December Dread (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) Page 7

  “Thank you.” I tugged on each end of the wrapper and it untwisted. I popped the caramel into my mouth and went a little weak at the knees. It tasted of fresh butter and sugar with a hint of salt to keep it from being too sweet. “Oh. My. God.”

  “I know.” She smiled. “I think I’ll be able to convince my husband we need these.”

  “Please do,” I said. I paid for my purchases. By the time I reached my car, the salesman was gone.

  With nowhere else to go, I returned home, deep in thought on the drive. How could such a large police and FBI force be trying to find the same man, with no success? Where would the killer strike next? My head was thick with the dark possibilities.

  My mom wasn’t home when I arrived, but she’d left a note that she was playing bridge with friends and would be home this afternoon. That must have been where I’d seen her going earlier today, if it had in fact been her. I fixed myself an early dinner of a cheese and pickle sandwich on wheat bread with a side of ruffled black pepper potato chips and tried watching TV, but was too fidgety. I couldn’t find a book that held my attention, either. I considered redecorating my bedroom, but realized that I didn’t have the materials I’d need, specifically a sledgehammer and a bucket of white-out. I was about to alphabetize the spice rack when my mom arrived home, glowing and humming.

  “You must have won big at bridge.”

  “What? Oh, I did.” She smiled. I noticed her mouth seemed a little dry, her eyes a little red. I leaned in to sniff her. She pulled away. “Mira! What are you doing?”

  “I saw you today, going into the alleyway in town. That’s where the drug dealer used to live.”

  She squinted at me. “How would you know where the drug dealer used to live?”

  “Everyone knew. You weren’t ‘playing cards’ with the pot man, were you, mom?”

  “Mira!”

  “Just asking. You seem extra happy.” I couldn’t actually remember the last time I saw her this smiley. She must have been happy when she was younger. She’d told me stories about her friends in high school, being on the cheerleading squad, waiting tables after practice at her parents’ restaurant. On the rare occasions when she talked about it, she remembered a lot of laughter in her teen years. Then, one day, my dad drove in on his motorcycle, got her pregnant, married her, and headed off to war. Her parents had died shortly after he’d returned, my grandpa to a heart attack and my grandma to cancer. Mom had made the best of everything that came her way, but I didn’t remember much laughing in the house growing up. Life’s trials must have sanded her natural joy down to a steady optimism.

  “Can’t I just be grateful that my only child is home with me for the holidays?”

  “I suppose.” I was acting over-protective, and on top of that, I was starting to feel itchy again. I spotted the little slip of paper I’d stuck on the cork board, advertising the self-defense class. The class started at 7:30. I glanced at the clock. It was 6:45. “I’m thinking of taking a self-defense class for women. It’s at the Tae Kwon Do gym in Richmond.” It was only a half an hour drive and would get me out of the house.

  “Sounds wonderful. When’s it start?”

  “Last night, but I bet it won’t matter that I missed a night. It runs from 7:30-9:00 all week.”

  She turned, but I caught the look of disappointment on her face. “I was hoping we’d have time to talk tonight, but I think a self-defense class is a great idea. It’s important to be safe. You have fun.”

  “Thanks, mom.” I walked over and gave her a hug. “I love you, you know? It’s just hard to have all this free time on my hands. I’m used to working two jobs. Having so little responsibility is making me antsy.”

  “I could write you up a chore list if it’d make you feel better.”

  I was happy to see the twinkle had returned to her eyes. “That’s a fantastic idea. You can pay me a quarter for each one I cross off.” I changed into sweats and sneakers, grabbed my boots in case I landed in a ditch and needed to walk somewhere, and drove off.

  I didn’t know what to expect at my first self-defense class, and my chest felt a little tight as I walked through the doors of the chiropractic clinic and followed the signs to the gym in the basement. Descending the stairs, I heard yelling and smelled clean sweat. The stairs ended in a hallway that doubled back on itself.

  This is the right thing to do. You’re not a loser. There will be lots of women here who don’t know anything about self-defense either.

  I tried keeping up the mantra, but I found myself unable to take the right turn into the gym. I sighed. I’d been exposed to too many new situations and ghosts in the past three days. I just didn’t have it in me to subject myself to one more. I yanked my duffle bag close to my body and turned to ascend the stairs, feeling like a huge hairy failure.

  “Chickenshit says, ‘Mrs. Berns?’”

  My head popped up. A tiny, shadowed figure stood at the top of the stairs. “Mrs. Berns?”

  “Uh-hunh. Thought so. Running scared, are you? That’s what I told your mom would happen, as a matter of fact, when I called to find out where you were. She invited me over, but I said I needed to stage an inter-detention first. So here I am.”

  “Mrs. Berns!” I couldn’t stop myself. I took the stairs two at a time and lifted her off the ground in an embrace, my heart soaring. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her. “What are you doing here?”

  She hugged me back and then pushed me away. “You ever been to Fargo? With my family? It’s about as interesting as reading an aspirin bottle, except you’re also in Fargo. With my family. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Figured I’d invite myself to your doublewide for Christmas. You’re a lot of things, but boring isn’t one of them. ’Course, when I found out you came back to Paynesville, I had to alter my plans slightly.”

  My grin threatened to separate the bottom half of my head from the top. Mrs. Berns was my best friend in the world, tough, funny, frisky, and always there when I needed her. Like now. “Did you tell my mom you’d be staying?”

  “She insisted.”

  “Good.” I pulled her toward the door. She was going to make everything at my mom’s house fun. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She dug her heels in. “You wish. I didn’t wear a sweatband for nothing.” Indeed, a 1980s-style braided headband held her dandelion fluff hair into place and accented her bright pink and aqua blue tracksuit and matching tennis shoes.

  “Or your tracksuit?”

  “Nah, had that on all day. Who’s got time for zippers at my age? Now come on. Let’s find out how to bruise us some neuticles.” She pushed me back down the stairs and into the gym.

  Thirteen

  Tuesday, December 18

  The killer cruises past the house. The homeowners aren’t around, haven’t been for days at least. Someone shovels their walkway and cleans the snow off those hideous decorations, but the house stays empty. The yard is a cacophony of plastic candy canes, the home trimmed in red-and-white-striped lights. It’s disgusting. Everyone else in town has the decency to remove candy canes and snowmen from their property.

  One who dresses like that brings it on oneself. It makes me so angry I want to push them down in the mud and look at them.

  “Hunh?” The killer looks over at the doll strapped in next to him. Her winter coat lies on the seat between them. It’s warm in the vehicle. This car also smells like pinecones, thanks to the green tree-shaped freshener newly purchased from the gas station up the road. It dangles from the heating vent lever.

  The doll continues to smile her smug little grin, not offering clarification. It’s all right. The killer knows the words by heart. Auntie Ginger, her long brown hair pulled back in an immaculate bun, her dress perfectly ironed, would say those words every day, after dressing her charges up to code. All of them, boys and girls, wore long strapless dresses and cheap long-haired wigs of the kind Cher made popular in the ’70s. Dress-up time, she’d call it.

  Once they were all in co
stume, she’d pull out the Barbie doll from her pocket, hold it in the air, and say with a smile, You make me so angry I want to push you down in the mud and look at you. This saying confused the killer as a child, who only visited Auntie Ginger in December. There was never mud outside then, only snow and ice. And that smile, as if she was paying them a compliment. Probably the saying was some Southern bit of nonsense from her childhood. She had lots of those. She’d brought them with her when she’d moved to the Midwest, those and the orange begonias that she grew in a hothouse off her kitchen. Everything else she left behind and six feet under, she was fond of saying.

  One who dresses like that brings it on oneself. And she’d choose one of the children she had dressed up to go into the back room with her. The rest of them would play because they were kids and that’s what kids did. And they didn’t ask questions when the chosen child returned, eyes red and wide, a forgotten, bittersweet candy cane in hand.

  The killer is gripping the leather-wrapped steering wheel tight enough to leave marks. This will not do. Looking backward brings ripping pain. Better to look to the future and to save others from inviting that same agony into their lives.

  The killer steers the car into the River Grove Public Library. It’s time to create a new profile.

  Fourteen

  Wednesday, December 19

  The self-defense class had offered two surprises: the fourth-

  degree Tae Kwon Do black belt instructor was a woman, and I’d

  enjoyed the entire class. We’d missed the first session where she’d covered the commonsense topics, like never walking alone and always carrying yourself assertively, locking your doors, and making eye contact with strangers, but she gave us a handout on those. We spent the rest of the class working on wrist releases, or, as Mrs. Berns called them, snake bites.

  “See?” She’d grabbed my wrist with both hands and twisted each a different direction. “Snake bites.”

  “Not exactly,” explained the instructor, Master Andrea. She was giving us one-on-one instruction to catch us up with the rest of the class. She wore a white martial arts uniform, and her black belt was embroidered with four impressive gold bars. She was about my height and age, brunette, but light on her feet and with arms like machine guns. I bet no one gave her the pitying looks I was receiving nowadays. “Grab my wrist,” she ordered Mrs. Berns, holding out her right arm.

  Mrs. Berns obeyed. Quicker than I could blink, Master Andrea had her on the floor, face down, arm chicken-winged behind her back. The move had been silver-quick and oddly gentle, but I could see how Mrs. Berns arm could snap like a twig in this position.

  I leaned toward my friend. “Are you okay?”

  She was beaming. “We’re not leaving this building until I learn how to do that.”

  Her wish was granted. By the time we left class, we understood the basics of escaping the hand-to-wrist grasp of the strongest man, from any approach, with a mix of speed, strength, and knowledge of angles. When I woke up the next morning, my wrists were still a hot red from being practiced on, but I felt good about my newfound abilities.

  “You look bright and shiny today,” my mom said as I came down the stairs, freshly showered.

  I passed the first floor crafts room at the foot of the stairs, which mom had converted into a spare bedroom for Mrs. Berns. I heard her putzing around loudly inside, muttering. She was probably feeling as sore as me, though it was a good pain. I smiled. “Class was great last night. We learned basic self-defense, and even got thrown a couple times. You should come with me and Mrs. Berns tonight.”

  Her eyes dropped. “I can’t. I’m volunteering at church. We need to get ready for Natalie’s funeral.”

  A cold ball rolled into my stomach. “That’s so soon.”

  “The police released Natalie’s body, and her parents don’t see any reason to wait. I think they’re so broken up that they’re not seeing straight, and who can blame them? The wake is this afternoon, St. Augustine’s, at 2:00. You’re coming?”

  “Of course.” The glow from the self-defense class faded, leaving a somber black cloud in the house. Mom offered me fresh-baked caramel rolls, but I couldn’t stomach them. I tried to pass entirely, but she wouldn’t let me leave without at least taking one for the road. I thanked her and gave her a hug and hollered a goodbye to Mrs. Berns before heading to Willmar for PI training.

  I arrived early. Only Mr. Denny and Kent were present. That reminded me that I had four more secrets to definitively match with their owner: someone who’s fired but still continues to go to work, another with a wooden leg, a third who has a drinking problem, and a fourth on the FBI watch list. I’d have an extra hour between class and the wake. If this building didn’t house a student computer lab, I’d run to the library and see what I could scare up.

  The other five students stomped in within minutes, knocking snow off the bottom of their boots. All of them appeared as solemn as I felt. They probably weren’t going to Natalie’s wake this afternoon, but there was no doubt that they were thinking about her, or the women in their lives who were less safe every day. Mr. Denny, likely sensing the mood, got right to business. Today’s class covered information gathering, field notes, reports, and a case study that we were broken into pairs to discuss. I was paired up with Leo, and our case study revolved around a woman being stalked by an ex-husband who seemed to always know her whereabouts. An investigation revealed that he had installed spyware into her phone while they were still married. While the material was compelling, I found it difficult to keep my mind off Natalie’s murder.

  Murder. The woman I’d shared secrets and ghost stories with as a 6th grader was dead at the hands of a serial killer. What would make somebody choose to kill a stranger minding her own business? I tuned out Mr. Denny and began scribbling notes. What drives a person to kill? Revenge. Money. Mental illness. Fear. Love. Control. I immediately crossed out “Money.” From the little I knew of serial killers, that was an unlikely motive. Mental illness was more probable, though the precision with which the killer was attacking and the fact that he hadn’t yet been caught suggested he was high functioning. He was by definition unbalanced but not necessarily motivated to kill by a chemical-based mental illness. I couldn’t see how fear would be a motive, either, but I wasn’t ready to cross that one out just yet. I supposed revenge against women was a viable option, as well as a need to control women.

  “Mira?”

  I glanced up, startled. Mr. Denny was standing next to me, yesterday’s test in hand. The rest of the students were standing and putting on their jackets.

  “Sorry.” I grabbed the test, surprised to see that I had answered 87 percent of the questions correctly. I gave him a weak smile and reached for my jacket, my mind and heart cold and leaden. Despite the plan I’d had when entering the class this morning, the last thing I now felt like doing was sitting in front of a computer and researching a silly secret exercise on my classmates. I pulled on my coat and headed into the bracing cold. It was too early for me to go to the wake, so I just slid behind my wheel and drove. I was surprised to find myself following Kent to the Sears parking lot. I parked my car one row back and several cars over and watched him lock his door and jog to the front glass doors. He paused ten feet shy of his destination, turned, and stared straight into my eyes. He ducked his head and made his way to my car. I rolled down the window when he reached me.

  “This has to be boring for you, following me to Sears each day,” he said. His cheeks were red from the cold but his demeanor was relaxed.

  “The first day was an accident. You the one without a job?”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked off toward the Burger King on Highway 23. “Yeah.”

  “So you just go to class in the morning and hang out at Sears in the afternoon?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why don’t you just tell your family you were fired?”

  He shook his head, still gazing far away. “It’d kill my wife. We’ve got three ki
ds in college, a mortgage. She doesn’t need the extra stress. I’d rather tell her when I find a new job.”

  “I’m sorry.” Chirpy Christmas music floated out of the mall. “What kind of job did you have?”

  “Managed a factory. Twenty-seven years. They downsized two weeks ago, shipping most of the business overseas.”

  I pursed my lips. “That’s a crap deal. For whatever it’s worth, I think you’d make a pretty good PI. You’re tough to tail, and you figured out I was following you. I’ll keep my ears to the ground for jobs for you.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” He seemed to come back to himself. “Don’t suppose you have a wooden leg?”

  My laugh surprised me. “Sorry. I may have a drinking problem or be on the FBI watch list, though.”

  “No shit?”

  “None. If you find out for sure, let me know?”

  He offered me his hand, the faintest hint of a smile warming his eyes. “That’s a deal.”

  I rolled up my window and drove to Natalie’s wake.

  Fifteen

  The Vrolstad Funeral Home parking lot was full. I ended up leaving my car on the street, two blocks up. The short walk was cold, the snow crunching underfoot, my gloved hands tucked up in my sleeves. Mourners arriving alone, like me, others in pairs, and large groups walked in and out of the conservative, gigantic, Craftsman-style building, their faces solemn, great puffs of frosty air billowing out of their mouths. I’d only attended four wakes in my life: one for my grandpa and another for my grandma on my mom’s side, one for a great aunt, and my dad’s. I’d been too young to remember my grandparents’ wake and funeral. My great aunt had been old when she died and the wake, while sad, had also been full of laughter and reminiscing. I still don’t remember the details of my dad’s wake, but I was reminded of the raw feel of it when I walked into Natalie’s observance.