END-of-YEAR GIVING
Nicholas looked over the books. It was near the end of the year, funds were low like they were for every not-for-profit. He scratched his beard as he looked out his frosted office window. Snow was falling fast. Nicholas would have to think quickly if he was to fulfill his annual charitable giving promises. These end-of-year gifts were the focus of his organization, and not to come through with them would be disastrous.
He stroked his beard one more time and tentatively bent forward in his chair. The bottom drawer of the desk creaked and revealed two ledgers. He pulled out the thick black one. Nicholas hesitated but opened it and traced his finger down the list of alphabetized tabs, stopping at the letter ‘S’.
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Colin Sceleris leaned forward in his chair at his home office desk. A few clicks of the mouse and his paycheck was distributed in the proper accounts. Despite the economic downturn, and the government bailout of his company, he had pocketed seven figures in his year-end bonus alone. Colin settled back in his chair with a sigh and gazed past the lights of his replica Christmas tree and out the window to the heavy snowfall. The idea of the cold out-of-doors gave him an unexpected shiver.
Halfway through rising to place another log in the fireplace, Colin turned to click out of his online bank account. But, before he could do so, and at that moment, the fire in his fireplace went out with a wooph! and a rush of air, like a giant candle snuffer had been clapped over the fire. With a thud, one of the glowing logs rolled off the pile on the grate, out into the the room. Bitter smoke reached out and left Colin choking. Then he saw a blur of red move past him from the fireplace. He thought at first it was just a flash of pain from stinging eyes, brought on by the acrid atmosphere, but there was definitely someone else in the dark room with him. Colin had felt the coldness of the figure brush past him, and even in the wood smoke he detected that smell of winter. That faint wet dog scent of someone coming in from the cold and snow.
In the dark, Colin fumbled in his top desk drawer and finally felt the cool metal grip of his revolver. He turned, eyes straining, gun waving about, “I don’t know how you got in here, but you picked the wrong man to rob.”
“In fact, Colin, I selected the very person who needed to be ‘robbed’, as you say,” a deep, calm, craggy voice replied from nearby.
“How the devil do you know my name?” Colin fired two shots into the dark. One to the right, and one to the left, for probability’s sake.
“I know most things about you. When you’re sleeping. When you’re awake. Mostly I know that you have lived your life at the expense of others for a very long time. Didn’t you suspect that after so many years of robbing others that you would eventually be robbed yourself?”
“Who are you to judge me?” Colin yelled angrily.
The intruder stepped through the darkness, and Colin, incredulous, could just make out that white beard, and that red coat.
“St. Nick?”
Trembling uncontrollably, Colin squeezed off two more wild shots, to push back the darkness, if for a moment. But to no avail. He felt a vice at his throat.
“Colin, I wish this had turned out another way,” Nicholas said. His red, fur cuffed gloves tightened around Colin’s neck. There was much flailing of arms, and clawing, and grunting, and scuffing of shoes against wood, as if the victim were trying to find the floor. And then there was less of that. And then none. And then quiet.
Colin’s eyes never closed, but were frozen open in disbelief, even after he stopped breathing. “For goodness sake, Colin, I wish this had turned out differently,” Nicholas sadly addressed the darkness, then made a few keystrokes and clicks at Colin’s computer. And then he was gone.
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“His secretary said he never showed up for work this morning,” the officer explained to the detectives in Colin Sceleris’ apartment. “I said, what fat cat CEO works on Christmas Eve? She said, ‘You don’t know Mr. Sceleris’. I said ‘OK, we’ll check up on him’.”
“No sign of forced entry. All the doors and windows are locked. Only these soot marks around the victim’s throat, obviously the perp used gloves to strangle him. No fingerprints. Why does this kind of stuff only happen on Christmas Eve?” the detective said to no one in particular. Particularly not to Colin Sceleris, who lay on the floor, wide-eyed and cold.
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Nicholas stroked his beard and slowly drew a red line through the name of ‘Colin Sceleris’ in the thick black ledger at his desk. He also closed the accounting books, happily in the black. Nicholas then rose from his desk to complete his year-end charitable giving, like he did every Christmas Eve.
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