Father Christmas Page 7

  “Was that the little credit card?” Sean asked.

  “The card you put in the machine before you pushed the buttons.”

  “He said it was his card.”

  “Did it have his name on it, or his mother’s?”

  Sean studied his hands again. “I don’t know.”

  “Did he tell you how he got the card?”

  Sean shook his head. John directed his gaze to Erin, who shook her head, too.

  “He stole it,” John told them. “He stole it from his own mother.”

  “That wasn’t very nice of him,” Erin said quietly.

  “And then he took his mother’s money while you blocked the bank camera.”

  “I didn’t know,” Erin said, then glared accusingly at John. “And you know what? I think it’s very mean of you to pretend you’re Santa Claus. I think the real Santa Claus wouldn’t like that at all. I think he’d be very mad at you.”

  Unable to come up with a defense, John laughed. “You’re right. But I’d explain to Santa that as a police officer, I’m doing a good thing by making sure Todd stops robbing his mom. And I think Santa would forgive me.”

  Erin looked dubious. Sean eyed John curiously. “Is that a real gun?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you ride in a car with the lights and the sirens?”

  “Not usually. I can put a light on the roof of my car, but mostly it’s just a plain car.”

  “If I was a policeman,” Sean said, “I’d want a siren.”

  “Look, what are we talking about here?” Dennis Murphy broke in. “Are the kids going to get charged? Where are we going with this?”

  John had no intention of charging the Murphy twins with anything. All he wanted from them was enough information for him to get Todd qualified for juvie supervision, counseling, whatever it took to straighten him out before he ruined his life. If John was very lucky, the twins would have had the shit scared out of them so badly they’d never get in trouble again.

  “I’m going to release your children, Mr. Murphy,” he told the father. “I think we’ve got enough to get the baby-sitter into juvenile court and under supervision. He’s a minor. If he can get back on track, he should be able to avoid jail. It’s a first offense. It’s a first offense for you guys, too,” he added with a stern look toward the twins. “It had better be your last offense.”

  A smile of gratitude crossed Murphy’s lips. “I appreciate how you’ve handled this, Detective. I think my kids stumbled into something they didn’t understand. Which doesn’t exonerate them, but I think it would be better dealt with at home.”

  “You might have a word with your ex-wife about who she’s hiring to watch the kids,” John suggested.

  “Oh, I’ll do that,” Murphy muttered grimly. He removed a small leather folder from an inner pocket of his jacket, and pulled from it a business card. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll make sure the kids understand how serious this situation is.”

  John nodded and slipped Murphy’s card into his shirt pocket.

  “What was Erin talking about, that nonsense about Santa?”

  John smiled. “Ask her.” He opened the door and stepped out into the hall. It was a quarter past five, the windows already dark with the early approach of evening. He’d have to do his paperwork quickly so he could pick up Mike from preschool by six.

  So, he thought, watching Murphy usher his children through the squad room and down the stairs, Erin Murphy thought the real Santa would be mad at him. Maybe she was right. Maybe Santa didn’t like having detectives prending to be him. Maybe Santa would be even less pleased than John to learn that, thanks to his successful bust of the pick-pocket that morning, John was going to get stuck pretending to be Santa again.

  The weeks leading up to Christmas were usually a period of increased street crime. People carried more money with them, and their minds were on shopping, parties, all the joys and stresses that accompanied the holiday season rather than on their personal safety. Coffey had decided that John could help keep downtown Arlington safer during the holiday crush by going undercover as a street-corner Santa in various downtown neighborhoods over the next couple of weeks, watching for muggers and shoplifters, thieves petty and not so petty.

  John wasn’t crazy about the idea, but helping people like Mr. Rosenblatt to hang onto their wallets was part of his job. If that was what he had to do, he’d do it.

  He wasn’t sure how he was going to get through the holiday crush himself. Molly Saunders had warned him that Mike was ready to snap, and John was hardly in the mood for Christmas this year. But maybe if he kept dressing up as Santa, a little of the season would rub off on him. Maybe if he donned the padding and the wig, the hat and the bright red suit, he’d get some idea of how to survive the next few weeks, how to make them good for his son.

  Chapter Five

  MOLLY AND HER TEACHERS took turns serving late duty, staying at the school until the last full-day students at the Children’s Garden were picked up by a parent or guardian. Shannon was on late duty that evening, leaving Molly free to go. But she had chosen to remain at her desk until at least one of the children—Michael Russo—was picked up.

  By six o’clock, the sky had grown almost as dark as midnight, and flurries dusted the air. Given the snowfall, she should have been eager to head for home while the roads were still clear and dry. But she wanted to make sure that Michael was fully recovered from his emotional meltdown of that afternoon. She wanted to see him safely delivered into his father’s hands.

  Sure. As if the hope of seeing Michael’s father had nothing to do with Molly’s reluctance to leave the school. As if she had no interest whatsoever in John Russo, the Dudley Street Santa.

  His arrival was announced with a gust of chilly air as he pushed open the door and stepped into the building. Molly glanced up from her papers, saw him—and felt the impact of his presence like a blow to the gut. Or maybe a blow to her soul.

  She was in trouble. John Russo was too...attractive. Too sexy. Too dangerous. He was a man who didn’t even need a gun to overpower people. He’d overpowered a pick-pocket with his bare hands. All it took for him to overpower Molly was a mere hint of a smile.

  He was dressed in regular clothes now, no padding, no baggy red pants and fluffy white wig. His thick, black hair shimmered with droplets of water where snowflakes had melted on it, and a burgundy scarf was slung carelessly around his neck, inside the collar of an unzipped leather bomber jacket. Smelling the cold scent of winter on him reminded her of the colder scent of fear she’d inhaled that morning when she’d witnessed him chasing after that street thug, throwing the thug against the brick wall of a building and twisting the thug’s arm behind him. John Russo was not a peaceful man.

  No wonder his son wasn’t a peaceful child.

  Instead of walking directly down the hall to get Michael, he paused by her desk, his eyes meeting hers above the sprawl of paperwork on her blotter. They were infinitely dark and unreadable. All she could guess from his gaze was that at that moment, she was more important to him than his son.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling shyly.

  Something glittered in the depths of his eyes: curiosity, interest, recognition. Something. His lips quirked into a slightly bigger smile. “Hi.”

  The air in the entry got warmer. Had Shannon accidentally tripped the thermostat switch in the other room? Why else would Molly suddenly be feeling overheated?

  He didn’t move. He simply stood at her desk, peering down at her until she felt obliged to stand. He still towered over her, but not by quite as much.

  She wished he would say something, but he didn’t. He only stared at her, that enigmatic smile tweaking his mouth.

  Unable to stand the silence, she spoke instead. “Did you catch the bank robber?”

  “Yeah.” Instead of looking pleased, he lost a few degrees of his smile. “Robbers,” he corrected her. “Three of them.”

  “Three?” A lump of panic filled her
throat and she swallowed it back down. The thought of John, dressed as Santa, apprehending three thieves, all at once... He could have been hurt. He could have been killed. He could have been forced to use his gun.

  “A fifteen-year-old ringleader and seven-year-old twins.”

  “No!” Relief that John hadn’t faced a formidable opponent blended with dismay that children so young should be engaging in criminal activity. “A fifteen-year-old I could believe, but seven?”

  “The teenager conned them. They thought it was a game. They didn’t know they were breaking the law.” He shrugged, and what was left of his smile faded away. “Their parents are divorced. I think they got overlooked.”

  “It happens.” She studied his face, suspecting that he was comparing those misguided twins to his own son. “In divorces, the parents need to give their children extra attention, just so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.”

  “Sometimes they can’t.” A muscle fluttered in his jaw. “Sometimes one of the parents disappears.”

  “Which doubles the burden on the parent who stays. But the burden is worth it, John. You know that, don’t you?”

  His mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile again but couldn’t bring himself to.

  “So, does this mean you’re all done with your Santa impersonation?”

  He shook his head. “My boss wants me to wear the costume and catch some more pick-pockets. It’s the perfect stake-out disguise, given the season.”

  “You wear it well,” she teased.

  He permitted himself a brief smile. “The girl twin warned me that the real Santa wouldn’t like it.”

  “I think she’s mistaken. The real Santa would very much like you to catch pick-pockets.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He glanced toward the hallway. “Is Mike back there?”

  Molly sighed. If she told him about Michael’s day, his humor would be gone for good. But it was her job to keep parents apprised of their children’s behavior at school. “Michael had a bit of a rough time today.”

  John’s focus narrowed on her. “What happened?”

  “He...” She took a deep breath and reminded herself that her primary responsibility was as a professional. She had to tell him. “He got into a fight with a classmate over a toy plane. He tried to hit the other boy with the plane.”

  John absorbed this without comment.

  “No one was hurt,” she went on. “But it wasn’t acceptable behavior. Michael has difficulty sharing.”

  “He’s an only child.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s exempted from learning how to share. It’s a skill he needs to know.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “It takes more than talk,” she cautioned. “It takes training and practice. This week in the Daddy School, we’ll be dealing with sharing and possessiveness and how fathers can help their children to overcome their innate selfishness.” When John didn’t respond, she pushed her luck. “The class meets from ten to twelve, Saturday, right here. It would be great if you could come. You and Michael both.”

  “So he can learn how to share.”

  “So you can learn how to help him. He completely lost his composure today, John. He couldn’t understand why the toy wasn’t all his. When his teacher put him in time-out, he went on a crying jag.”

  John’s jaw flexed but he said nothing.

  “Afterward, he was so exhausted he fell asleep in my lap.”

  “He was in your lap?”

  “Well...yes.” Molly knew the risks of holding children. She’d heard about enough weird law suits and shocking charges to understand that a teacher had to be very careful about touching a student. But the Children’s Garden was a preschool, and her students sometimes needed a hug, and no threat of a law suit was going to keep her from hugging a child who needed it. If John, with his police job and his gun, wanted to arrest her for holding his son on her lap, let him try.

  He searched her face, probing, digging around as if he had a search warrant for her thoughts. “Thank you,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  She dared to press her luck. “Will you come to the Daddy School class this Saturday?”

  He raked a hand through his hair, and she averted her eyes when his jacket moved with his arm, so that if he did happen to be wearing his gun she wouldn’t accidentally glimpse it. “Maybe,” he said.

  “I hope you do come. I think it would be good for Michael.” And for you, she wanted to add. It would be good for the tall, reserved man who didn’t want his son to get lost in the shuffle, the dark-eyed man who looked so wonderful when he smiled, but who didn’t smile nearly enough. The quiet, private man who seemed to need so much, but who refused to ask for it.

  ***

  HE DIDN’T WANT TO GO to a Daddy School class on Saturday. But then, there were lots of things he did that he didn’t want to do. Like stand on the corner of Bank Street and Hauser Boulevard in a red flannel Santa suit, looking for trouble.

  Hauser Boulevard was downtown Arlington’s major shopping area, and the retailers had dressed the neighborhood up to put people in the right frame of mind for spending money. Metal arches wrapped in artificial holly and strung with lights spanned the street every few yards, and most of the shops had Christmas trees in their front windows, or tinsel, or short, fat, Santa-costumed mannequins who looked a hell of a lot jollier than John felt.

  Why shouldn’t they be jollier? Unlike him, they didn’t have to keep their eyes peeled for muggers, shoplifters and punks.

  Somewhere in Arlington, crimes were being committed. John ought to be solving them. He was good at sifting through evidence, even better at noticing details in a crime scene that other cops overlooked. The trouble was, Coffey also thought John was good at standing on busy city corners and watching for minor malfeasance.

  In his next lifetime, John decided, he would not be so good at things. When they were kids, his sister Sarah, the prima donna of the family, once explained to him: “You know how come Linda and Nina have to do the laundry and I don’t? Because the last time I did the laundry I screwed up. I put the fabric softener in the bleach dispenser, and Mom threw a fit. She said I almost destroyed the washing machine. So now, when she needs a load done, she asks Nina or Linda to do it.”

  Not a bad strategy, screwing up. The trouble was, John was too damned responsible to screw up. He couldn’t always do a good job, but he was incapable of deliberately doing a bad job. So if Coffey dressed him up like St. Nick and stood him on a corner, John wound up not just solving an ATM scam but nailing a pick-pocket. If Coffey needed a figurative load of laundry done, he’d ask John, confident that John wouldn’t put the fabric softener in the bleach dispenser.

  Last night’s snowfall had left less than an inch of snow on the ground, and under the heels of boots and the scrape of snowplows, all that was left along the curbs was a ridge of gray slush. The overcast sky promised more snow, but promises were broken all the time. John hadn’t seen a single flake descend from the clouds, though he’d felt the icy bite of winter through the red wool-flannel Santa suit and the thermal underwear he was wearing underneath.

  He didn’t want to go to Molly Saunder’s Daddy School class. Not because he didn’t think Mike would benefit from it. Not because he didn’t think Mike needed to work on his sharing skills—and John needed to work on his fathering skills. Not because he had anything more exciting planned for Saturday morning.

  He didn’t want to go because Molly turned him on.

  He could stand on this cold city corner, surveying the sidewalks and the storefronts, sizing up suspects before they’d done anything worthy of suspicion, ringing his bell and murmuring thanks to all the folks who stuffed money for Higgins House into his kettle...but thoughts of Molly burned deep inside him like a pilot light, a flame capable of igniting a furnace if only he twisted the tap and released some fuel. Yet he couldn’t do that, couldn’t let the heat thaw him. He couldn’t chance it. He had too much going on i
n his life, too many demands on him, too much emotional stuff. What little he had to give belonged to Mike.

  Besides, he’d already learned from his failed marriage that he lacked whatever secret ingredient it took to make a woman happy. In bed, he could offer satisfaction. But not in a relationship.

  What if Molly Saunders was interested in nothing more than satisfaction in bed?

  For God’s sake, she was the director of his son’s preschool. She devoted herself to nurturing little kids. How could John think of her in sexual terms?

  He knew damned well how. Those lips of hers, the caramel-soft eyes, the sweet curves of her body. Her sassy, shiny hair. Her smile. Her confidence.

  Last night, after he’d gotten Mike to sleep, he’d popped open a beer, sprawled out on the sofa in the den, and tried to watch TV. But his mind kept wandering to Molly, to the way she’d smiled when she’d spotted him in his undercover get-up, to her pallor when she’d watched him take down the dip, to the way her gaze had locked onto him, made him want to pull her inside the oversized red jacket and feel her warmth against him. When he closed his eyes, he pictured her holding his son on her lap, letting him lose his temper and cry and fall asleep.

  The way a mother would. The way Mike so badly needed to be held.

  It was all mixed up, a tangle of emotions like razor wire, too sharp to unravel without getting cut to shreds. He wanted Molly for his son, and he wanted her for himself. He wanted Mike to get her love. He wanted himself to get her passion.

  He wanted things he had no right wanting. And if he went to her Daddy School class on Saturday, it would only make him want her even more.

  He exhaled a puff of white vapor through his fake beard. Two shoppers ambled down the street toward him, well-dressed, well-coifed middle-aged women laden with red and green holiday-decorated shopping bags. He remembered to ring his bell and utter a lackadaisical “Ho, ho, ho.”

  The woman with fewer bags rummaged in her purse as they neared him. “Higgins House,” she said. “That’s where all those street winos go in the winter, right?”