Free Fatal Fruitcake by Mary Kay Andrews

 
    Fatal Fruitcake
    There were 10 strands of Christmas lights, all of them hopelessly tangled into one big UL-approved snarl. “Which idiot put these lights away last year?” I demanded.
    Only six shopping days left till the big day, and as always, I felt overwhelmed with stress and anxiety. The ceaseless jangle of the radio, playing an endless stream of hokey Christmas songs made my nerves raw, and my mother’s mindless humming didn’t help either. “Can’t you cut that noise off?”
    Edna, my mother, looked up from her job, which was to hack away at the base of the tree with a dull butcher knife until the trunk fit into her rusted 40-year-old Christmas-tree stand.
    “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer happens to be my favorite song,” she said mildly. “And as for the Christmas lights, you put them away last year—Miss Grinch.”
    I muttered dark threats to myself, and when the phone rang, I didn’t budge from my spot on the living room floor. “Let the machine pick it up,” I said. Edna and I run a cleaning business with the ridiculous name of the House Mouse. Christmas is our busy season—everybody wants a clean house for the holidays.
    But no, she picked it up, listened for a moment, then handed me the receiver. “It’s Jacky,” she said.
    Jacky Baker is the youngest of our House Mouse girls and not usually prone to emotion. But now her voice was shaking.
    “Callahan,” she said breathlessly, “You gotta come. Come quick. I’m at Colony Square. That big ad agency, Shubert Showalter Quinn. I was cleaning the conference room. There’s a dead guy here, Callahan. I ain’t studyin’ no stiffs.”
    I sighed, told her to call the cops and hung up. Edna looked at me hopefully. She’s never met a homicide she didn’t want to investigate.
    Oh, yes. In addition to the cleaning business, I have a sideline. Callahan Garrity investigations. I started the P.I. agency after I left the Atlanta Police department five years ago. When business was slow (well, nonexistent), I bought the House Mouse. I only take cases every now and then. It looked like Jacky had just found me one.
     
    The cops beat me to Schubert Showalter Quinn’s offices at Colony Square in Midtown. A uniformed officer stood in front of the heavy mahogany double doors, which were open to the hallway. Just inside, in the reception area, I could see Jacky, ashen-faced, being interrogated by a tall, broad-shouldered detective. The cut of his black dinner jacket looked familiar. The uniformed officer stationed at the door to their office suite did his level best to turn me away. “Crime scene ma’am,” he said, trying to make his pudgy clean-shaven features look stern.
    “I represent the woman who found the body,” I told him. Which was true, I did represent Jacky, as far as setting her up with housecleaning clients.
    This cut no mustard with the kid with the badge. I was arguing loudly when the detective finally turned around to see who was making all the racket. He looked annoyed, and then resigned.
    “Let her in, Hopkins,” he said. “Otherwise she’ll stand there bitchin’ and moanin’ all night.” Bucky Deavers, the detective in the dinner jacket, was an old, close friend from my own days with the APD. I flashed him a grateful grin and stepped into the reception area. Jacky stood up and hugged me. She was shaking, and I could tell she’d been crying. I pulled up a leather chair and sat down to hear her story.
    “I told you I was gonna do some moonlighting—remember? For extra Christmas money?”
    I shook my head impatiently. “It’s fine. Just tell me what happened.”
    “Schubert Showalter Quinn had their big Christmas party here today,” Jacky said. “Talk about a mess. There was trash everywhere. I never seen nothin’ like it. Paper plates and cups, food, liquor bottles, balloons - mess everywhere. I was working my way towards the conference room, where the buffet was arranged, picking up as I went. It’s a big office,