Gingerbread Man (4 page)

"Holly?" he asked, one hand inching toward
the gun at his side.

"Whoa, wait a minute, now ..." O'Mally backed
away from her, holding both his hands up to about shoulder height
and looking from Chief Mallory to her and back again. "I'm a cop,
okay? For a town with no crime in it, the residents are sure as
hell nervous."

"It's okay, Chief," Holly said. "This is
Detective O'Mally, down from Syracuse. He's been waiting to see
you, and irritating me." She shook her head in disgust. "Sorry
about the coffee."

"Honey, I can wait five minutes for my
coffee." The chief relaxed, and walked forward, extending a hand.
"Sorry about the reaction, Detective. I'm not used to seeing Holly
flustered."

"I was not flustered," Holly called as she
headed into her office. "Just distracted!" She returned with a roll
of paper towels, and proceeded to clean up the coffee cart.

The two men shook hands and the chief said,
"We can talk in my office. Holly, will you bring us back some
coffee when it's ready?"

She nodded, smiling easily at the chief, then
gritted her teeth and held the smile in place with effort as she
asked, "How do you like it, O'Mally?'

He pierced her eyes with his. He just said,
"Black." And for some reason the word sent a chill right up her
spine.

There was something dark living inside that
man. It had peeked out at her just now. Holly recognized it at
once, because she had seen it many times before.

In the mirror.

DILMUN WAS ONE strange little town, nestled
at the southern tip of the Finger Lake named Cayuga. Part of it was
quaint to the point of "tacky tourist trap" status, and seemed
designed to fool you into thinking you were on the New England
coast. Cross a street and you found yourself in a typical small
town that could have been Mayberry. Walk the other way and you
might think you'd been dropped into the middle of a scene from
The Last of the Mohicans,
with the wild-looking forests and
that dark-water lake. Vince had rented a cabin along its shore for
a remarkably reasonable price. He'd found lodgings easily, with no
more than a couple of phone calls. He figured this late in the
fall, with the water too cold for swimming, and with the leaves
past their peak and rapidly vacating their gnarly branches, he
wasn't facing much competition for the space.

The redhead was almost as contradictory as
the town. Cute as hell, though certainly no raging beauty. She was
small, slight, with a pageboy cut and bright green eyes. She had
secrets, that redhead. She'd been shaken when he'd said where he
was from. A blind man could have seen it. Maybe she knew something
about his case.

Or maybe he was just so damned eager to find
some answers out here that he was seeing things that weren't there.
He'd gone back to his apartment in Syracuse only long enough to
pack what he needed and make a few hasty arrangements. He'd placed
a quick call to the chief, and another to Jerry saying he had
decided to take that time off—that he was going to the country for
some R and R. He couldn't very well say where he had really gone,
much less why. Hell, he was out here on a whim. A hunch. A
children's book at a crime scene, which could have been left there
by anyone. School kids hanging out where they shouldn't. Vagrants.
The former residents of the condemned house. A freaking pack rat
could have dragged it in, for all he knew.

He was reaching. He had no plan, no outline,
no standard operating procedure. All he had was his gut. And his
gut was still so knotted up over what he'd seen inside that
dilapidated house that he wasn't even sure he could trust it
anymore. He was staggering under the weight of his own broken
promise and the knowledge that he'd missed the book the first time
he'd been inside that old house. It did little good to rationalize
that it had been out of sight. He knew the weight of his conscience
wouldn't ease. Not until he found the monster who had killed those
kids, and made him pay.

And he wondered if the weight would ease,
even then.

The Dilmun police chief leaned back in a
chair that must have had to strain to hold him. He was a big man.
Not fat. Just big. "So what brings you to Dilmun, Detective
O'Mally?"

"Research on a case. Technically I'm off
duty, but you know how that goes. You wear a badge, you're always
on."

"You got that right." The chief nodded toward
a chair, and Vince sat down knowing he had a foot in the door.
Reminding the man of the vocation they held in common ought to go a
long way.

"Actually, the chances of there being any
connection between the suspect I'm looking for and this town are
slim to none."

"Probably," Mallory said, smiling.
Believing.

"Still, I thought as long as I was here,
enjoying some down time, I may as well check it out."

"Makes perfect sense to me."

Mallory seemed totally relaxed and not the
least bit suspicious. He leaned back even farther, crossing his
arms behind his head, and thumping his boots onto the desktop. "So
who is it you're looking for?"

"Don't know. What I
do
know, is that
he was in possession of a book from the Dilmun Public Library. A
long overdue book, by the looks of things."

Chief Mallory raised a brow. "Is that what
he's wanted for, son? Delinquent library fines?"

"Nah, but it's almost as trivial." He would
keep it light. At the first mention of child murders, he figured
he'd be screwed. The entire town would clam up in panic, and every
rat in it would scurry to his hole. The sheriff would probably run
Vince out on a rail. So he wouldn't mention it. He had his cover
story ready. He'd had time to think about it on the drive down
here. "This guy stole a car, went joyriding, and wrecked it. If the
heap hadn't belonged to a judge's son, I wouldn't even be bothering
with this." He lied as smoothly as a politician, he thought. And
yet something flickered in the chief's eyes. Was that a hint of
suspicion behind the friendly smile? Had there been the slightest
narrowing of those worry-free eyes? No. Not now, at least. If there
had been such a flash, it was gone fast. "I tried to talk to Ms.
Baker, over at the library, last night but she wasn't too inclined
to help me out. And it's not as if I have a warrant or anything, so
I didn't push. Like I said, I just figured as long as I was in town
..." He left the words hanging in the air.

The chief's feet came down with a thump and
he sat up in his chair. "Local folks around Dilmun are a little bit
wary of strangers. Oh, they don't mind the tourists much—but they
don't mix with 'em, either."

"I see."

'Tell you what. You give me the title of that
overdue library book, and I'll get the information for you—that is,
if the library even has a record of the book being missing." He
reached for a pen, held it poised and sent Vince a questioning
look.

"It was a children's book.
The Gingerbread
Man. "

The chief blinked. "You're joking."

"Nope." Vince shrugged. "I told you it was a
long-shot."

He looked at Vince for a long moment, then
his face split in a huge grin. His hands slapped the desk. Gusts of
laughter burst from him, and Vince wasn't sure, but he thought the
man's eyes began to water. "That must be one badass car thief," he
gasped, between bouts of hilarity, "with readin' material like
that!"

Vince smiled, too, shaking his head as if he
found it all just as funny. "Well, we found the book in the
vehicle, and it didn't belong to the owner. So we figured ..."
Vince lifted his hands expressively.

The chief got his laughter under control,
wiped at his eyes, drew a steadying breath.

"I don't plan to worry too much one way or
the other," Vince told him. "I'm gonna laze around the cabin and
look out at the lake, and anything more strenuous than that will
have to wait till my vacation time is used up."

Grinning broadly, the chief nodded. "I hear
that. So you rented one of Marty Cantrell's cabins, did you?"

"Sure did. It's gorgeous out there."

"Fishing's not bad, either."

"No?"

The door opened and the redhead walked in
with the pot of coffee. She reached up to the shelf behind the door
to take down two real coffee mugs—no foam cups for the chief of
police around here—and, setting them on the desk, began to pour.
"Must be something pretty funny going on in here," she said as she
filled the mugs. Her gaze slid over Vince's face, seemed to catch
on his eyes before she managed to jerk it free.

"Detective O'Mally is looking for someone
with an overdue library book," the chief said, laughter still in
his voice.

She lifted her brows. "Really?" She sent him
a glance that was almost teasing. He found he liked it on her far
better than the irritated expression that was all he'd managed to
induce in her earlier. "They must think very highly of you at
S.P.D. to send you out here on such a delicate case."

He gave her a smirk. She only smirked
back.

"You haven't heard the best part yet," the
chief went on. "This must be one hardened criminal he's after. The
missing book—it's
The Gingerbread Man."

Vince saw something change in her face. Like
the light in her eyes just blinked out, or some kind of shade came
crashing down to block it out. Her cheeks paled.

" 'Run, run, run, as fast as you can. You
can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man,' " Chief Mallory
chanted.

The redhead dropped the coffee pot. It
shattered, and hot black liquid splashed onto the legs of her
jeans. She stood there, staring down at the mess as if she didn't
quite know what it was.

Vince and the chief were on their feet
instantly, the chief coming around the desk to grip the woman's
shoulders. "Damn, Holly, you could've scalded yourself!" He pushed
her backward a couple of steps, out of the mess. "You okay?
Hmm?"

Pounding feet brought two other men to the
open door. The officers must have arrived since Vince had been in
the chief's office. One was tall and blond, the other stockier,
dark. Both wore uniforms and shields.

"What happened?"

"You all right, Holly?"

She looked up at them and nodded, but she
still seemed rather dazed. "I... don't know. I guess my hand
slipped."

The frowns those two men sent to one another
and then to the chief said they flat out didn't believe that.

The redhead gave a shrug that pretended to be
casual, and pushed past them to head to the restroom beyond the
door. When she came back, she was using a mop's handle to push a
rolling pail along, and she looked as if nothing unusual had
happened.

"Okay, clear out, boys. Let me get this mess
cleaned up."

The two officers backed out of the way, and
Holly mopped up the spilled coffee and pushed all the broken pieces
of the pot into a pile. "Too bad about my timing," she said. "I
didn't even get a cup yet."

"I'm sorry," Vince said, watching her more
closely than before. Because now he'd stopped doubting his
twisted-up gut. She had just confirmed his hunch. She knew
something.

"Don't be silly. You were nowhere near me."
She pulled a whisk broom and a dustpan from the basket attached
behind the mop pail, and briskly swept up the traces of the
accident, dumping them neatly into the chief's wastebasket.

"I got the feeling it was something I said,"
Vince said, watching her face.

She brushed off her hands, "You weren't the
one speaking."

It was not, he realized, any kind of an
answer.

"Maybe it's just that I haven't had my
coffee," she added with another carefully casual shrug, and she
backed out of the room, pulling the mop, pail, broom, and dustpan
with her into the hall, and then reached back to close the
door.

Vince stared at the door for a long time
after she closed it. "She's a jumpy little thing, isn't she?" he
asked.

"No, as a matter of fact, Holly is the
steadiest, calmest person who's ever worked for me," Chief Mallory
admitted, and there was real concern in his tone.

Vince turned slowly toward the chief. "Was it
me, do you think?"

The chief's worry lines didn't ease much with
his smile. "Nah. She must just be having an off day. It happens to
all of us once in a while... I suppose."

He frowned at the door in a way that told
Vince it
didn't
—at least not to Holly Newman. It told him
something else, too. Holly was a fragile sort of woman. Or at least
that was how the men in this office perceived her. Weak and
fragile.

"I'll... uh... I'll check in with her mother,
all the same. Just to make sure nothing's going on."

It was an odd thing to hear a police chief
say. A personal thing. It crossed Vince's mind that there were more
differences between Dilmun and Syracuse than the 60 miles on routes
81 and 13.

A
lot
more.

***

CHIEF MALLORY WAITED until he’d watched the
stranger go. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Maddie Baker
over at the library. She answered crisply, but her tone softened
when he said, "Maddie, hon? I need a favor."

He could almost see her smiling at him,
perfect false teeth looking a size too big for her mouth. Maddie
could seem as mean as tar to outsiders. Only the locals knew what a
sweetheart she was. "What can I do for you, Chief?"

"There was a fella over there askin' about an
overdue library book last night, as I understand it."

"Why, yes. Yes, there was. I
told
him
any records we might have dating back that far would be in the
basement, but he just wouldn't give up. I didn't like him. He was
pushy, that fellow."

"Back how far, Maddie?" Chief Mallory
asked.

"Oh, near to twenty years. Said the date due
stamped on the book was nineteen eighty-three, for heaven's
sake."