In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel (39 page)

She answered immediately while gathering up
her coat, and mimicked his earlier tone of distaste with her title.
“That’s okay,
Doctor
, this is a highly irregular
investigation.”

C
HAPTER
30

11:43 P.M. – December 25, 2010

Sheriff’s Department

Hulis Township – Northern Missouri

“EITHER
two thousand-seven
best director… That make sense to you?” Sheriff Carmichael asked
aloud, not looking up from the crossword puzzle on his desk. “Four
letters… Starts with C.”

“Coen,” Constance replied, her voice cold and
flat. “C-O-E-N. Joel and Ethan. They’re brothers and they shared
the award in oh-seven for
No Country For Old Men
.”

Still not tearing his gaze away from the
puzzle, he asked, “Good movie?”

“I liked it.”

“Hmmph,” he grunted, and then muttered to
himself as he ticked off the letters in the small boxes. “C… Down…
Yeah… It works… Never saw that movie. Guess I should take Kathy out
a little more often.”

Constance watched quietly from the doorway as
he filled in the blanks, then purposefully scratched through the
clue in a column off to the side of the puzzle. He scanned the
crossword box while reaching up and absently combing through his
mustache with his fingers. After a languid pause, he laid the paper
to the side then tossed the stub of a pencil on top of it before
rocking back in his chair and locking gazes with her.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are
you going to come in and sit down?” he finally asked.

“I think I’ll just go ahead and stand this
time, Sheriff,” she replied.

She was leaning to the side with her shoulder
against the doorframe and her coat carefully draped over her arm.
Her eyes were hard beneath a creased brow and her lips were a
tight, thin line. Other than that, her face was a tired,
emotionless mask.

Skip waited a beat, never taking his eyes off
her, then drew in a deep breath and exhaled a heavy “Suit yourself,
Special Agent.”

“I have to admit,” she said after her own
short pause. “I was surprised to see your cruiser parked out front
when I passed by. I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation with
you until tomorrow.”

“Been waiting,” he grunted. “I was hoping
you’d show up.”

Constance cocked her head to the side. “Were
you really?”

“Sugar, I could be home in bed right now.
Hell, if you were anything like your predecessors, I damn well
would be, because none of them ever bothered to stick around this
long.”

“How did you know I didn’t just go ahead and
leave like the others?”

“I didn’t, for sure…but I had you pegged as
different from the day you showed up, so I had my hopes.”

“More of your uncanny powers of
observation?”

He shrugged. “Actually, more like a gut
feeling on that one. Oh, believe me, I had a moment of self-doubt
when I drove by the Greenleaf earlier and saw your car was gone.
But I checked with Artie and he said you hadn’t officially checked
out, and the desk clerk said you weren’t carrying any bags when you
left.”

“Do you have any idea how creepy it is that
you people spy on everyone like that?” she asked.

“Small town, Constance. That’s just how it
is. Most of the time everybody knows your business and you know
theirs. Hard to keep a secret in Hulis, trust me.”

“It almost makes me wonder if there’s a
hidden camera in my shower too,” she quipped, sarcasm so heavy in
the words it double-underscored the comment.

Skip replied, “Depends. Which room did they
put you in?”

She raised an eyebrow and glared, but said
nothing.

“Kidding, sugar. I was just kidding.”

“I’m not really in the mood for jokes right
now, Skip.”

“Yeah…” he grunted. “I guess you wouldn’t be,
would you.”

Thick silence fell between them. The staring
contest continued, but unlike the doctor in Mais, Constance didn’t
see Carmichael as the type to cave because she made him nervous.
She knew better than that. She also had a feeling he was thinking
the same thing about her.

Before the standoff could turn into a
prolonged stalemate, the sheriff spoke up, breaking the silence
with an offhanded announcement. “I don’t know about you, but I need
a drink.”

He slowly rocked the old desk chair forward
on the complaining springs, and then leaned to the left and tugged
open a drawer. Without further pomp or comment, he reached in,
withdrew a sealing-wax-dipped bottle of bourbon, and settled it on
the desk blotter. He followed that by extracting two short tumblers
from the depths of the drawer and placing them next to the fifth of
booze.

Carmichael shoved the drawer closed with a
thump, then unscrewed the cap on the bottle, tipped it up, and
carefully poured a measure of the dark amber liquor into one of the
glasses. When he finished, he gave Constance a questioning look and
nodded toward the empty tumbler.

“What the hell… Yeah…” she muttered, pushing
away from the doorframe and stepping over to the straight-backed
chair opposite him. She draped her coat over the back then parked
herself.

“If you want ice, you’ll have to check the
break room,” Skip told her as he filled the second glass and then
spun the cap back onto the bottle. He pushed the three fingers of
booze across the desk to her before picking up his own tumbler. He
took a healthy sip then cradled it in his hands as he allowed his
creaking chair to rock back once again.

Constance emulated the latter two actions:
sipping, and then using the bulk of her coat as a cushion for the
hard back of her chair as she leaned against it. She stared at her
hands, contemplating the bourbon for a moment, and then finally she
sighed and looked up across the desk at the sheriff.

“I just came back from Highland County
Hospital in Mais,” she said.

“Yeah…” Skip nodded. “Not surprised. I
figured you might decide to talk to Edgar after all.”

“He had some interesting things to say about
December twenty-fifth, nineteen seventy-five.”

He snorted, but there was no derision, just
sullen acceptance. With a shake of his head he added, “I’m sure he
did.”

“Should I assume he was telling me the
truth?”

“Guess that depends on how much sense he was
making at the time.”

“What if he wasn’t making any sense?”

“Him, or what he told you?” he asked in
return. “There’s a difference.”

“Yes… I suppose there is.” Constance sipped
the whiskey again and let its smooth burn run down the back of her
throat, spreading warmth in its wake. Then she asked, “Okay, then;
why the lies, Skip?”

“Like I said this morning, you wouldn’t have
believed me until you saw it for yourself. Just like you wouldn’t
have believed Edgar if he’d told you his story yesterday instead of
today.”

“But what about the rest of it? You could
have filled me in this morning. Especially after what you showed me
at the crime scene.”

He shook his head. “Neither of us was in any
shape for that and you know it. That’s why I came by the Greenleaf
this evening. I figured once you and I had both had some sleep we
could talk about it and you wouldn’t think I was completely
insane.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed. “Well… I’m here
now, and I’ve had that sleep. I assume you have too?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’d like to hear your version,” she
said. “I think you may be able to fill in some of the blanks Edgar
left.”

“Yeah…” he said. “You know, you’ll be the
first since Agent Graham, and he thought I was crazy.”

She nodded. “I know.”

Skip looked at the tumbler in his hands, then
brought it to his lips, tipped it up and drained it in a single
gulp. Rocking back forward, he refilled the glass with another
healthy measure of the amber alcohol and then carefully brushed his
mustache, apparently pondering his words. After a long pause, he
pursed his lips and sighed, then settled back in the chair once
again and swallowed hard. His eyes were vacant and fixed. He was no
longer staring at Constance, he was staring through her; looking
thirty-five years into the past as if it were happening before him
right now.

He cleared his throat and began, “Everything
I’ve already told you about the abduction and finding Merrie is
true; I think you’ve already seen that… It’s just some of the
things since that have been altered a bit…to protect the innocent,
as they say…”

“Yes,” she agreed softly. “And there are the
things you left out.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “That’s the part I’ve
been trying my damnedest to forget for thirty-five years.”

“Go on…” Constance urged.

He drew in a deep breath and continued. “Our
first concern that morning was Merrie, of course. She needed
immediate attention, so I actually didn’t join the search for
Colson right away… Fact is, I went with her to the hospital and
stayed until her parents arrived. By the time I got back, Sheriff
Morton, and Edgar, and everyone else had canvassed several blocks
and found the house on Evergreen.”

“Why didn’t they just follow Merrie’s tracks
back to it?” Constance asked.

He stifled a thoughtful snort. “Edgar didn’t
tell you? There weren’t any.” He took a swig from his drink and
contemplated the tumbler for a moment before continuing. “Well,
anyway, I arrived to a crime scene crawling with Missouri Highway
Patrol and Feds, as well as just about everyone from our
department. Sheriff Morton was waiting for me when I got there, and
the first thing he asked was if I was absolutely positive the
little girl I’d picked up was Merrie. I told him yes, and he just
asked me the same question again. I was starting to think the old
man had lost it because he had seen her before we left for the
hospital… He knew damn well it was her…but…then he took me
inside.

“Well… You know what it looked like in that
basement. You saw it this morning yourself. Not exactly how you
want to introduce a green cop in a small town to a murder
investigation, that’s for sure, but I held my coffee down, which
was more than I can say for some of the State guys.”

Skip paused, falling silent once again. He
continued to stare through her as he had been at the outset. His
face masked with grief, he was obviously playing it all out in his
mind in vivid color, just as he probably had for an untold number
of times throughout the years. Constance couldn’t help but feel
compassion for him.

“But there was more than just the brutality
of Colson’s death,” she prompted.

“Yeah… There was…” he mused quietly. “Colson
wasn’t…” he began, then stopped and tossed his head back, breathing
deeply. He closed his eyes, and a fugitive tear rolled from the
corner to trace across his cheek. After a trio of labored breaths,
he rolled his head back down and spoke again. “Sorry… I live this…
Especially this time of year… I can’t get away from it…but… I
haven’t actually talked about it with anyone in a long time.”

“I understand,” Constance told him.

“Well…” he huffed, obviously forcing himself
to continue. “I’m sure Edgar already told you. Colson’s body wasn’t
the only one they found. Merrie’s was there in the basement
too.”

“So Merrie Callahan was deceased,” she stated
more than asked.

“Yeah. According to the autopsy she succumbed
to her injuries and to exposure. They found her body behind the
furnace, which was inoperable at that time, of course, since the
house was abandoned. It looked like she was probably trying to hide
from that bastard. After everything he’d done to her, he had kept
her locked in that basement with no heat and just what was left of
her school uniform. We found her coat upstairs. She didn’t have a
chance.”

“But you had already found her standing in
the middle of the street several blocks away,” Constance said. “And
John Colson had been killed and dismembered. Were they certain it
was her body?”

“No doubt about it,” he replied. “They made
Tom and Elizabeth identify the body.”

“Who did?”

“Your people,” he spat. “The Feds.”

“Dear God…” she mumbled.

“Yeah, well you know my thoughts on that…
Either way, they also pulled some fingerprints from Merrie’s things
at home and they matched. They even checked dental records just to
be sure.”

“What about the girl you found?”

“That’s just it; they matched her too.” He
swallowed hard and shook his head. “If that wasn’t enough to make
everyone question their sanity, there was also the fact that the
autopsy estimated Merrie’s death at as much as a day prior to my
finding her. But Colson…well, what was left of him anyway…he was
still warm when they arrived on the scene.”

“What happened after that?” she pressed.

“Good question,” he replied. “The Feds took
over at that point. They marched in with court orders, and we were
pretty much cut out of the loop. So was the MHP. Everyone was
interviewed and told that we were mistaken about what had
transpired. Merrie’s remains mysteriously disappeared, as did
Colson’s. And as I’m sure you noticed, our files were
redacted…sanitized, really. The autopsy reports disappeared. The
case reports definitely aren’t the ones we filed originally. I know
that for a fact because I wrote one of them myself.”

Constance would have discounted the claim out
of hand had it not been for the gaping holes in the case file she
had been given by the SAC at the outset. That fact in itself made
his story that much more believable, even if it did sound like a
plot from a blockbuster conspiracy thriller.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She really couldn’t
imagine what else to say.

“Yeah, me too…” Skip grunted. “Wasn’t long
after that I left Hulis. Kathy and I got married, then headed for
KC to follow my dream of being a big city cop.”