08 - December Dread (13 page)

Once in, I ran the names of my classmates. The search only confirmed what I already knew. Gene’s past addresses were all army bases. Leo was a naturalized citizen originally from Albania. No documents told me that Edgar was cheating on his wife, but a recent sale of a chunk of land up north suggested something was shifting for him. I was reluctant to look into Kent’s information. He really seemed like a decent guy. I pushed through my squeamishness and was happy to see that except for missing a recent mortgage payment, he was squeaky clean. The same couldn’t be said for Roger, who’d earned four DUIs in the past three years. I guess he was the drinking problem, which meant that I either was on the FBI watchlist or had a wooden leg.

Shit.

I backpedaled and tried to rationalize my way out of this. More than one person in class could have a drinking problem, right? Mr. Denny might have been trying to trick us with his assignment. Maybe one student owned three of the secrets, and two of us had none. Grasping at straws, I shut down my computer and strode over to Mrs. Berns. She closed out her screen as soon as she saw me coming.

“You’re not looking at porn in a library, are you?”

“Naw, they wouldn’t let me in. Those WWE sites are just as good, anyhow.”

I let that slide and, given where her head was at the moment, asked a dangerous question. “If you had six men and had to figure out which one of them had a wooden leg, how would you do it?”

“Hmm.” She squinted at the ceiling as if giving the matter serious thought. “I’d probably release a whole pack of squirrels in the room to see whose leg they crawled up first.”

And … I got exactly what I deserved. “You hungry?”

“I thought you’d never ask. We just have time for a bite before self-defense class.”

A thought struck me on the way out of the library. “I’m going to call Mom and see if she wants to meet us. She’s playing bridge with Luisa and some friends.” I went back in and requested a phone book from the librarian and permission to use her phone. Luisa picked up on the third ring. “Hi, it’s Mira. Can I talk to my mom?”

“Hello, dear. She’s not here, I’m afraid.”

“Hmm. Don’t you have bridge scheduled for today?”

“Heavens, no. Wednesday afternoons we have Ladies Auxiliary. Bridge is on Thursdays. Besides, everyone’s so shook up with poor Natalie’s murder that we canceled for this week.”

I held the phone stupidly to my ear. It wasn’t possible my mom had lied to me. Had she forgotten which afternoon she played cards? “So you haven’t seen her at all today?”

“No. Is something wrong?”

“Not really. We must have had our signals crossed is all. Sorry to bother you.” I hung up and tried my mom’s home number. No answer.

Mrs. Berns was leaning against the library counter, waiting impatiently. “You look like someone pickled your face. What’s wrong?”

“My mom. She’s not playing bridge like she said she’d be, and she’s not at home.”

“Oh no! And she’s been shrunk by a toddler gun, and now needs to be babysat and spoonfed?”

“Point taken. I’m just saying that it’s not like her to be so secretive.”

“Parents. You can’t watch them all the time. You just have to trust that you raised them right.” She cackled.

I rolled my eyes, but not too hard because she’d be buying dinner. After a modest meal of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup at the Wishin’ Well Café, Mrs. Berns and I traveled the 10 miles to our self-defense class, where we learned how to take down an assailant attacking from behind or the front. Of course, we’d need some warning that’s what he was doing, like, “I’m about to grab you in a bear hug from behind,” but I was confident we could take it from there: deep breath and elbows out, then drop to the ground, kicking for the knees and neuticles. Frontal attacks required a combination of the wrist releases, sweeping, and focused pressure on the attacker’s breaking points. I wasn’t sure how well it all would work under pressure, but I liked the confidence it was giving me. The class culminated in us learning how to make a fist. It seemed like a simple enough exercise: keep your thumb out, connect with your knuckles, punch from the shoulder. Turns out many of us held back, though, or twisted our wrists at the last minute. Master Andrea would have none of it. She made us punch the bags again and again, until our knuckles were bruised and raw and our shoulders aching.

“Only punch when you mean it,” she said as we left for the night, “and don’t stop your momentum when you hit your target. Punch right through them.”

I was certain that Mom would be home when we returned, but the large bay windows on the front of the house were dark, and the garage was still empty. I was getting worried, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Mrs. Berns looked as tired as I felt. I tended to Tiger Pop and Luna while she got herself ready for bed.

I popped my head into the spare bedroom. It was a cozy setup with an air mattress in the center of the room, covered in soft blankets. Mrs. Berns was wearing footie pajamas.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“Everything except for dark,” she said. “I’m beat.”

“Me too.” Problem was, I couldn’t hit the hay until my mom was home.

“That was a hint, and not a subtle one. Turn the damn light off.”

“Oh, sorry!” I left her alone and washed my face, brushed my teeth, and lay across the couch, welcoming Tiger Pop into my lap. I had just decided on a
Cheers
rerun to distract me when the phone rang. “Mom?”

A second of silence met my ear, followed by the sexiest voice this side of the equator. “Hey, Mira. How’re you doing?”

“Johnny!” I sat up on the couch, blood racing to my extremities, a goofy smile on my face. My worries for my mom were temporarily forgotten. “How are you? How’s Texas?”

He chuckled at my enthusiasm. “Great. Mom is having the time of her life, and I’m learning some Southern gardening tips. I miss you.”

My heart flooded with heat. “I miss you, too.”

“I got your message.”

“Excuse me?” The excitement at hearing his voice was replaced by confusion. “What message?”

He coughed discreetly. “The night before last. You called around 10:30 and left a message on my home machine.”

Hell. On. Fire. I’d forgotten about drunk dialing him! What had I said? It was fuzzy, but I recalled something about saying I wanted him and us needing to consummate our relationship. Had I even sang him a bit of “Feels Like the First Time?”

He was breathing oddly on the other end of the line. I realized I needed to say something. “Oh, that message. Um.” His breath picked up, and I thought maybe he was nervous, or angry. Then I realized he was trying to cover up deep chuckling. “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” he said, laughing. “I haven’t had a booty call in years. I’m flattered.”

“I think I might have had too much to drink.”

“I figured.” His voice grew serious. “Are you staying safe? We’ve been watching the news.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t want to tell him that I knew one of the women who’d been killed. He’d just want to comfort and protect me, and he wouldn’t be able to do either from across the country. “Mrs. Berns is here, and we’re enrolled in a self-defense class. I’m taking that PI course, too, so I’m learning all sorts of information on being safe and aware. Don’t worry.”

“Can’t help it.”

“Johnny, I—”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.” I did love him. He loved me. The phone wasn’t the place to forge that territory is all. “I need to go. My mom is out late, and she might call. I’d like the line to be free.”

“All right.” I could hear the disappointment in his voice. “Mom and I are flying back in six days. I’ll see you then?”

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.” I meant it. We hung up, and I tried to get back into Sam and Diane’s playful banter but couldn’t. Where was my mom?

I moved to the secondhand laptop computer—a gift from her church group—that she kept in her kitchen to look up recipes. I intended to follow up on the profile Mrs. Berns and I had created. I logged onto E-adore. I had one message:

I’d love to meet tomorrow, but I don’t drink coffee. How about I take you out to an early dinner at Tammy’s Tavern on Highway 23? Sharpie Trevino

Eighteen

Thursday, December 20

It was a little
after midnight when Mom finally arrived home, claiming she was exhausted but with a mysterious smile on her face. She said she’d been playing bridge with a new group of friends and that they were a little wilder than her regular group. These ladies didn’t have Auxiliary on Wednesdays, for one, and they didn’t mind a little nip every now and again. After making sure she hadn’t been drinking and driving (“For gosh sakes, I just had a sip!”) and admonishing her to leave a phone number where she could be reached in the future, I stumbled off to bed, too tired to stay upset.

I was puffy-eyed and cranky for the fourth day of PI class. Kent tossed me a long look when I came in but didn’t say anything. I settled into my seat and watched the rest of the students move around the room, arranging their jackets on the back of the chairs, going to the front to speak with Mr. Denny, settling in. No one appeared to be sporting a wooden leg, which made me unreasonably crabbier.

Mr. Denny focused on situation assessment, including personal safety, pre-surveillance research, and surveillance tactics. The personal safety information was basic and not nearly as effective as what I was learning in my self-defense classes, but I was fascinated by what he called tachypsychia. He explained that it was a human response to extreme stress which resulted in tunnel vision and a sense that time is either slowing down or speeding up, depending on your own personal make-up. Either way, it can screw you if you’re fighting for your life. The best way to stay in the moment and save yourself, according to Mr. Denny, was to build your muscle memory of basic self-defense moves and to practice combat breathing. The latter, when explained, sounded just like deep breathing to me, but I wasn’t the expert. I hoped I wouldn’t need to use the information in any case.

With 30 minutes left in class, he ended his lecture by asking for questions. There were none. He nodded his head as if expecting this, then walked around to the front of his desk and leaned against it, arms crossed. “In that case, who wants to learn about serial killers?”

I sat up in my chair. He had our complete attention.

“When I worked homicide in Minneapolis, I had the displeasure of being on the FBI task force assigned to catch the Weepy-Voiced Killer. Anyone remember him?”

Both Kent and Leo nodded. “It was the ’80s, right? The guy called after each murder to confess anonymously,” Leo said. “Sounded like he was crying each time.”

“Correct.” Mr. Denny glanced out the window into the steely winter morning. “Most serial killers possess an innate ability to keep their crimes a secret. Then there’s the outliers, the ones who feel the need to confess. There’s the Zodiac Killer, the Lipstick Killer, the Happy Face Killer. Some, like the Lipstick Killer and the Weepy-Voiced Killer, beg the police to catch them. Others, like the Zodiac and Happy Face Killers, communicate to gloat. Our Candy Cane Killer has not made contact with the outside world about his killings, but he does express many of the other standard traits of killers. Take out a pen and paper.”

Mr. Denny gave us an overview of the gruesome world of serial killing in the 25 minutes remaining. According to him, most serial killers murder for psychological gratification. They’re most often males in their late 20s or early 30s and from a working class or lower middle-class background. Frequently, they were victims of abuse as children. Some, but not all, of them exhibit psychopathy or sociopathy, both of which are usually demonstrated as a lack of empathy or remorse, and selfishness. Psychopaths are methodical, often successful, and can blend into society, working normal jobs and, in many cases, maintaining a normal home life including a wife and kids. Sociopaths, on the other hand, are usually more reckless and have difficulty forming relationships. “Because psychopaths have taught themselves to wear a mask of sanity,” Mr. Denny said, “they are the most difficult to catch. They blend in with society and can be considered quite charming.”

I shivered. “The Candy Cane Killer only murders in the winter. He’s a psychopath?”

“Most likely. None of his victims have shown signs of sexual abuse, so we know he isn’t a hedonistic serial killer or a power serial killer. That leaves two other kinds: visionary, those who kill because they hear voices telling them to, or mission-oriented, the killer who thinks he’s making the world better through his actions.” My head was swirling with information. None of it helped to pinpoint the killer, but it did result in me updating the motivations for the killings, which could come in handy in the online dating research Mrs. Berns and I had undertaken. By the time I stepped out of the classroom, I had shaken off my lack-of-sleep funk, both scared and excited by the thought of today’s mission: observe David, potential serial killer, from a safe distance. I picked up Mrs. Berns on my way to the Fatted Caf in River Grove.

The twenty-minute drive northwest of my mom’s took us past snow-drifted fields and the occasional wind-seared tree. This was the part of the state where you could watch your dog run away for three days, according to the joke. After a bit of small talk, including Mrs. Berns telling me that my mom was teaching her how to crochet and she liked it (officially making Paynesville the most boring town on the planet), she got to the guts of the day. “What’s the plan?”