Don't Open till Christmas

DETECTIVE MARK SANTORI had investigated a number of bizarre criminal cases in his six years as a Chicago cop, so not much surprised him. There'd been, for instance, the bank robber who'd hidden all his stolen money in his oven. He'd then gotten drunk, forgotten about the cash, burned it up and set his building on fire. One thing Mark had learned from that experience was that the red dye packs banks stuck into stolen money to mark it so crooks couldn't use it morphed into a number of interesting shades in intense heat. And, judging by the way the dye-spattered perp had been wailing when they'd taken him into custody, those suckers stung when they exploded in your face.

That had been a stand-out experience with the stupid criminals investigated by the anti crime division of the Chicago P.D., of which he was a member. But it certainly hadn't been his only one.

There'd been the purse-snatcher who'd had the crap beaten out of him by a couple of female impersonators leaving the Hidey Hole Club. The guy who'd tried to rob a liquor store using a plastic kiddie baseball bat and ended up getting his head split open by the owner's real one. The stupid bastard who'd nearly drowned in a barrel full of pickle juice-he'd hidden in it so he could rob a grocery store after hours. Not to mention the moron who'd broken into a home improvement warehouse and had tried to make his getaway on a stolen riding mower that went about two miles a day.

But this....well, this was pretty bad even for pathetic, scum-sucking criminals. A ring of costumed Santas were stealing anything they could get their hands on during the so-called season of giving. Not that the holidays had ever given Mark much more than a whole lot of heartburn. Still, sticky-fingered Santas lifting the sugarplums right outta the stockings of homeless kids were pretty goddamn low, even to a Christmas-hating hard-ass like him.

"I had intended to send a uniform over to that women's shelter to keep them calm until you got there to take the statements," his lieutenant said as he prepared to leave the 10th district police station of Chicago, where he worked. "But this damn cold weather has caused some power outages and I needed extra traffic control."