Drowning In Christmas Part 2

"Why are there two checkmarks next to James Halloran's name?" I wondered.

Strutter peered at the list and shrugged. "Must have gone out and come back in again. Some of them do that, mostly the smokers." She pointed out another double-checked name. "Listen, Girlfriend, do you think you could have a waiter bring us some of those fabulous canapes? Luis and I are wasting away."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I apologized and sprang for the door. "Here the rest of us are absolutely wallowing in food and drink, and you two are stuck out here starving. I'll be back in two shakes."

Ten minutes later, having fortified my colleagues with plates heaped high with Henry/Henri's specialties, I was pleased to hear the musicians signaling Santa's arrival with an elegant rendition of "Here Comes Santa Claus." I scurried back into the main room to secure a good vantage point from which to watch the fun. Having finally shaken her entourage of young admirers, Margo was taking a break in the shelter of the ornate trees flanking the bandstand, and I crossed the room to join her.

"Hey, Lady," I greeted her. "How's the refreshment biz?"

"Hard on the feet but otherwise fine," she rejoined. I noticed that her feet were bare and looked around for the strappy sandals in which she had begun the evening. She pointed to the lowest branch of the tree behind her, where her silver sandals dangled merrily. "Is your CFO person ready to do the Santa thing?"

"James O'Halloran, and yes, I believe this is it." We looked around expectantly as the musicians paused, then swung into a repeat performance of "Here Comes Santa Claus." An antic.i.p.atory hush fell over the room, but no Santa appeared. I noticed Sister Marguerite waving frantically at me from the other side of the bandstand and excused my way through the crowd to join her.

"Something must have gone wrong with his costume," she whispered in my ear. Be a dear and nip over to the Education Office and see what's what. I'll have to jolly these people along with an announcement of some kind." I nodded to show I understood and retraced my steps through the crowd, signaling Margo to join me. Sister stepped onto the bandstand and approached the microphone. "Looks like Santa's been delayed, Folks. Something about a city ordinance forbidding reindeer landings on public buildings, but we'll have it sorted out in a few moments. Until then, please continue to enjoy our hospitality," I heard her address the a.s.semblage.

While the crowd was thus distracted, we made a dash for the Museum Office. Before I had a chance to knock, the door flew open, and Mary O'Halloran yanked me inside, followed closely by Margo.

"Where's James?" Mary and I demanded of each other simultaneously, looking around the room a bit wildly. The caterer's supplies were stacked everywhere, and a great heap of small, wrapped packages spilled from one corner. A huge, stainless steel vat of Henri's punch sat on the floor, a plastic pitcher floating aimlessly in the middle. The waiters refilling their trays of cups must have been in a hurry, as repeated splas.h.i.+ng had formed puddles around the container. I wondered at the sanitation of this arrangement, but then I supposed the alcohol in the punch would kill off any germs.

"Looks like Santa had other places to be this evenin'," Margo observed, then added practically, "Will anyone else fit into the costume?"

"What costume? I don't even see that. James was headed this way nearly an hour ago," I said, genuinely puzzled now. "I remember that it seemed late for him not to be in costume, but I know he came into this room. I saw him go through the door, and all the presents for the guests that were in his big sack are piled over there in the corner. Do you suppose he was taken ill all of a sudden? The flu has been going through the UCC like wildfire."

"Oh, dear," Mary wailed softly. "He wasn't feeling very well this afternoon, but I told him he'd feel better once he was here. When I came to help him into his Santa suit after you and I talked, Kate, he wasn't here, but I just thought he was in the men's room or something." She looked forlorn. "Where on earth can he be? I know. I'll call his cell phone. He always has that on him." She rushed out of the room in search of a telephone.

"Now what?" I asked Margo, at a loss. I picked up the corner of the paper cloth that covered the one steel table in the room and peered underneath. Nothing. "The packages are here, but Santa's toy sack isn't. Oh, this is not good. Sister Marguerite is going to be apoplectic," I added half to myself, but there was nothing for it but to go out there and give the good Sister the facts.

"Tell you what. Before you give Sister Marguerite the bad news, let's tiptoe out to the lobby and see if Strutter has seen Santa or his toy sack. If not, we'll just have to come up with a Plan B." She winked to rea.s.sure me, and I followed her back to the main hall, where the crowd seemed a bit subdued but still game. As discreetly as possible, we made our way along the walls to the Avery Lobby, where Strutter was bursting to know what was going on.

"That's what we're here to ask you. Have you seen James O'Halloran, the fellow who was supposed to be playing Santa Claus tonight? He was one of those double-checked names we were looking at earlier on the guest list."

Strutter crossed her eyes at me in disgust. "I think I would have remembered Santa Claus blowing past, with or without reindeer. If O'Halloran went out for a smoke, he didn't do it in costume." She looked at Luis for confirmation. He looked nonplussed.

"Ummm, well ... O'Halloran actually did come through here," he finally admitted, blus.h.i.+ng to the roots of his buzz cut. "I remembered after we were talking about the double check marks next to his name. He wasn't in costume or anything. He asked me where we kept the wheelchairs. Said it would be a lot easier to get his bag of presents into position if he had something with wheels to move it around in. So I pointed him to that closet over there behind the coat racks, and he disappeared for a minute. You were in the women's room," he added for Strutter's benefit.

"Oh, yeah," she muttered, remembering.

"Right about then, a big group came in, and I was busy checking them off and so on. A few minutes later, O'Halloran came back pus.h.i.+ng a big sack in the wheelchair. Went right out that door."

"Did he come back in again? Did you put a third checkmark next to his name?"

"That's what I can't remember, Ma'am. I honestly think I would recall doing it myself, but I just don't."

We looked at each other. "Would you know if one of the wheelchairs was still missing?" Margo asked finally.

Poor Luis turned even redder. "No, Ma'am, I would not. This is my first time here, and the wheelchairs move back and forth from the Main Street entrance to this one, as I understand it. People pick one up where they come in and drop it off wherever they exit the building."

"Looks like Santa flew the coop," I stated the obvious.

"Vamoosed," Strutter agreed.

"Blew this pop-stand," Margo offered. "Before your time, Darlin'," she told Luis, who looked confused.

Since we couldn't think of anything more productive to do, we all trooped over to the coat room. Luis flipped on the light. Four wheelchairs were propped neatly against the wall, which gave us no information at all, since we had no idea how many had been there at the beginning of the evening. "What's that?" Strutter bent over and peered at a wet trail on the floor. It led into and out of the coat room. Luis dropped to a crouch and swiped at it with a finger.

"It's sticky," he reported. "I think it's some of that punch the waiters have been pa.s.sing around all evening. Look, it goes all the way to the outer doors." We looked.

I remembered Sister Marguerite and the three hundred guests awaiting Santa Claus in vain. "Okay, first things first. Luis, you're going to have to man the desk by yourself for a while. Get a message to me if you see O'Halloran come in or out." He hastened back to his station. "Strutter, I need you to check the rest of this floor for signs of James O'Halloran. Middle-aged, medium height, gla.s.ses."

"You just described ninety percent of the men in this room, Sugar," Margo pointed out.

I thought for a moment. "Okay, he has a little bald spot on the back of his head. If you can't find him, look for his wife Mary. Pretty brunette with some gray at the front, attractively plump, wine-colored dress that b.u.t.tons up the front."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Strutter saluted sharply and scooted for the main room.

"Margo," I grabbed her sleeve urgently. "I want you to find that caterer and charm him into performing a miracle. We need every waiter and waitress in this place to return to the staging area, off-load their refreshments, and fill their trays with those gifts piled in the corner. When they hear Sister Marguerite give them a cue, they're to sweep into the main hall and distribute the gifts. Got it?"

"No problem, Darlin'," and I knew that for Margo, it would not be. Charm was her middle name. "What will the cue be?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know at the moment, but you'll recognize it when you hear it," I a.s.sured her. "Now I get the fun job of breaking the news to a very tired nun who's already had one heck of a day that her star performer is among the missing. Go! Go!" I pushed Margo through the doors ahead of me and went to find Sister Marguerite.

Four.

By nine-thirty the party was over, and by ten-fifteen, a casual observer would have been unaware that one had even occurred. After a full day of preparation and hours on their feet, the caterer's staff had removed every remnant of food and drink and wiped and mopped their way out the door. Henry Kozlowski had been the hero of the evening. Within ten minutes of our discovery that Santa was among the missing, he had marshaled his ragtag and largely untrained troops, heaped their trays with presents for our generous guests, and lined them up by twos at the entrance to the Avery Court. On his cue, the ambient lighting was dimmed, and two volunteers bearing battery-powered candles led the gift-bearers as they swept magnificently into the hall to appreciative ooohs and ahhhs. At that moment, Henry became every inch Henri in my mind. The man had true cla.s.s, the kind that counted when the chips were down.

I thanked Margo and Strutter until they held up their hands in protest. "We absolutely could not have pulled this off without you two," I gushed for the tenth time as they gathered their purses and car keys and headed for the door.

"I wouldn't have missed it, Sugar," Margo a.s.sured me, still the picture of pulled-together perfection after all that had transpired, but I had noticed her wincing as she stuffed her tired feet back into the silver sandals "Just remember to let us know what happened to Santa," Strutter added, tucking a box of scrumptious leftovers into her oversized handbag. "Charlie and John are just going to love these goodies."

"You're the best!" I called after them, and they fled through the lobby, where a weary Luis let them out onto Atheneum Square North, then locked the door behind them.

I walked slowly through the nearly deserted exhibition hall to the Women's Committee office to retrieve my own coat and purse. This time, the door to the little room stood open. Lois Billard and the a.s.sistant financial officer of the UCC, a retired corporate comptroller, huddled with Sister Marguerite at the desk. In the absence of the CFO, they were uncertain of the legal protocol that applied to the counting and reporting of auction proceeds.

"'Tis no fault of his own, I'm sure," said Sister Marguerite, "but James' absence does make things a bit dicey."

"As long as we log in all of the proceeds together, which means counting and recounting for verification, I think we'll be okay," the a.s.sistant opined, "but it can't wait until tomorrow. Of that much, I'm sure. We'll have to do it right here, tonight, then sign and date some sort of doc.u.ment saying we all agree on how much we got from whom and for what." Lois and Sister both groaned.

"Can I help?" I offered, hoping against hope that they would decline. I was dead on my feet.

"No, no, Katie girl," Sister shooed me on my way. "You're wonderful to offer, but at this point, that would just make too many cooks in the kitchen. Off you go, now, and we'll see you tomorrow, though a bit later than usual," she predicted.

"Why are you in California? Why aren't you here?" I whined at Armando via long distance. It was very late, though less so where he was. "Everything is a mess, and I need you."

"As appealing a picture as you paint, Mia, I will force myself to resist getting on the next plane. Besides, I have work to do here that must be completed. Are you sick? Are you hurt?" After a moment's reflection on previous episodes in our relations.h.i.+p, "Are you in danger?"

"Not exactly," I sulked. I mean, it's not me exactly. There's the whole Christmas Eve dinner with the boyfriend thing, and Martha Stewart, I'm not. When did Emma turn into a traditional girlfriend type, anyway? Her att.i.tude has always been, 'This is me, and you can take it or leave it. ' This guy really has her under his thumb, and it's so unsettling. Then there's the little matter of the wedding that's taking place in our house two days after Christmas, whether either one of is here or not. I swear, if it were for anybody besides Jeff and Donna, I'd tell them to go rent the VFW hall. And now, just when I think I've got the UCC fundraiser safely behind me, the CFO disappears in the middle of it, Santa suit and all. Where can James O'Halloran possibly be, do you suppose? I just know I'm going to get sucked into that somehow. I need you here to be on my side."

"I am always on your side, you know that, but I have never known a time when you were not either sick or hurt when you needed anyone's help. In fact, it is usually you who does the helping. This is very strange. A week ago you were looking forward to being, how do you call it, the merry widow."

"I can't be a widow without being married," I pointed out crankily.

"Whose fault is that, may I ask? Whenever we discuss it, you say, 'Soon,' or 'There's no hurry. ' Is your thinking changing on this subject?" he teased me.

"How did we get onto this topic? I called to get some love and sympathy from my hunky Latino lover, and instead, I'm getting my leg pulled," I said, changing the subject.

"I am always happy to do anything that involves your legs. Of course, it is not quite so much fun over the phone."

"Mmmm," I agreed. Armando had always openly admired my legs. "Well, I can see I'm not going to get any sympathy from you, so I may as well hang up and try to get some sleep. Do you have any better idea of when you'll be able to get back?"

"Everyone on the crew is eager to return home for Christmas. Several have small children, so it especially hard on them. We are all doing our best to finish. We will have to wait and see."

"I know," I sighed.

"Mia? Please try not to have the house full of paramedics and police, okay?

He may have been kidding. Then again, based on our past experiences, he may not have been.

"I can't promise."

"I was afraid of that."

Not surprisingly, I spent a restless night only to fall into a heavy slumber around dawn and wind up oversleeping. At nearly seven-thirty, poor old Jasmine woke me by standing on my chest and licking my face, desperate for her breakfast. Abandoned by her feline companion of fifteen years and her favorite person in the whole world, was she now to go hungry, as well? I sprang into the kitchen to get food for her.

By forgoing my coffee stop at the diner, I managed to arrive at the UCC offices on time and let myself in, eager to learn what had become of James O'Halloran. The reception area was strangely empty. I found s.h.i.+rley with the rest of the early staff arrivals in the conference room. It was an unusually subdued group that included Lois Billard. After the long night she had put in, I was impressed that she was there at all, let alone at this hour. "So that's it," she concluded her comments to the a.s.sembled staffers. "James' car was still parked on the street outside the Avery Lobby, but Mary hasn't heard from him. We haven't heard from him. His cell phone goes right to voice mail. Mary has to wait another twelve hours or so before the police will take an official missing persons report. There's nothing we can do but get on with our work and wait for word." She shrugged helplessly.

We all straggled back to our desks and attempted to get some work done, but our hearts weren't in it. At ten minutes past nine, my telephone rang. I barely recognized Mary O'Halloran. Her voice was as raw as if she had spent the night chain smoking. On second thought, maybe she had.

"Sorry to bother you, Kate, but I'm flat out of people to call and places to look. The police have been kind, but Hartford can't do anything until they know if something happened in their jurisdiction, and Wethersfield can't even take a formal missing persons report for another several hours." Her voice broke, and she paused to collect herself. "Sister Marguerite told me once that you and your partners had helped people here in town solve one or two problems in the past. Will you help me? Can you help me?"

I had to give the woman credit. Physically exhausted and at the end of her emotional rope, she still managed to hold it together and get right to the point.

"Of course, I'll do whatever I can, Mary. I just don't know what that might be. My friends and I aren't licensed investigators or anything. It's just that from time to time a situation crops up in the course of our real estate work, and we've been lucky enough to find some answers for the people involved."

"G.o.d knows I could use a few answers right about now. Can we talk privately? I could drive downtown and meet you somewhere. I need to get out of this house. I'm so full of caffeine, I'm about ready to jump out of my skin."

I thought for a moment. Coming to the UCC office would be awkward for her. On the other hand, I probably shouldn't go far in case I was needed here. We could always meet in the parking lot and talk in one or the other of our cars. Then I had an idea.

"How about the Cathedral, Mary? Not upstairs in the main nave but down on the lower level where we hold our meetings sometimes. I never see anyone but the maintenance men coming and going down there.

"How do I get in?" was all she asked.

"The Cathedral is always open until two in the afternoon," I a.s.sured her. "You can go right in from Farmington Avenue and down the stairs inside, and I'll meet you there. Half an hour?"

"Thank you, Kate." The grat.i.tude in her voice was almost palpable. "I'll see you there."

Explaining that I had a personal errand to run, I gave my cell phone number to s.h.i.+rley about twenty minutes later and slipped across the parking lot to the back entrance of the Cathedral. The neighborhood food bank was open, so I was able to blend in with the others standing in line before making my way across the building to the lower church hall.

Mary was already waiting for me in one of the rear pews. Her head was bowed over hands clasped so tightly together her knuckles gleamed whitely in the dim lighting. I didn't have to wonder what she was praying for. I slid into the pew beside her, and she raised a wan face to me. Last night, I had noticed how the attractive gray highlights in her brunette hair only seemed to accentuate the youthfulness of her sparkling eyes and dewy complexion. This morning, she looked every minute of her age.

"How are you holding up?" I asked her quietly. We seemed to be alone, but one never knew.

"I'm a crazy person. Certifiable. I probably shouldn't even be driving a car, but I have to go somewhere, do something. This can't be happening, but it is. My husband of twenty-seven years is missing, and n.o.body can seem to do anything about it, least of all me. There must be something." Her eyes begged me for suggestions. I wished with all my heart that I had some for her.

"I think the most useful thing we can do is revisit the last few days and put together a profile of James' contacts and activities that might be useful to the police when they can open an official investigation." I was totally winging it, but Mary perked right up. At last, something practical that she could focus on.

"Okay. How far back should I go?"

I pulled my little notebook out of my purse and got ready to write. "Today's Friday. James hasn't been seen or heard from since yesterday evening. How about two or three days before that? Did anything out of the ordinary happen? Did James have any unusual appointments or meetings that you're aware of?"

"Nothing comes to mind. It was just another work week. We got up, ate breakfast, and James went to work. He was putting in some longer-than-usual hours because of preparations for the fundraiser, but so was everyone else at the UCC. I was busy with the Christmas shopping and cookie baking and getting ready for our vacation trip. James and I don't have children, you see, or close relatives who live in this area, so if we aren't traveling to spend the holiday with one or another of them, we treat ourselves to a little trip of some kind. It's usually a cruise to someplace warm. This year, we're planning to sail out of Orlando to Na.s.sau in the Bahamas." She faltered to a stop. "I mean, it would have been the Bahamas."

I recognized the signs and braced myself for what I knew was coming. It's the verbalizing of the dashed hopes that does it. Sure enough, poor Mary heard cold, hard reality expressed in her own words, and her misery exploded into wrenching sobs. She reached out to me blindly, and I hugged her to me as she wailed with the pent-up anguish of the past eighteen hours. I knew from experience that she would have a headache from h.e.l.l when the storm pa.s.sed, but the release of all that anxiety and tension would restore her somewhat to herself. At least, I hoped for her sake that it would. If I were in her place, and Armando was inexplicably among the missing, I could not imagine how I would survive it.

As her sobs downgraded to hiccups and sniffles, Mary dragged herself upright. We both dug around in our purses and unearthed enough tissues to mop up the worst of the damage. "I'm so sorry," she began, but I waved off any apologies.

"I don't know how you kept it together as long as you did," I said honestly. "Believe me, it's better to get it all out. I lived with a teenage daughter. I know. What with one boyfriend crisis or another, we'd do one of these at least once a month."

My feeble efforts at humor produced a shaky smile. "Okay, then. That's enough of that. Where were we?"

"A few days before the gala. Christmas shopping, planning for your trip. Anything else? An unusual visitor? What about James' brother Joseph? You were telling me last night that he had turned up, and you didn't seem any too pleased about it."

"Joseph, yes, that's true. He did telephone the house yesterday morning wanting to speak urgently to James. With Joseph, it's always urgent," she sniffed, "at least from his point of view. After more than twenty years of urgent calls from Joseph, we don't rise to the bait like we used to."

"Something of a black sheep, is he? Every family seems to have one."

"Mmm, well, Joseph is ours. He and James are Irish twins, you know, siblings born less than a year apart. Joseph is the younger of the two, but he and James look so much alike, they're always being mistaken for one another. Joseph always has some can't-miss financial scheme going, and of course, it's always a disaster. Over the years we must have invested twenty thousand dollars in his tax shelters and real estate developments and dot com businesses, and they fail every time. Since Joseph never contacts us unless he wants money from us, I just put yesterday's call in the back of my mind. I was going to tell James about it last night, as a matter of fact, but ..."

"Did he maybe speak to James during the day yesterday, get him on the phone at the UCC office?"

"I guess it's possible," Mary said doubtfully.

"Any chance Joseph could have something to do with James' disappearance?"

"I don't see how. All he ever wants from James is money. As soon as he gets it, he goes away."