Dear Santa

by Alice Orr

  “I’m just a friend of Ms. Fairchild’s. You don’t need to know my name,” he said. “I have to go now.”

  Vic pushed the door shut the rest of the way then and was relieved to hear the automatic lock engage. He listened what felt like a long time, but the officers didn’t knock again. If they talked the situation over between them after Vic closed the door, they must have walked off some distance to do it because he didn’t hear even the sound of muffled voices from the hallway. He kept listening until he was sure the cops had to be gone. He wished he also felt sure they wouldn’t be popping up in his face some time again soon.

  COYOTE BELLAWAY was worried about the police, too. They didn’t know where he was. Nobody knew that, but they could find out if he wasn’t really careful. That’s why he’d kept himself on the move. He’d thought a long time about where would be the best place to hide. Miss Fairchild’s house was what he came up with first, except he didn’t know her address. He had gone to Mr. Maltese’s last year for his Christmas party. Coyote never forgot a place he’d been to already, or how to get back there either, but he didn’t think he wanted to stay at Mr. Maltese’s. He still wasn’t too sure if he could trust the man. So, he’d been spending time in a building a few blocks away from Tooley’s apartment. It felt good to him to have a roof over his head and a place to sleep indoors instead of out in the snow.

  He’d been worried at first that he wouldn’t be able to get inside. There was one place, though, that people tended to get careless about when it came to closing up their houses. The basement windows, especially in the back of the building, could get forgotten. Maybe one would be cracked open to keep the basement from going musty. Then, since nobody was down there at the bottom of the house much, that window might stay unlatched. Sure enough, Coyote had found one he could push in and climb through.

  He didn’t have much in the way of furniture or other stuff, and he’d never been out of Albany in his whole life, but he pretended he was camping out. He let himself daydream for a while about a cabin in the woods, where he and Sprite and their mother and maybe Tooley could all live together. Then he stopped. Daydreams about things that weren’t going to happen could make a guy sad. Being sad just slowed him down, and he didn’t have time for that.

  He’d come here in the middle of the night when the snow got heavy and the wind was too cold for the cardboard boxes on the roof across from Tooley’s to keep him even sort of warm anymore. He’d already decided to get out of there anyway when he saw the police all over the place in the afternoon. Then he’d started figuring out where he should go and ended up coming here.

  He’d shimmied through the basement window and looked around, using the penlight he always kept in his pocket. He kept a jackknife in there, too, but the most important blade was broken. He’d tried three or four times to save up for a Swiss Army knife, but the money always got spent on something else. The penlight was what he’d needed when he came here, though. He’d found an old, dusty couch and sat down on it and next thing he knew he was waking up there with the light coming through the basement windows. He felt bad about sleeping so late when he should have been on the alert. He felt bad about spending a whole day stuck in this basement

  He also felt bad about losing track of Sprite. He knew Miss Fairchild had taken an interest in his sister, and he had a feeling she’d make sure Sprite was okay. Still, she was his sister and he was supposed to take care of her, but how could he do that when he didn’t know where she might be? Coyote had been worrying about that off and on ever since he got here. But he knew he had to stay inside, where he’d be safe, until he could figure out a plan.

  He wished he had a father around to help him outsmart the bad guys. But his father had taken off what seemed like so long ago. Thinking about that reminded Coyote of how his mom had told him he was the man of the family now. He didn’t feel like he was old enough for that, but he knew he had to do it anyway. Which meant he had to find Sprite and make sure she was all right. She’d be getting out of school for Christmas vacation today. She might be out of there already. She’d go to the Arbor Hill Center, then on to the party Mr. Maltese was having.

  He didn’t like to think about it being almost Christmas. Thinking about it might start him daydreaming again, and he couldn’t do that now. He had to get over to the center and see if he could catch a look at Sprite. The man of the family couldn’t waste his time on daydreams.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Katherine didn’t realize she was humming along with the carols until she actually began singing the words to “O Come All Ye Faithful.” The sound system had been playing Christmas music since shortly after she arrived at the center. Maybe that was why she’d been close to giddy in her meeting with the Board of Directors this morning. At least, she could blame the carols if anyone happened to notice how unusually exuberant she was today.

  It turned out that nobody did notice, after all. They were too preoccupied with speculating about who the generous person with the big donation to the Most Needy Cases Fund might be. The story had been in last night’s newspaper under Mariette Dugan’s byline, just as she’d said it would be. And, just as she’d also said, Mariette had dubbed the center’s benefactor Secret Santa. Curiosity about the contributor’s identity was running rampant from the center’s kitchen to the conference room where Katherine had barely managed to arrive on time for the special board meeting called to discuss allocation of the half-million-dollar gift.

  With everyone’s attention directed elsewhere, she’d allowed herself a few precious moments to relive the details of her night with Vic. She hadn’t wanted to leave him asleep in the hotel room that morning, and she’d had to drag herself from the cozy warmth of the bed they’d shared. She wondered what it would have been like to wake up together, to continue where they’d left off the night before. Still, she’d given a grateful sigh of relief that she’d checked her answering machine for messages that morning. She’d never have been able to explain her absence at the emergency board meeting. Instead, she’d left a note explaining her absence to Vic.

  She tuned back in to the conversations at the meeting, where everyone still speculated about who the Secret Santa could be. That question didn’t matter anywhere nearly as much to Katherine. The answer she cared about was the one to her prayers for the children and families she wanted to help, and that answer had arrived in the form of this amazing gift. As far as she was concerned, the check came from heaven, or a piece of heaven in somebody’s heart, anyway. Now, all she wanted to do was hand out a holiday grant to every single person who’d applied for one. The directors were, unfortunately, in a more sensible mood than Katherine this morning. They had insisted on sticking to the customary practice of verifying the financial circumstances of each applicant. She supposed they were right about this, except she suspected that anyone who put themselves through the embarrassment of asking for charity probably truly needed it. She was thinking particularly of the Bellaway children and Tooley Pennebaker and how hard they struggled just to get by. Maybe that’s why Katherine said what she did when the police arrived.

  “Yes, I’m Katherine Fairchild” was her answer to their first question. “What can I do for you?”

  Of course, she knew what they were here about, but she hadn’t yet decided how much she’d tell them.

  “We’re investigating the assault on your colleague Megan Moran,” the female officer said. “We understand that attack took place at your residence at…” She checked the small notepad she’d taken from the pocket of her blue shirt. “Four-forty-one State Street, apartment 2A.”

  “That’s my address,” Katherine said.

  “Do you think the assailant could have been after you?”

  The other police officer, a man older than his partner, had asked that question from behind her, where he’d been standing, keeping the area outside Katherine’s office in view and periodically glancing toward the adjoining corridor as if he might be expecting a criminal to approach from that direc
tion.

  “The possibility has occurred to me,” Katherine said.

  She and Vic had talked about that. Still, hearing it said out loud again sent a shiver trembling through her.

  “Do you have any idea who might want to harm you?” the male officer asked. “Maybe a boyfriend you broke up with?”

  The female officer looked pained for a moment. “My partner means we’re wondering if you’ve had any disagreements with anyone lately who might be angry enough to attack you.”

  “No old boyfriends. I can assure you of that,” Katherine said.

  She’d understood instantly why the other female officer appeared uncomfortable with having her partner assume that any trouble a woman ran into, especially violent trouble, would most likely have something to do with her love life.

  “Your friend, the one who got hit on the head, could have interrupted a thief in the midst of going about his business,” the male officer chimed in again. “Except this doesn’t look like robbery to me. I was at your place, and the usual goods a robber takes are all still there.”

  He’d turned his attention from the adjoining corridor and was staring at Katherine now. She could tell by the unflinching expression in his eyes that he wasn’t going to move away from his spurned-lover theory without a lot of convincing. She considered encouraging them to go on thinking that. The problem there would be the possibility of Vic’s name becoming involved. Whatever else she told these two police officers, Katherine knew she had no intention of mentioning Vic. But Coyote had never turned up again, and she was worried about the child’s safety. It was time to involve the police. She took a deep breath before speaking.

  “We’ve been having some problems here at the center involving two children named Coyote and Sprite Bellaway,” she began. “Maybe you’d like to sit down. This is a rather long story.”

  The female officer took the chair across from Katherine’s desk. Her partner stayed in the doorway, again dividing his attention between the corridor and what Katherine had to say. By the time she’d finished, she’d told them about Coyote’s grant application, his night on the mats in the equipment room, his sister Sprite’s claims about a man in a black car who was after Coyote, the break-in at Tooley Pennebaker’s, the slashing of Daniel’s portrait in Katherine’s apartment, and the fact that Coyote was still missing. She’d told them almost everything. The parts she left out had to do with any mention of Vic Maltese.

  “Are you anticipating another break-in, Ms. Fairchild?” the female officer asked just when Katherine had hoped the interview was at an end. “Is that why you’re staying at the Omni Hotel?”

  Katherine was taken more than a little by surprise.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Ms. Moran told us.”

  Katherine came close to breathing an audible sigh of relief but stopped herself.

  “We went there looking for you before we came here,” the male officer added.

  Katherine’s relief was short-lived.

  “You went to the hotel?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “We spoke to your friend.”

  He was staring at Katherine again. She had to force herself not to look away from his gaze.

  “What was your friend’s name?” he asked.

  Katherine took a moment to steel herself before replying, so she wouldn’t give in to her usual strictly law-abiding instincts.

  “He’s just a friend,” she said and stood up from her desk. “Now, if you’re finished asking questions, I have to get back to my work.”

  She was fairly certain they couldn’t force her to give them Vic’s name. She hoped they wouldn’t ask her too many times because she wasn’t sure she could keep on holding out. She thought about telling them she had to call her lawyer. The problem was the only lawyer she’d ever had was the one she’d hired in Chicago to handle her divorce. Fortunately, the police appeared to be giving up on her. The female officer rose from the chair and tucked the pad down into her shirt pocket while her partner continued to watch Katherine but took a step backward out of her office.

  “We may be in touch with you again,” the policewoman said. She pulled a business-card case from her coat pocket, took out a card and put it down on the edge of Katherine’s desk. “If you think of something further you’d like to tell us, you can call me at the number on this card.”

  “I’ll do that,” Katherine said without either picking up the card or looking at it.

  She really didn’t intend to cooperate, not if cooperation involved jeopardizing Vic. After the police left her office, she watched the parking lot from her window, waiting for them to emerge from the building and drive away. All the while, she was praying they wouldn’t come across Vic on their way out. She hadn’t seen him yet. In fact, she’d been wondering earlier why he hadn’t called her or stopped in to see her if he’d come into the center. In that note she’d left on her side of the bed this morning, she’d asked him to call her here at the center when he got up.

  She was relieved to see the two police officers striding across the parking lot toward their car. Katherine ducked back from her window so they wouldn’t catch her in the act of spying on them. She headed out from behind her desk and through the doorway that led to the center’s main corridor. She was past the reception office when she saw Vic come out of the gymnasium farther down the hall. A thrill shot through her at the sight of him, and she had to stop herself from calling his name. He had his back to her, and he wasn’t alone. Vic and the man he was with had their heads together in conversation and didn’t appear to notice Katherine. His companion turned, and she saw him more clearly for a moment before he leaned toward Vic again.

  In that instant, she dropped her hand and closed her mouth. She also grabbed the doorknob of the office she’d been about to pass, turned the knob and stepped inside.

  She held the door open a crack and peered through the opening to watch Vic and his companion. They still stood in what looked like an intimate conversation down the hall. Vic was doing most of the talking, actually, while the other man nodded and seemed to be listening very carefully. That man’s appearance was what had made Katherine want to disappear from view. He was as tall as Vic and almost as broad. He also had similar thick, black hair, but that was where the similarity ended. Vic was handsome and strongfeatured. This man had strong features as well, but the impression they left was not an attractive one. From her first glimpse of him, Katherine was certain she was looking at a dangerous man.

  She watched from behind the office door and wished she could hear what this man and Vic were saying to each other. She didn’t like to think that Vic had such friends. She was telling herself that they could be less than that, maybe only acquaintances, when Vic reached up and patted the other man on the back. In response, he gripped Vic around the shoulders in a friendly bear hug. Katherine sighed. She was about to close the door quietly and wait out of sight till the two had left the corridor. Before she could do that, she saw the large man with Vic look quickly down the corridor just as she eased the door shut.

  Katherine pressed her back against the closed door. She was breathing hard all of a sudden, as if she’d run the length of the corridor outside at least a couple of times. She didn’t question why she was so winded. She recognized her reaction as fear and shock at what else she’d seen when Vic’s companion glanced down the hallway. She’d seen his hand move reflexively inside the front of the long, dark coat he was wearing and onto the hand grip of the gun in a holster he wore underneath his arm.

  KATHERINE FELT GUILTY about laying her personal problems on Megan when she was flat on her back in the hospital, but their telephone conversation seemed to gravitate that way without much help from Katherine.

  “If they don’t let me out of here soon, I’m going to start using bedpans for frisbees,” Megan said, sounding every bit her usual, irrepressible self. “You’d be surprised how close I can get one of those things to somebody’s head without actually making contact. Th
ere’s a floor supervisor here who’d make a perfect target.”

  Katherine laughed, despite the tension that had her sitting so stiff in her chair the cold outside might have frozen her there.

  “I can tell you’re definitely on the mend,” she said.

  “My doctor will be in here this afternoon for one more check before they’ll release me.”

  “I feel just terrible that this happened to you at my place.”

  That was the absolute truth, too. Katherine hadn’t stopped feeling guilty since the moment she found Megan on the floor. It didn’t help to know that Megan had stopped by to visit her when she’d happened upon Katherine’s intruder. The attacker had struck too quickly for Megan to get a look at whoever it might have been.

  “I feel just terrible that this was probably meant to happen to you instead of me,” said Megan in a much more serious tone this time.

  Katherine didn’t want to dwell on that.

  “Do you think the doctor will let you leave when he sees you this afternoon?” she asked.

  “He’d better do just that, or I intend to cut a swath through this place wide as Santa’s sleigh with all his reindeer attached, including that changeling Rudolf.”

  Katherine laughed again.

  “So tell me what’s bugging you,” Megan said. “That laugh of yours sounds about as tinny as me singing ‘Jingle Bells.”’

  Katherine hadn’t intended to go into detail. She’d counted on Megan’s wonderful humor to ease the anxiety all by itself. Now, she found herself pouring out the whole story, including the night at the hotel, though she didn’t go into detail there. Megan, who was maybe the most outspoken person Katherine had ever known, remained discreetly without comment on the hotel part of the story.

  “What do you mean when you say the guy Vic was talking to looked dangerous?” Megan asked instead.

  “It’s hard to answer that in concrete terms. When I saw his face, I got this feeling.” She paused to remember that moment. “His eyes. The feeling I had about him came from seeing his eyes.”