When Santa finally woke, he was groggy and feeling slightly concussed.  He wasn’t sure what day it was and it took him a minute or two to remember why he had slept in his office.  Once his mind had rummaged through the events of the last few days, he remembered the murder of Rosaline Blitzen, the crime report, the mysterious message from Rachel Pinkerpuff and the meeting.  Then, he gasped.  He remembered the pictures.  Desperately, he scrambled to his desk and did a quick scan of it.  None of the pictures were readily visible.  He found the packet, picked it up and hid it under his red cardigan.  He crept to the door and opened it just enough to study the reception area.  Miss Pinkerpuff was at her computer playing Solitaire.  She was wearing earphones and most likely listening to Michael Buble’s latest Christmas album.  She was tapping her foot slowly and seemed to be in a trance.  The rest of the room was as empty as her head. 

Santa, quietly, shut his office door, pulled the blinds on his door and windows shut, bolted the door and walked back to his desk.  He cleared his desk of the mountains of Toy Production reports, TPS reports and Elf Productivity reports.  At this time of year, the reports flooded his desk like a blizzard and he felt a slight amount of satisfaction at pushing them to the floor.  He was sick of them. 

He switched on his desk lamp, pushed his reading glasses up his nose and carefully opened the packet of pictures.  In a controlled manner, he poured the contents of the envelope onto his desk.  He kept the photos in a pile and didn’t allow them to spread like he had when he originally opened the packet in the snow and cold at the corner of Noel and Snowball. 

The images lay out in front of him like the hideous history of one man’s past.  Santa was still in shock and disbelief.  The pictures cut into his soul and he rubbed his brow as he stared at them.  From time to time, he would shuffle a photo from one side to the other or pick up a picture and study it.  The images were terrifying. 

Laid out in front of Santa were over a hundred pictures of Santa, himself, in compromising situations with Elves, other people, reindeer and even a few snowmen.  Santa was destroyed.  Not only could he not imagine being portrayed in the heinous and embarrassing pictures, he couldn’t even recall the situation in which they were taken.  Once he had returned to his office from his mysterious meeting and had recovered from the shock and dismay of the photos, he studied them to see if they had been doctored or airbrushed.  Unfortunately, he was no expert, so it was impossible for him to know if the pictures had been retouched.  But they appeared to be honest and legitimate photos. 

There was one picture that was separated by the others by a paper clip.  Attached to the paper clip was a piece of scrap paper with the words, “victim #1” scrawled across it.  The picture to which it was attached was a picture of Santa, in a hot tub, with Rosaline Blitzen.  She was younger in the picture but still of age.  Santa was obviously stoned and the Blitzen girl was most certainly blitzed.  Santa was naked and was downing a bottle of champagne.  Rosaline was leaning in tightly to Santa and her nose was pressed up against Santa’s cheek.  Santa had no recollection of the night and wracked his brain to see if he could remember anything.  The only thing that Santa could surmise was that the picture was taken at one of the infamous December 26th North Pole Celebrations.  The celebration was an annual party to celebrate the completion of the Christmas season. 

It had a long and sordid history of being the wildest party of the season and perhaps, the wildest in the world.  Party goers would frequently pass out for days and most of the North Pole would suffer from a week long and collective hang over due to the party.  It was crazy, irrational and people simply acted like fools at the celebration.  Santa knew that he had made some mistakes at the party from time to time and these were normally pointed out to him by Mrs. Claus.  One year Mrs. Claus told Santa, “I don’t ever want to see you with that tart Twinkles Jeepers again.  She’s an elf with an eye for you and nothing but trouble.  And if I do catch you with her, I’ll cut off your balls with a meat cleaver!”  Santa didn’t remember anything particular about Twinkles Jeepers after that party, but knew enough that he needed to stay away from her and that he had probably done something less than honorable in regards to Twinkles.  But seeing a picture of himself with Rosaline Blitzen, Jules Blitzen great-granddaughter no less, in a hot tub doing God knows what was too mind numbing for Santa. 

He dropped the picture and let his head hit his desk.  It made a loud “thud” and alerted Miss Pinkerpuff.  She called from her office, “Santa?  Are you OK?”  Santa, without lifting his head from his desk simply said, “Yes, Pinkerpuff.  I’m fine.”  His voice was ragged and tired.  He was running on empty at this point.  Christmas was less than two weeks away, toy production was behind, he had thousands of marginal “naughty” and “nice” children to review and he was no closer to solving Rosaline’s murder than he was the minute it occurred. 

He was close to allowing himself to fall into a state of self-pity and was considering his options.  He thought of himself on a warm beach, sipping coke and eating sugar cookies.  He’d never have to toss out one of those lame and overused, “Ho, ho, hos” again.  People forget so easily and he was sure that he could be forgotten, too.  He wasn’t sure what the downside might be to just throwing it all away.  It had been years since he was able to enjoy life the way he had when he first moved to the North Pole.  At one point an elf venture capital firm had approached him about acquiring Santa’s operation, lock, stock, barrel and reindeer.  Santa had turned it down because he felt that he owed something to the reindeer.  They had never let him down.  Not when the elves went on strike, not when the abdominal snowman sat on the flying sleigh and crushed it and not even with the Internal Revenue Service tried to shut Santa down for not paying back taxes. 

Santa smiled.  “Yes,” he thought, “I’ll do it for the reindeer.”  He collected the pictures and started studying them.  Could he recognize any of the other people, elves, snowmen or reindeer in the pictures?  Could he learn under what conditions the photos were taken?  Was it possible to understand when the photos were taken?  Why wouldn’t the person with the pictures show himself?  What was the connection between these pictures and the killer?

There were many, many questions.  Santa needed to know the answer to all of them but there was one question that was more critical than all the rest.  Most importantly, could he figure out who the next victim might be so that he could save them?

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Follow this link to read Part II http://donkeysanddug.tumblr.com/post/37663274350/murder-at-the-north-pole-part-ii

Follow this link to read Part IV

LOL RUDOLP U SO BALIW. XD