08 - December Dread (12 page)

When I shook Mrs. Garcia’s hand, she pulled me into an embrace, whispered something sad and vague about making popcorn for Natalie and me during a slumber party, and thanked me for being a friend to her daughter. I wondered how she could remember me, but maybe she hadn’t after all. Her brain must be a blurry soup of pain and ghosts shot with bright, unmoored memories. No way could she hug all these women Natalie’s age and wonder, just for a second, why it was her daughter and not one of us lying in that coffin. My tears were flowing as freely as hers when I finally stepped away.

On my way out, I got an extra tight hug from my mom, who told me that after she was sure she couldn’t do anything more for Mrs. Garcia, she’d be spending the rest of the day playing bridge with friends. After that, I drove with Mrs. Berns to the gas station and pulled out the business card Adam had given me yesterday. I flipped the card to the back and dialed.

Agent Briggs was exactly as thrilled to hear from me as I’d expected.

“What’d you say your name is again?”

“Mira Berns.” The real Mrs. Berns, unhappy that I’d stolen half her name, somehow managed to twist my underarm skin through my jacket. I ignored the pain and told him the brief orange begonia story. “We heard the story just now, at Natalie Garcia’s wake. We thought there might be a connection between all four of them getting the same gift back then, and the killer and his candy canes and the three snowmen now.” It sounded weak, even to my ears.

“Did De Luca tell you to call? Tell him we don’t have time to chase any more ghost leads.”
Click
.

I hung up the phone and smacked my own forehead. “I don’t think he was too impressed.”

She shrugged. “It was a long shot. Better safe than sorry.”

We were standing next to one of those hot dog treadmills, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten yet today. Man, that meat smelled good. If it was, actually, meat. “It
is
a stretch between flowers and candy canes, except …” My brain started cranking. Suddenly, the entire world dropped away, and it was just me and this one huge possibility.

Mrs. Berns tipped her nose at me. “Except what?”

“Except it’s
not
such a leap between online dating then and online dating now. Think about it. If you wanted to find all the single, brunette women in an area, where would be the first place you’d look?”

“An online dating site!”

“Exactly.” My heart was racing, but it eased up a little as I followed the possibility to all its natural conclusions. “But the police must have thought of that by now. Why wouldn’t they tell all Minnesota women to pull their dating profiles?”

“I suppose they did, in a way. They’ve told women to be on guard against strange men and uncomfortable situations.” She snorted. “Shows what they know about a day in the life of a woman. We’re at the front lines of that crap. They might as well tell us to avoid doing more than our share of the housework, or having our opinions second-guessed.”

I steered her back on topic. “But if all of the victims had online dating profiles, wouldn’t the media know?”

“Not if the police wanted to keep it under wraps. It seems like a good way for them to trap the killer, if they know that’s where he’s hunting.”

I opened the gas station door and walked out, my hunger forgotten. Mrs. Berns followed closely. “You know what we should do?”

“What?”

“Create an online dating profile.” I threw myself into the front seat, waiting until Mrs. Berns was inside to continue. “Do a little fishing. We won’t be in anybody’s way, and if we find something suspicious, we can turn it over to the FBI.”

Mrs. Berns buckled up next to me, a broad smile on her face. “There’s the Mira I know and love! I knew you were in there somewhere under all that chickenshit. Now drive, Jeeves. We’ve got a murderer to catch.”

Sixteen

The Paynesville Area Library
on Washburne Avenue had one available computer. We signed in for it, planted ourselves in front of it, and called up the E-adore website. Plump, animated red hearts collided on the screen, raining a shower of tiny pink hearts upon the heads of a smiling couple straight out of central casting.

“Ugh.” I had a theory that one should never shop online for leather pants or men. I could see why other people did it. It was lonely in these parts, and if you didn’t fall in love at work or go to church, that left only bars and blind luck. There was just something about it that didn’t fit me right.

“Why haven’t I tried this yet?” Mrs. Berns shoved me out of the way to access the keyboard. “It’s a smorgasbord of single men!”

“Hold those horses, missy.” I wheeled my chair back in front of the screen and squeezed her out. “We’re making a fake profile for a reason, remember? You can build your own flytrap on your own time.”

“Party pooper.”

With Mrs. Berns watching, I first posed as a man looking for women, ages 24–44, within 30 miles of River Grove, Minnesota. Forty-seven hits popped up. One featured a photo of a lady who looked an awful lot like Tina, the woman from the wake who’d said she’d gotten only the orange begonia and lousy dates out of her online experience. In the photo, she wasn’t wearing the jeweled glasses she’d sported at the funeral, and she seemed to have better cleavage, but otherwise, she was a dead ringer. Lynne Bankowski posed a few profiles below Tina, looking less crazy-eyed than she had at the funeral. I scrolled down and flipped through a couple dozen more photos before I saw what I’d been dreading: a photo of Natalie, on a trip to the mountains somewhere, her friends’ faces blurred out so only her smile shone through. She looked young. Happy. Alive.

“That her?”

“Yeah.” I pulled my hands away from the keyboard. “I don’t feel very well. We probably shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Toughen up, buttercup. You’re looking at the reason we’re doing this.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and skimmed the rest of the photos of the women. None of the others stood out. “We should probably print these. If the other two women who discovered snowmen in their yards are on these pages, we can be pretty sure how the killer is finding his victims.” I moved my cursor over the “print” button.

“I’m on it. You start building us a profile.”

While Mrs. Berns went to the front counter to pay for printing, I searched online for a fuzzy, generic headshot of a long-haired brunette in her 30s and uploaded it. My plan was to create an imaginary profile for a River Grove woman who fit the killer’s MO. That would allow me to scope the men that Natalie likely viewed. If any of them set off our alarm bells, we could approach them via our imaginary online persona and stand them up for a date in a very public place to get a closer look.

Mrs. Berns plopped in the chair next to me, a half dozen sheets of paper in her hand. “I got the print-outs of the ladies.”

“Awesome,” I said. “What should our fake profile’s first name be?”

“Veronica.”

I raised an eyebrow but typed it in. “Okay, Veronica lives in River Grove, is 33, 5'6" and 140 pounds, has never been married, loves to travel, and is a nurse. I’m gonna say she also likes Disney movies even though she knows she’s too old, she enjoys crossword puzzles, naps, and her favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.”

“He wouldn’t be interested in her,” Mrs. Berns said, arranging the papers so all the edges lined up. “She sounds like she’s already dead.”

I felt my cheeks flush. Except for being a nurse and liking Disney movies, that profile pretty much described me. Okay, maybe I liked some Disney movies, too. “It doesn’t matter. We’re just looking for the men who come up as matches to someone with Natalie’s same physical characteristics, job, and region. I’m betting the killer, if this is how he’s tracking them, hasn’t pulled his profile down. It’d draw too much attention to a single person. Makes more sense to just let the profile wither.”

She was paging through the sheets in her hand. “Think he’d use his real picture?”

“Doubt it. He’d be caught by now if he did.” I ran a spell check of what I’d typed so far.

“You almost done?”

I nodded. “I think we’ve got enough for our profile.” I clicked on the oval that said “Go Live!” Another screen popped up. I groaned. “It costs $14.99 to join for a month.”

She rifled around her massive purse and came out with a credit card. “Do it.”

“You sure?”

“I’m going to make my own profile anyways. I can just change around this one as soon as we’re done with it.”

I plugged in the numbers. They were accepted, and I tried the “Go Live!” oval again. The computer hummed, and an orgy of hearts
capered on the screen. They popped, one by one, revealing our matches underneath.

Look!” I pointed at the screen. We had fourteen matches within 25 miles of River Grove. Only two of those matches hadn’t posted photos. Of the twelve profiles that did, one featured a familiar guinea pig-faced man.

Seventeen

“I know that guy!
I saw him selling candy at the gas station in River Grove.”

“Like a Girl Scout?”

“For a company. Like it’s his career.” I leaned into the screen. “Look here. It says his name is Sharpie and he’s a traveling salesman who is living temporarily in the River Grove area and hoping to make it permanent.”

“What kind of name is Sharpie?”

“It doesn’t say, but he claims that he’s got a good sense of humor.”

“That’s handy, with a face like that. Print it out. What about the rest?”

I skimmed through the ones with photos and saw the usual: hunters who alleged they liked to cuddle and professionals looking for a woman they could talk to, size 6 and below only. It eroded what little faith I had in humankind, but none of the male seekers set off my radar, so I delved into the two without photos. Both were men aged 39, average height and weight according to their stats. The first, David, claimed to be a blue-eyed blonde looking for a friendship. He stated that he was a professional with a good career who enjoyed motorcycle riding. The second was a guy who gave his name as Craig and wrote that his hair and eyes were both dark. He stated that he was a well-read electrician who could make any date fun “in two shakes of a sheep’s tail.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Mrs. Berns said, pointing at the screen at the very sentence I was reading.

“I dunno. Maybe he likes to keep things lively? Everything else sounds normal. His favorite book is a John Adams biography, he watches the History channel, and he says he’s a good cook who doesn’t mind doing the dishes.” I sat back. “There’s only one thing to do now.”

“Set up a date with the pig-faced man and the two faceless gents?”

“Exactly.”

We typed a generic e-mail extolling Veronica’s imaginary positive qualities, trying not to snort with laughter when we got to the part about exercising:

Hi! My name is Veronica, and I live in River Grove. I’m an administrative assistant who recently moved to the area. I’m pretty athletic. In fact, if I don’t work out at least five days a week, I go a little stir crazy! I like going out to the movies, or just a night in. I’m looking for a man who makes me laugh, someone who can show me the area. I’m leaving town soon for the holidays, and I’m hoping we could meet for a quick cup of coffee before then. Please e-mail me ASAP. Look forward to hearing from you!

Before we had a chance to hit “send,” photo-less David came online and instant messaged us.

Hi! New here?

I jumped, then glanced at Mrs. Berns. She glared at me. “It’s not rocket science,” she said. “Type ‘yes.’”

I did.

I like your photo. Want to meet for coffee tomorrow?

“Well, that was easy.” We made plans to meet at the Fatted Caf, the coffee shop in River Grove tomorrow afternoon at 1:00, which would give me time to drive over after my PI class and make it to Natalie’s funeral afterward. We had no intention of actually meeting him, of course, but we wanted to see what he looked like, what he drove, and generally feel him out. Plans made, we logged off the IM and finished our e-mail, sending one copy to Craig and one to Sharpie. We printed out Craig and David’s ads and added them to the others we’d accumulated.

“I think that’s all for now,” I said. “Mind if I do some quick research for my PI class? It’ll only take twenty minutes or so.”

“Not as long as you use that computer.” Mrs. Berns pointed to one on the other side of the carrel that had just opened up.

“Fine.” I left her to monkey around on the computer we’d been using and signed up for the recently vacated one. I rifled around my jacket pockets until I came up with the folded sheet of paper containing my PI classmates’ names and addresses. The office worker really had been generous. The addresses would cut down on my research time significantly. I began by researching “FBI watch list,” something you only want to do from a public computer with no personally identifying information involved. I discovered that the list contained over four hundred thousand names, and that I’d have more luck being invited to the White House for dinner with the President than finding out who’d landed on that list. I gave up on that line for now and logged onto the online information database I’d bought a membership to last month.