December Dread (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) Page 15

  Except the killer hadn’t been able to leave Auntie Ginger entirely.

  The doll came with, just as a memento, a reminder of what could be survived. After all, it had been the doll, the cruel plastic plaything that Auntie Ginger pulled out of her pocket, that issued the actual commands to the chosen boy or girl at dress-up time. It was the doll, held in Auntie Ginger’s hands and speaking with a falsetto version of Auntie Ginger’s voice, who told the chosen child not to cry. It was the doll who exacted a promise from the children to never tell a soul. It was the goddamn doll.

  And how deep the irony that it was the doll who began to speak again, three years ago last December, seven years after the killer had hung Auntie Ginger. Now, it is the doll who orchestrates the terrorizing of the women and the murders, who reminds the killer every second of every day that there is no such thing as freedom.

  The killer has to pull over. The pain is too much.

  Twenty-nine

  “Do you want some gum?”

  I dragged my eyes away from the computer screen. Mrs. Berns was offering me pink chewing gum with a secret center. “I hate that kind,” I said, shaking my head. “Chewing it makes me feel like I’m eating a blister.”

  She harrumphed, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her slide the partially masticated chunk out of her mouth and slip it into the garbage.

  “It’s time to pull up the guys,” I said.

  We’d initially updated our E-adore profile so we could peer out into the online world as if we were a man looking for a brunette in Orelock. We’d discovered Cindy’s profile right away. In it, she didn’t mention having a child. Unlike in River Grove, many of these women had chosen to identify themselves by tag names rather than their real names. Cindy, for example, called herself “LovetoLaugh1986.” There was no way to discover if any of the other smiling faces were Samantha Keller, Johnna, or Rita. I was trying to skim all of the profiles to see if anything stuck out, marking them as a victim, but none of them posted anything unusual or offensive. Mrs. Berns was growing impatient with my research and demanded that I switch over and search for the guys who’d match with someone like Cindy.

  “All right,” I said. I revised our Veronica profile, changing the name to Anne and the town of residence to Aurora, an Iron Range village that we’d driven through right before reaching Orelock. Next, I ran a search for men aged 24–54 within 30 miles of Orelock. There were only twelve, and none of them was Sharpie Trevino. Of those twelve, we immediately discounted the seven who had photos posted and began skimming the remaining five. We were on the third when I spotted it.

  “Look!”

  “What?” Mrs. Berns asked, pushing her cat’s-eye reading glasses higher on her nose.

  “This guy. He says he likes to go dancing, likes to travel, and can make any date fun ‘in two shakes of a sheep’s tail.’ Where have we heard that very bizarre idiom before?”

  Mrs. Berns leaned back in her chair, her eyes sharp. “Craig, one of Veronica’s matches in River Grove. What’s he call himself here?”

  “Greg.”

  “Not very imaginative. What about the others?”

  Nothing stuck out in the remaining four. They all sounded like regular guys light on the helping verbs, which was to be expected in greater Minnesota. Though we both had a tingling sense about Greg, we reached out to all five of them to be thorough. This time, we would meet but wouldn’t interact. We’d decided to not make the same mistakes twice because, as Mrs. Berns said, there’s so many to be made, why limit yourself that way?

  We sent five e-mails and the same information in five instant messages to all of them. Two of the guys responded instantly, Chuck and Arthur. We asked both of them if they could meet us in this very coffee shop for lunch today, using our line that we had to leave tomorrow for a Christmas trip, and they both said yes. Greg and the fourth guy, Nathan M., and fifth guy Phillip, didn’t reply to either the e-mail or the instant message, which wasn’t surprising. We would keep checking back for their messages.

  “While we wait, I want to see what I can unearth about Walter Briggs.” I’d made up my mind after we’d fled Cindy’s. I hated feeling intimidated, and a good offense is the best defense.

  “You’re going to Ogle an FBI agent?”

  “Google, and yes, I am. He’s a public employee, right?”

  Mrs. Berns stood and pointed to the table farthest from my computer. “I’m going to be doing the crossword puzzle over there. Far away from your sketchy actions.”

  I let her go and plugged in Walter Briggs’ name. I pulled up a lot of noise until I added “FBI,” and I was instantly transported to his official bio:

  Supervisory Agent Walter Briggs is a member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BSU) Unit-2 out of Quantico. He’s been with the FBI for 32 years.

  That helped me not at all. I clicked out of the official FBI page and on a hunch, searched for Walter Briggs co-linked with Adam De Luca. A surprising number of hits came up. Briggs had been on the Candy Cane Killer case since the beginning and Adam not long after, and they’d become weirdly tied in cyberspace. All the hits were articles by Adam briefly referring to Briggs as the agent in charge. The exception was an article written about the second woman killed in Wisconsin, Elizabeth Wable. According to the story, she was a relocated farm girl living in a medium-sized city and working as an administrative assistant when she’d been murdered. Adam took an interesting aside toward the end of the article to offer a little more depth on the agent in charge:

  This case seems to have struck Agent Briggs, a native Midwesterner, particularly hard. When asked for a comment, he said only, “I have a daughter named Elizabeth.” The agent currently resides in Virginia, though he’s been largely in the field trying to capture the Candy Cane Killer since his first strike in Chicago.

  I sipped my latte. It was cold. I waved my hand at Mrs. Berns and called her over.

  “What?”

  “FBI Agent Walter Briggs is originally from the Midwest.”

  Her eyes widened. “You know what that means?”

  I glanced left and right to make sure no one was listening, then leaned toward her. “No. What?”

  “Nothing.” She smacked my head. “Millions of people are from the Midwest. Now close down that screen before the FBI echo-locates you and take a gander at who just walked in. I believe it’s our local E-adore delivery, Chuck.”

  We were on the far side of the restaurant, both because the computers were located here and because it gave us a good view of everyone who entered. I turned to check out the guy who’d just walked in. He fit the online description and actually hadn’t lied when he’d written that he looked like Sean Connery, if Sean Connery were 5'6" and as bald as a monkey butt.

  “Think he can fake a Scottish accent?” Mrs. Berns asked.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Chuck got in line to order.

  “I’m attracted to lookalikes. What can I tell you?”

  “That you won’t fraternize with the suspects. I think I see our second, by the way.” A redhead, which is what Arthur claimed to be, had just entered. I looked down when he scanned the room nervously, sweeping his eyes over me and Mrs. Berns before standing behind Chuck in line. “Think they know each other?”

  My question was so fresh it was green when the two of them started talking. The exchange was first friendly, and then they both cocked their heads at each other like quizzical chickens, and then heated words started flying. I heard “made a fool of” and “damn online dating,” and then they both stormed out.

  “I’d say yes,” Mrs. Berns said. “They did in fact know each other, and now, they know each other even better.”

  “Scratch them off the list,” I said, doing just that. “If they’re from around here, they’re not our killer. It’s between Greg, Nathan, and Phillip, and the smart money is on Greg. We can’t stay in town forever, though.”

  “Not forever, but one more night. I reserved a hotel room for us while you were noodl
ing online, and I called your mom to tell her we wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”

  “Wow.”

  “I also told her you’d go to Mass with her tomorrow. It is the last Sunday before Christmas, after all. You can thank me later.”

  I grimaced. “That’s exactly when I’ll be thanking you. Much, much later.”

  “You’re welcome. We might as well get some Christmas shopping done while we’re here. Come on.”

  _____

  “Who knew a hardware store would have so many perfect presents?” she asked, one hour later. Her cart held a prepackaged snorkeling set, a windowsill garden kit, two-inch letter stickers that she intended to “rogue adorn” the front door of every friend in Battle Lake with, and various nails, tools, putties, and paints.

  “I’m guessing only you and Martha Stewart. Maybe Bob the Builder.” I sniffed. I usually liked the smell of hardware stores, the earthy, blue collar perfume of metal, motor oil, and wood. After a full hour, though, I was so bored I had begun to organize the shelves while Mrs. Berns pawed through bins for goodies. I was straightening out a row of mucilage when the front door donged. I glanced up idly, and then quickly yanked Mrs. Berns out of sight. “And maybe Lynne Bankowski,” I said, pointing toward the front door. The woman in question had just entered wearing a quilted black parka and a Swedish ski cap with matching mittens.

  “What’s she doing here?” Mrs. Berns hissed.

  Lynne steered into the first aisle, giving us a good view of her back.

  “Shopping for something to remove blood stains? I’m surprised the police released her.”

  “They must have decided she’s innocent, or didn’t have enough to hold her on.”

  Boredom made me reckless. “Only one way to find out.”

  After an hour, I knew this hardware store as well as my own bedroom. I scuttled down the tools aisle, took a left at housewares, and another left at fasteners. Lynne was digging through a slide-out bin of flat head nails.

  “Lynne Bankowski?”

  Her head whipped toward me, her eyes bright. She reminded me of a raccoon caught stealing garbage. “Yeah?”

  I held out my hand. “Mira James. We met at Natalie Garcia’s funeral.”

  She kept her hands in the nails. Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

  “That’s so weird. I was wondering the same thing about you.”

  “This is my hometown. My mom still lives here. It’s Christmas, right?” She finally pulled her hands out and pushed the bin back in. I noticed a scratch across the back of her right hand.

  “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.