“That ain’t much sleep. Wanna just call me back later when ya’ get up?”
“No…” she grumbled, pushing herself up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Getting up now. My alarm is set to go off in another few minutes anyway.”
Just across from her the heater was blowing, but the room still felt cold. She stood up and padded over to it, then checked the controls. The dial was already set to high; however, lukewarm air was all that seemed to be pushing up from the vent. She positioned herself in front of it anyway, stretching in an attempt to loosen a few kinks.
She turned slowly and allowed the air to blow up across her back as well. It really didn’t help much. After a moment she gave up trying to get warm, wandered over to the door, and flipped the light switch. A soft glow filled the room, but to her it seemed as bright as the sun, so she squinted against the onslaught.
“You still there?” Ben asked.
“Yeah… I’m here…” she replied, her voice still a tired mumble. “Just trying to wake up.”
“You’re pushin’ yourself too hard, hon,” Ben told her. “You really should’ve hit the sack when we got off the phone this mornin’.”
She stretched again, letting out a semi-satisfied groan, then admonished, “Stop being such a mother hen. I had something I had to follow up on. You know how it works.”
“Yeah, I do…” he replied. “But did it get ya’ anywhere?”
She glanced over at her notebook computer. It was in standby mode once again, screen dark and power light slowly winking its amber glow. He had asked her a fair question; however, she honestly didn’t have a solid answer.
“Not sure yet,” she breathed softly as her mind began to wander. “Right now I’m still trying to connect the dots.”
“Prob’ly be easier if ya’ had some more rest.”
She didn’t reply because she had stopped paying attention to him. While still holding the phone to her ear she stepped over to the desk and tapped the computer keyboard. The machine whirred back to life as she watched. A moment later when the display clicked on, the multi-page document was staring back at her. She had saved the unencrypted version to her flash drive as soon as it was done loading this morning, but she found some solace in the fact that the original had not inexplicably disappeared while she slept.
“Yo… Earth ta’ Constance…” Ben finally said.
She mumbled, “What?”
“You fallin’ asleep on me or somethin’?”
“Or something…” she replied quietly, still staring at the embedded photos on the document.
“Wanna share?” he asked.
Her tone remained distant. “No… Not right now.”
“Ya’know, I really think maybe ya’ need ta’ go back ta’ bed.”
She snapped, “How about I rag on you the next time you’re working a case and running on nothing but coffee and cold, three-day-old pizza?”
“Fine, have it your way,” he conceded. “I didn’t call ya’ ta’ have an argument anyway.”
“Sorry,” she sighed. “I know you’re worried about me, but I’m definitely just not in the mood for the mothering, okay?”
“Yeah, I sorta got that,” he sighed, then gingerly added, “Ya’know, just for the record, your mood is kinda why I’m so worried. Ya’ don’t usually get like this.”
“Yeah…” she agreed. “I know.”
“Okay, that’s the last I’m gonna say about it… So listen, I’m callin’ ‘cause I ran your stuff for ya’.”
“Were you able to keep it off the books?”
“Flew as low as I could,” he told her. “I owe an acquaintance out in KC a bottl’a bourbon. The really good shit.”
“For what?”
“Well, it is Christmas Eve ya’know… Gettin’ things done on the sly wasn’t exactly easy.”
“This acquaintance a badge?” she asked.
He snorted. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowin’.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it,” she said, then thought silently to herself, Aren’t we a pair, trying to protect each other… Playing out our own version of the Gift of the Magi.
Ben added, “Oh, by the way, you’re payin’ for the bourbon, just so ya’ know.”
“Am I getting my money’s worth?” she asked.
“Guess it depends,” he told her. “Number one, your buddy the sheriff is damn near a fuckin’ Boy Scout.”
“That good, huh?”
“Yeah. Just about as clean as they come. Did twenty-four years with the KCPD, Missouri by the way… Fifteen of those were as a detective, and ten of those were spent heading up a child predator task force.”
Her mind wandered for a moment to the file attached to the cryptic email and what it had contained, but she decided it would be better to keep the information to herself for the moment. Instead she replied, “Given the history, I can easily see that. Merrie Callahan’s abduction was likely the truly defining moment in his career.”
“No shit… Well, he had a hell of a clearance rate on cases too, so I see what ya’ mean about the whole Sherlock thing. He was directly responsible for putting away a whole lotta seriously sick fucks… On top of that he received several honors…boatload of commendations… Oh, and never fired his service weapon in the line of duty.”
“Lucky bastard…” Constance breathed.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Ben agreed. “Anyway, married to Kathy Carmichael, three daughters, blah, blah, blah. Normal stuff, nothin’ spectacular. Retired from KCPD, hung out there for a while and did some consulting for the task force, then moved back ta’ Hulis in oh-two. Elected sheriff oh-three in a special election ta’ fill the vacated post, and that’s where he’s been ever since. Re-elected oh-four and oh-eight.”
“Two-Thousand Three was when the first murder occurred,” Constance announced.
“So you thinkin’ it’s him? He’d have the inside info, and he’d know how ta’ cover shit up.”
“Yeah, that’s true…but…no…” she replied, drawing out the word and ending it with a fat pause. “I’ll admit it’s a weird coincidence, that’s for sure.”
“Well, there was one other thing that showed up,” Ben said. “Don’t know if it means anything.”
“What’s that?”
“In oh-four someone from the FBI recommended Sheriff Sherlock be put on administrative leave pending a psych eval.”
“Who?”
“Dunno. Paper trail’s thin as one-ply. Lucky it showed up at all ta’ be honest. Seems that it came outta your office in Saint Louis though.”
“Curious,” she muttered. “Well apparently they didn’t find anything, or he wouldn’t still be sheriff in this county, or anywhere else for that matter.”
“Nope. Nothin’. Passed with flyin’ colors. But ya’know, it still might make ya’ wanna rethink your position on this guy.”
Constance quietly considered his point, then finally said, “No. I just really can’t see it, unless he’s got me completely snowed.”
“Well, don’t turn your back on ‘im, okay?”
“Don’t worry. What else?”
“Well, that’s it for him. There was nothin’ on Merrie Callahan at all. And the only thing I could find on Colson was his record prior ta seventy-five and his time served at Gumbo. Real sick fuck, that one.”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” she replied. “But I already have all that info.”
“Well, then that was a bust.”
“I figured it would be. Just needed to check. What about Reese? Anything?
“Actually, yeah. The pastor is a different story.”
“What did you find?”
“Well, he’s clean as far as an NCIC search…”
“I guess I’m not surprised by that,” she grumbled.
“But like I said, I still managed to dig up somethin’. Just for the hell of it I had a genealogist friend of mine pull a court records search on divorces in Missouri. Took a bit of siftin’ after th
e fact since I told ‘im to shotgun it so it’d be less conspicuous, but he found your guy,” he explained. There was a quick shuffle of paper at the other end of the line, then he said, “Wanda Corinne Reese versus Edgar Virgil Reese, dissolution of marriage. Filed and final in seventy-seven.”
“Seventy-seven…” Constance expressed her thoughts aloud. “Okay, so based on what I was told his mental breakdown occurred prior to the divorce, so it had to have happened before seventy-seven then…”
“Yeah…well while I was lookin’ I accidentally ran across somethin’ else. Not sure if it’s important or not, but turns out that from seventy-three till early seventy-six, Pastor Edgar Reese was Deputy Sheriff Edgar Reese.”
“You’re right… That is interesting,” she said. “Did he quit or was he fired?”
“There was a hearing, but I couldn’t get details. Might have been a psych eval or somethin’.”
“How early in seventy-six?” Constance asked.
There was a sound of paper rustling as Ben checked his notes. “Says here his service to the citizens of Hulis ended mid-January.”
“That’s not long after the Merrie Callahan abduction.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Like I said, don’t know if it means anything, but it seems a little hinky ta’ me. I mean, it’s a small town and he almost had ta’ be involved in the investigation back in seventy-five. If these murders are some kinda copycat, maybe he actually does know somethin’. Hell, maybe he’s actually your guy. Ya’ already know he’s a wingnut.”
Constance thought about the new information for a moment, then brought her free hand up and stared at her nails, remembering Reese’s seeming agitation over them earlier in the day. Still gazing at the disco pink lacquer she breathed, “It definitely makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
Just under an hour later, Constance was out the door and on her way to the sheriff’s office. Fortunately, at some point while she was sleeping, the lot had been at least partially plowed, so she wasn’t going to be faced with another frigid stroll. Good thing too, because strapping herself into an ice-cold bulletproof vest had been a rude enough awakening as far as she was concerned.
“My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends tonight.”
—The Ghost of Christmas Present
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens, 1843
CHAPTER 22
6:38 P.M. – December 24, 2010
Sheriff’s Department
Hulis Township – Northern Missouri
“WAS wonderin’ when you’d show up,” Sheriff Carmichael said as Constance dragged in through the door of his office and then without a single word parked herself in the straight-backed chair across from him.
He waited while she settled herself, absently inspecting the worn point on the number two pencil he held threaded through his fingers. After a quick frown he tossed it atop the folded newspaper on the desk in front of him, abandoning the crossword puzzle he had been half-heartedly working, and focused his attention on the petite federal agent.
“I left a message for you with Clovis this morning,” she eventually replied, her voice hoarse and emotionless.
“Yeah, she told me.”
“Sorry. I was following up some leads. She said you’d be here anyway.”
He nodded. “Well, that’s true enough… So…leads, huh? I could go for some good news. Find anything you wanna share?”
Constance didn’t answer immediately. The information in the recently cracked electronic document had only served to add a whole new layer of complexity to this case, raising more questions instead of giving answers to those that had already plagued the investigation for years. Since she didn’t know exactly what Carmichael was keeping from her, it seemed prudent to play some things close to the vest for the moment, and the contents of that document were chief among them. However, there definitely was one thing she wanted to discuss with him.
She shook her head. “Nothing solid. Although, I’m a bit curious about Edgar Reese.”
He simply nodded and sighed. “Yeah, I sort of figured you might be. Clovis said you had the annual run in with him this morning.”
“You could say that,” she replied. “He claimed to have information about the murders.”
“Yep,” he nodded, snorting out a chuckle. “I’m sure he did. He’s used that line on every Fed so far. No reason you should be any different.”
“That’s what Clovis was saying. What she didn’t tell me though, was that he was a deputy sheriff here back in seventy-five.”
“I doubt she thought it was important. Truth is, in the grand scheme it really isn’t.”
Her retort was matter-of-fact. “Well, truth is, I’m not sure I agree with that assessment.”
Skip gave her a nod, then adopted his formal tone. “Okay, Special Agent Mandalay, I can see we need to clear this up. So, here you go… Edgar Reese was a deputy sheriff here in nineteen seventy-five. He came on a little more than a year before I did. Now, what else would you like to know?”
“How involved was he in the Colson investigation? For instance, was he ever at the original crime scene?”
“This is a small department, Constance. Wasn’t really all that much bigger then, so to answer your question, yes, he was. We all were. Problem is, Edgar didn’t deal with it so good, and he hasn’t been right in the head since. I’m sure you had to notice that.”
“Of course, but if he–”
“Look,” he interrupted. “Let’s just cut to the chase. I’ve had this conversation more than a few times before, so I’m pretty sure I know where you’re heading with it. Why don’t you let me save us both some trouble… Yes, we’ve looked at him for the murders, and he alibis out.”
“Okay, so what’s his alibi, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Don’t mind at all,” Skip replied. “For the past thirty years, every Christmas Eve, Edgar has driven himself over to Mais and checked himself into the hospital psych ward. That’s where he is now. Matter of fact, I got the call from them about two hours ago.”
“So they call you?”
“Yeah, I asked ‘em to. Just to be sure every year, not that it matters. It’s really more of a peace of mind thing. Anyway, he’ll be there for seventy-two hours, and then he’ll come home, medicated and a little less flaky for a while. Point is, every year he’s pretty much under lock and key until well after the annual murder…”
She shook her head and chewed at her lip for a moment. “Mind if I ask why this wasn’t in any of your reports?”
“Honestly, I figure Edgar’s had it pretty rough what with his breakdown and his marriage falling apart like it did. Not to mention losing his job and becoming the town fool… He makes enough trouble for himself without my help, trust me. I believe you had first hand experience with that this morning.” He shrugged. “I just didn’t want to add to it. Besides, he always comes to you Feds with his claim, not me. I’d say a better question would be, why isn’t it in any of your reports?”
She let out a soft harrumph. “You’re right, Skip. That’s an excellent question. I wish I had an answer for both of us.”
“I hear you,” he replied, then gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry I torpedoed your theory.”
“That’s okay. I guess I really expected you to.” She pursed her lips and stared blankly into space. “He’s a bit too obvious as a suspect for you to have missed him.”
“True,” Skip agreed. He watched her quietly for a moment, then cleared his throat and said, “So…speaking of reports, let me ask you a question: What did Edgar tell you?”
Constance shook her head. “Nothing, really. He insisted on going to my motel room, but when I suggested we come here instead, he became agitated. Then he just rattled off some Bible verses about the devil being among us.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. Why?”
“That’s different…” he mumbled, not answering.
“What is?” Consta
nce pressed.
“Well, the scripture quoting is normal for him, but in the past he’s always explained it to you Feds. You see, he believes Merrie is the embodiment of Satan and that everyone in town is possessed by her.”
“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.
In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel Page 22
