CHAPTER 1

From where I’m sitting, I can see where most of it took place. Down Main Street, clear to the end of the block, is where Macalbee’s Five and Dime used to be. Then up this way, in the middle of the block, was the old police station. And if you look clear to the top of the hill, you can see the steeple from the Mason Street Methodist Church. Back then, if you listened carefully, you could hear the bell ring every morning at precisely nine o’clock—it was so dependable people opened their stores to it. And then right down there, of course, is the Crown Theater.

I don’t remember the story from first-hand experience, of course, but I’ve heard it told often enough that it’s almost as if I’d actually been there. It could have happened anywhere. In any town. In any state. But it happened in this town, Mt. Jefferson, and in a state of Christmas bustle like we haven’t seen here in half a century. The sidewalks were overflowing with shoppers and the shoppers were overflowing with packages and snow was blowing and the Salvation Army ringers were ringing and people were filling their kettles. Elvis was on the radio, Ike was in the White House, and the Lord was in his holy temple. It was Christmas 1958.

Actually it was two days before Christmas. Tuesday morning. 10:15. And it all started with a knock on the door of Milton Sandridge’s second-floor office, which overlooked the sales floor of Macalbee’s Five and Dime.

“Mr. Sandridge. Mr. Sandridge. It’s urgent, Mr. Sandridge.”

“Come in, Lois.” Milton stood and walked around his desk, as he could tell by his assistant manager’s voice something unusual was in the air.

As she opened the door, the look on her face matched the sound of her words. “We’ve got a shoplifter in aisle three.”

They both turned and looked through the office window that gave an eagle’s-eye view of everything and everybody in the store. Milton counted seven customers in aisle three. A mother with a baby in a stroller, a lone woman with a scarf tied under her chin, a colored woman with two small boys hanging on her coattail, and one teenage girl in jeans and a pea jacket. Milton looked back at Lois, shrugged, raised his eyebrows, and turned up the palms of his hands. She read his question and answered with the precision he always expected from her.

“The girl. Ponytail and dungarees. She’s stuffing her pockets.”

“Is somebody on the doors?”

“Ernest is watching both front doors and Tiny is watching the back.”

“Do they know not to approach her until she hits the sidewalk?”

“They won’t do anything till they hear from me. Or you.”

“Have them stop her on the street. Take someone with you and bring her back to the storeroom and call the cops. You know the routine.”

“Ah, there’s a little more to it this time, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently you didn’t get a good look at her. We know who she is.”

“Lois, it’s two days till Christmas. The store is filling up. We’ve got four people out with the flu and everything I ordered from the Sears catalog this year is late. Just tell me what’s up. Who is she?”

“Millie Franklin.”

“That’s supposed to mean something to me?”

“Rev. Paul Franklin, up at the Methodist Church. His daughter.”

This was the moment the palpitations started. That stuff about Sears and four people out with influenza and the store getting fuller by the minute didn’t hold a candle to this. Millie Franklin. Why hadn’t that name registered the first time he heard it? The season must have dulled his senses. But whatever it was going to take to awaken those senses now was going to have to happen in the next thirty seconds. Something had to be done before Millie got to the sidewalk because once she was there, she was a criminal, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Milton and Lois looked into each other’s eyes and connected for only a second, then turned and squeezed through the office door at the same time and down the back steps running.

When they hit the landing, he said, “You get the back door, and I’ll get the front. Make sure she doesn’t get outside. If you spot her, let me know and I’ll approach her.” Milton knew the responsibility was his, but there was something more than duty to the store in his urgent tone. There was something personal here but no one saw it at the time. No one could see it. Milton was moving too fast for anyone to get a good look at his eyes and the pallor of his skin.

Lois headed for the back of the store and Milton to the front. There, just as he was supposed to be was the janitor Ernest Tolley, dressed in his signature bib overalls, plaid shirt, tie, and dress hat. He turned his head with each customer who entered or exited the front doors like he was an angel guarding the Garden of Eden.

“Has she come this way, Ernest?” Milton asked, his feet never stopping.

“No, sir. I ain’t seen her or I’d a nabbed her.”

“Sit on her if you have to,” Milton said as he walked hurriedly back through the store, checking each wide, wooden-floored aisle. But no Millie. And where was Lois and why wasn’t she covering her half of the store? He was almost at the back door when he saw three figures through the glass, huddled on the sidewalk. Lois and Tiny Grant, the store’s other janitor, stood on either side of Millie Franklin, holding her by the arms. Milton’s palpitations were immediately cured as his heart stopped beating altogether.

Milton looked back to discover that three clerks, curious, frightened, and amazed, had followed him and were standing, staring, and waiting for his next move. It had already gone too far. At least six people knew what had happened. Heaven only knows how many customers had already picked up on the excitement and the whispers. It was too late to do anything except the right thing, the expected thing. He would have to bring her into the storeroom, call the police, and hold her until they questioned her, searched her, and arrested her.

Macalbee’s had strict policies about how such matters were to be handled, which left little room for innovation. Any one of the onlookers could say the wrong word at the wrong time and the home office in Richmond would have wind of it before sun set on another day. That’s how it was with a chain store. Oh, he might not get fired, of course, but Milton didn’t want any negative attention to his managerial style.

Despite the name, Macalbee’s Five and Dime was not a nickel-and-dime operation. It started as a family store in the state’s capital nearly a quarter of a century earlier and had grown steadily throughout the South ever since. The Mt. Jefferson branch was the twenty-third to open, and Milton felt lucky to be part of such a flourishing company. And yet even in this most guarded of moments, standing here with all his employees seeing everything but his private thoughts, he had to admit to himself that Richmond and the revered Macalbee family was not the only reason he was dreading this present situation. The preacher’s kid? Bad enough. But he was more concerned right now with the wrath of her mother.

Milton closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead and inhaled a deep breath that he wished had been full of Chesterfield tar and nicotine. But a cigarette would have to wait. He had some work to do.