was hidden in them.
“You got the wrong box,” she grumbled.
“I’m sorry.”
She seemed to relent then. “No, what I’m looking for probably wasn’t in the other box either. Somebody told me Bajon was involved with a shoplifting ring, stealing watches and jewelry from fancy stores during the Christmas season. I thought if he had anything in his belongings—”
“—that you’d take it?”
She flushed a bit at Nick’s words. “I’m no thief. When Russell and I were in the play together I loaned him a few hundred dollars. I could use that money now. I figured anything I found among his belongings would pay the debt.”
“Any jewelry or valuables he had were probably removed by whoever went through his clothes.” As he spoke he was looking down at one of the envelopes that had been in the box. It was addressed to Russell Bajon at the Outreach Center. The return address bore only the surname of the sender:
It took him a few seconds to realize the significance of the name. The Santa strangler’s second victim had been named Larry Averly. Nick slipped the letter out of the envelope and read the few lines quickly: “Russ—I was happy to do you the favor. No need to send me any more money. Keep some of the pie for yourself. Merry Christmas! Larry.” The note was undated, but the envelope had been postmarked December second.
Nick returned the letter to its envelope and slipped it into his pocket. It told him nothing, except that the two victims might have known each other. Maybe Bajon had replaced Averly as one of the Santas.
“Thanks for your efforts anyway,” Vivian Delmos said.
“I did what I could.”
When he didn’t move, she asked, “Are you waiting for something more?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that?”
“Your beard.”
That evening Nick returned to Grady Culhane’s little office off Times Square. The young security man seemed uneasy as soon as he walked in the door. “I was hoping you wouldn’t come here,” he said.
Nick opened the paper bag he was carrying. “Why’s that? I’ve brought you the beard.”
“The beard was yesterday. Things have moved beyond that now. The cops are all over the place.”
“What do you mean?”
“The extortion payoff. The money was left exactly as instructed, on the upper deck of the ferry that left Staten Island at three o’clock, before the evening rush hour. The police had it covered from every angle, even if he’d tossed the package overboard to a waiting boat.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. When the ferry docked in Manhattan some little old lady picked up the package and turned it in to lost and found.”
“She got to it before the extortionist.”
“Maybe,” Culhane answered gloomily.
“What’s the matter?”
“The Outreach Center reported that someone was snooping around the first victim’s things this afternoon, and stole a box.”
“That was me.”
“I was afraid it might be. That means the cops are after you.”
“How come?”
“They figure the killer was at the Outreach Center and that’s why he couldn’t pick up the extortion money from the three o’clock ferry.”
“I certainly don’t go around strangling Santas!” Nick objected. “You didn’t even hire me till after the killings.”
“I know, but try to tell them that! They need a fall guy. right away, or the city could lose millions in Christmas sales this final week. Who wants to bring the kids to see Santa Claus if he might be dead?”
A thought suddenly struck Nick. “You seemed nervous when I came in. Are they watching this office?”
“I had to tell them you were the one who set off the smoke bomb in the store yesterday. They were spending too much time on that angle and I tried to show them it was a dead end by admitting my part in it. Instead they got to thinking you were involved somehow.”
“Just give me the rest of my money and I’m out of here.”
“I don’t have it right now.”
Nick decided he’d overstayed his welcome. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised as he headed for the door.
They were waiting in the hall. A tall black man with a badge in one hand and a gun in the other barked, “Police! Up against the wall!”
His name was Sergeant Rynor and he was no more friendly within the confines of the precinct station. “You deny you were at the Outreach Center between three and four this afternoon, Mr. Velvet?”
“I told you I want a lawyer,” Nick answered.
“He’ll be here soon enough. And when he arrives we’re going to run a lineup. Then we’ll talk about the Santa Claus killings.”
Ralph Aarons was a dapper Manhattan attorney whom Nick had used on rare occasions. He wasn’t in the habit of getting in legal jams, especially in the New York area. Aarons made a good appearance, but he was hardly the sort to defend an accused serial Santa strangler.
“They’ve got a witness named Stover,” the lawyer told him. “If he can place you at the Outreach Center, it may be trouble.”
“We’ll see,” Nick said. He’d been thinking hard while he waited for Aarons to arrive.
Sergeant Rynor appeared in the doorway. “We’re ready for you, Velvet. Up here on stage, please.”
There were five other men. and Nick took the third position. The others were about his age and size but with different coloring and appearance. He guessed at least two of them were probably detectives. Chris Stover was brought in and escorted into a booth with a one-way glass. Over a loudspeaker, each of them was asked to step forward in turn. Then it was over. Apparently it had taken only a moment for Stover to identify him.
As Nick was being led away, Chris Stover and the other detectives came out of the booth. Nick paused ten feet from him and pointed dramatically. “That’s the man!” his voice thundered like the wrath of God. “He’s the one who killed the Santas and I can prove it!”
Nick couldn’t prove it, and Chris Stover should have snorted and kept on walking. But he was taken off guard, startled into a foolish action. Perhaps in that unthinking instant he imagined the whole lineup had been merely a trick to unmask him. He gave one terrified glance at Nick and then tried to run, shoving two detectives out of the way in his dash for freedom.
It was Sergeant Rynor who finally grabbed him, before he even got close to the door.
‘ We’re holding him,” the black detective told Nick Velvet ten minutes later in the interrogation room, “but you’d better have a good story. Are you trying to tell us that Chris Stover is the extortionist who’s been threatening the city’s department stores for the past several days?”
“I don’t think there was ever a real extortion plot. It was a matter of a big threat being used as a smokescreen to hide a smaller but no less deadly crime— the murders of Russell Bajon and Larry Averly.”
“You’d better explain that.”
Nick leaned back in the chair and collected his thoughts. “Grady Culhane told me about the extortion threats and even showed me a copy of the first letter. It was delivered to Kliman’s president on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after the second strangling of a Santa Claus. Those two killings were meant to appear to be random acts against two random Santas, committed as a demonstration that the extortionist meant business. But the note mentioned the names of the two victims—Bajon and Averly. You didn’t identify the second victim until later that day, and the killer had no chance to steal identification from his victim. The strangler knew the names of Bajon and Averly because these killings weren’t random at all. He deliberately selected these victims, not as part of an extortion plot but for another motive altogether.”
Rynor was making notes now, along with taping Nick’s interrogation. Ralph Aarons. perhaps sensing things were going well for Nick, made no attempt to interrupt. “What other motive?” the detective asked.
