Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

There was an uncomfortable silence while Sammons gave me a hard look. “I’m not aware that Barb Becker has been arrested, Judy,” he said finally. “Carr there didn’t name her on the list that he gave to me, and no one has sworn out a complaint against her that I know about. Actually, she’s our chief witness against Cooksey and the Alton gang. Speedway Mall has continued to employ her, I believe—” he gave me another hard look “—as a gesture of support or confidence or something.”

“The feeling,” said Ginny beside me, “is that Barb was coerced; she did not conspire. When we met her in the mall office that Wednesday night, R. J. and I, she was very unhappy and remorseful and — not herself. Did you know that she has no family? It was a terrible experience for her.”

“And that’s why, I believe,” said Sammons, “that she’s been living at the Carr residence ever since.”

There was a silence and a few more stares until I shrugged and said, “Well — you know how it is: cheap babysitting is hard to find. And anyway, we couldn’t very well let her go home alone that night — she was in pretty bad shape. So the plan now is to fatten her up a little, then boot her out after the holidays.”

“I feel better,” said Judy. “But you’ve got to make her come and see me.”

“She’s shy about it,” I said, “but it’s in the works. We’ve overstayed our time for today, though, so I think we’d better call a halt before the floor nurse has conniptions.”

“But, Mr. Carr,” said Judy’s mother, “you can’t stop until you at least tell us how the stolen things were gotten out of the mall. This Cooksey man collected the trash barrels — but then what happened?”

“Oh — yeah. That was Alton’s real touch of genius, as far as I’m concerned. He had his thieves put the stuff they stole into color-coded trash bags. On his meal break Cooksey would throw the bags into three or four pre-addressed shipping boxes and feed them into the next day’s UPS pickup. They were sent to some accommodation addresses run by Alton, and the sender was — guess who? — Speedway Management. In other words, Alton even had the mall paying the freight for him. But still, you know, practically all the merchandise has been recovered — so how’s that for a happy Christmas ending?”

Pretty happy, as it turned out. Frank Malin was hired as permanent head of mall security, Judy Pilske and Jim Sammons had a wildfire romance and got married the following June, Barb Becker made a good recovery, Santa left Ginny the Messiah recording on Christmas Eve, and my stitchmarks disappeared through the wonders of modern medicine.

Only Mike Cooksey ended up unhappy — with reason. Instead of a stocking full of coal, he got the ninety-and-nine plan at Stateville for Christmas, not to mention a limp to walk with for every one of those years.

The Ring in the Sand by Eleanor Boylan

If you are a homesick New Yorker spending Christmas in Florida, all you have to do is walk into any mall, gaze about at the rampant glitz, listen to the tinny rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy,” and you are smack back in the middle of Bloomingdale’s.

Not that I was homesick — far from it. The morning’s weather in Manhattan had been frigid, I’d heard, and our temperature in Sarasota was eighty degrees. I’d enjoyed my shopping spree and was feeling virtuous in the knowledge that the last grandchild’s present was stashed in the shopping bag beside me. But I was feeling impatient. The mall mob was becoming oppressive and my kind host and cousin, Charles Saddlier, who had promised to pick me up, was late.

I wondered vaguely if I should struggle up and find a phone (I could hear my daughter’s voice: “Mom, why the heck don’t you get a cell?”) when I spotted Sadd, as he is affectionately called, hurrying toward me, his white thatch bobbing up and down through the crowd.

“Blasted throng,” he gasped, reaching me. He seized my shopping bag. “Hurry! The parking lot is jammed and I’m in a fire lane. I gave Santa twenty dollars to sit behind the wheel and move it if he has to. God knows where he’d go with it.”

“Not as far as the North Pole, I hope.” I plowed along beside him.

“Sorry I’m late, Clara.”

“Don’t apologize. You were probably getting my Christmas present.” This was an “in” joke; Sadd loathes malls and enters one only if dragged.

“Actually, I was.”

“Was what?”

“Getting your Christmas present.”

I turned to stare at him, bumped into somebody with a stroller, and apologized. “Where is it?” Sadd was empty handed.

“Where’s what?”

“My present.”

“In my head. Here we are.”

We pushed though a groaning door to where, ten feet away, a beaming Santa sat at the wheel of Sadd’s old Buick, ringing his bell out the window and receiving contributions from amused shoppers. He was doing a rather brisk business and called to Sadd not to hurry.

I said “Thanks, Santa,” dropped a bill into his basket, and reached the passenger side.

“Any problem?” asked Sadd, as Santa emerged from his post.

“Naw. One cop came by but I knew him. Thanks for the twenty.”