The Dark of Winter

By Richard Mueller

Sheriff Glen Gleason’s life has gone horribly wrong. Now, on the edge of a complete breakdown, he’s suddenly pulled back from the brink of the abyss to solve a horrible multiple murder — an entire family slaughtered by a fiend who has disappeared without a trace. Fighting his way past interference from inept state and federal cops, aided by Kat van Kirk and his other deputies, and by Carol Fraser, a troubled profiler sent down by the state capitol, Glen Gleason finds himself in a personal battle of wills with a trained assassin who vows to keep killing until Glen brings him down. The frozen landscape of an unforgiving Iowa winter is the gameboard where the dead stack up like bloody pawns, and Glen battles a black knight to the death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Mueller
• Release date: May 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476206486

Richard Mueller

Richard Mueller served in the U.S. Coast Guard before moving to Hollywood to work as a writer, first in science fiction and then television and film. He also runs the “best open mic show” in L.A.”

Book preview

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COPYRIGHT

THE DARK OF WINTER

By Richard Mueller

Smashwords Edition: May 2012.

Smashwords License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or a vendor partner and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright 2012

all rights reserved

Smashwords Edition Photo Credit: Dan Coffey. Used by permission.

Smashwords Edition Cover Design Credit: Shannon Muir. Used by permission.

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DEDICATION

For Dan Coffey

For Shannon Muir

For Vic Dal Chele

But Mostly for Yvonne

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE

1 – Day One

2 – Day Two

3 – Day Three

4 – Day Four

5 – Day Five

6 – Day Six

7 – Day Seven

8 – Day Eight

9 – Day Nine

PART TWO

10 – Day Fourteen

11 – Day Fifteen

12 – Day Twenty

13 – Day Twenty-One

14 – Day Twenty-Six

Day Thirty-Two

Day Thirty-Four

Later Days

ALSO BY RICHARD MUELLER – DEATH ON THE PRAIRIE

ALSO BY RICHARD MUELLER – PALMDALE MUST BE DESTROYED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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PART ONE

The Darkness of Short Days

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1 Day One

Evil does not have to be summoned. It is quite capable of appearing on its own. It is this fact that tortures human sensibility and makes a shredded mess of human affairs, especially of that inexact activity that we insist on calling police science. The law is designed to deal with manageable problems, minor mistakes, explicable crimes that come numbered in the Police Handbook; which you tackle, solve, wrap up, and deliver to the district attorney. But when a surpassing monster, a greater demon, an uber-evil comes upon the scene, the effect is that of a werewolf let loose in a convent, or of an enemy battleship suddenly bursting into the midst of a convoy of merchant vessels. You are in for a period of unmitigated hell that you will never, ever be ready to confront, and should you somehow survive it you will be forever changed, twisted, damaged.

I was quite sure that I already had enough damage in my life. I was two days short of my first wedding anniversary and my wife had left me. Anne was living in seclusion with her sister in northern California, trying to come to grips with the fact that the man she loved had let her become involved in a situation that had left her beaten and raped, and that had caused her to kill a man. And had I changed those elements of my life that had caused this tragedy? I had not. I was still the Sheriff of Cornflower County.

I was living alone in our cold and storm-damaged house, still sleeping in the bed where we had made love during our free and wild courtship. Eating in a kitchen that now leaked freezing winter air around the edges of its boarded-up windows, destroyed six months ago in a tornado. And watching the deterioration of the house that Anne had grown up in, and that I had grown to love. Now, with the companionship of two aging cats and the minimal distractions of a Sheriff’s Department that was running itself 90% of the time, I was adrift, lost in a stream of routine troubles that were no longer enough to hold me anchored to reality. But all of that was about to change.

On the Saturday before it began, I was standing on the back porch, looking off across the frozen, barren stubble toward Lowe Field, West Harlan’s little landing strip. It had had a few minor facilities, a hangar and a couple of outbuildings, but the tornado that had damaged our house had wrecked them and they had not been rebuilt. A skydiving school had made a few advances on the property, but the terms were evidently not to their liking and they had gone away to try their luck in other towns.

Snow was falling gently over everything and the landing strip was now only a lumpy white afterthought on the prairie. I glanced at a pile of lumber on the porch, wood that I had squirreled away back in November to fix the damaged steps and railings but had not touched since it was delivered. The scarred old grandfather oak in the back yard was bare. The spot where the garage had stood was only an odd rectangular patch under the snow.

I had not heard from Anne in almost a month. She had called me a week after Christmas, her voice soft and hesitant. We’d talked around the periphery of our emotions, not daring to approach the core of the matter, our separation. Only at the end had I broken down and confessed what I was feeling.

I miss you, Annie. I miss you so much.

I know.

I wish you’d come back.

There was a very long pause before she finally said, I can’t. I’m not ready. I can’t, Glen.

I know.

But I miss you too.

Thanks for that.

Thanks for that. I watched the snow sifting down. My Browning Hi-Power was in the drawer of my desk, a last way out if my remaining hope fled and the emptiness inside me became unbearable. No, I thought. Not yet. Not as long as there’s a chance that she’ll come back.

I heard footsteps crunching in the snow. Kat Van Kirk, my Chief Deputy, appeared around the side of the house. She stood looking at me from the yard, then nodded, her lips pursed and silent.

Kat.

You okay?

No, I thought, but I said, Guess so. You want some coffee?

She nodded and came up onto the porch, avoiding the broken steps. She was wearing a bulky white sweater and a red down vest, her jeans tucked into green ski boots, looking Christmassy, not like a cop at all. She moved with the slightest limp, invisible unless you knew where to look. Age, I thought, age and a gunshot wound. I understood. My own shoulder bothered me now and then, especially in this winter of my deep discontent.

She sat down at the kitchen table and accepted a cup of my bad coffee. I remained standing by the sink.

You okay?

You just asked me that, Kat.

She ran a hand through her shaggy brown hair, dislodging a few flakes of snow. Her dark eyes gave me no room for evasion. Maybe I didn’t believe your first answer.

I shrugged. How do you feel about my second answer, then?

Not much better. Damn it, Glen. Will you sit down?

I pulled out the chair opposite and sank into it. Kat, I’m the same today as I was yesterday. I function, but I find no pleasure in it. I will carry on this way as long as I am able. Then I will… I paused, unwilling yet to face the last option. I’ll make changes, Kat, I guess.

She nodded. Heard from Anne?

Last month, I said.

Me too. She asked me to watch out for you, Glen.

Nice of her, I muttered.

Glen, she still loves you.

I felt a spasm of grief and ground it between my teeth before I spoke. Then why doesn’t she come back? To me. To her house. Why can’t she get past it? Christ, if she loves me—

Why should she? Kat snapped. You can’t. Why should she come back if you won’t stop shuffling around in here like the Man in the Iron Mask? Jesus, Glen, pull your socks up!

I sat back and looked at her. I knew her too well to assume that she’d go away without some sort of acquiescence on my part. She was focused on me like a searchlight. I blew air out of my cheeks and nodded. All right, Deputy. I’ll be in Monday and we’ll figure out where we stand. But I warn you, it may come down to a resignation, so you’d better be ready to take over the damned Department.

She looked at me, suppressing her anger. All right, if that’s what you want, so long as you do something.

Fine. And I’ll get a contractor out here to fix this place up. Fair enough?

If it’s the best deal I can get, she said, stopping short of what she really wanted.

It is.

Fair enough.

I walked her out to her car. Of the five houses on the street damaged by the tornado, all had been repaired except ours. Kat put a hand on my arm. I mean it, Glen. I’m not going to let you go under. She kissed me on the cheek, got into her car, and left. I walked back to the house.

That night I had the dream again, the one where Anne is kidnapped by a cult and when I find her she won’t return. I tossed and turned, kicked off my blankets and woke up freezing. I thought of pulling my sleeping bag out of the closet but instead wrapped up in the bedding I had and finally found my way to sleep. The last time I remember looking at the clock, its digital red face was flashing 3:33 AM

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2 Day Two

The ringing that awakened me was downstairs, because I had unplugged the bedside phone. I opened my eyes. My two old cats, Hank and Murray, were curled up close to my face. I waited until the phone went quiet. Let the machine take it. It wouldn’t be Anne, I thought, not at this hour. It was still dark in California. I closed my eyes but I couldn’t get back to sleep.

Dressing in the clothes I’d worn the night before, I went downstairs, turned up the thermostat and shambled into the kitchen to check for messages. There was one, and it was so innocuous that at first I couldn’t take it seriously.

Hello, Sheriff Gleason? This is Roy Wismer over in Ornament. The voice was mature and calm, with a soft, flat Midwestern accent. The name Wismer rang a distant bell but I couldn’t place it. There’s a problem here, Sheriff. I think my neighbor might be in trouble. I knocked but there’s no answer. Could you call me back?

He’d left his number. I jotted it down, got the coffee started, then dialed the phone. It was beginning.

~ ~ ~

My old blue-gray Corolla was designated Cornflower County Sheriff’s Department Auxiliary Unit 5. It had a cop radio, grill lights, and a siren wired in under the hood, and I had seldom used it in that capacity, but it was Sunday morning and Roy Wismer had called me, not the Sheriff’s Department. I decided not to bother Kat or the others, at least until I knew what was going on, so I got into my cop rig, bolted down a cup of coffee that my stomach would pay for later, and drove out County Road C21 to Ornament.

Wismer had said that the family next door, the Pedersens, always left bright and early on Sunday for church. They were Methodists and attended services in West Harlan, but their Ford Explorer was in the driveway and loud music was coming through the closed windows of their house. However, the shades were drawn. All of these things bothered Roy Wismer, who was apparently the sort of nosy neighbor who kept an eye out for you, whether you liked it or not.

I tried not to anticipate or project as I drove through the frozen fields along the railroad line, my wipers scattering the snow as fast as it landed. Why beg trouble? It was probably a nothing call. But, if the family had gone out of town for the weekend, then why was their car in the drive? Maybe the kids were sick. That might keep them home. This Roy Wismer was just being a Good Samaritan. What the hell, it was getting me out of the house. At least Kat would be pleased at that.

I held up to let a short freight blast through the grade crossing on State Route X55, wild swirls of snow tailing off behind it like white smoke, then drove into the little village of Ornament. Snow was starting to pile up in the streets. The county plows wouldn’t get out this way for hours, so if I didn’t want to get stuck I’d better be careful where I left my Corolla.

There was an ancient, boarded up Maid-Rite on U.S. 34 and I pulled into the gravel lot and parked close to the main drag. The Wismers and Pedersens lived a block away on Rangely where I walked down a line of small frame houses, staying in the street as there were no sidewalks. The yards were piled with the remains of past blizzards. Roy Wismer was standing in his front yard, his hands buried in the pockets of his plaid wool coat. He was a bland-faced redhead of perhaps thirty-five, with high cheekbones and green eyes that pulled the focus of his face upward. He wore a dingy white cable-knit sweater under the coat, army camo trousers, and jump boots of the kind that hunters often affected. The feed cap on his head read De Kalb.

Sheriff.

Mr. Wismer. I nodded toward the Pedersen’s Explorer. Is that the house?

Yessir, Wismer said. Let me show you.

I shook my head. Sir, if you’d just wait here, I’d like to look it over on my own first.

Wismer nodded, smiling thinly. I understand, Sheriff. Liability.

That’s right.

I walked toward the house, stopping to look over the Explorer: forest green with oversized tires, kids’ toys on the back seat, pine tree hanging off the mirror. No one inside, and the locks seemed intact. Snow had accumulated on the door handles. Then I heard it. Music. Wismer had said that there was music coming from the house. At first I thought it might be from a Top 40s rock station in Burlington or Fort Madison, but as I paused to listen the song ended and another one started up almost immediately. It was Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. I walked slowly toward the house, slipping the peace bond off my automatic.

The house, like the nearest four of its neighbors, was an old Sears pre-fab that had been modernized with aluminum siding, giving it a look that combined the worst of both eras. It was vaguely pink. Wismer’s was vaguely tan, and the two nearest shaded toward green and yellow, but all had suffered through some harsh prairie winters.

I stopped a dozen feet from the concrete front stoop. There was a shellacked, wood-burned sign that read The Pedersens. Left for luck, I thought and began to circle the house clockwise, keeping a good ten feet from the walls. The snow had probably covered any tracks, if there were any tracks to cover, and as I went I saw no obvious tampering at the windows. The phone box looked secure. My hand was resting on the butt of my weapon, but as yet I had felt no reason to draw it. I had almost resigned myself to simply walking up and knocking when I saw the blood on the glass of a window.

It was a circular stain about three inches in diameter and at first I mistook it for paint. Then I saw the trails of red running down to the dark pools crusting on the inner sill, and I knew what it was. I drew my Browning and, circling wider, moved back to the front of the house where Wismer was waiting, puffing out clouds of frozen breath. Seeing the pistol in my hand, he cocked his head like a dog.

Trouble, Sheriff?

I think so, Roy. I want you to move back to the street and if anyone comes by, you keep them away, okay?

Yessir.

Then I called Kat.

Glen?

This morning it’s Sheriff. Who’s on with you?

Marilynn.

I need both of you in Ornament, now. I gave her the address and told her to bring an ambulance. Then I walked back to the front door.

There were two bills in the mailbox, which could have been delivered yesterday. I slipped a handkerchief into my hand and tried the doorknob. Locked. Well, the blood spot should hold up as a probable cause, but I didn’t want to make a huge amount of noise breaking in. There was a slim probability that whoever was responsible for the blood was still inside, that this was some sort of planned ambush, and I wanted no part of that.

I’d learned to pick locks back in Hollywood and carried a kit on my gun belt. The lock was a standard model and gave in less than a minute, but there was a chain on the door. As it opened, the music inside increased in volume, a song called Don’t Fear the Reaper, and the hairs went up on the back of my neck. I was beginning to sense murder with a soundtrack.

The chain gave at the first kick and I was in, crouching low, arms outstretched, two-handed grip, ready to fire, but there was no reaction and no sound beyond that of the Blue Oyster Cult belting out their disturbing music, and I realized that I was covered in sweat. The song was so loud that I doubted whether anyone would have heard me kick in the door but I wasn’t taking any chances. Then something came around the corner into the hall and I almost pulled the trigger.

It was a large cat, a Maine Coon with a tattered ear, and it yowled repeatedly as it stalked up to me. I reached out to pet it and noticed blood on its fur, but it didn’t seem to be injured so I straightened up, and the cat immediately fled back the way it had come. Rising, I moved forward into the house, following the cat into the living room.

There were a few small blood spots on the aging teal carpet and what appeared to be a smear on the side of the arched doorway leading into the dining room. The dark floral curtains were drawn. The furniture was a mix of heirlooms and discount modern, and the stuffed couch showed that the cat had not been de-clawed. Cheap equitation prints vied with framed family photos for wall space. There was a corner hutch filled with Hummels. Walking carefully, I passed through into the kitchen.

It seemed to be undisturbed. Though the sink was full of dirty dishes,