She swiveled around, startled by the sudden noise and the resulting commotion. Through the large windows on the back wall she could see that the sheriff was up from his desk and moving about his office in a purposeful fashion. It had only been a couple of minutes since Missus Babbs had called and asked to speak to him, apparently at Skip’s insistence. She didn’t yet have the details, but she got the impression they would be coming soon. The urgency in the woman’s voice had already given her a very bad feeling.
And now there was this.
A few seconds later the office door swung open and Sheriff Morton stormed out. He was heading straight for her desk, one arm stuffed into a sleeve of his coat while he fought to fill the other as well. An index card was tucked between his lips.
Given his expression, he didn’t seem like he was angry. Actually, he appeared more than just a little concerned and without a doubt, completely driven. Now Clovis was definitely worried.
“What’s wro…” she started to ask.
He cut her off as he yanked the index card out of his mouth, tossed it onto the desk in front of her, and began to bark instructions. “I need you to get these descriptions out to Carl and tell him to keep his eyes open. Tell him if he sees this car, pull it over and radio for backup. Then call Joe and Edgar and give the info to them too. Tell them they’re on the clock as of ten minutes ago. You’ll want to plan on working late too. Might wanna call Carol too. Get her in here to help.”
Clovis glanced quickly at the card. The lined stock was covered with a scribble of notes, legible, but obviously jotted in a hurry. Before she could utter any sort of response to what had already been said, the sheriff continued. “I want you to send Joe to the west end of town; tell him the same as Carl, keep his eyes open. If he sees the car, pull it over, call for backup. Have Edgar head over to Bremerton’s to help Carmichael. And then I want you to get the Highway Patrol on the line…”
When he paused long enough to suck in a quick breath, Clovis jumped on the chance and interjected a question, “What’s going on?”
“A goddamned false alarm, I hope,” he replied, then grunted hard as he finally managed to force his free arm through the other sleeve and shrug completely into his coat. “But right now it sure looks a lot like we’ve got an abduction on our hands.”
At his words, Clovis felt her heart slide up into her throat. The sharp pain of sympathetic fear washed over her immediately behind the first sensation, causing a strange hollowness to form deep inside her chest. She imagined it was probably the empty space where her heart used to be.
“Are… Are you sure?”
“Not yet, but it sure looks bad. And, I trust Carmichael. Something had to set him off for him to have Ruth call me.”
“What do you want me to tell the Highway Patrol?” Clovis asked, croaking out the words past the sudden tightness in her voice. Still looking at the sheriff, she reached sideways for the base microphone and fumbled after it with a shaky hand until she managed to grasp the neck and pull it toward her.
“Everything I just told you,” he replied, turning and starting toward the front door. “And have them run this John Carter for priors, just to be sure.”
She shouted after him. “Where are you going?”
A swirl of snow streamed inward on the sudden draft that was created when he tugged the door open with a quick jerk. He started forward into the storm while calling back to her, “I’m heading over to the Greenleaf to check on something. I’ll radio in just a few…”
CHAPTER 6
Harsh light spewed from a pair of un-shrouded flood lamps and pooled on the parking lot just beyond Bremerton’s back door. The bulbs themselves angled slightly downward and were screwed into a fixture that was mounted a few feet above the top of the opening on the outside wall. The glare spread outward, throwing itself with singular purpose at the encroaching darkness.
Undaunted, the artificial illumination put up an admirable fight against insurmountable odds, but in the end it lacked the strength to fully overwhelm the night. Somewhere near the center of the back parking lot the opposing forces grappled, blending together in a murky gray skirmish, flanked on either side by the two sworn enemies, light and dark.
Deputy Carmichael paused at the threshold and gazed out into the wide arc of diminishing light created by the ongoing clash. Fat, crystalline flakes were filling the air before him, streaming down, diagonally, sideways, and even twisting in violent, short-lived swirls on sudden gusts of wind. As the frozen precipitation plummeted toward the ground, it was simultaneously reflecting the brilliance of the high-wattage bulbs, and casting oblique, animated shadows upon the already snow-covered surface of the asphalt.
Skip had hurriedly walked the interior of the store, from front to back, calling Merrie’s name as he went, and identifying himself aloud as well. If the little girl was simply hiding, he wanted her to know that the police were involved now and that the game had moved from simply annoying to downright serious. However, he received no answer from her, and though he had said exactly the opposite to her mother, he hadn’t really been expecting one. In his mind, that lack of expectation was supported by what he found at the back of the store.
The first thing to catch his eye when he reached the “North Pole” fantasyland was the angle of the cardboard fireplace. In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t off by much. No more than a few inches, really. In fact, the average onlooker might not have even noticed anything wrong about it at all, but the disruption to its positioning was more than enough to grab Skip’s attention. The fake logs with their orange cellophane embers were still pretending to burn, most likely exactly where they’d been placed originally. The fireplace facade itself, however, was askew by more than enough to fully expose the motorized workings of the flickering light behind the glowing hearth. Moreover, it was resting at an angle that suggested it had been struck by someone or something that was headed for the nearby storeroom door, and in a bit of a hurry. Under everyday circumstances, while the disruption to the scenery was certainly something he would notice, it wasn’t something that he would consider all that important, because there could easily be any number of mundane explanations for the issue.
In truth, those innocuous reasons could still apply, and he knew better than to discount them. However, the way things had been shaping up, the mundane didn’t seem very likely.
On that instinct, he followed what he perceived to be a trail, entering the storeroom and continuing to call out for the young girl as he searched. Eventually, he came to the back door of the building and opened it. And that is where he now stood, gazing out into the night.
“Merrie?” he called. “Merrie, it’s Deputy Skip from the sheriff’s office…”
Again, no answer came other than the rising and falling sigh of the frigid wind. His call had ridden out on a cloud of steam caused by his moist breath. A cloud that immediately leapt onto the back of the swirling air and was dragged away, taking each dying syllable of the words along as well.
Carmichael stepped through the opening and was instantly pelted with the blowing snow. He squinted his eyes and pivoted his gaze from left to right as he quickly scanned the lot, looking for both the missing girl and for Carter’s four-door sedan. Stark puddles of light similar to the one in which he now stood fell from fixtures mounted above the rear entrances of the flower shop and pharmacy. Two more sets of flood lamps were also positioned at the corners of the building. Still, the darkness of night, aided by blizzard conditions, was winning the battle for dominance over the lot. Were it not for the near whiteout, with the exception of the trash dumpster to his right he would have had a fairly unobstructed view of the parking area. Of course, as the old saying goes, “woulda, shoulda, coulda.”