The Christmas Thief (2 page)

E
ven though the mid-November afternoon was brisk, Alvirah and Willy Meehan decided to walk from the meeting of the Lottery Winners Support Group to their Central Park South apartment. Alvirah had started the group when she and Willy won $40 million in the lottery and had heard from a number of people who e-mailed them to warn that they, too, had won pots of money but had gone through it in no time flat. This month they had moved the meeting up a few days because they were leaving for Stowe, Vermont, to spend a long weekend at The Trapp Family Lodge with their good friend, private investigator Regan Reilly, her fiancé, Jack Reilly, head of the Major Case Squad of the NYPD, and Regan’s parents, Luke and Nora. Nora was a well-known mystery writer, and Luke was a funeral director. Even though business was brisk, he said no dead body was going to keep
him
away from the vacation.

Married forty years and in their early sixties, Alvirah and Willy had been living in Flushing, Queens, on that fateful evening when the little balls started dropping, one after the other, with a magic number on each of them. They fell in the exact sequence the Meehans had been playing for years, a combination of their birthdays and anniversary. Alvirah had been sitting in the living room, soaking her feet after a hard day of cleaning for her Friday lady, Mrs. O’Keefe, who was a born slob. Willy, a self-employed plumber, had just gotten back from fixing a broken toilet in the old apartment building next to theirs. After that first moment of being absolutely stunned, Alvirah had jumped up, spilling the pail of water. Her bare feet dripping, she had danced around the room with Willy, both of them half-laughing, half-crying.

From day one she and Willy had been sensible. Their sole extravagance was to buy a three-room apartment with a terrace overlooking Central Park. Even in that they were cautious. They kept their apartment in Flushing, just in case New York State went belly up and couldn’t afford to continue making the payments to them. They saved half of the money they received each year and invested it wisely.

The color of Alvirah’s flaming orange-red hair, now coiffed by Antonio, the hairdresser to the stars, was changed to a golden red shade. Her friend Baroness Min von Schreiber had selected the handsome tweed pantsuit she was wearing. Min begged her never to go shopping alone, pointing out that Alvirah was natural prey for salespeople trying to unload the buyer’s mistakes.

Although she had retired her mop and pail, in her newfound life Alvirah was busier than ever. Her penchant for finding trouble and solving problems had turned her into an amateur detective. To aid in catching wrongdoers she had a microphone hidden in her large sunburst lapel pin and turned it on when she sensed someone she was talking to had something to hide. In the three years of being a multi-millionaire, she had solved a dozen crimes and wrote about them for
The New York Globe,
a weekly newspaper. Her adventures were enjoyed so much by the readership that she now had a biweekly column even when she didn’t have a crime to report on.

Willy had closed his one-man company but was working harder than ever, devoting his plumbing skills to bettering the lives of the elderly poor on the West Side, under the direction of his eldest sibling, Sister Cordelia, a formidable Dominican nun.

Today the Lottery Winners Support Group had met in a lavish apartment in Trump Tower that had been purchased by Herman Hicks, a recent lottery winner, who, a worried Alvirah now said to Willy, “was going through his money too fast.”

They were about to cross Fifth Avenue in front of the Plaza Hotel. “The light’s turning yellow,” Willy said. “With this traffic I don’t want us to get caught in the middle of the street. Somebody’ll mow us down.”

Alvirah was all set to double the pace. She hated to miss a light, but Willy was cautious. That’s the difference between us, she thought indulgently. I’m a risk taker.

“I think Herman will be okay,” Willy said reassuringly. “As he said, it always was his dream to live in Trump Tower, and real estate is a good investment. He bought the furniture from the people who were moving; the price seemed fair, and except for buying a wardrobe at Paul Stuart, he hasn’t been extravagant.”

“Well, a seventy-year-old childless widower with twenty million dollars after taxes is going to have plenty of ladies making tuna casseroles for him,” Alvirah noted with concern. “I only wish he’d realize what a wonderful person Opal is.”

Opal Fogarty had been a member of the Lottery Winners Support Group since its founding. She had joined after she read about it in Alvirah’s column in
The New York Globe
because, as she pointed out, “I’m the lottery winner turned big loser, and I’d like to warn new winners not to get taken in by a glib-talking crook.”

Today, because there were two more new members, Opal had told her story about investing in a shipping company whose founder had shipped nothing but money from her bank to his pocket. “I won six million dollars in the lottery,” she explained. “After taxes I had just about three million. A guy named Patrick Noonan persuaded me to invest in his phony company. I’ve always been devoted to Saint Patrick, and I thought that anyone with that name had to be honest. I didn’t know then that everyone called that crook Packy. Now he’s getting out of prison next week,” she explained. “I just wish I could be invisible and follow him around, because I know perfectly well that he’s hidden lots of money away.”

Opal’s blue eyes had welled with tears of frustration at the thought that Packy Noonan would manage to get his hands on the money he had stolen from her.

“Did you lose
all
the money?” Herman had asked solicitously.

It was the kindness in his voice that had set Alvirah’s always matchmaking mind on red alert.

“In all they recovered about eight hundred thousand dollars, but the law firm appointed by the court to find the money for us ran up bills of nearly a million dollars, so after they paid themselves, none of us got anything back.”

It wasn’t unusual for Alvirah to be thinking about something and have Willy comment on it. “Opal’s story really made an impression on that young couple who won six hundred thousand on the scratch-a-number,” Willy said now. “But that doesn’t help her. I mean, she’s sixty-seven years old and still working as a waitress in a diner. Those trays are heavy for her to carry.”

“She has a vacation coming up soon,” Alvirah mused, “but I bet she can’t afford to go anywhere. Oh, Willy, we’ve been so blessed.” She gave a quick smile to Willy, thinking for the tenth time that day that he was such a good-looking man. With his shock of white hair, ruddy complexion, keen blue eyes, and big frame, many people commented that Willy was the image of the late Tip O’Neill, the legendary Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The light turned green. They crossed Fifth Avenue and walked along Central Park South to their apartment just past Seventh Avenue. Alvirah pointed to a young couple who were getting into a horse-drawn carriage for a ride through the park. “I wonder if he’s going to propose to her,” she commented. “Remember that’s where you proposed to me?”

“Sure I remember,” Willy said, “and the whole time I was hoping I had enough money to pay for the ride. In the restaurant I meant to tip the headwaiter five bucks, and like a dope I gave him fifty. Didn’t realize it until I reached for the ring to put on your finger. Anyhow, I’m glad we decided to go to Vermont with the Reillys. Maybe we’ll take a ride on one of the horse-drawn sleighs up there.”

“Well, for sure I won’t go downhill skiing,” Alvirah said. “That’s why I hesitated when Regan suggested we go. She and Jack and Nora and Luke are all great skiers. But we can go cross-country skiing, I’ve got books I want to read, and there are walking paths. One way or another we’ll find plenty to do.”

Fifteen minutes later, in their comfortable living room with its sweeping view of Central Park, she was opening the package the doorman had given her. “Willy, I don’t believe it,” she said. “Not even Thanksgiving, yet, and Molloy, McDermott, McFadden, and Markey are sending us a Christmas present.” The Four M’s, as the brokerage firm was known on Wall Street, was the one Alvirah and Willy had selected to handle the money they allocated to buying government bonds or stock in rock-solid companies.

“What’d they send us?” Willy called from the kitchen as he prepared manhattans, their favorite five o’clock cocktail.

“I haven’t opened it yet,” Alvirah called back. “You know all that plastic they put on everything. But I think it’s a bottle or a jar. The card says ‘Happy Holidays.’ Boy are they rushing the season. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

“Whatever it is, don’t ruin your nails,” Willy warned. “I’ll get it for you.”

Don’t ruin your nails.
Alvirah smiled to herself remembering the years when it would have been a waste of time to put even a dab of polish on her nails because all the bleaches and harsh soaps she used cleaning houses would have made short work of it.

Willy came into the living room carrying a tray with two cocktail glasses and a plate of cheese and crackers. Herman’s idea of nourishment at the meeting had been Twinkies and instant coffee, both of which Willy and Alvirah had refused.

He put the tray on the coffee table and picked up the bubble-wrapped package. With a firm thrust he pulled apart the adhesive seals and unwound the wrapping. His expression of anticipation changed to surprise and then amazement.

“How much money have we got invested with the Four M’s?” he asked.

Alvirah told him.

“Honey, take a look. They sent us a jar of maple syrup. That’s their idea of a Christmas present?”

“They’ve got to be kidding,” Alvirah exclaimed, shaking her head as she took the jar from him. Then she read the label. “Willy, look,” she exclaimed. “They didn’t give us just a jar of syrup. They gave us a
tree!
It says so right here.
‘This syrup comes from the tree reserved for Willy and Alvirah Meehan. Please come and tap your tree to refill this jar when it is empty.’
I wonder where the tree is.”

Willy began rummaging through the gift-wrapped box that had contained the jar. “Here’s a paper. No, it’s a map.” He studied it and began to laugh. “Honey, here’s something else we can do when we’re in Stowe. We can look up our tree. From the way it looks here, it’s right near the Trapp family property.”

The phone rang. It was Regan Reilly calling from Los Angeles. “All set for Vermont?” she asked. “No backing out now, promise?”

“Not a chance, Regan,” Alvirah assured her. “I’ve got business in Stowe. I’m going to look up a tree.”

R
egan, you must be exhausted,” Nora Regan Reilly said with concern, as she looked fondly across the breakfast table at her only child. To others, beautiful raven-haired Regan might be a superb private investigator, but to Nora, her thirty-one-year-old daughter was still the little girl she would give her life to protect.

“She looks okay to me,” Luke Reilly observed as he set down his coffee cup with the decisive gesture that said he was on his way. His lanky six-foot-five frame was encased in a midnight blue suit, white shirt, and black tie, one of the half-dozen such outfits in his possession. Luke was the owner of three funeral homes in northern New Jersey, which was the reason for his need for subdued clothing. His handsome head of silver hair complemented his lean face, which could look suitably somber but always broke into a ready smile outside his viewing rooms. Now that smile encompassed both his wife and his daughter.

They were at the breakfast table in the Reilly home in Summit, New Jersey, the home in which Regan had grown up and where Luke and Nora still lived. It was also the place where Nora Regan Reilly wrote the suspense novels that had made her famous. Now she got up to kiss her husband good-bye. Ever since he’d been kidnapped a year ago, he never walked out the door without her worrying that something might happen to him.

Like Regan, Nora had classic features, blue eyes, and fair skin. Unlike Regan, she was a natural blond. At five feet three, she was four inches shorter than her daughter and towered over by her husband.

“Don’t get kidnapped,” she said only half-jokingly. “We want to leave for Vermont no later than two o’clock.”

“Getting kidnapped once in a lifetime is about average,” Regan volunteered. “I looked up the statistics last week.”

“And don’t forget,” Luke reminded Nora for the hundredth time, “if it wasn’t for my pain and suffering in that little predicament, Regan would never have met Jack and you wouldn’t be planning a wedding.”

Jack Reilly, head of the Major Case Squad of the New York Police Department and now Regan’s fiancé, had worked on the case when Luke and his young driver vanished. He not only caught the kidnappers and retrieved the ransom, but in the process had captured Regan’s heart.

“I can’t believe I haven’t seen Jack in two weeks,” Regan said with a sigh as she buttered a roll. “He wanted to pick me up at Newark Airport this morning, but I told him I’d take a cab. He had to go into the office to wrap up a few things but he’ll be here by two.” Regan started to yawn. “Those overnight flights make me a little spacey.”

“On second thought, I would suggest that your mother is right,” Luke said. “You do look as if a couple of hours of sleep would be useful.” He returned Nora’s kiss, rumpled Regan’s hair, and was gone.

Regan laughed. “I swear he still thinks I’m six years old.”

“It’s because you’re getting married soon. He’s starting to talk about how he’s looking forward to grandchildren.”

“Oh, my God. That thought makes me even more tired. I think I will go upstairs and lie down.”

Left alone at the table, Nora refilled her own cup and opened
The New York Times.
The car was already packed for the trip. This morning she intended to work at her desk because she wanted to make notes on the new book she was starting. She hadn’t quite decided whether Celia, her protagonist, would be an interior designer or a lawyer. Two different kinds of people, she acknowledged, but as an interior designer it was feasible that Celia would have met her first husband in the process of decorating his Manhattan apartment. On the other hand, if she was a lawyer, it gave a different dynamic to the story.

Read the paper, she told herself. First lesson of writing: Put the subconscious on power-save until you start staring at the computer. She glanced out the window. The breakfast room looked out onto the now snow-covered lawn and the garden that led to the pool and tennis court. I love it here, she thought. I get so mad at the people who knock New Jersey. Oh, well, as Dad used to say, “When they know better, they’ll do better.”

Wrapped in her quilted satin bathrobe, Nora felt warm and content. Instead of chasing crooks in Los Angeles, Regan was home and going away with them. She had gotten engaged in a hot air balloon, of all places, just a few weeks ago. Over Las Vegas. Nora didn’t care where or how it happened, she was just thrilled to finally be planning Regan’s wedding. And there couldn’t be a more perfect man for her than wonderful Jack Reilly.

In a few hours they would be leaving for the beautiful Trapp Family Lodge and would be joined there by their dear friends Alvirah and Willy Meehan. What’s not to like? Nora thought as she flipped to the Metro section of the newspaper.

Her eye immediately went to the front-page picture of a handsome woman dressed in a long skirt, blouse, and vest and standing in a forest. The caption was “Rockefeller Center Selects Tree.”

The woman in that picture looks familiar, Nora thought as she skimmed the story.

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” Nora said aloud. “They’ll be cutting down the tree while we’re there. What fun it will be to watch.” She began to hum: “ ‘The hills are alive…’ ”