Holiday Grind

“Not again!”

“The shoebox!”

The box o’ kitten poo was nested in its own lid. I picked up the stinky square of cardboard, peeled the lid off its bottom and capped the box shut.

Matt held the thing at arm’s length. (I didn’t blame him.)

“Give me a five-minute head start before you call in the law,” he said, then slipped out of the apartment, the jingle-jingle-jingles of Frothy’s Santa cat pillow diminishing as he disappeared down the building’s hallway.

I hoped no one would notice Matt leaving the place, but I did realize that a hunky guy in a tux, carrying a tinkling cat carrier in one hand and a stinky box of cat crap in the other might be too much for even jaded New Yorkers to ignore.

With five minutes to wait, I decided to keep my gloves on and poke around the dead man’s apartment. The bedrooms had been tossed already. But the killer hadn’t had time to ransack the living room.

Could there be some kind of lead here?

I checked the answering machine. All the messages had been deleted. I looked for a computer, but all I found was a printer and an adapter cord. I suspected there had been a laptop here, but the killer had taken it.

After five minutes, I came up with zip, so I dug out my mobile phone to call the police. When I saw the mailbox icon on my cell’s screen, I realized I’d missed a call. I’d forgotten to take the cell off its vibrator setting. Worried it might be Matt needing more time, I quickly played it. The message wasn’t from my ex-husband but my ex-mother-in-law.

“Hello, dear, I didn’t want to tell (static) while Ben Tower (static) , so I waited until...”

Reception was lousy, so I moved closer to the window to improve the signal. As I did, I brushed against the plastic dry-cleaning bag holding the Santa costume. The slippery plastic slithered onto the floor, taking the adjacent overcoat with it. That’s when I noticed a white envelope peeking out of the coat’s pocket. There was something familiar about the Santa Claus postage stamp in the corner.

Forgetting Madame’s message, I stooped down and carefully slipped the envelope free. As the typed name Omar Linford revealed itself, the hairs on my skin began to prickle. I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter.

Dear Omar: I have a new proposition for you. If you care about your son’s future, you will read every word of this note and do what it says. I know all about Junior Linford’s little hobbies...

Oh my God. I’d found the note blackmailing Omar Linford—the one someone had tossed me off the ferry to get. Now I knew who that someone was.

“Karl Kovic, you son of a—”

I shook my head, at last putting it all together... After I’d left Shelly Glockner’s house, she must have rushed to the back yard, where Esther noticed Kovic going out to the Jacuzzi. Then Kovic watched and waited until I left Linford’s place. He followed me onto the ferry, grabbed my bag, and threw me into water with a temperature a tad chillier than Shelly’s hot tub.

Gritting my teeth with fury, I grabbed a pen and piece of scrap paper from my bag and scribbled down the series of bank account numbers at the end of the note. I was willing to bet the account was a joint one controlled by Alf and Shelly Glockner—giving her access to the money as soon as Omar deposited it.

I’m sure she and Karl went behind Alf’s back. But... did they kill Alf, too?

That part didn’t make a lot of sense. Killing Alf would screw up their plan, wouldn’t it? Alf was their fall guy in case Omar went to the FBI. Why kill him?

I remembered the life insurance money, but that didn’t seem to fit, either. They could have waited until they got the payoff from Omar—unless he already told Alf he wasn’t going to pay and they became desperate...

The permutations were making my head hurt, and it didn’t address the question of who killed Karl, either. Would Shelly have done something like that? If she had, why would she have to ransack the apartment? Wouldn’t she have sweet-talked Karl out of whatever she wanted, and then killed him?

I tried making Omar Linford the villain here—but that didn’t seem to fit, either. If the point was to kill Karl because of his threat to go to the police about Junior Linford, then the deed was done. Why ransack the apartment? For the note, maybe? It would be incriminating, showing a motive for Linford to have murdered Karl and Alf. But then why would Omar have admitted to me that he was being blackmailed in the first place?

I shook my head, still unable to put it all together. The bank account numbers were a good lead, though, and I took care in refolding the note and returning it to Karl’s coat.

With a deep breath, I finally placed the call to 911 and reported the murder. I told the dispatcher I’d wait for the police and ended the call. While I listened for the sirens, however, I suddenly remembered Madame’s recorded message and replayed the thing—

“Hello, dear. I didn’t want to tell you this while Ben Tower was listening, so I waited until I poured him into a cab. My goodness, when someone else is footing the bar bill, that man can drink like Moby Dick!”

No surprise there.

“Anyway! Tower told me one more thing about the man you mentioned—Karl—sorry, dear, I can’t remember the last name. I don’t know if this will help at all, but near the end of our time together, Tower kept saying Karl’s got something big coming. The payoff was going to put him in another tax bracket; that’s how Tower put it, anyway. He said Dickie Celebratorio was involved, although I didn’t get the impression Dickie was the center of this scandal, just a part of it.”

Dickie?

“You recognize Dickie’s name, don’t you, dear? He’s that big party planner, a real PR king. Mr. Dewberry says Dickie knows all the celebrities and politicians. He helps them out, does favors for them, and they attend his promo galas, benefits, and openings in return. Very high-profile man. Tower wouldn’t tell me what kind of scandal Karl had discovered or who it actually involved. Frankly, I don’t think he even knew the details, but he said Karl was sure one of Tower’s tabloid clients would pay big for the story and photos...”

I frowned, hearing that new lead, suddenly wishing I’d waited to call 911. With sirens already wailing in the distance, I had little time to search anew based on Madame’s call. What could I possibly find that could help me in just a few minutes? I glanced around, considered the Santa costume and then realized—

The coat. Of course!

I’d found the blackmail letter in Karl’s left coat pocket. Why stop there? Frantically, I went through the rest of Karl’s pockets. I dug out change, a Metro card, some throat lozenges, and... a folded scrap of paper.

The sirens were much louder now, only a few blocks away. I quickly unfolded the paper scrap. Read the barely legible scrawl—

6 PM $$$ Dickie. Watch for CC.

The note had a date on it, too. Today’s date! I checked my wristwatch. It was almost six thirty. I smiled with triumph, despite the tragic circumstances. If anyone else read this note, I doubted they’d have a clue what it meant. But I’d been on this case for days now and I knew—

Karl was blackmailing someone and Dickie Celebratorio was either involved in the scandal or acting as some kind of go-between. At six today, presumably at his own apartment, Karl was supposed to meet someone to hand over something (probably digital photo or video files) in exchange for money. But there was no exchange. Something went wrong and Karl was murdered. Or—

Karl was simply set up for a cold-blooded execution. And, according to the note in his pocket, the person who set him up was “Dickie.”

Outside, the sirens finally stopped wailing. Loud voices were shouting on the street below.

I’m out of time.

I put everything back in Karl’s coat pockets and then read the note one last time, trying to think everything through. That’s when it hit me. Those words: Watch for CC.

“CC,” I whispered, my flesh turning cold. “Clare Cosi.”