SANITY CLAUSE

By Steve Brewer

Copyright 2004 by Steve Brewer

Chapter 1

I must've been crazy to take a job at a shopping mall in December. All the things I hate about Christmas -- crowds and Muzak and shopping and greedy children and forced merriment -- collide at shopping malls during the seasonal gift-buying madness. Normally, I'll do anything to avoid such a mob scene, up to and including purchasing my gifts on Christmas Eve at the nearest 7-Eleven. People always need batteries.

But this year, I was trapped at the mall. And not just any mall, either, but the Rio Grande Mall, the newest one in New Mexico. Ninety stores clustered around corridors as long as airport concourses, every shop gushing Christmas cheer.

Albuquerque loves the "new" the way a monkey loves a shiny penny, so the "new" mall -- only a couple of years old now -- drew throngs of Christmas shoppers with feverish eyes and overflowing carts and the steaming pressure of approaching deadlines.

A shopping mall in December isn't the place to see humanity at its best. Kids scream and harried parents curse and smug clerks jangle cash registers and little old ladies hip-check each other out of the way to reach the "bargain" tables.

In this merry melee, there's one island of relative calm and true holiday spirit -- Santa's Workshop. Filling thirty yards of wide, tiled corridor at one end of the mall, it's a world of gaping children and twenty-foot Christmas trees and fake snow and plastic workbenches and spritely "elves" and Santa Claus himself, all red fluff and polyester beard, seated on a golden throne, taking one squirming child after another up onto his lap.

What follows is the best little drama in the whole mall. Will the child cry? Happily babble about baubles and toys? Draw a blank? Pull off Santa's beard? Wet Santa's lap?

It's a regular soap opera, played out there on Santa's knee, and the dramatic tension is just right. The kid comes through, more often than not, so you get a happy ending and proud parents and a beaming tot. One damned Kodak Moment after another. It's a scene you'd think you could watch forever. Again and again, little kids and Santa, ho-ho-ho.

Try it for eight or ten hours straight sometime. With the crowds jostling and the kids wailing and the Muzak pah-rum-pah-pum-pumming and the encircling kiddie train whirring dangerously through pedestrians, tooting its little horn in a hair-raising shriek every time you've got a cup of hot coffee in your hands. Try that on for size. See how much you like Santa's Workshop then.

Spending all day, every day, amidst this joyful noise was the task assigned to me, intrepid investigator Bubba Mabry. I was supposed to melt into the crowd as much as possible and conduct surveillance on the entire Santa's Workshop decorative complex. Change hats and coats regularly to keep undercover. Watch for shoplifters and pickpockets and lost children. And, most of all, keep a close eye on the various impostors playing Santa Claus and his skinny little "elves." Make sure every man keeps his hands to himself. Make sure nobody shows up intoxicated.

I was just eyes. I didn't have to do anything if I saw something go wrong, unless it was a real emergency. I had a small walkie-talkie clipped to my belt. If I saw somebody up to no good, I'd radio Milt Jablonski, head of security, who'd send one of his uniformed goons swooping in to remedy the problem. That way, I remained undercover and could keep watching Santa and his crew.

Not that the three Santas, who worked four-hour shifts, or the elves, who were around even more, didn't notice me. I mean, they must've. I'm standing around the mall all day, eating funnel cakes and sipping coffee and changing hats, and they don't notice? Eventually? Probably thought I was some kind of pervert, eyeballing the little kiddies. I suffered through every shift with the fear that someone would start screaming for the cops, pointing at me, getting me arrested. As a pervert. At Christmas. Not the best thing for business when you already have a shaky reputation as Albuquerque's hard-luck private eye.

I hadn't thought of all these drawbacks when Milt Jablonski offered me the job. Milt called me up the first of December, asked me to come down to his nondescript office at the Rio Grande Mall, offered me the gig out of the blue.

I needed a job. Badly. My wife, Felicia Quattlebaum, had been dropping hints that all she wanted for Christmas was a new laptop computer. For weeks, she'd left sales brochures and circled ads lying around the house. Felicia drops hints like somebody else drops anvils. Anyway, with that big purchase on the horizon, along with the standard calendars and flannel shirts for my folks back in Mississippi, I needed some quick cash. Milt's gig had seemed a Christmas blessing, just in the St. Nick of time.

Milt admitted it was an unusual assignment. Lots of things could go wrong among the hordes at the mall, but you'd think Santa's Workshop would be the one safe haven. Not so. The year before, a Santa had shown up for work with a snootful of Irish whiskey and proceeded to blearily sing and curse and scare the children and dump one brat off his lap onto the floor. This just as a news crew was setting up the camera for a local weatherman to do his remote report amid the Styrofoam snow in Santa's Workshop. Drunken Santa was the top story on the TV news. And a front-page headline the next morning. Mall management, still smarting from the bad publicity, made Milt swear that nothing of the kind would happen this year. His job was riding on it, he told me, and that's why he was hiring me, the funnel-cake-eating secret agent. One more set of eyes to help Milt keep his job through Christmas.

"I'm an old man, Bubba," Milt said, smiling. "This is my retirement job. Twenty-five years on the force, finishing as a by-God decorated sergeant, my whole career in uniform. And what've I got now? A blue blazer and a wall full of video monitors and a bunch of limpdick cop wanna-be's on the payroll and my job riding on whether Santa Claus tries to grope the little girls. This is my retirement and it's the shits. But it's all I've got. This shitty job and three ex-wives. Merry frigging Christmas."

Milt saying all this flatly, his expression never changing. You've got to understand about Milt: He's the happiest-looking guy you've ever seen. He has this face, all arcs and half-moons, that simply looks happy. His wide mouth curves upward naturally and his plump cheeks crease with smile lines and his dark eyes twinkle. Milt's still got most of his curly hair, though it's gray now, and thick black eyebrows that arch expectantly, like he can't wait to see what happens next. He just looks happy as hell.

But Milt, in fact, is not that happy. I've known him for years, and he's always crabbing about how his back hurts or his arches have fallen or his ex-wives are hosing him. But he looks so happy while he's complaining, you can't take him seriously. You're too busy catching that contagious smile. Milt's bitching about something, and you're grinning like an idiot, marveling at what a happy guy you've had the pleasure to encounter. It's weird.

Anyway, Milt's smiling and complaining, and I'm smiling and nodding along, and he offers me the job: Go undercover, monitor Santa's Workshop, keep the Rio Grande Mall out of the freaking headlines. Three weeks at a thousand dollars a week. Enough to buy Felicia's laptop, pay all the Christmas bills and have some left over. How could I turn it down? How tough could it be to keep an eye on Santa Claus?

Clearly, tougher than I'd expected. I hadn't counted on the noise, for one thing. Or the tedium. Or how it's tough to simply hold your ground in a moving crowd without being conspicuous. Or how even funnel-cakes lose their appeal after a while, but you can't escape that aroma. With the Christmas cash waving in front of my nose, I hadn't even paused to consider all the potential hazards. I just said, "yes," and took the paycheck.

In my haste, I'd even overlooked the biggest problem of all: Santa Claus gives me the creeps.

There, I've said it. I'm sorry. I know you can't be a Real American and fear Santa, but I can't help it. I had a bad experience with Santa Claus when I was five years old, and I never really recovered. We don't need to go into detail, but let's say vomiting was involved. In front of about fifty people.

Ever since, a costumed Santa gives me the willies, the same way some adults are inexplicably terrified of clowns. I see Santa Claus and I get a shiver down my spine and a quiver in my belly and a sudden burst of fight-or-flight adrenaline that gives me a headache later. I've tried to rationalize this fear away, telling myself Santa isn't some kind of a stalker because he "knows when you are sleeping and knows when you're awake," that he isn't a loud, jolly home-invader who'll make me puke. No, Santa is about giving and joy and happiness. It doesn't work. Nothing hangs on tighter than a clutching phobia.

Essentially, I'd doomed myself to three weeks of this sensation. I thought it might be a good way to overcome my fear, witnessing Santa shift changes and being constantly reminded of the man behind the beard. But every ho-ho-ho sent a chill through me, and the constant cacophony of carols and crowd noise made me all the jumpier. I was so wound up most of the time, it was all I could do to keep from throwing myself onto the tracks in front of the shrieking kiddie train.

I was standing by a jewelry store on the last Monday before Christmas, dabbing at the spilled coffee on my shirt, when I saw the next Santa arrive for his shift. Daniel Gooch lanked into the mall in jeans and sneakers, a garment bag slung over his shoulder. The overhead lights glinted on his bald head and his gold-rimmed glasses. He was already smiling and he wasn't even on duty yet.

Gooch -- I knew his name from the files Milt showed me; all the Santas had undergone rigorous background checks -- was the best performer on what Milt insisted on calling "our Santa team." The guy was simply great at playing Santa Claus. He was so slim, he must've worn thirty pounds of padding under his red suit, but he never seemed to break a sweat. One awed kid after another climbed up on his knee, and Gooch always said just the right thing or made the right little joke to keep the kid happy. Gooch had real mirth in his eyes the whole time, back in among all the fake white hair and beard, and he came closer to embracing the role of St. Nick than anyone I'd ever seen. The other three Santas on the "team" -- including the swarthy guy, Arguello, who was finishing up his four-hour stint -- did a good job, but Gooch was the real deal. I always felt a little sorry for the kids who came at the wrong time of day to catch his act.

Gooch went through an anonymous gray door off a short, dead-end hallway that branched off the main mall near Santa's Workshop. Milt had shown me around back there when I started this job, and I'd seen a locker room with a couple of benches and gray lockers and a shower and a bathroom. A place for the Santas to change into their gear and clean up afterward. Only one other way out of that room, a door on the far wall that opened into a scuffed service corridor that ran behind a bunch of the stores, and Milt had said that door was kept locked.

Arguello sneaked a peek at his wristwatch. His shift was over, but a dozen kids and parents still waited in line where the green-uniformed elves kept them herded behind red plush-rope cordons. I knew the drill: Gooch should stick his bald head out the door and give a signal. Then Arguello could leave his throne, go into the locker room, and his replacement would come out. You can't let the kids see two Santas at the same time. It blows the whole illusion.

But Gooch didn't come out. Arguello wearily put a few more cranky kids through their paces, but he kept glancing over to the hallway, waiting for the signal. Finally, he leaned over to the elf who was in charge of setting kids up on his knee and whispered in his ear. The elf -- perfectly cast for the role with a pointy little beard on his pointy little chin and a wide forehead capped perfectly by his pointy green hat -- leaped down from the throne platform, the bells on his pointy toes jingling, and ducked under the ropes to go over to the locker room.

I kept an eye on that hallway, still waiting for Santa, but nobody emerged for several seconds. Then the skinny elf burst out the door, his eyes round and his face bright red. He was screaming.

Everyone in the crowded mall whipped around at the noise. The elf wasn't screaming anything coherent. Just mindless, high-pitched, random screaming. His mouth grappled for words until he locked onto a phrase, which he repeated over and over, louder and louder, as the gasping crowd took up the chant.

"Santa's been murdered!"

Chapter 2

Maybe I've been married to a newspaper reporter too long, but the first thing that flashed through my mind was that "Santa's been murdered!" would make a damned good headline. My heart seized up at the thought. The one thing Milt Jablonski had made clear was that the mall couldn't get any negative publicity during the Christmas shopping season. A murdered Santa's about as negative as publicity gets.

Before a second thing could come to mind, my feet were moving. I weaved between stunned shoppers and weeping children and screaming mommies, bumping people, knocking them aside. My eyes never left that dead-end hallway, where the elf still screeched. Nobody went in or out of that locker room, not until I pushed the elf out of the way and burst through the door.

I saw nothing out of the ordinary until I took a step around a bank of gray lockers that jutted from the wall. There was Daniel Gooch on the concrete floor, already in his padded red suit and shiny black boots, but not yet wearing his beard. Instead, wrapped tightly over his head was a clear plastic shopping bag gaily decorated with red reindeer and green Christmas trees. Inside the bag, Gooch's blue eyes bulged behind twisted glasses and his tongue drooped thickly out the side of his mouth. He was sprawled on his back, one foot up on a wooden bench, his arms splayed wide. Deader than a Christmas goose.

Asphyxiated. The word came into my head unbidden. A horrible way to go. People do it all the time, though. Why go to exotic means to kill yourself when you've got plastic bags lying all around the house? If you're serious about it, you can be dead in minutes. As long as you don't mind those agonizing final moments of no air whatsoever.

A quick look around told me the locker room was otherwise empty. Gooch's street clothes hung neatly in an open locker near his head. No sign of anyone else.

I backed out of the locker room and bumped into the elf, who was jingling around, hands clutched together, feet doing the Anxiety Shuffle. I turned toward him, scowling, only to find scores of people gathered at the mouth of the hallway beyond him. Customers and clerks and wide-eyed children, all staring at me. Waiting for news of Santa.

I tried to play it deadpan, tried to keep the look of shock and tragedy off my face. But you try it sometime, with an entire mall's worth of Christmas shoppers staring you down. A great wail went up from the assembled, and they all started babbling about murder and mayhem. A goodly number scurried for the exits, which is the last thing the mall management would ever want to see.

Before I could radio for help, Milt Jablonski and two uniformed guards pushed through the milling throng. Milt's face was bright red and he was puffing hard from the sprint from his office.

"The hell is going on here?" Milt sounded angry, but he looked like he was smiling, of course. Some people in the crowd started to return the smile, despite their tears and alarm. Milt was here, with that happy face, so somehow everything would turn out fine.

I leaned close to him, hoping to keep the others from hearing.

"Gooch is dead," I muttered. "Bag over his head."

"Holy shit!" Milt growled. People nearby smiled and nodded along, agreeing with this assessment from merry Milt.

"Set up a perimeter," he said to the guards. "I don't want anyone else in that room until the cops get here."

A couple of other gray-uniformed guards came huffing up about then, and Milt set them on the crowd, getting people to move back, urging them to return to their shopping.

"And keep any media out of here!" Milt barked happily.

Over at Santa's Workshop, parents and children still stood behind the red ropes, craning their necks to see what all the ruckus was about, but not giving up their hard-earned places in line. Arguello still sat on Santa's throne, but he, too, stared. The kid in his lap chattered away, not noticing Santa's distraction.

A couple of cops arrived, bulling their way to the locker room in their black uniforms, their gunbelts and attitudes bristling. One of them opened the locker room door just enough to step inside and get a glimpse of Gooch, then he got on the radio and called the homicide unit.

Milt moaned. Homicide meant headlines. You might sandbag the media with a Santa suicide; nobody wants to report a story like that during the holiday season. But a suspected homicide would have reporters baying at every mall exit.

While Milt dealt with the cops, I drifted away. I felt woozy, to tell the truth, and thought I'd better sit down. People bumped into me and murmured and stared, but I was tuned out. I found a spot on a wooden bench and sat down and rested my head in my hands.

O, holy night, what a mess. Daniel Gooch, the mall's best Santa, dead, possibly slain. Now there'll be a storm in the news media and Milt will get fired and I'll never get paid and Felicia won't get her computer and I'll never hear the end--

"Hey, there."

I looked up. I don't know how long I'd been sitting there, my head in my hands, but it must've been a while. The crowd around the hallway had thinned and the cops were stringing yellow crime scene tape like tinsel and business was getting back to normal. And Felicia stood over me, a notebook in her hand.

"Hey," I said. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard what happened. Thought I'd better get over here right away."

"Thanks," I said. "It was pretty traumatic and I'm--"

"I'm not here for you. I'm here for Gooch."

I blinked at her. Couldn't process what she was saying. I'd had too much mental and emotional input.

"Daniel Gooch? He's dead, right? I was driving across town with a photographer when we heard it on the police scanner. We were here in minutes."

"But--"

"Do you know what happened?"

"But--"

"Come on, Bubba, snap out of it. I've got a lot of people to interview here. This guy's big news."

"Gooch?"

"Don't you know who he is?"

I shook my head.

"Do you ever read that newspaper that comes to our house every day? Gooch! He's been written up everywhere. Big-shot inventor, takes the plunge out of the corporate world, starts giving fistfuls of money to charity. A real nut for Christmas, but a good guy, you know?"

I think my mouth was hanging open. "Gooch?"

"The scanner said he's the guy who's dead here."

I nodded. "He was about to play Santa. Already in his red suit. I found his body."

"You did?" Felicia went on alert, her pen poised above her pad. "What did it look like? How was he killed?"

"Wait a minute! Are you interviewing me?"

"No, I'm washing your car. Of course it's an interview. You're a witness."

Sitting on the bench, I was at a disadvantage, though Felicia's much shorter than me. I would've liked to look down at her while I said what must come next. Or, at least, be able to move out of striking range. But I was a sitting duck, and I winced in anticipation of the storm to come as I said, "No comment."

"What?"

"I can't say anything, honey-bunch. Not until I've talked to Milt anyway. See if it's okay."

"See if it's okay to talk to your own wife?" Felicia's face flushed and her eyes flashed.

"Look, sweetie, I've got a conflict of interest. You can see that. And I'm upset already. Milt's all mad. The guy's dead and all and he was a really great Santa--"

"Bubba. You're babbling."

"I'm sorry, honey. I just--"

"Bubba?"

The voice came from behind me. Rarely have I so welcomed the authoritative baritone of homicide Lt. Steve Romero. I turned on the bench, away from my steaming sweetheart, and said, "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"You and I need to talk."

"Okay." I stood up from the bench. Felicia didn't step back to make way, and it was a tight fit.

"Now wait a minute," she said. "I had him first."

"Nope," Romero said. His square face split open and a grin spilled out. "I get him first, Felicia. He was first witness on the scene. He's all mine."

"The elf really was first," I said.

Both of them said, "What?"

I sighed and slinked around the end of the bench, putting the heavy, anchored, wooden bench between Felicia and me. Just in case.

"The elf found the body," I said. "I ran in there after he started squealing about dead Santas and panicking the whole mall."

Felicia scribbled furiously on her pad, taking down every word in her cryptic personal shorthand. Romero gave me a look and we edged away. We'd covered a good twelve feet before she looked up.

"Gotta go," I said.

"Bubba!" she shouted.

It froze me in place, but Romero, beside me, said out of the side of his mouth, "Keep moving."

"Should we run?" I asked.

"Just back away slowly. I've got guys here with guns. They'll keep her off of us."

"Yes, but for how long?"

"Long enough for you to tell me all about Daniel Gooch."

"I knew you were going to say that."

We kept backing up. Felicia crossed her arms and glowered at us. She gave me a look that said I'd hear about this later. Gave Romero one even worse. We reached the crime scene tape and ducked under it, and I felt temporarily safer. Felicia kept glaring at us. Other people bustled around and a photographer I hadn't even noticed before fumbled with a lens beside her and kids wailed and Arguello was back in the Santa business. But all I could see was the smolder in my sweetie's angry eyes.

Beside me, Romero said, "Let me guess. You're gonna request protective custody."

Chapter 3

Romero ushered me to a corner, out of the way of some arriving evidence technicians, and stood too close, facing me. Wide-bodied as he is, it felt as if I'd been walled into the corner.

"Tell me what you saw." The grin he'd given Felicia was gone now. Romero was all business. His dark eyes watched my face unblinkingly, waiting for the little physical clues of a lie. I knew this, knew how keen were the lieutenant's powers of observation. Which, naturally, made me itchy all over and gave me facial tics, so it would look like I'm lying, even when I told the truth. Romero has that effect on people.

"Gooch goes into the locker room and never comes out," I said. "Nobody comes out. Finally, the elf goes in to look for him, and comes out screaming."

"Which elf?"

"The hysterical one. Over there."

"Right. You saw no one else go in or out that door?"

"Nobody but the elf. And I was watching, too. This hallway was empty."

The short hall was pretty full now, with uniforms and evidence techs and photographers and bawling witnesses all huddled together behind the crime scene tape. It was making me claustrophobic.

"There's another door," I said. "Out the back of that locker room."

"I know. Goes to the service corridor. But I talked to Milt and he said he's been steady eyeballing the security monitors for that hall for the past hour. Nobody went into that locker room."

"Says Milt."

"That's right. Milt says nobody went through the back door -- which is still locked -- and you say nobody came out the front door. No other way out of that locker room, right?"

Romero cocked an eyebrow at me, waiting.

"Hey, I saw what I saw. Maybe Milt blinked or something. But I was watching the front door the whole time."

I don't know why I was so adamant. What did I care who went through which door? The murder was Romero's problem now, not mine. I've danced backstage at enough murder investigations, I know I don't want any part of them. I should've told Romero whatever he wanted to hear, agreed with whatever line of bull Milt was spreading, gone with the flow. But I've got this contrary streak and when I'm right, damnit, I'm right. I cling fiercely to every such moment of professional pride. They're so few and far between.

"I'm telling you," I insisted, "nobody went in after Gooch and nobody came out."

Romero said, "Then I guess he killed himself."

"What? No. Not Gooch. He was the happiest guy I've ever seen."

"I thought Milt was the happiest--"

"Not like that. Milt just looks happy. This guy Gooch, was really, truly happy. Down deep. When he went in that locker room, he was already smiling."

"Maybe he was smiling because he'd decided on suicide."

"Come on. You don't believe that."

"It's Christmas," Romero said. "Busy season for suicides."

"Not this guy. He was having the time of his life, playing Santa Claus. Felicia says he's loaded, so he was doing this gig just for fun! He chose to spend every day in a freaking mall, playing Santa. That's no kinda suicide I've ever heard--"

A baby-faced detective in a blue suit tapped Romero on the shoulder.

"Lieutenant?" he said as Romero turned toward him. "Medical examiner removed the bag and looked over the body. Victim's got a dent in the back of his head."

A muscle twitched in Romero's jaw. "From the fall?"

"M.E. said it looks like somebody hit him with a pipe or a blackjack or something. He said the victim probably was unconscious when he suffocated. He said to tell you they'll know more after they roll him downtown. He said call him in a couple of hours."

"He say anything else?"

The kid pondered a moment, then shook his head.

"You got anything to say?"

The junior detective blushed, shook his head again.

"Then run along. I'm talking here."

As Romero turned back to me, he shoved his fists deep into the pockets of his black bomber jacket and frowned. Another homicide to solve. Santa Claus, no less. Romero now was officially having a Bad Day. Could there be a less opportune time to say, "I told you so"?

"I told you so," I said. "I knew Gooch didn't kill himself."

Romero didn't look directly at me, but that jaw muscle pulsed a warning. I shut up.

"We'll need you to come down to the office and make a statement," he said tightly. "I'll meet you downtown in a couple of hours. I'm going to be here awhile."

I said, "Okey-dokey," and sidled past him and slithered away.

Behind me, he said, "Milt was looking for you."

I winced, then got hold of myself and ducked under the crime scene tape and put some space between me and Romero.

A couple of fat-assed security guards stood outside the tape, watching eagerly as the real cops did their work. I asked one where Milt had gone.

"Back to his office." The guard smacked his gum, grinning. "I think he was having a heart attack."

He elbowed the guard next to him, and they both chortled merrily. Apparently, it hadn't sunk in that somebody had been killed right here. They acted like they were watching a cop show on TV. Idiots.

I let it go, and trudged off down the mall toward the waiting Milt Jablonski. No sign of Felicia lurking in the crowd, which was just as well. Let her go interview somebody else, make somebody else miserable for a change.

I heard yelling as I opened the door to Milt's office. He sat behind his desk, smiling while he berated two of his uniformed guards. They stood across from him, their shoulders slumped, staring at their toes.

"Get out of here," Milt growled. The pair slunk out of the office, leaving me in Milt's line of fire.

"Bubba. Sit your ass down."

I pulled a straight-backed chair out from the wall and set it across the desk from Milt. Sat down. Took a deep breath. Started talking.

"Look, Milt. I talked to Romero and I don't know what you think you saw, but I was watching that locker room door the whole time and nobody went in or out. Nobody but Gooch. You sure nobody went out the--"

"Hey, Bubba?" Milt beamed at me. "Shut up, okay? Before I climb over this desk and jump up and down on your head."

"But Milt--"

"I'm not kidding, Bubba. I am not happy. Do I look happy to you?"

"Well, jeez. Yeah, you do, Milt. I mean, you always look happy--"

"I am not happy. Trust me on this."

"Okay, you're not happy. You look happy, but you're not happy. On the inside."

"That's right. And you are a big part of my unhappiness."

"Me? What did I do?"

"I gave you one simple job to do. Keep an eye on the Santas. Make sure they come and go on time and behave themselves. One thing. That's all. And what happens? Somebody gift-wraps a dead Santa Claus. While you're watching!"

"I didn't see anybody--"

"I'm screwed, Bubba. That's all there is to it. You just blew my retirement right out of the water. I'm gonna be homeless by New Year's."

"Take it easy, Milt."

"Hell with 'taking it easy.' I'm supposed to be enjoying my golden years. This is what I get?"

"Kinda louses up Christmas, huh?" That's me, always saying the right thing.

Milt growled and snarled and snapped, looking like the happiest rabid dog you've ever seen, and sputtered out, "You're fired!"

He pointed a thick finger at the door behind me. It seemed like an excellent suggestion.

Chapter 4

Three hours later, I got home, depressed and unemployed and weary of police interrogation. Near as I could tell from their questions, Romero and his boys didn't have a clue who killed Daniel Gooch or why or how the killer might've escaped. I was too tired to care.

I unlocked the front door of our red-brick bungalow near the University of New Mexico and let myself in, craving only quiet and solitude and rest. Felicia skipped in from the kitchen, talking excitedly, gesturing at me with a flapping bologna sandwich.

"Just stopped by for a bite," she said through a mouthful. "I'm on my way to the newsroom."

I tensed, expecting her to unload on me for giving her the slip at the mall, but she went on talking. "This is a great story. Probably gonna be working late tonight, filling in the gaps."

I thought of the headlines to come, and felt a sharp pain in my belly. Felicia apparently noticed my discomfort.

"What's the matter, Bubba? They give you a hard time down at the cop shop?"

"You said it."

"And Milt? What did he say?"

"Something about me being fired."

She frowned. "Too bad."

Then she brightened right up again and said, "Don't sweat it, Bubba. It's a big story. You'll get your name in the paper."

"As the guy who let Santa Claus get murdered, right under my nose."

"No such thing as bad publicity, right?"

I didn't think that was right at all, but I was too whipped to argue. I slumped past her, headed for the kitchen and a nice cold beer.

Felicia followed right behind, chattering away.

"Listen to this. Gooch was this big inventor, right? He holds like a hundred patents. All kinds of stuff, but mostly for various gizmos involving lasers. Farmers use them to measure land and make sure their fields are level and stuff like that."

I couldn't possibly tell her how little I cared, or how little I wanted to hear another word about Daniel Gooch. I plopped onto a kitchen chair and slugged beer.

"A couple of years ago," she said as she sat across from me, "something terrible happened. Gooch's wife was killed in a car wreck."

I let that sink in. What came to mind was a kindly grandma type, with fluffy white hair and eyeglasses and round cheeks. Mrs. Claus. Dead in a car wreck. I shook my head, trying to get the image from my mind. Gooch wasn't really Santa Claus, damn it, he was a rich inventor. His wife probably looked like a Vegas showgirl.

While I tried to untangle my thoughts, Felicia said, "Gooch took her death hard. He stopped working. Stopped inventing stuff. Nobody sees him. Then, after a few months, he's done grieving and he's a new man. Not interested in work anymore. Wants to save the world instead. He starts giving huge amounts of money to charity, especially those connected to Christmas. Made cute headlines. 'Real-Life Santa,' blah, blah, blah. But Gooch was about to take the whole thing a step farther."

I sighed, tired and confused. Felicia didn't pick up the cue.

"He wanted to sign over the patents. Give them all to one particular charity, this group that buys Christmas meals and gifts for needy families every year. All the money earned by the patents in the future would go to this one group, called Joyous Noises."

"Joyce's Noses?"

She ignored that. "All this has been going on behind the scenes, right? But there's a problem with this wonderful gift. Gooch signs over the patents and it essentially puts Gooch Enterprises out of business. The patents will get picked up by other companies, which will pay the charity, so that's all fine. But his employees get the shaft."

I couldn't take it anymore. I erupted. "How do you know all this stuff? The man's been dead, what, four hours? And you already know everything about him and his company and the latest gossip."

She waggled her eyebrows at me.

"Information's what I do, Bubba. I'm damned good at it."

"Sure, honey, but--"

"We've had a few stories about this stuff in the Gazette, so some of it was in the newspaper's library. I looked it up on a computer."

I blinked at her. "Oh."

"Then I made a couple of calls. People who knew Gooch. The head of Joyous Noises. They told me more."

"Like what?"

"Like Gooch had a business partner, a lawyer who's been with him since the beginning and handled all the patent stuff over the years. Guy named George Marley. You know him?"

I shook my head.

"I've seen him around. Gray-looking guy. Gray hair, gray face, real skinny. Looks like he's dead already."

"That makes two of them," I said.

Felicia rolled her eyes. "Marley's been putting together a legal action behind the scenes for months now. Word is he was planning to have Gooch declared incompetent."

"Because he gives to charity?"

"They say he was out of his head. His wife's death gave him a nervous breakdown. He started thinking he was Santa Claus, giving everything away."

"Could they prove it?"

"Who knows? Now they don't have to. He's gone. The patents haven't been turned over. Marley keeps control of the company."

"What about Gooch's estate? Does the charity get that?"

Felicia shook her head. Her glasses slid down her nose, and she pushed them up with the back of her wrist. Somehow, amidst all the talking, she'd polished off the sandwich. I don't know how she does that without choking to death.

"Will hadn't been changed, or so I hear," she said. "We'll check probate tomorrow. But if everything still goes to his next-of-kin, it'll be his younger sister, Carol Tannenbaum. She'll get millions."

"And the charities get screwed."

"Merry Christmas, huh? It's a great story. Slow time of year. I'm gonna be on the front page with this thing for weeks."

I moaned.

"Cheer up, Bubba. It gets better."

"Couldn't get any worse."

"I was talking to Donna Hanratty, the executive director of Joyous Noises, this afternoon. You'd like her. She's tough as nails."

That's what I need. More tough women in my life.

"She's not going to roll over on this deal," Felicia said. "She wants to hire an investigator to make sure her charity gets what's coming to it."

I met my wife's eyes. "She wants to hire me?"

Felicia tossed Hanratty's business card onto the table in front of me as she got to her feet.

"She said you already knew about the case. Long as you don't bring the cops down on her, she's willing to give you a try."

"A vote of confidence."

"Take what you can get. After all, you're the man who stood by while Santa Claus was gruesomely murdered--"

I growled and made as if to get up from the table. She laughed and danced away.

"I've got to go," she said. "We're updating the story for the second edition. All the gory details."

I groaned and settled back at the table. Heard Felicia slam the door on her way out and her car crank up outside the kitchen window a minute later. Heard her tires squeal on the asphalt as she whizzed away at her usual breakneck speed.

I registered all this, but I wasn't paying attention. I had only one thing on my mind: Front-page headlines. The possibilities were endless, and Felicia's smartass co-workers would have a field day. "Kris Kringle Killed." "Santa Claus Slain." "Ho-Ho-Hold It! I'm Dead!" "Another Santa Claus Gets Bagged at Rio Grande Mall."

The talk of the town tomorrow. People will read every word. And there they'll find my name. Bubba Mabry, the man who failed Santa.

I fingered Hanratty's card, thinking: I'd better call her first thing in the morning. Before she sees the Gazette.

Chapter 5

I was waiting at Donna Hanratty's office on Lomas Boulevard when she arrived for work Tuesday morning. Low gray clouds threatened a storm, and Mrs. Hanratty wore a tan trenchcoat over a blue pantsuit as she climbed out of her four-door Ford. She bent over to get her briefcase as I hurried across the little parking lot carved into what once had been the yard of a brick bungalow similar to the one Felicia and I call home.

Lot of the old houses along Lomas have been converted to offices, but this time of year, they're decorated and glowing, putting up the Christmas pretense that this remained a regular neighborhood.

We've got this funny tradition in New Mexico of decorating at Christmas with luminarias, which are lighted paper bags. You put some sand in the bottom to hold the bag in place, set a votive candle inside and torch the wick. Assuming the bag doesn't burst into flames in the process, a luminaria makes a nice, mellow light. Set them all around the perimeter of your yard, and the place looks like a postcard. Of course, those little candles are only good for one night, so you only see the real ones on Christmas Eve. A few years ago, some jackass invented plastic "paper" bags with electric lights inside. Now, you can see luminarias throughout the Christmas season, but somehow it isn't the same.

Anyhow, the office of Joyous Noises was decorated with strings of the electrified bags and, under the darkening sky, they looked merry as hell.

Donna Hanratty appeared to be in her fifties, and she wore her short hair brushed back into frosted flames and lacquered into place. Realtor hair. She wheeled and her face flushed when I spooked her, coming up behind her in the parking lot, but she quickly pulled herself together. Her firm handshake confirmed the feeling I'd gotten over the phone: She was a competent, forceful manager of people and resources. A leader. The kind of person who always brings out the worst in me.

I stammered my name and reminded her who I was -- though we'd talked by cell phone only minutes before -- and generally acted like a goof, and Mrs. Hanratty (as I kept calling her) smiled and ushered me into the office. A couple of young secretaries greeted us as we passed through the living room-turned-lobby, then we went into Mrs. Hanratty's office, which was decked out for the holidays, right down to a three-foot Christmas tree in the corner. She shucked her trenchcoat and hung it on a rack, then gestured me into the guest chair while she sat behind her neat desk. I pulled out a pen and my little notebook. Crossed my legs. Tried to look alert.

"So," she said, "from what you told me on the phone, your wife's given you a pretty good summation of where our situation stands."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't get the idea that we don't trust the police," she said, her voice low and business-like. "That's not it at all. They'll catch whoever killed poor Daniel Gooch."

I nodded vigorously.

"But we need someone looking after our interests," she said. "If the paperwork had gone through as planned, Joyous Noises would've become the most prosperous charity in town. There's no end to the good works we could do with the regular income from those patents."

She paused, seemed to be waiting for something. I stopped nodding long enough to say, "It's what Gooch wanted."

"That's right. That's why the timing of his death is suspicious. A couple more days, and all the legalities of the transfer would've been complete."

"I heard his partner wanted him declared crazy. Wanted to invoke some kind of sanity clause."

"There is no sanity clause," Mrs. Hanratty said with a perfectly straight face. "George Marley was blowing smoke with that whole gambit. Their partnership was set up so that Daniel maintained the final rights to all the patents, with no provisions for his mental health. They were Daniel's to handle as he wished. He was the one who thought up all the inventions. Marley just leeched off the profits."

"You're not crazy about him," I suggested.

"I don't like him, no, but I'm trying not to let that prejudice me. Because of the timing, though, we have to consider that Marley might've had something to do with the murder."

"Absolutely," I said. "I'd thought of that already."

"Frankly, it would be best for us if Marley were involved. We prove he had Daniel killed to stop the transfer of ownership, and we can still end up with those patents."

I caught myself nodding again. Probably looked like one of those bobblehead dolls.

"The police are required to look at every suspect," she said, "but they're more likely to overlook something if local big shots like Marley or Carol Tannenbaum are involved. We want you to make sure that doesn't happen."

"The sister's name is really 'Carol Tannenbaum?'"

Mrs. Hanratty smiled. "Funny, isn't it, this time of year? Bill Tannenbaum was one of Carol's ex-husbands. Second or third, I'm not sure. 'Carol Tannenbaum' stuck in everybody's mind, so she's used that name ever since."

"'Carol Tannenbaum.' Jeez."

"Beats her maiden name. 'Gooch.'"

"True. Which husband is she on now?"

"I think she's between commitments at the moment," she said, "but we're talking five or six so far. And counting."

Mrs. Hanratty fondled the wedding ring on her own hand. It was a sizeable rock. I read her as the lucky type who'd found her soulmate on the first try.

"I don't really think Carol would kill her brother," she said, "but she's another person you'll need to check. If she's involved, it would negate Daniel's will. Still good for us, though we're probably talking a long court battle with Marley to get control of those patents."

"Right." I wrote in my notebook "Marley" and "Tannenbaum." That was all I had so far, and the page looked a little naked.

"Anybody else?" I asked.

"I did think of one person. Jeremy Hopwood. Heads up the Holiday Food Bank. He's been extremely upset the past few weeks over the patents. Daniel had given generously to Jeremy's program and other charities over the past couple of years. They all worried the tap would shut off once we got Daniel's fortune, but Jeremy's been really vocal about it. Really angry."

"You think the food bank guy killed Santa?"

She laughed and said, "Lord, let's hope not. Think of the headlines then!"

I winced. Guess she'd seen the Gazette after all. And the front-page banner: "Mall Santa Murdered." Pretty restrained for the Gazette. But anyone who read the whole story (and who wouldn't?) found my name in there. The undercover man who showed up too late. The fact that Mrs. Hanratty was hiring me, despite the way I'd been depicted in the newspaper, made me like her all the more.

"There might be others," she said. "You'll figure out who as you go poking around. But always look to the suspects who'll do Joyous Noises some good. The worst thing possible would be if Daniel's murder was a senseless, random act. If they're both in the clear, then Carol gets everything and Marley keeps running Gooch Enterprises and we'll end up with a big fat nothing."

I felt as if my life -- at least the next few weeks of it -- had been mapped out for me. Mrs. Hanratty was accustomed to setting a course and having others follow. She had the force of personality that comes with command. I was ready to run right out and do her bidding.

It helped that she also handed over a retainer check.

Outside, it was spitting sleet, and I hurried over to my red Dodge Ram and got inside and turned on the heater. I had several appointments to make, and what better office than a nice warm truck with a cell phone?

My first call was to Milt Jablonski. Not that I wanted to talk to Milt. It was, in fact, about the last thing I wanted. Without the cushion of his happy countenance, Milt's sharp words might be too piercing to take. But I had to call him as a matter of professional courtesy. I was about to go splashing about in his muddy scandal, and he had the right to know. Besides, he might know more about what angles the cops were pursuing.

I listened to some Muzak about sleigh bells glistening or some such crap while I waited for Milt to come on the phone. The music abruptly stopped and Milt snarled, "The hell do you want?"

"Just checking in," I said. "Wanted to tell you that I'm investigating the Gooch murder."

"Say what?"

"Gooch. I've been retained to investigate."

"My ass. By whom?"

"Donna Hanratty. She's the director of Joyce's--"

"I know who she is. She hired you? Doesn't she read the goddamned newspaper?"

I cleared my throat. "She wants to make sure her interests are represented."

Listen to me. I was "channeling" Donna Hanratty.

"Yeah? And what are her interests?"

"Those patents. She wants to pin the murder on Marley or Tannenbaum so her charity still walks away with the patents."

I was giving up something for nothing here. But I figured Milt already knew about the behind-the-scenes struggle over the patents. If I let him in on what I was doing, maybe he'd say something in exchange that would help.

"Listen, loser," Milt said. "I've already heard from Marley and Tannenbaum and their attorneys. They're ready to sue the mall over the security breach that got Gooch killed. In case you don't remember, that breach centered on you. If you know what's good for you, you'll go sit quietly somewhere until this thing blows over. You don't want to get caught in a feeding frenzy."

He was right about that. Lawyers scare me worse than Santa Claus. But I'd already taken the retainer from Joyous Noises. I had to move forward. The lawyers were probably a smokescreen anyway. Marley and Tannenbaum were fat cats, just as Mrs. Hanratty had said. Naturally, they'd insulate themselves in layers of lawyers. That type always does.

"Sorry, Milt, but I'm on the case. I'll try not to make a mess for the mall, but I'm looking into who killed Gooch. Soon as I get off the phone with you, I'm calling Marley."

"Don't do it, stupid. I warning you: Stay out of it."

"No can do, Milt."

He cursed and fumed, then there was a repeated loud slamming over the phone line that I took to be him banging the receiver against his desk. The line went dead.

Milt, clearly, was still not happy.

Chapter 6

I chased around town all morning and even worked through lunch -- a bowl of immediately-regretted spicy beef chili at a diner -- gabbing on my cell phone the whole time, getting nowhere.

People seemed to be dodging me right and left. It was as if everyone I needed to see was in the same darting school of fish. Just ahead of me swims a shark, clearing a path. I come along in its wake, wondering where everybody went. I had a feeling the shark was named George Marley.

Sometimes, boldness is the only path. Around three o'clock, with hours of frustration churning the chili inside me, I went to Marley's Uptown office.

I barged right in, a fullback hitting a line of tacklers. I made it through the first two waves of intercepting receptionists, and dodged a weakass arm-tackle thrown by a jowly secretary who couldn't have been a day under seventy. I'd just reached the goal line -- the door to Marley's inner sanctum -- when I was pulled up short by an attractive blonde who emerged from a hall to my right and reached for Marley's doorknob at the same time.

She was nearly as tall as me, lean and well-tended, wearing a festive red dress and bouncy hair that reached to her shoulders. Enormous blue eyes and curling black lashes and a pert nose. The only thing marring her good looks was a long upper lip that threw everything out of proportion, even when she smiled. Something about her face was familiar, but I couldn't place it right away.

She said, "Excuse me," and stepped back to let me go first. Politely, pretending she didn't notice me staring or the herd of howling receptionists behind me.

I couldn't stop gawking, my mad dash to Marley half-forgotten. Had I met her somewhere before? Her smile went a little stiff as she waited, and a hard glitter arose in her eyes. And that's when I recognized the resemblance. The big eyes and that long lip and that smile that curled up on the ends. She looked like the Grinch, the green critter who stole Christmas in the Dr. Seuss classic.

Okay, maybe I had Christmas on the brain. But that smirk of hers made me nervous. She looked like the type who'd try to ruin everybody else's holiday, particularly if there were money to be made from it. The type who'd steal gifts from little children. The sort of person who'd put antlers on a dog.

I was trapped there with her, the secretaries closing in, so I took the only appropriate course of action. I stuck out my hand and introduced myself.

She shook hands. What else could she do? We were keeping it polite.

"Carol Tannenbaum."

Oh, ho. I just hit a two-bagger. Marley and Tannenbaum in the same place. Half my legwork done at once, as long as I didn't let the office staff drag me outside.

"So glad to meet you," I said. "Mr. Marley inside? I need to talk to both of you. I've been leaving messages all over."

She looked me up and down, and her wry grin cocked up on one side. Like I amused her.

She glanced past my shoulder and fired off a dismissive look that quieted the baying receptionists. Then she opened Marley's door and we walked right in.

George Marley was alone in his office, a long way off across a savannah of beige carpet dotted with crouching furniture. He sat behind a ornate antique desk, looking as gray and hollow-cheeked and cadaverous as Felicia had described. His thick eyebrows arched when he saw us enter, and he unfolded from the chair and up onto his feet like the hinged bundle of bones he was.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Bubba Somebody," Carol Tannenbaum said. "I found him outside, trying to bust in here."

Marley's gray eyebrows jumped around some more, ended up low over his eyes as he glared at me.

"You're that private detective," he said. "The one in the newspaper."

I tried smiling, but I don't think it worked. "That's right."

"You think you can just barge in here without an appointment?"

"I called first. It wasn't getting me anywhere. I thought the direct approach--"

"I could have you arrested for trespassing," Marley said coldly.

"Aw, you don't want to do that. I just need a few minutes of your time. And Mrs. Tannenbaum's, too. Then I'll get out of your hair and we can all get on with our Christmas shopping."

Marley wore a black suit, and he tugged at the cuffs, pulling himself together. He looked like an undertaker.

Carol Tannenbaum still appeared amused. Their eyes met, and she lifted a shoulder, as if to say, "What could it hurt?" Which was, of course, exactly what I was hoping.

"Very well," Marley said, but he didn't sound happy about it. He folded back into his chair and gestured for Carol and me to sit across from him. The big desk sat in the middle, but we were still within shouting distance of each other.

"First," I shouted, "let me say I'm sorry for your loss. From everything I've heard about Daniel Gooch, he was a good man."

"He was a saint," Carol said dryly.

Her expression gave nothing away. Marley still glowered at me. They weren't having me arrested, but they weren't exactly overcome with holiday welcome, either.

Milt's warning sparked through my mind. Marley and Tannenbaum and their lawyers, already circling the mall and Gooch's fortune. I needed to tread easily here, try not to upset them any more than necessary. Last thing I wanted was to be dragged into court.

I carefully skated out onto the subject of Gooch's patents, braced for the worst, getting no more than the occasional nod from Marley and zero from Tannenbaum. Everything I said was from the public record, and they both would know that. Finally, Marley interrupted me.

"I take it, from the questions you're asking, that you've been retained by Donna Hanratty and her miserable little charity."

That set me back a little, but I nodded and tried to take up the questioning again.

"She wants you to find some way to pin Daniel's unfortunate murder on me," he said. "So she can get her hands on his fortune, now and forever. Isn't that right?"

I gaped at him.

"If you can't find a way to implicate me, then you're supposed to target Carol here. That would be second-best, for sure, but I imagine Donna Hanratty will take what she can get."

If he hadn't scored such an absolute bingo, maybe it wouldn't have rattled me so much. I stammered and backtracked and squirmed as the pair of them watched me, frosty smiles on their faces.

Marley leaned forward in his chair, which was a form of rescue, and I shut up and let him take the lead again.

"Here's what you can write in your little notebook," he said archly. "For the record. Carol and I are mourning Daniel right now, and you came here uninvited and made our sorrow worse."

They didn't seem to be mourning to me. Looked instead like I'd interrupted a little conspiracy klatch, Marley and Tannenbaum picking over Gooch's bones, figuring ways to maximize profits and sock away the loot.

"Also for the record," Marley continued, "both of us can account for our whereabouts at the time that Daniel met his demise."

I poised pen over paper to show him I was listening.

"I was at a business meeting, looking after Daniel's interests, right here at the office," he said. "There were twenty people present and we spent the entire afternoon here."

I wrote some gibberish on the page. Might as well have said, "Bubba's screwed."

"Carol spent the entire day at a health spa, getting massaged and painted and exfoliated for the holidays. Surrounded by attendants all day. Right, Carol?"

She nodded, which made her hair bounce. Still smiling, though clearly she didn't mean it. This is the woman who's been married four or five times? Sure, she was attractive, in a polished, expensive sort of way. But hadn't those men seen her inner Grinchiness? I could see nothing else now, and it gave me the willies.

"We've already told all this to the police," Marley was saying. "We've got nothing to hide."

I nodded glumly.

"But we've also got no reason to cooperate with you. Particularly since you're working for a charity that we may end up facing in court somewhere down the road."

More nodding. What could I say? He was right.

"Now take your little notebook," he said firmly, "and get up out of my chair and walk out of my office. Right now. If you so much as look back, I'll consider it an assault and will call the police. Clear?"

Flushing furiously, I did as I was told, skulking out the door and past the glaring secretaries. I didn't exactly have my tail tucked between my legs, but only because I don't have a tail.

A few minutes of deep-breathing exercises in the cab of my truck, and I started to feel normal again. Marley had been so smooth, telling me off and showing me the door, it had taken my breath away.

Ah, well, it wasn't a total loss. I'd registered their alibis, which I found to be suspiciously airtight. I'd confirmed the status of Gooch's patents and his fortune. I'd gotten a sense of what sort of money-grubbing, string-pulling, lawsuit-filing vermin I was dealing with here. If I'd had to eat a little humiliation to get that far, then, hey, that's why I was getting paid. All in a day's work.

Best way to recover from such a skillful putdown was to go right out and interview somebody else. Get back on that horse and ride.

Ten minutes later, I was outside the Holiday Food Bank, which was in an old warehouse off Second Street north of downtown. The building was painted with a mural of a towering Santa Claus, driving a sleigh shaped like a giant cornucopia, with all kinds of food spilling out. Creepy.

Slow, random snowflakes began to fall as I parked at the curb. I zipped up my light jacket and hiked around the windowless building until I found the entrance, dodging a couple of street people who wore so many layers of clothes, they looked like the Michelin Man. It wasn't much warmer inside, but the bustling office workers didn't seem to notice. Through an open double-door, I could see a large warehouse stacked with pallets of canned goods. Workers in aprons and gloves and flannel shirts re-arranged the stacks and sorted through cans, filling boxes with what I supposed were holiday meals for the indigent. The people working in the warehouse looked content, if extremely busy, and I couldn't help comparing their virtuous jobs to the grubby things I do for a living. By the time I reached Jeremy Hopwood's private office, my bad mood had gotten worse.

Hopwood bounded up from his desk as I came through the door and hurried over to pump my hand. He was younger than I'd expected -- maybe thirty -- and ruddy and energetic and dressed like a lumberjack. He had the reddest nose I've ever seen. A deep, peeling sunburn that looked several layers deep. His forehead and the lower half of his face were sunburned, too, but they couldn’t come close to his nose. It was red as a stoplight. You could even say it glowed.

He caught me staring after we introduced ourselves, and said, "Sorry about the nose. Went skiing last weekend in Taos, and forgot my sunscreen. Bad burn, but it's getting better."

"Ouch," I said.

"Forgive the clothes, too. Usually I greet people in a suit and tie. But we're short-handed in the warehouse this time of year. I was working in there when you called."

Once he finished apologizing for his appearance and I was done assuring him it mattered not a whit, we sat and got down to business.

I didn't dance around it this time. Told him right off that I was working for Donna Hanratty. I figured, hell, they're in the same business. They're probably all friends. Maybe dropping her name would get him to speak freely.

Instead, Hopwood's face reddened until it was approaching the hue of his beak.

"That witch sent you over here to interrogate me?"

Ahem. I started over. "Mrs. Hanratty believes--"

"I don't give a rat's ass what she believes. Or what she says. She'd do anything to get Gooch's patents and that's the bottom line."

Now that he mentioned it, that had pretty much been the upshot of Mrs. Hanratty's instructions to me: Do anything to make sure the right people get implicated in the Santa murder. Put flatly like that, away from the context of her personal charisma, it all seemed a little calculated.

"Donna Hanratty's on thin ice," Hopwood said. "If she doesn't secure those patents, Joyous Noises will go out of business. She thought she was all set, seducing Daniel Gooch into handing them over, but everything's different now."

I needed to back up a step. "Did you say seducing?"

Hopwood's ruddy face had lightened some, but now the red glow dawned again in his cheeks.

"Let me clarify. I don't mean physically seducing. I wouldn't know whether anything like that was going on. But their relationship was extremely cozy. And she used that relationship as leverage to get him to hand over the patents to Joyous Noises and cut the rest of us out. To me, that's worse than some tawdry affair."

I let that soak in, then said, "You've been very angry about this, haven't you?"

"I've been upset. And I felt I needed to speak out. Nobody else would do it. They're all afraid of making a scene. Busy playing their little games."

"What do you mean?"

"Charity organizations are a funny business, Mr. Mabry. Very courteous, very circumspect. Never do anything that might upset the donors because they'll take their dollars elsewhere. There's a limited pool of giving out there, and an ever-growing number of charities trying to survive. Out front, everything's sweetness and light, but behind the scenes, it's a cutthroat business."

I asked him a few other questions, including his whereabouts at the time of the murder (working in the warehouse with a dozen others), then folded up my notebook to leave. Hopwood had given me a lot to think about, in particular the motives of my own client. He gave me a parting shot as I turned toward the door.

"If you want to find the person who killed Daniel Gooch, you'd better take a hard look at Donna Hanratty herself. I heard a rumor last week that Gooch might've had a change of heart. That some of my carping to the media had gotten through to him, and he might be leaning toward keeping all of us charities fed. Nothing definite, but there was something going on."

I put my hand on the doorknob. "That's what you've got? Rumors? That maybe Gooch was splitting up the Christmas pie? You think that's reason enough for Donna Hanratty to kill him?"

Hopwood rubbed his sunburned nose, then winced with pain. He blinked a few times, then focused on me again. His blue eyes were steady.

"I said she'd do anything, didn't I?"

Chapter 7

Outside, fat snowflakes the size of half-dollars spilled thickly from the sky, as if nature had hit the jackpot. It was sticking, too, which meant it was colder than I'd realized. My sneakers slipped in the slush as I hotfooted it back to my truck through the gathering dusk.

We don't get much snow in Albuquerque. Lots on the looming Sandia Mountains, but not much down here in the river valley. Which is exactly the way I like my snow -- at a distance. Pretty to look at, but I want it over there somewhere, not here in the city, slicking up the streets and generally making life inconvenient and damp.

Driving in Albuquerque during a snowstorm is a thrill ride exciting enough to thaw Walt Disney. Because it snows so rarely in town, we don't get much practice driving in icy conditions. Motorists fall into three types:

One, those aggressive drivers who grew up somewhere else, like the Midwest, and who know their snow. That's Felicia.

Two, timid Sun-Belt types who've never felt comfortable behind the wheel in a whiteout. That would be me.

Three, reckless lunatics who rumble around New Mexico in their four-wheel-drive trucks with giant tires. These guys go eighty miles an hour wherever they go, and they don't see any reason to change that, just because there's a little ice around.

The three driving styles make for a lively mix at intersections and on the freeways. Which is why, when I'm forced to travel in snow, I look for routes with as few stops and lunatics as possible. In this case, that would be to go up Broadway past the warehouse district and hit Odelia over by Albuquerque High School. Odelia turns into the long uninterrupted stretch of Indian School Road, which I could use to get across town and approach my house from the north.

All I wanted was to get home, where it was safe and where, hopefully, people wouldn't bark at me anymore. It had been a long day.

I inched up the long, four-lane hill on Odelia, clinging to the right-hand lane while assorted maniacs roared past me on the left. The hill was steep, but I had no trouble getting traction in my pickup truck. The snow wasn't deep. Yet.

Besides, I was more worried about stopping than I was about going. That first layer of snow mixes with spilled motor oil and anti-freeze and various other leakages that bake onto the roadways here during the dry months. Get it all wet and stir it up, and it can be slick as a Popsicle, making every braking an adventure.

One vehicle got right on my ass as we climbed past the high school. It was a big Chevy Tahoe four-wheel-drive rig with whip antennas and oversized tires. The Lunatic Special.

I slowed even more, giving the Tahoe room to come around, but it stayed right on my tail, its headlight beams bouncing off my mirrors and blinding me.

As we neared the I-25 overpass at the top of the hill, the Tahoe swung around me to my left, passing me finally, and I whewed in relief. Then the SUV swerved right, nearly clipped my fender. Idiot! I hit the brakes too hard and my Ram fishtailed on the slick pavement. I spun the wheel and eased off the brake and got the pickup under control, just as the Tahoe swept at me again.

Its rear bumper crashed into my front fender from the side, and the jolt nearly knocked the wheel out of my hands. The Ram slid sideways. Its tires hit the curb and we jolted back the other direction, thundered again into the roaring Tahoe.

The SUV shuddered and slid, but the driver goosed it forward, and the big tires threw slush and water and mud all over my windshield. My wipers were going, but not fast enough to handle the deluge, and I could see nothing for a moment.

I had my foot off the gas, but the Ram still rolled forward. I didn't want to hit the brakes again. I'd had enough thrills already.

My heart pounding, I thought: What's with this guy? I couldn't see the driver through the Tahoe's tinted windows, but he must be drunk or crazy. Whamming into me on these messy streets. Had I done something stupid in traffic to anger him? We see a lot of road rage around Albuquerque, particularly when the city's in the grip of the snow crazies. I couldn't think of any error I'd made. If anything, I was too cautious. Had that set him off?

The windshield cleared just in time for me to see the Tahoe braking and swerving to its left, into the oncoming lanes. There were headlights far away up ahead, but no other cars right around us and I slowed some more -- to maybe ten miles per hour -- trying to give the maniac the whole road.

The slowing Tahoe suddenly veered toward me. I saw in a flash what was happening. The overpass had concrete walls on either side and tall wire fences, curved inward on the top, to keep pedestrians from jumping. But just before the safety walls began, there was an opening, with only a flimsy metal rail offering protection from the forty-foot plunge to the busy freeway below.

Just as I registered the situation, the Tahoe crunched into the side of my slow-moving truck. It hit me just right, the passenger door of the Tahoe even with the front end of my truck, all the momentum on his side. The Tahoe pressed up against my cab obscenely, pushing the Ram sideways on the slick street, steering me directly toward the edge of the precipice.

While visions of plummeting danced in my head, I fought back the only way I could, yanking at the steering wheel, slamming my truck into the SUV, trying to get it off me. It dawned on me to hit the gas, and the Ram lurched forward, its wheels spinning. There was a long, painful shriek of metal-on-metal as I squirted between the Tahoe and the sturdy concrete guardrail. Onto the overpass, where it was relatively safer.

The Tahoe smashed the Ram against the guardrail as we scraped and slid across the overpass. Sparks flew up from my right fender, mixing with the falling snowflakes into a blinding hallucination. Horrendous crashing and grinding overflowed my ears, so that I could barely hear myself screaming.

One level of shrieking dropped away as we reached the end of the concrete wall. My truck shimmied sideways, then thudded into a steel guardrail that angled away from the abutment. The Tahoe kept coming, a terrible weight to my left, and I felt the Ram lift off the ground, its tires roaring as they tried to grasp air. Then my truck went crashing through the snow.

The Ram slowly rolled two or three times. Mud and slush and weeds flashed past the windshield as the truck tumbled into an empty lot in front of St. Paul Lutheran Church, the one with the roof that swoops above the hilltop like a three-cornered hat. The roofline glowed with luminarias that dipped and spun crazily through the cracked windshield before the truck stopped flip-flopping on the ground.

I was safely buckled into my seat belt, so the wreck didn't knock me out or send me flying out the window. I'd hit my head, though, and I was dizzy and in pain. I felt out of breath and snappingly achy all over, as if the seat belts themselves had given me a good beating. Plus, I was covered with smaller, sharper pains from all the missiles that had rocketed around the cab while the truck mocked gravity: My cell phone and a flashlight and some cassettes and a few ballpoints and loose change and old sandwich wrappers. The truck ended up lying on the driver's side, so all that junk settled around me where I lay strapped in my seat.

The engine conked out. I must've hit the radio buttons with my knee when I was flailing around, because the cab filled with Bing Crosby crooning "White Christmas."

I fumbled for the button, cursing, and cut off the music. I popped myself loose from the seat belt and swiveled around in the detritus until I was sitting on my own window against the ground. I stretched up and got hold of the passenger-side door handle and forced the crunched door open.

I stood, the door going all the way open with a squawk. I had to hold the door because it wanted to slam shut at that angle. (Sure, now I've got gravity working against me. Where was it when I needed it? Not keeping the Ram's wheels on the ground, that's for certain.) I was so busy with the door, I almost didn't notice the roar of an engine up on the road. I looked up in time to see the Tahoe drive away.

So not only had the jackass run me off the road, he'd stuck around to see if I survived. Clearly no accident, whatever the road conditions. That Tahoe was out to get me.

I knew two things as I climbed out of the mangled cab: No matter how much I hurt at the moment or how cold and wet it was out here, I was lucky to be alive. And somebody really wanted me off the case.

Chapter 8

Over the next two hours, the empty lot was illuminated by so many flashing lights from cop cars and a wrecker and an ambulance, it looked like a disco.

Overworked officers, bundled against the cold, stomped around in the mud and bitched about the snow. They dutifully recorded my story about being forced off the road, but seemed to lean toward the notion that the wreck was just another accident on a snowy night in Albuquerque. They promised, however, that the case would be passed along to detectives once the storm was over. Since I hadn't gotten a license plate number or a look at the driver, they told me, the prospects of an arrest were dim.

Two emergency medical technicians examined me and declared me more or less intact. They suggested I go to a hospital to be checked over thoroughly, but I declined, so they shrugged and declared me an idiot and turned me loose.

My red pickup hadn't fared as well as me. After the heavy-duty tow truck pulled the Ram up onto its feet, it was clear my old steed was a goner. The body was mangled and the frame was bent and the tires hung off the rims like muddy rubber bands. If I'd had a pistol on me, I would've given the truck a farewell shot to put it out of its misery, like in that old Bill Mauldin cartoon from World War II.

Just as well that I wasn't armed. Too many cops steaming in the snow, looking for clues, to be dramatically shooting motor vehicles. They might get the wrong idea.

Instead, I retrieved my cell phone from the cab, gave the keys to the tow truck guy and sent my red Ram off to the auto graveyard without ceremony.

A cop gave me a lift home. This wasn't any great courtesy, seeing as how he made me ride in the back on the hard-plastic, hose-off seat, and there was evidence that a holiday reveler had hoisted the old egg nog back there recently. Still, better than hiking home in the snow.

The cop handled the slick streets with daring and skill, and in no time I was skating up the sidewalk to my front porch and he was racing off to some other holiday emergency.

I hurt all over, bruised and nicked and limping. My clothes were soaked and muddy. I still suffered the disorienting after-effects of the crash -- a jittery daze and partial deafness and an adrenaline headache. I creaked up the icy steps onto the front porch, and let myself into my warm house, wanting only quiet and rest.

A powerful evergreen fragrance hit me in the face and almost sent me reeling. I turned to the right and nearly poked my eye out on the branch of a huge Christmas tree, which had been planted squarely before the front window. Furniture had been moved out of the way to make room for this needled monster, and its top reached the nine-foot ceiling. It filled half the room, and seemed to be growing, soon to take over the whole house.

The tree was strangely decorated. From about six feet down, it was thick with tinsel and balls and candy-canes and little red bows and strings of lights that weren't plugged in at the moment, which explained how the thing had managed to sneak up on me. A note was speared onto the end of one branch. I cautiously snatched it off and read its scrawl:

"Bubba,

I decorated as high as I could reach. You do the rest. Put the angel on the top. I've gone back to the newsroom. Couldn't really spare the time to get the tree, but I knew you'd never get around to it. You Scrooge.

Ho, Ho, Ho,

F."

The note left several questions unanswered: Why did Felicia have to overdo the Christmas tree, the way she overdoes everything? How had she gotten this mammoth sequoia home through the snow? How had Felicia, a relatively tiny, if dynamic, woman, gotten the tree through the front door and erect on its stand, and the furniture rearranged to accommodate it? And if she was mighty enough to accomplish all that on her own, how come she couldn't get a ladder and finish the decorating? Could I possibly lift my battered arms high enough to put the angel on the tree?

I could not. I shambled to the kitchen, trying to shake off the feeling the tree was following me, and took the one sure remedy for all pains and distresses: I drank a beer. Standing at the kitchen sink, too tired to change out of my wet clothes, staring out the window at the snow blanketing the back yard, I finished the whole beer. Opened another. Then I squished into the spare bedroom that passes for my office and sat at my desk in my damp clothes. It was dark in there, but I didn't feel like reaching for the desk lamp. I just rocked in my swivel chair, sipping my beer, comforted by the warmth and the silence of my home.

The phone jangled, naturally. I fumbled for the receiver in the half-light. Pain stabbed my shoulder when I brought the phone up to my ear, so instead of "hello," I answered, "Ow!"

Nobody on the other end. I gritted my teeth and said "hello" a couple of times, wondering how much it would hurt to reach over and hang up. Then a voice floated over the line.

"Mr. Mabry?"

"Yeah?"

"This is George Marley. Are you all right?"

Granted, I'd sounded funny when I answered, but something in Marley's tone told me he was surprised I was up and around at all.

"I'm fine."

"From the way you answered the phone, you sounded like--"

"Ow? It's Chinese. Traditional greeting. I've been trying it out."

"Yes, well, that's fine. Listen, I wanted to follow up on our meeting this afternoon--"

"Was that you in that Tahoe?" I blurted. "Or somebody you sent?"

"Excuse me?"

"I was nearly killed in a car wreck a couple of hours ago, as if you didn't know. Somebody forced me off the road over by Albuquerque High. Rolled my truck."

"So sorry to hear that," Marley said. He didn't sound sorry at all. Sounded a little smug, in fact.

"You behind it?" I asked. "Trying to throw a scare into me?"

"Not me," Marley intoned. "Not my style, I assure you. If I had a problem with you, I'd take you to court. That's the way civilized men settle their grievances."

He had a point. I flexed my neck, trying to get a hitch out of it, taking a moment. Then I said, "Would've been awfully easy for somebody to follow me away from your office this afternoon. Wait for the right moment, in the snow, then run me off the road."

"When did you say this happened?"

"Around dusk."

"So it wasn't immediately after you left my office."

"No, but--"

"You must've gone elsewhere during the interim."

"Well, yeah. I was at the food bank--"

"Isn't it more likely that someone followed you from the -- What did you call it? A food bank? -- rather than wait for an hour or two and then give you the bump at dusk?"

I said nothing, too occupied with processing it all.

"See, Mr. Mabry, this is the way the legal mind works. Find the inconsistencies, the gaps in the timeline, the everyday errors of human life. Use them to your advantage. Resolve your grievances before the court. See who comes out on top."

I didn't think much of this lecture, but I was too busy slugging beer to respond.

"This is the type of mind you're going up against," Marley said. "One, I don't hesitate to say, that's far superior to yours. You don't want to end up in court against me."

I suppressed a burp and said, "Is that a threat?"

"Not at all," Marley said. "I believe you've already been warned to call off your little investigation. This car wreck, if it wasn't a simple accident, might be a more serious warning. I'd be careful, if I were you."

"Thanks for your concern," I said flatly. "Why were you calling again?"

Marley cleared his throat. "It came to my attention after you left here this afternoon that your wife is Felicia Quattlebaum, the reporter for Gazette."

"So?

"I was calling to give you notice that I'll be watching her stories very carefully to see if there's any indication you're feeding her information about me or Gooch Enterprises or Carol Tannenbaum. The slightest falsehood or allegation will be considered grounds for a libel suit."

"I can't control what she writes--"

"I'm not sure the court would see it that way."

"Buddy, you don't know how little I control around here. I couldn't keep Felicia from writing whatever the hell she wants in any story. No more than I could keep a nine-foot redwood out of my living room."

"What?"

I took a deep breath.

"Look, Marley, you can stop worrying about me. I've got nothing on you. Not yet anyway. And what I do get, I won't hand over to Felicia. That's between me and my client."

"Better keep it that way," he said. "I'll be watching."

That got my hackles up.

"I'll be watching you, too, pal. And if I find out you were behind that wreck tonight, you and I are going to--"

The phone clicked in my ear. I was talking to myself. I gingerly stretched across the desk, moaning over the pain in my shoulder, and hung up. I relaxed into my chair, finished off my beer, let the silent night settle over me again.

Footsteps clomped onto the front porch.

Chapter 9

Felicia let herself in the door by the time I limped into the living room to open it for her. The looming tree seemed to reach its clutching branches toward her as she sidled through the doorway, carrying an evergreen wreath that was half as big as her.

"Here, take this," she said, and handed the wreath over before I could object. I tried to grab it, but every bruised muscle resisted, and the bow-dotted wreath fell to the floor.

Felicia pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked at me. Her face was flushed from the cold and maybe a little holiday cheer, if you know what I mean. I remembered something about an office party.

"What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "You bent the wreath."

"I don't feel so good."

"You're sopping wet!"

She looked around the room through the steam forming on her glasses.

"And you haven't finished the tree! I left you that note hours ago. I swear, Bubba, ask you to do one thing around here--"

"I wrecked the truck."

"I don't care. I asked you to-- What did you say?"

"The truck. Totaled. Some fool ran me off the road over by Albuquerque High."

"Get out."

"It's true. They towed the truck off to the junkyard."

"Oh, shit. That's what we need. To buy a new car. Right at Christmas."

"Sorry. I'm fine, by the way."

She caught herself and pushed the wreath out of the way with her foot and came closer to look me over.

"You're not hurt? You look hurt."

"A little bit. Nothing that won't heal on its own."

She poked my chest a couple of times with a exploratory finger, making me jump and say, "Ouch." I backed away, out of reach of Dr. Feelbad, and headed for the kitchen, yearning for that time -- only a few minutes ago -- when all was calm around the house.

Felicia bustled along behind me, pressing for details and clucking over my wet clothes and muddy shoes. I let her steer me toward the bedroom and some dry jeans. While I changed, every movement sending panic attacks of pain through my body, I told her about the wreck and my day full of interviews. I finished up with the phone call from Marley.

"That's all he threatened you with?" she asked when I paused for air. "Court?"

"Yeah, but he suggested tonight's wreck might've been a warning for me to mind my own business."

"He denied doing it himself?"

"Who can believe a guy like that?"

We trooped back to the kitchen, where I took the last beer from the fridge.

"I still think Marley's our murderer," Felicia said brightly. "He had the most to lose if Daniel Gooch kept walking around. And he seems like the type who'd kill to get what he wants."

"Marley's an easy guy to dislike," I said.

"You said it. So creepy and gray. Almost like a ghost."

"I get the feeling he's haunting both our lives for the near future."

Felicia popped the top on a Coke and we sat at the table, batting around theories and ooching over my aches and moping over our departed red sled of a truck.

"You know," I said finally, "Marley said something on the phone that kinda struck me funny."

Felicia had finished her soda and was deliberately crumpling the can into an ever-smaller ball. I couldn’t watch for fear she'd slice open a finger. She didn't look up from her project as she said, "What's that?"

"He said something like, 'I believe you'd been warned to call off your little investigation.'"

"He meant with the car wreck."

"No, before the wreck. He said I'd already been warned, and tonight might be the second warning."

Felicia pushed her ball of aluminum away. "So?"

"So what did he mean, I'd been warned? He didn't warn me off the case at his office. He just said he knew what I was up to, working for Mrs. Hanratty, and then sort of danced circles around me and sent me spinning out the door. Who's he talking to, says I was warned off the case?"

"Turn it around," she said. "Anybody give you such a warning?"

"No." I thought back. "Hell, I don't know. People are always warning me and threatening me and telling me to mind my own business. Eventually, it all blurs together."

"Think about who you've seen since the murder," she said. "Who said anything like that?"

I ran the past twenty-four hours through mind, ticking off the people I'd encountered, everyone from Marley to Romero. Only one person came to mind who had issued a warning. Milt Jablonski.

I told this to Felicia, who thought it over before pronouncing that it didn't make any sense. How would Marley know that Milt had warned me about anything? Why would Marley and Milt be talking to each other, now that lawsuits had been threatened and the mall people were scurrying to cover their assets?

"Do you think Milt maybe told Marley about the warning as a way to distract him?" she asked. "Put his attention on you instead of having him sue the mall?"

"Maybe. But the timing's all screwy. Milt said he'd heard from Marley and the rest. Then he warned me to stay out of it. Which means he must've talked to Marley after I was fired. Why tell him anything about me then? I was out of the picture."

We chewed on it for a few minutes. Felicia said, "We need to talk to Milt. Find out what he said."

I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was after eight. The mall would close soon. Even if we could get there through the snow before the mall was shuttered, odds were good that Milt had long ago gone home.

Felicia was looking at the clock, too, doing the same calculations.

"Get your shoes on," she said. "I'll drive you over."

Chapter 10

Felicia's Toyota is just the right size for her, but it's a little cramped for a long-legged guy like me. It hurt all over to squeeze into the car. I whined and yelped so much, it sounded like an opera.

Things didn't get any better after we got under way. Felicia was as casually reckless and distracted behind the wheel as she always is, zipping fearlessly along the snowy streets. I spent the drive to the mall in a state of apprehension, bracing against every little slip and slide, aching all over.

"You're gonna stomp a hole through the floor," she said. "You don't have a brake pedal over there. Give it up."

"I don't know what you mean." I busied myself looking out the window at the winter wonderland of snow and streetlights, trying to ignore the lack of traction or the fact that Felicia was driving too damned fast.

"Hey," she said, "you think Marley bought Milt off?"

"Like how?"

"Getting him to say he saw no one on those security video monitors. The whole mystery here has been how somebody killed Gooch when no one was seen going in or out of that locker room. But if Milt was lying about that, then Milt knows who killed Gooch."

"You think Milt saw somebody leave that room. That Marley paid him off to lie about it."

"Maybe Milt saw Marley himself," she said. "Marley could've come in the back way, killed Gooch, then gone out again before the elf found the body. But only if Milt was paid to look the other way, and to say he saw no one."

"I don't know, hon," I said. "Doesn't sound like Milt. And besides, Marley has an alibi for the time when Gooch was killed. He was in his office with a bunch of other people."

She chewed on it for a minute while we slid around potholes full of water and icebergs.

"He could've paid them off, too," she said. "Or, he could've sent somebody else to kill Gooch while he had a convenient alibi."

"I don't know--"

"How else to explain it? You're sure nobody went in the front, right?"

"I was looking at that door the whole time."

"So Milt's lying. Either he saw somebody and is lying about it, or he wasn't watching the monitors for some reason and somebody got past him and he's lying about that. Until we know which is true, we don't know if we can nail Marley or anybody else. If Milt saw the killer, the cops should be able to squeeze it out of him. But if he was squatting in the crapper the whole time and too embarrassed to admit it, we've still got no killer."

My sweetie. Always the perfect lady.

Felicia wheeled us into the parking lot at the Rio Grande Mall, throwing up a rooster-tail of slush. Snow still fell steadily, and the parking lot was mostly empty, a white blanket criss-crossed by the tic-tac-toe of tire tracks.

In Albuquerque, everybody races home at the first sign of snow, trying to avoid all the other speeding lunatics. Some pause long enough to make a run on supermarket shelves, stocking up for the big blizzard that never lasts more than a day or two. But the mall shoppers were gone, and the arc lights in the parking lot showed only a few snow-covered cars that probably belonged to store employees.

The only vehicles moving around in the snow were a couple of big black SUVs, tricked out with antennas and big tires. They were unmarked, but clearly were mall security vehicles, still patrolling.

Okay, every third vehicle in Albuquerque these days is a freaking SUV, all right? And they all look alike to me. But these looked identical to the Chevy Tahoe that tried to send me to my death earlier in the evening.

I pointed this out to Felicia. She clenched her jaw heroically and gripped the steering wheel and zoomed on a beeline toward one of the SUVs to get a better look. She had to tell me when we were close because I had my eyes closed, muttering prayers.

I pried my eyes open and checked out the circling patrol car. Ho, ho, ho, a Tahoe.

I told Felicia it was identical, and she whipped the steering wheel around. The little Toyota did a slow, sliding pirouette on the slick pavement, all the way around, coming to a graceful halt inches away from the curb outside the glowing mall entrance.

Once I could get my breath, I said, "Did you mean to do that?"

"Do what?"

A row of lights along the mall's exterior wall winked out.

"They're closing," she said.

"I'll run inside. Check Milt's office."

"I'll go with you."

"No, wait here. I'll just run inside. Run right out again."

"I'm going with you."

"Just wait right here. I'll be back in a flash."

I flung open my door, determined to go it alone, but I was too creaky and achy to leap out of the little car. By the time I was on the curb, Felicia had shut off the engine and gotten out and come around and was standing on the sidewalk, watching me.

"Need any help?"

"I'm fine."

More lights shut off as we walked toward the entrance.

"We need to hurry," she said.

"That's what I'm doing."

"This is hurrying?"

"Best I can do."

I grunted and gritted and hobbled faster.

"Good thing you've got me along," she said.

"If it weren't for you, I'd be snuggled in bed right now."

"This will only take a minute," she said. "Then you can run right home and jump under the covers."

Chapter 11

Here's the truth: The only reason I consented to slip-sliding across town with Felicia was because I figured Milt Jablonski wouldn't be at the mall. Man of his age and position hanging around until closing time? Not a chance. Not even with all the bad publicity keeping them busy with spin control at the Rio Grande Mall. Milt would be home, drinking beer on the sofa, his sore feet propped up on pillows, watching a ballgame. Which is exactly what I would've like to have been doing myself.

But no, I was marching through the mall, limping along to the rhythm of the pulsing Christmas Muzak, as weary shopkeepers pulled steel gates shut across the fronts of their stores. No one tried to stop us as we went through a door marked "Employees Only" and walked down a corridor toward Milt's office.

I'd seen the determined light in Felicia's eyes when she'd announced that she'd drive me to see Milt. She gets that look, I might as well go along. I can agree to whatever wild whim has grabbed her, or I can agree after I lose the argument. Felicia's too smart to outwit and too dogged to outlast. She says we'll go see Milt, sooner or later we'll go see Milt.

I went along because I expected he wouldn't be there. I thought we could scoot over to the mall, find Milt's office locked, maybe talk to a security guard, then go home. Felicia would feel that she'd made the good effort. I could, eventually, go to bed where I belonged. Everybody wins.

So I was more than a little surprised when Felicia knocked on the office door and it was flung open by Milt himself. His curly hair was mussed and his necktie was pulled loose, as if he'd had a long day, but he otherwise looked as happy as usual.

"We have some questions for you," Felicia said, and steamrolled right past him into his office.

Milt's eyes went wide, then he glared at me, who'd done nothing but stand in the hallway like a geek.

"The hell you want, Mabry?"

"I brought you a Christmas present."

Milt tried to scowl at me, but it was, of course, the happiest scowl you've ever seen, and I couldn't take him seriously.

"What present?"

"The pleasure of my wife's company."

"Thanks a lot."

He stepped back and let me in, then closed the office door. Felicia already sat in a straight-backed chair in front of Milt's desk. I pulled up another chair and Milt went around to his own chair and fell into it with a weary sigh.

"You're here late," I said.

"There's a lot of shoveling after a shitstorm."

"You look pretty happy about it," Felicia said.

"He always looks like that," I said. "He's not really happy."

"Not happy at all," Milt agreed.

"Whatever," Felicia said impatiently. "We wanted to ask you about those security monitors."

She pointed at the eight flickering TV screens on a rack beside Milt's desk. They showed various angles of the emptying mall and the blank-walled service corridors of the shopping center's backstage world.

"What about them?" Milt said.

"You told the cops you were watching them the whole time."

"That's right. I knew the shift change was coming up, so I was watching for any hitches. Saw your husband on one screen, spilling coffee on his shirt--"

"What about the service corridor behind Santa's locker room?" I interrupted.

"One screen's kept on that corridor all the time. When you get employee theft, that's the kind of back entrance they use to haul stuff out. I was looking right at it the whole time, and nobody came or went."

"Not possible," Felicia said. "Bubba was watching the front and saw no one there. Somebody had to leave that locker room after Gooch was killed. One of you would've seen him."

Milt ran his plump hands along the edge of his metal desk. "Excuse me for saying so, but who are you gonna believe? A retired veteran cop, or your husband, who, frankly, couldn't find his way out of a revolving door without help."

"Hey--"

"Better yet, who do you think the police will believe?" Milt looked happily smug. "Me or him?"

Felicia, I noticed, didn't answer.

"What about George Marley?" she said. "You've been talking to him. What's that about? Was Marley the one you saw in that corridor?"

"I haven't talked to Marley."

"Yes, you did. Marley said Bubba had been warned to stay out of the case. The only person who'd issued such a warning is you."

"Probably everybody's been telling him to stay out of it. Certainly, the police must've warned him away. He's a loose cannon. You don't need that in a murder investigation."

I was beginning to resent Milt's remarks.

"There's another investigation," I said. "The one into who tried to kill me tonight by shoving my truck off the road."

Milt's expression, naturally, didn't change.

"We just got a look at your security vehicles outside," I said. "They're identical to the one that forced me off the road. I'm guessing the cops will check them out, find one hidden away. One that's got body damage all around from the crash."

"You think it was one of our vehicles?"

"That's right. I think it was you behind the wheel, too. Or one of your guards, somebody you sent after me."

"That's crazy talk."

"We'll see what the cops think," I said. "They'll be coming around to check the trucks."

Milt fingered the edge of his desk some more. His eyes darted from me to Felicia.

She leaned toward him, moving in for the kill.

"Who are you covering up for, Milt?" she demanded. "Who did you see in that corridor?"

"I saw nobody."

"Somebody pay you to keep quiet? To let them slip in and do their dirty business with Gooch and sneak away again? Was it Marley? He's got the bucks to arrange something like that."

Milt said nothing.

"Was it Carol Tannenbaum?" I asked. "Did she get to you? Make wild promises so you'd cover up for her?"

Milt's hands stopped moving. He leaned back in his swivel chair, putting a little distance between us, but he still kept quiet. Weathering our onslaught.

"Or was it you, Milt?" Felicia said.

That pulled me up short.

"Did you go down that corridor yourself?" she said. "You could've killed Gooch, then run back to your office, so you could pretend to have been watching the whole time. Maybe it's your own ass you're covering."

Milt's eyebrows arched even higher than usual. Felicia, it seemed, had hit a nerve.

"Who paid you to kill him?" she persisted. "Was it Marley? He wanted Gooch out of the way. The transfer of the patents made it urgent. Maybe Marley found just the guy to help him out of his problems. A retired cop who knows the mall inside and out. One who has all the keys. One who can create his own alibi and testify about empty corridors should the need arise."

Milt had gotten very still. She was cornering him. It was a beautiful thing to watch, but I was nervous as hell. If Milt had killed Gooch, wouldn't he kill again to cover his tracks?

I suddenly wished I'd brought a gun with me. I wished we had stayed home. I wished I'd taken that ambulance ride to the hospital. Anywhere but here.

"You know what will happen," she said. "Marley will make a deal. He'll talk and he'll walk. He'll get an early retirement. You'll get Death Row."

Milt seemed to deflate. He closed his eyes and lowered his head and sagged in his chair.

My heart thumped. Felicia crouched on the very front edge of her chair, looking as if she were preparing to pounce across the desk.

Milt took a deep breath and looked up at us. The defiance had gone out of his eyes.

"All right," he said. "But it's not the way you think."

"Tell us about it," she said.

"First, let me show you something. It'll help make it all clear."

He pulled open the middle drawer of his desk, and his plump hand wriggled inside and came up with snubnose revolver.

I stiffened all over, which hurt. Felicia froze.

"See there," Milt said happily. "That makes everything clear, doesn't it? Now you two sit still, or I'll shoot you. Clear?"

Chapter 12

Milt stood us up against a wall and patted us down and found our cell phones. He took them away and put them in a drawer of his desk. Milt very professional the whole time, very thorough, looking happy as all get-out.

After checking his video monitors to make sure the coast was clear, he marched us out of his office and down the long service corridor. He stopped outside an unlabeled blue door and kept the gun on us while he fished keys out of his pocket and unlocked it.

"Inside," he said, smiling.

We did as we were told, and Felicia just managed to find a light switch before Milt slammed the heavy door shut.

The overhead lights revealed a storeroom, windowless and jam-packed with naked mannequins and old store displays and decorative kitsch. A couple of tattered tables. Stacks of crates and boxes. Holiday decorations from around the calendar -- cardboard Thanksgiving turkeys and plastic Jack-o'-lanterns and furled American flags and even a few Christmas items too worn or broken to grace Santa's Workshop this year.

Felicia immediately began poking around the room, rummaging through stuff. I checked the door. Of course it was locked, but you never know.

"I can't believe it," I said. "Milt really did it. You pegged him exactly."

"I was fishing," Felicia said. "Thought he'd get so busy denying the murder that he'd say something about who paid him off to keep quiet."

"You didn't know he did it?"

"Not for sure. But he looked guilty to me. Nobody's that damned happy."

"But why would he kill Gooch? What's he gain?"

"A big payoff from Marley. I'm guessing Milt discovered he didn't like spending his retirement as a shopping mall cop."

She might be onto something there. I remembered our conversation when Milt hired me, him complaining about being stuck at the mall in his golden years.

"But how would Milt even know about Gooch and the patents and all that?"

"Couldn't have been too hard for him to put it together. He interviewed all the Santas this year and did background checks, right? He would've known who Daniel Gooch was, after he showed up here, wanting to play Santa as a lark."

"I don't think it was a lark for Gooch. He was serious about being a good Santa."

"Whatever." She still rifled through the holiday displays. "The question I'd like answered is whether Milt went to Marley or Marley came to him. I still think the two of them are mixed up in this together. Why else would Milt bump Santa?"

She tossed aside a large cardboard rocking horse that had a hole gouged in one side.

"But why hire me?" I protested. "If Milt knew he was setting up Gooch, why hire an extra set of eyes to watch the Santas?"

She gave me a pitying look, and it hit me: I'd been a diversion, a smokescreen, a shill. Milt had hired me because it would make him look better once Gooch was killed. Prove that Milt was doing all he could to protect the Santas. Give him a fall guy, if necessary. I felt bad that I'd been duped this way. Felt even worse because it's happened before.

Felicia grabbed a large plastic reindeer out of the pile of Christmas rubble and stood it up.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Looking for something to help get us out of here."

"We can't get out of here. There's only one door, and it's locked. We can bang on it, see if somebody hears us."

"Nobody will hear us," she said. "He would've thought of that. We have to get out on our own."

"But that's impossible."

She pushed up her smudged glasses. "It's like this, Bubba. We get out of here before Milt comes back or we're dead. He's just waiting for everybody to clear out of the mall. He could be back anytime."

That made a chilling amount of sense. "Okay," I said. "Let's get out of here. How?"

"The ceiling?"

I looked up. The ceiling was twelve feet high, constructed of those perforated white tiles you see everyplace, suspended on white aluminum frames. Something above it, but no way to know what until somebody climbed up there.

"That reindeer looks sturdy," I said.

"It's only got three legs."

"We can prop it up with something. Put it on one of those tables, climb up on its back."

"And dash away home?"

I made a face. "We can at least see what's up there. I don't see any other option."

It sounded easier than it was, but pretty soon, with me steadying Blitzen and a wooden crate replacing his missing leg, Felicia was able to lift away a ceiling tile and pull herself up. She turned around up there and peered down at me through the square hole.

"Nothing up here," she said. "Just some pipes and wires and things. It's pretty dark, but we can crawl around, find a way out."

She sort of bounced on her arms a little bit. I started, thinking she might be falling on me, but she was just testing her weight.

"Ceiling's pretty flimsy," she said. "I'm not sure it'll support both of us. You want to try it, or should I go get help?"

"I'll go with you. Better than standing around here, waiting for Milt to come in and shoot me."

I climbed up on the reindeer, teetering and twitching, and managed to get hold of the ceiling trusses.

"Watch out for the antlers," Felicia said.

Every muscle hurt like hell as I pulled myself up through the hole, and the ceiling "gave" precariously as I clambered up onto it, but pretty soon I was crouched next to Felicia. Up by the rooftop. Ho, ho, ho.

We began crawling, the ceiling flexing and bowing under our weight. I tried to land my hands and knees on the places where the supporting frames came together, figuring it was stronger there. Pretty soon, I was splayed out like Spider-Man.

"Think we oughta lift a tile?" I whispered. "See where we are?"

"Let's go a little farther. I want to put some distance between us and Milt."

The ceiling stepped up a couple of times. We'd pull ourselves up a wall four or five feet, then it was back onto the "dropped" ceiling, which I feared would live up to its name. We were climbing ever higher, and I had a strong sensation of the unseen floor beneath us getting farther and farther away.

The mall Muzak was even louder up here among the acoustic tiles. "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night" and "The First Noel" and I don't know what all. Annoying as hell.

Felicia moved through the crawlspace the way she does everything -- full-tilt and reckless. I was barely keeping up when we heard a loud crack.

We froze. Waited.

The ceiling seemed to sag beneath us more than before, but it didn't make any other noises. Felicia took a deep breath and gently lifted her knee and moved it forward, shifting her weight. The ceiling held. All was well.

She glanced over her shoulder at me and grinned. Started crawling.

I began to follow. A truss cracked loudly under my knee. Everything gave way.

There was something almost fluid about the way we spilled down from the ceiling. The aluminum supports peeled away and the tiles tipped and slid and Felicia and I went screaming downward. Sudden and swift, like riding down a waterfall.

I was immediately swallowed up in pointy plastic pine needles, which stabbed me all over. I'd landed on one of the giant, ornately decorated Christmas trees that flanked Santa's Workshop.

Fake branches ripped and shiny baubles flashed past and strands of lights and tinsel grabbed at me, trying to break my fall. Foliage slapped me in the face all the way down, but I snagged to a halt, a string of lights caught under my right arm, before I hit the floor. I dangled there, my sneakers two feet off the floor, while I listened to Felicia finish crashing down the other side of the giant tree.

"Sweetie?" I called hoarsely. "You all right?"

Someone shouted off to my left. I whipped my head around and saw Milt Jablonski gaping at me, fifty feet away down the mall, beyond the tracks of the miniature train that encircled Santa's Workshop. Two gray-uniformed guards were with him.

"Burglars!" Milt shouted. "Get 'em!"

The chunky rent-a-cops pulled nightsticks from their belts and sprinted toward us.

Chapter 13

The two guards were almost upon us by the time I untangled myself from the Christmas tree. I looked around for a weapon but was overwhelmed by the possibilities. This was Santa's Workshop. Junk was everywhere. Gift-wrapped packages and fake workbenches and velvet-rope stanchions and life-sized rocking horses and giant candy-canes and chunks of Styrofoam snow and broken tree branches and every type of toy and bauble and ornament a person might like to throw. The embarrassment of riches stunned me for a second.

The first fat guard was close enough that he'd cocked his nightstick back over his shoulder, ready to brain me, and I still stood there, helpless and stupid. A giant Christmas gift came hurtling through the air, its green bow flapping, and smacked into his red face.

Granted, it was just an empty box. But it was the distraction I needed. I dodged away before he could recover.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Felicia coming round the Christmas tree. Her glasses were cock-eyed and she had tinsel in her hair, but she didn't look injured from the fall. She looked, in fact, a little dangerous, a murderous gleam in her eyes. That gave me hope.

I turned as I reached the rows of velvet ropes used to corral anxious kids waiting to see Santa. The guard Felicia had bopped with the big gift was right behind me. The other one had peeled off, headed toward Felicia, who darted away, knocking over displays and casting gifts in her wake. The guard was gaining on her. I felt sorry for him.

My immediate problem was the rent-a-cop swinging his billyclub at my head. I ducked and heard the nightstick whistle past. Threw a looping right low into his soft belly. He oofed and stumbled backward a couple of steps.

I grabbed one of the brass stanchions used to support the red velvet ropes. I lifted the heavy stanchion and lunged forward, swinging it toward the surprised guard's head like a baseball bat.

The problem with your velvet-rope stanchion as a weapon is that it's still attached to the velvet ropes. Which in turn are attached to a bunch more stanchions. Which means you can't get very far. I swung the stanchion to within inches of the guard's head before the ropes and the weight of the long line of poles snatched me backward. The guard stood gaping, only slightly less surprised than I was.

The ropes acted like bungee cords, yanking me back, using my own momentum against me. Some ropes snapped loose and came hurtling at my head. Brass stanchions crashed up and down the line. I lost my footing and went down in a snarl of red velvet snakes.

While I squirmed and flailed, trying to get free, the guard snapped out of it and saw his opportunity. He closed in, his nightstick raised, half bent-over so he could reach down and clobber me.

My arms still were ensnarled, but my feet were free. I kicked like a Rockette, hitting him in the knees and the shins, making him dance away. He tripped over a fallen stanchion and fell flat on his fat ass.

I got free of the ropes and leaped to my feet. Looked around for Felicia, saw her over in the workbench area. She had one of the long plastic workbenches between her and the other guard. The two of them, winded, ran round and round the bench, back and forth, trying to outfox each other.

My guard was on all fours, trying to clamber to his feet. I took two long strides and swung a foot up into his gut like a field-goal kicker. He curled up on the floor, both hands grasping his stomach. His nightstick lay on the floor beside him. I picked it up and gave him a tap on the head. To relax him.

With the guard out cold and a nightstick in my hand, I suddenly felt better about things. I turned toward where I'd last seen Felicia, just in time to see her swing a four-foot plywood candy-cane at the rent-a-cop's head. He went down like he was shot.

Felicia spun the rest of the way around, carried by the weight of the candy-cane, before she could get stopped. Gasping, she dropped the plywood. Our eyes met across Santa's Workshop. Felicia smiled triumphantly.

Her guard was laid out flat. I looked down at mine, saw that he was smiling contentedly, unconscious. Hah.

Then it dawned on me. Milt Jablonski was still around somewhere. He had a gun. And Felicia and I had just knocked out the only two potential witnesses.

I whirled, looking for Milt. The nightstick in my hand suddenly wasn't such a comfort. Unless I could figure out a way to bat down bullets with it.

Someone must've stumbled over the switch that started the miniature train. It was only seven or eight feet away from me, puffing on the tracks, ready to go. For no reason at all, the train chose this moment to emit that shrieking whistle it automatically blasts at certain intervals. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I looked at Felicia, who was maybe twenty feet away, but she didn't seem to have noticed my nervous start. She stood by the red-and-green levers that controlled the train. Her mouth was open and her eyes were wide. She was pointing at me. No, not at me. Past me. Behind me. Aw, shit.

Wincing, I turned around. Milt Jablonski, looking jolly as hell, was near the front of the puffing train, standing atop one of the two-foot-high railroad cars, taking the high ground. Which meant his pistol was pointed directly at my face.

I opened my mouth, but no words came. I could see Milt's finger tighten on the trigger. Jiminy Christmas, I was about to die.

Something clanked behind me, and the train jolted forward. Milt went tumbling.

Each car was a little bench for the kiddies, and Milt fell across a couple of them, howling and kicking. His gun flew into a nearby Christmas tree. The little train puffed away.

I glanced at Felicia, saw she had hold of one of the levers that controlled the train. She was grinning.

Milt was thirty feet away on the train, heading into the far turn, struggling to get to his feet. I took off after him. It hurt to run, but I slogged ahead, the nightstick in my hand, trying to catch the train.

The curve helped. I cut across Santa's Workshop at an angle, running around reindeer and cutting around candy-canes, and caught up with Milt just as he got his feet under him. I swung at him with the nightstick, but he dodged the blow and the little train carried him out of reach.

I couldn't run anymore. A glance told me Felicia was yanking on the controls again, but the choo-choo showed no sign of stopping. I didn't have a choice. I jumped onto the moving train.

I nearly lost my balance, but I caught myself and stood flat-footed on top of the rattling train, facing Milt. The train consisted of a dozen cars. Milt was up near the engine. I was back by the caboose.

Milt looked happy to be facing off on top of a moving train, like two outlaws in a Western. He stepped onto the next two-foot-high car, coming toward me.

I jumped to the next car in line, caught my balance, moved to the next. Milt was still coming. Me thinking: He wants to meet in the middle and duke it out like John Wayne, it suits me. I'm the one with the nightstick.

The train took a curve, and Milt and I leaned over to keep from falling off.

We still had one empty bench between us, but Milt recovered from the curve before I did and leaped nimbly forward. Suddenly, he was too close to be in handy baton range. He caught me in the belly with his fist.

I tried to whack him with the nightstick, but it glanced off his shoulder, and he hit me in the ribs. I was already one big bruise all over from the truck wreck. I didn't need this guy pounding on me.

I cocked the nightstick back by my hip and thrust it forward, driving its blunt end deep into Milt's plump belly. His eyes and mouth went round, and he looked for a moment like a jolly snowman. Grabbing one end of the baton in each hand, I swung it up sharply, catching him under the chin. Milt's head snapped backward and he dropped onto the bench seats. His eyes rolled back in his head.

I stood above him, gasping and wheezing, aboard the rocking train. I passed Felicia and gave her a weary thumbs-up. She still yanked at levers. The train jerked and brakes squealed and I pitched forward.

Fortunately, Milt broke my fall. I landed on his soft belly and bony knees, and bounced off onto the floor. Probably hurt Milt worse than it did me, but he was too unconscious to know it.

I sat up and found Felicia standing over me.

"Found the brake," she said.

"Good timing."

"Sorry. Nice work there. On the train."

"Thanks."

"You in any condition to tie these boys up?"

I gaped at her.

"I'll do it," she said. "Go find a pay phone. Call the cops."

I struggled to my feet and handed her the nightstick and slumped off down the mall.

The Muzak was still going. "God rest ye, merry gentlemen . . ."

Sounded good to me.

Chapter 14

By the time I got back to Santa's Workshop, Felicia had Milt and the two groaning guards tied up beautifully in strands of Christmas lights and fuzzy tinsel and six-inch-wide ribbon she'd ripped off the oversized gifts lying all around. She was just finishing with Milt, who still lay on his back on the railroad cars, his hands tied together at his belly and his feet sturdily bound. She slapped a big red bow on his chest.

"Nice touch," I said.

"'Tis the season."

She gave me a quick hug, which hurt my bruises. I staggered to the little train and sat next to Milt, checking first to make sure Felicia was nowhere near the controls.

"You know," she said, "I was thinking."

I moaned.

"We still don't have the connection to Marley. Unless the cops can turn Milt, we might not be able to prove anything."

"Don't worry about it. Romero's on the way. He'll sort everything out."

Felicia started to say something more, but someone shouted down the way. We turned and saw another gray-uniformed guard approaching.

I was too tired to get up and fight another rent-a-cop.

Felicia said, "I'll handle this."

She bent over and plucked the nightstick off the floor, then walked with purpose toward the guard.

"Sweetie," I said. "You might want--"

"Hey!" she yelled at the guard. "Stay where you are. Things are under control here. The police are on the way."

The cop, uncertain, took a couple more steps. Felicia brandished her baton and growled at him. He raised his empty hands and kept his distance.

A flashing squad car pulled up outside a minute later, and a couple of wet-booted cops came slip-sliding through the mall's glass doors. Romero was right behind them. He wore his bomber jacket over a maroon sweatsuit and sneakers. Not his usual look, but then it was late at night. He'd probably been relaxing at home.

Romero stalked straight to me, his dark eyes taking in Felicia and the gift-wrapped guards and the fallen ceiling and the denuded Christmas trees and the wrecked displays. Not to mention snoozing Milt Jablonski, all trussed up with nowhere to go.

"Been having fun, Bubba?" Romero said.

"Not so much."

"You injured?"

"Lots."

"Good. I won't have to put the cuffs on you. Want to tell me what the hell's going on here?"

Felicia appeared at my side. "We came to talk to Jablonski about the Gooch murder," she said. "He kidnapped us at gunpoint. He's the one who killed Gooch!"

"I know," Romero said.

We both gawked at him, then Felicia said, "We think George Marley paid him to knock off Gooch so he could keep control of the patents that were going to charity."

Romero said, "That's right."

Felicia looked stunned. She hadn't dealt with Romero as much as I had. The man's always like this. Uncanny. Frankly, he gives me the heebies.

"You knew all this?" Felicia asked.

Romero's mouth twitched. "We were putting it together."

"Then why weren't you here, pouncing on Milt?"

"We do things at a certain pace, follow certain guidelines. It's called procedure. Once I had the case against Milt ironclad, we would've arrested him. That's the way it works."

"How long might that have taken?" Felicia demanded.

He shrugged. "Tomorrow. The next day."

"But what about Marley? How were you--"

Romero shook his head. "That's where you jumped the gun. I suspected Milt from the beginning because of that business with the security monitors. Then we found that he'd left a single fingerprint on the plastic bag that suffocated Gooch, so I had him nailed. But I wanted to arrest everybody at once, before they could lawyer up and do more talking behind the scenes. I even worried that Marley might bump off Milt if he knew we were onto them. But you two couldn't wait."

I tried to look abashed. Felicia still had that glitter in her eyes, which meant she wouldn't let it go.

"You said 'arrest everybody.' Who do you mean, besides Milt and Marley?"

"What about these guards here?" Romero said, grinning.

"Nah," I said. "They weren't part of it. They thought we were burglars."

"Why would they think that? Because you crashed down out of the ceiling like Santa Claus?"

"I think Santa uses the chimney."

"Who else?" Felicia insisted.

Romero turned his steely gaze on her. "How about Carol Tannenbaum?"

"The sister?"

"She put Milt and Marley in touch. I've got witnesses who say she met Milt when he was doing background checks on the Santas the mall was hiring."

"Bet she gave her brother a glowing recommendation," Felicia said.

"Sure," the lieutenant said, "especially once she saw what kind of man Milt was. Unhappy with his retirement, looking for an opportunity."

"She was in on the whole thing?"

Romero plunged his hands into his jacket pockets and glanced around the mall. Some other cops streamed in the doors, along with a couple of emergency medical technicians, who hustled toward us.

"Looks that way," he said. "I would've had it all put together in another day or two. Might be tougher now. But I imagine Milt will sing, if we cut him a deal. They'll all go down."

Felicia and I looked at each other. Despite the aches and bruises, the trauma and the torn clothes, the ruined mall and the tinsel in our hair, despite even the fact that our whole ordeal was an unnecessary risk when Romero was about to arrest everybody anyway, we were both smiling.

Felicia glanced at her wristwatch, then back at me. "I've got to call the newsroom. We might be able to get something in the late edition."

Romero rolled his eyes, but he didn't try to stop her as she hurried away in search of a phone.

I still sat on the train next to Milt. Two EMTs rushed up to us. One started looking Milt over and the other crouched in front of me. She was a young woman with buzz-cut hair and dangling earrings shaped like Christmas trees. The look didn't instill much confidence, but she proved capable, gently checking me over.

Romero wandered off, ordering people around, directing traffic. Next to me, Milt came awake to smelling salts, moaning and struggling against the ribbons that bound him. His head turned from side to side as his eyes focused and he took in the wreckage and the strangers all around.

I waited until his gaze settled on me before I said, "Hiya, Milt. Merry Christmas."

Chapter 15

'Twas the night before Christmas, and I was feeling pretty good about myself.

I was in our kitchen, sitting at the table in my pajamas, wrapping Felicia's laptop computer in gilt paper. I was making my usual sticky-tape, ragged-edge mess of the gift-wrapping, but it didn't matter. Felicia would go through the paper like a leaf-shredder in the morning. And she'd be thrilled I'd gotten her exactly what she wanted.

The past few days had been a flurry of arrests and interrogations and headlines. Milt and Marley and Carol Tannenbaum were behind bars. Romero came off like a hero on the news, and Felicia and I didn't make out too badly ourselves. The embarrassed mall managers showed no interest in suing us for crashing through their ceiling and wrecking Santa's Workshop.

Donna Hanratty was my happiest client ever. She was certain, with Marley and Tannenbaum out of the way, that Joyous Noises would end up with those patents and the riches they'd bring. She had enough preliminary documents to prove Daniel Gooch's good intentions, and the actions of Marley and Tannenbaum reinforced her claim.

Mrs. Hanratty was so happy, in fact, she gave me a bonus. That hardly ever happens. Usually, it's all I can do to force timely payment. I'd only gotten a bonus once before -- a wealthy client who died a short time after I helped her remembered me in her will. Her legacy to me? My red pickup truck.

It seemed fitting that the bonus from Mrs. Hanratty, along with my regular fee, was enough to cover Felicia's computer and help with the down payment on a new car to replace my Ram. Soon as the insurance settlement for my departed truck arrived, I could do a little after-Christmas shopping of my own at the used-car lots. Maybe get something a little more anonymous this time. Let's face it: A big red truck isn't the most covert vehicle for surveillance. I should buy something ordinary and bland, something so common that it won't draw a second glance on the streets of Albuquerque. Maybe an SUV.

I whistled a tune as I tied ribbon around Felicia's gift. I realized it was a Christmas carol, which made me cringe, but I kept whistling, feeling a little holiday spirit.

I'd come out on the side of the angels this time, no question. Despite my earlier qualms about Mrs. Hanratty's apparent avarice and the cutthroat charity business, Gooch's money was going to end up in the right place, helping families at Christmastime. Just as he would've wanted.

Daniel Gooch had embodied jolly old St. Nick so well because he really believed in the spirit of giving and the wonder of the season. Nice to know there are people in the world who believe in giving it all away.

I'd served his memory well. So had Felicia. If we ended up getting a little something out of it ourselves, a bonus for our labors, then Merry Christmas to us.

One thing I knew for sure: Gooch had opened my eyes to Santa Claus and the giving spirit behind that symbol. All the imagery of Christmas would have a new meaning for me now. I'd no longer fear Santa and his red suit and his loud bluster and his beady-eyed reindeer. No longer worry about the intrusion of a fat burglar coming down the chimney. No longer get queasy at the sight of a white beard.

That childish phobia was gone now, replaced by a renewed Christmas spirit.

I heard a noise outside. A jingling. Sounded like sleigh bells. Carolers? Holiday revelers? An ice cream truck?

Something thump-thumped on the roof. Hey, now. Another thump, and my stomach turned to jelly.

Moved by the old Christmas spirit, I leaped up from the table and hurried to the bedroom. Felicia was sound asleep, a curve under the covers. No help there.

More clatter on the roof. Oh, shit.

I jumped into bed and pulled the blankets up over my head.

Damned squirrels.