December Dread (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries)

by Jess Lourey

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means he’s got something to hide, that’s what.” She turned her attention to the laminated menu. “Are you ordering deep fried mushrooms? If you are, I want some.”

  “How can you think about food?”

  “Last time I checked, we were in a restaurant.”

  “With a possible killer, and after just leaving the funeral of one of his victims.”

  She swatted me with her menu. “I know that. That’s why we’re here! Now get the mushrooms, and I’ll order the waffle fries with cheese, and we’ll share.” She pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and blew her nose, then stuffed the tissue back in. Afterward, she fluffed her acrylic wig and applied another coat of Coral Kiss lipstick a little outside the lines.

  “I believe I am witnessing the birth of a cat lady.”

  She ignored me. In fact, she didn’t say another word until the waitress came to take our order. Mrs. Berns tacked two draft beers onto it, and I didn’t complain.

  “What do we do with Sharpie?” I asked, after the waitress left. Mrs. Berns didn’t respond. “One of us could strike up a conversation with him.” Still nothing. I sighed deeply. “I’m sorry I called you a cat lady. And you have my permission to execute Plan B.”

  The “B” stood for “Boobs.” Mrs. Berns, operating on the theory that “no man is gonna be attracted to something he can’t see,” had tried to convince me on the whole drive here that she be allowed to roll up her boobs to create cleavage and then hit on Sharpie. She claimed her lovely ladies had hypnotized men before. Once she had Sharpie ensorcelled, she’d casually find out where he’d spent Sunday night, the evening Natalie was murdered. I’d initially told her that her Plan B was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard of, at which point she told me fine, we could go ahead and stick with Plan A, with the “A” standing for “Ass, Mira, you are one.”

  Mrs. Berns clapped her hands together with glee. “Now you’re cooking with Crisco! Hold on to your hat, ’cuz I’ll be right back.”

  That’s exactly what I was concerned about. “Remember, don’t tell him anything true about yourself, including your name. Just make small talk, then ask him what he watched on TV Sunday night or something.”

  She winked at me like she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. Five nail-biting minutes later, she waltzed out of the bathroom, and I had to admit, she looked pretty good. She’d tied her fake blonde hair back, dialed down the makeup so it accented rather than spackled her beautiful wrinkles, and she’d brought her boobs front and center. Perfectly plumped in the vee of her sweater, they were all jiggly, like a waterbed. She was a petite woman, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at Lady and the Tramp, her nicknames for her boobs. They were drawing the attention of men and women alike. I was the only one who knew her secret, which is that she’d folded each breast over itself like an accordion to build the cleavage.

  She strode to the front of the restaurant and grabbed a section of the newspaper from the hostess’ station before making her way toward Sharpie. She was right beside him when she dropped a section of the paper. Because they were only two tables away, I could catch most of their conversation, even though the restaurant was filling up.

  “Ma’am,” he said, reaching for it. “You dropped your paper.”

  Mrs. Berns fluttered her eyelashes as she accepted it. A commotion at the bar drowned out her response. I shifted my chair so I could better hear their interaction, but Sharpie’s back was to me, so I also missed his reply to Mrs. Berns. Whatever it was, she laughed at it before taking the chair across from him.

  The front door opened, and for the first time since we’d arrived, Sharpie didn’t glance at it or stand up. I had to give it to Mrs. Berns; she still had it in spades. She’d probably forgotten more about flirting than I’d ever known. She and Sharpie were still chatting when our food arrived, so I ate all but one of the mushrooms and had started in on her waffle fries when she finally made her way back to me. She was glowing.

  “I am amazing,” she said.

  I raised an eyebrow, dipping a latticed fry into the ketchup. They were soggy but salty, just the way I liked them. “That’s the truth. What’d you find out?”

  “That I can’t trust you with my food.”

  “No, about Sharpie.”

  “We talked about the weather, and about baseball—he’s a Cubs fan, just like my late husband—and I asked him if he’d made it to the River Grove tree-trimming on Sunday evening.” She pointed at the front page of the weekly newspaper, and there it was, a headline story about the annual tree-lighting ceremony in the park.

  “Quick thinking,” I said.

  She nodded and leaned in. “You’ll really like this. Sharpie said he’d heard about the tree-trimming but couldn’t attend because he was on the road, selling candy.”

  “Not much of an alibi.”

  “Nope, especially when you know he’s only using the hotel here in town as a temporary base while he hawks his wares and scopes out a site for a factory his company wants to build in central Minnesota. His real home is Chicago. Where was the first Candy Cane Killer’s victim found?”

  “Chicago.” I didn’t feel like eating fries anymore. “Holy crap.”

  She nodded smugly. “Exactly. We should call the FBI.”

  “Agent Briggs wasn’t too thrilled last time we contacted him. And the odds are, if we know about Sharpie, the FBI knows about Sharpie. Maybe we should wait until we hear back from the third guy from E-adore. Craig. Then we can turn over everything we know, and cut back on our chances of being labeled the girls who cry wolf.”

  She mulled it over. “I suppose you’ve had worse ideas. Now pass the ketchup. It’s hard work being cute.”

  We finished our meal and left, but not before Mrs. Berns said goodbye to Sharpie. She even got his phone number. He’d been stood up by “Veronica” of course, but when Mrs. Berns was around, he didn’t seem to mind at all.

  It was a 30-minute drive to the self-defense class, where we lost our wigs and changed into sweats before reviewing wrist releases and punching. After 20 minutes of that, we learned how to disarm an attacker wielding a knife, a gun, or a garrote. The last one seemed a long shot for Stearns County, unless the weapon was crafted of twine or jumper cables. The knife and particularly the gun defense felt more useful. Master Andrea had everyone break up into pairs and practice scenarios with the weapons, pair by pair. One group went, with one woman slipping a knife around the neck of another. After the victim successfully disarmed her attacker, another group went, this one with the attacker pointing a knife at her partner’s chest. After them came Mrs. Berns and me. I stood in front of the self-defense class, pretending to walk along a dark street. Mrs. Berns popped out from behind a punching bag and held the heavy orange pistol in my face.

  “Give me your money!” she hollered.

  I thrust my hands in the air, like I’d been instructed. I’d just watched two pairs of women enact almost this same exact skit. I knew the next step was to talk to my assailant, humanize myself, draw her attention away from her next move.

  But I couldn’t do it.

  I was suddenly paralyzed, dunked in an ice bath, my mouth stuffed with cotton. It was just Mrs. Berns holding the fake weapon, and we were in a well-lit class, and I knew it was pretend. We’d been practicing self-defense here for three days now, and I’d been joking and enjoying it the whole time. Suddenly, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about the gun that’d been pulled on me in November, three short weeks ago. My assailant and I had been in the cab of a truck. He’d held a gun the size and shape of Mrs. Berns’, if not the color, and he’d intended to kill me with it. He’d failed, but not for lack of trying. Funny thing was, I’d managed to keep the memory of that terrible moment at bay, always on the periphery, telling myself it was no big deal, and I’d succeeded right up until Mrs. Berns had pulled a fake handgun on me. Now, the memory flooded me like wet cement and nailed me in place.

  “Mira?”
It was the instructor. She was standing beside me, and her voice was neither gentle nor harsh. “Talk to Mrs. Berns.”

  I blinked. I heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. They sounded so far away and slow.

  Mrs. Berns reached forward and grabbed my T-shirt. “You gonna make it easy for me, Spice Girl?”

  Mrs. Berns was making this easy on me. She was doing a move we’d practiced one hundred times on the first day we’d come to class: someone grabs you, you grab them. The physical contact pulled me back. I ignored the gun for the moment, putting my hand over Mrs. Berns’. My thumb slid under her palm, and my fingers grasped hers. I pulled her hand off of me, across my body, twisting as I went. The angle forced her forward and then down, and I slid into the vee between her arm and torso, never releasing her.

  “A loose gun is a dangerous thing,” Master Andrea said. I no longer knew where she was standing because my focus had become total. I hooked Mrs. Berns’ right ankle with my left and propelled her to the ground. She fell with an oof. Once she was sprawled on the mat, I leaned over her back without releasing her hand and snatched the gun. I became aware of the pounding of my heart and sweat running down my sides. Other sounds began to filter in: the ticking of the clock, a cleaning crew working upstairs, my ragged breathing. I offered Mrs. Berns a hand.

  “That’s more like it,” she said, eyeing me as I helped her up. “I thought you’d choked.”

  I glanced at the class of twelve women. They were staring back. Master Andrea reached for the gun. She pointed it at me. “Again,” she said.

  _____

  On the drive home, Mrs. Berns didn’t mention me freezing at the gym, and I wasn’t going to bring it up. When we finally returned to the farmhouse at 8:30, we were exhausted but proud of our day’s work. While Mrs. Berns chatted with my mom, I went online to see if Craig had e-mailed our E-adore account. He hadn’t.

  We all got ready for bed, including me putting fresh water in Tiger Pop’s and Luna’s bowls. My mom was spoiling them, and the house was littered with catnip mice and chew bones. They hardly cared whether I was around or not, but I didn’t mind. It was Christmas season, and everyone deserved to be spoiled by a mom.

  I had my foot on the bottom stair when the phone rang.

  “Mira. It’s for you.”

  “Thanks, mom.” I strolled into the kitchen and picked up the wall receiver, waiting until I heard the click of the phone being hung up in my mom’s bedroom. “Hello?”

  “James. It’s Ron. I’m at the Recall office.”

  “What are you doing there so late?”

  He grunted. “Got a Christmas issue to put out, and my best reporter left town. Or haven’t you heard?”

  I smiled on my end of the line. “Did you call to share the gift of sarcasm with me?”

  “No, I called because you have a present here. A flower.”

  My heart did a little skip. Had Johnny sent me something? “What kind?”

  “I dunno. A live one.”

  I grinned, then paused. Johnny knew I was in Paynesville. He wouldn’t send me flowers to the Recall office. A cold lump rolled down my throat. “What color is the flower, Ron?”

  “Hold on.” He must have put his hand over the receiver because I heard a muffled discussion before he came back on the line. “The flower is orange. The wife says it’s a begonia.”

  Twenty

  The words punched me in the gut: orange begonias.

  The flowers sent to Natalie and three of her friends five years ago by a mysterious online admirer.

  The inspiration for Mrs. Berns and me to create an online dating profile in the hopes of flushing out a serial killer.

  A warning, clearly, telling me to back off. Or, was I being told that I was next?

  Ron assured me there was no card on the flowers, only a slip of paper with my name, and no other identifying information. He said he and the wife had come back from a late dinner at the Turtle Stew and discovered the flower on the reception desk of the newspaper offices. He couldn’t remember if they’d locked the front door or not. He heard the fear in my voice, but I didn’t tell him what was going on. I needed to make a call.

  With shaking hands, I found Adam De Luca’s card. I flipped it over and dialed Agent Walter Briggs’ number, any concerns about bothering him or passing on irrelevant information completely gone. His phone rang once, twice, three times before switching over to a message. I told him to call me, that it was urgent.

  It was difficult to return the phone to the cradle because it meant I had to deal with this now, on my own. Luna was at my side, whining at my agitation. I glanced at the windows. The earlier storm was gaining ferocity, and snowflakes swarmed around the yard light like a plague of locusts. I suddenly felt very exposed on this side of the bay windows and clicked off the kitchen light. I stood for a moment, listening to the howl and whistle of the wind, before stepping into the mud room to check the front door locks. They were flimsy, but latched.

  Too flimsy. Someone knew that I knew about the orange begonias, and they also knew where I worked. That realization forced two facts: the orange begonias meant something, and I had put myself, Mrs. Berns, and my mom in serious peril.

  The first rule of self-defense is to avoid dangerous situations. Too late for that, but I’d be damned if we were going to sleep here tonight. I hurried to Mrs. Berns’ room and explained the situation in a hissing whisper. She understood immediately. She packed and started readying the animals for travel while I went to my mom.

  No light came out of her room. I tapped lightly on the door and cracked it open. “Hey Mom?”

  She switched on the reading lamp next to her bed, smiling at me in confusion. Her hair was in curlers, and these were tucked under a sleeping cap. “What is it, honey?”

  I didn’t want her to know how deep we were in it. “Um, that phone call? It was the police. They’re calling everyone, encouraging women who live in the country to stay in a hotel until the killer is caught.”

  “But there’s three of us.”

  I wanted to turn her light off. It felt like a beacon, calling to the killer, letting him know how many of us there were and where we stood. “Still. It’ll just be for a night or two.”

  “How will we pay for it?”

  “I got a raise at the paper,” I lied. “I’ll cover it.”

  “Mira.” She pursed her lips. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m worried Mom, okay? There’s a serial killer out there, and I don’t want to lose you. We have to go. Now.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve in four days! We can’t leave. I have pies to bake, and a turkey to brine, and cookies to decorate.”

  Outside, a tree cracked. It was a cacophonous snap, the echo of nature meeting wicked cold. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I rushed around her bed and flicked off the light. “You have to trust me, Mom.”

  She agreed, though unwillingly. My neck prickled as I watched her pack. Was the killer outside? Was he studying us now? It was difficult to leave my mom alone for even a few minutes, so once she was ready to go, I ran upstairs, tossed whatever was nearest into my bag, and hurried back to her. We left the house together, Mom, Mrs. Berns, me, and Luna, with Tiger Pop meowling alongside in his carrier. I got them all situated in mom’s van before leaving the safety of the garage for my car. The walk across the drifting sidewalk felt like a death march. The freezing needles of the storm sliced at my cheeks, and I slipped on a patch of ice, nearly landing feet over neck. I caught myself, though, and started my car up just as the garage door rumbled open.

  Outside, the wind howled as our convoy of two vehicles drove away from the lonely, now-dangerous house I’d grown up in.

  Twenty-one

  Convincing my mom that Mrs. Berns and I needed to head out from Paynesville’s nicest hotel, the Relax Inn, to run errands at 10:30 at night was more difficult than getting her to leave her house. Since she’d bought into my argument that her home wasn’t safe, she didn’t want to let me out of her sight. F
ortunately, she was too polite to argue for long. After extracting a promise from her that she’d deadbolt lock and chain lock the door and peer through the spy hole before letting anyone in, Mrs. Berns and I left.

  “Who else knew about the orange begonias?” I asked.

  “Those three women at the funeral, any random people they told over the years, Natalie, and you and me.”

  I pulled onto Highway 23 going west. “Who knew that we knew about the flowers?”

  “Those three women.”

  “And?”

  Mrs. Berns fiddled with the radio. “I didn’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  I shook my head. “You forgot one. Lynne Bankowski. She was standing so close when we heard the story that she was almost riding my shoulders.”

  “Forgot about her. Why would she send you an orange begonia? And how would she know where you work?”

  “She’d Google me. You type in my name and up comes my articles at the Recall. As for why she’d send it, I don’t know. Because she’s a creeper?” We’d driven far enough for the coil to heat. I cranked the fan, sending a blessed wash of hot air over us.

  “But not a serial killer. Women don’t do that, right? It’s gotta be David or Sharpie who sent you the begonia. We set ’em off by contacting them online and standing them up.”

  I sighed. “That idea occurred to me. I don’t know how they’d know about the orange begonia, though, or that it was us who set up the fake profiles. Lynn is the only suspect who makes sense.”

  “Maybe we’re not thinking like a serial killer. It could be we’re dealing with someone who has access to information that we don’t.”

  I nodded. I’d thought of that, too.

  “We’re heading to River Grove, aren’t we?”

  “Yup. I want to drive past Lynne’s house to see if she’s home. We might as well see what Sharpie and David are up to while we’re at it.” I pulled into the only Paynesville gas station that still offered a pay phone. We lucked out. They had a county phone book covering River Grove, and Lynne and David’s addresses and phone numbers were in it. I called Lynne first. No answer. Next I called David. He picked up on the third ring, and I slammed down the receiver. I scribbled down both addresses, and we left. The moon broke through the clouds as we traveled down the lonely road. The light created sharp, ominous shadows out of the few trees and shrubbery that we passed.