The Strangler by William Landay

up every night. In a few minutes he’d go across and warm up a little. He could keep an eye on the crèche from there for a while.
    This was Joe’s penance, standing guard over the Nativity scene on Boston Common overnight. The same punishment befell a lot of cops in Station Sixteen at Christmastime, but in the case of Joe Daley, with his televised humiliation and his demotion and his obdurate swagger, the assignment struck his brother cops as particularly laughable. Not that Joe meant to stand there all night. After midnight, he would relocate to the lobby of the nearest hotel, the Parker House, leaving his Lord and Savior to fend for Himself. He would circle past the manger scene a few times during the night and check in from the call box on Tremont Street, but he did not mean to freeze to death out here guarding a fucking doll collection.
    At 10:55—Joe knew the time precisely because he was counting down to eleven o’clock when he would walk across to the Union Club to warm up—there was a loud smash from the bottom of the hill, somewhere on Tremont. It was glass shattering, but in the cold the noise was a dull crack, like the snap of a heavy branch. A smash-and-grab, probably, or drunks down on Washington Street. Joe took off running as fast as he dared on the icy downhill. He had to admit, as much as he wanted to call himself a detective, this was the sort of police work he was meant for. This was Joe at his most natural. He was a good reactor, he could impose himself on a situation, he could make things right, or at least make things better. Detective work was infuriatingly slow and irresolute. It was Miss Marple stuff, not police work. This—running like hell after a bad guy—was police work.
    Meanwhile, in the manger all was peaceful. The wind shivered the statuettes and the tufts of grimy hay. The Virgin Mary listed fifteen degrees to starboard.
    From the top of Park Street, the direction opposite the smashing glass, came Ricky. He was slightly out of breath. He wore a wool cap and leather jacket and Jack Purcells. His hands were plunged deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. In the Common he took a few mincing slide-steps over the ice to the Nativity scene and stood before it.
Bless me, Father, for I am about to sin.
He glanced around, then one by one he turned the statues around so they would see nothing, Mary, Joseph, the Magi, a donkey, two sheep, a family of very pious and awestruck Bakelite bunnies. He would leave no witnesses. When he’d rearranged the others, he lifted the baby Jesus out of His straw bed. “Now who left you out here in just a diaper?” he asked the child, who stared back with a conspiratorial beatific smile. He tucked the statue under his arm like a football and strolled off, his sneakers crunching in the snow.

    There was a soft knock and Amy, still in her work dress, went to the door. “Who is it?”
    “The Strangler.”
    “Very funny. What do you want?”
    “Um, to strangle you? That’s, you know, what I do.”
    “Sorry, not interested.”
    “Come on, just a little?”
    “I said no. Go strangle yourself.”
    “That’s how I got through high school. Come on, help me out.”
    She opened the door a crack to see Ricky posing cheek to cheek with the statue of the Christ child. “Oh, Jesus,” she said.
    “Precisely.”
    “Does this mean I’m dying?”
    “No, no. He just came to visit.”
    “Oh, thank God. I mean, thank You.” Amy stood back to let him pass. “I suppose you have an explanation.”
    “Yes. I found Jesus.”
    “Ha, ha. Let me guess. That’s the one Joe is supposed to be watching.”
    “Exactamente.”
    “And what do you intend to do with…Him?”
    “I’m not exactly sure. I thought maybe you could hold on to Him for a while.”
    “Like a hostage.”
    “No, like a good-luck charm. That’s His job, you know.”
    “You’ll rot in hell for this.”
    “Anything for a scoop, Aim. You want the story? I’ll give you an exclusive: ‘Jesus