The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (29 page)

She straightened her flannel nightgown and
folded her arms self-assuredly. “I’m waiting till the others get up,” she said.

Great! I was guilty again. Ah, life as a
hardened criminal! I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and changed my
pajama bottoms for trousers.

I was throwing cold water on my face when I
heard a whoop from Howie and a shriek from Paul. I tottered out and collided
with Cartley, striding out in his bathrobe to collect the evidence and punish
the wicked. He was boiling mad. He looked like a walking bathrobe with a ham
roast in it.

In the living room, Amy was standing demurely
by the front door while Paul tugged at it. She ran a hand over her blond hair
to make sure she looked tidy and grown-up, then turned to Roy. “We caught
Nathan. He’s trying to keep us shut in the house, isn’t he?”

Roy laughed, tried to unlock the door, then
stopped laughing and threw his weight against it. It didn’t budge.

I was in the kitchen before he hit it a second
time.

I rammed the back door with my shoulder, on the
dead run. It jarred my teeth, snapped my head back, but the door barely
rattled. I tried again. I might as well have hit Mount Rushmore.

I ran back through the sitting room and
snatched my gun from under the sofa pillow. I could hear Roy going through
closets downstairs; I charged upstairs. I flipped through every wardrobe with
my gun muzzle, poked under every bed, even looked in the shower stall and the
clothes hamper. Amy and Paul, watching from the living room, must have loved it.

I met Roy back in the sitting room, at the foot
of the stairs. I called out before I came down—when I saw his eyes I was glad I
had. He was staring every which way and pacing. His gun shivered in his fist
like a live mouse.

I said in my calmest deadpan, “Nobody home,
Roy. You should make your visitors sign a guestbook. You get such a lot of them.”

He relaxed. “Yeah,” he said and coughed. “I’m
beginning to think I should sublet this place.”

“I—” I stopped as Howie came out of the kitchen
and lounged against the doorway.

“Nice try, Nathan,” he said, looking sideways
at Amy and Paul. He was pale. “Pretty good crime, huh? Lock us in, then finish
us off.” He didn’t look like he enjoyed playing anymore. “I wouldn’t even have
guessed, if I hadn’t poked around the basement.”

“Jesus!” I was closest. I ran to the kitchen
and fumbled frantically with the basement doorknob. Roy was right behind me
before I got it open.

It was in the corner near the hot-water heater.
Not too surprising, since it was right in front of Roy’s fuel-oil tank. It was
small, shapeless and attached to a clock. Anybody over three who watched
television could see it was a bomb.

It didn’t look powerful. It didn’t have to be,
so long as it set off the fuel-oil tank. I picked up a broom and was shoving
the bomb along the floor gingerly, away from the tank, as Paul and Amy slipped
past Roy and danced around me, chanting, “We caught Nathan!”

Howie looked relieved. I suppose I looked
pretty silly, doubled over and poking delicately from a broom’s length away at
a wad of clay, a battery and an alarm clock whose hands were nearly touching.

“Go back upstairs,” I said. Softly. Roy said it
louder. They giggled and shook their heads. We couldn’t drag them all out. We
might not have time, and if they kicked too hard—

I tossed the broom to Roy, saying, “Shove the
bomb in the corner,” in a conspiratorial tone. Then I snatched up Amy and
continued, “While I kidnap the girl.
Ya
ha ha.”

I tucked her under my arm and dashed up the
stairs, with Amy laughing and struggling and Paul and Howie in hot pursuit. As
I left I called out, “And set it off with your bowling ball!” I hoped he
understood.

I only glanced at the front window. I’d never
get the kids out in time if the boys caught up with me and tried to “arrest” me
before I could break it open. I ran upstairs, to the kids’ bedroom in back; I
locked the door for a second while I threw open the window and climbed onto the
roof, still carrying Amy. The boys burst in and followed, right on out the
window.

We were right over the pile of snow at the end
of the driveway. Far below me, through the window, I could hear the muffled
grind of a bowling ball rolling slowly across the basement floor; the sound was
nearly covered by the hasty slap of flat feet on the basement stairs.

I snarled, “You’ll never take us alive,”
wrapped Amy in my arms and rolled off the roof to land on my back in the snow
nine feet below.

The wind was knocked out of me, and I felt a
sharp stabbing pain in my right side. Above me, the boys were hesitating at the
roof’s edge.

As Amy yelled, “Jump! It’s easy,” there was a
loud boom from the basement, and the chime of broken glass on the other side of
the house as Roy leaped through the front window. The boys jumped and sank in
the snow almost to their waists.

I rolled Amy off me as Roy came running up,
still in his bathrobe, bleeding from a small cut on his right hand. He felt my
side where I was clutching it, said matter-of-factly, “Yep,” and slipped his
bathrobe off to put under me.

Then he stood there in his pajamas, looking
foolish and cold. “I’ll get you to a doctor. Thanks, Nate.” He shuffled, and
looked at the kids, dazed. Amy was still unruffled, but her eyes were shining. Howie
and Paul were jumping up and down with excitement.

He looked back at me. “Do you feel all excited
too, Nate?”

Talking hurt. It felt that I should slip the
words out edgeways. “Gee, Uncle Roy, can we do that again?”

He chuckled, but his jaw jumped as he looked at
the back door. I rolled my head cautiously and looked myself. There was a
two-by-four across it. Screwed into the doorframe at either end; a U-bolt went
around the door knob. If that bomb had ignited the fuel oil, we’d never have
gotten out in time.

Suddenly Roy was as cool as I’ve ever seen him.
I said, “Roy”—quietly—but he didn’t hear me.

He added, even more quietly, “If it turns out
that guy knew the kids were here, I’ll make sure he doesn’t see the inside of a
courtroom myself.”

He was shaking, and he wasn’t cold, and even in
his pajamas he didn’t look silly at all.

The hospital bed had the usual sheets—snow-white,
rigid with starch and smelling like the underside of a band-aid. There was a
single Christmas-tree ornament hanging on the bedside lamp, and a cardboard
Santa lay on the night stand looking round and two-dimensional. Cut-out letters
on the mirror read,
Merry
Christmas.

Roy looked at his reflection, rubbing his
chin—he hadn’t shaved—and said, “You’re supposed to take it easy, and this is
the easiest I can get for you.”

I scratched and winced; I could feel the pain
all along my side. “My timing’s rotten. Sorry, Roy. You won’t even have the
bandage on long. You cracked a rib, not broke it.”

“If you’re not gonna be cheerful, I’m not gonna
talk.” I leaned back and sulked while he left, whistling.

I settled back into the pillow, wishing I felt
like taking it easy. There was a murderer loose who wanted to kill Cartley, one
who wasn’t losing any sleep over killing a few kids in the process. I was in
the hospital for twenty-four hours and restricted for much longer. And my
partner and best friend was thinking seriously about murder. I tried to take it
easy, feeling cold-blooded.

Painful as it was, I shifted restlessly and
tried to think. The bombing had been disturbingly amateurish. The bomb itself
had been inefficient and the house-barricade childish. Even the first murder
smacked of cheap detective shows. Only the break-in showed any professionalism;
the first break-in had all the class of Gillis’s and Petlovich’s best effort.

Irrelevantly, I wondered what Gam and Mary did
with those nights out on the town. It couldn’t have been anything much;
apparently Mary had enjoyed herself, or else wasn’t talking. I pictured a tired
thug and a bored woman, eating something Cordon bleu and taking turns reading
each other their rights.

I was dozing when the phone rang. I could have
ignored it, since Marlowe wasn’t on duty, but I remembered where I was and what
was going on before it stopped ringing.

“Yeah?”

“Boy!” It was Howie. “You sure took a long time
to get to the phone.”

“Don’t whine. It’s a big room. I was clear
across it, dusting the grand piano. What’s up, Howie?”

“Just wanted to tell you I figured out what you’re
doing, and why.” He sounded half lighthearted, half scared—strained. I was
reminded of Cartley’s call the other morning.

I said, “What?” then had a thought. “No, I take
it back. Howie, Amy and Paul aren’t on the extension, are they?”

“No.”

“But they’re in the room behind you.”

“Yes.” On cue I heard them talking in the
background, a long way from the phone.

“Howie,” I said cautiously, “you’re pretty sure
that bomb this morning wasn’t anything your uncle and I did, aren’t you?”

He let out a quick sigh, then said, “Sure.”

“Do the others know?”

“No way.” He was very firm, almost military.

“Right. Well, we’re not playing, and you know
it, so what did you call about?”

He tried to sound. “I’ll bet anything Uncle Roy
has gone to see some woman that helps you.”

“Why?”

“’Cause he said he had to see a girl about a
restaurant, just after he got a phone call. I thought you’d know about it,” he
added in real surprise. “I figured it was your girl helping you.”

I was irritated. “Doesn’t he know any other
girls?”

Howie said self-righteously, “He’s
married.
And if you’ve got more than one girl, I bet
you’re in trouble.”

“Not if the first one never finds out—oh, wait.
Of course. Sure.” Funny how things fall together when you’re not looking for
them. “Howie, thanks for calling. What you just told me was important. But why
did you call me? What made it important to you?”

His whisper was moist and breathy; he must have
had the mouthpiece right against his lips. “’Cause when Uncle Roy left he took
two guns and all kinds of bullets, and I’ve never seen him do that before.”

The sheets weren’t just snowy—suddenly they
felt like ice. I said, “I’ll do something about it right now. Howie, nobody
ever said you weren’t on the ball, and nobody’s ever going to.”

“Thanks, Nathan,” he said seriously, then hung
up.

Right after the click I called Pederson. I was
lucky enough to find him in.

“What do you want?” he groused. “Phillips, I
thought if you took a rest, I’d have one.

“Fat chance. Are you doing anything?”

“Plenty.”

“Drop it and pick me up at the hospital. Roy
needs someone from Homicide.”

“There are other cops besides me, you know.” I
could hear the
whuff
as he lit up one of his cigars and pulled at
it. “Some of them are even Homicide.”

“He needs a friend—two of them. He’s in
trouble, and some rookie with a gun won’t get him out of it.”

“Why not?”

“Because his own gun’s getting him into it
right now.”

That was as close as I could come without
committing myself.

It worked. There was a moment’s silence, then
Pederson said roughly, “I don’t understand, and I’ll be right over. Be downstairs
and ready in ten minutes, even if it hurts.”

Ten minutes later he was there. I was ready,
and God, did it hurt! I gave him the address, and he drove faster than I’d have
dared through downtown, even with a siren. We skidded onto Lake Street, wove through
traffic till we shot under 35W, then screeched into a right turn we almost
skidded out of. I filled him in the whole time, not stopping when I grabbed the
dash for support.

He interrupted twice. “How do you know all
this?”