Detectives climbed out of a white Crown Vic and approached the crime tape.
A deputy stood beside the door. “Hope you haven’t eaten anything big lately.”
“What have we got in there?” asked the lead detective.
“Medical examiner’s already inside.”
The detectives ducked under the yellow ribbon.
“Jesus!..”
A large knot of forensic people worked in a careful choreography to keep out of one another’s way as they worked around the body. Camera flashes, tweezers, evidence bags.
The detectives turned in the other direction. A long scorch mark up the wall and a larger one across the floor toward the victim’s chair.
The medical examiner came over. “Caught a break. The explosion woke up the whole street, so we got the scene fresh.”
“What are all those things sticking out of him?” asked the head detective. “And the wall behind?”
“Shrapnel. Still taking inventory. And we’re sure to find more inside when we do the autopsy, but so far…” He referred to his clipboard. “We count twenty-seven LEGO blocks; nineteen Tinkertoys, both the sticks and the wheel things; thirty-one Erector Set beams; and a Lincoln Log through his left lung.”
“Holy mother,” said the detective. “He must have used plastique or ammonium nitrate.”
The examiner shook his head. “Just standard black powder.” He held up an evidence bag containing the nub of a joint. “This was the fuse.”
“Wait a second,” said the detective. “I’ve seen black powder before, and there’s no way it could generate this force…” He stopped and realized something new. “How come the debris is only concentrated in that one area toward the chair?”
“The same reason it was so powerful.” The medical examiner sketched on his clipboard. “I used to be in the army. This is what we’d call a shaped, directional charge. It’s the difference between a bomb and a cannon. A small amount of black powder goes a lot further when the release is concentrated in a tight vector.”
“But how did they do it?”
He sketched some more. “The key was the LEGOs. He interlocked multiple walls on the desired sides for maximum delivery. Our guy clearly had demolition training.”
“Just great,” said the detective. “Any witnesses?”
“One of the neighbors across the street said he saw two guys getting into a car shortly before hearing the blast.”
“Were they from around here?”
“The neighbor seriously doubts it because of the way they were dressed,” said the examiner. “When he first told us, we gave him the Breathalyzer, but he passed.”
“So how were they dressed?”
“You’re not going to believe this.”
Chapter Twelve
The weekend before Christmas. Parking lot packed. Baby strollers, parents with boxes and shopping bags. Some cars followed people leaving the stores, hoping to grab their space.
A ’72 Chevelle rolled down a long line of vehicles. It was not looking for a space.
“If we’re not looking for a space, then what are we doing here?” asked Coleman.
“Working.” Serge leaned over the wheel, carefully making a U-turn at the end of the row and heading back up another.
“But we usually only steal from other crooks or rich assholes.” Coleman took a slug from a pint flask. “We don’t mess with regular folk.”
“And we’re not about to start.”
“But you said work-”
“Hold it,” said Serge. “Up ahead at eleven o’clock. That pair of police cars. Our cue to leave.”
“Good thinking,” said Coleman. “Don’t want them to catch us.”
“That’s not why we’re leaving.” Serge left the parking lot and headed for I-275. “Those police cars mean they’re doing our work for us.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Starting the day after Thanksgiving, at malls all across Florida, thieves descend in droves on the parking lots. The reasons are many: more targets, more expensive gift items, shoppers distracted by the holiday hubbub, and added chaos in which to escape. Next time you’re hitting the shopping centers around Christmas, count all the police cars, and the bad guys.”
“How do you spot the bad guys?”
“The smart ones are on foot, camouflaged among the shoppers, and can usually only be spotted when they’re entering the lot from the street. The dumb ones ride bicycles. I mean, who rides bicycles up and down rows of cars at the mall? And it only happens around Christmas. It’s like they get some kind of newsletter.”
They headed northeast to one of the older malls in the suburbs. “But the scariest ones are in cars,” said Serge. “Some of them also take the customer. One woman was snatched in broad daylight on a Saturday, and they found her body in an orange grove outside Wauchula. That’s the thing about Christmas: all the memories.”
“I remember getting G.I. Joes when they were at their peak,” said Coleman.
“Me, too!” said Serge. “I spotted them under the tree at two A.M. and woke my parents. They told me it was too early and to go back to sleep, but I stomped my feet and flapped my arms: ‘There are G.I. Joes out there!’ That was the pattern: I’d always wake up early and sneak out to see if Santa had come yet. But you had to be careful, because if he was there and still working, you just never knew. There were stories floating around about coal in stockings. Little kids wait a whole year for Christmas, which is like ten adult years, and then coal. So you knew he could also be an asshole.”
“And you knew he really existed because he ate the cookies and drank the milk.”
“Once when I was little, I did something bad. My mom made a fake phone call to Santa, and I lost my fucking mind.” Serge turned into the parking lot of another mall. “She thought it would just worry me a little and I’d behave, but Santa is the religion of children. You don’t go there. She’s telling Santa not to bring me any presents, and I flipped out as if you threw a cat in a shower, screaming and jumping all over the place, and I finally scooted a chair over. The phone was one of those old wall units. Or at least until I ripped it down, and my mom went speechless, just staring at me lying on the floor with the wall unit clutched to my chest, going, ‘Don’t you ever call Santa on me!’ I was only four, but she didn’t call again.”
Coleman rolled down his window to flick a joint ash.
“Coleman!” said Serge. “Be more careful! Your elf hat could blow off.”
“It’s on tight,” said Coleman. “Ever stick your tongue on a flagpole?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s supposed to freeze.” Coleman unscrewed his flask. “I even tried it once, but we were living in Florida. It just tasted bad.”
“I came down with the mumps one Christmas.” Serge veered around the movie-plex. “And you never hear about them anymore. You hear about measles and chicken pox, but it’s hush-hush about mumps.”
“Some shit’s going down somewhere.”
“That’s my guess. Another memory was being the first kid in the neighborhood who figured out there wasn’t a Santa, and the other kids tried to suppress my message. I didn’t fit in for a couple years, like if you’re an atheist today, or in the ACLU. Remember Advent calendars?”
“Can’t place it.”
“That means you weren’t Catholic,” said Serge. “We’d get these cool cardboard calendars that marked off the days to Christmas, and each day you’d open a little perforated window and get a piece of chocolate. There was a lot
