The Snow White Christmas Cookie

Pat squared his shoulders and went on in.

“I suppose she could do worse,” Lem said with a shrug.

Tina came darting down the hall toward them now, looking bug-eyed with fright at the sight of Des standing there. “What is it now?” she demanded.

“It’s nothing, hon,” Lem assured her. “Relax, will you?”

“I am relaxed. I want to know why she’s-”

“I just stopped by to look in on Kylie,” Des said.

Lem’s cell phone rang. He glanced down at the screen. “It’s one of my men. I got nothing but headaches this season, I swear.” He went off down the hall, grumbling into the phone.

“One of his men, my ass,” Tina said sourly. “It’s that tramp Debbie.”

“Could be. Then again, we did have a blizzard yesterday.”

Tina glared at her. “Did you come here just to be nasty again?”

“I’m sorry if that’s how I came across. I was just doing my job. And I wondered how you were doing.”

“I’m doing lousy, okay?” Tina shot a glance over her shoulder to make sure Lem was out of earshot. “Matt left for Cabo San Lucas this morning with his wife. They’ll be there straight on through Christmas. Together in the same hotel room, day and night. My Matt and that cold bitch. I need him right now and I can’t contact him. She watches him like a hawk.”

“She’s his wife, Tina.”

“Matt doesn’t love her. He loves me. I don’t know what to do.”

“You could try using this as an opportunity to reconnect with Lem. You two will be taking Kylie home soon. Maybe this is a chance for you to regroup as a family. Maybe something positive can come out of this.”

“And maybe you are totally full of crap. Did that ever occur to you?” Tina looked at Kylie’s doorway, frowning. “Is that her surgeon in there with her?”

“No, it’s Pat Faulstich.”

“What does he want?”

“He brought her some flowers.” Des moved farther away from the room, motioning for Tina to join her. “You told me yesterday that if I really want to know what’s what I should ask a cleaning lady. So I’m asking. What do you know about Pat?”

“I know I don’t like him.”

“Why not?”

Tina hesitated. “Look, his parents are decent, hard-working people. But he’s got this older brother, Mickey, who he really looks up to, okay? And Mickey’s absolutely no good.”

“Don’t think I’ve run across him.”

“That’s because he’s been in prison in Virginia for the past couple of years. He got pulled over down there with something like three hundred pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his Camaro.”

“Do you know if Pat hangs with Casey Zander?”

“Nobody hangs with Casey. He’s a total mama’s boy. Not to mention just plain weird. Have you seen that haircut of his? I swear, Paulette must have dropped him on his head when he was a baby.”

“What’s Casey’s deal with Gigi Garanski?”

Tina’s face fell. “There’s no deal. Gigi’s just a pathetic, drugged-out mess. She was such a sweet little girl, too. Her folks lived next door to mine. I used to baby-sit her when she was a kid. It makes me sick what’s happened to her.”

“Tommy Stratton’s her boyfriend?”

“Pimp is more like it. He passes her around to those horny losers at the Rustic like she’s a bowl of peanuts. She’ll do anyone Tommy tells her to as long as he keeps her supplied with dope. Tommy the Pinhead is total trash.”

Total trash, Des reflected, who happened to have low-level ties to the Castagno crime family.

“He gave Kylie the eye when were at the supermarket together last week. I said to him, ‘What are you looking at, you piece of filth?’ He just blew me a kiss and went sauntering off like he thinks he’s some big shot.” Tina peered at Des curiously. “Why are you asking me all of this?”

“Just trying to figure something out. I have an itch I can’t scratch.” Des’s cell phone rang. She glanced down at it before she excused herself and took the call. “What’s up, Yolie?”

“Grisky wants to hold another team meeting at two o’clock.”

“What for?”

“He told me that he likes to touch base regularly with his quarterbacks.”

“I see myself more as a shifty wide receiver.”

“Real? I see myself placekicking that man’s buns of steel all the way out to Block Island.”

“What have you got that you didn’t have this morning?”

“Plenty. I’ll fill you in when I see you.” Then Yolie rang off.

Des was alone in the hospital hallway. Tina had gone into Kylie’s room to hurl herself between Kylie and Pat. Lem was still off somewhere talking on the phone to whomever he was talking to. Maybe Debbie. Des couldn’t imagine him talking to one of his men for this long. She stood there for a moment before she found herself speed dialing Mitch for no reason other than that she needed to hear his voice right now. Needed a brief moment where everything and everyone in the world didn’t feel completely dysfunctional and insane. Because it wasn’t an itch she was feeling. It was pure dread. She didn’t know why. Just knew that she felt it. And needed a dose of Mitch’s sunny, calming self.

Except he wasn’t answering his cell or his home phone. Mitch had been planning to take Rut Peck over to visit Paulette. Then he was going to drive Rut back to Essex Meadows and head on home. He ought to be there by now, she figured, glancing at her watch. Ought to be parked squarely in front of his computer writing crazy, funny, brilliant things about his all-time favorite Christmas movies. But he wasn’t. He hadn’t checked in either. Hadn’t called her. Hadn’t texted her.

Honestly? Des couldn’t help wondering where in the hell her doughboy was.

CHAPTER 14

“Sure you don’t mind if we stop off for a quick glass of beer?”

“Young fella, you never have to talk me into a glass of beer,” Rut replied as they bounced along in Mitch’s Studey. “Quick or otherwise. Besides, I don’t care if I never make it back to Essex Meadows.”

Mitch was piloting his way up Old Boston Post Road toward Cardiff, Dorset’s landlocked neighbor to the north. If Dorset possessed what could be truly classified as a seedy side of town it was this stretch of the Post Road north of Uncas Lake. Here, a tattered strip of businesses operated out of old wood-framed houses that seemed to be sagging even more than usual under the weight of so much snow and ice. If you wanted your sofa reupholstered or your unwanted facial hair removed then this was where you came. If you wished to engage in some illicit humpage then this is where you came-Dorset’s designated hot-sheet motel, the Yankee Doodle Motor Court, was located here. So was the Rustic Inn, the beer joint that was a second home to Dorset’s indigenous population of young male Swamp Yankees.

Mitch didn’t phone Des to tell her that he was stopping off at the Rustic. He didn’t tell the woman in his life every single thing he did. Plus he knew she’d tell him not to go. But he had a hunch-a good, solid one-and when Mitch Berger had a hunch he played it all of the way. He wasn’t hamstrung by legal constraints the way Des was. He could go places she couldn’t go, do things she couldn’t do. He’d helped her on numerous cases, whether she cared to admit it or not. Mostly not. Actually, Des tended to get downright furious when Mitch played one of his hunches. But he couldn’t sit idly by when bad things were happening to people who he knew and liked. This was what it meant to live in a small town. You got involved.

“I sure do feel badly for that tall, beautiful young thing.”

“This would be Paulette?” Mitch asked Rut, who’d sat there in her TV room talking quietly with her for nearly