Abigail Browining - Murder Most Merry

“Now, what was your question?”

“Who are you?”

She spoke with an educated, private-school voice, even when her words were tough and gritty. Nick guessed Michelle Beaufeld was now in her late teens.

“I’m a friend of your grandfather,” he told her.

“Charles Simpson?” The truth seemed to dawn on her. “Oh. no!” She started to laugh. “He wanted you to steal the gift!”

“Well, the stocking the gift is in.”

She shook her head. “Santa Claus, the thief! Won’t that make a story for the papers? Grandpa Tries To Steal Child’s Christmas Gift, “

“You’re no child,” Nick pointed out. “Why don’t you put away that gun? I’m not going to hurt you.”

She motioned toward the Santa Claus outfit on the floor. “Put your pants back on.”

“They’re too big for me without the padding.”

“That’s the idea. If you try to rush me. they’ll trip you up.”

When he’d done as she ordered, she sat in an easy chair and carefully set the pistol down on an end table by her side. “Now we can talk,” she said. “I know Grandpa wouldn’t send anyone to harm me, but I can understand his wanting to get his hands on that gift. Let’s have a look at it—toss the stocking over here. No funny business now!”

Nick did as he was told, convinced now that she wouldn’t think of shooting him any more than he’d think of harming her. The stocking landed on the chair by her side and she picked it up, withdrawing the gift in its holiday wrapping. As she worked at unwrapping it, she reminded Nick of her mother adjusting the earring earlier. She had her mother’s high cheekbones and pouting lips, and was well on her way to becoming a great beauty. Putting aside the wrapping, she held up a little plastic pig for Nick to see. It was a gift more suitable for a child of five or six. “There we go! I’ll put it with the others.”

“What others?”

“Didn’t Grandpa tell you? They’re gifts from my father. He sends one every Christmas.”

“Does he know how old you are?”

“Of course he does. They have a special meaning.”

“Oh?”

“ That’s what Grandpa’s dying to find out—what their special meaning

is.”

“Do you know?” he asked.

“Well—not yet,” she admitted. “It’s about something I’m supposed to get when I’m eighteen.”

“How old are you now?”

“Seventeen. My birthday’s next month.”

“Does your father ever come to see you?”

She shook her head. “Not since I was twelve. The only time I hear from him is at Christmas, and then it’s just the gift in the stocking. There hasn’t been a note since the first time.”

“How does he deliver them? I know you don’t believe in Santa Claus.”

That brought a genuine smile. “I don’t know. I suppose Mother must put them there, although she’s always denied it.”

“What does your grandfather have to do with any of this?”

Her face showed exasperation, then uncertainty. “Why am I telling you my family history when I should be calling the police?”

“Because you wouldn’t want to call the police and implicate your grandfather. You told me yourself how funny the headline would look. Besides, I might be able to help you.”

“How?”

“It seems to me you’ve got a real mystery on your hands. If I can solve it for you, there’d be no need for you to keep this little pig, would there?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’d have the answer to your mystery and I’d have the gift to deliver to your grandfather in the stocking.”

“He’s paying you for this, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Nick admitted.

“How much?”

“A great deal. It’s how I make my living.”

She picked up the automatic and for a split second he thought she was going to shoot him, after all. “Take off those foolish red pants,” she said, “and let’s have a beer.”

The kitchen had a sleek contemporary look that clashed with the rest of the apartment. Michelle opened the refrigerator and brought out two bottles of a popular German beer. “Aren’t you a bit young to be drinking beer?” Nick asked as she poured two glasses.

“Aren’t you a bit old to be a thief?”

“All right,” he agreed with a smile, “let’s get down to business. Tell me about your father.”

“His name is Dan Beaufeld. When I was a child, he ran a charterboat business in Florida. He was away from New York most of the time, especially in the winter when he had a lot of tourist business. Sometimes my mother would take me down to visit him and we’d get to ride on one of his deep-sea-fishing boats. I was twelve the last time I saw him, five years ago. That was when my mother divorced him. At the time I had no idea what it was all about. Somehow I blamed myself, which I guess a lot of kids do. My mother had bought this apartment with her own money, so she stayed here. My father moved to Florida year-round.”

“Did you understand what caused the divorce?”

“Not at first. I knew my grandfather had been part of it. I thought he’d poisoned my mother’s mind against my father. Once when he found me sobbing in my room, he told me I shouldn’t cry over my father because he was a bad man—an evil man.”

Charter boats in Florida in the mid-1980s suggested only one thing to Nick. “Could your father have been involved in drug traffic?”

“That’s what Grandpa finally told me, just last year. He said he’d made a lot of money using his boats for drug smuggling and that the police were still looking for him. That was why Grandpa forced my mother to divorce him. He was afraid the family would be tainted or something.”

“What about these mysterious gifts?”

“They started when I was thirteen. There was a note attached to the first one. It was from my father and he said I was always in his thoughts. He said to keep the gifts, and when I was eighteen they’d make me wealthy. The gifts have appeared in my stocking every Christmas, but there were never any more notes.”

“What were the gifts?”

“The first was a little toy bus with a greyhound on the side. Then there was a copy of Poe’s poem ‘The Raven, ‘ which I loved when I was fourteen. The third year was an apple, and I ate that. Last year there was a snapshot of Mother my father had taken when they were still married. Now there’s this plastic pig.”

“An odd combination of gifts,” Nick admitted. “I can’t see—”

“Who the hell are you? ” a voice asked from the doorway.

Nick turned to see Florence Beaufeld standing wide-eyed at the kitchen door, taking in the scene before her.

He stood up, more as a reflex action than from any real fear of attack. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Beaufeld. My name is Nick Velvet.”

“What are you doing here with my daughter?”

“Mother—”

“Were you sent by her father? Are you this year’s Christmas gift?”

“He was sent to steal the gift, Mother! I caught him by the fireplace dressed up like Santa Claus.”

“And you’re sitting here chatting with him? Where are the police?”

“I didn’t call them.”

“My God, Michelle!”

“I’m perfectly all right, Mother. Please.”

“Go upstairs and put on some clothes. I’ll attend to Mr. Velvet.”

Michelle hesitated and then decided to obey her mother’s command. She left the kitchen without a word and went up the staircase, taking the automatic with her. Florence Beaufeld turned back to Nick. “Now tell me the truth. What are you doing here?”

“I was hired by your father, Mrs. Beaufeld.”

“I should have guessed as much. Whenever I mentioned those Christmas gifts from Dan it threw him into a frenzy. I vowed not to tell him if there was one this year, but he had to know. He said Dan was planning to give Michelle a large sum of illegal drug money.”