In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel (9 page)

He stepped toward the spot and knelt down
next to it, shifting his upper body to keep from casting his shadow
across the anomaly. As he peered at the lumpy, wet mass, the wind
made a sudden shift, sending a flake-filled gust directly into his
face. He blinked against the onslaught of snow and at the same time
sputtered a bit as a foul odor wafted upward into his nostrils.
Taking a second, shallower breath he recognized the smell that was
coming from the mass.

It was the sharp funk of fresh vomit.

Skip swallowed hard and continued to inspect
the somewhat teardrop shape in the snow, despite having to battle
his own wave of nausea brought on by both the sight and stench of
the recent puke. Even though his own stomach now felt sour, his
brain was noticing a pattern. The spread of the spilled stomach
contents seemed to indicate that it had been propelled at a slight
angle toward the back of the store, almost as if the person was
facing the door instead of away. However, given the amoeba like
bulge along the outer edge, it also seemed to have been deflected
by something. Sending his eyes upward he found frozen dribbles of
what appeared to be vomit clinging to the corner of the dumpster.
Standing up and angling his gaze back downward, he followed the
splatter in reverse, noticing that it spread in a way that
suggested the person responsible might have been moving in the
opposite direction. The fading line of smaller spots led several
inches away from the primary, appearing to hook around the corner
of the huge metal bin with spray-like lines radiating outward.

Skip’s heart jumped, felt as if it stopped,
and then it started to race. A new thought popped into his brain.
Perhaps Merrie was simply ill and disoriented with a fever. That
flu had been going around, and it was bad; he knew that for a fact.
Missus Callahan had said Merrie wasn’t feeling well. Maybe it
wasn’t those bad thoughts she claimed to be having. Maybe she
really was sick.

It could very well be that he had jumped to
conclusions. That he had simply misread the circumstances and then
allowed paranoia to take over, in turn driving him toward a faulty
hypothesis. Maybe he was going to walk around the corner of the
dumpster and find the little girl, delirious with a fever, and
hiding from the world because of it. Right now, he would definitely
settle for that instead of the other option that had been
dominating his thoughts.

“Merrie?” he called out as he stepped forward
and around the corner of the bin.

Unfortunately, there was still no answer. Not
only that, there was no Merrie. Just fast falling snow and the hard
line of the dumpster’s shadow where it stood in the swath of light
from the flood lamps overhead. Skip felt the pit of his stomach
sink when he was greeted with nothing more than the oblique line of
blue-black darkness. He stood there for a moment and then looked
out across the lot toward the entrance at the far end.

Between the heavy moans of the wind he could
hear the occasional noise of traffic out on the main drag in front
of the store.

He called out again, “Merrie?”

His voice hitched a ride on a snowy gale and
disappeared into the darkness behind him.

“Merrie!” he called out again, cupping his
hands on either side of his mouth and shouting against the weather.
“MERRIE CALLAHAN!”

He held his breath and waited. There was
still no answer.

Deputy Carmichael sighed and started turning
to go back into the store. As he shifted, his own shadow moved, and
in the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of something
protruding from the snow as light glinted from it in a quick flash.
Twisting back around, he scanned the area. It was probably just a
random snowflake catching the beam from the flood lamps at just the
right moment, but in his peripheral vision it had seemed far more
metallic. Slowly, keeping his eyes focused ahead, he stepped
sideways, allowing the light to fall in the general direction of
the phantom once again.

Panning his gaze back and forth he suddenly
caught another glimpse of the flash right at the edge of the
dumpster’s long shadow and even farther out at the edge of his
vision. He knew it could still have been a rogue flake, so he
carefully and ever so slightly moved his head back and forth,
staring through the curtain of falling snow.

The flash hit the edge of his sight once
again.

Locking his eyes on the spot, he took a step
forward and stopped. Then another, and waited again. Squinting
against the wind he finally noticed an almost insignificant lump of
crystalline white. He stepped toward it, and a more detailed
outline began to emerge. Another step and he saw a small swath of
black and the suggestion of a glint of silver. As the wind blew
around it, a miniature drift was forming on the opposite side,
leaving a concave void facing him.

He advanced the last few steps forward and
again knelt down. Reaching out, he brushed away the rapidly
accumulating flakes to reveal the object beneath. When he saw it,
the pit of his stomach did more than just sink. This time it
twisted into a hard knot as his heart thudded painfully in his
chest.

A nauseating thought flickered through his
head, and he remembered that less than a half-hour ago he had been
glad to have a distraction. Now he was cursing himself for it.

He reached out and picked up the lone,
abandoned shoe—a little girl’s black leather Mary Jane. Light once
again glinted from the silver metal buckle as he lifted it from the
snow, and his breath caught in his chest, lodging itself in that
agonizing somewhere between an inhale and an exhale.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him that the
shoe belonged to Merrie Frances Callahan. Nor did he need someone
to explain that she was nowhere around to claim it.

He just knew.

“These are but shadows of the things that
have been,” said the Ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”

—The Ghost of Christmas Past

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens, 1843

CHAPTER 7

6:23 A.M. – December 22, 2010

Huck’s Diner

US 61 North – Hannibal, Missouri

“…
NEWS
out of
Jefferson City this morning, the license of a
Kansas
City
funeral home has been revoked by state regulators after
multiple probation violations…”

The talking head on the dim screen continued,
his voice droning outward from the speaker of the small television
on the opposite side of the near empty diner. However, any further
words he had on the story were all but drowned out by a far more
cheerful voice that was issuing from a woman clad in a retro pink
uniform, complete with an apron and a nametag that had MABEL
stenciled across its face.

“How are you this morning?” the waitress
asked.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Constance replied as she
closed the vinyl-covered, tri-fold menu and looked up.

The woman in pink smiled. “Coffee, hon?”

“Definitely.”

“Regular or unleaded?”

“Regular.”

The waitress had come prepared. She placed a
thick-walled mug upright on the table, and then with a practiced
juggle of the two well-worn Pyrex globes in her other hand, plucked
the brown handled one free. Tilting it carefully, she poured a
stream of java while adding, “Fresh. Just made it.”

“Wonderful,” Constance replied.

The woman returned the pot to her other hand,
once again hooking the orange and brown handles together in a death
grip. Reaching into her apron pocket she pulled out a handful of
creamers and put them on the table.

“Thanks.”

The waitress looked her over and with a
genuine brightness in her voice asked, “Visiting Hannibal
today?”

Constance gave her head a quick shake. “Just
passing through, I’m afraid.”

“Too bad, we have a lot to see. And some
wonderful little shops too. Great for last minute gift
shopping.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Where’re you heading?”

“North.”

The waitress continued, undaunted by the
vague answer. “Visiting family for the holidays?”

“Business, actually…”

“This close to Christmas? That’s a shame.
Folks should be with family this time of year. Or, a pretty young
lady like you, maybe with someone special?”

Constance smiled and shrugged but didn’t
offer any information. Apparently her naked ring finger was doing
all the talking for her. In any case, she was ready to bring the
conversation to a close before it became any more invasive than it
already had. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the friendly openness of
small towns, so the woman’s queries didn’t really offend her.
However, she also wasn’t accustomed to the culture either. In Saint
Louis, where she lived, you were cordial to others; however, if you
were too friendly, even out in the suburbs, people had a tendency
to think something was either wrong with you or that you had an
ulterior motive, nefarious or otherwise. Unfortunately, the vast
majority of the time they were correct.

Of course, under the circumstances this
exchange was probably good practice. The town where she was heading
was even smaller than Hannibal, so she might as well be prepared
for random Q and A from the locals there too. Still, she wasn’t
ready to dive in headfirst. Not until she absolutely had to, and
definitely not this early in the morning.

Fortunately, the waitress shifted the focus
of her interrogation without any other prompting. “All righty then,
hon, have you decided what you’d like, or do you need another
minute or two?”

Constance smiled inwardly. Now they were back
on track. She nodded and said, “The Becky’s Breakfast, I
think.”

“How did you want those eggs?”

“Scrambled.”

“Bacon or sausage?”

“Do you have turkey bacon?”

“Sure do. White or wheat?”

“Wheat, please.”

“Okay, I’ll have that out in just a few.” The
woman in pink flashed a smile and turned to head back toward the
counter.

“Oh,” Constance called after her. “Do you
have any grapefruit juice?”

“Not sure this morning, sugar. I’ll have to
check on that for you,” the waitress answered. “If we have some do
you want a large or a small?”

“Just a small. Thank you.”

Once the woman disappeared through the
kitchen doors behind the counter, Constance turned her attention
toward the TV. The morning news had given way to a kitschy
commercial for a local car dealership. Oh well, she could tune in
the news channel on her satellite radio once she was back on the
road. Besides, right now she still had some reading to catch up
on.

She took a moment to stretch. Two hours in
the driver’s seat hadn’t done her any favors, given that the
apparent urgency of this trip had caused her to miss her morning
run, not to mention that she was operating on less than four hours
sleep. She wasn’t a big fan of last minute assignments like this,
but you went where your SSA told you to go. The mobility agreement
was all part of the job, no matter the division where you were
assigned, but most especially if you were a special agent in the
field. Of course, in this instance she wasn’t even sure her SSA
knew what was happening just yet. These orders had come from the
SAC himself, and even he had implied that they originated from
higher up the FBI’s food chain, which meant DC. Either way, when
your boss’ boss is the one handing you an assignment, you don’t ask
why. Not out loud, anyway.

Still, Agent Johnson was definitely going to
owe her one for bailing on this. She didn’t care if he had a bad
case of the flu or not. Tit for tat, that’s how it worked. He got
out of it, and she got stuck with it, so he owed her. Moreover, if
he was responsible for putting her name on the short list as a
backup, his payback was going to be a bitch; namely her, and she
had no problem bearing that moniker when she needed to.

What really bothered her was that the bureau
had plenty of agents working from the Saint Louis headquarters, and
she’d pulled more than her share of crappy assignments over the
years. Wasn’t it someone else’s turn to work a holiday for a
change? And why just her? Shouldn’t she at least have another agent
from her squad along for the ride? Two sets of eyes were always
better than one.

Or maybe it was just that she wanted to have
someone to commiserate with?

Again, these were just more examples of
questions and comments that you didn’t give voice, which is why
they were now trapped on the inside with the rest of her thoughts
and making a confusing din between her ears. On the flip side, it
was possible she should be considering it a feather in her cap that
the SAC, and possibly even someone in DC, had picked her out of the
pool of agents. Unfortunately, the end of that feather was sharp,
and right now it was poking through her cap and into her head in a
most annoying fashion.