“Yet the killer gets away?”
“That’s the mystery,” Sheriff Carmichael replied. He swung the flashlight back and forth again, rapidly illuminating each of the spots in succession. “But to answer your first question: yep. Exactly the same every year. All seven victims dismembered the same way, left in exactly the same position, every single time. We don’t even bother to clean up the outlines anymore.”
“Don’t you mean eight victims?” Constance asked.
He grumbled his response. “Not yet. Not until Christmas Day anyway.”
“I mean John Horace Colson,” she explained. “Aren’t the seven recent victims positioned in exactly the same way he was found dismembered in nineteen seventy-five?”
“Yes, they are, Special Agent Mandalay,” he spat, adopting the formal tone he’d used before when he wanted to stress a point. “But you need to bear in mind that John Colson was a monster. Merrie Callahan was the victim, not him.”
“I agree, Merrie was definitely a victim. But, whether you and I think it’s right or not, legally, Colson was too.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s really just semantics.”
“Well, you can keep your semantics.” The words came as a growl. He had moved a step beyond cold formality and was now toeing a line called anger.
Unfortunately, his growing flare was igniting hers as well, and it was clear in her voice as she mimicked his sudden conventionalism. “Semantics aside, Sheriff Carmichael, I think we can agree the connection between the murders is more than obvious.”
“I’m not a rookie, Special Agent. What’s your point?”
“My point is that you aren’t looking at this crime objectively.”
“I never claimed to be,” he replied, his voice even sharper than before. “You’re a smart girl; I thought you’d figured that out by now.”
Constance felt herself bristle at the condescending remark and immediately opened her mouth to fire back a rebuttal. However, before she released the volley, her training kicked in to override her emotions. She didn’t know what had sparked this sudden escalation of tempers between them, but she knew it wasn’t productive, and it needed to end right now.
She drew in a deep breath, then forced her tone to remain calm and even. “Skip…” she began. “I’m not trying to be adversarial here. I’m just-”
“You sure as hell could’ve fooled me,” he snapped, truncating her sentence before she could finish. His voice rose as he launched into a short-lived tirade, “Goddammed know-it-all Feds. You’re all the same… Coming in here uninvited and placing blame where it doesn’t belong… Screw the whole lot of ya’…”
Constance felt heat radiate from her cheeks as her face flushed, but she continued to bite back her temper and held her tongue. Conflict resolution wasn’t an easy task in the first place, even when you were the detached outsider. It was much harder when you were firmly entrenched in your own side of the argument.
“Have you seen enough?” Carmichael demanded on the heels of his outburst. “Are we done here?”
“Yes,” Constance replied as calmly as she could manage. “I think we are.”
He turned and started for the stairs. “Come on then. I’ll drop you off back at the Greenleaf.”
“Actually, why don’t we just go to your office,” she said as she turned to follow. “I’d like to have a look at the original case file. If you still have it, that is.”
Skip didn’t answer. He simply kept walking, then stomped up the stairs, flashlight in hand, leaving her to negotiate the uneven bottom double-step alone and in the dark.
CONSTANCE glanced over the top edge of the thirty-five-year-old police report as a hand slid an unmarked, cardboard burger carton across the break room table and brought it to rest in front of her. The carton was soon followed by a plastic fork and then by a thick-walled, stoneware mug that had wisps of steam wafting slowly up from the coffee it contained.
In the seconds following the appearance of the items, there ensued a balloon of silence that was slowly expanding to fill the room. It finally popped when Skip cleared his throat and said, “Hope you like cranberry-mince pie. It’s all they had over there this morning.”
“Peace offering?” She asked without looking up from the file.
“Works with my daughters,” he grunted. “Not so much with my wife, but with the girls it does…most of the time, anyway. And, since you remind me a lot of my oldest, I figure I might have a fifty-fifty shot…”
Constance gave in and laid the open file on the table, then looked up at him with a curious expression. “Why just fifty-fifty?”
“Because my oldest takes after her mother.”
“I see… But pie? For breakfast?”
“Think of it as a doughnut you have to eat with a fork.”
She arched her eyebrows and nodded. “Never thought of it that way.”
“So…” he said after a measured pause. “Is it working?”
She chuckled as she quipped in return, “I guess that all depends on how good the pie is.”
“Yeah. You’re definitely a lot like my oldest,” Skip replied. He dropped a second carton on the table, then pulled up a chair and parked himself across from her. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know I was kind of a jackass back there.”
“Kind of?”
“Okay, I was a complete jackass,” he replied.
“Apology accepted,” she said with a quick nod. “And I should say that I’m sorry if I offended you with my observations on this case. I realize that what happened with Merrie is a touchy subject for you and everyone else in this town for that matter. I truly wasn’t trying to be insensitive to that fact.”
“I know you weren’t. You’re just following the leads like you’re supposed to. Truth is, I should’ve warned you up front.”
“About?”
“Me… That house…” he huffed, then paused, leaving a pregnant question mark hanging in the air. He thumbed the tab on his box and opened the hinged lid to reveal a wide slice of homemade pie that had been accessorized with a huge dollop of whipped cream. He stared at it for a moment, then picked up his own fork; but instead of digging in, he waved the utensil through the air and proceeded to fill in the blank he had left. “This sort of thing has happened before. More than once. You can ask your Fed buddies about it. I just don’t do well in that house. Too many bad memories, I guess… And just more gettin’ made.”
“I think I can understand that. Between the painful memories and the frustration you must feel with this case, I’m sure it can’t be easy on you.”
He bobbed his head in agreement. “Not so much, that’s the truth. Most memories dull with time. Eventually they fade enough that they get easier to deal with…but not this one. It just gets harder for me every year. Still, that was no cause for me to take it out on you.”
“Would it help if I confessed something?” Constance asked.
“What’s that?”
“Being in that house was getting to me too. I know that might sound crazy, especially since I don’t have the history with it that you have.” She paused, then shrugged and added, “To be honest, I was actually even a little spooked by it yesterday. I hate to admit it, but I was sort of relieved when your flashlight didn’t work.”
“Hard for me to imagine you being spooked by much of anything,” he replied, then puckered his lips into a thoughtful frown and offered, “I guess I was too wrapped up in myself to notice. Sorry.”
“What was that you said earlier? ‘Now we’re even’?”
“How’s that?”
“It’s hard for me to imagine you not noticing something.”
“It happens,” he replied, a half chuckle following the words. “As a matter of fact, that’s when I usually end up buying somebody a piece of pie. Oh…how’s your shin, by the way?”
Obviously he hadn’t missed the fact that she’d stumbled over that bottom stair when he stormed off and left her standing in the dark.
“Sore,” she answered. “And I’m sure there’s a bruise on the way, so I doubt I’ll be winning any sexy legs contests in the near future.”
“Maybe not, but from the language I heard coming up the stairs I’d sure put money on you to win a cussin’ contest.”