08 - December Dread (20 page)

Neither Johnna nor Rita was home, so we left a note with Mrs. Berns’ cell phone number tucked in each mailbox and a request that they call us as soon as they could. Not sure what to do next, we made our way back to the coffee shop that Briggs had entered less than an hour earlier. We were gratified to find creamy honey and cinnamon lattes and rent-by-the-hour computers waiting inside for us. We took our coffees, freshly baked maple-nut scones, and bad attitudes to a computer, where we pulled up the E-adore site and began creating a profile for an Orelock brunette.

Twenty-eight

The killer had passed
them as they pulled into the gas station, two women in a brown Toyota Corolla, older model, carrying road muck all the way from Paynesville. Or, as it turned out, all the way from Battle Lake. It hadn’t been hard to track down her current address, job, and a list of family and friends, once she dropped her name. The killer had always been very gifted at research. It came with the job.

It had been much more difficult to locate her online ad. The profile was created last June on a cheap, no-name site. Her whole page was oddly worded, as if she wasn’t taking it seriously, and her photo was unflattering. It only captured her from the neck up, and a shadow across her face made it appear as if she had a large nose. She was much prettier in real life. Still, she was advertising herself, and she had to expect buyers.
If you sell yourself short, be prepared to accept bargain basement prices
.

The killer’s gloved hand is in the air, poised to strike the smug little doll strapped in the passenger seat. Had she just giggled? Her clothes are perfect, as always, but she is beginning to show the strain. A lock of curling brown hair has escaped her tight bun. It’s no wonder, with the police swarming closer and closer, and now that nosy bitch from Battle Lake poking around.

“It was still a stupid move,” the killer says, stealing a glance. The doll only smiles. “A damn mistake to send that orange begonia. What did we gain? Scaring her a little? We could have done that with a candy cane. The orange begonia was too risky. Only a handful of people have heard that story. Now we’re going to have to get rid of her, all because of you.”

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Tears are running down the killer’s face. “That’s not fair.”

But when had it ever been fair? Killing Auntie Ginger ten years ago should have stopped the taunts, and it had, for a while. That memory of her shocked face as she regained consciousness to find that she was wearing a noose and perched on a chair, hands tied behind her back, still satisfied the killer. One kick of the chair, four minutes of thrashing like a hooked fish, and it was done. The monster was dead.

Except the killer hadn’t been able to leave Auntie Ginger entirely.

The doll came with, just as a memento, a reminder of what could be survived. After all, it had been the doll, the cruel plastic plaything that Auntie Ginger pulled out of her pocket, that issued the actual commands to the chosen boy or girl at dress-up time. It was the doll, held in Auntie Ginger’s hands and speaking with a falsetto version of Auntie Ginger’s voice, who told the chosen child not to cry. It was the doll who exacted a promise from the children to never tell a soul. It was the goddamn doll.

And how deep the irony that it was the doll who began to speak again, three years ago last December, seven years after the killer had hung Auntie Ginger. Now, it is the doll who orchestrates the terrorizing of the women and the murders, who reminds the killer every second of every day that there is no such thing as freedom.

The killer has to pull over. The pain is too much.

Twenty-nine

“Do you want some
gum?”

I dragged my eyes away from the computer screen. Mrs. Berns was offering me pink chewing gum with a secret center. “I hate that kind,” I said, shaking my head. “Chewing it makes me feel like I’m eating a blister.”

She harrumphed, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her slide the partially masticated chunk out of her mouth and slip it into the garbage.

“It’s time to pull up the guys,” I said.

We’d initially updated our E-adore profile so we could peer out into the online world as if we were a man looking for a brunette in Orelock. We’d discovered Cindy’s profile right away. In it, she didn’t mention having a child. Unlike in River Grove, many of these women had chosen to identify themselves by tag names rather than their real names. Cindy, for example, called herself “LovetoLaugh1986.” There was no way to discover if any of the other smiling faces were Samantha Keller, Johnna, or Rita. I was trying to skim all of the profiles to see if anything stuck out, marking them as a victim, but none of them posted anything unusual or offensive. Mrs. Berns was growing impatient with my research and demanded that I switch over and search for the guys who’d match with someone like Cindy.

“All right,” I said. I revised our Veronica profile, changing the name to Anne and the town of residence to Aurora, an Iron Range village that we’d driven through right before reaching Orelock. Next, I ran a search for men aged 24–54 within 30 miles of Orelock. There were only twelve, and none of them was Sharpie Trevino. Of those twelve, we immediately discounted the seven who had photos posted and began skimming the remaining five. We were on the third when I spotted it.

“Look!”

“What?” Mrs. Berns asked, pushing her cat’s-eye reading glasses higher on her nose.

“This guy. He says he likes to go dancing, likes to travel, and can make any date fun ‘in two shakes of a sheep’s tail.’ Where have we heard that very bizarre idiom before?”

Mrs. Berns leaned back in her chair, her eyes sharp. “Craig, one of Veronica’s matches in River Grove. What’s he call himself here?”

“Greg.”

“Not very imaginative. What about the others?”

Nothing stuck out in the remaining four. They all sounded like regular guys light on the helping verbs, which was to be expected in greater Minnesota. Though we both had a tingling sense about Greg, we reached out to all five of them to be thorough. This time, we would meet but wouldn’t interact. We’d decided to not make the same mistakes twice because, as Mrs. Berns said, there’s so many to be made, why limit yourself that way?

We sent five e-mails and the same information in five instant messages to all of them. Two of the guys responded instantly, Chuck and Arthur. We asked both of them if they could meet us in this very coffee shop for lunch today, using our line that we had to leave tomorrow for a Christmas trip, and they both said yes. Greg and the fourth guy, Nathan M., and fifth guy Phillip, didn’t reply to either the e-mail or the instant message, which wasn’t surprising. We would keep checking back for their messages.

“While we wait, I want to see what I can unearth about Walter Briggs.” I’d made up my mind after we’d fled Cindy’s. I hated feeling intimidated, and a good offense is the best defense.

“You’re going to Ogle an FBI agent?”

“Google, and yes, I am. He’s a public employee, right?”

Mrs. Berns stood and pointed to the table farthest from my computer. “I’m going to be doing the crossword puzzle over there. Far away from your sketchy actions.”

I let her go and plugged in Walter Briggs’ name. I pulled up a lot of noise until I added “FBI,” and I was instantly transported to his official bio:

Supervisory Agent Walter Briggs is a member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BSU) Unit-2 out of Quantico. He’s been with the FBI for 32 years.

That helped me not at all. I clicked out of the official FBI page and on a hunch, searched for Walter Briggs co-linked with Adam De Luca. A surprising number of hits came up. Briggs had been on the Candy Cane Killer case since the beginning and Adam not long after, and they’d become weirdly tied in cyberspace. All the hits were articles by Adam briefly referring to Briggs as the agent in charge. The exception was an article written about the second woman killed in Wisconsin, Elizabeth Wable. According to the story, she was a relocated farm girl living in a medium-sized city and working as an administrative assistant when she’d been murdered. Adam took an interesting aside toward the end of the article to offer a little more depth on the agent in charge:

This case seems to have struck Agent Briggs, a native Midwesterner, particularly hard. When asked for a comment, he said only, “I have a daughter named Elizabeth.” The agent currently resides in Virginia, though he’s been largely in the field trying to capture the Candy Cane Killer since his first strike in Chicago.

I sipped my latte. It was cold. I waved my hand at Mrs. Berns and called her over.

“What?”

“FBI Agent Walter Briggs is originally from the Midwest.”

Her eyes widened. “You know what that means?”

I glanced left and right to make sure no one was listening, then leaned toward her. “No. What?”

“Nothing.” She smacked my head. “Millions of people are from the Midwest. Now close down that screen before the FBI echo-locates you and take a gander at who just walked in. I believe it’s our local E-adore delivery, Chuck.”

We were on the far side of the restaurant, both because the computers were located here and because it gave us a good view of everyone who entered. I turned to check out the guy who’d just walked in. He fit the online description and actually hadn’t lied when he’d written that he looked like Sean Connery, if Sean Connery were 5'6" and as bald as a monkey butt.

“Think he can fake a Scottish accent?” Mrs. Berns asked.

“You can’t be serious.”

Chuck got in line to order.

“I’m attracted to lookalikes. What can I tell you?”

“That you won’t fraternize with the suspects. I think I see our second, by the way.” A redhead, which is what Arthur claimed to be, had just entered. I looked down when he scanned the room nervously, sweeping his eyes over me and Mrs. Berns before standing behind Chuck in line. “Think they know each other?”

My question was so fresh it was green when the two of them started talking. The exchange was first friendly, and then they both cocked their heads at each other like quizzical chickens, and then heated words started flying. I heard “made a fool of” and “damn online dating,” and then they both stormed out.

“I’d say yes,” Mrs. Berns said. “They did in fact know each other, and now, they know each other even better.”

“Scratch them off the list,” I said, doing just that. “If they’re from around here, they’re not our killer. It’s between Greg, Nathan, and Phillip, and the smart money is on Greg. We can’t stay in town forever, though.”

“Not forever, but one more night. I reserved a hotel room for us while you were noodling online, and I called your mom to tell her we wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”

“Wow.”

“I also told her you’d go to Mass with her tomorrow. It is the last Sunday before Christmas, after all. You can thank me later.”

I grimaced. “That’s exactly when I’ll be thanking you. Much, much later.”

“You’re welcome. We might as well get some Christmas shopping done while we’re here. Come on.”

_____

“Who knew a hardware store would have so many perfect presents?” she asked, one hour later. Her cart held a prepackaged snorkeling set, a windowsill garden kit, two-inch letter stickers that she intended to “rogue adorn” the front door of every friend in Battle Lake with, and various nails, tools, putties, and paints.

“I’m guessing only you and Martha Stewart. Maybe Bob the Builder.” I sniffed. I usually liked the smell of hardware stores, the earthy, blue collar perfume of metal, motor oil, and wood. After a full hour, though, I was so bored I had begun to organize the shelves while Mrs. Berns pawed through bins for goodies. I was straightening out a row of mucilage when the front door donged. I glanced up idly, and then quickly yanked Mrs. Berns out of sight. “And maybe Lynne Bankowski,” I said, pointing toward the front door. The woman in question had just entered wearing a quilted black parka and a Swedish ski cap with matching mittens.

“What’s she doing here?” Mrs. Berns hissed.

Lynne steered into the first aisle, giving us a good view of her back.

“Shopping for something to remove blood stains? I’m surprised the police released her.”

“They must have decided she’s innocent, or didn’t have enough to hold her on.”

Boredom made me reckless. “Only one way to find out.”

After an hour, I knew this hardware store as well as my own bedroom. I scuttled down the tools aisle, took a left at housewares, and another left at fasteners. Lynne was digging through a slide-out bin of flat head nails.

“Lynne Bankowski?”

Her head whipped toward me, her eyes bright. She reminded me of a raccoon caught stealing garbage. “Yeah?”

I held out my hand. “Mira James. We met at Natalie Garcia’s funeral.”

She kept her hands in the nails. Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s so weird. I was wondering the same thing about you.”

“This is my hometown. My mom still lives here. It’s Christmas, right?” She finally pulled her hands out and pushed the bin back in. I noticed a scratch across the back of her right hand.