by Hiker, Mary
Suddenly, an ear-splitting shout tore through the quiet night, a bunch of cuss words following right behind. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I’m sure all the neighbors within a half mile radius heard Zack’s thundering accusations. “Santa is a thief too!”
CHAPTER 6
“Hey, hey, hey. Chill out, Zack.”
The deputy tried to calm his only witness – or possible suspect - as the man burst back out through the front door, stomped across the front porch, before turning on his heel and stomping right back again. Wispy white puffs flowed around Zack’s head as he blew out angry breaths into the increasingly cool evening air.
“Everything under the Christmas tree is gone.” Zack marched inside to take another look around, leaving the front door wide open. His voice roared from inside. “I’ve been robbed.”
“He’s going to have one heck of an electric bill next month.” Carl shook his head. “Didn’t his daddy ever teach him to close the front door?”
A few more deputies finally arrived, freeing up Don to join our group once he filled them in on the details.
“He’s sticking with the Santa story.” Don took off his Santa Claus jacket and wrapped it around me as he squinted into the darkness. There weren’t any street lights out in the county. “For crying out loud, there’s fresh snow on the ground. If Zack didn’t shoot her, there’s going to be footprints leading somewhere.”
I fumbled around in the medic bag and pulled out a flashlight before crouching down and putting the light close to the ground, sweeping the beam back and forth across the yard. A set of footprints became visible, leading away from the far side of the porch and cutting across the yard. A wide swath of flattened snow beside the tracks looked like someone was dragging a heavy bag alongside of them.
“That looks like it could’ve been made by a Santa sack,” Carl said, making sure we all stayed away from the crime scene. Well, all of us except Don, since he was law enforcement and all.
Don took the flashlight, shined the light on the tracks from a distance keeping the evidence intact, and followed them to the snow-plowed road. “Either they got in a vehicle or the road made for faster foot travel.”
Carl strained his neck to get a look at the footprints, his detective instincts still showing up two years after retirement. “Those are some pretty small feet.”
Don nodded in agreement. “Did the woman say anything while you were helping her?”
“Mostly mumbling,” Carl said, his eyebrows drawing together in concentration. “I only made out a couple words. First, she said ‘lay,’ and after a few breaths it sounded like she said, ‘he’ but it was like she was blowing out the words.”
Don’s phone rang, and he turned away, answering it on the first ring.
“Do you know anyone named Lay or maybe even Larry?” Deena pulled a knit hat from her fleece jacket pocket and slid it on her head. “I’m just thinking… ‘lay’ plus ‘he’ might mean Larry?” She shrugged. “I mean since she was kind of freaked out and breathing so hard from the pain.”
“Maybe,” I said, snuggling deeper into the cozy Santa jacket. “It’s an idea.”
Carl stared at the Santa jacket for a brief second, and his eyes suddenly lit up. “Does the name Tom Ford mean anything to you guys?” He looked from Deena to me, then back to Deena.
We both shrugged and shook our heads, no.
“He sure means a lot to my sister.” Carl turned toward Don, who’d just disconnected his call. “And, I believe, to our victim.”
“Tom Ford?” Don frowned. “Who’s that?”
“He’s a smart businessman who gets a bunch of my money every December.” Carl nodded toward the Santa jacket. “Lucy requests his latest lipsticks on her Christmas wish list every year.”
“And?”
“And… they cost a fortune, but I buy them just so I don’t have to hear her complain about it for the next twelve months.”
Deena burst out laughing.
“That’s funny,” I said, trying to understand the connection. “Lucy doesn’t seem like the type of person who covets expensive cosmetics.”
“She doesn’t.” Carl chuckled. “It’s all because of Christine Maybird. You know Lucy can’t stand Christine’s hoity-toity attitude.”
I laughed too. Lucy constantly got into shenanigans trying to one-up her small-town nemesis.
“Five years ago, Christine Maybird bragged about her new Tom Ford lipstick for two months after the holidays.” Carl shook his head. “Now, every female in Shady Springs demands a Tom Ford gift box at Christmas, just to make her shut-up.”
“How did you guys get on this subject?” Don asked.
“That black and gold box the lady was clutching…” Carl nodded. “I think it was Tom Ford.”
“Lady,” I blurted out.
The small group looked at me, confused.
“Like Deena said… ‘lay’ plus ‘he.’” My palms went out in front of me, face up. “Maybe she was trying to say ‘Lady,’like, whoever shot her was a lady.”
“You think they were fighting over the Tom Ford lipstick?” Deena asked, tapping a finger against her own lips.
“Maybe,” Carl said, twisting his hands together for warmth. “Those gift boxes cost over two- hundred bucks.”
“That would fit with the smaller sized footprints.” Don turned on his heal to inform the on-duty deputies huddled around the tracks leading away from the house. “And the culprit having to drag a heavy bag of stolen gifts across the snow instead of carrying it,” he said over his shoulder as he trotted away.
Carl’s eyes twinkled as he eyed the house. “Old Zack is really gonna flip out now.”
“Why’s that?” Deena and I asked at the same time.
He grinned. “Santa is a woman.”
CHAPTER 7
“Let’s get Ace.” Don’s black Labrador was a qualified search and rescue dog.
“We don’t do criminal searches,” I said, stating the obvious.
“I know, but since we’re all right here...” Don looked across the road to Uncle John’s barn. “Ace is probably ready to stretch out by now anyway.”
“It’s your dog.” I shrugged.
“Will you come with me?”
I nodded. So did Carl.
“Can I watch?” Deena asked. She was a new dog handler in training and took every opportunity to learn.
Don looked to Carl.
“I’ll watch over her,” Carl said, patting the small caliber pistol tucked in his back pocket.
“Just make sure to stay back far enough.” Don nodded.
We trudged back across the street and up to the party barn parking area. Deena was three steps ahead and increasing her lead, the adrenaline kicking into her system already. I smiled, remembering back to the day when I had my first real chance to watch a certified dog in action.
“Keep your eyes on how Don works with his dog,” I told Deena as I dug through the glove compartment in my truck and grabbed an extra flashlight. “We have a footprint, so Ace will be starting right on the track. It’s a recent trail, so he’ll be moving pretty fast right from the get-go.”
Don got his search pack and a warm jacket from his vehicle and called out. “I’m going inside to get my dog.”
“Whatever you do, do not shine this light into the dog’s eyes… or in mine for that matter.” I handed Deena my spare flashlight and turned mine on, giving a quick demonstration, sweeping the beam toward the ground close to my body. “If you need to turn the light on, use it like this. You’ll have plenty of vision but won’t blind anyone.”
“I’ll keep it turned off unless absolutely necessary,” Deena said as she practiced her technique.
I took off the Santa jacket, switched into my fleece and grabbed my radio. You’ll do fine, just make sure to stick close to Carl.”
Excited chatter filled the air as Don and Ace emerged from the building, followed by the entire team and most of the guests. The other search dogs yelped from inside the barn
, jealous that Ace was getting to work without them.
“You guys stay up here,” Don warned the small crowd as we got prepared to leave.
“Call us on the radio if you need anything.” Uncle John lifted his walkie-talkie in the air. “We’ll be ready if you need us.”
CHAPTER 8
The deputies cleared away from the front of Zack’s house as we approached, giving Don the appropriate amount of room to work his dog without interference. Ace was already hyped up, the sound of radios and the sight of Don’s search pack clueing him into the job ahead.
One of the deputies stood at the edge of the road farther down the assumed direction of travel - based on the direction of the visible footprints – just in case a random vehicle drove up while the dog was working. No one wanted the dog, or any of us for that matter, to get hit by accident.
“This is going to be quick,” I said, standing aside as Don walked his dog up to the cleanest footprint left by the person of interest. If Zack ran over to the barn soon after the gunshot, the trail couldn’t be more than an hour old.
Don nodded and leaned over to get his dog in position. “I couldn’t ask for a trail any hotter than this one.”
Since he didn’t have a scent article, Don pointed to the footprint in the snow and Ace’s nose followed, inhaling the assigned scent.
“Search!” Don said, and the dog was off in a flash.
Ace quickly followed the tracks out of the front yard and headed east down the road, his nose a few inches off the ground as he breathed in the information he needed to follow the direction of travel. He wasn’t on the road long, plummeting through the snowy ditch and into a lightly wooded section of woods on the opposite side, about two hundred feet away.
I stood on the edge of the bank, listening to the commotion just inside the tree line as Don followed Ace from a short distance, being careful not to unconsciously ‘push’ his dog in the wrong direction.
The Labrador quickly popped out of the small set of trees into someone’s back yard another hundred feet up the road. He raced to a shed out back, taking a moment to sniff an area at its door, before continuing to the back door of a small white house. The dog turned around, ran back to Don, pushed his paws against Don’s leg and gave a loud bark.
“Show me,” he said and followed as Ace led him to the back door the home. “Good boy.” Don rewarded his dog with a game of tug and motioned to the deputy on the road.
“Wow,” I heard Deena say behind me.
I smiled, remembering that same feeling of awe. “Told you it was going to be fast.”
“No way, that dog is crazy.” I heard a familiar voice shouting from back down the road behind us. The headlights from a deputy’s car created a nice silhouette of Zack standing between two deputies on the edge of his driveway. “That’s my girlfriend’s house!”
“This couldn’t get any better.” Carl chuckled as a group of deputies hustled past us and converged on the back of the house. “Zack is dating Santa Claus.”
CHAPTER 9
“Zack’s ex-wife is going to be fine.” The deputy told a red and white dressed woman as she was led out to the squad car. “Good thing you have terrible aim.”
“He didn’t tell me he had a wife living over there,” the woman spat, her long dark hair swirling around her shoulders. “She about gave me a heart attack, jumping out at me like that from behind the Christmas tree. That constitutes self-defense in my book.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been over there stealing gifts in the first place. Armed.”
“The door was wide open, what did she expect?” the female thief huffed. “She shouldn’t have fought me over that Tom Ford gift box.” She put her hands on the car as a female deputy patted her down. “It’s her own fault.”
The officer found both a handgun hidden under the belt of the woman’s Santa Claus get-up along with a couch pillow used for belly padding. She confiscated and bagged the gun before placing the criminal in the back of the law enforcement vehicle.
“We got her just as she was leaving the house, still looking like a hung-over Mrs. Santa Claus,” the deputy said as she slammed the car door. “Probably on her way out to raid someone else’s Christmas tree.” The officer got in the front seat and raced the car engine.
A lanky deputy walked up to our group, looking for Don. “The Happy Bear Creek retirement home just called 911.” He adjusted the volume on his radio. “They gathered the residents in the activities room for their annual holiday party and all the gifts are gone.”
“That’s only a mile or so from here,” Don said, nodding toward the back yard. “I’m interested in seeing what’s in the small shed over there. Ace hit a scent pool at the door. Our thief probably spent some time over there. We’ve got probable cause to look inside.”
The lanky deputy wasted no time pulling on a pair of gloves, then hustling to the shed and twisting the door knob. “It’s unlocked,” he said and gave a good pull. A couple packages fell as the door opened and narrowly missed hitting his head.
The eight by six-foot shed was packed from top to bottom with a variety of packages, most wrapped in brightly colored holiday wrap. Don reached in and pulled a few boxes out from on top of the pile. Several of the gifts wrapped in red paper had a ‘Happy Bear’ logo sticker with a resident’s name written in green ink.
The female deputy keyed up the radio. “Mrs. Claus claims she was just about to deliver those gifts to the Happy Bear Creek nursing home.”
“Yeah, right.” The male deputy looked over his shoulder at the car.
“She’s requesting the gifts be delivered in her absence. “We may want to accept her statement and deliver those presents.” The deputy honked her horn, gave a quick wave, and drove off with her Grinch.
“I’ll check with the sheriff to see if it’s okay for us to return these gifts before the residents go to bed depressed tonight.” Don pulled out his phone.
“Who’s going to do that?” the lanky deputy asked as he pulled out a camera to begin taking crime scene photos. “We’ve got to log everything, and I’ve got to go get a statement from the victim at the hospital, and the others are already taking other calls.”
“It’s all good,” Don smiled and pulled out his search and rescue radio. “I’ve got back up.” He keyed up the mic. “Uncle John, are you there?”
“Ten-four,” came his reply. “What do you need?”
“Bring all our resources down to the house behind yours, the one on the other side of that little patch of woods.” Don gave me a wink and my heart melted. “We’ve got presents to deliver to the residents at Happy Bear Creek.”
CHAPTER 10
A flood of happy people converged on the small metal shed, retrieving the stolen gifts and loading them into Uncle John’s cargo van, along with all the food from the search and rescue party.
“Everyone decided we’d wait to eat until you guys came back,” Miss Millie said as she handed me another gift to place on the pile while Don logged the loot and photos were taken for evidence.
Dogs raced back and forth, playing chase in the fluffy snow, but mine was suspiciously missing from the fray.
“Chevy!” I called out as the last of the gifts were loaded into the van.
Nothing.
A few others helped by calling out my dog’s name, “Chevy!”
There was no answer, but a few other dogs trotted into the woods line. “What the…?” I followed along as did several of the party guests.
Ten feet inside the woods, I found my dog surrounded by gift wrap, smiling in the faint light from the vehicle headlights parked near the shed. A stray piece of silver paper hung from his mouth, stuck to the inside of his lip.
My friends howled with laughter as the other dogs tried to follow suit, digging through the presents and scattering ripped gift wrap across the snow. It took more than a couple minutes to pull them out of the mess.
“Where’d you get these?” I asked my dog. He plopped a present at my feet and
wagged his tail.
“Looks like the thief got tired of dragging the heavy bag through the snow,” Carl said and pointed at Zip as the Border Collie lunged farther inside a Santa sack and pawed at a box in the far depths of the bag.
“I bet these are from Zack’s house,” Don said and picked up a box with the gift wrap torn off. He cut the taped lid from the box and looked inside as his eyebrows shot up. “Whoa.”
Curious, I cut open the box at my feet and had the same reaction - it was filled with marijuana.
“Call the dogs back,” I said, handing my box to Don.
Uncle John and a few dog handlers hustled all the animals into the transport vehicles as the rest of us used flashlights to light the area while the deputy took pictures and gathered gift packages of pot.
“No wonder Zack was so upset.” Carl tossed a couple boxes into the bag. “It looks like his business has just taken a big hit.”
Don lugged the bag of evidence to the lanky deputy’s cruiser and heaved it onto the hood. “I’ll bet his girlfriend knew what was in these boxes too.”
“That relationship has gone to pot.” I chuckled, then blushed at the bad pun.
“Yep. Up in smoke. Ole’ Zack’s about to have a bad night,” the deputy said, peering into the sack.
“Yeah, I can almost hear him shouting already…” Carl laughed. “Santa is a pot head!”
CHAPTER 11
“Okay, I admit it wasn’t very nice.” I shoved a forkful of Miss Millie’s chocolate cake into my mouth. “But I couldn’t wait.”
“Miss Millie’s cooking makes Avery lose her mind.” Don laughed and looked at her with affection.
“Yeah, but cutting in line in front of an eighty-year-old woman?” Uncle John grinned and shook his head. “That’s pushing the limits.”
“I know.” I dug the fork into my second piece of cake.
Miss Millie patted my leg and giggled, her cheeks flushed with color.
We sat in a circle amongst the group of senior citizens as they opened their holiday gifts, both from Happy Bear Creek and the gifts we’d donated from our own party table. The search and rescue team decided as a group it would be more fun to give than to receive. I had to agree.
