Father Christmas Read online

  “I left all that in the car.” He twisted to view his son hurling himself around in the foam pit, then eyed her again. “So, he’s in?”

  “Yes.” She smiled reluctantly. “He’s in.”

  John didn’t return her smile. He knew how Mike was in: with an asterisk next to his name. With a question mark. With a note from teacher Shannon Hull mentioning his aggressive tendencies. With a red flag on his file, because his father was a cop and carried a gun, so he couldn’t possibly be a good father.

  But John already knew that being a cop knocked him off the Ideal Family Man list. That was why Sherry had left—because John was too busy being a cop, saving the world, to notice that the most important part of his own world was falling apart. Because cops worked late and thought too much about the abundance of evil in the world, and because it was easier to lock up a service revolver than to lock up a career’s worth of doubt and despair at the end of the day. Because sometimes you spent your shift mopping up after a murder-suicide, and by the time you were done with that, you didn’t have the energy to fight with your kid over a bath.

  The Children’s Garden Preschool was free to blame John for all the mistakes he’d ever made, and all the others he had yet to make. But the school had better not blame Mike. He’d been through enough, and none of it was his fault, and Molly Saunders had better not take his father’s sins out on him.

  Chapter Three

  “HE’S A COP,” Gail muttered. “I can’t believe you bent the rules for a cop.”

  “I didn’t bend the rules. I just...” Molly sighed and reached for her wine glass. “I decided I could squeeze his son into the Young Toddlers class. That’s all.”

  “Ahead of the everyone else on the waiting list.” Gail shook her head and clicked her tongue. “What do you think, Allison? Does that sound fair to you?”

  Allison Winslow laughed. She and Molly had been friends forever, and Molly knew she was too smart to intervene in a squabble between the Saunders sisters, especially on Thanksgiving Day.

  They were seated around the Shaker-style table in Allison and Jamie’s dining room. The tablecloth was nearly invisible beneath an overbearing array of food. Molly had eaten enough to feed the entire Arlington High School football team for a year—and as the smallest person at the party, or at least the smallest person able to digest solid foods, she suspected that all the others at the table had eaten even more. But the turkey platter held enough meat for another formal dinner, and the bowls of stuffing, yams and butternut squash were heaped high with leftovers.

  “I don’t want to talk about your nursery school,” Allison announced, moving to the head of the table, where Jamie’s five-month-old daughter Samantha was finger-painting with a glob of cranberry sauce on the tray of her high chair. Allison deftly wiped the tray and then Samantha’s fingers with a couple of paper napkins. “I want to talk about my wedding.”

  “No! Not again!” Jamie, the male half of Allison’s impending wedding, held his hands up in protest. “You promised we were only going to talk about it three times a day!”

  “Today’s a holiday, which means I can talk about it as much as I want,” Allison said placidly. She unstrapped Samantha from the high chair and lifted her out. Samantha gave a squeal of delight and pawed at Allison’s face. Once Allison and Jamie were married, Allison was planning to adopt his daughter. But it looked to Molly as if Samantha already considered Allison her mother.

  Allison resumed her seat, arranging the little girl on her lap and smiling at her fiancé. “We’ve already argued about politics, placed our bets on who’s going to win next year’s Oscars, and decided unanimously that Samantha is the most magnificent baby in the world. We’ve discussed Gail’s latest law suit and Grammy’s arthroscopic surgery and Molly’s preschool. So it’s time to talk about our wedding again.”

  Jamie groaned good-naturedly. He sent an apologetic grin toward Molly, who shrugged. “You’d better put up with her if you want her to put up with you,” she counseled.

  “Mutual tolerance,” Allison confirmed. “The key ingredient of a successful marriage.”

  “I thought the key ingredient was sex,” Allison’s grandmother spoke up.

  “Thanks,” Jamie murmured, smiling at Grammy. “That makes two of us.”

  Allison ignored their banter. “I think getting married in February would be stupid. It’s too cold.”

  “If you got married on Valentine’s Day it would be romantic,” Molly suggested.

  “Blizzards aren’t romantic. Do you honestly think Jamie’s parents are going to want to leave their nice, sunny retirement community in Arizona and come to Connecticut in February?”

  Grammy sniffed. “Why not? If I can come in February, why can’t they?”

  “You live here, Grammy,” Allison pointed out.

  “They must be wimps, if they can’t handle a little snow.” Grammy nudged her empty wine glass toward Jamie. “A proper host never lets his guest’s glass stay empty for long,” she scolded him.

  “Given your views on marriage, you can have as much wine as you like.” He refilled her goblet with Riesling and passed it back to her.

  She took a healthy swig, then turned to Allison. “I think you should save us all a lot of trouble and elope.”

  Once again, Allison didn’t take her grandmother’s needling seriously. “I want to be a springtime bride. I want my maid of honor to be able to wear a nice summery dress. Don’t you want a pretty dress?” she asked Molly. “Something nice and floral, with lots of lace.”

  “Well, sure,” Jamie scoffed. “Forget about sex and tolerance. The true meaning of a marriage is that it’s a fashion statement.”

  “If you don’t watch your step, McCoy, I just might make you wear a powder-blue tux,” Allison teased.

  “Yes,” Molly chimed in. “And a frilly shirt.”

  “An electric bow-tie that flashes on and off,” Gail suggested.

  Jamie tipped his head in her direction before refilling the other wine glasses. “An electric bow-tie I could live with. It’s obvious Gail understands the true guy concept of haute couture.”

  Gail snorted. “I understand that guys have no concept of style at all.”

  “Exactly.” Jamie took a sip of wine and gazed about the dining room, pretending to be disgruntled. “There’s nothing quite like being outnumbered by women, five to one. All that stuff we were giving thanks for—our health, the baby, being with friends—”

  “Our wedding,” Allison added with a grin.

  “That, too. But I’ll tell you, one thing I would have given a lot of thanks for would be if there’d been another guy at this table. I for one could have used a little more testosterone here tonight. You should have brought along your favorite man in blue,” Jamie said to Molly.

  She felt a flush of warmth in her cheeks—from the overabundance of food, she told herself, not from Jamie’s words. John Russo wasn’t her man in blue, favorite or otherwise, and he never would be. He was, as Gail had pointed out, a cop. He was cold and shuttered, and much too tall. And besides, he had that gun. And those eyes, which seemed just as hard as his gun, and just as deadly.

  Across the table, she could see her sister bristling. “I still don’t know why you took his son into the school,” Gail muttered. “Why did you cut him such a break? Did he threaten you?”

  “Of course not,” Molly said, not adding that the way Russo had stared at her, aiming at her heart, as if he could cut her down with a well-placed look as easily as a well-placed bullet, had been more than a touch threatening. She knew Gail didn’t trust policemen, and with good reason. She knew what Gail had gone through, thanks to an officer of the law; Molly had been the one to put her back together afterward.

  Gail might have honed herself into a tough-as-nails lawyer as a result of her experience—a lawyer who went up against the cops every chance she got. But she still saw cops as a threat. Whatever threat Molly might have sensed in Russo’s lethal gaze, though, she’d also sensed that he
needed her—or his son did, at least. Observing the boy at the Children’s Garden over the past few days had only validated her suspicions. Michael Russo was a bright, affectionate child. But he was troubled, with deep wells of sadness inside him.

  “You know, Gail,” Jamie interjected, “Detective Russo’s a good guy. He was terrific when we were trying to find Samantha’s birth mother.” Jamie turned to study his daughter, who leaned contentedly against Allison’s bosom and sucked her thumb. Last summer, Jamie had found the baby on his back porch, strapped into a car seat, with no clue as to her mother’s whereabouts, only a note proclaiming that Jamie was the father. When, at Allison’s urging, he’d gone to the police, John Russo had taken the case. Jamie had filled Molly in when she’d called him last week, after accepting Russo’s son into her school. Now Jamie defended Russo to Molly’s sister: “He got the job done. He was smart, he was organized, and he considered every angle and every possibility before he acted. Plus, he put up with me, which couldn’t have been easy.”

  “I’m sure that last part is true,” Gail said dryly. “As for the rest, any cop could have found her birth mother. They’ve got computers and networks.”

  “Another cop might have scared Sam’s mother into hiding—or into running off with Sam so I’d never get legal custody of her. Another cop might have scared me away, too,” Jamie admitted. “Russo did everything right.”

  “Well, hooray for him.” Gail pushed away from the table and lifted the turkey platter. “Bottom line: he’s a cop. I hope Molly has the wisdom to watch her step around him.”

  “It’s not as if I have much to do with him, anyway,” Molly called to her sister’s retreating back. She waited until the kitchen door swung shut behind Gail before exchanging a glance with Allison. Besides Molly, only Allison knew what Gail had been through years ago, when a policeman had pulled her off the road over a broken tail light and come close to destroying her life. Gail and Molly had never even told their parents. It had been too awful—and by the time she’d regained her bearings, Gail had realized there was nothing she could do about it.

  Except hate cops forever.

  Molly sighed. One part of her—the loyal sister part—empathized with Gail’s resentment. But another part—the devoted director of the Children’s Garden Preschool part—wanted to reach out and help any child who could benefit from her program. She’d known, even before meeting Michael Russo, that he would benefit. She’d known just from spending a few minutes in the company of Michael’s father. She’d known from gazing into John Russo’s eyes. And from glimpsing his gun.

  The fact that she hadn’t stopped picturing his eyes, and his gun, his rangy body, his thick, black hair, his large hands and long, graceful legs... That had nothing to do with his son. The fact that she could lie awake at night and wonder about the man whose son’s mother was “not in the picture,” wonder about whether his thin lips ever shaped a smile, whether his eyes ever grew soft with love, whether a woman other than Michael’s mother was in the picture...

  The fact that Molly’s thoughts about a boy’s father were totally inappropriate had nothing to do with her desire to help that boy. Nothing at all.

  ***

  JOHN COULDN’T COME UP WITH MUCH to give thanks for.

  Except for the usual stuff, and none of it trivial: his son’s health, his own. His job, his income, his house. His family, even though Russos were scattered from New Hampshire to New Jersey. They’d all journeyed to his parents’ home in Rhode Island for the holiday—sisters, brothers, in-laws and offspring. His mother ruled the house, ordering everyone around and basking in the clamor of voices, the revival of old arguments and the excess of love.

  But late Thursday night, John had had to strap his bleary-eyed, hyper son into the car seat and depart for home, making the two-hour-plus drive back to Arlington because he’d pulled a Friday shift.

  The preschool wasn’t open Friday. John had managed to hire Harriet Simka for the day. Mike wasn’t pleased, but John had no alternative.

  He arrived at the precinct house with Mike’s voice still pounding in his head: “I don’t like Harry! No, no, no! I don’t like her!” He felt guilty, but what could he do? Bring Mike with him to work?

  He was tired—from the round-trip drive to his mother’s house yesterday, from trying to settle Mike down to sleep, from trying to wake him up this morning. Tired from Mike’s raucous protests regarding Harriet. Tired from having to juggle child-care arrangements so much. Tired from having everything pressing down on him, every decision, every responsibility. Tired, because the weight was all his, because he’d created that weight and couldn’t—wouldn’t—unload it.

  So much for Thanksgiving.

  “Russo?” Lieutenant Coffey called into the squad room from the doorway of his glass-enclosed office two seconds after John had hung his jacket over the back of his chair. Coffey had probably been spying on the squad room through the glass, waiting for him to arrive.

  He crossed the room to Coffey’s office. Coffey hovered near the door, a bespectacled man in wrinkled suit, with a jowly chin and hawk-sharp eyes. “I’ve got something for you,” he said, gesturing toward one of the worn vinyl chairs that faced his desk.

  He didn’t close the office door behind John, which meant it wasn’t going to be a sensitive case. The sensitive cases were usually more interesting, but John was a pro. It was his job to take whatever assignment his commanding officer stuck him with.

  He took a seat, and Coffey smiled faintly. Coffey wasn’t exactly short, but when they stood side by side John towered over him, and he suspected the height discrepancy made his boss uncomfortable. Coffey liked people looking up to him, and John was kind enough to do that as the Coffey circled his desk. Reaching his own swivel chair, he remained standing until the silence grew awkward, then sank into the chair, which squeaked at its joints.

  “How was your holiday?” he asked.

  “Fine.” There was camaraderie, and there was camaraderie. John would take a bullet for any of the guys in his squad. But swapping small talk about family gatherings made him uncomfortable.

  Coffey knew that, and he moved on to business. “One of the branches of Connecticut Bank and Trust has a problem.”

  John frowned and shifted in his chair.

  “A burglary through the ATM. Twice this past week, some unauthorized person managed to withdraw a total of five thousand dollars from a private account. Two thousand the first time, three the second.”

  “A bank robbery.” John’s frown deepened. He leaned forward, rested his forearms on his knees and tapped his fingers together. “Am I in trouble?”

  “You?” Coffey’s mild brown eyes widened and he laughed. “Of course not.”

  “Then what’s going on? I don’t do bank robberies.”

  Coffey’s smile grew cagey. “Yes, you do.”

  Russo raced through his memory, trying to recall any cases he’d screwed up recently. He hadn’t been given a diddly case like this since he’d earned his detective’s shield two years ago. During those two years, he’d handled murders, assaults, domestic violence and a kidnapping—and James McCoy’s baby. He’d worked back-up on a couple of drug cases; he’d waded into gang situations. He’d saved a few lives.

  An ATM scam? No way Coffey would assign him to such a Mickey-Mouse case unless someone had him in his scopes, for some reason. “Is I.A.D. looking at me?”

  “Have you done anything the Internal Affairs Department needs to know about?” Coffey laughed and shook his head. “I’m giving you this case because you need a break.”

  “What break?”

  “You’ve had a run, Russo. The Balfour case last week—a heart-wrenching tragedy, am I right? Followed by the gay-bashing incident this past Monday. Two arrests Tuesday. A nice collar, by the way. You did a good job, and the D.A. was real happy with how you put it all together for him. But it’s a lot to deal with.”

  Russo pressed his lips together. He had a hunch where Coffey was going with this
conversation, and he didn’t like it.

  Coffey leaned back in his chair. Atop one of the four-drawer file cabinets behind him stood a framed photograph of his family—three fresh-scrubbed kids and a wife. Atop one of the other four-drawer file cabinets stood a six-inch tall porcelain Christmas tree.

  “I know things are hinky at home for you,” Coffey went on. “I got word from H.R. that your divorce came through last week. They said you went in and removed the ex from your health and life insurance forms.”

  John nodded. He kept his private life as private as he could. But the day Sherry had made the end of their marriage legal and permanent, John no longer wanted her name on any of his policies. And while the Human Resources Department was supposed to maintain the confidentiality of employee files, police work was intense enough that if a commanding officer called down to H.R. for information on a cop, H.R. didn’t hold back.

  “You’ve got the kid—a motherless son—and the holidays are coming up. You’ve got a lot of things going on in your life right now, John.” Coffey’s voice grew gentle. “And you’ve dealt with two ugly cases here over the past week. I don’t want to see one of my best men crack, okay?”

  “I’m not going to crack,” John said quietly.

  “I know you’re not. You’re going to investigate an ATM robbery.”

  John could have protested that he was as capable as anyone in the squad room—more capable than anyone—when it came to dealing with ugly cases. But why argue? He’d learned long ago not to let his ego get in the way of his work. If Coffey wanted him to investigate an ATM robbery, he would. Maybe a few days away from blood would put him in a holiday mood.

  Sure.

  “Do they have a surveillance camera on the ATM?” he asked.

  “They’ve got everything. Tapes, computer print-outs, all the data on the transactions and a record of the time and date. The weird thing is, they’ve got no pictures of anyone doing anything when the phony withdrawals are being made. The camera shows a blank. Like someone is blocking the lens.”