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"Come on," he ordered.

"What?" The girl felt fear again and involuntarily pressed the box with the princess to her chest.

"Now!" Santa's voice became hoarse and sharp. "Take off your clothes!"

"But..." Angie moved back, "I don't want..."

"But you want the doll? You still want the doll, you un
grateful little bitch?!"

"Take it!" Angie stretched the box out before her, continu
ing to move back. "Take it back, just let me go!"

"Santa Claus gives gifts to good girls," the grinning mouth said, "and now you'll find out what he does to bad girls."

"Help!" cried Angie, turning to run away. The brute hands seized her and threw her down in the snow.

"It's him, no doubt," federal agent Douglas once again looked towards the glade where the crime lab team was already finishing its work. Nearby a pair of ambulance orderlies with a stretcher shifted from one foot to the other in the cold, expecting a command to take away the body. "The Snowman. Damn, we've been chasing this son of a bitch for three years already. Well, maybe this time we'll get something we can use."

"Are you sure it's him, sir?" trainee John Rockston raised the collar of his uniform jacket and put his hands into pockets: he felt chilly, too. And he wasn't sure the only reason was the cold and not the impression of what he had seen. Textbooks and photos are one thing, but when you actually see this yourself for the first time... "Could be, just some local guy flipped his lid..."

"A local wouldn't lead a victim so far," Douglas objected. "There are enough basements and empty warehouses in the city. But the Snowman needs snow. A lot of snow and open air. And all the other details... There are, of course, imitators of another's modus operandi. But the Snowman never made the headlines. Only some brief mentions in the local media. He's a bastard, but not a fool at all. He chooses a time when editors prefer cheerful and sweet-tearful materials, instead of bloody horrors. Americans don't like their holidays to be spoiled. And, as after New Year's Day the murders stop, the topic loses its urgency. Till next Christmas."

Crunching through the snow, the chief of the city police approached them with a clipboard in his hand. His physiognomy was peevish and skeptical, as always when he was speaking with feds. Douglas tried to ignore it and inquired in a efficient tone:

"So, have you identified the victim?"

"Yes," the police chief nodded. He held the clipboard be
fore himself, but didn't look at it. "Angelica Lawrence, 9. Disappeared two days ago. From, as they say, a problem family. The father is an alcoholic, on welfare, the mother's not much better... Typical white trash. They didn't even notify the police that their daughter was missing. The girl went to school normally, but it's vacation now... it's pure luck that a local man came across her before everything here was covered with snow."

"That's it," Douglas turned to the trainee, "a typical victim of the Snowman. Most often they are children with problems at home or at school. Actually, that's no surprise. Who else would walk alone during the holidays instead of being with family and friends?"

"Don't be so sure, sir," the trainee objected, "I liked to wander alone when I was a kid. And not because of any problems. It was just better for thinking."

"There are, of course, exceptions," Douglas agreed. "Of the eight victims, two were from completely normal families and had no problems with other children."

"Known to us," the trainee specified.

"What?"

"We know about only eight victims, sir. We don't know how many victims could still be lying somewhere under the snow."

"Yes, but there hardly could be many more victims. With his modus operandi, he simply wouldn't have had time... unless he started to kill earlier than two years ago. Did you have enough time to read the case materials?"

"Yes, sir," John understood that Douglas was testing him and began to narrate accurately and passionlessly, as at an exam: "The murders begin before Christmas and end not later than New Year's Day. Most often he chooses a new town every time–not so small that any new person or car would attract attention, but also not so big that it would be the difficult to find a lonely open place. Sometimes he commits two murders in a single town–probably if he is sure that the disappearance of the first victim hasn't caused an alarm. The victim is always white, age from seven to eleven; gender is not significant to the Snowman. He gets the victim to some place where there is a lot of snow. Apparently, children go with him voluntarily. Then he forces the victim to strip off all clothing and shoes, ties the victim's hands and, possibly, tapes his or her mouth. In this condition he makes the victim walk up and down through the snow and rolls him or her in snowdrifts for a while–not less a half hour. Obviously, it turns him on. Then he rapes the victim. Then kills, knifing about dozen times. The exact number and places of wounds vary. He doesn't leave any inscriptions or other 'hallmarks.' He always takes away with him the victim's clothing and other things."

"It all matches, doesn't it?" Douglas nodded to the police chief.

"Exactly," the latter confirmed. "Probably this bastard is also a fetishist."

"Modern psychiatry reckons a considerable share of sad
ists among fetishists," noticed Rockston. "For those guys, not just suffering in general, but concrete attributes are important. Snow or the victim's blood may be examples of this. But I'm not sure that he carries the victim's things away for that reason. Probably, he's just afraid that we'll find trace evidence on them. He's very careful. We still don't know his blood and sperm types."

"Do you mean he uses a condom?" the police chief asked.

"Exactly, or, maybe a foreign object, even a dildo. Is it possible to buy such a thing in your town?"

"Most likely, he carries everything he needs with him, avoiding being seen in local shops," Douglas interjected.

"By the way, why necessarily 'he?'" the police chief narrowed his eyes. "Couldn't that freaking dildo have been used by a woman?"

Federal agents looked at him respectfully, despite his tone.

"We considered such a possibility," the senior agent confirmed. "In favor of it being a woman is how easily our criminal manages to entice children. Serial molesters sometimes fail with clever kids who, remembering the admonitions of adults, not only refuse to go with the molester, but also immediately run home or to the nearest policeman and describe the bad guy. But the Snowman hasn't had a single screwup like that. And, also, many adults still warn children only about men, forgetting about women. But, still, it's not likely to be a woman. You saw the footprints, chief. The shoe size is definitely not female. Certainly, it is possible to wear oversized boots in order to fool us, but a woman in such giant boots risks drawing attention, and to run in such clodhoppers if something goes wrong would be difficult as well. Besides, our criminal's weight is about 220 pounds, and the force of his knife strikes demonstrate a lot of physical strength. All this is, of course, not proof, but still essential arguments against a female perpetrator."

The police chief shrugged his shoulders with irritation, probably, going to say something like "if you're so smart, why is the freaking asshole still out there?" But at this moment the chief of criminalists approached.

"We've almost finished," he informed. "I ordered the body to be loaded into the van."

"Anything interesting yet?" Douglas inquired.

"We'll see in the lab," the expert shrugged. "Till now, everything as usual. No torn off buttons, scraps of clothes, and so on. The girl didn't cut her nails for a long time, so it may be possible to find something under them, but there's not much hope. It's the standard scenario: at first the victim is too frightened and obediently follows the guy's orders, hoping to buy her life this way. And when she finally understands that she has nothing to lose, she is already tied and is helpless. He, of course, has taken the rope with him again, as well as the tape he used on the victim's mouth."

"Too bad... Well, John," Douglas turned back to the train
ee, "let's go back to the car."

"Cold weather with frequent snow, most likely, will sweep across New England until the weekend. Delays of flights and trains, and also snow drifts on the roads, are possible. So we would recommend to you to refrain from travel within the next few days if, of course, you don't want to meet the New Year in mid-course..."

Nicolas swore and switched off the radio. Nobody and nothing can be trusted, absolutely nothing. All will finally deceive and betray you. Even the snow, which always was his friend and gave him so much pleasure, now turned against him. His usual method was to choose a new town without any system, just far enough away from the previous one. But this time he has had to drive from one snow drift to another for two days already, and has covered practically no ground. If he continues in the same man
ner, even his off-road vehicle will probably get stuck right in the middle of a deserted highway. Besides, he has lost too much time already. In a new town, after all, it is necessary to reconnoiter, to find a suitable place and to think over the emergency variants... Damn, he can't lose the next day! It's almost New Year's Day, and who ever saw Santa Claus after the New Year? Flying deer definitely wouldn't go amiss now... Probably, he should have not left Greenwood so hastily. The girl wouldn't be found till spring; her parents didn't care about her... But his intuition had forced him to move on and he had gotten used to trusting his intuition. Perhaps, all the matter was that he hadn't gotten her far enough into the woods. But the snow was deep and the child looked too sickly–she would have become exhausted too early... Not without a reason she was scorned in her class. She had, of course, told kind Santa all about it. When he saw that they were broken down enough not to dare to shout–though he always chose such places where a shout couldn't be heard, but care never hurts–he always took the tape from their mouths and made them talk about themselves. A diploma in child psychology is a useful thing, but theoretical science is dead without field practice. Most serial killers, with each new victim, come closer to making mistakes and being captured. But Nicholas, on the contrary, learns each time more and more about his prey and becomes all the more elusive. And what a pleasure is to look and listen to them standing, naked and helpless, knee-deep in snow, shivering from cold and fear, and murmuring in their pitiful breaking voices about their pathetic lives! Only remembering it caused so fast and hard a response in his pants that he had a strong desire to stop the car right now and resort to a handjob. But no, now's not the right time... There will be long months ahead when these memories will be his only source of pleasure, so he'd better not waste their sharpness now...

Nevertheless Nicolas stopped his Ford. A fork appeared ahead–just the right time to check his coordinates and make fur
ther plans. He pulled out a map from the glove compartment and spread it over the dashboard. So, if he turns right now, Malcolmtown is five miles down the road. Population 16 thousand. And among them, of course, there will be enough bad boys and girls.

"So, what do they have at the lab?" Douglas inquired after Rockston hung up. They sat in Douglas' office, and outside the window the white veil of a blizzard streamed.

"Good news, sir. Near the nail on the right middle finger they found a hair. More precisely, a piece of hair. White. Now they'll analyze it and get everything possible out of it." John paused and then added, "Though it seems to me, it's not what they think. I think I know who it is."

"So who?"

"Santa Claus."

Douglas sniffed loudly, but then understood that the trainee was not kidding.

"You mean, a guy in Santa Claus costume?"

"Exactly. In fact, I've had this idea since this morning when we investigated the crime scene. Blood and snow, red and white. Colors of Santa Claus."

"An unorthodox association," Douglas grinned.

"To tell the truth, in my childhood I was afraid of Santa Claus," John admitted, a bit ashamed.

"Afraid? Why?"

"I didn't like the idea that some odd guy could get to me through a flue while I slept," Rockston said with a smile, and then continued more seriously: "And why are people afraid of ghosts? Not because ghosts are spiteful or capable of doing real harm. According to most legends, a ghost can't do any more harm than a hologram. And nevertheless, nine of ten people would yell in horror at seeing a phantom of their own beloved mommy. So why? Simply because it is something otherworldly. Supernatural. And that kind of horror is worse than any physical fear. Santa is like that and it would be more logical to ask why others are not afraid of him, than to ask why I was afraid..."

"All right, excursions into psychology can wait," Douglas interrupted impatiently. "Really, the Snowman dressed as Santa would explain why he entices children so easily. And a man in such a costume during this time of year doesn't cause any adult suspicion, not to mention that Santa's attributes mask his true ap
pearance. Do we have any more arguments?"

"At first, I thought that red and white could actually be his fetish. But then I understood that it's also very convenient. Blood is not visible on red clothing, at least, not from afar. And he, obvi
ously, hides his victim's stuff in a bag with gifts. The role of Santa is so ideal for a child killer that I'm surprised we haven't seen this earlier."