Polterheist(17)

"No one else smelled anything?" I prodded.

"We were a little preoccupied," Candycane pointed out. "Oh! But now that you mention it, I did smell something foul."

"Yes?" I prodded eagerly.

She nodded. "Like, um . . . mothballs."

"Mothballs?" I repeated, feeling deflated.

"Mothballs," she said with conviction.

"Oh! I think that was me," said Prancer (or whoever). "My costume I mean." He held out one fuzzy arm for Candycane to sniff.

She did so and made a face. "Oh. It was you."

Oh, well. I sighed in resignation. My friend Max had told me any number of times that when confronted with mystical phenomena, most people interpreted the events in terms that made sense to them-such as a massive mechanical malfunction-and ignored that which they could not make sense of within conventional boundaries. And I had by now seen him proved right quite a few times about that.

"Well, I think we've all learned a valuable lesson here," Jingle reflected.

"Oh? And what would that be?" Eggnog asked.

"Training pays off," said Jingle. "The outcome of this incident might have been very different without our training. And I'm sure Dreidel agrees!" He concluded, "Very glad you're okay, Dreidel. Now I've got to get back to my station. Those toy army tanks won't just sell themselves, you know!"

As Jingle trotted off, I looked after him in bemusement, unable to see any way in which my elf training had helped me survive this brush with arboreal asphyxiation.
                       
       
           



       
7





The other elves and reindeer decided to follow Jingle's example and get back to their posts. They traipsed off in different directions, chatting in amazement to each other about what had just happened and condemning the careless safety standards of Fenster & Co.

Avoiding Lopez's questioning gaze, I looked around the Enchanted Forest. A number of security guards were hovering in the area. They didn't seem to be doing anything, which certainly fit with my expectations of Fenster's security by now; but they were there. I noticed a woman talking into a police radio and realized she was the same woman I'd seen conferring with a couple of guards right before the attack began. I supposed she was a colleague of Lopez's.

A uniformed police officer was talking with the big man who had been thrown across the room after trying to rescue me. I was relieved to see he didn't look hurt. Most of the shoppers had already left the area-either when people fled in panic, or after being encouraged to vacate the area once the emergency was under control. I saw an unfamiliar man in a suit encouraging stragglers to depart, and I had a feeling he was another cop.

Lopez asked me, "What exactly happened here? I got off the elevator at this floor-an elevator, by the way, that's also malfunctioning. And-"

"What happened with the elevator?" I could see from his expression that my overreaction concerned him, given what I'd just been through and the strange things I was saying. Before he could suggest that I let an EMT give me a tranquilizer, I took another calming breath and asked more rationally, "What happened with the elevator?"

Eyeing me warily, he said, "It just sat on the sixth floor, the doors opening and closing, opening and closing. It wouldn't go anywhere for about five minutes."

I wondered if something had been deliberately trying to prevent Lopez from getting here, or whether he had merely experienced an actual mechanical malfunction.

Then I realized what else he had said.

"You were just on the sixth floor? Were you meeting with the Fensters?" I remembered what the family had said about the armed robberies. "Oh. The hijackings?"

"Is that guess due to staff gossip, or have you been watching the news?"

"The Fensters told me about it."

"Are you close to them?" he asked in surprise.

"God, no."

That made him grin.

"The information kind of slipped out when I was . . . Oh, never mind." I waved away that subject and asked, "So the elevator didn't do anything else that was . . . strange?"

Lopez glanced at the tree. "You mean, attack people? No. Nothing like this." After a moment, he said, "Anyhow, I got off on this floor and started walking in this direction-and suddenly I heard all this screaming from in here."

While he was speaking, I looked over his shoulder and was relieved to see Jeff and Satsy approaching us. Satsy looked unharmed. Jeff had a few bright red drops of blood on his Santa beard-from his lower lip, I guessed, which looked swollen and bruised. And he was limping a little. I recalled seeing the tree swat him away like a tennis ball.

"I broke into a run and followed the noise," Lopez said, "but I had trouble finding the source. Is there a straight line anywhere in this whole damn place? It's all dead ends and circles and . . . Anyhow, I finally find this spot. And I see that thing waving its arms convulsively, knocking people around, and almost electrocuting a girl in a clown costume."

"I'm not a clown," I said. "I'm Santa's Jewish elf."

"That was going to be my second guess." He looked at the tree again. "What exactly is that thing, anyhow?"

Coming up beside him, Jeff said, "It's an enchanted tree. It does stage patter and musical duets with-"

"Agh!" Lopez let out what could only be described as a little shriek and fell back a step when he saw Jeff.

Jeff gave him a peculiar look. "We've met before, detective. I'm . . . Oh! Sorry." Jeff took off his cap and pulled down his white beard. "Jeff Clark. Remember? We met this summer at the Livingston Foundation, when you were investigating there."

Lopez said a little breathlessly, "Right. Of course. Sorry, Jeff. Yeah."

"Jeff, are you all right?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "A little battered and bruised, but nothing that a couple of cold beers can't cure. How about you?"

"I'm fine." Noticing how pale Lopez looked now, I asked him, "Are you all right?"

"Fine."

"You look a little-"

"I'm fine."

Right behind them, Satsy asked anxiously, "Are you sure you're okay, Esther? That was so scary!"

Lopez looked over his shoulder at Satsy, flinched, and blurted, "Jesus!"

"Are you sure you're all right?" I asked him.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that," Lopez said to Satsy.

"We've met before, too, detec . . ." Satsy blinked his purple eyelashes a few times, then said, "Ohhh . . ." He pulled down his Santa beard and said, "Sorry, Detective Lopez. I didn't realize."

"Realize what?" I asked.

"Oh!" Jeff said, his eyes widening as he looked at Lopez. "Seriously?"

"Seriously, what?" I said.

"Nothing," said Lopez.

Satsy asked him, "Is this really a good place for you to be? I mean . . ."

"Esther! Are you all right?" Rick came trotting in from the North Pole. "I was in the break room. I just heard what happened!"

Lopez drew in a sharp breath through his nostrils when he saw Super Santa. A muscle in his jaw worked tensely.

"I'm fine," I said. "Actually, Jeff got hurt more than I did."

While Rick took a look at Jeff and asked him some medical-sounding questions, I said quietly to Lopez, "Are your teeth clenched?"

"How many more of them are there?" he asked in a low voice.

"Them?" I repeated, not understanding.

Looking uncomfortable, he stepped closer to me and muttered, "Santas. Just so I know. How many more of them are lurking around here?"

My eyes flew wide open as I realized the problem. "Oh! You have a San . . . Um." Not wanting to embarrass him, I leaned close and whispered, "You have a Santa phobia?"

"It's not a phobia," he whispered back tersely. "It's just a-a-a thing. I find them . . . startling." He glared at the three Santas and added, "Especially when they creep up on me from behind."

"Oh, my gosh," I said, looking at him in wonder. "That must be so inconvenient at this time of year. How do you manage-"

"I just don't like it when they sneak up on me, okay? I'm fine otherwise." He glared at the Santas. "Do there have to be so many of them?"

"Probably you should stay out of the North Pole while you're here," I said.

"Where's that?"

I pointed. "It used to be Holidayland. But maybe you didn't go there as a child. Given your problem-"

"It's not a problem. It's just a . . . a thing."

"-I'm guessing your parents didn't bring you here?"

"Just the once," he said darkly.

"Why are all three of my Santas on the floor at the same time?" Miles demanded, approaching us from the direction of Solstice Castle. "And in here? This isn't Santa's station."

"Chill, Miles," said Jeff. "We're checking on Esther. Thanks to the shoddy maintenance practices around here, you were almost minus one more elf today. In a big way."

"But as you can see, Dreidel is fine," said Miles. "Aren't you, Dreidel?"

"Well, I-"