"Hello, Theo. This is Jane down at BULGES. Yes, well, I just glanced out the window here and I noticed that there might be a problem over at the Thrifty-Mart. Well, I don't want to meddle, but let's just say that a certain contractor just hit one of the Salvation Army Santas with a bag of ice. Well, I'll look for your car, then." She flipped the phone shut. "He's on his way."

Theophilus Crowe's mobile phone played eight bars of "Tangled Up in Blue" in an irritating electronic voice that sounded like a choir of suffering houseflies, or Jiminy Cricket huffing helium, or, well, you know, Bob Dylan — anyway, by the time he got the device open, five people in the produce section of the Thrifty-Mart were giving him the hairy eyeball hard enough to wilt the arugula right there in his cart. He grinned as if to say, Sorry, I hate these things, too, but what aw you gonna do? then he answered, "Constable Crowe," just to remind everyone that he wasn't dickmg around here, he was THE LAW.

"In the parking lot of the Thrifty-Mart? Okay, I'll be right there»

Wow, this was convenient. One thing about being the resident lawman in a town of only five thousand people — you were never far from the trouble. Theo parked his cart on the end of the aisle and loped by the registers and out the automatic doors to the parking lot (He was a denim- and flannel-clad praying mantis of a man, six-six, one-eighty, and he only had three speeds, amble, lope, and still). Outside he found Lena Marquez doubled over and gasping for breath. Her ex-husband, Dale Pearson, was stepping into his four-wheel-drive pickup.

"Right there, Dale. Wait," Theo said

Theo ascertained that Lena had only had the wind knocked out of her and was going to be okay, then addressed the stocky contractor, who had paused with one boot on the running board, as if he'd be on his way as soon as the hot air cleared out of the truck.

"What happened here?"

"The crazy bitch hit me with that bell of hers."

"Did not," gasped Lena

"I got a report you hit her with a bag of ice, Dale. That's assault."

Dale Pearson looked around quickly and spotted the crowd of women gathered by the window over at the gym. They all looked away, heading for the various machines they had been on when the debacle unfolded. "Ask them. They'll tell you she had that bell right upside my head. I just reacted out of self-defense."

"He said he'd donate when he came out of the store, then he didn't," Lena said, her breath coming back. "There's an implied contract there. He violated it. And I didn't hit him."

"She's a fucking nutcase." Dale said it like he was declaring water wet — like it was just understood.

Theo looked from one of them to the other. He'd dealt with these two before, but thought it had all come to rest when they'd divorced five years ago. (He'd been constable of Pine Cove for fourteen years — he'd seen the wrong side of a lot of couples.) First rule in a domestic situation was separate the parties, but that appeared to have already been accomplished. You weren't supposed to take sides, but since Theo had a soft spot for nutcases — he'd married one himself — he decided to make a judgment call and focus his attention on Dale. Besides, the guy was an asshole.

Theo patted Lena's back and loped over to Dale's truck.

"Don't waste your time, hippie," Dale said. "I'm done." He climbed into his truck and closed the door.

Hippie? Theo thought. Hippie? He'd cut his ponytail years ago. He'd stopped wearing Birkenstocks. He'd even stopped smoking pot. Where did this guy get off calling him a hippie?

Hippie? he said to himself, then: "Hey!"

Dale started his truck and put it into gear.

Theo stepped up on the running board, leaned over the windshield, and started tapping on it with a quarter he'd fished from his jeans pocket. "Don't leave, Dale." Tap, tap, tap. "You leave now, I'll put a warrant out for your arrest." Tap, tap, tap. Theo was pissed now — he was sure of it. Yes, this was definitely anger now.

Dale threw the truck into park and hit the electric window button. "What? What do you want?"

"Lena wants to press charges for assault — maybe assault with a deadly weapon. I think you'd better rethink leaving right now."

"Deadly weapon? It was a bag of ice."

Theo shook his head, affected a whimsical storyteller's tone: "A ten-pound bag of ice. Listen, Dale, as I drop a ten-pound block of ice on the courtroom floor in front of the jury. Can you hear it? Can't you just see the jury cringe as I smash a honeydew melon on the defense attorney's table with a ten-pound block of ice? Not a deadly weapon? 'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this man, this reprobate, this redneck, this — if I may — clump-filled-cat-box-of-a-man, struck a defenseless woman — a woman who out of the kindness of her heart was collecting for the poor, a woman who was only —»

"But it's not a block of ice, it's —»

Theo raised a finger in the air. "Not another word, Dale, not until I read you your rights." Theo could tell he was getting to Dale — veins were starting to pulse in the contractor's temples and his bald head was turning bright pink. Hippie, huh? "Lena is definitely pressing charges, aren't you, Lena?"

Lena had made her way to the side of the truck.

"No," Lena said.

"Bitch!" Theo said — it slipped out before he could stop himself. He'd been on such a roll.

"See how she is," said Dale. "Wish you had a bag of ice now, don't you, hippie?"

"I'm an officer of the law," Theo said, wishing he had a gun or something. He pulled his badge wallet out of his back pocket but decided that was a little late for ID, since he'd known Dale for nearly twenty years.

"Yeah, and I'm a Caribou," Dale said, with more pride than he really should have had about that.

"I'll forget all about it if he puts a hundred bucks in the kettle," Lena said.

"You're nuts, woman."

"It's Christmas, Dale."

"Fuck Christmas and fuck you."

"Hey, there's no need for that kind of talk, Dale," Theo said, going for the peace in peace officer. "You can just step out of the truck."

"Fifty bucks in the kettle and he can go," Lena said. "It's for the needy."

Theo whipped around and looked at her. "You can't plea-bargain in the parking lot of the Thrifty-Mart. I had him on the ropes."

"Shut up, hippie," Dale said. Then to Lena, "You'll take twenty and the needy can get bent. They can get a job like the rest of us."

Theo was sure he had handcuffs in the Volvo — or were they still on the bedpost at home? "That is not the way we —»

"Forty!" Lena shouted.

"Done!" Dale said. He pulled two twenties from his wallet, wadded them up, and threw them out the window so they bounced off of Theo Crowe's chest. He threw the truck in gear and backed out.

"Stop right there!" Theo commanded.

Dale righted the truck and took off. As the big red pickup passed Theo's Volvo station wagon, parked twenty yards up the lot, a bag of ice came flying out the window and exploded against the Volvo's tailgate, showering the parking lot with cubes but otherwise doing no damage whatsoever. "Merry Christmas, you psycho bitch!" Dale shouted out the window as he turned onto the street. "And to all a good night! Hippie!"

Lena had tucked the wadded bills into her Santa suit and was squeezing Theo's shoulder as the red truck roared out of sight. "Thanks for coming to my rescue, Theo."

"Not much of a rescue. You should press charges."

"I'm okay. He'd have gotten out of it anyway, he has great lawyers. Trust me, I know. Besides, forty bucks'"

"That's the Christmas spirit," Theo said, not able to keep from smiling. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. It's not the first time he's lost it with me." She patted the pocket of her Santa suit. "At least something came of this." She started back to her kettle and Theo followed.