Lure

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The flickering orange glow lunged across the black tree trunks and darted over the forest floor like so many rodents skittering through their nightly affairs. Its foreign light could be seen all the way across the lake, singeing the crests of the rippled surface in a jagged line from the shore to the deepest point at the center of the water.

And then, suddenly, it went out. The light was gone and the woods were dark once again. The water disappeared into the moonless night without any light to reflect across its surface. Had anyone checked the time at the moment the light vanished, they would have known it happened at exactly 1am. If anyone did notice the time, they kept it to themselves.

But they did notice the light. The fishermen just nearing slumber, preparing for an early morning start, thought they were half-dreaming, until one of them mentioned it at breakfast and they found they all had the same dream. The locals who closed down the Black Fox Tavern finally had something new to discuss over their pints. The teenagers at the quarry dared each other to go investigate, but they laughed and teased and shoved each other and waited for someone to suggest Spin the Bottle instead, none of them willing to waste a weekend night and a twelve-pack of Schooner Lite. The lovers from Chicago, honeymooning at the lodge across the lake, didn’t notice, but they wouldn’t have known it was unusual to see a light in the old Higgins place, and anyway, they were rather preoccupied. But everyone in town knew by morning that for the first time in four decades, the site of the most grisly deaths any of them had ever known of had shown signs of life.

Within days, the front window of the cabin was shattered, and Sheriff Colt traced the property line with police tape, albeit mostly for show. Kids will be kids, and anything of value had been stolen long ago, but at least now if anything happened, no one could plead ignorance or innocent curiosity. A couple of hunters had wildlife cams nearby, and most parents in the county were the “natural consequences” type. Besides, who could claim they were trespassed against? No one had owned the cabin in a generation. Once, a wealthy couple from Illinois had tried to buy the place to build a campground, but they lost interest rather quickly. Now that she thought of it, they’d disappeared from town without a trace overnight. They hadn’t even bothered to collect the money they’d put down to certify their intention to purchase – Sheriff Colt’s brother-in-law worked for the register of deeds, and anyway, it’d been all anyone talked about at the Fourth of July picnic. Imagine having that kind of money, to just leave behind eight thousand dollars with nothing to show. If she had that kind of money –

Her musings were interrupted by a strange smell suddenly entering her awareness. Vanilla, was it? Why would she smell vanilla out here? She’d just completed her loop of the property line and had started up the long dirt road to the front of the cabin. She couldn’t quite see the house yet through the brambles and evergreens that protected this side of the lake. Maybe the smell was the tree sap? But she’d never smelled anything like this before out here, and she’d spent plenty of time patrolling these woods. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure she’d ever smelled anything like this before. The same black raspberries that grew to the east of the house surrounded her own childhood home, and they never smelled this sweet no matter how ripe they were. She ran through all the sickly-sweet scented soaps she could remember – pumpkin spice, brown sugar, cocoa butter, Christmas Hearth whatever that was, apple crumble – she never much cared for sweet-smelling anything, but she was pretty sure none of those matched the strange odor filling her nostrils. What was that?

She was startled to realize that she’d walked all the way to the edge of the clearing around the abandoned cabin. The smell was even stronger here, though she wasn’t completely sure she wasn’t building it up in her head after trying so hard to identify it. The broken window pane lay scattered in the dirt below the kitchen window, a light coating of which stuck to the glass, kicked up by last night’s rainstorm. Maybe the smell was some mushroom she’d never noticed before because it only grew right after a heavy rain. It seemed unlikely she’d never happened upon it before, or heard about it, but that was her best theory so far.

A warm breeze jostled the pine branches above her and shook free a few drops of last night’s rain. The drops felt pleasantly cool against her forehead. She turned her face toward the evergreen canopy and smiled, closed her eyes, breathed in, and then out. What a lovely warm day, she thought. She unzipped her jacket, paused, and then dropped it off of her shoulders. She never took her jacket off on-duty, but then, no one was out here. Who would know? She slung the jacket over her left arm and stretched her right arm out to her side, twisting it slowly and turning her hand and wrist, relishing the air on her skin and the movement of her muscles. She reached up to the nape of her neck, where a single elastic held her hair in a snug, rolled bun, and began to remove the elastic.

A punch of static through her radio yanked her back and stopped her hand.

“Sheriff, are you there? There’s a gentleman here wants to see you. Over.”

Sheriff Colt blinked and twisted her head right and left, then glanced at her jacket still hung over her left arm. Another burst of static reminded her to answer and she fumbled for the speaker on her belt.

“Yes, here, Sheriff Colt, out by the, ah, Benson farm, be there in fifteen minutes. Over.” Why had she said that? The Benson farm was on the other side of town. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “What does he want? What should I be ready for?”

“I’ll, ah…I’ll let him tell you. See you in fifteen.” Oh great, thanks, Sherry, super helpful. Sheriff Colt shoved her arms back into her jacket and zipped it up to her chin. Sherry was typically descriptive to the point of embarrassment, and today she was getting charged by the word? Oh well. Whatever this guy wanted, she was grateful to be pulled away from the Higgins cabin and whatever weird smell was in those woods.

* * * *

“Sheriff Bolt, I presume?” He held his crossed arms away from his body, elbows pointed sideways like a toad trying to appear large and threatening to a garter snake. His sunglasses cost more than her car, a fact she only knew because her nephew had begged for them for Christmas and her brother told him as much to shut him up. He smelled rich, too, and wore those cream linen shorts and soft canvas shoes that people in her neck of the woods only saw in magazine ads on airplanes. She smiled, mostly because she thought it might annoy him.

“It’s Colt. How do you do, sir?” She offered a handshake she knew he wouldn’t take.

“Sheriff Colt, I am here because my daughter is missing. I don’t have to tell you that I am eager to find her as quickly as possible. My wife is absolutely beside herself. I trust that you have….the resources to assist me.”

Oook. Tourists were always the best and worst part of summer. Throughout Shore Hill County, Sheriff Colt was known as an effective, no-nonsense officer of the law even when off-duty. Locals joked that she wore her badge to bed and answered prank calls like they were serious investigations – “Is your refrigerator running?” “Unconfirmed – will report back at 1700, over.” But she’d learned over the years that the best method for dealing with out-of-towners was to pour on the succor – most of them were either lovely people who just needed directions to the freeway, or were less-lovely people unaccustomed to a woman in her position. These latter blokes were best dealt with by hurrying them on their way.

“Of course, sir, and I will be happy to help. When did you last see your daughter?”

“Why my family arrived at the Sunfish Inn on Sunday for our summer holidays, and everything was just lovely until yesterday. Betty and I, my wife and I, were taking a dip in the lake while the children finished their lunch. We could see them from the window. When we returned, Freddie was sitting at the table where we’d left him and said that Jillie had gone out to play by the lake, but we hadn’t seen her. We searched all around our cottage but she was nowhere to be found.”

Sheriff Colt’s eyes narrowed. The Sunfish Inn was just up the lakeside from the old Higgins cabin. The man hadn’t finished yet, though, and she really had no reason to suspect a connection to the cabin. Except, of course, her own trip there…

“...and finally we found little Jillie, sitting right at the table where we’d left her! Now of course she wasn’t there earlier, and Freddie said she’d left, and mine aren’t the sort of children to try to fool us. Oh, no. We gave her a little scolding for running off like that, and asked where she’d been, and she just said, ‘outside,’ over and over. Now she had just been through quite an ordeal, so we thought she was just tired, and sent the children off to bed. We checked on them an hour later, and they were both in their beds, sleeping like angels. And my Betty and I didn’t leave the house all night, and we aren’t drinkers, no siree Bob, so…”

“Sir,” Sheriff Colt cut in, holding onto her smile with all her might, “If Jillie came back, why are you here?”

“Oh I’m getting to that, I’m getting to that. I need you to know that I didn’t just lose my child like some bum! So this morning, little Freddie didn’t come down for breakfast when he smelled the pancakes, like usual. Every morning on holiday, my Betty makes the most delicious blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes, depends how she’s feeling, and little Freddie always scampers right down the moment the first cake starts to bubble, with Jillie right behind him. But this morning, Betty had a whole batch plum cooked and nobody at the breakfast table to eat them! So we went right upstairs to see what mischief they must be up to, to ignore holiday pancakes, and there’s Freddie, quietly playing with his blocks, and Jillie nowhere to be seen! We asked why he didn’t come downstairs for breakfast and he said, ‘Oh, I didn’t smell them, Daddy, is the pancakes ready?’ and I said ‘ARE the pancakes ready, sport, and yes they are, and where is your sister?’ and then he said–”

“Ok! Maybe it’s better if I ask specific questions. So you last saw your daughter in her bed during the night, is that correct?”

“Yes, correct. Asleep in her bed.”

Wow, six words. The sheriff mentally sighed with relief. “And about what time was that, do you know?”

“Oh, about, ten-thirty I’d say. The children went to bed about nine and the missus and I had just finished our nightcap, which we have during our nightly reading, and I read three chapters that night, so I’d say yes, about ten-thirty.”

Ok, more specific. “And what did Freddie say about his sister being missing?” Yikes, there’s really no way to ask that except open-ended. Here we go.

“Nothing. He barely seemed to notice. He just kept playing with his blocks, and when we asked where Jillie was, he said ‘I don’t know, she went outside to play,’ just like before.” For the first time, the man looked worried. “Jillie would never just run off, not without Freddie, not without breakfast, she doesn’t even really like playing outside that much. Please, Sheriff, help me find my daughter.”

Sheriff Colt’s face softened and she smiled for real this time. “Of course sir. I’ll do everything I can.”

* * * *

After getting Jillie’s description and photo to a few of the shopkeepers in town, Sheriff Colt followed the man out to the Sunfish Inn. His name was Jimmy, he finally told her, and he and his family lived an hour south of Chicago. They usually took their holidays in the winter to someplace warm, but with Freddie starting school this year, they decided they ought to transition to a summer holiday so he wouldn’t miss any instruction. They loved swimming, he told her, and croquet and picnics and all kinds of other summer activities that did not in any way help Sheriff Colt do her job. So, she followed him out to the Sunfish Inn in her patrol car, rather than driving there together.

When they arrived, Sheriff Colt spoke with the concierge, who hadn’t seen anything, but did note that Freddie and Jillie each took three sweets from the candy jar, when one per child is standard. The sheriff then surveyed the lake’s edge in front of the cottage, where Jimmy and Betty had been swimming the first time Jillie disappeared. Sure enough, she could see right in the front window to the big breakfast table.

Finally, she spoke with Jimmy’s wife Betty, who was a much more helpful interviewee. Betty described Jillie as shy, quiet, sweet, not a risk-taker or the adventurous type – not the kind of kid who would run off into the woods in the middle of the night. She mostly followed her older brother around and looked at picture books. She loved anything with bright colors, Betty said, and would spend hours poring over not just her own children’s books but also Betty’s beautiful coffee table books on gardening or world culture, captivated by the stunning photographs. She was just beginning to choose her own clothes, and she always picked the most vivid, brilliant or multi-colored option available.

“Well, that should make her easy for us to find,” Sheriff Colt said, hoping she sounded comforting, not clinical. “Do you know what she was wearing when she disappeared?”

Betty frowned. “I’m not sure. She was wearing pajamas with little flowers on them when we put her to bed. I haven’t found them, but I’m also almost certain that another of her outfits is missing. She has this beautiful pink and yellow sundress, bright pink and canary yellow, with a big green ribbon tied in a bow at the back. She just loves it, and it’s loose enough for her to put on by herself. I’m sure I packed it, she never would have left home without it, and now I can’t find it anywhere. My Jimmy thinks I’m imagining things and that I’ve just left it at home, but I don’t think so. But we would have found her pajamas if she’d changed before she went off, right?”

“I would think so, but you never know with young’uns. Maybe she pulled it on over the top, or carried it with her if she loves it so much.” Sheriff Colt closed her notebook. “Do you have a picture of her in the sundress?”

Betty laughed. “Probably 50 of them, but they’re all at home. We didn’t bring any with us. Who brings photos along on holiday?” Her tone was wistful, not rude. “I will now, if she ever–” Betty stopped herself, but couldn’t quite catch the small sob that escaped her throat.

“Don’t worry ma'am. I’m sure she’s fine. Kids wander off all the time up here, but we’re a safe town. People sometimes get the wrong idea because of…our history, but nothing like that has happened before or since. Most of my job is kids borrowing each other’s bikes and forgetting to tell their friends. I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.” She felt cold, all of a sudden, and resisted the urge to shiver. The sun must have gone down while they were talking. “Do you remember anything else, anything out of the ordinary?”

“Well, I don’t see how it could be related, but the strangest thing is that since we’ve been here, both of the children don’t seem to want sweets. They normally have a powerful sweet tooth, both of them, just like their father.”

She paused, self-conscious, then continued, “We have some sort of dessert every night, and not just Jell-O salad either. Cheesecake, brownies, double-chocolate cake, bars, ice cream sundaes, always. I can hardly keep the cookie jar full even watching them like a hawk so they don’t spoil their dinner.” Her voice lost its shyness as she went on: “I’m sure my husband told you about the pancakes, and they usually drown them in syrup and chocolate chips, which I allow on holiday. But after the first night we arrived, both the children seemed less interested in sweets. They would eat them if I offered, but they seemed, I don’t know….unsatisfied. And even my husband seemed disappointed in my Double Chocolate Cherry Surprise, which is normally his favorite. I thought maybe I messed it up, but it tasted just the same as usual to me. It seems a small thing, but it stood out to me before Jillie disappeared, and I’d forgotten until now. Perhaps you can make something of it.”

Sheriff Colt stood stunned. What was this, some hokey TV mystery? What kind of clue was that? But her stomach tightened ever-so-slightly throughout Betty’s story, and clenched at her own dismissive thought. Her body knew this was important, even if her brain didn’t. But how?

“Have you—” she blurted, then stopped herself. She’s going to think I’m crazy. “Have you noticed a strange smell? Outside, in the woods. Sweet. Like—”

“—caramelized sugar?” Betty interrupted, her face tightening. “Like home-made caramel, or fresh creme brulee?” Her eyes locked onto Sheriff Colt’s with such intensity that the sheriff looked away.

“I mean, I don’t know specifically what any of that smells like, but, yeah, that seems right. I assume that means yes?”

“Not at first. The kids pointed it out right away, as soon as we drove into the woods from town. I thought they were being silly, being kids. But then I started to notice it, and I thought I was imagining things. Then my husband asked if I was making caramel corn. I said no but I can, and he said he thought he smelled it already. And the next afternoon, Jillie disappeared for the first time.”

The sheriff didn’t fight her shiver this time. She wished she had, when she saw Betty’s face, but she wasn’t sure she could have held it in. What is going on in that cabin?

“Wait,” Sheriff Colt murmured, almost to herself, “you got here on Sunday, right?” The night of the candle.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever been here before?”

“Yes, I came here as a child a couple of times.”

“For how long?”

“What? Why does that matter?”

“I don’t know, honestly, I’m just trying something. For how long? And when?”

Betty bit her lip. “Well, I was barely in junior high, so, twelve, fifteen years ago?”

“I mean what time of year.”

“Oh. About now, I guess, maybe a little earlier, but in the summer. Usually for a weekend, once for three weeks for summer camp.”

“With your parents then, or alone?”

“Alone for camp, but otherwise with my aunt and uncle.”

“And did you ever smell this smell before?”

“No.”

Oh. Sheriff Colt exhaled. Dead end.

“But I think maybe my uncle did. He always complained about the woods and how it smelled when he was a kid. He never wanted to stay up here, whined the whole drive, and my aunt told him to work harder so we could afford to go to Door County instead and then he shut up. He lived around here when—”

“When it happened,” I finished for her. “How old was he?”

“Little. Maybe six? His family moved away a couple years later, but I guess he inherited his mother’s cabin when she died and it wasn’t really worth anything to sell, but it was an affordable weekend away. He was always stressed and grouchy when we were here. My aunt and I had a great time, but he never wanted to be outside, especially the first couple days. He calmed down, but by then it was time to go. I’m trying to remember if he ever described the smell. He just said things like ‘terrible’.”

Sheriff Colt shuddered. If the smell had something to do with the Higgins murders….but, how? And why? What kind of murderer leaves a signature scent in the woods?

Was she going crazy? Were they both crazy? Was this woman lying? But she knew the odor that Sheriff Colt had smelled herself just today, right outside the old Higgins cabin. And her daughter—if these people hurt their own kid, why would they involve the sheriff? No one even knew they were there. They could have just gone on their own merry way, no one the wiser. The concierge might have noticed, but she didn’t seem too enamored with the candy-thieving children, and besides, they could have just checked out after-hours. Maybe for folks back home? But who would check the records in a little ho-dunk down like this? And even so, they could have just told Sherry that she’d drowned, and the station would have filed a report. Paper trail, no witnesses. And why come to a town famous for a grisly murder if you’re trying not to look suspicious? No. It wouldn’t make sense that they would be preemptively covering their tracks. But then, what about this could possibly make sense?

Sheriff Colt pulled her attention back to Betty, who was chewing her tongue. Betty looked up when she felt the sheriff’s eyes on her.

“Uncle Lyle never liked sweets. We teased him about it as kids. Not just that he didn’t have a big sweet tooth – he hated them. I never saw him eat dessert, no sugar in his coffee, even strawberries and watermelon were too sweet for him. And Aunt June hardly ever wore perfume, and if she did it was herbal, or fresh-smelling – spices, sandalwood, baby powder, something like that. Never floral or sweet.” She trailed off, shaking her head slowly and gazing at the floor. Then she scoffed and continued.

“Come to think of it, he always bought her sunflowers, and calla lilies if it was a really special occasion – never roses, never daisies, never daffodils. Nothing with a strong scent. Their garden was all vegetables except for marigolds. I feel like a proper conspiracist, but…do you think…?”

A slamming sound interrupted Sheriff Colt’s attempt to come up with an answer. Betty rushed toward the back door, and Sheriff Colt followed her.

Little Freddie was standing in the yard, head cocked to one side, staring at the path into the woods. His little body swayed slightly. Betty called his name. He didn’t move or turn. She yelled his name again. Still no response.

She moved to rush out the door after him, but Sheriff Colt stopped her. “Wait. I know you want to protect him, but let’s just watch. We’ll follow if he goes anywhere, we won’t let him out of our sight, but maybe we can see what he’s looking at.”

Betty whipped around with the ferocity of a mother animal separated from her babies. Sheriff Colt opened her mouth to take back her words, but by then Jimmy had heard the commotion and joined them. “Darling,” he purred. “Darling, we’ll follow. We’ll be right there. We want to find Jillie. Maybe he knows where she is.”

Betty closed her eyes and took in a breath. Eyes still closed, she whispered, “You’re right, dear, of course you’re right, I’m just so–” her voice broke and he put his hand on the crook of her elbow, nodded once, and turned back to the window.

There was Freddie, swaying, small, head still turned. The adults waited. Then, slowly, Freddie started down the path. Jimmy opened the door silently, and Sheriff Colt walked out into the yard, then paused, waiting to see if Freddie would stop. He didn’t turn or slow his pace, seeming lost in his adventure. His parents followed the sheriff out into the yard and the three adults carefully tailed the small boy.

After about two minutes of walking, Freddie stopped. The adults froze, afraid he’d heard them. But Freddie still didn’t turn. He stood for a moment, then stretched his arms out wide and took a big, loud sniff, as children do in a sweet shop or kitchen where cookies are baking. “Mmmmm!” The adults exhaled. Freddie continued down the trail, kicking the dirt rhythmically and singing, “Yummy yummy yummy in my tummy tummy tummy!” Sheriff Colt wanted to look back at Jimmy and Betty, but Freddie was picking up his pace now, the woods were growing thicker, and his small size and child’s agility meant that they were now in danger of losing him.

Then, she smelled it – the thick, sickly sweet odor touched her nostrils and she almost gagged. Maybe it was that she’d associated it with the Higgins murders, or maybe it was stronger now. They were still a good quarter-mile away, but she knew now that they were definitely headed for the old Higgins cabin.

She found herself wishing she had her pistol, but then she almost laughed out loud at herself–what was she going to shoot? It wasn’t a person making this smell, was it? Was it some kind of chemical?Maybe a poison someone used to lure their victims and then—-what? Or a plant that only grew in this part of the woods, and only every forty years, that killed anyone who ate it, or touched it, or….saw it? What was wrong with her? Where was her head?

It had to be a person, or a plant, or a chemical leak, or something, right? There had to be a reasonable explanation. The Higgins murders were just that, murders, gruesome though they were, just regular, terrible murders. And now for some unrelated reason, there was some chemical or something near the house that smelled like sweets, and kids like sweets. Nothing creepy, nothing weird, just a strange coincidence and an overactive imagination. Although she’d certainly never been accused of having an overactive imagination before. And something had happened to her earlier, right? Right?

There it was. They were approaching from the west side, just able to see the outline of the cabin. Freddie had just reached the edge of the clearing.

Then he bolted. He reached the last tree and broke into a sprint, running as fast as his five-year-old legs could carry him toward the house. Sheriff Colt swore and broke into a run too, dodging fallen logs and bramble and cursing her old ice skating injury. She could hear Jimmy and Betty behind her, trying to run through the labyrinth of branches and bushes and tree trunks and shadows in their summer linens and holiday footwear. She sent up a quick prayer that they wouldn’t injure themselves and add another liability for escape, not to mention another damper on an already harrowing vacation. Freddie had reached the house, and she was almost clear of the trees. The little boy was on his tiptoes, reaching up toward a window, and then he turned and headed toward the back of the cabin, where the back door was completely out of sight. Sheriff Colt knew it was there, because she’d patrolled here for years and looped the perimeter just this morning. But Freddie didn’t know. Did he?

She broke through the tree line and changed her direction straight toward the back door, praying that she could reach it before him. He was walking again, but with purpose, and he was so much closer than she was. He didn’t look at her, didn’t turn his head, didn’t speed up or stop – he still didn’t seem to hear her at all, even at a dead sprint.

Should she yell for him now? Was there any risk to breaking his trance? Was it now more of a matter of not alerting whoever – or whatever – was in that house?

She couldn’t wait anymore. He’d reached the door. She would have to take the risk.

“Freddie! FREDDIE! Come here Freddie, don’t open that door!”

Freddie stopped, and then looked at her. He looked behind her across the clearing to where his parents were sprinting across the lawn, gasping for air. He looked at the house. Then he looked back to Sheriff Colt and grinned.

“Come on! Come in!” He swung the door open and darted inside. In the moments before the door swung shut again, Sheriff Colt caught a glimpse of pink and yellow fabric on the floor.

And then, she slowed down, stopped running. She couldn’t remember why she was running. It was warm, though. She should take off her jacket. A boy, yes, a little boy, she’d been following him. He was inside the house. She should follow him inside the house. What a lovely sweet smell was coming from inside, too – perhaps they were making dessert! She could share some with the little boy.

A strange voice echoed from far away, sort of behind her, but also, sort of like a memory. Was someone calling her? Oh well, they could wait. It was time to join the little boy for dessert. Sheriff Colt opened the door and went inside.

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