Hero and Sidekick

At the mention of other potentially stolen goods, Rob surged out of his shock into a protect-assets mode. He hurried over to the dresser and began performing a rapid inventory of his possessions, muttering, "Lucky I had my wallet with me, and my watch is still here. I think those are my two greatest valuables."

Deciding that it was time to figure out how much damage had been done by his carelessness, Mark pushed himself off his bed and went over to the dresser. On top of it, he was relieved to see that his watch and brush were still there, although who would want to take somebody else's brush was a mystery to him. He checked the clothing drawers on his side of the dresser, as Rob did the same on the opposite half.

"Nothing of mine is missing so far," reported Mark at the conclusion of his drawer inspection.

"Nothing else was taken from me, either." Rob crossed over to the closet and yanked open the double doors. "I'm going to see if any of our clothes in here have been stolen. Do you want to see if anything is missing from the bathroom?"

"Sure." Mark nodded and entered their bathroom, contemplating dully whether a person who stole toiletries was more or less pathetic than a being who took a Christmas tree.

His eyes flicked over to the right side of the sink, passing over his comb, razor, shaving cream, aftershave, toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant. Everything of his was still present, which meant that nobody had been creepy enough to steal his bathroom supplies. Now, it was time to see if his roommate had been so fortunate.

Glancing at the left side of the sink, he spotted Rob's comb, razor, shaving cream, aftershave, cologne, toothbrush, toothpaste, Tupperware for storing his false front tooth when it wasn't in his mouth, and deodorant. All of Rob's toiletries were accounted for, too.

Moving over to the shower, Mark tugged back the curtain and saw that the shelf still contained the complimentary and probably ineffectual hotel brand soap and shampoo, as well as the soap and shampoo they actually used to clean themselves.

"Everything is still there," announced Mark, emerging from the bathroom and walking over to the desk.

Resolutely not looking at the spot where their tree had been only hours ago, Mark scanned the desk. All but the Christmas tree seemed to be accounted for: Rob's black, leather-bound daily planner; Rob's copy of A Tale of Two Cities with the bookmark neatly tucked where he had last finished reading; Mark's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the page dog-eared to hold his place; the complimentary hotel stationery pad and pens with the hotel name written in curling script. Far from anything being taken, there even seemed to be something metal and shiny added…

"Rob!" he gasped, as he realized that it was his key laying, bold as brass, in the place of honor that had once been reserved for their Christmas tree. "Come here."

"Is something else stolen?" demanded Rob in a rush, lurching across the room to stand alongside Mark.

"No." Shaking his head, Mark pointed at his key. "My key is back, and I definitely didn't leave it under our now missing tree."

"I don't want to think about what this means." Rob's voice was shaky. "Should we go to the police and report we've been robbed?"

"We'd be laughed out of the station if we said that we wanted them to put a detective on the case of the Stolen Christmas Tree." Grimly, Mark pressed his lips together. "Anyway, it would cost more money to run an investigation than the tree is worth, and I'm not going to rob from taxpayers just because someone stole from us."

"Okay. You're right." Rob rubbed his temples. "Contacting the police over this would be as dumb as reaching rock bottom and starting to dig."

"What you suggested wasn't stupid." Mark smiled slightly. "It just would've denied us the fun of solving this mystery for ourselves, Watson."

"Hey!" Rob exclaimed indignantly. "Why do you get to be Sherlock when I'm smarter than you, and you couldn't investigate your way out of a paper bag?"

"I'm the center of our line," explained Mark, tone serious but his eyes agleam with mischief. "Everybody knows the center is the hero, and the wingers are just his sidekicks."

"I'm so going to leave you unprotected from the left in your next faceoff." Rob scowled.

"Thanks for the advanced notice." Mark steepled his fingers. "Now, let's get down to business, Watson. What are your first impressions of this case?"

"Well, the first thing that stands out to me is what was taken—the Christmas tree—and what wasn't taken—everything else, in a nutshell." Rob's brows knitted together. "The Christmas tree and the ornaments weren't particularly valuable except for sentimental reasons, so it's doubtful that the thief was interested in money. That assumption is supported by the fact that expensive stuff like our watches was left untouched."

"And the fact that only our Christmas tree was taken suggests that it was the thief's target all along," mused Mark. "That, in turn, indicates the person who broke into our room not only had a specific purpose, but also had to be very familiar with our possessions, so the most likely suspects are people we know and trust—people we've invited into our room."

"In other words, our teammates," Rob summarized briskly, his fingers beating a tattoo on the desk. "A conclusion that is only strengthened by the fact that your key was taken in the locker room. Nobody except our teammates, Herb, Coach Patrick, and Doc go in there. Herb, all his many mental health issues aside, probably wouldn't go to this much trouble to steal a Christmas tree, especially because he likely doesn't even know we have one, and neither would Doc or Coach Patrick. That leaves our teammates, who would probably think it was a hilarious prank to commit petty robbery, as the prime suspects."

"Unfortunately, that is still a long list." Mark sighed. "We need to narrow down our suspects, Robbie. We have to think of which players actually know about the tree, and then determine, of those guys, who would be most likely to steal it."

"All the boys at the Kent Tournament we hosted two nights ago saw the tree." Rob snatched a hotel pen from the holder and began scrawling names on the complimentary stationery. "That means Bob Suter, Ken Morrow, Dave Silk, and Mike Eruzione."

"We can eliminate Bob." Mark swallowed the lump of emotions in his throat that threatened to choke him. "He's been one of my best friends since we were Pee Wees. I trust him to protect me on and off the ice. I just know that he would never steal from me or betray me."

For once not cynical, Rob nodded and drew a line through Bob's name, commenting, "That's Bob out of the way, then. Let's think about Ken. Personally, I feel that Ken loves peace and quiet too much to stir up trouble by taking our Christmas tree. Unless he just got a lobotomy, I can't imagine him doing something like this."

"Neither can I," agreed Mark, and Rob cut through Ken's name with a black line. "We're on a roll now. You've known Verchota for four years. Is stealing a Christmas tree his idea of a joke?"

"Not really," Rob replied after a moment's consideration. "He may look like a wild man, but he's too smart to think committing a crime is a good way to get a laugh."

"So let's cross him out, too," said Mark, as Rob sliced through Phil's name with the pen. "How about Baker? Is he the type to confuse theft with a prank?"

"Nope." Rob shook his head and sketched a line across Bill's name as well. "His sense of humor inclines more to the verbal than the practical, because he is an intellectual, after all."

"That just leaves us with our Terrier friends, Rizzo and Silky." Mark frowned down at the list of suspects, which now contained only two names. "Well, I guess that it makes sense that a Terrier would do this, since the victims are a Gopher and a Badger."

"Rizzo definitely noticed our tree." Brown eyes glazed with memory, Rob stared at the wall. "Remember how he stopped in the doorway to fawn over it until Verchota shoved him into the room so everyone else could come in?"

"After you shoe-checked him, Rizzo did promise that his revenge would be terrible," observed Mark. "Maybe his definition of terrible revenge entails robbing our Christmas tree like the Grinch."

"I wouldn't be surprised if it did." Rob glowered. "I thought he was joking when he said that back at the grill, but, apparently, he really is a son of a—"

"Rizzo is a puppy, yes," interrupted Mark calmly, because he found hearing profane and hackneyed insults shooting from Rob's lips about as pleasant as listening to nails scrape against a chalkboard. As far as he was concerned, somebody who was as sophisticated as his roommate should have more articulate expressions of anger and aggravation. "He's also an illegitimate child, and any other cliché term of abuse you were about to hurl at him. Now that we have that satisfying venting of rage out of our spleens, perhaps we could move on…"

"You take all the fun out of life, Mark." In a distinctly undignified and sulky fashion, Rob stuck out his tongue. "Words like that are half the vocabulary of an average hockey player."

"You aren't an average hockey player," Mark reminded him, shrugging. "You can be more original than that, and, when you refuse to be, it is you who takes all the fun out of life."

"Oh, I'm feeling very original right now." Rob's eyes sparkled with the cunning promise of vengeance. "You and I are about to get very creative in our dealings with Rizzo."

Sensing trouble, Mark closed his eyes and murmured, "We're not having this conversation. I'm on a tranquil island in the Caribbean, listening to palm trees sway in the tropical breeze and hearing the gentle music of waves lapping against the beach."

"Wake up." Irritably, Rob tapped him on the shoulder. "The sooner you return from your vacation, the faster you'll be able to hear my plot."

"How tempting," remarked Mark wryly, but he opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on his roommate. "Of course, the real appeal is that the sooner I hear your plan, the faster I'll be able to start forgetting it ever existed."

"Don't be rude to your so-called friend." By way of reprimand, Rob elbowed him in the ribs. "Anyhow, I'm thinking that if Rizzo stole our tree—"

"Do we really even have proof that he did, though?" Mark asked, deciding that the impoliteness of interrupting was atoned for by preventing an injustice of a punishment prank perpetuated against a potential innocent. "I mean, when would he have gotten the time to take our tree today? He left practice after we did."

"Did he really?" Far from being allayed by this argument, Rob's suspicions seemed to have been aroused, and Mark, his forehead furrowing, could not comprehend why. "How do we know that?"

"Have your wits gone AWOL again?" Mark rolled his eyes, marveling inwardly that someone raised in the safety of a gated community could be as jaded as Rob was. "We met him and Silky on their way back from running the hill. Herb made Silky repeat the exercise because he was, as usual, too slow to satisfy Herb, and Rizzo explained it all to us. Remember?"

"Yeah, having a better long-term memory than a goldfish, I do, Magic," snapped Rob, who never appreciated having his intelligence questioned. When dealing with Rob McClanahan, it was vital to not forget for even a second that he had a sharp mind and sharper tongue. "Maybe it's your brain that needs a jumpstart, because it hasn't occurred to you that, since Rizzo is our only source for this story, he may very well have fabricated it wholesale to cover his fat ass."

"I don't want Rizzo to be a liar." Mark bit his lip. "Or a thief. I just want him to be the trustworthy, hearty leader we all depend on him to be."

"Stop looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses." Rob snorted. "Start seeing things and people objectively. Now, in the case of Rizzo, we have no reason to believe he was being honest in this instance. When we were in the locker room, nobody mentioned Herb's supposed cruel and unusual punishment of Silky, or Rizzo's heartwarming choice to stick by him through exhaustion and potential cardiac arrest. That's very suspicious, since admirable sacrifices on behalf of teammates and Herb's latest acts of tyranny are regular topics in the locker room. By itself that's not condemning, but combined with the fact that Silky seemed more distracted than tired or furious when we spoke with him about Herb's alleged punishment, we begin to accumulate enough evidence to convict. I mean, what was Silky so distracted about, and where were they if they weren't running up and down that wretched hill two more times for Herb?"

"Taking our Christmas tree." Conceding defeat, Mark pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's the answer to both questions."

"Excellent work." Rob sounded like a teacher whose slowest student had, after months of tedious explanations and examples, grasped a basic fact. "Now that you've finally been persuaded to see the obvious, perhaps you'll listen to my plan without any more dimwitted interjections. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, if Rizzo and Silky stole our tree, it is probably in their hotel room. Since we aren't going to the police about their thievery, we won't be able to get a search warrant, so we'll need to get into their room to recover our tree in another way. I think it would be very fair if you stole Rizzo's or Silky's key in the locker room tomorrow like they took yours today. After practice, I'll invite them to a round of bowling that they'll have to agree to unless they want to arouse suspicions about why they're avoiding me, and you'll make some excuse about how you can't come because you've got an important phone call to make, while really you'll be sneaking into their room to reclaim our tree."

"I shouldn't steal." Firmly, Mark shook his head, well aware that his parents had raised him to be many things, but a thief wasn't among them. "Thou shalt not steal is one of those important precepts everyone is taught as child. It's right up there with thou shalt not commit murder, and honor thy mother and thy father."

"Relax, Mark." Rob held up a placatory palm. "Moses was the first person to break all Ten Commandments at once, and God still welcomed him into heaven, so you should be safe if you only violate one at a time with great anguish."

"Moses only broke the Ten Commandments all at once because he accidentally dropped the stone tablets when he saw his fellow Israelites worshipping a golden calf as if it had delivered them from slavery in Egypt." Unconvinced and untempted, Mark shook his head again. "That's totally different from me deliberately flouting one of the fundamental rules of ethics. I hope that your moral compass eventually points you to that understanding, Mac."

"Your strict honor code would be endearing if it weren't so vexing." Rob exhaled gustily. "Listen, Magic, I'm not asking you to permanently steal Rizzo's or Silky's key. I'm just proposing that you borrow it for at most an hour to take back the Christmas tree they robbed us of. For heaven's sake, you'll have returned the key to their room by the time they get back from bowling with me. I'm not a complete sleaze-bucket, so I wouldn't ask you to do something truly reprehensible."

"I see your point." Deciding that, phrased that way, Rob's scheme didn't sound that awful and even as if it might be the sort of locker room prank Dad would deem hysterical, Mark nodded. "All right. I'll do it."

"Thank you." Rob grinned. "Maybe it won't be so boring being the Watson to your Sherlock, after all."

"What are you talking about?" Mark chuckled. "Like all heroes, Sherlock has all the fun."

"Nah." Rob snickered. "It's Watson, not Sherlock, who is married, so he is the one who gets some."

"It's so adorable that a cynic like you is still naïve enough to assume that marriage is the only way people can get some," teased Mark, patting his roommate on the shoulder.

"I find it traumatizing that someone as innocent and honorable as you seems to understand a vile concept like fornication." Rob's eyes expanded comically. "Of course, I don't suppose that you've ever engaged in it. I have too high an opinion of the female gender to believe that any of them would lower themselves to practice such sordid behavior with an ugly, arrogant jerk like you."

"Leslie says that I'm handsome and humble." Smiling, Mark thought of his beautiful and smart girlfriend back in Wisconsin. "Her opinion of me matters a bit more to me than yours does, I'm afraid."

"Oh, you cut me to the core." Rob offered an obviously feigned gasp of pain, clutching his heart as if he had received a mortal blow, and then pressed shrewdly, "You love her, don't you?"

"I'm not dumb enough to answer such a question when it's posed by a teammate as sarcastic as you." Mark arched an eyebrow. "I find it a tad insulting that you believe I'd fall into such a clear trap, actually."

"Whatever." Rob waved a dismissive hand. "You don't need to answer. The way you say her name is enough proof that you love her."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Torn between confusion and amusement, Mark shook his head.

"Say Ursula," ordered Rob.

"Ursula," a nonplussed Mark parroted.

"Say Elizabeth," Rob commanded.

"Elizabeth," repeated Mark, wondering when his roommate would get to whatever crazy point he had.

"Now." Rob smirked craftily. "Say Leslie."

"Leslie," said Mark simply.

"Can't you hear the difference?" All of Rob's teeth flashed in a triumphant beam. "When you love somebody, you say their name differently—like it's safe and sacred in your mouth."

Convinced that Rob should reserve mushy lines like that for his love poetry to his plainly tasteless sweetheart in Minnesota, Mark groaned, "Honesty, Robbie…"

"Ah, the way you speak my name warms my heart." Rob's smirk was officially too complacent to tolerate. "It's so obvious that you're thinking I'm the annoying friend who always says or does something stupid."

"Close enough." Mark laughed. "Actually, I was thinking you're the annoying friend who has the best odds of making me commit homicide."