Father Christmas

by Judith Arnold

  “Hard to do that without being conspicuous,” said John.

  “Okay, so you’re dealing with a genius, or a contortionist, or both. Either it’s an inside job, or you’ve got some sort of computer freak who’s figured out a way to outsmart the PIN system without starring in the bank’s video. It’s the C.B.T. branch on the corner of Dudley and Newcombe Street. Have a look around, see if you get any ideas. They’re waiting for you with the tapes, the computer data and an army of bank tellers eager to prove they’re innocent. The manager’s name is—” Coffey lifted a slip of note paper and read from it “—Evelyn Fong. She’s expecting you.”

  “Okay.” John stood, deciding that if Coffey was going to stick him with a dull assignment like this—regardless of Coffey’s noble rationale—John didn’t have to respect Coffey’s hang-ups about his lack of height. He plucked the note paper from Coffey’s fingers and strode toward the door.

  “John?” Once again Coffey jolted him by using his first name. He paused and turned back to his boss. “Go easy on yourself, huh?”

  He pivoted and left the office, moving without pause to his desk to pick up his jacket and notepad. He would figure out this stupid ATM theft. He’d deal with Evelyn Fong and her bank and the thief who’d somehow disabled the surveillance camera. He knew how to solve crimes, with or without blood.

  But go easy on himself?

  That was one thing he didn’t know how to do.

  ***

  THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL after the Thanksgiving holiday was the first day of December, which meant Molly had to attend to a monthly flurry of paperwork. She gave vague smiles and nods to the children who trooped past her desk, most of them clinging to their mothers’ hands, a few escorted by fathers dressed for work. They clomped through the entry and down the hall in their unwieldy rubber boots and thick-soled sneakers, hung up their coats and stashed their lunches in their cubbies, and then raced the rest of the way down the hall to the first floor classroom. Molly heard the giggles and squeals of children settling in for their morning activities. She smiled again as the parents retraced their steps down the hallway, pausing at her desk to drop off their December tuition checks.

  “Cara?” she called to her administrative assistant, who was sorting through four days’ worth of phone mail.

  Cara pressed the pause button on the answering machine. “You want me to take the checks to the bank?” she asked, eyeing the bulky deposit envelope in Molly’s hand.

  “I’ll do it today. You can hold down the fort, can’t you?”

  Cara rolled her eyes. “As if you had to ask,” she snorted.

  If Molly had been in a less unsettled mood, she would have grinned at her young assistant’s attitude. Cara was twenty-one, a recent graduate of the local community college. She was as sweet and pretty as spun-sugar candy, and the children adored her. What the children couldn’t appreciate nearly as well as Molly was that behind her spun-sugar demeanor was a sharp, efficient mind.

  Molly knew that when it came to finding a dependable assistant, sharp and efficient were more important than sweet. To operate a successful preschool, Molly had to be on top of everything, from health inspections to insurance to the latest theories on child development and education. She had to be a financial whiz, too. Setting a tuition the market would bear, paying her staff more than they’d earn elsewhere so they wouldn’t quit the minute a more remunerative offer came along, maintaining the facility and meeting the bills... Molly had learned that a degree in Early Childhood Education wasn’t enough to run a school like the Children’s Garden. She’d had to go back to college at night to take courses in marketing and management.

  Depositing the tuition checks was a simple enough chore, though. Ordinarily, she was happy to let Cara drive the eight blocks to the local bank branch with the deposit envelope. But today, Molly yearned for the exercise a brisk walk in the cold December morning would provide. She was restless, anxious to clear her head.

  She slipped into her down parka, pulled on her leather gloves, and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in a half hour,” she promised.

  “I think we might just survive without you,” Cara said, waving her out the door.

  The wintry sun was cold but bright, the stubbly grass crisp and pale with frost as she cut a diagonal path across the lawn to the sidewalk. The Children’s Garden was situated in a mixed neighborhood, private homes side by side with small convenience stores, a cafe, a cottage with a neon hand glowing in the front window and a sign where the wrist should be: “Readings, Predictions, Tarot. Madame Roussard, Licensed Palmist.” Molly wondered how one went about getting such a license.

  The house with the electric hand in the window was one of the few buildings that didn’t have Christmas lights strung up along the eaves, or giant candy-cane placards taped to the doors, or fat plastic Santas perched on the roofs. The convenience stores, ecumenical in spirit, had electric menorahs standing in their windows, and foil-wrapped cardboard depictions of dreydels displayed alongside foil-wrapped cardboard wreaths and fireplace stockings.

  Molly tried to downplay the holidays at the school—not because she didn’t absolutely love this time of year, but because the children received an overdose of holiday commercialism everywhere else they went. She allowed for class time to discuss different seasonal traditions, but the children didn’t need religious symbols at the school. They got more than enough holiday cheer the instant they stepped outside.

  Although there was no snow on the ground, the air was Christmas-cold. Molly needed that cold air to cleanse her mind after having spent every night of the four-day Thanksgiving weekend thinking about guns, about cops...about one cop in particular.

  She hadn’t seen him that morning. She must have had her nose buried under a pile of tuition slips and checks when John Russo brought his son in. Not until she heard Amy, the Young Toddlers head teacher, sing out, “Good morning, Michael!” did she realize he’d arrived, but when she glanced up and surveyed the hallway, Michael’s father wasn’t there.

  Just as well, she tried to convince herself, ducking her head as an icy breeze slapped her cheeks. John Russo’s child might be her concern, but Russo himself wasn’t. She’d invited him to continue attending the Daddy School program she held at the Children’s Garden on Saturday mornings, but he hadn’t seemed terribly comfortable the one time he’d come.

  Of course, Michael hadn’t been an official student yet. But he’d thrown himself into the school’s environment. His father had held back.

  Molly had the feeling holding back was something John Russo did a lot of the time.

  Damn! Why was she so obsessed with him? She’d volunteered to hike to the bank to remove him from her thoughts, not to waste even more energy thinking about him. She ought to use this time away from her desk to figure out what to buy Gail for Christmas, or Allison and Jamie. Jamie’s daughter Samantha would be a cinch to shop for. She was a child in desperate need of blocks, and Molly intended to get her a set of classic unpainted wooden building blocks. She suspected Jamie would get his daughter something totally impractical—an electric train set, probably—and Allison would get the little girl something totally practical—clothing ir teething toys. Molly would get blocks, and then she and Samantha would sprawl out on the floor and build a palace with them.

  She would never buy wooden blocks for a child like Michael Russo, since he’d be likely to throw them. Hollow plastic blocks were all she would trust him with.

  She wondered if children were more prone to aggressive behavior when their fathers carried guns.

  She wondered what Russo’s gun felt like. Was it heavy? Was the holster he wore restrictive, or did it make him feel more secure? Was the leather soft or hard? When he closed his hands around the butt of the gun, did he feel like more of a man?

  She wondered what his hands were like once he put the gun down. Sensitive? Or rough and demanding?

  She wondered what had happened to Michael’s mother, whet
her she’d walked away or Russo had driven her away. She wondered how a woman could find the strength to walk away from her own son, and from a man with eyes as mesmerizing as Russo’s.

  She wondered why she was even wondering. Russo was the father of one of her students—and she swore to herself, as she’d sworn to her sister on Thanksgiving Day, that she’d made room in her school for one more child because of that child, not his father. John Russo’s ability to haunt her thoughts, day and night, had nothing to do with it.

  Another block brought her deeper into Arlington’s business district. Convenience stores and palm-reading parlors gave way to more densely packed shops and offices. Across the street, at the corner in front of the bank branch, a fellow dressed up as Santa Claus stood by a kettle, ringing a bell and collecting donations for charity.

  Molly dug into her purse for a dollar bill to toss into his kettle. Tucking her wallet back into her purse, she shook her head and grinned at the Santa impersonator. He was much too lanky to be a proper St. Nick. With his back to her, he looked lost in the Santa suit, his shoulders broad but bony, his legs long and lean. If only the tunic top of his costume were a bit shorter, she’d have a nice view of his buns—and she bet that view would be nice.

  He had his gaze fixed on the bank building—no doubt hoping that people emerging with hefty cash withdrawals from the automated teller machine would feel the spirit move them to drop a few bills in his kettle. If he really wanted to raise some money, she thought, he ought to ring his bell with a bit more vigor. He moved his hand listlessly, causing the clapper to hit the brass with a muffled clank.

  Some people just didn’t know how to be Santas, she supposed.

  Chuckling, she waited for the light to turn green, then stepped into the cross-walk. The charity Santa turned to observe the flow of traffic, and Molly stumbled to a halt in the middle of the street when she saw the face partially hidden beneath a woolly white wig and cottony puffs of fake beard. The artificial hair, the red stocking cap, the pillow-stuffed tunic...none of it detracted from the intensity of his dark, searing gaze.

  Detective John Russo was Santa Claus. The most uncannily sexy Santa Claus Molly had ever seen.

  Chapter Four

  HE FELT LIKE AN IDIOT in the Santa suit. It wouldn’t have bothered him quite so much if he could have avoided being seen by anyone who knew him. But to have Molly Saunders, of all people, make him, right in the middle of the crosswalk at the intersection of Dudley and Newcombe...

  Not good.

  The synthetic fiber of his beard tickled his chin, and the fleecy weight of his wig and hat caused his scalp to sweat. The cushion he’d belted around his waist under his jacket made his motions clumsy and oafish. He’d been reluctant to wear the costume for his surveillance on the bank’s ATM alcove, but he’d agreed to give it a try, consoled by the thought that even if it proved futile, he would end the day with something to show for his efforts: a kettle full of money donated by the generous pedestrians who couldn’t seem to pass him without contributing some cash. A sign above the kettle announced that the money was earmarked for Higgins House, a homeless shelter in town. It was one of the police department’s favorite charities.

  But John wasn’t a fund-raiser. He was a detective on a case.

  Apparently, that was the last thing anyone would take him for, if Molly’s eruption in giggles was anything to go by. With her cold-kissed cheeks and sparkling eyes, she looked more in tune with Christmas than he felt. Her smile seemed to convey the spirit of the season.

  This ATM case wasn’t coming together. He’d thought he could psyche it out in a day, but Friday evening, after reviewing branch manager Evelyn Fong’s records and videos, all he’d accomplished was to figure out the that someone was deliberately blocking the lens of the video-cam before withdrawing cash from the machine. Someone incredibly tall, given that the camera hung from the ceiling in the bank vestibule. The tapes showed no one that tall entering or leaving the vestibule within an hour of either of the two withdrawals in question.

  The woman from whose account the money had been withdrawn was average in height, and she swore her ATM card was stored safely in a dresser drawer in her bedroom whenever she wasn’t using it. Her husband was on crutches after breaking his ankle in a basketball game, and since it was a joint savings account, he wouldn’t be likely to steal money from it—although John hadn’t completely ruled out that the possibility that the husband was trying to empty out the account for some reason. But with him on crutches, it would be difficult to sneak in and out of the vestibule without being spotted on the video. And their fifteen-year-old son had an after-school baby-sitting job. Both times money had been taken from the account he’d been baby-sitting for his neighbor, who had confirmed his alibi.

  The bank’s insurance would cover the woman’s loss, but a crime had been committed. John figured he had nothing to lose by giving this Santa gig a shot—especially since Lieutenant Coffey seemed to have no intention of assigning him to anything more substantial.

  So there he was, dressed in red flannel and ringing a damned bell while the director of his son’s preschool stood in the middle of Dudley street, convulsed in laughter.

  Despite the hilarity of the moment, she managed to finish crossing the street before the light changed. She arrived at his corner, her gaze never swerving from him, her smile never waning even as her laughter wound down. “Well, now, Mr. Russo,” she greeted him. “It says on Michael’s registration form that you’re a police officer. We’ll have to correct that information, won’t we.”

  He expected to feel indignant. He’d already had to put up with some ribbing from Mahoney and Jesper, his back-ups, who’d cruised past him in a patrol car ten minutes ago, rolled down their windows and shouted, “Ho, ho, ho!” at him. He’d endured a double-take from Tom Bland, a private PI who’d stopped by the squad room just as John had been leaving; Tom had sworn he’d been a good boy and asked John to leave a new laser-jet printer under his tree. But Molly’s smile wasn’t mocking. She seemed almost relieved that he should be masquerading as Santa. He wondered how she would feel if he told her he had a gun tucked into the elastic waistband of his baggy red trousers.

  “Mike doesn’t know,” he said. Mike was still young enough to believe that policemen helped pedestrians across the street and assisted drivers when their cars broke down, and maybe, on rare occasions, arrested bad guys. He didn’t know that policemen sometimes had to perform nasty, brutal acts—like pretending to be Santa to solve a bank robbery.

  “What are you doing?” Molly asked, peering up at him, still smiling. Even in the cold, with her body hidden inside a thick down parka, he could smell her gingery fragrance. Her ears were turning red. He wanted to cover them with his hands to warm them.

  He reminded himself again that she was the director of his son’s preschool. “I’m on a case,” he said succinctly.

  “So this pot, where you’re taking collections...?”

  “That’s legitimate.”

  “The money’s going to—” she angled her head to read the sign “—Higgins House?”

  “It’s a homeless shelter.”

  “I know.” She dropped a dollar bill into the kettle. “Is this your case then?” she asked, sounding a little funny when she said “case,” as if the word was alien to her. “To collect money for the homeless?”

  A woman in a bulky fur coat entered the ATM vestibule, and John scrutinized her without losing track of Molly. He could have told her he was working and couldn’t let her distract him with conversation, but he didn’t want her to leave him. Now that he was reasonably sure his costume hadn’t done his image too much harm in her eyes, he didn’t mind having her around.

  Didn’t mind? Hell. He liked having her around. A lot.

  “The police support Higgins House. We’d rather see street people someplace safe and warm at night, especially at this time of year. But for now, the charity is just a cover.”

  “A coverfor what?”

&n
bsp; He was able to turn back to Molly once the lady in the fur coat entered the bank proper. Molly’s eyes were round with fascination. He was momentarily dazzled by the flecks of gold in them, like tiny dots of summer sunshine warming the December morning. “There have been a couple of ATM robberies,” he explained.

  “At this bank?” She gaped at the building. He didn’t think her eyes could grow any rounder, but they did. “The Children’s Garden has all its accounts here.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But I was about to deposit the tuition checks in the ATM machine.”

  “Go ahead. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m right here.”

  “But you said—a robbery—”

  “No violence. Someone’s just withdrawing money illegally. Don’t worry.”

  She pursed her lips, obviously unconvinced. “Maybe I ought to deposit the tuition checks at one of the other branches.”

  “This one’s safe,” he assured her, then felt the mustache and beard scratch against his skin as he smiled. “I’m here.”

  She eyed the bank warily, then pivoted back to him. “Well, I guess—”

  “Hang on a second.” A familiar choreography down the street caught his eye. An elderly man, a young man bumping into him and stopping to apologize, another young man coming up behind him. John had seen the moves before; despite their subtlety, he knew immediately what was going down.

  He touched Molly’s arm, maybe to keep her from speaking, maybe to reassure her...maybe just because she was close to him, and he was about to abandon her, and he didn’t want her to think she’d done anything wrong. He handed her his bell and strode past her down the sidewalk, his gaze riveted to the second young man. As he closed the distance between himself and the punk, he accelerated his gait, not quite running but walking faster, faster—until with a sudden burst of speed he lunged at the kid, slinging his arm around the kid’s shoulder and hurling him against the brick wall of the nearest building. “Where’s the wallet?” he asked quietly.