A Christmas Eve Murder: A Detective Bass Mystery

By Stephen Randorf

There’s never a good time to find a body, especially Christmas Eve when the victim lies dead cold on scaffolding outside a bank.  Police Detective Bass could quickly tie in the victim to a recent apartment fire, but not to the bank and the conflicting stories between the bank president and the branch manager concerning stolen money.  
    A sweet, elderly lady offers the detective cookies, another lady he puts in a cab.
    The victim was killed by a .38 revolver.  Detective Bass didn’t know it was stolen until it was pointed at him.
    This is one in a series of Detective Bass Mystery novellas centering around Detective Gilbert Bass, a middle-aged, desk-prone police detective solving the low-profile cases of a Midwest city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Randorf
• Release date: Aug 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516310777

Stephen Randorf

Stephen Randorf grew up in the Midwest region of the U.S.  His education includes history and creative writing.  The Detective Bass Mystery novels and novellas specifically center around Detective Gilbert Bass, a middle-aged, desk-prone police detective who solves the low-profile cases of an urban city.

Book preview

A CHRISTMAS EVE MURDER

By

Stephen Randorf

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Copyright @ 2015 by Stephen Randorf

Cover Design by Jeanine Henning

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual places or events now or in the future is coincidental.

Table of Contents

Title

License

A Christmas Eve Murder

Epilogue

About

A Christmas Eve Murder

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IT WAS A SURPRISE TO EVERYONE that afternoon when the fire broke out in the apartment building.

At the time, Detective Gilbert Bass was driving toward a shopping center near the suburbs. The weather was typical for December in the city. A gray fog had moved in off the lake. Snow from an earlier snowfall had dissolved into the wet pavement. Some of it still remained in the brown grass along the median strips. White patches could be seen under bushes and shrubs.

Many of the homes had their television sets turned on. The TVs blue glare flashed from the windows. The previous day’s news had reported the fact that hundred dollar bills were being placed in the red kettles of the holiday bell-ringers. This was done by an anonymous donor whom the media called: Mr. Anonymous. An annual occurrence, as was the annual reporting by the local news outlets. This was always followed by reports of numerous robberies of bell-ringers’ kettles, which would always occur shortly after the first Mr. Anonymous story was broadcasted.

Detective Bass drove alone that afternoon because his partner, Chet MacIntyre, whom he referred to as Macky, had gone off the clock to spend the holiday by taking his teenage daughters to visit their aging grandparents out of state. With Bass being left to work without him, a Detective Dillings was assigned to be available for use if needed. He was a young, competent detective who had recently broken an arm while wrestling down a bicycle thief during an earlier, December night. Like any single man, Dillings was dedicated enough to accept the overtime, holiday pay in preference to spending Christmas Eve with his girlfriend’s parents.

It was Dillings who was sitting comfortably at his desk, poking a letter opener inside the cast on his arm to scratch an itch, when the police department was alerted to the fire. And it was Dillings who relayed that two o’clock afternoon call to Detective Bass.

A fire’s a fire, Bass said in his car, heading toward the next shopping mall on his list of malls to investigate. They probably don’t need us getting in their way. Not right now.

Bass approached the shopping center and parked close to a bell-ringer. She was a short, black woman wearing a red, Santa hat. She stopped clanging the hand-bell when Bass walked up. Her face was damp from the moist air. When she brushed the back of a hand across her cheek, the wetness moved to the creases near her eyes. Both were dark and watery. She had all the signs of being outdoors too long.

Bass showed his identification. Notice anyone suspicious?

You mean, suspicious as in Mr. Anonymous trying to drop in a hundred dollar bill? Or suspicious as in someone trying to snatch it, if he had? She shifted her weight to the other foot, and clanked the bell several times to the rhythm of the person’s footsteps, who was walking by.

Bass replied, I’m not interested in the givers, only the takers.

Well, I haven’t seen either. She bunched up the collar of her coat closer to her neck.

Must be the weather, Bass said. I heard people don’t give as much when the weather is warm.

Must be, she replied. She still gripped her coat collar tightly, and layers of inner garments could be seen around the edges where she held the fabric. Maybe if they stood out here for a couple hours, they’d have a different opinion on the weather.

Behind the woman was one of the mall’s overhead speakers which pumped out choral arrangements in soft, faint sounds. The music covered them and seemed to settle close to the sidewalk around their shoes. Bass noticed that the woman’s candy cane striped leggings were the only cheerful thing about her. He stood next to her for a while, saying nothing.

When a gust of wind came up suddenly and hit against his face, his cheeks felt prickly. The weather was changing. The wind blew from the northwest now, the direction across from the parking lot, and swept undiminished through the parked cars.

The potted evergreens next to the two moved with this wind. The branches had a few tiny, red and green Christmas bulbs wrapped around them. Their twinkling lights showed little under the glare of the large, parking lot lights. Three o’clock. The lights were already on, Bass thought.

Bass took two dollars from his wallet and slipped it into the slotted opening of the red kettle.

How late are the stores open tonight? he asked.

Seven, she replied. It’s Christmas Eve. But I’m getting relieved at five-thirty. I got family and kids. They expect me home at night.

It was Bass’s turn to bunch up his overcoat. He did, and walked back to the car. The city had hundreds of holiday bell-ringers. What were the odds of being at the right place at the right time? He sat in the car and, while he phoned Dillings, kept watch on the woman.

Anything more on the fire? Bass asked.

Not really, Dillings said. The fire department thinks it looks suspicious and they have a guy named ‘Marico’ or ‘Marcoi’ looking at it.

How’s the tenant? Bass asked.

Lucky. He wasn’t at home.

That’s good, Bass replied.

The discussion continued a little longer. It was then that Bass decided to drive back into the city and check out the apartment fire. It was located in the district that he covered: it would be his case, his and Macky’s, if Macky was in town. The bell-ringers were surly anyway and not much for conversation. He had hoped to end the day on that side of the city, where he lived, but he thought that he might as well get the other investigation started.

Bass returned to the downtown area by way of the expressway. He reviewed in his mind where he could eat or get a beer afterwards, places which would still be open Christmas Eve. The list was short and even though he spent the whole twenty minutes on it, which was the time it took to drive into the city, he forgot about the places as soon as he drove up to the scene