In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel

by M. R. Sellars

  CHAPTER 16

  4:26 P.M. – December 23, 2010

  Greenleaf Motel

  Hulis Township – Northern Missouri

  CONSTANCE straightened her posture, then interlaced her fingers behind her neck and arched her back as she stretched. She held the position for several seconds before unclasping her hands and slowly reaching toward the ceiling. She heard a pop from her left shoulder and rotated it carefully, then made another mental note about that massage when she was finally back home in Saint Louis.

  Finally, she relaxed and allowed her arms to drop to her sides as her back unbowed. Then she closed her eyes and slowly rolled her head in a circle, first left, then right, then left again. When she was finished working the muscles in her neck, she glanced at her watch, then at the paper-strewn bed. She’d been hunched over for better than two hours this time, so she definitely needed a break.

  She sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, shaking her arms and rocking her hips as she danced in place to get her circulation going. It seemed a bit chilly, so she turned away from the bed and wandered over to the wide heater unit that was mounted through the wall beneath the window of her motel room. It wasn’t pushing any air at the moment, so she bent over and inched the temperature control dial up another notch. It kicked on immediately.

  Straightening up, she reached out and pulled back the edge of the dark burgundy insulated drapes that covered the smudged panes, and then peered out through the gap. On the other side of the glass, it was reaching the cusp of darkness. The last throes of what little sunlight had been managing to penetrate the low clouds were throwing themselves against the coming night in a futile suicide assault. However, the dirty blue-gray shadows were winning, just as they always would.

  In the dimness she could see that a light snow was still falling, the same as it had been since mid afternoon. Something on the order of an inch had accumulated so far—maybe even a bit more. What she’d been able to tune in earlier on the two-decades-old television had told her that it would be picking up the pace, and there would likely be three to five more on the ground by morning, at least. Sometime around midday tomorrow the weather system was supposed to finally taper off to flurries, leaving another day of overcast skies and an added blast of bitter cold slipping in from the northwest.

  It looked like it would definitely be a white Christmas for northern Missouri, not that anyone here in Hulis would be celebrating. Except for Merrie, of course.

  Constance felt a sudden chill run the length of her spine, and she shivered.

  Out of instinct, she rested the heel of her palm on the butt of her Sig Sauer. Her index finger was extended, and the others were curled lightly over the grip, while her thumb hovered against the quick release. As she leaned in toward the window and twisted to scan the rest of the parking lot, the edge of her hand pressed against her side, sending a brief but sharp pain through the cell-phone bruise. She winced and adjusted her torso a bit, but left her hand resting on her sidearm.

  She didn’t consciously believe that she was being watched, but she was still on edge. This wasn’t the first odd chill she’d felt since returning to her room, and it wasn’t because of the heater. While she was at the house on Evergreen Lane, she could almost understand it. Not without some question as to why, of course, but at least it made some kind of sense for it to happen there and then. Here and now, it didn’t.

  Her being spooked was unusual enough in itself, but for it to carry over like this was just unheard of. After all, she worked cases on a regular basis with Rowan Gant, a paranormal consultant for the Saint Louis police and the FBI as well. She had been witness to some truly inexplicable things during some unbelievably bizarre cases, so this shouldn’t be a big deal at all.

  However, what she was really accustomed to was Rowan’s preternatural cognition, not her own; that was because she didn’t have any. Maybe she’d get a gut feeling here and there, but nothing like he had. He was the supernatural member of the team, not her. She was the skeptic and sometimes his official handler during investigations, but that was all. Yes, she made it a point to remain open minded; however, she was still a rationalist. And, as much as she liked Rowan, she simply wasn’t in a big hurry for his mysticism to start rubbing off on her.

  Of course, the more she thought about it, the more she had to admit that all of the exceptional observations being made by Sheriff Carmichael probably weren’t helping her anxiety either. They were certainly nothing inexplicable—as he had proven with his explanations—but they were peculiar nonetheless. As benign as the curmudgeonly old cop seemed on the surface, she still wasn’t sure quite what to make of him. In fact, she had a strange feeling that he was hiding something from her. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but she felt positive that she wasn’t getting the whole story from him.

  One thing she did know for certain, however, was that, explicable or not, being the focus of such intimately detailed perceptions coming from someone she really didn’t know was just plain creepy—on too many levels.

  Constance let out a heavy sigh and glanced back over her shoulder at the bed. Papers were arranged all across the comforter in semi-organized stacks sorted by dates, case numbers, and in many instances, obvious connections.

  Following Sheriff Carmichael’s instructions, Clovis had photocopied the original Merrie Callahan–John Colson case file for her, as well as those pertaining to the seven copycat murders. While they were definitely more complete than the FBI’s own documentation, so far they hadn’t furnished any real answers. If anything, they had created a whole host of new questions after she had been through them the first time. The list of queries had only grown upon the second run through. At this point, she was almost afraid to go for a third pass for fear of becoming even more confused.

  A flicker caught the corner of her eye, so she turned back to the window. The lights outside each of the rooms had apparently clicked on via timer or sensor. The strange juxtaposition between the falling darkness and the soft glow of backlighting turned the window into a translucent mirror. The reflection staring back at her was drawn and expressionless. She knew she should really just try to get some sleep, but she was afraid that at this point she was too exhausted for that to happen. She’d crashed straight through that barrier and was now running on adrenalin and caffeine. She knew all too well that couldn’t go on forever.

  She sighed, then focused her gaze past the tired face in the glass, and stared out across the parking lot once again. As she was allowing herself to be mesmerized by the falling snow, a soft ding combined with a rapid clatter sounded from the desk a few feet away. She turned her head in time to see her cell phone vibrate toward the edge, then stop, still safely inches from the precipice. She allowed the drapery to fall back into place then padded over to the desk and picked up the device.

  The display read, “1 New Text Message.”

  She thumbed over to the text folder and opened it. The sender ID for the message that had just arrived was blank, but it was tagged urgent. Constance pursed her lips and sighed. Probably a SPAM text. She’d received them before, but just to be sure, she highlighted it and pressed ‘OK’.

  The message read, “CK PRSNL EML”

  She scrunched her brow and frowned as she dropped herself into the desk chair and laid the phone aside. A pair of finessed jiggles and a re-orientation of the Gideon’s Bible later, she managed to hang on to a solid Internet connection and proceeded to download her personal email.

  The window on the screen filled slowly with line after line of electronic communiqués. She didn’t have to spend any time sorting through them, though, as one stood out immediately. Tagged URGENT, with a blank field for both the sender and subject header, it was highlighted in red. However, what made it even more prominent was that it appeared at the bottom of the list, because whoever was behind it had set the date of the email to 12/25/1975. She knew it wasn’t unusual for spammers to use bogus dates in order to get your attention, but the choice of these d
igits seemed to be more than mere coincidence.

  She dragged the tip of her finger across the touch-pad to highlight the email, then gave it a quick double tap. A new window opened on cue. The body of the electronic communication was simply, “HEAVY SYMBOLISM OF THE SEASON. MERRY XMAS.” Below the body was an attached file, the name of which was a series of seemingly random letters and numbers.

  Constance drew her finger around in a circle on the touch-pad, making the cursor slowly orbit the file name on the attachment bar along the bottom of the email window. Pausing, she picked up her cell phone and scrolled the text message onto the screen again. Nothing helpful. Just “CK PRSNL EML.”

  Looking back at the computer screen, she rested her finger on the touchpad and began to circle the cursor around the attachment again. Last minute assignments, documentation missing from a case file, cold shoulders from colleagues, weird houses, strange rural cops with something to hide, and now this… Things were turning a little too cloak and dagger for her liking. Office politics were bad enough, but this seemed like something more.

  She stopped and picked up the cell phone again. She thumbed through the numbers in the personal phone book until she reached the entry belonging to her SAC. Something was definitely wrong here, and as much as she hated the idea, she feared some of her fellow agents might be involved. As she highlighted the number and allowed her thumb to hover above the TALK button, she once again took notice of the pearlescent pink manicure that graced her nails courtesy of Merrie.

  She brought her free hand up and inspected the lacquered tips of her fingers. Sheriff Carmichael’s stern remark from the previous day echoed inside her head. “I’ll do whatever it takes to protect our little girl... So will anyone else here in Hulis. And just so you know, that’s not a threat, sugar; it’s a promise.”

  The words definitely weren’t empty. There had been something in his tone that told her as much. And for some reason, at this very moment she was feeling just as protective of Merrie Callahan as any actual resident of the town, including Carmichael.

  Constance chewed on her lip for a moment, then looked back at the cell phone in her hand. Shifting her thumb, she dropped it down on the END button and cleared it back to the home screen without making the call. Laying it aside, she returned her attention to the notebook computer and slid the cursor over the top of the file, then quickly tapped twice on the touch-pad.

  As it opened, her anti-virus software blipped onto the screen, announced that the file was clean, and allowed it to open. She heard the disk drive whirring, then the installed media player automatically loaded. A few scant seconds later, Burl Ives was belting out Silver and Gold from the built-in speakers.

  Constance stared at it for a handful of seconds, then puffed out an annoyed sigh and fell against the back of the chair. A damn Christmas song. What kind of a joke was this? Did the email even have anything to do with this case? Maybe she was starting to have hallucinations brought on by the exhaustion, and her brain was just leaping to conclusions that it wouldn’t otherwise. Maybe the email was just a greeting from a friend who was playing with her, and that was all. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “But what about that date?” she mumbled, thinking aloud.

  She checked it again. Then she double-checked herself just to be sure. It still read “12/25/1975”, and that just couldn’t be a coincidence.

  She slid her fingers up through her hair and brought her hands to rest on the back of her head. The knot where she dinged her scalp was still tender, but she didn’t care at this point. She simply held on as her chin drifted toward her chest. Then she let loose with another sigh.

  Maybe the date really was just a bizarre fluke. Could it be that she was reading too much into all of this? Not just the date on the email, but everything?

  “Lex parsimoniae, Constance...” she mumbled aloud. “Lex parsimoniae deus damnat...”

  The law of parsimony. Occam’s Razor. She needed to step back, look at the simple explanations first, and then work her way forward from there. Don’t make it complicated unless it proves itself to be so. She was allowing the fact that she was feeling spooked to turn some clerical oversights, a conversation with a jerk agent, and a hyper-observant small-town sheriff into a rampant conspiracy theory of her own making.

  She knew better than this.

  She knew she knew better than this.

  She closed her eyes and contemplated her faulty reasoning. Burl Ives was continuing to croon in her ears, but she wasn’t really paying attention. However, her internal focus on self-recrimination was diverted by an unexpected noise.

  She listened closely, and then it repeated. Her stomach was rumbling. No big surprise. Except for the slice of “apology pie” from the sheriff, she hadn’t eaten at all today.

  Maybe that would help. She knew from experience that you could think much better with something in your stomach, so she did a quick mental inventory. There were some emergency energy bars stashed in her suitcase; she knew that for sure. She never traveled without them. There should also be a military surplus MRE in there too. She always kept one in her “go kit,” because you just never knew where you would end up, or if you’d have access to food when you needed it.

  Her gut gave another low growl. It was telling her that an energy bar wasn’t going to do the trick. It wanted something more substantial, but the MRE didn’t sound very inviting. You could easily live on one for two or three days if you rationed it out. That’s what they were designed to accomplish. However, whether or not your taste buds would survive was a different story entirely. Besides, tomorrow was Christmas Eve and she was going to be stuck on surveillance here in Hulis. Those vitamin-enriched, preservative-laden military rations could very well end up being her Christmas dinner, as unappetizing a thought as it was.

  Surely something was still open. It was dark outside, but it was still relatively early. She should probably head out now before the snow became too thick, not to mention that this was a small town. They probably rolled up the sidewalks right after the evening news.

  Her stomach issued yet another gurgling pang, so she decided to give in. She didn’t recall hearing the end of the song, but Burl had finally stopped singing to her about silver and gold decorations, so now was as good a time as any to just get out and clear her head.

  “You need a vacation,” she told herself aloud as she sighed, then dropped her hands, lifted her face, and opened her eyes.

  That was when she saw it.

  The media player was paused, and in the center of the screen was a small, rectangular window. Inside its borders was a winking cursor, and above it a string of text that said, “ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.”

  She blinked just to be sure and then continued staring at the screen. Maybe Occam’s Razor was a little dull this time after all. Now she just had to figure out what the encryption key was.

  Behind the newly opened window she could see the original email. The text still read, “HEAVY SYMBOLISM OF THE SEASON. MERRY XMAS.”

  She was sure that was a hint, but at the moment it wasn’t much help.

  She reached out and rested her fingertips on the home row of the keyboard, keeping her touch light. She thought about the tune that had played when the file opened and then tapped out SILVERAN; however, the DGOLD wouldn’t fit. The field was only allowing eight characters, so the song title probably wasn’t it. It was too easy, anyway. She backspaced and pondered some more. A pair of false starts later she typed in SLVRGOLD. Maybe too easy was where she needed to start. After a bit of trepidation washed over her, she hit enter.

  The small window flashed quickly, then the words “INCORRECT KEY!” winked at her in bright red. The rectangular window disappeared and she heard the computer hard drive spin up. Panic rushed in to fill her chest as she imagined the file erasing itself. She considered thumbing the power switch to stop it, but hesitated as the storage device whirred back to silence. After several tense seconds, the prompt returned, “ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.”

/>   Constance allowed a relieved sigh to flow out of her lungs.

  She stared awhile longer, then in a moment of inspiration typed “BURLIVES” and tapped enter.

  The laptop whirred, the window flashed, and then once again it displayed the winking red “INCORRECT KEY!”

  Disheartened, she sat back in the chair and glared at the screen. After several minutes of staring, she retrieved a flash drive from her laptop case and made a backup copy of the file, mutely cursing herself for not having done so at the outset. Then she stood up, stuffed it into her pocket, and shrugged into her coat. Then after stuffing her feet into her running shoes, she dug out a handful of change from her purse and headed for the door. There was a soda machine close to the motel office, and if this turned into a long night she would be in desperate need of more caffeine. Besides, it was really looking like she’d be having an energy bar for dinner after all, and she’d have to have something to wash it down.

  BOTH the wind and the snow had picked up, and even though she was walking beneath an overhang, Constance was forced to turn up her collar and shield her face as she trudged through what was now easily two inches of accumulation on the sidewalk. The movement was welcome though. Even after stretching she was still a bit stiff and definitely needed to move around.

  She felt a slight twinge in her dinged shin as she walked, but ignored it. Between the back of her head, her side, and now her leg, she had literally taken a beating while working this case and didn’t even have a suspect yet. Something seemed terribly wrong with that picture.

  Having gone as far as she could on the sidewalk, she ventured out from beneath the overhang. Snow swirled on brief gusts and pelted her face as she crossed the parking lot of the blocky U-shaped motel. She couldn’t help but notice that her car was still the only one occupying the otherwise empty expanse of snow-covered asphalt. She began to hurry as the wind rose again and sent a sharp knife of cold inside the loose folds of her coat. Half jogging, she continued the rest of the way across, then followed the VENDING sign and ducked into the small service corridor behind the office.