little too sharply, then disappeared again painting everything with the color of disappointment.
This place was once named after the thousands of trees that used to fill the fertile valleys and line the soft and sensual hillsides above. Now it was lot after lot of homes, condos, gated communities. Los Angeles had swallowed the area whole. Other people thought LA was a place, but I knew better, it was a form of urban cancer affecting Southern California. And I had helped to spread it, even thought I’d make some money off it. But it was never like that, the earnings from a flip-job would disappear in the black hole of previous debts and liabilities, interest, supplies, saving my own home from foreclosure, and what about the next deal, where would the money for that come from? I needed to clear my head, bury the bad memories deep inside. On the radio, someone was already talking about the case. Some talk-show host.
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