The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries Part 83

Mad Dog asked innocently, "Any questions before we start? We've got one minute."

There was something about his manner, the edge to his voice, that made me wonder if we weren't going to be in for a few surprises before the show was over. The empty chair at our table was added intimidation. I think the feeling was shared by the others. They asked no questions, but they looked edgy, even lawyer Newgate whom I had observed in the past staying as cool as a polar bear under tremendous courtroom pressure.

Seated at his console behind the gla.s.s window, Greg stared at the clock on the wall and raised his hand, the index finger pointed out like the barrel of a gun. Then he aimed it at Mad Dog, who emitted one of his loud trademark moans. As it faded out, Greg faded in the show's theme (a rather regal-sounding melody that Landy later identified for me as Noel Coward's "Mad Dogs and Englishmen").

Then our host was telling his radio audience that they were in for a special show, one that people would be talking about through the holiday season.

Dr. Varney's frown deepened and even the smooth Gabriel Warren seemed peeved as Mad Dog blithely continued his opening comments. "Thirty years ago tonight, before I was even a little Mad Puppy, a terrible crime was committed in this city." Gabriel Warren leaned back in his chair. Norman Daken edged forward in his. Rafferty scowled. "Two crimes, really," Mad Dog corrected. "But the one people know about was the lesser of the two. The one people know about concerned the grisly death of a man of importance in this city, the father of one of our guests tonight, Theodore Daken."

Norman Daken's face turned white and his mouth dropped open in surprise. He had a red birthmark on his right cheek the size and shape of a teardrop and it seemed to glow from the sudden tension in his body. Mad Dog rolled right along. "Theodore Daken was then president of Altadine Industries, which in the early 1960s had developed one of this country's first successful experimental communications satellites, Altastar."

"Excuse me," Gabriel Warren interjected sharply. "I understood we were here to discuss urban violence."

"If Theodore Daken's death doesn't qualify," our host replied, "then I don't know the meaning of 'urban violence.' "

"Please," Norman Daken said shakily. "I don't really feel I want ..."

"Bear with me, Mr. Daken. I'm just trying to acquaint the listeners with the events surrounding that evening. Both you and Mr. Warren were young executives at Altadine at the time, weren't you?"

"Yes, but ..."

"You were the company's treasurer and Mr. Warren was executive vice president, sort of your father's protege. Is that right?"

"I suppose so." The birthmark looked like a drop of blood. "I handled the books and Dad was grooming Gabe to a.s.sume major responsibilities."

"Yes," Mad Dog said. His blue eyes danced merrily. "Anyway, on that night you two and other executives-and their secretaries, that's what they called 'em then, not a.s.sistants-had your own little holiday party in a large suite at the Hotel Brentwood. A good party, Mr. Warren?"

"As a matter of fact, Norman and I both had to leave early. Theo, Mr. Daken, was expecting an important telex from overseas that needed an immediate reply. It concerned an acquisition that we knew would involve a rather sizable investment on our part and Norman was there to advise me how far we could extend ourselves."

"And you didn't return to the party?" Mad Dog asked.

"The telex didn't arrive until rather late," Warren said. "I a.s.sumed the party must have ended."

"Not quite," Mad Dog said. "You missed what sounded like, for the most part, a very jolly affair. Lots of food and drink. Altastar had gone into s.p.a.ce and it had taken your company's stock with it. Each guest at the party was presented with a commemorative Christmas present-a model of the satellite and a hefty bonus check. And everyone was happy.

"Daken, very much in the spirit of things, presented the gifts wearing a Santa Claus suit.

He didn't need a pillow. He was a man of appet.i.te. For food and for women."

"Please," Norman Daken said, "this is so unnecessary."

"Forgive me if I seem insensitive," Mad Dog said. "But it was thirty years ago."

"And he was my father," Norman Daken countered.

"True," Mad Dog acknowledged. "I apologize. But the fact is that he did set his sights on one of the ladies that night. Isn't that true, Mr. Newgate?"

"I'm not sure what point you're trying to make," lawyer Newgate said.

"Simple enough," Mad Dog replied. "On that night of nights, after all the food had been consumed, the booze drunk, and the presents dispersed, everyone left the party. Except for Daken and his new office manager. While they were alone together ... something happened. Perhaps you can enlighten us on that, Mr. Rafferty."

Red Rafferty was living up to his nickname. He looked apopletic. "Sure. What happened is that the woman went crazy and bashed ... did away with poor Mr. Daken. Then she dragged his body down to her car and tried to get rid of it in a dumpster off Wils.h.i.+re."

Mad Dog's lips formed a thin line as he said, "The woman's name was Victoria Douglas and because the story about her and Theodore Daken was all anybody talked about that holiday season, she became known as 'The Woman Who Killed Christmas.' She was tried and eventually placed into a hospital for the criminally insane. And, after a while, she escaped.

"She was at large for several years. Then fate caught up with her and she was discovered driving her car on an Arizona road, tripped up by a faulty brake light. She was put back into another facility and again she escaped. Five times over the past three decades did Victoria Douglas escape. She was found and brought back four times. And yes, my math is correct. The last time she escaped from a hospital, eleven years ago, she remained free.

"But The Woman Who Killed Christmas has never been forgotten. Even now, thirty years after the fact, her 'crime' remains one of the most infamous in this nation's history. And, all of you dog lovers out in radioland, here's something to chew on during the next commercial: It's entirely possible that the worst crime that took place that night wasn't the one committed by Victoria Douglas. Of that greater crime, she was the helpless victim."

Mad Dog leaned back in his chair, let loose a howl, and surrendered the airways to a commercial for soybean turkey stuffing.

Gabriel Warren stood up and turned to his a.s.sociates. "Our host seems to have made a mistake inviting us here tonight. I suggest we leave him to contemplate it."

Red Rafferty knocked over his chair in his hurry to stand. Victor Newgate was a bit smoother, but no less anxious. The same was true of Dr. Varney. Norman Daken stood also. He said to Mad Dog, "I can't imagine why you're doing this terrible thing."

"How can you call it 'terrible' until you know what I'm doing?" Mad Dog asked. He turned to me. "You going, too, Bloodworth?"

"To tell the truth, I never was certain justice triumphed in the Daken case. So I'll stick around to see what's on your mind."

"Good," he said.

Since he didn't bother to ask Landy if she was staying, I figured she was in on his game, whatever it was.

The others were having trouble with the door, which wouldn't budge. Warren was losing his composure. "Open this G.o.dd.a.m.n door, son, if you know what's good for you."

"You'll be free to leave when the show is over in a little under an hour," Mad Dog informed them. "In twenty seconds we'll be back on the air. Whatever you have to say to me will be heard by nearly a million listeners. They love controversy. So feel free to voice whatever's on your mind. It can only boost my ratings."

Red Rafferty lifted his foot and smashed it against the door where the lock went into the clasp. The door didn't give and Rafferty grabbed his hip with a groan of pain.

"Not as easy as they make it seem in the police manuals, is it, Rafferty?" I asked.

"You son-" Rafferty began.

He was cut off by Mad Dog's howl. "We're back in the doghouse where some of my guests are milling about. Something on your minds, gentlemen?"

The others looked to Warren for guidance. He glared at Mad Dog and slowly walked back to his seat. The others followed. In the engineer's booth, Sylvia Redfern was viewing the proceedings with a rather startled expression on her face. In truth, I was a little startled myself at the way Mad Dog was carrying on.

"O.K., Mr. Bloodworth," he said, "why don't you tell us what you know about the eve of Christmas Eve, three decades ago?"

"Sure." And I dug into my memory bank. "I was barely in my twenties, the new cop on the beat in West L.A. My partner, John Gilfoyle, and I were cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard when we got a Code Two-that's urgent response, no siren or light. Somebody had reported a woman in distress in an alley off Wils.h.i.+re.

"We arrived on the scene within minutes and found a tan Ford sedan parked in the alley with its engine going. The subject of the call was moving slowly down the alley, away from the car, a small woman in her mid to late thirties. She was in a dazed condition with abrasions on her face and arms. Her party dress was rumpled and torn.

"She didn't seem to understand who we were at first. I thought she might have been stoned, but it was more like shock. Then she seemed to get the drift and said, 'I'm the one you want, officers. I killed Theo Daken.'

"Around that time, John Gilfoyle poked his nose into her car. He shouted something to me about a big Santa Claus dummy on the backseat. Then he took a better look and saw the blood. He ran back to our car to call in the troops."

"Did Victoria Douglas make any effort to escape?" Mad Dog asked.

"No. She was too far out of it. I don't know how she was able to drive the car."

"Did she say anything?"

"Nothing," I answered. "I had to get her name from the identification cards in her purse."

"What happened then?"

"Gilfoyle and I were helping her to our vehicle when the newspaper guys showed up. I don't know how the heck they got there that fast. I put Miss Douglas in the back of our vehicle and helped Gilfoyle pull the photographers away from the body. But they got their pictures. And the people of Los Angeles got their dead Santa for Christmas."

Norman Daken opened his mouth, but decided against whatever he was going to say. I remembered what he was like back then, sitting in the courtroom, in obvious pain. Thinner, more hair. Women might even have found him handsome. Not now. Unlike Warren, to whom the years had been more than kind, Daken resembled an over-the-hill Pillsbury Doughboy.

Mad Dog turned to Rafferty. "You took charge of the Daken case personally, Mr. Rafferty. Care to say why?"

"Because it was a ..." he began, shouting. Then, realizing that his voice was being carried on an open radio line, he started again, considerably more constrained. "Because it was a circus. There was this crazy woman who'd used a blunt instrument on Santa Claus. Not just any Santa, but a Santa who was an old pal of the governor's. And a d.a.m.n fine man." This last was said with a glance at Norman Daken. "And my chief wanted action. That's why I took charge."

"Even though there was this tremendous pressure, you feel that the police did all that they could in investigating the murder?"

"Absolutely. It was handled by the book."

"Mr. Bloodworth." Mad Dog s.h.i.+fted back to me. "According to an account printed at the time of Victoria Douglas's trial, you felt that maybe the detectives on the case had missed a few bets."

"Bloodworth was a cop on the beat," Rafferty squealed. "His opinion is worth bupkis."

"It wasn't just my opinion," I said. "Ferd Loomis, one of the investigating officers, agreed with me."

"Ferd Loomis was a soak," Rafferty growled. "That's why he took early retirement and why he wound up eating his Colt."

"I wouldn't know about that," I said. "All I know is what he told me. He said that the officers sent to secure the crime scene were greener than I was and they let reporters in before the lab boys got there. Not only that, a hotel bellboy was collecting tips to sneak curious guests into the room.

"All the evidence-the gla.s.s statue that was the supposed murder weapon, wiped clean of fingerprints, the dead man's clothes, the b.l.o.o.d.y pillow-was polluted by a stream of gawkers wandering through."

"But the evidence was allowed, wasn't it?" Mad Dog asked with the a.s.surance of a man who'd read the trial transcripts. He wanted to lay it out clearly for the radio audience. When no one replied, he specified, "Mr. Newgate, you were Miss Douglas's lawyer."

"Judge Fogle allowed the evidence," Newgate said flatly. "I objected and was overruled. It was highly irregular. I don't know what made Fogle rule the way he did. Since he's been senile for nearly fifteen years, I don't suppose I ever will."

"What was the motive for the murder?" Mad Dog asked, like a man who already knew the answer.

Rafferty didn't mind responding. "According to our investigation, Victoria Douglas had been having an affair with Daken. We figured he broke it off that night."

"Sort of a 'Merry Christmas, Honey, Get Lost' approach?" I asked.

"Yeah. Why not? He dumped her. And then made the big mistake of falling asleep on the bed. She picked up one of those satellite statues and beaned him with it. Then she hit him a few more times to be sure and lugged him down to her car."

"Without one witness seeing her," I said.

Rafferty shook his head as if I were the biggest dufus in the world. "She took the freight elevator or the stairs. My G.o.d, Bloodworth. The suite was only on the third floor."

Mad Dog was vastly amused by our interchange. The others were expressionless. Landy Thorpe winked at me.

I realized that I probably wasn't going to be plugging my book that night. But maybe this was better. As I said, I'd never felt right about the trial. And even if nothing came of this re-examination, it was getting under Rafferty's hide.

I said, "When we found Victoria Douglas, she looked like she'd been roughed up. But that wasn't mentioned at the trial."

"You can muss yourself up pretty bad swinging a heavy statue fifteen or twenty times with all your might," Rafferty explained.

"Then there's her size. She weighed about one hundred twenty-five pounds. Daken weighed twice that. How'd she get him down the stairs?"

"Maybe she rolled him down." Rafferty's little eyes flickered toward Norman Daken, ready to apologize for his crudeness. But Daken seemed to have adapted a posture of disbelief that the discussion had anything to do with him. He stared at his microphone as if he were waiting for it to suddenly dance a jig. The fingers of his right hand idly brushed his cheek where the birthmark was.

"Anyways," Rafferty said, "crazy people sometimes have the strength of ten."

"Which brings us to you, Dr. Varney," Mad Dog announced, getting back into the act. "The defense used your testimony to legitimize its insanity plea. But was Miss Douglas truly insane?"

"That was my opinion," Dr. Varney said, huffily.

"You came to this conclusion because of tests?"

"She refused to take part in tests," Dr. Varney said.

"Then it was her answers to questions?" Mad Dog inquired.

"She wouldn't answer questions. She wouldn't talk at all, except to repeat what she'd said to the police, that she'd killed Daken."

"Then how could you form a definite conclusion?"

"My G.o.d, man! All one had to do was see pictures of the corpse. It was determined that she'd hit him at least twenty times, most of the blows after he was dead."

Norman Daken closed his eyes tight.

"Ah," Mad Dog said, not noticing Norman, or choosing to ignore him. "But suppose she'd hit him only once? One fatal blow?"

Dr. Varney frowned. "I decline to speculate on what might have been. I was faced with what really did happen."

"So now we've come to the beauty part of the story," Mad Dog said, blue eyes sparkling. "What really did happen?" He lowered his hand to the floor and snapped his fingers. The ancient cur, Dougie Dog, rose up on creaky bones and padded toward him. "But first, a word from Mad Dog's own mutt about Wet Veggies."

Mad Dog lowered the mike and Dougie Dog gave out with a very laid-back but musical bark. Greg, the engineer, followed the bark with a taped commercial for a dog food that consisted of vegetables "simmering in savory meat sauce." I was getting a little peckish, myself.

Gabriel Warren tapped Victor Newgate on the arm and asked, "How many laws is our friend Mad Dog breaking by keeping us here against our will?"

"Enough to keep him off the radio for quite a few years, I'd think," Newgate replied.

"C'mon, guys," Mad Dog told them. "Aren't you even the least bit interested in where we're headed?"

Norman Daken's eyes moved to the picture window where Greg was staring at the clock and Sylvia Redfern was looking at us with concern. His fingers continued their nervous brus.h.i.+ng of his cheek near the birthmark. "Where are we headed?" he asked, so softly I could barely hear him.

"Thirty years ago, I would have been interested," Warren said dryly. "Today, I couldn't care less. It's old news."

Dougie Dog put his paws on his master's leg and made a little begging sound. Mad Dog reached into his jacket pocket and found a biscuit that he placed in the animal's open mouth. "Good old boy," he said.