The Christmas Thief

by Mary Higgins Clark

  For the next twenty minutes they sat in dead silence as they traveled north. Benny, easily intimidated, cowered in the backseat. He had forgotten that Packy goes nuts when he’s worried. So what’s going on? he wondered. In those letters he told us to find somebody we could trust to rent a farmhouse with a big barn in Stowe. We did that. And then he sends word to get a two-handled saw, a hatchet, and rope, and then the flatbed. We did that. He told us to pick him up today. We did that. So what’s it all about? Packy swore that he had left the rest of the loot in New Jersey, so why are we going to Vermont? I never heard of going to New Jersey by way of Vermont.

  Sitting in the front seat, Jo-Jo was thinking in the same vein. Benny and I had ten million bucks with us when we took off for Brazil. We lived nice there, very, very nice, but not over the top. Packy tells us that he has another seventy or eighty million he can get his hands on once he’s out of jail. But he never said how much Benny and me get in the split. If it goes sour, Benny and me could end up with Packy in the slammer. We should’ve stayed in Brazil and let him slave away for a few weeks at that dumpy diner where they got him a job. Then when we came to rescue him, maybe he’d appreciate us a little more. In fact, he’d be kissing our feet.

  When they saw the “Welcome to Connecticut” sign, Packy let go of the wheel and clapped his hands. “One state closer to Vermont,” he chortled. With a broad grin he turned to Jo-Jo. “But we’re not gonna be there long. We’ll take care of business and be on our way to sunny Brazil.”

  God willing, Jo-Jo thought piously. But something tells me that Benny and I should have made do with ten million bucks. His stomach gurgled as he made a feeble attempt to return Packy’s smile.

  12

  At a quarter of eight Milo heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the driveway. With nervous anticipation he rushed to open the front door. He watched as Jo-Jo got out of the front passenger door of the van and Benny emerged from the door behind him.

  So who’s driving? he wondered. But then the question was answered as the driver’s door opened and a figure appeared. The faint light from the living room window was all Milo needed to confirm his hunch that Packy Noonan was the mystery guest.

  Benny and Jo-Jo waited for Packy to precede them up the porch steps. Milo jumped back to open the door as wide as possible. He felt as if he should salute, but Packy extended his hand. “So you’re Milo the poet,” he said. “Thanks for holding down the fort for me.”

  If I had known I was holding it down for you, I wouldn’t be here, Milo thought, but he found himself smiling back. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Noonan,” he said.

  “Packy,” Packy corrected him gently as his glance darted around the room. He sniffed. “Something smells real good.”

  “It’s my beef stew,” Milo told him, the words tumbling from his mouth. “I hope you enjoy beef stew, Mr.—I mean, Packy.”

  “My favorite. My mama made it for me every Friday—or maybe it was Saturday.” Packy was starting to enjoy himself. Milo the poet was as transparent as a teenager. I do have a natural way of impressing people, he thought. How else would I have gotten all those dopey investors to keep pouring money into my sinkhole?

  Jo-Jo and Benny were coming into the house. Packy decided this was the moment to make sure that Milo joined their team for good. “Jo-Jo, you brought that money like I told you?”

  “Yeah, Packy, sure.”

  “Peel off fifty of the big ones and give them to our friend Milo.” Packy put his arm around Milo’s shoulders. “Milo,” he said, “this isn’t what we owe you. This is a bonus for being a swell guy.”

  Fifty hundred-dollar bills? Milo thought. But he said the big ones. He couldn’t mean fifty thousand, could he? Another fifty thousand? Milo’s brain couldn’t handle the thought of that much money being handed to him in cold, hard cash.

  Two minutes later he could not keep his mouth closed as a grumpy-looking Jo-Jo counted out fifty stacks of bills from a large suitcase filled with money. “There are ten C-notes in each of these here piles,” he said. “Count them when you’re finished writing your next poem.”

  “By any chance have you got anything smaller?” Milo asked hesitantly. “Hundred-dollar bills are hard to change.”

  “Chase the Good Humor wagon down the block,” Jo-Jo snapped. “What I hear, the driver carries lots of change.”

  “Milo,” Packy said gently. “Hundred-dollar bills aren’t hard to change anymore. Now let me explain our plans. We’ll be out of here by Tuesday at the latest. Which means all you have to do is go about your business and ignore our comings and goings until we leave. And when we leave, you will be given the other fifty thousand dollars. Are you agreeable to that situation?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Noonan—I mean, Packy. I surely am, sir.” Milo could taste and feel Greenwich Village as though he were already there.

  “If somebody happened to ring the bell and ask if you’d seen a flatbed around here, you’d forget that there is indeed one on the premises, wouldn’t you, Milo?”

  Milo nodded.

  Packy looked directly into his eyes and was satisfied. “Very good. We understand each other. Now how about some dinner? We hit a lot of traffic, and your stew smells great.”

  13

  They’re not hungry, they’re starving, Milo thought as he refilled Packy’s and the twins’ plates for the third time. With satisfaction he watched as his biscuits disappeared and his salad vanished. He had done so much tasting and sampling that he had hardly any appetite, which was just as well since he kept getting up and down to open yet another bottle of wine. Packy, Jo-Jo, and Benny seemed to be in a contest to see who could drink the fastest.

  But the more they drank, the more they mellowed. The skis wobbling on the roof of the van suddenly seemed hilarious. The fact that four cars had rear-ended one another on route 91, causing a massive traffic jam and forcing them to drive slowly past an army of cops, sparked another round of belly laughs.

  By eleven o’clock the twins’ eyes were at half-mast. Packy had a buzz on. Milo had limited himself to a couple of glasses of wine. He didn’t want to wake up tomorrow and forget anything that had been said. He also intended to stay sober until his money was safely under a mattress in Greenwich Village.

  Jo-Jo pushed back his chair, stood up, and yawned. “I’m going to bed. Hey, Milo, that extra fifty thousand means you do the dishes.” He started to laugh, but Packy thumped on the table and ordered him to sit back down.

  “We’re all tired, you idiot. But we have to talk business.”

  With a burp he didn’t try to stifle, Jo-Jo slumped back into his chair. “I beg your pardon,” he mumbled.

  “If we don’t get this right, you may be begging the governor for a pardon,” Packy shot across the table.

  A nervous tremor ran through Milo’s body. He simply didn’t know what to expect next.

  “Tomorrow we’re getting up real early. We’ll have some coffee, which Milo will have ready.”

  Milo nodded.

  “Then we back the flatbed out of the barn, drive to a tree a few miles from here that happens to be located on the property of a guy I worked for when I was a kid, and cut down this very special tree.”

  “Cut down a tree?” Milo interrupted. “You’re not the only one cutting down a tree tomorrow,” he said excitedly. He ran over to the pile of newspapers by the back door. “Here it is, right on top!” he crowed. “Tomorrow at ten A.M. the blue spruce that was selected as this year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is being cut down. They’ve been preparing it all week! Half the town will be there, and there’ll be lots of media—television, radio, you name it!”

  “Where’s this tree?” Packy asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

  “Hmmmm.” Milo searched the article. “I could really use a pair of reading glasses,” he observed. “Oh, here it is. The tree is on the Pickens property. Guess there’s good pickins on the Pickens property.” He laughed.

  Packy jumped out of his seat. “Give me that!” he
yelled. He grabbed the paper out of Milo’s hands. When he laid eyes on the picture of the tree—alone and majestic in a clearing—that was about to be sent to New York City, he let out a scream. “That’s my tree! That’s my tree!”

  “There are a lot of nice trees around here we could cut down instead,” Milo suggested, trying to be helpful.

  “Roll out the flatbed!” Packy ordered. “We’re cutting down my tree tonight!”

  14

  At eleven o’clock, just before she got into bed, Alvirah stood at the window and looked out. Most of the villas were already in darkness. In the distance she could see the silhouette of the mountains. They’re so silent and still, she thought, sighing.

  Willy was already in bed. “Is anything wrong, honey?”

  “No, not at all. It’s just that I’m such a New Yorker, it’s hard to get used to so much quiet. At home the sounds of traffic and police sirens and trucks rumbling kind of blend into a lullaby.”

  “Uh-huh. Come to bed, Alvirah.”

  “But here it’s so peaceful,” Alvirah continued. “I bet if you walked along any of these paths right now, you wouldn’t hear a sound other than a little animal scampering through the snow or a tree rustling or maybe an owl hooting. It’s so different, isn’t it? In New York right now there’s probably a line of cars at Columbus Circle, honking their horns because the light just changed and somebody didn’t step on the gas fast enough. In Stowe you don’t hear a sound on the road. By midnight all the lights will be out. Everyone will be dreaming. I love it.”

  A gentle snore from the bed told her that Willy had fallen fast asleep.

  “Let’s see what’s going on in the world,” Nora suggested as Luke unlocked the door to their cabin. “I like to catch the news before I go to sleep.”

  “That’s not always the best idea,” Luke commented drily. “The bedtime stories on the news aren’t always catalysts for sweet dreams.”

  “If I can’t sleep in the middle of the night, I always turn on the news,” Regan said. “It helps me fall back asleep—unless, of course, there’s something big going on.”

  Jack picked up the remote and pressed the TV button. The screen filled with the anchor desk of the Flash News Network. The coanchors were not flashing their usual sunny smiles. A tape rolled showing Packy Noonan leaving prison. “Look at this!” Jack exclaimed.

  The anchor reported solemnly: “Packy Noonan, recently released from prison after serving twelve and a half years for cheating investors in his fake shipping company, left his halfway house this morning to attend Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. He was being followed by a private investigator hired by the law firm that was appointed to recover the money Packy stole. But Noonan slipped out of the cathedral during the service and was seen running down Madison Avenue. When he did not return to the halfway house this evening, he officially broke his parole. We have been receiving phone calls and e-mails from outraged investors who heard this story earlier on Flash News. They have always believed that Noonan had squirreled away their money and is on his way to collect their fortunes right now. There is a $10,000 reward for information that helps lead to Noonan’s capture. If you have any information, please contact the number on your screen below.”

  “That guy is taking a big risk,” Jack said. “He served his time, and now if he’s caught he’ll be thrown back in jail for breaking parole. He must have that money stashed away somewhere and doesn’t want to wait the two or three years he’d spend on parole to get his millions. My guess is that he’ll be out of the country in no time flat.”

  “Poor Opal,” Nora sighed. “That’s all she needs to hear. She always said the money was hidden somewhere, and if she got her hands on Packy, she’d wring his neck.”

  Regan shook her head. “It makes me sick to think how many investors like Opal were cheated out of money that really would have made a difference in their lives. At least when Packy was in prison, they knew he was miserable. Now they have to wonder if he’s going to be living high on the hog on their dime, just thumbing his nose at them.”

  “I told you,” Luke said. “Now everybody’s worked up before it’s time to go to sleep.”

  In spite of the situation, they all laughed. “You’re terrible,” Nora chided. “I just hope Opal didn’t watch the news tonight. She’d never close an eye.”

  A few doors down, in the villa she shared with Alvirah and Willy, Opal had fallen into a dead sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Even though she had not heard the news about Packy’s disappearance, when she began to dream, it was of him. The gates of a dreary stone prison were bursting open. Packy came running out clutching fat pillowcases in his arms. She knew they were stuffed with money—her money. Her lottery money. She began to chase him, but her legs wouldn’t move. In her dream she became increasingly agitated. “Why won’t my legs move?” she thought frantically. “I have to catch up with him.” Packy disappeared down the road. Gasping for breath as she struggled to move forward, Opal woke with a start.

  “Oh, my God,” she thought as she felt her heart pounding. Another nightmare about that stupid Packy Noonan. As she calmed down, she thought there was something more that her subconscious was working to bring to the surface. It’s going to come to me, she thought as she closed her eyes again. I know it is.

  15

  All my plans,” Packy moaned. “Twelve and a half stinking years doing time, and every single minute I’m dreaming of getting my hands on my tree. Now this!”

  From the backseat Benny leaned forward. He stuck his head between Packy and Jo-Jo. “What’s so special about getting your hands on that tree?” he asked. “Are you supposed to make a wish or something?”

  It was pitch dark. The van was the only vehicle on the quiet country road. Packy, Jo-Jo, and Benny were on their way to case the situation on the Pickens property. As Packy had exclaimed bitterly, “For all we know the Rockefeller Center people left a guard overnight watching the tree. Before we go lumbering over there in the flatbed, we gotta see what’s going on.”

  “Benny, figure it out,” Jo-Jo snarled. “Packy must’ve hid something in the tree and is worried he won’t be able to get it out. It has to be our money stuck in there, Packy. Right?”

  “Bingo,” Packy snapped. “You should apply to be a member of the Mensa Society. You’d be a shoo-in.”

  “What’s the Mensa Society?” Benny asked.

  “It’s a kind of club. You take a test. If you pass, you get to go to meetings with other people who passed, and you congratulate one another on how smart you all are. One of them was in my cell block. He was so smart that when he passed a note to the bank teller to fork over money, he wrote it on his own deposit slip.”

  Packy knew he was ranting as though he was out of his mind. Sometimes it was like that when he got rattled. Get your cool back, he told himself. Breathe deep. Think beautiful thoughts. He thought about money.

  Outside the temperature was dropping. He could feel the slight slip of the tires as the van hit a patch of ice.

  “So answer me, Packy,” Jo-Jo insisted. “Our money’s in that tree. You were in the can over twelve years. So why didn’t you stash it in a numbered account in Switzerland or in a safe deposit box? What turned you into a squirrel?”

  Packy could not prevent his voice from becoming shrill. “Let me explain. And listen real good so I don’t have to repeat ’cause we’re almost there.” He floored the brake as he spotted a deer emerging from the bushes at the side of the road. “Get lost, Bambi,” he muttered. As though it had heard him, the deer turned and disappeared.

  The road was bending sharply to the right. Packy picked up speed again but more cautiously. Suppose the tree was being guarded? What then?

  “So, Packy, I wanna know what’s going on,” Jo-Jo said impatiently.

  Jo-Jo and Benny had a right to know what they were up against, Packy admitted to himself. “You two were in on the shipping scam up to your necks. The difference is that you got away with big bucks and got to spe
nd the last twelve years in Brazil while I shared a cell with a whacko.”

  “We only got ten million,” Benny corrected, sounding injured. “You held on to at least seventy million.”

  “It didn’t do me any good when I was in jail. The whole time the lamebrains were giving us money to invest I was buying diamonds, unset stones, some of them worth two million each.”

  “Why didn’t you ask us to mind them while you were in jail?” Benny asked.

  “Because I’d still be waiting on Madison Avenue for you to pick me up.”

  “That’s not nice,” Benny said, shaking his head. “So I guess the diamonds are in your tree somewhere, huh? Good thing Milo mentioned the tree’s going to be cut down tomorrow morning. To think we could have been a day late and a dollar short.”

  “You’re not helping matters, Benny,” Jo-Jo interrupted his brother. “Now, Packy, why did you pick this tree way up here in Vermont? You know, Jersey has a lot of nice trees, and it’s much closer to the City.”

  “I used to work for the people who owned this property!” Packy snapped at them. “When I was sixteen, my dear old Ma got the court to send me up here on some kind of ‘save-the-troubled-kid’ experiment.”

  “What kind of job did you have up here?” Jo-Jo asked.

  “Cutting down trees, mostly for the Christmas market. I was pretty good at it. I even learned how to use a crane to get the big ones that were bought for the centers of towns all over the country. Anyway, when I was afraid that the auditors were catching on to us, I took the diamonds from the safe deposit box, put them in a metal flask, and stowed them up here. I didn’t think it would be thirteen years before I’d be back for them. The people who own this property planted the tree on their wedding day fifty years ago. They swore they’d never cut it down.”