“The thirty-five-kilogram lamppost you have in the back of your truck?” Mattie said.
“I didn’t see it.”
Dave scoffed. “You didn’t see a six-foot-tall, seventy-five-pound lamppost painted like a candy cane?”
“It was covered by a tarp. Somebody must have put it back there as a prank.”
“Mattie, call the police,” Dave said. The guy was obviously lying his face off. But the situation had to be weirder than it appeared. Nobody would follow them for five hundred kilometres for a Christmas decoration.
“That’s not necessary. You can take it back. No harm, no foul.”
Mattie tugged on Dave’s arm. He bent until his ear was level with her mouth. “I really don’t want to get the police involved. If nothing’s damaged, do you think we could just let it go?”
“This guy has been tracking us across the Prairies. Something is wrong here,” he whispered back. “I think I recognize him, but I don’t remember from where.”
“Before we make any decisions, let’s make sure that nothing is damaged.”
Dave climbed back into the trailer bed and stood the lamppost upright. Unrelenting sunshine sparkled off the frost and snow under the lantern. He blinked. The lamppost frost was really sparkling. He leaned closer to study it. He saw the cubes of hard plastic that caught the light, and the round clear and pearly beads that had been embedded in the hard white foam that passed as snow. But there was one differently shaped piece that was extra bright. Dave scratched at a tiny flap of film covering one side of the crystal. It peeled away, leaving yet another facet gleaming in the light.
“What’s wrong?” Mattie asked anxiously.
“Do you have a knife or a screwdriver?”
“No.”
“There’s one in the tool kit in the back of the van. Will you get it for me?”
She walked the long way around the mini truck to the van and returned with a flathead screwdriver. “Will this do?”
“It’s perfect.” Dave had to put all his weight behind his almost-six-foot frame to pierce the hard, white shell. Only half of the long, thin tip of the screwdriver had penetrated the foam snow, but it was deep enough to get under the crystal. Dave yanked, levering the tip, and the crystal popped free. He caught it in midair.
“No, don’t!” the man shouted, his face red with anger.
“Stop! What are you doing?” Mattie cried at the same time.
Dave held the crystal between his forefinger and thumb. It was smaller than the rest of the beads. It was also neither cubed nor round; it was pear-shaped. He looked at the man. “I do know you, don’t I?”
A tall, auburn-haired woman got out of the white pickup truck that had driven out on to the field behind them. “Hi, Mattie. Hi, Mattie’s friend Dave. What’s going on here?”
“Oh, no. This is such a disaster,” Mattie moaned.
“Hi, Ginger,” Dave said in greeting. “I think you might recognize this fellow from the old news clips. George Essex, this is Virginia Rye. I’ll bet most people would have forgotten your name by now. Unfortunately for you, Virginia just made you famous again on her latest podcast.”
Virginia looked like she didn’t know who to address first. “Why did you call me Ginger?” She stared at Dave. “Wait. Mattie said your name was Dave. Humbug Dave? Mattie, why didn’t you tell me that your Dave the Magnificent was my Humbug the elf?”
“I was going to when we got back to December, but I didn’t think it was a priority,” Mattie said. “More importantly, why would Dave think that you would know who our attempted thief is?”
Virginia focused on the stranger’s face. “Wow, that really is George Essex. I didn’t recognize him at first from his mugshot. He got old.”
“That’s unnecessary,” George Essex huffed.
“Why is he here?” Virginia continued.
Dave hopped off the trailer and dropped the tiny crystal into her hand. “I think he came back to finish the Frost Creek Jewellery job.”
Virginia held the crystal up to the sunlight to get a better look at it. “You have got to be kidding me! Is this real?”
“No, I’m not. And yes, I think it is.”
