CHRISTMAS
QUEEN
Roy Dorman
Johnny Dawson loved
a good mystery. And that was a good
thing because Johnny was a detective with the New York City Police Department.
But what Johnny really
liked were horror stories. And he’d seen
a lot of horror in his fifteen years with the force. Some of his fellow cops
thought Johnny maybe
enjoyed the horror part of the job a little too much.
The story Esther
Carlson had told him in his office this afternoon had sounded a little more
like a horror story than a mystery story.
“Every year for Christmas
the neighborhood has a party,” Esther had begun. “Part of the festivities is to
crown the oldest woman in the community as the Christmas Queen. She holds that
title until…, well, she holds
that title until she dies. Then the next
oldest woman gets the crown at the next Christmas party.”
Esther had
hesitated.
“Go on with your
story, Esther,” Johnny had said, wondering where Esther was going with this.
“Well, the last two
women to be crowned died in their sleep the night of their crowning. With the
Christmas party coming next week, I
got to thinking about that.”
Johnny had sat back
and stared at her. That was
strange, he’d thought. Coincidence?
Maybe. But he’d thought he should run it past Chief
Wilson.
“That is odd,
Esther, and I’m going to look into it.
I’d like you to not mention this to anyone else. If there’s
something going on, we don’t want
to let a guilty party know of our suspicions.”
“You think somebody
killed those two women?” Esther had asked, covering her mouth with both hands.
“Now, Esther, don’t
get upset. I just said it was odd and
I’d look into it. Now, thank you very
much for coming in, and remember what I said about keeping this quiet for now.”
Johnny had stood up,
shaken Esther’s hand, and had led her out of his office.
***
Chief Wilson also
thought the story strange. Strange
enough to get an order from a judge to have the bodies of those two women exhumed
for autopsies.
The autopsies showed
that both of the old women had ingested just enough rat poison to kill
them. In addition to some other food,
both had eaten something chocolate the night they died.
***
On the night of the
party, Johnny was given a warrant allowing him to confiscate any treats that
had chocolate in them. Esther had been
told to keep a list of the names of anyone who had brought treats with
chocolate.
She was both excited
and a little scared.
There were two
plates of brownies, a plate of fudge, and a chocolate cake. All were sent to
the lab for analysis.
All of the chocolate
treats were analyzed. But only one of
the brownies with a miniature crown on it, probably from a Barbie Doll, had rat
poison in it.
Somebody had been
going to hand that brownie to this year’s Christmas Queen.
***
“You’re here to
arrest your own mother?” asked Mary Dawson.
“Put the gun down,
Mother. I just need to talk with you.
I don’t think you’re well.”
“You need to try and
believe I couldn’t do it, don’t you? Well,
I did do it. I wanted to be the
Christmas Queen, and there were too many ahead of me. I just needed to move
things along a bit.”
“But you’re my
mother. I can’t believe you’d kill
people,” Johnny moaned.
“Do you think your
asshole father really “accidentally” fell down the basement stairs? And
his sister, your Aunt Gretchen, she choked
to death on a chicken bone. She was
asking too many questions about her brother’s “accident.” She
wanted an autopsy done. Who do you think forced that bone down her
damn throat?”
Mary had a small Sig
Sauer pointed at Johnny. Holding it
steady, she now made a call on her cell phone.
“9-1-1. What is your
emergency?”
“This is Mary Dawson,”
Mary whispered. “I live alone at 211
East Maple Avenue here in the Bronx. There’s
a man in my house. He’s in the living
room. I’m in my bedroom on the same
floor. I have a gun and I swear I’ll
shoot him if he comes in here….”
The 911 Operator
then heard two shots. “Ms. Dawson!
Are you all right? What just happened there?”
Wincing from a
shoulder wound, Johnny picked up the phone from the floor.
“This is Detective
Johnny Dawson. My mother just shot me
and then I shot her. Send the EMTs ASAP.
And please ask Chief Wilson to come to this
address.”
Back down on one
knee, Johnny spoke to his mother. “I’m
sorry, Mother, help is on the way. Just
hang in there, okay?”
“I’ve got blood
in
my mouth, Johnny. I’ve seen enough
movies to know that means I’m dying. You
killed your mother. You’re no better
than I am.”
With that, she spit
some blood in Johnny’s face. “I killed
your father and now I killed you.”
Mary Dawson then
died with a bloody rictus smile on her face.
Blood from her chest wound had pooled on the floor around her.
Johnny ran for the
kitchen and threw up in the sink.
***
“Hey, Johnny,” said
Chief Wilson. “A bad situation, right?”
Johnny laughed a
short, high-pitched laugh. “I’d say so,
yeah. Bad, bad, bad.”
“Hand me that gun,
okay?”
Johnny had his Glock
pointed loosely at his right temple.
“I’m not gonna be
a
cop anymore, am I?” he said, ignoring the Chief’s hand. “Not
after this, right?”
“It was
self-defense, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, she was
planning to kill me from the moment I stepped into the house. We talked.
Ya know, I don’t think she was crazy. I think she was a genuinely
evil person.”
Johnny then told
Chief Wilson what his mother had said about the deaths of his father and his
aunt, and her confession as to the Christmas Queen murders.
“It’s awful,
Johnny. But our lawyers will make sure
you’re exonerated.”
“And I’ll still
be a
detective with the force? I don’t think so.”
Chief Wilson had
been accompanied by Sergeant Michael Jones.
The EMTs had been told to wait outside.
They didn’t like it, but they’d waited.
Wilson now turned to
Sergeant Jones. “Come on, Jones.
We’re going outside to give Detective Dawson
some time to himself.”
Sergeant Jones
looked puzzled. “But, Chief, ….”
“That was an order,
Jones.”
The two walked out
the front door. Twenty seconds later,
they heard a single shot come from the house.
“I’m going back
inside to be with Dawson. You can go
over and tell the EMTs they can go in now.
And then call the Forensics Team and the Coroner.”
Jones saw a tear
roll down the Chief’s right cheek and he quickly turned away.
“You did right, Chief. He was gonna do it today, or maybe next week.
Who knows when? But he was gonna do it.
He was gonna do it cuz he knew he couldn’t be
a cop anymore. You and I would’ve done
the same thing.”
The Chief stared at
Sergeant Jones. “Yer a deep one, aren’t
ya, Jones?”
Jones hesitated
before replying. “Do ya think so, Chief?”
“Deeper than me. After you get those calls made, come
inside. You and I are gonna go down in
the basement. I have a bad feeling about
what could be down there.”
Sergeant Jones
nodded. He had a bad feeling about that
too.
THE
END
