The Blonde Before Christmas: a Barb Jackson Mysteries holiday short story (3 page)

"How'd you know to look under the tree?"

"I didn't," I said. "We were leaving, so we decided to go around the back side of the tree to miss the crowd of people waiting to have their pictures taken with Santa. I just so happened to glance back and noticed something black sticking out from under the tree. I got curious and decided to take a closer look. That's when I realized I was looking at a dead guy."

Kelly nodded beside me.

"And you just happened to know that he was dead?"

"Trust me. She knows a dead body when she sees one," Kelly blurted.

The officer frowned and snapped his notepad closed. "And why is that?"

"I'm a private investigator," I clarified before Kelly could open her mouth and get us into trouble. "I've found a dead body before."

The detective frowned down at me and crossed his arms cross his broad chest.

"Trust me, the last thing I wanted to do tonight was find a dead body. I had images of pepperoni, Netflix, and my soft bed dancing around in my head, but here we are." I tossed my hands in the air when he continued staring at me.

The detective finally let his expression shift, and a small smile tilted the corner of his mouth. Now that the crappy look had left his face, he was sort of handsome, with a square jaw, full lips, and brown eyes.

"All right, Ms. Jackson. Tell me again how you discovered the body. He's in there pretty good," he said and squinted in the direction of the body nestled beneath the tree.

"We were leaving, trying to skip the crowd, and I just happened to see his boot sticking out from under there."

"And let me guess." He propped his hands on his hips and smirked at me. "With you being a private investigator, you just had to investigate?"

I shrugged with one palm pointed toward the sky. "Yep."

Smith laughed. "Well, let's take a look," he said and shook his head as he ducked beneath the red velvet rope marking off the tree from the rest of the mall. I really wasn't supposed to follow him, but since the other officer and Kelly were nowhere to be found, and I wasn't sure where they'd gotten off too, I did. I kept my distance though. The last thing I wanted was for his boss to accuse him of letting someone disturb a crime scene.

I didn't realize that Kelly had rejoined me until she handed me another cup of coffee.

I looked at her quizzically.

"I showed the officer where the coffee shop was and grabbed up a refill before the store closed while you and the detective were talking."

"Thanks. I have a feeling we're going to need it."

"He's cute." Kelly nodded toward the detective and jabbed me gently in the ribs with her elbow.

"Kind of," I agreed.

We watched as a crime scene investigator hurried over and joined Detective Smith. The investigator took some pictures of the snow and surrounding area then waved him to cross. Smith tiptoed across the smashed cotton snow and misshapen prop presents and knelt down beneath the massive tree.

The investigator knelt down to join him and started snapping more pictures. We watched quietly as the two did their jobs.

"What do you think happened?" Kelly asked me, obviously enjoying discovering a dead person way more than she should've been. She was an adrenaline junkie, so this was exciting for her.

"I'm not sure," I admitted.

"Do you think it was murder?"

I watched the detective's expression as he and the investigator spoke with each other.

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

Smith turned his head, and his gaze met mine. His expression was grim.

He hurried back over to us, still wearing his rubber gloves.

"What happened?" I asked. I did and didn't want to know what happened.

"I can't say for certain what it was, but his death is suspicious."

"What, other than him being crammed under the tree, makes his death suspicious?" Kelly asked.

Smith sighed. "Well, the back of his head is caved in for one. There's blood all under the tree. It looks like he was hit in the back of the head, then someone shoved him up under there, and then tried to clean up their mess, but they did a piss-poor job of it. There are a few blood drops beneath the cotton snow and on the props."

"So, doesn't that point to murder?" Kelly asked.

"Not exactly. His death could've been an accident, and the person that found him panicked and tried to hide the body. It's happened before," Smith said.

"So, either someone killed him, or happened to find him and in a panic hid his body beneath the most unviewed side of the tree and then tried to clean up the scene by rearranging the prop presents and fluffing back up the snow?"

I'd learned a long time ago that when the police said suspicious circumstances, they usually meant murder. I wasn't buying the innocent man shoved already-dead Santa under the tree line one little bit.

"That's what it looks like," he said. "You understand that I'm not supposed to discuss any of this with you, no matter who you are or what you do for a living?" He blinked down at me.

"Who'd want to kill Santa?" Kelly asked quietly.

She was actually starting to look a little sad.

"You do know that that's not the real Santa, don't you?" I asked.

"Yeah," she propped her hand on her hip and scowled at me and a laughing Detective Smith. "I know that. I was just asking. I am an adult, you know."

That was yet to be seen, but I didn't say anything. Instead, I turned back to Smith.

"I guess this means that you're the lead detective on this case?"

"I'm afraid so." He groaned. "I was really looking forward to my last week here being slow and easy, but then you just had to go and find a dead body. Now I'll be working through Christmas. My wife and kids are not going to like this one little bit." He frowned.

"Last week here?" Kelly asked.

"I'm transferring out to California where I can be closer to my parents. They're getting on in years, and I need to be near them."

"I understand," I said, then looked back at the body as they loaded it into a body bag and onto a gurney.

"Ms. Jackson—"

"Barb. Call me Barb," I said as I intently watched the coroner and evidence team do their jobs.

"Barb, just because you found the body doesn't mean that this is your case."

"Uh-huh, sure." I waved him away as I let Kelly's question sink in. Who would want to kill Santa and stuff him beneath the tree? That was a pretty heartless thing to do. Still, I couldn't stop looking at the body and the surrounding area. The crime scene. What had Santa done to anger someone to the point that they killed him? I'd always loved a good mystery, and this was one that had me intrigued.

"Why do I have the feeling that whatever I say to you is just going to go in one ear and out the other?"

"Because it is," Kelly murmured.

I was watching the coroner roll Santa out the main exit when I saw another group of cops gathered by the food court. I don't know what drew me to watch them. One of the cops glanced over at me, as though he could feel my gaze upon him.

He was handsome, with a hulking, muscular build, wide shoulders, a trim waist, thick black hair, full lips, and the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. We stared at each other for a minute longer. Then he narrowed his eyes at me and went back to his conversation with the cop beside him.

He was obviously a take-charge kind of guy. An alpha male if you will and my inner rebel had to fight to resist the urge to run over and wrap my arms and legs around him. There was something about him that drew me in, and I'd be darned if I could point out what that something was.

"That's my replacement, Detective Black. He's being shown how we do things around here until I leave next week," Smith said beside me. "I'm sorry, but I have to get going. You two are going to need to fill out a statement down at the station. Are you all right to get there, or do you want an escort?"

"Are you for real?" I tore my eyes away from the other detective and frowned at Smith. "I'm pretty sure we can find the station without stumbling across another dead body," I snipped, a bit sarcastically.

I couldn't help it. As much as I didn't want to get any more involved in this case than I already was, my curiosity was burning through me like wildfire across a sea in a
Game of Thrones
novel, and that bit about missing Christmas with his family had me feeling a little guilty. Like I needed to do something to help rectify it.

"Get to the station, and fill out the statements," Smith said and shook his head.

"We will. See you 'round," I said over my shoulder and turned to Kelly.

"Why do I have the feeling that I'll be seeing a lot more of you before this is all said and done?" he asked, but I didn't bother to answer. I simply smiled and hurried toward the exit, sliding another long look at the man Smith had pointed out as his replacement.

Kelly and I hurried past the elves, security guards, mall supervisor, coroner rolling in a gurney topped with a body bag, and a forensics team before finally pushing through the revolving door that led out to the sidewalk.

"Let's take your car. My heater is still on the fritz. You can just drop me back off when we're finished," Kelly said as she snuggled her face down into her scarf.

"Sounds good to me."

The snow was coming down harder than when I'd first arrived at the mall, so we hurried to get into my car and warm up. I started the car, cranked up the heater, and steered the car out onto the main road toward the police station.

"Do you think that the mall will be open tomorrow? I mean, it's Christmas Eve."

"I don't know." I shook my head and navigated around the traffic. "But honestly, if I had to say, I'd say yes. Do you know how much money they would lose were they to stay closed? And from the looks of things when we left, everyone was in a hurry to get the crime scene cleaned up as quickly as possible. I think it's safe to assume that they'll be open in the morning."

"Leave it to you to find a dead Santa Claus," she laughed.

"Rub it in, why don't you?"

"Mona is going to love this," Kelly said and laughed.

Mona worked at the police station as a receptionist. When she found out that I'd found a dead body, she was going to have a cow.

We pulled into the police station parking lot about ten minutes after leaving the mall.

I parked next to the curb outside the police station's main doors and killed the ignition. Kelly and I pulled our coats tighter around us and hurried up the stairs into the much-welcomed warmth of the station.

We brushed the snow out of our hair and let the sleepy-looking guard check our purses then stepped through the metal detector. Of course the underwire in my bra set the stupid thing off. Mr. Sleepy was automatically wide-awake as he waved his big, blinky wand across the front of my chest.

I swear, if his smile got any wider I was going to smack it off of his face and risk an assault charge.

Maybe this was why Smith had asked if we could make it on our own?

Once he was thoroughly satisfied that my bra was what had set the machine off, he handed us our purses and waved us on through to the main lobby of the station.

We approached a tall, slender redhead, who just so happened to be my aunt, Mona.

"What are you two doing here? Is everything all right?" Mona said as she hurried toward us.

Mona was a rail-thin woman with a mass of flame-red hair teased to almost beehive height. Mona's current style was stuck somewhere between the fifties and the eighties. You never knew what hairstyle or clothing she'd be wearing.

"We're fine, Mona," I assured her as she wrapped her arms around me for one of her famous bone-crushing hugs. Once she was finished with me she gave Kelly the same treatment.

"Well, Barb here kind of found a dead body at the mall." Kelly hiked a thumb in my general direction.

"You're who Detective Smith was talking about?" she asked as she led us to the reception area. "All he could really say over the phone was that there were two women coming in to give a statement and something about a dead Santa." She leaned forward and asked in a hushed voice, "You didn't lose your cool and kill Santa, did you?"

"Mona, seriously?" I groaned.

"Hey, you've been known to have a short fuse." She stepped back and held her hands up. "You can't fault me for asking."

"I'll admit that my fuse can be short at times, but I'm pretty sure I'd never kill Santa."

"Hmm." She nodded. "I think you're right. So what did happen?"

She pulled out two forms attached to clipboards and led us to a bench against the far wall. We settled in, and I repeated how we'd come to find a dead body beneath the Christmas tree at the East Wing Mall as I wrote out the story on the paper she'd given me.

"And now you can't stop wondering who killed Santa," Mona said matter-of-factly.

"Something like that," I said. "This isn't my case, but I'm so curious."

"Well, sweetie, I can't tell you to investigate a murder, but I also can't tell you not to. Either way, I'm sure you'll get this all figured out."