by Jess Lourey
I opened my mouth to call out her name, but it was dry. What if she turned that kind smile my direction, and her eyes stayed blank? What if she hadn’t even liked me back in high school and had just been nice because she felt sorry for me? What if—
“NO! Miranda Rayn James, is that you?”
She actually squealed, and a big, dorky smile forced its way onto my face. “Patsy?”
“Whee!” She tossed the basket in front of one of the guys at the bar and rushed over to hug me. Her hair smelled like fryer grease and pear shampoo. “Do you know how long it’s been?”
I did. What surprised me was how good it suddenly felt to be here. I’d built Paynesville up into a mythical monster, the place that had chewed me up and spit me out and then backed up to drive over me. It was the tangible representative of everything bad that had ever happened to me. Could it be that I’d given it too much power? That nobody here had thought about me nearly as much as I’d thought about them? “Too long,” I said.
“Come on over to the bar. Let me buy you a drink.” She herded me to a spot the farthest from the men sprinkled around it. “The kitchen closes in an hour, so I’m off soon. You have to stay here until then so we can catch up. What’re you drinking?”
It was all happening so fast. The glass bottles glittered at me, some green, or blue, or clear, but all tantalizing. I could be grown-up and have wine, but my guess was they chilled the merlot here. “Tall vodka club soda, three limes.” It was the adult version of my first drink.
She was staring at me and shaking her head. “You look great, Mira. Really. Just like you did in high school, only with better hair.”
I glanced at her guiltily. It was exactly what I had thought about her, except for the hair part. Her face was guileless, though, sweet and open. Nobody would ever say that about my face. I had a sudden thought. “Hey, remember when we dressed up like Jimmy Page and Pamela des Barres for Halloween?” My Led Zeppelin adoration had taken root my freshman year in high school. It started because I had a crush on a boy who was a huge Zep-head, and it stuck once I listened to the music. Patsy didn’t really know who they were, but she liked the idea of dressing up as a 1970s hippie groupie chick. I’d been Jimmy Page, of course.
She giggled. “Yeah. And how everyone thought we were Dudley Moore and Rhoda Morgenstern?”
I squeezed one of the lime wedges balancing on the edge of the drink I’d just been handed. A sour squirt landed on my lip, and I licked it off. “Forgot about that part.”
She shrugged. “It was still a fun night. So what have you been up to? Tell me everything. I heard you went off to live in the Cities.”
Turns out, she’d never left town except for a handful of family vacations. She’d been married and divorced and had two kids. She’d replaced her dreams and goals with theirs. My living in Minneapolis appeared a grand adventure to her, even though most of it was spent skipping class, waiting tables, and drinking too much. I was halfway through telling my story and listening to hers when she bought me another drink, and ten minutes later, another. Then a fourth. By the time she punched out, I was putting the literal in tipsy and we were laughing more than talking.
I wiped the happy tears from my eyes. She’d just reminded me of the time we tried out for the Barkettes, the high school dance squad, claiming we were doing it as a protest and not because we really wanted to join. We’d failed the tryouts miserably. “I don’t think it helped that we called them the Barfettes,” I said.
“Probably not. And the football team was so cute that year. We probably could have gotten a date if we’d made the squad. You seeing anyone now?”
I told her about Johnny, and just saying his name out loud made me flush with warmth. I couldn’t stop gushing about how kind, and smart, and funny, and good-looking he was. It made me miss him terribly to talk about him.
“Is he good in bed?” she asked, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“I don’t know. We haven’t slept together yet.”
She couldn’t have looked more shocked if I had told her that he was my brother. I knew why, too. You see, I partied like it was 1999 all through high school, or at least after my dad died, but I’d graduated a virgin. I hadn’t wanted anyone to know that, however. It would have ruined my reputation. So, I talked big, and I put my hand in the back Wrangler pocket of my share of losers when the occasion called for it, but I kept my legs together. All that changed after I moved away from Paynesville, of course. But while I was in high school, except for some painfully unskilled and unproductive huffing and grinding, I had been chaste.
“How come?” she asked. It was a logical question. One I had a really hard time coming up with an answer for right now, in my vodka-fogged mind. I knew that at one time, I’d had a good reason for not yet sleeping with Johnny, a really important one, but it was a slippery thing. Best to let it go, I decided. And once I make up my mind, I act.
“Do you have a cell phone?”
She laughed like I’d just asked her if she had a car. Then, she saw I was serious and apologized, handing over her phone. “I have plenty of minutes. Are you calling your mom?”
“Nope, Johnny. Excuse me.” I stumbled to a far corner, realizing even as I did so that my words were slurred, perfectly reflecting my critical thinking abilities. I also felt ten feet tall, bullet proof, and as horny as a goat. It was time. What had I been waiting for? I loved Johnny, and I was pretty sure he loved me. We were consenting adults. He could hop a plane out of Texas and be in Paynesville in a matter of hours. We could get a hotel room. It’d be romantic. I’d tell him I loved him, and he’d be happy to hear it. We’d wake up in each other’s arms on crisp white sheets, our smiles blissful, bluebirds braiding my hair. Click. “Hi, this is Johnny. Please leave a message.”
I blinked, one eye closing a little before the other. A message? Well, I suppose I could. “Johnny, this is Mira.” I dropped my voice so it was breathy, husky. “Guess what I’m wearing?” I tried to concentrate on my body from the neck down. Blue jeans and a T-shirt, only I saw four legs where there should have been two. I was disappointed. I’d hoped I’d have a better answer to my own question. “Um, I’m wearing down, that’s what. I want you. I want you bad. We should consummate our relationship. Right now. I love you, baby.” Satisfied that my message was clear, I hung up. Or at least I wanted to, but I had no idea how to work the phone.
I swerved over to Patsy, who was staring up at the TV. This drink-ing was super fun. Why had I given it up? “Here ya’ go.”
I handed her the phone, but she didn’t take it. Her eyes were glued to the set. I followed her gaze to the grim-faced reporter standing in front of a trim white house with black shutters, klieg lights casting a deep shadow behind him. The front yard was drifted with snow and contained a sad little snowman with a bright scarf and a lop-sided smile. Reflected police car cherries pulsated off the reporter. I closed one eye so I could focus. The ribbon underneath him read “River Grove, Minnesota.”
“Police confirm a woman’s body was found in her home this evening by her water delivery service. We have learned from an unnamed source that police believe she is the most recent victim of the Candy Cane Killer, though no official information is being released until the family has been notified.”
“Oh no,” I said, feeling a sickening jolt. I went from drunk to sober with unnatural speed. “He got another one.”
Patsy gripped my arm with painful force. Tears were coursing down her face. “I know that house. It’s Natalie Garcia’s. Mira, she was homecoming queen!”
Ten
Three cups of coffee and two hours of trying to calm down Patsy made me as sober as a nun. See, not only had Natalie been homecoming queen, she’d been my best friend in 6th grade. She and I had practiced kissing with pillows and swore we’d never tell anyone. She was the person with whom I’d first experimented with lipgloss and mascara, and the girl I giggled on the edge of the playground with the day I stole my dad’s dirty magazines and smuggled them to sch
ool. We’d started an underground newspaper that year, posting silly knock-knock jokes, ridiculous rumors about teachers (“Is it just me, or does Mrs. Thielen seem a little pregnant this month?”), and made-up horoscopes. We’d called it the Pee-ville Papers. It had flown off the shelves. After swearing to never get married unless it was a double-wedding and pinkie swearing that the only thing that would come between us was a war or maybe a really bad earthquake that left her house on one side of the divide and mine on the other, we’d grown apart in 7th grade. Natalie discovered boys, and I stuck with books.
We stayed friendly, in a distant way. Come high school, Natalie became very popular, cute but not beautiful. I remembered her as just plain fun to be around. She was funny, always seemed interested in people when she talked to them, and was a good storyteller. She had charisma, I guess, that and a great head of wavy dark hair. My only clear memory of her those last couple years in Paynesville was at my dad’s funeral. She and Patsy had both attended, the only two kids I remembered in that big, empty church. I had felt too ashamed of my dad’s car accident to say anything, and after the funeral, I hung onto that feeling, shutting most everyone out.
Patsy, on the other hand, had kept in touch with everyone from high school who was still in the area, and she knew Natalie well enough to have been to her house a few times in the past year. River Grove, where Natalie’s house was located, was the next town over heading northwest on Highway 23, not more than a 15-minute drive from Paynesville.
“She was a nurse, but she threw those Coddled Cook parties, you know the ones where they show you how to use kitchen gadgets? That’s why I was at her house. She never married. She said she wanted to go to medical school someday and that her career was always going to be her focus.” Patsy blew her nose again. “She had to have been exactly our age.”
I nodded miserably. “It’s terrible, Patsy.”
“God, her parents! They must have just found out. I have to go to them.”
That’s exactly the kind of person Patsy was: golden, through and through. “Do you need a ride?”
“No. Do you want to come with?”
Just the thought made my stomach clench violently. At will, I could call up the autumn scent of rotting leaves and the Old Spice the reporting police officer wore when he came to the farmhouse to tell us my dad was dead. I could hear my mom’s wail, the thump as she fell to the floor in a sobbing heap. Me, left standing alone in front of the officer. No, I wouldn’t be coming with, though I hated my cowardice. “I can’t, Patsy. I have to get back to my mom. I can check on your kids though, if you want.”
“They’re with their dad. They’re fine. Thank you, though. I’ll call you.”
We embraced in a long, sad hug. She went in the kitchen to gather her coat and purse, and I walked into the frigid night. In the foyer, a white sheet of paper with a red, blue, and black flag on it caught my eye. Women’s Self-Defense Classes. Certified Instructor, 4th degree Black Belt. Learn to Defend Yourself in One Week. I ripped off a slip of paper with the phone number, location, and times, and shuffled to my Toyota.
Eleven
Tuesday, December 18
Day two of the PI class was supposed to focus on Minnesota statutes regulating private investigators and the ethical code of the PI field, but the classroom was vibrating with talk of the second murder.
“Should we just get it out of the way?” Mr. Denny finally asked, holding up his hands. It was the third time Gene’s and Leo’s whispering had interrupted him. “It’s the death in River Grove, isn’t it?”
Leo nodded. “That’s two dead women within 60 miles of here, and the police don’t have anything to go on. And this wacko’s been at it for three years!”
The murmurs and nods passed through the class like a fever. I found myself joining in.
Mr. Denny crossed his arms and leaned back against his desk. “Before I opened my own PI firm, I used to be a police officer. In Minneapolis, 23 years. I can tell you they’re doing everything they can, in partnership with the FBI. Once the killer crossed state lines, this became a federal investigation.”
“But how hard can it be to catch someone who sends calling cards, for Christ’s sake?” This from buzz-cut Gene. “Seven women in White Plains got targeted, three in River Grove.”
“What?” I asked. It was the first thing I’d said out loud in class today. “Three women in River Grove were targeted?”
Gene turned to face me. Although he’d seen me before, he seemed to be finally looking at me, and I recognized his expression. I’d seen more of it in the last 48 hours than I’d ever seen in my life: concern and pity. Every brunette in the state was probably on the receiving end of the same stare and understood what it felt like to be a bull’s eye. “It was on the news this morning, ma’am. The murderer left a snowman with a candy cane in front of the lady’s house before he killed her. At least two other women in town had the identical snowman in front of their houses, and the police are checking to make sure there aren’t more.” He turned back to Mr. Denny. “Wouldn’t
it make sense for any woman who receives something strange to call the police?”
“It’s December, the week before Christmas. Millions of unexpected gifts are being exchanged every day. This killer knows what he’s doing, I’m afraid.”
Leo clenched his fists. “Can you teach us something to help catch him?”
Mr. Denny shook his head. “On an investigation of this scale, the best thing any of us can do is to stay out of the way and contact the police if we see or hear anything relevant. Back to work, okay?”
As he distributed the test, one of those fat, lazy winter flies started buzzing around my head, as loud as a chainsaw. I swiped at it and glanced around, hoping no one would notice. It was like having a loud finger pointing at me, telling the world I was stinky. I shooed it again and sniffed my armpit. That’s what I was doing when Mr. Denny passed me my test.
“Good luck,” he said, his expression puzzled.
“Oh, I was just … thank you.” I desperately wanted to tell him that I did not in fact smell, and that I had showered and brushed my teeth this morning. Some things shake out worse in the explanation, though. Damn fly. I watched with satisfaction as it flew toward Gene like a drunken marble, but the happiness lasted only a moment. My mind careened back to Natalie, as it had a hundred times since I’d watched last night’s news. I remembered the sad, shy smile she’d had for me at my dad’s funeral, her black blazer stuffed with shoulder pads in the style we all wore that year, the momentary sense that I wasn’t alone that quickly disappeared under the permanence of the loss of a parent, no matter how shitty they were. The test suddenly felt like an outrageous waste of time. I normally loved a written challenge, but I just didn’t have it in me to care about abstract, multiple choice questions. I filled them in haphazardly and handed it back.
The rest of the class included a lecture accompanied by a short, profoundly cheesy film on PI ethics where the main actor wore a flasher’s trench coat and violated one ethic after another, with each one ending by turning to the camera and asking, “What would you do?” I’d probably not swipe her red silk underwear while snooping through her drawer for incriminating photographs, buddy, but that’s just me. The buffoonish tone of the film seemed in particularly poor taste after last night’s murder, and Mr. Denny appeared to realize it halfway through, shifting uncomfortably once or twice in his seat.
There was no talk of the seven secrets assignment, but I felt restless after class. I decided to follow Kent again. Sure as shootin’, he drove directly to the Kandi Mall, parked in front of Sears, and entered. He was acting very much like the owner of secret #4, a man who no longer had a job to go to but didn’t want to go home. I wasn’t sure how I’d find out for sure short of coming right out and asking him, and I didn’t feel like going into the mall.
I also didn’t want to go home and help my mom with a sewing project, or pie-making, or house-cleaning, or building her time machine that would ta
ke the whole world back to the 1950s with her. Figuring I might as well get some work done to pay Ron back, I pointed the car toward the offices of the Paynesville Reporter. The local newspaper had been around since the late 1800s, Ron had informed me, and was doing something right because its circulation kept growing at a time when newspapers in the rest of the country were going the way of the dodo bird.
The offices were unassuming, tucked near the two-screen movie theater in downtown Paynesville. The familiar scents of ink and paper washed over me as I entered, and under that, I caught a whiff of designer coffee or a vanilla air freshener. The layout was similar to the Battle Lake Recall. Visitors were tracked immediately to the front desk, where I imagined all business was done and ads sold. Metal filing cabinets ringed the front room. Down a hall, two doors opened across from one another—I guessed one was a bathroom and the other was the editor’s office—and the hallway ended in a spacious room filled with computers, a large table, and likely more filing cabinets out of sight.
“Something I can do for you?”
I didn’t recognize the older woman behind the counter, but she had nice smile lines. “Yes, I’m Mira James, here on behalf of the Battle Lake Recall. My editor said he’d call ahead so you’d be expecting me.”
“Ah yes. We weren’t sure when you’d be arriving, but you’re in luck. Jake’s here now, and he’s agreed to give you a tour. You can just have a seat over there.”
“Okay,” I said, choosing the least uncomfortable-looking plastic chair. I picked up the copy of the Reporter next to me. The layout was clean, the articles well-written. It reminded me a lot of Battle Lake’s paper, except with more ads in the back. So many, in fact, that it had a separate insert for them.
