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 communiques. 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 digits 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
