Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

“You’ve got your Barbies and your Kens,” Elaine was saying, “and your Barneys and Cabbage Patch Kids and your Elmos, but now—” she held up two of the dolls “—here’s the new thing in dolls, the new collectible... the Beanie Baby!”

She handed one to me. It was a little fox about ten inches long, brown and white with little button eyes. A heart-shaped tag in the one ear said his name was Sly, and there was a little poem about him.

“They don’t talk or snore or dress up,” Elaine told the mothers. “They just cuddle, and they’re inexpensive enough so you can have lots of them. There’s Dotty the Dalmatian and Mel the Otter and Stinky the Skunk and Percy the Goose...”

The Beanie Babies were trade-marked. Their popularity made them obvious targets for illegal imitating, and it would take an expert to tell whether these were genuine. I asked Elaine what she planned to do with the dolls.

“They’re for display in the shop where I work,” she told me. “Then I’ll use them for birthday presents.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, Mr. Sessions, I know about trademark infringement; I wouldn’t sell bootleg stuff.”

I was getting worried about the people in the shelter. They were getting restless, and it was depressing to realize that the cleanup after the storm would take months. Men worked outside if they were able. Women kept the kitchen open, improvised a laundry, fretted about the homes they’d had to leave.

All of us were afraid the ice sheet would ruin the spring alfalfa crop. Eight miles of transmission lines were still down just north of here. There were more reports of flooding. The governor called for emergency funding. The latest count of people without power was over a hundred thousand in five counties.

There were many stories of wildlife suffering — deer injured by falling limbs, trapped in deep snow, starving because their food was encased in ice.

We were running short of milk and bread, the two things we usually took for granted. But we had plenty of volunteers. The Red Cross had people from far away as California.

Then Father Joe Doyle did something to relieve the gloom. He offered hot showers to one and all.

The rectory was only a three block walk from the shelter. During the storm Father Joe had stayed at the rectory, saying that people knew they could find him there if he was needed. The farm supply store set him up with a big generator for power and bottled gas for his water heater.

The offer of a hot shower was a big morale boost, even with a five minute time limit and bring your own towel. I was signing up people for it when I was called to the phone.

It was my friend Sergeant Early. “About your Reverend Daniel Fisher, Hank. He is a minister; he does have a correspondence school degree. He runs mail scams out of his home in Orlando. Always uses the religion angle to ask for money. He’s been tagged twice.”

“How does he get his prospects’ names?”

“He works a computer to get magazine subscription lists. Sometimes he snags the names of credit card holders.”

I thought about the letters in my pocket. “The people he reached up here all belong to a garden club.”

“There you are. Maybe they all take the same magazine. Or maybe their names were on a seed catalogue mailing list. Whatever. Tell your friends to save their money.”

“Right. Thanks, Vern.”

As I hung up, I glanced out the window. The rain had changed to snow. That had to be a good sign. Maybe we could close the shelter soon.

What I wanted to do now was get the cast off my ankle. What I didn’t want to do was hand those letters back and tell the people they had been suckered by a scam artist in Florida.

“Where’s Charlie?”

“He’s gone to pick up our car,” Elaine said. “Somebody told him a highway crew cut up that big tree.”

“How did he go?”

“I think he caught a ride with a truck going to Malone.”

I looked through the rooms of the shelter. No Ken, no Jerry. I hobbled to the rear of the building and looked over our motor pool. Only two pickups in sight. The first one had a stick shift; with my leg I couldn’t manage that. The second one was automatic, and the key was in the ignition. Thankfully, the windshield was clear of ice.

I used the edge of the pickup’s roof to haul myself up and levered my leg inside with my cane. Somebody yelled as I drove away, but there was no time for explanations.

The side road where Charlie Silva’s car was trapped was about ten minutes north on Route 22. On the side of the highway a line of fresh stumps followed the path of the power poles.

The snow had stopped, but the sky was threatening again. What had happened five days ago was that a low pressure front had stalled directly over northern New York. High pressure Arctic air had funneled down to meet a jetstream loaded with warm tropical air from the Gulf. We got an instant Ice Age. The last thing we needed now was more snow.

I wanted some answers from Charlie Silva. I didn’t think he would leave the area without taking Elaine with him. And she was back in the shelter; he would have to pass me to get there.