We hadn't told the kids about Konrad Beezo, Punchinello, or anything regarding the violence those men had perpetrated and the threats they'd made. Annie, Lucy, and Andy were far too young to understand any of that macabre history, too young to be burdened with it. The scariest thing they could handle at their age was a closet monster or three.

We considered that they might have heard something of the story from a playmate. This was unlikely, because our kids never played with other children out of our sight.

We had never felt we could afford to assume for certain that Konrad Beezo was dead or moldering in a booby hatch; therefore, one of us always remained with the kids when they were at play, and often one or both of my parents were there, as well. We watched. We listened.

Surely we would have heard.

Maybe Andy had seen a bad clown in a movie, on TV, in a cartoon.

Although we monitored their exposure to packaged entertainment and tried to protect them from a media that seemed hell-bent on corrupting them in a hundred different ways, we could not be certain beyond all doubt that we had not slipped up and that impressionable little Andy hadn't glimpsed an evil clown with a chainsaw.

The boy provided no insight into the inspiration for his fear. From his perspective, the situation was simple: There was a clown.

The clown was bad.

The bad clown wanted to eat him.

The bad clown hid in his closet.

If he fell asleep, the bad clown would munch on him.

"Can't you smell him?" Andy asked.

We couldn't catch a whiff.

We put a solemn sign on the inside of his closet door, warning off the cannibal clown. We presented Andy with a teddy bear named Sergeant Snuggles, his own version of Captain Fluffy. He received his own special monster-vaporizing flashlight with an easy-on switch for small uncertain hands.

In addition, we put in the alarm system, purchased small aerosol cans of pepper spray and secreted them throughout the house in places high enough to be beyond the children's reach, purchased four tasers and distributed them in similar fashion. We added second deadbolts to the front door, the back door, and the door between the kitchen and the garage.

Because Grandpa Josef had not mentioned January 12, 1998, in his predictions-the night that Beezo had attempted to kidnap Lorrie, deliver our first child himself, and abscond with the baby-but had cited only January 19, when our house had been burned down, we could only assume that he might have also failed to warn us of another bad day closely associated with the upcoming third date on his list. For at least two weeks prior, we would need to work ourselves into a state of judicious paranoia.

We had enjoyed nearly four years of peace, of normalcy. Now, as the third of the five dates approached-Monday, December 23, 2002-we felt a long shadow falling across us, a shadow out of time, with its origins in August 9, 1974. am a fool for Christmas and a cherished customer of every purveyor of seasonal tinsel and festoonery.

From the day after Thanksgiving until early January, on our roof a life-size spotlighted Santa stands with his bag of gifts at chimney side waving to passersby.

The chimney, eaves, windows, and porch posts of our house are outlined with so many strings of multicolored lights that we are no doubt visible to astronauts in orbit.

In the front yard, to one side of the walk, stands an elaborate nativity scene with the holy family, wise men, angels, camels. One ox, one donkey, two cows. One dog, five doves, nine mice.

To the other side of the walk stand elves, reindeer, snowmen, carolers.

They are all mechanical, motorized, in motion, producing a hushed symphony of ticking clockworks and humming transformers.

On our front door hangs a wreath that might be heavier than the door itself. Evergreen boughs twined with holly, decorated with pine cones, walnuts, silver bells, gold beads, baubles, bangles, spangles.

Inside, for those six weeks, I cannot tolerate an unornamented surface or a drab corner. From every door header and ceiling-mounted light fixture dangles mistletoe.

Although the eve of Christmas Eve, December 23, was supposed to be a day to dread that year, the decorations were unpacked, polished, hung, strung, and activated.

Life is too short, and Christmas comes but once a year. We were not going to allow the likes of Konrad Beezo to take the shine off our celebration.

On the evening of December 22, we intended to have Mom and Dad and Grandma to our house for dinner at nine o'clock. They would stay through the night, helping us stand watch after midnight, when the clock brought us to the third day in Grandpa Josef's list.

By seven o'clock, the table was set with Christmas china, emerald green cut-crystal goblets, gleaming silverware, and candles in glass chimneys shaped like chubby snowmen. In the center were miniature poinsettias tucked among clusters of white chrysanthemums.

At 7:20, the telephone rang. I answered it in the kitchen, where Lorrie and I were preparing dinner.

"Jimmy," said Huey Foster, "we've just got some good news about Konrad Beezo you'll want to hear."

"This isn't much in the yuletide spirit," I told the chief, "but I hope the bozo turned up dead somewhere."

"The news isn't quite that cheerful, but almost. I'm here in my office with an FBI agent name of Porter Carson, out of their Denver division.

He needs to speak with you and Lorrie as soon as possible, and I know you'll want to hear what he's got."

"Bring him around right now," I said.

"Can't bring him but I'll send him," Huey said. "Tonight's the department Christmas party. The eggnog's nonalcoholic, but as chief, I've got the authority to spike it, and then I pass out year-end bonuses. I gave Porter directions, but he won't even need 'em if he just follows the glow of your Christmas display."

When I hung up, Lorrie was frowning at me. "Beezo?"

I told her what Huey had said.

"Better hustle the kids a little farther out of the way," she suggested. "We don't want them overhearing this."

Our three elves were in the living room, sprawled on the floor with boxes of crayons and a six-foot Christmas banner that featured an extravagantly ornamented message-we love you, santa claus- which Lorrie had designed on her computer. Their assignment: Color it with care and with love so that on Christmas Eve, the good Claus would be more disposed to leave them a truckload of gifts.

We are fiendishly clever at devising tasks to keep a trio of hyperactive munchkins occupied.

Annie was almost five that Christmas, Lucy three months short of four, and Andy two and a half. Frequently, I'm proud to say, they could play together in an atmosphere of civility with a chaos-meter reading of no more than four on a scale of one to ten.

That evening they were especially calm. Annie and Lucy had made a competition of the coloring and were bent to it intensely, tongues pinched between their teeth. Having lost interest in the banner, Andy was crayoning his toenails.

"Let's move this project to your room, girls," I said, helping them gather their materials. "I've got to straighten up the living room.

Grandpa, Grandma, and Gran-gran will be here in a little while. In fact, you have to change clothes and look pretty for them."

"Boys don't look pretty," Annie patiently informed me. "Boys look handsome."

"I look pretty," Andy protested, thrusting out one of his feet and spreading his rainbow-hued toes for our appreciation.

"Daddy looks pretty, too," said Lucy.

"Thank you, Lucy Jean. Your opinions on beauty matter a lot to me, seeing as how you're going to be Miss Colorado one day."

"I'm going to be better than that," Annie announced as we moved toward the stairs. "When I grow up, I'm gonna be a bullshit artist."

They do surprise me. Perpetually.

Halted by this proclamation, I said, "Annie, wherever did you hear that?"

"Yesterday, the mailman told Gran-gran she looked foxy, and she told him, "You're a real bullshit artist, George." Then he laughed and Gran-gran pinched his cheek."

You don't want to tell them that a word is taboo. If I made that mistake, all three of them would work bullshit artist into every third sentence out of their mouths, which would make this a memorable Christmas for all the wrong reasons.

Letting it pass with the hope that they would forget about it, I resettled them with crayons in the girls' room.

I had no concern about them being upstairs while Lorrie and I were on the lower floor because for one thing the house was locked tight; for another thing, the alarm system had been set in monitor mode. If any door or window opened, the alarm would not sound, but a digitized voice on the system chip would announce, through speakers throughout the house, the exact location of the breach.

Downstairs again, I went to the foyer and watched the street through one of the tall, narrow French windows that flanked the front door.

The police station lay less than ten minutes from our house. I intended to open the door before Porter Carson could ring the bell and alert the kids that we had a visitor.

Within two minutes, a Mercury Mountaineer pulled to the curb at the end of our front walk.

The man who got out of it wore a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie, andl open topcoat. Tall and trim, he moved with purpose and shoulders-back confidence.

As he climbed the steps, the porch lights revealed that he was in his mid-forties, handsome, with dark hair combed straight back from his brow.

When he spotted me at the window, he held up one finger, as if to say Wait a sec, and withdrew a vertical-fold ID wallet from his coat. He held his FBI credentials to the glass so that I could read them and compare his face to the photo before I opened the door.

Obviously, Huey Foster had told Carson that we were security conscious, and if the agent knew Beezo's history, he must understand why paranoia was common sense.

Conditioned by Hollywood, I expected Porter Carson to speak with the clipped diction and cool detachment of a movie fed. Instead, he had a voice that I at once warmed to: friendly, all the sharp edges rounded off the words by a Georgia accent.

When I opened the door to him, the digitized voice of the alarm system announced, "Front door open."

"We have the same feature on our home alarm," he said as we shook hands. "My son, Jamie, he's fourteen and a computer whiz. Dangerous combination. He couldn't resist teachin' the monitor more vocabulary.

Suddenly it starts sayin', Front door open, watch your ass. That got him grounded awhile."

I locked the door behind him. "We've got three kids, five and younger.

They'll be teenagers together."

"Ouch."

As I hung his topcoat in the foyer closet, I said, "We're thinking about just locking them in a room and feeding them through a slot in the door until they're all twenty-one."

He drew a deep breath, savoring the air. "This house smells like the highest-rent neighborhood in Paradise."

Garlands of deodar cedar, star-pine Christmas tree, lingering fragrance of peanut brittle made just that afternoon, popcorn balls, vanilla-and cinnamon-scented candles, fresh coffee, ham baking in a bath of cherries, chocolate marmalade cake in the second oven Taking in the dazzle of tinsel and lights and our ubiquitous collection of Santa figurines, Porter Carson cocked his head to listen to "Silver Bells," sung by Bing Crosby. "You folks keep Christmas like almost nobody does anymore."

"And isn't that a shame," I said. "Come along to the kitchen. My wife's peeling some Idaho beauties for scalloped potatoes."

Actually, Lorrie had finished and was drying her hands on a poinsettia-patterned towel when I introduced her to Carson.

If the rest of the house had smelled like Paradise, the kitchen was an even higher realm, the fragrant palace of divinities.

The FBI agent appeared to be smitten with Lorrie, as all men are, and treated her with Southern courtliness. He remained standing while she poured three cups of rich Colombian blend, then held her chair for her as she sat.

I felt like a clueless primitive and reminded myself not to slurp my coffee.

Settling in his chair at the table, getting down to business, Carson said, "I don't want to raise false hopes. God forbid anythin' I say might cause you to let your guard down too soon, but I think your troubles with Kon-rad Beezo may be drawin' to an end at last."

"Don't worry," Lorrie said, "I won't believe he's dead until I see his body being fed into a crematorium and ashes coming out."

Carson grinned. "Mrs. Tock, you're my idea of a carin' mother."

As far as I knew, the murders Beezo committed hadn't been under federal jurisdiction. "What got the FBI on his case?" I wondered.

"This is great coffee, ma'am. What's that extra bit of taste in it?"

"A little vanilla."

"Perfect. Anyway, Beezo took a page from his son's book, put together a little crew, started robbin' banks not long after he torched your house."

Bank robbery is a federal crime. So is removing a stuffing-analysis tag from a mattress before selling it retail. Guess which offense gets the FBI's attention.

"Hasn't blown up one of 'em yet," Carson said, "but he doesn't mind shootin' guards and tellers and anyone else gets in his way."

"Tell me his crew isn't more clowns," Lorrie said.

"No, ma'am, it isn't. Maybe his son recruited all the thievin' clowns there are. One of his crew was a guy named Emory Ornwall, been in Leavenworth for bank robbery. The other two were roustabouts."

"I've heard the term," I said, "but I'm not sure I know what it means."

"Roustabouts are the guys who put up the circus tents and pull 'em down, plus they take care of the equipment, the generators, that kind of stuff."

"How many banks have they hit?" Lorrie wondered. "Are they good at it?"

"Yes, ma'am, they were. Seven in 1998, four in '99. Then they hit big with two armored-car heists, August and September "99."

"Nothing in the last three years?"

"The thing is, the second of those armored cars was such a rich score- six million cash, two million in bearer bonds-Beezo decided he could retire, especially if he and Ornwall killed the roustabouts and didn't split with 'em, which is what they did."

"Hard to imagine guys who knew Konrad Beezo would turn their backs on him," I said.

"Maybe they didn't. Both roustabouts were shot point-blank in the face with such high-caliber rounds their heads were hollowed out like Halloween pumpkins."

Carson smiled, then realized that what was a simple fact to an FBI agent might be excess information to us.

"Sorry, ma'am."

"So you've been after Beezo all this time?" Lorrie asked.

"We nailed Ornwall in March 2000. He was livin' in Miami under the name John Dillinger."