08 - December Dread (21 page)

“Cut yourself?”

She rubbed her left hand over her right without taking her eyes from mine. “Scratched myself on a nail. I was trying to help my mom put up Christmas decorations. Better late than never, right?” She finally broke eye contact and glanced back at the bin. “That’s why I’m here. In the hardware store. To get more nails.” She sounded suddenly rueful.

I was having a hard time keeping up with her emotional switches. The rolling thunder of an overloaded cart on concrete floors approached us. We both turned to see Mrs. Berns approaching.

“If it isn’t the nurse with comfortable shoes! So, what’d the police want with you?”

Lynne glanced from me to Mrs. Berns, and back again. “About what you’d expect. I was in River Grove when Natalie was murdered, then I’m in Orelock when Samantha is killed. I went to school with her, by the way. She graduated two years ahead of me. We weren’t friends but I liked her.” She paused for a quick breath. “I didn’t get up here until after she was killed, so they had to let me go. I was covering a late shift for a colleague. You two still haven’t said what you’re doing here.”

I nodded sagely as if she had said something very wise instead of asked a question. “Well, it was nice running into you. I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Mrs. Berns and I have an appointment to keep, so we’ll be going now.”

I glanced back only once as Mrs. Berns and I walked away. Lynne was standing in the aisle, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. The only light that came from her shone out of her eyes, which glittered as she watched us walk away. A tiny smile sat like a judge upon her lips.

Thirty

The only room available
at the Voyageur Inn on a holiday weekend was a space that was more closet than suite. It barely had room for a nightstand, a TV, and a double bed. It was midnight, and an inky, oppressive dark outside like it only gets in the north, in the winter. Mrs. Berns was currently sprawled across 90 percent of the lumpy mattress, snoring like a Great Dane. Given how little sleep I’d had in the past three days, I should be passed out from exhaustion next to her. Instead, I balanced myself on the lip of the bed and watched the ghost parade of memories floating between me and the curtained window.

The first was my dad, of course, but I’d in many ways grown up ignoring his ghost. Jeff came second. We’d been lovers, briefly, in May. He’d arrived in Battle Lake promising excitement and stability in equal parts. He’d ended up with a bullet in his head, a victim of past jealousies and twisted perceptions. I was the one who’d found his corpse on the floor of the library, a book resting over him as if he’d fallen asleep reading. That murder seemed to ignite others, until I had a string of a dozen dancing ghosts, crying out, catching my eye, murmuring admonitions. I wasn’t the reason they were dead, I couldn’t be. It was simply bad luck that they’d died near me.

The ghosts kept whispering, though, and the loudest were the victims of the Candy Cane Killer, those women whose senseless deaths had gone unsolved. They were young, they were brunette, they looked like me. They woke up one morning, maybe worried about what outfit to wear to a job interview or whether they were gaining a few pounds, or if they should get another cat or if their mom was going to survive her cancer scare. These thoughts, great and small, would swirl in their heads as they stepped out to conquer another day, doing their very best and maybe falling short, maybe promising themselves that they’d try even harder the next day. And they’d return home, and finally relax and remove the smiling masks they’d been forced to wear to make it through the day. Then, at last, at home and comfortable in their own skin, they could dream their dreams in full glorious color, with no one around to judge.

But he was waiting.

With a knife.

Had the victims fought? They must have, at least one of them. Or maybe tachypsychia had suffocated each of them, dropping down like a lead apron, and they’d been frozen to the ground, watching their death approach, blood draining from them before he even raised a hand.

Natalie, who as a 6th grader had legs halfway to her neck and buck teeth that turned her smile into an inside joke that welcomed everyone, my very best friend for one year, the girl who assured me at age 11 that she was going to grow up and go to college to be a meteorologist and find her husband but only if I also went with. That girl. That sweet child all grown up had spent her last seconds on this earth in blind terror, a killer in her home, a senseless, inevitable end.

Had she yelled? Had she wished for ten more minutes of life so she could make sure everyone she cared about knew just how much she loved them? Had she begged? If only I could see through her eyes in those last moments, share her terror to identify her killer.

I didn’t sleep that night, I don’t think. The ghosts of the dead were a constant presence, murmuring and crying.

Thirty-one

Sunday, December 23

Nathan M. had e-mailed
us back at exactly 12:23 AM our time, according to the inbox of our E-adore account. He wrote that he was currently in Mexico with friends on a two-week vacation and would be returning after New Year’s. He said he’d be thrilled to meet with us then and had included a photo of himself on a beautiful white beach wearing a sombrero. It was enough to discount him as a suspect.

We’d also heard from Phillip, who instant messaged while we were online at the coffee shop, Mrs. Berns bright and shiny and me sucking down cup after cup of black coffee. I perked up when he wrote that he’d be thrilled to meet Anne here for breakfast. We hadn’t heard a peep from Craig/Greg. I ceded the computer to Mrs. Berns while I started in on the
New York Times
Sunday crossword puzzle, which, despite rumors, is not nearly as difficult as the Saturday puzzle. I’d positioned my chair so I was alongside Mrs. Berns but was facing out, toward the door. I’d glance up every time someone arrived.

I penciled in “ort” for a three-lettered “piece of food” and shot my eyes toward the opening door. Through the large front windows of the coffee shop, I’d observed an El Camino pull up. The driver parked between two pick-up trucks and blocked the view of trees in the park across the street. This would be my first chance to see up close the man who had emerged from the car. “Remind me again what Phillip is supposed to look like.”

Mrs. Berns minimized the LOLcats screen and peered toward the E-adore page that had been hiding behind it. “A huggable bear, not too tall and not too short, carrying a few extra pounds, 43. Dark hair and eyes. Divorced.”

“Does it say anything about looking like he’d know karate when he’s drunk?”

Mrs. Berns swiveled on her seat and pulled her reading glasses down to the tip of her nose. “Wow.”

The guy who’d just walked in was indeed about 43 years old, average height, dark-haired and eyed, and sporting a few extra pounds. In addition, he was wearing worn cowboy boots, acid-washed jeans with a bandana tied around his upper thigh, and a Whitesnake T-shirt underneath his open Carhartt jacket. If I was not mistaken, a clunky pair of Ray-Bans was perched on his buzz-cut head.

“The 1987 train has
not
left his station.”

“I’m getting his number.” Mrs. Berns was halfway out of her seat.

I tugged her back into place and forced her to join me in turning toward the computer before we drew Phillip’s attention. “We had a deal. No fraternizing with the suspects.” I tucked a loose string of hair up under my cap. From behind, it’d be difficult to guess my gender.

“Pshaw. He’s no suspect. Look at him!” She threw an admiring glance over her shoulder. “He stands out like a sore thumb. No way would he go unnoticed.”

“You can roll in him like catnip after the killer is caught.” She was right that he didn’t blend well, and the greetings he received from those already seated at tables suggested he was also a local, two facts that together made it unlikely he was our killer. There was always the possibility that he was an over-the-road trucker or had some other travelling job, since his online ad had left that blank, but I had no idea how to find that out without talking to him. The best we could do was to print out his ad along with the rest we’d collected in Orelock and hand them over to the police.

“I think we’ve done our best here, and I have to free some of this coffee. Will you print out all the profiles, and then we can head back to Paynesville?”

Mrs. Berns nodded.

The bathrooms were down a long hallway halfway between the front door and the computers that Mrs. Berns and I had camped out at. Both the men’s and the women’s were single stall rooms, and the women’s was locked. I leaned against the wall, and closed my eyes for just a moment. Even with all the coffee in my system, I could just about drift off standing up.

“Holding up the wall?”

I jumped, banging my skull on the knotty pine knickknack shelf overhead. I turned, rubbing my head. Phillip was standing behind me, also leaning against the wall. His relaxed, over-familiar posture made my skin crawl. “I think the men’s room is open,” I said.

He smiled. From a distance, it would appear a harmless grin. Up close, I could see the swollen gums and excessively pointed eye teeth. For some reason, I thought of crystal meth. “You don’t want company?” he asked.

“I’m waiting for the bathroom.”

“You’re a feisty one.” He reached out toward my face. Horrified, I swatted his hand away. Behind him, laughter bubbled out of the main café. Those people felt very far away.

“Relax. You have some crumbs on your chin.” He smiled again, his eyes dancing.

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I spat. I couldn’t tell if I was over- or under-reacting. I pushed past him, to the warmth and normalcy of the coffee shop. “Come on,” I said to Mrs. Berns.

She appeared ready to argue, but then she saw my face. She strode to the front counter to pay the computer’s by-the-hour usage fee while I erased its history. I sensed rather than saw Phillip returning to the main room, but I refused to look at him until he’d taken his seat. When Mrs. Berns and I walked out, he was deep in conversation with a couple near the front windows and gave us only a passing glance. I followed Mrs. Berns outside, so busy trying to get my head on straight that I didn’t notice Agent Briggs until my face was smushed into his chest.

Thirty-two

“I’m sorry!”

He glared at me. The day was gray and frozen, much like his expression, and the air so cold that the inside of my nostrils flash-froze. Between gritted teeth, he said, “Mira James. I thought I’d run into you, as we seem to be stopping at all the same places lately. You visited the Running household and got the names of the other women who received wreaths.” It was not a question.

Over his shoulder, I spotted Mrs. Berns scurrying toward my car. When she reached it, she dropped to the ground and army crawled to the passenger side. “I’m a reporter, Agent Briggs,” I said.

He reached into an inner jacket pocket and pulled out a BlackBerry. He removed a leather glove with his teeth and punched a few keys. “You are a librarian. You do freelance work for a Podunk newspaper consisting mostly of writing a food column featuring inedible recipes.”

I tried to peer at the screen. “It doesn’t say that.”

“Let me save us both time. This isn’t cute, this isn’t a game, and you’re not helping anyone. In this particular episode, the dead bodies stay dead. Get it?”

My cheeks burned. Behind me, the coffee shop door opened. The couple leaving were laughing, but stopped immediately when they stepped outside. They must have sensed the mood of our exchange. Was Phillip watching?

Briggs leaned in closer, so close that I could see the ice crystals forming on his mustache below his nostrils. “If you don’t stay out of my way, I will have you arrested. If I see or hear from you again, ever, I will have you arrested. I’ll make up the charges if I have to, and no one will question it. I cannot make my feelings on this matter any clearer.” He continued to pierce me with his eyes and then, abruptly, broke contact and entered the coffee shop.

My eyes began to tear. I told myself it was the cold and hurried across the street, head down. I unlocked the car and slid in, and Mrs. Berns immediately followed, staying below the window line.

“What the Sam Hill was that about?”

My hands were shaking. “He’s not real happy that I was at Cindy Running’s house yesterday.”

“Just you, right? He doesn’t know about me.”

“He didn’t mention you.”

“Thank god. He looked mad enough to kill. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure he’ll get over it.” She patted me absent-mindedly on the knee. “What happened to you in the bathroom, by the way? Bad deposit?”

“I didn’t even make it into the bathroom. Phillip met me in the hall and laid a whole pile of creepy vibes on me. He actually tried to touch my face.”

“Ew. I take back anything positive I said about him. He feel like a killer?”

“I don’t know. I’m so tired that I’m not sure which way is up.”

She pointed at the street. “I can tell you that way is south, and you better get driving. It’s two hours to Paynesville, and you have to make it to afternoon Mass.”