Holiday Grind

Glockner two days in a row before he was shot to death by Chaz Chatsworth (the recovered fingerprints on the gun confirmed Chaz as the killer). The TV talk show host had used Shane’s lousy PI report to follow the wrong Santa.

And then there was Heidi Gilcrest, that pretty, young Chatsworth Way production assistant who always made sure Chaz got his junk food. She tearfully agreed to testify that whenever she and Chaz slept together, Dickie was the one who’d provided the recreational drugs—the very same drug that ended up killing Billie Billington and Cora Arnold.

Dickie was the one who’d provided the guns for Chaz, as well. Recovery of the second weapon provided that link. It seemed Madame was right again: Dickie was a guy who “helped” celebs. The fact that the “help” involved drugs, cover-ups, blackmail, and murder didn’t appear to faze a man from the Bronx streets. But then, as Quinn had pointed out to me, this was the season of favors; and in Dickie’s world, the bigger the favor owed, the better.

Of course, Dickie’s lawyers were working overtime to broker a deal with the DA. But one thing was certain for the New Year: No matter how much or little time the man did behind bars, the amount of scandalous newsprint he was getting would render his days as the PR Party King over for good.

As for Shelly Glockner, she turned out to be innocent of all charges. The bank account numbers at the end of Linford’s blackmail letter belonged to Karl Kovic and Karl alone. He really was a Man of a Thousand Schemes.

After I’d visited Shelly that day on Staten Island, she’d told Karl everything I’d said—but she had no idea Karl was going to dump me off the ferry or even that he was blackmailing her neighbor in her husband’s name. I might have disbelieved her, but in the end Shelly handed the entire check for Alf’s life insurance money over to her daughter.

“Your father and I always thought you’d inherit the restaurant,” she confided to Vicki. “So we never saved for you. Never created a college fund. This is your fund now. Your father would have wanted it that way...”

Vicki was thrilled, of course. She was planning to enroll in Joy’s old culinary school this fall. And I was happy to hear she was going to stay on at the Blend, too. One day soon, I might even trust her with a key to this place again.

And speaking of keys—I’d already handed the key to my duplex back to Detective Mike Quinn. For one thing, I didn’t think my French doors could handle him coming in any other way. And for another, I firmly decided I wanted Mike in my life.

Like I’d told my daughter, who was talking a little too much to Emmanuel Franco this evening (the man actually exchanged his red, white, and blue do-rag for a red and green one), relationships were never easy. But I sincerely believed the best gift we could give or receive was the chance to love one another.

Which brings me to that passage in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the one that Brother Dom said had inspired Alf. I finally read it, and—thinking of my friend—my eyes failed to stay dry. Quinn even asked me about it late on Christmas Eve...

When the Traveling Santa party finally wound down and the last guests sang out their good-nights, Joy headed upstairs, and Mike found me again.

After I flipped off the shop’s lights, he pulled me into a quiet corner by the fireplace. Our lovely white pine tree was twinkling softly. The smells of mulled cider and fresh evergreen were in the air. And Gardner’s music was still playing on the sound system—one of the many CDs he’d mixed especially for the party: jazz versions of holiday standards that even Dante and his roommates thought were cool.

“Hey, Cosi, didn’t you say something the other night about A Christmas Carol?”

I nodded. “You had to get off the phone before I could tell you. Some issue at the precinct.”

“There aren’t any issues now, sweetheart. There’s just you and me.”

I touched his clean-shaven cheek and pretended that was true. But Leila Quinn said she wasn’t through trying to get what she wanted. She wants my love back, Clare. That’s what Mike had told me. And after all they’d shared together—two kids, a home, a history—I knew it was still possible, no matter what Mike said.

“So what was that Dickens passage about exactly?” Quinn asked. “The one that helped change Alf’s life, give him a new perspective...”

“Well, the passage came at the end of the book’s first chapter. Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his old business partner, Marley, who tells Scrooge to look out his bedroom window. Scrooge does and suddenly realizes there are ghosts like Marley everywhere; and they’re all weighed down with long, heavy chains—chains made of links these souls forged in life from their days of continual greed and selfishness.”

“Cheery.”

“No, listen. The saddest spirit of all has a monstrous iron safe attached to his ankle. This ghost is bitterly crying. But he’s not crying because of the heavy burden he can never throw off; he’s crying because he’s unable to help a wretched woman with a baby, shivering below him on a doorstep. ‘The misery with them all,’ Dickens wrote of these doomed spirits, ‘was that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever...’ ”

Quinn was silent a long moment. “That is moving,” he finally said. “But...”

“But what?”

“Is that what Alf was trying to do on that balcony the night he was killed? Interfere for good?”

“None of us are perfect, are we? Not even Santa Claus. But Alf wasn’t a Bad Santa, Mike, he was a good man. He took some relatively innocent celebrity photos for YouTube and Ben Tower because he wanted to repay a debt to his neighbor—and protect his wife and daughter from becoming responsible for that debt.”

I shook my head. “I’m sure Chaz Chatsworth felt justified in shooting Alf in cold blood for the same reason. If Chaz had any doubts about killing Santa Claus, they probably evaporated when he saw Santa taking photos of his wife with James Young. I’m sure Chaz justified his killing as protecting his and his wife’s way of making a living, protecting their television show.”

Quinn’s jaw tightened. “Except there’s no justification for leaving two overdosed young women to die or threatening to kill you and Joy.”

I nodded, still shuddering at the image of Chatsworth with that gun to my daughter’s head.

“But I do agree with you about Alf,” Quinn added. “There was no evidence that he was part of the blackmailing scheme against Chatsworth, Dickie, or Linford.”

“I know Alf wasn’t perfect. But I never doubted he was a good man. Whatever his faults, Mike, I’ll always think the best of him. He did so much good before he died, so much to lift people up...”

“I can see why you admired him,” Quinn said, meeting my eyes. “Striving to interfere, for good, in human matters is a quality worth admiring.”

He gazed at me so long after that, I was beginning to think I had parsley stuck between my front teeth. “Mike?”

“I have the right stuff now, you know,” he finally said.

“Excuse me? What stuff?”

He reached inside the jacket of his sports coat and brought out a leafy green bundle tied up with a red velvet ribbon.

“Mistletoe. Authentic mistletoe. This time Joy assured me, and I was thinking... After my holiday overtime is through and Joy’s back at her job in France, I’ll be getting Molly and Jeremy for two weekends in January.”

“Right. I understand.” I nodded, ready to be patient. “You’d like to visit with them alone.”

“No, Clare. I was thinking this time you could join us. We could go ice skating or see a movie or drink frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity. What do you say? You think that’s a good plan?”

“No, Mike. I think that’s a great plan.”

“We’re on, then...”

“Oh yeah, we’re on.” I moved closer then. Much closer. Into the man’s lap, actually. “So when exactly were you planning on using that mistletoe?”

“I was waiting.”

“For what?”