Merry Christmas, Cowboy

by Janet Dailey

  It was a trip to see how far they’d come since the beginning of December, from empty rooms to sparkling wonderlands. Not all of the volunteers were faces she knew, but then she and Edith weren’t always there at the same time.

  The creation of the displays had been recorded step-by-step. Which would come in handy if the Christmas House was going to become an annual event, Paula thought absently.

  Big smiles and lost tempers and a lot of hard work—it was all here. She savored every detail. Edith had photographed the more mundane scenes too. There was Norville at the front table, and then Chuck, and then the two men together, counting money like they were settling up on poker night.

  Paula scrolled back to the first one of just Norville. Something nagged at her that she hadn’t seen clearly the first time. She enlarged the image.

  Her mouth opened in soundless surprise. In the background, waiting to get in, was the kid from the parking lot with the blotchy skin and the mohawk. Two visitors behind him was the one with the straggly blond mustache and the lip piercing.

  In front of them stood Brandon, his back to the camera. He was holding up a hand. Both of the other boys, even though they didn’t seem to be together, were looking at him.

  Their tough expressions left no doubt that they weren’t there for the displays. Paula’s instincts told her that they’d showed up to harass Brandon or try to get in free.

  She moved on, searching through the rest of the photos for more images of the boys. They appeared in several. Always in the background and sometimes with the hoods of their plain gray sweatshirts partially concealing their faces.

  They didn’t seem to give a hoot about the theme rooms or the visitors in them. The feeling that the boys were casing the house got stronger the more she studied the photos.

  Basically, there was nothing of value to take, unless they wanted to steal just to get Brandon in trouble for some reason. Nothing had been reported missing or damaged, except for the motion-sensor lights that one time. There were no photos of the exterior.

  Paula saved all the photos in a group, then selected the images that showed the two boys, with and without Brandon, and saved them in a separate folder.

  A gloved hand knocked softly on the outer door. Paula clicked out of the photo app and went to answer it. With her hand on the doorknob, she smiled at the bundled-up mom and the little girl beside her. More children and adults were coming up the stairs.

  Paula opened the door. “Are you here for Santa?” she asked.

  A chorus of yeses answered her.

  She led the way back to the table and started taking admission fees and handing out tickets. A volunteer appeared to lead everyone upstairs.

  “First group of fifteen, please follow me,” he called.

  Another volunteer appeared to welcome the visitors and get them lined up. Paula took the opportunity to peek into the Elf Room on the laptop.

  Santa Claus sat lumpily on his throne and his assistants stood proudly to either side. Norville scratched his chin under the fake beard, not looking too happy.

  The photographer crouched in front of him and took a few fast shots, making Norville blink until he waved the photographer away. The kids came in, looking at him with wide eyes.

  From what Paula could see of Norville’s face, he wasn’t smiling.

  “Hi there, youngsters,” he said to one and all. “Nice to see you.”

  “Is he really Santa?” a little boy asked his mother. “He didn’t say ho-ho-ho.”

  Norville scowled in a general sort of way. Then he remembered who he was and his expression softened.

  “Ho-ho-ho.” He cleared his throat. “Ho-ho-ho.”

  The kids giggled and he said it again. Third time was the charm. Norville smiled for real.

  Edith came down the stairs, making a beeline for Paula. There was a lull in arriving visitors, but Paula knew it wouldn’t last long. She didn’t know whether to share her discovery of the boys in the photos.

  Paula got a chance to think about it when Edith was stopped by a girl who was about middle-school age. She’d come in with her dad and just finished touring the house.

  “Can I look at your charm bracelets?” the girl asked.

  Edith had gone all out. Her wrists jingled and twinkled with tiny sparkly things on golden chains. “Of course.”

  “Look, there’s a tiny Christmas tree! And a teeny wrapped present!” The girl oohed and aahed as her father waited patiently to the side, a smile on his face.

  “How long did it take you to collect them all?” the girl asked.

  “About five minutes,” Edith confided. “Stella Bella Jewelry is having a big sale today. I stopped by on my way to the Christmas House.”

  “Dad, can we go there?” the girl asked.

  “Are we done here?”

  “Yes. I saw everything. I want to buy Mom a present.”

  Her father seemed amenable to that idea. “Okay. Good idea. I hadn’t thought of anything to buy her yet.”

  “You’re sure to find something just right.” Edith helped them retrieve their coats and saw them to the door.

  Paula chuckled. “That store ought to give you a commission.”

  Jingling, the older woman waved the idea away. “Stella Bellagio is an old pal from high school. We have the same taste.”

  Must be an interesting store, Paula thought. She had decided to go over the photos with Zach before she said anything to Edith about the boys. The older woman was in too good a mood to worry her. There would be time enough to bring up the issue, and it might mean nothing at all.

  “So what are you giving Zach for Christmas?” Edith asked.

  “I don’t know. What do you give a man who lives in jeans and a Stetson?”

  “A horse?”

  “I think he has several. He lives on a ranch,” Paula said.

  “Oh, he did mention that once,” Edith replied in an airy voice. “No plans to move to Denver?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Edith sighed. “You two make a beautiful couple.”

  “For now.”

  They really weren’t a couple. That was a reality she tried not to think about. The passionate intensity of their physical connection didn’t change the fact that the holidays would come to an end all too soon and then there was just January.

  No one’s favorite month, except for those hunting for a big discount on a washer-dryer combo.

  “Hmm.” The older woman smiled as if she knew something Paula didn’t. “There’s a dinner dance coming up.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let me explain. I just got a call from the head of the Frontier Ball’s financial committee. The checks and credit card donations to the Christmas House are all in and counted. Pledges fulfilled, every one.”

  Paula nodded.

  “The final tally is something to celebrate, honey. The announcement will conclude the evening. I understand the chief of police said he wouldn’t miss it.”

  Edith looked meaningfully at Paula’s casual clothes and raised one of her neatly plucked eyebrows.

  Paula sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “When is it? Where is it? And why do I need to buy another dress?”

  “You don’t have to spend a fortune,” Edith said in a slightly injured tone. She clasped her hands together. “So many sales. So little time.”

  “Okay,” Paula sighed. “Just give me the invitation so I don’t forget.”

  “Certainly.” The older woman winked. “Zach already has his. I gave it to him myself. You can go together.”

  “Thanks for arranging that, Edith.”

  Edith gave her a beatific smile. “It’s been so nice having him right here. That accident was a blessing for us.”

  “Zach is handy,” Paula said dryly.

  “He moved right in and got to work.”

  “Yeah.”

  “My kind of man. Back in the day,” Edith added.

  Paula pulled the brim of her cap lower on her forehead. The strong
sunshine made her squint. Temperatures had plunged overnight and stayed there. She started walking down the street she’d been assigned to patrol, saying good-bye to her partner at the parked cruiser.

  There had been a wave of shoplifting incidents and purse-snatching in an area of five square blocks. Mapped out and timed, the crimes revealed an underlying pattern.

  They happened in the two hours between most of the schools letting out and sunset. The perps ran against the traffic on one-way streets to reduce the likelihood of being pursued by a cruiser.

  Sometimes they struck more than once on the same street on the same day. The sidewalks in front of the more expensive stores seemed to be the prime hunting ground.

  The victims were often elderly, and in a few cases, handicapped. Paula and the other officers had been shown surveillance video of a theft from a woman in a wheelchair. The perp had dumped the purse a block away and a Good Samaritan had found it—and been incredibly kind afterward. He’d given the exact amount of the missing money to the woman, down to the last penny.

  But the culprit was still at large.

  For a few seconds of tape, the perp’s face was visible. Whichever cop nabbed the SOB would make the news and receive an official commendation. Out of the public eye, the arresting officer would be taken out to Molly McKeever’s pub, a police hangout, for free drinks and poured into a cab to go home and sleep it off, with the blessings of Sergeant Meltzer.

  Paula glanced at the faces of the people she passed. Sometimes she got a nod and a smile from one or two. Most ignored her. Cops were everywhere at Christmastime, even in an upscale shopping area like this.

  She saw a husky teenager in a hoodie on the dark side of the street and let her gaze rest on him a little longer. He wore wraparound sunglasses that he obviously didn’t need to be wearing, and she could tell he was checking out certain shoppers and pedestrians behind the shades.

  There was something familiar about him. He resembled one of the boys from the parking lot—if the mohawk was trimmed off. He sported a buzz cut that had been bleached in spots to resemble leopard spots. The weird hair had a purpose. The spots could be touched up with black marker in minutes, and he would look entirely different.

  Paula looked harder and decided that it wasn’t the same kid. This one had smooth skin, at least from this distance.

  He started following a well-dressed woman who was looking at a smartphone screen as she walked. Paula crossed the street.

  Leopard Boy saw her and dropped back, letting the woman walk ahead as he melted back into the crowd.

  Paula had no reason to stop him. But she was sure he’d been about to grab the woman’s expensive phone.

  Paula shook her head. Smartphones were as valuable as fine jewelry. There was a global market for top-of-the-line models. Cash only, no questions asked.

  She was glad she didn’t have to chase the kid, but she wondered where he’d gone. Weaving through the oncoming pedestrians, she lifted her head to see better. Her height gave her a certain advantage.

  There was no sign of him.

  Paula continued her patrol down a side street that would take her to a major avenue, also with expensive stores.

  She spotted him again, from the back this time. A gust of wind had blown off the hoodie, which drooped between his shoulders. An angled shop window reflected his face, or what she could see of it, without the sunglasses. Paula realized a little too late that he was watching her follow him.

  He ducked into a store. She quickened her pace without running and entered to find him gone.

  “May I help you, officer?” a female clerk asked. She had appeared from the aisle between racks of women’s shoes, one of several identical aisles organized by style and type.

  “Did a kid just come in here? About so tall, gray hoodie, hair with spots?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Paula turned at the soft sound of a door opening. The kid had dashed out from his hiding place and hit the street running like a triathlete, his arms pumping and legs lifted high.

  Gone for good.

  Until she spotted him again an hour later. The sky was darkening. Paula saw a woman fall to the sidewalk a block ahead of her, pushed by Leopard Boy. He stuffed her purse under the hoodie and tried to run, but a sidewalk vendor shoved a pushcart at him and knocked him down.

  Concerned citizens caught him and dished out a little street justice before she reached the scene. Two men strained to hold him against the sidewalk.

  Paula squatted down and worked fast.

  “Let go after I get the zip-cuffs on,” she instructed them.

  A crowd gathered but kept a respectful distance. Paula radioed for backup. Leopard Boy lay on the sidewalk, his hood dragged up again but not covering his face. The sunglasses were on again, but the frames had cut his cheekbone. She looked at him as she talked. His chin was scraped. Blood from the abrasions was trickling through acne cover-up.

  Paula put the two-way back in its holster and pulled out a thin rubber glove from a hidden pocket. She swiped a finger over the side of the boy’s face, removing more of the beige stuff slathered thickly on his skin. Blotches appeared. He raised his head. With the glove—and no help from him—she removed the sunglasses.

  His eyes were feral with rage. It was the same kid.

  “I think I know you,” she said. “You were hanging around the Christmas House a couple of weeks ago. What’s your name?”

  He snarled something that wasn’t the answer.

  “That’s okay. I’ll find out soon enough.”

  Chapter 15

  “He’s nineteen. First offense. Because of the assault charge, the judge won’t just let him walk, but he won’t spend a lot of time in jail either.”

  Paula was sprawled on the bed in her apartment with her cell phone to her ear, talking to Zach.

  “And you’re sure he’s one of the kids from the parking lot.”

  “Once I saw him close up, without the sunglasses, I knew it. And that’s not all.” She paused.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to tell you this at the Christmas House. You were busy or I was and we kept missing each other.”

  “Just tell me.” His voice was tinged with exasperation.

  She wondered if he was in the attic room or elsewhere in the house. She imagined him raiding the kitchen. Then her mind switched to him in the old bed piled high with quilts. Big, buff, and ready to cuddle. Paula told herself to be serious. The adrenaline left over from the takedown and arrest was getting to her.

  “Okay. I was downloading photos from Edith’s camera—I wanted the ones I took of the kids the day you were Santa.”

  “And?”

  “All of her photos were still on the memory chip. They downloaded, too, automatically. I viewed them in a slide show for a trip down memory lane and I saw both those kids.”

  “Doing what?” There was a sharp edge to Zach’s question.

  “I think it was the first week we were open. They were waiting in line to get in when Brandon was the doorman. They were looking at him. Not friendly. Threatening. He had his back to the camera, but it almost looked like he was trying to stop them.”

  “I want to see those photos. Can you e-mail them to me?”

  “Uh, yeah. After we get off the phone.” Paula felt around on the bed for her laptop. It was next to her. Sometimes she caught up on the news or looked at the latest in funny cats before she fell asleep.

  “Were they anywhere else besides the door?”

  “There were other photos of them in different rooms, generally in the background, taken around the same time. Edith had no idea who they were. Looked to me like they were casing the place.”

  “One less punk to worry about but even so . . .” Zach swore under his breath. “I think it’s time the House had real security.”

  “I got the webcams and laptops in place.”

  “Yeah, I saw the setup.” The comment was indifferent. “I’m talking about a real gua
rd or guards. You can’t do everything and be everywhere, Paula.”

  “No,” she admitted. “I don’t think anyone expected the Christmas House to make so much money.”

  “If that’s the case, then the board can afford professional security.”

  “You’re right.” She sighed and sat up in a cross-legged position, resting a hand on a knee. “It’s probably not a good idea to have someone as young as Brandon at the door either.”

  Zach didn’t reply right away. “That’s been taken care of.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He texted me just now. That was actually the reason I called you.”

  Paula hadn’t let Zach get a word in edgewise, eager to tell the story of the downtown bust.

  “He said he couldn’t be a doorman anymore,” Zach continued. “Didn’t give a reason, didn’t say he was sorry.”

  “I guess that was inevitable,” Paula said. “He hasn’t been coming in as much. But I wonder if Edith knows he quit. She hasn’t called and she would about something like that. She was so proud of him.”

  She blew out a breath, feeling angry with Brandon. It wouldn’t help. She suspected he was still angry with her. And probably the rest of the world.

  Paula swung her pajama-clad legs over the side of the bed.

  “I need to give Edith a call.”

  “Okay. Call me back,” Zach said.

  “I will.”

  She paused a moment to think about what she would say before she spoke to Edith. No telling what was going on at the Clayborne household if Brandon had told his grandmother he had quit. If Paula added the news about the arrest of a punk Brandon obviously knew—and that Punk One had visited the Christmas House with Punk Two—the older woman would freak out. Edith was tough but not when it came to her grandson.

  Paula went to the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of tea. The day had left her too rattled to think straight. She sat down in the armchair to sip the tea slowly. A half hour passed and she was no closer to finding the right words to ask Edith what was going on with Brandon.

  She was overthinking it. Paula got up and speed-dialed Edith’s number. It rang several times and went to voice mail. Edith’s cheery voice asked her to leave a message.