Father Christmas (7 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“
That’s
legitimate.”

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

“
It’s a homeless
shelter.”

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

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

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

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

“
A coverfor
what?”

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

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

“
Don’t worry about
it.”

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

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

“
But you said—a
robbery—”

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

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