Mistletoe and Murder

Chapter Eleven

They drove to a Christmas tree farm ten minutes north of the city. Live trees, cut trees, small, medium and large trees, this place had it all.

Romana knew what she wanted-a six-foot blue spruce that could be planted in her brother’s backyard after Christmas.

“It’s eco-friendly,” she told Jacob as they wandered through the labyrinth of green. “It’s also a happy ending for the tree.”

“Now you’re into the psychology of trees?”

“Every living thing has a spirit. People, trees, even cockroaches. Maybe.” At the tug of amusement on his lips, she grinned. “Hey, I teach criminology, not metaphysics. What kind do you want?”

He examined the burlap root bag of a traditional Christmas pine. The memory of a similar pine brought a stab of pain and a clutching sensation in his belly. He saw his mother’s face and had to work to block it out.

“No kind, Romana. But thanks.”

She left the blue spruce she’d been admiring and circled to where he stood. “You need a tree, Jacob, even if it’s the Charlie Brown twig variety.”

“Oh, look, Oscar,” an elderly woman remarked. “There’s a lovely spruce.”

Romana gave Jacob’s shin a light kick. “Your bad attitude just cost me my first choice, Knight. Pick a tree before they’re all gone.”

Humor stirred as Jacob made a sweep of the immediate area. At least three dozen people had braved the slippery roads to come here tonight. There were others wandering around in the barn, in search of wreaths and pine boughs. The smells of Christmas enveloped him. Funny, though, when combined with Romana’s exotic scent, the memories felt distant and very nearly manageable.

Romana rubbed her arms to warm them. “I know there are unhappy thoughts running around in your head, but you won’t exorcise them by letting them control you. You have to stare them down, put them in their place.”

He kept his eyes on the line of frozen root bags and his hands in his jacket pockets. “Is that the Romana Grey philosophy for beating your demons?”

“Think of it as a game of cops and robbers. Cops good, robbers bad.”

“In theory, anyway,” Jacob remarked. “Some robber-demons can take a lifetime to capture and control. I’m thirty-eight. That’s not even half a lifetime by twenty-first-century standards.”

He gave her credit for patience. Squeezing his arm, she replied simply, “Not going to pry, Knight.”

His gaze climbed the skinny tree in front of him. “Because you’re afraid of what you’ll hear, or because you have other weightier matters on your mind?”

“You really are obtuse, aren’t you? Fine, more the second than the first. I want to find Fitz, and I don’t know how to do it. You don’t know either, and the department can’t help. Officially.”

“The patrols know the story. I talked to several officers last night. They’ll watch for her.”

Unhooking her arm, she skirted a puny fir that stood between two much more majestic ones. It tilted to the right at the top, and a number of the branches were uneven, but it looked as healthy as a live tree possibly could under full-blown winter conditions.

“This is Fitz,” Romana said and detached an icicle from the trunk. “I’m going to buy it for her and decorate it in purple and red, her favorite colors. That’s all I can do to combat my demons right now.”

The skin on Jacob’s neck prickled. Turning up his collar, he looked back but saw nothing except trees, darkness and an old man wearing a money apron.

There were more people here than he’d anticipated. Why, he couldn’t imagine. What sane person left the city at nine o’clock on a Friday night to go shopping for Christmas trees?

He noticed Romana glancing into the shadows and knew exactly what she was looking for.

“Problem?” He kept his tone casual and his eyes on the snow-covered pots that dotted the path.

“Hmm? No. I was thinking.”

“About Christmas trees?”

“And Fitz and Critch and mistletoe.” She dusted loose snow from another spruce. “I know you know why I wanted to come here tonight. The purchasing of Christmas trees is a bonus. I figured, beyond the city limits, in bad road conditions and nasty weather, who’d want to wander around outside? Guess I underestimated the hardiness of the average Cincinnatian.” She blew out a cloud of breath, swept an arm around the yard. “You see now why I left the force. I couldn’t get a fix on the human mind, let alone the criminal one.”

“Insanity’s its own unique mindset, Romana. No one can get an accurate fix on that.”

“Except the criminal in question.” She shook the hair from her face. “Let’s just pick three trees, load up and hope that if he is here, he’ll follow us back to the city before opening fire. I spent most of today jumping at shadows, terrified that he’d take aim at me and hit someone in my family.”

Although he appeared to be examining the trees, Jacob watched for movement in his peripheral vision. “I’ll take that one.” He nodded at a spindly pine with too many limbs and not enough needles to cover them. “I was kind of into Charlie Brown as a kid.”

Romana’s sighing laugh eased the tension and immediately took his mind in a very different direction. Just for a moment, he pictured the two of them on the floor, under that spindly Christmas tree, making love and not worrying about any of this. A smile touched his lips. It would be one hell of a Christmas present.

The man in the money apron dragged a large sled behind him. He helped Jacob load the trees and offered his son’s help strapping them onto the roof. At the rate the father moved, Jacob figured they’d be lucky to get out of there by midnight.

Ten minutes later, Romana joined them. “Okay, we’re all paid up for trees, topiaries, wreaths and boughs.”

Jacob secured Fitz’s tree on the sled. “What are topiaries?”

“Balls of manicured greenery in a pot. Nothing you’d want, but my niece loves them.”

Jacob’s skin prickled a second time as a woman drew Romana aside to ask for advice. Instinct had him sliding a hand into his jacket. He fingered his gun and scoured the winter darkness, but he still saw nothing and no one.

A breath of wind whispered across his cheek. It played with the ends of his hair and blew the top layer of snow around in circles. He didn’t realize he still had his hand in his jacket until the old farmer waved him off with a cheerful, “Money part’s done. I heard your wife saying she paid inside. Topiaries.” He snugged the rope around Romana’s spruce. “The missus has been making the silly things for sixteen years now, and every year we sell right out of them. Shows you what I know.”

“Ditto.” Jacob caught a movement in one of the larger shadows, but it was only a man with an ax emerging from the U-cut area.

“Which one’s yours, then?” a new and deeper voice asked. Preoccupied, Jacob knocked the trunk of the spindly tree with his knee. “This one.”

“Which vehicle?” the voice grunted.

“It’s the black Pathfinder,” Romana returned to say. She nudged Jacob’s arm. “What is it?”

“Other than Paul Bunyon coming out of the forest, nothing.”

“He’s the owner’s youngest son. Look, let’s get out of here before the shadows really do come alive.”

He nodded, took one last, long look, then swung around- and found himself staring at a chest twice as broad as his own.

“You must be the owner’s oldest son,” Romana said. “Your mother showed me pictures when I was in the barn.”

The man flushed. “I hate it when she does that.” A projectile whizzing past his head drew a scowl. “Damn kids and their snowballs.”

No way could Jacob wrestle Paul Bunyon’s big brother to the ground, so he merely drew his gun and shouldered past. “That wasn’t a snowball. Get down.”

“What was it?” Romana demanded.

“It looked like a dart.”

Another object flew past. It missed Romana’s arm by less than six inches.

Jacob didn’t waste his breath. “Under my jacket, waistband, right side,” he said. “Cover me.”

She pulled out his backup gun, searched for movement as he did. “So many people,” he heard her murmur.

“There.” He spied the weapon as it was raised. “Get down,” he ordered a group of six in front of him. “Romana…”

He took off to his right, made a point of staying in the light. It would give Critch a target and Romana a chance to whisk the bystanders out of harm’s way.

“Come on, Critch,” he invited softly. “I’m the one you want, not them.”

But he wanted Romana, too, and knowing that made Jacob hesitate, glance back when he should have been focused on his quarry.

Critch’s dart came out of the blackness too fast for him to dodge it. The tip ripped through his leather jacket and scraped painfully across his upper arm.

He felt it instantly, the numbness that spread upward into his left shoulder and shot straight down to his elbow.

He slowed, but didn’t stop. Away from the farm’s floodlights, he could make out shapes between the trees.

He spied a movement and took shelter behind a Scotch pine. But it wasn’t Critch who tottered around a stack of cut trees; it was the old man in the money apron, oblivious to what was happening as he zipped his fly.

Jacob spotted another movement and swung out around the pine. “Get down!” he shouted.

The man gaped at his gun. The best Jacob could do was shove him sideways as another dart flew past.

This one embedded itself in the trunk of the pine.

Jacob crouched. “Stay on the ground,” he warned the man.

He scanned the snow for footprints. There were dozens. Motionless, he listened for any sound, but like him, Critch had gone dead-still. Which made it a waiting game.

“Move, you bastard.”

The old man bellied forward.

“Not you,” Jacob said over his shoulder.

But the old man kept coming. He pointed with a woolly finger. “Boots,” he rasped. “The toes are sticking out from behind that knotty pine.”

Jacob touched the man’s shoulder in passing. He kept low. His left arm was virtually useless, and his breathing felt tight.

He spied the boots and circled. But the old man behind him slipped as he struggled to his knees, and both Critch and the boots disappeared.

Another dart blew past. Snow gusted up. Jacob glimpsed an arm, fired, and heard a yelp-of pain, he sincerely hoped.

His head felt heavy, and he wanted to stumble. He cursed both Critch and the drugged dart, and kept going.

Feet thudded on the snow. Branches shook. Ice pellets scattered.

Jacob trailed Critch by sound, realized he was heading toward the U-cut grove and took a zigzag course through the leaning stacks.

He saw a group of teenagers, heard another dart discharge. Before he could locate the source, a gun fired behind him. The bullet zinged off a thick trunk and into the night.

The teenagers took a collective step back, then began to run. Jacob bent slightly to catch his breath. A half second later, someone crashed into his back.

“Ouch!” Romana grabbed his arms for balance. “Why did you stop?”

He motioned at the kids. “Bystanders. Two o’clock.”

He dropped to one knee, not so much out of desire but necessity. Was his jaw going numb?

The question felt hazy, and he had to concentrate to keep it from slipping away.

“Jacob?”

She fingered his torn sleeve with her free hand.

“It’s nothing.”

Her fingers came out red. She curled them around his forearm, shook. “Do you feel anything?”

“Yeah, pissed off.”

The thrashing had stopped; the thudding footsteps had faded.

With his gun tipped skyward, Jacob rested an elbow on his upraised knee. “He’s gone.”

“Back to the farm?”

“No, that way.” He gestured with the barrel. “Into the woods.”

“I’ll go…”

“No, you’ll stay, and for once, listen.”

He should have saved his breath. Using her teeth to pull off her glove, she tore at the sleeve of his jacket.

“The wound’s not deep, but that won’t stop the poison from taking effect.” Grabbing his jaw, she stared into his eyes. “Is your vision clear or cloudy?”

“Clear.” More or less. “It’s curare, Romana. I know how it works. He shot a dart into the trunk of a Scotch pine…”

“I saw it. I pulled it out.” Concern mixed with exasperation to soften her tone. “I was behind you, Jacob. You just run faster than I do in the snow.”

Jacob spotted the blip of motion as she did. It came from the rear of a freestanding maple. Two guns whipped up. Romana edged sideways into the shadow of a more gnarly specimen.

Breathing had become a definite challenge. “Drop the weapon,” Jacob called. “Romana’s got you covered from the side.”

The movement stopped. The silhouette quivered, then slowly bent. A thunk on the snow told Jacob the weapon had been tossed as ordered.

“Come out and let us see you,” Romana instructed.

Jacob watched the shadows. He heard the snow again underfoot. Then suddenly a light flared and a burst of motion transformed the silhouette into a man. In one quick move, he scooped up his weapon and launched it in the direction of Jacob’s head.

HE PUFFED AND PANTED all the way back to his vehicle. Between being nicked by Jacob Knight’s bullet and almost blown off the planet by a crazy woman with a shotgun, it was all he could do to start the engine and swerve onto the road.

His blood boiled. Hot bile rose in his throat. Rage all but blinded him. And he knew why.

He’d failed. He’d failed when, without realizing it, he’d wanted to finish it tonight.

Patience had never been his strong suit. He’d learned it over the years, just as he’d learned how to calculate, but there were times when it simply dissolved. Right now, he needed to take back control, calm himself and think things through with clear, cold logic. For Belinda’s sake.

He’d done some part of it right. The dart gun on the passenger seat was proof of that. Why, then, was he still so furious that his hands were plastered to the steering wheel?

It wasn’t until he felt the wet trickle on his forearm that he understood. Knight had wounded him. He’d drawn blood. Wounded animals lashed out. Wounded humans with a score to settle did so even more.

He breathed in and out, in and out. Pain was going to mark their deaths. More pain than they could possibly imagine.

To hell with Christmas and all the peripherals. The next chance he got-pow!

“CALEBAS CURARE. BRITISH explorers called it gourd curare when they were in South America. The most toxic formulas were found in this particular family, and there’s enough of it in your system that Dr. McGee wants to call in a toxicologist to do a full workup on your blood.”

Romana did her best to slow Jacob down, but it was a losing battle.

Features set, he simply caught hold of her restraining hand and pulled her along with him through the double Emergency doors.

“Jacob,” she tried again. “My heart’s still in my throat from watching that ax fly across the snow at you.”

“It missed me by three yards, Romana.”

She had to trot to keep pace with his long stride. “It missed you by half a foot, and only because the man throwing it realized at the last second that you were one of the good guys.”

Although Romana still wasn’t entirely convinced that the tree farmer’s middle son-the one who, according to his mother, possessed a hair-trigger temper-had truly intended to miss his target.

“The farmer’s wife saw Critch run through the yard with his dart gun. She grabbed her rifle and went after him. She fired into the air three times, which is incredibly courageous considering she’s five years older than your downstairs neighbor.” Romana dug her heels into the snowy pavement. “Jacob, stop acting like a lone wolf and listen to me. You have little to no sensation in your left arm, and McGee said your lungs have to be constricted.”

“If I’m walking, I must be breathing. Do me a favor, Romana-go back inside and wait for O’Keefe.”

“While you do what? Tear off into the night and possibly straight into another dart?You can’t keep presenting yourself as a target. It won’t get Fitz back, and it won’t help us catch Critch.”

Jacob dragged the keys to his borrowed Pathfinder from the pocket of his jeans. “He got the curare from somewhere, Romana.”

“Yes, South America, where he lived for several years as a child.”

“And where he hasn’t been for more than six years.”

“You’re being heroic, Knight. I hate that quality in a man.”

“So you’d rather what? Sit back, do nothing and let him come to us? Again?”

“I didn’t say that.” She struggled for patience. “Fitz was right. We should go to the Christmas party tomorrow. Think of the people who’ll be there. Cops who were around when Critch was arrested, James Barret, who I still think might have Fitz, people who knew Belinda and several who also knew her husband. Dr. Gorman’s being honored, so key members of the forensics team will also be coming. We can talk…”

“You talk.” Turning, he gripped her arms. “Start with O’Keefe. If he doesn’t get my message, tell him I’m meeting an old friend whose name isn’t Critch.”

The objection on Romana’s tongue died. “What is his name?”

Cupping her face, he gave her a kiss that, under different circumstances, would have made her head spin.

“He’s someone I’ve known for years. A man with an expensive habit to support, and more than one secret he wants to keep.”

THE ALLEY STANK OF URINE, human and animal. Jacob’s eyes moved from side to side as he entered the narrow darkness, but nothing stirred except a tabby cat that wound itself around a trash can.

Lights shone from dirty, half-covered windows high above. The snow was coated with city grime, and the only nontraffic sound came from a tinny stereo in one of the upper apartments.

“An old woman on eight plays that same song all night long. Same song, same singer. Must be lost in a 1950s time warp.”

The rusty voice contrasted with Bing’s dulcet tone as he crooned about a white Christmas.

Too many cigarettes, too much whiskey and likely too jaded now to care, Gary Canter emerged from the dark, spit into the snow and showed a set of dingy teeth.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my old nemesis, Detective Knight. I hear you wrapped up the Parker case all by your lonesome last night. How does it feel to be top of the heap in Captain Harris’s eyes? He’s a hard one to please, old Harris, yet he gives you free reign to investigate your cases while the demoted grinders like me spend the bulk of our time cozying up to street dealers and prostitutes.”

Jacob waited, hands in his pockets, watching his counter-part’s features curl into their usual disdainful mask. He noted the lines on a face that was too thin to be healthy and wondered about the condition of the body under it.

“Your clothes are hanging, Canter.” He held the other man’s gaze. “And the sole of your left boot is coming off.”

“Observant as always.” Canter pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pants, hesitated, then offered Jacob one. When Jacob shook him off, he chuckled. “No more vices, huh? You smoked like a chimney at the Academy.”

“That was eighteen years ago.”

“And six years ago, I covered your ass.”

“Did you? I got the impression you wanted me to fry. Funny thing, perception.”

Canter inhaled, savored and blew out a stream of smoke.

“If I’d wanted you charged and/or convicted, I’d have made it happen. Stubbs was a useless tit on that investigation.” He inhaled again. “What is it you want, Knight? You pitched the word, I caught it, I’m here. Let’s cut the crap and get to the meat.”

“I need to know who deals in South American poisons.”

“You want the short list? I can give you fifty names, maybe seventy-five. Most of them are illegal immigrants who go poof at the first sniff of a cop. Next question.”

Jacob’s laugh contained no humor. He looked away. “Why did you stint the Belinda Critch case?”

Canter shrugged. “Maybe I cut it short, but only a bit and mostly for your sake at first. You know things about me, Knight, about my lifestyle, my habits. Reasons don’t matter in our world. You finger me and I’m gone, not just transferred from Homicide to Vice, but all the way gone, in disgrace.”

“Who killed her?”

Canter stuck out his face. “I don’t know. I told you, I thought it was you, that’s why I skimped.” He broke eye contact, shuffled his feet. “Changed my mind later on.”

“Why?”

Canter swung away. He puffed for several seconds, then swung back. “Do you know how easy it is to make the slide from prescription to street drugs?”

“Yeah, I know how easy it is.”

A smile crossed Canter’s lips. “My God, is that compassion I hear? Or pity?” He kicked one of the trash cans, narrowly missing the tabby. “I don’t want anyone’s pity, not yours, or Harris’s or your squeaky-clean partner’s. How is O’Keefe, by the way? We don’t cross paths too often these days.”

“He’s O’Keefe.”

“Says it all, doesn’t it? Must be hell to be such a drudge, but at least his boat’s steady. Except for the divorce. And a little thing I heard he had with Belinda Critch.”

Jacob stared, and at length Canter deflated. “I know, I know, why did I stop thinking you’d killed her? I got a call after Christmas. I was hoping it’d be a tip, anything so we could put the case to bed and move on. There were other investigations going down, and I wanted in on them.” Canter ran his tongue over his teeth, made a face as if he tasted something bad. “Probably wouldn’t have worked out given that I was high on PK’s most days, but a guy can dream, right?”

Jacob let his head fall back, and regarded the starless sky barely visible between the two buildings. “Who called you, Gary?”

“Someone who wanted the Critch case closed. If that meant destroying evidence, so be it.”

“Did you destroy evidence?”

Canter took a long drag. “Didn’t have to. There wasn’t any. Killer cleaned up good, Knight. That’s why I thought it might be you. We had zip for clues. The case was going cold before I even got the call. But, hey, a man in need, cop or not, can always use a little extra cash.”

“You took the payoff.”

“You don’t sound surprised. But then you never were as squeaky clean as your partner.” His features hardened. “Yes, I took the payoff. Why not? Like I said, the case was going nowhere. There was no evidence to destroy, so technically I didn’t do anything wrong. Still, I found the offer rather intriguing. I figured we must have missed something, Stubbsy and me.”

Jacob shifted his weight. His arm was burning now, from whatever McGee had shot into him to counteract the curare.

“Are you going to tell me who called you, or do we stand here all night while I guess?”

“You’d never guess.”

“James Barret?”

Canter’s eyebrows shot up. “Not bad, old friend. Care to tell me where that came from?”

“Romana found a watch.”

“Huh.” Canter studied him. “Well, that’s cryptic.” His sneer faded. “How is Romana? I always liked her. Word is Critch has it in for her, too.”

“She stopped him from shooting me. Yeah, he has it in for her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Jacob regarded him steadily. The ache in his arm ran from shoulder to hand. The only thing worse was the throbbing in his head. “How much did your caller offer?”

“Enough to get me what I needed.” Canter tossed his cigarette into the blackened snow. “I’ve paid for what I’ve done. I’m stuck in Vice until I retire, and that’s a best-case scenario. We all have our skeletons, but you and me more than others.” At Jacob’s level look, he grinned. “Heard you and Romana have been tight lately. Maybe I’ll see her tomorrow night, huh?”

Jacob recognized a weakness when he saw one. “Unless Critch gets to her first.”

Canter’s mouth compressed. “You hit low, Knight.”

“Critch is getting close.”

“I don’t know about Critch. There’s no word on the street. We all know he wants to off you, but where he’s holed up…” He spread his fingers. “No clue. Have you talked to Hoag?”

“Talked to, worked out with, checked up on. There’s no sign of contact between them yet.”

“That Hoag’s a slick one, but he’s not stupid, only angry about Belinda.” Canter’s eyes sharpened. “You think Barret offed her?”

“It’s looking that way. Still…” Jacob shrugged. “Appearances.”

Canter’s shoulders slumped. He started to walk, but halted five steps away and sucked in a long breath. “You never said a word, did you? You knew about my addiction-prescription and otherwise-but you didn’t rat me out. I hated that you knew, hated that it worried me that you knew. Part of me wanted you to be guilty. The other part…I don’t know. But I like Romana. She called me sir, and she meant it. I can’t help you with Critch, but word’s out about Romana’s cousin going missing. You might want to look in Barret’s direction for her.”

With a nod, Jacob started off in the opposite direction. Canter’s hand clamping onto his bad arm brought his head up and swiftly around.

“Lose the daggers, Knight. There’s one more thing you should know. You were only half-right before. It was a Barret who called me six years ago. But it wasn’t James Barret.”