Chapter 5 - An Ornament with No Hook
The church basement smelled of pine cleaner, cinnamon rolls, and wet mittens. Pastor Lena Franklin had turned the fellowship hall into a temporary distribution center because the Holly Street club was no longer trusted to deliver a single Christmas toy. Volunteers in knitted hats arranged coats by size while children made paper chains around the windows.
Imani sat at a folding table recording names. The doctor had told her to avoid additional strain and follow up promptly if pain or other symptoms returned. She could not lift the boxes, but she could make certain every coat reached a child whose name appeared on the list.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Gideon told her.
“I am sitting,” she answered. “You taught Andre that a promise still counts when nobody’s watching.”
“I taught him that, too,” Gideon said. “Along with how to lose every socket he ever owned.”
For the first time since the banquet, she laughed.
Zora had set her drawing on a table near the Christmas tree. Children kept coming over to examine the repaired seam. One boy asked why the father had been torn apart. She considered him before answering.
“A grown-up did something mean. Grandpa helped me fix the paper. The people aren’t fixed yet.”
Pastor Lena overheard and quietly added another supply table for crayons and fresh drawing paper. Nobody told Zora to replace her old picture. The original stayed where it was.
Near the coat racks, Mrs. Carter stood with two little boys whose school uniforms had grown tight at the wrists. She thanked Imani for the winter boots, then hesitated.
“Clint said the new apartments would have a playground,” she said. “Now Northstar wants another deposit. I paid one already, right before Thanksgiving.”
“Do you have the receipt?” Imani asked.
Mrs. Carter pulled a creased slip from her purse. It showed a deposit to a property management company bearing the same northern-star logo from Leon’s fire photograph. Imani photographed the receipt with permission and sent it to Maya. She wrote down Mrs. Carter’s phone number, too, promising she would not publish the family’s story without asking.
“You don’t have to fix everything today,” Mrs. Carter said when she saw Imani wince as she shifted in her chair.
“I know,” Imani answered. “But I want to remember who we’re fixing it for.”
Across the room, Zora handed Mrs. Carter’s younger son a candy cane. He offered her half in return. They sat on the floor discussing whether Santa could safely deliver presents to a motel without a chimney.
Maya arrived carrying a folder of bank information she had received through lawful document requests. The July payment had passed through the relief fund into Northstar Renewal and then to a company that managed security for the Holly Street Motor Hall. The company belonged to Briggs’s brother.
“So the coats paid for muscle,” Gideon said.
“Possibly. The amounts and dates line up, but we need invoices and testimony before calling it proven.” Maya pointed to a second page. “And we need the old property deed. Northstar claims the garage lot belongs to it. If that’s true, they can move the remaining families out of the temporary units after Christmas.”
“It isn’t true,” Gideon said. “My wife and I signed that land into a community trust. The place was supposed to stay a repair shop and a shelter.”
“Do you have a copy?”
“Used to. The originals were in the office that burned.”
Zora wandered over holding an ugly gold ornament with no hook. A painted star crossed its middle. “This was Daddy’s.”
Gideon took it. “Where’d you get it?”
“Your decoration box. Mommy said Daddy always put it on the lowest branch so I could reach.”
Imani remembered Andre teasing her for calling it ugly. It had been handmade in the first year of their marriage from a brass float he salvaged from a broken engine part. Andre said a real Christmas tree needed at least one ornament that looked like somebody had actually lived with it.
There was a narrow seam around its middle. Gideon twisted the two halves, then stopped when he felt resistance.
“Don't force it,” Maya said. “If there’s evidence inside, let’s document how we found it.”
Pastor Lena cleared an uncluttered table. Imani recorded on her phone while Gideon opened the ornament. Inside was a small key wrapped in a strip of wax paper. Written on the paper in Andre’s familiar block letters were four words: THE STAR POINTS NORTH.
“That’s why the ornament hangs crooked,” Zora said. “Daddy always told me the point has to face the garage.”
Imani kissed the top of her head. “You remembered.”
The key was stamped 14. Gideon recognized the number from a steel records cabinet Andre had installed in the garage’s community office, not from a door. The cabinet survived the fire, according to the insurance inventory, but was taken to a municipal storage depot during cleanup.
When Maya called the depot, the clerk told her cabinet 14 had been collected two days earlier by a representative of Northstar Renewal.
“We need preservation demands sent today,” Maya said. “To the company, the depot, and the insurer.”
Imani’s phone rang with an unfamiliar number. She answered on speaker after Maya nodded.
A woman said, “My name is Evelyn Cross. I keep Clint Rusk’s books.”
“Then you know what happened to the money,” Imani replied.
“Yes. I helped hide it.”
Nobody in the fellowship hall moved.
Evelyn took a shaky breath. “But I’m calling because someone has just brought Andre Bell’s records cabinet into the clubhouse. Clint ordered me to destroy everything inside before the Christmas Eve ride.”
“Why are you telling us?” Maya asked.
“Because he said the girl drew the door. And because I finally understand what he’s prepared to do to keep that cabinet shut.”
May you like
The call disconnected. One minute later an image arrived from Evelyn’s number: cabinet 14, its blackened paint intact, sitting beneath the club’s Christmas tree.
Taped to its handle was a photograph of Zora’s repaired drawing, taken through Gideon’s kitchen window.
