Father Christmas (6 page)

“
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.”

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

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

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

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

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

But go easy on himself?

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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