“Tuck, that’s too much makeup!”
“It’s Santa’s Helper stage makeup, honey.”
“Santa’s Helper? I look like Santa’s Hooker!”
“Here’s your bag, Candy Cane Girl!” He passed me a bulging red velvet sack with a long shoulder strap. It was packed with gourmet chocolate-dipped red and white candy canes and green peppermint sticks, Ticket to the North Pole printed on each cellophane wrapper.
“Whoa, this is heavy.”
“Sorry—but you’re now doing the work of two promo candy girls.”
“Ouch. Don’t elves have a union or something?”
“Okay, sweetie, get upstairs, smile, and show those folks the true meaning of a Hollywood Christmas!”
I climbed the wide marble staircase to the enormous Rose Reading Room. On a normal day, this stately space with its massive windows and majestic chandeliers was library-quiet, with brass lamps glowing on heavy tables of darkly stained wood. Tonight, raucous laughter and children’s holiday ditties (“Frosty,” “Rudolph,” “Jingle Bells”) were echoing loudly off the high ceiling.
The room’s chandeliers were still burning brightly, but the reading tables had been replaced with twelve-foot-tall candy canes, toy soldiers, rag dolls, and a Santa sleigh as big as my Honda. On one end of the room an open bar had been set up in front of a wall-sized enlargement of a children’s picture book cover—the one this Hollywood movie was based on. At the other end of the long space, a temporary stage was flanked by two foam “snow” mountains.
“Hey, there, little elf. Got something sweet for me?” called a male voice.
I turned to find an extremely tanned guy in a tux shooting me with a trigger finger.
Gritting my teeth, I reminded myself that this flashy PR event was also a fund-raiser for charity. But after fifteen minutes of passing out confections to little ones, I realized I’d attracted an embarrassing amount of Big Boy attention, and I looked for a place to hide.
That’s when I spied Breanne. She was stunning, as usual, in a pine-colored taffeta dress with a kicky flared skirt and a bolero jacket dripping with hand-sewn gemstones. Her long blond hair was piled high to show off her annoyingly swanlike neck, and her slender back was turned to me (a lucky break).
As I moved to hide from her—behind a giant toy soldier—I realized a dashing, dark-haired guy in Armani was ogling my cleavage. A few seconds later, he finally noticed the face above it.
“Clare?!”
“Matt!”
“What are you doing here?” he whispered. “And why are you dressed like that?”
“I’m here to have a talk with Dickie,” I replied.
“Dickie? Why? Wait! Don’t tell me—” Matt took a long belt from the tumbler in his hand. “I don’t want to know.”
“You better get back to your wife.”
“I know,” Matt griped. “She’s royally pissed at me for taking off to grab your new kitten—who’s safe and snug in the duplex, by the way. I refilled Java’s food bowl and bought some kitten chow at a convenience store. The box is in the cupboard.”
“Thanks. I mean it.”
“It’s okay,” he sighed. “Anyway, you’re right. I better get back to Bree. If she saw me talking to you right now, with you dressed like that—” He took his good old time looking me up and down, then blew out air. “I’m pretty sure she’d be wearing my private parts for earrings come Christmas morning.”
“Hello! Good evening!”
A diminutive man in a spotless white tux had stepped up to a microphone on the temporary stage.
“My name’s Dickie. Welcome to my pah-ty,” he said with what sounded like a slight Bronx accent.
Loud applause greeted the man. As it intensified, I made a study of the famed party planner. With dark hair slicked back, a spray-tanned complexion that bordered on burnt orange latte syrup, and a Botox-numbed face, the Napoleon-sized Celebratorio (whose younger photographs cast him as a Dean Martin lookalike), now struck me as a cross between George Hamilton, Austin Powers’s Mini-Me, and a Madame Tussaud’s wax figure.
I moved to get closer to the stage. If Dickie decided to dash away without notice, I wanted to be in a position to follow him. But my movements were halted when strong fingers wrapped tightly around my upper arm and a man’s hot breath tickled my ear—
“Come with me, honey.”
For heaven’s sake! What is it about a skimpy Santa’s Helper costume that puts male libidos into overdrive?
I turned, ready to push away whoever had taken hold of me—and found a five-eleven, golden-haired elf gawking down my neckline.
Oh, no! Not Shane Holliway. Not now!
Twenty-Seven
“We need to talk,” Shane whispered in my ear.
“Let me go.”
“Come on, honey.” He pulled my arm again.
A few people looked our way. Darn it! In an effort to avoid a scene, I let Shane take my hand and lead me to a corner. With a jerk, he tugged me behind an enormous glass-bulb Christmas tree ornament and quickly bent over me. I slapped his face.
He yelped. “What’s that for?!”
“I am not interested in you, Shane! Got that?”
“Wait, Clare! You’ve got the wrong idea—”
I turned to dash. He jumped in front of me. “Listen to me. Please, it’s important.”
“Ten seconds.”
“Your life is in danger.”
My tapping go-go boot stilled. “Okay. You’ve got my attention.”
Shane moved closer again and whispered in my ear. “Listen, I’m in deep here, and this is my only chance to talk to you.”
“Talk, then.”
“You have to believe me, Clare, I never meant anyone to get hurt, and I certainly didn’t know what I was getting myself into—”
“Just tell me.”
“Right after Thanksgiving, Dickie Celebratorio called me up and asked me to help out a celebrity friend of his—”
“What friend?”
“Dickie wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t even let slip whether it was a man or woman. I only know this famous person was getting bothered and wanted the harassment to end. Dickie agreed to help this person, and I agreed to help Dickie...”
“Agreed to do what exactly?”
“To follow the dude who was hassling his famous friend. Find out the dude’s movements.”
“What do you mean his movements?”
“It was like an acting job. I mean, I’d already done the method research when I played a private eye on TV. It wasn’t that hard. Dickie knew stuff about this dude already—had the whole 411 on his name and address. But this famous friend of Dickie’s wanted the guy’s routine, too. So for two days in a row, I waited outside this dude’s apartment building. When he came out, all dressed for work, I followed him and made notes on where he went and when. But I thought it was all innocent—that we were the good guys.”
“What do you mean?”
“Clare, the dude I followed ended up murdered.”
“Oh, no.” I felt sick, closed my eyes. “You were following Alfred Glockner.”
“Yes. I followed a Traveling Santa out of his Upper West Side apartment building, down to Union Square, and then on to the Village. That’s the pattern I handed over to Dickie. I didn’t know there were two Traveling Santas, with two different work routines, both living at the same address! What did they want from me? I’m not a real detective! I just played one on TV!”
Oh, for pity’s sake. “You’re an accomplice, Shane, don’t you see that? What did you do after Alf was murdered? Did you confront Dickie? Ask him if he had anything to do with Santa’s getting shot?”
“God, no. Are you kidding? I played the dumb soap actor. By then he’d already paid me for the surveillance job and even sent me to the Blend to see Tucker. He said Tuck could give me a high-paying acting gig, and he was right. I needed the money, and I didn’t want to upset the man, so I put on the elf suit—”