Smith's Monthly #13

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  After pulling into our driveway and parking, she patted me on the leg and suggested that I not tell anyone about my adventure with my alien friend.

  Then she laughed again and told me that a bad headache and hallucinations were what I deserved for drinking too much eggnog and trying to look up Dotty’s skirt.

  Even though the lump on my head hurt something awful at that moment, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut. Probably the only smart thing I had done all night.

  A mystery story about a grown man, an attorney, alone on Christmas Eve, who can’t allow himself to believe in Santa Claus.

  But someone keeps eating the cookies. Every year.

  Just as it happened in his childhood. Maybe Santa Claus really does exist.

  Or maybe, just maybe, this skeptic needs to understand where the jolly fat man lives.

  SANTA’S SNACK

  ONE

  The fat old bastard ate the whole thing. Again.

  I was twenty-seven years old, a lawyer in a big downtown firm, and lived alone in my parent’s old Victorian house. I didn’t believe in Santa Claus.

  Yet again this Christmas morning, every crumb of the dozen sugar cookies I had left on one of Mom’s best plates, every drop of the milk, was gone.

  Just like every Christmas Eve for the last twenty years, the cookies and milk had disappeared at some time during the night.

  “Got you this time,” I said, staring at the empty plate.

  For three years I’d been trying to catch the person eating the cookies, and for three years I had failed. But this Christmas this joke was going to end.

  I turned and headed for the hidden cameras I had had installed around the room. Six of them, two on the shelves behind the couch, one on each side of the stone fireplace, one over the entrance, and one over the big bay window near where the Christmas tree sat. Nothing could have moved in the living room last night without me knowing about it.

  Back when I was a kid I used to believe Santa actually ate the snack, but then when I learned that Santa didn’t exist, I figured Dad did it.

  And I had believed that for years.

  One year, when I was home from law school for Christmas, before my parents were both killed by that damned drunk driver, I had asked Mom why she kept putting out the cookies and milk.

  “Tradition,” she had said, smiling at me as she slid the dozen sugar cookies onto the coffee table. It was always sugar cookies, with white frosting and some sprinkles. I loved the things, always had, still did. Every year as a kid I ate those cookies from two days before Christmas and a week after. Those cookies had been as much a part of Christmas for me as the presents and the tree.

  My mom’s answer of tradition had been enough of an answer for me that year. It sort of made sense in a Christmas fashion. My mom had been big into traditions, and I had to admit, I liked a few of them myself.

  The next morning those cookies she had put out for tradition’s sake were gone, just like always. I figured Dad must really enjoy his Christmas Eve midnight snack.

  Then, on the Christmas Eve after I moved back in after their deaths, I found myself alone and remembering all the wonderful Christmases in the big old house. I really missed my parents, missed my mom’s laugh, my dad’s snoring from down the hall. And tomorrow I was going to miss waking up to the wonderful smells of my mom cooking a Christmas turkey. I knew this first Christmas was going to be rough, but I didn’t expect it to be this hard.

  Twice during the evening I put on my coat to leave and find a bar, and twice I stopped before going out the door. I think the problem was that I had made the house look a little too much like they were still here. I had put up a tree, in the same spot they always did, using the same decorations Mom used.

  Traditions died hard in my family, of that there was no doubt.

  I was sitting, staring at the tree when it suddenly dawned on me I had missed one tradition.

  The cookies.

  The coffee table looked empty without Mom’s offering for Santa. Without the cookies there, it sort of made the room seem even emptier than it felt.

  So being in a sentimental and sad mood, and wanting to not break any traditions of my parents so soon after their deaths, and wanting any excuse to get out of the house for even a few minutes, I went out and got some store-bought sugar cookies and some milk. Then on the same plate as she always used, I put out her offering.

  It made me laugh at myself for going to such lengths to do such a silly thing, but for a while the room felt right, felt like a Christmas Eve like the old days.

  I figured it was going to be sad in the morning when the cookies were still there and I finally got my answer as to who had eaten the cookies every year.

  But the cookies and milk were gone the next morning.

  I stood there in my bathrobe, the tree lights not even turned on, staring at the empty plate, totally freaked out. My stomach twisted in a combination of fear and excitement. More than likely some friend was pulling a trick on me, trying to cheer me up or something.

  It spooked me, yet for an instant I believed in the magic of the moment, in the excitement of the holiday, in the tradition itself. Then the law school training took over and I started looking for how it had happened.

  I checked the doors and windows. Nothing was open and nothing had been disturbed. And over the next few days I asked every one of my friends if they had eaten the cookies. They responded with varied looks of worry, followed by laughter.

  Just like when I was a kid, the only logical explanation was that Santa ate the cookies and drank the milk, but there was no Santa.

  And Dad was dead.

  So there was no explanation.

  TWO

  The next year I put out the cookies and milk again, feeling damned silly again. I figured I had imagined the cookies gone last year, but just in case, this year I planned on sitting in the living room during the night. No one was going to pull some dumb stunt on me this year.

  Somewhere along the way, more than likely during the sixth boring Christmas special, like a bad cliché, I fell asleep. When I woke up, the cookies and milk were again gone.

  I ran like a mad man around the house checking every window, every door. No one had gotten in. I had even put on the security chains on both my doors.

  Yet the damn cookies were gone again.

  It couldn’t have happened, yet it had.

  That kind of puzzle will drive a logical-thinking lawyer nuts. Again I asked my friends, and again got laughs and head shakes.

  I spent the week between Christmas and New Years doing nothing but walking around inside and outside my house, looking for any way anyone might be getting in. I even went up on the roof and checked for an attic entrance. But I knew the big old house, had grown up in it, and there just wasn’t a way inside that I didn’t know about.

  Those damned missing cookies ate at me the entire year.

  The next year on Christmas Eve I made sure the glass was completely clean, and I used gloves to fill it and place it on the table with the cookies. And I did my best to again stay awake, without luck.

  When the milk and cookies were gone again the next morning, and I got finished running around the house checking every window, every door for the tenth time, I went back to the empty plate and glass. I remember saying, “Got you now.”

  I carefully took the glass to a friend of mine who had some crime lab experience. Even though it was Christmas morning, as a favor for what must have seemed a very disturbed friend, he dusted the glass for fingerprints and found none.

  Someone had drunk the milk without leaving a trace.

  So now, finally, this year, I was going to know exactly how this trick was pulled off. This year I had the hidden cameras recording every inch of the living room and the offering of cookies and milk on the coffee table near the old stone fireplace.

  And again the cookies and milk were gone in the morning, just like every year.

  I played the recording back. The camera was focused
clearly on the table and Santa’s snack. I fast-forwarded to a point where suddenly the cookies were gone, then rewound to a minute before the moment and played the tape.

  Nothing. One minute the cookies were there, the next instant they were gone.

  It was exactly the same way on the other recordings from the other cameras. It took me a good half day of walking around my house, afraid to even touch the empty plate on the coffee table, before it dawned on me to check the time counter on the recordings.

  No time was missing from any of the recordings. The cookies and milk had just vanished in what seemed like an instant.

  That made no sense.

  But nothing about the missing cookies made logical sense, and with no hard answers coming, all I could do was wait until the next Christmas and try something else.

  But during that year my life changed.

  I met Brin, a wonderful brunette woman with deep brown eyes and a swimmer’s body. Brin was an attorney as well, working for the city, and had a six-year-old child named Zack from a previous marriage. We dated, going slow at first, then as we slowly fell in love everything changed.

  We were married right after Thanksgiving, and by the time Christmas rolled around, she and Zack were living with me in my big old Victorian house. For the first time since my parents had died, it actually felt like a home again.

  We did all the Christmas things, cutting down our own tree, putting presents under it, buying stuff for each other and Zack from Santa. And we even made sugar cookies together, although I swear more icing got on us than on the cookies.

  Then, without me realizing it, it was Christmas Eve.

  I had never told Brin about my crazy obsession of the last number of Christmas Eves. It just never came up. And I didn’t see much point in telling her now. If the cookies disappeared again, we’d talk about it in the morning.

  But for now it was Christmas Eve. The cameras were long gone, the tree was in a slightly different place closer to the window, and I hadn’t even had the time to come up with a way to try to catch my cookie thief.

  “My mom had a tradition,” I said as I came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of the sugar cookies and a glass of milk. Brin was on the couch and Zack was on the floor, staring at the presents under the tree. I had built a small fire in the fireplace and it added a comfortable glow and warmth to the room.

  “What’s that?” Brin asked.

  “We have to leave a snack for Santa.”

  Brin laughed and kissed me as Zack got excited, begging his mother to let him stay up and see Santa.

  “Trust me,” I told him, “Santa doesn’t want to be seen. I know, I’ve tried.”

  “So did I,” Brin said, kissing me on the cheek. “Three straight years.”

  “Then why can’t I try?” Zack asked.

  “Maybe next year,” Brin said, laughing.

  THREE

  After Zack had gone off to bed, Brin and I spent a few hours watching television, getting the last of the presents under the tree, and then we went off to bed.

  Around four in the morning I awoke. For some reason I thought I had heard a noise down in the living room, so I went to investigate. The room was dark except for a few embers left from the fire, so I turned on the tree lights and looked around.

  Nothing. And the cookies were still there, along with the milk. For some reason, that surprised me.

  The lights of the tree were beautiful, the reds and oranges and greens casting wonderful shadows around the room. I dropped down on the couch and put my feet up beside the cookies, just letting myself stare at the tree and feel the wonderful calm and happiness that went along with the evening.

  There was life in the big old house again. I just hoped my parents were watching from somewhere and smiling at the moment.

  “Waiting for Santa?” Brin asked as she came into the room and joined me on the couch, her white bathrobe tucked under her for extra warmth.

  “Just enjoying the moment,” I said. “It’s great having you and Zack here.”

  “It’s great being here,” she said, snuggling against me. “It feels like we’re a family.”

  “We are,” I said as she snuggled against me.

  We sat there for the longest time, staring at the wonderful lights, enjoying the moment.

  I wondered how many times my parents must have done the same thing. Maybe this was part of the tradition my mom had talked about.

  Maybe it was the power of that tradition that had carried through the years, maybe bringing them back over the last few Christmas Eves to eat the cookies I left out for them.

  But now the cookies and the milk and playing Santa was our tradition, mine and Brin’s.

  I leaned forward and picked up the plate, offering a cookie to Brin. “Have a cookie, Santa?”

  She laughed and took one.

  “You know,” she said, “I always knew my mom and dad were Santa. I just never expected to some day become one myself.”

  I took a cookie and put the plate back. “I know what you mean.”

  Over the next hour we talked, we laughed, we sat quietly staring at the lights of the tree. By the time we started out of the room to go back to bed, the cookie plate was almost empty, with only one cookie remaining.

  Then, just before I reached to turn off the lights, I noticed the one last cookie was now gone.

  “Ate Santa’s last cookie, huh?” I asked Brin.

  Brin turned, waiting for me in the doorway to the hall. “Not me. Five was my limit. See you in bed.” She headed down the hallway.

  I turned and stared at the empty plate again, just as I had done for the past four years.

  Then suddenly Mom and Dad were standing beside the tree, smiling at me as if I were Zack’s age, opening presents.

  I wanted to call for Brin to turn around, see if she saw them too, but I didn’t. This was just between me and my parents.

  Mom smiled, Dad smiled, and then he held up the last cookie as if to say thanks.

  I nodded a welcome and smiled as well.

  Then as he bit into the cookie, they faded and were gone.

  I stood there staring at the space where they had been, feeling content for the first time since they had died. I missed them, sure, but for some reason, for the first time I was at peace with losing them.

  I flipped off the tree lights and headed for bed, just as I am sure Dad had done for years and years, his stomach full from the cookies and milk.

  The next morning Zack stood staring wide-eyed at the empty cookie plate. I knew exactly what he was thinking, because at his age I had thought the same thing.

  Santa hadn’t forgotten him.

  I had to wonder why, during the previous four years, I hadn’t thought that same thing. Why hadn’t I just accepted the fact that the cookies being gone proved I hadn’t been forgotten. Alone, the idea hadn’t seemed logical, but now, with a wonderful family around me on Christmas morning, it seemed perfectly right.

  Santa always got a snack.

  He hadn’t forgotten to come to this house. It was a tradition.

  Existence

  The guy that sat

  in the third chair

  of the fifth row

  of my tenth grade

  high school

  math class

  died

  last night.

  I can’t remember what he looked like.

  When murder matters more than the cookie.

  Red sugar sparkles on white cookie icing. Blood drops on a snowdrift. Who would have thought that decorating Christmas cookies would remind him of a murder he may or may not have done.

  Reality, dream, or memory: Only murder matters.

  First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 2005, I really wanted to give this story life yet again.

  SPRINKLE ON A MEMORY

  ONE

  Red sugar sparkles on white cookie icing.

  Blood drops on a snowdrift.

  Who would have thought that decorating Chris
tmas cookies with my kid would remind me of a murder. A murder I had no real memory of doing, yet I had no doubt I had done.

  I could bring back a few details. The feel of the cold of the night air, the white of the snow under the light from my car’s headlights, and the smell of hot blood from the woman’s throat. I have a memory of her blood spraying, just like all my victim’s blood did. Her blood had left red dots all over the snow bank. Why hadn’t I remembered her, or that night, or the blood on the snow before now?

  Had I killed too many? Or maybe she was one I had yet to kill.

  “You all right, Dad?” my daughter, Jennifer, asked.

  My mind snapped out of the vision, or the memory, and came back to the kitchen table. The bright-lit room smelled of baking cookies and felt too warm by a few degrees.

  I was sitting at our tablecloth-covered oak table, across from my daughter, Jennifer. My wife, Lisa, was taking another batch out of the oven. Decorating cookies had been a tradition in our family since before Jennifer was born. I always enjoyed it. It made it feel like the Christmas season.

  I had my hand poised over a cookie, the few bits of red sprinkles still in my hand, the rest on the white icing.

  Like blood drops on snow.

  “Changed my mind,” I said, smiling at Jennifer. “I think this one needs green.”

  “You’re strange, Dad,” Jennifer said, laughing and shaking her head before going back to work on getting the exact right color on an angel cookie.

  My wife Lisa laughed also, but it was a fond laugh. For some reason she loved me and all my quirks. Why such a beautiful, brown-haired, brown-eyed smart woman would love me, I had no idea. But I was very glad she did.

  Neither she nor Jennifer had any idea about my little hobby, as I thought of my killing. Everyone in the city, I was sure, had heard of me. I was what the newspapers and police called “The Foothills Killer.” I got the nickname because I always dumped my victims up in the foothills above the city of Boise.