Free A Cold Christmas by Charlene Weir Page B

Bethlehem’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ all day long. It’s enough to make you want to smash every colored bulb in town. What was that number?” he asked Susan.
    â€œOne three eight.”
    He looked through files, isolated one, tracked down the key, and showed her a file card. Name Tim Holiday, address 364 Poplar, no phone number listed. Box 138 had an ad for mail order CDs, another for free cable installation, one for a long-distance phone service, and a brochure for Schneider Monument Company: Special and personalized designs for markers and headstones in granite, marble, or bronze. A man who chose his own headstone before he died?
    â€œWhen did this come, do you recall?”
    â€œA few days ago. Isn’t that just something?” He shook his head. “Hardly any mail ever comes to this one, but he got that. Spooky, huh?”
    â€œDid anyone else get this brochure?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œWas there ever anything important?”
    â€œNot that I recall. Just junk mail, like you see.” He broke off, scratched the balding spot on the back of his head. “Although seems to me there was one letter one time…”
    She felt a flicker of hope. A letter coming to a post office box that usually just got ads was likely to be noticed at a small-town post office.
    â€œIt had a Texas postmark, but no return address.”
    That didn’t help her any that she could see.
    *   *   *
    Holiday had lived in an apartment above Graham’s rare book and sewing machine repair shop. It wasn’t open on Mondays, for either books or sewing machines. What kind of man handled both?
    When Osey arrived, he handed her the key taken from Holiday’s pants pocket. Just as Susan opened the door, Gunny came dashing up, cameras in tow.
    â€œIt hasn’t been tossed,” Osey said. “That’s for sure.”
    At first glance the place looked unlived in, but a closer look showed that the occupier had been scrupulously tidy, owned very little, and lived like a monk. Living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom with an old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub. In the early days of the business downstairs, whatever that had started out as, this space was probably lived in by the proprietor.
    Susan pulled on latex gloves and waited for Osey to take prints and Gunny to get pictures.
    The front window looked out on the street. She could see a man and woman coming to the shop below, whether to seek out rare books or repair a sewing machine was hard to guess. Finding the place closed, the pair turned around and went back to their car.
    â€œOkay,” Gunny said.
    She thanked him and told him he could leave. When Osey told her he couldn’t think of a single other place that might hold prints, she sent him to search the kitchen while she took the bedroom.
    There was a double bed, tightly made up; a four-drawer chest; and a straight-backed chair. The furniture looked like it came with the apartment.
    Starting with the bed, she stripped it, checked underneath, and made sure there was nothing attached to the underside of the mattress and springs. There wasn’t even any dust under the bed. The chest was nearly empty. Four pairs of socks, jockey shorts ditto, two unmarked handkerchiefs. That was it.
    The closet, narrow, with a bar for hanging clothes and a shelf above. The shelf was empty, not even dusty. Two brown work shirts with “Tim” in a patch on the pocket and two pairs of work pants on hangers. Two flannel shirts, one solid blue and one red plaid, two pairs of jeans and a down jacket. One pair of shoes, two pairs of boots, one well worn, the other nearly new.
    Who lives like this? Someone hiding—or running.
    An artist friend who lived very sparely had once told her, “If you don’t need it, it’s a burden.” Holiday apparently lived by that rule.
    The living room had a threadbare brown tweed couch, a matching overstuffed chair, and a small