11:43 P.M. – December 25, 2010
Sheriff’s Department
Hulis Township – Northern Missouri
“Either two thousand-seven best director… That make sense to you?” Sheriff Carmichael asked aloud, not looking up from the crossword puzzle on his desk. “Four letters… Starts with C.”
“Coen,” Constance replied, her voice cold and flat. “C-O-E-N. Joel and Ethan. They’re brothers and they shared the award in oh-seven for No Country For Old Men.”
Still not tearing his gaze away from the puzzle, he asked, “Good movie?”
“I liked it.”
“Hmmph,” he grunted, and then muttered to himself as he ticked off the letters in the small boxes. “C… Down… Yeah… It works… Never saw that movie. Guess I should take Kathy out a little more often.”
Constance watched quietly from the doorway as he filled in the blanks, then purposefully scratched through the clue in a column off to the side of the puzzle. He scanned the crossword box while reaching up and absently combing through his mustache with his fingers. After a languid pause, he laid the paper to the side then tossed the stub of a pencil on top of it before rocking back in his chair and locking gazes with her.
“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come in and sit down?” he finally asked.
“I think I’ll just go ahead and stand this time, Sheriff,” she replied.
She was leaning to the side with her shoulder against the doorframe and her coat carefully draped over her arm. Her eyes were hard beneath a creased brow and her lips were a tight, thin line. Other than that, her face was a tired, emotionless mask.
Skip waited a beat, never taking his eyes off her, then drew in a deep breath and exhaled a heavy “Suit yourself, Special Agent.”
“I have to admit,” she said after her own short pause. “I was surprised to see your cruiser parked out front when I passed by. I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation with you until tomorrow.”
“Been waiting,” he grunted. “I was hoping you’d show up.”
Constance cocked her head to the side. “Were you really?”
“Sugar, I could be home in bed right now. Hell, if you were anything like your predecessors, I damn well would be, because none of them ever bothered to stick around this long.”
“How did you know I didn’t just go ahead and leave like the others?”
“I didn’t, for sure…but I had you pegged as different from the day you showed up, so I had my hopes.”
“More of your uncanny powers of observation?”
He shrugged. “Actually, more like a gut feeling on that one. Oh, believe me, I had a moment of self-doubt when I drove by the Greenleaf earlier and saw your car was gone. But I checked with Artie and he said you hadn’t officially checked out, and the desk clerk said you weren’t carrying any bags when you left.”
“Do you have any idea how creepy it is that you people spy on everyone like that?” she asked.
“Small town, Constance. That’s just how it is. Most of the time everybody knows your business and you know theirs. Hard to keep a secret in Hulis, trust me.”
“It almost makes me wonder if there’s a hidden camera in my shower too,” she quipped, sarcasm so heavy in the words it double-underscored the comment.
Skip replied, “Depends. Which room did they put you in?”
She raised an eyebrow and glared, but said nothing.
“Kidding, sugar. I was just kidding.”
“I’m not really in the mood for jokes right now, Skip.”
“Yeah…” he grunted. “I guess you wouldn’t be, would you.”
Thick silence fell between them. The staring contest continued, but unlike the doctor in Mais, Constance didn’t see Carmichael as the type to cave because she made him nervous. She knew better than that. She also had a feeling he was thinking the same thing about her.
Before the standoff could turn into a prolonged stalemate, the sheriff spoke up, breaking the silence with an offhanded announcement. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”
He slowly rocked the old desk chair forward on the complaining springs, and then leaned to the left and tugged open a drawer. Without further pomp or comment, he reached in, withdrew a sealing-wax-dipped bottle of bourbon, and settled it on the desk blotter. He followed that by extracting two short tumblers from the depths of the drawer and placing them next to the fifth of booze.
Carmichael shoved the drawer closed with a thump, then unscrewed the cap on the bottle, tipped it up, and carefully poured a measure of the dark amber liquor into one of the glasses. When he finished, he gave Constance a questioning look and nodded toward the empty tumbler.
“What the hell… Yeah…” she muttered, pushing away from the doorframe and stepping over to the straight-backed chair opposite him. She draped her coat over the back then parked herself.
“If you want ice, you’ll have to check the break room,” Skip told her as he filled the second glass and then spun the cap back onto the bottle. He pushed the three fingers of booze across the desk to her before picking up his own tumbler. He took a healthy sip then cradled it in his hands as he allowed his creaking chair to rock back once again.
Constance emulated the latter two actions: sipping, and then using the bulk of her coat as a cushion for the hard back of her chair as she leaned against it. She stared at her hands, contemplating the bourbon for a moment, and then finally she sighed and looked up across the desk at the sheriff.
“I just came back from Highland County Hospital in Mais,” she said.
“Yeah…” Skip nodded. “Not surprised. I figured you might decide to talk to Edgar after all.”
“He had some interesting things to say about December twenty-fifth, nineteen seventy-five.”
He snorted, but there was no derision, just sullen acceptance. With a shake of his head he added, “I’m sure he did.”
“Should I assume he was telling me the truth?”
“Guess that depends on how much sense he was making at the time.”
“What if he wasn’t making any sense?”
“Him, or what he told you?” he asked in return. “There’s a difference.”
“Yes… I suppose there is.” Constance sipped the whiskey again and let its smooth burn run down the back of her throat, spreading warmth in its wake. Then she asked, “Okay, then; why the lies, Skip?”
“Like I said this morning, you wouldn’t have believed me until you saw it for yourself. Just like you wouldn’t have believed Edgar if he’d told you his story yesterday instead of today.”
“But what about the rest of it? You could have filled me in this morning. Especially after what you showed me at the crime scene.”
He shook his head. “Neither of us was in any shape for that and you know it. That’s why I came by the Greenleaf this evening. I figured once you and I had both had some sleep we could talk about it and you wouldn’t think I was completely insane.”
“Fair enough,” she agreed. “Well… I’m here now, and I’ve had that sleep. I assume you have too?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’d like to hear your version,” she said. “I think you may be able to fill in some of the blanks Edgar left.”
“Yeah…” he said. “You know, you’ll be the first since Agent Graham, and he thought I was crazy.”
She nodded. “I know.”
Skip looked at the tumbler in his hands, then brought it to his lips, tipped it up and drained it in a single gulp. Rocking back forward, he refilled the glass with another healthy measure of the amber alcohol and then carefully brushed his mustache, apparently pondering his words. After a long pause, he pursed his lips and sighed, then settled back in the chair once again and swallowed hard. His eyes were vacant and fixed. He was no longer staring at Constance, he was staring through her; looking thirty-five years into the past as if it were happening before him right now.
He cleared his throat and began, “Everything I’ve already told you about the abduction and finding Merrie is true; I think you’ve already seen that… It’s just some of the things since that have been altered a bit…to protect the innocent, as they say…”
“Yes,” she agreed softly. “And there are the things you left out.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “That’s the part I’ve been trying my damnedest to forget for thirty-five years.”
“Go on…” Constance urged.
He drew in a deep breath and continued. “Our first concern that morning was Merrie, of course. She needed immediate attention, so I actually didn’t join the search for Colson right away… Fact is, I went with her to the hospital and stayed until her parents arrived. By the time I got back, Sheriff Morton, and Edgar, and everyone else had canvassed several blocks and found the house on Evergreen.”
“Why didn’t they just follow Merrie’s tracks back to it?” Constance asked.
He stifled a thoughtful snort. “Edgar didn’t tell you? There weren’t any.” He took a swig from his drink and contemplated the tumbler for a moment before continuing. “Well, anyway, I arrived to a crime scene crawling with Missouri Highway Patrol and Feds, as well as just about everyone from our department. Sheriff Morton was waiting for me when I got there, and the first thing he asked was if I was absolutely positive the little girl I’d picked up was Merrie. I told him yes, and he just asked me the same question again. I was starting to think the old man had lost it because he had seen her before we left for the hospital… He knew damn well it was her…but…then he took me inside.
“Well… You know what it looked like in that basement. You saw it this morning yourself. Not exactly how you want to introduce a green cop in a small town to a murder investigation, that’s for sure, but I held my coffee down, which was more than I can say for some of the State guys.”
Skip paused, falling silent once again. He continued to stare through her as he had been at the outset. His face masked with grief, he was obviously playing it all out in his mind in vivid color, just as he probably had for an untold number of times throughout the years. Constance couldn’t help but feel compassion for him.
“But there was more than just the brutality of Colson’s death,” she prompted.
“Yeah… There was…” he mused quietly. “Colson wasn’t…” he began, then stopped and tossed his head back, breathing deeply. He closed his eyes, and a fugitive tear rolled from the corner to trace across his cheek. After a trio of labored breaths, he rolled his head back down and spoke again. “Sorry… I live this… Especially this time of year… I can’t get away from it…but… I haven’t actually talked about it with anyone in a long time.”
“I understand,” Constance told him.
“Well…” he huffed, obviously forcing himself to continue. “I’m sure Edgar already told you. Colson’s body wasn’t the only one they found. Merrie’s was there in the basement too.”
“So Merrie Callahan was deceased,” she stated more than asked.
“Yeah. According to the autopsy she succumbed to her injuries and to exposure. They found her body behind the furnace, which was inoperable at that time, of course, since the house was abandoned. It looked like she was probably trying to hide from that bastard. After everything he’d done to her, he had kept her locked in that basement with no heat and just what was left of her school uniform. We found her coat upstairs. She didn’t have a chance.”
“But you had already found her standing in the middle of the street several blocks away,” Constance said. “And John Colson had been killed and dismembered. Were they certain it was her body?”
“No doubt about it,” he replied. “They made Tom and Elizabeth identify the body.”
“Who did?”
“Your people,” he spat. “The Feds.”
“Dear God…” she mumbled.
“Yeah, well you know my thoughts on that… Either way, they also pulled some fingerprints from Merrie’s things at home and they matched. They even checked dental records just to be sure.”
“What about the girl you found?”
“That’s just it; they matched her too.” He swallowed hard and shook his head. “If that wasn’t enough to make everyone question their sanity, there was also the fact that the autopsy estimated Merrie’s death at as much as a day prior to my finding her. But Colson…well, what was left of him anyway…he was still warm when they arrived on the scene.”
“What happened after that?” she pressed.
“Good question,” he replied. “The Feds took over at that point. They marched in with court orders, and we were pretty much cut out of the loop. So was the MHP. Everyone was interviewed and told that we were mistaken about what had transpired. Merrie’s remains mysteriously disappeared, as did Colson’s. And as I’m sure you noticed, our files were redacted…sanitized, really. The autopsy reports disappeared. The case reports definitely aren’t the ones we filed originally. I know that for a fact because I wrote one of them myself.”
Constance would have discounted the claim out of hand had it not been for the gaping holes in the case file she had been given by the SAC at the outset. That fact in itself made his story that much more believable, even if it did sound like a plot from a blockbuster conspiracy thriller.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She really couldn’t imagine what else to say.
“Yeah, me too…” Skip grunted. “Wasn’t long after that I left Hulis. Kathy and I got married, then headed for KC to follow my dream of being a big city cop.”
“I have a confession,” Constance said. “I ran a background check on you, so I already know about your career and the predators you took down.”
He nodded. “Would’ve been disappointed in you if you hadn’t. I figured you for a good cop, even if you are a Fed.”
She took a sip of her drink instead of replying. She wasn’t offended by the latter comment. She was actually used to taking grief from other branches of law enforcement. Ben even referred to bureau agents as the Feebs. He always said it was short for Feeble Bumbling Incompetents. Then he would be quick to add, “Present company excluded, of course.”
She waited a moment, then spoke up to bring the story full-circle. “And then you came back to Hulis…”
“Yeah, and that’s when I found out the rest of it.”
Constance perked an eyebrow as the verbal bomb landed squarely between them. She was under the impression that she knew where the story went from there, surreal and unbelievable as it was. She canted her head, looking at Carmichael with fiery curiosity clear in her eyes.
“The rest of it?” she asked.
“Yeah… Shortly after it all happened, Tom and Elizabeth sort of dropped out of life. Folks didn’t see them much around town. Tom went to work, came home, and that was about it except when they needed groceries and the like. Then you’d see one or the other out for a bit, but only as long as necessary. Even stopped going to the church over in Mais and started home schooling Rebecca. Other than that they kept completely to themselves.
“It wasn’t that folks didn’t try, mind you. People would call, and even drop by, but they usually wouldn’t answer the phone or the door. When they did, they’d just send whoever it was away as fast as they could.
“Whenever someone would run into one of them around town they would ask about Merrie, of course.” He shrugged. “They would just say she was doing fine and then excuse themselves. It was peculiar, but everyone pretty much chalked it up to them just losing trust in the world. Not all that hard to imagine, after…well…you know.”
“Anyway, didn’t hear much detail about their lives until they had that scare when they thought Merrie was going to die.” He paused, then let out a harrumph. “I guess that sounds kinda odd after everything I’ve just told you.”
“I remember mentioning that,” Constance offered.
“Yeah…well… The truth came out after they were killed in that car crash.”
“What do you mean truth?”
“Seems Elizabeth had been keeping journals. Almost daily as a matter of fact.”
“About what?”
“Merrie,” he explained. “Or Rebecca. Depends on the day.”
“I still don’t follow.”
Carmichael blew out a loud sigh through his nose, then absently brushed his mustache. After a weighty pause he continued. “Right around the time Merrie’s remains mysteriously disappeared, so did the little girl I picked up from the middle of the street.”
Constance stared back at him. Finally she said, “Are you saying what I think you are?”
He nodded. “Some days Rebecca was Rebecca. Other days, she was Merrie. The wounds would even show up on her body. Then later, of course, they were scars. But like stigmata, they were there.
“Doctors tried to treat it like some sort of multiple personality illness, but that didn’t work, obviously. Apparently they almost killed her in the process, which would have meant Tom and Elizabeth would have lost both their daughters.
“But she survived,” he breathed. “And she tried to make a life for herself. Even made it through college. Not without a few bumps, of course, but she did it.”
“So you’re saying Rebecca Callahan is the woman living in Holly-Oak now?”
“I guess it depends on how you look at it, Constance,” he sighed. “Not long after Tom and Elizabeth died, she started getting worse. She was Merrie more often than Rebecca. Folks here in town looked after her, but it wasn’t easy. By the time I moved back and ran for sheriff, she had become Merrie full time. She hasn’t been Rebecca since.”