In the bleak midwinter asacm-1

by M. R. Sellars

  From their position at the bottom of the stairs, to the left she spied the squat hulk of an antiquated furnace lurking in the darkness. It appeared as though a maintenance panel was missing, which left a contrasting rectangular hole on its front. In a peculiar sense, it looked much like a huge, gaping mouth at the bottom of an oblong face. Shadowy round metal ductwork branched out from the side of the unit, like fat arms extending upward until they disappeared into the rafters above. Once a source of heat, viewed at this angle it was now a cold, basement-dwelling monster, reaching for the upper floors in order to drag the unsuspecting into its hungry mouth.

  Whether it was the exhaustion or something else entirely, Constance wasn’t sure, but for some reason this house had a bizarre way of becoming anthropomorphized visions in her brain. She shook her head and blinked as a gut response to the hallucination being produced by her uncharacteristically rampant imagination. But, was it just her imagination? The shiver along her spine made her wonder. If anything, it was just as bad now as it had been the previous evening, maybe even worse.

  Sheriff Carmichael noticed the motion and brought the flashlight up in her direction. “You okay?”

  She nodded and lied. “Just a cobweb, I think.”

  “Yeah. Plenty of those down here, that’s for sure.”

  He swung the flashlight back down and adjusted the beam on as wide as it would go and still be effective, then played it slowly around the basement to reveal those things that were still hiding in shadows. Just beyond the furnace-that now looked like nothing more than what it really was-stood a dilapidated water heater in the middle of a large rust stain that spread outward from it on the floor. Along the walls, seeping cracks flanked by dark mold became immediately evident in the illuminated swath. Those certainly accounted for the damp, musty smell that permeated the cold air.

  “Old coal chute,” Skip said, directing the light at a single point for a moment. The highlighted area was covered in the same peeling, off-white paint as the rest of the walls, but a pattern of bricks and mortar seams were evident beneath. “It was bricked up even back in seventy-five, so no way in through there.”

  He began panning again and the beam of light eventually fell across a vertical column rising upward from the centerline of the basement to bear the load of the structure above. Several feet to the right, directly in front of them and against the side of the staircase Constance could see the shadow of its twin.

  Skip finished the slow arc and then waved the beam back toward the center of the room and mused aloud in a sad tone, “Hasn’t changed…”

  “Stands to reason,” Constance offered. “If the house has been vacant for seven years.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. His voice still seemed strained. “But I mean it hasn’t changed since seventy-five.”

  She didn’t respond to the explanation. She really didn’t know how.

  After a moment he tilted the beam downward and began walking slowly forward on a direct line between the support columns. She followed.

  “Right over here,” he finally said, playing the light across the floor in front of them.

  The yellow swath of illumination revealed an oblong outline chalked on the concrete. A foot or so away was a much smaller outline, roughly perpendicular to the first. Dark stains colored portions of the floor within the two shapes, spreading outward in haphazard flows, as if randomly spilled with no regard for the lines themselves. Similar dark splotches were heavily splattered on the wall nearby.

  “And over there,” the sheriff offered, sliding the light to the corner a few feet away, where a basketball-sized circle was drawn. It too, bore a dark stain beneath.

  “And over there,” he continued, again aiming the beam toward a location apart from the others. This one looked like the outline of a giant, disproportionate boomerang.

  “Torso and upper right arm,” Carmichael announced, panning the light back to the first location. Moving it rapidly to the second spot he added, “Head.” Aiming at the third he said, “Left calf and most of the thigh.” Waving the light slowly around to reveal other outlines, he hesitated for a moment at each and named them off one by one, “Left arm and hand; right forearm; right calf, thigh, and foot; left foot; right hand. And…well…that’s pretty much it.”

  “And the body parts are dumped exactly the same way, every year?” Constance remarked as much as asked.

  He played the beam slowly over the blood-stained wall. “They aren’t just dumped. It happens right here.”

  “Yet the killer gets away?”

  “That’s the mystery,” Sheriff Carmichael replied. He swung the flashlight back and forth again, rapidly illuminating each of the spots in succession. “But to answer your first question: yep. Exactly the same every year. All seven victims dismembered the same way, left in exactly the same position, every single time. We don’t even bother to clean up the outlines anymore.”

  “Don’t you mean eight victims?” Constance asked.

  He grumbled his response. “Not yet. Not until Christmas Day anyway.”

  “I mean John Horace Colson,” she explained. “Aren’t the seven recent victims positioned in exactly the same way he was found dismembered in nineteen seventy-five?”

  “Yes, they are, Special Agent Mandalay,” he spat, adopting the formal tone he’d used before when he wanted to stress a point. “But you need to bear in mind that John Colson was a monster. Merrie Callahan was the victim, not him.”

  “I agree, Merrie was definitely a victim. But, whether you and I think it’s right or not, legally, Colson was too.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s really just semantics.”

  “Well, you can keep your semantics.” The words came as a growl. He had moved a step beyond cold formality and was now toeing a line called anger.

  Unfortunately, his growing flare was igniting hers as well, and it was clear in her voice as she mimicked his sudden conventionalism. “Semantics aside, Sheriff Carmichael, I think we can agree the connection between the murders is more than obvious.”

  “I’m not a rookie, Special Agent. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you aren’t looking at this crime objectively.”

  “I never claimed to be,” he replied, his voice even sharper than before. “You’re a smart girl; I thought you’d figured that out by now.”

  Constance felt herself bristle at the condescending remark and immediately opened her mouth to fire back a rebuttal. However, before she released the volley, her training kicked in to override her emotions. She didn’t know what had sparked this sudden escalation of tempers between them, but she knew it wasn’t productive, and it needed to end right now.

  She drew in a deep breath, then forced her tone to remain calm and even. “Skip…” she began. “I’m not trying to be adversarial here. I’m just-”

  “You sure as hell could’ve fooled me,” he snapped, truncating her sentence before she could finish. His voice rose as he launched into a short-lived tirade, “Goddammed know-it-all Feds. You’re all the same… Coming in here uninvited and placing blame where it doesn’t belong… Screw the whole lot of ya’…”

  Constance felt heat radiate from her cheeks as her face flushed, but she continued to bite back her temper and held her tongue. Conflict resolution wasn’t an easy task in the first place, even when you were the detached outsider. It was much harder when you were firmly entrenched in your own side of the argument.

  “Have you seen enough?” Carmichael demanded on the heels of his outburst. “Are we done here?”

  “Yes,” Constance replied as calmly as she could manage. “I think we are.”

  He turned and started for the stairs. “Come on then. I’ll drop you off back at the Greenleaf.”

  “Actually, why don’t we just go to your office,” she said as she turned to follow. “I’d like to have a look at the original case file. If you still have it, that is.”

  Skip didn’t answer. He simply kept walking, then stomped up
the stairs, flashlight in hand, leaving her to negotiate the uneven bottom double-step alone and in the dark.

  CONSTANCE glanced over the top edge of the thirty-five-year-old police report as a hand slid an unmarked, cardboard burger carton across the break room table and brought it to rest in front of her. The carton was soon followed by a plastic fork and then by a thick-walled, stoneware mug that had wisps of steam wafting slowly up from the coffee it contained.

  In the seconds following the appearance of the items, there ensued a balloon of silence that was slowly expanding to fill the room. It finally popped when Skip cleared his throat and said, “Hope you like cranberry-mince pie. It’s all they had over there this morning.”

  “Peace offering?” She asked without looking up from the file.

  “Works with my daughters,” he grunted. “Not so much with my wife, but with the girls it does…most of the time, anyway. And, since you remind me a lot of my oldest, I figure I might have a fifty-fifty shot…”

  Constance gave in and laid the open file on the table, then looked up at him with a curious expression. “Why just fifty-fifty?”

  “Because my oldest takes after her mother.”

  “I see… But pie? For breakfast?”

  “Think of it as a doughnut you have to eat with a fork.”

  She arched her eyebrows and nodded. “Never thought of it that way.”

  “So…” he said after a measured pause. “Is it working?”

  She chuckled as she quipped in return, “I guess that all depends on how good the pie is.”

  “Yeah. You’re definitely a lot like my oldest,” Skip replied. He dropped a second carton on the table, then pulled up a chair and parked himself across from her. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know I was kind of a jackass back there.”

  “Kind of?”

  “Okay, I was a complete jackass,” he replied.

  “Apology accepted,” she said with a quick nod. “And I should say that I’m sorry if I offended you with my observations on this case. I realize that what happened with Merrie is a touchy subject for you and everyone else in this town for that matter. I truly wasn’t trying to be insensitive to that fact.”

  “I know you weren’t. You’re just following the leads like you’re supposed to. Truth is, I should’ve warned you up front.”

  “About?”

  “Me… That house…” he huffed, then paused, leaving a pregnant question mark hanging in the air. He thumbed the tab on his box and opened the hinged lid to reveal a wide slice of homemade pie that had been accessorized with a huge dollop of whipped cream. He stared at it for a moment, then picked up his own fork; but instead of digging in, he waved the utensil through the air and proceeded to fill in the blank he had left. “This sort of thing has happened before. More than once. You can ask your Fed buddies about it. I just don’t do well in that house. Too many bad memories, I guess… And just more gettin’ made.”

  “I think I can understand that. Between the painful memories and the frustration you must feel with this case, I’m sure it can’t be easy on you.”

  He bobbed his head in agreement. “Not so much, that’s the truth. Most memories dull with time. Eventually they fade enough that they get easier to deal with…but not this one. It just gets harder for me every year. Still, that was no cause for me to take it out on you.”

  “Would it help if I confessed something?” Constance asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Being in that house was getting to me too. I know that might sound crazy, especially since I don’t have the history with it that you have.” She paused, then shrugged and added, “To be honest, I was actually even a little spooked by it yesterday. I hate to admit it, but I was sort of relieved when your flashlight didn’t work.”

  “Hard for me to imagine you being spooked by much of anything,” he replied, then puckered his lips into a thoughtful frown and offered, “I guess I was too wrapped up in myself to notice. Sorry.”

  “What was that you said earlier? ‘Now we’re even’?”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine you not noticing something.”

  “It happens,” he replied, a half chuckle following the words. “As a matter of fact, that’s when I usually end up buying somebody a piece of pie. Oh…how’s your shin, by the way?”

  Obviously he hadn’t missed the fact that she’d stumbled over that bottom stair when he stormed off and left her standing in the dark.

  “Sore,” she answered. “And I’m sure there’s a bruise on the way, so I doubt I’ll be winning any sexy legs contests in the near future.”

  “Maybe not, but from the language I heard coming up the stairs I’d sure put money on you to win a cussin’ contest.”

  CHAPTER 16

  4:26 P.M. – December 23, 2010

  Greenleaf Motel

  Hulis Township – Northern Missouri

  Constance straightened her posture, then interlaced her fingers behind her neck and arched her back as she stretched. She held the position for several seconds before unclasping her hands and slowly reaching toward the ceiling. She heard a pop from her left shoulder and rotated it carefully, then made another mental note about that massage when she was finally back home in Saint Louis.

  Finally, she relaxed and allowed her arms to drop to her sides as her back unbowed. Then she closed her eyes and slowly rolled her head in a circle, first left, then right, then left again. When she was finished working the muscles in her neck, she glanced at her watch, then at the paper-strewn bed. She’d been hunched over for better than two hours this time, so she definitely needed a break.

  She sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, shaking her arms and rocking her hips as she danced in place to get her circulation going. It seemed a bit chilly, so she turned away from the bed and wandered over to the wide heater unit that was mounted through the wall beneath the window of her motel room. It wasn’t pushing any air at the moment, so she bent over and inched the temperature control dial up another notch. It kicked on immediately.

  Straightening up, she reached out and pulled back the edge of the dark burgundy insulated drapes that covered the smudged panes, and then peered out through the gap. On the other side of the glass, it was reaching the cusp of darkness. The last throes of what little sunlight had been managing to penetrate the low clouds were throwing themselves against the coming night in a futile suicide assault. However, the dirty blue-gray shadows were winning, just as they always would.

  In the dimness she could see that a light snow was still falling, the same as it had been since mid afternoon. Something on the order of an inch had accumulated so far-maybe even a bit more. What she’d been able to tune in earlier on the two-decades-old television had told her that it would be picking up the pace, and there would likely be three to five more on the ground by morning, at least. Sometime around midday tomorrow the weather system was supposed to finally taper off to flurries, leaving another day of overcast skies and an added blast of bitter cold slipping in from the northwest.

  It looked like it would definitely be a white Christmas for northern Missouri, not that anyone here in Hulis would be celebrating. Except for Merrie, of course.

  Constance felt a sudden chill run the length of her spine, and she shivered.

  Out of instinct, she rested the heel of her palm on the butt of her Sig Sauer. Her index finger was extended, and the others were curled lightly over the grip, while her thumb hovered against the quick release. As she leaned in toward the window and twisted to scan the rest of the parking lot, the edge of her hand pressed against her side, sending a brief but sharp pain through the cell-phone bruise. She winced and adjusted her torso a bit, but left her hand resting on her sidearm.

  She didn’t consciously believe that she was being watched, but she was still on edge. This wasn’t the first odd chill she’d felt since returning to her room, and it wasn’t because of the heater. While she was at the house on Evergreen Lane, she
could almost understand it. Not without some question as to why, of course, but at least it made some kind of sense for it to happen there and then. Here and now, it didn’t.

  Her being spooked was unusual enough in itself, but for it to carry over like this was just unheard of. After all, she worked cases on a regular basis with Rowan Gant, a paranormal consultant for the Saint Louis police and the FBI as well. She had been witness to some truly inexplicable things during some unbelievably bizarre cases, so this shouldn’t be a big deal at all.

  However, what she was really accustomed to was Rowan’s preternatural cognition, not her own; that was because she didn’t have any. Maybe she’d get a gut feeling here and there, but nothing like he had. He was the supernatural member of the team, not her. She was the skeptic and sometimes his official handler during investigations, but that was all. Yes, she made it a point to remain open minded; however, she was still a rationalist. And, as much as she liked Rowan, she simply wasn’t in a big hurry for his mysticism to start rubbing off on her.

  Of course, the more she thought about it, the more she had to admit that all of the exceptional observations being made by Sheriff Carmichael probably weren’t helping her anxiety either. They were certainly nothing inexplicable-as he had proven with his explanations-but they were peculiar nonetheless. As benign as the curmudgeonly old cop seemed on the surface, she still wasn’t sure quite what to make of him. In fact, she had a strange feeling that he was hiding something from her. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but she felt positive that she wasn’t getting the whole story from him.

  One thing she did know for certain, however, was that, explicable or not, being the focus of such intimately detailed perceptions coming from someone she really didn’t know was just plain creepy-on too many levels.

  Constance let out a heavy sigh and glanced back over her shoulder at the bed. Papers were arranged all across the comforter in semi-organized stacks sorted by dates, case numbers, and in many instances, obvious connections.