Storiesonline.net
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                        Santa's Special Delivery
                               by Lubrican

Copyright© 2010 by Lubrican


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Description: Bob was a cop, but his hobby was playing Santa every year to find a family that deserved a little help. Then he and his friends helped them. This year, though, things went wrong during the delivery, and Santa suddenly had to go back to being a cop. In the process, Santa got a present too.

Codes: MF cons reluc preg slow
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Chapter 1

I always wanted to be a cop, from the time I was a little guy. When all my friends wanted to play cowboys and Indians, I wanted to be the sheriff. I was in Boy Scouts too, which eventually led to me being in an Explorer troop sponsored by the Crowley Police Department, or CPD as we called it. Of course I got a degree in Criminal Justice when I went to college.

So I always knew that law enforcement would have a big impact on my life. What I did not know was that something along the way to getting my degree would have an even bigger one.

What that was, was one of the many part time jobs I had while I was in school. I had a small scholarship, but I still needed money for books and living expenses. One of those jobs was as the Santa at Burgdorf's Department Store, from Thanksgiving up until Christmas Eve.

It was the typical Santa gig, where kids came up and sat on my lap and told me what they wanted for Christmas. One of the things I learned early on was that not all kids are excited about a big guy in a bright red suit and all that facial hair, and who has a booming voice and moves quickly. It scares the crap out of some kids. I also found out there are kids who don't really believe in Santa, but still want to hedge their bets. So they'll sit on his lap and ask for things, but they ask a lot of questions too. And then, of course, there are the kids who just want to make trouble. As a cop I deal with them when they're grown up, but I can tell you it starts much earlier than that. I've had my beard pulled off a dozen times, and some attempts made to uncover the pillows they know I'm stuffed with. I even had one kid stick a pocket knife in my fake belly and then jump off my lap, crowing that he proved Santa doesn't exist because it didn't hurt when he stabbed me.

But I was still hooked on doing it, and that's because of the kids who did believe. The hope in their eyes is something that still brings tears to my own.

Of course some of them ask for impossible things, and there's nothing you can do about that. "Please bring something that will cure my daddy's cancer," is an example. I mean it tears your heart out. Sometimes you can talk to those kids in a way that gives them a little hope without making promises you can't deliver on. Like with that last example, I told the little girl that I would try to help the doctors and researchers be as smart as they possibly could be, so they could find a cure if at all possible. It's not much, but it's better than lying or saying "Get off my lap, kid. I'm no doctor!"

Don't laugh. There are some guys who play Santa who don't give a shit. They're just there for the money, and if the pay you get as a Santa makes that much difference to you, then you're in a world of shit already.

But there are a few of us out there who become Santa when we put the suit on. It's hard to explain, because it sounds stupid, and "Santa" means many different things to different people.

Maybe by the time I finish telling this story, you'll understand what Santa means to me, and who I tried to become when I was wearing the big, red suit.

First off, I spent the money to get a good wig and beard. I put the beard on with gum Arabic. When properly applied, it will withstand a pretty hard tug. And they look a lot more natural, of course. I also bought my own suit, but all that wasn't until years later, after I graduated from college.

It's still one of my hobbies, you see. I've been doing it now going on twenty years. Every winter I volunteer to work New Year's Eve in exchange for being able to take some vacation during Christmas time, so I can be Santa some place. It doesn't matter where, to me. It can be in a big store, though I don't like those as much, because they tend to try to get you to shill their own stuff. But I've done it in malls and smaller stores too.

The reason it doesn't matter is that I have an ulterior motive. No matter where I pursue this little hobby, I invariably meet some kid whose family could use a little help. And that's where the rest of the guys in the CPD come in.

I made Detective Sergeant after ten years on the force. I'm not being immodest when I say that I'm one of the most experienced men in the unit, and that I never miss the opportunity to train up patrolmen who look like they have promise. Doesn't matter whether they might go to some other department because there are no openings for detectives in ours. Good law enforcement is something you can't have too much of. We're all role models, whether we want to be or not. I've tried to make sure I was a good one.

Which is why some of the men noticed that I was buying presents for some of the kids who sat on my lap when I was Santa, and who weren't likely to get what they asked for any other way.

You can call it charity, or do-gooder stuff. A lot of men have called it stupid. I don't care. I know what a wish coming true can mean to a kid, even if it's only for a little while. And helping a kid feel good, even if it's for only a few days, is worth doing in my book.

I'm not talking about toys, for the most part, though I have gotten a few of them. But if a kid asks for some shoes, because his have holes in them, and more often if they ask for something for someone else in the family, that's where I try to put my energy and money.

What I started doing was picking a kid or two and making his or her Christmas a little brighter. Over the years, some of the other guys got caught up in it and started donating a few bucks to me around Christmas time. Then, because some of the guys were helping get things, I had them deliver them, and that's what hooked them and some of their non-cop friends.

Now I have a whole network of people, probably fifty or sixty strong at any given time, who either collect stuff to give to needy kids at Christmas or donate money and time during the season. Last year we helped a total of twenty-five families.

So that's why, last December seventh, I was sitting on a big gold painted chair dressed as Santa when a little boy named Timothy climbed up on my lap and changed my whole life.

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Timothy was seven when I first met him. I was forty-eight and was about six months shy of having put twenty hard years into the cause of serving justice. Twenty years of dealing with the dregs of society changes a man, no matter how hard he tries to keep looking at the glass as being half full.

Doing the Santa thing kind of recharged my batteries. At least unless I got one of the future felons. But I had learned to spot them, and was usually ready for them. I had an elf with a "Naughty List" and I dictated the kid's name onto it, which then gave me an excuse to tell him to take off.

Anyway, Timothy wasn't one of those. He was one of the smart ones. They're the most interesting, but can be dangerous, too. I could see the intelligence in his eyes as he climbed up the steps toward me, leaving his mother behind. She was interesting too. I may as well go ahead and explain that now.

You get a feel for where people are on the socio-economic ladder. It's not profiling, exactly, but poor people wear their clothes a little longer before getting rid of them, whether they're of good quality or not. Poor women don't wear the kind or amount of makeup wealthy ones do. They don't have the same kinds of hairdos. There are hundreds of differences that suggest a man, woman or child comes from a family with few or many means. It's not a hundred percent accurate, but you get a feel for things when you deal with all levels of society like I had for so long.

Both Timothy and his mother were wearing quality clothing. Her jeans were well worn in that soft, many-times-washed way. She didn't abuse them by ripping them up to be fashionable. Her tennis shoes were Converse All Stars, but not the most expensive kind. Her T shirt had a logo on it, but it wasn't one of the big fashion houses. She looked tired, but then traipsing around with a eight or nine year old - that's what range I put Timothy in - can wear anybody down. Her hair was blond, from a bottle, but not an expensive one, and short with enough unevenness to the edges that I suspected one of her friends cut it for her. Timothy had a home cut too. I put Mom in her early to mid-twenties. The only thing that looked odd about her was that her skin was just flawless, and creamy looking in a way that made you want to reach out and touch it. Things glinted from the edges of her ears, and she had a choker on, which made me uncomfortable because it made her look like a slave who had slipped away from her master and might be snatched up by some other monster at any moment.

I gave a few second's consideration to the possibility that she was Timothy's much older sister, but she turned just then and I saw an orange and yellow tattoo on her shoulder that had to be at least ten years old.

"Ho, ho, ho," I boomed as the boy approached. "And what is your name, young man?"

"I thought you knew the names of all the boys and girls in the whole world," he said, looking at me curiously.

"I have lists of their names," I said. I had faced this situation before.

"Oh," he said. "I'm Timothy."

"Glad to meet you Tim," I said.

"Timothy," he corrected.

"Absolutely. Why don't you have a seat on old Santa's lap, Timothy. How old are you?"

"I'm seven," he said. He looked back at his mother, who was looking our way. She smiled, and he got up on my lap. For some reason I let him do the work, instead of helping him, like I did with most kids.

"Seven year olds are my favorites," I said, my voice conspiratorial. He looked up at me.

"I didn't think Santa was supposed to have favorites."

That was one I had not faced before.

"Well ... er ... I guess that's right, really. I suppose I just have a soft spot in my heart for that age, because that was my favorite age to be once upon a time."

"You were seven?" he asked, clearly awed at the concept.

"Absolutely!" I said. "I grew up just like you are growing up. It just took me longer, that's all. I was seven for seven years, for instance." I grinned at the boy.

"You mean like dog years?" he asked, his eyes wide.

I laughed, and had to turn it into a 'ho, ho, ho'.

"What can I bring you for Christmas, Timothy?"

He took a few seconds to answer, as if he was thinking hard ... maybe choosing between two or three wanted things, so that he wouldn't sound greedy by asking for them all. Some kids did that, which was interesting because some of them knew they were being greedy, but others were just talking about things they wished they could have. Some kids know the difference between fantasy and reality. Others don't. I saw Timothy's mother sidle closer to us, so she could hear his answer. Smart woman.

"There's this girl named Julia in my school," said Timothy, looking at me as if he expected me to know who he was talking about. I nodded to play along. "Last year you brought her a baby sister."

"Oh." I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"So I want a little brother, so I have somebody to play with."

I glanced at the woman, who was shaking her head at me. Smart woman.

"That's kind of a hard one to do," I said softly. "I can't make babies in my workshop, and so the only ones I get to give away are the orphans, when something happens to their mommy and daddy. But we don't want that to happen to some little boy, right?"

His little shoulders drooped. "I guess not," he said. He thought some more, and then looked up into my face. "Can I ask for something for somebody else?"

I nodded. I could feel moisture building up in my eyes. I'm really an old softy at heart. At least when I'm not chasing some asshole down an alley.

"I don't know what it is," he said. "But I know you could bring my mommy something that would make her happy. She frowns a lot and has to work a lot. I wish she could be more happy."

"I'll see what I can do," I said. I had already decided this kid was one of the ones we'd pick this season. I reached into my pocket and hit the speed dial button on my cell phone. That would set things in motion. When they left, they'd be followed to a car, or even back to their house if they took public transportation. Once a license number or residence was identified, there were any number of public records that could be used to ascertain who they were, and we could arrange for things to be delivered to them. We usually did that on Christmas Eve. I didn't ask any of the guys to give up Christmas morning with their families. I took care of that if it became necessary. I had no family. Before I let him go I got him to name one toy he thought might be fun to play with. Then he climbed down and skipped back to his mother. The photographer was talking to her but she was shaking her head.

Parents send their kids to Santa for different reasons. For some it's just a holiday custom they hope will be fun for the child. Or maybe fun for them. Who knows? Some make Santa into a baby sitter while they try to shop. I've even had a few come up to me before their kid does and try and tell me what to tell him I'll bring. They already have the presents, and don't want him asking for something he's not going to get. Then there is the occasional parent who actually wants to hear what he'll tell the Jolly Old Elf. Blondie was one of those.

She was slick about it. I heard her say "I want to go thank Santa for something he gave me a while back. I forgot to write him a thank you note. You wait here for me, all right?" He nodded and she came toward me. I didn't mind that a bit, because she was a looker. She had high, tight breasts that were obviously unfettered, based on the nipples making dents in her shirt. She had a smooth kind of walk, and for just a second I felt ill as I recognized some hooker attributes in her movements. Once she spoke, though, it was obvious she was well educated, and that meant if she was in the business she was a high priced call girl, and high priced call girls didn't have seven year olds and dress like that. I felt better already.

"Hi ... Santa," she said. Her voice was high. It made shivers go down my spine.

"Hello there, ho, ho, ho," I said. My 'ho, ho, ho's' were so ingrained by now that I could make a natural laugh come out that way. And my fake ones sounded natural.

"Thanks for being nice to him," she said.

"No problem." Our little game was over and now we were just two adults negotiating.

"The last thing I need is to be pregnant," she said.

I waited.

"I couldn't hear him during the last part," she said. "What did he actually ask for?"

Now we were one adult and Santa, negotiating. She just didn't know that yet.

"I've got it covered," I said jovially. "Just get him something from yourself."

"I've saved a little up," she said, frowning. "If he doesn't want an X-box or something like that I can handle it."

"He asked me to bring you something to make you happy," I said softly. "Timothy is on my good list for sure."

"He can be so sweet sometimes," she sighed.

"So what would make you happy?" I asked.

She snorted. "Being able to get by on just one job would be nice."

"You'll have to take care of that," I said. "What can Santa bring you for Christmas that would make you happy?"

She looked at me guardedly. "I'll be happy if Timothy is happy," she said.

"Then you go on about your business and I'll take care of Timothy for Christmas. It's my job."

"That's not funny," she said, leaning back.

"It isn't supposed to be funny," I said. "Do you believe?"

"Do I believe what?" she asked.

"In me, of course."

"In Santa?" She sounded incredulous.

"Believe," I ordered.

She backed up, her eyes guarded. It was obvious she had come to the conclusion she'd found herself a certified weirdo.

"Thanks," she said. "I'll do that." She didn't say it sarcastically. It was more like she was trying to placate the weirdo so he'd leave her alone.

"I'll see you Christmas Eve," I said.

She scooped up Timothy's hand and hurried off. I saw Tom Black watching from his position over by the perfume kiosk and pointed. He nodded and picked them up. I turned back to the line and motioned the next kid, a girl who had to be twelve if she was a day, on up. She was rattling off her list, and it was a long one, before she even got all the way to me. 



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Chapter 2

Charlie came in and sat down in the chair beside my desk. He had a manila folder in his hands. He flipped it open and recited. "Eva Sinderson, twenty-seven year old, no priors, but was identified as the victim of domestic assault three times before she got a restraining order against one Wallace Gardner, who is a piece of work. Got a rap sheet as long as my arm, including assault, theft, extortion, criminal threats, weapons violations and criminal damage to property. Seems to have a taste for various controlled substances too. He's currently in the slammer for resisting arrest and assault on a police officer, doing eighteen months to two years. Eva Lives at 2206 Maple. Has one known child, Timothy Daniel Sinderson, seven years old, who is popular and, according to the principal, very deserving of our attentions. Mom is involved and helpful whenever the school needs her to be. School records show permission for Carla Hernendez to pick Timmy up at school. We don't have much on Carla yet."

I sat back. "Employment?"

"Waits tables at Angelino's. Cleans rooms at the Ramada on the weekends. Has a license to perform as a clown when juveniles are present, but I don't get any sense she's worked the clown angle for a while. Hard to do when you don't have wheels."

"No vehicle?"

"One older Ford that's been parked for quite a while. It could use tires, turn signals and some glass, according to Black. He says it looks like somebody worked it over with a ball bat. The only reason it hasn't been towed is because it's in the driveway instead of on the street."

"When was the restraining order?" I asked.

He looked through the file. "Looks like it was about a week before he went into the slammer. Latest domestic was the same date he was busted for resisting arrest, but the assault charges were dropped."

"So he got out on bail and convinced her not to press charges," I said. "But he didn't count on the cops pushing their part, and ended up in jail anyway."

"Back in jail," said Charlie. "He's been in and out since he turned eighteen."

"Sounds like she could use a little happiness," I said.

"Damn straight," said Charlie.

"Okay then," I said. "She and Timothy are confirmed on Santa's list."

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On the recommendation of Timothy's teacher, who was sworn to secrecy, it was determined that Timothy would enjoy a good set of artist's pencils, because he liked to draw and, according to the teacher, was good at it. Tanya, Charlie's wife, is a painter, so I asked her if she'd choose the right stuff. She got him a case that had a couple of hundred pencils in it, along with chalk and who knows what else. It was a nice set, just the thing for Santa to bring him.

It wasn't possible to get good info on Eva without risking her finding out what was going on. The people she worked for are the kind of people who get hinky whenever they're contacted by the cops, and would warn her we were asking questions because they would never believe somebody would do what we do at Christmas. So I winged it, as usual, and got her a gift card charged up with 250 dollars. I figured that would widen those lovely eyes. It was a starter VISA card that one of the local banks worked with us on. Once the money was gone, she could actually open an account and deposit money into the card balance, or just toss it.

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Our little group has its own tradition. If it's adults we're helping, we usually just send them things in the mail, with a note that it's from Santa. If kids are involved, we try to deliver everything on Christmas Eve. But that's also a time for family, so we have a get together the evening of the 23rd, and have dinner. It's always a pot luck kind of gathering, and people expect more desserts than actual food, but that's part of the fun. While we eat, we make the final arrangements for everything. It sounds like it's a big operation, but it's really not. The most we've ever done is twelve kids, and that year five of them were siblings, so there were only nine deliveries. We don't have the same players every year either. Some years some people in the group can participate, and other years give other folks a chance. But the dinner is for everybody in the group, which is comprised of about twenty-five people in all. That doesn't count donors who don't want to be a member of the actual "Santa team."

During this year's pre-Christmas Eve gathering, we had eighteen people, which was a good crowd. A lot of the wives like to be involved in the deliveries, most of which are very straightforward. The "spiel" is personalized by each "elf" but it generally goes something like this:

"Hi. I'm one of Santa's helpers, and he's got a runner problem on the sleigh tonight, so we've been drafted to deliver some of the presents. These are for you."

It's that short and that sweet. It's in and out, without answering questions, if possible. Usually people are stunned, and you can get out before they gather their wits. If there are kids present, they pretty much freak out, which also distracts the adults. I think the women just like being mysterious, and seeing the excitement on the faces of people who thought Christmas was going to be pretty thin.

I do know that excitement is contagious. I know this because the guys tell me how the women act when they get home, all flushed with that excitement. To be honest, I think that's why more than a few of the guys joined the group - to tap into some of that ecstatic Christmas Eve sex they heard about from the early members.

Anyway, this year, not counting the adults who got mailed things, we had adopted six families and one elderly woman who had no family and deserved a personal visit. I volunteered to do somebody, and the rest of the group assigned me to Eva and Timothy. If there's a single woman they always assign me to her. There are matchmakers in every group, and the fact that I had never been married and wasn't dating anybody seriously just drove some of the wives loco. I suppose it's a compliment, what with them thinking what a fine catch I'd be, but I work a lot, and that's tough on any relationship, much less law enforcement which, along with firefighting, has one of the highest divorce rates in the world. The military is catching up with us fast since the wars in the Middle East.

So the next night I, being one of the hams in the group, put my Santa suit back on and, using one of my smaller bags (it looks more full with fewer boxes in it), drove over to Eva's house. I timed it to arrive at eight, which is usually after dinner and before most kids have to go to bed, but the windows were all dark. I saw the car parked in the driveway. The cracks in the windows reflected the street lights, giving the car a vaguely icy appearance. There was no storm door, so I couldn't leave anything between it and the front door. In any case this was the wrong neighborhood to be leaving things lying about unsecure. And, to be honest, I wanted to see her again. Besides, I didn't have anything better to do, so I just waited.

It's pretty difficult to be inconspicuous when you're dressed as Santa Claus and sitting in a four year old Subaru. I've had people come up to me and say things. The getup attracts them. One guy tried to joke around that the Subaru made a lot more sense than a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. I was thinking about going somewhere and getting a cup of coffee and a donut (lots of people like them, you know!) when a cab arrived and an adult and child got out. In the light of the street lamp I saw her aquiline nose and pale skin under a stocking cap. Timothy was bare-headed and active, like a lot of seven-year-olds, running toward the house only to dart back to the cab while Eva paid the driver. He seemed to be in a hurry to get inside the house. I saw a shopping bag in her hand, and figured there was some Christmas treat in it he wanted to get to.

I gave them time to get into the house, and get their coats put away. Then, bag in hand, I got out of my car and went up the walk.

I knocked.

I heard a high pitched "Wait!" and the door was thrown open by Timothy. Eva was hurrying toward the door, looking worried. I could understand that, based on this neighborhood and the lateness of the hour. I didn't blame her for assuming that caution was advisable. Timothy, as yet unjaded by the world, had no such reserves. He just wanted to see who was there.

His reaction was most interesting.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking puzzled. The mere fact that Santa was standing on his doorstep didn't seem to be odd.

"It's Christmas Eve," I said, and smiled. My beard was made so that you could see my lips and teeth. Smiles on Santa's face often terrify a small child, but a looming mug that is a mass of white hair with a small dark hole in it is even worse. I've learned to take my chances with my own face.

His eyes widened and he sucked in breath. I watched those wide eyes shift to the bag I was carrying.

"You put him in there?" he squeaked, sounding outraged.

"I'm sorry, Timothy," I said. "The little brothers were all taken when I got back to the nursery. All that were left were twin girls, and I didn't think that was what you were looking for. Maybe next year?"

He blinked. "What will happen to the twin girls?" he asked.

This kid had a habit of coming at me from an unexpected direction. Thinking on my feet I said "If we don't get any late requests, which we usually do, then they'll become elves and live with me at the North Pole."

"That's not true," he said firmly. "You don't really live at the North Pole. People have been there and seen it."

"How about we debate all that later," I said, making it an order rather than a question. "I've got a lot to do tonight. Do you want your presents or not?"

"I get more than one?" He looked excited.

"You want your mother to go without?" That time it was a question.

"No sir!" he said immediately. He turned to look at his mother, who had an odd look on her face, having overheard our conversation. "Can he come in?"

Apparently he did listen to her, occasionally.

She hesitated, but only for long enough that an adult would notice, and then said "Yes. From what I hear it's hard to keep him out." Her face was straight, showing no emotion. "At least on this particular night," she added.

Once in, I just invited myself to sit on the couch and put the bag on my lap. I rooted around in it. There were only two things in it, so it was obvious I was just moving air. But it was all part of my act.

"Now, let's see here," I said, mumbling to myself. "Timothy Daniel Sinderson ... seven and a half years old... firmly on the good boy list ... I know it's in here somewhere ... Ahhhh, here we go!"

I pulled out the artist's kit. It wasn't wrapped. We spent all our money on presents, not momentary glitter. Having practiced doing so, I opened the case with a flourish and displayed the bewildering array of pencils and other supplies inside.

"Wow!" he gasped.

Score one for Santa. Not that that's what it's all about, but you always feel good when you know it was the right gift.

"Will you leave me a picture with my milk and cookies next year?" I asked.

He froze, looked up, blinked twice and then his head swiveled. "We don't have milk and cookies!" he gasped. It was obvious this was on par with a national emergency.

"I just had some," I said, holding my belly and ho, ho, ho-ing. "And I'm about to go have more at my next stop. You can leave me extra cookies next year," I said.

He sat down with his artist's set and started touching everything in it. I got the card out of the bag and handed it to Eva.

"Eva Marie Sinderson, twenty-seven and seven months, firmly on the good girl list. You can open an account with it if you like. Otherwise it has two hundred and fifty dollars on it you can use for whatever you need."

Her eyes did, in fact, widen.

"Well ain't that sweet!" came a grating voice from the door Timothy had, in his excitement, forgotten to close ... and lock.

Eva's head whipped in that direction. "Wallace!" she gasped. "I thought you were..."

"In jail?" The man grinned.

He was, as most witnesses would describe him, of average height, average build and indeterminate age. His hair was brown and greasy looking. He had the face that cops recognize almost anywhere, a face that is almost always tense, because the man who owns it lives a tense life. He's either hungry, scared, wired, worried or elated at pulling something off. He hasn't had a chance to really relax and take it easy for as long as he can remember. It makes a man old before his years, which is one reason people have a hard time estimating his age. In short, Wallace Gardner was a punk. He had never been anywhere, and wasn't likely to go anywhere other than back to jail. Unless he wised up. But they rarely wised up. Punks like Wallace thought they were smart already.

The trouble was that he had those bright eyes and trembling hands that told me he was on something. And I don't mean caffeine.

"I got out early on good behavior," he said, swaggering a bit. Being able to say his behavior was good was a big deal to this man.

"There's a restraining order, Wallace," she said, firmly but not in an inflammatory way. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Yeah," he said, looking around. "I know. I am here, though, and I'm broke, and that card will spend for me just like it will spend for you. I'll take the fancy art stuff too. That little shit is too young for an expensive set like that. You can get him some sharpies or something."

"They're not yours to take," I said.

"Shut up, old man," he said, swaggering more. "You don't want to get that pretty red suit all bloodied up and torn ... now do you?" He tried to leer threateningly and I almost laughed. Like most petty criminals, he saw what he wanted to see.

"Timothy," said Eva softly. "Go to bed now."

Timothy did exactly as he was told, closing the set and getting up.

"Don't you move, boy!" snapped Wallace, "Unless you want your ass beat too!"

I got up then, and bent over to Timothy.

"Do as your mother told you," I whispered.

"What else you got in that bag, fat man?" said Wallace, coming for me. "And who the fuck do you think you are anyway, giving stuff to my old lady and kid? You been tapping that gash while I was gone?"

I let him get close enough to grab me and brought my right knee up and between his thighs. I actually saw him lift an inch or two upwards.

Now, that knee is not padded. And I've used that move before, so I know what crushed testicles feel like against my knee. And, while everything felt just like it should ... he didn't go down.

That's when I decided it was PCP he was high on ... and knew I was in trouble.

"Call 911!" I yelled to Eva. "Tell them an officer needs assistance!"

"You a cop?" Wallace's eyes widened as he swayed. His body was trying to tell him to drop to the ground, helpless, but his brain wasn't listening. "I've always wanted to fuck up a cop."

He pulled a folding lock-blade knife and flicked his wrist. The blade came half open, suggesting that he hadn't had the knife for long and hadn't had a chance to practice opening it one-handed. I swept his ankles with my right foot, taking him down and managed to roll him over, getting one of his wrists behind his back and pinning him down with my full weight on one knee in the middle of his back. I was grabbing for his other hand - the one with the knife in it - when he realized it was time to fight. He started yelling and cursing. Some of it was nonsense, but it was all loud.

I was lucky. He tried to stab me by putting his arm behind him. He got my belly padding, but that put his wrist right where I needed it and I bore down on it, pressing it against his body. He still had the knife, but I didn't care. I concentrated on holding him down and controlling his wrists. I had at least three inches and fifty pounds on him, but even with my weight, he almost threw me off. I realized Eva was dancing around beside me, trying to help. I turned my head.

"Velcro along my right side!" I gasped. "Handcuffs on my belt!"

I felt her hands on my back and had to tell her to move forward. She found the seam and ripped it open. The first thing her hand hit when it darted inside was the grip of my Sig Sauer, in its holster.

I went cold. More than a lot of times a cop has found himself attacked by a beat up wife while he's trying to take the man who beat her into custody. Psychologists can explain it to you, but for cops ... well, we know that a domestic disturbance is more deadly than dealing with gang members. Statistically, at least. And Eva had dropped charges against this guy in the past. If she chose this puke over me, I was going to be in a very bad way.

"Further back," I gasped, and her hand moved. I almost wept with joy.

She found the cuffs and jerked on them. The case was made for that and they came loose smoothly. She held them in front of my face.

"Do you know how they work?" I panted.

"I've seen it done on TV," she said.

"I don't want to let go of him," I grunted. "He's on PCP or something, and I can barely control him as it is. Can you put them on him?"

"Do I have to?"

"No. But I'm not sure I can keep doing what I'm doing until the police arrive and they help me."

"I thought you were the police," she said.

"Eva, put the fucking cuffs on him!" I shouted.

"Okay, okay," came her voice in my ear. "You don't have to yell at me."

She got the first cuff on and I saw her close it tight, much more tightly than procedure allows. It would cut his wrists if he struggled at all, once I let his arms loose. I didn't really care. As she snapped the second one on, I relaxed a little. At least he couldn't fling his arms around any longer.

"You wouldn't believe how many times I've wanted to do that," she said, leaning back.

"What, cuff him?"

"Yes," she said. She didn't look happy, though.

His hands were starting to move again, so I took the knife away from him before he harvested his own kidney. He was thrashing, and I knew he'd get worse if I didn't hold him down. I didn't want him tearing up her living room, so I sat on him. That's not procedure either. Perps are known to die if you sit on them and they can't breathe. I could hear him breathing, though, between every stream of curses and epithets.

"Wally!" I said, leaning down and shouting in his ear. He froze.

"He hates it when somebody calls him Wally," said Eva.

"Oh," I said. "Well, Wally, you're under arrest for burglary, attempted theft, assault on a police officer in the commission of his duties, resisting arrest, and being an asshole out of season. You have the right to remain silent -"

That's as far as I got. He unfroze and started howling and cursing again, trying to thrash around. Two uniformed cops came through the door, guns drawn. I recognized one of them as a patrolman named Franklin. The other one was a rookie I had seen around, but hadn't met yet.

"I'm a cop, Franklin!" I shouted.

"He is!" yelled Eva, trying to help.

"Is that you, Detective Carson?" He asked.

"Got it in one," I said. "Can you give me a little help here? I think he's on PCP."

-------

It took all three of us to get him out into the yard, whereupon Franklin - the one Wally had bitten and drawn blood on - got on his radio and requested an ambulance.

Franklin had one of the old stun guns. There weren't enough tazers to go around yet. So they basically stunned him into submission. That wasn't procedure either, but when a man like Wally bites you and draws blood, there's an AIDS test in your future, and you don't get to cheat on it. I went back to the house to see if Eva was okay. She was in one of the bedrooms, holding Timothy and telling him everything was all right. He looked a little dazed. And a little scared still. That bothered me.

"Sorry about that," I said, standing in the door. The only thing that had come loose was one side of my mustache, and that wasn't too bad. I was going to have to write a testimonial for the theatrical products company that sold the gum Arabic I used. I wanted to laugh at the thought, imagining them open that letter.

"Thank you," she said. "Could you wait out there?"

I nodded. "Good night, Timothy," I said.

"Good night, Santa," he said softly.



-------

Chapter 3


The younger of the two cops came back in while I was sitting on the couch waiting for Eva.

"Are you really Kit Carson?" he asked. All the rookies do that. The older guys put them up to it because they know it drives me nuts. They claim it's a mark of respect, because of my record and solve rate, but they don't call me that themselves. They just get the rookies to say it.

I sighed. "In the flesh. I'll come down to the station and fill out a report as soon as I'm finished here.

"I'm supposed to interview you," he said.

"You're supposed to interview witnesses, not the cop who made the bust," I corrected.

"You mean the woman?"

"I'll take care of that too," I said.

"Oh." He looked nervous and started shifting around on his feet. It was obvious he didn't know what to do now.

I helped him.

"This is where you say 'Have a nice night, sir, ' and then walk confidently out the door to take your perp down to the station and book him," I said.

"Oh ... right. Have a nice night, sir," he said. He turned and left.

I looked around and saw Eva peeking at me from where the rookie wouldn't have been able to see her. She stepped into the room.

"Kit Carson?"

I groaned. "You weren't supposed to hear that. You okay?"

She let her head fall to one side, roll forward and then back up, like she was stretching it.

"Actually, compared to last time he was here, I'm doing wonderful ... fantastic, even."

"I'm glad I was here," I said. "Unless I'm the one who brought him."

"How could you be responsible for that?" she asked.

"I don't know. I sat watching your place for an hour before you got back. Maybe he saw me and would have left you alone except for me coming to your door."

"I don't think so," she said. "After I got the restraining order he stalked me every chance he got. He made sure to stay far enough away that I couldn't do anything about it, but he wanted me to know he was watching. And taking things from us to sell is something he would do anyway, whether you were here or not. He's done it plenty of times before this."

"Then I'm glad I was here," I said again.

"Me too."

"But I am sorry that Timothy had to see all this," I said. "This was supposed to be a quick in and out, brighten his day - yours too, by the way - and be on my way kind of deal."

"It was very thoughtful," she said. "And it did brighten my day. But it's an awfully lot of money to spend on a stranger."

"I can't take all the credit," I said. "There's a group of us who kind of get together to do something like this every year around this time."

"It's still a lot to offer to a stranger," she said. "Though you do seem to know a lot more about us than the average stranger would. It was a little creepy when you knew his full name and all that. You're really a cop?"

"Guilty as charged," I said. "Thanks for not shooting me, by the way."

"Shooting you?" She frowned. "I don't understand."

"It's a police thing. Sometimes a woman gets upset when you're trying to arrest her man. Never mind."

"He's not my man," she said firmly. "He gave me a big tip one time and asked me out and I was stupid enough to go out on some dates with him. He decided he was my man, and it all went downhill from there."

"Oh," I said. "I thought he was Timothy's father."

"Now you're just being stupid," she said firmly. "I have better sense than to let a man like Wallace Gardner into my bed. That's one of the reasons he beat me up so many times. He said he would convince me that I loved him and wanted him between my legs if it killed me. I believed him, and that's when I got the restraining order."

"So where's Tim's father?" I asked. I'm a cop. I'm used to asking personal questions that people think are none of my business.

"Dead," she said. She looked away. "He had a defect in one of the blood vessels in his brain and he had an aneurism out of the blue one day. One minute he was making toast, and the next minute I was freaking out. Timothy was only four at the time."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Not as much as I am," she replied.

"I'll be honest," I said. "I've never lost anybody that close to me before. I've been around a lot of people who have, but I still can't imagine what they're going through."

"I'm glad you're honest. The people I can't take are the ones who claim they know how I feel."

I stood up. "This was supposed to be a merry Christmas. I wish there could be a do over."

"You did a nice thing," she said. "Go on home to your family. You can give them a merry Christmas."

"Haven't got one," I said.

"Why on Earth not?" She was pretty good at asking personal questions too, as it turned out.

"Law enforcement doesn't lend itself to having happy families. Too much time on the job, too much stress at home about whether you'll come home or not ... stuff like that."

"So you're divorced?"

"I never wanted to inflict that kind of life on a woman," I said. "I tell myself I'm a confirmed bachelor."

"I see," she said. "Maybe Timothy and I could have a merry Christmas after all."

I was always a sucker for a comment like that.

"Oh?"

"If you're telling the truth - if you have no family - then you have no one to spend Christmas Day with," she said. "We would be honored if you'd spend it with us."

"What if I have plans with friends, or other confirmed bachelors?" I suggested.

"Do you?"

"Well ... no, actually."

"Please come," she said.

I looked at her. I managed to keep my eyes on her face, and let me tell you that took some control. She was a nice looking woman, and right then I wanted to look at all of her. But I controlled the urge. I didn't know if this was a good idea. They frown on you dating victims and witnesses and all that. But it was only one day, and Christmas at that, so nobody would even know about it.

"Should I wear this?" I asked, plucking at the suit.

She laughed. "No, I'd like to meet the man behind the mask, if you don't mind."

"I already brought the presents," I said. "I'll have to come empty-handed."

"Your empty hands will be fine," she said. "See you around eight?"

"In the morning?" I gasped, clutching my chest.

"Christmas morning," she said, as if that changed everything.

"Oh, all right," I said. "Maybe I should just stay," I joked. Then I almost winced. Some jokes just don't work as well in real life as you thought they would when they slipped out of your mouth.

She lowered her lashes and looked at me through them.

"I owe you a lot for helping Timothy and me tonight, but I don't pay my debts with sex."

Santa got rosier than ever about then.

"That's not what I meant," I said quickly.

"I'm sure it's not," she said.

She went to the door and pulled it open. I got up and, thoroughly chastened, I picked up my now empty bag and started past her. She stopped me and made me face her. She was short enough that she had to pull me down. I thought she was going to press my mustache back on, but instead she pulled it off.

Then she kissed me on the lips, a warm, soft-lipped, lingering kiss that made just about every muscle in my body react as if I was the one being stun-gunned - just with a really low voltage stun gun.

She pulled back, her eyes still closed, and the tip of her tongue flicked out to lick one side of her upper lip.

"Thank you, Santa," she said. She opened her eyes. "I always wanted to kiss you, ever since you brought me that Keytar keyboard when I was nine."

"I'll have another one for you next year," I sighed.

She laughed again, stuck my mustache back on, and pushed me out the door. "Eight o'clock sharp! We're having waffles."

I got back in my car, feeling better than I had in a long time. I mean I get a kick out of playing Santa, but this year was even better than usual.

Then I remembered all the paperwork I'd promised the rookie I'd do, and groaned.

I aimed the car towards the station instead of home.

-------

I get a fair amount of ribbing from the guys who don't participate in the holiday festivities. I don't mind, really. If you're going to be in the Santa business, it's got to come from the heart or it's not genuine. I only wanted genuine people on the team. So I expected the skeleton staff on duty at the station that night to give me a hard time. Don Grabel was the booking sergeant that night, and he didn't kid me at all.

"Hey, Carson," he said as I walked in. "Guess who tried to mug three people before he showed up and broke and entered so you could arrest him."

"You're kidding," I said.

"One of them is in the hospital with a busted open head. Fell and hit the curb. The other two are on their way down here to ID him. On Christmas Eve, yet! This guy has pissed off a ton of people tonight."

"Well maybe it will be a Merry Christmas," I said.

"You made my night," he said. "The funniest part is that he's as poor a mugger as he is at taking you on. He didn't get anything from any of them. Just played tug of war with their purses until the men who were with them beat him off."

-------

I did paperwork for two hours and headed home to get a little sleep before I had to get up at the unearthly hour of seven so I could take a shower and get back over to Eva's by eight. The only place I could find open on the way at all was a single convenience store. The clerk was Muslim, and could have cared less what day it was. They only had one sorry looking bouquet left in a tin bucket next to the milk, but I got them anyway. I had no idea what to get for a seven year old little boy, so I settled on a handful of Slim Jims and a chocolate Santa.

Sad excuses for gifts in hand, I knocked at exactly eight, according to my watch, which was set based on GMT, which I could bring up on my computer whenever I felt like it. The door opened only a few seconds later and Eva stared at me.

"Hi," I said uncertainly. She was still staring.

"You look taller," she said.

"Usually it's the other way around. Everybody thinks Santa looks much bigger than me." I held out the flowers.

She took them and sniffed them. "Nobody's ever gotten me flowers for Christmas before," she said.

"I didn't exactly have time to shop for you."

"Yes you did."

"Okay, then, I didn't exactly know you well enough to know what you'd like."

"You did all right." She sniffed the flowers again. "Are you going to come in, or let all the heat out?"

I went in and found Timothy standing in footy pajamas, about ten feet away, staring at me. He didn't look scared, but he didn't look happy either.

"Timothy, this is Kit Carson," said his mother.

"Are you any relation to the Kit Carson who was John Fremont's guide in the American West?" asked the little boy.

"No," I said. "Actually, my name is Bob, but some of the men I work with like to tease me and call me Kit."

"Sometimes kids at school tease me about my name too," said Timothy.

"Why?" I asked. "What's there to tease about a name like Timothy?"

"Because I like being called Timothy instead of Tim, or Timmy, or Tiny Tim," he said.

"Got it," I said. "Don't worry. It gets better as you get older."

"You think so?" He had been staring at me the entire time. "Why do you sound like Santa Claus?"

"It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it," I said. "How come you sound like Anthony Falapasio?"

"Who's he?" asked the boy.

"He's this kid I grew up with in Queens, in New York City. You sound just exactly like him."

"Oh. Well I'm not him."

"And I'm not Santa Claus," I said.

"I invited Bob to come to breakfast with us today," said Eva.

"How come?" asked her precocious little boy.

"Because I hope he's a nice guy. I might like to have him for my friend."

"You mean like a boyfriend?" The child looked horrified. "Julie Timmons wants me to be her boyfriend, but I don't want to at all!"

"Then just tell her you're not ready for that yet," I said. "I'm not trying to be your mommy's boyfriend. I just like waffles, and didn't have any place to go on Christmas day. Your mom is being nice to me."

"Are you homeless?" asked the boy.

"Enough personal questions!" sang out Eva. "I vote we eat breakfast now."

"Yes!" shouted Timothy. "And then presents!"

"Absolutely!" shouted his mother.



-------

Chapter 4

Breakfast didn't slow him down at all. By the time breakfast was over he had interrogated me enough to find out I was a detective, how old I was, that I didn't have any children and had never been married. At one point he said "Are you sure you're not trying to be my mother's boyfriend? Because you sure sound like what she's been looking for." That flustered her and she barked at him. I diverted him by asking him to tell me about his school, and what he liked to do, and what TV programs he liked. I even went so far as to ask him what he remembered about his father, which was a little sad. He remembered strength and brown eyes and a smile. And he remembered feeling safe whenever daddy was there.

Eva bore things pretty well, other than the part she barked at him for. I didn't have much chance to examine her at first, because Timothy talked pretty much non-stop until his mother told him to be quiet and take at least five bites of waffle before he spoke again. The waffles were good, and he got distracted by that, which gave me the chance to comment on how good the waffles were. She looked good in the morning, which I suppose means awake and interested in the world. I detected no make up. I remembered the kiss from the night before, and the fact that her lips didn't taste like lipstick. I looked at those lips now as she explained that their tradition was to eat breakfast first and then unwrap presents. I admit it. I wanted to kiss them again.

I produced the Slim Jims after breakfast, suggesting they could be viewed as dessert. Eva laughed at me and called me goofy. Timothy did not. I felt pretty good about that. He laughed at me later when I gave him the Chocolate Santa for Christmas, pointing out that I'd gotten things backward, but that it was okay because he liked them both.

He only had two other presents that were wrapped. One was a new shirt and the other a pair of snow boots. His mother opened three drawings that I thought were amazing.

Then she gave him an envelope.

I watched as he opened it and pulled out pieces of paper.

"What's I-O-U mean?" he asked, looking up at his mother.

"It means what it sounds like," she said. "I owe you those things for Christmas. We'll go shopping for them after Christmas, though, because things will be on sale then, and you can choose what is perfect for you."

He looked at one of the slips of paper. "Any book at Barnes and Noble?"

"Any book you want," she said.

"No matter how much it costs?"

"No matter how much it costs," she confirmed.

"Wow," he sighed. He looked at another slip of paper. "A bicycle? Really?"

"Yup," she smiled.

He looked at another one. "No way!" he shouted. "An Ipod? For me?" He jumped up and started doing a dance of sorts as I realized she intended to spend the vast majority of the money on the card I'd given her on him.

I leaned over and spoke into her ear. "That was supposed to be for you."

She turned her head fast enough that her nose hit mine. Her eyes were shining.

"It is for me," she said. "I've always wished I could see him like this at Christmas, just once."

Our faces were only inches apart, our noses almost touching. I realized it had become very quiet in the room and turned my head to see Timothy standing there, watching us, an interested look on his face.

"Did Santa send you to make a little brother for me?" he asked.

-------

Once Eva calmed down enough that Timothy could actually explain, he basically said that he wasn't stupid, and knew that for a baby to be born there had to be both a mommy and a daddy. He wasn't sure what they did to make the baby start growing inside the mommy, except that it was called sex. He pointed out that I was the first man Eva had invited into the house besides that man he didn't like (that's all he'd say about Wally) and that he just thought that maybe Santa had something to do with it.

"That's not why Bob is here," said Eva, who was decidedly pink.

"How do you know?" I asked. "I am buddies with Santa, you know."

She turned and slapped my shoulder. "Don't encourage him!" she yipped.

"Well then tell him to quit encouraging me!" I complained.

"All right, boys!" she said firmly. "We're changing the subject now. All right?"

"I guess so," said Timothy, who was clearly a little dejected.

"Yes ma'am," I said, as dejectedly as I could.

"You want to see what Santa brought me?" asked Timothy, suddenly excited again.

"Absolutely," I said.

He handed the IOUs to his mother and sprinted for his room. I looked at Eva, who was frowning at me.

"I was just playing," I said.

"Were you?" she asked, one eyebrow arching.

"Absolutely!" I said, crossing my heart. "I absolutely have no designs on your virtue."

"Why not?" she asked, her voice arching this time. "Am I ugly or something?"

I blinked, but didn't have time to come back with anything, because Timothy was back with his artist kit, which he opened on my lap. He had obviously spent a lot of time going through it, because he already had a number of the esoteric names for colors memorized, and pointed them out proudly.

"Will you draw my picture?" I asked.

"I'll try," he said. "You talk to my mother or something, and I'll get started."

-------

Eva got us tea and we sat on the couch, turned toward each other. Our conversation was a little stilted, initially, I think because of the residue of sensuality that was left over from Timothy's very precocious comments.

Eventually, though, she relaxed.

"I've never gotten to know a cop before," she said. "I was always running away from them, instead of inviting them in."

"I doubt that," I said.

"I was a bad girl when I was younger," she said.

"I doubt that, too."

"I got into all manner of trouble!" she insisted.

"Such as?"

"Well, I stole apples off the neighbor's tree every year."

"Hmmmm," I responded.

"And twice my friends and I tee peed a teacher's house," she said.

"Horrible," I agreed, smiling.

"I threw water balloons at a cop car once!" she said, her jaw jutting forward.

"Was it moving?"

"No, he was parked, trying to catch speeders."

"If he was moving I'd say it was serious. Drop a water balloon on a car going down the freeway and it will go right through the windshield. You can kill somebody that way." I was frowning now.

"He was just parked," she argued. "His arm was hanging out the window and we hoped we could get him wet, that's all!"

"You were a regular Bonny," I said. "So who was Clyde?"

"There was no Clyde," she said, sulking because I obviously wasn't taking her litany of crimes seriously. "Just Jessica, my best friend, and a few others."

"So you were no doubt the ringleader of the group of girls who terrorized the neighborhood back then?"

"We didn't terrorize anybody," she argued. "We just had fun."

"By committing grievous acts of criminal mischief," I said.

"All I'm saying is that we never stayed around to give the cops a chance to hassle us," she moaned.

"Which is why I'm here now," I said. "You've been on the least wanted list for more than a decade, and now I've finally caught up to you. Now you're going to pay."

"Oh pu-lease," she laughed. "What are you going to do, spank me?"

I smiled the tight little smile I have been told looks a little scary.

"Not in front of Timothy."

-------

Her reaction to my playful little repartee got my attention.

Part of a detective's job is reading people, and I've been doing it so long that it's just part of how I interact with most folks. What I read in Eva Marie Sinderson that morning was what I call buzzy. I get buzzy when I see something I'm not expecting. Like the time I was eating dinner with a woman one of the guys set me up with. It was in a nice place, and she was mildly interested in me. What caught my attention, though, was a well dressed fellow diner who looked wrong somehow ... buzzy in other words. It turned out that he thought one of the waiters was boffing his wife, and he brought her to the restaurant to see how they both reacted when they saw each other. He also brought a gun. That one turned out well, but only because I was ready for something to happen when it did.

My date was less than impressed, though, and it was the last time she went out with a guy who suddenly exploded into action, waving his own gun around and giving orders to just about everybody. No shots fired, though, so as far as I was concerned, it was a pristine outcome.

But that's what I mean. I get buzzy when something doesn't look right. And what I saw in Eva's body was interest, never mind what she was saying with her voice. Body language takes precedence over voice every single time. And that was buzzy because I had to be old enough to be her father. Sure, we had flirted a little, but that's because she was a good looking single woman and I was a man. But I didn't take it seriously. She, on the other hand, appeared to be doing just that. Her pupils had dilated, and the carotid in her neck was visible, pitter pattering along like crazy. Her breath rate had increased and her lips were dry. I resisted looking at her chest, until she looked away at Timothy for a moment, during which I saw hardened nipples under the red and black T shirt she was wearing.

I decided it had been a while since a man treated her with respect, and that that was all it was.

"You know, I'm forty-eight years old," I said.

She blinked. "You don't say."

"I just did say," I said, helpfully.

"Yes, but why did you say it?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said, lamely. "I was thinking about how you're twenty-seven, and that made me think about how I'm forty-eight, I guess."

"I see," she said. "That would make you twenty-one years older than I am."

"It would," I said.

"I bet you think that's a lot," she said.

"Of course it is."

"Maybe." She leaned back and I realized we had begun leaning toward each other. I was astonished. This girl did things to me that made me careless. "Then again, maybe not."

"How could it possibly be maybe not?" I scoffed. "Twenty-one years is twenty-one years."

"I'm not a big believer that age itself means much," she said. "In some cases it's not the age that matters. What matters is if the body still does what you want it to, when you want it to." She smiled. "Assuming the most important thing is already there."

"And what's the most important thing?" I asked, wondering if it was wise to keep this conversation going.

"I have to like a man first," she said. "If I like him, age is of little consequence."

"You've got to be kidding me," I said weakly. She was looking absolutely predatory at the moment.

"Not in front of Timothy," she said, suddenly all sweetness and light.

-------

Suddenly there was a little boy standing at our knees, which had been a foot and a half apart from each other when we first sat down, but which were now separated by only five or six inches. He had a picture in his hand that astounded me. It didn't look anything like me, but it was most assuredly a man, and a well-drawn one at that.

"That is most excellent," I said, genuinely impressed.

Then I was invited to play board games, which was something unusual for me. I hadn't done that in more years than I could count. Timothy liked to make up his own rules, but I didn't care. I kept glancing at Eva, who seemed to be glancing at me a lot too.

I was actually unsettled.

Don't get me wrong. I go out with women on a fairly regular basis. I've been out with just about everybody's divorced sister, or niece. All the guys' wives try to fix me up with their divorced friends, and I'm even capable of finding my own dates once in a while. And some of the women I'd gone out with had expressed the kind of interest in me that Eva was displaying.

With the others it was creepy.

But with Eva ... it was more towards scary somehow. I mean I could get used to this woman looking at me like that ... and that was a dangerous thing to want. Sooner or later she'd come to her senses and realize that a worn out detective with more enemies than friends, wasn't the best catch. You know?

Finally Eva said she had to stop playing because she needed to start getting "the Christmas feast" ready.

"Such as it is," she added. "I didn't think there would be anybody but Timothy and me."

"I don't want to be a burden," I said.

"Oh you're not a burden," she said. "I just don't have enough food to really make it a feast."

"How about I take you both out?" I offered.

She looked at me quizzically. "On Christmas Day? Where would we go?"

"I know a couple of places that are serving food today," I said. "We might have to pitch in and help, but we'd have our feast."

"Oh!" she said, realizing I was talking about the places that fed the homeless. "You do that too?"

I knew she was referring to Santa, and nodded. "Once in a while. It's something to do on Christmas."

"My, my, my," she said. Then she turned to her son. "Want to go eat with a bunch of homeless people?"

"Sure," said her son, astonishing me. "Can I take my kit and draw them pictures?"

"Yes, you may," said Eva, beaming. She looked at me. "We're ready when you are."



-------

Chapter 5


We took my car, which had three seatbelts in the front. Eva scooted next to me and got her son strapped in before she dug out the belt for herself. When I pulled away she laid her hand on my thigh.

I turned my head to look at her.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"I hope so," she said, looking straight ahead.

"I'm not so sure you have a clue," I suggested.

Her hand slid between my legs and she squeezed my inner thigh gently. "You mean this?" she asked innocently.

"You've known me for less than twenty-four hours," I pointed out.

"Sometimes a girl can just tell," she said.

"And do I get a vote in this?" I asked.

"Of course you do," she said.

"And what if I vote no?" I asked.

Her hand slid quickly up to cup my cock through my pants.

My firm cock.

The cock that had gotten erect while I wasn't paying attention to it.

"I don't think that's what you're going to vote," she said, returning her hand to the top of my thigh.

She left it there the rest of the way to the shelter.

-------

It turned out Eva and Timothy had eaten at places like this before. They weren't frequent visitors, but she wasn't too proud to take what she could get when the pickings were slim. Most of the staff knew me, and welcomed Eva with arms that were entirely too open. Everybody in town seemed to be dissatisfied that I was unattached, and they didn't care about the age difference either.

We ended up staying four hours. I washed dishes, which Timothy brought me for a while, along with a bevy of other bus people. When he got tired he took his artist set around asking people if they wanted a picture. Eva served for a while and then sat at the tables, just talking to people while they ate. It was getting very hard to resist this woman, wet behind the ears though she may be.

When we left, Timothy, ever full of energy, beat us to the car.

"I get to sit in the middle this time!" he announced.

"Well lah-de-da," said his mother. "Maybe I should sit in the back, like they do in the fancy cars, and you could be my footman and Bob could be my driver."

"Okay!" said Timothy.

And that's how I drove them home.

-------

It was still early, in terms of daylight, but once we got back she told Timothy to go put his artist kit away. Once he was out of sight she pressed herself against me and draped her arms around my neck.

"You have to go now," she said.

"I do." My voice neither rose nor fell at the end.

"Yes, because I'm going to go take a shower, and when I get out I'm going to be all naked, and if you're still here I'm going to want to do things you're too old fashioned to do on a first date."

"Me? Old fashioned?" I rolled my eyes. She felt good pressed against me. Really good.

"Yes you. And I don't want to scare you away before I prove to you that age doesn't matter."

"You seem very sure of yourself," I said softly. I put my hands on her hips.

"I know what I like," she said.

"You're very trusting," I suggested.

"No I'm not. I've seen you in action, and now I've seen you around other people ... people who respect you. Respect has to be earned. I think I'm in good hands with you."

"What if I get all clingy and want a serious relationship?" I asked.

"If you did you'd be married already," she said.

"So you think I'm into one night stands?"

"No. If I thought that I wouldn't be making you go home."

"Are you into one night stands?" I asked.

"Are you going to ask me on a second date or not?" she asked, her voice carrying a hint of displeasure.

"I am," I said, without even thinking about it.

There was a long silence, while she stared into my eyes. Finally she spoke.

"Well go ahead then."

"What? Oh. I'd like to see you again," I said.

"And when might that be?" she asked, fluttering her eyelashes at me.

"Tomorrow, please!" piped Timothy, who was standing beside us, staring up at us both. We had been so intent on each other, neither of us realized he had come in and was watching us.

"Why tomorrow?" asked his mother.

"Because I think you're trying to hide it from me, but that he's really here to help us get my little brother on the way, and I want you to get started tomorrow."

-------

The date was made, and then broken the next morning when Eva called me.

"About our date..." she started.

"Yes?" I said.

"I need to make it tomorrow instead of tonight. Is that a problem?"

I didn't mind, other than the fact that I was already looking forward to seeing her again. It was at that stage of things where you don't really know what's going to happen, but all kinds of things are whirling around in your imagination.

"Let me check my calendar," I said.

"How many women are you stringing along like this?" she asked.

"Let me add them up," I teased.

"Because I have to tell you, I'm a one-man woman, and it would be nice if you were a one-woman man."

"Are we hurrying things just a teensy bit, maybe?" I asked.

"No."

"I see." I paused a few seconds. "Well, look at that, there's an opening tomorrow night!"

"I'm so pleased," she said, a wry tone in her voice.

"So where would you like to go?" I asked. "We didn't get a chance to talk about that last night, what with..." I tapered off.

"What with my son trying to arrange for my breeding?" she finished.

"Ah ... yes," I said.

"I like to eat," she said. "I used to like Indian and Thai food, but it's been so long since I've had any it's hard to remember. Why don't you pick up some takeout and bring it with you when you come over."

"Take out?" I was confused.

"I don't want to waste a lot of time driving around town," she said. "Thai food isn't the only thing I haven't had in so long I can hardly remember it. Gotta go. Bye!"

I stared at the phone for a few seconds. Her voice had been cheerful and calm. There was no dripping sarcasm or overly sweet innuendo. None the less my body had reacted to her short, but succinct comment, and there was only one thing my body was willing to believe she had meant.

The rest of the day was surreal. I went through the motions, and got work done and all that, but a part of my mind was dreaming up scenarios, one after another, imagining her saying this, or doing that. There were half-formed images in my mind of what she would look like naked. They remained half formed because common sense told me it was much too soon for me to believe that I'd see her naked on only our second date. Her comment could mean she was simply starved for adult companionship and conversation. She wasn't a slut. I was absolutely convinced of that. I doubted seriously she was even easy, when it came to men. If Wally was any clue, she'd had enough trouble with men to last her a lifetime.

She didn't call me that night either. I've known women who liked to tease a man by reminding him she is out there, waiting for his attention. I've been out with plenty of predatory women, women who had an agenda which they tried to force me to fit into. I don't make a ton of money, but I'm reliable, trustworthy and loyal. I know I'm not a bad catch, and more than one woman has tried to catch me. But none of them made me feel like getting caught. It wasn't a matter of settling down. I was already settled down. Other than the occasional gun battle, my life was more boring than the UPS guy's.

Which was why I approached her house with a bit of trepidation the next night, carrying a big bag with an assortment of food packed in cardboard boxes that smelled fabulous. My mouth was watering, and I wanted to believe it was for the food, but I also felt like a kid in high school going on his first date.

My first fantasy, where she opened the door dressed in a diaphanous, flowing gown, through which her pink ... or maybe brown nipples and pubic hair could clearly be seen, was dashed instantly when I saw the blue jeans, below a Harley Davidson T shirt. She was wearing only socks.

My second fantasy, wherein she throatily said "I've been horny all day. Take me now!" was destroyed when she said in a bright, high-pitched voice "Hi! Come in. What did you bring? I'm starved! Please take your shoes off."

I shoved the rest of my fantasies back into the dark hole where they belonged and started unpacking the sack. She made sounds of joy that threatened to lure my fantasies back out again, so I took a spoonful of something the lady at the counter had said to be careful with because it was "Velly hot!"

I hadn't brought drinks, which was why I hacked and coughed for at least three minutes straight while she went and got me some water. When my eyes stopped running and I could speak again, I tried to keep things on a mundane level.

"So where is Timothy?"

She spoke around a mouthful of food, looking like she was in Heaven. "Carla ... Mrs. Hernandez ... lives next door. She's my sitter. She's been so good about my odd working hours, which was why when I asked her to watch him last night and she said it was Bingo night I changed our date to tonight."

"Ahhh," I said. "So I'm playing second fiddle to Bingo night."

"Not at all," she said, scooping more rice into her mouth. She did love to eat, and watching her do it was a treat because it was so obvious that the food was richly appreciated. "I just wanted you here while he was at her house."

"Don't blame you," I said. "I've been accused of being a bad influence on youth many times."

She stopped eating and stared at me.

"Self-effacement doesn't become you," she said.

I blinked at her a few times. It was astonishing how uncomfortable I could be around this woman. She went on to make it even more interesting.

"I rarely get to spend time with a confident, mature, trustworthy man," she said. "It's even rarer when he's good looking and not involved with another woman already. Please don't spoil this for me with false modesty."

"Got it," I said. "I rarely get the chance to spend time with a beautiful young woman who is as direct as you. I'm just not used to it, that's all."

"That's more like it," she said, smiling. "Hurry up and finish eating. I can't wait to open my Christmas present."

"Something come in the mail?" I asked.

She shook her head and blond hair fluttered before settling to cover that right eye.

"Came through the door about ten minutes ago," she said, her voice muffled by food.

Very direct, that girl.



-------

Chapter 6

She wasn't kidding about being eager to open her present, either.

When we had eaten, she took my hand and pulled me to her bedroom. But it wasn't like anything I'd ever been through before. Take, for instance, the fact that she arranged me on the bed, sitting Indian style, and she sat across from me the same way.

"I want you to know this has nothing to do with what Timothy asked for, for Christmas," she said. "I just want to do this because you make me feel like doing it."

Then she reached for me and pulled me towards her slowly, staring into my eyes until we were about to go cross-eyed. She closed her eyes and our lips met. It was very different kissing her where our lips were all that touched. Somehow I was able to concentrate more on that kiss, and the one that followed it.

And the ones that followed those.

Normally, when you're grasping each other and rubbing your bodies together, the excitement builds rapidly, until all you want to do is get to the main event. But Eva didn't make love like she ate. It was the opposite, in fact. Dessert was those kisses, uncountable in the sense that all I wanted to do was keep kissing her, over and over again.

At one point she pulled away and slumped.

"Oh yeah," she sighed. "I've really missed that."

She reached out and started unbuttoning my shirt, slowly, pulling it apart to examine my chest. She pulled the shirt from my waistband to get it completely undone and then pushed it back off my shoulders to run her hands over my pecs.

"I've missed this too," she said, glancing up into my eyes. "I like your muscles."

She continued unwrapping me, slowly, taking her time, until all I was left in were my jockeys. It was obvious she was having a good time, because she made little noises while she did this, and crawled to kiss me here and there, where she uncovered skin. And yet, she was obviously grounded in reality. When she got to my belt and the weight of my gun pulled it down, she removed it carefully from the holster and lifted the weapon, holding it on both upward facing palms.

"Do you want this nearby?" she asked. There was no hint of displeasure or judgment. It was just a question.

"Yes," I said, and she laid it on the nightstand before coming back to finish removing my pants. She examined the gold shield on the leather fob my belt went through, and then tossed my pants and badge carelessly on the floor. Sitting on her knees, she examined my almost naked body.

"Do I get to unwrap you, too?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Maybe next time."

Then, with a fluid grace that only the young can accomplish, she pulled the T shirt up and off her head.

The nipples were red ... neither pink nor brown. They were erect and looked almost painfully turgid to my eyes.

She stood on the bed to push down her jeans, taking her panties with them. Her movements were utilitarian, rather than teasing. She wanted to be naked, and quickly. That was fine with me. She stood up and let me look at her. She was shaved bare, and her pudenda looked almost juvenile without any trace of hair. The hollows on each flank, though, where her hips swelled, said she was all grown up.

"I serve people all day long," she said, kneeling to sit on her calves, her knees together. "I want to be served, for once."

"Is that what you want for Christmas?" I asked.

"I want you for Christmas," she said. "I want you to remind me how good it can feel. Will you do that for me?"

"Yes," I whispered.

She fell backwards, landing in the classic position of acceptance, knees drawn up and wide, her pussy fully exposed. She pulled a pillow under her head and pushed her hair back off her face.

I actually thought about it rationally, believe it or not. She had not removed my briefs. My rational mind said there was more to be done before my penis came into play. So I rolled over and wiggled on my elbows until my mouth was over her mons.

I breathed on her split and she wiggled her hips. I looked up and her lower lip was caught between pearly white teeth.

"You're looking forward to this, aren't you," I suggested. She nodded her head and her gold hair jerked and flew.

Her sex was tightly closed, even though her legs were wide spread. I used the tip of my tongue to spread her labia apart and she sighed. I licked her with the broad flat of my tongue and she wiggled her hips again, anxiously.

"Come on, Bob," she whispered.

"Be patient," I said, and then speared the area where her clit should be with the stiffened tip of my tongue.

She jerked and a whine escaped her lips.

Using my index fingers, I spread her labia apart, exposing her bud, and circled it with the tip of my tongue until her hips were lifting as she whined more loudly. Sealing my lips around the growing bulge, I sucked and she produced a sound that was half honk and half snort, before she gasped "Oh yes!"

It took a good six or seven minutes of constant sucking while I flicked the tip of my tongue against it before her clit delivered up an orgasm. She sounded like someone was killing her, but it was music to my ears. When I sensed it was too sensitive, I abandoned her clit and dragged my lips across her belly and up over a heaving rib cage to her two pert breasts with those engorged, cherry nipples. When I sucked one in, her hands came to my hair and alternated between running her fingers through it, and pulling my head tighter to her breast. I slid a hand down and penetrated her sex with my middle finger.

"I'm ready!" she panted, bouncing her knees open and closed.

I let the nipple slip out of my mouth and felt for a G-spot.

"Not yet," I said, and went to the other nipple.

It only took two minutes to get her there with my fingers and the heel of my hand, but it was something I had a lot of practice with and fancied myself an expert at. She flopped around making more of those delicious noises. Only then did I get to my knees and crawl over her.

"Now you're ready," I said.

I saw her look down, and watched the surprise enter her eyes as she saw that my shorts were off, and my cock was hanging, stiff, ready to go, just above the gooey entrance to her sex. Her eyes came back up to mine and she licked her lips.

Instead of entering her, though, I kissed her instead. Both her hands went behind my head as she crushed her lips against mine. Then her right hand went to my prick and pulled, and within a few seconds I was buried in her and she was straining up against my weight.

She was a very active lover, both physically and verbally. For about the first three minutes I pinned her down with my weight and she succumbed to a potty mouth and somewhat spastic physical reaction to being penetrated and helpless. Then I raised up to give her room and she seemed to calm down and concentrate on timing her reactions to mine, and within another couple of minutes she was smoothly fucking me back. She looked at where she was being prodded and her hands went to my waist, gripping and helping me fuck hard into her. She produced little grunts of satisfaction when I surged hard enough to make her whole body move.

We were having fun, but it was pretty obvious to me that merely moving in and out of her wasn't going to bring her off. I went to the tried and true method of going in deep and rotating my loins so her clit was heavily involved, and she got extended, deep penetration. I could tell the difference in her reaction almost instantly as her upper body tensed and her shoulders bounced up off the bed. Nonsense sounds bubbled from her mouth as her hair began to fly and then she cried out and I felt her inner muscles clamp down on my cock, squeezing it hard. That was fine with me, because I was ready too. I gave her maybe three or four quick strokes and felt the soothing jets of semen jerk through my cock as I pinned her to the bed again. Her hands were suddenly on my back, pulling, as she realized I was cumming and hugged me tightly.

I stayed on top of her, both because it felt good to be on top of her, and because I wanted her to know I didn't want to leave. I raised up so she could breathe. We were both sweating, but I didn't care. We were panting too hard to talk, but I was able to aim a few kisses at her lips. I missed with two of them, hitting her chin once and her nose the other time. She laughed, and I knew we were on solid ground. She made it even more clear after she caught her breath and started nuzzling my lips with hers.

"Now that was what I wanted for Christmas."

-------

We didn't fall madly in love that night, or anything like that. Don't get me wrong. I liked her. I liked her a lot. And it was obvious she liked me too. With some people, an orgasm seems to be the end of things in more ways than one. They start thinking about going back to life, making that phone call, washing the dishes, or whatever. Eva wasn't like that. I didn't know it, but we were just getting started.

After that first time she bounced out of bed, full of energy, and attacked what was left of dinner. She brought it back to the bedroom and fed me little bites with chopsticks. Of course she made a mess, but I was lying on my back with my hands behind my head and the mess was on my chest, so she just licked me clean.

I complained that I wasn't getting to lick her clean and she simply tried to smother me with her breasts. I tickled her and she bit me hard enough on the shoulder to make me yowl. Then, quite suddenly, she stopped and sat, Indian style again, nibbling on an egg roll, and asked me where I grew up and what my siblings were like. She asked some very personal questions, but it's hard to feel threatened when the person asking is sitting stark naked, her pussy exposed, and your semen drooling from said pussy.

So I shared a lot of information with her that I hadn't shared with many other women. She tossed in odd questions too, every once in a while, like "What's the most scared you've ever been in your whole life?" She was interested in my profession, but not morbidly, like most people, who want to know how many people you've shot, or if you ever got anybody on death row, and things like that.

Maybe half an hour later she went to the bathroom and brought back a warm washcloth which she used to clean me up, before taking me in her mouth and sucking me back to rock hardness. This time she got on top and used me, plain and simple. She talked to me the whole time, telling me when she was getting close, and then groaning and whining her way through an orgasm. At one point she said "I love your cock. I've missed this so much."

In-between orgasms she wanted her nipples sucked. She liked it fairly rough, in terms of her nipples. She liked me to pinch them harder than I would have on my own, and pull at them. On the other hand she liked the sucking to be gentle and sustained. It was nice that she was willing to tell me what to do sometimes, because I had a hell of a good time watching her have all those orgasms.

She rode me for at least an hour. I actually went soft once, because she sat there and we talked. She simply sucked me back to life and climbed back on.

Finally, though, she asked me if I wanted to cum.

"I'd love to," I said.

"Where?" she asked.

"Now that's an interesting question," I said.

"Well, you can cum where you are, or in my mouth," she explained.

"It occurs to me I should have asked this question a couple of hours ago," I said, "but are you on the pill?"

"Nope," she said, completely unruffled. "Can't afford them. Besides, I haven't done this in longer than I care to think about."

"Had I known that, I'd have brought protection," I said.

"I wouldn't have let you use it. Making love is a very personal thing, and should be shared in as personal a way as possible."

"Most women wouldn't look at it that way," I said.

"Well, I heard somewhere that cops have to take AIDS tests all the time, because of the evidence they handle and the things they're exposed to and all that. And I think you're the kind of man who, if you had some dread disease, would say something about it. Then there's the fact that you didn't strike me as a playboy." She rocked on my cock and went on. "I love sex, but I haven't been in a position to let myself partake, because I didn't know any men worthy of the experience until you came along and dabbled in my life."

"Well, I'm delighted to have been able to make up for lost time," I said.

"Oh you haven't even come close to doing that," she said. "But we won't do this again real soon, because I have a feeling you're addictive, and my life is complicated enough as it is."

"What's your definition of real soon?" I asked.

"Don't be needy," she chided. "I guarantee you I've been without sex a lot longer than you have. I'll tell you when I can't stand it any more and you can jump my bones."

"How romantic," I laughed.

"I would like to spend some more time around you, though," she said. "That's romantic, isn't it?"

"It is to me," I said. "Most people want to spend as little time around a cop as possible."

"Do you bowl? I haven't been bowling in years."

"I can launch a ball, but I'm no pro."

"I'm not looking for a pro. How about roller skating?"

"I can stand up and if somebody pushes me I can move."

"You and Timothy will be perfect together," she said.

"I'll fall on the poor boy and crush him like a bug," I said.

"No you won't. Do you like museums?"

"With you along? Yes."

"What kind?"

"With you along? Yes."

She laughed and her pussy squeezed me in the process. That reminded me that this woman had said she welcomed what my penis wanted to spurt in her. I pulled her down for a kiss and rolled, landing with my knees outside hers. With her legs closed she was very tight, which was what my over stimulated prick needed just then.

It turned out she'd never done it that way, and that it did things to her clit that had never been done either. At least not like that. I sped up and started fucking into her as fast as I could.

"I like this position!" she huffed.

My "Me too" made it out of my mouth as more of an "Uhhnngggggggggg" as my cock belched in her pussy, spraying happily to wet her deepest recesses.



-------

Chapter 7



That first night, after I came in her the second time, her garrulous, easy-going and intimate acceptance of me pulled back a little bit. She got up and, in the middle of a naked cleanup, got dressed. I'm not stupid. I got dressed too. She finally turned to me and said "I like you too much."

"I'll expose some of my less attractive qualities to you if you like," I said. It was an attempt at levity, because her sudden seriousness and the tone in her voice suggested that something that had been very nice might also end up being very temporary, and I suddenly found that idea to be singularly unattractive.

"My life really is complicated enough," she said.

Like I said, I'm not stupid. I know when a woman is trying to talk herself out of making what she thinks is a mistake.

"I should go," I said. "Early day tomorrow. Thank you for a lovely evening."

"Isn't that supposed to be my line?" She looked conflicted.

"Take a few days to think about things," I said. "Then you can give me your line. Whatever it is, I'll honor it."

"Why do you have to be so damned attractive like that?" she moaned.

"Because I like you too," I said.

"I just need a little time to work through my thoughts," she said.

It was interesting to hear her say that, because only one other woman had ever said that to me. She was the one I let get away when I was a rookie cop. I gave her too much time ... so much that she thought I'd lost interest. She didn't want to waste her youth pining over me, and moved on. It broke my heart. Now that woman I might have married.

-------

I was opening the door of my car when Eva yelled "Wait!"

She came running, barefoot on the cold cement walk, and into the street, where she crashed into me for a warm-lipped kiss.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I don't mean to be a bitch. I just have a lot on my mind right now."

"You're welcome," I said. "I had just as good a time as you did, remember?"

"Okay. I'm freezing."

"Then go back inside," I said, grinning.

"I have to go get Timothy," she said.

"Well go put on some shoes first, and maybe a coat," I suggested.

"Right," she said.

Then I was watching her ass cheeks rising and falling as she ran back to the house.

-------

I wasn't used to thinking about a particular woman that much. After my heart was broken I had had the occasional fling, and I had always known that none of them would last that long. I had generally gone with the flow, easing off when it was clear that she was losing interest, or, on two occasions, getting too interested. I usually had a few regrets about backing away. Some of the women were pleasant companions, or fun sexual partners. But there was never that spark that electrified me.

Eva was unique in that sense. It felt good to be with her. I'm not talking about the sex here. That was fantastic, but the reason I wanted to go back was because she was fun to be with, no matter what we were doing. And we hadn't done all that much, up to that point, that might be considered potential for non-sexual fun.

But, just as I had backed off from potential mates in the past, some of them had backed away from me too, when I didn't generate that spark in them either.

So I thought about her a lot over the next week. I appeared at Wally's arraignment, where the judge raised an eyebrow at the number of charges. I kept a tight lipped silence about it other than to present the initial evidence and testimony that got him bound over for trial and bond denied because he was on parole.

The week after that I was summoned to the prosecutor's office. His name was Dennis Stuart and we had worked together reasonably well for a few years. He had some of the common prosecutorial quirks, but won more cases than he lost. He was also a donor to the Santa Claus fund, but didn't do anything other than that.

"You want to tell me what the stacked charges are all about?" he asked, pointing to a file on his desk with Wally's picture on the front.

"He did all those things," I said.

"You know I can't take all that into court," he said. "There are six offenses listed, some of them with four counts each. And three different felonies. And parole violation? What do you have against this guy, anyway? Is it personal for some reason?"

"He tried to rob Santa Claus and then stabbed him," I said, straight faced. "What jury is going to acquit him on that?"

He smiled, but only briefly. "I'm more worried about the judge screaming at me in court," he said.

"Look, Denny," I said. "The guy got out of prison and the first thing he did was get high. The next thing he did was mug three people, putting one of them in the hospital. Then he burgled the home of the woman who put him in prison. If I hadn't been there he probably would have killed her. Or raped her at a minimum, and whatever he did would have happened right in front of her seven-year-old kid. This guy is an abscess on the cancerous tumor of a diarrheic colon. The only way to save the patient, which in this case is society, is to cut him out and seal him up where he can't hurt anybody ever again."

"It is personal," said Dennis, unmoved by my diatribe. "You know this girl?" He frowned. "Other than her being a recipient of your program?"

"It's personal because he tried to kill me," I said. "Isn't that a good enough reason?"

"Then let me try to convict him of trying to kill you, and get rid of all the ash and trash that will distract everybody," he suggested.

"Hey, you're the prosecutor. You can drop whatever charges you like," I said.

"You know I don't work that way," he said. "You guys and I are on the same team. It's a team, Bob."

"Then let me talk to the judge," I said.

He sat, looking at me for a full minute.

"I'll go for attempted murder on you. I'll go with the aggravated assault on the man he put in the hospital. I can get in the other two mugging assaults. Keep the resisting charge in as part of a possible deal, but the stalking and burglary and attempted theft of an art set have to go, Bob."

"What about the PCP?" I asked.

"Lab can't identify what was in his system," said Denny. "If his defense wants to bring up that he got high on something and therefore violated his parole, then let them. It won't make any difference. Your testimony, and that of Miss Sinderson will be enough to show he was cognizant of what he was doing."

"So they cop to violation of his parole and all he gets is two more years," I said.

"You're not looking at this through a lawyer's eyes, Bob," he said patiently. "I go to the judge and tell him I'm letting go of this, this, this and that, but I want to go forward on two felonies and two misdemeanors. Shithead's lawyers can't yell that I'm stacking charges and persecuting their client. They try for a deal with a guilty plea on the two misdemeanors and I tell them to go fuck themselves. We have a trial and he gets convicted on the things we know we can prove. It's how the game is played, Bob."

"So the fact that he broke into a woman's house, scared the shit out of a little boy and tried to steal Christmas presents is just tossed in the trash basket," I said, disgusted.

"The door was open," said Denny, playing devil's advocate. "He rang the bell, but the festivities inside were simply too loud and nobody heard it. So he invited himself in. He'd been there before. He only wanted to wish Miss Sinderson a Merry Christmas. And he was only admiring the art set when you misunderstood and things got out of control."

"My testimony will prove otherwise," I said, knowing that he was playing defense attorney and devil's advocate.

"You have a relationship of some kind with Miss Sinderson," he said. "You were jealous that her former lover returned and wanted to pick up where things left off." He was looking at me closely. He didn't need to know about our date. Nobody needed to know. It was our business and nobody else's. Besides, for all I knew, it was the only date we'd ever have.

"He was never her lover," I growled.

"I know what I'm doing, Bob," he said. "All I need Miss Sinderson for is a witness to the attempted murder of you, and the fact that you identified yourself as a law enforcement officer. Let me do my job, Bob. I'll get him fifteen years of hard time with no provision for parole."

"The attempted murder alone is worth twenty," I said.

"And it's going to be hard to prove," he said. "He didn't actually hurt you, after all. And a cut up Santa suit isn't going to be all that sexy in a case like this."

"I think you're nuts," I said. "But you're the prosecutor. Don't let him off, Denny, because I know what this guy is capable of, and if I see him on the street again, I'm going to shoot first and ask questions later. Then you'll end up prosecuting me."

"Trust me, Bob. It won't come to that. Fifteen years of hard time will take the starch out of him. He'll be so worried about having to go back for even one day that he'll toe the line. I've seen it a hundred times."

I snorted. "You've only been a prosecutor for seven years, Denny. Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter. If you want to play it safe, just say so and do it."

"I don't want to play it safe," he insisted. "I just want a slam dunk that no appeals court will even be interested in looking at. That's all I want, Bob."

-------

One week to the day from the time I knocked on Eva's door for our stay-in date, my phone rang.

When I picked it up I heard that voice. "Why haven't you called me?"

"I was giving you time to think," I said.

"It doesn't take me that much time to think something over!" she objected.

"Well I'm not used to the way you think, or the speed of your thought, or whatever it is that will get me out of trouble," I said.

"Who said you're in trouble?"

I sighed, and made sure she heard me. "May I assume I get to see you again?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she said pertly. "I'm not doing anything right now."

"Where shall we go?" I asked. "Is Timothy coming with us?"

"Of course he is," she said. "He's protecting me from you."

"I see. Chuck E. Cheese's?"

"He loves that place, but he'd be gone from the table the whole time and I might succumb to your wiles."

"Okay, then, how about Border Bandidos?"

"I've never been there," she said. "Is it Mexican?"

"Tex-Mex," I said. "But the waiters are very entertaining. I think he'd enjoy it. You might even enjoy it."

"Pick us up in an hour?"

"You're making the assumption I don't have anything else to do," I said.

"Well, do you?"

"Actually ... no."

"Then why do you tease me?"

"I have no idea. I might be smitten with you, and my brain is turning to mush."

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that," she complained. "It's hard enough to resist you as it is."

"Who says you should resist me at all?" I asked.

"You're sitting on the opposite side of the table from me, mister!" she barked.

"Be ready in thirty minutes," I ordered.

"We're ready now," she said. "Hurry!"

-------

Border Bandidos are purveyors of genuine Tex-Mex dishes, as opposed to the standard array of burritos, tamales, beans and rice that most "Mexican" restaurants serve up. Not that Mexican food isn't good. But it's very different from authentic Tex-Mex. On top of that, the waiters at BBs are encouraged to do some role playing, if you will. It's entertainment of a sort. And they're quite good at detecting whether a diner is actually being entertained or not. If you want to be left alone, somehow, mysteriously, you are. Otherwise, watch out, because anything could happen.

We were seated by a swaggering bandit who was obviously female, based on her curves, but who was wearing a costume designed to look like dirty leather. Making an X between her breasts were two bandoliers of plastic bullets. She had twin six guns on her hips, and wore a sombrero and stick-on mustache. She had large gold hoop earrings in both ears. She didn't speak with an accent at all, and acted like she was dressed in a completely normal manner as she showed us to a booth with a curved, padded seat. She put Timothy at the bottom of the U and said, calmly, "He'll be safer there. You two can shield him from the worst of it." Then she smiled a cheerful smile and said "Carlita will be your server. She'll be here in a jiffy."

Eva was staring around. The place was decorated like a nightmare of the Alamo. It was noisy and cheerful, and there were bandits moving swiftly all over the place. Two suddenly appeared across the aisle from us, guns drawn, threatening a young couple.

"Jew!" said one of them, waving her plastic hog leg at the male. "Jew gots any money?" The young man, having apparently been there before, opened his wallet and peered inside. He shook his head. "Then jew geeve me jure credit card pronto!" snapped the bandit.

He did so and the bandit picked up the bill which had been lying on the edge of the table and trotted off toward the cashier at the counter. The remaining bandit put her guns back in their holsters and rested her hands on her hips. She addressed the woman staring up at her.

"Ees he any fun to be around?"

The woman nodded and smiled.

"I suppose jew want to keep heem," said the bandit.

The woman, obviously having been there before too, darted a glance at the man. A gleam crept into her eye. She shook her head quickly.

"Reeeally? Can I have heem?" asked the bandit. "I need a slave to polish my boots."

Everybody looked at the plastic overlays, under which there were tennis shoes.

"Maybe I keep heem a leetle longer," laughed the woman.

The first bandit came back with the credit card and receipt, which she handed to the man and then pulled both guns again.

"Sign eet!" he commanded.

The man signed, and the two bandits "threw the couple out" of the restaurant.

I looked at Eva and Timothy. Eva was smiling. Timothy's eyes were as wide as saucers.

Carlita arrived, dressed in a flowing skirt and peasant blouse. She had the body for it, and made sure to lean forward just enough to flash her cleavage at me. She flirted shamelessly with Timothy, telling him he was handsome and asking if he had a girlfriend. He got shy and she warned him that one of the other waitresses might try to kidnap him because he was so cute. He scooted closer to his mother.

I ordered a spread, since I didn't know what they might like or not. I got a bowl of Texas Caviar, which was black eyed peas with onions and jalapeno bits and seasoning. It was good either by the spoonful or scooped up on a nacho. I also got some Queso Blanco, also for the nacho chips, and which is a little milder. I added a funnel cake, and ordered Bill Miller iced tea for Eva and me, and milk for Timothy. We ended up getting a Tex-Mex bake for Timothy, which is basically a Frito pie. Eva and I shared a plate of Enchelada casserole, smothered with Carne Machacha.

At various times during the meal two shapely waitresses came to the table and tried to lure Timothy away with either chocolate chip cookies or Reposteria, which is a Mexican cookie that comes in a variety of flavors. They made it obvious they were trying to "kidnap" him and he loved it. He got the cookies even though he refused to go with them. When he refused the second one, she sat on my lap instead.

"How about you, beeg boy? Jew want a cookie?"

"You better back up off of my man," said Eva, loud enough for the new group of people sitting across from us to hear. They watched interestedly as the "peasant girl" got off my lap.

She leaned over and kissed the top of my head, making it obvious she didn't care if I looked at her cleavage, if I was so inclined as to look. Then she turned to Eva and grinned. "Okay for now, hot mamma. But jew better watch out if jew leave heem alone somewhere." She smiled gaily and went across the aisle to flirt with the men there.

"I think that lady likes you," said Timothy.

Eva snorted.

I just smiled.



-------

Chapter 8

When I took them home, Eva invited me in.

"Wait," she said, and then took Timothy to his room to put him to bed.

I decided not to make myself too comfortable. She was sending mixed signals. So I looked around instead. In most houses there are pictures scattered around, and knickknacks ... little personal items that describe where the members of the family have been on their life walk thus far. All I saw in the living room was one picture of Eva and Timothy. It looked like it was a year old or maybe a little more. I remembered Wally, who was willing to forcibly take and sell anything of value in the house on Christmas Eve. He wasn't the kind to amass personal mementos ... or let anybody else amass them either. I hoped Denny wasn't going to wimp out and cut a deal. Wally needed to go away for a long time. He'd been gone two years and this family still hadn't recovered from his effects.

"I'm glad you stayed," she said, coming back into the room.

"You told me to," I reminded her.

"Yes, but I wasn't sure you would."

"Why?"

"I know what men want, Bob," she said. "And I know how some of them react when you deny them what they want."

"And you think all I want is sex?" I was disappointed, both in her for thinking it, and in me for not making it clear to her that I was actually interested in her as a human being.

"I don't know what to think," she said. "I want to say I'm not used to dealing with decent men, but that's probably not true. A lot of my customers are great guys." She frowned. "And you didn't call me."

"I didn't call you because I was giving you the requested time and space to think," I said.

"Well next time, call me and tell me that," she said.

"Got it," I said. "I'm leaving now."

"Why?"

"Because I am a man, and you look good, but I'm still pretty sure that's not why you told me to stay." I gave her time to tell me I was wrong, but she didn't.

Instead, she came up to me, pulled my head down, and kissed me for a long, long time. When she was finished she pulled back and said "Thank you."

"Oh, my pleasure, believe me," I said.

"You're making this very difficult," she said.

"Life is hard," I said. The rest of it had been said so many times before that it just naturally tripped out of my mouth. "And then you die."

She blinked and her face went still.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think. I didn't mean it like it sounded," I said, reflecting on how there is no better way to put a downer on an otherwise nice night than by reminding a woman of her dead husband.

"I know." She stepped back. "But you're right."

"I'll call you this time," I said.

"You better."

-------

I called her the next day. She laughed when I told her who I was.

"No moss growing on your stones," she said.

I was mute for long seconds. This girl had the knack of surprising me. It was really kind of nice. Finally I realized I hadn't said anything for too long.

"Roll on, baby," I said weakly.

"Okay," she said. "Witty repartee isn't your strong suit. I can live with that."

"You want to go do something sometime?" I asked.

"When?"

"As soon as humanly possible," I said, honestly.

She laughed again. I felt my groin reacting to just her laugh.

"I can be free in ten minutes," she said.

"Well, maybe not that soon," I said, feeling foolish. "I'm at work."

"I kind of figured that," she said. "Is this what I pay taxes for? So you can call women and flirt with them on the phone?"

"I am merely keeping in contact with a victim of a crime," I said. "Speaking of which, Wally was arraigned. He was bound over for trial and they denied bail, since he had been out of jail less than 24 hours when he was arrested again."

"So there's going to be a trial?" she asked. "Will I have to testify?"

"Yes, to your first question," I said. "Unless he pleads guilty. Probably not to your second question. They only charged him with the attempted murder of me and assaults on the muggings. It's possible they could call you on his assault on me, but with me to testify, they really don't need you."

"I don't understand," she said. "Why didn't they charge him with coming into my house? I had a restraining order. They don't have to prove anything at all."

"Prosecution is complicated sometimes," I said. "They're going for the things they think will get him put away the longest. In theory, if all they did was the restraining order violation, he could get off with just probation."

"I don't want that," she said. "He needs to be in jail. He'll never leave me alone if he's out."

"He's not going to be out for a long, long time," I said. "But let's talk about something more pleasant. How about I pick you and Timothy up tonight and we go to this art gallery I know of. They're opening a new show tonight, and I can get us in."

"Art gallery?" I could hear puzzlement in her voice.

"I thought Timothy might like to see what the big boys and girls create and sell."

"Why not?" she asked. "What time?"

"You want to eat first, or dine on my dime?" I asked.

"You've done enough for us already," she said. "Pick us up at six-thirty."

"I'll be there," I said.

-------

The day dragged by. It was a paperwork day, which meant I wasn't available to respond to new complaints. I got two reports finished, one of which was the one on Wally, and sent them on their way to whoever cared.

I got home, took a quick shower, microwaved a burrito that tasted just flat nasty, and then went to pick up Eva and her son.

He loved the gallery. And he behaved years older than his chronological age. I'll never forget him standing in front of one canvas, arms folded, just looking at it. Then he said "I could do that," and moved to the next one. Eva was standing beside me. We weren't touching, just standing together, though we were much closer than the usual personal space rule would allow.

I said "He's some kid."

She nodded. "I know."

"Does he remind you of his father?"

She looked at me then. Her eyes looked odd. There was conflict expressed in them, and something wary. She nodded.

"Sometimes."

"It's good he lives on in his son," I said. "Gives a man hope, somehow."

She stared at me for a few seconds and I was afraid I'd said something wrong. But as Timothy moved on, she slipped her arm through mine and pulled me to follow.

-------

We went out once or twice a week after that. Roughly every other time we took Timothy along. We went to museums, concerts, a play, the library, a couple of parks and various restaurants. I behaved myself, which means if I was invited in, I went, but only stayed a little while. I did kiss her, and hold her, but I didn't try to push it. Her kisses were warm and inviting, and I wanted them to stay that way.

On Valentine's day, after work, I baked her a cake and took it over. I decorated it with those awful candy hearts with the goofy sayings on them - one row of them all the way around the outside of the cake. In the middle, done with one of those pressurized cans of frosting, were the words "I like you a lot."

Timothy thought it was funny. He looked at me and said "Are you sure you're not my mom's boyfriend?"

"Not yet," I said, as Eva cut the cake. "I'm a boy, and I'm her friend. Yours too, by the way. But just like I'm not your boyfriend, I'm not hers either."

"You're not a boy," he said. "You're a man."

"Same difference," I said.

"Cake, brush your teeth, and off to bed," said Eva sternly.

"It's not bedtime yet," he complained.

"It will be by the time you get your bath done," she said.

"I had a bath last night," he complained.

"And you'll have one every night as long as you get dirty playing," she said. "Now, are you going to waste your cake-eating time or not?"

"Not!" he said shoving his hand in the air like he was answering a question in school.

Forty-five minutes later Timothy was snug in bed, tummy full of chocolate cake. Eva came out of his room and closed the door.

"I should go," I said.

"I wonder if you'd do me a favor before you go," she replied.

"Of course," I said.

"I need a bath too," she said. "And I need somebody to wash my back."

-------

The back of the tub was cold, even though the tub was half full of warm water. I stopped thinking about that, though, when Eva climbed in between my legs and leaned back against me. My hands went around her and played. She was like an otter in the water. Every so often she'd twist, her legs folded up so they didn't bump the faucets, and pull herself up my body for a kiss. Of course that rubbed her naked front against mine, and made the kisses hotter and hotter. I got hard as a rock, and she rubbed her belly against my cock, before rolling the rest of the way around and pushing back against me again. I played with her breasts and slid my hand between her legs. She clamped her legs closed, though, and leaned her head back on my shoulder.

"I don't want your finger in me," she said. Her hand went behind her and she arched her back so she could feel for and grip my erection. "I want this."

"Here? Now?" I asked.

She rolled again and slid up me for a long kiss. When it broke her eyes were only an inch or two from mine.

"Not enough room," she said.

"Soon?" I asked.

She grinned. "I love it when you get all horny for me."

"Then you love every minute of every day," I said.

She stared at me for a few more seconds and then said "Out, towel dry and off to bed!"

"Yes ma'am!" I said.

Five minutes later I lay on my back in her bed. Our positions were reversed this time. She had arranged me without speaking, and I let her. Gracefully she climbed up, straddled me and sat on my thighs, just below my jutting phallus.

She reached for my penis and stroked it gently. Then she scooted back down onto my shins while she fell forward, her lips an inch from the tip of my cock.

"I've missed you," she said. She kissed the tip, and then flicked at it several times with the tip of her tongue. "Did you miss me?"

"Oh fuck yes," I groaned.

"My, my, what a deep voice you have," she cooed to my penis.

Then, playtime apparently being over, she scooted her butt back up, angled my cock with her hand, and slid onto it in one, long plunge, making a sound in her throat as she was filled.

"I'm going to do this for hours," she sighed, as she started rocking gently.

She leaned forward, rubbing her clit against the base of my cock and I felt her internal muscles flutter as she had an orgasm. She kept moving, but leaned further to kiss me, before going on to the next orgasm. At various times she stared into my eyes, while at others she closed hers, but she never stopped moving. There was no particular warning that those muscles were going to flutter. It just happened, and her breath caught in her throat and she whined or moaned. I had never made love like this. It was so gentle and slow, and yet it was obvious she was having a hell of a good time.

I think it was the fact that she just kept going, having orgasm after slowly building orgasm that got me excited. She acted like she really was going to do that for hours, and the inference was that she wasn't just after a few quick cums ... but that she really loved having my penis in her. And as she leaned forward to massage her clit again, her eyes closed and her face calm and placid, it got to me, and quite suddenly I felt the warning tingle in my balls.

"Eva!" I warned her.

"Hmmm?"

"I'm gonna cum, honey."

"Not yet," she sighed.

"I can't help it."

Her eyes opened and I felt a different kind of ripple in her pussy ... a more intentional and measured ripple.

"Then happy Valentine's day, Bob," she whispered.

She continued to milk me off with those incredible muscles while my prick coughed and belched inside her, as I suddenly wanted to sink completely inside this woman and become part of her body. I know I must have looked like I was dying, because she reached and stroked my face as I came. Then, as my cock finally dribbled its last, she lay down on me and showered me with short, soft-lipped kisses as I caught my breath. The kisses got longer and longer until they were lasting several minutes as my cock softened inside her.

Then she reached over and turned off the bedside lamp, rolled us sideways, and pulled the covers up and over us.



-------

Chapter 9


I woke in the night with a raging piss hardon, and fumbled my way to the bathroom. When I got back she was awake and her hands and lips were waiting for me. She pulled me on top of her this time and we made short, violent love. I made sure she came once, and then gave in to temptation and let myself cum. We fell back to sleep still in each other's arms.

The next thing I knew Timothy was poking me on my bare shoulder.

"You lied to me," he said accusingly. "You are my mother's boyfriend!"

"Timothy!" moaned Eva.

"I guess you talked us into it," I said.

"Are you going to stay here? Like that other man?"

"No," I said, sitting up. Eva pulled the covers to hide her nakedness. "At least not very often."

"That's probably good," he said. "That other man was nice at first, but then he was mean."

"I won't ever be mean," I said. "Not to either of you."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise."

"Okay, then," he said. "I'm hungry."

-------

He was hungry because Eva and I had slept until he woke us up at eight thirty. He'd gotten up and watched TV for a while, and then come to see why his mother was still in bed.

She told him to go to the kitchen and she'd be right there.

"I'm sorry," I said, when he had left. "I should have left last night."

"I'm not sorry," she said calmly. "And no, you shouldn't have."

She got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I heard water running and she came back and put on a robe.

"I needed you last night," she said. "Thank you."

"I have to admit I was surprised," I said.

"I was too," she said. "I didn't plan that."

"It's not why I brought you the cake," I said.

"I know that, silly. That's probably why I got all out of control again."

"Am I to take it that you still feel somewhat conflicted?"

"Am I horrible?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"You make this so fucking hard!" she snapped. "Couldn't you at least be an asshole once in a while so it would be easier to resist you?"

"I'll see what I can do," I said.

She stopped and came to climb on the bed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I just feel like I've been burned so many times. It's hard for me to trust."

"Not a problem," I said. "I'm used to going without sex for months on end. At least this way I don't have to get to know some new woman just so we can have sex once and then I never see her again."

"You can be an asshole!" she said brightly. "Thank you!"

"Any time," I said.

"Not any time," she countered. "But maybe more often than once every few months."

"Progress!" I sighed. "There is hope for the future."

"I have to go," she said.

"I do too."

"You're not staying for breakfast?"

"I think not. I think you and he need to have that time together, to make him feel secure," I said.

"Okay. Thank you."

"Oh, believe me, it was my pleasure."

"I know," she said. "You make a girl feel good."

Then she got off the bed and went to take care of her son. She didn't even kiss me goodbye.

-------

The next week flew by. Wally got assigned Casper Buckridge as his public defender. I found this out when I found a post-it note stuck to my monitor that said "The Ghost wants to talk to you." Casper was referred to routinely as "The Ghost" for obvious reasons. I called him and he wanted to interview me.

"You've got my statement and the report already," I said.

"That's what everybody tells you too, but you always insist on talking to them again," he said. "When can we do it?"

"Pick a time," I said, knowing it wouldn't do any good to resist further.

He offered to let me take him to lunch and I said I'd meet him at the Taco Truck that parked on 2rd and Broadway every day for lunch. Then I called Denny Stuart and told him about it.

"Just be careful what you tell him," said the prosecutor.

"How can I be careful?" I asked. "He asks the questions and I tell the truth. I don't get to pick and choose which questions he's going to ask."

"Just don't give him anything to derail my carefully constructed trial," said Denny.

"How about if there's anything that could derail your carefully constructed trial, you just have me investigate and get you the evidence to fix the problem," I said. Denny could be a pain in the ass sometimes.

"I'll call you if I need you," he said, and I knew I had been dismissed.

-------

Casper was the worst kind of defense attorney. That's because he had been a prosecutor for fifteen years before he found out he had convicted an innocent man. From that point on he flipped sides and was tireless in his attempts to defend his clients. He wasn't in it for the money. His motto was "Better a guilty man goes free, than an innocent man's freedom is withdrawn." The fact that that followed precisely from what the founding fathers had in mind for a criminal justice system didn't cut much mustard in the 21st century. The founding fathers didn't have to run for re-election.

On the other hand, if you shot straight with Casper, he was your best friend in the world. He'd tear you up on the stand, but only if you could be torn up. If you had your shit together, he minimized your testimony and moved on.

That was the purpose of the interview ... to find out if my ducks were in a row or not.

We sat down over dogs on a bed of kraut, with cheese fries and cokes. It was a meal guaranteed to take fifteen minutes off your life.

He asked me what happened and I told him. He had been a donor to the Santa program in the past, though I hadn't talked to him about it for the last four or five years. So he knew the deal. He asked me how long I'd been there before his client showed up and quizzed me pretty heavily on exactly what Wally's words had been. He wanted to know how close I'd been standing to Eva and Timothy and what I'd had in my hands. Some of what he was asking didn't make sense, but then a good interviewer often asks questions that have nothing to do with the actual point, so it's harder to tell what is important to him or not.

Eventually he started asking me about some of the guys, and how many people we'd helped this past Christmas and I realized he was just chatting. We finished our dogs, shook hands and went our separate ways.

-------

Whether Eva was simply tired of going out in the cold, or was trying to take it easy on my billfold, she began to express an interest in staying in, instead of going out. She had half a dozen board games, and probably twice that many jigsaw puzzles that she'd gotten at yard sales, based on the bits of masking tape still stuck to the covers that said 25 to 50 cents on them. So I went over once or twice a week and played Pictionary, or Boggle, or Parcheesi or whatever. Timothy was a mercenary player, as most kids are, and was not above begging for mercy when he was in danger himself. If there was a puzzle half done, we worked on that. It was all very domestic and calm. If I hadn't been doing that I'd have been reading a book, most likely. So I liked it. I liked her. I liked her son. I liked everything about it ... a lot.

Sometimes I got caught looking at her. I did that a lot, just watching her do something, whether it was something as simple as spinning a dial or throwing some dice and moving a piece of plastic around on the board, or looking for the tiny shape that would tell her which piece of solid blue she was looking for to add to the sky. She was good at it. She'd pick up a piece of puzzle and put it in place almost every time. And when she caught me looking at her, she'd smile. She never teased me, with the exception of good night kisses, which always left me ready for much, much more. She knew it too, because she was shameless about grinding her loins into my hardons during those good night kisses. The only thing she ever said about it openly, though, was when she whispered "I love it when I make you horny."

And time passed, and the fact that I had a "girlfriend" who didn't fit the normal description of a girlfriend, and the fact that I went to her house frequently, but was never invited to sleep over - well other than that one time - didn't drive me crazy at all. It was worth doing things differently to be able to be around her.

Then I got notified through our legal secretary that Wally's case was scheduled, which seemed odd, because that meant there had been no attempt to delay the trial. Defense attorneys almost always try for a continuance, but in this case The Ghost was going to just get it over with. I was on the witness list for the prosecution.

So was Eva.

-------

I had to be careful about seeing her after that. It was important that she be able to say with absolute conviction and honesty that she had not been coached or influenced by me. Denny called her in and talked to her. I stopped going to her house, telling her it was best to do that until the trial was over. She wasn't happy about it, which made me feel pretty good. I heard through the grapevine that Casper had gone to her work and interviewed her there, which was a dirty trick, because that made it look like she was on the side of the defense to people who didn't know any better.



-------

Chapter 10

The day of the trial dawned bright and crisp. It was April, and Spring kept trying to break, but kept getting kicked the shit out of by cold winds and lingering light snows. The courtroom was overly warm, though, which made it hard on witnesses because they had to wait in the hallway, which was cold, and then transition into a sweltering courtroom. That made them sweat and, since they were already nervous, could make it look like they were lying.

As the arresting officer, I was first on the stand so I went in and sat down in the gallery. There were only three or four other people in there. Most of them simply had nothing better to do than come and watch. There wasn't as much going on as I would have expected, either. Normally there would be bailiffs hurrying to and fro and prospective jurors collecting. Pretty soon Denny showed up and it was then that I found out Wally and Casper had elected to go Judge alone. I found that very interesting.

For those of you who are fortunate enough not to have a working knowledge of the criminal justice system, there are basically two kinds of trials. You can have a trial by a jury of your peers, which is from nine to twelve people who are likely in no way, shape or form anything near being your peer. Or you can have all testimony and evidence presented to a judge alone, and he (or she) makes all the decisions, including whether or not you're guilty and what to do about it if you are.

There are various perceived advantages to each kind of trial. Say for instance the issue at hand is emotional. That's something a defense attorney can play on with jurors. But if a case is technical, then you might want a judge alone, because he'll already understand the technical aspects of the law and you don't have to try to explain it to a bunch of wooden headed jurors.

Judge alone trials also go more quickly, which is why I figured The Ghost had chosen that route. His client was guilty, plain and simple. He had assaulted a cop, after all, and when it comes to who has more clout in court - a cop or the accused - cops almost always win.

Things got underway around nine-thirty, and they got the preliminaries out of the way quickly. Wally had already plead not guilty to all charges, but the judge took him through the options again and made sure he understood them. The judge in this case was the honorable Walter Pickett, who had a reputation for being a stickler on the law and a man of little patience for attorneys who tried to play games in his courtroom. Once he was satisfied that Wally did indeed feel he was not guilty of anything, he called on Denny to proceed. Denny then called me to the stand.

Denny got right to the point.

"Where were you on the evening of December 24th last year?" he asked.

Knowing how to answer this question, I said "Among other places I was at the residence of Eva Sinderson." I gave the address.

"And did you have occasion to see or interact with the defendant while at the Sinderson residence?" he asked.

I also knew how to answer that question.

"I had just presented Ms. Sinderson and her son with Christmas presents when the defendant entered the house, uninvited and became unruly and abusive."

"Objection!" said Casper. "Witness is assuming my client was uninvited."

"You'll get your chance, counselor," said the judge. "Overruled."

Denny had already told me he didn't want the issue of the presents and the attempted robbery confusing the issue, so when he asked what "unruly" meant I told him Wally used abusive language toward Ms. Sinderson and her son, and then toward me, at which point I identified myself as a law enforcement officer. I described how he assaulted me, and the steps I took to take him into custody. Denny introduced the knife and the jacket of my Santa Suit into evidence. He asked me if the knife was the one I had taken from the accused and I said it was. He asked me how the hole had gotten in the jacket and I told him. Denny then said he was finished and Casper stood up.

"How were you dressed that evening, Detective?"

"I was wearing a Santa Claus suit," I said. I thought that was already pretty obvious.

"With the whole white beard and mustache and all that?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And were you wearing your badge on the outside of this suit?"

"No."

"You said you went to the house. Did you just drive up, get out of your car and go in, or did you linger for a while on the street?"

Denny should have objected about The Ghost leading me, but he didn't.

"I sat in my car for a while because it looked like no one was home."

"And did Ms. Sinderson later arrive in a cab?"

Again Denny sat there like a bump on a log. He could have said I was being led. He could have questioned the relevancy of all this. But he sat there, fat, dumb and happy.

"She did."

"And did you approach her on the street and identify yourself?"

"No. I gave them time to get inside and get their coats off and get comfortable."

"Is it possible, detective, that someone who saw you sitting there, watching the house, and then going in after the residents returned and were inside out of sight, might think you were engaged in foul play?"

Now Denny objected. The judge sustained his objection, and I wondered what the fuck The Ghost was doing. He had known he couldn't pull that kind of shit, especially in Judge Pickett's courtroom.

He went on to ask where I was standing when his client entered the house. Finally Denny woke up and realized something was going on and started to pay more attention. He began offering objections, and it was then that it became clear Casper was going to put Wally on the stand. This became clear because he said he was establishing points of fact that would pertain to his client's testimony.

I looked at Denny, who looked perplexed at first. I knew he had not expected Wally to testify, which meant he had not prepared any cross examination, which meant he was unprepared. That didn't seem to bother him, though. He just took more notes as Casper continued asking all kinds of questions.

The last question he asked was this: "Detective, have you been dating Ms. Eva Sinderson since you were in her house on Christmas eve?"

Denny objected, and Casper said it had direct bearing on later testimony, so Pickett let it go.

Then I was released.

-------

Normally, if a witness might be called back to the stand for some reason, he or she is not allowed to remain in the courtroom. There is an exception in some cases for law enforcement officers, so I went to the back of the courtroom and sat down. Nobody objected.

Eva was called next. She came into the back of the room and, because I was directly to the side of her, and her attention was up front, she didn't see me. She couldn't help but see me once she was on the stand, and had been sworn in. Denny went through his questions for her, including the restraining order which established that the accused had not had permission to enter her residence. He was specific with her in terms of questions.

"Did you see anyone in that room attack the person you know as Detective Carson?"

"Yes. Wallace did."

"Did Detective Carson identify himself as a police officer?"

"Yes."

"How did the accused react to that?"

"He became enraged and tried to stab Bob."

"I have no further questions," he said.

Casper stood up and said "Miss Sinderson, could you describe exactly what you saw when you say my client tried to stab Detective Carson?"

Eva said "Bob was standing there and Wallace ran at him. They fell down on the ground and Bob got on top of him and asked me to help him put handcuffs on Wallace. I did that and Wallace had the knife in his hand."

"Did you see the knife before Wallace ran at Detective Carson?"

She hesitated. "I'm not sure. Everything was happening so fast. And Bob got between Wallace and us, so I couldn't see Wallace very well."

"So the only time you saw the knife was after the Detective had subdued him," said Casper.

"Yes."

"And what happened to the knife?"

"Bob took it out of his hand once the handcuffs were on," she said.

"Are you saying you've never seen that knife before, or known of Wallace Gardner to carry one?"

"I guess so," said Eva.

"Miss Sinderson, have you dated Detective Carson since Christmas Eve?"

Denny tried to object again, but Casper again said it would have direct bearing on later testimony, and again Pickett let him do it.

"Yes," she said. "We've been out several times.

"Define several," said Casper.

"He has taken us out seven or eight times."

"Us?"

"Sometimes Timothy comes with us," she said. "He's my son."

"Thank you.

Casper looked at the judge.

"I might have a few more questions for the witness later, your honor, but for now I'm finished."

Eva left the room, glancing at me on her way out. I didn't smile, and looked away, in case anybody was watching us.

I watched as the other victims came in and pointed out Wally as the man who mugged them. In the case of the person who had been hospitalized, it was his wife who pointed Wally out. I started to feel better.

In each case, Casper elicited testimony during cross examination that made it quite clear no weapon had been produced or seen, and that other than pushing people around - and knocking the hospitalized one down - that there had been no actual verbal demands that anybody give anything to their assailant. He also established that none of them lost any property in the incident. Denny objected at one point, illuminating that the definition of mugging was an attempt to take the property of another by force and without consent or threat. Of course the judge already knew all this, which he pointed out by telling the prosecutor not to lecture him if he didn't want to be found in contempt of court.

I knew what Ghost was doing, though, and it was something he had to do. If there was threat involved, it was elevated to robbery. That was why professional muggers never said a word while plying their trade. It was the difference between a year in the county lockup, or from five to fifteen years in prison.

It was a few minutes before noon, so Judge Pickett told us to break for lunch and be back at one. I went out into the hallway, but Eva was already gone. I assumed she'd gone straight to work from the trial, to try to make up the time she'd missed by having to be in court.

-------

After lunch I sat there as the technicians from the crime lab were called in and testified. Most of their testimony had to do with the muggings. Denny did ask one of them if the tear in the Santa jacket was consistent with the kind of damage that would be cause by the knife. The tech said it was.

When Casper stood up and approached the tech, he asked "What other things might have caused the tear in that jacket?"

The tech blinked and looked at the judge.

"Let me be more specific. Could that jacket have gotten caught on a sharp piece of metal somewhere and that tear have happened?"

"Objection!" yelled Denny. "Speculation!"

"Overruled," said Pickett. "It's a pertinent question."

"I guess so," said the tech.

The Ghost pulled a pen knife out of his pocket and opened it. "Could this have caused a tear like that?"

"Yes," said the tech, clearly unhappy.

"On a scale from zero to ten, with ten being the highest, how certain are you that the knife the prosecutor showed you actually made the tear in that Santa suit?"

The tech tried to answer the question by explaining that the damage was consistent with what the knife would cause.

And The Ghost said "You mean just as consistent as my knife, or the imaginary sharp piece of metal somewhere I mentioned? Aren't you really saying you have no idea what caused that tear?"

"You've made your point, counselor," said Judge Pickett. "There is no need to beat up on the witness."

"Thank you, Your Honor," said Casper and then sat down.

Denny rested the prosecution. Judge Pickett asked if Casper was ready to proceed with the defense and Casper stood and said "Yes sir." When the judge asked how many witnesses the defense intended to call, and the answer was provisionally only two, Pickett said "Let's get this over with, then. Proceed."

It was then about one-thirty in the afternoon.

Casper's first witness turned out to be me.

"Detective, I understand you have a habit of playing Santa Claus each Christmas. Is that true?"

"Objection," said Denny. "There is no relevance whatsoever as to why the Detective was wearing the jacket he was attacked in."

The Ghost said, "Your Honor, I think I can show the relevance."

Pickett told me to answer, which I did.

"And tell me, Detective, has anyone else ever stabbed you with a knife while you were dressed in your Santa Suit?"

It was silent in the court room.

"Yes," I said.

Denny's mouth dropped open. I looked at the judge. I knew I'd have to explain that answer, so I just did it before Casper asked me to.

"A kid stuck a knife in me to prove it was padding," I said.

Pickett's right eyebrow rose.

"Is that the same suit the child stabbed you in?" asked Casper, pointing to exhibit B.

"No. I replaced it," I said.

"Well then, Detective, is it fair to say that where the child stabbed you, to prove you weren't really Santa Claus, is roughly in the same place that the jacket in question is damaged?"

I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. About the same place he was talking about, in fact.

"It would," I admitted.

"One last thing, Detective. Did you wear that suit to play Santa all last season?"

"Yes."

"And when you put it on, the night of the twenty fourth of December, did you examine it closely to see if it was damaged? I remind you you're under oath."

Now that was a cheap shot, and he knew it.

"I did not," I said.

"So, as far as you know, that suit was already damaged when you tussled with my client in Ms. Sinderson's home ... isn't that right, Detective?"

"I know he tried to stab me," I said.

"You didn't answer the question, Detective. Let me rephrase it. Can you swear that the suit was completely undamaged when you entered Ms. Sinderson's home on Christmas Eve?"

He had me, and I knew it.

"No, I cannot."

-------

Denny gave it a shot. He asked me if anyone pointed out that the suit was damaged. He asked me how many children might have been in a position to see the damage and point it out. He even asked me if any of my suits had ever been damaged like that other than on the two occasions already known to the court.

But the damage was done. The lab tech couldn't say Wally's knife was what had caused the damage to the suit, and I couldn't swear the damage wasn't already there before I ever met Wally.

Casper then called Wally to the stand.



-------

Chapter 11


Ex-cons have all the time in the world to practice their acting skills in prison. In fact, you might say that their major daily activity is acting. They act tough when they're weak. They act happy when they're miserable. They act like they're reforming while planning all the capers they're going to pull when they get out. They act like they don't want drugs, when the only thing they can think of is getting a rock of crack, as soon as possible, and something to smoke it with.

Wally's only real talent, it turned out, was in the acting arena. As soon as he started talking I understood why he'd pulled the wool over Eva's eyes.

He spun a tale of getting out of jail based on his good behavior and the fact that he passed several self-help courses and took vocational training. He admitted that he failed to control his desire to taste alcohol, which he hadn't had for so long. He wasn't used to it anymore, which was why he got so drunk on so little. He didn't realize how incapacitated he was when he decided to go back to the place he had been living at when he was arrested and apologize to Eva for being such a jerk. Along the way he was unstable and bumped into people. He remembered almost falling and grabbing somebody to try to avoid that. He said "Maybe when I tried to stop from falling I accidentally grabbed a lady's purse, but it wasn't to steal it." People yelled at him, and that scared him, so he ran away and ended up bumping into somebody else! Then, when he finally saw the lights of home, the place he had so many fond memories of, with sweet Eva and little Timmy, he'd gone in, only to find a huge man in a Santa suit looming over Eva and Timmy. He'd heard in jail how a new scam was to dress up like Santa and offer to give someone something so you could get in. Once there it turned into a home invasion. So he tried to protect Eva and Timmy from this unknown man, who cursed at him, whereupon he knew the man was a danger to them. He said he didn't know where the knife came from, and that it must have been planted on him, because they certainly hadn't given him a knife when he got out of prison. And he insisted that no one had said anything about police until he found himself outside, handcuffed. He said he had tried to explain to the police, but he was tortured with a stun gun.

He even showed the judge the marks from multiple electrode strikes, and half-healed cuts on his forearms and wrists he said happened while he was being handcuffed.

"It was all a big mistake," he said. He said he had written Eva a letter, telling her he'd be home on Christmas Eve. He intended to apologize to her and get a job to help her, because he knew she was having a tough go of things. And this heavy handed cop had railroaded him into trouble.

When he was finished, Casper asked him about the restraining order.

He said that when he was in jail he learned that all such orders expire after two years, and since he'd been in prison almost that long, he thought it had expired. He'd learned his lesson in jail, and was going to be a good boyfriend and supporter of her. But he hadn't gotten the chance to show her he had reformed.

It was the kind of lie that resulted in a classic he said / she said situation.

On cross, Denny stood up looking like he might have a coronary at any second. He was obviously in disbelief that this guy was even trying to pull off something this crazy. He was also unprepared to deal with it.

"Who told you that restraining orders expire after two years?" he asked.

"Gee, I can't remember now."

"It's not true," said Denny. "The restraining order was still valid."

"Well I sure didn't know that, sir."

"Well then, Mr. Gardner, why didn't you knock before you entered?"

"Because I lived there. I still got clothes there as far as I know. And I needed a place to stay while I looked for work. I was gonna explain all that to her except that detective wouldn't let me."

"Mr. Gardner, are you aware that getting drunk is a violation of your parole agreement?"

He actually hung his head and looked devastated. "Yeah. I know that. And I'll take my licks for that. I know I got to be responsible for my actions. I learned that in jail."

"One of the men you 'bumped into', as you say it, is still in the hospital with a concussion!" yelped Denny.

"I'm real sorry about that," said Wally, looking mournful. "When I get a job I'll help pay his medical bills. I promise."

Denny looked frustrated. He faced Judge Pickett and said "Your Honor, I'm going to have to recall Ms. Sinderson as a rebuttal witness.

It was two-thirty-five.

-------

There was a delay, and we all sat around as a bailiff went to try to find Eva. If anybody would have asked me I'd have told them her shift was over at two and she might be home by now. Soon enough, the bailiff was back, whispering to the judge, who said "Well tell her to take a cab then!"

Pickett then called a twenty minute recess.

I was standing in the hallway when they hurried in. Eva had changed clothes, and looked harried. Timothy was obviously having fun seeing new things. She saw me and headed straight for me.

"I had to bring Timothy," she said. "Carla wasn't home when they called."

"He can sit with me," I said. "Just go on in."

"Why are they calling me back?" she asked. "I already told them everything."

"Wally's telling a different story. They always do. Don't worry about it. Just tell the truth."

I let her go in and then took Timothy in. We sat on the back row where I had been before. I told him to be quiet, and that if he had any questions, to save them for later.

-------

Denny went over again with Eva the sequence of events in her home on the night of Christmas Eve. She confirmed that she had never vacated the restraining order. He asked her if she'd ever written to or visited Wally in prison, which she replied to negatively. Then he asked if she'd received any mail from him, and again she replied negatively. She remembered I had told her to call 911, which was the first time that information had come up. The problem was that she really had told the court everything she remembered. There were things I could have reminded her of, but it had to come from her, and witnesses forget things all the time.

So when The Ghost stood up, his mission was to discredit her testimony as much as possible, because, taking me out of the equation, it really was her word against his.

The first thing he asked her was "Does Wallace Gardner still have clothing or other property at your house?"

Eva blinked. "Yes, there are some things he left there."

"So you were expecting him to return after he paid his debt to society."

"No!" she said. "I just didn't throw them out."

"Why not, Ms. Sinderson? If you really wanted this man out of your life, you'd have returned his property or gotten rid of it."

"Objection!" said Denny.

"Overruled," said the judge, who was listening with interest.

"I couldn't just throw it away," she said. Later she told me she intended to follow that up by saying it would be wrong to throw someone else's property in the trash ... that it would be like stealing. She had kept it because she didn't know what the right thing to do with it was.

But he didn't give her a chance to finish.

"Precisely!" he crowed. "Because you still had feelings for Wallace Gardner! And he knew that, which is why he came back home after he was released! He was going to apologize to you, make things right for his past sins. But what does he find? Another man, playing Santa Claus for your little boy, stepping into the role that was rightfully his as the father figure in the boy's life!"

"Your honor, this is ridiculous," said Denny, standing up.

"Your honor, I have to treat this witness as hostile. She is the cause of this misunderstanding. She was playing two men against each other and it exploded into unintended and unplanned violence."

The judge said "You can tell me your theory about what happened during your closing argument. Right now, restrict yourself to asking questions, counselor."

Casper turned right back to Eva.

"What gifts has Wallace presented to you in the past?"

"Nothing I can think of," she said, looking nervous.

"Wallace never had a lot of money, did he?"

"He almost never had money," she said.

"And what gifts did the Detective bring to your house on Christmas Eve last year?"

She described them.

"So what you're saying is that suddenly a man appeared in your life giving you expensive things. And now you're dating that man, isn't that true?"

"Yes," she said, getting obviously agitated, "But-"

"And isn't it true that you initiated this new relationship right in front of your boyfriend?"

"I didn't know he was there!" she cried.

"And when Wallace Gardner, believing that this man was scamming you, attempted to protect you and your little boy, you sided with this new man, who you thought was wealthy! Isn't that right?"

Timothy shot to his feet beside me. That wasn't enough, though, and he jumped up onto the bench. Then he screamed "YOU LEAVE HER ALONE! HE NEVER PROTECTED US! ALL HE EVER DID WAS HIT US!"

The Ghost turned around, his jaw dropping. Judge Pickett's head swiveled toward us. Denny turned and craned, looking over his shoulder.

"Shhhh," I said, reaching for Timothy.

"No!" he yelled. "He's lying! He was going to hurt us. He was going to take my drawing set away. He always took stuff away from us! It's not fair!"

Casper said "I object?" It was clearly a question.

"Who is this boy?" asked the judge.

I stood up. "This is Timothy Sinderson. He was there the night of the incident."

"He witnessed the incident?" asked the judge.

"He was there, Your Honor. I told him to go to his room before the assault. I don't know what he actually did, or what he actually saw."

"How old is he?" asked Pickett.

"Seven," I said.

Pickett looked at Denny. "Why didn't you call this boy as a witness?"

Denny stood up. "He's just a child, Your Honor."

"I'll agree that seven is on the edge. Did you at least talk to him?"

"No, Your Honor," admitted Denny.

"Bring him up here," said the judge.

"No!" moaned Eva. "Please. He's been through so much already."

"I'd like to find out what he's been through," said Pickett. "Don't worry. I won't let anybody mistreat him."

"Your honor?" said Casper. "This is highly irregular. He's not on the witness list. I'm not prepared to question him."

"You won't be questioning him, counselor," said Judge Pickett. "I will be. You may address any questions for him to me and I'll decide whether to ask them or not."

"Shouldn't this be done in chambers?" asked Casper.

The judge looked around. The only people in the court room were myself and Timothy, Eva, the lawyers, the court reporter, one bailiff, and two spectators. He asked the spectators to step outside. One of them an older man with a long white beard, objected.

"This here is the most interesting trial I've seen in years."

"I know, Cecil," said the judge, who obviously knew the old gentleman. "I'll tell you about it over coffee."

"I'll hold you to that," said the man, who then shuffled to the rear exit and left.

Pickett looked at Casper. "There's more room in here."



-------

Chapter 12

Eva wanted to let Timothy sit on her lap while the judge questioned him, but that was not to be.

"He'll be fine," said the judge. "I just want to ask him some questions. You can wait right over there."

He pointed to the front row of the gallery. I wanted to go stand beside her, but thought better of it. Casper was already making a big deal of our relationship.

Instead, I walked Timothy up to the bar and pushed open the swinging gate.

"You want to go sit in the chair your mom was just sitting in?" I asked.

"Okay," he said. He was aware that something was happening, but wasn't quite sure about what it was. He was also aware that Wally was sitting in a chair, just inside the bar to his left. He moved as far right as he could and faced Wally, ending up moving sideways toward the bench.

Wally opened his mouth to say something and I said "You keep your mouth shut, Wally."

He looked at me with murder in his eye, but I'd seen that before, and right now he wasn't on PCP either. He knew it too, because his face went calm and he sat back and smiled. I expected the judge to remind me he had a bailiff, but he didn't say a word.

He stopped as he passed his mother and hugged her legs. Looking up he asked "Are you okay?" She managed a smile and nodded. He turned to crane his head up at the judge. The bailiff opened the door to the witness booth for him and he went in and climbed up on the chair. He looked around.

"Timothy, is it?" asked Judge Pickett. When the boy nodded the judge said "Timothy, do you know the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie?" The boy nodded again, and the judge said, "I want you to say something that you know isn't true. Will you do that for me?"

"You want me to tell a lie?" Timothy's voice was high.

"Just this once," said Pickett.

Timothy thought and then said, "If I jump off the house I can fly."

"Excellent," said the judge. "That is something that is not true, right? You can't fly for real, right?"

Timothy nodded a third time. I heard the court reporter mumbling into her covered microphone. She was most likely saying the boy had nodded or made affirmative motions.

"Everybody lies sometimes," said the judge. "That's normal. But you know that sometimes telling the truth is the most important thing you can do, right?"

"Yes sir!" said Timothy

"And right now is one of those times. It's really important that everything you say from now on is absolutely true. If you don't know the answer to one of my questions, just tell me you don't know. But don't make anything up, or say something that isn't true. It's really important. Do you understand me?"

Timothy nodded and the judge said, "Could you say either yes or no out loud for me?"

"Either yes or no," said Timothy clearly.

Wally snickered. Then he fell silent as the judge shot him a look.

"Answer me out loud from now on, all right?"

"Okay," said Timothy.

"Do you promise to tell the truth?"

"Yes sir."

The judge pointed at Wally. "Do you know that man over there?"

Timothy looked and then looked away. "Yes. He's the bad man who hurts me and mommy."

"What do you mean 'hurts'?" asked Pickett.

"He slaps me, and when mommy tells him to stop he knocks her on the floor. He made her mouth bleed and I threw my toy at him and he kicked me and I couldn't go to school for a long time."

"When did this happen, Timothy?"

The boy scrunched up his face, and thought for a while. "I wasn't in this grade," he said. "I was in Miss Roper's class then. And after that he went away for a long time and Mommy said he was gone and would never come back or hurt us again. But he did."

"Hurt you?" asked the judge.

"No, I mean he came back. That was when he tried to hurt Santa and take my drawing set."

Pickett said "Tell me what you remember about that night, Timothy. Tell me everything you can remember."

"Well, we got home from looking for a Christmas tree, except they were all too expensive, so we didn't get one, and then Santa knocked on the door. We don't have a chimney, so I guess he had to knock on the door. And I wasn't in bed yet, but he came in anyway and he gave me a really cool drawing set, with a bazillion things in it, and he said I could draw a picture of him."

He stopped and darted a look at Wally.

"Then he came in and Mommy said he wasn't supposed to be there and he said he knew but he didn't care and he was yelling like always, and he said my drawing set was too fancy and that he was going to take it. And he wanted something Santa gave Mommy too, but Santa said he couldn't have them and then he cussed at Santa and started fighting with him, and Santa said for me to take my drawing set to my room, but I didn't go because I was afraid he would hurt mommy again, so I stayed and Mommy went to help Santa because that man was on something. That's what Santa said. I can't remember what he said it was but Santa said to call 911 and the man said he'd always wanted to do something I'm not allowed to say to a cop. I didn't understand that, because the policemen didn't come for a little while, and all they were on was the floor, and that's all I remember."

"Okay," said the judge. "Good job. You said that man over there," he pointed to Wally "said he wanted to do something you're not allowed to say to a cop. I'm interested in that. If I ask your mother to give you permission to say it, would you tell me what he said?"

Timothy looked at his mother. She was in front of me, so I couldn't see her face, but I saw her nod, and heard her say "It's all right, just this once."

Timothy blushed, but he spoke. "He said he always wanted to fuck a cop."

"I see," said Pickett. "Thank you. I want to show you something." He motioned to the bailiff and said "knife," holding his hand out flat. The bailiff got the plastic bagged evidence and gave it to the judge, who held it up so Timothy could see it. "Have you ever seen this before?"

Timothy nodded.

"You need to answer me out loud, Timothy."

"Yes."

"Where have you seen it before?"

"That man took it out of his pocket. Except it wasn't open then, like it is now."

"When did he take it out of his pocket, Timothy?"

"That was just before he started fighting with Santa, and said that thing I'm not supposed to say."

"You keep calling him 'that man.' Do you know his name, Timothy?"

"I forget his real name. I know he hates to be called Wally. My mom has a name for him, but I'm not allowed to say that either."

"I think you can say it just this once," said Pickett. "We can ask your mom again."

We all looked at Eva, who had her head down and her eyes covered by her hand shading her forehead. She was obviously embarrassed. She took her hand away and looked up. "Go ahead," she sighed.

We all looked back at Timothy, who sat up straight, and said "Shithead. Mommy calls him Shithead."

The judge sat, staring at his legal pad, upon which he had made no notes whatsoever. Then he said "All right. Thank you, Timothy. You can go sit with your mother now."

"I'd like to cross examine him," said Casper.

"No," said the judge. "If you have further questions for Ms. Sinderson, I'll call her back up. Otherwise, call your next witness."

I could tell Casper wanted to argue, but he didn't. He went back to his table and flipped through his papers. Eventually he said "I have no further questions, or witnesses. The defense rests."

Pickett stood up. "There will be a ten minute recess. Then I'll hear closing arguments."

"You're not going to adjourn for the day?" asked Casper. I looked at my watch. It was ten till five.

"We'll finish this today, gentlemen. I'll hear closing arguments today, and render my verdict tomorrow morning."

-------

Eva got up and began to pull Timothy toward the door. I stood and met her there.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I'm mad," she said. "But yes, I guess I'm all right."

"I'm going to stay for the closing arguments," I said.

"I'm not. We're going home. I don't ever want to see or hear of Wallace Gardner again in my whole life."

"Can I come over after I'm done here?" I asked.

She looked right at me, something in her eyes I couldn't identify, but which didn't look good.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe not. I don't think that's a good idea."

"I'll behave," I said.

"I know that," she said. "That's part of the problem."

"I don't understand," I said.

"I can't talk about it now," she said. "I'll call you or something."

"Okay," I said.

And then she took her little boy and left.

-------

Casper was in fine form. He had bought into Wally's outrageous lies. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn't use anything he knew to be a lie in his closing argument. Which was why I was astonished when he tried to make me the bad guy. He repeated Wally's assertion that he had gotten out of jail and used bad judgment, getting drunk. He pointed out that nothing was actually taken from the three mistaken victims, who assumed they were being mugged, when in fact the man was just falling down drunk. Then, once he placed Wally "home" he said Wally misunderstood what he was seeing and that, rather than explaining it to him, I went all official on him, inciting him to fight in the mistaken impression he was protecting his loved ones.

He didn't ignore Timothy's testimony. But he tried to discredit it by saying that I had been in a continuous relationship with Eva since the incident, and had obviously poisoned the child's mind, coaching him. He did say the coaching was likely unconscious, rather than accusing me of tampering with a witness. In the end he said Wally was incapable, both physically and because he was too drunk that night, to represent any significant harm to a fully armed police officer. That the police were out to get him was evidenced by his multiple injuries from the stun gun. He asked Judge Pickett not to find his client innocent, but to throw the charges out completely.

Denny got up and said "Judge Pickett, this man has a criminal history a mile long. He's got a mean streak in him and he always will. The longest he stayed out of trouble was when he invited himself to live in Ms. Sinderson's house and let her support him on a waitress' wages. Even then he abused both Ms. Sinderson and her son. And as soon as he got out of jail, he went back to start in on them all over again. Detective Carson happened to be there and stopped him, and for his trouble he was attacked with a knife. He did identify himself as a police officer, which did no good whatsoever to stop the accused. I've been around a lot of drunks, Your Honor, and I've seen quite a few who were falling down drunk. They don't rip purses out of women's hands, or knock a man to the ground so hard that it cracks his skull. Wallace Gardner went on a crime spree just as soon as he got out of prison, Your Honor, and he needs to go back there for as long as the law allows. He is a danger to the community, and to Ms. Sinderson in particular."

The judge stood up. "I've got a few things to take care of in the morning. Be back here at two in the afternoon." He looked over at me, where I was sitting in the front row of the gallery. "Detective, you need to hang around for a minute. I'd have a word with you."

-------

Everybody else was gone. The judge looked at me.

"This case is going to be appealed," he said.

That pretty much told me how he was feeling about Wally's guilt or innocence. Nobody appeals a finding of not guilty.

"With that in mind, and because the court has no investigators of its own, I need you to do a couple of things for me. I need you to get the call and mail logs from the prison."

"No problem," I said.

"And I need you to find out what Mr. Gardner's mode of transportation was when he was let out of jail. If possible I'd like to know where that transportation took him. I need you to get all this to me no later than eleven in the morning."

"I'll do my best," I said.

"Thank you," said Judge Pickett. "See you in the morning."

-------

The information the judge wanted was simple to collect. Once I identified myself and stated what I needed they sent me to the transportation office while they copied the logs I had requested. A cute young woman with green hair and stretchers in her earlobes looked up the information for me. She pulled out a piece of paper and read over it.

"Oh yeah, I remember this guy. I made a note on him."

"A note?"

"Yeah, sometimes these guys say stuff, you know? Like they know they're out, and they get a little cocky and they get loose lips. Sometimes the stuff they say helps guys like you later, you know?"

"What was your note?"

"When I asked him where he wanted to go, he said Silverton, because he had some debts to collect there. When they say something like that I usually just say 'Oh yeah?' or something like that, you know, just to have something to say, and he said the first thing he was gonna do was get high, and then he was gonna go see this bitch he used to crash with who owed him big time and he was gonna collect on her ass. The way he said 'collect' was what made me write down the note. I remember it very clear. He was a spooky one."

"Did you write that down?" I asked.

She showed me the paper. "I made notes on everything he said just as soon as he left. I know I work for the prison, but it creeps me out that they let some of these guys go, you know? Some of 'em are just plain animals."

"I need the original, and your name and phone number," I said. "I'll give you a receipt for them if you want."

"It's just paper," she said. "Take it. I can keep a copy for the files."

I picked up the call and mail logs the judge had asked for, as well as the list of visitations Wally had had during his last year in stir. It had only one name on it, identified as "pen pal" in the relationship space. The name suggested his visitor was a female. Apparently she liked him better on paper, because she never came back.

I got the stuff to the Judge, and explained the writing on the transportation sheet. He thanked me and asked if I was going to be there that afternoon. I nodded.

Then I went to the office to catch up on things and wait to see what would happen to Wally.



-------

Chapter 13


I thought about going over to the place Eva worked for lunch, but she had said she'd call. I didn't want to push things, which could push her away. She'd already had one bad experience with a pushy guy. So I went back to the office and did some work until it was time to go see what Judge Pickett had decided to do.

The court room looked the same. Wally's case hadn't generated much interest. The judge's whiskered friend was there, but he appeared to be dozing.

At two sharp a bailiff brought Wally in. He was in shackles, which I approved of. There was no jury to get the wrong idea from the restraints. Wally sat down, looked around at me and sneered. Two or three minutes later The Ghost showed up. Denny was with him. They acted like they didn't know each other as they walked down, entered the bar and took their seats.

Five minutes later Pickett came out of his chambers. He had one piece of paper in his hands. We all rose and he sat down and looked at Wally.

"Does the accused have anything to say before judgment is passed?" he asked.

Wally stood up. "Your Honor, I know this looks bad for a man who has made so many mistakes in his life, but the truth is that I turned my life around in prison, and had only the best of intentions. I made the mistake of drinking, and violating my parole, but I had no ill will towards anyone I met that night." He sat down.

The judge looked down at his paper and then began speaking.

"Mr. Gardner, after hearing the testimony of the witnesses, and reviewing the evidence presented during trial, I find you guilty of attempted murder in the second degree, regarding Detective Robert Carson, a duly appointed officer of the law in the commission of his duties at the time of the offense. I find you guilty of assault against Mrs. Janice Quimby, and the attempt to steal her purse by force. I find you guilty of assault against Ms. Deborah Little, and the attempt to steal her purse by force. I find you guilty of assault against Mrs. Jennifer Hopkins, and the attempt to steal her purse. I find you guilty of aggravated assault against Lawrence Hopkins, during your assault against his wife. I find you not guilty of violation of your parole, by virtue of the fact that there was no evidence of the presence of alcohol in your system at the time of arrest. And finally, Mr. Gardner, I find you guilty of resisting arrest."

He looked up at Gardner, who looked a little green. Then he went on.

"I have obtained certain information you need to be made aware of, as I have used it to determine sentencing, and it pertains to your future. Please listen carefully. You too, Mr. Buckridge.

"I obtained the phone and mail logs from your previous residential complex, which show that you did not mail any letters to Eva Sinderson, nor to the address where you were arrested by Detective Carson. You neither made, nor received any phone calls from Ms. Sinderson. The visitor's log shows you had only one visitor in prison during the last year, a female who was not Ms. Sinderson. What that tells me is that you lied under oath in my courtroom.

"I looked into your training records at the prison. There is no evidence whatsoever to support your claim - under oath - that you participated in self-help programs, nor did you take advantage of any educational or vocational opportunities. What that tells me is that you lied about that under oath as well.

"I talked to the warden about your so-called good behavior. He said your sentence was reduced and parole initiated because of a court-ordered resolution of overcrowding in the facility, and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with your behavior. He said he, himself, informed you of your good fortune, and suggested that you change your ways to avoid coming back to prison. Another lie under oath, Mr. Gardner.

"And so, Mr. Gardner, when I reviewed other things you claim to be true, I find I have no confidence in them. I do, however, have confidence in the testimony of the other witnesses in this case. And based on that, here is your sentence:

"As to the attempted second degree murder of a police officer in the commission of his duties, I sentence you to thirty-five years in the State penitentiary, without provision for parole.

"As to the three counts of assault with the intent to steal property, commonly called mugging, I sentence you to two years each for those offenses, said sentences to run consecutively, rather than concurrently.

"As to the aggravated assault of Mr. Hopkins, I sentence you to five years, without provision for parole, the sentence to run consecutively to all other punishment, rather than concurrently.

"As to the offence of resisting arrest, I sentence you to time served.

"And finally, I find you guilty of perjury in my court. You understood your right to remain silent, and gave that up voluntarily. You have the right to defend yourself, but not to lie, Mr. Gardner. I sentence you to one year in prison for that offense. Time served will not be considered as counting toward that sentence."

He finally looked up at Wally and Casper, both of whom were stunned.

"Mr. Gardner, you are a career criminal, who has no regard for his fellow man. In the space of four hours after you were released from the cage you should have still been in, you terrorized, traumatized and victimized a minimum of nine law abiding citizens. You tried to kill Santa Claus in front of a seven year old little boy! You are a pox on society, Mr. Gardner. It is for that reason I have given you the maximum sentence allowed by law on all charges. Bailiff ... take him away.

-------

Wally, foaming at the mouth and cursing a blue streak, had been dragged from the courtroom by two bailiffs. Casper stood up.

"I'll appeal, Judge. You know that. You wouldn't let me cross examine a witness, a witness who was too young to testify, and who was obviously tainted by his relationship with Detective Carson. The punishment doesn't fit the crime and you know it. I'm sorry, Judge, but I will appeal."

"You file your appeal," said Pickett. "Get a new trial. With the additional evidence that now exists, your client will get convicted of attempted first degree murder as well as a premeditated home invasion with intent to maim or kill the occupants of the residence. He'll get life instead of the paltry forty-seven years I was able to give him. Your client gamed you, counselor. Routine research on your part would have gotten you the same information I asked for during my deliberations. If you'd have had that routine information, you wouldn't look like an idiot now. You let your client game you. He tried to game me too, but I didn't let him. If you file an appeal, you'll win, but you'll also put your client away for life. I hope you do appeal, so that son of a bitch can be put away forever."

"What additional evidence?" asked Casper.

Pickett smiled. "I guess you'll find out during discovery at your client's next trial, counselor.

Casper, knowing he was beating his head against a brick wall, turned on his heel and left. Pickett turned to leave too and saw me.

"I assume you'll tell the young lady the results?"

"Yes sir," I said.

"Good. Tell her that her little boy won't have to worry about him any longer."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"I asked a few questions about this Santa business, too," he said. "Where can I send a donation?"

I wrote Donna Rickenbacker's phone number on the back of a business card and gave it to him, explaining she was the volunteer treasurer of our unofficial organization. He nodded and headed for his chambers.

-------

I called Eva that evening, and told her the outcome of the trial.

"That's good," she said, when I told her how long he'd be in prison before anyone even contemplated thinking about the possibility of giving some small thought to parole.

"So..." I said. "You want to go do something to celebrate?"

There was too long a pause.

"I'm tired," she said. "And Timothy's already in his PJs."

"Well I wasn't thinking about right now," I said. "Maybe tomorrow or the next day?"

There was another pause that was much too long to bode well.

"I don't think so, Bob. I'm sorry. I'm glad he's gone, and I'm glad you were there to help us ... but..."

"Are you breaking up with me?" I asked in surprise.

"I wasn't aware we were actually going together, Bob," she said.

I admit I was a little agitated at that moment. This was the first woman I'd met who held out the promise of working into a long term relationship. Not that she'd said anything about such a relationship. But I was interested in one. I had thought that by giving her some space and time, it would open up the opportunity to move things forward. Now she was chopping me off at the knees.

"Well you sure have a strange way of being just friends," I said.

"Bob, I'm sorry," she said, sounding upset. "I can't explain it to you. It just wouldn't work out. You're a great guy but let's just leave it with good memories."

"I do not believe this," I said. Then I thought of Wally, pushing himself on her, controlling her. "Look," I said. "If this is about Wally, and how he treated you, I'm not that guy, Eva. I'm not going to barge in there and claim I own you. I'll give you all the freedom you want. And I know we don't know each other all that well, but time would take care of that. Don't shut me out before we even have a chance to really get to know each other."

There was yet another of those long pauses, but this time it caused hope to bloom in my chest for a few seconds.

"I know you well enough," she said. "I'm going to cry in a minute and I don't want to do that. Goodbye, Bob. Just goodbye."

She hung up.

-------

People at the office noticed. Four or five of the guys asked me what was wrong. My boss said "You got a slam dunk on Gardner! Why the long face?"

I didn't tell anybody, of course. In that setting, being dumped by a witness you weren't supposed to be having a relationship with anyway doesn't get you a lot of sympathy. If anything, it would have made for an excuse to rib me for weeks.

I replayed over and over the last couple of times we'd been together, and I just couldn't think of anything I'd said or done that could have made her react so negatively toward me. And she said she "knew me," which was part of her decision making, apparently. What the hell did that mean?

A month went by. I thought the pain would lessen. I'd broken up with (or been dumped) a dozen times before this, but there was usually relief, not pain.

Then, late in May, a missing persons case on a woman named Karla Winslow was resolved when her body was found buried in a shallow grave in the back yard of where the victim had been renting when she disappeared. The new renter was digging for a garden and found her. She had been a veterinarian's assistant, and it was her boss who had reported her missing when she failed to come to work two days in a row and he couldn't contact her. The autopsy of the body showed she'd been strangled, and had been buried for about six months. The winter weather and shallowness of the grave had preserved the body, and what was believed to be DNA evidence was collected from under the victim's fingernails.

I got the case.

I went to speak with her boss, who was shocked to his core that she had been murdered, but seemed to know nothing of value. He said she was a good worker, always on time and good with customers. She had had a credit card problem, but was working on paying the card off. She hadn't had a boyfriend, but had been using one of the dating sites to try to find one. He knew she'd been writing to someone, but not who.

Her possessions, of course, were gone. The landlord, having no one to contact, waited the requisite ninety days and then sold what he could of her property, and dumped the rest. So her computer was gone. Her online accounts might still be there, but without knowing her user name, we couldn't even get a warrant for that information.

And that's where it sat until I got a call from the court clerk asking me to come by and see Judge Pickett personally. I went and he got into a wall safe. He handed me the original documents on Wally I had obtained from the prison.

"The chain of custody on these is unbroken, as of this point," he said. "I suggest you enter these into evidence, so that if Wallace Gardner gets a new trial they're available as evidence of his intent."

"I'll do that, sir," I said.

I didn't look at them until I got back to the office and began writing up the evidence form. That's when I saw the name of the single female visitor Wally had had while he was in prison.

It was Karla Winslow.

I looked at the date of her visit, which was two months before Wally was released. She had never returned, but it was too much of a coincidence, especially since she was listed as a "Pen Pal" on the form.

I looked at the date she was reported missing. It was the 28th of December.

-------

My next step was to reinterview Karla's boss. I had a theory. It was thin, and if he didn't have good accountability of his drugs it would be worthless. My question was whether he had discovered any drugs missing when his assistant went missing.

"I was missing two vials of Arketamine," he said, frowning. "How did you know that? I reported it to the board, because it's a schedule two drug. Did they report it to you?"

"No. What's it used for?"

"It's an anesthetic. I used it in surgery."

"Does it have any resemblance to PCP?"

"Phencyclidine? We stopped using that in the eighties ... but yes, it's a ketamine type drug, which is in the same chemical family. Why are you asking me these questions, Detective?"

"I have a suspicion that your assistant gave some of that to a man and he used it to get high."

"Impossible!" he said. "Karla would never have done that. It would be crazy. Something like that could have disastrous effects on a human being."

"Would it mimic the effects of PCP?" I asked.

"Yes, if taken in a small dose. The problem is that we don't know dosages for humans, because it isn't used for humans. We base animal dosages on weight and body type."

"Say somebody forced her to come to the clinic. Did she have her own key?"

"Yes. She opened up in the mornings so people could drop off their animals for various procedures."

"Okay, say somebody made her open up, because he knew drugs like that were in a clinic like yours. He forces her to get him the drugs. Would she have cooperated if he demanded to know how much to use? Or would she have let him OD."

"And die?" He sounded horrified. "Karla was a good woman, Detective. She would never have let someone kill himself with a drug like that, even if she was under great duress."

"Thank you, Doctor. Let me ask this. If a human took that drug, how long would it stay in his body?"

"I have no idea," he said. "I don't even know who to ask."

"If it were in his body, could it be detected by an examination of his blood?"

"Again, I have no way of knowing. It wears off in animals on a fairly predictable time table, but that's all I know."

I thanked the doctor and left. My next stop was the crime lab. I talked to Leon, who is the supervisor of biomed testing. I told him about my theory, and asked him what he thought.

"A gas chromatograph might show one or more of the compounds that make up the drug, assuming they're still in the blood. Too bad you don't have any DNA to run against this suspect."

I blinked. "I do have DNA. There was material under the fingernails of the victim."

Leon grinned. "Gimme the perp's name. We take DNA samples from all arrestees. Get me the material from under the fingernails and I'll have a comparison done. That will be better than a maybe on a blood test for some psychoactive chemical."

I went from there to the evidence room and had the collection kit sent to Leon.

Then I waited.



-------

Chapter 14


DNA analysis on TV takes less than five minutes and a computer dings and shows you a picture of the perpetrator. Then some handsome actor says "Go get him, boys." Action ensues and within half an hour, usually, the bad guy is caught or gunned down in a fair fight and the commercials roll.

In real life, DNA testing, which is a chemical process, done by a lab technician, takes weeks. So I waited weeks for Leon to call me and tell me what the result of the test was. It was the third week in June when he did.

"You know your missing girl homicide case?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Epithelial tissue collected from under her fingernails contained DNA that belongs to one Wallace Gardner, arrested by you last December. I'm assuming this makes you happy, because now you get to arrest him again."

"That will be the easiest bust I've ever had, since he is currently incarcerated at the Spring Hill State Penitentiary, doing a hard thiry-five," I said.

"I'll fax you the report," said Leon.

"Thanks. I owe you."

"You could never live long enough to pay back everything you owe me," he said.

"I'll have it put on my gravestone that I died owing Leon Mussleman more than I could repay him."

"You keep my name off of any gravestones," he said. "My wife is looking for a reason to toss all my stuff out on the lawn already."

"See you, Leon."

"See you, Bob."

-------

With the case file in hand I went to see Denny. He wasn't all that happy to see me. The Ghost's appeal was working its way through the system. He was trying to say that the prosecution had withheld evidence during the trial, and that looked bad for Denny, even though it was bullshit. The judge had withheld evidence from both the prosecution and the defense, if you wanted to look at it that way.

"My day is already fucked up. You can't make it any worse," he said.

"What if I could make it better?"

"Not likely."

"How would you like another bite at the apple that is Wallace Gardner?" I asked.

"His appeal can't be finished already," he said.

"What I have here may make the appeal go away," I said.

I could tell he was interested.

It was simple. I had twenty years experience dealing with people who were suffering the effects of using illicit drugs. My testimony was circumstantial, as was the fact that Karla had gone to see Wally in prison. It didn't really matter whether Wally had encouraged an online relationship because Karla was a woman, or because he found out she worked in a vet clinic and had access to the kind of drugs he thought would be fun to take. A very strong circumstantial argument could be made that, once out of prison, he had gone to meet her, and then gotten or forced her to get him something to get high on, since he had no money. Then, for whatever reason, he had killed her and buried her in her own back yard.

After that he had gone on the rampage, trying to get money through muggings, and revenge at Eva's house.

It was all circumstantial ... except his skin cells under the dead woman's fingernails. That was the wooden stake that could be driven through his heart.

Denny said he'd take care of the arrest warrant, and let me know when Wally could be interrogated. He asked if it could be expedited. This case had no bearing on the trial in question, and could be pursued independently from the appeals process. If the prosecution could be put together quickly, it might be finished before the appeal was. If he was found guilty of Karla's murder, it wouldn't really matter if his previous convictions were overturned, or a new trial was ordered.

-------

I felt like this was important enough news that Eva would appreciate knowing about it. It was possible she'd be called to testify about his demeanor while he was in her house, since it was immediately after the alleged murder. She couldn't say he was on drugs, but she could describe the symptoms of drug usage.

By the time I got to the restaurant it was almost two. I knew she went to work at six in the morning, and got off at two most days. I hoped she hadn't left already, because while I was willing to see her at work, I wasn't going to her house. She had made it clear I wasn't welcome there any more.

I walked in and looked around. She was sitting at a table, sorting coins and bills - going through her tips. I walked over.

"Hey," I said.

She looked up and her eyes went as round as her surprised mouth.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm not stalking you. I just have news that's really kind of important and that I thought you deserved to know about."

She blinked, and then said "Oh."

I didn't invite myself to sit down. "It's about Wally," I said. "It's a little bizarre, but basically I got a case on a missing girl who turned up dead, and we have reason to believe Wally was involved."

"Shit!" she blurted. "Get out!"

Another waitress came over, looking very alert. There was quite a pile of cash on the table in front of Eva, so I wasn't surprised.

"Is this guy hassling you, Eva?" she asked.

Eva darted a look at her co-worker. "No. This is Bob. I told you about him. Everything is fine."

The woman looked at me. "You mean he's the guy?"

Eva got a wild look on her face suddenly.

"No!" she gasped. "Wait, Flo!"

But Flo had already turned on me. Her face was getting redder by the second. It was obvious she was pissed as hell.

"You bastard!" she rasped.

"Flo! No. Shut up,  Flo!" yelped Eva.

But Flo, who was enraged at me for completely unknown reasons - I had never laid eyes on her before - did not shut up.

"You have some nerve, mister, after what you did, coming around here and smiling all pretty. You're a cop, for pity's sake!" She abandoned me and looked at Eva, who was beet red and obviously in anguish, saying "No, Flo!" over and over again. "Didn't you tell me he was a cop, honey?" Then without waiting for confirmation Flo returned to dumping her wrath on me. "You're a cop! And cops are supposed to help people, not act like alley cats, leaving a hard working nice girl like Eva in the lurch and abandoning your responsibilities!"

"Pleeease shut up, Flo!" cried Eva, tears spilling over her cheeks.

All that did was fire Flo up even more.

"Just look at her, mister high and mighty cop! She's dying inside, and it's all your fault you bastard son of a bitch!"

Eva shot to her feet and screamed "SHUT UP, FLO!"

That's when I saw her rounded belly. She looked entirely wrong with that bulging abdomen. It wasn't a huge bulge, but it just looked all wrong on a girl I knew to be slim, almost concave in that portion of her anatomy.

"He didn't leave me, Flo!" she yelled. "I told him not to come back!"

The dark blotches on Flo's face lightened a bit as her face went from angry to confused.

"But I thought ... You sent him away? Why? You loved him!"

"I couldn't tell you I ran him off," moaned Eva. "You'd have picked at me until I went crazy. I just said he stopped coming around and let you think what you wanted to think. This isn't his fault, Flo. It's mine."

Flo started looking outraged again. "It still takes two to tango, honey!"

I decided it was time to say something. "Flo!" I said. She jumped. I stuck out my hand. "I'm so glad to meet you. Eva has told me so much about you. I'm Bob, Eva's dance partner. I wonder if you could give us a couple of minutes in private. Would that be all right? I just need to talk to Eva for a few minutes so we can plan the rest of our lives and then I'll be out of here and won't bother you again. Okay?"

I wasn't sure she'd actually leave us alone. It was also in question whether Eva would leave there with me, so I just waited for Flo to make up her mind. Finally, looking wary, she backed up a step or two. Then, unable to just retreat, she pointed a finger at me and said "I'm watching you, mister!"

I felt the intense urge to point my index finger at her, and drop my thumb in the classic finger gun salute. I controlled it because I know that salute can also be perceived as a threat. And she knew I was a cop. I just looked away from her and at Eva instead. Eva was not happy.

And now I finally knew why.

"How far along are you?" I asked.

"How long has it been since Valentine's Day?" she sighed, sitting back down.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I knew you'd insist on doing the right thing," she said.

"Oh," I said. "That's because I'm a cop. I have this bad habit of trying to get everybody to do the right thing. It only seems fair that I play along too."

"You know what I mean," she said, staring at me with hazel eyes.

"Let me guess," I said. "You don't want no man hanging around just because he feels obligated."

"Of course I don't," she said.

"And even if I told you I loved you and wanted to take care of you, you'd believe that all came from my feeling of obligation toward you."

"Well ... wouldn't it?"

"See, I only have two complaints about all this, Eva" I said. "The first is that you have this set up in your head such that I cannot win, no matter what I do. If I walk away, you believe I didn't love you and you did the right thing by dumping me. And if I say I do love you, you won't believe it. So I don't even get out of the starting blocks. All I can do is watch the race, even though I might want to enter it. But that's really small potatoes compared to my other complaint. You stole four months of my child's development from me, Eva. It is my child ... right?"

I admit I was a little angry by then. I really couldn't win anything in this situation, and that pissed me off. I hadn't had time to think about all the aspects and ramifications of this new information. I had mildly resisted the idea of marriage for all of my adult life. But the knowledge that under the swell in that uniform was a baby I had helped create had an immediate and profound impact on my psyche. So my voice had some heat in it. I admit that.

Her face registered shock. Whether that was from the content or tone of my speech, I didn't know.

"Of course it's your child!" she said, followed immediately by "And don't yell at me, Bob."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't come here to yell at anybody. But I just found out I lost four months of watching something special happen, and that I don't get to participate in the future of that either, and I'll tell you the truth, Eva, I think that might actually tear my heart out." She opened her mouth but I stopped her from speaking. "But that's not what I came here for," I said. "There's a new case on Wally. We believe he murdered a girl who got him some drugs, just before he mugged those people and came to your house. The DA is going to try him for murder and your testimony about his actions and demeanor that night may be needed."

I stood up.

"I have to go now."

Her face wore a mixture of shock, anguish and maybe even some fear. I wasn't in the best shape to read her body language well. I admit I was drowning in self-pity. I'm not proud of it.

I turned to leave and she said "Wait!"

I turned back and leaned down, putting my hands on the table and my face only a foot from hers. She leaned back instinctively.

"Are you sure you want me to do that?" I asked. "Because if I do, it's going to be for a very long time, Eva. I can walk out that door and you'll never have to see me or worry about my motives again. I promise you that. But if I stay, I'm in for the long haul. I'm in not because of any feeling of obligation, but because I love being around you, and I love Timothy, and I have this overwhelming curiosity and pull toward the baby under that uniform. And you're just going to have to take my word for it that the compulsion I feel is based on love, rather than obligation. Can you do that, Eva? Because if you ask me to stay, you'll never be able to get rid of me again. Wally will seem flighty and irresolute by comparison."

I stopped babbling. She stared at me for long, silent seconds. Then she licked her lips and swallowed. Her eyelids fell and opened almost languidly several times. Suddenly she spoke.

"That's a lot of pressure, Bob."

She continued to stare. I was trying hard not to blink or look away.

"Flighty and irresolute," she said softly.

I suddenly had the feeling that drawing a line in the sand might have been a bad idea. Then I started feeling foolish for being so dramatic, and looming over her like I was. I stood up. She looked alarmed. I didn't want her blurting out any old thing just to get more time to think, so I spoke again.

"Look. Flo said you loved me. She was wrong about some other stuff. Was she wrong about that too? Because it sounded like she was pretty sure. And if she was right ... if you do love me ... all I'm asking is for you to give me a chance to love you back."

She seemed to relax all over, and all at once. Her shoulders dropped, and her face lost its look of rigidity. Her arms, on the table, seemed to settle. Only her eyes, still staring at me, seemed to stay alert.

"That..." she said, "I'm willing to try."



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Chapter 15


I drove her home. It was awkward in the car, but not impossible. She asked questions about the new case with Wally. When we got to her house, she sat for a moment and then looked at me.

"Are you coming in?"

I was honest with her. "I would, but I have some things I need to get done, and I don't want our first chance to talk about things to be rushed. Can I come back later tonight?"

"Yes."

"I won't try to stay too late," I said, worried that she might suspect my motives for wanting to be there.

Her hands came to that swollen belly. "I've let you stay before, Bob."

I took her hand. "We'll get through this," I said. "This doesn't have to be a bad thing."

"I never thought it was," she said. "Tough ... yes. Trying ... yes. Great for my future ... no. But I've never thought of it as a bad thing."

"Good," I sighed. "I'm getting really excited, and I'm going to babble or say something stupid, so I'm leaving. I want to kiss you in the worst way."

"You could kiss me in the best way instead," she teased.

I cannot put into words how good it felt that she could tease me at that moment. I wanted to shout out about my undying love for her and jump up and down and do all the things that a man normally does when he finds out he's going to be a father for the first time - and is excited about it.

But I clamped down. Things weren't "all better" yet. There was hope, but I wasn't going to thunder in like a herd of elephants.

"I'll see you tonight," I said, and leaned in for a not too long, not too short, soft lipped kiss. When I pulled away her eyes were misty. "I'm glad I get to come see you tonight."

"Me too," she said, and then turned and rushed inside.

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When I got there that night it was Timothy who opened the door. He had grown a bit, but his face was still the eager, happy face of a boy who now believed more than anything that Santa had sent me to help make him a baby brother. I had no idea what Eva had told him about her condition, but he wasn't unable to make the connection, particularly if she hadn't dated any other men since me.

"Why'd you stay away so long?" he complained, as he let me in. He also gave me a hug.

"I had some serious cases to work on," I said. "I'm really sorry."

"It made mom cry sometimes," he said.

"I'm sorry about that too," I said. "I'll try to make sure that doesn't happen any more."

"Okay."

I looked up to see Eva standing in the doorway, watching us. She had on a blue T shirt that molded itself to her body closely. On the top of her bulge the shirt said "<baby>" and underneath was "</baby>". I knew just enough about html code to understand what that meant. I felt the same stirring in my pants that I always felt when I saw her. She smiled tentatively.

They had eaten and Timothy, thinking things were completely back to normal, hauled out the Parcheesi board and marbles. I looked at Eva, who shrugged her shoulders, and then we sat and played a game. It wasn't until it was Timothy's bed time that we got a chance to talk.

I had done a lot of thinking during the afternoon. It seemed to me that poor communication, or complete lack of communication, had led to the problem we now faced.

Well ... unprotected sex had led to the problem, actually, except I had decided that, from my vantage point, it wasn't really a problem.

"I need to say some things," I said.

"Me too."

"Can I go first?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Okay, here's the deal. I'm just going to tell you how I feel. That doesn't mean I have any particular expectations. I'm not actually asking you to do anything or make any hard and fast decisions at this point ... okay?"

She nodded again.

"Okay," I said. I realized I'd said "Okay" three times in the last sixty seconds, and that I was nervous. "I have sort of resisted entering into intimate, long term relationships with women for a long time. What I do is hard on marriages. It's dangerous sometimes, and the hours are totally screwed up. And none of the women I met made me want to do what it would take to have a good, long term intimate relationship. And then you came along and I think you slipped in under my radar or something, because I didn't intend to enter into any kind of relationship with you. I liked you. I thought you were good looking. You were interesting, and I liked Timothy, which meant I had some appreciation for the mother who had raised him to be, what appeared on the surface, at least, such a good kid. But I had no designs on you.

"And something happened that made me keep wanting to spend more time with you. It wasn't like a regular dating relationship. I think you know that. In fact, it wasn't like any kind of relationship I've ever had. And it wasn't until you told me not to come back that I realized how precious the thing was that I had lost.

"I'm not an expert on love. I don't know if I've ever been in true love before, but if what I feel for you isn't true love, I'm not sure I ever want to find that, because I was miserable the whole time we were apart. I think I love you, Eva. I know that's not how it's supposed to go romantically. I'm supposed to know and spout poetry and all that. And I don't know how you feel about being pregnant without planning it, but thinking about you ... like this ... with part of me in you ... I feel like I could fly. And if this baby can somehow weld us together ... I'd be the happiest man on Earth."

I stopped. My mouth was dry. I felt like I had babbled. I half expected her to laugh at me.

"Your turn," I said, uneasily.

She looked at me calmly for a few seconds.

"I do know what it feels like to be in love," she said. "I loved Reggie with everything I had in me, and when he died it left me empty. I was sure I'd never love again. Not like that. Timothy became my life. Over time I realized I was lonely, and it was hard to make ends meet, and when Wallace came along I took a chance. It was the worst thing that ever happened to us other than Reggie's death. And then Wallace went to prison and things calmed down. Without him draining off resources, it seemed like we had more than we did before he got there. And we weren't living in fear any more. Life got bearable."

She reached out suddenly and touched the side of my chin.

"And then you barged into our life, and everything was topsy turvy again. I know Wallace coming back wasn't your fault, but if he hadn't been there I'm not sure I would have ... risked ... I can't explain it, except that I felt safe with you, and it was so good to be close to a nice man, and you were handsome, and I lost control, and that was so wonderful it scared me almost to death because I was sure I'd never feel those things again. I pushed you away because I was confused and scared. And all you did was be sweet, and caring and suddenly I was feeling things for you that were like what I felt for Reggie and that terrified me, because we really hardly knew each other ... you know?"

I nodded. I knew what being terrified of feelings was like when this woman was involved.

"And I lost control again, and it was even better that time, and then I was terrified that something would jinx it, and I tried to cool it again, and then I missed a period. I knew you liked me, but that's not the same as being glad about this." She cupped her belly with both hands again. I wanted to reach and cup it too, but resisted. "And I knew that if I told you, you'd step up. You're just that kind of man. But I was afraid you'd do that out of duty, rather than choice, and the thought of you being unhappy, chained to me ... I couldn't stand the thought."

"So you pushed me away," I said.

She nodded.

"That was incredibly stupid," I said.

She blinked and stared at me.

"It will be even harder to raise two kids alone," I said.

"I know that!" she snapped.

"I can help."

"I don't want to ask for money," she said.

"I'm not offering it. Not directly, anyway."

She looked at me and for the first time I saw something like worry on her face.

I've been a detective a long time. I read her easily this time.

"You're worried I'm going to ask you to marry me," I said.

Worry turned to surprise and then she made an obvious effort to make her face neutral.

"Well, color me glad I didn't make the mistake of going that route," I said.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"You'd have said no, and there would have been an increase in tension. We have enough tension in this relationship as it is. We don't need more."

"So you don't want to marry me?"

"No, I think I probably do want to marry you. But I haven't had time to think about that. Have you?"

She nodded, and this time it was my turn to be surprised. I recovered quickly, though.

"Please tell me about that," I said.

"I don't remember what we were doing, but we were all together one night and I looked over at you and I wanted to be taken to bed. And I thought to myself about how if we were married you would be there all the time, and you would take me to bed whenever I wanted. And then I thought about Reggie, and felt guilty and it ruined the mood."

"If you had died, and Reggie was left to raise Timothy, would you want Reggie to find that kind of happiness with another woman?"

"No," she said instantly. She looked uncomfortable and then said "Okay, yes, but I can't feel like that now. It's just too weird."

"So we could never get married, because of Reggie."

"No. I don't know. All I know is that I can't just forget him."

"I'm not asking you to forget him. I'm not trying to take his place. I just want you to be happy, and if possible for me to be happy with you. I don't know what form that would take, but it's what I want most."

"So how can you help?" she asked.

"When I made Detective Sergeant I got a pay raise. I was tired of living in the same neighborhood as the people I was investigating, so I bought a house in the suburbs. It's a three bedroom house, because all of the houses in that area are three bedroom houses."

"You want me to move in with you?" Her voice was neutral.

"I have space that won't cost you anything to live in," I said. "I have a bedroom, and I'd probably be struck by lightning if I said I didn't want you to sleep in there with me. But the fact is you can have your own bedroom, if that's what you feel you need. Timothy too, of course."

"So you want to be roommates?"

"I want to be there to be the father to our baby, and a father figure to Timothy," I said.

"It still sounds like roommates to me," she said.

"What if I said I'd try to seduce you every chance I got, and find ways to lure you into my bedroom where I could have my sordid way with you? Is that what you want?"

She stared at me, and then lowered her lashes half way.

"Maaaaybe," she said softly.

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What I learned that night was that Eva liked having choices, and when I gave her choices it turned her on.

She said she needed some time to think about my offer, and might have questions. I asked her if she wanted to see the house first, and she shook her head. "A house is a house," she said. "How far is it from Angelino's?"

"Doesn't really matter," I said. "I use a government car all day. If you drop me off in the morning, and pick me up in the evening, you'll have my car all day."

"Okay. I'll think about it. Now there's something I want you to think about."

"Anything," I said.

"I was hoping you'd say that," she cooed.

-------

She said she wanted to introduce me to my child. What that meant was that I had to sit patiently on the edge of the bed while she undressed. She took everything off, which made it difficult to be patient. Her bulge didn't look quite as big without clothing over it. She stepped between my legs and let me feel her belly while she told me what she thought our baby was like. She cupped her breasts and told me how they would swell to twice their normal size, and would leak so badly that she'd have to have extra towels in bed.

I practiced sucking milk from her nipples.

She pushed me back on the bed and went after my clothing. When my clothes were strewn all over the bedroom, I arranged myself on the bed and she climbed on to ride, her bulge right there where I could see and feel it.

"I've missed this so much," she moaned.

"Move in with me and you can have it every day," I said.

"What if I'm not the kind of girl who shacks up?"

"Are you?"

"Normally, I'd say I'm not that kind of girl. But with you ... I seem to lose control of my normal values."

"How about we cross that bridge when we come to it?"

"No offense, but that sounds like a stupid idea. These kinds of things need a plan to work well."

"Well then plan to do this as often as you like," I said.

We made love for an hour. Neither of us tried to have an orgasm. It was just good to be this intimate with each other again. At one point I asked her if it was going to be two or three months before we did this again and she laughed.

"No, Bob. I'm not resisting you any more."

At one point I smoothed my hands over her belly and said "I'm sorry for knocking you up."

She sped up, leaning forward a little. "I'm not convinced I'm as sorry as you are."

"Why?" I asked as she sped up even more.

"Because this is turning out way better than I thought it would," she panted.

Then she had an orgasm, and I suddenly wanted to join her.

I didn't stay the night, but I did stay until well after midnight. As I got dressed to leave, she said that the next Saturday, which was only two days away, I could pick her up and show her the house.

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Epilogue

That was the beginning of the end for my bachelorhood. She did decide to move in with me, and it worked much better than either of us might have hoped for. We were still a little unsure of what kind of future we wanted, but the remaining five months of her term seemed to resolve that in little bits and pieces, until, while she was in the labor room and I was mopping her brow with a cool cloth, she said "I want our baby to have your name."

"It's a girl," I laughed. "You going to call her Roberta?"

"Your last name, Mr. Big Shot Detective."

"Are you asking me to marry you?" I asked.

"I think I am," she said.

"I accept," I said. "Where's my engagement ring?"

A contraction interrupted our fun.

That wasn't the only fun we had that day. Once she moved in and we realized things were going to work out so well, she asked me to prepare for this day in a special way. I had agreed, of course, and I enlisted the aid of Charlie Rickenbacker, who was the right size to fit into the suit and beard. His voice also sounded like mine, and of course he knew how to play the part. He'd been watching me do it for years.

So I stayed with Eva during labor and delivery, and then, while they did all the things they do with newborns, and all the things they do with newly delivered mothers, I went out to where Carla, who was still Timothy's babysitter, was keeping him entertained. I'd called her to bring him down when Eva started pushing.

I had gotten out of scrubs and had a cup of coffee in my hand as I sauntered into the waiting room.

"There you are!" I said.

"Bob!" yipped Timothy and came for a hug. "Where were you? Where's Mom? Where's the baby?"

It had been Eva's decision to keep everything about the baby a deep, dark secret from Timothy. While we had seen the ultrasound, Timothy was not told about the sex of the baby. He wasn't told when the baby was due, or what the process of giving birth would entail. He didn't have many questions. He liked to feel what he called his little brother, by running his hands over Eva's belly. He took particular delight in feeling the baby move. But he wasn't all that curious about when it would come out. And we kept it that way.

And so I was sitting with him in the waiting room, when the man in the big red suit came bustling in, ho, ho, ho-ing like a pro, my new daughter in his arms and two nervous nurses flanking him.

"Where is Timothy Daniel Sinderson?" he boomed.

Timothy, his eyes wide, raised his hand.

Santa came over to him and stood, towering over him.

"I believe you asked for a baby sister last year at Christmas, and I was clean out, except for twins as I recall."

"It was a baby brother," Timothy corrected.

"What?" Santa fumed and hammed it up a bit. "I'm going to fire that miserable elf. Just look what he packed in my bag to give to you!"

Santa went down on one knee, and there, before Timothy's eyes, was his tiny sister, with her tiny hands. She yawned as he stared at her.

"It's a girl," said Santa sadly. "That stupid elf messed up. Shall I take her back? I'm sure I can get you a brother by next Christmas."

Timothy stood up. "No! I'll take her! You can leave her here! We'll take good care of her. I promise."

"Done!" roared Santa, at which point the startled baby started crying. Nurses swooped in and removed her from his red velvet-covered arms. "Ho, ho, ho!" he laughed. "I've got places to go and presents to deliver."

"But it's not even Thanksgiving yet!" said Timothy.

"Terrible! That's what it is!" said Santa. "They keep making Christmas come earlier and earlier. Somebody ought to pass a law."

And then he was gone, and the nurses were suggesting that they had a nice, quiet place for the baby to take a nap, which Timothy thought was a great idea. Then he wanted to see his mother, who looked a hundred times better than when I'd last seen her. She was grinning from ear to ear when her son ran in and hugged what he could reach of her from her bedside.

"Guess what?" he almost yelled.

"What?"

"Santa brought me a baby sister!" he crowed.

"He did?" she played along.

"He said an elf made a mistake, and that's why I got a sister instead of a brother."

"Oh, that's too bad."

"I think he was fibbing," said Timothy.

"Why?" asked Eva.

"Because I don't think he was really Santa."

Eva looked up at me and then back at Timothy.

"Why not, baby?"

"Well, because he didn't get the baby from an elf," said Timothy. "He got it from your tummy, so it must have been a girl all along. And the real Santa would know that."

"I see," said Eva.

"And this Santa wasn't Bob, either," he said, almost casually.

"What?"

He looked at me and then back at his mother.

"Bob is the real Santa."

Eva looked a little discouraged.

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Well," said Timothy. "He was dressed up like Santa last year, when I sat on his lap. And I asked him to make you happy and give me a little brother. And he came to take care of us on Christmas Eve, and protect us from Shithead, but he couldn't keep wearing his suit to be your boyfriend, so he just had to be Bob."

"So you think Bob is actually Santa Claus?" asked Eva.

"Well ... he's the one who made you happy, and made a baby sister for me."

He looked around and lowered his voice.

"But let's keep it a secret. If my friends found out, all they'd do is come over all the time and ask for things. I like it that we live with Santa, but I don't want everybody to know ... okay?"

Eva smiled at him.

"Okay."


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The End
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Posted:  2010-12-13
Last Modified: 2010-12-30 / 10:54:25 pm
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