Skip slowed the cruiser as he reached the dime store, quickly scanning for a space to pull in. Almost immediately he noticed a silhouette framed in the light that was escaping from the storefronts. The dark form waved and gestured toward the corner farther down. Picking up on the cue, he coasted another fifty or so feet, then flicked on the cherries as a visible warning before giving the steering wheel a quick turn to cut across oncoming traffic. Slipping carefully between the front of a pickup truck and the back end of a compact that was waiting to make a turn, he guided the cruiser through a hard arc and into a diagonal space in front of Evanston’s Drug at the opposite end of the strip.
Out of habit, he checked the time. According to his watch, slightly less than five minutes had elapsed since Clovis had hung up from the initial call. However, given the traffic snarl he had encountered at the Lake Street intersection, despite a quick burp of the siren to clear the way, Deputy Carmichael wondered if he could have been here just as fast traveling on foot.
He levered the vehicle into park, then shut off the engine and killed the lights. Bremerton’s was back up the street, on the other side of Sissy’s Florist Shop, which was nestled almost dead center between the five-and-dime and the drug store. However, before he even had the key out of the ignition, the silhouette had come down to meet him and was already standing under the awning on the sidewalk directly in front of the patrol car. In the yellowish glow pouring from Evanston’s windows he could see that what had earlier been little more than a dark outline was in fact Ruth Babbs, Bremerton’s store manager. Apparently she hadn’t taken the time to don a coat before coming outside, so she was now hugging her thick sweater tight, with her hands tucked beneath her crossed arms.
“Evening, Missus Babbs,” he said, nodding in her direction as he climbed out of the vehicle, only to be greeted by a cold gust of wind that presented him with a face full of the oversized snowflakes. He sputtered and blinked, then shoved his hat onto his head. After pushing the car door shut he walked toward her.
“Skip,” the manager called back to him by way of a greeting. “I sure do appreciate you coming down so fast.” Her voice sounded relieved, but what he could see of her face still appeared to be deeply creased with concern.
A tangle of voices was coming from the small crowd gathered just outside the dime store’s main window at the opposite end of the short block. Even with the distance and other background noise, it filled his ears with a muddy thrum, interspersed here and there with a random high note or two. Threading through it all was the unmistakable sound of a small child bawling. Given the combination of darkness, backlighting, and heavy curtain of snow, he could actually hear the people better than he could see them. However, that in itself was more than enough to get a general assessment. Even if he hadn’t been aware of the current situation, he would have been able to tell just from their sound that they weren’t there to watch the train, as would usually be the case this time of year. Their audible distress warned him that things weren’t yet resolved, and that raised his own concern by a notch or two.
“So you still haven’t located the child?” he asked, just to be sure.
Stepping up onto the sidewalk he came under the shelter of the wide awning that ran the length of the storefronts. Now that the oversized flakes were no longer streaming directly in front of his eyes he could see much better, and Missus Babbs’ expression was definitely pained.
She gave her head a shake. “No, we haven’t, and we’ve been over the entire store three times now.” She looked in the direction of the crowd for a moment then back to him and added, “Elizabeth is just beside herself. She came out front to get some air, but I’m not sure it’s done much good.”
“Has anyone called her husband?” he asked.
She nodded. “He’s on his way.”
“Good,” Skip grunted. “I’m sure everything is going to be fine, but having him here should help. So, did anyone see the girl leave the store?”
“Not that I know of.” She shook her head again. “They’ve checked all through Norris’s and Evanston’s too.” She tilted her head toward the entrance of the drug store as she continued. “Sissy’s was already closed for the day. We’ve asked around, but a lot of people were going in and out of the stores, so…”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Skip replied as her voice trailed off. “Well, let’s go have another look. She’s probably just hiding somewhere.” He gestured ahead and they started walking toward the store proper. “So, Clovis said you were the last person to see the girl?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“And where was that?”
“When she and her sister first came into the store. They wanted to see Santa, so I sent them to the back where we have the North Pole all set up.”
“Okay, so what about Mister Babbs then? Didn’t he see them?”
Skip made what he considered a logical assumption since everyone over the age of seven knew Missus Babbs’ husband played the part of Santa at Bremerton’s and that he had for what seemed like forever. In fact, there was even a Polaroid in his parent’s family photo album from back when Skip was a small child. It showed him standing next to Mister Babbs while the jolly man in the red suit cradled his younger sister on his lap. In the photo, Skip was clutching a candy cane and looking genuinely befuddled by the entire ruse. Even back then very little escaped his attention, including the fact that Bremerton’s Santa was really the owner of the sandwich shop.
She shook her head. “Actually, Elvis isn’t here. He came down with that bad flu that’s been going around, and we had to hire someone to take over for him this past week.”
“Who?”
“His name is John Carter.”
“That doesn’t sound familiar. Is he local?”
“No. With it being so last minute we had trouble finding anyone. Mister Bremerton actually had to hire him through an agency all the way down in Saint Louis. I understand that it wasn’t cheap, but he didn’t want the children to be disappointed.”
“Sounds about like Mister B.”
She nodded agreement. “Anyway, Mister Carter seems like a very nice man. He even gave his time to go over to Immaculate Conception in Mais this morning to fill in for Elvis at the school party there. That wasn’t part of the contract, so he didn’t even get paid for it. He just volunteered.”
“That was nice of him to do that,” Skip said.
Voices were becoming more distinct within the overall murmur as they closed the gap between themselves and the clutch of people in front of the main window. Some of them were attempting to be soothing, most were concerned, but there was a standout that was unmistakably panicked. Skip figured that one in particular had to belong to Elizabeth Callahan. The bawling youngster hadn’t fully stopped either, but she seemed to be in a lull for the moment, with the warbling cries replaced by quieter gasping sobs, punctuated by short wails.
“So, what about this Mister Carter?” Skip asked. “Did he see the girl at all before she went missing?”
Missus Babbs slowed then completely stopped in her tracks, still several yards away from Bremerton’s storefront. Scrunching her forehead in thought and resting the tips of her fingers against her lips for a moment before shaking her head slowly, she answered, “You know… Come to think of it, I haven’t actually seen him since all of this started. He was on his dinner break when the girls first came in, but he was due back soon so I sent them back to wait. Then, in what seemed like it was just a couple of minutes later, Becca, the youngest, came wandering up to the front of the store, all alone and in a complete fit. All we could get from her was that her sister wouldn’t let her see Santa and that she couldn’t find her now.”