“It is Lewis! Holy shit!” said Sampson, and then, remembering he was still very close to the church, he added, “Sorry about that.”
Latrell Lewis and I had had some unpleasant history together. It’d started five years ago when he was a fifteen-year-old bag messenger for one of the second-tier Columbia Heights gangs. Street name Lit-Lat, the punk was arrogant enough to try going out on his own and then stupid enough to get picked up by Sampson and me the first week he was flying solo. Next time we took him in, Latrell ended up in a lovely spot in the Maryland countryside, Jessup Correctional Institution, for an eighteen-month swing.
“I’d assumed you were a caged man, Lit-Lat,” I said to him.
“Maybe you should learn to count-or buy yourself a calendar, Cross.”
We pulled Lewis up off the sidewalk. He was jittery, not just from nerves but from cocaine or heroin or whatever drug he was buying with church money. I really didn’t care. I’m a psychologist, but I was in no mood to make a diagnosis and give the man some pro bono counseling.
“Come on. It’s Christmas Eve. Show a brother a little heart,” Lewis said.
“Yeah, we will,” I answered. “We’ll show you as much heart as you showed the church and the folks who need that money for food and shelter.”
Then we hustled him down the sidewalk toward an unmarked squad car. The wind picked up. The temperature was dropping. You could tell a real winter storm was coming on Christmas Eve.
“C’mon, man. Don’t put me in no police car.” Latrell moaned. “That’d be sad stuff for the holidays, man. I needed that cash to buy my kid a present. I’m poor, man.”
I looked up at the white sky. Then I looked down at this punk junkie and said, “You don’t have a kid. You wouldn’t be poor if you quit your habit. But it is Christmas, and I don’t want you to be sad, Latrell.”
He looked up at me, hope all over his face. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell you what. On the way to the station, we’ll all sing Christmas carols, and you get to pick the first one.”
“And for your sake, it better be ‘Silent Night,’” Sampson said, shoving him in the backseat and slamming the door.
Book One
CHAPTER 1
They say it’s good luck if it snows on Christmas Eve. I didn’t usually buy into that kind of folk wisdom, but if it turned out to be true, well, this was looking like it’d be one of the best Christmases ever. A nor’easter was churning its way up the Carolinas at the same time as a cold front was diving south out of Ontario, all the makings for a monster storm along the Eastern Seaboard.
Sampson and I brought Lewis in and booked him. Since there were no arraignments scheduled until the day after tomorrow, it looked like the man of the year would be waiting for Santa in a holding cell this Yuletide season.
It was nearly eight by the time we finished up the paperwork and left.
“Merry Christmas, Alex,” Sampson said outside.
“You too, John. Feel like stopping by for a holiday beverage tomorrow?”
“I’ll check with my scheduler,” Sampson said.
I took a cab home. As the taxi moved through DC, I looked out at the decorations glowing everywhere. The pace of the snow hadn’t increased much yet, but the size of the flakes had. They were each about the diameter of a quarter, and thick, making the city look the way it does in those snow globes tourists buy at Union Station and the airports.
By the time I reached our house on Fifth Street in Southeast, it was close to eight thirty. The air smelled of pecan pie. Bree and the kids were busy finishing trimming the tree, which was in the alcove by the window at the front of the house. And of course, the official sergeant-of-all-holidays, Nana Mama, was supervising every little task on her to-do list.
“Don’t put two green ornaments right next to each other, Damon. Show some style when you decorate a tree,” she scolded with all the authority of the vice principal she’d once been.
Bree was hooking a faded crayon drawing of the Three Wise Men up on one of the branches. According to legend, I had made that ornament when I was in kindergarten, and Nana always dragged it out on Christmas.
“Well, look who’s come in from the snowstorm,” Bree said, and she walked over and gave me a kiss on the lips. “Hello, sweetheart.”
Nana decided not to look in my direction. All she said was, “Is there a faint possibility, Alex, that you might spend a few minutes of the holiday season with your family? Or are we asking too much?”
I should have had the wisdom to say nothing to Nana, to just give her a Christmas kiss, but I’ll never learn. She pushes my buttons like nobody else on this earth.
“Thanks for the guilt! All wrapped up in a bow for Christmas,” I said, dispensing hugs to my daughter, Jannie; my son Damon, who was home on winter break from prep school; and then Ava, the foster child Nana had recently brought under our roof.
“You’re getting a dose of sense, fool,” Nana Mama snapped.
“Nana, this morning, when I got that jingle from Father Harris, he told me that
“Father Harris said that?” Nana asked.
“He did. He said that he hated to pester me on Christmas Eve, but you told him it would be no bother. Wouldn’t take any time at all for your grandson to solve the case of the poor-box pilferer.”
“Humph,” she said, shaking her head. “Imagine a priest making up something that. Father Harris of all people. Then again, you never know.” She reached in a box, turned to Ava. “Here you go, sweet thing. Put this porcelain Baby Jesus on a low branch, so if it falls, it doesn’t fall far.”
“So you’re saying that Father Harris lied to me on Christmas Eve, Nana?”
She scowled, squinted at me. “I’m saying it’s a pitiful state of the world when a man can’t be with his family on Christmas Eve. Even a high-and-mighty homicide detective such as yourself needs to be home with his loved ones the night before Jesus’s birthday.”
Everyone was chuckling at Nana giving me such a hard time. I was holding back a smile myself. So was she.
“Kind of sucks Ali’s not here,” Jannie said, speaking of my six-year-old son.
“It does,” I replied. “But his mom celebrates Christmas too.”
Bree said, “I’ll be right back,” and left the room. I had to admit that the tree looked pretty great against the snowy picture window. Then Bree reappeared with a big glass bowl of homemade eggnog, another Christmas Eve tradition in our house.
The eggnog had big globs of nutmeg-sprinkled real whipped cream in it, so rich and sweet, each cupful would probably register a couple thousand calories. She set the bowl beside a plate of shortbread cookies that also probably registered a couple thousand calories each. But, hey, it was the Christmas season. I helped myself to two rounds of both. Damon got a Christmas-music station up on Pandora, whatever that was, and old Nat King Cole was crooning that all our troubles would soon be out of sight. Even though Nana wouldn’t let up about me working on Christmas Eve, it was looking like it’d be a warm, wonderful night.
When the song switched to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Jannie and Ava and Bree started dancing. Damon began telling me about an incredible true story he was reading at school, about Teddy Roosevelt going up the Amazon River with his son.
