A Christmas Affair

By Fleur Bradley

Will Clifford hung from the gutter of his 1950's rancher, wrapped tightly like a Houdini ready to break out of his chains. The only difference was that the man wasn't Houdini, he was wrapped in Christmas lights, and he was dead.

It was the day after Thanksgiving. Detective Ben Hanson stood in his own front yard in the Friday dawn, looking at the house next door and his unfortunate neighbor. Hanson's colleagues from the Colorado Springs police department were wrapping yellow crime scene tape around a tree that bordered his overgrown grass.

“Don't you ever mow the lawn, Hanson?” his partner Minsk said next to him. He kicked the knee-high weeds with his size twelve shoes, frowning. “You got yourself a genuine rainforest here. If I let things go like that, the neighborhood association would have me booted out quicker than you can say pink flamingo.”

“The grass actually stops growing after a while,” Hanson said with a shrug.

“So, what do you make of this?” Minsk pointed at the body wrapped in Christmas lights.

Will Clifford wore a green knit sweater with a big red Santa hat on it, a pair of jeans and tattered brown boots.

“I don't know. How did he even manage to get himself wrapped up like that?”

Hanson studied the house next door like he saw it for the first time, the white siding, green shutters with heart-shaped carvings and perfectly groomed trees in the yard. The Cliffords already lived there when Hanson and his new wife Christine moved in three years ago. Christine used to talk to them every so often when she worked in the yard, even went camping with the neighbors once, but Hanson didn't do much more than wave when he got home from work. Christine was the one who socialized, made sure the yard was kept and the Christmas cards went out. She disappeared two years ago, a few days before Christmas, went out to rent a movie and never returned. The police did the best they could and then some, since Hanson was one of them, part of the family. But apart from knowing Chris never made it to the video store, there were no clues, information or sightings. She had vanished.

“Chris went on a camping and climbing trip with the Cliffords a few years ago,” Hanson told his partner. “You know, near Pikes Peak ?”

“A climber, huh? Not a very good one,” Minsk shook his head. “What a putz, hanging himself from his own Christmas lights.”

“Are they ruling this one accidental?” Hanson asked Minsk .

“For now. Don't think they'll be pounding the pavement. Why?”

“I just thought I'd check it out, ask around. Since I live here.” He glanced at Minsk .

Today was supposed to be Hanson's mandatory day off. Since he'd accrued so many vacation days, Hanson was forced to have three-day weekends for a few months. He hated these long breaks, waiting for Monday to roll around.

“Since you live here, huh.” Minsk gave Hanson a warning look, but there was a half-smile on his face. The two of them had been partners since Hanson moved to Colorado Springs eight years ago. At first, the forty-something Minsk scared him to death, with his sumo-wrestler built and basso voice. He still scared him sometimes. But they made a good team: Hanson as the tentative quiet one, Minsk as the determined bulldog. Quiet cop, bad cop.

“Just to ask around,” Hanson repeated.

“Right.” Minsk kicked the grass again and shook his head.

Her name was Beverly , Hanson was glad he remembered, Beverly Clifford, and she was a big woman. Not heavy, but big-boned and muscular, with brassy hair to her shoulders and fiery red lipstick. She wore a red sweater with a green Santa hat on it, a negative to the one Will had been wearing when he dangled from the roof just an hour earlier. A few men in uniform cut the body down, after making sure the power was turned off.

Beverly wadded a tissue in her hands. “I can't believe it,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “He was just putting up Santa and the reindeer. And then this morning, I find him hanging…”

Hanson sat across from her in a blue recliner, trying to lean forward without falling off the chair. “He started decorating that early in the morning?”

“Oh no,” Beverly said. “Last night. He went outside just when the late news started.”

“At eleven o'clock at night ?” Hanson asked

“Oh yes. As soon as Thanksgiving is over, we put up our lights. So we can enjoy them as long as possible.” She smiled. “Will was very serious about our decorations. He just had to be the one with the most lights, the biggest display. The whole neighborhood is very competitive around the holidays.”

“Really.” Hanson hadn't really thought about it much, but thinking back, he did remember how bright the street was every year around the holidays, with all the flashing icicle lights, Santa and reindeer on the roofs. Except for his house.

“Well, you wouldn't know. Since it's just you, now that Chris…” Beverly said, cutting herself off mid-sentence. She flashed him a quick smile of embarrassment. “Would you like some eggnog?”

“No, thank you. So there was some competition over holiday displays in the neighborhood?”

“Oh yes. Especially with Robert Green across the street.” Beverly shook her head. “That man just didn't know when to stop. But then neither did my Will.”

After listening to Beverly Clifford talk some more about her husband and their Christmas decorations, Hanson walked across the street, to talk to Clifford's apparent rival. Robert Green's house was a rancher like most on the block, but he had painted his a bright yellow --a little too yellow. The shutters were a burgundy red, the door green, creating an Alice-in-Wonderland effect.

Hanson rang the doorbell.

“Just a sec,” he heard from above. When he looked up, he saw Green's blond crew-cut. “I'll be right down.”

“I'm sorry,” Green said when he came around the side of the house fifteen minutes later.

“I just really have to get on with these lights if I'm going to have Santa up by the end of the day. You know what I mean?”

Hanson nodded, though he really didn't know.

“I'm guessing you're here about old Will.” Green stood legs spread and arms crossed, like a bouncer at a bar. He used to be in the army, Hanson knew, and still moved like a military man ready for combat. “Last I saw him, he was putting up Santa and his sleigh. I went to bed at midnight . When I got up, you people were here.” He smiled. “So that's my alibi, officer.”

“What made you think you needed one?” Hanson studied Green. The man tried to look at him, but his eyes kept drifting over Hanson's shoulder, to the Clifford house across the street.

“Will and me weren't exactly friends. And it's murder, right?”

“For the moment, we're considering it an accident.”

Green laughed, a deep, hard laugh that made Hanson's neck muscles tighten. “So you were at home when Clifford was hanging his lights?'

Green paused. “Yes. Like I told you. Last I saw the guy, he was up on that roof with his crazy wife, hanging the icicle lights along the roof's edge.”

“Wait. His wife was on the roof?”

“Sure. She made the fool go up there. Every year on Thanksgiving night, when the turkey's still warm, those two work into the night to turn that place into a torch.” Green shook his head. “That woman always tries to one-up me with her Christmas decorations. You see her new Santa?”

Hanson looked behind him. Beverly Clifford was in the front yard just outside the crime scene tape, the sleeves of her Christmas sweater pushed up. She was adjusting a six-foot blown up Santa.

“Have I got a surprise for her.” Green leaned closer to Hanson and grinned. “I got myself an eight -footer this year.”

Hanson was ashamed for himself when he tried to make his way through his cold and cluttered basement, looking for the photo albums. There was a path from the stairway to the washer and dryer in the back of the basement so he could do his laundry, but the rest of the basement was an ocean of boxes, Chris's ski and camping equipment and piles of her clothes. Last year, Hanson had taken all her clothes and dumped them down here, just so he wouldn't have to smell her perfume every time he opened the closet.

He found the cardboard box of albums and loose pictures near the washing machine. He hoped there weren't any water leaks.

After three cups of coffee, two albums with pictures of their vacation to Hawaii and the wedding, Hanson finally found what he was looking for: a dozen or so snapshots taken during a camping trip Chris took with the neighbors and some friends. Hanson hated the outdoors and didn't go. He still remembered fighting with Chris the day she left for this trip.

Most shots were of the mountains and the view, but one had some people in it. The picture was taken at the top of a hill or mountaintop, with three people entwined, tans and sunglasses, dirty t-shirts and big smiles. They were obviously excited about making it to wherever they were. To the left, he recognized Beverly in a green canvas hat. Next to her stood Will, scrawny in comparison, but strong in that wiry way. Chris stood on the right, smiling with Pikes Peak Mountain behind her in the distance.

The phone rang.

“Hanson. How's the day off?” Minsk said.

“Ok. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing on Clifford or his wife. Model citizens, pay their bills, file their taxes. But your guy across the street.”

“Robert Green.”

“Right. Apparently he used to go by Bobby. Got himself arrested for assault in '89, up in Denver .”

“Really. Did he do any time?”

“Neh. Pleaded out, community service, you know how it goes. Probably nothing, but I thought I'd mention it.”

“Thanks.”

“You take it easy, now,” Minsk said. “It's your day off, remember?”

“I'm fine. I'm just…”

“Asking around, right.”

Hanson could still hear his partner's laughter after he hung up the phone.

Armed with the snapshot, Hanson walked to the Clifford house. Santa stood big and jolly in the front yard, clasping his ample waist in a silent hohoho. The red of his suit contrasted sharply with the yellow crime scene tape.

Beverly Clifford was drying her hands on a red checkered kitchen towel when she answered the door. “If you don't mind, it's been quite the day,” she said holding the door with the towel.

“It'll just take a minute.” Hanson stepped inside the house. The living room smelled of pinecones and sweet vanilla.

“Well, all right then.” Beverly let out a small sigh and sat on the couch, her hands between her knees. “What else did you want to know?”

“Robert Green said he saw you on the roof last night, hanging the lights with Will.” Hanson paused. “Were you?”

“Sure,” Beverly said, nodding. “I was helping Will. But then he said he'd rather work on his own, so…” She started to cry. “The last thing I said to him was ‘you stubborn mule'. We had an argument. Now he's dead, and we'll never be able to make up.”

“I'm sorry,” Hanson said, looking around the room for some tissues. He didn't see any.

“I was on the phone with my sister in Seattle ,” Beverly added with a sniffle. “You can check our phone records if you want.”

“We'll do that.”

“Can you please give me some time to rest now?”

“So you can hang more lights?” Hanson said.

“I was simply finishing what pour Will started. It's what he would have wanted.”

Hanson pulled the snapshot out of his jacket. “This photograph was taken a few years ago?”

Beverly took the snapshot and stared at it. “Two summers ago, I think.”

“The summer before Christine disappeared?”

“It could be,” Beverly said and shrugged.

“Will was a climber, then.”

“He was. But he hadn't for a while now, if you're implying he would have been fine on the roof,” Beverly said and handed him the picture rather briskly. “He wasn't very good, either.”

“Who else went on this camping trip?”

“Didn't Chris tell you anything?” Beverly asked. “It was Brandy, next door. She took that picture.”

He tried the rancher next door to the Cliffords. This one was the same white as Hanson's, but with burgundy shutters and a green door. No answer, but he thought he heard movement inside the house.

Hanson walked back to his house. The closer he got, the more he noticed the white peeling paint on the siding of his house, the sprouting weeds like needles on a porcupine. Keep out .

He heard the phone ring when he turned the key in his front door. Hanson rushed inside the house, but the answering machine was already taking over. ‘…leave a message.' Someone took a breath and hung up. Was it Chris? Hanson picked up the horn to check the directory, but just ended up holding it in his fist, listening to the dial tone.

He called Minsk , who sounded like he was very happy to hear from Hanson.

“Hey, partner. How's the day off?”

“You know. I'm busy around the house.”

Minsk laughed. “I bet you are.”

“So. Have you heard anything?”

“Nothing. We're waiting on the tox-screen, but other than that, this one's cooling fast. You findin' anything?”

“Apparently there's some neighborhood competition for best Christmas decorations,” Hanson said. “And my neighbors are climbers. I found an old picture of some camping trip they took with Chris.”

“Interesting. How about old Bobby?”

“He says the wife, Beverly, was on the roof last night.”

“Huh. Anything else?”

“I'm going to check with one of the neighbors, a woman named Brandy. She knew the Cliffords, maybe she saw something,” Hanson said. “There's some interesting rivalry between Beverly Clifford and Robert Green, but I don't see how throwing the husband off the roof plays into it. “Unless…”

“They had an affair. I'll check their phone records,” Minsk said. “That it?”

I got a phone call. “Yes, that's all I've been able to dig up so far. Give me a call if anything pops up.”

After he hung up, Hanson sat on his couch, curtains drawn, staring at the snapshot of Chris and the Cliffords. She looked so happy . Hanson couldn't remember her smiling like that around him. Then he saw how Robert Clifford held his arm around Chris, grabbing her tightly at the waist and leaning into her a little. Beverly Clifford had her hand on her husband's shoulder, looking tense, smiling, but her heart not in it. Hanson felt his stomach go to stone. Had Chris and Will Clifford been having an affair?

After a peanut butter and honey sandwich for a late lunch, Hanson headed over to Brandy's house again. Green was putting up his eight-foot Santa and waved as Hanson passed his house.

A woman in her twenties, wearing a red terrycloth bathrobe opened the door. Her long hair was wet, her eyes rimmed by the remnants of black make-up.

“Are you Brandy?” Hanson asked and held out the snapshot in front of her.

“Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning into the doorway. She glanced at the photograph. “Wow, that's a blast from the past.”

“Can I come in?” Hanson glanced inside the house and saw some big cowboy boots by a futon.

“I'd rather talk out here.” She closed the door behind her. “I heard about Will's accident.”

“You took this picture?” He pushed the snapshot a little closer.

“Yeah. I just moved here when we went camping. Chris invited me.”

“Anything you remember in particular about that trip? About the Cliffords, or Chris?” Hanson tried to sound nonchalant.

She smiled. “Sure. You could cut the tension with a knife. I don't know why they asked me along, anyway. Will and Beverly barely spoke to each other, and Chris…”

“What about Chris?”

“You know, her and Will, they should've just gotten a motel room. I actually felt bad for old Bev.”

Hanson swallowed. “Will Clifford and Chris were having an affair?”

“If they didn't then, they were sure thinking about it. Didn't she leave right after?”

“She went missing.”

“Whatever,” she said with a shrug. “Well, I should get back inside.”

“One more thing: did you see Will or Beverly on the roof last night?”

“Him, I did. This was after I got home from my waitressing job, at twelve-thirty. She wasn't there.”

“You talked to him?”

“Yeah,” Brandy said and brushed her wet hair back with a smile. “But he went inside after I left. So he must've talked to Beverly , maybe came back out.”

“What time did he go back inside?”

“I don't know. One, something like that?”

Robert Green stood in his front yard when Hanson walked back to his house. The twilight was setting in, and Green had turned on all the lights.

“Pretty good, huh?” Green motioned to neatly trimmed grass, where a giant Santa was hugging his round belly. Lights were blinking frantically, like the Las Vegas strip.

“It's bright,” Hanson said.

Green nodded. “I saw you talking to Brandy there. She say anything?”

“I can't tell you anything about an ongoing police investigation.”

“Right.” Green was silent, looking at his Santa, but not with the excitement Hanson expected. He looked pensive, sad.

“I'll have to get back home, Robert.” Hanson started to walk away.

“I called her,” Green said quickly.

Hanson turned. “Who?”

"Beverly . I called her when Will was outside, talking to Brandy.”

“Why?”

“Hell, I don't know. I was bored, since my wife is at her mother's until Sunday. I wanted to stir things up, I guess. I knew the guy had been foolin' around before. You know what I mean?”

Hanson looked away.

“So I called her, woke her up. I asked if she knew old Will was goin' for the younger ones these days.”

“What did she say?”

“I hung up before she could say anything. I saw her look outside, from the bedroom.”

“And then what happened?'

“Nothing. I went to bed. Next morning, the guy was hanging off the roof.”

Hanson crossed the street to his house. When he glanced over to the Clifford house, he saw Robert Green knocking on the door, looking nervous.

Once inside, Hanson called the station, but it was after six, and Minsk already left. Hanson stood on his front steps, looking out on his neglected lawn in the near-dark. Green came out of the Clifford house and crossed the street to go home, without looking back.

Hanson was halfway done mowing the front yard, when Minsk pulled up in his compact car. He turned off the mower.

“You takin' my advice, Hanson? I'm flattered.” Minsk laughed as he walked on the short grass. “Tox screen came back. Looks like the guy had some eggnog spiked with enough sleeping pills to put down a grizzly. The prelim report suggests he went on the roof, got woozy when he was hanging the lights and got wrapped up in them before he fell. He died before the lights could strangle him.”

“Eggnog,” Hanson mumbled. “Beverly Clifford offered me some…”

“Looks like we found or guy. Or gal, this time,” Minsk said.

“Green!” Hanson ran to Green's house. He tried the door, found it open and ran inside. The house was dark and smelled of pepperoni with just a hint of vanilla. And Hanson stumbled over Green's body.

The ambulance arrived in five minutes, rushing Green to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. He had a pulse when the paramedics strapped him to the gurney, which Hanson hoped was a promising sign.

“What kind of neighborhood do you live in, Hanson?” Minsk said, half joking, on their way to the Clifford rancher. “I think it's ‘bout time you had a neighborhood association.”

Beverly Clifford came willingly. “I just couldn't take anymore of his lies,” she said when Hanson and Minsk escorted her to the patrol car they called in. “His affair with Christine nearly killed me. Brandy was the last straw.”

“Why Green?” Minsk asked, leaning on the door.

She shrugged, but her expression was pained. “He said he came to apologize, but he knew.”

Hanson closed the door.

Hanson and Minsk both stood in silence for a moment.

“Did you ever check those phone records?”

“Two years back.” Minsk said. In a softer voice, “It doesn't look like Chris kept in touch with Clifford.”

Hanson nodded. “You think Beverly killed Chris?”

“No,” Minsk said, too quickly.

“She could have.”

“I'll press her on it in interrogation, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Chris. Do you think she's dead?”

Minsk paused. Looked at Hanson's house. “No.”

Hanson nodded again.

“You want to come to the station?”

Hanson shook his head and smiled. “It's my day off, remember? I have a lawn to mow.”

END