Law & Order: North Pole

“Early Christmas tree sighting!” The desk sergeant screamed over the walkie talkie. Rudolph heard the announcement and raced around his house, grabbing his badge and gun. He flung himself onto his reindeer and whipped the animal awake.

“Come on Rudi, we have to teach these people a lesson. Killing trees before their so-called Black Friday, it’s shameful.” The reindeer seemed uninterested in what his owner was saying, but came to life anyways. Once he was moving, Rudolph grabbed his radio and informed them that he was on his way. “Tell Captain Santa not to worry; I am on the case.”

“Roger that, Rudolph. Will you be picking up Sandy?” The question sent butterflies through Rudolph. Many people tried to pair them up in a less than professional way, but so far both had resisted the temptation of taking their partnership into personal territory. “Copy?”

“Copy. Yes I will be picking up Sandy. I will need all the help I can get with this case.” Rudolph steered Rudi towards his partner’s house. He pulled out his Ipad mini and checked on the facts as the station had them.

The Crime: Tree-cide.

The Criminal: Monica Smith, age 43.

Notes: This is not the first time Ms. Smith has killed a tree before the legal date. The tree in question had seedlings that were depending on their parent for help growing. Said tree was only 15 years old according to the rings that we were able to count.

Rudolph looked up as his reindeer neared Sandy’s house. The report made him sick to his stomach, who in their right mind would kill such a young tree. Not to mention those poor saplings.

Sandy was waiting outside for him to arrive, and climbed into the sleigh without a word. He handed her the Ipad and sat back while she read the report. Her face tightened as she read over what was in the report, the anger was evident. “What kind of lowlife does this? This woman deserves to be put in jail!”

Rudolph put the address into the GPS system, and was happy to see Rudi’s red nose glow. He ran a search on this Monica Smith and was rewarded with numerous hits. She had been looked at for three separate accounts of tree-cide, 2 counts of being a bad shopper, and worst of all cookie evasion. What kind of person does not pay Santa the cookie tax? “We are dealing with a real criminal here. This is no ordinary tree killer.”

“What else have we got?” As Rudolph told her, horror crossed her face. The cookie evasion hit her the hardest. “Here we are, hardworking elves who pay their taxes but there are people who wants gifts and take things but don’t want to pay their fair share. All she had to do was leave some cookies out, to help out with the cookie shortage.”

“Don’t get too involved Sandy. I know how the cookie shortage affected you but we need to keep things separated.” Rudolph advised. As they pulled up to the house both were shocked by the candy canes all over the windows. “My God, she is a drug pusher and doesn’t even try to hide it.”

“That’s not even the worst of it,” She pointed towards a plastic Elf in the front yard. Both of our mouths fell open; it was unbelievable what we were looking at. “She is a part of the Hollinutti!”

The hollinutti was an organization that wanted to oversaturate the Christmas holiday. They started playing the music early, decorated their houses before enjoying Thanksgiving dinner, killed trees, and encased cherries in chocolate. It was a network of masterful criminals; no one knew exactly who the leader was but the elf police were looking.

“Should we call for back up?” Rudolph asked, knowing that his partner would say no. She would want to take Monica Smith down on her own; it would be the biggest case ever. “This might prove to be too much for us.”

“No, we do this on our own. We will teach this lady a lesson. I think lights out would be a good punishment, maybe even some tangling.” Sandy eyed the light bulb that was giving off a green color. She walked over, pulled out her gun and zapped all of the electricity from it. The entire strand suddenly went dark. “That felt good.”

“Sandy, we are just police. We solve the crimes, not inflict the punishment.” Rudolph tried to be reasonable, as Sandy zapped another light bulb, this time a red one. Another strand of lights went dark. “Come on, I think we’ve done enough. Now we just need to take this lady in.”

“Fine.” Sandy sighed. Both jumped when the strand of lights that she had just zapped came back on. “This lady is some kind of sorceress. How did she make those lights come back on?”

“I don’t know but let’s go in and get her so we can get back home.” Rudolph squeezed under the door, glad that there was a rug to catch his fall. He stood up and gave Sandy a hand as she squeezed in. “Look at this place.”
The partners looked around stunned. Peppermint candies were put out in a dish, while real candy canes were hung on the tree and around the house. Garland hung around the tree, as if it belonged there.

“She has that corpse dressed up like Cupid!” Sandy exclaimed. Cupid was known throughout the North Pole as a gigolo. “And listen to her sing; I’ve never heard something so awful.”

“Jingle bells, jingle bells.” Monica Smith sang off key. She was busy putting cookies in the oven. Sandy stared at her in disbelief as the human popped a bit of dough into her mouth.

Sandy found some lights and began twisting them around and intertwining them with another strand of lights. Then she threw an ornament to the ground and watched as it shattered into pieces. “Take that Holinutti!”

Word Count: 1,000