Bill Crider: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 1. Whole No. 797, January 2008

Just below the Purdue logo — a barrel-chested, mean-eyed man gripping a sledgehammer — the sweatshirt bulged as if straining to cover a big pot belly.

There was something under there. Something hidden in a half-assed way that seemed oh so very Rick.

“Go on,” Ronnie said. “Look.”

The little man on the sweatshirt glared at Karen hatefully. He had more muscles than Rick, that was for sure, but the look of surly contempt on his cartoon face — that was the same.

It should’ve served as a warning, a reminder that they hadn’t actually “messed with” any of Rick’s stuff yet. That it wasn’t too late. Karen knew that.

And still she flipped the little man off and whipped the sweatshirt aside.

Underneath was a box with the word “Florsheim” printed on the lid.

“What is it?”

“I think it’s just shoes,” Karen said.

The disappointment in her own voice surprised her. What had she been hoping to find? A Malibu Barbie? A pony?

It was Christmas, and Rick had bought new shoes... for himself. Of course.

Karen lifted off the lid.

“Hey!” Ronnie said, leaning in to peek around her. “He did get us something for Christmas!”

There were no shoes in the box. Instead, it held a loafy-looking package about the size and shape of a large fruitcake.

Ronnie poked it with a single finger.

“Kinda squishy,” he said. “Cruddy wrapping.”

Rather than the usual festive red, green, silver, or gold, the package was swaddled in coarse brown paper that looked suspiciously like a cut-up grocery bag. The jagged edges and clumsily folded flaps were fastened down with long strips of masking tape.

Karen didn’t know what was in the package, but she knew enough to be scared.

This was what Rick didn’t want them messing with. A squishy secret wrapped in plain brown paper. A grown-up thing, forbidden and frightening.

It was time to go.

Ronnie started picking at the tape on the package.

“Stop it!” Karen snapped. “It’s not for us!”

Her brother kept working at one corner with a fingernail. A sliver of tape began to peel off.

“Hey! I said stop it!”

“I’m just gonna peek. Rick’ll never notice.”

“Yes, he will!”

“No, he won’t.”

Karen grabbed the package and jerked it out of the box. She meant to shove Ronnie away, fix the tape, put things back together again.

But her brother had already worked enough tape loose to pinch it firmly, and when Karen snatched up the package, he held tight.

A long strip ripped off. The package opened.

And then it was snowing.

Fine, white powder filled the air. It seemed to hang there a moment, so thick Karen and Ronnie couldn’t even see each other. It drifted down slowly, covering the carpet, the dirty clothes, Karen, Ronnie, everything.

By the time the blizzard was over, Ronnie was crying.

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” he said, tears gumming up in the white dust covering his cheeks. “We’re in so much trouble.”

Karen knew the truth of it. She wasn’t sure what the white stuff was — Coke Cane? Heroine? Mary Wanda? — but she’d seen enough Rockford Files and Starsky and Hutch to know it was something bad people fought over. Killed over.

She and her brother weren’t just in trouble. They were in danger.

Karen felt her lower lip start to tremble. Moisture pooled in her eyes.

And then someone said, “Don’t worry. Everything’ll be all right.” And Karen was shocked and relieved to realize it had been her.

Her knees trembled as she pushed herself to her feet, but she willed them to stop.

She and Ronnie had been looking after themselves for a while now. Washing their own clothes, getting themselves up for school, packing their own lunches. How was this any different? It just made their To Do list a little longer.

Clean up drugs

Fix package

Stay alive

“Don’t move,” she said, heading for the door. “And don’t get any of that white junk in your nose or mouth.”

“Where are you going?” Ronnie wailed. “Don’t leave me!”

“Geez, don’t freak out,” Karen said with all the cool, big-sister condescension she could muster. “I know what to do.”

Less than a minute later, she was back — with the vacuum cleaner.

After hooking up the long, tube-like sucky thingy, Karen used it on her brother. He whimpered and wriggled as the vacuum snorked the powder from his clothes and hair, but soon he was clean enough to go out to the front window and act as a lookout. The second he saw Cousin Rick’s dented-up Dodge Dart pull into the parking lot, he was to run and tell her. At which point, she would...

She had no idea. She just had to hope she wouldn’t need one.

It took her ten minutes to suck up all the powder. She meant to scoop it out and stuff it back in the package, but one look inside the vacuum bag told her that wouldn’t work. The whatever-it-was, once pure white, was now mixed together with gray dust bunnies and strands of long black hair.

So Karen went to the kitchen and got out the Bisquick.

As she was pressing down the last strip of tape, Ronnie called out, “He’s home! He’s home!”

Cousin Rick came through the front door two minutes later. He found Karen and Ronnie on the couch watching The Brady Bunch. On the screen, Mrs. Brady was singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

Her laryngitis was gone. It was a Christmas miracle.

Rick shrugged off his parka and let it drop to the floor. Then he walked to the TV and changed the channel to Bowling for Dollars.

“Go outside and play,” he said, plopping down between the kids. “The Big Call might come tonight, and I don’t want you two hangin’ around gettin’ me all jittery.”

“But it’s cold out,” said Karen.

“And dark,” said Ronnie.

“So?” Rick threw a glance toward Karen’s end of the couch. “Build a bonfire or something, I don’t c—... What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That. Under your eye.”

Karen brought her fingers up to her face. There was something dry and chalky caked high on her left cheek.

“Oh... that must be flour. We made Christmas cookies at school today.”

“Yeah?”

And then Cousin Rick did something he almost never did — he actually looked her in the eye.

“You bring any home?”

Karen shook her head.

“Sorry. We ate ’em all.”

Rick turned back to the TV. One of the contestants had just thrown a gutter ball.

“Well, go on, then,” he grumbled, pulling out his BIC and a pack of cigarettes. “Get outta here. I got business to take care of.”

Karen and Ronnie hopped down from the couch and went to get their coats. They didn’t complain this time.

“Karen?” Ronnie said as they roamed aimlessly around the parking lot. “What’s gonna happen?”

Karen shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You think he’ll ever find out what we did?”

Probably. Yes. Sooner or later. That’s what Karen assumed.

She looked up. It was a perfectly clear night, and the stars were bright and still. None of them shimmered or twinkled. They just hung there like holes in the big, black blanket smothering the sky.

Once upon a time, when she was a little kid like Ronnie, she used to wish on stars. She believed in Santa Claus, too. Same thing, really. Useless.

But it couldn’t hurt, could it?

She picked a star.

“He won’t notice,” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay”

A door creaked open and slammed shut, and the kids turned to see Rick coming toward them with quick, purposeful strides.

He stopped beside his car.

“Finally got the call — the big one,” he said, sounding nervous but excited. “I’ll be gone for a while. Tell your mom to wait up for me. She and I are gonna go out and celebrate when I get back.”