In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel (31 page)

“Which explains why he always goes to an
outsider.”

“Pretty much.”

Constance curled her fingers in and looked
down at her hand. “I wonder if that might also explain why he
seemed to really lose it when he saw my manicure.”

“Yeah,” he grunted thoughtfully. “None of
your colleagues had that, but just about every woman in town has
had a Merrie manicure at one time or another, so it’s a connection
he’d definitely make. I expect after seeing one on you, he probably
believes that you’re possessed just like the rest of us. Probably
also why he didn’t bother to tell you anything more.”

“Do you have any idea where he came up with
this notion about her?”

“You mean besides him being crazier than a
shithouse rat?” he replied. “It was what she did to Colson with
that axe. He came from a pretty strict religious family, so I guess
when he snapped, his brain just rationalized things the only way it
knew how. Like I said, he didn’t handle what he saw that morning so
good. Fact is Sheriff Morton had to send him home before we ever
finished processing the scene. After that he was on administrative
leave for a while, but he never came back to the job.”

“And he never recovered…” Constance
added.

“Not really,” Skip agreed. “From what I hear,
he wasn’t so bad for a good while there. When these new murders
started though… Well…he kind of went off the deep end all over
again.”

“Triggering stressor.”

“Yep. So…got anything else?”

“Like I said, nothing solid.” She gave her
head a small shake to punctuate the answer.

“Anything you wanna talk out? I’m happy to be
a sounding board if you want.”

“Not just yet.”

“Too bad. I wouldn’t mind hearing a fresh
theory or two, believe me.”

Constance sighed, but didn’t say anything in
return. Carmichael didn’t seem to have a problem with parceling out
information if the right question was asked—or button pushed.
Unfortunately, they both knew the information on Edgar was
something he should have volunteered at the outset, even if he was
trying to protect the reputation of an innocent man with mental
problems. The background check Ben had run may have painted him as
an exemplary cop and upstanding citizen, but there was definitely
something else going on behind that façade. She just hoped her
instinct about him was correct and whatever he was hiding had a
benign intent and reasonable explanation.

Skip rocked back in his old, wheeled desk
chair and brushed his fingers through his mustache as he looked her
over. After a thoughtful pause, he rubbed his chin then nodded in
her direction. “Since we’re on the subject of Beelzebub, you look
like you drove through hell and stopped too long to admire the
view, young lady...” Raising an eyebrow he added, “No offense
meant, of course.”

“None taken,” she replied. “Honestly, that
pretty much sums up exactly how I feel at the moment.”

He tilted forward in the seat and rested his
arms on the desk. Peering at her with an expression of fatherly
concern, he asked, “You get any sleep at all last night,
Constance?”

“Actually, Skip,” she said, pausing for a
second before saying, “Not much. I took a nap this afternoon, but
it wasn’t exactly what I’d call restful, either.”

“Let me guess: about three?”

“No, let
me
guess, Sherlock,” she
returned, sarcasm thick in her gravelly voice. “The bags under my
eyes are just the perfect shade and the creases still in my face
from the pillow add up to three or something like that…”

He shook his head, the concern still in his
face. “No, sugar, that one was just a guess. Three in the afternoon
was right about the time I took my nap thirty-five years ago.
Wasn’t a very restful one for me either, as I recall. Bad
nightmares. Just looking at you tells me you’re on the same
wavelength I was back then… And still am, I guess.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I guess I’m just…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “It’s
Christmas Eve, you’re away from your loved ones, and you’re stuck
in the middle of an investigation I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It’s
bound to get to you.”

“It’s my job.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Not to mention that I’m supposed to remain
objective.”

He shook his head and snorted. “You and I
both know that doesn’t always happen. Especially with something
like this. When a child is involved it changes everything.”

“Except the problem is, this is supposed to
be about seven brutal homicides over as many years. Not about
Merrie and what happened to her in nineteen seventy-five.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Well... You might want
to tell that to the killer when you catch up to him because I don’t
think he got the memo.”

She sighed. “Yeah... I know.”

Sheriff Carmichael silently regarded the
sullen FBI agent for a moment then asked, “You eat yet?”

“This morning.”

“I meant dinner.”

She shook her head. “No. My stomach really
isn’t up to it.”

“Yeah, I get that too,” he replied. “But
since you’re dead set on sitting in that house all night waiting
for this sonofabitch, you’re probably gonna need something to keep
you going.”

“I’ll eat tomorrow.”

“Tonight, tomorrow, I don’t care,” he
replied. “Either way, my wife fixed you up a care package just in
case. It’s not a lot. Just a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of
coffee, but I have to say, Kathy does make a mean egg salad
sandwich.”

“I appreciate it,” Constance told him.
“Please thank her for me.”

“I’ll do that,” he agreed. “So...you want to
just sit for a while, or are you ready to head on over?”

“Let’s just go. I’d like to have another look
at the basement, and the sooner I’m in place the less chance there
is to spook our subject.”

“Your call,” he said with a nod. “Been down
this road before. I really doubt it’s going to matter one way or
the other. Let me go ahead and put some fresh batteries in a
flashlight for you.”

“I’ve got mine, thanks,” she told him.

“Okay, good. Then I’ll just grab you a radio
that’s got a full charge on it, then I’ll run you on over
there.”

“Oh, just one other thing,” Constance said as
he was pushing back from the desk.

“What’s that?”

“I’d like to borrow a hammer if you have one
handy.”

C
HAPTER
23

7:57 P.M. – December 24, 2010

632 Evergreen Lane

Hulis Township – Northern Missouri

CONSTANCE
listened closely, but all
she heard was a metallic clank meshed tightly together with a dull
thud.

She took a sideways step, still holding the
tire iron up over her head. Skip didn’t have a hammer as she’d
asked, but this would do. She really just needed something she
could use to bang on the walls.

She remained quiet, and focused. Cocking her
head slightly, she drew her arm back and brought it forward with a
measured amount of force. When the business end of the angled metal
struck, it sent a jarring vibration down her arm and straight into
her shoulder.

Again,
clank-thud
was all she
heard.

She continued working her way downward,
tapping slowly but forcefully from the top of the basement wall
until she reached the footing. With each strike, the same solid
noise filled her ears again and again.

She had already made the full circuit of the
subterranean room twice. Deputy Slozar was close on her heels,
beaming a powerful flashlight wherever she requested. As they
slowly walked the perimeter, Constance had pressed her
leather-gloved hand against the rough concrete walls while
systematically hammering the metal tire tool at somewhat evenly
spaced points, listening intently for any evidence of a hollow echo
on the other side. She had paid particular attention to the bricked
up coal chute, but even there, all that ever met her ears was a
metal ping married to a dense thump. There was no hidden passage
behind these walls, only solid earth.

At this point, she was relatively certain
that not a single inch of the basement had gone without being fully
inspected by sight, sound, and touch. The glass block windows were
mortared in, solid and almost fully covered by debris from the
outside. The remains of the old furnace were immovable. There was
nothing behind them or in them, and the area below the stairs was
also free and clear. There was no place to hide, and the only
ingress or egress was from the upper floor. The only other thing
she could imagine doing was to have a forensics team search the
yard around the structure using ground-penetrating radar, but she
knew that wasn’t about to happen.

Constance lowered the tire tool carefully to
her side then let loose with a heavy sigh. Her breath formed a jet
of cloudy frost in the wide beam of the flashlight.

Deputy Slozar cleared her throat and then
with a bit of trepidation offered, “This has all been checked
before, ma’am.”

Ma’am… Great… Like I don’t already feel
old enough at the moment
, Constance thought. However, what she
said was, “I know it has, Deputy. This is really just to satisfy my
own curiosity…”

Several languid seconds passed before the
young woman spoke up again. “So…how do you think he does it, ma’am?
Gets in without us ever seeing him, I mean…”

“That’s one of the things I’m here to find
out,” Constance replied, then looked over at the deputy. The
uniformed woman’s face was faintly visible in the unfocused
residual glow from the flashlight. Not only did she look painfully
young, but at the moment she also looked as though she was
bordering on terrified. It was hard for Mandalay to blame her
though, given what this house seemed to do to people who spent too
much time within its walls. There was also the fact that her own
stomach was filled with a healthy swarm of butterflies, but she
thought it better to keep that fact to herself.

“How long have you been a deputy for Sheriff
Carmichael?” Constance asked.

“Three years, ma’am.”

“So then this isn’t the first time you’ve
been through this ordeal with him.”

“No, ma’am, it isn’t.”

Constance gave her a knowing nod and
breathed, “But it just never gets any easier, does it?”

“No, ma’am.”

Constance waited a beat, then clucked her
tongue and said, “So how do
you
think he does it,
Deputy?”

“Ma’am?”

“I’m asking your opinion. I’m open to
theories if you have one.”

“No, ma’am, I don’t,” she replied.

“Then I guess we’re both in the same
boat.”

“I suppose so, ma’am.”

Do me a favor, Deputy Slozar,” Constance
said. “Stop calling me ma’am.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Constance gave her head a small shake but let
the slip go without further comment. Were it not for the gravity of
the horrors that had occurred here—and were likely to occur again
very soon—the young woman’s unconscious habit would have been
almost comical.

Turning, Mandalay began to wander slowly
across the basement. The deputy stayed close behind, flashlight
aimed forward to illuminate her path. When she reached what she
thought was roughly the center, Constance stopped and waited.

“Turn off the flashlight, please,” she
instructed.

Confusion and fear were both thick in the
young officer’s voice when she stammered her reply. “Off,
ma’am?”

“Yes, Deputy. Off,” she said. “And then just
stand still if you would.”

The young woman fumbled with the black, metal
cylinder for a moment, then the light finally extinguished.
Constance listened intently once again, but this time she wasn’t
really sure what she was trying to hear.

The first thing she noticed was the whooshing
sound of her own blood echoing in her ears as her pulse began to
race. Behind that came the thin rasping of her shallow breaths. She
stared into the darkness, physically seeing nothing, but in her
mind, she allowed it to become the tangle of blue, black, and gray
from her nightmare.

While she stood there motionless, the seconds
ticked past, turning into a full minute and starting into another.
Since there had been no sunshine to speak of over the past two
days, the house hadn’t soaked up any warmth. Therefore, even below
grade here in the basement, the frostbitten night seeped in with
its relentless chill. By all accounts, this was pretty much just
how it had been on this same night in nineteen seventy-five. Merrie
Callahan had likely spent untold fearful hours down here in the
frigid darkness, alone except for that terrible drunken monster who
would come down those stairs and brutalize her on his sickening
whims. It was a miracle she had survived…
A Christmas
miracle
… As trite as the phrase seemed, Constance couldn’t help
but allow it to dominate her thoughts.

She felt an unnatural chill ripple along her
spine and wondered silently if it was merely a physiological
reaction to the cliché, or if in some bizarre way, Merrie Frances
Callahan was here with her right now.

“Talk to me, Merrie…” The words came out of
her mouth as an almost involuntary whisper.

Deputy Slozar cleared her throat and muttered
an uncomfortable, “Umm, what was that, ma’am?”

Before Constance could answer, Skip’s voice
echoed from the doorway above as a tight shaft of light was aimed
down the stairs. “Mel? Constance? You two okay down there?”

“We’re fine,” Constance called out, breaking
out of her sudden melancholy. “I was just checking something.”

As he descended the top few stairs, the hard
sound of the sheriff’s shoe soles against the wooden planks echoed
from the basement walls. The noise sent a fresh chill along
Mandalay’s backbone and set the swarm of butterflies in her gut to
flight.