Holiday Grind

Last night, a purring Frothy even curled up next to my bigger, older Java at the foot of my bed. But this morning, I found Java tinkling all over Santa’s embroidered sleigh.

“I don’t think Java liked the smell of this thing,” I said, “but then it did come from a strange apartment...” (With a dead guy in it, but I left that part out.) “I’ll give it a good soaking in strong soap, wash it out—that should do the trick.”

“What can I do? Make coffee?”

“Not here. You can start opening downstairs, though. Our bakery delivery guy should be here in the next half hour.”

“No problem, Mom. I’ll take care of it.” Smiling, Joy grabbed the coffeehouse keys off the table in the hall. “See you downstairs!”

I searched Frothy’s pillow for a zipper, planning to soak the inside and covering separately. But there was no zipper, just a tear in the fabric that had been closed with a safety pin. I unclipped it, and a flat, green, oval-shaped capsule clattered onto the tile floor—

What the heck is this?

I picked up the little green capsule and realized it was a flash drive, a portable computer storage device. It looked just like the flash drives I used to back up my laptop data. I put the device on the sink and searched the kitty pillow until I was satisfied it would yield no more secrets. Then I washed my hands and hurried down to the computer inside my small office on the second floor of the Blend.

I plugged the flash drive into my computer. It contained a single folder labeled CC.

“CC again?” I whispered. “Me? Clare Cosi?”

Uneasily, I opened the folder and a series of thumbnail images appeared, dated and arranged in progression.

“Macy’s Thanksgiving’s Day Parade?” I murmured, confused.

I clicked through pictures of the parade marching by an Upper West Side apartment building. Then I stopped and stared at a close-up of a man. The man’s face was familiar to me—and millions of other American women.

Oh my God. The “CC” in the note I’d found—the one in Karl Kovic’s coat pocket—it didn’t stand for Clare Cosi! It stood for this handsome TV celebrity who was laughing with an attractive young woman, one who was clearly not his wife.

The next image was a close-up of the young woman. I recognized her as Waverly “Billie” Billington, the famous “Pilgrim’s Daughter” heiress who died of a prescription drug overdose on Thanksgiving night. She was the victim in the case Mike was working on.

Just then I heard someone knock on the locked door downstairs. The bakery delivery must be arriving...

“I’ll take care of this, Mom!” Joy called.

“Okay, thanks,” I yelled back. As the jingle-jingle of the front door sounded, I placed a call to Mike Quinn’s cell.

“Clare?” Quinn said, his voice sleep-groggy. “Are you okay?”

“Mike, I just solved your Pilgrim’s Daughter case. And Alf’s and Kovic’s murders, too. And maybe even your cold case from last Thanksgiving—”

“Clare, sweetheart, have you been drinking?”

“No! Listen! I found Karl Kovic’s computer flash drive! He was hiding it inside a Santa Claus jingle bell pillow! It has digital photos on it. The link you needed is here, Mike.”

“What link? I don’t understand—”

“I’m looking at a series of images on my computer screen. They show a big TV celebrity laughing with Billie Billington on Thanksgiving Day. The two must have met at that parade-watching party Billie attended hours before she overdosed. And I’m willing to bet that party was thrown by Dickie Celebratorio. He probably even provided the drugs for the two to party with—”

“Whoa, Clare, slow down. Where did this all take place?”

“Karl Kovic shot this footage on the Upper West Side with what looks like a powerful zoom lens. He was using the pictures for blackmail. That’s why he was murdered. These images show the movements of the TV star he was blackmailing.”

“Who is this guy? What’s his name?”

I told Quinn but he didn’t watch much TV. “Believe me,” I assured him, “the guy’s famous! Anyway, the images show him talking to Billie Billington on the street, but then he walks off alone in another direction. More photos show the man buying junk food at a deli and ducking into an alley. He makes a cell call and then, lo and behold, Billie Billington appears in the alley, holding open the building’s side service door. The famous man slips inside, bypassing the lobby!”

“Billie slipped him into her building?”

“Yes! That’s why the woman’s doorman didn’t see anyone go into her apartment! She sneaked this famous guy inside by way of the building’s side service entrance! This is it! You can use this evidence to demand DNA and fingerprints from this man. No lawyer can protect him now! And then you can prove his guilt when you match his DNA to the crime scenes and maybe even his fingerprints to the gun that Franco recovered in Alf’s murder!”

Quinn finally caught up. “I’m coming, Clare. I’ll call Hong and Franco, too. Tell them to meet me at the Blend. Stay where you are.”

I figured it would take Mike at least ten minutes to get from his apartment in the East Village to my West Village coffeehouse. Feeling a combination of triumph and relief, I decided I’d finally earned my first cup of morning joe.

I knew everything now. Shane the elf had been hired by Dickie Celebratorio to trail Karl, the Traveling Santa. But Shane had made an error. He didn’t know there were two Traveling Santas living at the same address. So when Alf Glockner left the building, Shane mistakenly followed Alf instead. Then Shane gave his report on Alf’s routine to Dickie, who turned around and gave it to the killer, who followed Alf and shot him.

Of course, Alf wasn’t blackmailing anyone! Killing Alf was a mistake—one the killer obviously figured out because he caught up with the right Santa, Karl Kovic, a week later. But the killer didn’t have the chance to search Karl’s apartment long enough to find the evidence. I did!

“Mom!” Joy called, her voice sounding a little odd. “Can you come down?”

I was halfway down the spiral staircase when I saw him—

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Joy whispered. “I thought he was the delivery guy.”

Chaz Chatsworth, costar of The Chatsworth Way and the featured performer in Karl Kovic’s little flash-drive slide-show, stood behind my daughter. His left arm was wrapped around her throat in a choke hold; his right hand held a gun to her head. Joy’s wrists were bound behind her back.

“My God...”

“I want what you took from Kovic’s apartment,” Chatsworth told me evenly.

Mr. Charm’s signature snowy hair was hidden under a baseball cap. He wore a fake brown beard and mustache and tinted eyeglasses. His cheap sweatpants and sneakers were the color of night.

I stared in shock at the man. Ten minutes until Mike gets here. Maybe forty seconds have passed since I hung up. Nine minutes at least. An eternity—

“Did you hear me, Ms. Cosi?” Chatsworth drove the weapon into Joy’s temple with enough force to make her cry out.

“You son of a bitch! Leave her alone.”

“Do you want her to die?”

“No!”

“I saw you there last night,” Chatsworth said. “Do you hear me? I saw you in Kovic’s apartment.”

I swallowed hard. This creep shot two men to death in cold blood. No matter what I said or did, I knew he was going to kill Joy and me, too. I had to stall—give Mike the time to get here—and the only bargaining chip I had was the flash drive in my pocket. The second Chatsworth got it, I knew he’d have no reason to keep my daughter and me alive.

“Yes, okay, I was there last night,” I slowly admitted. I glanced at the wall clock; another minute gone, another minute for Mike to get here. “And I found Kovic’s body... but I just called the police. That’s all—”