08 - December Dread (2 page)

In this part of the country, people didn’t lock their cars at night, and I knew a handful of neighbors who didn’t even bother locking their houses. I was a house locker—lived in the Cities too long for anything else—but there was nothing in my car worth stealing. Well, almost nothing. I flipped open the trunk and reached for the Folgers can tucked in the far corner. I peeled off the lid: two fat candles, a box of matches, a flashlight, a Leatherman, a survival blanket the size and consistency of a sheet of tin foil that I hoped had magical properties, and a single Nut Goodie. The contents of this can were all that stood between me and a hypothermic starvation death in the event that my car went into the ditch and disappeared under a towering snowdrift on some lonely country road.

Wait, only
one
Nut Goodie? I scrabbled around the bottom of the can. I’d stuffed in a half dozen of the candy bars when I’d first created the winter survival kit three weeks ago. How could there only be one left? I dumped the contents into the trunk sifted through them, but there was no changing the facts: only a single Nut Goodie remained.

The Minnesota original candy bar was my crack, my cigarettes, my chocolate ecstasy all rolled together. As big as the palm of your hand, it’s a delight of chocolate and nuts wrapped around a maple candy center and encased year-round in a manic Christmas package of red, white, and green. I refused to keep them in the house because I couldn’t stop eating them once I started. I’d hoped the inner reaches of my car would serve as a demilitarized zone. I’d been fooling only myself.

I glanced guiltily at the house. Maybe Luna was right. Possibly, I wasn’t doing myself any favors with the Nut Goodie breakfasts. The thing is, the candy is my heroin, and I’m weak. I held the Nut Goodie in my hand, confronted with a
Sophie’s Choice
moment: immediate gratification or long-term survival? My knees and fingers were growing stiff with the cold, but I couldn’t decide. On the one hand, I was already heavy on saliva imagining the frozen chocolate melting in my mouth into a warm pool of happy. On the other, some sane part of me knew I shouldn’t snarf down
all
the food in the emergency kit. Then I remembered: I had granola bars in the house! They could be my survival food. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I pocketed the candy, repacked the coffee can and popped the lid back on, and charged toward the house before my skin froze off.

Luna forgave me my weakness, greeting me at the front door with an energetic wag like I’d been gone for a week. I patted her head, doffed my boots and coat, and planted myself at the kitchen counter to enjoy my chocolate breakfast and read yesterday’s mail. I’d come in too late last night to sort it, after putting in extra hours at the library as well as finishing up a front page article for the
Battle Lake Recall
, the local newspaper where I freelanced. Both jobs had toppled into my lap after I’d moved here from the Twin Cities, the library job as a result of a murder in May and the reporting gig due to my having a bachelor’s degree in English and subsequently, low income expectations.

The top letter was a plea that I become a contributing member of Minnesota Public Radio. For the millionth time, I promised myself I’d do that. Soon. I hated feeling like a public radio parasite, but money was tight for those of us at the bottom of the food chain, even when working two jobs. Using a side tooth, I pried off a chunk of hard-frozen Nut Goodie and continued sorting. Next on the pile was a holiday card from Peyton McCormick and her mom, Leylanda. Peyton, a precocious eight-year-old, was one of my favorite attendees at the library’s children’s reading hour every Monday. She’d been abducted from her home last June. The entire town had pulled together to find her, and when she was finally rescued—shaken but unharmed, thank all that is good—she became a local celebrity. Her gap-toothed smile dominated the photograph card, and a tongue-lolling golden lab wearing a Santa hat reclined between her and her mom. I showed the photo to Luna.

“Think we should do something like this next year?”

She licked my still-cold knee.

I made room on the fridge for the card and sifted through the rest of the mail: phone bill, Victoria’s Secret catalog, and a card rimmed with red and white-striped candy canes, promising me a free box of the peppermint treat if I signed up for a one-year subscription to
Healthy Holidays
. I tossed it. Seemed like a mixed message, and besides, I could already feel the Nut Goodie knocking out a wall in my stomach to add on. I also trashed the catalog, wrote a check for and stamped the telephone bill, and got ready for work.

Freshly showered and brushed, I offered Luna one last chance to paint the snow, made sure both animals had clean water, snagged some granola bars to restock my car kit, and headed to town, a smile on my face.

Otter Tail County hadn’t had fresh snow since Wednesday, so the roads were clear. I’d arrive an hour early to the library so that I’d have time to finish the book ordering that I’d begun last night. Come to think of it, I still had a delivery to catalog. I was high on the thoughts of all the organizing I’d accomplish when I pulled onto the Battle Lake main drag and spotted the mob outside the police station.

I slowed the Toyota to a crawl and hand-cranked the window. The odors of car exhaust and winter air washed in. The crowd of twenty or so was dressed for the weather, mostly female, and appeared abuzz about something. I recognized a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. “Gina!”

She caught sight of me and made her way to my car, no mean feat given the size of the crowd shoving against the heft of her curves. She was a nurse, and like most healthcare professionals in this county, she was built like a refrigerator. That’s what the city folk called irony. Sunny had been best friends with Gina before taking off to Alaska with her Bert-browed man. It had felt natural for me to step into the friendship. Gina was raunchy, funny, and outspoken, three qualities I admire. Me, I talk big in my own head, but I rarely walked the walk.

“Mira! Did you get one too?” Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy, and white puffs of air accented her words.

“One what?”

“This.” She held up her mittened hand. It clutched a candy cane-rimmed card promising her twelve free candy canes if she signed up for a year of
Healthy Holidays
.

“Yeah. I tossed it into the trash this morning. What of it?”

She raised her eyebrows so high they disappeared under the edge of her knit cap. “Cripes. I know you live in a trailer, but is it under a rock? Haven’t you heard about the Candy Cane Killer?”

“Sure,” I lied. “Candy. It’s a killer.”

“Gack.” She reached in to slap my forehead. The woolen mitten cushioned the blow. “I’m not talking about candy. I’m talking about the Candy Cane
Killer
, the serial killer who only murders in December and only kills brown-haired ladies about your height and weight? He started killing two years ago in Chicago. Last year he targeted central Wisconsin. They think he’s in Minnesota this year. A couple days ago seven women in White Plains got his calling card—a single candy cane—and yesterday, one of them was murdered.”

White Plains was a little over an hour directly southwest of Paynesville, my hometown. I’d attended track meets there. “Okay, but that’s not an actual candy cane.” I pointed at her card. “It’s an advertisement for a magazine.”

“You think you know more than the police? They want to speak with everyone who got one of these.” She shook the card for emphasis, and it made a rippling noise in the wind. “If you have one, you better go get it. Now. You have time before the library opens.”

She forced her way back into the crowd, and I rolled up my window and motored away. I had three things on my mind: (1) Yes, I often did think I knew more than the police, at least the local chief of police, Gary Wohnt. (2) I’d scented hysteria brewing in that crowd, a faint sulfur smell that takes only a single match to ignite, and (3) I didn’t want to be the dumb lady in the horror movie who ignored everyone’s warnings. Unsure of what to do about one and two but confident that I didn’t want to be caught stupid, I pointed the car toward home. I’d snag the card, show it to one of the officers at the police station, and still have time to open the library before ten o’clock.

I pulled into my driveway on autopilot, parked the car, and hurried to the house. I was so deep in thought that I’d yanked open the outer glass door and walked halfway through the interior steel door before I realized it had been unlocked. Had I been in such a hurry this morning that I hadn’t closed it tightly? That would be a first. I examined the door knob. The inner circle that I turned to lock it was pointing sideways, meaning the door had been closed but not locked. I glanced around the living room. Everything seemed in place, except for one thing. No dog had greeted me.

“Luna!” She met everyone at the door, tail wagging, no exceptions. My eyes swept the kitchen, the open door to my left leading to the master bedroom, and the hallway to the right leading to a bathroom, office, and spare bedroom. No movement.

The outer glass door was weighted and self-closing, meaning that even if I had accidentally left the interior door unlocked, there was no way Luna could exit the house unless someone had opened the outer door for her, and she wasn’t inside unless she was too hurt to move. I suddenly felt hollow.

“Luna?” This time it was a whisper.

Three

Across the room, a
corner of the candy cane card winked at me from the kitchen garbage, the frolicking border of hooked canes a lurid red. “Luna?” I called again. This time, I heard whining from the direction of the spare bedroom. My heart soared. She was okay. But then, what was keeping her from coming to me? My ears felt like saucers, twirling, searching for any alien sounds in the house. Was the killer here, now? Had he hurt Luna?

I reached behind me without looking, sliding my hand down the cool wood of my Louisville Slugger. Stumbling across seven murders in as many months had shaped me into a strange cross between paranoid and desensitized. It had also forced me to start pursuing my PI license before I earned a nickname, like Mortuary Mira. Plus, I’d figured the PI knowledge and skills would help me to handle the lousy hand I’d been dealt in terms of my recurring proximity to murder.

The bat felt solid in my hand. I left the interior door open in case I needed to beat a quick escape and inched toward the spare bedroom, keeping my back to the wall. While walking, I reached into my coat pocket with my free hand. I touched two Nut Goodie wrappers, a hair tie, and a calculator I’d borrowed from the library so I could balance my checkbook. Bingo. I pulled out the black plastic rectangle, made some movements on it with my thumb, and held it up to my ear.

“Drake? Yeah. No, definitely come over. You’ll be here in two minutes? Perfect. Come right in. I left the door open.” I slipped the calculator back into my pocket. “Drake” had been a good choice, I thought, considering my heart was beating so loudly I could hardly remember my own name. “Thor” or “Brutus,” the first two options that came to mind, might have given me away as a fake. Sure, it would’ve been nice if I owned a real cell phone and if someone was actually on their way here to save me, and if wishes were pennies, I’d be rich. Then I could afford a real cell phone.

Sweat was trickling down my neck. I still wore my winter coat, but with the door open, the room was chilling quickly. Fear provided its own furnace, however. If not for my concern for Luna, I’d be halfway to Battle Lake by now. Funny thing, I wasn’t worried about Tiger Pop. Cats really do land on their feet.

I reached the hallway that led to the spare bedroom, bathroom, and office. I couldn’t see around the corner into the bathroom, but the office door was wide open in front of me. Winter sunshine poured into the room, spotlighting all the angles. Nothing more evil than dust bunnies in there. Before I could chicken out, I whipped around the corner and into the hall, my back still glued to the wall. The bedroom door was partially closed, but I could see into the bathroom. The only illumination filtered in from the snowed-over skylight, but it was enough to reveal that the tiny room appeared empty. I darted forward and used the bat to push aside the blue and green shower curtain. Nothing. My breath was coming in shallow bursts.

I heard the whining again, this time closer. It was definitely coming from the spare bedroom, and the sound was so mournful that it twisted my heart. I attempted to weigh stealth against speed, but Luna made another sad sound, and my instincts overrode my brain. I kicked open the door and charged in, landing in the middle of the small room and swinging the bat like a helicopter blade. I tried to see everywhere at once. A bed. Pivot. An empty dresser. Pivot. A chair. Pivot. A cat. Pivot. A closet. Pivot. That was it.

“Tiger Pop?” He was lying in front of the closed closet door, licking his front paw in a patch of sunlight. He did not seem particularly agitated. I, on the other hand, appeared to be a crazy lady. I could feel my eyes wide and the fear vein throbbing on each side of my forehead. “Where’s Luna?”

Tiger Pop tossed me a cool stare. I forcibly slowed my breathing. As I did so, awareness dawned on me. I knew what was happening here, and it had nothing to do with a serial killer. I’d actually witnessed Tiger Pop practicing for this. He would stroll into a room, completely relaxed and cool. Luna would follow, always up for a good time. Tiger Pop would hang out just long enough for Luna to lie down before darting out of the room. And if the door opened out, he’d rub his back against it, trying with all his might to close it before Luna wised up and escaped. It was a mean trick, one that hadn’t trapped her. Until now. How had the cat convinced the dog to check out the spare bedroom closet?