Mystery for Christmas and Other Stories

I Saw Mommy Killing Santa Claus by George Baxt

We buried my mother yesterday, so I feel free to tell the truth. She lived to be ninety-three because, like the sainted, loyal son I chose to be, I didn’t blab to the cops. I’m Oscar Leigh and my mother was Desiree Leigh. That’s right — Desiree Leigh, inventor of the Desiree face cream that promised eternal youth to the young and rejuvenation to the aged. It was one of the great con games in the cosmetics industry. I suppose once this is published, it’ll be the end of the Desiree cosmetics empire, but frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn. Desiree Cosmetics was bought by a Japanese combine four years ago, and my share (more than two billion) is safely salted away. I suppose I inherit Mom’s billions, too, but what in heaven’s name will I do with it all? Count it, I guess.

Desiree Leigh wasn’t her real name. She was born Daisy Ray Letch, and who could go through life with a surname like Letch? For the past fourteen years she’s been entertaining Alzheimer’s and that was when I began to take an interest in her past. She was always very mysterious about her origins and equally arcane about the identity of my father. She said he was killed in North Africa back in 1943 and that his name was Clarence Kolb. I spent a lot of money tracing Clarence, until one night, in bed watching an old movie, the closing credits rolled and one of the character actors was named Clarence Kolb. I mentioned this to Mother the next morning at breakfast, but she said it was a coincidence and she and my father used to laugh about it.

She had no photos of my father, which I thought was strange. When they married a few months before the war, they settled in Brooklyn, in Coney Island. Surely they must have had their picture taken in one of the Coney Island fun galleries? But no, insisted Mother, they avoided the boardwalk and the amusement parks — they were too poor for such frivolities. How did Father make his living? He was a milkman, she said — his route was in Sheepshead Bay. She said he worked for the Borden Company. Well, let me tell you this; there is no record of a Clarence Kolb ever having been employed by the Borden Milk Company. It cost an ugly penny tracking that down.

Did Mom work, too, perhaps? “Oh, yes,” she told me one night in Cannes where our yacht was berthed for a few days, “I worked right up until the day before you were born.”

“What did you do?” We were on deck playing honeymoon bridge in the blazing sunlight so Mom could keep an eye on the first mate, with whom she was either having an affair or planning to have one.

“I worked in a laboratory.” She said it so matter of factly while collecting a trick she shouldn’t have collected that I didn’t believe her. “You don’t believe me.” (She not only conned, stole, and lied, she was a mind-reader.)

“Sure I believe you.” I sounded as convincing as an East Berlin commissar assuring would-be emigrés they’d have their visas to freedom before sundown.{Ed. note: A joyful note to anachronism — shortly after this story was written.}

“It was a privately owned laboratory,” she said, sneaking a look at the first mate, who was sneaking a look at the second mate. “It was a couple of blocks from our apartment.”

“What kind of a laboratory was it?” I asked, mindful that the second mate was sneaking a look at me.

“It was owned by a man named Desmond Tester. He fooled around with all kinds of formulas,”

“Some sort of mad scientist?”

She chuckled as she cheated another trick in her favor. “I guess he was kind of mad in a way. He had a very brilliant mind. I learned a great deal from him.”

“Is that where you originated the Desiree creams and lotions?”

“The seed was planted there.”

“How long were you with this—”

“Desmond Tester. Let me see now. Your daddy went into the Army in February of ’42. I didn’t know I was pregnant then or he’d never have gone. On the other hand, I suppose if I had known, I would have kept it to myself so your dad could go and prove he was a hero and not just a common everyday milkman.”

“I don’t see anything wrong in delivering milk.”

“There’s nothing heroic about it, either. Where was I?”

“Taking my king of hearts, which you shouldn’t be.”

She ignored me and favored the first mate with a seductive smile, and I blushed when the second mate winked at me. “Anyway, I took time off to give birth to you and then I went right back to work for Professor Tester. A nice lady in the neighborhood looked after you. Let me think, what was her name? Oh, yes — Blanche Yurka.”

“Isn’t that the name of the actress who played Ma Barker in a gangster movie we saw on the late show?”

“I don’t know, isn’t it? That’s my ten of clubs you’re taking,” she said sharply.

“I’ve captured it fair and square with the queen of clubs,” I told her. “How come you never married again?”

“I guess I was too busy being a career woman. I was assisting Professor Tester in marketing some of his creams and lotions by then. I had such a hard time cracking the department stores.”

“When did you come up with your own formulas?”

“That was after the professor met with his unfortunate death.”

Unfortunate, indeed. I saw her kill him.

It was Christmas of 1950 — in fact, it was Christmas Day. Mom was preparing to roast a turkey at the professor’s house — our apartment was much too small for entertaining — and I remember almost everyone who was there. It was mostly kids from the neighborhood, the unfortunate ones whose families couldn’t afford a proper Christmas dinner. There must have been about ten of them. Mother and the professor were the only adults, although Mom still insists there was a woman there named Laurette with whom the professor was having an affair. Mom says this woman was jealous of her because she thought Mom and the professor were having a little ding-dong of their own. (I’ve always suspected my mother of doing quite a bit of dinging and donging in the neighborhood when she couldn’t meet a grocery bill or a butcher bill or satisfy the landlord or Mr. Kumbog, who owned the liquor store.)

Mom says it was Laurette who shot the professor in the heart and ran away (and was never heard of again, need I tell you?) — but I’m getting ahead of myself. It happened like this: Mom was in the kitchen stuffing the turkey when Professor Tester appeared in the doorway dressed in the Santa Claus suit. He had stuffed his stomach but still looked no more like Santa Claus than Monty Woolley did in Life Begins at Eight-Thirty.

“Daisy Ray, I have to talk to you,” he said.

“Just let me finish stuffing this turkey and get it in the oven,” she told him. “I’d like to feed the kids by around five o’clock when I’m sure they’ll be tired of playing Post Office and Spin the Bottle and Doctor.” I remember her asking me, “Sonny, have you been playing Doctor?”

“As often as I can,” I replied with a smirk. And I still do. Now I’m a specialist.

“Daisy Ray, come with me to the laboratory,” Tester insisted.

“Oh, really, Desmond,” Mother said, “I don’t understand your tone of voice.”

“There are a lot of things going on around here that are hard to understand,” the professor said ominously. “Daisy Ray!” He sounded uncannily like Captain Bligh summoning Mr. Christian.

I caught a very strange and very scary look on my mother’s face. And then she did something I now realize should have made the professor realize that something unexpected and undesirable was about to befall him. She picked up her handbag, which was hanging by its strap on the back of a chair, and followed him out of the room. “Sonny, you stay here.” Her voice sounded as though it was coming from that echo chamber I heard on the spooky radio show, The Witch’s Tale.

“Yes, Mama.”

I watched her follow Professor Tester out of the kitchen. I was frightened. I was terribly frightened. I had a premonition that something awful was going to happen, so I disobeyed her orders and tiptoed after them.

The laboratory was in the basement. I waited in the hall until I heard them reach the bottom of the stairs and head for the main testing room, then I tiptoed downstairs, praying the stairs wouldn’t squeak and betray me. But I had nothing to worry about. They were having a shouting match that would have drowned out the exploding of an atom bomb.

The door to the testing room was slightly ajar and I could hear everything.

“What have you done with the formula?” he raged.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mama was quite cool, subtly underplaying him. It was one of those rare occasions when I almost admired her.

“You damn well know what I’m talking about, you thief!”

“How dare you!” What a display of indignation — had she heard it, Norma Shearer would have died of envy.

“You stole the formula for my rejuvenating cream! You’ve formed a partnership with the Sibonay Group in Mexico!”

“You’re hallucinating. You’ve been taking too many of your own drugs.”

“I’ve got a friend at Sibonay — he’s told me everything! I’m going to put you behind bars unless you give me back my formula!”

Although I didn’t doubt for one moment that my mother had betrayed him, I still had to put my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh. I mean, have you ever seen Santa Claus blowing his top? It’s a scream in red and white.

“Don’t you touch me! Don’t you lay a hand on me!” Mother’s handbag was open and she was fumbling for something in it. He slapped her hard across the face. Then I heard the pop and the professor was clutching at his chest. Through his fingers little streams of blood began to form.

Mom was holding a tiny pearl-handled pistol in her hand, the kind Kay Francis used to carry around in a beaded bag. My God, I remember saying to myself, I just saw Mommy killing Santa Claus.

I turned tail and ran. I bolted up the stairs and into the front of the house, where the other kids who couldn’t possibly have heard what had gone on in the basement were busy choosing up sides for a game called Kill the Hostess. I joined in and there wasn’t a peep out of Mom for at least half an hour.

I began to wonder if maybe I had been hallucinating, if maybe I hadn’t seen Mom slay the professor. I left the other kids and — out of curiosity and I suppose a little anxiety — I went to the kitchen.

You’ve got to hand it to Mom (you might as well, she’d take it anyway): the turkey was in the oven, roasting away. She had prepared the salad. Vegetables were simmering, timed to be ready when the turkey was finished roasting. She was topping a sweet-potato pie with little round marshmallows. She looked up when I came in and asked, “Enjoying yourself, Sonny?”

I couldn’t resist asking her. “When is Santa Claus coming with his bag of presents for us?”

“Good Lord, when indeed! Now, where could Santa be, do you suppose?”

Dead as a doornail in the testing room, I should have responded, but instead I said, “Shucks, Mom, it beats me.”

She thought for a moment and then said brightly, “I’ll bet he’s downstairs working on a new formula. Go down and tell him it’s time he put in his appearance.”

Can you top that? Sending her son into the basement to discover the body of the man she’d just assassinated?

Well, I dutifully discovered the body and started yelling my head off, deciding that was the wisest course under the circumstances. Mom and the kids came running. When they saw the body, the kids began shrieking, me shrieking the loudest so that maybe Mom would be proud of me, and Mom hurried and phoned the police.

What ensued after the police arrived was sheer genius on my mother’s part. I don’t remember the detective’s name — by now he must be in that Big Squadroom in the Sky — but I’m sure if he was ever given an I.Q. test he must have ended up owing them about fifty points. Mom was saying hysterically, “Oh, my God, to think there was a murderer in the house while I was in the kitchen preparing our Christmas dinner and the children were in the parlor playing guessing games!” She carried the monologue for about ten minutes until the medical examiner came into the kitchen to tell the detective the professor had been done in by a bullet to the heart.

“Any sign of the weapon?” asked the detective.

“It’s not my job to look for one,” replied the examiner testily.

So others were dispatched to look for a weapon. Knowing Mom, it wouldn’t be in her handbag, but where, I wondered, could she have stashed it? I stopped in mid-wonder when I heard her say, “It might have been Laurette.”

“Who’s she?” asked the detective.

Mom folded her hands, managing to look virtuous and sound scornful. “She was the professor’s girl friend, if you know what I mean. He broke it off with her last week and she wasn’t about to let him off so easy. She’s been phoning and making threats, and this morning he told me she might be coming around to give him his Christmas present.” She added darkly, “That Christmas present was called — death!”

“Did you see her here today?” the detective asked. Mom said she hadn’t. He asked us all if we’d seen a strange lady come into the house. I was tempted to tell him the only strange lady I saw come into the house was my mother, but I thought of that formula and how wealthy we’d become and I became a truly loving son.

“She could have come in by the cellar door,” I volunteered.

It was the first time I saw my mother look at me with love and admiration. “It’s on the other side of the house, and with all the noise we were making—”

“And I had the radio on in the kitchen, listening to the Make Believe Ballroom,” was the fuel Mother added to the fire I had ignited. The arson was successful. The police finally left — without finding the weapon — taking the body with them, and Mom proceeded with Christmas dinner as though killing a man was an everyday occurrence.

The dinner was delicious, although some of us kids noted the turkey had a slightly strange taste to it.

“Turkey can be gamey,” Mama trilled — and within the next six months she was on her way to becoming one of the most powerful names in the cosmetics industry.

I remained a bachelor. I worked alongside Mother and her associates and watched as, one by one over the years, she got rid of all of them. She destroyed the Sibonay people in Mexico by proving falsely and at great cost, that they were the front for a dope-running operation. She thought it would be fun if I could become a mayor of New York City, but a psychic told me to forget about it and go into junk bonds — which I did and suffered staggering losses. (The psychic died a mysterious death, which she obviously hadn’t foretold herself.)

Year after year, Christmas after Christmas, I was sorely tempted to tell Mama I saw her kill Santa Claus. Year after year, Christmas after Christmas, I was aching to know where she had hidden the weapon.

And then I found out. It was Christmas Day fourteen years ago.

The doctors, after numerous tests, had assured me that Mom was showing signs of Alzheimer’s. Such as when applying lipstick, she ended up covering her chin with rouge. And wearing three dresses at the same time. And filing her shoes and accessories in the deep freeze. It was sad, really, even for a murderess who deserved no mercy. Yet she insisted on cooking the Christmas dinner herself that year.

“It’s going to be just like that Christmas Day when we had that wonderful dinner with the neighborhood kiddies,” she said, “And Professor Tester dressed up as Santa Glaus and brought in that big bag of games and toys. And he gave me the wonderful gift of the exclusive rights to the formula for the Desiree Rejuvenating Lotion.”

There were twenty for dinner and, believe it or not, Mother cooked it impeccably. The servants were a bit nervous, but the guests were too drunk to notice. Then, while eating the turkey, Mother asked me across the table, “Does the turkey taste the same way it did way back when, Sonny?”

And then I remembered how the turkey had tasted that day forty years ago when Mama had said something about turkey sometimes tasting gamey. I looked at her and, ill or not, there was mockery in her eyes. It was then that I said to her, not knowing if she would understand what I meant: “Mama, I saw what you did.”

There was a small smile on her face. Slowly her head began to bob up and down. “I had a feeling you did,” she said. “But you haven’t answered me. Does the turkey taste the same way it did then?”

I spoke the truth. “No, Mama, it doesn’t. It’s very good.”

She was laughing like a madwoman. Everyone at the table looked embarrassed and there was nowhere for me to hide. “Is this a private joke between you and your mother?” the man at my right asked me. But I couldn’t answer. Because my mother had reached across the table and shoved her hand into the turkey’s cavity, obscenely pulling out gobs of stuffing and flinging it at me.

“Don’t you know why the turkey tasted strange? Can’t you guess why, Sonny? Can’t you guess what I hid in the stuffing so those dam fool cops wouldn’t find it? Can’t you guess, Sonny? Can’t you?”