Read Mr. Murder for Free Online Page A

a tree. Why only one? Maybe two, maybe three! Deck it with tinsel and baubles bright. It’ll be an amazing and wonderful sight. String colored lights out on the roof— pray none are broken by anything’s hoof. Salt down the shingles to melt the ice. If Santa fell, it just wouldn’t be nice. He might fracture a leg or get a cut, perhaps even break his big jolly butt.”
    He glanced at the girls. Their faces seemed to shine in the shadows. Without saying a word, they told him: Don’t stop, don’t stop!
    God, he loved this. He loved them.
    If heaven existed, it was exactly like this moment, this place.
    “Oh, wait! I just heard terrible news. Hope it won’t give you Christmas blues. Santa was drugged, tied up, and gagged, blindfolded, ear-stoppled, and bagged. His sleigh is waiting out in the yard, and someone has stolen Santa’s bank card. Soon his accounts will be picked clean by the use of automatic-teller machines.”
    “Uh-oh,” Charlotte said, snuggling deeper into her covers, “it’s going to be scary.”
    “Well, of course it is,” Emily said. “Daddy wrote it.”
    “Will it be too scary?” Charlotte asked, pulling the blankets up to her chin.
    “Are you wearing socks?” Marty asked.
    Charlotte usually wore socks to bed except in summer, because otherwise her feet got cold.
    “Socks?” she said. “Yeah? So?”
    Marty leaned forward in his chair and lowered his voice to a spooky whisper: “Because this story won’t end until Christmas Day, and by then it’s gonna scare your socks off maybe a dozen times.”
    He made a wicked face.
    Charlotte pulled the covers up to her nose.
    Emily giggled and demanded: “Come on, Daddy, what’s next?”
    “Hark, the sound of silver sleigh bells echoes over the hills and the dells. And look—reindeer high up in the sky! Some silly goose has taught them to fly. The driver giggles quite like a loon— madman, goofball, a thug, and a goon.
    Something is wrong—any fool could tell. If this is Santa, then Santa’s not well. He hoots, gibbers, chortles, and spits, and seems to be having some sort of fits His mean little eyes spin just like tops. So somebody better quick call the cops. A closer look confirms his psychosis. And—oh, my dears—really bad halitosis!”
    “Oh, jeez,” Charlotte said, pulling the covers up just below her eyes. She professed to dislike scary stories, but she was the quicker to complain if something frightening didn’t happen in a tale sooner or later.
    “So who is it?” Emily asked. “Who tied Santa up and robbed him and ran off in his sleigh?”
    “Beware when Christmas comes this year, because there’s something new to fear. Santa’s twin—who is evil and mean— stole the sleigh, will make the scene, pretending to be his good brother. Guard your beloved children, Mother! Down the chimney, into your home, here comes that vile psychotic gnome!”
    “Eeep!” Charlotte cried, and pulled the covers over her head.
    Emily said, “What made Santa’s twin so evil?”
    “Maybe he had a bad childhood,” Marty said.
    “Maybe he was born that way,” Charlotte said under her covers.
    “Can people be born bad?” Emily wondered. Then she answered her own question before Marty could respond. “Well, sure, they can. ’Cause some people are born good, like you and Mommy, so then some people must be born bad.”
    Marty was soaking up the girls’ reactions, loving it.
    On one level, he was a writer, storing away their words, the rhythms of their speech, expressions, toward the day when he might need to use some of this for a scene in a book. He supposed it wasn’t admirable to be so constantly aware that even his own children were material; it might be morally repugnant, but he couldn’t change. He was what he was. He was also a father, however, and he reacted primarily on that level, mentally preserving the moment because one day memories were all he would have of their childhood, and he wanted to be able to recall everything,