Remembering Christmas (15 page)

“Can you describe him?”

“Older guy, wearing a big overcoat, lots of hair, dark hair, scraggly beard.”

The dispatcher repeated back what he said.

“Well, I guess the kid didn’t say dark hair. Maybe he did. I don’t remember. But there’s another thing. The guy might have a good bruise on his shin or somewhere on his leg. The kid said he tripped as he ran up the stairs, hard enough that he yelled out in pain.”

“All right, sir, Sergeant West should be arriving any moment. He says he has the church in sight. Do you see him?”

Rick heard the siren. “Let me check.” He set the phone down and ran outside, saw a police car flying down the road toward him. He went back in. “Yes, he’s here.”

“More cars are on the way.”

“Thank you,” Rick said and hung up. He ran outside to meet the policeman. The patrol car pulled right behind his car at an odd angle. A small crowd started to form at the intersection.

The policeman got out of his car. “You the one called in the robbery?”

“Yes, I’m Rick Denton. This is my mom and stepfather’s bookstore. He’s in the hospital. I’m just here helping out.”

“I’m Sergeant West. Let’s go inside and have a look.”

As they walked, the officer took out a notepad and began writing. Rick explained everything again to him. He heard more sirens outside. Through the doorway he saw two more police cars pull up. When he got to the part about suspecting that the thief was Columbo, he actually called him that.

“Columbo?” the officer said, smiling.

“No, I’m sorry. That’s the nickname I gave him. There’s a young lady works here part-time, Andrea. I think she called him JB or JD or something.”

“So he’s a local, not one of the transient homeless guys in town? We got quite a few down here from up north.”

“I don’t know. I guess so. I think she said he’s been coming around for a year.”

Sergeant West shook his head. “You sure it’s him . . . this Columbo? Most of the locals don’t do things like this. They know it’s bad for getting handouts. And they know we know where they go.”

“I can’t say for certain. It was the high school kid who saw him.”

“You said his name was Jed?”

“Yeah. But he described Columbo to a tee. And I know this guy. He’s pretty sore at me. I chased him out of here, and Art, the guy who owns this store with my mom, he’s been feeding this guy like a stray cat.”

“I know a guy named JD,” the officer said. “If it’s him, shouldn’t be too hard to track him down.”

“Hey, wait,” said Rick. “He’s got a place right around the corner here, behind the church. What am I saying . . . a place. It’s a stupid box.” Rick walked outside and up the stairs. Sergeant West followed behind him. Two other officers walked up, and Sergeant West began to fill them in. As they talked, Rick went around the corner and found JD’s box.

He bent down and looked inside. Stunk like booze and body odor. But it was empty.

Of course, it would be empty, Rick thought. He doesn’t need to live here anymore. He’s got plenty of money now.

Rick was angry now, outraged that this homeless parasite would break into a little bookstore that was barely making it, steal all their cash, possibly ruining his mother’s livelihood. The creep was probably laughing his head off. Probably hadn’t done a lick of honest work in years.

And what was Art thinking, feeding the bum like this? Letting this totally unstable guy hang around the store, maybe even putting his mother’s life in danger. And Rick was angry as he thought about the hours of work it had taken putting that deposit together. How about all the hours he worked at the store generating sales, donating his time, the lost vacation days.

It was all gone. All because Columbo didn’t get his stupid Egg McMuffin.

Besides the anger, Rick was definitely feeling some guilt. He should have brought the deposit bag with him to the diner. It was a stupid mistake, and he knew better. If he had, they’d only be out a few hundred dollars, not a few thousand. When Rick came back around the corner of the church to the sidewalk, two police cars sped off toward the south, the direction the high school kid said the homeless man went. He noticed the crowd had grown bigger. Now there were people across the street watching.

From out of the crowd, he heard Andrea’s voice yelling, “Rick! Rick!” He saw her break through the crowd and run across the street. She yelled to Sergeant West. “Is Rick all right, the guy in the store?”

“I’m over here, Andrea.”

She ran over. Seemed like she was about to give him a hug, but she stopped right in front of him. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. We got broken into while I was at the diner.”

“Oh no. Did they take anything?”

“All the cash, including that big deposit.”

“No,” she said, her voice full of sympathy. “All of it?”

“Looks that way.” They both walked toward the front door.

“Who are you, ma’am?” Sergeant West asked.

She introduced herself, and Rick explained her connection to the store.

“Haven’t I seen you over at the diner round the corner?” he asked.

“I work here after I’m done there. I saw those two patrol cars leave.”

“They’re following a hunch,” West said. “The guy took off on foot. Couldn’t have gotten far. I wonder if one of you could go inside the store with me, just to double-check nothing else is missing.”

“Sure,” Andrea said. Sergeant West walked down the steps and into the store. Rick walked toward his car. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Following my own hunch.”

“Rick, don’t go after this guy. We don’t know if he’s dangerous.”

“I think I know who did it. That high school kid described him to me. Sounded just like Columbo . . . I mean JD.”

Andrea shook her head. “It’s not JD, Rick. It can’t be him. He’d never do that. He loves Art.”

“Maybe so, but he doesn’t love me. And homeless people are capable of anything, Andrea. I’m just going to drive around downtown, see if I see him.”

“If you do, please just call the police.”

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, hopped in his car, and drove off.

Rick had been driving slowly for twenty minutes throughout the downtown area, stopping anytime he saw a homeless person or a group standing around. He talked to quite a few; most ignored him, some answered questions he wasn’t asking, disconnected from reality. The few he could understand said they hadn’t seen JD all morning, wondered if Rick was some kind of cop. He was about to give up when he noticed a park near the water’s edge on the north end of town. Must have been added since he left town years ago.

He pulled into a parking space under a live oak tree. From his car he scanned the view. Some kids played on the swing set. Moms sat nearby on a bench. A couple of college kids were walking around the fountain, holding hands. There was a small white building beyond the fountain that blocked his view of the area nearest the water. He got out and headed that way.

As he cleared the building, he saw a man in an overcoat about fifty yards away, walking along a white seawall that ran the river’s edge. Flinging his arms around like he was arguing with the Invisible Man.

It’s him
.

Rick started running toward him. “JD!” he shouted.

JD stopped talking and looked around.

“JD,” Rick yelled again, now too close for JD to miss where the sound was coming from.

When he saw Rick, he turned and started running in the other direction. But he wasn’t fast, and Rick was on him in seconds. He leaped into the air and tackled him from behind. They tumbled on the grass. JD’s face was pushed in the ground, but Rick could hear him screaming in panic. Rick rolled him over and was just about to unleash his rage in a flurry of punches to his face.

But he stopped short, his fist raised in the air.

The man’s face was a mask of fear. He was babbling incoherently. “Please don’t. Please help me. I won’t do it anymore. I won’t. I won’t. But I can’t stop. But I will, I promise. Please don’t hit me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Shut up!” Rick yelled into his face. He was sitting on top of him. JD stopped talking. “Where is it? Where’s the money?”

“I don’t, I don’t have money. In my coat, my coat. There’s some in my coat. Take it. Take it.”

Rick got off him but kept him pinned down with one hand on his chest. He started going through his pockets, looking for the deposit bag and a wad of cash. All he found were four one-dollar bills crumpled up. “This isn’t it,” he yelled. “Where’s the rest?”

“That’s all I could get today. It’s all. I can get some more later. I was too late for my McMuffin. You take it. I’ll get more.”

Wait a minute, Rick thought. Maybe he’d jumped the gun here. He looked back at his car, thought about how far the store was from here. He wasn’t even sure JD could have walked this far since the break-in. He lifted his hand off his chest and reached back toward JD’s feet and lifted his pant legs.

“What? What are you doing? Taylor? Where’s Taylor? What are you doing?”

“Would you just shut up?” He hated touching the man’s filthy legs, but he didn’t see a bruise on either shin. He squeezed his legs up and down, looking for a reaction.

He got one. JD started laughing, almost hysterically, crying, “Stop it, stop it!”

Rick stood up and reached out his hand. “Here, get up.”

JD stopped laughing and looked up from the ground. “What now? What, what . . .”

“I’m not going to hurt you. It’s obviously not you.”

“It’s not me? What’s not me? Have you seen my friend Taylor?” he asked as Rick pulled him to his feet.

“No.” Rick started walking away.

He got about ten steps when he heard JD yell out, “Since it’s not me . . . can I come back tomorrow for my Egg McMuffin?”

“No!” Rick yelled without turning around.

Rick arrived back at the Book Nook to find Andrea sweeping up the broken glass. He noticed a fine black powder around the door, cash register, and counter. They had dusted for fingerprints. But the police were gone now. “Be careful,” he said, looking down at the glass. Seemed like the thing to say.

She looked up. “Can you grab that dustpan over there and hold it here?”

“You were right, it wasn’t him.”

“What?”

“JD.”

“You found him?”

Rick bent down and held the dustpan on the ground. “Yeah, but where I found him, he was too far away. He could never have gotten that far on foot in that short a time.”

“I knew JD couldn’t have done it. In his own way he cares about Art.” She swept the glass into the dustpan.

“He also didn’t have any bruises on his leg.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The kid with the skateboard saw the guy trip hard on the cement stairs out there. Ran off limping. JD didn’t have any bruises.”

Andrea stopped and looked down at him. “I probably don’t want to ask how you found that out.”

Rick smiled. “No, you probably don’t.” He walked the glass debris to the trash can outside and came back in. “How long we have to leave that black powder on there?”

“Sergeant West said I can clean it off whenever. Can I make a suggestion? Could you go to the hardware store down the street and get a windowpane while I clean up?”

“I can do that. You find anything else missing?”

“No. I think he just came for the cash.” She walked the broom back.

The cash, Rick thought. What were they going to do? What was the right thing
to
do? It was his stupid mistake that allowed the thief to nab the deposit bag. Should he volunteer to reimburse that much to his mom? He’d have to check, but he knew it was twenty-two-hundred-something and change. A lot of dough. But a lot easier for him to come up with than his mom.

It made him so mad.

“What’s the matter?” Andrea asked. She came back holding a soap bucket and rag.

“It’s just so . . . frustrating. This guy gets to just walk in here and walk out with all that money.” He had a thought. “Wonder if they have any insurance?” Maybe he’d just have to eat a small deductible.