The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries Part 52

"Not just yet," Dillinger said. "Let's go in the other room."

They did, but it was suddenly later, after dark, the living room filled with family members sitting on sofas and chairs and even the floor, having cider after a supper that everybody was raving about.

A pudgy, good-natured man in his forties was saying to eight-year-old d.i.c.kie, "How do you like your gift, young man?"

The boy was wearing a policeman's cap and a little tin badge; he also had a miniature nightstick, a pair of handcuffs, and a traffic whistle. "It's the cat's meow, Uncle Bob!"

"Where does he get those vulgar expressions?" his mother asked disapprovingly, but not sternly.

"Cap'n Billy's Whiz Bang," Stone whispered to Dillinger.

"Never missed an issue myself," Dillinger said.

The boy started blowing the whistle shrilly and there was laughter, but the boy's father said, "Enough!"

And the boy obeyed.

The door opened. A boy of sixteen, but skinny and not much taller than d.i.c.kie, came in; bundled in winter clothes, he was bringing in a pile of firewood for the wood-burning stove.

"Davey," Stone said.

"Did you like your older brother?" Dillinger asked.

"He was a great guy. You could always depend on him for a smile or a helpin' hand.... But what did it get him?"

Out of his winter jacket, firewood deposited, Davey went over to his younger brother and ruffled his hair. "Gonna get the bad guys, little brother?"

"I'm gonna bop 'em," d.i.c.kie said, "then slap the cuffs on!"

"On Christmas?" Davey asked. "Even crooks got a right to celebrate the Savior's birth, don't ya think?"

"Yeah. Well, okay ... day after, then."

Everybody was laughing as little d.i.c.kie swung his nightstick at imaginary felons.

"d.i.c.kie, my lad," said Uncle Bob, "someday I'll hire you on at the station."

Stone explained to Dillinger: "He was police chief, over at DeKalb."

"Peachy," said Dillinger.

Davey said, "Ma-how about sitting down at the piano, and helping put us all in the Yuletide spirit?"

"Yeah, Ma!" said little d.i.c.kie. "Tickle the ol' ivories!"

Soon the group was singing carols, Davey leading them: "G.o.d Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen...."

"Seen enough?" Dillinger said.

"Just a second," Stone said. "Let me hear a little more ... this is the last decent Christmas I can remember...."

After a while, the gaily singing people began to fade, but the room remained, and suddenly Stone saw the figure of his father, kneeling at the window, a rifle in his hands, face contorted savagely. There was no Christmas tree, although Stone knew at once that this was indeed a later Christmas Day in his family's history. His mother cowered by the piano; she seemed frightened and on the verge of tears. A fourteen-year-old d.i.c.kie was crouched beside his father near the window.

"G.o.d," said Stone. "Not this Christmas ..."

"Son," his pa was saying to the teenage Stone, "I want you and your mother to go on out."

"No, Pa! I want to stay beside you! Ma should go, but ..."

"You're not too big to get your hide tanned, boy."

"Pa ..."

A voice through a megaphone outside called: "Jess! It's Bob! Let me come in and at least talk!"

"When h.e.l.l freezes over!" Pa shouted. "Now get off my property, or so help me, I'll shoot you where you stand!"

"Jess, that's my brother," Ma said, tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g. "And it's ... it's not our property, anymore...."

"Whose is it, then? The bank's? Did the bankers work this ground for twenty years? Did the bankers put blood and sweat and years into this land?"

Dillinger elbowed Stone. "That's why this country needed guys like me. Say-where's your older brother, anyway?"

"Dead," Stone said. "He caught pneumonia the winter of '28 ... stayed outside for hours and hours, helping get some family's flivver out of a ditch in the wind and cold. All my folks' dreams died with him."

"Let Bob come in," Ma was saying. "Hear him out."

Pa thought it over; he looked so much older, now. Not years older-decades. Finally he said, "All right. For you, Sarah. Just 'cause he's kin of yours."

When the door opened, and Bob came in, he was in full police-chief array, under a fur-lined jacket; the badge on his cap gleamed.

"Jess," he said solemnly, "you're at the end of your string. I wish I could help you, but the bank's foreclosed, and the law's the law."

"Why's the law on their side?" teenage Stone asked. "Isn't the law supposed to help everybody equal?"

"People with money get treated a h.e.l.l of a lot more equal, son," his father said bitterly.

"I worked out a deal," Bob said. "You can keep your furniture. I can come over with the paddy wagon and load 'er up with your things; we'll store 'em in my garage. There'll be no charges brought. Helen and I have room for you and Sarah and d.i.c.k-you can stay with us till you find something."

The rifle was still in Pa's hands. "This is my home, Robert."

"No, Jess-it's a house the bank owns. Your home is your family, and you take them with you. Let me ask you this-what would Davey want you to do?"

Stone looked away; he knew what was coming: one of two times he ever saw his father cry-the other was the night Davey died.

A single tear running down his cheek, Pa said, "How am I supposed to support my family?"

Bob's voice was gentle: "I got friends at the barb-wire factory. Already talked to 'em about you. They'll take you on. Having a job in times like these is a blessing."

Pa nodded. He sighed, handed his rifle over. "Thank you, Robert."

"Yeah, Uncle Bob," teenage Stone said sarcastically. "Merry Christmas! In a rat's a.s.s ..."

"Richard!" his ma said.

His father slapped him.

"You ever do that to me again, old man," teenage Stone said, pointing a hard finger at his father, "I'll knock your d.a.m.n block off!"

And as his teenage self rushed out, Stone shook his head. "Jesus! Did I have to say that to him, right then? Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d hits rock bottom, and I find a way to push him down lower ..."

Pa was standing rigidly, looking downward, as Ma clung to him in a desperate embrace. Uncle Bob, looking ashamed of himself, trudged out.

"You were just a kid," Dillinger said. "What did you know?"

"Why are you puttin' me through this h.e.l.l?" Stone demanded. "I can't change the past! What does any of this have to do with finding out who killed Jake Marley?!"

"Don't ask me!" Dillinger flared. "I'm just the d.a.m.n help!"

The bank robber's ghost stalked out, and Stone-not eager to be left in this part of his past-quickly followed.

Stone now found himself, and his ghostly companion, in the reception area of a smalltown police station where officers milled and a reception desk loomed. Dillinger led Stone to a part.i.tioned-off office where a Christmas wreath hung on a frosted gla.s.s door, which they went through without opening.

Jake Marley, Deputy Chief of Police of Dekalb, Illinois, sat leaned back in his chair, at his desk, smiling as he opened Christmas cards; as he did, cool green cash dropped out of each card.

"Lot of people remembered Jake at Christmas," Stone said.

"Lot of people remember a lot of cops at Christmas," Dillinger sneered.

A knock at the door prompted Marley to sweep the cash into a desk drawer. "Yeah?" he called gruffly. "What?"

The uniformed police officer who peeked in was a young d.i.c.k Stone. "Deputy Chief Marley? I had word you wanted me to drop by ...?"

"Come on in, keed, come on in!" The slick mustached deputy chief gestured magnanimously to the chair opposite his desk. "Take a load off...."

Young Stone sat while his future self and the ghost of a public enemy eavesdropped nearby.

Marley's smile tried a little too hard. "Yesterday was your first day on, I understand."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I just wanted you to know I don't hold it against you, none-you gettin' this job through patronage."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Marley shrugged. "Nothin'. A guy does what he has to, to get ahead. It's unusual, your Uncle Bob playin' that kinda game, though. He's a real straight arrow."

"Uncle Bob's kind of a square john, but he's family and I stand by him."

"Swell! Admirable, keed. Admirable. But there's things go on around here that he don't know about ... and I'd like to keep it that way."

Young Stone frowned. "Such as?"

"Let me put it this way-if you got a fifty-dollar bill every month, for just lookin' the other way ... if it was for something truly harmless ... could you sleep at night?"

"Lookin' the other way, how?"

Marley explained that he was from Chicago-in '26, a local congressman greased the wheels for him to land this rural deputy chief slot, so he could do some favors for the Outfit.

"Not so much goin' on now," said Marley, "not like back in dry days, when the Boys had stills out here. Couple roadhouses where people like to have some extra-legal fun ..."

"Gambling and girls, you mean."

"Right. And there's a farmhouse the Boys use, when things get hot in the city, and a field where they like to do some ... planting ... now and then."

"I don't think I could sleep at night, knowing that's going on."

Marley's eyebrows shot up. "Oh?"

"Not for fifty a month." The young officer grinned. "Seventy-five, maybe. A C-note, and I'd be asleep when my head hit the pillow."

Marley stuck his hand across his desk. "I think this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship."

They shook hands, but when young Stone brought his hand back, there was a C-note in it.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Marley."

"Make it 'Jake.' Many happy returns, keed."

Dillinger tugged Stone's arm and they walked through the office wall and were suddenly in another office: the outer office of MARLEY AND STONE: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS. Katie was watering the base of a Christmas tree in the corner.

"This is, what?" Dillinger asked Stone. "Five years ago?"

"Right. Christmas Eve, '37, I think...."

Marley was whispering to a five-years' younger Stone. "Nice-lookin' twist you hired."

"She'll cla.s.s up the front office. And remember, Jake-I saw her first."

Marley grinned. "What do I need with a kid like her, when I got a woman like Maggie? Ah! Speak of the devil...."

Maggie was entering the outer office on the arm of a blond, boyishly handsome man in a crisp business suit.

"Stoney," Marley said, "meet our biggest client: this is Larry Turner ... he's the V. P. with Consolidated who's tossing all that investigating our way."

"Couldn't do this without you, Mr. Turner," Stone said.

"Make it 'Larry,' " he said. "Pleasure to do business with such a well-connected firm."