Frosty No More

My name is Rolf. I’m an elf. I live at the North Pole. I’m a cop.

And Frosty the Snowman was missing. All anyone could find were his hat, his scarf, a carrot, and some coal. This case was sure to leave me cold.

The crime scene was a public restroom with all the taps on hot and the drains clogged. Water was everywhere.

I suspected foul play, but with no body I was in hot water. Worse yet all my clues had been washed clean. I was working from scratch on this one.

I bent and picked up the tattered top hat. It was soaked through and was utterly magicless. Someone had punched a hole through the top.

I turned to my crime tech, Rudolf. Sure he was a reindeer of some fame, but he didn't let his nose go to his head. He'd needed a steady job to fill his time during the slow season, and had followed his nose to the crime lab. He'd become jaded since working here, but then life couldn't always be reindeer games.

Rudolf was busily scooping water into a test tube. He'd have my answers soon. The water in the tube turned blue. Rudolf looked at me and nodded.

It was Frosty. The poor sap.

I left Rudolf to his job and splashed my way from the room. I had to move fast, before this became a cold case.

To make matters worse, the perp had taken Frosty’s arms. Either as grisly mementos or firewood.

In the hall I found Jacques “Jack” Frost giving his statement on how he found the body. He was Frosty’s long time partner and friend. They’d gone all over the Pole advertising their ice creams and frozen treats. Jacques was one silver tongued salesman, I could tell; my wallet was shivering in fear.

Jacques locked his ice hard gaze on me and gave the officer he was with the cold shoulder.

I decided to start small and play nice. "Did you defrost the snowman?" I said.

Jacques's eyes widened and his face reddened with heat; a neat trick for the King of Cold.

"Frosty was my partner, why would I melt him?" Jacques demanded.

"I don't know; maybe to get the business to yourself. Maybe the snowman was skimming cream off the top and you didn't like it. Maybe you thought he was getting slushy and didn't want him dripping on the carpet. I don't care," I said. I was lying; I did care, carpets were hard to clean. "I do know you're going to spill."

"We were going to expand," Jacques said bitingly. A sudden chill in the air bit at my nose. "He was handling the Antarctic campaign. I needed him."

"Then who offed him?" I asked.

"You're the cop, you figure it out," Jacques said.

I was itching to run him in, but ever since last year I'd been on a tight leash. Santa hadn't liked the attention I brought down on him and had used his influence to get me on the naughty list. I had to tread carefully.

Jacques knew it too. I could tell from his frosty demeanor.

"Stay in town," I said.

Jacques smirked and I knew he'd be lawyered up before I made it to the parking lot.

As I wormed my way through the crowd of press crying out in dismay at the lack of a body and fabricating tantalizing tidbits to draw in the viewer, I spied a tidbit of my own; a slight elf with tears in her eyes. She was on the outer edge of the crowd, but not trying for a view of the sodden aftermath. She knew something.

I hotfooted it to her. I caught her as she was blowing her nose. She was inked with snowflakes on her cheeks and hands; a Frosty groupie. My feet quickly chilled as I realized that my hot lead was just snuffed.

"You a cop?" she asked.

I was surprised she couldn't tell by the five-o'clock shadow and rumpled overcoat, but I badged her anyway. "Detective Rolf," I said, "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Her eyes glistened as she met my gaze. I'd be lucky to get anything coherent from this popsicle.

"It's true, isn't it?" she said with a catch in her voice. "Frosty's dead?"

I didn't see the point in hiding the truth; she'd find out soon enough anyway. "It looks that way."

She broke down sobbing again, and I regretted my impulse to pick her brain. It was becoming obvious that that particular organ had suffered frostbite some time ago.

"What's your relationship to Frosty?"

She blew her nose. It sounded like a foghorn. "I'm his girlfriend. I was meeting him here."

She'd paused slightly there. She was lying. I almost wished her pants would catch fire; I needed the warmth.

"You're his stalker," I said.

"It's not like that," she said a bit too quickly. It was true.

"Right. Did you see what happened?"

She shook her head. "It's a restroom."

I had no doubts that she'd violated the sanctity of that particular room several times in her fervor. But that she hadn't this time meant that she'd thought she'd get caught. Someone else had been in there and she knew it. I gave her the silent treatment with a heavy stare. Guilty minds can't abide silence.

She broke like a glacier sliding home.

"He wasn't alone alright!" she blurted.

"Who else was in there?"

"I don't know, but he was dressed in a tux." She broke down crying again. She was worse than a faucet.

I called an officer over and set him to taking the lady's info and keeping tabs on her. My leads were quickly drying up faster than Frosty.

I turned back to the restroom to take one more look in hopes something would bite me when I saw a flash of black and white darting into the crowd.

Since I didn’t think it was a newspaper blowing in the wind, I gave chase.

It was a short chase.

I caught the suspect trying to waddle its way to a storm drain. Penguins don’t move fast.

It was an Emperor penguin with a complex, I could tell; he was wearing a tux.

“I didn’t do anything!” squealed the penguin in a falsetto. It was a she.

“Sure you didn’t,” I said slamming the penguin to the pavement. “That’s what everyone says when they run away from a crime scene.”

“If I had iced the snowman, why would I stick around?” the penguin said.

“Because you’re a perv and you get your jollies watching your crime. I don’t care.” It was true; I never cared for the motive, just catching the scumbags. “If you didn’t do it, why’d you run?”

“So he wouldn’t see me?”

“He who?”

“You’ve killed me!” the penguin said. She started bucking. Her beak took a nasty swipe at my hand.

I let my knee slip into her gut, hard.

She grunted and I caught a whiff of sour herring. I’d have to be careful or I’d be in a fishy situation.

“PETA’s going to get you for this,” she snipped at me.

“PETA supports putting down man killers,” I said.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” she said.

“Then spill. What were you doing here?”

“I had a meeting with Frosty,” she said.

“In the men’s room? I see.”

“No, you prick; in the restaurant. We were going to sign the deal for him to endorse Penguin Pies.”

“Why would he need a deal? He’s an ice cream mogul in his own right.”

“I don’t know. He just said that things had gotten warm between him and his partner. He was looking to liquidate.”

I backed of the floored dame and let her regain her feet. Equal rites said I didn’t have to help her up. ‘Sides she’d tried to bite me. “So Frosty was leaving Frost?”

“That’s the impression I got,” she said. She was looking flighty. Something had spooked her.

“Who were you trying to avoid?” I asked.

Her attention snapped back to me with her beady little eyes shooting frozen cod into my soul. I hate fish.

“The Whale,” she whispers. And before I can ask anything else she belly-slides into the storm drain. I hear her tux rip, but figured that’d be the least of her problems.

This could be bad; I didn't speak Whalish. But then I didn't need to. Crime sounds the same in any language. Jack had thought that Frosty was expanding the business south of the equator, but he'd really been expanding his own horizons. And the overdressed penguin was here as part of it. But where'd the Whale come in? Who'd hired him?

I had no doubt as to which Whale she'd been referring. Willy was pursuing a career in film. Great White was geriatric. And Shamu was doing time in Florida. The only other whale of any fame was adequately known as "Killer". If he was in town, it was as a hired gun for someone else.

A chill in my gut told me it was Jacques Frost, but I had no proof. I had to catch Killer and make him turn stool pigeon.

There weren't many places a whale could hide at the pole, so I headed to the Fishing Hole, a trendy little club. There in the back sucking down shrimp cocktails was a whale in a blue silk shirt.

I know what you're thinking, and it was an all-you-can-eat menu. Hitmen are cheap.

I cornered him in his booth and shooed of the girls sticking to him like flies. I noted that he too was in a tux. It must be a sea critter thing.

Killer turned his head and eyed me. "Get lost copper."

"You killed Frosty," I said. "I can prove it."

"If you could, I'd already be blubber nuggets."

He'd done it and knew I couldn't prove it. He was taunting me.

"I've got a witness that can place you," I said.

"What do penguins know? Especially ones with eggs to hatch?" He smiled exposing rows of sharp teeth.

"That's all bluster. Come clean and I'll do what I can for you with the District Attorney," I said.

"I'm not saying I did it, but if I had, I was paid to."

"And if you were paid to, who paid you?"

"It was a chilly relationship," he said with a laugh.

"Jacques Frost?" I asked. I knew the answer, but I needed to hear him say it.

"Is that what he's calling himself these days? Used to be Old Man Winter."

"So Frost hired you to flush Frosty? Why?"

"I didn't say he did. And I wouldn't ask those questions."

"But you'd find out to cover your own fin if nothing else."

He was drawing this out like the cold fish in the back of my freezer.

"I certainly would. Frosty was double dealing and leaving Frost out in the cold. Frost didn't like it, and didn't want the bad press their breakup would give the business."

"And I suppose, you'd keep a way to prove it was him who hired you?" A death machine like Killer would; it'd be his surefire way out of trouble.

"I would," Killer said. He pushed up from the table and towered over me.

Our interview was over. I knew who'd done it, I knew why, I just didn't have any proof.

I grabbed Killer's dorsal fin and plied pressure. I don't think he felt it. "Help out the law. Favors can be repaid."

"And ruin my rep? Get real." With that he dove through the ice and was gone.

Frosty wasn't going to get justice. But I could keep my eye on Frost. He'd screw up something sooner or later and I'd get him for that.

I dropped hints with the insurance company. The red tape tied up Frost from collecting. But over the week the stock for the business went through the roof; I doubt Frost missed the insurance money.

I could feel him gloating and it burned me.

The next day, I found a package on my desk. It was a couple of sticks, Frosty's arms, and a USB jumpdrive with some pictures of Frost handling the sticks and paying Killer, and a sound file of Frost ordering the hit. There was a card. It read, "You owe me."

I smiled. Frost had enjoyed his season long enough, spring was coming.

The End.