Inside was another clue—Castillo pulled it out; it was a folded newspaper clipping, yellowed with age. She placed it beside the ham and smoothed it out, grimacing at the stains of ham she was smearing on it. I read it without touching anything.
The date was December 25th.
The headline read: “A XMAS DAY BUTCHER STRIKES IN WHISPER’S CREEK—COUPLE AND CHILD FOUND DEAD.”
Peter and Maria Frost: my foster parents. The story detailed how Colton Kilhouser had evaded police for three days before his capture. It mentioned his transfer: “Colton Kilhouser, dubbed the ‘Xmas Day Butcher,’ will be admitted to the Gibraltar Institute under the supervision of Doctor Thomas T. Tuttle. He has been declared legally insane. Councilman Carl Hamonte endorsed thedecision and signed off on the transfer.”
Hmm…Councilman Carl Hamonte is now Mayor Hamonte. That’s Angela’s boss.
I found it strange that there was nothing about me. No mention of a surviving son. “They erased me,” I whispered. “I should be grateful; I guess it was for my own protection.”
Castillo frowned. “This institute—Gibraltar. There was an incident there, around the same time Angela was reported missing.”
I looked at her, curiously. “What happened?”
“Well,” she said. “It’s something I’ve been asked not to discuss. We couldn’t get there now anyway—not in this weather. Too much ice on the roads.”
I nodded slowly, scanning the newspaper clipping again. My eyes found a grainy black-and-white photo at the bottom—a smiling family beside a Christmas tree. My foster parents, Peter and Maria Frost, and standing next to them, arm around Peter’s shoulder, was George St. Nicklaus.
I suddenly remembered how George loved Christmas hams. How bizarre that the Xmas Day Butcher had sent me a moldy ham of all things.
I wonder…is George hiding anything?
CHAPTER 7
DECEMBER 7TH
Iwas curled up in bed that morning, fluffy sheets wrapped around me, the mug of hot cocoa warm between my hands, trying to scrub that disgusting ham out of my head. Detective Castillo had taken it back to the police station to put in evidence, and I was forever grateful for that.
I’d even tossed in a few marshmallows inside my cocoa, watching them melt into little white ghosts, remembering how Angela loved to drink the stuff.
“How the hell can I be sipping hot cocoa at a time like this?” I muttered to myself, a dry laugh escaping before I could stop it. Angela would giggle at me.
She always said I was the kind of guy who liked to sit in bed all day, covers draped over me, avoiding sunlight as much as I could. I took comfort in the darkness, in the stillness, in the quiet…
But now everything was different. I needed to play a sick man’s game to get my wife back. The worst part was that there wasn’t much I could do at the moment. I had to wait for him to drop off the “gifts” so that we’d complete whatever cycle he had begun in the first place. I just hoped Angela was okay, and that if the Xmas Day Butcher really did cut off her foot, I hoped he tended to her wound.
God, it was so horrible to think of my Angela without a foot. She did nothing to deserve that. This was a true monster in the making.
My thoughts refused to stay still; they drifted to my employer: George St. Nicklaus. I thought about him and Clara and how horrible it had been when she went missing—never to be found again. I was beginning to think there might’ve been a connection between her disappearance and Angela’s. What if the Xmas Day Butcher had abducted them both?
Something about George didn’t sit right with me. Supposedly, some townsfolk believed that he had “snapped” and killed Clara by accident. He then hid the body, and that was that.
But what if he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to? Maybe he’d been forced to keep quiet. Maybe he had been forced to pretend that he didn’t know what had happened with Clara, or maybe…just maybe…George really did kill his only daughter in a rage. He was always controlling her—this was a fact.
As I stared at the marshmallows dissolving in my cocoa, I convinced myself that going to George’s place might’ve provided me with some answers. It beat staying at home, doing nothing, and feeling sorry for myself. Angela wouldn’t be found in our bedroom.
I set aside the cocoa, got up from my bed, and dressed myself in some much-needed winter attire. I grabbed some random ornaments, including some miniature Diet Dr. Spencer cans, from a half-opened box near the Christmas tree and stuffed them inside a cloth bag. I needed an excuse to visit Grumpy Claus.
As I walked outside towards the town square, I noticed that the snow had crusted into thick ridges along the road. That’s what all the road blockage must’ve been about. I crossed into the plaza and quietly stared at the streetlamp that had the severed foot inside the hanging Christmas stocking.
The town’s shopping plaza had turned into a ghost town after that incident—no one dared to go outside. No children were jumping and running in the playground, no adults were shopping in the stores, and the blinds to most shops were shut. Everyone had been spooked, and word spread like wildfire, even amongst the snow.
My frenzied, anxious thoughts seemed to accelerate the time I spent walking to the St. Nicklaus residence. As it came into view, I noticed smoke rising from his chimney, swirling clouds of gray puffing out into the white sky. He was home; he always was.
I never imagined myself living in a white, snow-covered land in the middle of nowhere like George, but as the years went by, I was starting to understand it. The serenity you had in seclusion was nice, but even I had to admit that living alone, with no real neighbors, was beginning to make me go nutty.
Another reason to leave Whisper’s Creek as soon as possible was that I wanted to feel normal—be normal, in a place surrounded by normal folks with families, kids, regular jobs…no cursed towns, deranged serial killers, or severed limbs in sight.
