Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

Roy said quickly, “All I want is Petlovich’s address, Mary. Nothing else. You want him to go up for it, don’t you?”

She knotted her hands into spindly, white-knuckled fists. “You bet I do.” She pointed at me suddenly. “And I’d send him up, too, if I could!” She ran into the apartment’s tiny bathroom and slammed the door. It was loose in the frame; we could hear her weeping.

Roy said quietly, “Maybe it’d be better from here if you waited outside, Nate. Thanks for priming her.”

“You’re less than welcome.” I meant it. “I’m tired of playing the bad guy.”

On my way out I stopped and looked at a pair of polyester trousers with pulled threads poking out of them, draped over a chair. I glanced toward the bathroom door, then checked the trousers pockets.

No wallet-that had been on the body-but the right front pocket held his checkbook. I flipped idly but quickly through the stubs. For a man that lived off his woman, this guy had been living pretty high lately.

He had written three checks to good restaurants, one to a department store and one for a couple of hundred, marked simply “cash”-all dated within the last three months. He had the deposits recorded in the back. They had been made, one for each check, barely in time and barely enough to cover the amount.

I put the checkbook back. As I did, the bathroom doorknob turned. I gave a quick nod to Roy and edged out to the hall.

Through the door, I could hear him mutter and her snuffle and spit. I shuffled from one foot to the other, idly trying to guess what color the walls had been twenty years ago. I felt like taking a bath.

When Roy came out, he gave me an address in Saint Paul, and away we went. I told him about the checkbook.

“Oho!” he said. “So she was lying about the money.”

“Or else she didn’t know about it.”

Roy looked dubious. “How much were those restaurant checks again?” I told him. “It’s an odd amount, so you can bet he wasn’t cashing a check. Could you eat your way through forty-five dollars and thirty-eight cents’ worth of food at any of those places? Never mind- you probably could.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t-not alone. Or with a friend, either, unless I was in the money or thought I was going to be.”

“I know.” He grabbed the armrest as I took a right turn. “She found that address pretty fast, too. Well, we’re headed to see Petlovich, aren’t we?” Roy was cheerful again. On the way to Saint Paul, he made three rotten jokes and yelled at my driving at every other turn. It wasn’t fair. I had signaled at most of those turns, or meant to.

Saint Paul was a bust, a waste of time. We came up the stairs, we knocked from beside the door, we heard a scrambling in the room, we stood back. A slug ripped through the door; Roy let go of the knob, and we both flattened against the wall. After a minute of silence, Cartley threw the door open and we charged in, heads down and guns up.

There was nothing much in the room-a battered suitcase, a sack of groceries, a newspaper and some mail. The window was open, and the shade, jerked down, roller and all, hung half in the window and half out. I looked out. Ten feet below the window were the deep tracks where he had hit, and the footprints of a man sprinting away.

We turned back to the table. Cartley went for the mail and I checked the newspaper. He tossed the letters down in disgust. “Bills!”

“No Christmas cards? Funny, I thought he was on my list.”

“I haven’t gotten one from you either.” Cartley stared at the mail again. “If Petlovich has money, he isn’t paying off debts with it. I wonder why he waited so long to leave town. If the cops didn’t come for him, a collection agency would.”

“I don’t know about his bills, but I know why he didn’t blow town till now.” I showed Roy the Minneapolis Star, afternoon edition. In the lower right-hand corner of the front page was a human-interest story about the body that had been found hung by the chimney in an unnamed Minneapolis home. The article said the police suspected one Willem Petlovich, former second-story man.

Roy stared at it woodenly. “That shouldn’t have spooked him. He had to know he’d be a suspect.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But the paper ties him in explicitly. Maybe he figured he’d have a day or two before anyone knew where to look for him.”

“He’s that dumb?”

“He’s got caught once. By you, even.”

“By you, too. All right, quit the kidding. He got caught because he was ratted on.” We holstered our guns and left.

On the way back, I asked, “Want to report the shooting to Pederson?”

“And catch hell for playing cops without badges or a warrant?” He sighed. “Guess we better. Jon won’t like this. He didn’t take care of the kids so we could go break laws.”

“Yeah. Say, why don’t you drop me off at home? I ought to feed Marlowe, and-”

“Sure. Right after we talk to Jon.” He considered. “No. I’ll wait for you while you feed him now. Nate, I’d really appreciate it if you’d sack out on the couch at my house tonight. Bring your gun.”

It made sense. “Uh, yeah. Roy, while you talk to Jon, can I make a phone call?”

He grinned then. “Okay, coward. But after you talk to that woman nobody’s supposed to know about, you can come in and catch hell like a man.”

I ran a stop sign, unintentionally for once. “Damn it, is everyone on my private life? I suppose the kids told you while I was in the kitchen.”

He leaned back and hitched at his belt. “If you can’t fool visitors, you couldn’t fool your partner.”

“Yeah?” It wasn’t much of a crack, but it was all I had left.

The next morning I opened my eyes and found a pair of cool blue eyes, framed by blond bangs, not more than six inches from my face. I closed my eyes and tried to think. Wasn’t the hair sandier?

Then I remembered where I was and that only made it more confusing. I opened my eyes again and, after a few tries, focussed on the face around the eyes. I pulled the blanket up over my chest, feeling embarrassed and then silly about it.

“Oh! H’lo, Amy.” She was standing beside the sofa. “Sleep well?” She nodded.

I hadn’t. This house had more creaking boards and rattling windows than the House of Usher. “Had breakfast yet?” She shook her head. “What’s the matter, don’t you talk in the morning?”

She straightened her flannel nightgown and folded her arms self-assuredly. “I’m waiting till the others get up,” she said.

Great! I was guilty again. Ah, life as a hardened criminal! I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and changed my pajama bottoms for trousers.

I was throwing cold water on my face when I heard a whoop from Howie and a shriek from Paul. I tottered out and collided with Cartley, striding out in his bathrobe to collect the evidence and punish the wicked. He was boiling mad. He looked like a walking bathrobe with a ham roast in it.

In the living room, Amy was standing demurely by the front door while Paul tugged at it. She ran a hand over her blond hair to make sure she looked tidy and grown-up, then turned to Roy. “We caught Nathan. He’s trying to keep us shut in the house, isn’t he?”

Roy laughed, tried to unlock the door, then stopped laughing and threw his weight against it. It didn’t budge.

I was in the kitchen before he hit it a second time.

I rammed the back door with my shoulder, on the dead run. It jarred my teeth, snapped my head back, but the door barely rattled. I tried again. I might as well have hit Mount Rushmore.

I ran back through the sitting room and snatched my gun from under the sofa pillow. I could hear Roy going through closets downstairs; I charged upstairs. I flipped through every wardrobe with my gun muzzle, poked under every bed, even looked in the shower stall and the clothes hamper. Amy and Paul, watching from the living room, must have loved it.