“Believe me now?” Sheriff Carmichael asked.
He and Special Agent Mandalay were standing at the back of his patrol car on the parking lot of Holly Oak. The visit with Merrie had produced nothing in the way of information, but it most certainly swelled with an overabundance of heartbreak.
“Yes,” Constance replied, nodding. “It's not that I didn't believe you before. I just...”
“...Had to do your job,” he finished for her as he slipped a key into the trunk lock and gave it a twist. It let out a dull thump as the latch released, almost as if underscoring his added comment, “I know.”
“Speaking of jobs, ever have one of those days when you really hate yours, Skip?” she asked. “Because I'm having one right now.”
“December twenty-second through twenty-fifth, every damn year,” he sighed, then repeated in a quiet mumble, “Every blessed, goddamned year...” With that, he lifted the trunk lid, extracting the key from the lock as it rose, then offered the jangling ring to Constance. “Here. No need in you standin' out here in the cold. You might want to start it up and get the heater going. I'll just be a few minutes. I need to take this stuff in.”
Mandalay glanced into the well of the trunk space and saw three large shopping bags, each with festively wrapped presents protruding from their depths. “I thought you weren't big on celebrating Christmas here in Hulis,” she asked.
“These are all for Merrie,” he told her. “The new shoes she's expecting. Some clothes. Mavis Crawford does sewing out of her house, so she makes things for her. And, a few other odds and ends. Whenever anyone travels or goes into the city, they hit those vintage resale stores and pick up old records and such. Things like that. We all carry a list in our wallets of what needs to be under the tree. Of course, most of us have it committed to memory by now.”
“I was actually planning to ask you about that,” Constance mused. “Why are all her clothes and belongings mired in the past?”
“It keeps her happy,” the sheriff responded.
“But is it healthy?” she pressed.
He shook his head as he gathered the bags and hefted them out of the trunk. “I suspect it's as healthy as it can get. Merrie doesn't cope very well with change, I'm afraid.”
Since his hands were full, Constance reached up and levered the trunk lid shut for him as she asked, “How so?”
Sheriff Carmichael huffed out a heavy sigh then grimaced noticeably. “Merrie Frances Callahan lives her life in a year long continuous loop, Constance. For her, it's always nineteen seventy-five. That never changes. And, if you try to take her out of her little world, she just shuts down.”
“Shuts down?” she repeated. “Mentally, you mean?”
“And physically,” he said, punctuating the statement with an animated nod. “Last time a doctor tried to force her into the here and now, she almost died. She reverted to a catatonic state, was hooked to a feeding tube, and was just wasting away. That was right around ten or twelve years before Tom and Elizabeth died in that wreck, give or take. I was still playing detective in the big city back then.
“I do remember that they were actually expecting her to go at any moment. They'd already resigned themselves to it. Made funeral arrangements and everything. She was literally that bad off. It was gettin' close to Christmas, and Elizabeth was a sentimental sort, so she got out all of Merrie's old things and re-decorated her room back to how it originally was.” He shrugged. “Then, like some kind of damn miracle, she got better. Well...as better as she could, I guess. For most of the time, anyway.”
There was a pained sadness in the last comment, and Constance picked up on it instantly. “What do you mean by most of the time?”
“It gets a little rough this time of year. You heard what she said about Santa Claus.”
Constance nodded. “Repressed memories.”
“Something like that,” he replied. “Probably worse.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they might not stay repressed.”
“Are you saying she actually relives the abduction and abuse?”
“We'd like to hope not,” he said then nodded. “But, unfortunately, in her head, we think she does, yeah.”
“You think she does?”
He thrust his chin toward her. “What time is it?”
Constance furrowed her brow in confusion at his query but pushed up the cuff of her glove and glanced at her watch anyway. “Two thirty-eight. Why?”
He bobbed his head toward the building. “In about an hour it'll be right about the time Merrie was abducted thirty-five years ago. All of a sudden, just like someone flipped a switch, the girl who just painted your nails will go catatonic. She won't snap out of it till about five on Christmas morning. Happens every year. After that, it's like her clock is reset.”
“So that's what Martha meant earlier about keeping an eye on the time.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “That's what she meant. When Merrie wakes up it will be like nothing ever happened. For her, it will be Christmas Day, nineteen seventy-four, which in her mind was the last time the holiday was ever good to her. We even have a tape of the ball dropping in Times Square, New Year's Eve, seventy-five. She stays up to watch it every year.”
“What about other things? Like school and such? People aging around her?”
He shrugged. “Doesn't seem to matter. She focuses on the Christmas holidays. Those are important to her. The rest of it seems to play itself out in her head as long as nobody interferes.”
“But there are physical issues. She's a grown woman.”
He nodded. “She knows how to handle that sort of thing. And in her head she's ten. She doesn't know any better than to think that's just how it's supposed to be.”
Constance turned and stared toward the building as she breathed, “Dear God...”
“Sweetheart, in my way of thinking, God doesn't have much of anything to do with it,” Carmichael spat. “If he does, then he's just as big a sonofabitch as Colson was, and I'll tell him that to his face... As you can imagine, the preacher and me don't see eye to eye on that issue.” He paused for a second, looking at the ground thoughtfully, then hefted the bags once again and turned to go. “Let me get this stuff inside, so Merrie has her presents to open Christmas morning. It'd break my heart to disappoint her, and the past seven years I've been too busy to deliver 'em when she wakes up. When I missed the first couple it caused some problems for her.”
“I understand,” Constance replied. As he started to walk toward the door, she called after him. “When you're finished with that, do you think you can take me by the scene? I'd like to have a look at it.”
He stopped, half turned, looked up into the sky and then back down at her face. “Not much daylight left,” he grunted. “No electric over there, and it's boarded up, so it's gonna be dark enough as it is. Be better if we did it tomorrow morning. Believe me, I've been down this road before. Nothing's gonna show up there till Christmas Day anyway. But it's really up to you. You're the Fed.”
Constance thought about it for a moment. “Do you already have the house under surveillance?”
“Yep. Broderick should be out there now. Slozar'll relieve 'im this evening.”
Truth is, he was correct. That visit could wait. As far as all of the previous murders went, the site was cold in almost every way imaginable. And this year, as a crime scene, it technically didn't yet exist. She wasn't going to learn anything stumbling around in the dark with a flashlight that wouldn't be there for her to discover tomorrow morning.
And besides, at this point her feet really were killing her.
She nodded in agreement. “Okay, tomorrow morning then.”
“Good plan. I assume you're staying in town tonight?”
“I booked a room at the motel, yes.”
“Good. We'll suss out a time for me to pick you up then. Just do yourself a favor in the morning.”
“What's that?”
He dipped his head toward her feet as if he'd read her mi
nd. “Since we're going out to do serious police work, wear a different pair of shoes. I'm a little tired of watchin' you dance.”