St. Nick Page 9

  “It’s an elf kind of thing,” Nick said.

  “You sure my anchor didn’t put you up to this?”

  The Elf shook her head. “Laura put us up to this.”

  “Laura?” asked Charlotte.

  Angie looked at Nick meaningfully. Maybe there was a method to the Elf’s madness, he thought. He nodded to her, and she handed the reporter the letter.

  “If you’re a real reporter,” Nick said, “you’ll find Laura. That’s the Christmas story you should be doing.”

  Charlotte took the note, and slid it into her purse without looking at it. “We need to get to another location,” she said, “but I’ll read this later. If there’s a story here I’ll pass it on to our assignment editor.”

  Sure. Out of sight, out of mind, thought Nick. They had tried, he told himself. The note wasn’t his problem anymore. But he couldn’t leave it at that. Barbie Newscaster had turned her back to him, and was busy texting.

  Suddenly Nick was angry. Angry that cops and reporters too often only paid attention after a crime had been committed. Laura had suffered last year, but this time they could stop it from happening again.

  “Why don’t you put that phone away?”

  Charlotte glanced towards him. She looked surprised, but something in his tone made her stop texting and turn.

  The onlookers had drifted away, and the cameraman was talking with the elves. It was just the two of them.

  “That note was from a little girl who wrote saying Santa didn’t visit her last year,” Nick said. “And she’s worried Santa might not stop this year either.”

  Charlotte didn’t say anything.

  “The note was signed ‘Laura.’ There’s no return address, and there’s no telephone number. There’s a drawing on the note that shows a trolley station. This mall can be accessed from the trolley, and bus lines. That’s probably how Laura got here. If you want, I can probably identify that trolley stop near to where she lives. That might narrow down your search.”

  “I haven’t committed to a search,” Charlotte protested. “I haven’t committed to anything. I haven’t even read the note.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  Her face reddened. “A killer schedule is what is stopping me. Like I said, I have to get to another story.”

  “If you got time to text,” said Nick, “you got time to read Laura’s note.”

  The two of them had a stare down; Charlotte blinked before Santa did. She reached into her purse and retrieved the folded note with a sigh. Nick watched her as she read. Like all cops, Nick knew how to look for tells. He saw the stillness overcome her. When she finished reading, she turned the letter over and stared at the drawing.

  Finally, she turned her gaze back to Nick. She was in, Nick realized. Only a cop would have noticed the slight dampness in her eyes. He wondered what she saw in his.

  “Santa?” interrupted Angie. “There’s someone to see you. This is Jayla!”

  Nick turned his attention to a little girl with elaborately braided cornrows who was playing peek-a-boo from behind her mother’s leg; her large, brown eyes appearing and then disappearing.

  “Jayla?” said Nick. “Why, I remember that name from my good girl list.”

  As Nick sat down in the sleigh, he watched Charlotte take one more look at Laura’s note before carefully sliding it into her purse and walking away.

  Episode Three

  Chapter 11

  Angels We Have Heard on High

  December 2

  “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” was playing on all the mall’s intercoms. The music buzzed in Nick’s ear like a nettlesome mosquito, but he couldn’t just shoo it away. The song was wrong for San Diego, the same way most holiday songs were wrong: it was December, but it was still seventy degrees outside. Yet every year Southern Californians acted as if they were part of a great big costume party.

  Let them eat fruitcake, thought Nick.

  His discontent had built throughout the shift. For once, it wasn’t the work. It had been relatively quiet, with no incidents. There was no sign of the muggers. Maybe it was just the heat of the day, and his hot uniform, speaking to him.

  Darcy seemed to be tuned into the same heat wave. “The weather report said we’d be having a Santa Ana condition all week,” she said as “Frosty the Snowman” started up. “Hardly seems fair for Santa Claus to have to deal with Santa Ana.”

  Warm, dry desert winds blew in from the east and the heat often lingered for days at a time during Southern California winters. It was a good thing the mall was air-conditioned. Otherwise Frosty wouldn’t even be slush. He’d be a puddle.

  Nick usually didn’t pay any attention to the weather. It was that kid’s fault he was taking notice. Raymond had asked him for snow. Why couldn’t the kid have been reasonable instead of asking for the impossible?

  Because he’s dying, Nick thought, that’s why.

  “Frosty” finished, but the musical delusion didn’t. Bing Crosby started crooning, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” Snow and more snow; Nick was being forced to listen to the one-track weather channel.

  “Christmas music,” said Nick, “or instruments of torture?”

  Angie was humming along with Bing, of course. “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “Lots of things,” he said.

  Now she looked concerned. That was even worse than her fatuous smiling. “Anything in particular?”

  Nick knew he shouldn’t have said anything. But talking would at least drown out the lyrics to “White Christmas.” “This kid I know is real sick.”

  “One of the children at the hospital?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Bret told me how you saved the day.”

  “I didn’t do anything heroic. I was the Santa du jour. And it wasn’t like I didn’t get paid.”

  “Bret said you were a big hit with the children.”

  “Bret wasn’t there, so don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “So what didn’t I hear?”

  “That I tried to act like a big shot, and that I let this kid named Raymond think I was tight with the real Santa Claus. I don’t even know how it happened, but he’s expecting me to work things out with Santa so that it snows on Christmas Day.”

  “Snow?” asked Angie.

  Nick laughed, or he tried to. “The kid’s not from around here. He’s from back east. His parents brought him here hoping for a miracle cure that’s not going to happen. His system is all messed up, and he’s probably got cool on his brain. He’s had all sorts of chemo, and they have him on these meds, and I know he’s sick of being so sick. I guess that’s why a pile of snow probably sounds so good to him.”

  For once Angie wasn’t smiling. “I’m sorry, Nick.”

  “You and me both,” he said.

  At the end of his shift, Nick didn’t feel the usual relief from shedding his Santa garments. Even when the uniform came off it felt as if it was still clinging to him. It was like being a cop, but worse. People expect a lot of cops, but at least they don’t expect a miracle worker. When he wore an SDPD uniform no one asked him to make things right, or expected him to bring presents, or make snow.

  Nick went to Forster’s office so that he could feel like a cop again. Forster was just finishing up a call as Nick sat down.

  “What’s up?” said Nick.

  “My blood pressure,” said Forster.

  Forster prided himself on being a comedian, along with every cop in the country.

  “You got anything new on our muggers?”

  “You want the good news or bad news?”

  “Bad,” said Nick.

  “Right choice,” he said, “because it’s all bad news. They’re driving a Ford truck, but since there are about fifteen million of those on the road that doesn’t help much. And although we picked up a license plate number nice and clear, that didn’t help because it was stolen.”

  “They’ll slip up. They always do.”

/>   “Yeah, maybe they’ll leave a trail of tinsel for us to follow.”

  “Don’t forget to look for coal as well.”

  “Santa knows best.”

  “Since that’s the case,” said Nick, “I’m going to need your help on another mystery I’m working here. I guess you could call it a missing person’s case.”

  When Nick left Forster’s office he went in search of an open desk with a phone. Forster had told him they would piece together all the visitors to Santa’s Mailbox on the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth in the hopes they could get a visual on Laura, but he said it might take a few days.

  Two doors down from Forster he found what he was looking for. His kids had grown up with cell phones glued to their ears and thought their dad was crazy for no longer having one. He picked up the phone, got an outside line, and dialed the hospital. He knew the number by heart. After the incident that led to his suspension, he’d called it so many times that he’d memorized it. Nick asked for Nurse Castillo, but when she got on the line he found himself tongue-tied.

  “This is Nick Pappas,” he finally said. “We met the night before last. I’m the guy …”

  “You’re Saint Nick.”

  “Yeah.”

  In his mind Nick had rehearsed what he was going to say, but now the script seemed stupid. “Listen, I was wondering if I could come over to the hospital.”

  “Wearing your Santa suit, or in civilian clothes?”

  “I’ll be in my street clothes. What I really want to do is talk to Raymond.”

  “It’s past visiting hours.”

  “Oh.”

  “But we can make an exception for a saint.”

  Even going as himself, Nick hadn’t wanted to visit Raymond empty-handed. He had run into a department store and grabbed the first item that had caught his eye. It was late to have buyer’s remorse, but as he stood at the threshold to Raymond’s room he wondered whether he had chosen well.

  Nurse Castillo walked him to the entrance of that dark door again. “If he’s asleep,” she whispered, “it would be best not to wake him.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” he said.

  It would be easier that way, Nick thought. He could just leave a little note, and then escape like some thief into the night.

  They walked into the darkened room. Over Raymond’s bed, his mobile of stars twinkled. On his bed stand was the snow globe. Nick followed behind Easy. She walked silently; Nick, even on tiptoes, wasn’t nearly as quiet. But it didn’t matter. Raymond was awake.

  “You have a visitor, Raymond. You might not recognize him …”

  “I recognize him.”

  There wasn’t much apparent welcome in his recognition.

  Easy examined her watch. “I can only let you stay fifteen minutes.”

  “No problem,” said Nick. He wondered if it would be the longest fifteen minutes of his life.

  The nurse gave Raymond a little pat, and then offered Nick a reassuring smile before walking out of the room.

  Nick had things to say, but he didn’t know what to say. “Okay if I sit?”

  Raymond shrugged, and Nick took that as consent. Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds and counting, thought Nick. He took a seat and looked around. The room was as depressing as it had been the day before. Next to the chair was an IV stand with some bags feeding into Raymond. Nick wondered if the kid was ever free of the stand. To him it seemed the opposite of an umbilical cord.

  “I’m surprised you knew who I was.”

  “Eyes,” Raymond said.

  “Eyes?”

  “I could tell who you were by your eyes.”

  Most people wouldn’t have seen that. They would have been stopped by the beard, or wig, or uniform that Nick had been wearing the day before last, and wouldn’t have been able to see beyond those things. The kid was a good observer.

  “On the job, that’s one of the things I try and take in,” said Nick. “My other job, that is.”

  “You’re a policeman, aren’t you?” asked Raymond.

  Nick started. “How did you know that?”

  “I remember seeing you on the news a few times. You always looked upset.”

  Nick winced. None of his conversations with this kid ever seemed to be easy. “Yeah,” he said. “There was this—situation. Some people think I discharged my firearm inappropriately. What that means is that I’m in limbo until this thing called a review board decides whether I can be a cop again.”

  “What happened?”

  The kid was always asking the questions that Nick hoped he wouldn’t ask. But it was the same question Nick had kept asking himself.

  He shifted in his chair, knew there was no way he would ever get comfortable, and finally faced the boy’s questioning eyes. It wasn’t an appropriate story to tell a youngster, but there was no way to sugarcoat it.

  “I was off duty. It was late. I had been out playing cards with some pals and I stopped to get a burger. While walking up to the door I saw a line of people facing the wall with their hands up. And just then, the door got thrown open and this guy came running out. He had a gun in his hand. I drew my gun and I identified myself as a police officer.”

  “Police. Halt! Drop your gun! Throw it away from you!”

  The kid almost fell over. He looked young enough to be in high school. Too young to be doing what he was doing. He was tall and thin and pale. With a gun aimed at him, he was that much more pale, a ghost. The kid dropped the sack he was holding, and the bills fell to the ground. His eyes were huge. They looked like they were ready to pop out.

  “Throw the gun away from you! Throw it down! Now! Do it now!”

  Nick had dropped into a shooter’s stance. His gun was centered on the kid’s chest.

  The kid’s jaw fell first, and then his gun.

  “On the ground. Now! Now! Face down! Hands at your side!”

  The kid complied. And that’s where it should have ended.

  The gunshots came from behind Nick. He threw himself on the cement walkway, didn’t roll like they do on TV, but landed with a belly flop. The wind was knocked out of him. Another shot was fired. Nick thought he saw where it was coming from. Fighting for breath, he raised his right arm and fired back.

  Kick, kick, kick. He felt the impact on his own hands. The bucking. Over twenty years on the force and he’d never fired in the line of duty before. His bullets hit metal and glass and concrete.

  “I give up. I give up.”

  The voice didn’t come from where Nick expected it. The shooter was several cars over from where Nick had returned fire.

  The shooter got out of the car. His gun was still in his hands. Another kid. This one with a military haircut and big, red pimples that looked that much redder on a very white face.

  “Throw your gun towards me! Now! Now!”

  He did as told. Nick was shaking, partly out of fear, partly out of adrenaline, but mostly from anger.

  “Down on the ground! Face on the ground!”

  The shooter complied. It was only when Nick was handcuffing him that he heard the sounds. The noise had probably been there all along, but between the gunshots, the screaming, and his fighting for breath, he hadn’t heard the shrill cries. Now he did.

  A child was crying. A child was screaming.

  And the cries were coming from where Nick had fired his gun.

  “For a moment I was thinking I’m the luckiest guy on earth, stopping both robbers, not getting shot, but then I heard this terrible sound. The way the ballistic guys figured it, one of my rounds ricocheted off the asphalt, and a poor little three-year-old girl took the bullet in her leg. You see, she’d been asleep, so her parents had left her in a car seat while they went to put in their takeout order. They could see the car from the restaurant, so they figured there was no harm in leaving her for just a minute.”

  He’d tried to stop the bleeding, but as he applied pressure all he could think was, “I did this.” For someone so small, there was so much blood.

  H
e wrapped a towel around her leg. She never stopped crying, and every one of her screams reddened the towel that much more.

  Her cries of pain and the frenzy of the panicked parents made him feel helpless. “I’m a police officer,” Nick shouted. He made the announcement to reassure the parents, and maybe to reassure himself.

  “Chrissie!” The mother kept screaming her name. “Chrissie!”

  The father: “Where’s the ambulance? Has someone called for an ambulance?”

  “Chrissie!”

  The parents didn’t know what had happened. They only saw their screaming and bleeding daughter. Nick was as scared as they were.

  “Chrissie!”

  “Where’s the ambulance?”

  Nick’s years of experience meant nothing. He wasn’t prepared for what had happened. He knew the paramedics were on the way, but he decided he couldn’t wait for them. He had to try and right his wrong.

  Over all the screaming, he yelled, “I’m taking her in.”

  He fled an unsecured crime scene. The only thing he did right was cuff both of the suspects. He grabbed the car seat, and the child in it. Nick didn’t even take the parents with him. He just drove, drove as if death was on his heels.

  He didn’t have a siren. Nick was in his own car, but he kept thinking he was in his patrol car with the siren blaring because Chrissie’s screams were louder than his siren, so loud he was sure the whole world could hear.

  Just the memory of the event sent Nick’s heart racing. His hands were sweaty and he felt clammy. He took a few deep breaths. “She lived, but she was hurt pretty bad.” Nick exhaled hard. “I drove her to this very hospital.”

  It had happened only a month ago, hard as that was for Nick to believe. For a while it had looked as if they were going to have to amputate the girl’s leg from the knee down. They’d operated on it three times since the shooting, and there would be more operations in the future, but she was all right now, thank God.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Raymond’s words didn’t make Nick feel any better. What kind of a man would try and get sympathy from a terminally ill child?

  “There are other people deciding that.”

  “So that’s why you became one of Santa’s helpers?”