by Frank Zafiro
Officer Willow stood guard outside the door.
“Coffee’s around the corner,” Katie told him.
“Thanks,” he said, but didn’t move.
Katie shrugged and went inside.
The suspect, Robert J. Dylan, sat in his chair, leaning forward slightly to accommodate his cuffed hands. His face bore a smug expression. Katie thought she saw a glimmer of contempt filter in when she entered.
She uncuffed Dylan, who rubbed his wrists but didn’t thank her. She sat down across from him and looked him over. He was a small, wiry man. His greasy brown hair was just long enough to be unkempt but not long enough to be stringy. She noticed a circular scar near his left eye.
Dylan sighed in a bored tone but said nothing.
“You’re in custody on this warrant,” Katie began without ceremony, “so I have to read you your Miranda rights.”
“I know them already.”
Katie read them from a preprinted card anyway and then asked if he understood.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Are you willing to waive your rights and talk to me?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Maybe you’ll get a nice train set under your Christmas tree.”
Dylan snorted. “I’d rather have you under my tree.”
Katie shuddered inwardly in disgust, but gave no outward reaction. The sexual innuendo came with the territory and she’d become proficient at deflecting it over the years. “Nice. I think you better be more concerned with this situation you’re in, Robert, than trying to date the detective who’s working the case.”
“What case is that?”
“So you want to talk?”
“Sure. What case?”
Katie slid the card across the table to him, along with a pen. “Sign it.”
Dylan gave her an appraising stare for a moment, chewing his lip absently. Then he snatched the pen and scrawled his signature.
“There,” he said, dropping the pen. “Now what case?”
“I ran you up in the computer,” Katie said. “You’ve got a lot of priors. All theft-related.”
“Frame-ups.”
“Really? Including the convictions?”
“All of ’em.”
“Rough luck,” Katie said. “You want to tell me about the bag of presents you were carrying when the officer stopped you?”
“What about them?”
“Whose are they?”
“Mine.”
“Where’d you get them?”
“All over.”
“Funny thing,” Katie said. “When I looked at the presents, I noticed that all of the ‘to’ and ‘from’ stickers were torn off. Why’s that?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Katie leaned back. She could smell Dylan’s odor, a mixture of dirt, sweat, and musky cologne. The combination, along with his smug demeanor, made her nauseous. “Why don’t we cut the crap, huh? You stole those presents. I know it and you know it.”
Dylan shrugged. “So you say.”
“I’m seizing them and putting them on property.”
“Go ahead. I’ll just sue you.”
Katie smiled icily. “That line forms to the right, Robert.”
Dylan smiled back. “I’ll bet you have lots of lines forming around you.” He shrugged again. “Keep the presents. I don’t care. The cops have been screwing with me my whole life. Why should this Christmas be any different?”
Katie changed tactics. “Let me ask you this. Theoretically, if a guy broke into a house and stole presents from some family, how hard do you think it would be for the police to match up those stolen presents to the burglary report?”
“Theoretically?” He arched an eyebrow in sarcasm.
Katie nodded.
“Well, theoretically,” Dylan said, “I think it’d be pretty hard if there hadn’t been a police report. And more than that, I think that it would be even harder for some detective to prove some other guy did the burglary just because he found the bag in an alley somewhere.”
“Found it in an alley?”
Dylan nodded and leaned forward. “In fact, I’d say it would be hard for that detective to prove any crime at all.”
“How about possession of stolen property?”
“Nope.” Dylan’s smile curved up from one side of his mouth, just like the eyebrow had moments ago. “That requires that you prove the guy had knowledge the property was stolen. How’re you going to do that?”
Katie shrugged. “Most juries wouldn’t believe that he found it in an alley.”
Dylan chuckled. “Juries will believe anything.”
“Maybe. But the guy wouldn’t get the presents back.”
“Easy come, easy go.”
“What if there were more than just the one burglary?”
His chuckle trailed off. His eyes grew wary. “More than one, huh?”
Katie nodded. She returned Dylan’s gaze, sizing him up. Options ran through her head. She didn’t have anything on him and he knew it. There had been no burglary reports matching the recovered presents. She could put the presents on property and hope a report came in, but even if it did, Dylan was right. The best she could charge would be possession of stolen property and that would be iffy. Sure, he’d never see the presents again, but like he said, easy come, easy go. He didn’t pay anything for them, so he wasn’t out much.
“Lots of burglaries in River City,” Dylan probed.
“True. But not a lot involving Christmas presents.”
Dylan shrugged. “This time of year? Sure there are.”
Katie made her decision in an instant. Another detective had once told her that when you’ve got nothing that you can prove but you know in your gut that the guy is dirty, it’s time to bluff.
She fired the opening salvo. “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you, Robert?”
Dylan gave her a look that said, “Who, me?”
“I suppose it isn’t a bad gig. Stealing presents. Some people spend a lot of money on gifts, so you could get a decent score. And most stuff is pretty generic and untraceable.” Katie smiled. “Most stuff.”
Dylan watched her, wordless.
She opened her file and flipped through the report. “Two days ago, a house was broken into. Christmas presents were taken. Unlike the ones you were carrying today, these were wrapped in green paper and in pale blue paper.”
“So what?”
“The green paper came from Walmart. Pretty cheap, run-of-the-mill stuff. But the pale blue? Well, that’s a different story.” She closed the file again. “The family that lived there, the parents are divorced. The father moved away to Europe two years ago. He lives in Holland now. You know where that is, Robert?”
He shrugged.
“This father sent those presents all the way from Holland, wrapped up in special Dutch paper. Did you know that they make paper different in Europe?” She held up her open hands and made a cross. “Here in the US, the paper gets woven at ninety degree angles. But in Europe—” she angled her hands into an x, “—they do it at forty-five degrees. The difference is easy to see under a microscope.”
Dylan swallowed once, but his face remained impassive.
“Let’s say, theoretically,” Katie continued, “that a guy was stopped packing stolen presents around. And the detective working the case got a search warrant and went to that guy’s house. If she searched that house, would she find any pale blue wrapping paper? And if she did, would the weave of the fibers be at a forty-five-degree angle?”
Dylan started to speak, but Katie held up her hand. “No, wait, Robert. There’s more. It’s important that you hear this.”
He fell silent.
Katie rolled on. “The father in this case, when he sent the presents from Holland, he had to fill out a customs declaration. That means he had to record the item, its value, and any serial numbers. That means that if any of these items show up at a pawn shop, they can be identified and traced back to whoever pawned them. P
retty powerful evidence.”
“Show me the customs form,” Dylan demanded.
“I can’t,” Katie said, thinking quickly. “The mother threw it away along with the packaging that the presents came in. But I’ve already sent a request to the feds to get a copy. It’ll be here in a few days. Probably before Christmas, in fact.”
Dylan shook his head. “You’re full of crap. You don’t have anything.”
Katie gave a mild shrug. “Let’s say I don’t. Let’s say there’s no paper from Holland at your apartment. Not even a scrap. And let’s say the pawn shop dead-ends without turning up a single item that the father sent. Even if that happens, I still have this.”
She removed the fingerprint card from her file and slid it across the table to him.
Dylan glanced down at it, then up at her for explanation.
“That was taken from inside the victim’s house.” She let the beginnings of a confident smile touch the corners of her mouth. “See, now that I have a name, I can get the results on that fingerprint in less than a day, instead of weeks of computer searches. And I’m pretty sure you’ve been fingerprinted before. So unless there’s a reason why your fingerprint was in that woman’s house—”
“This looks like a crappy fingerprint,” Dylan said, watching her.
Katie nodded. “It’s not great. But you’d be surprised what our Forensics people can do these days. I’ve seen them pull fingerprint matches out of what looks like a blob of ink—well, you’ve seen CSI, right?”
Dylan nodded reluctantly.
“Just like that,” Katie said. She paused and leaned forward. “So you see, Robert, it isn’t a question anymore if you are the one who jimmied the rear door of that house on Swanson. It isn’t a question of whether you took those presents. My investigation clearly shows it was you. The only real question left is why.”
“Don’t pull mind games on me.”
“I’m not,” Katie said. “I will submit this print to Forensics and we both know it’ll come back to you. That’ll do you for the burglary. And it’ll get me a search warrant to your house. I think we both know I’ll find at least a scrap of that Holland paper. And I’ll bet the pawn search turns up something, too. It’s no longer about the ‘who did it’ part of this investigation. It’s about the ‘why’ now.”
“I’m not stupid,” Dylan snapped. “The law doesn’t care about why.”
“You’re right. But you know who does care? Juries.”
Dylan’s eyes widened briefly.
Katie nodded. “Juries care a lot about why. And you know it.” She watched while Dylan considered her words. She gave him a few moments, just enough to get him started, then plunged forward.
“Let me paint a picture for you, Robert. Imagine that it's Christmas morning. A fresh blanket of snow has just fallen during the night. The whole world seems clean and fresh and full of hope. Little Johnny and his sister, Little Sally, wake up, just bursting with anticipation. They scramble out of bed in their little footie pajamas and scamper down the stairs to the living room. The Christmas tree is there, but underneath it?” Katie shook her head sadly. “No presents. Little Johnny cries. Little Sally cries. Their mom is probably crying, too, because it hurts so bad. Some very mean, evil scrooge of a man took those presents. He ruined their Christmas and it is a scar that they will probably carry for the rest of their lives.”
Dylan snorted and rolled his eyes, but the gesture lacked conviction.
Katie spread her arms, palm up. “What, you don’t like that story?”
“It’s crap.”
“It’s what the jury will hear. It’s what the jury will believe. You know why?”
Dylan shook his head.
Katie leaned forward, turning her palms over and resting them on the table. “Because you aren’t giving them an alternative story to consider. In fact, despite all the evidence against you that makes it obvious you did it, you’re denying everything.” She lifted one hand and turned it palm up again. “So they have this sad little story involving crying kids with no presents on the one hand”—she turned up the other palm—“and on the other, they have you insulting their intelligence. Just feeding that image of a heartless scrooge.”
Dylan’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “It’s not like that.”
“I know,” Katie said softly. “And I think they need to hear that other story. To see your remorse. They need to hear it from you now, early on, so they know it is genuine. And more than that, they need to know why this happened. Maybe you’ve got kids yourself, or nieces and nephews. And you care about them. You want to give them a good Christmas. But times are tough. You didn’t have the money, so you got desperate.”
Dylan pursed his lips, but didn’t respond.
“And there’s probably more,” Katie continued. “Maybe the reason you wanted those kids to have such a great Christmas is because you didn’t have many good ones yourself. I think that’s probably true, isn’t it, Robert?”
He didn’t reply.
“I think it is,” Katie said, keeping her voice soft and a little bit sympathetic. “I think you remember how terrible that felt. That’s why you want these kids to have a special Christmas. That’s why you’re probably sorry for what you did. Am I right?”
“Maybe,” Dylan whispered. His expression bore a hint of sadness. He swallowed twice.
“I noticed you have a scar near your eye. It looks a little faded. How old were you when you got that scar?”
Dylan’s face darkened. “Six,” he muttered.
“Looks like a cigarette burn to me,” Katie said. “Am I right?”
A light sheen of water filled Dylan’s eyes. He said nothing.
“I wonder,” Katie said, “how a jury would feel about some poor six-year-old kid who got burned with a cigarette around Christmastime. No presents for him, just a nice scar to carry with him for the rest of his life. I think they’d feel pretty bad for him. Even if he grew up and made some mistakes. Especially if he made those mistakes trying to make a better life for other kids, like his own or his nieces and nephews.”
A single tear escaped the corner of Dylan’s left eye and slid down his cheek.
“I’ll bet that’s the story they’d remember,” Katie said, “over some other story about missing presents. I think that’s the story that’ll wrench their gut. If they get to hear it, that is.”
Dylan’s lips parted. He paused. Then he asked, “You want to hear that story?”
“Robert,” Katie said, “I'll even let you write it down.”
Katie slid her key into her front door. She unlocked the door, entered, and locked it behind her. With a practiced flick of her wrist, she tossed her keys into the basket near the door.
The silence of her house greeted her. She ignored it, flipping on light switches on her way to the bedroom.
Dylan’s confession had gone smoothly. In his written statement, he copped to the burglary in one paragraph, then spent two pages writing about his sad life.
Katie shed her pager and badge. She unbuckled her belt and slid off her gun holster, placing it on the nightstand. She wondered how sincere Dylan’s confession had been. Was he truly sorry or had he just believed that she had him dead to rights and decided to put on an act to make the best of the situation?
She didn’t know. She didn’t care. His confession had given her enough to get a search warrant for his apartment. Judge Petalski had signed it with a clenched jaw, her anger barely contained. At the apartment, Katie found both green and pale-blue wrapping paper torn up and in Dylan’s garbage. Several of the missing items were still there, along with pawn receipts. She called and placed a police hold on those items. The rest of this case was just a matter of tying up loose ends.
Katie slipped off her shoes and made her way to the kitchen. On the way, she checked her answering machine. The steady red light did not blink. No messages.
Her fridge contained the remains of last night’s salad. She pulled it out, along with a bottle of whit
e wine. After a moment’s consideration, she replaced the salad and kept the wine. She poured a glass.
Lying to criminals still felt like lying to her, even when she called it bluffing. She’d managed to get used to the idea, knowing it was legal and knowing it worked, but she still didn’t like it.
Katie curled up on the corner of her small couch and sipped her wine. The television remote sat on the coffee table next to the novel she was reading. She didn’t reach for either one. She thought about the pictures she’d painted for Dylan in the interview room of the kids not getting their presents on Christmas morning. Well, she’d changed that, hadn’t she? Joetta Ranford’s voice on the telephone had been full of relief and gratitude. Katie was pretty sure the woman had been crying in between thank-yous and wishing her a merry Christmas.
The story she imagined for Dylan, the one that eventually broke him, haunted her. She felt nothing for the man in the room, but she kept envisioning that little boy and how he got that scar near his eye. Nothing in the quiet solitude of her empty house could drive that image away. She wasn’t sure she wanted anything to.
Katie sipped her wine again. She stared at the small, fake Christmas tree perched on her kitchen counter. She listened to the silence of her house.
Home for Christmas
“Why can’t you come home for Christmas?”
It seemed to Detective Katie MacLeod that her mother injected as much guilt-inspiring tone into her voice as possible through the telephone line.
And through the booze, she thought.
She sighed. “Mom—”
“Don’t sigh at me.”
Katie sighed again, but then apologized. “Look, Mom, someone has to work it.”
“Why? It’s Christmas!”
“Police work is a 24/7 business. Crime doesn’t take a holiday.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“We have to have a detective on duty. And if no one with seniority takes it, then it ends up being the low guy.”
“You can’t still be the newest detective after three years,” her mother said
