“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I guess I’m just…”
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “It’s Christmas Eve, you’re away from your loved ones, and you’re stuck in the middle of an investigation I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It’s bound to get to you.”
“It’s my job.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Not to mention that I’m supposed to remain objective.”
He shook his head and snorted. “You and I both know that doesn’t always happen. Especially with something like this. When a child is involved it changes everything.”
“Except the problem is, this is supposed to be about seven brutal homicides over as many years. Not about Merrie and what happened to her in nineteen seventy-five.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Well… You might want to tell that to the killer when you catch up to him because I don’t think he got the memo.”
She sighed. “Yeah… I know.”
Sheriff Carmichael silently regarded the sullen FBI agent for a moment then asked, “You eat yet?”
“This morning.”
“I meant dinner.”
She shook her head. “No. My stomach really isn’t up to it.”
“Yeah, I get that too,” he replied. “But since you’re dead set on sitting in that house all night waiting for this sonofabitch, you’re probably gonna need something to keep you going.”
“I’ll eat tomorrow.”
“Tonight, tomorrow, I don’t care,” he replied. “Either way, my wife fixed you up a care package just in case. It’s not a lot. Just a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, but I have to say, Kathy does make a mean egg salad sandwich.”
“I appreciate it,” Constance told him. “Please thank her for me.”
“I’ll do that,” he agreed. “So…you want to just sit for a while, or are you ready to head on over?”
“Let’s just go. I’d like to have another look at the basement, and the sooner I’m in place the less chance there is to spook our subject.”
“Your call,” he said with a nod. “Been down this road before. I really doubt it’s going to matter one way or the other. Let me go ahead and put some fresh batteries in a flashlight for you.”
“I’ve got mine, thanks,” she told him.
“Okay, good. Then I’ll just grab you a radio that’s got a full charge on it, then I’ll run you on over there.”
“Oh, just one other thing,” Constance said as he was pushing back from the desk.
“What’s that?”
“I’d like to borrow a hammer if you have one handy.”
C HAPTER 23
7:57 P.M. – December 24, 2010
632 Evergreen Lane
Hulis Township – Northern Missouri
Constance listened closely, but all she heard was a metallic clank meshed tightly together with a dull thud.
She took a sideways step, still holding the tire iron up over her head. Skip didn’t have a hammer as she’d asked, but this would do. She really just needed something she could use to bang on the walls.
She remained quiet, and focused. Cocking her head slightly, she drew her arm back and brought it forward with a measured amount of force. When the business end of the angled metal struck, it sent a jarring vibration down her arm and straight into her shoulder.
Again, clank-thud was all she heard.
She continued working her way downward, tapping slowly but forcefully from the top of the basement wall until she reached the footing. With each strike, the same solid noise filled her ears again and again.
She had already made the full circuit of the subterranean room twice. Deputy Slozar was close on her heels, beaming a powerful flashlight wherever she requested. As they slowly walked the perimeter, Constance had pressed her leather-gloved hand against the rough concrete walls while systematically hammering the metal tire tool at somewhat evenly spaced points, listening intently for any evidence of a hollow echo on the other side. She had paid particular attention to the bricked up coal chute, but even there, all that ever met her ears was a metal ping married to a dense thump. There was no hidden passage behind these walls, only solid earth.
At this point, she was relatively certain that not a single inch of the basement had gone without being fully inspected by sight, sound, and touch. The glass block windows were mortared in, solid and almost fully covered by debris from the outside. The remains of the old furnace were immovable. There was nothing behind them or in them, and the area below the stairs was also free and clear. There was no place to hide, and the only ingress or egress was from the upper floor. The only other thing she could imagine doing was to have a forensics team search the yard around the structure using ground-penetrating radar, but she knew that wasn’t about to happen.
Constance lowered the tire tool carefully to her side then let loose with a heavy sigh. Her breath formed a jet of cloudy frost in the wide beam of the flashlight.
Deputy Slozar cleared her throat and then with a bit of trepidation offered, “This has all been checked before, ma’am.”
Ma’am… Great… Like I don’t already feel old enough at the moment, Constance thought. However, what she said was, “I know it has, Deputy. This is really just to satisfy my own curiosity…”
Several languid seconds passed before the young woman spoke up again. “So…how do you think he does it, ma’am? Gets in without us ever seeing him, I mean…”
“That’s one of the things I’m here to find out,” Constance replied, then looked over at the deputy. The uniformed woman’s face was faintly visible in the unfocused residual glow from the flashlight. Not only did she look painfully young, but at the moment she also looked as though she was bordering on terrified. It was hard for Mandalay to blame her though, given what this house seemed to do to people who spent too much time within its walls. There was also the fact that her own stomach was filled with a healthy swarm of butterflies, but she thought it better to keep that fact to herself.
“How long have you been a deputy for Sheriff Carmichael?” Constance asked.
“Three years, ma’am.”
“So then this isn’t the first time you’ve been through this ordeal with him.”
“No, ma’am, it isn’t.”
Constance gave her a knowing nod and breathed, “But it just never gets any easier, does it?”
“No, ma’am.”
Constance waited a beat, then clucked her tongue and said, “So how do you think he does it, Deputy?”
“Ma’am?”
“I’m asking your opinion. I’m open to theories if you have one.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t,” she replied.
“Then I guess we’re both in the same boat.”
“I suppose so, ma’am.”
Do me a favor, Deputy Slozar,” Constance said. “Stop calling me ma’am.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Constance gave her head a small shake but let the slip go without further comment. Were it not for the gravity of the horrors that had occurred here-and were likely to occur again very soon-the young woman’s unconscious habit would have been almost comical.
Turning, Mandalay began to wander slowly across the basement. The deputy stayed close behind, flashlight aimed forward to illuminate her path. When she reached what she thought was roughly the center, Constance stopped and waited.
“Turn off the flashlight, please,” she instructed.
Confusion and fear were both thick in the young officer’s voice when she stammered her reply. “Off, ma’am?”
“Yes, Deputy. Off,” she said. “And then just stand still if you would.”
The young woman fumbled with the black, metal cylinder for a moment, then the light finally extinguished. Constance listened intently once again, but this time she wasn’t really sure what she was trying to hear.
The first thing she noticed was the whooshing sound of her own blood echoing in her ears as her pulse began to race. Behind that came the thin rasping of her shallow breaths. She stared into the darkness, physically seeing nothing, but in her mind, she allowed it to become the tangle of blue, black, and gray from her nightmare.