December Dread (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) Page 18

  I steered down the main street of River Grove and glanced at the directions that I’d jotted down on a sheet of notebook paper. Tina said to drive one and a half miles past the downtown intersection, take the first right, and she’d be the second driveway on the left, fire number 23837. Blue house, white outbuildings.

  I located it without a hitch but had second thoughts when I pulled in. I counted nine vehicles in the circular driveway. I parked behind a silver sedan and let my car idle. Did I really want to interrupt a family Christmas in search of possibly irrelevant information about a serial killer who had already been captured? I decided I did not and put my car in reverse just as Tina appeared at the front door, her jeweled glasses on a chain around her neck, a red and green apron wrapped around her waist. She waved me in. I sighed and shut off my ignition. I should have at least brought some grocery store Christmas cookies, I thought, as I made my way to the front door.

  “You made it! I hope you’re hungry.” Raucous laughter bubbled out of the room behind her. I also heard the clatter of silverware on plates and smelled the most heavenly roasted ham smell. I don’t eat red meat, but that doesn’t mean my nose doesn’t work.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you,” I said. “I shouldn’t have even come. It’s Christmas Eve.”

  She pushed her glasses farther up her nose. “Nonsense. We have food to spare.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “My mom would kill me if I ate anywhere else today but at her table.”

  She gestured behind her. “I get it. My mom is the same way, only she comes to my house to do all the cooking now. It’s bigger than hers.”

  I stood awkwardly on her front step. I didn’t want to come in and have to make small talk with a bunch of strangers, but I also didn’t know how to broach the subject of serial killers with her family eating Christmas ham in the other room. She saved me the trouble.

  “I suppose you want to know what I called about.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Well, I heard they caught the killer in Agate City, so this might not be anything.” She looked off into the scudded winter sky. “In fact, it’s probably stupid. It’s just that you said to call if we thought of anything connected to Natalie’s death.”

  “Yeah, I appreciate you calling,” I said, hoping I was wearing my encouraging face and not my impatient face. I stored them right next to each other.

  “Okay, here it is.” She moved onto the front step with me and closed the door behind her, lowering her voice. “You know how we told you about all of us receiving orange begonias?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, three of us went to the same daycare back in the day. Not for very long. It was the summer between first and second grade.”

  I tried to process the words, but any way I mixed them, they didn’t seem to carry much weight. “I don’t understand.”

  Her expression screwed up, like she was looking back in time. “Her name was Auntie Ginger. She went to our church. She seemed like the nicest lady, at least in public. She was mean behind closed doors, though.”

  “Like how?”

  “She spanked, which wasn’t unusual back then. She didn’t stop there, though. A little boy pooped his pants once. He couldn’t have been more than four years old. She made him eat it.”

  I recoiled. “What? She made him eat his own poop?”

  “Not all of it, but a spoonful. Said that’d teach him to never do it again. Plus, all the kids there seemed constantly spooked, jumpy, and defensive. I told my mom, and she pulled me out after two weeks. One of the other women you met at the funeral, Judy? Her mom and Natalie’s mom were friends with my mom. They pulled their girls out, too.”

  “Natalie is originally from River Grove?”

  “Her family moved to Paynesville in second grade. I think her dad got a job at a plumbing and heating place. Our parents stayed in touch, but it wasn’t the same. Natalie and I grew apart and then got to know each other again when she moved back five summers ago.”

  “You think this Auntie Ginger is connected to the serial killer somehow?”

  Tina shot me an apologetic look. “It’s a long shot, I know. It’s just that she was weird enough to really mess a kid up. That’s how you do it, right? You mess with children enough when they’re young and you turn them into killers.” She leaned closer to me. “After our moms pulled us out, I heard rumors about what she did to kids, though she wasn’t ever charged with anything. Icky rumors.”

  The way she said it made my skin crawl. “Icky how?”

  “Abuse, some of it sexual. Pretty sick stuff.”

  “She lived alone?”

  “More or less. She had some teenaged relative help during the holidays, just during the month of December, I think.”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “That’s just it. I can’t remember which, and neither can Judy. Maybe it was one of each?” She gave a half-hearted laugh.

  “Is Ginger still around?”

  “No, she died ten years ago. I heard she hung herself. Probably guilt.” Someone hollered for Tina inside, telling her the food was getting cold. She opened the door to yell back, then returned her attention to me. “That’s it. Probably nothing, right? Three of us who years ago went to the same daycare for a couple weeks got that orange begonia after we started online dating, and then five years later, Natalie gets the candy cane and is murdered. That’s a reach by any measure, which is why I haven’t told the police yet. Think I should?”

  Ah, finally the reason I was here. She was looking either for affirmation that the connection was nonexistent so she could let it drop without guilt, or confirmation that it had a solid center and she could tell the police without the risk of seeming crazy. Well, better her than me. “I’d call and report it. Let the police decide if it’s worthwhile or not.”

  She looked as if a huge weight had been lifted. “That’s what I thought. Hey, you sure you don’t want to come in? My mom makes the best eggnog in Stearns County. I think it’s the brandy.”

  “No thanks. I better be getting home before my mom worries. Merry Christmas.”

  “You too.” On the way through the door, she yelled down the hall. “There better be some mashed potatoes left!”

  I crunched over the snow to my car. I reached my door, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked where Auntie Ginger had lived. I don’t know what it would have gained me, but I wanted to drive past the house on my way back and make sure it wasn’t the candy cane-laden monstrosity. I glanced at the closed front door. No, it wasn’t worth interrupting their Christmas twice. I slid behind the wheel and drove home.

  Forty

  “I am as full as a python on a rabbit farm.”

  Mrs. Berns and I were reclining on the couch, the last strains of Fred Astaire singing “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” fading on the TV. Mom was in her bedroom, preparing for her shift as a Wise Man. I poked Mrs. Berns’ belly with my pointer finger. “You kinda resemble a snake digesting a rabbit.”

  Mrs. Berns didn’t respond. She’d made the comment to buy herself time to process the story I’d just told her about Auntie Ginger. I hadn’t wanted to mention it when my mom was listening, and this was the first alone time we’d had.

  “She sounds like a devil,” Mrs. Berns said, not acknowledging the python comment and instead picking up the conversation where we’d left off. “We had a woman like that in Battle Lake. Can’t remember her name, but families got wind that she was locking kids up during the day and not feeding them if they cried. Ran her out of town. Should have tarred and feathered her first.”

  “Creepy.” I shuddered. “I don’t see how there’s any connection between that story and the Candy Cane Killer, though, unless Auntie Ginger created him with her abuse. But then why would he start killing in Chicago?”

  “People move.” Mrs. Berns burped. “Is there any of that pecan pie left?”

  “You don’t need any more pie.”

  “Nobody needs pie. Besides, I could die i
n my sleep. Might as well go to bed happy.”

  I couldn’t hide my smile. “Fine, I’ll get you a piece.” I rolled my belly off the couch and followed it to the kitchen. “I can’t tell you how glad I am I never tried online dating,” I hollered from the other room.

  Mrs. Berns responded, but I couldn’t hear her. I popped a caramelized pecan into my mouth, served up her pie, and carried it into the living room. “What?” I asked.

  She accepted the plate. “I said, you did too try online dating. Remember the profile Gina created for you back in June?”

  She mistook my horrified stare for a confused one and continued. “You ended up on a date with that cross-dressing professor? Remember?”

  The question was, how could I ever have forgotten? I hadn’t created the profile myself, but the experience resulting from it had been painful. Talk about the mother of all bait and switches. “That ad can’t still be up there, can it? I’ve never received any e-mails.”

  Mrs. Berns chewed thoughtfully. “But you never did, did you? Even from the gender-bending professor. Gina must have entered her own e-mail address.”

  “Jesus.” I strode over to my mom’s computer to see if I could pull up the ad. I thought I remembered the host site Gina had created it on, but the Internet wasn’t cooperating. “I can’t connect.”

  “In that case, I recommend eating pie.”

  “What if the killer sees my online ad?”

  “They caught the killer, remember? Anyhow, it’s been up for six months. Another day won’t matter.”

  I drew in a deep breath. I wanted that ad removed, now. “Maybe Jules Dahlberg has Internet.”

  “Who?” Mrs. Berns asked, handing me her licked-clean plate.

  “Jules Dahlberg. She’s a stuck-up girl I went to high school with, and she’s having a Yule party tonight. Patsy invited me. We could go, and I could try getting online there.”

  Mrs. Berns removed her cat’s-eye glasses and reclined fully on the couch. “Look, I’m doing an impression of a sleeping old lady. Pretty realistic, hunh?”

  “You’re not going to make me go to that party alone, are you? It’ll be full of people I went to high school with, people who hated me.”

  She pulled down the afghan draped over the couch and tucked it around her body. “Only jocks, prom queens, and dumbasses hang on to high school this long. Everyone else goes on to better things. Go. Confront your past. Get over yourself.”

  I wanted to stick my tongue out at her but her eyes were closed. I settled for giving her and mom a kiss on the forehead and a petting to the animals before I left into the night.

  _____

  I sat in my car for fifteen minutes working up the courage to go in. During that time, I replayed most of high school on a speed reel. My freshman year, rolling and pinning my jeans at the ankle so they appeared tapered, curling my mall bangs, trading friendship pins, learning to type on an IBM Selectric, eating fish sticks and white bread and butter sandwiches for hot lunch and thinking it was pretty good, messing around with a Ouija board at a friend’s house. Sophomore year, saving up for Guess jeans and Benetton shirts, sneaking out after a basketball game to drink wine coolers out of a two-liter bottle, Ogilvie spiral perms, making honor roll but still sneaking into Mr. Tigner’s classroom at night on a dare to steal chemistry tests, my dad dying in a horrible, public car accident. Everything changing.

  I remembered people distancing themselves from me, whispering about me, judging me. Cliques formed, broke up, reshaped, and I was outside of every one of them. I’d show up at school, and only Patsy would hang out with me. Jules Dahlberg with her trendsetting clothes and ability to talk to the teachers like an equal was the worst of the bunch. She couldn’t even be bothered to say “hi” in the halls after my dad died. The school and town pushed me out, and I’d left gladly as soon as I’d graduated. Now I was back, and what the hell was I doing sitting outside of Jules’ house?

  “Boo!”

  I jumped so high that I cracked my leg on the steering wheel. I glared at the face pressed against the driver’s side window. I recognized Kevin Kamel, a farm boy who took a lot of teasing for smelling like livestock, always needing to rush home after school to do chores, and never being seen without his cowboy boots. He put an end to all that when he beat the resident track star in a sprint our senior year. While wearing his cowboy boots. That made him underground cool, which still hadn’t been cool enough to crack Jules Dahlberg’s clique. What was he doing here?

  Kevin made a circling motion with his hands, and I rolled down the window. “It is you. The rumors are true. Mira the Maniac has come home.”

  “Hi, Kevin.” He had grown his hair out and gotten his teeth fixed. He actually looked kinda hot. What a strange world. “How’re you doing?”

  “Happy to get away from the family for a bit.” He leaned his elbows on my door. “How about you?”

  “The same.”

  He tipped his head toward the house. “You afraid to go in?”

  I followed his gaze. It appeared to be a regular old two-story colonial with tasteful brown trim and white shutters, decorated for the holidays with a solitary string of snowflake lights over the door. Inside, however, was the embodiment of nearly every insecurity I owned. “Yeah,” I said, realizing how odd it felt to talk to Kevin like a friend. I couldn’t remember ever saying more than three words in a row to him. I guess I hadn’t broken that record yet.

  “Come on.” He opened my door and offered me a hand. “It’s only scary the first time.”

  I took his hand gratefully and let him lead me toward the house. He opened the door and pulled me gently inside. A wall of sound and smell hit me—1980s music and keg beer. I was expecting something out of a Carrie prom scene, but hardly anyone even glanced at us. I counted nearly 30 heads in the cramped room, and judging by the footsteps overhead, there were plenty more guests in the house. The chatter of cross-conversations was loud, but not loud enough to drown out the Depeche Mode. I felt a hint of a smile as I followed Kevin through the crowd and into the kitchen, where he poured us each a plastic cup of beer from the towel-wrapped keg. I was travelling back in time.

  “Is it weird to be doing this legally?” he asked, giving me a wink with the cup. “Takes some of the fun out of it, I’ve always thought.”

  “Mira!” I followed the voice and saw Patsy through the crowd. She kept her hand in the air and wove her way toward me. “You made it!” She hugged me.

  “It’s my first Yule party.” I indicated the guests laughing and chattering. “Who are all these people?”

  She looked around, smiling. “I see you reacquainted yourself with Kevin. About half of the rest of the people are from high school, too, most from our class but a few younger and a few older. The rest are spouses, significant others, or Jules’ friends from work.”

  Kevin cuffed my shoulder. “You’re in good hands now.” He disappeared into the crowd, completely at ease. My mental high school diorama, perfectly preserved all these years, was cracking.

  “Isn’t he a hottie now?” Patsy asked. “He’s single. Likes to play the field.”

  “Kevin Kamel?”

  “I know!” she said, giggling. “Hey, come say hi to Jules.”

  She grabbed me before I could resist, leading us to the basement stairs and down. I got a lot of smiles and greetings on the way, but as we reached the rec room floor, the memory that I’d been trying to suppress since I pulled into Jules’ driveway fully bloomed. Me, on the chartered school bus, traveling to a Knowledge Bowl meet. It was my junior year, and I had dropped out of every other activity in the wake of my dad’s death. My favorite teacher, Mr. Butler, had convinced me to take part in just one more meet. He was concerned and wanted to pull me back into life, I could see that. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn him down, so I’d agreed to rejoin the team for the regionals in Annandale.

  We’d lost, which hadn’t bothered me. What had was the bus ride back, when Jules coined the nic
kname “Manslaughter Mark” to refer to my dad. It was high school behavior, wicked mean and pointless. After a few minutes of teasing, the other kids on the bus had moved onto another topic, likely the amazingness of Duran Duran or the newest happenings on Days of Our Lives, but I’d carried that hot nugget of pain with me every day since then. Usually, though, it was a lot farther back in my mind.

  “Jules! I told you Mira would come.”

  Patsy dragged me so I stood directly in front of Jules Dahlberg. She was even more beautiful than in high school. Her short dark hair was spiked in a playful, feminine style, perfectly accenting her slanted green eyes and heart-shaped face. Her smile was blinding. She was petite but large-breasted, and for a moment, I had a flash that a younger Mrs. Berns must have looked very similar.

  Jules didn’t hug me, but she didn’t kick me, either. “Maniac Mira James. How the hell have you been?”

  “Fine.” I took a deep pull off my beer. It was deliciously bitter, not unlike me at the moment. “You?”

  “Never better. Except we were just discussing what a bitch I was in high school.” She moved so I could see her cadre gathered behind her, the three sycophants who had shadowed her every high school move. Jules wore purple eye shadow, they bought out the supply at the Ben Franklin store. Jules loved U2, they split up which members of the band would marry whom. “God, you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go back to that time and place.”

  I scrutinized her doubtfully. “You were the most popular girl in high school.”

  “Don’t think so.” She shook her head, her smile fading. “That was Natalie.” The mood within earshot immediately dropped, but Jules continued. “I was probably the meanest girl in high school, though. Made up nicknames for everyone, started terrible rumors. Patsy, do you remember when I told everyone you were pregnant because I was mad that you had the same Guess sweater as me?”

  Patsy laughed good-naturedly. “That one didn’t stick. You’d have had better luck convincing everyone that I was becoming a nun.”