I was looking forward to a nice, uneventful Christmas, shared with my best friend and partner, Blair Sandburg. This would have been the first Christmas we got to spend together at our loft apartment. We'd been roommates for three years but, as you probably know, being a police officer in Cascade can make for some interesting experiences. Our first Christmas had been spent crouched behind a garbage bin in an alley watching for a drunken hitman dressed as an elf. Not exactly a Ozzie and Harriet holiday. Last year the kid sat at my bedside for twenty hours in Cascade General, worried out of his mind because I'd been sprayed in the face with a can of that fake snow stuff.
That's why I promised myself this year would be different. Simon had looked at me as if I'd sprouted antlers and taken to calling myself Prancer when I asked for Christmas off. Me, the guy Dr. Seuss had used as the model for the Grinch, wanting the day off? I convinced him I was not running a fever, a pod person, or inhaling eggnog fumes. Not only did I get Christmas day off but in an amazing display of generosity, one I'm sure brought on by the hope that Sandburg and I would finally stop dancing around each other and he would win the office pool, Simon gave me Christmas Eve off as well. Now, I did spend that first day plotting my seduction scene; candles, Elvis singing Blue Christmas, us trimming the tree and gazing at each other with soulful longing.
We completed the foreplay with amazing speed but got distracted by the damn tree. Ever see A Charlie Brown Christmas? Well, I kind of forgot about the tree 'til the last second so the only one left on the tree lot was pretty much a twig. Sandburg about split a gut laughing and I have to tell you it's hard to cast a soulful look of longing at a guy who's curled on the floor holding his stomach and cackling like a demented chicken. Thank god I suffer in silence so well. I did the quiet thing, you know, the looking out the window, hunched shoulders, radiating hurt, thing. He apologized and I thought I was heading for first base but I was ambushed by Bing Crosby. Yep, White Christmas. Who knew Sandburg was a sucker for Rosemary Clooney. Oh, well, I admit I spent more than a few minutes watching Vera- Ellen. After the movie it was too late to seduce him so we went to our separate beds and that's when things took a decidedly strange twist.
"'s it Chrs'mas already?" Blair slurred, blinking up at me with huge blue eyes. I grinned. Damn, he looked edible at that moment.
"Technically, Chief, but looks like all we got was a lump of coal. Come on," I tossed a faded pair of jeans and a flannel shirt on the bed. "Climb into some clothes and let's get going." Fifteen minutes later we were both in my vintage Ford and speeding towards the latest Cascade homicide.
"Why can't criminals commit crimes at a reasonable hour?" Blair grumbled. "I mean, there should be some kind of law....."
"We'd only have to arrest them for breaking that one, too," I pointed out. He whined a bit more, ranting at Simon for dragging us out when we were suppose to be off. I filled him in as we drove, "I know, but everyone else is working a major Play Station 2 smuggling ring, Chief. Beside's this looks like an open and shut case. The officer on the scene reported an old lady, face down in the snow. I'm sure she just wandered off and we'll be home before you can say It's A Wonderful Life." I gotta learn not to make those sweeping statements. Irony, it's so ironic.
We arrived at an old farm house on the outskirts of Cascade. Two black and whites were parked there with lights flashing. I showed them my badge and the next thing I knew Sandburg and I were being led to the back of the house. There, on a path which wound through the woods, lay the huddled form of a silver/blue-haired woman in her mid-seventies. Blair stayed close behind me, and I swept the area for any evidence I could find. "Do you see that?" He hates it when I say that or any variation of it, I'm a sentinel - I can tell. Sandburg, with a long suffering sigh, said, no he didn't see anything. "There are several crescent shaped marks here," I pointed towards the victim's upper body, around her head and leading off into the trees. They looked vaguely familiar. One deep indention, right in the middle of her forehead, seemed to be the cause of death. "There's something else, Chief. Help me roll her over." Blair got real squiggied by that request but did as I asked.
"What?" he asked as I focused on the woman's back. I stiffened, and no, not because the kid had his hand on my thigh, but because I recognized the parallel, rust colored marks on her shoulders.
"Let's talk to the family," I said. Sandburg stared at me for a second, then nodded. I could see he was worried. I let him, I needed the sympathy points. Hey, I'll take what I can get, okay?
So we made our way back to the house. "The victim's grandson," Officer Peters said, pointing to a distraught looking man of about thirty. "He reported the crime."
"What can you tell us?" I asked the grandson.
"Oh, it's terrible," he wailed, "just terrible! Last night we were having a big party and grandma forgot her medication." He sobbed a bit and Blair handed him a handkerchief - mine by the looks of the big JJE in the corner. I glared at my laundry stealing pal but he ignored me. "She staggered off into the snow and well....." He couldn't go on. We left him blowing his nose, not a sound a sentinel should be subjected to, and went to interview the rest of the clan. The husband was in the living room, drinking beer and watching the 5A.M. Pre-Pre-Pre Game show. Damn, I could be cuddled up with my anthro- pup watching commentators commentate but no, I have to investigate a crime. I swallowed my resentment and snapped off the fucking TV set. "Where were you last night?"
The husband provided a creditable alibi, he'd been drinking beer and watching the Day Before the Big Game warm-up. The rest of the family, eerily dressed in black and sitting around a table laden with roast goose and fig pudding, proved to be just as innocent. "What about her gifts?" I watched their faces, wondering if any relatives had had their eye on the old lady's goodies, but the expressions of disgust told me she would have been getting a Chia Pet and a brooch in the shape of a dragonfly. Greed was not the motive.
I left them there and searched the area around the house once more. Sandburg tagged along, nodding as I pointed out the evidence and told him my suspicions. It was with heavy hearts we trudged back to the family and gathered them together. Blue and silver candles danced on the boughs of a beautiful Christmas tree. I briefly considered booking it as evidence but figured if it went missing from the lock-up I'd be in trouble. Anyway, I squared my shoulders and prepared to give them the bad news. "I have some bad news," they gasped. Maybe I should break it to them gently? Nah, sooner I'm done here, the sooner I get to ravish Sandburg's delicious body - as soon as I work up the nerve to tell him how I feel.
Beside me, Blair touched my arm and I dragged my thoughts away from ravishing and back to the business at hand. "My partner and I, after a through investigation have solved the crime." They all looked expectantly at Sandburg and me, standing there looking all knowledgeable. "Your Grandma got run over by a reindeer walking home from your house Christmas Eve."
"No!"
"What a load a....."
"There's no such thing as......"
I held up my hand for silence, achieving it only after a resounding blast from my trusty but slippery pistol. "I'm sorry, but the evidence never lies. If you watched CSI you would know that." They muttered a bit among themselves, reluctant to believe in something so far-fetched. "You can say there's no such thing as Santa," I pointed out, "but as for me and Sandburg - we believe."
We called animal control and told them to look out for any reindeer with bloody hooves and headed back home. It was 7A.M. by the time we got back to the loft and neither one of us was in a holiday mood. "How could Santa do that?" Blair asked.
I hated to see him hurting like that. He loved Christmas and now it would never be the same. "Accidents happen, Chief," I said gently. "Office party gets out of hand, too much eggnog, a loaded sleigh, flying reindeer. It's an accident waiting to happen. I'm sure he'll turn himself in when he realizes what happened." This seemed to soothe the kid. "here open my present to you," I said. He ripped into the huge box like a pitbull going after a schoolbus. I could see the delight in his eyes and knew I'd chosen the perfect gift.
"Oh, Jim, man," he laughed, "this is great!" It should be, it cost me a fortune. But, hey, the kid needed a new jacket, and a silk scarf. And I thought it would be nice if I got him a computer. And the entire collection of Obscure But Interesting text books had been on sale. I just threw in the rare tribal jewelry as an impulse buy and hey, he needed new tires for his car so I couldn't resist. Okay, the photo of us at Simon's birthday, with me gazing at him with soulful longing, fit the frame I bought at Home Depot.
"Do you like it?" I indicated the pile of presents and Blair grinned. Unfortunately it was the best friend grin he always wore. I sought distraction in the gift he'd gotten me. There was no gift. The tree was bare. I hide my hurt with a manly sniffle.
"Uh, Jim," Blair's voice brought me out of a flashback on my unhappy childhood. "I got you this." My buddy, my guide, the man I thought I knew, dropped his pants and there tied securely, but not too tightly, on his penis, was a big green bow. "I hope you like it."
It was a very big present.
It fit, too.
So, except for trauma of Santa and his killer reindeer, we had a Holly, Jolly Christmas but not a Silent Night.
The End.
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Author's Acknowledgements: This is for Patt, who started me in the holiday mood.