08 - December Dread (24 page)

The third message was from Tina again, left early this morning. Her voice was more assured this time. “It’s Tina. Call me.”

Two more messages were for mom, one reminding her to show up for the nativity scene tonight and another asking if she could cover a volunteer shift at the hospital on Christmas Day. I passed on both messages before calling Tina. She didn’t answer, and I didn’t leave a message.

Mom, Mrs. Berns, and I spent the next two hours cleaning the house and preparing the turkey for brining. My mom said she was so grateful to finally have company for the Christmas Day meal that she was going whole hog this year—turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, clover-leaf rolls, hot vinegar salad, and three kinds of pie for dessert. I liked the homey feeling of helping her to prep the house for the holidays, and having Mrs. Berns around made it that much nicer. Still, by early afternoon, the trapped feeling was beginning to set in again.

I snuck off into my mom’s room to use her phone in private and tried Tina again. The phone rang five times. I was pulling the handset away from my ear to hang up when she answered.

“Hello?”

“Tina? This is Mira James. You left me a message, something about Natalie.”

A muffled sound came from the other end of the line. I realized she was giving someone instructions. She returned to the phone. “Sorry. I’ve got a house full.”

“I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No problem. I’m probably the one bothering you. Something occurred to me, but it’s sort of a long shot. It might be nothing at all.” I heard the muffled noise again.

“Does someone need you?”

“I’m afraid so. Our cookies are burning. Do you mind calling back?”

My mom appeared in the room, a hopeful smile on her face. She was holding a box marked, “Family Photo Albums.”

“I have a better idea,” I whispered into the phone, so my mom couldn’t hear me. “How about I come to River Grove? I can be there in 40 minutes.”

Thirty-nine

After convincing mom that
I had to run a secret Christmas errand, I left her and Mrs. Berns to the domestic duties and headed out on the barren country roads. Inviting myself over to a stranger’s house on the afternoon of Christmas Eve was weird, I’d cop to that. It wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d done in the last week, however. Tina had something to tell me, I was driving to hear it. Mom and Mrs. Berns would be fine without me, probably even better, and I’d be back in time for supper and to watch
Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
. Mom and I had made a tradition of watching the show on Christmas Eve when I still lived at home. I had faint memories of my dad drunkenly yelling at Burgermeister Meisterburger for being such a monster, but after awhile, he’d give up and stumble off into another room and leave me and Mom in peace to watch the rest of the show. Believe it or not, it was a happy memory.

The radio informed me that we were in for a warm snap, above zero the whole week and no snow on the horizon. It’d be a perfect Christmas, weather-wise. We had about three feet of accumulation on the ground, soft sloping drifts of white that made every home look like a gingerbread house and every hill a sledding mecca. When the announcer promised Christmas music straight through tomorrow, I didn’t even change the dial. The candy cane on the door had given me a jolt, but I’d told the police, and in turn been told that they had good reason to believe the Candy Cane Killer had been caught. Tina might have something interesting to tell me that would help police with their conviction of the guy, or she might not. Either way, she’d given me an excuse to leave the house just when my claustrophobe switch had been tripped.

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 in 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.”