And there she was. A damsel in distress. A woman, alone, out here in the night, crying — and from what Tuck could tell by the headlights of a nearby pickup truck, she had a nice shape. Great hair. Beautiful high cheekbones, streaked with tears and mud, but you know, exotic-looking. Tuck checked to see that Roberto was still safely hanging above, then straightened his bomber jacket and made his way across the street.

"Hey there, are you okay?"

The woman jumped, screamed a bit, looked around frantically until she spotted him "Oh my God," she said.

Tuck had had worse responses. He pressed on "Are you okay?" he repeated. "You looked like you were having some trouble."

"I think he's dead," the woman said. "I think — I think I killed him"

Tuck looked at the red-and-white pile on the ground at his feet and realized for the first time what it really was: a dead Santa. A normal person might have freaked out, backed away, tried to quickly extract himself from the situation, but Tucker Case was a pilot, trained to function in life-and-death emergencies, practiced at grace under pressure, and besides, he was lonely and this woman was really hot.

"So, a dead Santa," said Tuck. "Do you live around here?"

"I didn't mean to kill him. He was coming at me with a gun I just ducked, and when I looked up — " She waved toward the pile of dead Kringle. "I guess the shovel caught him in the throat." She seemed to be calming down a bit.

Tuck nodded thoughtfully "So, Santa was coming at you with a gun?"

The woman pointed to the gun, lying in the dirt next to the Maglite "I see," said Tuck. "Did you know this —»

"Yes. His name is Dale Pearson. He drank."

"I don't. Stopped years ago," Tuck said. "By the way, I'm Tucker Case. Are you married?" He extended his hand to her to shake. She seemed to see him for the first time.

"Lena Marquez. No, I'm divorced»

"Me, too," said Tuck. "Tough around the holidays, isn't it? Kids?"

"No. Mr., uh, Case, this man is my ex-husband and he's dead."

"Yep. I just gave my ex the house and my business, but this does seems cheaper," Tuck said.

"We had a fight yesterday at the grocery store in front of a dozen people. I had the motive, the opportunity, and the means — " She pointed to the shovel. "Everyone will think I killed him."

"Not to mention that you did kill him."

"And don't think the media won't latch onto that? It's my shovel sticking out of his neck."

"Maybe you should wipe off your prints and stuff. You didn't get any DNA on him, did you?"

She stretched the front of her shirt out and started dabbing at the shovel's handle. "DNA? Like what?"

"You know, hair, blood, semen? Nothing like that?"

"No." She was furiously buffing the handle of the shovel with the front of her tank top, being careful not to get too close to the end that was stuck in the dead guy. Strangely, Tuck found the process slightly erotic.

"I think you got the fingerprints, but I'm a little concerned about there where your name is spelled out in Magic Marker on the handle. That might give things away."

"People never return garden tools if you don't mark them," Lena said. Then she began to cry again. "Oh my God, I've killed him."

Tuck went to her side and put his arm around her shoulders. "Hey, hey, hey, it's not so bad. At least you don't have kids you have to explain this to."

"What am I going to do? My life is over."

"Don't talk like that," Tuck said, trying to sound cheerful. "Look, you've got a perfectly good shovel here, and this hole is nearly finished. What say we shove Santa in, clean up the area a little, and I take you to dinner." He grinned.

She looked up at him.

"Who are you?"

"Just a nice guy trying to help out a lady in distress."

"And you want to take me out to dinner?" She seemed to be slipping into shock.

"Not this minute. Once we get this all under control."

"I just killed a man," she said.

"Yeah, but not on purpose, right?"

"A man I used to love is dead."

"Damn shame, too," Tuck said. "You like Italian?"

She stepped away from him and looked him up and down, paying special attention to the right shoulder of his bomber jacket, where the brown leather had been scraped so many times it looked like suede. "What happened to your jacket?"

"My fruit bat likes to climb on me."

"Your fruit bat?"

"Look, you can't get through life without accumulating a little baggage, right?" Tuck nodded toward the deceased to make his point. "I'll explain over dinner."

Lena nodded slowly. "We'll have to hide his truck."

"Of course."

"Okay, then," Lena said. "Would you mind pulling the shovel — uh, I can't believe this is happening."

"I got it," Tuck said, jumping into the hole and dislodging the spade from Saint Nick's neck. "Call it an early Christmas present."

Tuck took off his jacket and began digging in the hard ground. He felt light, a little giddy, thrilled that he wasn't going to have to spend Christmas alone with the bat again.

Josh wiped the tears off his face, took a deep breath, and headed up the walk to his house. He was still shaking from having seen Santa take a shovel in the throat, but now it occurred to him that it might not be enough to get him out of trouble. The first thing his mom would say was, Well, what were you doing out so late anyway? And dumb Brian, who was not Josh's real dad but Mom's dumb boyfriend, would say, "Yeah, Santa would probably still be alive if you hadn't stayed so long at Sam's house." So, there on the front step, he decided to go with total hysteria. He started breathing hard, pumping up some tears, got a good whimpering sob going, then opened the door with a dieseling back sniffle. He fell onto the welcome mat and let loose with a full fire-truck-siren wail. And nothing happened. No one said a word. No one came running.

So Josh crawled into the living room, trailing a nice fiber-optic string of drool from his lower lip to the carpet as he chanted a mucusy "Momma," knowing that it would completely disarm her temper and get her all fired up to protect him from dumb Brian, for whom he had no magic manipulation chant. But nobody called him, nobody came running, dumb Brian was not sprawled across the couch like the great sleepy slug that he was.

Josh wound it down. "Mom?" Just the hint of a sob there, ready to go full bore again when she answered. He went into the kitchen, where the memo light was blinking on Mom's machine. Josh wiped his nose on his sleeve and hit the button.

"Hi, Joshy," his mom said, her cheerful overtired voice. "Brian and I had to go out to eat with some buyers. There's a Stouffer's mac and cheese in the freezer. We should be home before eight. Do your homework. Call my cell if you get scared."

Josh couldn't believe the luck. He checked the clock on the microwave. Only seven-thirty. Excellent! Latch-keyed loose like a magic elf. Yes! Dumb Brian had come through with a business dinner. He grabbed the Stouffer's out of the freezer, popped it — box and all — into the microwave, and hit the preset time. You didn't really have to peel the plastic back like they said. If you just nuke it in the box, the cardboard will keep it from exploding all over the microwave when the plastic goes. Josh didn't know why they didn't just put that in the instructions. He went back into the living room, turned on the TV, and plopped down on the floor in front of it to wait for the microwave to beep.

Maybe he should call Sam, he thought. Tell him about Santa. But Sam didn't believe in Santa. He said that Santa was just something the goys made up to make them feel better about not having a menorah. That was crap, of course. Goys (a Jewish word for girls and boys, Sam had explained) didn't want a menorah. They wanted toys. Sam was just saying that because he was mad because instead of Christmas they had snipped the tip of his penis off and said mazel tov.