The Christmas Thief

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Our tree!” he yelled. “Our tree! I found our tree!” He rushed inside the barn to examine it.

  “Their tree is here!” Regan exclaimed.

  Opal was still draped over her and Alvirah’s shoulders.

  “Packy,” Opal mumbled. “Diamonds. My money.”

  “Do you know where Packy is?” Alvirah asked her.

  Lem came running out of the barn and raced over to them. “Our tree’s fine. Just one branch broken!” He finally noticed what was going on in front of him. “What’s the matter with these two?” he asked.

  “They must have been drugged,” Alvirah said. “And Packy Noonan is behind this.”

  “And so is this so-called poet,” Lem declared, pointing at the sleeping Milo, still being supported by Willy and Jack.

  “Wayne…has…diamonds…. Packy went there,”Opal was mumbling.

  “Where?” Regan asked her.

  “Wayne’s house….”

  “I knew Wayne Covel was in on this up to his ears!” Lem cried gleefully.

  Regan turned to him. “Lem, you know the way to Wayne Covel’s house. Ride with us there. Please! We can’t waste a minute!”

  Jack was on his cell phone, alerting the local police.

  Lem looked back at the barn. “No way!” he shouted. “I can’t let our tree out of my sight!”

  Bobby Granger had escaped from his parents and came running toward them. “I’ll mind your tree, mister,” he called. “I won’t let anybody touch it!”

  “The police are on their way here and to Covel’s house. Your tree will be fine,” Jack said crisply. “Mr. Pickens, we really need your help. You know your way around this town.”

  The Grangers had caught up with their son. “We’ll guard your tree,” Bill Granger assured Lem.

  “Well, all right,” Lem said. “But tell them I have the keys to the flatbed in my pocket. I’m the one who’ll drive it home to Viddy. But I’m not getting in any car with that poet.”

  “We’ll mind him, too,” Bill Granger said.

  Alvirah got into the backseat of the Meehans’ car. Then Jack lifted Opal in. Willy followed, to prop her up. Regan, Jack, and Lem jumped into the front seat. Jack turned on the ignition and drove as fast as he dared off the property and onto the bumpy dirt road.

  “Turn left up here,” Lem ordered. “I knew Wayne Covel, Packy Noonan, and that so-called poet were all tarred with the same brush. If you’re looking for stolen goods, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find the loot in Wayne Covel’s house. Now turn right.”

  Milo’s beat-up car was on the other side of the road, heading in the opposite direction.

  “There’s the poet’s car!” Lem cried. “But we know he’s not driving!”

  As it passed them, Alvirah shrieked, “It’s Packy Noonan driving!”

  Jack did a U-turn and was caught behind a delivery truck. The road was too narrow and winding for him to pass. “Come on!” he said. “Come on!”

  When they came to an intersection, Milo’s battered heap was no longer in sight.

  “They went thataway!” Lem pointed to the left.

  “How do you know?” Jack asked.

  “Look! The bumper is in the middle of the road there. It finally fell off that heap.”

  Regan had dialed the local police. She told them rapidly that they had spotted Packy Noonan and described the car to them and the direction it was headed. Next to her, Opal was mumbling, “Get him. Please…. All my money.”

  “We will, Opal,” Regan promised. “Too bad you’re not wide awake for this.”

  Around a bend they caught up with Milo’s car, which was chugging along. Smiling broadly, Jack followed the old jalopy, speeding up when necessary to prevent another car from getting in between. In the distance they could see a police car speeding toward them, its lights flashing. Jack stopped to allow the police car to make a U-turn and get right behind Packy. A moment later the sound of a policeman’s voice on the bullhorn could be heard even through the closed windows.

  “Pull over, Packy. Don’t get in any more trouble than you’re in already.”

  A second police car went past Jack, and two more were coming from the opposite direction. Inside Milo’s heap, Packy picked up the flask and handed it to Jo-Jo. “Get rid of it!” he ordered.

  Jo-Jo opened the window, lowered his hand, and tossed it. The flask of diamonds rolled down the embankment.

  “All that work swindling those dopey investors down the drain,” Packy lamented wryly as he watched the flask disappear. He stopped the car and turned off the ignition.

  “Come out with your hands up” came the command over the bullhorn as policemen poured from several patrol cars.

  Jack stopped the car, and they all jumped out, except for Opal who slumped down on the backseat. Regan ran to the side of the road and backtracked about one hundred feet. Then, sliding and slipping, she made her way down the embankment. In the snow a metal flask was resting beneath a large evergreen tree. Regan picked it up, shook it, and heard a faint rattle. Smiling, she opened the cap. “My God,” she murmured as she caught the first glimpse of the contents. She poured a few of the diamonds into her hand. “These have to be worth a fortune,” she said to herself. “Wait till Opal sees this.”

  With infinite care she dropped the diamonds back into the flask and climbed up the embankment. She ran up to Packy Noonan who was now in handcuffs. “Is this the flask in your dreams, Packy?” she asked sarcastically. “The people who lost all their money in your shipping company are going to be mighty happy to see it.”

  A banging from the trunk of Milo’s car startled them all. Guns drawn, two policemen threw the catch and stood back as the trunk swung up. Benny sat up, Jo-Jo’s note still pinned to his jacket, and took in the whole scene. “I knew we shouldn’t have gotten greedy,” he said yawning. “Wake me up when we get to the police station.” He lay back down and closed his eyes.

  Regan turned to Alvirah. “Before we have to turn these over, let’s show them to Opal.”

  They hurried back to their car, propped Opal into a sitting position, and wrapped her hands around the flask. “Opal, honey, look,” Alvirah urged. “Stay awake long enough to look.”

  Regan unscrewed the cap.

  “What?” Opal asked drowsily.

  “These diamonds represent your lottery money. Now you’ll get at least some of it back,” Alvirah told her.

  Drowsy as Opal was, the meaning of Alvirah’s words penetrated her drugged brain, and she began to cry.

  An hour later Lem Pickens was driving the flatbed through town, honking the horn incessantly. Beside him, Bobby Granger was waving to the cheering crowd that had gathered along the way. Finally, they were heading up the hill to Lem’s home.

  Alvirah, Willy, Regan, Jack, the Grangers, and a now more alert Opal were standing with Viddy on the Pickenses’ front porch. The word of the recovered tree had spread like wildfire. Media crews had hastily set up in the front yard to capture the moment when, still honking the horn, Lem Pickens triumphantly drove the Rockefeller Center flatbed onto his property. The look on Viddy’s face when she saw her beloved blue spruce reminded Alvirah of the dazed joy she had seen on Opal’s face, and like Opal, Viddy began to cry.

  Epilogue

  By the time the day of the Christmas tree lighting arrived, Lem and Viddy were practically seasoned New Yorkers. Two days after Lem recovered their tree, they were in Rockefeller Center watching its ceremonious arrival and listening to the choir of schoolchildren sing a medley of songs as the tree was raised into place. The selections from The Sound of Music especially delighted Viddy.

  Edelweiss, she thought. Our blue spruce is my edelweiss.

  They had been invited back for the party that Opal’s fellow investors in the Patrick Noonan Shipping and Handling Company had thrown for her. The diamonds were valued at over seventy million dollars, so the investors would all recover at least two-thirds of their lost money.

  Packy Noonan, Jo-Jo, and Benny were
in prison awaiting trial and wouldn’t set foot on a beach in Brazil or anywhere else for a long, long time. Milo had escaped with a slap on the wrist because of all the incriminating evidence he promised to offer and Opal’s strong testimony that he had clearly been an unwilling participant who became entangled in a criminal web of deceit. Milo was now back in Greenwich Village, writing poems about betrayal. The $50,000 bonus the police found at the farmhouse was counterfeit. But he’d already won an award for a poem he wrote about a flatbed.

  When the police had found Wayne Covel and his girlfriend Lorna tied up, Wayne tried to pretend he had no idea why Packy Noonan had done that to him. His testimony was shot down by the combined stories of Opal, Milo, Packy, Jo-Jo, and Benny. But as Wayne Covel then put it, “If it weren’t for me, Packy Noonan would be in Brazil now with all the investors’ money.” He pleaded guilty to destroying the branch of the tree and claimed that he was trying to figure out how to return the diamonds without admitting how he got them. That story raised a few eyebrows, but in his plea bargain he was sentenced to only twelve hours of community service. Some community service they’ll get out of that one, Viddy thought. His ex-girlfriend was back in Burlington, once again computer dating and looking for a kind and sensitive man. Lots of luck, Viddy thought.

  The hardest pill Packy had to swallow was that he didn’t know blue spruces grew from the top. He needn’t have cut down the tree. His flask was the same distance from the ground as it had been when he tied it there. If he had known that, he and the twins could have just gone around to the back of the tree, found Wayne standing on the ladder, forced him off it, and cut the branch that held the flask.

  Now Lem and Viddy were in the reserved section waiting for the tree to be lighted. Alvirah, Willy, Regan, Jack, Nora, Luke, Opal, Opal’s friend Herman Hicks, who Alvirah had told her was a recent lottery winner, and the three Grangers were with them. They’d all be heading back to Herman’s apartment after the ceremony. It was a beautiful cool night. Rockefeller Center was overflowing with people, and the streets surrounding it were all blocked off.

  “Viddy, you and Lem did a great job on the Today Show this morning,” Regan said. “You’re both naturals.”

  “You think so, Regan? Did my hair look all right?”

  “It better have looked all right, with what it cost!” Lem observed.

  “I loved having my makeup done,” Viddy admitted. “I told Lem I want to have it done again when we come back for your wedding.”

  “Lord, help me,” Lem mumbled.

  Opal and Bobby were sitting next to each other. He turned to her. “I’m really glad I was in that ski group with you,” he said.

  “I am, too,” Opal said.

  “’Cause otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  Opal laughed. “I wouldn’t be here or anywhere else!”

  Herman took her hand. “Please don’t say that, Opal.”

  “This is so beautiful,” Alvirah sighed as she admired the whole spectacle.

  Willy nodded and smiled. “Something tells me we’ll be stopping by every night for the next month.”

  “Alvirah, we never did get a look at your maple syrup tree,” Nora reminded her.

  “Honey, we missed a lot of the excitement,” Luke drawled.

  “I don’t need any more of that kind of excitement!” Opal protestd. “And believe me, from now on my money stays in a piggy bank. No more Packy Noonans in my life—the creep.”

  Christmas carols were being sung. It was one minute to the moment.

  It’s magical, Regan thought. Jack put his arm around her. That’s magical, too, she thought with a smile.

  The crowd started the countdown. “Ten, nine, eight…”

  Lem and Viddy held their breaths and entwined their hands. They watched as in a brilliant and breathtaking moment the tree they had loved for fifty years was suddenly ablaze with thousands of colored lights, and everyone in the gathered throng began to cheer.