12 Days (3 page)

He let the tie hang unfurled about his neck, giving him an air of European insouciance; over-sized Gucci knockoff sunglasses made the look complete. There now, confident and successful. He smiled. Showtime!

Day One: 1:30 p.m.

Janette McDermott, looking like the first lady of Pasadena in a sharp green dress with tasteful pearls, exited the steps of St. Ignatius Loyola church after the 12:30 Christmas mass, with her picture perfect family in line. It was a pleasant experience even though Father Rogan, who presided, was getting a little long in the tooth for the Eucharistic miracle. The good father would celebrate mass in an odd half-English, half-Latin variant that left everyone in the congregation confused. But not even Father Logan could ruin this glorious day. Janette and Bill had taken two cars to church that morning, as she had to stop by the office to meet a potential client before returning home for Christmas dinner. Despite the family’s protestations, she reminded them that they owed their current good fortune to Pasadena real estate and that she had a big one on the hook. An Italian gentleman wanted to see only the high-end stuff and she was not about to turn down the possibility of a six-figure commission. Bill had volunteered to take the client, but Janette demurred. She always took the rich old men and Bill would get the women; a little flirting went a long way in the sales business. She waved to her kids as they piled into the Hummer and kissed Bill before he drove away. Janette started her Lexus and began the drive to her office. She looked forward to her encounter with the Italian professor.

Day One: 1:45 p.m.

Lisa entered the editor’s room with two very large frappacinos from the Seattle coffee chain that seemed to have a store on every block in Hollywood. The studio was quiet during the early afternoon hours most days and especially so today. Lisa produced the “Ten O’clock News Hour” and most of the staff didn’t show until three in the afternoon. That meant she and Milt had the run of the studio for another hour.

“Pretty routine stuff. Sycamore tree, police tape, concerned neighbors. Oh wait, we have exclusive footage of a dead Santa silhouetted against the rising sun, swinging from a tree on Christmas morning. But we can’t use that, because you made a deal with Officer Jovial.”

“We can start with the body bag being loaded into the coroner’s wagon and then show some shots of the tree. Look, you can see where the branch almost broke. And then I thought we could add an interview with the jogger who spotted him…”

Lisa was silent. She pulled her iPhone from her purse, checked the battery level, and replaced it. She turned to Milt.

“Put the piece together and I’ll look at it when I get back.”

Milt asked, “Where are you going?”

“West Covina. I need to get another look at that tree.”

Day One: 2:00 p.m.

Jim sat on his favorite chair in front of a 42” flat screen TV, a bottle of beer in his right hand and the remote in his left. He had been home for well over an hour and by rights, he should have been asleep, but he could not close his eyes. There was something wrong at the crime scene, he could feel it. His cop sense was burning and he just couldn’t shake the feeling. It would all flash in his mind for a brief moment; Santa, the rope, the branch and then, just as quickly, poof, it would disappear. Even more disturbing was that he could not get Lisa Klein out of his mind. He could have confiscated the camera, the Captain would have understood. He certainly did not need to make a deal for her cooperation, but he’d wanted to. It was as if her feeble attempt at extortion had turned him on.

I’ll play along for a little while
, he thought.
What harm could it do?
Then, another flash hit him, but this time, it was not about the hanging corpse.
What did I miss?
Something about the tree?
He needed some sleep. Trying again to doze off, he failed and rose from his chair, finished his beer, and shut off the television. Dressing quickly, Jim grabbed his keys and left the house. That was it. There was something about that damned tree and he had to check it.

Day One: 2:05 p.m.

He did not like guns. He preferred knives. Knives made no sound, but he needed the gun today to control his prey. He needed the intimidation factor. She had beautiful hair, very rich in both texture and color. It offered a nice contrast to the slate gray hue of the Luger that was pressed firmly against her skull. The parking lot of McDermott Realty was empty on Christmas day, so no one was around to watch as he led Janette McDermott to his flatbed truck and told her to lie down in the back. Although she was reluctant, the pistol convinced Janette to do as she was told. Once she was lying in the bed of the truck, he secured the hardtop cover over the opening, putting her completely out of sight.

Day One: 2:18 p.m.

Jim parked his car in a spot three houses down from the crime scene. The sun was starting its afternoon descent, but it was still warm outside. When he arrived at #2347, Jim lifted the yellow police tape that formed a fifty-foot barrier around the sycamore. He nodded to Officer Stanley Kramer, who was interviewing some of the neighbors. Officer Kramer ended his conversation when he saw Jim. He had a puzzled look on his face.

“Nobody saw anything. That crazy old lady around the corner said she saw some drunk in a Santa outfit set off her car alarm late last night but by the time she got downstairs, he was gone.”

Jim thought it over. What if she was legit? Crazy Alice Edwards called the cops for every public infraction, real or imagined, and was a royal pain in the ass. He wasn’t going to leave the station in the middle of the night for a car alarm. But she’d mentioned a Santa outfit, hadn’t she?

“I fucking hope not or I’m going to be in for a world of hurt. See if you can get forensics to print the Civic; find out if they can match that Santa to our Santa.”

As Kramer turned to walk away, Jim Jovian walked toward the tree. What had he missed? He stared up into the branches. You could see where the rope had dug into the bark, where the branch had almost been torn from the trunk. There was nothing there. He walked around the tree slowly, looking at the roots and making his eyes peer intently over every inch from base to branch. Then he stopped. There it was, at eye level. How the hell did no one see it?

“Listen, Officer Jovian, I thought that we had an understanding. You want to play amateur night with me, that’s fine. I’ll see you around.”

He knew that she knew. He could feel the rattle in his bones. This was the beginning of something. No doubt about it. There was going to be more to this, a lot more. They stared in silence at the sycamore tree that earlier that morning had borne its heaviest burden, the dead man who was now at the morgue. The flash of Lisa’s iPhone went off, illuminating what they were looking at. There, carved into the bark on the eastern portion of the tree, plain as day, was a big number ‘one’.

Day One: 2:46 p.m.

He sat in the empty parking lot of the McDonalds on Glendale Avenue, north of the 134, finishing off his fries. He never really understood greed, or how people could replace need with want. Janette McDermott was a woman with a nice home and a fancy car; things that he certainly would never have. All that money and still the good Catholic soccer mom wanted to sell a house on Christmas day. Unbelievable greed. Fucking sacrilege. Somewhere in Heaven, an angel was puking rather than getting his wings. But that’s why
he
was there; to make things right. The silent pleasure that he had hoped to derive from the final two slurps of his vanilla shake was spoiled by the sound of Janette kicking the inside rear quarter panel of his truck. She was making quite a racket back there and it was giving him a headache. He should have used the chloroform on her, he thought, like he did with the other guy. That would have kept her quiet and prevented the blinding pain that was now pressing against the back of his eyes. But no, he would have to be content with the salty pleasures of his meal and the potential of what was to come.
Less than ten hours
, he reminded himself,
less than ten hours. Soon you’ll be quiet, my little dove.