The Mystery of Santa's Watch

By Lowell Forte

A Thanksgiving night crash on the icy and infamous Dead Man's Curve leaves Erik Holden an orphan and hospitalized, mute with the guilt that he caused the crash. Police Sgt. Frank Donovan investigates his suspicions that a hit-and-run driver was responsible. Mr. Nicholas, the hospital's roving Santa, lends Erik a beautifully ornate pocket watch and Erik soon realizes that the family depicted on the watch case is his own. Almost by accident he discovers that the watch has special powers, but are they powerful enough to help him get his family back? Can they undo such a horrific loss? Before he can find out, the watch is stolen and in a race against time, Mr. Nicholas convinces a very skeptical Sgt. Donovan to help locate and recover the watch and get it to Erik before its powers terminate and Erik loses his family forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lowell Forte
• Release date: Nov 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9780982941713

Book preview

The Mystery of Santa’s Watch

The only thing Erik Holden wants

this Christmas is his family back!

- A Novel -

By Lowell Forte

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 by Lowell Forte

Published by Lowell Forte at Smashwords

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright Notice

The author, Lowell Forte (lowellforte.com), ashpolepublishing.com, and Smashwords have provided this ebook to you for your personal use only. It contains material protected under International and United States copyright laws and treaties. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the intellectual property rights of this author.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9829417-2-0

About

A horrific Thanksgiving night crash makes Erik Holden an orphan. He now lies moot in the hospital blaming himself for the accident. Mr. Nicholas, the hospital Santa, lends Erik a very special watch, and when Erik discovers its powers he intends to use the watch to get his family back. But the watch is stolen. Can Mr. Nicholas and a skeptical Police Sgt. Frank Donovan find it and locate the runaway Erik and bring them together before the watch’s power terminates?

Dedication

To Mary, a.k.a. Goober, always my homeport and safe harbor, who sends me off to sail storied seas.

Chapter One

For the second time in as many years, Frank Donovan was here at this place and for the same reason—death. The Thanksgiving Day storm had made the steep sides of the ditch perilous to negotiate. Donovan was familiar with this place and knew as he sideslipped down the snowy, ice-frosted side of the ditch he would reach a precipice. He sprayed the darkness ahead with his flashlight as the red and blue lights from his police cruiser danced on a white slip of steam that hissed out of the darkness below and pirouetted into the night sky.

He slid to a stop at the edge of the precipice. Twenty feet below the The Cube had claimed its latest victim, a small SUV impaled on the sharp-edged corner of the giant block of granite that had cleaved from the cliff a millennium ago and pointed itself upward, silently waiting, like a praying mantis, to capture unwitting vehicles. Unlike most of its predecessors, which had taken the curve too fast for its antiquated angles, it appeared the SUV had simply lost control on the icy surface and gone over the side to become food for the legend of this stretch of road known as Dead Man’s Curve.

In the four years since the road had lost its designation as a state highway and its ownership passed to the counties and cities through which it passed, nothing had been done to make this stretch any safer. The installation of guardrails would likely have stopped the killer below, but the city councils and county board of supervisors argued over who had what jurisdiction and who was financially responsible for what. Politics had trumped safety.

The headlights of the SUV, like the useless and unseeing eyes of a dead man, stared into the trees, as Donovan struggled to see inside the shattered wreckage. He could make out what appeared to be a boy in the back seat, driver’s side, and maybe two, three others. A family no doubt on their way home from a Thanksgiving celebration. The colorful, foil-wrapped presents glittered back at Donovan and told that this trip started out celebratory before ending tragically.

Donovan keyed his mobile radio clipped to his winter jacket’s collar.

Command. Donovan.

Go, confirmed Martha Vickers the night dispatcher.

At mile marker 13, Old Highway 20, the curve. Small SUV impaled on The Cube. See one child, backseat, driver’s side. Maybe three others. No movement. This is very bad. Need ambulances, big wrecker with side wenches and Jaws of Life, and EMTs who can repel. They all know the drill out here. Likely need the medical chopper, so put the team on alert. Tell everybody it’s very icy. No guard rails, no salt, no sand. I’ll try to spread some."

That the curve was at mile marker 13 was ironic and you only had to mention the number for people in the emergency business to know exactly the conditions they faced when they arrived on the scene of an accident here.

Vickers confirmed, then asked, You okay, Frank?

Okay. Ten four.

Vickers picked up on Donovan’s robotic transcription. It was a sign he was working to keep his emotions at bay. Twenty-four years on the force doesn’t harden one against such carnage and tragedy as this. Youngsters are meant to grow up and outlive their parents. And parents are supposed to grow old together and dote over their grandchildren. This place had stolen that from Donovan and now unmercifully took it from this family. He had avoided this spot; swore he wouldn’t come back to it, but here he was.

He scrambled up to the steep sides back to the narrow shoulder of the road, jumped behind the wheel of his cruiser and inched it forward to better align it with the vehicle below. He thought he saw telltale scuffmarks in the road surface and as he got out of the car he shined his flashlight along the road. What he saw needed to be captured on camera but his the first priority was get down below and render what aid and assistance he could.

His radio crackled. It was Vickers.

Officer Peters is on his way to assist. Everybody else has been notified.

Good he thought. He had mentored Peters and he knew he could take command of the scene. He was also an accomplished photographer and new how to overcome the challenges of taking pictures at night. He popped his trunk and grabbed a coil of bright yellow nylon rope and soon had it lashed to the post between the opened front and back doors of his squad car, threw the coil over the side, and quickly repelled down the side of the steep ditch to the edge of the precipice.

He could hear a siren in the distance and knew it would be Peters.

It was Peters who showed up the last time Frank Donovan came upon an accident here. It was Peters who stepped ahead of him and climbed down to that vehicle when Donovan realized it was his wife’s and he had collapsed to his knees. And it was Peters, on that night much like this one, who climbed up to break the news to Donovan that his wife was dead.

At the edge of the precipice, Donovan again scanned the vehicle with his flashlight beam. He started to turn but something caught his attention and he squinted and focused his flashlight on the SUV’s rear passenger window.

He keyed his mike. Martha, get me an ETA on the ambulance. I see movement here.

Not sure, Martha said. Ice is slowing them down.

He holstered his flashlight, turned his back to the wreck, grabbed the rope with is gloved hands, and jumped over the side of the escarpment. He was at the wreck in a four jumps and was able to gather a footing on shards of granite. He quickly pulled the shattered glass free of the doorframe and began a continuous monologue in an effort to keep the injured boy inside from slipping into shock and certain death as he reached in and gently wrapped him as best he could in a heat-conserving emergency blanket.

Martha?

Go.

We’re going to need that air ambulance for sure.

Assumed so. It’s five minutes out. Landing site?

As soon as Peters gets here I’ll have him throw some flares.

He turned his attention back to the boy and assured him that help was coming. I need you to look at me. Can you do that? Donovan shoved his head farther into the shattered opening. A quick glance around confirmed the others were beyond medical assistance.

The boy’s gaze shifted and tried to focus on Donovan. He gently pushed the blood-matted hair out of the boy’s eyes. Keep your eyes open and look at me. You are going to be all right. You are going to be okay. But you have to work hard to stay awake and focused. Let me tell you my name again. Donovan. Sergeant Frank Donovan. I’m a police officer and you should be able to make out the sirens in the distance. That’s the sound of the ambulances. They’re coming for you and your family.

The boy started to make an effort to look around for his family but Donovan told him not to move his head and he continued talking and commanding the boy to stay awake and focused.

Peters goosed his sirens to let Donovan know he had arrived. He pulled his head out of the vehicle and looked up and into Peters’ flashlight.

Need help there? asked the young officer.

I’m okay. Air ambulance is going to need flares though. And take a look at the road surface. I think there might have been another vehicle involved. If you can, get some pictures of the road surface before everything arrives and we lose any evidence that exists.

Peters said nothing but saluted and was gone.

Donovan’s head was back in the car with the boy. That was another officer. Peters. Really nice guy. You’d like him. He kept up his monolog for several more long minutes and was so focused on the boy he didn’t hear the noises from the chopper and emergency equipment. Suddenly he was flooded in light and several EMTs arrived at the vehicle and took over.

As he stepped aside and found his footing on the slippery surface, he glanced at his watch. What seemed to have taken an eternity had been less than twenty minutes. He looked up into the dark sky. For the first time he realized how noisy it had become. The bare branches of the trees seem to dance in time to the flashes from the emergency lights of patrol cars and ambulances up on the road, and the beams from their headlights pierced the night in all directions. He again scrambled up the side of the ditch with aid of the rope and stood there watching the EMTs and firemen cut the young boy free, strap him onto a board, and bring him up to road level. As soon as the boy was loaded into the air ambulance, the whine of its rotors reached a fevered pitch then slapped away gravity to free itself from the ground. The craft struggled straight up through the hole in the branches of the trees that crowded both sides of the road, and once clear of the treetops, turned and headed toward the city and the hospital.

Damn, he said, then looked around and shook his head. This is Christmas. This should not have happened.

The scene slipped into slow motion as the firemen cut the other bodies free from the wreckage and brought them up one by one. Their ambulances would take a slow ride back into the city, to the hospital where they would be officially pronounced dead then sent on to the morgue. Old memories surfaced and Donovan felt a crushing rush of sympathy for the young boy and whoever but a short time before had likely waved goodbye him and his family and sent them off into the darkness loaded with Christmas presents and joy.

Soon enough the commotion was gone and the scene returned to an eerie silence, like an emptied theatre.

Officer Peters stepped over to him.

Some things to show you, Sergeant?

Donovan looked at him. You’re sweating!

Been busy.

Any pictures?

Plenty, but I was in such a hurry—had to post the flares for the chopper—that I sort of shot blind. We’ll have to check later and see what we have. Barely got the sand down before everybody arrived. I borrowed the extra sand bag from your trunk.

Find anything?

I think you were right. There was another vehicle involved.

That’s what I thought, said Donovan. "As soon as I stepped out of my squad I thought I saw tire marks on the surface…from a spinning vehicle.

I think somebody lost control back there. Peters pointed toward the city. "Ended up spinning into the curve and across the centerline