In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel (7 page)

4:31 P.M. – December 22, 1975

Bremerton’s Dime Store

Hulis Township – Northern Missouri

PREMATURE
darkness wasn’t the only
thing Mother Nature had on tap for what was already going to be the
longest night of the year without any help from the weather. She
was definitely in a mood to show everyone who was really in
control.

Before Deputy Carmichael had pulled out of
the sheriff’s office parking lot, the leading edge of the predicted
storm-turned-blizzard was rolling into town. As he hooked a quick
right onto Grimes Avenue, heading over to State Street, clumped
together snowflakes were starting to throw themselves against the
windshield of the cruiser in hesitant, on-again, off-again bursts,
driven by a rapidly rising wind. Two blocks later, the vacillating
showers of frozen precipitation had worked through the series of
spasmodic starts and settled into a steady diagonal curtain of the
icy tufts as the official beginning of winter took possession of
the small town. By the time he had traveled the last three short
blocks to Bremerton’s, the snow was liberally applying itself to
the landscape with relentless intent, building the first of many
fresh layers upon the frozen foundation that was already in
place.

Skip slowed the cruiser as he reached the
dime store, quickly scanning for a space to pull in. Almost
immediately he noticed a silhouette framed in the light that was
escaping from the storefronts. The dark form waved and gestured
toward the corner farther down. Picking up on the cue, he coasted
another fifty or so feet, then flicked on the cherries as a visible
warning before giving the steering wheel a quick turn to cut across
oncoming traffic. Slipping carefully between the front of a pickup
truck and the back end of a compact that was waiting to make a
turn, he guided the cruiser through a hard arc and into a diagonal
space in front of Evanston’s Drug at the opposite end of the
strip.

Out of habit, he checked the time. According
to his watch, slightly less than five minutes had elapsed since
Clovis had hung up from the initial call. However, given the
traffic snarl he had encountered at the Lake Street intersection,
despite a quick burp of the siren to clear the way, Deputy
Carmichael wondered if he could have been here just as fast
traveling on foot.

He levered the vehicle into park, then shut
off the engine and killed the lights. Bremerton’s was back up the
street, on the other side of Sissy’s Florist Shop, which was
nestled almost dead center between the five-and-dime and the drug
store. However, before he even had the key out of the ignition, the
silhouette had come down to meet him and was already standing under
the awning on the sidewalk directly in front of the patrol car. In
the yellowish glow pouring from Evanston’s windows he could see
that what had earlier been little more than a dark outline was in
fact Ruth Babbs, Bremerton’s store manager. Apparently she hadn’t
taken the time to don a coat before coming outside, so she was now
hugging her thick sweater tight, with her hands tucked beneath her
crossed arms.

“Evening, Missus Babbs,” he said, nodding in
her direction as he climbed out of the vehicle, only to be greeted
by a cold gust of wind that presented him with a face full of the
oversized snowflakes. He sputtered and blinked, then shoved his hat
onto his head. After pushing the car door shut he walked toward
her.

“Skip,” the manager called back to him by way
of a greeting. “I sure do appreciate you coming down so fast.” Her
voice sounded relieved, but what he could see of her face still
appeared to be deeply creased with concern.

A tangle of voices was coming from the small
crowd gathered just outside the dime store’s main window at the
opposite end of the short block. Even with the distance and other
background noise, it filled his ears with a muddy thrum,
interspersed here and there with a random high note or two.
Threading through it all was the unmistakable sound of a small
child bawling. Given the combination of darkness, backlighting, and
heavy curtain of snow, he could actually hear the people better
than he could see them. However, that in itself was more than
enough to get a general assessment. Even if he hadn’t been aware of
the current situation, he would have been able to tell just from
their sound that they weren’t there to watch the train, as would
usually be the case this time of year. Their audible distress
warned him that things weren’t yet resolved, and that raised his
own concern by a notch or two.

“So you still haven’t located the child?” he
asked, just to be sure.

Stepping up onto the sidewalk he came under
the shelter of the wide awning that ran the length of the
storefronts. Now that the oversized flakes were no longer streaming
directly in front of his eyes he could see much better, and Missus
Babbs’ expression was definitely pained.

She gave her head a shake. “No, we haven’t,
and we’ve been over the entire store three times now.” She looked
in the direction of the crowd for a moment then back to him and
added, “Elizabeth is just beside herself. She came out front to get
some air, but I’m not sure it’s done much good.”

“Has anyone called her husband?” he
asked.

She nodded. “He’s on his way.”

“Good,” Skip grunted. “I’m sure everything is
going to be fine, but having him here should help. So, did anyone
see the girl leave the store?”

“Not that I know of.” She shook her head
again. “They’ve checked all through Norris’s and Evanston’s too.”
She tilted her head toward the entrance of the drug store as she
continued. “Sissy’s was already closed for the day. We’ve asked
around, but a lot of people were going in and out of the stores,
so…”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Skip replied as her voice
trailed off. “Well, let’s go have another look. She’s probably just
hiding somewhere.” He gestured ahead and they started walking
toward the store proper. “So, Clovis said you were the last person
to see the girl?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“And where was that?”

“When she and her sister first came into the
store. They wanted to see Santa, so I sent them to the back where
we have the North Pole all set up.”

“Okay, so what about Mister Babbs then?
Didn’t he see them?”

Skip made what he considered a logical
assumption since everyone over the age of seven knew Missus Babbs’
husband played the part of Santa at Bremerton’s and that he had for
what seemed like forever. In fact, there was even a Polaroid in his
parent’s family photo album from back when Skip was a small child.
It showed him standing next to Mister Babbs while the jolly man in
the red suit cradled his younger sister on his lap. In the photo,
Skip was clutching a candy cane and looking genuinely befuddled by
the entire ruse. Even back then very little escaped his attention,
including the fact that Bremerton’s Santa was really the owner of
the sandwich shop.

She shook her head. “Actually, Elvis isn’t
here. He came down with that bad flu that’s been going around, and
we had to hire someone to take over for him this past week.”

“Who?”

“His name is John Carter.”

“That doesn’t sound familiar. Is he
local?”

“No. With it being so last minute we had
trouble finding anyone. Mister Bremerton actually had to hire him
through an agency all the way down in Saint Louis. I understand
that it wasn’t cheap, but he didn’t want the children to be
disappointed.”

“Sounds about like Mister B.”

She nodded agreement. “Anyway, Mister Carter
seems like a very nice man. He even gave his time to go over to
Immaculate Conception in Mais this morning to fill in for Elvis at
the school party there. That wasn’t part of the contract, so he
didn’t even get paid for it. He just volunteered.”

“That was nice of him to do that,” Skip
said.

Voices were becoming more distinct within the
overall murmur as they closed the gap between themselves and the
clutch of people in front of the main window. Some of them were
attempting to be soothing, most were concerned, but there was a
standout that was unmistakably panicked. Skip figured that one in
particular had to belong to Elizabeth Callahan. The bawling
youngster hadn’t fully stopped either, but she seemed to be in a
lull for the moment, with the warbling cries replaced by quieter
gasping sobs, punctuated by short wails.

“So, what about this Mister Carter?” Skip
asked. “Did he see the girl at all before she went missing?”

Missus Babbs slowed then completely stopped
in her tracks, still several yards away from Bremerton’s
storefront. Scrunching her forehead in thought and resting the tips
of her fingers against her lips for a moment before shaking her
head slowly, she answered, “You know… Come to think of it, I
haven’t actually seen him since all of this started. He was on his
dinner break when the girls first came in, but he was due back soon
so I sent them back to wait. Then, in what seemed like it was just
a couple of minutes later, Becca, the youngest, came wandering up
to the front of the store, all alone and in a complete fit. All we
could get from her was that her sister wouldn’t let her see Santa
and that she couldn’t find her now.”

“Wouldn’t let her see Santa?” he asked.

“I know,” she replied. “It seemed strange to
us too, but you know how kids are. I went back and looked for her,
but she was nowhere to be seen.” The woman shrugged. “I just
assumed Mister Carter hadn’t come back from his dinner break just
yet and that the Santa thing was just a matter of a big sister
picking at her little sister… And since then we’ve been so worried
about finding Merrie I didn’t even think about him.”

The earlier notch of added concern was now
joined by several more, and Deputy Carmichael felt every single one
as each ratcheted into place. It wasn’t that a missing child hadn’t
been important from the outset, but this was a small town. Kids
around here were never really missing; they were just off being
kids, daydreaming and hiding in plain sight while parental hearts
skipped a beat or two.

However, something suddenly felt very
different about this situation, and he didn’t like it at all.

“So that’s the missing girl’s name?” he
asked, a thin but noticeably real edge of urgency had crept into
his voice. “Merrie?”

She nodded. “Yes. Merrie Frances
Callahan.”

“Would you happen to know where this Mister
Carter goes on his dinner break?”

“No…” She shook her head.

“How about what type of car he drives?”

“It’s older. Kind of an orangish-brown,” she
replied hesitantly, then paused to think. A heartbeat later she
added, “It’s a four door, and it has a vinyl roof. Black, I think…
Definitely dark… He’s only been here a few days, and I never really
paid much attention to the make or anything. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Skip told her as he glanced
quickly up the row of vehicles ahead of him as well as the traffic
on the street. “That’s a good description. Did he normally park out
here, or in the back?”

“In the back,” the manager replied.

“When you were looking for Merrie did you
happen to notice if his car was out there?”

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think to look
for it.”

“Do you know where he’s staying?”

“I believe Mister Bremerton said he put him
up at the Greenleaf,” she replied. Obvious fear was now welling in
her voice. “You don’t think that…”

Skip filled in behind her failing words. “I’m
just covering all the bases, Missus Babbs, that’s all. But I need
you to do me a favor. I want you to go in and call back to the
office, and give Sheriff Morton all of that information you just
gave me, as well as a description of Carter and the girl. Tell
Clovis that I told you to talk directly to him, okay? Can you do
that for me?”

He could see that Missus Babbs was now
wearing a far more concerned expression than when he had first
arrived on the scene. She nodded in the affirmative, but didn’t say
a word.

“Okay, let’s get moving,” he told her.

There was far more urgency in their pace now.
It didn’t take uncanny powers of observation for Skip to put these
pieces together and see that the picture they might well be forming
wasn’t very pretty.

The gap between them and the crowd shrank
quickly now, and as he expected, once he could start making out
faces Skip recognized that he knew several people in the clutch.
Those he didn’t actually know, he registered as having seen before.
After all, Hulis wasn’t really as big as it looked on a map. Truth
is, the majority of it was farmland spread out around a spot on the
road that just happened to have its own post office. The population
was relatively small, so it was easy to become familiar with faces,
especially when you’d lived here your entire life and had a good
memory.

“You have to find her,” a voice cried at him
as they moved through the parting bodies. At almost the same
instant, a hand clamped tightly onto his arm.

“Go on ahead in,” Skip told the manager as he
came to an unscheduled halt. “And, make that call right now.”

Missus Babbs continued on, and Skip turned to
see Elizabeth Callahan staring at him, a tight mask of worry
clawing at her features as she clung to his arm. “Something’s
wrong,” she said.

“I’m going in to look for her, Missus
Callahan,” he said.

She shook her head, moaning, “This isn’t like
Merrie at all.”

“Has anything been bothering her lately?”
Skip asked. “Anything that might give her a reason to run off?
Trouble at school or at home, maybe?”

“No, noth…” she said, then backpedaled almost
immediately. “Wait… She said she wasn’t feeling well when I picked
her up. I finally got her to tell me that she was worried about
going to Hell because she was having bad thoughts about
someone…”