A Cold Christmas Read online

  Each child had a separate room, but the Littles left papers and crayons and games and puzzles and electronic games and tanks and dolls and action figures and books littered over the living room floor. It looked what’s called lived in. Or what Mat called a mess and why don’t you clean it up.

  Beginning to worry beyond limits, she went to the kitchen and picked up the phone, then couldn’t remember the number. Finally it floated through the sludge in her mind and she called her mother-in-law. While she counted rings, she realized the house was pleasantly warm, no longer an inferno and no longer freezing. Good ol’ Tim had come through just like he said he would. After eighteen rings, just as she was on the verge of hanging up, the call was answered.

  “Ettie, are the kids there?”

  “No, dear, they’re with their father.” As though Caley were some nit who couldn’t keep track of her own children.

  “They should have been back at three.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine. They’re with their father,” Ettie repeated, as though that meant safe and sound.

  “They were supposed to be home hours ago.”

  “I’m sure they’re having such a good time, they don’t want to come home.”

  “But—”

  “I’m dripping all over the rug and my bath is getting cold. Good-bye, dear.”

  Caley paced the house, yanking at her hair and running her hands through it. Pausing at the ancient mirror in the hallway, she gazed at herself, black circles for eyes, red nose, hair standing on end. Portrait of a Madwoman.

  At six forty-five the phone rang. She pounced on it.

  “Mom?”

  “Zach, what’s wrong? Where are you?”

  “Level off, Mom. We’re just about to have a pizza.”

  “This late? Where’s your father? Let me talk to him.”

  “Uh—he went to order food. Don’t worry, Mom, everything’s cool.”

  It was nine forty-five before Mat got them home, Bonnie asleep over his shoulder, Adam stumbling alongside glassy-eyed with fatigue; even Zach was dragging.

  Mat said he’d call tomorrow and sped off before she could gather enough wits to form sentences from all those words she’d chewed on while she was waiting, the ones about responsibility and common sense.

  “What did you do today?” she asked Bonnie as she peeled clothes off the limp child and pulled on pajamas.

  “Everything,” Bonnie breathed happily, snuggling into her pillow as she was covered up.

  Caley tucked Adam in, made sure the blankets were tight around his shoulders, and kissed his forehead. “Did you have a good time?”

  “Grr-rate! We got to shoot Dad’s gun. ‘Night, Mom.”

  Gun? She wanted to shake him awake and examine this gun business. Instead she went to tuck in Zach, who complained repeatedly that he was too old. She did it anyway. It’s for me, she always told him.

  “Adam said your father has a gun.” Try as she might, it sounded like an accusation.

  Zach sighed. “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  He sighed again, reluctance in every molecule of expelled air. “Don’t go into liftoff, Mom. We went to a shooting gallery. Targets. You know?”

  She hung on to all the furious words zinging around in her head. It wasn’t Zach’s fault his father was an idiot. “Were you any good?”

  “Better than Adam. Bonnie was hopeless. She didn’t like the noise, even with earmuffs.” He waited. “You going to yell at me?”

  Caley smiled. “You, no; your father, yes.” She kissed him and then went to her bedroom, replaced her clammy clothes with a sweat suit, and dragged her aching bones to bed.

  It was a night congested with dreams about Mat and a gun, shooting the shadowy man who had appeared at church, shooting the pharmacist as he handed her medicine that allowed her to breathe, creeping into the house and shooting them all in their beds.

  Blood flowing down the basement stairs brought her bursting up, shedding sleep like water. She panted. Oh, boy, she really had to stop watching all those late-night movies. Her throat was so raw she couldn’t swallow, her head throbbed, and she was dripping with sweat. How long did this damn flu last? She was startled to realize daylight was seeping in around the window shade.

  Bonnie breezed in and announced, “There’s an evil prince in the basement.”

  Caley moaned. Was she up to playing one of Bonnie’s games right now? “Who is he?” she asked.

  “He kidnapped the princess and hid her away.”

  “Oh,” Caley said. “That wasn’t very nice. What happened?”

  “You need to do something, Mommy.”

  “About what?”

  “Finding the princess.”

  “The evil prince will probably tell you if you ask nicely.”

  “He can’t. He’s dead.” Bonnie went into a complicated story about the good prince, golden horses, and a castle far away. Caley’s mind drifted.

  “Aren’t you going to do something?” Bonnie demanded.

  “What were you doing in the basement at— What time is it?”

  “I went to get my bear. The black one that Adam took and threw down there. He grabbed, Mommy. Aren’t you going to do something?”

  “Uh—I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

  “Not Adam, the evil prince in the basement.”

  “He’ll go away.”

  “I told you, he can’t,” Bonnie said. “He’s dead.”

  “Bonnie, love—”

  “I saw him. He’s dead.”

  Caley rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “Sweetie, Mommy really doesn’t feel very good right now. Could we play another time?”

  “I’ll tell Zach,” Bonnie said, and skipped off.

  Caley heard Zach grumbling, then galumping down the stairs. She closed her eyes.

  After a few seconds of silence, a hushed voice floated up. “Mom?”

  6

  “What?” Caley called out before her soggy mind registered something alarming in the word mothers answer automatically a hundred times a day. Mom, where is my other blue sock? Mom, do I have to brush my teeth? Mom, I can’t find my library books. Mom, there’s a hole in my shirt. This time there was alarm and tension in the word. It was Mom, help me, this is more than I can handle. She snatched the robe lying at the foot of the bed and swirled it around her shoulders as she ran for the basement stairs. “Zach?”

  “Down here,” he said, his voice reverting to eight years old.

  Heart thumping, she padded down the steps.

  “Bonnie was right.” Zach was standing on the bottom step.

  On a step above, she peered over his head. The evil prince is dead. She pulled herself together. Loosely. That was as good as it got. The metal furnace panels had been removed and a man lay facedown in a puddle of blood on the cement floor, head and both hands jammed into the furnace.

  Her stomach twisted. The room started to dim. Suck it up, Mom!

  “Stinks,” Zach said.

  She took his shoulders and turned him around. “Upstairs. Go.”

  He turned back. “What if he’s not dead?” Zach whispered.

  “Turn off the heat,” she said, “then call 911. Tell them”—There’s an evil prince in the basement with his head in the furnace—“there’s been a serious accident.” She gave his shoulder a gentle shove.

  Oh God, oh God. Careful to avoid the blood—it looked dark and sticky—she touched the ankles. They were cool and she felt no give as she closed her hands around them. They didn’t feel human. She pulled gently. He wouldn’t move. He must be dead.

  Just in case there was some life somewhere, she jerked hard. The man slid back and there was a squishy clunk as his head hit the floor. Aahhh aahhh ah. She backed away.

  His size and shape were like Mat’s, but the hair—the small patch that was unsinged—was different. Wasn’t it? Darker. It couldn’t be Mat. Could it? What the hell happened down here in her basement? Nerves tingled on the back of her neck. She looked around.
Who did this? Could he still be here? She raced up the stairs, slammed the door shut behind her, and locked it.

  “Mom?”

  She whirled around. “Oh, Zach. Did you call?”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Why’d you lock the door?”

  “Uh—so the Littles wouldn’t go down. Where are they?”

  “Adam’s watching television.”

  That child’s mind was probably permanently damaged from all the television he’d been allowed lately.

  “Bonnie’s in her room playing with her stuffed animals.”

  It seemed a long time but was probably only a few minutes before she heard a siren. She went to let in the cavalry.

  * * *

  Susan, at her desk, was trying to work a miracle, something along the order of loaves and fishes. Less than half her personnel were able-bodied. She was trying to cover too many hours with too few people. They were working double shifts, some sick on their feet and covering jobs they didn’t know. George was out, Parkhurst was out, Detective Brown was out. Both Sergeant Wily and Sergeant Ross were out. Thank God for Osey. Otherwise only patrol personnel remained. Double shifts or twelve-hour shifts made them all exhausted and more vulnerable to this damn virus. One more officer had called in this morning with a temperature of 103. Would this ever end, oh Lord?

  Her plans were put on hold. The first trip back since she’d moved to Hampstead three years ago, and her chances of going didn’t look good. Her mother would be upset and her father furious. He’d probably been sharpening his knives since she informed him she was coming, working on his arguments. Damn and blast. She hadn’t told either parent of the offer from Chase Reardon. Her father would pressure her to take it, thinking if she were around for that two-year stint, it would be easier to coerce her to stay permanently. Her mother would step in as buffer, to keep them from ripping shreds from each other.

  The phone at her elbow rang and she grabbed it. “What!”

  “Just got a 911 call from Zach James,” Hazel said. “On Hollis Street. Accident, possibly fatal. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Sorry I snapped. I was afraid you were going to tell me there’d been another burglary.” They’d had a rash of them lately.

  “Not yet, but the day is young.”

  James? James the church organist who was so sick? Something happened to her? “I’m going,” she told Hazel.

  “I thought you might.”

  Please, God, don’t let Hazel get sick. She was working eighteen-hour or double shifts, holding the place together. She’d worked late last night and was back early this morning. The budget needed looking at. Some money somewhere had to be squeezed out to get her an assistant. Maybe if they gave up toilet paper. Memo: Bring your own, if you expect to use any.

  Grabbing her uniform parka, she shrugged it on. When she stepped out into the parking lot, the cold bit into her lungs and made her gasp. The wind caught her full-force, swept back her hair as though she’d been caught in a hurricane, and flapped the bottom of her parka. Damn wind was always blowing at you, no matter which direction you were headed. She turned her face from its icy edge, trotted to the pickup, and slid in.

  Get gas, she reminded herself for the second time. The pickup turned over slowly in protest and finally fired up. She eased out of the lot, so the vehicle wouldn’t die before it warmed up. The sun was shining in a pale winter sky, and Hampstead was cheery with seasonal decorations. The downtown area was five blocks long and two blocks wide. Store windows displayed ski scenes with elves sliding down mountains, Bob Cratchit working at his desk, Joseph Mohr quickly scribbling off the words to “Silent Night” before the Christmas Eve service. If she remembered correctly, the organ hadn’t worked and the carol was written for guitar.

  She turned right on Hollis and went out to the James house. An ambulance, rear doors open, sat in the driveway. Oh, shit.

  Patrolman White opened the door for her and dipped his head slightly. “Chief.” Mid-twenties, short blond crew cut, and round apple cheeks. He looked more like a Boy Scout than a cop. “In the basement. Osey’s done the steps and the railing, so it’s okay to go down.”

  Two paramedics lounged at the kitchen table. One gave her a shake of his head. Definitely not good. On the basement stairs, she looked at the scene. Metal panels removed from the furnace, man facedown in a puddle of blood, arms stretched straight ahead, fingers burned.

  Small entrance wound high in the back and slightly to the right. Shot. Accounted for the blood. Small smudge on back of neck. She went down and stepped closer to the body. What she’d thought was a smudge was a tattoo of a spider. Her gaze slowly scanned the basement filled with old furniture, junk, old garden tools, and piled-up boxes.

  She stood beside Osey, who, with arms crossed, was waiting for the medical examiner to arrive and pictures to be taken. The usual mildewy smell of all basements was overridden by the sickly smell of burnt flesh.

  “His head and hands were in the furnace,” Osey said.

  Strange, she thought, that the hands were in the furnace too. The killer must have tried to make him impossible to identify.

  Gunny Arendal was crouching on the floor next to a jumbled pile of boxes, taking gulping breaths.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked.

  “Trying to gain enough control to take pictures. You want to make a bet whether he can or not?”

  Right now a bet against Gunny’s even pulling himself off the floor looked like a sure thing. Gunner Arendal was a civilian, a journalism student at Emerson College, hired to take photos for the PD. His work was excellent, gigantic leaps above what they had been getting from whatever officer was snagged to do it, but he did tend to turn green at the more ghastly subjects. Like severed limbs or decapitation after an automobile accident. She couldn’t blame him. A man with his face burned off wasn’t something you ran across every day. She assumed the body was a man from the clothing, the general size, and the build. She hoped the poor man had been dead before the flames got to him.

  “Doc Fisher’s on his way,” Osey said. “Riley’s outside seeing what he can find.”

  Riley had no experience in field investigations, but in these perilous times … “Pictures, Gunny,” she told the kid sitting in a curve, arms around bent legs, forehead resting on his knees.

  A slight mention that she would do it if he’d hand her his camera had him pulling himself off the floor and snapping shots. He had to stop now and then to close his eyes and take a few deep breaths.

  “The little girl found him,” Osey said. “Around seven this morning. Bonnie. She’s six.”

  Susan slipped on a pair of latex gloves so she wouldn’t accidentally leave anything foreign at the scene. “Is she upset?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be. She says he was an evil prince. Apparently getting shoved face first in a furnace is rightful punishment for an evil prince. Her mother’s pretty shook up, though. I couldn’t get much out of her and I didn’t want to push it. I was afraid she’d lose it.”

  “Where is she?”

  He pointed up. “First bedroom off the hallway. She’s herded all the kids in there and has them scared half to death by the way she’s acting.”

  “Crying, hysterical, what?”

  “No, ma’am. Calm, kind of like wood, and very very pale. More like ashen.”

  Officer White stuck his head around the doorway at the top of the stairs. “Doc Fisher is here.”

  Owen Fisher, a barrel-chested man with an abundance of white hair and startlingly dark eyebrows, lumbered down the steps.

  “What took you so long?” she said.

  “I was Christmas shopping with my wife. It’s the season, in case it escaped your notice.” He stood still and looked long at the body. Most men she knew would be happy to be called away from shopping, but not many would be thrilled to be called away to view a body with its head in a furnace and the acrid smell of burnt flesh in the air. Bodies were Fisher’s l
ife. He was happy to be called from anything, even deep sleep, to see a body in any condition, the grislier the better. Simply a greater challenge, as far as he was concerned.

  “How long has he been there?” Fisher asked.

  “We’re waiting for you to tell us,” Susan said. “He was found at seven.”

  “Enough pictures?” Fisher asked.

  Susan nodded.

  “Let’s get him back a ways and turn him.”

  Owen Fisher and Osey pulled the body farther from the furnace and turned him face up. Fisher whistled softly. Osey turned slightly pale. Even Susan felt a little queasy. She could hear Gunny rapidly swallowing the excess saliva that collects just before vomiting.

  “If you contaminate this scene,” she said, “you’re fired.”

  He put down the camera and fled.

  The dead man’s face had been burned to a grotesque blistered mass of something inhuman. Intense hatred or an attempt to keep his identity from being known?

  She was horrified by the viciousness of the act and somewhat dismayed at her selfish thought that she couldn’t leave town with a homicide on tap. Reardon’s job offer would be pushed to the back of her mind.

  “Somebody sure didn’t like him.” Owen opened a black medical bag, got a thermometer, and sliced into the liver to take the body’s temperature, peered at the face and pinched the skin on one arm.

  “How long has he been dead?” Susan said.

  “You always ask.”

  “Right. Give me a guess. Then you can cart him away and do your chopping.”

  “Twelve to eighteen hours, I’d say. The temperature down here will have to be factored in.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Well, that’s a puzzlement, isn’t it? I’d say gunshot right through the heart. Should be easy enough to verify once I get him on the table.”

  “Gunny?” Susan called.