08 - December Dread (16 page)

Outside, the wind howled as our convoy of two vehicles drove away from the lonely, now-dangerous house I’d grown up in.

Twenty-one

Convincing my mom that
Mrs. Berns and I needed to head out from Paynesville’s nicest hotel, the Relax Inn, to run errands at 10:30 at night was more difficult than getting her to leave her house. Since she’d bought into my argument that her home wasn’t safe, she didn’t want to let me out of her sight. Fortunately, she was too polite to argue for long. After extracting a promise from her that she’d deadbolt lock and chain lock the door and peer through the spy hole before letting anyone in, Mrs. Berns and I left.

“Who else knew about the orange begonias?” I asked.

“Those three women at the funeral, any random people they told over the years, Natalie, and you and me.”

I pulled onto Highway 23 going west. “Who knew that
we
knew about the flowers?”

“Those three women.”

“And?”

Mrs. Berns fiddled with the radio. “I didn’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re implying.”

I shook my head. “You forgot one. Lynne Bankowski. She was standing so close when we heard the story that she was almost riding my shoulders.”

“Forgot about her. Why would she send you an orange begonia? And how would she know where you work?”

“She’d Google me. You type in my name and up comes my articles at the
Recall
. As for why she’d send it, I don’t know. Because she’s a creeper?” We’d driven far enough for the coil to heat. I cranked the fan, sending a blessed wash of hot air over us.

“But not a serial killer. Women don’t do that, right? It’s gotta be David or Sharpie who sent you the begonia. We set ’em off by contacting them online and standing them up.”

I sighed. “That idea occurred to me. I don’t know how they’d know about the orange begonia, though, or that it was us who set up the fake profiles. Lynn is the only suspect who makes sense.”

“Maybe we’re not thinking like a serial killer. It could be we’re dealing with someone who has access to information that we don’t.”

I nodded. I’d thought of that, too.

“We’re heading to River Grove, aren’t we?”

“Yup. I want to drive past Lynne’s house to see if she’s home. We might as well see what Sharpie and David are up to while we’re at it.” I pulled into the only Paynesville gas station that still offered a pay phone. We lucked out. They had a county phone book covering River Grove, and Lynne and David’s addresses and phone numbers were in it. I called Lynne first. No answer. Next I called David. He picked up on the third ring, and I slammed down the receiver. I scribbled down both addresses, and we left. The moon broke through the clouds as we traveled down the lonely road. The light created sharp, ominous shadows out of the few trees and shrubbery that we passed.

Fifteen minutes later and we were outside Lynne’s house on the other side of the city park, the trimmed pine tree in the park’s center lit up like a landing strip. The street was quiet, and except for occasional yard lights and Christmas lights, the houses were dark. Lynne’s, a walk-out rambler, was no exception. The outside was austere, lacking decorations. Her walk was well-shoveled.

“We should have brought a thermos of coffee,” Mrs. Berns said. “This is going to be a long night. Plus, then we could have peed in it. That’s what you private dicks do, right? Pee in your thermoses so you don’t have to leave the stake out?”

I furrowed my brow. “Absolutely. And we use magnifying glasses to follow footsteps and look for telltale lipstick marks on cigarettes.”

“Now you’re talking. I’m thinking about switching careers, you know.”

“Other than harassing me at the library, you don’t have a career.”

“Exactly why it’s time to switch. That PI class doesn’t sound too hard. The trick’ll be living long enough to get 6,000 hours of supervised investigating in.” She held her hands up as if reading a Broadway marquee. “Berns and James Investigations. What do you think?”

“Don’t you think we’d drive each other crazy if we had to work together all the time?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. I just said, I was thinking about it. We really going to sit in this car all night?”

“I’m going to peek in Lynne’s garage to see if her car is there. If it is, we stay here all night. If it isn’t, we check in on David and Sharpie.”

I understood the dangers of approaching a dark house in a jumpy town. My form was clearly female, but a nearby murder would make everyone a suspect. I decided to act quickly and with confidence. I marched up the driveway. On tiptoes, I peered through one of the three ornamental windows on the garage door. The inside was dark, but a bit of light from the moon trickled in, revealing a two-car garage so stuffed with boxes and litter that you couldn’t fit a ten-speed bike in there, let alone a car. If Lynne was home, she’d have to park in the driveway. I returned to the Toyota.

“She there?”

“Nope. And she looks like a hoarder. Her garage is full of junk.”

“Messy home, messy brain,” Mrs. Berns said. “On to the dentist’s house.”

David Fleece lived on the other end of town in a walk-out rambler with new-looking siding. Both his driveway and his sidewalk were immaculately shoveled. The interior of his house was dark. I parked the car across the street and left it running while I dashed up to his garage. This was the tonier part of town, and the four houses lining each side of the street had large yards. They were all as dark as David’s. This was the type of area that the police would patrol regularly, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, cops are better than serial killers, but not getting caught at all was the goal. The moon slid behind a cloud, which gave the whole block a surreal feeling. I ran up the inclined driveway before I chickened out.

The frigid air froze the inside of my nostrils as I jogged. I’d already observed that his three-car garage didn’t have any windows on the electric door, but I’d hoped to peek in a crack. No luck. She was sealed tight. I ran around the side, toward the house and away from the car. The side entrance to the garage lacked a window, and was locked. I glanced to my right. A winding sidewalk led to his front stoop. The door was decorated with a Boy Scout wreath, three plastic red balls hanging off a ribbon at the bottom of the green pine circle. The house door had a thin panel of glass running the length of it. I wanted to charge up and peek in. Just a quick dash and I could be up the three front steps and be looking into that house. What would I see? A tastefully decorated living room? A serial killer, staring back at me, a tiny smile on his face? The last thought froze my blood. I couldn’t do it. I ran back to the car, resisting the urge to glance over my shoulder. I hopped in and locked the door.

“See anything?”

I shook my head and breathed warm air through my mittens to thaw my finger tips. “Couldn’t see in.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve decided he’s not our guy,” Mrs. Berns said with far more confidence than I felt at the moment. There’s something about missed opportunity that makes me certain I’ve passed on the golden ticket. “On to Sharpie?”

The River Grove Inn was a one-story, L-shaped motel a seven-minute drive from David’s house. It was located on the business end of town between the Copper Kettle Restaurant and an industrial building with a sign that read “Jack’s Fabrication.” Most of the River Grove Inn rooms were dark and had a car parked in front of them, but neither Mrs. Berns nor I knew what kind of car Sharpie drove, so we had no guess as to which room he was in. We knew the motel wouldn’t give us the room number if we asked directly, but I had an idea.

“How about we use your cell phone to call the motel and ask to be patched through to Sharpie’s room. If a light goes on at the same time we call, we know which one he’s in. Plus, going through the front desk to reach him would mean he couldn’t trace your number.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mrs. Berns said. “Here, you do it so I can watch the motel.”

It was a long shot, but a lucky one. The tired-sounding woman who answered the phone put us through to Sharpie Trevino’s room. After the first ring, a light blinked on in the fifth room from the main office. At the second ring, we saw a shadow pass in front of the curtain. The third ring brought an answer.

“Hello?” Sharpie sounded friendly, given the late hour. I suppose he’d have to be, given how much business he must do on the phone.

I hung up. “He’s home. Room #5.”

Twenty-two

Thursday, December 20

When the police ask
him about it late in the afternoon of the next day, the twelve-year-old boy remembers very little. He had been sledding with friends. Sure it was late, and of course they probably should have come home earlier, but the night had been perfect for racing down a hill: clear winter sky with stars so close you could almost touch them, hard-packed snow as slick as snot, your two best friends, and the promise of hot chocolate afterward. Nights like that only come two or three times a winter, especially in the dead of winter this far north, and you want to make them last as long as you can. That’s what the boy told the police.

Then the stubborn oak tree had cut the night short, at least for him. It refused to get out of his way, and he was flying too fast to maneuver out of its, and so they met at a high speed. The tree won. He’d gotten blood on his new scarf and his expensive Spyder parka. His mom would be so bent out of shape that she’d get that line down the middle of her forehead. That’s what he remembers was on his mind as he sulked home earlier than planned and nearly ran into something else: Santa Claus.

Of course he knew it wasn’t the real Santa. He was almost thirteen, for cheese’s sake. It was just some guy, a little taller than his dad but his dad was a short man, dressed as Santa for the holidays. The guy had the whole costume down: black boots, red pants, and matching jacket trimmed in white, wide plastic black belt cinched over his bulging belly. Was it a real belly? Hard to say. It was dark out except for the stars and moon, and he was worried about his bloody scarf. Man, his mom was going to be torqued. Santa’s face? It was even harder to describe. It was too shadowy to see much. The curly white wig and fake beard and mustache were so bright they almost glowed, and they took up most of Santa’s face, but the boy thought maybe he’d spotted a real mustache underneath, a dark one. Come to think of it, Santa had reminded him a little of Junior Hemmesch, the Orelock town mayor. It couldn’t have been Junior, though, because Junior knew the boy’s parents, and he would have tugged his beard down a little and winked if it had been him.

No, this Santa wasn’t Junior Hemmesch. He carried four wreaths, two on each arm. He ho-ho-ho’d when the boy almost ran into him. It was dorky, but in a funny way. The boy remembered smiling and agreeing to help Santa deliver the Christmas cheer. It didn’t hurt that Santa had fished a $20 bill out of his wallet as soon as his right arm was free. Did the boy still have the $20? Yeah, he supposed he did, but he’d worked hard to earn it, delivering the wreaths to four different houses, their addresses scribbled on a piece of paper. He was positive he no longer had that paper. He’d chucked it in the snow as soon as the last wreath was resting against the door of the fourth house, exactly as Santa had requested. He had enough to explain with the blood and the late hour without his mom coming across that scrap of paper.

The wreaths? They looked like regular wreaths, he supposed. Round, not quite as big as a car tire, green, with a big bow at the base. Wait, there was one more thing. The bow on each of them? It had a candy cane tied to it, one of those big ones, curved like a fishhook, red and white-striped, and as thick as a sausage. Yep, he definitely remembered that now. A candy cane on each of them.

Twenty-three

Friday, December 21

I carved out all
of 45 minutes of sleep, and that accidental. I’d drifted off in the parking lot of the River Grove Inn around 4:00 AM, lulled to sleep by Mrs. Berns’ rhythmic snoring. When I awoke with a start, a crick in my neck, she was still out, sucking in air like a Hoover with a hairball. The interior of my car, which I’d been warming by starting the car every 40 minutes and letting it run for ten, was frigid. I scraped the interior of the windshield and saw that the red SUV remained parked in front of Room #5, the light off in Sharpie’s room. Letting Mrs. Berns sleep, I headed toward Paynesville after a quick spin past Lynne’s and David’s. Both driveways were still empty and both houses still dark. The evening was a stone cold bust. I’d traded in sleep and comfort, and all I’d gotten in return was the knowledge that Lynne hadn’t spent the night at home, David may have, and Sharpie never left his motel room.

My Toyota was the only car on the road. I plowed through tiny drifts forming like sand dunes across Highway 23. My eyelids felt coated with grit, and the lack of sleep and shifting snow played tricks on them. I tapped the brakes on three separate occasions to avoid an animal I was certain was darting in front of my car, only to realize at the last moment that it was nothing but a trick of the blue hour and drifting snow. It took minutes for my heart to stop palpitating after each false scare.

Once in Paynesville, I felt bad about waking mom to get into our room at the Relax Inn, but she’d followed my advice and used the chain lock. She didn’t ask us any questions, but I saw her worried glance lingering on me. Mrs. Berns stumbled into bed, upsetting Tiger Pop. I took Luna for a quick pee and stopped at the front desk on my way back to try Agent Briggs again. I’m sure he could trace the calls. I didn’t care. I was tired, sore, and hungry. If I was going to be up at 5:00 AM because some sick creep sent me an orange begonia, so was Agent Briggs. He finally answered at 5:34 AM, his voice as grouchy as I felt. When I identified myself, he was none too pleased but agreed to meet me in forty-five minutes at the Fatted Caf in River Grove.