Dashing Through the Snow Read online

  Lily smiled at the pharmacist. “Thanks so much, Ms. Palmer. I’ll see you.” Catching up her package, she made her way through the store, leaving Quincy to follow. She hummed as she thought about all of her plans for the day. Absently smiling her thanks at Quincy, she walked through the door he held open for her. She noticed that the snow fall had picked up while she’d been in the store and grinning, she threw her head back to catch a few of the fat flakes on her tongue.

  “Ugh. Dude that is so nasty,” Quincy began, “Don’t you know how dirty --”

  Laughing, Lily rolled her eyes at him. “Shut up, Quince. I’m feeling too good today for one of your dismal scientific facts.”

  “But --”

  “One more word and you’ll find yourself with a mouth full of snow.”

  “I’d murderize ya, doll,” he teased in his best gangster voice.

  “Oh, that’s doubtful, Bugsy,” she returned, “highly doubtful.” Laughing again, she turned towards the curb where she’d parked, and stopped dead in her tracks, all the blood draining from her face as she got a good look at her car. Stunned, she stared at the wreckage.

  Her baby. Her precious, brand-spanking new, right off the assembly line, still has that new car smell baby.

  From behind her, she heard her cousin catch his breath to speak. “Du --”

  Her hand whipped back and to the side to cover his mouth. “Do not, for Lord’s sake,” she said through clenched teeth, “demonstrate your remarkable grasp of the obvious right now!”

  Peripherally, she noticed that there were several people around who all seemed to be unnaturally still, but that was all ignored as she focused on her car. Taking a deep breath, she stalked over to it. She’d parked it at the curb and she remembered her earlier glee at finding a space right in front of the store and swore silently. Yeah, some luck. The windshield of her Ford Fusion was smashed, the obvious destructive force being a huge painted red stone, which was firmly entrenched in the center of the shattered glass. With numerous long lines of cracks spreading out from the stone, it looked like a grotesque version of a child’s drawing of the sun.

  “Oh, my God, PYT,” she said in horror to the red car. “Who did this to you?”

  Her words seemed to be the catalyst for the silent bystanders to start talking and the area suddenly erupted with voices, all trying to be heard at once.

  “He did it!”

  “It was that man there; the one down the street.”

  “It was him.”

  “Wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but he threw that rock like a major league pitcher.”

  “Did she just call her car PYT? As in Michael Jackson-PYT? Seriously?”

  Lily ignored the bystander who sounded like he was questioning her sanity and raised her head to follow the direction of the pointing fingers, her gaze traveling down the street. She skipped over the man dressed in a Santa suit, her mind automatically tagging him as harmless. Just as her eyes began to wander past him, however, something clicked in her brain. She frowned, blinked and took her gaze back to him. Blinked twice more. Frowned more intently.

  What the...?

  Her mind was playing tricks on her. It simply had to be; otherwise she was actually staring at Santa as he gyrated his hips and gave her the finger -- one from each hand. Mouth agape, Lily looked at him some more and then glanced around to make sure she wasn’t the only one seeing him.

  “No sense in looking at me like that, hon,” an old man said with a nod of sympathy when her confused gaze latched onto his. “It won’t change the fact that Santa is doing a truly fantastic job of fucking with you. What’d you do to him?”

  Insulted, Lily scowled at him. “What’d I do to him?! I didn’t --” she stopped trying to explain and looked back at Santa, who now had an index finger in each ear and was sticking his tongue and ass out and wiggling them both. Flabbergasted, she waited for him to sing the standard “Na-nah, na-nah, na-nah.” He didn’t, but Lily didn’t think she could be any more shocked than she already was.

  She was wrong.

  “That’s right, little lady; Santa’s aim was dead-on and my pretty stone broke your fancy-schmancy hybrid’s window. You gonna stand there all day lookin’ dazed and confused, or are you gonna do something about it?” After delivering his challenge in a gravelly voice, Santa doffed his hat, took a bow, turned tail and ran. “Let’s see if those long legs of yours are good for anything besides turning men’s heads,” he called over his shoulder.

  Lily could do nothing but stare after his fleeing figure, which somehow managed to look graceful.

  “Duuude, Santa can haul ass!”

  Quincy’s awed comment brought Lily out of her shock enough for her to turn to him to say...what? Her brain would not function.

  Quincy forestalled whatever she was going to say with an up-lifted hand, palm out. “Don’t lecture me now, Cuz. Dude is sooo getting away. I’ll call the police, you go get him --”

  “Me!” Lily interrupted.

  Sheepishly, Quincy said, “I might be ten years younger than you, but you’re faster. I’d never catch him and besides, it’s your car and you’re the one who ran track in high school. You’d better hurry,” he warned her. “That little fucker dude has got some serious speed!”

  Lily turned back to see nothing of the renegade Santa but furry white ankle cuffs and shiny black boots as he sped around the corner, one foot and leg lifted to catch his balance as the other foot skidded because he was moving so damned fast. She shook her head in disbelief. “It’s like watching a cartoon,” she muttered bemusedly, almost expecting to hear the screeching sound of burning rubber and see little plumes of smoke fly out from under his foot.

  Shoving her package, purse and car keys into her cousin’s chest so that he was forced to bring his arms up to hold them, she said, “Here. Turn off the alarm and call the police, body guard slash assistant. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She had the grim pleasure of watching him lower his eyes in embarrassment before she turned away.

  And feeling that there was nothing else she could do, Lily Elise Carstairs, newly-minted, bad-ass private detective clenched her jaw, stretched her legs and took off to run a renegade Santa to ground.

  Huffing and puffing, Lily flashed through a group of startled pedestrians, turning to murmur a hurried, but heartfelt, “Oh, sorry...so, so sorry” when she felt one of her furiously pumping elbows connect with the soft squishy flesh of a stomach. She quickly turned back so that she wouldn’t lose sight of her prey. She’d been chasing Santa Claus -- full out and non-stop -- for four blocks. Four blocks! And she was no closer to catching him now than she had been when he’d first run off.

  “Shoot!” she muttered in dismay when she saw that he’d gained quite a bit of distance in just the few seconds it had taken her to turn her head. Her long, unbuttoned black leather coat flapped in the brutal wind in perfect sync with her long, black twisted hair as she forced her body to increase its speed. She could only imagine what she looked like, and was sure she’d have several phone calls from her family on her voicemail. As it was, her cell phone, tucked deep in her pocket and ignored, had already vibrated three separate times. She knew people were calling her family and they, in turn, were calling her.

  This was not surprising in a town the size of Sheffield-Chatham, Illinois where her family had lived for several generations and was known throughout because of the sheer number of them. The only thing that was surprising was that no one had said anything to her, or tried to stop her. The historic downtown of the city was filled with holiday shoppers and business types and she was right in the middle of it, fiercely, and not to mention, determinedly, pursuing a Santa Claus.

  “Why, Lily Carstairs! What on earth...?”

  Thought too soon, Lily reflected as she turned to see one of her mother’s closest friends frowning at her. “Can’t explain now, Mrs. Johnson! I’m busy!” Right before she turned back to task, she saw Mrs. Johnson whip her cell phone out of her poc
ket. And less than sixty seconds later, as if on cue, her cell phone vibrated again.

  She could not believe this was happening to her. Here she was blowing out her lungs and further damaging her already banged up right knee trying to keep up with a short fat man who had to be in his middle sixties if he was a day. She, on the other hand, was slim, almost thirty and in what she’d previously thought was reasonably good shape. And she wasn’t the one wearing a big red Santa suit. Yet, she was eating his dust.

  Lily blinked snow from her eyes as she’d been doing the entire time she’d been chasing him. The snow ever thickening beneath her feet wasn’t helping her cause, either. Her boots were made for style rather than traction, and she wouldn’t be at all amazed if she suddenly fell and broke a limb in her efforts to keep up with Santa, whose unattractive, but practical boots were serving him just fine. It didn’t help that she was now running on cobblestones -- beautiful, but unforgivably hazardous.

  Her eyes narrowed in disbelief as she watched Santa turn his head, find her gaze with his own twinkling one, grin and wink.

  “Son of a --! Why, you little...” she panted between labored breaths.

  Outraged, she put on a burst of speed, and then stared as he turned around and jogged backwards, giving her a mock scowl and moving his hand in an impatient, hurry-up gesture. He then turned back around, and elbows and legs moving in exaggerated slow motion, silently dared her to catch up with him.

  Lily shook her head as she closed the distance and reached out, her gloved hand just missing a square of his red coat as he picked up his pace again. “Jesus!” she said around a mirthless chuckle and promised her suffering right knee that if it just held out a little longer, she’d never treat it in such a callous manner again.

  “Mommy, that mean lady’s chasing Santa Claus!”

  What’s it to you? Lily wanted to say to the child, who sounded downright appalled. She’d been chasing him for almost ten minutes at least, and she still couldn’t believe it herself. And when I catch the fat little bastard, I have every intention of having his holly-jolly ass thrown in jail!

  Her energy and her spirits were seriously flagging, and Lily could think of nothing to do to raise them again. The deep breaths she began to take didn’t help, and in fact, only made her cough and feel sick.

  Santa turned another corner, and automatically her eyes went to the street sign. Pine Avenue: the name struck a chord for some reason and Lily tried to figure out why. Oh, no! she thought and raising her wrist to eye level, shoved her coat sleeve back to look at her watch. It was 8:45. Damn it, she thought and took the corner herself, the old elf timed it perfectly.

  Grimly, she looked a few feet down Pine Avenue, expecting to see exactly what she saw.

  An enormous sea of undulating red and white fake fur.

  “God damn it!” Lily gasped as she was forced to stop. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees. She tried to catch her breath, each exhalation increasing her ire as she glared resentfully at the scene in front of her. “God damn it, god damn it, GOD… DAMN… IT!”

  There were at least a hundred and fifty men dressed in Santa Claus suits, all waddling toward the entrance to City Hall. And her Santa was somewhere lost in the vast Santa horde, which of course was exactly what he’d planned. Who the hell is this guy?

  Every Saturday morning between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the mayor invited the volunteer Santa Clauses into City Hall for hot chocolate and pastries. One could also count on some citizens turning out as well. So, winded and disgusted, Lily just stared at them. Halfheartedly, she took her gaze searchingly over the crowd. Of course she didn’t see him.

  She looked at her watch again. She only had a few minutes to get back to the office space she’d rented and officially open for business. Indecision crossed her face as she looked back at the crowd. In the end, she decided to go to her new digs, but that would be after she went back to her car and met with the police and after she went home for a quick shower and a change of clothes. She absolutely refused to sit around all day in sweaty clothes. She snorted. “As if.”

  Chapter Three

  “No, Mom, I’m fine,” Lily said into the telephone receiver as she continued to scan the phone book for insurance agencies. The book covered two other towns besides Sheffield-Chatham and was easier to use than trying to find them all on the Internet. Her goal was to get at least one or two of the firms to hire her on as an investigator. She circled the telephone numbers of the agencies she recognized and knew had decent sized staffs. She knew investigating suspected false claims wouldn’t be glamorous work, but it would at least bring in some money as she tried to make her way in the industry.

  “Wait -- Mrs. Johnson told you what?” she stopped circling phones numbers long enough to listen to her mother. “Of course she’s lying, Mom. I did not tackle Santa Claus! I might have if I’d been able to catch up with him, probably would even have smushed the squirrelly little bastard’s ruddy-cheeked face in the snow,” she said in distraction as she went back to her task.

  “Lily!” her mother said in surprise. “Surely you wouldn’t have -- ” there was a contemplative pause -- “well, yes...yes, I guess you might have at that,” she finished with more conviction in her voice.

  “Certainly I would have. I have fifty thousand irritating male cousins. That means I learned to fight dirty with the best of them.”

  Her mother made a tsk-tsk sound. “Don’t exaggerate. You don’t have that many. Anyway, I’m just calling to make sure you’re doing all right.”

  “Other than wounded pride that I couldn’t catch him, a sore knee and a sudden realization that I need to do a better job of consistently working out, I’m peachy keen.”

  “Oh, poor baby. Why don’t you come over later and let your father take a look at that knee? And then I’ll make up a nice ice pack for you.”

  Lily quirked a brow. “Dad get a medical degree since the last time I saw him?”

  “What? No, I…”

  Lily laughed. Her mother was always angling to get her to come over. “Never mind, Mom. I’ll be over for Sunday dinner.”

  Glenda Carstairs sighed. “Your father and I want you to come over and it doesn’t matter what day -- just so long as we see you once in a while. You promise you’ll be here Sunday?”

  “I promise.”

  “You’ll take care of that knee?”

  “Done.”

  “And you had your cousin Warren pick up the car and take it back to his body shop?”

  “Yes, though I started not to, considering how he likes to fleece people, even those near and dear to him.”

  “His father would make sure he doesn’t with you.”

  “I’ll be sure to call Uncle Jett, then.”

  “You do that. And you had your cousin John come out and take the police report?”

  Lily frowned in confusion. “No, Mom. Why would I? He’s second in command. A patrolman came out and took it.”

  “Well, did you at least call him and ask him to send out the best man for the job?”

  For a cracked windshield? Lily rolled her eyes. “Ah, that would be a no. I did what other people do: put in a call to the cops and then waited for whoever was on call in that area to show up. The patrolman did everything he was supposed to do.”

  “All right, if you’re sure.”

  “I am, Mom, positive.”

  “I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow then. Six o’clock. Did I mention that we’re having lamb? With asparagus, roasted potatoes and apple cobbler and cinnamon ice cream for dessert?”

  Lily licked her lips. She hadn’t had a decent meal all week because she was a horrible cook. Her mother, on the other hand, cooked like it was something she was born to do. She knew that lamb was one of Lily’s favorites and had probably chose that dish specifically for tomorrow because in all her mother wisdom figured that Lily was half an excuse away from not showing up. She’d be right, Lily thought. I have good reason not to show up. I’m positive Smith will be there
. What she said into the phone was, “Quit your torture, woman! I’ll be there; I promise!”

  “Okay then sweetheart,” her mother said around amused laughter, “I’ll let you go. Love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom. Bye.” Lily hung up and humming, circled the last listing with a flourish. “Quincy!” she called to her cousin who was sitting in the outer office. “Get your lanky behind in here. I’ve got a job for you.”

  Quincy poked his head into her office, a surprised look on his face. “What? A job for me? Dude!”

  Lily turned a narrowed gaze on him. “You didn’t think I was going to let you just hang around, did you?” She picked up the phone book and tossed it to him, smiling when he barely managed to catch it when it fell against his narrow chest. “I’ve circled the names of insurance agents in there and I want you to do some research on them. Find out size, the kinds of claims they usually deal with, yearly revenue and who to contact regarding employment. Use that spankin’ new computer out there at the reception desk and make me a pretty little Excel spreadsheet.”

  “But --”

  “I circled some of them, but now that I think on it, you should just check them all out for me. I was trying to stay away from independent agents, but they actually might be my best bet for getting a job in the meantime in-between-time.”

  She watched as her cousin’s young face fell in disappointment. He really had believed she’d let him just sit around all day and listen to his iPod or play on his iPad or whatever else he had planned to laze away his Christmas vacation from the local community college. She’d bet every last one of the hundreds of dreadlocks on his head that he had.

  “Aw, come on, Lily! That’s so totally lame!”